The Core

by Peter V. Brett

  Even the others were stunned. The Par’chin’s eyes roamed everywhere, trying to take in everything at once—an impossible task. His jiwah, similarly overwhelmed, took the opposite tack. She flitted from one thing to the next, examining closely for a moment, crying out wonders, and moving on.

  But Shanvah, faithful Shanvah, watched only her father. In her aura, he could see how Shanjat hovered over her like a specter.

  She carries his honor, Jardir realized. Holding herself to account for her father’s actions, even now, under the demon’s control.

  “Be at peace, niece. In this place, even Alagai Ka cannot bring harm to us.” He could see the words pass through her aura, the words of Shar’Dama Ka. She allowed herself a few furtive glances around the great temple, but her attention remained fixed upon her father and the demon atop him.

  The eyes of heroes stared down at them from the great chandeliers, glowing with light that filled the halls. They brightened when Jardir took notice of them, but a thought dimmed them back down. The temple had woken when the crown drew near, responsive to his every whim as if it were the Holy Word.

  Fountains still danced, arcing sacred water from hollow bones, the pools clear and pure even now. Jardir and the others drank of them, instantly refreshed.

  In crownsight, Jardir could see the power of the bones, pulsing and throbbing in time with the heart of the temple, in time with the gems at his brow. These untold thousands had died with Everam and Sharak Ka in their hearts, and that unity, that truth of purpose, had imprinted upon their remains.

  Unlike the Sharik Horas of the surface, where much of this power burned away with the sun, these bones had been locked underground, accruing power for millennia.

  “Everythin’ looks shiny and new,” Renna said. “So where is everyone?”

  “I fear we are looking at them,” Jardir said, continuing a steady stride toward the great domed hall where the faithful gathered for prayer.

  Outside the great doors hung cages of bone, meant to hold prisoners awaiting Everam’s justice.

  Jardir turned to look at Alagai Ka, cowering in Shanjat’s robe. In his enhanced crownsight, he could see the demon’s link to his friend as never before, an infection that spread wherever their flesh touched, making the two as one.

  But here in his place of power, Jardir broke the demon’s hold effortlessly with an act of will. A flick of his finger and Shanjat’s robes opened; with a clawing motion of his hand the horrified, terrified demon king was peeled away from his friend like a dirty bandage, held aloft with nothing but a raised finger.

  “You cannot enter the inner temple, Prince of Nie, nor can you sully the sacred ground of Sharik Hora.” A flick of Jardir’s wrist and the demon was thrown toward the hanging cage. It responded to his will, opening to receive the prisoner, then snapping shut.

  “That gonna hold him?” the Par’chin asked.

  Jardir snapped his fingers. Bones peeled away from the walls, forming into warded spikes that surrounded the cage from every angle, their deadly points facing inward. The demon hissed, but there was nowhere to retreat, and he stood frozen in the center of the cage.

  “There is no prison on Ala stronger, Par’chin.” The weave tightened like a briarpatch until the demon was out of sight. “The Father of Evil is beyond all sense of what goes on outside his cell. Should he make any attempt to escape, I will know, and the csar itself will rise against him.”

  The Par’chin looked at him a long time. “Glad we’re friends, ’cause sometimes you scare the piss out of me.”

  Jardir smiled. “And you, my zah’ven.”

  The Par’chin looked up as the great doors to the prayer hall swung open. “Outside, maybe. In here, ent no denying you’re Shar’Dama Ka.”

  The Par’chin fell short of calling Jardir Deliverer, but it was on his aura, calling into doubt all the beliefs he held dear, and those he scorned.

  Jardir laid a hand on his shoulder. “Be at peace, my friend. If I am Deliverer in this place, there can be no doubt I would never have reached it without you.”

  He gave a last squeeze, and turned to face the doors.

  Shanvah took Shanjat’s arm, his hands still bound. “Walk with me, Father.” The warrior followed her, and at last her eyes began to take in the marvels around her. They grew wide, and wet.

  So much was becoming clear to Jardir as the csar continued to speak to him. He peeled back the years of Shanvah’s life in her aura effortlessly. He saw her being raised—as he was—in a dark underpalace; saw her taught only the joyless lessons of war. Saw the flash of glory when he named her Sharum’ting, stolen soon after by her defeat at the hands of the Par’chin’s jiwah. Another glory, as they struck their blow against the minds that came to Anoch Sun, robbed not long after as the prince of Nie took her father.

  But now, with Alagai Ka locked away, there was wonder in her face again, and Jardir paused a moment to remember it before turning and leading the way inside. Behind him, the doors thudded shut, sealing them in the holiest place in all Ala.

  There was room for thousands to sit and kneel on benches of polished bone, surrounding the altar on all sides. The altar itself contained a Skull Throne like the one in Everam’s Bounty, coated in electrum and affixed with gemstones that reached out to those upon his crown like reunited lovers.

  And as in Everam’s Bounty, a bed of pillows sat next to the throne, and there lay an ancient woman, curled as if in sleep around a scroll tube of bone, capped with a great ruby.

  The others fell back as Jardir ascended to the altar. He could see from across the room that she was long dead, but her body had been preserved by this holy place. Her wrinkled flesh was gray but untouched by time. She might have let out her last breath a moment ago.

  She was clad all in white, save for a black headscarf, the mark of a Damaji’ting. This woman had been a leader to these people when she died. Perhaps their last.

  Jardir knelt, reaching out a hand reverently to take the scroll. For a moment, their hands touched, and her life flashed before his eyes. She was born in the csar. Had never left its walls. Had never seen the sun or moon. Her life was spent in prayer and labor, crafting the monument that surrounded them, painstakingly adding bones and hair and skin to Sharik Hora as, one by one, everyone around her died. Her last years were ones of utter loneliness, trapped within the beautiful prison of Sharik Hora.

  He sobbed at her sacrifice, feeling her essence so strongly that for a moment, he felt he could reach through her and up the lonely path to retrieve her spirit.

  He heard his mother’s voice in his head. You would pull a woman, a Bride of Everam, from Heaven?

  He embraced the words, and let them fall away. Yes. For the First War, he would sacrifice even a woman’s place in Heaven. It was no more than they asked of the son Jardir could see growing in Renna am’Bales’ belly.

  But perhaps it was not necessary—if such a thing could even be done. Jardir let go of her hand and slid the scroll tube from her hands.

  It was the hollowed thighbone of some massive warrior, polished and etched with warding as exquisite as anything Jardir had ever seen. He could see the lines of power, and knew the tube was nearly indestructible, the gemstone locked in place so that none could ever open it.

  None, save the wearer of the Crown of Kaji. The ruby on Jardir’s brow throbbed as his fingers clasped the cap and twisted through the threads of magic binding it closed.

  Inside was a single sheet of parchment Jardir knew well from his time in Sharik Hora. Human skin.

  There, written in blood on a hero’s skin, were this woman’s last words to him.

  Shar’Dama Ka,

  I am Kavrivah, your great-granddaughter. Though we have never met, I have felt you in my heart since I was a little girl.

  This is the last parchment in the csar. All the rest have been used to record the history of the Spear of Ala since we were severed from you. They are in the library, protected, like this last letter, against the glorious day when you
shall break the walls and reclaim what is yours, in this life or another.

  Know, Deliverer, that while we have failed you, we have not forsaken you, or our duty to Everam.

  The histories tell of ten thousand Sharum left to garrison the Spear of Ala in your absence, led by your son Sharach and daughter—my namesake—Kavrivah.

  But then the alagai collapsed the tunnels, and filled the cavern in a seething mass. Again and again, Sharach led sallies to retake the collapsed tunnel, but the excavation was hard, and slow, and the warriors vulnerable while they worked. Every attempt cost lives, including your son. It is said he died on alagai talons, Deliverer, with Everam’s name on his lips. Others were dragged into the darkness beyond Everam’s sight. We have prayed for the alamen fae ever since.

  There were less than a thousand left when Kavrivah ordered the gates sealed and began her rule. Less than a thousand warriors, and only seven dama’ting.

  They took multiple husbands, desperate to preserve the seed of the strongest and wisest among them, but no wisdom or throw of the dice foresaw the day the gwilji turned on their masters, and found their way into the nurseries. My mother was the only female to survive, and I her only daughter.

  I bore many children, Deliverer, but in the end it was inevera that I outlived them all. Now, after two hundred and eleven years, even the holy couscous can sustain me no longer.

  Know, Deliverer, that I love you with all my heart.

  Everam speak through you always,

  Kavrivah vah’Ajasht am’Kavri am’Kras

  Kras. The fabled one tribe in the time of Kaji, before the Deliverer died and his followers’ factions came to define the Krasian nation.

  “Everam bless you, ancestor,” he whispered, “as you sup in His great hall in Heaven. Your sacrifice will not go unsung.”

  He put the parchment back in the tube, tucking it into his belt as he rose and strode for the Skull Throne. The crown felt like it was aflame as he sat upon it, feeling the full power of the csar—the greatwards, the spirits of the fallen, Everam Himself—flowing through him.

  He reached out, not along the path that separated Kavrivah from the living, but along one that seemed more distant still, the path back to the surface of Ala. Through all the noise of rushing magic, over the miles, and out the Mouth of the Abyss. It was night on the surface, and his power traveled with the speed of thought, covering the distance instantly.

  “Jiwah.”

  Inevera’s voice came to him instantly. “Husband, is it truly you?”

  “I did not know your name until our wedding day,” Jardir said, “only to realize I had known it all along.”

  “I have missed you, beloved,” Inevera said.

  “And I, you, Sun of my Life,” Jardir whispered. “But I must speak now with the Damajah. We are linked with Shanvah, the Par’chin, and his Jiwah Ka.”

  “Damajah.” The Par’chin bowed, though the woman was a thousand miles away. “I apologize for throwing your husband from a cliff.”

  Inevera laughed ruefully, but it was a welcome sound. “I begged my husband to let me poison your tea, Par’chin, the day you came to us with the spear you stole from Kaji’s tomb. Did you know?”

  The Par’chin nodded. “Ahmann told me.”

  “Many times, have I regretted staying my hand, Par’chin,” Inevera said. “No longer. Everam wills as Everam will. What has happened is what was meant to happen.”

  “What’s the point of anythin’, we ent got a choice?” Renna asked.

  “There is always choice, Renna am’Bales,” Inevera said. “It is the ultimate power, what makes the infinite futures finite. But Everam guides us to the right ones, like pieces on the board.”

  Renna rolled her eyes but said no more.

  “Kneel with me before the throne,” Shanvah whispered to her father, and the two of them knelt together.

  “Shanvah?” Inevera asked. “Niece, is that you?”

  “Go with your father,” Shanvah quoted. “Obey and protect him on his journey. Do not return without the Deliverer, or reliable news of his fate, even if it take a thousand years.”

  She placed her hands on the floor and bowed forward to touch her forehead against the bones of heroes. “I have kept my mission, Damajah, and will stay true, even if it take a thousand years.”

  “Your glory is boundless, niece,” Inevera said, and silently Shanvah began to weep.

  “There is another who must link with us,” Jardir said.

  A slow, steady exhale was Inevera’s only response. “Leesha Paper.”

  “That gonna be a problem?” the Par’chin asked. “Because this is Sharak Ka.”

  “Your words are truer than you know, Par’chin,” Inevera said. “All across Thesa, fires rage and cities fall.”

  The Par’chin’s eyes widened, but Jardir did not give him time to speak again. He reached farther, finding Leesha’s familiar aura across hundreds of miles and creating wards of resonance around her.

  Was this what it was like for the minds? To never be apart from one another in thought? It was an alien concept.

  “Countess Paper.” He kept his words formal. In his heart they were anything but. Leesha Paper had borne him a child. She would always be a wife to him, and everyone knew it.

  They all heard the gasp. “Ahmann?”

  “Ay, and me,” the Par’chin cut in.

  “Me and Shanvah, too,” Renna said.

  “And—” Jardir began.

  “—Inevera,” his Jiwah Ka finished, her voice a razor cutting silk.

  —

  “Night,” the Par’chin said when they were caught up.

  “The Long Night of Sharak Ka,” Jardir agreed. “Angiers and Docktown are the least of the losses we will suffer, if it lasts long enough to darken the heart of our power.”

  “Only one way to stop it.” Renna gripped the handle of her knife.

  “Ent heard anything from Miln?” The Par’chin could not hide the desperation in his voice. “Not even ale stories?”

  “The demons have severed contact with the North,” Leesha said. “Short-range scouts report a series of alagai greatwards in the foothills of Miln. Thus far, no Messengers can get through. Whatever is happening in Miln, they are alone.”

  There was the familiar clatter of Inevera’s dice. Everyone fell silent.

  “I see a city in the mountains,” Inevera whispered. “Nie is strong there.”

  “Need dice to tell us that?” Renna snapped. Shanvah looked horrified, but Jardir had been a prisoner to the dice all his life, and understood the sentiment.

  He put out a hand. “Peace, Renna am’Bales.”

  Inevera did not respond to the outburst, continuing to sift secrets from the dice. “The alagai have shattered the great wall and entered the city.”

  The Par’chin clenched a fist, and Jardir felt his instinctive pull on the greatward. With hardly an effort, he resisted the pull, drawing his friend’s eyes. “Breathe, Par’chin. Embrace the pain.”

  His anjin’pal nodded, staring at nothing as his coiled and corded muscles relaxed.

  “I see a city become a Sharum’s Maze,” Inevera said. “I see demon and man, wrestling for a throne.”

  Renna took the Par’chin’s hand. “So they’re still fightin’.”

  “Nie expected them to fall easily,” Inevera said. “But Everam has not abandoned them.”

  “Lots of walls in Miln,” the Par’chin said. “Built in tiers right up into the mountainside. Whole city’s warded. Lots of places for ambush pockets and succor…”

  “Trust in your people,” Jardir advised.

  “Know Messengers are in short supply, Leesha.” Renna’s voice was unusually timid. “But if you could spare one for Tibbet’s Brook…”

  “We sent one immediately after the attack,” Leesha said. “But Tibbet’s Brook is a long journey, even on warded horseshoes.”

  Renna grunted. “Even on a straight round-trip, it will be new moon again by the time you get an answer.�
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  Again the dice clattered, and this time Renna am’Bales held her breath, but after long moments, Inevera said nothing.

  “What?!” Renna cried when it went on too long to bear. “What do you see?”

  “Some futures cannot…” Inevera began.

  “Cut the demonshit!” Renna barked. “Pickin’ up more’n words along this link. Know you’re lyin’. You saw somethin’ and don’t want to say it.”

  Inevera breathed. “You are correct. I apologize for my attempt at deceit. It shames us both. I beg your forgiveness.”

  “Don’t care about any of that,” Renna said. “Tell us what you saw.”

  Inevera breathed again. The Par’chin’s jiwah was a trial, but she was also correct. “I see a village entire, dancing like puppets to a demon’s strings. I see brother killing sister, father killing son.

  “I see an empty cradle.”

  —

  The council continued for hours, but without a word from Leesha and Inevera, Jardir sensed the approach of dawn on the surface. A gentle push against his magic that would soon be an irresistible force.

  “The night grows long, and dawn approaches,” Jardir said at last. “This may be the last time we speak before the end, and I would have a few words in private with my Jiwah Ka.”

  They made their goodbyes quickly, and one by one Jardir broke them from the link as easily as he might blow out a candle.

  “Are Asome and Asukaji behaving?” Jardir asked when he was linked to his wife alone.

  “The boys are proving fine leaders now that they have remembered their place,” Inevera said.

  “That is well,” Jardir said. “It seems in my effort to keep you from the abyss, I have sent the abyss to you.”

  “We will stand fast as you pierce the heart of Nie, beloved,” Inevera said.

  “Never in my adult life have I been without your counsel,” Jardir said. “I did not realize how much I had come to depend on it.”

  “Is that your way of saying you miss me?”

  “It is my way of saying I am afraid, jiwah. And that when you are near, I am less so.”

  “Oh, beloved,” Inevera whispered. “Everam Himself could speak no truer words.”