We were still stuck in the Razors – whatever that indicated – with no food, water, or comfortable place to sleep, and the adrenaline from the nightmare ordeal was rapidly draining away. I fidgeted for a bit, struggling to keep my head up to the sounds of chatter I didn’t understand, but was losing the battle.

Next I knew, Ipoh was shaking me awake by the shoulders. My stomach ached. I’d fallen asleep against the wall, who knew for how long. I felt about as bad as I had before.

“Up,” he said, and tugged at my tunic to make sure I complied. He looked about as groggy as I felt. “I won’t be able to sleep until we put more distance between us and the razorlings.”

I searched for signs of the tension between us and found nothing immediately obvious, but was too tired to try reading into it. I didn’t argue, rising to my feet. There were no preparations to be made. Everything we had, we were wearing already.

The hunter was on her feet and watching me from a distance, expressionless.

I looked away. “What are the Razors, exactly?” I asked Ipoh, to take my mind from one hole of excrement onto another.

Ipoh gestured at me to follow him down the passage. Cartography confirmed we hadn’t gotten turned round – my mental map was a little fuzzy on the areas covered by the razorling storm and accompanying panic, but only a little.

“Death, mostly,” the Servant replied. He raised an arm to stifle a yawn into his ripped sleeve. “About three hundred years ago for reasons unknown, a formerly peaceful stretch of land went quiet. No communications came out, nor did anyone who went in. One of the Ancients investigated and was found reborn days later. Anything that can kill an Ancient should send people running in terror. And it grew.” He huffed. “It spread to the surface and pierced further underground. Within months, it was the size of a territory. And then it stopped.”

Ipoh stopped too, pausing to yawn for real this time. “Since then, we’ve learnt a bit. Nothing survives. The more we feed it, the bigger it grows. No one may set foot there, by order of law. Not even criminals. We send those to guard the outposts.”

“And it eats all life.”

“Not just life. All matter, at least that has been sent in. That’s why it’s so empty. I’m astonished we were walking around in it for so long without running into problems. Maybe because we aren’t on the edges. It’s been a long time since anyone set foot near the centre. Lack of food sources, possibly. The swarm might have grown dormant.”

“So if you know what it is, what were those cubes?”

“I’d wager we now know more about the Razors than some of the world’s foremost experts,” Ipoh proclaimed. He picked up the pace a little. “I don’t know anything about cubes. What is known is that razorlings are tiny, metallic swarmers capable of consuming any matter. As far as anyone knows, they don’t have a digestion like most living creatures. We’re not even sure they are alive. We know they convert matter into more of themselves, which is why they spread so fast and why our information is so limited. No one can go in and come back, and no proxies, either. And no, I don’t know why they stop at rock when they’ll happily devour anything else. I’m just happy they did and we still have a world left to stand on.”

“Rock and metal,” I interjected. “They didn’t eat the metal shafts we encountered. Or the network station.”

“Although they were probably the reason it was damaged.”

I shook my head. “All the ones I’ve seen have been damaged. This just went all the way.”

“Hmm. Red never told me that. So then it’s failing.”

“I’ve only been here for a day,” I said, “and even I can tell this world is failing. Or is it normal for planets to have enormous holes in them?”

“Why, do you have experience with others? All I can tell you is that ours has the misfortune to be stuck with ten immortal beings who think they have the answers to every problem and care less about the lives they rule over than the means of ruling over them.”

“Aren’t you employed by one?”

“I’m also talking to one. By all means, if – when you’re strong enough – you want to seek vengeance against me for maligning your dubious name, feel free to do so and know you’ll have proven my point.”

“I’m not seeking vengeance for anything,” I said.

He gave me a look suggestive of someone who was less than convinced. “Good. Because I’ve had a chat with our Blueish friend here, and she’s agreed to keep an eye on you. I don’t think you can best either of us yet.”

As if realising we were talking about her, the hunter gave us a glance back over her shoulder. Without her weapon and down the use of a hand, the woman posed a much less intimidating presence. Against an exhausted, ignorant fugitive with no knowledge of how to deal with things trying to kill her, however, I was fairly sure she still wouldn’t have any trouble.

So far my brief existence had been characterised by watching people die in front of me and running away. It was a good thing my default personality was set to ‘untraumatised’. That was probably going to change. Unless Ipoh was right and I was hard-wired to shrug off empathy like an immune system battling a disease. It bothered me, and hoped that the fact it did was a good sign.

I wanted to ask what exactly made my name so dubious, but the promise I’d made to Orange was keeping my mouth firmly shut. “Maybe I’ll hide,” I said instead, which is what I’d planned to do anyway. “I didn’t ask for this. All I want is to find Orange, and that only after a meal and a rest. I’m not interested in being a ruler.”

Ipoh grinned. “Well,” he responded. “Are you interested in being a hermit for the rest of your life? Good luck with that otherwise. Folks might not know who you are on sight, but those colours will certainly make them suspicious.”

“I’ll change,” I growled, feeling I shouldn’t have to state the obvious. “This is what I arrived in. How was I supposed to know it would cause this many problems? Or any.”

“Oh, no,” said the Servant, shaking his head pointedly. “You don’t get off that easy.”

“And why is that?”

“As insufferable as they are, the law doesn’t exist because of the Ancients’ egos,” he replied. “It was designed to serve a practical end: finding others. Colours are the one thing they can never change. For whatever reason, it’s part of who they are. You came into the world wearing black – are Black – and that is how you’ll leave it. For whatever purpose you’re all here, someone wanted you to be seen.”

“No,” I argued, heading off the misunderstanding, “I meant change clothes. Wear what you’re wearing.”

“So did I. Try it. You’ll see what I mean.”

He broke off and waved at the hunter ahead, sharing a few words in the local language. She stared back, responded, and then resumed walking ahead.

Ipoh pulled me aside and hung us back. “She’ll wait for us at the next fork. I want a word. At this rate, I’m afraid you’ll have to make another promise.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“And the consequences?”

“We won’t know till they happen. If they happen. It’s better than dehydrating to death in one of the world’s most hostile regions.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ve been wanting to for a while. If it works -“

“Don’t let success lure you in,” Ipoh cut me off. “If it works, all the worse for your future self. It’s easy to downplay the risks. Overconfidence has been the downfall of many an Ancient’s cycles. Because it will go wrong. It’s not a matter of if, but when.”

“It already has,” I admitted. “I made a promise not to search for certain information, and now I can’t.”

“Which information?”

“I –“ Couldn’t say.

Ipoh narrowed his eyes. “Inconvenient, but there’s a workaround,” he muttered. “People spending time around you who notice any suspicious gaps in your knowledge will be able to fill you in unprompted. Ham up how stupid you look and they won’t be able to resist imparting their sagacious wisdom. At least in my experience. Most Servants aren’t strangers to finding similar workarounds for their employers. But they will get worse if you follow that path. It never ends well. Take my advice and don’t.” He held up a finger at me. “Except now.”

“There might be another way.”

“Does it have to do with the process making you stronger?”

I glanced at him.

“You spoke to it right before you pulled out the miracle that turned back the razorlings. Didn’t take much to put two and two together. “

“It says it’s me. Or at least what’s left.”

“Does it? And what is ‘it’?”

“A voice. Or – not a voice. It doesn’t speak so much as I know what its words are. It tells me when and how I can improve. Granted, I haven’t met many people yet, but the way it talks is… odd. Doesn’t Red have one?”

Ipoh raised a hand to his chin and stroked it. “Red keeps many secrets,” he mused after a moment. “He might. Did this ‘other you’ instruct you on how to change to counter the razorling peril?”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘instructing’. It offered me options based on different needs. Two of them would have been useless. I’d have had to make a promise, and I don’t know what could have happened that would have been enough.”

“Hm. Perhaps it’s testing you.”

“Why would it do that?”

“Just speculation. I’ve never heard of anything like this. Red could answer your questions.”

Unspoken was the repeated implication I should come to meet him. I knew it, and I knew Ipoh knew I did.

He continued without lingering on it. “I will say this: I would be wary of this benefactor. Ask yourself why they would hand out such power while asking for nothing in return. And if this is the force powering the Ancients, why to you and only nine others? Understanding the answer to that question will let you decide if your motives really align with theirs.”

I considered it. If the Guide was really me, it made sense to want to preserve what was already there. But then, what had given them this power on the very first cycle? There had to have been one, long ago. I assumed there had to.

In the meantime, I had a promise to make. “Perhaps you should word it for me again,” I suggested.

The Servant nodded. “Then repeat after me: ‘I vow that Servant Ipoh, Sanctioner Ptotk and I will arrive free and unharmed to the surface within a day, with fresh water to drink.’ And let’s hope that’s enough.”

“Sanctioner Ptotk?”

“Which you’d know if you’d bothered to enquire about her name.”

Again the scolding tone. Hurriedly, I turned aside and repeated the promise. Based on last time, I half-expected something to bash through the passage walls on top of us then and there. Nothing did.

I tried to keep the subject on its current topic. “What’s to stop us from adding more requirements to the promise?” I asked. “We could make a list. Make it so specific we could guarantee it went to plan.”

“Then my warnings haven’t sunk in yet. There’s no such thing as a safe promise. Being specific only contorts the world more. Take it from someone who’s seen it.”

I frowned, meeting his eyes for the first time since the chiding. “Why? What did you see?”

“That’s not for me to say. Perhaps Red will tell you if you ask nicely.”

“You seem so sure he’ll like me.”

The Servant ran a hand across his face. “You’re an asset. He’ll treat you well as long as you’re useful. That’s about the best you can hope for. But you will be as safe as one of your kind can be. And you’ll learn.”

“I suppose that answers the question of why he would offer me aid.”

“Just so. This is a reality of the world we live in.”

I thought for a moment. “And if I were to promise a different reality?”

“You can’t change the whole world, Black. Not the way you want.”

“And you’ve seen that too?”

“I have.”

I was asking mainly to know; I had no intention of making more promises yet, even if they were tempting.

We caught up with the Sanctioner, waiting for us ahead as promised. Ipoh spoke with her again, presumably with an update about the situation.

The Sanctioner’s response was terse. Curious, I asked Ipoh why.

“She’s not convinced you’re the real thing,” the Servant said. “No reborn Ancients have appeared in her lifetime, and last she heard, Black was alive and well. And didn’t look like you.”

Orange had said he expected to look different on rebirth. Was that another quirk that applied to us all?

“Why would I want to pretend to be this?” I asked the Sanctioner directly, passing the back of my hands down my torso in an exaggerated motion. Ipoh translated.

“You might be crazy, greedy, overconfident or ignorant,” the Servant relayed back. “Most likely a combination of more than one. It happens more often than you’d think. People may also falsify a claim to get another Ancient’s attention. It works; just not the way they want it to. Usually they choose Indigo or Gold to impersonate, however; one hasn’t been spotted in decades, and the other in centuries. Black is a known presence. Or was. Maybe.”

Our surroundings had finally started to morph into something other than the ubiquitous empty passages, with more frequent openings in the walls. Most truncated immediately in large, boxy rooms of varying dimensions, all equally empty, as if someone had decided to build an unimaginative city and failed to get past the first design step.

Like the passages outside, they looked new.

“I have a theory,” I told Ipoh with some hesitation, after a quick search through the first few turned up nothing.

“Oh?”

“We saw the razorlings cleaning the passages when they woke up. And they form cubes when asleep. What if they… really love lines?”

“You think murderous death machines plagued this region because of a grudge over geometry?”

“Well, this looks like a city, right?”

“None that I’ve ever seen. It would need drainage, ventilation, and transport options. This has none of those, and it would have to have been made for giants. Not to mention openings halfway up the walls.”

But Cartography was helping me remember, spelling out traces in my mind to give me a sense of a bigger picture.

“If we’ve been on a road,” I began, drawing my finger through the air to illustrate, “and this was a city, this might be the main thoroughfare. The rooms to the side, dwellings. Converted ones, with all the irregular edges eaten out. Larger and more rectangular than before. That’s why there are holes in the walls. There used to be stairs or ramps leading up there, but those were eaten, too. Everything we’ve seen since we arrived has been straight lines and rubble, and now there’s no rubble. The metal shafts, too. Maybe they don’t eat matter so much as… curves.”

Ipoh stared at me. His next words were blunt. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh.”

“But if it was the case, then that drop we encountered might have once been a Great Stair. Enormous spirals descending into the core of the world. If you believe the records, there were ten. One for each Ancient. But most of them were destroyed in one war or another.”

“Or eaten by razorlings.”

“A cataclysm of this scale, they were likely one and the same. If not an outright weapon, then perhaps a failed attempt. Or a promise gone wrong. Only an Ancient could wreak so much destruction so fast, and in such a nonsensical manner.” He shook his head. “It’s as good a theory as we’ve got. To think we might have passed right by our way up at the beginning, only to discount it.”

I reached out and brushed one of the newly-smooth walls. “If this is a city,” I commented, “maybe it has a network station. You said it’s been around longer than three hundred years?”

“Far longer. After the Great Stairs, and before the Rend.”

“Ah,” I remembered, heart sinking. “But you said only the Ancients could use them. So not every city would have one.”

“Only they use them now,” the Servant corrected. “Things might once have been different.”

“I hope so,” I said, feeling annoyed. “So far it sounds like the Ancients have been hoarding everything useful to themselves.”

The Servant looked at me with raised eyebrows, then barked out something like a laugh.

“Alright,” he said, rubbing one eye and then the other. “We’d better get searching, then.”