The Fractured Tower

Book 2, Chapter 31

It was a disturbing question, but not one Sorin could answer. Voidlings, as far as anyone knew, just appeared. They didn’t use the tower’s portals. They didn’t gain ranks or even get new abilities. While it was true that they were generally bigger, and thus both more durable and more dangerous, on higher floors, it was nothing like how a climber grew in power.

So, this whole idea that they’d somehow eaten an entire floor and had established a bulkhead on Floor 24, where the red tower’s strongest climbers were busy holding them off, rang false in Sorin’s mind. On the other hand, his newfound knowledge of liminal space suggested that perhaps the answer was less a tower-made connection between the floors and more a Samael-made one.

But if that were the case, then they wouldn’t be confined to just one floor. Or maybe he severed the pathway to prevent them from spreading. Is that even possible?

It wasn’t something Sorin could do, but Liminal Gateway’s capabilities were growing with each rank he achieved. There was no telling what it could do by the time he was rank 20, let alone whatever Samael’s true rank actually was.

Samael had already proven he could somehow walk through the void in liminal space to reach Sorin’s own path and even modify it. Sorin also assumed the other tower-transplant had been responsible for preventing him from creating a new entrance on Floor 0, though he didn’t have any concrete evidence of that feat. The fact that he’d destroyed the sign Samael knew about and then been able to make a new one supported the theory, however.

He needed to grow faster, and for that, he needed a source that could supply him with all the soulprints that would go into a perfect build. Just getting by with what he’d been able to randomly find so far wasn’t good enough. Even the haul he’d gotten from Lorvaine had been common, cheap soulprints.

In short, he needed backing, and he was pretty sure he could get it. The problem was that he would have to reveal some secrets to convince anyone that he was worth the effort, and once those were out in the open, there’d be no taking them back. Samael’s latest move forced him to do something, though, and this was the best counter Sorin could come up with.

Waiting for circumstances to change was a losing proposition. His enemies certainly wouldn’t be standing still, and if he did, that just gave them more time to set things up against him. Sorin mulled his options over as they explored upstream, where they hoped to find, if not a calmer river, at least a narrower one.

Unfortunately, their hopes were quickly dashed. It took barely an hour for them to reach the point where the river had completely overflowed its banks and created a small, shallow lake in a flood plain. Rather than fifty or a hundred feet, they’d have to cross a thousand to get around it here.

“This is not what I had in mind,” Sorin said with a sigh.

“On the bright side, the flood plain isn’t really moving that quickly. We could ice that over,” Nemari pointed out.

“It’s still going fast in the middle. I think we’re going to have to keep looking. It’s that or sit here for days and days while we wait.”

There was another alternative, of course. Sorin didn’t have Water Walking, but he could easily free cast it. Leaving a seven-tower sign on any given tree and creating a new one on the other side would allow him to escort the rest of the team through liminal space to bypass the obstacle. It wouldn’t even need to be the whole team, either. It was really only Nemari and Odric who were stuck.

It was difficult to tell, what with all the fog and dark sky, but Sorin thought they were running out of daylight. Calling for a halt, he grouped everyone up and said, “We didn’t make much progress today, and I can’t imagine this is the last impassable river we’re going to run across. We either need to find a way to bypass this floor in its entirety, or we need to get access to a few more Water Walking soulprints.”

“I vote for not spending any more time here than we need to,” Rue said immediately.

“Easier said than done,” Yoru countered. “At best, we still need to reach the portal hub. The floor guardian is on the other side of that, but assuming you were willing to go back down to Floor 3 to gather the necessary anima to challenge it, that doesn’t eliminate all the miles you have left to walk here.”

“Alternatively, we could take our chances going swimming,” Sorin said. Left unsaid were the obvious risks, but he knew they all understood what else was in the water waiting for them. “Or there’s the final option.”

“And what’s that?” Yoru asked. He’d obviously clocked the fact that no one besides him and Vendis seemed to be confused, and Sorin knew Yoru was a good enough climber to know what that meant. “You’ve got some other way to cover distance that doesn’t involve crossing the floor?”

“Yes and no,” Sorin said. “This brings up my next topic, though. Yoru, not to put too fine a point on things, but how does your family feel about Samael?”

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“A necessary evil,” Yoru replied promptly. “Attempts have been made to duplicate his strategies for manning the Void Wall, but the high families lack the quantity of climbers needed to succeed, and somehow, attempts to draft climbers always seem to fail. For the time being, he’s tolerated.”

“That the official stance of all the high families, or is that your family’s?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say any of the high families appreciate his existence,” Yoru said. “Why?”

“The high families are willing to sponsor climbers, then?”

Yoru hesitated there. “Maybe? It’s… not a practice my family in particular indulges in. Samael’s methods are… questionable.”

Sorin wasn’t going to judge Yoru’s usage of mercenaries to support his own climbing, but that strategy seemed to have its own flaws, namely in how people motivated by the acquisition of money rarely had a surplus of morals to go along with it. He would have thought Yoru had a team made up of loyal retainers instead of just a single healer, but maybe the family had a deficit of climbers it could trust.

On the other hand, Yoru would undoubtedly be a superior climber if and when he lived to reach rank 24. And there was no comparison between even the average climber and the Hellions Sorin had already fought. If he understood Samael’s mutagenic stacking strategy, it would be even worse higher up.

“You mean the carrying people to high ranks and stuffing them with soulprints they have no idea how to properly use? Or the mutagenic-heavy builds that cause massive soulspace damage when they get ripped out after they’ve altered the climber’s physiology?”

“Both,” Yoru said flatly. “It’s hard to condemn Samael, but he is essentially sacrificing lives to keep the void at bay, and he makes up for the lack of overall quality by fielding an unmatched number of climbers.”

“And he maintains a spy network to keep him up to date on what everyone else is doing,” Rue put in. “I’m sure that contributes to the high families’ collective lack of success in replicating his scheme. He gets to potential new recruits first and lures away anyone the families do find with promises of better treatment.”

“Yes, and that,” Yoru agreed.

“I think it’s safe to assume that the high families want two things then. First, they want the void held in check, at minimum, and second, they want Samael gone. He’s using the disaster to enforce a stranglehold over the rest of Floor 0 by making himself irreplaceable and stymying any efforts by anyone else to circumvent him.”

“And you think you can do that? What makes you so sure you know the answer to a problem you weren’t even aware existed two days ago?”

“Let me ask you a few questions about what the high families know about Samael before I answer that,” Sorin said. “First, does anyone know his actual rank? I’ve heard everything from rank 10 to rank 30.”

“It can’t be more than 24,” Yoru said with a frown. “No one’s higher than 24. As to what his rank actually is, I’ve been told he has some sort of soulprint that hides it.”

“That’s about what I expected you to say. But surely, you’ve got some rank 24s among your rosters. You’re the high families, after all. Climbing is in your blood. Someone should be able to evaluate Samael’s power and get a reasonable approximation of his rank even if they can’t feel it.”

“You’d think, but no. Why? Where are you going with this?”

“One more question, first,” Sorin said. “Do the high families know how Samael smuggles things to Floor 0 and avoids their tax?”

“No. Or at least, if anyone figured it out, they haven’t shared it.” Yoru regarded Sorin with suspicion. “But you do, don’t you? That’s why you’re asking. You’re trying to establish your bargaining position.”

For all his faults, no one could accuse Yoru of being slow on the uptake. Sorin had already displayed strength beyond his rank, and not just something that could be attributed to skill, either. He’d shown real, tangible power in the form of a soulprint that a fresh rank 4 couldn’t possibly have room to possess, not to mention the plethora of enhancement soulprints that kept him in peak condition fight after fight.

“Nemari says your family is known for honoring its deals, even when it’s landed you at the bottom of the heap. Every other high family has made compromises and taken shortcuts grasping at power, but not yours. If there was anyone I could trust, it’d be the Telpikes, right?”

At that, Yoru bristled. “Are you questioning—”

“I’m not questioning anything,” Sorin interrupted him. “Understand that, from my point of view, my strongest defense against outside manipulation was anonymity. But Samael found out about me, and he’s bringing the pressure to bear. Having allies that I can trust to help me fight back would be helpful.”

“What are you proposing?” Yoru asked.

“Oh come on, it’s obvious. You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed the similarities between Sorin and Samael,” Rue said. “He’s got the inside scoop on what that fucker is doing and how he’s doing it.”

“Thank you, Rue,” Sorin said, his voice biting. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I’ll take it from here if it’s all the same to you.”

“Er… Yeah, sorry.”

Yoru’s eyes darted from one person to the next, weighing, measuring. “You’re all in on this. Whatever Samael’s secrets to his success are, you’ve replicated it. You’re looking to replace him.”

“Not quite. I have no interest in being the new Samael. I only want him off my back. This voidling issue looming over our heads is a separate problem, but since Samael is the one checking their advance, they have to be dealt with simultaneously. I can do that, but the more help I can get now, the faster I can get there.”

“So, you want the usual then? Soulprints? Equipment? Maps and knowledge of upcoming floors?”

“All of that, yes,” Sorin said.

“And in return?” Yoru asked.

“I’ll tell you how Samael got so strong, how he can smuggle things back to Floor 0 without ever getting caught, and the truth about where he came from.”

“Anyone can speculate,” Yoru said, “but can you prove it?”

“I have your word that what I say here will remain a secret, shared with no one outside the six of us unless I say otherwise?”

“You do,” Yoru agreed.

Sorin looked over to Vendis, who nodded as well. No turning back if I take the next step. But if no one’s above rank 24 and I’m already barred from Floor 0 or the portal hubs, it doesn’t make much difference, does it?

“Very well. Let’s start with the very basics. Samael is a climber who reached rank 100 and was sent to your Floor 0 here in this tower. I know this because I’m one, too.”