Wakespire (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 7), page 35
Chapter 42
All nine suns of Noven had risen for the final round of the Wakespire, as if the heavens themselves wanted to attend. With all of them so high in the sky, it was blinding to look up, and even the corners of the sky Theo could see were bleached almost white.
Every previous round, they had traveled together in their sleigh. This time, Theo flew alone. With Fiyu and Guchiro gone, and Isorales arriving via his lineage's vehicle, Nauda and Senka were actually the only ones in their main group. But this round would be nothing like those previous, so they couldn't afford to simply march up to the entrance.
Instead, he located the specific spire that he'd been directed toward earlier. Ractifus Terefilia was already there, standing at the edge with his arms and wings both folded behind his back. When Theo landed he turned with a gleam in his eyes.
"Today is the day. Everyone has been waiting for this, whether their plans are for good or for ill." Ractifus reached into his robes and withdrew the narrow key, then held it back. "I almost don't want to give this to you, given the potential dangers. Your group is the first to really impress me in this forsaken city and it would be a shame to waste your talents."
"Are the risks any higher than when we agreed?" Theo asked.
"All intelligence suggests that the Dortorus teams are proceeding with their plan to steal the lineagegem. Unfortunately, there are suggestions of other variables, of factors I haven't considered. Be prepared for things to go wrong." Ractifus sighed and extended the key to him.
"So this will get us to where the lineagegem is kept?" Once he had the key in his hands, it didn't feel like anything special, nothing like his weirkeys.
"It will open the walls of any challenge room and allow you to enter the back corridors that are normally reserved for officials. Through those, you should be able to reach the top chamber, where the lineagegem is kept. If you hurry, you'll make it before the Dortorus teams."
"I wanted to ask you about that. Won't the judges notice us breaking the rules, or at least our disappearance?"
"Is there really time for this?" Ractifus glanced meaningfully toward the spire, then sighed. "I admit there's some uncertainty. But if they truly plan to steal the lineagegem, they will need to disrupt the viewing process for the spire. The models will remain intact, so you only need to keep one member in the tower to avoid drawing attention. Mark my words, you won't see the Dortorus teams at the beginning and then something will go wrong in the middle of the Wakespire to disguise their attack."
"We'll do what we can." Theo gripped the key in his fist. They'd soulcrafted as much as they could, brought Isorales in on the plan, and tried to make alliances with whoever they could. No other powers in the city believed in the conspiracy, but it was time for the truth to come out.
"You'd better hurry. It will start soon enough."
Theo flew away from the mountaintop to the plaza where all the teams met. He identified the familiar sleigh first, of course... still without Fiyu. Just as Ractifus had predicted, there was only one team of weak Dortorus Rulers present. Otherwise, he saw a number of familiar faces... the Terefilia team looked rather grim all in black, while the Gatrium Authority was actually moving in his direction.
"I want to make a deal," he said in a low voice. "You forfeited the earlier match to the Jadadictus team in return for later rewards, correct?"
"That's right." Theo glanced around, wondering how many were watching them make a deal and whether it mattered.
"The Gatrium lineage may not be as prestigious, but we desperately need allies. We're putting everything into this round. If you're willing to support us as you did Jadadictus, we'll reward you greatly."
For just a moment, Theo considered telling him all about the lineagegem and the Dortorus plan to attack the entire event. It was a bit sad to think that the Gatrium lineage was pouring so many resources into a competition that was about to fracture. But bringing more people into the plan would only add variables to a situation that was chaotic enough, so Theo simply nodded.
"Agreed," Theo said. "We'll stay behind you the entire way, and you'll receive our blessings. That's all we can promise."
"It will have to be enough." The other Authority moved away to converse with his team tersely.
Theo needed to be doing the same. When he reached the sleigh, he unfortunately saw no sign of Fiyu. Senka was sleeping flopped over the side and Isorales appeared calm, so this time Nauda was the nervous one. As soon as he got close, she stepped up to him and spoke in a low voice.
"No word from Fiyu. Do you think something went wrong?"
"There's nothing we can do for her from here," Theo pointed out. "Trust Fiyu and her relative to handle their business. If she's late, we'll just have to enter with another team based on those already registered."
"I didn't count on this," Isorales said. "I could call one of the lineage Rulers to serve as fourth member, but I don't know if they'd arrive on time."
"Sporp that." Senka popped up from her position. "I'm tired of sitting on the sidelines. I'll be the fourth member and I won't just forfeit this time."
Isorales and Nauda shot her skeptical looks, but Theo nodded. Given how little they knew about what they might face, having Senka as a wild card could be a life-saver. Better to have her and her knowledge than another Noveni Ruler. There would be more than enough of those in the competition.
The last minutes drained away and even Nauda accepted that Fiyu wasn't going to arrive soon enough. Instead, they prepared their ad hoc team and lined up near the entrance portals. It was almost time and the judges were arranged on their thrones... except for Ractifus and one of the Dortorus princes.
Everything was counting down. This time when Theo ran into the portal, he had no idea what to expect.
~ ~ ~
If they hadn't been mindless slaughter machines, Nauda would have felt sorry for the second stage demons. They were a serious threat to average people and even Archcrafters, but they were increasingly being perfunctorily slaughtered by the groups of Rulers and Authorities that sprinted into the Wakespire tower.
For the first time since they had started the competition, they didn't rush on. Instead Theo revealed the key they'd been given and experimentally touched it to one of the empty portal gates. Instead of opening another swirl of light, the stones themselves began retracting. Soon there was a perfectly ordinary door in the wall, leading out into a corridor with visible staircases spiraling in both directions.
No alarms sounded, no voices screamed at them. Ractifus had been right after all.
"Looks like we split up here." Theo turned back to look at her and Nauda responded with a grim nod. "Don't advance too quickly or try to win, just keep our presence on the spire for anyone watching."
"I will." They'd already discussed this, but she knew he was seeking control in an unknown environment. "Hopefully you'll be faster than the Dortorus team and it won't even turn into fighting. I'm sure this will all be over within the hour thanks to your brilliant assistance."
"Which would be nothing without your essential contribution of sitting in a room." Theo smiled and clasped her arm and Nauda found herself grinning back.
Theo was all business after that and headed for the door, while Isorales lingered. It looked like he wanted to say something, but then Senka started kicking him in the back of the legs until he moved. All three of them headed into the doorway, which promptly closed up, leaving her in the Wakespire alone.
So long as Nauda was still participating in challenges, in theory their light would appear on the tracking devices. She waited in the starting room for a while so that they could apparently make slow progress. Depending on how vicious the Dortorus attack was, her role might not even matter. With so many facts unknown, they'd decided that it was best to be careful, so this role fell to her.
Technically there was strategy of her own to consider, but Nauda sleep-walked through the challenges while worrying about her friends. The cantae puzzle, though different from the previous ones, was easy and she completed it at a leisurely rate. When she arrived in the spiraling chamber, there were no other teams present, so she just strolled up her path.
The one problem, born out of pure randomness, would be entering the dark chamber. She had no way of getting through alone and she couldn't afford to receive injuries. In theory, after serving as a decoy she could forfeit the Wakespire and back the others up. That relied on a lot of assumptions about the Dortorus attack and how the fighting developed.
None of those worries turned out to matter. Nauda's next chamber was one of the offices, which turned out to be a Room of Blessing.
"You lost all three of your teammates?" the woman asked. "How? Is this another trick?"
"It's a bit of a story," Nauda said. Apparently nothing had gone so horribly wrong that the officials were panicking, which could mean anything. She stared at the model and couldn't focus on it: some teams were ahead, some were behind, and the only people she really cared about weren't shown at all.
"Uh... do you know who you're going to bless?"
"The Gatrium team, I suppose." Not that it was likely to matter, but that had been the new plan. "Do you mind if I rest here for a moment?"
"I won't stop you. Just between us, the judges were complaining about not being able to see inside earlier, so you should have time to recover." The young Noveni woman regarded her with something that might have been sympathy. Perhaps she was filling in her own story about the early rounds going horribly wrong, but Nauda couldn't bring herself to care about that.
Instead she leaned against the wall and tried to gather herself. She had expected explosions to rock the tower so she could leap into the portal back to help her friends. Now she wondered if she might end up simply waiting while they were fighting for their lives.
Chapter 43
In a perverse inversion, the back rooms of the Wakespire tower were actually more elaborate than the public ones. The challenge rooms were all built from somber stone, while the cramped staircases and hallways that serviced them were more conventional Noveni grandeur. It made Theo imagine Noveni janitors carrying golden mops and ivory buckets.
Entirely inappropriate, given the seriousness of their mission.
Ractifus had been correct about the basic layout of the spire: the challenge rooms were arranged randomly in a core tower and their positions didn't correlate to the artificial levels in the competition. There was a ring of passages surrounding that core with occasional chambers for the management of the individual challenges. Right near the first one they'd discovered holding cells for keeping all the second stage demons, though they had been nearly emptied out.
His theory was that the tower was arranged roughly in blocks of five challenges, so they probably still had a long way to go. Ever since leaving the insulated challenge rooms his gravitational senses had been working properly and they suggested that they had only climbed about halfway up the spire.
The lineagegem was supposedly held at the very top, just beneath the platform where the judges watched. According to Guchiro, it appeared to be surrounded by many layers of sublime materials designed to absorb and focus all the cantae spent within the spire, so it would be extremely hard to break into from the outside. That meant the Dortorus thieves, and by extension Theo, had no choice but to use the back passages. It was just a question of who would arrive first...
Or if they'd run into each other. While flying up a staircase that opened into a broad chamber, Theo found himself staring at the Dortorus team as they approached from the opposite staircase.
"You!" It might have been the man who'd fought him in the Artisans' Gallery, or it could have easily been another Noveni who looked similar. "I should have expected this treachery!"
"Wait." Theo wanted to hit them all with a gravitational field, but forced himself to talk first. "We're just here to stop you from stealing the lineagegem."
"What are you even talking about? This is all a plot by the undercloud Noveni."
"Okay, let's talk about this..." But even as Theo raised his hands for peace, he saw weapons coming out and cantae being deployed. The Dortorus team definitely wasn't in the mood to talk.
As the attacks flooded toward them, Theo cast an anti-mass point that deflected the majority. He turned back to Isorales and grabbed his arm. "Keep going. There are at least three Dortorus teams and we need to reach the top before all of them."
"I... okay." Isorales nodded grimly and then shot toward the next staircase up. Senka had vanished entirely, but Theo trusted her to make her own decisions.
That left him standing alone in the chamber with two Authorities and two Rulers. They weren't attacking so aggressively anymore and he hoped that they might be open to negotiation, because he wanted to know what they had been talking about. Then he realized they were just waiting: another Dortorus team came pounding up the staircase that Theo had ascended.
"The foreigners are working with the underclouders to steal the lineagegem!" one of the first team yelled. That appeared to be all they needed to turn and get ready to attack him.
Which put Theo alone against three Authorities and five Rulers.
It would have been a completely impossible fight, if they all had been top tier Authorities with well-designed soulhomes. But he saw a few rushed designs, a few without good shielding walls, and one Authority who had clearly used a heavenspear to cheat the ascension. They also had a major disadvantage they didn't realize: they were expecting to fight Theo as he'd presented himself during the Wakespire. He began preparing a weak singularity behind his back, but hesitated when one of the Authorities spoke.
"Stand down," the man said. "If you've done nothing, you'll be judged fairly."
"I don't think I will," Theo said, as answer to both sentences. Some of the enemy soulcrafters looked offended, but a few edged back nervously when they saw the look in his eyes.
"Don't be a fool! There are eight of us and you're a fresh Authority. You don't have a chance."
All at once, Theo realized that he'd misunderstood his real advantage: the difference in perspectives. In his mind, it was ridiculous to think of himself as a "fresh" Authority since he'd been at the rank for months. For the people he was fighting, Authority was a destination - for him, it was only a stepping stone. They couldn't conceive of how much difference the soulcrafting he'd done after his ascension would make.
"Then you go to your doom, outsider! End him!"
As soon as they actually began to attack, Theo tunneled his singularity to the center of the chamber. They all knew that it had disabled them before, so they automatically gave it a wide berth. Some moved around the sides while others flew over the top, coming at him from three different angles.
But the singularity had always been a distraction. Theo flowed cantae through his chaosgem and instead cast his disorientation technique.
The gravitational fields within the bodies of all his opponents suddenly fluctuated wildly, from their stomachs to their brains to the bones of the inner ear. They had been prepared for cantae attacks, but their bodies weren't capable of dealing with such a rapid change. Two of the Rulers and even one of the Authorities collapsed, vomiting or shaking. He realized that the technique had an additional effect on Noveni wings, since their delicate forms were highly specialized for their environment.
He'd changed the battlefield in an instant, but he hadn't won. Two of the Authorities and three of the Rulers had soulcrafted enough enhancement chambers to resist the effect or were strong enough to endure the disorientation. They still flinched when they saw their comrades go down and they began hurling cantae spears at him instead of attacking.
Another mistake. While they flinched, Theo cast the strongest point of anti-mass he could just in front of him. It wouldn't be enough to redirect their most intense attacks, but these testing strikes were turned to the side. And while they attacked uselessly, Theo cast torsion bolts in response.
They flew from his hands and then swung wildly away from the anti-mass, which was exactly what he'd practiced. The group staggered back, weapons and armor breaking apart under the torsion effects. For a moment he wondered if he could win the battle with that alone.
But Authorities weren't fools, even Authorities like these. One summoned a shield of pure gold that proved able to negate his torsion bolts and another had thrown her spear aside for a sword. She lunged in, ducking under a torsion bolt, and unleashed a slash of cantae that tore across the chamber and splintered stone in all directions.
Theo managed to duck underneath it, but the goal had always been to destroy his point of anti-mass. Now the remaining five had advanced across the chamber and were closing on him. Before they could surround him, Theo created a tunnel behind himself and stepped through.
He emerged on the other side of the chamber, through the portal he'd placed there. The group was already turning around to face him, the shield-bearer at the vanguard. Good combat instincts, no doubt refined in their private palaces, but not very flexible when facing a new threat.
Firing on them from his new position had never been the plan: Theo instead released torsion bolts behind himself. His original portal was still open and the bolts flew through to strike them even as they turned. One of the Authorities went down, clutching a bloody leg.
To their credit, they adjusted quickly enough. One of the Rulers formed another golden shield to defend their back and the woman with the sword actually tried to charge through the portal at him. Theo closed it just before she arrived, leaving the most dangerous opponent stumbling on the opposite side. Then he formed a second portal directly over the Noveni group and began casting through that instead.
They didn't have a chance. Every time the shield users moved their defenses, Theo simply cast a torsion bolt from a new angle. While he took down the group, Theo was thinking more about efficiency than his risk in the fight.
