The Core

by Peter V. Brett

  Shanjat looked up, eyes bright and alive once more. He turned to Shanvah, lip curling. “Everam curse me, to have sired such a pathetic excuse for a daughter. It would have been better for all if your Tikka had married you off before you could be sent to the Dama’ting Palace. Better if I had crushed your head when I saw you were only a girl.”

  Shanvah kept her spear steady, but Jardir could see how the words tore across her aura.

  “Your brother would have saved me,” Shanjat said. “Or at least done the honor of killing me.”

  Shanvah’s tears glistened in the moonlight, but she held steady.

  “Do not listen to these poisonous words, niece,” Jardir said. “It is not your father speaking.”

  “Oh, but it is,” Shanjat said, laughing. It was so much like his friend’s great bellow that Jardir’s heart ached. “That is what makes it so delicious! This drone boasted to his brethren of the strong son growing in his mate. His first thought at the sight of you was disgust. He imagined killing you to save face.”

  “Stop it.” The Par’chin’s jiwah stepped forward. “Need you alive, but that don’t mean we can’t cut a few bits off now that you can’t grow ’em back.”

  The demon tilted its head, studying her. “What will your egg be?” Shanjat asked. “Will your consort allow you to walk the path before us, once he learns you carry it?”

  “What’s he talkin’ about, Ren?” the Par’chin asked.

  “Core if I know,” Renna said.

  “Humans are so inefficient in their mating.” Shanjat clicked his tongue. “Ten cycles of vulnerability for a single egg. But do not fear. We will keep you alive until the birth. The mind of a child is a delicious morsel—like the bird eggs you consume.”

  Renna snarled, drawing her knife.

  Jardir moved to block her path to the demon, but the Par’chin was faster. He blurred into mist, flowing across the room to re-form in her path. “Tryin’ to get a rise out of us, Ren. Tryin’ to get us mad enough to cross the wards, give it a chance to escape. Long as they hold we gotta stand fast, no matter what it says.”

  Renna panted, struggling to master the rage boiling in her aura.

  “The Par’chin speaks true, sister,” Shanvah said. “You told me yourself the princelings steal our thoughts, but speak only those that cut.”

  Renna blew out a breath, glaring at the demon. “Odds are you taste like shit, but don’t think that means I won’t eat your brains, too.”

  She meant the words. Jardir could see it on her aura, and knew the demon could, too. The creature seemed to think better of goading her further.

  “Ask your questions,” Shanjat said. “This drone will serve as mouthpiece and mount as we travel the dark paths below.”

  The Par’chin stepped forward. “Where is the surface entrance to the path?”

  “North and east,” the demon said. “In the mountains not far from where you and the Heir held your primitive submission duel.”

  “Lands unclaimed by either side,” Jardir said. “That is fitting, for such a quest.”

  “Unclaimed by you,” Shanjat agreed, “but not unclaimed.”

  “Who, then?” Jardir demanded.

  “The factions of your surface stock are meaningless to me. They provided fresh minds for my larder on my last visit.”

  Jardir clenched a fist but did not take the bait. “Is the path guarded?”

  “Magic flows to the surface strongly from a vent that size. Drones are drawn to the area, but they do not truly understand what they protect.”

  “How far to demon town once we find this cave?” the Par’chin asked.

  “Weeks even for a mimic drone,” Shanjat said. “Whole cycles for the slow and clumsy limbs of humans.”

  “There food on the way?” the Par’chin asked. “Clear water?”

  “So much power, and not the slightest idea how to use it. The energies of the Core can sustain you without need for feeding.”

  “You don’t need to eat?” Renna asked. “Then why keep a larder? Why raid the surface?”

  Shanjat smiled. “Why do your kind drink fermented fruit and grain? Why do you sing and dance?”

  The Par’chin shook his head. “More than that. Can’t make something from nothing. Might not need food often, but you need it. Queens most of all.”

  Shanjat nodded. “My brethren can exist without, but none of us does so willingly. Queens at laying must feed—and our hatchlings. Those most of all. Soon hives will fill your lands, each springing forth thousands of hungry hatchling drones to pick the surface clean.”

  Renna grit her teeth. “That a long way o’ sayin’ we don’t need supplies?”

  “We will bring them, regardless,” Jardir said. “I do not trust the demon’s words.”

  “Why not?” Shanjat asked. “Have you not spent your life a pawn to the dice your females carve from our bones?”

  It surprised Jardir how deeply the words cut. “They speak with the voice of Everam.”

  Shanjat laughed. “They are a Jongleur’s trick! A primitive glimpse at a minuscule fraction of infinite possibility.”

  “Those primitive glimpses have led us to victory after victory against your kind,” Jardir noted.

  “Perhaps,” Shanjat said. “Or perhaps we play a larger game, and even in your minor ‘victories’ you are only pawns.”

  “Pawns that caught you with your pants down,” the Par’chin said. “Pawns that got you locked up sweatin’ the sun. Pawns that could kill you on a whim. Tellin’ me that’s all part of your game?”

  “In every game there is risk,” Shanjat said. “Play is far from over.”

  “It is for tonight,” Jardir said. He raised the Spear of Kaji and drew a ward in the air, sending power into the tattoos on the demon’s knobbed flesh. It gave a howl, falling back from Shanjat and thrashing on the floor. The others advanced on it while Shanvah crossed the wards to collect her father.

  —

  “Corespawned thing wasn’t lying.” Arlen knelt in front of Renna’s belly, studying her aura. “Barely a spark, but it’s there.”

  “So much for pullin’ out,” Renna said.

  Arlen stood, meeting her eyes. “Creator knows we wern’t perfect about it.” He shook his head. “Should’ve been more careful.”

  “Why?” Renna asked. “I’m your wife. Supposed to carry our babes. Creator knows you ent able. Sayin’ you don’t want it?”

  “Course not,” Arlen said. “Ent a thing in the world I want more. Just mean timin’s bad.”

  “Timin’ ent ever gonna be good, long as demons come out at night,” Renna said. “Don’t mean we stop livin’ our lives.”

  “Know that,” Arlen said. “But you can’t go down to the Core carryin’ our baby.”

  “Can’t?” Renna crossed her arms. “You think, Arlen Bales. Ever have a talk you started with can’t go well for you? Can and will.”

  “Night, Ren!” Arlen shouted. “How am I supposed to keep my mind on this job I got to do if I’m spending the whole time worrying over you?”

  “What, you’re the only one with feelin’s? You’ll do it the same rippin’ way I do every time you run off and do somethin’ dangerous.”

  “Ay, but now I’m worrying for two,” Arlen said.

  “So. Am. I!” After months of eating demon meat, Renna was nearly as quick as Arlen, and he didn’t see the slap coming. The blow knocked him back a step, echoing off the stone walls of the tower.

  Arlen pressed a hand to his cheek, looking at her in shock.

  Renna leveled a finger at him. “You’re not the one carryin’ this babe, Arlen Bales. Part of me. Say again I ent lookin’ to its best interest and that slap’ll seem like a kiss.”

  “Then how can you mean to take it to the heart of demon town?” Arlen asked. “You seen what just one of the minds can do. What chance we got inside the rippin’ hive?”

  Renna shrugged. “What chance we got if I stay up here and have our baby with new hives poppin’ up all over T
hesa?”

  “Don’t know that for sure,” Arlen said. “Demon could be lyin’, playing us to let him go.”

  “Already gambling the world that it ent, if we go through with this.”

  “How’s it supposed to work?” Arlen said. “We gonna take an Herb Gatherer with us?”

  Renna bared her teeth. “You even say her name…”

  “Why not?” Arlen asked. “She’s carryin’, too. You can set up a nursery in the Core.”

  “Don’t need a Gatherer,” Renna said. “Got two Deliverers with me.”

  “Ent funny, Ren.”

  “Said yourself the babe’s little more’n a notion right now,” Renna said. “Ent gonna slow me for months. By then either we’ll have won, or it won’t matter.”

  “What if you get morning sick?”

  “Can’t be worse’n chokin’ down demon meat,” Renna said. “I’ll manage. You need me.”

  “I…” Arlen began.

  “Don’t deny it,” Renna cut in. “Jardir means well, but he’s got a different way of lookin’ at the world. Threw you in a demon pit once. Don’t think he won’t do it again if he thinks it’s the Creator’s will.”

  Arlen blew out a breath. “Don’t think I forgot that.”

  “Shanjat’s an empty shell,” Renna said. “He may still be breathin’, but he ent coming back, and I wouldn’t trust it if he did.”

  “Honest word,” Arlen said.

  “Shanvah’s as good as any can get in a fight, but she can’t dissipate, and she ent as strong as the rest of us,” Renna went on. “You want any chance of making this work, you need me. World needs me. Gotta put that first, just like we asked her to with her da.”

  —

  Jardir watched Shanvah, marveling at what his niece had become. It seemed just days ago he saw her newborn and squalling in his sister’s arms. In Krasian fashion, he had seen little of her in the ensuing years, and nothing since she went into the Dama’ting Palace as a child.

  Now she was a woman grown, carrying a weight of honor that could break the strongest Sharum. Shanjat was not capable of shame, so she carried it for them both, locked inside an iron will.

  “Come and sit with me, niece.” Jardir disdained the Northern chairs, sweeping his robe back to sit cross-legged on the bare floor. While he did, he concentrated, activating one of the powers of the Crown of Kaji. As Shanvah took a spot facing him on the floor, he put a bubble of silence around them, keeping their words from Shanjat’s ears.

  Shanvah knelt before him, bending to put her hands on the floor. “Raise your eyes,” Jardir commanded. “I am Shar’Dama Ka, but I am your uncle, as well. With your father…absent, I would speak to you as both, while we walk the path to the abyss.”

  Shanvah sat back on her heels. “You honor me beyond my worth, Deliverer.”

  Jardir shook his head. “No, child. This is but a fraction of the honor you are due for service given, and nothing in the face of what I must ask of you.”

  “I understand, Uncle,” Shanvah said. “Alagai Ka cannot guide us to Nie’s abyss without my father’s voice.”

  Jardir nodded. “Nor can we allow the demon free movement. He must be chained.”

  Shanvah closed her eyes, breathing. “Alagai Ka said he would make a mount of my father.”

  “Indeed, I think it must be so. Imagine the damage Alagai Ka could do if it took over my mind, or that of one of the chin? We cannot risk touching it in anything but battle.”

  “Nor can you allow it to control my father without constant guard,” Shanvah said.

  “We will separate them whenever possible,” Jardir said, “but must assume that every time the Prince of Lies touches your father’s mind, it will learn all Shanjat has seen and heard. We can no longer speak freely in his presence. Nor can you let your guard down around him. There is no telling how much of Alagai Ka’s influence remains when they are apart.”

  Shanvah placed her hands on the floor and bent to touch her forehead between them. Then she sat up and met his eyes again. “I understand my place in things, Uncle. I will not fail you.”

  In her aura he saw it was true. She would carry this burden atop a broken heart all the way to the Core. He opened his arms, and after a moment Shanvah moved awkwardly into his embrace until he pulled her tight. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

  —

  The Par’chin noted Jardir’s sphere of silence as he and his jiwah returned to the group. He nodded, moving to sit between Jardir and Shanvah on the floor. Renna took up a place opposite him, all of them facing one another.

  “Gonna do this, it needs to be soon,” the Par’chin said.

  “Agreed,” Jardir said. “But not too soon.”

  “Ay, what’s that mean?” the Par’chin asked.

  “It means I will see my Jiwah Ka before I go to the abyss,” Jardir said. “I will hold her in my arms again, and have her cast her dice in my blood.”

  “Ent got time—” the Par’chin began.

  “This is not a request, son of Jeph!” Jardir made a lash of his words. “We must claim every advantage in this endeavor, and the dice can do much to counter the Prince of Lies.”

  “And if the dice conveniently tell her she ought to come along?” the Par’chin asked.

  “Then she will come,” Jardir said. “As your Jiwah Ka does. She will not dissemble with all Ala in the balance. Everything Inevera does, she does for Sharak Ka.”

  He could see in the Par’chin’s aura that the man wanted to argue further, but he checked himself. “Fair enough. Ren and I should make a few stops, too. Let folk know what’s coming, we don’t find a miracle.”

  CHAPTER 7

  THE EUNUCHS

  334 AR

  A stab of pain between his legs woke Abban from one of the rare lapses of consciousness that passed for sleep in his new reality. He sat up from the cold ground with a start, his foot joining the agony as he squinted in the firelight.

  Hasik took his cock first. Abban had steeled himself, knowing it was coming, but nothing could truly prepare a man for that. He did it with his teeth, and made Abban watch.

  Abban begged Everam to let him bleed out, or take a fever and die, but warriors of Hasik’s experience knew their way around wounds. He’d tied it off first, and burned the end.

  Dampness between his thighs made Abban think the wound had reopened. His chains clinked as he scrambled to undo the drawstring of his ragged pants and check.

  Abban might have prayed for death while it was going on, but now, cock or no cock, he meant very much to live. He pulled back the cloth. There was no fresh blood on the bandages, but they were stained yellow and soaking.

  It was nothing new. Abban now pissed through a hollow needle punched into the charred flesh. He had no control, bladder draining steadily throughout the day. He was always wet between the legs now, and stank of piss.

  Hasik laughed from the other side of the fire. “You’ll get used to it, khaffit. So used to wet pants they will grow as comfortable as dry. So used to the smell of your own piss you will sniff the air and smell nothing even as everyone around you complains of your stink.”

  “That’s hopeful, at least,” Abban said, retying his pants. It wasn’t as if he had anything to change the dressing with. For now he would have to endure the wet.

  “Enjoy it while you can, khaffit.” Hasik waved at the lightening sky. “The sun will rise soon. How many has it been?”

  Abban grit his teeth, but he knew better than to fail to answer. Hasik fed on his pain and anguish like Sharum fed on magic. But while a certain amount of torture was inevitable, there was nothing to be gained in making it worse.

  “Fourteen,” Abban said. “A holy number. Fourteen days since you murdered the Deliverer’s son.”

  Hasik laughed. He did so often now, his mood more jovial than Abban had ever seen. “And yours. No doubt you thought the poisoned blade at the end of your crutch was clever. How did it look shoved up Fahki’s ass while he foamed and shook?”

 
; He chuckled again as Abban swallowed, uncharacteristically finding himself with no reply.

  There was a crackle of magic and a flash of light. A lone wood demon paced the perimeter of their circle, searching for openings where none were to be found. Even the dimmest Sharum had the basic circle of protection beaten into his head by the time he earned his blacks, and Hasik was turning out to be brighter than he let on.

  Hasik lay back on his saddle, hands behind his head. An empty bottle of some chin spirit lay beside him. His cold eyes followed the demon as it paced.

  “Why not kill it and have done?” Abban asked. “Isn’t that what Sharum live for?”

  Hasik spat in the demon’s direction. “All those years in sharaj and you never learned anything about us, did you, khaffit?”

  “I learned that you love carnage more than you hate the alagai,” Abban said. “That you prefer weak foes to strong, particularly the soft chin. But drunk or not, I did not think you a coward, afraid of a single demon.”

  He expected the words to get a rise from Hasik, but the warrior was unmoved. “I fear nothing, but I am through with Everam’s foolish war.”

  “Now, with Sharak Ka nigh?” Abban probed. Hasik seemed to be in a rare moment of introspection. Perhaps he might learn something of use. Crippled, he could not flee Hasik. His only choice was to find a way to manipulate the warrior into keeping him alive until new opportunities presented themselves.

  “The Deliverer was to lead us in Sharak Ka,” Hasik said. “But Ahmann was cast down in shame, and his son was pathetic. Who does that leave? Even if the rumors are true and the Par’chin is still alive, I’ll go to the abyss before I follow him.”

  He swept a hand at the demon, watching their words with the blank stare of a camel. “I will fight demons when there is something to gain, but I am through killing them for Everam’s sake. What has the Creator ever done for me?”

  Abban shook his head. “If the Creator exists, He is not without humor, that only now should we begin to understand each other.”

  “Perhaps it is because we both lack cocks now.” Hasik smacked his lips. “I tell you, khaffit, that was the sweetest meat I ever tasted. I’m tempted to carve off more.”