The Warded Man

him Par’chin, which meant “brave outsider.” He would never be considered an equal, but the dal’Sharum had stopped spitting at his feet, and he had even made a few true friends.
    Through the gate, Arlen entered the Maze, a wide inner yard before the wall of the city proper, filled with walls, trenches, and pits. Each night, their families locked safe behind the inner walls, the dal’Sharum engaged in alagai’sharak , Holy War against demonkind. They lured corelings into the Maze, ambushing and harrying them into warded pits to await the sun. Casualties were high, but Krasians believed that dying in alagai’sharak assured them a place at the side of Everam, the Creator, and went gladly into the killing zone.
    Soon , Arlen thought, it will be only corelings that die here .
    Just inside the main gate was the Great Bazaar, where merchants hawked over hundreds of laden carts, the air thick with hot Krasian spices, incense, and exotic perfumes. Rugs, bolts of fine cloth, and beautiful painted pottery sat beside mounds of fruit and bleating livestock. It was a noisy and crowded place, filled with shouted haggling.
    Every other marketplace Arlen had ever seen teemed with men, but the Great Bazaar of Krasia was filled almost entirely with women, covered head to toe in thick black cloth. They bustled about, selling and buying, shouting at each other vigorously and handing over their worn golden coins only grudgingly.
    Jewelry and bright cloth were sold in abundance in the bazaar, but Arlen had never seen it worn. Men had told him the women wore the adornments under their black, but only their husbands knew for sure.
    Krasian men above the age of sixteen were almost all warriors. A small few were dama , the Holy Men who were alsoKrasia’s secular leaders. No other vocation was considered honorable. Those who took a craft were called khaffit , and considered contemptible, barely above women in Krasian society. The women did all the day-to-day work in the city, from farming and cooking to child care. They dug clay and made pottery, built and repaired homes, trained and slaughtered animals, and haggled in the markets. In short, they did everything but fight.
    Yet despite their unending labor, they were utterly subservient to the men. A man’s wives and unmarried daughters were his property, and he could do with them as he pleased, even kill them. A man could take many wives, but if a woman so much as let a man who was not her husband look at her unveiled, she could—and often would—be put to death. Krasian women were considered expendable. Men were not.
    Without their women, Arlen knew, the Krasian men would be lost, but the women treated men in general with reverence, and their husbands with near-worship. They came each morning to find the dead from the night’s alagai’sharak , and wailed over the bodies of their men, collecting their precious tears in tiny vials. Water was coin in Krasia, and a warrior’s status in life could be measured by the number of tear bottles filled upon his death.
    If a man was killed, it was expected that his brothers or friends would take his wives, so they would always have a man to serve. Once, in the Maze, Arlen had held a dying warrior who offered him his three wives. “They are beautiful, Par’chin,” he had assured, “and fertile. They will give you many sons. Promise you will take them!”
    Arlen promised they would be cared for, and then found another willing to take them on. He was curious about what lay under the Krasian women’s robes, but not enough to trade his portable circle for a clay building, his freedom for a family.
    Following behind almost every woman were several tan-clad children; the girls’ hair wrapped, the boys in rag caps. As early as eleven, the girls would begin to marry and take on the black clothes of women, while the boys were taken to the training grounds even younger. Most would take on the black robes of dal’Sharum . Some few would come to wear the white of dama , and devote their lives to serving Everam. Those who failed at both professions would be khaffit , and wear tan in shame until they died.
    The women caught sight of Arlen as he rode through themarket, and began whispering to one another excitedly. He watched them, amused, for none would look him in the eye, or approach him. They hungered for the goods in his saddlebags—fine Rizonan wool, Milnese jewels, Angierian paper, and other treasures of the North—but he was a man, and