by Wight,Will
Finally, he directed the spider up the bars and to the roof, where the final loop of the script-circle was located. This had taken him three days of observation to realize; though he was only an amateur scriptor, he could tell that cutting two of the loops wouldn't be enough. Leaving the final link on the roof made sense from the Sandvipers' perspective, given the risk that one of the prisoners knew some sacred art that could cut iron even with their spirits suppressed by collars.
A scripted key would have simplified this process, but he'd never found one unguarded, and stealing it could have risked everything.
Seconds later, a soft whisk came from overhead as the spider sliced through the last of the protective script. Lindon pushed the door open, wincing at the squeal of hinges, and directed the spider back into his pack.
Even that paltry few seconds of action had drained one of his cores almost completely, and he would need to cycle according to the Path of Twin Stars to restore his madra. In the meantime, he drew power from his second core.
The three figures in the cage all moaned and backed away from him, but as the spider clambered into the pack behind him, Lindon sank to his knees. “Look at me,” he whispered. “We don't have much time.”
Even less than he'd imagined, as he found out immediately when Jai Long stepped out from beside the scale wagon.
The sight of the tall spearman in the mask of red cloth scrambled Lindon's thoughts for a second. He'd already cast his mind forward, to the next steps of the plan, to the things that could go wrong. Jai Long stayed in his tent in the mornings, Lindon had observed that for five mornings in a row, and idle comments from some of the other Sandvipers suggested he'd done the same thing for as long as he'd known them.
But there was still the possibility that he wouldn't notice anything. If he'd just decided to stretch his legs and get a lungful of morning air, he would just brush past two “Sandvipers” going about their ordinary chores with hardly a glance.
That hope died when Jai Long turned his head to look straight at Lindon.
“To save face for the Fishers, I will keep you as miners instead of killing you as intruders. You have my word.”
Lindon's head was still spinning. They hadn't even done anything yet. Where had he gone wrong? Was there an alarm attached to the script-circle on the cage?
No, he was certain there wasn't. The script connected to nothing, it was all self-contained around the cage. It couldn't have activated an alarm, or he would have found it. What, then?
Yerin, meanwhile, had immediately drawn her white sword against young chief Kral. He wore black furs, finer than those of his subordinates, and he still gave off the air of unimpeachable dignity even while holding an awl in each hand.
Jai Long didn't even look to the side, where his young chief faced Yerin. He remained focused on Lindon, spear propped against his shoulder.
“You want to know why?” he asked.
Lindon didn't dare to nod. In his experience, questions like that didn't really need a response.
“Do you know how many Coppers there are in the Five Factions Alliance above the age of six?” Jai Long went on. “There's one. One of my men happened to notice a Copper days ago, when you were sneaking around the camp, and reported you. I knew you could only be the newly adopted Fisher.”
Lindon could put the rest together for himself. Jai Long had assumed he'd come here because this was where he'd been held captive. Then all he had to do was set a watch with Lindon's description...
That didn't hold up. Even though Lindon had run into the Sandvipers more than once, it wasn't as though he'd been in camp long. He wasn't famous. Jai Long had seen him before, but there was no reason he should remember.
“How did you recognize me?” Lindon asked, then belatedly added, “If I may ask, honored Jai Long.”
The spearman studied him from behind the red wrappings as though unsure how to answer. “I had them sense your spirit,” he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Lindon had been blind. In Sacred Valley, once a person reached Jade, they could use their spirit to sense things they couldn’t possibly see or hear. They couldn't sense a person's level of advancement without personally witnessing their sacred arts. Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to him that sacred artists on the outside could.
It was an idiot's mistake. He'd let his own ignorance lead both him and Yerin into an ambush.
Yerin knew what was possible, of course, but he couldn't fault her for not pointing it out—to her, it was common knowledge. She'd have assumed that he would take steps to disguise himself as a Copper, or prevent himself from being sensed.
If those were possibilities—he didn't even know that much.
Something tugged at his spirit, and he opened his Copper senses. The aura around Yerin bloomed into a razor-edged dome, like a thicket of swords surrounding her, and the pale blade in her hand gathered sword aura along the edges. She hadn't said a word, but her body was turned half to the side, her weapon held high and her eyes fixed on Kral.
For his part, the Sandviper heir held his awls to his sides, completely relaxed. He didn't seem to be drawing up aura at all. “You're not even a Fisher, are you? Are you sure you want to be buried for them?”
The colorless blades around her sharpened, but she didn't respond.
“Your choice,” he said, lazily lifting a spike to point at her. Green light gathered on the tip, like poison about to drip off. “I am Kral, young chief of the Sandviper sect, and I will instruct you.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a line of venomous green light blasted toward her. She ducked, drawing aura behind her sword like a wave as she swung it upward.
Kral had already reached her, the sword almost at his ribs, but he drove his awl down and pushed Yerin's blade into the ground.
The air roared as her technique sheared a hole through the grass, sending dirt and roots blasting skyward. As though following the steps of a dance, Kral moved forward and drove his second awl at her neck. Sword aura tore at his hand, but they didn't stop him, and Yerin had to throw herself back.
The young chief laughed, shaking off his wounded hand. He wasn't even bleeding. There were red lines, but nothing worse than Lindon might get if he brushed against a briar bush.
Kral gestured, and the aura around Yerin surged. She moved out of the way just as a cloud of toxic gas manifested behind her.
But he was toying with her, moving her like a puppet where he wanted. The awl flashed forward again, this time with four green echoes of itself moving along with it—a Forger trick to duplicate the weapon. She smashed them all, but took a scrape along the shoulder for it.
Her Goldsign burst out then, a flashing arm of steel, blurring as it shot straight for Kral's eye.
Before Lindon could register joy that Yerin might have turned the fight around, Kral's own Goldsign scurried into action. The legged serpent ran down the man's forearm, running onto Yerin's shoulder, and opening its jaws to bite down on her neck.
It froze that way, its tail wrapped around Kral's arm and its teeth on Yerin, as her bladed arm came to a quivering stop a foot from the Sandviper's nose.
“If you draw a blade on a Highgold, you should be prepared for the consequences,” Kral said, in a tone haughty enough for a king. His expression, on the other hand, said he was enjoying himself.
Lindon ran at the open cage door, on the chance he might be able to do something, but Jai Long looked at him.
Just looked.
The man hadn't moved, but somehow his spear had become more prominent, as though his relaxed stance was a half-second away from becoming a thrust that put the weapon through Lindon's heart.
Like a coward, Lindon slowed to a stop. He should throw himself forward, he knew. He should challenge the impossible odds to save his own, even before certain death.
But he would die. At best, Jai Long would simply hold him down and send him into the mines anyway. He could do nothing, and he hated himself for it.
Kral raised his voice without turning from Yerin. “Are the Fishers coming?”
“At least one of them is.”
Hope trickled back into Lindon's heart.
“Good,” Kral said, and the tiny Remnant on his arm bit down.
Blood oozed from Yerin's neck, but that didn't even cause her to make a sound. She simply glared at the Sandviper, even as the tiny green spirit ran back up to nest on his arm.
A second later, her jaw visibly tightened as she gritted her teeth.
Another second, and she'd fallen to her knees, chest heaving.
Then she dropped her sword and screamed.
With Yerin's screams washing over him, Lindon closed his eyes. He couldn't do anything, but he distracted himself by thinking of options—what did he have? There was still a spider in the pack on his back. What about the Cloud?
At a deeper level, he knew he was helpless. He'd always been helpless. He just had to wait for rescue, and that was the most he could do. He had been a fool to expect otherwise.
“You like it noisy in your camps, do you? Hm?” Fisher Gesha said, and Lindon's eyes snapped open. She looked the same as ever, her bun tightly in place, spider legs jutting out from where her feet should be. Her hands were clasped behind her in the small of her back, her absurdly wrinkled face disapproving. Lindon had never seen anyone more beautiful; he could breathe again.
If only she could help Yerin.
“You don't enjoy the screams of your enemies?” Kral asked, sidling over to stand by Jai Long. “I'm sure you do.”
Gesha was giving nothing away. “Enemies? I see none of your enemies here.”
It was Jai Long's turn to speak. “Do you not? Two new Fishers sneaking into our camp, dutifully assigned to us according to the Alliance. If they were working for you, then that's an unprovoked act of aggression on your part.”
Gesha's gaze flicked to Yerin. Not to Lindon.
“Are children supposed to be placid and well-behaved now? I made mistakes when I was young.”
“If they're not yours,” Jai Long continued, “I'll work them in the mines. If they are, then I've captured them as the result of honorable combat, and they will still work in the mines. But in that case, you were the ones who worked to undermine us. Only days before the Arelius arrive.”
Fisher Gesha didn't respond, and he let out a heavy breath from behind his mask. “We cannot allow this, elder Gesha. You know that.”
When the old Soulsmith spoke again, it looked as though her lips had been pried apart with an iron bar. “There has been a misunderstanding between us, hasn't there?”
“It seems there has,” Jai Long said.
“I don't see any Fishers here,” she said, and Lindon let his eyes fall shut again.
“Only you, honored elder,” Kral said, with his respectable expression back on.
“Then I will return.” Without the slightest glance in Lindon's direction, she drifted off on a spider's legs.
Yerin's screams continued.
***
Eithan watched, sipping from a bottle of what tasted like distilled poison, as the old Fisher departed. The drama had largely faded at that point, but he stayed to see the night shift of miners arrive. They dropped off their scales, headed to their cages, and switched for the day crew.
Lindon and Yerin were bundled among them. Yerin wore a collar, but not Lindon. Why waste a collar? If a Copper trundled off alone in the mines, he might as well slit his own wrists.
They had given Yerin the antidote to the Sandviper venom only minutes after her bite, but she still shambled along like an animated corpse. A natural sandviper would have been much less painful; the Remnant madra attacked the soul as much as the body, and she would have a difficult time recovering with the scripted collar around her neck. He should know; he'd been in similar situations, once or twice.
Handled correctly, this excursion into the Ruins could end up being a valuable lesson for her. Even an adventure, if framed properly.
Eithan took another sip of poison. In his experience, practically anything became an adventure if framed properly.
Her spirit was still flawless, her foundation solid. The Sage of the Endless Sword had done a wonderful job with her, as was expected. There was the problematic matter of her past—as some of the Sandvipers had learned when they tried to unravel the 'rope' around her waist—but even that could be turned to her advantage. Like adventure, advantage was so often just a matter of perspective.
It was her character that he was interested in now. If she had the strength of will to go along with her powers, as he suspected she did, she would be perfect.
Which brought him to Lindon, who was simultaneously more puzzling and more intriguing.
Someone had meddled with Lindon, in a way that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Maybe it would occur to him later. Either way, the boy was still a featureless ball of clay just waiting to be shaped.
Would he work out for Eithan's purposes? Probably not. But the shaping process was fun, and if nothing else, it would be something to occupy Eithan's attention for a few years.
And if there was fun to be had, why not start immediately?
He downed the last of the bottle, which he suspected really was poison, and tossed the empty container aside. His expensive clothes, made of creamy sky blue and imported from the Nine Clouds Court, would suffer in this next part. But those were the sacrifices one made to stave off boredom.
Just as the procession of miners was about to enter the gaping maw of the Ruins, Eithan hopped over to stand beside Jai Long.
“THEY'LL KILL US ALL!” Eithan shouted into Jai Long's ear.
The spearman's reaction was gratifying. He spun with a sweeping, glowing arc of his spear that would have taken Eithan's head off if he were anyone else. He ducked beneath it, then straightened again.
Jai Long leveled his spear again, though Eithan was just standing there. Sandvipers started to boil out of their surroundings, clutching weapons.
The man in the red mask studied him for a moment before speaking. “What are you doing here?”
Eithan raised his hands. “Surrendering myself into your custody, good sir.”
Jai Long’s spear wavered. “And why is that?”
“As just punishment for my many sins and imperfections. I am a cursed man, wracked by guilt.”
He smiled.
Slowly, Jai Long lifted his spear, then gestured for a Sandviper to come forward. A short man in furs scurried out, carrying a collar.
“I will be placing a restrictive collar on you,” Jai Long said, holding out the iron loop. “It is scripted to inhibit your madra.”
“A wise and prudent decision,” Eithan said, bowing forward to present his neck.
As though fearing a trap, Jai Long crept forward step by deliberate step, collar in one hand and spear in the other. Eithan sighed, but waited with all the patience he could muster.
Finally, cold iron snapped around his throat. “Adroitly done,” Eithan said, straightening up and clapping his hands together. “Now, the previous group is already in the Ruins. I’ll go on and catch up—we’re wasting valuable mining time.”
Jai Long stood over him, spearhead glowing with madra. The young man had a decision to make. And Eithan smiled pleasantly at him until he made it.
Jai Long took one step to the side, the light in his spear fading.
Wise decision.
Chapter 13
The square hallway was wide enough for all twenty miners and their five Sandviper escorts. Three of the guards moved in front, two in back, but most of the prisoners didn't seem to need guarding. They stumbled along with empty gazes, all of them with wounds both old and fresh.
Each of the prisoners, including Lindon, carried one of the scripted iron barrels that Fisher Gesha had called mining equipment. It was light enough for the rest of them, with their Iron bodies, but Lindon's arms began to burn after half an hour of carrying it. By the time he started sweating and pushing to keep up wi
th the rest of the pack, they still hadn't passed the first hallway.
The hall itself would have been worth a closer look, if it didn't take all his concentration to stay upright with the barrel. Script ran along the walls, with runes etched deeper than his fingers and wider than his hand. It must have continued for miles, judging by how long they'd traveled.
He couldn't even comprehend the scale of a circle like that. It must only be a small part of whatever mechanism drew in vital aura from all over the region, which made it more ambitious than anything he'd ever imagined.
They finally came to a stop in a room shaped like a cylinder, where five other hallways identical to their own had ended. The room was smaller than he'd expected, and while they weren't crowded, he could see why the Sandvipers hadn't taken more miners.
His first question, when one of the guards raised a torch, was why this room had been made of a different type of stone. Unlike the blocks of the hallway, these were splashed with darker shades of color, as though the blocks had been spattered with...
He missed a step.
Fragments of bone were more common than pebbles on the floor. All clean, and none larger than his thumbnail. A distinct scent of copper and rot lingered in the air, and the stone was stained twice as high as his head.
Whatever happened here, it hadn't left any bodies. The dead had been blasted apart.
The old miners had begun to huddle together, setting their barrels down in the center and gripping the handles. A handful, including Lindon and Yerin, glanced around as though waiting for instruction.
The same guard Lindon had seen before, the bored-looking Sandviper woman with the sword, tapped her weapon against the stone to gather their attention. “The activation script for your harvesters is on your handles,” she said, in the tone of someone who had repeated the same instructions for so long that the words came out on their own. “If you stop mining, we leave you here. If you run, we leave you here. If you harass or disobey a guard, we leave you here. Meal comes at midday. When battle starts, don't panic or run, just trust us to cover you. You panic, and we'll leave you here.”