Cradle: Foundation (Cradle Collected Book 1) Page 28

  She is not aware that the Transcendent Ruin has risen in the heart of the forest, for the first time in eight hundred years. Its promise calls to sacred artists for thousands of kilometers around…and to the other, older, darker things that wait in the surrounding wilds.

  DIVERGENCE DETECTED: the Desolate Wilds, Transcendent Ruin. Continue?

  Divergence accepted, continuing report…

  On the peak of Mount Samara, a crippled Heaven’s Glory elder named Anses picks through the ruins of what he calls the Ancestor’s Tomb. His pride is trampled, the power of his school has been questioned, and now it seems that they have created for themselves a powerful enemy. The Sword Sage’s disciple will return, he knows, with greater force and with vengeance.

  But despite his certainty, he has a deep-seated fear of the wilderness outside Sacred Valley. He could not survive it, and therefore he believes no one could. In his judgment, the Sage’s disciple must have doubled back. Where will she go if not to the home of her ally, the Unsouled Wei Shi Lindon?

  He crafts a message to his fellow elders, urging them to march with all their flagging strength on the Wei clan.

  DIVERGENCE DETECTED: the destruction of the Wei clan. Continue?

  Divergence accepted, continuing report…

  As the members of the Heaven’s Glory School excavate their ancient tomb, a five-tailed snowfox the size of a man waits nearby. He is soundless, scentless, his presence masked to both sight and spirit. He is an ancient sacred beast, one of the original inhabitants of this valley, and he is only seen when he wishes to be.

  He has followed the Unsouled Lindon since the intervention of Suriel, the Phoenix, Sixth Judge of the Abidan Court. Though he does not remember the events prior to her temporal reversion, he has noticed the effects of her involvement and believes that Lindon is favored by heaven. He watches the two young sacred artists leave the valley, and for the first time in centuries, he experiences hope. Maybe these children, blessed by the heavens, will save the valley from the Dreadgods’ return.

  DIVERGENCE DETECTED: return of the Dreadgods. Continue?

  ***

  Iteration 217: Harrow

  [Divergence denied,] Suriel’s Presence said. [Report complete.]

  The reports came to her in a mix of words, images, and impressions, retrieved by her Presence and transmitted to her in an instant. She’d looked into Lindon’s past, his surroundings, his upbringing, even his future. He was an interesting distraction.

  Her Presence told her he had a seventeen percent chance of surviving the Desolate Wilds, a four percent chance of making it past Gold, and a zero-point-three percent chance of ascending beyond Cradle.

  But in every world, in all the thousands of variations on humanity the universe spun out, people always loved to bet on the underdog.

  She would return to the reports later, but although they took virtually no time, they did take her attention. She needed to focus now, to treat the situation with the gravity it deserved.

  Makiel was coming. And the First Judge of the Abidan Court demanded all of her concentration.

  Her hair had been restored to its radiant emerald shine, her eyes to vivid purple. She drifted in high atmosphere, waiting, as fiery chunks flew out from the planet and past her into space.

  This world was beyond healing.

  A glimpse of rolling, textured blue, and someone stepped into reality. Not Makiel, as she had expected. This man was young and compact, with dark blue skin and rows of tightly packed horns instead of hair. Gadrael, Second Judge and Makiel’s loyal right hand.

  He was dressed as she was, in the seamless white armor of any Abidan on active duty. The Mantle of Gadrael streamed from his shoulders like a furiously burning cape of pure starfire, just as the Mantle of Suriel hung from her own. Instead of her correlation lines, which trailed from her fingers like ribbons of gray smoke and connected to the back of her neck, he carried a black circle strapped to his forearm like a medieval buckler.

  He’d brought his weapon, primed and ready for use. She summoned her own, the meter-thick bar of blue, but he held up a hand. “Peace, under the Way.”

  She clipped the weapon to her waist without banishing it. He wouldn’t violate a truce, but he’d been too quick to offer one. “Tell Makiel I haven’t found him. My Presence can give him a full report.”

  “He knows. He’s looking himself, since you remain unmotivated.”

  The barb didn’t disturb her, but the content of his message did. She’d been sent to hunt for Ozriel because she was the only one of the Seven capable of finding him without being killed on sight. If she tracked him down, Ozriel would talk to her.

  If Makiel found him, they would kill each other.

  Gadrael waited for the reality to settle on her. “He thought that would convince you to search. If that wasn’t enough…” he turned to the burning planet. “…this might be.”

  The planet beneath them fuzzed and flickered with visual static, even as it burned. Continents appeared in the ocean, vanished, appeared again. Water plumed kilometers in the air, calmed, shot up again. A city rose from the ocean in ruins, and then was drowned.

  When one world crashed into another, this was the result. Time, space, and reality itself bent and warped while the Way tried to force order out of the collision’s pure chaos.

  “Which one is it?” Suriel asked quietly. She could have asked her Presence, but she wanted Gadrael to hear the question.

  “Iteration two-sixteen, Limit. It was scheduled for demolition no later than two standard months ago, its adept population already evacuated.”

  But they had no one to remove it, with Ozriel gone, so now Limit had dragged Harrow with it into the void.

  “Quarantine protocols?” she asked.

  “Effective. I implemented the walls myself.” So no other worlds would be drawn in to this disaster. “It only escalates from here. If we don’t recover Ozriel, or at least the Scythe, we could lose it all.”

  He wasn’t wrong. This was Sector Twenty-One, but if it was happening out here, it was potentially only days away anywhere. Sector Thirteen, where she was born. Sector Six, with its rich history and gorgeous natural art. Even Sector Eleven, with one-one-zero. Cradle.

  Important worlds like Cradle, Haven, Sanctum, and Asylum would be protected. Even in the event of total system collapse, the Abidan would collect and quarantine these worlds, their last bastion against the infinite chaos.

  But in times like this, anything could go wrong. Cradle might be safer than anywhere else, but it wasn’t safe.

  “Acknowledged,” Suriel said. “Designation zero-zero-six, Suriel, formally accepts the charge to locate and withdraw zero-zero-eight, Ozriel, under censure.”

  Gadrael nodded, his expression firm as granite. It always was. The Way would crumble to dust before he smiled.

  She accessed the Way, drawing flows of pure order around her as she prepared to exit Harrow, but the other Judge didn’t follow. He stood on nothing with his arms crossed, black buckler facing the dying world.

  “What is your mission here?” Suriel asked.

  “Mercy,” Gadrael said.

  She stopped. The tendrils of layered blue returned to the Way. She had faced patients in the past that were too far gone, where the only comfort she could offer them was a painless end. She had gained her power, in a large part, so that she never had to face that again. Now even death was no barrier to her healing.

  And it still wasn’t enough.

  “A shield is meant to protect,” she said. “It’s not an appropriate tool for this.” She drew her weapon.

  Gadrael nodded, his arms still crossed. She wondered if this had been Makiel’s plan all along, to make her face the reality of the situation by dirtying her own hands. It wouldn’t change anything either way. This was still her duty.

  Heart aching, she activated her sword.

  THE END

  Cradle: Volume One

  Unsouled

  PROLOGUE

  I
nformation requested: disciple training on the Path of the Endless Sword.

  Beginning report…

  When you’re alone, first look for a weapon.

  The master leaves his disciple with these words. The disciple kneels in the winter snow, shivering as the snow presses through her knees. Finding a weapon isn’t her problem.

  Thirteen swords are thrust into the snow around her, cold blades turned so that their razor edges touch her skin. With every shiver, she opens another cut. Her thighs, knees, and upper arms are sheathed in freezing blood.

  At the edge of pain, exhaustion, and isolation, each of her thoughts becomes slippery. But she knows, clear and distinct as the ring of a bell, that her master has abandoned her here.

  It's his favorite training technique: leaving her alone, where no one can save her, and forcing her to rely on her own knowledge to escape. It teaches her reliance, he says. A Path is only one person wide.

  She knows he's always right. She's only Iron, not quite ten years old, and she can't question him.

  But every time he walks away, he leaves her with the fear that this will be the time he doesn't come back.

  She is surrounded by sword aura, silver and sharp in her spiritual vision, and she drinks it in to cycle it, to refine it until it becomes a part of her spirit. Her madra. She has done this constantly since he first left her kneeling in the snow, but it hasn't helped. She knows no technique she can use from this position, has no blade of her own through which she can channel the madra.

  She tries to push her power out through her skin, but the swords only shake and open up new lines of blood.

  When you're alone, first look for a weapon.

  The Sword Sage is not a bad teacher, but he has a preference for cryptic riddles. She has already strained her eyes and even extended her hands—at least as far as she can, without slicing them open on the waiting blades—to search for weapons in the snow. She'd thought he might have hidden something for her, and that treasure will be the key to her escape.

  She finds nothing. She kneels for hours, burning in the cold, throwing madra at the implacable weapons. She may as well have shouted at them.

  As the morning climbs into afternoon, she has only one coherent thought left. Her master is not coming back. Why should he? A disciple who cannot learn is one not worth teaching. Her master deserves someone who can keep up with his instruction.

  Someone who can be trusted.

  Her unwelcome guest starts to stir, squirming against the seal that her master has placed upon it. It doesn't speak—it can't—but its presence reminds her that there is another source of power here. Another route she can take, besides sword madra. Another Path.

  She will freeze to death before she takes it.

  When her vision starts to dim, she knows that even her Iron body is reaching its limits. She screams, shaking herself awake, and the fresh cuts on her body don't even hurt. She draws in as much sword aura as she can, flooding her system with borrowed power, though she won't be able to use it until she cycles it through her own spirit. Full to bursting, she pushes it all away from her.

  Faintly, the swords ring like distant bells.

  She stills herself, waiting for her tired thoughts to catch up.

  When you're alone, first look for a weapon.

  On the Path of the Endless Sword, she's learned to Enforce madra into a weapon so that it gathers aura as it moves, strengthening with time. She has learned to pour madra into a Striker's slash, severing a tree branch twenty paces away. She's even learned to crystallize her power into a Forged razor, though it still shatters like glass.

  She still hasn't learned a Ruler technique, the ability to manipulate compatible aura in the world around her.

  It's a weapon she hasn't seized.

  Her madra echoes in time with her breath, gusting out and striking the circle of swords and the aura gathered there. The aura echoes with a pure note, sweet and clear in the winter afternoon.

  The swords slide away.

  Suggested topic: the fated future of Yerin, the Sword Sage’s disciple. Continue?

  Denied, report complete.

  Chapter 1

  Lindon unwrapped the bandage from Yerin’s forehead, examining the wound. It was red and angry, a long slash, but shallow. Her master’s Remnant had cut her with the precision of a battlefield surgeon. She was already covered in scars so pale and thin they looked as though they were painted on her skin, and unless he missed his guess, she was going to end up with a fresh new set in a few months.

  He tossed the crusty bandage into the fire—fuel wasn’t terribly hard to come by out here, in the hills east of Mount Samara, but gathering sticks was torture on his injured back. He wouldn’t give up any tinder, and burning their old bandages had the added benefit of removing blood scent from their trail. He doubted anyone would leave Sacred Valley to track them, but no one ever died from being too careful.

  Yerin sat quietly, watching the fire, as Lindon dug into his pack at his feet. He liked to carry anything he even might need, so his pack bulged at the seams. Seated on a fallen tree as he was, the pack stood higher than his knees.

  But he’d been glad he had it over the past five days. He pulled out another roll of clean gauze from a pocket, quickly tying it around Yerin’s head. That cut on Yerin’s forehead wasn’t her worst, so by the time he was finished, she was wrapped like a fish packaged for market. And he wasn’t much better.

  “Apologies, but this is the last of the bandages,” Lindon said, replacing another gauze wrapping on her elbow and tossing it into the fire. “I have a set of spare clothes that we can cut into strips.”

  “Won’t need it,” Yerin said. “Now that I’ve got something more than wind and wishes in my core, I’ll cycle for a few more days and be all polished up.” She rapped her knuckles on the back of her forearm with the air of someone knocking on wood, though it made the usual sound of flesh on flesh. “Iron body comes with all sorts of treats, depending on what sort you have. Copper’s even easier. We’ll break you through to Copper tonight, and that’ll perk you up quick. Nothing does good for the flesh and blood like advancing a realm.”

  Lindon paused with the last strip of gauze in his hand. “Tonight?”

  She turned to flash him a quick smile. “Unless you’d choose to wait.”

  As she turned, he had to dodge to avoid taking a thin steel arm to the face. The limb sprouted from her shoulder blade, a structure of Forged madra so dense that it felt like real steel, ending in a sword blade that dangled over her head like a scorpion’s tail.

  She grimaced, and the arm lurched awkwardly away from Lindon’s cheek. “Haven’t quite tamed that one yet, sorry.”

  His task was complete anyway, so he stood up from the log and moved around her. “Copper, you said. I’ll be able to sense vital aura, won’t I? Even…sword aura?”

  He thought he understood Copper fairly well, having grown up primarily around children who had reached that stage, but from Yerin he’d learned that half of what he knew about the sacred arts was completely wrong. This was an opportunity for him to learn.

  And perhaps to gain something more.

  He’d split his core into two parts only days before, embarking on what he called the Path of Twin Stars. This gave him a natural defense against anyone attacking his spirit, but more importantly, he should theoretically be able to hold two types of madra in the same body. He could keep his own pure madra, while learning Yerin’s Path as well.

  Except thus far, every time he’d broached the topic, she had refused to teach him.

  Yerin’s eyes drifted to her own sword, which she’d taken from her master’s body. “You need a master in truth, Lindon, and those aren’t shoes I can fill.” He started to protest, but she rode over him. “Listen. You ever heard anybody talk about Copper eyes?”

  He shook his head.

  “It’s a saying I grew up with. Copper eyes see the world, Iron eyes see far, and Jade eyes see deep. Tells you what you’re in for.
At Copper, you see aura. You can begin taking it in, cycling it, turning it into madra. At Iron, you’re forging the body you’ll use for the rest of your life, and the actual eyes in your head get better. And when you hit Jade, you can use your spirit to…see. Sense. There’s not a good word for it, really.”

  “What about Gold?” he asked eagerly.

  She flicked a finger against the silvery steel blade hanging down into her face. “At Gold you hold a Remnant in your core, and you get a little something extra for your trouble. We call it a Goldsign, and it’s the simple way to tell who’s on what Path. Now shut it, we’re talking about Copper.”

  Lindon settled down on a nearby rock, the fire crackling between them.

  “Ten chances out of a dozen, you’ll have to prepare for a stage before you advance,” Yerin continued. “And what preparation you settle on depends on your Path. My master stuck me in a ring of swords to polish me up for Jade. He wouldn’t let me out until I could push them away on my own. Strengthened me, turned me toward sword madra, prepared me to advance. Like eating a red pepper to prepare for a white one.”

  It sounded more like sadistic torture than sacred arts to Lindon, and though he didn’t say anything, Yerin must have noticed the look on his face.

  “Wasn’t so bad,” she said, tracing one of the paper-thin scars on her arm. “Taught me character. Anyway, the thrust of it is, I can’t teach you. You’re not following in my footsteps, so I don’t know where to take you from here. Maybe if I knew more…but I don’t. I’m just a Gold.”