The Skull Throne Read Online Free PDF Page A

me again why I am here, Par’chin,” Jardir said. “If your goal is truly as you have always said, to rid the world of alagai, then why do you oppose me? I am close to fulfilling your dream.”
    “Not as close as you think,” the Par’chin said. “And the way you’re doing it disgusts me. You choke and threaten humanity to its own salvation, not caring the cost. Know you Krasians like to dress in black and white, but the world ent so simple. There’s color, and more than a fair share of gray.”
    “I am not a fool, Par’chin,” Jardir said.
    “Sometimes I wonder,” the Par’chin said, and his aura agreed. It was a bitter tea that his old friend, whom he had taught so much and always respected, should think so little of him.
    “Then why did you not kill me and take the spear and crown for your own?” Jardir demanded. “The witnesses were honor-bound. My people would have accepted you as Deliverer and followed you to Sharak Ka.”
    Irritation ran like wildfire across the Par’chin’s calm aura. “You still don’t get it,” he snapped. “I’m not the ripping Deliverer! Neither are you! The Deliverer is all humanity as one, not one as humanity. Everam is just a name we gave to the idea, not some giant in the sky, fighting back the blackness of space.”
    Jardir pressed his lips together, knowing the Par’chin was seeing a flare across his aura at the blasphemy. Years ago he had promised to kill the Par’chin should he ever speak such words again. The Par’chin’s aura dared him to try it now.
    Jardir was sorely tempted. He had not truly tested the crown’s power against the Par’chin, and with it at his brow, he was no longer as helpless as he seemed.
    But there was something else in his ajin’pal’s aura that checked him. He was ready for an attack, and would meet it head-on, but an image loomed over him, alagai dancing as the world burned.
    What he feared would come to pass, if they did not find accord.
    Jardir drew a deep breath, embracing his anger and letting it go with his exhalation. Across the room, the Par’chin had not moved, but his aura eased back like a Sharum lowering his spear.
    “What does it matter,” Jardir said at last, “if Everam be a giant in the sky, or a name we have given to the honor and courage that let us stand fast in the night? If humanity is to act as one, there must be a leader.”
    “Like a mind demon leads drones?” the Par’chin asked, hoping to snare Jardir in a logic trap.
    “Just so,” Jardir said. “The world of the alagai has ever been a shadow of our own.”
    The Par’chin nodded. “Ay, a war needs its generals, but they should serve the people, and not the other way ’round.”
    Now it was Jardir who raised an eyebrow. “You think I do not serve my people, Par’chin? I am not the Andrah, sitting fat on my throne while my subjects bleed and starve. There is no hunger in my lands. No crime. And I personally go into the night to keep them safe.”
    The Par’chin laughed, a harsh mocking sound. Jardir would have taken offense, but the incredulity in the Par’chin’s aura checked him.
    “This is why it matters,” the Par’chin said. “Because you actually believe that load of demonshit! You came to lands that were not yours, murdered thousands of men, raped their women, enslaved their children, and think your soul is clean because their holy book’s a little different from yours! You keep the demons from them, ay, but chickens on the chopping block don’t call the butcher Deliverer for keeping the fox at bay.”
    “Sharak Ka is coming, Par’chin,” Jardir said. “I have made those chickens into falcons. The men of Everam’s Bounty protect their own women and children now.”
    “As do the Hollowers,” the Par’chin said. “But they did it without killing one another. Not a woman raped. Not a child torn from its mother’s arms. We did not become demons in order to fight them.”
    “And that is what you think me?” Jardir asked.