The Core

  —

  “Deliverer.” Shanvah pressed her forehead against the floor. At her side, Shanjat mirrored her.

  “Rise, niece.” Jardir already knew what she would ask. He’d watched with quiet dread as she gathered the courage to speak.

  “Here, as in no other place, we are cut off from Alagai Ka’s influence,” Shanvah said.

  Jardir nodded. “That is true.”

  “And your power is greater than it has ever been.”

  “Yes,” Jardir agreed.

  “Then perhaps here, as in no other place, you can heal my father,” Shanvah said.

  Jardir said. “Perhaps. And what of our plans, if I do? Who will speak for Alagai Ka to guide our way?”

  “I do not know,” Shanvah said. “I am not the Deliverer. But I know that with Everam’s blessing, all things are possible.”

  “All things are possible,” Renna agreed. “But that don’t make ’em likely.”

  “If he is healed, and Alagai Ka still needs a voice, I will volunteer,” Shanvah said.

  “Niece—” Jardir began.

  “It will be my choice,” Shanvah dared to interrupt. “A choice my father did not have. He was a great man. Kai of the Spears of the Deliverer. I am a girl, drowning in the sea of his glory.”

  “Your words are false, Shanvah vah Shanjat,” Jardir said. “Your glory is boundless as your father’s. I do not believe he would wish you to rob him of such a sacrifice.”

  Shanvah took her father’s limp hand. “Then let it be his choice.”

  “It’s a bad idea,” Renna said. “Shanvah’s got our secrets…”

  “What secrets, Renna vah Arlen?” Shanvah asked. “That we are a candle dropped into a bottomless well? That we are afraid? The demon knows these things already. He mocks us with them. Let him have my secrets, if it will free my father from this…living death.”

  Jardir looked to the Par’chin, and his ajin’pal gave a nod. “Think you can do it, we owe it to Shanjat to try. We’ll find another way to make the demon talk.”

  “Thank you, Par’chin,” Shanvah said.

  “But it ent just a matter of power, Shanvah,” the Par’chin said. “It’s a puzzle, and we ent got all the pieces.”

  “But you will try again?” Shanvah pleaded.

  Jardir nodded. “Rise, Shanjat.”

  Jardir watched Shanjat’s aura as he stood. In this state, without Alagai Ka to control him, his brother-in-law could resist no direct commands.

  Jardir saw his words ripple across the otherwise placid pool, triggering more than just muscle memory. Shanjat’s entire faculty engaged in a flare of brilliant color.

  “Recite the Fourth Dune of the Evejah,” Jardir commanded.

  In life, such a command would have tested Shanjat greater than any combat, but with no will to resist, his mind produced every word in perfect recitation. As the colors flashed in his mind, though, they cast shadows.

  “There.” Jardir pointed.

  The others had kept distance, but at the invitation, the Par’chin stepped in to examine. “See it.”

  Renna moved to stand next to him. “Ay. Like clouds on a blue sky.”

  “I do not see,” Shanvah said.

  “It is as we feared,” Jardir said. “Alagai Ka has done more than crush your father’s will. He has…infected his mind.”

  Shanvah bowed her head. “Even here, in the heart of Everam’s power, the demon’s spirit remains?”

  “Ent the demon’s spirit,” the Par’chin explained. “More like…little notes left around his mind. If this happens, do that.”

  “So he has made a gwil of my father.” An image flashed over Shanvah, her atop Alagai Ka, beating him savagely as ichor arced the air. “A dog taught tricks for his master.”

  “You demanded this, niece,” Jardir reminded. “You must steel yourself.”

  Shanvah removed her veil and nodded, aura relaxing. “I am centered, Uncle.”

  Jardir turned back to Shanjat. “Whom did you wrestle, at the festival after I first took the Skull Throne?”

  “Qeran,” Shanjat said. Lights flickered in his mind, but the shadows remained dark.

  “Why?” Jardir asked. “You would have had a better chance if you had chosen Hasik, who had been at the couzi.”

  “Because victory is not enough for Hasik,” Shanjat said. “He would not relent until he had shamed me to the onlookers. I knew Qeran would let me keep my honor.”

  They were truer words than the proud man would ever have spoken aloud, but with his will removed, he spoke them as easily as he recited scripture. The darkness in his mind remained dormant.

  “Who would you choose now?” Jardir asked.

  Shanjat’s aura absorbed the question and color flared for an instant in a small part of his mind, but it dissolved away without igniting a response.

  “Shanjat,” the Par’chin said. “Do you think we should press on into the Core, or go back to the surface?”

  Again Shanjat’s mind considered the words, and dismissed them. “There.” Renna pointed, but whatever it might have been vanished before Jardir could focus upon it.

  “Father, does the demon make you lie to hurt me?” Shanvah asked.

  A spark leapt across that gray chasm. “No.”

  Shanvah kept her center, aura placid, but Jardir knew the words would sting her for years to come.

  “Do you want to die?” Renna asked.

  The question flared, but dissipated against the gray wall.

  “Right there,” Renna said. “That’s where the demon severed his will.”

  Shanvah’s aura remained uncomprehending. She, too, could see magic’s glow, but had not learned to read more than the most unguarded of feelings. “What does that mean?”

  “It means your father’s spirit has not traveled the lonely path,” Jardir said. “Everything that made him who he was remains. His memories. His skills. The demon left them intact to tap into. But without will.”

  “His body is a prison to his spirit,” Shanvah finished.

  “What would you do if Alagai Ka was threatened at this moment?” Jardir asked.

  The words did more than bridge the gap. The web of the demon’s infection lit up like lightning rolling across the clouds.

  “Interpose myself and protect him, unless he is threatened by one of you,” Shanjat said.

  “You are not to harm us?” Jardir was surprised.

  “Not without the command,” Shanjat said.

  “What command?” Jardir pressed.

  In response, Shanjat let out a sound that came from deep in his chest, something caught between growl and hiss, resonating from his very center. The air rumbled with it.

  “And if given that command?” Jardir asked, already knowing the answer from the crackle of the demon’s web.

  “Kill any in my path, take the demon, and flee.”

  Jardir reached out his hand, touching his friend’s head. His fingers drifted across the neat, tight braids Shanvah had tied, touching the skin between. The contact was like a spark, and he sent his will leaping into Shanjat. He could feel his friend’s mind, his body, much as he imagined Alagai Ka must. A puppet to control.

  But Jardir had no interest in peering into his brother-in-law’s private memories, no desire to desecrate his body by making it dance. Instead he leapt across the gap in Shanjat’s mind and attacked the demon’s corruption.

  This was not something he would have dared attempt before. Mere hours ago, he would have been hacking into his friend’s brain with a spear. Now he moved as delicately as a dama’ting scalpel, cutting away rotten flesh.

  But the demon had been too clever. The threads wove into Shanjat’s mind like palm fronds in a basket, and even as Jardir began to cut, he saw how too much damage threatened to unravel the weave. He would need to replace them with something else.

  But what? Could he create commands and place them in Shanjat’s mind? How would that be different from what the demon had done? How would that restore the
man he had been?

  He pulled back, leaving the demon’s corruption much as it was, focusing instead upon the gap. He had bridged it easily enough with his own will, and there, at its edges, he could see Alagai Ka’s influence, like a scum of oil atop clear water. When Shanjat was issued a command, or one of the demon’s conditions was met, the scum bubbled to life, bursting aflame to bridge the gap.

  It was complex magic. Not beyond Jardir’s capabilities, perhaps, but certainly beyond his skill. He was trying to rewrite a book written in a language he could only read a few words of.

  He wished Inevera were here. Healing was a dama’ting art, and there was none better in all the world than his first wife.

  But could even she tell him how to create will from nothingness? Where desire originated, and how it was transformed into action? These were questions for Everam Himself.

  On sudden inspiration, Jardir gathered his power, reaching up into the heavens, he knew not where or for what. Just reaching, as high as he could.

  Everam, Creator of all that is, he begged. Show me the path to cure my brother from the infection Nie has set upon him. Give me the strength to rid him of her foul taint.

  But for all the vaunted power of the Spear of Ala, it gave him no direct communication with Heaven. Everam, locked in His eternal struggle with Nie, had no time for the prayers of men.

  If He is listening at all.

  The thought crept in like a thief, fleeing like a coward when he turned to it. He wanted to blame Nie. Blame Alagai Ka. Blame anything but his own mind, but in that moment he knew the truth of his doubts.

  What if the Par’chin is right? What if Heaven is a lie?

  He pulled his will back into himself, turning to Shanvah.

  “I cannot help him, niece. I can drive out the demon’s influence, but without anything to replace it, he would be left even more lifeless than before. If his will is trapped somewhere, I cannot find it, and only Everam can create will out of nothingness.”

  If Everam exists, the voice whispered in his mind again.

  He lowered his spear, feeling tired, even as near-limitless power coursed through him. “Let us be gone from this empty place.”

  CHAPTER 35

  SEVERED

  334 AR

  Every moment in the prison of human bone was agony. The religion of the sun dwellers was a sad fiction full of inconsistencies and contradiction, but the shared emotional conviction of Kavri’s faithful imprinted powerful magic on their relics.

  Their Unifier, their Deliverer, had been first in the thoughts of every human, focused by a lifetime of hopes and prayers. Undiminished after thousands of years, it was why the demons had never truly conquered the hated fortress. It was time that killed the enemy. Time, and the war dogs. For centuries, this place had lain dormant—a sleeping giant too near the hive for anyone’s liking.

  Kavri’s witch queen bound the belief of the people upon the wielder of the relics of power, the Spear and Crown of Shar’Dama Ka. Now, with his coming, the Heir had woken that power.

  His might was terrifying in the csar—greater even than Alagai Ka at the center of the mind court. His drones, all but mindless, could not focus their magic in joint cause as the humans could.

  From the Skull Throne at the csar’s center, the Heir could crush the hive, if only he could reach so far.

  There were limits, even here.

  Every moment on the greatward was agony for Alagai Ka, even with the protection of the Heir.

  Worse, the Heir, drunk on power, might at any moment decide the Consort was no longer needed and slay him outright. Or perhaps grow in his understanding of his power to attempt to link with the demon’s mind. Anywhere else, and Alagai Ka would welcome the attempt, confident no human will could match him. But here there would be no defense. The Heir could strip away his memories like a talon flaying flesh.

  But even that might not matter, if he died in this cage. There was no food, no drink, no air. Alagai Ka Drew on his dwindling reserves of power to meet those needs, but his supply was nearly exhausted. The bone spikes, scraping at every angle, were anathema, sucking power like mosquitoes.

  And so Alagai Ka, who had held iron-fisted primacy over the mind court longer than any Consort in the memory of the hive, knew fear. Stark terror that should be the suffering of lesser creatures.

  Better to have attempted his escape early and taken his chances with the war dogs than suffer like this, slowly poisoned by the idealism of lesser beings.

  There was a sound. Alagai Ka stiffened, muscles tense to avoid touching any of the bone spikes with enough pressure to prick his skin.

  The prison walls parted, and for a moment relief flooded him, but then it was replaced again by pain as he was unceremoniously dropped to the ground, eyes burning from the light.

  It baffled the demon why the primitive creatures took such comfort in the limited spectrum of light, depriving themselves of information more than if they volunteered to blindfold themselves and stuff wax in their ears.

  Alagai Ka coughed, gasping air greedily to spare further drain on his power. His skin had turned pale, his muscles gelatin. He struggled weakly to rise, to present himself with dignity before his captors, but this time it was beyond him.

  “Pick him up,” the Heir ordered, and Shanjat reached down, lifting Alagai Ka like a hatchling and using his robe as a sling to hold him against his bare back.

  On contact with his skin, Alagai Ka attempted to slip into the human drone’s mind.

  For one terrifying moment, the effort was beyond him. Alagai Ka wondered if he was already past the point of no return, and the void was inevitable.

  He wondered which of the remaining minds would outlast the others, and realized he didn’t care. What matter, if it was not him?

  Fear gave him strength to try again, and this time he made the connection, putting on the drone’s body like a raiment. The humans had attempted to tamper with the drone’s mind, but their damage was minimal and easily repaired.

  The gesture told Alagai Ka much. They had attempted to circumvent his aid, and failed. They still had need of him, at least until they exited the cavern.

  The rules would change then, as they entered the outskirts of the hive.

  “No insults?” the Heir asked. “No half lies to cut at us?”

  “Finally learned his place, maybe,” the Hunter said. Alagai Ka glared at her. When the time was right, she would be the first to die.

  The drone Shanjat smiled behind his veil, eyes flicking lower.

  Her hatchling will die first, the demon amended, seasoning her mind with anguish that will be exquisite to taste.

  —

  Renna couldn’t stop thinking about the look Shanjat had given her. Pure hatred. And the way his eyes flicked to her belly. It was all she could do not to kill the creature.

  But much as she hated to admit it, they needed him. Consuming the mind demon’s brain had given her no insights into their journey, and even Jardir in his seat of power had not produced a better way to the demon hive.

  The howls resumed when they exited Sharik Hora, sounding close. Too close. They were far from the walls that kept the gwilji at bay, yet the sound echoed through the streets of the csar, stiffening the close-cropped hair on the back of her neck.

  “Quickly, now.” Jardir was holding tremendous power as he led them toward the city gates.

  “What’re you plannin’?” Renna asked.

  “You and the Par’chin had the will to resist the…seduction of power when you fed on demon flesh,” Jardir said, eyes ahead. “The war dogs did not, and my people paid the price for it. When we open the gate, I plan to cleanse them from Ala, and let Everam be their judge.”

  Renna thought of Shadow, Evin Cutter’s wolfhound, who had eaten demon meat and grown to the size of a bear. The dog was terrifying in battle, but still licked his master’s face, and guarded Evin’s family with loyalty to do any canine proud.

  She thought of the Warded Children, and how the
y grew violent and dangerous when left unchecked. Of all the times she herself had struck at Arlen—the love of her life—in a fit of magic-fueled rage.

  “Maybe they ent all gone,” she said. “Maybe there’s still a way to reach ’em. Remind ’em what they were trained to fight.”

  Jardir shook his head. “With the original gwilji, perhaps. But these are generations removed, born in darkness, never having known the light of the sun. Our mission is too important to let them hinder us.”

  The howls sounded again, seemingly all around them, and Renna ceased her arguments, putting a hand to her belly. There was time for mercy, and time to protect oneself.

  There was a clatter behind them, as of claws on stone. The others heard it, too. But when they turned, there was nothing to be seen. A moment later it sounded off to the side. Ahead of them. Above. Renna strained her wardsight, but still she could see nothing.

  “All around us,” Arlen said. “Bein’ hunted. Herded.”

  “How can that be?” Jardir asked. “The walls hold them outside the city.”

  The gwil that leapt from a low rooftop, claws swiping at him, gave proof to the falsehood. Even right before her eyes the creature seemed insubstantial. It didn’t roar, nor did the roof creak or shift with its leap. It was silent as a shadow.

  Even taken by surprise, Jardir whipped his spear up in time to block, yet the gwil passed through shaft and wards alike, a creature of smoke.

  But its claws were solid enough. The war dog’s blow slipped his defenses and cut deeply into Jardir’s robes. He staggered, and blood struck the ancient cobbles.

  “They have us surrounded.” Shanjat could have been talking about the weather. All around, Renna could hear the clacking of those hard, obsidian claws. The gwilji were hard to look at directly, but in her peripheral vision, she could glimpse them.

  And they stank. The scent more than anything told her where they were. Dozens of them, stalking like cats in a field.

  Jardir recovered quickly, raising his spear and letting forth a blaze of magic at the creature as it tamped its claws down for another swing. The blast struck the demon center mass, but it passed harmlessly through and the creature leapt again.