Reaper (Cradle Book 10)

  Copyright © 2021 by Hidden Gnome Publishing

  Book and Cover design by Patrick Foster Design

  Cover illustration by Kevin Mazutinec and Patrick Foster

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  WillWight.com

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Bloopers

  About the Author

  Also by Will Wight

  Prologue

  Information restricted: Personal Record 8154.

  Authorization required to access.

  Authorization confirmed: 008 Ozriel.

  Beginning record…

  Ozmanthus Arelius looked up into the ash falling from the sky and knew he’d failed.

  His descendants had died in droves, trusting in him. Techniques flashed through the air from miles away, and the earth trembled beneath his feet. He had done what he could to protect the innocents, but there was no bringing them back now. He could only break things.

  And once again, he hadn’t broken the right things quickly enough.

  He almost left the world immediately, abandoning what remained of his family to clean up after his failure. But he had not yet finished his work in Cradle. He needed to leave something behind.

  He looked down in his hand, where a small barrier in the shape of an orb contained a fragment of his power. To the mortal eye, it resembled a black hole contained in a glass bead a little bigger than his thumbnail.

  This marble carried his parting message to his family. So far, no one had listened to him.

  But he could try again.

  One last time.

  Record complete.

  1

  With his Remnant arm in a scripted sling, Lindon stood motionless on a Thousand-Mile Cloud. This one was rust-red, similar to the one he’d used when leaving Sacred Valley for the first time.

  This time, he tried not to dwell on all the devastation below him.

  “This is not very dignified, young one,” Elder Whisper protested.

  Lindon had the giant five-tailed snowfox bound up in wind aura and floating behind him. Now it looked as though the sacred beast was being carried in a giant invisible fist.

  “Apologies, Elder. I’m not certain I could transfer us directly with any precision, so please bear with the indignity for a short time.”

  “I don’t see why I could not have ridden my own Cloud.”

  Lindon had another Thousand-Mile Cloud, and could make one easily enough, but he didn’t trust Elder Whisper to stay in place. Lindon could see through illusions now, but he was still exhausted. He didn’t want to spend his every second staring to prevent the elder from sneaking away.

  “We’re almost there.”

  Gripped by air though he was, the white fox still had enough control to stretch his head further and whisper into Lindon’s ear. “I offered you the secrets of Monarchs, young Lindon. They are not for just anyone to hear.”

  “I’m not bringing you to just anyone.”

  Lindon’s red cloud drifted upwards toward a much larger island of blue cloud madra with a blocky castle-like slab of stone on it. Ziel’s unnamed cloud fortress.

  As soon as he set down on the edge of the cloud base, another cloud zipped up to him. This one was no bigger than his fist, and it was driven by an ocean-blue woman about a foot tall. She glared at him, and her voice was like the clatter of dropped pans.

  Lindon dipped his head to Little Blue. “Forgiveness. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  She would have known that he was fine and generally where he’d gone, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed being left behind. She leaped off the cloud onto his shoulder, chattering at him not to forget her again.

  “Your Sylvan Riverseed has power similar to your own,” Elder Whisper noted. “So that’s how you expanded your pure madra to catch up to your peers.”

  Little Blue shot Whisper an indifferent glance, then ignored him.

  Lindon released the elder so they could walk up to Ziel’s home together. There were scripts all over the territory to protect them from being spied on by the spiritual senses of others, but Lindon carried a ward key. Mercy and Ziel were still recovering, and the biggest surprise was that he didn’t feel Eithan at all.

  When he entered the plain gray house, Yerin was already standing in the entry, looking down at him. Her red eyes were filled with worry.

  “Thought you’d be gone for longer than two and a half seconds.”

  Her concern brought up the reality he’d been trying to avoid. A purple mass of spiritual power rested at the base of his skull, weak and unclear.

  Dross. Or what was left of him.

  Those thoughts were razor-sharp, and Lindon stopped handling them before they cut him too badly. “Whisper is one of the elders of my clan,” Lindon said, gesturing to the fox behind him. “He had information about the labyrinth that he wanted to share. And after that…I have something to show you as well.”

  She looked confused, but nodded to Elder Whisper. “Whisper, huh? You that quiet?”

  Another Elder Whisper appeared behind her, resting his jaws on her shoulder and whispering into her ear. “I can be when I wish.”

  The original Elder had made himself invisible to complete the illusion, but she kept her eyes on him. “Not much to it when you look hard enough, is it?”

  Elder Whisper sighed and dropped the illusions. “I am nowhere near advanced enough to deceive eyes of your caliber.”

  “And yet…” Lindon began, but he cut the sentence off before he said, “And yet you held the Sword Sage’s private void space open for years.”

  “Some things are not included in what we traditionally call advancement,” the fox said. He followed Lindon through a door and up a nearby set of stairs, and together the three of them walked into an open room at the top.

  This was the control room of Ziel’s cloud fortress, and it was smaller and dimmer than Lindon’s. The one on Windfall resembled the common room of a house more than a cloudship control room, complete with a couch and chairs, but this one was just a wide panel of scripts and precisely one window on each wall.

  Yerin shut the door and Lindon sent his spiritual perception through the ship, making sure the scripts protecting them were active.

  “We shouldn’t be overheard here,” Lindon said.

  “We wouldn’t have been overheard back at the Tomb,” Whisper pointed out, and Yerin glanced at Lindon.

  “As I said, I’m not the only one that needs to hear this.”

  Little Blue chimed out, asking about Eithan. Her name for him sounded like a cheery whistle.

  “Does anyone know where Eithan is?” When no one responded, Lindon went on. “Then he’ll have to catch up.”

  Eithan would catch up, Lindon was certain. Usually, it was Lindon trying to catch up to him.

  Whisper sett
led onto his haunches. “This story would go a lot easier if we had some fish…”

  “Apologies, but I’m not sure Ziel has had time to restock.” It had been only a day since an all-out battle against the Dreadgods, and they had ferried a number of refugees from Sacred Valley in that time. Many of them had been hungry.

  Even if Ziel did have food left, Lindon didn’t know where to find it.

  “Then I suppose I must go without.” Five white tails lashed at the air, and Elder Whisper looked from Lindon to Little Blue to Yerin as though doubting their credentials. “As I told young Lindon here, I can lead you toward one of the truths of this world: how to kill the Dreadgods.”

  There was a stretch of silence before Yerin audibly scoffed. She waited longer than Lindon had expected.

  “You a Monarch in disguise, are you?” Yerin asked.

  “I am old, and I have lived above the labyrinth for almost my entire life. There are secrets within that make the Monarchs tremble.”

  Lindon wanted to bring out the canister marked with the symbol of House Arelius, but even behind their scripts, he worried it would attract distant attention.

  “The maze beneath us is the birthplace of the Dreadgods,” Elder Whisper went on, “but it is far more ancient even than they. Secrets creep out from time to time, where those with insight can collect them.”

  Lindon wanted details, but first he had to see if Whisper’s knowledge was worth anything. “How do we kill the Dreadgods?”

  “You cannot simply disassemble them physically. You must destroy them on a fundamental level. Sever the origin of their existence.”

  Lindon looked to Yerin, whose scowl was melting into a thoughtful expression. They’d heard terms like this before: when the Abidan was describing Penance.

  A weapon that had instantly slain a Monarch.

  “I do not understand the mechanics well myself,” Whisper said. “These are ideas I have stitched together from fractured memories and broken whispers. But as I see it, any who could kill the Dreadgods directly have already moved on from this world. Even the Monarchs combined could not do it.

  “However, there is something anchoring the Dreadgods to life. If you remove it, they will be made mortal.” One tail pointed to Lindon. “No weaker, you understand. But mortal.”

  “What is this anchor?” Lindon asked.

  “And where is it?” Yerin followed, with a tone as though she already knew.

  Little Blue gave a chime expressing her reluctance to fight another Dreadgod whether it was mortal or not.

  Elder Whisper looked to Yerin. “He waits at the bottom of the labyrinth, deeper than anyone has gone in years uncounted. Your master contended with his will, and it was that which weakened him beyond even the field suppressing his power.”

  Yerin stiffened, but Whisper had already moved on to Lindon. “He is the first product of the experiments that resulted in the creation of the Dreadgods. In the myths that tell of his existence, he is sometimes called the fifth Dreadgod, and sometimes the first. The Father of Hunger, some call him. The Slumbering Wraith. But I have seen notes from his observers calling him Subject One.”

  Lindon’s mind flicked back to the old notes he’d once studied with Fisher Gesha, wishing Dross was here to help him sort his thoughts.

  He had questions, but the elder had turned to Little Blue. “No one should look forward to fighting Dreadgods. It is not a pleasant task, but they cannot be allowed to rampage forever.”

  Lindon and the others had done battle with the Wandering Titan at its weakest, and it had taken everything they had just to convince it to trample someone else. It was the equivalent of curling up and letting an opponent whale on you with their fists in the hopes that they tired themselves out and walked away.

  For the moment it had worked, in the sense that the Titan had chosen not to bother with them anymore. It could come back at any time.

  But there wasn’t much left in Sacred Valley to defend.

  “Can we get into the labyrinth?” Lindon asked.

  “There is a way inside. The Sage of the Endless Sword took advantage of it, and so can you.”

  Lindon stared into the distant clouds outside the window and thought. His arm could use repairs, and there were countless people from Sacred Valley that lacked protection and guidance. He was concerned about Orthos, the whole team needed rest, and he needed to get his family—and his own cloud fortress—back from Moongrave.

  From his pocket, he pulled out a clear marble with a single blue candle-flame burning at its center. He turned it in his fingers.

  It seemed forever ago that Suriel had given him that marble, but at the same time, like almost no time had passed at all. He had expected his task to take him the rest of his life.

  Now it was over. Sacred Valley, or what was left of it, was saved.

  He wasn’t sure whether to consider it a success or a failure, but either way his mission was done. He had started to climb a mountain, expecting it to take decades, only to suddenly find himself at the peak.

  Maybe it was that realization that helped him feel how tired he really was.

  He had time now. Time to rest, time to spend with Yerin, time to practice Soulsmithing, time to learn what it meant to be a Sage. Time to get to know his family again, though he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that.

  But there was one concern that outweighed the rest.

  Dross.

  Eithan had said that Dross might come back on his own, but Lindon couldn’t sit by and wait to see what happened. He would learn as much as he could.

  At least now he had the time.

  “There should be plenty of Soulsmithing records inside the labyrinth, right?” Lindon asked Elder Whisper.

  The fox shot him a look. “It is a repository of ancient truths, as well as the home and workplace of the greatest Soulsmiths in history. You could study there for the next five hundred years and never reach the depths of their understanding.”

  “Gratitude. Then I intend to learn whatever I can from the labyrinth, but we still need to discuss our next actions. Together.”

  Elder Whisper raised his eyebrows in an expression that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a human face. “I expected more commitment from you.”

  “There are too many questions left. For one thing, if you know about this, why haven’t the Monarchs taken action?”

  “I have had…dreams.”

  Lindon blinked at the fox’s abrupt change in topic, but Elder Whisper only continued. “Once in a long while, when the heavens allow, I can catch a glimpse of Fate in my dreams. And when I dream of seeking out Monarchs, I see death. My death, always. Sometimes also the death of our home.”

  “What causes it?” Lindon asked. “Which Monarchs?”

  “I regret to say I cannot tell, but much is unclear to me. The Monarchs should not need me to petition them in any case. They should know much more about the contents of the labyrinth than I do, and yet they have refused to move. This is one of the answers you should seek in the depths.”

  “I will,” Lindon said. “But I’m not going by myself.”

  Yerin gave him a decisive nod.

  “Numbers are of limited use in the labyrinth. You may…”

  Elder Whisper continued speaking, but his words faded to the back of Lindon’s awareness. Something invaded his consciousness—a message, but deeper and softer than words. Impossibly distant.

  He felt regret. Apology. Someone urging him to do his best, and to survive at all costs. If he had to interpret the message in words, he would have bet it said “I’m sorry. Hold on.”

  He stretched out his spiritual perception, looking for the source of the message, and Yerin noticed. Her spirit sharpened as she prepared herself for battle.

  “We about to bleed somebody?”

  “No, I…I’m sorry, did you sense something a minute ago?”

  “Before you jumped like a dog trying to fly?” She raised an eyebrow. “If there’s anything here, I’m blind to i
t. And I’m not leaping to fight invisible enemies today, I’ll tell you that. Ask me tomorrow.”

  He shook his head. It had only been a vague impression, and it had passed anyway. “Apologies, I think I’m on edge.”

  “Can’t imagine why.”

  Lindon rolled Suriel’s marble in his fingers again. Somehow, the message had felt like the feelings that radiated from the blue flame. And the comfort that usually came off the transparent orb seemed somehow weaker than usual.

  Another sign of his own anxiety, surely. Unless…

  There came a thunk as the door on the first floor swung open, interrupting Lindon’s thoughts. A voice echoed up from below.

  “Oh no, I missed something!” Eithan cried. “Quickly, repeat your entire conversation before you forget a word!”

  Deep in the labyrinth, Reigan Shen withdrew a drudge from a pouch at his belt and set it free. He had cobbled this one together specifically for this mission, and it was made to exist in this low-energy environment.

  The construct unfolded from a pocket-sized rectangle of compressed madra into something resembling a mechanical dog, then began to sniff around an ancient laboratory.

  The room was large enough to contain a flight of dragons, but was decorated like an expensive study. Lots of polished wood and plush cushions, with empty windows that would probably once have displayed illusionary scenery of the outside.

  Around the center of this laboratory were empty cages of scripted glass, which would certainly once have contained experimental subjects. Time-shriveled husks that had once been dreadbeasts remained in some, while others had been broken from the outside. Or from the inside.