Waybound, p.1
Waybound, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by Hidden Gnome Publishing
Book and cover design by Patrick Foster
Cover illustration by Kevin Mazutinec
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
WillWight.com
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CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Bloopers
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About the Author
Also by Will Wight
To you, for reading this far.
Thank you for walking this Path with me all the way to the end.
PROLOGUE
Iteration 300: Vesper
Suriel floated in the emptiness over the central planet of Vesper, preparing herself to meet the Mad King.
Her Presence was scouring the future for a way to increase their odds of victory, but there was one obvious first step.
“I release Ozriel to his full strength and authority. Authorization zero-zero-six, Suriel.”
There came an almost-audible hiss from Ozriel’s black-armored form as the restrictions on his power fell away. He tossed white hair behind him and gave a relieved sigh. “Ah, that’s nice.”
His authority radiated in all directions, including deeper. It filled the Iteration and spilled into the Way, silent and invisible. The footsteps of Death.
Ozriel stretched out a hand to the side. “Come to me,” he murmured.
That call echoed through all creation.
At least, it should have.
[The Sector is fully isolated,] Suriel’s Presence reported.
“As expected,” Ozriel responded. “But if it’s worth trying, isn’t it worth trying twice?”
The world of Vesper was trembling around them, and Suriel brought forth her Razor. “He’s almost here. Can you beat him?”
Ozriel had his eyes closed and hand still stretched out as he prepared another working, but he still addressed her. “Didn’t your Presence tell you? We have about a one in sixteen chance of both making it out.”
“I don’t trust that.”
Her Presence radiated shock.
He still didn’t open his eyes, but his answering grin was a small slice of white. “Your faith in me is inspiring. I would be more confident if he were actually alone, because I see now that he is not. Or…if I were armed.”
Color and sound bled from the planet beneath them as Ozriel’s eyes snapped open. “Come to me,” he ordered again.
Iteration Three Hundred trembled.
The Way trembled.
The entire Sector trembled.
But the Reaper’s hand remained empty. The Scythe of Ozriel did not appear.
He sighed and put his hand down. “Yeah. One in sixteen.”
Reality crumpled and tore. The void of space parted like a curtain to reveal the Void beyond.
“Better odds than you deserve,” the Mad King said.
To all Suriel’s senses, Daruman appeared no worse for his battle in Cradle. His armor of yellowed bone was still chipped in places, but it protected him. The beast hide hanging from his shoulders offended the universe with its chaotic authority, and his eyes burned like two red suns.
If he were alone, Suriel would like their chances. But as expected, he had come prepared for another clash with Ozriel.
Behind him, a vast mass of stone and metal slid out of the Void. It dwarfed the central planet of Vesper, casting a shadow over its continents.
The fortress-world of Tal’gullour. The Mad King’s citadel.
Billions of souls pulled the Way closer, strengthening Suriel’s authority. Vesper was healthier now than it had been in years.
But however much it strengthened the Abidan, it empowered Daruman more. He was the absolute power in Tal’gullour, its master and champion, and its every particle was saturated with his authority.
A thousand rune-circles appeared in front of the fortress, each shining in golden light. These were ancient defenses, operated by the people of Tal’gullour, and they locked the fortress down tight. Even Ozriel couldn’t break them in one strike. At least, not without his Scythe.
The Mad King had brought his people here. Dedicated to the destruction of the Abidan he may have been, but he did love that world. He was truly putting everything on the line.
Suriel could do no less.
Our survival is no longer a priority, she ordered her Presence. Prioritize the death of the Mad King.
Suriel had to rearrange her own feelings at the same time. She released her sadness, her fear. Her anger at Makiel, for leaving them in this situation. Even her lingering resentment toward Ozriel.
She was the Phoenix. It was worth her life to burn one more infection from the universe.
The Mad King’s sword appeared in his hand. “Let us die together.”
Suriel held up her Razor. “Everything ends.”
“Ahem.” Ozriel’s voice echoed in her head. “I may have an alternate plan.”
His plan flooded into her mind, and she snapped her gaze to look at Ozriel in shock.
[It has good odds of working,] her Presence allowed.
Suriel’s very being rejected the plan. She would rather stay here and fight to the death.
“Come on,” Ozriel whispered. “Let me clean up my own mess.”
Her Presence fed the information into her awareness. The odds of them both surviving were terrible. But the odds of one surviving? Quite high.
As long as they gave up on the other.
Heart breaking, Suriel agreed.
With her Razor unleashed, she struck, but not at the Mad King. At the thin membrane of reality between her and the Way.
The Way Between Worlds was closer than ever, thanks to the population of Tal’gullour, but it had also locked down space. Her Razor stuck in place.
Until Ozriel formed a blade of dark power and slashed alongside her. Then, for a fraction of a second, she saw blue.
Suriel slipped away in that instant. The possibilities were clear in her vision: if they both tried to leave, the Mad King would drag them back.
Instead, she made it into the rich blue river of the Way.
It dragged her into its currents, but she was far from safe. Her Presence warned her of the barriers and obstacles the Mad King had left in the Way. He’d sealed off the Sector, stopping her from running for help.
But her odds of breaking through were much better than her odds of surviving a battle in Vesper. Now, it was all about how quickly she could make it back.
[You can’t—] her Presence began.
Shut up.
Dozens of tendrils erupted from all around her as a Fiend reached into the Way to grab her. It was quite powerful, having been left as a sentry to hold her back.
But Suriel had no time to waste. She cut her way through, counting every second.
She might already be too late.
Back in Vesper, Ozriel pointed at the Mad King with his conjured black sword. “I thought you’d fight harder to stop her.”
“Suriel would eventually be replaced,” Daruman responded. “How will they replace you?”
Ozriel didn’t have his Presence with him, but he could see the potential outcomes well enough. His odds of walking out of here were…small.
Still, he gave the Mad King a brilliant smile. “I have some ideas on that myself.”
Then a thousand lines of light streaked out from Tal’gullour, a barrage that instantly shattered the central planet of Vesper and raced for Ozriel.
And he began his final battle.
1
The sky inside Lindon’s repurposed pocket world was overcast by slowly swirling clouds of various colors. While the heart of the space had been stolen from Reigan Shen, much of its material had come from the Ninecloud Court, and their influence was clear in the churning rainbow vapor that shone brightly overhead.
The wind that stirred those clouds only began when Lindon stepped inside. While empty, the time in the pocket space had been slowed to a crawl. Almost frozen. It would have been too much of a waste to spend their limited time while no one was here to benefit.
With Lindon’s appearance, time moved forward again.
Up on entering the space, Lindon first checked its spatial stability by extending his senses. The Void Icon told him that he was boarding a small vessel drifting in the middle of a sea of nonexistence, as though they’d stepped off a dock and onto a boat, but everything seemed stable.
It felt like it would hold, and in the meantime, they would pass weeks in a matter of hours. That level of time acceleration would strain the pocket world, and was an inefficient use of the materials, but economy didn’t concern Lindon much.
It was worth burning a fortune for speed. It wasn’t Lindon’s fortune anyway.
Only once he was sure their shelter wouldn’t capsize into the Void did Lindon turn his attention to the layout of the space itself. Beneath the sky of slowly mixing colors floated a rough island of pale stone maybe a mile across.
It reminded Lindon of the slabs of marble from which Reigan Shen had once built his Monarch platform at the Uncrowned King tournament. Which made sense, as he had stolen this island from Shen. Tunnels wound through the stone, containing several facilities and aura training rooms that Lindon dismissed after a single scan.
His would be better.
Yerin entered the pocket world at virtually the same time he did. She glanced into his arms, where Lindon held Mercy’s unconscious body.
Since leaving the Akura clan, he hadn’t let her out of his sight.
Orthos, Ziel, and Little Blue were supposed to follow only a fraction of a second later, but the world on their side looked almost frozen now that time was speeding up. They were all crammed into the hallway of Windfall, ready to enter as soon as they could.
They spilled through a few moments later, Orthos grumbling as he had to turn sideways and slide himself through the doorway. Lindon and Yerin had already walked away.
Yerin chewed on her lip and her worried eyes stayed on Mercy. “She’s all shredded up.”
[No, don’t worry!] Dross encouraged her. [It’s just severe structural damage to the madra channels. She’ll be fine in a few years.]
“But we have a plan,” Lindon added. He activated the Soulforge, and a gateway appeared within the pocket world. It looked out onto another space, a rune-carved platform floating over a starry void. A dull silver altar sat in the middle of the platform, bright blue flames flickering merrily at its heart.
Lindon’s void key strained under the pressure from the artifacts he’d stolen from the Monarchs. He floated them out in sealed containers, and the Soulforge trembled under the weight of their significance.
Fortunately, the Soulforge kept that power isolated from the rest of the space.
“The Monarchs had to work together to stabilize your spirit so you didn’t have to face any consequences from advancing early,” Lindon said to Yerin. He carefully floated Mercy over using wind aura, then rested her on the surface of the anvil at the heart of the Soulforge. “We’re going to borrow their authority to do the same thing here.”
[Technically not the same thing. And they didn’t need all the Monarchs, just enough to cover a wide enough variety of authority. Which is good, because items don’t hold authority as well as people do, and we were planning to save these for advancement—]
Lindon was about to interrupt, but Dross cut himself off.
[—I know you’re about to stop me, so I’ll just go ahead and stop myself.]
Yerin nodded to the items floating out of the various sealed containers under Lindon’s aura control. “Wasn’t that the point to all the looting we did? Have to fake our own half-price Monarch commands.”
“We can only bend the rules so many times,” Lindon said. “What we use to heal her now, we can’t use to advance her later.”
Yerin folded her arms. “Let’s get to bending.”
“Of course.”
Lindon summoned the Monarch artifacts to himself. He slipped on a signet ring belonging to Reigan Shen, lifted a scepter belonging to an ancient Monarch whose name had been lost to time, and replaced his outer robe with a shoddy one that Northstrider had owned for years.
Also, from his soulspace, he brought a single blue-green leaf with an eye in the center.
The authority embedded in the objects had a specific purpose. The power struggled against Lindon as he tried to focus it, to bend it to his will.
Reigan Shen’s represented his wealth and his command over space, while Northstrider’s authority was much more physical. The scepter shone with the purity of a wandering monk, a sacred artist who gave up all worldly causes.
Lindon not only had to wrangle all that authority to one purpose but had to link it to his own authority. He found the Void Icon and focused his attention, trying to restore Mercy’s condition to before. To use Void authority for such a task, he had to think of it as reducing her wounds to nothing. To negate the specific events that had left her that way.
Though he was already wrestling with too much power, he needed more. Healing her wasn’t enough; he had to rebuild her foundation. He clasped Suriel’s marble in his left hand. It didn’t lend him any power, but its restorative aura could guide him.
Yerin eyed him up and down. “You look like a vagrant wanderer trying to dress up rich.”
[Don’t worry,] Dross said. [I won’t let it go to his head.]
A crown settled on Lindon’s brow. It was the legacy of another ancient Monarch, and this one Lindon hadn’t stolen; he’d found it in the labyrinth.
Lindon’s mind and spirit trembled as he tried to juggle all the authority, but his voice was clear as he commanded Mercy: “Be whole.”
The result wasn’t as simple as Lindon had hoped.
Each source of authority tried to restore Mercy in a different way. Unlike a living person, the items were inflexible and bound to a specific purpose. They fought one another and resisted Lindon.
But his command touched something deeper, something that ran beneath reality. A force that reminded him of Suriel, and of the chambers at the very bottom of reality. That distant force echoed.
A spark of blue light flickered through Mercy, and Lindon fell to his knees.
He felt like he’d tumbled down a waterfall in less than a second. This was the force that held reality in place, the power that he’d only heard whispers of: The Way Between Worlds. The power of pure order.
It was too much to command such power directly. He had stretched himself.
But it worked.
Mercy sat up straight on the anvil at the heart of the Soulforge, gasping for air. Purple eyes shot here and there in obvious confusion, and her breaths were harsh.
Yerin stood over her in concern, hands on Mercy’s shoulders. “Mercy. Oi. Look me in the eyes. Can you see straight?”
Clarity returned to Mercy’s gaze. She looked from Yerin to Lindon, and Lindon saw the memory hit her. Then tears welled up and she threw her arms around Yerin and began to sob.
The only phrase Lindon caught was “my mother.” He wasn’t sure the rest were even words. Yerin softened and held Mercy as she cried.
Lindon wanted to speak his own assurances, but the world was unsteady around him. The scepter in his left hand cracked and a fragment of cloth drifted down from Northstrider’s robe. All the items felt strained, with the notable exception of Emriss Silentborn’s leaf. That was ripe with healing authority, so it had channeled his commands easily.
[I did warn you this was a possibility,] Dross pointed out. [We’re not working with living Monarchs, are we?]
Lindon responded silently. These aren’t simple constructs. They’re not supposed to be disposable.
[They’re not supposed to be used by anyone other than their creators. Borrowing their authority even once was an achievement. We should celebrate! Woohoo, you did it! You’re not celebrating.]
