Wakespire (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 7), page 37
"You can't hide forever." The Authority had recovered and floated into the room burning with cantae. "Just give yourself up and face the justice that's coming to you."
Theo would have liked to ask him what he meant by that, but he couldn't afford to give up his advantage of stealth. While the golem patrolled the entrances and the Dortorus Authority searched for him in the maze, Theo reached the floor and crept underneath the glass tubes.
As soon as he had a clear angle at his opponent, he struck. First he cast a tunneling portal from his position to the entrance, then he fired a torsion bolt with his other hand. The Authority swiveled wildly, deflecting his direct attack only to be struck from behind. Theo didn't let up, striking him from several other angles until he dropped.
Almost too late, he sensed the heavy point of mass underneath the maze. The golem was racing toward him, having flattened itself to get under the pipes, and now crawled like a spider. Theo flew backward, barely ahead of it, and still took a lunging swipe to the shoulder.
He tumbled out from underneath the pipes, barely managing to control his fall to land on his back. What he needed to do was tunnel to get some distance, but his head was still spinning and the golem was closing on him. It looked like the Dortorus Ruler had recovered as well and was coming toward the room, so he was running out of time.
The golem crawled from underneath the glass and rose to its full height. Both bladed limbs twitched, ready to impale him when he tried to move. Theo braced himself in the corner of the room, wondering what options he had. He was fast, but this thing had been built to fight Authorities. It looked like there was no way he could get out except taking an injury and making sure it was a non-lethal one.
A blade of blue cantae erupted from the golem's chest.
As Theo stared, it slid upward, extending and slicing through the golem's entire torso. It thrashed violently as its stored cantae was expelled, then it collapsed to the ground and revealed Fiyu. She stood there for a moment, her arm raised above her head, then smiled.
"Hello, Theo. I am not sure what is going on, but I thought it would help to defeat this golem."
"You're an Authority." Theo leapt up to greet her, admiring her new cantae. Her techniques had all become more natural after her Corporeal Floor, and now that grace had been burned into her fundamental being.
"I have ascended." Fiyu bobbed her head in agreement, but her senses searched around her wildly. "Do you understand this battle? I asked my relative to determine the cause, but then I observed you through the large hole in the wall."
"Isorales was the only one to make it further up, so I guess we should follow him."
They were interrupted by the Dortorus Ruler, running in with some kind of helmet armament on his head. He stumbled to a halt as his eyes moved from Fiyu and Theo to the destroyed golem and the fallen Authority. When Fiyu surrounded them both with a bubble of stealth, the Ruler turned around and fled. They let him go.
"Attention, contestants." Finally the voice of an official spoke through the spire, though it didn't sound like one of the usual Noveni. "The Wakespire has ended. Please exit via the nearest portal immediately."
"It's a trick!" Another voice interrupted over the same channel. "They're trying to steal all the rewards for themselves! Fight, before th-"
Both voices overlapped and then disappeared in a rumble of conflicting cantae. That left Theo and Fiyu standing uncertainly. Everyone in his range, Dortorus or Terefilia or even Gatrium, seemed similarly confused. Many of them began turning on one another again, more interested in their own vendettas than in the announcements.
"What do we do?" Fiyu asked.
"We head up." Theo adjusted the collar of his coat and hoped he could hold out. "Most of these battles are probably pointless, so don't kill anyone unnecessarily. No one is being protected from death anymore, but they might not know that. Best to get rid of them before they can hurt themselves."
A pair of Rulers came charging into the chamber the next moment, looking wildly for opponents. Fiyu unleashed a lightstorm, but it was nothing like the indiscriminate blast she had used since he met her. Instead the bolts curved through the air, striking at the new arrivals' legs. They staggered back, and as soon as they touched the portal, they disappeared.
"Will that do?" Fiyu turned to him and Theo smiled back.
"If the others won't give up, we'll just have to make them forfeit."
Chapter 45
The rational decision would have been to take Ward Fiyu and leave. Let the Noveni kill themselves over their irrelevant conflict. Guchiro would not have hesitated to take his ward's companions as well, then they could be free of this madness with no liabilities.
And yet, he found himself risking his own life for the sake of his affection for his ward. Instead of making the most prudent decision, he went to engage with the Noveni princes.
There truly was a risk. Without the kinstone, his soulhome was no longer operating anywhere near peak efficiency. It would have harmed Ward Fiyu to remove it so rapidly and there was no time for him to soulcraft it back into place properly. He had thought she was overly hasty when insisting they return to Noven, but judging from the chaos they found on their arrival, if anything they were late.
None of the thrones atop the spire were occupied any longer. Their inhabitants were scattered across the top, arguing and working at cross purposes. The center of the spire had opened via some mechanism he had failed to locate before, perhaps one that could only be used by the united judges. It opened directly into the chamber where all the cantae should have been gathered into the lineagegem. Whatever was inside now was disrupting his senses and causing a great deal of confusion.
"Hey, you can't be here!" One of the guards flew toward him brandishing a spear. Guchiro took it away.
"I am not here to cause harm," he said. Carrying the guard to prove his peaceful intentions, Guchiro floated closer.
Normally Guchiro's mask did nothing to hide his emotions, because he had full control of his facial musculature. When he saw what was inside the spire, he was glad for it. He took a moment to soothe away fear for his ward and considered the danger carefully.
The artifact around the lineagegem was clearly an explosive armed with Stronghold-tier sublime materials. A thin layer of suppressant materials was all that prevented the living flames from cascading through the spire. Unlike other bomb designs he had seen, there was no material that burned down toward an explosion. Instead, a container of liquid appeared to be deteriorating and was likely to damage the suppressants once the process completed.
"Don't bother the foreigner. And you, set him down." The Noveni his ward associated with was approaching... Acquaintance Isorales.
Guchiro realized that the latter command had been directed toward him and set the guard aside. Others had been advancing on him nervously, but Isorales seemed to have calmed them. Good. There was no more time for meaningless division.
"What do we know?" Guchiro asked. The young Noveni man flinched, but still responded.
"Someone, we don't know who, is plotting against Ugustial. They don't want to steal the lineagegem, they plan to destroy it. And given how things have gone, it looks like they'll take half of Ugustial's best soulcrafters with them."
"Your specialists have already failed to disarm the explosive artifact?"
"That's why I said they want to destroy the gem." Acquaintance Isorales gestured down into the spire. "Some were arguing it was some sort of brinkmanship, but I just don't agree. Everything about that artifact is designed so that it can't be moved, can't be disarmed, can't be portaled, can't do anything but explode."
For a time Guchiro seriously considered locating Ward Fiyu and removing her, regardless of her wishes. Options were few and the consequences severe. But she had just taken great pains to help him with the kinstone and it would be heartless to deny her. His only hope, then, was to create enough time for everyone to retreat from the tower.
"This place needs to be evacuated immediately," Guchiro said. Acquaintance Isorales made an uncomfortable rotating motion with his wings.
"That's obvious to me, but not to everyone else. Unless you want to argue with the princes, I don't think they'll do anything more than rescue their own lineages. Assuming they don't set it off somehow."
"They would not listen to me. However, I believe I can delay the process."
Before anyone could object, Guchiro lowered himself into the uppermost chamber. The artifact was delicate, but not beyond the full extent of his skills. Even with his power reduced, there was no deterioration of his fine motor controls. Guchiro extended extremely thin lines of darkness through the outer layers and began manipulating the timing mechanism.
"What are you doing?" one of the princes screeched. One of her aides stopped her from charging.
"W-wait, he's delaying it!" The Noveni specialists stood uncomfortably close to him, but they remained mercifully silent because they understood what he was doing. Their hush spread through the rest of the room and even the princes fell silent.
"I can delay the time before the explosion," Guchiro told them as he worked. "You would be wise to evacuate."
Before they spoke, just from the stiffening in their wings, he knew they wouldn't agree. "Can you disarm the artifact?" the lead prince asked. "We need that gem."
They had mistaken him for some kind of miracle-worker. Guchiro was generally confident in his understanding of sublime materials and armaments, but he couldn't disable an unknown artifact on a world he didn't know intimately. Even his current intervention was an unacceptable risk. The fact that they even suggested he retrieve the gem meant they were blinded by avarice.
"I cannot," was all he said. "All I can give you is a little more time."
"The lineagegem is essential!" One of the other princes, as if telling him about their opinions would change the truth of the situation. "We've poured resources into this for over half a year, we can't abandon it now!"
Clearly, negotiations were futile. Guchiro had carefully positioned his darkness so that he could retract it if necessary. When their argumentation became too much, he would retreat and find Ward Fiyu, regardless of the current circumstances. This city might be beyond help.
"What if he's in on it?" one of the princes asked. "This foreigner shows up and claims to be able to stop the bomb, but it was his all along! They must be planning to-"
Acquaintance Isorales stepped forward and slapped the man in the face. Even though Guchiro had noticed his body moving and tensing, he was still surprised. Everyone else appeared shocked, as one of their leaders had just been assaulted.
"Your children are dying!" Acquaintance Isorales rose into the air, all four of his wings spreading wide as he addressed the entire chamber. "Every part of the spire is failing, which means they could be killing one another right now. And if you keep bickering, every single one of them will die! Is the lineagegem worth the sacrifice of all our lineages?"
The speech would not have worked on Ichil, but Guchiro had long ago accepted that other worlds operated by unusual standards. All around the room, he felt muscles shifting as the words had their intended impact. They were actually ashamed of their behavior.
"The princes need to put out an announcement first," Acquaintance Isorales said. He was no longer shouting, but his voice commanded the room. "Get all of the officials out of the spire, along with any civilians watching. Find someone who can take down the barriers blocking weirkeys. Contestants are fighting each other all through the spire... find your own allies and knock some sense into them before it's too late!"
All of them obeyed, even though some expressed incredulity at obeying a young man not long past childhood. Guchiro grunted in reluctant approval. Those had been the right words for the right moment, and apparently Acquaintance Isorales had come into his own.
That still left him delicately holding back an artifact designed to kill them all. Guchiro grimly accepted that, even though he held the bomb between his fingers, the fate of his ward was no longer in his hands.
~ ~ ~
There had been no time to experiment with her new abilities on Ichil, so Fiyu delighted in testing them now. Few of the opponents they faced could equal herself or her companion, particularly with her presence hidden. In fact, the only thing limiting her was that she didn't want to kill any of her targets.
Between herself and Friend Theo, no one could stand against them. In fact, she could have simply maintained her bubble of stealth and let Friend Theo use his gravity to throw opponents into portals. Many of them had at least some ability to resist, so she would also take part. Targeted lightstorms were enough to push back the strongest, and for those that looked too fragile, Fiyu poked them with a column of darkness.
Then a blinding light washed out the room and Fiyu realized that the comfortable fight was over. The wave of it couldn't make her visible because of her Corporeal Floor, but it tore through her larger bubble of stealth and revealed Friend Theo.
"I knew I'd find you here!" Adversary Cannium blazed into the room, surrounded by even more light than before. Fiyu frowned into the blinding source. It wasn't only him, he was followed by more Dortorus soulcrafters - uninjured and apparently fresh combatants.
"I only wish to prevent anyone from coming to harm," Fiyu said.
"More likely you want to infect the lineagegem with your darkness!" Adversary Cannium unleashed an assault, his light aura expanding into lances that stabbed out in the direction of her voice. Very much like her physical darkness, though much more troubling. Fiyu managed to evade them and remained hidden.
"Please do not-" But there was no more time to talk, because Adversary Cannium's allies were beginning to attack.
Friend Theo struck faster, again twisting gravity to his whims and sending many of the attacking Dortorus soulcrafters flying. Of course Adversary Cannium was unaffected, because his soulhome was well-designed enough that it gave him great control over his body.
Fiyu instinctively reacted matching light with darkness. Though she couldn't use the skill as masterfully as her relative, the darkness flowed from her far more smoothly and forcefully than before. The process pleased her... but it was enraging Adversary Cannium.
Letting the darkness recede within her, Fiyu attempted to match him using only her other abilities. The trouble was that they didn't want to kill their opponents and so many of her techniques were lethal. Friend Theo was using various techniques to keep the others away from her, but she wished that he would take care of Adversary Cannium so she wouldn't have to worry about these concerns.
Deciding that her lightstorms would be less offensive, Fiyu tried to match light with light. Her storm tore through many of his tendrils of light and knocked him back through the air. Unfortunately, it did not have the intended effect.
"Enough of this mockery!" Adversary Cannium drew on even more cantae and prepared a larger assault. Solid beams of light began to rotate in all directions, dealing no damage to the tower but sizzling with power. It was certainly an effective technique, and she wished she was fighting it under different circumstances.
How could she get through to someone so angry? The bitter thought made Fiyu think of Betrayer Senka and a new idea emerged.
She slipped deep into her stealth technique and began weaving through the beams of light. Her adversary reacted with admirable instincts, blasting spikes of light both in the direction she had been moving as well as along the direct path to him. But now that she had ascended, Fiyu was no longer at a speed disadvantage compared to Authorities, so she slid around them.
When she stepped behind her opponent, she formed a blade around her hand, then set it to his throat very carefully.
"I do not want to hurt you," Fiyu said. Adversary Cannium jumped but didn't immediately strike back because he could feel her cantae tickling his throat.
"You have a funny way of showing it."
"If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it then." Fiyu released her technique and took a step back. She wasn't so foolish as to lower all her defenses, but placing herself in that position was still a great risk. Adversary Cannium glared at her.
"What kind of trick is this?"
"Please listen to me. We were told that you wanted to steal the lineagegem. All we have ever wanted to do was stop you and protect other contestants."
"Lies!" Adversary Cannium burned brighter for a moment, but he didn't attack her. "I swear to you... maybe some corrupt part of the Dortorus lineage wants to steal this thing, but I know nothing about it. There's a rot in our lineages, trying to destroy Ugustial."
"Think about what we have done." Her adversary still seemed very angry, but at least he was listening. "We have not harmed anyone. If you stand down, so will we, then we can sort everything out."
"Of course you'd say that! You're outnumbered and you know you'll lose in the end. This is just a trick to save yourselves now that you've realized you failed."
It was closer to true than she wanted to admit: Friend Theo was struggling to contain all of the other soulcrafters and had been struck by several cantae bolts. Fiyu could keep fighting for a long time, but it wasn't clear that she could win now that she had given up her advantage. Perhaps her attempt at a good faith offering hadn't been enough.
"Enough!" Adversary Cannium waved a hand and columns of light suddenly closed around Fiyu. "We'll take you in first. If you're really innocent, you have nothing to fear."
The light was oppressive, as if it sought to bore into her soul and open it to the world. Fiyu instinctively tried to lash out at it, but she'd given her opponent too strong a position: he increased the flow of his cantae and light pierced her. It didn't harm her body, but the burning sensation pinned her in place, making it almost impossible to move.
