by Will Wight
The whisper did seem a little louder here, though no more clear, so she dropped into the water.
As soon as she did, a signal reached her Razor. This beacon triggered in response to her weapon, then, though she could choose if she allowed the Razor to respond.
Curious, she let it transmit back, and a green light appeared in her vision. Coordinates a few hundred kilometers away, still within the ocean. Though her Presence warned her that finding something specifically keyed to her on the surface of a random dying world was dangerously suspicious, she followed it.
There was only one person who would leave her a message here. This might even be Ozriel’s hiding place.
That would be just like him: predict where she would end up, and then hide there, waiting for her. Waiting on a dying world would just add style, as he saw it.
She tore through the water, but was forced to stop in less than a second. A spatial crack the size of a finger stretched vertically for hundreds of meters, its edges sputtering with chaos, and its heart looking into the void. Water gushed through it in an endless waterfall, but that wasn’t what concerned her.
Cracks like these were often left behind after an Abidan’s battle.
Extending her senses as far as she could, she found other cracks, getting wider and wider as they drifted into the sky. With the chaotic interference, she couldn’t detect anything further than about a kilometer, but they might very well keep going. If this had been a battle between Judges, the spatial cracks could have gotten wide enough to swallow suns.
There was no testing that now. This Iteration’s stars had already vanished—there had only been one inhabited planet in each universe, so it was the last to disappear before the world fragmented.
She flew on, dodging other spatial cracks. If not for the chaos of the merged worlds and Limit’s corruption, she would have sensed these the second she landed in this reality.
Finally, beneath a storm of spatial cracks, she found the location of the beacon.
It waited for her beneath a city-sized dome of stone.
There was Abidan technology here, because the dome remained stable and unaffected despite the chaos of the water above and the world outside. She slipped lower, but as she got closer, a hole opened in the stone.
[It would be wiser to alert Sector Control,] her Presence said.
If it really was Ozriel down there, and she turned him in before hearing what he had to say, he would never forgive her. She drifted in through the hole.
The inside of the dome was very simple. It was all a single room, its structure reinforced by the Way to add stability, and big enough to swallow a city.
But there were no streets or buildings inside.
Only pods.
Transparent, organic pods in rows for hundreds of kilometers. All filled with people, sleeping and drifting in liquid.
The pods had been arranged in grids with space between them, so the people emerging could leave and walk away, but there were no other facilities. No shelters, no water, no plants. Each pod gave off a slight radiance, but that was the only light.
[Twelve million, four hundred forty-five thousand, six hundred thirty-two people,] her Presence reported. [And some shipping crates containing culturally significant icons.]
“Point of origin?”
[Iteration Two-one-six: Limit.]
Of course. The Abidan had evacuated the elite of Harrow, and she herself had saved a million and a half survivors of the combined world, but no one had saved the population of Limit. Their world was destined to end, so the Abidan had allowed it.
Except for Ozriel. He’d saved enough to preserve the unique genetics and cultures of a doomed world.
But there was one more feature of the space inside the dome: spatial cracks, which buzzed like a storm in the air. The structure of the building and the pods were still intact, but Ozriel must have protected them. Otherwise, the void would have swallowed them by now.
Even so, the chaotic interference was so strong here that the air crackled with it, and Suriel had to move carefully around each crack. Not that they would threaten her, but she might stick to them like iron to a magnet.
The cracks were thickest surrounding a door at the far end of the compound…a door marked with the image of a scythe.
Well, that was simple enough.
With one hand, she shoved the heavy stone door aside, and the chaos hit her like a stench. The room on the other side of the door was only as large as a one-room office, and positively black with spatial cracks, so that it looked like the weapons of two Judges had clashed in here.
Except that a conflict like that would have destroyed this shelter and most everyone else in Limit.
She couldn’t see much in the room past the nest of hissing cracks in reality, but half of a desk remained in the center. A fist-sized ball glowed blue on that table: a beacon, though all the chaos in here must have degraded it. And on the far wall, a spray of ancient blood and flesh, as though a man had exploded right before the door was sealed for a century.
[Impossible to identify remains,] her Presence reported. [Chaos and time have destroyed them beyond the point of analysis.]
The beacon was still resonating with her Razor, indicating that it held a message. She reached out to accept it, but hesitated.
Not out of reason, or to buy herself a moment to think. She was scared.
Ozriel had come here to prepare for Limit’s death. He had left this message here for her after a battle…or had he prepared the message before the battle began, stretching out past the planet?
Either way, it wasn’t good news. This message was not about to tell her that Ozriel was safe, happy, and ready to return to work.
She was afraid for herself, afraid for the Abidan, and afraid for the man she’d known even before she’d joined the Abidan Court. He had always been Ozriel to her, but there had been a time before she was Suriel, the Phoenix. They had been friends.
She accepted the message, and her senses were consumed in endless white.
This was a perfectly ordinary way to send a message in Sanctum, headquarters of the Abidan. Sharing senses and experiences was common, and crafting an experience like this would have taken Ozriel seconds. But the world of this message crackled, tarnished by damage and chaos. The world of white was speckled with imperfection, as though she watched it through grainy film, and interference was a constant hiss in her ears.
At least she wasn’t alone.
Ozriel stood before her in his polished black armor, the Mantle of Ozriel streaming behind him like a boiling cape of shadow, and the white hair running down his back. But it was all fuzzy, like a half-forgotten dream. His face blurred, though she could fill in the gaps from memory: cold and distant and grim.
In person, he had more of a sense of humor than any other Abidan she’d ever met, but he always wore an expression like a man bracing himself for terrible news.
“Sur…looking lovely…get to the point, because…murdered.” He was speaking, speaking to her, because he’d known she would find this. Of course he had. But whatever he’d predicted, it hadn’t included a battle in this room ruining his message.
The scene congealed for a moment, until she could almost believe he was really standing in front of her. “…didn’t abandon you. I’ve identified the sixteen worlds…a facility like this one…” She could make out his lips moving now, but it was as though she’d gone deaf.
“…sure you’ll…quarantine. I sh—…actually kills me.”
His expression darkened, and he looked over her shoulder. The Scythe appeared in his hand: a long, curved blade like an obsidian scimitar. At least, that was how it presented itself.
She was sure this was the heart of the message, but she heard nothing but a whisper of static. Finally, his voice faded back in, just on the edge of her hearing.
“…if I didn’t act, it would all stay the same. I don’t—“
The dream world squealed with feedback, and colors twisted in her eyes
as the message’s recording was violently cut off.
That wasn’t interference. He’d been attacked while speaking, ending the message.
So the battle had started here, but continued off into the world. Or had he recorded it elsewhere and the beacon survived the battle?
…survived a battle that he, perhaps, had not.
“Presence,” Suriel ordered verbally. “Reconstruct the probable content of Ozriel’s message. Authorization Suriel zero-zero-six.” The Presence was more than capable of simple predictions, but interactions between Judges usually required verbal confirmation. Sanctum wanted any jurisdictional overlap to be well documented.
[Incomplete information supplemented with standard Ozriel prediction model. Best recreation follows.]
The message was audio-only, but it was as though Ozriel was speaking right into her ear. The voice of her friend, full of weary humor.
“Suriel. You’re looking lovely today, I’m sure. I’ll get to the point, because I have an unexpected visitor who needs murdered: I did not abandon you. I have identified the sixteen worlds that will be corrupted while I’m gone, and I’ve prepared a facility like this one in each. I’m sure Makiel will send Gadrael, and then you’ll volunteer. If I’m still gone, chaotic interference makes it impossible to predict beyond sixteen, so go ahead and initiate quarantine. I shouldn’t take much longer, unless this actually kills me.”
His voice turned serious. “We have to change, Suriel. If I didn’t act, it would all stay the same. I don’t—”
The sound cut off.
Of their own accord, her eyes slid back to the blood on the walls. He’d seen her standing here. From hundreds of years ago, he’d seen her.
He was still watching out for her, if not for himself.
Her heart hammered in her ears, her respiration sped up a fraction, and her adrenal glands squeezed hormones into her bloodstream. She chose not to cut off the physical responses.
Let her feel fear for her friend.
Chapter 14
On the fourth morning since starting the Trials, Lindon slid the Sylvan Riverseed’s case out of his pack, holding out a pair of freshly Forged scales.
The Sylvan waved at him, smiling cheerily.
He stared back.
Someone had replaced his tiny, faceless spirit with a miniature woman Forged out of water madra. Until she opened her mouth at the sight of Lindon’s scales, waiting to be fed, he suspected it was a different creature entirely.
Where once she had been a translucent bright blue doll, now she was a deep azure woman with long, flowing hair, a dress that swirled around hidden feet, teeth that showed clearly when she smiled, and curious eyes.
Those eyes were now scrunched closed as she held open her mouth, waiting for her meal. Lindon thought he could see her tongue.
She had a tongue now. And eyelids.
Dazed, he ran his eyes along the edges of the case, looking for changes. He found one immediately: a spot in the corner where the scripted glass didn’t fit perfectly together.
That was certainly a change. He’d spent hours searching the tank for any imperfections, trying to figure out a way to open it without breaking the glass. He ran his thumb along the flaw, and that corner of the case popped open. He repeated the process on the other side, and the lid of the case rose.
The Sylvan was still begging for food, so he slipped the madra coins inside without taking his eyes from the case itself. They dissolved as soon as they reached the Sylvan, flowing down her throat in streams of light.
Eithan. Eithan did this.
Either he had to accept that the Sylvan had drastically changed her form in the week since he’d fed her—and that someone else had figured out how to open her case and then closed it again—or the Underlord had done something. But what? And why?
He was itching to investigate, but he wasn’t even sure what questions to ask. If he had a drudge, he could examine the composition of her madra and see what had changed. Fisher Gesha could tell him, but if he left the mountain, he was considered to have given up.
In the absence of any clear answers, he placed her back into his pack. He’d inspect her more closely later, to see if Eithan had left any obvious hints for him.
Putting the Sylvan out of his mind, he and Yerin challenged the Enforcer Trial a second time.
Lindon cradled the red-and-black crystal in his arms, dashing through the stone forest with Burning Cloak active. Every second sizzled as his muscles burned from the Blackflame madra, every step sent dirt flying behind him and drove splinters of pain through his knees, and every breath came slow and heavy, as though he were trying to suck air through a wet blanket.
It was like running through a nightmare: gray shapes chased him from every direction as pain wracked his body. Though he knew he was moving faster than he ever had before, he still felt as though he were slogging through mud.
Finally he dropped the breathing technique, heaving a deep breath of pure air that sent sweet life flowing through his veins, but then his madra channels couldn’t handle the burden of the Burning Cloak. It flickered and died, the seal dimmed, and a soldier’s blade knocked the crystal from his hands.
A silver blade of madra blasted from the woods, slashing the soldier in half, but the gong had already sounded: failure.
***
The soldiers changed.
They always carried stone weapons, but sometimes those weapons blazed with sword aura until they could take a slice out of the surrounding pillars.
Not all the soldiers ever carried the gleaming silver weapons, but Yerin preferred the ones that did. She could sense them coming thanks to the aura gathering around their weapons, and the Endless Sword technique would mince them. When those showed up, she could eliminate them in a blink, and she and Lindon could make it deep into the columns before a living statue slipped past her and caught him.
But they never made it any further.
The frustration grew until she wanted to take a sword and carve her way out of this valley by pure fury. She could do so much better than this. If she could use her true ability, she would split every single sword-carrying soldier open on their own aura and then carry Lindon through to the end like a baby.
Not that Lindon was a burden anymore, which was enough shock for a lifetime in itself. He had surprised and impressed her in the days since they’d started the Trial. The Burning Cloak fit him like a good sheath, giving him everything he’d lacked before: explosive speed, bursts of strength, and enough confidence to stand against his enemies fist-to-fist.
Truth was, fighting next to him was a treat, now that he could keep up with her. They could only challenge the Trials every three or four days, when they were in their best condition: his spirit didn’t recover as fast as hers, and her injuries stuck around longer than his did. She looked forward to the Trial days, because that meant fighting together, as a pair.
If she could have used her full skills, fighting next to Lindon as they learned to train and grow as a team, she’d have been on holiday. It would have been the best time in her life since the Sword Sage plucked her out of the ashes of her childhood home.
But she was hobbled. Weighted down.
Her uninvited guest strained against its seal, gaining on her day after day as she remained stuck at the barrier to Highgold. She had to dedicate half her attention to keeping it under control, so it didn’t squirm further into her core. Every night she tied the bow tighter around her waist, trying to reinforce the Sword Sage’s seal, feeling the bloodthirst of the red rope seeping into her.
On its own, that wouldn’t be enough to cripple her—she’d dealt with this parasite most of her life. But now even her own madra was fighting her.
Her Goldsign still slipped through her control sometimes, lunging against enemies when she wanted it to pull back. If anything, it was getting worse; now her own techniques were also trying to defy her. Her master’s instincts, buried inside her along with his Remnant, would tell her to Enforce herself a
nd run into battle. Madra she’d been preparing to hurl at her enemies would flow into her sword instead, sharpening her weapon. She had to switch tactics, adapting to her master’s lesson and costing precious seconds in battle.
Together, it was like trying to fight with someone else’s hands. Some days it felt like she couldn’t take two steps without her own body betraying her.
She could tap into the silver Remnant in her core, and sometimes she was tempted. But even when he was stealing her madra, ruining her chance at passing the Trial, it was still another chance at hearing his voice.
She couldn’t give that up. And any insight into the Path of the Endless Sword was rarer than diamonds for her; without her master’s voice, she would be the only expert remaining on her Path.
She’d cross over to Highgold eventually, even without silencing her master again, she was sure of it.
Every day, the gong seemed to grow louder.
***
Lindon knelt, driving an Empty Palm deep into the ground. He’d raised his pure core to Jade, and the technique penetrated deeper than he’d dared to hope, almost disrupting the script that powered the Trial. If he could break it, that would disrupt the function of the Trial long enough for them to pass through.
But it wasn’t enough. The soldiers swarmed him, beating him until he dropped the crystal. He screamed as the gong sounded.
The cool winter breeze that had once flowed into the valley had long since grown hot. Lindon and Yerin gathered food with wordless efficiency now, choking down the oily, gritty crab meat and retiring to their own caves to cycle.
Lindon cycled Blackflame for two hours every night, drawing aura of heat and destruction into his endlessly grinding stone wheel.
It would burn everything, that aura. Lindon came to think of it as a hungry power: the blazing drive for more, more, more. It filled him as he cycled, until he wanted to tear the Enforcer Trial apart with his teeth.