Lindon looked at the creature, unconvinced. “Pardon, but it doesn’t look like one.”
Even the Dreadgods—at least, the ones he’d seen—didn’t look like sacred beasts that could occur in the real world. The Phoenix was made up of liquid blood madra, and the Titan looked to be made of stone.
The lesser dreadbeasts, even those with the power of Lords, had all looked like creatures from a horror story. They were twisted and mutated bodies, broken from the inside out.
“Look for yourself!” Eithan suggested. He gestured to the oozing neck stump.
Lindon placed his foot on the edge of the snake’s head, which was bigger than he was, and shoved it aside. Sure enough, lines burned with the pale, spectral green of death madra, running in veins all through the Hydra’s flesh.
“This is…” Lindon had dissected his share of dreadbeasts, and it was hard to put into words how shocked he was by this sight. “…it’s so organized. This looks like a real set of madra channels. And how can death madra, of all things, possibly exist alongside real, living flesh?”
Yerin was peering into the severed neck as well. He suspected that she was doing the same thing he was, and blocking off her sense of smell.
“You think this is what the Dreadgods look like inside?” Yerin asked.
Lindon remembered a vision Suriel had shown him, not so long ago. A white tiger the size of a house, strung up and splayed open so that he could separate its spirit from its body surgically. Its spirit had been every bit as intricate as its flesh, with the two layered over and into one another so it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began.
“We need to find out.” Before Mercy could protest, he continued. “I know we don’t have as much time as we’d like, but this could end up being the most valuable thing we find down here. It’s a chance to study a small Dreadgod! If we come out with nothing else, this could be invaluable.”
[I agree,] Dross said. [Master Northstrider’s subordinates gathered and studied many dreadbeasts to better understand the relationship between the body and the spirit. They would have been grateful for this opportunity.]
Mercy leaned on her staff, shifting her weight anxiously. She glanced at the ceiling as though she might see her mother’s hand descending on them at any second. “I understand, I really do. But please hurry.”
Lindon triggered his void key.
It didn’t open.
He frowned at it, pulling the bronze key from the thread around his neck and sensing the script. It seemed to be fully intact.
He triggered it again. This time, light slowly zipped open, revealing the entrance to his void space.
“Eithan,” Lindon said.
“I saw it. Clearly spatial manipulation is restricted here. I suppose it’s to keep certain beings from escaping. Well, that prevents us from easily hiding in a void key.”
Lindon glanced to Little Blue. He had considered sending her and Orthos back into the Dawn Sky Palace to avoid the dangers here, now that it was clear that he couldn’t fully protect them. If there was a chance for them to get trapped inside, that option was no longer available.
But they were still on a time limit, and Lindon had work to do. He climbed into his void key, fishing around for his Soulsmithing tools.
He withdrew a pair of goldsteel-plated tongs and a knife, though after a moment of thought, he pocketed the knife. He blanketed the Tomb Hydra’s body in his spiritual perception, tracing the madra system that nested parasitically within its body.
“Dross, would you locate the binding for me?”
[Of course.]
“Yerin, can you open up the body? From here to about there, and I would be grateful if you could leave the madra intact.”
Yerin tapped the hilt of her sword with a finger, and the flesh slid away from the dreadbeast’s body. It released a cloud of steam and most likely a putrid stench. Lindon didn’t know because his nose was still sealed off.
The shining veins of spectral green madra began to release essence, but they were clear and unbroken. Lindon readied his tongs only a moment before Dross said [Binding located.]
A purple light shone about a foot deep in the center of the Hydra’s body. Lindon resonated his soulfire and reached out to the blood aura, which hadn’t yet been sipped away by the labyrinth’s hunger.
With the blood aura, he pulled the flesh apart and revealed the binding. It grew from the meat around it, reminding him at the same time of a ripe fruit and a pulsing heart. It was condensed from the power of death, a pale green fire that pumped power into the rest of the body instead of blood.