Elder Whisper

Elder Whisper
General information
Path	Path of the White Fox
Rank	Truegold
Faction	Wei Clan
First Appearance	Unsouled - Cradle book 1
Origin	Unknown
Family
Home	Sacred Valley

Elder Whisper is a sacred beast, a white five-tailed snowfox. He lives in Sacred Valley. He’s a dream artist, using light aura aspects to create illusions. Artist’s instagram: felcandy:

Appearance

Like all Sacred Beasts, Elder Whisper is ancient, and skilled at using the Sacred Arts. He’s a white snowfox similar to those of traditional Asian legend. He has five tails. His foxfire magic is purple-white. He’s the size of a man. He is hundreds of years old, an original inhabitant of Sacred Valley. He is the father of all the snowfoxes running around the valley.

Cold wind, crisp with the scents of a spring night, ruffled his white fur. Five bushy tails lashed behind him, tracing arcane patterns in the air that reminded Lindon of a script. “You have eaten of a wonderful fruit,” said the sacred fox. “Tell me the story.” (Unsouled, book 1)

His Home

Elder Whisper lives in Sacred Valley near Mount Samara, where light aura is found in plenty. He lives with the Wei clan. He appears fairly well treated, and doesn’t seem to mind that for some unknown reason they lock him in his tall white tower. (Cradle, book 1, Unsouled). He is, in fact, the original founder of the Wei clan, and highly respected.

Elder Whisper had joined the clan founders to create the Wei clan, dominating the native Remnants to carve out a section of wilderness in Sacred Valley. He had created the Path of the White Fox, the most common Path in the entire clan, and used its powers to control and assimilate several lesser clans. Not even the current Wei Patriarch was as honored as Elder Whisper. (Soulsmith chapter 3)

Locked Tower

Elder Whisper lives in a tower which stands out, a needle of white, so tall that it seems thin. Rising above the purple roofed sea like a mast of a great ship. This is one of the most prominent landmarks in all Sacred Valley and was made in the age of the clans’ founders. The lock and key on his door are made of bronze, as big as a man’s head. There is a spirit trap on the door when the door is closed, it traps a sacred beast or remanent in place. If he escapes, there is a second one at bottom of stairs. On the top floor an open arch extends from floor to ceiling so he can see out, with a script to prevent him from running down the side. No one knows that this is pointless, as he leaves whenever he wishes. (Unsouled)

His Deeds

Secret Keeper

Elder Whisper sat on his haunches,
tails waving smoothly behind him.
“Wei Shi Lindon. Would you like to
know how to kill the Dreadgods?”

-Bloodline, epilogue

In book 1, Elder Whisper is kind to Lindon, and encourages him when everyone else has given up on him. (See section below). After Lindon leaves the Valley, the sacred beast holds open the void space belonging to the assassinated Sage of the Endless Sword so it won’t crumble away. He does this for several years. He trusts Lindon with the mummified hand of Subject One and his secrets about the Labyrinth and Dreadgods (see books 9 & 10).

Path

Elder Whisper is one of the Sacred Beasts in the Cradle series. He is ancient, and so he lived long enough beneath the rich light aura of Mount Samara to develop a spirit. He can practice the Sacred Arts. He is the strongest artist in the Valley, stronger than any human. (See author’s archives). He is the original practitioner of the Path of the White Fox, which was created by, and named for, him. He uses light aura from the overhead rings of Mount Samara. He deals in dreams and illusions. The Wei clan follows this path, including Wei Shi Kelsa. He also has a slight ability to occasionally dream a glimpse of the future, or Fate.

• His rank is Truegold

Clairvoyant

Excerpt from Chapter 4, Unsouled “Humans understood light to some limited degree, but they had great difficulty with dreams. He had spent 100 years meditating on the nature of dreams. For the most part a dream was nothing more than a mind deceiving itself. Only rarely did dreams tap into greater forces, but when they did they could reveal pieces of fate. Over the years, Whisper had developed a sense of that fate. It was distant, imperfect, but he could dimly see the shapes of impending events.. .For centuries, the shape looming in his dreams has been dark and impossibly vast. It would crush them all beneath its ponderous weight, and there was no stopping it. Sacred Valley’s past was coming back and bringing death with it. But there was something strange about his premonition this time. Somehow, he felt as though the titanic threat were years distant and months close at the same time. One and then the other, like fate had yet to decide. Now, he saw the familiar shape of fate’s touch on the Unsouled: the resolve in his eyes, the agony of a difficult decision in the set of his shoulders, the timing of his appearance in the tower. The boy’s future was in flux. However it turned out, Whisper had done what he could. Now he would wait . . .and watch. (Unsouled, chapter 4)

• Epilogue of book 1, Unsouled

“He watches two young sacred artists leaving the valley and for the first time in centuries, he experiences hope. Maybe these children, (Yerin and Lindon) blessed by the heavens will save the valley from the Dreadgods’ return”

Encouraging Lindon

Whisper’s thoughts, shared with Wei Shi Lindon in Chapter 4 of Unsouled:

• “Fate is not fair, but it is just. Hard work is never in vain. Even when it does not achieve what you wished.”
• “When does a path reach its end? Is a gold practitioner one with heaven and earth? Does he control everything in creation? Can he create worlds and break them at will?”
• “The spirit has no limit, nor does the sky. How could a true path have an ending? If you studied until the end of the universe you would still have not touched true comprehension.”
• “When a traveler cannot find a path, sometimes he must make his own… Remember cutting a road through a forest is always harder than following one that is already there.”