Chapter 318. The Soul is the Tether (Patreon)

Within my guest chambers, I grip the shard of black rock I brought away in my left hand. With my right, I rub my index finger along the length of a shattered rib bone.

The black rock resists affinities. Elementalists can control water, air, fire, and earth, but the elements themselves aren’t raw affinity. They are simply manifested and/or manipulated.

The black rock prevents the manipulation of the elements. Within Starbreak, elementalism is greatly stymied, and to attempt controlling the black rock through earth elementalism itself is impossible. When elementalists manipulate passages within the citadel, they push the mystic stone through ancient, carved passageways with gusts of air, deluges of water, and mallets of earth.

As a necromancer, I can see and manipulate souls, but they don’t come from me or other practitioners. Souls are more profound than that, if my experiences delving into souls is anything to go by. They absorb memories, forming a tight coil of meaning that stretches inward, as though spiraling to a point of singularity. And when a soul’s host dies, it all snaps, the tension lost, the soul unraveling and losing its meaning.

But I wonder… a soul can contain a world of memories, emotion, feeling. Eternity has already made me realize that the distinctions between what is real and imagined are less strict than I thought. All of us ascendants are real, as far as I can tell, but our bodies seem to exist elsewhere, preserved in the amber. Along with our souls.

It’s like two of me exist at any one time, both connected to that one soul. Based on what I know, it’s paradoxical.

I think back to the conversation with Ancient Ash and his explanation on Dark affinity. Dark connects a carved-out space to an anchor point, where necromancy can anchor a soul to a single object. There are natural expressions of both phenomena–rifts are naturally formed dimensions anchored to reality, and souls naturally enter human bodies.

But Dark affinity can, in exceptional circumstances, form multiple anchors to one dimension. Likewise, Eternity provides multiple anchors for a single embodied soul. Two bodies.

But why stop at two­–why not have multiple Ian avatars running around, all connected to one soul? The answer comes to me from my experience with glossy programmatics. It would cause a memory access error, so to speak. The soul would be inundated with contradicting experiences and the smooth spiral of experiences would be filled with discontinuities. The instability could cause collapse of the soul–corruption.

My Beginning affinity gently nudges my thinking down a new path, asking a question I hadn’t considered before.

What happens to the body in the amber when I use a return beacon? What happens to my soul?

Various possibilities bubble to the forefront, bobbing up and down as though fighting for attention. A bead of sweat falls down my temple.

After a few moments, I cut the train of thought off. I have a terrible migraine, as though the question caused my brain to short-circuit. Being in the guest room where my affinities are dampened certainly doesn’t help, but better to perform my experiments here than outside of Starbreak under Sindragos’s watchful eye.

Are you okay? Maria asks. Though we’re supposedly free of the black faction’s gaze, speaking mentally is safer. Moreover, speaking directly into each other’s mind is faster and more intimate. I’ve come to prefer it. I feel her hands on my shoulders. I can take on the regalia form again–

No, it’s fine, I tell her. I turn and release the rib bone to float in the air, cupping her cheek. She smiles at me. Cayeun Suncloud’s azure halo hovers above her head, turning her pallid countenance exuberant. Her cheeks are warm as I lean in, her breath mingling with mine.

Maria, humor me for a moment.

Of course. Her smile is devilish. What is it?

Remember when we made the return beacon?

It’s hard to forget. Eternity electrocuting Karanos is a rather fond memory, given how much of an ass he was to us back then.

I lean back and raise an eyebrow. I’m glad you can think about it positively, given what happened in the end. At the end of creating the return beacon, Karanos exploded, smearing Maria’s body across a mountain and nearly blasting apart Crystal.

I don’t remember my own death, since it was nearly instantaneous, she says.

Anyways, I’m trying to figure out how return beacons work.

Why?

A hunch, I reply. I’m trying to figure something out with my necromancy, and I think the return beacon mechanics hold the key.

Maria grabs my hand, squeezing it in hers.

When we used the return beacon originally, I brought us to the Hall of Ascension.

Not Eternity directly, Maria states.

Precisely. But if I were to activate the beacon now, I wouldn’t wake up in the amber and pass through the Hall of Ascension. I would be transported to our home world directly.

It’s asymmetrical, she observes. How we enter is not how we leave.

Another clue is what Holiday said about you, I say. He said that the only way to save you was with a return beacon, that your body was falling apart, rejected by the Eternity itself. That if we acquired a return beacon, you would be saved, returned to our home world.

Maria hums in contemplation.

I continue, saying, When we activate return beacons in Eternity, I don’t think we’re transporting our current shell. I gesture to my body. I think that this body disappears, and that the body kept in the amber is sent away.

That… makes sense, she says slowly. What interest is this to you?

Isn’t it remarkable? I activate an object here, in this body, and it acts on my other form. How does it do that? What connects this body and my true body?

She meets my intense gaze with eyes that burn with intelligence. She doesn’t need a Beginning affinity to understand. She rubs my fingers. The soul is the tether.

Yes. The soul spans a great distance to impart a powerful effect. In the end, it’s a form of necromancy.

She laughs. Extremely complex necromancy, at a minimum.

It’s given me an idea. Talking through it with you has only made me surer of my path.

Can you show me? she asks, gesturing at the black rock locus still grasped in my left hand.

It’s still just an idea, I say, smiling, but give me a few hours, and hopefully I’ll have something to show for my efforts.

She snorts. A few hours?

If we’re lucky, a few minutes.

She rolls her eyes. Show-off.

I chuckle and pull her closer. That being said, I have time for a quick break.

—

I stand once more within the tip of the ring finger. Before, I was a spying specter, eavesdropping on the black faction’s discussion. Now I’ve been summoned to the atrium by the black faction elite.

Sindragos strides forward and opens the tall doorway into an austere meeting room. Within I see eight ascendants, including Lucinda. They recline in chairs, almost thrones, though these are irregular, like flash-cooled glass or obsidian. They look like liquid shadows. At the center is a perfectly rectangular slab of dark wood.

Sections of the ceiling are transparent to let in natural light, the white sun casting the chamber in the cool pallet of winter. The chairs practically glow from within where the light passes through.

A few holographic screens hang on the walls. I’ve seen a few examples of mundane technology throughout Starbreak, a necessity given the fortress’s affinity-muting properties. The ascendants keep a number of mortals on staff to maintain everything, though they remain largely out of the way in the diminutive pinkie finger.

Currently, the screens play the same video–a recollection of me killing Ascendant Meng in the classroom at the Hall of Ascension tournament. The video is odd–it’s not a lifelike recording like that made with a glosscam. It rather looks like it’s been animated or painted. The faction must have had another ascendant recreate them from Lucinda’s memories. It may be the work of a water elementalist shaping ink­–perhaps even the work of Sindragos.

Sindragos sits down at the head of the table, taking the last remaining chair. I enter the room, my feet gliding an inch over the floor. With no chairs remaining, I get the sense that I’m supposed to remain standing to receive the collective’s judgment.

“Ancient Black, thank you for joining us,” Sindragos begins, his mellifluous voice filling the room. “We asked you to meet us here due to the sensitivity of the subject.” His eyes flit to Lucinda.

What is he implying? I ask Maria. With my Beginning affinity suppressed, I fall back on Maria’s superior experience.

He’s referring to our discussion in the dining area last week, when Lucinda discussed the faction’s intent to betray Achemiss. It’s best to avoid planning such things in the open, even in friendly territory.

“What is your decision?” I ask. My face is blank, revealing no trace of emotion.

“We accept, but only if you convince us that you can succeed. You said that you would show more of your power once provided time to prepare. It’s time for you to prove your strength. However, this time, you won’t be fighting me, but Ascendants Lucinda and Harka.”

Lucinda and another woman with short, gray hair and a sharp nose give me a nod.

“They will leverage their Dark and Death affinities against you to mimic the power of Achemiss. They have studied from an initial soul record we obtained from Achemiss seven hundred and sixty-three years ago, when he first joined the black faction.”

Is this what it sounds like? I ask Maria.

I think so. Lucinda and Harka trained against–or perhaps, with–Achemiss using technology like that of the Infinity Loop.

Sindragos continues, saying, “They will have several powerful artifacts at their disposal that will grant them protection from your attacks and give them improved offensive capabilities. These artifacts will be a poor substitute for the immense numbers of artifacts that Achemiss possesses. To increase the challenge, you will not be permitted to use any artifacts.”

That’s a serious restriction, but not unreasonable. Even a new ancient should be able to hold his own against two ascendants using only one affinity, respectively. I’m familiar with Lucinda’s capabilities but know little of Ascendant Harka’s practice. Still, if I had to bet on my mastery of Death or Harka’s, I’d bet on myself.

I may be young, but Eternity has taught me that age isn’t everything. Ash worked hard to beat modesty out of me, though modesty isn’t what he would have called it. He said I was insecure and willfully ignorant of my own capabilities.

“What is the goal of the challenge?” I ask. “Simply fighting to the death would be of little use. You want me to steal an artifact from Achemiss; killing him is beside the point.”

Sindragos smiles. “You will ultimately need to separate Achemiss from his most prized artifact, one that he likely keeps on his person at all times. That will require overwhelming force–” he clasps his hands together “–and that is what we wish to see.”

—

We go to the stad, the large water-carved basin with plenty of space to fight.

The terms of the fight are particular. Lucinda and Harka will be bound together so that they must be in the same general area–within ten feet of one another. To start, they will stand together, their backs touching. I will be close to them, as though engaged in conversation.

That’s when I am supposed to attack. Complete victory is incapacitating both of them. After all, in a fight against Achemiss, only incapacitation will keep the man out of commission long enough for me to pilfer his most valuable artifact.

The incapacitation strategy is based on the assumption that Achemiss won’t leave Eternity. In reality, if my return beacon strategy goes according to plan, I’ll be gunning for assassination.

I take in a deep breath, then exhale, imagining all my worries flowing out of my body.

“Good luck,” Red says. He stands with the other ascendants around the rim of the basin. The black faction collected him from the thumb before heading over. “I look forward to seeing what insanity you’ve cooked up this time. Maria made it sound impressive.”

I can’t wait to see their reactions, Maria thinks smugly.

Lucinda and Harka descend from the rim, approaching my position over the water.

“It’s time,” Lucinda says, smiling. “You can start whenever you wish. Our role is to react.”