CHAPTER 6

EVERAM IS A LIE

334 AR

Renna grit her teeth, watching as Shanvah spoon-fed a thin gruel to her father. Shanjat swallowed mechanically, eyes straight ahead, staring at nothing. His aura was bright with life but flat and unmoving. Auras showed emotions, but Shanjat had none to show.

The sight sickened her. Two days ago, Shanjat had been a powerful man in the prime of his life. A better fighter by far than Renna. Now he had all the will of Renna’s old milking cow. He could walk a path if led, squat in the privy and wipe himself when told, even spoon his own gruel if it was placed before him. But if left to his own devices, he would stand in his stall staring at nothing until he dropped.

It didn’t help that Arlen and Jardir were shouting at each other on the tower’s next level. In some ways, that was the worst of it. Shanvah, usually so calm and detached, was weeping openly, and flinched at every angry sound from above.

“Be strong,” Renna said. “They’ll find a way to bring your da back to us.”

“Will they?” Shanvah asked, using the edge of the spoon to scrape a dribble of drool from her father’s lip. She kissed his cheek and moved away, Renna following.

“Not all will make it to the end of Sharak Ka,” Shanvah’s voice was low, “if indeed any do. It is an honor to die on alagai talons. But this…” she gestured to her father, staring at nothing, “…half life? Alagai Ka made a mocking shell of my father to whisper his evils. If the Deliverer cannot restore him, I will kill him myself.”

Renna’s throat was heavy, and she found herself blinking back tears of her own. She and Shanvah were hardly friends, but that no longer mattered. The Krasians believed that all who shed blood together against the night were family, and for better or worse that was what they were now.

Shanvah was watching her, eyes daring Renna to argue. “Time comes,” Renna said, “I’ll be there to catch your tears.”

Shanvah wept anew, throwing her arms about Renna. Renna fought the instinct to pull away, holding the girl tight and patting her back.

When she was finished, Shanvah pulled back, sniffling as she undid her scarf and moved to the basin to wash. When she looked up at her reflection in the silvered mirror, there was grim determination on her face.

She turned to Renna, producing a small, sharp knife. “I won’t share my father’s fate.”

Renna eyed the blade warily. “Don’t know yet that they can’t save him, Shan. Ent time yet.”

“It is not for him.” Shanvah flipped the knife in nimble fingers, handing it to Renna hilt-first. “It is for me. I want you to cut mind wards into my forehead.”

Renna shook her head. “I can paint them with blackstem…”

“Blackstem fades,” Shanvah said. “And our supply may dwindle as we walk the road to the abyss. You heard the father of demons. The journey is long, and you are mortal. The time will come when your guard grows lax, and then I will be free.”

Renna blinked. “Ay, you may be right about that. We can tattoo…”

Shanvah shook her head. “The Evejah commands we not profane our bodies with permanent ink. I will follow the example set down by the Shar’Dama Ka.”

Renna looked at her, seeing the strength and determination in the girl’s aura. “Ay, all right.” She took the knife, laying Shanvah on her back. “Need something to bite on?”

Shanvah shook her head. “Pain is only wind.”

“Ent no choice but to stick to the plan,” the Par’chin said.

Jardir looked at him incredulously. “Of course there is a choice, Par’chin. There is always a choice. You had a choice when you broke into Sharik Hora and started us on this path, and there is a choice now. Do not let the honeyed words of Alagai Ka blind you. The very fact that he endorses your mad plan is reason to reconsider. He seeks to lure us into forgetting our true responsibility.”

“And that is?” the Par’chin asked.

“To lead our people in Sharak Ka, vanguard in the battle between Everam and Nie.”

“Night.” The Par’chin rolled his eyes. “You still spouting that nonsense? Everam is a lie, Ahmann. Nie is a lie. Demon said it himself. Fiction to keep folk from fearin’ the dark.”

The blasphemy no longer surprised him, but still Jardir marveled at how stubborn the Par’chin could be. “How can you say that after all we have seen, Par’chin? How many prophecies must come true before you begin to have faith?”

The Par’chin closed his eyes. “I can see the future now. The sun will…rise tomorrow.” He smirked as he opened his eyes. “Gonna think I speak to the Creator when that comes true?”

“You were not so insolent when I was your ajin’pal,” Jardir said. “Mocking what you do not understand.”

“Ent,” the Par’chin said. “Mocking stories you make up to explain what we both don’t understand. We’re cattle to these things, Ahmann. Sharak Ka means no more to them than a bull stirring up the cows, and we’ve started a stampede. It will happen now whether we’re there or not. I trust my people to stand against the night. Do you?”

“My people stood in the night long before yours, Par’chin,” Jardir reminded him.

“Then let them!” the Par’chin cried. “While they hold the surface, we have this one chance to take it downstairs.”

“To Nie’s abyss,” Jardir said. “Yet you deny Kaji’s divine instruction, set down in the Evejah…”

“The Evejah is a book,” the Par’chin said. “A book that’s been rewritten over the years, and never had the whole story anyway.”

“And how do you know this story, Par’chin?” Jardir asked. “How do you, an infidel, know more of Kaji than his sacred order of scholars?”

“The dama are political creatures,” the Par’chin said. “Corrupt. Said it yourself. That’s why you cast the Andrah from his throne. The Evejah bends to suit their will, selectively enforced. The real version is painted on the walls of Anoch Sun. Or was, till your diggers knocked most of them down.”

Jardir crossed his arms. “So we should put our faith in the Father of Lies, instead?”

The Par’chin laughed. “Don’t trust that demon farther than the reach of our spears. But I had a look in the head of the mind demon it sent to kill me. With both sides of the story, it’s easier to tell fact from fiction.”

“So what truly transpired, three thousand years ago?” Jardir asked. “What great secret have the dama hidden?”

“That Kaji failed,” the Par’chin said. “Din’t make it all the way. Din’t get to the queen. We wouldn’t be in this fix if he had.”

“He gave us millennia of peace,” Jardir said. “And it was only when we forgot his teachings that the alagai returned. Did Kaji fail us, or did we fail him?”

The Par’chin rubbed his face in frustration. “What does it matter? Creator or no, a hatching is coming up. We either let it happen and lead our armies against hives popping up all over our lands, or we try to stop it and maybe, just maybe, accomplish what Kaji never could.”

Jardir scowled. “You think we can control Alagai Ka?”

The Par’chin shrugged. “Gonna need to talk to it again.”

“How?” Jardir asked. “With its flesh warded, Alagai Ka cannot touch Shanjat’s mind, and without him it cannot speak.”

“Wards keep it from striking at a distance,” the Par’chin said, “but it can still enter an unwarded mind if it makes physical contact.”

“So you wish to deliver my kai to Alagai Ka’s talons once more,” Jardir said. “To make him a puppet to spread the prince of demons’ lies. A weapon to use against us.”

“What choice we got?” the Par’chin asked.

Jardir had no answer.

Renna held Shanvah’s face with her left hand as she worked. The knife was steady in her right, cutting flesh away from the girl’s forehead in ribbons, ensuring a keloid scar that would Draw and hold a charge.

She let magic flow through both hands, activating the cutting wards on the already razor-sharp blade, and speeding the healing. Scabs formed in seconds in the blade’s wake.

Shanvah did not flinch at the cuts, but there was fear in her aura.

“Nothing to worry over,” Renna said. “Know what I’m doing. Still be pretty when I’m done.”

“The scars of alagai’sharak are an honor to carry,” Shanvah said.

“Then what’s got you tenser than a pig at the chopping block?” Renna asked.

Shanvah’s eyes flicked to the stairs. “They’ve gone quiet.”

Renna paused in her work, realizing for the first time that the shouting from above had stopped. In her concentration she hadn’t noticed.

“I thought nothing could be worse than the sound of my uncle and the Par’chin shouting,” Shanvah said.

“But ’least we knew they wern’t choking each other,” Renna agreed. “Gotta hold faith they were gonna do that, they’da done it months ago.”

“Our faith is tested daily, with Sharak Ka approaching.” Shanvah relaxed, aura cooling with acceptance.

“There,” Renna said, making the last cut. She looked at the ward this way and that, paring away a last bit of flesh before she set the knife aside.

“How does it—” Shanvah began, but her words were cut off with a gasp, her eyes widening. Renna turned to see Arlen and Jardir descending the stairs.

“What are you doing?” Jardir demanded.

Shanvah scissored her legs for momentum, rolling off her back into a kneeling position facing Jardir. She put her hands on the floor and pressed her face between them, the scabs on her forehead touching the wood. “Mercy, Deliverer! The daughter of Harl wards me at my request.”

Jardir reached down, putting a finger under the girl’s chin to tilt her face upward. “Your mother used to brag of your beauty, and the ease with which she could find you a husband.”

“No doubt a husband for the Deliverer’s niece would be easy enough to find, beauty or no,” Shanvah said. “But there will be no husbands in the abyss. No beauty. There will only be alagai, and sharak.”

Jardir nodded. “You are as wise as you are brave, niece. Your honor is boundless.”

Shanvah gave no outward sign, but her aura lit with pride at the words. “May I ward my father next?”

Jardir shook his head. “I fear we will need him again. We have more questions for the Prince of Lies.”

The pure gold that had been Shanvah’s aura again became a swirling mix of colors—anger, frustration, humiliation. They all saw it, but she kept her composure, flicking her gaze back down.

“Speak,” Jardir commanded. “I can see the question in your heart, and we cannot afford to let it fester.”

“Is my father’s shame not great enough,” Shanvah asked, “left trapped in a body without will? Must we permit Alagai Ka to violate him further? My father’s honor was boundless. I beg you, if he cannot be healed, let me send him on the lonely path.”

“Not all warriors get the fortune of a quick death on alagai talons, niece,” Jardir said. “Heroes beyond count, great men like Drillmaster Qeran, who trained your father, have lived on with injuries they believed would forever put them from alagai’sharak. We must honor these men no less for their service to Everam than those that walk the lonely path.”

Shanvah shifted. “By your own words, Deliverer, those crippled in battle are put from alagai’sharak. You send my crippled father back into battle.”

“It is not without precedent,” Jardir said. “Countless crippled warriors have volunteered as Baiters in the Maze, dying in glory as they led the demons to their doom.”

“Of course your words are true, Deliverer,” Shanvah pressed, “but my father has no will to volunteer. I cannot believe he would have wanted this…abomination.”

Renna saw growing frustration in Jardir’s aura. He was not used to being questioned by any of his people, especially one who had barely seen eighteen summers. But he breathed, and his aura cleansed again. Arlen had tried to teach Renna the trick, but it never worked for her.

“You do your family honor, Shanvah vah Shanjat,” Jardir said. “But I knew your father better than you. We fought in the nie’Sharum food lines and bled together in the Maze. Such was his honor and loyalty that I gave him my own sister, your honored mother, as his First Wife.”

He gestured with the Spear of Kaji, always in his hand, and the weight of it washed over Shanvah’s aura. “I tell you here with Everam my witness, if I told Shanjat asu Cavel am’Damaj am’Kaji that to win Sharak Ka I needed him to be the voice of evil, he would not refuse me.”

Shanvah put her face back to the floor, weeping openly. “Of course the Shar’Dama Ka is correct. My father’s honor was boundless, and I shame him with my doubts. I will not question you again, Deliverer, and should you require any sacrifice of me, know that my spirit will always be willing to serve you in Sharak Ka.”

“I never doubted it, niece,” Jardir said.

“It may be that Alagai Ka sends my father against you, as he did last night,” Shanvah said. “I beg your permission to stand guard when the Prince of Waning touches him. If my father must be put down, it should be I who does it.”

She looked up, surprised to see Jardir bow in return. “Of course. I have never met a warrior, Shanvah vah Shanjat am’Damaj am’Kaji, who carried greater honor than you. Your father’s spirit sings with pride. When he is at last untethered and walks the lonely path, his steps will be lighter knowing he has left a worthy successor to carry on his blood.”

The words cleansed Shanvah’s aura once more, washing away the swirling colors with a pure white light.

Shanjat’s hands and feet were manacled. A short chain between them would allow him to sit but not to stand. The Par’chin warded the bindings himself, and Jardir could see the power in them.

If the kai’Sharum felt any discomfort at being so bound, he gave no sign as Jardir carried him like a child up the steps to Alagai Ka’s prison. But for his breathing Shanjat might have been dead, eyes staring blankly.

The demon looked up as they entered, tilting its head as Jardir crossed the wards, Shanvah covering his every step with her spear. He laid Shanjat in the center of the room, then retreated outside the circles that held the demon prisoner.

But the demon did not move toward Shanjat, simply watching them with huge, inhuman eyes. Jardir could see the endless dark of Nie in those black pools, thoughts unknowable.

The Par’chin and his jiwah pulled open the heavy curtains. Night had fallen, but it was not the dark of Waning. Moonlight streamed through the windows and Alagai Ka hissed, scrambling to the center of the room.

Jardir felt his skin crawl as the demon wrapped itself around Shanjat. Shanvah tightened her grip on her spear, aura like a taut bowstring. She ached to strike, killing demon and sire both, but she was one of Everam’s spear sisters, sprung of Jardir’s own Sharum blood. She embraced the pain and mastered it.

Shanjat looked up, eyes bright and alive once more. He turned to Shanvah, lip curling. “Everam curse me, to have sired such a pathetic excuse for a daughter. It would have been better for all if your Tikka had married you off before you could be sent to the Dama’ting Palace. Better if I had crushed your head when I saw you were only a girl.”

Shanvah kept her spear steady, but Jardir could see how the words tore across her aura.

“Your brother would have saved me,” Shanjat said. “Or at least done the honor of killing me.”

Shanvah’s tears glistened in the moonlight, but she held steady.

“Do not listen to these poisonous words, niece,” Jardir said. “It is not your father speaking.”

“Oh, but it is,” Shanjat said, laughing. It was so much like his friend’s great bellow that Jardir’s heart ached. “That is what makes it so delicious! This drone boasted to his brethren of the strong son growing in his mate. His first thought at the sight of you was disgust. He imagined killing you to save face.”

“Stop it.” The Par’chin’s jiwah stepped forward. “Need you alive, but that don’t mean we can’t cut a few bits off now that you can’t grow ’em back.”

The demon tilted its head, studying her. “What will your egg be?” Shanjat asked. “Will your consort allow you to walk the path before us, once he learns you carry it?”

“What’s he talkin’ about, Ren?” the Par’chin asked.

“Core if I know,” Renna said.

“Humans are so inefficient in their mating.” Shanjat clicked his tongue. “Ten cycles of vulnerability for a single egg. But do not fear. We will keep you alive until the birth. The mind of a child is a delicious morsel—like the bird eggs you consume.”

Renna snarled, drawing her knife.

Jardir moved to block her path to the demon, but the Par’chin was faster. He blurred into mist, flowing across the room to re-form in her path. “Tryin’ to get a rise out of us, Ren. Tryin’ to get us mad enough to cross the wards, give it a chance to escape. Long as they hold we gotta stand fast, no matter what it says.”

Renna panted, struggling to master the rage boiling in her aura.

“The Par’chin speaks true, sister,” Shanvah said. “You told me yourself the princelings steal our thoughts, but speak only those that cut.”

Renna blew out a breath, glaring at the demon. “Odds are you taste like shit, but don’t think that means I won’t eat your brains, too.”

She meant the words. Jardir could see it on her aura, and knew the demon could, too. The creature seemed to think better of goading her further.

“Ask your questions,” Shanjat said. “This drone will serve as mouthpiece and mount as we travel the dark paths below.”

The Par’chin stepped forward. “Where is the surface entrance to the path?”

“North and east,” the demon said. “In the mountains not far from where you and the Heir held your primitive submission duel.”

“Lands unclaimed by either side,” Jardir said. “That is fitting, for such a quest.”

“Unclaimed by you,” Shanjat agreed, “but not unclaimed.”

“Who, then?” Jardir demanded.

“The factions of your surface stock are meaningless to me. They provided fresh minds for my larder on my last visit.”

Jardir clenched a fist but did not take the bait. “Is the path guarded?”

“Magic flows to the surface strongly from a vent that size. Drones are drawn to the area, but they do not truly understand what they protect.”

“How far to demon town once we find this cave?” the Par’chin asked.

“Weeks even for a mimic drone,” Shanjat said. “Whole cycles for the slow and clumsy limbs of humans.”

“There food on the way?” the Par’chin asked. “Clear water?”

“So much power, and not the slightest idea how to use it. The energies of the Core can sustain you without need for feeding.”

“You don’t need to eat?” Renna asked. “Then why keep a larder? Why raid the surface?”

Shanjat smiled. “Why do your kind drink fermented fruit and grain? Why do you sing and dance?”

The Par’chin shook his head. “More than that. Can’t make something from nothing. Might not need food often, but you need it. Queens most of all.”

Shanjat nodded. “My brethren can exist without, but none of us does so willingly. Queens at laying must feed—and our hatchlings. Those most of all. Soon hives will fill your lands, each springing forth thousands of hungry hatchling drones to pick the surface clean.”

Renna grit her teeth. “That a long way o’ sayin’ we don’t need supplies?”

“We will bring them, regardless,” Jardir said. “I do not trust the demon’s words.”

“Why not?” Shanjat asked. “Have you not spent your life a pawn to the dice your females carve from our bones?”

It surprised Jardir how deeply the words cut. “They speak with the voice of Everam.”

Shanjat laughed. “They are a Jongleur’s trick! A primitive glimpse at a minuscule fraction of infinite possibility.”

“Those primitive glimpses have led us to victory after victory against your kind,” Jardir noted.

“Perhaps,” Shanjat said. “Or perhaps we play a larger game, and even in your minor ‘victories’ you are only pawns.”

“Pawns that caught you with your pants down,” the Par’chin said. “Pawns that got you locked up sweatin’ the sun. Pawns that could kill you on a whim. Tellin’ me that’s all part of your game?”

“In every game there is risk,” Shanjat said. “Play is far from over.”

“It is for tonight,” Jardir said. He raised the Spear of Kaji and drew a ward in the air, sending power into the tattoos on the demon’s knobbed flesh. It gave a howl, falling back from Shanjat and thrashing on the floor. The others advanced on it while Shanvah crossed the wards to collect her father.

“Corespawned thing wasn’t lying.” Arlen knelt in front of Renna’s belly, studying her aura. “Barely a spark, but it’s there.”

“So much for pullin’ out,” Renna said.

Arlen stood, meeting her eyes. “Creator knows we wern’t perfect about it.” He shook his head. “Should’ve been more careful.”

“Why?” Renna asked. “I’m your wife. Supposed to carry our babes. Creator knows you ent able. Sayin’ you don’t want it?”

“Course not,” Arlen said. “Ent a thing in the world I want more. Just mean timin’s bad.”

“Timin’ ent ever gonna be good, long as demons come out at night,” Renna said. “Don’t mean we stop livin’ our lives.”

“Know that,” Arlen said. “But you can’t go down to the Core carryin’ our baby.”

“Can’t?” Renna crossed her arms. “You think, Arlen Bales. Ever have a talk you started with can’t go well for you? Can and will.”

“Night, Ren!” Arlen shouted. “How am I supposed to keep my mind on this job I got to do if I’m spending the whole time worrying over you?”

“What, you’re the only one with feelin’s? You’ll do it the same rippin’ way I do every time you run off and do somethin’ dangerous.”

“Ay, but now I’m worrying for two,” Arlen said.

“So. Am. I!” After months of eating demon meat, Renna was nearly as quick as Arlen, and he didn’t see the slap coming. The blow knocked him back a step, echoing off the stone walls of the tower.

Arlen pressed a hand to his cheek, looking at her in shock.

Renna leveled a finger at him. “You’re not the one carryin’ this babe, Arlen Bales. Part of me. Say again I ent lookin’ to its best interest and that slap’ll seem like a kiss.”

“Then how can you mean to take it to the heart of demon town?” Arlen asked. “You seen what just one of the minds can do. What chance we got inside the rippin’ hive?”

Renna shrugged. “What chance we got if I stay up here and have our baby with new hives poppin’ up all over Thesa?”

“Don’t know that for sure,” Arlen said. “Demon could be lyin’, playing us to let him go.”

“Already gambling the world that it ent, if we go through with this.”

“How’s it supposed to work?” Arlen said. “We gonna take an Herb Gatherer with us?”

Renna bared her teeth. “You even say her name…”

“Why not?” Arlen asked. “She’s carryin’, too. You can set up a nursery in the Core.”

“Don’t need a Gatherer,” Renna said. “Got two Deliverers with me.”

“Ent funny, Ren.”

“Said yourself the babe’s little more’n a notion right now,” Renna said. “Ent gonna slow me for months. By then either we’ll have won, or it won’t matter.”

“What if you get morning sick?”

“Can’t be worse’n chokin’ down demon meat,” Renna said. “I’ll manage. You need me.”

“I…” Arlen began.

“Don’t deny it,” Renna cut in. “Jardir means well, but he’s got a different way of lookin’ at the world. Threw you in a demon pit once. Don’t think he won’t do it again if he thinks it’s the Creator’s will.”

Arlen blew out a breath. “Don’t think I forgot that.”

“Shanjat’s an empty shell,” Renna said. “He may still be breathin’, but he ent coming back, and I wouldn’t trust it if he did.”

“Honest word,” Arlen said.

“Shanvah’s as good as any can get in a fight, but she can’t dissipate, and she ent as strong as the rest of us,” Renna went on. “You want any chance of making this work, you need me. World needs me. Gotta put that first, just like we asked her to with her da.”

Jardir watched Shanvah, marveling at what his niece had become. It seemed just days ago he saw her newborn and squalling in his sister’s arms. In Krasian fashion, he had seen little of her in the ensuing years, and nothing since she went into the Dama’ting Palace as a child.

Now she was a woman grown, carrying a weight of honor that could break the strongest Sharum. Shanjat was not capable of shame, so she carried it for them both, locked inside an iron will.

“Come and sit with me, niece.” Jardir disdained the Northern chairs, sweeping his robe back to sit cross-legged on the bare floor. While he did, he concentrated, activating one of the powers of the Crown of Kaji. As Shanvah took a spot facing him on the floor, he put a bubble of silence around them, keeping their words from Shanjat’s ears.

Shanvah knelt before him, bending to put her hands on the floor. “Raise your eyes,” Jardir commanded. “I am Shar’Dama Ka, but I am your uncle, as well. With your father…absent, I would speak to you as both, while we walk the path to the abyss.”

Shanvah sat back on her heels. “You honor me beyond my worth, Deliverer.”

Jardir shook his head. “No, child. This is but a fraction of the honor you are due for service given, and nothing in the face of what I must ask of you.”

“I understand, Uncle,” Shanvah said. “Alagai Ka cannot guide us to Nie’s abyss without my father’s voice.”

Jardir nodded. “Nor can we allow the demon free movement. He must be chained.”

Shanvah closed her eyes, breathing. “Alagai Ka said he would make a mount of my father.”

“Indeed, I think it must be so. Imagine the damage Alagai Ka could do if it took over my mind, or that of one of the chin? We cannot risk touching it in anything but battle.”

“Nor can you allow it to control my father without constant guard,” Shanvah said.

“We will separate them whenever possible,” Jardir said, “but must assume that every time the Prince of Lies touches your father’s mind, it will learn all Shanjat has seen and heard. We can no longer speak freely in his presence. Nor can you let your guard down around him. There is no telling how much of Alagai Ka’s influence remains when they are apart.”

Shanvah placed her hands on the floor and bent to touch her forehead between them. Then she sat up and met his eyes again. “I understand my place in things, Uncle. I will not fail you.”

In her aura he saw it was true. She would carry this burden atop a broken heart all the way to the Core. He opened his arms, and after a moment Shanvah moved awkwardly into his embrace until he pulled her tight. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

The Par’chin noted Jardir’s sphere of silence as he and his jiwah returned to the group. He nodded, moving to sit between Jardir and Shanvah on the floor. Renna took up a place opposite him, all of them facing one another.

“Gonna do this, it needs to be soon,” the Par’chin said.

“Agreed,” Jardir said. “But not too soon.”

“Ay, what’s that mean?” the Par’chin asked.

“It means I will see my Jiwah Ka before I go to the abyss,” Jardir said. “I will hold her in my arms again, and have her cast her dice in my blood.”

“Ent got time—” the Par’chin began.

“This is not a request, son of Jeph!” Jardir made a lash of his words. “We must claim every advantage in this endeavor, and the dice can do much to counter the Prince of Lies.”

“And if the dice conveniently tell her she ought to come along?” the Par’chin asked.

“Then she will come,” Jardir said. “As your Jiwah Ka does. She will not dissemble with all Ala in the balance. Everything Inevera does, she does for Sharak Ka.”

He could see in the Par’chin’s aura that the man wanted to argue further, but he checked himself. “Fair enough. Ren and I should make a few stops, too. Let folk know what’s coming, we don’t find a miracle.”