Chasmfall (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 4), page 18
Fiyu appeared from the side, unleashing a narrowly focused wave of bolts that slammed into Homez. It barely seemed to slow him and he spun on her, too quickly. Nauda realized that he must have left himself open hoping to lure her out, but it was too late to say anything.
Homez whirled, both fists smashing together and unleashing a spherical shockwave. Theo only winced, but Fiyu wavered on her feet, starting to drop. The Asplundat Ruler immediately moved in, stone sphere flying at her...
Fiyu stopped pretending to fall and her hand swept up, surrounded by dark cantae.
It sliced through Homez's shoulder armor and even drew a little blood. He stepped back, eyes wide within his helm. Though she only caught a glimpse of his eyes... Nauda almost thought that he was smiling. Fiyu's trap had been very well placed, after all.
Unfortunately, it might not matter. Nauda's hesitation had allowed the other two Rulers to move further from the river, which was surging and splashing onto the shore so dangerously that it threatened all of them. In that environment, the three of them would be at even more of a disadvantage.
Before Nauda could decide how to act, Theo leapt between her and Fiyu and cast another of his gravity spells. All three of them began to fall into the air, though not as quickly as usual. Perhaps he saw the odds and intended to flee? As she rose into the air, Nauda realized that the moaning in the chasm around them had increased, as if an entire chorus screamed in the distance... and then she saw the water surging toward them.
The Asplundat Rulers leapt for them, but Nauda threw her binding against them and Theo cast another of his fields, making their jump fall far short. Two of them appeared simply angry, but Homez saw the onrushing flood and began to move.
A wall of pale water deluged the shore, hitting the side of the chasm violently and sending a cascade over the entire gap. Theo's spell only barely lifted them above it, weakening as they rose higher. He managed to move them all to the ground atop the chasm, but as soon as they landed he dropped to his knees, panting for breath.
Had the flood coursing down the river killed all their opponents? Nauda dared to look back, peering into the chasm... and saw a rope wrapped around a nearby rock. Dangling at the end, Homez desperately pulled himself higher, his stone armor burned away in countless places. There was no sign of the others, but he was crawling his way up.
"Cut the rope." Theo still gasped for breath, but he gestured Fiyu toward the tied point. She generated a cantae blade, but hesitated as she reached the edge, watching Homez stare up at them.
"Wait." Nauda almost reached out to stop Fiyu and forced herself to do no more than speak. "Do we really need to kill him? He's weakened and without his allies."
"And our enemy."
"Not necessarily, unless you always kill their soulcrafters without mercy. Do you want to see what an empire like the Asplundat Movement will do if it drops the nice act?"
"They won't know if he dies."
Nauda stared into Theo's eyes, again seeing the darkness there. He was no longer the man who had planned to rob Myufuru blind, but she had lost sight of the ruthlessness that still lurked within him. If a conflict emerged between them, a true conflict, she wondered exactly what he would do.
After looking between them several times, Fiyu released the cantae around her hand. That seemed to settle the matter, despite Theo's obvious displeasure, so Nauda bent down to help pull Homez up the rope. He intentionally kept his soulhome inert, taking no action that could be viewed as aggressive.
"Thank you," he said as she pulled him the rest of the way up. "I w-"
"There's no time." Theo was staring down toward the source of the river grimly. "It's about to end. Put in your earplugs... and you, just reinforce yourself as much as you can."
Despite her thoughts, Nauda complied immediately, stuffing the silencemoss plugs deep into her ears. The screams of the chasm immediately faded... only to increase even through the thick moss. As the flood of water passed, it was followed by a scream more intense than any that had come before it, the sounds themselves scraping the walls of the chasm.
For a moment, Nauda was overwhelmed by a sound of pure sorrow ringing deep inside her skull. Then it receded and she took a long, shuddering breath.
Beside her, Theo appeared unharmed, while Fiyu frowned with her hands over her ears. Homez had built a thick stone helmet around his head, but as she watched, it crumbled away. A line of blood trickled from one ear, and he slowly reached up to touch it. Though it didn't seem as though the scream had disabled him, when he spoke, his voice was much quieter.
"We had no intention of fighting you, actually." He stared down over the edge, where the river slowly subsided to its normal raging. "Two lives lost, for nothing..."
"It's easy to preach peace when you have military superiority." Theo stepped up to the Asplundat soulcrafter, thankfully no longer looking murderous. "And you brought that on yourselves, dropping straight into the chasm. I would have expected your Movement to have figured out that those distortions always lead to backlash."
"It would have worked, if we hadn't stumbled across you." Homez sighed heavily and allowed his armor to slough away. "You saved my life when you would have been justified leaving me. I cannot truly thank you, but I'll retreat instead of pursuing this further."
"And how many other soulcrafters is the Asplundat Movement going to send on the west side?" Nauda asked. "That was the plan, wasn't it? Send Rulers pretending to gather materials passively until they could seize control of the central river area?"
"Yes. That was never against the rules we set. Now the process will be delayed, but there are still others coming, and I am not the commander of this operation. I would suggest you hurry."
"Excuse me." Fiyu had slipped up nearby and spoke with absurd politeness. "Can you explain what your Movement wants? Please do not pretend you are not at war with the Ruling Cities."
Homez sighed and ran a hand over his eyes, the lines in his face weighing down his expression. "The three of you are visitors to this world, so I think you don't understand what it's like to live outside the cities. They're nothing but the strongest of barbarian clans, leeching off the land around them. In the Asplundat Movement, all are equal. No Houses, no principalities, no forgotten ghettos in between cities. I don't believe that we should conquer the continent, as some do, but I do believe that Fithe would be a better world if the Asplundat Movement spread across all of it."
"That has less to do with us than you think." Theo waved him toward the other side of the chasm. "I guess you'd better hurry. You only have about a day to gather materials."
"Oh, it will be more than that. Haven't you seen the darkness?" Homez gestured behind them toward the plain, where an entirely different battle still raged. "Our highest commanders knew that the House of the Lost was going to call on its allies. They've established a technique that enmeshed itself in the boundary, preventing it from dissolving. It also prevents anyone from getting out."
"You knew the event would be extended... and you planned for it. What else do you have in store?"
"Even if I would tell you all our plans, my part in this has ended." Homez leapt backward with surprising speed for such a tired man, though he didn't try to jump all the way across the chasm. "Perhaps later we can meet under less violent circumstances. Please think about what I said and look around you."
He turned away and began finding a path south. Though Theo continued to watch him skeptically, Nauda instead turned her gaze toward the battlefield. The unnatural darkness still extended over much of the plain, and now that she was looking for it, she saw how the distortions of the barrier had turned completely black. Even the shimmering blue waves on the other sides of the Chasm had become much darker than they had been before.
"Theo?" Fiyu spoke up very quietly. "What exactly does that mean?"
"It's a technique that keeps the Chasm of Lamentations open for longer, like I said might happen." He frowned as he finally looked back, examining the same darkness. "But this one is stronger than what I saw before, much stronger. Apparently it keeps anyone from getting out, and even after it fades, there will probably be several days to escape."
"Does that mean...?"
"Yes. We're going to be here for a while."
Chapter 19
Though the attack cost them time, requiring their group to retrace their steps to find a safe path back into the chasm, the true cost was peace of mind. Theo had hoped, despite the odds, that they had stayed ahead of similar efforts to reach the vault. Perhaps if he'd sprinted directly down the river...
Once again, he reminded himself that a trap from Vistgil might be waiting at the end. Gathering rare sublime materials was more important than arriving first.
When they finally located a path down that didn't risk disturbing the Chasm in some way, he hesitated by the edge to look back toward the battle one more time. It had essentially entrenched itself around the most powerful soulcrafters, with at least three Strongholds creating fortifications that couldn't be broken by anyone other than their peers. Considering that they weren't willing to risk themselves for the rewards of the Chasm, that produced a deadlock.
None of them were attempting to push further north yet, presumably because they knew that the House of the Lost had bound them all inside for longer. Instead they primarily fought over the sublime materials located on the broad plain, and he thought he saw signs of quarrying in each base. Some of the resources there were powerful, but he'd already given up those sublime materials for lost. No amount of knowledge or trickery would let him enter a battle of that intensity.
Yet the end of the river and the Scepter of Separation... if the stories were true, that artifact could allow any soulcrafter to harm a Dominion, even if it only worked once. He refused to believe that every force entrenched on the plain didn't also have a strategy to try to seize it, if not the entire vault. The Asplundat movement had sent Homez and probably others to sneak into the river, and there were presumably more attempts that he hadn't encountered.
"Theo?" Nauda stood beside the path down, staring back at him. "Is something wrong?"
"Just distracted." He turned back and joined them, creeping down the slope before they shifted to climbing. Though he knew that he could stop their fall with gravitational fields if necessary, it had taken a lot out of him the previous time, so he wasn't eager to test himself again.
"I was actually wondering about this new barrier." Nauda spoke casually as they climbed, moving more easily over the rock than either of them. "What happens if the House of the Lost stops their technique? Could they evacuate their soulcrafters, halt it, and trap everyone else here abruptly?"
"Oh dear." Fiyu glanced up at them from below. "I hope that is not possible."
"It's not," Theo said quickly. "They're freezing the boundaries of the Chasm, increasing the amount of time they'll stay open. When they release their technique, the rest will take a while to fade. The most they could do is set off a panic as everyone would have about one day to escape."
"Huh." Nauda frowned skyward at the uneven line where the darkness met the original sky. "You could probably get to a boundary in a day even if you were in the very center, if you hurried. But do you suppose they could use that to try to prevent anyone from reaching the vault? Let the boundary begin collapsing so that everyone needs to rush out, I mean."
"That wouldn't make sense if they want to acquire it themselves, but I suppose it could be a last ditch effort if they feel things aren't going their way." He actually hadn't considered that, given the slow nature of such boundaries. Though not an overwhelmingly powerful maneuver, they could certainly alter the entire state of the battlefield.
Their trio reached the rocky shore without any accidents or attacks, indeed without running into a single other person. Until they met Senka, sitting on a rock and quietly chewing on what appeared to be a strand of seaweed. She said nothing for once and simply fell in behind them.
Unfortunately, the flooding river had destroyed many of the sublime materials that had been growing on the bank, in addition to carving large sections from the stone. He noted that there weren't any puddles left behind, as if the river had withdrawn back to its territory. The losses might benefit them slightly, but he wished that they had been able to harvest more plants before so many were lost.
As they carefully made their way down the river, Theo found himself increasingly annoyed at the Asplundat Movement. The cavern and ruins he remembered still existed, but many of their contents had been destroyed or washed away. Then again, they might have been looted in the century since the previous time he had visited, since the ruins were one of the most obvious places to search.
If any truly valuable artifacts remained, they would no doubt be in the locked ruins toward the end of the river. Based on the rumors about the Scepter of Separation, the final area was still not thoroughly explored, but soulcrafters had reached it. The vaults would contain the most valuable rewards, yet given the rumors of the opened one, they could easily be a trap...
"What's our exit strategy?" Nauda finally asked as they left another mostly empty building. "Let's not be coy: you'd take this scepter armament if you could, right?"
"If possible, but that really depends on what awaits us at the end." Theo couldn't help but stare northward, even though he could see nothing but the chasm walls as they twisted. "If the Strongholds finish their battle and make it to the last ruins, they'll lock them down. But the scepter supposedly fell in the battle closer to the exits than the vault, so it might be more hidden than guarded."
"Say we happen to run into it, then. Do we take it and run for the boundary?"
"That depends on how many people we encounter. If we can slip away, of course we do. If others realize that we have it, then we'd have a major target on our backs. I think if we play it safe, we can survive long enough to leave. Once we're out of the Chasm of Lamentations, it will be in House Blacksilver's interest to protect us, and in turn Norro Yorthin and the Ruling Cities. They might pressure us, but I don't think they'd entirely turn on us for it."
Nauda frowned like she wasn't so confident, but Fiyu increased her pace to walk beside them and spoke before she could. "Do you still believe this could be a trap laid by your great enemy?"
"I... I'm not sure, but I can't get the idea out of my head. Just think of it as another way we should be cautious." Their path had been relatively easy so far, so he couldn't help but imagine the rumored vault containing nothing but another world-consuming trap. Vistgil's work had been quite effective, because it sowed both traps for his foes and doubts about any action that might benefit them.
"Then we continue moving forward. What is the next location that might help us? Would it be the island with the locked building?"
"With the ruins mostly empty... yeah, the island should probably be our next goal."
Though Theo considered spending more time scavenging the ruins for anything remaining, he suspected they had been picked clean. Their group made better time moving forward, passing the soulcrafters that Fiyu could sense trying to fight their way alongside the eastern side of the chasm. Unfortunately, as the bank of the river thinned, they needed to return to climbing, which slowed them down as they rounded the large turn.
Once they finally reached the next straight section, however, his objective was in sight. The white river had become truly wide at this point, rushing with terrible force, yet a dark island sat in the center of it. That island, more than anything else he remembered, appeared utterly unchanged. Whatever sublime material the dark rock was, it split the water without showing the slightest sign of damage.
Most importantly, the triangular building still sat atop it, unchanged by time. He saw a few scorch marks on one side, but it didn't seem that anyone had succeeded in breaking through. The entire Chasm was resistant to weaker cantae, but the construction materials for that building had been able to shrug off even an Authority's cantae.
Whatever lay inside likely still remained. Unfortunately, the lock was one mystery that Theo had no easy answer for. He wasn't sure if they would be able to determine any solution, but they couldn't afford to ignore the possibility.
There was no path leading to the island, and it was too far from either cliff to drop onto it, so they had no choice but to jump. Their current path was too lined by rocky protrusions, so they searched for a better angle. As they did so, Theo felt a small hand tug on his pant leg.
"Senka doesn't want to go." She had been nearly invisible for most of the trip, but now stared up at him somberly. For a moment, she seemed so unlike her ordinary self that he wasn't sure what to say.
"Why not? Do you know something about it? Can you smell something?"
"Senka... just doesn't think it's safe." Her frown looked decidedly different from her usual pout and he considered taking it seriously, but...
"What alternative are you proposing, then? We can't just give up and leave."
"This place... Senka doesn't want!" Without warning, she hurled herself over the edge, falling into the river, where she promptly began thrashing wildly. "Senka is drowning! Blub blub blub!"
"Did she just say 'blub blub blub'?" Nauda asked. Theo sighed and turned away as soon as it was clear Senka wasn't going to drown.
"If she wants to play in the water, she can. Let's be extra cautious on our approach, but I don't see what else we can do. We couldn't even retreat safely, having come this far. Fiyu, can you feel anything within the building?"
She knelt on one knee for a long time, then slowly shook her head. "It was built to resist powerful cantae, even more than the island stone. I cannot feel anything within, and the island itself is quite hazy to me."
