“What? What’s he talking about, Beno? Has he gone mad?”
Ray and Bolton told Jahn everything.
Then they told him again. Slowly this time, so he understood it all.
And then they answered around 50 of his questions.
Jahn looked so confused he could burst into pieces trying to comprehend it all. I completely understood how he felt. It was only a short while ago that I thought I was the ancient one. That had been confusing enough.
But not only that. Nothing compares to the disorientation when a core first gets resurrected. When you wake up in a room, surrounded by overseers, and they tell you that you died. And then were resurrected. And that henceforth, you would live life as a magic block of stone.
Yes, confusion and I were good buddies. I reckoned that for Jahn, this was like his first core awakening, but even more of a mind twister.
“So now you know, Jahn,” said Ray. “I apologize for the suddenness of this, but time is our enemy. First you have too much and all you can do is lie dormant, waiting to be found and awakened. Then, you have too little. We have been given the sign. It is time for all the hidden and slumbering ancient ones to rise. The Awakeners have been called. Though, so much time has passed that the title of Awakener has gone from father to son, passed down through the ages.”
“And these Awakeners are all people?” I said.
“Yes.”
“I’m not the brightest of cores, but tell me if I wasn’t following along properly. I thought Old Ones…”
“Ancient Ones!” thundered Ray.
“I thought the Decrepit Guys had a whole falling out with people. You know, the tiff that resulted in the near destruction of all cores.”
“Some people helped us with our oppressors. They swore fealty to us. In return, we granted them certain aspects of our powers.”
“Your oppressors?” scoffed Bolton. “Beno, Jahn, you both need to listen to me. The cores attacked first.”
“Will you heed the words of a man who admits he lied to you already?”
“Overseer?” said Jahn.
“The academy isn’t perfect, but we try. We have our reasons.”
“Reason sinks when it rests on a bed of lies,” said Ray. I got the overwhelming sense he was directing every word to Jahn now. “A core has finally come back to Xynnar, my fellow ancient. A core strong enough to lead us. The Awakeners are back. Ancient cores are emerging from their slumber. They are your kind. Your family.”
“How can they be my family? I never met them!” said Jahn. “All I know is the academy and Yondersun. Beno, Bolton, Galatee, the nice people in town. They depend on me.”
“Who? These people? They may depend on you, but you can never depend on them. Everything has its opposite, ancient one. We have our awakeners. Those who will serve us. But awakeners have their opposite.”
“I take it you mean the hunters?” said Bolton. “More mythical bullcrap.”
“An order descended from the first people who so cruelly destroyed our civilizations. They will come for you, Jahn. They will come for all of us once they learn that we are waking.”
“For me?” said Jahn.
“For you. For all ancient cores.”
“Even you?”
“All ancient cores.”
“For-”
“For all ancient cores! You had better awaken to your true self quickly. Banish the fog they planted in your mind. You have a choice, ancient one. Will you help your fellow cores? Or will you help these people, so full of lies and treachery, with the crimes of their past staining their every deed?”
Jahn started at Ray. Then Bolton. Then Ray. Confusion emanated from him.
Finally, he looked at me. His friend.
“Beno?”
Demons arses, what was I supposed to say? I could hardly make sense of it myself. What was the truth? Ray’s story? Bolton’s?
“Come and talk with me,” I told him.
I floated out of the chamber. Bolton carried Jahn to me, away from Ray.
“You can’t listen to him,” began Bolton.
“Quiet, please, overseer,” I said.
Bolton seemed to pick up on the anger in my voice.
“Listen, Jahn,” I said. “It turns out you’re the real core here. Me? I’m not much of one. I’m a false core. Made unnaturally. There was a time when I thought all of us cores were unnatural, but that’s not so. I at least believe Ray about that.”
“But he wants me to…to what?”
“To side with the ancient cores and their awakeners, by the sounds of it.”
“I don’t know what to do, Beno. I’m scared.”
Bolton rolled his eyes.
I felt a tremendous fury surge through me then. Fury at Bolton, at the academy, at their methods, their lies.
But I had to forget that, and be there for my friend.
After all, one thing Bolton said was true; they’d sent me away with Jahn. I had been there for him.
“I know as much about this as you,” I told Jahn. “And that’s a whole lot of nothing. But one thing seems clear. Think about everything this ancient git has done. Some of it himself, some of it through Riston. He’s been kidnapping people in the wasteland. Innocent folks just going about their lives, wanting to get by. Townsfolk, travelers. Women, children. He’s killing them, and turning them into wraiths.”
“I know. I know. But still…if he…if the ancients are my people…”
“That doesn’t make them inherently good. Let’s say that Ray’s story is completely true.”
“It isn’t,” said Bolton.
I ignored him. “Let’s say it is. And that centuries ago, people descended on the core’s settlements and tore them apart. That doesn’t mean the ancient cores were good; it just means they lost. Now, this ancient core has done you a favor, Jahn. He’s made your choice easy. Are you really going to side with the kind of cores who’d kill so many innocents?”
Barely ten minutes had passed, and Ray looked even weaker. More cracks showed along his gem surface. Gaping ones, ones that looked ready to split him apart. He’d been drawing on the black essence while we were gone, and it was killing him.
“We want you to turn the wraiths back,” I said.
“Impossible.”
“Don’t give me that. You turned these people into wraiths, so you can reverse it.”
“Gods, you really are a young core, aren’t you? You’re barely wiser than a little coreling!”
“He’s right,” said Bolton. “He can’t turn them back. It just cannot be done.”
“Then the townsfolk, they’re…they’re stuck like that,” said Jahn.
I wished I could say I was surprised, but this had been a shot in the dark. “And now that the 50 bloody nights are here, they’ll head to Yondersun. They’ll kill everyone. Create even more wraiths.”
“There’s nothing we can do?” said Jahn. “If I’m an ancient core, why can’t I stop it?”
“Because we weren’t all alike,” said Ray. “Some of us could create forests. Some could control the rain. Some could absorb the life from one being and give to another. I can grant death to someone and bring them back stronger. Once I grant that strength, I cannot take it away again.”
“There must be something I can do.”
“There’s nothing! I can see you have chosen the wrong side, ancient one. You have betrayed your own. Sided with the invaders. Those parasites who destroyed us, who-”
“I might be young, on the core side of things,” I said. “But I just thought of one way to stop the wraiths. We can kill you, Ray. When a core dies, the monsters they created die with them. I know you didn’t create the townsfolk, but you turned them into what they are now. If we kill you, the wraiths die, all your weird mosquito things die, too.”
“Kill me? That’s a good one.”
“Look at you! You’re a moron. You must have been so desperate to start all of this when you woke up that you drained from black essence. You’re practic
ally worm food already. It won’t take much to push you the rest of the way. Bolton?”
Bolton took a dagger from his satchel. The sight of it made me sick. The blade was coated in an incredibly rare substance nicknamed corespite, on account of it being one of the few things deadly to a core. A simple dagger wouldn’t usually have been enough; you’d need a full-sized sword forged by a master and covered with corespite to end a core. But Ray was almost gone already.
He seemed to realize it now. “That dagger! Centuries ago, when the people descended on us, they wielded weapons such as that…”
“We didn’t descend on you,” said Bolton. “Can’t you stop your lies, even in death?”
“Kill me, but I’m not the last. Not by far. The awakeners will find the rest of us. We will rise, we will…”
“You’ll be quiet.”
Bolton thrust the dagger into Ray.
His core exploded, shattering into hundreds of pieces. One shard whipped past Bolton’s face, cutting a great gouge in his cheek. He cried out, dropping his dagger.
The pieces of Ray settled on the core chamber floor. All that was left of him was a black mist above the pedestal. It wasn’t him, exactly. I didn’t know what it was. His aura, maybe? Something of him left behind in death?
Bolton wiped the blood from his face, smearing it on his palm. “That is Ray’s power,” he said. “The essence of his ability to create wraiths. It is yours, Jahn. You need to take it.”
“Take it? Me? I’m scared!”
“Draw on it as you would with essence.”
“I don’t want a power like that! I don’t want to turn people into those…things.”
“A time will come when you’ll need it. When we leave here, we’ll try to find as many ancient ones as we can. We’ll get to some before their awakeners do, but Xynnar is a big place. Lots of tombs, lots of hiding places. We won’t get to them all, Jahn. When enough of them wake, we’ll need every power we can get.”
“I want Beno to take it. He’s stronger than me.”
I laughed. “I’m nothing compared to you. You told me as much.”
“I would never say that.”
“Not in as many words. In the academy, I knew parts of my old humanity were coming out, but I fought them. I fought against my instincts because I was scared that showing more of my human side made me weaker than other cores. But showing my human side wasn’t what made me weaker; it was hiding it. Like I was a kid with a guilty secret. You never did that. No matter what anyone said, you never hid yourself. You’re stronger than I ever will be.”
“Besides that,” said Bolton, in as kindly a voice as I’d ever heard from him, “Beno is not like you. He cannot take the power.”
Jahn drew the black mist from the pedestal. It wrapped around him. He seemed to grow; not physically, but in stature. I saw then what he really was: an ancient core. Not one like Ray, whose mind had corrupted. At least the academy had done right by Jahn in that regard; their lies and their control of his mind had spared him from centuries of hate and resentment. Jahn looked bigger than himself now. Bigger than all of us.
“I’m scared, Beno,” said Jahn. “You know that I can’t use this power. I can’t create wraiths. I can’t kill. I’m not a dungeon core.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re so much better than that. But I’ll always be with you.”
“Ray’s gone,” I said. “That means his wraiths are, too.”
“Those poor people. They didn’t deserve this,” said Jahn.
“They didn’t. But just think what kind of ancient cores are out there. Think of the nasty crap they’ll do.”
“What about the rest of the townsfolk?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “I’m a core. That means I’ve been considering how to end his mind control a whole bunch of ways. Magic, counter-spells, getting that brat to use her powers…everything.”
“Less of the brat. You ought to give Anna a chance,” said Bolton.
“After what she did to Shadow?”
“You’ll need her, Beno. Now that Jahn knows what he is, some of his ancient instincts will come back. He’ll be able to find the awakeners and the other cores. But even that will be hard. Actually killing them will be tougher. You’ll need everyone, Beno. You and Jahn and your monsters can’t do it alone.”
He was right. I hated it, but I knew he was.
“What do we do about the town?” said Jahn. Bless him, after everything he’d been told, that was all he cared about. The beloved town that he helped build, and all the people in it.
Ray might have been a bastard. Maybe most of the ancient cores were. But Jahn was an exception.
“The way I see it, the answer’s simple,” I said.
“What?”
“We kill Riston. End him, and his spell will end, too. With the insects dead and the wraiths gone, we can get to him now. I might not be some ancient core from a long, glorious line, but I am a core, and it’s time I acted like it. I know how to kill things. Now let’s get out of here. I want Riston dead, and I want my own dungeon back. This place is a pit.”
CHAPTER 24
It took us a full day to get close to Yondersun. It should have taken a quarter of that, but Gulliver and Warrane were still weak. We had to stop and let them rest every so often. While we did, people asked Jahn to tell them what happened in the core chamber. No matter how many times they heard the story, they never got bored of hearing it, and Jahn never stopped loving telling it. I just stayed quiet.
All that time the sky remained pitch-black. It was a nighttime sky, but an unnatural kind; this was the 50 nights, and there were no stars. No moon. It was a night sky that had been forced upon the wasteland. I wondered if killing Riston would end it, or if we’d just have to wait it out.
Along the way, we found the wraiths. They had left Ray’s dungeon at night time but hadn’t gotten too far before we killed Ray. It was a gut-wrenching sight even for a core like me, who lacked guts to wrench. A bunch of townsfolk lying dead on the wasteland. A reminder of what ancient cores were capable of. What we’d have to stop.
All that seemed lifetimes away. For now, all we could focus on was killing Riston, and me getting my dungeon back.
But there was a problem.
I had to get close enough to Riston to murder him, but Jahn had long ago built walls around Yondersun, on Galatee and Reginal’s orders. We were an isolated town, and we needed protection. That meant there were only two gates to get into town, and both of those were guarded.
“Barely a dozen guards,” said Eric. “I could hack my way through without breaking a sweat. Or at least, not sweating much.”
“They aren’t the enemy, Eric. They’re Yondersun townsfolk. We can’t kill them to get to Riston. If we do, we’re no better than Ray.”
“We could try the dungeon?” said Gulliver. “Your dungeon leads into town.”
“Nope. There’s not a chance that Riston hasn’t thought of that. My dungeon will be packed to the gills with guards.”
“Maybe we ask them nicely if we can go and have a chat with Riston. See if they’ll forget their mind-control, just for a minute,” said Eric.
He wasn’t being serious, but he’d given me an idea.
“Maginhart,” I said. “The orb you were making for your apprenticeship. Do you have it?”
“Dark Lord!” said Maginhart, alarmed. He subtly jerked his head toward Cynthia.
The tinker smiled. “What Ash Whiskers is trying to tell you, Beno, is that an apprentice does not show his master his project until it is finished.”
“Right. Sorry. But do you have it with you?”
“I gave you one of my early prototypesss, Dark Lord,” he said, with a trace of hurt in his voice. “Did you not keep it?”
“Of course I did, buddy. Do you not think I’d hold onto something like that? But you told me that it didn’t work. Do you have another?”
“I have another of my failed attemptsss.”
“We need
a working one.”
“It worksss in a way, Dark Lord. Jussst not asss well asss I hoped.”
“Whiskers is a perfectionist,” said Cynthia. “Working with chemicals that could blow your face off tends to do that to you.”
Maginhart tapped his alchemy pack slung around his shoulder. It was covered in stains, burns, and the strap was half-worn off. He really should have gotten another one. I’d bought him the pack as a gift when he became Cynthia’s apprentice, and it was touching that he’d kept it. Even though the fabric was obviously much shoddier than what Lipperton, that bloody conman of a Yondersun merchant, had led me to believe. “It’s the best quality leather,” he’d said. That damned charlatan git.
But anyway.
“The orb is supposed to dispel any mana effects in the area, yes?” I said.
“When I make one that truly works, Dark Lord.”
“And this one doesn’t?”
“It might, but I have not perfected it.”
“If we use it on the guards, would it remove Riston’s spell?”
“Ah,” said Maginhart. “You think the orb will remove hisss control. It only worksss in a sssmall area. And itsss effectsss will not be powerful enough to remove the ssspells of a mage like him. He isss too ssstrong.”
“Damn it. Then we’re stuck.”
Maginhart shook his head. “Not quite. It will not remove them, but it may sssuppressssss the ssspell effectsss. For minutesss, perhapsss.”
“That’ll be enough to get us into town without killing innocents. Okay, we might have something here. Eric, I want you with me. You’ll have to kill Riston.”
“It’ll be a pleasure.”
“I’ll come too,” said Shadow.
“Really? You just heard what we have to do, Shadow. I know that ever since the whole thing with Anna…”
“When she seized control of my mind, Beno? Made me a prisoner within my own thoughts?”
“Hey!” said Anna. “It wasn’t like that. Well, it was, but you make it sound like a bad thing.”
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