The Core (The Demon Cycle, Book 5)

by Peter V. Brett

  Inevera’s gasp was nearly lost in the rush of wind in his ear. At the sound of her voice, he had instinctively put on speed, desperate to have her in his arms once more.

  ‘You could not allow that,’ she guessed.

  ‘No,’ Jardir agreed. ‘And yes. Knowing where the alagai princes would strike, this once, forged an alliance that might have been impossible otherwise. The Par’chin and I travelled to Anoch Sun together, and were waiting when they came to the resting place of Kaji.’

  ‘What happened?’ Inevera asked.

  ‘I cannot speak of it until we are together, safe within the protection of the crown,’ Jardir said. ‘Tell me of you. The months of my absence must have been difficult, but there is no one in all Ala more able to bear such burden. Are you well?’

  ‘My heart was broken, but I remain unbent.’ Jardir breathed in relief at Inevera’s words.

  ‘Your glory is boundless,’ Jardir said. ‘Did you put Ashan on the throne?’

  There was a long pause. Enough that Jardir sent a touch of magic through the earring to assure himself the circuit remained.

  ‘Wife?’

  ‘Perhaps that is best spoken of when we are together as well,’ Inevera said at last.

  Inevera was waiting on the rooftop when Jardir soared to his palace atop the great hill at the centre of Everam’s Bounty. Diaphanous red robes billowed in the night air, illuminated by the glow of her jewellery. He could see the curves of her body silhouetted in the silk, leaving little to the imagination.

  He’d hated those scandalous robes once, a reminder that his power over his First Wife was by no means absolute. But now, after months apart, all he could think about was her beauty. He inhaled, tasting her perfume on the night air, and felt himself stiffen.

  She fell into his arms as he landed, and he crushed her to him. Her body was soft against his, but there was strength as well. He knew how hard her muscles could be when taut. There was so much to say, but he pushed the thoughts aside for a moment, putting his nose into her oiled hair and relishing the scent of her.

  They drew apart just enough to press their mouths together hungrily. Jardir felt his heart pounding and pulled back. With a thought, he cast a sphere of silence around them with the powers of the crown.

  ‘The Majah fill the roads,’ he said. ‘What …?’

  ‘Later,’ Inevera said, pressing her soft lips against his as she pulled at his belt.

  ‘Here?’ he asked. ‘Now?’

  She pulled his belt sash away with a snap. ‘I will not wait an instant longer.’ She pulled Mistress Leesha’s Cloak of Unsight from his shoulders, casting it to the roof like a blanket in the sand.

  With a growl, he took her by the waist and kicked her feet from under her. She did not resist as he guided her to lie on the cloak, ripping at her silks when they did not pull away easily enough. She was shaved and oiled, her sex slick as he thrust into her.

  There were no dama’ting tricks to their coupling, no pillow dancing or seven strokes. It was fierce, animal passion, venting months of frustration. Biting and bucking, scratching and slapping, communicating needs and desires with growls and shoves. Jardir knew his return should be secret, but in the moment there was nothing but Inevera, his First Wife, and passion ruled.

  When it was over, they lay sweating in the cold night air, curled together in a nest of torn clothes. Jardir kept his eyes on her face, drinking it like a man dying of thirst. He brushed his fingers against her cheek and down her ear, feeling the connections of each earring as he did. His other wives. His nieces. Now that he understood their power, he could not believe he had not sensed it before.

  ‘I should be angry at you for keeping the earrings a secret,’ he said.

  Inevera smiled. ‘It is the duty of a First Wife to watch over her husband. Had you known, you would have found a way to silence what you did not wish me to hear.’

  ‘Like my time in the pillows with Leesha Paper,’ Jardir said.

  Inevera kept her composure, but she could not hide the feelings in her aura. He peered into her soul, seeing the pain there.

  ‘You listened to every moment,’ he said.

  ‘How could I not?’ Inevera said. ‘I was losing you to that …’

  Jardir took her face in both hands, kissing her again. ‘Never, beloved. We are bound, in this life and the next. I understand now why you lay with the Andrah. I forgive you, though you need no forgiveness for putting Sharak Ka above all else.’

  Inevera sobbed, and he held her to him. ‘I need you, wife. Now like never before, we must be united. No more secrets. No more lies and half-truths. All Ala hangs in the balance, and there is none I trust more than you.’

  She kissed him, pulling back to meet his eyes. ‘I understand why you lay with Leesha Paper. I forgive you, though you need no forgiveness for putting Sharak Ka above all else. I am yours as you are mine. The dice foretold that your return would herald Sharak Ka, and we will weather it as one mind and one heart. No more secrets. No more lies and half-truths. I swear it before Everam on my hope of Heaven.’

  She reached out, touching the ring on his ear. ‘Why wasn’t I able to hear you after you fell?’

  ‘The Par’chin saw the connection in the earrings before I did,’ Jardir said. ‘He blocked their power, and we were soon out of range.’

  ‘The Par’chin,’ Inevera spat. ‘I should have killed him when I had the chance.’

  Jardir shook his head. ‘And perhaps doomed Ala. It was he who taught me to use the Crown of Kaji to boost the signal and contact you from hundreds of miles distant.’

  Inevera’s eyes widened. ‘You can do that?’

  Jardir nodded. ‘A simple matter. I can teach you to do it as well. The Par’chin taught me much while he held me prisoner.’

  ‘Prisoner?’ Inevera growled. ‘He dared …?’

  Jardir held up a hand. ‘Peace, wife. The son of Jeph did what he must to gain advantage in Sharak Ka. As you have always done.’

  ‘I do not believe that,’ Inevera said.

  Jardir took her gently by the arms, looking into her eyes. ‘Look into my soul, jiwah. If you believe nothing else, believe me when I tell you the Par’chin looks to nothing more than Sharak Ka. I would have killed him in Domin Sharum, but that was never his intent. He had greater plans. Glorious plans.’

  ‘Attacking Nie’s princelings in Anoch Sun,’ Inevera said.

  Jardir smiled. ‘Oh, jiwah. That is only the beginning.’

  ‘Damajah,’ Micha said, as Inevera opened the door to the rooftop stair. ‘Your robes …’

  Indeed, they were torn, but holding her top closed with a fist did nothing to lessen Inevera’s regal bearing, her air of command. ‘It is nothing. Clear the path to my chambers.’

  ‘Yes, Damajah,’ Micha said. Jardir was proud to see his daughter moving with easy grace in her Sharum’ting blacks, but he kept Leesha’s Cloak of Unsight about him, boosting its power with his own. Micha, and his other warrior daughter, Jarvah – who fell in behind them as they descended into the halls – did not see him as he followed Inevera to their private chambers.

  ‘See to it I am not disturbed,’ Inevera told them, closing and locking the chamber doors, activating a wardnet that would stop an army – human or alagai.

  She turned, embracing Jardir once more. ‘Alone again. We will have complete privacy until we decide how best to announce your return.’

  Jardir sighed. ‘I am afraid that is premature, beloved. I cannot reclaim the Skull Throne yet. Perhaps not ever. None save you must know I have returned, and I must leave before dawn’s light binds me to Ala.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Inevera said. ‘You have only just returned.’

  ‘Nevertheless, it is so.’

  ‘You do not understand,’ Inevera said. ‘So much has happened.’

  ‘Whatever it is, it pales against the path before me,’ Jardir said. ‘The weight of Sharak Ka is upon us.’

  Inevera breathed, her aura growing calm as she reached out
, taking his hands. ‘Ashan is dead.’

  Jardir blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘And Jayan,’ Inevera went on, clutching his hands tight at the name of their firstborn. ‘The entire council of Damaji as well, and your son Maji. All murdered in the night by Asome in his ascent to the Skull Throne.’

  Jardir opened his mouth, but no words came out. Any of those deaths would have been a blow. Together, it was stunning. He embraced it all, squeezing Inevera’s hands in return. ‘Tell me everything.’

  He listened in disbelief as Inevera related the events in Krasia since his disappearance. He knew his coalition of tribes was fragile, but never dreamed it would dissolve so quickly without his unifying hand.

  ‘It was a mistake to make Asukaji heir to the Kaji,’ Jardir said. ‘It left Asome with no path save to reach higher.’

  Inevera shook her head. ‘It was the right decision, husband. You could not have known he would hold such murder in his heart.’

  ‘To use hora in the night to take the throne,’ Jardir clenched his fist, ‘he dishonours everything we stand for.’

  ‘At the cost of one of our most powerful tribes,’ Inevera said. ‘But now, with you returned, perhaps the Majah can be brought back.’

  Jardir shook his head. ‘I cannot bring them back without revealing myself, beloved, and that I cannot do.’

  ‘Why not?’ Inevera demanded. ‘What could possibly be more important than keeping your forces together with Sharak Ka approaching?’

  ‘Sharak Ka is not approaching, beloved,’ Jardir said. ‘It is here. Now. Already the alagai are massing, establishing hives all over the green lands. I must go to the source and stop them.’

  Inevera looked at him, incredulous. ‘You cannot mean Nie’s abyss?’

  Jardir nodded. ‘It was not to stop the alagai from desecrating our ancestors that we travelled to Anoch Sun. Indeed, we let it happen.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We went to capture Alagai Ka,’ Jardir said. ‘And, beloved, we were victorious!’

  ‘Impossible,’ Inevera said.

  ‘Nearly,’ Jardir said. ‘Our combined power, along with that of the Par’chin’s Jiwah Ka, Shanjat, and Shanvah, was barely enough.’

  ‘Shanjat and Shanvah found you?’ Inevera asked.

  ‘Indeed,’ Jardir said. ‘Thank you, beloved, for sending them. If not for them, we might not have succeeded. Their honour is boundless. Shanvah now claims an alagai prince among her kills.’

  ‘And Shanjat?’

  Jardir sighed, telling her of Alagai Ka’s attempted escape, and the crushing of their brother-in-law’s mind. He related the interrogation, and the Par’chin’s plan.

  ‘Madness,’ Inevera said.

  ‘Beautiful madness,’ Jardir said. ‘Glorious madness. Madness worthy of Kaji himself. It is a bold plan, but it strikes at the very heart of Nie.’

  ‘You will take the Prince of Lies at his word?’ Inevera demanded. ‘Everam’s balls, husband, are you such a fool?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Jardir rolled his sleeve, exposing his forearm. ‘It is a gamble with all Ala in the wager.’ He held out the arm, streaked with countless scars from Inevera’s curved blade. ‘I travelled all the way back to Everam’s Bounty that the Damajah could cast the bones against its success.’

  Jardir resisted the urge to scratch at his arm as he healed Inevera’s latest cut. She seemed determined to drain him of blood as well as seed, casting the bones again and again, seeking answers. The cuts were superficial, easily healed now that the Par’chin had taught him the knack, but the skin itched as it knit back together. For some reason, that was harder to erase than pain.

  ‘What do you see?’ he asked when he could take it no more.

  ‘Death,’ Inevera said, still staring at the dice, her face illuminated in their eerie red glow. ‘Divergences. Deception.’

  ‘These words are not helpful, beloved,’ Jardir said. ‘Does the Par’chin’s plan have a hope of success?’

  ‘Scant,’ Inevera said. ‘But you must go, nevertheless.’

  The words surprised him. He thought she would say anything to keep him in Krasia.

  Ah, beloved, he thought. Again, I underestimate you.

  ‘There are futures where all of you die in the abyss, far from your goal,’ Inevera went on. ‘Others where you find Alagai’ting Ka, only to be overwhelmed. Some where you arrive too late, and the laying is done.’

  ‘But success is possible.’ Jardir clenched a fist.

  ‘Possible, as finding a particular grain of sand in the desert is possible,’ Inevera said. ‘And even in that infinitesimal possibility, you will not all survive.’

  ‘Irrelevant,’ Jardir said. ‘Our lives are nothing against this cause.’

  ‘Do not be so quick to martyr yourself,’ Inevera said. ‘You must be vigilant. I see treachery at every turn.’

  ‘But I must go?’ Jardir asked.

  Inevera nodded. ‘If you do not … you doom us all. The Par’chin has freed a river, and it will not stop until it reaches the sea.’

  Jardir reached into a special pocket in his robes, withdrawing four vials and laying them on a pillow before her. They were filled with a deep red liquid, clinging to the glass. ‘Blood from the Par’chin, his jiwah, Shanvah, and Shanjat.’

  Inevera reached eagerly to snatch them up. ‘Bless you, husband.’

  Jardir reached into his robe, producing a fifth vial. Unlike the others, the liquid inside was black as tar.

  Inevera’s eyes flared, her aura going cold. ‘Is that …?’

  ‘Ichor,’ Jardir confirmed, ‘taken forcibly from Alagai Ka.’

  Inevera’s hand shook just a little as she took the last vial. ‘I will need time, to prepare the dice for new castings, and to formulate questions.’

  Jardir nodded. ‘There are matters I must attend in the meantime.’

  ‘I believe I should go with you when the time comes,’ Inevera said. ‘Like the Par’chin’s jiwah.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Jardir said, perhaps too quickly. Inevera’s eyebrows narrowed. ‘Krasia needs you now more than ever.’ It was truth, though perhaps not the whole truth, and no doubt Inevera saw it. ‘The forces of Nie mount, and it will be up to you to keep our people unified for the fight. I have never been the politician you are.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Inevera said. ‘I will cast on it. But if my presence adds a single divergence where you find victory …’

  ‘Then we will consider it against the divergences where we return victorious to find our people slaughtered for lack of leadership,’ Jardir said.

  Inevera clutched the vials to her and nodded sadly. Then she laid them aside, going to a polished wooden box and returning with a needle and tube. ‘I will need more blood. For now, and for when you are gone.’

  Instinctively, Jardir scratched at his arm.

  She took him again when the bloodletting was done. Unlike the rutting under the stars, this was gentle lovemaking in the silk pillows they had shared for years as man and wife. She began by pillow dancing for him, slipping away her scarves until she was clad in nothing but her jewels, then took kanis oil and performed on his spear all seven sacred strokes laid down in the Evejah’ting.

  Only then did she sheathe his spear, bouncing to an ancient rhythm and bringing them both in sight of Heaven before drifting back to Ala.

  Jardir’s stomach growled as they lay entwined in the perfumed pillows. ‘I can heal the cuts, beloved, but the magic cannot make flesh and blood from nothing.’

  Inevera nodded. ‘Of course. But while magic cannot make flesh and blood from nothing, it can make food and drink from anything.’

  ‘Eh?’ Jardir asked.

  ‘One of the first spells a dama’ting must master before taking the robe,’ Inevera said. ‘One that will be invaluable on your quest.’

  She went to a great clay urn, scooping fine white sand into two large bowls. Smoothing the surface, she drew wards in the sand with one of her manicured nails, a complex net that Jard
ir watched closely.

  A moment later one bowl was filled with clear, cold water, the other with steaming couscous. Jardir took a bite, eyes widening. ‘I have never tasted anything so …’

  ‘Perfect,’ Inevera said. ‘If drawn incorrectly, the food and drink are poison, but done properly they are sustenance as pure as Everam’s light.’

  Indeed, famished a moment ago, a single bite and a swig of water left him satisfied. ‘The Par’chin says the path to the abyss may take us weeks to traverse. I feared we would have to carry supply for the entire journey.’

  Inevera shook her head. ‘With Everam’s blessing, all things are possible. Now come and strip away those shameful robes. If you go to the abyss, it must be done in raiment befitting Shar’Dama Ka, to cast fear into the hearts of Nie’s servants.’

  Jardir looked down, having forgotten the khaffit tan the Par’chin clothed him in during his imprisonment. It was an attempt to humble him – perhaps deserved – but there was no need for it any longer.

  And there were other reasons to don his true robes.

  Jardir put his hand against the Vault door, feeling the bracelet Inevera had given him warm. The great door, several tons of raw stone reinforced with wards drawn in electrum, swung open with just that touch, silent as a tomb. The hall before him was bathed in wardlight, barren save for the symbols etched onto the walls.

  Jardir wrapped his Cloak of Unsight about himself as the door closed behind him and moved quickly down the tunnel until it branched. There was a guard outside the door he sought, a tongueless eunuch in Sharum’s black, wrists and ankles shackled in gold. The eunuch guards were masters of dama’ting sharusahk, quick and deadly.

  Jardir traced a series of wards in the air with a finger, powering them with the crown. In moments the eunuch’s eyes began to droop. He fought valiantly, shaking his head to clear it, but the power could not be denied. He put his back to the wall, bracing himself with his spear, and fell asleep on his feet.

  Jardir used his crownsight, peering through the heavy wooden door like a pane of glass. His mother was awake within, lecturing her daughters-in-law, Jardir’s wives Everalia and Thalaja, as they dressed her hair. The chamber was richly appointed, but a prison still.