The Core

by Peter V. Brett

  “Kneel,” the Par’chin commanded. Ambient magic rushed into him, the area darkening even as his aura turned white with power.

  Renna had her knife in hand, and she, too, blazed with magic. No fool, the demon knelt Shanjat and allowed the manacles on his ankles to be reconnected to his belt.

  Shanvah set about scooping soil into large bronze bowls. She smoothed the surface with a blade in preparation for Jardir.

  Like the greenlanders, Jardir Drew ambient magic through the crown, using it to power the wards Inevera taught him. The soil melted, blurring into a whirlpool of magic, and then grew calm again. One bowl was now full of fresh water—the other, steaming couscous.

  Shanvah knelt, hands and forehead on the floor, saying prayers with him, thanking Everam for His endless bounty, and renewing their oaths to fight in His name.

  When they were done, Jardir produced a tiny porcelain couzi cup, inlaid with gold, and a matching pair of eating sticks. With reverence and precision, he filled the tiny cup with water and held it out. “Rise, niece, and let Everam’s blessed water refresh you.”

  Shanvah sat up like a snake, a sinuous movement of perfect grace. She bowed her head and lowered her veil, for it was no shame to be seen by her uncle. “Thank you, Deliverer, for the honor Everam bestows through you.”

  She took only a small sip from the tiny cup, but drew back with new light in her eyes, her aura refreshed.

  He lifted a bite of couscous with the delicate sticks. “Eat, and let Everam’s blessed food fill your stomach.”

  Shanvah bowed again. “Thank you, Deliverer, for the honor Everam bestows through you.” She took a single bite, but immediately she seemed stronger, satiated.

  “Stand guard, so the greenlanders may eat as well,” Jardir said.

  Shanvah touched her head to the floor. “Your will, Deliverer.” She took up her spear and shield, taking position to watch over the prisoners.

  Renna floated over immediately. “Night, that smells good.”

  “It is blessed food,” Jardir said. “One sip of Everam’s water will quench your thirst. One bite of Everam’s food will fill your stomach.”

  “See about that,” Renna said. Jardir moved to serve with his tiny cup, but the woman didn’t even notice. She had the dusty cup out of her pack in an instant, filling it with a great scoop of the sacred water. Jardir gaped as she threw the entire cup back like a shot of couzi, wiping the excess holy water from her lips with the back of her dirty hand.

  Her eyes grew wide. “Oh, sweet sunshine.” She tossed the cup back again, seeking any missed drops, then turned look at the Par’chin. “Arlen Bales, you get over here and try this water!” She filled a second cup, draining that, as well, before moving to the couscous.

  Jardir lifted his eating sticks and coughed pointedly, but again Renna missed the cue, digging in her pack for her bowl and spoon. She scooped couscous carelessly, spilling some on the ground as she piled her bowl with enough blessed food to satisfy an entire company of Sharum.

  The woman’s rudeness knew no bounds, but she was a chosen of Everam, and a guest at his table, and so he embraced the insult and said nothing.

  “Thanks.” Renna put her back against the tunnel wall and slid down to sit, shoveling the food into her mouth.

  Jardir realized he was staring, and forced himself to look away as the Par’chin approached.

  “Sorry about that.” The Par’chin knelt smoothly, and bowed. “Ren didn’t…”

  “Make no excuses, Par’chin,” Jardir said. “We’ve been eating together for months. She knows it is polite to pray over food.”

  “Old habits die hard,” the Par’chin said. “And she ent comfortable prayin’ to Everam.”

  “She may replace His name with Creator,” Jardir said. “It makes no difference to the Almighty.”

  “Be sure to tell her.” The Par’chin glanced at his bride. “Just not now. Ent wise to get between a pregnant woman and her food.”

  “From Everam’s lips to your mouth,” Jardir agreed. He began the blessing, and the Par’chin prayed with him, as they had so many times after a night in the Maze.

  Jardir scooped a delicate cup of water. “You pray.”

  “Ay?” the Par’chin asked.

  “Heaven is a lie, you said,” Jardir recalled. “Everam is a lie. Why, then, do you pray with me?”

  “Mam called it mindin’ your manners,” the Par’chin said. “Wise old man once told me our cultures were a natural insult to each other. That we had to resist the urge to give and take offense.

  “ ’Sides.” The Par’chin shook his head. “Startin’ to think it don’t matter if Everam’s in the sky or in your imagination. It’s a voice that tells you to act right, and that’s more than most folk have.”

  The words were blasphemy, but Jardir saw such sincerity in the Par’chin’s aura that he could not help but smile. In his own way, his friend was paying his respects. When they spoke thanks over the water and food, the Par’chin followed the ritual with practiced precision.

  Like Shanvah, he only required a sip and a bite to be satisfied, but Renna had finished her bowl and was eyeing the remainder hungrily.

  “This drone will require sustenance as well, if you wish him to survive the journey,” Shanjat said. “As will I.”

  Jardir’s lips twisted with distaste, but when Shanvah looked at him, he nodded. She took a small tray from her pack, with a cup and bowl. Jardir poured two mouthfuls of the sacred water into Shanvah’s cup and placed two bites of holy couscous in the bowl.

  Shanvah went to kneel beside her father. She set the tray down with precision and grace, producing her own eating sticks.

  “Now, this is the daughter I always wanted,” Shanjat said. “Quiet. Obedient. You were never going to marry well, not with your mother’s horse face, but you could still have been a daughter to be proud of.”

  “My father was proud of me,” Shanvah said. “Is proud of me. Nothing you say while wearing his skin can change that.”

  “A flash of pride at the end cannot make up a lifetime of disappointment,” Shanjat said. “Your sire’s mind reeks of shame over you. Your mother may have been his Jiwah Ka, but he loved the least of his wives more than either of you.”

  Shanvah appeared calm, but her fist clenched the eating sticks as if resisting the urge to plunge them into the demon’s eye.

  Still, she kept her center, breathing the emotions away until her aura became tranquil. The next time the demon opened Shanjat’s mouth, the sticks darted out, filling it with couscous. He swallowed reflexively.

  Shanvah reached out and took the back of her father’s head, pulling him in and manipulating a muscle to open his mouth for a sip of the blessed water.

  The deed done, Shanvah drew back with the tray.

  “I must consume as well,” Shanjat said.

  “Demon, you are not worthy of blessed food and drink,” Shanvah said.

  “I have sustained myself on scraps for many months now,” Shanjat said. “But even I have a limit. If you will not feed me, I will lead you no farther.”

  Shanvah was on her feet in an instant, driving her spear out with a two-handed thrust. Shanjat and the demon flinched, but they were not her target. Impaled on the spearpoint was one of the blind salamanders that roamed the walls, hunting insects. They could move quickly when they sensed a threat, but not so quickly as a Sharum’ting spear.

  This she pulled from the point, tearing the still-squirming animal in half with her bare hands. She kicked Shanjat onto his side, taking the demon down with him. When the conical head slammed against the tunnel floor, she thrust half the salamander into Alagai Ka’s mouth.

  “Eat it,” she growled. “Or I will sing until you do.”

  —

  The Consort worked his mouth as they descended the rock face, trying to rid it of the bitter taste of the low creature. The flesh and blood sustained him, but the pathetic minds of the salamanders forced him to relive every moment of their meaningless existe
nce. He might have vomited, but despite the exquisite pleasure of torturing the Singer, he had no wish to hear her song up close.

  They had freed the drone’s arms for the climb, the first of many eases of vigilance. And why not? The Consort cut at them with words, but he kept the drone’s body docile. Compliant.

  The time to escape was approaching, but it was not now. They were still too shallow, too close to the surface. It was cold here. Dim. The humans might be impressed with the magic this far down, but it was a pale comparison with what awaited at further depth. Not even the weakest drones ranged so far from the heat of the Core without cause.

  But soon the tunnels would open up into a honeycomb, dug by drones over millions of years. The humans would quickly become lost without the Consort, as unlikely to find the mind court as they were the way back to the surface. It pleased him to think of them, endlessly wandering the bowels of the world until it drove them to madness. What a feast their minds would make then! The mix of pride turned to despair and madness would combine into a flavor like no other.

  For now, they watched him closely. The Hunter and Singer flanked him as they climbed, with the Explorer working his way down from above.

  The Heir floated away from the cliff, spear in hand, watching the Consort descend. It was amusing, the caution with which they guarded him. It would fade soon enough. Humans did not have the patience for such things.

  The drone needed no assistance for the climb. The Consort issued the command, and let the drone’s learned skills handle the task while he focused his energies inward, taking the salamander flesh and making it his own, growing another thin layer of dermis to push the ink closer to the surface.

  Soon.

  —

  Jardir drifted to the ground ahead of the others, watching their descent. Renna, Shanvah, and the Par’chin all kept out of Shanjat’s reach, but it seemed the demon had no intent save reaching the bottom safely.

  It was understandable, even for one such as Alagai Ka. Three human skeletons lay at the base of the cliff, bones picked clean by Everam only knew what. The humans Alagai Ka marched into the abyss had been forced to make the same climb, and not all were up to the task. One was female, skull crushed in a fall. Another was male, but small even for a greenlander, perhaps not come into his full growth. Multiple bones had been shattered as he bounced down the rock face, but a broken neck had done him in. Likely they had not suffered, and without reaching the abyss, Jardir hoped their souls had managed to escape the darkness and find the lonely path.

  The third was a child.

  Worse, her skeleton was intact, save for a single break in her leg. From the scraping of the soil and her separation from the others, it appeared she had crawled for some distance, bound to follow the demon prince’s will even as her body failed. Jardir laid a gentle hand on her skull, meaning to bless her, but her pain had imprinted magic on the bone, a silent scream that shocked through him. He snatched his hand away as if burnt.

  The pain was not of her body, or her loss of liberty, but a psychic wail at her inability to follow the demon’s command. The others, neighbor and kin alike, had left her behind without a thought, driven by similar need.

  Realizing his distraction, Jardir’s eyes darted to the others, but they remained well. Renna pushed off from the cliff face, dropping the last forty feet as easily as she might skip the final step in a stair.

  She, too, noticed the bones. “Think we ought to bury them?”

  “Their spirits have gone onto the lonely path, leaving their pain behind.” They might have been placating words once, but Jardir saw now how true they were. “We do them greater honor by pressing on in our sacred task.”

  The daughter of Harl grunted, but she did not disagree, watching closely as Shanvah and her father finished the descent. The Par’chin let go as well, riding a current of magic to drift down as gently as a falling leaf.

  Seven columns like the pillars of Heaven guided their path as they hiked, but these were crumbled and broken, shattered stone littering the cavern floor, slick with wet, smooth from centuries of droplets from above. Stalagmites grew among them and elsewhere, some great and some small.

  More bones greeted them at the far end, and Shanjat’s arms had to be freed once more to climb back up the cliff face to find the path again.

  They paused at the top for another meal, and this time Renna’s eyes were down as she was called to the holy water and couscous. Proud like a mountain, she did not apologize for her behavior, but she made an effort—clumsy though it was—to join Jardir in prayer.

  Again, she ate more than he would have believed possible, and it seemed to him that even in that short time the curve of her belly had grown more prominent.

  The tunnel sloped endlessly down, the air growing so hot and humid it was difficult to abide. They drew wards in the air to provide some small comfort, but they were all of them filthy; even Jardir’s fine silk raiment clung to him with sweat. He Drew power into the embroidered wards, burning away the dirt and moisture, but it wasn’t long before it returned.

  Again the tunnel opened up, this time into a vast cavern housing an enormous lake. The air was thick with moisture, and great stalactites hung from the ceiling far above.

  More fascinating, though, was the ground leading to the water, covered with fungal vegetation glowing bright with life.

  “We will need to clear a path,” Shanjat said.

  Jardir looked at him. “Why?” The mushroom field was thick, with some reaching as high as his elbow, but those seemed simple to push aside. Most would be easily trampled underfoot.

  “Send a wind through the field,” Shanjat suggested.

  Jardir eyed him warily, then shrugged and drew a quick warding, sending a jet of air toward the water.

  Immediately, countless spores exploded, filling the air with a dark cloud of noxious fume. Jardir drew another warding, a gentler breeze to keep the cloud from drifting their way.

  “What in the dark of night was that?” Renna asked.

  “It is how the colony draws sustenance,” Shanjat said. “The spores emit a paralytic that cripples and infects any creature foolish enough to disturb them.”

  “Infects?” The hand Renna placed on her rounding belly was hardly subtle, but her aura spoke volumes. In it Jardir could see an image of her clutching a child as she bathed the area in flame.

  Before Shanjat could answer, there was movement in the field, and a demon, previously invisible, raced toward them, claws leading.

  The beast was like nothing Jardir had ever seen. Its aura was flat, blending perfectly with the colony around it. Fungal stalks grew from between its scales—it was being consumed from within, even as it moved with speed and agility.

  Nevertheless, it was only a demon drone. Jardir concentrated a moment, activating the warding field of his crown to keep it from approaching.

  The creature slowed a moment, as if running through water up to its thighs, but then crossed the barrier, picking up speed.

  Jardir blinked in surprise and raised his spear, but Shanvah was faster, flinging warded throwing glass to intercept the demon. The sharpened projectiles thudded into the creature’s center mass, but if it registered the impacts at all, there was no sign as it continued to race their way.

  Jardir drew an impact ward, swatting the demon like an insect. It was still airborne when the Par’chin followed up with a powerful heat ward. The alagai exploded in a blast of fire so intense Jardir felt his face flush. Its flaming ruin fell back into the colony, setting off another cloud of spores that fed the flame into a great fireball.

  Mushrooms and fungal stalks burned in the aftermath, but the ground and air were wet, and the flame did not spread or penetrate the soil as they might have wished.

  “There will be others,” Shanjat noted. “The spores can infect the minds of drones, turning them into defenders before their bodies are consumed past the point of use.”

  “It crossed my forbiddance,” Jardir said. “It seems the
creature is more fungus than alagai.”

  “How’d your prisoners get past them?” the Par’chin asked.

  “The mimic that escorted them became a flame drone and burned a path, but not without loss.” Shanjat showed his teeth. “Some of your kind may still serve the colony, if they have not yet been fully consumed.”

  “And that lake?” Renna asked. “How did they get across?”

  “They swam, of course.” Shanjat was smiling openly now.

  “Don’t trust it,” Renna said. “Creator only knows what’s in that water. Demon’s led us into a trap.”

  Shanjat shrugged. “There is this way, and no other.”

  “I trust the demon no more than you, daughter of Harl,” Jardir said, “but we cannot stay here, and we cannot go back.”

  “Creator, will you ripping people stop callin’ me that?!” Renna snapped. “Harl Tanner might not have been the worst man ever lived, but he was the worst I ever met by a far sight. Killed him myself, and I’m sick of you actin’ like his name’s more important than mine.”

  Jardir opened his mouth, then closed it, taken aback. Her aura was a wild thing, and he remembered well the shifting humors of his wives while they were with child.

  But then her words sank in. “You admit to slaying your own father?” It was…monstrous. He glanced at the Par’chin, who met his eyes as Shanvah kept watch over her father and the demon. “Did you know this?”

  The Par’chin nodded. “Son of the Core had it comin’.”

  The words were a comfort. He knew well the value his friend put on all human life. Even so, it was insufficient explanation for such a crime. Jardir turned back to Renna and peered into her aura, seeking the truth of it.

  “Want to know so bad?” Renna demanded. The Par’chin had trained them all to mask their inner auras to hide their most private thoughts and feelings, but she let down her guard for a moment, and in it Jardir could see horror unlike anything he had imagined.

  Jardir raised his hands. “Peace, Renna am’Bales. Your honor remains boundless in my eyes. No doubt Everam Himself guided your hand.”