Chapter 38

Scorio sat on a high ledge, one knee hiked up, other leg swinging, watching the ruined intersection below as First Clay shifted to First Rust, the sun-wire glimmering and burning brighter.

Even as the bloody illumination lightened to a brassy copper hue, he saw his friends striding down the street toward him. They were wary, Lianshi turning in a circle at one point to scan their environs, Leonis casting glances at every doorway and yawning window.

With a breath Scorio inhaled Coal mana into his Heart, rose, and leaped into the air, igniting as he dropped the ten or so yards to land before them with a crunch, a basket balanced neatly on one upturned palm, the other lowering to the ground to steady himself as he rose to his feet.

Both of his friends startled but quickly recovered; they looked so clean, Scorio thought as he smiled at them. Their robes without a single hole or stain, their skin glowing with health, their hair freshly washed and trimmed.

“That’s one way to make an entrance,” said Leonis, voice hearty. “Though that’s going to be terrible for your knees in the long run.”

“You’re early,” said Scorio, stepping forward and unwrapping the old cloth that was bundled around the basket’s contents. “You must have bolted out of the Academy as soon as they opened the gates.”

Lianshi gave him a lopsided smile. “A fair assessment. Can’t deny that we’re eager to try the Gauntlet again. I’ve got some new tactics I want to implement.”

“The woman won’t speak of anything else,” groaned Leonis, eyeing the basket. “Day in, day out, all she wanted to talk about—wait. Delight of Heaven buns?”

“A dozen, as ordered,” said Scorio, bowing low and extending his arm. “Would the kind Academy Great Souls care to replenish their energies before taxing their delicate reserves further?”

“Yes please!” Lianshi dug a browned bun out and raised it to her nose to inhale deeply at the circle of crystalized Iron mana. “Oh! So good. But how did you afford them?”

Scorio’s smile turned wry as he straightened. “The very last of Leonis’s octs. Put them to good use.”

Leonis grabbed a bun in each hand and beamed at Scorio. “Now this is a civilized venture into the wilderness. You don’t happen to have a flute of Apotheosis wine hidden around here somewhere?”

“Come on,” said Scorio, turning and snagging a bun for himself as he went. “We’ve a long day ahead of us. We can discuss fantasy picnics after we’ve died a couple of times.”

“What is it with you two?” Leonis fell in stride with Scorio, an ambling bear of a man that towered over him. “It’s as if you can’t be happy if you’re not discussing dismemberment and decapitation. Ours, to be specific.”

Lianshi moved up on Scorio’s other side, jaw working as she devoured her bun. “Pick your friends better, next time,” she said cheerfully out of the corner of her mouth.

“I’ll submit a letter of complaint to the Archspire.”

“Hey, as we go, let me catch you both up on what I’ve been doing,” said Scorio. “Come on, walk with me. I’ve been farming, let me tell you all about it.”

And together the three of them marched deeper into the ruins, following the path that was becoming increasingly familiar to Scorio. He told them about his endeavors, the small, inaccessible, island he’d found, the treatise he’d purchased, and the syrup that Naomi was going to deliver to him shortly.

“So you see,” he finished as they reached the small street at the base of his building, “it was your generosity that allowed all this to happen.”

“They’re going to be rated Bronze level?” asked Lianshi, taken aback. “That’s… can we have some?”

“No kidding!” Leonis rubbed at his bearded chin thoughtfully. “We could help you create more of these farms, and then begin selling them to our classmates in exchange for other treasures and elixirs…”

“I think they’re going to be weak Bronze, yes,” said Scorio. “But I’m going to need my apothecary to check its potency before being sure.”

“You hear that, Lianshi? Scorio’s got an apothecary.” Leonis grinned. “Looks like he’s doing all right for himself out here.”

A new voice spoke out from above them. “He’s not failing abysmally, I’ll give him that.”

The three of them looked up to see Naomi crouched on the sill of a second-story window. At first glance, she seemed calm, but not only had her voice sounded artificially light, she was breathing shallowly, her chest rising quickly, her knuckles white where she gripped the sill’s edge.

“Lianshi, Leonis, may I introduce Naomi, my saving grace and eternally patient mentor.” Scorio grinned up at her then made an elaborate bow.

“It is an honor to meet you,” said Lianshi, bowing as well.

“Thank you for helping Scorio,” rumbled Leonis gravely. “He needs all the help he can get.”

Scorio straightened and saw a tightness around Naomi’s eyes. This was where she should have said something wry at his expense, but instead, she just remained crouching, lips pursed tight.

“Would that I could be saved,” said Scorio after a beat. “But if anyone can pull it off, it’s Naomi. Did I ever tell you two how we first met?”

Leonis and Lianshi looked to him, sensing the tension in the air.

Scorio thought quickly. “As you know, I am an expert musician, excelling at that little stringed instrument thing, the one with one string which you play with a bow?”

Lianshi raised both eyebrows, clearly wanting to help him but not knowing how.

“So I would sit on my rooftop every Second Clay and play a melancholy ballad called… The Char’s Lament… and I thought I was all alone, until I heard the sweetest voice singing the words from the opposite rooftop…”

Leonis’s solemn expression began to crack as he realized what was going on, and Scorio glanced up where Naomi was glaring at him.

“She knew the words, and each night she would sing them with perfect clarity, but I never saw her until—”

Naomi hopped off the window ledge and landed lightly beside him, her drop much more adroit and skilled than his own only a short while ago.

“Enough,” she said, face flushing. “Any more nonsense from you and you’ll lose the few friends you’ve somehow managed to make.”

Scorio grinned—was she pleased? He couldn’t tell. But she wasn’t hitting him. “But I haven’t gotten to the part where I was attacked by Basilisk operatives, and you recognized me by the sound of my music—”

“I will kill you if you keep talking,” said Naomi, tone understated but determined. “And I’ll do it slowly.”

“Now I know you’re friends,” said Leonis, placing his hands on his hips. “The desire to murder him is a unifying constant amongst all those he spends time with.”

“That’s not true,” said Lianshi, moving to stand next to Scorio. “I only occasionally want to throttle him, but not necessarily to death.”

“See?” Scorio slung an arm over Lianshi’s shoulders. “True friendship.”

“Here,” said Naomi, pulling out his palm-sized bottle which was now half-filled with a black, viscous liquid. “As promised. Take only a teaspoon.”

“Perfect. Thank you.” He turned the bottle over and watched as the black liquid within began to ooze over. “This will make all the difference.”

Lianshi linked her hands behind her back. “Will you be joining us today, Mistress Naomi?”

“I…” Naomi glanced to Scorio hurriedly. “I had some errands I had to run…”

“She agreed to escort us to the base of the Academy,” said Scorio. “And depending on how long it takes us to get there, she might have time for one run of the Gauntlet. Maybe. Right?”

“Right,” croaked Naomi, curling her thick hair behind one ear as she looked down; it slipped free immediately. “I—yes. I can escort you all there. To, ah, keep you safe.”

“Having an Emberling with us will make all the difference,” said Lianshi. “Thank you kindly, mistress.”

“Naomi.” Her face flushed. “No need for anything else. Just… Naomi is fine.”

“Naomi, then,” said Lianshi. “May I ask you some questions as we walk?”

“Come on,” said Scorio, punching Leonis lightly on the arm. “Let’s get moving.”

They moved down the street, the two ladies falling behind a little, though Scorio could make out the gist of Lianshi’s questions—they were uniformly admiring, solicitous, and respectful.

Leonis began scanning the streets and rooftops as they probed deeper into the ruins, and Scorio sensed his rising tension; in a way, it was good to be reminded of how dangerous this part of Bastion could be. Familiarity bred contempt, after all, though having Naomi with them made him doubly assured.

They made good time, taking detours to avoid the more dangerous areas, climbing at last onto the rooftops as they crossed the final third of the ruins. First Bronze lit up the sky as they drew close, until at last the massive Academy moved into view.

They grew quiet as they slipped down to the massive bridge and crossed it warily. Scorio went first, chalk in hand, and when he saw movement at the great, tumbled house at the bridge’s far end, he froze.

The massive toad reared up into view and then froze as well.

Nobody moved. Finally, the toad took a careful step backward. “Friends,” it croaked. “Favorite friends. Pass.”

“A trick?” asked Leonis, sotto voce.

“Don’t think so,” said Scorio, walking forward once more. “Friends!” he called out.

“Favorite friends,” repeated the toad, its voice warbling nervously, then it slipped back out of view.

“I’m not sure I believe him,” said Naomi as they circled out wide to avoid the ruined house, nobody taking their eyes off its darkened interior.

Scorio sharpened his darkvision and probed at the cracks, until the black shadows revealed the toad squirming its way back into what looked like a basement level.

“I’m not complaining,” said Leonis. “It clearly learned its lesson the last time it tangled with us.”

“Because having an Emberling with us has nothing to do with it,” said Lianshi.

“Coincidence, surely.” Leonis broke into a light run along the shattered street till it gave way to another gulf. Together they climbed onto a rough rubble-strewn field of a rooftop. Moved along ledges and across the facades of gutted towers till at last, they dropped back down before the Academy itself.

Rather than press Naomi about whether she’d accompany them further, Scorio led the way up the broad, cracked steps to the Academy’s grand entrance, till they stood amidst the collapsed portico before the huge, battered doors.

“We should enter through the side as before,” said Lianshi. “No sense in trying to force these doors open.”

“Doesn’t it grate upon you to enter like a mouse, through an errant crack?” Leonis craned his head back to take in the full height of the bronze doors. “As Great Souls, it’s more fitting for us to—”

“Wait,” said Naomi, the tension in her voice causing all three of them to snap their gazes toward her. “What’s that?”

She was pointing into the distance, across the length of Bastion, their high vantage point giving them a perfect view of the city in its entirety and the opening to hell at its very end.

Scorio’s gaze was drawn to that circular portal, which had shone an alluring blue, betraying a cerulean sky that had always felt right.

But now the sun-wire’s distant anchor, held in place by three great bridges, was being engulfed by undulating shadows. Great tendrils were creeping in ahead of a vast cloud that blotted out the sky.

“Is—is that Coal mana?” asked Lianshi, stepping up alongside him.

“No,” said Naomi, voice tense. “I mean, I don’t think so.”

“Fiends?’ Leonis took a few steps toward it. “Is Bastion under attack?”

“Could be.” Naomi licked her lower lip nervously, her brow furrowed.

They all did the same. Watched as an ocean of shadow slowly flooded into Bastion, causing the far end of the sun-wire to dim, entering an artificial First Rust, then darker yet to First Clay, then its very terminus disappearing altogether.

“Should we get back to the Academy?” asked Lianshi, glancing at Naomi.

“It doesn’t look like it, but it’s coming in fast,” said Scorio.

“But it’s not filling the whole city,” said Leonis. “See? It’s moving through the air but not smothering everything.

Like ink dropped into water, the darkness unfurled into countless gyres, its pushing edge thin and ethereal, its heart impenetrable. But it wasn’t flooding out to press against the buildings that encircled the sun-wire. Instead, it projected ever farther into the sky, spearing out alongside and around the sun-wire, enveloping it in places and in others furling around it.

“Look,” whispered Naomi, raising her hand to point. “In the center. Do you see that?”

Scorio squinted, sharpened his darkvision, but it didn’t help against the cloud’s darkness. For a long moment they simply stared, straining, and then he saw.

A dot emerged from the growing cloud’s heart and moved to the fore, arms extended out to its side, a cloak undulating behind it.

“Long hair,” whispered Lianshi. “Looks like a… woman?”

“Who…?” Leonis cleared his throat. “Who could do something like that?”

“Nobody I’ve ever heard of,” said Naomi, taking a step back. “Maybe… maybe a Charnel Duke? A Crimson Earl? I’ve… I’ve no idea. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The figure was drawing ever closer. Though she appeared to hover, unmoving in the air, in truth she was sweeping forward at a terrible speed, borne before the coiling cloud of night, her face resolving into a pale speck, her clothing so black as to cause her to blend in with the shadows around her.

Something within Scorio quailed at the sight of her. An intangible part of his being, wiser perhaps, more attuned to threats than his conscious mind. With every passing second, she drew closer, and the closer she drew the greater the pressure he felt mount upon his soul.

“Should we… it looks like she’s coming right for us,” said Lianshi, voice cracking. “Should we hide?”

“We should get out of the open,” said Naomi, tone decisive. “Come on!”

Scorio didn’t want to tear his gaze away from the figure. Others had risen into the air from different parts of the city—other Great Souls with the power of flight. But none of them were moving to intercept the dark stranger.

“Yes,” said Scorio, voice quiet, turning his body away from the approaching figure even as he kept his eyes locked on her. “Out of sight is good.”

They rushed around the side of the Academy toward the great tear in its walls and slipped into the welcoming darkness within.

For a moment Scorio felt relief at the coolness of the interior, but then his brow began to prickle with sweat and he found himself swallowing again and again. Losing sight of the woman was somehow even worse than watching her approach.

“We should move deeper into the Academy,” said Leonis, striding to the back of the large chamber.

“Should we check if she goes to ground somewhere else?” Lianshi had her arms crossed over her stomach. “How are we to know what’s happening?”

Impulsively, Scorio darted into the great rend in the wall and stared out over the city. He felt a sickening lurch in his gut as if the bottom had fallen out from his stomach at the sight of the woman. She was only a few hundred yards away now, flying toward them at the peak of a roiling pyramid of darkness that extended all the way back toward the far end of the city.

And she was staring right at him.

For a moment he could only stand there, a heavy weight crushing his chest, heartbeat slowing, turning sluggish, his breath catching in his throat. He stared at the woman, her gaze searing into his even at this distance, her beauty perilous, her hair and form looking to be half-shadow.

Her face was narrow, her cheekbones raw and prominent, her eyes ringed with darkness under arched brows. Her lips were full, painted a deep burgundy, but her skin was pallid to the point of looking unwell, the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks standing out starkly against her waxen skin.

But her eyes. They seized his attention and gripped him tight. Held him against his will, drained him of thought, of motive power. He felt like a rat, frozen before a serpent, cold spreading through his body, unable to do anything but watch her draw ever closer, her gown fluttering, her hair melding with her cloak and the greater darkness.

Terrible and beautiful, overwhelming and fey.

Someone gripped his arm and hauled him back. The moment he lost sight of her some measure of his sense of self returned, and he gasped, hands moving to his throat.

He’d ceased to breathe the entire time he’d looked upon her awful majesty.

“Run,” he rasped, struggling free of Leonis’s grip. “Run!”

He led them deeper into the Academy, fighting to not hyperventilate, jaw clenched, a terrible, sour taste in the back of his throat. Ran, not choosing which way he went, but simply fleeing, deeper and deeper into the old Academy.

She couldn’t be coming for them. For him. Who was she? What did she want? Why was she here?

These questions repeated themselves endlessly in his mind, a desperate patter that he couldn’t answer but couldn’t stop asking.

They tore through the hallways, leaped over fallen columns, took the detours around the collapsed rooms, until at last, they burst into the Aureate Hall. The light of First Bronze was filtering in through the cracks overhead, but even as they stepped toward the white, desiccated trees, the light wavered and began to darken.

“She’s overhead,” whispered Lianshi, hand rising to her mouth. “Is she following us?”

“No,” said Naomi. “She must want something with the Academy, or perhaps the Portal. We’re… it’s just an accident that we’re here.”

“Then we should hide,” said Scorio. “I don’t know who or what she is, but the less attention we draw the better.”

“Look,” said Leonis, gaze fixed on the ceiling. Tendrils of shadow were insinuating their way through the cracks, occluding them one by one, sinking like the roots of some ebon tree.

“Keep moving,” croaked Lianshi, rushing toward the giant-sized doors. “Come on!”

Wordlessly they fled across the Aureate Hall, the light dimming with each passing moment, and through the crack in the doors into the massive basilica beyond.

“What if we hide in the Gauntlet?” asked Scorio, leading the way between the biers. “Wait this out in there?”

“Not a bad idea,” said Naomi. “Though if she wrecks this place, we could be trapped there for eternity.”

“Or till we die and return to the Archspire,” said Leonis moving out wide, palm ghosting over the surface of each bier he passed as he frowned up at the huge dome overhead.

“Return to that thing?” Naomi pointed to the collapsed Archspire. “Good luck.”

Darkness stole over the windows that ringed the base of the domes, suffusing the cracks, so that in moments it felt as if night had fallen. Scorio sharpened his darkvision, heart pounding.

“You feel that?” Lianshi’s voice was a whisper. “Something’s… something’s imminent.”

Then the base of the dome high above them began to warp. Scorio had half-expected windows to burst in, for huge blocks of stone to be demolished and sent falling to the ground below, but what happened was far, far stranger.

The inner curve of the dome began to move as if it were coming alive, blocks protruding and shifting around, delicate arches emerging and then splitting off to brace against the lower segments of wall, ornamental windows and inverted stairways blossoming into existence as a hole to the sky outside opened, at first just the size of a fist, then quickly expanding, the dome retreating from that point, restructuring itself till at last a portal stood in the heart of a profusion of mad architecture.

Scorio pressed back against a bier, jaw clenched, breathing strenuously through his nose, and could only stare as the woman descended through the hole, one knee raised, her black hair undulating about her face, cloak melding with the shadows about her.

None of them spoke. The weight of her presence was suffocating, as if iron bands were tightening around his chest. He stared, transfixed, as she slowly floated down, the shadows writhing behind her.

But her attention wasn’t on Scorio or his friends. Instead, she frowned at the ruined Archspire, and in her displeasure, Scorio saw the promise of annihilation.

She extended her hand and shadows streamed forth to wrap around the fallen segment, wreathing and lifting it up into the air.

Chunks fell away, dust and broken rock, but it rose, all twenty yards of it, to float before the woman. She frowned at it, her dark-rimmed eyes narrowing, burgundy lips pursing.

“This? This is what called me here?”

Then her gaze slid over to where the four of them huddled, her focus falling upon them, and Scorio had to bite back a groan as his knees buckled under the weight of her regard. It felt as if a ponderous cloak of lead had suddenly been draped over his shoulders, as if the air had grown too thick to breathe.

None of them replied. Scorio gritted his teeth as he forced himself to straighten, thoughts shattered.

But then she curled her extended hand into a fist, and even without summoning his Heart Scorio felt the mana blaze from the ragged tip of the standing part of the Archspire, a vast upwelling that blazed into the air and flew into the woman’s palm.

Her hair whipped back and forth as if she stood in a powerful headwind, but her expression didn’t otherwise change.

“The Portal hasn’t opened.” Her tone was almost dreamy, distracted. “Hope dies. What could be crueler? What greater torment? The shaft of light in the darkness. A final gasp.”

Fighting for focus, Scorio summoned his Heart and immediately saw the potency of the mana that flowed into the woman’s palm. It was clear, like fast-flowing water, only detectable for how it distorted the light around it. He’d never seen anything like it. And still, it poured into her, such power he couldn’t begin to comprehend how it didn’t burn her alive.

Six figures dropped down through the black cloud, shadows trailing after them as they sank into view, and Scorio felt his chest flutter with profound relief.

Six men, but five of which were all Pyre Lord Praximar, each independent of the others, their gazes taking in the entirety of the basilica but always returning to the woman. His expression was universally one of intense concentration and concern; his five sets of pale blue eyes glimmered with focus as he came to a stop, fine clothing rippling as if he, too, floated in a powerful wind.

The sixth man was brutish and stolid in comparison to the five reflections, bald and with a granite-like visage. His heavy hands were curled into fists, his chin lowered, his lipless mouth pressed into a tight seam. Scorio had seen him on the stage—the briefest glimpse—but his power and authority were obvious. He gazed at the woman with an inscrutable intensity of his own.

“Imperator Imogen, you honor us,” called out one of the Praximar reflections.

“We had no warning that you intended a visit,” continued another seamlessly, “or we would have prepared a lavish reception and banquet in your honor.”

A third continued, “It has been many long years since we’ve heard of your wondrous accomplishments. You would greatly honor Bastion and its every citizen and Great Soul if you agreed to enjoy our hospitality. We wish nothing more than to hear of your exploits and attend to your every need.”

The brutish man remained silent, a dour, powerful presence to the side.

Imperator, thought Scorio, mind reeling. The absolute pinnacle of power.

Imogen closed her hand into a fist, cutting off the influx of raw power, and turned at last to consider the new arrivals. For a moment she swayed, her head dipping as if overcome by an inner turmoil; then her head arose once more, and she gazed at the men with a disdainful dignity that put their own poise to shame.

“I thought the Portal had begun to open.” Her voice was rich, husky, and though she spoke softly Scorio had no difficulty in hearing her. “I flew here, my heart beating gladsome blood. But now I find it closed as before. The way to Ettera as dead as ever.”

Praximar’s faces reflected a dozen rapid, minute changes as he processed these words, and now all five of his reflections bowed low. “We feel your grief, for every Great Soul lives in hope of seeing our grand—”

Imogen spoke over him, her soft voice cutting him off as easily as a guillotine. “But I find myself wondering: doors can be opened from both sides. One need not wait to be invited. Are we not worthy? I am here, and I find that my desire has not wavered.”

She raised her hand, examining it thoughtfully as flecks of shadow writhed about her palm and fingers. “Perhaps I shall knock. Perhaps I shall see if we are heard on the far side. And if no one attends…”

Praximar visibly paled. “Esteemed Imperator, I am thrilled at your suggestion and wish to discuss it with you further. We can retire to the finest quarters that House Hydra can provide, and there discuss this at leisure—”

Imogen extended her palm toward the far wall, and a dark fog began to stream toward it from her hand. Silently, at a scale Scorio couldn’t fathom, the entire side of the basilica’s huge chamber began to change.

Cyclopean blocks pushed out and slid across, the balconies rippled like huge centipedes, windows widened, the dead vegetation that wreathed everything multiplied and spread over the stones as they moved, spread apart, and in seconds an opening appeared.

Through which Scorio saw the huge Portal at the very end of Bastion, that giant circle in whose center the sun-wire was anchored, the light of First Bronze pouring in until the shadows arose higher to mute it down to a ruddy Clay.

“Imperator!” Praximar’s voice rang with alarm. “Please! Let us not be hasty! This is forbidden for reasons as various as they are wise! Please—”

Scorio saw desperation on the older man’s face. Bleak panic.

Imogen ignored him completely. The basilica’s side continued to peel open, the huge dome remaining stable far above them even as it lost key structural supports.

“Time to retreat,” growled the brutish man. “We can’t handle this alone.”

The Praximars bit their lower lips then gave a jerky nod. One of them glanced down and saw Scorio and his friends. His head jerked back, then he extended his hand to them, fingers closing and arm hauling back as if on a great fishing net, and Scorio felt himself lift off the ground.

He stifled the cry of alarm and saw that his companions were also flying up swiftly, ten, twenty, thirty feet off the ground in a matter of moments.

Imogen ignored them still, her attention on the ever-widening hole.

She didn’t turn as Scorio and his friends each flew into one of Praximar’s reflections and took their place.

The Praximar that had floated where Scorio now hovered disappeared, and he found himself locked into its spot. It was the strangest sensation—he didn’t stand on anything, there was no familiar sensation of weight, but rather simply hung in nothingness, suspended as if underwater.

“You’re right,” whispered the sole remaining Praximar. “We’ve pushed our luck already.” And together the six of them flew straight up into the roiling clouds of shadow.