The Desert Spear
Page 58

Jardir saw Inevera fingering her alagai hora pouch absently. She would excuse herself to throw the dice as soon as the audience was over, but Jardir had no doubt they would confirm his course. The rightness of it sang within him, and even Abban nodded his approval.
“When will you tell the other Damaji?” Ashan asked.
“Not until we’re ready to leave,” Jardir said, “giving Enkaji and the others no time to oppose the decision. I want the great gate at everyone’s back before they have their bearings.”
“And from there?” Abban asked. “Fort Rizon?”
Jardir shook his head. “First, Anoch Sun. Then the green lands.”
“You have found the lost city?” Abban asked.
Jardir gestured to a table covered in maps. “It was never truly lost. There were detailed maps in Sharik Hora all along. We simply stopped going there after the Return.”
“Unbelievable,” Abban said.
Jardir looked at him. “What I don’t understand is how the Par’chin found it. Searching the desert would take a lifetime. He must have had help. Who would he have gone to in search of that?”
Abban shrugged. “There are a hundred merchants in the bazaar claiming to sell maps to Anoch Sun.”
“Forgeries,” Jardir said.
“Not all, apparently,” Abban said.
Jardir knew the khaffit could dance between truth and lie as easily as a man might breathe in and out. “Inevera,” he said at last, holding up the Spear of Kaji. “No thing happens, but that Everam wills it.”
CHAPTER 11
ANOCH SUN
332 AR
THE OASIS OF DAWN was a place of great beauty, a series of warded sandstone monoliths protecting a wide grassy area, several clusters of fruit trees, and a broad pool of fresh, clean water, fed by the same underground river that supplied the Desert Spear. There was a stair cut into the ala beneath one monolith, leading to a torchlit underground chamber where a man could cast nets into the river and easily catch a feast.
It was a small oasis, meant as a way station for merchant caravans but more often used by lone Messengers. It was, of course, never meant to supply the greatest army the world had seen in centuries.
Jardir’s host fell upon it like locusts, surrounding the monoliths with thousands of tents and pavilions. Before most of the Krasians had even arrived, the trees were stripped of fruit and cut for firewood, the grasses mown clean by grazing livestock and trampled flat. Thousands of men wading into the pool to wash their feet and fill their skins left only a fetid, muddy puddle in their wake. They cast nets in the underground fishing chamber, but what would have been a rich catch to a caravan was not even a morsel to the Krasian horde.
“Deliverer,” Abban said, approaching Jardir as he surveyed the camp. “There is something I think you should see.”
Jardir nodded, and Abban led him to a large block of sandstone covered in carvings. Some were the barest etchings, faded over many years, and others sharp and fresh. Some were crude scratches, and others great designs worked in artful script. They were all in the Northern style of writing, an ugly form with which Jardir was only passingly familiar.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Messenger markings, Deliverer,” Abban said. “They are all over the oasis, naming every man who has succored here on his way to the Desert Spear.”
Jardir shrugged. “What of it?”
Abban pointed to a large portion of the stone carved in flowing calligraphy. Jardir could not read the letters, but even he could appreciate their beauty.
“This,” Abban said, “reads ‘Arlen Bales of Tibbet’s Brook.’ ”
“The Par’chin,” Jardir said. Abban nodded.
“What else does it say?” Jardir asked.
“It says, ‘Student of Messenger Cob of Miln, Messenger to dukes, known as Par’chin in Krasia, and true friend of Ahmann Jardir, Sharum Ka of the Desert Spear.’ ”
Abban paused, letting the words sink in, and Jardir grimaced. “Read on,” he growled.
“I have been to the five living forts,” Abban read, pointing to the names of the cities marked with an upward-pointing spear, “and nearly every known hamlet in Thesa.” Abban pointed to another, longer list, this one showing dozens of names.
“These names, marked with the downward spear, are ruins he has visited,” Abban noted, pointing to another long list. “The Par’chin was busy in the time he spent away from the Desert Spear. There are even Krasian ruins listed here.”
“Oh?” Jardir asked.
“The Par’chin was always hunting the bazaar for maps and histories,” Abban said.
Jardir looked back at the list. “Is Baha kad’Everam on the list?” When Abban did not immediately reply, he turned to the khaffit. “Do not make me ask twice. If I ask one of our chin prisoners to translate the wall and learn you lied…”
“It’s there,” Abban said.
Jardir nodded. “So Abban finally claimed the rest of his Dravazi pottery,” he said more than asked. Abban did not reply, but he did not need to.
“What’s this last one?” Jardir asked, pointing to the large carving at the end of the list, though he could well guess.
“The last place the Par’chin went before coming to the Desert Spear,” Abban said.
“Anoch Sun,” Jardir said. Abban nodded.
“Can any of the other merchants read this tongue?” Jardir asked.
Abban shrugged. “A few, perhaps.”
Jardir grunted. “Have men with mauls smash this stone back into sand.”
“So none may learn the Shar’Dama Ka is chasing a dead chin’s footsteps?” Abban asked.
Jardir hit him, knocking Abban to the ground. The fat khaffit wiped blood from his mouth, but without his usual simpering and piteous cries. Their eyes met, and immediately the rage left Jardir and he was filled with shame. He turned away, looking out at the great swath his people had cut through the sand, and wondered if any of them had trodden unknowingly upon the buried bones of his friend.
“You are troubled,” Inevera said when Jardir retired to his pavilion. It was not a question.
“I wonder if the true Deliverer was troubled at every turn,” Jardir said, “or if he sensed Everam guiding his actions, and simply followed the path before him.”
“You are the true Deliverer,” Inevera said, “so I imagine it was much the same for Kaji as it is for you.”
“Am I?” Jardir asked.
“You think it a coincidence that the Spear of Kaji was delivered into your hands right at the time you were in position to seize control of all Krasia?” Inevera asked.
“Coincidence?” Jardir asked. “No. But you have been ‘positioning’ me for more than twenty years. There’s more of demon dice in my rise than deservedness.”
“Was it demon dice that claimed the hearts of the khaffit and unified our people?” Inevera asked. “Was it demon dice that saw you to victory again and again in the Maze, before you ever laid eyes on Kaji’s Spear? Is it for the dice that you march now?”
Jardir shook his head. “No, of course not.”
“This is about the Par’chin’s sandstone carving,” Inevera said.