Another blow buried itself in his gut, followed almost immediately by a second smashing into the side of his knee, then a third straight into his face.
Faster and faster they came. From all directions, her momentum building, building, until Scorio felt himself in the center of a vortex of pain, unable to defend, to block, to do more than hunch over, arms before his face.
Blow after blow, each stronger than the last. His leg broke, his ribs staved in, and then she caught him right under the chin and crushed his throat.
He fell, the blows still coming, but he knew it was already over. A second later, a terrible force came crashing down upon his skull, and all went dark.
1
Scorio awoke upon his bier. No pain. All the agony was wiped away. He lay still, eyes closed, hearing the hubbub all around him, the voices raised in excitement, others in anger. Lay still, internalizing what had just happened.
He’d lost.
He was out of the tournament.
It was strange. He’d known this was going to happen. The odds had been against his advancing another round. Yet somehow, despite the impossibility of it, he’d thought he’d make it. Would somehow find a way to claw his way through, defeating whoever came at him… and…
Scorio exhaled. And what? Prove to be the exception to all accepted rules and expectations?
Suddenly he felt bereft, childish, immature. The world didn’t work that way. You couldn’t keep getting lucky, couldn’t continuously defy the odds, and come ahead through sheer desire alone.
“Scorio?” Leonis was by his side. “Hey. You did well. As well as you could, at any rate.”
He opened his eyes, stared up at the distant ceiling, and nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”
Lianshi appeared at his other side. “When I saw it was Chloe…”
Scorio sat up, rubbed vigorously at his face, and said nothing.
“We’ve still got some nine weeks left,” said Leonis, peering into his face. “This isn’t over.”
“But it will be if I don’t change things up.” Scorio looked up, feeling bleak but honest with himself. “I can’t follow the Academy’s routines and expect to come ahead. Even our weekly runs at the Gauntlet won’t make a difference, not compared to the top students who are being force-fed elite treasures every day.”
“Then?” Lianshi bit her lip, hesitated, then gave a despairing shrug. “What else is there?”
“I don’t know.” Scorio stared down at his hands. “But there has to be something I’m overlooking. Maybe if I can convince Naomi to give me one of her vials. Or…” He blew out his cheeks. “I don’t know.”
“We’ve got nine weeks to figure it out,” said Leonis, crossing his arms and frowning.
“Yeah.” Scorio felt hollow, light, almost weightless. As if the bonds that held him to his body, to the bier, to the world, were falling away.
Around them, Great Souls were congratulating the winners, comforting the losers, and then grew silent as Praximar gave them his laudatory speech. Scorio ignored it all. More and more, he was coming to accept that the Academy wasn’t the answer. Its systems ensured the outcome. The strong got ever stronger, and those who’d been unfortunate enough to not merit attention fell ever behind.
But if the answer didn’t lie with the Academy, then where? The Houses were denied to him. They’d not patronize him if he came crawling offering treasures. He couldn’t reach Imperator Sol, and even if he did, he doubted the Imperator would help him further.
So what was left?
In his mind, he saw the ruins, Naomi’s tower, the tunnels beneath the old Academy, the fiends in their hundreds existing within their complex ecosystem.
Then he thought of Nox, the Imperial Ghost Toad, and blinked.
“Actually. I may have an idea.”
“Oh?” Leonis rocked back onto his heels and raised an eyebrow. “Raid the Academy’s treasure house?”
“What?” Scorio stared at him. “We can do that?”
“We absolutely can’t,” said Lianshi, glaring at Leonis. “It’s better guarded than even the Final Door. Maybe if we were each a Charnel Duke.”
“Oh.” The hope died as quickly as it had flared. “No. But before I share it with you guys, I want to do some research.”
“You’re not going to keep us in suspense,” said Lianshi, tone dire.
“That would be incredibly cruel of you,” agreed Leonis, lowering his chin to stare at Scorio from under his brows. “A cruelty that might cost you your dearest friendships.”
Scorio couldn’t help it. Despite the desolation he felt from having lost, he found himself chuckling. “Fine. Come on. I’ll tell you about it on the way to the library.”
Praximar dismissed them, and everyone was filing out, the four hundred or so Great Souls all embroiled in conversation, discussing the fights that had just taken place.
Filled with purpose, Scorio pushed off the bier and began to stride through the crowd, not caring whom he cut off.
It was a terrible idea. The kind that would make Hera curse his stupidity, Naomi roll her eyes in despair, and which no sane Great Soul would ever take seriously.
But it was exactly the kind of plan that had gotten him this far.
Chapter 61
The library was a hoary maze of winding passages that occasionally expanded into large, hexagonal chambers dominated by clustered desks. Dust seemed to hang heavily in the air, and the only source of light was the intermittent lantern whose Iron-mana light bathed everything in an ethereal glow.
“This makes practically no sense,” said Scorio, frowning at a faded map framed up on the wall. “How does parafiendology flow into ontological uncertainties? What do either of those even mean?”
Lianshi sighed and stepped up next to him, placing her finger on the map, where Parafiendology was written in ornate script on a curving tunnel. “The associations are fluid and have grown naturally over time. Each chamber represents a confluence of the six differing branches, see? So, for example, the chamber we’re in”—she moved her finger to the hexagon in question—“is Cell of Sublime Dangers. The offshoots are Parafiendology, Inimical Botany, Regressive Psychology, Cacogenous Topology, Virulent Contagions, and the restricted corridor of Banned Histories. See? Whereas on, say, the other end of regressive psychology you have the Cell of Inner Reflection, with its six corridors, like Inestimable Virtues and so on. They flow into each other, allowing you to pursue topics of research based on inspiration and correlations.”
Scorio’s frown only deepened. “If you say so. So what we want would be off… the Cell of Fiends.” He leaned in. “Parafiendology, Collected Taxonomies, a restricted hall on True Fiends…” He turned to Lianshi. “True fiends? What are those?”
“Apparently what the Imperators fight around the Pit.” She shrugged. “Nothing we have to worry about for a long, long time. We should make our way to this one here: Observed Properties and Powers.”
“Not far away,” said Leonis, leaning down over both of them to scrutinize the map. “Shall we?”
Lianshi led them out of their current cell and into the long and meandering tunnel of Parafiendology. The walls were covered in ancient shelving, some of it listing under the weight of heavily bound books, most of the tomes opaque under their layers of dust. Many of the shelves were sparsely populated as if they’d been looted long ago. The ceiling was low, and the tunnel dipped and curved as if carved by an ancient worm, not hewed out by the hands of men.
“That’s strange,” said Lianshi, slowing as something caught her eye. “Does this book look strange to you?”
Scorio and Leonis both stared at where she was indicating. They saw a collection of folios, a couple of battered tomes, and a wooden box with a heavily rusted lock.