Soulhome (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 1)

by Sarah Lin

  Though the force was invisible, it knocked her opponent off her feet, doubling her body over as if she'd been impaled through the stomach. She remained frozen in the air in that position, one rod clattering to the ground. A hush fell over the crowd and Fiyu breathed a sigh of relief.

  Theo's combat instincts expected Nauda to slam her opponent into the arena, but instead she lowered the other woman to the ground gently. As soon as she touched the ground, the match was over. Nauda bowed to the other team with perfect humility, then returned to their side as the crowds began to cheer.

  "Mogi's family, please choose your next contestant." The judges spoke gently when no one was forthcoming, but the other side continued speaking in low voices. They didn't seem furious, but Mogi had definitely been humbled by the defeat.

  When they finally broke, they sent a Fithan man out into the circle. Theo frowned, trying to glimpse the man's soulhome and reconsidering his thoughts about strategy. This man hadn't followed a Farmguard blueprint, but his cantae felt unremarkable... Theo glanced toward Nauda.

  "Is he hiding something?"

  "No, I think he's bait." Nauda considered him a moment longer, then turned back to the rest of them. "Not their weakest, but they're trying to lure out more of our skilled fighters. Kuber, do you think you could fight him as you are?"

  "Probably." Kuber stood up, reluctantly leaving the ceremonial rod behind to step into the circle.

  Their fight turned out to be much less interesting than the previous, as neither combatant had any polished techniques. Though the Fithan man had a knife, Kuber disarmed him with a huge burst of cantae. His every movement was overpowered, as the only real advantage he had was the massive store of cantae inside his over-sized chamber. In a longer fight, his lack of organized rooms might have led him to lose, but eventually he managed to out-wrestle his opponent and throw him from the circle.

  Three victories, no losses. Theo swallowed when Nauda pointed to him, because he had a feeling that he was going to break that streak.

  He walked to the ring calmly, trying to display as much confidence as possible. It wasn't that he was completely helpless: he had a well-crafted soulhome that stored a decent amount of cantae. Over the course of his life, he'd honed his fighting instincts and learned several martial arts, plus he still had the spear armament Navim had made for him.

  All he could do was stand and wait, hoping he could draw out one of their stronger fighters. Based on the amount of time it took Mogi's team to choose, he must have caused them a bit of worry. Eventually they sent out a middle-aged man with a heavily fortified soulhome.

  That wasn't good, or it was great, depending on the perspective. Then the bell sounded and he had no more time to think because a wall of wind swept toward him.

  It almost knocked him from the ring at the very beginning of the match, but his instincts told him to drop to the ground and dig in. The wind stung his skin with an edge of cantae, not quite a focused attack. The sapphire currents swirling around the man's hands definitely were, though. He leapt away from the first burst, which dissipated against the ground with nearly enough force to make him stumble.

  His only hope was to get close enough to use his spear. Theo drew as much cantae from his soulhome as he could, reinforcing his body and moving him faster than his opponent could hurl the bursts of sapphire wind. Unfortunately, the older man didn't panic, merely raising another wall of wind to keep him back while steadily hurling bursts at him.

  Without any special techniques of his own, Theo was definitely going to lose. His only hope was to put everything he had into a single charge, so he lunged forward.

  As expected, the middle-aged man raised a wall of wind with one hand while sending out a burst with the other. Theo ducked underneath the burst and this time charged directly into the wind, throwing his own cantae against it in an uncontrolled blast. Then he was through, thrusting his spear forward and activating it...

  His opponent's hands closed around the tip of the spear, catching the force in a swirl of his own cantae. Theo realized too late that he should let go of the spear, but the whirling force caught hold of his body and threw him into the air. Before he'd even finished tumbling, a burst of wind smashed into him, then another, then another, then he was crashing into the arena floor.

  Outside the circle.

  The conclusion was announced and the old man nodded politely to him, but Theo ignored him and the crowds. Defeat was bitter despite the fact that he'd expected it. When he returned, Fiyu gave him an encouraging smile like a knife to the gut, while Nauda clapped a hand on his shoulder approvingly.

  "You made them use up one of their stronger fighters. That's good enough."

  But it wasn't, not for him. It wasn't just that he had lost, it was that he had lost badly, outclassed in both power and technique. Theo sat on the bench gloomily, trying to figure out if there was another way he might have won, but given so little to work with, he didn't think it was possible.

  Their next fighter went out in a heated wrestling match that ranged across the arena before Mogi's fighter won. It had been a close match between roughly equal opponents, making morale a more important factor and leaving Theo wondering if he was responsible for that loss as well. Mogi's team was certainly exultant now that they were catching up, and Nauda's expression suggested that she agreed.

  "Fiyu, can you fight again?"

  The Ichili woman bobbed her head agreeably. "Do you need me to?"

  "Yes. We're both running out of skilled soulcrafters and we need to end their streak."

  When Fiyu stepped out into the arena a second time, there wasn't a pause like before. Instead Mogi himself walked forward with a broad smile on his face, as if he had been waiting for that moment. Nauda bit her lip and reached out, as if she could take back the decision, but Theo pulled her hand back. They could only trust in Fiyu's strength now.

  "You're strong," Mogi said, "but you should stick to ambushing opponents who aren't prepared for you. Just a suggestion for future fights."

  Fiyu didn't respond at all, hands loose at her sides. Mogi tried to smirk at her, but it dissipated against the lack of response. He eventually bent down and readied his fists, fully serious. Unfortunately, it did feel like he had a fully soulcrafted first floor, so the fight wouldn't end swiftly like Fiyu's previous one.

  The instant the bell rang, Mogi smashed both his fists together. A cacophony of flashing lights and blaring horns exploded over the arena, so intense that it nearly blinded Theo from a distance and made several of the judges fall from their seats. In the instant that Fiyu flinched, Mogi leapt across the arena to strike her.

  He was met head on by a burst of light from both hands. His technique might have been disabling to Fiyu not long ago, but Theo felt a surge of pride when he saw her completely ignore it. With her soulcrafted window combined with her new mask, no attempt to strike at her weaknesses would be effective.

  Though a huge number of her bolts landed, knocking Mogi backwards, they didn't drive him from the ring. He straightened with a grimace and emerald light flickered around his torso. It was some sort of spiritual armor, battered by all of the bolts but not broken. To his credit, Mogi didn't attempt any kind of distraction again, he just attacked.

  His first leap was terrifyingly fast, nearly bridging the distance between them in an instant. Fiyu released a hail of bursts at his location, but he easily dodged aside, a surge of cantae preventing him from losing any momentum. She'd held back her other hand and the burst from it caught him in the face.

  Mogi kept coming, grimacing as her bolts impacted against his armor but not about to stop. Just before his fist collided with her face, Fiyu shot to the side, quick as a shadow. He was puzzled for only a moment, and in that time she sent more bolts slamming into his side.

  Seeing that her attack was ineffective, Fiyu retreated to the edge and conserved her strength. The enemy leader was hesitant as well, surprised that his opponent was so quick. He took a step forward, then retreated as s
oon as she raised a hand, taunting her into sending out more bursts. Considering that Fiyu couldn't release unlimited strikes, that was an effective strategy. Mogi began to shift around the arena, so quickly that he was just a blur, every movement a potential attack.

  Fiyu spread her fingers wide and unleashed a hailstorm of light. Eyebrows rose and jaws dropped all around the arena as she utterly blanketed the entire ring with bolts. Even if Mogi could have dodged them, his strategy shifting from side to side sent him slamming into several of them before he could correct. The green aura protecting him began to crack and he grimaced before leaping into the air.

  As soon as he did so, Fiyu raised her hands to strike. But Mogi brought his fists together again, this time releasing a shockwave of force that smashed aside her bolts.

  In an instant he was overhead, his fist slamming down toward a defenseless Fiyu.

  It looked almost like she fell forward at first, yet Fiyu tucked into a roll and passed just under his attack. Mogi stomped down into the arena, his boot gouging deep into the stone, whirling around to strike her before she could escape his range...

  Instead, Fiyu extended a hand behind her, fingers aligned like a knife. A searing stream of bursts struck him in the torso, shattering through his aura and sending him flying back toward the audience.

  Multiple people gasped and flinched before he collided with an aura of green cantae that had been invisible before that moment. Mogi flattened against the cantae wall, his chest bleeding severely. He began to fall forward and Nanjuma caught him before he hit the ground.

  "You see? There is nothing to fear." Nanjuma smiled over the crowd, but his eyes moved quickly to find the healers. "Would someone come forward and help this lad? We'll take a brief break to return everything to order."

  In that time, a pair of healers came to attend Mogi, who was conscious but in pain. Someone else walked out to repair the arena, the stone throbbing as if to a stony heartbeat as it slowly flowed back into position. Meanwhile, Fiyu walked back to their area very slowly.

  Though she looked serene, Theo could tell that she was exhausted. She barely even flinched when everyone cheered her, then slumped down onto her bench. Nauda was smiling broadly and ended up clapping Theo on the shoulder as if she couldn't resist touching someone.

  "That was exactly what we needed, Fiyu. They've sent their strongest, so we have this well in hand. Everyone else, I expect you to fight your best, but the remainder of this match is about gaining as much real experience as you can."

  As it happened, they still dominated the remaining set, as Mogi's team had been severely demoralized. The remaining fights weren't particularly interesting, yet Theo found himself watching closely, invested in the outcome of his team. Of the remaining four fights, they won three of them, and even the loss seemed like only a temporary setback, the loser not even ashamed when she returned to their group.

  So they'd won seven to three, a strong showing for the first match. Some of the fights had been a close thing, but they also had more to reveal. Theo was fairly certain that Fiyu and Nauda both had something left up their sleeves, while he hoped that in a week he would be an entirely different soulcrafter.

  Just as he was starting to put his loss behind him and enjoy the celebration, Theo caught a glimpse of Magnafor in the crowd. He didn't even seem to notice anything that had gone on in the arena below, his gaze locked on the vast tree overhead.

  Chapter 21

  Not only did they have a week to prepare for their second match, they also knew exactly who their opponent would be: Famaj's team. The Farmguard was quite cheerful about it, expressing anticipation for the match without any hint of rivalry, but Theo still felt a flicker of annoyance. He decided to leave the reconnaissance to Nauda and focused on his soulcrafting.

  Unfortunately, no prizes were awarded for the first round, he'd exhausted his money, and no one was handing out useful sublime materials. He'd acquired as much ore from the mine and fruit from the orchards as they would hand out, just in case, but hadn't come up with anything yet.

  At the moment, he was staring at the bogstone while idly hammering apart a piece of stone. He hoped that inspiration would strike, but while it didn't, he at least wanted to accomplish something. Using some of the more ordinary sublime ore from the mine, he'd begun soulcrafting one of his empty chambers. He'd borrowed Fiyu's spirit lantern and was using it to melt down and reshape the stone into a specific pattern.

  What he'd crafted was a representation of the time-space continuum, with objects of great mass distorting it, except instead of a planet he'd created a replica of his soulhome. It was a slightly dubious exercise, but he'd poured everything he knew about gravity into the construction of it. In theory, it would allow him his first technique once his heart chamber began working, not that it seemed likely to.

  Once that was finished, he'd begun adding trim and more elaborate door frames, just to add some polish to the path between the room and the central chamber. He'd etched gravitational symbols on them, but didn't delude himself into thinking that would make a huge difference. Having a more polished room might strengthen his technique slightly. At best. Presuming he got any of it working.

  With a growl of frustration, Theo took a massive swing at the rock. It cracked in half and several pieces went flying across the room, breaking against the glossy black walls.

  Except some of the fragments slid directly into the bogstone, sinking into it rapidly and leaving only ripples. Those ripples grew and distorted one another until the stone began to lift into the air, its surface bubbling strangely...

  And then it dropped back to the ground. The reaction was over, nothing fundamentally changed, and the bogstone was just a little more dense than before.

  Yet as he bent down to examine it, Theo realized that he finally had his answer. He needed to transform the bogstone from a simple material representing a bog to a core representing a significant source of mass. What better way than to have it absorb other sublime materials? It was a bit of a mental stretch, but an influx of new cantae from other materials would help smooth over the process.

  Theo sat down and took several deep breaths, trying to figure out if there were many major flaws in his plan. It was no blueprint considered for decades, but he thought that it would work. At worst, he didn't think that the bogstone could explode. He couldn't afford not to take the chance.

  He started with the useless fragments of stone he had left over, but their reactions were similarly short-lived. A bit of experimentation led him to discover that if he spun the sphere, the ripples stabilized and it stayed in the air longer. But even though it was growing denser and denser, it didn't seem to be getting closer to a fundamental transformation. There had to be something, more of a reaction...

  His gaze fell on the slate of magnigem. It was by far the densest sublime material he owned, stubbornly resisting cantae and other effects. Though he'd planned to use it as a pedestal for some future ability, it might also be just the right material for a transformation. After a bit more thought, Theo picked it up and dropped it onto the bogstone.

  This time it wasn't absorbed easily, the two sublime materials reacting violently with one another and sending cantae in all directions. But the blackened walls resisted it, and he hadn't rebuilt the roof, so he only needed to endure the blast.

  Lifting his new combined core into the air, Theo began squeezing it with his bare hands, throwing all his willpower against the mass. As he spun it, he reminded himself of who he was. A bitter old man who had been a fool as a child, spent miserable years seeking that lost youth, and had nearly lost his second chance pursuing that dream. His sun had collapsed, leaving nothing but a black hole that consumed everything...

  When he opened his eyes, the sublime materials had surrendered to his will. A dark sphere the size of his head hovered in the air in the center of his soulhome, force cascading from it. Theo quickly spun it, forcing it to balance. This time the process seemed to ignite a reaction and it continued to spin
... but also start to drift toward the ground.

  Theo knew he was close, but it wasn't quite self-sustaining: it needed more mass. He experimentally threw all the remaining stone into the core and saw it vanish without a trace, increasing its mass a little further. Laughing as he realized that it would work, he rushed through his soulhome, grabbing up every sublime material without a critical purpose and hurling it into the core. Though he hesitated for a moment before adding the demonic materials, they were absorbed all the same. The nature of the materials didn't matter, they were all just mass to him.

  At last, when he had thrown away everything else, a black core of power rotated in the center of his soulhome. It was as dense as all the sublime materials combined, though of course it wasn't really a singularity. No amount of willpower could bridge a gap like that.

  Still, it had been a success. Cantae rushed from the core, some of it lost into the sky, but most of it flowing through his outer chambers just as he'd planned. Though he didn't like how it hung unsupported, it seemed to be locked into place by the blackened walls of the central chamber. Those had been his frame of reference, after all, and they had been created by the implosion of a metaphorical sun. The heart of his soulhome now felt stable.

  When he walked to the only chamber that he'd soulcrafted, he discovered that it was drinking up the new cantae, just as he'd hoped. Now that he'd soulcrafted more than walls, he could do better than just reinforcing his body with cantae. Instead, he should be able to manifest it in an actual ability...

  Returning to the real world, Theo tried his first experiment on a cup in his room, and found himself laughing again. Finally, it had worked.

  Of course, he quickly discovered all the limitations of his new skill. He suspected that it would be possible for him to create new sources of "spiritual mass" and use gravity in extremely creative ways, but that required far more power than he had, or that he would ever possess as a first tier soulcrafter. So the only options available to him were to manipulate gravitational fields related to existing sources of mass, and only the world itself was massive enough to matter.