Reaper (Cradle Book 10) Read online

  Mercy frowned at her bow. “I think Suu is getting tired, but I can use the binding once or twice more. That’s a couple more Archlord hits. But it’s not like one Herald, it’s more like…”

  “A bunch of Heralds smeared over some toast,” Yerin provided.

  That reminded Lindon of the Eight-Man Empire, and he turned to ask Eithan if he knew what that might mean about their enemy.

  When he saw Eithan still standing there, an unreadable expression on his face, Lindon realized Eithan hadn’t said a word since they’d entered the room.

  It inspired Lindon himself to look around.

  There wasn’t much to sense in the room; certainly nothing to draw his spiritual perception. There were a few small dream tablets here and there, but by and large the chamber resembled a once-crowded workshop or storeroom that had been cleared out in a hurry.

  Dust covered the floor, along with bits of grit and undefinable scraps of metal. There were scuffs and indentations in the stone where something heavy had been moved, but with the power of these floors, Lindon would be shocked if any amount of weight would have made a dent on their own. Here and there bolts remained in the walls where something had been suspended, but whatever it was had been removed long before.

  High up on the far wall, he saw the thing that must have grabbed Eithan’s attention immediately. A giant symbol: a scythe hanging like a crescent moon over the Arelius family crest.

  This room had once belonged to the Arelius family Patriarch.

  Ozriel.

  Lindon was suddenly much more interested in the dream tablets.

  Here and there, glittering tablets like cut gemstones were embedded in the wall next to where something must have rested.

  Lindon held his hand over one nearby, which hung next to a pale square of wall that looked like it had once held a painting. He slipped his perception into it.

  The intricately carved ivory box is ringed in script so dense he can barely make it out with his eyes, and it carries a powerful will to bind. The bones used to make it are irreplaceable, and come from—

  Lindon felt a sudden, blinding headache and was kicked out of the memory. He blinked and held onto his head.

  This was what it had felt like when he tried to view a memory too advanced for him. But that was a shock. What concepts couldn’t he handle? He thought he could comprehend most Monarch dream tablets now, but evidently not if it trespassed on certain subjects.

  “Careful,” Eithan said quietly. He still hadn’t moved.

  [It is only that moment of the tablet that exceeds your authority,] Dross mentioned. [It should be safe to experience if you pick up a moment after you left off.]

  Generally speaking, it was hard to view dream tablets with so much precision, which was one reason why they were often attached to projection constructs or control scripts. But with Dross to help, Lindon adjusted his entry point and dove back into the tablet.

  In a windy forest, his hands open the ivory box. The scripts activate, and he’s proud of their efficiency. They are a work of art in the way they synergize with the significance of the bones and of the box itself.

  The device is now designed for one purpose, and it fulfills that purpose before him now. A powerful suction fills the air, drawing spirits closer. Remnants stumble out of the trees. They have been drawn by the hunger aspects in the madra, though the hunger doesn’t touch him at all.

  One spirit—a water Remnant with minor sword aspects—is the first to fly into the air. It’s only about Highgold in density, and it resembles a six-foot praying mantis. At first.

  In seconds, it folds like paper as it is packed into the box. It sounds disgusting, like meat and bone being crushed and folded, but this device doesn’t need to be pleasant to use.

  Most importantly, the dead matter and binding are perfectly preserved. And the box still has plenty of capacity left.

  Lindon broke away from the memory. His head still hurt a little from even that momentary thought about the bone, but his thoughts spun as Dross helped him sort out the memories.

  As with most dream tablets, there were plenty of thoughts behind the memory itself, lending the scene context. Lindon could tell how much better this device was at catching and compressing Remnants, and how it could wait for centuries with no loss. There had been an idea at the back of the creator’s mind: this would be the perfect way to seal a Monarch-level Remnant. It could even have applications for those attempting to advance to Herald.

  He expected this to become a much sought-after treasure, and Lindon completely agreed. It wasn’t as glamorous as a weapon, but he thought Reigan Shen would pay the worth of several cities for a Soulsmithing tool of this level.

  Maybe he was the one who had looted this room.

  He moved to another dream tablet as Yerin was pulled away from it. She had a troubled look on her face. “This is your ancestor, Eithan?”

  Eithan ran a hand over his head as though wishing for longer hair. “The first of my House, yes.”

  “I’d pick you over him six times out of five.”

  Eithan blinked. “That may have been the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  “Don’t let it swell your head,” she muttered.

  “This inspires me to compose a poem!”

  “Can I pay you to stop?”

  “There once was a man from Iceflower…”

  Lindon reached out for the dream tablet and let the memory overcome him before he had to listen to Eithan’s poem.

  The enemy is desperate. He’s already bloody and beaten, low on madra, as he has been tormented and kept on the edge of defeat for days now. He raises his axe and swings with a roar, squeezing the last of his madra and soulfire into an echo Forger technique. Phantom axes swing along with them.

  Ozmanthus looks down on him in disdain. There is barely any willpower remaining in this technique.

  He reaches out with his madra—pure destruction, as befits the Hollow King—and reaches into the Forger technique. With his soulfire art, he weaves destruction aura as well, drawn from all around him.

  It takes him a moment of concentration to synchronize his control of madra and aura together, but he dismantles the technique. Before the Forged axe-blades reach him, they dissolve into essence.

  He is displeased. With his skill in Soulsmithing, he should be able to separate madra much more quickly than this.

  The prisoner tosses his axe to the ground and drops onto his heels.

  “Kill me,” the man says through a raspy throat.

  Ozmanthus gives him a razor-edged smile. “You tried to kill me. You put my children in danger. Why should I show you mercy?”

  “Your death would have been clean.”

  “What a comfort that is to me.”

  Ozmanthus began a Forger technique of his own, and shimmering black stars hung in the air over his prisoner’s head. The Hollow King’s Crown.

  “Cycle,” he ordered. “Restore your madra. Give me practice, and then I will give you mercy.”

  The memory skipped ahead after that, and he demonstrated his dismantling technique twice more—once on the prisoner’s Striker technique, and then again on the man’s Remnant.

  Lindon committed it to memory, and Dross assured him that with some alterations, they should be able to develop a version of it themselves. Lindon suspected he might actually be better at it than Ozmanthus Arelius had been, at least at the point that dream tablet was recorded. He had three compatible madra types that could be used to take apart the techniques of others, and pure madra was better at taking apart spiritual energy than destruction madra was.

  But despite the gains he had made through the memory, he was left with a sick feeling.

  The man had an arrogance that permeated his every thought. He was the best, and he knew it. The prisoner really had tried to assassinate him, so Lindon didn’t feel much pity for him. But neither was he comfortable with the Arelius Patriarch’s callous disregard.

  Eithan turned to him, havin
g noticed that Lindon had finished. He didn’t say anything, but Lindon got the impression he was waiting.

  “I didn’t realize the Path of the Hollow King was a destruction Path,” Lindon said. That was the safest topic.

  “It was less difficult than you might think to adapt it to pure madra. Many of the lesser aspects and fundamental principles were complementary.”

  “Apologies, but why bother?”

  Pure madra had its advantages—Lindon was proof enough of that—but Eithan would have had a far easier time training a destruction Path. At least destruction aura existed.

  Eithan busied himself with his clothes, not meeting Lindon’s eyes. “No offense intended to the Path of Black Flame, but I found myself…less than comfortable with destruction madra. I have seen the Patriarch’s memories myself. His experiences were enough to cause me to develop a distaste.”

  Lindon could understand that, and he didn’t comment further.

  Ziel peered down the sloping hallway. “Don’t bother hurrying, but the enemy is building up strength.”

  The tunnel had already been sealed off by three layers of his scripts—this time, the runes were etched onto plates that he’d stuck to the walls, floor, and ceiling of the hall rather than Forging them in midair. The script should be less brittle this way. The first row was powered by Eithan’s pure madra, the second by Yerin, and the third by Ziel himself.

  “Does anyone else find it alarming that we haven’t been attacked by the hunger spirits in a while?” Mercy piped up.

  Lindon was examining the display next to the tablet he’d just read. He couldn’t tell what had once sat there; he suspected a table and chair. Perhaps a book of some kind.

  He spoke as he investigated. “If Subject One can’t reach us here, we should use the time wisely. The value of these memories is…I don’t have words for it.”

  Yerin pulled a hand back from a tablet nearby, next to a series of six triangular imprints in the stone. She looked startled.

  “Lindon. You…I don’t…bleed me, take a look at this.”

  He hurried over and immersed himself in another memory.

  Ozmanthus’ black hammer cracked against the gleaming chunk of wintersteel. He poured his madra into it, his soulfire, and his desperate wish for destruction.

  His hammer amplified his wish, focusing his will, forming the metal into a perfect tool of elimination.

  He could atone for the ruin he’d brought only by causing more, because that was all he could do. This arrowhead would be his apology for what he’d already done. His atonement.

  His penance.

  Lindon snapped out of the memory, dragging himself out of an ocean of despair. This memory felt much later than the others, and carried sadness like Ozmanthus had just watched his entire world collapse.

  From the context of the memory, he knew what had been enshrined here. Not Penance, the prize that the Abidan had gifted to Yerin.

  The prototypes. The failures.

  Ozmanthus had tried many times to complete his Penance, to leave behind a perfect weapon to repay those he’d failed. But while these weapons might have all graced a Monarch’s armory, he had never succeeded. He’d kept them here in the hopes that another Soulsmith might complete his work.

  Eventually, he would succeed. But clearly sometime after he’d left this room for the last time.

  “Long odds that we’d stumble on the place Penance was made,” Yerin said. She was frowning at the spaces in the wall where the arrowheads had once been kept.

  Eithan stood by her, looking on them as well. “Not as coincidental as you might think. He spent many years on that project. Similar failures were once kept beneath House Arelius and in Blackflame City, though they were all used long ago. Anywhere you find his works, you are likely to find an attempt at Penance.”

  “He was a master of destruction madra,” Orthos said from across the room. “Some of these techniques could teach us more about Blackflame.” Lindon realized Little Blue was missing from his shoulder, and she and Orthos had found a dream tablet that even they could view.

  Ziel firmed his two-handed grip on his hammer. “I like learning from my predecessors more than most, but I prefer to do it when we have more time.”

  Lindon glanced over to the commotion in the hallway that he’d been ignoring. A Forger technique from the Tomb Hydras was actively clashing against Eithan’s layer of scripts. Forged glowing fangs snapped at a barrier of blue-white madra, which flashed into existence every time they attacked.

  There were half a dozen sets of jaws attacking, and as Lindon watched, another joined them. The barrier was going to fall soon.

  “Can we pry out the dream tablets?” Lindon asked. It would be a real tragedy if they couldn’t milk this room for everything it was worth.

  “Not unless we can break the walls,” Eithan responded. Once again, Lindon suspected he could do that, but it would cost him. And he certainly wasn’t willing to flagrantly spend energy and attention with a powerful enemy in the next room.

  He sighed. It seemed they really did have to take care of this enemy first.

  “Oh, this one!” Mercy said excitedly. “Look at this one!” She pointed to a shimmering purple gem embedded under a set of lines that had once been etched into the stone, but time had wiped away.

  Lindon flicked through it, but it wasn’t as cohesive a memory as the others. It was just a series of impressions, thoughts that Ozmanthus had meant to pass on.

  Once, it had been a map of the labyrinth.

  Dross!

  [I have compiled the information, but much of the memory is faded, as this environment lacks a way to replenish dream aura.]

  Any information was better than none. And as the labyrinth shifted seemingly at will, a “map” was more like an understanding of the patterns that governed its changes rather than a physical layout.

  But there was one thing that stood out even more to Lindon. The wall showed an X scratched into the bottom of what had once been a diagram of the labyrinth. It marked the lowest room.

  Ozmanthus’ exact warnings and instructions had faded over the years, but his emotions remained. He urged those that would come behind him to make their way to that room.

  That was where he had left a test. And a prize for any who proved themselves worthy.

  “Eithan, I think—”

  Eithan heaved a heavy sigh at Lindon’s excitement. “What you’re thinking is correct. I formed my reputation with Tiberian on my insight into the first Patriarch’s memories, so I understand him better than anyone still alive. He left a Soulsmith inheritance here.”

  Lindon’s heart raced.

  “Not his complete inheritance, you understand,” Eithan hurried to assure him. “He left this one behind long before he ascended. But it is still the legacy of a Soulsmith without peer. If you can win its approval, it would be invaluable.”

  Lindon clenched his fists. This was what he’d been waiting for.

  The outer layer of scripts shattered, and Lindon finally turned toward it with impatience. This was an opponent that deserved his full attention, but it would be tragic if he couldn’t find his way back to this room.

  Still, he was filled with renewed motivation to proceed. “It’s death madra. Can we get rid of it from here?”

  “Not with the aura as weak as it is,” Ziel put in. “Ruler techniques would be best for such a big target.”

  Lindon nodded. Mentally, he went over the constructs and dead matter he had prepared. How could they clear this with the least expense?

  “This is going to cost us,” he finally said. “We’ll try to spread it out—”

  He was cut off by a roar that shook the entire labyrinth and a flare of spiritual energy. The Forger techniques pushing against their defensive scripts vanished.

  Everyone readied weapons.

  “Here it comes!” Yerin shouted.

  But nothing did.

  After a moment of waiting, everyone turned to Eithan. He closed his eyes
and extended his awareness.

  “It’s tricky to get much here,” he murmured. “But I don’t think its attention is…”

  Eithan trailed off, and his jaw hung open for a moment. Then his eyes snapped open.

  “Run,” he ordered. “Lindon, we need a hole in the wall. Right here.” He pressed his hand against the wall in the opposite direction of the Tomb Hydras.

  Lindon didn’t ask any questions. If Eithan was talking like this, that meant that the time for saving resources had passed.

  He focused everything he had into black dragon’s breath. Soulfire bathed the technique, and it fused easily with the authority of the Void Sage. A black bar of liquid flame, containing distant sparks of red flame, warped the world as it struck at the stone of the labyrinth.

  Lindon felt another will opposing his, but his technique won out. He began carving through the protected stone. The edges glowed red-hot, but there was no molten stone; it had been erased by destruction.

  Behind him, even without focusing his perception, he could feel a presence clashing against the death madra. He couldn’t make out its properties exactly; it was like a team of sacred artists of all different Paths had joined forces.

  Eithan was still barking orders. “Yerin, guard the tunnel! Ziel, we need veiling scripts now! Mercy, put up the Dream of Darkness past the scripts. Orthos, help Lindon with the wall.”

  Drilling through the wall like this was far harder than cutting through ordinary stone, but Lindon had almost carved the outline of a human in the stone.

  Then webs of hunger madra shot from every direction.

  Everyone had to dodge. His Striker technique was disrupted, and everyone’s techniques were interrupted.

  Lindon and Eithan unleashed waves of pure madra—Lindon a little slower, as he’d been forced to switch from his Blackflame core.

  These strands of hunger were more difficult to disrupt than any they’d faced so far. They pushed through the Hollow Domain, carrying a stronger will before Eithan eradicated them with concentrated Striker techniques.

  “Too late,” Yerin said, and then Lindon felt what she had a moment later.

  An overwhelming presence had been unveiled, and it felt like the twisting of space. The death madra swelled to meet it…and was battered back.