Eternal Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 6)

by Gage Lee

  “We’ll start with that,” she agreed. “But if I’m unconvinced of your story, we’ll do things my way.”

  I shrugged. “Fine. One of the sages is up to something very naughty. Something bad enough it could cause a real ruckus among the common folk.”

  That was only partially true. Tycho was up to no good, but Empyreal society gave him a great deal of latitude in how he treated his clan members. Sure, some Empyreals would be outraged when they found out he stuffed kids so full of jinsei their channels caught fire, but he was virtually untouchable as long as he didn’t outright murder one of them.

  The elder didn’t have to know those details, though. Not until I had what I wanted.

  “That is interesting,” she said. “Give me his or her name, and I’ll guarantee that I won’t look into your comings and goings for at least a week.”

  “A month,” I shot back.

  “A week,” she said.

  I pretended not to glance at the elder’s aura. There were no deceit or guile aspects lodged there, but you didn’t get to be her age and position without knowing how to lie. “If I tell you which sage, you won’t interfere in my life for a full week?”

  She hesitated, but not for long. Knowing which sage was doing dirty work gave her leverage. Even if the real crime turned out to be less than juicy, the elder could still use their identity to secure more powerful political favors or more valuable information from other interested parties. If she was truly insane, she could go straight at Tycho and hope the innuendo would panic him into surrendering.

  “One week without further investigation on my part,” she repeated, “but I can’t do anything about the Guardians watching you. Or whoever put them on your tail.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “And if you go back on your word, I’ll never trust you again.”

  That got Dusalia’s back up. “Don’t presume to speak to me like that again, boy.”

  “Be very careful who you call boy,” I warned. “The last elder who thought he could boss me around found out just how wrong he was. And the sage involved in the scandalous behavior is Tycho Reyes.”

  The elder paled and glanced around the room as if expecting the sage to appear out of a secret hatch and smite her. “Never say that name to me again,” the elder said. “You cannot cross blades with him and expect to live.”

  “Been there, got the T-shirt,” I said with a feigned yawn. “Talk to you in a week. No sooner.”

  “If you give me more information,” she said, “I could protect you.”

  “Don’t lie,” I said with a snort. “The only person you’re worried about is yourself. And you should be. Tycho plays for keeps. But so do I. The difference between you and me is that I can take care of myself.”

  Dusalia seemed on the verge of pushing for something else, but shook her head and eased her chair back from the table, instead. “You have no idea how powerful and ruthless Reyes can be.”

  I gestured to the door. “Yeah, I’ve got a pretty good idea what a bad boy Tycho Reyes is. You can see yourself out.”

  The elder bristled at my tone. For a moment, I thought she’d try to do something about it. One look at my black eyes told her what a dumb idea that would be. She was still an artist. Even her wily years of experience wouldn’t save her from the raw power I’d bring to bear if a fight broke out, and she knew it.

  She left, slamming the door behind her. She was mad, but that didn’t matter even a little. I’d had my first real showdown with my clan’s elder, and she’d backed down. No matter what happened in the future, we’d both know she was the one who blinked first.

  And that put me on top.

  I downed the coffee that she hadn’t touched. I grimaced, because it was too hot, too bitter, and so acidic it felt like it would strip the enamel off my teeth.

  That was all right.

  I’d won, and that was worth a little pain.

  The Sandcastle

  HAHEN EMERGED FROM the wall that separated my bedroom from the common area. He twitched his whiskers and pointed toward the door. “She is not your friend,” he said confidently. “And you shouldn’t make deals with her.”

  “I didn’t have a lot of choice,” I said. “She’s my clan elder. If I didn’t work a deal with her, she’d harass me for the rest of the year. Then I’d never finish the quest.”

  “She’ll be back in a week sniffing around for more,” he said.

  “I’ll deal with it in a week,” I said. “What’s on today’s agenda?”

  Hahen grumbled and glanced meaningfully toward the assignment sheet still lying on my desk. “You begin Master Scrivening courses with Ishigara today.”

  I groaned inwardly and shook my head. I was not good at scrivening, no matter what Hahen said. When I found the idiot who’d decided I should be in the high-level class, I’d strangle them.

  “Before we go out there with the Guardians,” Hahen said, “have you rethought this plan to see Niddhogg?”

  “I have not,” I said. “I need a lead on where the dragons’ island used to be. If I find that, I’m only one step away from Ultima Thule and getting the help I need.”

  “Just... you must be very careful,” Hahen said. “If Shambala’s people find you, no deal will get you out of their prison.”

  “You’re just full of good news this early in the morning,” I said. “Yes, I’ve thought of it. I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it.”

  “I don’t think that’s how that expression goes,” Hahen said.

  “It is for me,” I said.

  The Guardians followed us all the way to the scriptorium. Their presence was still extremely annoying, because Hahen and I didn’t dare talk about anything real while they were around. We walked in silence to Ishigara’s classroom.

  “I’ll see you later tonight,” Hahen said. “I’ll bring dinner to your room to give you more time to study.”

  I bowed low to my mentor, grateful that there was at least one person I could always depend on. “Thank you, honored Master.”

  Class was about to begin, but the scriptorium’s chairs were mostly empty. Hank gave me an agreeable nod when I entered the classroom, as did the other four students. Rozzi was the only one besides Hank I recognized, which made me wonder how many sixth-year classmates I had.

  I took a seat and did a quick review of the supplies laid out in front of each seat at the long tables. We each had a scribing tool, several sheets of polished silver as thin as paper, a few two-inch-square copper tiles, practice pages with squares, circles, and triangles already laid out on them in basic patterns, fountain pens, and several bottles of ink in various colors. Ishigara had provided all the necessary equipment. I imagined she’d torture me with the most complex designs I’d ever seen this year.

  I was more nervous about this than I had been in either geomancy or martial arts mastery courses. Hahen had insisted I’d become a decent scrivener during my year and a half out with the Flame, but I had zero memory of that. I still felt clumsy and useless when I put my hand on the scribing tool.

  Ishigara swept in through the scriptorium’s door and clapped her hands together, jarring me from my moment of self-pitying worry.

  “Welcome to your final scrivening class, students,” she said, taking position behind the lectern at the head of the room. “This will be a challenging week, but I have every faith you will master the techniques presented to you. Let’s jump in. Today, I will teach you about jinsei conduits.”

  Ishigara turned to the blackboard behind her and used a thick piece of chalk to draw a complex mandala flanked by strange symbols. I tried to make sense of the professor’s strokes, but it was all gibberish to me. I glanced around at the classroom, hoping I wasn’t the only one who looked perplexed. To my relief, the other students seemed as dumbstruck as me. Ishigara had jumped right into the deep end with this lesson and hadn’t even tossed us a life preserver.

  “As you can see,” she said, tapping a symbol to the left of the mandala, “it is possible to crea
te a scrivening that bridges a source of sacred energy to a consumer.”

  She tapped a symbol on the right side of the board, then made a gesture as if that made it all so obvious.

  The professor returned to the lectern and dangled her hands over the front edge. She smiled at me and asked, “What does all this mean, practically speaking, Mr. Warin?”

  I froze like a deer in the headlights. My eyes skittered across the blackboard, searching for meaning in the alien symbols. Something about them tickled the back of my thoughts, and I struggled to draw some sense out of my memories. A hunch grew in the back of my mind, and I chased after it.

  “If the scrivening is attached to the consumer, then the distance to the power source would be irrelevant,” I offered. “You could draw on power other than your own to fuel techniques. With a large enough reservoir, you could accomplish amazing feats.”

  Ishigara nodded, then raised one lacquered nail. “Can anyone see the problem with Mr. Warin’s explanation?”

  Rozzi’s hand shot into the air a few seats ahead of me. “You couldn’t channel from your core while also channeling from the alternate source?”

  Ishigara snapped her fingers and pointed at Rozzi. “You’re exactly right. The most efficient method of using an external source requires soul scrivenings to create a perfect circuit. But then you won’t be able to cycle.”

  My brow furrowed and I concentrated on Ishigara’s drawing. The symbols swam in and out of focus, unlocking memories, or fragments of them. The fragments of the past were fuzzy and lacked detail, but the essence was there. I’d done something like this with the Flame. It was hard to dredge up the specifics, but connecting power sources and elemental pools was an important part of the Grand Design. There was more to it, but I couldn’t make the pieces fit together.

  And that was how the rest of my Master Scrivening class went.

  Every day I struggled to rescue memories of skills I’d once had while just barely completing the assignments that Ishigara dropped on us. The professor seemed bemused by the troubles I had, but didn’t offer any advice. Her method of teaching was to give us a brief example of a theory, give us that day’s assignment, then put her feet up on her desk and read a book.

  It was frustrating as a student, but at least I wasn’t in Tycho’s lab.

  On the final day of our course, Ishigara supplied us each with several vials of jinsei. “During this week, I’ve taught you to draw on other power sources, how to combine several power sources into one, and how to control the flow of energy through the scrivenings circuits you design. Today’s assignment is both simple and complex. Build something to impress me.”

  With that, Ishigara marched over to her desk, sat back in her chair, and opened a well-worn book.

  As my professor read, I struggled to come up with a single idea that didn’t seem dumb. My task was made all the harder by the fact that she still believed I was a skilled scrivener, rather than the very terrible practitioner I truly was. No matter what I built, it would fall flat when compared to the work of Jace from last year.

  In the end, I gave up on impressing anyone.

  Instead, I focused on my quest. A big part of that was creating the Temple of Maps, a project that had seemed impossible when the Flame dropped it on me. It was only marginally less ludicrous now, but I’d learned a lot in the months since then.

  I went to work, inscribing a slight variation of the first scrivening Ishigara had shown us at the beginning of this class. The symbols took shape, slowly and uncertainly, on a silver sheet. Once I’d finished the main body of the circuit, I went to work on the symbols that would flank it.

  The left-hand side of the scrivening represented the input to the circuit. I only drew a single symbol on that side, then reinforced it with concentric circles that radiated out from it like a bull’s-eye target. The scrivenings I created were very basic, but they were strong. It would take an enormous amount of power to break through them.

  Which was good, because I planned to connect the scrivening up to a massive source.

  I left the crucial connection empty to protect myself, then added a few more rings, just to be on the safe side. Ishigara would not be impressed if I incinerated half the classroom the second I connected my scrivening.

  The soul scrivenings were a little more difficult, but it didn’t take me long to create a solid connection between my core and the talisman. A handful of jump stitches created a secondary connection from where the talisman entered my core to a loose cord of sacred energy I’d left dangling.

  I placed that connection to the cord on the right side of the circle, which was technically the output side, but that’s where it made the most sense to me. Then I wove a spell to its loose end. The narrow funnel would attract elemental aspects when I powered it up. I’d made it so small to restrict the size and power of those aspects. I wanted a proof of concept, not a dump truck.

  Satisfied that my spell would hold against the elemental power connected to it, I completed the last scrivenings on the talisman itself. The connection points hummed with suppressed power as I drew those last lines, and when the final scrivened arc connected to the dragon line nexus I’d found near the classroom, a sharp snap like a breaking icicle drew every eye in the room to me.

  Ishigara peered over the top of her book, her eyebrows beetled in concentration.

  “What, exactly, are you doing?” she asked.

  Flustered, I took my eyes away from my project for a moment. “Impressing you?”

  Stinging pain in my core drew my attention back to the talisman. Its edges glowed white hot, and curls of smoke drifted up from where the corners had scorched the table.

  Feedback from the nexus caused sharp, stabbing pains in my core. The power from the nexus was far greater than I’d imagined. I couldn’t cycle it, because my core was tied to the soul scrivening, so the energy bounced back into the talisman, only to redouble and come back at my core. The power intensified with every loop through the circuit, and the scrivenings were overheating as a result.

  “Jace,” Ishigara said, “I think you need to break that connection.”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  This wasn’t just about the class. It was to prove that my theory worked. If I wanted to create the Temple of Maps, there was no way I could do it by hand. Sorcery was the answer to that problem, but for a project of that size, I’d need a truly massive amount of sacred energy. Transforming aspects into material objects that wouldn’t fall apart as soon as I stopped concentrating on them took ludicrous amounts of power.

  Power I wanted to at least experiment with in the classroom.

  I opened the funnel portion of the scrivening, and tiny earth aspects tumbled into it. I guided them down into the scrivening, where power from the dragon line nexus forced them to manifest.

  Layer by layer, a sandcastle appeared atop the talisman I’d inscribed. The layer of fine white granules absorbed some heat from the overloaded talisman, extending its life and preventing further damage to the worktable.

  My plan was working. It took a truly enormous amount of power to manifest elemental aspects into concrete objects. The talisman had already cooled, as most of the jinsei from the dragon line nexus was used up creating sand.

  “Jace,” Ishigara snapped, “I see what you’re trying to do. But I need you to stop.”

  There was panic in Ishigara’s voice, but I ignored it. Yes, I’d burned the desk a bit. And yes, sand ran off the edge of the table and onto the floor in thick streams, creating a ridiculous mess. In my mind, that was all right. Just a little overflow from my real project. And that was taking shape quite nicely.

  The sandcastle’s base was square, supported at its four corners by round towers. Fine details leaped from my thoughts onto the surface: a fanciful stonework pattern, fake windows scooped out of the walls, crenelations atop the towers, and heraldry above the fake doorway.

  It was pretty awesome, if I said so myself.

  “Jace!” Ishigara shout
ed. “Enough! Class dismissed. Everyone outside.”

  Ishigara’s worried tone distracted me from my project. Rivulets of sand trickled down from the nearly completed roof, marring the surface.

  “It’s okay,” I said, irritated at the disturbance. “It’s just a sandcastle!”

  But even as I said the words, I knew they weren’t true. Something shook the connection to the dragon line nexus, like a big fish grabbing the bait at the end of a line.

  Something was coming.

  “Cut the connection now!” Ishigara shouted.

  The other students hurried for the door, raising their own defenses and looking wildly around the room. Something was there, with us, straining against its bonds to be free. I glanced down at the talisman but couldn’t make out any details because the sandcastle I’d created hid it from my view. Frustrated, I summoned my serpents and they sliced through the structure in the blink of an eye. With the sand gone, the talisman glowed like a bolt of lightning frozen in mid-strike. Parts of it melted away entirely, leaving only the scrivenings themselves holding it together.

  The presence grew stronger and latched onto my sorcery to drain elemental aspects from it in greedy gulps. Overwhelmed by this alien presence, my spell frayed and the narrow funnel widened. The creature grabbed more and more stone elemental aspects. It gobbled up jinsei at the same time.

  A body took shape on top of the table. It stood almost eight feet tall, with long, simian arms tipped with clubs studded by jagged stone shards. The creature’s mouth was an open gash through its stone face, lined with serrated daggers of stone. The thing looked down at me and roared a terrifying challenge.

  “Who dares disturb my slumber?” The beast’s voice was more in my thoughts than my ears.

  “The connection, Jace,” Ishigara shouted, as if she hadn’t just heard the creature’s question. “Cut it loose!”

  “I didn’t intend to call you forth, noble spirit,” I shouted at the monster, and hoped it understood me. “Allow me to send you back from whence you came.”

  My serpents darted out to sever the sorcery and break the connections I’d forged through my talisman, but the elemental was having none of that. It bashed my serpents away, then slammed its foot down on the talisman, hiding it from my view.