Chapter 139. The Sezakuin’s Cradle

Ian turned the wyrm around and headed back for Cunabulus. Neither he nor Eury convulsed, solid evidence that they’d shed the Eldemari’s End bindings.

“Why isn’t anyone firing on us?” Ian whispered.

“Because it won’t be any use,” Euryphel replied. His gaze was fixed to the ribcage, his eyes slightly irritated. “They either shoot you down or they don’t. If they fire hundreds of artillery and none of them breach the wyrm’s defenses, they won’t fire; they’ll wait until an opportunity presents itself.”

“Like...when we were previously convulsing?”

“No; that wouldn’t be enough, and you know it.”

Ian inclined his head. With the fire and Dark-resistant riftbeast soul gem, phaser rounds and even empowered plasma beams would be ineffective. They might damage the wyrm, but wouldn’t kill its passengers. Ian narrowed his eyes into the glare of the approaching city. “What would be enough to give them an opportunity?”

Euryphel rolled his eyes and gave Ian a lopsided smile, the gesture not quite reaching his eyes. “Ari, for one.”

If the Eldemari’s plan worked, Ian would have flown straight toward Ari and either died or ascended; either way, out of Maria’s hair. And on the off chance he managed to shrug off ensorcellment and returned to Cunabulus, he’d be running straight into a coordinated and fully-stocked artillery defense with the descendant on his heels.

Ian wondered how the Eldemari felt about her plan’s swift failure.

“I hate that we have no idea where Ari is or what she’s doing,” Ian murmured. “Were the Eldemari’s peak practitioners able to engage Ari in conversation and lead her out of Pardin toward me? Or did Ari ignore them and go on an indiscriminate warpath?”

Euryphel shook his head. “I can’t tell exactly, but from the End arrows I can see...it’s safe to assume that Ari hasn’t ended them all. She might be headed our way now.”

Ian gritted his teeth. “You can’t...see Ari’s End arrows?”

The prince’s brow twitched. “Not yet. There’s certainly fate to be had between the two of you...but she’s an ascendant: Her energy is defiant. She’ll need to be relatively close before I can see her arrows.”

“I don’t like this,” Ian murmured. “There’s no better plan that I can think of; in fact, things have been going well for us, all things considered. But it can all turn in an instant.”

“That’s the funny thing about End: When two people have fate, usually one end is the dominant party, the End arrowhead piercing only in one direction. It’s easy to become complacent, think that you’re the one in control...”

Ian figured that Euryphel was speaking from experience. He swallowed, then hesitantly asked, “And what of our relationship?”

The prince paused, then chuckled, glancing over. “Ours is one of the rare relationships where the arrowheads pierce both ways. I digress. My mother’s fate relationship with my father was one of dominance; his fate was tied to hers. You could say that her failure to see the future caused his demise, but his death was a great reversal, the start of her unwinding.”

Ian and Eury flew the rest of the way in silence, nervous tension palpable in the air.

“This is the point where we were turned around last time. I think I might be able to stop the bindings from taking hold on my second attempt, but be prepared to kill us again.” The prince paused. “Y’jeni, that sounds strange.”

“That’s because it is strange,” Ian snorted.

Another thirty seconds passed before the prince gasped and held his head. “I’ve got it,” he said, turning to Ian. “We’re entering Cunabulus...now. No more speaking audibly from this point on.”

“Good job, Eury,” Ian said.

“Thanks, but...I confess it was a bit easier than I thought. Easier than the first time.”

That sounded like a bad portent. “Wonderful. Do you think the Eldemari let us in?”

Euryphel sighed. “No, there was still significant resistance, but...I have a feeling things aren’t going to be as straightforward as we’d hope. Ian?”

Ian froze, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Eury there’s...there’s a vortex of souls above the city.” Ink-stained orbs circled Cunabulus like a school of fish, bulging up against each other, circling the center of the city like a whirlpool

Euryphel gave him an appraising look; Ian figured the prince was probing for more details. “You think it must be the Infinity Loop, that Selejo is making a last ditch effort in making someone strong enough to repel you from the city. After all, the closer you come, the worse the situation becomes: Selejo won’t want to risk collateral damage, but you have nothing to lose but your moral integrity.”

“Eury, who do you think they’d send into the loop? Kaiwen Chowicz?”

“Possibly, but Selejo has a better sense of your improved defenses by this point; they would probably choose to send individuals without affinities the riftbeast soul gem resists. Chowicz is a Moon practitioner, so she’s a less-likely option. In the span of a minute they could let someone train for a year, so they might choose to use the Infinity Loop on several different peak practitioners in succession with the sole intent of training to defeat you. Training against your facsimile seemed to work for Zilverna.”

“...This is wonderful news,” Ian thought, sighing. “But we did have a contingency for the possibility that Selejo produced a practitioner capable of defeating me with power and tactics despite my preparations and your assistance.”

“Ian...the contingency was getting Ari to kill such an individual in the crossfire, or kill Ari first,” Euryphel replied blithely. “It wasn’t a situation we considered too deeply because...well, it’s hard for us to deal with someone who overpowers you, let alone someone who has a tool like the Infinity Loop allowing them to train against you over and over again. And honestly, the fact that Selejo’s using the Infinity Loop now while you’re approaching isn’t a sign in their favor: They seem desperate. We need to keep going forward. Besides, if you wanted to destroy the Infinity Loop before ascending...now’s your chance.”

“How far out are we?”

Euryphel hummed in consideration, his fingers tightening around the wyrm ribcage. “I’d guess we’re about two minutes from the Infinity Loop, and that’s just a few blocks from the Cuna. Ian, I’m going to start taking control at this point and giving orders: Defenders are coming to intercept us. Are you prepared?”

“I’m ready: Tell me what needs to be done.”

Euryphel took in a deep breath. “Also, just a note...Ari’s almost here, and she seems...incensed.”

Ian’s chest and throat constricted, his jaw clenching. For a second he felt dizzy, off balance. They were headed for the end at full speed, but Ian just...couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that whether he ascended or died, he’d be leaving everything behind. He’d said farewell to Germaine, but it hadn’t been enough, a single tear-filled hug and an idealistic sketch of the Dunai family sending him off. He couldn’t remember the last words he’d shared with Mother, but they hadn’t been anything resembling a goodbye. Aunt Julia, Y’jeni, even the SPU’s guardians...he’d given none of them a proper farewell.

And you never will. His mind spiraled, regrets surfacing unbidden from the depths of his consciousness. He’d only lived twenty-four years in the real world and of those had spent less than three months as a practitioner. It had never hit him just how little time he had left until now.

“Ian? Did you hear me?”

Ian shook his head and renewed his focus over his small army of constructs. The shark tooth whip surged forth, serrated edges slicing through the sky, prepared to face Cunabulus’ defenders. For once Ian was glad thoughts over quantum channeling were nonverbal and devoid of emotion. “I’m good.”

As they flew toward the congregation of souls, Ian noticed that those nearest the center appeared to be partially deformed and distended. Out on the edges souls jetted out from below like bubbles of exhaust, some of them looking normal...while others looked like popped balloons, stringy strands of ethereal binding tatters together. Before the souls could fully dissociate, some intangible force sucked them back in with the others. The crush of other souls actually helped to keep the ruined souls intact by pushing pieces of like soul together, prolonging their disintegration.

But if what Soolemar said is true, when those ruined souls eventually break down, they’ll scatter and corrupt the other souls. And given the high density of souls present, Ian could imagine the number of souls that might face contamination.

Seemingly without warning the foundation of the entire city shifted downward. Cunabulus was ultimately built as an earthen cradle around the Cuna, a natural extension of baked earth and sand transplanted from the desert. The Eldemari’s mother, the Sezakuin, had prepared it well to resist invasion.

“What’s happening?” Ian asked, surveying the battlefield with confusion.

“The city’s going into its defensive mode,” Euryphel cautioned. “I told you so a minute ago.”

Ian frowned. Must’ve been while I was distracted...

“Everything’s going to recess into the ground, including the Eldemari’s End arrays. They were always under the palace, but depending on how deep the city sinks, confronting Ari on the surface might not be enough to ensure their destruction. She should’ve arrived by now, but the Eldemari’s peak practitioners have been slowing her down, keeping her just outside the city. It seems that an ascendant isn’t immune to the End defenses the Eldemari placed around Cunabulus.”

Ian could hear the vague sounds of a heated battle in the distance, saw the light of beams and the swiveling shells of phaser rounds cutting toward an opponent glowing with radiance that put the sunset to shame. Ian heard a heavy blast as though someone had set off a bomb.

“That’s the sound of a single hammer strike,” the prince commented, expression sober, his arms gesticulating as he sped the wyrm along and thwarted adversarial uses of wind elementalism. “We’re so close to the Cuna...but it’s cloistering the fastest, and there’s a small army of practitioners positioned to stop us from arriving in time.”

Ian felt the weight of every second like a guillotine hanging over his neck, each tick of the clock bringing it closer to his head. As they closed in on the Eldemari’s scarlet palace, the city sank downward. By the time they were only thirty seconds away, the once modern city of red, baked clay and shining glass was already mostly subsumed by dull earth, with the area around the Cuna almost entirely flat save for the tip of the palace sticking out.

I’m honestly thankful Cunabulus activated its defenses. If the city were undefended...I might feel worse about what we’re doing today.

“Earth elementalists coming up from below,” Euryphel cautioned.

Ian’s eyebrows rose as the ground lurched, jagged shards of rock jutting out above the swallowed palace. They were close enough that Ian had to crane his head back to take in the full height of the new mountain, the wyrm’s sizable body cast in shadow. Unlike the red earth of the Vermuthi desert, the natural ground around Cunabulus was brown dirt and gray slate...but in the striking light of the sunset and framed by red and white beams of light, the mountain was a dark, sanguine bastion.

Ian’s riftbeast-boosted defense thwarted fire and water, while Euryphel’s near-90% End affinity wind elementalism harried even peak practitioners of wind. Against the duo, the only full-powered element was earth.

Just our luck that Cunabulus is an earth elementalist paradise. Ian steeled himself for a tough battle, the tooth whip snaking out aggressively while his pseudo spirits shrieked and brandished shark-tooth talons and fangs.

“Never fought a group of people who wielded a mountain.”

“It’s not a mountain, Ian. It has arms. And don’t forget the earth elementalists coming above ground.”

Above ground?

Ten practitioners wearing heavy suits of earthen armor blasted out from different parts of the mountain and surfed forward on surging pillars of rock, gesticulating with their hands and feet. They moved nearly as swift as wind practitioners as they scooped up chunks of earth the size of buildings, pounding them into rough slabs, and arcing them up like frozen waves around the mountain.

“What are they going to do if I come close?” Ian felt like they were baiting him. The wyrm was only a block away at this point: It’d be easy to rush forward and ensnare them within his range.

“They’ll duck back underground: They’re being closely instructed by a group of Regret practitioners to stay beyond your range. If you can’t already tell, they’re setting up layers of empowered earthen barriers to stop us. Everything is a battle of time: if they can slow us down in time for the city to fully recess into the earth, you and Ari can fight with...minimized collateral damage.”

Ian sent his cartilaginous flying constructs forward, their misshapen, miscellaneous forms bounding for the ten above-ground elementalists. Ian sent the whip out to break the earthen barriers, but the bones were barely able to leave so much as a scratch against the empowered planes of rock.

Euryphel relayed tactical instructions as the bone wyrm undulated past the final stretch of earth to the submerged Cuna. Ian could barely think as he reacted to the prince’s rapid-fire commands to move his constructs to isolate and corner their foes, but Euryphel’s Regret adversaries were competent: The two sides were at a stalemate.

“Brace for impact with a barrier,” the prince relayed, wincing. “It’s going to hurt.”