Rainhorn (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 2)

by Sarah Lin

  When they returned to camp, they found Fiyu soulcrafting as usual. What wasn't so usual was that she stopped and hopped to her feet, lifting a bag to show them.

  "Welcome back! While you were gone, Senka and I completed a difficult job!"

  "What is it?" Theo glanced inside the bag and saw that it contained a large number of silver flowers. The first thing he noticed was that they weren't sublime materials at all, which puzzled him. They might once have been beautiful, but these had been jammed together in the sack and were now just a crumpled mass. "Are these valuable? I'm not feeling any cantae from them."

  "They're not for soulcrafters, Theo." Nauda picked up one and examined it with satisfaction. "When properly squeezed, these flowers produce the silver dye they use in so many of their robes here."

  "Everybody is wearing them, so how valuable can they be?"

  Fiyu shook her head and pulled the sack closed. "The larger families have protected fields of flowers to produce the dye, but smaller families do not. This makes it very difficult for them to afford the type of clothes that everyone likes here, and they must wear less silver clothes. Though... I do not see much of a difference."

  "Doesn't matter so long as they're willing to pay a premium for these." Theo took the sack from her, since he knew that she wouldn't want to go into the city to deliver them herself. "But I imagine they're rare in the wild, so how did you find them?"

  "That is where Senka was helpful. She was able to locate small clusters of them, but now she is very tired. I am speaking quietly so we don't wake her."

  Theo rolled his eyes. "Yes, let's make sure not to wake her. So that she can sleep, and not for any other reason."

  "Oh, come off it. She's earning her keep." Nauda rapped him on the shoulder as she passed to grab a few things from camp. "We're going to go get paid for our work, Fiyu, are you sure that you don't want to come?"

  "No. I am fine here." Fiyu sat back down in her tent, quite evidently happy to be away from the city.

  "Then do you want us to buy any sublime materials for you?"

  "I am working on soulcrafting the mirrorbark into reflective plates. I believe I could fashion even finer surfaces, but I am still learning how to work with them."

  It wasn't the first time they'd had essentially the same conversation, and it wouldn't be the last. Theo grabbed some food from his tent and chewed it while he followed Nauda toward the city. Having Fiyu remain at camp was logical, both because she preferred it and because she could render it invisible to most. Meanwhile, he and Nauda could pool their skills and credentials in Anguedan.

  By now, they worked together smoothly, delivering results and accepting payments without drawing too far apart, in case of a duel challenge. The flowers that Fiyu had gathered turned out to pay extremely well, worth over 100 Silver Crowns. Meanwhile, their token guarding earned them only 20, most of that to Nauda due to her rank. Not that it mattered, since they pooled their resources to try to maximize their strength for the hunt anyway.

  As they walked away, Nauda rubbed a small badge emblem between her fingers. "Another one of these. Is this family's esteem worth anything?"

  "It's not a major enough family, and we don't want to announce our allegiance to anyone. People are giving them to us more to recruit us than as payment. Any cantae?"

  "Barely any." Nauda tossed it to him carelessly and he caught it in his palm. "The sublime materials used to make these are almost worthless, so I don't know why they bother."

  Many of their jobs had given them emblems fashioned from weak sublime materials, which proved to be a major part of local soulcrafter politics. Since Fiyu said she didn't need them and Nauda scorned the concept, Theo had been taking them all for a temporary room. "In case you haven't noticed, they like ranks here. But most of their soulcrafters don't work fast enough to ascend, so they have all these emblems and trinkets to make them feel like they're advancing."

  "You've seen this before?"

  "Anguedan seems to like them a lot more than other Deuxan cities I've visited, but yeah. In other places, some are actually quite valuable. For example, a major court or family will give you a sublime material with their sigil, which generates a reasonable amount of cantae and also marks your soulhome so you get special treatment at the establishments they own."

  "Huh." As little as she liked Deuxan, Nauda did consider that carefully instead of dismissing it. "I can see the value, but I'm guessing we're not getting any benefits like that here?"

  "Probably not." Theo crushed the weak metal in his palm and it slipped into his soulhome. He'd put it with the others later, but for now he had higher priorities.

  They returned to one of the city's primary markets for sublime materials. For the most part, it was just an errand now, Nauda picking up more sublime stone to craft new chambers. Many soulcrafters preferred that their primary building materials come solely from their home world, or even tried to fashion all their walls from a single material, but Nauda didn't seem to care.

  "What about this?" Nauda spoke up from the other side, drawing his attention. She stood in front of a bright blue tent that he hadn't seen before, likely a merchant from out of town.

  Theo walked closer and, though the man's wares contained many unusual items, he immediately understood what she meant. The dark lump of metal sitting on one side of the display rug looked dull, but he felt cantae flowing into it. At first he'd thought that the rug was simply bunched up around it, then he realized that the fabric was actually being drawn toward the metal. When Theo experimentally reach out to touch it, he felt it pull on his fingers and the rug seemed to cling to the metal.

  "You like it?" The merchant gave them both a broad smile. "You're the first people to identify real value in this borderlands city. Have you ever, perhaps, heard of magnetized iron?"

  "Of course." Theo tossed the lump into the air, noting how it sped back to his hand faster than gravity alone would suggest. "Is this a sublime material that follows similar principles?"

  "Just so! Everything is drawn to it, not merely certain metals. If you rub it against substances, it will briefly make them stick together as well." He promptly demonstrated with two silk ribbons, though they didn't cling together strongly. "It can be extremely useful for construction, or it could be an interesting piece in your soulhome."

  Given his blueprint, Theo obviously wanted it, but he pretended disinterest. Nauda pushed him to get it, as if it was a gift they didn't care greatly about, and they slowly wore down the merchant. But even with all of Nauda's negotiating skills, it wasn't cheap, costing them most of what they had just earned. Eventually they pulled back to speak privately.

  "If we buy this," Theo said, "I'll let you have my share of all the jobs for a month."

  "Don't need it. Sublime stone isn't so expensive." Nauda instead gave him a wry smile. "What I want from you is a promise that we'll make specific, concrete plans to hunt down that demon."

  He hadn't really believed that Nauda would forget about it, but Theo had hoped that she wouldn't push. Still, this was one of the first valuable materials that fit his blueprint, with nearly Archcrafter cantae density. Thinking about the soulcrafting he could do, Theo shrugged. "Deal."

  Chapter 17

  They had explained to her about seasons, but Fiyu was still troubled by the changing weather. Tatian might be horrible, but it was consistently horrible all the time. Now, as the air grew warmer and the leaves and grass went dry, she couldn't escape the fear that she had wandered into an unknown region. According to information Companion Nauda had learned from people in the city, the weather would become more unpredictable as well.

  To distract herself from the environment, Fiyu spent more time soulcrafting. At the heart of her stealth chamber was a glass sphere of moonmist gas, a substance that obscured part of the Outer Moonscape and only occasionally appeared in sublime form. She had won it in a contest against all the other young soulcrafters in the entire camp, which had been among her proudest achievements as a child. N
ow that she had seen the obscene numbers of people who gathered in cities on other worlds, it felt less impressive.

  She had originally placed that sphere on a pedestal, then hung it from the finest of sublime spidersilk. That created a technique that was exceedingly subtle, but sadly it was too delicate to stand against more powerful cantae, at least at her current tier. Relative Guchiro had told her he could give her another material to support it when she was ready, but their unity had been torn apart before he could.

  For the most part, she had struggled to find suitable sublime materials on other worlds, which was why she was so pleased to find the mirrorbark. It was bright and strong, yet it deflected attention away from itself. She had begun carefully fashioning panels of it to place around her moonmist sphere: they would deflect enemy cantae, leaving her core technique free to hide her.

  Recently, Companion Nauda had been unable to find her, even as an Archcrafter. Fiyu wasn't certain how much more work she could do with her current limits, but she thought the chamber was very nearly complete.

  It had been a pleasant surprise to find the mirrorbark, but she wasn't sure what she could do about some of her other unfinished chambers. She found herself spending long hours polishing the exterior of her tower to perfection and smoothing the transitions between materials, because she didn't know how to proceed in many of the others.

  She counted herself fortunate that she had nearly perfected her sensory chamber before leaving Ichil, because she had found nothing remotely appropriate for it. Her blade technique was also sadly unfinished, though she thought that the sharpness of rainhorn antlers might be appropriate enough to intensify it. They were so bright and colorful, however, they didn't seem quite appropriate... maybe they could go in her light chamber instead.

  Her meditation chamber had been somewhat improved with carvings inspired by Companion Theo, but she still fundamentally lacked materials. Meanwhile, her warming chamber had long been an unfortunate void, far from its ultimate design. Though she'd placed unpleasantly warm Tatian materials in it, those were nothing but a stopgap measure.

  Some of her other chambers might find some other solution, but Fiyu realized that she was only focusing on them to avoid her other thoughts. It was so strange to feel herself changing, without any relatives to guide her. Fiyu opened her eyes in the real world and saw her traveling companions working beside her, which only made it worse, so she retreated into her soulhome.

  Yet, standing in the core of her very being, Fiyu could not help but contemplate other matters. For many years, Relative Guchiro had been the only relative in her life and the only person that she trusted. Companion Theo and Companion Nauda had become trusted traveling companions, and she hoped she could one day call them Friend, but she was uncertain if she would ever call them Relative.

  When she failed to control such thoughts, her mind inevitably drifted into gloomy territory. After months away from Relative Guchiro, she was beginning to miss him deeply. She had not realized how much she longed for silent Ichili intimacy until she discovered the equivalent on other worlds.

  Was she changing, without him? Her relatives had always taught her that she would adapt to new circumstances throughout her life, both as she aged and as she encountered new people. She had experienced it first-hand with Child Senka, who prompted parent-like feelings in her. Yet those were merely whispers, not something that she sought with her whole heart. Perhaps one day she would have a family of her own, but she was still too young.

  Yet, traveling together with companions who were her own age began to change something within her. Once she recalled Relative Guchiro saying that groups of a single age were unnatural, that children needed to learn to interact with youths of different ages as well as elders. Apparently that was not true on other worlds, as Deuxans all traveled together in packs of the same age.

  Most likely, her relative would have grunted and said that proved his point. Fiyu smiled as she thought of him.

  Though she was not sure how she would change, Fiyu thought that she was fortunate to have found two such traveling companions. Companion Nauda was very kind, if strange, and had already ascended to Archcrafter. Companion Theo was always understanding and had an insight into soulcrafting unlike anyone she had ever met before.

  Fiyu set herself to her work, hoping that they would not leave her behind.

  ~ ~ ~

  As he walked through his soulhome, Theo just wasn't satisfied. It was a mistake to think that there could be "perfect" sublime materials for a given stage, and in fact that thinking could lead to dead ends or bottlenecks. But there were definitely stages of quality, and he wasn't where he wanted to be.

  For a start, his soulhome was entirely too dependent on carvings for many of his essential rooms. It was the easiest method to improve a chamber when he lacked sublime materials, and the carvings would enhance the effects no matter how many sublime materials he gathered, but the method was too simple. Good blueprints required a mix of design, materials, and style.

  Yet the technique that he'd hoped would provide a path forward, gravitational torsion, had proved a wall. He didn't think there was anything wrong with his design, it was simply impacting the world too dramatically to pull off with his current soulhome. Since he wasn't likely to find sublime materials embodying such a concept, then his only choice was to eventually obtain more intense cantae to overcome the wall.

  As for his non-technique rooms, he lacked enough materials to make them feel properly lived-in. He'd put all the emblems and badges they earned into one of the empty rooms, since weak cantae generation was better than nothing. It might have made him a little more resistant to Deuxan techniques and a bit faster, but the effect wasn't dramatic.

  The repelling stone that they'd bought in Nlukoko was efficient but weak: he could generate an effect like anti-mass, but it was so minimal that it had almost no use. On the other hand, the magnetized stone was a bit too strong, threatening to damage his soulhome whenever he tried to use it fully.

  Even combined, they just weren't enough. He was still restricted to increasing or reversing the world's gravity, not creating any of his own. Once he was an Archcrafter, he would be able to fuse those aspects together into a new technique, but at the moment... he could have converted one of his middle rooms to another technique, but that would mean doing a lot of work now that would be wasted later. Interim solutions were fine and necessary, but he drew the line at setting back his future soulcrafting.

  Now that he thought about it, he didn't like the distribution of his four corner techniques. Though his cantae flowed through all of them without major problems, he thought they could have been better balanced. If the mass and anti-mass chambers were on opposite sides, the soulhome would be more thematically balanced and he might even manage to improve flow between them.

  That was a minor distinction, the kind of thing he hadn't even worried about in his past life until he was a Ruler trying to ascend to Authority. That had been the point where some of his simplistic habits started to catch up to him and he'd needed to go back and renovate rooms that had been nothing but big slabs of rare materials. This time, he would have no such problems.

  Presuming that he survived long enough. Everything Magnafor had said about them potentially being targeted returned to mind, though he still couldn't solve that problem.

  Theo reminded himself that he was being a perfectionist, not that it changed his conclusions. There was no point comparing himself to mediocre soulcrafters, not when he might be pitting himself against demons and entities far more powerful than any others he'd encountered. He needed to do things right, which meant at least keeping up with Fiyu and Nauda.

  Having had enough theoretical soulcrafting, Theo returned to the real world and recruited the two of them to do some experiments. He wasn't capable of generating a point of mass outside himself, but he could use either one of his mass-manipulating techniques on himself, so he needed to know how much influence they could have.

  Nauda
experimented with pushing him while he increased his mass, able to notice a difference that would be negligible in a fight. If he'd been a physical fighter like he'd originally intended, perhaps he could have used that to anchor himself in place, but he'd turned away from that path. Trying to use anti-mass on himself had no effect other than making it even easier for her to push him, so that was another bust.

  Testing both with Fiyu, on the other hand, proved interesting. She was capable of launching light bursts less loaded with cantae, so she threw them in his direction to let him test. Unfortunately, no amount of mass or anti-mass, even trying to work together, could so much as budge the path of any of her bolts. Nauda added weaker cantae bolts, to similar effect. When they threw small rocks, the paths did veer slightly, but not enough. At his current strength, the gravity he could control had little effect, which meant he would be vulnerable to cantae, wind, and other forms of energy.

  Still, the experiments showed him a few new things about how far he could bend his techniques, so they were worthwhile. They also seemed to provide amusement to Fiyu and Nauda, as he continually ate a faceful of cantae bolts or rocks. It didn't even bother him, since they did their best to help.

  In the end, he decided that his blueprint was a good enough first step. He just needed to figure out how to take a second one.

  ~ ~ ~

  Though most soulcrafting instructors would have told Nauda to fashion the walls of her entire second floor before she did anything else, she resolutely followed her own path. Even with four months, there simply wasn't time to waste processing that much stone, especially given how much harder it was than as a first tier soulcrafter. She needed to develop herself before opponents came at her again.

  Nauda knew she was technically an Archcrafter like cruel Delarde or arrogant Esaire, but they'd had time and plenty of resources to soulcraft their second tiers. Her cantae might equal theirs, but they had more, along with better techniques and more support from their soulhome.