When Naomi appeared for their evening review, slender flames licked at the wood and cast dancing shadows across the walls. A soft, cottony smell filled the chamber, a scent which prickled at lost memories, and Scorio found it surprisingly difficult to tear his gaze away from the dancing flames.
“What’s the occasion?” asked Naomi, tone wary as she sat across from him.
“The sun-wire’s been feeling oppressive of late.” He gazed into the heart of the small fire. “And I’ve some questions for you.”
She canted her head to one side. “What questions?”
“There’s so much I don’t know. Don’t understand. But we’ve been focused just on immediate training. You won’t even speak of what happens once I ignite my Heart.”
“There’s a reason for that,” she began, but he cut her off with an upraised hand.
“I know. I understand. But—well. These runs I’ve been doing.”
“Run-walks,” she corrected.
Scorio grimaced. “Mostly runs. I can loop the ruins all the way around three times within the entirety of First Clay.”
“You should be able to do five.”
“Well, I’m at three. But my point is, that’s a lot of time to spend thinking. And now that I’ve mostly worked out a safe path, I’ve realized there are things I need to ask you.”
Naomi settled down, reclining on her side and leaning on one elbow, her expression skeptical. “Such as?”
“Well, the ruins.” He gestured around the room as if taking in the vast, moldering buildings without. “What’s happening? Why is Bastion dying like this?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “Nobody knows.”
“There has to be speculation.”
“Sure. But that’s just what it is. Speculation. Some think that when the portal to our supposed homeworld closed, Bastion stopped receiving some kind of vital energy that kept it alive, and now, like a plant trapped in the dark, it’s withering up. Others think it’s a spiritual judgment of our failings. Some think it’s all part of the plan, and meant to act as a clock counting down to our extinction if we don’t destroy the Pit in time. But nobody really knows.”
“How long has it been going on?”
“Centuries, easily. Maybe since Bastion was founded. It’s a slow process. They’ve figured that at the rate it’s going, the city has perhaps ten years left before it’s consumed utterly.”
Scorio sat up. “Ten years? But there’s so much left that’s just fine.”
“The ruins are expanding ever faster.” Naomi stared morosely out the window. “They say that originally it was but inches that were lost each year, then mere feet. But now they’re expanding quickly enough that you can see the change from day to day. So yes. It’s been studied exhaustively by just about everyone. Ten years, they say, then the Archspire in the Academy will be destroyed, and the Great Souls will never return.”
Scorio absorbed this, trying to wrap his mind around that fate. “How do you know when a year’s up?”
“The sun-wire pulses in a unique way. It happens every three hundred and eighty-four cycles. Why three hundred and eighty-four? Nobody knows. But every time we hit that number the sun-wire goes through this light show, and everybody reckons themselves a year older.”
Scorio nodded slowly, tonguing his molars, mulling this over.
Naomi watched him, faintly amused.
“And—the portal home. Does anybody know why it closed?”
“If they do, they’re not sharing. I remember asking my father the same questions. Legend has it that in the beginning, the portal would open frequently, but never stood permanently open. But that in time it opened less frequently, and one day ceased to open at all, breaking the oath that was sworn to the Great Souls and those who came to live here and serve them in hell. That’s when the focus of every Great Soul became the destruction of the Pit. It’s said that the one who accomplishes that will become the Infernarch, with power over life and death and all of hell. They’ll lead every living soul back to Ettera, opening the portal home, and our sojourn in Bastion will come to an end.”
Her smile was steeped in bitterness. “’Course, the Empyreal Prophecy had everyone excited on that front. The whole city was ready to celebrate a few years back. It foretold the day the Imperators would crush the true fiends and collapse the Pit, and the Houses, the Great Souls, everyone made a big push. Then it all went wrong. The Imperators were thrown back, there were big losses, and it’s been revolution in the streets and denial in the halls of power ever since. And with only ten years left, time’s really starting to run out.”
Scorio nodded, taking this in. “Who made the prophecy?”
“Supposedly? Some Great Soul from centuries back. Though I think the council fabricated it for their own ends. Who knows? Regardless. It failed, and now the streets are ready to burn with outrage.”
“And the ruins started when the portal closed?”
“Right. Or shortly thereafter. First, they consumed all the most important buildings that had been built close to the portal, and then they spread outward.”
“Most important buildings? Like what?”
Naomi shrugged. “The old palace, the old basilica, the old academy. The most important buildings were built around the perimeter that met the portal itself. All gone now, all destroyed and consumed.”
Scorio frowned. “Old academy?”
Naomi raised an eyebrow. “That’s what I said.”
“You mean, the one everyone’s training in now is new?”
“If you count a building that’s nearly two-thirds of a millennium old as ‘new,’ sure.”
“And the old one? Have you been?”
Naomi smiled. “Of course not. The deeper you get into the ruins, the more dangerous it becomes. And what do you think we’d find? The ruins have been scavenged and picked over ever since they were abandoned.”
“Huh,” said Scorio, sitting back. “Interesting. What about Black Star petals?”
Naomi blinked at this sudden change of topic. “What about them?”
“I met a couple who made money collecting them, or used to. They said they’d sell them to House Basilisk, who’d turn them into pills for their Great Souls.”
“That so? I used to take Black Star pills when I was young. But from what I remember, it takes some fifty plants or the like to make a single pill. It’s not worth the effort.”
“Why not?”
“Because just like everything else in the safe zone close to Bastion, they’ve been picked to extinction. I can’t remember the last time I saw a Black Star plant around here. Plus they only bloom where Coal mana is strongest, which is where, coincidentally, you’ll often find the most dangerous predators. Just not worth it.”
“But say I collected fifty plants. Would you know how to turn them into a pill?”
Naomi considered, clearly uncomfortable with the question. “I mean, not really. But I know someone in town who would. An alchemist. But forget about it. I’d not waste his time until you survived the process of collecting fifty plants.”
“All right then.” Scorio gave a sharp nod. “Then I’ll start doing my Second Clay run at night to see if I can’t find some.”
Naomi’s tone turned flat. “You’re not listening. That’s not a good idea. It will take you forever, Black Star pills are just condensed Coal mana, and you’ll be a target to every predator out there.”
“Are you willing to give me my sapphire vials back?”
Naomi narrowed her eyes but didn’t answer.
“No? In that case, I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“If it comes to that, I won’t be able to say much at all, will I?”
To which she couldn’t resist smiling. “Fair enough.”
“And one more thing,” he said, taking up another wooden slat and laying it carefully against the fire. “When I was in the Academy, Praximar said something about Great Souls keeping journals, keeping treasures for their future selves. Have you heard about that?”