The Core

  His lungs screamed, and Jardir knew he did not have long. He embraced the impacts and fear, reaching out with his senses, seeking the power nestled in the ala below. He touched it for an instant, but another strike from a water demon spun him about, and he lost it.

  One of the larger demons came in for another pass.

  If I am to die, let it be on alagai talons, he thought, not breathing water in panicked fear. He shoved the crown down hard onto his brow and dropped the forbiddance, and the demon, expecting impact, arrowed toward him, right onto the point of his waiting spear.

  He felt the beast shudder with pain as the spear bit deep, and held on as it gave a mighty sweep of its fins, breaking the surface long enough for him to gasp a breath.

  He pulled the spear, trying to free it to leap away and into the air, but it was stuck fast on a bone, and an instant later he was returned to the deep. The demon corkscrewed, trying as much as he to remove the barb, and again Jardir lost all sense of up and down.

  Around him, alagai gathered once more.

  But then there was a flare of magic, and they were scattered. Jardir looked to see the Par’chin shooting for him, glowing brightly and propelling himself with powerful strokes of his arms and legs.

  Jardir put his foot on the demon and tore the spear free, ripping a deep and jagged wound he hoped the demon would never recover from. His first thought was to finish it, but discretion took the better part of glory and he renewed his crown’s forbiddance, driving the demons away as the Par’chin reached out and grasped his hand.

  —

  The next few days seemed an eternity, spent hiking and climbing, sliding along narrow ledges. For over a mile they crawled on their bellies in a tunnel less than two feet high. Always hot, always soaked with sweat, waiting for Alagai Ka to inevitably betray them.

  For his part, the father of demons seemed as miserable and exhausted as they. Controlling Shanjat for long periods of time drained him, and no doubt the wards on his skin burned as freshly now as the day the Par’chin put them there.

  The journey is long, and you will grow lax.

  Jardir clenched a fist. Was this even the way to the abyss? Inevera’s dice had said he would lead them there, but perhaps there were several ways, now that they were deep in the bowels of Ala. Was he deliberately taking them on the most dangerous paths, hoping to weaken them sufficiently to make his escape? There was no way to know. The demon princes had thousands of years of experience in masking their auras. Who could say what words were truth and which lies?

  Jardir had first thought alagai would be their only concern, but it seemed the dark below held many terrors beyond the servants of Nie.

  —

  Arlen did not relax when the cavern widened, allowing them to walk without hunching, but he’d learned to take what comforts he could on this cursed journey.

  The walls were braced with ancient columns of Krasian design, lending confidence they traveled the path of Kaji’s armies, but the wards were long since scarred. Having taken point in their journey, Arlen took the chance where he could to repair some of them. He could not replace the mind wards if they wanted their guide to pass, but others seemed a wise precaution, in the unlikely case they survived long enough to flee back this way, likely with all the demons of the Core on their heels.

  But abruptly the wide, clear path ended in a cave-in. Great stones, too heavy for even him to shift, had collapsed into the tunnel, blocking the path. Beneath them, a pool of water had formed. Arlen eyed it warily in wardsight, but saw no sign of demons. Too shallow, perhaps. There was life, though. Tube coral clung to the floor beneath the water, feeding on Creator only knew what.

  He climbed the stones while waiting for the others to catch up. There were crevices that allowed the flow of magic, and if he dared dissipate, he might easily pass through and explore. But the call of the Core had become insistent as they descended, and now it thrummed in him, a summoning he was not certain he could resist save under the most dire need. If one of their lives depended upon it he would take the risk, but not before.

  In any event, only he and Renna could dissipate. If they were to continue on, another way must be found. The collapse looked ancient, stones settled into one another by the constant drip of water as if cut to fit. If Alagai Ka had marched prisoners this way, there must have been a way past.

  Arlen already had a sinking suspicion what it was, and soon after, Shanjat confirmed it.

  “A short swim beneath the stones,” the demon said with the Sharum’s mouth. “Even the weakest-lunged humans could manage it. The waterway to follow has a small pocket of air between the water and the stone. It continues for not more than one of your miles.”

  “Night.” Renna’s sentiment was echoed throughout the group. Even Jardir’s aura colored with fear at the thought. His fall into the water had shaken him, despite his triumphant emergence.

  Arlen did not hesitate. “I’ll go.”

  Shanvah bowed. “With respect, Par’chin, it should be me. I am the most expendable.”

  Arlen scowled, and the fearless young woman’s aura colored. “Don’t wanna hear that kind of talk, Shanvah. Ent none of us expendable. If there’s trouble, I’m best suited to get out of it. Worse comes to worst, I can dissipate.”

  Renna put a hand on his shoulder. “You been hearin’ the call?”

  Arlen covered the hand with his own. “Ay. More like a command than a call now.”

  “Like a twig in a rushin’ stream,” Renna said. “Don’t be doin’ it, ’less you ent got a choice.”

  Shanjat laughed. “Your mate is correct, of course. Your minds are too weak to resist, or we could have been in the mind court and ended your foolish quest months ago.”

  He made no mention of how that quest would end, but Arlen knew even now, the demon had something up his sleeve, a last trick to play, one it thought they would not expect. They would need to be ready for it.

  Renna took the knife from her belt. “Take this.”

  Arlen’s eyes widened at the gift. Renna hated her father, but his knife was the most precious possession she had. More than the brook stone necklace from Cobie Fisher, more than the warded wedding ring he’d made her. His throat tightened at the thought she would offer it to him.

  “Ren, I can’t—”

  “Can and you will,” Renna cut him off. “Ent gonna have room down there for your spear, things get ugly.”

  “Got a knife.” Arlen touched the weapon on his belt, but the six-inch blade seemed woefully inadequate compared with the foot of razor-sharp warded steel Renna wielded.

  Renna snorted. “Good for spreadin’ butter or whittlin’ a stick, maybe, but that little thing ent much use in a fight.”

  She winked at him. “Girls might tell boys size don’t matter, but it’s just to make ’em feel better.”

  Arlen chuckled, sliding the smaller sheath off his belt and replacing it with Renna’s heavy blade.

  She grabbed him by the chin, turning him into a kiss. “Want it back safe, though. And you with it.”

  “If there was a sun down here I’d swear by it.” Arlen kissed her again, then stripped to his bido and belt. Shanvah’s eyes ran over his body for a moment, but then she remembered herself and averted her gaze. Arlen glanced at Renna, but the normally jealous woman only smirked in response. She and Shanvah had grown close of late.

  Arlen wasted no further time, breathing deep, fast breaths as he waded into the cold pool before holding the last and diving under. He shivered. The water was dark, seemingly magic-dead. There was no sign of water demons or marine life.

  He fed power to the light wards on his skin to illuminate his way. A few strong strokes put him beneath the stone, and he tried hard not to think about the countless tons of rock wedged above him.

  Been there a thousand years. Ent gonna fall just now. His mind understood the logic, but it did nothing to alleviate the growing dread.

  The next minute seemed to take an eternity, but then, as the demon prom
ised, he came upon the pocket of air.

  Arlen had expected something large enough to put his head and shoulders above water at least, but in most places it wasn’t even two inches high—just enough to throw his head back and put his nose and mouth above water for a few quick breaths before plunging under once more.

  Still, the way looked clear, apart from murky sediment stirred by his passing, and the ever-present tubes of coral on the floor. They bent toward the light as he passed, like flowers leaning toward the sun.

  He made it to a second pocket of air, and then a third. His light wards seemed somehow dimmer on his next dive, and he fed them more power.

  Something caught his leg as he kicked into the next stroke, and he pulled up short, coughing precious bubbles of air and nearly taking in a gulp of water.

  He turned to see that a worm had reached out from one of the tubes on the floor, wrapping around his leg. Its end stuck to his calf like the suction cup on a water demon’s tentacle. The worm shone bright with magic, and Arlen could feel his own power draining.

  All around him, the other tubes had perked up, turned his way. The mouths of worms worked out of their tips, sucking the water like babes for the teat. All were glowing brightly, even as his own magic dimmed.

  Too late, he understood the danger. Instinctively he Drew to replace the lost power, but there was no ambient magic to be had. These creatures fed upon it, and his attempt only roused more of them to action. As one, those closest began to reach for him.

  He went for Renna’s knife on his belt, but the tube worms moved quicker than he would have thought possible, extending many times the length of their dens to tangle his limbs. One wrapped around his midsection; another caught his throat. They squeezed like sandsnakes crushing a mouse.

  The drain on his power became like Leesha’s vacuum pumps, sucking away magic like life’s blood. His preternatural strength faded. His wards went dark.

  He was just Arlen Bales now, drowning in black water with a million tons of rock overhead. The thought chilled him, and for a moment his struggles ceased as he was pulled down.

  Then, as it often did at moments like this, Jeph Bales broke the silence.

  In over your head as usual, Arlen Bales. Words from a quarter century ago, when Arlen was learning to swim at Fishing Hole. Mean to sink, or you gonna swim?

  “Swim.” Arlen angrily coughed the word into the water, as he had so long ago. He tore the knife free of its sheath, keeping the blade along his forearm to twist it through the worm latched on it.

  Harl Tanner’s knife was sharp as sin. He sliced through the worm and most of it fell away, save a few inches still latched to his arm. He could feel it trying to pull at his magic, but the drain was negligible now that it was no longer grounded.

  There were others, though, sucking hard on his magic, and Arlen knew he did not have much left. What would happen when they stole that last spark that gave him life?

  His wardsight was dimming, the water getting darker by the moment, despite the tremendous power the tube worms held. They should be glowing like the sun.

  He focused his will, pulling back against their suction with a Draw of his own. It was like swimming upriver, but the drain ebbed.

  He freed his other arm next, pulling the grasping worm taut and slashing through its body. Another drain ceased, and he even Drew a touch of power back from the length still stuck to him.

  He gripped the worm wrapped around his chest with his free hand. It was all slimy muscle, thicker than he could wrap his fingers about, stronger than he could pry away. The touch gave him a target, and he slashed again, the knife cutting through the worm. He felt the steel pass through and cut into his flesh as well, but there was no way to know how deeply, no point in worrying over it.

  Half of the creature fell away, and he Drew hard on the wriggling other half, taking back some part of the power it had drained as he tore it free of his skin.

  Wardsight returned, and the other worms now shone like paper lanterns, illuminating the silty bed. The water around him was cloudy with his own blood and the slime that seeped from the severed worms.

  Arlen dove down, feeling the worms slacken, then kicked off against the water’s bed. He struck the rock ceiling so hard he heard the familiar sound of his nose breaking, but before the worms pulled him back under, he managed to blow out his breath and draw a fresh one.

  He went back down with a vengeance, slashing at the brightly glowing worms, easy targets now that they had revealed themselves.

  He freed his legs, but as with the others, the worms did not seem to die, still squeezing and sucking even after they’d been severed from their bases. The severances closed before his eyes, the base worms growing new mouths to replace the old, even as the ends he’d sliced off sank to the bottom and implanted their hind ends in the silty bed.

  Night, I’m spawning more of them.

  In the time it took to shake them off, others were taking their places. Arlen was forced to yield his defense to rush to the surface for another gasping breath, and three more of them latched on to him in that instant. This time he began slicing the worms vertically, shaking himself free and forcing them to use power to heal without multiplying.

  It was still a losing battle, and an unnecessary one. Gathering what strength he had left, he kicked off back the way he’d come. He would pull himself from the water, replenish his lost magic, throttle the mind demon, and form a new plan to get past these underwater parasites.

  The worm beds were slow to react as he swam by, not fast enough to catch him save in those moments he needed to steal breath.

  Even then he was ready, eyeing the hunters and slashing when they got too close. He began to feel he would make it to safety, until by the third breath he realized he could not have been going back the way he came. All that twisting in the dark had turned him around.

  A mile, the demon said. Had he gone more than half that? Was succor closer ahead than behind?

  There was no way to tell, and he had little desire to turn back and face the worms he had roused into frenzy. At least these he was passing were only just sensing his presence, their slimy lips poking from their hard tubes to taste the magic in the water. He put on speed, swimming as quickly as his screaming lungs would allow.

  He roared when he broke the surface on the far end of the collapse, gulping air as he trod the last few steps to the shore. Worms grabbed at his ankles, but they were smaller in the shallow water, and the air in his lungs and the sight of dry rock ahead gave him new strength. He strode on, tearing the worms, tube and all, from the silt and up out of the water.

  They writhed madly as he pried them off his legs, flopping like fish out of water, bright with the magic they stole, even as his own glow was a last dying ember.

  Before he realized what he was doing, he pulled one of the worms taut and bit hard into it. The outer layer of muscle was tough, but underneath the boneless flesh gave easily, and he gnawed at it even as he Drew its magic. He left its tough husk drained beside him like the rind of a citrus, and took up another, his hunger only growing.

  It was an animal moment, eat or be eaten, unlike anything Arlen had felt since that night in Anoch Sun when the primal needs of his stomach had overruled his sense and forced him to make a choice that changed his life—and the lives of everyone in Thesa—forever.

  The meal was all-consuming, replenishing not just his magic. His stomach had been empty for weeks, save for a daily bite of Jardir’s holy couscous.

  There was no food in all the world to match that bite, but a single mouthful, no matter how potent, could never truly fill an empty belly. Only Renna was eating a real share, and she ate for two.

  Arlen was left unsatisfied, and when he’d sucked the last of the flesh from the worm’s hide, he waded back into the water, ripping more of the corespawned things free. The tubes were hard, sharp-spined shells that tore at his hands, but he ignored the pain, crushing them to hold the worms tight inside as they were uprooted from the sil
t.

  He hurled the worms out of the water to land in a wriggling pile, too far inland to find their way back to the water before they suffocated.

  “See how you rippin’ like it,” he growled, tearing another shell free. He worked until the lagoon at the far end of the cave-in was clear.

  Then he set to feeding, and the world fell away in the gush of flesh and the taste of magic in his mouth.

  It was some time before he came back to himself, gorged on worm meat and magic. The excess power throbbed in his aura, barely contained. He felt as strong as he had ever been, short of standing on a greatward.

  And so it took a moment to feel the tingle of one particular group of wards on his ear.

  His friends were trying to contact him.

  Arlen drew a quick warding in the air, needing to power it with considerable energy to break through the ambient magic in the air and through the collapsed tunnel to create a firm link with Renna, Jardir, and Shanvah.

  “You all right?” Renna’s voice came the moment contact established.

  “Ay.” Arlen went back to the water to wash the sticky slime from his hands. “Demon wasn’t lyin’, but he din’t tell all.”

  “Are you in danger, Par’chin?” Jardir’s voice was like a crank bowstring, ready to loose.

  “Not anymore.” Arlen splashed water on his face, washing away the worm juice that clung to his lips and chin. “Bad news is, the whole swim’s full of giant worms that come at you like water demon tentacles and suck the magic out of you like leeches.”

  “Night, what’s the good news?” Renna asked.

  Arlen stood and stretched his back. “They’re rippin’ delicious.”

  Renna barked a laugh as Arlen turned to survey the area.

  “Creator,” he breathed.

  “Ay?” Renna asked.

  “What was that, Par’chin?” Jardir pressed, when he hadn’t answered after a moment.

  “Arlen Bales, you—”

  But Arlen wasn’t paying attention, his eyes wide.

  The lagoon stood at a high bottleneck, overlooking a vast cavern. Down from the rise, the cavern wall was riddled with tunnels and pathways, great and small.