by Wight,Will
Contents
Dedication
Copyright
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
[Sequel Page]
[Also By Will Wight]
To my brother Sam, for reading this.
Copyright © 2016 Hidden Gnome Publishing
All rights reserved.
Cover Art by Patrick Foster
Soulsmith
Cradle - Book Two
Will Wight
www.WillWight.com
PROLOGUE
Information requested: disciple training on the Path of the Endless Sword.
Beginning report…
When you’re alone, first look for a weapon.
The master leaves his disciple with these words. The disciple kneels in the winter snow, shivering as the snow presses through her knees. Finding a weapon isn’t her problem.
Thirteen swords are thrust into the snow around her, cold blades turned so that their razor edges touch her skin. With every shiver, she opens another cut. Her thighs, knees, and upper arms are sheathed in freezing blood.
At the edge of pain, exhaustion, and isolation, each of her thoughts becomes slippery. But she knows, clear and distinct as the ring of a bell, that her master has abandoned her here.
It's his favorite training technique: leaving her alone, where no one can save her, and forcing her to rely on her own knowledge to escape. It teaches her reliance, he says. A Path is only one person wide.
She knows he's always right. She's only Iron, not quite ten years old, and she can't question him.
But every time he walks away, he leaves her with the fear that this will be the time he doesn't come back.
She is surrounded by sword aura, silver and sharp in her spiritual vision, and she drinks it in to cycle it, to refine it until it becomes a part of her spirit. Her madra. She has done this constantly since he first left her kneeling in the snow, but it hasn't helped. She knows no technique she can use from this position, has no blade of her own through which she can channel the madra.
She tries to push her power out through her skin, but the swords only shake and open up new lines of blood.
When you're alone, first look for a weapon.
The Sword Sage is not a bad teacher, but he has a preference for cryptic riddles. She has already strained her eyes and even extended her hands—at least as far as she can, without slicing them open on the waiting blades—to search for weapons in the snow. She'd thought he might have hidden something for her, and that treasure will be the key to her escape.
She finds nothing. She kneels for hours, burning in the cold, throwing madra at the implacable weapons. She may as well have shouted at them.
As the morning climbs into afternoon, she has only one coherent thought left. Her master is not coming back. Why should he? A disciple who cannot learn is one not worth teaching. Her master deserves someone who can keep up with his instruction.
Someone who can be trusted.
Her unwelcome guest starts to stir, squirming against the seal that her master has placed upon it. It doesn't speak—it can't—but its presence reminds her that there is another source of power here. Another route she can take, besides sword madra. Another Path.
She will freeze to death before she takes it.
When her vision starts to dim, she knows that even her Iron body is reaching its limits. She screams, shaking herself awake, and the fresh cuts on her body don't even hurt. She draws in as much sword aura as she can, flooding her system with borrowed power, though she won't be able to use it until she cycles it through her own spirit. Full to bursting, she pushes it all away from her.
Faintly, the swords ring like distant bells.
She stills herself, waiting for her tired thoughts to catch up.
When you're alone, first look for a weapon.
On the Path of the Endless Sword, she's learned to Enforce madra into a weapon so that it gathers aura as it moves, strengthening with time. She has learned to pour madra into a Striker's slash, severing a tree branch twenty paces away. She's even learned to crystallize her power into a Forged razor, though it still shatters like glass.
She still hasn't learned a Ruler technique, the ability to manipulate compatible aura in the world around her.
It's a weapon she hasn't seized.
Her madra echoes in time with her breath, gusting out and striking the circle of swords and the aura gathered there. The aura echoes with a pure note, sweet and clear in the winter afternoon.
The swords slide away.
Suggested topic: the fated future of Yerin, the Sword Sage’s disciple. Continue?
Denied, report complete.
Chapter 1
Lindon unwrapped the bandage from Yerin’s forehead, examining the wound. It was red and angry, a long slash, but shallow. Her master’s Remnant had cut her with the precision of a battlefield surgeon. She was already covered in scars so pale and thin they looked as though they were painted on her skin, and unless he missed his guess, she was going to end up with a fresh new set in a few months.
He tossed the crusty bandage into the fire—fuel wasn’t terribly hard to come by out here, in the hills east of Mount Samara, but gathering sticks was torture on his injured back. He wouldn’t give up any tinder, and burning their old bandages had the added benefit of removing blood scent from their trail. He doubted anyone would leave Sacred Valley to track them, but no one ever died from being too careful.
Yerin sat quietly, watching the fire, as Lindon dug into his pack at his feet. He liked to carry anything he even might need, so his pack bulged at the seams. Seated on a fallen tree as he was, the pack stood higher than his knees.
But he’d been glad he had it over the past five days. He pulled out another roll of clean gauze from a pocket, quickly tying it around Yerin’s head. That cut on Yerin’s forehead wasn’t her worst, so by the time he was finished, she was wrapped like a fish packaged for market. And he wasn’t much better.
“Apologies, but this is the last of the bandages,” Lindon said, replacing another gauze wrapping on her elbow and tossing it into the fire. “I have a set of spare clothes that we can cut into strips.”
“Won’t need it,” Yerin said. “Now that I’ve got something more than wind and wishes in my core, I’ll cycle for a few more days and be all polished up.” She rapped her knuckles on the back of her forearm with the air of someone knocking on wood, though it made the usual sound of flesh on flesh. “Iron body comes with all sorts of treats, depending on what sort you have. Copper’s even easier. We’ll break you through to Copper tonight, and that’ll perk you up quick. Nothing does good for the flesh and blood like advancing a realm.”
Lindon paused with the last strip of gauze in his hand. “Tonight?”
She turned to flash him a quick smile. “Unless you’d choose to wait.”
As she turned, he had to dodge to avoid taking a thin steel arm to the face. The limb sprouted from her shoulder blade, a structure of Forged madra so dense that it felt like real steel, ending in a sword blade that dangled over her head like a scorpion’s tail.
She grimaced, and the arm lurched awkwardly away from Lindon’s cheek. “Haven’t quite tamed that one yet, sorry.”
H
is task was complete anyway, so he stood up from the log and moved around her. “Copper, you said. I’ll be able to sense vital aura, won’t I? Even…sword aura?”
He thought he understood Copper fairly well, having grown up primarily around children who had reached that stage, but from Yerin he’d learned that half of what he knew about the sacred arts was completely wrong. This was an opportunity for him to learn.
And perhaps to gain something more.
He’d split his core into two parts only days before, embarking on what he called the Path of Twin Stars. This gave him a natural defense against anyone attacking his spirit, but more importantly, he should theoretically be able to hold two types of madra in the same body. He could keep his own pure madra, while learning Yerin’s Path as well.
Except thus far, every time he’d broached the topic, she had refused to teach him.
Yerin’s eyes drifted to her own sword, which she’d taken from her master’s body. “You need a master in truth, Lindon, and those aren’t shoes I can fill.” He started to protest, but she rode over him. “Listen. You ever heard anybody talk about Copper eyes?”
He shook his head.
“It’s a saying I grew up with. Copper eyes see the world, Iron eyes see far, and Jade eyes see deep. Tells you what you’re in for. At Copper, you see aura. You can begin taking it in, cycling it, turning it into madra. At Iron, you’re forging the body you’ll use for the rest of your life, and the actual eyes in your head get better. And when you hit Jade, you can use your spirit to…see. Sense. There’s not a good word for it, really.”
“What about Gold?” he asked eagerly.
She flicked a finger against the silvery steel blade hanging down into her face. “At Gold you hold a Remnant in your core, and you get a little something extra for your trouble. We call it a Goldsign, and it’s the simple way to tell who’s on what Path. Now shut it, we’re talking about Copper.”
Lindon settled down on a nearby rock, the fire crackling between them.
“Ten chances out of a dozen, you’ll have to prepare for a stage before you advance,” Yerin continued. “And what preparation you settle on depends on your Path. My master stuck me in a ring of swords to polish me up for Jade. He wouldn’t let me out until I could push them away on my own. Strengthened me, turned me toward sword madra, prepared me to advance. Like eating a red pepper to prepare for a white one.”
It sounded more like sadistic torture than sacred arts to Lindon, and though he didn’t say anything, Yerin must have noticed the look on his face.
“Wasn’t so bad,” she said, tracing one of the paper-thin scars on her arm. “Taught me character. Anyway, the thrust of it is, I can’t teach you. You’re not following in my footsteps, so I don’t know where to take you from here. Maybe if I knew more…but I don’t. I’m just a Gold.”
Hearing someone say they were ‘just’ a Gold was like hearing an emperor say his summer palace ‘just’ had a thousand rooms, but the idea that he wasn’t ready for a Path sent chills up his back.
“So, if I understand you correctly, then I’m not…I mean, I’ll never be…” He couldn’t squeeze the words out.
She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. “Are your ears open? What did I say? I don’t know how to get you in condition for my Path. The Path of the Endless Sword is pretty choosy, but most Paths are not. I’ve met more than a few masters who wouldn’t even look at a student before Iron.”
Lindon breathed deeply again as the chills faded, but he didn’t miss a word. “These masters are beyond Gold, you say. What kind of a realm is that?”
“Gold is a wide river to ford,” she said dryly, “especially for somebody who hasn’t so much as touched Copper. You want to advance, you’d best clear out your mind.”
He took the opportunity to stretch his sore back and look around. Samara wasn’t the last mountain they’d crossed since leaving Sacred Valley, and snow-capped peaks hid the halo that would be lighting up the Wei clan’s night. Without the Thousand-Mile Cloud, the horse-sized pillow of opaque red fog that hovered off to the side of their campsite, they would never have made it through the mountains in only a few days.
Here in the foothills, they were nestled between two house-sized boulders and a scrubby bundle of trees. The late-summer wind was mild but unceasing, and it flowed down the mountain with a tinge of autumn chill. Their “campsite” was nothing more than a fire, a collapsed tree Yerin had dragged over for a bench, and a pair of thin blankets he’d placed on the ground.
Behind them rose the mountains he’d left behind. In front of them, the land lowered further until rolling hills spread out beneath them. Yerin called this place the Desolate Wilds, though it seemed more wild than desolate. The hills were carpeted in trees with scorch-black leaves, marred with the occasional strange-colored lights or patch of ash. The forest filled him with dread, as though he stared down into deep water with no idea what sort of monstrous creature might rise from the depths at any second.
Because there were creatures in those dark trees. He’d seen them.
“Before we start, if I may ask…Copper, will it help me survive down there?”
Yerin looked like someone who had lived alone in the wilderness for too long—she was thin and wiry, without an ounce of fat, and her traditional black sacred artist’s robe was faded and tattered. Her hair was black as her robe and cut absolutely straight, which he suspected she did with her sword.
She was a survivor, she had been even before her master was murdered, and she looked the part. She knew what it took to make it out of a deadly wilderness alive, while he’d slept on a cloud-soft mattress since he was a child.
She shrugged one shoulder. “Going down there without Copper is like going in with a hood over your eyes. You’d lose your head without a glimpse of what buried you. Going in with Copper…well, at least you’ll see what’s eating you.”
He knelt opposite her, so that their knees were almost touching. With both their backs straight, he was head and shoulders taller than she was. He slouched a little, almost on instinct—in his clan, an Unsouled who loomed over his betters would be asking for a beating.
Yerin didn’t seem to notice or care. She continued, “Iron is better by miles. Your sacred arts will still be rotten, but you won’t die to a stray breeze. Presuming we can find a few things tomorrow, like a covered place to sleep, we’ll stay here until you hit Iron. We’ll want to make you hit perfect Iron, so we can lag until end of winter. Come spring, we can move down into the trees.”
Lindon’s breath came a little too fast, and his stomach churned with sickening hope. He’d lived almost sixteen years yearning for Copper, and now she was saying he could reach Iron in just a few more months? It was like hearing her promise that, with a little more effort, he could sprout wings and fly around the sky like a bird.
His own parents were only Iron, and they’d been famous in the Wei clan when they were only a little older than him. Come spring, if he returned to Sacred Valley, how would they see him then?
Memory returned, of a vision he’d once seen: a colossal shadow wading through the mountains like a child wading through a creek, devastating the entire valley.
“Is that the soonest we can leave?” he asked, and she looked at him as though he’d proposed setting themselves on fire.
“So you know, you can rush to Iron, but you surely don’t want to. Ruins your chances of reaching Lowgold. And the weakest sacred artist down there will be Lowgold, so even if you survived a stroll through the trees, it only takes one privileged son with a rotten temper to scatter your bones all through the trees.”
“Pardon, but who is Lowgold?”
She stuck a finger at him as though threatening him with it. “You’re proving my point for me. It’s not a who, it’s what you call the first rank of Gold.”
“Rank?”
“I told you Gold was a wide river. The weakest Golds are Lowgold, then Highgold, and Truegold past that. The gap between each one is ten times wide
r than the gap between Copper and Iron, and if you were a shade quicker and two shades smarter, you’d hole up here for a handful of years until you hit Lowgold.”
If he’d thought he was impressed before, this time his lungs froze. Gold? Even if it took him a few years, Suriel had told him he had three decades. Suddenly he didn’t feel as though he were on such a tight schedule after all.
She waved a hand at him. “That’s the sweetest view of events. Spine of the matter is, we’re not trying to catch the tide. A year or two won’t change much.”
Part of that statement stuck out to Lindon like a burning bush. We’re not trying to catch the tide. She’d included herself, as though she intended to stay with him.
That meant more to him than he was prepared to consider, carving into his heart with a sweet pain. For most of his life, even his family had only taken his side out of blood obligation. An Unsouled wasn’t headed anywhere except straight into the ground, and no one wanted to travel with him on that journey.
Now, here was someone who had already fulfilled her oath—she’d taken him out of Sacred Valley safely. He’d half-expected her to walk off and leave him the second he’d finished bandaging her wounds.
But in five days, she still hadn’t said a word of it.
Still kneeling, he bowed to her, pressing his fists together. “Gratitude,” he said.
She flushed and rubbed the back of her neck. “Well, every path has a first step. Let’s get you to Copper first. How’s that Starlotus?”
He closed his eyes and visualized his madra. He could just barely feel the power trickling through his spiritual channels, which he always imagined as a dim blue-white light running throughout his body like blood running through veins. The energy pulsed in rhythm with his breath, spinning out from his core and returning after visiting his extremities.