His attention had drifted off, and Lindon felt the power around him ebb. He had to keep the man focused. “Please, how do I defeat Reigan Shen?”
“Slay the Monarchs,” Subject One whispered.
Lindon froze. “No one but the Monarchs can do battle with Dreadgods.”
“It is the Monarchs who sustain the great beasts,” the Wraith continued. “If they are gone from our world, hunger aura will fade away. And we can finally…rest.”
[Fool. That will take decades!]
“How much damage will the Dreadgods cause without the Monarchs around to contain them?”
Subject One gave a cruel smile. “Try to defeat the beasts first, then. That was what the last generation attempted. It was the most awake I’ve felt in…however long. They crushed the beast of earth, and then they discovered what we did. When one of the beasts dies, the others inherit its power until it is reborn. They become smarter. Stronger. And the hunger takes hold.
“The beasts devoured the rest of the Monarchs, and for a while, I could live through their eyes.”
He stared off into the distance, reminiscing, but only for a moment. Then he returned to reality. “But that energy didn’t last. As a generation of Monarchs passed, hunger weakened. The great beasts had to sleep more often, and never fully awakened. I lost myself to the long dream…until more Monarchs were raised up, and failed to leave.”
Not only was Lindon having trouble reconciling this new knowledge with what he knew of the Monarchs, he was becoming restless. Subject One paced around his throne, looking down at his own body, but Lindon felt a foreign will pressing against the authority of the labyrinth.
“Apologies, but how does this help me defeat Reigan Shen?”
“He seeks to replace me.” The echo touched his chest, where the hole was in the enshrined body. “To devour the devourer.”
Lindon looked to his heart again. “He took your core binding?”
“It will be his path to great power,” Subject One said, and each word dripped with mockery. “Such power.”
Lindon looked to the throne where Subject One had been imprisoned for an uncounted number of years. His spiritual perception moved throughout the endless room, and he recognized that this was the perfect state of the dreadbeasts. Physical and spiritual had been fused seamlessly, so that it reminded him of the Herald’s body.
Subject One suddenly shot forward, his teeth bared. “You stop him by ridding the world of Monarchs! Kill them, banish them, convince them, it matters not! Make them leave! If Reigan Shen becomes me, then he will fade into mortality with no Monarchs to sustain him. If he does not…” His grimace turned into a horrific corpse-smile. “…then the beasts will feed one last time.”
“I will do all I can to stop him,” Lindon promised, and that commitment settled on him. Rather than a promise between him and the echo, it felt like a promise between him and the labyrinth. “But I need a way out.”
“As the first child of hunger, I give you my blessing.” The authority of the labyrinth softened, easier for Lindon to mold. Now he could feel the script-chains controlling the mundane functions of each room. He suspected that if Subject One were still alive, his blessing would have been more effective, but anything would help.
Lindon focused his will and the walls blurred. Another exit appeared.
Now, for the first time, Lindon felt the ancient authority that bound Subject One here. It was a suction even stronger than the hunger aura, a hole that Lindon could sense through the Void Icon. No matter how much power the Slumbering Wraith consumed, it only weighed him down.
Lindon saw the longing in the transparent black-and-white eyes of the echo. Even with the keys to his prison, he had been unable to escape. He had been trapped here, half-awake, controlled by hunger.
And feeding on those who entered the labyrinth.
Intelligent he may be, a prisoner of a tragic story, but Subject One was still a Dreadgod.
The doorway out was open and waiting, and Lindon made a note of its position. He bowed his head. “Gratitude. May I know your name, so that it can be remembered?”
For the first time, Subject One looked troubled. “I’m…I don’t…I don’t remember.”
“I will tell your story nonetheless,” Lindon said.
Then he thought, And I’ll take your arm.
Once he banished the echo, he would have the greatest upgrade for his arm. Just before he did, though, he plunged his authority back into the labyrinth. “My apologies, but my friend was fighting your projection of Ozmanthus. Is he still…?”
“All such projections would be cut off when I died.”
Relieved, Lindon saluted the Dreadgod and bowed. “My gratitude, then.”
He let the echo fade, then the Burning Cloak sprang up around him. He reached for one of the dead Dreadgod’s arms.
[His information will support a divine purpose,] Dross said. [Mine.]
The script-lights overhead flickered, and the hunger aura howled. Even the wind drifted past Lindon, being drawn behind him as though by a huge indrawn breath.
Without Lindon’s approval, the wall blurred.
“Two possibilities,” Lindon said aloud. “Either there’s no power going into the control script, so the entire mechanism is resetting, or…the Monarch found his way back.”
Dross appeared just to sneer at him. [Which do you think it is?]
Lindon pulled the spear Midnight from the haphazard harness he’d made on his back. It was awkward to use one-handed, but the aura was still too thin here, and he had no more suitable weapon.
We’re fighting to run away, Lindon sent to Dross. If you can borrow my authority for the control script, then let us out.
[If you were stronger, I wouldn’t have to do such menial labor.]
Lindon didn’t argue. He was focused on the approaching presence, and wondering how long it would take him to burn through the wall and get away.
Then a new figure appeared at the doorway, striding into the room. “Have a seat, Wei Shi Lindon Arelius,” Reigan Shen called. “Let’s talk.”
22
The light in Subject One’s chamber was thin and gray, and the golden chair that Reigan Shen pulled out of thin air gleamed more brightly than anything else. The Monarch found a mound of flesh that rose higher than anywhere else and perched his chair atop it, so no one was seated above him.
“Apologies for disturbing you,” Lindon said, as soon as he entered the room. “I was only on the way out.”
Reigan Shen sat down and raised a crystal goblet, studying Lindon over the rim. The lion’s eyes were sharp, and the light inside them resonated well with this room. He was a predator of endless hunger, and he ruled over this ancient and ruined kingdom.
His clothes were still worn and stained from months of travel, and Lindon noticed that many of the cases, capsules, and devices strapped to him were now missing or empty. He didn’t carry the orange sword or the thin one anymore, but rather had an axe of weathered stone leaning up against the side of his seat.
And he still didn’t give off the spiritual pressure of a healthy Monarch. By what Lindon could read of his power, he reminded Lindon more of Yerin. A Herald, but spiritually weaker.
That lifted Lindon’s spirits, as there might be a way out of this.