The Core

  Their stringy muscles were hard, auras bright with magic.

  Jardir expanded his warding bubble, but the creatures passed harmlessly through the barrier. Likewise, Arlen’s wards of unsight had no effect as the tribe’s fighters stalked in, heading straight for Arlen and Jardir.

  Arlen glanced at his friend’s aura. It was twisted with indecision and guilt. Were these truly the descendants of Kaji’s army, and what did he owe them, if so? Rescue? Death with honor? Or were these creatures forever below Everam’s sight?

  Arlen stepped into the lead position. “Keep your eye on the demon. Got this.”

  “Par’chin…” Jardir’s voice held a warning.

  “Ent gonna kill anyone,” Arlen said. “But ent gonna be pushed around, either. Need to set the tone.”

  “Very well.” Jardir’s aura still churned. He welcomed a few moments to simply observe.

  The biggest core dweller roared a challenge at Arlen, lifting a giant bone club studded with obsidian chips. The auras of the tribe showed this one was their leader, and his aura thrummed with primitive need to establish dominance over newcomers. He thumped his chest.

  Arlen kept his wards dark, thumping his chest in return and stepping forward. The provocation worked, and the leader attacked. He outweighed Arlen, long arms giving him dangerous reach, and his strength and speed were almost a match for Arlen’s.

  Almost. The core dweller’s attack was as crude as his weapon. Arlen easily slipped the blow and struck back, hooking a punch into the dweller’s ribs.

  The punch might have felled a surface man, but the core dweller accepted it with little more than a grunt, backhanding his club Arlen’s way.

  Again Arlen ducked the blow, snaking his forearm around the thick, hairy wrist. He locked the arm, establishing control over the weapon as he drove his knee into the core dweller’s midsection once, twice, a third time.

  The dweller took these blows as well, bending in and biting his shoulder. Arlen screamed and stopped pulling his punches as sharp teeth ripped into his flesh. The core dweller clawed at him with sharp, filthy nails, but Arlen slapped them away. His uppercut cracked the dweller’s jaw. A push-kick sent the brute tumbling back until he hit hard against stone.

  The dweller shook even this damage off, more interested in the taste of the blood in his mouth. He wiped it from his lips, sniffing like an animal. His aura was confused, but he knew the taste of blood. Their crude weapons had never made a demon bleed.

  He held up the hand, yelping, and a shower of arrows came at them. Arlen drew a ward in the air and they were batted away.

  There was a cry from above, and one of the core dwellers dropped at Jardir, spear leading. Instinctively, Jardir dodged the blow and stabbed it in midair, twisting to slam it into the floor.

  Jardir’s aura filled with horror. It was a girl, barely more than a child. He pulled his spear out, meaning to save her, but he had struck true. The girl coughed blood, and her aura snuffed like a candle.

  “Everam’s beard.” Jardir reached out with shaking fingers. “It is true.”

  The dweller girl had overlarge ears and eyes. Long fingers and toes for gripping and searching dark places. But with her aura gone, Arlen could see the distinct Krasian turn to her features.

  The leader was already recovering, his magic strong. He gave a howl that was quickly echoed by his fellows. The entire tribe, males and females, closed in with clubs, spears, and bows.

  Several carried children on their backs, but their eyes were no less cold than the fighters’. One held a suckling babe to her breast with one hand and waved a jagged, obsidian-studded club in the other.

  “Enough!” Jardir boomed, stamping his spear with a thunderclap of magic. His crown flared with power, filling the cavern with light.

  The core dwellers froze, wide eyes squinting tears in the light. They turned back to Jardir, and Arlen tensed.

  “Erram,” the leader grunted, dropping to his knees and putting hands and forehead to the floor in the Krasian fashion.

  “Erram.” The others immediately followed, the entire tribe falling to their hands and knees, chanting the name.

  “Erram?” Arlen asked. “You don’t think…” A glance at their auras killed the words on his lips.

  “They think I am Everam,” Jardir whispered.

  The mind demon hissed in amusement. “This is your faith, Heir. It has always been animals grunting in the dark at what they cannot understand.”

  The females moved in, some carrying children as they moved to sniff at Arlen, still too afraid to approach Jardir. They started purring, and Arlen caught the scent of their arousal. One bent to present her sex to him.

  “Ay, that’s enough!” He let the wards on his skin flare.

  “Erram.” Again the tribe fell to their knees. “Erram. Erram.”

  “Ay, great,” Arlen muttered. “Now we’re both Everam.”

  “Or neither,” Jardir said quietly. Arlen glanced at his aura and began to worry.

  —

  He is the Father of Lies, Jardir reminded himself.

  But what did that mean if the Evejah was just a book?

  War is, at its crux, deception, Dama Khevat taught. A great leader must hold his deceit so close that even he himself does not think on it until the time to strike.

  Yet Abban taught Jardir that the best deceptions were mostly true. The demon was trying to hurt him, yes, but that did not mean it was lying.

  “Erram,” the alamen fae chanted, and Jardir wondered if his primitive ancestors had done the same, making a deity of the sky and spinning tales to comfort themselves in the night.

  Jardir knew to praise Everam before he took his first steps. At times he doubted Inevera’s dice spoke Everam’s will, but he never questioned the existence of the all-powerful Creator. Never doubted He was looking down upon His children from Heaven, guiding their paths and waiting for them at the end of the lonely road.

  Not until Alagai Ka began to whisper his poison.

  But Jardir searched for Heaven when he held the full power of the Spear of Ala, and found nothing.

  “Erram,” the animals chanted.

  “How could Everam allow this, Par’chin?” he asked. “His children, fighting His war, dragged below his sight by the alagai. Abandoned for hundreds of generations, left to live and die as…”

  “…livestock.” The Par’chin shrugged. “Been makin’ this argument with folk since before we met, Ahmann.”

  “And perhaps you are right.” Jardir felt cold as he said the words. Alone and vulnerable as never before.

  The Par’chin looked at him, but there was no satisfaction in his aura, no righteousness. “What does it matter, Ahmann?”

  “How can you ask that?” Jardir said.

  “Does it change the job we gotta do,” the Par’chin asked, “if we’re striking a blow in some cosmic proxy war, or just killin’ a nest of animals that like to eat on us and ours?”

  The words were a lifeline, and Jardir clutched it. “Indeed not.”

  “And that means we got a choice right now,” the Par’chin said.

  “What do you mean?” Jardir asked.

  “Ent got time to save these folk right now,” the Par’chin said. “But we can teach them to save themselves.”

  —

  Arlen pointed to the rocks above, where stone demons were gathering.

  “Shepherds saw the lights and came to check the flock.”

  “We must kill them immediately,” Jardir said. “We cannot let them give word of our passing.”

  Arlen shook his head, studying the auras of the demons. “They can’t see us. Our wards don’t work on the dwellers, but the demons just see a light.”

  He and Jardir both let their wardlight fade, Jardir pulling his bubble tighter around the Par’chin and Alagai Ka.

  Arlen stepped up to the hulking male that led the dweller tribe, reaching out his hand. “Give me your spear.”

  At first the man seemed not to understand, but
Arlen pointed with his other hand to the weapon. “Spear.”

  The chief took a tentative step forward, quickly slapping the weapon into Arlen’s hand and falling back to his knees. The entire tribe watched closely.

  “Piercing ward.” Arlen lifted a glowing finger and drew the symbol in the air. It hung there in silver light. He used his magic to harden a fingernail until it could carve the symbol into the spear’s obsidian tip.

  He fed the ward power and held it up for all to see, the symbol reflected in their great wide eyes. “Piercing ward.”

  Then he turned and launched the spear at one of the small stone demons moving in to investigate the tribe. The weapon blasted through the creature with a flare of magic, sending it tumbling down to land at their feet. Arlen powered the stone ward on his foot, pinning the squirming demon as he pulled the weapon free.

  The ward needed no power from him now, sizzling in the demon’s ichor. Arlen thrust it back into the chief’s hand, then pointed to the demon. “Kill.”

  The core dweller froze. Arlen could see it understood his meaning if not his words, but even this savage brute knew better than to attack a demon. He looked at the creature, writhing under Arlen’s heel.

  Bleeding ichor. The dweller touched the wetness on the tip of the spear, bringing a finger to his mouth.

  “Kill,” Arlen said again, this time in Krasian.

  A wild look came into the core dweller’s eyes then, and he thrust the spear into the demon. The warded obsidian punched through armor once thought impenetrable, and the dweller let out a wild cry as magic shocked up his arms.

  Arlen turned to a female, pointing at the three obsidian-tipped arrows she kept slung over one shoulder. She handed them over, and again Arlen used a nail to ward them in front of her.

  “Piercing ward,” he said again.

  “Peesing wad,” she grunted reverently, watching the lines of silver light he drew on her arrowheads.

  He handed one back to her, and she took his meaning, searching the stones above and spotting another demon. She drew back carefully and fired. The demon yelped and fell from its perch.

  “Peesing wad!” Others stormed forward, holding forth their weapons, chanting the words over and over as Arlen scratched wards into the obsidian, arming them against their gaolers for the first time in millennia.

  “What do you think to accomplish?” the mind demon hissed. “Teaching animals to draw crude wards on rocks will not be enough to defeat the guardians of the hive.”

  Arlen smiled. “Probably not. But it’ll sure get their attention.”

  —

  “Peesing wad!” The crone thrust the spear into the air, and the new tribe roared, raising their own crudely warded weapons into the air.

  “Erram!” they chanted. “Peesing wad!”

  The elder females of the alamen fae spun stories for the tribe like chin Jongleurs, communicating with a mix of pantomime, mimicked sounds, and a broken form of ancient Krasian that Jardir could almost follow.

  With each tribe they met, the number of women spreading the tale of Erram’s coming with the holy wards increased. Already, hundreds of core dwellers had crude wards etched, painted, or carved into their weapons. They were quick to put them to use, growing stronger with every alagai they killed.

  Alagai Ka had gone quiet, displeased at the turn of events, but Jardir still had doubts.

  “They cannot win against the enemy,” Jardir said. “Are we saving the alamen fae, or dooming them?”

  “Core if I know,” the Par’chin said. “Never believed in Heaven, but I always wanted to die with a spear in my hand. Owe them the same. Maybe that’s Everam’s will, maybe it ent.”

  “You used to be certain He did not exist,” Jardir said.

  The Par’chin sighed. “Ent certain of much these days. These folk can help us—keep the hive distracted while we do what we came to. We manage it, and they’ll be better off. We fail, and they’ll likely get et when the laying’s done.”

  Jardir looked at him, and it seemed the gap that had stood between them all these years closed. “Indeed, what does it matter, if Everam is watching or not?”

  “You used to say for certain that He did,” Arlen said. “Were willing to kill me over it.”

  “I am not certain of much, these days,” Jardir echoed the Par’chin’s words. “But I see I have wronged you, my true friend.”

  “Ay, maybe.” The Par’chin turned his eyes away. “Or maybe it’s the other way around. Past is past. Ent worth dwelling on.”

  CHAPTER 41

  LIGHT OF THE MOUNTAINS

  334 AR

  The fires in the duke’s keep were extinguished from within, but the gates did not open with the sun. Mountain Spears manned the flamework weapons atop the walls, firing on any who approached. Warders hung from the wall on slings, altering wards into strange new configurations. Ragen had no doubt that, in the courtyard, a greatward was forming.

  The sewers were infested with corelings, with little the Milnese could do save track their movements. The concentration increased the closer the tunnels came to Euchor’s fortress.

  There were a thousand places Ragen should be, a thousand things he should be doing, but instead he was pacing in a waiting room with a group of men who hated one another.

  Derek and Count Brayan glared daggers at each other over the head of ten-year-old Jef. His fate would be decided today, one way or another, but for his own part the boy didn’t seem to want to go with either of them.

  Brayan waited with his and Euchor’s grandson, Princess Hypatia’s son Toma. Tender Ronnell watched over young Symon, Princess Aelia’s eldest. Barely in their teens, the boys were known troublemakers, but now they sat soberly staring at the carpet.

  All around the room, Royals of sufficient blood waited with quiet dread. This was a day they’d all dreamed of, now become nightmare.

  “What is taking so corespawned long?” Ragen smacked his open palm with a fist. “I’ve got more important things to do than stand around while they deliberate.”

  “Arrogant,” Count Brayan’s lip curled. “You think you’ve already won.”

  “I don’t care who wins,” Ragen said. “What does a vote of the Mothers’ Council matter when there’s a gateway to the Core like an open wound at the center of Miln?”

  The door to the chamber opened. Keerin kept his gaze on the floor, refusing to meet Ragen’s eyes. “They will see you now, my lords.”

  Inside, Mother Jone held the council floor. She’d never liked Ragen, and the feeling was mutual. Hypatia and Aelia glowered from where they stood with a blank-faced Mother Cera. Elissa rested upon a stool next to her mother’s wheeled chair, her face like porcelain.

  Half of Tresha’s body was lifeless, leaning heavily against the side of her wheeled chair. The other half looked positively smug.

  “The council has reached a decision,” Jone announced. “Ragen Messenger will be the next Duke of Miln.”

  —

  “Ragen the First, Duke of Morning, Light of the Mountains, Guardian of Miln.”

  Thousands had gathered for the ceremony, filling the Cathedral and spilling out down the hill. There were somber faces, many filthy, most fearful, holding their breath as the words were spoken.

  Derek was conspicuously absent.

  Ragen knelt as Tender Ronnell set the crown on his brow. Ragen’s own Warders made the piece, a custom helm of warded glass with two simple points at the temples, symbolizing the twin mountains of Miln.

  A second crown was brought forth, this a narrow, warded circlet. Unable to kneel, Elissa kept her seat as the Librarian set it on her brow. “Mother Elissa, Duchess of Morning, Light of the Mountains, Chamberlain of Miln.”

  “Creator save the Duke and Duchess of Morning!” someone cried, and the somber crowd erupted in thunderous applause. The sound rolled through the pews and out the door, continuing through those gathered in the streets.

  Ragen rose to his feet, giving the crowd this moment of hope, but
every second worked against them.

  “Brothers and sisters of Miln.” The Cathedral acoustics took his words and reflected them clearly through the din of the crowd. The folk fell silent again, hanging on his words.

  “For over three hundred years, Fort Miln has stood as the greatest of the Free Cities. Our walls were strong and so, too, was our resolve to protect our Library, the greatest collection of human knowledge since the Return. Miln is the light that keeps humanity from slipping back into the Dark Ages.

  “But that light is fading. A black heart of evil grows at the center of Miln, pumping demons like infection into the veins of our city. If we are to survive, it must be lanced and purged. We cannot—must not—let our light go out.”

  Elissa raised her voice to join his. “Until the danger is past, no longer will the safe succor of the Guardians and the Library campus be denied to those in need. The young, the old, the infirm, and their caregivers are welcome to shelter in the Cathedral, where the Creator Himself may watch over them behind mighty church wards.”

  “But those of you who can wield a spear,” Ragen said, “or simply hold a crank bow steady, if you can play an instrument, or sing, or draw wards with an even hand, Miln needs you, if we are to see morning.”

  Ragen saw fear in many eyes, and he raised his hands for silence. “I will not command you to fight from atop a throne. I will not watch from on high as others die in my name.” He lifted his spear. “I will fight to keep Miln alive, but I cannot prevail alone.”

  Ragen set the butt of his spear on the dais and got down on one knee. “And so I beg you to join me, for only together do we have a chance.”

  There was a pause, every second seeming to stretch into minutes. Ragen realized he was holding his breath.

  Then a man cried, “Ay, we’re with you!” Others, scattered through the Cathedral, shouted agreement.

  Ragen rose to his feet. “Will you stand for Miln?”

  The ays came faster this time, along with cheers and a stomping of feet.

  Ragen thrust his spear into the air, voice booming. “Will you stand for one another?”