Another Elder Whisper appeared behind her, resting his jaws on her shoulder and whispering into her ear. “I can be when I wish.”
The original Elder had made himself invisible to complete the illusion, but she kept her eyes on him. “Not much to it when you look hard enough, is it?”
Elder Whisper sighed and dropped the illusions. “I am nowhere near advanced enough to deceive eyes of your caliber.”
“And yet…” Lindon began, but he cut the sentence off before he said, “And yet you held the Sword Sage’s private void space open for years.”
“Some things are not included in what we traditionally call advancement,” the fox said. He followed Lindon through a door and up a nearby set of stairs, and together the three of them walked into an open room at the top.
This was the control room of Ziel’s cloud fortress, and it was smaller and dimmer than Lindon’s. The one on Windfall resembled the common room of a house more than a cloudship control room, complete with a couch and chairs, but this one was just a wide panel of scripts and precisely one window on each wall.
Yerin shut the door and Lindon sent his spiritual perception through the ship, making sure the scripts protecting them were active.
“We shouldn’t be overheard here,” Lindon said.
“We wouldn’t have been overheard back at the Tomb,” Whisper pointed out, and Yerin glanced at Lindon.
“As I said, I’m not the only one that needs to hear this.”
Little Blue chimed out, asking about Eithan. Her name for him sounded like a cheery whistle.
“Does anyone know where Eithan is?” When no one responded, Lindon went on. “Then he’ll have to catch up.”
Eithan would catch up, Lindon was certain. Usually, it was Lindon trying to catch up to him.
Whisper settled onto his haunches. “This story would go a lot easier if we had some fish…”
“Apologies, but I’m not sure Ziel has had time to restock.” It had been only a day since an all-out battle against the Dreadgods, and they had ferried a number of refugees from Sacred Valley in that time. Many of them had been hungry.
Even if Ziel did have food left, Lindon didn’t know where to find it.
“Then I suppose I must go without.” Five white tails lashed at the air, and Elder Whisper looked from Lindon to Little Blue to Yerin as though doubting their credentials. “As I told young Lindon here, I can lead you toward one of the truths of this world: how to kill the Dreadgods.”
There was a stretch of silence before Yerin audibly scoffed. She waited longer than Lindon had expected.
“You a Monarch in disguise, are you?” Yerin asked.
“I am old, and I have lived above the labyrinth for almost my entire life. There are secrets within that make the Monarchs tremble.”
Lindon wanted to bring out the canister marked with the symbol of House Arelius, but even behind their scripts, he worried it would attract distant attention.
“The maze beneath us is the birthplace of the Dreadgods,” Elder Whisper went on, “but it is far more ancient even than they. Secrets creep out from time to time, where those with insight can collect them.”
Lindon wanted details, but first he had to see if Whisper’s knowledge was worth anything. “How do we kill the Dreadgods?”
“You cannot simply disassemble them physically. You must destroy them on a fundamental level. Sever the origin of their existence.”
Lindon looked to Yerin, whose scowl was melting into a thoughtful expression. They’d heard terms like this before: when the Abidan was describing Penance.
A weapon that had instantly slain a Monarch.
“I do not understand the mechanics well myself,” Whisper said. “These are ideas I have stitched together from fractured memories and broken whispers. But as I see it, any who could kill the Dreadgods directly have already moved on from this world. Even the Monarchs combined could not do it.
“However, there is something anchoring the Dreadgods to life. If you remove it, they will be made mortal.” One tail pointed to Lindon. “No weaker, you understand. But mortal.”
“What is this anchor?” Lindon asked.
“And where is it?” Yerin followed, with a tone as though she already knew.
Little Blue gave a chime expressing her reluctance to fight another Dreadgod whether it was mortal or not.
Elder Whisper looked to Yerin. “He waits at the bottom of the labyrinth, deeper than anyone has gone in years uncounted. Your master contended with his will, and it was that which weakened him beyond even the field suppressing his power.”