by Will Wight
The leader raised her sword. “Run!” she shouted, and started down the hallway entrance.
Lindon looked up to the tunnels, expecting more dreadbeasts, but none came.
Instead, a rainbow of light slowly bloomed on the floor, and Remnants started to climb up from corpses.
Something seized Lindon from behind, grabbing him beneath both arms. He flailed in blind panic before he was hurled up, sliding perfectly into one of the tunnels into the wall.
It didn't even hurt much; he scraped his chin a bit on the stone floor, and his ribs might be a little bruised, but he'd slid into the tunnel at exactly the right angle to avoid injury.
He scrambled back to the entrance, looking down, where he saw Eithan smiling up at him. The yellow-haired man gave a cheery wave, and then reached to one side without looking.
Yerin swiped at his hand, but he was ready for her.
A second later, she slid into the tunnel beside Lindon. She growled as she stood, one hand groping for a sword, the other held in a fist at her side.
“Who is he?” Lindon asked.
“A dead man, if he doesn't explain himself true and proper.”
Eithan landed neatly on the lip of the tunnel as though he'd moved ten feet vertically in one step, fine white-and-blue robes billowing behind him as he walked. “Follow me. Most of those Remnants can climb, and some of them can fly.”
A blue wing spread across the entrance to the tunnel, accompanied by a cry that sounded like the song of a zither. Eithan doubled his pace. “Whoops, faster. We should go faster.”
Yerin matched his stride, gesturing back the way they'd come. “You don't have the spine for a fight?”
Eithan hooked a finger underneath his collar. “We could find a way to get these off, if that's what you'd prefer. But you should know that I...well, you might say there's only one string to my bow.”
“Can you see the future?” Lindon asked. In his own mind, he was already convinced of the answer. Eithan had moved before the guards or beasts did, every time, and he'd known when the dreadbeasts were coming.
“Better! I can see the present.”
A Remnant cried behind them, like a low horn, accompanied by a human scream.
Before Lindon could express his skepticism, Eithan continued. “I have a thousand eyes and ten thousand ears. I know everything that happens within range of my spirit, so as soon as an enemy starts to move, I simply step aside. It's like fighting the blind.”
“Can't hit too hard with that,” Yerin observed.
Eithan bowed to her. “Just so! Superior awareness is perhaps the greatest power of all, but as far as weapons go, knowledge lacks a certain heft. Though it does make me frustrating to kill—no one's managed it so far.”
“If you don't mind telling me, how did they capture you?” Lindon asked. He kept his tone casual, but he was listening for a lie. If Eithan could do what he claimed, it would have been easier than lifting a hand to avoid the Sandvipers. He'd entered the mines on his own.
But why?
Eithan smiled broadly and reached out a hand to Lindon's head. Lindon tried to step aside, but the older man's palm landed regardless. He ruffled Lindon's hair. “Oh, I remember when I was your age. Young, spirited, distrusting of strangers. They say the years wear your innocence away, but it took me better than a decade on my own to learn the freedom of trust.”
“That's not looking much like an answer,” Yerin said, which nicely mirrored Lindon's own thought.
“Very well! As a reward for your observational skills, I'll tell you the truth.” Eithan spun around, speaking as he walked backwards. “I came from the Blackflame Empire, located far to the east. Not long ago, I happened to sense a great power coming from the west. I brought it to the attention of my clan, who instructed me to investigate. When I arrived here, I found this incredible pyramid had drawn up all the aura for miles. Of course, I wasn't the only one—every sacred artist in the Desolate Wilds had beaten me to it.”
“Is there something in the Ruins you want to take back to your clan?” Lindon asked. The spear Jai Sen had mentioned loomed in his imagination.
Eithan waved a hand. “The Ruins are loud and well worth investigating, but a treasure to a wilderness sect is not necessarily worthy of attention from a major Blackflame clan.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “There's quite a nice spear in here, but it looks like it would be most suitable for the Jai clan. It's not useful for me, so I gave up on it a long time ago.”
“You can sense the spear?” Lindon asked, suddenly hungry. If Eithan could lead him straight to the weapon everyone wanted...
But he'd said something more surprising. “You don't want it?”
“We have access to Soulsmiths of our own,” Eithan said dismissively. “A spear isn't interesting. Far more than a mere weapon, we value talent.”
He was recruiting for a major imperial clan, and here he'd singled out the two of them. Lindon found himself forgetting the spear too. With Eithan's resources behind him, he wouldn't have to scrape for every scale. If he understood correctly, with a powerful family supporting him, he could reach Gold tomorrow.
“Forgiveness, I was blind,” Lindon said. “I should have known that treasures in our eyes are just trash in yours. If I may ask, which—”
Eithan cut him off. “I know this is like asking an amputee what happened to his legs, but I'm dying of curiosity. What happened to your core?”
Lindon glanced down at his midsection as though his core had just become visible. “My core?”
“You have two of them. Were you born that way? Is that why you're so weak? Or did someone damage your soul?”
Eithan asked with a tone of open curiosity, but Lindon had never felt that feather-light shiver of someone reaching out to sense his soul. Either he'd missed it, or Eithan was aware of everything that happened close to him. Including the strength and nature of souls.
Lindon swelled with questions. How far did his sense extend? Was it some kind of sacred art that he had to use, or was he just aware of everything? Did he have to focus to avoid being overwhelmed?
But those were questions he could ask later, after he'd earned his way into the protection of Eithan's clan. For now, his job was to make himself valuable to Eithan.
“Pardon my rudeness. I was surprised that you'd noticed. I was born...” He had planned to say 'Unsouled,' but that had no meaning outside Sacred Valley, so he corrected himself mid-sentence. “...with a weak soul. Instead of wasting resources developing me, my clan chose not to teach me sacred arts. I split my core myself, as a defensive measure.”
Eithan nodded along to every word, as though he'd expected exactly that story. When Lindon had finished, the man stopped walking—they'd put quite a distance between themselves and the Remnants by this point, though the occasional haunting echo did drift down the hall—and put his palm against Lindon's chest.
“Breathe in to here,” Eithan said.
Lindon glanced over to Yerin, but she looked just as confused as he did, so he followed instructions. He filled his lungs until his ribs pressed against Eithan's hand.
“Now breathe out halfway.”
Lindon did, until Eithan told him to hold his breath there.
“Your breathing technique helped you split your core?”
He nodded, still holding his breath.
“That explains why it's all focused inward.” Eithan waved a hand vaguely in front of Lindon's middle. “Your madra flow is all knotted. It's not a bad breathing technique for pure madra, and you haven't damaged your channels yet, but it's better to correct now. You have a Path manual?”
He glanced at Lindon as though expecting Lindon to produce the book on command, and Lindon finally let his breath out to respond. “It's inside my pack, but unless you know a way out...”
Eithan tapped his chin with one finger, thinking. “Do you have a madra filter? Some condensation elixirs? You must have something to improve madra quality, if you made it to Copper without harvesting aura.”
“I have a parasite ring,” Lindon offered.
Eithan beamed. “Perfect! Now, where did you leave this pack?”
Yerin cutting in, pushing her way between them and holding up a hand as though she held an invisible sword to Eithan's throat. “Let's not throw our doors wide just yet. You say you're from the Blackflame Empire. Who are you?”
He drew himself up as though proud to be asked the question. “Young lady, I am the greatest janitor in all existence. I am the son of a janitor, last in a long line of janitors that stretch all the way back to the Sage of Brooms...and beyond!”
“Janitors?” Yerin asked blankly.
“Lest you think I'm speaking figuratively, let me clarify. My clan organizes the street sweepers in Blackflame City, we supervise sewer maintenance, we dig ditches and light lamps and sweep chimneys. 'Dirty hands are a mark of pride,' those are the words by which we live.”
This from a man who looked as though he'd never held a shovel in his life. His fingers were long, his skin pale, his hands soft, his clothes far more expensive than anything else Lindon had seen in the Five Factions Alliance. In short, he looked more like the spoiled young master of a noble clan rather than any janitor.
“Please excuse me if I still seem...untrusting...” Lindon said, “but surely such a role does not fit your esteemed station. Do you perhaps mean that you keep the streets clean of crime, or you're a clan of assassins ridding an empire of the unworthy...”
Eithan was sliding his hands over the wall now, as though feeling the stone for weakness. “I grew up in the sewers of Blackflame City, ankle-deep in what you might politely call 'sludge.' They used similar scripts to control intake and outflow, so if this works on similar principles...and there we have it.”
A single rune sparked to life, sending a ripple of light flaring down the line of script in either direction.
With a grating sound, a stone slab slid upwards, revealing an open doorway onto a flight of stairs leading up.
“Maybe this was some kind of ancient sewer,” Eithan speculated. “Anyway, I have a task for you, Wei Shi Lindon.”
Now that he thought of it, Lindon realized that Eithan had known his full name the first time they'd met. Even the street sweeper of a great empire was infinitely more powerful than the four Schools of Sacred Valley, so Lindon bowed deeply over a salute. “I will do my best to serve.”
“Your current breathing technique is sufficient if you're planning to split your core again, but it's building a wall between you and Iron. To reach Iron, you have to push madra out of your madra channels, forcing it into every scrap of your flesh. It's very difficult without elixirs, and your madra is currently focused into your core...and nowhere else. You need a new breathing technique.”
Eithan stood straight, facing Lindon. “Inhale as I do, and as you do so, cycle your madra in wide loops to every extremity of your body. As you exhale, gather it together again, all at once. I'll show you how.”
Lindon had practiced a simple breathing technique since the day he first got his wooden badge, until it eventually became his natural breathing rhythm. He'd changed it according to the instruction in the Heart of Twin Stars manual, but it wasn't any more complex than his original technique, only different.
Likewise, the technique Eithan taught him wasn't complicated. It didn't use any principles Lindon didn't already know, which had come as a relief.
But it was hard.
He could barely hold the new cycling pattern standing straight and watching Eithan, and he was sure that he'd lose it as soon as Eithan stopped giving him pointers. He said as much to Eithan, who laughed.
“That's the nature of any acquired skill. It will feel like breathing through a wet rag for a while, and your body will tell you to stop. But one day, you'll look back and wonder how it was ever difficult.” He pointed up the stairs. “Now, as your first challenge, hold that pattern as you run up to the next floor.”
Lindon peered into the shadows at the top. “Do you have a light?”
“You do,” Eithan said.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out Suriel's marble. He was somewhat self-conscious holding it, as though he'd been caught in a lie, but there was no way Eithan would know what it was. Even if he'd sensed it, it was just a light in a glass.
Sure enough, Eithan gave the marble a curious glance, but that was all. Lindon held it up, took a deep breath, and began to cycle as he ran.
Behind him, Yerin protested. “He's about as sturdy as a newborn kitten. If there's anything up there, it'll tear him to rags.”
“Remember my thousand eyes,” Eithan said. “These Ruins may as well be my own home.”
The blue light of the marble was faint, but it was enough to show Lindon when he reached the end of the stairs and found himself in a large room. He couldn't see anything beyond the patch of floor at his feet.
The jog hadn't been long, but his lungs were still burning with the effort of holding the breathing technique. He started to shout back that he'd made it, but when something hissed in the shadows, his words died.
It was only about as big as his arm. A tan centipede with a carapace the color of a sandy dune. It had a head like a snake and two rows of insect claws, and its tail arched up into a scorpion's stinger.
He’d never seen one in the flesh, but their Remnants had left him with an impression all too clear. The first sandviper hissed at him, baring fangs…as a second scuttled up, keeping a wary distance from its twin, angling toward Lindon.
Eithan's voice came from the stairs beneath him. “I know what's up there, and he can handle it.”
Then came the growl of stone, like a lid scraping over a coffin, as the door slid shut.
Chapter 14
Lindon's shouts and pleas came muffled through the stone door, and Yerin gathered what little madra she could onto her fingernails. Sword madra gathered onto sharp edges, so her nails were not the best container.
She would have used her Goldsign instead, but the scripted collar was choking her madra at the source, and she was still shaky from the Sandviper venom earlier. Her muscles squirmed like snakes in a bag, and she barely had enough focus to hold the technique together. If she tried to control the steel arm on her back, she might end up cutting her own head off.
But she'd die and rot away before she gave up without a fight.
She held her fingers up like claws to Eithan's eye. “Pop it back open.”
He didn't flinch, looking at her like a wronged child. “But he's not finished yet.”
She slashed at him, but he'd already started walking to the side, as though he'd picked exactly that second to take a stroll. Her technique rippled through the air, almost invisible without her spiritual sight, and madra cracked against the stone.
“I came here to find some promising recruits,” Eithan continued, pacing around her. She turned so he didn't have a shot at her back. “I was also bored, but the recruits are important too. You see, the families of the empire compete largely on the strength of the younger generation, because disciples are the indication of a clan's future power. Since we’re looking fairly sparse in the disciple department, I'm keeping an eye or two open for outside talent.”
Lindon's cries for help were filling the hall now.
“I’ll go along with you,” Yerin said quickly. Eithan wouldn't have been the first to try and forcibly recruit the Sword Sage's apprentice—even while her master had been alive, every sect and school they'd crossed had tried to make her a better offer. But none of them had taken a hostage.
If she went with him now, she could break out later. Her master would have loved it.
Eithan paid no more attention to Lindon's screams than he would to a chirping bird, brushing some dirt from his shoulder. “It would be irresponsible of me to turn you down. As I said, we've been backed into something of a corner. But there's a saying where I come from: 'a bad student is a weight around his teacher's neck.' I'd rather go back empty-handed than take someone who isn't ready.”
&
nbsp; Yerin still couldn't control her Goldsign well under the collar's influence; the bladed silver arm wobbled as it rose into the air, and she couldn't keep it straight. But it was ten times easier to funnel sword madra through the blade on the end than through her fingernails.
She gathered her power into it and fixed Eithan with her gaze. “He dies, and I'm not going anywhere.”
Eithan's eyebrows lifted. “Oh, you're more than good enough on your own. A Sage is a Sage after all; he had the good fortune to pick you up early, and your foundation is flawless. It would be an honor to pick up where your master left off.” He swept his arm toward the stone door. “But I find myself intrigued by your Copper friend.”
Yerin's focus wavered, and some of the madra in her Goldsign dissipated. “What is it you want from him?
“To teach him.” Eithan patted the door like a favored pet, even as Lindon shouted on the other side. “It's so rare to find a truly blank canvas.”
“You’re looking for pure madra? Raise your own kid.”
“No no, that's easy enough. The quality I’m looking for, indeed the most important quality for any sacred artist, is drive. He needs the resolve to push through any obstacle in his Path, and that kind of focus is very difficult to teach. But here we have someone who split his own core, a Copper working side-by-side with Golds. Something’s driving him, and it might be enough to take him to the top.”
She found herself speaking through clenched teeth. “He’s blind, you hear me? The world’s all jade beds and silk sheets for him. He’s never seen how ugly it gets. He doesn’t know.”
He’d been mistreated by his clan, that was true. But he’d never fought for his own life. He’d never clawed his way out of a pile of bodies until he was elbow-deep in blood. He’d never woken to find that his only family was dead…and pushed through that crushing weight to draw his sword anyway.
Eithan leaned one shoulder against the wall, considering her. “What do you think I’m trying to teach him?”
Suddenly, he sounded just like her master. It brought up memories she’d just as soon have left buried.