“I don’t know much about Sages, but I suspect these were early symbolic representations of Icons. Very early. Which suggests a completely different system of scripting that I have no idea how to delve into.”
Lindon clutched Suriel’s marble in one hand and the spear of hunger madra in the other. “Eithan told me that Sages were those who embodied a concept. Often one that had resonated with them since they were children.”
“I guess he’d know,” Ziel said.
“What was your childhood like, Ziel?”
Lindon could have asked that while they were on the surface, but he felt that their surroundings gave the question extra weight. Besides, he really did want Ziel’s opinion on the ancient runes.
Ziel shrugged. “Not a long story. My father was a scriptor himself, and the most advanced sacred artist around. Everybody in a couple of villages relied on him, both for the boundary fields that kept out the aura-storms and to fight off any threats. He died when I was about eight, and I bonded his Remnant. I took over his job. Wasn’t very good at it for the first ten years.” He gave a dry laugh. “Guess I never was.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what was your Archlord revelation?”
“To give my life for the sect,” Ziel said, his voice heavy with irony.
Lindon was silent.
“Yeah. I meant it at the time.”
“Apologies,” Lindon said, for lack of anything more comforting.
“Eh. I think I told you before: the sacred arts have no end, and the mountain has no peak. The higher you climb, the more people want to push you off.” Ziel looked around the chamber, and Lindon saw him again as the man he must have been before. As the Archlord of the Dawnwing Sect.
“If I’m going to climb again, then I’m going to climb.”
“Then I suspect you’ll need these.” Lindon looked around. “I suspect Monarch Emala’s Grand Oath Array was based on runes derived from these. We don’t have the years of study they deserve, I’m afraid, but I’m hopeful you can get something from them.”
Ziel folded his legs and sat on the ground, pulling out a notebook. “Let’s see how much I can get. Before my brain melts.”
Mercy had fought the Wandering Titan before, trapped though it had been in a suppression field that weakened its power. She had pushed her bloodline armor to the limit and, for a moment, almost matched the Dreadgod in size.
She couldn’t begin to imagine doing that now.
The sky shone gold and the Wandering Titan gave off such pressure that the earth itself shook like a storm-tossed lake for dozens of miles. She could scarcely look at it directly, and her spirit trembled whenever it roared.
Mercy was fifty miles away, and still the Titan’s dark, rocky form struck her with fear. Its tail lashed through a mountain, and when it threw a punch she tasted copper in her mouth.
Her mother was faring little better.
The Monarch, controlling her giant armor, took the blow from the Dreadgod on her staff. The tower of madra, striped in color like a glacier, trembled as the Titan’s fist struck, and Malice herself shot backwards. Mercy was whipped by the hurricane winds of her passage, though Malice covered herself in shadow and transported herself away within a fraction of a second.
Mercy found herself pushing through a hurricane and an earthquake all at once…and she wasn’t even the one in danger.
She stood within the Tower of Seven Moons, a massive structure easily the equal of anything in Moongrave. It was a relic of the southern Ashwind continent, a historical monument and tourist destination for thousands of years. It had survived natural disasters, aura-storms, and attacks, and had even weathered more than one Dreadgod rampage.
Now, the face of the tower trembled. Chunks of stone fell away, and stained glass cracked. A clock-face—one of many around the tower’s sides—tilted and began to fall away.
Mercy bound it up with Strings of Shadow, tying it to the side.
Akura Justice appeared at her side, the Archlord’s long, thin beard snapping in the wind. He made a casual gesture and reinforced her technique, using the same Strings of Shadow technique. “Mercy! They can only buy us ten minutes!”
Then he dashed away again, his figure blurring with speed, to save a group from a falling building.
It wasn’t only Malice that had engaged the Dreadgod. A red light fell from the sky, striking the Titan like a thunderbolt. A sword at its feet let out a thousand silver flashes, and snowflakes shimmered as they froze one of its arms in an icy mist.
No less than seven Sages and Heralds, some independent and some owing allegiance to the Akura clan, had come out to support Malice in her battle against the Titan. For the past century, at least, this would have been enough to drive the Dreadgod off to easier prey.