The boarding area was a circular walkway, a constant stream of folk feeding directly onto the platforms as they slid by. Cego and Murray boarded one of the platforms and filtered to one side of it, right up against the curved glass window. Folk streamed around Cego to fill every available gap, pushing and jostling for position.
The platform slowly moved around the perimeter of the Lift, in queue until it reached the entryway. As it moved into the interior of the Lift, the platform was blanketed with darkness. Cego felt his stomach drop as they began to rise, spiraling upward along the inner wall of the tube.
It was eerily quiet within the Lift. The platforms made no sound as they rose, and the passengers within were pacified as if quieted by some force in the darkness. Cego looked up, watching the hundreds of other platforms floating toward the cave ceiling, concentric circles of light becoming fainter in the distance.
Cego could make out Murray’s bulky form hovering over him in the dark. He could hear the big Grievar breathing deliberately, hissing air from his mouth in quick bursts. Ki breath—it was same method Farmer had taught Cego to relax his muscles. He wondered whether the breathing technique was something taught at the Lyceum. Perhaps Farmer and Murray had learned from the same source. The source he was heading to now.
Cego’s body was tense with anticipation. He fell into Murray’s rhythm of breathing, matching his inhales and exhales.
It was said there was a world of difference between the Underground and Upworld Grievar brood. The Deep brood were mostly lacklights, picked up off the streets, more suited for service work than fighting in the Circles.
The Surface brood were bred for the Circle. They were purelights, their mothers and fathers passing down combat genetics from generation to generation. Most were already versed in the Lyceum’s curriculum, their parents preparing them with countless techniques. Leyna had said that some of the kids were already using neurostimulants to give them the edge.
Could he hold his own against them?
Cego could now make out a faint halo of light above, getting closer as the platform continued to rise toward the Surface. He steadied his excitement. How long had it been since he’d taken in fresh air? How many days since he’d felt the rays of warm sunlight on his skin? He pictured himself sitting on the black-sand beach with the crisp blue sky above, feeling the sunlight against his brow.
The platform neared the halo of light, and Cego pressed his face against the glass window. He closed his eyes, ready to return to the Surface.
Something slammed into side of the Lift not far from Cego’s face, jarring his eyes open. Black rocks were pelting the exterior of the Lift, disrupting the silence with the sound of a thousand drums.
“Darkin’ onyx storm. Shoulda known your grand viewing would be ruined by weather,” Murray muttered. The rest of the passengers on the platform didn’t seem particularly disturbed.
Through the maelstrom of black rocks, Cego could see the Surface world as they continued to rise into the air. Something was wrong.
The sky, if it could even be called a sky, was grey, as if it were shrouded in ash. Cego had only ever seen varying shades of blue skies on the Island. A dull light filtered down through the grey sky, painting the pale landscape beneath it. Cego couldn’t feel the light on his skin, warming him like the sun he remembered.
Cego looked up at Murray, whose face was calm. Nothing was wrong. This was the Surface Murray expected to emerge to.
Cego stared back outside as the onyx storm raged around the Lift, great gusts of wind uprooting skeletal trees below and tossing them like playthings. In the distance, Cego could see the outline of a sprawling city, its lights twinkling under the bleak sky.
8
Purelights and Lacklights
The novice is more likely to wag their tongue than the master. A Grievar who truly understands the path will speak simply by living.
Twenty-Fourth Precept of the Combat Codes
Murray fidgeted in his chair. His Scout uniform was too tight. Grievar weren’t meant to sit like this, in this sort of room.
He stared up at the ornate high ceilings adorned with auralite chandeliers hanging down like translucent jellies and splaying spectral light throughout the room. A top-level balcony encircled the main hall below, the platinum railings shining from a servicer’s daily polish. Tall shield windows were spaced across the walls on each level, providing sprawling vistas to the eastern and western fronts of the Citadel. Between each window, elaborate portraits dotted the walls.
Murray stared out an east-facing window toward central Mercuri, about a mile in the distance beyond the Citadel’s grounds. Under the grey sky he could distinguish the hardlight districts of the city by their stark spectral contrasts. The gridded squares of the hawker’s market, the bushy foliage of the harvester’s patch, and the towering skyscrapers of the Tendrum district were all spotlighted by brilliant arrays.
In the middle of it all, the central dregs, grey-streaked and dilapidated, were without any noticeable light source. The dark clouds congregated over the dregs. The domed roof of the Courthouse was barely visible, emerging from the shadows as if it were gasping for air.
Murray turned from the bleak view and appraised the ornate room he was sitting in. An audience of Grievar Scouts sat around him, uniformed and stiff-backed in their chairs, waiting for Commander Callen to emerge on the podium for their cycle briefing. Some Scouts whispered and eyed each other with suspicious stares.
Murray could remember when this room was still the Knight’s mess hall. He would sit with Anderson and Leyna at the beat-up long tables that used to line the room, enthusiastically recounting their fights over a hearty stew and a round of ales.
They’d been the young fists of Mercuri’s Knights then, freshly graduated from the Lyceum. They would sit in front of the hearth, a grand fireplace embedded in the brick wall, while recounting their latest tales of combat. The veterans of the team would often join their banter from a nearby long table, chiding the whelps fresh from combat school. Coach would watch quietly from his perch at the back of the room, slowly sipping the froth off an ale.
In that old mess hall, Murray had felt as if he were a part of something bigger. They’d been a team, one unit fighting in the Circle for a defined purpose. Defending Mercuri. Upholding the Combat Codes.
Since then, the old mess hall had been completely gutted and remodeled to accommodate the state-of-the-art Scout conference center. The long tables had been replaced with rows of sterile steel seats. The fiery hearth at the center of the room was gone, replaced by a large lightboard plastered on the wall.
The Scouts quieted as Commander Callen Albright took the podium on the balcony above. Callen was smaller than most Grievar, almost wiry in build, with flat dark hair and bright yellow eyes. He wore a firmly pressed black uniform, staring down at the room of Scouts with an air of superiority.
Murray shook his head, looking up at his so-called Commander. Callen was young, too young for his post.
The Albright family was one of the longstanding purelight Grievar lines in Mercuri, one of the Twelve Houses, their decedents ingrained in the Citadel for centuries. When the position for Scout Commander became vacant, Callen was a shoo-in. Though he barely knew the inside of a Circle, the Albright heir had jumped to a lofty position within the newly formed Scouts branch, which his father had conveniently created several years prior.
Murray shook his head. And now Callen was one of the Citadel’s four Commanders.
Callen cleared his throat, making sure he had the full attention of the Scouts. Murray continued fidgeting in his chair. Though it had been over a month since his fight with the Dragoon, his back still felt like a mech had run it over.
“Scouts! I applaud your efforts this cycle. As you all know, we’ve cultivated some promising talent this year,” Callen spoke with an airy voice, enunciating every syllable of the Tikretian words. “Let’s begin our review with acknowledgement of some notable achievements.”
&nb
sp; “Scout Aeric managed to recruit a gem in the rough, a boy from the outer rings that was wasted on service work, lost amongst a sea of harvesters…” Callen nodded and Scout Aeric stood up to acknowledge his praise.
Callen held his hand over the lightdeck in front of him, and the boards across the room flickered on. The feed showed a large blond boy working in Mercuri’s outer rings amongst the harvesters. The boy swung a threshing hoe like it was a garden rake—he was massive. “He’s only nine, and though he certainly has Grunt blood, he’s larger than most of us in this room already,” Callen said in praise.
The Scouts around Murray began to clap, another custom Grievar had recently picked up from the Daimyos. Murray refrained from joining in. If he actually believed in what the Scouts were doing here, a hearty oss would suffice as it always had.
Callen continued his speech. “Though it is her first year with us, Scout Piara got her hands on a Grievar we’ve sought for a long time.” Callen flicked his hand at the deck again, displaying another feed.
The broadcast cut between scenes of a dark-skinned man fighting in a series of Circles around the world. He dismantled each opponent he faced with a combination of devastating precision strikes. Callen paused for dramatic effect, letting the Scouts absorb the highlight reel, before announcing the Grievar’s name—“The Falcon himself, Sit Fanyong!”
Scout Piara, a square-jawed recruit fresh out of the Lyceum, stood and accepted her praise, nodding and smiling.
Callen continued to list the team’s achievements. “Although Scout Cydek was denied a great opportunity with his attempt at the Dragoon’s recruitment…” Callen paused and caught Murray’s eye from the podium, looking down at him with obvious disdain. “… he was able to recoup his losses and come up with what some may consider an even better prospect.”
The feed displayed a boy with a shaved head viciously kicking a downed opponent, his eyes gleaming with delight as each blow landed. Murray recognized the boy. He’d seen him at Thaloo’s, the purelight out of Crew Nine. Cego’s crew.
“Young Shiar may have been the only true purelight brood in the Underground, his inherent talents getting wasted in the slave Circles. Now Shiar can properly be nurtured at the Lyceum, perhaps even becoming our next champion someday. Scout Cydek was able to recognize this great opportunity. Let us recognize him for that,” Callen said as the Scouts continued to clap.
Cydek stood up across the room, his piercings glinting under the chandelier’s light. He met Murray’s eyes and smirked at him.
Murray chuckled. He didn’t mean to laugh audibly, yet he couldn’t help it. All this pomp and circumstance. Grievar, dressed head to toe in foolish formal wear, clapping as if they were Daimyos. Accepting praise for talent they had nothing to do with. These Scouts didn’t put their life on the line in the Circle. Yet they stood up proudly, as if it was they who were fighting.
The room was silent, all heads turned toward Murray, who was now laughing deeply, slapping the arm rest on his chair. Commander Callen’s eyes bulged from up on the podium. “Scout Pearson,” Callen said dryly. “Apparently, you find the hard work of your fellow Scouts to be laughable.”
Murray wiped a tear from his eye as his laughter slowly subsided.
“You know, that is quite funny.” Callen feigned a chuckle of his own. “It’s funny that you, who have served as a Grievar Scout for longer than any of this team—nearly a decade now, I believe—you, the elder Scout, have not contributed a single ounce of talent to the Citadel since your arrival. You’ve brought us a series of broken lacklights every year, street scum who don’t even deserve to walk the Lyceum’s hallowed halls. And you’ve continued this tradition of yours to this day, with the latest lacklight you’ve dragged off the streets,” Callen spat hatefully.
“In fact, Scout Pearson, I’m still not convinced that you’ve ever contributed talent to the Citadel, even during your glory days as a Knight, which I’m sure you are reliving every moment of in those bleary eyes of yours, stealing away our valuable resources due to your inability to move on,” Callen said.
Murray stood up. He didn’t stand up like the other Scouts had, puffing their chest out and waving their arms as they accepted praise. Murray stood up like a Grievar Knight whose honor had been insulted. His eyes gleamed from beneath his brow, catching Callen with a piercing stare, one that calculated the distance and time it would take to leap to the top-floor podium and crush the Commander’s windpipe.
Callen stuttered, even though he stood several meters from Murray, high above him on the podium, “Ahem, Scout Pearson, you can sit down now. We aren’t in a Circle, where you can smash your way through your problems. Which actually expedites me to one of the points of our meeting today. Thank you for that,” Callen said.
Murray slowly took his seat, keeping his eyes locked on Callen like a predatory animal.
“We are Grievar Scouts. This team was formed two decades ago, by my father, for a purpose. Mercuri was losing. Our Knights were failing us in the Circle. Desovi and Kiroth were simply better, for years, which cost us dearly. Our in-house development programs were good, but the numbers didn’t add up. There were too many Grievar in Mercuri to not tap the full potential of the population. The purelights that got away, gems lost amongst piles of rubble. The lacklight freaks, those few who somehow gained an edge from their impure breeding. We needed to find those Grievar, and so my father formed the Grievar Scouts, the fourth branch of the Citadel, and brought Mercuri back from the brink,” Callen said.
What a darkin’ fool. Could he actually believe this trash?
Mercuri survived because the Citadel had pulled up every competent Grievar from PublicJustice, drafting the very best to serve as Knights on the international front. The Scout program was established because Callen’s father, Stenly Albright, had donated ridiculous sums to the Citadel and wanted a brand-new Command position all to himself.
“We are Scouts,” Callen repeated with emphasis. “Which means we operate in a very specific capacity. The Citadel has provided us with an allotted war chest to purchase talent. Each of you have your own purse, refilled every cycle for this exact purpose. We do not acquire talent by other means—fighting in the Circle like a common merc, for example.” Callen shot his eyes toward Murray again.
“This makes us look foolish. Weak, even. Imagine if the Kirothians saw our Scouts fighting in the Circle like uncultured brutes, as if we didn’t have any organization. We would appear weak. They would capitalize on that,” Callen said.
Callen stared directly down at Murray again. “This sort of insubordination from Scouts is unacceptable. Cases will be handled on an individual basis, but hear me now—none will go unpunished.”
Callen left the podium, walking down the spiral staircase at the corner of the balcony and greeting the rest of the Scouts at ground level. The Scouts stood up, some congratulating each other while others were already on the hunt for leads, weaning themselves on rumors for their next talent run. Murray stayed seated.
“I hear one of the Kirothian Knights is on the fritz, might be open to jumping ship,” one nearby Scout named Faruk audibly whispered to another. Murray snorted. A clear attempt at misdirection, trying to send his so-called team members out into the highlands of Kiroth on an impossible recruiting mission, while he clearly had his eye on another nearby target.
This is exactly what Murray hated. There was no honor amongst these Scouts. It was about getting ahead for yourself, lining your bit-purse with the commission from talent discoveries, all to get promoted to some decorative higher rank within the branch.
Grievar were not made for this work, whispering from the shadows. Grievar were made to fight.
Murray was about to stand and leave, eager to make the trip back to his barracks, when Commander Callen pulled up to his seat.
“Of course, because you aren’t as dense as you look, Scout Pearson, you know that I was referring to you as one of our insubordinate Scouts,” Callen said condescendingly.
&nbs
p; Murray stood up. He towered over the wiry Commander. “Commander. Say what you need to and let me be on my way home. I’ve got work to do.”
Callen cocked his head. “Oh, work, you say? You mean as a Scout? Please don’t tell me you are attempting to train that lacklight find of yours before the Trials. If that is the case, Scout Pearson, perhaps I was wrong in doubting the density of your skull.”
Callen casually brushed off the shoulders of his pressed uniform. “Perhaps if the boy was a giant like Scout Aeric’s find, or an incredibly strong lacklight at the least, he would make it through the Trials. From what I’ve heard, though, your boy is just that—a boy, who managed to win a few fights in a minor slave Circle. And for some reason, you took it upon yourself to secure him, risking the reputation of the entire Scout branch in doing so.”
Murray remained silent, staring down at the Commander.
“The stupidity of your actions aside, what you did made the Citadel look very bad. Unprofessional. If it were my call, you’d be out. In fact, if it were my call, you would have been out long ago, after your first year of subpar Scout work. Unfortunately, you appear to have some comrades in Command who think you aren’t completely useless. Old Aon won’t always be by your side, Scout Pearson; keep that in mind. Another act of insubordination and I shall make it my personal mission to see you doing servicer work for the entirety of your lightpath.”
“Is that all, Commander Callen?” Murray said with noted sarcasm, as he turned toward the exit.
“Yes,” Callen said.
As Murray walked away, Callen called after him, “Oh, one more thing, Scout. Your pay is docked for the cycle. You obviously don’t have any commission, but you won’t be getting your standard stipend, either.”
The Combat Codes Page 13