It was the darkest part of the night when Jardir finally returned to his palace. He was not tired; he had not truly felt tired of body since he had first used the Spear of Kaji, but he longed for his bed nevertheless, if only for a chance to close his eyes and dream of her to while away some of the hours before he could visit again.
Leesha Paper truly was a gift from Everam. Her acceptance of his proposal seemed assured, and with it his foothold in the Northland. But he found that mattered less to him now than the thought of having her at his side. Brilliant, beautiful, and young enough to bear him many sons, she also contained a boundless passion that came out in her anger, and in her loving. A worthy bride for even the Deliverer, and a valuable check against the Damajah’s rising power. Inevera would try to stop the marriage, of course, but that was a worry for another day.
Jardir saw the light on in his chambers and frowned. Everam’s Bounty had no Undercity for women and children, even on Waning. His wives instead took turns waiting in his private chambers with a bath and a willing body, but Jardir wanted neither water nor woman. His lust could only be sated by one, and beneath his robes, her scent was still on his skin. He wanted to keep it there a little longer.
“I require nothing,” he said as he entered. “Leave me.”
But the women in his room were not lesser wives, and they made no effort to leave.
“We need to talk,” Leesha said, and at her side Inevera nodded.
“For once, I agree with the Northern whore,” Inevera said.
There was a moment of silence that seemed to Jardir to last for many minutes, as he struggled to embrace this new development and return to his center.
He looked more closely at the women. Their clothes were ragged and torn. Inevera had a blood-soaked scarf tied around her leg, and Leesha’s shoulder was similarly bound. Inevera’s nose was twisted and swollen three times its normal size, and Leesha’s throat was purple and bruised. She favored one leg.
“What has happened?” Jardir demanded.
“Your First Wife and I have been talking,” Leesha said.
“And we have decided we will not share you,” Inevera said.
Jardir made to go to them, but Leesha held up a finger that checked him like a child. “You keep your distance. No touching either of us again until you make a choice.”
“Choice?” Jardir asked.
“Her or me,” Leesha said. “You can’t have us both.”
“The one you choose can be your Jiwah Ka,” Inevera said, “and the other shall have a quick death at your hand in the town circle.”
Leesha gave Inevera a look of disgust, but did not argue.
“You agree to this?” Jardir asked, surprised. “Even with your Gatherer’s vow?”
Leesha smiled. “Strip her naked and cast her into the street for all to see, if you prefer.”
“Weak, like all Northerners,” Inevera sneered, “leaving enemies to strike another day.”
Leesha shrugged. “What you call weakness, I call strength.”
Jardir looked from one woman to the other, unable to believe matters had come to this, but their eyes were hard and he knew they meant every word.
The choice was impossible. Kill Leesha? Unthinkable. Even if it wouldn’t destroy any potential alliances in the North, Jardir would sooner cut out his own heart than harm her.
But the alternative was equally impossible. The dama’ting would not follow Leesha, and if he stripped Inevera of power—and in favor of a Northern woman—they might choose to follow Inevera still, causing a schism through his empire that might never heal.
And she was his First Wife, the mother of his children, who had orchestrated his rise to power and given him the tools to win Sharak Ka. Despite the pain she regularly caused him, he looked at her and found he loved her still.
“I cannot make such a choice,” Jardir said.
“You must,” Inevera said, pulling her warded knife. “Now, or I will cut the whore’s throat myself.”
Leesha drew her own knife. “Not if I cut yours first.”
“No!” Jardir cried, throwing the Spear of Kaji. It struck the wall and embedded deeply, quivering between the two women. He pounced on them, cat-quick, grabbing their wrists and pulling them away from each other.
But as he did, the wards on his crown flared to life, illuminating the women, and both shook their heads as if waking from a dream.
Leesha was the first to come to her senses. “Behind you!” she shouted, pointing.
“Alagai Ka!” Inevera cried.
Alagai Ka. The name Jardir and his men had laughingly given to the rock demon that followed the Par’chin, but it was an ancient name, one that carried an aura of immense power. Alagai Ka was consort to the Mother of Demons, and he and his sons were said to be the most powerful of the demon lords, generals of Nie’s forces.
He spun to meet the demon, but there was nothing to see at first. Then, as he concentrated, the Crown of Kaji warmed once more and he could see that part of the room was clouded by magic. There was a ripple in the cloud, and suddenly a demon more fearsome than any he had ever seen leapt at him.
He reached for the spear, but it held fast in the wall for the split second it took the demon to cross the floor and tackle Jardir. He was knocked over the bed and the two of them landed hard on the far side, the demon clawing madly at him. He felt the ceramic armor plates in his robes shattering under its claws, but they blunted the initial attack. The demon seemed to sense this, and its mouth widened impossibly, growing rows of new teeth right before his eyes as it became a maw large enough to swallow his entire head.
Jardir rolled and pushed out with his arms, gaining enough space to work his leg up between them. He kicked out, knocking the demon away long enough for him to tear off his robes and reveal the scars Inevera had cut into his skin. They flared brightly as he met the demon’s next attack head-on.
Leesha hadn’t known the demon was in her mind until Jardir touched her and the wards on his crown flared. She heard the demon’s whispers then and knew them for what they were. The demon was in the room with them.
Inevera knew it, too. They had just enough time to shout a warning before the demon bodyguard struck Jardir, knocking him across the room and taking the aura of power around his crown with it. She felt the mind demon attempt to reenter her mind.
Leesha resisted, as did Inevera, thrashing wildly against its control, but the outcome was never in doubt. The demon would have them in a moment. Already she felt an enormous weight in her limbs, as the mind demon commanded her to lie down, helpless and weak, while it watched its bodyguard kill Jardir.
Leesha looked around frantically, spotting an incense tray on the nightstand that had not yet been cleaned. She flung herself toward it as she went down, pretending it was an accident as she stuck her hand in the greasy ashes and knocked the tray to the floor in a cloud.
Inevera hit the floor as well, limbs flopping weakly, and Leesha rolled toward her, using the last of her energy to draw a ward on Inevera’s forehead. The same ward at the center of Jardir’s crown.
Immediately the symbol flared, and even as Leesha fell, her limbs useless, Inevera sat up. The demon seemed not to notice, its attention on Jardir, fighting for his life.
Inevera scowled and grabbed Leesha’s hair. “You are still a whore,” she growled, and spit in Leesha’s face. There were long veils that went from her sleeveless bodice to the golden bracelets at her wrists. She gathered one and used her spit to wipe the soot from Leesha’s brow, then dipped her finger in the ashes, drawing a mind ward on Leesha’s forehead as well.
Leesha sat up, reaching for her warded knife. Inevera took what looked like a warded lump of coal from the black felt pouch at her waist and held it toward the mind demon. She whispered a word, and lightning arced from the stone to strike the demon. It shrieked as it was thrown across the room, hitting the wall with a crunch before dropping lifeless to the ground.
The demon changed shape continually, but Jardir pressed his attack, wards sizzling as he struck it with elbows and knees, fists and feet. He matched the demon’s raw aggression with the fury of a warrior bred for the Maze. His crown flared brightly, and he felt so suffused with power that the wounds the demon inflicted began healing before the full damage was done.
I am fighting Alagai Ka, he thought, and I am winning.
That thought carried him forward for a moment, but then the demon picked up a heavy table in one giant claw and smashed it down on him as a hammer strikes a nail.
The wards on his skin offered no protection against the wood, and it was only the magic coursing through him that kept him from being killed. Still, bones splintered on the impact, jutting from his leg and stabbing into his innards. He felt the magic speeding his body’s natural healing along at an incredible rate, but it could not set the broken bones, and he felt them healing at odd angles.
It mattered little, though, as the demon lifted the table again to finish the job. Jardir, weaponless, could do nothing but watch.
But before the demon could bring the table down, it shrieked and grabbed its head, dropping the table. Jardir kicked out with his good leg to deflect it as the demon’s flesh seemed to melt like wax, and it stumbled about, thrashing madly.
Jardir looked up then and saw why. He hadn’t been fighting Alagai Ka at all. Leesha and Inevera stood over the smoking body of a slender demon with a gigantic head. Even from across the room, Jardir could sense the power and evil the creature radiated. The demon he had fought was its Hasik: brainless muscle to clear paths and break skulls that were beneath its master to shatter personally.
The slender demon lifted its head. Inevera shrieked and sent another bolt of lightning at it, but the demon drew a ward in the air, dispersing the energy. It reached out, and the demon bone flew from her hand. The slender demon caught it, and the bone glowed briefly in the demon’s grasp before the magic was absorbed and the bone crumbled to dust.
The demon reached out again, and Inevera’s hora pouch flew to its hands. She shrieked as it upended the bag, dropping her precious dice into its clawed hand.
Leesha and Inevera charged the demon with their warded knives, but it drew another ward in the air that flared to throw them across the room as if picked up by a great wind.
The alagai hora glowed as the demon absorbed their power. Jardir felt a strange mix of fear and relief as the dice that had controlled his life for more than twenty years crumbled to dust. Inevera wailed as if the sight caused her physical pain.
The mimic demon regained its senses as soon as its master recovered, but Jardir was already moving, springing across the broken bed on his good leg. He caught the Spear of Kaji in his hands as he rolled off the far side, letting his weight pull it from the wall.
Pain screamed through Jardir’s mangled leg as he came to his feet, but he embraced it effortlessly, his movements sharp and decisive as he drew back and threw.
And before either demon could react, the fight was over. The spear blasted through the mind demon’s skull, leaving a gaping, blasted hole and continuing on to stick quivering in the far wall. The mind demon fell dead, and without it, the mimic fell to the ground shrieking and thrashing about as if on fire. Finally it lay still, a melted pile of scale and claw.
Leesha came awake at the sound of a sharp crack, opening her eyes to see Jardir, his eyes closed and his face serene as Inevera pulled hard on his foot to give herself play to reinsert the bone jutting from his leg.
Shaking off her own pains, Leesha fumbled to her side, taking the bone in her hand and guiding it back into the incision Inevera had cut. As with Arlen, the wound began to close almost instantly, but Leesha still reached for needle and thread to stitch it evenly.
“There is no need,” Inevera said, rising to her feet and going to the mind demon’s body. She drew her warded knife and cut off one of its vestigial horns. She returned with the foul, ichorous thing, then removed a thin brush and bottle from her pouch. She drew neat wards along the edges of Jardir’s wound, and as she passed the horn over them, the wards flared, closing the incision seamlessly.
She did the same for her own wound, and then wordlessly tended to Leesha, not meeting her eyes. Leesha watched in silence, memorizing the wards Inevera used and the fashion in which she knit them together.
She looked at the horn when she was finished. It was still intact, and Inevera grunted. “I’ll make better dice from this one’s bones, anyway.” Leesha went to the mind demon’s body herself, cutting off the other horn and one of its arms. These she rolled in a heavy tapestry for later study. Inevera’s eyes narrowed at her, but she said nothing.
“Why has no one come to investigate the sounds of battle?” Jardir asked.
“I expect it was simple for Alagai Ka to draw wards of silence around your chambers,” Inevera said. “They will likely remain in power until the sunlight strikes the walls.”
Jardir looked at them. “It controlled everything you said and did?”
Inevera nodded. “It … ah, even made us fight each other, for its amusement.” She touched her swollen nose gingerly.
Leesha felt her face color, and she coughed. “Yes,” she agreed, “it made us do that.”
“Why play such cruel games?” Jardir asked. “Why not just have one of you cut my throat as we lay in the pillows?”
“Because it didn’t want to kill you,” Inevera said. “It’s more afraid of your power to inspire than to fight, and none inspires more than a martyr.”
“Better to discredit you and splinter the unity of your forces,” Leesha put in.
“But you are the Shar’Dama Ka,” Inevera said. “There can be no further question, with Alagai Ka dead at your hand.”
Jardir shook his head. “That was not Alagai Ka. It was too easy. More likely, this was the least of his princelings. There will be more, and greater.”
“I think so, too,” Leesha said, looking at Jardir. “Which is why I’m holding you to your promise, Ahmann. I have seen Everam’s Bounty, and now I wish to return home. I must prepare my people.”
“You do not need to go,” Inevera said, and Leesha could tell how hard the words came to her. “I will have you as one of my husband’s Jiwah Sen.”
“A ‘lesser’ wife?” Leesha laughed. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I will still make you my Northern Jiwah Ka, if you wish it,” Jardir said. Inevera scowled.
Leesha smiled sadly. “I would still be one of many, Ahmann. The man I wed will be mine, alone.” His face fell, but Leesha held firm, and Jardir nodded finally.
“The Hollow tribe will be honored regardless,” he said. “I cannot prevent the tribes from trying to steal a few of your wells, but know that they will be subject to my wrath should they war upon you.”
Leesha dropped her eyes, afraid she might cry if she saw the sadness in his eyes any longer. “Thank you,” she said tightly.
Jardir reached out, touching her shoulder and squeezing gently. “And I … apologize, if what happened in the Palace of Mirrors was not your own will.”
Leesha laughed out loud, all fear of tears gone. She threw herself at him, hugging him tightly and kissing him on the cheek.
“We did that in the light of day, Ahmann,” she said with a wink.
“I am saddened to see you leave, mistress,” Abban said a few days later, as his wives packed up the last of the endless gifts Jardir had bestowed. “I will miss our conversations.”
“And miss having the Palace of Mirrors to hide the comeliest of your wives and daughters from the dal’Sharum?” Leesha asked.
Abban looked at her in surprise, then bowed, smiling. “You’ve learned more of our tongue than you let on.”
“Why don’t you just tell Ahmann?” Leesha asked. “Let him discipline Hasik and the others. They can’t just go around raping whomever they want.”
“Your pardon, mistress, but the law says they can,” Abban said. Leesha opened her mouth to reply, but he held up a hand. “Ahmann’s power is not as absolute as he thinks. Disciplining his own men over a khaffit’s women would sow discord among the men he trusts to carry spears at his back.”
“And that’s more important than the safety of your family?” Leesha asked.
Abban’s eyes grew hard. “Do not assume you understand all our ways after living among us a few weeks. I will find a way to protect my family that doesn’t threaten my master.”
Leesha bowed. “I’m sorry.”
Abban smiled. “Repay me by letting me build a pavilion in your village. My family has one with every tribe, to trade in goods and livestock. Everam’s Bounty has more grain than it needs, and I know there are hungry mouths to the north.”
“That’s kind of you,” Leesha said.
“It is not,” Abban replied, “as you will see when my wives haggle with your people for the first time.” Leesha smiled.
There was a call from outside, and Abban limped over to the window and looked down into the courtyard. “Your escort is ready. Come, and I will see you down.”
“What happened between Ahmann and the Par’chin, Abban?” Leesha asked, unable to contain herself any longer. If she did not learn the answer now, she likely never would. “Why did Ahmann seem angry that you mentioned him to me? Why were you afraid when I told you I mentioned him to Ahmann?”
Abban looked at her, and sighed. “If I will not put my master at risk for the sake of my family, what makes you think I will do it for the Par’chin?”
“Answering my question puts Jardir at no risk, I swear,” Leesha said.
“Perhaps it does, and perhaps not,” Abban said.
“I don’t understand this,” Leesha said. “You both claim Arlen was your friend.”
Abban bowed. “He was, mistress, and because it is so, I will tell you this much: If you know the son of Jeph, if you can get word to him, tell him to run to the end of the world and beyond, because that is how far Jardir will go to kill him.”
“But why?” Leesha asked.
“Because there can only be one Deliverer,” Abban said, “and the Par’chin and Ahmann have … disagreed before, as to who it should be.”
Abban went right to Jardir’s throne room from the Palace of Mirrors. The moment Jardir saw the khaffit, he dismissed his advisors, leaving the two men alone.
“She has left?” he asked.
Abban nodded. “Mistress Leesha has agreed to allow me to set up a trading post for the Hollow tribe. It will help facilitate their integration, and give us valuable contacts in the North.”
Jardir nodded. “Well done.”
“I will need men to guard the shipments, and the stores at the post,” Abban said. “Before, I had servants for such heavy duty. Khaffit, perhaps, but fit men.”
“Such men are all kha’Sharum now,” Jardir said.
Abban bowed. “You see my difficulty. No dal’Sharum will take orders from khaffit in any event, but if you would allow me to select a few kha’Sharum to serve me in this regard, it would be most satisfactory.”
“How many?” Jardir asked.
Abban shrugged. “I could make do with a hundred. A pittance.”
“No warrior, even a kha’Sharum, is a pittance, Abban,” Jardir said.
Abban bowed. “I will pay their family stipends from my own coffers, of course.”
Jardir considered a moment longer, then shrugged. “Pick your hundred.”
Abban bowed as deeply as his crutch allowed. “Will your promises to the mistress of the Hollow tribe alter your plans?”
Jardir shook his head. “My promises affect nothing. It is still my duty to unite the people of the Northland for Sharak Ka. We will march on Lakton in the spring.”