Murray slowly slid into the seat. Callen stood up next to Memnon. Somehow, this had turned into an interrogation.
“Go ahead, Callen; ask your questions.” Memnon sighed.
Callen paced in front of Murray with his arms folded behind his back. “Where did you first discover your talent, this boy… Cego?” he asked.
“Don’t you already know the answer to that? It’s all reported in my Scout’s log.”
“Perhaps you decided to leave out some integral details. After all, we all know you’ve never been the most fastidious Scout. You aren’t known for your attention to detail,” Callen said.
Murray let the insult slide by, as if he were slipping a punch.
“I saw him fighting in Thaloo Jakabar’s Circle, District Three, Underground,” Murray answered.
“And what about this lacklight boy piqued your interest?”
“I may not be the most detail-oriented Scout, but I know fighting. I saw that Cego had potential. The way he moved. In fact, his movement in the Circle reminded me of Coach,” Murray said, looking directly into Memnon’s eyes, looking for a reaction.
Was that a flash of anger? Or perhaps resentment. The High Commander looked out the window.
“And perhaps you could refresh the High Commander on how Cego came into your possession?” Callen asked as he continued to pace in front of Murray’s seat.
“Thaloo would not grant me patron rights for the bit-purse I was allotted by the Scouts, so I decided I’d strike a deal to fight for him at Lampai. I won, and here we are,” Murray said flatly.
“Ah. It all sounds so simple, doesn’t it?” Callen cooed sarcastically. “What a miraculous story. You suddenly came upon this undervalued lacklight urchin fighting in the Deep, and you simply knew all of a sudden you had a gem in your hands. So much so that you said, ‘I’m going to come out of a decade-long retirement just to fight for him.’”
“You’ve got it,” Murray said.
“You’ve got some nerve, coming in to the High Commander’s office and lying—”
Murray stood up abruptly, his eyes flashing at the wiry Scout Commander. Memnon stepped between the two.
“Now that I’ve answered your questions, answer mine. What the dark is going on here?” Murray growled.
Memnon looked Murray in the eye. “As with everything we do here, we’re working for the good of the nation. We’re trying to improve our Grievar program here at the Citadel, Scout Pearson,” Memnon said.
“Trying to improve your Grievar again, Memnon?” Murray asked. “First it was neuros, then the Scouts, then the Sim. What’s next? How could you possibly stray further from the Codes?”
“Scout Pearson, stand down,” Memnon said.
Murray stayed on his feet, standing face to face with Memnon. His muscles were still tense. What was he going to do? Take a shot at the High Commander of the Citadel? Coach certainly wanted to all those years ago. Perhaps he’d be doing his mentor a favor.
“What do you have to hide?” Murray asked, his face inches from Memnon’s. “What new ways have you found to give in to the demands of those soap-eaters, to further erode our honor? I want to hear it from you—not your lapdog here.”
Memnon stood his ground, eyes level with Murray’s. The two men were roughly equal-sized. “Stand down, Scout Pearson,” he growled again.
“I’ve hit a nerve here, haven’t I? Is this why Coach was so darkin’ pissed all those years ago? Somethin’ you politiks are cooking up here?”
“Stand down, Scout Pearson,” Memnon growled.
“If I can’t get answers from you, I’ll get them my own way,” Murray said. He turned and walked back through the sliding doors.
*
Murray walked briskly into the Lyceum’s ample medward, the largest in Mercuri—serving all of the Citadel’s Grievar.
Murray watched the clerics moving around the room with a mixture of fascination and disgust—usually, they kept to the cover of their thick red cloaks outside, but here in the medward, they stood boldly, wearing sleeveless tunics and silken pants.
He could best describe the clerics as sickly. At least in his approximation—a healthy, robust Grievar was heavily muscled, thick-boned, with skin rough from wear like a suit of armor. These Daimyos were quite the opposite—their skin was paper-thin, the veins beneath clearly visible, streaking their faces, necks, and arms like crimson spider webs. They looked like brittle sticks; Murray had no doubt he could snap one of them with little effort.
But they certainly got the job done. Murray had experienced the clerics’ work at the Lyceum firsthand—he’d been badly injured numerous times along his lightpath. There were times when Murray was sure he was done, his path ended due to a shattered collarbone, a smashed kneecap, even a spinal injury that left him paralyzed for several weeks. The clerics had brought him back from that.
Though they were technically Daimyos by blood, the clerics were different from the gaudy nobles that Murray was used to seeing, parading like kings on the Underground’s thoroughfares.
The clerics oversaw their patients without emotion, their probing faces basked in the light of nearby hovering spectrals. There was no cooing and soothing bedside manner with them. They determined the root of the problem and fixed it. If there was an injury or malady they could not fix, they moved on to the next patient with cool indifference.
Murray passed Lyceum students and Knights in various states of injury, ranging from torn ankle ligaments to Grievar near death. Murray shivered as he glanced over at a battered Knight floating in a vat of inky red liquid, his neck twisted at a strange angle. Murray had been there before; it wasn’t pretty.
Murray examined the faces of each of the injured Grievar as he passed. He was here for Cego.
He recognized Scout Cydek’s purelight talent—Shiar—sitting up in a small cot with his arms crossed behind his head. “More water, and where is that omelet I asked for?!” the little snot was shouting at the clerics who were servicing him, as if the medward were some sort of luxury inn. Cego would be nearby.
Murray found Cego laid out several cots down. The kid was sitting up against the wall, his golden eyes focused on the window across from him, where the rain was pattering against the glass.
“Seems like we’ve been here before, huh, kid?” Murray sat down awkwardly in a small chair next to the cot.
Cego didn’t respond; he continued to stare blankly out at the rain.
Murray knew how it was. Having reality distorted. Thinking certain rules applied to the world around you and then having those rules broken—the world permanently altered. Cego’s mind would need time to heal properly.
“I wanted to tell you about the Sim beforehand. But it wouldn’t have done you any good in there,” Murray said.
Cego didn’t respond. Murray hadn’t even seen the kid blink yet.
“I know things seem darked up right now. What’s real and what’s not. But I can tell you something that’s real. You passed.”
Cego’s eyes focused, his pupils dilating. He looked toward Murray.
“I passed?”
“I’d bet Ruby on it that you did,” Murray said. “Kid, your performance in there was… extraordinary.”
Cego nodded and looked back out the window. The two sat for several minutes, the rain filling the silence with its rhythmic patter.
Murray broke the silence. He had to ask. “I know what it’s like for you right now. First time out of a Sim. But I have to ask. How… How did you do it?”
Cego looked over at him, his golden eyes flashing back and forth. The kid knew something. He was deciding whether he could trust Murray.
“I understand. You can’t trust everyone. Can’t trust most modernday, even here in the Citadel. I’m on your side, though,” Murray whispered.
Cego nodded slowly as he began to speak, his voice coarse. “I don’t really know. It’s hard to explain… I’m afraid I might sound crazy.”
“I’ve seen and done some crazy things in my
years, kid—don’t worry,” Murray said.
Cego breathed out. “I was there before, Murray-Ku. The Island, Far— That old man. I’ve been there before; I’ve seen him before,” Cego whispered.
“You mean you’ve entered that Sim before? Murray asked. “Did you somehow have access to it during your brooding?”
Perhaps Cego wasn’t the poor lacklight he’d thought he was. Murray had heard rumors of the Twelve gaining access to all sorts of tech. Maybe they were even plugged into the Sim somehow.
“Yes. I mean no. It’s different than that. I didn’t ever access anything…” Cego paused, taking another deep breath. “That’s where I grew up. That Island—that’s where I’m from.”
Cego’s golden irises flared as he looked Murray in the eyes. The kid looked back out the window.
Murray didn’t say anything. He grew up on the Island—in the Sim? His mind raced.
“You… mean… you have memories from the Island? That’s how you knew how to navigate it?” Murray prodded.
Cego took a moment to answer. “It’s more than memories, Murray-Ku. That’s all I have. Everything I remember before I ended up in the Underground. That’s where I was. On the Island, with him and my…” The kid trailed off.
Murray tried to keep his eyes hard, concealing the thoughts running through his mind. Could Thaloo somehow have had access to the Sim? Perhaps that Deep scum was putting kids in there to make them last longer in his Circles. To squeeze more bits out of them.
“The old Guardian… er… … man. He trained you?” Murray asked.
“He taught me everything I know. Besides the past few months with you,” Cego replied.
Murray nodded. The kid actually believed he’d lived on the Island. In the Sim. The rain fell harder outside.
“I’m sorry,” Cego said.
“Why should you be sorry?” Murray asked. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for, kid. You did great in there. I was proud.”
“I knew something was different, though,” Cego said. “Right when we arrived Surface-side on the Lift. I thought we’d be coming back up… there. The Island. The blue skies. But instead, we ended up… here.”
Murray thought back to their ride up on the Lift. The astonished look in Cego’s eyes when they emerged to the Surface. The kid’s expression everywhere they went, his wide eyes taking the new sights in. Murray had thought Cego was curious, eager to learn. But he’d been seeing everything for the first time.
“No. I understand. You didn’t know who you could trust. After Thaloo, and whatever else you’ve been though… I understand. You have nothing to be sorry for,” Murray said.
The kid had much ahead of him. Though the Trials were complete, Cego was at the very start of a long journey. He needed to focus on moving forward. He couldn’t be bogged down by this past… whatever its nature.
“Don’t worry about this stuff, kid,” Murray said reassuringly. “I’ll look into it. I’ll figure this out for you. You just need to focus on where you’re at. You passed the Trials. You’re one of a select few in Mercuri to enter the Lyceum now… training to become a Knight. You need to focus on your studies,” Murray said.
Cego nodded slowly.
“Thank you, Murray-Ku.”
10
The Harmony and the Valkyrie
When attempting to finish the triangle choke, a Grievar can easily tire. With a finish at hand, one risks extinguishing their ki by utilizing weak adductor muscles to attack the neck of an opponent squarely in front of them. One must instead find the proper angle prior to attempting the finish, perpendicular to the opponent, while utilizing the far stronger gluteal muscles to constrict the exposed arteries.
Passage Four, Fifty-Third Technique of the Combat Codes
Cego spent three days in the medward. He mostly stared out the window, watching the rain. He tried not to think too much about the Trials or any of the confounding revelations that had come from them. It hurt his head too much to do so.
One of the clerics, a lithe girl with candleflame eyes and straight black hair, stopped by to check on Cego a few times per day. The girl never said anything; she only stared, her face awkwardly close to his at times. Cego could see the blood flowing beneath her translucent cheeks, traveling down her neck in narrow rivulets. Her breath was warm.
The girl examined him with cool indifference and took notes on the lightpad strapped to one of her wrists.
At first, Cego was amazed to see a small spectral hovering just over the girl’s shoulder. When the girl examined him, her little spectral would float across Cego’s body, as if it were observing the spots she was concentrating on.
Every so often, a senior cleric would stop by to check on the girl’s work—a man with a round bald head with thick veins running atop it. The man would review her lightpad and then ask the girl several questions that Cego didn’t understand.
“Base photosensitivity?” he asked.
“No movement,” she replied, in a blank voice.
“Spectroscopy levels?”
“No signs of differentiation.”
“Signs of neuropathic schizophrenia?”
“Rapid eye movement standardized during sleep; no emotive elevation during waking hours.”
On his fourth day at the medward, Cego made an attempt to speak with the cleric girl. After his experience in the simulation, he felt the need to reassure himself that the world he occupied was the real thing. He’d spoken with Murray earlier, but that was different. Murray was somehow a part of it all—the Citadel, the Lyceum, the Trials, the Sim. He needed to speak with someone that wasn’t a part of it. Whatever it was.
The girl came by in the morning as she had done the previous three days, her little crimson spectral in tow just over her shoulder.
“Does… Does he follow you everywhere you go?” Cego asked.
Though she didn’t stop examining him, she replied. Her voice was monotone.
“What makes you think it’s a he?” she asked.
“Hmm. I’m really not sure,” Cego responded. “He… er… it looked like a he to me.”
“Typical Grievar,” the girl said. “Always assigning emotional value to everything.”
Cego considered her words. “Well, you seem pretty happy with the spectral yourself. You keep checking to see if he… or it’s there.”
“You mistake my vigilance for what you call happiness, Grievar,” she said blandly. “I’m making sure my Observer is functioning properly.”
“Observer? Isn’t it a spectral?”
“Correct, it is a spectral. But more specifically it is an Observer, assigned to a neophyte such as myself for research aid. We clerics have further classified our spectrals based on function and intensity of light. In the medical science, classification and specification are integral,” she said.
Cego gave her a confused look.
“Ah, yes, I forget I’m speaking to a Grievar, where such knowledge is void. How can I term it properly for your limited understanding?” Though the words coming out of the girl’s mouth sounded insulting, she didn’t have a hint of malice in her eyes.
“Specification and classification are as important to clerics as… punching and kicking are for Grievar. Was that the proper analog to your own lightpath?” she asked with curiosity.
Cego chuckled. “Well, yes. Good enough. Don’t forget that we Grievar also specify, just in different ways. You might think of punching and kicking broadly, but we’re thinking about the details of the movement. Like a jab is a specific type of punch, and even within that classification, it can be broken down into more specifics—how to clench the fist properly, the twist of the feet, the hip movement, extending the arm fully and rotating the shoulder, pulling the second hand up for cover, snapping the fist back. Just for starters,” Cego explained.
The girl nodded. “I see. Perhaps I should reconsider my base description of your… fighting techniques. Though I still don’t see the need for such emotive assignment like your sexual classifica
tion of my Observer here,” she said.
Cego laughed—was that supposed to be a joke? He found her blunt manner of speaking refreshing. With a Grievar, he’d have to look between the words for meaning. Read a person’s eyes and body for emotion—whether it be anger, deception, or hostility. With this girl, it was all laid out in front of him.
“Agreed. It’s an it,” Cego said, watching the spectral’s red, flickering light. “How long have you had it?”
“My Observer has been with me for three months and five days now,” she replied.
“How does it know to follow you around like that?” Cego asked with genuine curiosity.
“Observers are programmed to follow every neophyte cleric at the start of their fellowship,” she stated.
“Fellowship?”
“This is the period where a cleric begins their live studies in a field of specialty. In my case, this field is Grievar orthopedic, muscular, and neurological reparation and rehabilitation.”
Cego again gave her a confused look.
“How shall I say it for you to understand? Let us see. I am studying here to… fix… Grievar, like you, who have returned physically or neurologically damaged from combat. In your case, we are studying the potential adverse neurological effects of your time in the simulation.”
“Have you fixed me yet?” Cego asked, half joking, though the girl took his question with a deathly seriousness.
“This medward at the Lyceum is one of the premiere facilities in Mercuri, if not on the planet. I am studying under high cleric Azeeth Despithi, who is often considered to be the brightest mind in the field of Grievar… fixing. If you have any neurological damage that is within our abilities to diagnose and repair, it shall be done,” she said with apparent pride, despite the lack of emotion in her voice.
Cego nodded. For some reason, he felt safe speaking his mind to this girl. “So, you’re here for the same reason I am. I’m here at the Lyceum to study under the best Grievar in the world. To perfect my combat skills and become a Knight. And you’re here to study under the best clerics in the world to perfect your healing skills.”
The Combat Codes Page 21