“How did you know?” She gave a cheerful wave. “I broke through just a short while ago. It’s fascinating down here! So much that I could burn, but I’ve been really careful.”
“Thank the ten hells,” Scorio whispered, then summoned his voice. “Hold on! There’s an assassin out. Lianshi’s almost here. We’ll come down to you.”
“An assassin?” Xandera’s confusion was clear, but Scorio crawled back outside, intent on finding Lianshi and escorting her the rest of the way. But he emerged to see his friend running up, panting from having carried his massive pack all the way.
“She’s fine,” Scorio called out, rising to his feet. Relief made him almost weak. “And you’re here, too.” And in a surfeit of emotion, he took his pack from her and hugged her close.
Lianshi hugged him tightly, then pulled back. “Thank the gods. I’m so sorry, Scorio, when Moira asked me to fetch you -”
“It’s done,” he said. “And you had no idea Himiko was working against us. Come on. Let’s find out what Xandera’s discovered.”
Lianshi’s face lit up. “She’s found something?”
“The question is: what?” Scorio crouched and inveigled his way back into the ruins, looping his pack’s strap around his ankle and dragging it awkwardly behind him. They finally emerged into the cramped room again, and Scorio waited for Lianshi before swinging his legs into the well.
“The drop looks like it goes down about twenty-five or thirty yards. I’ll go first. Then if you want, I can catch you -”
Lianshi gave him a look. “Did you forget that I can become completely invulnerable? And now for fifteen seconds straight. I can drop down just fine.”
“I did, actually.” Scorio smiled ruefully. “Then go ahead. I’ll feel better watching your back.”
Lianshi nodded and dropped without fanfare into the well. A moment later Scorio dropped after her, pack balanced atop his head. Heart burning bright, he fell into a dark room far below, bursting up into his scaled form at the last moment to hit the ground and sink into a deep crouch.
“See?” Xandera was purposefully glowing with a deep orange light, her hair alone casting a murky glow around her. “I found it!”
Chapter 64
Scorio couldn’t tell if they stood in a series of interconnected chambers or a single labyrinthine one divided by massive supporting columns. As massive as ancient trees, these rose up to spread into surprisingly delicate vaulted ceilings. The air was cool, dry, and still. The columns were incised with shelving, as were the walls that bounded the space.
“Looks like we’ve found it,” whispered Lianshi, drifting forward to the closest column. For the shelves were laden with scrolls and bound tomes. All were dusty, but Scorio couldn’t distinguish much between them with his darkvision.
“Can you, ah, light up the place, Xandera?” He glanced nervously at her. “Without burning the books?”
“But of course,” smiled the blazeborn, and her hair grew brighter, so that when Scorio dropped his darkvision he saw everything lit by its golden glow.
“What was the title we’re looking for?” asked Lianshi, running her finger past the spines.
“The Empty Palm: Being a Historical Treatise on the Rise and Fall of Deep Hell Secret Societies.”
“Quite a mouthful.”
Together they slowly walked around the columns. Most of the books were without titles, but Scorio recounted what the first copy had looked like, and searched for its brother.
“These are fascinating,” whispered Lianshi. “I’ve not heard of half of them. I could stay down here forever.”
Scorio smiled but continued scanning.
The space was smaller than he’d originally imagined; only six huge columns held up the curving ceiling. One corner was a jumble of collapsed rock. It had to have been the original entrance, demolished from when the building above imploded.
A single armchair was set beside a dusty lantern. A side table bore a book of its own, and when Scorio opened it he saw Jova’s handwriting, faded but legible.
A journal.
For a moment he hesitated, torn by a desire to read what her previous self might have written, but then he closed the book and slid it inside his robes. He’d deliver it to her before he left.
“Here!” Lianshi pulled out a small book and hurried over. “The Empty Palm. Is this it?”
“It is.” And despite everything that had transpired, he couldn’t suppress a momentary thrill. On some level he’d never quite believed he’d get this far. “The entry was under ‘The Shepherds of Goodwill.’”
Lianshi scanned the table of contents, then carefully turned the pages. None had been torn out.
“Here we go. Xandera, could you step a little closer? I’ll read it out loud. Let’s see. Hmm.” Lianshi glanced up, suddenly apprehensive. “It’s only a page?”
“We’ll take what we can get.”
“Very well. So. The Shepherds of Goodwill. It begins with some bullet points: active during the third and fourth centuries; membership less than fifty; famous suspected members were Charnel Duke Thraxin the Slender; Blood Baron Ambrose Firemouth; and Imperator Sarana”
Lianshi raised her gaze, eyes wide.
“Sarana. Plassus warned me against her. And if she’s an Imperator now, that means she remembers her past lives.”
“This… no wonder this text is hidden.”
“Read on.”
Lianshi did so. “Let’s see. Of the many apocryphal organizations whose existence is questioned by skeptics, the Shepherds of Goodwill have caused the most acrimony. No notable figures have ever openly claimed membership; they published no creed nor philosophical tracts; and no rituals have ever been observed. Their inclusion in this tome is done more for the sake of completeness than due to verifiable fact. That disclaimer being put forth, it cannot be denied that rumors of this organization’s existence has percolated across the centuries with remarkable persistence; Cariph the Follower mentions them in his Rituals of the Order of the Sacred Questors; Xin Li transcribed the confessions of Thraxin the Slender when he was put to the question, wherein the Charnel Duke described a ‘Fortress of Symmetry’ that served as their base of operations; and Lianshi the Nun of the Red…” Lianshi’s eyes widened again, ‘wrote in her public memoir from the third century of meeting a man who called himself the Red Bishop in the Vale of Regrets, and who sought to recruit her to this clandestine order’.”
“Oh, wow,” whispered Scorio. “You met one of them before?”
“I must have.” She shook her head, bewildered. “But I’ve written so many diaries that I’ve only managed to read the latest dozen. From the third century?” She stared off at nothing, thinking. “I don’t even… but perhaps if I returned to Bastion…?”
“Maybe keep reading?” prompted Xandera, leaning in a little closer.
“From these and other sources have been gathered what little is known about this order, which is also, possibly, the same as that other which is called ‘The Artificers’. They are said to retain knowledge of how our treasures and mechanical wonders were once created, and to be able to create them still. Their duty is a sacred one, namely being to guide the uninitiated Great Souls toward their proper destiny, which, confusingly, is said to be the closure of the Pit, but not for the reasons commonly accepted amongst our sages and texts. The followers of this organization are divided into two groups, “aspirants” and “self-sacrificers.” The first may be recruited from the public, and if they prove themselves worthy, removed from the common cycle of rebirth so as to be blessed as future “self-sacrificers”, whereupon they shall be instructed with the core tenets of the faith. Only through a righteous death may an aspirant ascend to the higher order, though how such a rebirth might effect a qualification is unknown and unexplained.”