The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (32 page)

Urus reached out and pressed his palm against the flames. They came to life, turning a bright yellow, and the red crystal on top lit up. The crystal on a pedestal a short ways down the road flared to life, then another, and another. The path toward the city center lit up in glowing red.

The scene Urus saw next would be forever etched in his mind as one of the most beautiful things he had ever witnessed. The darkness of the ocean pulled back from the city as tall buildings, brilliantly carved spires, railings, and walkways all lit up in a rainbow of colors. It looked like the sunstone buildings of Kest at night, but brighter and with a myriad more colors.
 

Ah, much better
, came a distant thought from Timoc's mind.

"Astounding," Murin said. "After thousands of years, it takes but a single touch to bring the city back to life."

"Now we don't have to use the infer…" Urus struggled to remember the word. "Infar…"

"Infrasight," Murin corrected.

Urus looked up and watched the blackness give way to a light blue that reflected the many rainbow hues pushing outward from the city. It was then that he noticed the ripples of the water that used to be close overhead now hovered on the city's edge.

"The air dome," Urus pointed. "It's bigger than the city now."

"You must have activated a sigil that protects the city, like the one protecting us."

"You didn't tell me that Vultara was a sigilord city," Urus said.

"I knew that some sigilords once called it home, but I knew nothing of this. Outsiders were not exactly welcome here."

In awe of what lay before them, Murin and Urus continued on the road toward the city center.

Urus reached into the pouch in his wet leather armor and withdrew the little black diary. Sweeping his hand across the clasp, it flashed blue for a moment then snapped open. Urus barely noticed the pain in his arm this time.

To his surprise, the diary was undamaged by water. The pages were intact and even the ink on the paper was dry. Maybe the sigil on the lock did more than just lock the book; maybe it protected it as well?

"What is that?" Murin asked, tapping Urus on the shoulder.

"It's a journal I found in the vertex chamber below Kest. I can't read half of it, but some of it is in ancient Kestian. The entries I can read were written by people who call themselves
radixes
."

"That is a word I have not heard in an age. A radix was someone who was connected to the same source of power as the sigilords, but could not control or harness it themselves. During the Fulcrum War, the radixes fought alongside the sigilords against the blood mages using weapons etched with sigils of power."

"Like a magic infantry?" Urus asked.

"Just so."

I grow tired and can no longer maintain my projection. I will rest and return as soon as I can, master
, Timoc thought.
May knowledge be your steed and wisdom your reins
.

Thank you, old friend
, Murin replied.

They walked around more of the rectangles and down streets in varying stages of decay. Gradually the buildings around them grew taller and showed less evidence of destruction. Urus couldn't help but chuckle as they came to the top of a stone bridge.

"What is it?" Murin asked.

"I just think it's funny that we're on a bridge that should ford a stream, yet we are hundreds of fathoms into the deep."

"Find merriment where you can, Urus. I fear the worst is yet to come."

"You couldn't just fake a little optimism?"

They crossed several more bridges over chasms that were probably part of the city's original irrigation system. Surrounded on all sides by undrinkable saltwater, an island like this would have to catch its water in a cistern like Kest's.

They stood in the city center, looking up at the glowing statues of heroes or gods or goddesses, whose identities they could only guess. The figures rose from the ornately marbled square and loomed above it like guardians, their hands outstretched, palms first.

"If this was a sigilord city, would they hide the vertex stone where no one could find it, or put it on display, give it a place of honor?" Urus asked.

"You are only the third sigilord I have met, which is two more than nearly every other creature on this world. What would you do?"

Urus turned a full circle, studying the buildings that faced the heart of the city, arguably the most important buildings on the once-thriving island. If he was a sigilord, and he had created a city this amazing and put a vertex in it, he would have put the vertex somewhere special. But not special like the statues of heroes guarding the square, special with a different kind of reverence.

A museum
, Urus thought, stopping mid-spin to face a wide building fronted by ornate, fluted columns of black and green stone, its brightly colored walls carved with intricate pictures depicting all sorts of scenes, from battles to rituals to who-knows-what else.
 

"I would put it in a museum," Urus said.

Without waiting for Murin, Urus started for the building that looked more like a museum than any other he had seen so far. They rushed up the stairs and slipped through a narrow opening between two collapsed stone doors.

The inside of the building was as black as night.
 

Let me try something
, Urus thought.

He concentrated on the outcome he desired—illumination—and allowed the power to flow through his hands as he signed the tradesign word for
light
, a quick double-shake of his left hand twitching his four fingertips to represent the flickering flames. The gesture reminded him of the carved candle flames they had encountered upon first entering the city.

The sigil floated in the air before them for a moment before the room exploded with brilliant white light with a faint tinge of blue, like white light filtered through a blue crystal.
 

"I wonder why the sigils are always blue," Urus said.

"Until meeting you, I had not seen sigilcraft practiced up close and paid little heed to the color of it. A great and intelligent question, however one to which I do not know the answer," Murin replied. "We should split up. Convey your thoughts to me if you find something."

Urus nodded and clambered up a mostly intact nearby staircase while Murin headed off into the depths. It seemed that Urus's light filled the entire museum and wasn't limited to just where he stood.

The museum fascinated Urus. All around him were unimaginable things. There were machines that looked even more deadly than the ones used by the briene, yet they had to be thousands of years older than the flying birds he had fought or the siege engines they had sabotaged. There were things that must have been weapons because they were placed nearby swords and shields, but he had no idea how they were supposed to work. Some looked like crossbows, only there seemed to be no place for bolts.

He passed through the weapons room into a chamber that reminded him of the room in the top floor of the palace back in Kest. It was filled with carvings of stone animals and plinths supporting empty metal frames, whatever animals they held up having long since decayed.

All along the walls in the menagerie room stood suits of armor, each one unique and still glinting with polish as though they had been forged just yesterday. Urus wondered why there was no dust or cobwebs or damage from the sea water. One statue in particular, an obsidian four-armed suit wielding four curved blades with spiked pommels and blade guards, caught his attention.

What kind of creature needs a suit of armor with four arms?
He reached out to touch the shiny metal plates. He had seen plate armor before, but this armor was made of so many reticulated plates they could easily have doubled as dragon scales.

As he touched the suit, one of its arms stretched out and grabbed Urus's wrist.

He leapt backward, yanking his arm free. The suit of armor stepped forward, spinning its blades and dropping into a perfect forward stance, feet spread just wide enough to expose a minimal target with maximum balance. Not only was this armor moving, but it had been trained how to fight. If it weren't for the clearly vacant helmet, Urus would have believed a real person lived within the suit.

Urus drew Hugo from his back and relaxed into nearly the identical stance.
 

Murin!
Urus shouted with his mind. No reply came.

The suit of armor seemed to pause for a moment, as if waiting for something. Urus, too, waited, neither advancing nor retreating.

Murin, this thing is alive!
he mind-shouted again, also with no reply.

The armor took a step forward, each of its lower arms sweeping to the side while the upper arms each spun their blades into a flower spin.

Urus took an involuntary step back, watching with fear and awe as this four-armed metal thing showed off with all the talent and style of a solo performance at a Kestian graduation ceremony.

The demonstration stopped and the armor leapt forward, slicing out with all four swords. Urus dodged to the side, evading two and parrying the others with a sweep of Hugo's broad blade.
 

Thinking and planning vanished, replaced entirely by instinct and muscle memory. Urus was barely able to manage a single thought over the next few minutes as he struggled to avoid being impaled. Further and further back the armor pushed him, knocking him over statues and sending him tripping over platforms.

Urus leaned back, letting two blades slide just a hair away from his chest, then spun toward the armor, getting between it and its swords. He slammed into it shoulder first, knocking it back onto the floor.

Murin, I'm fighting a living suit of armor!
he managed to think while the creature recovered.

Urus went on the offensive, swinging Hugo with one hand while grabbing, punching, and throwing with the other. For all his sword's strength and sharpness, it could not cut through the enemy armor. It bent and warped and chipped, but nothing slowed it down.
 

He wasn't sure what good it would be to cut through the armor; if there was nothing living within it, how would he even kill it?

Then an idea came to him. All he needed to do was buy himself a few seconds to put down his sword, and hopefully not be cut into a dozen tiny pieces during that time.

He unleashed a flurry of quick, strong attacks and finished them up with a sweep, knocking the armor down. He turned and ran as fast as he could, spun back around, and leapt backward, shocked to see the armor already up and gaining ground on him.

Still in the air, Urus cast the
air
sigil, not the older elemental version but the newer, unstable one that had nearly killed them on the surface. He slammed back-first into a wall, the air emptying from his lungs. The blue sigil couldn't hold its shape and just seemed to leak everywhere.

He ducked just in time to avoid a quadruple sword attack that cut deep grooves into the wall.

So I guess sigilcraft doesn't work while moving. Fantastic
, he thought, rolling away from the armor, halting, then re-drawing the sigil in the air. He finished the sigil just as the suit of armor leaned in for the killing blow.
 

Two blades sliced through his leather armor on either side of his chest, the other two just missing his legs. He screamed as the blades tore shallow cuts in his skin. As the armor readied its swords to decapitate Urus, the air in the room grew chill. Gusts blew in all directions and from all directions, quickly gathering into a swirling vortex. The wind slammed into the suit of armor, picked it up, and then shredded it, sending all of its small pieces of plate mail clattering against walls and to the floor, embedding some into nearby statues.

That wind could give one of Cailix's tornados a decent fight
, Urus thought.

He stood up and checked to make sure his wounds were as shallow as they felt. Unfortunately those were the ones that hurt the most. The battlemasters always used to say that it wasn't the painful wounds were the worst, it was the wound you couldn't feel that would kill you.

Murin?
Urus called out with his mind. Again no answer.

As Urus sheathed Hugo, movement caught his eye. A piece of armor stuck in a stone statue vibrated. Others on the floor started to shake then, and in an instant dozens of pieces slid across the floor into a pile. The pile quivered and then jumped up, reforming into a suit of armor. A moment later, the remaining pieces freed themselves from the statues and flew into place on their host, now a fully assembled suit of armor.

Seriously?
Urus thought. Covered in sweat, exhausted, and in pain, he again drew Hugo and braced for battle. The shining black armor approached, swords at the ready.
 

As it drew near, instead of assuming a battle stance, it stopped. A gleaming green sigil appeared on the chest plate like a flaming brand. Urus thought of the scar on his own chest where he had been branded as a failure, as a culled, unfit to be a warrior. He almost chuckled, wondering what Battlemaster Guren would think to see him now, standing off against a magical four-armed knight.

The sigil did look like a brand, an image of some kind of antlered animal like a deer. As quickly as it flared to life it disappeared. With its chest back to its normal black color, the knight took a knee and bowed deeply.

Murin, you have got to see this,
Urus thought. He wondered what Murin could be doing that was so important he wouldn't reply. It was a scary thought, so he pressed it from his mind.

Urus relaxed his stance and sheathed Hugo. The knight stood up and sheathed its swords, the scabbards on its back custom-made for four blades. Urus couldn't resist the temptation and so leaned forward and peeked inside the thing's helmet.

It was empty, as he expected.

The other suits of armor in the room peeled away from the walls, fifteen in all, each a different style and make of armor. They all flashed the same stag sigil and bowed before him. They stood at ease, as though awaiting orders.