“It’s not likely to work,” said Helena, turning back to him. “But what choice do you have?”
“Can you introduce me to some Basilisk people?” asked Scorio.
Helena pursed her wide lips and looked to Feiyan. They seemed to communicate a lot in that one glance. Finally, Feiyan sighed. “Sure. Fine. I guess.”
Helena beamed. “That’s so nice of you.”
“Watch it. But after that, nothing more. An introduction and you’re on your own.”
“Fine,” said Scorio, then felt his stomach cramp as it gurgled audibly. “About that food you promised me?”
“Stay up here,” said Feiyan, picking up her belongings. “Helena will bring it up when it’s ready.”
“I will?” asked Helena, climbing to her feet.
“You will,” said Feiyan, moving down the steps. “And Scorio.” She paused to level a flat stare at him. “If you come down these stairs for any reason? Any reason at all? I’ll cave in your head with my hammer.”
“She’s so nice,” said Helena.
Scorio raised both hands appeasingly. “Understood.”
Feiyan studied him a moment longer, then grunted and descended out of view, taking the lantern with her. The room darkened immediately, so that he could barely make out Helena standing at the head of the steps, dimly lit from below.
Helena flipped her thick braid behind her back and took up her fiddle case. “We’ll be just a moment. And don’t run away with that sapphire, all right?”
“No worries there.”
Helena studied him through narrowed eyes a moment longer, then smiled, a broad, easy smile that was so charismatic it almost seemed unforced, her teeth pale in the gloom. “Great. I’m glad we met you, Scorio. This is going to prove immensely profitable for the both of us.”
“I’ll settle for a hot meal and clean robes,” said Scorio, smiling back.
She winked at him. “That’s the spirit.”
And fiddle case in hand, she descended after her friend, leaving him in the dark.
Exhaustion threatened to steal over him. But before allowing himself to rest, he rose and crept out of the room. Finding another chamber that was partially collapsed, with great care he buried the sapphire under a heavy rock, piling ash and grit over it to obscure its light.
That done, he returned and sat against the wall. Sat there, listening to the gentle murmur of the musicians’ voices from below, and eventually smelled something savory being heated up.
But he was too tired to hold on. The stone floor was indescribably comfortable, and the wall the perfect pillow. Closing his eyes, Scorio felt his thoughts begin to drift, to sink.
His last thoughts were of Leonis and Lianshi. He wondered what they were doing. How they fared. Did they think of him at all? And then his eyes closed, and he thought no more.
Chapter 11
Scorio awoke to a boot nudging him in the ribs.
“Wake up, stinky stranger, your food’s getting cold.”
Bleary-eyed, he sat up, He felt as if half his joints had calcified, and a good part of his musculature cramped up for good measure. “Ow. That stone floor’s hard.”
“You figure that out all by yourself?” Helena crouched down before him, hands dangling between her knees, her expression somewhere between sympathetic and contemptuous. “Pretty impressive. There’s hope for you yet.”
A bowl of steaming something or other was set before him, a wooden spoon dunked into its center. Giving up the chance at a rejoinder, he ate a spoonful and had to fight back a groan of pleasure.
“Feiyan makes a wicked soup,” said Helena as he started shoveling it into his maw. It was hot and savory, made of partially dissolved roots and strands of fatty meat seasoned with a hearty spice. She watched, head cocked, then continued innocently, “It’s pretty amazing what you can do with four-day-old dead rat.”
Scorio froze, then hocked his mouthful back into his bowl. Helena threw her head back and guffawed. “I jest! No dead rat. Aw, c’mon. Don’t look all upset like that. You never know in this city when your next bowl really will be mostly carrion-based.”
“Ha, ha,” said Scorio flatly, staring down at the soup. “Way to taunt the starving man.”
“I need to get my amusement somewhere.” She stepped away to lean against the wall, arms and ankles crossed. “Feiyan’s out. Went to see about your Basilisk contact.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Scorio around another mouthful of food. “She’d never leave you here alone with me.”
“You’re right. Normally. But in this case, her desire to get rid of you outweighed her natural caution. Plus, I’m pretty sure I could gut you with my long knife before you even managed to look at me funny.” She shrugged a shoulder. “You wouldn’t be the first. Or tenth, even.”
Scorio stared at her through one eye, chewing ruminatively, and decided he believed her. Rangy as she was, there was a sinewy strength to her frame, and something about her expression, something hard and unyielding beneath her easy smile, that assured him she could use her blade just as she said.
“What’s Feiyan’s connection to Basilisk, then?” he asked.
“We’re not supposed to talk personal stuff,” said Helena, “but fine. She used to work for them, not long ago. It’s how we met. Which I’m also not supposed to talk about. But suffice to say she had a pretty dangerous reputation when I convinced her to try the romantic lifestyle of a wandering musician.”
“So she’s done with those kinds of jobs?”
“Has been for three years. Depraved and wicked as I am, somehow, I ended up being the good influence. Go figure. But she’s still got connections. Should be able to figure something out.”
Scorio nodded and focused on eating. His entire being clamored for sustenance. For her part, Helena contented herself with just watching him wolf it down. When he was almost finished—it was a generously-sized bowl—she canted her head to the other side.
“So, what’s it like, being a Great Soul?”
Again he choked, but this time he managed to swallow instead of spitting. He wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist and stared at her again. “Who said I was?”
“Really? We going to pretend?”
“People lose their memories all the time.”
“Sure. And then emerge from the ruins with a sunphire the size of your fist. With no family, no connections, and dressed in what look to be authentic Academy robes. Happens all the time.”
Scorio stared down in dismay at his once-white robe, the grimy golden belt, then sighed. “Damn it. These that distinctive?”
“Sure,” said Helena. “There was a whole fashion phase a few years back where street toughs took to wearing robes cut in a similar manner, you know, different colored ropes denoting different ranks and whatnot. Died out after a year though. And with what’s happening in the streets these days? Nobody would be caught dead wearing them now.”
“Good thing I’m getting new robes then.”
“Yeah. So. What’s it like?”
“Being a Great Soul? Why do you want to know?”
Helena rolled her eyes. “Because every child born in Bastion spends their youth dreaming they’ll receive a special summons to the Academy and be put on a path to glory, riches, and fame?”
“They do?”
“Some of them,” she said, and kicked a rock skittering across the room. “I wouldn’t have minded a call myself.”
“Well. I don’t really know how to answer. I mean, they—ah—I left pretty quickly upon waking up. Nobody’s shown me how any of this is meant to work.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You left, huh?”
“Sure.” He met her gaze with greater confidence and poise. “Decided I wanted to spend some quality time in the ruins.”
“Uh-huh. Well. You got an Igneous Heart?”
“You know about that?”
“Come on,” she said. “Bastion’s supposed to be—what—a thousand years old? And we’ve spent that whole time focused on your kind, your paths, your legends? What do you think the rest of us talk about?”