Something Lindon couldn’t read passed through Ziel’s expression before he tilted his horns up to look at the sky of rainbow clouds. “How did I get here?” Ziel wondered aloud. “Preparing to fight a Dreadgod with someone who might really win.”
Dross piped up helpfully, [Lindon dragged you here.]
“I wouldn’t put it like that,” Lindon said.
Ziel snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah, that was it. Guess I have some work to do.” Ziel turned back around to face the Paths of Heaven, the lazy wind tugging at the ragged edges of his cloak, then stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “Thanks, by the way. For dragging me.”
Lindon dipped his head wordlessly.
Dross crossed his tendrils. [Don’t encourage him. He drags people too much as it is.]
Ziel sat down instead of responding, returning to his meditation, but Lindon grabbed Dross by the back of the head.
“Your turn,” Lindon said.
[Someone help! I’m being dragged!]
Lindon carried Dross in his hand down through a tunnel into Ghostwind Hall’s marble ground. Most of the facilities that had been included in the original pocket world either weren’t finished or weren’t worth much, but some had proved useful.
One in particular he had completed the first day.
The central control room of the pocket world wasn’t deep beneath the surface. It was a smooth marble cave, its interior covered by rings of script and networks of constructs. They had been half-finished when he’d arrived, scripts mapped out in paint and many parts disconnected or non-functional.
He’d completed the most important functions. Namely, the network of scripts and constructs that let him observe the outside world.
Some pieces of the system worked better than others, but he had blurry pictures and rudimentary spiritual impressions of the Trackless Sea beneath Windfall as well as a few other key locations. Like Sacred Valley.
Lindon shut off the alarm that had alerted Dross hours ago. Hours from his perspective. With the time difference cranked up as high as he could make it, less than a minute had passed on the outside.
Someone is testing Sacred Valley’s defenses, Lindon sent to Dross, once he deciphered the impressions coming through. He didn’t speak aloud because he didn’t want to disturb anyone else.
[That would be Reigan Shen,] Dross responded. [He’s hiding, but I smell cat hair.]
Then we’re almost out of time. Do you have an answer for me?
[You’re not going to like it. I want to request first that you not take out your inevitable fury on me.]
Lindon’s heart clenched. If Dross had bad news for him, their entire goal here might be impossible.
[It should be a bow,] Dross said gravely.
Lindon spent a moment thinking how that could be bad news. “I thought you were going to tell me it was impossible.”
[I wracked my brain for other options, but the tendons will make an acceptable bowstring, and—with a little bit of encouragement from you—we can incorporate the bones. The binding is mind-bending to consider, even for me, but it should work well for Forging convincing illusionary arrows and affecting the dream aura of the targets. Probably more.]
“I’m still waiting for the bad news.”
[The bad news is that I can’t use a bow!] Dross floated around the room in agitation, thrashing his flexible arms. [We get the most powerful binding compatible with me in the world, and I can’t even use it.]
“We could make it into a launcher.”
[Not if we want to maximize the binding. Like you asked me to. The shape adds a lot, so it needs to be a material weapon.]
“How’s its compatibility with shadow madra?”
[If Mercy touched this bow, her eyes would melt.]
“For now,” Lindon said. Once she mastered the seventh page of her Book and they advanced her past Archlord, she would need a new weapon.
[Here’s an idea that’s just striking me out of nowhere, feel free to say no, but we could use it.] Dross floated behind Lindon and pointed an arm out as though showing him a glorious future. [Imagine us with four Dreadgod weapons—five, if you count your arm—traveling around and devouring people’s minds. Feeding them straight to me. All to Dross.]
Dross projected the image of himself growing larger and larger until he dwarfed mountains, then popping Northstrider into his open mouth.
“That would be too much to handle.” Not only would the compatibility issues of balancing four Dreadgod weapons at once be a monumental task, but it was enough of a strain on Lindon’s willpower wrestling with his arm.
Dross gave Lindon a skeptical look.
“…but of course there’s plenty of Dreadgod material besides their core bindings,” Lindon continued. “We’ll find something for us. And we will borrow the bow until Mercy can handle it.”
That was just good sense. The weapon would be ready before its wielder, but they couldn’t leave it sitting around. Not when they could use it against Reigan Shen.
Satisfied, Dross nodded and opened Lindon’s second void key.
This key, stolen from Sophara, had almost collapsed under the spiritual weight of a Dreadgod’s corpse. He had been forced to move everything else out so the space didn’t dissolve, and even then, he had to wrap the Dreadgod’s corpse in scripted bandages to ensure stable long-term storage.
Lindon dragged the elephant-sized body of the Silent King out of the void key with one hand. The scripts all over the wrappings had begun to deform their cloth, so he burned them off in an instant with one brief flex of fire aura.
As soon as the restrictions were gone, all of Ghostwind Hall trembled.
The dead Dreadgod filled the cave with the stench of blood, sweaty fur, and a sickly-sweet smell that Lindon associated with dreadbeasts. The scorched cloth added smoke to the mix, so Lindon had Dross seal off his sense of smell.
“What will happen to the bow if the Silent King comes back to life?” Lindon asked. He had considered the question before; if the Dreadgods kept resurrecting, then they could potentially be an endless farm for Monarch-level materials.
Not that cultivating Dreadgods seemed like a good idea, but Lindon couldn’t help considering.
[The madra loses consistency and begins to degrade as the world breaks it down,] Dross said with a heavy sigh. [Obviously, the first thing I tried to design was a network of fourteen Silent King bindings under my control, but the exclusionary nature of Dreadgod materials is relatively well-documented. Has to do with the mechanism of their resurrection.]
Lindon had expected that, and he didn’t intend to allow the Dreadgod’s rebirth anyway, but he was still disappointed.
Using force and wind aura, he levitated the great tiger’s body into the center of the room. It would be better for Yerin to help with this next part, which required both precise incisions and controlling blood, but she was in the middle of her own training. Instead, Lindon set up a basic red construct to collect spilled blood then pulled out a goldsteel knife.
Dross highlighted the correct place for the first incision: a line down from the center of the neck. Standing in front of the corpse, Lindon was acutely aware of its size. The Dreadgod could have swallowed him in two bites.
Not long ago, Lindon had stood before it in battle. The memory of its presence overwhelmed him for a moment. Its spiritual and physical weight. The constant threat of death. Its power.
He could Consume this corpse. Drain it dry. There was more power left in the body, and he didn’t need a bow. Mercy couldn’t use it yet, and they needed the Silent King’s power against the Weeping Dragon. Why hadn’t he done this already?
Lindon had almost placed his right hand on the tiger’s skin when Dross materialized in front of him. [No! Bad arm! Down!]
Lindon jerked his hand away.