The Name of All Things (A Chorus of Dragons #2)

by Jenn Lyons

“They must have agreed. Anyone who is powerful enough to force the demons into such a pact would be powerful enough to destroy them. Which means they must have agreed to it. But why? What did they get out of it?”

“This Doltari woman, Senera, probably does traffic in demons, given what we saw, and thus qualifies as a ‘witch.’ Besides that, though? She has access to a magic I’ve never seen before and don’t understand. The only good side I’ve discovered is the air glyph doesn’t run out. The firebloods would have suffocated otherwise.”

A gigantic form undulated across the sky, wings spread out like an enormous bird. The setting sun lit fire across the monster’s edge but couldn’t hide its shimmering white color. That opal shine reflected blue-and-purple depths as though it were formed from ice. Its head resembled a serpent, but no snake ever grew so large or soared on massive wings.

Ninavis scowled and unstrung her bow. “What was that monster?” “A dragon,” Brother Qown volunteered. “I’ve never seen one in person before.” Brother Qown would have liked to go on about how beautiful he’d found the beast, but he didn’t think the sentiment would have been appreciated.

Shall I continue with the story?” Kihrin exhaled. “Sure. We’re already at the party. Might as well sing along.”

“And yes, I know her name. There are eight dragons.4 Based on the descriptions I’ve read, that’s Aeyan’arric, the Ice Bringer, Lady of Storms.”

Kihrin sighed and tried not to look at Brother Qown while he mulled over the messy, ugly complications of Qown’s religion. He couldn’t think of anything more awkward than realizing the priest sitting across the table worshipped … Kihrin.1 Or at least, who Kihrin had been in his past life.

You people confuse being able to use magic with witchcraft, when it’s not the same thing at all.”

“Except the legends ain’t true, what they say about Danorak. She didn’t outrun the demons to get warning out to the emperor. She was caught up in it same as everyone else, but the demons didn’t kill Janel. Instead, their leader, this demon prince, well, he decides to possess her body so he can summon more demons. Wore her like a riding dress.

So there’s this demon army on a trek of death and destruction from one side of Jorat to the other, commanded by an eight-year-old girl. Even after the emperor went and stopped the march, he couldn’t get that bastard to give up his pretty new body.”

And she was … but that don’t mean she was ever the same. I guess those six months must have seemed like years. She came back strong as an elephant and with that curse sending her back to Hell every night, like Xaltorath still has a hold on her soul.”

Ninavis stared down at the girl. “So what is she?” “Ain’t you been listening?” Dorna settled back down and shook her head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you: I ain’t got a clue.”

There are few things demons fear. They are the ones others fear, the ones who feed off fear, the creatures who make mothers scream and old men wet themselves. The Eight Gods, though, are among the entities who garner a demon’s respect.

Demons broke the cycle of reincarnation; that is what makes them abominations. I could do nothing to restore the proper balance.

Kihrin thought over Janel’s earlier lessons in Joratese courtship rituals. Whether someone was a stallion or a mare had nothing to do with biology, unless the discussion involved sex—and then it did. “I’m pretty sure I run with mares.”

“The same. Our parents arranged the match when we were children, but it … it didn’t work out.” “Naturally, it didn’t work out,” Dorna agreed. “You’re a lovely young noble, and he’s a horse’s ass. Cross-species relations are frowned on in these parts.”

“My point is that he thinks I should owe him thudajé,” Janel explained, waving a hand disdainfully. “When he returned after my grandfather died, he gave me a choice: marry him, agree to accept my place as a mare, and make him count, or … or the alternative was paying off the people he’d already bribed to declare Censure on me. Since I had no way to do that, I left.”

“Relos Var,” Janel murmured. The others looked at her. “What about him?” Dorna said. She shook her head. “Never mind. I will find out who he is, how he’s involved in all this, and how he ties in with that witch, Senera.” “And then?” Ninavis asked. Janel tilted her head. “And then I shall kill them. What else?”

It’s not easy, in our dual and intertwined worlds, for someone to truly die, but it can be done. Demons most easily bring this true death to others.

In Jorat, what you protect is what you rule.

Brother Qown didn’t understand. He didn’t understand how standing up for some random Marakori refugee might be perceived as an act of rebellion.

The last Hellmarch had started in Marakor, after all. Started in Marakor but ended in Jorat. We have never forgotten.

Nina laughed. “Not even a little. Mares stay at home and see to the house, yes, but they’re also farmers, teachers, caretakers, organizers. And stallions are the preening, prancing warriors circling the herd in case lions show up. Ask most stallions and they’ll tell you they’re in charge too while the mare who’s making sure everything gets done just laughs.”

Sir Oreth laughed. “Oh? And how do you buy loyalty?” “Purpose, meaning, and appreciation,” Relos Var answered without hesitation. “My people aren’t loyal because of my coffers; they are loyal because of my cause.” He paused. “The coffers don’t hurt, though.”

Gatekeepers were not, after all, servants. They often acted as advisers, simply because their level of education made them well suited for that role. But first and foremost, they were mages who paid their dues to House D’Aramarin.

Also, remind me to stay far away from you in a fight.” “I hardly ever lose control anymore.” Kihrin shook his head. “Now see, it’s that ‘hardly ever’ part I find so disconcerting.”

As Ninavis and Brother Qown carried Count Janel away from the ambush, Qown pondered how much lighter she was than he expected. She took up so much space in a room when awake it was easy to forget her true size.

“You know what this is, don’t you?” “It’s a sigil,” the elder priest said, then shook his head. “No, I apologize. That makes it sound like a toy one might paint on a child’s nursery for luck. What you have just drawn is a symbolic and equivalent representation of tenyé, an object’s true essence.

“This woman, Senera. If that is her real name.3” He nodded to Brother Qown. “The stone she used is no river rock. It is the most dangerous of all Cornerstones: the Name of All Things.”

The Cornerstones are eight gems, tied to universal concepts. They contain godlike power, but not a divine being’s will and intelligence. Such direction must be supplied by another. Anyone who holds them in fact.” His smile turned sardonic. “Even an escaped slave from Doltar.”

“What does the Name of All Things do? What are its powers?” Zajhera shrugged. “Who can say with any certainty? It provides information. Its power is subtle. Its sphere is knowledge. It seems the stone can be used to answer questions. Even perhaps questions as esoteric as, what tenyé sigil might turn the air sweet and pure?”

Zajhera raised two fingers. “She needs you, my son.4 She needs someone to light her path, for the dark is all around her. Xaltorath has been a terrible influence, and you have seen what she becomes when she loses control.” “She should be trained. I have never known anyone with so much potential. Three spell-gifts, Father! She maintains her strength at all times and doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.”

“Trained by whom?” Father Zajhera said. “She’s a woman. The empire does not grant women licenses to use or learn magic. A woman who knows even a single spell-gift, no matter how much potential she may have, is a witch. And witchcraft is a crime the empire punishes with death, not slavery.”

Because the Joratese don’t see it the way you or I would. She’s not a mare; she’s a stallion. To the Joratese, Count Janel—and note how it’s Count and not Countess—is a man to the Joratese, by all the standards we’d use in the west. Except for one thing: she’s female.”

Remember a dead physicker heals no patients.

Father Zajhera smiled. “Being cursed by a demon breaks no laws, my son, and makes no distinctions between genders. So. I say any powers she may manifest are because of a curse. And you shall say so as well. Do we understand each other?”

Without him, I would never have made it to adulthood at all. Father Zajhera had saved me in a thousand ways. He’d made it possible for me to ignore the screaming in my mind, to believe I could be better than Xaltorath’s daughter.

“Yes, yes. You’re a young woman in a difficult situation, forced into making difficult choices, with extraordinary pressure on your shoulders, and an even more extraordinary weapon at your disposal—yourself. Is a demon necessary to explain why you might have lost control?

He’ll dismiss your concerns as nothing but a young girl who thinks she’s a stallion, when she should have accepted her place as a mare. And what will you do then?”

The blood fled from my face as I finally understood his meaning. In my eagerness to do the right thing, to stop these demons and these madmen, I had forgotten the most fundamental rule in Joratese politics. What you protect is what you rule.

Kihrin remembered Father Zajhera’s words. That man understood power. He’d understood Janel’s need to save her homeland would inevitably force her into conflict. She’d clash with people who would see her aid only as a threat to their own authority. And that would lead to … to what?

Janel blinked. “The Festival of the Turning Leaves. They hold it every year in Nivulmir, and Galava grants the supplicants’ prayers. It’s the reason Dorna wasn’t at Lonezh Canton.” She paused. “Do you do it differently in the west?”

The Markreev’s suggestion burned. Not because I had any problem with those who spent their year in the nature goddess Galava’s service, in exchange for the gift that followed. If Dorna lived happier as a woman than as her birth sex, who was anyone to question it? If the Markreev had chosen to become male, that was his right too. But I wished to remain female.

“Come now. Haven’t you ever met someone with whom you shared a connection, even though it made no sense, even though you couldn’t understand why? Someone you immediately distrusted or knew would run into a fire for you? Or you for them? It’s not so hard to believe souls from one lifespan seek each other out in the next.”

“To infiltrate Duke Kaen’s palace, you’ll need Relos Var’s approval. He’ll have to believe he’s recruiting you—that you’ve switched sides. But he’ll never accept your defection at face value. He’d be a fool to do so, and we’ve already established Relos Var is no fool. So what prevents him from just gaeshing you?”

“He’ll chain your soul,” Mithros said. “Why not? There’s zero reason for him to assume your loyalty. But he can make it impossible for you to disobey him. For you to convince Relos Var he doesn’t need to gaesh you would require a truly vile demonstration of loyalty. One so awful you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself afterward. He’d accept nothing less. Maybe those who serve him don’t start out as monsters, but they all end up that way.”

“Relos Var’s arrogant,” I said, turning back. “Arrogant enough to think he can corrupt me. He thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.” “He is smarter than everyone else.”8 “Fine. Even if that’s true, sooner or later, our strengths always become our weaknesses. This can be used against him. I know how dangerous this is, but I refuse to back down just because it’s hard.”

“The secret of the Diraxon is that we don’t exist. Not really. We are a clan made up of the rejects and outcasts of every clan. The Diraxon take in the people no one else wants. The babies with cleft palates or ill-omened birthmarks, too many fingers or not enough, club legs or bent spines. Marakori know if they don’t want to keep a babe, they can leave it by the edge of the Kulma Swamp and that child will just … vanish. Claimed by the Diraxon, the ghosts of the Kulma, who raise their foundlings on a steady diet of darkness, death, and vengeance.”

I looked at her and wondered just when Ninavis had become my woman. Any promises to Kalazan had been kept weeks ago. She bore no onus to look after my people, to help with my quests, to care about my safety. And she wasn’t Joratese, which meant any lingering herd instinct to stay—because she’d nowhere else to go—didn’t motivate her. She stayed because she wanted to.

The next week of fighting would decide a great deal: business contracts and commodity prices and even the guilt or innocence of accused criminals. No one in Jorat would do any significant business without first establishing the respective idorrá and thudajé for all involved parties. The most civilized way to establish those parameters was through the contests.2