Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

Winter saluted, heels coming together to straighten her painfully into a parade-ground stance. The colonel winced in sympathy, and gestured to the chair.

“Please, Lieutenant. Sit down and relax.”

She unbent cautiously and settled into the chair. His gray eyes regarded her thoughtfully.

“I would get up to greet you, but. .” He waved a hand at his legs, and she noticed that one of them was bound by a wooden splint. “I’ve been waiting most anxiously for you to awaken.”

“I-”

He held up one finger. “To anticipate your initial questions: We are on the coast, four miles east of Ashe-Katarion. Your corporals and those of the Seventh Company who escaped the caves with them are fine, and have been asking quite urgently after your health. And you have been unconscious for approximately twelve days.”

Winter blinked, trying to make room for all that. “Twelve. . days?”

“Indeed. Our return from the Desol was dusty but uneventful. The same could not be said for your injuries, I’m afraid. For a time you were in serious danger.”

Winter remembered feeling as though her lungs were ripping themselves to shreds with every breath. It seemed distant, like something from a past life. “Do I have you to thank for my recovery?”

“You do,” he said matter-of-factly. “While I hate to cast aspersions on the humble army cutters, their knowledge tends toward the practical, and their approach is often. . blunt. If the problem cannot be removed from the patient with a bone saw, they are often at a loss. Fortunately, medicine is among my fields of study.”

“Then you saved my life. Again.”

He inclined his head. “After you saved mine.” The colonel held up his hand again, ticking off more fingers. “To be more precise, you came to save mine, I saved yours, you returned to rescue me once again, and I again managed to be of some service afterward.” He raised an eyebrow. “It seemed only polite.”

“What about the others who were in there?” Winter drew a sharp breath. “Feor! What happened to Feor?”

“She would be the Khandarai priestess who accompanied you?” At Winter’s hesitant nod, Janus gave another fast smile. “She is fully recovered, I believe. Your Corporal Forester claimed her when he led the rescue party into the temple. I was in no condition to give advice at the time, but fortunately it proved to be unnecessary. The wounds magic inflicts on the spirit are painful, and can even be fatal, but they fade quickly compared to the more physical sort.”

She’s all right. Something unknotted in the pit of Winter’s stomach. She’d been convinced that Feor was dying, that the reading of the naath had been an effort of grand self-sacrifice on her part. Hell, maybe she thought it was.

“I haven’t been able to let any of them come and see you,” the colonel continued, “as I didn’t know which of them were privy to your secret.”

“Ah. That was very considerate of you.”

“As I said, it seemed only polite.”

There was a pause. The clink of glass on glass made Winter look up, and she was startled to see a servant in formal black pouring wine from a carafe. He handed her the glass with a grave expression, and she sipped politely. It was iced, and the chill felt good against her lips.

“Thank you, Augustin. Leave the rest.”

“My lord,” Augustin murmured. He ghosted away.

“That leaves us,” the colonel said, reaching for his own glass, “with the main issue.”

“Oh?” Winter did her best to match the man’s casual tone.

“How much do you understand of what happened in the temple?”

Winter’s cheeks flushed. She drank, to cover her embarrassment, and found the wine surprisingly palatable. “Not much. Alhundt was trying to kill us all, and Captain d’Ivoire and I stopped her.”

He glanced at her, his expression unreadable. “I’m not surprised that you’d pretend ignorance. To be knowledgeable is to be involved, after all, and you must know better than anyone how dangerous that can be. However, I believe we are beyond that point. Whatever you know, or don’t know, you are involved now, and so I ask not in some attempt to entrap you into revealing your hand but simply so that I do not waste your time with explanations.”

“If you say so,” Winter said carefully.

“Trust me.” He leaned forward. “How much do you know about what has happened to you ?”

She shrugged. “Only what Feor told me. She recited a naath , something that was engraved on those steel plates, and I said it along with her. Then I finished it alone.”

The colonel winced. “No wonder she was unconscious. Did she tell you anything about the nature of the. . naath ?”

“No. Only that I could use it to stop Alhundt.”

“And when you did?”

“It was. .” She found it hard to put into words. “It was like whatever was inside me reached out, into her. It found the magic inside her and-I’m not sure. It-”

“Devoured it,” the colonel said.

“I suppose so.”

“Remarkable.” He looked at her curiously. “And how do you feel now?”

“All right, I guess.” She looked down at herself. “A hell of a lot better than I expected to.”

“An expectation I might have shared, had I known what you and Feor had tried.” He paused, as though searching for words. “The. . thing that you have, call it a naath for the sake of argument, is one that is known to us, though only distantly. It was discovered in the wild only once, more than a thousand years ago. The Church of the time called it ‘Infernivore,’ because to them it was a demon that fed on other demons. It resisted every attempt to learn its name, and eventually its host died under the not-very-tender ministrations of the Priests of the Black. In time, however, rumors reached the Church that either the Infernivore or a very similar entity had been discovered in Khandar, among the great store of knowledge we call the Thousand Names.”

There was so much that Winter didn’t understand in that statement she hardly knew where to begin. She seized on something familiar. “Feor mentioned the Black Priests. I thought they were shut down a century ago.”

“Officially, yes,” Janus said. “As far as history is concerned, the Priests of the Black expanded their remit from the elimination of the supernatural to meddle in the realm of politics and doctrine, which is true, as far as it goes. In the aftermath of the Great Schism, the Pontifex of the Black lost much of his standing, and the Obsidian Order was eventually disbanded.”

“But?” Winter prompted.

“Elysium took the opportunity to purge the rot and return the Priests of the Black to what they had been. They operate in secret, searching out demons and magic in all its forms. Just because they are no longer publicly acknowledged does not make them any less dangerous, however.”

“I thought Alhundt worked for the Concordat.”

“The interests of His Grace the Last Duke,” the colonel said darkly, “align very closely with those of the Pontifex of the Black. It doesn’t surprise me in the least to find them working hand in glove.”

“But-”

“All of this is a bit beside the point,” the colonel said. “At least for the moment, as far as you are concerned.”

“So what is the point?”

“I also knew the Infernivore was here. I came to Khandar to get it, along with the rest of the Thousand Names.”

“ You did?”

“Of course. I’ve made a study of magic, you know.”

He said it so blandly that Winter nearly choked on her wine. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then said, “So now you’ve got what you wanted?”