Chương 58

No one can master the Sea. Only fools have tried. He felt them before he saw them. A writhing in his heart, sharp-edged and growing. Harker clutched at himself, tossed from the sense of his body and into that precarious balance. Far below, down the long slide toward his Scope and the Sea, were monsters. Aberrants. True ones, born of the Sea itself. Larger than any hound, they were piled atop one another, snapping at the edges of gold-threaded stone that bore down into the waters.

Waves surged, crashing around them, spraying up through his Soul Lock. High enough that it soaked him on the precipice. Four. Seven. Eight. Breathe! His mind was fuzzy, his limbs still slow. Aberrants lurched, the great mass of them slamming into the side of his Soul Lock. Spume and spittle shot up, sizzling against the gold-flecked rock. The balance lurched. He fell. Tumbled downward toward his Scope. Toward the Sea. The Aberrants thrashed, glee lit up in their mad eyes—a meal delivered to their doorstep.

Maws opened, teeth flashed, and clawed fins churned waves to foam. They climbed atop one another, bodies slithering across slick scales into an upward bound. They leapt. Golden lightning eviscerated them. Harker shielded his face with an arm. Incandescence crackled across his Soul Lock, an impossible discharge that hit the Aberrants like a bomb. Stone shook, water gushed, filling his Lock with clouds of dust and evaporated viscera. Harker dug his fingers into the jagged edges.

His hands tore open on contact but he gripped as hard as he was able—arresting his fall with a shoulder-wrenching impact. Lightning scoured the rest of his Lock and the Sea that heaved only a dozen feet below. Aberrants still threw themselves at him, but their scaled bodies barely brushed his heels before being reduced to ash. But he couldn't hold on forever. His arms were leaden, his fingers nothing more than clawed hooks at the end of his palms, and every muscle trembled.

Gold lightning spread, crashing across the waters, stone… and him. Harker gasped, breathing interrupted—but it didn't burn. It clung to him like a net of taffy or tar, oozing down his legs, arms, and back. None of which calmed him. He'd seen metallic liquid like this before—he knew what the lightning was now.

"Vestige." Before he could utter anything else, the net tightened. It pulled. Not down, but sideways. Rock parted in a flurry of gray particles and the Sea roared before Harker was sent tumbling across uneven ground and a spray of dense mist. Dizzy and disoriented as if he'd tried to use his full Talent, Harker fought to stand. The ground was nearly as insubstantial as the haze around him. His bloodied fingers clutched at a greasy nothingness that somehow held him up.

Silence choked his ears so tightly they rang, a phantom roar that crawled across his skin like a dead hand. This… is the worst. He rose to all fours, just above the thick fog, and beheld a world of shifting light. Gold stuttered, flickering dark. The roar increased. That cannot be good. A man was watching him. Harker reached for his knives, but the man didn't make a move. At least, he assumed ti was a man. It bore the silhouette of a person—arms, legs, and head all draped with what he assumed were clothes.

All else, however, was obscured by mist and the glaring flood of gold.

"Who are you?" Harker asked. Or tried to—instead his voice was swallowed up the moment he spoke. The gold crowded close, fogging against his chest and obscuring the figure. Not enough that Harker didn't see it walk away. Come back! He half-stepped through the mist and the ground squished against his foot, slipping like half-melted ice. By the time Harker recovered, the figure had moved dozens of yards away… and it wasn't alone. Others followed out of the light, from every direction. All of them were different.

Tall and short, wide and slender, an army of shadows that cut through the gleaming gold like blotches against the sun. Harker stilled, crouching on the unsure earth and reaching for his knives. There was no telling what would happen. The moment his fingers closed around his weapons, however, the ground gave way. His shout was lost to the roar of silence and he sank to his waist into a slurry of chill liquid. Harker threw his arms out, snagging his arms atop the oily surface, stopping his descent.

The gold pulsated, and the figures paused. They turned, all of them at once, and the dark retreated from them. Not completely, but enough that their silhouettes filled with the suggestion of complexity and detail. Empty eyes bore down on him, deeper than the Sea, and more distant than the Horizon. It would have been terrifying if not for their chests, all of which bore the swirling evidence of their true nature. They weren't flesh or bone, but a confluence of turbulent tides.

Each and every one of them howled, the silent roar coming from the maelstrom that surged in their centers. What are you all? The ground gave way. Harker fell, plummeting through freezing waters and hurtled back sideways. He hit a rough stone surface hard before slipping down. Battered and bloody, he still managed to seize the jagged edges of a ledge formed of dark stone flecked with gold.

"My… Soul Lock?" He'd returned from wherever the Vestige had taken him—but things hadn't changed. Gold still clung to him, a netting that refused to give up its grasp. It dragged him down, adding weight to his waterlogged body as the Sea never stopped its raging. Harker held on, breath ragged and fingers aching. Aberrants were still down there, rising up from the Depths only to get eradicated by the flash of gold. Breathe. Four. Seven. Eight.

Inch by bloody inch, Harker clawed his way back up through the craggy bore of his soul. His head was light and arms heavy, but he didn't think to stop. He couldn't. The Sea and Vestige alike reached for him, greedy and violent in their own inscrutable ways. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. He breathed. The pressure crushed his chest, the agony blazed against his nerves, and his fingers split.

Blood dripped down the stone, mixing with the grit of salt that stung against every open wound. Still, he climbed. Halfway up the Lock, his left arm shuddered and writhed. His scars split apart, the gold tearing free in wild spikes that dug deep into the stone. More than weight, it roared in a silence louder than the Sea. The stare of empty eyes, unseen but very real, bored into the back of his head. An audience to his struggle. Harker shouted and wrenched his left arm inward, toward his chest.

Liquid gold stretched… and tore. His arm bubbled, ejecting new strands, but they were thinner. Gold clung to everything and nothing. Weighing him down. Trying to stop him. He breathed. He refused. Between one stretch and the next, stone smoothed. The drag vanished. Harker opened his already wide eyes. The room was dim. Silent. He was laid out against the hard floor with his feet tangled amongst his bedroll and a scattering of broken wood pressed hard beneath his fingers.

The last patter of storm fizzled against the trailhouse roof, and Harker breathed through his teeth. He was soaked in sweat and impurities oozed across his arms and beneath his tunic. Harker dragged his hands inward. Pain, dull and throbbing, coursed down his fingers, splinters and salt filling the cracks that split apart his fingers and palms alike. Blood trailed in droplets, squeezed from his clenched fists as he tried to chase the ache away with pressure. Cast it off…

Faint light cut the chamber into slices of shadow. Nail-thin beams filtered through small holes where the walls met the roof, iron-gray and stained by a nameless haze. It was enough light to make out the overturned table nearby and the shattered remains of a chair near where he'd been spread out. Scratches marred his skin beneath the film of impurities, and Harker couldn't help but recall the Aberrants and clinging gold that were responsible. The soul cannot distinguish from injury or imagination, son.

Tentatively, Harker ran his fingers down his left arm. Blood smudges smeared through slick muck, but the smooth expanse of scar tissue remained. He lifted it away from his chest, bracing against the wave of tight muscles, and could still see them. Gold, from shoulder to wrist. Not split apart at all. A groan of half relief fueled his cramping abdominals as he sat up. He fetched his canteen and fumbled out his diminishing supply of odor nullifier and cleaned himself up.

Some salve, bandages, and a change of clothes later Harker felt better. Exhausted, but whole. Kaffa sprout sparked in his mouth, bright and acidic. Wakefulness hammered against his spine and temple, banishing the fuzziness that clawed at the edges of his attention. Sleep was unimportant now. Too much had happened and he couldn't waste time. Aberrants had interrupted his Current formation.

He didn't have to ask why—the monsters of the Infinite Sea were always hungry, and their favorite meals have always been Talented. The threat of them clawing through your soul was an ever-present threat… when Descending. Talents were at their weakest when moving from one Depth to the next. Harker was standing on the Surface, at the shallowest part of his understanding, and yet they had come. Were they attracted to the Vestige? There was no question in his mind that the cursed artifact had stopped them.

Harker was almost grateful for the golden lightning if the Vestige hadn't tried to kill him anyway. If he had let go during his ascent, Harker was certain that he would have been hurled into the same destruction as the Aberrants. He would have died. Or worse. Harker grunted, flexing his hands. His wrists and forearms were sore and his shoulders burned, as if his actual body had been climbing all night. Real, imaginary effects. Terrifying.

His skin crawled, and for a moment he was back there, clinging to the jagged surface of his Soul Lock. Right. He breathed sharply through his teeth. Them. The figures with empty eyes and bodies like raging whirlpools. Harker had no idea what they could be, but doubted they were Aberrants. No. They were connected somehow to the Vestige. How? He shook his head. He had no answers—but he had his life. That would have to be enough for now. The real question remained. Was he stronger?

"Sovereign Sight," he whispered. His awareness pushed into his body like sinking into a warm pool. Details filtered through him, faster than ever, and Harker understood several things all at once. First, his tributaries were unharmed and unchanged. Second, his reservoir was just as small as before. Third, his Water was low, which boded well for avoiding any further reflux. There was more. Harker focused, narrowing his attention away from the thorned spiral and into his center.

There, in the overwhelmed pocket of his reservoir, was a ripple. A swirl of Water that almost wasn't—yet it didn't stop. Harker grinned. It was weak and thin, but it was there. He could build on it. He was tired, sore, filled with innumerable aches and wounds, but it didn't matter. There was work to be done. He pushed and pulled his spiritual muscles, testing that swirl. The rippling deepened. Strengthened.

Encouraged, he pressed all the harder, until those unnamed muscles trembled inside of him—but it was a fallen tree across his path. The first shove shifted it, but no matter how he struggled Harker was unable to affect it further. There are likely real technique for advancing a Current. Once she wakes, he glanced back to the blanketed lump not twenty feet away, I'll see if she is willing to perform submergence again. There was much to do in the meantime. First, he needed— A shimmer caught his eye in the dark.

They cast no light, but the golden lines of his arms were unmistakable, and they were twinkling. Ordeals In Progress…

The Ordeal Of Maelstrom's Passage - The Trial Of Power - 11% > 22% The Ordeal Of Blackwake's Descent - The Trial Of Truth - 0% > 5% The Ordeal Of Breaking Reef - The Trial Of Change - 19% > 25% The Ordeal Of Tidal Climb - The Trial Of Resilience - 25% > 30% The Ordeal of Deep Lantern - The Trial Of Harmony - 5% > 34% The Ordeal of Drowning Sky - The Trial Of Vigilance - 20% > 27% The Ordeal of Mist and Foam - The Trial Of Stillness - 25% > 28% The Ordeal of Siren's Undertow - The Trial Of Judgment - 30% > 35% The Ordeal of Abyssal Plunge - The Trial Of Ambition - 32% > 39% Harker grinned.

Power had taken a serious leap forward. As had Harmony and… His grin faded. Truth had increased for the first time. Five percent wasn't much but… What caused the jump? Was it from his encounter with the Aberrants? Perhaps those mysterious figures in the Vestige? Or, and this was far more terrifying, had it truly come from being honest with Adhira? Did that mean he had to continue exposing his secrets? What sort of trial was that? One that benefits the magisters. Harker scowled into the middle distance.

The Ordeals clearly aren't just for our benefit. They're to help the Spires identify our strengths and our weaknesses. But is that to help us? Or to control us? Harker would bet his life on the latter. The progress bars shuddered in his vision. Gold flashed, the knotted stars pushing away from one another before drawing close again. A buzzing chime dangled somewhere behind the center of his forehead—silver flashed through stone. Harker twitched as if something had pushed against him.

"... What is that?" Harker abandoned his rickety chair and walked closer to the trailhouse wall. His Chartermark was responding to something. Sovereign sight spread, honed into a narrow bar. It pierced through the stone wall, pressing now for three entire feet. Beyond, dulled to a low vibration, a silvered resonance rippled through him. The Charterstone. The lines on his arm jittered ever so slightly. It was something rolling across the bottom of a lake. All he felt were the bubbles rising to the surface.

For anyone else, it was nothing but errant noise. But for him, it was as if a flag had been waved in front of his eyes. The progress bars had changed.