“We buried it.” It wasn’t as if Jacen could have destroyed the creature. Only extradimensional energy could?—
All of a sudden, something clicked into place.
Only extradimensional energy could kill a demon. He had known this as long as he had been an exorcist. Yet he never imagined it might also apply toothersupposedly unkillable beings—until the scavenger arrived on his doorstep with the skull of a dead god.
What if gods and demons shared some fundamental fact of their nature that Jacen had never been taught?
Whatever had killed the god in the canyon channeled extradimensional energy on a monstrous scale, dealing damage beyond the capacity of any mortal weapon. Only extradimensional energy could kill a demon—and only the same could kill a god. And there existed a higher order of demon, known to the Zal, that had been kept secret by the Church.
Jacen’s mind spiraled, forming connections without his permission—every inconsistency he had refused to examine, all those thoughts he’d stopped dead in their tracks before he could follow them to their logical conclusion.
The gods were demons.
The thing in that corpse was ademon, and it was a god.
Akkani watched him piece it together. The grim look on her face was as good as confirmation.
The questions spilled out of Jacen. “Where do they get their bodies? What was one doing in that corpse? Is the demon in the canyon one of them too?”
Akkani held up a hand. “Let me be clear, I’m offering you the courtesy of an explanation because you’re about to givemethe truth I want, one way or another. Perhaps my offering this information first might persuade you to reciprocate before I’m forced to resort to less-pleasant methods.”
She spoke the truth and let him sense it. The discomfort of a psychic interrogation aside, she genuinely believed she might persuade him. Jacen was too stunned to speak, so she continued, “The entity in the canyon is a weapon of the old Zal empire. It is imperative that we find it. Why else do you think I allowed Ged Semira to send his son into the canyon?” A sad smile touched her lips. “You threw a bit of a wrench into that, didn’t you? No matter. This will all be over soon.”
“Why?” was all Jacen could say.
“Consider the power you’ve been taught our gods possess. Ontological arguments aside, consider a power which, from our perspective, is functionally the same. Now strip from that power any inclination to benevolence. They have capabilities you’ve never dreamt of. Our whole world exists at their whim. Should we cease to be useful . . .” A hollow chuckle escaped her, and the barest tremor entered her voice. “We cannot fight them. We cannot comprehend them. No, Jacen, they are not gods. They are far worse.”
She was terrified. More than that—her terror was familiar, because it was Jacen’s own mirrored back at him: that the universe was nothing but uncaring darkness, and they were insects beneath the thumb of eldritch beings who could crush them without a thought.
“We bear it,” Akkani said, “so that our people do not have to. We nourish their belief, sell the lie of a blissful afterlife to the faithful, so that they might live in ignorance, yes—but in peace.”
Peace. Was that what this was called, beneath the shadow of the Harvest?
“Why did you tell me I’m Dalish if I’m Zal?” Jacen felt a child again, a mere acolyte begging for her approval, when he asked, “Why did you lie to me?”
“I did it to protect you.” Now Akkani’s voice was soft, soothing. “Did you know I’m the one who found you and brought you to the Church? Of all my students over the years, I’ve seen the most of myself in you. The Council wanted to execute you after Elyas’s fall, but I stayed their hand. I know you’ve always been loyal; you were once our Order’s finest. You are capable of grasping what must be done.” She paused. “Prove me right, Jacen. Show me you’re capable of redeeming yourself.”
Her words cracked something vital inside him.
“I have only ever done what I must,” Akkani said. “And now it’s your turn. Who else have you told?”
She had asked such a question before, just a few days prior in the High Lord’s audience chamber.
“I already know you’re working with Ged,” Akkani said. “And the Dalishman, of course. If there’s meddling in this city, he’s usually involved. Did you tell your novitiate? Or Seth Semira? I know the two of you were close, once.”
Jacen felt his reaction flit across his face before he could suppress it. “They don’t know anything.”
“I cannot let this get out.” Akkani was almost apologetic. “I need to know who you’ve told, what you’ve told them, and what Ged is planning. I need the truth, do you understand? By any means. Help me stop whatever you’ve unleashed before it destroys everything we hold dear.”
He considered what might happen should he tell Akkani everything. Sickness pooled in his stomach. If he talked, he proved he was nothing more than a murderer and a coward. A servant of a cause he’d exhumed and found utterly hollow.
He closed his eyes, seeing the truth of himself at last in that infinite dark.
Who would you be without us?But it was never his post that Jacen truly feared to lose—no status or power, but something far less tangible, over which no man or Church had purview. A strange calm settled over him.
“No,” he said.
He was grasping in the void for some greater purpose, just as he always had, and perhaps he would never find it. But for now, he could stand for this. He would not give this lying, monstrous person what she wanted—not without making her hurt for it, too.
