by Gage Lee
Samara looked away from me quickly, fixing her eyes on the ceiling. She was so stiff the muscles in her arms and legs trembled. Augustus, on the other hand, stared at me defiantly, but didn’t raise his hand or say a word. He was scared, but he was also angry.
Like I had been when I came to the School all those years ago.
“I’ll do it,” Race said.
“Awesome,” I said, favoring him with the widest, warmest smile I could muster. “Just relax and cycle your breathing. If you feel uncomfortable at all, let me know. Okay?”
I’d approached Race’s table while I spoke, careful to keep my hands visible and my voice calm at all times. These kids had probably been poked and prodded by doctors with needles and thermometers and who knew what else since they’d come down with this unusual ailment. I wanted them to know that I didn’t intend to touch or hurt them.
Tycho watched me patiently, while Hahen busied himself cleaning glassware and preparing vessels and vials I’d use for the rest of my shift.
“It hurts a little,” Race said. “Can I stop cycling?”
“Just a little longer,” I said. The boy’s pained voice helped focus my attention, and soon I was looking at the complex network of channels that emanated from his core and ran through his body.
And what I saw was deeply troubling.
What looked like black ash clogged Race’s channels. The jinsei that flowed through them was sluggish and tainted, as if it had picked up negative aspects somewhere between the kid’s core and his channels.
I wasn’t even sure how that was possible.
Besides that damage, Race had the same split thread of fate that had troubled Rachel. Fortunately, his split was less severe and easier to repair. It only took a handful of quick knots to merge the two halves of the forked Thread, and no mystery spells jumped out to eat my face.
Augustus and Samara looked like they’d be just as quick to patch up, even though they too had significant damage to their channels. I caught Hahen watching me while I rested between the last two, and he gave me a quick shake of his head.
This is what he’d made me promise not to freak out about. The little rat spirit knew Tycho, or someone, had hurt these kids. As much as I wanted to break my promise and lay into the sage until I got some answers, that wasn’t the right thing to do.
“You’re next,” I said to Samara. “You saw how Augustus and Race did. You guys didn’t feel a thing, did you?”
The boys both shook their heads enthusiastically, and Race gave Samara a thumbs-up. “It’s easy,” he said. “He didn’t even make me drink any jinsei.”
“Okay,” Samara said in a mousey voice. “Can we...”
She glanced over my shoulder at where Tycho waited. She didn’t say another word, but the terror in her eyes spoke volumes. I touched her arm, gently, and nodded. “Let me talk to him.”
It was hard to keep my voice down, and even harder to be reasonable as I approached Tycho. The man horrified Samara. I wanted to shake him until the truth fell out.
But I’d made a promise to Hahen, and the little rat spirit was right. Confronting Tycho wouldn’t solve anything.
“Sage Reyes,” I said, “my patient is a little distressed, and I think your imposing presence makes her nervous. You’ve seen me perform the procedure on the other two, and this one will be more of the same. Could I ask you to step outside while I finish up?”
Tycho’s eyes narrowed at the request. He tried to look past me, and I moved to the left to keep myself between him and Samara. He turned the full weight of his attention on me, and I braced myself to resist it.
I’d promised Hahen I wouldn’t start a fight. I’d never said Tycho could walk all over me.
The sage and I stared at one another for a long, dangerous handful of seconds. If either of us had made a move, we’d have traded blows a split second later. We kept our cool, though, until I finally looked away to let Tycho save face.
“My departure is unnecessary,” Tycho said. “Carry on.”
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed to Samara as I returned to her examination table. “I tried.”
“It’s okay,” she whispered when I reached her side. “That’s how he always is.”
“What do you mean?” I murmured as I went to work.
Samara’s split thread of fate was the longest I’d seen so far. It spiraled up toward the ceiling, then speared off to the back of the room. It was easy to follow with my eyes, because while it was thinner than a healthy Thread, it was still quite prominent.
“During the treatments,” she whispered. “He wants to see them all.”
The Thread roamed around the laboratory, a lazy spiral that grew longer by the second. It also grew stronger as fear aspects clogged Samara’s aura, and I realized she was remembering something.
Something bad.
“What treatments?” I asked, and then louder, to throw Tycho off the scent, “Almost done. Just relax.”
I glanced back at Tycho and threw him a thumbs-up. What I was really doing was following the thread to see where the split end wound up.
Tycho smiled back at me, a thin, brittle expression. He wouldn’t have even tried to look happy if he’d known what I’d just seen.
“They make us breathe jinsei,” Samara whispered. “Until it burns, Jace. We get so full, and it hurts so bad.”
It took every ounce of strength I had to keep the rage out of my aura. Tycho was using these kids. Not like he’d used me, but in a way that was somehow even worse. He was pushing them to advance, but at a terrible cost. He could have already crippled some of them.
Or killed them.
“I’m sorry,” I said and corralled her split thread. It took me a few seconds to fix it, but I got one more good look at where the smaller tail went before I bound it.
That Thread led straight to Tycho Reyes.
The Theory
IT WAS A STRUGGLE TO keep my promise to Hahen while I completed work on Samara’s core. Her Thread aimed at Tycho like an accusing finger lit a bonfire of anger in me. It meant he was behind the pain these kids had suffered.
Just like he’d been the source of my pain for so long. I’d rid myself of him not once, but twice, and now he was back to torment me again.
And that was my fault. I’d brought him back. That laid some part of Samara’s and the boys’ pain at my feet.
“All better,” I lied as I tied off the last strand of Samara’s errant Thread. Nothing would be all better until I’d dealt with Tycho. “You should be fine to cycle, now.”
“Excellent,” Tycho said, a little too eagerly. “You’re all dismissed. I’ll see you all in training tomorrow.”
All three of the kids audibly gulped at their elder’s words. Samara gave me a pained glance and bit her lip.
I wanted to punch Tycho square in the snout.
Hahen was right, though. I couldn’t afford to start a fight with the sage when so much depended on me. I’d never solve the Flame’s cryptic clues if I wound up in a prison somewhere. Better to hold my tongue, bide my time, and then deal with this jerk when it wouldn’t affect anyone else.
I helped the kids down from their examination tables, whispered words of encouragement to the three of them, then turned and bowed to Sage Reyes. “Thank you for witnessing these procedures,” I said through gritted teeth. “If there are any others who need my attention, please let me know.”
Tycho returned the bow, so shallow his gesture was little more than a bob of his head. “My clan members are grateful for your aid, Jace. They have much work to do.”
The kids scurried past him as he spoke, their shoulders hunched like they were afraid he’d smack them in the backs of their heads if they weren’t quick enough to leave the laboratory.
“I’m happy to be of service,” I said through the fake smile plastered to my face. “I’ll get to work on purifying jinsei.”
With a “carry on” wave of his hand, the sage pivoted and floated through the exit. Hahen and I both remained fr
ozen in place for a few seconds to make sure he was truly gone before either of us spoke.
“The room is clear,” Hahen said. “I used Tycho’s distraction to search for any listening or farcasting devices in the immediate vicinity. I would imagine he wants his private areas clear to keep his dealings secure.”
That made sense. It was good to know the space where I spent so much time was clear to talk with Hahen. “He did something to those kids.”
“He is their elder,” the rat spirit said as he guided a cart toward a workstation. “It’s his right to push his clan members in whatever ways he sees fit.”
I perched on a lab stool next to Hahen. A neat array of crystalline containment vessels covered the top half of the cart. The lower section held two waste jugs already rigged up to my filtration mask. “I hate talking through this thing,” I said, and strapped the bulky contraption to my face.
“It’s more efficient,” Hahen said. “Tell me what you saw that has you so upset.”
It was annoying to talk while filtering jinsei, but Tycho kept careful track of the amount of purified jinsei I produced every day. If I was even a little short, he’d want to know why. Better to accept the aggravation than risk his wrath.
I gulped in a deep breath of waste from the container, then described to Hahen the damage I’d seen on those kids’ channels. By the time I’d finished my description, my core had isolated the purified jinsei from its aspects and stored both in their respective vessels.
“That is channel burn,” Hahen said. “It shouldn’t be possible in ones so young. Their cores are too weak to overload their bodies.”
“Not if someone pumps them full of sacred energy,” I said. “That must be what Tycho is doing with all of this jinsei I purify.”
Hahen let out a frustrated sigh and nodded. “I’m sure you’re right. But I don’t think it’s our concern. You have bigger problems to deal with.”
I didn’t want to agree with my mentor. I had to stop Tycho. But if I spent my efforts fighting him, I put the Design at risk. Stopping the sage in the short run did no good if we lost everything in the longer term.
“You’re right,” I said. “We need to focus on what’s most important. But I still don’t know how to build the temple.”
Hahen clambered up onto the workstation to my left and dangled his legs off its edge. “What did your messenger tell you about where to start?”
I thought back to the mirrored room and the version of me the Flame had sent to fill me in. “He said to begin with the key that unlocked the doors to the School of Swords and Serpents for me.”
Hahen bobbed his head a bit from side to side as he considered my words. “And what do you think that means?”
“I got into the School because of my fight with Hank,” I said. “Or, really, because of the trick I used in that match.”
“The fabled Jinsei Nova Punch?” Hahen asked with a faint grin as I took a deep breath of fouled sacred energy. “Some say that was cheating.”
“Hank nearly killed a contender that day,” I said. “And there weren’t any rules against what I did. But I don’t think that’s helpful. It can’t have anything to do with that punch, or jinsei. Jinsei is just too common to be the key.”
Hahen drummed his nails on the workstation’s surface. “And I’m sure it has nothing to do with the Champion at the time. Hank was a useful tool for Grayson and his allies, but his star has faded. Surely the answer doesn’t lie with him.”
There had to be something there, though. The Flame’s clues were obscure, just like Maps’ hints. Neither of them could directly tell me what I needed to do without risking a paradox in the Grand Design. But they couldn’t be impossible to figure out or what would be the point? I mulled over what the Flame had told me until a bolt of inspiration hit me.
“It must have something to do with the Five Dragon Challenge itself,” I said. “What if he meant back to the start of the tournaments?”
Hahen gestured toward the tank. “Fill up again. You may be onto something. But the Five Dragon Challenge is ancient. It started as a method for the most powerful Empyreals to settle disputes without laying waste to the entire countryside.”
“If it was for Empyreals, then why name it after dragons?” I asked as my core filtered more jinsei.
“Because the dragons invented it.” Hahen chuckled. “This was in the days before humans had their place of pride in the Flame’s world. The most powerful among the dragons had grown weary with the Empyreals’ constant battling. They suggested the challenge and named it after their leaders.”
The first pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. I took a deep breath to draw in more corrupted jinsei, then chased after my idea. “The Five Dragons were the dragon version of the Five Sacred sages?”
Hahen pulled the full vials off the cart and neatly arranged them on the workstation as he answered my question. “Yes, that is the legend. No one called them ‘sacred’ at the time, though. On one side were the Five Dragons, and on the other, the Five sages. Those two groups worked together to avoid conflict between the two greatest mortal factions.”
That made sense. Dragons and humans had a lot of battles in the age of myths, and the losses had been terrible on both sides. Eric had dug up that info during the first leg of our quest to find the Umbral Forge. Stopping the bloodshed would have been a top priority for both sides.
But it still didn’t shed any light on my quest. I filled up on waste while I considered my next question. The Five Dragon Challenge had once been a critically important part of mortal culture. Somehow, it had gone from being the equivalent of the world court to an admissions test for the School of Swords and Serpents. “Why did the challenge change?”
Hahen pulled his knees up and rested his chin on them. “Relations between humans and dragons fell apart. Neither side would listen to the other. Eventually, the Flame had to step in to keep them from destroying the entire world.”
“The compact,” I said.
“Yes,” Hahen agreed. “When the Flame decided that humans should safeguard the Design, the Five sages added ‘sacred’ to their name. They also demanded that the Five Dragons be disbanded. Legend says the sages wanted the most powerful dragon slain so they could not challenge their rule, but their request was denied.”
Hahen pointed at the tank when I opened my mouth to ask another question. I reloaded on the waste and let my question percolate for a few seconds before asking. “Did they become the Scaled Council?”
“No,” my mentor said. “That is a much more recent invention by the dragons. It has no authority outside of Shambala, though the power represented by the Council earns them some clout with human leaders. The Five Dragons went into exile. They were amongst the most powerful mortals who’d ever lived. If that legend is true, then they are certainly still alive to this day.”
Excitement bubbled up in my chest as I finished another round of purification. The Flame had talked about balance. Maybe the exile of those powerful dragons was where things fell apart. Without powerful rivals to keep them in check, the ancient Empyreals could’ve stepped off the Design. Maybe just a little at first. But as time passed and nothing bad happened, they got bolder.
The Five Dragons had to be the key to all this. They were powerful enough to stop the sages from destroying everything while I completed my quest. And, more importantly, I wouldn’t have to worry about them telling Tycho and his buddies what I was up to. The exiles surely had no love for the descendants of their ancient enemies.
That might mean those ancient beings would try to eat me, but that was a problem for future Jace.
Suddenly, the turn of phrase didn’t seem so funny.
“We have to find those dragons,” I said. “Did the legend say where they went into exile?”
The rat spirit wagged a finger at me. “They returned to their home. But you can’t go there.”
My excitement grew. “I can go to Shambala. I’ve done it more than once. I even know the coordinates. It
might take a few bribes, but—”
Hahen chuckled at my confidence. “You don’t understand. The home of dragons was not Shambala. They lived on the Isle of Ultima Thule in the beginning.”
My excitement dwindled and my heart dropped. “The Island Beyond Time,” I said. “There was a farcaster series about the place when I was growing up. It’s just a legend.”
“Very true,” my mentor said. “But so was the Umbral Forge. So were Eclipse Warriors until you.”
Hahen’s words lifted my spirits. He was right. Everything I’d done to get into the School and stay there would one day be the stuff of legends. False cores, killing an evil mother, battles between men and dragons, relighting the fires of the Flame. None of those things should’ve been possible for a kid from the undercity labor camps.
And yet I’d dealt with all those problems.
I’d find Ultima Thule, somehow.
I had to.
The Rematch
HAHEN AND I STARTED our daring plan to find Ultima Thule in the most exciting place I could imagine.
The library.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t the most exciting place to begin a quest, but it was the most logical. We needed information that could best be found in musty old tomes, so we headed to the mustiest rooms I knew.
Unfortunately, the renovations that had begun during my apprenticeship year had ramped up in the intervening months. The once-familiar stacks of books were now a foreign maze of branching hallways lined with built-in shelves stuffed with orderly ranks of academic journals, mystical tomes, and encyclopedic volumes covering everything from jinsei theory to alchemical crafting. A string of numbers marked the end of each hallway.
“What do those mean?” Hahen asked me, pointing at a placard.
“How should I know?” I responded, frustrated.
“One of us spent time as a Scholar, so I thought, maybe,” Hahen said.
“Well, you’re wrong,” I grumbled, and immediately felt bad about snapping at my mentor. “I apologize. They changed the entire library from what I remember.”