Eternal Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 6)

by Gage Lee

  But he’d been in the way of what I wanted, and I hadn’t given him a second thought after knocking him down. That was not cool. It was time to make amends and see if I could learn something.

  “Walk me through what you did,” I said. “I’d like to see it up close.”

  Hank hesitated, then nodded with a faint grin. “Sure, man, no problem.”

  We spent the rest of the afternoon going through the technique.

  And we parted as, if not friends, at least not enemies.

  The Barriers

  UNFORTUNATELY, I DIDN’T get much more than Hank’s surly gratitude from Kalani’s intensive martial arts course. The technique she’d shown us was fantastic for someone with a wide variety of offensive attacks, but it was far less useful where my techniques were concerned. I tried a few things with Thief’s Shield, but nothing gelled, and the last day of class left me frustrated.

  When Kalani’s class ended, I spent far too much of my last Sunday night of freedom brooding over what came next.

  “This would be a lot easier with my friends,” I grumbled. Not even the mound of cafeteria food on the tray I’d brought back to my room improved my mood. I’d have traded all the roast beef, BLT sandwiches, parfaits, and pizza in the world for one dinner with my friends.

  “I know,” Hahen confided in me. “The good news is we get to go back to the library after you finish eating. That will be exciting!”

  My mentor truly loved the library, and I envied his excitement. We’d spent so much time prowling its halls, I was no longer certain we hadn’t covered the same ground multiple times. No matter how often we scoured the books on those shelves, though, we couldn’t find the missing piece of the puzzle. I’d spent every free evening reading books on dragons, mythology, and geography, and still hadn’t found any clues that would lead us to Ultima Thule’s location. Even worse, our frequent trips to the library had aroused the attention of the Guardian forces stationed in the School. While they hadn’t screwed up the courage to confront me so far, their tendency to follow me around the library made it clear a fight was on the horizon.

  The question was, why would anyone care what I was doing in the library?

  The bonus question was, who’d put the Guardians on my tail?

  A few days before Halloween, I decided to see just how far they’d follow me. “Stick close,” I said to Hahen. “Let’s see if we can lose our tail.”

  “I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Hahen said. “The Guardians are—”

  “Annoying me,” I said. It was hard to get used to my change in status. It seemed like only a few weeks ago that I’d been a clan elder with the grudging respect of the Consul Triad. Now I was just a student who’d landed on the sages’ naughty list. It irked me.

  A pair of Guardians followed us out of the library and stuck so close to my heels I couldn’t lose them in the School’s shifting architecture. After a quick tour of the older parts of the School, a small parade through a practice courtyard, and a brief detour through the waste disposal area, I gave up on losing the black-visored babysitters. Fine, if they wanted to be like that, then they could follow me on my errands.

  “Where are we going?” Hahen asked, whiskers twitching. It was hard to see my mentor so nervous. Tycho’s return had done a real number on him, and I made a silent vow to fix that problem just as soon as possible.

  I took us back toward the main campus. “I need to see about taking a holiday trip.”

  The Guardians followed us all the way to the portal network station, where a small group of unfamiliar technicians manned the equipment. Four more Guardians kept a watchful eye on the platforms, as if expecting danger to appear at any time. And it wasn’t just the technicians and guards who’d changed. The equipment itself seemed bulkier, as if it had layers of protective armor bolted onto its previously svelte frame.

  “Can I help you?” one technician, far too old to be a student, asked. He squinted at me through thick glasses smudged with fingerprints and cleared his throat.

  “I hope so,” I said, knowing the black orbs of my eyes spoiled my beaming smile. Since I’d advanced to master, it was impossible to hide their obsidian gleam. “I’m interested in booking transport to visit a friend over the holiday.”

  The technician glanced at the Guardians scattered around the station, then down at a monitor I couldn’t see behind the counter. The blue-green display swam in the lenses of his glasses, hiding his eyes from me for a moment. “I, ah, suppose we can arrange that. You’ll need a Form 1038Q, but as long as you can afford the transit fee and your list is an approved destination, you should have no problem booking a portal.”

  I missed the kid who used to run this terminal. All he’d ever asked for was a bribe. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not familiar with a Form 10... whatever you said. Where would I get one?”

  “You must pick one up from the administration office,” the technician said with obvious annoyance. “It requires two signatures, one from a parent or guardian—”

  “My parents are dead,” I said with a forced smile.

  The technician glanced around the room as if hoping for rescue, but no one came to his aid. The other technicians assigned to the station suddenly had urgent business as far away from us as they could get, and even the Guardians had focused their attention on everything but me.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” the technician said.

  “Don’t be,” I said. “Who else can sign off?”

  “Hmm, yes.” The technician’s hands flew over a keyboard with a rapid-fire rattle, and he puffed out his lower lip. “In that case, your lead instructor or, if you’re sixth- or seventh-year, your overseer will need to sign the 1038Q.”

  “And the second signature?” I asked, even though it didn’t matter in the slightest. Tycho would never sign off on my leaving the campus. He’d probably expect me to work over the entire holiday to keep his stash of jinsei nice and full. I bet those kids weren’t getting any time off from the experiments their clan performed on them, either.

  The technician gave me a bland smile as he read from the screen. “If you have no guardian, then a second signature isn’t needed.”

  That was some good luck. Now I just had to convince Tycho to get off my neck for two weeks, and I’d be able to go see my former friends. That was sure to be a fun trip.

  “You mentioned something about an approved destination list?” I asked. “Where am I allowed to go?”

  The technician’s fingers flew over the board, making me wonder why they hadn’t set up a quantic station here. That would have made all this much quicker. When he’d finally completed hammering on the plastic keys, the faint hum of a laser printer in action emanated from somewhere near the floor on his side of the desk. He kneeled down, flashing me a pink bald spot on the top of his head, then stood with a sheet of paper in his hand. “Here you are.” He handed me the sheet, which only had a few lines of text on its white face. “This is the current list of approved destinations for students of this fine institution. It changes frequently, though, so please check back before making any final plans.”

  It took me a single glance to read the entire list. “Chicago, Paris, and Seoul? Those are the only approved destinations.”

  “Yes,” the technician said. He gulped and looked away from my black eyes.

  “I see.” It took me a moment to push my anger down. This guy didn’t deserve to be freaked out. He was just doing his job. The person who deserved my wrath was much higher up the ladder, and I bet his name started with Tycho. “Thank you for your time.”

  I left the station, fuming on the inside, but smiling on the outside. I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me, and I didn’t want them to have the satisfaction of knowing they’d gotten under my skin. Hahen walked beside me, a smile stretched across his snout.

  “You handled that very well,” he said. “Quite mature.”

  “What, you expected I’d tear the place apart with my serpents?” I asked.
“I’m an adult, Hahen.”

  “Ah, yes,” he said, “it’s so easy to forget.”

  “You’re hilarious,” I shot right back. The Guardians were still behind us but weren’t close enough to listen in on our witty banter. Not that it mattered—working in the lab and poring over musty old tomes had worn me out too much to have any serious conversation. Figuring out the secret location of Ultima Thule would have to wait until tomorrow. I headed for the dorms.

  “I do my best,” Hahen said. “With Niddhogg gone, I have to keep my wit sharp, somehow.”

  “Glad to be your whetstone,” I said.

  We kept up like that until we reached the dormitory tower. The Guardians followed me all the way to my room, then stared at us from a few feet away while I zapped the lock open with a bit of jinsei. “You guys want to come in? I think I have some tea.”

  The Guardians said nothing.

  “Okay, cool,” I said. “So, will you two escort me to my assignment tomorrow, or can I expect a fresh pair of faces here in the morning?”

  Still no answer.

  “Right, right, I get it, operational security.” I nodded down the hallway. “The bathroom is in that direction if you need to use the facilities. Have a great night!”

  Hahen and I entered my room. When the door was locked behind me, the rat spirit waggled his finger up at me.

  “Do you have to antagonize them?” he asked.

  “Do they have to follow me?” I asked. “This is ridiculous, Hahen. I’m not a child, and I’m not a monster. They don’t have to trail after me like—”

  “Some people would disagree,” a woman’s soft voice came from the bedroom, and I tensed as a robed figure emerged into the common area with her face covered by a hood. “On both counts.”

  There was something familiar about that voice, but I couldn’t place it. She was a little shorter than me, and not even her robes could hide how skinny she was. The overlong sleeves of her black robes hid her hands, and the shadow that covered her face was impenetrable. She didn’t seem to be a threat, but I’d treat her like one until I knew more.

  “Tell me who you are and what you’re doing in my dorm before my serpents get stabby,” I said. The intrusion annoyed me, but at least my uninvited guest hadn’t started a brawl and wrecked my room.

  She glided past me to the table and took a seat. “I’ll give you one guess. It will be so disappointing if you can’t figure it out that easily.”

  The voice was so familiar. This was someone I knew. Someone I’d spent time speaking with, too, or I wouldn’t recognize even that much. It wasn’t Rachel or Clem, so...

  “Christina?” I asked.

  She shrugged and her hood slipped back, revealing the sharp eyes and foxlike features I knew so well. But there were differences, too, like the buzz-cut hair dyed a startling shade of purple and a notch cut out of the top of her left ear. She looked much older than I could account for, even with the missing months of my life, and her eyes were eerie mirrors, as featureless and shiny as ball bearings.

  “You got it,” she said through a wicked smile. “Now I don’t have to kill you.”

  “Funny,” I said, “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  The tension in the room tightened around us like a wire. Christina’s core had advanced to disciple-level since we’d been apart, which was no real threat to me, but she didn’t seem to know that. Her mirrored eyes were impossible to read, and there was a quiet strength to her that worried me. She might not have been kidding about trying to murder me.

  “All right,” I said, breaking the spell of silence and dropping into the chair opposite her. “What’s this all about?”

  My former student and current clanmate reached her hand across the table, palm up. “I’m just a messenger girl, okay? They thought you’d take it better from me.”

  “That’s a terrible way to start a conversation,” I said, frowning.

  Christina leaned farther forward and took my hand. “I know. And I hate this as much as you do. But our clan elder—”

  “It’s supposed to be me,” I cut her off. “You know that.”

  “Don’t do this.” She squeezed my hand. “You gave us up, Jace. That was your decision, not ours.”

  My stomach ached like she’d just punched me square in the gut. “I didn’t want to.”

  Explaining any of this to Christina was impossible. She knew bits and pieces of what I’d been through, but how could I make her understand that the me she’d known for the past year and a half wasn’t real? While I searched for the words, she got impatient and dove into the message she’d come to deliver.

  “The elder wants you to stop,” Christina said. “That’s the message. Stop.”

  “What?” I asked. I wasn’t about to sit in my dorm and listen to a vague command from an elder I didn’t even know. “She’ll have to be a lot more specific than four letters. You know how many things I do in a day? What, exactly, does she want me to stop?”

  Christina sighed and pulled her hood back up over her head. For a moment, the only part of her face that was visible were the mirror-smooth orbs of her eyes. “She said you’d know what she meant. And you do, so stop pretending. This is serious, Jace.”

  She pushed back from the table and headed for the door. When I caught her wrist through the fabric of her sleeve, I was shocked at how thin she really was.

  “Hey,” I said. “You know me. How did you think I’d take this?”

  She twisted her arm in my grip and latched her fingers around my wrist. Her shoulders shook, and tears choked her voice when she spoke. “For once, listen to your elder. She means it, Jace. Whatever you’re doing, stop.”

  “Or what?” I asked, concerned not just for myself, but for my friend.

  “They’ll stop you,” Christina said, and slipped from my grasp. Before I could ask her what that meant, she’d slipped out the door.

  The Geomancer

  AS MUCH AS I RESPECTED Christina, there was no way I’d let that warning from my clan elder stop my quest for the Flame. I ignored my Guardian escort, who now followed me from the minute I left my dorm room until I returned at night and kept right on keeping on. Hahen and I chased a thread of references to Ultima Thule through a series of volumes so old and crusty I wondered if I needed a tetanus booster to handle them. It was strange, because all the accounts we’d found of the mysterious place were about sailors stumbling across it during their voyages in the Pacific Ocean, but the eyewitness accounts insisted Ultima Thule was locked in ice and snow. Still, contradictory or not, those leads were all we had until I could get my hands on someone who knew more about the legend than we did.

  The First Scepter would have more information, but Shambala was definitely not on the approved destination list. Even if I could hop a portal to visit the Scaled Council, the hours Tycho demanded in his laboratory had reached ridiculous heights. Despite my core’s advanced level, I needed actual sleep more and more often as the physical, mental, and emotional effort of jinsei surgery and processing gallons of waste took its toll.

  By the time my next week of coursework rolled around toward the middle of November, I was so relieved to be out of that laboratory I nearly cried.

  The classroom was located deep beneath the School in a limestone cavern. Someone had smoothed out the stalagmites, leaving a smooth and level floor with space for six arcane circles, each three yards across, arranged in a half-circle with a raised dais and lectern at its center. Stalactites still clung to the domed ceiling, secured by jinsei bindings that filled the chamber with a steady white light. The scent of fresh water rose from small pools spaced evenly around the room’s perimeter. That clean aroma competed with blue-gray streamers of incense drifting from a bowl atop the lectern.

  My fellow students, none of whom I recognized, all piled into the room ahead of me and headed for the ritual circles without hesitation. That left me with one of the two spots in the arc’s middle. A young woman from the Thunder’s Children, her stone-gray ro
bes nearly as severe as her aquiline features, occupied the other central spot.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to be friendly. “I’m Jace, and—”

  “I know who you are,” she said, a faint blush rising in her cheeks. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong. Of course I know you. I’m Rozzi Doz. I transferred this year from Atlantis. It’s an honor to meet you.”

  Despite her pleasant demeanor, the fact that Rozzi was from Atlantis made my heart lurch in my chest. That was the Church of the Empyrean Flame’s seat of power, and the home of Inquisitors who’d held me prisoner and tortured me for an entire summer. I knew it was bad form to judge everyone from Atlantis the same, but it was hard to put the dark feelings behind me.

  Fortunately, the professor arrived before I had to make awkward small talk.

  And, by arrived, I mean she appeared behind the lectern in a flash of silver jinsei light and a sudden blast of air that sent a ring of incense smoke gusting from the bowl in front of her.

  That was a trick I needed to learn. A few of the elders I’d known created their own portals, too. If I had that technique in my arsenal, visiting my friends would be a snap. If I knew where they were, which I still didn’t.

  One more thing for me to investigate.

  “Welcome, students, to Geomancy. I am Professor Auralin, and it is my humble honor to take you on a journey the likes of which you’ve never seen.”

  With that pronouncement out of the way, our instructor launched into our first lesson. “The world is a living thing,” she explained, “and like all living things, it relies on the power of jinsei to sustain itself. The Earth’s core, deep beneath our feet, is a reservoir of this spiritual force. Unlike mortals, though, the Earth cannot use this jinsei for techniques. Nor does it consciously manipulate the sacred energy to power kicks or punches.”

  The professor paused for a moment to titter at her own joke, then continued, seemingly oblivious to the fact that no one else had as much as smirked.

  This was going to be a long week.