Muscles all over Naru Gwei’s body tensed, though he didn’t change on the outside. He needs to learn to relax, Eithan thought.
“Even now, you still won’t cooperate? When a Dreadgod might be headed our way with all its little cult in tow?”
“If I have to choose between disappointing you or my disciple…well, I’m sorry, but I don’t like you very much.”
Eithan gave him a cheery wave and turned his back on the Skysworn, strolling away.
“I won’t wait long,” Naru Gwei said.
Eithan walked through the door without a response.
He needed to take Lindon to shelter, and surround him with friendly faces. When he woke up, he wouldn’t be happy.
Chapter 7
“Prosthetic limbs,” Fisher Gesha said, “are among the easiest constructs for a Soulsmith to create. You were lucky. If we had to replace one of your organs, I would be singing a very different tune right now, hm?”
They were still inside the mountain, five or six floors beneath the arena where he'd fought. Apparently this whole place was honeycombed with shelters—it had once been the home of a sect living in secrecy, but had been abandoned for years. Or so the Fisher had told him in the last few minutes.
Lindon remembered nothing of the trip down here, and very little of the fight. He didn’t even ask how Fisher Gesha had gotten there, though he assumed Eithan had brought her. Yerin and Orthos were nowhere to be seen, but he didn’t ask about them. His attention was swallowed entirely by his right arm.
Which was lying somewhere above him, he assumed.
Now, it ended abruptly above the elbow. Gesha had wrapped his stump with scripted bandages, which weren't stained with as much blood as he had expected. This script must work the same as the one his mother had once used on him: it guided his spirit through an Enforcer technique that blocked out pain. Certainly, he didn't feel any physical pain. It was more like the opposite. He felt normal, as though he could reach out with his right arm just as always.
But he couldn't seem to peel his eyes away from the space where his hand should be.
The Fisher firmly grasped his chin and turned his head back toward her. Her wrinkled face was set in a stern expression, but a few strands of gray hair had escaped their normal tight bun. “Whatever state you're in, you listen to me when I'm talking to you, yes?” Involuntarily, he tried to turn back to his arm, but her grip was steel.
“Don't think,” she warned him. “After an injury like this, it is your thoughts that are most deadly. Your fears, your pain, your despair, they are deadly poison. Do not let them rule you.”
From somewhere, he mustered up a nod.
“Good. Now, limbs are simple. We simply take an arm from a Remnant that is compatible with your Path—or Paths, I suppose, since you always have to make things complicated—and we attach it to you with a combination of scripting and Forging. I happen to have some Remnant arms with me right now.”
She knelt by his bed, rummaging around in her chest, which gave Lindon a chance to look around the room. It was a rounded room carved out of the stone, giving it the impression that a mole had dug it out of solid rock. His bed was more of a cot, made of trembling wood and scratchy sheets. A single candle sat on a shelf bolted to the wall. There was one more source of light: a glowing script-circle on the wall behind a square of paper painted with an abstract landscape. Meant to replace a window, he was certain.
His pack leaned against the wall, which was a relief. Next to it was the Sylvan Riverseed's case, a box of glass with a tiny island inside. Little Blue herself, now almost too big for her enclosure, stood on the island and stared at him with her hands pressed against the glass. Though she was made entirely from ocean-blue madra, she had gained enough definition that he could read her face: she was worried.
Her concern almost broke him, but he tore his eyes away and took in a deep breath. Don't think about it. He was fine. Better than fine, really. He had expected to die if he lost, so walking away with three limbs out of four was a bargain.
Fisher Gesha straightened, carrying a wide wooden tray set with three limbs.
As Remnant arms, they didn't look quite real, like they were paintings come to three-dimensional life.
“These are the ones I have on hand for you,” she said, “and be grateful I have this many. It's not every day I have to match a limb to not one, but two cores.” She gestured to the first, a slick-looking purple arm with webbing between the fingers. “From a Fisher Remnant, this one has a Snare binding like the one you used against Jai Long. It is more compatible with your pure Path than with Blackflame, so you might have some trouble cycling Blackflame for the next few weeks, but it won't trigger a critical incompatibility.”
Lindon had seen Fisher Gesha use some of her techniques before, and of course he'd practiced with his Void Snare construct. He could imagine lashing himself to a wall to pull himself up the side of a building, trapping enemies who tried to escape, swinging across a chasm...
The thought cheered him. Just a little.
“The problem will be what the binding becomes when it absorbs your Path of Black Flame, you see? I see two possibilities: either it will become a sort of burning whip instead of an actual Snare technique, or it will work as usual, but carry a measure of Blackflame with it that burns whatever you attach to. It depends on how the madra balances out, and there's no way to test without slapping it on.”
She moved to the second offering on the table, a gray mass of cloud molded into the shape of a limb that looked as though it could blow apart any second. “You'll have to concentrate to keep this firm enough to interact with solid objects, but it's made from Cloud Hammer madra. It was one of their Enforcer techniques in a binding, though I'm afraid I don't know the name. It may have been a custom technique belonging to the artist who left this Remnant. Anyway, you'll pack quite the punch, especially once it equalizes with your Blackflame madra.”
He reached out and passed his fingers through the cloud. As he expected, it only felt like mist. He could find a use for this just as much as the binding inside—an arm that could reach through solid objects.
“I like the physical properties of this one,” he said, reaching for a set of goldsteel tongs at the edge of the tray. But he reached with his right hand, so nothing happened besides his stump twitching.
He blinked.
Gesha snapped up the goldsteel tongs and used them to grip the limb of cloud. You needed goldsteel to manipulate Remnant parts like this one, because anything else would pass straight through. Madra couldn't pass through goldsteel.
The golden tools flashed unnaturally milk-white in the light as she grabbed the cloud hand and stretched. The hand grabbed at her tool while she pulled, trying to wrestle against her. Remnant limbs often retained some life and will of their own.
She ignored the hand's attempt to fight back and stretched the limb, pulling it out to a good three feet before the cloud started to thin. The severed end stayed on the tray, but now the fingertips were halfway across the room.
“It can be stretched, you see,” she said, holding it there for a moment. “This is something you could learn to do in time, though keeping it solid while you do so would take quite the force of madra.”
Lindon had already forgotten about the Fisher arm. This one had endless possibilities. He could stretch it, reach through doors, and hit with the force of a Cloud Hammer Enforcer technique...
Maybe he hadn't lost as much as he'd thought.
Gesha folded the arm back onto the tray and placed down her goldsteel tongs, moving to the third limb.