Peter Brett – The Core (страница 24)

Leesha looked taken aback. ‘Idiot girl,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Told us himself! Said he ate them.’ She growled, clenching her fists.

‘Ay?’ Briar asked, confused.

‘The tattoos are only half the reason Arlen Bales can ripping fly,’ Leesha said. ‘It’s the corespawned meat!’

Briar looked at her dumbly, having no idea what she meant. After a moment she collected herself, looking back at him. ‘I need you to go back, Briar. I need you to convince them to meet with me.’

Briar shook his head. ‘Ent going back. Not now, not ever. Going home.’

‘Home?’ Leesha asked. ‘Elissa and Ragen won’t head north for weeks yet.’

‘Not north,’ Briar said. ‘Home. Lakton.’

6

Everam Is a Lie

334 AR

Renna gritted 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 honour 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 marvelled 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 honour 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.