A black velvet purse was held suspended in a mass of stuffed straw.
It wasn’t the sight of it that hit him like a punch to the chest. It was the blast of desire and hunger that arose within him, a need to possess the pouch, an avarice he didn’t understand.
Scorio grabbed it, heard Skarx scream, then threw himself into a backward roll just as a blade slashed down where he’d been a second ago.
He came up on his feet, backed away from the three guards who wheeled around to chase him, then sprinted toward the closest wall. He made sure to pick a stretch with no doorways, no goods piled up against it, and as fast as he could, Helena’s sandals flapping against his feet. Don’t snap, don’t snap, don’t—
The guards chasing him slowed, as he’d hoped. He had nowhere to go, had foolishly run right into what was effectively a dead end. The wall was four yards high, thick and weathered, its sides rough but defying any easy attempt to be climbed.
Scorio pulled out the bridge and fought to summon an image of his Igneous Heart.
Doing so while running proved impossible. His breath burned in his throat, his pulse pounded, his senses were raw, and his back itched in anticipation of a stab at any second.
He couldn’t do it. The image bounced before his eyes but failed to coalesce.
Five yards from the base of the wall he skidded to a stop, turned, and saw the three guards stop as well, grins plastered over their faces, blades held competently in their fists. They began to spread out, cutting off his avenues of escape.
“You made a serious miscalculation,” said one, his voice rich with triumph. “Surrender now, and who knows? Maybe the House will go easy on you.”
“You’re right,” said Scorio, fighting to regain his breath. “I surrender.” And he closed his eyes and raised his hands.
Fought for an image of his Igneous Heart. Heard the guards approach, their slow footsteps betraying their confidence.
There. Sharp-edged, its facets gleaming darkly. The air was saturated with heavy gray smoke, not coppery as in Dola’s chamber, not sooty black like that underground, but soft and iron-hued, rich and resistant to his will.
Without time to question, he swirled it with enormous effort about his Heart once, twice, and then directed a stream deep into the bridge, just as he bent down to prop it against the floor.
The bridge burst outward, exploding up and arching over the top of the wall almost instantly. The guards froze with shocked expressions on their faces.
Taking his chalk, he slashed a quick line before the base of the bridge, then raced up the steeply angled slats.
Shouts of alarm, of outrage, and then a cry of pain and shock. Scorio risked a glance—the guards had slammed full tilt into the chalk’s invisible wall.
Up he ran, half-climbing, black velvet purse in hand, then leaped off the bridge onto the top of the wall.
Six seconds had passed, but still, the bridge remained in place. He froze, not wanting to abandon it. Guards were closing in, and some of them raised bows, nocking arrows to their strings.
Still the bridge refused to shrink, obstinate, massive, and Scorio ducked behind its rearing upper end as the arrows came hissing in, bouncing off the timbers instead of sinking into the wood.
Only then did the bridge contract, springing up into the air and dropping into Scorio’s palm.
It was a five-yard drop to the stone street on the other side. Pulling out his iron rod, he closed his eyes, summoned his Igneous Heart, and leaped.
And as he fell, he swept the iron-hued clouds into the rod.
It froze with a jerk, mid-air.
He nearly lost his grip as he was yanked to a stop, and there swung, hanging from the rod only two yards off the ground. He held on tight, waiting for the rod to release, but like the bridge, it hung suspended far longer than it should have.
Grimacing in annoyance, Scorio fell into a crouch. Shouts came from the gate, nearly fifty yards along the wall, and he saw guards rush out into view. They saw him immediately and began running in his direction.
“Come on!” he shouted at the rod, which hung serenely in the air above him. He kept glancing at the guards as they drew closer, tried to gauge the very last moment he could wait, and just as he was about to take off the rod dropped out of the sky.
He caught it neatly, burst across the street, and dove into an alleyway. The sun-wire overhead was growing darker, Second Rust, and the shadows were rich and welcoming.
But the guards were tenacious. They kept after him, no matter how many side streets and alleyways he ducked into.
Gasping for breath, with no idea as to where he was, he spilled out into a blind courtyard where a small crowd of young women in brightly colored dresses was lined up and rehearsing a dance before a gray-bearded man. Their formation collapsed into disarray as he crashed through their ranks, apologizing loudly as he went, but when he reached the far side, he saw there was nowhere to go. Just closed front doors, balconies that were too high up to be leaped at, and shuttered windows.
The music came to an abrupt end, and the old man yelled in outrage as the Chimera guards rushed into the courtyard.
Scorio closed his eyes, dropped to his knees, and sought his Igneous Heart. He felt swirling coppery-red clouds around him, and with enormous effort wrenched them into the bridge once more. The effort cost him; there was plenty of cloud matter in the air, but his very being felt exhausted, numb from too much exertion.
Someone grabbed his shoulder just as the bridge activated.
Scorio clasped the upper edge as it did so and was torn upward with the expanding bridge to be hurled into the air.
The guard’s grip fell away. Scorio opened his eyes as he hurtled up, the bridge massive beneath him, arching up the face of the building to crash against its facade, just shy of the flat roof. He flew over the edge and fell among large clay pots filled with ferns, to roll across a carpet and fetch up before a wizened old woman sitting cross-legged upon a thick cushion, a massively curled pipe in one hand.
“Ah,” said the old woman, staring clear through him with a beatific smile. “You have returned, my naughty dove.”
Scorio leaped to his feet, ran back, and leaned out over the retaining wall in time to see the bridge contract and start to fall. He snatched at it with a convulsive sweep and stuffed it into his robe.
Why had it lasted for less time?
No time to ponder the question. Five Chimera guards were staring up at him in perplexity, the crowd of dancers gaping behind them, their dancing master still shouting curses at everyone.
Scorio backed away and checked the black velvet pouch. There was a single slender object within it. Taking a deep breath, ignoring the seated old woman who was giggling into her hand and waving coyly at him, Scorio took off across the rooftop, dodging around large pots, and gaining enough speed to leap over the intervening gulf onto the next building over.
He kept running, ignoring protests, angry cries, the shrieks of children and everyone else he disturbed until at last, he jumped onto a roof with an obvious stairwell leading down the side to the street.
Gulping for air, covered in sweat, he tore off the Chimera overrobe, leaving him in Feiyan’s faded set, and forced himself to walk slowly into the crowd, there melding into the flow of foot traffic and walking toward the ruins until he was convinced he wasn’t being followed.
Scorio walked till his heart ceased pounding. Only then did he step into an alleyway whose narrow depths were choked in gray ivy and purple flowers to hold up the black velvet pouch in the dim, roseate light of Second Rust and see what it was within that called to him so.
Chapter 13
Scorio unbuckled a slender leather strap and pulled the pouch open. The whole of it was folded several times around its contents, buffering them with multiple layers from potential damage. Crouching down, unfolding the wrapping across one knee, Scorio finally revealed two stoppered vials, each thicker than his thumb and six inches long.