Soulhome (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 1)

by Sarah Lin

  "Soulcrafting is first about intent. Beyond a few basic rules, such as larger chambers holding more cantae, everything is subjective. What is a sturdy house and what does it look like? Different villages give different answers, and none of them are wrong. What matters more than how you swing a hammer is that you craft something that you fully believe to be a firm soulhome."

  "That's oversimplifying," Theo objected. "No amount of belief is going to make a weak material into a strong one. You can't lean two boards against each other and pretend it's a castle, even if you're completely delusional. That's not even getting into how important it is to select the right sublime materials."

  "But what makes the right materials? You can't simplify the differences there." Nauda gestured toward the shadows all around them. "If I tried to make my soulhome like this, it would be weak and uncomfortable, because this place seems cold and intimidating to me. But I'm guessing that it isn't to Fiyu."

  Fiyu rapidly shook her head. "No, I find it very peaceful. Your soulhome is... too bright for me, but I think I understand how you enjoy it. So you are both right. We all must follow logical rules to craft an environment that is right for us, but our goals will vary."

  "It's more complex than that, but yes. We've brought you materials that seem to be well-suited to the task of blocking out light and noise, but maybe we should have talked to you about them first. I know you might be familiar with Ichil, Jake, but you should have spoken to Fiyu first, since her own feelings about light are most important."

  Since he didn't really disagree with any of the points, Theo didn't bother arguing and just moved on. "The quality and nature of the materials is important, and we have good ones. I'm confident that Fiyu can think of a way to effectively use them, regardless of individual details."

  They both turned to Fiyu and she bobbed her head with a smile. Without speaking, she carefully replaced the brick in the side of the wall and then padded around the side. She stepped into a doorway, paused, then gestured for them to follow. Most of the doorways within were clouded in darkness that prevented them from seeing anything, but the shadows cleared in a room to the left, where Fiyu knelt down on the floor.

  "This chamber is for my sensory technique," she explained, running her fingers along the outer wall. "It is the room most strongly associated with interacting with the outside world, for me, and all my sensory cantae flows through it. That makes it a good choice for this technique, right?"

  She looked at them expectantly, so they quickly nodded affirmation. Fiyu carefully removed several bricks from the wall, roughly in the shape of the window, and Theo realized that she did fully understand. Still, she stared at it for a time before speaking again.

  "The glass reminds me of the mask that Navim crafted for me, so it will stand between me and bright lights. I will place it as a... 'seeinghole'? Window? Yes, window. I see that the adhesive will bridge the gap between the glass and the stone so that the window does not weaken my defenses. But what is the cloth for?"

  "That's going to be something called a curtain." He tried to show her, but couldn't touch the fabric and had to demonstrate until she hung it over the window. "This glass is so dark it blocks out most things, but you can open and close the curtain to control the light. Not only will it muffle sound, the fact that it's flexible will allow you to control how heavily the technique is used."

  While they spoke, Nauda had been examining something on the other side of the room, but that made her look up. "Is this going to leave her perception of the world dimmed and muted? That could be a disadvantage in combat."

  "No, this is where your subjective element of the process comes in." Theo turned back to Fiyu, looking her in the eye through her mask as well as he could in his mental form. "This part is important. You aren't soulcrafting all this to defend against light and noise, but to control it. If you do it properly, you'll still see bright lights, but you'll perceive them intellectually instead of being blinded. Does that make sense?"

  Fiyu nodded immediately, as he'd hoped. Since she was already familiar with unusual perceptions, he suspected that this one would come easily to her. She began soulcrafting cheerfully, working with the bricks to create a space exactly the size of the glass pane she'd already crafted.

  Occasionally she asked one of them a question, but for the most part she seemed happy to continue working silently. Theo kept floating there to... provide moral support, he supposed. He looked over to the other side of the room and discovered a stone pedestal rising from the floor. That had been what Nauda had been looking at, or more precisely the sphere placed on the top.

  "Just why do you know a technique like this?" Nauda asked him. "Unless one of the Nine Worlds is far brighter than Tatian, you've never been in a place that was blinding to you."

  "This is a specific version of a broader technique, one that I learned from veteran world travelers." Theo tried to rest back against the wall, but in this form he was never exactly comfortable or uncomfortable, just suspended. "Some of them have an entire chamber devoted to adapting to different environments. If they develop it enough, they could step into any world without the local conditions overwhelming them."

  "Hmm. That's a useful technique. Probably not worth an entire chamber on the first floor, but perhaps later..."

  "Right. That's why I'm glad that Fiyu could adapt it into a window so easily."

  Still working but clearly listening, Fiyu bobbed her head in agreement. She had fitted the window properly, but applying the adhesive took more focused work. Leaving blobs of it off the side might be irrelevant in a real window, but within her soulhome, such minor flaws would only weaken the technique.

  After a period of silence, Nauda bent down beside the sphere again. "Fiyu, this is one of those spheres of artistry you mentioned, isn't it? I wish I could feel the inside for myself, but... anyway, this is the heart of your sensory room, right? How does it actually work? What sense are you using instead of sight?"

  "Nauda!" Fiyu turned to her with a gasp, mouth hanging open for a moment before it pressed thin. "I... why would you ask that question?"

  "Is that offensive?" Nauda looked at her in dismay, then toward him. Theo regretted putting himself in the position of cultural translator, but since Fiyu was too shocked to answer, he didn't have a choice.

  "Asking someone about what exact sensory techniques they use is an extremely personal question on Ichil. Think about how vulnerable it could make a person. There's one common technique that involves releasing and listening to sounds..." He chose that one because he was fairly certain Fiyu didn't use it. "If an enemy knew that, they could release counter-sounds and leave a person completely blind."

  "I understand that it's a personal question, but..." Nauda floated beside the Ichili woman and reached out, trying to brush her arm. "I thought that we were friends."

  Fiyu gasped and flinched away, just slightly. It was a barely perceptible movement, but Nauda saw it and her face fell. She receded so quickly that Theo was afraid they'd all be thrown out of the soulhome, but instead she just floated gloomily in the corner of the room.

  Even though it should have been annoying to him, Theo just found himself wishing that he had a way of mending the disagreement. He thought the two of them would get along, it was just difficult to pick worlds more socially different than Ichil and Tatian. Before he could think of anything to say, Fiyu turned around and sat formally.

  "I think we will become friends, Nauda. But please be patient with me. From what I have seen of your world, you use that word very easily, as if a person can have dozens of friends." Fiyu shook her head at the absurd thought. "In all my life, I have only held one friend close to me. Touching is also... not commonly done, even among relatives. I recognize that you mean no harm, but I still find it alarming."

  "I understand, Fiyu." The relief was obvious on Nauda's face, even in her hazy form. She moved closer, but before she could say more, Fiyu continued speaking.

  "Both of you may become my friends one day.
Until then, I... do not wish to offend you." Fiyu reached out and took Nauda's hands, though her own trembled as she did so. "I do not want you to think that I dislike you, or dislike people. Your communities here are very warm and loyal. But I... being in them for too long, or even being with you, I quickly grow weary. Last night I was merely tired, not upset with you."

  "No, I really understand." Nauda wiped the corners of her eyes, clearly wanting to embrace the other woman and restraining herself. "Please just be patient with me too. You don't need to keep... pouring your heart out like this."

  "Thank you." Fiyu rapidly withdrew her hands, but she was smiling again. Unfortunately, both of them then turned toward him, the somber atmosphere tightening around them.

  "I don't want you to misunderstand either, Nauda, and get the impression that I dislike people." Theo knelt down and looked her directly in the eyes. "I hate people. People are the worst. They should die in a fire." He relaxed back and grinned. "But you two are okay."

  Their laughter was brief but genuine. They sat in silence for a time, and it might have been awkward, but then Fiyu returned to her work. "Nauda, can you maintain open doors between us? Could we all soulcraft together and visit from time to time?"

  Wiping her eyes again, Nauda slowly nodded. "I can't create doors like that, but you can tap me in the real world, or I can teach you to knock. It's actually pretty easy, here..."

  As she went on to explain the exact technique, the heavy atmosphere finally lifted. Still, when Theo drifted back to his own soulhome, he found himself smiling.

  Chapter 16

  Nearly three months into his time at the school, the first official contest was announced. Though no Archcrafter materials were being offered, the lower vaults would be opened and the winners would be offered a selection of the rarest first tier sublime materials. Despite claims about family, everyone would compete in teams, so excitement rapidly mounted.

  Except with Magnafor, who Theo still saw from a distance on occasion. The other Earth-born human was scheduled to participate, but Theo didn't think that he cared about a few materials. Magnafor still intended to break through the barrier to the Landguard tree and steal everything there, which would make the contest prizes pale in comparison.

  At the moment, however, he was blocked by Nanjuma's presence, so Theo thought he had more time. For now, the Tatian environment was good for his growth, so he intended to continue in it. Soon enough it might grow stifling, and at that time he'd need to try to steal the resources from out of Magnafor's hands, but that was a future concern.

  Since the contest would pit all the young soulcrafters against one another, it was finally time for him to complete his preparatory work and establish his blueprint. After so long waiting, he found himself making excuses, but he'd done everything he could in his soulhome without a central chamber.

  Unfortunately, his concerns weren't entirely imaginary. By far the biggest problem was that every tree he'd attempted to plant at the center of his soulhome had either shriveled and died, or grown so stunted that it generated little cantae. He'd been checked repeatedly by various healers, none of whom saw any problem with his health, body or soul.

  That meant that he had no choice but to skip the introductory step: instead of bothering with a tree at all, he'd jump to the true form of his blueprint and develop a central chamber with more powerful sublime materials. Doing it all at once would be tricky, but far from beyond his abilities.

  Theo entered his soulhome and looked over all his preparations one more time. It had taken months, but he'd fashioned hundreds of solarstone blocks and built the core structure of his soulhome: a square of nine rooms, three on a side. All of them were empty, leaving him with no special abilities or traits, but his capacity to store cantae was now considerable, for a first tier soulcrafter. On top of that, he had perfected his vestibule and door, and had even set up a crude fence with leftover hearthtree wood. Few had similar advantages.

  Currently, the roof was the weakest point, just simple wooden planks. But he didn't need the roof at all for his blueprint, so he could replace it with stone when he was ready to ascend to Archcrafter. What mattered now was igniting a powerful light in the core of his soulhome, which would channel cantae to the eight other chambers, giving him plenty of space to build all the abilities he'd imagined.

  He slipped back to the real world for a moment, confirming that the sun was just beginning to rise. Time of day wasn't critical to soulcrafting except in certain superstitions, but this would be a major undertaking and he wanted everything to be perfect. The first rays of the sun would strike him soon, his mindset was perfect, and he had all the sublime materials he needed.

  This was it: the culmination not of three months of soulcrafting, but of forty years of planning.

  When he returned to his soulhome, he entered the vestibule and closed the door behind him. No distractions. Slowly he walked through the outer rooms, clearing his mind as he made sure that they were completely bare. The magnigem, the demonic materials, and sublime fruit he had left all over were stacked outside so they couldn't react. Not that they would cause major problems, but they would slow down the reaction and weren't needed until the foundation was complete.

  Finally he walked into the central chamber. Unlike all the others, which were bare stone, he'd taken care to polish the walls and floor. At the very center he'd inscribed a circle with the pattern of the sun, and his final materials lay within it.

  A few remaining pieces of hearthtree wood remained around him and he recalled his plan to build a final defensive structure. It wasn't part of his blueprint, just a precaution in case there was excess energy from the process. He didn't think it was necessary, but propped up the defensive walls around the edges anyway, just to get himself in the right mental space.

  Then he sat down and set to work. The ignition materials were fairly simple, just a spirit flint he'd bought in the market. It was highly potent, only affordable because this one would consume itself after a single use. All it needed to do was light the solar core until it created a reaction.

  That solar core was the reason he had been chipping away at the noonstone boulder for so long. Eventually, it had cracked open to reveal a brilliant gem, one of many sublime materials that could ignite into a miniature sun. It wasn't the most powerful possible, but it was more than sufficient, and in the future, he'd be able to feed stronger materials into the blaze. He'd covered that aspect excessively during his years away.

  There was nothing else to do. Theo took a deep breath, raised the solar core, and struck the flint against it.

  Somehow he slammed against the outer wall of his soulhome, blown through the door by the explosion. If it had been his real body, he would have been incinerated, but he staggered up, his entire soul smoking. Shouldn't there be a sun ahead of him? He stumbled forward, part of him hoping that he had exceeded his wildest dreams, but a dark voice said that it couldn't be...

  The heart of his soulhome lay empty.

  Instead of a sun blazing in the air, supplying him with raw power, the central room had been devastated by an explosion. His eyes ran over the details repeatedly, refusing to take them in. The once pristine white walls had burned a glassy black, as if the stone itself had melted. His floor had been torn apart, leaving nothing but a small amount of rubble over barren earth. The flint and solar gem had been consumed, of course.

  How the hell had it happened? Theo dropped to his knees, fumbling with the fragments as if he would find some mote of dust that would explain it all. But no trivial flaw could have caused such a catastrophic failure, it simply wasn't possible. All his careful plans...

  To prevent himself from choking on despair in the central chamber, he forced himself back to his feet and struggled to the door. The outer chambers were mostly undamaged, though some of the roof had been torn off. Could the roof have been at fault? No, he dismissed that possibility almost immediately: the explosion had been instantaneous and the roof had been merely another victim.


  In fact, he bitterly realized that it could have been much worse. The perfunctory defenses he'd put in place had blunted the explosion, preventing it from leveling his entire soulhome. Except as he stared at the empty white rooms, he wondered if that almost would have been better. Whatever the explosion had been, the heat of it had fused all the blocks together, leaving his foundation incredibly solid... and permanently flawed.

  "Why?" Theo screamed his question into the uncomprehending clouds overhead, just as he'd bitterly asked for so many years on Earth. He stumbled outside, suddenly struggling to breathe. When he fell to the ground, he struck it angrily as if he could beat his own soul into submission.

  There had to be some flaw that he could find, because that meant he could fix it. He carefully checked the demonic materials to see if they reacted, but they lay inert, just as theory would suggest. Nothing seemed to be out of place except the ugly hole in the center of his soulhome.

  It had to be the fundamental elements of his soul, because everything he had soulcrafted had been perfect. One thing he hadn't planned on was awakening during the demon attack, and he fixed on that as the likely explanation. Though it hadn't weakened him in any way, it had drained the grass in the field and he hadn't adjusted for that in his initial blueprints. That had to be the reason.

  After taking several deep breaths, Theo walked back to the center of the chamber to consider his next step. The floor could be rebuilt, but the blackened walls were a problem. His failure had altered the fundamental nature of the solarstone and he might need to replace it. Unless the black coating was very thin...

  He took out his chisel and chipped at it, but to his surprise he couldn't put a scratch on the dark surface. It glistened like volcanic glass, which wasn't something he knew very much about. Sublime materials like that existed in other worlds, but it wasn't generally created by spiritual processes.