Daylen shrugged. “I can’t see any harm in that,” he said, and did so. “There.”
Lyrah smiled. “Good, you’ve just lost your specialization. Now you won’t be able to make a level-four bond in mass.”
“What are you talking about? Of course I can make a level-four bond.”
“Then try it,” Lyrah said, folding her arms with a smug smile.
“Sorry, I don’t exactly want to risk exploding any of my body parts again.”
“Then increase your mass.”
“How would you be able to tell the difference between four ton and eight?”
“I’ll lift you.”
Daylen knew she could make herself incredibly strong, but enough to lift eight tons! She should only be able to increase her strength sixteen times, which wouldn’t even be close to strong enough. Maybe she could still get a read on his weight by how difficult he would be to move.
“Whatever,” Daylen said, and walked to the end of the building. He stepped onto the brick barrier that encircled the edge which would put the main wall underneath him and support what his weight was about to become. Daylen then stacked all four bonds in mass, making himself weigh about eight tons, one for the first, two for the second, four for the third, and eight for the fourth. The top tiles of the brick barrier cracked underneath his now massive weight.
Lyrah approached and stepped onto the barrier next to him. After a moment the tiles underneath her feet cracked, indicating she had increased her mass too. Daylen noted that they didn’t crack as much as the tiles underneath him, meaning she hadn’t increased her mass as much.
She then grabbed him underneath his armpits and lifted him with only the slightest effort showing on her face. The tiles cracked even farther under her feet now that she was also supporting Daylen’s enhanced mass.
Daylen was utterly speechless. When stacking all his bonds on strength he could lift at most a little over a ton, but not eight! At least Lyrah looked as surprised as he felt. “You weigh a little over seven tons, not eight,” she said, putting him down and stepping off the barrier. “You could only be so heavy with a level-four bond.”
“Ah, yeah. That’s what I’ve been saying.”
She turned to look at him. “That should be impossible.”
“Evidently not.”
“You can’t just specialize at a whim…unless your bonds are granting a greater enhancement than normal.”
“How much are they supposed to grant?”
Lyrah eye’s narrowed on him.
“You can at least tell me that much.”
“So long as you tell me the strength of your bonds.”
“Done.”
She huffed. “The first bond in mass will multiply or divide your normal weight by ten. Each bond after that will double the previous enhancement.”
“That sounds right. I weigh around ninety kilograms, so the first bond makes me weigh very close to nine hundred. Which means you’re right, with all four bonds that would make me seven thousand two hundred kilos or seven point two tons, not eight.”
“Four bonds?” Lyrah asked, reacting as if Daylen had just turned into a woman before her eyes.
“Umm, yeah.”
“You have four bonds?”
Daylen realized he might have just revealed something he shouldn’t have. Well, it’s too late now. “Doesn’t everyone?” he asked.
“NO!” she screamed.
“Oh.”
“How under the light do you have four bonds?”
“I don’t know. I’ve had four ever since receiving my powers. How many am I supposed to have?”
“Three! Every Archknight, for as long as we’ve had our powers, has only ever received three bonds and that—is—it. No more, no less. Four should be utterly impossible!”
“Then how’re you supposed to make a level four bond if you only have three?”
“Through specializing, and no, I’m not going to tell you what that is.”
“Fine.”
“I don’t understand this…unless you got your powers through a different process.”
“Well, that’s a problem, because I’ll never tell anyone how I got them.”
Lyrah paused and a slight smile crossed her face.
Daylen narrowed his eyes at her. “I meant it when I said I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Okay then,” she said. “You have four bonds. Don’t think that makes you powerful or something. You still don’t know how to specialize or use your powers properly.”
“Then teach me.”
“Join the knights!”
“I will. I just have some loose ends I need to sort out first.”
“And they are?”
Daylen paused for a moment, wondering if he should tell her, but considering that they were stuck with each other, he relented. “When I was digging through Blackheart’s records, I discovered that he was dealing with the Dawnists from this city, selling them all the skyships he had captured. I want to find out why. There’s also the matter of the sex-trafficking trade that I intend to destroy.”
“You intend to destroy the entire human sex trade?”
“Eventually.”
Lyrah studied him.
“You like the sound of that, don’t you?” Daylen asked.
“I can’t say that I haven’t wanted to root out those scum ever since I joined the knights, but we fight the Shade before anything else, and they’ve been getting more active these past years.”
“You’re not assigned to hunt the Shade right now.”
Lyrah smiled. “All right. How do you plan on going about this?”
“One thing at a time. The Dawnists should be easier to deal with before an entire criminal enterprise.”
“I can’t say that I’m very fond of the Dawnists, either.”
Daylen grinned. “Good—then it looks like we’re going to have some fun.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
That unspeakable act of genocide was the beginning of the end.
At the time I issued the order to destroy Daybreak, the Archon who accompanied me, Puppy, could not believe what he had heard. It was then that Puppy realized the truth: that I was a madman. He attacked me with a sunforged sword whose hiding place, to this day, I still cannot discern. I was suspicious of everyone but my most trusted servants at that time, so I had expected this betrayal and had made preparations. The knight was quickly run through by several shotspikes. Amazingly, he began to heal, and still advanced to kill me. I fought him sword-to-sword with Imperious. Even while healing from his wounds, the knight was easily twice as fast as a regular man, but I was a master of the sword, and took his head after a great exchange of blows.
* * *
I want your word that you’ll join the knights once we deal with these loose ends,” Lyrah said, still standing on the constabulary roof.
Daylen sighed. “Right now I can say with absolute honesty that I fully intend to join the knights once these loose ends are sorted out.”
“Right now,” she parroted, “meaning your intentions might change?”
“Of course,” Daylen replied flatly. “I can’t predict the future, so I won’t discount something arising that affects my intention. Thus, I won’t fully commit.”
Lyrah sneered. “You speak like a politician.”
“I won’t back myself into a corner. In the end I’ll join the knights when I see fit, and right now, that’s after these errands.”
“They’re more than errands: they’re self-appointed quests. Why does it even matter to you?”
“Because with these powers I can actually do something about it… It’s how I’ve chosen to live my life.”
Lyrah was silent for a moment. “You’ve made the pledge.”
“What pledge?”
“To fight evil for the rest of your life. The Archknight’s Oath.”
Daylen nodded slowly. “I suppose I have.”
“Did you make it before you received your powers?”
&nbs
p; “I know what you’re getting at, and no, I didn’t. Trust me, there was no one as unworthy as me at the time I received my powers.”
“As unworthy as you?” Lyrah asked as her eyes narrowed.
Damn it. “Don’t expect me to elaborate.”
“I need to know if you were some kind of criminal before receiving your powers.”
“My past is mine to keep,” he demurred. “You won’t know of it, and neither will anyone else, so don’t worry—the reputation of your precious Order will be safe.”
“So is what you’re doing some kind of penitence?” Lyrah asked.
Daylen looked away dismissively. “Something like that.”
“Because of something you did or because of your father?”
He returned his gaze to hers before saying, “Both.”
“You’re not responsible for your father’s crimes. And what could you have done to cause giving up your life out of guilt?”
“Nothing that anyone will ever know.”
It was clear that Lyrah wasn’t satisfied with that, but she must have known that there was nothing she could do about it.
“All right then,” Lyrah said eventually, “the Dawnists. What’s your plan?”
“My plan is to find one of those Dawnist soap boxers and get them to tell me where their leader is.”
“And why do you think they’ll tell you?”
Daylen looked at her knowingly.
“Ah.”
“Exactly.”
“There should be Dawnists in one of the city squares.”
“Or I could just listen for the nearest one,” Daylen said.
“That’s right, you can stack four bonds whenever you want. So effectively you’re a weak Listener.”
“Weak?”
“A level-four bond can be impressive, but it’s nothing compared to what a strong Listener can do with a level six, or a high Listener can do with a level nine.”
“Nine? There’re Archknights that can make level-nine bonds? I thought you knights only had three?”
“There’s far more to our powers than you know, though very few get that strong.”
“What can they do, hear words spoken on the other side of the continent?”
Lyrah smiled.
“Really, they can do that?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“Oh come on!”
She smiled at him haughtily.
“You like teasing people, don’t you?” Daylen said accusingly.
“Only when they deserve it.”
He would have tried to guilt her about that, but considering he liked teasing people too, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Daylen channeled as much light as he could into his hearing, focusing on any speech about the Conqueror.
At first the noise nearly deafened him, but he quickly focused, noticing something troubling. His head spun in that direction.
“What is it?” Lyrah asked.
“A cry for help,” Daylen said and, without hesitating, he ran toward it. The Dawnists could wait.
Lyrah was following him without any objection, and with a few well-aimed power jumps they reached the alleyway where a woman was being chased by two men.
Daylen and Lyrah landed right in between the woman and the two men, who pulled up looking utterly shocked.
“It’s…it’s him,” one of them men whispered to the other. “The guy in the papers.”
“Oh, Light,” the other moaned.
Daylen approached the scum while Lyrah saw to their traumatized victim.
“We haven’t done anything,” one of them said as they backed away.
“Judging by that woman’s torn dress, you were certainly trying,” Daylen growled, sensing that there was barely any light within these depraved men.
Then they fell to the ground, decapitated, but not from anything Daylen did. Lyrah had ran forward in a flash and killed them both.
The woman screamed at seeing the carnage.
“How is that any different from what I did in Treremain?” Daylen growled at her.
Lyrah sent a sideways glare at him before pulling out a cloth and cleaning her two-handed warsword. “We found them in the act of attempted rape, their hearts were nearly as black as Shade, and as a real Archknight I have judicial authority to carry out sentences. And to further distinguish myself from you, we’re going to find a nearby constable to let him know what has happened.”
“But if you came across the criminal grubs that I did in Treremain, you would have killed them just the same as me. You never thought my actions were unjustified—it was all about forcing me to join the knights!”
Lyrah lowered her hands and turned toward him. “Your killings being justified or not was the difference between trusting and not trusting you. I had no idea what you were like.”
“But you do now?”
“I’m starting to.”
That was about as good an admission of trust as Daylen would get, so he was happy to let that subject rest. “All right, let’s find that constable and I’ll try and listen for a Dawnist again. But in a city this big, there’ll always be someone else in trouble.”
Lyrah walked back to the woman who was now sobbing on the ground, “If you hear someone calling for help, then we help.”
Daylen smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Three rapists, eight muggings, a murder attempt, and two wife-beaters later, Daylen was holding their ninth mugger by the neck. “What should we do with this one? Chop off an arm?”
“No,” Lyrah said. “How could he serve out his sentence properly with a missing arm?”
The mugger squirmed and constantly tried to get free. Daylen punched him in the stomach so hard that he would struggle to breathe for the next few minutes. “Well that depends on what type of slavery he’ll be sentenced to. You only need one arm to wipe someone’s ass.”
“That’s if he’s lucky enough to end up a manslave. The other option is the mines.”
“Well, he couldn’t work the mines with one arm,” Daylen said and turned to the mugger, who was still struggling to breathe. “So we can either chop off your arm and thereby increase your chances to become a manslave, or leave you in one piece where you’ll rot as a mineslave.”
“P-please…”
“I think we’ve scared him enough,” Lyrah said.
Daylen dropped the miserable idiot, who crumpled to the ground, crying.
“So, why’d you do it?” Daylen asked.
“We’re starving,” the man groaned.
“And threatening someone with a knife is the way to fix that?”
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’d never really have hurt him. I just needed the money.”
Daylen sighed. It was a sad and common story, an otherwise good man turning to crime because of poverty. Both Lyrah and Daylen had been gentler with this one on account of the light they both sensed inside him.
Daylen fished out a crown from his pouch and dropped it on the cobblestones.
The man stared at it. “W-what?”
“Use it to feed your family. Don’t ever be so stupid again, got it?”
“Thank you, I…”
“Get out of here.”
“Really, I…”
“GO!” Daylen growled.
The man jumped back and then ran away.
“That was generous of you,” Lyrah said.
“I’m surprised you let me, with how by the books you are and all.”
“Actually, if you had tried to arrest him, I would have stopped you. That man deserved a second chance.”
Daylen couldn’t help but smile at that. As hard as Lyrah was, she was also compassionate.
“On to the next one?” Lyrah asked.
“My powers are getting sluggish and I won’t be able to use them for much longer, so this time we really do have to go to the Dawnist.”
“Huh, you can use your powers so proficiently that it’s easy to forget how green you are.”
/>
“I’m not green.”
“Yes you are,” she replied smoothly. “Your bonds are as raw as they get, only being able to maintain them for an hour. You really need to do some conditioning.”
“So I can get them to work for longer?”
“Of course.”
“Well, thanks for telling me. And I didn’t even have to join the knights.”
Lyrah’s expression dropped and then she glared at him. “Savor it. You’re not getting anything else.”
Daylen smiled. She had let her guard down because she was actually enjoying his company, and the truth was that Daylen was enjoying hers, too. Far more than he deserved. Lyrah was intelligent, compassionate, and strong, and in the short hour that they had been working together to do good, he had almost been able to forget their past.
“Why don’t the knights do this?”
“You mean what we’ve been doing?”
“Yeah.”
“The Shade.”
“That can’t take up all your time.”
“The Shade are far more numerous than you think,” Lyrah said, and then added in a softer tone, “and the knights far fewer… I wish I could help individual people every day, believe me. But fighting the Shade helps the world more. Also, apart from the Shade, you need at least a level-four Listener to hear distant cries for help. They and Sniffers are the best ones for digging out Shade nests, so you can guess what they’re most often assigned to. The problem is that few knights choose to specialize in listening or sniffing because those abilities can’t be used in combat. Thus Listeners and Sniffers are some of the most valuable and vulnerable members of the Order.”
“I see,” Daylen said, grateful that Lyrah had been so open with him. In fact, it made him want to join the knights sooner. With his four bonds, just how strong could he really become? He could truly help the knights, and thereby the world.
Daylen enhanced his hearing and listened for those lost idiots that actually loved his past self. He couldn’t help but notice several cries of distress, but at the end of the day he was one man and he couldn’t save everyone. It made him sick, but this was just like the choice the knights had to do: to fight the Shade or help regular people. Whatever the Dawnists were planning wasn’t good, and it needed to be rooted out.
Shadow of the Conqueror Page 42
