CHAPTER 14

Descent to Darkness

There are some opponents who will sacrifice everything to win. They will let their arms be broken, their kneecaps shattered, their skulls fractured, their bodies bludgeoned, to keep coming forward. For this sort of opponent, one should devote all effort to seeking the neck. A well-placed strangle does not pay heed to persistence or resilience.

Passage Two, Nineteenth Technique of the Combat Codes

Cego awoke in a cold sweat.

He’d been on the island again, that place that blurred his memories and nightmares. He honestly wasn’t sure what the difference was at this point.

It wasn’t his clammy hands or the groan of Dozer’s snoring that had woken him, though.

There was a glow in the corner of Quarter D, over by Sol’s section. Cego could see a shimmering light cast on his friend’s neatly stacked books. He crept out of bed and peered around the edge of Sol’s cot—she was sleeping soundly.

There, tucked in the corner, was a spectral.

The little wisp rose to the air, as if Cego had caught it snooping through Sol’s gear. It hovered in front of his face. This was not just any spectral.

He knew it, as much as he’d recognize any of his other friends in this room. He’d spent months in the Underground staring at this very wisp. It imparted a distinct glow, a warmth on Cego’s skin that made his stomach flutter.

But why is it here? Why has it returned?

Cego had not seen this spectral for years, since the finals match against Shiar as a Level One.

As if responding to Cego, the spectral pulsed and made a direct line to the dorm’s exit. It hovered in the doorway, beckoning him.

He followed the wisp down the long hall outside the dorm to the Harmony’s central stairs. It spiraled down in the darkness, past the second- and first-floor classrooms, and even beyond the common ground to the levels beneath the Lyceum.

Cego knew there were floors farther down, but he’d always heard they were locked off. Professor Aon had often muttered about the catacombs, complaining he was too old to be wandering beneath the school, digging up old tomes.

The air chilled Cego’s naked skin, and he wished he had had the foresight to throw his uniform on before wandering off in the night. Cobwebs caught between his toes, and he could see the trails of tree roots snaking their way through the stone cracks and following the stairs even lower.

The spectral stopped at a rusty black iron door. The wisp cast its light on a cloud of floating dust particles in front of the heavy frame, which was ajar. Cego peered at the door’s broken hinges and the footprints in the dust leading into the catacombs.

Someone else had been down there, recently.

“Where are you taking me?” Cego spoke to the spectral, just as he’d done while he was imprisoned within Thaloo’s compound.

The spectral pulsed in response and darted past the door. Cego followed it into a wide stone tunnel with arched entries running along either side.

As his eyes acclimated to the dim spectral light, Cego passed an old mess hall with furniture covered by frayed rugs, a knotty circular table set at its center. Beyond that, he walked by a room full of crates, with warped pots and pans hanging from stone walls. Another room was crammed with dusty bookshelves, and Cego wondered whether this was where Old Aon had come to retrieve the tomes he’d spoken of.

The spectral stopped decisively in front of one entryway before floating within and descending toward the ground, as if it were taking a rest.

A Circle was set on the floor, glimmering like wet coal.

“What’s this doing here?” Cego said to the spectral, though it appeared the little wisp was dormant now, as if it had found its way home. “Why would they keep an onyx Circle in storage?”

“Because they’re afraid of it,” a voice responded from behind him.

Cego whirled around in the darkness, his hands up, to see Kōri Shimo.

The strange boy looked at Cego unflinchingly, as if waiting for him to do something.

“What are you doing here?” Cego asked.

“I should ask the same of you,” Shimo said.

“I… I know it sounds strange, but I followed that spectral here,” Cego said. “It led me here. Just like over a year ago, when it brought me to Larkspur’s classroom. And you were there then as well. With this same onyx Circle.”

Shimo didn’t give any indication he thought it strange; he simply nodded. “And so, you are here.”

“Why are you here, then?” Cego asked. “Were you also led by it?”

“Yes,” Shimo said. “Just as it brought me to Larkspur’s classroom when the onyx Circle was there, it brought me down to the catacombs when they moved it here.”

“That’s where you’ve been all this time?” Cego asked. It was almost a running joke that Kōri Shimo was never around unless it was time to fight. Though he was often the top-scoring kid at his level, he was always on the verge of expulsion from the Lyceum due to constant delinquency from his classes.

“Yes,” Kōri said. He walked toward the onyx Circle and placed his hand against its coal frame. “I’ve spent my time here, within the onyx. Training.”

“How?” Cego asked. “Who else knows about this place that you’ve been training with?”

“No one,” Kōri said. “Perhaps some of the faculty, though I haven’t seen them since I’ve come. And now you.”

“Then how?” Cego asked again. “Why would you want to be down here by yourself?”

Perhaps the boy simply liked the darkness and the quiet.

“As I said, I’ve been training within the onyx.”

“How can you train by yourself?”

“Why don’t you step within and find out,” Kōri Shimo said.

Cego looked at the boy suspiciously.

“You suspect me,” Kōri said. “Perhaps you think that I wish to trick you. Harm you.”

Cego didn’t deny it. He’d seen Kōri Shimo critically injure other students, even his friends, without breaking a sweat or caring about their well-being. But there was something about Shimo that Cego couldn’t put a finger on. Since he’d first seen the strange boy practicing ki-breath during the lead-up to Trials, Cego had been inexplicably drawn to him.

“Why should I trust you?” Cego asked. “What reason do I have to step in the Circle?”

“Because you want to beat your brother,” Kōri said simply.

Cego stepped back. “How do you know about my brother?”

“Who doesn’t know about the Slayer?” Kōri Shimo said. “He’s the most famed Grievar on the planet.”

This was true. There was no denying Silas’s legend, and even someone living under a rock like Kōri Shimo would know him as well as his relation to Cego.

“Even so,” Cego said. “How do you know I want… I want to beat him?”

“Because we are the same,” Kōri Shimo said. “We come from the same place.”

Cego’s eyes widened. “You mean the—”

“The Cradle.” Kōri Shimo nodded.

It made sense. Murray had told Cego that there were other kids that had been created in the Cradle, within the blacklight, released into this world by the Daimyo to become champions.

“How long have you known?” Cego asked.

“Always,” Kōri Shimo said.

“What do you mean, always?” Cego was taken aback.

“I was told that I was created,” Kōri said. “What my purpose was.”

It seemed too easy. The Daimyo had told Kōri about his past as soon as he’d entered this world, but Cego had been kept in the dark, had found out the hard way.

“And you went along with it?” Cego asked incredulously. “You didn’t care you were some experiment for them?”

“Why would I?” Kōri said. “I was born from the Cradle, just as Grievar-kin are born from a mother’s womb. What’s the difference?”

“They… they created you.” Cego raised his voice. “They built you for their own purpose, to use you to fight for them!”

“And so?” Shimo said. “That is also what I want. To become the perfect fighter, the greatest champion this world has ever known.”

Cego shook his head in frustration. It was as if all the anger he held about his past, the unfairness of his upbringing and how he’d been used, was no longer justified.

“Forget that,” Cego said, breathing deeply. “Back to the onyx. How can it help me beat Silas?”

“You see?” Shimo said. “We are the same. And you will need to find out for yourself, as I did.”

Cego didn’t trust Shimo, despite the fact he’d found out the kid was nearly his kin, born in some Minder-forged simulation.

“What do I do?” Cego asked.

“Step in,” Shimo said. “You will know what to do.”

The water lapped at Cego’s toes. He inhaled deeply to breathe the sea air, so thick with salt he could taste it on his tongue. The sun felt warm against his face and he watched a little white squiggle squirm across the blackness of his shut eyes.

Perhaps he’d rest there for a while. He’d been back to the island so many times over the past years, during the Trials, in his dreams and fever visions. He sought the comfort of the old home.

Cego opened his eyes, expecting to see the brilliant blue cerulean skies, the Path shimmering emerald on the ocean breakers.

But nothing was right.

The sky was black. Not like the black curtain of night, with stars pinpricking it, but a void that hung above him and lacked any substance at all. Cego forced himself to break his gaze from the great emptiness above, and his eyes fell to the vast grey ocean in front of him. The waves were eerily still, frozen at their crests, as if Cego could walk out on top of the water toward the blank horizon.

He whirled around to see more of the drab landscape: shadowed sand dunes adorned with sickly tall grass. He sprinted off the beach and up to the top of the dunes. From the new vantage he saw the ironwood forest in the distance, a horde of skeletal trees sprouting from the parched ground.

The entire world was lusterless, as if all the vivid color of the island had drained away.

Thunder murmured in the distance, and though there were no clouds in the empty sky, Cego sensed a storm was coming.

He turned to see the old master’s compound gone from where it should be. Now there was only a planked walkway leading to the edge of the bluff. Someone was out there, a grey form sitting with the cloudless sky behind them.

Cego knew this was where he must go: the ironwood Circle.

He breathed, calming his mind, preparing himself as he walked toward the cliff.

Cego came to the familiar sight of the old master facing away from him within the Circle. Farmer sat cross-legged, his grey topknot falling down his robed shoulders.

“Master, I’m home,” Cego said, the words leaving his mouth involuntarily as if he were reading a script.

The man did not respond, and so Cego took a step forward within the bounds of the Circle. Like he’d set off an alarm, the old master abruptly stood, still facing away from him.

“Master, I’m home,” Cego repeated.

The old man turned, and Cego recoiled. The face was not Farmer’s, but it was familiar.

The Guardian’s visage had been burned into Cego’s mind, and now it reared again like an old wound burst open. He’d never forget the machines he’d encountered during his Trials. Like blacklight itself, the creature was without form. It was as if Cego were looking at the absence of reality, a place where light and life did not exist.

The Guardian did not speak, but Cego knew what he must do. He needed to do what he was created for in this very place. Cego now understood Shimo’s words, understood why the strange boy had told him to step into the onyx.

This is the only way you can beat Silas.

The Guardian was the only opponent like Silas: a force of combat without tethering to physical constraints.

Cego stepped forward, and the Guardian stood motionless, staring at him without eyes or features, only a gaping hole where a face should be.

Cego threw his best ranged weapon, a spinning side kick, one that had downed the likes of Rhodan Bertoth. The Guardian sidestepped, moving with the swiftness of sand in the wind, and grabbed Cego’s leg, pressing forward to throw him off balance.

Cego had been caught there before; he had a counter. He jumped off his based foot to throw a switch kick at the creature’s head while his hand was occupied. The Guardian released Cego’s leg and ducked the kick before rapidly transitioning to a blinding cross.

Cego bobbed his head and countered with a low kick, which the Guardian didn’t even bother to check. Cego feigned a wide haymaker to see if the beast would bring its hands high, but it simply ducked and launched a knee in response.

Cego felt the sharp bone connect with his chin and he was flat on his back, staring at the empty sky.

He expected the Guardian to let him back up, as it had during the Trials, but it was on him already, mounting him with its knees squeezing his rib cage.

Cego bucked to escape, but the pressure was too great. The Guardian had melded to Cego’s body, and it reared up into a barrage of ground-and-pound.

Cego attempted to defend, turn his head away from blows, but they came too fast, as if the Guardian’s hands had multiplied to come from every possible angle. Cego’s nose broke as a fist slammed into it. His jaw cracked as the creature cut down with a high elbow.

Cego had seen this fight before. Long ago, when he’d fought Gryfin Thurgood, when the darkness had taken him, he remembered pounding the boy like a piece of meat until his friends had to pull him off.

Now Cego was the piece of meat, and the Guardian was softening his body, his bones, his innards into a bloody mush. With each strike, Cego felt the pain. The assault did not dull. The Guardian kept attacking even with Cego’s hands lifeless at his side. The beast rained strikes into his defenseless form, and yet Cego couldn’t leave. He couldn’t escape to either unconsciousness or death.

Kōri Shimo had tricked him into the onyx, into this hellscape, where Cego would be tortured by the Guardian forever. The thought of it was more terrifying than the strikes that continued to bludgeon him.

Cego screamed, though no words came from his mouth.

The thick darkness clung to Cego.

The pain and terror engulfed him. The void stared through him.

He screamed again and put his hands to his face, expecting to feel a bloody mess. But his nose was not caved inward; his skin was not ripped apart. Cego opened his eyes and looked up to see Kōri Shimo.

“You were calling for Murray Pearson,” Shimo said.

Cego trembled on the floor outside the onyx Circle, still within the dusty recesses of the room in the catacombs. He tried to inhale, expecting to feel the broken ribs, but the breath came deep and full. He touched his hands to his body, which had been maimed moments before, to find it intact.

“What… what did it do to me?” Cego fumbled for words, his heart beating rapidly.

“The Guardian beat you,” Shimo said. “Within the onyx.”

“Yes… but what made it stop?” Cego asked.

“It didn’t,” Shimo responded. “I pulled you from the Circle, again. Just as I did nearly two years ago in Larkspur’s classroom.”

“Why did you send me in there?” Cego asked as he wiped the sweat from his face. “That creature… it won’t help me fight Silas. There’s no way to do anything against it.”

“How long do you think you fought this time against the Guardian within the onyx?” Shimo asked.

“Far too long.” Cego tried again to take a deep breath. “And most of the time, the thing beat me bloody. An hour?”

“I watched you walk into the Circle, sit down, and close your eyes. Five seconds later, you were screaming Murray’s name and I dragged you out,” Shimo said.

“It can’t be,” Cego said. “So, that’s how you…”

It’s how Shimo had gotten so good. He was getting hours, days, weeks of practice while spending minutes at a time within the onyx.

Onyx compresses time. Cego could hear the voice of his Level One Circles professor, Adrienne Larkspur.

“If this is possible, why aren’t all the students doing it? Why aren’t all Knights practicing in onyx?”

Cego finally managed to lift himself off the floor.

“I asked the same thing when I first stepped into onyx,” Kōri Shimo explained. “It was in Professor Larkspur’s class alongside you that I first realized the possibilities the element possessed. I discovered something was special about me, about my upbringing in the Cradle, within the blacklight, that lets me use it, create a training environment of it. Most who step within it are barraged with random memories and images. They can’t control their experience. Most go insane.”

“And… you assumed I would be able to do the same? That I wouldn’t go insane?” Cego asked.

“Yes,” Kōri Shimo said.

Cego wasn’t yet convinced Shimo would even care if he went insane, or about what happened to him at all. And yet the strange boy had pulled him from the Circle, saved him from more of the Guardian’s torture.

“But even so,” Cego said. “Even if we can train in here and get years more experience in days, we won’t be able to ever beat the Guardian. It’s part of the simulation, like the ocean, or the sand dunes.”

“You are correct that the Guardian cannot be beaten,” Shimo said. “But that does not make the training any less valuable.”

“You mean to say…” Cego tried to take a deep breath. “That every time you step into the onyx, the Guardian beats you like it did to me today? It tortures you, makes you go through that every time?”

“Yes,” Shimo said, the boy’s eyes sharp. “We must sacrifice to gain. Each time I go in, I last longer. I become stronger. And I haven’t had anyone to pull me out, away from the Guardian’s terror.”

Cego could not imagine going through that torture a single time again, let alone regularly, no matter what he gained from it.

“You hesitate,” Shimo said. “I understand. It’s not pleasant, going through that. But do you want to beat Silas?”

Cego felt the pit in his stomach, the emptiness that had filled him since Murray had been taken from him by his brother.

Murray would have done anything for him. If Murray could have gone into this death simulation a thousand times to save Cego, he would have. And now Cego had that chance. He stood with a solution in front of him to become far stronger. Perhaps good enough to beat Silas, to avenge Murray’s death. And he was scared for himself? Afraid of the pain he’d have to face?

Cego gritted his teeth. He stepped back toward the onyx Circle, the tendrils of darkness reaching to him.

The world shifted as he sat down on the cold stone floor within the ring. The black sky and frozen sea replaced the dusty catacombs.

“Yes,” Cego said as he returned home again. “I want to kill Silas.”