Endburn: Chapters 5-6 (Patreon)

Usually TWC stays in the heads of the three main characters, but I've made various exceptions on a per-book basis. This one will include more than average, not as a direction for the series but because this is meant to be a continental-scale war. These chapters we get the POVs of some major political figures as a special feature of this book alone.

-

Chapter 5

Seventeen days. It had only taken seventeen days for Citizen Dominion to see so much of his life's work crumble.

Even though Asplundat cities were designed to construct good housing for people as quickly as possible, infrastructure still took time. Entire regions had been devastated where battles had taken place, and even those where they simply retreated would take years to repair. It would take a generation to rebuild what had been lost, if they rebuilt at all.

Worse than that were the lives lost. His musings were interrupted by a weirkey arrival: another strike force, this one with a severely injured Stronghold and several maimed Authorities. Citizen Dominion flew to them immediately and began his work, forming a coating of healing mud.

The Stronghold could be restored to full health shortly, but some of the Authorities would be permanently scarred and there was one he wasn't sure he could save at all. Perhaps it would have been possible if he had spent every resource, but as the war stretched on, he knew that he needed to pace himself. Choosing between lives felt like it shouldn't be his decision, even if he had abandoned his own name in order to take the role that made such decisions.

Strangely, he only felt more guilty with every life he saved. Focusing on soulcrafters while so many citizens were dying felt wrong, perhaps especially because it was strategically correct. So far civilian casualties were heavier than any previous phase of the war, yet he knew that they would become far worse if their lines broke.

So that meant saving those he could. Sometimes, in between acts of healing, Citizen Dominion wondered just how much power this would give the militarized wings of the Movement. Did he want to be there to see what they would become if they survived?

When another weirkey opened ahead, Citizen Dominion groaned... only to be surprised. It wasn't another group of injured, instead it was that outsider Framkis. The man looked too heroic in his white coat, wrapping around to sinister in the manner of propaganda. And yet, without him, their situation would have been so much worse.

"You've set up a base here?" Framkis asked. He spoke like it was an accusation, as if saving lives could be a mistake.

"This is the most effective action I can take without becoming involved myself," Citizen Dominion explained. "It allows our forces to keep facing Tymetron despite their superior numbers."

"I'm not disagreeing with the healing - Tymetron is bleeding far worse than we are. But being out in the open, with so many injured soulcrafters and support staff, is just asking for a direct strike. Couldn't you set up a healing base in an undersea or underground location?"

"There might be a strategic advantage to hiding, but you can't neglect the morale advantage of standing as a symbol of hope. I must be the first citizen fighting with them, even if I am not on the front lines."

Framkis swallowed that like it was rotten food and switched tactics. "We saw they were willing to strike a soft target with the tournament. Tymetron is clearly-"

"And that went poorly for them, did it not?"

"Only at great cost. We can't count on being so lucky again."

"I fear I will not bend on this," Citizen Dominion said firmly. "It has been several days and Tymetron has not launched another strike like that, so I will not stand and do nothing."

"Fine." Framkis rubbed his eyes and, surprisingly, pulled an elaborate artifact from his soulhome. "Will you at least take precautions? This is a device beyond Dominion that can, allegedly, weirkey a large number of people to another location we can set. But it will only work once, and it isn't guaranteed to get everyone."

"And you would... give this to us? In exchange for what?"

"In exchange for keeping you alive, if things go poorly. If there's no attack, I'll want it back, because I have a lot of better uses in mind."

They discussed the matter further, but it indeed seemed to be a true gift. The outsider had a strange sort of ruthlessness: he sought what he considered the greatest good at any cost, with little patience for considerations he didn't value. In a way, the man reminded Citizen Dominion of many of the ideologues on his own side.

Though they couldn't test the artifact, the premise of it seemed simple enough. Once he was sure he understood, Citizen Dominion bade farewell to the outsider and set the task to his fellow citizens, since he had another group to heal already. Their armament crafters would be best able to anchor the artifact to another location and create the necessary linking armaments. He would have to ignore the debate over who received the links first and simply insist on being last in line.

Some would view this as cowardice, particularly the truthwatcher faction that still failed to understand the gravity of the situation. Citizen Dominion had been unwilling to bend on his public position, but he would gladly take on the aggressive factions in this. He was willing to give up his own life for the cause, he simply refused to risk the lives of others when there was an alternative.

It remained to be seen if this was much of an alternative at all, or if it would even matter. But given what they faced, they had no choice.

~

Eighteen days, so few of them spent in combat.

The halls of Dris Kolonb were busier than ever, and for once all the lesser powers were eager to join them instead of foolishly standing on their own. Crintak should have been pleased about that. If they made it through this, there would likely be many new Ruling Cities joining them, which might even offset the inevitable losses.

Remaining here was unquestionably the best choice, because he was making more of a difference coordinating strategy and negotiating than he could make on the battlefield. Wrangling all the artisans trying to complete the grand project was definitely the most useful thing he could be doing at the moment. Crintak still chafed at the restrictions. As he finished a meeting with another flunky from the House of Coin, he irritably toyed with the gemstone in his eye socket.

Joining the battlefield personally would have been so much more satisfying. There were multiple Tymetronese Dominions he wanted to face one-on-one, like that scythe user, or especially the woman with the giant Ethereal form. He knew he couldn't defeat overwhelming numbers on his own, but killing one of them with his own hands would have made the war seem less impossible.

An aide came in, shuffling papers in a meaningless nervous pattern. "No word back from the Eternal Spectrum," the man told him.

"Then why did you come in here?" Crintak demanded. "Go back and keep trying."

"No, I mean... no one received any word. Not the House of Coin, nor any of our off-continent sources. Yet we detected the cantae from one of their ships. They're in contact with someone here."

Crintak sat bolt upright. "And you don't know who? Find out. We can afford to burn diplomatic resources on this. Any powers beyond Dominion getting involved could change the entire war."

"We'll do what we can. But it was just a trace, they're already gone..."

The aide needed to discuss a few other details, almost all of them grim. Norron was largely isolated from other continents; until recently, Norron had been his world. He had put out a few feelers to see if they could change the balance of war at all, and nearly all had failed. There were a few offers to him, personally, granting him a prestigious position if he left Norron to join them. Of course he wasn't about to abandon everything he'd built in the Ruling Cities.

He had to admit that he had been wrong in his initial decision: trying to let the Asplundat Movement take the brunt of the attack would have been disastrous. This endburn policy appeared to apply to the entire continent and there had been a devastating attack on one of the westernmost cities, leading to numerous deaths before it was repulsed.

Next Crintak was supposed to meet with representatives from a southern city in order to pester them to send more reinforcements to the north. Instead, when the door opened, the outsider walked in. Crintak forced himself to smile instead of gritting his teeth.

"What are you trying with these negotiations?" the outsider asked. With a soft voice, but as if he believed he deserved to be in charge.

"That's none of your business," Crintak told him sharply. "We need allies."

"I wasn't criticizing. You're right, we need every ally we can get. I may be able to offer something to support those negotiations, if you have any leads. You know Fithe far better than I do, but if you've started something, I may be able to offer outside support."

Appealing to his expertise was just a transparent attempt at manipulation. Crintak saw through the outsider because he was the same: he had clawed his way to the top of the Ruling Cities by exploiting every advantage he could get. And now this upstart, this child who had barely been a soulcrafter for ten years, dared to stand among them like this.

"There are a few factions that might be persuaded by resources from off-world," Crintak said begrudgingly. "But they don't have much to offer, so it's not worth your time. We can handle this."

"If you insist," the outsider said. "But while I'm here, I wanted to discuss the defenses for Dris Kolonb. Now that you're taking a hand, the probability that Tymetron will attack has increased."

"The city is already on a war footing, and we've prepared the Great Dome if necessary. Believe me, if they try to bring their Dominions to defeat me, they'll get more of a fight than they expect."

"And what if they bring someone higher than Dominion?"

Crintak did grit his teeth now. He forced himself to spread his hands on his desk instead of forming fists and looked the outsider in the eye. "If Tymetron can bring its full forces to bear against us, then the war is already lost. We have to fight the only war that is even possible for us to win. If you can't understand that, then leave the strategy to those of us who can."

That finally got a flicker of anger from the outsider, but he visibly suppressed his irritation and took a step back. Crintak wished that he would have let it explode instead and the two of them could have argued it out. But no, they were both manipulators at the core and they couldn't change now.

"You know your defenses better than I do," the outsider said in another display of false humility. "I'm just trying to add what I can before I go back to the front lines."

"If that's your real goal, then bring that technique of yours over to the west coast. They're getting too confident pushing inland."

They agreed on timing after some discussion and the outsider left. As he did so, Crintak easily saw the irritation his eyes, which rankled further. Both of them hated dealing with idiots, but now they both thought the other was in that category.

Time would tell who was correct.

~

As Melitta drew back her gauntlet, letting another body fall into the waves, she wavered in the air. How long had it been? Three days since she started fighting, eight days since Tymetron had begun attacking the Wavefront... nineteen since the new phase of the war began, she thought.

Unlike the other two, she had decided to fight directly. There was a chance that she was inciting Tymetron to send out their strongest soulcrafters and even some of her own soldiers disagreed with her decision. But the empire was already planning on genocide, so she didn't think the risk was too high. She restrained herself by only attacking Tymetronese soulcrafters who were attempting to attack undefended cities, ignoring those who clashed directly with her own forces.

As she looked over the coast, she thought that her strategy was working. Tymetron had eased off on striking softer targets, instead focusing on armies. That would buy them a lot of time to evacuate the civilian regions of the Wavefront, which would be critical when the war inevitably broke this stalemate.

Of course, that would only protect them through two or three more phases of the war. Eventually there would be nowhere left to run.

Melitta descended to the nearest island and began cleaning off the blades of her gauntlets. Negotiations with the depths Fithans continued, as expected. Soulcrafters beyond Dominion were strangely cowardly, so old and strong that they feared losing everything they had built. There was one powerful soulcrafter in the depths who might be willing to fight Plutalgion, but the Underqueen was afraid of being attacked by all of Tymetron's strongest at once.

And so, despite all those who had reason to fight the empire, few actually stood against them. Recent military intelligence suggested that the Gold Wastes had fallen, just as Melitta had feared. The enemy had fewer checks on its assaults and it was just a matter of time before they took the initiative.

A weirkey set her on guard, but Melitta saw that it was only Framkis. She had decided to put her trust in this outsider during the tournament and that had proved correct, especially compared to the other outsider. There were some under her command who still argued that was a mistake, but she had heard a thousand tales about how corrupt and evil depths Fithans were. If she could work together with her people's ancient enemies, she could deal with some outsider.

"Sorry to interrupt," Framkis said as he approached. "I understand you have your own strategy and I don't mean to disrupt it, but-"

"Out with it," Melitta said. "You wouldn't have wasted a weirkey trip if you didn't have an idea, right? I'm listening."

"I see." He shifted oddly, as if he had expected much worse than that, then smiled. "I don't suppose I can convince you to take a more secure position?"

"I'm not going to stand by while my people are dying. If the enemy is holding back, we should exploit that as long as we can, no matter the reason."

"Fine, I can respect that. But we can't afford to lose you if they do attempt another strike. I've acquired a healing item that potentially can restore from near death, called the Orphic Vial. I know you might not-"

"You keep talking like I'm going to bite your head off." Melitta rapped her gauntlet against his shoulder and shook her head. "I told you before, I believe you truly love the Nine Worlds. Reasonable people are fleeing Norron, but you stayed. If you have an idea, I'm open to it."

His face shifted in a guarded emotion, then Framkis smiled. "Well, if you're willing to participate in something more complex, maybe the Orphic Vial isn't the right choice..."

-

Chapter 6

After setting up what contingencies he could, Theo ended up in another battle, despite his best efforts. The most important thing he could do, by his own estimation, was finally contact Dave or other powers who might make a bigger difference. Actually fighting on his own would push Tymetron back a little, but it was just a tiny portion of a larger war.

Seeing the desperate people of the city cheering his singularity, however, made him reconsider. These actions might not matter at the largest scale, but this was the only scale that mattered to them.

He had shifted to the west of the continent, where Tymetronese forces were beginning to attack the Ruling Cities, partially in hopes of convincing Crintak and partially because that was the worst front of the war now. It didn't change much, except that the defenders were less organized than the Asplundat Movement. There had been a scattered evacuation that would have been disastrous if Theo hadn't intervened.

Right now he was dealing with a frustrating pair of Strongholds leading the army, since they were smart enough to avoid attacking his singularity. If they kept at a great enough distance, it was simply a gravitational effect that couldn't dominate the battlefield. Preventing their attacks had kept him on his toes, forcing him to cast gravitational fields, portals, and disorientation techniques while maintaining the singularity.

Worse, he had a Senka automaton with him. It was an asset for now, keeping the Strongholds wary, but he was concerned that they were beginning to see through the ruse. There was a Ruling Cities soulcrafter controlling the automaton, and they were doing as well as could be expected, but they couldn't continue the deception forever without power to back it up.

All of those factors meant that when Theo felt someone arrive via weirkey, he was on a hair trigger, ready to tunnel his singularity wherever necessary. Instead he ended up hesitating, staring as he saw that the arrival was Jazin.

"Funny running into you here." The lean Tymetronese Dominion was flying toward him, levitating a circle of geodes but otherwise not attacking. "For a while I was trying to find a pattern to your attacks, but it's truly random, isn't it? Shame it took this long."

"Are you really here to chat?" Theo asked, eyes flickering around the battlefield. Part of him actually wanted to talk to the other soulcrafter, but a larger part was convinced it had to be a trap or distraction.

"We're not actually supposed to get involved." Jazin shrugged casually as he came to a stop in the sky some distance away. "We have higher priorities before we bring the hammer of Tymetron down on you. But since fate finally put us on the same battlefield, I had to talk."

Theo folded his arms and examined the other man for a time before he decided that he had to try. "Are you comfortable with this endburn? You don't have a problem with slaughtering every noncombatant on the continent?"

"Oh, it's unnecessarily brutal," Jazin responded easily. "I honestly don't think it makes any strategic sense, but Plutalgion was committed. Some kind of favor being called in. So I don't particularly like it, but that's what you get with empires."

"What if it didn't have to be that way? What if you could-"

Jazin cut him off with a laugh. "You think I'm a poor slave in need of rescue? Think you can use your new deadgold-based techniques on me and convince me to join your doomed cause?"

"I can see the gold seal in your soulhome," Theo answered, not letting himself be put off by the scorn. "Yes, we could remove it without causing damage, but I wasn't expecting you to join. Just act in your own self-interest and leave."

"And just why would that be in my own self-interest? We're going to win."

"Maybe you will, maybe not. But surely you've seen that the attrition will be heavier than anyone expected, and how much of Tymetron will be left afterward? Plutalgion has a lot of enemies and the sharks are circling. If they sweep in after the war, do you want to be one of the main soulcrafters who helped cause a genocide? Or would you rather be safely beginning a new life anywhere you want in the Nine Worlds?"

Their eyes locked and Jazin didn't look away or blink. And yet, despite the strange intensity of that long moment, Theo felt a disappointing certainty that his offer would be refused. Jazin was thinking about something, but not about taking his offer.

"I almost want to give it a shot," Jazin said eventually. "Not joining you, I mean, but pretending to and seeing if I could get away with double-crossing you. Problem is, I think you'd like to believe it, but I don't think you're dumb enough to fall for it in the long term."

Theo scoffed to hide his disappointment. "You want me to thank you for not wasting my time?"

"Honestly, I'm glad your side is spending so much time on that. There are a few slave legions, but they're a rounding error in the end, plus they fear Tymetron too much. And the problem with trying to convert Strongholds is that anyone who gets that high is going to be a true believer like me. Well... a mix of true believers who were brainwashed and those smart enough to see how this is going to go."

There was no answer to that, so they stared at one another for a while longer. Theo wished that it could have been otherwise, but the way Jazin talked about the endburn so casually didn't seem feigned. The Tymetronese soulcrafter wasn't cruel, simply indifferent, and that was enough.

"You know, that little doll of yours is a funny thing," Jazin said abruptly, eyes narrowing as they scanned over the city below. "There's no doubt you injured two of our Dominions, so some are worried. But looking at how you use them, it seems more like a dust game to me."

"I'm not familiar," Theo said while swallowing his discomfort. Jazin could well be smart enough to see through the whole ruse here and now.

"You have several holes filled with dust, one of which contains treasure and one of which contains a scorpion, then someone is dared to reach a hand inside. It exists more in literature than in reality, honestly. But looking over this... how many scorpions do you actually have, I wonder?"

"Try me." Theo faked a smirk. "Do you think it's more likely that I'd take a risk after your side sent Dominions at me, or would I keep one of the scorpions close by?"

Jazin didn't respond, just swept his eyes over Theo's face. There was a chance that this could work in their favor, especially because Senka was currently on the other side of the continent and likely to be forced to act before too long. His ploy suggesting "multiple scorpions" wasn't likely to work, but the logic was sound, and if Senka acted at the same time Theo was elsewhere, it might keep them cautious.

Or it was possible that Jazin would test him here and now. The geodes rotating around his body began to spin slightly faster and the other man abruptly shrugged.

"I guess we'll find out," Jazin said. "Truthfully, I was just buying time until-"

Darkness tore through the air toward them, but though Theo moved back on instinct, he wasn't being targeted. Instead numerous blades of shadow assaulted Jazin, forcing him to implode multiple geodes in order to retreat to a safe distance.

Guchiro rose over the city, darkness seething around him. Spines of darkness carried the corpses of the two Tymetronese Strongholds.

"There you are," Theo said, even though this hadn't been planned in the slightest. "Took you a while."

Instead of responding, Guchiro lit up a cantae blade over one hand and started forward. But Jazin simply shook his head and flew skyward with a little wave, disappearing into a weirkey the next second.

And with that, the battle was won. Tymetron absolutely wasn't going to attack now that they had lost their strongest and the skies were dominated by Guchiro, Theo, and the singularity. The city beneath them didn't realize right away, but soulcrafters would begin to feel the shift in the battle, and as they understood, they began cheering and redoubling their efforts against the Tymetronese remnants.

"Do we pursue the enemy army?" Guchiro asked.

"Only if they head inland," Theo said. "Exterminating their weaker soulcrafters wastes energy we need for stronger opponents. So long as we keep their deserters in the territory they control, they're a problem that will weigh Tymetron down."

"Very well." Guchiro folded his arms and finally released all the darkness around himself. "Where is my ward currently?"

"Fiyu isn't with you?" Everything had been going so well, but now Theo frowned. "I broke our contact material, but I haven't heard from them or Dave. I assumed they were working on their own plans."

"If so, I am unaware of them. I only realized that Tymetron had attacked again when I stopped in to speak with Fithan contacts."

The two of them continued flying around the city and Theo cast his disorientation technique over the Tymetronese armies, knocking out as many as he could. That had become almost second nature by now, as had moving the singularity to keep it in the air blocking any siege techniques from the enemy. Soulcrafters on his side tended to figure it out pretty quickly, either avoiding the singularity or even using the gravity to arc their own techniques around it.

Despite this victory, Theo was left a little unsettled by the encounter. Jazin had made reference to other objectives, but he had to assume that was likely to be misinformation. Was it possible that Theo was wrong about Tymetron's fundamental strategy, and could he be playing into some other ploy? He couldn't think of many, unless their plan was to force the defenders to exhaust all their trump cards before sending out their best.

Once they confirmed the victory, Theo and Guchiro headed back to Dris Kolonb. Theo hadn't spent much time in the administrative capital of the Ruling Cities, usually just when he was called in for something. It didn't seem much like a real city, more a collection of monuments. Every building was a mausoleum, every street was lined with plinths, and the tiles were too clean.

For all that, it was a beautiful city. Definitely a display of all the wealth the Ruling Cities possessed. At the moment, he only cared about who he could meet there.

"Heya, fumpet!" Senka appeared out of nowhere - not the person he'd been expecting, but welcome nonetheless.

"What are you doing here?" Theo asked as he pulled her into a quick hug. "You don't look drained."

"Funnily enough, I still have a blast in reserve, maybe one and a half. It turns out the Wavefront has a secret formation for their Strongholds that they've been holding in reserve. I pretended to be the one to launch it, and if it wasn't really aeon-class cantae, it definitely wiped out an army. We're keeping the ruse going a little longer."

It was good to know that the Norronese were defending their continent alongside Theo and his allies, so he silently thanked the Wavefront soulcrafters. One day he might want to talk to them about formations, but there was no time at the moment. Guchiro waited during their conversation with taut patience and now folded his arms.

"I will assist the war efforts," he said, "but only if sufficient resources are being deployed to find my ward and her spouse."

"That's one of my top priorities too," Theo assured him. "I hope I'll be able to meet with Dave soon, and he should have more info. But before you go, I really wanted to talk to you. Both of you, actually. Did you figure out the details of the step before Ophaon?"

Senka and Guchiro glanced at one another, leaving Theo to wonder just what that relationship was like. Whatever passed between them, Senka was the one to speak.

"I told Guchiro's creepy buddies everything I knew," she said, "and they figured it out to their satisfaction. I can't say for sure this is the method that I'd suggest if I wasn't cursed, but it should be a functional one."

"Her knowledge is fragmentary," Guchiro said, "but accurate. It is indeed true: in order to ascend beyond Dominion, one must first take a step back."

Theo sighed. "So I've heard, but I was really hoping to get more information this time."

"I can explain in detail, but the principle is simple, if not easy. Instead of casting your will toward the sky, instead you cast it toward your foundation. In this process, you also drain all cantae from your soulhome, creating a vacuum. This puts a great deal of stress on your soulhome, of a variety that it would not normally experience."

"That's comprehensible, but I'm not hearing why you'd do that."

"To prepare for the next ascension," Senka butted in. "Emptying your soulhome all at once is rough, and it can damage your foundation as well. But when you repair the damage, your soulhome and foundation end up reinforced. Without that reinforcement, the ascension to Bup - the next ascension could blow your soulhome apart."

"So that's the step backward." Theo smiled as he finally quashed that old mystery. "Temporarily weaker, but stronger in the end."

"My allies believe that some understand this," Guchiro said, "some more explicitly than others. It is also possible that a person could approximate the effect, if they fought enough challenging battles at Dominion."

"Yeah, that used to happen," Senka agreed. "But that's part of why it's so hard to ascend alone. Eventually you have to take a step backward like that, or invest too much energy soulcrafting. If you're all alone against the world, you won't have allies to protect you until you attain the next tier."

"Unfortunately, I am not close to completing this process. I have made great progress on my Dominion floor, but ascending beyond is entirely impossible."

At that Senka shot a glance Theo's way and rolled her eyes. They had previously discussed whether or not it would be possible to help Guchiro to Ophaon, and in Theo's opinion the question remained open, especially since he'd taken materials from the Bloodfire Pit. But even if the older soulcrafter seemed too cautious to Theo, he wasn't going to tell such an old veteran how to handle his own soulhome.

"That is sufficient conversation," Guchiro announced. "Find my ward, Theo. I participate in this war solely for her sake."

"Believe me," Theo said, "I miss her too. It's my next priority, I promise."