Caleb drew breath heavily, frantically, choking as he crawled backwards, wide eyes flickering disbelievingly from Quarrel’s grotesque remains to the orb that had been her gruesome end.

How? Why? Why would anyone create a test like this? What manner of creature could be so vile, so callous, so cruel?

Who could hate humanity so?

Caleb staggered to his feet, unsteady, scarcely able to stand. The Lancers were almost within range, now, and the very ground beneath him shook terribly, so potent was their ceaseless barrage. He tried to rise into the air with what little power he had left, but his light flickered, flashing erratically.

“No!” Caleb cried, feeling the memory about to rip him away, trying plaintively to retain his hold on reality. “Not now, not now!”

Another cry rang out.

Caleb whipped about, still heaving, his pulse pounding in his ears, and saw.

For the first time since the battle began, Rover was howling in pain, his body paralyzed by a Psyker floating nearby, stasis-locked within its telekinetic grasp. Rendered defenseless, four of the closest Scythers had seized their opportunity to strike.

Eight hook-blades were embedded in his flesh, skewering his lungs, his arms, his legs, and his heart.

He looked jerkily at Caleb, and croaked.

The crimson infecting his pupils wasted away, and the light behind them dimmed.

Fancy yourself a hero, Twig?

Caleb screamed, and the world went white.

It felt a rather strange sensation, like popping a pimple, or relaxing a muscle he’d never known he had tensed. The already washed-out world of greys and whites and reds bleached even further, becoming monochromatic.

Then the light consumed everything. The platform, the orb, the ziggurat, the horde.

Even Rover.

Anything visible was washed away, all sound eclipsed by a dull ringing in his ears, and for a moment all was pristine, and pure, and beautiful. Perfection.

Then reality returned.

The ringing dimmed, replaced by an eerie quiet, the only discernible noise being the soft rumbling of distant, marching machines.

All around Caleb was stone burnt black.

The concrete ziggurat’s great bulwarks and roughshod emplacements had eroded and carbonized, the machines atomized, and all had dissipated away to dust, leaving behind an empty, scourged scene.

Wiped clean, like the last of his Entropy reserves.

But not Rover.

Caleb’s eyes widened, and he rushed to the side of his young devotee’s macerated form. Rover’s flesh had melted away and all that remained of him was well-done muscle and blackened bone, still sizzling and smoldering in the heat. His lower body was incinerated entirely, purged from existence. Ever so gradually, at a snail’s pace, minute ligaments and tendons crawled towards one another, his regeneration working futilely to knit himself back together.

Caleb dropped to his knees. His mouth worked, but no sound emerged. He stared down at the cooling heap of the Blessed who’d idolized him, Spectrum Sight revealing to him in no uncertain terms the sheer extent of internal damage.

Quarrel’s pack had detonated alongside her, taking with it their last remaining healing draughts.

There was nothing he could do.

“Lord…Immolator.”

Rover’s voice was less even than a whisper. It was a cracked, parched, ruined thing. Caleb trembled as he heard it. He’d seen death countless times, but only once before had he personally killed his fellow man.

Don’t worry, Fen. I won’t let that happen.

Caleb shook his head furiously, driving the nightmarish memory away.

“Ro–young Rover,” he choked, “I, I, I’m so–,”

“Lord Immolator,” Rover rasped, his vocal chords far too damaged to recover. “Please…listen. My name…my name is Vidar.”

A great numbness spread across Caleb’s body, but for some reason, he didn’t cry.

“Please…please…hold my hand,” Rover begged, voice quivering, every word clearly causing the Therian great pain, but his eyes…

They were no longer deranged. The light of sanity had returned to him.

Too late.

“Of–of course, my friend,” Caleb accepted, picking up the lycan’s palm and wincing as he did so, feeling the blistered muscle and melted fat ooze from between his fingers. Rover didn’t seem bothered by the pain such an action surely caused.

“I, um, I, I have you,” Caleb stammered, clenching his jaw tightly as he sought to arrest the terrible quivering in his arms. He couldn’t feel them anymore. The numbness was creeping higher. “You’ll be alright, you’ll–”

“No,” Rover interrupted, murmuring, closing his eyes for a moment and making Caleb’s heart palpitate. Then, mercifully, they opened and the wolfman’s brow furrowed in concentration.

“My…father.” The words became weaker still. Rover’s face was contorted in pain, and Caleb knew why, knew why precisely, his vision afforded him a crystal-clear picture. Rover’s regeneration had just ground to a halt. His vocal chords were no longer healing.

“I–you must tell him…,” the lycan’s voice trailed off to indecipherability, his whole body beginning to tremble, a strange heat emanating from the half-moon amulet embedded within his collarbone.

“Yes, yes, my friend. My brother. Vidar. Anything. Anything you ask…?”

The Therian’s body was shaking violently now, seizing. Caleb reached out and clamped his other side, hands biting deep into the tender flesh, no matter how gently he attempted it. He didn’t understand what was happening, but somehow his companion’s body was healing, what little fur remained of him falling off in great clumps as the silver amulet shone brightly, tanned skin growing over ruined flesh.

Then, in a flash of moonlight, it was over.

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Everything from the navel down remained missing, but above it an entirely new sight greeted Caleb, one that made his prior shock reach even greater heights. The wolf had disappeared. A young boy with rich, black hair had taken his place.

He couldn’t have been older than fifteen.

“The lonely mountain…” Vidar croaked. “Immolator. Tell my father…he was right. Tell him I–I understand.”

He coughed once. Twice. There was no blood. He had none left.

“Immolator,” the boy whispered, smiling faintly, his eyes fluttering shut. “Will they sing songs of me, do you think?”

The numbness swept through Caleb’s chest like thunder, and wrapped around his heart.

“I’d like a song, or two.”

With that, Vidar closed his eyes, and was still.

Fancy yourself a hero?

Caleb rocked back and forth for a moment, his mouth hanging slightly open, still clutching the dead boy’s pulpy palm. He breathed deep, and the smell of fresh-cooked human flesh filled his lungs.

It was sickly nostalgic.

What…what happened here? Fuck, the smell! Oh Gods–oh Priest…the children!

His hands were shaking mightily. Or was that the ground? Had the robots gotten closer? He didn’t know. He couldn’t seem to let go of the limp hand he held, couldn’t seem to tear his eyes from the corpse.

Priest above, one’s–one’s still alive! Over here, OVER HERE!

Caleb couldn’t seem to move, at all. He didn’t feel particularly angry, or sad, only uncomfortable. Tingling furiously, pins and needles all up and down his body. He felt light, airy, unfocused.

Like he was flying, standing still.

Well. You’ve been through it, haven’t you, son?

Caleb could hear the thundering legion fast approaching. He could hear the telltale scrape of steel on steel. It was right next to him, now. He felt a series of dull impacts thud against his body, but he couldn’t really feel them. He was numb.

The ringing in his ears was back, and his vision had gone monochrome again.

You’ve been through it, indeed, haven’t you, son?

Was he dead? Was he alive? The world was distant. He was drifting away.

My name is Ian. Won’t you tell me yours?

The memories swirled around him, and he was spirited away.

~~~

It was a sweltering summer day in the northeast of Patrusc’s demesne.

Near the banks of a sparkling freshwater lake, a humble edifice stood.

It was a large thing, true, but not particularly gaudy. Several cherub gargoyles and one or two busts of the Holy Triumvirate marked it clearly as a church, but its floors were not wrought of marble, nor its roofs rimmed with gold. No grand, stained-glass windows allowed for sight within its confines, and its walls were built of simple, hardy stone.

Its name was Saint Eward’s By-the-Lake, and it was an orphanage.

The Faith didn’t have all too many orphanages in the New World, these days. In Old Europe they were commonplace, but here, this side of the ocean, things were different. Ever since Ozymandias’s rise, and the corresponding Novus Ordo upon the Frontlines, the religion enjoyed progressively lesser and lesser welcome within the Cells.

Not that Caleb cared much about that.

He didn’t want to be Vaultkeeper, he wanted to be Valour. He didn’t care what the High Lord of Syn thought of him. He wanted to be Blessed, desperately, like most any kid his age. And besides, Novus Ordo or no, this was still Patrusc demesne. No child of the Faith would face prejudice, or discrimination, here.

The pastors of Saint Eward’s did work them hard, though.

Early to bed, early to rise. Lessons in geography, history, common, the arts and sciences, and, most of all, the Faith. And when they weren’t learning, they were kept plenty busy elsewise; cleaning, helping out the Fathers, or tending to the great vegetable garden that grew in tangled clumps every which way.

Father Isaiah and Father Abner were true-blue locals, supposedly part of those scant few descended from the original survivors that had populated the Cells post-Collapse, not the great European diaspora. But more importantly, neither were Blessed.

It was difficult to move up in the Faith’s ranks without a Blessing, but neither Isaiah nor Abner ever complained. They took their lot in life in stride, did the best they could with what they had, and Caleb respected them for it.

They’d clothed him, fed him, put a roof over his head. Given him friends that accepted him, taught him the way of the world. Caleb didn’t love them like real fathers, but he was happy the Coterie had brought him here.

He didn’t want to remember what came before.

Before cryo, before the Delvers rescued him, there were only nightmares. He’d lived them over and over again, for a time. The first few weeks, before they’d brought him to Saint Eward’s, were the worst. Meaningless scenes that repeated themselves endlessly every time he closed his eyes.

A gangly witch with gnarled claws that grabbed him from behind, dangling him above a great bubbling pot, dropping him in to boil.

Sometimes, he’d manage to escape the witch, and disappear into its house. Then, a three-headed hound chased him through its twisting, metal corridors. Its center head was green, and always looked furious, screaming at him as he ran. Its leftmost head was grey and emotionless, seeming barely alive at all. Its final head was bright blue, and gazed at him with guilt-ridden eyes.

He’d never understood that last one.

No matter how fast he ran, though, the dog always caught him in the end. It always brought him back. He always burned inside that pot.

That cauldron.

But the worst nightmares weren’t nightmares at all. They were the memories. Memories of a family he’d never know. Memories of a love, a connection, a sense of belonging he’d lost forever. He didn’t know why he’d been frozen away, nor did the Coterie seem eager to tell him. His memory was fuzzy post-thawing, too.

He recalled Pylon well enough. The enigmatic, multiplicitous Hand of the Coterie served as his primary caregiver, in the few weeks he’d spent with them after the rescue. He’d asked Caleb all manner of questions about his past, perhaps attempting to jog his memory, all to no avail.

He remembered the eccentric Immortal fondly, to be honest. Pylon was energetic, quick-witted, and kind, always willing to engage Caleb in play.

But he didn’t trust the Godkin, not entirely.

The Coterie had read something on the side of his cybernetic coffin, some kind of instructions that they’d never seen fit to share, no matter how he plead. After rescuing him, lightly questioning him, and ensuring his good health, they’d simply relinquished his guardianship to the Faith and sent him here.

Perhaps it was for the best. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know why he’d been there, in that metallic tomb, dead to the world. What kind of monster would do such a thing to a child?

Life at Saint Eward’s wasn’t paradise, but it was pleasant, at least.

It was where he’d met Fenlay, after all.

There were two types of orphans, Caleb found, neither particularly well-adjusted. The first were shy and shameful, perpetually consumed by the reluctance to tread on others’ toes, for fear they might be abandoned again. The second were angry, vengeful at the world that had neglected them, at the parents who’d so callously left them behind, and adopted a proud, hardened exterior that might protect them from further betrayals of trust.

Fen staunchly occupied the second category.

She was a rambunctious, strong-headed girl one year his senior. Together, the two of them made up the oldest of the bunch, and so, inevitably, descended into conflict. Fen’s mother was supposedly a Patrician in Old Europe, and Caleb’s own Coterie-orchestrated arrival set her well at-odds with him. He couldn’t count the number of times they’d been sent to their rooms without supper, for brawling in a place of worship.

But a swiftly-developing body, and the confused feelings that accompanied it eventually led her arrogant demeanor to soften somewhat in his presence, and in time give way to a deep, tender desire for companionship.

And when her short-cropped flaxen hair caught an errant beam of sunlight, or her amber eyes lit up in the twilight gloom, when he heard the tinkle of her laugh, or weathered late nights spent huddled conspiratorially under blankets to hear her tell tales of the land she’d once known…

He’d started to desire something more, too.

Though unprohibited amongst the clergy, courtship was officially against the rules for orphans such as themselves, until they came of age. But Father Isaiah and Father Abner had been young once, too, and each passing year saw them more and more willfully blind to the young couple’s budding romance.

One year at Saint Eward’s had turned to two. To three.

And before he knew it, Caleb was fourteen. In two short years, he’d be an adult. For the first time in his life, he enjoyed a warm, fulfilling contentment, absolutely free of nightmares. He and Fen had scarcely shared a couple chaste kisses, but he knew she was the only one he wanted. When he came of age, he planned to marry her.

Caleb was smart, he knew that much. He’d excelled in all his lessons. Isaiah and Abner lavished him with praise. There was even talk of sending him back to Everlasting Rome, where he’d live out a life of luxury, serving the highest echelons of the Faith.

The prospect of a Blessing, suddenly, no longer seemed important.

Then came the summer, and everything changed.