Cradle: Foundation (Cradle Collected Book 1)

by Will Wight

  Ozriel had finally taken matters into his own hands, as he always did. He’d manipulated Fate so that no one could see his departure coming—if anyone could twist the future to such a degree, Ozriel could. He’d prepared to minimize the damage of his absence, but he’d been caught.

  But who had caught him?

  [Entities confirmed capable of killing Ozriel, while he is fully armed and aware: NOT FOUND.]

  Well, that was telling.

  [Entities possibly capable, though not confirmed:]

  The possibilities spooled out in Suriel’s consciousness, a mix of images, text, and memory.

  Information requested: Judge Killers

  Beginning report…

  Vroshir:

  Our information on Vroshir worlds is limited, so the capabilities of the Vroshir themselves are largely unknown. Only a handful are projected to possess combat power that rivals a Judge.

  The Silverlords gather armies from the worlds they conquer. Between them, they may have found a combination of specialists and assassins capable of catching Ozriel unaware.

  The Horseman rides from world to world, gathering energy systems and replicating their effects. He has demonstrated capabilities from at least thirteen dead worlds, and under certain conditions, he could have bypassed Ozriel’s protection.

  The Mad King hosts an entity that has killed Judges before, but the Court would have been notified if he had left his Iteration. If he has found a way to cross the Way without alerting Sector Control, then he represents a Class One threat.

  The Angler has stolen six weapons from Abidan Iterations, and she remains at large. Her confirmed arsenal holds nothing that could threaten the Reaper, but certainly possesses other weapons beyond the knowledge of the Court.

  Fiends of Chaos:

  True Fiends defy classification by nature, and the only individuals known capable of threatening Judges remain imprisoned in Asylum. Also, no Fiend has ever demonstrated the ability to pass into existence without disturbing the Way, and the Spider Division has reported no such violation near Harrow or Limit prior to Limit’s expiration.

  If a Fiend capable of doing battle with Ozriel has passed through the Way undetected, current quarantine levels are insufficient. Contact the other Judges to prepare for system collapse.

  Abidan:

  For security reasons, each Judge’s combat potential is not available for access. However, inferences can be made from publicly available data.

  Razael, the Wolf, has expressed a personal grudge against Ozriel since the creation of the Reaper’s office. She was capable of depopulating an Iteration even before her first conscious contact with the Way, and Razael’s Sword was designed for the execution of Judges and Class One threats. The Wolf Division contains many destructive powers that are not public record, and Ozriel may have underestimated them.

  Makiel, the Hound. As the Judge of Fate, he is the only individual whose prediction skills rival Ozriel’s. In combat power alone, he was once considered capable of assuming the role of Razael, though he declined the mantle. He has attempted to replace Ozriel many times, fought to deny Ozriel the rank of Judge, and led the opposition to all Ozriel’s proposed modifications to the Eledari Pact. With the Reaper gone, he will propose an imperfect replacement within the standard year, and unofficial reports suggest he has been developing his own Scythe.

  Due to the personal biases involved, an encounter between Makiel and Ozriel is virtually guaranteed to end in conflict.

  Report complete.

  As the report faded away, so did Harrow. Suriel drifted in a black nothingness like the darkness of space, with swirling balls of color instead of stars. They were world fragments—one of the closer spots carried the fractured black tower from Harrow. Another fragment was a shining blue bubble with an island floating inside; water streamed down from the island and hit the bubble, looping up the inside to fall as rain.

  The power of the Way was weak here, where chaos thrived. Each fragment was a little pocket of order and energy, which could someday be combined once again into a new Iteration.

  With Gadrael’s isolation gone, her information requests arrived from Cradle one after the other:

  Lindon and Yerin, together, left Sacred Valley and went into the Desolate Wilds.

  He was trained by a local Soulsmith in the very basics of the art.

  They encountered the Transcendent Ruins, where they were the first to retrieve the treasure at the top.

  Lindon killed a Highgold, initiating a rivalry with a young man named Jai Long. Good. Pressure would help him grow. His sister was more interesting: she would have met Lindon in a few more years, if not for Suriel’s interference.

  The exact nature of their relationship would have changed depending on several factors, but the destiny between them must have been quite strong to survive Lindon’s divergence.

  A minor point of interest, nothing alarming. Fate adjusted for such small variations as a matter of course.

  After a few moments of reviewing her Presence’s predicted future for Lindon and Jai Long, Suriel noticed a handful of gaps. She reviewed the data, pulling up extra information, comparing the reports.

  Finally, she found what her automated requests had overlooked.

  The Arelius family.

  A young Underlord had found Lindon and Yerin, adopting them, and taken them back into the Blackflame Empire for training.

  Suriel frowned. That could be a problem. She was familiar with the Arelius family—or rather, their ancestors—and they hadn’t come anywhere near Lindon in any of her projections. Why would they? He was a weak child from nowhere.

  She tore open a blue hole in the void, stepping into the Way: the power of order washed over her, soothing and empowering, soaking her body and mind in comfort.

  Here, she was close to every Iteration of reality. She could get some answers.

  Through her Presence, she reached out to Cradle, requesting information on Wei Shi Lindon.

  [Significant deviations detected,] her Presence announced. [Entity Wei Shi Lindon has deviated from primary course. Any analysis of current conditions or projections of future activity will have a low degree of accuracy.]

  She’d made a mistake somewhere, but a quick review of her actions found nothing to account for this degree of change. She’d altered his future, true, but she should still be able to call up information about his current status.

  If her Presence couldn’t even connect to the fate of Cradle, then something was badly off-course. None of her assumptions were reliable any longer.

  And all of her predictions were wrong.

  Irritation growing, she requested general information about the status of Iteration One-one-zero.

  [Iteration One-one-zero has deviated from primary course. Any relevant information will have a low degree of accuracy. Direct contact with Iteration is recommended to ensure precision.]

  Suriel cut off her physical reactions before she could feel irritation, anger, and uncertainty.

  Abidan were allowed a certain degree of autonomy when responding to a spatial or temporal violation, especially Judges. She was permitted to alter the course of many individual lives, so long as the fate of the world remained intact.

  Nothing she’d done should have violated those restrictions. Even if Wei Shi Lindon defied all odds and transcended Cradle, it would only mean one more potential Abidan recruit. On a cosmic scale, that was virtually irrelevant. Cradle wouldn’t notice when he was gone.

  Something else had changed.

  The Hound Division would have seen this. She had to go back to Cradle and determine the origin of this deviation before—

  An eyeball the size of her head popped into being in front of her. A human eye, in appearance: pure white sclera, black pupil, purple iris ringed with symbols like a Cradle script-circle.

  It looked very much like one of her eyes, in fact, only larger.

  [Judge designation zero-zero-six, Suriel,] Makiel’s Presence said, by way of greeting
. [Please travel to the following coordinates. Judge designation zero-zero-one, Makiel, requests a meeting.]

  Chapter 22

  Years ago, when Renfei had first earned her way into the Skysworn, her instructor had congratulated her with these words:

  “You’ll stop rebels, rivals, and runaway killers all over the empire, and you’ll do great service to the emperor. But somewhere, someday, you’ll run across somebody trying to revive the Path of Black Flame.” He’d chewed on a straw as he spoke, tapping the burned half of his face. “When the Blackflames return, that’s when you’ll really stretch your oath. Can’t help but wonder if you’ll fight, or if you’ll leave your honor behind.”

  The challenge had hovered over her, unanswered, for twelve years. She had fought with the Kotai clan against walking sharks on the beaches of the Trackless Sea, executed exiled criminals trying to sneak in across the eastern border, and returned runaways to the Stonedeep Mines. But, though she had kept her spirit open in special vigilance, she had never encountered a Blackflame.

  Until a week ago.

  She and her partner had been patrolling near Serpent’s Grave, keeping an eye on the battle in the city with their spiritual perception. They wouldn’t interfere in the battle; a clan was well within their rights to pass judgment on citizens in their territory. But conflicts led to crimes, so they remained vigilant wherever swords were drawn.

  Of the many things they sensed that night, one in particular had drawn them to Serpent’s Grave like flies to rotting flesh: the power of Blackflame.

  The Arelius turtle, Orthos, was known to them. His madra had flared during the battle, which was to be expected, but what they hadn’t anticipated was a second source of the Path of Black Flame.

  As they had for the past seven days, Renfei drifted next to Bai Rou over the dragon-bone city, dodging horned skulls and yellow ribs that clawed the sky. They flew on emerald green Thousand-Mile Clouds: the symbols of the Skysworn.

  Over this week, they’d sensed occasional flares of Blackflame through the city, but not much they could track.

  “South-southeast?” Bai Rou asked, his voice coming from the shadow beneath his broad bamboo hat. His great bulk was shrouded by a huge, heavy coat that covered him from shoulders to toes, and his eyes—his Goldsign—shone yellow from within the shadows over his face.

  She extended her own perception and checked. Not a Blackflame, just a fire artist practicing. “No. Two more days, and then we confront the Jai Underlord.”

  Renfei had come to her own conclusion: their mysterious source wasn’t a sacred artist at all. Rather, it must be a Blackflame weapon that one of the two Serpent’s Grave Underlords had unearthed for their battle. The hints they’d gotten since then were only the weapon being transported throughout the city.

  They had planned to confront both Underlords once they had evidence of the weapon’s existence, but thus far, they’d found none. And the Arelius Patriarch had fled the city before the Skysworn arrived. That suggested a guilty conscience to Renfei, but she needed more than suspicions to pursue claims against a Lord.

  So if they found no more trace of the weapon soon, they would take Jai Daishou’s testimony anyway.

  Bai Rou wordlessly agreed—he was only twenty-eighth among the Skysworn Truegolds, while she was rank thirteen and a disciple of the prestigious Cloud Hammer School. While they were assigned together, her opinion would override his.

  Deadly heat flashed in the direction of the great black mountain that loomed over the city, and she started to call its position to Bai Rou.

  Then flames blasted into the sky from Mount Shiryu’s peak.

  The fire was streaked with red and black, and Blackflame aura gushed into the sky. All over the city, scripts flared to life, as sacred artists scrambled to defend themselves from another attack.

  Renfei and Bai Rou streaked toward the dark peak, their clouds leaving green trails behind them.

  “Testing,” Bai Rou said, voice hollow.

  She agreed. Someone had decided to test the weapon; it must be based around a Ruler binding, based on the vital aura and flame that erupted from the mountain.

  As part of standard procedure, the Skysworn each veiled their spirits, suppressing their power so they wouldn’t be detected as they approached. An Arelius would see through it, but Naru Cassias Arelius was with his family at the moment, and Eithan Arelius was gone.

  They hovered over the mountain until they looked down into a canyon. The same narrow canyon that contained the Black Dragon Trials.

  Renfei had checked this location as soon as they had arrived, finding no extra lingering Blackflame power, but obviously someone had managed to hide the weapon from her. It was their own foolishness that they had revealed it so soon.

  She and Bai Rou flew over a circle of ninety-nine black, scripted dummies. The Ruler Trial. No better place to test out a Blackflame Ruler weapon than the course that taught them to use their Ruler technique.

  Warm air still gushed from the canyon, buffeting their clouds, but it only took a minor expenditure of madra to stay steady.

  There were two people inside the canyon, neither of whom Renfei had seen before. One, a shrunken old woman with gray hair in a bun crawling around on spider’s legs. She had a goldsteel bladed hook on her back, and she was tinkering with one of the dummies, exposing the construct inside. A Soulsmith, then, in charge of the course’s operation.

  The other must be the one using the weapon, but his hands were empty. He was tall and looked stern despite his age, and a very careful scan of his spirit didn’t pick up anything of his madra.

  She couldn’t check him more thoroughly without alerting him to their presence, but he must be very skilled to have veiled his spirit from even a cursory scan. His madra almost felt pure, which was a testament to the power of his veil.

  Currently, he was sitting in a cycling position, a tiny blue Remnant on his lap.

  “The weapon?” Bai Rou asked, but she shook her head. There was no way to make Blackflame madra look so much like pure water. If she had to guess, she’d say that was a natural spirit. Maybe it helped activate the weapon.

  “We’ll wait until they draw it again,” she said, as the young man stood up. “It shouldn’t be too—”

  The young man’s spirit changed.

  His veil must have dropped, because his soul suddenly burned like a hungry flame. His eyes turned black with shining blood-red irises—that wasn’t the Goldsign from the Path of Black Flame she remembered, but otherwise his power felt just like a black dragon’s.

  “A Blackflame in the wild,” she muttered.

  Bai Rou’s yellow eyes flared. “Who would be this stupid?”

  Aura gathered like clay, wrapped around the activation crystal for the course, and then flared to black-and-red light. The Ruler Trial began.

  One dummy came to life, drawing an orange bow and firing a blast of light at the young Blackflame. A lance of sword energy followed, and then a fireball, then a crystal of dark ice stabbed up from the earth beneath his feet.

  The course was designed to keep its participants on the defensive, pressuring them so they couldn’t hold on to their Ruler technique. When the Blackflames had taken these Trials, their guardians had countered the techniques while the one on the Path of the Black Flame readied the Void Dragon’s Dance.

  But this boy…

  Black-and-red madra covered him like blazing fog, and he dodged the arrow of light, took a cut from the sword energy, shattered the fireball on his fist—which must have left burns on his hand—and broke the ice with a kick.

  All the while, his madra was still gathering vital aura, scooping it up like piles of gold. He took control of all the Blackflame aura he could, building a mountain over the dummies.

  He fought as the attacks continued, dodging with his Enforcer technique active, blasting projectiles from the air with short bursts of dark fire, and taking cuts to the body that should have stopped him in his tracks. He was a bloody mess, and his
core should have gone dry in seconds—he only felt like a Lowgold, and not a strong one.

  But he kept going. In Renfei’s Copper sight, the canyon looked like a seething mass of red-tinged darkness.

  Finally, long after she thought he should have collapsed, he ignited that pile of aura.

  The entire top of the mountain rose in a column of black-spotted fire.

  Renfei had never considered taking shelter. Her Cloud Hammer madra spread into a haze around her, shielding her from the heat and the impact.

  The shock hit her harder: this was a real Lowgold on the Path of Black Flame. One of the living weapons that had carved out an empire using sheer power. Even though he wasn’t much yet, the Schools and sects and clans would fight to control his future.

  The firestorm had died almost as quickly as it was born, but for a moment, it had looked as though Mount Shiryu were transformed into a volcano.

  Even this wasn’t enough to pass the Ruler Trial. A true Void Dragon’s Dance should have devoured the dummies and nothing else; the tower of flame rising into the air was just wasted energy.

  But he was sitting on the ground with his legs crossed, and his spirit was veiled again. She sensed madra flowing to his flesh, his wounds drinking it up…and closing. Visibly healing before her eyes, no life madra required.

  “Someone,” Bai Rou said, “is making a monster.”

  Renfei released her aura and flew down into the canyon, her partner flying with her. A raincloud hovered over her head: the Goldsign of the Cloud Hammers. Her actual hammer rested at her side, and if the Blackflame boy showed the slightest intention to resist, she’d draw it.

  The old woman scurried up to the young man, and they both looked up in shock. The boy’s eyes weren’t dark anymore, Renfei noticed. They were ordinary, human eyes.