The Great Bazaar and Other Stories Page 5

  "What?!" Amit gasped. "I've never seen you before in my...!" Again the warrior pulled back on the spear, and his words were cut off with a gurgle.

  "Do you recognize this?" the dama asked, holding up the spear Abban had dropped in the street, tied with the bright orange cloth he had used to signal Jamere. "Do you think us stupid? It's no secret you wear a womanly orange kerchief on your vestigial weapon, cripple."

  "Dama, see here," a warrior cried, leading a camel from Amit's pen. "It's been whipped recently, and wears leather pads on its feet."

  Amit's eyes bulged, though it was hard to tell if it was from incredulity or the continually choking spear at his throat. "That's not my...!" was all he managed to cough.

  "Tell us who your accomplice was," the dama demanded. The warrior at Amit's back eased the choking spear so he could answer.

  Gone was all the smug superiority from Amit's voice, the security in his position in this world and the next. Abban listened carefully, savoring the pathetic desperation in his rival's voice as he protested his innocence and begged for his life.

  "Tear the black from him," the dama ordered, and Amit screamed as the warriors took hold of his robes, ripping at them until the crippled man was lying naked in the street. The dal'Sharum took his arms and pulled back on his hair to ensure he made eye contact with the dama, who knelt before him.

  "You are khaffit now, Amit of no lineage worth mentioning," the dama said. "For the short, painful remainder of your life, know this, for when your spirit leaves this world, it will forever sit outside the gates of Heaven."

  "Nooo!" Amit screamed. "It is a lie!"

  The dama looked up at the warriors. "Confiscate everything of value in his pavilion," he said, "and bring it to the temple. Use his women, if you like, and then have them sold. Put any sons to the spear." Amit howled, thrashing against the men who held his arms until one of the warriors clubbed him in the back of the head with his spear, dropping him senseless to the ground.

  The dama looked down at Amit in disgust. "Haul this filth to the Chamber of Eternal Sorrow," he told the dal'Sharum, "that the Damaji might take their time in flaying the skin from his misbegotten bones."

  Abban let the tent flap fall and retreated into his pavilion, pouring himself a cup of couzi.

  A few moments later, the tent flap rose and fell again.

  "The Par'chin nearly broke Dama Kavere's knee," Jamere said. "He wants more than couzi to account for it."

  Abban nodded, expecting as much. "You were supposed to volunteer to stall Kavere when I stumbled, not the Par'chin," Abban reminded.

  Jamere shrugged. "He beat me to it," he said, "and would hear no protest."

  "Well don't let it happen again," Abban snapped. "The Par'chin is valuable to me, and I would be most displeased to lose him."

  "Do you think he'll find Anoch Sun?" Jamere asked.

  Abban laughed. "Don't be stupid, boy," he said. "Those maps have been copied and re-copied for three thousand years, and even if they still manage to point him the right way, the lost city, if it even exists, is buried deep beneath the sands. The Par'chin is a good-hearted fool, but a fool nonetheless."

  "He'll be angry, when he returns," Jamere observed.

  Abban shrugged. "At first, perhaps," he began.

  "But then you'll wave some other ancient scroll in his face, and he'll forget all about it," Jamere guessed, stealing a swig out of Abban's couzi bottle, not bothering with a cup.

  Abban smiled, giving the boy the various bribes he would need when he returned to Sharik Hora. He watched Jamere go with a mix of pride and profound regret.

  The boy could really have been something, if he wasn't set to waste his life as a dama.

  Deleted Scenes

  There were a great many deleted scenes from The Warded Man. Some were cut for length (I had written an extremely long book by debut novel standards), or for pacing, or because they went off on tangents and reduced overall tension.

  However, many of those deleted scenes are nice little stories in their own right, and it's wonderful that Subterranean Press has given me the opportunity to share a couple of them, along with my commentary, in this great collection. What's best about the selections presented is that they are self-contained story arcs, and can be enjoyed by new readers and fans of the series alike.

  Arlen

  INTRODUCTION

  This scene is how it all started. I was taking a fantasy writing class in 1999, and we were given a homework assignment to "write the first scene of an original fantasy novel." I wrote a little story about a young boy named Arlen who was never allowed to go farther from home than he could get by midday, because he needed to get back home before the demons came out at night.

  To be honest, I knocked the story out in one night, and after I got my grade (an A, natch), I threw it in a drawer for years. At the time, I was working on a different book, but Arlen was never far from my thoughts, and every once in a while I would jot down a few notes on his world. The entire Warded Man series grew out of this 1600 word story.

  WHY IT WAS CUT

  This opening was one of the biggest points of contention between me and my editor. She felt quite strongly that prologues in general were obsolete, and that this one was also told in a very different voice than the rest of the book and didn't fit. She also thought it didn't add anything that couldn't be shown elsewhere. I couldn't have disagreed more, believing that it set the mood and scene perfectly, and was a view into young Arlen's personality that was essential.

  We had some... lively debates on the subject. I have a great deal of respect for my editor, and I tried very hard to see her side of things. It took me a while to separate my personal attachment to the scene to the point where I could consider things impartially. When I finally managed to do so, I realized that she was right, and cut the scene. I think the book as a whole works better without it, though on a personal level, it is still very near and dear to my heart. It makes me really happy to see it in print at last.

  SCENE

  When Arlen was a boy, he would play outside until the last moment of dusk before answering his mother's calls. There was nothing worse than being locked inside each night, and he was determined not to let a minute of daylight be wasted indoors.

  He would rise while darkness still reigned, stepping over the threshold of his family farmhouse before even the cock could crow, just as the first beams of sunlight topped the hills, brightening the reddened sky and sending the shadows scurrying away for another day. His mother wanted him to count to a hundred after that, but he never listened.

  Adventure awaited, but Arlen knew his chores came first. Snatching the cloth-lined wicker basket from where it lay by the door, he would run to the chicken coop, ignoring the squawks of protest as he gathered the eggs, handling them as deftly as the colored balls of a Jongleur.

  With a dash back to the house, he left the eggs for his mother to find and was outside again in a moment. Before his father could pull on his overalls, before his mother had changed from her nightdress, Arlen was on a stool beneath the first of the cows. He left the milk and rushed to the rest of his chores while his father ate breakfast. The wellhouse, the curing shed, the smokehouse, the silo, each was paid a hurried visit, as if he were but a breeze passing through the farm.

  There was something comforting about the morning ritual. It reaffirmed his bond with the land, a bond severed each night as his mother locked the doors and his father checked the wards on the windows.

  He let the animals out of the barn, guiding the pigs to their day-pen and the sheep to the pasture with cracks of a switch. He fed the swine and the horse, paying the sheep little mind. Even without the dogs to mind them, they would not venture past the wardposts, for the grass beyond was scorched and ruined.

  There were other chores, less frequent, less comforting. Once in a while it happened that some animal or another was not where it was supposed to be by dusk, and was lost. He would find it the next morning, torn to shreds, and bury it b
ehind the outhouse.

  Arlen had done it all a thousand times, and he went about his duties with such practiced efficiency that by midmorning, he was usually done. By then, his father was well out into the fields checking the wardposts, and so he went back to the house for the familiar breakfast: oats, eggs, and bacon kept warm by his mother. He'd wolf it all down without a pause for air. A gulp of milk to help him swallow, and he was bouncing from his seat.

  His mother caught him. She always did. There was always something for him to do in the house, the chores he hated most. But there was no denying his mother, and complaining would not fill the firebox, or sweep the floor, or put fresh charcoal sticks in the warding kit. "Yarn doesn't make itself," she would tell him.

  By midday, he was free. Before his father returned from the fields with new chores for him, Arlen would snatch some bread and cheese and dash off to eat his lunch. Like his breakfast, he hardly tasted it. Food was sustenance, nothing more.

  How far can I get today? he would ask himself as he ate his lunch. With nearly eight hours until dusk, he could head off in any direction he wanted for four. The sun's place in the sky would tell him when to turn back.

  It was a dangerous game, one the other children of Tibbet's Brook dared not play. It was one of a thousand ways Arlen differed from them. All of the others were content to live in the Brook, never caring what lay over the next hill. It was a safe way to live. His father called it a smart way, but Arlen thought differently. The people of Tibbet's Brook were too content to take someone else's word for what lay up the road or through the woods or past the river to the south... if there even was a river. Arlen preferred to see for himself.

  How far could I get if I had all day? he always wondered. How far, if I didn't have chores in the morning, if I didn't have to turn back and run halfway to dusk? Could I make it to safety before they came?The thought thrilled and terrified him. What lay beyond the point of no return?

  Maybe today I'll keep going.

  But his resolve always faded as the sun rolled across the sky, and halfway to dusk, he inevitably felt his feet turning him around.

  He slowed down when the house was in sight, despite the cries of his parents, despite the terror in their voices. This was the time of day he felt most alive. He watched the sun dip in the sky, eclipsed by the turning of the world beneath him. Shadows began to lengthen. He waited until the last minute, and then ran to his house as fast as he could, the exhilarating tingle of fear sweeping over him, making his heart pound and his hands shake. Air tasted better in those few seconds, his body alive with sensation. No sight was more beautiful than the reds and oranges of dusk, no sound more exciting than his parents' warnings. He tumbled over the threshold, careful not to disturb the wards, and turned to watch the corelings rise.

  As the last warm rays faded from the horizon, and the heat leached from the ground into the air, the flame demons rose up from the Core to dance.

  He was soon yanked inside and the heavy door shut, its bar thrown (as if it could stop a coreling!). Arlen's father would then check the wards on the sills and threshold again, making sure they had not been scuffed or scratched. He told Arlen that a triple-check was all that was needed, but he could never help checking a fourth time.

  He was always scolded. Sometimes with his father's belt. But Arlen's parents knew deep down that no punishment could ever make him give up his wandering.

  After punishment came supper, and then, while his mother knit and his father carved wardposts, Arlen could sit by the window and watch the corelings dance. They were so graceful, even beautiful. Sometimes, he caught a glimpse of a wind demon, its shadowy form swooping on leathern wings, illuminated by the blazing eyes and mouths of its fiery cousins.

  Less beautiful and thankfully less common were the rock demons, their hulking, sinewy forms encased in a carapace that could break the hardest spear tip. No dancers these, they stalked the yard slowly, flashing their rows of razor teeth as they searched for prey.

  Arlen had never seen a water demon, but he had heard Jongleurs' stories. They could tear through the hull of a boat, dragging unfortunate fishermen underwater. Arlen shivered as he imagined the depths of the town lake swirling with dark, terrible forms. The idea terrified him, yet he longed to go out and try to glimpse one.

  On some nights, the demons attacked the wards. They flung themselves at the doors and windows, only to be sent hurtling back by the flare of magic. Arlen's parents seldom flinched, having witnessed this all their lives.

  "Why do they keep attacking when they can't get through?" Arlen asked his father once.

  "They're looking for flaws in the net," his father replied, joining him by the window. "Every warding has them. Every one. Corelings aren't smart enough to study the wards and reason out the weak spots, but they can attack them and look for holes that way. You'll never see a coreling attack the same spot twice in a night." He tapped his temple. "They remember. And they know that time weakens even the strongest wards."

  The night would light up over and over as the corelings tested the wards, magic flaring like tiny lightning flashes to momentarily illuminate the features of the yard as the demons tried to crush the wellhouse, or reach the meat in the curing shed.

  They attacked the barn as well, but the wards there were just as strong. Arlen could hear the livestock bleating in fear. The animals never got used to the demons. They knew, instinctively, what would happen if the corelings ever got through.

  Arlen knew, too. When he was seven, he had watched helplessly as the demons tore apart one of their sheepdogs, spreading its guts all over the yard.

  Corelings took great pleasure in killing.

  It was said there had been a time when the demons were not so bold. A time when the greatest wards had not yet been forgotten; when the demons feared the power of mankind and stayed within the Core. But those days, if they ever truly existed, were long forgotten by the great-great-grandfathers of the oldest men alive. Now, those wards were nothing more than a Jongleur's tale.

  As he watched the creatures that had stolen his world for another night, Arlen dreamed of bringing those wards back. He dreamed of traveling beyond Tibbet's Brook, and resolved that he would leave one day, even if it meant spending a night outside.

  With the demons.

  Brianne Beaten

  INTRODUCTION

  This is far and away my favorite cut scene, my poor deleted darling. It takes place in Chapter 13 of The Warded Man ("There Must Be More"), and happens directly after the confrontation between Gared and Marick in the Cutter's Hollow marketplace. The purpose of the scene was to force Leesha to confront Brianne, who had been one of her best friends until the events of Leesha's first story arc destroyed their friendship. It was also meant to illustrate how confident and powerful Leesha had become during her Herb Gathering tutelage under Bruna.

  WHY IT WAS CUT

  i take full responsibility for cutting this scene. No editor or agent or test reader suggested it. I needed to reduce the overall word count of the book, and much as I loved this scene, it was over 3,000 words, and lifted out so cleanly that no one would ever miss it but me. That Leesha had grown too big for Cutter's Hollow was already apparent, and nothing else happened that affected the rest of the story at all.

  I don't regret the decision. The final draft of the book is lean and mean and every scene moves the story forward. This scene doesn't; it's just a tangent. Removing it also helped balance out the Leesha/Rojer air time, which I had intended to be equal, but which was (and still is) skewed in Leesha's favor.

  Still, I love this little side-story, and am really happy I finally get to share it with people who might enjoy reading it.

  SCENE

  "There's need for your skills," Mairy said.

  "You feel unwell?" Leesha asked, concerned. She laid the back of her hand against Mairy's forehead, but Mairy shook her head, pulling away. "No, it's not for me," she said.

  "One of the children?" Leesha asked, her eyes quickly sc
anning each for a sign of ill health. "Or Benn?"

  Mairy shook her head again. "It's Brianne," she said. "She's been having stomach pains. She tries to hide it, but I see her wincing. Something is wrong. We hoped you might take the request for aid better from me."

  "Why me?" Leesha asked. "Darsy is her Herb Gatherer."

  "You've said yourself that Darsy guesses at her cures more oft than not," Mairy said. "And she lost Dug and Merrem's child last winter."

  "I never said that was Darsy's fault," Leesha pointed out.

  "You didn't have to," Mairy said. "Half the town is whispering it whenever she passes by. Brianne is just too proud to ask for your help."

  "Even if she did," Leesha asked, "why should I give it?"

  "Because she's sick and you're an Herb Gatherer," Mairy replied.

  "She's spoken nothing but ill words on me for nearly seven years," Leesha said angrily. "And don't forget that she did her best to destroy my life." She turned away, but guilt ate at her. There were oaths Herb Gatherers took, to help all in need.

  "She cried for you," Mairy said at her back. "We all did."

  Leesha turned. "What do you mean?" she asked.

  "That morning, when your mum came to town saying you ent come home before dark," Mairy said. "She had the whole town out looking for you or..." she looked away, "your body."

  "We were sure you were dead," Mairy went on after a moment, when Leesha did not reply. "Brianne said it was her fault, and fell into tears. We tried to tell her it wan't like that, but she was inconsolable." She touched Leesha's shoulder, "She knew she hurt you, Leesha."

  "I never heard a word of contrition," Leesha said. "In fact, she's said worse about me since. Don't think I haven't heard."

  "She meant to apologize," Mairy said. "Saira, too."

  "But you were the only one that actually did," Leesha said.