Reaper (Cradle Book 10) Page 3

  And with his every accomplishment, he grew more alone. No one could match his accomplishments, no one could face him in battle, and no one could understand his insights into the world beyond.

  He abandoned his weapons. He focused on another of his talents: his sight. When he advanced to Monarch, he developed the bloodline ability to see.

  Ozmanthus was so relieved that he wept. This was the ability that he wanted to define his legacy. And he would leave his descendants with the ability to see as he did, to one day catch up to him.

  He named his House after the city he had always sought. The Arelius family should always seek greater insight.

  And when he finally ascended, he left a beacon behind, a measure of his power like a black hole sealed in a transparent barrier that resembled glass. When someone appeared from his family with enough talent to join him, they would ascend with the marble, and he would know.

  He expected to wait a generation, perhaps two or three.

  But he was certain that very soon, House Arelius would be a dynasty that spread to the heavens themselves.

  Record complete.

  Lindon shouted Northstrider’s name into the sky. He begged, he pleaded, he bargained, and he even threatened. Politely.

  The Monarch never responded.

  Without his help, Lindon’s chances of repairing Dross fell significantly. But Lindon could try again. Until Dross awakened, he had time to research.

  In the meantime, he brought Yerin to the Sword Sage’s void space.

  Lindon had expected Yerin to follow him out of curiosity, but the more he hinted that he had something to show her, the more reluctant she became. He dropped several hints, expecting her to sprint ahead of him. Instead, the more she learned, the slower her feet moved.

  It was as though she dreaded finding something her master left behind.

  Lindon marched into the half-destroyed Tomb, a chunk of its roof caved in and one of its pillars cracked. He had to pick his way around pieces of debris that looked like they had been deposited here by a hurricane.

  Yerin paused at the entrance, at the top of the stairs where she had once fought her master’s Remnant. The cold wind grabbed the lock of red hair over her eyes, which she hadn’t had all that time ago.

  “Is this gonna kill me if I don’t see it?” she asked.

  Lindon stopped. He moved back to her, gently placing his hand on her arm.

  She didn’t tremble, but her spirit did.

  “We don’t have to do this now,” he said. “We can come back later.”

  “It’s not his…body, is it?”

  This was the first time he had seen her hesitate over a dead body. Even when she’d removed her master’s sword from his corpse, she hadn’t seemed disturbed.

  Then again, he hadn’t known her well back then.

  He hurried to reassure her. “It’s not. It’s just some things he left behind.” Lindon had waited to tell her exactly what he found because he had expected her to be eager to see for herself, but he had been wrong.

  “Do you want me to tell you first?”

  Yerin squared her shoulders. “Nothing to be scared of, is there? He didn’t leave a Dreadgod tucked away.”

  Lindon thought of a shriveled, gray-white mummified hand and hesitated to respond. Yerin saw that.

  “Bleed and bury me, if he really—”

  “No, no, nothing threatening. But there’s no hurry either.”

  “Doubt either one of us wants to come back into this script longer than we have to. Let’s do what we’re going to do and be gone.” The suppression field hung heavy on them both, and it hadn’t been long since they’d escaped it the first time.

  Lindon searched her face, but took her at her word. He focused his will on a barely-sensed indentation in space at the back of the room.

  Then, using a finger of Blackflame madra as a medium, he cut through it.

  “Open,” Lindon commanded.

  The Sword Sage’s private void space expanded in front of them. They looked through a rift into a large room filled with collected treasures.

  Most of the collection seemed to be organized in sections—refining equipment here, training area there—but you could find artwork and swords anywhere. Landscape paintings hung over a rack of nicked wooden swords, while a dancing sculpture of light fluttered beside an Overlord-level sword of condensed venom madra.

  Lindon had expected Yerin to gasp, or to exclaim, or to make a sound of some kind. Instead, she was silent.

  When he focused, he realized she had stopped breathing entirely.

  Her red eyes were wide, her face pale. As a Herald—if a partial one—her body and spirit had a unique relationship to one another, one that he didn’t quite understand. But even her spirit felt faint, as though her soul was on the verge of dissipating to essence.

  Lindon stepped in front of her, blocking the view behind him. She continued to stare.

  “Yerin?”

  “I need…I need to…” She swallowed. “Come in with me?”

  Silently, Lindon followed her inside. She drifted from one section to another like a wild Remnant, from a rack of training manuals to the portrait of a woman Lindon recognized as the Winter Sage.

  For more than ten minutes, Yerin just floated around, absorbing memories. Finally, she slowed as she approached a rack of black training clothes. Each of them were shredded on the edges, as though they’d been dragged through a thicket of thorns.

  She ran her fingers over the shreds. The ones she had left herself on these robes as she trained the Endless Sword and lost control.

  “Used to say I’d be ready when I stopped cutting my own clothes. He was going to have me a sword made, like his. And I…I lost his sword. I broke it.”

  That was when her tears started to flow.

  Lindon didn’t say much. He just held her as she cried.

  “I wasn’t allowed in here,” she muttered after a few minutes. “He’d take out what I needed when I needed it. Thought I’d never see these again. Should be dust in the wind.”

  With another moment surveying the space, she turned to Lindon. “I want it.”

  “I would never leave a scrap behind.” He hesitated. “Unless you wanted to, of course.”

  “My key’s not big enough for everything, but we’ve got space in the house. We can carry it the old way.”

  “No need for that,” Lindon said immediately. He had prepared to come back here. Yerin’s void key wasn’t big enough to hold everything, and neither was his.

  Fortunately, he had spares.

  There was only one thing they didn’t pack up: a small metal cube, marked with a crescent moon, that Lindon knew from experience contained the hand of Subject One.

  Lindon also held in his palm a small purple-black jewel that had caught his eye. It was clearly a dream tablet of some kind, and he suspected it was a composite gemstone used to hold pieces of several memories instead of one complete experience.

  Dross could have told him for sure.

  Without him, Lindon had to spend a few minutes scanning through the memories. After a few glimpses and brief words, he was certain.

  And far more excited.

  He handed it over to Yerin while he explained. “Your master prepared before he entered the labyrinth. These are some records from other teams who explored the labyrinth first.”

  Yerin’s eyes widened as she skimmed the dream tablet herself. It would bear further study, but Lindon had come to some conclusions already.

  First, almost every explorer had gone in alone. Those who did have teams treated them as support crews rather than partners.

  This made sense, based on the other things he had seen. You had to have some degree of control over your willpower to navigate the labyrinth’s environment, and the more advanced you were, the harder it was to find companions of equal ability. At least, those who wouldn’t betray you.

  Indeed, one of the memories he glimpsed was a three-man group of Archlords who had bickered an
d betrayed one another after finding a treasure. Only one survivor had escaped, forever spiritually scarred, to leave a dream tablet behind.

  Yerin noticed the same thing, because she grimaced. “Can’t say I’m blind to why my master went in on his own. Not that it’s a shock. My hair would have fallen out if he ever worked with a team.”

  “Look at the last memory.” It had stuck in Lindon’s mind, clear enough that it was like Dross had replayed it for him.

  A man with short, blond hair and a cropped golden beard sat behind a desk, speaking to the person leaving the memory. There were few thoughts attached to it, only his appearance and his words.

  His looks—like an older version of Eithan—and the lightning crackling behind his blue eyes had made Lindon assume at first glance that this was Tiberian Arelius.

  “You have the backing of House Arelius to study the labyrinth,” the Monarch in the memory said. “But I expect you to keep that quiet except at great need. I cannot trust any Sage or Herald under a Monarch’s protection, and I’m certain you understand why.”

  “That’s clear as new glass,” said the man leaving the memory, and his casual drawl made Lindon think of Yerin. Lindon wished he’d recorded more of his thoughts, because this had to be a personal record of the Sword Sage himself.

  “Since you’re going deeper into the labyrinth than you planned, you might consider taking a team. Just be sure you’re only bringing people you trust.”

  The Sword Sage laughed. “I was going alone before I heard a word from you. If you’ve got a list of people who can keep up with me, can be trusted, and are itching to run off across the world on my say-so, I’d love to see it.”

  Tiberian’s posture sagged, and he rubbed his forehead. “I take your point. If I had so many subordinates who were capable, trustworthy, and unified in purpose, I would have no need to employ you. But please, don’t risk yourself. My advisors and I are simply testing a theory. We should have many years left before this becomes urgent.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a treat,” the Sword Sage muttered.

  Lindon could see when the memory faded from Yerin, because her eyes focused and she scowled into empty space. “Well, isn’t this a nest of snakes?”

  “We’ll need a good plan,” Lindon said. Based on his quick glimpse, it felt like half of those who had gone into the labyrinth had failed because of a lack of information. “But first,” he continued, “I think we should take a quick look inside.”

  “Not going to get our faces bitten off for a peek, are we?“

  Lindon slipped the dream tablet into his void key. With some study, he might even be able to make a partial map out of those memories.

  “Let’s find out,” he said.

  They left the Sword Sage’s void space open and readied themselves for battle, facing down the circular stone door leading into the labyrinth.

  “Open,” Lindon commanded once again.

  His working crashed against the door…and fell apart.

  Yerin relaxed her grip on her sword. “Try it harder?”

  “This part isn’t supposed to be difficult, I’m certain. It’s just the outer door. There are outer entrances that Underlords can open, and some that open themselves at set times.”

  Lindon considered for a moment, then spread his spiritual sense out as far as he could under the suppression of Sacred Valley. He received a clear impression of the underground labyrinth; like a turtle that had entered its shell.

  “It’s locked down.”

  “The Titan, you think?”

  “It must be. We’ll have to check with Elder Whisper.”

  Lindon stared at the outer door, wondering if he could break through it. It would be stupid to try; even if he succeeded, he would only be exposing Sacred Valley to whatever was inside. But he felt like they had begun a race, only to stumble at the first step.

  “Huh,” Yerin said. “That’s a kick to the face.”

  Elder Whisper whipped his tails in agitation as he stared at the sealed labyrinth door.

  “I have read of this reaction,” he whispered. “And I have seen times when the Nethergate refused to open on time, or when the labyrinth seems to…sulk, if you wish to put it that way. The cause is almost always beyond my understanding.”

  “Not so much this time,” Yerin said.

  “Yes. One does assume that the labyrinth has locked itself to prevent further intrusion by the Titan.” A white snout turned in Lindon’s direction. “What else could it be?”

  That question bothered Lindon greatly.

  “Can we use the hand?” he asked.

  Whisper shook his head. “That tool allows you to borrow the authority of the Slumbering Wraith, and thus command the layers of the labyrinth that he himself controls. If he controlled the outer gates, he would long ago have released himself upon the world.”

  “At least this gives us time to prepare,” Lindon said, reluctant as he was to give up on entering. “I don’t think any of us are ready to fight another battle yet, and we can put together all the information we can about what’s inside.”

  Elder Whisper sighed. “Poor timing in one sense, but fortunate in another. The Dreadgods have been driven off, for the moment, and we need time to settle our people. At least for now, there is no disaster looming over us.”

  “Not that we know,” Yerin muttered.

  Lindon evened his breathing, hoping Elder Whisper was right. The Dreadgods were stirring, but taken care of for the moment. There was no reason to assume anything disastrous would happen at least for the next few months.

  Their luck couldn’t be that bad.

  Iteration 001: Sanctum

  Suriel connected to the network of Abidan all over existence. They didn’t control nearly as much territory as they did before, and the Way was disrupted by chaotic interference everywhere.

  But she spread her message as widely as she could.

  “Ozriel,” Suriel called. “We need you.”

  None of the Judges had ever done this before. Such an open call could be intercepted by anyone, assuming they were in a world that was still connected to Abidan control. Making this broadcast was as good as telling the entire cosmos that Ozriel was gone. That the Court of Seven had misplaced their greatest weapon.

  If they hadn’t figured it out already, they never would.

  “Wherever you are, I know you can’t see what’s happening. You would have returned. Unless you really are dead, and then…” She sighed. “I wish you would have trusted me more.”

  That was too personal for a public broadcast, but it was hard to care. She could see the lights that represented Iterations turning gray one by one as the Vroshir extended farther than they ever had before. Tightening the noose on Sector 11. On Cradle. On the Abidan.

  “They have your Scythe. If you could see what they’re doing with it, it would break your heart. Come back, and tell us what you saw. Because if you saw this, and you left anyway…”

  It wasn’t the optimal thing to say to lure Ozriel back, but Suriel had to say it. Her voice went cold.

  “…then I’ll execute you myself.”

  She canceled the connection, and a construct of light like a sapphire spiderweb vanished from in front of her. Her message now traveled through the Way Between Worlds, where it would be received by every Abidan and every world still connected to reality.

  In theory. In practice, the amount of chaos the Vroshir were introducing meant she had no idea how far this message would spread. Maybe it still wouldn’t reach Ozriel.

  But there weren’t many other actions she could take.

  She wasn’t wearing her armor, there not being much chance of combat here in Sanctum. She wore a simple white uniform that her Presence materialized for her as she waited here, in the headquarters of the Phoenix Division of the Abidan.

  All Divisions were currently stretched to their absolute limits, but there was a special pressure on the Phoenixes right now. This massive headquarters, with its gleaming white domes the s
ize of a mountain range, was the greatest hospital in existence. There were few things they couldn’t heal quickly, so they rarely needed to house many patients. The building’s size reflected its importance and the number of staff.

  Now the huge edifice was practically empty. She was in her personal quarters at the peak of the central dome, but she was almost the only Abidan in the entire place.

  Phoenixes weren’t just in charge of healing, but rebuilding. Of the ten sectors the Abidan still firmly controlled, not one of them had escaped damage. Members of her Sixth Division were even now restoring lives, fending off corruption, and reconstructing entire continents. Where worlds had cracked under spatial assault, her people knitted them back together.

  She could have joined them, as the most capable of their order, but that would require turning her back on the greater wound.

  The nine hundred and ninety sectors they had abandoned.

  [Correction: many of those sectors are still within bounds of safe recovery, after the Vroshir incursion ends,] her Presence reminded her. The ghost of gray smoke hovered next to her, and she may have imagined a slight admonishment in its tone. [Also, the vast majority of those Iterations were sparsely inhabited pioneer worlds. The situation is bad enough without embellishing reality.]

  Of course, the Presence was right. Most fully corrupted worlds ended slowly; there would still be trillions of lives left to save after the Vroshir retreated.

  Arguing with your personal Presence was an exercise in futility, but Suriel countered by summoning images all over her room. Windows opened onto many realities, covering the walls, images projected from reports that were delivered to the Abidan even now.

  Each of these was from the perspective of an Abidan agent somewhere calling for assistance. Each an image of devastation.

  An orbital barrage, shown from the ground, as deadly orange light rained from a steel sky.

  A deluge of once-human monsters swarming up the side of a fortress, the army conducted by a hovering figure in a silver crown.

  A desperate blur of combat as an Abidan from the Wolf Division held off a warrior whose spear-strikes leveled mountains.