Chapter 7

“These warrens were designed as a lure, see,” said Havert, walking ahead of Scorio with his rake propped over one shoulder, the contents of the leather sack glowing through the rough stitchwork, a crude lantern stuffed with moss hanging from the far end and illuminating their passage. “Bastion’s not what it used to be. Hasn’t been for centuries, we reckon. Every now and then it gets attacked, and things get through. Perhaps once long ago those things would be hunted and exterminated, but Salamander says a good third of the city’s gone to the dogs. Collapsing. Those fiends, they go to ground in the ruins, worm their way down into the cracks. Infest the city like fleas on a dead dog.”

Hestia brought up the rear, rake folded in two and slung across both shoulders, her hands resting over the haft as if she were in stocks. “You’ve a way with words, Havert.”

The other man ignored her. “Anyways, years ago, someone smart designed this place and put something here that draws the fiends. Big and small. Like a drain. They come and gather at the Brass Door, and when it opens, in they rush, and get trapped.”

Scorio nodded but made no comment. They’d been walking for a while now, and he was starting to feel hot, his brow feverish.

“Not too long ago, someone decided this was a good way of disposing of Great Souls.” Havert’s voice grew bitter. “This way they don’t get blood on their hands. Sal says they’re afeared of earning a Red Lister’s wrath. That we’d come back in the next life and remember who killed us, and exact our revenge.”

“Doesn’t make much sense to me,” said Hestia softly. “I don’t remember anything.”

“How does Sal know all this?” asked Scorio. “Has he set his Igneous Heart on fire? Does he have… powers?”

“Nah,” said Havert, tone expansive, confident. “All of us were thrown in here within hours of incarnating. No time to learn anything. Sure, we’ve tried to figure it out, but we’ve gotten nowhere. But Sal says there was another fellow here when he was first thrown in, someone who’d come into the warrens on purpose, like, through the Brass Door—mad as that sounds—and stayed a while before leaving again. An explorer, called himself Radert. Explicated to Sal a bunch of things, and said he’d come back one day for him soon.”

“Never did,” said Hestia.

“Not yet, at any rate.” Havert sniffed loudly. “And Sal’s grown tired of waiting.”

“If this place floods with… fiends… every week, how are you all still alive? How have you survived for years down here?”

Havert glanced back to wink at Scorio. “Probably something to do with us being formidable Red Listers.”

“That, or the hideout that’s been in use for who knows how long,” said Hestia. “They’ve been throwing Red Listers in here for centuries, looks like. Over time, folks fortified a cave. Figured out where they could get water, how to harvest enough food to scrape by if there weren’t too many of us.”

“How many are you?” asked Scorio.

“Four,” said Hestia, tone tinged with regret. “Which hasn’t been enough for Salamander’s plan, but with you here…”

“And what’s his plan?”

Havert cut in before Hestia could answer. “He’ll tell you himself if he judges you fit to take part. He’s mighty possessive of his plan. Might cancel it in a fit of pique if we steal his thunder. Anyways, we’re almost there. The warrens are pretty small, all things considered. Mostly a bunch of dead ends.”

“Tell me about it,” said Scorio ruefully. “I must have stumbled down all of them before finding the stream. But one more question, if you don’t mind. If every month a fresh batch of fiends are let in here, where are they now? I’ve only seen the Lasher. Nothing else.”

“They’re all gone by the end of the month,” said Havert, as if that explained everything. “They start to die off once the Brass Door closes. Takes a few weeks, but even the biggest ones wither up. Don’t know why. Part of what makes this place a trap for them, I suppose. That and they tend to eat each other if they can’t get their claws on us. Anyways, here we are.”

He turned into a short, broad tunnel that terminated in a landslide. Heavy boulders had tumbled down along with a great flood of rocks, stones, pebbles, and sand, all of which blocked passage completely.

“Watch this,” said Havert, grinning at Scorio as he set his rake down and moved over to the left side. “Looks like a dead end, don’t it? You’d walk right by, as do all the fiends. But it was all carefully set up ages before we got here, and the trick’s been passed down. See this rock here? It’s not bearing any load at all. Clever, hey? All it takes a good shove, and it slides right in.”

Havert got down on one knee and set his shoulder to a rock whose surface was covered in scratch marks. He gave a grunt as he pushed, and the rock slid inward as if on a greased track to reveal a faint blue glow within.

“When we’re all inside, we shore it up,” said Hestia, taking up Havert’s rake as the other man crawled inside. “Occasionally we hear things trying to figure out why our smells lead here, but they die off before they can get inside.”

“So you just hunker down until the fiends die,” said Scorio, nodding. “I see. Smart.”

“It’s worked thus far,” said Hestia, crouching down to pass the rakes through the hole. “Go ahead. I’ll go last so I can close the door.”

Scorio crawled inside. The passage was tight and wormed a good four yards through heavy rocks that were rigidly supported by wooden beams and struts. He got a queasy feeling as he contemplated what might happen if one of the beams gave way, but then he emerged into a large cavern that had clearly been inhabited for a long time.

Lanterns made from rusted wire filled with luminous moss were placed strategically on stone shelves or hung from hooks in the ceiling, their blue light casting a subtle, dreamlike glow over the cave. Ledges had been carved out of the walls on which roughly stuffed pallets were laid, and rickety chairs were set about a central table cunningly wrought from driftwood on which a checkered board was placed, crudely crafted pieces arranged in some manner of game. A small firepit was set against a soot-stained wall, and over it hung a shallow stone bowl that might have served as a primitive cauldron.

But it was the walls that drew Scorio’s attention—they were daubed in vibrant, luminous murals that glowed with various colors: the blue of the moss, a deep, smoldering red, a rich green, and a pale yellow that was nearly white. Every inch of the cave’s interior was decorated with complex interweaving and geometric patterns. These were interspersed with full-sized figures in various poses, the quality of their composition ranging from crude to skilled, as if various artists had worked on the walls over the years. Here and there Scorio saw monsters portrayed, with one clearly being a Lasher, its tendrils extended from a bright blue stream to entrap a hapless man.

A cadaverous man with skin the color of old bone and a stringy beard rose warily from his chair. His hair hung in twisted ropes past his shoulders, and his smile revealed missing teeth.

“Havert, my boy, what’ve you got for me, eh?” The man approached cautiously, obliquely, studying Scorio out of the corner of his eyes. “A newcomer?”

“Found him sleeping by the Little Stream,” said Havert, taking the rakes over to one side where a bundle of them were laid across brackets. “He killed a Lasher with his bare hands. Was sleeping.”

“Killed a Lasher, did he? Well, that’s grand, that’s most impressive, a true warrior I see, a blessing to us all. What’s your name, warrior? I’m Salamander, or so I style myself, for I’ve chosen not to use the name they gave me, the name, you see, that’s to blame for all my woes.”

The man was eager, yet still, he stood half-turned away, moving his hands over each other as if washing them without water. His neck seemed permanently bent, or perhaps it was his back that was hunched, and the lines of his skull were visible right beneath his creased skin.

“A pleasure, Salamander. My name’s Scorio.” Despite feeling wretched, Scorio forced himself to stand tall and smile. “Thank you for taking me in.”

“Ah, a right gentleman! See how polite he is, Nissa? You could stand to learn a lesson from him.”

A woman had sat up on one of the higher ledges. Her straight hair appeared green in the blue light, and her expression was grave, her gaze direct, almost hollowed out. As if she’d been running a race all her life, and could no longer understand what it was she was chasing.

“Dream on, Sal,” she said, voice husky. “You’ll get my respect back when you earn it.”

“Ah, she wounds me, she cuts me to the bone. But pay her no heed, stranger. Through the Final Door you’ve come, hey? Cast away like so much trash. Not given a chance to plead your case, or explain that you and yours never did none of the things you were accused of, am I right?”

Scorio followed Salamander’s beckoning to join him at the table, and sat gratefully. “That’s right. The same happen to you all?”

“That’s why we’re here,” said Nissa, studying him intently. “One and all.”

“Criminals, monsters, creators of death and destruction,” said Salamander, waving a claw of a hand. “Oh, how they fear us. Yet what is there to fear? Do we look like the engineers of doom? Trapped here in our fanciful little den, whiling away the years as we await our inevitable death at the fangs of some terrible beast?”

Hestia moved over to a large cistern and emptied her heavy waterskin into it; Havert then did the same.

“I was told you had a plan,” said Scorio carefully. “That there might be a way out of here.”

Salamander’s eyes narrowed and he whipped around to glare at the other two, but they both studiously ignored him.

“I might have a plan, I might at that. But.” And at this, he looked back to Scorio, still keeping his body turned away. “It’s a desperate stratagem. You, being so freshly arrived, might not be willing to gamble so freely with your life.”

Scorio laughed. “You’ve been here five years?”

Salamander nodded reluctantly.

“Then I’ve no desire to wait as long before deciding to leave. If you’ve a plan, I’d like to hear it.”

“Determined,” mused Salamander, rubbing at his wispy beard. “Brave and bold. Ready for adventure. Ignorant, too, though that’s not his fault. Tell me, is old Praximar still the chancellor? Or has he finally choked on his pride and died a fitting death?”

“Pyre Lord Praximar,” said Scorio softly. “Yes. He’s the bastard who ordered me thrown down here.”

“And me,” said Nissa dully. “After attacking my soul.”

“Me too,” said Hestia, and Havert just raised a hand.

“Myself as well,” hissed Salamander, his voice seething with anger. Unable to control himself, he leaped to his feet and began to pace, walking always obliquely, as if constantly changing his mind about where he wished to go. “There I was upon my bejeweled bower, a naive, innocent, yes, even hopeful youth, and when the Archspire spat out its hateful lies, oh, the pleasure he took in destroying my life…”

“Peace, Sal,” said Nissa, her voice toneless.

“Yes, yes.” Sal stopped before a portrait on the wall, and Scorio realized it was a remarkably well-drawn portrait of the chancellor, a caricature that emphasized his every defect. “But no matter. The past is dead, is it not? It is the future that concerns us. Tell me, Scorio, you are truly willing to risk it all on the harebrained scheme of a stranger?”

Scorio sat back carefully, unsure if the rickety chair would bear his weight. He felt flushed and sweat ran down his back. His wrist throbbed, the various cuts along his arms and legs burned, and the dull ache that the chancellor had inflicted upon him yet throbbed. “What choice do I have? Tell me your plan.”

“The Brass Door,” whispered Sal, pulling at his wispy beard and moving to another segment of the wall where a great crimson door was painted. “So massive it might as well be painted on stone. The means by which the fiends enter our warren, and having entered, are unable to pass out once more.”

“Right,” said Scorio, forcing himself to focus. “You’ve a way to open it?”

“That I do,” said Sal, eyes gleaming as he grinned. “Force multiplication. A pretty problem. My old friend was able to open the door with his native might, but we mere Chars, without our Igneous Hearts aflame, why, we must settle for native wit.”

Hestia sat heavily on one of the lower ledges and pulled off a boot. “He’s come up with a way to open the doors using ropes and wheels. It’s actually pretty brilliant.”

“Ropes and wheels? Ropes and wheels?” Sal darted across the floor to where Hestia sat and raised his hands as if to strike her. “I’ll give you ropes and wheels, you—you—!”

Hestia ignored him, and after a moment he relaxed and turned back to Scorio. “But yes.” He sniffed. “Pulleys. A natural means of lifting great weight.”

Scorio wiped the sweat from his brow. Getting the man to speak felt like digging in hard clay. “Hestia said the four of you weren’t enough. You need a fifth to lift the door?”

“Even with six wheels, we cannot do it, no.” Sal slumped back down into his seat. “I’d devise more, but there’s not enough rope. But if you are willing to help, we can raise the Brass Door, or attempt to, and if your strength is insufficient, why, we can cannibalize the last of our clothing to make more rope, and I’ll devise more blocks, and we’ll make our escape as naked as the day we were born.”

“Then let’s pray Scorio’s strength is sufficient,” said Nissa.

“But what lies on the other side?” asked Scorio. “A way to the surface?”

“Supposedly,” said Sal, expression turning dour. “But my old friend said you first had to descend before you could climb, and that the way was too perilous for him to bring me with him. So…”

“So he has no idea,” said Nissa flatly. “But anything’s better than sitting in this cave for another year.”

“You’ve been here but three,” said Sal. “You don’t have the right to complain till it’s been at least four.”

“One is plenty,” said Hestia, voice almost inaudible. “My gums bleed. My strength is almost gone.”

Havert sighed and plonked down next to her. “And if I have to eat stewed mushrooms and rock beetle for another year, I’ll accidentally forget to close the cavern door.”

“I’m willing to help,” said Scorio firmly, or as firmly as he could manage. “I just need a rest. The Lasher’s bite… and what Praximar did to me… it’s all hitting me pretty hard.”

“Bite? Bite?” Sal leaped to his feet. “Is that why you are perspiring so freely? I thought you were shy, or overwrought!”

“You’re lying,” said Nissa. “You knew he was infected.”

“So if you’re satisfied,” said Havert, “give him the medicine before he keels over.”

Scorio bit back his own comments and watched as Sal bared his teeth at the other three. “Attacked from all sides. Where is the gratitude? Without me—”

“Yes, we know,” said Nissa. “So maybe heal him before we have to wait another year?”

Sal scowled at them all and stalked over to the little fire. Bending down, he shoved some dried moss onto the coals, which he blew on and coaxed back to life. He then ran his fingers lightly over several small stone cups that were arrayed on another carved ledge, and drew one down.

“Concentrated Lasher poison,” he said over his shoulder to Scorio. “Reduced to a powdered form, and then combined with a secret blend of herbs and extracts. It won’t be pleasant, but it will break the fever.”

“Concentrated poison?” asked Scorio. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“Trust him,” said Nissa. “It works. He won’t share the formula, but we’ve all had to use it at one time or another.”

Scorio nodded reluctantly and watched Sal as he tapped some powder into the stone bowl, then poured a beaker of water into it. Then, anxious as a brood hen, he set to stirring with a bone spoon, and finally tilted the stone bowl and poured a thick, noxious liquid into a small cup.

“Here,” he said, setting it down before Scorio. “The taste will curl your toes, but if you want to live, you’ll lick the cup dry and then ask for more.”

Scorio accepted the cup. A spoonful of ichor had collected at the bottom. Unsure, he glanced to Hestia, who gave a subtle nod.

“He doesn’t trust me!” cried Sal, throwing up his hands and looking stricken. “I offer him the fruits of my wisdom, and he—”

“Sal!” Nissa’s voice had risen to a bark. “Enough! He doesn’t know you.”

“That’s right,” said Hestia, voice placating. “This’ll be where he learns to respect you and your talents. We all have to begin somewhere, don’t we?”

Sal frowned down at Scorio. “Perhaps.”

Scorio raised the cup to him. “You have my thanks. Truly.” And then he drained the ichor to its last drop.

His whole body did its level best to reject the antidote, spasming and causing him to gag. But through sheer bloody-mindedness, he forced it down, then did lick the stone cup, grimacing and coughing the whole time.

“Well done,” said Sal stiffly, taking the cup back. “Now you’d best go lie down before you collapse. Just like everything in life, it’ll get worse before it gets better.”

Scorio nodded, forced himself to dry swallow once more, then rose shakily to his feet.

“Here,” said Hestia, patting the ledge she’d been sitting on and moving away. “You can have mine.”

“Be a little less transparent, won’t you?” asked Havert.

Hestia looked mortified. “I wasn’t even—”

“Peace, you two. I swear.” Nissa shook her head tiredly. “True freedom is being alone.”

Scorio staggered over to the ledge and sat heavily. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank us,” said Sal, slipping back onto his stool. “You are both a source of novelty and a means of effecting our escape!”

“Seeing as old Radert never showd up to help,” muttered Hestia

“Radert,” repeated Scorio, as if seizing onto a lifeline. “Your old friend?”

“Seems there’s nothing sacred left in this old world,” sneered Sal, glaring at Hestia. “But yes. An old and dear friend of mine. What of it?”

“He… had he lit his Igneous Heart?”

“He had.” Sal drew himself up. “But that’s privileged information. I don’t share it with anyone. He told me in confidence.”

“Might as well give up, Scorio,” said Nissa, drumming her heels idly on the ledge’s side. “Sal guards information on Radert like a Lasher does a stream bed.”

Havert tamped some mulched fiber into his cheroot leaf and set to carefully rolling it. “Radert the Mighty. Radert the All-Knowing. Radert the Wise.”

“Radert the Missing,” sneered Nissa.

“Something happened,” said Sal, darting angry looks at them both. “He swore he’d come back, and he would have, if he could. You’ll see. When we get out, I’m sure we’ll find out the why of it.”

“Radert with his magical toys,” said Hestia, but her tone was wistful, half-longing. “I don’t really care if he’s real or not. I just like hearing about him. We’ve so little to talk about, down here.”

Scorio was shivering now, despite his rising fever. “Magical toys?”

“None of your business,” snapped Sal, turning away.

Havert rose and walked to the fire, where he crouched to touch the tip of his cigar to the coals. “A magical bridge that could reach the sky when you spoke the right word. An enchanted piece of chalk that drew invisible walls—”

“Silence!” snarled Sal, whipping back around, eyes gleaming.

“A rod that once activated couldn’t be moved by all the forces in Bastion and hell,” said Hestia dreamily, leaning back on both arms.

“That is privileged information!” Sal rose to his feet, his whole frame shaking in rage. “I shared it with you under the strictest confidence!”

“Scorio’s one of us now,” said Havert, placing the cheroot between his lips and inhaling rapidly over and over again till the tip began to burn cherry red. That done, he took it out, narrowed his eyes, and blew out a plume of oily smoke. “If he’s going through the Brass Door, he ought to be able to hear our bedtime stories, right?”

“Wrong,” said Sal coldly. “Don’t disappoint me further, Havert, or I’ll leave you behind.”

“No, you won’t,” said Havert calmly, moving back to his seat. “Unless you’re willing to wait another year.”

“Easy,” said Nissa from above. “Easy, Havert. Ease up.”

Sal glowered at Havert, then turned around again to face the wall.

It had to be tough, having nowhere to go and get away from each other, thought Scorio, finally allowing himself to topple over and curl up on the ledge.

“Don’t vomit all over the cave,” said Sal testily. “You’ll waste the cure if you do.”

“Deep breaths.” Hestia sounded strangely hollow. “You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

Havert’s voice seemed to come from a world away. “Enjoy the fever dreams. I sometimes take a pinch of the stuff just to make the week go by faster.”

Scorio faced the wall. His insides were burning. It felt like the antidote was scouring away everything but his ribs.

“Hestia,” he heard Nissa say. “Get him a wet cloth. He’s going to be burning up soon. And with what Prax did to him, he’ll have no defenses.”

He closed his eyes, tucked his hands under his chin, and drew up his knees as his body began to shake.

Scorio thought dimly of Leonis and Lianshi. Of that vast basilica, the Archspire, and the promise of power and freedom.

It all seemed a lifetime ago.

A hand rested gently on his shoulder. “It’s all right. You’ll get through this. You’re going to be fine.”

* * *

When Scorio finally awoke, it felt as if two weeks had passed. An age spent floundering in fever dreams that he mercifully couldn’t recall. There’d been a sense of someone talking to him as he’d tossed about upon the ledge and pressing a cool, wet cloth to his brow. The luminous scrawling upon the cavern walls had taken on a nightmarish urgency, pulsing as if they were veins carrying riotous colors across the inside of the cavern’s body.

Scorio sat up. The fever had broken. His wrist was no longer inflamed, the puncture wounds had scabbed over, and he was able to clench his hand into a fist without much pain.

“You’ll be thirsty,” said Nissa, walking over with a stone cup.

“That I am, thank you.” Scorio took the cup and drained it dry. Before he could ask for another, Nissa smiled wryly and gave him the one she’d been holding in her other hand.

“Thanks,” he managed when he finally came up for air, his stomach pleasantly filled with the cool, mineral-tasting water. “How long was I out?”

“Time’s hard to reckon down here,” she said, bringing over a large bowl of some lumpen, milky-looking gruel. She handed it to him and sat at the end of the ledge. She was lean, raw-boned, face pale to the point of unnatural pallor. It made her stark blue eyes all the more striking. “We generally adopt the same sleeping shift and use that as a measure of time. Whether it’s day or night upstairs we’ve no idea.”

“I see,” he said, shoveling the gruel into his mouth. His tongue was still scalded by the antidote, which he supposed was a blessing. “You’ve been here three years?”

“Yes.” There was an immensity of loss and resignation in that word, as if she’d exhausted a well of rage years ago. “Feels much longer though.”

“I bet. But it looks like we might be getting out?”

“If we can open the Brass Door.” She paused and studied her hands, lips pursed, then sighed. “If so, we’ll leave the warren behind. But the odds of actually reaching the surface? Not so great. And then I catch myself thinking, how large is Bastion? A thousand souls? Ten thousand? Fifty? We’ve no idea. How hard will it be to hide out there? What kind of life are we going to live? Will we be fugitives forever, or might we be able to start an actual life without being caught and thrown back in here?”

“I don’t know,” said Scorio at last. Her gaze was striking, mesmerizing in its intensity. “But anything’s better than being down here, right?”

She stood up. “You’re right about that. Come on. If you’re up to it, I’m to take you to the Brass Door. Sal’s already setting up.”

Scorio stretched, then climbed off the ledge and stood. He felt stiff and ravenous but otherwise fine. “Setting up?”

“His contraption. He can’t leave it out or the fiends’d destroy it.” She moved to where a heavy pack was set against the wall. “If everything’s in place, we might make a go of it tonight. If we leave it any later, there’d probably be too many fiends waiting on the other side.”

“Because they’re drawn here? By the lure Havert spoke of?”

She lifted the pack with wiry strength and slipped it over one shoulder. “It’s a theory. For all we know, the cave beyond the door fills with fiends the moment the door closes. But Sal thinks it slowly accumulates monsters, which means tonight’s our best bet. The last wave’s threats have died off, but there’s still a couple of weeks till the door opens again. Happy balance between safety and the numbers waiting for us outside.”

Scorio moved over to a second pack that had been set aside for him. “And if we run into trouble?”

“We’ve got these.” She moved to a rack set by the entrance. “Nothing very durable or effective, but they’re better than using our nails and teeth.”

Scorio hauled the pack on, then stepped over to examine the motley collection of weapons. There was no denying how primitive they were. Bone daggers and clubs made out of large rocks lashed to femurs, mostly, with a few curved spears that would never fly true.

He hefted a club. The grip was made of interwoven plant fibers, the bone larger than any man’s, and the stone at the top heavily ridged and the size of his fist. He gave it a few experimental swings, and found it top-heavy; it whipped around easily but was hard to control.

“All set?” Nissa asked.

“Let’s do it.”

She led the way through the narrow exit chute and out into the tunnel. There they spent a moment strapping on their packs, and with weapons in hand, they headed out.

For a while they walked in silence, Nissa taking the turns without hesitation, but then she glanced back at him, her face illuminated a radiant blue by her moss-lantern. “What were you accused of? By the Archspire?”

“Accused of? You mean my previous self?” For a moment Scorio felt reluctant to answer, but he couldn’t think of a reason not to. Whomever that person had been, it wasn’t the man he was today. “I was called The Scourer. Lord of… Nagaman? Nagaran? The Quencher of Hope, Unmaker of Joy… it went on for a bit. Bringer of Ash and Darkness. That kind of thing.”

“Impressive.” She looked ahead once more. “I was merely the Flayer of Men.”

“Nissa the Flayer of Men?”

“Yeah.” She raised her lantern, illuminating a narrow side tunnel, and stepped into it. “I’ve thought about it a lot, over the years. Why did I flay men? How many must I have flayed to become known for it? Who gave me that name? Did I choose it, or was it thrust upon me by my enemies?”

“The chancellor said there were histories. That some of us have kept journals over the years. Maybe the answer’s out there.”

“Maybe. Don’t think the academy will give me access to their records, though.”

Their footsteps echoed about them, and then she sighed and lowered her lantern so that it hung down by her knee. “It was just me and Sal for two years at first. He wasn’t quite so… himself, yet, at that point. But by the time Hestia and Havert showed up, I was about ready to find my own corner of the warren. They helped a lot, but there’s only so much folks with no past can talk about before running out of conversation.”

She slowed, came to a stop, staring down at the ground. “Only so much speculating about the same things you can do before you begin to hate the sound of your voice. But even death’s no escape, knowing that we’ll simply be reborn within a year or two and thrown back down here.” She turned to stare at him sidelong. “You know what’s the worst thing I found down here?”

“What?”

“A name. Carved in rock. Below a hundred others. All of them… my own. The oldest one is barely legible.” She stared morosely at the ground. “I kept debating whether to add my name again to the bottom.”

Scorio studied her, horrified. “Did you?”

She didn’t seem to hear him, and after an extended pause Scorio cast about for something else to ask. “I last died over two hundred years ago. What about you?”

“Two hundred years?” She blinked as if awakening from a dream. “Are you—of course you’re sure. That’s… I mean, the longest delay I heard was twenty years. And I got to hear several hundred have their information announced first.”

Scorio scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know. Just what the Archspire told me.”

“Maybe it’s got something to do with all your titles. Mine’s short. So are those of the others.” She studied him, and her gaze was eager, hungry. Then a veil passed behind her eyes, hiding that moment’s enthusiasm, and she turned away. “Anyway, what I’ve been trying to tell you is…” She shook her head, frustrated, and resumed walking. “I’ve been waiting for a new arrival for some time. Someone new to talk to. But now you’re here and we’re going straight through the Brass Door, and everything feels so… futile.”

“How so?” Scorio strode after her, studied her back, the hunched shoulders, saw how emaciated she was. “We’re going to escape. Things could be just beginning.”

She looked back at him once more, her expression frank, bleak, verging on raw. “No, Scorio. There’s nothing waiting for us on the other side of the Brass Door but death. We’ve all convinced ourselves there’s a chance so that we don’t go mad. But Sal… when I first met him, when he was more… normal, more himself… he shared what his ‘friend’ had truly told him. Things he denies now, pretends to have never heard. That Chars like us—we simply don’t have the power, the abilities, to survive. It’s just a pity. A pity we won’t get to talk more before we go through. That’s all.”

And then she resumed walking into the darkness.

Scorio stopped and stared after her. She’d drawn away a dozen yards before he clenched his jaw and hurried after.