Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (5)

The labyrinth read his intentions. Its overwhelming authority locked down all spatial travel here, but now that power was bent to Lindon’s will instead of leaning against him. The walls blurred, and the entrances vanished.

This time, Lindon could sense what was happening.

Rather than reassigning the entrances, the labyrinth was shuffling chambers in a complex dance to get the room where it was needed. There was a logic to it, and Dross eagerly added this new perspective to his understanding. The more they learned, the more accurate his map of the labyrinth would become.

When the exit reappeared, Lindon strode through it, beneath a symbol that resembled a crescent. A scythe blade.

They were deep in the labyrinth now, far underneath Sacred Valley, in one of Ozmanthus Arelius’ disused workshops. This was one Lindon had visited before, and the stone room was missing the treasures it had once contained. Empty shelves lined the walls, and even the walls themselves had recessed nooks where weapons had once been displayed.

The only objects of any value in the room were shimmering jewels embedded in the stone. Dream tablets recording Ozmanthus’ observations for later generations.

Lindon had looked through them already. That wasn’t why he was here.

He strode deeper, down a steep spiraling ramp. The labyrinth didn’t have the same layout it had last time, but he knew it was taking him where he needed to go.

Halfway through the hallway, he sensed that he was close enough and stopped. This was an unremarkable, featureless stretch of hall, but the binding he wanted was closest to the wall here.

This dense knot of hunger had been implanted in the walls by Subject One over long years. Though it was an artificial binding, it still functioned, and it contained a specific Forger technique. Bindings like this one were scattered throughout the labyrinth.

Lindon pressed his right palm against the wall. White fingers trembled against the stone, and part of Lindon enjoyed the cool feeling of rock. For years now, his right arm had been that of a Remnant, and thus better suited to feeling spiritual matter than physical. Now, it was like having a real hand back.

Though the rest of Lindon’s attention was on keeping the hand in check. It wanted to feed on the power it sensed within the walls. To consume. And it raged against Lindon, who held it back.

A black strip of cloth wrapped around Lindon’s upper arm contained the power. Silvery runes shimmered. Malice had used this to suppress the arm so Lindon could control it, and Lindon wasn’t about to turn down gifts from an enemy.

This dampened will of the Slumbering Wraith was still noticeable, but hardly enough to shake Lindon’s resolve. Instead of pulling power in, as the limb wanted, Lindon pushed power out. Pure madra, tinged with just a bit of Subject One’s hunger.

He fueled the Forger binding in the wall.

The one that would create a person’s echo.

When Subject One ruled the labyrinth, the technique could produce anyone the Dreadgod had fed upon. Now, Lindon was limited to those who had made enough of an impression on the labyrinth, but there were still enough to make it hard for him and Dross to narrow down the options.

Some echoes were more complete than others, depending on how strong they had been in life and how much time they’d spent in the labyrinth. He could create an echo of Yerin, for instance, but she would be a soulless parody of her usual self, both weak and mute.

Powerful individuals who had spent large amounts of time here could be copied so well they were even self-aware, but those would require a huge amount of energy.

Which Lindon had.

To manifest this echo took time as well as madra. He spent several minutes of concentration, most of his pure core, quite a bit of the energy from his hunger arm, and even a chunk of power from his Blackflame core for its destruction aspect.

The labyrinth itself had madra reserves, but he hesitated to use them before he understood their extent and purpose.

After about ten minutes of channeling energy, Lindon was finally ready to activate the technique. A gray-white ghost, so solid it looked alive, formed in front of Lindon. With his long, straight hair, aquiline features, and hazy smile, he looked like Eithan’s brother.

But this wasn’t Eithan’s brother. It was Eithan himself, in his original form.

Ozmanthus Arelius placed both his hands on the end of his broom and leaned his chin on top of them. His smile was faintly mocking. “Ah, you must be my future apprentice. Congratulations on your inheritance of this place. Not many have earned that right since my day.”

The echo of Ozmanthus was better-informed than Lindon had expected.

“Apologies, but it’s strange to see you like this,” Lindon said. “Do you...remember me?”

Ozmanthus’ expression shifted so that Lindon couldn’t quite call it a sneer. “I remember what the labyrinth does, so of course I know you. If you’re asking me whether I recall teaching you, of course I do not. But I’m more than capable of filling in the blanks with the information I have.”

The Arelius Patriarch pushed himself up on the broomstick and stretched his back. “If you only summoned me to soothe your grief at losing your mentor, I’m afraid I must disappoint you.”

Dross popped out, drifting through the shadows of the room and floating around Ozmanthus. [You must not be acquainted with grief yet, or you would know that it is not a weak motivation. Wonderful. I marvel at the path of tragedy ahead of you that shaped you into such an unparalleled killer.]