by Will Wight
Lindon was fairly certain that they would have promised anything to get these outsiders to leave. They would marry off their children to the exiles if it would get these powerful outsiders to leave them alone.
He guessed it would only be a matter of minutes before the first members of the School approached them privately, trying to get a hint about how to grow stronger.
But that had little to do with Lindon.
The Fallen Leaf School looked more like a farming community than an organization dedicated to the sacred arts, with barns and tilled fields separated by grassy plains. He and Orthos stood in the shade of a tall, purple-leafed orus tree as Little Blue sat on the turtle’s head, recounting their adventures to him in a series of chirps and ringing tones that sounded something like a bell tumbling down a flight of stairs.
Listening to Little Blue calmed him.
And the quiet gave him time to wrestle with his anger.
[Everyone’s alive,] Dross pointed out. [Everyone you cared about, that is. Some people are dead. So it could be worse! They could have been killed while you were gone, when you would never have known.]
Orthos hadn’t told him the details of what Heaven’s Glory had done to his family, but he couldn’t gloss over the core details.
The Heaven’s Glory School had hunted Lindon’s family down and punished them because of what Lindon had done. The Wei clan had given them up. They had suffered for over three years, living like scavengers in the wilderness.
And Lindon had held back his Void Dragon’s Dance. He could have wiped them all out in one stroke.
He preferred the anger to the guilt. Picturing what he could do to the Heaven’s Glory School kept him from thinking about what he should have done differently.
The sooner he punished them, the better. Both for his own satisfaction and because he was getting weaker.
He cycled Blackflame, and the madra felt fainter than it had in years. He hadn’t recovered from his expense yesterday, and it seemed that while he was here, he wouldn’t fully regain what he’d lost. The more power he spent, the weaker he would become, until he was truly fighting like a Jade.
But he had another core.
Even his pure madra was weaker than usual, but his second core gave him an advantage over the others. He could retain his power longer than anyone else. He would slowly lose it, just like everyone, but he could hold on to his original strength the longest.
Although he could bring ruin to Heaven’s Glory even if he had to do it as a Jade.
Kelsa emerged from the other side of a tiny cabin. She looked leaner now than he remembered her, harder edged. The deprivation had left its mark.
[Hey, there’s another bright side! As long as she’s with you, she won’t have to worry about food anymore!]
“No, she will not,” Lindon said aloud.
Kelsa looked grave as she met his eyes. “Mother’s only been back for a few days. She’s still not quite herself, yet. She and Father haven’t had much time to catch up. Did Orthos prepare you?”
Lindon found it hard to speak through the tightness in his throat. “Not…not really.”
Kelsa’s style had always been to deliver painful truth bluntly. A fast cut was cleaner.
“Father’s eyes were burned,” she said, and the words struck Lindon strangely. They should have meaning, but that meaning didn’t quite sink in like it should. “He can see basic shapes and can tell the difference between light and dark, but he gets by mostly with his ears and his cane.”
[There’s a bright side to that too!] Dross was starting to sound a little desperate. [Human eyes aren’t so great. With Remnant eyes, he’ll be able to see brand-new colors he never even imagined!]
“He’s been living this way for years now,” Kelsa said. “It isn’t so bad. To tell you the truth, he’s still more upset about his leg.”
That brought a faint smile from Lindon. As far back as he could remember, his father had been bitter about a leg injury he’d gotten as a young man. He blamed the wound for his failure to reach Jade.
“Mother has been held by Heaven’s Glory. They needed her to work for them, so they didn’t treat her too roughly, but she has been a prisoner for a long time. She hasn’t slept in days, and she’s still convinced that she will be captured again.”
Lindon was more prepared for that. While Orthos had said little about his father, suggesting that it was Kelsa’s place to tell him, the turtle couldn’t avoid telling Lindon about his mother.
She was the one that Orthos and Kelsa had gone to rescue from Heaven’s Glory.
Lindon had assumed that she’d been captured recently. He hadn’t imagined that Seisha had been a prisoner for so long.
The guilt for that settled on him like a pile of bricks. It was yet another way that his family had paid the price for vengeance directed at him.
There’s a bright side for you, Dross, Lindon said silently. I’m done thinking about what I’m going to do to Heaven’s Glory.
There was no point wasting his thoughts on the dead.
[…I’m not sure how bright that side is.]
“And you?” Lindon asked Kelsa. “You can’t have escaped unharmed.”
She looked at him like he was crazy. “They were the ones who suffered. I was the lucky one.”
Lindon had already heard from Orthos what she’d been through. He knew already.
His sister had lain motionless in the cold, waiting for sentries to pass, trying not to shiver in case they heard the motion. She’d stolen scraps of food, gotten caught, taken beatings, and gone back the next night because if she failed, their father wouldn’t be able to eat. After a day of scavenging whatever she could, of taking care of exiles that weren’t even part of her clan, she had spent nights studying her Path manual and working on the one technique she’d ever learned.
When Orthos arrived, she’d spent every spare moment training and re-training, un-learning the habits that Sacred Valley had ingrained into her. She had reversed her Iron body, a process that sounded agonizing, and gained another one so her foundation would be solid.
On the day she reached Jade, under Orthos’ instruction, she had started working to free her mother.
Orthos said he saw Lindon in her, but Lindon didn’t agree.
He had been shown a world beyond this one. When he pushed for improvement, it was because he knew improvement was possible.
She had fought for a victory that she must have believed impossible. Every day. For three years.
But she wouldn’t have to anymore.
“I’m ready,” Lindon said.
Kelsa didn’t question that or prepare him any further. She didn’t give him any more advice. She only walked through the cabin’s door, leaving it open for him to follow.
Lindon ducked through the doorway and entered.
The interior of the cabin was simple: wooden walls and wooden floors, covered by a rough-woven rug. A one-person bed had been pushed against the back wall, and his parents sat at a tiny table in chairs that looked like they had been hand-carved by the cabin’s owner.
These people looked like his parents, so familiar he could never mistake them. At the same time, they looked like strangers.
They were both tall, broad people, built for the battlefield. His father had more gray in his hair and had lost some of his muscle, his shoulders more rounded and his middle a little softer, but he was still unmistakably Wei Shi Jaran. His bad leg was stretched out on a chair, his cane held loosely across his lap.
Wei Shi Seisha had gray in her hair too, which he didn’t remember, but hers was still a deep brown like no one else in the clan. She looked healthier than Jaran or Kelsa, and she had the same drudge floating over her shoulder: a brown segmented fish made of dead matter that reminded Lindon of petrified wood.
But even as his stomach made an eager leap at the sight of his mother and father, it sank as he saw the things that were different.
Seisha’s head had shot up at the sound of the door opening, tho
ugh Kelsa’s return couldn’t have come as a surprise. She held a book on which she could take notes, but instead of paying more attention to it than her surroundings, she clutched it like a child clenching a blanket to ward off nightmares.
Jaran’s eyes were clouded over, and he stared slightly over the doorway. Kelsa announced herself as she entered, and Lindon realized she must have developed that habit for their father’s sake. “It’s me, and I brought Lindon.”
Seisha’s eyes grew wide as she saw him. “Lindon.” She took a deep breath and said it again. “Lindon. You look…well.”
The badge she wore was still iron. She couldn’t sense him.
“I am.”
There should be something better to say, but he couldn’t find it.
Jaran smacked his cane on the ground. “Why didn’t you come back?” he demanded.
Lindon wished his father had stabbed him instead.
“Not right now!” Kelsa snapped. “He’s alive, and he’s Gold now. He’s going to take us away from here. Won’t you, Lindon?”
“Yes,” Lindon said, but the word came out as more of a whisper. “You can come live with me, and nobody will…nobody can…what I mean is, you’ll be safe.”
Neither of his parents said anything to that for a long time. Too long.
“So you’re Gold?” his mother asked at last. She glanced down to his badge, which clearly wasn’t made of gold.
“Something like that.” That sounded like he was weaker than Gold, so he clarified. “I’m strong. More than any of us ever imagined, and the friends I brought are even stronger.”
Seisha nodded and pointed her finger at the sky in a gesture so familiar it clenched a fist around his heart. That was what she did when she finally understood the truth of a problem.
“Ah, I see. So they lent you their power.”
Jaran leaned forward. “Can they give it to us too? At least Kelsa, she’s young. Orthos has trained her well.”
Lindon looked to the floor.
Even now, his parents didn’t believe that he could have earned power on his own. He must have borrowed someone else’s.
Then again, they were somewhat right.
Yerin had protected him, pushed him, and fought for him when he was too weak to do it for himself. Eithan had given him his Iron body, his Blackflame Path, his Jade cycling technique, his contract with Orthos…almost everything. And what Eithan hadn’t given him, Mercy’s clan had.
The only one whose power he hadn’t borrowed was Ziel.
Kelsa made a dismissive sound. “Stop it. I know you know about the fire in the sky that drove away Heaven’s Glory. That was Lindon.”
Jaran made an expression of clear doubt. “I heard that was Orthos.”
“It was Lindon. Alone. If I had to bet on a fight between Lindon and the whole Heaven’s Glory School, I’d put all my money on Lindon.”
She glanced at Lindon quickly, and he suspected she wanted him to confirm that she was right. He gave her a tiny nod.
Jaran blew air out of his cheeks. “The heavens have blessed you enough for a lifetime, boy.”
“They have.”
That had been true before he’d even left Sacred Valley. If life was fair, Suriel descending from heaven to bring him back from death would have been the only miracle he ever received.
Seisha’s hand tightened on her notebook. “Are you going to fight Heaven’s Glory? You and your friends, I mean.” She gave Kelsa a faint smile. “Orthos has already done more than we could expect, but if you and the others are really all Gold…”
“I’m sure we will.” Lindon had been on fire to do that very thing before he’d walked into this room. Now, the cabin felt claustrophobic, and he wanted nothing more than to leave.
His mother’s grip tightened further, to the point that the wooden backing of the notebook splintered slightly. “Do you have to? Can’t we all go now?”
“I won’t leave until we’ve made Heaven’s Glory pay in blood!” Jaran announced.
“And what are you going to do?” Seisha shot back. “What can any of us do? They only came for us today because we fought them.” She softened as she looked back to Kelsa. “Not that it’s your fault. You were very brave.”
“I don’t think you understand how much stronger they are than the Jades,” Kelsa said. “I’m not sure I understand.”
Seisha carefully set her strained notebook down on the table. “No one is invincible. Orthos is stronger than they are, and look what happened to him.”
“Now we have hundreds like Orthos,” Jaran insisted. “We can take the fight to their gates!”
“I can’t imagine they’re all like Orthos. And how do we know what secrets the Schools have hidden up their sleeves?”
Lindon fumbled behind him for the door. He was afraid he was going to throw up.
This had been a mistake.
He should have saved his family without meeting them. What had he expected?
His family argued with each other as though he wasn’t present. If he opened the door to leave, Kelsa would notice and include him in the conversation. His parents would halfheartedly loop him in, but they would continue making decisions without him.
It was as though he’d never left.
As he was about to turn, his vision filled with purple.
Dross, in physical form, drifted ahead of him. Seisha jerked back with a gasp while Kelsa gathered White Fox madra.
One boneless purple arm raised in greeting. [Hello! Don’t be alarmed! I am Dross, the spirit that lives inside your son’s brain.]
Jaran inclined his head in the entirely wrong direction. Dross’ voice was inside his head, so it didn’t give any clues to his location. “Greetings, Dross. I am Wei Shi Jaran. Thank you for protecting my son.”
[Ah, yes, I thought you were making that mistake. It’s not easy for me to admit this, but it’s actually the other way around. Without him, I’d still be rusting at the bottom of a well. Oh no, wait, I’d have been torn apart by collapsing space. That’s even worse than I thought.]
“You can stop, Dross,” Lindon said quietly.
[I could show you some of your son’s memories, or maybe all of them? No, he doesn’t like that idea. So I guess that means he’s going to share his thoughts with you the boring way: with his mouth. Now take it away, Lindon!] Dross drifted to the side, gesturing to Lindon with both arms wide.
The three members of Lindon’s family waited.
“I don’t want to do this,” Lindon muttered.
[Oh, this is embarrassing. This is one of those things where he says one thing, but he actually means another, because he does have something he wants to say. Quite a lot, actually.]
Lindon looked back to his family and, after another moment where he desperately wished to leave, he allowed the words to spill out.
“I’m not a Gold. I’m a Lord. It’s an entire realm beyond.” His parents wrinkled their brows in confusion, but Kelsa nodded sharply.
“Even at that level, I’m…” He tried to think of a way to say it that didn’t sound too proud, but he was too tired for that. “…I’m very good. One of the best. If you took away my advancement, I’d still be a better fighter than you or anyone you’ve ever met. Did Orthos tell you why I left?”
It didn’t matter if he had or not, so Lindon just kept talking. “I saw the future. You were all going to die. Here. In this Dreadgod attack.”
Or maybe another one. The attack Suriel had seen was supposed to happen in thirty years, not three, but he didn’t think that was relevant enough to mention.
“If I got strong enough, I could stop it,” he continued. “I left so I could grow. I left for this.”
Lindon turned to his father. “You asked me why I didn’t come back. Why would I come back?”
No one responded.
Dross gestured for him to keep going.
“I’m only here now because you’re in danger. If I hadn’t come back, you would have all died without knowing anything. Stick with
me, and I’ll protect you, because I can. While you’re with me, you’ll never have to worry about anything ever again.”
He turned his back to them and grabbed the door handle. “But first, I’m taking you away from Sacred Valley whether you like it or not. After that, if you want to crawl back here and die, you can do it on your own.”
Distracted, he pulled the door instead of pushing.
Lindon pulled the handle out with a snap. The entire door cracked down the side, and even the doorframe bent inward.
He almost apologized. Instead, he tapped into his soulfire and just blew the remaining door off its hinges.
Before the splinters had fallen to the ground, he was gone.
He didn’t realize where he was going until he found Yerin sitting with Mercy and Orthos, a spoon halfway to her mouth.
Dross may have said something to her without informing Lindon, or maybe she just read it on his face. She dropped her bowl, following him to a lonely corner just outside the Fallen Leaf School.
When he was sure they were alone, Lindon broke down and wept.
8
Tal’gullour, Fortress of the Mad King
Daruman clenched his Scythe and focused his authority, preparing to re-enter the Way.
He had to be careful. He couldn’t bring his fortress with him, and without Tal’gullour to contain his power, the entire Way would sense his movement. When he entered an Iteration, the very stars trembled.
With every step he took, the eyes of the Abidan would be upon him.
He could warp Fate by nature of his authority over chaos, and thus dodge the noses of the Hounds. If he could move without the Spiders detecting him immediately, he would have brought the Abidan system down before.
A dark voice laughed, unrestrained, in the depths of his soul. A voice so familiar that it was almost indistinguishable from his own.
You tried, once, the Conqueror reminded him.
Unbidden, the Fiend Oth’kimeth summoned up the memory of Daruman’s most painful defeat.
He had spent centuries gathering the right ingredients. He personally retrieved the Mask of the Unweaver from an Assassin Idol’s Temple in the fragment of a dead world. He traded with the Angler for an invisibility cloak she had woven with her own hands when she was a mortal. A world he conquered brought him tribute of the greatest artifacts ever forged in their Iteration, including a conceptual spirit of stealth who could hide from Fate itself.