“Chancellor.” A new voice, and terribly familiar. It was a powerful rumble, deep and masculine.
“Ah, Leonis, Lianshi, do come in.” Praximar’s manner turned genial.
Scorio’s whole being, his very soul, became instantly silent and blank of thought. He felt like a tuning fork expecting its first blow, a sheet of parchment ready to be written upon. Utterly without defense against what was to come.
Leonis and Lianshi stepped into view. They wore Academy robes with House Hydra emblems and glanced at Scorio with a mixture of apprehension and fascination.
“Here he is,” said Praximar. “Scorio the Red Lister. I thought, given the rumors you must have heard, that it good for you to see what manner of being he truly is.”
Leonis frowned at Scorio. It was him. It was really Leonis, but also—not. The large man’s hair was cut close, his beard shaved close to the jaw, and in his eyes there was not a flicker of familiarity, the smallest ember of friendship.
Just a piercing scrutiny, a furious demand for answers that Scorio couldn’t provide.
Lianshi was by the large man’s side, her hair neatly braided, and though she stood confidently Scorio knew her too well to be fooled. She was masking a great uneasiness, her whole manner artificial and still.
“Yes,” said Leonis slowly, looking Scorio up and down. “Thank you… chancellor.”
“How can we be of help?” asked Lianshi crisply.
“Escort this creature to the dungeons in House Hydra’s palace, and ask the guards to place him in our lowest level. To find him a secure and solitary cell and there place him. I’ll be down later to ensure all is as it should be.”
“Very well.” Leonis rubbed his palms together and stepped up. “Do we simply…?”
“The prism is lightweight,” said Ydrielle from the sidelines. “You should have no difficulty carrying it.”
Both of Scorio’s old friends lifted him up without difficulty.
“With your permission, chancellor,” said Leonis dutifully.
“You may go, and with my thanks.”
Scorio was tilted over at an oblique angle and carried back out into the hall. He wanted to cry out to his friends, to explain himself, to release his scaled form, but he was trapped in it, the prism holding him locked. He could only watch, helpless and abject, as his companions carried him down and out of the Academy.
The only comfort he could draw was from drinking in the sight of them both. They lived. They’d come back so soon! How did they fare? Was Lianshi devouring her diaries as before? Did Leonis urge her to attend celebrations and drink flaywine, did his voice boom in the hallways and his laughter fill their suite?
“He’ll be watching us,” Lianshi said quietly.
“I know.” Leonis had never sounded more grim. “This is an obvious test. Do you think he can hear us?”
Scorio sensed them both studying him as he stared straight ahead.
“Doesn’t look… like what I’d expected,” said Lianshi at last as they emerged from a stairwell.
“I know what you mean.”
This is my war form, Scorio wanted to shout. This isn’t how you met me, how we spent time together.
“The bastards,” said Lianshi as they entered a quiet hallway. “Making us do this. As if we’re children who’d recoil from a scary puppet.”
“A test or a powerplay?” asked Leonis. “He knows we can’t do anything. Perhaps he’s showing us his true control of the situation.”
“Or… perhaps he’s using us to torment Scorio.”
“Torment how?”
“If we really were friends before, then his seeing us now, like this, being unable to communicate with us…” Lianshi trailed off, miserable.
“Damn it,” hissed Leonis. “That’s if he can hear us.”
“If he can hear us,” agreed Lianshi.
They emerged into a small, enclosed courtyard and passed through an archway into a broad hallway. Students drew back and stared.
Scorio drank their words greedily. Their compassion. But his inability to communicate on even the slightest level drove him to greater heights of fury and frustration.
Only once Lianshi and Leonis left the Academy grounds were they able to converse in private once more.
“Stop tormenting yourself, my love,” said Lianshi. “There’s nothing we can do.”
My love? Scorio’s thoughts froze. What the hell? What had happened between them, surely they couldn’t be—?
“Whatever Praximar’s hopes for this ploy, it’s failing.” Leonis’s voice was but a growl. “He’s rubbing our face in our ignorance, and yes, I think he’s torturing Scorio. What did this man do to make the chancellor hate him so?”
If only you knew.
“We’re only Tomb Sparks,” said Lianshi. “But not forever. Let’s get this done and then one day…”
Leonis grunted in agreement. A plan of theirs? A previous agreement?
There was no telling.
They carried him through the Ward in silence, people slowing to stop and stare, till at last, they reached the entrance to House Hydra’s huge palace.
“I’m sorry, Scorio,” said Leonis quietly as they walked up. “I don’t remember you, don’t know if what they say about you is true or not, but this… this doesn’t feel right, and I’m sorry.”
Four House Hydra guards moved forward to intercept them.
“From the chancellor,” said Leonis, voice neutral.
“He’s to be put on the lowest level, alone,” added Lianshi.
“Right you are.” The guards hesitantly took hold of Scorio’s prism. “We’ll make sure it’s done.”
“Good.” For a moment Scorio thought Leonis was going to address him. The big man opened his mouth, uncertain, then glanced at Lianshi and turned away.
Then they were gone.
Scorio lost track of what happened next. His grief washed over him like a wave. He was taken inside, through a luxurious great hall then down a side corridor, down stairwells, along hallways, down more stairs, and finally into a small stone chamber.
Both guards considered him, then turned to study the powerfully built metal door, then studied his talons once again.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” said the taller one.
“Not on our heads if it’s not,” agreed the shorter.
They took up the lantern and stepped outside.
No, Scorio wanted to scream at them. Please! Don’t take the light! Don’t leave me here in the dark!
But the guards swung the heavy door closed and bolted it. A faint line of warm yellow light filtered around its edges, but this diminished with the footsteps, and then was gone.
Chapter 63
Scorio screamed inside the confines of his skull for what felt like an eternity. The darkness was absolute. His body was trapped and held, the air cool and comforting, the pain in his shoulder dulled, and oh, the sensation was so familiar, so horrifyingly familiar that he couldn’t take it.
No release. No physical shaking, no ability to throw punches or feel his chest, his whole body tighten up with the intense relief of venting his fury. Just a soundless nullity in his mind, his thoughts endlessly fracturing as he refused what had taken place, rejected it futilely over and over and over again.
His panic was mercifully interrupted by a voice. It filtered through from the left, distant and muted, as if coming through a crack in the wall.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
A woman’s voice, weary beyond all description, the rasp of someone who’d not spoken in years—or spent far too much time screaming.
Scorio ached to respond.
“Hello? I heard them bring you in. Are you bound?”
The silence stretched out again, as pure and deep as the dark.
“Hello?” This time the voice sounded near breaking as well, raw emotion rising beneath the veneer of control.
After that there was nothing.
Scorio hung suspended in the void. In desperation he turned to his old tricks: he visualized the pile of rocks outside the Chasm camp, but almost immediately discarded the exercise in frustration. Sought to recreate the Forms, but that proved useless, too. His mind was febrile, panicked, and already he was losing track of time. Had he been down here for a single cycle or three?