Rainhorn

Book #2 of The Weirkey Chronicles

Version 1.0b

© 2021 Sarah Lin

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The story so far...

Theo’s first journey in the Nine Worlds ended in tragedy. The mentor who first taught him how to survive in the Nine demanded that he return to Earth, and when he refused, killed him and his allies. Theo survived only due to a quirk of fate, his soul returning to a hospital bed on Earth.

After struggling to find a way back for forty years, Theo finally returns to the Nine Worlds, this time emerging in the peaceful world of Tatian. Reborn as a young man, he finds that he retains none of his former soulhome’s power and must start again from scratch, starting with rediscovering the ability to wield cantae.

Around him, inhabitants of other worlds begin to emerge from the cracks in reality which brought him there. He has to intervene quickly to help an Ichili woman named Fiyu who is frightened by the bright light of Tatian’s sun and its inhabitants’ startling lack of regard for personal space. With the help of a Mundhin stoneshaper, Theo fashions her a mask to protect her from the light and volunteers to help the local Farmguards to guide her and the other refugees back to their home worlds.

As they begin their journey, Theo starts to gather the sublime materials he will need to start building a soulhome, but cannot progress further without awakening as a soulcrafter and gaining access to his soul’s foundation. As he does so, he meets a young man named Magnafor who he quickly recognises as a fellow visitor from Earth. Mistrustful and hostile, he warns Theo to stay away from him, asserting that where humans tread in the Nine, trouble with demons follows.

Without a soulhome, Theo is defenceless against an attack, so he once again approaches the stoneshaper Navim to ask for a weapon. Though he inscribes it as a soulcrafter’s armament, Navim cautions that Theo should use it as a normal spear until he can control its power. Two days later, the caravan experiences its first demon attack, and Theo is pressed into action alongside Fiyu, Navim, and the Farmguards to defend the other travellers. They work together to repel the invaders, but Theo notices too late that the last few demons are beginning to sacrifice themselves to summon a powerful second-stage demon. It begins to manifest, and in desperation he activates the inscription on the spear to destroy it just as it emerges into reality.

The power awakens Theo's soulhome with a painful shock. Panicking as he realises his physical body is defenceless, he struggles to return to the real world, but finds that the battle is over and his wounds are being tended by healers from a nearby village. He eagerly begins to soulcraft for the first time in forty long years.

Having proved themselves in combat, Theo and some of the other refugees are invited to the Landguard village in the city of Myufuru to be trained as soulcrafters. They are greeted by Nanjuma, a Ruler with a powerful third-tier soulhome, who explains that they will be provided with sublime materials, training, and the opportunity to compete for valuable second-tier Archcrafter materials.

Soon afterwards, the students are split into teams to compete amongst each other. A young Tatian woman named Nauda selects him at the urging of her first pick, Fiyu. They are joined by Kuber, a Tatian man with a large yet unremarkable soulhome, and several weaker soulcrafters from Tatian and the neighbouring worlds of Deuxan and Fithe.

As Theo finishes crafting his soulhome’s vestibule and starts working on his solar blueprint, he gets to know Fiyu, Nauda, and Navim better, but makes few other friends. Though the classes are trivial compared to his experience from his past life, Theo makes the most of them to train his body and earn more materials for his soul.

Soon, he has to put his redeveloped skills to the test when demons attack a nearby village and the students are sent to help Nanjuma deal with the attack. Nauda proves to be a strong fighter, with an unusual binding technique allowing her to freeze demons in place while others attack them, and Fiyu’s lightstorm bolts prove essential for dealing with new breeds of demons.

Freshly rewarded for their efforts in battle, Theo heads into the city with Nauda and Fiyu to acquire rare sublime materials to improve their soulhomes. Using their new purchases and Nauda’s observation technique, Theo teaches Fiyu to build a defensive window to help her adjust better to Tatian’s bright, noisy environment.

Later, Theo attempts to ignite the solar core which will serve as the heart of his soulhome, but to his horror it explodes catastrophically and permanently scars the walls of his central chamber, leaving his plans in tatters. After a period of depression and reflection, he turns to Navim and Nanjuma for counsel, and he comes to realise that his blueprint is designed around his younger self, ignoring the changes in his soul in the forty intervening years. Freshly inspired, Theo begins to reimagine his bright sunlit soulhome concept to instead revolve around a dark singularity.

All too soon, the first contest between teams arrives. Theo feels unprepared, as does Kuber, who owns a powerful Archcrafter-tier armament which his modest soulhome cannot yet support. The first three bouts are won by Fiyu, Nauda, and Kuber, but their streak ends when Theo’s lack of specialised techniques leads him to be knocked out of the ring. The match eventually ends in victory for Nauda’s team, but they only have a week to prepare for the next contest.

Theo works fervently to create his new blueprint’s first technique chamber: an ability to cast gravitational fields over his opponents. As he arrives for the next match, however, he finds that most of their team has fallen ill. His suspicion of foul play is confirmed by a smirk from the Deuxan woman on the opposing team, but with no immediate proof, Nauda’s team is left to fight with only herself, Fiyu and Theo fully fit. With Theo easily winning multiple matches, they manage to pull off a victory, but Nauda is injured in the process.

After the truth of the poisoning emerges, Nanjuma apologises to Nauda, Theo and Fiyu and invites them to a private feast where they are served potent sublime foods. Theo decides to inform Nanjuma of his suspicions that Magnafor is planning to break into the Landguard village’s vault of high-tier sublime materials, but stops short of making a direct accusation. He is more forthcoming with his teammates, revealing a little of his history, and to his surprise they agree to help him in the event of a conflict over the vault’s contents, so long as nobody is harmed.

After another week of soulcrafting, Theo arrives for their next match, and notices Kuber nervously clutching his Archcrafter armament. Theo discovers that Magnafor has taught Kuber how to dedicate his whole soulhome to powering the weapon, but as his bout with Navim starts, it becomes clear that he can’t control its power. A blast from the staff shatters the Mundhin’s rocky body, and Nanjuma quickly halts the match. None of the local healers can help, and Magnafor suggests that they rush to Navim’s homeworld, Arbai. Nanjuma quickly agrees and sweeps everyone along.

As they arrive in Arbai, they are unexpectedly attacked by an unknown Ruler-tier assailant. Nanjuma springs away to battle, leaving the others to scramble in the chaos… and Magnafor to flee for the gate. Theo gives chase, but Magnafor fights him off and closes the gate between worlds behind him. Stranded in the Arbai desert, Theo and his allies rush to bring Navim to his school, where he can be healed. Theo strikes a deal with the school’s master, a fourth-tier Authority with the ability to use Weirkeys, to return them to Myufuru so they can pursue Magnafor.

When they arrive back at the training village, they discover its students fighting a demon invasion. They cut through the battle in pursuit of Magnafor, but are blocked by Kuber, still wielding his Archcrafter staff. Magnafor disappears into the giant tree containing the Landguard vault, and Theo is forced to choose between giving chase and helping his friends. At the last second, he turns back and together they manage to defeat Kuber.

As they turn towards the tree, they realise it’s too late to stop Magnafor… just in time to watch the entire tree to twist in on itself and snap out of existence entirely. Horrified, they realise it had been a trap, intended to annihilate anyone who wanted to pillage the vault.

In the aftermath, Nanjuma is questioned by Landguards about visitors from other worlds, but to Theo’s relief he only mentions Magnafor. Nauda and Fiyu are just as keen to leave as Theo, and they agree to venture into the north of Tatian, back towards Nauda’s home...

Chapter 1

As a living god passed overhead, Theo kept his tree branch over his head and felt like an idiot.

The soulcrafter floating above the path wasn't really a god, of course, but he might as well have been, given Theo's present state. The man he'd been in his past life could have fought such opponents easily, but now he was just a first tier soulcrafter. Even if he built his first floor perfectly and ascended, he didn't stand a chance against an Authority-tier soulcrafter.

Fortunately, the Landguard was only patrolling, not tracking him specifically. The branches he'd propped over his cloak got itchier and itchier, but he resisted the urge to adjust them. He didn't even dare look up, just kept himself hidden until the massive pressure passed on.

Only once the Landguard soulcrafter had entirely vanished did Theo make his way back to the path and continue on his way. Like practically every path in the world of Tatian, it was a pleasant little road with fruit-laden branches leaning over the sides, lined by verdant fields or warm little communities. He couldn't wait to be out of the insufferable place.

The Tatian Landguard was a powerful organization defending the entire world, which made it particularly inconvenient that they were hunting him down. Technically they were searching for outsiders to the Nine Worlds, but he was fairly sure that meant him. All of their agents were overwhelmingly powerful compared to him, plus they'd all be at least competent, unlike local Farmguards.

However, they weren't dealing with just anyone. Theo crept from out of the trees, slipping his shielding tree branches into his pack and instead pulling a silvery cloak over his shoulders. He'd stolen it from some Deuxan travelers in a previous village, thanks to their relaxation in the environment. It was one of several different disguises he'd put together during his months of travel, leaving him wishing that he was strong enough to store all his supplies in his soulhome.

His skin was too light to be a native Tatian, so he needed to pretend to be a traveler from another of the Nine Worlds. Deuxan was easiest, especially now that he had the clothes, but he also had a Fithan cloak. Though he lacked the skin or horns to look truly Fithan, Tatians really didn't know much about Fithe, so he could get away with it. That actually stopped him from using an Ichili disguise, which otherwise would have been a good bet: the locals knew so little about Ichil that he would draw attention as an outsider anyway.

Slipping between guises and paths, he'd been making his way to the city of Nlukoko for just over three months. Though he'd expected the isolated travel to be enjoyable, he found himself looking forward to meeting Fiyu and Nauda again at their destination. Since they had all left Myufuru at the same time, the possibility that the Landguards were looking for an odd trio was just too high to travel together.

Though he was finally getting close, that meant that his concerns about what would happen there came back to the forefront. Since he wanted to avoid the forests for now, Theo instead made his way to one of the larger paths, to blend in with the crowd. Since he was relatively close to the city, even the local rubes might have information for him.

A group of Tatians ambled along, infuriatingly slow, but Theo matched pace with them. They noticed and immediately became all smiles. One of them was carrying a child, which pointed at him and began squeaking "Foreigner! Foreigner!" cheerfully, but its mother quieted it down with pats on the head. One of the others approached and clasped his forearm in a friendly way.

"Hello there! Don't mind the child, this is just her first time out of the village."

"I don't mind at all." Though it might have been wasted on local villagers, Theo carefully modulated his tone for an aristocratic Deuxan accent. "I've seen how well you treat foreigners here."

"Are you from the city?" one of the men asked, almost as curious as the child. "You're Deuxan, right?"

"Actually, I'm traveling to Nlukoko for the first time."

"Oh. I thought you might be from there because we see a lot of cloaks like yours coming from that direction, though I'm not sure why."

That suggested there was a gate to Deuxan in Nlukoko, which was useful information that made his cover story more plausible. Theo invented a story about having fallen into Tatian through a temporary door and attempting to make his way back to his home world. The villagers were immediately sympathetic and thrust offers of food and lodging on him, which he skillfully deflected in the Tatian manner. A real Deuxan would probably have been offended, but he figured they wouldn't know the difference.

More importantly, he gleaned significant information about his destination from their babbling. Most cities on Tatian were basically the same, but Nlukoko seemed to be the exception, likely due to the fact that it had at least one gate to another world. Though Tatian welcomed other worlds at arms' length, and was well-defended by the Landguard, it had to have absorbed some culture from the other side. They likely had more diverse sublime materials as well, which he made a note to take advantage of.

The other side, however, was that Nlukoko seemed to have a poor reputation. Tatians didn't gossip - at least not in the spiteful ways he expected - but they suggested that the community there "wasn't very friendly", which might as well have been calling them homicidal cannibals. Though he doubted it could be as hostile as many places in the Nine, increased caution seemed appropriate.

Beyond that, the real question was why Nauda had suggested that they meet there. She had told them that her home lay in the north, but was cagey about exactly where it was. It was possible that growing up in an unusual city was the source of her unusual attitude, but also possible that she had another...

Theo's train of thought derailed as he realized that the Landguard walked on the path ahead. Toward him.

He immediately lowered his gaze and pulled his soulcrafter senses inward, but the moment had been enough. They'd completely changed their appearance somehow and shielded their power, it just wasn't good enough to fool him. The border of their soulhome must be reinforced by a shielding wall, which would defend their soul and also allow them to hide their strength. It was likely two stories high, letting them feel like a mere Archcrafter, but it lacked the gate that would allow them to modulate their cantae. Those who had passed beyond the Ruler tier had cantae that felt more liquid than gaseous, though the difference wasn't obvious except to those who knew it.

His knowledge from his past life just made him aware of the danger, not able to do anything about it. There were plenty of people on the road and the Landguard wasn't aiming specifically for him, so it must be mere suspicions. The problem was, all his options for escape would make him stand out from the crowd. Getting off the road into the fields around, which were craggier than in the south, might be enough for him to hide, the problem was getting there.

While he thought, their groups drew ever closer. Fortunately, the Landguard paused to greet others along the path, but that just stretched out the tension...

"Tell me," Theo entered the Tatians' conversation at the first opportunity, "do you know if there's a Landguard base in Nlukoko?"

"Oh, I don't think so," the Tatian man said, blinking in surprise. "Maybe a few of them. But the Landguards are here to defend us. There aren't any problems from Deuxan, are there?"

"I don't think so, but I was wondering if they might help me get back." With every step they got closer and closer, but talking about Landguards would be the last thing an outsider would do. Theo made sure to smile at approaching groups like normal while focusing on his companions. "Is there anywhere nearby where I could take a look at the area, find my way to Nlukoko?"

"Certainly, certainly! Here, let us show you!"

As he'd hoped, the family took time out of their schedule to take him onto another path toward one of the hills. They left the path not long before they would have passed the Landguard and he had no idea how close of a scrape it had been. Maybe the Landguard had a chamber in his soulhome dedicated to analysis, maybe not, but he couldn't risk looking backward either way.

They climbed the hill, still chattering in a friendly fashion, but it got steeper faster than he'd expected. He'd thought that all of Tatian was fairly flat, or at worst rolling plains, but this hill was high and jagged enough that there could be dangerous falls.

"There, you see?" The mother shifted her child to one arm so that she could point. "You can't see Nlukoko, but the river there passes right through it! So if you head that way, you'll be sure to see it. Just watch your step on these paths!"

"Thank you, I will." Theo paused, wondering if he should feed them misinformation in case they were questioned by Landguards later. He decided that any stratagem might end up suspicious, while a simple friendly encounter might be forgotten. "I'm appreciative for all your help. You've been very kind to a foreigner far from Deuxan."

"I hope you find your way back home! And if you see any Landguards, just ask them. The Landguard is here to help us."

The frustrating thing was that their bland smiles were essentially justified, here on Tatian. Theo forced himself to smile back and left with minimal embraces, heading up the path as quickly as he could. As he moved on, the path grew narrower, more shielded from the farms around by the elevation and the brightly-colored trees growing around him.

Footsteps behind him. Theo would never have been able to identify them before, but during his journey he'd soulcrafted a room that improved his senses slightly. Nothing extraordinary, just enough to be sure that someone was following him.

People rarely walked alone on Tatian, so it had to be the Landguard. Theo began walking faster, but he knew that he couldn't possibly escape by speed alone.

Instead, he tugged off his Deuxan cloak and began rummaging in his pack. His tree branch blind was wrong for these trees, but he had a bright Tatian cloak that blended in. Theo wrapped it around himself, searched the forest below, then plunged over the edge.

On the way down, he grabbed a heavy tree branch. If his arm hadn't been reinforced by cantae, it likely would have been torn out of its socket, and stopping his fall sent a wrenching pain through his shoulder, but he managed to drop lightly to the ground. Without much sound, and most importantly without using any techniques that might get him noticed. When he looked up, he could see the steep side of the path overhead. He didn't notice any dislodged rocks or broken tree branches, not that there was any time to make adjustments.

Instead he plunged deeper into the forest, trying not to step on any sticks or brush against too many of the crimson leaves. Fortunately, Tatian forests were generally open and welcoming, even semi-wild ones such as this. He must be in one of the unfarmed areas he'd spotted from the top, though it wasn't far to another little community.

As soon as he found a denser cluster of trees, Theo dropped into a hollow and drew his cloak over himself, leaving just a narrow sliver to look out. That way, he might look like any Tatian taking a nap in the forest, not that the deception would hold if the Landguard came for him.

For a long time he simply waited, unable to see the path from his position by design and unable to hear anything amiss. He had to restrain his impulse to reach out with his senses several times. It was possible that the Landguard hadn't really been following him and this was all unnecessary, but considering that his enemy was some sort of shadowy organization, no precaution was too much.

Just when he started to think he was overly paranoid, trees rustled and a body rose from the hill. No longer shielding his power, the Landguard floated into the air on a river of cantae, eyes sweeping over the landscape. He'd risen from a point that Theo estimated was further along the path they'd been walking.

As an Authority-tier soulcrafter, the Landguard could have turned the entire farmscape into a wasteland. But this was Tatian. Several villagers atop another hill began waving cheerfully, and the Landguard waved back before flying onward.

Only then did Theo allow himself to breathe a sigh of relief. He couldn't let it make him lax, but he had a major advantage: the Landguards were looking for some sort of demonic visitor aiming to destroy their world, not a simple traveler. Some of them really did seem to believe that outsiders were a threat, and he wasn't sure how they'd gotten that idea, but most seemed to be Tatian at heart, just wanting to defend their people.

It was incredibly inconvenient for him, but hopefully it would be over soon. Since he'd finally put some distance between him and his pursuers, he should be able to take a fairly straight shot to the river. Presuming the villagers had directed him rightly, it wouldn't be far to Nlukoko from there.

Once he arrived, he would be able to meet up with Nauda and Fiyu again... presuming that all went well. He didn't doubt that both of them would try their best, and he hadn't considered leaving them, even if there had been any opportunities along the way. But if they had been found... Nauda might be able to blend in effortlessly, but Fiyu stuck out in basically every way.

If the Landguard had either or both of them, he'd have to make a very hard decision. Not only did he have nowhere near the power to challenge such an organization, doing so would draw exactly the wrong attention to himself. Vistgil was more powerful than the Landguard and outright malicious, so drawing his eye at this stage would be suicide. Yet if he had to make a choice... he would have to hope that it didn't come up.

This time, it seemed that he'd really shaken their pursuit for good. Though he remained cautious, Theo didn't see any sign of his pursuer or any other Landguard. As he approached the river and the city, the people became less effusive with their friendliness, but that was probably just the effect of Nlukoko.

The city itself soon came into sight as he walked along the river, and he found himself staring at it more than he should. What he thought was the river swelling turned out to be a lake that stretched into the distance, the city itself growing on top of it. Some of the buildings appeared to be on islands, but others floated on boats or strange platforms of reeds. He spotted enormous lotus flowers in between the buildings before he saw people walking across them and realized that they were part of the city as well. Water flowed in the air above the city as if within invisible tubes, but he saw nothing supporting the spiraling currents.

Unlike most Tatian cities, it actually had a serious barrier in the form of the water, which meant that he needed to use one of the bridges. With his improved soulhome, he had a shot at jumping or swimming it, but he had to assume that even on Tatian they would have defenses to guard against that. It looked like there was actually security at the bridges, so Nlukoko took itself more seriously than most.

Though they weren't likely to be collaborating with the Landguards, Theo decided to gather information first. He spotted a group of Tatians gawking at everything and shadowed them until the line got close to the bridge guards, then fell back into the next group and listened closely.

"Why do we need papers to show who we are?" one of the newcomers asked, honestly befuddled. "We'd be happy to tell you."

"The community of Nlukoko welcomes everyone, we just need to make sure that the community stays welcoming." The guard clasped the newcomer's arms warmly, like they might in any village, but something in his warmth was just slightly wrong. "But you are welcome to join us in Nlukoko, for a day or for a year. You need only pay the proper fees."

"Fees? I don't understand... we aren't bringing any goods, we only wanted to visit. Why do you need money for that?"

"But you see, the guard requires money in order to continue working, so we ask everyone to make a small contribution to our community."

"But... if you just didn't have the guard, then the problem would be solved!"

The conversation continued, the guards patient as if they had explained this often throughout the day, and Theo backed away. He might be able to learn slightly more, but this was enough to know that something was wrong. Though he hadn't spent very much time on Tatian, he'd only heard of a few cities that required paperwork, and absolutely none that demanded fees for entry. Normally the local Farmguards were maintained by their own families purely out of generosity and goodwill.

Obviously things didn't work that way here, which meant that he was stuck outside the city. There was no way of knowing where Fiyu or Nauda were, or if the Landguards were still looking. After so long traveling, he'd hoped his journey was finally over.

Chapter 2

No choice but to regroup and reconsider. Theo moved among the others milling around in line, no proper queue except Tatian politeness. That made it easy to shift back without making it obvious, then eventually depart and get away from the road approaching the bridge.

Since the other bridges would no doubt be similar, he decided to simply shift to their backup plan, at least to start. When they had last spoken before splitting up, Nauda had suggested a number of other places to meet up, in descending order. She would understand that none of the options within the city were viable, so the next one... some sort of landmark outside the city.

She had described a blackened tree that stood on a hill, so he went looking for it. Nearly everything on Tatian was always blooming, in different ways in different seasons, so a dead tree would stick out quite a bit. What had happened to it, he couldn't be sure, and he was surprised that the Tatians didn't get rid of it, but she said that he would know when he saw it.

Sure enough, there was no question as soon as his eyes fell on the dark tree. From a distance he mostly noted the bare, partially broken branches, but what struck him as he drew close was that the bark itself appeared dark and glossy, almost as if the whole tree had calcified.

After examining the area and confirming that no one was present - no surprise, since the grim tree wasn't very pleasant for Tatians - he went back to examine the tree further. Trying to chip off a piece, even using as much cantae as he dared, wasn't effective. The material itself required some examination: it was a subtle sublime material, not generating much cantae, but potentially useful for reinforcing walls within a soulhome.

In any case, he couldn't break it down enough to draw into his soul, and if it had been easy, soulcrafters within the city would no doubt have taken it already. Theo set the tree out of mind as a curiosity, since it didn't feel particularly valuable, and instead sat down to begin soulcrafting while he waited. Since he had no idea about the others, he might have some time.

As he floated into the core of his soul, Theo reflected that he needed that time, because he had a great deal of work to do. The first floor of his soulhome looked impressive, solarstone shining brightly in the middle of his soul's field, but the interior was still a work in progress.

A soulhome was never truly finished, but he'd finished less than half of his plans for his first floor. Of the nine rooms, only the central chamber needed no more work, the dark singularity he'd never planned spinning within. His original blueprint would have made the four corner rooms pillars of strength, with the four connecting rooms providing supportive techniques. That plan had now been reversed, which wasn't all bad: corner rooms faced two different directions and thus could provide more flexibility.

The corner chamber that embodied his technique of producing gravitational fields was coming along nicely, filled with elaborate carvings that allowed him to create three simultaneous fields in the real world. He'd also begun work on the next corner, attempting to create a torsion effect: it was nowhere near working in practice, but he'd put in the groundwork.

He had ideas for the remaining two corners, but most of his time on the run had been spent on middle rooms. The chamber leading in from his entrance had been upgraded into a reinforced storage room, which increased his body's durability while also providing a space to safely keep sublime materials. His feast chamber, which enhanced his strength and senses, actually made a real difference now. Rooms that weren't tied to specific techniques or armaments tended to be a bit more abstract, so he was holding off on the remaining two until he'd figured out who he truly wanted to be, in this second life.

So one finished chamber, two well-developed, three in progress, and three empty. It was a much better design than he'd had before, yet he wished that he was further along. As Theo began to walk inside, he reflected that he had more than just the rooms he'd counted.

For one, he had his vestibule, which allowed him to use cantae more efficiently than any normal first tier soulcrafter. His carefully crafted door let him stay alert in the real world while soulcrafting. And he'd essentially finished the roof, merging hearthtree trunks with the last of his solarstone to forge a solid ceiling. It did him little good now, but it would be essential when he finished all nine rooms and sought to ascend to Archcrafter.

There was no sense dreaming about that yet, so Theo instead walked into his feast chamber and got back to work. Because many sublime materials took the form of food, chambers built around it were one of the most common ways to improve oneself. His was simple at the moment, just a sturdy table piled with all the sublime food he'd eaten so far. He'd only eaten a few rare delicacies, so he'd filled most of it with reliable flamefruit and duskfruit.

Instead of worrying about any of that, Theo picked up his spirit chisel and set to work, carving patterns down another one of the table's legs. This part was more art than science, and not just because of the designs. The sublime foods in the chamber generated some cantae for him, but it was the construction of the overall chamber that determined how well his body made use of it.

An empty chamber could store cantae, which could briefly make him stronger or more durable. Adding the table made the current more efficient, making his body just a little more durable against opposing cantae. Carving the table was a minor improvement, the sort of thing many young soulcrafters would ignore, but he needed every advantage he could get, if he couldn't have the invincible body he'd once planned.

As he fell deeper into the work, he kept one eye on the world around him while he considered different plans for the future. Technique rooms were relatively simple, but he hadn't thought of a plan for his other four rooms that felt right. Even if he didn't really live in his soulhome, he needed to craft rooms that connected with him on some level, or they'd be little better than big boxes of cantae.

How long he worked, he couldn't be sure, but the sun had crept toward the horizon by the time he felt someone get close enough to distract him. Instantly he ceased his soulcrafting, his paranoia honed by months evading the Landguard... only to smile and set down his work as he realized who it was.

Theo emerged back into the real world as Nauda bounded up the side of the hill toward him. Glad as he was to see her, his mind automatically checked for deception and evaluated her condition. It didn't appear that she'd found a replacement for her forked armament, but she did have a long walking stick slung across her back. She'd changed her clothes and continued soulcrafting as well, though he couldn't determine any details from the outside.

Then she arrived and pulled him directly into a warm Tatian hug. "Theo! I worried when I saw how many Landguards were searching, but you made it here faster than I expected."

"Do you have a way into the city?" he asked as soon they pulled apart. She kept her hand on his arm, likely starved for human touch after so long.

"Yes, there are alternate ways. I had enough time to acquire papers for you and Fiyu, so we can all enter without attracting the guard. I assume you saw them and retreated here, because this was the first place I saw you."

"What exactly is going on with the Farmguards here? Or are they Farmguards at all?"

"In the sense of being soulcrafters, yes, but..." Nauda's gaze wandered to the city, her warmth finally fading to embers. "Nlukoko is not a normal Tatian city. I had a little time to check, and it still has the great library and most of what we'll need. But it's not a place to walk carelessly."

"I think I'd like to hear the whole story."

"I understand that. And I do want to tell you more, but perhaps we should wait until Fiyu arrives bef-"

"I am here." The new voice made both of them jump, and Theo turned just in time to see Fiyu emerge from nothing.

He'd given that corner of the hill a good look when he arrived and he'd been sure that there was no one there, but before his eyes, the shadows rippled and Fiyu's body congealed into being, sitting atop a rock. Theo was willing to bet that she'd been there for some time, which explained how she had remained hidden in Tatian. She hadn't changed her clothes, still clad in the thick layered robes of Ichil, but she'd clearly soulcrafted a new chamber for that stealth technique.

Though she drew back slightly when they stared at her, Fiyu soon rose to her feet and smiled at them. Even with her eyes hidden by the dark translucent mask, the emotion was clear, and that smile was the Ichili equivalent of throwing herself into an embrace. Nauda took a step toward her, clearly wanting to give her the same treatment, but she held herself back.

"Just how long have you been there?" Theo asked to break the tension. Fiyu turned to him and bobbed her head agreeably.

"I saw you arrive. I have enjoyed my time alone, but I have been preparing myself, and I am ready to travel together again."

"That's good." Nauda approached her and restrained herself to brushing one of Fiyu's trailing sleeves. "Can you extend that technique to us as well?"

"I may be able to, but it will require more testing. Would you like me to begin now?"

"Maybe not quite yet." Nauda turned from both of them and stared toward Nlukoko, the city practically burning in the sunset. "We have a lot to talk about. We should get started right away."

Chapter 3

The papers that Nauda had acquired got them over the bridge without any trouble, though Theo spent some time looking over them afterward. They gave some basic information about his identity, and had an elaborate seal, but otherwise they seemed like a formality. Based on the false identities, they had been acquired illegally... at least, it would be illegal on any other world. Here on Tatian, he wasn't sure if that word really applied.

But for the most part, he set that thought out of mind and focused on the other two. On their way into the city they shared notes about Landguards, confirming that they'd apparently spread out from Myufuru indiscriminately, instead of tracking them specifically. The time apart seemed to have been hard on Nauda and good for Fiyu, as he'd predicted.

Nlukoko was the first Tatian city he'd ever seen where the people pressed together roughly, and he saw a harsher edge in some eyes. He spotted more than a few Deuxans, and they didn't look so out of place here, many selling materials from their home world in street-side markets. It was all clearly overwhelming for Fiyu, who insisted on remaining in between them. Since Nauda was the one who knew where they were going, he had no choice but to follow, watch the crowds closely, and try not to flatten Fiyu between them when they needed to stop quickly.

"You're obviously tired," Nauda said once they had finished catching up, "and we can't accomplish many of our objectives this late. I have a place for us to rest, but before then, I'd like to show you our destinations tomorrow."

"A personal connection?" Theo asked. "Or do they have inns here?"

"I hired out a room, but implied there would be five of us. Don't worry, the locals here won't be as cooperative with Landguards, so we just need to keep a low profile." Nauda jerked her head to the side, indicating that their awkward little line needed to shift. "This way and we can accomplish both goals in one stroke."

She was leading them toward one of the floating rivers, or more specifically a small station where people stepped into boats that carried them into the current. Theo was momentarily troubled by the fact that the boats appeared to be made of leaves, but the waxy substance seemed to be durable enough to survive their journeys sliding overhead.

Again, money exchanged hands before they were allowed to step into the next leaf boat. Theo honestly wasn't sure if that was a necessary requirement to maintain the channels of floating water or simple profit, but he was sure that the boats would have been free in another city. Nauda didn't comment and Fiyu didn't seem to think anything of it, so they soon coursed down the watery channel and deeper into Nlukoko.

Quite soon, the water curved upward and he understood why Nauda had taken them on this path as the city spread out beneath them. Now that they weren't pressed on all sides, Fiyu sat eagerly by the edge, peering out over the city, though she soon frowned.

"Even the water is too bright."

Now that she mentioned it, he realized that the lake itself did seem to glow, possibly with more than just the reflection of the sunset and the lights of the city. In any case, Nauda didn't comment on it, just gestured for them to look forward as they rounded a bend.

"Do you see the sphere to the east there? That's the library where I saw the reference to these 'artifacts of Elghiera'."

Theo frowned at the glistening sphere, thinking back to the ring he'd possessed in his past life. "What about any information on the Landguards? I heard that they didn't have a base here, but that was a village rumor."

"They don't operate here... Nlukoko has a special agreement. There's a chance that you might be able to learn something in the archives, but it's a long shot." Nauda shrugged. 'That's the best I can do for you."

"It's more than I expected. Thank you."

Meanwhile, as they flowed over the sphere, Fiyu peered down at it. "Is that a bubble? Aren't they concerned that the books will get wet?"

"This does seem like a bad place for a library, huh?" Nauda leaned over the side to admire it as well. "I understand that the bubble is Fithan technology, but I don't know why it's here. Apparently it keeps everything extremely dry, so this is an archive for the entire region."

Fiyu nodded somberly, while Theo was forced to look at the library with a different set of eyes. Yes, it was one of his current objectives, but it was also a beautiful structure. It floated like an azure marble amid the city, linked to the rest by sapphire chains. Though the outside was translucent, he could see through enough to glimpse shelves of books within. If he had any direct experience in Fithe, he might have known some way to sneak inside, but for now, he'd have to play by the rules.

"What is that?" Fiyu breathed suddenly. Theo turned at the same time Nauda did, but his attention was only momentarily captured by the flowery palace.

Because that was what it was, in the end: just another pleasure palace in a slightly different form. A giant purple lotus flower floated separate from the city, not linked by any bridges. The flower itself flowed with cantae, which was all that allowed it to exist at such an enormous size, but it was essentially just decoration. Within its petals, several purple buildings unfolded in direct parallel to the flower. Pretty in a sense, he supposed, but it was just another display of wealth.

"The mansion of the Lord of Nlukoko." Nauda's eyes narrowed as she stared out toward it, and Theo sat up straighter.

"Lord? A 'lord' on Tatian?"

"He isn't native to Tatian, but he's ruled the city for... a few decades, at least. As far as I understand it, he has some sort of agreement with the Landguard to assist in the defense of Tatian, but in return he gets independence. Technically he's not supposed to exploit his position, but... you've seen what he's done to the city, slowly corrupting it."

"Where exactly is he from?" Theo asked. "If he's a local strongman, he must make appearances."

Nauda shrugged, gaze still distant. "I've seen him, but I'm not sure."

"That rules out Arbai or Aathal, then. There may be a lot of humanoids in the Nine, and some worlds have more diversity than you'd expect, but you can usually tell them apart. Any notable traits?"

"Theo..." Fiyu turned from the side to tug on his sleeve, barely perceptibly. "I do not think that Nauda wants to talk about where he is from."

Hesitating, Theo realized that it wasn't really relevant and he should have let it go. Before he could apologize or change the subject, Nauda cast him a smotheringly warm look. "I'm infinitely grateful to receive your wisdom, oh great experienced one, but we may need to dirty our minds with some more mundane concerns."

Seeing that she was fine, Theo just rolled his eyes. "Okay, fair enough. Is this Lord of Nlukoko relevant to our work?"

"He's the reason that we have a bit of freedom from the Landguards here, but otherwise, no. If he does make an appearance, or his guards get in our path, we need to avoid antagonizing him. I'm not sure how powerful he is, but he's stronger than a Ruler. There's... simply nothing we can do right now."

Fiyu tilted her head to the side. "But you wish that you could do something, am I right?"

Nauda didn't say anything, but her fingers tightening on the edge of their boat were answer enough. Theo kept silent, since he had been throwing out unnecessary information, even though he had a likely theory. He decided to keep it to himself for the time being, and Nauda soon returned to pointing out sights around the city.

As their vessel arced high over the buildings, Nauda pointed out several major markets that included sublime materials, as well as notable guard posts or more dangerous neighborhoods. It was not exactly a friendly tour, but an extremely useful one, so he wouldn't complain. Apparently the one thing she had failed to find was a place that would sell vehicles they could use to travel further north.

Just as they reached the edge of the lights glowing above the lake, their stream of water bent downward again. Theo gazed out beyond the lake, frowning at the darkness of the landscape beyond. Though he couldn't see to the other side of the city to compare, to the east and west the small hearthfires and other evidence of villages seemed to fade out toward the north.

"Once we're done in Nlukoko, we travel out there." Nauda stared out into the dark landscape, fixed on something he couldn't see. "It's too far away to link to Nlukoko, but there's a stable gate to a true hub city in Fithe, one that connects to several different worlds. I think that it includes a gate to Ichil, Fiyu."

"Oh!" Fiyu sat up straighter and peered out. "How long must we wait before making the trip?"

"We need a vehicle to help us make the trip, and I'm afraid those are usually expensive. There's work and competitions in the city, so perhaps we can earn enough to purchase one and arrive there."

"Why do we need the vehicle? The villages have always been so generous..."

Nauda gave her a strange look and Theo realized the misunderstanding: Fiyu looked out into the dark hills and didn't notice the lack of village fires, at least not consciously. "The farms stop in that direction," he explained, "though I can't tell why from here. That's actually pretty rare on Tatian... Nauda, is it a region too dangerous for non-soulcrafters?"

"No, the land just... grows emptier and less hospitable the further out you go." Though Nauda answered the question readily, he again got the sense that she wasn't telling the whole truth. "But it is potentially more dangerous than the farmsteads, and we'd need to take all our food with us, so we can't simply hike out there."

If true, that was the first part of Tatian that Theo had ever seen that wasn't overflowing with natural bounty. He knew of a few dangerous areas, such as vast forests that contained powerful sublime resources, but those were usually more bountiful than the average village. Though he wanted to stare out further, their path had finally arced back down into the city.

From the place where they left the leaf boat and the stream of water, it was somewhat of a walk to the inn, but Theo figured that Nauda had chosen that route to show them the city, instead of for pure efficiency. If they spent any time here, he'd need to figure out the network of dizzying water arcs, but hopefully it wouldn't be long. Cities ruled by lords from other worlds generally weren't safe places, even on Tatian.

Eventually they reached the inn, a small clay building at the edge of a broader pier. The people he saw there looked warmer than the rest of the city, more like Tatian villages, and he hoped that Nauda had chosen them for other reasons. They seemed circumspect as well as warm, letting them reach their room with no more than polite embraces.

The room had enough beds, so while the women departed to a communal bathroom, Theo sat down on one of them and finally eased off his pack. Soft bed, warm room, reasonably stable platform... this would do, at least for now. Theo lay back and put his arms behind his head.

After months, his time of traveling alone was finally over. Hopefully, that would mean it was time for more progress, but before he could consider his plans, he drifted to sleep.

Chapter 4

Just sleeping in a real bed did wonders for him, so Theo pulled himself awake refreshed. It wasn't simply the better environment, however, but the evening spent with his friends again. Nauda sprawled on one of the other beds, tangled in blankets as if she was too cold, while Fiyu had only sheets wrapped around her, mostly bundled around her head. He noted that though she'd taken off her boots and bracers, he saw no sign of her mask, which she might still be wearing under all the sheets.

Leaving them to sleep in, Theo pulled on his shoes, grabbed his Deuxan cloak, and headed from their room. All the inn's rooms were cramped, but the central chamber was surprisingly expansive. Not many had woken up, but they were eating at a communal table. An older man served some sort of porridge for anyone who asked, apparently part of the price.

"I'm glad she found you," the man said as he spooned up a bowl for Theo, "but you're still missing some, aren't you?"

"Yes, we hope they arrive soon." Theo worried about matching the cover story Nauda had told, but decided she would have given him more details if they mattered. "We'll be going out to look for the two we're missing. I hope that nothing happened to them on the way."

"Don't you worry, young man, I'm sure they're just delayed! There aren't so many demons to the south, not like last year, and there are Landguards around these days. You'll all be together soon enough."

Theo feigned relief and took the porridge, which he quickly decided was tolerable. He didn't want to endure the communal table, so he pulled a chair into one of the corners. It wasn't long before Fiyu and Nauda joined him, fully awake and equipped, soon sitting beside him with bowls of their own.

"This is the same porridge as the villages." Fiyu poked her spoon in it experimentally, as if she might uncover a better dish underneath. "I had hoped the city would be different."

"If we have time and money," Nauda said with a fond smile, "I'll treat you both to something better. You might expect them to have fish here, but you've never tasted fish like the ones at the bottom of the Nlukoko Lake. Uh... you do eat fish, Fiyu?"

"I eat fish."

"Well, you should see some of them here. There's this bizarrely flat one they call a platefish, and there's a restaurant where they serve everything else on it, then you eat the platefish at the end, soaked with the juices of everything else. I don't know if they'd suit your taste, but if you want to try..."

Fiyu smiled and bobbed her head. "I will eat this platefish."

"Then we have something to look forward to, but business first." Nauda took a bite as she thought for a moment, her eyes shifting to Theo seriously. Once she finished chewing, she seemed to have finished thinking as well. "I believe the Landguards have moved on, but there's no reason to delay. Theo, you head straight for the library and get your research done. I can investigate our options for transportation."

"Sounds reasonable." Theo reached into his cloak, feeling the money he'd stolen throughout his journey, and decided to slide it across the table toward her. "Take this. If we can't afford transportation, we should consider buying any sublime materials unique to this area. I trust you to choose well enough."

"This will help, thank you. Fiyu..."

When their attention turned toward her, she shook her head. "There are too many people in this city. Can I stay here?"

"Maybe not." Nauda glanced toward him, and Theo gave a slight nod, so she sighed. "We might not come back here, and there's always a chance something will go wrong. You can come with me and we'll regroup depending on circumstances..."

After deciding on a few meeting places, the plan was set and they headed in separate directions. Theo still had a few coins and some more money in his shoes, just in case he needed transportation or the library proved expensive. Overall, however, he thought it was better invested in sublime materials.

If Nauda thought that a vehicle was necessary to reach their next destination, he'd accept her judgment, but he wasn't interested in acquiring a bunch of possessions. Once he reached the Authority tier, he'd be able to move on his own faster than most vehicles. As a soulcrafter, the only things he'd really need to own outside of his soul were armaments.

This Fithan hub city sounded promising, though he wondered how much Nauda really knew about it. When several gates happened to be near one another, a city nearly always grew up between them. Such cities were one of the few places where large numbers of people from different worlds congregated together, and could provide nearly everything he needed to reach his former glory. It would be a much better start to investigating how he had been betrayed, as well.

But that was some distance away, and such cities were too dangerous for him now, so he would do everything he could to prepare in the meantime. Theo picked up his pace, weaving through the streets of Nlukoko, and went to find the library.

It took a little time for him to adjust to navigating the connected islands, rafts, and bridges in order to find the sphere he'd seen from overhead, but not much. During his time on Earth, Theo had more than once forced himself to go blind into a new location and find his way across. Earth might not be as exotic as the Nine Worlds, but it had challenges of his own.

As he walked, he found himself wondering about this platefish that Nauda was eager to show them. He hadn't tried it before, unless it had been one of many unnamed dishes at a Tatian feast. She seemed to think it was impressive, but he wasn't sure if it would compare to everything he'd tasted. Still, it might be good to eat with friends again.

At last he spotted an azure gleam from the library's outer sphere. Unlike most of the city, firmly positioned on land or platforms, the sphere floated unsupported, swaying with the waves. Now that he was close, he realized just how big it was, so that likely wouldn't be a problem.

Not many people were entering the library, and when he crossed the bridge to it, he found out why: there was a significant cost just to enter, much less to acquire membership. He could have barely afforded the latter, but decided that entering once would be sufficient. It wasn't as if he intended to spend a long time in Nlukoko.

Within, the library held a surreal beauty, the sunlight outside filtered to blue ripples that washed over all the shelves. When he glanced down the stairs by the entrance, he saw that it got darker as you went lower. Perhaps Fiyu should have come with him after all, though getting her to leave might have been the bigger problem.

Unfortunately, the library wasn't organized like a modern one from Earth, so he had no choice but to find one of the librarians. A middle-aged Deuxan woman sat behind one of the counters, scribbling something on a scroll, and forced a smile at him when he approached.

"May I help you?"

"Does the library have any information about Landguards?" he asked. Her expression immediately hardened in a way he never saw among Tatians, the sort of silvery false smile that was so common on Deuxan.

"We have a great deal, but the Lord of Nlukoko ordered all of it sealed within the Archcrafter section."

"Archcrafter section?"

"They didn't explain at the door? Your rank determines how much of the library you can access, and unless you have an extraordinary shielding wall, you're a first tier soulcrafter."

The librarian felt like an Archcrafter to him, but he barely glanced at her soulhome, more annoyed by the regulation. Locking away knowledge like that went deeply against the spirit of Tatian, but he shouldn't have been surprised. When she started to look at him skeptically, he shrugged as if it didn't matter and moved on. "Do you have any of the myths about Elghiera?"

"Those old stories? Some myth, some history... most of it dubious." She blinked at him over the edge of her book, then set it down and rose to her feet. "Take a seat in one of the chairs while I gather what we have."

While the librarian bustled away, Theo found a nook with a chair that appeared very comfortable, but didn't sit down. Instead, he examined the library as well as he could without being seen to do so. The staircase at the entrance curled around the sides of the sphere, but he realized now that it didn't go all the way to the top or bottom. Examining the internal joints made of the same sapphire glass, he realized that the highest and lowest levels were completely separated from the rest of the library.

From his position he couldn't determine the entrances, which meant they were likely on the opposite side of the sphere. Though with enough time and effort, he might have been able to sneak inside and get the information he wanted, he judged it to be an excessive risk. Besides, it might have been sealed by another soulcrafter, and he didn't have knowledge in undoing wards. Apparently Magnafor had known what he was doing, focusing on them.

Soon enough, the librarian returned with a number of books, so Theo sat down to read. He didn't expect to have all the answers delivered to him, but anything would be better than the ignorance of his first life. The shreds of information he had taken with him when he survived were his only edge against the overwhelming opponents who might yet be hunting him.

The first of the books was a collection of Tatian fairy tales, nearly useless. It described Elghiera as a plucky traveler having adventures across the Nine Worlds, except the writer clearly had little experience with them. One part had Mundhin eating rocks, which might be a misunderstanding, but it had silly ideas about Noven being a world floating in the clouds, and the sections on Aathal were laughable.

Next, however, he began delving into historical resources. He felt a slight twinge in his soul as he needed to concentrate on the new language, a much older form of a Tatian tongue. The languages he'd learned on Earth mapped well enough for him to be able to read the texts, but there were occasional words he struggled with.

From the historical texts, he got a sense that Elghiera was a figure who was likely real, but there was severe disagreement about his home world. Some even suggested that he was from a world beyond the Nine, though the author suggested those sources were disreputable.

What everyone agreed upon was that Elghiera had been a soulcrafter of extraordinary power, capable of facing down nations and forging new paths through the worlds. Tales like that were what made Theo believe that he couldn't have seen the heights of power. The strongest people he'd known were Dominion-tier soulcrafters, and they had considerable power, but they couldn't reshape the worlds.

All of that was similar to any mythological figure, but Theo was struck by a note included off-hand in one of the oldest books: apparently Elghiera had attempted to train proteges. Legend said that he could grant them unusual growth, but the author of the text discounted such rumors. There seemed to be no way to find the truth, as most agreed that Elghiera had entered a war against an unknown power and every trace of his work had been destroyed or lost to time.

He knew for certain that Vistgil had given both him and Magnafor strange artifacts when they arrived, and Magnafor had called them Artifacts of Elghiera. The ring itself had helped him a number of times, and Theo thought it enhanced his soulcrafting, but he wasn't completely sure beyond that. But if Vistgil had stopped to take the ring back from him, it must matter.

It was easy to theorize that Vistgil had somehow acquired these ancient artifacts, but why give them to arrivals from Earth? Though Theo suspected that it had been used to track him, there would have been easier ways to accomplish that.

Theo sat in silence for a time, trying to peel back unnecessary assumptions. Two people from Earth had been given artifacts, but that didn't establish enough of a pattern to be sure. He'd need to scour all the Nine for more information, less about the historical Elghiera and more about how the artifacts had been used since then. If Vistgil really had control of something so ancient and powerful, then his use of the artifacts must be serving some greater purpose.

Though he didn't expect much, Theo continued reading every page of the stack of books he'd been given, just in case they hid any critical details. Deep within the sphere and engrossed in his reading, he almost didn't hear when the screams started.

Chapter 5

Navigating markets was second nature to Nauda, the habits drilled into her during her childhood. She had grown up in far more hostile environments, so the mildly unfriendly Nlukoko market was no trouble. With her staff ahead of her, she could part the crowds, and she made sure to broaden her movements to create a wake for Fiyu to follow her.

It was remarkable how Fiyu could be utterly lacking in self-consciousness in some ways, yet the opposite in others. She took excellent care of her hair, brushing it out every morning before returning it to the large braid down her back. Whenever she moved, she made sure to carefully organize the many overlapping pieces of cloth in her robes. Yet she seemed utterly unconcerned with her stance, and if she ever smudged her clothes or face with dust, she didn't even seem to notice.

At the moment it seemed that Fiyu was attempting to completely wipe her presence from the market, following as close as she could without touching. When they turned aside to one of the stalls, she immediately stepped between Nauda and one of the poles holding up the canopy, then shrank in on herself.

She looked so miserable that Nauda wanted to hold her close, yet she struggled to restrain her impulse because it would only upset Fiyu. After everything she had experienced, Nauda thought that she understood many different cultures, but the more she came to know people from other worlds, the more she saw the similarities.

In any case, her past was irrelevant. What mattered now was Nlukoko and the sublime materials it had to offer. She didn't share Theo's paranoia, but with Archcrafter finally within sight, she could agree with his priorities.

With limited money, she'd been choosy with her purchases. Even though they'd been through two markets, she'd only acquired a little mud from the lake that would serve as excellent mortar for any of them. This stall didn't have anything that stood out to her either, but when she started to turn away, the owner touched her arm.

"You're obviously a discerning woman, if nothing in my stall can catch your eye." His thumb squeezed in a friendly fashion, an imitation of village community so overt that it wasn't even deception. "But I have some hidden stock, and I know all the best merchants. What are you looking for?"

"A sublime wood that's light-weight, but durable enough to endure an ascension," Nauda said. Though normally she resisted communal honesty, wanting to ascend was such a banal goal that there was no harm in revealing it.

"Then I have just the thing! A dear cousin of mine runs a large store for soulcrafters, with many excellent materials."

"Please pardon me, I am but a poor villager. I doubt I can afford such fine goods."

"Oh, the store might be a bit rich for you, but sublime woods aren't so expensive! I can get you a discount... because I'll get a commission, heheh. Just wait a moment and this will benefit us both!" With that, the owner turned back, hollering for his wife to take over the stall.

While he arranged his business, Fiyu leaned closer, her voice barely escaping the folds of her hood. "Nauda, are you sure we can trust him?"

Though Nauda smiled reassuringly on instinct, restraining a hand, she wondered at the depths of Fiyu's suspicion. Nauda had seen unrestrained violence and corrupt communities, but she wasn't as suspicious as Fiyu or even Theo. As she saw the world, most people were essentially following the course of the river, trustworthy in their own self-interest if nothing else. Fiyu treated every single stranger as if they were raving and flailing with a blood-covered spear.

"Recommending customers to relatives is very common," Nauda reassured in a similar whisper. "If there's nothing suitable for us, we can just leave."

"I see." Fiyu was nearly inaudible, but nodded her agreement.

When the stall owner squirmed his bulk around the side, he grasped Nauda's arm and pulled her into the crowd. It was an appropriately tight grip for the density, but Nauda patted his arm to suggest he loosen it. The man did so without thinking about it, instead telling them of the wonders they would find at his cousin's store.

It proved to be a larger building built atop a wooden platform fashioned in the shape of a lotus. One of many that Nauda had skipped, assuming that it contained primarily expensive materials for Archcrafters. Once inside, the stall owner patted her shoulder and went to find his cousin.

While she waited, Nauda cataloged the inhabitants of the store. Seventeen people, all soulcrafters, including eight foreigners not counting Fiyu. Six Deuxans, one Fithan, and one of uncertain origin. Fiyu continued to creep behind her, regarding them all with equal suspicion.

"So this is the young soulcrafter!" The cousin who owned the shop proved to be a tall Archcrafter with a booming voice, his robes so elaborate they flouted any notion of village humility. "I have just the thing for you... behold these branches, light and yet springy!"

He presented her with a stick that appeared to be the trunk of a narrow tree, a few branches shorn off. Nauda tested it carefully and found that it bent without breaking, actually living up to the claims. The bark felt strong as well, likely able to survive the pressure in her soulhome, at least long enough for her to ascend. Yes, if she bound them together into a self-reinforcing tower...

"You see the quality, yes? Nothing less for a new friend!" The owner put an arm around her shoulders and tapped the branch, treating her like a village rube who had a child's understanding of community. "Take this one as a token of my esteem, but you need more, yes? I can sell a great many to you."

"Your generosity humbles me." Nauda handed the stick back as she did, calling his gift into question without making herself too obvious. "I do not know if my modest funds can afford it, but how many of these would create a tower of my own height?"

"Oh, only a few bundles, within your soulhome, but you'll need more than that!" The shop owner gestured to his cousin, who presented another bundle obsequiously. "One or two might break while you soulcraft your first tower, after all. Never fear, I can supply you with all you need!"

All at once, Nauda understood the advantage he intended to gain: he expected her to fail, then return to him to replace the broken wood. If that was the profit he sought, then she could trust him slightly more, because even an incompetent soulcrafter would notice if he sold them inferior sublime materials.

"I'll purchase two bundles for now, perhaps three." Nauda slipped an arm around his waist, like an uncertain villager looking for support. "My auntie gave me a good blueprint, but it gets so much more difficult above..."

They began negotiating, trading humilities and generosities as they both tried to acquire an edge. In the end, Nauda thought that she acquired a sufficient number of the branches at well below a fair price. The two merchants smiled cheerfully and didn't even emphasize how generous they were being, which was the real sign that they thought they had the advantage. No doubt they expected her to completely fail to ascend, then return to them to purchase more...

"Is there anything else we can do for you?" the stall owner asked. Nauda was about to answer in the negative when Fiyu spoke up from several counters away.

"What is this?"

"Oh, that's a rare curiosity!" The shop owner swept in, intending to give Fiyu a warm embrace, but Nauda imposed herself between them. He noted the rudeness, which would have been shocking in most contexts, but customers existed in a very strange form of community.

As for the sublime material that had caught Fiyu's attention, it appeared to be a dark stone floating within a glass case. It didn't hover very far off the ground, but several artfully folded pieces of paper spun and bobbed above it. Nauda didn't feel anything sublime about them, so she thought they were merely a demonstration of the stone's properties.

"This stone, you see, repels anything that comes near to it. Unfortunately, its effects are too limited to be of use in the real world, and within a soulhome, it tends to disrupt everything else. So while it's rare, we can give you a reasonable price on it, if it's somehow caught your fancy."

"Give us a moment to discuss it," Nauda said, pretending to take Fiyu's arm to indicate they wanted some space. The other woman stiffened but seemed to understand, so Nauda leaned closer. "I still have enough money for one or two materials. Would it be useful to you?"

"Not to me, but could Theo use it?" Fiyu extended a hand toward the stone, testing the weak repulsion. "His powers all involve pushing things away from other things."

"It might, and I can probably haggle them down on something so odd." Nauda leaned over so that she could catch a glimpse of Fiyu's face within her hood. "There would be some left over after that. Is there anything you want for yourself?"

Fiyu immediately shook her head, her braid twitching underneath her cloak. "I still have many sublime materials from my relative."

"Well, let me know if you see anything that might be useful to you." Accepting that she couldn't push, Nauda moved back to the owners and began haggling. They tried to offer many other materials that might attract an unfocused soulcrafter, but she played their games carefully and ended up with what she wanted.

They still left the store with very little money, which was always uncomfortable. Unfortunately, her attempts to acquire a suitable vehicle had proved that they were significantly beyond her means. She couldn't afford any of them by frugality and odd jobs, so it was better to invest in themselves, as that might allow them to find sufficient sources of funding.

"What about one of the carts?" Fiyu tugged on her sleeve so gently that Nauda almost didn't notice, directing her attention to a cart of seaweed moving past them down the street. "They cannot be expensive. We could build one ourselves."

"Unless you're a cartwright, I don't think it would survive the trip, and I think we need something much faster. It's a long way through the borderlands."

"I do not know how to build carts." Fiyu lowered her head as if this was a dire personal failing. "My relative taught me to build sledges or toboggans, but they would not work over such rough land."

The words she used twisted in Nauda's mind, foreign terms that attempted to translate between worlds. She had a sense for what the two meant, and they matched her view of Fiyu's world as very flat, but she wasn't sure if such vehicles would be appropriate. Distracted from the street by the exact oddity of the language, Nauda was one of the first to realize that demons were attacking.

Cries burst from the street as the twisted creatures clawed their way through cracks in the air and tumbled onto the street. Nauda noted that the people of Nlukoko looked surprised, but not terrified, as if this was uncommon but not feared. Several merchants actually began to gather up their merchandise instead of just fleeing, which put them at real risk of the demons.

Though civilians were moving away from the demons, only some soulcrafters moved toward them, entirely unlike what would have happened in a village. Seeing a demon crouch to leap at a merchant, Nauda moved in, swinging her staff over her head with all her strength.

It crunched into the skull of the creature as it leapt, their combined force caving in the bone. Nauda drove it to the ground and slammed her staff into its body, just to be safe. There were five more demons in the rapidly emptying street, two of them now beginning to turn toward her. The first she shoved aside with her staff, hoping to spin it back into position in time...

Fiyu's cantae flared up and for a moment Nauda worried that she would unleash that devastating hail of light. Though it might annihilate all the demons, it would also cause damage to the community and potentially identify them.

But instead, Fiyu glided beside her and speared the demon with a blade of dark cantae that emerged from her hand. It flickered out a moment later, but she could obviously continue fighting with that technique, so with only a glance they protected each other's backs and set about eliminating the rest.

Such demons were no longer the threat they had been to her even a few months ago, so Nauda set about striking them down with her staff. She could fight much more confidently thanks to the welcome chamber she'd been carefully soulcrafting, despite the fact that her new staff was far inferior to her old.

In a sense, she had Theo to thank for that. Most of the soulhomes she had examined in her childhood were brute fortresses assembling as many powerful sublime materials as possible, and those she had seen in Nlukoko or Myufuru attempted to gather a warmer sort of power. But she'd seen the immense care Theo put into every aspect of creation, and though she disliked his mechanical style, she'd adapted the approach. Now, instead of a simple chamber for cantae, the first room of her soulhome was a welcoming place with a soft rug and cushions, forming a pillar of strength inside her.

She and Fiyu could have defeated all the demons themselves, but there were other soulcrafters who cared for the community and joined in. Soon enough, they eliminated the demons on the street, and though she saw several other outbreaks, all but one were already under control.

There were still screams and cries from further in the city. Nauda started to move toward them on instinct, but an older man touched her shoulder and shook his head. "The Lord's guards will take care of it. We should get back to our business."

But if the demons were appearing across a wider area... Nauda turned to find Fiyu beside her. The other woman clearly understood, but still whispered "Theo" and began to move into the city.

This attack might be only the start of something worse, and Theo was alone deeper in the city. Nauda had a feeling that they wouldn't be eating platefish after all.

Chapter 6

When Theo exited the library, he had a moment to consider whether or not he should just sit out the conflict. It seemed that the demons were only attacking as they emerged from cracks in reality, not massing in a group, so a city like Nlukoko would be capable of dealing with such an assault. Since he couldn't use any of his gravitational skills without attracting attention, it might be more logical to let them deal with it.

In the end, he headed out into the street anyway. He needed to leave to find the others, plus fighting with the handicap might be a worthwhile challenge. Since he wasn't a newborn soulcrafter anymore, base demons weren't a huge threat, and he wouldn't stand out among the random Tatian soulcrafters moving to help with the problem.

One of the first demons snarled at him as it loped across the deck, but he pulled his spear from his pack and met it face on. The creature was too slow to avoid spearing itself and he quickly pinned it down with a surge of cantae that destroyed it. That was good, but inelegant, since he wanted-

Jaws tore beside his face and he only just pulled himself away in time.

Stumbling a step back, Theo still had no idea what had attacked him, other than that it was much smaller than most demons and had flown directly at his head. He looked where it had gone and saw no demons between him and one of the flowing strands of the river... only to realize that he'd missed something.

The demon burst out of the water, its lean body shaped like a fish except for the enormous maw of teeth. This time he managed to strike it to the ground with the body of the impaled demon, but the fish demon only flopped once before it flung itself to the side, back into the water.

He hadn't run into fish demons before, but it shouldn't have surprised him, since they always seemed to adapt to the environment. Actually, it was stranger that so many of them were of the common four-clawed variety, given that Nlukoko sat on top of a lake. As far as he knew, demons appeared randomly and never fought strategically unless a higher stage demon led them.

On the third charge, the demon lunged at him... and a second burst from the water beside him, nearly tearing into his leg. Theo barely managed to twist away from the surprise attack and still impaled the other to the deck below him.

It had been a good maneuver, but he found himself dissatisfied: he wanted to avoid developing melee combat instincts. Unfortunately, though his gravitational fields could have ended the fight, he needed to avoid using them. That was why he wanted to develop a pinpoint use of gravity that could strike individual targets, which wouldn't stand out among many other skills.

As he kept the demons at bay, Theo's mind wandered back to that problem. He'd partially built that room, but it just didn't feel right yet. Gravity wasn't just random force and trying to use it that way would lead to a weaker skill. Once he had a greater array of materials, he might be able to think of a more effective application.

"Help! Help Senka!" Something came at him low, wailing, but it wasn't a demon. Theo had a split second glimpse of a short humanoid - not a Tatian child, so probably a Siatan - running toward him pursued by one of the demons.

He worried that the runner was going to get in his way, but they tripped and planted their face directly into the ground. That gave him a clean shot at the demon, so he thrust his spear directly into its mouth. It didn't take long to finish it off, but his second look at the person he'd saved left him puzzled.

She was no more than two feet tall, so about the size of a Siatan, but didn't look quite like anyone he'd ever met from Siata. The inhabitants of that world were all fairy-like creatures that exuded an otherworldly sexlessness, but something about the shape of the creature's face struck him as an adult woman. Her skin was also light blue, unlike bright Siatan colors, she wore what appeared to be a potato sack, and she had messy white hair.

"Thank you for saving Senka!" The being, whatever it was, grabbed onto his leg in blubbering gratitude. Theo gently shoved her to a more defended position, worried that she was going to cling to him, but when another demon charged at them, she dropped flat with her arms over her head.

Whatever she was, the demons weren't much of a threat to him or the other soulcrafters. A few inexperienced fighters nearly got themselves killed, and one who fell into the water might be dead, but generally base demons of any variety were no match for experienced soulcrafters... unless they managed to sacrifice themselves to summon one that was more powerful.

A dying fish demon flopped its way into the water and Theo realized that everyone had made the same mistake.

"They're sacrificing themselves in the water!" Theo called out to anyone who would listen, which turned out to be no one. With a bit of time free, he pivoted, examining the watery currents all around him. There were no more demons in the arcs of water, but underneath... he saw the turmoil beneath the surface too late.

He had expected the second stage demon to be some sort of giant fish, but a humanoid arm reached from out of the water. The body it pulled up onto the platform was roughly human in shape, but grotesquely muscled in a way that resembled no species in the Nine Worlds.

Theo stabbed it in the chest before it could get out of the water, but the demon only grunted, then lunged upward wildly. Even expecting it to attack, he barely threw himself backward in time. His blow to the chest hadn't gone deep and didn't slow down the demon at all.

Some idiot with a sword charged at the demon, only to be stabbed by its brutally spiked sword. Theo hesitated, but even trying to attack while it was distracted would be futile. A second stage demon was superior to any first tier soulcrafter in raw strength, so the only possible methods to defeat them required strategy.

With three gravitational fields combined, could he pin it down? As the demon advanced, Theo attempted to ward it off with a stabbing blow, but the spear was knocked from his hands, leaving his fingers numb. When he tried to retrieve it, the demon kicked the spear over the edge, sending it vanishing into the depths of the lake. Now he had no choice but to reveal his abilities... or use them in a cleverer way.

Ducking underneath the sword when it went for his neck, Theo pretended to uppercut the demon. Such a blow would have been idiotic, but instead he struck the demon with three reversed gravitational fields. It instantly fell into the sky, which only bought him a little time, since it would get out of his range and fall back down. Maybe the landing would kill it, but he didn't think that was a good bet.

"It's a second stage demon!" He looked around and saw more attention on him this time, including a few who looked like they knew what they were doing. "You, are you an Archcrafter? You need to hit that thing the moment it comes down."

The muscled man, who wielded what appeared to be a smith's hammer, nodded grimly. He didn't look like a fool, but Theo wasn't sure if he was actually a warrior. Hopefully the demon would be disoriented, because otherwise the conflict could turn bloody quickly.

As the demon plummeted back down, a woman stepped from the crowd and hurled a needle of light. He hadn't noticed her before, but in the moment she struck, she unveiled an Archcrafter's soulhome. The needle speared through the demon's chest, not enough to kill it or send it flying, but the demon landed with a heavy crash and the smith brought his hammer down on the demon's head the next second.

It did what hammers usually do to heads. Theo breathed a sigh of relief.

Without the cooperation of Archcrafters, that could have gone very poorly. In no other world would Archcrafters listen to someone like him, but for once he was glad for Tatian culture. Unfortunately, he was now attracting a lot of attention, and even if he looked like some kind of spear-wielding martial artist, he didn't want that.

"Got a good head on your shoulders, lad," the smith said. Theo stepped up to him and touched one muscled arm in the Tatian fashion.

"Thank you, but I need to find my friends. Take care of everything here."

With that, he moved away, doing his best to slip into the crowds and disappear. Some looked after him, but since there were still a few demons in the city, they were distracted. Soon he jumped over a narrow gap between platforms and slipped into an alleyway, finally getting away from the crowds.

"Good job!" Someone landed on his shoulders and he barely recognized the strange being in time not to strike her. "You're smart! You gotta real blooky head!"

He hesitated, wondering first how she'd gotten there and second what she had just said. With all the languages he'd learned, fully or partially, he'd expected to be able to understand everyone in the Nine Worlds, yet the adjective she'd used sounded like utter nonsense to him. Unless he'd encountered more languages than he expected, he couldn't come up with an explanation.

"You're safe now, so you don't need to stay with me." Theo decided that he didn't care and just pulled her off his shoulders, setting her down. "I need to go."

"No!" She grabbed his leg and held on, even when he started to walk dragging her along the ground. "There's a big mean fumpet looking for Senka! You've gotta help Senka!"

Realizing that she would just draw more attention, Theo gave up on abandoning her easily and stared down at the inexplicable creature. "So... your name is Senka?"

"How did you know Senka's name?" She gasped with both hands flying to her mouth. "Wow, you must be real sporping smart!"

"I need you to be quiet. Can you do that?"

Senka immediately put a finger to her lips and made a shshing noise that was almost louder than they had been talking. She did shut up after that, though, and simply followed him like an eager puppy as he moved further away from the heart of the conflict, toward the markets.

It seemed that the demon outbreak had been fairly light and thus contained, so he found himself glancing back at his new follower. For an irrational moment he thought she might be some kind of demon, then realized that wasn't possible. Demons had complete voids in the place of soulhomes, whereas Senka... actually, he wasn't sure what to make of it. There was something there, dense and lacking in soulcrafting, more similar to a beast's soul than a person's.

As far as he knew, there were no sublime beasts capable of speaking, even at her limited level... if they could speak, they would be considered people instead of sublime beasts. It annoyed him, and he intended to look into it further, but there were higher priorities. Fortunately, it wasn't long before he spotted Fiyu and Nauda hurrying toward him.

"You are safe." Fiyu's relief spread nakedly across her face, and if there was any doubt... "I am glad."

"Who's this?" Nauda asked, pointing the end of her staff at Senka, who grabbed the end with both hands cheerfully.

"I'm Senka!" she declared, then promptly tried to chew on the staff. Nauda's eyes narrowed and she tugged her weapon back. Not wanting to cause another scene, Theo decided to step in.

"I saved her during the fight and she won't go away. Forget that - do we need to worry about the local guard being everywhere?"

"The Nlukoko guard actually doesn't help much with demon attacks, they're more about controlling the community." Nauda's gaze scanned the city around them, hunting for something in particular. "I'm more worried about the Lord... he might want to make an appearance."

"Does this change our plan?" Fiyu asked. She looked like she might say more, but Theo was more paranoid about Senka. Since she hadn't responded to reason before, he instead created a gravitational field and pinned her to the ground, making her eyes go wide.

"Sporp! What are you doing to Senka? This is a blooky feeling..."

"We need you to stay here where it's safe." Theo managed to keep his tone friendly, but only just. "Go find... whoever you're in the city to find. We can't help you anymore, and it might be more dangerous to stay with us."

They left Senka behind, despite her mutters of nonsense words - at least she didn't start yelling at them and attracting attention. As soon as they reached a safe distance, Nauda spoke to both of them in a low voice.

"I don't know how Nlukoko's agreement with the Landguards relates to demons, but there's a chance they might come to investigate. We need to get beyond their range until things just calm down."

"Does that mean using a gate?" Theo asked. "Unless you found a vehicle..."

"No, they're too expensive, and we wouldn't be prepared for the journey anyway." Nauda bit her lower lip for a moment, then came to a swift decision. "There are only two passages to other worlds in Nlukoko. Supposedly there's a door to Noven, but it's tightly controlled. So our only option is to get through the gate to Deuxan before they reorganize from the demon attack."

"That's a good plan. I have a few ideas for..." Theo trailed off as he felt an immensely powerful presence ahead of them, and a moment later they all saw the Lord of Nlukoko descend to one of the largest platforms.

His identity was obvious, given that he was broadcasting an Authority's power. With a flick of a finger, he rained fire down on several sections of the city, apparently destroying remaining demons. The golden fire didn't set the city ablaze, thankfully, simply dissolving back into cantae.

Four golden wings arched behind his back, marking him as an inhabitant of Noven. Theo wondered what Eratius would have thought of him, which quickly sent his thoughts slipping toward the memory of his rival's body being killed by a demon. He racked his brain for anything Eratius had said about golden wings, but even filtering through the other man's scorn, he thought that golden wings were just another ethnicity in Noven, nothing remarkable.

When he finally landed atop a building, the Lord of Nlukoko boomed out to the surrounding region. "People of Nlukoko! There has been a minor intrusion from demons, but none of them can stand up to my might. Anywhere they still lurk, merely raise your voices and I will erase them from this world."

Pure grandstanding, since he had only shown up after the main conflict was over. It was true that he could easily have destroyed all the demons, though, and his nonchalance seemed more laziness than confidence. Though he tried to put off a grand appearance, Theo could just see what looked like a wine stain across part of his robe, and one of his shoes wasn't fully buckled.

"That's him." Nauda stared upward, her fingers tight on her staff. "Ariano of the Golden Wings. Do you recognize anything about him, Theo?"

"Looks like he's from Noven, but don't let the title fool you. Their wings come in all colors naturally, it's not anything he earned. He's just showing off in a foreign world where he can get away with it."

They began to move again, keeping an eye on Ariano while making their way toward the gate. As they went, Fiyu regarded him thoughtfully. "He is a fourth tier soulcrafter, but you spoke harshly. Do you not respect him, Theo?"

"I wouldn't pick a fight with him, but no, not really." Though Theo kept his voice down, just in case Ariano had extremely enhanced hearing, he didn't think it likely. "Most likely he washed out in Noven, unable to compete once he ascended beyond Ruler. Given the choice between being a servant in a higher court or an invincible god somewhere else, which do you think he'd pick?"

Nauda nodded slowly. "That would match his behavior. As far as I could tell, he only seems interested in securing his rule over the city and enriching himself."

"Authority-tier soulcrafters might not be common, but I've met more than a few like him. For those who can't compete with elites, the temptation to go somewhere else and live like a king is just too high. That's why you'll often find Authorities as the rulers of their own little fiefdoms, more often than other tiers."

"If I could unseat him, I would, but right now that feels nearly impossible..."

Nauda cut off as Fiyu's hands gripped their clothes tightly. Instead of speaking, she pointed upward, and Theo noticed what she had immediately: there was another figure flying over the city. Judging from the Tatian robes, it was a Landguard. He feared a conflict at first, but the Landguard instead floated to speak to Ariano.

Whatever they were negotiating, he didn't want to see it. Nauda took the lead as they ran as fast as they dared, closing in on the gate to Deuxan. The silver arch was contained by a guard post serving as an inter-world checkpoint, surrounded by a market filled with Deuxan goods. Normally getting through would have been a tense affair, but it seemed the demon attack had struck there worse than the rest of the city, and many were staring at the Authorities, so they had a chance.

While everyone was distracted, they vaulted one of the stalls and crept in. He expected to hear a shout at any second, but no one noticed them and then they plunged into the silvery wall.

Once he'd found it repetitive, but Theo thrilled as he felt himself shift between worlds: the vastness of other dimensions spreading before him, the feeling of being a mote that barely existed, and a new world whirling into being around him. He'd spent so long in Tatian, transitioning between worlds again was a source of pure joy.

On the other end, they found the Deuxan side of the gate mostly abandoned in the center of a pale wasteland. Other than a trail that must bring Deuxan goods to Tatian, there was little sign of civilization, just grasslands that shimmered bronze in all directions. He took a deep breath, enjoying every little difference in this world. Especially the sun... he'd forgotten how good that hot white disc could feel.

"I do not think that anyone saw us," Fiyu said.

"Yay!"

Everyone turned to look, even though Theo knew what he was going to see. Senka stood behind them, staring at Deuxan and leeching away all his wonder. Of course.

Chapter 7

Before they asked any questions, they got well out of sight of the gate, just in case others started coming through. It was evident that the Deuxan side was nowhere near as prominent, but the chaos in Nlukoko could well spill over. Particularly if the Landguards were still involved, though Theo hoped that they had finally slipped their scrutiny.

Once they had reached safety behind a hill of bronze, however, they all turned on the strange creature following them. Senka stared up at them with a look that wasn't even innocence, just a vapid blandness. Since he'd apparently brought the problem, Theo decided to begin.

"Why did you follow us?"

"Because there are bad people in the city, and you seem like a bunch of fumpets!" Senka proclaimed the words cheerfully, but Theo narrowed his eyes.

"Earlier, you said that there was a 'fumpet' looking for you."

Senka stared at him as if he was babbling nonsense, then abruptly began giggling. "That was a mean, bad fumpet! You're all good fumpets."

That didn't satisfy him, but before Theo could ask another question, Fiyu spoke up. "I do not understand. What is a fumpet?"

"A fumpet is someone who's full of blook!"

The three of them exchanged a glance, which itself indicated that none of them could understand her. Considering that they had just gone through a gate, they should all be speaking the local Deuxan language, including Senka. It was possible to forcibly speak a different language, even selectively, though that usually required more intelligence than Senka had displayed. His only plausible theory was that the words she was using were so alien that their souls couldn't translate them, yet he'd never seen it happen and the words didn't actually seem very alien.

Apparently deciding that it was irrelevant, Nauda bent down on one knee and regarded Senka, her gaze kindness wrapped over steel. "We want to help you, Senka. Can you tell us who is looking for you?"

"Ummm... did you see the fancy floaty fumpets? Not the winged fumpet, the other ones."

"Landguards?"

"Senka doesn't know that word! But, umm... Senka fell into that other place, and the fumpets are looking for bad things. They want to sporp Senka because they think Senka is bad. So Senka ran away because you were running away and now Senka is here and this place is different but it is okay because you're a bunch of fumpets."

"I see." Nauda's smile looked completely authentic to him, but he knew there was more behind it. "Do you know why they're looking for you?"

"Senka doesn't know!"

"No theories at all? Who exactly are you?"

"Senka is Senka, you silly gurfoop!"

That tautology stymied them for a time until Fiyu made her own attempt. "Hello, Senka. I am Fiyu, I am an Ichili from the Inner Moonscape. What are you?"

"Senka is a Senka from Senkaland!"

Hesitating, Nauda glanced up at him, and the best he had was a shrug. She was about to say something, but then Fiyu knelt down beside them and spoke quietly. "I will take care of Senka. Why don't you and Jake discuss where we should go next?"

The fake name jolted him from his thoughts and Theo realized that Fiyu was right. Though Senka seemed harmless, the unknown variables were themselves a threat. Though she claimed to be escaping the Landguards, that didn't preclude the possibility that she was lying, or even that she was some kind of innocent construct that was still being used against them. Given that there were many things he didn't know about the Nine, he couldn't dismiss the possibility.

Though Fiyu drew Senka into her lap and began stroking her hair, she had intentionally given them this opportunity to discuss the matter separately. Theo retreated along with Nauda until they were out of earshot, then finally turned back to one another.

"I take it you don't know what she is?" Nauda asked. He could only shake his head.

"I've met people from all Nine Worlds, and while there are other species I've never seen, she doesn't seem like anything I've heard about."

"I can't pin anything down either. What bothers me is that you bound her with gravity, right? If she had some way to escape, she might be more than she appears."

Theo shook his head. "I'm not strong enough to maintain gravitational fields from a great distance, so they would have lessened, then she could have followed us. Obnoxious, but not suspicious. Besides, it doesn't seem like she can use cantae... or do you know something about that?"

"Let me show you." Nauda grasped his arm and drew him inward, briefly floating through her soulhome before using her brass telescope.

Soon after, his spirit floated outside a planet of garbage. That was his first impression before he reconsidered, but even once he got a sense of scale, it was hard to shake the image: where Senka should have had a soulhome, there was only a sphere made up of refuse. He saw stones of many types, fragments of boards, twisted pieces of metal, and objects he couldn't identify. All felt vaguely like sublime materials, yet he didn't know how it was possible to lump together so much. Or why anyone would do it, considering that the solid sphere couldn't store cantae and wouldn't grant anything special.

"She can use cantae, but extremely ineptly," Nauda's spirit explained beside him. "Her soulhome is refuse all the way through, so cantae just flows over the surface. She might be subconsciously making herself a bit tougher and faster, but it's useless for essentially all other purposes."

"And I take it that neither of us have any idea what she could be."

"Demons have no souls, so it can't be that. Sublime beasts I've examined seem to have a single tier that grows outward instead of upward, but perhaps there are stranger types? Something between a sublime beast and a human."

"I doubt it." Though he still disliked the situation, Theo was fairly certain there was a more probable answer. "It's more likely that she's an entity alien to the Nine Worlds, accidentally arriving here through the cracks. That might explain why she's unintelligible, and it's possible that crossing from her native world had something to do with the state of her soulhome, if that is what it is."

"So she's an outsider like you."

Despite all his thoughts, Theo was still startled to hear that framing. It was essentially true, however: as an outsider to the Nine Worlds, his transitions to them were far more traumatic. Both times it seemed to have created a new body and left nothing of what he'd built in his soul. For a moment he realized that it was almost similar to demons, though of course it couldn't be, since he gained a soulhome as soon as he left Earth.

"You don't like that idea?" Nauda squeezed his arm in a way he couldn't easily interpret. "I suppose we can't rule out the possibility that she's some sort of advanced demon, or perhaps a mangled one. The higher stage ones do seem more intelligent."

"But it's always an animal intelligence, never the ability to speak or reflect." Now that he thought about it, that seemed odd to him, but he brushed the matter aside as irrelevant for the time being. "No, the theory that she's an outsider to the Nine Worlds seems most likely. The question is what we're going to do about it."

"Well, it seems clear that she intends to follow us. One benefit of taking her is that it means we're not a group of three anymore, and we could pretend to be a family. That might help shake pursuit."

"Or just draw more problems down on us, if the Landguards are really looking for her. I wonder if she didn't enter Tatian at the same time Fiyu and I did. Given that she's not exactly subtle, she might be the one that they're putting so much effort into finding."

Nauda immediately gave a warm smile edging into a grin. "Surely not. How could all of this business possibly be about anyone other than you?"

"You mock, but I'm happy about that. Keeping a low profile while ascending will be hard enough without any direct scrutiny." Theo matched her overly warm smile with a mocking scowl. "I expect the two of you to take care of the little brat, though."

"Actually, Fiyu might have that handled." Nauda's gaze wandered back and Theo saw that Fiyu was playing with Senka, swinging her braid back and forth. She might have orchestrated the conversation, but Fiyu wasn't guarded with her expressions, so the enjoyment on her face must have been authentic. Odd that she was so willing to touch the creature, but perhaps children had different rules.

Well, if it kept Senka from annoying him to death, he would take it.

When they returned, Senka immediately looked up at them with a broad smile. "Are you two done sporping?"

"We need a plan for our time here." Nauda propped her staff on the ground and leaned on it, eyes sweeping the horizon as she spoke. "It's most important to avoid the Landguard, but we can't waste our time here. Unfortunately, Jake is the only one who has any experience in Deuxan. Any chance that you're familiar with this area?"

"I definitely haven't been in this region before." As Theo looked over the bronze grasses, he found his mind wandering back to the glorious fountains of Areesi and the silvery forests where he'd first met Brigana. By then he had been an experienced soulcrafter, but the intricate courts of Deuxan had still thrown him until she had found him... "The areas I've been didn't have grass like this. We'll have to look around."

"I suppose it would be too much to hope you have allies here."

"Of course not. You have to remember that every one of the Nine is an entire world. Deuxan has four continents filled with hundreds of different nations, plus several uninhabitable zones." He was lecturing, and they probably knew that, but it helped to ground himself again. "There's only a remote chance that we're anywhere near the regions I knew, so don't get your hopes up."

That left out the larger problem that he'd avoided talking about: time. Though he preferred not to think about it, he knew that time ran differently between Earth and the Nine Worlds, so most likely he was separated from anyone he knew by an unknown period of time. He had spent years in the Nine on his first visit, only to wake up mere months later on Earth. After forty years... well, he would hope that time didn't consistently run like that, or his allies would be mere history, even if they had survived.

Fiyu began to rise and made a soft sound as Senka latched onto her braid, tugging it down. She resolutely detached herself from Senka and stepped back into her personal space, which the little brat actually seemed to respect. Once on her own, Fiyu's warmth faded to cool consideration.

"There was a trail from the gate. We should follow it to a settlement."

"I agree, but we should pick up sublime materials first. They'll be scarcer than on Tatian, but we should still take what we can get." Theo began walking, eyes searching for a shining city on the horizon. "Deuxan... isn't as friendly as Tatian. We've had it easy before now, but that's over."

Chapter 8

As they traveled through Deuxan, Theo reflected on a new reason to acquire a vehicle of some kind: they couldn't soulcraft while walking. There was a great deal of work to do, especially given the environments they might face once they reached civilization, but they needed to spend some of their time scouting. Fortunately, they uncovered the basics with little wasted time.

The gate to Tatian sat in a relative backwater, with only a secondary road leading to it. If they avoided that road, they could still determine the rough layout of the land, in particular larger roads leading to a nearby city. Part of the region was completely restricted in farms with defended hedge walls, filled with gleaming steel thorns, so they stuck to the hinterlands as they made their way forward.

Deuxan itself hadn't changed, at least in its fundamental nature. The grass shimmered like bronze, but there were a few silvery trees that were comfortingly familiar, even if they weren't the same species as those he knew. Given the temperature, he suspected they were much further from the poles than the continent he'd explored with Brigana, presuming that Deuxan followed similar physical laws overall.

Fiyu nervously asked him about what nights were like and he could only say that it varied throughout the year. As it grew darker, the moon rose from the horizon, a vast white disk that shed strangely pale light. Though it was still easily light enough to see, Fiyu seemed to find this light much less troubling, and she was glad to hear that during some parts of the year, the moon was below the horizon, leading to much darker nights.

They made camp beside a small lake without a fire, but weren't about to sleep just yet. Nauda revealed that she carried more supplies than she needed, so they were fine for food, at least for a while. As they ate, it was time to discuss their next step.

"I've seen your soulcrafting progress," Theo said, "but we're going to need to make more. Unless we're in a part of Deuxan where I have allies or stored supplies, we'll need to prove ourselves quickly."

"My goal is to ascend to Archcrafter, and I think I have what I need." Nauda had been snapping tree branches and drawing them into her soulhome since she sat down, though she struggled to overcome their flexibility. "Once there, I have sublime materials ready, so the rest can go to the two of you."

"We have a present for you!" Fiyu smiled and pulled an unusual stone from her pack, which sat strangely in her hands. Theo took it and began to experiment with its properties, but it wasn't time to shift to full design just yet.

"Thank you, I do need new materials to finish my blueprint. I'm nowhere near ready to ascend to Archcrafter, and we need ranks to have standing here. Fiyu, are you close?"

"Oh... no, my relative said it is important to be completely satisfied with each tier before you move on. He said that he would give me materials for ascension when I was ready, and I still have soulcrafting to do."

Nauda frowned with her hands still on one branch and leaned forward. "You don't need to show us your entire soulhome, but would you be willing to tell us more about your capacities?"

"I suppose there is no harm in that. I am a bit proud of my progress, so it would be nice to show someone." Fiyu reached out and delicately touched Nauda's knee with one finger, so Nauda reached over to Theo to draw them all into her observation technique.

"Senka too! Senka wants to see things!"

"No." Theo pushed her back, then put a reversed gravitational field underneath her. Tempting as it was to send her into the air, he didn't want to hurt the obnoxious little brat, so instead he added and removed other fields to cancel out her momentum... while she was floating significantly far from them.

Though Senka babbled something about flying, it was easier to ignore her now, especially once Nauda used her technique to draw their spirits into Fiyu's soulhome.

As before, his spirit emerged into a dark Ichili expanse, but he cast his attention immediately to the soulhome at the center. Gone were the canvas walls and all other signs of ongoing construction, instead leaving a large circular tower. There were still some rough edges, and he suspected her blueprint involved polishing the exterior, but he was more concerned with the building materials.

Now that the construction materials were cleared away, it was obvious that her tower was divided into three different sections: one of pitch black stone, one of ice, and one of hardened magma. Though roughly divided into thirds, each section seemed to lean into the next. Ordinarily he'd consider that sloppy construction or design, but since it was Fiyu, he presumed that it must be intentional.

"It seems like you're drawing off three different themes," Nauda said as she completed a circuit. "I'm not sure I understand how they connect, but since they seem to merge together well enough, I suppose that lets you use a huge variety of sublime materials."

"Yes." Fiyu bobbed her head happily and moved to the side, running her fingers over the exterior. "I am glad to finally have the last walls complete, though they still need more work. And I fear there is far more soulcrafting to do inside."

"Four sections." Theo spoke up more abruptly than he intended, as his examination of the entrance led him to a discovery. Though the room itself was obscured by shadows, he realized that the frame and part of the wall around the door was actually a dark metallic substance that didn't match any of the others.

"This is a special sublime material given to me by my relative." Fiyu ran her fingers over the door frame almost affectionately. "It is rare, but it allows me to use cantae from different sources more easily. However, it requires an entrance chamber of its own... similar to your vestibule, Theo."

"So how many chambers?"

"Other than the entrance and the hearth in the center... six, two for each section. That allows a balanced duality for each material. For example... the magma can produce terrible light to harm my foes, but also gentle heat to warm myself. I have not been able to soulcraft the gentle heat part yet."

It was clearly a well-designed blueprint, especially given how it required a rare material as the linchpin. The result was a very even balance of techniques: the hail of bolts at range, the dark blade up close, and he presumed her sensory awareness. He could have used a sensory technique himself, but casting his effort in too many directions would be a fatal mistake.

"You seem like you have a clear plan." Nauda smiled warmly, though he thought there was a hint of wistfulness behind it. "Do you have all the sublime materials you need, then?"

"I fear not." Fiyu sighed and leaned against the door. "I lack materials for some of the other chambers, and my relative was to give me more potent sources of cantae once my soulhome was sound enough to endure them. But do not fear: I still have others to adapt, and I have a great deal of work to do on the exterior."

"Actually, it motivates me to get to work. Let's see how much we can do before we reach the city, shall we?"

With that, Nauda released her technique, returning them to the camp to begin work. Compared to the two of them, Theo was again dissatisfied with his soulhome. They had years of preparation on him, of course, and he'd soulcrafted more rapidly than anyone could expect, but that wouldn't matter at all if they faced a lethal threat.

Theo entered his soulhome and began pacing through the outer rooms around his core, considering. He was tough enough not to have a standard cantae bolt tear through his body now, so he needed an offensive skill. The problem was that his gravitational torsion skill simply wasn't coming together, and few good techniques could be developed by simply trying really hard or gathering a bunch of cantae.

Back in reality, he examined the stone again before squeezing it until it appeared in his soulhome. There, he was surprised by how intensely it pressed against all the other materials - it might be nearly Archcrafter tier, just unusually difficult to use.

Though gravity was fundamentally the opposite of a sublime material that pushed things away, he'd found that dualities often worked well in soulcrafting. Perhaps he could create a technique that functioned as some sort of reverse mass? It wasn't scientific - at least, anti-gravitons had been only theoretical when he'd last been on Earth - but conceptually it might fit into his soulhome. So far his experiments at creating gravity had proved weak, but if he combined them with a technique that did the reverse...

Walking to his third corner chamber, Theo set the repelling stone in the center. To his surprise, it stabilized surprisingly well, pressing against every wall and keeping itself in the center. Since it tended to float a bit with his movements, he fashioned rings of hearthtree wood and fixed them to the floor and ceiling. With the stone pressing against the edges of the rings as well as the walls, it stayed in the center fairly well.

That was a good start, but could he actually turn it into a technique? As the night wore on, Theo dedicated himself to different experiments, attempting to hang or orbit various objects around the central force. It didn't result in any breakthroughs, but he thought he was making progress.

While the others went to sleep, he lay down and continued soulcrafting. In his previous life, he had been able to sleep physically while soulcrafting internally... it wasn't as good as real sleep, and dangerous to do for long, but it was an excellent option when he desperately needed soulcrafting time.

Unfortunately, his new soul hadn't quite developed the stamina to manage it, so he struggled with drifting off. He pressed on as hard as he could, aiming to recondition his soul, and drifted next to unconsciousness throughout the night. It didn't feel exactly like sleep, but the night slipped away from him faster than it should and somehow as the sun rose, he was partially rested with a partially developed technique chamber. Good enough for a first try.

When he rubbed sleep out of his eyes, he took a moment to admire the lake beside them. As the darkness lifted, the surface shone like liquid mercury, waves moving across it sluggishly. He took a while simply to admire the sight, welcoming in its alienness.

"Is that water?" Nauda asked. She sat upright leaning on her staff, having apparently taken the last watch. "It doesn't look safe to drink."

"I don't think it's really water, but it's what they have here." Theo walked closer to the lake and trailed a finger through the heavy liquid, then pulled it back to test a few drops. "It should be safe. We may look and feel essentially the same, but I think our bodies shift slightly when we pass between worlds, adapting us to the new environment just like our languages adapt."

"An older soulcrafter I once knew told me something similar: that without a shift between worlds, travelers would die of far more diseases." Nauda appeared to be admiring the lake as well, but her gaze soon shifted to him. "The same must have applied to you, if there really are no soulhomes in your world. And you're younger this time too. I wonder if there are laws of these transitions that we could uncover."

"I don't know." Theo found himself grinning and rose. "I really have no idea."

And that was the beauty of it: nine worlds filled with mysteries for him to uncover. Theo raised his arms to either side to absorb the Deuxan sun and took his deepest breath in years.

Chapter 9

As their stores of food began to run low, Theo thought they understood the lay of the land. The grassy region containing the gate to Tatian was neither particularly dangerous nor particularly fertile, so it remained mostly uninhabited, including an absence of any pursuers from Nlukoko. Other regions, however, proved less simple.

To the east the razor hedge blocked off a significant area that appeared to be farmland, likely controlled by local families. Northeast of the hedge, there was a region of smaller villages, but those were useless to him. The city lay due north, still unnamed, and they'd travel there once they'd done all the preparation they could. But the most important region was to the northwest, which grew denser with silvery trees.

If he understood correctly, it was actually a managed forest, controlled by the local powers but not as firmly blocked off. Their group had mostly avoided it while they gathered information and soulcrafted final advantages for themselves, but if they wanted new sublime materials, they'd have to consider taking the risk.

The question was the level of risk and how best to mitigate it. At the moment, Theo scanned the borders, considering every variable he had any control over. Fiyu was scouting using her special senses and Nauda was investigating socially, so hopefully they would provide additional angles. For his part, what mattered was which resources were actually critical to local families...

"What," Nauda said as she came up behind him, silver cloak flapping, "you're not going to just steal everything like usual?"

"On Deuxan, stealing from the wrong person could get you killed." Theo turned away from the forest to look back at her. "Have you just been letting this moral indignation simmer? Am I going to get a lecture now?"

To his surprise, Nauda totally ignored his question and instead answered in a mild tone. "Have you ever seen a Tatian morality play?"

"The ones with the fancy masks in the village square? I think I saw a few from a distance on my previous visit, but I didn't pay much attention to them."

"I suspect you would hate them. They're simple little stories about good and bad members of the community, showing how crimes such as lies or theft hurt everyone and damage the community. The villains are terrible caricatures who announce out loud that they hate the community and think it needs to be torn down so only the strong can rule."

"You sound like you've been forced to sit through a few too many of them."

"Not exactly, Theo." After a deep breath, Nauda glanced back at him, everything about her expression wiped clean to reveal a deceptive mildness. "What I find troubling about you is how indifferent you seem to the idea of community. I've met a few morality play villains in the real world, and more who simply can't care for others, but you... we might have most of the same values, I think, but you don't seem to have any of the foundation for them."

Theo stared back at her, not having expected such an approach, but he didn't sense any mockery from her, so it deserved a serious response. "Where I'm from, we tend to frame things more individualistically, but that isn't really the point. I've seen too many people justify all their actions or spout pseudo-philosophy. I'm trying to do what I think is necessary, but I'm no hero."

"You could play the part, almost." She gave him an oddly quirking smile. "Other than being too pale, you have the right jaw, and that hair is very Tatian. I heard about how the Archcrafters in Nlukoko listened to you. If you got yourself a humble robe and played the part, they'd buy it."

"Huh." All his thoughts about that were horribly entangled with his view of himself in his previous life, and especially the plans he'd had for himself upon returning. A heroic role no longer appealed, and more importantly, he didn't care except as it related to Nauda. "So why bring it up? I take it you're not actually going to object."

"It would be a bit hypocritical, since I'm wearing this cloak you probably stole." Nauda began to pull it off and handed it back to him, not making eye contact. "I think I want to make the world a better place, but all my life, I've been told that the world is the community, and I've never quite been able to embrace that."

"Nauda... I don't think I'm the right person to talk to about any of this." Maybe once, but not after forty years on Earth. She regarded him critically, then accepted his refusal and shook her head, her hair sweeping the entire matter aside.

"It's probably better learned in the doing, anyway. On that note, I was able to speak to several more local Deuxans today and I think I have the information you wanted. Shall we wait for Fiyu, then I can relate it all?"

That seemed an eminently reasonable plan, but at that moment Fiyu blurred from out of the air beside them, a slight smile on her face. "I am here. I only wanted to let you talk."

Nauda jumped a little, then gave a rueful smile. "You've got to stop sneaking up on us like that."

"I believe it is time for us all to sneak together. Observe." Fiyu closed her eyes, then a ripple passed through the air, this time encompassing them. Theo's instinct was to resist, but he let the cantae slide over his body and expand into a sphere that just encased the trio.

The world around them appeared dark and slightly hazy, but Theo was surprised how easy it was to see, given that Fiyu's technique seemed to render her completely invisible. Clearly it didn't work on a simple principle like bending light away from her. She stood beside them, without any attempt to restrain the proud smile.

"I have been working hard on this. It also softens all sounds within the sphere, though we should still be quiet. Most common methods of feeling us indirectly will also be redirected, but I could not find a way to reduce smell." Fiyu's face fell, more than that minor weakness deserved. "I am afraid that the chamber is still very modest, however, so the illusion is weak. The cantae of an Archcrafter will penetrate directly through, so it is not very useful."

"It's always possible for more intense cantae to break techniques," Nauda reassured, visibly restraining herself from embracing Fiyu. "And you've only been soulcrafting for a few days. This is more than enough for a start."

Observation by Archcrafters was actually a significant weakness, though Theo kept silent about that. It would be more productive to consider how the technique might be improved, since with the right construction it might be able to escape the eyes of even Rulers. Regardless, being invisible in plain sight was always a terrible form of stealth compared to being invisible at the margins, so this was an edge they could use.

"Everybody disappeared! Senka is confused!" The brat wandered out of the trees, eyes wide.

"This is my technique, Senka." Fiyu didn't speak any louder than normal, but Senka perked up and swung wildly in their direction. "Please wait for us while I practice."

In response, Senka charged in their direction, tripped, and rolled past them down a hill. Fiyu gasped and Nauda checked to see if she was okay, but Theo just stepped in the way to get their attention. They'd prepared as long as they could, so it was time to begin.

"Nauda, why don't you tell us what you've learned so far?"

"The city is named Anguedan," she began, "and though they made some big claims about how important it is, the local villagers gave me the sense it's only a mid-sized city. Apparently their noble court is fairly small, with under a dozen families. I confess, I don't fully understand how their communities are organized."

"Most Deuxan nations are factions within factions, all the way down. Each 'family' is actually a cluster of related clans that work together, competing against the others. They'll all come together to form the Anguedan Court, which governs the city and surrounding area. Whoever controls the local court sends the representative to a regional or national court... who is it here?"

"That explains why everyone said the Armeau family is so important: apparently they're the largest family and they have been for generations. The others are apparently too small to matter, with two exceptions. First, there's a family they call 'Tatianborn' that seems to be made up of non-Deuxans. Then the Evigne family is... part of another community, I think?"

"They're probably related to a powerful family that controls some other court." Theo folded his arms and frowned as he failed to come up with memories attached to any of the names. They might have changed over time, but it seemed more likely that he was in entirely the wrong part of Deuxan. "I'll ask once we meet court representatives, but I don't think I know anyone here, or that we're close to anything I left behind."

Nauda regarded him curiously. "You didn't... leave caches for yourself, did you?"

"No, I never expected my life to go in this direction. But after my time on Deuxan, I left some things behind that weren't useful to me then, but could be invaluable now. Most likely, none of them are still there anyway, so we'll just have to do without them."

"Theo..." Fiyu drifted closer, gazing at him so intensely he could see silver ghosts of her eyes even behind her mask. "We have waited a long time before we enter the city. Is there some danger there?"

"Probably not, but we might be challenged. Soulcrafters can challenge each other on Deuxan as a matter of law, and we can't afford that kind of attention. I just want us to be prepared."

"None of them struck me that way," Nauda said with a frown. "The villagers seemed like kind and ordinary people to me."

Though Theo felt an impulse to tell her that she didn't understand Deuxan, he shrugged instead. It was possible that Deuxan culture had changed, or that this continent was completely unlike the others, so he might be wrong. He'd already given warning enough, and anything further would just be arguing for the sake of his ego. Frustrating as his time on Earth had been, he'd at least learned to rein in that impulse.

Fiyu released her technique and they headed toward the city hiding in plain sight. Theo wore the Deuxan robe, while Nauda embraced her Tatian identity and Fiyu just tried to hide within a large robe. When Senka saw them she came running after, but Nauda scooped her up and put her on her shoulders. Perhaps later they'd have to stick her in an obscuring robe, but for now that should be sufficient to disguise their group, especially given that they seemed to have evaded pursuit.

They moved parallel to the forest, but as the shining walls of the city grew nearer, they began to run into the roads covering the region. Most were unoccupied, this far from the main working regions, but he saw a few farmers moving herds of animals toward the city.

For a time he'd almost convinced himself that soulcrafters in this part of Deuxan were nothing like the ones he remembered, then a disruption in the road ahead drew their attention.

"Don't argue, worms! You'll get your pathetic wagon back as soon as the hunt is over!" A Deuxan man with an Archcrafter's soulhome stood on top of a wagon filled with bronze bundles of grass. Several villagers huddled away, but an old woman still gripped the halter of the beast leading the wagon. "Let go, hag! Do you have any idea who I am?"

It didn't seem like Deuxan had changed that much after all.

The smart thing to do would have been to just let the injustice pass, like so many others. But as Nauda set Senka down and stepped forward, he realized that he hadn't explained enough after all.

"What's going on here?" Nauda asked. The Archcrafter turned to her, his eyes taking in her Tatian cloak and sandals before he bothered looking at her soulhome.

"This has nothing to do with you, outsider. I'm an Archcrafter of the Armeau family, and the Armeau family requires the use of this wagon for only a short time, but these worms refuse to give it. My patience for these good people is wearing thin, and I have none in store for Tatian peasants."

Nauda wasn't foolish enough to attack him over that, but she did frown, and unfortunately that was enough. The Archcrafter immediately jumped down from the wagon to face her.

"You think you can challenge me, soulcrafter? If you want to treat our court like your miserable little home village, you'll have to prove yourself to me first."

"This is..." Nauda started to answer, but Theo quickly moved behind her and put a cautioning hand on her back. "Forgive me, Archcrafter. This humble villager was only curious about your glorious activities."

"I suppose you would be. Stay long enough and you'll see the hunt for yourself." With that, the Armeau noble turned back to the villagers.

During the distraction, several of the younger Deuxans had convinced the old woman not to risk herself against a noble. She continued to glower at the Archcrafter, but he only sneered at her as he moved past to the wagon. Reaching into the back, he began hurling the bundles of grass out to empty the wagon.

"Why stop me?" Nauda asked extremely softly. "Was the offer a trap?"

"No, challenges really work that way here. If you had won, he would have left them alone."

"Didn't you see his soulhome? He's nearly the weakest imaginable Archcrafter: only a few rooms on his ground floor, and he hasn't built a second tier since he ascended. I could have worked around his stronger cantae."

"Possibly, but don't underestimate him. Many Deuxan duelists have techniques or armaments to make use of their rank." Theo flattened his hand on her back to soothe her anger while he kept speaking. "But even if you did, it would only draw us into more problems. Someone else from the Armeau family might come to challenge you in return, just to equal the insult."

Though Nauda clearly didn't like that fact, she held back and kept her face neutral. The Archcrafter cast them one more glance, but seemed satisfied enough that he turned to depart. When he tried to guide the beast, it let out a low groan, uncooperative even when he sent a spark of cantae into its hide.

As he departed, he left behind the family of villagers and a heap of bundled grass. Fiyu hastened to assist them with gathering it up, though there was little they could do without the wagon. Senka ran to help her, but as soon as she hefted one of the bundles over her head, it proved too heavy and she pitched over backwards. At least she had kept her mouth shut while the Archcrafter was present.

"Did I insult him just by frowning?" Nauda asked, turning her gaze away from the scene.

"Expressions can cause serious offense here. I'm sure you can adapt, but you'd better explain it to Fiyu before she offends anyone. Deuxan cultures tend to be subtle and complicated."

"Not so subtle, considering that he didn't even notice I was mocking him."

"Your sarcasm might not be so effective here." Theo gave her a wry smile and nodded his head toward the departing noble. "If he's someone important in the family, he's used to people fawning over him like that unironically."

Nauda ground her teeth and went to help Fiyu. "I have a feeling that I'm not going to like Deuxan."

Working together, the two of them managed to help the villagers assemble their bundles into a form that could be rolled. To Fiyu's evident disappointment, they didn't seem at all grateful, and many of them cast angry glances toward the noble. Given that they were simply peasants, they probably weren't at great risk, but he could understand how they feared some sort of punishment.

Finally their group gathered again, remaining on the road as they watched the villagers go. Senka crouched at the side, chewing on a fallen blade of bronze grass, making a disgusted face, then chewing again. The other two turned toward him, clearly expecting more of an explanation, so he just raised his hands to either side.

"Welcome to the real Deuxan."

"I spoke to many villagers and none acted like this," Nauda said, her words precise. "Are they not the real Deuxan?"

"Rank matters immensely here. That's why he pushed to ascend, even though he hadn't finished soulcrafting much of a first tier. This won't be our last encounter like this."

Fiyu sighed and pulled her hood up around her face. "I do not think I will like it here."

"It might not be so bad." Theo glanced after the retreating Archcrafter, just now disappearing into the forest, then smiled. "You want to follow him and steal his stuff?"

Chapter 10

Though the Archcrafter from the Armeau family might have second tier cantae more intense than any of theirs, his soulhome was a simple building. After examining it with Nauda, Theo suspected that he had one room for strength and another for a lethal technique. No matter how nice the silvery stone that formed the building might be, it didn't have much room for other techniques.

So when they followed after him into the forest, he stood no chance of piercing Fiyu's stealth technique. Theo remained alert for allies at first, then relaxed as it became clear that this was a lesser noble, assigned to harvesting duty. When he reached a large pile of fallen wood, he began to pull it into the wagon, grumbling to himself.

"He's here to harvest sublime materials?" Nauda watched him with a continually more skeptical expression. "He didn't need to take the villagers' wagon for that."

"Is this a wild forest?" Fiyu asked. "Can we gather materials as well?"

Theo shook his head. "Based on how everyone else has stayed out of it, I'm guessing that this forest belongs to the Armeau family. If they're in control of the city court, they're powerful enough that they don't need to build a wall or guard it too carefully: the threat of punishment will keep out everyone else."

Nauda looked like she'd need some time to swallow that, but Fiyu nodded as if she understood and continued examining the environment. "It does not seem like a very fertile region."

"No, I think it's just well-harvested. They probably send people like him out to gather up anything that's useful, then store it in the Armeau family vault. That makes sense for his soulhome: strong enough to go unchallenged, but unimportant enough to be given an errand like this."

"If we are taking materials from a wealthy and unkind family, then I propose we steal." Fiyu apparently took to theft faster than he'd expected, but her sudden enthusiasm pulled Nauda out of her sour mood. Staying together within Fiyu's stealth technique, they set to work.

First, they determined that the fallen wood the noble was gathering wasn't valuable enough to be worth stealing. Though technically a sublime material, it had no advantage over the hearthtree wood that they had in abundance from Tatian.

Deeper within the forest, however, they might find more valuable materials. So they soon left the Archcrafter to his menial labor and ventured to take what they could. Though the vast majority of the trees weren't made of sublime wood, and many beds of plants showed signs of heavy harvesting, it seemed certain that there would be more that had been overlooked.

Their work was disappointing for some time, the only sublime materials available a few sticks that must have fallen during previous harvests. They did stumble across a tree with bright golden apples hanging from its boughs, but they were clearly unripe. At their peak, he thought they would have been a solid sublime food, but at the moment taking them would be nothing but sabotage.

"Oh!" Fiyu gasped and moved forward, forcing all of them to scramble to stay inside her shadowy bubble. Theo couldn't tell what she'd seen using his eyes, but he immediately reached out with his soulcrafter senses and realized that one tree was not like the others.

Amid the sea of silvery trunks and leaves, one tree shimmered with the same colors... because its trunk reflected like a mirror. As they got closer, he could tell that the leaves were actually duller than the others, but the bark shone like the clearest mirror he'd ever seen. More importantly, the reflective bark felt extremely potent, not for generating cantae but for resisting it. Given that, he could see how it might escape harvesting, as only Fiyu's observation technique allowed her to identify it from so far away.

"Can we take this, Jake?" Fiyu raised her fingers almost to the surface and looked back at him hopefully. "I believe that this would be valuable for me. Perhaps for you as well!"

Nauda frowned and peered at the trunk herself. "I'm not feeling much cantae from it, but..." She extended a hand and emitted a very small bolt of cantae, which promptly reflected off the tree without leaving a scratch. "Ah, I understand."

"Yes, you see its value. It could be used to reinforce buildings, and might resist weaker cantae, but I believe it could be far more effective within my soulhome."

"I think we can risk taking it," Theo said, "but be careful. We can't make too much noise while we're here or leave evidence that could be tied back to us."

"Yes, Jake. I will be careful."

Harvesting the mirror-like bark - which Theo strongly suspected would be translated as mirrorbark in his mind - proved to be more difficult than it looked. It reflected all weak cantae, and though Fiyu was able to overcome it with her bladed knife, the mirror blackened and curled away from her hand. In the end they resorted to brute force, which came down to Nauda using her staff to break the surface enough to peel the bark away.

There wasn't much room to work, so Theo stayed away, on the lookout for guards or other sublime materials. He was a bit disappointed so far, though not really surprised. Deuxan had a strong grip on all of its sublime materials in the habitable regions, which prompted a pang of nostalgia as he thought about material hunting with Brigana.

"Why do we hate that tree?" Senka popped up beside him without warning, tugging at his pants. "Is it a fumpet?"

"Do you know what sublime materials are?"

"Senka doesn't know!"

"Well, they're... is it worth explaining?" He regarded her irritably, knowing that he was mostly frustrated by the lack of results and not caring. "Actually, how old are you?"

"Senka is sporping old!"

"I guess it was too much to hope you'd give a number. We're looking for special materials like that tree bark. Just stay quiet and don't attract any attention."

"Shiny rocks? Senka can find shiny rocks!" She promptly skipped to the tree and tried to put one of the smaller shards in her mouth. Nauda hastened to stop her, a step too slow, but Senka spat it out a moment later and began to wander off, passing outside the bubble of Fiyu's technique.

Theo grumbled under his breath and went in pursuit - though the chance of anyone seeing them was low, there was no sense taking unnecessary risks. The little brat moved over the ground with surprising speed, snuffling like an animal. Before he could manage to grab her, she suddenly headbutted the ground.

"Here! Here! Senka smells a shiny rock!"

Part of him nearly grabbed her by the mouth and took her back, but that was the old man in him. Theo examined the ground, which appeared ordinary enough, and decided that he had nothing to lose. As he began to dig into the soft soil with his hands, he eyed Senka, wondering if this was some sort of childish trick. She did seem to be watching him, but then his hands touched something much harder.

Working quickly, Theo uncovered a small lump. Once he got it out, it proved to be a mushroom, though it was much heavier than any normal mushroom and cobalt blue once he brushed the dirt off. Most of all, he could feel the cantae flowing from it in considerable quantities for a simple sublime food. Not as warm as flamefruit, but it had a-

Without warning, Senka snatched it from his hand and bit into it. For a moment he feared that she was going to suck the whole thing into her soulhome, but there was absolutely no soulcrafting movement from within her: she really did just bite into it with teeth alone.

A moment later Senka declared "This tastes blooky!" and dropped it back onto the ground. Though Theo wasn't inclined to eat that one now that it had her slobber all over it, he found himself looking at the little creature again. Perhaps she had some sort of natural sense for cantae, or simply an excellent sense of smell...

"Senka, is this the shiny rock you were talking about?"

"Yup! But it's blook."

"You, uh, realize that this isn't a rock."

She gave him an odd stare. "Shiny."

Rubbing his eyes with one hand, Theo decided to just roll with it. "Can you help us find more shiny rocks like this?"

"Okay! Senka will help!"

With that, she scurried off into the woods, though she took a curving path around the tree where the others worked. Soon enough, she identified another point for him to dig, and he wasn't surprised to find another sublime mushroom. They seemed to be somewhat rare, and he couldn't ever guess their locations by vision or cantae senses, but Senka sniffed them out with little difficulty.

It was the first non-annoying thing she'd done, so perhaps his good deed saving her hadn't been repaid with misery after all. Though he still disliked how she ran about dog-like, he reflected that her antics hadn't actually gotten them into any major trouble. During the fight with the demons she'd stayed out of the way, and she'd shut up during the confrontation with the Archcrafter. Perhaps she had some sort of animal survival instinct.

By the time Fiyu and Nauda had finished with the tree, he'd uncovered several dozen of the mushrooms. When he returned to the others, he distributed them evenly and they promptly ate the evidence of their theft - the mushrooms weren't bad at all, even a bit dirty, but he could imagine their use in fine cuisine.

Meanwhile, Fiyu had shattered a significant amount of mirrorbark into herself but left some pieces for him. It might have been invaluable to his old light-based soulhome blueprint, but he took it anyway because he could probably think of something. Nauda didn't think it could be useful for her, so they divided the rest between them.

When they finished, the tree had been utterly stripped of bark, looking oddly pale in the metallic forest. They retraced their steps, removing evidence of their passage wherever they could. Within his soulhome, Theo threw all the sticks and other junk materials into the singularity in his central chamber, consuming them forever.

Just as they were about to leave, Nauda took a deep breath, staring at something behind him. Fiyu had gone utterly still, almost as if she'd seen a predator, but hadn't tried to use any cantae. Since they gave him no indication, Theo turned very slowly to look.

A creature resembling a deer stood between the trees, staring at them with unnatural stillness. The fact that it could see through Fiyu's shroud proved that it was a sublime beast, if the rainbow shimmer of its antlers wasn't enough. His eyes cataloged the delicate body and dappled gray coat, but it was the antlers that kept drawing his attention, clearly flowing with powerful cantae.

None of them moved after he turned, he barely even breathed, but suddenly the deer turned and darted away, vanishing into the forest without a sound. Once it was gone, he heard exhalations from the other two.

"It looked like a prey animal," Fiyu said softly, "but the horns were very sharp."

Theo could only nod. "You remember the Archcrafter talking about a special hunt? I have a feeling I know what they were hunting."

"Should we go after it?" Nauda asked. "It runs fast, but if we set a trap..."

"I... think we'd better not. What we've taken so far will probably go unnoticed, and I doubt the Armeau family really cares about it. But that beast... I have a feeling they'd punish anyone who dared to touch them. We could probably sell the antlers in another world, but it's not worth the risk."

"I believe we have enough." Fiyu came to stand beside them and renewed the shroud. "I think the city of Anguedan might be a difficult place, but perhaps we have put off our visit for long enough?"

He just nodded, which was answer enough. They left the Armeau family forest with new treasures in tow, but he had a feeling they wouldn't find any other sublime materials so easily.

Chapter 11

If he hadn't known better, Theo might have thought that no time at all had passed since he walked the streets of a Deuxan city. Though Anguedan was a bit different than the cities he remembered, that was true of every city. As an outsider from another world, he was constantly encountering details that were new to him - it was part of the joy of being in the Nine Worlds. So the differences of time were dwarfed by the differences in region, culture, and fashion.

Still, some details stuck out to him. Many of the men and women walking the streets alongside him shielded themselves from the sun via ivory white umbrellas that emanated shade and cool; those had been expensive and rare before, not seen on every street. The shielding flagstones in front of major buildings were larger and stronger than those in Brigana's family home, so the technology must have advanced.

How much time that had taken, he couldn't be sure. Many parts of the Nine seemed mired in time compared to the rapid advancement of Earth, but they still evolved. He would have an answer before he met up with the others again.

They had entered the main gate of Anguedan at separate times to avoid being recorded as a group, but gathered together without incident. Though he hadn't fully grasped all the rules of the local court, this was a fairly relaxed city, without any obvious fatal traps. Duels couldn't even be to the death without special permits, though he supposed that could be local leniency or societal advancement. In any case, the city was safe enough that they split up again to accomplish as much as possible.

While the others had more conventional errands such as acquiring food and local money, what he needed was to check his knowledge. Everything he knew about Deuxan might be far out of date, and in any case he knew nothing about the local region. If he was going to be worth anything as a leader, he needed to get a lot of questions answered.

At the moment he headed to a bloodhouse, because he was fairly certain that was one thing that wouldn't change, no matter where or when he was on Deuxan. Though he spotted several buildings with the familiar icon of a silver blood drop, he avoided the ones that looked seedy.

Instead he found the best bloodhouse that he thought would let him in: it had many young nobles moving through it, but relatively few soulcrafters. That would be the best source of information without potentially being overheard or getting drawn into any local conflicts.

"Wait a sec." The doorman was finely dressed, but his scars suggested he could serve as a bouncer as well. After a moment examining him, the doorman grunted. "Yer a foreigner after all. This place isn't for you. You know it would kill you, right?"

"Oh, I don't intend to partake." Theo brought his best Deuxan smile out of storage, a flat expression that suggested he had never had a political thought in his life. "Are bloodhouses no longer the right place to exchange information?"

"Ah. Then yer in the right place after all." That settled, the doorman stepped back, examining the street again.

Once inside, Theo found that the bloodhouse was roughly the quality he'd expected. A few Deuxans lay semi-conscious with needles clutched in their hands, but most laughed with one another in circular booths, a bowl of needles resting in the middle of the table. Occasionally someone pricked their skin with one and gave a little shiver, but it was just light amusement, not addiction.

If he put too much of that in his veins, he'd die. As far as he knew, the ability to draw strange substances into their blood was a unique feature of Deuxan biology, one that Brigana hadn't ever explained. For that reason, they'd developed very few drugs of any kind, and outsiders wanting to try "Deuxan intoxicants" got a rude awakening.

Most of the locals didn't care about him, and if they did, they only noted him as an ignorant foreigner. They all wore their tunics, hats, and badges extremely carefully, each difference indicating many details about their allegiances and interests. Long ago, there had been a very awkward interaction with Brigana in which he'd learned that a badge on the left lapel meant looking for a fight while a badge on the right meant you were looking for romance.

All of those indicators changed utterly from court to court, so there was no point trying to pretend he knew about them. Theo blundered straight in as a strange foreigner, instead scanning for elements of human nature that might be true even here.

He spotted an old woman seated in the corner with a pot of tea that appeared cool and a bowl of needles extended outward. Yes, that was who he wanted. She was exchanging information in a low voice with a young man, but when he departed, she beckoned to him.

"Well, a foreigner, hmm? And from quite far away, unless I miss my guess. Hmm, what's your name, lad?"

"I would happily exchange that information for other similarly simple facts." Theo slid down into the seat opposite her, letting the guise of a rube fall away. He might not know every local detail, but he also didn't care: he needed her to take him seriously enough to deliver reliable facts.

"If this is about court politics or the Armeau family, I don't get involved."

"Oh, my questions will be far simpler. All my information about Deuxan comes from the writings of a deceased master in my family. That information is likely horribly out of date, so my questions will be those of a child. I believe I have news enough to afford such questions."

She examined him critically, and as an information-broker she was obviously no fool, but Theo had thought through his cover story. He would look ignorant no matter who he asked, but this premise would match Deuxan views of outsider ignorance. Hopefully his questions would slip from her mind as soon as he departed and he could be better prepared for Deuxan at large.

"Very well, lad. What do you know, hmm?"

"I've just come from the Tatian gate, specifically the city of Nlukoko. I've no doubt that you've heard some of the recent happenings, but I survived them."

Though the old woman played off the information as irrelevant and Tatian a backwater, he saw her interest. She asked sharp questions about subtle matters of trade that he hadn't expected, but he had no need to lie about those. When it came to the Landguard and the demon attack on the city, he'd carefully prepared the answers that any traveler might have.

When they finished, the old woman sat back and nodded in satisfaction. "You pay closer attention then most, lad. I'm curious about these questions of yours."

"Very good." Though Theo kept his face neutral, he could feel his heartbeat speed up. At last, he was finally going to get the answers he hadn't been able to find in a timeless world like Tatian. "For a start, I need to know the local dueling laws in detail, in particular the penalties for actions against those of lower rank."

"Planning on offending someone, are you?" The broker chuckled and waved the question away. "I'll give that information to you later for nothing, and something free besides: if you come with a vendetta, I do not suggest bringing it against the Armeau family. But surely you have more interesting questions."

"First... the historical document I have is out of date. What year is it?"

"Year 87 of the Ditchdigger's Era."

Theo paused, for the first time truly thrown off. He'd thought his cover story was perfect, only to be given a year that meant absolutely nothing to him. There was no choice but to admit ignorance... "Forgive me, but the document I read referred to year 741 of the Silverbraided Court."

The broker raised her eyebrows, but not as far as he'd feared. "That's the old calendar... I guess your source got out just before things started going bad, hmm? Your information is, hmm, roughly 108 years out of date. Closer to 109 now, not that it makes much difference."

"Ah, that's a pity." He pretended to be mildly disappointed while the bottom dropped out of his stomach. Though he had more questions prepared, Theo still found himself hesitating as he absorbed the realization that he'd been gone for over a century.

That meant nearly everyone he had known before was likely dead, even aside from the disaster at the end. Some species on Aathal had extraordinarily long lives, and immortality or something close to it was possible through soulcrafting, though he didn't know enough about that. All the knowledge in the world did him no good now that all his allies, all his friends...

To avoid the worst of the thoughts, Theo instead refocused on something he could more easily understand. All his years in the Nine Worlds during the first visit had been contained within three months in a coma on Earth, but he hadn't been certain if he could extrapolate from that. Time ran smoothly between all the Nine, so it was something about the gap to Earth. Unfortunately, this didn't match the former ratio, so he had no way of knowing if the time ratio was changing or even completely random, frustrating as that might be.

"I'll have to look up the Ditchdigger's Era, but I won't trouble you for that." Theo's mouth began working automatically, since a long pause would give the wrong impression. He caught up to his words and chose his next question. "Can you tell me about this region? I think the manuscript spoke of an entirely different part of Deuxan."

Though it was absurdly basic for her, the information broker seemed amused enough by him that she gave the information gladly. As he'd feared, he was on a continent that he'd never even visited before, in a court far from any centers of civilization. Unlike the local nobles, she didn't pretend that Anguedan was any more important than it actually was.

"If you're here for soulcrafting, the only truly exceptional material we have here are the rainhorns." The old woman shook her head and stirred her cup of tea with a needle, though she'd never taken a drink from it while he was present. "That hunt is our claim to fame, but I'm sure you've heard of it."

"I've heard rumors, but I'm sure that you could assist my ignorance."

"Oh, but that's the most valued information in the city at the moment, with the hunt so close. I can't give that away so easily, I'm sure you understand, hmm?"

"Of course." Since it would likely involve soulcrafter business, he could probably learn more about the hunt from others anyway. Theo adjusted to his next priority. "What can you tell me about the families of the local court?"

"That's relatively simple." Though the information broker rattled off a series of names that he dutifully committed to memory, it sounded as though Nauda's information had been correct. Few of them were actually important and the Armeau family had a strong grip on the region.

"Thank you. What of the Tatian family? Would they be open to accepting new members, or willing to provide compensation for those who might help them?"

"Possibly, but I wouldn't recommend it. Most of them want to leave their history behind and be accepted as Deuxan, so they'll keep their distance from anyone who smells new."

"I understand."

The information broker ran a finger around the edge of her cup, regarding him thoughtfully. "I've given you information because you're less dull than the young nobles going on about trivial court matters, but I think I've been more than fair, so we're nearly done. Any minor questions you can't keep bottled up?"

"Well, if you're being so generous..." He didn't expect to get a real answer, but he couldn't stop himself from trying to ask about Brigana's family. "There was a family mentioned in the manuscript... do you know anything about the Teraeves family?"

"Hmm..." The old woman hesitated as she gave the matter thought, then she shrugged. "I'm sorry, lad, but that one doesn't even sound familiar. Many of the old families perished when things got bad, when the Silverbraided Court started falling apart. If you want to know about that, you'll need to afford a library."

"No trouble at all. Thank you." Theo gave her a polite smile and departed the bloodhouse, disappointed in the truths he'd discovered, but at least far more confident in his knowledge of Deuxan.

There was no hope of any massive advantage from allies or leftover supplies, but that had always been an extremely low chance given the sheer scope of the Nine Worlds. He was separated from his experience on Deuxan by over a century, but the world hadn't changed so radically that his experience was useless. Though he had no interest in getting invested in petty local court politics, he could quickly figure it out well enough to handle himself.

The question, then, was how best to spend their time in the city of Anguedan. This hunt event would be their best chance only if they had managed to avoid any undue attention, otherwise simple jobs that allowed them to continue soulcrafting would be the optimal path. He headed toward the central fountain where they'd agreed to meet, hopeful that the others had learned more as well.

He never made it to the fountain. While Theo was still walking through the streets, he noticed a crowd and realized that they were gathering around a dueling circle... where Fiyu stood opposite a soulcrafter, surrounded by jeering Deuxans.

Chapter 12

Fiyu was doing her best to give Deuxan the benefit of the doubt, but it was still a blinding hellscape during the day.

The sun itself was abominable, though not as bad as the one on Tatian and rendered tolerable by Companion Theo's shielding chamber. What truly offended her was the way every surface was constructed from such bright materials, all of which conspired to redirect the sunlight directly into her eyes. Fiyu readjusted her mask and pulled the curtain within her soulhome tight, but it was always going to be miserably bright.

What frustrated her more was that the city was clearly ruled by complex social rules and no one would explain them to her. Tatians were simple: they would smile too much and surround you and try to touch you. It was distressing but not particularly malicious. But here on Deuxan, every detail of clothing and stance held great meaning and they seemed offended if someone didn't understand.

As Companion Nauda negotiated trades with others in the market, Fiyu managed to unravel a few details. The Deuxans wore their clothing as carefully as anyone on Ichil, with heavy badges positioned to indicate different positions in society. Fiyu was uncertain about the meaning of the colors, which appeared hazy through her mask, but she thought she understood the beginnings of the system. She had also come to comprehend that they used physical stances differently: she saw embraces that looked appropriate only for family, but both sides held their core muscles stiff, as if engaged in a conflict.

"You truly won't accept any assistance?" Companion Nauda had been attempting to negotiate work with a representative of one of the local groups, who now shook his head.

"The Evigne family cannot afford to look weak now, of all times. Our offer is not open to outsiders."

"But if you truly need to hire rangers, then you need the help more than ever." Though Companion Nauda kept her facial muscles fixed in a smile, Fiyu had come to realize that the back of her neck tightened as she grew frustrated. "We have significant experience at such ranging, and it would benefit us both."

"Your generosity is most welcome, but the Evigne family is not in a position to grant even one side of a deal to outsiders. If you are confused about court politics, there are many books available for you to edify yourself."

Companion Nauda's neck tightened further and her smile broadened. "Even granting your knowledge on fumbling outsiders is generosity I would not expect from such a noble family. Thank you for setting me straight."

Fiyu looked back and forth between them, hoping that she understood the truth beneath their words. Though she occasionally heard the words of others in different inflections, she understood that this was a translation in her soul and their languages were troublingly free of inflectional classes. On Ichil, rudeness was performed with clear linguistic signs, but on Deuxan it appeared they preferred to cast dire insults in the form of kind words. It was subtly different from the odd "lyingwit" that Companions Nauda and Theo used at times, and she thought more maliciously intended.

"Let's go, Fiyu." As she turned back, Companion Nauda's hand moved toward her and shifted mid-motion, instead waving for her to follow. Fiyu took hold of Nauda's sleeve to calm her and spoke in a low voice as they walked from the market.

"You are upset. They were insulting in their refusal?"

"It isn't that, it's how every one of these families is focused on themselves above all." Once they got a short distance away, Companion Nauda rubbed her forehead with one hand. "It's my fault, for assuming that their ideas about community or family would be anything like normal. They don't care about anything else."

"Is that so upsetting?" Fiyu tilted her head to the side, shifting her perception to analyze Companion Nauda's signals better. "It is good to help others, but I would risk my life for you or Theo, and I would not go to the same extent for strangers. You are traveling companions, so you deserve more."

"Oh, it's my fault for making assumptions. Wait, where did Senka get to?"

"I... do not know. I attempted to keep her nearby in the market, but she wandered into a crowd."

After a brief pause, Nauda unclenched her shoulders and some of the tension passed from her. "Well, she'll have to take care of herself, if she wants to wander off. Let's go find out if they have any suitable vehicles available."

While they traveled to the next market, Fiyu puzzled over how she should best help Companion Nauda after the angering encounter. An Ichili would need distance and peace, but Fiyu thought that Tatians desired community and warmth. Fiyu considered raising a hand to touch her arm, like Companion Theo did so easily, but she knew that her attempt would be artificial and might make things more uncomfortable.

Fortunately, the vehicle market proved to be a better environment for them both. Though it seemed that the noble families sponsored and favored various workshops that built them, they were not present in great numbers, so Nauda was able to relax. The density of people was still too high for Fiyu, but here she finally found a reasonable market.

On Tatian and even at the earlier markets, everyone yelled about prices, uttering words that should have started wars just to negotiate a slightly lower price. Based on how Companion Nauda had relaxed, it was only another verbal game, but Fiyu would never been comfortable with the process. In addition to that, Tatian had a confusing quantity of different coins.

Here, each of the vehicles was labeled with a clear price on a small card, almost like a good Ichili market. This struck Fiyu as very honest, because otherwise the merchant could tell one price to one person and another price to another, which wasn't fair at all. Here, not only was the price of everything known in a simple currency called Silver Crowns, many of the vehicles were familiar to her, so she eagerly set about understanding the local market.

Though most sold wagons and carts, Fiyu passed by those as inadequate for their purposes. The minimally adequate sledge that could travel on rough Tatian ground cost roughly fifty Silver Crowns, depending on the exact style. Some were cheaply made and others covered in fanciful golden embossing, but she found well-crafted sledges for that price.

However, she thought that her companions wanted a vehicle that could carry them at speed, and without a beast of burden that would require food and care. The very smallest variety she discovered was a toboggan made with sublime materials that would hover, which cost over a thousand Silver Crowns. It was so small they would have to bunch together unacceptably close.

Beyond that, Deuxan seemed to favor more elaborate sleighs, which made her wonder if they could have snow in such a warm place. A floating sleigh with enough room for all of them would cost at least two thousand, with others that had offensive or shielding armaments available for up to five thousand. Fiyu discovered steadily more elaborate and expensive sleighs, but though the prices mounted from ten thousand Silver Crowns to twenty five thousand and even higher, she didn't understand why anyone would spend so much for no functional improvement.

"I suppose they're a status symbol here," Companion Nauda said as they looked at a particularly expensive sleigh. "Only a noble family could afford something this expensive."

Fiyu shook her head. "I do not understand why they would. They could purchase an equivalent vehicle of similar quality for a far smaller price."

"It's about proving their wealth, not function. You would never do something like this on Tatian, but they still have games of status. The quality sleighs are already too expensive for most, but those who can afford it want to prove even tiny differences between them."

"But we do not need to do that. I think that we could purchase an adequate sleigh for 2000 Silver Crowns. Do we have enough?"

Nauda gave her a strange look, then only some of her facial muscles shifted in an unusual smile. "Fiyu... even after selling what we don't need, we have about seven Silver Crowns. That's enough for food and lodging, not anything like this."

"Oh, I see." Though Fiyu was deeply disappointed, she struggled to find a smile to encourage Companion Nauda. "Now I understand why you have been seeking work at every location. Surely we could find employment as guards or demon hunters."

"We could do at least as well as other first tier soulcrafters, but everything is tied to community politics here. Some of the dangerous jobs require an Archcrafter and wouldn't even consider us. We would have more options if I ascended, but I don't want to risk destroying sublime materials in a failed attempt..."

"How long do you think it would take us to earn enough money by working normal jobs?"

"Half a year? Even more? Too long. Everyone seems to be talking about an upcoming hunt as a way to win money, but I don't know about the rules and it seems tied to these noble families. We might be able to earn more, but it could also draw us into further problems."

"Let us find a place to rest." Fiyu caught the edge of Companion Nauda's sleeve and this time pulled her into the terrible crowd. "We can restore ourselves, find Theo, and do some soulcrafting. Perhaps a better solution will become clear from a new vantage point."

Though Nauda's head shifted after her oddly, she responded with warm thanks and followed her. They left the sledge market and entered another one of the horribly packed streets, but at that moment Fiyu felt a gap in the density of the city. She sought it out and the space became clearer in her senses: a small circle of grass set apart from the rest of the city, with a bench for resting and even a tree for shade. Since it was unoccupied, she guided them toward it.

Fiyu was uncertain why all of the Deuxans were ignoring the empty bench, but they seemed very serious and determined to reach their next destinations. The important thing was that Companion Nauda sat down and the tense muscles in her body began to relax. It was also pleasantly shaded beneath the tree, but Fiyu would have braved even the Tatian sun if it helped her.

Before they could speak again, a small form moved toward them at high speed. Fiyu experienced a brief moment of alarm before the exact dimensions proved it to be Child Senka. The small being ran up to them carrying something, only to trip and fall directly on her face.

"Fenka ftho-" Child Senka spat out a cobblestone and triumphantly raised a filthy sack. "Senka found something!"

"What's this?" Companion Nauda took the cloth gingerly, but her distaste vanished when she began counting the rings of silver within. "This is... almost twenty five Silver Crowns. Where did you find this?"

"Senka found it in the city, silly gurfoop!"

"What I mean is: did you 'find' it in someone's pockets?"

Child Senka stared at them, utterly uncomprehending. It was possible that she had indeed stolen the coins, but Fiyu couldn't find it in herself to incriminate the child. Whatever world she came from, she radiated an aura of cheerful innocence that Fiyu found calming. For some reason, Companion Theo disliked her, but other than occasional noisiness, Fiyu enjoyed her presence.

"Do you think we need to do something about this?" Companion Nauda glanced over at Fiyu with a sour expression, already hiding the money in the cloth again. "Everyone takes offense so easily here, I could see this getting us into trouble."

"I do not think Senka has any great skill with theft," Fiyu said, "so perhaps she found coins that had fallen on the street."

"Senka did her best!"

No one appeared to be chasing her and the small space remained peaceful, so they eventually accepted the good fortune. Child Senka crawled onto one side of the bench and curled up to sleep, so Fiyu reached over to stroke her hair. It was said that children needed an unnatural amount of touch in their early years, so whatever her origin, perhaps she still required it.

Though Child Senka seemed to enjoy the touch, Fiyu noticed that she almost never embraced back. It made the childcare far less draining for her, but she wondered if something had happened in Child Senka's past to make her afraid of others. Occasionally when Fiyu's back was turned, she felt Senka's muscles shift to an uneasy wariness.

At the moment, however, everyone was at peace. Fiyu had been thinking about her soulhome during all their travels, so she drifted inside to continue her work. The only brute force work that remained was refining the exterior of the tower, so what she truly needed was insight to improve her inner chambers. She thought that she had a new...

She felt heavy footsteps of soulcrafters and left her soulhome immediately, ready to attack.

A group of eleven walked toward them: three Archcrafters, six first-tier soulcrafters, and two others. All wore Deuxan robes, though she noted visually that one appeared to be Tatian. The man who walked at the head of the group had a pair of gauntlets hanging around his neck, heavy enough to be an armament. Many of the others carried weapons, some at their side and some merely hard elements hidden within their clothes.

Though Fiyu did not consider herself an expert with expressions, she was fairly certain they were unhappy. One of the Archcrafters, a muscular man who shadowed the apparent leader, took a step toward them and struck the base of his pike on the ground.

"Are you seeking death? Why insult the Armeau family like this?"

Immediately Fiyu went completely still, only just preventing herself from slipping into her stealth technique. She was uncertain what the insult could possibly have been, but recognized that they had stumbled into a dangerous social situation. With no experience in this environment, she froze and hoped that Companion Nauda could guide them through.

"We meant no offense." Nauda rose to her feet, placed her staff in a nonchalant position, but her fingers remained tense, ready to wield it as a weapon. "I'm afraid I don't even understand what we've done to insult your family."

"You think a bench is just set in the middle of the city for anyone to sit on?"

Companion Nauda hesitated for just a moment, and Fiyu surmised that she had thought that too, since it seemed senseless to leave a resource unused. Though Companion Nauda was usually much swifter than Fiyu with such things, her moment of confusion was instantly set upon by the group, and it looked as though they would descend and tear her to social pieces.

Before they could, the leader of the group made a calming gesture. Unlike all of the others, his body was completely relaxed, with no outrage real or feigned in his muscles. "I'll forgive them this time, Delarde," Stranger Leader said. "They look like they're far from home, no doubt confused and weary. The Armeau family has enough surplus to be generous."

"You're fortunate." Stranger Delarde stepped back and returned his pike to his side, while Stranger Leader gave them an odd smile. Before he could say more, however, the one Tatian woman stepped up beside him.

"Being foreigners doesn't give them the right to take anything they want. My family would never have done such a thing, not even in our first days here." She focused on Companion Nauda, the muscles in her legs set to advance. "Be cautious, Esaire. If you don't watch them, Tatians will take everything."

"I'll remember your warning, but I don't think they mean any harm." Stranger Leader Esaire gave an expansive shrug that felt like a clearly practiced motion, though Fiyu was just happy that he seemed unlikely to initiate violence. "My father spent time on Ichil, and he said their dark world has little time for our niceties. No doubt the Ichili lady is simply very tired."

Fiyu nodded, but to her surprise Stranger Delarde growled at her. "So exhausted that she can't even hear?"

"I am tired, but not s-" Fiyu cut off as Companion Nauda tugged on her sleeve, pulling her up. Once on her feet, Fiyu felt the slight easing of tension and realized that they must have wanted her to get off the bench. She didn't think it was at all fair of them to have expected her to understand that, but remained silent.

"We've just arrived in your city," Companion Nauda said, "and we are still finding our way. Thank you for your understanding."

"It's no trouble at all. If Armeau isn't strong enough to welcome strangers, who is?" Stranger Leader Esaire gave them another smile, and there was some sort of tension, but Fiyu wasn't sure she understood it. "The two of you seem to be soulcrafters, so perhaps you might even join us in s-"

"That's her!" Abruptly the last Archcrafter in the group shoved a finger toward Nauda. "That's the Tatian who tried to stop me from completing my assignment!"

Fiyu flinched as she finally recognized him, remembering his anger on the road. Companion Nauda set her feet differently and several in the group of strangers shifted in response, but once again Stranger Leader Esaire raised a hand to hold them back. This time, it seemed that Stranger Delarde actively seethed at the command.

"No doubt only another misunderstanding, and as you said, they didn't stand in your way. Perhaps we should formally introduce ourselves and move past such problems." The leader gave a sweeping bow that sent the half-cape on his shoulder flaring. "My name is Esaire ai Armeau. And you are?"

Companion Nauda remained silent, but Fiyu felt certain that she understood this formula, so she spoke up. "My name is Fiyu ai Ichil. I did not mean to steal your bench."

"No trouble at all. And your companion?"

This time when Companion Nauda smiled, Fiyu felt the tiny ripples of smaller muscles moving as well. "My name is Nauda ai Tatian, and I-"

"Liar!" With that cry, the Tatian woman lashed out, flinging a wooden sphere directly at them. Companion Nauda knocked it aside with her staff, all relaxation vanishing, but they only stared at her as she fumed. "You have nothing to do with our family, and no right to claim otherwise!"

"I meant no offense, I only thought..."

"You knew exactly what you were doing, claiming to be part of our family. Just who sent you? They think they can undermine us after so long?"

Though forbearing tension had been building up in Companion Nauda's body, she now released some by stamping one sandal against the ground. "I don't know anything about your family! I may have misspoken, but I-"

"Hold." Stranger Leader Esaire raise a hand, immediately cutting off both of them. "Hauloe, is this really a matter of your honor? A duel is your right, if you want one, but this is your countrywoman... don't you have a more Tatian way of resolving your differences?"

Some of the others in the group laughed inexplicably. Stranger Hauloe immediately shifted her weight, though Fiyu thought that it was an affectation. She stepped beside Companion Nauda and swung her hip against the other woman, sliding an arm around her waist.

"I suppose we could. You said your name was Nauda? Perhaps you wanted to actually join our family?" She spoke with an excessively personal tone and many of the others laughed, despite a lack of apparent humor.

As Companion Nauda stiffened, Fiyu stared and wished that she could be certain how to act. Was this appropriate behavior? In her experience Tatians touched one another an alarming amount for all manner of reasons and this might be merely another case. She was already troubled and confused by the conversation and didn't want to make things any worse with further misunderstandings.

Yet other details couldn't allow her to relax. Though Companion Theo often touched Companion Nauda's back, when he did so, her muscles eased slightly, but now, her entire posture stiffened. There was also a sexual element to the touch that had never been present before, and though Fiyu was still young and the subject baffled her, she had very strong feelings about unwanted touch.

"Let go of her." Fiyu stepped forward, letting her hands fall to her sides.

"This has nothing to do with you, outsider." Adversary Hauloe sneered at her, but Companion Nauda took the moment to step out of her grip. The other Tatian woman cracked the knuckles of one hand and drew cantae from her soulhome. "If you feel so strongly about it, then I'll challenge you."

"Ha!" Adversary Delarde seemed to find the entire thing very funny and clapped his hands together vigorously. "Not the duel I expected, but I'll take it! Enough talking, let's settle this like civilized soulcrafters."

Fiyu took a deep breath and began to gather cantae, despite the odds, but to her surprise the whole group shifted to herd her in another direction. She had heard the word "duel" but still assumed that they would set upon them using their superior numbers. As they walked across the city, she remembered what Companion Theo had told them about concepts of honor on Deuxan.

It struck her as a strange tactic. Though Fiyu lacked Companion Nauda's ability to peer deeper into soulhomes, she thought herself an adequate judge at a glance. The Archcrafter they had confronted previously had a poorly-crafted soulhome, along with several of the others, but the Tatian woman and the other two Archcrafters felt formidable. Stranger Leader Esaire in particular possessed a soulhome with two full floors built from shining silver, an unbeatable opponent for any of them.

As they walked, Companion Nauda came up beside her, but Fiyu spoke first. "I am sorry, Nauda. I did not intend to cause offense and lead us to problems."

"It's not you, Fiyu. They came here looking for a fight and they just needed a justification. This Hauloe especially has something she needs to prove."

"This is to be... a duel? Like at Myufuru?"

"I'm not sure." Companion Nauda chewed her lower lip and looked around them as if desiring to escape the Deuxan group. "I wish Jake had gotten back first. He said that he needed to learn more about how duels work here. I guess we could have used that lesson too."

The use of Companion Theo's travel name reminded Fiyu that they had more than a simple fight at stake. Though their mysterious enemy no longer seemed to be looking for them, she knew that she needed to be careful. Use of her primary skill could cause damage that might offend the Deuxans further, so perhaps the best strategy would be to force her opponent from the ring.

Though the group of Deuxans laughed and jested on their journey, they didn't attempt to talk to Fiyu. She looked for allies, but only spotted Child Senka, who had hidden herself remarkably well on their arrival and now followed at a distance. It seemed that she would need to bear the burden of this duel alone.

Before Fiyu could grow comfortable with that idea, they arrived at their destination: another empty courtyard, this one marked by a circle inscribed on the ground. Because Adversary Hauloe moved to walk into the circle, Fiyu presumed that their duel would take place there. She followed but hesitated at the edge, looking to everyone watching.

"Does the duel end when one of us leaves the circle?"

She had hoped for Stranger Leader Esaire to answer, but Stranger Delarde laughed and spoke first. "Maybe on Ichil, but not here! No ring-outs."

On the other side of the circle, Adversary Hauloe cracked her knuckles again, gathering more cantae. "This isn't going to end until I feed you your own teeth."

Then the duel was to the death? Fiyu frowned at the abrupt brutality, but the jeering Deuxans around her forced her to step into the circle. If this was their custom, then she would obey it, even if it was cruel. After one more look at Companion Nauda, troubled and anxious, Fiyu resolved herself and focused on Enemy Hauloe.

Others had gathered around them, but Fiyu withdrew her senses, remaining alert only for attacks or major movements. This duel would require different tactics than she had first anticipated. Her opponent used cantae like a physical fighter, but she had shockingly little awareness of her surroundings, even compared to her non-Ichili companions.

"Come on!" Enemy Hauloe dropped into a fighting stance. "I'll let you have the first hit and then I'll-"

Fiyu spread her veil over herself, vanishing from sight and briefly shocking the audience. Enemy Hauloe jumped back in alarm, eyes darting over the ground to look for evidence of her movement, but the veil of stealth covered the ground beneath her feet as well and it would be over before she understood.

Stepping beside her enemy, Fiyu released the briefest burst of light she could manage. Her enemy's soulhome fortified her enough to endure the blast, but she flinched back. While she stumbled, Fiyu tackled her to the ground, driving a hand against her neck and drawing back her other hand, preparing a blade of cantae to finish the fight.

Several sensations struck Fiyu in succession. First, she heard a low whistle from home, warning her to stop immediately. Second, her expanding senses identified Companion Theo, standing in the crowd with his body tense with worry. Third, she saw that he was crossing his wrists, urging her not to strike. Fourth, her cantae faltered as she reconsidered her understanding.

The next moment, a fist collided with her jaw and Fiyu slid across the ground. She tasted blood in her mouth, though her teeth remained intact. Enemy Hauloe scrambled back to her feet, mostly unharmed but furious, raising her fists.

"Hold." Adversary Leader Esaire raised his hand again. "This is your win, Hauloe. She had a few nice tricks, but when it came down to it, she didn't have the taste for battle."

How could it be over? Fiyu stared in confusion at the Deuxan faces all around her, some laughing and mocking while a few looked puzzled.

"I expected that to be more interesting," Adversary Delarde said, unnecessarily loudly. "She had a real killer's stance at the beginning, didn't she? Almost like it was a barbarian fight to the death!"

His meaning was obvious and Fiyu whimpered as she fully understood. Their terrible words still troubled her, but it seemed that somehow they had never intended a duel to the death. She didn't understand why anyone would begin a fight and say cruel things if they didn't intend to kill, yet it seemed that this was only another layer of this awful society.

If not for Companion Theo, she would have killed a human being and potentially drawn down greater hatred upon them. That revelation, combined with the loud jeering around her, made Fiyu draw her legs closer to herself miserably. As soon as they noticed, the Deuxans laughed louder, and no matter how she tried to block them out, their laughter was too loud, and the city was too bright, and...

Companion Theo stepped in front of her.

Chapter 13

"So this is the great Armeau family?" Theo put his arms behind his back, projecting an air of confidence even though he didn't fully grasp the situation. He'd seen packs of young court nobles like this before and they preyed on weakness.

"We only happened to stumble across your companions." The leader - apparently Esaire - was the one to respond, because Theo had cast aspersions on the family name by implying their behavior was beneath them. "It was supposed to be a lighthearted duel, but I'm not sure the Ichili understood."

Many of the other Deuxans laughed, only Esaire understanding that Fiyu had been a split second away from killing her opponent. It looked like he wasn't the worst type of noble, but he had let the situation get this far out of hand, which suggested a casual cruelty that Theo found very familiar.

"Did you really let her in here without a clue how duels work?" The muscular Archcrafter who had been called Delarde stepped around him, grinning down at Fiyu. "If it had gone differently, does she even have the money to pay the bloodprice? Do you, girl?"

"I... I don't know what that is." Fiyu's voice was incredibly soft, and Theo knew that she needed support, but things could get a lot worse unless he kept control of the situation.

"What was that? I can't hear you!" Delarde reached down to grab at Fiyu, only to reel back as Nauda struck him across the wrist.

"You've had your fun." Nauda stepped up beside Theo, forming a wall in front of Fiyu, her cantae ready for a fight. "Just let us go in peace."

"Not after that." Delarde scowled and rubbed his wrist, though the blow wouldn't have done any real damage to an Archcrafter. That was no doubt laying the groundwork to begin another duel, so Theo struck first.

"We've obviously caused offense. In exchange for the injury to your wrist, one of your first tier soulcrafters can duel Nauda to surrender, then we can go our separate ways and never trouble you again."

"No! She tried to break my wrist, I want to fight her!"

"As an Archcrafter, that wouldn't exactly be honorable, would it? I'd heard better of the great Armeau family." It had been a solid strategy, but as the words left his lips, Theo realized that he had made a mistake. Esaire had been standing back, only mildly amused by the whole situation, but now his eyes hardened. Apparently that had been an insinuation too far.

"I don't believe I know you, stranger." Esaire spoke in an icy tone that froze the laughter in all his followers. "I don't think that you have the standing to be determining the terms of duels, not unless you're hiding your power."

Theo gave him a conciliatory smile. "Surely it's enough to be a guest in your city?"

"No. No, I don't think that it is. If none of you have standing to determine duels, perhaps..."

In the theatrical pause, Theo considered his options. The group of young nobles wanted a fight, so they couldn't be reasoned out of their fun. Since all three of them were base soulcrafters, they lacked certain formal protections, and while the bloodprice would shield them to some degree, Theo didn't want to count on that.

His remaining option was a show of force, which might draw attention. Theo didn't truly believe that Vistgil or the Landguards were tracking him, or that word of a minor skirmish in this city would travel far, but technically it would be an unnecessary risk. Part of him said that, no matter how unlikely, it would be better to sacrifice a little to leave the conflict...

But another part of him heard Fiyu whimper.

When Theo extended a hand to the Deuxan group, they sneered at him. A moment later he created a reverse gravitational field and the sneering stopped as they fell into the sky. He let them fall upward only briefly before he brought all three gravitational fields down on top of them, slamming them back to the ground at quadruple gravity.

Only Esaire managed to resist his field, though he looked startled. A cloak of blue cantae lit up around him, a reinforcement technique that required considerable soulcrafting. Delarde and the Tatian woman managed to catch themselves as they struck the ground, but the entire rest of the group went sprawling, some of them still lying stunned. Theo lowered his hand and stared the leader in the eyes.

Though Esaire wasn't sure if Theo was an Archcrafter, the doubt had been raised in his mind. Arrogant as he might be, he wasn't about to risk his life challenging an opponent who might have a shield wall hiding ascensions. So Theo just remained silent, letting his opponent regain some dignity.

As they did so, Theo looked them over more carefully. The leader of the group had high cheekbones, classically ivory Deuxan skin, and hair cut to be stylistically shaggy. Though he didn't emphasize his badge, his robes and the purple sash over the top spoke of his wealth. The musclebound one called Delarde looked possibly related, and the belt that mirrored Esaire's sash suggested they were allies, so perhaps a family ally. None of the others particularly stuck out to him, just more Deuxan courtiers.

"We need a duel to resolve the insults we've suffered," Esaire finally said, "but you're quite right. The Armeau family has been ungracious hosts today, forgetting the weaknesses of foreigners. Let's resolve things with a simple duel... one first tier soulcrafter against yours, to simple surrender."

Though Delarde didn't look happy about that, he retreated when Esaire glanced at him. Nauda remained where she stood, glaring back at them. It looked as though Hauloe wanted to tear her eyes out, but fighting again would reflect poorly on her. Theo had forgotten that detail... dueling occasionally was considered the height of culture, but too many duels rendered one a brute.

So in the end, a young Deuxan woman was chosen to step into the circle. She wasn't a nominal soulcrafter, judging from her reasonably built soulhome. Nauda knelt to pull her pack off her shoulders, shooting a glance at Theo, so he bent down beside her.

"Will a duel really get us out of this?" she whispered. "I... don't think I like this place."

"I think they'll stick to the terms. Just win without seriously injuring her."

Though a hard glint emerged in Nauda's eyes as she rose, Theo thought he could trust her to handle the situation effectively. After seeing Fiyu fight, he didn't doubt that he could trust her in a different way, but he needed to be careful, or she'd be a liability to herself and others.

Nauda walked into the circle carrying her staff in one hand and the broken fork from her old armament in the other. It got a few odd looks, and the other Tatian woman tried to mock it, but the group was too shaken up for laughter. Esaire glanced at Theo, who simply nodded to defer back to him, then he signaled the start of the match.

Immediately the Deuxan woman drew a narrow sword and lunged forward, aiming to finish the battle in a single thrust. Nauda deflected it with one end of her staff, then shoved the other end of her weapon at her opponent's face. It missed... but the other woman froze, bound by Nauda's technique.

Yet Theo instantly knew that things weren't quite right. Nauda could bind people in place powerfully - he'd felt it himself in training - but she must be struggling to use the technique with the new staff, because her opponent was working her way free. The Deuxan woman flooded more cantae through her body and whipped her sword up again.

She should have retreated. Nauda bashed the weapon aside with her staff and then thrust with the broken fork, directly at her opponent's neck. This time, the woman froze in place, and Nauda didn't let up, driving her opponent back to the ground and pinning her with the tines of the fork around her neck.

"Enough of this!" Delarde struck from the side, and though Theo started to raise a hand, he wasn't fast enough to keep up with an Archcrafter.

When Delarde's fist struck Nauda's arm, the loud crack left no doubt that something had broken. But though Nauda grimaced in pain and her staff clattered to the ground, her other hand remained firm, gripping the fork around the fallen woman's neck. She briefly glanced toward Theo, but returned to staring at Delarde, who looked frustrated that she hadn't collapsed.

"Take the bloodprice for your arm." He reached into his cloak and tossed a small sack onto the ground, then snorted and turned away. "This isn't worth my time."

Silence stretched over the group, laughter now long gone. Theo forced a careless grin and glanced over to Esaire. "That makes one victory and one loss for each of us. I'd say that's a good enough day, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, perhaps so." Esaire glanced at Nauda more thoughtfully, but his gaze soon returned to Theo. "It seems that foreign Tatians are formidable, if a bit rough around the edges."

Before he could say any more, Hauloe moved up beside him and pulled him away. "Just a barbarian, Esaire. Come this way and don't give her another thought..."

Esaire resisted her efforts to pull him, still focused on Theo. "What's your name, stranger?"

"Bartolo aina Fithe." Theo gave a sharp bow, though the Fithan military stance was probably wasted on them. "We don't plan to stay in your city long, so forgive us if we take our victory and avoid a rematch." That should have been an olive branch, letting their family salvage plenty of respect, but Esaire shook his head.

"Oh, that's a pity." He gave a theatrical shrug, but its intention was obvious. "You see, the Armeau family is always looking for talented outsiders to assist us in the great hunt. If fate leaves you in Anguedan longer than you expect... perhaps we'll meet again."

With that, he gestured to his group and led them away. Some of them were limping and their good mood was broken, but Theo couldn't feel that it was a victory. He'd exposed himself to attention, Nauda had a broken arm, and Fiyu still huddled unhappily behind them. Even if he'd consciously chosen to make what might have been a minor mistake, it didn't feel good.

"Well, this could be a problem." Nauda gingerly tested her hanging arm and winced. "We can splint it, but I don't know if we can afford a healer."

"That's what the bloodprice is for." Theo walked over and reached down to the sack, testing the weight. It seemed to contain more than the price he'd been given for an arm, no doubt as a token of scorn.

"What is that?" Fiyu finally looked up, and though she was far from happy, he thought that she had recovered from her shock.

"On Deuxan, soulcrafters can duel to the death, but there are monetary penalties for injuring or killing anyone of a lower tier, increasing with the distance between them. An Archcrafter breaking a first tier's arm is a small sum, but it would be far more to break the arm of an ordinary person. Each country and city has slightly different laws and specific bloodprices, but they all have some, otherwise too many people would end up dead."

"I understand now." Fiyu rose to her feet, but remained some distance from them, probably wanting pure isolation. Meanwhile, Nauda walked closer with a grim expression.

"But there's just a price? That means if a family is wealthy enough, they can just... pay to kill someone? Are there no laws?"

"Beyond what's agreed upon in a region, there are only courts and disputes. Technically any peasant can bring a case against the most powerful of families, but you can imagine how effective that actually is in practice. Their best defense is that the world needs them to grow food and maintain everything."

Nauda snorted and shook her hair as if she could shake off the encounter. "Come on, let's find a place to rest. Before we step on someone's beloved cobblestone and begin a feud lasting a thousand generations."

As they carefully made their way to an inn, Theo got the full story from them. He was able to piece together several other details as well, such as that the local Tatian family was trying to acquire legitimacy from the Armeau family. There had been no warmth between Esaire and Hauloe, but that meant nothing; it could just as easily be a courtship or a simple alliance. With a few exceptions like Brigana, Deuxan wasn't a very passionate place.

"What about the name?" Nauda finally asked. "I introduced myself as from Tatian and that was what really made her angry. Was that just an excuse?"

"I'm guessing you said 'Nauda ai Tatian' when you should have said 'Nauda aina Tatian'." He paused for a moment, since the words had automatically come out correctly and he needed to focus to control the soul translation. "The first one means a specific family, and the local Tatians seem to have taken the entire world for their name. If you say 'aina' it just means you're from a location without claiming a family."

"One syllable?" Nauda stared at him, believing and wishing that she didn't. "We got into a fight and people almost died over one syllable?"

"Welcome to Deuxan."

Though Theo said it carelessly, as they continued to their hostel, he found his steps coming heavier and heavier. It felt like so long ago that he had first visited Deuxan and learned all of their complex rules. At the time, it had been a whirlwind of court politics and duels, striking against rivals and eventually earning Brigana as an ally. Throughout his time on Tatian, part of him had been looking forward to reaching a more complicated world.

Now that he was in a Deuxan court, it all seemed petty and childish. He knew this might not be the end, and they needed to prepare, but all Theo could think about was what this meant for him. One world at a time, the joy seemed to be draining out of his return...

Chapter 14

Theo returned to the inn bearing some food in his arms and many issues in his mind. Though he remained alert for potential retaliation or further feuds, in the morning before the sun rose, the streets of Anguedan were mostly empty. He remembered most Deuxan courts held events late into the night, and rising early was unfashionable, so he thought it was the safest time to do errands.

Unfortunately, he wasn't early enough to avoid Senka, who now trotted at his heels. "Hey. Hey. Hey, what do ya got there? Is it for Senka?"

"No." He pulled up the sack just before she managed to latch onto it, leaving her flailing in the air. "If you want us to feed you, you need to be useless less often."

"Senka can't fight a bunch of big fumpets!"

It was true, but he wasn't in the mood for nuance that morning. Theo growled low in his throat and walked faster, but despite her tiny legs she managed to keep up.

"Hey. Hey, how'd you make all the fumpets float? That was sporping neat!"

"Who are you again?"

"Senka is Senka!"

"Right. I made them float by making them float."

"Hey!" Senka tried to run after him, but as soon as they got off the street he neutralized her gravity and left her flipping awkwardly in the air. The field would wear off before she drifted too far, and by that time he could be inside their room with the door closed. Probably the windows too, and he should check for any cracks she might squeeze into.

Inside, he found Nauda sleeping, her arm positioned very carefully in its sling. Fiyu sat on the other bed with a blanket partially over her, somber but not obviously miserable. He should have known that she would be awake, given that this time of day was most pleasant for her.

"Are you alright?" He barely whispered as he handed her a piece of Deuxan bread. She took it with both hands and nibbled a little before answering.

"I am well, Theo. You do not need to protect me."

Theo carefully sat down on the bed beside her, keeping his eyes on the small sliver of the city they could see through the window. "I wish that I could do more. Perhaps we could improve your window so that sounds aren't so traumatic for you."

"The flaw wasn't in the technique." Fiyu chewed for a while before swallowing and speaking even more quietly. "I wasn't prepared for them to say such things. I would only speak that way to someone I truly hated, or during a war. If they truly use such words every day here..."

"I'm sorry to tell you, but I'm afraid your world is the odd one out. In most places I've visited, people aren't nearly so cautious with their words."

Because Fiyu simply nodded and returned to eating, he stood up and moved to an empty corner of the room to soulcraft. She seemed to be fine, she just needed more time to digest the experience. He hadn't expected it to be so traumatic for her, but he realized that the other Ichili he knew had been at least somewhat familiar with other worlds. Fiyu was being thrown into alien environments with a powerful soulhome and no social preparation whatsoever.

Though he set to work carving the walls of his torsion chamber, Theo's thoughts shifted to his core and overall soulhome design. His gravitational fields were effective, but still extremely limited compared to what he hoped to soulcraft. The problem was that gravity simply wasn't a very powerful force, not at the levels of power he could generate. No matter his skill, first tier soulcrafters couldn't create massive effects in reality.

Over time, he'd feed more sublime materials into his singularity and ascend to more intense cantae, but those weren't effective options in the short term. No, he needed to refine his basic design in a way that would ascend along with him in the future.

As he worked, he slowly came to the realization that he hadn't entirely overcome the ideas of his old soulhome blueprint. Many were relatively simple: one room for a fireball, another room for ice, one room to create a bigger fireball. But if his core concept was gravity, then it might be wrong to focus on specific techniques: he needed to create conceptual components that could be used together for other skills. They might be weaker in the short term, but when he connected those first floor rooms to the second tier, they'd create truly formidable techniques.

Thinking about his technique chambers as components entirely shifted his thinking, so he left the torsion room behind and moved to the new anti-gravity chamber. Anti-gravity... or perhaps the creation of "anti-mass". If he soulcrafted a fourth chamber that created normal mass, the combination of the two might have a stronger effect even at his first tier.

And if he did that, then he should think about his gravitational fields as enhancing or inverting gravity, while his torsion room would be manipulating its direction. Mass, anti-mass, intensity, and direction... between those four, he might actually gain a handle on an elemental force.

He'd only taken a chunk out of the soulcrafting he had to do before Nauda finally woke up. Though she gratefully accepted food from Fiyu, the look in her eyes suggested that she didn't want a leisurely breakfast. Theo finished the ridge he was working on and returned to the real world to face them.

"I know yesterday was difficult," Theo began, "but I still think remaining here is our best option for moving forward. According to my information, there are no other gates within months of travel. Nauda's gate to a hub city is still our best goal, and to get there, we need transportation."

"I don't disagree." Nauda's arm flinched as she sat forward, but she didn't let the pain reach her face. "I just want to plan better so we don't keep running into these problems."

"I can try to tell you more about Deuxan, especially now that I've learned all the local customs. But if we stay here, it's inevitable that we're going to be challenged to duels. The local court has a lot of young soulcrafters and they're eager to test themselves."

"We have 117 Silver Crowns." Fiyu raised a dark sack, having apparently gathered all the money he hadn't taken with him. "But we need over 2000 to purchase a high quality sleigh. How long would it take us to earn that much money?"

"It depends on how much work we can find," Nauda said. "The best jobs are only available to Archcrafters, even though they don't sound overly dangerous for us. If I can ascend, maybe I can take the two of you along with me."

"That would help... but we have expenses. How much is this inn?"

"It's worse than that." Theo gestured at Nauda's arm. "We'll need to pay for a healer so you can be useful, and that probably won't be the last time we need healing. In addition, we'll need sublime materials and other supplies. As I see it, we can sprint to cheap transport as quickly as possible, or build a stronger foundation and set our time schedule far back."

"I do not like this place," Fiyu offered. Nauda looked more thoughtful, then stretched her broken arm with a wince before speaking.

"I don't think there's any point hurrying into danger. No matter where we go, even Tatian, there will be people trying to use their strength against us. So I don't mind building for the long term... but I don't want to get enmeshed in the court politics here, much less end up staying here long term. I'm worried that the more we invest, the deeper we'll dig in here."

That was what Theo had been hoping, so he decided to cut in with his plan. "I propose a calculated risk. It might seem like a bit of a gamble, but by far our greatest chance for profit is the upcoming hunt, which is taking place in four months. For that time, we prepare ourselves for the hunt and future challenges as well as possible, then we acquire the money we need during the event."

Nauda frowned but didn't reject the idea out of hand. "The hunt isn't a noble event that will just get us embroiled in more conflicts?"

"It's a major cultural event, so I skipped the courts entirely and just asked the normal people. Apparently, throughout the year hunting any of the rainhorns is punishable by death, even as their population increases and they eat crops. But eventually, the court announces the Great Rainhorn Hunt, and for a short time, killing them is permissible."

"The rainhorn could see us, but it wasn't strong." Fiyu looked between them, a bit of interest in her eyes. "I think we could hunt them effectively, but would opponents stand in our way?"

"Some, without question. You see, the number and quality of antlers that each house can collect during the hunt is a major part of their prestige in the coming year, and they use the antlers for their young soulcrafters. Technically anyone can take them... but it's far more profitable for independent soulcrafters to sell the antlers to houses. They're just sublime materials to us, but the houses are buying respect. It's actually like a second layer of the competition: which houses have the connections and wealth to purchase the most."

"I'm sure the numbers work out," Nauda said carefully, "but I don't like it politically. We might be able to earn money that way, but what if the houses decide to turn on us and just steal whatever we hunted?"

"It would be a scandal, but it's not impossible. That's why I suggest we do everything we can to prepare." Theo smiled and looked between them. "Remember, everyone will be watching. At times like these, every court family will be looking to insult their rivals, not kill them. If they do make any moves, it will most likely be kidnapping opposing soulcrafters for ransom."

Nauda stared at him for a time, then finally nodded. "The risk might be worth it. But I think you need to start telling us everything we've learned, starting with these bloodprices. If those are the rules they play by, I want to know exactly how much it would cost them to kill me."

Since the system was similar to his last visit, Theo had easily memorized the new bloodprices in a mental table and now recounted them to the others. Along the way, he did his best to explain every intricacy of Deuxan society that seemed to hold true, particularly ways to cause offense and the rules of dueling. He'd thought his first lesson had been sufficient, but he'd clearly been wrong.

"This is a violent world." When at last he finished all his explanations, Fiyu spoke her conclusion with quiet confidence. "Why do they not invade Tatian?"

"Because Tatian has a bigger army." Nauda sat back and gave a smile with an unpleasant edge. "Deuxan is broken into countless factions - even this city is split into numerous families that hate each other. If one of them tried to invade through the gate, they'd face the combined forces of all nearby cities. Even if they managed to make an alliance between every family, they'd only draw down the Landguard."

"I see." Fiyu bobbed her head, receiving this information without any apparent emotion.

"They might be violent, but they waste most of their strength against themselves, and these noble families only get in the way. On Tatian, every child with talent is given a chance to reach their potential, no matter if they're in a 'noble' family or not."

Though she was right, and Tatian's armies were often underestimated by those who didn't understand them, Theo disliked self-aggrandizement for any world and decided to speak up. "But it isn't because Deuxans are foolish: both worlds are just reacting logically to their environment. Tatian has abundant sublime materials for early soulcrafters, so they can afford to be generous at the early tiers. If Tatians grew up on Deuxan, they'd create a similar system when they realized there wasn't enough to go around."

That earned a sharp glance from Nauda. "That's your wisdom, oh ancient one? You think everybody is all the same in the end?"

"Of course they're not the same. But I think those differences emerge because we're all shaped by our environments. Some things in life might be random and meaningless, but if you assume they are, you'll miss whatever patterns are there."

Fiyu looked back and forth between them, anticipating further discussion, but Nauda just shook her head. She eased her legs up onto the bed beside her and found a more comfortable position. "We can argue the philosophy later. If we're going to end up competing with those courts in the hunt, then we need to do everything we can to prepare."

"Starting with getting that arm healed so you can help us work." Theo rose to his feet, but to his surprise, Nauda shook her head.

"Spending money on a healer is a waste, especially if sublime materials will be expensive here. The broken arm won't hinder my ascension, will it?"

"No, it's about the strength of your soul. But the process isn't going to entirely heal your body, so don't expect a miraculous-"

"It doesn't matter." Nauda clenched the fist on her broken arm. "I've waited long enough. It's time to ascend to Archcrafter."

Chapter 15

Nauda sat atop the roof of her soulhome, tying branches together more tightly, but in her heart she knew that she was stalling for time. The truth she didn't want to admit was that she was scared of trying to ascend and failing. She had a solid understanding of soulcrafting, but this step was something that she had never been in a position to experience.

She'd had a foolproof plan back in Myufuru, but that was no longer an option. If she'd had enough time and resources, she could have built her pyramid atop her soulhome all the way to the sky. Now it stood partially finished, providing a platform to build a bit higher and little else. There was a chance that the incomplete construction would interfere in some way, so she'd covered the pyramid with shingles she'd soulcrafted from a thick Deuxan leaf, a weak sublime material that she hoped would still help. On top of the shingles, she'd been steadily building her tower of crossed sticks, a square of decreasing size climbing toward her limits overhead.

Deciding that she should make it a little higher, Nauda gathered several of the remaining sticks and began to ascend up the side, using the branches like rungs on a ladder. She'd tested it before, and knew that it would hold her weight, but as she drew nearer the sky, her body began to tremble as the air itself pushed back against her. Her tower creaked and groaned, making her nervous despite all her earlier testing that the springiness of the branches could absorb the stress.

At the top, she could barely breathe and the air closed around her like a fist. Everywhere else, she felt comfortable in her soulhome, but here the heavens denied her. She longed to throw herself up against the pressure, to tear through and ascend to Archcrafter. It would help her arm heal and improve their position in a single stroke.

Yet... if she failed...

Once, Nauda had used her telescope to watch a soulcrafter ascend, only to witness him fail instead. He'd built a ladder of tough wood and braced it heavily, actually a more durable creation than her tower. Yet when he'd climbed to the top, he'd struggled against the pressure and been repelled, the recoiling power smashing his ladder to pieces and damaging his soulhome.

She couldn't afford that: these branches had been bought with the last of their money on Tatian, and sublime materials were even more difficult to obtain here. While in Myufuru, she'd sought out books on ascension, so intellectually she knew that it was possible to fail without destroying one's progress. Besides, the ascension itself depended partially on willpower, and she would let nothing stop her.

Grimly imagining the consequences if she failed, Nauda placed another branch in place at the top and began tying it to those below. The sky pressed against her skin so fiercely she felt as though it would begin shredding away, and she thought she was about at her limit. She managed to build another layer of branches, but just raising her arms above the top took immense effort.

When she crawled back down, she just lay on the roof of her soulhome for a while, catching her breath. Her body was sitting calmly, relaxed and unstressed, but her spirit was sorely tested. Could that inhibit a potential ascension? Some of the books she'd discovered suggested that willpower alone would be sufficient for the first barrier, but she wasn't sure how much she was willing to gamble on that.

"Nauda?" Theo's voice came to her from the real world, but instead of trying to attract her attention, he only put a hand on her knee. She allowed him to enter, his blurry spirit soon appearing in the field outside her soulhome and floating up to her.

"I'm doing the best I can," she said. Yet she didn't see a driven or impatient look in his eyes, and he just sat down beside her, as well as his spirit could sit.

"Now that I think about it, my first ascension wasn't fair at all. I'd been sponsored by a mentor who gave me endless sublime resources, so I was free to try as many times as I needed. Looking back, I was probably rushing too much."

"This... is the right decision, isn't it? I won't be permanently weakened by not soulcrafting more of my first tier first?"

"I don't think so." Theo glanced down, almost as if he could see through the roof to the locked chamber where her treasures lay. "If you break through, the pressure will flow down and infuse everything you've built so far. You might have to do more work later when you add or change things, but in the end if you keep ascending, it won't make a difference. If you have an advantage at Archcrafter, you should seek it out."

That was a small comfort, since some on Tatian seemed to suggest that the tiniest misstep at any tier would forever condemn a soulhome to inferiority. It was strange to think of Theo as so knowledgeable, given his youthful appearance, but she did trust him as far as soulcrafting went.

"Would you like a suggestion I learned only much later, as an Authority?"

When she nodded, Theo went on, staring skyward.

"It's impossible to ascend a bit at a time, but you can weaken the barrier a little. After a serious failed attempt, it will be weaker for part of a day, which is why secondary attempts often succeed. The pressure restores itself faster the less you push against it, but it's not instantaneous. So you can make a softening push, rest a little, then try to ascend before it recovers."

"Huh." Nauda finally sat up, trying to capture his gaze despite the haziness of his spirit. "I don't suppose you have any amazing tricks that let you just punch through the sky for me?"

"I'm just an observer." He ran his insubstantial hand through the tower, wisps of spirit escaping into the air. "It actually is possible to join someone in their soulhome, but only at higher tiers. That was something I never fully understood, in my previous life, so I need to study it more. I'll help you when I can, but there are no shortcuts, at least not shortcuts you'd want to take."

"I... thank you, Theo." She smiled at him, and she thought he smiled back, but his spirit blurred away to give her privacy.

Though she felt flush with confidence, Nauda remembered what she had to lose and remained cautious. For the rest of that day, she wandered through her soulhome, setting everything aright and making a few final modifications she'd been thinking about. That night, she slept deeply, ate a good breakfast, and then prepared.

She soulcrafted normally until Fiyu and Theo left: as much as she valued them, she needed to do this alone. After meditating to center her mind, Nauda slipped into her soulhome. On an abrupt impulse, she opened her locked chamber and brought out the Archcrafter materials that she'd been storing for so long. Crushing her final doubts, she promised the materials that she would be back for them.

On the roof, she began climbing up the side of the tower, gritting her teeth as she pushed into the sky. She was carrying nothing this time, only striving to fight through. When she reached the top, she made herself reach upward, even though the bones on her hand began to ache. Yet she could feel the barrier giving way, so close...

The sky pushed back against her and she tumbled down the side, hitting the roof painfully. Air flowed down after her, but it wasn't a torrent that could destroy what she'd built. That had been the first test, like Theo advised, and she could feel that she had pushed the sky back slightly.

Though she'd planned to rest between attempts, Nauda found herself climbing the side of her tower again, this time determined to throw her full will into it. When she reached the top, the pressure felt even more intense than before, but she told herself that she could break through to the other side. Gritting her teeth against the wind, Nauda slowly climbed to the very top, bracing her feet and centering herself crouched above the tower.

There she stopped, the pressure slamming down against her like endless spiritual hammers. Nauda took a deep breath and began draining all the cantae in her soulhome, drawing it up not just through her tower, but into her body. Her bones ached and her mouth opened in a silent scream, but she slowly forced herself to rise to her full height.

A shudder went through the sky, but she remained firm, pressing upwards with all her might. She was equal to the task, just a little further...

Another shudder sent a wave of intense pressure down over her and she heard something clatter. Despite herself, Nauda looked down and saw in horror that the wind flooded down over her soulhome, sending shingles flying in all directions, shredding some of them in the air. The tower itself had begun to collapse, ties coming undone and branches beginning to break.

For a moment she felt a flicker of horror... but that reminded her of what she was doing. She wasn't building into the sky or unlocking new space within her soul, she was creating a new tier of her soulhome with her cantae and willpower.

After coming this far, Nauda wasn't about to give up. She let out a cry and drew all her remaining cantae into her soul, flinging herself against the heavens.

In a single instant, the agonizing pressure snapped, bending inward. New cantae flooded from the sky, but instead of battering her body, it rushed through her, filling her with a rapturous strength before engulfing her soulhome.

Her tower had been scattered to pieces, but it didn't matter: the whirlwind of cantae bore her to the roof gently, her soulhome once again her home at the heart of herself. What took her breath away was the intensity of her cantae, flowing more thickly than it ever had before. The flood that came with her ascension filled up the space she had emptied, and though the size of her soulhome hadn't increased, she felt far stronger than before, each of her chambers newly empowered.

Yet that wasn't even the true bounty: when Nauda looked upward, she no longer felt the sky pressing back against her. The roof of her soulhome was no longer her limit, it was just a platform for her to soulcraft even higher. She'd need to get rid of the damaged pyramid base, but that was a trivial detail she could handle later.

Sliding back into the real world, Nauda found herself laughing breathlessly. She felt a brief pang when she realized she was alone, now wishing that she could have shared the moment with the others, but it was swept away in the euphoria. Her body felt incredible, every inch of her newly alive, and she couldn't resist hopping to her feet. Though her arm wasn't miraculously restored, it felt deeply right, as if it was well on its way to a full recovery.

Though Nauda felt like testing out her familiar techniques with her new cantae, she realized that she wanted to share that, at least, with the others. She was astonished at how little the sun had moved: it had felt like an eternity fighting against the pressure inside herself.

Since the others weren't likely to return soon, Nauda drifted back into herself, not bothering to sit down. She tried to push back the giddiness, acknowledging that many tiers remained above her and there was still a great deal of work to do. These efforts were much less successful than her effort to ascend.

The shingles had been wrecked, but she saw now that they were unnecessary, just a small step on her way upward. Nauda examined her soulhome carefully, noting a few cracks in the boards and other minor damage she would need to repair. Nothing but details, and in fact she was glad that the damage had shown her minor flaws that she could now improve.

Within, the Archcrafter sublime materials no longer felt like dangerous risks: they resonated with the rest of her soulhome. Nauda smiled and set to work.

Chapter 16

With a goal in mind, Theo dedicated himself to maximizing efficiency. Quickly earning enough money for a proper vehicle wasn't possible with just hard work, but aiming to prepare for the hunt, with all their advantages? Entirely different problem.

They'd left the inn almost immediately to conserve money, and it had been unnecessary luxury as soon as Nauda recovered anyway. Instead they slept in cheap tents outside, which also helped them get more used to the environment. Nauda had seemed a little discomforted at first, since she'd expected them to all crowd into one tent for warmth, but that was obviously not Fiyu's expectation, and she'd eventually accepted it.

Nauda herself was the cornerstone of several points of strategy. Soulcrafters were too common for Deuxan society to give them any real respect, but as an Archcrafter she could get them access to better work than menial labor. In truth, she did little of the work, since she needed to spend her time soulcrafting new rooms on her second floor, which was fine since Theo and Fiyu could handle the actual tasks. All they'd really needed was the proper credentials.

He and Nauda had just returned from a long guard assignment that had lasted several days, less action than standing around as soulcrafters and discouraging others. One of the smaller families intended to build a hunting lodge and needed guards to prevent targeting by their rivals. It didn't pay as well as some others, but the benefit was that they had significant time to soulcraft during the job.

"I don't like this." There was no real emotion in Nauda's voice, but the way she spoke heavily while staring into the forests was worse.

"This job? It might not have been the most profitable, but I thought it was a good use of time."

"Not this in particular, the whole system and how we interact with it. What we're doing." She rubbed her eyes with one hand as they continued walking. "Most of what we've done hasn't helped anyone, just shuffled a bit of money around. The court jobs are the worst, just playing meaningless politics."

"But it pays well, and it's mostly harmless." Theo wasn't sure he wanted another long discussion, but she seemed honestly troubled by her thoughts. "If you're looking to fundamentally change Deuxan society, or improve the world, that's just not going to happen with our current resources."

"I'm not saying that I have an alternative, I'm just saying I don't like it. Though... what would you say to a dangerous job, if it paid reasonably well?"

Theo shrugged. "If it's a simple threat we can survive, then the danger is just another benefit, because we need an opportunity to test our new soulcrafting. If you mean getting involved with the court, then I don't think that's worth it."

"Actually, it's the exact opposite." Nauda finally gave him a bit of a smile, though the heaviness in her voice didn't lift. "Apparently there's a town some distance from Anguedan that has a demon problem. There was an incursion a year or two ago that the court didn't quite finish squashing. Somehow several of the demons sacrificed themselves, so the second stage demon is hurting the villagers. They've put up a reward, but it's not enough to attract soulcrafters from any of the prominent families."

"Did they say what breed of demon it was?"

"The rumors say that it's beast-like, something like a large wolf."

"Then there's a good chance we can't kill it." The exact differences between demonic stages varied, but Theo had strong memories of his first encounter with a bear-like demon. "The beast-like demons are tough to start, and their second stage can be so powerful that it takes a Ruler to put them down. Even with the three of us combined and solid tactics, it probably wouldn't be enough."

"If it was really stronger than Archcrafters, it would have destroyed the village, wouldn't it? I'm not saying that it's harmless, but I think it can't be that dangerous. Just a threat that's fallen between the cracks, and something that we can do to help."

Seeing that she wasn't going to back down easily, Theo switched to a different strategy. "There's probably no harm in investigating, but we're not ready yet. You're still building up your second floor, and we have chambers in progress. Once we have that sorted out, then maybe we stand a chance."

"Well..." Nauda eventually shrugged and returned to her normal self. "If the courts haven't dealt with it for years, I suppose the villagers can survive a little longer."

When they returned to camp, they found Fiyu soulcrafting as usual. What wasn't so usual was that she stopped and hopped to her feet, lifting a bag to show them.

"Welcome back! While you were gone, Senka and I completed a difficult job!"

"What is it?" Theo glanced inside the bag and saw that it contained a large number of silver flowers. The first thing he noticed was that they weren't sublime materials at all, which puzzled him. They might once have been beautiful, but these had been jammed together in the sack and were now just a crumpled mass. "Are these valuable? I'm not feeling any cantae from them."

"They're not for soulcrafters, Theo." Nauda picked up one and examined it with satisfaction. "When properly squeezed, these flowers produce the silver dye they use in so many of their robes here."

"Everybody is wearing them, so how valuable can they be?"

Fiyu shook her head and pulled the sack closed. "The larger families have protected fields of flowers to produce the dye, but smaller families do not. This makes it very difficult for them to afford the type of clothes that everyone likes here, and they must wear less silver clothes. Though... I do not see much of a difference."

"Doesn't matter so long as they're willing to pay a premium for these." Theo took the sack from her, since he knew that she wouldn't want to go into the city to deliver them herself. "But I imagine they're rare in the wild, so how did you find them?"

"That is where Senka was helpful. She was able to locate small clusters of them, but now she is very tired. I am speaking quietly so we don't wake her."

Theo rolled his eyes. "Yes, let's make sure not to wake her. So that she can sleep, and not for any other reason."

"Oh, come off it. She's earning her keep." Nauda rapped him on the shoulder as she passed to grab a few things from camp. "We're going to go get paid for our work, Fiyu, are you sure that you don't want to come?"

"No. I am fine here." Fiyu sat back down in her tent, quite evidently happy to be away from the city.

"Then do you want us to buy any sublime materials for you?"

"I am working on soulcrafting the mirrorbark into reflective plates. I believe I could fashion even finer surfaces, but I am still learning how to work with them."

It wasn't the first time they'd had essentially the same conversation, and it wouldn't be the last. Theo grabbed some food from his tent and chewed it while he followed Nauda toward the city. Having Fiyu remain at camp was logical, both because she preferred it and because she could render it invisible to most. Meanwhile, he and Nauda could pool their skills and credentials in Anguedan.

By now, they worked together smoothly, delivering results and accepting payments without drawing too far apart, in case of a duel challenge. The flowers that Fiyu had gathered turned out to pay extremely well, worth over 100 Silver Crowns. Meanwhile, their token guarding earned them only 20, most of that to Nauda due to her rank. Not that it mattered, since they pooled their resources to try to maximize their strength for the hunt anyway.

As they walked away, Nauda rubbed a small badge emblem between her fingers. "Another one of these. Is this family's esteem worth anything?"

"It's not a major enough family, and we don't want to announce our allegiance to anyone. People are giving them to us more to recruit us than as payment. Any cantae?"

"Barely any." Nauda tossed it to him carelessly and he caught it in his palm. "The sublime materials used to make these are almost worthless, so I don't know why they bother."

Many of their jobs had given them emblems fashioned from weak sublime materials, which proved to be a major part of local soulcrafter politics. Since Fiyu said she didn't need them and Nauda scorned the concept, Theo had been taking them all for a temporary room. "In case you haven't noticed, they like ranks here. But most of their soulcrafters don't work fast enough to ascend, so they have all these emblems and trinkets to make them feel like they're advancing."

"You've seen this before?"

"Anguedan seems to like them a lot more than other Deuxan cities I've visited, but yeah. In other places, some are actually quite valuable. For example, a major court or family will give you a sublime material with their sigil, which generates a reasonable amount of cantae and also marks your soulhome so you get special treatment at the establishments they own."

"Huh." As little as she liked Deuxan, Nauda did consider that carefully instead of dismissing it. "I can see the value, but I'm guessing we're not getting any benefits like that here?"

"Probably not." Theo crushed the weak metal in his palm and it slipped into his soulhome. He'd put it with the others later, but for now he had higher priorities.

They returned to one of the city's primary markets for sublime materials. For the most part, it was just an errand now, Nauda picking up more sublime stone to craft new chambers. Many soulcrafters preferred that their primary building materials come solely from their home world, or even tried to fashion all their walls from a single material, but Nauda didn't seem to care.

"What about this?" Nauda spoke up from the other side, drawing his attention. She stood in front of a bright blue tent that he hadn't seen before, likely a merchant from out of town.

Theo walked closer and, though the man's wares contained many unusual items, he immediately understood what she meant. The dark lump of metal sitting on one side of the display rug looked dull, but he felt cantae flowing into it. At first he'd thought that the rug was simply bunched up around it, then he realized that the fabric was actually being drawn toward the metal. When Theo experimentally reach out to touch it, he felt it pull on his fingers and the rug seemed to cling to the metal.

"You like it?" The merchant gave them both a broad smile. "You're the first people to identify real value in this borderlands city. Have you ever, perhaps, heard of magnetized iron?"

"Of course." Theo tossed the lump into the air, noting how it sped back to his hand faster than gravity alone would suggest. "Is this a sublime material that follows similar principles?"

"Just so! Everything is drawn to it, not merely certain metals. If you rub it against substances, it will briefly make them stick together as well." He promptly demonstrated with two silk ribbons, though they didn't cling together strongly. "It can be extremely useful for construction, or it could be an interesting piece in your soulhome."

Given his blueprint, Theo obviously wanted it, but he pretended disinterest. Nauda pushed him to get it, as if it was a gift they didn't care greatly about, and they slowly wore down the merchant. But even with all of Nauda's negotiating skills, it wasn't cheap, costing them most of what they had just earned. Eventually they pulled back to speak privately.

"If we buy this," Theo said, "I'll let you have my share of all the jobs for a month."

"Don't need it. Sublime stone isn't so expensive." Nauda instead gave him a wry smile. "What I want from you is a promise that we'll make specific, concrete plans to hunt down that demon."

He hadn't really believed that Nauda would forget about it, but Theo had hoped that she wouldn't push. Still, this was one of the first valuable materials that fit his blueprint, with nearly Archcrafter cantae density. Thinking about the soulcrafting he could do, Theo shrugged. "Deal."

Chapter 17

They had explained to her about seasons, but Fiyu was still troubled by the changing weather. Tatian might be horrible, but it was consistently horrible all the time. Now, as the air grew warmer and the leaves and grass went dry, she couldn't escape the fear that she had wandered into an unknown region. According to information Companion Nauda had learned from people in the city, the weather would become more unpredictable as well.

To distract herself from the environment, Fiyu spent more time soulcrafting. At the heart of her stealth chamber was a glass sphere of moonmist gas, a substance that obscured part of the Outer Moonscape and only occasionally appeared in sublime form. She had won it in a contest against all the other young soulcrafters in the entire camp, which had been among her proudest achievements as a child. Now that she had seen the obscene numbers of people who gathered in cities on other worlds, it felt less impressive.

She had originally placed that sphere on a pedestal, then hung it from the finest of sublime spidersilk. That created a technique that was exceedingly subtle, but sadly it was too delicate to stand against more powerful cantae, at least at her current tier. Relative Guchiro had told her he could give her another material to support it when she was ready, but their unity had been torn apart before he could.

For the most part, she had struggled to find suitable sublime materials on other worlds, which was why she was so pleased to find the mirrorbark. It was bright and strong, yet it deflected attention away from itself. She had begun carefully fashioning panels of it to place around her moonmist sphere: they would deflect enemy cantae, leaving her core technique free to hide her.

Recently, Companion Nauda had been unable to find her, even as an Archcrafter. Fiyu wasn't certain how much more work she could do with her current limits, but she thought the chamber was very nearly complete.

It had been a pleasant surprise to find the mirrorbark, but she wasn't sure what she could do about some of her other unfinished chambers. She found herself spending long hours polishing the exterior of her tower to perfection and smoothing the transitions between materials, because she didn't know how to proceed in many of the others.

She counted herself fortunate that she had nearly perfected her sensory chamber before leaving Ichil, because she had found nothing remotely appropriate for it. Her blade technique was also sadly unfinished, though she thought that the sharpness of rainhorn antlers might be appropriate enough to intensify it. They were so bright and colorful, however, they didn't seem quite appropriate... maybe they could go in her light chamber instead.

Her meditation chamber had been somewhat improved with carvings inspired by Companion Theo, but she still fundamentally lacked materials. Meanwhile, her warming chamber had long been an unfortunate void, far from its ultimate design. Though she'd placed unpleasantly warm Tatian materials in it, those were nothing but a stopgap measure.

Some of her other chambers might find some other solution, but Fiyu realized that she was only focusing on them to avoid her other thoughts. It was so strange to feel herself changing, without any relatives to guide her. Fiyu opened her eyes in the real world and saw her traveling companions working beside her, which only made it worse, so she retreated into her soulhome.

Yet, standing in the core of her very being, Fiyu could not help but contemplate other matters. For many years, Relative Guchiro had been the only relative in her life and the only person that she trusted. Companion Theo and Companion Nauda had become trusted traveling companions, and she hoped she could one day call them Friend, but she was uncertain if she would ever call them Relative.

When she failed to control such thoughts, her mind inevitably drifted into gloomy territory. After months away from Relative Guchiro, she was beginning to miss him deeply. She had not realized how much she longed for silent Ichili intimacy until she discovered the equivalent on other worlds.

Was she changing, without him? Her relatives had always taught her that she would adapt to new circumstances throughout her life, both as she aged and as she encountered new people. She had experienced it first-hand with Child Senka, who prompted parent-like feelings in her. Yet those were merely whispers, not something that she sought with her whole heart. Perhaps one day she would have a family of her own, but she was still too young.

Yet, traveling together with companions who were her own age began to change something within her. Once she recalled Relative Guchiro saying that groups of a single age were unnatural, that children needed to learn to interact with youths of different ages as well as elders. Apparently that was not true on other worlds, as Deuxans all traveled together in packs of the same age.

Most likely, her relative would have grunted and said that proved his point. Fiyu smiled as she thought of him.

Though she was not sure how she would change, Fiyu thought that she was fortunate to have found two such traveling companions. Companion Nauda was very kind, if strange, and had already ascended to Archcrafter. Companion Theo was always understanding and had an insight into soulcrafting unlike anyone she had ever met before.

Fiyu set herself to her work, hoping that they would not leave her behind.

~ ~ ~

As he walked through his soulhome, Theo just wasn't satisfied. It was a mistake to think that there could be "perfect" sublime materials for a given stage, and in fact that thinking could lead to dead ends or bottlenecks. But there were definitely stages of quality, and he wasn't where he wanted to be.

For a start, his soulhome was entirely too dependent on carvings for many of his essential rooms. It was the easiest method to improve a chamber when he lacked sublime materials, and the carvings would enhance the effects no matter how many sublime materials he gathered, but the method was too simple. Good blueprints required a mix of design, materials, and style.

Yet the technique that he'd hoped would provide a path forward, gravitational torsion, had proved a wall. He didn't think there was anything wrong with his design, it was simply impacting the world too dramatically to pull off with his current soulhome. Since he wasn't likely to find sublime materials embodying such a concept, then his only choice was to eventually obtain more intense cantae to overcome the wall.

As for his non-technique rooms, he lacked enough materials to make them feel properly lived-in. He'd put all the emblems and badges they earned into one of the empty rooms, since weak cantae generation was better than nothing. It might have made him a little more resistant to Deuxan techniques and a bit faster, but the effect wasn't dramatic.

The repelling stone that they'd bought in Nlukoko was efficient but weak: he could generate an effect like anti-mass, but it was so minimal that it had almost no use. On the other hand, the magnetized stone was a bit too strong, threatening to damage his soulhome whenever he tried to use it fully.

Even combined, they just weren't enough. He was still restricted to increasing or reversing the world's gravity, not creating any of his own. Once he was an Archcrafter, he would be able to fuse those aspects together into a new technique, but at the moment... he could have converted one of his middle rooms to another technique, but that would mean doing a lot of work now that would be wasted later. Interim solutions were fine and necessary, but he drew the line at setting back his future soulcrafting.

Now that he thought about it, he didn't like the distribution of his four corner techniques. Though his cantae flowed through all of them without major problems, he thought they could have been better balanced. If the mass and anti-mass chambers were on opposite sides, the soulhome would be more thematically balanced and he might even manage to improve flow between them.

That was a minor distinction, the kind of thing he hadn't even worried about in his past life until he was a Ruler trying to ascend to Authority. That had been the point where some of his simplistic habits started to catch up to him and he'd needed to go back and renovate rooms that had been nothing but big slabs of rare materials. This time, he would have no such problems.

Presuming that he survived long enough. Everything Magnafor had said about them potentially being targeted returned to mind, though he still couldn't solve that problem.

Theo reminded himself that he was being a perfectionist, not that it changed his conclusions. There was no point comparing himself to mediocre soulcrafters, not when he might be pitting himself against demons and entities far more powerful than any others he'd encountered. He needed to do things right, which meant at least keeping up with Fiyu and Nauda.

Having had enough theoretical soulcrafting, Theo returned to the real world and recruited the two of them to do some experiments. He wasn't capable of generating a point of mass outside himself, but he could use either one of his mass-manipulating techniques on himself, so he needed to know how much influence they could have.

Nauda experimented with pushing him while he increased his mass, able to notice a difference that would be negligible in a fight. If he'd been a physical fighter like he'd originally intended, perhaps he could have used that to anchor himself in place, but he'd turned away from that path. Trying to use anti-mass on himself had no effect other than making it even easier for her to push him, so that was another bust.

Testing both with Fiyu, on the other hand, proved interesting. She was capable of launching light bursts less loaded with cantae, so she threw them in his direction to let him test. Unfortunately, no amount of mass or anti-mass, even trying to work together, could so much as budge the path of any of her bolts. Nauda added weaker cantae bolts, to similar effect. When they threw small rocks, the paths did veer slightly, but not enough. At his current strength, the gravity he could control had little effect, which meant he would be vulnerable to cantae, wind, and other forms of energy.

Still, the experiments showed him a few new things about how far he could bend his techniques, so they were worthwhile. They also seemed to provide amusement to Fiyu and Nauda, as he continually ate a faceful of cantae bolts or rocks. It didn't even bother him, since they did their best to help.

In the end, he decided that his blueprint was a good enough first step. He just needed to figure out how to take a second one.

~ ~ ~

Though most soulcrafting instructors would have told Nauda to fashion the walls of her entire second floor before she did anything else, she resolutely followed her own path. Even with four months, there simply wasn't time to waste processing that much stone, especially given how much harder it was than as a first tier soulcrafter. She needed to develop herself before opponents came at her again.

Nauda knew she was technically an Archcrafter like cruel Delarde or arrogant Esaire, but they'd had time and plenty of resources to soulcraft their second tiers. Her cantae might equal theirs, but they had more, along with better techniques and more support from their soulhome.

She'd considered building a second floor on top of the secondary building she'd soulcrafted in Myufuru, but Nauda wasn't sure that it was a strong enough foundation to build upwards. For the moment, she'd added shelves to make it into a larder and storage room, moving her chest and sublime food into it. No doubt instructors would have told her to get rid of it, or attach it to her main soulhome before she built her entire second floor.

Instead, Nauda had built two rooms in her second tier, directly on top of half her first floor. It gave her soulhome a lopsided look, but it was good to establish a basis she could expand once she had the time. She did have some more Deuxan stone bricks, the start of a third room she worked on when she had nothing better to do, but she doubted it would be finished any time soon.

Meanwhile, she focused fully on her two Archcrafter rooms. Whenever he was talking about soulcrafting, Theo always went on about designations that she didn't necessarily agree with, particularly a strong dichotomy between chambers dedicated to enacting techniques and chambers that focused power within the self. In her experience, every chamber was a piece of the soul that did some of both... but in this case, his way of looking at things was useful.

Nauda stood on her roof, looking through the doors to her two upper chambers.

The left was a proper "Tatian" room that anyone in Myufuru would have envied: a plush rug of sublime fibers she'd purchased in the city, a wooden pedestal she'd carved herself, and the nullstone enshrined on top. It was one of her most prized possessions, since the nullstone neutralized cantae around it. Absorbing it earlier in her life had nearly killed her, and she had only now gained the capacity to build it into her soulhome.

On the right... that room would not have been accepted in the same communities. One of her sublime materials had been the blood of a powerful sublime beast, which she had used to paint all the interior walls bright red. Before, the blood had eaten into the stone, but as an Archcrafter, her soulhome could absorb it and grow stronger. At the center, she placed the skull of the same beast, though she needed to find an appropriate altar to make better use of it.

Finishing the blood-painted room made her feel immediately stronger, her cantae flowing with an animal strength. During a simple job clearing land, she'd tested her strength and been surprised that she could pull out a tree by the roots. Whenever it came to a physical fight, she'd be much more capable.

Unfortunately, making full use of the nullstone had proved much more difficult. Within her soulhome, it didn't nullify her own cantae, but drawing that nullifying property into herself was difficult. The nullstone might actually be a bit beyond Archcrafter, so she could utilize it in her soulhome, just struggled to use it in a technique.

When she had time to concentrate, she could eliminate a bit of cantae from around her. When Theo threw exaggeratedly slow bolts in her direction, she was able to cancel them out, though it cost her much more cantae than simply dodging or slapping it aside. Against an assault like Fiyu's lightstorm, the nullification was essentially worthless.

So, despite having finally found a place for almost all her Archcrafter materials, her goal still drifted beyond her reach. Nauda frowned over her soulhome, considering alternate paths or improvements. It looked like both of those would just take a significant amount of work, no clever way around it.

On top of that, she still hadn't been able to replace her old staff, reducing her to working with an ordinary staff and the broken fork of her old weapon. Eventually, she would need to renovate the room that contained the technique, and she had plans to incorporate one of her second floor rooms, it just all required more time and sublime materials.

Abruptly an idea occurred to her: it didn't solve any of her problems, but it was something worth doing. Nauda dropped down to her first floor and picked up her telescope carefully, carrying it up her ladder to the second floor. It didn't fit in either room, but she set it out in an empty corner of the roof, as if it was an intentional balcony.

When she attempted to use her viewing technique, she was surprised at how swiftly and crisply she saw the other's soulhomes. Theo was soulcrafting up a storm, as usual, and Fiyu waved cheerfully at her. Neither were bothered by her observation... so suspicious in some ways, yet trusting in others.

Just setting the telescope on the corner felt a little too simple, though. Nauda went back to retrieve some of her unused bricks of Deuxan stone, placing them together in a little corner that partially shielded the telescope. Once it peeked out from over the simple wall, she felt that her design was far more unified. Yes, this could become the soulhome she needed.

Back when she had acquired those Archcrafter materials, she had expected that she would need to fight her way to ascension alone within communities she couldn't trust. Instead, she was soulcrafting in the wilderness with two people from other worlds. Her life had gone completely off track, and she wasn't sure whether or not that was a good thing.

Chapter 18

Against his better judgment, Theo found himself headed out to fight a second stage demon. Though the species varied, conventional wisdom held that a second stage demon could kill any first tier soulcrafter, and even an Archcrafter wasn't guaranteed victory. With some species, going against it was suicide, but he accepted Nauda's logic that such a dangerous demon would have been taken care of by the local court.

"They're up ahead." Nauda pointed her staff at a cluster of trees, their natural silver growing dull with the season. "The villagers will be able to give us a general area where to find the demon, based on where it's attacking people, but after that, we're on our own."

It seemed they were indeed met by a few Deuxan peasants, an older couple who might be elders and a few soulcrafters. A glance at their soulhomes showed they were rather small, but not due to incompetence or laziness: they'd never been given the sublime resources to build anything more. Those carefully managed and reinforced rooms seemed a bit sad, now that he contemplated them.

"You came." An old man hobbled toward them, relief obvious in his eyes. Such an overt display of emotion would have made him a laughingstock in a court, but the city was no longer even on the horizon. "We're grateful, but be careful. The demon has already killed two soulcrafters and maimed another."

"We don't know if we can help you, but we'll do our best." Nauda touched the elders warmly as she passed, which seemed to communicate even though it was a strange gesture on Deuxan. "Where has it been sighted?"

The peasants directed them past the carefully managed fields to a region with scraggly wilderness trees, their leaves a dull iron. As they walked closer, Theo reflected on just how much space was devoted to farmland. Based on his research, that was actually to be expected given the size of Anguedan, but he was struck by the fact that he'd never noticed the fields before while in Deuxan. They must have existed, yet within the courts there was never the slightest thought as to how they were fed.

As soon as they left the fields, Fiyu wrapped them all in her technique and they began hunting. It took a frustrating amount of time to find any sign of the demon at all, but eventually they discovered one of its victims. The dead animal appeared to be a less regal relative of the rainhorn, torn open and then left to rot, since demons killed without eating.

None of them had any senses specifically designed to locate demons, but there weren't that many sources of cantae in the region, so eventually they honed in on a powerful source. The demon sat beside a tree, its lithe body curled. Yet it wasn't sleeping - as far as he knew demons didn't sleep - it just waited. Fortunately, it gave no sign that it had noticed them.

Fighting demons was always a risk because there was no obvious indication of their strength, only a void where they should have had a soul. It looked more like a black lion than the wolf-like or bear-like demons he'd seen, but it would probably have been as tall as him even on all fours. One of the few consistent indicators of demon stage was size, and it was too small to be a third stage.

Then again, the demon that had killed his friends had been much smaller than a titan...

"Can we ambush it?" Fiyu asked softly. Nauda held her staff carefully, eyes narrow.

"Based on the body, I'm afraid it's going to be fast," Nauda said. "Theo, can you try to completely eliminate that advantage?"

"I'll try, but demons tend to be slippery against cantae." As he spoke, Theo flexed his fingers and raised them carefully, just to be prepared.

"I think we should spread out, then attack its flanks whenever it tries to target one of us. Fiyu, you find a guarded pos-"

In the middle of her sentence, the demon sprang from its seated position, racing directly toward them. Theo realized coldly that there hadn't been a mistake, it must have sensed them indirectly and chosen a precise moment to strike. He'd seen soulcrafters die assuming that demons were just animals, but they all possessed a malicious intelligence that shouldn't be underestimated.

He tried to hit it with gravitational fields... and the demon barely stumbled, charging onward. Fiyu unleashed a hail of bolts, but it darted to the side with unreal speed, then dashed toward them.

If not for Nauda, it would have torn directly into him. He'd lost track of the demon's movements when it was suddenly in front of him, struck on the head by her staff. She actually smashed it into the ground with physical strength alone, then attempted to bind it in place.

Moments later, the demon twisted oddly, rolling out of her binding technique and lashing claws at her leg. Surprisingly, Nauda not only dodged, her foot came back hard, kicking the demon in the head. Yet it barely stumbled, on its feet right next to them...

This time Theo reversed its gravity, sending the demon up into the air. It twisted as it rose... but then it began to descend, its nature eating away at his gravitational fields. Demons didn't really counter techniques, as far as he'd seen, they just pressed through, as if anything made of cantae struggled to get a grip on them. Exactly why he hadn't wanted to fight this one.

Before it reached the ground, Fiyu unloaded, an extended storm of light searing into the demon. Though her bolts couldn't tear through the demon's body, it twisted in pain, slowly overwhelmed by the onslaught. Theo put everything he had into keeping it in the air, letting her fire on it longer, but he knew that it couldn't last...

The instant it touched the ground, the demon was gone, flashing to the side in a dark blur. It arrived beside Fiyu, claws reaching out to gut her, but Nauda struck it again with her staff. This time it only stumbled once, then darted around behind her.

Theo desperately cast another gravitational field underneath it, trying to neutralize its gravity. Though he didn't manage to send it into the air, the demon's claws hit the ground too lightly and it skidded to the side instead of clawing Nauda in the back. All three of them recovered and turned to face the demon, catching their breath and drawing in more cantae.

Instead of attacking, the demon leapt into one of the nearby trees and vanished into the shadows.

With such monstrous speed, he was sure that it could explode from hiding at any point. Unfortunately, their current position gave it several different angles to attack from, and though they could retreat from the grove, the demon wouldn't be stupid enough to let them get away unharmed.

"It's hunting us." Nauda spoke quietly, without emotion, and scanned the area around them. "Be careful."

"I..." Fiyu looked more uncertain than he'd expected and he wondered if her sensory technique was failing to locate the demon.

"At any moment, it could come charging out, so-"

"I have a better idea." Theo cast a gravitational field beneath the three of them and sent them high into the air. They lurched at the top as he switched gravity, and his control wasn't precise enough to make them hover smoothly, but they oscillated far overhead, out of reach of even the demon's leaps.

"Not bad." Nauda smiled at him, then glanced to Fiyu. "Why don't you clear out its cover?"

Fiyu promptly lowered her hands below them and unleashed another hail of light. From so high up, the bolts scattered widely, tearing through a large part of the trees. Only a few seconds later the demon darted from out of hiding, glaring up at them in uncomprehending hatred. This time Fiyu didn't attempt to target her blast at all, just kept blanketing the area.

Snarling, the demon began dodging the bolts and running toward one of the standing trees. It raced up the side and Theo realized that it intended to leap directly up at them. He began to send them higher on instinct, since he didn't want to underestimate its jumping ability, but Nauda lifted her staff and made a downward gesture.

Since he could only trust her, Theo sent Nauda plummeting under normal gravity again. The demon had leapt from the tree, claws extending as it rocketed up toward them. Theo could only watch, wishing that he could give Nauda more mass before she hit.

Nauda's staff collided with it first, hitting the demon's neck with such force that she overcame its momentum. They slammed down into the ground with terrible force, but Theo didn't dare try to slow their fall. He dropped himself and Fiyu more carefully, looking for the outcome amid the dust.

Finally he saw it: the demon lay motionless with its neck twisted, while Nauda staggered nearby. It had slashed her across the leg, leaving a nasty claw mark, and the impact seemed to have taken something out of her, but the demon was dead.

"We..." Nauda looked at them blankly, then shook herself. "We should take the body to show them. So they won't be afraid anymore."

Or so that they would believe them and give a reward, but it amounted to the same thing. While Fiyu helped bind Nauda's injury, Theo walked over to the demon and carefully removed its gravity to levitate in the air. Now that it was dead, it didn't resist his cantae at all, though there was something unnatural about its body. Not a sublime material, yet similar enough to be used.

It took them much longer to get back due to Nauda's injury, but when they returned to the villagers, it set off a surprisingly raucous celebration. Theo had been part of soirees and ballroom dances in Deuxan, all of them highly refined affairs, and the cheering villagers shocked him. Not a Tatian celebration, certainly, and the villagers immediately broke out casks of wine, but it was still something he hadn't seen before.

"The demon..." The elder looked at the floating body and slowly shook her head. "I am glad to see it dead, but the body shouldn't remain here. It could bring bad luck, or more demons. Or, if the court accuses us of something..."

"We'll dispose of it completely." Nauda gave the old woman's shoulder a reassuring rub while she glanced at Theo.

As soon as he could take the body out of sight, he absorbed the demon's remains into his soulhome. It wasn't useful for anything there, but he threw the corpse into his singularity. Using demonic matter could have negative effects on some soulhomes, or clash with their spirit, but his absorbed it easily.

Though they couldn't stay for the full celebration, the villagers insisted on repaying them beyond the very modest reward. A few of their local healers went to work on Nauda's leg, and though they weren't very talented, Theo appreciated the gesture. If not for their help, getting Nauda healed might have entirely wiped out their earnings from the job.

"We'd like you to have this." A younger man appeared beside him, presenting a bolt of what appeared to be silk. "It's called fairysilk, and it's an extremely rare sublime material. Perhaps you could use it?"

Theo was skeptical about how rare it actually was, but when he ran the material through his fingers, it did seem reasonably strong. The cantae embedded within was durable and he suspected that it could be made into good clothing, not that they had anyone with the necessary skills. "That's an item of some value. Are you sure?"

"If you don't take it, some other soulcrafter will." With that, the man shoved it into his hands and went to join the others.

After some thought, Theo began tearing the silk into strips. It proved more difficult than he expected, but the fairysilk slowly made its way into his spirit, whole and stronger on the other side. He had no idea how it would fit into his soulhome design, but sublime fabrics could be rare, so he would figure out something. When he experimented with it, the fabric proved surprisingly elastic, perhaps enough that he could use it in some gravity or pressure room.

For the moment, he left it behind in his soulhome and focused on the real world. What they'd done wasn't in any way heroic, just basic security that the Anguedan court should have provided. Yet they had ignored the demon for so long, forsaking the unwritten agreement between the court and its vassals.

Nothing could be done about it, of course, since the peasants were powerless to strike against the court. What struck him in that moment was that this wasn't a statement of the court's strength, but its uselessness. It sat in the city like an enormous leech, playing its political games and draining everything around it.

Not that there was anything he could do about it. Perhaps one day, if he managed to stop Vistgil... but that thought was his last, as it so often was. With so much unknown, there was no point thinking further.

Chapter 19

Theo tapped his fingers along the top of his tiles, pretending to look over them. In actuality, his combination was worthless, which he'd known from the beginning, and his only goal was to bluff through the round. Around the table, the young nobles whose names he couldn't remember watched him, uncertain how the match will go.

"I'll take the odds." He didn't put any confidence into his voice that could have sounded like bluster, it was just a simple statement. Theo reached out and dropped more Silver Crowns into the pile, then watched his opponent without any expression.

Across the table, the noble of the Evigne family tried to look confident, but his facade was obvious. Theo bided his time by wondering if he had been that obvious when he was young. Most likely he had - on the few occasions when he'd gambled for sublime materials, he'd been fixated on having unbeatable combinations, which made for dramatic finishes, but it was a mathematically unwise strategy overall. Not that bluffing and failing would be good for him, in a Deuxan court.

"Do you really gamble for blood on Fithe?" The noble stared at him a moment longer, then suddenly grinned and knocked his tiles over. "I'm out. You've got to be cheating, Bartolo."

Here, that was essentially a compliment. Theo carelessly turned his tiles face down and placed them with the others, hiding the fact that he'd had absolutely nothing. He was glad to sweep the pile of winnings over to his side, but didn't feel particularly satisfied about it: playing against children might as well be rigged odds.

But he had no interest in games, just in the benefits. The money he'd earned gambling was a pittance compared to the information he'd learned about the upcoming hunt, notably common strategies and the limits of the rainhorn region. Perhaps more importantly, he'd learned that a few lesser noble houses without good hunters were desperate to buy antlers to improve their standing, which could be exploited when the contest began.

He needed to relocate throughout the city, though, or he'd attract too much attention. So long as he didn't win too much or make a name for himself, he could increase their earnings in the evenings and pick up a few more sublime emblems. Better than nothing, and since Nauda and Fiyu were deep in their own soulcrafting, he had nothing better to do.

It worked out well, so long as Senka didn't manage to tag along. The one time she had done so, she'd gone out of her way to make the night a living hell.

They tried to get him to stay and play a while longer, but Theo made excuses and bowed out. He wasn't only planning to gamble, he also intended to visit the court library. A heavy pack of family emblems hung in one coat pocket, which he hoped would be enough. It would have been nice if he'd managed to get someone to bet a major sublime material or armament, but this would do.

After moving through one of the upper markets to shake potential tails, Theo headed to the court library. Deuxan might not value learning, at least not compared to Arbai or Siata, but he'd learned that they did have a library not controlled by any single house. It was a modest building, befitting its place in society, so he missed it the first time before turning back and buying his way in with the emblems.

Perhaps that would be wasted, but Theo had decided that missing a chance to potentially learn more was a greater risk than giving up a small amount of money and sublime materials. As desperately as he needed power, he had a feeling that he wouldn't be able to win any conflict against his mysterious opponents with strength alone.

"What?" The librarian, a lean man with a soulhome that seemed purely functional, regarded him over finely crafted spectacles. "A foreigner? What is it you want to look up?"

"I don't suppose you use an organizational system either."

"This is the Anguedan court library, not some trivial bookstore. If I don't know the location of what you want to know, then it doesn't exist here."

He hadn't really expected better, but Theo still sighed and accepted it. "I need to know any information you have about a noble family from another court, possibly another continent. They were the ai Teraeves family... a small family, but known for their powerful soulcrafters about 110 years ago."

"That name sounds more mythological to me than anything. We certainly don't have anything current that mentions such a name, but let me look into the older books." With that, the librarian retreated into the shelves.

Alone, Theo noted that the opening chamber of this library was set up even more hostilely than the one in Nlukoko. He could easily have vaulted the fence of desks, but on the other side he could see that the shelves were a mess, probably ordered by date of acquisition instead of anything sensible. At least relying on the librarian would get him a result faster than searching himself.

The fact that the name sounded mythological didn't really surprise him. Brigana ai Teraeves had said her family was ancient and simply down on its luck in recent times. If she had lived... Theo took a deep breath, still trying to come to grips with the fact that Brigana was almost certainly dead. If she had lived, she might have turned her family's fortunes around, but it seemed that they had passed from history altogether.

"I didn't expect to see you here." Esaire's voice came from the door and he turned to see the Armeau family noble step into the library with a grin. "Imagine my shock, finding you in the location where I tracked you."

"No entourage of supporters this time?" Theo didn't think the noble would attack in the court library, so he adopted a different sort of bluff. "Either you're feeling much more confident or you aren't here for a duel today."

"I'm just curious why you're here. What exactly are you looking for, and what use would an outsider have for obscure Deuxan knowledge?"

"I have some outdated texts about Deuxan. If I can figure them out, I might be able to uncover an ancient cache of sublime materials." That was actually partially truth, given that he'd left some things near Brigana's family home, and Esaire seemed to hear the honesty. After a moment's hesitation, he only shrugged.

"Are you sure you wouldn't accept an alliance with us? The Anguedan court has some influence with much larger courts, you know, so if you did our family a substantial enough favor, we could track down... whatever it is you seek."

"Perhaps another time." There was no safe way to refuse, so Theo just approached it directly.

He saw a frown flicker across the young noble's face, but before he could find something to say, the librarian emerged. "No record of the Teraeves family, but-" He cut off as he saw Esaire, who promptly waved him on.

"Oh, don't mind me," Esaire said. "What invaluable information have you discovered for our friend?"

"Well... there's absolutely nothing about them in any of the court documents we have here, which include a great many international agreements. One reference to a similar name, but it was over a thousand years old and a different form. Is it possible that you misread the family name?"

"Not likely." Though he could have pushed, on some level Theo believed it. He was far from where he'd last been on Deuxan and over a century had passed, so he didn't really expect to find valuable information. That didn't mean he couldn't try. "Thank you for your time."

The librarian promptly turned away, perhaps to return to his work or perhaps getting out of the way of a potential conflict between combat soulcrafters. Esaire started to follow Theo as they left the library, but stopped on the walkway outside and folded his arms.

"That's all? I was expecting something more scandalous, I have to admit."

"I'm not an interesting man." Theo regarded him with the neutral expression he'd used not so long ago. "If you'll excuse me, I have some mundane tasks to perform."

As he left, Esaire actually did seem disappointed, and Theo almost hoped that the young noble had grown bored with him. Theo didn't see any advantage in pursing that conflict, so he'd hope so. At the very least, he got away from the court without any trouble that day.

That had been the best he could do. If he really wanted to track down his old memories, he needed to find a Deuxan weirkey, and using one of those meant becoming at least an Authority. That was so far beyond him that Theo set it out of mind: the goal he needed to focus on in the short term was reaching this hub city Nauda had mentioned, which meant a thousand lesser goals along the way.

Still, part of him felt as though those old experiences from his past life were slipping further away...

Chapter 20

The day the Great Rainhorn Hunt began, the city erupted with celebrations, but Theo had no part in them. For the common people who didn't care about court politics, it was a joyous day filled with feasting, then preparing meat and hides for the coming year. Some among the noble families celebrated, but everyone who intended to participate in the hunt could only prepare.

All the worthiest soulcrafters of the noble families lined up outside the city, eyeing one another, making wagers and promises of future duels. Their chosen mercenaries prepared as well, shabbier but not necessarily weaker. Many carried sacks or other hunting tools, but others carried only weapons.

At least, that was how it looked from so far away.

Theo and the others sat far outside the city, away from the starting line. He'd received an invitation from Esaire to join the other Armeau mercenaries, giving them an enviable position near the front of the line, but he judged that would be a mistake. Not appearing among the others would make them lose respect, but he didn't care about that, and he suspected that the line was not the ideal position.

A great horn sounded over the plains... and the house Rulers leapt into action. Their elders and greatest warriors might usually sit out conflicts, but for the Great Rainhorn Hunt, they held nothing back. Faster than any of the other soulcrafters could move, they exploded from the city, already hurling techniques at one another and exchanging blows.

"So that's why we're all the way out here." Nauda shielded her eyes and stared out at the expanding conflict. "It looks like they're trying to establish zones of control so their families can hunt in peace."

"Exactly." Theo finally stood up and stretched. "But it will take a long time for that to work out, and in the meantime they'll scare away a lot of the rainhorns. We can't fight Rulers, so we might as well begin on the hinterlands while everyone else is still fighting."

They headed into a far edge of the forested region, clad in Fiyu's stealth technique. Though information about hunting the rainhorns was hotly contested, the basic terms of the contest gave him quite a few answers. Breaking the antlers significantly reduced their efficacy as sublime materials, and kills wouldn't be accepted if the bodies or hides were too damaged. That meant no one would be blowing the rainhorns apart, requiring a much more limited set of strategies.

Of course, they didn't run across a rainhorn immediately. They were spread out over a large forest, and if the initial battle pushed them directly into the hinterlands then Deuxans would have used his strategy long ago. Still, they were able to move deep into the forest while the battle for territory was still raging in the distance.

Something rustled in the leaves and they leapt to defensive positions... but it was their first rainhorn, suddenly freezing as it stared at them.

It only froze for a moment, but that was a fatal mistake. Theo cast a gravitational field, tensely prepared to add more if the rainhorn resisted. Instead, it drifted into the air, legs flailing wildly. Sublime beasts could have extremely dangerous cantae in their natural roles, but they were rarely able to apply it flexibly against threats outside their environment. Unsurprisingly, its environment didn't include a complete loss of gravity.

When the rainhorn began to bleat, Fiyu slid up beside it, her dark blade striking the animal in the side of the head. The beast twitched once and then lay still, apparently dying without any great pain. Killing it had been easier and cleaner than he expected, so he walked forward to-

Another rainhorn burst from the foliage, its horns lowered, charging directly at him. Theo desperately cast a gravitational field, but he couldn't stop the beast's momentum and it sailed directly toward him, sharp horns gleaming...

He threw himself back just before it hit... and the rainhorn abruptly froze in midair. Nauda stood a short distance away, her staff raised to bind it in place. The beast's eyes bulged and its muscles flexed against her cantae, but it couldn't overcome an Archcrafter technique.

Though shaken by the experience, Fiyu soon moved to kill the second rainhorn mercifully as well. Theo got back up and brushed himself off, wishing that he had developed his techniques to the point where he could apply gravity more flexibly. Still, he couldn't be disappointed by their first hunt, considering that they'd already taken down two of their quarry.

"Is this a mated pair?" Nauda pulled one of the floating bodies over with her staff and examined them before she bound the two together. "This one has antlers, but the second one just has a single set of horns. Are they worth any different?"

"They both have their uses, so the reward money doesn't discriminate. Larger antlers or horns are worth a bit more as sublime materials, but they all have equal value for the houses. Anything that's old enough to have mature antlers is a valid target."

"I am sorry that we must end their lives for a mere contest," Fiyu said.

"Don't be." Nauda finished binding the bodies, carefully but not reverently. "They eat the villagers' food and, because no one is allowed to do anything to them, they're a menace. It would be better if they managed the population throughout the year instead of having these dramatic hunts, but they need to be kept under control."

"It is still sad. Are there young rainhorns at this time of year?"

Theo didn't think so, but he also didn't particularly care. It was just as well that Fiyu killed them painlessly, but there were too many evils in the world for him to get worked up over a few animals. In fact, all he really felt was a sense of satisfaction that they had already acquired two rainhorns. Even if the hunting grew more difficult over time, they were off to a good start.

After some time, they managed to ambush a third, drinking at a pool far away... but not far enough to be outside his range. That one had an extraordinarily large set of antlers, enough that he considered keeping them if they could afford it. Unfortunately, after the third they failed to locate any others, despite ranging widely and not yet encountering any of the other hunters.

Wondering if the other rainhorns could smell the blood from the bodies floating behind him, Theo decided that they should return to get rid of them and confirm their participation in the hunt. Since the others agreed and they didn't want to split up while so many soulcrafters were on the field, they walked back to one of the main paths and headed back toward the city.

He spotted something ahead and immediately prepared another gravitational field, only to pull back as he realized it was a Deuxan sleigh. It raced over the ground faster than a car and he worried that it was going to run them down, but before he needed to react, it swerved to the side, sliding through the air before coming to a halt not far from them.

"Bartolo! You decided to participate after all!" Esaire stood from the front seat, putting one foot up on the side. "You're going to be left behind if you stay on foot, though."

"Think of it as proving my worth to the Armeau family." As they spoke, Theo glanced at the four others in the back seats, noting the nominal Archcrafter from before and three who had soulhomes that gave him an immediate sense of a hunting lodge. It seemed that Esaire was working with skilled hunters, but there was no sign of Delarde or Hauloe.

"Suit yourself. Let's make a little wager: if your group can find even half as many rainhorns as mine, the Armeau family will pay you double their value. What do you say?"

"And if we don't?"

"We buy them at normal price... and you duel with me." Esaire cast him a careful look that made Theo wonder if he suspected their last encounter had been a bluff. At the moment, all his best options were bluffs, so he responded noncommittally.

"We'll see who hunts the most, then."

Esaire snorted and sat back down, touching something hidden beneath the wooden paneling. A moment later the sleigh floated away through the trees, utterly silent even as it accelerated back to full speed. Theo watched after it, considering. Other noble families would no doubt have their own vehicles, which would let them run down some rainhorns far faster than he could. If they wanted to compete, they needed to hunt in the deeper forests, where the rainhorns would be driven by all the other hunters.

For the moment, he thought it best to get credit for their first hunt. As they continued walking back, they saw other hunters just now emerging from the city, who simply glowered jealously at them. After they had traveled in silence for some time, Fiyu spoke up.

"That was a well-constructed sleigh. Considerable speed, a sublime binding, and moderate defenses built into the base. I... do not think that we can afford such a thing."

"More importantly," Nauda said, "how many people do you think it could carry?"

"I believe the flight materials are more than strong enough, so the question is space. It could hold four normal people, eight Deuxans, or twelve Tatians."

Nauda looked over at her sharply and Fiyu only smiled back, leaving it entirely uncertain if she had been joking. Theo chose to laugh and gestured for them all to start running. Their first gambit had been successful, but the hunt would continue for days. Time for the second gambit.

Chapter 21

By the third day, the three of them had rainhorn hunting down to an art. Maybe not as proficient as the experienced Deuxan hunters, but their group had Fiyu's stealth and two immobilization techniques. Other groups tried to use soulcrafting to their advantage as well, but they often ended up using it to fight rival families, leaving Theo's team to continue hunting around them.

The first day they caught five rainhorns, then eight on the second day. So far the third day they had only found one, despite the sun reaching its zenith overhead, but Theo was leading them further away from the city, to a region he hoped hadn't been thoroughly hunted. Judging from rumors in the city, the hunt that year was more intense than usual, so many feared that the court would call it off sooner to preserve the rainhorn population.

Fortunately, it didn't really matter. They had sold the rainhorns not to the Armeau family, but to the mercantile family he'd heard about during his gambling sessions. Of all the false rumors, that one proved correct: the family was desperate to use its wealth to achieve greater prominence. The prices had been so good that they had 1400 Silver Crowns, even though they'd held back the two best sets of antlers for their own soulcrafting.

Normally he would have guided them on a broader arc that took several days, but the rules forbade hunting during the night. Though some bent those rules, he didn't think they should take that risk. How zealously the "daylight only" restriction was enforced depended on what bribes you could afford and which families were involved. Everyone became sticklers for fairness when those standards were applied against their opponents, and their group had little defense against such court politics.

They had reached a bronze plain on the other side of the forest by the time they spotted another rainhorn. When Theo attempted to cast a gravitational field over it, the beast leapt away with preternatural awareness. If it had been him alone, it would have escaped over the grasses, but Nauda threw herself after it, briefly outpacing the beast before getting close enough to bind it in place with her staff.

While Fiyu caught up with them, Theo walked beside the struggling rainhorn, extending his senses toward it. Instead of a true soulhome, it contained a naturalistic expanse within itself. This one was a fragment of a forest, several of the trees bent together into a strange structure that bound some cantae.

When he'd first visited the Nine, he'd assumed that sublime beasts must have tiers similar to humans. Instead of building upward, they grew out, with more dangerous sublime beasts having soulhomes that were rings within rings. They tended to be uneven as well: the rainhorn had senses comparable to an Archcrafter, but their strength was barely first tier, and they had no cantae defenses to speak of. Clearly a prey animal, if a majestic one.

"Could we eat any of the rainhorn meat?" Fiyu wiped off her hand once she finished the beast, though he didn't notice any blood on her skin. "If we are to kill these creatures, I would feel more comfortable if I at least partook of their sacrifice."

"The villagers will eat it all, but I understand." Nauda set to binding the body with the other they had captured earlier that day. "It isn't much of a sublime material, but it might be worth tasting."

"I would like to store more sublime foods. There was little meat on Tatian, so I think more diversity would help me."

"Everyone assumes that, but I've seen soulcrafters who ate nothing but sublime vegetables."

The two of them began to discuss how best to create a chamber of sublime food, but Theo let their conversation flow through the back of his mind while he instead looked to the horizon. As far as he could tell, there was nothing but grass and lakes in that direction, but could more rainhorns be hiding there? Their hides would seem to stand out in the bronze grass, though if they lowered themselves...

Because he was observing his environment so carefully, Theo noticed the sled plowing toward them. It wasn't as elaborate or expensive as the one Esaire had used, but it had a bulky front that flowed with cantae defenses. Theo hastily gestured to the others and they leapt aside, Fiyu pulling the floating bodies along with her.

Though the sled skidded to a halt, someone leapt from the side while it was still moving, aiming for Fiyu. Theo immediately tried to reverse their gravity, but they burned with cantae to resist it, exactly as Esaire had done.

Fiyu threw herself back in time to avoid his pike smashing into the earth and Theo regained his bearings. The attacker wasn't Esaire, but Delarde - the other Archcrafter had apparently been soulcrafting since their last meeting, or Esaire had taught him the technique rather easily. Several others remained in the sled, including Hauloe but no Archcrafters.

It was clear that Fiyu needed help, but at that moment the sled began moving again, intending to run her down. Theo set a gravitational field in its path and when the levitation sublime materials hit it, the vehicle suddenly flipped end over end. Most of the soulcrafters within went tumbling out over the field, the sled remaining intact but spilling out supplies, including two rainhorn corpses.

Meanwhile, the carnage had separated him from Fiyu, who now dodged away from Delarde's pike. She managed to evade him by retreating, but one of his cuts sliced the line holding the hovering rainhorns, which he grabbed and jerked back toward him.

"Thanks for gathering these for us!" Delarde laughed and pulled the rainhorns to his side, and though Theo tried to send them falling upward, the Archrafter's strength held them down, even against multiplied gravity.

"We hunted those." Though Fiyu's face looked deeply distressed, her hands fell to her sides in her ready position. "You can't take them."

"Don't you know anything?" Delarde laughed again, more to cheer his disrupted allies than out of mirth. "Stealing is an age-old part of the Great Rainhorn Hunt!"

"The rules said that anything you hunted was yours to keep."

He grinned and pulled the rainhorns closer to him. "That's right, and we just hunted these two rainhorns."

"That is unkind." Fiyu's hands began to flicker with cantae, but the Archcrafter didn't consider her a threat, just laughed. This time was in actual amusement, hearing her words as childishness instead of a serious Ichili statement.

"You really have no idea how the world works, do you? The strong take from the weak, that's just a law of nature. My master told me that Ichil was a brutal world, but I'm starting to wonder if she got it wrong."

When Fiyu attempted to launch a hail of light at him, the Archcrafter leapt over it with superior speed, still surrounded by the cantae cloak that made him invulnerable to gravitational manipulation. He had to be burning through most of his cantae stores, but there was nothing Theo could do, and he was swinging his pike overhead...

Nauda caught him in midair with her staff against his stomach. They fell in opposite directions, both landing on their feet. Delarde no longer looked playful, shoving aside the rainhorns and gripping his pike in a proper stance.

"You ascended, huh? You're about to learn the difference between a newborn Archcrafter and one that's actually trained."

While they faced off, Theo noted that the others were pulling back to their feet. Theo immediately cast a gravitational field to lift and drop all of them, but Hauloe landed on her feet, cantae burning around her in that same cloak technique. It seemed that Esaire had been busy, planning for a conflict just like this.

Fiyu remained off to the side, wrapping her arms around herself in a position that looked vulnerable, but was actually gathering and preparing cantae. There was no one around to threaten her, so Theo focused on Hauloe, hitting her with multiple gravitational fields. She didn't fall, but struggled to move forward under the multiplied gravity.

Meanwhile, Nauda and Delarde struck violently, their weapons clashing... and then Nauda's other hand whipped from her side, her broken fork pinning him in place. Delarde sneered, but when he attempted to move, he grimaced. He might have more soulcrafted rooms, but Nauda's binding technique was a powerful one, and now that they both had Archcrafter-tier cantae, he couldn't resist it so easily.

Yet, by virtue of raw cantae alone, he began to struggle forward, raising his pike, still while maintaining the anti-gravitational cloak. Even Nauda looked surprised... just how much cantae did Delarde have?

Hauloe managed to hurl a bolt of cantae at Theo, but he easily dodged aside. She was beginning to struggle as her soulhome emptied, which was more what he would have expected. He'd dismissed Delarde at first, but the Archcrafter's skills were sharp and he seemed to have unreal depths of cantae. Grinning, the Deuxan man began to advance toward Nauda with his pike raised.

A whistle sounded over the field: a whistle warning allies. Theo instantly reversed gravity for himself and Nauda, sending them falling into the sky.

Beneath, Fiyu unleashed a devastating storm of bolts. They tore up the ground and sent many of the lesser soulcrafters tumbling backward along with their sled. Hauloe managed to stand, which might have proved fatal because it meant she absorbed more of the burning hail.

Yet somehow Delarde generated a sphere of cantae that deflected the bolts, then moved to shield Hauloe and the others. He took a step forward, blocking more of Fiyu's bolts, and glared at her until her cantae was exhausted. The field of grass had been devastated, but she had nothing left and he still stood confidently.

"Enough!" Esaire's sleigh emerged from the forest with the young noble standing atop it. Theo hadn't noticed him before, but thought there was roughly zero chance that he had just arrived. He had been observing, and judging from his smile, he'd seen what he wanted. "Well fought, Delarde, but they've defended their claim well enough."

"Hmph. Fine." Delarde jumped over to land in the sleigh, still not showing the slightest weariness. "Keep your two miserable rainhorns."

As the other soulcrafters weakly struggled back to their feet, retrieving their sled and joining the others, Esaire turned to Theo with a smug smile. "You have interesting techniques, soulcrafter."

"Thank you." Theo feigned nonchalance, but he was fairly certain that Esaire had implied that he knew Theo wasn't an Archcrafter. "I thought the Armeau family wanted to buy rainhorns, not steal them."

"Ah, but anything stolen during the great hunt is fairly taken." Esaire folded his arms and smiled more broadly. "Especially when certain hunters seem inclined to sell to others. But tell me, how many has your little group hunted so far?"

"Counting these two, fifteen in total."

For the briefest moment, Esaire's smile twitched to irritation. He said nothing about how many they had gathered, but Theo was willing to bet that it was less than thirty, so he was winning a bet that Esaire had thought would be easy. Though they were outclassed in a fight, Theo thought this was about pride, a theory confirmed when Esaire dropped down into the front seat of his sleigh.

"You're not doing so badly, Bartolo aina Fithe. But I'll let you in on a little secret: tomorrow will be the last day of the hunt. We'll see who's most successful in the end."

With that, he drove the sleigh away, leaving some of his allies to limp after him in their damaged sled. Theo remained alert, just in case there was a further layer of deception, but they truly didn't want to continue the fight. Esaire might be confident in his victory, but if he'd watched the fight, he would know that he'd lose allies in the process, including Hauloe from the Tatian family.

In their absence, Fiyu slumped and sighed without saying anything. Nauda walked back to them, returning her broken fork to her pack. "He looked irritated when you gave the number. I take it he didn't expect us to have managed fifteen?"

"Actually, seventeen." Theo released the gravitational field he'd been holding most of the fight and two more rainhorns dropped from the sky, still bound in the Deuxan group's wrappings. "In all the confusion, it looks like they forgot a few things."

"Clever." Nauda grinned, then went to go retrieve the bodies and join them with the others. Fiyu smiled only briefly before coming alongside him with a somber expression.

"Am I foolish, Theo? Is it really just a game?" When she saw his glance, Fiyu continued. "If taking from others is merely part of the game, then I was wrong to be upset. But I don't think it was fair play. I think he would have taken more if he could."

Theo could only shake his head. "The truth is, all Deuxan society is a bit of a game, in that sense. They take rules like bloodprices very seriously, but all laws are meant to be bent or broken. You made the right decision with your show of strength. This could have gone much worse."

"Especially Esaire." Nauda returned to them bearing all four rainhorns. "I didn't get a perfect look at his soulhome, but it's well-built, and he seems to be a skilled soulcrafter. That aura to resist your techniques isn't some trivial addition: he taught them to soulcraft complex new cornerstones in very little time."

"So that's what it was... but I'm more worried about Delarde. Maybe the two of us together could have exhausted him, but I think I underestimated his soulhome."

"No, you just misunderstood it. I got a much better look while we were fighting, and it isn't what I expected." Nauda gave them both a grim smile and began sketching out a blueprint in the dirt. "He doesn't just have one chamber generating cantae, he has four on each floor. I couldn't get a clear view of all of them, but he had four different sources and at least one chamber dedicated to mixing and distributing all that cantae."

"That would mean he has so few rooms left..." Theo snapped his fingers as the strategy came together for him. "So he's made himself nearly inexhaustible, but he doesn't have anything in reserve. Some of these chambers must be for strength, speed, and so on, based on what we've seen. He might have a pike technique in reserve, but his design is inflexible. He could fight like that forever, but that's all he has."

"If we could hit him without all his defenses, he might go down quickly, but he's never going to run out of cantae. Not in a fight with us, anyway."

Theo and Nauda regarded each other seriously, no obvious solution to the problem presenting itself. Fiyu had stood beside them, listening quietly, but now finally ventured a thought. "Perhaps a better strategy is evasion? They will likely not try something like this again, at least not today. If we hunt enough rainhorns, we can simply leave."

"You're right, Fiyu." Nauda smiled at her warmly, starting to raise a hand and then awkwardly patting Theo instead. "It's a cruel game, but they're still treating it like a game. We just need to play better and avoid them."

That was a good thought to get them back to hunting, so Theo joined the others as they headed further in search of more rainhorns. Internally, however, he wasn't so confident. Esaire had taken the matter personally, and while it was no blood vendetta, he wouldn't let it go so easily.

Chapter 22

By the end of the day, they had a total of seven rainhorns. Without the two they had stolen from Delarde's group, it would have been much worse hunting than the previous day, even going into less hunted territory. While they returned to the city, Theo heard rumors that the court was going to trigger some kind of effect to flush out hiding rainhorns for the last day of the hunt.

Once they entered city limits, Theo let the others get ready for the evening while he went to sell what they'd hunted. This time he went to one of the Armeau family merchants, intending to extend an olive branch that might deflect a little hostility. He was given a doubled increased price, and politely tried to decline it, but equally politely accepted it in the end. Esaire might be angry that he was losing the wager so far, but his family needed contributions more than money.

Most importantly, they now had over 2000 Silver Crowns, which was a small fortune for first tier soulcrafters. Even if they did poorly on the final day, they had enough to purchase a reliable vehicle with enough left over for their travels. On top of that, they had kept the three best sets of antlers for themselves, though he wasn't completely sure how he'd use his.

Though it would be good to discuss strategy, when Theo returned to meet the others, he realized that it wasn't time for that yet. They'd joined a feast in a neutral courtyard and purchased some of the rainhorn meat, clearly desiring a rest. Considering that a major conflict was still possible, they needed to be at their best, so he decided not to press the issue.

Senka was with them, chomping one of the pieces of meat. Of course she was. The little brat disappeared most of the time, then showed up again when it was time to eat something, or just to annoy him. He'd tried using her to hunt rainhorns on the second day, but she'd been more than useless.

"You got the doubled price, didn't you?" Nauda smiled when he approached, uncovering a plate of steaming rainhorn venison.

"Yeah, I did. So we already have what we need."

"I figured that we would, so I ordered a version of the dish specially prepared for soulcrafters. They added spices and greens - uh, silvers - to improve the cantae generation. It's not extraordinary, but it certainly tastes good."

"We have enough even with that purchase, so good choice." Accepting that they didn't want to discuss strategy at the moment, Theo just sat down to eat alongside them.

For a time they ate in silence, just relishing the food. It really was remarkably savory, and the additions helped it slip right into his soulhome. He'd organize it later, for the moment focusing on the conversation. Some of it was about hunting, or when they might return to Tatian, but for the most part they simply enjoyed one another's company.

Since they had been silent during most of the hunts, Nauda and Fiyu took the opportunity to ask questions they'd apparently been holding back. Nauda said that there were places on Tatian where animals naturally wandered into villages when they were about to die, offering themselves up. He thought he'd heard corroborating stories of that, but was more interested in where she had learned to hunt. Fiyu was the only one to answer that question, explaining about stalking animals in the Moonscape along with her relative.

This was one area where they completely surpassed him, because Theo had concentrated on other skills during his time on Earth. He had developed basic survival skills, but he knew that his life in the Nine Worlds would ultimately come down to soulcrafting. Though he'd taken strong first steps, he remained at the mercy of far too many soulcrafters, much less Vistgil.

After the first course, a cheerful peasant delivered strangely cloth-wrapped items that Nauda had apparently ordered. The rough outer cloth contained a mix of different types of meat, heavily spiced - not really a sublime material at all, but when he picked out the pieces, he found them delicious.

"I've done a few favors for the villagers," Nauda explained, "and they suggested we try these. You can't live on sublime foods alone, so I thought this was a good time to try them."

"It is too spicy." Fiyu's face was flushed, but she kept returning to pull another piece into her mouth.

"Yummy, yummy!" Senka chimed in cheerfully, talking through a full mouth. Theo abruptly realized that she wasn't eating the meat out of its container, she was chewing straight through the cloth. He just stared, while Nauda reached over to extricate it from her grip.

"Senka, you're not supposed to eat that part..."

"Don't take Senka's yummies!"

The two of them squabbled over the wrap, which made Fiyu laugh and Theo roll his eyes. It would have been a better meal with just the three of them, but he could put up with the imp for now. After he'd ascended far enough, he would need to do experiments on inter-world travel, and having another outsider to test might provide useful data. Especially an expendable outsider.

Though Senka whined interminably about not getting to eat the cloth, the meal eventually came to an end. Fiyu licked some of the spices from her empty wrap, then experimentally took a bite, only to immediately remove it from her mouth. Theo supposed that he should commend her open-mindedness.

"Should we rest and get an early start tomorrow?" Nauda asked. Fiyu immediately shook her head.

"It's only just stopped being so bright. We should do something."

"Actually, we should discuss what we intend to do on the last day." Theo wiped his mouth and set the cloth aside, doing his best to ignore Senka and look only at the other two. "We have the option of purchasing a sleigh as soon as possible and departing. There are advantages to that, if we want to make sure to avoid any further conflict."

Nauda tapped her fingers along the table thoughtfully. "Our whole plan was to invest time here because the hunt is our best chance to earn money. I don't think that the additional risk of one more day hunting is so high that we should just give up that opportunity."

"I agree, but I wanted to ask you first. There's also an economic risk: lots of other soulcrafters will be temporarily wealthy after the hunt, so prices might go up. I've had to push to get the money immediately, so I think it's usually given among the prizes at the end."

"Can we buy our vehicle now?" Fiyu asked. "We could get a sleigh and use it to help on the last day."

"It's not a bad idea, but I think that's a bigger risk." When they turned to look at her, Nauda shrugged. "It would make us a bigger target, plus it could potentially be destroyed. Fiyu almost broke that sled with collateral damage, and there are a lot of Archcrafters or even Rulers participating. Another day of hunting is worth it, but not risking everything we've worked for."

"That is rational." Fiyu paused, nodding to herself for a time, then brightened. "Could we arrange the purchase tonight and acquire it later? Can that be done?"

Theo raised his eyebrows as he considered the idea. "The dealer might try to renege on our deal, but now that Nauda is an Archcrafter, she's due respect, unlike base soulcrafters. Plus, they don't sell sublime material vehicles so often that they can afford to just ignore a sale."

And so, they headed off to contact one of the sellers, even though it was already late. Some of the wealthier regions of the city remained lit up by ivory lanterns, but most were beginning to fade and the moon only cracked the horizon. With Fiyu moving at the head of the group, spreading her senses through the shadows, they were essentially safe. The dangers of Deuxan weren't bandits attacking in alleys, after all.

When they arrived at a likely store, the merchant and his family appeared to be getting ready for bed, but when they showed the number of Silver Crowns they were carrying, he hastened to accommodate them. Soon enough, they were the only ones in the display courtyard, free to choose among those they could afford.

That proved to be most of the most reliable versions, none of those gilded for nobles. Each was made custom, of course, so there were no standardized models or obvious patterns, but Theo quickly discerned that there was a logic to the construction. Different sleighs produced for different purposes, from narrow and highly efficient vehicles for leaders to defenseless sledges that could carry a great number.

Within their budget of 2000 Silver Crowns, Theo thought they could get a highly functional sleigh that could float with all three of them plus supplies. He dismissed attractiveness out of hand, but even looking at the most modest creations, they were going to need to choose between space, defenses, and agility.

"Given what we've seen, we might look for durability." Nauda stood in front of one of their options, a compact little sleigh with high reinforced sides. "This one looks like it could take a beating."

"It is very small." Fiyu stepped to the side and regarded the seating area dubiously, then looked to the owner. "May we try it?"

As soon as they received a confirmation from the owner, Fiyu hopped up into the sleigh, so there was no choice: they were testing it out. There was only one bench, so they needed to join Fiyu on it, which quickly proved that there wasn't enough space. Even with one person wedged into the space for supplies behind, their bodies ended up pressed together.

Fiyu shivered and shrank into herself, prompting Nauda to try to shift further away. "Are you okay, Fiyu? Is this too close for you?"

"It is okay." Fiyu's voice could hardly have been less convincing. "This is not intimate touching, it is necessary. It is okay."

"Clearly it isn't." Nauda hopped back out, for once not needing to restrain the urge to pat Fiyu. "We can pick something larger than this. A few sublime materials as defenses won't help if a Ruler or a dangerous sublime beast attacks us. If we pick a larger sleigh, we could effectively use it as a platform to fight."

"This is a good idea." Fiyu bobbed her head in such eager agreement that Nauda only barely restrained her smile long enough to redirect it toward Theo.

Regardless of the reasons for her decision, her logic was sound. If they continued advancing in the Nine Worlds, they would eventually leave behind even the most expensive sleighs offered in the city. They could grow better vehicles on Siata, and any priority would be better met by something else: Arbaian floating fortresses for defense, Ichili cloudships for stealth, Noveni wings for speed, and likely others he'd never even encountered.

Eventually they settled on a narrow sleigh that had three separate seats, as well as good speed and lift. It was lacking in defenses and maneuverability, but Theo managed to negotiate a deal with the owner: they could return the following day with their earnings from the hunt and purchase a more ideal sleigh. Allegedly without any markup, though Theo anticipated an argument about that.

Still, it had been a successful trip, and he felt confident that they would soon possess a reliable vehicle to take them north of Nlukoko. During his first life, he'd been given a far more expensive flying vessel by an impressed Deuxan lord, but Theo felt a sense of satisfaction that he had actually earned this one.

Though their business was done, Fiyu was clearly not ready to go to sleep yet, so they wandered further into the city. They came across a fountain in the center of a large square, the silver water spouting from the top rendered dreamlike in the moonlight. Most Deuxan nobles still awake were at bloodhouses or private mansions, so the square was almost shockingly empty.

While appreciating the fountain's beauty, Theo drifted into his soulhome. Ideally they would have a significant amount of time to soulcraft on their journey north, but he decided to operate on the assumption that it wouldn't go so easily. The question was what he could do to improve his efficacy in a short period of time.

First, he picked up the meal of rainhorn venison, placed it on a wooden plate from Tatian, and added it to his feasting table. The wooden plate didn't look quite right, but he didn't want to spend money on sublime dishes from Deuxan. Besides, the difference in strength between a perfectly set feasting table and one just piled high with powerful sublime food wasn't overwhelming. He did take some of the displaced flamefruit and tossed them into his singularity.

His chambers to create mass or anti-mass were functional, simply not powerful enough. It would take a lot of intricate work on the walls to improve them, which was time he didn't have. Spending all their money on the sleigh meant that he couldn't afford any dramatic new sublime materials, and those would be monopolized by the local court families anyway.

One thing he did have sitting unused was the impressive set of rainhorn antlers. They didn't generate much cantae, but they were filled with solidified strength, with a particularly sharp edge. If he was a swordsman like in his past life, they would have been perfect for hanging on the wall of a sword chamber. He could also add them to one of his empty rooms, letting it strengthen the cantae and hopefully improve its effect, but it wouldn't be ideal.

Ideal... Theo wandered through the corner rooms, examining each technique. What he needed to do was find a less than ideal solution that could serve as a stepping stone.

Eventually he decided on his torsion chamber, which was still nothing but carvings. Given time, it could become something truly dangerous, but at the moment it wasn't viable. However, if he changed his goal and turned it into a more ordinary cantae attack, he might be able to create something he could actually use.

Focusing his will, Theo drew out one of the solarstone blocks in the wall by spiritual force alone. He didn't have materials to create a window or anything more elaborate, but opening the hole made it easier to interact with the outside world. That could be the basis of a technique.

First he tried to just prop the rainhorn antlers in the hole, but it felt wrong. Instead he found some old hearthtree wood and built a hasty frame, with a place to attach the antlers. Not pretty, but it created a proper aperture to release a technique. The room would generate gravitational and twisting forces, which filtered through the horns to create a sharp bolt of cantae. He knew that he'd definitely need to replace it in the future, but it might actually work. Of course, he could refine the concept further...

"Senka found you!"

Of course she did. Theo could feel her running around the fountain and decided that he didn't notice her after all, just focusing on his soulcrafting.

"You're a bunch of fumpets, leaving Senka alone like that!"

"We didn't leave you," Nauda said. "You just wandered off."

Fiyu nodded her agreement. "You need to be careful, Senka. This world might be mostly safe, but there are other places where something might try to eat you up."

"That's scary!" Senka paused, then tilted her head. "Or not scary? What if Senka likes being eaten up?"

"You should still be cautious. We can't protect you if we don't know where you are!"

"What about Jake? Jakey jake. Jake jakey jake." Senka began spinning in circles around him, repeating the fake name in a singsong voice. He continued ignoring her right up to the point where she started clambering up his back. "Jake, hey, Jake. Do you like Senka, Jake? Why are you being so mean?"

"Let me soulcraft." He emerged just long enough to speak, but it didn't seem to stop her, climbing up onto his shoulders even while soulcrafting.

Eventually he'd had enough, leaving his soulhome and reaching back to grab her. She tried to scurry away from his grip, but he managed to pick her up. Standing, he held her in both hands in front of him, briefly surprised at how light she was. Senka beamed up at him.

"Jake does like Senka! Give Senka a kiss!"

Theo dropped her into the fountain.

At first Senka spluttered and thrashed wildly, leading Fiyu to stand up in alarm, but eventually she managed to begin swimming in a rough doggy paddle. "Now Senka has swimmies! Swimmies are fun!"

Fiyu laughed, Nauda smiled, and Theo decided that he could endure it for at least a little while. From a distance, perhaps with earplugs.

He moved away from the fountain to continue soulcrafting, but found himself looking over his shoulder at Senka's antics. Part of him still wondered if she might possibly be some sort of construct, perhaps a lost tool designed to sniff out certain materials. A more sinister explanation was that someone had sent her to track them, but he'd never seen her do anything particularly suspicious, or even any actions that benefited herself. If anything, she seemed designed to annoy him.

There was more soulcrafting to do, and Theo resolved to focus on it until they needed to sleep. The solution for today was refining his techniques, but he'd need to strengthen his body if he wanted to survive against Archcrafters. Perhaps it was time to begin an advanced technique in his empty western room...

Chapter 23

The final day of the Great Rainhorn Hunt began explosively, with almost all groups using floating vehicles of some kind. As Theo's group was left behind, it seemed like they were at an insurmountable disadvantage, but as they passed several wrecked sleds, the benefit of holding off on their purchase became obvious.

Since they already had sufficient money for their purchase, Theo's goal was maximum profit without getting involved in any conflicts. It seemed that several groups of rainhorns were pinned down, essentially just a prize as different groups warred around them. Several of those had Rulers involved, so they steered clear. Once again, they focused on the outskirts, hoping to track down rainhorns that were too fast for other groups.

Unfortunately, they'd only found a single rainhorn after several hours. Just as Theo was starting to think they'd chosen the wrong flank, he heard a disruption ahead... but he doubted it was a rainhorn.

A brief fight had begun in a small clearing, already finished by the time they arrived within Fiyu's sphere. Theo didn't recognize the robe style of one side and could only note that their badges suggested they were a noble family, just not a large one. The other side only had a few members, but they were standing uninjured, while the first side fell back.

"How dare you?" Delarde seethed at the front of the group, lifting a man off his feet by the front of his robes. "You can't beat us in a straight fight, so you sabotage us?"

It didn't make sense to Theo until he spotted the sled from earlier: this time, a massive hole had been torn through it and the shattered sublime materials released ripples of force as they broke down. That damage wasn't getting fixed, and he presumed that the other side had struck Delarde's vehicle to impede his hunting efforts.

"What do you expect?" The soulcrafter in Delarde's grip weakly struck at his arm, but the blow was ineffectual. "The Armeau family is strong, do you really think we won't target your weaknesses?"

"This is too far." Delarde threw him to the ground and glowered at the entire group. "That sled was worth more than your life... in fact... it really was."

Delarde glanced around, looking directly at Theo's group... but his gaze passed on, oblivious. Apparently stronger observation skills or techniques were among the things he'd sacrificed for his infinite stamina blueprint.

Then he turned back to the beaten group, a new cruelty in his eyes. Fiyu's gasp was caught in the sphere of stealth, the defeated soulcrafters flinched, and Nauda took a step forward too late. The pike tore directly through the chest of the fallen man, an overwhelming surge of cantae destroying his soulhome as well. As the body collapsed, everyone looked back to Delarde.

"Eradicating such filth from Anguedan is worth the bloodprice." He reached into his cloak and tossed a bag of coins onto the ground, hard enough that it spilled. The opposing soulcrafters watched him with fear and hatred, but they had no choice but to scramble to pick up the coins. While they did, Delarde weighed another bag of similar size in his hand. "Is that lesson enough for you? I have enough here for a lot more, and the Armeau family could purchase the lives of your entire little clan."

As the group gathered up the bloodprice, Delarde occasionally knocked one over with a non-lethal blow, while his supporters jeered at them. Though the act might have been a deterrent, Theo thought he saw cruelty in Delarde's expression that went beyond what would be expected for Deuxan. He could easily have intimidated his opponents less expensively, so the fact that he could act freely meant he had some real authority in the family.

"He doesn't have many allies." Nauda gripped her staff tighter, gaze set on him. "If I recall your list, there's no bloodprice for any injury I deal to him, right?"

"No, but this isn't our fight." Theo kept his voice down, just in case, but there didn't seem to be any risk of the others piercing the technique. "Getting involved will only make our departure more complicated."

"You're going to just watch this happen?"

"The time to intervene would have been before he killed someone. What happens now is just Deuxan politics, and fighting him won't stop it. Even if we killed him, there would only be someone else in his position doing the same thing."

Nauda's knuckles tightened even more, but she didn't argue. Theo himself had felt simultaneous impulses to act and to leave, which had canceled each other out and left him hesitating when he could have acted. But he did believe what he said, and fighting wouldn't earn them any rainhorns.

"Bartolo aina Fithe!" Esaire's voice suddenly rang out over the clearing and Theo realized that retreat was impossible. The familiar grand sleigh floated to a halt and Esaire sprang from the top. "It wouldn't be fair of me to challenge you to a duel, but what do you say to an informal little scrap?"

"Now?" Theo gestured to Fiyu to drop the sphere, then gave an overly humble bow. "But your servant was doing his best to hunt rainhorns for you."

"The hunt is nearly over, and the Armeau family has won again. No, I'd like to have a little contest." Esaire removed the gauntlets from where they hung on his chest and slipped them onto his hands - definitely Archcrafter armaments. "Just for our mutual edification, of course. No bloodprices, eh Delarde?"

"Accidents happen." Delarde hefted his pike with undue eagerness.

"Well, that would be a pity. So... why don't you try your best to make this interesting?" Esaire and his followers went to walk alongside Delarde and the others, leaving them sorely outnumbered.

However, when Theo looked more carefully, the odds were different than his first impression. Many of the soulcrafters didn't have particularly large soulhomes, and other than Esaire and Delarde, the one other Archcrafter was only nominal. Of course, if she got near him with that knife, her more intense cantae would tear right through him. On the other hand, she had no defenses...

Theo glanced at Fiyu and then acted first, before Esaire could take control of the fight. He hit the entire clearing with a gravitational field, sending most of the group into the air. Before they even reversed direction, Fiyu unleashed a hail of bolts, knocking them backward into the forest.

She immediately swept her hands down to catch Esaire and Delarde in the blast, but both had manifested their cantae cloaks. Theo didn't even waste his time trying to use gravity against them, he needed a direct strike.

Unfortunately, Esaire was every bit as fast as he'd feared. He leapt for them, and only Nauda's reflexes allowed her to intercept him.

Nauda started by trying to bind him, thrusting her fork out, but Esaire ducked underneath the movement and closed the distance. She immediately swung her staff at his head, only for him to contemptuously turn it aside with one gauntlet, so forcefully that the staff nearly left her hands.

His other gauntlet swept up to strike her... and was bound in place by her cantae. Yet though the technique should have frozen his entire body, Esaire managed to twist, keeping his arm in place and instead kicking Nauda in the face. She hurtled backward, weapons flying from her hands as she slammed into one of the trees.

That left Theo facing a sprinting Esaire, with no way to assist Nauda. He saw Delarde closing on her, and Fiyu tried to stop him with a hail of bolts, but he waded through them, focusing on his target.

Then one of those gauntlets was coming for him and there was no time to help anyone else. Theo reversed gravity beneath himself, falling into the sky before Esaire could reach him. He had lost Navim's spear, leaving him with something simpler: rocks. Though he couldn't fly, Theo could change his momentum to keep himself high in the air.

So he threw the rocks down at Esaire, casting a gravitational field that sent each plummeting to the earth at many times normal acceleration.

Fast as they were, Esaire danced between them. Worse, he realized that the rocks were just pure force, not a cantae trick. Theo knew that throwing the last one was a mistake, but his body couldn't keep up with his experience and the last rock left his fingers toward his opponent.

This one, Esaire met with a flat palm, and somehow the velocity of the rock reversed in an instant. Theo couldn't manipulate gravity well enough to dodge, so it was only his position that meant the rock struck his arm instead of slamming into his body.

His focus weakened and he pitched downward. Theo wanted to stand calmly in the sky, but it was hard to control his momentum when he was pitching back and forth between gravitational fields and now wincing from the impact. Worse, Esaire was eyeing him carefully, and it would be entirely within the Archcrafter's power to reach him with a leap.

So he only had one choice: his new torsion technique. To prevent an aerial battle, Theo let himself drop back to the ground... and then suddenly thrust forward, casting a bolt of cantae at his opponent.

It flickered between them with more speed than he'd expected, concentrated force of gravity pulling in opposite directions, filtered through the sharpness of the rainhorn antlers. Despite its speed, Esaire nearly managed to dodge, the bolt hitting him in the shoulder.

Where it tore through his robes, but that was all. Theo saw his opponent take a step back, and it looked like a bruise was beginning to form, but he knew instantly that it hadn't been enough. And now he was far too close...

Theo threw himself to the side on old instincts and was still clipped by the blow, which felt like a wall of bricks rushing past him. He spun, bouncing painfully over the ground before landing some distance away. Half his body was numb and his other arm still ached from the stone that had struck him, while Esaire merely tore off his sleeve and prepared to advance again.

As he rose to his feet, Theo investigated the rest of the field. Nauda had apparently kept Delarde at bay, but he saw several bleeding wounds along her arms and legs, while her opponent still burned with cantae. Many of Esaire's other followers had stayed down, but others were getting back to their feet and forming a group, preparing to enter the battle. Fiyu... he didn't see Fiyu anywhere.

"I knew you weren't an Archcrafter." Esaire smiled and began wiping his gauntlets against one another. "I was sure enough of it before, but I still wanted to fight you. It's a good trick, but it's just a trick, isn't it?"

"Happy to have proved it to yourself?" Theo did his best to ignore his injuries and just met his gaze. "It's obvious that we're not your equal."

Delarde stepped forward and slammed the butt of his pike against the ground. "Then these worms have wasted your time! And my time, and the time of the entire Armeau family! They deserve to be punished!"

Troublingly, Esaire actually seemed to be listening. Theo took a deep breath and prepared to try another gamble. "I only have tricks now, but I haven't had very long to soulcraft. If you can endure my 'tricks' in a year, I'll bare my neck willingly."

"Proposing a scheduled duel?" Esaire regarded him with surprise, considering the offer as Delarde shouted at him to ignore it. He didn't seem to listen, but that didn't stop him from smiling coldly. "I refuse. I'll spare your lives, because you've been an interesting diversion, but you do need a lesson about challenging your betters."

With Esaire, Delarde, and the regrouping soulcrafters, the odds weren't good. Theo wasn't sure about the range of his gravitational fields, but he wondered if he could potentially launch himself and Nauda high into the air and refuse to come down. Nothing but a stalling tactic, but it was all he had that would be fast enough to avoid Esaire's strike.

Across the clearing, Esaire's sleigh began to move without any apparent cause. Theo couldn't keep himself from staring, and the others noticed, but it was too late.

The sleigh plowed through the group of soulcrafters, sending them tumbling over the clearing, and struck Delarde hard enough to knock him to the ground. Esaire barely dodged aside and started to strike back at the front seat, but Nauda managed to land her staff directly into his face, making him stumble back despite his defensive aura.

When the sleigh skidded sideways, briefly slowing, Theo hopped into the second seat along the way. As soon as he got near enough, he passed inside Fiyu's bubble, finally seeing her sitting at the controls. Nauda leapt to join them, then the sleigh began to speed up again, blasting through the forest canopy and shooting into the air.

"Fiyu, you did it!" Nauda very nearly embraced her and settled for grabbing Theo instead. "We're out!"

"And they don't have any way to follow us." Theo looked back to the clearing and the surrounding region. He saw Esaire and Delarde staring up at them in fury, but the simple fact was that they were standing in a mostly empty region, far from any other vehicles.

"Umm." Fiyu had smiled broadly when they arrived, but now flailed her hands in front of the controls. "I... don't really understand this. I could barely figure out how to make it go. I think... we're going to fall."

Theo scrambled over into the front seat, desperately grasping the controls as they began to plummet. Beneath the silvery hood, there were a number of metal spheres set against a wooden panel. They'd no doubt be linked to the primary sublime materials by thin lines, though he hadn't ever explored the art of crafting such things.

Fortunately, the spheres weren't so different from the old Deuxan vehicles he remembered, and they were designed to be idiot-friendly for lazy nobles. The sublime materials built into the floor couldn't keep the sleigh this high for long, but if he slowed their fall with gravitational fields and increased the buffer as much as possible when they landed...

The sleigh scraped against the ground, but other than a falling piece of gilding, the impact didn't do any damage. Above all, it continued to slide forward above the ground, its primary function uninhibited. Theo grinned and turned it around, heading toward the Tatian gate at full speed.

"Is this fair play?" Nauda asked. "If you can 'hunt' anything during the event, is this ours now?"

"That might be the letter of the law, but would you count on them to follow it?" Theo glanced behind them, checking for any pursuit, but there was no sign and even if Esaire acted immediately, he would be severely delayed. "No, the game is over. Our goal now is to get beyond his reach."

"But our sleigh..." Fiyu abruptly smiled. "Oh, we're just going to use his sleigh."

"That's right. No weapons, but the defenses aren't bad, and it's very fast. This is better than anything we could have afforded."

"But all the Silver Crowns we worked so hard for..."

Nauda shook her head with a smile. "We'll need to buy other things. It will be nice not to be so poor for once."

Theo nodded his agreement, and he couldn't help but smile along with the others. For a time, they simply raced forward, enjoying the ride as the sleigh shielded much of the air rushing past them. Fiyu confirmed that she had retrieved Nauda's fallen weapon, so they hadn't lost anything during the fight except their last rainhorn, which they no longer needed.

For now, they had time to breathe. But once they got back to the city of Nlukoko, they would need a plan.

Chapter 24

By the time they neared the region containing the gate back to Tatian, they'd finished some basic precautions. First, he'd gone over the vehicle carefully, finding several spheres that might serve as a tracking component and leaving them behind. The sleigh would obviously look foreign, but they'd removed the Armeau family crest and much of the gilding so it could pass as a more generic transport. Theo switched back to his Deuxan cloak and was surprised to find that the other two had acquired their own. They could enter the city easily, unless...

"Do we know if Nlukoko has any method of instantly contacting Deuxan cities?" He asked the question to both of them, but looked toward Nauda. She shook her head grimly.

"Unless Lord Ariano has a special connection he's never revealed, I don't think they do, otherwise there would have been more news from Deuxan. But I have a hard time believing they'll let this go... they'll be after us soon, won't they?"

"Our biggest advantage is our head start. I didn't see evidence of communication armaments in Anguedan, which makes sense since those are usually rare. Esaire will have to run back to the city, or at least to someone whose transport he can take. I doubt he has the authority to just chase us directly into another world, so he'll need to confer with the rest of his family first."

Fiyu took a deep breath. "Do you think he will follow us with reinforcements? If they send one of their Rulers..."

"I doubt it. The more people get involved, the more the conflict will seem petty and beneath the family." Theo could almost convince himself, but ended up shaking his head. "But I don't think Esaire will give up so easily and we don't know what connections he has on Tatian. We can't afford to stay in Nlukoko."

"They won't follow us far in the borderlands." Nauda sat back in her seat and prepared to soulcraft. "We can lose them out there, but we need supplies. The most dangerous period is while we're still in the city, or if they chase us out of it."

"I hope we can escape without seeing them again," Fiyu said. She settled back to follow Nauda's example and Theo wasn't sure if it was a statement of concern or simply making good use of her time.

One of the best features of the sleigh was that it could continue moving forward on its own and even navigate over minor obstacles. Since he had a well-constructed door in his soulhome, it would be easy to soulcraft even while driving the sleigh. Normally he would have joined the others, but they were already close to the gate and what he needed was insight.

Unfortunately, he just didn't see any way to make significant progress given his current resources. Looking back, he felt like everything had fallen together more quickly for him during his first life in the Nine Worlds. Perhaps he had just been lucky, perhaps his personal changes led him in a different direction, or perhaps the Nine had changed...

Soon he saw the gate ahead and began to slow their sleigh, the others emerging from their soulcrafting to join him. There was a very small chance that they'd be set on as soon as they went through, so they were on edge while they approached the tall silver arch. When they emerged on the other side, they were in the Nlukoko courtyard surrounded by the Deuxan market. A few local guards sat nearby, but there was no sign that anything was amiss and only one stood up to greet them.

"Visitors from Deuxan?" The guard didn't look at them very carefully and didn't seem to care. "Pay your fees and we'll get your papers sorted."

They could have used Nauda's false papers and avoided the fee, but Theo preferred to further break up any trail of evidence. Besides, it only took two of their Silver Crowns to put the guard in a good mood and get him to expedite the process. Hopefully, the man would barely think about them and not go out of his way to remember details, if Deuxans followed them later.

As they were about to depart, Theo turned back to the guard as if with a careless thought. "We heard there was some trouble with demons this year. Is the Landguard still here to keep the city safe?"

"Oh, they moved on months ago." The guard gave the question a slightly odd look, but scratched his side lazily as he answered. "Don't you worry, noble one. The city guard is well trained, and the Lord of Nlukoko is an Authority-tier soulcrafter. You're safe as can be here."

Theo pretended to be reassured and then guided their sleigh into the city. Unfortunately, though Deuxans weren't rare in Nlukoko, such an expensive sleigh still attracted some attention. Nauda sat low in her seat so no one would identify her as Tatian and Theo just hoped that any observations of them would be so garbled as to be useless.

"If we need to get out of here as soon as possible, do we split up?" Nauda asked. Fiyu shook her head immediately, and this time Theo agreed with her.

"It would save time, but I think there's too much risk of being found alone. Let's just do everything in order as efficiently as possible."

"Then we should exchange our money, or we'll have to negotiate at every single store. Turn that way, we can get a decent rate in the Deuxan district."

They slid onto another street, this one filled with many more Deuxan pedestrians. Theo remained in the sleigh as a precaution against thieves while the other two ducked under a specific stall. He was surprised to note that Nauda gave Fiyu the bag of money and had her move forward first.

"Hello!" Fiyu set down the bag and smiled at the woman running the stall. "We have many Silver Crowns. What are they worth?"

"Ah, you've come to the right place." The woman smiled broadly and picked up the sack, beginning to run the silver rings through her fingers. "Each of these is worth two full plates, or five chips, or s-"

Abruptly Nauda slid beside her, bringing her hand down on the sack and pinning it to the table, along with the money exchanger's hand. "So that's what you'd charge a naive customer you wanted to rob, huh?"

"Th-that's..." The woman tried to pull back, but couldn't escape Nauda's grip. "I pride myself on honorable business, but someone who requires such quantities..."

"You were giving me dishonest prices?" Even with her eyes covered, Fiyu's dismay was visible. "Why would you do such a thing?"

"I grew up on these streets, you know." Nauda put an arm on the money exchanger's shoulders, a Tatian gesture that wasn't quite so friendly in Nlukoko, despite her smile. "As it happens, we have a great deal of coin that we need to pass through an honest exchange. Now, are you the person we need, or not?"

Not long after, the two returned to the sleigh with their new currencies. He waited just long enough for them to get in, then began navigating to their next destination. Fiyu beamed happily at her participation in the deception, while Nauda just leaned forward over his shoulder to give the results.

"I kept a hundred Silver Crowns in case we run into Deuxans or need foreign currency. Some of it I converted to local plates, just enough to cover all the supplies we need here. But the rest, I converted into these." She reached into the sack and revealed a small amber gem. "I don't know economic details about the city we'll find on the other side of the gate, but I'm confident these will have value there. You know them?"

"Not those particularly, but I know the idea." Theo glanced back at the gem, confirming that it felt like a sublime material, but without any power. "I assume they're used as a core component of crafting sublime materials in the real world?"

"Yeah. Craftgems have functional value and they're artificial, so they're a practical currency anywhere. We lost a bit converting to craftgems, but we can't convert to our destination's currency and I think craftgems will be the better choice in the end, wherever we end up."

"We have something like that on Ichil," Fiyu spoke up. "They're small crystals that help power defenses while you sleep. I suppose those would not be as necessary in other worlds, but they were the only money we used while traveling."

Normally that might have led to another conversation, but they were running against a deadline. For normal supplies they visited another market, where Nauda ruthlessly negotiated for food, blankets, and other basics. Traveling would be cheap with the sleigh, since it could serve as shelter, but he noted that she purchased a significant amount of food. Could so much of Tatian really be empty and infertile?

"She is very good at negotiating," Fiyu said happily. Theo only grunted.

"I'm happy to leave it to her. Scoot over, she's coming back."

"That's the minimum we need." Once she dropped the supplies beside Fiyu, Nauda vaulted into the middle seat behind him. Realizing that she intended to talk, Theo turned back to look at them both. "If we want to get out of the city as soon as possible, we should go now. But there's no sign that we've been followed, so if anyone else has business in Nlukoko..."

Fiyu shook her head while Theo weighed the odds. The truth was that he didn't know the exact Deuxan threats, but since he was fairly certain that he wasn't being actively hunted by anyone higher, he decided that ignorance was a greater threat than a delay. "Can we visit the library again? Now that you're an Archcrafter, we should be able to access more resources than before."

Though the two women glanced at each other, they didn't object in the slightest, so Theo navigated to the library. Along the way, Nauda had the idea of repainting the sleigh to decrease its visibility. Since Fiyu didn't want to join them in the library, despite his claims about its peacefulness, she remained outside with a man who began to repaint it while they entered.

Inside, the Deuxan librarian glowered at him without any apparent memory of his previous visit. When she observed Nauda, however, she let them access some of the restricted archives.

"I know you just needed my rank," Nauda said as they entered the shelves, "but I'll help if I can. What are we actually looking for, in detail?"

"It's nothing different than I've said." Though, even as he spoke, he questioned if he had really been completely forthcoming with them. "Any information at all about the Artifacts of Elghiera, or the ancient soulcrafter himself. I probably found the stories you mentioned before, but don't rule anything out. Then anything about the Landguard - it's not very likely, but if we can learn anything about why they're so paranoid about outsiders, that might save our lives later."

She could easily have dismissed it as too abstract or relevant only to him, but Nauda accepted his words with a nod and began to help in the search. Actually, she proved to be a great help, since she showed no hesitation in approaching librarians directly where Theo preferred to search alone.

After an hour spent mostly futilely, Theo sat back and wondered if this had fundamentally been a mistake. This search needed to be undertaken carefully and thoughtfully, not rushed into while on the run from unknown opponents. Only the fact that they might not be able to return to Nlukoko for a long time made him refocus on the task.

What he found most frustrating was that the books the librarian brought him about Elghiera seemed to take him even less seriously than the myths he'd found before. There was a long chapter that put forth a theory that "Elghiera" was the mythical version of a real historical figure who had been essential in creating the very first weirkeys. Though the ring Theo had owned in his first life had never been usable as a weirkey, it had seemed aligned with some worlds more than others, and it had helped him in the pale white realm. What if it was a key in search of a lock?

The chapter would have been fascinating on its own terms, but as an answer under pressure, it was horribly disappointing. In fact, everything he read just made him angrier, wading through unnecessary information when he'd been killed because he didn't know enough. What should have been an enjoyable experience was reduced to futile scrabbling after a retreating goal.

"I think I have something." Nauda hadn't said anything of the sort during their search, even for potentially useful finds, so he immediately looked to her. She raised the book so he could see the title and smiled. "This is specifically for Archcrafters who believe they might join the Landguard. Unfortunately, it's more about ideas of community than specific techniques or advice."

"But it has information about the Landguard? When was it published?"

When Nauda blinked at him, he remembered that of course the book wouldn't have a publication date or anything of the sort. Whatever word she heard, she overcame her confusion fairly quickly. "The binding is very new, but a few other people have read it. He mentions a city that was founded ten years ago, so it's at most a decade old."

"Sorry, it doesn't matter. What's the important part?"

"It says that, while the Landguard is able to deal with military threats, it's struggled to deal with other types. Harmful addictive substances from other worlds, for example. The book emphasizes all the different threats, but the important part is that they've also received support from other worlds, information about dangerous outsiders that they might not be familiar with."

For the first time in so long, Theo felt like he was getting somewhere. He leaned closer. "And?"

"It doesn't say anything about who, but some sort of benefactor gave the Landguard both information and sublime materials if they promised to increase their usual duties. Specifically, they needed to locate and hunt down any outsiders who might be dangerous to the Nine Worlds." Nauda paused and shrugged with the book in hand. "Unfortunately, it doesn't say much more than that. The book is more about how awe-inspiringly important and serious the Landguard is, as opposed to little details like what they do. Does that help?"

"It's more than I've ever had before." Theo sat back and considered what that changed.

When he'd first arrived, he'd been afraid that Vistgil would pop out of nowhere and kill him again. That had never happened, and now he had a plausible theory. Vistgil and whatever organization he might represent couldn't afford to police billions of people across all the continents of the Nine Worlds. But they knew that unplanned outsiders might arrive, so they established broad policies against them.

That was assuming that Vistgil or an ally had been the one responsible for influencing the Landguard, but Theo couldn't really bring himself to doubt that. On his previous visit, just a century ago in Nine Worlds time, the attitude toward outsiders had been entirely different. The people of Tatian had actually been especially welcoming toward people from beyond the Nine Worlds, curious to hear their tales. Theo had never met anyone else from Earth, but he'd met people who were widely known to be from some distant world.

If his assumptions proved true, that meant he was dealing with less of a hunt and more of a conspiracy. What Magnafor had said suggested that others were coming across, perhaps with greater frequency than before. And whoever didn't want that process to happen had struck with surgical precision, their trap designed to annihilate people returning to the Nine Worlds with plans to ascend quickly.

Questions of why were pointless because he simply didn't have enough information, so his mind wandered in another direction. If this arrival had been accidental and unplanned, had the first been coordinated? Vistgil had known exactly how he almost died on Earth, despite claiming it was a meaningless accident, and had somehow met him immediately. Every possible explanation for that just left him with even more questions.

"Theo?" Nauda had closed the book and now just looked at him. "I know this information is important to you, but I don't know what else we can try."

"I think that will be enough. We should get moving." As he rose, Theo reached down to rub her arm. "This helps more than you know, Nauda. Thank you."

"I think you'd do the same for me." That was all she said before sweeping back toward the entrance. A warm thought, and decidedly not a Tatian one.

Back outside, they discovered Fiyu lurking in the shadows next to a newly painted sleigh - it was now a rich red color that would blend in with Tatian foliage, and more importantly didn't look nearly so Deuxan. Fiyu herself hid among their supplies as though she wanted to hide herself with her stealth technique, but she popped up when she saw them.

"The paint is not dry yet. Is there anything else we need to do?"

"We could always use sublime materials." Nauda glanced between them, then shook her head. "I still have enough Deuxan stone, and I don't want to mix types on my second floor. I could use some metal ore, perhaps. Do you need anything, Fiyu?"

"Oh, I am fine. I will remain here, by the sleigh."

Since she seemed determined on that account, Theo and Nauda set off again, this time walking to the nearest market that sold sublime materials. He wasn't eager to spend their money on materials that were probably second rate compared to what they would soon access, but he had to admit that lack of materials had been a choke point for him.

Thinking through all the potential problems, Theo decided to purchase some of the springy branches that Nauda had used to ascend. It was unlikely that he would reach Archcrafter soon, but it was good to be prepared. Nauda purchased a number of supplies for mixing sublime cement, which was always a practical choice.

They had to search longer to find anything of quality, but eventually they came across some sublime metal that the merchant called sunbronze. Like many sun-related Tatian materials, it felt potent, though not Archcrafter-tier. It would have fit his old blueprint better, but he thought he could find a place for it, while Nauda was sure that she and even Fiyu could use it to polish some of their chambers.

Since it was unlikely that they would find anything of immense value, and he was growing antsy, they headed back to the sleigh. Along the way, Nauda blended into the crowds to gather information and rumors, but when she rejoined him, she only shook her head.

When they returned, they found Fiyu perched on one of the seats, running a finger along the new paint curiously. The red would have stood out starkly on her dark clothes and she'd reloaded the sleigh, however, so it seemed that it was essentially dry. When she felt their presence she smiled and looked up.

"Hello. I think it is almost all dry, so we could leave if we want."

"That's good." Nauda folded her arms and frowned over all the supplies they'd gathered. "Does anyone have anything else they need to do?"

"Senka does!"

Everyone flinched as the imp suddenly hopped up onto their sleigh. Though Theo's first impulse was to roll his eyes, he immediately realized that her presence meant something much worse. "Senka, exactly how did you get here?"

"Ummm... Senka was eating and then people were yelling your names. Senka was a bit confused by all the words, but there was a mean fumpet and a really angry fumpet. They said they needed find you and Senka also needed to find you! So Senka sneaked into their flying boat thingy and we went back over here so Senka came to find you."

They listened in horror, almost made worse by the childish nature of the story. Theo jumped forward, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Senka, are you saying that Deuxans have already followed us here?"

"Umm, yes? Senka thinks so. There were lots of words but they said that you might get away so they wanted to talk to some Lord fumpet and lock something up."

Nauda groaned, but she also leapt into the sleigh at the same moment. "They're trying to lock us in, and probably get us reported as thieves to the whole guard. We need to move."

"Is it already too late?" Fiyu asked, shifting to a better seat and pulling Senka onto her bench.

"Hopefully not, thanks to Senka. The Lord of Nlukoko is too proud to meet with just anyone, especially anyone without a significant rank. But I don't know how long that delay will last, so we should get out of here as soon as possible."

"That's now." Before he'd even properly sat down, Theo lowered his hands to the controls and began navigating out of the city. This could be closer than he'd wanted, and he could only hope they had time.

If it really came down to it and the bridges out of the city were closed, he was fairly certain that the sleigh could move directly across the lake. The guard might have some sort of barrier they could raise, but with gravitational fields he could probably send the sleigh over them. The real problem would be if they actually got Ariano on their side - an Authority could shoot them out of the sky in an instant.

"Was Senka helpful? Huh? Huh? Senka thinks she was helpful. You gonna thank Senka or you gonna be a sporping fumpet?" She started to clamber up onto his shoulders, but he pushed her back.

"We can hand out the thanks when we're safe." Theo pressed down harder on the sphere, willing them to escape Nlukoko.

Chapter 25

Even after they discovered there was no sign of the city locking down, their exit from the city worried Theo. The guards would no doubt include some Archcrafters, and above all they couldn't afford to bring higher authorities - and Authorities - down on them. But in the end, Fiyu had persuaded him to try her stealth technique, which she had been strengthening.

Theo made the sleigh weightless, allowing the levitation materials to lift them well above the surface, then Fiyu extended her sphere around the entire vessel. With those combined, they avoided the bridges entirely and glided over an empty part of the lake. Though he worried the entire time, and watched the ripples extending beneath them despite his best efforts with gravitational fields, in the end they slid out of Nlukoko and into the northern wasteland.

"Well done, Fiyu!" Nauda beamed up at her as Fiyu sat happily in the central seat.

"The walls are completely reinforced with the reflective bark, and I've completed my central carving. The chamber is finally complete." She folded her hands in her lap and lowered her head. "I will focus on attempting to resist Archcrafter observation while you move us away."

Though Theo's imagination conjured sleds racing after them or Authorities rising out of the city, he didn't see any sign that they had been followed. Far from being a tense chase, they cruised away from the city peacefully until Nlukoko vanished in the distance.

That took less time than it normally would, because the ground only became more twisted and hilly as they continued. The sleigh wanted to remain a constant distance above the ground, which meant they ended up weaving up and down the hills. He saw a few scraggly trees at first, but vegetation receded and even the ground seemed leeched of life.

It was so alien to Tatian that he wondered if this region had been damaged in a past battle between powerful soulcrafters. The Landguard might be formidable, but they couldn't prevent all collateral damage. He wasn't completely sure about the details, but he knew that the strongest soulcrafters could have a radical effect on the world around them, creating effects that, if not permanent, could last for generations. Perhaps this was a blighted zone, perhaps even tied to Nauda's past.

"Sporp!" Senka let out another nonsense exclamation and he tried to ignore her, but a moment later he heard Nauda's intake of breath and turned back to look.

A silver mote winked in the distance, another sleigh rising and falling over the hills. No, when he watched more carefully, he realized that there were two silver vehicles in pursuit.

"Don't worry, everyone." Nauda hefted her staff while putting on a false smile. "I'm sure that's just a friendly Deuxan group that happens to be going on a picnic in the same direction."

"He can see us." Fiyu wilted in her seat. "I thought we were so close to invisible..."

"It isn't your fault, Fiyu." Though Nauda turned back to give her a real smile, she soon focused behind them again. "I'd bet that Esaire is on that sleigh, and I think he has a full chamber dedicated to an Archcrafter-tier observation technique. That, or he has some entirely different way to track us."

Though Theo eyed Senka suspiciously, her face actually looked concerned, and she had been the one to warn them. He decided to cut through Fiyu's unhappiness and get her focused on what mattered. "We don't have time to figure out his observation technique now, the question is if he's gaining on us. I was already going as fast as the sleigh can manage, so just judge his speed."

It wasn't long before he got an answer from Nauda. "I think he's gaining, but extremely slowly. Their sleigh seems to be faster, but they're not navigating the hills as smoothly."

"Then let's increase that advantage." Theo again wished that he could apply gravity directionally, but instead removed their gravity as they arched up the next hill. The sleigh shot into the air before he removed the field, skipping the valley entirely and instead landing on the next slope.

Unfortunately, with his attention on driving, he couldn't reduce their momentum perfectly, so the impact was a bit jarring. Fiyu gasped as she was jolted from her seat, only just gripping the next to reduce the shaking. They needed something else...

"Nauda, can you use your binding technique on the sleigh?"

"Not enough to fly or anything like that..." Nauda still hefted her staff and picked up her broken fork. "But you just want to reduce the impacts, right? I'll see what I can do."

It took them several jumps to coordinate properly, but soon they managed it: instead of weaving up and down the hills, they skimmed over the top of each. The sleighs didn't lose much momentum on inclines, but their path was still a straighter line. Behind them, the silver sparks began to recede into the horizon, only occasionally winking from between the hills.

"Do you think they'll follow us forever?" Fiyu asked. Now that Nauda had adjusted to catching them each time they came down, she was able to answer smoothly.

"They've already left their home world, negotiated with Nlukoko, and come this far." She shook her head slowly. "I doubt their determination will run out, but their supplies might. They're probably underestimating how far we intend to go... I'm not sure what will happen."

"What matters for now is reaching the gate," Theo said. "If we actually reach a hub city, their authority won't mean anything, plus we can disappear into the crowds."

"I'm not sure it will come to that. We have a long way to go."

Part of Theo had been slightly disbelieving Nauda, assuming that she'd overestimated the distance in her mind, but as the hours wore on, it became obvious why they'd needed a vehicle. Even flashing forward at their current speeds, they didn't seem any closer to their destination. Judging from the food she'd brought along, Nauda expected the journey to be much longer.

As the journey continued, Theo taught the others how to use the control spheres. Fiyu seemed confused by their design, but rapidly became skilled at sliding around the hills, while Nauda grasped the basics right away but didn't seem to enjoy driving. They couldn't maintain their pace skimming over hills for long, so they slowed down and watched the horizon.

The days stretched on and they fell into a strange rhythm. They traded off driving, sleeping, eating, and soulcrafting to maintain their pace day and night. Once, at the top of a very large hill, Nauda caught a glimpse of a sleigh still following them, but they remained in the lead. When Theo and Nauda were both awake they returned to skimming, just in case their pursuers had other tricks up their sleeve. Overall, it seemed that they might make their escape successfully.

Three days into the journey, Theo finally saw a black structure on the horizon. After so long over dead land with no sign of Tatian civilization, he was eager to examine it... until he realized that it wasn't a building.

"Pull up, up!" Nauda had been partially asleep but now pounded on his back in abrupt panic. He acted without thinking, sending their sleigh high into the sky.

The building unfurled, enormous jaws lunging into the sky toward them.

Theo had no time to look at it, just cast another gravitational field to send them higher. Fiyu partially rose and unleashed a hail of bolts with one hand, but they dissipated against the beast's rocky skin. The jaws slammed shut beneath them and the beast fell back down, leaving Theo to desperately shift fields to keep them from slamming back to the ground too violently. Being so high might make them visible to their pursuers... though they had a much bigger problem, including in the literal sense.

While sending them coasting back down, Theo finally looked back toward what had lunged at them. It crouched on all fours, much larger than a house, but its shape was a strange amalgamation he'd never seen before. The body was bulky with trunk-like legs ending in heavy paws, while the back end curled into a scorpion-like tail. Strangest of all, the head was roughly humanly shaped, unnaturally flat with an enormous mouth and dully glowing eyes.

It certainly looked dangerous, a fact confirmed by his glance at its soul. Clearly a sublime beast, one with several concentric rings of dark rock. He couldn't get a good look but estimated at least three, suggesting that the sublime beast would be a match for even a Ruler.

"What," Theo asked icily, "is that?"

"They're not usually up here..." Nauda took a deep breath, staring at it with an expression he couldn't read. "It's called an eryo, and it's going to chase us."

The eryo had been staring after them, but almost as if prompted by her words, it grasped a hill and pushed itself into the air. A single bound ate up a startling amount of the distance between them and Theo wished that he had more resources. Attacks were clearly useless, so if they couldn't outrun it...

"It's much too strong to fight, and I'm afraid it's too fast, but they're stupid." Nauda looked forward, eyes scanning the horizon carefully. "They're also not very good hunters, instead sitting still and relying on prey to get close to them. So our best hope is to hide until it gets distracted, hopefully by our pursuers. Fiyu, bring your sphere back as soon as we get out of its sight."

Since Nauda was the local expert and the eryo had taken another leap after them, Theo began looking for a hiding place without a word. He would have to ask Nauda some hard questions later, but that could come after they'd escaped the vicious monster.

Fortunately, what Nauda had said about the beast's intelligence proved correct. Even just curling around the side of a hill and changing direction misled it, the eryo rumbling forward for several leaps before realizing they had shifted. It looked around after that, and unfortunately he couldn't drop low quickly enough to avoid its gaze, but he had the beast's number.

Several swerves later, they hid underneath a rocky crag, listening to the eryo storming further away from them. He realized that it didn't growl or roar, which might make sense if it was an ambush predator. Fiyu renewed her stealth technique and they waited above the rocky ground, hoping that they had evaded it.

Aside from questions of why such a sublime beast was on Tatian, Theo thought they had a bigger problem: what Esaire and the others would do. No doubt they'd seen both the sleigh and the eryo, so the question was how they would respond. In an ideal world, their hiding place would remain hidden from both of them, or Esaire would retreat at the sight of the danger. But given the world they lived in, Theo assumed that they wouldn't be so lucky.

They were all silent until suddenly Senka began struggling over the side of the sleigh. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

"It's scary! Senka is scared!"

Though he lunged to try to catch her, he was an instant too late and she slipped over the side. Landing lightly on the wasteland below, the brat scampered into a pile of rocks and hid with her hands over her face, as if no one could see her that way. Nauda sighed and started to get up after her, but Theo cut her off with a gesture.

"Let her. The eryo might come back at any moment, and we need to react instantly to have a chance at escaping it. We can't let her sabotage us."

Though Fiyu obviously disliked that idea, she let it pass, given the obvious danger. Soon Theo no longer heard the eryo thumping into the ground at all, which should have been comforting but actually made him more nervous. Maybe it had passed out of range, but it was also possible that it was moving cautiously now, creeping back in their direction, its maw ready to appear overhead at any moment.

Minutes crept onward and he started to believe that they might have escaped... until a silver sleigh floated through a canyon beside them.

"This has proved a much more interesting trip than I thought." Esaire jumped up onto the front of his sleigh, regarding them directly through Fiyu's technique. "But I've wasted our family's resources on this, so I'm afraid I need to have something to show for it."

"Are you really attacking now?" Theo decided to risk leaving the sleigh, since having it damaged would be an even greater threat than a direct fight. "You saw that sublime beast, didn't you?"

"Powerful, but stupid. Your hiding place wasn't enough to escape me."

"You're going to die!" Delarde jumped out of the second arriving sleigh with his pike in hand, though he wasn't foolish enough to yell. "You've gone too far against the Armeau family!"

"This is stupid." Nauda slipped to the ground as well, her armaments ready. "You said that anything taken during a hunt was fair game, so we hunted your sleigh. The insult can't possibly be worth all this trouble."

"You don't understand." Esaire stepped off the sleigh and landed unnaturally lightly, his cloak of cantae flaring up around him. "The family's prestige is everything, and you dealt it a serious blow. Being forced to walk back to Anguedan... I can't allow that to stand."

While they spoke, Theo analyzed the others in the sleigh, and he didn't like what he saw. In addition to Esaire and Delarde, there was another Archcrafter and seven first-tier soulcrafters. Every single one of them had a decently-sized soulhome and he doubted that any were inexperienced. Assuming that they'd all soulcrafted a defense against his gravity, he didn't see any possible way to overcome the gap in power.

When Esaire moved, it wasn't to attack, it was a signal to the unnamed Archcrafter. The woman hurled a shining orb directly at them, and Nauda stuck out her staff to bind it... but the sphere just kept coming. Nauda grunted and twisted, barely managing to redirect it. Whizzing past them, the sphere struck the cliffside silently and silvery matter began spreading over the rocks.

Esaire smiled and readied his gauntlets, confident in his superiority. Theo took a step back, since he didn't see any chance of victory. Yet with this group and those unknown projectiles, escape was also a poor gamble. The female Archcrafter tossed and caught another sphere in her hand, Delarde lowered his pike at them, and Esaire took a step forward.

A rock tumbled down the side of the cliff, striking another, and as a cascade started they all looked up to the top.

"Oopsie?" Senka had somehow fallen flat on her face, but now looked up in surprise as the falling rocks turned into a small avalanche that made both sides retreat. For a moment Theo glared at her, but only a moment.

Then a roar echoed over the canyon and they heard the eryo begin thundering toward their position.

Chapter 26

Everyone froze at the sound of the eryo approaching, but Theo recovered first and grabbed Nauda's arm, pulling her back toward the sleigh. Senka was scrambling down after the rocks toward them, but there was no time for her, they needed to get out before the eryo arrived.

Unfortunately, the Deuxans wouldn't let them go so easily, Delarde leaping after them with a roar of his own and the woman hurling another sphere. Nauda again struggled to redirect it, while Fiyu managed to catch Delarde square in the chest with her bolts, which didn't injure him but knocked him back into the canyon.

For his part, Theo grabbed at the controls, but the path forward was no longer obvious. The sleigh would be destroyed if they tried to pass Esaire's group and he wasn't sure of the eryo's exact location. With no immediate exit, he instead tried to slide around one of the cliffsides to at least reduce their vulnerability to attack.

Somehow Senka leapt from a nearby ledge and tumbled into the sleigh, though she struck her head on the side and lay still. Fiyu reached down to check on her, but the other two had no time, Theo trying to navigate and Nauda deflecting blasts of cantae from soulcrafters who still didn't understand the threat.

Everyone understood the next moment: the eryo landed on the nearby clifftop, dwarfing the impact of the avalanche. Its flat face swung back and forth, as if the new number of targets had overwhelmed its tiny brain, and everyone froze in anticipation.

If it had only turned on Esaire's group, Theo could have made his escape, but by sheer dumb luck it turned toward them instead. Not only that, when it stepped forward one of the enormous claws slammed down into the path he'd been intending to drive, leaving them driving down a canyon directly toward the largest threat in the region.

Though Theo swung to the side, now they'd caught its attention, so the eryo swung its entire body after them, mouth thudding closed in anticipation of reaching them. Fiyu raised her hands nearly together, releasing a focused burst of light bolts targeting the creature's eyes, but they were absorbed into the rough gem-like surface without any effect.

Theo reacted on instinct by casting a gravitational field to make the eryo fall up: it didn't matter how massive it was, gravity would still make it fall straight into the sky. Even as he cast, he realized that its body would probably resist the effect, so it was worse than useless.

Instead, the massive beast clamped its legs and tail down into the stone, refusing to fall.

For a second they were both puzzled, the beast baffled at an environment it had never experienced before while Theo was shocked that it had failed differently than expected. The eryo didn't have any resistance to gravity manipulation, yet it seemed only mildly troubled to be turned upside-down. Once it recovered, it took a careful step toward them, not letting itself fall. He could add more gravity, but he had a feeling that it was too firmly embedded in the rock.

They'd lost their momentum to avoid running into the beast, which unfortunately left few paths out of the canyon. It had gotten close enough that falling up might put them in range of its jaws, so he didn't see what options he had left.

In a single movement he reversed all the gravitational fields, instead trying to slam the eryo into the ground. It dropped, but the impact from the short distance did no harm to its bulky body, and soon it began to rise again, claws still gripped tight in the stone. Theo realized that it was just too physically powerful: even if he could hit it with far more gravity, the raw cantae flowing through its muscles would keep it on its feet.

The eryo opened its jaws, looming closer... and froze.

"Move..." Nauda barely grated out the word, both her armaments thrust out toward the beast. It trembled in place, but she was already sweating. The beast might be more slowed by surprise than her binding technique, so they only had a moment.

Reversing their own gravity, Theo sent them shooting up into the air, past the dull face and into the sky. Soon they were far overhead, but the creature was beginning to move and Nauda slumped against the side.

Without warning, it unleashed another roar, and with it a shockwave of cantae radiating through the air. It didn't disrupt Theo's gravitational fields, but Nauda let out an agonized cry and fell backward. Only Fiyu lunging to catch her prevented Nauda from falling out of the sleigh.

Their momentum took them to the side, but not very quickly, leaving them still over the beast's head. It was now free of binding, beginning to look around itself. He could easily imagine it looking up, then making another leap for them. Though his first thought was to let them keep falling higher, Theo realized that he had another option.

He grabbed one of the gilded pieces of the old sleigh and hurled it downward at several times normal gravity. The ornate wood glanced off the eryo's face without doing the slightest harm... but the beast swung toward that side, suddenly facing Esaire's group again.

As he urged the sleigh to take them further from the battle, Theo couldn't help but look back. If the Deuxans had been sensible, they would have run away at the first chance, but instead they actually attacked the sublime beast.

They struck with cantae bolts and a few thrown weapons, but the eryo roared again, sweeping aside all such attacks. Then it was on them, a claw sweeping down and tearing apart a soulcrafter in one blow. Delarde danced around its feet, striking with his pike, but the weapon glanced off harmlessly and he soon retreated.

But the Deuxans had severely underestimated the enormous beast's speed. Another leap brought it on top of them, smashing another soulcrafter and spearing one through the chest with its tail. Delarde stumbled on one of the rocks, going down, and the eryo bent down toward him, maw opening.

Esaire flashed in front of it, both palms striking the creature's face. The explosion of cantae actually made it stagger backward, but it lashed back savagely, one enormous claw catching Esaire's side and driving him to the ground.

Though they were much further away by that point, it looked like Esaire's body was still intact. Everyone else the eryo had struck had been torn apart, yet though Esaire had fallen, it looked like he'd only been injured. That didn't make sense for an Archcrafter, unless he'd soulcrafted a Corporeal Floor already. His followers certainly did their best to retrieve him, one of the other soulcrafters giving their life to distract the eryo.

"Theo..." Fiyu said his name softly, pulling his attention back to the sleigh. Nauda slumped in place, her hands covered in her own blood, and Senka lay unconscious atop the supplies. Fiyu was right: they needed to focus on themselves.

"The enemy is hurting worse than we are. We just need to survive this." Theo redirected the sleigh toward the north again, though he knew they couldn't reach the gate in this condition. Instead, he looked through the wasteland carefully for a better place to hide.

He barely spotted it: a cavern tucked around the side of a craggy hill. Though it didn't look inviting, it was far too small for the eryo to follow them, and that was top priority. Theo shifted their path to the cavern, which proved larger than he'd expected, though they needed to get out of the sleigh in order to push it inside the entrance.

"Is it safe?" he asked. Fiyu took a deep breath and he thought he felt something pass by him as her senses extended deeper.

"There are no living creatures within," she reported. "Beyond the turn ahead, there is a fractured hall and then a larger cavern opening in the opposite direction. It may be too dark for you."

"Then we go deeper. If we stay here, they might spot us as easily as we noticed the cavern."

They guided the sleigh deeper inside, around a sharp corner, and he was glad to see Nauda begin to return to herself. After another twist it was pitch black inside the cavern, but Nauda had bought a small spirit lantern along with other supplies. It illuminated a rough cavern around them, thankfully separated from the threats outside.

"This is close enough to safety." Theo finally let himself sigh in relief as they reached a dead end in a large cavern. "We can afford to rest here... actually, we can't afford not to. Nauda, are you alright?"

"It... hit back hard." She sat on the edge of the sleigh, staring at her hands as they trembled. Fiyu hastened to her, providing one of their water canteens and a clean rag, which Nauda gingerly used to wipe the blood from her hands. Seemed like they'd hurt a lot, but she hadn't lost use of them.

With Fiyu tending to Nauda, Theo supposed that Senka fell to him. He walked past them to find her small body, laying in an odd position atop the supplies, her head twisted to the side. For a moment he actually worried about the little imp, wondering if the fall could have-

"That's blooky..." Senka mumbled some more in her sleep, then contorted herself into an even more awkward position. Theo scowled and had to force himself to check that she wasn't bleeding anywhere before he left her there.

Close as the call had been, and fraught with ill luck, they'd survived. No losses or permanent injuries, which counted as a win against a sublime beast that powerful. The sleigh had been roughed up a bit, but none of the levitation components had been damaged and they had only lost a few supplies that had been sitting out. They could recover from this.

With no other meaningful actions available, Theo took a moment to just sit down and breathe. He made sure that his soulhome was filling up with cantae again, but it actually hadn't been exhausted. His gravity techniques might lack in power, but they were fairly efficient.

As before, the problem was just raw strength. Theo looked over all the sublime materials he had available to him, wondering if he could craft a new chamber that would give him an edge. In his past life, he felt like he would have stumbled across an amazing resource in the cavern, but it was just a simple empty hole in the ground.

Once she'd recovered a little, Nauda seemed to need to impose some order on her environment, but her hands were too injured to do tasks easily. Instead she directed Fiyu, who seemed happy to obey her instructions. Soon they had set up a basic camp, taking the bedrolls from the sleigh and placing them around the lantern. After days struggling to find a good sleeping position in the sleigh, it would be nice to stretch out and truly rest.

That was when Delarde walked into the camp.

Chapter 27

"You've even penned yourself in like rats." The Deuxan Archcrafter lifted his pike as his cantae cloak flowed around him. "A convenient place to finally finish you."

"How did you find us?" Theo asked, less because he cared about the answer and more to buy time. Yet this deep in the cavern, their chances weren't good, and he saw several other soulcrafters coming in behind him. Not all the Deuxans, and not Esaire, but...

"I don't really get it, and I thought we'd lost you when we found the trackers, but you can't escape us. Those Deuxan sublime materials leave a trace going through Tatian, so as soon you left the city, we followed it." Delarde rolled his shoulders, apparently enjoying his superior position as his allies gathered alongside him. "Of course, I didn't figure out any of that, but Esaire showed us how to finish tracking you. Now I get the pleasure of taking you out personally."

"So he survived, but he must have suffered injuries. You're really still coming after us after losing so many of you?"

"Some of the others took him back home for treatment, but we can't go back without getting something for all our trouble." Finally he lowered his pike into combat position. "Will you survive if I cut off your legs? Time to find out..."

Fiyu struck, a silent shadow blurring through the light cast by the lantern. Theo was shocked by how quickly she moved and so was Delarde, barely managing to dodge back from the dark cantae thrusting at his face. But even if she could equal his speed, she couldn't match an Archcrafter's force, so when he slammed his pike into the cave floor, she staggered back.

Though Fiyu struck again, he was ready this time, sweeping his pike to drive her back. "Careful! You could hurt somebody with that..."

Clearly Fiyu couldn't stop him, and she'd be throwing herself into danger once the other Deuxans got their act together and struck at her flanks. Theo didn't see many options, but at that moment Nauda came up beside him, new blood coating her staff as she gripped it.

"I'm going to take down that cantae aura. You'll only have one second."

With that, she struck alongside Fiyu, thrusting out her fork and catching one of the soulcrafters in place. She swept both to the side, driving him into the others, but Delarde was far too quick to be caught by such a maneuver. He rushed forward with a mad grin, his pike sweeping into position for a fatal thrust.

Nauda let out a cry and cantae swept from her, not in an attack but nullifying the energy in front of her. For a moment, Delarde's burning cloak flickered out.

Theo's hand was already up, sending cantae into his opponent's chest.

Though Delarde let out a cry and tried to resist, his aura came back up too late. Theo's cantae created twisting planes of gravity trying to tear him apart from within. The Deuxan soulcrafter groaned and staggered, blood staining the front of his shirt and one of his arms going limp.

Yet instead of falling, he slammed a foot into the ground and kept himself upright. Grinning through bloody teeth, Delarde managed to straighten up and raise his pike with his remaining hand. Though Theo tried to send another torsion burst, it deflected off his opponent's aura, even though it flickered weakly. The Archcrafter was only keeping himself standing with raw cantae, but he had plenty to spare.

"Al... almost." Delarde grinned again, and swept his pike to gesture at his allies. "Stop staring and join me. This isn't a duel, it's putting the worms in their place."

The group advanced, weapons rising and cantae bolts beginning to flicker in their hands. Theo could have tried a gravitational field, but had to assume that they would all have soulcrafted Esaire's defenses. Acting would only spur them to attack, and it would go poorly... he didn't have good options, Nauda was barely on her feet, and Fiyu...

His answer was obvious, once he thought about it. Theo raised his hand to the side and used a cantae bolt to destroy the lantern.

All at once the cavern was plunged into darkness, lit only by the unstably flickering light of Delarde's cloak. Theo couldn't see anything except the Archcrafter, but he heard a cry of pain from one side of the entrance. Delarde whirled to look, flaring his aura, only to find one of the soulcrafters lying against the wall, blood flowing from the new wound on his chest.

"She's in the shadows!" Delarde called. "Don't give her any!"

One of the other soulcrafters lit up in a defensive aura, desperately searching for an enemy... but it only illuminated him for a moment before Fiyu appeared behind him, driving her blade of dark cantae through his back. In the shadows, the blade surrounding her hand looked like darkness itself, and when the man's cantae died, Fiyu was one with the shadows, even before she drew her veil of stealth around herself.

As one of the others let out a cry, dying in the darkness, the last soulcrafter rushed to go back to back with Delarde. It was a strategy, but not a good one. In the darkness, all Theo could see was the two of them illuminated by aura, so he slammed all his gravitational fields down on both of them, dropping the soulcrafter and even staggering Delarde.

Though he still burned with an Archcrafter's cantae, his focus was waning and the blood loss was beginning to slow him down. His soulhome still overflowed with more cantae than he could use, but that was exactly the problem: it wouldn't do him any good if his body gave out before his soul did.

An invisible blade suddenly sliced through the back of his leg and he went down with a cry. He tried to swipe backwards, but Fiyu was already emerging from the shadows in front of him, a hail of light slamming into his cloak, battering it down, throwing him to the ground.

"Please, don't..." Delarde struggled to scramble backwards away from Fiyu as she walked toward him. "You've won, alright? If you let me live, the Armeau family will reward you... you'll get the bloodprice and the prestige of-"

"I don't know what that is." Fiyu drove her blade into his face and the last light was quenched.

Though he was now in total darkness, Theo could finally breathe easy again. Being completely unable to see left him unpleasantly vulnerable, wishing he had his old techniques, but Fiyu was the only one who could take advantage of it.

"That was smart, Theo." Her hand patted the back of his before flitting away, nothing but a sense of motion in the darkness. "You too, Nauda. I could not have defeated him if he had been uninjured."

"I'm glad this is good for you," Nauda said wryly, "but I could use some light."

"Oh, of course. There was a second lantern, was there not?"

Soon enough, Fiyu appeared beside the sleigh with the lantern's light flickering around her. Her smile was broad, even when she twisted the device to increase the light to flood the entire chamber. Nauda dropped into a seated position, letting her staff clatter to the floor again. Though her hands would recover, he didn't envy her all the torn skin.

All around them, the chamber was filled with the bodies of soulcrafters, blood pooling around them. He'd assumed that Fiyu's blade was generated from darkness, but not realized that it might be designed for it. Combined with her stealth, it would make her a dangerous hunter on Ichil.

Out of habit he looked over the bodies, wondering if they had anything useful that could be taken. Presumably they had a sled outside, at least. Yet when he counted them...

"Fiyu, there's one more!" Theo was already running after the smear of blood that went around the corner. Though Fiyu looked surprised at first, she rallied her weary senses and then her eyes widened and she rushed after him.

All of Fiyu's strikes had been fatal except for one, and the surviving Deuxan had managed to crawl his way surprisingly far. Theo spotted him outside the entrance and raised a hand to strike, but the last Deuxan let out a cry and his cantae exploded from him, lighting up the cavern mouth like the sun.

For a moment, Theo was stunned by the foolishness of it. His dying cantae had been potent, but too far away to hurt them. Once, such a burst would have blinded Fiyu, but her soulcrafting and mask reduced it to nothing but a wince. There was no one outside to warn, just an empty sled floating beside the cavern, and Theo didn't believe any of the other Deuxans had remained...

He understood just a little before he heard the roar. The enormous form of the eryo bounded over one of the nearby hills, rushing toward them.

There should have been more than enough time to retreat, but they were both exhausted from the battle. By the time they realized that escape from the cavern was impossible and turned to run, the eryo was already almost there. As Theo sprinted back inside, he heard the sled be smashed apart into splinters. Even when they got deeper, he felt a massive claw scraping against the stone.

When they retreated to the dead end, they discovered Nauda sitting there, watching them numbly. "I take it the eryo can't get in?"

"Not as far as I can tell," Theo said, "but we're trapped inside."

"That's fine. I just hope it stops roaring." With that, Nauda lay down and shifted into a comfortable position to sleep. Honestly, he couldn't blame her.

Chapter 28

Technically they could have started thinking of a solution to their predicament immediately, but after enduring so much, the group wasn't eager to throw themselves into yet another problem. Their cavern shook a few times as the eryo tried to find a way in, but when it failed, they decided to leave aside that issue for when they were better rested.

Nauda got her hands fully bandaged, while Fiyu curled up and slept, exhausted after the encounter. Theo was actually the one in the best shape, for which he felt vaguely guilty. He'd made the best choices he could, they just hadn't required as much from him.

One night of sleep left everyone feeling much better, but it didn't fundamentally change their situation. Early in the morning, Theo ventured to the mouth of the cave to check, only to find the eryo waiting outside. It had again curled up on itself, forming the lumpy shape that had first made him mistake it for a building... but he saw one vast eye watching from between its claws.

When he returned, he found that the other two had finished eating. Nauda gingerly set down her bowl and regarded him somberly. "Still there, I take it?"

"Yeah, I think it's waiting. I'm surprised it would still come after us, given how small we are, relatively. What do these things eat, anyway?"

"Soulcrafters." Nauda glanced toward the corner where they'd disposed of the bodies. "I can understand why they might pursue us this far, but I can't believe the last of them sacrificed himself just to trap us here."

"Oh, you should believe it. There are a lot of Deuxan stories about mortally wounded soulcrafters killing their opponent with their last breath, poisoned lovers pulling knives, and so on." Theo sat down and looked between them. "The question is what we're going to do about it. Fiyu?"

"I do not have an easy solution." Through her mask, he thought that her eyes were closed. "I have examined the caverns carefully and there is not another exit route. I am unsure if it is able to see through my veil of stealth, but testing that could be very dangerous."

"We still have supplies, but I'm guessing that it's patient?" He glanced to Nauda, who only nodded, leaving them in silence. Setting aside the search for a solution, he decided that it was finally time to raise a different issue. "Nauda, exactly how do you know about a sublime beast like that?"

Nauda stared back at him, resolute, but eventually eased back with a long sigh. "It would be easier just to show you, if we live through this. I became an adult in Nlukoko, but I wasn't born there. We're almost home. You'll see then."

"Your home is right beside the gate?" Fiyu asked.

"Not exactly."

Since he had already trusted Nauda with his life, Theo decided that he could trust her with a few secrets. He was skeptical that they really required a demonstration over a simple explanation, but since she said it would be soon, he didn't even have to wait that long.

Assuming they found a way to get past the eryo.

Though Theo began soulcrafting out of habit, carving more on his feast table, it was just to keep his hands busy while he thought. Their group might barely be able to keep up with Archcrafters in some respects, but they had no chance of overpowering a Ruler-tier sublime beast like the eryo. Either they needed to find a weakness or they needed a path around it.

The frustrating thing was that he didn't think his blueprint was flawed: when he reached Archcrafter, he could forge chambers that drew from his four cornerstone techniques to use gravity in truly devastating ways. But even if they had supplies to stay in the cave for a year, he didn't have the sublime materials to build chambers on his second floor, and that was setting aside ascension.

Stopping his efforts temporarily, Theo walked to the sleigh and looked through everything they had taken from the Deuxan soulcrafters. They'd carried assorted money and weapons, along with some minor armaments and Delarde's pike. Those might sell for a bit of money, but they were unhelpful in the short term. None of the soulcrafters had been foolish enough to carry around sublime materials, and all those within their souls had been destroyed upon death.

Beside their supplies, Senka still slept, snoring obnoxiously loudly. She hadn't even done anything in the chase or fight, so he wasn't sure what right she had to be so exhausted. At least she had consistently stayed out of the way when things got difficult.

His gravitational fields had had some effect, but not enough, and... and abruptly Theo realized his solution. Using gravity against the eryo had been the only time when they'd been even close to matching its strength. Esaire with his resistance cloak had been a terrible matchup for him, but this sublime beast might actually be the opposite.

It was far from his original plan, but Theo was going to ascend to Archcrafter.

He eagerly went through his soulhome, putting away any minor materials left out and finishing off a few final details. Several of his chambers were completely unfinished and he needed strong sublime materials to serve as a focus for his techniques, but he could fix those problems later. The fatal problem at the moment was that he didn't have raw strength, and that was one of the few problems that could be solved with more intense cantae.

Normally, it wouldn't be possible without a considerable amount of time building a temporary platform to ascend, but the first barrier was by far the weakest. The frame of his first floor was rock solid, with a suitable roof, so he had options. In fact, he thought back to some tricks he'd only discovered after they were too late to do any good and realized he had a clear plan.

To start, he grabbed his supplies, climbed up to the roof, and examined the ridges marking the central chamber. He'd put those blocks in at the end, since he'd intended to remove them as an Archcrafter to allow the cantae to flow through the center of his entire soulhome. When he carefully pulled the blocks aside with his spirit, the singularity within roiled, but he was glad at how effectively it contained cantae, instead of wasting it into the air. The very concept was about trapping energy, after all.

Still, he needed all of it for his ascension. Theo unrolled the Deuxan fairysilk and spread it over the top, pinning it down with excess sunbronze. That was enough to contain his cantae while he worked on the rest. The springy branches Nauda had used would actually be very helpful, just not in the way she'd used them.

Though he wanted to rush, he forced himself to work methodically as he built a framework that could hold the fairysilk in place. It needed to be stretched taut, but not so tense that he risked breaking it. For a while he wasn't certain how to affix it to the stone and settled for chipping out a space of exactly the right size for the frame.

Eventually he'd done what he could and just stood on his roof, staring at the limits of the sky.

The barrier to Archcrafter was just pressure, and his willpower should be far stronger than when he had been a teenager, yet he remembered just how hard it had been at the time. Actually, he remembered more how hard he thought it was, but how much suffering had he really experienced back then? It wasn't a challenge he could take lightly, but would it really be an obstacle? He supposed he'd find out soon enough.

First, he removed the silk frame and dropped down into the central chamber, spending a while meditating under the singularity. It didn't help directly, as far as he knew, just got him into the right mindset. He was his soulhome, he embodied gravity itself, he stretched far beyond these small bonds.

Then he rose, thrusting his hands skyward, casting his will into the heavens. Willpower alone could never ascend, but his cantae floating upward became a hammer that beat against the barrier. It bent back, just a little, so he quickly scrambled up the side for his main attempt.

Setting the frame into its position, Theo stepped out onto the fairysilk, knowing that it could take his weight but still apprehensive. It gave way beneath his feet but held, just as he'd hoped. Once he reached the center, he began to bounce - yes, he'd created a spirit trampoline. The method might not be dignified, but Theo would care about that when dignity helped him tear down the barrier overhead.

Once he built up momentum, he truly leapt, throwing himself skyward - he was immediately caught by the pressure and pushed back down, but he'd been prepared for that. Theo hit the fairysilk hard, and for a moment feared its elasticity wouldn't be enough, then it flung him upward again.

This time he struck the barrier even harder, driving his will against the pressure, but it closed around him and threw him back down even faster than before. When he struck the fabric, it held, but on his way up he heard something snap.

It had to be now. Theo sucked all the cantae within his soulhome into himself and made his body an arrow shot against the heavens.

The pressure tried to stop him, but he snapped through it, exploding into new heights. As the gray clouds flooded downward through him, he was surprised that they resonated with his fundamental design. It wasn't just raw power, his soulhome had shifted to more perfectly embody the gravity he sought to control. Instead of plummeting downward, he descended at a fraction of normal gravity, the clouds whirling around him before they suffused his soulhome.

This pleasure... so many other things about his time in the Nine had faded over the years, but the rush of ascending was completely unchanged. Theo smiled within his soulhome and opened his eyes in the real world.

There, the other two looked at him in surprise. Archcrafter ascensions weren't overly dramatic, but sitting so nearby, they had no doubt felt the surge of cantae. Once he opened his eyes, Fiyu beamed and clapped her hands together once.

"You're an Archcrafter now, Theo!"

"I didn't think you'd built enough," Nauda said, "but I should have known you had a trick."

He could only shake his head. "It really was just a trick, not something that will work in the future. I didn't even intend to ascend yet, but we need to get past that eryo."

"More importantly, now we're waiting on Fiyu." Nauda turned to her with a playful smile. "Can we count on you to join us as an Archcrafter soon?"

"Oh no!" Fiyu rapidly shook her head, apparently oblivious to Nauda's tone. "My first tier is not fully prepared. I will join you when I am ready."

It was a warm moment, but Theo couldn't help but think about the fact that all these fights had delayed them for too long. They needed to move forward, and now he finally had the power to help them do it. When he got to his feet, the others understood and joined him.

"Your hands still need to heal..." Fiyu brushed the air near Nauda, giving them a look of concern. "You shouldn't risk yourself to help."

"I won't act unless there's an emergency." Nauda did hook her staff with her elbow, though, and watched him as they left. "I assume you're going to use gravity again, but are you confident that it will work?"

"Confident enough. We should be able to escape it." He hoped that they might do more than that, but didn't want to boast before he was sure of his new limits. After being so confident of his power in his past life and dying miserably, he hoped never to be that arrogant again. Going up against a Ruler-tier sublime beast with only his current strength certainly seemed like arrogance.

He'd find out soon enough.

Chapter 29

Outside, they discovered the eryo waiting as always. It appeared to be watching them, though he wasn't sure if its odd gem-like eyes could even close. He certainly wouldn't have wanted to try to sneak around it, but escape was no longer his goal.

Stepping to the mouth of the cavern, Theo raised his hand and cast a single gravitational field. His technique hadn't changed, but his newly intense cantae generated a field of more than one multiple of Tatian gravity. The eryo grumbled and began to get up, weighed down but not impeded.

As soon as it did, Theo raised his other hand and hit the sublime beast with everything he had. This time, the massively multiplied gravity took it down, dropping the beast with only one leg firmly placed. It roared and tried to struggle up, its body still obscenely powerful, but only took one step before it collapsed again. That slowed it for only a moment before it glared at them and continued to struggle.

Theo winced, his fingers trembling as he struggled to maintain the fields at their maximum intensity. Strong as he felt, it was a brutal reminder that the eryo was a Ruler-tier sublime beast. Even though it had no natural defenses against his techniques, it was still taking everything he had just to bind it in place.

"I can't... for long... we need to try..."

His words weren't very coherent, but Fiyu understood and unleashed a hail of light into the beast's face. Unfortunately, even with a sustained blast, the eryo's rocky skin remained undamaged. Frowning, Fiyu instead generated a shadowy blade around her hand and began to creep forward toward the creature's neck.

Before she could arrive, the eryo let out a roar, concussive cantae that sent Fiyu tumbling backward and nearly knocked Theo from his feet. His control slipped and the eryo lurched up, taking two earth-shaking steps toward them, its maw opening...

Just before Nauda acted, Theo managed to cast his gravitational fields again, slamming it to the ground. But now, closer to its prey, the eryo struggled harder, slowly rising to a crouched position.

As quickly as he could, Theo reversed the gravity to try to send it into the air. The eryo grabbed the ground on instinct, but he almost thought that he had succeeded, until the creature's tail slammed into the rock. Using that immense strength, the beast pulled itself down to the earth again, still staring at them hungrily. Even when he tried to reverse back and forth, he only shook the eryo up a bit, the movements failing to dislodge its grip on the ground.

"Rocks." It was getting harder to talk and his shirt was soaked with sweat, but he thought he could hold on long enough. "On it."

They gave him an odd look, but obeyed. Fiyu cut apart some of the nearest rocky surfaces with her blade, producing jagged pieces that she threw on top of the eryo. Nauda didn't use her hands, instead kicking rocks from the edge to bounce over the creature's hide. It growled and struggled harder, as if offended that they were uselessly throwing pebbles.

Ideally he would have wanted more, but Theo could feel his soulhome emptying and couldn't risk running out of cantae. He reversed gravity again, which did nothing to the eryo but sent the rocks falling into the air. This time he didn't let go, sustaining the field as far as he possibly could until the rocks sailed upward beyond his range, propelled now by nothing but their momentum.

Which soon reversed as normal gravity took over. Theo took a final breath and switched his fields one last time, accelerating the rocks downward with everything he could muster.

The explosion of dust and stones knocked them off their feet and Theo struggled back up, trying to find the others, afraid that the eryo would be coming for them. But when he could see again and his head stopped spinning, the eryo finally lay broken. Many rocks had speared deep into its body and even the dull ones had struck with immense force due to their raw speed.

"Is it... dead?" Fiyu brushed off her robes, looking at the beast nervously. Theo understood her concern, since even dead the eyes remained open. But he could feel that the sublime beast's soulhome had dissipated, so it was truly over.

When he tried to take a step forward, he stumbled in exhaustion, but Nauda caught him. She helped him forward with a broad smile. "Killing an eryo as an Archcrafter... I haven't seen it done before."

"I was just a good match for it." Theo was already feeling much better, but didn't mind her supporting him. "We can't get overconfident."

"Oh, I wasn't thinking that. I was thinking that we need to harvest it for sublime materials."

Fiyu bobbed her head in agreement. "Yes, it should not go to waste."

That proved to be more difficult than expected, because even dead the eryo was surprisingly durable. Fiyu's dark blade proved capable of cutting it with some work and Nauda managed to pry apart a few pieces of the rocky skin. Once Theo had better recovered, he experimented with lifting and dropping large pieces to soften them up for the others.

Judging by his spiritual senses, the rocky body was a reasonably strong sublime material, suitable for walls and ceilings. It would probably have been highly valued if it wasn't so hard to work with - they were barely able to draw the stone into themselves, much less build it into their soulhomes. By the time they could, it would be less exceptional but still worthwhile.

The real prizes were the body parts with the most concentrated cantae. Those gem-like eyes proved to be actual gems, filled with focusing intensity. Each claw held a shocking density of cantae, the one material they couldn't break up or absorb at all, forcing them to carry them in the sleigh. Finally, Fiyu extracted a massive heart the size of her head, obsidian rock flowing with magma that was still cooling.

When they had absorbed all the main body, they were left staring at those pieces. There was no question of actually integrating them, as the pressure from the sublime materials would blow apart their early soulhomes. Fiyu looked the fragments over and finally sighed.

"All of these are valuable, but I am not sure which would be most valuable for each of us. I certainly cannot use them in my soulhome at this time."

"None of us can," Theo said. "Let Nauda store them for now."

"But... it is not easy to extract such materials again. If we hired someone to do it, they would see the value of the materials and perhaps charge more."

Theo smiled and turned back to the cave. "I'm not worried about it. By the time we can use these sublime materials, we'll be able to do those things ourselves."

It took them some time to prepare to leave, but at long last there didn't seem to be any pressure. Fiyu focused on cleaning up the camp and he realized that she was regretting leaving the darkened cave. Senka had slept through the entire conflict and now yawned hugely, which was overtly obnoxious. Since it took Nauda a long time just to draw the eyes and heart into her storage room, Theo took over all the rest of the work.

By the time she was done, he had the sleigh out of the cavern and everything packed up. They wearily climbed in and returned north, hopefully for a more peaceful trip. Theo still made the sleigh travel as fast as it could, but there was no violent skipping over the hills this time. Instead they just slid through the wasteland, finally alone.

Maybe it wasn't so far, or maybe his mind just needed the rest, but it didn't seem to be so long before they spotted their destination. Nauda noted it first, an arc in the distance. They'd gotten slightly off track during the chase, but not so far that the gate was out of sight.

He should have been glad, but he was distracted by a subtle shift he couldn't quite pin down. The air was getting hotter, he thought, the warmth of Tatian being replaced by a fierce summer heat. When he peered toward the horizon something seemed a little off about it, but that was far away compared to the rapidly growing gate.

"Go past it for now," Nauda said. "I'll keep my promise first."

So they glided on past, though they passed close enough that Theo could see that the gate didn't stand alone. There was a small outpost there with several Fithan guards, looking bored out of their minds. When they saw the sleigh they waved wildly, not so much to get their attention but just because it was the only thing breaking up the monotony.

If they could maintain an outpost there without any fear of beasts like the eryos, then that meant the city on the other side had a formidable military. As a hub city, it no doubt had multiple factions with Authority-tier soulcrafters, and potentially some who were even higher, so sparing a Ruler for a risky gate probably wasn't excessive. Entering the city would certainly be a higher level of competition than they'd faced so far.

"Almost there." Nauda gripped the seat in front of her, eyes set grimly. "You might want to slow down."

As they finally drew close, Theo began to understand and his eyes widened. Ahead of them, the rocky landscape simply... ended. He could see something burning beyond it, but his sense of distance utterly failed to capture what he was seeing until they had reached the edge.

"Oh." That was all Fiyu said, staring out. Theo swerved the sleigh to a halt and stumbled out, trying to comprehend the scale of what he saw.

The wasteland ended in a cliff that dwarfed any he had ever seen or even imagined, plummeting straight down for what looked like miles. Theo wasn't afraid of heights, but getting anywhere near the edge still overwhelmed him with a sense of vertigo. Such an enormous cliff couldn't possibly exist on Earth or any normal world: not only was it taller than should be possible, it stretched as far as he could see in either direction, practically a straight line.

And below... that was almost worse than the cliff. The blackened land below made the wastelands they'd traveled through look like the bounty of Tatian. Large parts of it were obscured by clouds of ash that moved in vicious storms, but elsewhere he saw rivers of lava. From such a distance he couldn't see any details, but everything gave off an aura of pure danger.

"Welcome to Tatian." Nauda stepped past him, walking much closer to the edge than he dared and staring straight down. "As near as I can tell, this cliff runs around the entire world. Half of it is the Tatian you've seen, the other half... is what you see below."

"How can that be?" Theo asked, still trying to wrap his mind around the distances. "If it's a planet, the entire thing would be so unbalanced..."

"I have no idea, I just know this is the way reality is."

Fiyu walked up beside her, voice again very soft. "Nauda, are you from the world below?"

Nauda didn't answer, only stared downward grimly, which was answer enough. Since they were both so close, Theo dared to get a little closer. In theory he had nothing to fear, since he could control his fall via gravity, but he still hesitated. Such a massive cliff defied enough laws that he wondered if it might crush his gravitational fields too, the cliff itself a barrier beyond the merely physical.

Worse, he had never even heard of it, which had terrible implications for his first experience in the Nine Worlds. Given how provincial local Tatians could be, he wasn't surprised that they didn't know about its existence, but it couldn't be a secret to everyone else. If so, that suggested that his path had been far more controlled than he'd wanted to believe...

"We're not going down there, are we?" he asked. Nauda laughed and turned away, walking back to the sleigh.

"Of course not. We couldn't survive even if we found a way down, and the city is still our best way forward. I just wanted you to see it before we left Tatian, so you don't get the wrong impression."

He nodded, accepting her experience with the area, but still kept looking. The region below the cliff appeared to be abandoned, just like the wasteland above. When he strained to look further, he thought he saw what might be a city. It seethed with violence, utterly unlike a Tatian city... at least, the Tatian cities he knew.

Just before he left, Theo looked more to the side, trying to get a better view of the cliff. It was uneven and filled with strange crags that should defy any climber, yet he saw something moving. Again his sense of scale faltered, leaving him wondering how large those far-off cliffs were. They might be able to contain whole cities, but the beings he saw were much too large to be humans.

All at once he realized the truth: there were eryos crawling over the cliffs. Not swarming, but just from his present position he could see at least three. It became much clearer why Nauda had been so certain they needed to take the gate to the city.

As he walked back, Theo tried to focus on everything that had gone right. They'd survived a serious challenge and paved the way forward for themselves, so he should have been happy. He wasn't unhappy, either, he just couldn't stop thinking about what he had seen.

Epilogue

Esaire sat in the healers' chamber, staring at the fracture running along his left gauntlet. More than the shadows of injuries that still ached in his body, or the insult to his honor, or the presumed loss of his supporters... that fracture hurt most of all.

When he'd returned home, only half-conscious, he'd of course been taken to the Armeau family's finest healers. He'd woken up dressed in fresh robes, never before worn, with the old ones already thrown away. Everyone in the house treated him respectfully and there was talk of how many rainhorns he'd collected during the great hunt, the best record in over a generation.

But his grandfather had chosen not to repair his gauntlets.

Though it was possible that they lacked the sublime materials to repair such a valuable armament, the Armeau family kept great stores of materials, especially during the hunt. For it to be an accident or an oversight was simply not credible, so he could only conclude that his grandfather was intentionally chastising him. Given how poorly the venture into Tatian had gone, he could understand why.

"My lord?" A family servant stood outside the room, his head bowed, but not truly deferential. "Your grandfather wishes to speak with you, if your injuries have mended."

"Of course." Suggesting that he wasn't in good enough condition to speak to his grandfather would be to turn his current disadvantage into a weakness that all his rivals would descend upon. Walking to speak to his grandfather in the main pavilion was a sign of trust in him, but being summoned like this was also a reprimand. Intentionally mixed messages.

Ignoring a few minor injuries, Esaire rose to his feet and adjusted his badge properly. He placed it on his belt as a soulcrafter first, not a noble of the family. This had been about power, in the end, and his grandfather should understand that even if he disagreed with the decisions.

No one accompanied him as he walked through the Armeau family estate, his eyes sliding over the fountains and ornamental trees without truly seeing them. For a long time, he'd just assumed that they would one day be his. In a technical sense that would be true so long as he remained in good standing, but he might become simply another soulcrafter in the family, not the family head dictating their future.

Most considered him the most promising young soulcrafter in the family, but he wasn't without rivals. There were several other Archcrafters with real potential who were the children of major family leaders who could also achieve the position. His sister hadn't been as well-regarded by their tutors, but she had just ascended to Ruler. The family had a distant cousin who had left for a larger city and allegedly reached Authority, though they might never be coming back.

At last he reached the golden pavilion, where his grandfather sat conducting the business of the Armeau family. No one joined the old man that day, he simply sat in his traditional robes and stared at Esaire as he approached, doing his best not to flinch.

There had been a time when he had scorned his grandfather for never ascending to Authority and dominating Anguedan for their family, but that was long gone. The more he soulcrafted as an Archcrafter, the more respect he had for his grandfather's Ruler-tier soulhome. In any case, raw power was irrelevant in what was about to happen, so he lowered himself to a seat opposite the family head.

"You wanted to see me, Grandfather Arceon?"

"I thought that you might want to find out what we've learned from your little jaunt into Tatian." His grandfather was old enough that he no longer cared for propriety, so there would be no hidden knives here. "We needed to withdraw our forces, which reflects poorly on us with the foreign Authority in Nlukoko. However, the information his guards have passed along is trustworthy."

Esaire tried to restrain himself, but his grandfather intended to make him squirm, so he let his discomfort show. "And? What did they report?"

"No one else emerged from the Tatian wasteland. Given that their food was exhausted and there are no animals to hunt, it would be foolish to assume any remain alive."

Since Esaire couldn't imagine Delarde dying of something as foolish as starvation, he had no choice but to believe that his childhood friend had died in combat. He'd planned to have Delarde serve as his right hand for years to come... just one more thing that had been taken from him. Yet though he should have felt anger or a desire for revenge, Esaire was simply tired.

"Young soulcrafters should have their duels and vendettas, but you allowed yours to get out of hand." Grandfather Arceon began sorting a pile of Silver Crowns in front of him, agile fingers dividing them into different stacks. "Your efforts have cost us multiple soulcrafters, two Archcrafters, expensive transportation, and above all set back our negotiations with the ai Tatian family. And for what?"

"Nothing, Grandfather." Esaire lowered his head, not in humility but to take the accusation head on. "I let my ego control me when I should have withdrawn and scorned the foreigners."

"Then this was an expensive lesson." His grandfather regarded him with a strange smile. "This was over a Fithan child who inconvenienced you, wasn't it? I thought better of you, Esaire. Petty insults are meaningless, and chasing after pride has ruined many a family. What could possibly be so interesting about a random foreigner to be worth such a vendetta?"

"It was a mistake, Grandfather."

"No, this is not the time for humility." One stack of Silver Crowns struck the table hard as his grandfather leaned in. "What thoughts led you to this mistake will determine your punishment."

Suddenly realizing that he had been playing the wrong game, Esaire rapidly shifted his plans. He knew that his grandfather would scorn his thinking regardless, but if he could justify himself, he might come through without a loss of position. "It was several things, Grandfather. They had stolen a valuable sleigh and I only sought to recover it."

"It was fairly stolen during the hunt, but taking it back would have been worth a lesser cost. But why give them your time in the first place?"

"Their group was unusual, and unusually effective." Esaire swallowed, seeking a tactic that would convince his grandfather. "They acquired various sublime materials and seemed like candidates to assist us in the Great Rainhorn Hunt."

"Recruiting vassals is the least irrational part of your thinking, but I fail to see how they were so interesting."

"Well... the group was a Fithan, an Ichili, and a Tatian. All three were remarkable soulcrafters, even compared to our family. The leader had somehow soulcrafted skills that nearly made me believe he was an Archcrafter, though his techniques proved to have serious weaknesses."

"Trivialities. There are talented soulcrafters everywhere, and you should not be so impressed by visitors from other worlds. You'll soon learn that such places are irrelevant to the courts, and beyond the courts there is nothing of meaning." His grandfather snorted and started to turn away. "Do we need to find better rivals for you in the city, then?"

"It wasn't just that! He seemed strangely driven, I just thought..." Esaire realized that this was a foregone conclusion and his grandfather only wanted to put him in his place. He nearly went quiet and accepted his punishment, but decided to make one more attempt even if it was futile. "The Fithan didn't just seek profit or strength, he was investigating strange subjects with information brokers and in archives. Odd families that don't exist, ai Teraeves or some other minor name, so I-"

A stack of Silver Crowns clattered over the table and Esaire stared far more than it deserved: he'd never seen his grandfather display the slightest clumsiness before. There was no trace of any emotion on the old man's face, but he spoke oddly neutrally. "What was that family name?"

"I... I'm not completely sure, Grandfather, but it sounded like 'Teraeves'. I attempted to research if they were a major family in another court, but came up with nothing concrete, so I assumed it was just another outdated piece of information. There were many odd anachronisms..."

Esaire trailed off as he realized that his grandfather wasn't truly listening. The old man stared out at nothing, deep in thought, and when his gaze drifted back down to the pavilion, something had changed.

"Grandfather Arceon?"

"No one has heard that name in a very long time, and that is exactly how it should have remained. All the resources you wasted on your childish squabbles might be justified after all." Esaire's grandfather rose to his feet and almost immediately snapped down at him. "Well, boy? Don't stand there gawking. We need to arrange a journey to Fithe."

X X X

The story continues in Archcrafter, the third book in The Weirkey Chronicles:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FYFC3TT

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Acknowledgments

Thank you to all my alpha and beta readers for their feedback.

Thanks to Cultivation Novels, Western Cultivation, and GameLit Society for the community.

Appendix: Soulhome Architecture 101

(This appendix was originally posted on my subreddit, with character expressions and soulhome diagrams. These don't play well with many ebook formats, so they can't be included here, but I'm including the raw script due to reader requests. Here's the link to the full version:

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheBrightestShadow/comments/k6vxt8/soulhome_architecture_101_with_theo_nauda_and_fiyu/)

Soulhome Architecture 101

with Theo, Nauda, and Fiyu

Nauda smiling: Hello everyone!

Theo smiling: We're going to be explaining the art of soulcrafting from The Weirkey Chronicles.

Fiyu neutral: Are we self-aware now? Is this another meta-fictional story?

Theo neutral: This isn't canon; just go with it.

F smiling: That is better, but I do not understand why we are represented by heads.

T frowning: They're chibis, and I, for one, am personally insulted to be portrayed this way.

N grinning: It isn't canon; just go with it.

F neutral: Before we look at some soulhome designs, we will introduce the basics...

Basics

N smiling: The first part won't surprise you. Cantae is a form of energy that living beings can only use if they open up a space inside their soul, called a soulhome.

T neutral: You can use it to make yourself a little stronger, or shoot it as a bolt, but these things are child's play compared to building within your soulhome.

F neutral: Such people are called soulcrafters.

T frowning: You can't use just anything: only materials with spiritual properties - called sublime materials - can be pulled into your soul and used in construction.

N smiling: But inside, soulhomes follow simple logic. Bigger rooms can store more cantae. Physically sturdy rooms make you spiritually sturdy. Fancy rooms with valuable sublime materials crafted into patterns are more powerful than just throwing a magic rock inside your soul.

F neutral: Not everything is architecture. Usually you begin by creating a "heart chamber" that has sublime materials to generate cantae, which flows through the other rooms.

T neutral: The process rapidly gets more complicated, but we'll focus on the basics today.

F smiling: Let us look at some simple blueprints. I think that will make it easy to understand.

[Unplanned Farmguard Soulhome]

N neutral: We'll start with a humble village soulcrafter. They probably built one room at a time without too much planning.

T neutral: It's actually not terrible... squares are balanced shapes, and the internal doors will allow for strong cantae flow.

F question: Why do they have so many doors to the outside, though? Won't cantae leak out?

N smiling: That isn't obvious to everyone, Fiyu. They may have opened more to make soulcrafting easier.

T frowning: It's an inefficiency, but that's trivial compared to the fact that their design is lopsided. Feast rooms generate cantae, just not as much as heart chambers, so it should have been switched with the technique chamber.

N neutral: They were clearly doing the best they could with what they had.

F smiling: I don't think it's so bad. They have some cantae, a chamber to strengthen themselves, and room for a technique.

T neutral: I rate it 30/100. Thoroughly mediocre.

[Terrible Soulhome]

N disgust: Just... just what is this mess?

T disgust: This is what I meant when I said the previous one wasn't terrible.

N 06: I cannot imagine anyone in the Nine Worlds soulcrafting so haphazardly.

T neutral: They might have been from an outside world, just treating it like a game.

F neutral: ...I think I understand. They started with a plan to the west, then changed their blueprint as they kept building.

T smiling: Yeah, I think you're right. They began with a heart chamber, but after they built their first technique, they found some really valuable sublime material and built the circular chamber to take advantage of it.

N neutral: Young soulcrafters, take heed: valuable materials are better held for the proper time instead of thrown in at random.

F sad: Unfortunately, the cantae flow between the chambers doesn't make much sense. I think they would need to remodel to make this work.

N 09 minus the question mark: Looks like they just kept tacking on new techniques and a strength chamber as they needed them.

F smiling: The northern technique chamber is not so bad. It might be an upgraded technique, merging the flow from the heart and technique chambers. They are trying.

T disgust: 5/100, irredeemable garbage.

[Generic Farmguard Soulhome]

F 02: Oh! These were the blueprints they gave out at Myufuru!

N smiling: Yes, this is a common soulhome design for Farmguards. Note the extra large heart chamber evenly distributing cantae to every chamber.

F neutral: But this would be a soulcrafter at the peak of the first tier. Most of them have only finished some of the chambers and are thus weaker.

T neutral: The thing about common designs is that many generations have looked over them, so they're usually not bad, definitely better than the average hotshot with a random plan.

N neutral: I'm guessing you have some criticisms, oh wise one?

T frowning: Lining up the enhancing rooms and the technique rooms looks good on paper, but it's better to intersperse them. Strengthening rooms generate some cantae too, and that should flow into appropriate techniques.

N neutral: That's true. There's also no internal cantae flow within the soulhome, so the heart chamber has to keep up with every other room. But that's why it's larger than average.

F question: I am wondering... why is there an extra door to the west? There are already three technique doors.

T neutral: They probably built that room first and never closed up the door. If they did that... 50/100, serviceable.

F smiling: But they might reverse their blueprint on the second floor and send cantae upwards. That would improve efficiency.

N smiling: Archcrafter design techniques are too much for now, Fiyu. Let's move on to a more unique design....

[Generic Healer Soulhome]

T smiling: Good, we get to see a circular design. Circles are architecturally strong, so they can make soulhomes much more durable.

N 07: In my opinion, if someone can damage your soulhome, you've already lost.

F question: I have not seen a healer's blueprint before. Why are there so many chambers to generate cantae?

N neutral: Healing is complicated and extremely resource-intensive, so they need multiple sources.

T neutral: Yeah, you actually see designs similar to this everywhere in the Nine Worlds. It's a reliable blueprint.

F neutral: Hmm... I think they mix together different sources of cantae for different purposes? One pair for closing wounds, another for curing illnesses?

N 04: That's right, and each door is built as a sub-chamber so they can apply the cantae via specialized techniques!

T smiling: Healers are limited before they soulcraft multiple floors, but this is a solid 80 for a start.

Spoilers Ahead

F neutral: What is a spoiler?

T frowning: The next image contains minor details about how we soulcraft in the first book.

N smiling: You can skip the next part if you absolutely want to avoid all spoilers.

[Theo's Soulhome]

T smiling: My soulhome is a work in progress, but you can see the basic design.

N neutral: That vestibule to modulate cantae is seriously advanced stuff. Too technical to get into now, I think.

T neutral: Doesn't make a huge difference at early tiers, anyway.

F smiling: I like how the design is very orderly. All of the rooms are balanced and the connections are symmetrical.

N smiling: This is a good time to point out the subjective element. This would be a bad design for someone like a healer who wants fluid concepts, but it's effective because Theo wants many distinctly themed rooms.

F neutral: It is similar for me: I am better able to use light as a weapon because it is dangerous on my home world.

N neutral: It's worth saying that the sheer number of doors would be a weakness, if the heart chamber wasn't designed to set the cantae orbiting.

F neutral: That is true. It also loses some cantae space to the thick walls and pillars, but I believe our companion did this to support future tiers.

T smiling: You thought I was going to give myself a 100/100? No, the true strength of my design will barely be hinted before Archcrafter tier.

N 10: Your false humility is useless, when you've soulcrafted all this in just a matter of months.

F smiling: Can we see your soulhome next, Nauda?

[Nauda's Soulhome]

N neutral: I'm afraid my soulhome is rather modest, and my plans have been altered as I experienced a few difficulties in life.

F smiling: I like your heart chamber! Are the proportions based on the golden ratio?

N 04: Oh, good eye. Yes, I have powerful sublime materials in my heart chamber, so distributing their cantae effectively is important.

T neutral: The construction is solid, and you know I respect the craft on that telescope. But you're making poor use of the size of your soul, and it might not be easy to expand.

N neutral: I know, I know, you think I should build a tower.

T smiling: Separated soulhomes are rare, but there are legitimate reasons to design them that way.

F neutral: All of your chambers are mergers of cantae-generation, techniques, and strengthening. It is not how I was taught, but it is a consistent design.

N smiling: It's a more common model on Tatian than the previous Farmguard blueprint, honestly.

T neutral: Of course, the obvious thing Nauda has over either of us is that partially-constructed pyramid. When built high enough, it will make her an Archcrafter and unlock an entire second floor.

N neutral: I think ascension is probably beyond the scope of this introduction.

T neutral: Considering just the first floor... reasonably effective design, but with flaws. I'd say 65/100.

T neutral: Reasonably effective design, but with flaws. I'd say 65/100.

N 07: I'm humbled by your magnanimity, oh esteemable sage.

F smiling: I think that you are a 100, Nauda.

[Fiyu's Soulhome]

F 03: Umm... normally strangers shouldn't see this, but if this is non-canon, they can't tell anyone, right?

N smiling: I think you're safe, Fiyu.

T neutral: What's interesting about Fiyu's design is that it uses three different building materials, which would normally clash, but fuses them into several planned synergies.

F smiling: Yes. My relative said this blueprint was very difficult, but that it would be best for me.

N neutral: Which of the three materials is that entrance?

F neutral: ...

T neutral: Even though this breaks some standard rules, like having the walls and pillars not line up perfectly with the materials, in this case it's clearly done for a reason. You have to know when to break beginner rules.

N 04: I'm glad to see the window we helped you add to your sensory chamber!

F smiling: Yes, it is very helpful in these hellishly bright worlds.

T neutral: This is also a completely circular design, which makes good use of soul space and is highly durable.

N smiling: Honestly, the purity of the design doesn't do you justice, Fiyu. You have some powerful techniques in there.

F smiling: ...

T smiling: I'd say this is 90+, and only that because I don't know how well the blueprint flows into higher floors to justify the curve. It's clearly a design that's been refined over generations.

Conclusion

N 05: There you have it! A basic introduction to soulcrafting.

F neutral: Please follow precautions and obey your elder relatives when working on your soulhome.

T smiling: These principles would serve you well on every floor, but they're just scratching the surface of soulcrafting's complexity.

F smiling: But I think that is for future books.

N smiling: We'll see you in The Weirkey Chronicles!

(Again, if you'd like to see this conversation with full images, you can find it here: https://old.reddit.com/r/TheBrightestShadow/comments/k6vxt8/soulhome_architecture_101_with_theo_nauda_and_fiyu/)