Jai Long hopped down from the back of his bat, sliding down its bristly gray-white fur to the ground. His boots crunched on sand.
All around him, the Sandvipers landed their own mounts. Gokren rode a bat just like his, which had been generously donated by the Jai clan, but the others traveled on Thousand-Mile Clouds of various colors, or flying constructs, or various treasures. Most of their equipment had followed them in a levitating cauldron big enough to stew five men, but it was lagging a day behind.
He ignored the rest of the group, heading straight to a white Thousand-Mile Cloud with a tent erected on it.
Inside, Jai Chen was struggling to sit upright. “Are we…stopping…already?” she asked, her voice soft but threaded with effort.
Jai Long grabbed her by the shoulder, helping her sit up. He wanted to unravel the red bandages around his head and speak to his sister face-to-face, but he needed Sandviper loyalty enough that he didn’t want to scare them off.
“We’re here,” he said, and she lit up. He scooped her out of the tent, pretending not to hear her protests that her hair wasn’t straight.
She had suffered the indignities of travel without protest, and now he carried her to look out over the desert. Into the sun, which rose behind a black mountain. At the city of dragon’s bone.
This was her first glance of Serpent’s Grave in almost ten years, and she covered her mouth and teared up at the sight. Their parents lived in the city somewhere, as did their brothers and sisters.
She smiled at him, wide and open and tinged with grief. Jai Long knew she was glad to be home, despite everything, even if the sight of her birthplace pierced her like a sword.
Behind his mask of bandages, he smiled too.
For very different reasons.
Chapter 9
Lindon had spent much of the past five years working in the Wei clan archives. He was confident he knew what a library was supposed to look like.
But this room, located behind and beneath the bone tower that housed Cassias' family, was just a twenty-foot by twenty-foot square box. It had only one door, and all the walls were pale, yellowed bone. On the ceiling, a few scripted circles glowed with runelight, illuminating every corner.
A small altar of bone rose from the center of the room like an arm, with a claw cupping a ball the size of Lindon's fist. The ball was made of copper plates, and he thought he saw whirring flashes of color between the plates.
All in all, it was nothing like a library.
Eithan waited with hands on hips, clearly anticipating Lindon's reaction.
“Are the books...in the walls?” Lindon finally asked.
The Underlord clicked his tongue. “What are books but a mechanism to store knowledge? If we have something much more efficient available,” –Eithan picked up the copper ball— “then why would we need books?”
Lindon peered at the ball. It was a construct of some kind, obviously, but beyond that he couldn't guess. Maybe it would project words onto the wall—some of his mother's White Fox constructs could do as much, crafting images from illusions.
“This is the single most valuable object the entire Arelius family owns,” he said, spinning it on the tip of one finger. “Most of us aren’t aware of that, but it's true. We primarily use the powers of our bloodline to find areas that need cleaning or maintenance, but as an...unintentional side effect...we also tend to collect other information.”
He tossed the ball from hand to hand. “All of that information pertinent to the sacred arts—including secrets about the Paths of our rivals—is stored in here. Some of it also gets copied into dream tablets, scrolls, books, and so forth, but everything goes here.”
That was intriguing. If they could study the sacred arts of their enemies, they could walk into any battle with the upper hand. If Jai Long's sacred arts were in there...
“How do we get it out?” Lindon asked.
“Well, first, you have to be a blood member of the Arelius family.” Eithan continued tossing the ball in his left hand and touched the right against his chest. “Fortunately for you, I am. The original Patriarch left this treasure for his descendants, and they have learned from it and added to it one generation at a time.”
“That's incredible. Truly, it's a treasure that I'm honored even to lay my eyes on. But how do we get it—”
Eithan didn't do anything Lindon could see, but the copper plates slowly pushed out from the center of the ball. A light flashed red.
And suddenly a featureless, crimson man stood in the center of the room.
It looked like a Remnant left behind by one of the wooden training dummies: a head without a face, body slender and unremarkable, limbs lifeless and smooth. It was solid red, without details or distinguishing marks.
“Your Path of Twin Stars interests me,” Eithan said, spinning the expanded ball in one hand. He muttered something to the orb, and it flashed again.
The red man came to life, crouching on the balls of its feet and raising both hands. It pivoted, driving one hand forward and low, and a pulse of barely-visible madra extended from the blow. An Empty Palm.
Lindon stared at the scarlet mannequin hard enough to burn a hole through it. Never mind looking at his enemy's abilities—if he could study his own techniques like this, watching them from the outside in...how much could he learn? He could perfect his every movement.
“There are possibilities for the Path of Twin Stars in the future,” Eithan said. “Pure madra is rare enough that it has many advantages, which you've already realized...but it also has quite a few disadvantages.”
Another flash, and this time a green man appeared, its hands wreathed in flame. The first figure, the red one, stepped forward to deliver an Empty Palm to its opponent's core...
...and the green figure grabbed it by the face with burning hands. The scarlet head winked out, leaving the red man with bare shoulders.
“As a Path, it has remarkable utility, but it leaves you practically defenseless,” Eithan went on. The copper ball flashed red, and the red man stood—whole and alone—in the center of the room once again. “It also happens to be slow to advance, since you can't take in aura while cycling. You must rely on purifying your own madra and increasing it with external factors. Elixirs and such.”
Eithan leaned against the wall, smiling, the ball tucked under one arm. “So...I know you're aware of these problems, and you've thought of some possible solutions. What are your thoughts?”
Lindon had assumed Eithan was heading somewhere, and he was still fascinated by the possibilities of the red man and the copper ball. The question left him flat-footed.