The Core (The Demon Cycle, Book 5)

by Peter V. Brett

  Stela lashed out at him. The magic made her fast, but Briar had tasted it, too. He took a quick step back, avoiding the slap.

  ‘So what, you’re just gonna walk away?!’ Stela demanded. ‘No one walks away from Stela Cutter, you quickshooting little stinker, least of all you.’

  She snatched at him, and Briar batted her arm aside with his right hand. There was a flare of power as the impact ward struck, throwing her off her feet.

  Briar looked at her in horror. Stela wasn’t a demon, but covered in ichor, the wards reacted as if she were. He could still taste it in his mouth, and spat.

  Then he turned and ran into the night.

  Briar returned to Mistress Leesha’s keep, slipping unseen past the night guards and into her private garden. If Stela or the other Painted Children were hunting for him, this was the last place they would think to look.

  The hogroot patch looked inviting, but sleep was far from Briar’s thoughts. Just the opposite, his limbs shook with unreleased energy.

  So he paced until he knew the garden intimately. There were three entrances – two grand and inviting, and one carefully hidden against one of the manse walls, obscured by flora.

  Briar dug a small burrow in the hogroot for future use. He practised sharusahk. Anything to keep his thoughts from drifting back to Stela Cutter.

  Leesha had shown an affinity for Duchess Araine’s gardens, walking the rows at least twice a day. Sure enough, while the sky was still brightening, the hidden door opened and the mistress slipped out among the herbs.

  When he was certain she was alone, Briar stepped out to face her. ‘They’re dangerous.’

  Leesha’s hand snapped into one of the many pockets of her dress, but then recognition caught up. ‘Night, Briar! One of these days you’re going to end up with a faceful of blinding powder.’

  Briar nodded at the distance between them. ‘Can’t throw powder that far.’

  Leesha tsked. ‘Are you all right, Briar?’

  He didn’t know how to answer. He’d washed every inch of himself, but still he felt the ichor on his skin, tasted it in his mouth. Stela’s scratches had already healed, but he could still feel them itch.

  ‘Who’s dangerous, Briar?’ Leesha asked.

  ‘The Children,’ Briar said. ‘Ent fighting to keep the wood safe. Fighting because it feels good to fight. Magic makes us feel unbeatable.’

  ‘Us?’ Leesha asked. She stepped close, taking one of his hands and turning it over. She gasped at the ward there.

  Briar pulled his hand away. ‘Thought they were like me. Ent. Ent like me at all.’

  ‘Briar, what’s happened?’ Leesha asked.

  ‘Ate a coreling’s heart tonight,’ Briar said. ‘Made’m … drunk. Wild. Only going to get worse.’

  Leesha looked taken aback. ‘Idiot girl,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Told us himself! Said he ate them.’ She growled, clenching her fists.

  ‘Ay?’ Briar asked, confused.

  ‘The tattoos are only half the reason Arlen Bales can ripping fly,’ Leesha said. ‘It’s the corespawned meat!’

  Briar looked at her dumbly, having no idea what she meant. After a moment she collected herself, looking back at him. ‘I need you to go back, Briar. I need you to convince them to meet with me.’

  Briar shook his head. ‘Ent going back. Not now, not ever. Going home.’

  ‘Home?’ Leesha asked. ‘Elissa and Ragen won’t head north for weeks yet.’

  ‘Not north,’ Briar said. ‘Home. Lakton.’

  6

  Everam Is a Lie

  334 AR

  Renna gritted her teeth, watching as Shanvah spoon-fed a thin gruel to her father. Shanjat swallowed mechanically, eyes straight ahead, staring at nothing. His aura was bright with life but flat and unmoving. Auras showed emotions, but Shanjat had none to show.

  The sight sickened her. Two days ago, Shanjat had been a powerful man in the prime of his life. A better fighter by far than Renna. Now he had all the will of Renna’s old milking cow. He could walk a path if led, squat in the privy and wipe himself when told, even spoon his own gruel if it was placed before him. But if left to his own devices, he would stand in his stall staring at nothing until he dropped.

  It didn’t help that Arlen and Jardir were shouting at each other on the tower’s next level. In some ways, that was the worst of it. Shanvah, usually so calm and detached, was weeping openly, and flinched at every angry sound from above.

  ‘Be strong,’ Renna said. ‘They’ll find a way to bring your da back to us.’

  ‘Will they?’ Shanvah asked, using the edge of the spoon to scrape a dribble of drool from her father’s lip. She kissed his cheek and moved away, Renna following.

  ‘Not all will make it to the end of Sharak Ka,’ Shanvah’s voice was low, ‘if indeed any do. It is an honour to die on alagai talons. But this …’ she gestured to her father, staring at nothing, ‘… half life? Alagai Ka made a mocking shell of my father to whisper his evils. If the Deliverer cannot restore him, I will kill him myself.’

  Renna’s throat was heavy, and she found herself blinking back tears of her own. She and Shanvah were hardly friends, but that no longer mattered. The Krasians believed that all who shed blood together against the night were family, and for better or worse that was what they were now.

  Shanvah was watching her, eyes daring Renna to argue. ‘Time comes,’ Renna said, ‘I’ll be there to catch your tears.’

  Shanvah wept anew, throwing her arms about Renna. Renna fought the instinct to pull away, holding the girl tight and patting her back.

  When she was finished, Shanvah pulled back, sniffling as she undid her scarf and moved to the basin to wash. When she looked up at her reflection in the silvered mirror, there was grim determination on her face.

  She turned to Renna, producing a small, sharp knife. ‘I won’t share my father’s fate.’

  Renna eyed the blade warily. ‘Don’t know yet that they can’t save him, Shan. Ent time yet.’

  ‘It is not for him.’ Shanvah flipped the knife in nimble fingers, handing it to Renna hilt-first. ‘It is for me. I want you to cut mind wards into my forehead.’

  Renna shook her head. ‘I can paint them with blackstem …’

  ‘Blackstem fades,’ Shanvah said. ‘And our supply may dwindle as we walk the road to the abyss. You heard the father of demons. The journey is long, and you are mortal. The time will come when your guard grows lax, and then I will be free.’

  Renna blinked. ‘Ay, you may be right about that. We can tattoo …’

  Shanvah shook her head. ‘The Evejah commands we not profane our bodies with permanent ink. I will follow the example set down by the Shar’Dama Ka.’

  Renna looked at her, seeing the strength and determination in the girl’s aura. ‘Ay, all right.’ She took the knife, laying Shanvah on her back. ‘Need something to bite on?’

  Shanvah shook her head. ‘Pain is only wind.’

  ‘Ent no choice but to stick to the plan,’ the Par’chin said.

  Jardir looked at him incredulously. ‘Of course there is a choice, Par’chin. There is always a choice. You had a choice when you broke into Sharik Hora and started us on this path, and there is a choice now. Do not let the honeyed words of Alagai Ka blind you. The very fact that he endorses your mad plan is reason to reconsider. He seeks to lure us into forgetting our true responsibility.’

  ‘And that is?’ the Par’chin asked.

  ‘To lead our people in Sharak Ka, vanguard in the battle between Everam and Nie.’

  ‘Night.’ The Par’chin rolled his eyes. ‘You still spouting that nonsense? Everam is a lie, Ahmann. Nie is a lie. Demon said it himself. Fiction to keep folk from fearin’ the dark.’

  The blasphemy no longer surprised him, but still Jardir marvelled at how stubborn the Par’chin could be. ‘How can you say that after all we have seen, Par’chin? How many prophecies must come true before you begin to have faith?’

  The Par’chin closed his eyes.
‘I can see the future now. The sun will … rise tomorrow.’ He smirked as he opened his eyes. ‘Gonna think I speak to the Creator when that comes true?’

  ‘You were not so insolent when I was your ajin’pal,’ Jardir said. ‘Mocking what you do not understand.’

  ‘Ent,’ the Par’chin said. ‘Mocking stories you make up to explain what we both don’t understand. We’re cattle to these things, Ahmann. Sharak Ka means no more to them than a bull stirring up the cows, and we’ve started a stampede. It will happen now whether we’re there or not. I trust my people to stand against the night. Do you?’

  ‘My people stood in the night long before yours, Par’chin,’ Jardir reminded him.

  ‘Then let them!’ the Par’chin cried. ‘While they hold the surface, we have this one chance to take it downstairs.’

  ‘To Nie’s abyss,’ Jardir said. ‘Yet you deny Kaji’s divine instruction, set down in the Evejah …’

  ‘The Evejah is a book,’ the Par’chin said. ‘A book that’s been rewritten over the years, and never had the whole story anyway.’

  ‘And how do you know this story, Par’chin?’ Jardir asked. ‘How do you, an infidel, know more of Kaji than his sacred order of scholars?’

  ‘The dama are political creatures,’ the Par’chin said. ‘Corrupt. Said it yourself. That’s why you cast the Andrah from his throne. The Evejah bends to suit their will, selectively enforced. The real version is painted on the walls of Anoch Sun. Or was, till your diggers knocked most of them down.’

  Jardir crossed his arms. ‘So we should put our faith in the Father of Lies, instead?’

  The Par’chin laughed. ‘Don’t trust that demon farther than the reach of our spears. But I had a look in the head of the mind demon it sent to kill me. With both sides of the story, it’s easier to tell fact from fiction.’

  ‘So what truly transpired, three thousand years ago?’ Jardir asked. ‘What great secret have the dama hidden?’

  ‘That Kaji failed,’ the Par’chin said. ‘Din’t make it all the way. Din’t get to the queen. We wouldn’t be in this fix if he had.’

  ‘He gave us millennia of peace,’ Jardir said. ‘And it was only when we forgot his teachings that the alagai returned. Did Kaji fail us, or did we fail him?’

  The Par’chin rubbed his face in frustration. ‘What does it matter? Creator or no, a hatching is coming up. We either let it happen and lead our armies against hives popping up all over our lands, or we try to stop it and maybe, just maybe, accomplish what Kaji never could.’

  Jardir scowled. ‘You think we can control Alagai Ka?’

  The Par’chin shrugged. ‘Gonna need to talk to it again.’

  ‘How?’ Jardir asked. ‘With its flesh warded, Alagai Ka cannot touch Shanjat’s mind, and without him it cannot speak.’

  ‘Wards keep it from striking at a distance,’ the Par’chin said, ‘but it can still enter an unwarded mind if it makes physical contact.’

  ‘So you wish to deliver my kai to Alagai Ka’s talons once more,’ Jardir said. ‘To make him a puppet to spread the prince of demons’ lies. A weapon to use against us.’

  ‘What choice we got?’ the Par’chin asked.

  Jardir had no answer.

  Renna held Shanvah’s face with her left hand as she worked. The knife was steady in her right, cutting flesh away from the girl’s forehead in ribbons, ensuring a keloid scar that would Draw and hold a charge.

  She let magic flow through both hands, activating the cutting wards on the already razor-sharp blade, and speeding the healing. Scabs formed in seconds in the blade’s wake.

  Shanvah did not flinch at the cuts, but there was fear in her aura.

  ‘Nothing to worry over,’ Renna said. ‘Know what I’m doing. Still be pretty when I’m done.’

  ‘The scars of alagai’sharak are an honour to carry,’ Shanvah said.

  ‘Then what’s got you tenser than a pig at the chopping block?’ Renna asked.

  Shanvah’s eyes flicked to the stairs. ‘They’ve gone quiet.’

  Renna paused in her work, realizing for the first time that the shouting from above had stopped. In her concentration she hadn’t noticed.

  ‘I thought nothing could be worse than the sound of my uncle and the Par’chin shouting,’ Shanvah said.

  ‘But ’least we knew they wern’t choking each other,’ Renna agreed. ‘Gotta hold faith they were gonna do that, they’da done it months ago.’

  ‘Our faith is tested daily, with Sharak Ka approaching.’ Shanvah relaxed, aura cooling with acceptance.

  ‘There,’ Renna said, making the last cut. She looked at the ward this way and that, paring away a last bit of flesh before she set the knife aside.

  ‘How does it—’ Shanvah began, but her words were cut off with a gasp, her eyes widening. Renna turned to see Arlen and Jardir descending the stairs.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Jardir demanded.

  Shanvah scissored her legs for momentum, rolling off her back into a kneeling position facing Jardir. She put her hands on the floor and pressed her face between them, the scabs on her forehead touching the wood. ‘Mercy, Deliverer! The daughter of Harl wards me at my request.’

  Jardir reached down, putting a finger under the girl’s chin to tilt her face upward. ‘Your mother used to brag of your beauty, and the ease with which she could find you a husband.’

  ‘No doubt a husband for the Deliverer’s niece would be easy enough to find, beauty or no,’ Shanvah said. ‘But there will be no husbands in the abyss. No beauty. There will only be alagai, and sharak.’

  Jardir nodded. ‘You are as wise as you are brave, niece. Your honour is boundless.’

  Shanvah gave no outward sign, but her aura lit with pride at the words. ‘May I ward my father next?’

  Jardir shook his head. ‘I fear we will need him again. We have more questions for the Prince of Lies.’

  The pure gold that had been Shanvah’s aura again became a swirling mix of colours – anger, frustration, humiliation. They all saw it, but she kept her composure, flicking her gaze back down.

  ‘Speak,’ Jardir commanded. ‘I can see the question in your heart, and we cannot afford to let it fester.’

  ‘Is my father’s shame not great enough,’ Shanvah asked, ‘left trapped in a body without will? Must we permit Alagai Ka to violate him further? My father’s honour was boundless. I beg you, if he cannot be healed, let me send him on the lonely path.’

  ‘Not all warriors get the fortune of a quick death on alagai talons, niece,’ Jardir said. ‘Heroes beyond count, great men like Drillmaster Qeran, who trained your father, have lived on with injuries they believed would forever put them from alagai’sharak. We must honour these men no less for their service to Everam than those that walk the lonely path.’

  Shanvah shifted. ‘By your own words, Deliverer, those crippled in battle are put from alagai’sharak. You send my crippled father back into battle.’

  ‘It is not without precedent,’ Jardir said. ‘Countless crippled warriors have volunteered as Baiters in the Maze, dying in glory as they led the demons to their doom.’

  ‘Of course your words are true, Deliverer,’ Shanvah pressed, ‘but my father has no will to volunteer. I cannot believe he would have wanted this … abomination.’

  Renna saw growing frustration in Jardir’s aura. He was not used to being questioned by any of his people, especially one who had barely seen eighteen summers. But he breathed, and his aura cleansed again. Arlen had tried to teach Renna the trick, but it never worked for her.

  ‘You do your family honour, Shanvah vah Shanjat,’ Jardir said. ‘But I knew your father better than you. We fought in the nie’Sharum food lines and bled together in the Maze. Such was his honour and loyalty that I gave him my own sister, your honoured mother, as his First Wife.’

  He gestured with the Spear of Kaji, always in his hand, and the weight of it washed over Shanvah’s aura. ‘I tell you here with Everam my witness, if I told Shanjat asu Cavel am
’Damaj am’Kaji that to win Sharak Ka I needed him to be the voice of evil, he would not refuse me.’

  Shanvah put her face back to the floor, weeping openly. ‘Of course the Shar’Dama Ka is correct. My father’s honour was boundless, and I shame him with my doubts. I will not question you again, Deliverer, and should you require any sacrifice of me, know that my spirit will always be willing to serve you in Sharak Ka.’

  ‘I never doubted it, niece,’ Jardir said.

  ‘It may be that Alagai Ka sends my father against you, as he did last night,’ Shanvah said. ‘I beg your permission to stand guard when the Prince of Waning touches him. If my father must be put down, it should be I who does it.’

  She looked up, surprised to see Jardir bow in return. ‘Of course. I have never met a warrior, Shanvah vah Shanjat am’Damaj am’Kaji, who carried greater honour than you. Your father’s spirit sings with pride. When he is at last untethered and walks the lonely path, his steps will be lighter knowing he has left a worthy successor to carry on his blood.’

  The words cleansed Shanvah’s aura once more, washing away the swirling colours with a pure white light.

  Shanjat’s hands and feet were manacled. A short chain between them would allow him to sit but not to stand. The Par’chin warded the bindings himself, and Jardir could see the power in them.

  If the kai’Sharum felt any discomfort at being so bound, he gave no sign as Jardir carried him like a child up the steps to Alagai Ka’s prison. But for his breathing Shanjat might have been dead, eyes staring blankly.

  The demon looked up as they entered, tilting its head as Jardir crossed the wards, Shanvah covering his every step with her spear. He laid Shanjat in the centre of the room, then retreated outside the circles that held the demon prisoner.

  But the demon did not move toward Shanjat, simply watching them with huge, inhuman eyes. Jardir could see the endless dark of Nie in those black pools, thoughts unknowable.

  The Par’chin and his jiwah pulled open the heavy curtains. Night had fallen, but it was not the dark of Waning. Moonlight streamed through the windows and Alagai Ka hissed, scrambling to the centre of the room.