“The desert… it’s so hot here… so dry. The suns… Water… I need water…”

—Recorded final words of a Last Era Magus before Chimerization; recording excavated from Strathlic, 1885 CE

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Last Era Libraratory

Rising Blooming 26, 1885 CE

Rosabella stepped to the edge of the ramp, placed her hands on the guard rails, and stared over the side. “Magnificent,” she murmured, as she took in the sight of hundreds of men and women bustling up and down the seemingly limitless concourse. Syntheticians and inquirers in their self-sterilizing robes pushed past bare-chested Stigmatized warriors on their ways to and from the numerous hallways that intercepted the main passage.

“Isn’t it?” Eztli’s arm encircled Rosabella’s waist. Her voice was artificially smooth, as if her pride were butting against the limitations of good breeding. “It’s an utter treasure trove.”

“I have no doubt. How much wisdom must be left in this place.”

“More than we can access, I’m afraid. Come.” Eztli took Rosabella by the hand and led her down the ramp toward a rickety elevator that hung over the abyss. “Most of the doors are Keyed, and we have only minimal access to the corridors. My brother promised to make me the overseer of operations once we’ve fully unlocked it. Perhaps he wants me out of his hair, but I’ve hardly been back up since we gained entry. We repurposed an empty room as an office of my own down here. There’s so much knowledge to unearth.”

Interesting. “Is it not strange that you were able to open the main doors, but not the secondary ones?”

“One of the Libraratory’s many mysteries, my darling.”

“How did you open the primary doors, in any case?”

Eztli gave Rosabella a sideways look, and the Magistra wondered for a moment if she was pressing too hard. “Rosabella,” Eztli said softly.

“Please, Era, forgive me. Simple curiosity.”

Eztli said nothing, merely waving at the slave to activate the elevator’s descent. As it rumbled into motion, Rosabella made a show of gazing out over the concourse. Then Eztli’s warm breath, and her gently nibbling teeth, touched her ear. “Don’t call me ‘Era,’ Rosabella. And don’t ask how I got in here. There is no more ‘you’; there is only ‘we’. You are one of us now.”

So Rosabella’s mask was still intact. She squirmed mildly and said, “Mmmm. Once again, I must beg your forgiveness, Eztli. Maintaining the deception at the Chapterhouse requires all my effort.”

“I wish you didn’t have to.” Rosabella wished she didn’t have to, as well. “I wish you could come out as one of us.”

“In time, Eztli.”

“I know. But still.” The elevator rumbled to a stop. “Come. I have so much to show you, Maga Era Rosabella Generosus Nxtlu.”

They stepped into the crowd, and Rosabella took in the glowing letters above each hallway, the wide circle inset in the floor far down the concourse, the progression of the men and women as they went back and forth. “You must have brought down all of your wisest. We. We must have brought them down. And so many of them! Do any of our syntheticians remain aboveground?”

“They’re the best at what they do,” Eztli agreed. “We are sparing no expense in our inquiry of this place. It’s incredible in ways you can’t possibly imagine just by seeing it, Rosabella. Ilhicamina tells me of the reports. If the rooms left open were the least valuable chambers, we can only imagine what remains in the locked ones.”

“And what have you found in the open chambers?”

Eztli pointed to a hallway marked with glowing letters: “Recombinant Pandemics,” it read, in the old script. “A cure.”

“A cure? For the genophage?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s impossible. It--”

“The data is quite clear,” Eztli said. “The men and women of this place had discovered a cure before they died.”

“Incredible. No. They still died; why would they not have cured themselves?”

Eztli shrugged. “They may have, only to die at the claws of Chimeras. Ilhicamina has only given me the digest report. But we’re certain the cure works. It’s an aerosol. The records claim that they sterilized the whole Libraratory, including the Tool that controls it.”

That made a strange kind of sense. To Rosabella’s knowledge, no living Tool from the Last Era had ever been discovered fully intact and fully sane. They typically either were long dead or had Chimerized like their masters. But the Libraratory’s controller seemed atypically compos mentis — there were no reports of death chambers or traps set by a psychotic, half-bestial genius loci.

That meant either the Tool had developed immunity to the endemic genophage at some point in the past two millennia or it had a treatment for the illness.

Never mind staying sane in isolation!

Eztli shrugged with false modesty. “It doesn’t really matter. Honestly, Rosabella, it’s more of a curiosity than anything else. Two thousand years ago, it would have been different, but the Pandemic is long over.”

“No, Eztli. Consider. You would be able to perform direct genetic manipulation again. There would be no need to rely on Stigmatization any longer. A cure for the genophage is more than simply a curiosity, Eztli.”

Eztli shook her head, and fine black strands danced about her face. “No, it’s truly not. Containment is impossible. So long as someone is vulnerable to the disease, he’d have hours or maybe mere minutes before reinfection. If we could sterilize the whole world at once, that would be different, but right now the cure is worthless for us. Besides, which of the other Gentes would trust us to play with direct genemods? They’d much more likely think we were breaching the taboos for nefarious purposes.”

“A pox on their heads, then.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“A genophage on their heads, they’d be more likely to imagine, and respond with appropriate force. No. Perhaps someday, we’ll be able to use it and rise once more to the heights of the Last Era. But not today.”

“If not today, then when?”

But at the look in Eztli’s eye, Rosabella knew when: When Gens Nxtlu has achieved Imperium.

“Ah. My lovely sister.” Ilhicamina’s voice, deep and sonorous, swept beneath the noises of hurry and bustle like an earthquake beneath the grass. Instantly, all motion ceased; the inquirers, the warriors, the archivists fell to their knees.

Rosabella’s heart froze. Even pledging her life in secret to Gens Nxtlu had been insufficient to convince Ilhicamina of her good intentions; every glance from him seemed to say, I know what you are doing here.

And his mistrust was not misplaced.

The bald princeling swept up to Eztli’s side and took her hand gently. She graced him with a polite smile. Then Ilhicamina turned those searching eyes on Rosabella, and she suppressed an inner shiver.

“And our latest Era,” he concluded. “How good to see you both, my Erae. Tell me, Era Rosabella Generosus Nxtlu, what do you think of our work here?”

“Magnificent, my Dux,” Rosabella said, curtsying sweetly and thanking the gods inwardly that her body did not betray her fear. “A true marvel.”

“Yes, indeed. Well said, except that I would call it many marvels at once, and not simply one. Have you given Rosabella a tour of the Libraratory, dear sister?”

“It’s far too large for a single tour, Ilhicamina, and we only just arrived.”

“Ah. Too right. In that case, come. Let me show you myself.” Without waiting for a response, he strode through the crowd of kneeling slaves toward the hallway from which he had come. A new sign, written not in the Exarchian of the Last Era but in Modern West Vallus, hung above the half-moon ingress. “Detention.”

“Where are we going, my Dux?” Eztli asked as Ilhicamina thumbed open a door on the side of the hallway.

“Inside.” He ushered both women into the gold-walled room. A ropy mass of vegetation stretching from floor to ceiling occupied the far wall. “Tvorh. You have visitors.”

The vines began to part. Rosabella felt the floor fall away beneath her as shocks of black hair came into view.

Not Tvorh. Not here. Not in this place.

He looked awful. His face was a pale muddy hue; vines, tiny vines, pierced his skin, from his twisted legs to his bleeding, sweaty mat of hair.

Not in the hands of these people—!

Somehow, Rosabella kept her composure, though she felt as if she were tumbling to infinity.

A grin — a knowing grin? curse the man; did he know what she was doing or not? — played at Ilhicamina’s lips. Rosabella noticed he was staring at her, as if awaiting a response.

Rosabella set her face passively and tried not to meet Tvorh’s eyes. “Did this dwarf betray the Gens, then?”

“Betrayal?” Ilhicamina said, approaching the side of the root structure and stroking it lovingly. “I suppose that this word is as good as any. Who should have been a loyal and good slave chose instead to flee; who ought to have given his life for his gods chose instead to rebel against them. Yes. Betrayal. But dwarf? No. Just a child. Isn’t this right, Tvorh? Can you hear me?”

A whimper from the roots. No— not a whimper. A syllable. “Yes.”

“Tvorh,” Ilhicamina said, leaning his head toward the reedy mass and speaking in friendly, conversational tones. “Tvorh. I have a gift for you today. What? You provide me with no thanks? Manners, Tvorh. I do believe we discussed this.” Ilhicamina twisted a cancroid growth on the side of the vegetation. Tvorh loosed a bestial scream of pain as the vines twisted and dug deeper into his skin. Rosabella turned her head; Eztli appeared to be weathering the shock no better than Rosabella was. Their eyes met momentarily.

Oh, poor Tvorh. Rosabella felt her insides twist no less than the boy’s face twisted.

“Manners, Tvorh. For example, we have here the newest Era of Gens Nxtlu, and you have not greeted her properly. Say hello, Tvorh, to Era Rosabella Generosus Nxtlu.”

Tvorh’s eyes fought open. Rosabella pressed her lips together and shook her head as his focus fell on her. I’m sorry, Tvorh. I can’t. Not now. Please. If he looked at her any longer, she would burst into tears, and then — then, all would be lost.

Was this not the very sort of reason that she had falsely pledged herself to this clan of inbred, blood-drinking monsters? If she would not stand now for this child, then when would she stand?

But what could she do?

“That’s right, Tvorh. Rosabella,” Ilhicamina said as Tvorh’s mouth moved wordlessly. “A foreign name to you, I am sure. Ah! But my gift. I had forgotten the gift. How common of me. What business have I to lecture you on manners, when I have forgotten my own? Eztli. Come here.”

“I’m— brother—”

“I said, come here.” Ilhicamina touched the vines, and they began to curve around, tiny tendrils reaching for Tvorh’s face. “My gift to you, Tvorh, is motivation.”

Eztli’s grip on Rosabella’s arm was forgebone. Did Eztli realize how Rosabella was shivering with fear on behalf of the lad?

Did Eztli realize that she, too, was shuddering? Even a Nxtlu Generosus had to know that children were off-limits.

“Go to Gehenn,” Tvorh whispered.

“Ah, he speaks. What? Are you an Adonist now? So long as you don’t begin to spout Amrician nonsense — ‘All men are created equal,’ as if beasts and men are the same! But never fear. If you choose Adonis, you will have the chance to meet your god soon enough.” Ilhicamina turned to the women. “Did I not say to come here, Eztli? I have a gift for you as well.”

Eztli drew a deep breath and glanced at Rosabella. She released the Ambassatrix’s arm and went slowly, cautiously, to Ilhicamina’s side.

“This branch,” Ilhicamina said.

“Brother—”

“You have nothing to fear. I have already set the commands in place. All you need do is pull it.”

“I’m sure, my Dux, that this—”

“Pull it!” Ilhicamina screamed, his face contorting into a mask of insane rage. Eztli flinched. Tvorh’s eyes drifted to Rosabella, and again she shook her head.

What was she doing? How did she appear from the outside? Even for Gens Nxtlu, practitioners of blood sacrifice, such perverse torture was uncommon. That much was clear from Eztli’s own shaking hands, her heavy gulping and her icy sweat-drenched face mere inches from her brother’s blood-rosed visage. Would he not notice that Rosabella, too, was disgusted and sickened by this? Could he possibly mistake her trembling for simple humanity, and not for the fact that not one month ago, she had hosted, talked with, hidden this boy from the very madman who now held him in the palm of his hand?

“Pull it!” the Dux screamed again, and with a stifled sob, Eztli did as he commanded.

Tiny nerves rose out of the fleshy green mass and plunged into Tvorh’s open eyeballs. “Your ocular nerves,” Ilhicamina said calmly as the boy let out an inhuman howl. “Do you hear this, Meghan?”

No! Oh, Tvorh, no, no, no — Rosabella’s heart pounded sideways in her chest. Between the screaming and the shock, it took Rosabella a moment to notice that Ilhicamina was speaking to the ceiling.

“Do you hear this? This is your child, screaming in pain. This is your flesh and blood, crying out for succor. You can stop this. You can let him go. More power, Eztli. More poison.”

“But—”

“More. Release the genelocks, Meghan,” Ilhicamina called. “Open the doors of this place to us, as you closed them when we entered. The boy is no more use to us; that much is clear. We have no more need of him; all we need is you. Help us set him free!”

Tvorh’s back arched as if it might break, but the ropy roots held his arms and legs fast. His screaming reverberated throughout the soundproof room, and only shards of words were audible within his cries; “Help— me!”

“More, Eztli.”

“I can’t,” Eztli said, her voice shattering.

“I said more!”

“No!”

“Then I will do it, bitch!” With one forearm, Ilhicamina threw Eztli across the room; she sailed past Rosabella and cracked into the wall behind. “I know you hear, Meghan! I know you see!”

Tvorh thrashed as blood began to seep from his eyes.

“Do you know what is happening? Do you know what you are taking away from him? You, Meghan!”

“Help me!” Tvorh screamed.

Rosabella stifled a sob, thanked the gods that the room was so loud and chaotic that Ilhicamina would not have heard it. The boy’s eyes were bright red; blood and tears mixed on his cheeks as the glow grew.

The redness grew and grew; an unhealthy scarlet glow began to shine from within his eyes.

Rosabella, barely keeping herself from sobbing, watched helplessly as the scent of charring flesh filled the room and Tvorh’s eyes began to shrivel from within.

There was nothing she could do! Nothing she could could as Tvorh screamed and his eyeballs burned. Curled. Melted.