CHAPTER 26

THE DARK BELOW

334 AR

Jardir embraced his doubts one by one as he left the Par’chin and his jiwah in the cave. Bad enough the woman carried an unborn child into the abyss, but she was unstable, as well. Unpredictable. Impulsive. Lacking judgment.

But what was he, to have agreed to this plan? To be led down into the abyss by Alagai Ka himself? The daughter of Harl was powerful. Fearless. Sacrificing her life and the life of her child in the First War. She was not Krasian, but she was Evejan in her heart. He shamed himself by doubting her.

Shanvah stood guard over Alagai Ka’s prison, just outside the cave mouth. Her father was still chained to the bench, the demon king locked behind warded steel, but Shanvah was alert, spear and shield at the ready, scanning for threats—external and from within.

“Deliverer.” She bowed when he drew close. “Is the daughter of Harl well?”

“It was foolish of her to risk herself by consuming the princeling’s mind,” Jardir said, “but she will recover, Everam willing.”

“Did it…work?” Shanvah asked. “Does she have the demon’s memories?”

Jardir shook his head. “It appears not. We will continue with our original plan. Now.”

“Inevera.” Shanvah sheathed her spear and leapt lightly onto the bench, backing the wagon up to the cave mouth. She untethered the horses and removed their traces. The demon’s prison could not go down into the abyss with them, and so it was time to set the animals free.

Jardir looked at the stallions, wondering if setting them free was sending them to their deaths. There were wards cut into their hooves, and the sun would rise in a few hours. Most of the demons in the area were dead, killed by the mind demon’s psychic scream. The horses had a better chance to survive the coming days than Jardir and his companions did.

Jardir raised his spear, tracing wards in the air over the creatures. The magic clung to the horses, revitalizing them one last time even as it shielded them from alagai talons. The magic would fade with dawn, but for the remainder of the night they would be protected.

The stallions lifted their heads, alert once more. “Everam watch over you, noble steeds,” Jardir said. “I name you Strength and Fortitude. If I live to tell of this journey, your names will not be forgotten in the holy verse.”

He drew another warding in the air, setting off a harmless bang and flash that sent the stallions galloping down the ancient road.

Jardir moved to Shanjat, unlocking the chain that secured him to the wagon bench. Shanjat did not react, staring as blankly as the horses had. Jardir pulled his brother-in-law down, throwing him over one shoulder like a practice dummy.

The son of Jeph and daughter of Harl were waiting with Shanvah as he set Shanjat on his knees by the wagon door.

My sister’s husband, Jardir thought. Who trained and fought beside me since Hannu Pash. And I lay him on his knees for Alagai Ka.

He looked down at his true friend. I swear on Everam’s light and my hope of Heaven, brother. When the time is right, Alagai Ka will pay for what he has done to you.

With that, Jardir unlocked the wagon door and pulled it open. The demon lay in the center, staring at him with those huge, alien eyes. He strode into the circle and unchained the creature, then gripped the demon by the throat and dragged it hissing out of the circle. He tossed it from the wagon to land unceremoniously by Shanjat.

He would allow the creature its life for the good of Ala, but it deserved no dignity.

Alagai Ka made no pretense this time, taking control of Shanjat immediately. The warrior opened his robe, securing the demon underneath the cloth on his back.

The two, demon and host, stared at the body of the slain mind, its skull opened and scooped like a melon. Then they turned to Renna.

“Nice night,” the daughter of Harl said, sucking ichor from her fingers.

Shanjat seemed to relax, smiling. “Your hatchling will be strong, if by some chance it survives. More akin to my kind than its weak ancestry.”

Renna’s aura flared so hot Jardir had to squint to look at her. She drew her knife, advancing on the demon. Shanjat retreated, but they had the demon surrounded, and there was nowhere to flee as Renna kicked him onto his knees and put the tip of the powerful blade against the demon’s throat.

Shanjat looked at her. “Do it. Kill me if you dare. If your ploy had worked and your primitive brain been able to comprehend the vastness of my get’s mind, you would have no need of me, and the Heir would have killed me as I lay helpless.”

Shanjat’s lips curled into a smile. “But you do, don’t you, Hunter? To kill me is to doom your own kind.”

“Maybe,” Renna said. “But mention my babe one more time, and you’ll be dead long before my ‘kind.’ ”

She meant every word. Jardir could see it in her aura. He feared she might lose control and doom their plan, but it was good for Alagai Ka to fear them. If the demon king began to feel secure, he would prove increasingly difficult to control.

If they even controlled him now.

“Your life only has value as long as you are of use to us, Prince of Lies,” Jardir said. “The Evejah tells us Kaji’s armies marched for three times seven days to reach the abyss. Is it so?”

“To reach the abyss?” The demon laughed with Shanjat’s throat. “Nie’s abyss is a fantasy created to motivate drones. There is no such place.”

Jardir bristled at the smug smile—had to restrain himself from killing the vile creature once and for all. It was baiting them, whispering truths that sounded like lies, and lies that rang of truth. Even without looking into their minds, the demon had an uncanny knack for manipulating their emotions. It would seek to confuse them, to get them to lower their guard. They must be vigilant.

“How long a walk to your hive?” the Par’chin asked.

“A turning, perhaps,” Shanjat said, winking at Jardir. “We travel deeper than Kavri and his dogs.”

Shanjat looked at him expectantly, but Jardir only smiled.

“And so did Kaji

Unleash his war dogs

Driving evil to Sharum spears

Like foxes before the hunter.”

“You think to insult me, demon?” Jardir asked. “To insult my people? Kaji’s dogs drove your kind back underground like cattle.”

“Scared, even if he don’t admit it,” Renna said. “Ent every day someone ets your son.”

Shanjat laughed again. “An unexpected boon, to be ridden of my strongest rival. I thank you for that.”

“He one of the ones that came to Anoch Sun?” the Par’chin asked.

Shanjat shook his head just as he had in life. It was unnerving. “No. He was one of two left in the mind court powerful enough to refuse my summons.”

“That is nine, including you,” Jardir said.

“We killed three in Anoch Sun,” Shanvah noted.

“And captured Alagai Ka,” Jardir said.

“This’un makes five.” Renna kicked the corpse of the demon princeling. “Plus the four we killed last summer.”

“Had over a dozen minds, before this all started,” the Par’chin said. “How many you got now? Four?”

“Four mature enough to survive a mating without being eaten alive when it is done.” Shanjat’s smile spread. “Along with juvenile princelings enough to lay waste to your Free Cities. They will scatter, striking where your people least suspect, building new hives and using drones to herd your kind underground like cattle to feed their hatchling queens.”

“Then why was the strongest of them here, far from any human city?” Jardir asked.

Shanjat looked at him as if he were a fool. It was a look Jardir had seen his brother make many times, but never in his direction. “There is power here. My get would have let his younger brothers fight over your territories, then taken spoils from them all when their forces were sufficiently weakened.”

“How do you know that?” Renna asked.

“Because I have done it many times over the millennia,” Shanjat said.

“Some other mind gonna try and claim the vent now?” the Par’chin asked.

“When they realize it is unguarded, certainly,” Shanjat said, “but it is unlikely they will encroach upon their elder brother’s territory enough to discover it soon.”

“When will they attack?” Jardir asked.

Shanjat threw back his head to laugh. “If my get was here, they already have! Krasia. Thesa.” He turned to look at Renna. “Perhaps even your Tibbet’s Brook. It is isolated, with so many deliciously empty minds to feast upon.”

Renna bared her teeth, but she held her tongue, and her ground.

The Par’chin wavered. “Still dark. I could skate back…”

“And do what, Par’chin?” Jardir asked. “Warn them of an attack that has already come? Abandon our mission to fight lesser princelings?”

“Don’t know,” the Par’chin said. “Might be somethin’ I can do.”

“Warned ’em best we could,” Renna said. “Ent this what you’re always preachin’? Save yourselves?”

The Par’chin blew out a breath. “Ent ever been one to stand by when trouble comes callin’.”

“It would be unwise for you to enter the between-state here in any case,” Shanjat said. “Even I take care when dissipating near such currents.”

“Lose yourself,” the Par’chin said.

“There is no return from the Core,” Shanjat said. “Not even for my kind.”

The Par’chin turned on Shanjat. “Why’re you so chatty, all a sudden? Why tell us about the attacks at all?”

Shanjat drew a deep, mocking breath through his nostrils. “For the exquisite scent of despair it imprints on you.” The Par’chin’s hand closed into a fist, but Shanjat wasn’t finished. “And to give you hope.”

“Hope?” Jardir asked. “What do the creatures of Nie know of hope?”

“We know how you apes treasure it,” Shanjat said. “How you cling to it. Kill for it. How it cuts you, when snatched away.”

“And is this your plan?” Jardir asked. “To dangle hope like a string to a cat, then snatch it away?”

“Of course,” Shanjat said.

“What hope can you dangle,” Jardir asked, “now that you have revealed your ploy? Now that you have told us war has begun upon our homes?”

“The hope that comes from knowing the mind court is empty while my get make war on your homes,” Shanjat said.

Jardir stiffened. If true, it meant their mission might actually succeed. If their people could hold back the alagai for another moon—two, at the most—they had a chance to cripple the hive once and for all.

But the demon already promised the hope would be snatched away. Was the claim a lie, or was there more Alagai Ka was not telling them?

Likely, it was both.

“The time for second guesses is past.” Jardir went to the wagon, pulling his pack from the storage compartment. Shanvah was already wearing hers. “If we walk the road to the abyss, let us be upon it.”

Jardir brought up the rear, watching Alagai Ka’s back. Even with his hands chained to his waist, Shanjat picked his way down the tunnel slope with familiar nimbleness. It was a reminder that the demon had more than possession of his brother-in-law’s body. It had all the skills and knowledge the man had in life.

Shanjat was a very dangerous man.

Renna and Shanvah walked to either side of the demon, eyes watching in periphery. The Par’chin was ahead out of sight, scouting the path.

Jardir lost track of time in the lightless tunnels. They had not rested, but with magic to sustain them, they might have been traveling days for all he could tell.

The path to the abyss was not what he expected. There was life even here, far from the holy sun. They had encountered no demons yet, but the damp soil teemed with insects, and other creatures too small to see with the naked eye lit up in his crownsight. There were underground streams full of fish, moss and lichen on the walls. Lizards. Salamanders. Frogs.

And sometimes, the prints of larger things. Not demon, perhaps, but nothing he recognized.

The tunnel ended at the base of the slope, coming to a ledge that opened on a chasm so vast they could not see the other side. The Par’chin waited at its edge, leaning against a pitted stone archway of Krasian design.

“Bridge collapsed.”

“We will need to climb down to the cavern floor, and back up the far side,” Shanjat said. “This drone will need all his limbs to manage it.”

Jardir kept one eye on the prisoner as he moved to stand by the Par’chin. Together they stared out over the chasm. At the edge of his crownsight was a crumbling bridge support.

“I could fly across,” Jardir said.

“Maybe, but Ren and I shouldn’t,” the Par’chin said. “Demon’s right. Call of the Core’s gotten stronger, deeper we go. Need to stay solid, much as we can.” He squinted at the distant bridge support. “Too far to jump, even with a boost.”

“I could ferry us,” Jardir said.

“Demon, too?” the Par’chin asked. “Gonna get that close, away from backup, when you don’t have to?”

“So we climb,” Jardir said.

Renna joined them as they peered over the edge, the cavern floor lost in the haze of magic. “Need a meal and a rest, if we’re gonna unchain Shanjat’s hands for him to climb down that.” She spat over the edge, watching the spittle vanish silently into the haze. “ ’Less we want to just kick him over and have done.”

Jardir looked again at Shanjat. His fiercest lieutenant. A man whose prowess in the Maze was so great, Jardir gave his own sister for him to wed. How many times had he seen Shanjat kill with bare hands alone?

“Wise words,” he said. “My warrior’s heart wants nothing but to press on, but we must not let hunger and fatigue cause our vigilance over Alagai Ka to wane. It is too easy in this lightless world to forget the passage of time.”

“Ent no clock as reliable as my stomach these days.” Renna patted a belly that grew rounder by the day.

They gathered in the hollow of the tunnel mouth. The Par’chin and his jiwah striding over to Shanjat.

“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 existence. 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.”

“Everam must’ve been sleepin’ on watch, waitin’ so long to do what needed doin’.”

“Peace, sister,” Shanvah said, not taking her eyes from the prisoner.

“Even I cannot speak for Everam’s Plan,” Jardir said. “Only the dama’ting can do that, and even they can only offer the barest glimpse.”

Shanjat laughed at that, but said nothing in response to Jardir’s glare. Jardir looked back to Renna, and bowed. “If our words have offended you, I apologize. I have known many warriors to enter sharak carrying the weight of a father’s shame. Shanvah and I will not utter his name again.”

Renna grunted, her aura still hot.

“Nevertheless, it does not change our situation,” Jardir said.

“Ent swimming in that.” Renna nodded toward the lake.

“Won’t have to,” the Par’chin said. “Gonna make a bridge.”

Jardir looked at him. “How are we supposed to do that, Par’chin?”

“Same way we’re gettin’ past the mushrooms.” He stepped out to lead the way. “Form up.”

Shanvah wrapped her veil around her nose and mouth three times, producing a second silk and handing it to Renna.

“Got my own.” Renna produced a pristine veil of white silk from a pouch at her waist, wrapping it around her nose and mouth as Shanvah had. “Wedding gift from Amanvah.”

“Everam sees all ends, and guides us as He can.” Jardir put up his own night veil, and the Par’chin took Shanvah’s spare to cover his own face.

Shanvah pulled her father’s white veil over his face, as well. He looked at her. “The drone may have this scant protection, but I—”

“Had best keep your mouth shut and stick close,” the Par’chin finished for him.

Jardir took the rear, Shanvah and Renna on either side of Shanjat in a diamond formation as the Par’chin began drawing cold wards in the air, freezing spore and stalk alike. The moisture in the air only aided the effort, and a thick rime of ice formed on everything as they began.

Understanding his plan, Jardir and Renna began to do likewise, trapping the deadly spores. Their feet crunched the frost as they made their way to the water’s edge.

And then they were under attack, creatures bursting from the cover of the stalks on all sides. There were demons, a nightwolf, a pair of stout, muscular lizards the size of clay demons, and even a human man, his eyes dead, skin pale and dark-veined, with mushrooms sprouting from his ears. Their auras were strong, but blank, blending in perfectly with the surrounding colony. There was no thought to their actions, no feeling.

Shanvah yanked the chain to bring Shanjat to his knees, dropping the shield off her shoulder and onto her arm to cover them both. The demon did not resist the defense she offered as she slid her glass spear from its harness.

“Don’t cut them!” the Par’chin warned, but he needn’t have bothered. The daughter of Shanjat was no fool. She kept her shield out, driving back the foe with push-kicks and shattering blows of her spear shaft, breaking limbs to cripple pursuit.

The others kept to their cold magic, freezing the creatures and preventing them from releasing their deadly infection.

When the first wave was driven back or frozen in place, Shanvah took up the chain again, leading the way to the water. Twice more they had to stop and fight, but they were prepared now, and the mindless foe not so great a challenge for a ready defender. Even the alagai were weak, their cabled muscles rotted from the inside by the consuming fungus. The water drew closer…

“Ware above!” Shanjat called, and Shanvah got her shield up just in time to block a great mass of slime that sloughed from a stalactite overhead. Instinctively she protected her father first, her glass shield turning the attack from him, but the spatter struck her arm and back, smoking and hissing as it burned away at her silks and seeped between the plates of her armor.

She did not cry out or stop moving, her glory boundless in the face of what was no doubt an agonizing attack. Instead they quickened the pace to the water’s edge, where the fungal colony thinned and finally ended, replaced by rock covered in more of the caustic slime.

This, the Par’chin burned away, and his jiwah froze it after, clearing a path to the water.

Shanvah was weakening. Jardir could see it in her aura, the slime burning, liquefying her skin as it ate her alive. There was magic to it, feeding and multiplying at an incredible rate. Untreated, she would be dead in moments, dissolved to nothing in an hour.

“Guard us while I tend to her!” Jardir called, stripping away her silks. She was his niece, and there was no dishonor in seeing her unclad, but Shanvah had not the strength to resist in any event. The flesh of her arm and back was bubbling, melting away. Renna drew heat wards over Shanvah’s ruined robes, killing the deadly parasite.

“You must embrace the pain,” Jardir told her. “Everam is watching.”

“Pain…” Shanvah gasped, laboring for breath, “…is only…wind.”

“Indeed,” Jardir said, peering deep into the muck as he summoned power and began to draw wards. Shanvah thrashed, biting her thickly wound veil, but she did not cry out as he burned the slime away, taking healthy flesh as well as infected to ensure he had it all. When he was satisfied that not a bit of it remained, he altered his warding to spells the dama’ting had used for centuries to regrow flesh and stimulate new blood.

Immediately Shanvah opened her eyes, aura colored in shame. “I apologize, Uncle. Again, I am the weakness your enemies exploit.”

“Nonsense,” Jardir said. “Without your quick action we would have lost our guide, or had the attack strike another of the chosen. Rest a moment.”

But Shanvah was shaking her head, already pushing herself upright. “There is no time, Uncle. I am well enough to continue on.”

It was true, though her previously pristine flesh now had the look of melted wax, angry and red. She gave no thought to shame as she retrieved the warded glass plates from her ruined robes, dressing quickly in a spare from her pack. Another fungal demon emerged from the colony, but the Par’chin drew a heat ward with such power that it flashed white with flame and was reduced instantly to ash.

Renna gave a shriek as a tentacle splashed from the water, reaching for her. It wrapped around her arm, but with a thought she powered the wards on her skin, and it loosed its grip. A slash of her knife severed the appendage, but others followed. In the commotion, they had lost the protection of their wards of unsight.

Jardir looked at Alagai Ka, wondering if this was his plan all along, but there was fear in the demon’s weak aura. Trapped by the wards in its current form, it would not survive being pulled under any better than they.

The Par’chin stepped forward, pulling power away from his wards to allow the tentacles to wrap around his arms. He planted his feet and began to walk back, hauling the beast from the water. It was a thing of nightmare, slimy appendages covered in sharp horns and suction tips all joining at a center mass that seemed entirely mouth, with thousands of snapping teeth.

Jardir did not hesitate, launching himself at the creature and driving the Spear of Kaji deep into its throat, killing it.

The water was alive with demons. He focused his will on the crown’s warding field, driving them back as he returned to the others.

His patience thinned, he went to Shanjat, violence barely held in check. “How could any human swim through such an infested place?”

“Because they carried my imprint,” Alagai Ka said through his friend, “and had a mimic to guide them and dominate the lesser drones.”

“And Kaji’s armies?” Jardir demanded. “Is this the path they took?”

“The lake was not here back then,” Alagai Ka said. “My kind created it to discourage further intrusion into our territory.”

“You built a lake?” Renna asked.

“A simple enough task, to have rock drones open tunnels to nearby water flows,” Shanjat said.

“Ent swimmin’,” Renna said again.

“Won’t have to,” the Par’chin said. “Gonna freeze us a bridge.”

“And when the water demons come at it?” she asked.

“The Crown of Kaji will keep them at bay,” Jardir assured her. He took out the sacred bowls and shattered the frozen stone, drawing soil beneath to fill them and create food and water while the Par’chin summoned magic to build his bridge. Shanvah seemed much recovered, but she would need food and drink to replace the lost flesh, and there was little to be done for the scars. Magic could fade a clean cut into an invisible line, but this damage was too much for that.

When Shanvah had been fed and returned to guard her father and the demon, Renna am’Bales drifted over like a fish on a lure.

Jardir bowed. “Again, I apologize…”

“Nothin’ to be sorry for.” Renna bowed in return. “You din’t know. Just snapped. Thought I’d got a handle on it, the flashes of anger that come from magic, but the babe’s made it worse’n ever, and I took a big dose up in that cave. Anyone should be sorry, it’s me.”

“It is a…failing among my people, to put the father’s name first in all things.” The words were difficult for Jardir, in part because the truth of them gave lie to so much of his own life. “My own father died young and without glory. I spend more hours pondering how to win a place of honor for him in Heaven than I did on my mother, raising four without a husband.”

Renna glanced at Shanvah. “Looks like you did all right by them in the end.”

“Perhaps,” Jardir allowed. “The Par’chin, too, grated at being named the son of Jeph, though it was years before I learned why.”

“His da found redemption without anyone’s help,” Renna said. “Wouldn’t be sitting here, he hadn’t stepped off his porch and faced down a demon with nothin’ but a plain old axe.”

She sighed. “Maybe none of us would be here, my da hadn’t taken up his pitchfork and shepherded Arlen and his mam and da to succor all those years ago.”

“Only the Creator can see all ends,” Jardir said, careful not to use Everam’s name for fear of upsetting this fragile moment. “We can spend eternity questioning the past, but it is the future we must look to.”

“Honest word.” Renna then spoke the prayers with him, again eating more than the others combined.

By then, the Par’chin had gathered an incredible amount of ambient magic, glowing as bright to crownsight as the sun. He began his warding, and ice crystals formed on the surface of the lake, streaking toward one another and connecting, spreading out and thickening down to form a sheet of ice that extended out from the shore into the darkness.

Jardir waited, watching as the bright shine of his friend’s power dimmed. When it threatened to go dark, he went to him and gently laid a hand on his back. “Enough, Par’chin. Eat and refresh yourself. Let me continue your work.”

“Ay.” The Par’chin put his hands on his knees, panting as if he had been in pitched battle, when he had only stood on the shore. “Might be that’s a good idea.”

As the Par’chin took the rare luxury of a moment’s ease, Jardir gripped his spear and Drew as his friend had, pulling in as much ambient power as he could gather before stepping out onto the ice. The water did not conduct magic well, and he could feel himself cut off from the rich abundance felt on land. The lake shone dark even to crownsight, save for the glow of fish and water demons in the deep.

He raised the forbiddance of his crown to keep the latter at bay as he strode out, drawing cold wards with the tip of his spear. The bridge extended almost eagerly, the water already colder than he would have thought in the humid heat of the cavern.

The spear grew dim, but Jardir pressed on, determined to double the Par’chin’s construct in length before giving in. He felt his lungs begin to burn, his muscles ache. The bit of power used to fend off the cold became too much to spare, and his sandaled feet grew numb on the ice.

When he began to Draw upon the power of the crown, Jardir knew it was time to retreat. Without it, he would be defenseless if some leviathan of the deep struck at him. His dignity would not allow him to rush, but neither did he linger in his stride back to the shore.

“My turn,” Renna said. Her husband looked ready to protest, but she silenced him with a glare. She gathered power—no less than Jardir and the Par’chin—and focused a portion onto the water wards on her skin, creating a forbiddance to deter the alagai as she, too, moved to extend the bridge.

The Par’chin appeared to watch her calmly, but Jardir could see images of him rushing out onto the ice replaying over and over in his mind. He was ready to act in an instant should she be threatened.

Trusting in his friend’s vigilance, Jardir turned his attention to Alagai Ka, bound once more while they waited, gnawing with disgust on a fish Shanvah had speared for him. Her father, she treated with greater tenderness, cleaning and binding scrapes and blisters on his hands and feet, feeding him the holy food and drink, brushing and braiding his hair. The sadness in her aura was palpable as Shanjat stared out over the water, unseeing.

“I can see the shore.” Renna, too, was breathing hard on her return. “One more of us can make it, I think.”

“We may not have time to wait.” Shanvah nodded to the edge of the fungal colony, where the lifeless eyes of myriad creatures watched with the malice of whatever intelligence guided this collective.

Jardir turned to the Par’chin. “Do we go now, or tempt fate by sending another out?”

The Par’chin pursed his lips. “Don’t like either choice.”

“Could barely see you back on the shore at the far end of the ice,” Renna said. “Anyone goes that far, they’re going alone.”

“We stay together, then.” Jardir signaled Shanvah and again Alagai Ka was unchained and allowed to invade Shanjat.

Shanvah took the warded chain and first secured it around her waist, then locked the far end through the loops in Shanjat’s manacle belt. “If you try to escape into the water, I will kill you, even if it be my last act on Ala.”

Shanjat’s eyes crinkled behind his veil. “I have spent too much time flavoring your mind to die before I consume it, daughter.”

Shanvah raised her spear. “Do not call me that again.”

“Daughter!” Shanjat laughed, thrusting out his chest, daring her to strike. “Daughter! Daughter! Daughter!”

The young woman bristled, and Renna laid a hand on her shoulder. “Just spit and wind, Shanvah. Don’t pay it no mind.”

“Indeed,” Jardir said. “Leave the once mighty demon lord to his impotent barking.”

Some of the tension left her, and Shanvah gave a tight bow. “As the Deliverer says. I will bend as the palm before this…spit and wind.”

“Let’s go, then,” Renna said. “Those mushroom things are makin’ me itch.”

“Renna and I’ll focus on the bridge,” the Par’chin said. “You focus on keeping your forbidding up, and hold your power in reserve in case there’s trouble.”

“Agreed,” Jardir told him, calling the field back to life as they stepped out into the bridge in their customary diamond formation around the prisoner. He kept the field small to draw as little attention as possible, but all the armies of Nie would not be able to penetrate it while he remained vigilant.

He cast a nervous eye behind them at the colony, remembering how the infected demon had ignored its protection. It was a reminder to vigilance he would not forget.

Their feet crunched on the ice as dark water lapped at the edges, raised to prevent the gentle waves from washing onto the bridge. The shore grew distant behind them, and the Par’chin, his water wards glowing powerfully, stepped beyond the range of Jardir’s forbidding to complete the construction.

That was when the leviathan struck. There was an instant’s warning, the glow of a powerful alagai coming to the surface, but it did not attack the barrier, instead slamming its great bulk against the bridge behind them. There was a thunderous crash, and cracks raced along the length, chasing them like flame demons. It would not withstand another blow.

“Run!” Jardir cried, drawing cold wards to repair what damage he could. Renna, Shanvah, and Shanjat took off, racing for the far shore where the Par’chin still worked to complete the bridge.

Again the leviathan struck, shattering the bridge and splashing out of the water like a nightmare come to life. The bridge behind was broken into great chunks of ice that flew high and rained down upon them. Jardir held his ground, drawing impact wards to deflect those that would have struck his companions as they raced away from the fissures tearing at their footing.

The demon made another pass, this time too close to Jardir’s forbidding. It bounced away, but not before its great tail swatted the bridge one more time, sending huge pieces of ice into the air, blinding Jardir with smaller particles and the spray of water. One piece struck the bridge in front of him, and then he was enveloped in darkness.

Jardir learned many skills in sharaj. He could wrestle an alagai with his bare hands, leap from great heights and roll away the impact, lead men in formation, and stem wounds that might otherwise have been crippling or fatal.

But he never learned to swim.

Enveloped in the black water, there was no sense of up or down, only the battering of ice and the scream of his lungs. The Par’chin taught him that magic could do nearly anything, but it could not replace precious breath, and Jardir had not had time for more than the barest gasp.

He felt the crown loosen at his brow and reached desperately to secure it. If the precious item were lost, so were his own chances, and the hope of all Ala. His other hand gripped the spear in similar desperation. He did not have faith they could be recovered if they sank to the depths of this cursed lake.

The water demons, however, had no such limitations. They were in their element, and he could see them circling. Some were great leviathans, and others smaller, tentacled abominations, but all were focused on his destruction. They struck from all sides, buffeting him at the center of the forbidding. They could not attack him directly, but in the water he felt every blow, pounding with a force he could not believe and keeping him from his bearings.

His lungs screamed, and Jardir knew he did not have long. He embraced the impacts and fear, reaching out with his senses, seeking the power nestled in the ala below. He touched it for an instant, but another strike from a water demon spun him about, and he lost it.

One of the larger demons came in for another pass.

If I am to die, let it be on alagai talons, he thought, not breathing water in panicked fear. He shoved the crown down hard onto his brow and dropped the forbiddance, and the demon, expecting impact, arrowed toward him, right onto the point of his waiting spear.

He felt the beast shudder with pain as the spear bit deep, and held on as it gave a mighty sweep of its fins, breaking the surface long enough for him to gasp a breath.

He pulled the spear, trying to free it to leap away and into the air, but it was stuck fast on a bone, and an instant later he was returned to the deep. The demon corkscrewed, trying as much as he to remove the barb, and again Jardir lost all sense of up and down.

Around him, alagai gathered once more.

But then there was a flare of magic, and they were scattered. Jardir looked to see the Par’chin shooting for him, glowing brightly and propelling himself with powerful strokes of his arms and legs.

Jardir put his foot on the demon and tore the spear free, ripping a deep and jagged wound he hoped the demon would never recover from. His first thought was to finish it, but discretion took the better part of glory and he renewed his crown’s forbiddance, driving the demons away as the Par’chin reached out and grasped his hand.

The next few days seemed an eternity, spent hiking and climbing, sliding along narrow ledges. For over a mile they crawled on their bellies in a tunnel less than two feet high. Always hot, always soaked with sweat, waiting for Alagai Ka to inevitably betray them.

For his part, the father of demons seemed as miserable and exhausted as they. Controlling Shanjat for long periods of time drained him, and no doubt the wards on his skin burned as freshly now as the day the Par’chin put them there.

The journey is long, and you will grow lax.

Jardir clenched a fist. Was this even the way to the abyss? Inevera’s dice had said he would lead them there, but perhaps there were several ways, now that they were deep in the bowels of Ala. Was he deliberately taking them on the most dangerous paths, hoping to weaken them sufficiently to make his escape? There was no way to know. The demon princes had thousands of years of experience in masking their auras. Who could say what words were truth and which lies?

Jardir had first thought alagai would be their only concern, but it seemed the dark below held many terrors beyond the servants of Nie.

Arlen did not relax when the cavern widened, allowing them to walk without hunching, but he’d learned to take what comforts he could on this cursed journey.

The walls were braced with ancient columns of Krasian design, lending confidence they traveled the path of Kaji’s armies, but the wards were long since scarred. Having taken point in their journey, Arlen took the chance where he could to repair some of them. He could not replace the mind wards if they wanted their guide to pass, but others seemed a wise precaution, in the unlikely case they survived long enough to flee back this way, likely with all the demons of the Core on their heels.

But abruptly the wide, clear path ended in a cave-in. Great stones, too heavy for even him to shift, had collapsed into the tunnel, blocking the path. Beneath them, a pool of water had formed. Arlen eyed it warily in wardsight, but saw no sign of demons. Too shallow, perhaps. There was life, though. Tube coral clung to the floor beneath the water, feeding on Creator only knew what.

He climbed the stones while waiting for the others to catch up. There were crevices that allowed the flow of magic, and if he dared dissipate, he might easily pass through and explore. But the call of the Core had become insistent as they descended, and now it thrummed in him, a summoning he was not certain he could resist save under the most dire need. If one of their lives depended upon it he would take the risk, but not before.

In any event, only he and Renna could dissipate. If they were to continue on, another way must be found. The collapse looked ancient, stones settled into one another by the constant drip of water as if cut to fit. If Alagai Ka had marched prisoners this way, there must have been a way past.

Arlen already had a sinking suspicion what it was, and soon after, Shanjat confirmed it.

“A short swim beneath the stones,” the demon said with the Sharum’s mouth. “Even the weakest-lunged humans could manage it. The waterway to follow has a small pocket of air between the water and the stone. It continues for not more than one of your miles.”

“Night.” Renna’s sentiment was echoed throughout the group. Even Jardir’s aura colored with fear at the thought. His fall into the water had shaken him, despite his triumphant emergence.

Arlen did not hesitate. “I’ll go.”

Shanvah bowed. “With respect, Par’chin, it should be me. I am the most expendable.”

Arlen scowled, and the fearless young woman’s aura colored. “Don’t wanna hear that kind of talk, Shanvah. Ent none of us expendable. If there’s trouble, I’m best suited to get out of it. Worse comes to worst, I can dissipate.”

Renna put a hand on his shoulder. “You been hearin’ the call?”

Arlen covered the hand with his own. “Ay. More like a command than a call now.”

“Like a twig in a rushin’ stream,” Renna said. “Don’t be doin’ it, ’less you ent got a choice.”

Shanjat laughed. “Your mate is correct, of course. Your minds are too weak to resist, or we could have been in the mind court and ended your foolish quest months ago.”

He made no mention of how that quest would end, but Arlen knew even now, the demon had something up his sleeve, a last trick to play, one it thought they would not expect. They would need to be ready for it.

Renna took the knife from her belt. “Take this.”

Arlen’s eyes widened at the gift. Renna hated her father, but his knife was the most precious possession she had. More than the brook stone necklace from Cobie Fisher, more than the warded wedding ring he’d made her. His throat tightened at the thought she would offer it to him.

“Ren, I can’t—”

“Can and you will,” Renna cut him off. “Ent gonna have room down there for your spear, things get ugly.”

“Got a knife.” Arlen touched the weapon on his belt, but the six-inch blade seemed woefully inadequate compared with the foot of razor-sharp warded steel Renna wielded.

Renna snorted. “Good for spreadin’ butter or whittlin’ a stick, maybe, but that little thing ent much use in a fight.”

She winked at him. “Girls might tell boys size don’t matter, but it’s just to make ’em feel better.”

Arlen chuckled, sliding the smaller sheath off his belt and replacing it with Renna’s heavy blade.

She grabbed him by the chin, turning him into a kiss. “Want it back safe, though. And you with it.”

“If there was a sun down here I’d swear by it.” Arlen kissed her again, then stripped to his bido and belt. Shanvah’s eyes ran over his body for a moment, but then she remembered herself and averted her gaze. Arlen glanced at Renna, but the normally jealous woman only smirked in response. She and Shanvah had grown close of late.

Arlen wasted no further time, breathing deep, fast breaths as he waded into the cold pool before holding the last and diving under. He shivered. The water was dark, seemingly magic-dead. There was no sign of water demons or marine life.

He fed power to the light wards on his skin to illuminate his way. A few strong strokes put him beneath the stone, and he tried hard not to think about the countless tons of rock wedged above him.

Been there a thousand years. Ent gonna fall just now. His mind understood the logic, but it did nothing to alleviate the growing dread.

The next minute seemed to take an eternity, but then, as the demon promised, he came upon the pocket of air.

Arlen had expected something large enough to put his head and shoulders above water at least, but in most places it wasn’t even two inches high—just enough to throw his head back and put his nose and mouth above water for a few quick breaths before plunging under once more.

Still, the way looked clear, apart from murky sediment stirred by his passing, and the ever-present tubes of coral on the floor. They bent toward the light as he passed, like flowers leaning toward the sun.

He made it to a second pocket of air, and then a third. His light wards seemed somehow dimmer on his next dive, and he fed them more power.

Something caught his leg as he kicked into the next stroke, and he pulled up short, coughing precious bubbles of air and nearly taking in a gulp of water.

He turned to see that a worm had reached out from one of the tubes on the floor, wrapping around his leg. Its end stuck to his calf like the suction cup on a water demon’s tentacle. The worm shone bright with magic, and Arlen could feel his own power draining.

All around him, the other tubes had perked up, turned his way. The mouths of worms worked out of their tips, sucking the water like babes for the teat. All were glowing brightly, even as his own magic dimmed.

Too late, he understood the danger. Instinctively he Drew to replace the lost power, but there was no ambient magic to be had. These creatures fed upon it, and his attempt only roused more of them to action. As one, those closest began to reach for him.

He went for Renna’s knife on his belt, but the tube worms moved quicker than he would have thought possible, extending many times the length of their dens to tangle his limbs. One wrapped around his midsection; another caught his throat. They squeezed like sandsnakes crushing a mouse.

The drain on his power became like Leesha’s vacuum pumps, sucking away magic like life’s blood. His preternatural strength faded. His wards went dark.

He was just Arlen Bales now, drowning in black water with a million tons of rock overhead. The thought chilled him, and for a moment his struggles ceased as he was pulled down.

Then, as it often did at moments like this, Jeph Bales broke the silence.

In over your head as usual, Arlen Bales. Words from a quarter century ago, when Arlen was learning to swim at Fishing Hole. Mean to sink, or you gonna swim?

“Swim.” Arlen angrily coughed the word into the water, as he had so long ago. He tore the knife free of its sheath, keeping the blade along his forearm to twist it through the worm latched on it.

Harl Tanner’s knife was sharp as sin. He sliced through the worm and most of it fell away, save a few inches still latched to his arm. He could feel it trying to pull at his magic, but the drain was negligible now that it was no longer grounded.

There were others, though, sucking hard on his magic, and Arlen knew he did not have much left. What would happen when they stole that last spark that gave him life?

His wardsight was dimming, the water getting darker by the moment, despite the tremendous power the tube worms held. They should be glowing like the sun.

He focused his will, pulling back against their suction with a Draw of his own. It was like swimming upriver, but the drain ebbed.

He freed his other arm next, pulling the grasping worm taut and slashing through its body. Another drain ceased, and he even Drew a touch of power back from the length still stuck to him.

He gripped the worm wrapped around his chest with his free hand. It was all slimy muscle, thicker than he could wrap his fingers about, stronger than he could pry away. The touch gave him a target, and he slashed again, the knife cutting through the worm. He felt the steel pass through and cut into his flesh as well, but there was no way to know how deeply, no point in worrying over it.

Half of the creature fell away, and he Drew hard on the wriggling other half, taking back some part of the power it had drained as he tore it free of his skin.

Wardsight returned, and the other worms now shone like paper lanterns, illuminating the silty bed. The water around him was cloudy with his own blood and the slime that seeped from the severed worms.

Arlen dove down, feeling the worms slacken, then kicked off against the water’s bed. He struck the rock ceiling so hard he heard the familiar sound of his nose breaking, but before the worms pulled him back under, he managed to blow out his breath and draw a fresh one.

He went back down with a vengeance, slashing at the brightly glowing worms, easy targets now that they had revealed themselves.

He freed his legs, but as with the others, the worms did not seem to die, still squeezing and sucking even after they’d been severed from their bases. The severances closed before his eyes, the base worms growing new mouths to replace the old, even as the ends he’d sliced off sank to the bottom and implanted their hind ends in the silty bed.

Night, I’m spawning more of them.

In the time it took to shake them off, others were taking their places. Arlen was forced to yield his defense to rush to the surface for another gasping breath, and three more of them latched on to him in that instant. This time he began slicing the worms vertically, shaking himself free and forcing them to use power to heal without multiplying.

It was still a losing battle, and an unnecessary one. Gathering what strength he had left, he kicked off back the way he’d come. He would pull himself from the water, replenish his lost magic, throttle the mind demon, and form a new plan to get past these underwater parasites.

The worm beds were slow to react as he swam by, not fast enough to catch him save in those moments he needed to steal breath.

Even then he was ready, eyeing the hunters and slashing when they got too close. He began to feel he would make it to safety, until by the third breath he realized he could not have been going back the way he came. All that twisting in the dark had turned him around.

A mile, the demon said. Had he gone more than half that? Was succor closer ahead than behind?

There was no way to tell, and he had little desire to turn back and face the worms he had roused into frenzy. At least these he was passing were only just sensing his presence, their slimy lips poking from their hard tubes to taste the magic in the water. He put on speed, swimming as quickly as his screaming lungs would allow.

He roared when he broke the surface on the far end of the collapse, gulping air as he trod the last few steps to the shore. Worms grabbed at his ankles, but they were smaller in the shallow water, and the air in his lungs and the sight of dry rock ahead gave him new strength. He strode on, tearing the worms, tube and all, from the silt and up out of the water.

They writhed madly as he pried them off his legs, flopping like fish out of water, bright with the magic they stole, even as his own glow was a last dying ember.

Before he realized what he was doing, he pulled one of the worms taut and bit hard into it. The outer layer of muscle was tough, but underneath the boneless flesh gave easily, and he gnawed at it even as he Drew its magic. He left its tough husk drained beside him like the rind of a citrus, and took up another, his hunger only growing.

It was an animal moment, eat or be eaten, unlike anything Arlen had felt since that night in Anoch Sun when the primal needs of his stomach had overruled his sense and forced him to make a choice that changed his life—and the lives of everyone in Thesa—forever.

The meal was all-consuming, replenishing not just his magic. His stomach had been empty for weeks, save for a daily bite of Jardir’s holy couscous.

There was no food in all the world to match that bite, but a single mouthful, no matter how potent, could never truly fill an empty belly. Only Renna was eating a real share, and she ate for two.

Arlen was left unsatisfied, and when he’d sucked the last of the flesh from the worm’s hide, he waded back into the water, ripping more of the corespawned things free. The tubes were hard, sharp-spined shells that tore at his hands, but he ignored the pain, crushing them to hold the worms tight inside as they were uprooted from the silt.

He hurled the worms out of the water to land in a wriggling pile, too far inland to find their way back to the water before they suffocated.

“See how you rippin’ like it,” he growled, tearing another shell free. He worked until the lagoon at the far end of the cave-in was clear.

Then he set to feeding, and the world fell away in the gush of flesh and the taste of magic in his mouth.

It was some time before he came back to himself, gorged on worm meat and magic. The excess power throbbed in his aura, barely contained. He felt as strong as he had ever been, short of standing on a greatward.

And so it took a moment to feel the tingle of one particular group of wards on his ear.

His friends were trying to contact him.

Arlen drew a quick warding in the air, needing to power it with considerable energy to break through the ambient magic in the air and through the collapsed tunnel to create a firm link with Renna, Jardir, and Shanvah.

“You all right?” Renna’s voice came the moment contact established.

“Ay.” Arlen went back to the water to wash the sticky slime from his hands. “Demon wasn’t lyin’, but he din’t tell all.”

“Are you in danger, Par’chin?” Jardir’s voice was like a crank bowstring, ready to loose.

“Not anymore.” Arlen splashed water on his face, washing away the worm juice that clung to his lips and chin. “Bad news is, the whole swim’s full of giant worms that come at you like water demon tentacles and suck the magic out of you like leeches.”

“Night, what’s the good news?” Renna asked.

Arlen stood and stretched his back. “They’re rippin’ delicious.”

Renna barked a laugh as Arlen turned to survey the area.

“Creator,” he breathed.

“Ay?” Renna asked.

“What was that, Par’chin?” Jardir pressed, when he hadn’t answered after a moment.

“Arlen Bales, you—”

But Arlen wasn’t paying attention, his eyes wide.

The lagoon stood at a high bottleneck, overlooking a vast cavern. Down from the rise, the cavern wall was riddled with tunnels and pathways, great and small.

But that was not what took Arlen’s breath away. Atop the rise was a great csar, a walled Krasian fortress filled with stone buildings. In the desert, a csar might house a great family, or perhaps an entire village, protecting them from Sharum raiding parties.

But this was no simple village. The pillared walls rose high, wards cut deep into the polished rock, still strong after all this time. Just peaking the walls Arlen could see the tips of the great minarets and domed ceiling of a Sharik Hora.

And its walls…Arlen’s legs went weak, and he fell to his knees. The walls were a greatward, not unlike those he and Leesha had designed for the Hollow. But their warding was a crude thing compared with the elegant flow of the csar.

The place sung with magic, a symphony of power that brought tears to his eyes.

“Ahmann.” Arlen tried, and failed, to keep his voice from trembling. “I…think I just found the Spear of Ala.”