Reaper(Cradle #10)(38)
There was no guardian spirit in this chamber, which was filled with jagged blades of golden stone. Most likely, one had formed here, but the Wandering Titan had annihilated it without even noticing.
Another palm-sized silver flask came off his belt, and he absorbed the Titan Core. The yellow light vanished.
It had been flickering off and on since the Dreadgod had consumed most of its power, so Shen could only hope this would go unnoticed for a while.
He pushed himself. Faster.
Lindon found Eithan standing on the edge of Windfall’s cloudbase, looking west.
“Strange feeling?” Lindon asked.
Eithan’s clothes were rumpled, and he had worn the same thing for three days straight. Given that Eithan normally changed at least twice a day, Lindon thought he might be on the verge of death.
“Every time I turn around,” Eithan responded. “If I didn’t know better, I would say it was just…nerves. Anxiety. Overactive imagination.”
“So what is it?”
Eithan threw out his hands in frustration. “You think I know and I’m holding out on you?”
“Apologies if I’m overstepping, but…what would Tiberian Arelius’ advisor say?”
Eithan closed his mouth. He brought his arms around and crossed them, thinking. To Lindon’s discomfort, he found traces of someone he didn’t recognize in Eithan’s expression. Just flickers, like the shadow of another person passing through the man.
“There are three possibilities,” Eithan responded eventually, and all playfulness was gone from his tone. “One, there is a problem with me. A working of will or authority that I cannot detect, which is compromising my senses. Two, I could be sensing authority at work. If I’m close to Sage—especially the Oracle Icon, which I was once considered a prime candidate to manifest—then I could be picking up hints of another Sage or Monarch’s working. It could be a working you are too inexperienced to recognize, or something too far away from the realm of the Void Icon.”
Lindon didn’t take offense at the slight to his abilities. It was a reasonable possibility. He only listened.
“Three…” The businesslike Eithan hesitated, and Lindon saw the usual man again. Although an uncertain one.
“…you’re going to laugh.”
“I usually don’t.”
“That’s true. It’s of great concern to me. The third possibility is…fate.”
Lindon didn’t feel like laughing. In fact, he sought out the warmth of Suriel’s marble for comfort.
She had spoken of fate. Reading it, changing it, altering its flow.
“Fate, or destiny, or the will of the heavens…it’s a real force. Dream artists contact it once in a while, and some Monarchs are more attuned to it than others. As an Archlord with no dream abilities, I should have no ability to see it. So that’s a distant third possibility.”
Lindon didn’t think it sounded distant. If he were to bet based on this conversation, he would put his chips on fate.
But that would be a bet he’d be happy to lose.
“Pardon, but I hope the problem is with you,” Lindon said.
“I would be delighted.”
When Reigan Shen placed the Titan Core in the north where it belonged, the mountain the locals called Yoma erupted in stone spires.
Even Irons wouldn’t miss a sign like that. Shen flew down the halls of the labyrinth’s upper layer, supported by blue strands of energy emanating from a construct at his belt. The construct wouldn’t last long, but this was the fastest and most economical way of traveling for now.
Subject One’s attacks had intensified, and now there were traps of hunger madra placed in his way, Forger techniques strung across the halls like webs.
If he had been less skilled, he might have fallen for them. But they still slowed him down.
As soon as the pillar of light from the western peak had vanished, he’d put himself on a time limit. And it would only run out faster and faster.
He reached the eastern chamber, buried beneath Mount Samara, and detonated another powerful weapon to carve through the wall. This chamber had been influenced by the Silent Core for hundreds of years, so it should be a trap of powerful light and dream madra.
He could sense that it was, but he couldn’t see anything. Beyond the hole in the wall, he saw only a chaotic jumble of spinning images.
Even his aura sight was useless here, though that had more to do with the suppression field than the complexity of this dream working.
Shen placed a pair of spectacles over his eyes, which should show him the path through this dream formation.
Unfortunately, he saw immediately that this wasn’t a formation so much as a mess. There was no path through; the strong and weak points of the illusion shifted with every second.
So he had no choice.
Reigan focused his willpower again, hating how long it took him, and how weak his authority felt here.
“Flee,” the Monarch commanded.
The fog of deceptive madra and aura parted like a forking river. He dashed through, scooping up the purple-white Silent Core now that he could see it clearly. He had to be quick; there were undoubtedly spirits that had formed inside this environment as well.
He placed the Storm Core on its altar, then ran away as the clouds of dream madra began to flash with lightning.