Wakespire (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 7), page 12
"Successful but flawed." Guchiro didn't seem inclined to offer any more than those three words, so Theo stepped in to give a better explanation.
"He had the willpower to ascend, but his blueprint wasn't quite there. It's much more difficult to actually experience it, of course. He'll obviously need to repair that crack, and there's probably some damage inside, but his soulhome has been greatly strengthened."
"And is the crack fixed in place?" Nauda asked. "Is he stuck with it?"
"He could try to replace the entire wall, but it would never be as strong as his materials that went through the ascension." Theo had run afoul of that very mistake before. "It would be smartest to keep what he has and accept the remnants of a crack. That's how major errors get permanently fixed into a soulhome."
Meanwhile, Fiyu touched her relative's sleeve. "All of this light... do you think that it greatly assists their ascension?"
"I'm not impressed." It was difficult to tell Guchiro's expression or even tone with his face so covered, but his eyes examined the scene coolly. "It might make the process slightly easier, or condition the soulhome for certain Noveni materials. Not a good use of a unique ascension."
Unique for the soulcrafter, but not for everyone else. The crowd was getting restless, waiting for the next attempt, so the judges split up. This time it was the black-winged Authority who made the announcement.
"Congratulations, you have been granted the status of Authority, 9th class."
The Terefilia man and his allies looked pleased while some others grumbled. They were all soon pushed away so someone else could move forward. This time it was a middle-aged woman with white wings, not someone Theo recognized from the competition. She stepped into the center, then began climbing up the side of her soulhome with practiced ease.
Her design was all highly polished gold, covered in windows lined with silver. It looked impressive enough, but when the woman attempted to pierce the sky, she struggled. She didn't throw herself into the pressure fast enough, so it built up continuously. Theo heard something that sounded like shattering pottery from within the soulhome and fragments of bright green grass began to tear away from her foundation before she finally broke through.
When she finished, she was left gasping. This time, it took little time for the judges to make their decision.
"Congratulations," one of the white-winged judges said, "you have been granted the status of Authority, 10th class."
"Thank you." The woman looked a little disappointed, but she mastered herself and bowed to the assembled groups. "Contestants of the Wakespire, please consider me if your teams require an additional member."
Another unknown Ruler arrived next and Theo was fairly sure he could predict the man's rank. Not only did his soulhome take relatively little damage during the ascension, the world around him grew bright as his cantae overflowed. Sure enough, he was awarded 9th class. Some in the audience cheered, but Theo was beginning to get bored and wondering if he could go back to soulcrafting without causing offense.
Next came another golden-winged Dortorus, and since Nauda again touched Theo's wrist, he decided to watch. Immediately the soulhome caught his attention. It was just as large as all the others, but it had four doors and Theo didn't see an obvious reason why. They were composed of different materials as if each one had been cobbled together at random. Even without looking inside, he noticed a small crack in the stonework of the third floor, as if it had been completed in great haste.
Instead of a pyramid, the man had a firmly-entrenched ladder reaching into the sky. Whatever sublime materials it was made out of, they held against the pressure, and the soulcrafter himself clearly had the willpower to ascend. But his blueprint...
When the cantae flowed inside, his entire soulhome began to shake and a terrible grinding emerged from within. Theo winced just before it happened: the crack he'd seen on the third floor exploded, an entire room tearing itself apart and scattering sublime materials.
To his credit, the Ruler kept pushing upward and he managed to break through. But the resulting cantae, instead of restoring him, spun him to the side and slammed him into the ground. His foundation, which had been bright grass before the ascension, was now blackened and torn by fissures.
"That's... a botched ascension?" Nauda asked it like a question, but there was no need to answer. The judges only glanced at one another briefly before Nifanos spoke.
"Your status is unranked Authority. Please step aside."
The new Authority looked devastated and it seemed like the other Dortorus members were going to reject him. Some were murmuring about his ascension being rushed, while Nauda and Fiyu spoke about technique. Ignoring all of that, Theo stared at the ruined soulhome until the very last second when they were pulled out of the man's soul.
He was definitely more prepared than that Ruler. Just in case, Theo began working on more shielding.
~ ~ ~
When Nauda had suggested they all attend the event, she had mostly hoped that it would shake them out of their routine. Now she found herself watching with grim fascination.
Even in a city as large and powerful as Ugustial, they didn't have an endless number of Rulers who could even attempt to ascend to Authority. A relatively unremarkable woman ascended next and was granted 9th class, after which she slipped away without a word. The others seemed to ignore her, more interested in how much power the Dortorus team would gain.
Judging from the chatter around her, their lineage had two Rulers who would attempt to ascend and the second was considered the better chance. If they'd succeeded, they would have had an intimidating five Authorities on their teams. Even four might be an insurmountable advantage and the Dortorus woman leading things soon regained her confidence.
But before they could send forward their next candidate, Isorales emerged from the crowd. He'd been so far back that Nauda hadn't even noticed him. He looked even paler than usual and she could see how much effort it took for him to unclench his fists. Once he stepped into the center, however, he became calm and entered his soulhome.
Nauda followed as quickly as she could and was taken aback. Unlike the Noveni designs that had become so familiar to her, Isorales had built his soulhome from blue and white stones. It wasn't merely a straight tower, either, but four towers that wove around one another with no space in between. That meant the exterior of his soulhome looked like a giant braid instead of conventional walls.
"Is that stable?" she whispered to the others.
"I believe the towers reinforce one another," Fiyu said. She looked to her relative, but he was silent.
"I want to see the inside," Theo offered briefly, before going back to his own work. He wouldn't admit it, but the previous failed ascension had shaken him.
It looked like it had shaken Isorales even more, though, because he was still standing atop his soulhome and hesitating. He'd laid down several heavy slabs in step formation, which should have been more than enough, yet he hadn't exerted his will yet. Physically his body was unmoving, but through her telescope Nauda could see that his spirit was shivering as he raised a hand.
At first it looked like all was well: the pressure didn't seem to slow him at all. But as it increased and began to flow into his soulhome itself, it began to shudder. Abruptly Isorales let out a soft cry and pulled away.
The pressure subsided and the sky returned to normal, ascension aborted. Isorales hung his head and trudged out of the central pool. A few of the contestants jeered, but most remained silent.
"His soulhome did not appear obviously flawed," Fiyu said quietly. "Why did he stop?"
"Mental weakness." Theo spoke the judgment without hesitation and Nauda only wished she could contradict him. "His soulcrafting might have been good enough, but he didn't have the will for it. He might not ever be able to ascend."
"It was not unwise." Guchiro regarded the young Noveni man thoughtfully. "He recognized that he would fail and stopped before any harm was done. Better delay than permanent damage."
Either could have been right, but Nauda found herself looking at Isorales's face instead. He looked more deflated than anything, as if disappointed in himself. They hadn't spoken much, yet she felt for him. Clearly he was under a lot of pressure to support his family and felt that he couldn't.
Since the next person was only the remaining Dortorus, Nauda left her companions to go talk to Isorales. He tried to turn aside when she approached, but when he couldn't slip away, he gave her a wan smile.
"I couldn't do it. I'm not sure I have it in me."
"Well, I know I definitely don't." Nauda shrugged and hoped her smile was self-deprecating in the right way.
She wanted to ask him more and wasn't sure where to start. Theo had mentioned something about his lineage being important, and apparently his grandfather was a legendary artisan. Those might be sensitive subjects for him or even the cause of his distress. If he had been Tatian, she would have known how to comfort him, but touch could be so easily misconstrued. Instead she stuck with her smile until it was too late.
The next Dortorus candidate had walked to the center and begun his ascension, but that wasn't what drew her attention. First she heard the crowd gasp, then she saw a dark form lunging toward the center. A man with ragged black wings struck the Dortorus Ruler across the face with a club. He reeled with a bloody lip... and his soulhome lurched dangerously.
Guards caught up to the attacker the next moment and jerked him back. It was too late. The Dortorus Ruler's ascension had been disrupted and he couldn't regain control. Even as he struggled to break through, cantae burst into flame and burned a black swath across his soulhome.
"Treachery!" Nifanos Dortorus rose into the air, cantae burning around her. "I should have expected as much from your kind."
"He's not one of us!" The Terefilia judge flew up to intercept her, and with his wings arcing blackly, no one could avoid the obvious conflict. "This madman may have come from the undercloud, but we have no idea who he is."
"Liar!" Nifanos punctuated her cry with a bolt of cantae that sent her opponent reeling.
In the several seconds it took the streak of cantae to fade, the mountaintop dissolved into chaos. Many of the Noveni fled so instantly that Nauda wondered if she shouldn't join them. The Dortorus and Terefilia factions certainly didn't seem inclined to wait before assaulting one another.
If so, the Dortorus side would clearly have the advantage of numbers. They had so much of an advantage that one of the teams turned on Nauda and her friends. She automatically drew closer to them and, without realizing it, drew Isorales along with her. Just when she hoped they could all retreat, one of the female Rulers jabbed an accusatory finger in their direction.
"Just get out of here." Her wings twitched angrily as she advanced on them. "People spend their lives preparing for a sublime legacy like this! And you just... just leap in and start taking rewards? Without a complete team, without even understanding the rules?"
There was still growing chaos around the mountaintop, but the Dortorus team didn't seem concerned. Maybe that was because they had one of their leaders at their back, currently fighting against the Terefilia judge. It seemed like the Authority's attacks were growing wilder and brilliant green streaks flew in all directions, even injuring some other combatants.
It looked like Theo planned to fight, so Nauda jumped in first. "We meant no offense! We have our own struggles that took us here."
"I don't want your excuses! I want you to take what you've earned and go, not continue insulting us." The female Dortorus was definitely preparing some kind of special technique judging from the cantae running down her arm, and she had three powerful allies including an Authority.
But it was the more powerful Authority in the air that Nauda should have been worried about. An enormous torrent of green cantae flew in their direction so suddenly that Nauda would have been incinerated if it hadn't been deflected by a wall of darkness. Guchiro floated into the air, creating a wall of shadows that shielded their group. It seemed like he was able to push back the other judges as well as the Dortorus team, so they had a moment to catch their breath.
Nauda turned back to Theo and the others desperately. "Can we just get out of here?"
"If we do, they'll target us later." Theo spoke without even looking at her, staring through the dark shield into the chaos beyond. "Here, everyone knows they're in the wrong and they'll be punished. We need to prove ourselves now or-"
Whatever he'd meant to say, it was interrupted by the explosion of the wall of darkness. Nauda had no time to see what had happened to Guchiro, she was too busy fending off staff strikes from a member of the Dortorus team. They had rushed through the fragments of darkness, already attacking. Fiyu had joined in the defense, but Theo was staring overhead.
"She has an Ethereal Floor!" he shouted. "Move, move!"
Nauda didn't understand, but one of Theo's fields had already grabbed her and pushed her backwards. In the sky, the Dortorus judge burned like an emerald sun, her cantae exploding beyond what an Authority should have been able to bear. Even as Nauda watched, streaks of green shot through the woman's wings and began to glow brightly.
Cantae struck the entire mountaintop and Nauda was blown off her feet. Without even thinking about it, she had moved to try to shield Fiyu and even Isorales, who had been lingering nearby. It didn't really matter. Even though the main attack hadn't struck them, the shockwave alone blew them off the mountaintop, into the clouds below.
Chapter 13
As the shockwave forced them downwards, Theo realized the vast gulfs between Authorities. He had started to cast a gravitational field to keep them from falling, then abandoned it when he realized just how much power was beating down over the landscape. The Dortorus judge had been holding her own before activating her Ethereal Floor, no doubt when threatened by Guchiro, so things were about to get much worse.
He wished that he could have watched their fight, but he was too busy keeping the rest of them alive. Theo drew all of them together with a point of mass even as they fell through the clouds, then cast a field to reduce their gravitational acceleration without canceling it.
Not enough. He'd again underestimated the shockwaves emanating from above, which pushed them deep into the cloud layer. Soon they were tumbling out the other side in darkness and it was a very thin consolation prize that his gravity senses activated automatically.
They informed him that their group was going to be shredded across the slope of craggy mountains.
A powerful inverted field managed to slow their momentum enough that the first impact was only jarring, not injuring. They bounced off the slope, tumbling further into the darkness. Theo had been to an undercloud region of Noven once before and found it a surreal environment, but this area was almost as pitch black as Ichil.
Nearby, he could feel that Fiyu and Nauda had grabbed hold of one another. A random Noveni had somehow come along with them, despite Theo focusing on their group - he must have been too close to Nauda when the shockwave hit. Theo's senses weren't precise enough to determine the extent of the group's injuries, so he focused on arresting their movement with another gravitational field.
As they slid to a halt, Theo turned to the group. "Everyone alright?"
"We suffered no injuries," Fiyu said. She sounded distracted, but relatively calm. "Do not worry, this region does not appear to be dangerous."
"Right, it might be more dangerous above the clouds, given the-" Before he could say any more, bright golden light pierced the darkness.
When he turned to look, he saw the Dortorus team descending toward them. It seemed like the shockwave had blown them through the clouds as well, but they had an Authority with them. His cantae had flowed around the group, turning their fall into a controlled glide.
A glide directly toward them. They didn't think the fight was over.
"Were you part of the attack?" one of the group demanded.
"We aren't even from this world!" Nauda shouted back.
Theo was more interested in examining the odds, because he presumed combat was inevitable. The Dortorus team was one Authority and three Rulers, which was formidable from the start. He also disliked the fact that the female Ruler who had started antagonizing them was still gathering cantae around her arm. If she had maintained her technique through all the jostling, it must be strategically important.
On their side, he had the three of them... and the random Noveni. In the golden light that now illuminated the crags around them, he could see that the man was the one who had failed earlier. Isorales, maybe. Technically he was a Ruler, but after seeing him give up on his ascension, Theo wasn't counting on any help from him.
The odds were decidedly against them. Theo focused on his cantae flow to prepare. The sphere lit up faster than before, thanks to the alacrispark, but the distortion in his theme made it unstable. He couldn't harness the full power of his internal singularity in that moment... but he could draw on most of it. If he struck at the right moment, that might be enough.
"Enough!" It was the Ruler with the cantae all down her arm again. "We'll take you in and sort the facts out later."
She raised her hand and Theo braced himself to move, but the effect was nearly instantaneous. The cantae was uncoiling from her arm one instant and blanketing the landscape the next. It manifested as a violent rainbow that washed over him, throwing his body into disarray.
A disabling attack. Theo smiled as he realized that it was very similar to one of his own chambers and thus poorly suited to attacking him. Some of the energy washed off his coat, his inertialvoid made his own body an inviolate space that could resist outside influences, and his acclimatization chamber was rapidly helping him adjust. He was nearly immune to the attack.
Someone's cry of pain drew Theo's attention, even though he didn't recognize the voice. It was Isorales, clutching his ears and falling to the ground. No help from him.
Beside the fallen Noveni, Fiyu and Nauda were still standing. Fiyu's Corporeal Floor strengthened her body enough that she wouldn't be disabled by some minor shaking, while Nauda... he thought that she was just enduring the attack. No doubt that twisted heart she had in her soulhome was working overtime, regenerating the minor injuries caused by the disruption. But given the way she raised her staff, it looked as though she was immune as well.
