Underlord (Cradle Book 6)

by Will Wight

  As the spear drove itself into the ground, cable uncoiling behind it, the scripts on the weapon's shaft activated. Those black spots darted over to the spear's shaft like bits of iron pulled by a magnet.

  “My Puppeteer's Iron body gives me great control over my movements,” Mercy said, springing into a handstand. And almost immediately starting to fall. “Or...it used to,” she said calmly as she toppled.

  Wisely, she had moved away from the cliff for this demonstration, so flopping onto her back only kicked up some dust. “Having my coordination sealed was one of the prices for leaving home. With enough training, I'll get it back.” She sat up, brushing herself off. “Looking on the bright side, I've learned a new appreciation for physical training! My Iron body made things too easy. Would you light up that circle for me, please?”

  The long cable connected to her spear on one end was tied to a stake at the top of the cliff. The stake was driven into a stone block with a script on it, and Lindon activated it.

  Immediately, the cable came to life and started drawing the spear back. The spear, now covered in black spots and glowing with a hazy green light itself, was reeled back like a fish on the end of a line.

  “Incredible,” Lindon said, as he watched the process. “The death aura is too strong to go down personally, so you bring the natural treasures to you.”

  “Not just the aura!” Mercy said, popping to her feet. “There are Sylvan Graveseeds and other natural spirits down there, not to mention nasty Remnants that like the power of death. It's safer from up here.” She gestured to the long row of spears. “Most of the treasures growing in the valley have some system like this when it comes time for harvest.”

  “What do your servants do with the natural treasures they...harvest?”

  This Night Wheel Valley seemed too good to be true, like walking into a forest and finding that every tree was heavy with ripe fruit. The Akura family obviously lived here, so why didn't they make sure not a single treasure went to waste?

  Mercy glanced over the cliff at the spear, which had almost returned. “A lot of it is sold or burned for soulfire,” she said, and Lindon made a quick mental note of that.

  “But the rest of it is stored in a vault not too far from here until it's needed.”

  “This vault,” Lindon said, “would it be open to...any members of your family?”

  The spear rattled up the side of the cliff, pulled by the cable, returning to drive itself into the ground again. The cable landed in a perfect coil at the end.

  Now Lindon could see what the barnacle-like objects were covering the spear's shaft: they were skulls. Tiny, black skulls, from some that would have fit on the end of his pinky to a few bigger than his whole thumb. Each of them glowed from within with a soft, unearthly green light, and they radiated a sense of fear and decay that reminded him distantly of destruction aura.

  Mercy stopped, mouth open in the middle of speaking. She held up a finger, then lowered it. She scrunched up her face. “I, uh, well...it actually is, but I've been cut off from family resources. Although technically they're not allowed to help me, so they would be the ones...” Finally, she shook her head. “No, I can't. This is Aunt Charity's property. She wouldn't notice the loss, but she doesn't tolerate cheating. She only allows a break in her rules in order to keep things fair. Or if she thinks it would bring enough of a benefit to the family.”

  [It sure is a good thing no one in their clan knows you left Harmony to die,] Dross said. [That's a relief, isn't it? Such a load off your mind.]

  Lindon pushed that thought away and walked over to the spear. There were baskets next to each one, which he supposed was how the treasures were meant to be collected. But how to remove the skulls from the spear? Surely you weren't supposed to peel death treasures off by hand.

  “There's a separate script-circle on the butt of the spear,” Mercy said. “I'd activate it at a distance if I...were...how did you do that?”

  Lindon had placed his fingertips on the end of the spear, where the death aura was weakest, and activated the spear as soon as Mercy had spoken. By the time she'd suggested activating it at a distance, it was too late, and the tiny skulls were already tumbling to the ground.

  The nearby basket inhaled them, presumably as the result of another circle he hadn't seen activate, and it filled itself quickly with green-and-black skulls.

  He stopped with fingers halfway back from the spear, suddenly panicking. Was that even more dangerous than he'd imagined? It hadn't felt too dangerous.

  “Golds can't get too close to death aura,” Mercy said, waving her hand near the basket to demonstrate. A few inches away, her arm jerked away as though it had been slapped, her fingers curling against her side. “The life aura in your body reacts automatically to protect you.” She squinted at him. “I wish I could take a closer look at you. I've never looked at your lifeline before, but it must be thick as an oak!”

  That must be... Lindon began to think, and Dross finished his thought.

  [That's right. Life Well,] he said. [Doing its job.]

  “Ghostwater,” Lindon explained aloud.

  She slapped his armored chest with the back of her hand, which had about as much impact as a leaf blown by the wind. “I'm so jealous! Getting to tour Northstrider's pocket world...it must have been incredible.”

  A second later, her expression was bright again. “But the Valley has some sights worth seeing too. We should move on.”

  Lindon looked back over the field of skulls. “There's so much here, though.” He wasn't familiar with the prices of natural treasures back in the Blackflame Empire, but he knew he was looking at a fortune.

  “Natural treasures are sold in mixed sets,” Mercy informed him. “It's better to grab as many as you can. And there's an ancestral tree not far from here that weeps gold.”

  Lindon snatched up the basket. “Lead the way,” he said. Then he deliberately opened his void key.

  He left it open for a moment, making sure that she could see the savage-looking axe with the bone haft sitting within. Harmony's axe.

  He was trusting her with two things, now—the existence of his void key and of Harmony's weapon. But if they were going to be gathering treasures together, she was going to learn about the void key sooner or later. He couldn't tell her to turn around every time he wanted to pack something away, and he certainly wasn't going to leave any empty space in his void storage that could be filled with valuables.

  And if she didn't want him to discuss Harmony aloud, he could try to bring it up without any words.

  She stopped as she saw the inside of the storage space, her stance softening. A cloud passed in front of her face.

  “It's all right,” she said softly. “What's taken in battle is fairly won. If...someone...wants the weapon back, they will simply ask you for it. You won't be punished for having it.”

  Lindon left the key open for a moment, waiting to put the basket inside. “Gratitude. That's good to know. But you...”

  He trailed off. He wasn't sure how to phrase the question, especially not without using Harmony's name.

  He just wanted to know how she felt.

  “No problem,” she said. “I understand.”

  But as she led the way through the darkened forest to the next site, her steps were heavy.

  ~~~

  In the dream tablet, the Blood Sage—the Sage of Red Faith—manipulated his own madra. It was the same pattern as a basic cycling technique, but all tangled up in some places and reversed in others. Rather than waiting for the Shadow to feed on his spirit, he was funneling his own madra to it.

  When you choose to channel your spirit yourself, the Sage's voice said inside her head, it contains your own will. In the short term, this will give the Blood Shadow more power over you, which is why the weak and simple will never even think to try it. But over a few short months, the Shadow will begin to act as a true shadow of yourself. A blood copy of your own spirit.

  This is but the first step on the roa
d to true power. As for the second...first, tap into your soulfire...

  Yerin released the dream tablet, as she always did at that point. The second step of the Blood Sage's instruction was a set of soulfire control techniques, which at that point were about as useful to her as a bird telling her how to fly.

  She and Orthos had followed Eithan to a patch of the shadow-drowned forest where the trees were covered in mushrooms that softly glowed purple or dark blue. They didn't look like soft, regular mushrooms, but rather like they were made of crystal. They felt like stone, too, but they still gave slightly in her hands. Like they were squishy, but covered in a hard outer shell.

  The light hardly pushed the darkness back at all, and the aura the mushrooms gave off felt...strange. She couldn't put her finger on it, and since she couldn't open her Copper sight to look at it, she didn't even try to guess. But Eithan assured her they were safe to touch, so she peeled them off the trees and dumped them into sacks that Eithan had packed in advance.

  Each one of the hand-sized mushrooms was worth more than a decent cycling sword back in the Empire, so she was cramming her sacks full. But that didn't make the task any less boring, so she kept her mind focused on advancement.

  Or, at least, advancing her Blood Shadow. Her own advancement was on a smooth track until she reached the very end of Truegold or Lindon ran out of his miraculous water.

  “This would be a fine place for a dragon to find an adventure,” Eithan said. He and Orthos had been chatting non-stop since they'd left, and Yerin mostly blocked them out.

  “Once I'm at the peak,” Orthos responded, “the quality of the aura will not matter to me. You know that. It's a sacred journey.”

  “One that is traditionally taken with family,” Eithan said. He was leaning with his arms folded and his back against a tree, but mushrooms still drifted into his sack. She normally didn't question how Eithan did anything, but pure madra couldn't lift and move anything. Curious, she extended her spiritual sense to him.

  Vital aura was moving the mushrooms physically. He was controlling them with some kind of Ruler technique. How? Pure madra had no...

  The answer came to her at the same time as Eithan said it aloud. “One of the uses of soulfire, Yerin. It grants you weak control over any aura, though it's practically useless in battle. Nothing even close to a real Ruler technique.”

  She should have realized. Her master had lit campfires and brightened rooms with the wave of his hand, and she had long ago gathered that it had something to do with soulfire.

  Then again, he was a Sage. No matter what he did, she wouldn't have found it strange.

  Yerin ran her thoughts lightly over her dream tablets, drifting quickly through their memories. They had a lot to say about soulfire as well; the second stage of the Blood Sage's instruction was using her soulfire to push her own life and blood aura into the Blood Shadow. That would cause it to take on a version of her physical strength, personality, and appearance.

  She focused on his vision of a complete Blood Shadow, raised according to his method.

  Others, weak of vision and will, keep their Shadows as formless, shifting weapons. Or they feed the Blood Shadow with the powers of sacred beasts, creating monstrous forms.

  She could feel his contempt flowing through her, even as his words were accompanied by flashes of image and memory. If she dove deeper into the tablet, she would find herself drawn into the vision, but she kept half her attention on harvesting mushrooms.

  Such techniques show a pathetic lack of commitment. Bestial or formless Shadows are easy to control, but how can they stand up to mine? I am the first to perfect the true form of the Blood Shadow: an absolute copy of myself, a second body, with my own powers and will. It is often said that a Blood Shadow counts as an extra ally in combat. Is this true? Not for the weak and uncommitted!

  For the dregs, it is worth only as much as a sacred weapon. What a waste of a Dreadgod's power! No—only those who follow my path to the end can truly be called masters of the Blood Shadow. It is a partner of absolute loyalty, who can operate in perfect coordination with me because its thoughts are my own. Such a partner is worth more than simply one more ally. Together, we form a greater whole.

  She wasn't only listening to his words, but his thoughts. The Sage of Red Faith knew his technique for raising a Blood Shadow was an unrivaled power. He believed himself truly invincible against anyone of the same advancement level.

  But he was also a revolting slime of a man who would do anything, to anyone, for his own personal power. He would think nothing of bleeding a village dry if his Blood Shadow was a tad thirsty, so why would he care about giving the Shadow a mind of its own? Of course it wouldn't revolt against him. He gave it everything it wanted.

  Yerin stared deeply into the mass of blood madra sleeping inside her soul, and once again she was filled with revulsion. And fear. If she got too weak, and the Shadow remained strong, it would wear her like a husk. Not a day went by that she didn't have to wrestle it down at least once.

  “I thought my Path was over,” Orthos said to Eithan. Yerin was still only listening with half an ear, focused on her own spirit. “Now, I face decisions that I...did not expect.” He stretched out his neck, biting off a crystal mushroom the size of a human head.

  “Not yet, you don't,” Eithan said, pulling out a pipe. He filled it from a pouch as mushrooms continued to slowly drift over his shoulder, but lit it with a scripted fire-starter. Now, if he could control fire aura using his soulfire techniques, why didn't he use it to light the pipe?

  “Soon,” Orthos rumbled, and Yerin thought he sounded sad. “Soon,” he repeated.

  Eithan patted the turtle on the shell. “Don't be so grim! You sound like you’re facing down the end of your life, but you’re practically starting it again. How many years do you think that Life Well gave you back? A century? Two?”

  Orthos shook his head as though to clear it. “I'm losing myself. It's the shadows.”

  “Enough to cast gloom on anyone,” Eithan said, taking a puff from the pipe. “Speaking of which...”

  He glanced over to Yerin. “There's more than one tablet in there, you know. You have options. It's not as though you have to train your Blood Shadow in the same way Red Faith does.”

  “That's clear as good glass,” Yerin said, walking over to a tree to snatch up a mushroom.

  She'd glanced through all the tablets already.

  There were three paths before her:

  The most common was feeding her Blood Shadow primarily with blood madra. Usually in the form of scales. It would still leech from her a little, but it would eventually become little more than a mass of easily controlled blood madra. This was what the Sage called a “formless” Blood Shadow, and allowed the Shadow to be used essentially as a weapon. It was the most common and easiest to both control and create...and the Sage of Red Faith spat on those who chose that path, because he considered it the weakest.

  The second method, and the one that Redmoon Hall often encouraged, was feeding the Blood Shadow with actual blood. The Shadow would absorb power and substance from the blood, eventually taking on a monstrous form. It was like storing a very solid Remnant or a vicious sacred beast inside her spirit. The Sage considered a bestial Blood Shadow to have its uses—feeding the Shadow exclusively dragon blood, for instance, would eventually result in a blood dragon that lived in her soul.

  But he favored the third option. The clone. He had cultivated his Blood Shadow further along this path than anyone else, and now he was effectively two Sages in one body.

  It only meant that Yerin had to give the Shadow a mind of its own.

  She had to feed it not just her own madra, but her blood aura—the power of her body—and her life aura. The power of her life itself.

  It required soulfire techniques to control those aspects of vital aura, since her sword Ruler techniques certainly wouldn’t do it. So she couldn’t make her final choice yet, even if she wanted to.

  But the da
y was coming soon when she would have to choose. Feed it her own life and power, or settle for a weaker weapon.

  “You could turn your Shadow into a weapon,” Eithan said idly. “Or a pet. Or a clone of yourself that will make you an unstoppable force of pure destruction.”

  “Hard work is quiet work,” Yerin said.

  “Take your time deciding. Just because two techniques are relatively common and one is the legendary power of a Sage doesn't make one better than the others.”

  “How has no one killed you yet?”

  “Sheer laziness. Listen, you shouldn't worry: my wisdom is vast and deep. I have ideas about how to improve whatever Blood Shadow you create. There's a rare metal that can bond with a formless Shadow and still be stored in your spirit, which would give you a shifting, metallic weapon that responds to your every thought.”

  A sword that could change shape as she fought. She could see some uses for that. What the Blood Sage considered the weakest option was only his opinion, after all.

  Eithan breathed out a cloud of smoke. “Yes, if Lindon had chosen a Path other than Blackflame, I would have worked with him. Never let it be said that I stop people from making the wrong decision. Like, let’s say you don't want to combine the power of two Sages in one body—well, in two bodies...”

  Yerin threw her sword at him.

  Chapter 7

  Hours later, the group met back up, Lindon and Orthos drifting closer to one another over the course of the day. The whole group had Thousand-Mile Clouds stored in their emerald armor—except for Orthos, of course—but they all walked, comparing natural treasures.

  Eithan assured them that there was no need to hurry anymore, and it soon became apparent why.

  While the darkened forest had been largely empty on their way in, now that they were headed back out, it was bustling with activity. Sacred artists flooded through the trees, mostly Truegolds, but with Highgolds here and there.

  The closer they came to the towering portal of darkness, the more people they ran into. Some were already clearing trees and assembling huts, or driving wagons through gaps in the forest. Shadows passed overhead, both cloudships and flying creatures.