“They have their own Archspire,” said Scorio, heart hammering. “Maybe that means that aspirants have their souls tied to this second spire, if they qualify?”
Lianshi nodded slowly, awed and horrified both. “Which would remove them from the ‘common cycle of rebirth’. Yes. But why is the core group called ‘self-sacrificers’? And what does it mean, that we’re supposed to close the Pit but not for reasons we understand?”
“Is there anything else?”
Lianshi continued. “From Xin Li’s transcription we learn that the roving Fortress of Symmetry may only be found by self-sacrificers, who can transport themselves to it with but a wish. Aspirants must approach it on foot, a daunting task for the Fortress of Symmetry follows ancient patterns of power laid across the breadth of the Silver Unfathom and Lustrous Maria. Thraxin the Slender claimed that it is cloaked and hidden by ancient magics, and only with the aid of a compass rose may an aspirant track it down.”
“Compass rose,” said Scorio. “Why does that…?” Then a jolt rushed through him, and he hurried to his pack. He dug around inside it, then pulled out the small rosewood box. Slid open the lid, and pulled free the rose quartz carving of the heavily petalled flower. “This?”
Lianshi took the box from him instead and studied the lid. “This pattern. The one laid over the compass design. Maybe it correlates to the one the Fortress of Symmetry follows?”
Scorio bent his head in beside hers and studied the pattern anew. The twisting lines curved and tangled, but if one assumed it was a continuous path, then - “Look. The ends on either side would match up.”
“Making it a continuous circuit,” said Lianshi excitedly. And she dexterously traced the path, picking a point at random, her finger leaping from one side of the lid to the other to continue the broken tracks. “It’s convoluted, but it’s one looping path.”
Xandera bent her head in beside theirs, the illumination brightening. “But what are those other marks?”
Scorio frowned at the red dots that lay alongside different parts of the path. “Maybe… landmarks?”
“That would make sense,” said Lianshi. “Though we’d need a map of the Silver Unfathom and the Lustrous Maria to match them up.”
“But if we did,” said Scorio, his own excitement rising, “then we could find the Fortress of Symmetry’s path, and use the compass rose to track it down.”
Lianshi and Xandera looked up at him, and for a moment they simply grinned at each other.
“But,” said Lianshi. “What happens if you find it? You can’t storm an entire… wait, never mind. I forgot who I was talking to.”
“What else does the book say?” asked Scorio.
Lianshi lifted it to Xandera’s light. “Let’s see. There was a period in the fifth century when successive worthies in deep hell sought to extinguish this sect and all mentions of others like it. Imperator Sarana was the most assiduous in hunting down all traces of it, and in the year 576 declared that the Fortress of Symmetry was a hoax, and that it should rather be called the Lost Cube, for all who sought it were doomed to failure. In the century since then, no fresh mentions of this organization have been made to this author’s knowledge. And that’s where it ends.”
“Sarana,” said Scorio.
“Either she’s a member, and hid it,” said Lianshi, “or she never was, and simply never found it.”
“It’s too suspicious,” said Scorio. “Though perhaps we can search for records of her being born in Bastion. If she’s actually a member of the Herdsmen, or the Shepherds, then she’d have been born in the Fortress of Symmetry, right?”
“I guess so.”
Scorio turned the quartz rose over in his palm, then reached out for mana and swept some Bronze into its center like he might have done with his old rod or ladder. The rose accepted the mana, but nothing happened.
Scorio closed his fist around the treasure. “Well, we’ve got a lead. Between the box cover and this treasure, we can try to pick up the Fortress of Symmetry’s trail.”
“And,” added Xandera, “that means we get to explore deeper reaches of hell. That’s great!”
“Right,” said Scorio. “The Silver Unfathom and the Lustrous Maria. Somewhere out there the Herdsmen’s base is floating through those layers of hell.”
Lianshi grimaced. “We’re talking two of the largest layers. It’s over two thousand miles to cross them both if you head straight south.”
“First we match these dots to landmarks.” Scorio tapped the box’s lid. “And then we get to the closest path line, and see what the rose does.”
“You make it sound so simple,” sighed Lianshi.
Xandera glanced between them both. “Because it is?”
Scorio laughed. “There might be a few unexpected challenges along the way. But nothing’s stopped us yet. I’m going to do everything I can to tear that Fortress of Symmetry apart.”
“Imperator Sarana might like a word,” said Lianshi.
“Let’s take it one step at a time,” grinned Scorio. “You guys ready?”
“Absolutely!” said Xandera.
“Yes. I think so? I mean, sure.” Lianshi paused, took a deep breath, then smiled as her cheeks flushed. “I mean, absolutely. Let’s go destroy this secret society once and for all.”
Epilogue
There was no running from herself. No outpacing the Nightmare Lady. But she tried. Sobbing, gasping for breath, the gods knew she tried.
She’d grown strong. Dread Blaze. Always one step behind him, but this last leap, this evolution, had infused her with a stamina and strength that nobody yet understood.
Perhaps not even herself.
Because she kept trying to find her limit, the point beyond which she’d collapse. She’d dropped into that chasm and run, sought to outrace her horror and the cracking of her mind. Through darkness she’d squirmed and dropped and climbed and crawled. Through wormholes and across natural caverns, leaping over lakes of lava and clawing her way up claustrophobic chimneys, until at last she’d burst out into the gloaming of the valley, and taken to racing down its broken length.
Her mind was a shattered mirror. Images slid across the fragments even as she sprinted, hunched over, tail whipping back and forth, claws occasionally grasping at rocks to pull herself along.
Images of Scorio. Of his eyes closed tight as they’d formed their union. Of how foolish and delightful he looked when he cracked up. Images of the places they’d visited together. The quiet moments.
But always another moment erased those. When she’d spun, her tail lashing out of its own accord, Alain’s eyes wide with shock -
No. She couldn’t think about it.
So she ran.
There was a purity to seeking an impossible escape.
Fiends fled from her. Ferric Drakes swooped down only to bank in alarm at the last moment as they tasted her aura and sped away. Predators foolish enough to attack were slaughtered without her even breaking her pace.
On and on she ran. Her muscles burned. Her Heart felt like it would split. The Delightful Secret Marinating technique kept her fueled. Day become dusk became day, and then the light changed, the heavens themselves, and she burst out into the Telurian Band.
She’d hoped this would allow her to stop. That somehow it would be an answer.
But it wasn’t.
Spittle frothed at her jaws. Her throat and lungs were raw. Her vision narrowed to a tunnel, and still she ran, reeling, as if through a fever dream. Across the cracked land, splashing through Bronze-watered lakes. Vaulting ridges, scrambling up broken slopes, sometimes simply shadow-stepping across chasms that were too wide.
And each moment in which she surrendered herself to the shadows became ever more seductive than the last.
Like a cool towel upon her burning brow.