IGS #4, Chapter 41 (no more bonus chapters after this one)

Scorio

Myla drew back, eyes going wide.

A gust of wind blew dust across the plain and howled through the fluted rocks about them, setting up a mournful wail that perfectly matched Scorio’s mood.

“Now, you can do your corpse teleportation trick a few more times, or shift into a crimson mist, but I think we both know that’s not going to get you far. And this conviction I’ve got, that you’re weak and innocent, that’s your Tomb Spark power, isn’t it?”

Myla visibly forced herself to relax. “You’re not as dumb as everyone said.”

Scorio’s smile could have caused lava to ice over. “You’re not going to sweet talk your way out of this.”

“No, I reckon I’m not.” She dropped into a crouch and cupped her hands over her mouth and nose, considered him, then sighed. “Fine. Fine! I think we can all agree I did my level best at manipulating you. Came up short, though. So where does that leave us? You going to kill me?”

“Probably.” He realized the statement was true. “You arranged for my friends to be massacred. There’s no coming back from that.”

“Unless.”

Scorio raised a heavy, scaled brow.

“Unless,” she continued, smile turning impish. “I prove myself of such value you can’t afford to kill me.”

“Tall order. The only card you’ve got left is the location of the Lost Cube.”

“It’s not lost. It never was. That’s why we call it the Fortress of Symmetry.”

“I couldn’t care less. The moment you take me there your utility ends. You refuse to take me there, your utility ends now.”

“Don’t underestimate my charm.” But she offered this in a sober, pensive manner. “Fine. So, shall we consider all this—” and she waved at the expanse of sand, “a regretful intermission? Resume flying to the Fortress?”

“I’ve a few questions, first. How are you falsifying your Heart Oaths?”

“Easy.” She drew forth a necklace from under her robe from which a small stone Heart hung. “One of our most useful toys. A False Heart. I can choose to direct that Oath at it instead of my own Heart.”

Scorio extended his clawed hand, and without hesitation she drew the necklace over head and handed it over.

Scorio held it up, Heart pinched between thumb and forefinger. It was a perfectly carved replica of the Heart he’d glimpsed each time she’d sworn. Probing it with his Heart sense, he felt nothing.

“It’s fashioned to not reveal itself,” said Myla, tone helpful. “Otherwise it’d give itself and the whole game away, right?”

“All Herdsmen have these?”

She shrugged. “The smart ones in the field? Yeah.”

“And your Fortress. It has its own Archspire?”

She nodded. “I’m tied to it. Kill me, and I’ll be reborn there immediately.”

“Immediately?”

“We don’t bother with classes and distributing power like the Academy one does. So why wait?”

“Why wait,” whispered Scorio, considering the False Heart once more. He bounced it in his palm a couple of times then closed his fist over it. “Who else is a Herdsmen? Which Imperator?”

“I don’t know.” She held up both palms. “Honestly. Which—yes, I know—is an ironic thing to protest. We’re organized in cells and only aware of our immediate superior. I guess it’s meant to prevent situations exactly like this one.”

“Swear a Heart Oath to that effect.”

“Honestly? I wouldn’t bother asking me to. Herdsmen often carry multiple False Hearts, and make a habit of swallowing the second just for moments like this. I’d swear on the second one, you’d have no way of knowing it was inside my digestive tract, and then—well. Trust problems.”

“Trust problems,” repeated Scorio softly.

“See? I’m being helpful.”

Scorio felt something ugly settle upon his spirit. “Watch yourself, Myla. You could help me just as much with a broken arm. Or two.”

“True. But c’mon, you’re not the type.” She canted her head to one side as if to examine him from a slightly different angle. “Maybe in the heat of battle or passion? But cold blooded torture? I don’t see it. Not unless you absolutely had no choice. And I’m being cooperative.”

“Bravurn was a Red Knight. What’s your rank?”

“Oh, you know about that? Impressive, but not altogether surprising, I guess. I’m a Red Pawn. See? Pyre Lady’s are Pawns, Blood Barons are Knights, and so on.”

“Right up to Red Kings. Imperators.”

Myla shrugged and beamed. “Logically speaking, sure. But I’m guessing there can’t be more than one. There are only six, after all. We can’t have that many on our side.”

“How do you find the Lost Cube? Given how it travels on different planes.”

“I’ve got a Compass Rose just like yours. But its a treasure like the False Heart. Like a divining rod. I can activate it to lead me through the planes to where the Fortress is. Anybody can if you activate it close enough to the Fortress.”

She spoke to blithely, so smoothly, so quickly, that Scorio’s every instinct bid him believe her. But he never would, not blindly, not ever.

“And you all have been around since the beginning?”

“So it’s said. Again, I’m bottom rung. Which I know has to be frustrating for you, given how much you want to know, but you’re really going to need to ask Lady Krula all these questions. She knows much more than I did. I got some orientation upon rebirth, sure, but it was pretty basic stuff, with a heavy emphasis on needing to prove myself and rise in the ranks in order to learn the really juicy stuff. What I know is this.”

She sat on the rock, settled herself in, and then began. “We all came through the portal from Eterra to bring the war home to the fiends who’d invaded our home world. The Archmagus wanted to ensure it never happened again, because, you know, the devastation and loss of innocent life was terrible. But the very nature of Hell was so terrible that we couldn’t keep the portal open forever. As powerful as the Archmagus was—and he’s supposed to have been more powerful than even an Imperator—he couldn’t just keep the lifeline open. So he made a deal with the most dedicated of our kind: we would stay behind in Hell and harvest the Pit of its noumenon, and in doing so, close it forever. That noumenon would allow one of the Imperators to rise to Infernarch, which basically means they’d have the power to open the portal back to Eterra. Not for long; everybody alive would have to be ready to rush back through the portal before it closed and Hell was left behind forever.”

Despite his suspicion and deep, sun-quenching fury, Scorio couldn’t help but listen closely, to be fascinated. “So why did your kind hide themselves? Why not help us win the war sooner?”

“Meh, politics.” Myla waved a hand. “We humans can’t help but complicate everything with ego and personal ambition. Apparently in those first few decades we were all working together, and there were no Herdsmen. But then a couple of Imperators decided they wanted to control all the power, and there began a period of infighting. Worse, they tried to use the machines of power against Great Souls, when they should only ever have been used against True Fiends. When that happened, the Herdsmen were born from those who remained loyal to the Archmagus. They began the process of hiding the most terrible of the weapons and then hiding their own existence.”

“And fatally crippled our war effort in the process.”

“You were there, but you don’t remember,” said Myla. “I don’t either, so it’s reckless to place judgment on what happened so long ago. I was told that the first century or whatever was just a terrible fight for basic survival. The fiends assaulted Bastion without any breaks. But slowly we beat them back. But the Herdsmen decided—and I can only guess with good reason—that we were all too fragmented, too weak, to use the weapons, the knowledge. They decided that a century or two of getting our feet under us would help refine our systems, the Academy, and allow for a more natural process of selection to empower the greatest number of us. But.”

Scorio raised a brow.

“But—and this is where Lady Krula and others have grown impatient—that trial period just never ended. The top Herdsmen bought into the prophecy about the natural-born Great Soul leading the way to the Pit, and just kept… hiding. That’s why Lady Krula finally snapped and lost her patience. The Herdsmen, who were supposed to guide the Great Souls, lost their way in turn. Which is why I’m here, leading you to her, so that we can right this sinking ship and get everybody back on course.”

“So you say.”

Myla sighed. “So I say. Want me to swear a Heart Oath?”

“And the True Fiends? What are they?”

“Just the worst that Acherzua has to throw at us. They’re the ones who led the attack on Eterra. They hate us for being perfect, or something, which is why they copy our forms and way of magic. They came to extinguish all life, and when we threw them back, their hatred only doubled. I’ve never met one. You should be the one telling me.”

That echoed what Aezryna had told him.

Scorio considered. “What happens when we reach the Cube?”

“For all its size, most of its defenses are automated.” Myla considered. “Which is why you need me, because I know how to approach without triggering them. I also know how to make it appear, and how to activate the front door. We’ll go inside, and I’ll lead you to Lady Krula. She’ll try to convince you to lead the rebellion against the Herdsmen leadership, which will involve seeing if you can take control of the Fortress itself. Lady Krula can utilize it, but she can’t cause it to leave its route. She hopes that you, however, given that you’re Whispered and—well—you, might be able to do more. Fly it into the Emerald Reach and deliver the treasures and knowledge and weapons to the Seamstress.”

“Why does she think I can do this?”

“That I don’t know.” Myla pulled a face. “Other than your being Scorio the Scourer, which, apparently, means a lot to the higher ups. I think she believes you're fated to conquer the Fortress, that the prophecy got it wrong. You're the one everyone's been waiting for. Or so she says.”

“You don’t agree?”

“I’m just a Red Pawn, remember?” She sighed. “It’s why I was sent on this insanely dangerous and honestly poorly thought out quest. I argued in favor of a mysterious invite being sent your way, but no, you had to be isolated and in rough shape so that you wouldn’t try to kill Lady Krula simply for being a Herdsmen.” She paused, as if reflecting. “I guess your reputation does make it hard to believe you’d listen first, kill second.”

“I’m listening now.”

“Which… just means I’ll be dying later rather than sooner.” She slumped. “Being a pawn in other people’s plans is the worst. Honestly. I thought being part of a secret society would lend itself to being an advantage, but no…”

“You have my sympathies,” said Scorio, tone as dry as bone dust. “How far are we from the Cube?”

“You mean the Fortress?” Scorio just stared at her till she deflated. “Probably another day of flying. Um.” She eyed him uncertainly. “Are you going to kill me when we get there?”

“Would you believe me if I said no?”

“Probably not.” She stared off into the middle-distance, then sighed. “Though, I guess death isn’t so bad. I’ll just be reborn right away inside the Fortress. Hey, if Lady Krula convinces you to weaponize the Fortress, maybe we’ll be friends in my next life?”

He stared at her. “Unlikely.”

“Right, right. Well.” She stood. “Shall we?”

The thought of having her on his back made his scales crawl, but what choice did he have? He couldn’t fly while holding her by the nape of the neck. Not for long, anyway. Could she hurt him while he flew? He was incredibly resilient in his draconic form, his body Gold-tempered. She could shift to mist, corpse-teleport, but he thought they were past such tricks at this point.

“Arms out to the side. I’m going to search you first.”

“Makes sense,” said Myla, doing as she was bid. “I don’t have anything on me, though. But go ahead.”

He stiffly patted her down, and was grateful that she didn’t make any off-color remarks. If he dwelt for even a moment too long on what had happened to his friends, he was liable to lose control and kill her where she stood.

But he didn’t find anything suspicious other than her own Compass Rose.

“As before,” he rasped. “Lead me directly to the Cube. The Fortress. Whatever. Tell me when we’re close.”

“Absolutely.” She gave a firm nod. “And thank you for not killing me immediately. I know I’m going to die, but—well. It’s nice to not die right away.”

“You die each time you teleport.”

“Not really? It’s more like blinking your eyes. But—I know what you mean. Like you probably know what I mean?”

He didn’t answer. Tense, ready to shift into his flame form should she do anything suspicious, he turned so she could clamber up on his back. Once she was holding on, he ran forward and leaped, wings beating powerfully, and rose into the air.

Myla pointed out the direction.

He veered obediently and set forth.

Myla curled up as best she could on his back.

Scorio flew. Mind an iron cage, his fury barely restrained, he fought for speed. Answers. He didn’t trust Myla, but perhaps he could learn more from Lady Krula. But even if he had to kill everyone in the Lost Cube so as to discover the truths on his own, he’d do whatever it took to earn vengeance for his fallen companions.