Leonis stood, rubbed at his neck one last time, then dropped his arms. “We should go back in, then. Find her. Perhaps she’s looped and appeared at the entrance again.”
Scorio had no words. The very thought terrified him. What if Lianshi was trapped within the Gauntlet forever? They’d have to rush back to the new Academy, tell Praximar, Helminth, someone who might know how to wrest her free.
“Come on,” said Scorio. “Let’s go back and look for her.”
Grimacing, Leonis activated his crystal and returned to his bier. Scorio did the same, lay back down, and a moment later, appeared once more in the tomb of hammered copper.
His body felt rough, still suffering from the pain of the previous death, but he ignited his Heart again and leaped out of the opening. He saw Leonis doing the same, and cast around at the other tomb entrances.
All were sealed shut.
“No,” he hissed, darting from one to the next. “Leonis, which one did she emerge from? Do you remember?”
“I don’t,” rasped the other man, rubbing at his throat as he approached. “One of these, but I can’t remember which.”
“Lianshi?” Scorio crouched by one and pounded on the copper plate that sealed off the tomb. “You in there?”
They paused, listened.
Silence.
Together they moved from seal to seal, but no sound emerged from below, no voice responded to their anxious calls.
“Perhaps she already went in,” said Leonis, rising to his feet to look at the bright beam of pale light. “Time might flow differently here. While we were talking outside, she might have decided to proceed alone.”
“Let’s go, then.” Scorio led the way at a run, his Heart burning darkly, the power washing away the last of the pain in his stomach, till he was able to open his stride and race about the rough stone dunes to the huge chasm of light.
Picking up speed, he ran straight at it and dove. The move was almost automatic now; he appeared in the first chamber, slid under the sweeping blade, and fell into a forward roll. Leonis dove into view just as Scorio rose to his feet, Heart guttering out, and a moment later they stood, turning in slow circles, examining the chamber.
“Nothing. Next one.” Scorio led the way to the dark door, hauled it open, and stepped through. The broad hall with its statues presented itself, each pristine and still upon its plinth, the central passageway to the far side cloaked as ever in absolute darkness.
“Nothing,” said Leonis, emerging next to him. “Would the statues be damaged if we were following after?”
“Or perhaps we’ve entered a different iteration,” said Scorio, the idea chilling him. “Maybe if you don’t enter at the same time, you can’t follow each other.”
“Stop scaring me, man,” growled Leonis. “That would mean we can’t reach her.”
“Damn it, let’s go. Ready?”
Leonis raised a hand. “Give me a moment. It’s taking longer and longer to ignite these days.”
When Leonis, at last, was ready, Scorio jogged forward, wary, focused, waiting for the tell-tale grind of stone as the first statue came to life.
A compact man to his left with a long dagger in each fist shifted, stepped forward as Scorio passed him, and immediately Scorio threw himself back, avoiding the first knife swipe by inches.
Leonis barreled into the statue from behind with a roar, lifting the stone figure clear off the ground in a feat of stunning strength and then bore the man down to the ground.
An archer awoke, stepped back and off his plinth, arm looping up and behind to grab a stone arrow from his quiver and nock it to his stringless bow.
You charged archers if you were close, zigzagged if you weren’t. The statue was only four yards away, so Scorio yelled and hurled himself right at the archer as he drew his arrow’s stone fletching back to his cheek.
No hesitation, no doubt, and as a reward, Scorio heard the arrow whisk past his head as he tackled it around the waist and knocked it into the wall. Heard stone crack, and then everything became a flurry of elbows and knees, the statue abandoning its bow to fend off Scorio’s attacks.
But his fear, his terror over Lianshi’s situation caused his Heart to burn all the brighter, and Scorio heard himself screaming as he slammed an elbow into the statue’s face, then again, then palmed the man’s features and crunched the back of his head into the wall.
The stone fractured, fell apart, and Scorio turned as the statue collapsed to see Leonis wrestling with the knifer, who’d twisted onto his back and was trying to force a blade up into his friend’s chest.
Leonis had the knifer by both wrists and was forcing the blade aside, his face red with effort. Scorio lunged forward and stomped the heel of his boot down upon the statue’s face, again and then a third time.
Stone cracked once more, and the statue cracked and fell apart.
“That’s right, you gray-faced bastard!” shouted Leonis, sitting back on his heels as he caught his breath. “And yours? Dead already? Well done, my friend!”
Scorio staggered back, took a deep, shaky breath, and then extended his hand. Leonis took it, hauled himself up, and then together they turned to the third door.
“Not looking forward to this,” said Leonis quietly, taking the lead.
Scorio frowned. “Lianshi… she can’t have made it this far by herself.”
“She might have. If she tackled this room alone, she’d have only fought the one statue. One way to find out.”
Leonis led the way through into the next room, and together they paused to examine the grid that was etched deeply into the walls.
“No sign of her,” said Leonis, tone heavy.
“Let’s press on. Move fast but don’t lose focus or control. It’s the moment you panic and let the pain get to you that you’re dead. Ready?”
Leonis sighed, dusted off his thighs, then gave a curt nod. “Together?”
“Sure. We can shield each other’s sides. Let’s fill our reservoirs first, then on the count of three.”
They strode forward when they were ready. Scorio swept more Coal mana into his Heart, replenishing its already dwindling reserves, and stared straight ahead.
Movement to his left, and he darted forward to avoid a block as it flew at him. Only to realize that he’d left Leonis’s flank exposed. He cried out a warning, but the other man was reacting to a second block.
Scorio leaped as another flew at his ankles, and then everything was movement and chaos. They made it two-thirds of the way across the room before they were felled, pummeled and jellied by the blocks that came faster and faster.
Scorio stared at the distant door, fought to crawl toward it, needing to see if Lianshi lay on the far side, fighting off the terrible pain until he couldn’t even move, could only curl up into a ball.
The pain was terrible, but it ended mercifully soon; all was dark, and then Scorio groaned as he found himself upon the bier once more.
But this time he pushed nausea and agony aside to sit up, bleary-eyed. He ignited his Heart again, the expenditure costing him, and peered around, darkvision quickening anew.
“Lianshi? Lianshi!”
“Here!”
The sound of her voice was a sweet balm, and he collapsed onto his elbow, gasping as his body protested at the abuse it had suffered, his bones and joints clamoring, his head pierced through and through by a shaft of pain that quickly began to abate before his Heart’s flames.
“You’re alive,” gasped Scorio, lowering his brow to the cool stone of the bier as he fought down the urge to vomit, then forced himself to look up once more. “What happened?”
Lianshi stood beside her bier, eyes wide, her black hair spilling down past her shoulders, lanky and tall as ever—but something subtle had changed about her. Even through his wall of pain, Scorio could sense it, a novel if dim presence, a feeling of… solidity, as if she’d become ever slightly more real than the world around them.