“You would witness my deeds?” She spoke as if testing the words, tasting them. “Wait.” And her gaze changed. Became more charged, more piercing. “Wait. I know you.”
Her words sent shivers down his body. “You do?”
“Another life. A past life.” She pursed her lips in thought, and then her eyes widened. “Scorio. Bringer of Ash and Darkness. But how reduced you are.”
Scorio spread his arms apologetically. “I was reborn but a few months ago. I am, alas, but a Cinder. But you remember me? How?”
She waved the question aside impatiently. “Imperators regain all the memories of their past lives. But yes, it is you.” Her smile was if anything all the more unnerving for being warm and genuine. “How strange. That you should be here at the end.”
Scorio’s mind raced as he tried to work this revelation into his approach. “Then you know me. The real me. We were friends?”
Imogen’s dark eyes continued to devour him. “Companions, yes. You helped me destroy Ivaskar against the Herdsmen’s wishes. We bent knee together to the Ul-Master, only for you to betray him in his moment of victory.” Her smile turned bleak. “Your titles were always well earned.”
“I see. These memories are lost to me. But I would be your companion again, even if only for the last few moments. To witness your opening the Portal.”
“What a pity you are but a useless, empty Cinder. To come this close and find you so diminished. But such are the cruelties of hell.”
“Too many to count,” said Scorio.
“Too many. Very well. You may witness my final act as an Imperator, Scorio.” And she turned back to the Archspire, bowing her head once more.
Scorio licked his dry lips and glanced down as the dark fog withdrew from the base of his bier. The closest Great Souls continued to watch him, though the others turned their attention back to Imogen.
It was eerie to see his friends so drained of personality and intelligence. Their mute gazes were unblinking. Could she see through their eyes? How much autonomy did they have?
But no matter; he’d won his first victory. She’d not dominated his mind out of hand. But now what? To keep her talking? Her last words had been almost a dismissal. If he annoyed her, she might destroy him sooner than ask him to be quiet.
Carefully, slowly, he slid his legs over the edge of the bier. The black fog retreated farther, and he stood, fighting back a wave of dizziness.
“I lied, before,” said Imogen suddenly, not looking back. “It occurs to me now that you’ve been a constant companion for some time now.”
“Oh?” He tried to sound only mildly curious. “That’s great. But how so, if I’ve been, ah, dead?”
“In my labyrinth,” she said, and he felt something in the air buckle as she pressed mightily against it, like some vast sheet of invisible metal folding before her will. “Accompanying me, watching over me, trailing me.”
“Oh,” he said, taking a step forward. The black fog retreated again. “That’s… wonderful.” Was that why he’d not been reborn in centuries? “That I could be there, in some fashion.”
“You and the others,” she said, voice low. “Eranon, the Milliner, Farice, the Yveque twins… watching me always as I sought… as I sought…”
Her fingers dug into the Archspire’s side, causing the stone to crunch and crumble under her grip. Again he felt something vast buckle and shift, this time deep beneath them, making him want to throw out his arms to steady himself though the actual floor didn’t move.
“Following me, keeping me company in the dark, in the depths of my… in my labyrinth. Sympathetic, I thought, caring. Two-faced, of course, but that shallow duplicity was in and of itself almost endearing. Knowing that I… as a beacon, as refuge, could…”
She trailed off, her shoulders hunching, then she let out a gasp of effort which became a husky laugh. “Ah! Wrestling with Noumenon in this wretched mana desert taxes me! As I’ve not been taxed in years. But you wouldn’t understand, would you Scorio?” And she looked over her shoulder at him, eyes gauging him, hair cascading down over half of her face.
“You know I can’t.” He took another slow step toward her. “What are you trying to do?”
“You couldn’t understand.” Was that pity in her voice? “Once, but not now. But if there is to be change, it must take place at the root.”
And again the very fabric of the world seemed to spasm, and stone crunched as she thrust her hand wrist-deep into the Archspire.
He kept walking slowly toward her, his approach marked by the Great Souls, heart pounding, mind blank of ideas, breath coming shallowly, rapidly.
“But I welcome the challenge.” She straightened, raked her hair back, and smiled predatorily up at the Archspire. “Let us see what it makes of—”
And then she froze.
Scorio froze as well, unsure if he’d come too close, if she’d changed her mind, if she was about to envelop him in black fog.
She stared upward at nothing, expression focused, body tense.
Scorio hesitated, then asked softly, “Is something the—?”
She flung out her hand and he shut his mouth. They stood thus in silence, and he watched as Imogen’s expression flickered from alarm to doubt to confusion to hope. The emotions were raw, unguarded, and he felt strangely guilty to observe them, as if he were intruding somehow on an unwell person’s private debilities.
“He’s here,” she whispered, pulling her hand from the Archspire. “He’s actually come.”
“Oh,” said Scorio weakly. “That’s… good?”
She moved her head, turning slowly as if watching something approach through the walls, her smile nervous, her expression yearning.
“Who, ah, is here?” asked Scorio.
She blinked and turned to regard him with a warm smile. “My husband.”
A man descended unharmed through the darkness that cloaked the ceiling. He radiated power and authority, his expression severe, his brow dauntless, his ash-brown hair long and falling past his shoulders, beard darker but flecked with white about the chin and growing high on his tanned cheeks.
Perhaps in his forties, he had the physique of a man half his years. Dressed in plain robes of the lightest cream tied off with a plain black sash, he descended, eyes fixed on Imogen, his gaze rich with pain and more emotions than Scorio could guess at. He’d simply not lived enough to understand that depth of emotion, he realized. That complex amalgam of love and grief, strength and self-denial.
“Imogen,” said the stranger, coming to a stop some ten feet off the floor. “You must stop.”
“Sol!” She beamed at him, then blinked and took a step back at his obdurate impassivity. “You look well!”
“You mustn’t do this,” he said, voice softening. “You cannot undo the world.”
“Cannot?” She reached out to touch the Archspire gently. “But I can! It’s connected. The arteries still flow. We can open the Portal, Sol. Together. And why not? After all we’ve done, all we’ve sacrificed? Why should we not demand an accounting?”
“Because the Portal cannot be opened from this side,” said Sol wearily. “You know this. Or did, once.”
She slashed angrily at the air. “Accepted truths, passed down to us by whom? Why not verify them, my love? Now, at the peak of our strength, together?”
“Because I will not be party to genocide.”
“Genocide?” She nearly spat the word. “You mean slavery?”
“Others live in Bastion. Innocents. Tens of thousands of them.”
“Ignorants, ants, fools. Their souls will be liberated and sent back to Ettera.”
“That does not make killing them justifiable.” His voice grew hard. “You know this, Imogen. Despair does not justify evil acts.”
She paused, expression turning cunning. “I will agree to this on one condition, Sol.”
His response was calm and utterly final. “No.”