by Will Wight
But that was an idea he could save for later.
“Prepare yourselves,” Charity said. She raised her weapons, cycling her madra through her three sacred instruments, and Lindon felt the intimidating will of the Heart Sage equipped for war.
Then she flew through her column of darkness and vanished.
[Our escorts are ready. Or at least they say they are. Could be lying.]
Lindon steadied himself, running his madra through the cloudship. It had its own stored power, and was fueled partially by ambient vital aura, but he primed everything and powered as much of it himself as he could.
Propulsion constructs warmed up, the cloud beneath them bobbed a bit in the air, and scripts flared to life all over their portable island.
Only seconds after Charity had vanished into the darkness, her owl spoke again. “Clear!”
The fortress rocketed forward.
Shadow swallowed Lindon. As he’d experienced before, his senses vanished as though he no longer had them. He and Dross were left completely alone, floating in a sea of soundless, lightless black.
Only this time, the oblivion wasn’t quite so absolute.
[Is this what spatial travel feels like?] Dross asked in awe. [It feels…twisty.]
Now that Lindon could feel the distortions in space, moving through a portal like this gave him a new perspective on transportation. Even when he’d pushed his way through space himself, he hadn’t felt the substance he was working with so clearly.
Inside the darkness, it felt as though he was traveling through a tunnel. Someone had bored a hole, and they were in the middle of sliding through.
As Dross had mentioned, it felt almost like the tunnel was spinning around them, like they were being twisted somehow.
One impression was clear to Lindon: Charity hadn’t done this herself. She had taken an existing route and widened it, but she couldn’t create something on this scale on her own.
Akura Malice must have made the original doorway, leaving Charity to expand and direct it. He suspected she’d done the same thing all the way back in the Night Wheel Valley.
The realization encouraged him. He was starting to feel the edges of a Sage’s power.
He would have plenty of time to experiment with his own powers, once Sacred Valley was safe. Once everything was over, and he had the rest of his life to explore…whatever he wanted.
The world faded in, and every protective script in the fortress blazed against his spirit. They were holding against crushing spiritual pressure.
And the sky was dyed gold.
They were emerging above the fortress that the Seishen Kingdom had raised at the border of the seaside town called Sky’s Edge. At least, they were supposed to. There was very little left to recognize.
The town was gone.
Most of the landscape was unrecognizable after the battle between Heralds, with chunks blown from the surrounding mountains and ravines carved in the ground.
Only a few features remained to remind Lindon of the town he’d left so recently, including the tower-sized sword of Frozen Blade madra plunging into the ground.
And the Dreadgod that cast its shadow over everything.
Though they had left the Ninecloud Court in the morning, the sun hung low over the western sea, behind the Titan. And as drastically as the surroundings had changed, they were hardly worth noticing next to the Wandering Titan itself.
The humanoid giant of dark stone knelt at the edge of the ocean, its feet still partially submerged in water. Its shoulders scraped the clouds, a turtle’s shell rising behind it like a shield strapped to its back.
It was a titanic statue come to life, a walking mountain. Its face looked like a man’s, but expressionless, as though it had indeed been carved. Stone eyes glowed slightly, dull yellow.
Just by its presence, it dominated the earth aura for many miles. Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
Lindon wasn’t about to extend his perception to check.
Its control of earth aura was so intense that it stained the sky gold, as the Bleeding Phoenix had once enhanced blood aura until the sky blazed red. All around, mountains buzzed as though quivering in anticipation.
The Titan’s arm was plunged into the earth up to the elbow, and it knelt almost motionless as it fed.
Power moved up its arm slowly but steadily, like sap in a tree. A hunger technique. Intense aura flowed into the Dreadgod, but not just aura. Lindon couldn’t be certain without a direct scan, but it felt like even physical materials were consumed by that hunger.
He had sensed the Wandering Titan directly before, perhaps closer than anyone other than a Monarch. He didn’t want to try it again.
Stone and dirt slowly collapsed around the Titan’s arm, falling inward like a sinkhole.
Lindon’s right arm quivered, its madra resonating with the presence of the Dreadgod, but his will was stronger. The limb never left his control.
The Titan appeared almost motionless, except for its tail. It resembled a monkey’s tail that stretched out into the ocean perhaps half the length of the Dreadgod’s body, and it lashed back and forth like an impatient snake.
With every motion, it carved waves from the sea, sending walls of water splashing up to the sky.
Lindon put the Dreadgod to their backs and directed all his power to propulsion.
Their fortress shot forward.
Scripts inside manipulated aura to control air and gravity, preventing the inhabitants from pitching over at the sudden acceleration. He followed one of Charity’s owls due east, chasing silver-purple tailfeathers.
He felt like he’d bared the back of his neck to a hungry tiger. It could strike at any second.
Sweat trickled down his back and his forehead, and he kept his eyes flicking between the window to the front and the projection of the Titan behind them. It didn’t seem to be bothered by their presence, maintaining its hunger technique, but they wouldn’t be out of danger until they were many miles away.
Charity stayed behind, next to the portal, as purple cloudships emerged one at a time and streaked after Lindon.
The Heart Sage floated in place with her shield raised, vigilantly watching the Dreadgod. It wasn’t long before half the cloudships had emerged from the portal, trailing behind them like ducklings.
Lindon’s fear started to fade into exhilaration. They’d made it. They were okay.
Then, in an inexorable tectonic shift, the Wandering Titan stood up.
Madra cycled through the Dreadgod’s body, and in the same instant, their cloud fortress was buffeted in midair. The protective scripts screamed as they resisted an invisible assault, the projection construct fuzzing into chaos so that Lindon could no longer see what was behind them.
They were under attack.
It took all of Lindon’s spirit to steady their flight and recover their path. He couldn’t believe they’d survived one hit, but that certainly wasn’t all the Dreadgod could do. That must have been only a glancing blow.
When the projection construct recovered, it showed them the Wandering Titan again.
It had turned a bit to its right, taking one long, slow stride that crossed the entire space where Sky’s Edge had once stood.
Lindon’s breath came in tight gasps.
The Dreadgod hadn’t noticed them at all.
Shields of purple-and-silver madra faded from where Charity had protected the string of ships behind them, but for one cloudship, even her power hadn’t been enough. It was a pile of smoking rubble on the ground below as though the Titan had swatted it out of the sky.
But the Wandering Titan had done no such thing. It had only cycled its madra for a brief instant. That was no more threatening than taking a breath.
They had taken casualties from the Dreadgod doing nothing.
Lindon felt the lost lives of the unknown Akura Golds settle on his conscience like a lead weight. He hadn’t known anyone on the cloudship’s crew, but they wouldn’t have been here if not for him.
; As they flew into the distance, leaving Charity watching the colossal monster behind them, the tension slowly deflated. In its place was only cold dread.
No one spoke.
There was really nothing to say.
4
Miles of countryside slid by beneath their fortress, but not fast enough for Lindon.
If he took Eithan’s cloudship, he could reach Sacred Valley much faster, and he’d considered it. But that would mean abandoning the Akura cloudships to defend themselves.
While he and Eithan and Yerin could handle anything they might run into on the way, the Golds might be in trouble without their help. They were under his protection, so he wouldn’t leave them.
No matter how much he wanted to run ahead.
It was possible he could prepare the people of Sacred Valley for the arrival of the cloudships if he arrived first, but it was equally possible they wouldn’t listen to him on his own. There was little he could actually do to help without the fleet of Akura cloudships.
Home seemed to linger in Lindon’s head, as though he could feel Sacred Valley burning like a signal-flare in the distance. He even felt Orthos’ presence more strongly than usual, so the turtle must be in the western Blackflame Empire somewhere.
Orthos’ spirit only made Lindon’s impatience worse. Was Orthos all right? Was he in the path of the Dreadgod? Would he be able to make it away in time?
Lindon had very little need to direct the fortress once their course was set—they were simply making a beeline for Sacred Valley. But he still left Dross at the controls just in case.
[I will take this responsibility as an honor and a privilege. Don’t worry about anything! Think about it as if you yourself were still…oh hey, I don’t know that mountain. Should we stop for a minute and check it out? Just a second, honestly.]
“Stick to the course.”
[Right, yes, of course. Sticking to the course. Unless there’s a really good reason not to.]
Lindon almost took over the panel again.
He needed something to distract him, so he turned to Yerin. “I haven’t had a chance to take a tour of the fortress yet. How about you?”
“Sensed it, haven’t seen it. Let’s walk it out.”
That brightened Lindon’s mood. He wasn’t certain he would be able to enjoy himself with the destruction of Sacred Valley looming over him, but at least a tour with Yerin was something to look forward to.
He felt Eithan’s presence before the door to the second floor swung open, and Yerin was already yelling. “Not a candle’s chance in a rainstorm.”
Eithan slowly edged around the door, so they could see one eye and half his grin. “We could say that I’m taking my own tour. Separately, just…right behind you.”
“Do you really need a tour?” Lindon asked. “Can’t you see everything from here?”
“I can. Everything. Always. But the others aren’t so lucky.”
At first, Lindon assumed he meant Ziel. The word “others” only penetrated when Eithan let out a pulse of pure madra that was clearly a signal.
Shadow madra eased its way free as someone dropped a veil. “We made it!” Mercy cried from downstairs.
“Couldn’t tell you why that needed to be a surprise,” Yerin muttered.
Eithan beamed. “Isn’t it more fun when you don’t know?”
Mercy rushed up to the second story, immediately leaning on Suu to give them an apologetic bow. “I’m so sorry, I wanted to warn you, but Eithan’s message said he wanted it to be a surprise…”
Lindon was more than happy to have Mercy along, but he remained a little puzzled. “Apologies, Mercy, but doesn’t your family need you? Not that you aren’t welcome aboard!”
“You can have Eithan’s spot,” Yerin agreed.
Mercy rubbed the back of her head and laughed awkwardly, in a manner that reminded Lindon vividly of Fury. “Yeah, well, Pride made it clear that he doesn’t really need me around. With Uncle Fury gone, there’s a lot to be done, but I just…I told Aunt Charity they’d have to get along without me for a few days. This might be my last chance to go out with you all, you know? I want to see it through to the end.”
To the end.
At a certain point, Mercy was going to have to separate from the rest of them. She had responsibilities to her family that the rest of them didn’t.
But he was still glad she’d delayed that moment again, so she could be with him when he put Suriel’s vision of the future to rest. When he settled everything, once and for all.
He dipped his head in a silent apology, but next to him, Yerin snorted.
“Last chance? You think they’ll haul you back from spending time with the youngest Sage and some kind of tiny Herald? Your mother’s going to shove us down your throat until you’re sick of us.”
Mercy ran over to throw her arms around Yerin’s neck, but Lindon’s attention was grabbed by a bright ring. It didn’t sound like a bell so much as the resonant sound of a script activating.
“I believe Ziel wants in,” Eithan put in, though Lindon had already sensed the same thing.
Dross activated a projection construct, showing the image of Ziel slumped at their front door. A gray cloak hung from his shoulders, and he was leaning with his forehead against the doorframe, his emerald horns digging into the wood.
With a halfhearted shrug of his spirit, Ziel activated the alarm script again.
“You can let him in, Dross,” Lindon said.
[I’m just savoring the moment. You know, if I didn’t open the door, he couldn’t get in? That means I, and I alone, have the power to determine his fate. It feels good. What do you call that?]
“Megalomania?” Eithan suggested.
[Oh, I like that word. Let’s go with that.]
A ring echoed through the home again, and this time Lindon manually sent his own madra through the correct scripts.
Below, the door unlocked.
[Everything I do for fun, you just…crush it.]
“Since everyone’s here, we might as well all go together,” Lindon said. He had to admit, the presence of the others was keeping his mind off of Sacred Valley. They left together, meeting Ziel halfway up the stairs.
“…I could have waited for you outside,” Ziel muttered.
A “cloud fortress” was just a type of cloudship designed for permanence rather than mobility. The Skysworn city of Stormrock was technically a cloud fortress, though on a much larger scale. Lindon thought of them as flying islands more than cloudships.
Though he had spent quite a bit of time negotiating extra speed for his. The basic navigation and propulsion systems came standard on all cloud fortresses produced by the Ninecloud Court, but Lindon had found that many of the exact features were up for negotiation. As long as you were willing to give up a few things.
No sooner had they left the house than Eithan asked, “So, first things first: what did you decide to name this place?”
Yerin gestured to Lindon with open hands, offering him the chance to explain.
“Well, the only cloudships we’ve ever spent significant time on were Stormrock and your Sky’s Mercy,” Lindon said to Eithan. “But many of our memories on Stormrock were unpleasant, and we didn’t want to presume to name the island after Mercy.”
“Aw,” Mercy said, disappointed.
“Ultimately, we felt that this place was a result of our good fortune,” Lindon continued.
“And we’ll take all the luck we can scrape up,” Yerin added.
“So we decided to call this fortress Windfall.”
It had taken hours of off-and-on discussion to land on that name, and Lindon was proud of it.
“Eh,” Ziel said.
Mercy clapped her hands. “I like it! But are you sure you want to have ‘fall’ in the name? Seems like tempting fate, you know?”
“I’m just sad that I wasn’t consulted,” Eithan said with a sigh. “Since I own a third of the island, I think I should at least get a vote…”
Ye
rin’s sword-arms bristled. “You take your third and walk it half a mile off the edge, and you can call it what you want.”
“It’s a good name,” Lindon insisted.
Mercy nodded eagerly. “It is! I’m sorry I said anything, it’s a good name.”
“How about Eithan’s Rest?” Eithan suggested.
Yerin jabbed at him with her sword.
He slipped to the side and regarded her oddly. “You do know I’m teasing you, right? You have to know that at this point. I find this violence disproportionate.”
“Oh, I know,” Yerin muttered. “It just scrapes me raw more than usual. Couldn’t tell you why.”
Eithan leaned in close to examine Yerin’s eyes. “Ruby?” he asked.
“Her too.”
She stabbed at him again, and he danced away.
Most of the open space on Windfall was rolling grassland. Lindon had initially tried to fill in the open space, but he needed the cycling mountain to be far enough away from the house that its aura wouldn’t interfere with any scripts, and Lindon had been more concerned with the inner workings of the cloud fortress itself than the features on the surface.
Their first stop on the tour was the miniature mountain that would serve as their aura source. It resembled a rocky peak of dark stone, but only twice as wide as the house and half again as tall. The top belched smoke and flame, and if Lindon opened his aura sight, he could see the powers of fire and destruction braided together in coils of black and red.
Altogether, it resembled a smoldering volcano, though Lindon would eventually have to replace some of the natural treasures inside to keep the aura balanced.
There was a flat lip of stone beneath the peak, around which the Blackflame aura flowed. It would be the perfect place to sit and cycle, and if Lindon hadn’t been dragging a party along with him, he would have tried it out immediately.
At the base of the mountain, an open cave yawned, filled with razor-sharp silvery protrusions like teeth. The air glistened with sword aura, but as Yerin saw it, her face fell.
“Bleed me, I’m going to need a source of blood aura now.”