The Demon Star

1. EXCISION

EXCISION

JACEN

When the sun went dark, the people of Zivora knew it was time for a Harvest.

The eclipse was like nothing natural, because the shadow that blotted out the light, casting the desert into perpetual dusk, was not a moon. Its totality lasted forty days, each night following the sun along its arc until it dipped below the rim of the world.

The eclipse’s umbra sprawled over the canyon called the Scar, where at other times of year, the midday heat killed more swiftly than the monsters lurking in the depths.

When the shadow came, even they kept still, waiting for it to pass.

On the eve of the Harvest, Brother Jacen Kheris had no such luxury.

Tis was the year’s holiest season, and it was his duty as a Priest of the Black Sun to counsel, pray over, and minister to the people in their disquiet.

He needed a drink.

He often felt that way, but especially during the eclipse, and especially when Mother Akkani deigned to visit him at such an unholy hour of the morning.

He’d had every intention of going directly from his bed to his liquor cabinet—why not, when the sun was about to vanish for a full cycle?

But instead, Akkani sat across from him, pale hands folded, awaiting his reply with the patience of a stone.

She had given him no warning at all. She was too clean for his chapel, and Jacen could not stop thinking about that.

Calling this place a chapel, in fact, seemed a disservice to their order.

Floors that hadn’t been swept in months, wax and charred spots from supplicants’ abandoned votives, a patch of bristly grass struggling to grow through a broken window .

. . sand everywhere, though Jacen thought he deserved leniency on that count.

In the desert, certain battles were not worth fighting.

He cleared his throat. “I can’t take a new novitiate.”

The novitiate in question stood by the door. She was a slight girl of fourteen, with dense white curls and skin so dark, it was almost blue. She stared at the floor and tugged at her overlarge grey robes as if they itched.

“You don’t have a choice.” Akkani pursed her lips, the expression nigh-imperceptible on her spare features. Not a scrap of excess on this woman. Her hesitation bordered on subliminal, but Jacen had a talent for noticing that. It was perhaps the only sense in which he remained a good priest.

“Mistakes were made,” Akkani went on, “with your last novitiate’s training. Not all of them were yours. There is no reason for me, or the Council, to believe they will be repeated.”

“I can serve in other ways,” said Jacen, in a tone he dearly hoped did not convey his rising panic.

“We’ve been more than patient with you, and for an exorcist of your caliber to do so little with his talents is a travesty.

” The words were structured as a compliment, but Akkani’s jaw clenched like it pained her to say it.

Maybe it had been for the novitiate’s benefit—though the girl regarded Jacen with a level of doubt he would have found offensive, once.

“You will serve in whatever capacity I decide,” said Akkani.

“And you will teach your new pupil with all the diligence she deserves. You’ll both assist Sister Jinaan this morning. ”

She handed him a scrap of parchment, scribbled with an address.

Her voice carried a note of finality that Jacen did not dare contest.

He bowed his head. “Yes, Your Holiness.”

Akkani rose, barely disturbing her wooden stool. Jacen did the same. At thirty-two years old, he remained as uncomfortable as he’d been as an acolyte to sit while she stood. The Church assigned its priests numerical ranks based on power and seniority, and the Holy Mother was First.

Akkani motioned the girl forward. “Her designation is Ninety-Nine.” A pause, and the faintest of smiles. “Wasn’t that yours, too, when you started with Brother Marez?”

Jacen forced a nod. Nines, he’d been called throughout his apprenticeship.

“You’ll get on well.” Akkani smoothed her robes, black and immaculate as her hair. Jacen was suddenly conscious of the way his were stained pale with dust. Akkani glided away—and stumbled on a clay pot that had somehow ended up on the floor. They all pretended not to notice.

Once she was gone, he waited a moment before he dared unclench his fists. Bloody crescents marked his palms. It hadn’t been enough to quell the shaking, nor to distract from the pounding in his skull. How long had it been since he’d had a proper drink? Eight hours? Probably less.

It seemed, however, that he would have to cope.

He motioned his new novitiate out the door.

They exited the chapel to the Knots, the labyrinthine settlement of sun-baked clay that sprawled beyond Zivora’s pale gates.

The streets lay deserted at this hour but for the occasional rogue tumbleweed rolling through the dust. Low in the sky, the sun rose.

Its red-orange hue grew muted as totality approached.

The shadows had begun to sharpen, scattering tiny crescents across the russet dirt, and a chill festered in the air.

Novitiate Ninety-Nine appeared to agree with Jacen that it was far too early for this.

Though she did her best to conceal it, he caught her yawning and rubbing sleep from her eyes.

Old Brother Marez would have backhanded Jacen for that, and judging by the girl’s skittishness, she expected the same from him.

She hovered close as a burr in his shoe and said little besides the word sorry.

As they trudged through the Knots’ crooked streets and decrepit buildings, Jacen asked her, “Have you ever assisted with an exorcism?”

He tried to sound friendly, approachable. But she stared at him, shoulders hunched like a startled stray cat before answering, “I’ve only studied the theory. I’m sorry.”

“Just follow my lead,” said Jacen. “You’ll do fine.”

She bobbed her head and fixed her gaze on the street. Conversation over. Gods, but he was out of practice. Talking to his first novitiate had been easier than this, hadn’t it? Jacen tried to remember Elyas, but his skull felt full of sand. It pounded with every step.

Their destination resembled any other residence in the Knots—red adobe scaffolded with kirikil bones, nestled low to the ground to keep out the heat. A pair of priests, a man and a woman, waited outside.

Like Jacen, they wore black robes and identical silver medallions: two concentric circles graven with six notches.

The man, Brother Ramun Taoro, was fat and sturdy with a shaved head. He didn’t bother to lower his voice as he said, “He’d better be sober for this.”

His peer, a reedy woman with chin-length red hair, jabbed him in the shoulder to shut him up. Sister Hesaya Jinaan conveyed her annoyance in a deeply professional manner, which made it worse.

“You’re late,” she said. “This must be your new novitiate.” Jacen gestured at the girl. “This is Nines.”

She stiffened at the nickname.

“Welcome,” said Hesaya. “May the Six bless your training.”

Taoro was scrutinizing Ninety-Nine as if struggling to discern an obvious defect that would make her suited to Jacen’s service. “You and I will assist while Sister Jinaan performs the mental excision. Brother Kheris will guide you as he observes.”

Though he should not have been surprised, Jacen winced. “Protocol requires three priests for an exorcism.”

Taoro raised his eyebrows. “Astute observation.”

“My report suggests this demon is a primitive one,” said Hesaya, more diplomatically. “It’s a good opportunity for a new novitiate.”

Ninety-Nine seemed less confident, but neither did she try to argue.

She stared at the dirt, avoiding eye contact.

A thin man shuffled out of the house. He cast about a suspicious glance, then said something to Hesaya in rapid Zal, too quiet for Jacen to catch.

For the purpose of communicating with the denizens of the Knots, many of whom spoke only the old languages, Hesaya had been allowed to learn Zal.

To learn—but not to speak freely, unless she had no other choice.

She addressed the man in Standard, the gods’ tongue.

“We’re here to perform the rite. Nothing more. ”

The man pursed his lips and nodded, making it clear he understood. “I am called Natok,” he said in heavily accented Standard. “Come this way.”

Jacen lingered behind to tell his novitiate, “The Knots are like this. Some families wouldn’t let the Church in at all, given the choice.

They’re desperate when they come to us, and it isn’t personal.

Meet them with respect and they’ll show you the same.

” He hesitated, and added, “I’m sorry about the nickname. If there’s something you’d rather I—”

“No,” she said. “I like it. It sounds more like a real name.”

She didn’t have another one. Acolytes’ given names were erased along with their memories at the start of their training, to be returned when the Church deemed them worthy.

The girl seemed mortified at having interrupted Jacen, but he smiled. “Nines, then.”

He saw her fight not to smile back, and some forgotten corner of his heart began to warm.

Inside, the domed living area was lit by high, sliver-thin windows letting in the fading daylight.

A mother and daughter huddled in a corner.

They were typically Zal—olive-skinned with red-black hair and russet eyes, dressed in unassuming dark clothes.

A tattered banner hung on one wall, black with a woven red glyph: an inverted triangular spiral, likely denoting one of the three long-abandoned cities of the canyon deep.

Beneath the banner was a cot, on which a small boy lay very still, hands and wrists bound with cactus-fiber rope. He couldn’t have been older than eight. This possession was in its early stages; the host still could have passed for an ordinary child.

“This is my son, Ciro,” Natok said. “He started behaving strangely . . . two days ago. Yesterday he set a fire. Now he cannot speak.” His face grew taut. “Every day I check my equipment. How could I miss this?”