Underlord (Cradle #6)(67)

He pointed to the third pile, the white parts that looked like a disassembled claw and felt like razor-sharp wind. “This matter in a shell around the binding, bound with pure madra, should have minimal interference with the customer's madra.”

Gesha's wrinkled face was a mask, giving him no hint if he had succeeded or failed. She turned to Eithan.

“Dross,” Eithan said, “did you still sense what Lindon felt?”

Dross' eye opened, and he frowned at Eithan. [How could I? I'm all the way over here. I would have to reach into his memory and...oh, never mind, I actually did. Sorry, I was paying attention to something else.]

“If you would, please simulate the experiment in Lindon's head.”

Dross helped Lindon visualize the experiment. Lindon saw himself taking the white Remnant pieces and Forging them into a shell around the corkscrew binding. The whole thing turned a pink color, bound with his pure madra, and sealed into a shape like a lumpy stone. He rolled it across the floor and activated it with the sample of the customer's madra, and it detonated violently, blasting a crater into the floor and cracking the walls and ceiling, filling the room with smoke.

In the vision, Lindon felt no impact, only observing the successful explosion.

[It's a very nice image,] Dross said, [but I couldn’t tell you if it’s what would really happen. Here, look at this.]

The scene repeated successfully with the gray dead matter. And with the one made out of rainbows. And when Lindon sealed the construct with Blackflame, which changed the entire nature of the experiment.

[See, I can make it show any result I want. Couldn’t even tell you which one was most likely to work.]

Lindon sighed and opened his eyes. “He will tire himself out at this rate. The only way he'll be able to accurately project the experiment is by using my senses to understand all the madra completely. And if I could do that, I wouldn't need him.”

[That seems deliberately hurtful.]

“He's still a great help,” Lindon hurriedly added, “just like before. But he can't replace a drudge.”

Eithan smiled as if Lindon had stepped into his trap. “So he's lacking knowledge of madra aspects and how they interact.”

[You know, it's nice that someone pays attention and speaks properly. Hey, what do you have there?]

Eithan held up a ball of spinning copper plates. He caught a glimpse of colored lights flashing from between the plates themselves.

Lindon's heart leaped. The Arelius family library had all the information about Paths and techniques they had collected over generations. It could simulate hundreds, maybe thousands, of different Paths and their permutations. Lindon had missed it ever since leaving Serpent's Grave.

“I was surprised to find it here as well,” Eithan said. “Cassias carried it with him when he left Serpent’s Grave, and I…borrowed it. This is your gift, Dross.” He held up the ball of copper in one hand. “Dive in, and learn what you can.”

With a gasp, Dross gleefully leapt in and vanished, like a child into a pond.

The light at the center of the spinning copper turned purple, and Lindon heard Dross' exclamations of wonder echoing out from the ancient construct.

He couldn't help but worry. “He has consumed a lot of other memory constructs. You don't think he'll empty it out or ruin it somehow?”

“If he can break this,” Eithan said, “then he is welcome to do so.”

Dross emerged from the library, gasping like a drowning man. [No, this is too much! It’s too much! It's like being part of the tree again, only there's no space for me, and everything's moving too fast! I think I'm going to be sick.]

Eithan shoved another scale into his mouth. “The deeper you can go, the better.”

Many of the information constructs that Dross had absorbed back in Ghostwater were left by Soulsmiths, so he had a solid foundation in Soulsmithing, but their memories were fragmented and often contradictory. The more Dross learned, the more connections he would be able to make. Or so he and Lindon suspected.

Dross spent a few moments gasping for breath—though surely he neither needed air nor had any lungs—then nodded, diving back inside.

A few minutes passed, during which Lindon and Fisher Gesha speculated on what changes Dross would experience, while Eithan sat nearby with a content smile. Then one of Dross' stubby purple arms emerged, quivering, from the construct. He seized the edge of the copper, sluggishly dragging himself out.

Lindon extended a hand, and Dross rested limply on it, face-down. He felt like a damp rag, and was a little too big to fit entirely in Lindon's hand, but he wasn't heavy.

[No more,] Dross said. [That's all I can take. I need to digest.] He groaned.

“While you're digesting, why don't you try our little experiment again?” Eithan suggested.

Dross slowly dissolved, slipping back into Lindon's hand and up to his spot at the base of his skull.

Dream madra filled Lindon's head.

Fisher Gesha and Eithan vanished. Otherwise, the room existed in complete detail, so that Lindon couldn't tell whether his eyes were open or closed. He moved over to the table, closing one hand around the binding.

This time, he could visualize the experiment with perfect clarity. The white madra was actually a dud, and would not detonate at all. He tried it with the force madra, and the bomb went off early.