by Will Wight
She lowered her hand, giving him a puzzled look. “You'll never take my uncle's place.”
“Surely the Skysworn could use a second Underlord who isn't in command. Especially now.”
Saeya chewed on that for a moment. She started to turn, then she shook her head, then she threw up her hands, then she folded them again. It was like watching two women have a debate in one body.
In the end, she gave a frustrated sigh. “Fine, listen. Here's what I'll do. After you help me hunt down the last Underlord emissaries, I'll get you in to see my brother.”
“Or I could slip in there myself,” Eithan countered.
“You're fighting one way or the other. You know he's just going to tell you to get back out there. Do it, make yourself look good, and he'll listen to you.”
That made some sense. It was a large part of the reason why he'd tried to get an audience instead of popping up in the Emperor's home; he needed to stay on Naru Huan's good side.
Eithan turned and saluted the Imperial clerk with both fists pressed together. “Excuse me, madam. It seems that I will no longer need your assistance.”
She sniffed at him and turned back to her work.
He gestured for Naru Saeya to lead the way out; not only was it polite, but he couldn't push past her without shoving her wings out of the way.
“We'll be taking the fight to them,” Saeya said eagerly, wings trembling. “We might be able to rid ourselves of them for good.”
That reminded Eithan of an idea he'd been toying with for the last few weeks. His smile widened. “I would like to make a quick stop first.”
Chapter 4
Lindon burst through the next bubble, shivering and gasping for air. Spots of color blinded him as his lungs heaved. Another second, and he would have been breathing water.
Little Blue trembled on his shoulder. There were things in the water. Long, serpentine creatures with patches of glowing blue running down their sides. He had thought they were schools of fish from far away.
At least no one had followed them. He’d kept his perception behind him the whole way, and he hadn’t sensed anyone behind him. No one except those massive spotted serpents. He shuddered again.
Now his Blackflame core was all but useless, and his madra channels felt like sunburned skin that he had rubbed with sandpaper. He desperately wanted Little Blue to soothe him, but when she raised a hand to try, he stopped her.
She was weak, and her powers were needed elsewhere.
Orthos had stumbled out of the water after him, the light spilling from his cracked shell dim and weak. The instant he emerged onto dry land, his eyes rolled up into his skull and he collapsed.
Lindon dropped his box, carrying the Sylvan Riverseed over to him. She touched him, sending her soothing power into his channels; Lindon felt it through his connection to Orthos. He couldn’t tell if it made a difference.
Limbs and spirit trembling with exhaustion, Lindon took his first look around at their new bubble. It didn’t take him long.
All he could see was a forest of tall, drifting grass. He called it “grass” because he imagined this was what grass would look like if he were the size of an ant. Each blade was dark green and rose to the height of a tree. They swayed in an invisible ocean current, as though they were still submerged in water. There was plenty of room between each stalk, so Lindon could see some distance away, but all he saw were more plants.
Compared to the entrance, this place was dim and shadowed. Most of the light came from yellow discs rising in bunches from the sand. He thought they were scripted rune-lights at first, but upon closer inspection they looked more like naturally glowing plants. Surrounded by tree-sized stalks, the illumination cast a maze of drifting, dancing shadows.
A blue glow passed over the sand like a brief flash of starlight, and Lindon looked up. In the dark water overhead, a train of blue lights slid lazily past. It looked like a serpent constellation come to life, and Lindon shuddered, scooting farther from the wall of water. If the bubble hadn’t stopped him from entering, he had no reason to think it would stop one of these massive snakes.
Little Blue chimed in his ear from her spot on his shoulder, and he turned to Orthos. His spirit was still weak, his breathing unsteady. Before anything else, he needed to get Orthos some help.
He had to cycle pure madra to his limbs just for the strength to stand up, and his Bloodforged Iron body was hard at work repairing scrapes and bruises he never knew he had. He had the Eye of the Deep, so he just needed to find a door. Behind that door would be something that could help him. He didn’t know what exactly that would be, but he had to believe it.
The forest of sand and waving sea-grass didn’t suggest any direction, but it stood to reason that any exit would be against a wall. If it turns out there was no wall, and he was trapped in a bubble at the bottom of an endless ocean world…well, then he would have to wait for the others to find a way to save him. Yerin, at least, wouldn’t leave him here.
As long as there was a way for them to find him, with the portal destroyed and the key on this side. That was the sticking point.
Lindon set off walking away from the wall of water, carrying his boxed possessions in his arm of flesh. He didn’t have the madra to spare to run it through his Remnant arm and prevent it from passing through the box, so he just carried it one-handed.
Lindon was counting on his footprints in the sand to lead him back to Orthos. He would prefer to take the sacred turtle with him, but Orthos’ bulk made that easier said than done. He had to scout the way first, and just hope that Orthos could hang on until he made it back.
Dread and panic pushed in like darkness outside the bubble, but he pushed it aside and reached into his box for the Eye of the Deep.
The round, cut gem was slightly larger than his fist. It felt warm in his hand, although that could have just been in contrast to the icy chill of the water outside. He glanced from side to side as he walked, trying not to miss any movement in the drifting shadows of the sea-stalks, but a thread of his madra plunged into the sapphire.
The crack in the sapphire leaked another breath of dissipating madra. The internal construct was damaged. He needed to seal the breach in the sapphire or transfer the construct before it lost structure entirely; every puff of escaping madra was another piece of the construct lost. It would dissolve eventually, but it would be useless to him long before that.
This time, the construct activated. A spiritual tug pulled his attention in one direction, where a spark of blue light only he could see hovered over the stalks. He wasn’t sure exactly what the construct was showing him—he wasn’t trained in the use of this construct, so he could be headed for an exit, a broom closet, or anything in between.
But it was something. He returned the Eye to the box and trudged on.
Lindon marched with eyes open and senses stretched. He kept his spiritual perception light and close, to avoid accidentally brushing across any enemies, but he couldn’t march forward blind. The air smelled like fish and salt water with a few hints of flowers, as though he trucked through a seaside garden.
There were no prints on the sand besides his. He hoped he was alone down here; Ghostwater was supposed to have been abandoned until recently, after all.
A sudden, harsh noise echoed in the distance, like a whispered scream.
He froze, weighing the risk of extending his spiritual perception. Whatever it was, it wasn’t close, so he cautiously took another step forward.
Blue light flowed around the shadow of a nearby stalk.
He expected another of those luminous serpents in the dark water overhead, but his spiritual senses screamed a warning and his eyes snapped up.
From behind the nearest blade of grass emerged a fish the size of a bear. It swam through the air as though through water, and its fanged mouth couldn’t close fully over its needle-sharp teeth.
A quick flash of his Copper sight showed him blue-green aura gathered into a cushion beneath its fins.
/> It was swimming through water aura.
The fish’s silver scales rippled as it swam by only two feet from Lindon’s head. His scalp tensed at the discomfort of having those teeth so close, but the creature gave no sign that it had seen or sensed him. It drifted along, vanishing into the towering grass.
Back in the direction Lindon had come from.
Carefully, with no idea whether these things even had ears, Lindon turned and crept after it. He hated to be the kind of idiot who would follow a tiger back into the jungle, and he was haunted by images of the fish flashing out from behind a stalk in front of him with jaws open, but it might be headed for Orthos.
After a moment, that harsh shriek came again, but it was much closer this time. It stabbed his ears, followed by a shuffling sound like something digging through sand.
Lindon ran.
He hadn’t traveled far; it only took him a few seconds to retrace his footsteps to the gap in the stalks where he’d left Orthos.
The fish was eating him. It had the turtle’s shell in its massive fangs, and was working itself back and forth, trying to chew through the hard plate. Orthos’ body shook like a rag seized by a dog, spraying sand everywhere. The fish wasn’t getting anywhere with the shell, but it quickly bit another spot, and Orthos’ body turned a little more. Getting that much closer to exposing his underbelly.
The last of his Blackflame madra raged through Lindon’s channels.
His power gathered in his palm of flesh, a ball of dark, liquid fire. It would take a breath or two to condense enough that he could use it as a Striker technique, but as soon as Lindon began gathering power, the fish released Orthos. It spun around, baring its fangs and hissing at him.
Then, with an abrupt silver flash, it struck.
Lindon couldn’t split his concentration to ignite the Burning Cloak, but his right hand came up without his order. The skeletal, bone-white arm flew up eagerly, seizing the creature.
Slightly pointed nails met the creature’s scales and clawed for a grip. Madra flowed through the sacred beast, so his Remnant arm could seize it easily, but it wasn’t satisfied with only a handful.
His arm held the fish in place for an instant, dragging it to a halt, though the force of its resistance dragged Lindon through the sand. He almost lost his hold on the dragon’s breath technique, but he didn’t have the mental energy to wrestle his arm for control.
At last, black fire lanced out from his left hand. The bar of dark flame speared the fish through the middle, burning it from the inside out, and emerged from the fish's tail in a spray of smoke and burning chunks.
The madra continued at an upward slant, eventually hitting the water overhead and vanishing. His right hand drew on the handful of madra like a mosquito drawing blood, and it seemed to grow a little brighter. A brief impression of sated hunger passed through his spirit as the madra dissolved to essence.
A chorus of shrieks, identical to the one the fish had let out, rose in the distance.
Drawing from his pure core, which still shone bright as the moon in his spirit, he funneled power through his body and tucked the box under his left arm. Madra flowed through his replacement arm as well, and he seized the underside of Orthos’ shell in his white grip.
Box under his arm, Little Blue on his shoulder, Lindon dragged Orthos forward step by step.
Silver-blue light rose behind him, casting more waving shadows as he passed through the stalks, but he concentrated on pushing ahead. He didn’t have a hand to spare to pull out the Eye of the Deep, but the general direction was straight away from the wall where he’d entered.
Which was perfect, because a sacred fish’s Remnant was rising back there.
He pushed himself faster, though it felt like his knees would buckle with every step. This was where he needed the Burning Cloak, but not only had he totally exhausted his Path of Black Flame, his madra channels were at risk of serious injury if he kept straining them. Pure madra was far easier on the channels than Blackflame was.
He needed Little Blue’s help to recover. Better yet, he needed a spiritual healing elixir, a few good meals, and three days of rest.
More fish, identical to the first, darted out of the forest of stalks. The Remnant was nowhere to be seen, but the others circled him curiously one time. Then, with the single-minded unity of a school, they all turned to Lindon.
He extended his spiritual perception over them. The fish felt like furious whirlpools, and the Remnant like a raging river. But there was something else moving toward him, something that emerged from the darkness like dawn breaking.
Before the fish struck at him, a golden whip emerged and struck it on the scales, leaving a scorch-mark on silver.
Deafening shrieks rose once more, and the three fish turned in a fury on the source of that heat. Lindon didn't stay to watch the sacred beasts fight the dragon-girl; as soon as they moved to attack, he hauled Orthos away.
He'd never developed a full-body Enforcer technique for his Path of Twin Stars, so he had no way to efficiently cycle it to his limbs for strength. He was wasting madra like this, but without the power of his spirit, he would never have been able to haul Orthos' weight. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his elbow trembled where it met the white of his Remnant arm, and every breath was a labor.
Still, he pushed himself faster. She had chased him. He was certain she hadn't followed him immediately after he left, because she hadn't bothered to veil her spirit. He would have felt her approach.
Which meant she had waited before chasing him. Why? He wasn't sure why she cared to chase him at all, but if she did, why give him a head start? Fair play?
Her voice rose to match the shrieking fish, shouting insults at them and promising punishment for their insolence. She had started mocking a group of fish.
Well, considering that they gave off the same pressure as a Highgold and they were undoubtedly sacred beasts, maybe they were intelligent enough to understand her. Regardless, he could only hope they stalled her long enough for him to reach his destination.
And that this destination would actually save him.
Every step in the sand cost him another fraction of his pure madra, and Orthos' presence in his mind was a constant, dark well of weakness and suffering. Every time Lindon pulled on his shell, he worried that he would soon be pulling a corpse.
But his exhaustion didn't leave him much room to worry about others. Soon, his vision had narrowed to nothing but that point on the horizon, and his mind was filled with nothing but the next step.
He almost didn't realize when he arrived.
A huge shadow washed over him, and he jerked his sight up, certain for a moment that a fish was descending on him from overhead.
A rocky tower rose from the sand, slightly taller than the waving weeds all around. Wearily, Lindon dropped the box in his left hand and the giant turtle in his right. He fumbled for the latch, but his white hand passed right through it again. This time, he focused, cycling pure madra through his hand and flipping the box open.
After another moment of exhausted flailing, he came up with the fist-sized sapphire. When he poured another trickle of madra into it, he realized exactly how low he was; the construct drew out fully half of the power he had remaining.
It pointed him to the base of the stone tower.
Though he called it a tower, it looked natural, like a rough pillar that had been left standing after a river eroded the rest of a cliff over centuries. Only one aspect of its construction seemed artificial: a bowl-sized scoop out of the rock surrounded by delicate lines and barely perceptible script.
The Eye of the Deep showed him a blue light hovering over that indentation. It took a moment for his exhausted thoughts to click together, but once they did, he recognized the bowl for what it was: a keyhole.
Lindon stumbled forward, dropped to his knees, and pushed the sapphire inside.
With a sound like milk slurped through a straw, the rock melted. Even the keyhole disappeared, leaving him holdin
g the Eye and staring into a dark tunnel.
Dry wind whispered out, carrying the scent of dust...and a hint of coppery blood and something sickly sweet, like a whiff of garbage. The tunnel extended down, beneath the level of the sand outside, and the walls were covered in long scratches. Another keyhole rested in the tunnel wall to the right.
The wind from the tunnel whistled, and Lindon realized that he could no longer hear the fish shrieking.
A bland, unremarkable-looking man in pressed white appeared out of nowhere to Lindon's right, hands folded behind his back. He looked down on Lindon and spoke in a quiet voice.
“Shall I detain him?”
With the last of his madra, Lindon pushed Orthos down into the tunnel. He could barely fit, and he slid a few feet down the smooth, sloped floor before coming to a halt. His consciousness didn't flicker.
“I think we have a moment to bargain,” the golden dragon-girl said airily, stepping from among the stalks. A disc of shining gold liquid floated behind her head like a halo, she held a whip of the same madra in one hand, and her footsteps hissed on the sand. Some sort of Enforcer technique, he was certain.
There were long, pale scratches across her golden scales. The fish must have tried to bite her, but failed to penetrate her hide.
She pointed with one claw to the jewel. “Give that to me, and you may live. Give me your box without complaint, and you may follow me as my attendant until I withdraw.”
Lindon tucked the box under his left arm and gripped the Eye of the Deep in his right. He had to hope his Remnant arm didn't decide to disobey him now. “I apologize, honored lady. Perhaps once I have had a night's sleep.”
Then he jumped backward, slamming the Eye into the keyhole on the wall.
As he'd hoped, the wall reformed immediately.
But not before gold madra sprayed into the tunnel, filling it with burning heat. He flinched back, but then the wall finished forming, blocking the rest of her attack.