Crimsoncrest (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 10), page 17
Nauda tracked down the smell to another identical stall with a stew being stirred by an elderly woman wearing another of the floppy hats. It looked like the stew was meant to be poured into hard loaves of bread serving as bowls, which would definitely make the Fithan bread more palatable. All the locals seemed to be giving the stall a wide berth, so they clearly didn't appreciate the variation, but Nauda thought that it might be interesting to try.
"That smells lovely," Nauda said as she took a closer whiff of the pot. "What is it?"
"Slescan honey-pepper." The old woman pushed up her hat and was revealed to be Tythes.
"Gah!" Nauda slapped him on instinct and nearly knocked off his hat. "Are you just everyone now?"
"Everyone and anyone." Tythes took a sip from his stirring ladle and made a face. "Clearly, my genius does not extend to the culinary arts. I thought I could make my fortune here, but as you can see, my food is not popular."
Nauda glanced around and saw that everyone else was avoiding looking toward them, which seemed to be the Asplundat attitude toward anything that didn't belong. Tythes was presumably here to give some message before disappearing again, which would be obnoxious. She needed to buy time and, as much as he annoyed her, she admitted that Tythes might be too smart to fall for anything easy.
"I'm surprised to see you defect to the Asplundat Movement," Nauda said. "I would have thought they were too communal for you."
"I haven't actually joined them, as you should know, but yes, it's terribly dull. Look at all these stalls, each identical to the next! No imagination at all, everyone just copying their neighbors."
"Actually, I think they all get their stalls from a central authority, and the positions are given by random lot. This way even the poor have a chance to sell their work, and no one can pay for a better position."
"Ah, but that just encourages countless civilians to pursue unproductive businesses!" Tythes waved a hand at the stalls around them. "Half of these people are selling their 'grandmother's recipe' for buns, exactly the same as all the others. Equalizing opportunity via free stalls sounds like a good idea, but in the end it just makes the economy less efficient."
Groaning, Nauda rubbed her eyes with both hands. "Did you know the source of the stalls all along, or did you make up a new argument as soon as the first one was contradicted?"
"It is the mark of a superior mind to change when given new evidence! Which is why my argument has been right all along, no matter what evidence you present."
"Why are you here, Tythes?" Maybe she should have tried to keep him distracted, but she'd noticed that Tythes only played around for so long and worried that trying to extend it would look suspicious. Besides, whatever he had to say was probably important, if obnoxious.
"I wanted to give you a new assignment." Tythes sat back and began rocking like an old woman. "You see, I've learned that the Salebrante has been active elsewhere in the nation even while working with House Crimson, which suggests that they're double-dealing. I'm going to be pestering my father, and while that happens I want you to uncover who else the Salebrante is working with."
"Why would we help you here?"
"You're worried about the Salebrante, aren't you? Imagine if they're hedging their bets by working with the House of Coin, for example. You could heroically stop House Crimson from seizing the Asplundatcrest, only to turn around and hand it directly to the Salebrante."
Nauda begrudgingly admitted that he had a good point. With all these large organizations working in the shadows it would be all too easy for her actions to have unintended consequences... the problem was that the same risks applied to Tythes and all the information he gave them.
"I'm not sure what you're trying to do here," Nauda said, "but I don't trust you enough to blindly follow your random clues. Honestly, I don't trust you enough to eat that stew. If you want us to cooperate at all, you need to give more information."
"Ah, but can you afford to ignore what I said?" Tythes wagged the ladle at her, splattering stew across the ground. "There really is a large chance that highly malicious organizations will come out of this with a powerful sublime material. Are you really going to sit back and let that happen, just because it might result in me earning an itty bitty fortune?"
"Come on, just-" Nauda reached out to grab his tunic, and Tythes pulled back.
She was just as fast as he was, now, but when she grasped his tunic it tore away in her hands. It appeared to have been designed to break in the back, letting Tythes escape. He had been wearing a set of fancy crimson robes underneath, which swished as he danced back out of her range.
"Were... were you wearing that many layers this entire time?" Nauda asked.
"And in this heat!" Tythes put a hand to his forehead. "Such are the sacrifices one makes for a stylish exit. Now, think about what I said and-"
Guchiro's hand closed around the back of Tythes's neck.
The atmosphere changed in an instant, all of the playfulness in Tythes's posture vanishing. A thin knife appeared in his hand and he stabbed backward, surprisingly effectively for a supposedly washed-up Authority. It didn't matter, because Guchiro caught his wrist effortlessly. They held that position for a moment, both of them testing the other, then Tythes came to a conclusion and his expression changed back just as quickly.
"Alright, I surrender." Tythes dropped his knife and was allowed to turn, so he looked Guchiro up and down. "My, what a strapping Ichili man. You're Fiyu's relative, right? I don't suppose she needs a second father?"
"We require answers." Fiyu herself appeared, bearing a dark cantae blade in one hand, and Tythes took a nervous step away from her.
It was good that they'd caught Tythes, but now Nauda was concerned they'd cause chaos in the market. She looked around nervously and was surprised to see that no one was panicking, in fact she only saw a few looking past them with expressions of mild puzzlement. Only after that did Nauda notice the subtle ripples in the air revealing that they were in a bubble of stealth that encompassed all four of them.
"If you treat this like a game," Guchiro said, "I will hurt you."
"Oh, but would you do that to your ward?" Tythes simpered. "The future will go so poorly for the things she cares about if you act recklessly."
"I am not convinced that your life would improve them."
The combination of Tythes and the Ichili seemed like an explosive one, so Nauda stepped up beside them. She'd intended to grab Tythes and lift him, just to make her point, but he raised his hands in real surrender. Besides, she wouldn't put it past him to be wearing a second set of break-away robes and he might end up running naked.
"You can pretend you have more contingencies," Nauda told him, "but I think we actually have the advantage over you here."
"Yes, I can't escape this fine strapping... Ichili Stronghold." Tythes reached out to pat Guchiro's shoulder and seemed to think better of it. "You have me."
"Then start giving answers."
"Oh, but which ones? I could tell you all kinds of silly, irrelevant facts, but I don't want your extremely serious friends to stab me."
Fiyu stepped up beside Nauda, still keeping her cantae blade lit. "Tell us everything you know about the aeon-class organizations here," she said. "You may know more than we do, but I do not believe you have full awareness of our knowledge, so we will know if you lie."
After a long pause, likely to consider antics, Tythes answered in a serious voice. "Fine then. The Salebrante is acting most directly, through House Crimson at minimum but likely others I truly don't know. The Eternal Spectrum wants to grab all high-tier materials they can, but they generally don't use subterfuge. The Orphic Cabal noticed their actions, but doesn't meddle like the others, so they're holding back. The Demonstalkers aren't involved, as far as I know. Plutalgion himself could be considered an aeon-class force, but I'm trying to determine whether he cares about the Asplundatcrest."
Tythes rattled off the list of names as if hoping to confuse them, or perhaps as a test. Nauda wasn't intimately familiar with them, but she'd spoken to Theo about everything he'd learned, so she wasn't lost. They'd caught up to Tythes in more than just power.
"Is that really everyone?" Fiyu asked.
"To my knowledge, depending on definitions." Tythes gestured back toward Guchiro. "He's a member of some sort of loose organization that doesn't trust the older powers, right? I'm not sure where they fall in the broader game, or if they count. Are you sure that they aren't doing all this in order to seize the Asplundatcrest?"
Fiyu blinked, then looked to her relative. "Guchiro, is this a plan to steal the sublime material?"
"No," he said.
"Then it is not." Fiyu turned back to Tythes and frowned. "Do not try to deceive us."
"What are you actually trying to accomplish?" Nauda asked.
"Oh, that's simple." Tythes shrugged and, despite the situation, seemed to have regained his ease. "Everyone here either wants to take the Asplundatcrest or, more practically, to sell it to an aeon-class organization. My father, for example, wants to give it to the Salebrante in exchange for ascension to Dominion and leadership of the entire continent."
"And they'd give that to him?"
"As powerful as aeon-class organizations are, they can't afford to take over every part of the Nine Worlds or they'd become unwieldy, inefficient empires. So they look for proxies, organizations that can feed them what they want while receiving what, in their opinion, are the local scraps. I would very much like to prevent House Crimson from taking that role."
Even though it all sounded like truth to Nauda, she wasn't completely sure that she could accurately judge Tythes. She turned the matter over in her head for a while before asking her next question. "Is that all you care about?"
"I'm focused on House Crimson and the bigger organizations, admittedly, but I do care about Norron." Tythes shrugged as if this was a personal vice. "How this all shakes out will have a major impact on how and when Plutalgion invades. My father believes he has the best chance of uniting everyone under his rule and, tragically, I think he has a point. This really would be so much easier if you'd all joined me."
"And you tried to do that by constantly manipulating us?"
"I figured I'd charm you with my insouciance!"
That might be most of what he knew, and it matched the other information they'd gathered. Unfortunately, Nauda wasn't sure where it left them. She glanced between the two Ichili, wondering where to go next. Fiyu appeared uncertain, but Guchiro grabbed Tythes by the shoulder and spun him around.
"If you want to keep living, you are going to assist my ward."
"Are you sure?" Tythes asked. "You can't trust me and I might slip away at any-"
Guchiro's cantae blade lit up underneath his chin and Tythes instantly saluted.
"Yes, sir, honored to be part of the cause!"
"My ward is seeking an Immortality Conduit and requires sublime materials. I think, despite your chicanery, that you could be useful."
"Potentially." Tythes glanced toward Fiyu, apparently thoughtful for once. He didn't struggle as Guchiro bound his wrists with dark metal shackles. "This isn't the best place to find immortality materials, so I think you'd be better off using certain gates here in the Asplundat Movement. I can make suggestions and help... as a gesture of good will. Despite all this, I really do think it's in our best interest to work together."
Fiyu only watched him suspiciously, while Guchiro grunted and turned away. Meanwhile, Nauda was looking over the abandoned stall and thinking about what they might leave behind. This city hadn't been particularly useful to them, aside from confronting Tythes, but she didn't want to cause them any trouble.
"Is it safe to leave the stew?" she asked. "Is it poisoned or something?"
"It's not poisoned!" Tythes announced unhelpfully. "I left a message and everything, it would have been very funny."
"No more jokes," Fiyu said. "Tell me about these materials."
While they spoke, Nauda stepped back to the stall. She took a sip of the stew, just to be sure, and none of her defenses reacted. In the fight she'd dropped the false old woman's robes, so to avoid strange questions, Nauda picked them up and, after a careful check, put them into her soulhome. That left only the floppy hat, which had fallen when he fled.
She picked it up and a piece of paper fluttered down. It contained the words "The stew isn't poisoned!" with a drawing of Tythes grinning. Huh.
Chapter 17
At Stronghold, Theo felt as though his potential was exploding both higher and lower. The limits of his soul had risen again, so he had an entire new floor of space to work with, just as soon as he could soulcraft enough bricks for it. But at the same time, his basement had truly come into its own, the very air filled with his own power in a way that it hadn't been before. Even the earth around it seemed to reinforce all the work he was trying to do.
Every time he exhausted his spiritual stamina for soulcrafting, Theo ventured to his basement to his new experiments. These were less willpower-intensive, so they made a nice break, but also more frustrating, so he was glad to return to the practical progress of brick-making after. The perfect cycle, as far as he was concerned.
By contrast, the work cleaning up after his ascension seemed like a mere distraction. But after four floors of painstaking work, he wasn't about to get sloppy now. When he was burned out on both other types of soulcrafting he cleaned up the rubble from his pyramid - more of it had survived than usual.
Ordinarily he would simply throw it all into his singularity, but this time Theo hesitated. The singularity that powered his first three floors already had enough spiritual mass to just about max out what that spherical flow could sustain, and soon enough he would need to start building a second. Since he still hadn't decided on the exact form his second singularity would take, he might as well accumulate a variety of sublime materials that he could feed into it later.
How exactly he was going about that was another major question, one that actually excited him. Soulcrafting at Stronghold was too slow for him to just finish the entire floor in a single rush, so he needed to build up a supply of bricks and use them strategically.
There were a few paths he could rule out immediately: building corner chambers that would just be more Corporeal or Ethereal Chambers was out, because those would just be incremental improvements. The most obvious path would be to build a central chamber and find a suitable material to implode within it, though that required a rare find. He could also build the other corners with sublime materials that enhanced his singularity, though that required double the bricks.
Either way, he was enjoying building up secondary materials by crafting them directly. When he hammered various Asplundat stones on his mass and anti-mass anvils, each strike imparted more of his strength than before. Some of the roadblocks he'd been running into hadn't been problems with technique, he simply needed a Stronghold's cantae to pull them off.
That was a lesson in not always taking the more methodical path, though he remained cautious. Now that his crafting ability was stronger, he was more concerned about breaking Krikree's armorstone if he tried to work on it improperly.
Given everything he had to do, he could have happily soulcrafted for months. How long had it been, a week? He had a feeling that the politics of the situation were going to drag him back sooner or later, so he was glad to let the others take care of that while he made as much progress as he could.
When Fiyu arrived at Outpost #127, however, he could tell that she was concerned. Since he was at a good break point between projects, he emerged to greet her.
"Hello, Theo. Is your soulcrafting going well?" The question was mostly polite, sincere but a method of distraction. Theo sat down in one of the simple chairs and gestured for her to take the other.
"Well enough," he said. "What's on your mind?"
"I know that it is in our best interest for you to make more progress, but I fear we may need your help soon."
"More suspicious info from Tythes?"
"I am unsure if we will get more from him." Fiyu shook her head slowly. "No, the trouble is Blacksilver. They have been assisting the southern Asplundat Movement in a region with food shortages. So far there has been no conflict, but they want to have soulcrafters to prevent anyone from harassing them."
After all his soulcrafting, Theo felt as though his hands should be filthy or sweating, so he wiped them restlessly on his pants. He wanted to ask if Nauda and Fiyu couldn't handle that, but recognized that he needed to pull his weight. Blacksilver had only moved to work with the Asplundat Movement based on the idea that he could support them as a Stronghold, after all.
"I'm here if you need me," Theo said. "Do you anticipate trouble?"
"Homez does not think so, but... we may be leaving for a time." Fiyu stared at nothing with a strange smile. "Tythes has given us useful information about a city where I may be able to find material for my Immortality Conduit. But it will require us to pass through a gate, so the usual methods of contacting us will not work. It would be better to have back-up here."
"That makes sense. I'll definitely support you, but..." Theo snapped his fingers when he realized the obvious solution and reached into his coat. "We should call in Krikree. Do you have time to go pick her up before you leave?"
"Oh!" Fiyu caught the Slescan weirkey out of the air and then smiled. "Yes, I am happy to run errands for everyone, especially as I cannot soulcraft until we make more progress. Krikree would be a good guard for House Blacksilver."
She would also make them look even less like a provincial Fithan organization, which he thought would work in their favor. Besides, it had been too long and he wanted to see her progress. There hadn't been any violence yet, but he was willing to bet that with all these aeon-class organizations applying pressure, it was only a matter of time.
They discussed some of the other details and soon Fiyu was away, twisting into her weirkey passage. Thinking about Krikree, Theo headed back to his basement and began looking over the anti-weirkey materials that she'd stolen from the Deuxans.
