They followed her onto a dusty road that led to their target gate. Nothing grew here, he realized. The dirt was as fine as smoke, a soft gray dust that rose in puffs with their every step. There was no green anywhere, just a ponderous and weighty sense of age.
“Which direction are we going?” he called out.
“South,” replied Evelyn without looking back.
“And if we left through that gate there?”
“Also south.”
Scorio frowned. “They’re both south?”
Lianshi hip-checked him. “Somebody spent too much time harvesting black star plants. Every direction from Bastion is south, remember? We’re at the top of Hell.”
“The top of Hell,” mused Scorio. “Oh. Right.”
Lianshi looked pitying at him. “Imagine a sphere. We’re at its very top.”
“And at the bottom is the Pit?”
Lianshi grinned. “I knew there was hope for you.”
They approached the archway. It loomed hugely above them, opening to a tunnel that was cast deep in shadow by its sheer length. Enigmatic windows were placed high up within the tunnel’s walls, and Scorio thought he saw movement within them, shadowed figures watching as they passed.
“The walls are hollow?”
“Parts of them, at any rate,” said Naomi quietly.
They emerged on the far side, and again their little group instinctively stopped. Evelyn walked on cheerfully for a moment before glancing back at them.
“Oh come on. What are you stopping for? This is the most boring view in all of Hell.”
The ground fell away from the base of the wall in a gentle slope to mild rolling hills that extended in subtle swells toward the horizon. The land was barren, the same fine, silty gray ash that he’d seen within the walls. Looking out over the hills, he saw that the ash wasn’t truly uniform in color; swathes of lighter ivory lay across the dark, with certain swales gradating to a subtle metallic green or dusky lavender. The effect was eerie, beautiful, alien.
“Why does nothing grow here?” asked Zala, her tone hushed.
“Hmm?” Evelyn turned as if seeing the land for the first time. “Why? Because it doesn’t. Nothing grows close to Bastion. Doesn’t rain, and even the Copper mana is sparse. It’s always been that way. Now come on, we need to get going. This part of the trip always depresses me.”
A broad road of compacted ash led down the great slope and then rose beyond it to climb the first of the rolling hills.
Scorio hitched up his pack and set to following Evelyn. The sky stretched all above them, endless and blue, though serried ranks of gray clouds hung over the horizon. His heart felt light, his mood buoyant. He couldn’t stop scanning the landscape, trying to encompass how huge it felt. The horizon was flung so far away that it seemed impossible they’d ever reach it. He could make out the passage of wind in the distance by how it blew the ash in continuous waves, leaving great rippled marks across the smooth land, occasional dunes rising as tall as he was, their lines sinuous and undulating in parallel rows.
“Not what I’d imagined,” said Lianshi, moving up alongside him. “You look pleased, though.”
“I love it.” Scorio grinned at her. “We’re outside, Lianshi. We’re finally here. On the Plains.”
“We sure are.” She wasn’t able to restrain a smile in return. “Though if you get this excited in the Ash Belt, you’re going to lose your mind deeper in.”
Evelyn set a punishing pace. She seemed indefatigable. They walked for countless miles, and soon the walls of Bastion began to sink behind the horizon, hidden at times by lines of hills or rising into prominence again each time they reached a crest. Scorio’s mouth grew silty from the ambient dust that hung in the air, but it wasn’t actual ash, he soon discovered; its consistency was more like fine sand, and the taste was not unpleasant. At one point he scooped up a handful and studied it in the light of the solitary sun, tilting his palm from side to side so that the dust glittered.
“Look at that,” he said, extending his hand to Leonis.
“What do you mean? It’s all there is to look at.”
“But it’s not uniform in color. See? Mostly black, yes, but there are flecks of metal mixed in, silver, copper, even some hints of green.”
Lianshi nodded eagerly. “Study it with your Great Soul’s senses.”
Scorio did so, reaching out as he would for mana. The air was thin, wisps of Copper floating like zephyrs about them, but the ash in his palm was inert. Though—Scorio frowned and focused more intently. He brought his whole mind to bear, and realized that the ash was actually infused with mana. The black was Coal, the metallic specks a mixture of Copper, Iron, Bronze, even Silver. Trace amounts of Emerald and Sapphire were also present.
He looked up in shock. “All of this? We’re walking on mana?”
“Sure are.” Lianshi did a skipping step then turned to walk backwards before him, looking incredibly pleased. “When I read about it, I thought it would look more… interesting? I guess it’s predominantly Coal, though.”
“But why?” Scorio allowed the ash to sift through his fingers. “This is all mana? How—I mean, why is it just lying here like this?”
“Nobody knows.” Lianshi seemed to love that idea. “It’s always been here, since before the first records, apparently. More mana than we could use in a lifetime, but granulated and inert. Supposedly Crimson Earls and Imperators can salvage it, but why would they bother?”
Scorio gazed at the miles and miles of rolling hills that surrounded them. “This is all mana?” he repeated. “Then why is there so little Copper in the air?”
Lianshi’s grin became wry. “You’re going to have to get used to not getting answers. Hell’s too strange. We’ve been studying it for almost a millennia but for the most part, folks have learned to simply shrug and say: that’s just the way Hell is. And I’m glad.” She took a deep breath and gazed about them. “My soul just thrills at all this mystery. There have to be reasons. Why was so much mana locked away like this? Why only around Bastion? Why for a radius of some fifty miles? And for that matter, who built the walls that surround Bastion?”
Leonis stared at her. “We don’t know?”
She laughed. “Probably because most Great Souls are like you two, intent only on getting stronger and punching harder. Punch punch punch!” She sounded giddy. “No, we don’t know. The records aren’t perfect, of course, seeing as much was lost or is locked away for only the higher ranks to read, but as far as we know, the walls have always been there.”
“Before Bastion was built?” asked Scorio.
“Maybe they’re why Bastion was built there,” said Juniper from behind them. “To take advantage of their protection. The fighting was especially fierce during the first century.”
“Maybe,” agreed Lianshi amiably. “But nobody knows for sure.”
“Or everybody knows except Great Souls of our rank,” said Naomi dourly.
“Or that,” agreed Lianshi. “Either way, I love it. Imagine how boring it would be if everything was understood and already explained. If there was no mystery left. Maybe in this lifetime I’ll uncover some secrets of my own and contribute to our understanding of Hell?”
“Why bother?” Evelyn called back cheerfully. “It’s all going to end in ten years or so, right?”
Lianshi’s shoulders slumped. “Oh. Yeah. Right.”
“I think you should still try to find out,” said Scorio, bumping her with his shoulder. “Who knows? Maybe answering these kinds of mysteries will help us all reach the Pit.”
Lianshi considered, and then smiled. “Right.”
They walked all day, though ‘day’ proved to be only a few hours long. Their source of light was a tiny sun, a dot of brilliant light that slid across the sky and then descended rapidly toward the horizon, causing the sky to darken and the long clouds to turn lavender, then gray, then black.