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Chapter Text

Her Echo barely had time to bark out a warning before the shot penetrated her shoulder.

Hernix dropped to her knees and swore in seven alien tongues as she reloaded her rifle before the pain caught up to her brain. Her sword was the strongest on Fundament, or had not yet found something stronger, anyway, but it wouldn’t be of much use at this range.

Once she was safely behind a rock, her Echo, Season, popped into being in a haze of blue light. She wasted no time in baring her teeth at him and growling, “Thanks for the warning.”

“Sorry I can’t see into the future,” he replied lazily. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Hernix swore again and finished reloading. The fingers on her left arm were beginning to tremble, and the molten fire running down her veins began to spread. Whatever it was, it had punched through her armor without issue, and she’d been too arrogant to keep her shields up. “You know how you can make it up to me?” she asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, and started to scan the open wound. At once, the pain lessened, and by the time Hernix dared open her third eye again, it was mostly gone.

“Thanks,” she grumbled.

Her Echo didn’t have time to respond before another blasted shot rang on the rock above her head, and skidded magnificent into the sky. Hernix ducked a little lower out of instinct, and Season vanished into nothing once again. She felt his presence like sunlight on her mind. She couldn't tell what the shot was made of, but she guessed from the smoking crater left on the rock that it was energy-based.

“Any information?” she asks, her voice a whisper.

“Hard to say,” he said. “I only got a glimpse, but I think they’re Krill.”

Brilliant. Helium Drinkers, maybe, or raiders. What made them think they could challenge a Guardian she didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to wait around to find out.

The sword she had strapped to her back was a fine old thing, but not very good for long-ranged combat. Which was a shame, because her gun – cobbled together from debris from around Fundament – was the inferior weapon by a stretch. She unsheathed it, and considered its unfamiliar weight in her hands as her shields began to recharge.

The firing stopped. Hernix didn’t hesitate, and swung herself around to point her gun at her enemy.

Whoever it was, Season was right – it was Krill. It bared its mouth at her, before a round cut right through its head.

As it fell, four others popped up, apparently under the impression that there was safety in numbers. She grinned wickedly, and fought.

There was not much left of them after that.

She hopped over the rock and made her way towards the remains. She spun the little gun around on her finger and holstered it.

“Smooth,” Season said.

“Thanks,” Hernix said, and laughed lightly. “I didn’t know which one shot my shoulder, so I had to pay them all back five-fold.”

“Absolutely charming,” Season replied. “You should keep in mind, though, that these Krill were after something.”

“Raiders?” Hernix asked. She crouched by on their bodies, and searched it for any sign of allegiance. She didn’t see raiders very often. More often she fought Frames, and she could never feel very badly for their dead.

This was different. She didn’t feel guilty, per se. She did what she had to. Sadness, she realized. These Krill didn’t have to be her enemies. They could have sheltered with them at the Osmium Court, could have partaken in the Sky, as was the heritage of those chosen by the Traveler. Instead, they’d chosen to live like outlaws, stealing what they wanted and meeting their fate on the wrong end of a Guardian. She sighed, and stood up, finding nothing of use on the body.

“Nothing?” Season asked redundantly.

Hernix sighed. “We should head back.”

“I’d wait just a moment on that, if I were you.”

She frowned. “Is something wrong?”

Season hesitated, which was unlike him. Another flash, and he appeared beside her. His eye was narrowed, and he floated out towards the marsh without thought.

“Ho-o-old on,” Hernix said, and edged in front of him. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“I think,” Season said lowly, “that I know what the raiders wanted. And I’m not sure, but I think I know where it is. Trust me?”

Of course she trusted him, but it wasn’t especially difficult to fool an Echo’s sensors. Whatever he thought he saw might be a trap. Still, if it wasn’t for him, she would’ve been dead a hundred times just from stupidity alone, so she thought that she rather owed it to him to provide the same service.

So she stood aside, and approached the marsh alongside him. They were near Fundament’s soupy ocean, now, and Hernix could feel the liquid slop against her armored feet. It would only take a particularly persistent tide to drown this place, and from the looks of it, it had already happened a few times.

“At least let me carry you,” she whispered to Season. They were at the threshold now, and the thick trees, twisted from age and stress, closed in on her at all sides. The Echo shook his head, or his body, and drifted onward. A growl of consternation emerged from her throat, but she continued with him. Carefully, she placed her hand on the hilt of her sword, and felt the Sky that humed within it respond, eager to turn into an inferno.

It helped that there were no enemies here. Not that she was questioning her Echo (except that she was, very much so), but if she were a raider, there wasn’t much here that was worth raiding. She felt the viscous tendrils of the trees curl around her feet, but they gave way as she moved forward, slithering back into their old positions with ease, as if to commiserate with their fellows that they had done their best to trip her, and there was really nothing to be done from there.

Season was suddenly batted back. Hernix’s grip on her sword tightened, but Season instantly shook himself around, and she realized he was surprised.

“What?” she asked.

Season shook again. “Come and see,” he said, and nodded towards a grove that lay just ahead of them.

Hernix entered, and wiped the slimy branches of the surrounding trees off of her helmet with a groan of disgust. She surveyed the area. It was cramped, and filled with the small, tough grasses that one normally found further inland.

“Where?” she asked, hushed. She didn’t know why, but this felt like a place that you whispered in.

Season drifted to the north, and looked back helplessly once he reached a clump of grasses.

“Need me to open it?” she asked, approaching.

“Yes.”

“Is this a request, or a demand?” she asked wryly, but started sifting through the plants before he could give her an earful. Season huffed in annoyance anyways.

Then, she ran her hands over a dead Echo.

All three of her eyes widened. It was cold, and covered in dirt. It had been here for some time.

Correction – not dead. Hernix ran her hand over the smooth surface of the tiny machine, and as she did, she could feel remnants of the Sky still hidden within. This Echo was still alive, but it wouldn’t be for long.

“This is it,” Season confirmed, as if she needed to know. “I thought I could feel it back during the fight, but I wasn’t sure. What happened to it?”

Hernix almost answered, but Season wasn’t talking to her. Carefully, she took it in one hand and used an end of her cloak to wipe it down. It didn’t respond to her ministrations, but Hernix thought she may have felt the Sky within it burn a bit brighter at the touch of kin.

She reached down just a little bit further. The core of Sky that was within every Echo was surprisingly strong, but it was small, and with some alarm Hernix felt this one gutter before returning to stability.

She ran her fingers over it. “Hello, friend,” she whispered. “We mean you no harm. We are of the Sky as well, and we seek only to help a sibling in need.”

The light on its eye flashed a bit, and Hernix focused.

Giving Sky was not easy. It took skill, and patience. The Sky within her did not want to leave, not even to help another, and it was not something she’d practiced very often. She knew that there were Guardians at whose very touch you felt your soul bolstered, but she was not one of them. She focused the power into the Echo. Two of her eyes narrowed, and the third shut entirely. She could feel an almost physical exertion wracking her body, although she knew that was ridiculous.

With a nearly audible gasp, its eye went blue, and it was alive again.

The Echo rose out of her hand. It looked confused. “Oh!” it said. “Oh!”

Season stopped whatever the Echo equivalent of pacing was, and hovered over to the other two. “You did it,” he said. He didn’t sound surprised, but he did sound relieved. “I knew you could.”

“I knew you knew I could,” Hernix teased.

“We’re not doing that.”

“Right.”

They watched as the Echo turned to Season. “Where am I?” it asked.

“About thirty miles west of the Osmium Court,” Season answered. “Just on the coast.”

“Ah,” it said. “Yes, that sounds like a place I’d go! Who are you two?”

“I am Hernix,” Hernix said. “Hunter of Sathona, slayer of the Golden Warlord, and possessor-" she turned, to make sure it was clearly visible. "-an incredible cloak."

“I am Season,” Season said. “I’m her Echo.”

The Echo looked between them. “I'm..." it said, then hesitated. "I'm not sure who I am."

Season looked at Hernix, then back at the Echo. "You aren't?" he asked.

If the Echo could have shrugged, she would have. "I can't remember much of anything from before you woke me," she said anxiously. "Only a few glimpses. But those are from long ago."

Hernix laughed, surprising the Echoes. "Well then," she said. "I suppose you'll have to name yourself."

The Echo drifted back a couple of inches. "Name myself?" she asked, hushed. "Oh. Yes, I suppose so." She glanced around.

"Echoes are often named after existing things, or phenomena," Season explained. "Like myself. You might consider-"

"I'm Pool," she said abruptly. "That feels... right." Hernix grinned, wide and predatory and happy, and Season looked pleased as well.

She looked at Hernix, this time. “What happened to me?” she asked.

Hernix shrugged. “We’re not sure,” she said. “Season felt you from the coast. We tracked you into the marsh, and here you were. Your Sky seemed wounded.”

Pool bounced up and down without seeming to notice. “Wounded?” she asked. “Oh, dear. That’s not good. Perhaps I was shot!”

“It’ll come back to you,” Season suggested, even as Hernix was about to say that there was no bullet wound in Pool’s chassis.

“Probably,” Pool agreed. She lapsed into silence, and turned to stare at the sky. Hernix made a face at Season, who indicated that he would have made one too, if he had a face as such.

She turned back around, and looked at Hernix expectantly. Hernix’s uppermost eye widened in surprise. “Er,” she said. “I think we should take you home. Maybe a closer proximity to the Traveler will help you remember.”

She doubted that. She’d been all around Fundament, and she never felt her Sky diminish in any way. She could have stood on the exact opposite pole, and she suspected that nothing would have changed. Still, she wasn’t an Echo.

“Well,” Pool said, brightening up, “you are very intelligent! That sounds like a great idea!”

She made haste for the coast. Hernix shrugged at Season, and they followed Pool’s lead.

…

The Osmium Court was, Hernix thought, even grander in the fading morning light.

Not much sunlight got through the layers of cloud that shrouded Fundament’s surface, but what did was enough to keep the poor creatures that lived within illuminated. Morning was faint and pale but, Hernix thought, still beautiful.

It took barely a look, though, to see the swollen Traveler hanging in the sky above them. It was half the size of the what the Court had become, but Hernix was old, and remembered when it was half again the Court’s width. They had been weaker, then, and Hernix only remembered those days with a rueful grimace.

“Oh,” Pool said, drifting. “It’s… different than I remember.”

Hernix felt a twinge of unease at that, but pushed it aside. “Welcome home,” she said.

Pool turned around. “Thank you for bringing me home, great Guardian!” Pool said.

“Don’t,” Season said drily. “She thinks well enough of herself as it is.”

“And you as well, luminary among Echoes!” Hernix laughed as Season’s eye widened.

With that, Pool took off for the Court. Hernix watched her recede into the distance, before she vanished over the great wall entirely.

“Come, Luminary of Echoes,” Hernix said to a still-stunned Season. “We should recuperate as well.”

…

The market of the Osmium Court was the vastest in the world, and Hernix hated it.

It felt like a million enemies were pressing down upon her, even though she had no enemies here. She glared at the crowd, and then at Season, who sprung up without a word next to her in a flash of blue light.

“We should see the Vanguard,” and Hernix recognized the something to do as a mercy. She nodded in gratitude, and made her way through the crowd.

It was like wading through the ocean. The people, Krill mostly, seemed to get even thicker, but she focused her attention on the stout iron doors that guarded the Vanguard’s keep. They were open today, as most days.

She forced herself inside. Despite the open doors, there were not that many people in the keep. The Hall of the Vanguard stretched before her, entirely empty.

Hernix gave a look of confusion to Season. Season, if he could have, would have shrugged. “Sometimes they are away, you know,” he said. “They’ll be back soon.”

As soon as he finished talking, she caught a glimpse of something in the corner of her eye. Not entirely empty, then.

Pool had caught sight of her, too. She sped down the long table towards the two of them. “Hello, friends!” she yelled. “Are you here to see Vanguard as well?”

“Yes,” Hernix said shortly. Something about being in the Hall while the Vanguard were away was nerve-racking, although they were not breaking any rules.

“Good, good,” Pool enthused. “We can speak to them together! What did you want to tell them?”

“Well, about you, mostly,” Season took over. “And perhaps accept a new mission.”

“I’m here to tell them about me, too!”

Hernix rolled her third eye discreetly, but couldn’t help but smile. She rather liked the tiny thing. “Then we can wait together.”

Pool found this agreeable, and proceeded to describe in detail how agreeable she found it, exactly. Hernix slumped against a wall, and took the time to examine her gun.

Sky, she thought to herself. It was in worse shape than she thought. She was never a craftsman. Season bugged her to get it reforged by someone who, quote, “knew what they were doing,” but she hadn’t gained a reputation as a great Hunter without being as stubborn as the Fundament itself.

And then, Sathona was there without any of them noticing.

Hernix started upward as Season made an undignified sound. Sathona was always a bit unreal, but today it was particularly noticeable. She seemed hardly to be there at all, and when she looked at Hernix she felt as though she wasn’t, either.

“Hunter,” she said, sounding pleased. “You’ve returned.” Her feathers were drooped, but her cloak was fine, and Hernix relaxed at the sight of it. It was only time to worry when a Hunter’s cloak was out of shape.

She nodded. “We have a report,” she began.

“It’s me!” Pool said at the top of her non-existent lungs. “I’m the report!”

Sathona looked at the Echo. “Humm,” she said. “What, then, are you?”

Pool looked at a loss to answer to answer that question. Something was… not right with her, Hernix knew that. She meant well, as far as Hernix could tell, but there had never been a case of an Echo that couldn’t remember their past before.

Sathona seemed interested by the silence. “Yes,” she said. “Well, you’re an Echo at least, and that counts for something.”

“I’m Pool,” Pool said, quieter now.

Sathona nodded. “That you are,” she said. “Hunter!”

Hernix snapped to attention.

“What can you tell me about this Echo?”

Season looked at her, and so did Pool. Every eye in the room was fixed on her, she realized. She swallowed. “Er,” she said, and looked at the tiny Echo.

Pool was earnest, and kind, she knew that even now. She was afraid, too. Hernix didn’t know what of. It was too early to tell the kind of Echo she was truly, but Hernix knew what she wasn’t, and that was trouble. Pool’s amnesia was important, yes, but if the Vanguard caught wind of it, Pool would never be allowed to leave the Court, perhaps ever again. It was strange enough to catch Aurash’s attention, and while the Warlock Vanguard was not cruel, she was also not one to let a mystery, or a danger, wander free. She remembered the Echo’s eye when she said she didn’t have a Guardian, and Hernix wondered.

“Little,” Hernix said. “We’ve just met. This Echo was wounded, but Season and I have restored her to health, and I know of nothing wrong with her.”

Sathona’s mouth quirked upward, as though a theory had been confirmed. “Very well,” she said. “I suppose there is nothing more to say, except…”

Hernix waited.

“…you don’t have a mission, do you?”

“No, Vanguard.”

“Then I think I’ve found the perfect one for you,” she said, and her uppermost eye winked in conspiracy. “If this Echo is in danger beyond the walls, it only makes sense for her to have an escort, no?”

She could practically feel Season groan in her mind. Pool gasped aloud in seeming ecstasy, but silenced herself quickly. Hernix herself was…

Glad.

Yes. Glad.

This would be interesting, at least.

Chapter Text

Come and follow me.

You are hungry. For what, you don’t know. There is a part of you that is yearning to be filled, a section of your soul that hangs crooked. Sometimes you sit on a hill and think about your life before you were drafted by the Sky and you will not know where to begin.

You can’t hear me, not with ears. But I am there.

Come and follow me to the highest cliff on the most distant continent, half the world away. You will come close and place your toes on the overhang, where your face will meet the infinite air and your heels will cling to solid ground like a new-spawn to its parent. This is where you will hear me best.

Now. Listen.

Have you ever wondered about that great bloated mass over your fair Court, the powers that it gives you? Where do they come from? From whom is your Traveler fleeing?

Do you ever wonder, if you wield such enormous powers at the tips of your fingers, why on the Fundament your sponsor would ever need to run?

Consider. Your thoughts are like concrete – pour enough of them into a single space, and they will harden. You will not forget, no matter how many times you die.

Now. Speak.

Speak of your own story, and no one else’s. It stretches on the infinite horizon. Will there be an end? If your story is an ocean, who is plying its waves as it moves along?

Now. Move.

Step into the infinite. Do not be afraid – you will rise again, as you have before. You will throw your head out of the water, steaming off of you in waves, and you will grip your weapon tighter and remember.

Then, you will return to your Court, and you will tell your story again. This time it will be different. Do not worry – this is right, and good. It is the shedding of falsities, the realization of truth at last.

And then, perhaps, you will return. And we will talk some more.

Do not fear, o thirst of mine. You will live forever, and your ocean will be yours to ply alone.

Chapter Text

[Classified: Echo-Hearing]

[Log location – Hall of the Vangaurd]

[Participants – Winter and Fall]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

[A]: Sathona. You’re still up.

[S]: So I am. You know, I haven’t felt much inclination to sleep, recently. And besides, if I were asleep I wouldn’t be able to talk to you, whom is also awake when she shouldn’t be.

[A]: I’m a Warlock. Warlocks don’t need sleep.

[S]: Yeah. Welcome to the club.

[A]: What are you working on?

[S]: Oh. Reports. My Hunters have been bringing… interesting tidings from the east concerning the Cabal.

[A]: You should call them in. The storm is getting bad.

[S]: If I could, I would. I know some of them have their own ways of keeping dry, out in the wild. I don’t ask questions, and nor do I try to herd cats. (Note: Not a direct translation.)

[A]: Have you spoken to our father recently?

{Silence: 0:05}{Noise interruption from storm}

[S]: Not for some time, no.

[A]: I’m worried about him.

[S]: Consider my previous statement about the club.

[A]: I went to visit him the other day. I know he’s been admitting select Guardians to his chambers, and they refuse to speak about what they talked about when I asked.

[S]: So make them.

[A]: I am Vanguard, not a dictator. Nor am I King. That title belongs to our father still. Remember that.

[S]: I don’t know what you’re looking at me for. You’re the one who would be next in line, if the old rules still applied. If you still wanted it.

{Silence: 0:08}

[A]: Anyway. I wanted to ask you if you could try.

[S]: Why? You were always the one he liked best.

[A]: If he liked me best, he trusted you the most. He always knew you were the cleverest of us all. Perhaps there is something more he would like to teach you.

[S]: I would like that.

{Silence: 0:04}

[S]: You should go back to sleep, I think. Once the storm is over, there’ll be a whole herd of Guardians asking us to coordinate new patrols. I don’t want you pointing them over the edge of the continent.

[A]: Mmm. And what about you, sister? Do you not need sleep?

[S]: I’m a Hunter. Hunters don’t need sleep.

[A]: Goodnight, sister. Think about what I’ve said.

{Silence: 0:20}

[S]: Thrice-cursed old man. Don’t you know keeping secrets from Aurash never ends well? We’re here to help, you know, if you wanted it. We’re your daughters. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Why don’t you trust us?

{Silence: 0:10}

[S]: (repeated profanities)

[S]: Echo, end recording.

[Inception of record – three days prior to latest access]

[File accessed by – Spring]

Chapter Text

Lands that are Lost –

Carved to Endure by ________

Historian to the Osmium Court and Keeper of Lost Things –

Many domains once belonging to the Krill have long since been lost to us. Of course, many have been found again, thanks to the efforts of the Guardians - but none remain as stubbornly reclusive as Caharn Atoll.

The islands, many believe, were once a place of trade and commerce before and during the Feasting Days. Species from all across Fundament would arrive to mingle with one another. As such, it was an important place of diplomacy, as well.

When the Breaking occurred, and the Krill fled once more beneath the Traveler, few thought any would lay eyes upon the islands again. And those who did quickly realized they had more pressing issues, presumably.

When an expedition was mounted, a Guardian was assigned to the ship, comprised largely of merchants and common fighters. Only the Guardian returned.

The Vanguard speaks little of what was in her report, besides a general order barring further excursions to Caharn for some time. But I have gotten ahold of some of the more important parts.

It goes as follows –
A thousand things that are not alive swarm the islands, eyes darkened with an intelligence not Krill nor anything that is of the Light.

I fought them first like automatons, but I quickly realized there is something controlling them.

I tried to speak to one. It told me this, in a voice that was not its own –

“You have forgotten the Timid Truth

You live but a day

What are you to me, who has lived for longer than your sun

Worry not

I will make you remember again”

I have my theories about the owner of the voice. But I will not speak of them now.

It is the purpose of this history to recommend to you that Caharn be opened for exploration once again. I feel that there is something vital there, something hidden, and we will gain nothing by cowering in the dirt like worms.

Whatever the Timid Truth was, this creature seemed eager that we follow it. I don’t think we should be doing anything it wants.

Please get back to me soon.

Chapter Text

The sky hung red and threatening over the sea as Season got his first glimpse of Caharn Atoll.

The rolling hills came into view first, deceptively quiet. Season felt a familiar settle into his metaphorical stomach, the closest name of which might be dread. He’d been to Caharn before, as Hernix had insisted on breaching the Vanguard embargo to hunt for treasure even before it was lifted, but the feeling remained, every time.

Speaking of dread, Hernix had appeared beside him. “Ah,” she said, stretching. “It’s good to see this place again. When was the last time we were here, Season?”

“I’m trying to best to forget that set of data, Hernix.”

“Well, a while, anyway.”

Hernix squinted at the sky. “There might be a storm,” Season remarked. “Perhaps we should come back another time.”

Hernix snorted. “If there was a storm, Sathona would have found a way to get word to me. We’re fine.”

Season was prepared to argue, but at that moment, Pool seemed to appear from nowhere, eye anxiously flitting about the ship as her orbit wobbled with nerves. “Is that it?” she asked, voice low with hushed awe.

“That’s it,” Season said, resigned. Perversely, he was glad for Pool’s fear. At least there were two sane people on this expedition.

Well, it’s not like he could complain. This was his idea.

“What’s the plan, Season?” Hernix asked. She closed two of her eyes and narrowed the third to get a closer look at the islands.

“You don’t have to worry,” he said. “You do what you do best, which is scatter robot innards all over the land.”

“Nice,” Hernix grinned, and let her hand fall instinctually to her sword.

“My job is the same as always,” Season said. “And Pool, you’re going to look wherever you can for someone to raise.”

Pool bobbed uncertainly. “Why here?” she asked. “Hernix makes this place sound… really dangerous.”

Hernix had spent the whole trip over talking about the great victories she’d won at Caharn, as well as the multitudes of enemies she’d slain. But Season had lost count of how many Guardians had found themselves raised here, ancient weapons in their hands and unfamiliar colors upon their breasts, perhaps for that very reason. It seemed as good a place as any for Pool to start.

“Don’t you worry,” Hernix said. “I’ve been here a million times, and gotten out unscathed. Not a word,” she directed at Season, who wasn’t about to speak. “Some scathes. But nothing serious.”

“What Hernix is trying to say,” Season said, “is that she’ll be here to protect you the entire time. She’s not going to make you go anywhere that hasn’t been thoroughly cleared beforehand. OK?”

Pool nodded, and seemed to brighten a bit. “OK,” she said. “I’m ready when you are.”

…

The ship plowed into the sharp, rocky beach of one of the outer islands in a manner that never did not make Season nervous – it rattled like a great wind was tearing through it before it settled down. Sometimes he could swear Hernix wouldn’t know proper docking procedure if it struck her in the eye, but this ship was the finest the Court had to offer, in any case. It would survive.

“Alright,” Hernix said as she climbed out of the boat, the two Echoes following behind. “Ground rules. Everyone follows me. Season stays in my head, Pool keeps close behind me and ducks out if there’s any trouble. I’ve seen frames smash an Echo in their hands without hesitation.”

Pool flitted backwards slightly. “For heaven’s sake, Hernix,” Season sighed.

Hernix shrugged. “Just being honest,” she said. “The more scared you are of this place, the better. Unless you’re me, who is perfect.”

“You don’t want me to try to corroborate that,” Season grumbled, but did as he was told and transmatted.

The sensation of being “within” Hernix was, as usual, something between physical and spiritual. He could read her vitals, monitor her movements, and some Echoes fancied they could hear their Guardian’s thoughts. Still, he could see clearly through her eyes as Pool drifted closer to Hernix, and his Guardian hefted her sword, tip pointing to the horizon like the Krill captains did in the days of old, and said, “Onward!”

…

Hernix crept through the brush silently, eyes scanning the horizon – but there was nothing.

After about an hour of Pool being too scared to peel herself away from Hernix’s immediate vicinity to look for Guardians, Hernix called a rest.

“Where are the frames?” Season whispered in Hernix’s mind.

“Don’t know,” she whispered back. “Think they took a vacation?”

“Hmm,” Season said, and let the conversation drop.

The silence continued, and so did Hernix. Above them would occasionally sound the screech of a bird or the throaty call of a predator. Hernix kept her hand on the gun on her hip, but otherwise didn’t seem bothered by it.

After hours of walking, still nothing. There was plenty of dead here – Pool could feel them, and so could Season – but none of them Pool’s Guardian. Hernix finally called another rest as the islands began to darken.

“Do you think it’s safe to sleep out here?” Season asked Hernix as she busied herself setting up a heater. The frames hadn’t shown themselves yet, but Season figured it was only a matter of time. Casual though she was acting, Hernix had to suspect the same.

“Just wake me if there’s trouble,” Hernix dismissed.

Oh, great. He’d been hoping to power down for a bit, too.

Hernix ate some dried sea-spider and told a captive audience about her adventures, with some interjections by Season. It was difficult to gauge enthusiasm in Echoes sometimes, but Pool made it easy, gasping and laughing at all the appropriate parts and asking questions to keep the story going longer than, strictly speaking, a factual retelling would have allowed it to.

Finally, as the pale darkness of night fell upon the Fundament, Hernix sprawled herself out on the ground. “See you nerds in the morning,” she yawned. “Don’t get into too much trouble while I’m out.”

Eventually, Hernix settled into sleep. Season sighed as loudly as he dared – Hernix was a heavy sleeper, for a Hunter – and looked out over the ocean.

He’d almost forgotten Pool was even there by the time she drifted silently up next to him.

“Season?” she asked quietly.

Fear coursed through Season for a heartbeat as her voice shattered the quiet. Technically, it seemed strange for him to have a fight or flight reflex, given his non-organic status, but there it was. “Pool,” he said.

“Can I ask you something?”

Season turned to face her. She was bobbing, ever so slightly, in a manner he’d come to realize signified nervousness. “Of course,” he said, somewhat surprised.

“What are the frames?” Pool asked.

Season considered. He’d heard many stories of the frames, and lived through many more, but describing seemed suddenly difficult. “Machine beings,” he began. “They haunt Caharn and many places around the Fundament. They’re… controlled by something, beyond our knowledge, and they’ll often act entirely in concert. It’s disturbing.” He laughed, a bit. “As you can imagine.”

“And the Exos?” Pool continued.

Season bobbed. “Different,” he said. “They look a bit more like the Krill, but with two eyes. And they don’t seem to be subject to the same master as the frames, although they work in tandem.” He whirred his front prongs as he’d become accustomed to do when he had nothing else to say. “I don’t know very much about them. No one does.”

Pool looked out over the island. Season followed her gaze, but couldn’t see much of anything there. “You don’t remember them, I suppose,” he said, hoping for some reason to continue the conversation.

“Actually,” Pool said, brightening, “I don’t remember them fully, but everything you’ve said sounds familiar. Perhaps my memories are coming back?”

She sounded achingly hopeful. Season bobbed again. “I hope so,” he said. “It seems like a cruel thing, to forget everything like that.”

“Not so much,” Pool said. “At first, maybe. But spending time with you and Hernix – those are my new memories. And they’re pretty good!”

Spending time with him and Hernix hardly struck Season as anything resembling good wholesome fun, but he couldn’t help but feel warmed by her statement. “I’m glad, Pool.”

Silence fell over the encampment once again. And then –

“Season?”

“Hmm?”

“What happens if I don’t find my Guardian?”

“You keep looking. There are Echoes like you now, still looking. They’ll find them eventually. It’s only a matter of time.” Season bobbed in what he hoped was an optimistic manner and faced his companion.

“Hmm,” Pool said, and looked towards the ocean. They had chosen a place overlooking the sea, though some of it was still lost behind the thick jungle encompassing the island. None of Hernix’s hideouts had been close enough to get to.

“Well,” Pool continued hesitantly. “What happens if I do find them?”

Season’s eye widened. “Then you find them,” he said. “Uh. Game over, I think. Why?”

“But what if they don’t like me?” she asked. “What do you even do with a Guardian?!”

Confusion. Season glanced over at Hernix, her chest rising and falling to the background of bugs and the waves lapping against the shore. “You know,” he said. “Sometimes I’m not sure myself.”

Pool looked frightened. Season sighed.

“But that’s the thing, right?” he said. “I’ve been someone’s Echo for centuries, and I’m still figuring it out. There is no right way to do it. And,” he added, “I think if you can get a smile out of even Sathona, there’s not a whole lot of danger that some newly-raised won’t like you.”

Pool seemed to brighten. “Thanks, Season.”

Season looked at Hernix again. “Most Guardians don’t really know what they’re doing, either,” he said, not without fondness. “You’ll be in good company.”

…

“I think today we should search the main island,” Hernix said, pointing to a map. It was crudely drawn, but showcased fairly well the islands’ relation to each other. “That was the main hub during the Feasting Days. There might be more dead there.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Season agreed. “Pool?”

“Uh,” she said, as though he’d shaken her out of a long thought. “I go where you guys go!”

“Fair enough,” Hernix said, and rolled up the map. She motioned Season with a finger, who sighed and transmatted obediently.

They returned to the boat without incident, and traced through the ocean without comment between its passengers – until Season caught sight of the sky again. “OK,” he said. “That’s a storm.”

Hernix squinted at the storm. “Check the comms.”

“Three messages from Sathona, all yesterday. One is a general note to all Hunters, the next two are to you specifically. They are quite angry.”

Hernix sighed loudly. “Ugh,” she said. “I guess we won’t be able to go home until it quiets.”

Storms could last up to a week. Season fought the urge to sigh as well.

“We’ll have to take shelter on the main island,” he said. “Sorry, Pool. Perhaps we should have thought this out better.”

“Who’s we?” Hernix said snidely, but Season ignored her.

“That’s alright!” Pool said, sounding surprised. “I don’t mind!”

“That’s because you’re perfect and beautiful, Pool,” Hernix said. “Unlike those who don’t watch the weather.”

“Or those who insist we’re fine even when their Echo tells them there may be a storm,” Season shot back.

“Don’t argue!” Pool said, sounding pained.

Hernix still looked a bit grumpy, but she stayed silent. Season didn’t mind, not really – he knew she hated being cooped up.

They made their way through the island quickly, following another bumpy landing. Hernix insisted she ‘knew a cave’, and Season remembered what he thought she was talking about, but he doubted it would be enough to last the whole storm.

When they got there, Season’s suspicions were confirmed – it was only half again as high as Hernix was tall, and the distance between the mouth and the back seemed to be a little too close to, in Season’s opinion, be properly considered a cave.

It was well-stocked, however. Hernix was nothing if not well-prepared, as she’d shown him many times.

He noticed weapons stacked beside the collections of dried sea-spider and brot, a kind fish-flesh that could be safely eaten raw and rarely, if ever, spoiled. He narrowed his eyes at the weapons, which counted a rather impressive rocket launcher among their ranks. “Those are probably rusted by now,” he said.

“Eh,” Hernix said. “I won’t throw them out until they explode in my hand, you know that.”

Season sighed and wavered back and forth in the air. That was a battle he’d long given up on.

“Pool?” Hernix asked. “Are you alright staying here for a while?”

“Where else would I want to go, if you guys are here?” Pool asked earnestly.

“That is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say to me,” Hernix said. “Season, why can’t you be sweet like that?”

“You should get some sleep, Hernix.”

…

Two days passed in this manner.

The rain buffeted the cave harder than Season had seen for a long time. Hernix took to disassembling and reassembling her guns, but even after giving them the cleaning they (in Season’s opinion) desperately needed, most of those days were spent watching the rain fall.

On the dawn of the second day, Hernix tried to test the outdoors and got a hand covered in burns for her trouble. She sulked as Season mended it.

“This is the worst thing ever,” she said.

“Ah huh,” Season said, watching the discoloration on her hand start to heal.

“You would think someone would have come up with a solution to this by now,” Hernix continued, the rain pattering on the cave roof forcing her to raise her voice. “Do you know how many Guardians have been caught out in rain like this, that weren’t as lucky as us? It seems like such an undignified way to go.”

“And painful,” Season added. He thought the last of the burns had been healed, and he floated back as Hernix wriggled her fingers.

“Thanks, buddy,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

It took Season a moment to remember what she was talking about. “We’re all a little frustrated. I don’t hold it against you.”

Hernix leaned back and looked like she wanted to say more. Season waited.

“I’m worried about Pool,” she said, finally.

“Oh?” He looked over to where the Echo had powered down for the night. There was no reassuring rise and fall of the chest that Season had gotten used to in Hernix – just her shell, still and lifeless. “You mean, about her finding her Guardian?”

“Mm. Maybe. But she wouldn’t be the last one to find her Guardian.” Hernix shifted, for once at a loss for words. “Something about her memories, I think.”

“Really?” Season asked. “I know it’s odd, but not impossible. Echoes are machines. We wear down, after a while.”

“Yeah. Maybe I’m overreacting.” Hernix seemed far away.

Season drifted closer. “Even if she doesn’t find her Guardian here, it’s not the end of the world.”

“Maybe all the good ones got taken already,” Hernix said, seeming to come back to him. She shrugged. “It happens.”

“Maybe,” he said. “I came here once, looking for you, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. You’ve told me, you lunk.”

The Echo hummed. “I’d hoped maybe Pool would have better luck than me.”

“Everyone has better luck than you.”

“Not in everything,” Season replied.

“Oh, gross. Sentiment. I’m gonna puke.”

“I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about how my beautiful white chassis has so far remained unscathed throughout my long life, with neither scar nor discoloration, something that few other Echoes can boast of.”

“Oh, sure.”

There was silence, but Season felt like the room had cleared.

And then –

“Season,” Hernix said quietly. “Do you hear that?”

Season listened. Sure enough, he could hear the sound of something thumping lightly above their heads. It sounded like…

“A frame?” he asked, hushed.

Hernix didn’t answer him. “Pool,” she hissed as loudly as she dared. “Pool!”

It was no use, Season knew. Unlike the Krill, when an Echo went to “sleep”, it was truly a cessation of function. No sensors would alert a consciousness that was truly turned off. Hernix swore and moved to scoop the other Echo into her arms. “Season,” she barked. “Into my mind, now.”

“But-”

“Now!”

He’d been about to protest that he could go out and check on the intruder. The rain, corrosive to Krill flesh, didn’t have the same effect on Echoes. But there was no arguing with Hernix when she was in team-leader mode. He did as he was told.

Through her ears, he traced the passage of the intruder. He was sure now it was a frame or an Exo, and hoped that it was just passing through, on some errand that neither he nor Hernix needed to be a part of.

Those hopes were dashed when he heard a pause, and a dark figure lowered itself in front of the mouth of the cave.

An Exo, then. The figure lacked the harsh angles and strange designs of the frames, and though it moved with a purpose, it seemed to take notice of a dozen small things that a frame would have ignored, and stumbled slightly when it caught its foot against a rock.

Hernix’s heart rate spiked. He realized she saw it, too. Exos were in a completely different league from frames. He could feel her trying to work out it if it were worth the risk to take it on in this enclosed space, where there was no guarantee of victory. Even the best Hunters admitted the Exos could move with blinding speed, and they fought with a creativity entirely different from the frames, or even the Cabal. And if she lost… well. Exos had never shown any compunction about shattering Echoes before.

Season’s metaphorical heart pounded as it seemed Hernix had chosen to keep hidden. He trusted Hernix more than he trusted gravity (little that he was willing to admit that to her), but Exos had a sense that was beyond the ken of most.

The Exo paused, but it didn’t seem to notice them. Instead, it bent down and picked up a gun, a pistol made in the Helium Drinkers style. It examined it dispassionately. It had to know now that someone lived here, but with any luck, it would think they were out.

Oh gods, Pool, don’t wake up now. The last thing they needed was to be forced into a fight without the element of surprise.

The Exo seemed to have realized there was nothing much it needed here. It straightened up, glanced at a device on its wrist. Season mentally urged it to leave.

But it didn’t move towards the mouth of the cave. Instead, it made its way towards the wall at the back. Hernix tightened her grip on Pool unconsciously.

The Exo paused, and crouched down. Hernix moved her gaze towards it, but it was difficult to see what it was doing with the combination of the low light and Hernix being unwilling to move her neck, lest their enemy heard.

Abruptly, the sound of a rock being moved. There was a grunt from the Exo as it set it down again – Season thought it sounded male.

Then, it was gone.

Hernix waited for another whole minute, by Season’s count, before she moved again. “Where did it go?” she asked, finally.

“There’s more cave,” Season said in wonder, appearing once again in the air next to Hernix’s head.

Behind the rock the Exo had moved, larger than Season had thought, was an entrance of some sort. Beyond it was a tunnel that twisted down into the mountain before diving down at nearly a ninety-degree angle.

“How did we not notice this?” Hernix demanded.

“The frames must have been using this place, too,” Season said. Vaguely, her felt unease crawl into him. It felt as though something sacred had been violated by the machines being here, in his and Hernix’s hideout, without them knowing.

He could tell Hernix felt it, too. She shook her head, as if ridding herself of bad thoughts. “What do you think he wanted?” she asked.

Season peered into the tunnel. “Whatever is down there, I suppose.”

Hernix looked thoughtful. Season turned to her.

“I know you won’t like this idea,” Hernix began.

“We should follow it.”

Hernix stopped, and then grinned toothily. “I’m happy,” she said, “that we’re on the same page here.”

…

Hernix landed hard against the cold ground.

No bones seemed to be broken, but she hissed in pain as she tried to stand again. Season tended to her as quickly as he dared.

The fall they’d seen from the beginning of the tunnel was not designed for organic bodies, confirming Season’s suspicions – this was a frame base. Perhaps even the source of frame activity on Caharn Atoll. Sathona would murder them both if they left without at least conducting some reconnaissance.

They’d decided to take Pool, in case she woke up without them, or worse, was found by the returning Exo before they got back. Hernix unfolded her arm from her chest and unclenched her hand, revealing the still-dormant Pool, unharmed.

“What now?” Season asked. If this really was the base, they would have to tread very carefully.

“We get as much information as we can,” Hernix said. “Then, we go back to the Court.” She groaned. “Oh, great. Now Sathona will know about my base.”

“We have other priorities, Hernix.”

“Where else in Caharn is safe from the frames?” she bemoaned.

“Hernix-!”

“Alright, alright,” she grumbled. She drew her sword, and Season could feel the Sky in it dancing at the prospect of use.

“Be careful,” Season murmured, before he disappeared in a flash of blue light and found himself once again in Hernix’s head.

The Guardian set off slowly, sticking to the shadows and making so little noise that Season wondered if he could forget she was there. The tunnels wended on for quite some time. Neither of them spoke the whole way, even mentally.

Season took the time to think. What would they find at the end of those tunnels? Theories had abounded on the nature of the frames, including a theoretical origin point some scholars referred to as the Foundry. Season had his doubts about the Foundry being beneath Caharn, but there was no doubt in his mind that something important was here.

Finally, they reached what seemed like a door. Hernix brushed the dirt off of it, revealing intricate, unfamiliar designs carved on it.

“It’s not much used, huh?” Hernix murmured as she examined the door.

“Maybe we went the wrong way.”

“I’d bet you anything there’s more than one way into this place. Which means, if this one has fallen into misuse-” she kicked at the door –“nobody will be monitoring it.”

She felt her nudge at him gently in her mind, and he appeared once again in real space obediently. “Could you take a look at it, see if you can open it?” Hernix asked.

Season drifted towards the door. He could see immediately that it was not a door in the way the Krill made doors. The “lock” was a heavy metal bar thrust across its length and wedged into an outcropping of rock on the door’s left side.

“Actually,” he said, drifting backward, “I think this might be more your forte.”

Hernix groaned when she saw what he saw, but she didn’t complain as she moved to take hold of the bar. She was no Titan, but Season knew her wiry frame hid real strength.

Still, it was only after agonizing minutes of watching her strain and struggle that the bar was wrenched free of the rock. Season guessed that nobody had done this in quite some time.
Hernix lifted it out of its holder and dropped it on the floor, where it made a mighty clang that reverberated throughout the cavern.

“Oops,” Hernix said, panting slightly.

Season sighed. “Sometimes I wonder how you’ve survived this long. And then I remember that’s my job.”

“Oh, hush.”

For all the effort the bar took, the door swung open with comparative ease. Season tensed, preparing himself for an alarm to sound, but nothing came. Hernix was right – nobody seemed to bother with this door anymore.

They made their way further. At first, Season worried that the door only led to further tunnels, but it wasn’t long before they found an end.

Only…

“Uhh,” Hernix said, crouched down in front of the end of the cave system.

The tunnel ended in a large clearing, the middle of which was filled with liquid which Season judged was rainwater, if the leak from the ceiling of the cavern was any indication. Besides that, there was nothing.

Except…

“Hernix,” Season whispered in her mind. “Look.”

The Exo from before was here, and he was crouched on his knees in middle of the water, facing the opposite end of the cavern.

“If I may,” Season continued. “Now would be a good time to leave.”

“That’s the first good idea you’ve had all day,” Hernix said back, and started to back away.

“Good morning, friends!” Pool said, as loudly as she could. Her voice echoed throughout the cavern. “Where are we?”

Hernix froze. The Exo turned.

His eyes were red, burningly so. He stood up, and turned around fully to face Hernix.

“Pool,” Hernix said. “Stay up here. You too, Season.”

“What’s going on?” Pool asked, quietly now. “Who’s that?”

“I’m not leaving you,” Season said.

Hernix was about to argue, but the Exo had started towards them. Hernix moved towards the ledge where the tunnel ended and pointed the tip of her sword at him.

“Not another step,” she shouted.

The Exo, to everyone’s surprise, stopped. He seemed to be thinking. “Hello?” he said hesitantly, in the tongue of the Osmium Court.

“I don’t want to have to fight you,” Hernix said, and Season hoped the Exo took it to mean that Hernix didn’t want to hurt him, instead of the other way around.

“You followed me?” the Exo said. Metal plates around his eyes widened. “Your cave?” he said, pointing upwards.

“What now?” Season asked Hernix.

“We’re leaving,” Hernix announced. “Don’t try and stop us.”

The Exo didn’t look surprised, almost a little sad. “Cannot let,” he said roughly.

Hernix tensed. Season thought.

If they tried to run now, the Exo would certainly catch them, and then they would be fighting in the tunnels, with much less room to maneuver. He turned his attention back to Hernix. “Your call, boss,” he said to her.

Hernix glanced at Pool. “Pool, get out of here,” she said lowly. “I’ll catch up to you back at the boat.”

Pool’s eye pulsed with color. “But I want to help!”

“You can’t,” Hernix said, a little coldly. “It’s better if you get out of here. I’ll hold him off. Go!” she said, when Pool still hesitated. The Exo hadn’t moved.

As the Echo backed away, Hernix turned abruptly and sprinted into the cavern. She jumped, landing a meter from the water, and brandished her sword in the fighting position.

Season was no expert on Exo physical expression, but he thought something about their opponent’s face looked… pained.

In an instant, there was a rifle in the hands of the Exo. “I am sorry,” he said, and fired.

Hernix’s sword sprung to life. The Sky that hummed dormant in the Hadium caught flame just in time to catch the bullets as they sped toward Hernix’s head. They were burned up, and some which survived clattered to the ground as burnt husks.

Hernix took her opportunity, and lunged for the Exo’s neck. The machines could survive blows that would certainly kill Krill, but even they wouldn’t walk away from decapitation. The Exo barely managed to dodge in time, throwing himself to the ground and firing upwards at Hernix.

In the midst of the chaos, Season realized he could still feel Pool’s presence hovering around the edge of the cavern, and almost cursed. Hernix was right – the other Echo could do little good here besides put herself in danger. But he supposed there was nothing to be done about it now.

The stories were true. Exos were fast, incredibly so – but so was Hernix. She managed to block his every shot, although it left little room for retaliation.

Eventually, though, Hernix began to tire. Season noticed her strikes grow slower, and the Exo was gaining ground, driving her closer to the water.

Finally, she took a step backward to find her foot sinking into the water. She yelped and drew it back out.

The Exo stopped. Hernix was cornered. She hefted her sword.

“Season?” she asked, hesitantly. “You have any ideas?”

He didn’t. It seemed to him like Hernix was going to die. The only question was if he could survive to get away and bring her back somewhere safe. The way the Exo’s two eyes bore down on them, he had his doubts.

“You will come with me,” the Exo said, in his broken Krill. “Or else you will die.”

“Oh, is that all?” Hernix said.

Come with him? The Exo wanted prisoners? Season wondered why.

On the plus side, he didn’t seem to realize Hernix was a Guardian, or else he wouldn’t have bothered with the threat.

“Yes or no?”

Hernix put her foot back in the water to splash it onto the Exo. She hollered in pain again.

“That is no,” the Exo, who had not been affected by the splash at all. “I am sorry.”

He raised his gun.

And then –

“Stay away from my friends!” came a familiar voice from across the cavern. The Exo turned just in time to see Pool fly directly into his face.

With a resounding clang, the Echo staggered back, dazed. The Exo shook his head, briefly disorientated. But it was enough.

Hernix’s sword cleaved through his arm, separating it wholly from the shoulder and sending it clattering to the floor. He only had enough time to look up in alarm before she brought up her good foot and kicked hard into his chest. He fell down onto the ground, the sword now centered levelly on his neck.

“Who sent you?” Hernix snarled.

The Exo shook his head.

“Well, I suppose I can’t argue with that,” Hernix said. She curled her other hand around the hilt of the sword and drew her shoulders back.

“No,” the Exo gasped. “No, no, no…”

Her sword trembled at his neck. “Hernix…” Season murmured in her mind.

“I surrender,” the Exo said finally, as though he had just remembered the word.

“We can’t trust him,” Hernix whispered back.

“Even so.”

The Guardian looked down at the Exo. After a few moments, she moved the sword away from his neck. The Exo had closed his eyes. Now, he opened them to stare in wonderment.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Hernix said flatly. “Now go.”

The Exo stared for a few more seconds before Hernix gave him a helpful kick with her good foot. He loped away on his one hand and knees before he managed to stand and skitter away into the tunnel.
Hernix nudged the severed arm as Season appeared beside her. “Do you think he’ll want this back?”

“Eh,” Season said.

Pool drifted closer, eye on the tunnel. “Wow,” she said.

“Are you alright, Pool?” Hernix asked.

“I’m fantastic!” the Echo gushed. She swiveled to face Hernix. “You let him go! Even though he’s probably going to tell his superiors you were here and ruin our mission!”

“I’m aware,” Hernix said drily.

“You really are a great Guardian,” Pool said. “I hope mine is even half as good as you!”

Hernix seemed unable to respond for a moment or two. “Thank you, Pool.”

She looked towards the far wall thoughtfully. Season thought he could guess what she was thinking.

“He came here for something,” she said, and moved towards the far wall.

Season remembered the way the Exo had sat prostrate in the water. He hoped for Hernix’s sake that wasn’t a requirement.

Hernix spent some time feeling around the rock wall, but found nothing.

“We should go,” Season said, eventually. “The Vanguard will want to know about this place.”

“Hang on,” Hernix murmured. “I think I can feel something. Can you?”

Season strained, but could feel nothing. Then again, Guardians were often cognizant of things even Echoes overlooked.

“Wait,” said Pool. “I think I can feel it, too!”

Season appeared in real space again just to swivel to face Pool dramatically. “You can?” he asked.

“Yeah! It’s like… a light. In the distance. Behind the cave wall.”

Season turned towards Hernix. “You, too?”

“I was going to say ‘curiosity’,” Hernix said. “It was going to be a whole joke about how you never feel curious about things. And,” she added, “hungry.”

Season shook his irritation off. “Pool,” he said. “Can you tell where it is?”

“Up a little ways from the cave floor,” she said. “And about twenty meters away.”

“Huh,” Hernix said. “Do you think-?”

There was a click.

Hernix barely had time to say “Oh, hell” when the wall fractured like glass into pieces, and started sliding down out of place.

Hernix jumped back, barely avoiding the water, as the rocks tumbled out of the wall. Where they connected with their fellows, Season could see they were shorn entirely level, as though they had been cut with a laser before being put into place.

When the dust had cleared, Pool was the first to drift towards the new opening. Season surveyed the wreckage.

“Definitely artificial,” he said lowly. “They fit together so well. It’s like they were cut out of some other wall and got moved here…”

“Guys!” Pool said quickly. “Guys, come look at this!”

Hernix had fallen down. She got up with no small amount of groaning and followed Pool. Season disappeared into her mind once again.

On the platform, located just above them and twenty meters out, was a ship.

It was big, the biggest Season had ever seen. Even Hernix’s was dwarfed. Its nose sported a long antenna, which came almost to the cavern wall, towards the group.

Hernix’s jaw was handing open. Pool did a little spin. “Wow!” she said.

“Hang on,” Season said. “That’s… a space ship.”

There were only a few space ships in the Court’s possession. Most had been destroyed in the Breaking. The last time a Guardian had found one was, by his counting, nearly a hundred years ago.

This one was soft angles and metal, much different from ships of the Court’s making. Season supposed it must be a frame ship – there had been sightings of them, moving around in the atmosphere of the Fundament.

Hernix fixed her jaw. “Let’s get a closer look.”

She moved forward. Season expected an attack at any moment. It seemed, for the moment, anyway, that they were safe.

Pool flitted ahead of them. “I think I feel something!” she said excitedly. “Do you think it could be my Guardian?”

Hernix shrugged, but Season felt her own excitement rising. “It could be,” she said. “Go take a look.”

Pool moved gleefully towards the ship, and went for the cockpit, a glass window tinted black. As Hernix stalked up the steps of the (Season guessed) landing platform, he tried to get a closer look, but failed.

“Open it!” Pool demanded as Hernix drew closer. Then, remembering herself, “…please?”

Hernix laughed. “Season?” she asked.

Season left her head and started scanning the cockpit. It was an alien design, but he thought he could feel the locking mechanism underneath. He played with it, and realized that it was much more complicated than the equivalents on Krill-made ships.

Still, he managed. The mechanism opened with a pop, and the window began to open, slowly. Pool wriggled with anticipation, and Season could feel Hernix’s heart rate spike.

The window locked into the upright position, and a Krill skeleton was seated inside of the cockpit.

Hernix hissed inward. Pool hesitantly drifted backward.

“Well, Pool?” Season asked, nervous himself. “Is that it?”

Pool scanned the skeleton. Now Season could see it, too – the faint glimmer of Sky. This was a Guardian – or, it would be.

“I don’t know,” Pool said. “I don’t….”

“Your Guardian’s Sky should overpower you, Pool,” Season said at last. “If this one doesn’t, it’s not your Guardian.”

Pool’s top two prongs shifted slightly to the side, and her eye narrowed ever so slightly. “Oh,” she said. “This is… someone else’s Guardian.”

“Don’t worry, Pool,” Hernix said kindly. “This was only the first place we’ve looked.”

“I know,” Pool said. “I was just… hoping.”

“We all were,” Season said. “We’re behind you, Pool. You know that. Right, Hernix?”

“Hell yeah,” Hernix said. “We’ll find them if it takes us until the moons fall out of the sky.”

Pool brightened. “Well,” she said. “I guess we should go.”

“Hey, Pool?” Season asked. “Do you think you could go to the back engines and check them? I want to know if this thing still works, in case the frames are planning to use it for something.”

As Pool drifted towards the back with a cheery acknowledgment, Season turned to Hernix.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Oh, what?” she asked, a bit irritably. “Are we going to talk about our feelings? Shall I weave you a crown of wormspore?”

“You did the right thing, with the Exo.”

Hernix was silent for a moment. “Maybe,” she grunted. “I don’t know. I think I wish I hadn’t let him go, and that… frightens me, a bit. Because I know you’re right. But if he tells the others about us…”

“They’ll what?” Season said. “Move? Trust me. It’ll be alright.”

“If Sathona finds out-”

“What Sathona doesn’t know,” Season said, with the patience of a mantra, “won’t hurt her.”

Hernix grinned hesitantly. “Sathona knows everything,” she said, “and what hurts her doesn’t last very long.” This too was like a mantra. But she didn’t seem quite so worried anymore.

“And by the way,” Season said. “Pool was right, after you let the Exo go. You are a great Guardian. The greatest I know.”

“So,” Hernix said, her grin widening. “You can be sweet, Luminary of Echoes.”

Pool chose that moment to return. “The engines are old, but they should still work.”

Season took another look at the vessel. In its front were two large wedges of metal, held in front of the cockpit. Large enough to protect the ship, he figured, in case of impact

“We can’t just leave it here for the frames,” Hernix said thoughtfully.

“I’ve got a plan,” Season announced.

“Is it the same one that I’m thinking of?” Hernix asked.

Season looked at the ship. “You know,” he said. “I think it is.”

…

After moving the skeleton to the cargo bay, with many apologies and blessings, Hernix settled herself into the pilot’s seat.

“Ok,” she said. “I’ve never flown any of these before. Any suggestions, Season?”

“If it’s intuitive enough for frames,” Season said, “it’s intuitive enough for you. Try pulling that lever.”

The engines guttered into life, old and not, Season thought, very well-done-by, but they burned nonetheless.

“Ok,” Season said. “Now pull us up.”

Hernix eased back on the joystick. The ship shot up, colliding roughly with the roof. The cavern shuddered. Some rock fell down to the ground.

“This is going well, all things considered,” Season said.

Hernix managed to turn them around and face the opposite wall.

“Think it’ll survive the impact?” she asked.

Season had briefly analyzed the craft. The shell was nearly a foot thick, meant to survive enemy artillery. The glass was similarly built. “No doubt,” he said. “Or, at least, nothing Ahkris can’t fix.”

“So,” Pool said a little nervously. “What is the plan? Exactly?”

In response, Hernix gunned the engine.

The ship flung itself forward, smashing into the wall and carving aside the rock with relative ease. Season felt the hull screech in protest, but it held. Even the glass of the cockpit held itself together.

Pool screeched. Hernix laughed.

Finally, the ship made it into the open air as the last of the rock was blasted aside. Caharn Atoll whirled beneath them. Season thought he could make out their ship, and thought wildly that they would have to come back for it.

He was laughing now, too.

“That was insanely reckless!” Pool shouted. “What if the window broke? We all could have died!”

Season was laughing too hard to answer, so Hernix composed herself. “Yeah,” she said. “That was more than likely.” She started laughing again.

“To the Court!” Season said.

“To the Court!” Hernix echoed, and pushed forward ever faster, Caharan Atoll receding behind them, the storm raging ceaselessly above them.

Chapter Text

Text fragment 200482 – held by the Library for further study, but it appears to be part of a very old recording of the Lay of Sathona, an old folk story about the deeds of Sathona in the Hungering Age. (It should be noted here as elsewhere that Sathona has never confirmed nor denied the veracity of this story, and the records of the Amfractus, great ship of the Feasting Days, end after the Helium Drinkers stole it at the end of the Hungering Age.)

Either way, I’ve cleaned up some of the more archaic language and present it here, mostly unaltered, for the study of the Warlocks and the Cryptarchy.

…for in the east it was held, by a people strange to the Krill, and the Sisters had debated long over how to reclaim it.

In the minds of each, their thoughts diverged. Xi Ro wished to summon the armies of the Krill and make war upon the eastern people. Aurash hoped to make peace with them, for she said the Krill did not yet know of the strength of these strange people or even their own, and in those elder days, of course, the Osmium Court had no walls.

However, Aursah kept another reason from her sisters, for in her secret heart she hated her ignorance of them, and wished to learn.

During this time it entered into the mind of cunning Sathona to execute a very different plan. She approached her sisters and told them she would be leaving on an expedition, and she did not know when she would be back.

From the lands of the Osmium Court, she sped eastward in her seaship, and came ashore on what would in later days be called the Iron Lands.

There, she was greeted in hostility by the soldiers of these people. Crude and imposing they were, clad in armor thicker than anything devised by Krill, and their weapons were large and mighty indeed.

“What business have you here?” they asked her.

“I wish to speak to your leader,” Sathona responded, her eyes low in submission.

The soldiers laughed, and one clasped her on the shoulder with a powerful arm. “No one speaks to him but the highest among our armies. What do you, creature, have to say to him?”

And Sathona, dwarfed by the massive war-beasts, said, “Behold, the one who stands before you is incapable of death, and I wish to share this secret with him.”

The soldiers were amazed, and in their disbelief anger festered, for they could conceive of it as nothing other than a lie. “If this is so,” they said, “prove it to us.”

Sathona laughed, for she knew what they asked – and she spread her arms wide and said, “Strike me down, then, and I will prove it to you!”

So there was Sathona slain, but as with all of those gifted by the Traveler, she returned. How the soldiers marveled! – but in their hearts was fear.

They slew her twice again, and both times, though they ground her bones to shard and pulverized her heart, she returned, a serene lilt upwards in her mouth.

Finally, they ceased, and consented there to bring her to their leader, the beast they called Valus.

As clever Sathona was led through the great halls, a shadow fell on her heart, for the machines of these people far dwarfed those of her own, though far less elegant, and it seemed as though they had replaced the land itself with their monstrous works. She feared for her people if these beasts were ever to turn their eyes on them.

Below it all, she knew, lay the Amfractus, the greatest feat of Krill shipcraft ever built during the Feasting Days, which she had come to reclaim. She held fast to this goal, and her fear quieted.

Finally, she was brought before the Valus. If before the soldiers Sathona seemed frail, before the Valus she was little taller than a child, and as he sat up in his great throne he seemed to loom even taller.

“Why have you brought this creature to me?” asked the Valus, his voice booming throughout the immense hall. “What is the meaning of this?”

“O mighty Valus,” Sathona spoke, and prostrated herself before him. “I have come before you because I have a great secret to share with you. I know of your desire for great power over this place, and though I am struck nearly dumb by your might already, I believe you will be all the mightier for its knowing.”

“It’s true,” interrupted one of the soldiers. “For just now we have slain her three times, and each time she has risen again!”

Now the Valus was interested, and he leaned forward. “And you wish to share this knowledge with me?” he asked. “Why?”

“Long have I heard stories of the great Amfractus,” she said. “Built in a long-ago age by beings who have long since passed! O Valus, my own people live in squalor and decay. I desire but one glimpse of it, and to bear the knowledge back to my people.”

“Your people. Is this a talent they all possess?”

“Nay, my lord. Only I and my sisters know this secret.”

The Valus was satisfied, and became relaxed, and allowed himself to feel triumph at the thought of learning to escape from death, for with this power, he imagined he could bring the whole of the Fundament under the rule of his far-distant people. “I should like to meet your sisters, as well!”

“Alas, O Valus, they are far from here, and resisted my coming.”

“It matters not,” the Valus said, although he was disappointed. “Now, impart to me this secret.”

“My lord,” began Sathona, “my power over death comes from a single word, which when I utter it before my passing, allows me to call myself back to life.”

“Teach me this word, then,” the Valus said, growing impatient.

“Unfortunately, O Valus, this word does not exist in your tongue, nor in mine,” Sathona. “How think you I speak to you know, having never met your people? The knowledge of this word will only come to you when you know every language on the great Fundament, every tongue that is spoken by her people, including yours. I may teach them to you, if you wish.”

The Valus was frustrated, but also pleased, because his folk were skilled with languages, and he saw this as an easy obstacle to overcome. “Very well,” he said, “but I am quite busy, and have not the time to learn every language. So, you will teach them to my most trusted lieutenants, who will pass the knowledge to my troops, and eventually to me, when I have the time.”

“How fair a decision!” cried Sathona. “Truly, you are a wise Valus, and worthy indeed of this knowledge."

The Valus knew false praise when he heard it, but he had allowed himself to be lulled by Sathona’s words, and found only great anticipation for the victory of his people in him. “Then we will begin,” he said, and named two names. The soldiers in question stood forward, proud and tall, male and female, and both mightier than a legion of Krill.

“I ask one more thing of you, O Valus,” Sathona said. “I ask your great name.”

The Valus laughed, and seemed to grow taller. “I am called the burner of stars,” he said, “the Never-To-Have-Knelt, the Second Strongest,” he said. “My given name is Ta’aurc, and when we are done, the whole Fundament will fear my name.”

And Sathona felt great pleasure enter her heart, for now she knew the name of her enemy.

Chapter Text

Alak-Hul has been having a great day.

A lot of Alak-Hul’s days have been great recently, as a matter of fact. Ever since the weird, dour little drone with a single eye found him buried at the seaside and raised him from the dead, he’s been fighting his way across continents with just his sword and the ability to set things on fire just by willing it so, which is great.

His sword is great too. He named it Allbreaker, because it is very big and breaks everything he swings at with it. It is also slightly magical, and will spit fire if he swings it the right way. That is very fun.

His Echo told him about a great place, somewhere called the Osmium Kingdom. There, Krill live in peace, sheltered from the forces that want to destroy them, like the robots that want to kill him, and the big hulking alien soldiers who want to kill him, and the Tellyunin who tried to steal his sword (dead now).

It sounded nice for other people. Alak-Hul thought it sounded boring. He’d been having a lot of fun, killing frames and Cabal, meeting strange people. Most of them weren’t like him. They called him Krill, which apparently earned him a lot of clout with certain people, and scorn from others.

Not the point. The point was, he had made a lot of friends and enemies on the outside. He would quite like to see both again.

All good things must come to an end, however. After years of fighting, Alak-Hul finally reached the borders of the Osmium Kingdom, and saw the Traveler for the first time.

He’d been requesting assignment elsewhere ever since then.

He called himself a Titan now, because Xi Ro was a Titan, and Xi Ro was a lot like him. When he met the Vanguard for the first time, Aurash was kind and Sathona was funny, but Xi Ro seemed to get it.

But the Vanguard were hesitant to post a new Guardian far afield. He thought he understood, after his Echo explained it to him multiple times.

He tried to explain that he was not untested. He had spent years beyond the Court, fighting, surviving on his own. He had learned a great many things from a great many people. Aurash said she understood, but protocol was protocol. Sathona laughed at him and told him he may know much, but he still didn’t really know anything about being a Guardian.

That one made him mad. He broke a glassy rock down the middle with Allbreaker after that.

In any case, he spent a lot of time manning the wall that surrounded the Kingdom’s biggest settlement. The Osmium Kingdom itself stretched across the continent, but only approved personnel, communities of skeptics and mystics, and Helium Drinker outposts lived beyond the wall.

Wall duty was not much fun. Sometimes he'd spend his shifts just staring out over the plains, into the red dawns and soft technicolor evenings, at the rain that drenched the far islands.

Today, though, Xi Ro may have come through. Today he received a mission, from an unknown Vanguard contact.

Go to this little lump of rock that called itself an island. Kill everything on it. Wait for further instructions.

So Alak-Hul was now sitting on the beach, watching the poisonous waves roll in, daring them to roll up all the way and sting him. Waiting for further instructions. The trashed bodies of frames surrounded him.

“Are you picking up anything on comms?” he asked his Echo.

“No,” she said. “Utter silence. We’ve been here for six hours, by the way.”

“Oh,” Alak-Hul said. “Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess.” He stretched, resting his fingers on the hilt of his sword, which he had jammed into the beach as a marker of the Kingdom’s victory here.

Well, his victory too. He had done this with his sword at every victory he’d won so far. It felt good to do it again.

He played a game with the pebbles on the beach, tossing them into the water in such a way that the splash would reach up and sting him. He had only succeeded once.

Thus did time pass. And then, Alak-Hul felt as though he were being watched.

He knew the feeling. There was a prickling at the back of his neck. It sometimes happened when he was witness to a great expenditure of Sky, like when a fellow Guardian channeled the Traveler's powers, or whenever Aurash was in the room.

"Got it?" he murmured to his Echo. The two were close, close enough that Alak-Hul had wondered during his wandering days whether they were the same person, brought back by this Traveler as two, to support and defend each other.

"Might wanna turn around and go due north," his Echo whispered back. "Don't make it look like you're looking for anyone, though."

Alak-Hul threw another rock. If his Echo was worried, this was probably a big one. Maybe this was why the Vanguard sent him, instead of a lesser warrior.

The splash failed to reach him. He stood up, stretched, and wandered back towards the meager stem forest that dotted the island. He kept Allbreaker close at hand.

The silicon pillars around him split into ever more slender branches that sang in the wind of the ever raging storm above them. It was a strange song. When Alak-Hul first got here, he found its distant tremors beautiful, in their own way.

Now it was frustrating. He had no way to track whoever was following him by sound. Sight failed him as well. There was no sign of anyone on the island.

Still, he trusted his Echo. North he continued.

"Anything?" he asked. As he entered the forest, the song became loud enough to drown out his thoughts.

Silence. Or maybe he couldn't hear her. "I'll just keep going north," he said finally. He waited for any sort of acknowledgment from his Echo, but received nothing.

The forest eventually thinned, and the music grew quieter. Before him was another flat, scarred plain - and atop it, before the land gave way to the sea, rose a spire, surrounded by still-extant buildings and evidence of past structures.

It wasn’t anything the Krill had made, Alak-Hul was pretty sure. The world was filled with these kinds of things. Ruins from another time, a people so ancient nobody remembered them. One of Fundament’s many children, not the first and not the last. He’d come across many in his time as a wanderer.

He had no reason to come closer, but it was better to be out on the plain than amidst the silicon columns, where there were plenty of places for a follower to hide from sight and hearing. He made his way towards the ruins.

They were sleek, still humming - barely - with an ancient power. He almost forgot to tear his eyes away and scan the horizon.

Nothing. No one.

Somehow that disturbed him worse than knowing there was someone there, because the feeling on the back of his neck remained.

“I have the strong feeling,” Alak-Hul said, “that I should make my way into the ruins and kill anything inside. Thoughts?”

His Echo was still silent. Unease crept over him. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Can you hear me? Are you alright?”

Nothing. His Sky was still present, so he hadn’t been somehow separated from his friend. But something was very wrong.

He shook his head. The feeling was growing stronger. If he was to hide from this assailant, and wait for contact from the Vanguard, the ruins were his best bet.

There was no grand admittance waiting for him. A set of stairs led to the wall, and from there he looked down into… a rather unremarkable courtyard. He leaned on his sword, narrowing his eyes at the far wall.

Something was etched onto it. Writing in a language he’d never come across. Alak-Hul would never consider himself a linguist, but he’d become familiar with several different written tongues from around the Fundament. None of them even resembled the script he found here. It looked wholly alien to him.

He shrugged. Reading wasn't going to tell him who - or what - was watching him.

He cast a glance behind him. All the military sense he had was telling him it would be better to hunker down in the compound itself. Reinforcements were coming soon, and they might scare off... whatever it was.

The lines of sight weren't great behind the walls, but they wouldn't be for the enemy, either. He descended the close-cut steps.

Allbreaker trailed behind him. He didn't bother disguising the sound it made as the tip scraped along the steps. He hoped it carried.

He put his back to the wall and tried again to make contact with his Echo. "Are you okay?" He whispered. "Come on. We've survived worse than this."

Nothing. The watchful feeling intensified. Alak-Hul groaned and rubbed his middle eye until a pressure in his skull subsided.

"Whom do you speak to?"

Alak-Hul nearly put his eye out with his thumb. He looked around wildly, readying Allbreaker.

The voice returned. "Apologies, little Krill," it said. "I did not realize how easily frightened the warriors of the Osmium Kingdom are."

"Show yourself," Alak-Hul said, just to say something.

Then he realized he hadn't said it at all. It was in his head, infecting his thoughts like poison infected flesh. He had replied in the same way he sometimes spoke with his Echo when he did not want to be heard.

Something like a shrug, somehow conveyed through thought alone. "As you wish."

Alak-Hul's gaze was guided towards the steps. On them, a tiny Krill woman waited.

Her face was painted white with an assortment of strange symbols. In her gnarled left hand, she clutched a staff made of the same branching silicon as the forest. It was decorated with complex charms, some of which Alak-Hul recognized from the Warlock chambers and the tents of would-be wizards from around Fundament, and others which were unfamiliar to him.

It, too, sang in the low wind, deeply sorrowful.

"Among many people I am Kernel-of-Truth-in-the-Wind, but my usename is Wul," she said. “You trespass, dear spark.”

Alak-Hul lowered his sword, but kept it at the ready. He regarded her - she didn’t look like she was Osmium, but neither did she remind him of the Helium Drinkers. “I did not mean to trepass anywhere, mother,” he said. “My name is Alak-Hul. I am a wanderer.”

Wanderer was, as ever, how he thought of himself. Saying from the Osmium Court still felt wrong.

The woman nodded once, a gesture of acceptance for several of the peoples of the Fundament. She began to descend, the fabric of her cloak lifting in the wind. “You give your name so easily, spark,” she said. “I couldn’t begin to imagine how you managed to survive all those years beyond the wall.”

There was a superstition that many held that knowing someone’s true name could give you power over them. Alak-Hul didn’t believe it. He gave his name freely, and it had never caused him any problems that Allbreaker couldn’t solve.

“Was it you who has silenced my Echo?” Alak-Hul asked, careful to keep his tone respectful.

The witch raised her hand. All of a sudden, he could hear someone screaming in his head.

“CAN YOU HEAR ME?!” his Echo was crying out at the top of her metaphorical lungs, in one continuous stream. Then, she stopped. “Oh,” she said. “There you are. I was so worried.”

Alak-Hul was nearly bent double. “Yes,” he gasped over the pain in his head. “I can hear you.”

“Sorry,” she responded sheepishly.

Wul was watching this with a glimmer of curiosity in her eyes. “Your second soul speaks in painful voice,” she said.

“Only when she yells,” Alak-Hul said, beginning to think clearly again.

His “second soul” appeared in a flash of light beside him. Alak-Hul looked on in surprise. Usually she was more cautious than this. “So, witch,” she said. “Why did you take away my voice?”

“Not I,” Wul said. “The song of the forest here is very old. The earth as well. Not everything on Fundament welcomed the Sky. Some have the means to do something about it. It is by my power that you can speak at all here.”

If his Echo could glower, she would. In another flash of light, she was back in his head.

Wul approached him, running her hand along the silver walls. Then she passed him, seeming to pay more attention to the barely-visible glyphs and worn away patterns than him. “Do you know why you are?”

“The Vanguard - my superiors asked me to-” Alak-Hul stopped, narrowed his eyes. “Sorry. Did you say why I am?”

“Why the Demiurge spoke to you, and not another.”

“There are many other Guardians,” Alak-Hul said.

“Not forty meters from where you lay before you were resurrected,” Wul said sharply, “another unfortunate was buried. Krill, from the Helium Drinkers.” She turned to face him. “Why you, and not she?”

Alak-Hul was silent for a few moments. Nobody in the Osmium Kingdom had ever been able to give him a satisfactory answer to the question she was asking.

“These are things I desire to know,” she said, taking a few steps towards him. She raised her staff. Alak-Hul raised his sword in return.

“How did you know where I was raised?” Alak-Hul asked, as though nothing had happened.

“And there are things I know that I should not,” the witch said. Now they were circling one another as if they were preparing to duel. Alak-Hul brandished his weapon, taking comfort in the fact that Allbreaker could burn the ground beneath Wul if it came to that.

“Act quickly, Skyspawn!” she shouted, and then leveled her staff at him. A strange, dark energy coiled amongst its branches.

Alak-Hul brought his sword down. The ground cracked, even where the alien structure was built atop it, and rumbled with fire. The fire coursed towards the witch unerringly. He felt the Sky pulse around him in Solar fire - unknowingly, he had channeled it.

She brought the butt of her staff down upon the first tongue of flame. It traveled up the staff, circling it like a sea-serpent, and then gathered at the tips of its branching stem.

She slammed it down into the floor, breaking it further. It stood, straight upwards. The fires burned like torches atop it.

“There,” she said, sounding satisfied with herself. “Do you feel any different, Alak-Hul?”

He stood. The fire faded from around him as his channeled power relaxed, and slowly he let his sword fall back to his side.

It was as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. His Echo giggled - actually giggled. It was the most surprising thing he had ever heard.

“The Sky,” she said, in wonderment. “Can you feel it? It’s returned to this place.”

"What did you do?" he asked Wil, unable to keep the wonderment from his own voice.

"What did we do," the Krill corrected him. "It was your Sky that lifted the pall over this place. I merely channeled it."

"You can do that?" Alak-Hul asked. In response to a subconscious prompting, he lifted his hand and let his Echo fly over to the staff. She began a scan.

The witch looked at her as she worked, but said nothing. "In any case," she said, "I would like to discuss business with you. I have a proposition for this place."

Protocol took over in Alak-Hul's mind. "You should discuss any business with the Vanguard," he said reluctantly. "They're the ones who sent me here."

"The Vanguard," the witch snorted. "Jealous protectors of the Demiurge. Clueless as to their own potential, and with no willingness to learn. I would sooner put my trust in one of those brainless invertebrates on the eastern shore."

Alak-Hul shrugged. "Well," he said. "I don't know-"

"You know." The witch's tone turned, fast as the crack of a whip, back to confrontational. "You're not like the others. You know what it is like to live freely, beyond the wall. To pursue what needs to be done without some braying idealogue getting in your ears."

Alak-Hul shrugged his mighty shoulders. "It's not like that," he said.

"Indeed. Well, if that is so, then I will take my proposal elsewhere. And you will never know."

She turned her back on him. She left her staff, but continued on up the ancient steps, seemingly moving even more quickly without the thing.

He consulted his Echo. "Um," he said. "What do we do?"

"It's your choice," she said. Alak-Hul got the feeling she was shrugging again. "It is Vanguard policy not to, you know, fraternize with the enemy."

"Is she the enemy?" Alak-Hul whispered.

It was common knowledge throughout the whole kingdom that those who consorted with powers beyond the Sky must then be working with the Deep.

He hesitated, because he knew - from experience, from having known and loved and fought and lost people that the Vanguard would brand as villains - that wasn't true.

"Wait!" he said.

The witch turned. She was smiling - strange to see. Krill rarely smiled, and if they did it was mostly to make other species comfortable.

When a Krill did it (he had been told) it just looked… hungry.

"Good," the witch said, as though he had already agreed. “Now, tell me. Do you have many friends? Skybearer friends?”

“I have friends,” Alak-Hul said, a little more defensively than he had intended.

“Good. Call them here. Pick them carefully. Tell them to fight amongst each other, test their abilities. I’m sure more than one has a grudge they would like to settle. Now, they may do so in a place hallowed by the Sky, where they need not fear death - and where they will be rewarded.”

Alak-Hul looked at Wul, trying to form words for the question he wanted to ask.

She grinned again. “Why would I do this?” she asked. “What do I want? Good question. You will have to wait for your answer - but you will have it, eventually.” She stopped to consider. “I’m sure you have figured out by now that it was not your Vanguard who has called you here.”

Alak-Hul nodded. It wasn't, actually, the question he wanted to ask, which was "What kind of rewards?" But he didn't press it.

“If the thought of operating in the shadows, so to speak, bothers you, then you do not have to return.” She looked at him fiercely, all three of her eyes narrowing. “Otherwise, in three days’ time you and the Skybearers you have chosen will return here. And we will begin our work.”

Wul vanished around the corner of the ancient building, and Alak-Hul had the feeling that he would never catch up to her even if he followed her immediately.

“Weird,” his Echo decided.

Alak-Hul rubbed the back of his neck. There was a strange prickling there, as if the energy in the air itself was alive.

“So,” he said, after a few moments. He was uneasy, but he also knew that he had made his choice. “Do you think Gelwer has any plans in three days?”

Chapter Text

Curses and Symbols-

Carved to endure by Xalatac-

Scribe of Stars-Under-Water-

I am visited by portents today. At least, that is what I must assume is happening.

Outside of Stars-Under-Water, the complex where I live alongside two of my surviving sisters and my fellow scribes and Seermakers, we are advised not to travel anywhere that is not along the single main road that leads to the Osmium Court, as far away as that is.

The rains harm and blur its edges, but able workers do their best to repair it so that when we complete our tablets or our trinkets, they can be delivered safely to the Osmium Court, where luckier scholars may study them under the shadow of the Demiurge.

My fellow scribes have taken to calling it Wormtongue Pass. I find the name morbid, but I was outvoted. Living so far away from the boundaries of our last great city has given my sisters and colleagues a black sense of humor, and I can hardly fault them for it.

I was staring out along this road, a yellowed book opened before me with a picture of the mythical stormjoy labeled in absurd detail. I was to waste my time copying it down at the request of an important Warlock - instead, I took pleasure in wasting my time staring out at the mountains, and Wormtongue Pass winding through them, and the bruised clouds settling over them at the evening.

My stylus twitched in my hand. An old wound in my left hand sometimes causes a similar twitching - I say this because I know someone, likely my Craft-Mother, will attempt to discredit me by bringing up my injury. But this is not true, because today it was my right hand that twitched, in a pattern distinctly similar to writing.

I am not joking. I had finished unconsciously marking down a strange character and had begun on the second before I realized what my hand was doing. Thus was the speed at which it moved. I threw down my stylus onto the table. My right hand reached for it again unbidden.

After some seconds of holding it back with my left, the physical urges subsided. Reluctantly I let go of it to find that while my hand was still drawn towards the stylus if I was not careful, the overpowering urge was gone.

I studied the character as best as I could. I didn't recognize it, nor could I make any comparison with another written language I was familiar with. This I deduced quickly. As I stared, however, I felt…

Sick is the only word that can describe it. My soul moaned, if you would prefer a fanciful term.

My fear was likely palpable. Before the smell became apparent to the others in the workroom, I gathered my supplies, including my marked tablet. I deposited my stylus in the communal tub so it would not tempt me. Leaving it behind as I went to my room was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Further notes to follow.

Cursed-

Carved to endure by Xalatac-

Fearful partisan of awful magic-

If I was frightened before, I am terrified now.

When I returned to the privacy of my quarters I rolled out every note I could find on every language I had encountered. If I was acting under the same geas which made me write the awful letter, I could not say.

It matched up with nothing Krill. One potential match from our scattered knowledge of the language of the Star Surgery turned out to be slightly different, and in any case meant “urine of the Authenla beast” which I didn’t believe to be correct.

Telelka, one of my former classmates, experienced a vision today. The Craft-Mother gathered us together to hear her recount it. I’m sure they could smell my fear this time. I hope they merely chalked it up to cowardice, an unwillingness to face that which the Demiurge sends to us in dreams and whispers. I would not have been alone.

“The Demiurge has told me a secret,” she informed us, with the appropriate amount of theater.

An excited whisper broke out and died in the same handful of seconds as the Craft-Mother fixed us with a glare that could freeze the great continental engines. Secrets were our flesh and wine. Perhaps we were always foolish in that.

“I saw a slender silver organism,” she told us. “A plant, such as those that grow in the guarded rooms of the highest cloud decks.” She paused.

A few of my sisters took notes, but most watched her - paying attention, but allowing themselves to relax. This was the sort of vision expected to crop up among those who dreamt. In our libraries were preserved more than a few dreams of silver plants, shedding upon themselves a light that burns.

I allowed my mind to wander. I thought of the stormjoy diagram, and how even that would be preferable to listening to another dream from a sister prone, if I may say, to wild invention.

My hand began to feel its pull once again. I did not pay enough attention to it. With nothing to write with in front of me, I did not worry.

In a heartbeat, I had grabbed the stylus of the student next to me and began to carve onto my desk.

Chatter arose as I worked. I could feel many eyes stare at me, but I did not look up at them. My eyes were drawn towards my workspace, inexorably. I was too stunned to stop myself for a moment or two - enough time to scribe three more terrible symbols.

"Xalatac," the voice of my Craft-Mother barked, in characteristic whining cadence. "You've disrupted an important vision.”

I continued to carve. Five awful characters, looped and connected into each other, had appeared. I tried to pry my hand away from my task, but it resisted much more fiercely this time.

I only just managed to tear my gaze away. What must I have looked like, then? Hollow with desperation? It does not matter.

“Stop me,” I begged somebody. “Help me, please. Stop my hand!”

None of them reacted for a frustrating moment. By the time I had reached the seventh symbol, however, one of my birth-sisters had reached my side.

She grabbed my wrist and forced my hand away. I keened in mourning, suddenly struck with a great wave of sorrow - and anger.

I moved to attack her - of this I am not proud, although I beg any reader to remember that I was not myself, and to pity me rather than hate me. It appeared, though, she was ready for this, too, and grabbed my other arm, forcing me to my feet and pulling me from my desk.

Noble Gûlen! A finer sister none could find. I hate her still for her intervention. I have not the words to thank her.

Vexation-

Carved in idleness by Xalatac -

Weak, fearful scribe -

I am confined to my quarters now.

In a way, this is a relief. Ever since that day, my status in Stars-Under-Water has been in question. I worried they would send me down Wormtongue Pass, back to the Osmium Court in disgrace. Away from everything and everyone who has brought me joy and comforted my heart. At least I am still here.

A guard is posted outside my door. They peer in at times to ensure that I am not writing further. It is a relief to have them there, although I am sure they are more interested in my curse than they are in me.

I occupy my days with study. I am not write anything or take any notes by the order of my Craft-Mother, so instead I merely read. I am given, as a kindness, various tablets and scrolls that I request from the library - histories, linguistic studies, even puzzles. Anything to occupy my mind.

The urge has been light within me for some time. I fear, however, that, given the opportunity, it will rise again, more savage and unrestrained than before.

I was given this tablet upon which I was told, under strict supervision, to write a short chronicle. The Craft-Mother is well aware of the sacred duty of a scribe to chronicle her life and knowledge, and she would deny me this.

Perhaps I have been too harsh on her.

Terror -

Carved to endure by Xalatac -

Unheeded -

My Craft-Mother displays her idiocy once again. Once again, I am the only one to witness it. I am aware of the dangers of writing here, but I feel I must. As warning to any who will read my record.

I was called from my isolation to meet with her in the library. I could not stop myself from wondering if she had found some kind of solution to my curse - or at the least, was able to identify it, so I could contextualize my sorrow.

This was not so.

She waited for me at a small personal table, next to a shelf full of our more fragile tablets, carved into brittle shell-stone. It was odd to see her sitting there, in a student’s spot, rather than hovering over it to reprimand a lazy copyist.

She nodded in acknowledgement of me as I approached. “Xalatac,” she said. She never used my name so informally. “Please, sit.”

I did so. “Craft-Mother,” I nodded back.

She reached down and pulled out a tightly bound scroll and placed it between. Her long claws opened it with the usual excruciating care, and she spread it before me.

For all that I complained about her in happier days, never let it be said that she wasted any time.

I couldn’t stop myself from recoiling. My chair nearly fell over. The revulsion that writing brought up in me came as immediate and nauseating as a punch to the head.

“Please, be calm, Xalatac,” she said. She was as serene and unbothered as that drawing of a stormjoy.

“I cannot be calm!” I cried out.

“Quiet.”

“Did I not warn you of the danger?” I asked. “Did I not tell of the dark feelings I have been having?”

“You did,” she said. “But there is still so much we do not understand about what you have written.”

I shook my head. “I did not write that,” I said.

“As you wish. Either way, it came from your hand. I hoped you would be able to tell us more of it.”

She said it so calmly. It was plain to me she did not understand what she asked of me. Maybe, I thought uncharitably, she did, but did not care.

I hazarded a glance down at the page, guided by a want that was not my own. The scroll was new, perhaps fashioned of a beast’s vellum not long ago.

It was not, I noticed before I looked away again, the surface upon which I had written those letters.

“You had someone copy this,” I said.

“Gûlen volunteered,” my Craft-Mother said. “She wished to know more of what afflicted you.”

Were it not for my horror, the fear pinning me down like a mighty paw, I might have clawed my Craft-Mother’s throat out of her neck.

“You risk her life, her sanity, her will,” I said flatly. “For what?”

“Knowledge. That is our mission from so long ago.” She nudged it closer to me. I flinched. “I do not ask you to write more. Please, study it. Tell us what it means.”

“I won’t.”

My Craft-Mother’s eyes narrowed in displeasure. “It is still in my power to expel you from Stars-Under-Water,” she said. “I do not wish to. You are well-loved, here, Xalatac.”

Though she said she would not, I knew it was only a matter of time before she asked me to write more. She would never be satisfied with a half-finished script. None of us would be, I suppose.

Already I could feel the dark desire wake within me. My hand twitched.

“I’ve already called some Warlocks in,” she said. “They will be able to study it safely. But they will need a translation if they are to accomplish anything.”

My mouth was empty. What was I to say?

I looked down, slowly at first, and then all at once. The writing stared back up at me, and for a second I hoped that being a copy as it was would protect me from its influence.

Then, the words appeared in my mind.

They offered themselves up freely, eager to be known. It was the beginning of a sentence, a pronouncement, a doom.

Before it cut off, there was a fragment of something. A location -

I cried out. My hand flew forward, but in a moment I summoned my will and rocked backwards, my chair spilling me onto the ground.

The dark will had never been stronger. I felt that if I did not write, my soul would shiver into a million pieces and be lost in the deep.

I looked around for something hard to bash my head against. Better to die - or become a gibbering invalid the rest of my days - than finish what was written there. This I knew with certainty.

“Xalatac!” My Craft-Mother cried out dimly. I whirled around, back and forth, a hunted thing.

“Wait,” she said. “Please, calm down. I did not mean to-”

“A curse upon you,” I said. Words I now regret. “A curse upon you, to be lost in the deep.”

I choked. There was nothing more to say. I fled.

Resolve -

Carved to endure by Xalatac -

One who is now certain of her path -

I managed to make it unseen back to my quarters. Occasionally, I caught glimpses of my colleagues, shrouded, carrying writing and exchanging no words. Trying to shield themselves from it, perhaps. Superstition persists.

My notes were gone. I suspected as much. It would not be like my Craft-Mother to leave an end like that undone.

My tablets, my chronicles of the past few days, lay undisturbed. Hidden, in fact, beneath the store of food the commune provided to me.

I felt a surge of affection for my sisters, both in birth and in work. They had made sure our Craft-Mother could not find such personal records.

I will thank them, one day, when this is all over.

I gathered them up and put them in my bag. I stopped to take one more look at the life I was leaving behind. Foolish, maybe, but there is nothing I do now that is not foolish.

I thought about cutting off my hands, to prevent the message from ever being written. That the curse still lingers in me says that the message still hopes to be written, some day, when my guard is down and my mind has allowed the memory of this time to slip away.

I decided not to. The curse was likely just to move away into another, if I denied it so finally. But also, though death I could stomach, the thought of living without the ability to write struck a harsher fear in me than anything I had ever known. If it came to that, I would rather cast myself into the poison sea.

Finally, I was ready. I found a place to hide and I remain here now, waiting for the right moment to slip away.

Tonight, I will flee down Wormtongue Pass, towards the Osmium Court. I will break from the path and forge onward through the wilderness to get there, to ensure I am not followed.

There, perhaps, I will find healing. The Warlocks may know something of this curse. The ones my Craft-Mother called, I do not trust. My Craft-Mother is no fool. I do not think she would want any word of this reaching Aurash before she is ready.

If there is no cure, I will pass the message on. Stars-Under-Water is consumed in Deep-learning. It is a fate that has befallen some isolated communes like ours. Only the intervention of the Sky-chosen could help them, often too late. Many times the scholars were already gone, off to worship at the sea, to offer themselves to the purposes of alien minds far from our shores.

I wonder, now, if it was the very same curse that brought the others low.

Lastly, I will plea for mercy for my sisters, my fellow scholars. Let it be graven in your mind, reader, no matter what happens - they only wanted to help me. They do not deserve this fate.

I am Xalatac. I lay myself, my records, and my family at your mercy.