Wakespire (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 7), page 11
When at last she had thrown all but one pillow, Friend Theo stopped. He'd needed to rise to his feet to dodge, but smiled in her direction. "That was better, wasn't it?
"Yes, you are doing well."
"Objects without much mass are still hard to sense, but it's like I can feel the gravitational connections between everyth-"
In the middle of his sentence, Fiyu dropped the last pillow from the ceiling. It bounced off his head and Friend Theo immediately groaned.
"I guess I deserved that." He pulled up his blindfold to rub his eyes. "It just still requires so much concentration."
"You have intellectually mastered the skill," Fiyu said, "but you have not made it part of yourself. This will become more natural in time."
"Then I'll give it another try." Friend Theo sat down again and returned to his soulcrafting. She would give him some time before throwing any more pillows, both to let him work and to lull him into a sense of complacency.
Her friend was doing remarkably well, for someone who hadn't grown up in the Ichili environment. Yes, his control was often clumsy, but he had never had relatives to guide him and always been able to rely on his sight. Between Relative Guchiro and her own teaching, hopefully he would fully absorb the new skill.
Fiyu herself needed to learn the same lessons, because while they spoke her darkness had pulled away from the windows. It was like a muscle that began relaxing whenever she stopped thinking about it. To use her darkness in combat, her control needed to be powerful and precise.
After fixing the windows to return the room to darkness, Fiyu entered her soulhome. She carefully walked to her third floor room and examined the swirling woodwork along the walls. All of it had been fashioned according to her relative's specifications, but she reached out to remove one piece and began carving it into a slightly different shape.
She couldn't entirely explain why one form was better than another. Perhaps there truly was no difference except in her mind. The former pattern had been a blueprint simply handed to her, while the new shape was something she had chosen for herself. This room needed to be not just a technique, but to be her, so she needed every mental trick available. Mastering the darkness meant alternating between improving her skill in the real world and soulcrafting the chamber based on her observations.
Fiyu doubted that she would have true mastery of the skill in the near future, so her goal was to perfect the chamber enough that it would not stop her from ascending. Not that Authority was a goal within sight. There was still so much to be done on her third floor.
In fact, as she walked in a circuit around her soulhome, she felt as though she had only completed three aspects. Her walls and ceiling were complete, and greatly strengthened by the windows she had developed in Norro Yorthin. The darkburn bonsai in her heart chamber had been enriched by following her through ascensions, so it put off more than enough cantae for the floor. Then there was the subliminalsteel, making all of her strikes more lethal. That chamber still required polishing, but it was functional.
That left five large rooms that needed to be completed. One was her Nine Worlds Feast, still incomplete. She hoped that Friend Nauda would locate sublime foods soon and she could at least add another world to the feast. The other chambers would need to be filled by the materials from Nondol, among others that her relative brought her.
Watching her friends and other competitors made Fiyu feel very fortunate. She had a kind relative who could provide her with so much, while the others struggled for sublime materials. Yet she couldn't feel guilty about it, because the only way she could help her friends and relatives was to gain strength as quickly as possible, however it came to her.
Besides, no amount of gifts could carry her to Authority. If she wanted to be worthy of any of them, she would need to work as hard as she possibly could. So many unfinished rooms, so many new skills to develop...
Before Fiyu could delve deeper into her soulcrafting, she felt Relative Guchiro enter the room. To his credit, Friend Theo noticed as well. He remained quiet, focusing on his own sense, while Relative Guchiro approached her.
"This is almost worthless." He dropped the strange mask they had taken onto the floor. "The trick to fake an Authority's cantae is interesting, but it grants no actual benefit. A petty trick at best. But the materials are rare, so you should keep the armament until they can be repurposed."
"I understand." Fiyu picked up the mask and ran her fingers over the smooth surface. She had not particularly expected it to be valuable. "I will give it to Nauda to keep."
"I have also completed my research into the escape technique used in the Wakespire." Relative Guchiro folded his arms and turned toward Friend Theo. "This will be of interest to you."
"Oh yeah?" Friend Theo started to pull off his blindfold, hesitated, then kept it down. His gravitational senses were woefully inadequate for interpersonal interactions, so everything would be fuzzy to him, but at least he was trying.
"Every contestant is marked by the cantae of the spire when they enter the first portal. It is a thin layer that provides no protection, but it emulates a normal body. When it is struck with a force that would be lethal, the individual is caught by the technique and removed to the exit rooms. The brief time it takes the technique to activate allows for injuries, but it would be difficult to kill someone in that time."
Fiyu had already been alarmed by the risk and this explanation did not help. Most troubling, she hadn't even realized that the portal had left foreign cantae over her. It was fortunate that she hadn't automatically rejected it, or she could have been killed. Meanwhile, Friend Theo reacted in a very different way.
"If you're marked when you enter," he asked, "does that mean that someone who entered the spire a different way could be killed?"
"The officials all enter through the portal," Relative Guchiro said, "but you are correct."
"I do not like this." Fiyu stopped speaking as she realized her darkness was wavering, then managed to continue. "If the technique is disrupted or someone strikes with sufficient speed, innocent contestants could be killed."
"That is not the likely negative outcome. The technique is increasingly sensitive as attacks become more lethal, so even a swift strike to the head or heart would trigger it. But it does not react to minor injuries, including broken limbs. It is entirely possible to cripple other contestants and the social norms against such a thing are insufficient."
"Oh dear. We cannot treat this as an innocent contest."
"But that's good to know," Friend Theo said. "It encourages a different sort of fighting, where non-lethal attacks might be more or less useful depending on your goals."
Before they could speak further, Fiyu sensed that Friend Nauda was walking toward the primary door of their chambers. She disliked walking in to find everything shadowed, so Fiyu released her control. Somewhat tired of training, she rose to her feet and went to greet Friend Nauda.
Her friend had been working hard as well, though she was away from their rooms quite frequently. Fiyu wished that they could work together more closely and was unsure of how to raise the issue. Friend Nauda's muscles showed signs of stiffness as if she had been training physically and she also wore the soft glove that she used only rarely. Then she was improving her capacities for the upcoming challenge, just as they were.
"Oh, Fiyu. I wanted to show you something." Friend Nauda's body relaxed slightly when she saw her, then, inexplicably, her back tightened. "Uh, if you don't mind."
"What is it, Nauda?"
"My telescope has been damaged for a long time, but they have a lot of metalworkers in Ugustial, and even some glass artisans. They managed to fix all the dents and scrapes, and for a reasonable price, too. But... you can't really see it unless you come into my soulhome."
"That will be very useful to us." Fiyu made sure to smile at her friend, then stepped forward to touch her wrist. "And I would not mind seeing the results."
Some parts of Friend Nauda's body relaxed and others tightened. Fiyu could only hope the pattern was a positive sign. Not long after, she floated in her friend's soulhome as a spirit.
It had been a long time since she had entered so clearly and the sensations immediately made her think back to the first time she had seen it back on Tatian. She had been sitting with so many strangers, deeply lonely and yet dismayed to be viewing one another so intimately. At the time, Friend Theo had been her only support and she had not known Friend Nauda well. Back then it would have been hard for her to believe everything that would develop between them.
Because she was a spirit, Fiyu was free to float in the air between her friend's three towers. Great progress had been made on the bondsfungi, which glowed on the outside of the sculptural body and nowhere else. The exteriors appeared to be fully built, though they needed some polishing.
"It's in the tower of life," Friend Nauda said from the ground. "I'll be there shortly."
Fiyu floated through the wall of the indicated tower and marveled at the great tree that filled the space within. A soulhome without clear divisions between floors was a very strange design, yet it felt right for Friend Nauda. All of her physical and life-giving cantae could intermingle, strengthening her as a whole.
The tree itself appeared strong, but there were a great many empty spaces. The most striking was that the ring around the center of the tree, which was clearly intended to hold a Nine Worlds Feast, was sorely lacking. Fiyu had forgotten that her friend had lost all her sublime food when her soulhome had been damaged. Perhaps once Fiyu became an Authority, she could use weirkeys to take Friend Nauda around the Nine Worlds and find her good things to eat.
Her friend climbed up the central tree effortlessly, since the entire soulhome was part of her. She moved past Fiyu's position with a smile and jumped off at the third mezzanine. There Fiyu finally saw it: the telescope gleamed brightly, just as it had the first time. Now all of the damage had been fixed and it flowed with much more powerful cantae.
It looked so picturesque that Fiyu automatically moved behind it, as if she could see through. But it was a sublime object, not a real telescope, so of course she could not. Friend Nauda laughed at herself from the side.
"Yeah, I guess there's nothing to really see. But the next time we get a chance, I'm going to put it to use."
"You expect to need it?" Fiyu asked.
Friend Nauda immediately nodded with tension in her neck. "When I've been out in the city, I've been approached by some of the other teams. They've all been sizing one another up and they're eager to test our mettle. This way, we can get a sense for them as well."
"That is wise." And it was true, but the enjoyment slipped away from Fiyu just as the darkness did. There was no time to be relaxing within their soulhomes: she needed to return to her training to have any chance of success in the trials to come.
Chapter 12
With half the month gone, Theo was beginning to get nervous. He had decided to focus on what he could change and not worry about the variables beyond his control, but that strategy was running out of runway. He couldn't brute-force train his way to Authority.
The most satisfying work had been finishing his anchoring technique and adding supporting materials to his alacrispark chamber. Both rooms were ready... or they would be, if he'd gotten the proper materials to filter the alacrispark. He could overcome that problem if he spent enough, but there was no way he could buy his way to a lightegg. That wasn't a problem, assuming the hypothetical that they won the next round.
That left him spending way too much time making bricks. His pyramid was coming together, a solid block of shell bricks climbing to the densest part of the sky. With a few details missing below, there was no point finishing up the brickwork, especially because he could always do that while exhausted.
Instead, he'd begun adding additional shielding to other parts of his soulhome. The pressure flooding from the heavens would threaten everything he'd developed, so even though his blueprint itself was meant to bear the burden, it didn't hurt to have more. He'd used leftover or inappropriate materials to board up his windows and reinforce the more delicate aspects of his design. With luck, the trials of the ascension would destroy the shielding and simply reinforce his main design.
Problem was, he was running out of that work too. So when Nauda returned to their rooms with a suggestion for all of them to go out, he was actually receptive to the idea.
"It's some sort of ritual that enhances ascensions," she explained. "I don't know if it will actually be useful to any of us, but it's only available to contestants for a limited time. Only part of a single day. It sounds like several teams will have new Authorities, so it's a good chance to investigate the competition."
"Is it an official event?" Theo asked.
"There aren't any competition points involved, but the princes in charge of the Wakespire have apparently approved it."
"Probably part of their plan to strengthen the entire city, then. It could be worth going."
"I would not mind," Fiyu said. "I have never seen an Authority ascension before, and I would feel more prepared to have witnessed some."
All of them, even Nauda, had been spending a lot of time indoors, so it was agreed as simply as that. They headed out into the city the next day with Guchiro reluctantly in tow. He didn't seem interested, but Fiyu had persuaded him that it would be an educational opportunity for her.
They rode their sleigh out of Ugustial to one of the many mountain peaks surrounding the city. Unlike the others, this one had been carved into a perfect cylinder. The white stone sides were bright enough, then the vast top appeared to be covered in a golden mirror. The day was unusually hot and, when investigating the suns, Theo realized that several of them were lining up overhead.
If Senka had been there, he would have asked her about this solar event... a celestial conjunction, or perhaps an inverse eclipse. She had been absent frequently as of late, and only babbled or wandered when she was conscious. The others had no special knowledge of Noven, so he could only theorize that the alignment of the suns was relevant to this method of enhancing ascensions. He'd thought that locations only mattered for Dominion, but maybe they had a technique that worked for Authority.
Multiple groups had already arrived, parking their flying vehicles around the sides of the column and then forming small clusters atop the mirror. Despite all the sunlight beating down on it, the metal top of the tower was completely cool. It was still bright, so Fiyu wrapped a shawl around her head and even Guchiro pulled a cloth up over his mask enough to shield his eyes.
"Welcome!" The greeting came from a slender woman with golden wings who stood among a number of Authorities of various groups. "My name is Nifanos Dortorus, Authority 1st class, and I will be overseeing this ritual. I, and my fellow judges, wish all of you glorious ascensions. As a special blessing on this august day, all of you will receive classifications immediately based on our judgment."
It seemed that there would be several people serving as judges. All of them Authorities, but more importantly he didn't recognize any of them from the competition. Aside from Nifanos, there was a Terefilia with black wings and a hulking man with white wings who Theo hadn't met. All of them seemed to have some connection to the major factions, except the Jadadictus lineage was unrepresented.
"Now, who would like to ascend first?" Nifanos gestured broadly to the center of the mountaintop and stepped away.
No one moved at first, then one of the Terefilia Rulers marched out. Theo didn't recognize him exactly, but the group of four Rulers made him fairly certain that was their team in the Wakespire. Apparently one of them was actually ready to ascend, ahead of projections.
As the man stepped into a shallow pool in the center of the golden plate, Theo felt a touch on his arm. Nauda was raising an eyebrow and already had a finger on Fiyu's hand, so she must be offering use of her telescope. He'd forgotten that she'd finally repaired it. In any case, there would be nothing outside but some glowing cantae, so he was glad to get a better look.
The Terefilia man's soulhome was three floors of black stone with silver edges, in the standard Noveni circular design. His interior blueprints would be the real test of his mettle, and unfortunately that couldn't be determined easily. Within his soulhome, the man climbed to the top and then began casting his will into the sky.
Instead of a pyramid, he used a number of dark stones that had been stacked together. They appeared durable enough to support him as he resisted the pressure and tried to pierce to the next tier. He was either confident or hasty.
Watching an ascension from the outside was surreal. Theo remembered the agonizing struggle that stretched on and on, but seeing someone else endure it, it didn't seem to take much time at all. The man just staggered up a few steps, more like a drunk than a soulcrafter.
Then the sky began to give way and the change was unmistakable. Cantae flooded down over him, but it wasn't reinforcing his soulhome. Instead it penetrated straight through everything he had soulcrafted, rushing through it with violent new intensity. The Ruler staggered under the unexpected assault and a crack resounded through his soulhome. A fissure splintered its way up the side of his wall and it was growing by the second.
He let out a cry and reasserted himself, gaining control. His interior cantae flow must have been strong enough, because there were only a few more soft cracking noises from within. Then he finally broke through. The cantae that had been damaging his soulhome infused it and the cracked stone glowed with new power.
"Our first ascension is a success - an auspicious sign!" Nifanos Dortorus announced in the real world. "Step forward and let us grant you your class."
While the judges spoke to one another, Nauda glanced between Theo and Guchiro. "Was that normal for an ascension? I haven't really seen the jump to Authority before."
