Bastion (Immortal Great Souls Book 1)

2021·0.97 MB·english

by  Phil Tucker

Contents
Book 1
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Interlude - Lianshi
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Interlude - Imogen
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Interlude - Naomi
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Interlude - Leonis
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Thank you! Please read!
Bastion

Book 1 of

THE IMMORTAL GREAT SOULS

By

Phil Tucker
BASTION
BOOK ONE OF THE IMMORTAL GREAT SOULS SERIES
Copyright © 2021 by Phil Tucker. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used
fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of
this publication can be reproduced in any form or by any meansm
electronic or mechanical, without expressed permission of the
author.
Chapter 1

Scorio awoke from death in a tomb of hammered copper. His
breath echoed harshly within the stark confines, his chest heaved,
and his eyes grew wide, drinking in the faint, blood-orange glow
seeping into the air from a rectangular hole in the ceiling.
With a convulsive jerk, he sat up and swung his legs over the
side of the bier on which he’d lain. There was darkness all around,
made thick and swarming by the mere hint of light from above. He
grimaced, blinked his eyes owlishly, and tried to stir thoughts into
motion. He sat there in a stupor, slowly coming back to himself until
at last, he once more studied the rectangular hole.
It hovered some eight or ten feet above him. The steady, ruddy
light came from a source outside his line of sight. He couldn’t make
anything out but a great sense of enormity, of scale, of height.
Drawing deep breaths, he carefully stood upon the bier, his legs
still weak, his balance unsteady. No telling how far the drop to the
floor was—perhaps a yard, perhaps more. The darkness at the base
of the bier was absolute. He rubbed his hands together and
stretched up to the hole. It hovered a few feet above his fingertips.
Scorio drew his hands back, wiped them on his hips, rocked a
little from side to side as he prepared himself, then leaped. It was a
weak first attempt; he didn’t even brush the ceiling before falling
back.
Again he leaped, then again, and a fourth time before casting
around for some other means to get out. The bier was large, so he
stepped to its head, measured how many steps he could safely take,
then strode forward, half-crouched, and whipped his arms around
and up, leaping again. This time his hands slapped against the
hole’s broad, metallic rim, and his fingers curled over the uppermost
edge.
Gritting his teeth, Scorio hauled himself up, arms shaking,
muscles burning, until he was able to pull his head out.
His eyes widened at the sight. For a moment he simply hung
there, shocked, but his body began slipping back into the tomb, so
he heaved himself out, rolled onto his back, and sat up, staring.
The space was so vast that for a moment he thought himself
outside. A great beam of luminous amber, some ten yards wide, split
the darkness in the distance and rose to a great height before fading
away. It shone like a slice of sun, richly golden and pitiless, inhuman
in its scale and without detail or depth.
Scorio gaped in wonder, only to realize that the beam was in
fact a partition between two dark walls that drew close together at
the top of a dozen steps. Steps that were easily a hundred or more
yards wide, partitioning the great plain on which he sat from the
platform that led to the light.
Light which turned the upper surface of each step to a rich
maroon, and which reflected off the ground in a feverish, apocalyptic
smolder; swathes of imperfections in the copper dimmed its burning
glow so its reflection looked like a bloody sun setting behind a haze
of clouds.
Scorio felt himself a speck before that immensity, its grandeur.
The floor on which he sat was patterned with countless small
rectangles like his own, laid out with geometric precision, shallow
depressions uniformly reflecting the amber light, showing they
remained sealed.
His mind raced. Were others trapped below? Was he trapped
here alone? Where was he, what was this place, was he meant to do
something—?
Movement off to one side, and he rose to his knees, peering as
a shadow clambered up from a distant rectangle, its mouth dark,
unsealed. Eager, hesitant, he leaped to his feet, took a half-dozen
steps, and stopped. “Hello?”
The man, for so it seemed, rolled out and onto his back, and lay
there panting for breath.
Scorio could sympathize.
“What is…?” began the man, his voice a powerful rumble, but
his words trailed off as he shifted onto his side, propped himself up,
and caught sight of the livid amber beam.
Scorio walked toward him, taking care not to step into any of
the rectangular depressions, even sealed as they were. He paused
when he noticed something. He crouched and brushed his fingertips
over a number incised at the base of one depression. 237. Frowning,
he glanced at the next one over. 238.
“Where…?” The stranger pushed himself up to sitting. He was
little more than a hulking shadow, two-toned; the side that faced the
beam lit up fiery red, the other half-cast into darkness. “What is
that?”
“No idea.” Scorio glanced back at his own tomb entrance. What
was his number? Was it significant? “Just got out myself.”
The stranger rose to his feet and proved to be a bear of a man,
broad-shouldered and deep-chested, his beard and pale skin
burnished by the light, long, dark hair spilling halfway down his back.
“This place. Are we dead?”
“Would be just our luck.” Scorio approached the man once
more. “But before I awoke, I had this dream, or vision…”
“Of dying,” finished the stranger. His voice was rich and
powerful, and with each passing moment, he seemed to be
collecting himself, mastering his agitation. “Me too. But the details
are lost to me now.” And he looked down and away, frowning.
Which prompted Scorio’s own thoughts. What could he
remember? That dream of death, of dying… he could remember
movement, violent arcs of something being swung—but no. It was
gone.
“The name is Leonis,” said the man, extending a large hand.
“You?”
“Scorio.” They shook, and the man’s grip was firm but not
crushing.
A new voice drifted toward them, hollowed out as if from the
base of a well. “Is there anybody out there? Hello?”
Both men started toward the sound, and Scorio saw a third
rectangular hole, dark against the smoldering copper floor.
“We’re here,” called Leonis, his voice resonant. The kind of
voice, Scorio thought, that would carry easily over a battlefield.
“I can’t get out,” said the woman, her tone tense, just shy of
panic.
The two men hurried over and crouched on either side of the
opening. A pale face peered up at them, little more than a smudge in
the gloom below.
“Here,” said Scorio, lying down to extend his arm to her. “Grab
my hand.”
She lunged up and clasped his wrist. Leonis reached in and
together they pulled her out.
She was tall, pale, her frame angular, with a long mane of hair
so dark it seemed to drink in the burning light and reflect nothing
back but a single, shimmering line of blue across her head. She
reflexively curled a long strand behind her ear as she stared at the
amber shaft, and Scorio saw her eyes go wide in shock.
“Oh,” she whispered.
Leonis balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, his teeth
gleaming through his beard as he grinned. “Quite the sight, isn’t it?”
“And apologies in advance. We’ve no idea what it is. Or where
we are.” Scorio rose to his feet, turning to face the huge amber slash
full on.
“The name’s Leonis,” murmured the large man.
“Lianshi,” said the woman, tone distracted. She took in the vast
emptiness of the rest of the room, the way the copper floor extended
out into the darkness, with only the umber walls that met on either
side of the beam giving the room definition. Even these, titanic as
they were, faded away into the distance, giving no hint as to the true
size of the space in which they stood.
“I’m Scorio.” He glanced at the foot of her rectangle. “And
you’re 723.”
Leonis frowned, scrutinized the incisions, then glanced back at
his own opening. “You think the numbers mean something?”
“They must,” said Scorio. “Otherwise, why go through the effort
of carving them into metal?”
“Is this… are we dead?” Lianshi’s voice was tremulous. “I
remember… a dream of… but no.” She frowned, gave a sharp shake