Serpents Rising by Joe Jackson

Author:Joe Jackson [Jackson, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy
Published: 2017-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter XIV – Dancing Shadows

Kari expected she’d sleep well. The golden plains of Tess’Vorg cooled off at night, but not so much that it became chilly. It felt like early summer, but Kari wondered if it was like that year-round, or if Mehr’Durillia experienced seasons like her own world. The upper floor of the hostel was warmer, but with the windows open, the dormitory Kari shared with Uldriana stayed comfortable, the air fresh. The city was quiet at night; other than the soft sound of the wind past the windows, and the barely-noticeable drone of Uldriana breathing, the room was nearly silent.

Kari started to nod off, but the more her mind raced through the things Uldriana had told her, the harder she found it to cross the threshold into the land of dreams. The information the mallasti girl had shared so freely was invaluable, but a part of Kari wondered how much she could trust it. It had been enough of a shock to Kari and her Order to find that the serilis-rir were not demons; the Order had been founded on hunting them, as until only recently they were called serilian demons. To now find that the underworld was not the underworld, and its demons were not demons, left Kari feeling adrift, helpless and clueless. If she and her fellow hunters had failed to recognize the true nature of their “enemies” for this long, Kari had to wonder how many other things they misunderstood.

Finding that King Koursturaux was not only a “true” demon king, but that she was also involved in the murder of this world’s creator, left Kari more fearful for being involved with her. If Kari ended up trapped in Koursturaux’ service, that would leave the entire Order exposed to the demon king’s machinations. If Koursturaux and her fellow demon kings had managed to kill a goddess at least as powerful as Gori Sensullu, how much of a chance did Kaelariel and the rest of his fellows stand against them? It was a terrifying thing for Kari to consider: if the demon kings could kill gods, what chance did any of her people stand?

The best chance she could think of was to play the demon kings against each other; after all, that was how the Overking apparently kept his subordinates in line. Kari wasn’t sure her deities, let alone her fellow hunters or even her brother-in-law Aeligos, were sharp enough to play the political games that would keep the demon kings fighting each other. As it stood, the demon kings were all in a subtle state of war with each other, but apparently that didn’t stop them from waging war on other gods and, to some extent, Citaria. It seemed they used their shadow demons – or just demons, if what Uldriana said was accurate – to fight their war on other worlds and their gods, but they used the mallasti, elestram, and other races of Mehr’Durillia to entertain themselves here and on Citaria.

It was a disheartening thing to consider.

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