Immortal Swordslinger 3

by Dante King

  Sensing movement, I ducked just in time to avoid being decapitated by a blow, then rolled forward and away from the attack. As I came to my feet, I turned around to face three golems, all with twin stone axes raised.

  I flung up a Smothering Mist that blocked the golems’ view, then used it to get clear of their advance. They marched into the edge of the mist and swung at where I had been, even as I darted around a boulder and came at them from the side. Next, I launched an Ash Cloud so that my enemies became surrounded by another cloud, this one black and dry as the desert itself.

  While the golems stumbled into each other in the darkness, I reached out and called part of the Ash Cloud to me. The particles settled in my palm, and I squeezed them tight with both my hand and my Augmenting. Under the concerted pressure of Compress Ash, those particles became a slender knife blade as hard as any metal in the world.

  When the first golem emerged from the cloud, its body smeared with soot, I lunged forward with the knife. I buried it in the golem’s shoulder joint before it even had time to react. As the creature reached around to try to pull the weapon out, I knocked its hand aside and slammed my trident onto the knife handle, like I was hammering in a nail. The golem’s arm broke off and fell to the ground along with the ax it had held.

  Behind the ash-stained golems, Tahlis was still using the same mischievous tactics he had deployed against us. He would blind the golems with Sandstorm, vanish into the ground, and appear again behind them. Then, he would knock one over, trip one up, or take off a limb with a thrust of his spear. Many of the golems he knocked down were finished off by Kegohr, who strode through the middle of the fight like a colossus, laying waste to our granite foes. Some of them got around his shield and hit him on the body or legs, but Kumi was never far away, and she sent out regular tendrils of Vigor-infused water to heal his wounds.

  Vesma paused in her carefully coordinated whirl through the golems and sent a blast of Untamed Torch at the face of the nearest one. It was one of the best Torches I’d seen her throw, an intense and focused ball of searing heat. I thought it would simply leave a scorch mark as the others had done, but she targeted it with pinpoint accuracy at the joint between the golem’s head and neck. The creature was decapitated from the blast, and she went on to use the same tactic on another golem.

  Tahlis raised a Sandstorm around him. Instead of forming a wild, whirling cloud, the grains drew together, coalescing into solid projectiles the size of ball bearings. They knocked chunks from the arms and faces of golems before aiming purposefully for their heads. In moments, the lizardman’s attack had pulverized the heads of a half dozen golems. He proceeded to add the remnants of the fallen golems to his Sandstorm and use them to destroy even more of the creatures.

  I summoned an Acidic Cloud around the nearest pair of golems. Their outer layer of stone started to dissolve and drip in trickles of green liquid and gray goo. A golem tried to rid the acid from its face, but instead wiped away half its nose and filled in an eye socket. With the creatures softened up in the most literal way possible, I lunged in to finish them off with blows from the Depthless Dream.

  “That’s good,” Yono said within my mind, feminine and bubbling with delight. “These creatures don’t stand a chance against you, do they? I have found the right wielder!”

  Tahlis appeared in the midst of the last three golems, a grin splitting his scaly face.

  “I’m surprised to see the Depthless Dream has left the Qihin Clan,” he said.

  “How can you even tell what I’m fighting with?” I asked as I stabbed a golem through the hip and broke the joint that held on its leg. “You’re blind.”

  “Ah, but my other senses are powerful. I can hear the difference between clattering blades and ringing prongs, hoof beats and footfalls, the pouring of wine and milk.” He vanished into the ground, then sprung up again beside me. “Also, your friends told me.”

  His leg shot out to kick a golem in the chest. As it stumbled back, I hooked its leg from behind with the trident, and it fell. Immediately, Kegohr jumped over me and smashed its head into dust.

  The final golem made a desperate leap toward Vesma and Kumi. As its arms swung down, Vesma grabbed its wrists. She grunted and strained, holding back the descent of the golem’s twin blades, while Kumi climbed up on its back. She flicked a knife from a sheath on her back, plunged it into the golem’s neck, and twisted. The creature growled, staggered, and finally collapsed face forward.

  Kumi tugged her knife free and sheathed it. “I much prefer sea monsters to stone monsters.”

  I slung the trident onto my back, where it hung by a strap of woven seaweed, and pulled out a knife of my own.

  “Fighting alongside a master like this,” I said, “tackling strange creatures and learning new ways of fighting. . . it kind of reminds me of being back at our guild.”

  “It doesn’t have the nice bits, like food and beds,” Vesma said.

  Kegohr wiped dust from his mace. “No, no, no, but at least it’s got the fun bits, yeah?”

  We went around the stone bodies, extracting their magical cores. Some could be pried out from weakened stone using knives and fingers. For others, the rock bodies had to be smashed open using Kegohr’s mace. By the end, another 20 earth cores lay gently glowing in a heap on the sand, to go with the half dozen already in my bag.

  “Not bad going,” Tahlis said.

  Kegohr hefted his mace and glared at the blind lizardman. “Not bad?”

  “Should we divide the cores up?” I asked.

  “You have them,” Tahlis said. “I mastered Ground Strike technique while you were still leaving toddler-shaped trails in the sand.” He shot me a needle-toothed smile, and I couldn’t help but laugh. The lizardman reminded me a little of Tolin. The temple caretaker had taken to mocking me, but I always knew he never held any ill-intent.

  Once again, I stuffed the cores into my bag. I’d always gone near a Vigorous Zone Core when I’d entered the spirit world to learn a new element, but if the core was no longer present in this desert, I might run into some problems.

  Leaving behind a pile of golem corpses, we carried on along the road down the dried-out valley. We walked more cautiously than before, weapons constantly at the ready, our eyes darting back and forth as we watched for more attacks. Twice, we stopped to face a sudden movement only to see a hyena loping away into the wilderness.

  The sky was turning to gray as we finally approached the Sunstone Temple. It had been an impressive building to see from far away, but up close, it was even more imposing. The approach led up a sunbaked mountain path, with stairs cut into the solid rock. It was a steep ascent past craggy outcroppings, and Kegohr and I entertained ourselves by trying to decide what animal each rock most looked like.

  “That one’s a sheep.” Kegohr declared as he pointed at a rounded lump.

  “No, it’s more like a coiled snake,” I said.

  “Have you even seen a snake?”

  “If this is leading up to showing me yours, no thank you.”

  “Like I’d share it with you. I’m saving this bad boy for next time I see Veltai.” Kegohr grinned, and his expression grew distant, lost in happy memories. He’d only had a few days as a couple with Veltai, a fearsomely strong human Augmenter, before she had to go back to our guild, but those days had clearly left a deep impression.

  While we talked, Vesma was watching Tahlis, a scowl on her face. He was leading the way, so he couldn’t have seen her glare even if he’d had his sight, but something about her demeanor clearly showed her disapproval, as he paused and gestured for her to join him, then started to talk as he walked.

  “What’s bothering you, girl?”

  “You,” she answered.

  “Do I not take life seriously enough for your terribly sincere tastes?”

  “You’re rude, and you’re not funny.”

  “Humor is a matter of opinion. But if you don’t like me, you could have avoided me, so why have you been treading on my tail f
or the past hour?”

  Vesma hesitated, but only for a moment. “I have a question.”

  “Really? Because that sounded like a statement.”

  “I’ve never heard of anyone taking the core of a Vigorous Zone before. Is all this wasteland from that one act?”

  “All of it.” Tahlis sighed. “This used to be a fertile land. Even in neglect, the soil was rich and the plants bountiful. After all, what is earth if not the food our own food grows from? This valley fed the whole Gonki region, its farms so efficient that most of our men and women could be trained to go away and fight wars. Even in decline, we ate well and lived happily.

  “All that has changed thanks to the meddling of the Cult of Unswerving Shadows. When Targin and Saruqin took the core, they took all that was good and healthy from the Zone. Its power remained but in a twisted form. It drove out the other elements, leaving the land as dry as a dustmite’s junk. There’s enough power still for cored creatures to grow back after they’re harvested, but they come back tougher and more brutal. The harvests for trade that sustained our economy are gone. We can’t grow our own food and can barely pay for it to be transported in. Whichever way you look at it, we’re set to starve.”

  “Why would the Unswerving Shadows do that? Surely, it undermines them too?”

  “Ha! The Shadows are as unswerving in nature as they are in name. Once they have an idea in their heads, there is no moving them. By getting hold of the Earth Core, they can empower their own people in ways that ordinary cores could not. They have drawn the land’s power close to their chests, and so have gained a temporary advantage. But they are too foolish and greedy to see how destructive it could be in the long run.

  “This is the problem with people who follow the Straight Path. What is good inside them withers away.”

  “This business with the Straight Path,” I said as I approached the lizardman. “It’s confusing me. Where I come from, a phrase like that would sound good. When people are honest, we talk about them following the straight and narrow. I think there’s even some scripture verses about how the straight way leads to eternal life.”

  “Eternal life?” Tahlis asked, bemused. “How would you ever be reborn? Your homeland is a nonsense place.”

  Thinking about reality TV and politicians, I was inclined to agree with him, but my question remained unanswered.

  “Still, the phrase ‘Straight Path’ sounds like a good thing…” I recalled how Xilarion had explained to me that the followers of this path were willing to cut corners, to find the quickest way to their desired ends. But I wanted to hear Tahlis explain it. After all, if he could provide a different perspective, I’d get a better understanding of the various paths and how they operated.

  Tahlis stopped, sighed, and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Look out there,” he said, gesturing to the valley below us. His cloudy eyes didn’t follow the direction of his hand, but he tilted his face into the breeze, as if he were smelling, or perhaps feeling, the currents swirling through the air. “Does the road we just followed run straight?”

  “No,” I said, looking back along its curved, sometimes winding route through the abandoned farms, rocky outcrops, and long stretch of desert. “It follows the curve of the river. Sometimes, it alters course to go around the scenery or the places people live.”

  “So, if you wanted to build a straight path up this valley, what would you do?”

  “I suppose I’d have to fill in part of the old river bed, knock down some abandoned farms, smash the rock outcroppings, and use them to fill the holes.”

  “What if the river still ran or those farms were still occupied?”

  I pondered how different that would look and gave a slow nod.

  “Then my straight path would destroy livelihoods, not just where it went but among the people further down who relied on the flow of the river or the food from those farms.”

  “And if instead of barren rock and desert, the lands between them were forests or plains, places where you could see the trees grow and the animals run free? Places teeming with life?”

  I thought about what we’d seen in the desert. Not just monsters, but other living things—foxes, hyenas, crows, scuttling beetles, cacti, and stands of tough, pale grass. That land already teemed with life, as Tahlis must know after living here for so long, but he doubted my ability to see it.

  “My straight road would destroy those living things,” I said. “And the fragile ecosystem in which they live. I would be ruining everything I went through because I didn’t have the patience to make the extra effort and go around.”

  “You’re smarter than you smell. Which is good, because you smell strange and confused.”

  “This is a strange and confusing world.”

  “Exactly! The world is strange and confusing, but that’s where its wonder lies. It challenges us to take the winding path, to explore new places, to work around others as they work around us. It is the only way that we can live together, not just with other thinking beings but with animals, plants, and the world.

  “Followers of the Straight Path are obsessed with their own power. They dress it up in talk of building better worlds, but those worlds are always about them and people like them, not about the many different people and ways of life that fill the human plane. Their Straight Path means taking the shortest route, not the best one, flattening the world out for their convenience. If anyone stands in their way, whether by purpose or by accident, then they will destroy them and everything that matters to them. For some, it is driven by indifference, for others by hatred of the other, but the end result is always the same—evil.”

  “And the Wandering Path?”

  “When we follow the Wandering Path, we follow the way of the world as it is. Like the road up this valley, we wind around the lives of others and the wonders of nature. We empower ourselves so that we can live lives of honor. That cannot be done by taking from the innocent or destroying the wonders of the world.”

  “And the Path of Peace?”

  Tahlis shrugged. “It is another path of good intention. It is not mine, but it at least does not rely on crushing the dreams of others.”

  “And the Path of the Swordslinger?”

  “I haven’t seen you flattening a lot of farmsteads. I think you’ll be all right.”

  At last, we reached the top of the stairs winding up the rocky pillar. The Sunstone Temple stood before us, a great round tower of pale stone with a smaller tower protruding from one side. It hung out over a cliff edge, suspended above the void by some impressive feat of engineering, a reminder that in some ways, this world was as sophisticated as the one I’d left behind. Narrow arched windows dotted the walls, and crenelations ran around the rooftop. This was clearly as much a fortress as it was a place of worship.

  At the top of the stairs, a pair of dog statues carved from dark stone flanked the approach to the temple. They towered over us, their mouths hanging wide to expose pointed teeth and big eyes staring down with piercing intensity, as if scrutinizing our very souls.

  I paused on the top step and looked out across Gonki Province. At the eastern end of the valley, the sun was rising over the sea, a growing semicircle of warm, inviting light that made the temple’s fearsome guardians feel like familiar friends.

  The core for this Vigorous Zone might have been stripped, but there was great magic here in the temple. If I had to guess, I would have said this place was where the core had been taken from. The residual Vigor flowed through the temple and made my skin crawl.

  “I like this place,” I said. “I’m going to sit here for a while.”

  “Shouldn’t you come and get some sleep?” Kumi asked. “It’s been a very long day.”

  “I have something to do first.”

  I pulled 20 golem cores out of my bag and set them on the ground beside me.

  “If you think you’re up to it.” She leaned in toward me, eyebrows raised.

  “I’ll be fine. But if you guys are making breakfast
, save me some.”

  “I will, I promise.”

  Kumi leaned down and kissed me, then followed the others past the guardian dogs and into the temple.

  I sat on the topmost of the worn stone steps, my mind focused and my robe open to the waist. One by one, I picked up the cores and pressed them against my chest. As each one touched my skin, a tingling ran through me, the sensation of raw Vigor cascading into my body. I was filled with a rush of energy, and my heart beat faster in anticipation of what was to come. With each new core, a warm glow in my chest grew stronger.

  The power of earth was inside me. Now, I just had to forge new pathways so that I could unlock its uses.

  I closed my eyes and opened the mystical channels that ran through me. Earth flooded along them, and I embraced it. I was at one with the element. As I took a deep, meditative breath, the world as I knew it faded away.

  I found myself standing on the hard, cracked soil of a dried-up lake bed. Rocks protruded through the caked dirt, but there were no plants or animals, nor signs of the water that, in the human plane, would have given this place its shape. Every way I looked, the lake bed ended with tall, rocky banks that stretched like cliff faces to whatever world was waiting beyond.

  There was a hiss like the sound of sand running through a timer, amplified a hundred times over. I turned to look and saw a towering figure, seven feet tall and made entirely of sand. Like the other elemental spirits I had met, this one was human-like, standing on two legs. His head was smooth and his face blank except for two pits where eyes would have been. Unlike the others, he had four arms, two on each side of his torso.

  Grains of sand flowed as he flexed his arms and tilted his head from side to side, scrutinizing me. As he advanced, each thudding footstep left a little of the sand behind.

  I swallowed and raised my hands, ready to face my opponent.

  Chapter Six