The Fractured Tower

Book 2, Chapter 78

It was one thing to be told that Sorin was fighting and beating climbers twice his rank. It was another to experience it. It galled Morlin that he hadn’t instantly crushed the man, but at the same time, it was strangely reassuring to know that Yoru was climbing with someone so powerful.

Ultimately, it came down to control and money, however. And in that regard, Morlin refused to be cowed by some upstart who thought the rules of society didn’t apply to him just because he was the tower’s special little boy. Morlin was close to three times higher ranked; he wouldn’t be defeated here.

Except that Sorin was impossible to pin down. Every time he should have been defeated, he slipped out of harm’s way at the last second. Even throwing him into the air hadn’t resulted in getting a clean shot at the man. Morlin was faster. He knew he was faster. But somehow, it didn’t matter at all.

He could end this fight any time he wanted just by flooding the whole room with waves of magic. Sorin wouldn’t be able to dodge that, and Morlin had far more raw power than someone less than half his rank could hope to withstand. The only thing stopping him was the enchanter’s cabinet in the corner. He’d already made one mistake with that Force Lift—old habits were hard to shake—and he wasn’t about to repeat it.

Is that why he picked a fight here? Smart if it was, or maybe he just got lucky.

Sorin hadn’t escalated to drawing his sword, not yet, but the second he did, Morlin was prepared to let the collateral damage pile up so he could end the upstart climber. There would be no more holding back at that point, no matter how much it might pain the Telpike patriarch to lose a priceless artifact.

They traded a few more punches, with the somewhat predictable results of Sorin getting in a few hits that were too weak to phase Morlin and also dodging or blocking every swing that came his way. Even when Morlin poured anima into Fire of the Beast to push back that irritating freezing aura, he couldn’t get ahead of Sorin.

Using that soulprint liberally would drain Morlin and leave him vulnerable, but that was the price he paid for a C-ranked ability. The increase to his own strength and speed helped, too, but it was a losing tactic. Every second that went by, he wondered how much longer Sorin could maintain his own powerful domain and who would collapse first.

Morlin’s anima reservoir dwarfed Sorin’s, but his counter to the freezing domain was also significantly more expensive. Trying to wait his opponent out wasn’t a gamble he wanted to take, and so he decided to go all in on offense. So far, nothing Sorin had done had actually hurt Morlin, and besides, he was protected by a coat with a full steel silk lining.

Rapid-fire precision attacks. I’ll bury him before either of us can run out of anima.

Force Strike was cheap and easy to aim. It looked like shadow boxing, except every time he swung his fist, another blast of invisible kinetic energy burst out to fly across the empty space between the two of them and strike Sorin. Without some sort of advanced sensory skill, it would be impossible to see it and thus difficult to avoid.

In theory, it would hammer Sorin to the ground. In reality, the slippery bastard dodged most, if not all, of them. But it did keep him more or less in the right area for Morlin to close ground while he was off balance. With both hands raised overhead and clasped together, he brought them down in a hammer blow laced with anima.

Gravity Smash was one of the last soulprints he’d acquired before retiring, and he hadn’t had much opportunity to use it over the years. The area of effect on it was small enough that he wasn’t worried about clipping the cabinet, though, which made it perfect for hitting a nimble target without breaking anything else.

Anima blossomed around his fists, then slammed down in a sphere that engulfed Sorin, stunning him and leaving him open to the follow up. Except that when Morlin brought his fists down to smash Sorin into the floor, the slippery bastard somehow still managed to dodge out of the way. It wasn’t a good dodge, not with the result being Sorin prone on the floor and trying to flop out of the range of Gravity Smash, but it did accomplish the goal of not getting hit.

But it’s going to feel really fucking good when I kick you in the face, Morlin thought with no small amount of satisfaction. He cocked a foot back to do just that, only for Sorin’s leg to whip about so fast that Morlin barely even clocked the motion before his other foot was pulled out from beneath him.

The next thing he knew, he was on his back, Sorin was upright, and an explosion of shards from what looked like a massive stone somehow on fire peppered his face and chest. Hot, tearing pinpricks dotted his face, and his shirt, being less durable than his skin, actually caught on fire.

Sorin bounced Morlin’s skull off the floor a few times, then kicked him right under the ribs hard enough to make the old man gasp out a pained wheeze. Morlin rolled over and struggled back up onto his hands and knees, panting heavily and fighting off the vertigo that threatened to send him back to the floor.

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“You want to keep going?” Sorin asked. “I’ve got plenty left to kick your ass again if you still need some help getting the point.”

Morlin was saved from saying something he’d likely regret by his son’s interference. “Sorin, please. That’s enough.”

Rough hands grabbed Morlin and stripped him out of his coat, then shoved him back down onto his stomach. He craned his neck and saw Sorin tossing the coat at a surprised Yoru. “Here. Your father has already wasted enough of our resources on this. It might as well benefit somebody on the team. You two are a similar height and build; it should fit you well enough. I’m sure no one will question him giving it to you.”

Yoru held the coat draped over his arm, but made no move to put it on. Instead, he leaned down and helped Morlin back to his feet. Already, the regenerative soulprints were clearing up the dizziness, and other than some blood staining the floor and matted in Morlin’s hair, he was physically fine.

Mentally, though, things were a different story. Morlin’s face was ashen as he regarded Sorin, whose fists were still balled up and whose knuckles were stained with Morlin’s blood. God, he’s a monster just like Samael. The best we could hope for is that they kill each other, but we’ll never know a second’s peace as long as one of them is still breathing.

“Let me remind you what our deal is,” Sorin said coldly. “You are sponsoring us. We are climbing higher and will break the Void Wall. I will kill Samael myself. All you have to do is keep out of the way. That means not wasting time on vanity projects when we could have life-saving enchantments made that outstrip anything our enemies are equipped with.

“Or did you think it would be easy to kill the most powerful man this side of the Void Wall?”

“No,” Morlin mumbled, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice.

Hate you. Hate, hate, hate. I’ll make you suffer for this, somehow. Just you wait until you’re not useful anymore. Nobody humiliates me and gets away with it.

But even though he couldn’t admit it to himself, his fury was undercut by a strong current of fear. His mind was telling him that Sorin was rank 8, and even knowing that wasn’t true did little to dispel the notion that the man he’d crossed was a monster in human skin.

“I’ll be back in three days. I expect that cabinet to be ready for my use,” Sorin said. “If it’s not ready, I will be relocating it and finding somebody who can follow instructions. If you think you can hide it away, think again. Morlin, do not fuck with me on this. This thing is the biggest edge we’ve got right now, and we’re going to need it to fight an entire floor’s worth of void creatures.”

Morlin said nothing. His eyes lingered on the circle carved into the wall. I could destroy that. Then he can’t get back, not without going through the portal hub, at least. I’d have time.

Like he’d read Morlin’s mind, Sorin snorted and said, “You’d be smarter to just dissolve the partnership right now. I’d at least respect your honesty. But if you think you’re going to put a knife in my back, well, try it. Find out what happens.

“I’ll be back. Three days. Yoru, Vendis. Are you coming with me?”

Morlin hadn’t even noticed the return of his son’s attendant. The two of them stood awkwardly, witnesses to their patriarch’s humiliation and unsure what to do about it. “Go,” he snarled at them.

A few seconds later, all three men disappeared, leaving Morlin alone in the room with the cabinet and its unfortunate attendant. The enchanter kept his head down and didn’t make eye contact, but something in the silence must have alerted him to Morlin’s death glare. Slowly, almost unwillingly, he looked up.

“You will never speak a word of this to anyone,” Morlin told him. “It never happened. Someone will be along shortly to clean up the mess. You’d better not be here when they show up. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir,” the enchanter mumbled. He ducked his head again and beat a rapid retreat, giving Morlin a wide berth as he circled around the room.

I should have had him killed the moment I learned what he was, Morlin thought as he stared hatefully at the circle-and-line symbol he’d let Sorin carve into the wall.

It was probably still possible. Enough climbers working together would bury Sorin, and it wasn’t like a twenty second scuffle was indicative of anything. In a real fight, Morlin could have unleashed all his abilities, things Sorin had no counter for and equipment that outmatched the scraps Morlin had fed the weaker climbers.

I would have won, he told himself. Then he glanced down at the blood on the floor.

“I would have,” he muttered, but he couldn’t even convince himself that it was true.

* * *

“Something you want to say?” Sorin asked after they returned to Floor 8.

“Would it matter? You don’t seem to care,” Yoru told him bluntly.

“I’ve got nothing against you. I don’t even have much against your father, but he needed to know that he wasn’t going to get away with screwing me over. Your family is a convenience for us, not a necessity. And let’s be honest, he’s not going to let you fight on the front lines at the Void Wall. Your position here is… temporary, unless you plan on defying him when he orders you to break off from the team.”

“I… hadn’t thought that far ahead,” Yoru said.

“I’ve met plenty of climbers like your old man—selfish bastards who’ll trample on anyone that’s standing between them and what they want. Trying to appease him now would just result in bigger headaches later. But hey, you’ve known him your whole life. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Yoru just ground his teeth and shook his head. “Father takes what he wants. He did not consider you an equal partner.”

“And all climbers speak the language of violence. It was better to renegotiate with him now before things got out of hand,” Sorin said.

“Doubtful,” Vendis put in. “The patriarch is a vengeful man. He believes in escalation and overwhelming force.”

“I guess it’s a good thing we’re going on a serious anima farming binge, then. Next time I have to give him a black eye, we’ll be closer to even strength.”

“Right… Even. Because that brawl really could have gone either way,” Yoru said.

“Strength isn’t everything, but it sure helps.”