Scorio felt a great rushing roar pass through him, envelop him, then sink into his very being.
There was no sound.
No light.
No hell.
No thought.
Only one last word lingered on Scorio’s lips, and he failed to understand it even as he whispered it: “Naomi.”
And then there was no more.
Chapter 46
Scorio blinked.
He’d been staring at the clouds for he knew not how long, but only now did he focus and actually see them.
Clouds.
He was… alive?
With supreme effort he rolled onto his side. He felt washed out, weak, as if some key aspect of his sense of self had been torn away. He pressed his palm against the rough rock and gathered his strength.
It took a long time.
But finally he pushed himself up to sitting. The world spun, the landscape tilted, then slowly, reluctantly, righted itself. His stomach lurched, cramped. His throat was coated in sandpaper, his mouth dry and tasted like bile.
It was all he could do to remain upright. Head bowed, arms around his knees, he sat in the desolate silence until the sound of rasping laughter drew his attention.
A man lay close by. Stubble-jawed, his shoulder-length black hair streaked with iron, his face carved deep with lines of woe and pain. Blood had dried across his lips, and his arms and legs and back were askew, as if his very bones had revolted against him.
Charnel Duke Plassus.
“You’re alive! By every god lost in the depths of this boundless hell, I can scarcely believe my eyes. What are you, Boy? Immortal?”
Scorio lifted his head and took in their environs.
Everywhere lay corpses.
The fiends they’d slain before the Blood Ox appeared -
The Blood Ox.
Scorio closed his eyes and clenched his jaw as nausea rippled through him. The sensation of his reservoir being torn open made him gag. He balanced himself on an outflung hand as he heaved for breath, sweat prickling his brow.
“Immortal, perhaps, but not hale. No, of course not; the least you could do is to feel like ruddy excrement. Thank you for indulging me on that front, at any rate.”
Scorio looked around once more. Corpses. Desiccated and withered, sucked of their very essence, shrunken and wizened. Aezryna, easily identifiable for her armor. Taron, just beyond her.
Jova.
Scorio stared at the dead woman. Her skin was wrinkled, her flesh wasted away, her eyes sunken.
Dead.
Unable to breathe he turned about. Others. Fyrona. Some he barely knew. But there.
Close by.
Just out of arm’s reach.
Naomi.
Dead.
The realization hit him like talons tearing apart his very being. He could only gape, a mutilated moan rising from his chest.
She lay curled up on her side, head cradled in her arms, cheeks hollow, eyes filmed over, as spindly as a hundred-year-old woman, her mouth open in a final scream.
“Oh, relax!” Plassus’ call was irritated, irascible. “They’re fine.”
“Fine?” Scorio whipped around, half-rose before weakness claimed him. “They’re - she’s - “
“Dead?” Plassus stared up at the sky. “Aye, dead and going to the Archspire. And no, I don’t mean they’re fine as in they’ll be reborn. Soon as the Imperators bother to show they’ll revive the lot of them.”
“Revive…?”
“Aye, revive. Charnel Dukes can heal, but Crimson Earls have the power to bring a slain soul back to life. It’s beyond my ken, but easy as snapping your fingers to an Imperator. Why do you think Aezryna and Charoth were so willing to hunt down a True Fiend?” Plassus’ gaze slid over to him. “Did you think them selfless heroes?”
Relief washed over Scorio, taking with it most of his strength. He nearly toppled over, nearly glanced back at Naomi’s corpse, but he didn’t want to see her like that.
Not if she was coming back.
“Where are they?” Scorio glared at Plassus. “Why weren’t they here?”
“You think I know? But calm down. Moira’s spoken with them, albeit it briefly. They’ve passed LastRock, and will soon be here. Lot of good it does us. Laggardly idiots.”
More sweet relief. “They’re almost here? Oh.”
“The question is,” drawled Plassus, turning to look at him once more. “Why are you alive?”
“I don’t know.” Scorio thought of that fleck of Noumenon. “I don’t even know what he tried to do.”
“Cut you from the cycle of rebirth. Vicious, that. You must have really upset the Blood Ox.”
“I couldn’t have.” Scorio’s mind was spinning. “He said… I’d broken someone’s toy. That he’d been asked to do something bad to me.” Scorio shook his head. “I’ve not broken anyone’s toy. I don’t know what he was talking about.”
“Well, it’s a wonder. Who could get a True Fiend to do them a favor? Another True Fiend, perhaps. But still. That technique. You should not only be dead, but forever dead. You’re too low-ranked to fight back. So: how?”
Scorio recalled his last moments. How his very sense of self had been overwhelmed, his being.
Not that he’d been completely spared; he still felt exhausted, brutalized on a spiritual level that he couldn’t quite yet understand nor explain. As if he’d been bleached of all color and rendered monochrome.
But why?
How?
Hesitant, he summoned his Heart. It appeared before him, massive and spherical. It shone, buffed to a high gloss, as if the Blood Ox’s attack had scrubbed it of all imperfections.
His reservoir? Completely empty. Gingerly he tried coaxing some Bronze mana into it, but the process caused him to gag immediately, his stomach to clench like a fist and burn.
“Easy,” said Plassus, closing his eyes. “I’m guessing you just tried to ignite?”
“No, to restore some mana to my reservoir.”
“Ah. Well, that’ll take a while to heal. Being mana raped isn’t something you just walk off. Nasty. A few days though and you’ll be back to your old self. Probably.”
Scorio stared at the Charnel Duke. “You couldn’t tell what I was doing?”
“Me?” Plassus grinned toothily. “Oh, no, not at all. The Blood Ox burst my Heart, you see. Shattered it into a hundred fragments before breaking my back and shattering my bones. His idea of flirting, I think. You ask me, it was a bit much.”
Scorio’s eyes widened. “Your Heart is shattered?”
“Aye. Not good, I’ll give you that. But that’s alright.”
“Alright? Can you heal it?”
“I don’t think I’ll bother. I’m done, lad.” Plassus nodded. “Enough. Soon as you feel a little better, I’m going to ask you to cut my throat. Send me back to the Archspire. And if I don’t come back in time? All the better.”
Scorio had no words.
Plassus scowled and glanced sidelong at him. “What? If you’re thinking about lecturing me, don’t bother. I gave it my all. I went as far as I could and fought with all I had, and it wasn’t enough. But that’s fine. That’s fine.” He closed his eyes again, tone growing soft. “I want to rest. I think I’ve earned it.”
Scorio shuddered and lowered his gaze.
A wind picked up, and moaned as it tore itself to shreds across the sharp peaks and broken ridges of the Telurian Band.
Irresolute, Scorio summoned his Heart again, but this time he reached out with his senses, trying to get a lay of the land, and froze.
A few feet behind him, burning like a quiet sun, lay a blaze of power. He twisted about, panicked, and saw only his pack.
His pack?
Again he probed with his Heart’s senses, and again he felt that awesome pulse of raw power. Something far beyond Bronze, beyond Gold or even Emerald. The last time he’d sensed as much it had come from a small speck held in the Blood Ox’s palm.
Noumenon.
Had the mote come to rest within his pack?