IGS #4, Chapter 14

Scorio

“All right, listen up,” said Scorio as he approached the others. They’d gathered by Leonis’s side looking somewhere between tense, dejected, and on edge. “Jova and I have reviewed the situation and made a decision.”

The others stood. Kelona, Nyrix, and Xandera. It struck Scorio again how young they seemed, each looking to him for surety, confidence, direction.

“We’re in a bad spot.” He put his hands on his hips. “Leonis is down, and it’s taking him longer to recover than I’d like. We’re surrounded by who knows how many fiends that will throw themselves at us without fear the moment we crack a hole in the wall. But, if you look at it in a different way, this could actually be pretty nice.”

That they hadn’t expected. Nyrix and Kelona exchanged a worried glance.

“Being underground is nice,” agreed Xandera tentatively.

“Look.” Scorio took a deep breath and sought the right words. “If we give Xandera as much time as she needs, we’ll get out of here. She can burrow through rock, find the safest path, and we’ll emerge a mile from where we came in to just fly away. In the meantime, we could look at out situation like an enforced training camp.”

“Training camp?” asked Kelona. “But what about food? Our camping gear?”

“Not a comfortable training camp,” Scorio amended. “But we can make it work. Especially if roughing it means none of us runs an intolerably high risk of being torn apart. There’s plenty of Silver mana. Water. We’ve caves, those strange pink bushes, and when in need, we can open a tunnel to the main caverns out there to let lunch in.”

“Lunch?” asked Nyrix, his skepticism clear.

“Sure. We’ll experiment. See just how much dragon fire it requires to cook them to our liking. Now, am I excited to eat fiends?” Scorio shook his head. “No. Am I promising it’ll taste good? Also no.”

“It could be poisonous,” said Kelona.

“Which is why Jova will have a full meal first and see how it goes down. Right Jova?” Scorio turned to smile brightly at the Dread Blaze, who blinked, taken aback.

But then she saw the logic of it. “Sure. My resilience power gives me the best chance of eating something bad and surviving. I guess?”

“Training camp,” said Kelona, getting into the idea. “Three months. Hey, do you think I could temper Silver?”

“Temper Silver?” Scorio stared at her. “You want to spend those three months breaking rocks?”

“It’s right here. And I’ll probably never have an opportunity like this again.”

“I don’t know.” Scorio rubbed at his jaw. “It took me five months or so to clean my system of Coal. You’re Iron?”

Kelona and Nyrix both nodded.

“That’s a big gamble. I think the better wager is to try and rise to Dread Vault, or for you, Nyrix, make Pyre Lord.”

Kelona tongued the inside of her cheek as she stared stubbornly off to where the Silver coiled around them.

“I know it sounds tempting,” said Jova. “Trust me. I know. But even if you tempered Silver, you’d still be a Flame Vault and unable to travel with us to the Lustrous Maria. Or contribute your everything in a fight. Gaining your Dread Vault power would be far more useful than becoming hardier and improving your Heart.”

“Not in the long run,” said Nyrix quietly.

“Not in the long run,” agreed Scorio. “But we’re here three months. Not six. Also, I don’t know if you appreciate just how hard you have to work to clean yourself out.”

“I’m not afraid of hard work,” protested Kelona.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jova’s tone grew hard. “I saw Scorio and Naomi labor for almost half a year at smashing rocks and hauling them across rough terrain to dump their sled loads in a chasm. The actual act of smashing stone looked hard enough, but it was the duration, the sustained mental effort that was brutal.”

Scorio eyed her, taken aback. She’d noticed? Back then she’d exuded nothing but disdain and seemed to spend all her time in the Chasm.

“I wasn’t watching you work,” said Jova. “But it was hard not to notice you and Naomi. It was a small camp.”

“Sure,” said Scorio.

Jova rolled her eyes. “What I’m saying is that you’ll need to labor for eight hours, maybe more, each day. For a whole week. Then another one. Then another one. Never Igniting. Just straining at impossible work, wringing yourself out like a rag. Nobody in camp could believe that Scorio and Naomi remained at it for so long. And not only are you going to be doing that brutal work, you’ll be doing it down here, in the dark, trapped, with nothing else to do once you stop.”

Kelona’s expression took on a stubborn cast. “You think I can’t do it?”

“I think you’re going to realize three weeks in what you’ve signed up for, regret it, and then realize how much training time you’ve given up on. Because you can’t work technique or mana control while cleansing yourself out.” Jova put her hands on her hips. “And say Xandera finds an exit in three months, but you’re not done. Say you need another two months. You think we’ll stay here in the dark waiting?”

Kelona frowned and looked away.

“We don’t need to decide right now,” said Scorio. “First we’re going to see just how much stomach pain Jova gets into eating cooked Instinctuals. Then we’re going to watch her try some of the pink bushes. If those prove to be viable sources of food, then we can stay. If not? We’ll have to scrap this plan.”

“I’ll train,” said Nyrix. “I don’t need to purge for three months when I can focus on making Pyre Lord instead.”

“Sounds good,” said Jova. “You and I can work together under Master Scorio’s wise tutelage.”

“That sounded sarcastic,” said Scorio. “I was expecting gratitude.”

“Sarcasm?” Jova leveled a flat stare at him. “Me? I can’t imagine why.”

Was that animosity? Or friendly ribbing? Scorio was disconcerted to realize he couldn’t quite tell, and even more so to realize how natural it had begun to feel to go through these challenging moments with Jova.

Something to consider later.

“Let’s cover the basics and make some final decisions,” he said. “Jova?”

They returned to the sealed off cave and waited as Xandera melted open enough room to haul out a chunk of fiend. It wasn’t appetizing. They selected a thick, muscular tentacle as thick as Scorio’s leg, and this they set on a shelf of rock. Scorio, stepping back, tried to gauge the right distance, then shifted into his scaled form so he could become flame and then exhale a plume against the rock a few yards above the flesh.

It took a few tries, but soon the tentacle was lightly charred, the blackened skin cracked to reveal white, rubbery flesh beneath.

“This is not appetizing,” said Jova, stepping up to the meat.

“Let me help.” Still in his scaled form, Scorio joined her and with as much delicacy as he could, used his searing hot talons to carve thin slices from the tentacle. The flesh sizzled as he cut it free, blistering and turning from a gel-like, almost translucent interior to milky white.

“Lovely.” Jova wrinkled her nose, took up a slice, and to Scorio’s surprise took a large bite. She had to tear the tentacle away, as the flesh was tough, but then set to chewing. For a moment Scorio feared it wouldn’t matter if the fiendish meat was edible or not—if they couldn’t chew it, they’d not be able to—

Jova swallowed mightily. Everyone had crowded in close.

“And?” asked Kelona, brows raised. “Terrible? Are we—?”

“Not bad.” Jova considered the remaining chunk in her hand. “Mild taste. Obviously strange. The more cooked it is, like here on the edge, the more chewy it gets. But this part here…” She tore the blackened outer rind off and took another bite. Considered, cheek bulging, then swallowed. “Not bad. Could use some salt. Spice. But not bad.”

“Now we just wait and see if you get sick,” said Scorio. And, to his surprise, this stomach gurgled in hunger at the smell coming off the roasted tentacle.

Jova’s smile was humorless. “I’ll pass on being stared at.”

“Fair enough.” Scorio grinned. “Let’s rest up. If she’s not vomited in some six hours’ time, I guess we’ll be having lunch.”

*

Scorio spent the next tract of time—was it two hours? Three? Telling time down here was impossible, and becoming more disorienting by the moment—exploring the cavern. Nyrix and Kelona joined in, and they stepped into each alcove, every cave, climbed to the highest ridges, and studied the pools of water.

To their delight, one pool in particular near the back past where the cave curved away proved to be spectacularly deep; though darkvision made it hard to tell with any precision, it had to be easily three or four yards in depth before the sides narrowed so closely that it became impossible to tell what lay beyond.

Scorio knelt, scooped, and drank. Ice cold, with a fresh, strangely mineral tang that was almost salty. Perfect.

There were seven large caverns in the back, two smaller ones right off the ground level, the three biggest off the first ridge, and then two smaller ones again off the second, pressed up against the ceiling. They were fronted by the pink bushes, and the largest receded seven or eight yards into the stone wall.

“Bedrooms,” declared Kelona, turning around in a slow circle. “One for each of us, and a seventh for guests.”

“Guests,” smirked Nyrix.

“A little sparse.” Scorio ran his fingertips down the wall. “But dry enough.”

“I feel bad for Xandera.” Kelona stepped a little closer. “We’re going to be training for months on end while she just… melts stone? Do you think she’ll be all right?”

“Well, we none of us have much choice in the matter. But.” Scorio crossed his arms. “You’re right. That will be lonely work.”

“Unless we take turns keeping her company,” said Nyrix. “She loves stories, right? We can rotate. One of us every four hours, or a half shift. That’ll mean we’re cycling through every other day.”

“Do you think Jova can tell stories?” asked Kelona quietly, eyeing the cave mouth nervously.

“I think she’ll have to learn.”

“I might just have to listen in,” grinned Nyrix. “Hear what she considers an entertaining story.”

“Good idea.” Scorio beamed. “She’ll love that. Let her know what you think of her efforts. Jova is very much into improving herself based on what others think.”

“Ha,” said Nyrix. “I’d rather stay alive.”

“And these bushes.” Scorio moved up to the closest. “They clearly feed off the Silver mana.” At a distance they could almost pass for something normal, but up close their alien nature became apparent. Their blossoms were a continuous whole, as if a pink cloud had snagged itself on a dozen fibrous branches. Scorio pinched a globular blossom. It was spongy and slightly sticky. “If Jova survives the meat, let’s see how she does with salad.”

“Poor Jova,” said Kelona, but her smile undercut her sympathy.

*

Time passed.

Jova failed to get sick, and ate some of the gooey pink fronds after a suitable amount of time, declaring them sweet and sticky but not unpalatable.

With nothing to do but wait, they sat close to Leonis, forming a rough circle as they waited for Jova’s verdict on the fronds.

“Do you think this was a trap?” asked Kelona, leaning into a stretch. “By Sybelleo? He must have known there was a warren here, right?”

“He?” asked Nyrix, tone mild. “How do you know they’re male?”

Kelona hesitated. “A hunch?”

“I don’t know,” said Scorio thoughtfully. “It looked like some of them back at the first waystation were clearly masculine or feminine, especially Pashamylo, but with… him? I couldn’t tell.”

“Maybe they haven’t decided yet,” said Kelona.

“Maybe it’ll depend on what they decide we want them to be,” said Nyrix. “If they’re still hanging around when we escape. Which is creepy. And weird.”

Jova leaned back on outstretched arms. “It will be the same decision Pashamylo made for those two idiots back at the waystation. She—they—decided what they wanted, and adapted.”

“Right,” said Scorio. “But I reckon it’s a trap, regardless, thinking of them as male or female.”

Jova leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “A trap, or irrelevant.”

“So weird,” mused Kelona. “But, I mean, she was really striking. Pashamylo.” She sat up a little straighter. “Though wasn’t there a famous relationship between Gerrick the something-or-other and a Silverine queen a few centuries ago?”

“Gerrick the Unwise!” chirped Xandera. “Lianshi told us about him while we were traveling to LastRock. And yes! A Silverine queen fell in love with Gerrick, and pursued him back to the Telurian Band when he broke her heart.”

Nyrix snorted. “I’m guessing he broke a contract with her, more like.”

“Hmm.” Xandera’s shoulders slumped. “Give what we’ve learned, yes. I just liked how much Lianshi liked the doomed romance of it all.”

“So weird,” said Kelona again, softly. “To have intimate relationships with fiends. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Perhaps it happens more than we were told.”

“I’ve never heard of Great Souls and blazeborns having intimate relationships,” said Xandera uncertainly. “I don’t know how that would even work, though. Maybe if one of you had the power to turn into fire, or lava?”

“I’m guessing it depends on the type of fiend,” said Nyrix. “Some might be more possible than others.”

“But, you know.” Kelona turned to Xandera, “Your question was interesting. About our lack of kids. Great Soul children, that is.”

“Maybe because the lustful Great Souls are all too busy chasing down attractive fiends,” smiled Nyrix.

“No.” Scorio stared into the fire. “Sol the Just and Imogen the Woe were married. I never heard of their having any children.”

The others stilled.

“What?” Scorio glanced around. “That’s all I know.”

“Oh,” said Kelona, then laughed guiltily. “I thought, maybe you were going to share something. I’ve always wanted to ask.”

Scorio chuckled. “About how I helped defeat Imogen the Woe? There’s not much to share. She recognized me from a past life, and I tricked her into thinking I was sympathetic to her desire to destroy Bastion. So when I betrayed her during a key moment, Sol took advantage of her shock and gained Dominion. That’s all.”

Jova snorted and shook her head.

“That’s all, he says,” smiled Nyrix. “Really nothing to it.”

Scorio tssked in mock annoyance.

But Kelona was staring at him, eyes shining. “Seriously, though, Scorio. All right, I’m going to be honest. I’ve been a little overwhelmed just traveling with you because of everything you’ve done.” Her smile became self-conscious. “I’ve been trying really hard to be casual about it, but everything you’ve done…”

“Killing Praximar, destroying Manticore,” said Nyrix, tone overly casual. “Surviving a duel against Plassus, befriending Xandera Prime, then surviving a True Fiend attack, then killing Bravurn.”

“Then helping Imperators kill the Blood Ox, and being able to turn into a dragon.” Kelona shook her head in wonder. “It’s… I mean, you do see how that’s a lot?”

“Excuse me,” said Jova, rising to her feet. “Time to find a bathroom.” She walked away into the gloom.

Scorio watched her go, then shook his head. “When you heap it all together like that, sure. But that’s twisting it.”

“Twisting it?” asked Nyrix.

For a long moment Scorio just stared into huis memories, into the dark. He thought of those moments, each an isolated instance of madness and terror, fury and desperate hope. “What you don’t hear about is the people who suffered along the way. Who died. The leaders of the Bastion revolt. My friends. You don’t hear about the pain and sacrifice it took for me to make each happen.”

Xandera’s smile was fond. “Lianshi said you were very foolish, too. She said she was so mad at you for challenging Plassus.”

Scorio nodded morosely. “True enough. All of those things… I didn’t have a choice. And I got lucky. And I had good people with me, most of the time. People who didn’t survive like I did.”

Nyrix and Kelona had grown very still.

“What I’m saying is, there’s more to those stories than what you hear.” Scorio searched for the right words. “And while I don’t regret any of those things, I… if I’d known, right from the outset, what it would cost to get this far?”

He thought of Naomi, her face transfixed with horror and terror at the sight of what she’d done to Alain. Thought of the twin grave markers by the Chasm in the Rascor Plains. Of the giant spikes on which the moldering corpses of the Bastion revolt leaders had been impaled.

“If you’d known?” prompted Kelona at last, her voice little more than a whisper.

Scorio looked down at his hands. “I guess I’d still have walked the same path. But I…”

Xandera’s voice was soft. “My people shall be forever grateful for your actions. I wouldn’t be here without you.”

Scorio looked over to the young blazeborn queen with a tight smile, and felt a hard knot form in his chest, his throat closing up so that he couldn’t do more than inhale deeply for a moment. For a moment they just held each other’s gaze, and then Scorio laughed. “Victory turns madness into heroism. If I’d lost to Plassus, or Bravurn, or Praximar, I’d only be remembered as a fool.”

Nyrix nodded soberly. “It’s the only currency our kind understands. Victory washes away all sins.”

“Scorio, I can’t pretend to understand what you’ve been through,” said Kelona. “But… it’s inspired me to try and do better. To think for myself. To make a real difference. It’s a small thing compared to saving the blazeborn, but… it’s really important to me.”

“Yeah,” said Nyrix. “Same goes for me, too.”

Scorio nodded. He didn’t have the words. But on some level he didn’t think they were needed, either. So they just sat together in the darkness, Xandera eventually leaning against Scorio, her eyes closing. Slowly, as if by agreement, they all moved to lie on the improvised bedrolls made from harvested pink fronds. Scorio could tell that the others weren’t falling asleep right away, but that was fine. The silence stretched out, magnified by the immensity of the cave, but in the company of his new friends, it didn’t seem so bad.