The Core

by Peter V. Brett

  But then the Cathedral doors opened, Tender Ronnell standing with ranks of faithful in flowing robes. The choir.

  “Run!” the Librarian cried, waving an open path into the Cathedral as the choir began to sing. The demons, focused on Elissa and her charges, were caught off guard by the Song of Waning. They shrieked and recoiled from the sound, those standing on two legs covering their ears.

  “Don’t stop!” Elissa shouted as some of the scholars gaped. “Into the nave!”

  The choir kept their voices strong, but up close Elissa could see sweat on the brows of the men and women, uncertainty in their voices as they looked upon the approaching horde. For most—if not all—this was the first time they had ever seen corelings up close.

  The song held back the tide—barely—but Elissa did not think it would last. A snow demon hawked coldspit down from a balcony, striking one of the singers in the thigh. He stumbled in shock, and there was a crack as his leg struck the marble floor.

  The singer screamed, breaking the harmony, and the demons were quick to strike. Cold- and firespit rained into their ranks as field demons leapt in, claws leading.

  Some of the choir were protected by the wards on their robes, but others were not. One acolyte caught flame, flailing into his fellows and spreading the fire. Two more were laid open by coreling talons, others slipping on the bloody marble.

  “Fall back!” Ronnell cried. Elissa drew sound wards over the singers’ heads to amplify their music, and they managed to drag most of the wounded inside and slam the Cathedral doors shut.

  Thousands already filled the pews, taking succor after their homes and neighborhoods were evacuated. They looked on in terror, but for the moment the wards held.

  Jaik lay on the floor, Mery weeping as she cradled him in a growing pool of blood. Elissa fell to her knees beside them, drawing wards to lend Jaik strength, but he had lost too much blood already, and Elissa could not simply create more, or regrow what the demon had bitten away. She managed to slow the bleeding, but Jaik’s breaths grew quicker and more desperate, then went still, his eyes staring at nothing.

  Mery wailed, clutching at him. The Cathedral doors boomed and shook as demons hammered the wards. Dust clattered down from above and Ronnell looked up at the massive pipes of the organ.

  “Keep singing!” He raced for the stairs to the organist’s loft, and seeing his intent, Elissa put her cane under her and stumbled after.

  Again the doors rattled with the impact of some unseen force. Magic might hold the corelings back, but they could still hurl great chunks of marble at the heavy doors until they shattered.

  Ronnell sat at the organist’s console surrounded on three sides by controls. The Cathedral organ had thousands of pipes controlled by five keyboards, each with its own stop pedals.

  He wrung his shaking hands, cracking fingers to limber them for the task. Rojer’s music sheets were open on the rack in front of him. Elissa tried to read them, but the symbols Jongleurs used to write music were gibberish to her.

  Slowly, the Tender began to coax the great organ to life, grinding through a semblance of the Song of Waning. But the music was written for singers and string instruments, not the massive pipe organ with its hundreds of keys. The instrument had more power and range, but Ronnell struggled to match the agility of Keerin’s lute or the choir’s voices. Though the music was recognizable, it seemed to have no effect on the demons crashing against the Cathedral doors.

  Elissa looked out a window, seeing demons streaming from the Library to run down civilians around campus and flank the Library guards at the perimeter. There was fighting in the streets and blood on the cobbles.

  Ronnell’s thinning hair was damp with sweat. His hands shook, but still he played, hoping to find something of Rojer’s magic in the unwieldy instrument.

  Mery appeared at the top of the steps, her dress soaked with blood, tears running lines through the red smears on her cheeks.

  “Are you all right?” Elissa asked, but Mery ignored her, pushing past to lay a gentle hand on her father’s shoulder.

  Ronnell turned, his eyes wet with tears. “I cannot do it, daughter. I haven’t the skill. The Deliverer’s gift is beyond me.”

  Mery looked at him sadly. “What if Arlen isn’t the Deliverer, Father?”

  “Then the corespawn are going to win,” Ronnell said. “So this once, you must have faith that he is. That he could see when our night would be darkest, and send us a light.”

  “How can he be the Deliverer if he’s dead?” Mery asked.

  Elissa leaned in, her lips close enough to kiss Mery’s ear. “He is alive. Even now he fights for us all. So if you can play this ripping song, now’s the time.”

  Mery looked at her, eyes probing. At last she nodded, handing her father the hora pen as Ronnell gratefully yielded the bench. Mery kicked off her shoes and sat at the console, snatching up the sheets of Rojer’s music. She left bloody fingerprints as she flipped the pages, head cocked to listen to the choir.

  The doors boomed again, and Elissa heard a crack. “They’re coming.”

  “Then hold them back,” Mery growled, studying the pages like a Warder’s grimoire.

  It was no tone for a young mother to take with the Duchess of Miln, but Elissa was comforted by the determination in the words. Ronnell drew wards of protection in the air around the organ console as Elissa stumbled to the edge of the loft, looking out over the nave.

  Thousands crowded against the wall across from the Library doors, struggling to get as far as possible from the demons. Those up against the wall groaned and cried, crushed by the pressure of the unthinking mob.

  “Back away!” Elissa amplified her voice, and it was doubled by the acoustics in the domed Cathedral. “Crushing your fellows will not save you! Step back and join the choir! Sing as if the world depends on it, for tonight it surely does!”

  The remaining members of the choir, battered and bloody, had returned to their own loft, the vaulted ceiling magnifying their ragged song. Tentatively, the crowd began to sing, mumbling unfamiliar words as they tried to match the harmony of the skilled men and women.

  A handful of campus guards with warded spears and shields formed a crescent a few paces from the door, waiting for the imminent breach.

  Elissa drew pressure wards to shore up the doors just as another projectile struck. The wards flared and caught the impact, but the reinforced wood still splintered and cracked. They would not hold much longer.

  But then the organ thrummed back to life. Mery began gently, a sound felt in the air more than heard. She began by following the choir, but as her playing gathered strength, it began to transcend. The pipes rose in power and volume, resonating in everyone present, in the very stones of the walls.

  Mery took the lead now, the choir and the faithful becoming harmony for the pipes even as the volume continued to rise. Outside, Elissa could hear corelings shrieking in agony, and then the sounds drew away. The thumping at the doors ceased.

  Elissa limped back to the window, watching as corelings poured like rats from a fire into the campus streets. They charged the perimeter guard, whose eyes were focused outward at the demon horde, unaware of the enemy racing toward their backs.

  But the Guardians flared, and the corelings were swatted back. The circles worked in both directions, creating a pocket where their defenders were safe.

  Only then did the demons turn their heads back to look in terror at the Great Cathedral, the trap slowly dawning on their primitive brains.

  The power continued to grow as Mery’s confidence built. Jaik’s blood left streaks on the keys and pages as she turned to verses that could shatter a rock demon, melt a snow demon’s heart. She wove each with separate pipes, playing multiple keyboards simultaneously as her feet held notes with the pedals.

  All around, demons collapsed to knees or bellies, writhing and shrieking. Elissa could see the ichor running from their eyes, ears, and noses. It was a slow death, but no less certain than a spear in the
heart.

  Still the power rose. Miln was nestled in a valley where the roots of two great mountains met. Like the vaulted ceiling of the Cathedral, the mountains picked up the music and echoed it back, carrying the sound all over the city.

  Horns blew in the distance, sounding charges as men and women roared. The shrieks of demons echoed in the streets.

  CHAPTER 42

  THE HIVE

  334 AR

  “Ten minutes.” Renna stopped at the most defensible spot she could find, but the tunnels all glowed with dim light from some fungus on the walls. It meant she could see with her eyes for the first time since the Spear of Ala, but it also left her feeling exposed, even with her warded cloak and Shanvah’s singing.

  “Of course.” Shanvah reached out to halt her father, and the two of them knelt facing outward, on guard as Renna prepared the couscous.

  “Want some?” Renna asked when it was steaming in the bowls.

  “Thank you, no.” Shanvah spoke the words quickly, never missing a note of her concealing song.

  “I require nothing.” Shanjat’s voice was cold.

  The two of them could easily last a day on a single bite of the couscous and a sip of the water, but despite the race to catch up with Arlen and Jardir—if they were even still alive—Renna could not ignore the needs of her rapidly expanding belly.

  The deeper they went, the stronger the ambient magic became and the faster her son grew. Renna once wondered how the demon queen could hatch so many, but now she began to understand.

  Renna was putting away two full bowls of couscous at a sitting, stopping to eat thrice as often as Shanvah and Shanjat required. By that rough measure, it had been over a week since Shanjat began silently leading them into the bowels of the world.

  When questioned, Shanjat could answer little about the route, as if the mind had simply sketched a map in his brain. He did not know what the glowing moss was, where it might end, or how much farther they had to go before they reached the hive.

  If they weren’t already in it.

  Renna ate in silence, feeling the inside of her belly come alive with the repast. The hard outer muscle she formed to protect the child did nothing to diminish the shock and discomfort of his powerful kicks and punches. He shoved against her bladder, and Renna moved quickly behind a stone for a privy break. He had gotten so big, she feared he might come any day.

  Hold on, just a little longer, she begged. What would happen if the child came now? Could she hope to protect him?

  They moved on quickly when she was done eating. Up ahead, Renna heard familiar sounds of battle—the shriek of demons, the sizzle of combat wards. Could it be Arlen? She pulled her knife and raced down the tunnel toward the noise.

  “Father, keep pace!” Shanvah called as she followed. “If attacked, defend us and yourself!”

  It was simple for the Sharum to match Renna, whose run had become something of a waddle. She used magic to put on speed, and the three of them were a blur as they rushed into the tunnel junction where the sound originated.

  A group of wild-looking humans had surrounded a cave demon, stabbing from all sides with obsidian-tipped spears. Their auras were hot with core magic, and their weapons flared with battle wards.

  Renna could tell Arlen’s script at a glance, and her heart leapt. “They been this way.”

  Shanvah nodded. “The Shar’Dama Ka and Par’chin have armed the alamen fae.”

  Several feet away, the corpse of another cave demon lay with legs hacked off, oozing guts and ichor from its bulbous belly. Two of the core dwellers lay nearby, auras cold save for the venom still in their veins. Another was stuck to the wall with silk, half her head bitten off.

  The core dwellers hooted and howled as they brought the second demon down. Magic crackled along the lengths of their weapons, and they shivered, absorbing even more power.

  Their eyes were wild when the alamen fae caught sight of Renna, Shanvah, and Shanjat. They closed in from all sides, much as they’d surrounded the demon, huffing and beating their chests.

  But then they took note of Renna’s belly, and their aggression faded. They circled, chattering in a rudimentary language that sounded vaguely like Krasian. The crowd parted, and an elder female crawled forward. Her body remained strong but her hair had gone white, and Renna could taste the weight of years on her aura.

  The female reached for her. Renna wanted to flinch back, but she could see the elder meant no harm. Her hands were rough with calluses, but surprisingly gentle as she ran them over Renna’s belly. She put her ear to it, and laughed aloud, a cry that made the core dwellers take up a cheer. She pulled some of the glowing fungus from a pouch in her belt, mixing it with water and drawing a heat ward in the thin skin of soil over the stone of the tunnel floor.

  “Renna,” Shanvah said warily, when the old woman presented her with the steaming cup.

  “Stay calm,” Renna said. “Don’t mean any harm. Near as I can tell, they think I’m good luck.” Whatever tea this subterranean Herb Gatherer was serving smelled awful, but she held her breath and quaffed it. The female nodded and gave an approving grunt.

  The alamen fae next moved their gaze to Shanjat. No doubt the powerful male seemed to present the greatest threat, but when one of their males moved up to him, grunting and thumping his spear, Shanjat gave no reaction. The male went so far as to poke Shanjat in the chest. At a word from Renna or Shanvah, he could have broken the core dweller’s arm, but without it he stood impassively, and the core dwellers lost interest in him.

  Shanvah, however, drew the attention of several males. They knuckle-walked around her, sniffing the air and grunting. Renna looked their way, and her eyes bulged.

  “Corespawn it!” She averted her gaze. More than one had a visible erection.

  One of the core dwellers reached to touch Shanvah, and she had enough. She caught his wrist and twisted into a sharusahk throw that sent him tumbling head over heels. She snapped a kick into the erection of a second core dweller who moved too close, and he dropped to the slick tunnel floor, moaning.

  The next male backed off when Shanvah hissed. The two she put down collected themselves, and all the males retreated into the forming crowd.

  Renna looked at the others—females, children, and less aggressive males, many holding weapons warded by Arlen and Jardir—and wondered what she should say.

  Before she could open her mouth, one of the males returned with a haunch of meat from some unknown subterranean beast. He offered it to his Gatherer, gesturing at Shanvah and grunting.

  Shanvah gaped. “Is he…”

  “Marriage tradin’?” Renna asked as the Gatherer turned with the haunch to open negotiations. “Sure as the sun looks like it. Must think I’m your mam.”

  “I am flattered.” Shanvah’s voice was flat. “But please refuse.”

  Renna was about to attempt just that when another came forward, offering the Gatherer some scaly pelt, also pointing at Shanvah.

  “Want to wait and see how high they go?” Renna asked Shanvah.

  “That is not funny, sister,” Shanvah said.

  “Ay, guess not.” Renna powered the wards on her skin. They flared to life, filling the tunnels with light. She turned her gaze on the males. “She ent for sale, you randy bucks!”

  The males cowered at the display and went quickly to their knees, followed by the rest of the core dwellers.

  “Erram,” they began chanting. “Erram.”

  The collective aura changed, and Renna pulled at it, absorbing a taste to Read. Images of Arlen and Jardir flashed in her mind, and she knew they were not far behind. She could sense the tunnel they had taken.

  But there was something new in the air now. A vibration that was almost like sound, so loud she wondered how she had never sensed it before. Then she thought back to the mind demon’s brain she’d consumed and instinctively understood the source.

  “Sister, what is it?” Shanvah asked.

  “Know where to go,” Renna sa
id quietly. “Can hear the queen moanin’ in my head as she lays.”

  —

  Jardir and the Par’chin watched the alamen fae, perched high on the stone walls, waiting in silence as the clutter of spiderlike cave demons approached.

  Cave demons were the most common breed of alagai the minds employed as sheepdogs in the larder, herding Jardir’s distant cousins like camels. The demons were wary now, the territory of the alamen fae suddenly become dangerous. The camels had begun to kick.

  Still, the alagai were unprepared as the core dwellers dropped on them from above, roaring as their spears struck.

  The core dwellers were strong, and their enthusiasm for the fight was impressive once they had weapons that could bite at the alagai. For centuries, the demons had herded them, killed them, dragged their fellows off to butcher. No longer.

  The cave demons twisted, but their long segmented legs were not designed to strike at creatures on their backs. The alamen fae were too quick, hopping back from the demons’ swipes, keeping them distracted as their tribe rushed in to attack. Men, women, and children entered the fight, crude wards scrawled on their obsidian weapon tips and the shields Jardir taught them to make from leather and bone.

  Sparks of magic flew wildly through the tunnel as spiked clubs rose and fell. They had only a fraction the power of properly warded weapons, but it did not stop the alamen fae. Blows from the weakest kept the demons disoriented as the stronger tribe members broke limbs and slowly beat in skulls.

  Their glory was boundless.

  One demon managed to leap away, clinging to the tunnel wall and skittering out of easy reach. Obsidian-headed arrows skittered sparks across its armor until one stuck, followed by another.

  Knowing it could not escape, the demon turned to fight, tensing to spring back down among the tribe. They would still bring it down, but not without the cost of lives.

  Jardir raised his spear to blast the life from the creature.

  “Ahmann, no!” the Par’chin cried, grabbing his arm.

  Jardir scowled. “Remove your hand, Par’chin. I must help them.”