Rainhorn (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 2)

by Sarah Lin

  "Landguards?"

  "Senka doesn't know that word! But, umm... Senka fell into that other place, and the fumpets are looking for bad things. They want to sporp Senka because they think Senka is bad. So Senka ran away because you were running away and now Senka is here and this place is different but it is okay because you're a bunch of fumpets."

  "I see." Nauda's smile looked completely authentic to him, but he knew there was more behind it. "Do you know why they're looking for you?"

  "Senka doesn't know!"

  "No theories at all? Who exactly are you?"

  "Senka is Senka, you silly gurfoop!"

  That tautology stymied them for a time until Fiyu made her own attempt. "Hello, Senka. I am Fiyu, I am an Ichili from the Inner Moonscape. What are you?"

  "Senka is a Senka from Senkaland!"

  Hesitating, Nauda glanced up at him, and the best he had was a shrug. She was about to say something, but then Fiyu knelt down beside them and spoke quietly. "I will take care of Senka. Why don't you and Jake discuss where we should go next?"

  The fake name jolted him from his thoughts and Theo realized that Fiyu was right. Though Senka seemed harmless, the unknown variables were themselves a threat. Though she claimed to be escaping the Landguards, that didn't preclude the possibility that she was lying, or even that she was some kind of innocent construct that was still being used against them. Given that there were many things he didn't know about the Nine, he couldn't dismiss the possibility.

  Though Fiyu drew Senka into her lap and began stroking her hair, she had intentionally given them this opportunity to discuss the matter separately. Theo retreated along with Nauda until they were out of earshot, then finally turned back to one another.

  "I take it you don't know what she is?" Nauda asked. He could only shake his head.

  "I've met people from all Nine Worlds, and while there are other species I've never seen, she doesn't seem like anything I've heard about."

  "I can't pin anything down either. What bothers me is that you bound her with gravity, right? If she had some way to escape, she might be more than she appears."

  Theo shook his head. "I'm not strong enough to maintain gravitational fields from a great distance, so they would have lessened, then she could have followed us. Obnoxious, but not suspicious. Besides, it doesn't seem like she can use cantae... or do you know something about that?"

  "Let me show you." Nauda grasped his arm and drew him inward, briefly floating through her soulhome before using her brass telescope.

  Soon after, his spirit floated outside a planet of garbage. That was his first impression before he reconsidered, but even once he got a sense of scale, it was hard to shake the image: where Senka should have had a soulhome, there was only a sphere made up of refuse. He saw stones of many types, fragments of boards, twisted pieces of metal, and objects he couldn't identify. All felt vaguely like sublime materials, yet he didn't know how it was possible to lump together so much. Or why anyone would do it, considering that the solid sphere couldn't store cantae and wouldn't grant anything special.

  "She can use cantae, but extremely ineptly," Nauda's spirit explained beside him. "Her soulhome is refuse all the way through, so cantae just flows over the surface. She might be subconsciously making herself a bit tougher and faster, but it's useless for essentially all other purposes."

  "And I take it that neither of us have any idea what she could be."

  "Demons have no souls, so it can't be that. Sublime beasts I've examined seem to have a single tier that grows outward instead of upward, but perhaps there are stranger types? Something between a sublime beast and a human."

  "I doubt it." Though he still disliked the situation, Theo was fairly certain there was a more probable answer. "It's more likely that she's an entity alien to the Nine Worlds, accidentally arriving here through the cracks. That might explain why she's unintelligible, and it's possible that crossing from her native world had something to do with the state of her soulhome, if that is what it is."

  "So she's an outsider like you."

  Despite all his thoughts, Theo was still startled to hear that framing. It was essentially true, however: as an outsider to the Nine Worlds, his transitions to them were far more traumatic. Both times it seemed to have created a new body and left nothing of what he'd built in his soul. For a moment he realized that it was almost similar to demons, though of course it couldn't be, since he gained a soulhome as soon as he left Earth.

  "You don't like that idea?" Nauda squeezed his arm in a way he couldn't easily interpret. "I suppose we can't rule out the possibility that she's some sort of advanced demon, or perhaps a mangled one. The higher stage ones do seem more intelligent."

  "But it's always an animal intelligence, never the ability to speak or reflect." Now that he thought about it, that seemed odd to him, but he brushed the matter aside as irrelevant for the time being. "No, the theory that she's an outsider to the Nine Worlds seems most likely. The question is what we're going to do about it."

  "Well, it seems clear that she intends to follow us. One benefit of taking her is that it means we're not a group of three anymore, and we could pretend to be a family. That might help shake pursuit."

  "Or just draw more problems down on us, if the Landguards are really looking for her. I wonder if she didn't enter Tatian at the same time Fiyu and I did. Given that she's not exactly subtle, she might be the one that they're putting so much effort into finding."

  Nauda immediately gave a warm smile edging into a grin. "Surely not. How could all of this business possibly be about anyone other than you?"

  "You mock, but I'm happy about that. Keeping a low profile while ascending will be hard enough without any direct scrutiny." Theo matched her overly warm smile with a mocking scowl. "I expect the two of you to take care of the little brat, though."

  "Actually, Fiyu might have that handled." Nauda's gaze wandered back and Theo saw that Fiyu was playing with Senka, swinging her braid back and forth. She might have orchestrated the conversation, but Fiyu wasn't guarded with her expressions, so the enjoyment on her face must have been authentic. Odd that she was so willing to touch the creature, but perhaps children had different rules.

  Well, if it kept Senka from annoying him to death, he would take it.

  When they returned, Senka immediately looked up at them with a broad smile. "Are you two done sporping?"

  "We need a plan for our time here." Nauda propped her staff on the ground and leaned on it, eyes sweeping the horizon as she spoke. "It's most important to avoid the Landguard, but we can't waste our time here. Unfortunately, Jake is the only one who has any experience in Deuxan. Any chance that you're familiar with this area?"

  "I definitely haven't been in this region before." As Theo looked over the bronze grasses, he found his mind wandering back to the glorious fountains of Areesi and the silvery forests where he'd first met Brigana. By then he had been an experienced soulcrafter, but the intricate courts of Deuxan had still thrown him until she had found him... "The areas I've been didn't have grass like this. We'll have to look around."

  "I suppose it would be too much to hope you have allies here."

  "Of course not. You have to remember that every one of the Nine is an entire world. Deuxan has four continents filled with hundreds of different nations, plus several uninhabitable zones." He was lecturing, and they probably knew that, but it helped to ground himself again. "There's only a remote chance that we're anywhere near the regions I knew, so don't get your hopes up."

  That left out the larger problem that he'd avoided talking about: time. Though he preferred not to think about it, he knew that time ran differently between Earth and the Nine Worlds, so most likely he was separated from anyone he knew by an unknown period of time. He had spent years in the Nine on his first visit, only to wake up mere months later on Earth. After forty years... well, he would hope that time didn't consistently run like that, or his allies would be mere history, even if they had survived.


  Fiyu began to rise and made a soft sound as Senka latched onto her braid, tugging it down. She resolutely detached herself from Senka and stepped back into her personal space, which the little brat actually seemed to respect. Once on her own, Fiyu's warmth faded to cool consideration.

  "There was a trail from the gate. We should follow it to a settlement."

  "I agree, but we should pick up sublime materials first. They'll be scarcer than on Tatian, but we should still take what we can get." Theo began walking, eyes searching for a shining city on the horizon. "Deuxan... isn't as friendly as Tatian. We've had it easy before now, but that's over."

  Chapter 8

  As they traveled through Deuxan, Theo reflected on a new reason to acquire a vehicle of some kind: they couldn't soulcraft while walking. There was a great deal of work to do, especially given the environments they might face once they reached civilization, but they needed to spend some of their time scouting. Fortunately, they uncovered the basics with little wasted time.

  The gate to Tatian sat in a relative backwater, with only a secondary road leading to it. If they avoided that road, they could still determine the rough layout of the land, in particular larger roads leading to a nearby city. Part of the region was completely restricted in farms with defended hedge walls, filled with gleaming steel thorns, so they stuck to the hinterlands as they made their way forward.

  Deuxan itself hadn't changed, at least in its fundamental nature. The grass shimmered like bronze, but there were a few silvery trees that were comfortingly familiar, even if they weren't the same species as those he knew. Given the temperature, he suspected they were much further from the poles than the continent he'd explored with Brigana, presuming that Deuxan followed similar physical laws overall.

  Fiyu nervously asked him about what nights were like and he could only say that it varied throughout the year. As it grew darker, the moon rose from the horizon, a vast white disk that shed strangely pale light. Though it was still easily light enough to see, Fiyu seemed to find this light much less troubling, and she was glad to hear that during some parts of the year, the moon was below the horizon, leading to much darker nights.

  They made camp beside a small lake without a fire, but weren't about to sleep just yet. Nauda revealed that she carried more supplies than she needed, so they were fine for food, at least for a while. As they ate, it was time to discuss their next step.

  "I've seen your soulcrafting progress," Theo said, "but we're going to need to make more. Unless we're in a part of Deuxan where I have allies or stored supplies, we'll need to prove ourselves quickly."

  "My goal is to ascend to Archcrafter, and I think I have what I need." Nauda had been snapping tree branches and drawing them into her soulhome since she sat down, though she struggled to overcome their flexibility. "Once there, I have sublime materials ready, so the rest can go to the two of you."

  "We have a present for you!" Fiyu smiled and pulled an unusual stone from her pack, which sat strangely in her hands. Theo took it and began to experiment with its properties, but it wasn't time to shift to full design just yet.

  "Thank you, I do need new materials to finish my blueprint. I'm nowhere near ready to ascend to Archcrafter, and we need ranks to have standing here. Fiyu, are you close?"

  "Oh... no, my relative said it is important to be completely satisfied with each tier before you move on. He said that he would give me materials for ascension when I was ready, and I still have soulcrafting to do."

  Nauda frowned with her hands still on one branch and leaned forward. "You don't need to show us your entire soulhome, but would you be willing to tell us more about your capacities?"

  "I suppose there is no harm in that. I am a bit proud of my progress, so it would be nice to show someone." Fiyu reached out and delicately touched Nauda's knee with one finger, so Nauda reached over to Theo to draw them all into her observation technique.

  "Senka too! Senka wants to see things!"

  "No." Theo pushed her back, then put a reversed gravitational field underneath her. Tempting as it was to send her into the air, he didn't want to hurt the obnoxious little brat, so instead he added and removed other fields to cancel out her momentum... while she was floating significantly far from them.

  Though Senka babbled something about flying, it was easier to ignore her now, especially once Nauda used her technique to draw their spirits into Fiyu's soulhome.

  As before, his spirit emerged into a dark Ichili expanse, but he cast his attention immediately to the soulhome at the center. Gone were the canvas walls and all other signs of ongoing construction, instead leaving a large circular tower. There were still some rough edges, and he suspected her blueprint involved polishing the exterior, but he was more concerned with the building materials.

  Now that the construction materials were cleared away, it was obvious that her tower was divided into three different sections: one of pitch black stone, one of ice, and one of hardened magma. Though roughly divided into thirds, each section seemed to lean into the next. Ordinarily he'd consider that sloppy construction or design, but since it was Fiyu, he presumed that it must be intentional.

  "It seems like you're drawing off three different themes," Nauda said as she completed a circuit. "I'm not sure I understand how they connect, but since they seem to merge together well enough, I suppose that lets you use a huge variety of sublime materials."

  "Yes." Fiyu bobbed her head happily and moved to the side, running her fingers over the exterior. "I am glad to finally have the last walls complete, though they still need more work. And I fear there is far more soulcrafting to do inside."

  "Four sections." Theo spoke up more abruptly than he intended, as his examination of the entrance led him to a discovery. Though the room itself was obscured by shadows, he realized that the frame and part of the wall around the door was actually a dark metallic substance that didn't match any of the others.

  "This is a special sublime material given to me by my relative." Fiyu ran her fingers over the door frame almost affectionately. "It is rare, but it allows me to use cantae from different sources more easily. However, it requires an entrance chamber of its own... similar to your vestibule, Theo."

  "So how many chambers?"

  "Other than the entrance and the hearth in the center... six, two for each section. That allows a balanced duality for each material. For example... the magma can produce terrible light to harm my foes, but also gentle heat to warm myself. I have not been able to soulcraft the gentle heat part yet."

  It was clearly a well-designed blueprint, especially given how it required a rare material as the linchpin. The result was a very even balance of techniques: the hail of bolts at range, the dark blade up close, and he presumed her sensory awareness. He could have used a sensory technique himself, but casting his effort in too many directions would be a fatal mistake.

  "You seem like you have a clear plan." Nauda smiled warmly, though he thought there was a hint of wistfulness behind it. "Do you have all the sublime materials you need, then?"

  "I fear not." Fiyu sighed and leaned against the door. "I lack materials for some of the other chambers, and my relative was to give me more potent sources of cantae once my soulhome was sound enough to endure them. But do not fear: I still have others to adapt, and I have a great deal of work to do on the exterior."

  "Actually, it motivates me to get to work. Let's see how much we can do before we reach the city, shall we?"

  With that, Nauda released her technique, returning them to the camp to begin work. Compared to the two of them, Theo was again dissatisfied with his soulhome. They had years of preparation on him, of course, and he'd soulcrafted more rapidly than anyone could expect, but that wouldn't matter at all if they faced a lethal threat.

  Theo entered his soulhome and began pacing through the outer rooms around his core, considering. He was tough enough not to have a standard cantae bolt tear through his body now, so he needed an offensive skill. The problem was that his g
ravitational torsion skill simply wasn't coming together, and few good techniques could be developed by simply trying really hard or gathering a bunch of cantae.

  Back in reality, he examined the stone again before squeezing it until it appeared in his soulhome. There, he was surprised by how intensely it pressed against all the other materials - it might be nearly Archcrafter tier, just unusually difficult to use.

  Though gravity was fundamentally the opposite of a sublime material that pushed things away, he'd found that dualities often worked well in soulcrafting. Perhaps he could create a technique that functioned as some sort of reverse mass? It wasn't scientific - at least, anti-gravitons had been only theoretical when he'd last been on Earth - but conceptually it might fit into his soulhome. So far his experiments at creating gravity had proved weak, but if he combined them with a technique that did the reverse...

  Walking to his third corner chamber, Theo set the repelling stone in the center. To his surprise, it stabilized surprisingly well, pressing against every wall and keeping itself in the center. Since it tended to float a bit with his movements, he fashioned rings of hearthtree wood and fixed them to the floor and ceiling. With the stone pressing against the edges of the rings as well as the walls, it stayed in the center fairly well.

  That was a good start, but could he actually turn it into a technique? As the night wore on, Theo dedicated himself to different experiments, attempting to hang or orbit various objects around the central force. It didn't result in any breakthroughs, but he thought he was making progress.

  While the others went to sleep, he lay down and continued soulcrafting. In his previous life, he had been able to sleep physically while soulcrafting internally... it wasn't as good as real sleep, and dangerous to do for long, but it was an excellent option when he desperately needed soulcrafting time.

  Unfortunately, his new soul hadn't quite developed the stamina to manage it, so he struggled with drifting off. He pressed on as hard as he could, aiming to recondition his soul, and drifted next to unconsciousness throughout the night. It didn't feel exactly like sleep, but the night slipped away from him faster than it should and somehow as the sun rose, he was partially rested with a partially developed technique chamber. Good enough for a first try.