47: THE LIST
Senera’s reaction The Lighthouse at Shadrag Gor
Just after Kalindra’s memory
Kalindra didn’t wake when the vision ended.
Senera’s only surprise was that it had taken so long. It had been obvious for a while that Kalindra hadn’t been coping with the stress. But this had no doubt been the last grain of sand: the reminder that she’d been the one who’d sold out everyone, that in doing so she’d put her son in mortal danger, and that it had all been for nothing.
“Oh, no wonder she didn’t want to talk about it,” Xivan mourned.
Kalindra sat up again and opened her eyes.
The remaining four people backed away from the body with all the haste of those who had been dealing with demons and dark fallen gods for weeks. When Xivan started to draw her sword, Senera held out her hand. “Wait,” she advised.
Kalindra stood. She was in no way elegant about it, but moved jerkily like someone who’d forgotten how to walk. Senera had seen this sort of behavior before. She knew what it meant.
“Jarith?” Senera said.
“Now you show up?” Xivan said. Talea elbowed her and made a shushing sound.
For several long, protracted beats, nothing happened. Then they all heard:
**I am still very new to … this. And there is much I don’t … I don’t remember.**
“But you know who you are?” Thurvishar asked. His voice was thick with pity.
**I do.** Despite using Kalindra’s body, small swirls of black smoke kept escaping, swirling around her legs, flowing outward like a cloak. **But only as facts. I know she was important to me.** The demon looked down at himself, wearing Kalindra’s body. **She is important to me.**
“So that’s why he waited,” Thurvishar murmured.
Senera looked at the man. He had an infuriating habit of not explaining what the hell he was talking about, as if he expected that everyone would just follow his logic without any explanation. “And he is…?”
Thurvishar looked up. “Oh? What?”
Senera pressed her lips together. “Who is he? The ‘he’ who waited?”
“Oh!” Thurvishar said. “Vol Karoth. As long as Kalindra was awake and aware here, Jarith wouldn’t leave, wouldn’t come out. I don’t think Vol Karoth wants Jarith here.”
“Why?” Xivan asked. “He’s a demon. Vol Karoth eats demons. Literally eats demons. Wouldn’t Jarith be the most vulnerable among us?”
“Maybe,” Thurvishar said, “but maybe not. I don’t know if the rules are different for Xaltorath’s ‘children.’”
**Send me to Kalindra. I must bring her back.**
Thurvishar’s eyes widened. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
**Please. She is the only—** The shadows around Kalindra’s legs thrashed angrily. **She is my anchor.**
Talea sighed. “Thurvishar—”
“I can try,” Thurvishar acknowledged. “I’ve never—” He gave Senera a rueful look. “As someone I know once pointed out, I’ve never read a demon’s mind before. I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You read Janel’s mind. She’s a demon,” Senera reminded him. “And Talon read Jarith’s mind earlier. If Talon can do it, you can.”
“Oh,” Thurvishar said. “Good point.” He didn’t look any happier by the reassurance, however. He wore a pensive, upset look on his face.
“But as for him—” Senera gestured toward the possessed body of Kalindra. “I feel obligated to point out we also don’t know if it’s a trap. We don’t know anything about what Xaltorath’s done to this … man. What he’s become. You can’t touch him that way without making yourself vulnerable. And maybe that is what Vol Karoth really wants.”
“If it is,” Thurvishar said, “I think Vol Karoth would have done it earlier. He’s made no secret of the fact that he’d like to have me out of the way.”
“We could toss a coin for it.” Talea pulled a gold coin seemingly from thin air to give emphasis to the suggestion.
“No, Talea,” Senera and Xivan both said at the same time.
Talea rolled her eyes. “Fine. But let’s help him out if we can. Kalindra would want that. Kihrin too, for that matter.”
Thurvishar inhaled. “All right.” He turned to the demon. “We shall see if we can do this. Be ready for anything.”
Kalindra’s prison After Kalindra’s memory of agreeing to help the Lash
Kalindra opened the door to her suite and paused in confusion.
The room looked as it always did—bright and airy with windows both high and low. The sunken central entertaining area, carpeted in red and gold with matching pillows for sitting or reclining against, was as it always looked when not filled with laughing guests drinking wine and chatting, the old wooden bar to the left sported unopened bottles and a single carafe filled with a deep red from the Shendola region. Pegs protruded from the wall to her left, ready to receive hats or coats or cloaks. Doors opened from the main room into the bedrooms and the bath on the left and right walls, respectively.
The only thing out of place was the pile of luggage by the door to the bedroom. That was unusual and unexpected.
“Hello?” she called out, shrugging out of her cloak and hanging it on the wall. “Are you home?”
Jarith Milligreest emerged from the bedroom, setting a small valise down atop the pile of luggage already there. “Hi,” he said, not making eye contact.
“What’s all this?” she asked, stepping forward and sweeping an arm broadly. “Are we going on a trip I didn’t know about?”
“No,” Jarith said, still not looking at her. “Just me.”
A stone tied itself around her heart and threw itself into a deep, dark well. She felt a sinking feeling as well as a sudden splash of cold that made the hairs on her arms stand up. “Excuse me?” she asked, stepping forward again.
“I had hoped to be done before you got home,” Jarith admitted sheepishly. “I left a … There’s a note.” He gestured over his shoulder toward the bedroom. “I wanted to avoid a scene.”
“A scene?” Kalindra scoffed. “Is that what this is? What’s going on? Talk to me, my love.”
“I’m … I’m leaving,” he said as if the luggage didn’t make that obvious.
Kalindra shook her head. “I don’t understand. I thought … I thought we were doing well. Was it something I did?”
“No,” Jarith said quickly, glancing up at her for the first time. She saw a wetness in his eyes as if he were holding back tears. “No, it’s just … you’re busy with your work all the time, and I … I have realized that I’m not happy here.”
“In this house?” Kalindra asked.
“In this city,” Jarith said. “I … I’m going to join F’elana’s project.”
Kalindra had to think for a moment. “The world tree thing?” she asked. “You’re going to the other continent?”
“Sky trees,” Jarith said, “and yes.”
“But, love,” she said, taking another step forward with her hand outstretched, “you know it’s not safe. There’s so much about that land, the nature of those trees, that we still don’t understand. Never mind the creatures that live there.”
“And we’ll never learn as long as we keep treating them like enemies.” Jarith’s voice rose, becoming strident. “We’ve all but exterminated the Daughters of Laaka. What’s to stop us from committing genocide on the sky trees and the gryphons and whatever else we find over there?”
“Hey, the Daughters attacked us first,” Kalindra protested. That stone around her heart was continuing to sink deeper into the apparently bottomless well. “We are only defending ourselves.”
“The voramer invaded their lands,” Jarith said, shaking his head. “How did we think they’d react?”
“They could have tried to communicate first,” Kalindra said. “But no, they went straight to mass murder. They collapsed the entire voramer cavern. You know this!”
“And none of them actually died, because we can’t die!” Jarith screamed. “We’re wrong. We’re unnatural. We’re the abomination!”
Silence filled the room uncomfortably. Jarith hung his head, staring at the carpet beneath his feet. “We need to find a way to become part of this world,” he said. “And we think … I think … that the sky trees are the answer.”
“So you’re going to just leave this?” Kalindra asked, indicating the house. “Leave us? Leave me? Without even talking to me about it?”
“Please,” Jarith said. “You’re a soldier; it’s what you do. You’d never be happy with us.”
“I was happy with you,” Kalindra said as the stone finally found the bottom.
Jarith looked up, forced a sad smile. “You’ll find someone else,” he said.
“I don’t want someone else,” Kalindra said, anger igniting in her breast. “I want you! I love you!”
Jarith shook his head. “If that were true, you’d be happy for me. I’ve finally figured out my place here.” When Kalindra didn’t reply, he said, “Goodbye, Solan.”
He left, leaving Kalindra there. The tears took a long while to come, and when they did, they were the harsh, angry kind. They didn’t go away for a long, long time.
Kalindra opened the door to her suite and paused in confusion as it all began again.
Jarith’s story Inside Vol Karoth’s prison After Kalindra’s collapse
The demon found itself in the middle of a street that was barren and devoid of life. The lines were clean, neat, precise, but there was a sterility to the place that made it uneasy. There was no warmth, no life; nothing to eat.
It felt the essence of the place picking away at it, seeking loose threads to tug and unravel into so much tenyé to be devoured.
It was a demon; it knew hunger better than any. And this was a hunger so far beyond its comprehension—
His. His comprehension, the demon reminded himself. **I am Jarith Milligreest. I am a man. My wife’s name is Kalindra. I love her.** He repeated this mantra to himself as he drifted down the street, looking for her.
He looked, but not with eyes. He didn’t really have those anymore. Rather, he used his other senses. The ones that showed him every scrap of tenyé, every frisson of terror or misery.
It was with this last one that he found her. He recognized the taste of her fear and despair across miles of this endless city. He knew that taste well. It had sustained him through the weeks since his escape from …
… since his escape. Every time Kalindra thought of her dead husband, every time her heart broke just a little more, it fed him.
**Me,** he said to himself. **I am that dead husband. My name is Jarith Milligreest. I am a man. My wife’s name is Kalindra. I love her.**
Love? Love wasn’t something a demon was supposed to care about, or even understand. He’d learned that at his creator’s knee, one of his first lessons.
But …
**I am a man. I love my wife.** He chanted the words as he floated in the direction of his wife’s distress.
He hated this place, he decided. A place where nothing was real and, therefore, nothing was as it should have been. He should have been able to flash across the magnetic lines, crossing miles in moments of thought, but there were no magnetic lines here. No glorious sun sending tenyé in the form of warmth down upon the world. There was just … nothing. Hunger and emptiness and a faint, shallow regret too thin and soupy to provide nourishment.
He had to float slowly. No faster than a mortal might run.
It was agonizing. There was an irony there; but self-cannibalism was a last-resort-only option, and he wasn’t there yet.
Besides, he’d fed well at the Lighthouse. The air had reeked of emotions, both pale and thin and more nourishing emotions too: fear, sorrow, hate.
Maybe when he was done here, he would go back there and—
**No! I am not like that. I am a man. I am … My name is … ** Shit. What was his name? **Jarith!** That was it. **Jarith Milligreest. My wife’s name is Kalindra. I love her. I love her.**
He floated along the streets of the city, the city that was the mind of a demon-god so much hungrier and more powerful than he.
More powerful, but strangely less clever in some ways, he decided after a time. He’d passed several places where fake Kalindras writhed in pain or sobbed in anguish. But not one of those had so much as a flicker of life to them, not so much as a hint of actual emotion. Who were these flat, painted simulacrums meant to fool?
Finally, he arrived at the “place” where she was. Animated statues patrolled the street outside, stone eyes keen to spot any intruder. But Vol Karoth thought it was dealing with mortals. Beings who were convinced of their own flesh, even in this place where such things were meaningless. They would think themselves visible, and so they would be.
The demon knew better. The demon—
**Jarith,** he thought to himself and almost ruined everything. Great stone heads turned toward him briefly. He paused, letting his mind go perfectly blank.
The statues resumed their restless patrol, and the demon floated into the building they guarded, the one from which the magnificent flavors of agony and despair wafted.
If the demon had had a mouth, it would have begun to water.
Inside was a room like the rest of the city—empty and sterile and fake. There stood a human, dark brown skin and hair matted into long tendrils tied back with a leather cord. She moved her lips, and the vibrations in the air that mortals called speech happened from her. The demon—
**Jarith! My name is Jarith Milligreest. I am a man. My wife’s name is Kalindra. I love her.**
Jarith focused that part of his essence in the proper way so that he could receive those air vibrations, far too weak and diffuse to provide even a hint of flavor. He heard her talking to someone.
There was no one else there.
Annoyed, Jarith focused on that part of his essence in the proper way so that he could “see” as mortals did. He “saw” that she faced a bipedal figure, a human covered in cloth the way that their kind did. He wasn’t an expert, but from the shape of the body, he believed it was of the “female” type like the one he was there to eat.
Save.
That he was there to save.
His wife spoke to a figure without a face. And Jarith knew it was extremely disconcerting to look upon someone who didn’t have a face. He would know.
He focused that part of his essence in the proper way to manifest. As he did, he chanted part of his mantra to himself. **I am Jarith Milligreest. I am a man. I am Jarith Milligreest. I am a man.**
Parts of him began to appear. Torso, arms, shadows instead of legs. He ran into the problem he always ran into when he reached his face: Jarith didn’t remember what he looked like. He left it blank, only to remember again that humans found such blankness disconcerting.
But before he could correct the problem, the human saw him and began screaming. Her horror was delicious, and for a moment, he lost himself in the flavors. Then he remembered what he was there to do.
**Kalindra.** He projected the thought into her mind. He wasn’t yet skilled enough at manipulating his essence to vibrate the air in the way that humans communicated. He hadn’t quite managed to figure out how to keep both lungs and a larynx in his mental image in clear enough focus at the same time, so this was his only option.
She continued screaming. He glanced down and realized he’d lost the arms; they’d gone back to being shadows again.
This wasn’t going well.
He dropped the image entirely, vanishing from sight. **Kalindra,** he spoke again. **It is Jarith. I am here to … to save you.** He’d almost lost that train of thought. Her fear and despair were so distracting. **Please, Kalindra, my wife. You are a prisoner of … of … this place. I can save you, but we must go.**
He concentrated so hard on the words, on remembering who he was and why he was here, that he only distantly noticed when she stopped screaming. He did notice, however, when she plunged a dagger right into the center of his essence.
It was laughable. A dagger could no more hurt him than a light breeze could.
So why did it hurt so much?
Oh right, he remembered; nothing here was real.
That included him.
Kihrin’s story Inside Vol Karoth’s prison
We were in the middle of searching for another one of Vol Karoth’s memory points when shadows began to swirl in an entirely unnatural way in the road in front of us.
“Wait, what’s that?” Janel said.
We all readied ourselves, because hey, there was one thing we could count on: whatever it was, it wouldn’t be friendly.
Then it started to take on a man-shaped mass. Around the time the mask started to form, his identity became obvious.
“Jarith?” Galen stepped forward, his voice trembling.
**I am Jarith. I am—** He seemed to pause as if trying to remember the rest of his lines.
“Oh gods,” Janel whispered. She looked sick.
**I am Jarith Milligreest. My wife is Kalindra. I love her. She’s in danger—**
“Jarith!” Galen screamed.
The demon stopped.
“It’s me,” Galen said. “I’m your friend. Don’t you remember me?”
Janel came up behind Galen and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t. You don’t know how dangerous this is.”
“I need to do this.” Galen shrugged away from her. I’m not sure he noticed how Jarith flinched forward toward him. Galen turned back to Jarith. “Please, Jarith. It’s me. You remember me, right?”
**I don’t remember—** The demon seemed to shake his head. **I don’t remember …**
“Come on!” Galen said. “You know I followed you around like a damn puppy! You were one of my only friends!”
“Galen,” I said carefully. “I need you to listen to me.”
He was most definitely not listening to me.
Jarith floated closer to Galen. I wasn’t so naïve as to think it was familial or friendly concern. Galen was anguished; Jarith wouldn’t be able to help himself.
“Jarith has been through a terrible ordeal,” Janel said, “and he’s been damaged by it. It’s not your fault if he doesn’t remember you. The fact that he can remember anything at all is … amazing. It took me years to deal with the damage done to me, and Jarith’s been through so much worse. My brother has a really strong will.”
Galen paused and blinked. “Right. He’s your brother, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is.”
**I am Jarith Milligreest. I am a man. I love my wife, Kalindra.** Jarith wasn’t saying that with any strong emotion. He was reciting it. To make sure he remembered. Then, in a voice that did have emotion: **I couldn’t wake her. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t save her.**
Galen made a strangled sound. “We need to help him.”
“We’re going to try.” I sympathized with Galen. I did. Hell, I wanted to grab Jarith by his insubstantial, shadowy sleeves and shake him until he returned to normal, but I also knew that wasn’t happening.
At least not easily.
“But it sounds like he knows where Kalindra is,” Teraeth interrupted. “That is what you’re trying to say, isn’t it, Jarith? You know where Kalindra is?”
**Yes. Help me. No. Help her.**
I honestly paused for a minute and wondered if it was a trick, a trap.
But what choice did we have?