Cradle: Foundation (Cradle Collected Book 1)

by Will Wight

  Lindon struggled, but he might as well have still been Copper; it looked insubstantial and blurry, like a weak Remnant, but it still had physical strength far beyond his own. Scrabbling from behind told him that there was a dreadbeast coming from the other direction, and Yerin was dealing with two enemies of her own.

  Eithan was still whistling with his eyes shut as he dodged four creatures, but Lindon couldn't count on him.

  The hands squeezed tighter and tighter until Lindon's breath came too quickly to fuel his cycling technique. He tried everything he could think of until his wrist went numb, and the Sandviper stinger clattered from his hand. Only then did he scream Yerin's name.

  She went from a black-and-red blur with a sword of white to utterly still in a moment. Her Goldsign flashed, and Lindon felt an invisible pulse move through him despite his spiritual senses remaining closed.

  It was the technique she'd demonstrated before: the Endless Sword. But this time, she didn't hold back.

  The Remnant was blasted away from him, shredded into a thousand shapeless pieces and a cloud of dissolving madra. The dreadbeast behind him didn't even get to make a noise before it was reduced to a chunky puddle, and Eithan quick-stepped forward to avoid the chunks of blood that his own enemies had become.

  Five or six cuts appeared on Lindon's arms where the Remnant had grabbed him, flaring to life like fires after a lightning strike, but he was staring at Yerin. She took a deep breath, restoring her breathing before she spoke. “Everybody stable?”

  Lindon nodded wordlessly and she took off.

  He scooped up his weapon, vaguely ashamed of himself. Just because he'd let the power of an Iron body go to his head, he'd forgotten the sheer force of the sacred arts. Of all the weapons in a sacred artist's arsenal, physical strength was among the least. He might be able to compete with Yerin in the force of his grip now, but she could carve him into pieces with her will.

  It was a sobering reminder, but it was also somewhat liberating.

  He had something to look forward to.

  It wasn't much longer before they reached the end of the spiraling staircase, and by now the constant attacks were taking their toll. He hadn't used much madra, having no techniques in his repertoire that would help against monsters, but Yerin was noticeably weakened. They'd both taken wounds, in contrast to Eithan, who continued whistling as though his surroundings didn't affect him at all.

  At the end, with the snarling of monsters behind them, they reached a door.

  It was a heavy slab of stone, just like the ones before, but this one was carved with an intricate mural. It was divided equally into four sections, each depicting a different sacred beast: a serpentine dragon on a cloud flashing with lightning, a crowned tiger, a stone warrior with the shell of a tortoise, and a blazing phoenix.

  Though Yerin moved forward to place her palm against the door, he froze at the sight.

  He'd seen this before.

  Chapter 17

  Yerin removed her hand from the door, readying her sword. “It's some brand of riddle. Script keeps going right on into it, and there's a key buried here somewhere.” The howls of Remnants echoed up the stairs from behind, and the edge of her blade gathered force. “Take a step back.”

  “Wait!” Lindon shouted, then coughed politely. “I mean, ah, please wait, if you don't mind. We've seen this before.”

  Eithan sat down on a step and began fiddling with his thumbs.

  The shrieks from below grew louder, and a Remnant like a giant purple onion squeezed itself out of the wall to Eithan's side. Before it had completely emerged, he kicked it back.

  Yerin took a step back and looked at the door. “I do think you’re right. That looks more than a little like the picture in the Ancestor's Tomb.”

  “That's a week away on the Thousand-Mile Cloud,” Lindon pointed out.

  “Well, that's a head-scratcher,” she said, and then drew her sword back again. The edge of the blade distorted as though a haze of heat had gathered around the weapon, and she took a step forward.

  Lindon's instinct for self-preservation kept him from stopping her before she smashed her technique into the door's surface.

  It struck with a rush of power that was deafening in the enclosed space of the stairway, ringing in his ears as though someone had struck a bell over his head. Madra and aura flooded forward with her strike until his view of the action warped like he was watching through murky water.

  When it cleared, a single chip of stone was spinning on the floor. Otherwise, the door was completely intact.

  Lindon would have taken this moment to stop her from damaging the door any further—it was connected to some unknown script, and might bring the entire roof down on their heads if they interrupted the circle, not to mention its connection to Sacred Valley—but he happened to glance behind them.

  Dreadbeasts scrambled all over each other as they clawed up the stairs, seeming to blend into a multi-headed mass of corrupted flesh.

  Yerin braced her feet against the ground, her Goldsign drew back like a snake preparing to strike, and she gripped her sword in both hands. Colorless sword madra rippled around her until it was like he was looking at her through a cage of razors edge-on. As she gathered power, she focused on the door as though she meant to destroy it with the force of her stare.

  Without giving himself too much room to think, he picked up his severed Remnant part and pointed it at the oncoming rush of beasts. His madra flowed down the weapon, trickling toward the binding.

  “The big one,” Eithan shouted, but through his ringing ears Lindon heard it as a whisper. The man was standing now, but he was actually leaning his shoulder against one of the wider sections of wall, completely at his ease.

  Lindon listened, adjusting his aim to point at the biggest of the dreadbeasts: a warped purple creature like a bear with heavily muscled arms. When he was close enough to see the bloodshot veins in the monster's arms, the dreadbeast hauled itself back on its hind legs. It looked as though it intended to come down on Lindon like an avalanche.

  He stepped forward, thrusting the bright green stinger like a spear.

  And just as he did, he activated the binding.

  He used his weaker core, the Copper one, because it was just barely strong enough to fuel the weapon. The activation drew his core dry, and if that had been his only source of madra, he would have collapsed immediately.

  But he pulled on his Iron core instantly, keeping his legs steady even as the binding activated.

  Three hazy green duplicates, like less-real copies of the stinger, flickered into existence around his thrust. It was as though he drove four spears instead of one.

  The bear fell on top of his weapon, but one of the Forged spears lodged in its hide. Another caught a Remnant in the head, and his actual spear drove even deeper into the bear's belly. The fourth strike missed, dissolving out of existence in a moment, but Lindon threw himself back as soon as his point bit home.

  The venom only took an instant to scour the bear with agony, and it went berserk, flailing its paws and roaring so loudly that it hurt Lindon's ears even through the ringing. It turned in a circle, snapping its jaws as though trying to bite out the infection, and every other Remnant and dreadbeast fell upon it.

  A hand caught him by the back of his robes and pulled him up the stairs just as a bloody, severed limb landed at Lindon's feet.

  Eithan plucked at his own sleeve, indicating Lindon's clothes, and then shook his head.

  Well, if Eithan wanted to pull him out of trouble to avoid getting blood on his borrowed outfit, Lindon wouldn't complain.

  An explosion drummed his bones, and he spun with an arm thrown up over his eyes. Stone fragments pelted him through a cloud of billowing dust, and the remaining half of the door tipped over and slammed to the ground with the speed of a calving glacier.

  Yerin's knees buckled as her technique faded, and she fell to the ground panting. Eithan and Lindon ran by her, each grabbing an arm without discussion, pu
lling her into the room beyond.

  It was a broad, featureless hallway with an open doorway at the end. In the very center lay a circle of script.

  The dreadbeasts wouldn't continue slaughtering each other for long, but Lindon spared a moment to admire the advanced script-circle on the floor. There were at least ten layers to the circle, lines of runes and sigils wrapping an empty space in the center.

  Lindon and Eithan hurried around the edge, though Yerin regained her feet and ran on her own strength halfway through. Though the circle was much more likely to affect sacred beasts and Remnants, none of them were willing to run through the middle.

  The outer circles brushed against the wall, so they were running on runes, and each step sent a little shock through the soles of Lindon's feet. His madra trembled as it cycled, as though drawn down to the floor.

  He pushed on, and together the three of them reached the open doorway in seconds. There was, in fact, a door on the other side. This was a more ordinary type of door than the stone slabs before, made merely of dull gray metal and heavily caked with a series of script-circles. It had been left propped open, and judging by the dust sitting at its base, it had been that way for a long time.

  Yerin and Lindon heaved together, and Lindon couldn't suppress a flash of pride that he was strong enough to help Yerin with something.

  The heavy door slammed shut, its scripts glimmering for a moment as they drew power from the ambient aura. He and Yerin fell to the ground, gulping mouthfuls of the dusty air, and generally savoring their survival.

  Eithan stood to one side, hands on his hips. “I have to say...this is fairly impressive.”

  Lindon followed his gaze, taking in the space lit brightly by warm orange lanterns that were surely some kind of rune light. The lights were covered by paper screens to soften their glow, and it was a good thing; some of them shone too bright, uncomfortably bright, while others flickered off and on in a disquieting rhythm. They must have been powered by the vital aura taken in by the Ruins’ script, but either the script was broken, or it had been too long since they’d last come to life. The glow was uneven and left half the room bathed in irregular shadows.

  The room looked more like a rich clan’s library than anything he’d expect to find in an ancient ruin, the colored tiles set with dusty carpets and beautifully carved tables. One of those tables held a collection of jade statuettes, one a cracked dragon with the head of a lion, the others a series of creatures stranger and more hideous. A glass-covered case displayed some tools of halfsilver and goldsteel, as well as more exotic materials that Lindon didn't recognize, but at least half of the spaces were empty.

  Books sat open on stands carved for them, their curling pages painted with arcane diagrams and characters. They had browned from age, and Lindon was certain that if he so much as breathed on a corner, the paper would dissolve.

  A row of silver hooks hung from the ceiling, which stood out as he couldn’t think of a purpose for them. They varied in size, but none of them held anything beyond empty air.

  A long glaive made of Forged madra, with a blood-red shaft and a gleaming golden sword blade at the end, sat on a frame halfway up the wall. A circle of script surrounded it, sealing its power and preventing it from dissolving. Beneath the weapon, an image was painted directly on one wall: a circle, blank on one half, the other half complex and twisted with a network of lines.

  Lindon stared at the pieces of the room for too long before they fit together into a whole.

  This was a Soulsmith's foundry.

  When he realized that, he shot to his feet and dashed to a nearby table, rummaging through it. He found nothing likely, despite pulling a few drawers open, so he slid to the next one, frantically shuffling through a pile of sealed ebony scrolls with scripts worked in gold filigree on their cases.

  Yerin stepped up beside him, giving him a curious glance. “Looking for the spear?”

  “Take the other side of the room, if you wouldn't mind,” he said, casting the scrolls and digging in a box on the floor. “A Soulsmith worked here.”

  “I'm not seeing your point.”

  A box caught his eye, ornately carved and polished and standing as tall as he did. It was covered in a layer of dust, like most everything else in the room, but otherwise it looked exactly like the sort of wardrobe they would use in the Wei clan. Wider, though. If he stretched his arms out as far as he could, he wouldn't be able to touch both ends with his fingertips.

  He shot for the wardrobe before answering Yerin, throwing the doors wide.

  White light erupted from within.

  Pain shot through his newly sensitive eyes, and he blinked away the blinding light. When he could see again, Yerin was standing in front of him; she'd moved between him and the potential source of danger.

  But it wasn't a defensive construct waiting for a victim—though he really should have considered that possibility before throwing the doors open. It was a shining bar of Forged madra, long enough to stretch from one end of the wardrobe to the other. It was held by a set of carved wooden supports, held just below eye level as though waiting for him to take the weapon.

  And it was a weapon. A spear, formed seamlessly from madra by ancient Soulsmiths. It shone with the light of the stars, congealed into a weapon whose power he could feel radiating against his skin.

  Yerin's breath slowly left her, and even Eithan gave a low whistle as he strode over to take a look.

  “In my grandfather's day, Soulsmiths valued beauty as much as function.” He moved his hand along the shaft of the spear without touching it. “The script flows with the contours of the weapon, guiding it so even the aura is a work of art. Exquisite.”

  Lindon could just barely pick out a few lines of script on the shaft, which looked like white paint on white, but the spear had held his attention too long already. He dropped to his knees, searching the drawers at the bottom of the case.

  The real treasure should be down here.

  After digging through a handful of junk, he withdrew an ivory box wider than both his spread hands together. It was heavier than he expected, for being only about an inch deep, and the lid was etched with a pattern of interlocking leaves.

  Carefully, he lifted the lid. There were no notes and no brightly colored bindings inside, so he almost tossed it aside.

  Then he realized what they were, and suddenly he couldn't breathe.

  The badges were slightly smaller than the ones from Sacred Valley, but otherwise they were practically identical. Eight badges sat within the box, each marked with a hammer—the symbol of a Forger.

  The first row contained a badge each of copper, iron, jade, and gold. That much he expected. But the second row moved from halfsilver to goldsteel to materials he couldn't identify. One of them was a deep, fiery red, and the other a blue so rich it was like a Forged slice of the sky.

  He reached a shaking hand and lifted the iron badge. It was lighter than a feather in his hand, but he handled it as though it were made from glass. Delicately, he threaded one end of his shadesilk ribbon through the loop at the top.

  “Well, look what you found,” Eithan said, and Yerin leaned over his shoulder for a closer look. Lindon paid them no attention.

  He hung the iron badge from his neck and closed his eyes.

  After a moment, Eithan cleared his throat. “This anthill has been well and truly kicked,” he said. “I'm afraid that very soon we will have to share our meal with the…other ants.”

  Lindon snapped out of his reverie. “Dreadbeasts?”

  “Worse. Humans.”

  The Sandvipers must have found their way through the Ruins, though he supposed it didn't matter much if it were the Fishers or even the Arelius family. Whoever it was, they would strip this place bare.

  Lindon slid the ivory box into his pack, shuffling a few other necessities around to make room, and then dug back into the wardrobe's bottom drawer.

  In this one, he finally found what he was looking for.

  A
script-marked box contained three indents in the silk lining within. One of these holes was empty, but the other two contained a pair of bindings. They were bright white, made of the same arcane material as the spear, and shaped like spiraling drills.

  Quickly, he scanned the notes near the bindings. “Generation Fourteen shows all the qualities we’d hoped for,” they read. “It demonstrates the capacity to devour and process madra with a high degree of efficiency, though each individual contains only one binding. If a sacred artist could cultivate similar techniques, our efficiency may double…”

  The next page had been scribbled in haste, judging by the carelessness with which the characters were slapped on the paper. “The failed specimens may be the key to success. Their auras alter as they devour one another, growing faster than we’d ever predicted. Theoretically, there is no upper limit on this growth, but the spirit warps the flesh. Further study needed; could lead to achievement of the primary goal.”

  Lindon stuffed those notes in his pack, continuing to read. The labels confirmed what he'd thought: these were the bindings at the heart of the Jai clan's spear. The mechanisms that drained madra from victims.

  The Jai clan could have their spear back. Powerful it may have been, but it was just a single weapon.

  Learning to make such weapons...that was the real fortune.

  Of course, Lindon didn't have such a high estimation of his own abilities. He would learn what he could from the bindings and from the notes, and he may even keep one of the bindings for later examination, but knowledge like this was worth more than a leg to a Soulsmith. Gesha would have sold the entire Fisher sect for something like this.

  Tucked away with the bindings were a trio of polished black river stones, each marked with a tiny script-circle that Lindon couldn't identify. He tucked them away, just in case, but as he was making space in his pack for the box of bindings, he was interrupted by a deafening crash.

  The door at the other end of the room, on the opposite end from where they'd entered, had buckled and fallen inwards. A pair of fur-clad Sandvipers filed out to either side of the door, weapons writhing with green madra. Jai clan members followed them, with spears and gleaming hair and meticulous blue sacred artists’ robes, and then a couple of wary-looking Fishers.