He thought she might smile, but though her expression softened just a little, it didn’t completely thaw out. “We’ve started realizing some dreams, yes. And I know it’s thanks to your sunphire, so don’t think me ungrateful. But I swear to you, Scorio: if you lead Dola to us, and if Helena gets mixed up in any trouble, I will personally tear your spine out through your mouth. Do you understand?”
“I’ve missed you, too,” said Scorio, and then held up both palms as Feiyan’s eyebrows rose in disbelief that presaged further fury. “But yes. Fine. How can I contact you next time if I’m not to come here?”
She considered. “I’m not telling you where we live. Just come back here. But with the sunphire, or not at all. We clear?”
“We’re clear,” said Scorio. “Tell Helena I said hello?”
“No.”
“Fine.” Scorio took a deep breath, tugged on the hem of his robe, and inclined his head respectfully. “Thank you, Feiyan, and apologies for the inconvenience.”
“There’s a door at the end of this hall that leads into a blind courtyard. Head out that way, don’t come back.”
“Tell Old Memek I said goodbye, then. And give him a chance to play. He really is good with that oud.”
“Goodbye, Scorio.”
His parting smile was more grimace, and he stepped past her, down the hall, and to the last door. He could feel her watching him the entire time, the sensation of an intense stare only cutting off when the door swung shut behind him, and he stepped back out into the night.
Scorio began to make his way back home. Now, with concrete information at hand, he felt unsure; would Leonis and Lianshi remember him half as fondly as he did them? Would they risk their own careers as Great Souls by speaking with him? What would he do if they turned him away?
Sinking his chin toward his chest and avoiding eye contact, he paced on, making his way south, always south, back toward the dark and somber ruins.
There was only one way to find out.
Chapter 23
Five days later Scorio found himself wandering through the Graveyard. The sun-wire blazed in First Rust, casting Bastion in bronzed light, erasing all evidence of the delirious blacklight and hints of the city’s nocturnal alter-ego.
The Graveyard was a large expanse of mausoleums packed closely together and hemmed in on all sides by towering buildings; many of the tombs were in advanced states of decay, their ornamentation eroded past recognition, but those clustered at the northern edge were newer, their edges sharply delineated, their walls and ceilings made of a gleaming white marble that Scorio had seen nowhere else in Bastion.
The broad expanse of tombs and graves was filled with people; if they felt any reverence for the dead, they didn’t show it; rather, the large, open space seemed opportunistically seized as the perfect site in which to hold a market. A festive air hung over the sprawling gathering, one that was enhanced by numerous musicians and buskers who strove to attract the crowd’s mercurial attention. Here a troupe of acrobats formed a wobbling pyramid, there a dour young boy cast a dozen spinning pins into the air, catching them with an air of doleful resignation as an older man with a striking, familiar resemblance looked on from the shadows.
Everything was for sale. Scorio moved slowly, taking it all in, amazed at the sheer variety of wares. One large booth was filled to bursting with caged animals, which ranged from the crimson, arm-long creatures from the ruins to squat, toad-like animals encrusted with amber gems to a flying snake that endlessly spiraled about within the confines of its elongated cage.
Another stall was so heavily guarded that there was barely room for customers to approach the golden cloth that was spread across the table; Scorio caught glimpses of fluted bottles, miniature displays holding a variety of colored pills, sheaves of dried herbs, metal cubes wrapped in copper wire, and more—when he summoned his Igneous Heart and tried to sense the booth with his mind’s eye, he was nearly overwhelmed by the pulsing nature of the mana that the treasures on the table exuded.
Food stalls and ambulatory vendors, racks of delicate robes and endless jeweled belts, silversmiths and copper workers, jewelers and spice merchants, carpets hung out for display besides fabulously painted urns, pots, amphoras, and bowls. Everywhere Scorio looked he saw the finest of wares, with nearly as many guards standing by, faces set in permanent scowls, hands resting lightly on the hilts of their clubs.
The Graveyard was surrounded by a high, black-iron fence whose tips were formed into spear points; entry to the great market was afforded by means of four huge gates that were placed at each cardinal side, with the largest facing the hulking complex of the Academy itself.
Scorio made his way toward this gate, broad enough for two carriages to drive through with ease, and there found an out-of-the-way spot in the shadow of a stall selling scarves from which he could view the comings and goings.
His gaze, however, was drawn to the Academy. It was a series of great domes clustered together, held in place by huge flying buttresses, and with many extensions and halls built about its body so that it was difficult to tell where the Academy ended, and the rest of the city began. The domes gleamed in the sun-wire’s early rubicund light, though closer examination revealed that much of the golden paint was flaking off. The walls of the Academy proper were either painted in dull, reddish ocher or graying white accents.
But it was an impressive edifice regardless of its dilapidation or the scaffolding that engulfed several corners and even one of the domes.
Scorio pursed his lips as he studied it, allowing his mind to wander, to dream about the powers contained within, the opportunities that he had been denied.
This lasted till the first of the students began to enter the Graveyards, most of them clustered in small groups, some walking arm in arm, all of them fresh-faced and confident. Scorio drew back into the shadows. It was easy to make them out; they wore uniform robes of white belted with ropes of gold, and had an air to them that Scorio couldn’t quite pin down at first.
Only after observing some fifty or so of them pass by did he figure it out. They moved with a relaxed confidence that made them seem masters of wherever they went; they laughed freely, loudly, and chattered with exuberance. They weren’t aware of themselves, of their place in the city. They walked as if they didn’t belong to the market, weren’t part of Bastion. As if they were simultaneously removed and above the fervor and frantic attempts to garner their attention.
Exalted, rarefied, and privileged.
And to think. But for a quirk of fate, and he might have walked out amongst their number, as oblivious to the cruel vicissitudes of life in the city as they were.
Scorio watched with avid curiosity, seeking faces he might recognize. Not everyone had a holiday air; here and there a Great Soul strode with intense purpose or withdrawn mien. But none were familiar.
Uncertainty began to gnaw at his hope. What if Leonis and Lianshi opted to remain within the Academy? Were they the kind to indulge in an Eighthday market visit? If not, what hope had he of contacting them?
He was starting to despair when he saw them.
Leonis, his long hair gathered into a bun, his beard trimmed, his face pulled into a laugh Scorio couldn’t hear, eyes nearly closed with mirth. He wore a dozen necklaces of polished wooden beads and silver thread around his neck, his robes hanging open in what could have been a purposefully slapdash manner. He looked relaxed, healthy, strong. At ease, comfortable in his own skin, at peace with the world and his own place in it.
By his side, Lianshi was an elusive shadow, her frame angular and slender, her pitch-black hair gleaming as if freshly washed, one section pleated into a braid, the rest hanging loose. Her expression betrayed amusement and something akin to resignation, as if Leonis’s joke were partially at her expense, and Scorio felt a pang, a tight twist in his chest, and wished fervently that he were in on the jest, that he was part of their crew, had been there for whatever had caused this bout of merriment.