Bloodcrete (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 6), page 18
Or so he'd hoped, but the first test didn't have as much effect as he'd expected. If he had been an amateur, filling that space might have prevented a little efficiency loss. Given his experience, letting cantae wander into that space wasn't very likely. But then he had a breakthrough when he experimented with the leftover coatings for his windows: the exterior coat was designed to repel cantae. That definitely shaped his flow, so it was a matter of shaping corners exactly the right size to encourage a sphere...
"Hey." Someone interrupted his work and Theo realized that his means had become his end. He forced himself back to the physical world and focused on the Fithans around him. "You here to fight Tymetron?"
"I already did once," Theo said, "and I'm not sure I want to again. Just how big is their empire?"
"No idea. Big enough we'll never conquer them in a million years, not big enough to conquer us." All of the Fithans around him wore red and gold armor, but it was a tall bearded man who spoke to him first. "You're not from around here, huh?"
Obviously not, but Theo bit that back. "Just trying to find my way. Can you tell me more about th-"
"If you want information, you gotta earn it." The soldier smacked a fist into his palm. "And I don't mean money. We'll help out anyone who's fighting the enemy, but only if you have what it takes. Do ya?"
There wasn't really a choice. Theo nodded and soon found himself being escorted to the fighting pentagon. Multiple rules and suggestions were shouted at him, many of them contradictory. He got the impression that they just wanted to see his skill, or his "guts" as the locals put it. The official rules seemed to be that the first person taken to the pentagon floor lost, but unofficially it was more complicated: if he flew into the air and tossed cantae bolts, he doubted they'd be happy.
Worse, his opponent was the bearded soldier. The man was a Ruler too, and not an amateur one. Either he wasn't using his shielding wall or he didn't have one at all, because he was proudly displaying a soulhome filled with physical enhancements. Fighting him hand to hand would be stupid, and Theo began to wonder if he was making a mistake.
There was only one way to win this: end it quickly.
"Get on with it!"
Someone in the crowd shouted the words, and that was apparently enough to start the match. The soldier stampeded across the arena directly toward him, arms raised to grab him. Theo let himself be caught in the crushing bear hug, just making sure to get his arms around his opponent.
Then he cast three quick applications of gravity: an anchoring point in his center of mass, increased gravity over himself, and inverted gravity over the soldier.
Even with the anchoring point, Theo was nearly bowled off his feet. But the inverted gravity sent the soldier into the air and Theo jerked him backward, directly into the increased gravity. In one smooth movement, he flipped over backwards and slammed his opponent to the pentagon floor.
There was no way that any of them believed that had been done on strength alone. As Theo unevenly rose to his feet, he looked for accusations of cheating, but to his surprise the crowds were cheering. Apparently they approved of tricks, providing they resulted in someone getting smashed into the ground. Even the soldier, who was dazed for a while, laughed when he got up.
"Nothing like that on Tymetron, either!" He jerked his shoulder to pop it back into his socket. "If you want to take those skills against them, we're not going to complain."
"I think I want to know what I'm getting into first," Theo said. That didn't seem to put them off, and the soldier dragged him out of the pentagon to join his friends.
"You've earned a few answers! Tymetron's huge, I'll grant you that. Everybody likes to sneer at their normal soldiers, but they have some real strong soulcrafters too."
"Ask him if he understands Dominions," one of the other soldiers said.
"Fine, fine." The soldier leaned closer to Theo and frowned. "Do you understand that there's Dominions, then there's Dominions? Just ascending from Stronghold is one thing. But those who have been there for a really long time, they get even stronger. Maybe with no limit."
Theo actually understood better than them, but he just nodded.
"Well, the leader of Tymetron is a really tough one. They say when he arrived on the continent, he killed three Dominions at once to take over. That's old Plutalgion, if you don't know. Strongest demonic material user I've ever seen, no joke. He'd kill me by looking at me."
"Something must keep him in check," Theo said, "or he'd conquer everything himself."
"Well, he did conquer everything on the continent! But he'll never take the Gold Wastes, because we have Giatrice with us. She's a tough one, with experience all the way across Fithe and even other worlds. They've fought three times - I saw the second one, that's why I survived seeing Plutalgion - and every time he's been driven back."
Theo pressed them for more information and gradually got a better picture of Tymetron. This Plutalgion was definitely a soulcrafter of the seventh tier or above, and what was worse it sounded like he had several Dominion-tier commanders. The entire Norron continent only had two Dominions - maybe a third if one was hiding in the Wavefront region Theo didn't know much about.
It seemed like the Tymetron empire was being kept in check by the Gold Wastes soulcrafters, and especially Giatrice. If Plutalgion ever left the continent, she would start killing his Dominions and take back the continent. That was how such conflicts usually went, in his experience. Most likely the Ruling Cities were prevented from being flattened by this determined resistance force in the Gold Wastes.
"One more question," Theo said once he could squeeze in another word. "Have you gotten a sense that Plutalgion - or someone in Tymetron - is angry lately? They were making threats about retaliation when I last ran into them."
He got mostly silence until one of the soldiers toward the back of the group spoke up. "I did hear something like that. They sent someone to another continent and they never came back. But if you ask me, they weren't really that angry. It wasn't an important soulcrafter. Seemed more like someone had forced them to take action about it."
That was a curious detail, but no matter how Theo pushed, he couldn't get a clearer answer than that. It did confirm his suspicions that Vistgil really had set off the war. Tymetron didn't actually care about their dead soulcrafter: they had been pushed into acting. And even if they couldn't attack Norron themselves, just their demonic ploy might be enough to eliminate it.
Theo thought that was about all the information he could get from the Gold Wastes. He'd be happy if he could get back without wrestling anyone else.
As soon as he could, he left the city and began gliding back. It was more difficult than before to clear his mind, but he managed to return to his soulcrafting project. The more he tested, the more it seemed like tweaking his flow to be perfectly spherical might be a significant breakthrough. Better flow improved efficiency, but more importantly it allowed a soulhome to sustain more forceful levels of cantae. If only he could get it right...
Instead of continuing to craft the pieces for his corners, Theo walked to the center of his soulhome and examined his singularity. Ever since it had come into its own, it had been his central source of cantae. He'd been thinking of it as always providing as much as he needed... but how much could it really output if he used its full potential?
He cradled his singularity, took a deep breath, and stopped holding back. Immediately his cantae began swirling in a sphere so violent that it took him aback. Power blasted into every stone brick and began rattling stray materials. If he hadn't been so careful to coat his entire interior with the dark residue from supernovae, he might have actually done damage to himself. Even as it was, he had to pull back instead of trying to harness the full power.
Had his singularity grown so powerful while he was perfecting the rest of his blueprint? He supposed that he'd been throwing a lot of sublime materials into it, not to mention some enemy soulcrafters. If his blueprint hadn't been so carefully designed, it might have been too overpowered.
But he'd been putting in the work, so he thought it could function. For the first time, he really believed what Senka had said: the true form of his blueprint might actually be equal to one of the Five Transcendent Monuments.
The problem was fixing all the flaws. His old door made of Tatian wood would have been blown off its hinges, so he was glad he'd replaced it, but the simple gate he'd made for his shielding wall had cracked in several places from the rush of cantae. He'd been meaning to finish that for ages, it had just always been a distant second priority compared to new materials.
So he needed to work on his gatehouse door, the corner pieces, a few other details, and secondary materials that weren't fully polished. It was more work, but he could see it all coming together. If his soulhome could naturally contain the full power of his singularity, that would be the ultimate vindication of his blueprint.
Consumed by thoughts of soulcrafting, Theo barely noticed shifting between worlds. He kept working after sending his signal and was more irritated than anything when an Authority responded. When Janne appeared, it was more of an interruption than anything.
"Well?" the woman asked. "Were you able to uncover useful information?"
"I know exactly what we're up against," Theo said. He quickly explained what he had discovered and watched Janne retreat into her hood as he spoke.
"So our foes are locked in their own war..." Janne shook her head slowly. "The only thing that stands between our continent and a war we cannot possibly win is this nation in the Gold Wastes."
"Do you think we can negotiate with them?" Theo asked.
"We'll need all the information you have about their customs and economy, but I doubt it will amount to much. Such powerful nations are usually not interested in trade with city states, especially through another world."
"Then perhaps you should focus on cleaning up at home first? If we don't deal with the Asplundat Movement and this demonic device, then we might not even survive long enough for Plutalgion and his empire to attack us."
"We will try, but you should focus on this conflict first. It is none of your concern for now." Janne shook her head again and reached into her robes for a weirkey as they prepared to return.
Unfortunately, it probably was Theo's concern. If Vistgil really had set all of this in motion, then he wouldn't let Plutalgion stay in his stalemate forever...
Chapter 17
Nauda flew away from the edge and tried not to think about the Tatian that lay below. She had wanted to stand there and stare over the world she hoped to one day impact, but it would have been a waste of time and a risk. The risk was that one of the enormous beasts called eryos might attack her, and the rest was driven by a sense of urgency she couldn't quite explain.
Instead she flew her Fithan chariot over the borderlands that separated the two halves of Tatian. Even at the highest speed she could sustain as a Ruler, it was going to take some time. These barren lands might be normal enough on many worlds, but on Tatian such an emptiness felt like the end of the world. She suspected that some soulcrafters from adjacent cities had explored deeper, but as far as she knew the majority had never even considered venturing into those empty lands.
That had been difficult for her to believe when she had first journeyed to the upper half of Tatian. It had seemed impossible that the villagers above didn't know about half of their world, and had never even imagined her home might exist. As she had adjusted to the simple and contented nature of the communities there, few of them even once questioning her origins, she had come to believe it.
Most villagers traveled by wagon, or packbeast if they were in a hurry. Swift transportation like her chariot was uncommon, and everyone who gained the ability to fly was recruited to the Landguard. It occurred to her for the first time that the state of things might not be due to small-mindedness... from a certain angle it looked like an intentional plan to keep Tatian the way it was.
Normally, she would have dismissed such thoughts. But Nauda had a long way to go before she reached any of the places that had once been home.
~ ~ ~
The city of Nlukoko was far worse than she remembered. They had built a fortress wall around the lake on which the city floated and the entrances were doubly guarded. When she questioned the guards, they said that it was due to increasing dangers that threatened the community, but she wasn't sure even they believed it. Only the fact that she was a Ruler allowed her inside.
Within, she found the streets more fearful than she remembered. Everyone smiled at one another and pretended to embrace as if everything was normal, but she could see that the community had been twisted. On her previous visit, Archcrafter civilians had come together to help stop a demon attack. If another one occurred at that moment, she imagined they would just retreat to their fortified homes.
It took her over an hour to find someone who was willing to talk about Ariano of the Golden Wings. Nlukoko's rogue Authority was increasing his control and it seemed like the Landguard wasn't going to do anything about it.
When she asked why more people didn't move away from the city, she learned that Ariano would apply heavy taxes to their relatives who remained. That was a nasty trick they didn't even try below. The dark half of Tatian might kill you, but they wouldn't twist a community like this.
If she ascended, one day she might be able to do something about this instead of watching helplessly. For now, she needed to press on. Because she couldn't ignore the temporary home she'd built in Fithe.
~ ~ ~
Though Nauda seriously considered taking the gate to enter Deuxan, she decided that the risks were too high. They hadn't heard anything from the Armeau family since they tried to attack Theo, but someone might recognize her. That meant no Deuxan sublime materials, and unfortunately no Deuxan sublime foods to recreate her Nine Worlds Feast.
At least she was able to build the Tatian portion of her feast mezzanine. As she got further away from Nlukoko, the villages became the warm communities she remembered. The only limit was the strength of the sublime foods they had: her income from House Blacksilver made her more than wealthy enough, but the average little village didn't have anything with Ruler-tier cantae. Excellent food that made her sigh in satisfaction, just little cantae.
Those sighs always ended too quickly. Nauda had been alone with her thoughts for months on Slest, but in some ways the warmth of Tatian communities cut deeper than the alien cruelty of the Slescan hives. It reminded her just how much she missed Theo and especially Fiyu.
When she got back to them, she should be more open about her goals. She had already told Theo that she wanted to free Nlukoko, and he might be willing to help her after they'd ascended. Most importantly, she wanted Fiyu to understand her. Even if Fiyu didn't enjoy Tatian communities, she would understand how they were being corrupted. Perhaps one day they could return, and eat platefish like she had promised, and she could even show Fiyu her original home...
None of those thoughts helped her, and they isolated her from the cheerful communities. So Nauda buried her emotions and focused on soulcrafting. All the work made it easy to distract herself: she was making rapid progress on her staff tower using the Arbaian materials, and she found more Tatian materials than she'd expected. They might not be the most powerful, but they felt deeply appropriate.
At least for a little while, before she started thinking again.
~ ~ ~
Finally Nauda spotted Myufuru in the distance: the broken tree appeared first, then the city clustered around its base. New shoots were growing up from its broken trunk, but it was still a terrible monument to the destruction that the spatial trap had caused. Nauda shivered as she remembered that moment.
It felt like so long ago that the three of them had met in Myufuru. She had been the leader of their entire family, one of the strongest Farmguards and the closest to Archcrafter. At the time, Fiyu had been uncertain of her power and Theo had barely begun soulcrafting. Now Theo had surpassed her and Fiyu had no doubt followed her relative's path to Ruler perfectly. She desperately needed to avoid falling behind the two of them.
Part of her had been afraid that Myufuru would have been perverted in her absence, but it remained a healthy city. She preferred the large Tatian cities best: they were the perfect balance between the suffocating villages and the hostile anonymity of a city like Norro Yorthin.
The environment closed around her like an embrace, and Nauda wished that she could stay. She almost visited one of the warmthgivers, just to feel someone, but even the idea raised painful thoughts of Fiyu. Nauda pushed aside such ideas and rushed to the old Farmguard school.
Of course it was abandoned now: the outsiders had returned to their worlds and the vaults were destroyed. But she could feel a powerful presence working alone in one of the orchards, and she closed on it to find Nanjuma.
"Nauda." The old man smiled as he turned to face her. Perhaps his face was a little more lined than before, but his body remained powerful and he looked wonderfully stable in a world that changed too much. She embraced him before she could stop herself, and he patted her on the back gently. "You feel like you've been through much, child."
"You could say that." She finally pulled back and sighed. "Do you have time to talk?"
"It seems I have little else, these days. The community of Myufuru runs the city, of course, and since demon attacks have been declining ever since we returned our guests, I have little fighting or teaching to do."
"Has there been any trouble through the Arbaian gate? I know it's some distance away, but if they had Ruler-tier mercenaries..."
"Oh, the mercenary issue was dealt with some years ago. We have actually started using that gate instead of blocking it off, since the School of Emerald Indulgence has been reasonably friendly. Indeed, I had a conversation with their leader that was a welcome change of pace." Nanjuma touched her back and led her through the complex. "Come now, I have some new trees to show you and I think you might have more interesting tales for me..."
