his old friend, whom he had taught so much and always respected, should think so little of him.
‘Then why did you not kill me and take the spear and crown for your own?’ Jardir demanded. ‘The witnesses were honour-bound. My people would have accepted you as Deliverer and followed you to Sharak Ka.’
Irritation ran like wildfire across the Par’chin’s calm aura. ‘You still don’t get it,’ he snapped. ‘I’m not the ripping Deliverer! Neither are you! The Deliverer is all humanity as one, not one as humanity. Everam is just a name we gave to the idea, not some giant in the sky, fighting back the blackness of space.’
Jardir pressed his lips together, knowing the Par’chin was seeing a flare across his aura at the blasphemy. Years ago he had promised to kill the Par’chin should he ever speak such words again. The Par’chin’s aura dared him to try it now.
Jardir was sorely tempted. He had not truly tested the crown’s power against the Par’chin, and with it at his brow, he was no longer as helpless as he seemed.
But there was something else in his ajin’pal’s aura that checked him. He was ready for an attack, and would meet it head-on, but an image loomed over him, alagai dancing as the world burned.
What he feared would come to pass, if they did not find accord.
Jardir drew a deep breath, embracing his anger and letting it go with his exhalation. Across the room, the Par’chin had not moved, but his aura eased back like a Sharum lowering his spear.
‘What does it matter,’ Jardir said at last, ‘if Everam be a giant in the sky, or a name we have given to the honour and courage that let us stand fast in the night? If humanity is to act as one, there must be a leader.’
‘Like a mind demon leads drones?’ the Par’chin asked, hoping to snare Jardir in a logic trap.
‘Just so,’ Jardir said. ‘The world of the alagai has ever been a shadow of our own.’
The Par’chin nodded. ‘Ay, a war needs its generals, but they should serve the people, and not the other way ’round.’
Now it was Jardir who raised an eyebrow. ‘You think I do not serve my people, Par’chin? I am not the Andrah, sitting fat on my throne while my subjects bleed and starve. There is no hunger in my lands. No crime. And I personally go into the night to keep them safe.’
The Par’chin laughed, a harsh mocking sound. Jardir would have taken offence, but the incredulity in the Par’chin’s aura checked him.
‘This is why it matters,’ the Par’chin said. ‘Because you actually believe that load of demonshit! You came to lands that were not yours, murdered thousands of men, raped their women, enslaved their children, and think your soul is clean because their holy book’s a little different from yours! You keep the demons from them, ay, but chickens on the chopping block don’t call the butcher Deliverer for keeping the fox at bay.’
‘Sharak Ka is coming, Par’chin,’ Jardir said. ‘I have made those chickens into falcons. The men of Everam’s Bounty protect their own women and children now.’
‘As do the Hollowers,’ the Par’chin said. ‘But they did it without killing one another. Not a woman raped. Not a child torn from its mother’s arms. We did not become demons in order to fight them.’
‘And that is what you think me?’ Jardir asked. ‘A demon?’
The Par’chin smiled. ‘Do you know what my people call you?’
The demon of the desert. Jardir had heard the name many times, though only in the Hollow did any dare speak it openly. He nodded.
‘Your people are fools, Par’chin, as are you if you think me the same as the alagai. You may not murder and you may not rape, but neither have you forged unity. Your Northern dukes bicker and vie for power even as the abyss opens up before them, ready to spew forth Nie’s legions. Nie does not care about your morals. She does not care who is innocent and who is corrupt. She does not even care for Her alagai. Her goal is to wipe the slate clean.
‘Your people live on borrowed time, Par’chin. Loaned to you against the day of Sharak Ka, when your weakness will leave them meat for the Core. Then you will have wished for a thousand murders, a thousand thousand, if that’s what it took to prepare you for the fight.’
The Par’chin shook his head sadly. ‘You’re like a horse with blinkers on, Ahmann. You see what supports your beliefs, and ignore the rest. Nie doesn’t care because She doesn’t ripping exist.’
‘Words do not make a thing so, Par’chin,’ Jardir said. ‘Words cannot kill alagai or make Everam cease to be. Words alone cannot unite us all for Sharak Ka before it is too late.’
‘You talk of unity, but you don’t understand the meaning of the word,’ the Par’chin said. ‘What you call unity I call domination. Slavery.’
‘Unity of purpose, Par’chin,’ Jardir said. ‘All working toward one goal. Ridding the Ala of demonkind.’
‘There is no unity, if it depends on one man alone to hold it,’ the Par’chin said. ‘We are all mortal.’
‘The unity I have brought will not be so easily cast aside,’ Jardir said.
‘No?’ Arlen asked. ‘I learned much during my visit to Everam’s Bounty, Ahmann. The Northern dukes have nothing on your people. Your dama will not follow Jayan. Your Sharum will not follow Asome. None of the men will follow Inevera, and your Damaji would as soon kill one another as eat at the same table. There is no one who can sit the throne without civil war. Your precious unity is about to crumble away like a palace made of sand.’
Jardir felt his jaw tighten. His teeth whined as he ground them. The Par’chin was correct, of course. Inevera was clever and could hold things together for a time, but he could not afford to be gone for long, or his hard-forged army would turn on itself with Sharak Ka only just begun.
‘I am not dead yet,’ Jardir said.
‘No, but you won’t be returning any time soon,’ the Par’chin said.
‘We shall see, Par’chin.’ Without warning, Jardir reached out through the crown, Drawing hard on the Par’chin’s magic. Caught off guard, the Par’chin’s aura exploded in shock, then distorted as Jardir hauled in the prize.
Power rushed through Jardir’s body, knitting muscle and bone, making him strong. With a flex, the bandages around his chest ripped and the plaster about his legs shattered. He sprang from the bed, crossing the room in an instant.
The Par’chin managed to get his guard up in time, but it was a Sharum’s guard, for he had not been trained in Sharik Hora. Jardir easily slipped around it and caught him in a submission hold. The Par’chin’s face reddened as he struggled for air.
But then he collapsed into mist, as he had in their battle on the cliff. Jardir overbalanced when the resistance ended, but the Par’chin reformed before he hit the floor, grabbing Jardir’s right arm and leg, throwing him across the room. He struck the window so hard even his magic-strengthened bones snapped, but the warded glass did not so much as crack.
There was a thin flow of magic on the surface of the wards, and Jardir instinctively Drew on it, using the power to mend his bones even before the pain set in.
The Par’chin vanished from across the room, appearing in close, but Jardir was wise to the trick. Even as the mist began to reform he was moving, dodging the Par’chin’s attempted hold and striking two hard blows before he could melt away again.
They struggled thus for several seconds, the Par’chin disappearing and reforming before Jardir could do any real damage, but unable to strike in turn.
‘Corespawn it, Ahmann,’ he cried. ‘Ent got time for this!’
‘In this, we agree,’ Jardir said,