Do you remember how to defeat Reigan Shen? Lindon asked Dross silently. At least there may be some upside to this transformation.
[Why would I need such tricks?] Dross sneered.
Lindon’s heart crumbled further.
Eithan pointed to the wall. “Far be it from me to dangle a flimsy hope before you, but it’s possible we may be able to bypass Reigan Shen and still accomplish something down here.”
Lindon raised his head and looked over Yerin’s shoulder. The weathered map, lightly scratched into the wall, had been further obliterated by the battle. But he could still make out the X marking the bottom of the labyrinth.
“Ozmanthus’ Soulsmith inheritance,” Lindon said aloud. He perked up. With the Soulforge and a Soulsmith inheritance of this level…
“Could we fix him?” Lindon asked quietly. But of course the volume of his voice had no bearing on whether Dross could hear him.
The dream-spirit swelled up to twice his size. [Do not test me, human! I do not need fixed any more than the moon needs polished! How do you fix that which is already perfect beyond your comprehension?]
“I’m certain it could be…used to that effect,” Eithan said carefully. “But I am concerned about potential changes to your mentality if you inherited his legacy. He was not a kind man. Though not so concerned as I am about Reigan Shen getting it first.”
Lindon shivered as he thought of the Monarch falling down the shaft straight toward where the inheritance waited. Would he even care about such an inheritance? He was a legendary Soulsmith in his own right.
Then again, if it was valuable to him, then they were about to face a Monarch with the absorbed memories of a weaponsmith who had ascended to become known as the Reaper of Worlds.
That did assume that they were going to continue in the labyrinth.
[Of course we are!] Dross declared. [He has thrown the gauntlet, and we are not the sort of cowards who would fail to pick it up!]
“Pardon, Eithan. But I need to know something first.”
Everyone conscious looked to Eithan, even Dross. Eithan seemed to know what Lindon was going to ask, because he planted his hands on his hips and beamed. “You want to know about my Icons!”
“If you don’t mind.”
“The Icons that almost formed in my fight with Reigan Shen!”
“Yes.”
“The very Icons that, when manifested fully, would have made me into a Sage!”
Yerin’s red eyes narrowed. “Those shoes’ll get dirty if you keep dragging your feet.”
“It’s very simple: I’m waiting for another Icon.” He glanced around and shuddered. “Besides, I don’t want to advance here. The circumstances of your advancement can affect your relationship to an Icon, and these tunnels are so…dirty.”
Dross scoffed, but Lindon was caught by the first part of the statement. “What Icon are you waiting for?”
“The Joy Icon.”
Yerin groaned.
“It’s real!” Eithan said defensively. “It’s just not…very common. To be frank with you, I’d take any number of Icons, just not anything Ozmanthus manifested. I don’t want to end up as he did.”
“Famous?” Yerin asked. “Powerful?”
“Alone.”
That was painful enough to hear, so Lindon changed the subject. “What did he mean about Tiberian’s dream?”
Eithan sighed and ran a hand over his hair. “This is another step toward coming clean with you two, I suppose. Tiberian’s dream was to rid the world of the Dreadgods.”
Yerin’s eyebrows raised, but Lindon wasn’t too surprised. He suspected she wasn’t either. The Arelius crest on the sealed hand implied as much.
“We found a method of doing so, and I encouraged him to pursue the cooperation of the other Monarchs,” Eithan said with a sigh. “He insisted on starting with Reigan Shen. Against my advice, might I add. You can usually count on Monarchs to avoid open conflict, both because there is rarely a definitive winner and because there are usually several million definitive losers.
“Reigan Shen struck back almost immediately. In the end, Tiberian was not his match.”
Eithan began tearing burned strips of his outer robe away as he spoke. “As you are aware, it is not simple to destroy the Dreadgods. No Monarch can defeat one individually, and while the Monarchs could collectively destroy the Dreadgods together…there is a reason they do not. A reason I am forbidden by oath to mention. But…”
He raised a finger and gave a smile. “…I am not forbidden from demonstrating it to you. You will find that reason deeper in the labyrinth, unless I miss my guess.”
Lindon looked at the place where the hole in the floor had led straight to the center of the labyrinth. “So is he really going to kill the Dreadgods?”
“There is only one truth I trust about Reigan Shen: he desires weapons. We can’t know if he means to kill them and weaponize their bindings, or leash them as forces of destruction under his control.”
Eithan’s smile faded. “He wants Cradle. All of our world. And he clearly sees the Dreadgods as the way to take it.”
Lindon’s eyes moved from one opening in the wall to another. He could bring out the hand again, if they were willing to endure the assault of hunger madra that would ensue.
While he felt the weight of every second, he still spent the time to organize his thoughts before he spoke.
“I’m going deeper,” Lindon said. “I don’t want to go alone.”
“Neither do I, Lindon. Neither do I.”
Yerin stood up and sheathed her sword. Red lines of blood madra covered her flesh in a crimson web, knitting her together. “Blind me now if I see any reason to stay here, but we’ve got to move. Cuts me to say it, but we may need to travel…light.”
Red eyes flicked from Ziel to Mercy.
Lindon knew she was right, but his heart was heavy. “We need to move fast if we’re going to catch up. But I don’t want to leave them behind.”
“They can’t keep up,” Eithan said flatly.
Lindon felt the hunger aura all around him. It filled him with greed, with a desire to move forward, with an ambition that couldn’t be satisfied. The inert fingers of his right hand twitched. Even now, the aura gnawed slowly away at his madra.
But this time, the hunger sparked something in him.
Anger.
“I don’t want to leave them behind. Do you want to leave them behind?”
Yerin shrugged, but there was sadness in her eyes. “Done a lot of things I didn’t want to.”
“I say the time for that is over.”
With great effort, Lindon poured madra into his broken right arm. The hunger madra creaked, and bits of it snapped off, and spiritual pain ran through his channels.
But he clenched his fist.
“If we can’t use our power for this, why have it?” He looked from Eithan to Yerin, and he could feel a fire in his eyes even with no Blackflame. “I don’t want to win by giving something up. I want it all. I want all of it.”
The fury of the Void Icon faded, and he coughed a little in embarrassment. “…if you’re willing, of course.”
Yerin leaned into him, and her hand snaked up his chest and over one shoulder. “Ought to be grateful you don’t talk like that more often,” she murmured.