Chapter 7
There were any number of reasonable objections that Dross could have made to the Soulsmith operation, but since the construct seemed happy enough going along with it, Lindon certainly wasn’t going to say anything.
First, he moved the bucket of Dream Well water in front of Orthos. Then he forced the turtle’s mouth open and poured a vial of the purple water down his throat.
It didn’t quite wake him, but Lindon could feel his consciousness smooth out. His sleep went from rough and fearful to soft and deep. When he woke, he’d need some water, so hopefully the bucket would be enough. He’d always had trouble wrestling his thoughts, too; maybe the Dream Well could help him.
With Orthos settled, Lindon sat Little Blue on the turtle’s head. She gave a chirp, and he patted her with one finger. “When I’m done here, I’ll have some food for you.”
Then he got to work.
Binding a spiritual construct to a physical vessel was one of the basic skills of the Soulsmith. Essentially, he had to hold the construct into the exact shape of the vessel, then merge the two while using his own madra to tie them together. To stuff a ghost back into a body, both ghost and body had to match.
There was only one complication that mattered: the sapphire already had a construct in it. So he was trying to meld two constructs and fix them both to the gem.
Fisher Gesha would tell him to extract both Dross and the Eye of the Deep construct, then break them down piece by piece until he could rebuild them into one construct with the functions of both. Then he could bind that single construct to the gem or, preferably, another suitable vessel without a hole in it.
Then she would have hit him for trying to do this without guidance.
But Lindon had neither the time, nor the experience, nor the equipment to do it that way. He wasn’t sure that a living construct like Dross could even be safely deconstructed. He’d have to roll the dice.
Not that he would put it to Dross that way.
He extracted a pair of gold-plated tongs from the roll of tools, holding them up to show Dross. “I’ll be using these to remove you from your vessel,” he explained. “Then—”
Dross zipped out of his rusted container.
He hovered in the air, a purple cloud filled with violet sparks. Within the cloud, Lindon could see patterns of crossing lines, like Dross was made of a structure of ghostly timbers.
“Done!” the construct said cheerily. “Now what?”
Lindon put the tongs down. “Now…try not to resist.”
He put his left hand on the Eye, pouring pure madra into the construct. It was already filling most of the vessel, so he only had to focus on holding it still. That was easier said than done; it felt like trying to keep hold of a living heart that tried to escape his hand with every beat. Essence drifted out of the crack more quickly.
Lindon reached out with his inhuman right hand, then hesitated. He needed his hands free to project the madra, which meant he couldn’t hold the tongs.
Of course, strictly speaking, he didn’t need the tongs.
After a moment of hesitation, he reached out for Dross with his white grip. “Please don’t move.”
As Lindon seized Dross, he actually felt the construct in his Remnant hand. It felt like gripping a handful of cotton. A pang of hunger ran up the arm into Lindon’s soul, but he kept the limb under control. An instant of lost focus, and the arm would devour Dross.
“That gave me a tingle. Is everything all right?”
Sweat rolled down Lindon’s face, but he forced a smile. “Hold still, please.”
Now came the hard part. He had to project more pure madra around Dross to hold him in place. And it had to be exactly the right shape of the sapphire.
Well, one step at a time.
His madra still hadn’t recovered much, so he needed to do this quickly. With a rough grip of madra, Lindon contained Dross’ cloud-like form into a jagged form roughly the shape of a cut gem.
“It occurs to me,” the construct said, “to wonder about my identity. You know what I mean? Was I me before I could think freely? Now, when you merge me with this key, I’ll be taking on…who knows what memories and functions.”
In order to get this part of the process exactly right, Lindon should have made a mold of the sapphire. It was too late now, so he Forged Dross to match the cut sapphire. As closely as he could, he tried to get every ridge and facet in exactly the right place.
His spiritual grip was slipping, and he was essentially bleeding madra. Even with the added focus from the Dream Well, he was having trouble holding both constructs in the right shape at the same time. Dross kept shifting gradually.
“Will I think of myself differently? How will I see the world? Will I even be able to think anymore, or will I be like I was before?”
Heavens help me, Lindon thought to himself. Then he shoved the constructs together, hoping they would match.
“Will I be myself? What if I hate being a key, but it’s too late?”
There was resistance. Lindon had to push the last of his madra into the effort and shove them together until he forced them to click.
It was a good thing Dross didn’t have a physical body, or this would have been excruciatingly painful.
“On second thought, I’m not sure I…” Dross’ voice froze halfway through the sentence.
The light in the gem flickered and rippled. Lindon’s spiritual grip tightened; had he failed?
Motion passed through the light, as though something were swimming inside the sapphire. The light started to change, staining the vessel purple.
“…want to do this,” Dross continued. “It’s too risky, isn’t it? Who would gamble their very self on a game of chance?”
Lindon fell back, leaning against the wooden chest, holding up the gem that now shone purple.
“We’re done,” he said, swiping sweat from his brow.
“We are? Oh, that’s good then. Now you mention it…” Dross flew out of the crack in the sapphire, leaving the jewel dull and dark. He looked very different than before: his nebulous cloud-form was more of a defined orb, and instead of simple lines, now he was a complex interlocking mechanism of what looked like gears. The sparkling lights whirled in a deliberate, complex cyclone.
“I feel good. I feel great, actually. It’s like I’ve had one eye closed all my life, and now I’ve opened the other five.” The drifting matrix of phantom machinery drifted around Lindon’s head. “You’ve got quite a complicated soul, don’t you? Two cores, I feel like that’s an unusual number. And I can see your face so much more clearly now! It’s…well, at least you have a wonderful spirit. Yes, indeed. That spirit of yours, wow.”
That was a little alarming. After this one operation, Dross had gained senses like a Jade’s. Had the Eye of the Deep always sensed what was going on around it?
Lindon folded his legs into a cycling position and fixed his gaze on Dross. “Now, maybe you can help us. We need to find a way out of here.”
“That’s right in my wheelhouse. A guide and a key, that’s me. Everything you need to find your way, all in one convenient bundle. Are we talking out of the Ghostwater world entirely, or out of this room?”
“Both.”
“Ah, okay, right. Hmmm…there’s a portal outside, which—”
“Apologies, but that’s no longer an option.”
Dross drifted slowly in a circle, like a man pacing. “There’s another portal just like that one, but I won’t lie to you: it’s a little deeper in the facility. It’s located in…Northstrider’s…personal quarters.” He said the Monarch’s name in a hushed whisper.