Chapter 78

Scorio paused before crossing through; took a moment to settle his emotions, to control his excitement, and gather Iron mana back into his Heart. It was wonderful to have his reservoir be so compact again. To be able to ignite it with ease. But that very facility spoke to the dangers that lay on the archway’s far side: he was now entering the Tomb Spark run of rooms, alone, and with a fractured Heart.

He had to play it careful.

When he felt ready, he pushed through the darkness and stepped out into a great sphere of a room. He stood at the sphere’s base, a circle of iron under his feet, and directly above him, some fifty feet over his head, lay the exit, a black circle incised into the roof of the room.

“What the hell?” muttered Scorio, staring up in alarm and dismay. Was he supposed to fly up there?

The sphere of course was dark, so he studied it with his darkvision, and saw that the walls weren’t perfectly curved; the sphere was a polygon, each facet six-sided, with facets than he could count.

He extended his senses and tried to pick up on invisible densities, any hint of danger in the room, and found… nothing. Was he supposed to run up the sides? Were only those Great Souls who could fly or leap supposed to pass this chamber?

Hesitant, curbing his frustration, he stepped out of his hexagon, placed his foot on the next facet, and immediately the whole sphere rolled. Or his own sense of internal balance changed—down became the facet onto which he’d stepped, while his iron hexagon seemed to have slid up the side of the sphere a step.

But more than that—the sphere came to life. A huge gout of pale, green liquid rivered forth from a facet on the sphere’s other side, undulating toward him at terrific speed as if waterfalling over the edge of a cliff. Scorio let out a cry and ran on, moving to the next facet, causing his center of gravity to shift again, just as the river of liquid poured itself into the facet on which he’d stood, the spray that came off it burning his skin and causing it to tingle as if frostbitten.

But more rivers of acid were pouring forth; wide-eyed, Scorio stared about himself, feeling trapped, as a dozen such torrents rushed across the inside of the sphere, sinking into their opposite facets and creating a three-dimensional maze before him. Turning, trying to keep track of every deluge, Scorio almost missed the one that erupted upward from under his own feet.

There was no time to leap aside; reflexively, he summoned his shroud directly beneath him and felt the gout of acid push him upwards, even as it sprayed out to the sides. The shroud protected him completely, acted as a board upon which he balanced as he flew across the room, propelled by the power of the jet.

And right into another one that was running perpendicular through the interior of the sphere. Scorio bit off a cry as he leaped off his shroud, more of a wild toppling to the side as he didn’t have perfect balance, and crashed down through the air, avoiding two other jets to land with a bone-jarring thud upon a new facet.

The whole sphere rolled to re-orient around him.

Wild-eyed, he shoved himself to his feet, saw that he was closer to the black facet than before. But now the dozen main jets that crisscrossed the sphere branched, each splitting halfway into three roving rivulets that poured across the far facets, splashing through each other, spraying the air with acid.

“You’ve got to be—” began Scorio, then broke into a run. He brought his heightened form forth, wanting the protection his scales afforded him, and shielding his head raced up the side of the sphere, which turned with him so that he seemed a rat in a wheel, racing but never going anywhere.

A stream of acid washed over him, and with a cry, he summoned his shroud again. The stream deflected right off, but he could feel his mana dropping precipitously. Another sprayed toward him, curling in as if on a leash, and with a grunt, he dove under it, but not quickly enough; he felt the acid wash over his shoulder, felt his scales begin to soften, their interstices to burn.

Up to his feet, gasping for breath, to sprint on, only to stumble and then back away as a jet rushed right at him. He spun aside and then summoned his shroud again as a third washed over him. The shroud deflected it once more, but just as he ran past the jet his Heart guttered out and died.

Four more facets to go. Trusting to his native athleticism, recalling his endless runs through the ruins, his morning sessions on the Academy track, Scorio dug deep into his reserves and bolted for the black segment. Two streams of acid crossed before him, coming at him like an “X,” and he dove over the apex of their intersection, hit the ground in a rough roll, and came up on his feet, only to careen into yet another gout.

The acid washed over his right arm, submerging it completely for a brief second, but it was enough; the scales lost definition, seemed to wilt, and pain stabbed into him in a latticework of flame.

His mind recoiled at the thought of what the acid would have done to his naked arm.

But there was no time for anything but one final leap. Scorio dove headlong into the black facet, punched through the portal, and emerged in a mad dive into the seventeenth chamber.

Mania had him by the throat; the pain was building back up in his arm, his hand, and he knew what it presaged: a slow, terrible decline in vitality, a loss of power, an inexorable fall into the abyss.

This time, though, he wanted none of that. He wanted to hold onto his newfound might for as long as he could, to fight with daring and fire, to wield his techniques and abilities with reckless abandon until he flared out in an explosion of blood and violence.

No creeping caution. No slow decline.

He was a Tomb Spark now. He would wield that might like a sledgehammer. He’d punch through whatever came his way or die trying.

The seventeenth chamber was a broad hallway, the air lambent with fluid light as if he were underwater. A subtle resistance worked against him, a pressure that constrained his movement.

Scorio stood still, back to the wall, chest heaving as he summoned his Heart. He went to reach for mana right as a great azure creature manifested beside him, shaped like a roughly circular rug, a wicked, spiny tail like a switch trailing behind. It streamed through the air, twin black eyes set in subtle ridges atop its upper side, and with a flurry it banked and swam away, bringing its tail to bear, whipping it through the unctuous air.

Instinct. Scorio swept Coal into his Heart and summoned his shroud just as a razor-sharp line of invisible force slashed against it. The parts that exceeded the shroud’s breadth cut past him, nicking the corner of his elbow, passing through flesh and bone as if they were a dream.

The shroud devoured the wisps of Coal in less than a second and disappeared.

Scorio filled his Heart with Iron and ran forth, straining against the resistance. With painful slowness he powered forward, sinking into that glimmering underwater domain, his weight lessened, the sensation such that he half-expected the ceiling to be the undulating, glimmering top of a tank.

More of the huge, strangely flattened beasts appeared in the ephemeral air; they faded in and out of sight, but each lashed at him with its tail as he struggled to run past them. The resistance infuriated him; he bared his teeth and strove for traction against the stone floor. Powered through, swinging his mantle back and forth, blocking slashes of invisible force mere moments before they would have gutted him.

The floor and walls behind him weren’t so fortunate; they were soon scored by deep gashes, a testament to the lethality of the attacks.

And then the creatures started swimming in behind him.

Cursing, Scorio slowed, considered trying to kill them. But he couldn’t even tell how many there were; they appeared and faded away as if swimming through columns of light.

No—he had to make the far wall. He plunged on, his Heart burning brightly, Iron venting furiously through the fractures, the shroud devouring what remained with horrific speed. The tender resistance in the air was just enough to reduce him to a strained jog. A flash of movement behind him, and he swung his shroud around, blocking the attack. A trickle of the force cut got past the bottom of the shield, however, and slashed through his foot. Another frantic flurry as a second beast banked and swam away as if affronted, and again Scorio brought his shroud around, parried the blast.

The wall was almost there. Slicked in sweat, gasping for breath, his muscles burning, he strove to reach it, shroud swinging about him as more attacks concentrated upon him.

And then his Heart died. How long had it lasted—ten seconds? Maybe less? It felt like an hour.

The creatures seemed to sense his weakness. They converged on him, emerging from their invisible realm to form a cyclone of swimming, flattened bodies about his own. Growling, his scales gone, his talons vanished, Scorio reached for the far wall. Sensed the azure fiends coordinate their attacks, their bodies as one pulling away, bodies rippling in a frantic explosion of activity, a score of barbed tails ripping around and unleashing their attacks.

So close. If he leaped, he just might make it, a tenuous chance, his need fever bright, his impatience clamping him like a fist—

But at the very last moment, he curbed his desire and dropped to the ground, falling flat, having to throw himself against the subtle resistance, a convulsive movement that slammed him against the stone as the force cuts flew over him.

The cyclone of flattened fiends fell apart, segments of their rug-like bodies falling away slowly, inky blood suffusing the air. Pain lashed across Scorio’s own body; he felt cuts etch themselves deeply across his back, his shoulders, his scalp; it felt like he’d taken a dozen lashes all at once, laying open his flesh, flaying him to the bone.

He wanted to lie there, tensed up, unable to scream, but instinct gripped him by the throat, worked his limbs as if he were a marionette, and with a terrible, frantic scramble he lurched forward and through the black archway as it appeared.

Eighteenth room. Or was it the nineteenth? Scorio didn’t know. The pain swamped him as if live, burning filaments of living flame worked deep into his flesh. He continued crawling, unable to stop moving forward, and then stopped, momentum abandoning him at last.

The hallway before him spun, or different segments of it did. It was divided into five bands, each a pentagon, each spinning slowly in a different direction at a variable speed, and on each, bonded to a side by localized gravity, stood a foe.

The result was like looking down into a grinder, some hellish contraption meant to turn flesh into meal.

Each of the five foes was a man, brutish and slope-shouldered, clad in a leather apron and leggings, clutching a massive cleaver attached to a three-foot-long pole. Their heads were covered in shapeless cloth masks, giving them something of the air of executioners, and they stood ready, weapons gripped in both hands.

“Damn,” hissed Scorio, pushing himself slowly, methodically, to his feet. He swayed, blood pouring down his back and the side of his face, soaking into his shredded robes, trickling down his calves. “Gentlemen.”

The five brutes shifted their weights as they rotated before him, and then as one, their forms were encased in an iridescent sheen, a thin film that caused them to glisten in Scorio’s darkvision.

“What is that?” He staggered, falling back against the iron wall. “You guys invulnerable like Lianshi?”

None of the brutes responded. They just spun on and on, revolving past each other, cleavers gripped in their ham hock hands, waiting with terrible patience.

“Damn it all.” Scorio forced himself off the wall. “At least you’re waiting for me. Mighty polite.”

With great deliberation, he set to sweeping Iron mana into his Heart, then paused. He’d not had the time before to consider it, but there was a new form of mana in the air. Brassy and bright, it fluttered and surged as if alive, twining about the staid Iron, more centered and denser than the ephemeral Copper, bright against the background Coal.

Bronze mana.

The power of a Tomb Spark.

Scorio blinked slowly, forced his eyes to focus. The revolving foes weren’t helping the sense of dizziness brought on by the pain and blood loss.

Bronze mana.

“Let’s try it,” he said, and reached forth his blood-smeared hand as if he could grasp the power directly.

At the same time, he swept the Bronze into his Heart. It was more pliable than the Iron, yet not nearly so flighty as the Copper. It required more work, however; Scorio was forced to lower his chin, clench his jaw, and truly focus to scoop the mana into his Heart.

But as it flowed into him, he felt its power radiate through his body, enhance his healing, felt the pain dull, its plangent ferocity blunted. More and more he swept the Bronze in, until he felt drunk on power. Delirious, his thoughts fluid, his body splitting into a duality, part pain and ruined tapestry of flesh, part exalted instrument of glory and destruction.

“There,” he whispered, blood pooling about his feet, his head hanging low so that he stared at his foes from under his brows. “Now I’m ready.”

And with a flexion of his will, he lit his Heart, and caused it to burn Bronze.

Ephemeral flames of gold rushed up in a sublime display of might. Strength coursed through him, washing the pain away like a flash flood might quench a flame. He breathed deeply, chest fully expanding, felt the ruined muscles and lacerated skin part as he did so, but barely registered the agony. Focused instead on how his Tomb Spark body was already beginning to heal, to staunch the flow of blood, to knit his shredded flesh together.

He went to raise his hand to summon his claws when a woman stepped past him, haggard, shoulder broken, black hair soaked in blood, to glare at the foes beyond.

The sight of Jova Spike was such a shock that Scorio’s heart lurched, and he drew back, confused, half-panicked, alarmed more by the sight of her than the five foes that awaited them both.

“What—?”

But he could see through her. She stood before him as if a ghost, looking like hell, looking as if she’d dragged herself through the last few encounters through sheer will alone. Her body was slashed, gored, torn, broken. She shouldn’t have been on her feet. And yet she was. Unbreakable, unyielding, she glared at the five foes, ignoring Scorio utterly.

“Jova?” he whispered.

She didn’t respond. Was he seeing into her private Gauntlet run? Was this an ability fueled by Bronze? Was the Gauntlet itself showing her to him for reasons of its own?

Helminth’s words came back to him: “Further, the Gauntlet will show the final moments of the Great Soul who makes it the farthest to those who reach the same chamber.”

Jova drew herself up and lurched forward, timing her attack just as a ghostly version of the first executioner rotated past her and up to the right. It slashed its brutal cleaver at her, and she swayed aside, almost more by accident than design, so that the cleaver missed her by an inch. Then, one arm shattered past all utility, the other hand pressed deep into a sucking wound in her side, she simply threw herself at the massive man and cracked her brow as hard as she could into his face.

The impact was shocking, the result explosive; the man’s head burst back, but the sheen seemed to have protected it from actual damage. But Jova wasn’t done. She slammed her shoulder into his while hooking the back of his leg with her calf. The trip was masterful, somehow elegant, and the executioner crashed to the ground, both Jova and him rotating up and around so that to Scorio they now seemed to stand against the wall.

Not hesitating, Jova dropped her knee into the man’s throat, crushing it. She paused there for a moment, the executioner scrabbling at her back with his hands, and only when he went limp did she slowly, painfully rise.

How the hell is she still moving? Wondered Scorio, aghast.

But move she did, seemingly at random, stepping into the second pentagon, right above the second executioner who raked his cleaver up at her. She took the blow, the huge blade sinking into her back, and reached up to clamp her gory hand upon the shaft. She began to walk around and down the pentagon to where the huge man was wrestling with his weapon, trying to tug it free of her body.

How was she moving with that hunk of metal embedded in her back? Why hadn’t she summoned her shroud?

Down she came, patient and deliberate as death, and when she was almost upon the man, she tightened her grip on the haft and jerked it down. The wood snapped. The blade came up and out of her back, six inches of wood beneath its metal head in Jova’s hand, and she brought it around in a brutal chop, sinking the weapon into the executioner’s head.

The glistening sheen seemed to prevent the blow from doing as much damage as it should have, but it was enough to knock the man off-balance; he staggered, and she kicked him in the chest, a forward thrust that was almost lethargic. But perfectly timed. The executioner fell off his segment, between his and the third pentagon, and was ground apart by the revolving stones.

“Damn,” whispered Scorio, eyes wide.

Jova stood there, heaving for breath, broken cleaver in her hand. The huge wound in her back, freshly dealt, seemed to blend in with the tapestry of other lacerations.

It should have killed her. Instead, she slowly, ever so slowly straightened, and turned to stare at the third executioner.

Scorio could have sworn the fiend blanched.

She hurled the cleaver at his head just as he passed her to the left, then staggered after it as the man deflected the weapon with upraised arms. Sank her shoulder into his broad midriff, an attempt at a tackle, perhaps, to knock him back and off his pentagon, but there wasn’t enough force behind the charge.

Jova looked so tired.

The executioner brought his elbow down upon her exposed back, but a shimmering layer of might appeared, at last, an inch above her torn flesh and protected her.

Her shroud.

The man’s elbow bounced off, but he brought it down again, and the shroud was no longer there; he drove Jova down to her knees, tossed aside his cleaver, seized her by the waist with both hands, then turned to heave her headfirst into the gap between the third and second segment.

“No!” Scorio took a half-step forward, blinked, and saw double. The five executioners stood in their revolving pentagons before him, yet at the same time, the first two were empty even as the third brute-forced Jova down into the grinding depths.

The first executioner swung his cleaver out and nearly took Scorio’s head off. Reeling back, he stared past the brute at the sight of Jova’s legs kicking, the rest of her hidden from view. The segments revolved around and around, tearing her apart, and Scorio was profoundly grateful that he couldn’t see the damage being done to her. After an impossibly long time, her legs quit their kicks and went limp. The executioner shoved the rest of her into the gap, then turned to face him.

And the realization hit Scorio.

That was as far as Jova had gotten.

She’d died in this room.

And if he wanted to beat her, he had to get past the third executioner.

“All right,” he hissed, drawing more Bronze into his Heart. “I can do this.”

A deep breath and he drew himself up. Stepped forward as the executioner came back down and around and hit him with his aura.

The hemisphere of churning air appeared, encapsulating the brute, who staggered back, weapon coming up half-heartedly in a defensive pose.

At the same time, Scorio lurched forward, annoyed that his legs didn’t obey him precisely as he wanted, and flowed into his scaled form. His claws gleamed as he slashed out at the man, cutting through the haft of the weapon, through the leather apron, and into his chest.

But his claws didn’t tear the man apart as they should have. That glistening layer protected him, blunted Scorio’s attack so that his claws left deep cuts but little more.

The man, however, was struggling to gather himself, the hemisphere somehow constraining him, overwhelming him once more. Scorio swayed back and lashed out again, raking his claws across the man’s mask.

Leather parted, and the man’s features were ruined. Didn’t take much damage to puncture a set of eyes. The man screamed, and taking his cue from Jova, Scorio grunted and slammed his shoulder into the man’s chest, driving him back and into the yard-wide gap between the two segments, where he was promptly torn and ground apart.

Heaving for breath, Scorio looked up and saw the second executioner revolving across the ceiling, heading down toward him and entering the hemisphere.

“Hello,” said Scorio.

The executioner stiffened as he entered the field of churning air, then dropped his weapon.

By the ten hells, Scorio loved his new ability.

With a cry he fell upon the man, slashing at him, again and again. The second executioner raised his beefy forearms, took the blows, then with a cry of defiance lunged forward to try and slam Scorio off his pentagon.

With a grunt, Scorio summoned his shroud right before the man’s brow. The impact was blunt and cruel; the man’s head rocked back, and Scorio leaned in to rake his claws across his throat, once, twice, thrice.

The third set of slashes got through the iridescent shielding. Clutching at his neck, the man dropped to his knees then toppled over.

“There,” said Scorio, swaying, vision going in and out of focus. “Just… just one more.”

And that’s when his Heart guttered out.

The pain rushed in. His knees went weak. Scorio staggered, almost fell. Not now. But fine—he’d wait, gather more Bronze, would refill his reservoir, and when he was ready—

The third executioner stepped over the gap and onto the second ring, cleaver raised.

“Oh come on,” groaned Scorio, backing away, trying desperately to focus on the man, whose form doubled, coalesced into one being, then split again.

Impulse. Instinct. His saving grace. All the long hours spent training against the Nightmare Lady, dodging through the ruins, working every angle, breaking every rule.

Just as the executioner stepped over into his pentagon, Scorio lurched over the yard-wide gulf, and onto the third.

He’d not defeated the man—the executioner was coming right after him—but forget that guy. Scorio wheeled about, saw the fourth ready himself as he came revolving into line.

Sensing the attack, Scorio staggered around his pentagon. He was fading fast. No strength. Precious little coordination. He sought feebly to ignite his Heart, but there was no mana in his reservoir.

The grievous wounds that scored his back were draining his will, overwhelming his every thought. Pain that just sucked his ability to think down a dark well. The spinning pentagons were making him feel sick, disoriented. Where was the third? The fourth? Was that them in truth, or delirious visions of them?

Scorio felt his gorge rising, his legs folding under him. Too much blood loss, too much pain. That last move in the previous room had gotten him past the floating monsters, but at too high a cost. Without mana buffering him from his wounds, without his Tomb Spark might, he couldn’t keep going.

One chance.

Jova had made it to the third.

He had to just cross to one more segment.

With a faltering cry, summoning the last of his will, Scorio threw himself over the grinding gulf, to land face down on the revolving floor.

A huge blade immediately thockked into his back, and his legs went numb. Scorio wanted to thank the fiend. His body jerked over as the man tore the cleaver free.

But Scorio didn’t care. He lay there smiling, blood welling up his throat, body adrift on a sea of flame.

He’d made it to the fourth segment.

One more than Jova.

He’d done it.

Somehow, against all the odds, he’d beaten her at the Gauntlet.

When the blade came back down, it brought nothing but welcomed oblivion, and Scorio fell into the abyss with joy bubbling up within his heart.