Cradle: Foundation (Cradle Collected Book 1)

by Will Wight

  “And by the time Jai Daishou reveals himself, I will be more than his match.” The Underlord had once groomed Jai Long to be his replacement, after all. The Ancestor’s Spear would allow him to close the gap on his own.

  But Chief Gokren shook his head. “The gulf between Gold and Lord is wider than you imagine. It requires a certain insight that I’ve never gained.” He flexed his hand into a claw. “If it was only a matter of power, I would have broken through long ago. But you may not need to face him. Rumor says he is dying; is this true?”

  Reflexively, Jai Long remained quiet. Those were clan matters, and not to be spoken of before outsiders.

  That thought was replaced by disgust in an instant. Years away from the main Jai clan, and Jai Long was still keeping their secrets. How deep their poison sinks.

  “Unless they’ve discovered a miracle cure, he won’t live five more years.”

  “You only have to avoid him for one. By the time you kill the Iron, you’ll have gutted the Jai clan. Then you retreat west, back here, and we’ll hide you until the Underlord dies.”

  Jai Long searched for words, but none came. At best, he had expected the Sandviper chief to berate him for leaving. He’d even come prepared for a fight.

  He’d never dared to hope that Gokren would break a long-standing alliance for him. He was tempted to tell the grieving father to reconsider, that he was risking the future of his sect for personal vengeance.

  But the truth was, Jai Long needed every ally he could get.

  The Sandviper crossed the room and grabbed Jai Long by both shoulders. His grip was painfully tight, his eyes fevered. Jai Long had to suppress the instinct that told him to break the hold and escape.

  “You were a brother to my son,” Gokren said. “Your enemies are mine.”

  Jai Long’s eyes welled up, but he pressed fists together and bowed.

  Gokren squeezed his arms one more time and then released. “Unless they’ve fled already, some of those enemies are right here in camp. Let’s see if you can’t test out that new spear.”

  He threw the stable doors wide open, and the Sandvipers at the entrance straightened in respect. These were the veterans of their sect, the oldest and most loyal warriors. Kral’s death would stain them all. They simmered with suppressed anger, eager for a chance to vent their pain and shame.

  “We march with Jai Long against his clan,” Gokren announced, tearing one of his short spears free. “Sandvipers! We hunt.”

  Jai Long was prepared for hateful looks cast his way, for words of hesitation and blame, for the Sandvipers to turn their anger on him.

  Once again, he saw how deeply he had misunderstood his allies.

  They roared in agreement with their leader’s words, their sandviper Goldsigns shrieking to the heavens. They clapped him on the back as they passed him, whispered words of encouragement, or pressed their foreheads against his for an instant before rushing off to battle. Not an instant of hesitation, not a word of blame.

  With a new family at his side, Jai Long marched to destroy his old one.

  ***

  Lindon had to spend one more night in the woods, scripting their camp against Remnants and dreadbeasts and curling up in a crude tent only yards away from Fisher Gesha’s. After the day’s attack, he had woken with every cracking twig and gust of wind, groping for his launcher construct.

  But dawn broke without event, so he and Gesha returned to the Five Factions Alliance camp with the rising sun. He read as they walked, committing simple scripts to memory.

  “Put that away and listen to me,” Gesha ordered as they approached the camp walls. “You are no longer a Copper with one friend and no enemies. You should learn to conduct yourself as a member of a great family, hm?”

  Lindon opened his pack and slid Soulsmithing for Coppers inside, resting it between the Sylvan Riverseed's glass case and the advanced notes he'd stolen from the ancient Soulsmith's foundry. “I await your instruction.”

  Her mouth tightened and guilt flashed across her face. “I did not teach you well before Eithan Arelius took you in.” He started to disagree—a polite fiction, because she really had been a terrible teacher before the past few days—but she cut him off. “It’s true, and I’m not afraid of the truth. You were never my disciple before the Underlord picked you up, no matter what I told you. But I could never treat a member of the Arelius family so disrespectfully as to ignore them.”

  “Gratitude. Your instruction is appreciated, but I have no voice in the Arelius family. Nothing you say to me will reflect on them.”

  That wasn't entirely true, and they both knew it; before he was attached to Eithan Arelius, Gesha could have cut his head off in broad daylight and the passersby would have simply stepped around his bleeding trunk. Now, she'd have to answer to an Underlord.

  But Eithan didn’t have time to listen to Lindon’s petty complaints. Lindon wasn’t some spoiled noble’s son with a doting father; in fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if the Underlord cast him out of the family on a whim.

  Gesha sighed. “This is a lesson for you, as you travel into the wider world. Reputation is a sacred artist's greatest treasure. If the Underlord hears that I have disrespected you, he will take that to mean that I do not respect him. You see? The powerful have no mercy for those who step on their reputations.”

  Their conversation stopped as they passed through the entrance of the guarded wooden wall and into the Alliance camp, walking down hard-packed dirt roads past buildings that had been hurriedly tossed together from raw lumber and bare stone.

  They had a few moments before they were alone again, so Lindon had some time to think. Gesha was trying not to say it out loud, but Eithan frightened her. She was terrified that something Lindon said might lead to her execution.

  Lindon knew that Fisher Gesha was a Highgold who could twist him into a knot without ever touching him, but she was still a four-foot-tall old woman who could have been his grandmother. His heart softened when he saw her careful and afraid. “I won't carry news back to him, I swear it,” Lindon said. “He won't hear anything from me.”

  She gave him a grateful look, clearly relieved that she hadn’t had to spell it out. Then she gave a brief chuckle. “He's an Arelius,” she said dryly. “If the rumors are true, then he'll hear about it regardless.”

  Lindon laughed along, but she seemed half-serious.

  That made him consider her fears again. If Eithan was really that dangerous, maybe he should reconsider accepting his invitation.

  Then again, this could be the one area where he had more experience than Fisher Gesha.

  Eithan may be an Underlord, with a level of power Lindon could scarcely imagine, but he’d seen Suriel with his own eyes. He wasn’t sure how far she ranked above an Underlord, but he was certain Eithan couldn’t hold a candle to her.

  “He hasn't descended from the heavens,” Lindon said, smiling slightly. “He can't see everything.”

  “Not everything,” Eithan said.

  Lindon stumbled back, bumping into a wooden wall at the side of the street. More gracefully, Fisher Gesha hopped down from her spider-construct and sunk to her knees, pressing her forehead against the ground.

  All around them, sacred artists of all ages dropped to the dirt as well. At first, only a few had caught sight of Eithan, but more and more people noticed. In only a breath, the sparse crowd of perhaps two dozen people had all fallen to their knees with heads bowed. Only Lindon and Eithan remained standing.

  This was the Fisher section of the Alliance encampment, so most of the people were Fishers or their allies, but it was still disturbing to see all these people recognize Eithan on sight. Only a few days ago, Eithan had pushed through a bustling crowd a hundred times this size without interruption.

  For his part, Eithan stood in the center of the road as though he’d waited there all along, though he certainly hadn’t been there a moment before. His yellow hair fell past his shoulders, and his smile was broad and cheery. He kept his eyes on L
indon and Gesha, as though the strangers didn’t exist. Today, he wore a teal outer robe embroidered with golden fish leaping and playing among the waves.

  “Your unworthy servant greets the Underlord,” Gesha said, and there was a murmur of agreement through the crowd.

  “Underlord,” Lindon said, hurriedly sketching a bow of his own. “Forgive me, I was...startled.”

  Eithan brushed that away with a gesture. “There will be no forgiveness. To the blood pits with you!”

  Gesha trembled on her knees, and Lindon laughed awkwardly.

  The Underlord looked at them, gauging their reactions, and eventually shrugged. “Not every joke is appreciated in its time. Tell me, Soulsmith Gesha, would you mind if I borrowed my little brother here? Feel free to say no, although of course I will have your corpse mounted on a flagpole for the slightest defiance.”

  “The will of the Underlord be done,” Gesha said from the ground, her face still in the dirt. Her shaking had grown more noticeable.

  None of the strangers dared to make a single sound.

  Lindon passed a hand over his face. With lowered voice, he said, “Please, Underlord.”

  Eithan's eyes widened. “Am I to be condemned because she takes things too...no, fine, all right.” He knelt at Fisher Gesha's side and spoke in a much gentler voice. “I beg your pardon, Soulsmith. Please rise and address me face-to-face.” He raised his voice. “All of you, on your feet and on your way.”

  With the speed of Gold sacred artists, the crowd vanished. It was as though the breeze had blown them all away.

  Gesha rose, but she did not face him.

  “On my word as an Underlord, you will not be punished for anything you say here or have said today,” Eithan said impatiently. “Now follow my instructions, Highgold.”

  Finally she let out a breath and met his eyes. “Thank you for your mercy, honored Underlord. Tell me how I might serve you.”

  Eithan looked to Lindon. “You see how much faster it is when I just tell them what to do? It's infuriating. I don't want to phrase everything as a command for the rest of my life.”

  “It sounds hard on you, Underlord,” Lindon said carefully.

  “Yes, the endless subservience and instant obedience wear on me. But if you call me anything other than 'Eithan' again, I'll have you sleep in a cave full of bats.” He stroked his chin for a moment, considering. “You could call me 'brother' instead, if you preferred. Yes, that would be—”

  “Thank you, Eithan,” Lindon cut in.

  “Hmmm. Well, as I was saying: Fisher Gesha, I must borrow your pupil for an hour or six. I'll return him to you in one or more pieces.”

  “As you will, Underlord.”

  “And I had something to ask you as well.” Eithan drew himself up and addressed the old Soulsmith with full authority. “You will not be punished for any decision you make here, on my word and the honor of my family. We depart for one of my homes in the Empire very soon, perhaps today. I would be honored to have you accompany Lindon as his Soulsmith tutor, but you are free to decline and stay with your sect. There will be no repercussions of any—”

  “I decline,” Gesha said instantly. She didn't even look at Lindon. He hadn't expected any different, but it still stung.

  Eithan clapped his hands. “A firm decision! Wonderful. Then, good-bye!”

  He extended an arm to shepherd Lindon and turned as though to continue walking down the road, but Gesha had already scurried away. A wooden door slammed shut; Lindon wondered if she’d escaped into a random nearby building.

  “For a woman her age, she really is spry. Good for her. Not everyone keeps up with their physical exercises as they get older, and a healthy spirit lives in a healthy body.”

  Lindon adjusted his pack, hitching it up on his shoulders. “I’d like a chance to bathe before I continue my training, if you don’t mind. I’ve been in the forest for three days, and water is scarce.”

  Eithan turned to him with an expression of obvious disappointment. “Do you think you’ll be able to defeat a Truegold in a year with such halfhearted resolve? How much valuable training time do you plan to waste on baths?”

  Lindon bowed hurriedly. “Forgiveness, please, I spoke out of turn.”

  “No, I was pulling your strings again. But you really shouldn’t waste soap on yourself yet, you filthy mud-caked animal. After a day of this training, you’ll be covered in sweat. And probably some blood.”

  Eithan considered for another moment as they walked. “In fact, it would be best to expect the blood.”

  Chapter 3

  Eithan led him all the way across the territory of the Five Factions Alliance, the ramshackle encampment that had sprouted up after the Transcendent Ruins rose from the ground. The cobbled-together buildings of stone and lumber leaned up against the base of the Ruins like roots at the foot of a great tree.

  Lindon hadn’t been back inside since Eithan had rescued him from Jai Long’s wrath. He fervently wished never to go back; fifteen days trapped in darkness was enough for a lifetime.

  The pyramid dwarfed everything else for miles around, like a mountain made of stacked blocks. Its bottom tier took up more space than the rest of the encampment, and its top tier scraped the clouds. Now that the Soulsmith foundry at the top was open, the scripts powering the Ruin had settled into equilibrium. They no longer had to draw vital aura from miles around; instead, it relied on a steady trickle from its immediate surroundings.

  In Lindon's Copper sight, each block of the pyramid looked like a softly yellow-glowing cube of golden lightning. That would be the earth aura in the stone itself; the same power that ran through the ground beneath his feet, just far more concentrated. Whenever he looked down into the earth, he had the dizzying sensation of staring into a yellow ocean filled with glowing, crackling bolts.

  Aura empowered the entire world with strokes of color: the wind blew hazy green, the sun's rays were a gold richer than the earth, and the broad lake next to the pyramid shone with vivid blue-green ripples. Each person was a mass of color with vibrant green and bloody red predominating.

  It was like staring into a world of fractured rainbows.

  Lindon had to close off his senses before his head began to throb. Focusing on any aura gave him information about that aura’s aspect, so opening his aura sight was like staring into the sun and reading a hundred books at the same time. A headache followed in seconds.

  The thousands of sacred artists who had gathered to explore the benefits of the Ruins had started to drift away as soon as the pyramid stopped drawing in aura. Now, only three days later, half of these newly built buildings were abandoned. The dirt paths leading all over the Alliance encampment were all but empty, not choked with traffic as they had been only half a week before.

  But news had already traveled fast. Everyone they spotted on the road bowed at the sight of Eithan, murmuring respect as he passed. Usually seconds before scurrying out of their way, lest the Underlord become displeased.

  Eithan continued to ignore everyone, chatting with Lindon and occasionally stopping to sweep dust from a windowsill or snip a branch from a bush with the black iron scissors he seemed to carry everywhere. He never glanced at anyone else, whether they bowed or not, and many of the strangers looked relieved by that fact.

  Lindon knew better.

  Eithan didn't look at them because he didn't need to.

  They finally arrived at the end of Fisher territory, amid a collection of wooden buildings that looked as though they had been built in a day and abandoned just as quickly. A bucket of nails rested on a half-finished fence, and a hand plane sat abandoned in the grass.

  Eithan gestured to the biggest building, which smelled of fresh-cut wood and sat in a bed of sawdust and wood chips. “Behold,” he said, “your new training hall! The crew started and finished it last night.”

  It was a barn. Fisher Gesha’s foundry looked almost exactly the same, except this one was unpainted.

  Why was Eithan having new buildin
gs constructed? Weren’t they leaving soon?

  “I'm eager to see what's inside,” Lindon said diplomatically.

  “Are you? That’s strange. I designed it to look as uninteresting as possible.” Eithan swept up the plane and the bucket of nails, placing them next to a pile of other tools. “I’m sure Yerin’s reaction was much more entertaining.”

  Lindon resisted the urge to apologize, instead approaching the barn.

  There was an average-sized door on the side, obviously made for foot traffic, and broad doors in the middle designed for livestock. Although if it was built only a day ago as a training hall, why would there be animals here at all?

  After a second's indecision, Lindon hitched up his pack and hauled with both hands on the livestock door.

  Yerin sat inside, legs crossed, with a white-bladed sword across her knees. She was roughly Lindon’s age, about sixteen, but while Lindon had been raised among the comforts of civilization, Yerin looked like she’d grown up in a never-ending knife fight.

  Blades had left their tracks in the pale scars on her face and hands, in the tattered edges of her coal-black sacred artist’s robe. She cut her hair with her sword madra, so it ended in absolutely straight lines across her eyes and above her shoulders.

  The rope tied around her waist was the red of spilled blood, but Lindon couldn’t bear to look directly at it. There was something alive about that belt, as though it could slither away at any moment.

  Her Goldsign grew from behind her shoulder, a silver arm ending in a blade like a scorpion’s stinger. Even seated on the floor in a cycling position, she looked deadly, as though she were poised to dive back into a battle.

  She nodded a greeting to Lindon, but addressed Eithan. “Daylight's wasting. Am I going back to cycling, or are we going to start hitting these guys?”

  She jerked a thumb behind her, and Lindon took a glance over her shoulder. Except for the beams supporting the roof, the barn was wide open from wall to wall. And filling that space was a circle of eighteen wooden dummies.