Arvhek

My successor hovered in (what passed for) midair for here, cross-legged, a dark grey, leatherbound book in his lap. I recognised the pen he used, from back when it had been a Maker far too eager to force its hapless creations into stasis. Aware of the impermanence of its creation, which would come due to it lacking the knowledge of the Unmoved Mover, the Creator had raged, not at being unable to preserve the safety of its children, but at the thought that it was flawed enough its works might be undone, rather than stand forever as testament to its skill. Thus, the denizens of its macrocosm had found themselves unable to move or act, only to think, to contemplate the eternity their creator had intended to consign them to.

Before it was itself trapped, and its creations taken to DEATH Keep, to be sheltered until a new home was found.

As David wrote, the twisted, compressed Creator-thing shrieked, a sound too subtle for most inhabitants of most macrocosms, and dripped black ichor into pages as white as bone, more of which appeared when necessary, I knew. I appreciated the pause in my storytelling he'd offered, for facing one's past rarely made it more palatable. Still, I could not let his feigned indifference pass without comment: we were too alike not to snipe at each other.

'I hope I haven't bored you already, my boy.'

'That line's never worked on your son and it won't work on me, Arv,' he replied, not looking up. 'Lay off. It's been over a month since I've updated this, in my world. If I don't soon, disappointment-'

'From the whole handful of readers who actually talk about your "Strigoi Soul"? Too much to bear for one man, I say.'

He gave me a look that was only mildly irritated; his more feral side was at bay, clearly. 'Disappointed will flood me, senior,' he explained in an exaggeratedly tortured voice. 'It won't take long, anyway.'

'Don't you say that every chapter?'

'It takes me a while to get going, alright? Stop bullying me.'

'No.'

The Fifth Keeper of DEATH sighed, closing the book after placing the tortured pen inside it. 'The Scholar's just added another interlude chapter to his Tale, you know? He says it takes a while to convert his thoughts into something like a novel rather than a journal, but I can't afford to fall behind.'

A lowing rose from between the pages of the book, forcing them apart, singed and steaming. With a sniff, David pushed them back together, silencing the sound and restoring the damage done by the trapped Maker. 'Need a stronger seal on this bastard. My optimism strikes once more.'

'Broken clocks, and all that.'

David nodded, his features becoming more serious. 'I've been mulling over something for a while, Arvhek.'

'Just one thing? Your brooding muscles have atrophied.'

'You're as annoying as me, you know? Anyway, you clearly have nothing better to do, so listen.' He held up a hand, thumb, index and middle fingers together. 'It'd be awkward to bring this up to DEATH. Things between us are what they are, and I'm sure it would take any chance to prove it's not redundant. It's never had a Keeper stronger than itself.'

Indeed, I was empowered after I was..."fired" was too pedestrian, "defrocked" not quite right, for my duty had had fairly little to do with holiness, despite involving the handling of souls. And I knew how particular DEATH was about having things done its way, or not at all. It was why we'd seen eye to eye so well, as it now did with David. Sometimes.

One did not take part in ordering existence without some stubbornness and need for control.

'The Mover's a bystander, more often than not.' There was a sour twist to David's mouth. 'If it feels like I'm overreaching, it will stop me, like it does whenever I try to do something more meaningful than beating up monstrous freaks that want to burn everything down and dance in the ashes.'

I glanced downwards, so to speak, at David's homeworld. On a mountain road in Bhutan, a child entered the world with her umbilical cord about the neck. I watched as, moved by the safeties my heir had placed for such events, the cord moved, and the newborn cried out, instead of embracin death before she'd been able to voice anything. Her parents clasped each other's hands, and her little ones too, and moved to clean her, searching in the car they'd stopped when the contractions had started.

'I wouldn't say that, friend,' I remarked softly.

David snorted. 'No more stillbirths. But who doesn't have a right to live? That should be assured for everyone, like food and shelter. It's not like I can keep children safe from everything after they're born-'

'David,' I cut in, 'you don't think this is meaningful?'

Eyes closed, he bowed his head, let out a breath. 'Of course it is. No parent wants dead newborns any more than I want their little, terrified ghosts filling the aether.' As for the spectres of stillborn children past, David had assured me he was doing his best to make them comfortable, and see if anything could be done to assure mental growth, new bodies of flesh to experience the world, maybe adoption.

'Your every thought could destroy the magna-macrocosm, yet you keep yourself in check, and life goes on. You don't think that is meani-'

'Arvhek,' David snapped, 'stop trying to make me feel better about myself. I'm not the kind of guy who stops hating his failures by thinking about his achievements. Alright? It makes me a pain in the neck to deal with, as do many other things. Still who I am.'

I met his eyes as they opened. 'A good man, I'd say.'

'Good people don't think about letting everything end, Arv.' The nickname made it all sound more bitter, somehow. 'You should know. I wasn't even selfish enough to want creation to go on for the sake of new experiences. Even bloody Hex was more invested in keeping existence going, and that pasty bastard has the emotional range of a brick.'

'People don't think about the world's good when it hurts them,' I reminded him gently. 'And the point is that you stopped wallowing in misery, and did well. And you're doing well, better, every day.'

He let the words hang in the air, saying nothing.

'Besides,' I continued, after a time, 'you don't loathe everything about the Mover, do you? I've seen you praying to your god, ten thousand years from now, and it answering.'

'You'd better be aching to gag on that stupid hood if you're implying they're one and the same.'

I raised both hands, smirking behind my faceplate. 'You were saying?'

'The people who'd want to help, without my needing to ask, have their own things to deal with. Our creation is one thing, but all of them?' He shook his head. 'I'll look into it, but if they're more focused on their responsibilities at home, they'll only do halfhearted job out there. And that's not worth it.'

I nodded, waiting for him to elaborate with folded arms.

Never one to miss the chance of hearing his own voice, David indulged my unspoken request.

(Now, do not mistake my phrasing for petty annoyance. David has faced enough manipulation and the threat of losing free will that doing anything he wants must feel pleasant. The man still loves to talk, though.)

'You're so cagey about recruitment you're barely talking about the matter itself,' I noted.

'Of course,' David replied morosely. 'The only people with both the inclination for magna-macrocosmic policing and nothing else to do are the most rabid fans I've ever had.' There was something unpleasantly bewildered in his expression. 'Probably literally rabid. I need to take the Unbeings to a checkup one of these days.'

Not bothering to schedule that, for the moment, he got to his feet and began pacing, both hands before his back, at the beginning, then lifted one as he spoke. David claimed it made him look thoughtful and grave, and by no means like a crotchety old man.

'The problem is that too much hinges on people, not institutions. In my creation an others, and in the Ur-City itself. The Host and Warden are supposed to keep the peace by themselves, and they've managed so far, but how long until they make a mistake, or just fail?' David met my eyes. 'Back in our macrocosm, everything almost ended whenever DEATH needed a new counterweight and enforcer. Because the Mover thought things worked like that, and its whim was law, dreaming or not. But it's awake now.'

An image of a creature sporting all manner of limbs, stretching out from around a cluster of lidless eyes and a needle-fanged mouth, appeared above David's hand. The illusory Unbeing writhed even without meaning to move, the eldritch substance that made up its form twisting of its own volition. 'DEATH's Keeper? One person having to deal with the Idea of Destruction and every weapon it has sealed away, because the Mover once dreamed things so? It's too damned irresponsible.'

'Have you no faith in yourself, David? You've the power to defend your creation, and it's not like organisations are foolproof. We are both aware of how institutional failings can endanger people just as much as personal flaws.'

David closed his hand, and the projection disappeared. 'This cowboy shit isn't better, Arv. You want the truth? I'm not comfortable handling so much. It's not that I feel overwhelmed - I'm glad I can help those in need and punish the deserving. Truly, I am. Maybe I'd be more sure of myself if I could help everywhere I'm needed, but that's neither here nor there.'

Now with both hands splayed in front of him, a new projection hovered before David: the sprawlling collection of white and silver spires and domes that was the Ur-City, and at the heart of it all, and at the brink of the endless city both, the Pillared Palace only beings like us, and Starlight Crowned With Ivory could see, by power, and the stewards of the Ur-City, by necessity, endlessly weaker than the Palace's inhabitants as they were. Where, once, a man who had lost everything had entered, and come out ready to bring eternal oblivion. If not for Xialla, I know I would have. I'm glad I did not, and I think she would be too, if she were around still.

'I've spoken with the Host and the Warden,' David said. 'They agree with me in part, at least in the sense they know they're not infallible.' He dipped his head at the Palace, where, before my time, the Baron of Bedlam and the Mangler of Makers had been lured; where they had been locked in a bloody stalemate when I'd entered, and still were.

For now.

Creators were such versatile, protean beings. Was it any surprise their mutations, for lack of a better word, could lead to dramatic results when there was no reason or code of conduct to moderate their creativity?

David's voice held a note of frustration as he went on. 'Makers are so particular, when it comes to intent...so obsessive. They can't Awaken, like the Mover, unless they receive a similar revelation as it did when it saw its creations working together. Trying to train them into waking up just results in obsessive drones that ape their teachers, and those aren't even useful.'

I could only concur, on all points. Creators did have a tendency towards monomania. I think it came with how easily things they made could unravel if they did not think properly. As for trying to evolve them through rote and drills...that would've been too easy, no? Too reasonable a solution. The results of such programs were dead ends, imitations of the Host and Warden that sleepwalked through the motions of their betters - sleepwalkers themselves, as Makers went; only four of them had ever Awakened, to my knowledge, and two of them were described as Wrongly Woken when the two Silver Stewards saw fit to mention them, among themselves or in their sealed records.

There was no point to these faux-Steward Makers. The Host and Warden could, individually, crush the infinity of Creators that dwelled in the Ur-City, even if they all "woke up" and united their forces against the two. That was the point of them; that, and defending their weaker brethren from the creatures of the Ur-City, which outmatched Makers the way Earth's stronger animals did humans. The City of Creators had worse to offer than mischievous ur-mites like Ischyros. Far worse.

'You said you spoke with them,' I prompted David. 'Only of this?'

'No. We...'

* * *

'Ascension Academy?' the Host's smooth, velvety voice rolled across the gleaming halls it shared with its companion and counterpart. It held a hand over its smiling mouth, watching DEATH's Keeper with lidded eyes. 'What is it this time, David? The acronym? Or the alliteration?'

'Yes,' David replied. 'I know you two think nothing about letting Makers wipe out their creations, intentionally or otherwise - but just because you think it helps with the Creators' evolution, it does not mean people aren't dying.' He turned to the Warden. 'You stop them from messing with each others' macrocosms, but it's not about those living in them, is it? It's about making sure the Makers' squabbling doesn't hold them back.'

'Will you take us to task, Starlight's regent?' the Warden asked curiously, its solid, stolid form showing no sign of whatever it might've been thinking.

The moment it finished speaking, the Host said, 'I do my best to keep their mindsets healthy - but meddling too much does not help. Micromanaging can be just as damning as inaction.'

David huffed. 'Don't I know it? So, here is my proposal, knowing the Mover's just going to watch the fireworks unless it's feeling unusually proactive: a way to let the Makers run wild, and indulge their every impulse, without their creations needing to be swept under when they lose control. I will see that everyone gets what they need, both the Creators and the created.'

'This could be counterproductive,' the Host mused. 'When Makers can remember the creations they destroyed because their control slipped, they might feel the need to become better, lest it happen again.'

'I'm not gambling with lives so that some overpowered toddlers can turn accidental genocide into motivation,' David said firmly.

The Host met his glare with a smile. 'Peace, David. I am playing devil's advocate, and nothing more.'

'Can't stand him, by the way.'

'I'm sure.' It laughed. 'Your idea is not without merit. Being able to mingle with their creations, without fear of losing them when their attention slips...yes. Yes, I can see it. The exchange of ideas between Makers and the made might well help Creators reach Awakening.' After all, that had been how the Mover had awoken, and, it was whispered that the First Monarch had experienced a similar process.

'And you two?' David asked.

'We could, if we wanted,' the Warden answered. 'We could Awaken, once out duties no longer need to be fulfilled.' The two had become what they were because someone had needed to, in order to regulate Maker society. But their false Awakenings had only resulted in a sort of tunnel-visioned sleepwalking, for they could not let go of their roles.

'Self-perception, David,' the Host added. 'You know how difficult it can be to let go of things that are no longer truly part of yourself.'

* * *

'I understand this...Maker training wheels program,' I hedged. 'It would allow you to rest easy.' In theory. If David couldn't find a way to worry about and brood over something, I'd slit my own throat. 'But the other thing? These Keeper's aides?'

'Not the Keeper's,' he corrected. 'Mine.' His eyes were intense as he looked down at the book in his lap, as if he'd already written the answers in then, but had forgot them. 'If I have my way, there will never be a sixth DEATH's Keeper, or a need for one.'

'You really hate this job, hm?'

'Don't get cute with me,' he sneered. 'This is not about me, and it shouldn't be. This is about getting everyone to work together, as they would have, in a kinder creation.'

'The Creed Ascendant? They're the first resource you were hoping to tap.'

'Yes,' he agreed. 'People will whine that I'm training my cultists as attack dogs, but if it's just whining, I can deal with it.' He sighed. 'And the Unbeings want to help. They already are, in their way. They'd jump at any chance to please me.'

'Most people wouldn't look so morose at having a retinue of superpowered yes-men trailing their steps.'

'I'm not most people. The adoration just makes me cringe, more than I usually do when thinking about myself.' He dragged his hands through his hair, down his face. 'But I'm trying to look on the bright side: I won't have to always be on edge about them doing something stupid in my name if we're working together. I'll just be able to direct them as we go. Of course, the fanatics aren't who I want for this.'

'No?' I asked, curious.

He shook his head. 'There will be a process, to separate the drones from the thinkers. The average Unbeing wouldn't blink if I ordered them to flay a baby alive and strangle the parents with the skin. They'd tell themselves, surely the Lord Keeper was irritated by that child's shrieks, and the Lord Keeper's peace of mind is more important than anything, for any of his thoughts could doom existence.'

'Are you going to order them not to worship you?' I asked, amused. 'The first time went about as well as such things go, historically.'

'No need to tell them what to think. They've already had a schism, in their Creed's infancy. The unbelievers drifted away, some into hibernation. I will find them.' He clenched a fist. 'I will find those who doubt, among the faithful. They don't need to be ordered: they just need to understand that I don't matter, existence does. Ours and all the others, and the things beyond.'

'Perhaps they will,' I allowed. 'They are flexible, in mind and what passes for their bodies. And powerful enough, as far as made things go-'

'Heh,' David cut me off. 'You know what the Host told me, a while back? That our creation is the only one to have persisted for more than the equivalent of an instant. The only one not to have its name removed from the current leger and put in the metaphorical one.'

Ah, yes. 'Wellspring.'

David pointed at me, grinned. 'It does have a "recent" tendency to produce uncannily powerful bastards. You, me. The Mover, if you want to see it that way.'

And Starlight had picked it out as a source of growth, the heart of its project to gradually raise everyone to its level. It was a template, too, as macrocosms went. No doubt, the Makers who could take notes were doing so. 'Be that as it may...so, you train the Unbeings. Teach them to be rational, keep a level head, then send them to preserve life and death, and other creations beyond yours.' I paused. 'As they are? You must know any sleeping Maker will think them out of existence in an instant.'

David wagged a finger. 'Who said I'm sending them unarmed? The Neverwere Vaults are filled to the brim with weapons, thinking and unthinking. Enough to keep the peace in Wellspring. I can empower them, too, as needed. Grasping such energies, they will find it easy to grow.' He allowed himself a slight smile. 'And I think I know just the captain, for this order with their weapons forgotten by creation....though they might find themselves locked in a Warden-like role, for a while. Even if they can act outside that, they may well decide not to, too caught up in their duties. God knows I do.'

That he did. But there were far worse things to fall into than duty. Idleness, for one. Despair. Oblivion, and the craving to drag everything else into it.

Time for some needling. 'Still, David. You're lifting up so many people after making sure they don't venerate you, empowering them...I'm sure you've already thought of them turning against you, but even if they do not, what will you have accomplished? You won't even have won any glory to your name...'

'Arvhek,' David said flatly, 'you can't possibly be this transparent.'

'Alas, I am Nothing.' I sketched a bow. 'But could I do aught else?' When faced with the man who took his life because his scribblings weren't appreciated enough by strangers, instead of looking to those close to him? David had the ego problems Keepers shared, though they didn't always manifest the same way. Regardless, we'd all struggled to accept that what our beliefs weren't the most important thing ever.

'You could,' he suggested, 'stop trying to rile me up, and resume talking.'

'I haven't talked about the cultures I've slaughtered in a short while! Thank you for this chance, David!'

Deftly avoiding the book he threw at me - as it flew past, I saw a sketch of us two on the latest page; I looked far more like a morbid adolescent's fantasy there than I actually did. When my outfit did sport spikes and blades, as my mood took me, those didn't have spikes on them in turn. What would've been the point? - I began recounting the past of the Eternal Empire once more.

* * *

Some said the Red Planet had become so due to all the blood spilled on it across the ages. Looking across the Plains of Phobos, it would've been easy to see why the myth had taken root.

Neyhus Othlan, Emperor of Earth and more, sat on a pile of corpses, cutting out the eyes of the one directly underneath him. Without glancing at his handiwork, he severed the neck with a slash of his viblade, before turning the head so he could begin carving and hollowing it out.

He would need a new cup, and a bearer for it. The latter would be found; the former, he was taking care of himself.

Neyhus' long, dark hair was kept out of his eyes by a crown mirroring that on the outside of his helmet. Between its mechanisms and those inside his power armour, he would not be bothered by anything as trivial as an obscured line of sight, and forcefields were an elegant solution for showing his status while staying practical.

Not that a warrior - a true man - was concerned with anything as foppish as elegance. But an emperor needed to remain majestic in every situation, and during negotiations, like the one he was about to begin (though, as far as the other side was concerned, they were going to beg), he preferred to show his face and the sign of his office at once. In such moments, an ambitious coward, like a sniper, could try to kill him, only to be thwarted by a skintight, invisible field of power. Many had tried to end him in such a manner, during the fight, but the Bloody's armour had proven too tough.

Neyhus' lip curled at the thought. Such skulking wastes of air were only worth the dirt under their feet when bent to the task of removing deviants from society. Once he and his subordinates had finished analysing them, some might be recruited. The rest would lose what made them men, if only in aspect, and choke on it. And if some of the would-be killers were women...well. It wasn't like they'd ever need to nurse a child again, or be able to have one, by the time he and his were done with them.

The womanly mind was prone to fits of viciousness (though the results produced were invariably feeble, brought about by their inherent weakness), an illness only exacerbated when it was forced to confront its weakness. Neyhus' almost shuddered to think how mankind had managed before him, without the proper balance between men and females, but he did not. He was no coward.

A large man with a voice to match cleared his throat, making Neyhus glance his way as his helmet collapsed into his gorget. The Emperor of All Men met the gaze of the greatest warband leader on Mars, and held it with a smile.

"Goldgut" Gryzhus, so-called because the wealthier he was, the wealthier he became (though it was more often said that he ate a mouthful of money and shat thrice the amount), was so tall most men, and even the looming, deviant females under his command, would've only reached the bottom of his chest. Though he lacked the defined musculature of a real warrior, his limbs and neck were thick with muscle, and gut hid similar strength. No jowls, either; instead, his lined, scarred face was dominated by a pair of eyes the colour of his dirty blond hair, which had barely begun greying, though Gryz was well into middle age.

'Othlan,' the mercenary rumbled, 'beating us half to death still won't make us work for free. Might as well go all the way.'

Neyhus laughed. 'Who told you you have a choice? You are strong - will be once the filth is purged, at least - and with strength comes duty. It will be your joy, nay, your privilege, to spread civilisation across the cosmos entire. Trust me.'

The general of Goldgut's Gutters, a name he jokingly claimed was due to his troops tendency to take food from his mouth, sniffed, then raised a hand to stifle the resulting nosebleed. His nose, broken and reset many times over decades of fighting, had been shattered again. 'Sounded like a treat, that last part.'

'It was a promise,' Neyhus corrected coolly. In awe of his own calm, he almost shook his head. How he could bestride the universe without raising monuments to his greatness, he did not know. 'Let us be frank, general: you're the biggest rat in this scrapyard of a planet.' The Emperor raised a finger. 'You - the Martians, I mean - are a collection of disorganised, squabbling children. Even your company, Gryzhus, is plagued by almost every taint that can spring from the human form.'

Women who thought they could be warriors. Catamites and their female counterparts. Those who, inanely, thought they could and should switch genders through perverse alchemies, as well as the mad who claimed they were neither, or both, or that there were more than two. And to thing, this rabble was the most disciplined fighting force on Mars! There could be no clearer evidence that this place had missed the guiding hand of a true man, now that he thought about it.

Nodding at his brilliance (a gesture Goldgut, bedazzled by his conqueror's greatness, took as something related to what the Emperor had just said), Neyhus continued, 'Regrettably, my men and I have not managed to purge every deviant in your employ, though we targetted those whose signs of foulness were obvious.' Men with armour shaped for the women they deliriously claimed they were, for instance. 'You will hand the rest over to us - I know you are aware of each and every one - and aid your fellow soldiers in an execution that, once we round them up, will be easy, though by no means fast.'

To his credit, Gryzhus did not fall to his knees, though it was obvious, by his shivering, that he was in awe of his new Emperor. Not that Neyhus could do anything but share his greatness with the universe. Such was his duty, and his privilege, as was the privilege of others to witness him.

And he had such sights to show them...

'Such things to teach,' he mused out loud, overcome by candour. Gryzhus looked at him in confusion, but Neyhus paid him no heed. The mercenary was a soldier, which the Bloody could respect, but a simple man, at heart. Only someone like the Emperor could both fight and rule without becoming a cowardly, grasping vulture or a raging, unthinking dog. Without his guidance, Neyhus could tell, Gryzhus would inevitably begin walking the path that would lead to the second fate.

If he'd been a more pathetic sort of man, he'd have said the Gutters were blessed to have met him. But there were no such things as gods, no conspiring spirits to fill the universe with their plots. The universe was too vast and pitiless for such spawn of deluded minds to exist. Only the glory of Neyhus and his Empire could fill it and stand the test of time.

Only eternity would suffice to properly display his virtues, of course. And to face eternity, a means to prolong life and cheat death would be needed. It would not do for the Emperor of all there was to end up as an old man, unable to even lift a sword.

Not that such things would ever come to pass. He lived and breathed the denial of them; one needed only look at him to see that truth. Only weaklings with no will needed to prove such things.

But first! First, he would have to ensure the loyalty of his newest lackeys, now that they had been dazzled by his greatness. No slaves, these, but oath-sworn warriors dedicated enough to follow their liege without such petty worries as payment or independence.

Briefly, he entertained the thought of challenging some of the mercenaries' best fighters to personal combat, so that he might establish dominance, not like a mindless dog might, but like an Emperor putting his subjects in their place. But he would have all the time to prove his supremacy on the field of battle with them under his command.

Neyhus nodded at his wisdom, making his way to the towering leader of these defeated soldiers of fortune. Goldgut gave him an uncertain look, obviously unsure whether to kneel or fall down on all fours. Only a humble warrior-sage like him could withstand the temptation of encouraging such adulation, just like he had withstood the call of his bloodlust.

'Fear not,' he said, reaching up to clap the man's arm. 'You might not be contracted like common leg-breakers, as you used to be, but you will be paid as your worth dictates.'

Gryzhus looked surprised, but shrugged. 'Some decent stipends and we might not even loot,' he joked gruffly, drawing a few coarse chuckles from his troops, as well as the women playing at war and the surviving deviants.

Neyhus, astounding even himself, managed not to scowl at the implication of fighters needing to be paid to battle, just like he hid his distaste at the behaviour of those insults to martial glory. 'I am sure we can arrange something...'

* * *

"Gryzhus, historians write nowadays, could not have been accused of disagreeing with Neyhus on many subjects, wages aside. Indeed, out of the Bloody's Bastards, as we of the First Emperor's inner circle were called, he and his sovereign were perhaps the closest in temperament and their view of gender roles (though some argue Neyhus wore down Goldgut's indifference towards those who were not male over time; as someone who met both, I can tell you Goldgut was always more apathetic than sympathetic). It might be surprising, then, that the Marshall of Offence - which some of Gryzhus' female acquaintances called him sardonically, not that he noticed - was the first to ally with Phramus Bhuran and Arvhek, the founders of our conspiracy to overthrow Othlan.

Do not be surprised. His disapproval of Neyhus' temporary - or so he planned it to be - departure from war would not have been enough to urge him to betray. Grzyhus, denser than a black hole as he was, could always recognise risks to himself, and he wanted to face his outraged peers even less than he wanted to turn his coat."

-Extract from former Marshall of Intrigue Slipsight's Meditations on Massacre

* * *

The Neptunian had no name he would've been proud to bear, so nameless he had made himself.

Granted, the chance of anyone showing up to take a gander at the records he'd edited or destroyed was astronomical - most of his visitors only flirted with sentience, and clumsily -but it was always better to prepare needlessly than to be surprised.

He was not proud of his most significant deed, either; but loneliness had overcome him, aloof as he liked to present himself, and he had given in to his weakness. The clone he had taken to seeing as his son, for the experiment had been tinged with sentiment from the onset, was a curious, exuberant boy, who wanted nothing more than to show his father how much he loved him. In clumsy, childlike ways, for he could do nothing more, he tried to thank the Neptunian, and each gesture fed the guilt.

But it was irrational to pity himself, for no one had forced him, and he could not do away with the boy, besides. He could not abandon him, either; an orphan would not survive the ice giant's conditions alone, much less the predators that prowled the cold reaches.

Predators whose numbers he had grown.

Accidentally, at that. Sometimes, he felt bad at being more embarrassed than angry at the results of those repeated failures.

Cloning, a process that should've been simple, had been made a gamble by, he suspected, the lingering effects of some Machinist weapon, meant to prevent their Convention rivals from replenishing their numbers through alchemical (or other, more arcane) means. It was not the only obstacle placed in his way by long-dead warmongers.

But his stubbornness was to blame as well, for he could've stopped after the first time, if not for how damned haunted he'd felt by the world around him, empty save for monsters. Damn his parents, too, for seeking refuge from the wars of inner Sol here. What was the point of fleeing Terra and Mars and Jupiter to come here, to this spacefarer's nightmare, and have him? At least they'd only wasted away after he'd grown enough to take care of himself.

Blaming the dead was irrational, too, he told himself.

His first clone had been an apelike thing with a jutting brow and canines like tusks, which he still didn't understand. Full of pity, he'd let the thing glide into the wild on stubby wings, after scaring it enough it wouldn't return to his abode and laboratory. It still stalked him when he went on field flights.

The following replicas had not been much better: variations of grotesqueness, each less human than the last. It was, the Neptunian thought, cosmic irony that the most successful clone made him the saddest, for the boy saw his father's inner struggle, and it brought him to tears, made him think he couldn't make the Neptunian happy enough.

The silver-haired scientist ran a hand over his scalp as he returned to his floating home, wings retracting into his flight suit. The inner respirator was working, and his son - nameless as he was, and innocent as he could never be called - would be delighted to hear how smart his father was.

He still hesitated at the door.

The AI, which he'd programmed to regonsise his moods, did not open the door, despite scanning him. It could tell he was not prepared yet.

No, the Neptunian was not proud. Not proud enough of his belated success to name his son, who'd soon start talking properly. Not honest enough to tell him he had siblings, misshapen creatures that loathed his father, and would eat him alive if they knew of him, driven by monstrous envy.

Because the Neptunian, rational as he called himself, was a coward.

At least he'd become sincere enough to admit that much to himself, if no one else. A man as insane as him (what else could he be called?) might've screamed his sins to the night sky, but he was, still, too proud of his self-control.

The Neptunian stepped forward, only then noticing he'd been holding his breath. The respirator, which looked like a small leather mask when inactive, but able to grow and partially cover both lungs, poured through his skin and into his hands, leaving his chest tingling. He'd need to copy...it...

The Neptunian froze, unpleasantly surprised for the first time in more than sixty years of life - his inner cynic had always been vindicated, previously.

For in the middle of his living room, on the table where he and his boy put together puzzles and played board games, sat a smirking, vicious-looking man clad in red-rimmed, golden power armour, and in his lap sat the Neptunian's boy, uneasy but kept there by the man's hands on his small shoulders.

The inventor's hand flew to his raygun, but froze halfway when the warlord tightened his grip, and his child's shoulders cracked, prompting a whimper. Lips trembling, he stared at his father with tears welling in his eyes.

'The one and only man of Neptune,' said the Bloody Emperor who reigned over most of Sol. His smile widened. 'Such things you will make me...but, already, you have made me happy.'

'What are you talking about?' the Neptunian demanded. Was he quick enough on the draw? What had made him holster his weapon?

The man laughed, a rich, deep sound. 'The instant you saw your son in danger, you wanted to fight! Now that's what a man would do, even one plagued by intellectualism as you.' Othlan lightened his grip, and the boy breathed in relief. 'My newest friend has told me such things, nameless one. He babbles, as children do, but I understood. Tell me, was your creation of a son intentional? Could you have made a female, or even some sexless thing?'

There was an almost feverish light in the Emperor's eyes, and the Neptunian blinked. He couldn't have broken into his house, held his son hostage, to ask something so insignificant. Who bloody cared about that? 'I could've, if I wanted. But the process I used recreates the identity of the original, to a degree, so I would've had to deliberately alter-'

'How you wound me,' Neyhus breathed, eyes wide. The Neptunian raised his hands; the larger man looked ready to fly into a rage, but over what? He'd answered truthfully. 'I praise you for being a fighting man, yet you fill my ears with the irrelevant details that are the love of scribes with no scions.' He shook his head, almost snarling the next words. 'Why anyone would create a means to perpetuate such creatures, I cannot even begin to imagine. Every man knows that, if more females are needed, extant ones need only be bred with the intent for daughters. As for barren freaks with no use...' his shoulders tightened, and he almost recoiled.

The Neptunian let his hand drop. He did not know how much that armour augmented speed, but he dared not chance his son's life on his gunplay. 'Be that as it may, why are you here? And might you let my child go?'

The Emperor's chuckle was as loud as it was insincere. 'Because you're scared of losing this thing you've made in the jar you spilled your seed into. Because it is said you send those who seek the fruits of your genius running, when they come to employ you in their wars. Such luck that our own sciences let me slip through your protections, hmm?'

The Neptunian cursed inwardly. And his home's automated defences were designed so as to stay inactive if there was a chance he or his son might be caught in the crossfire. He'd need a verbal command to override that; he'd always though that, if some escaped experiment of his or a surviving disaster from the Workers' War came close to his home, they would be long gone.

His arrogance struck again.

'You want a weaponsmith,' the Neptunian said coldly.

Neyhus gestured at him as if in praise. 'Despite your cowardice, despite being awed by me for the first of many times, your intellect remains as incisive as it is described. You will create wonders with my hand on your leash.'

The Neptunian blinked. Was he...no, he knew sarcasm. Not people who could say such things and believe them, though. He was almost scared of what he'd find if he cracked this man's skull open.

Though he doubted such an occasion would come anytime soon.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

The negotiation, if it could be called that, concluded quickly, for Neyhus saw such things as the yapping of those who were men only in form, too weak in mind and body to settle things with fist and sword. Even when he rose from the table, which creaked dangerously and showed cracks, he did not let go of the Neptunian's son, distractedly running a hand over his head as one might with a dog.

Behind him, the Neptunian heard the thunder of boots, and a squad of power-armoured men, their gear of the same make as their ruler's, though less ornate, marched in. Clearly speaking over silent comms, the soldiers split up, two remaining to watch the scientist, one taking his son away and the rest, led by their sergeant, moving deeper into the house, with the air of looters.

The Neptunian's opinion quickly changed when the cacophony of crushed and thrown objects was replaced by a hiss, then the crackle of flame. He took half a step forward, but froze in place when he heard the humming of energy guns, raised and trained on his back.

'What is the meaning of this?' he asked in a low voice as smoke began floating from his bedroom library. 'Why are you burning-'

The Emperor, who had been slouching against a corner one hand on a knee, met his eyes, and his smile made the inventor stop short. 'I am no man of letters, or science, to sully my mind with poisons that lure one away from war. Still, I wager I can guess the contents of that waste of space in your lair.'

The Neptunian's temper was not quick, but it was slow to fade. Still, he reined it in; they had the only good soul he had brought into the cosmos. 'And what do you think...my Emperor?'

The words felt like swallowing bile, but he thought he must've hid his distaste, for Neyhus' smug look did not waver one moment. 'You tinker with what there is, no? You do not make many new things. Such is the lot of those fated to skulk in their conquerors' shadows. But I digress.' The Bloody's gaze turned flat, unamused. 'You're a geneticist, when you don't tinker with gears and cogs or dream about spacetime. Right now, my men,' he pointed at the door, but indicated what lay beyond it, 'are rounding up your misbegotten attempts to replicate yourself. They will be put to good use, soon.'

Right now? If by now he meant over years, maybe, unless their sensors were far more refined than what the look of their armour indicated. 'Neptune is an ice giant, my emperor...'

'Aye, and we would be looking for fleas in a blizzard unless we're sharper than you've figured we are. Is that what you're thinking?'

The Neptunian schooled his features before his eyes could widen enough to warrant mention. He might've spent most of his life alone, but he had mirrors, and he was a hunter by need. He knew how to control his body language and avoid giving anything off. So what had tipped the troglodyte off? 'If one were uncharitable, they might phrase it that way.'

The Emperor rested his chin on his fist, the elbow propped up on his thigh. 'I do not need armour-senses to read you. All my life, I have been looked down on by sneering, snivelling fools who thought they were clever because they knew many but trivial things. I can see the arrogance from a league off.'

The Neptunian refrained from laughing in his face. Yes, that figured. He could probably spot any form of arrogance, his own aside. 'I meant no insult, my Emperor.' There was a lull in the discussion - taunting? -, and in the silence, Neyhus' smile returned, and grew wider than before. 'If I may - what do you intend with my failed experiments?'

'They will serve as the first stepping stone to the path that was always meant for you,' the Bloody replied, utterly certain despite his relaxed tone. 'I know that little rat's heart of yours didn't let you slaughter them as the freaks deserved, but it does not matter, anymore. A true man has come to guide your hand, as your ilk needs to achieve anything worthwhile.'

Was this this new life? Getting talked down to by a neanderthal in a shiny tin can because the moron had convinced enough people like him to follow, so he had nothing to fear? He was already missing the isolation. 'You're going to kill them. And make me watch?'

'Watch as you overcome your weakness,' Neyhus corrected. 'If you cannot - personally, I think you are too in touch with your inner woman -, your knowledge will be used, one way or another.'

...Something didn't track. Leaving aside how the Neptunian thought he wasn't being threatened with interrogation, but something else entirely, earlier...say they had the best sensors in Sol; well for them. But how would they get anywhere "now"? They must've come by spaceship, an uncommonly stealthy one, but as far as the savant knew, all spaceships in the system used wormholes, and could only move nearly as fast as on their own. And no one took such priceless relics to go monster hunting.

He told the Emperor as much, and received a nasty chuckle, which was echoed by the jackbooted thugs shadowing their master. 'Think you that we must cross the space between us, rather than bend it?' Othlan then spun him a tale even harder to believe than anyone using a spaceship as a hunting vessel. Not the Eternal Empire's ideals, for such petty hatreds were not uncommon among tyrants and their followers, but the means they would use to achieve them, and how they had come by them.

Of course, the Neptunian rather doubted this "Grandfather Clockwork" had died weeping oily tears once it heard of Neyhus' plans, leaving its technological bounty in his keeping. But he could buy the possibility of them having got their grubby paws on a database, if only because they looked too stupid to do more than bang rocks together without instructions.

'It would be an unique opportunity to work with your technicians, my Emperor,' the Neptunian said, trying to sound cheerful. He wasn't lying, at least. How many people had to deal with this sort of nonsense? 'But my son-'

Neyhus waved him off, spat on the floor. 'Bah. Childrearing is the point of females. The ones worth anything, at least, can care for their spawn once bred, and look after a man's house too. Your creature will be taken care of.'

So, he wasn't going to see the boy he hadn't even named. Not if this bastard had his way. 'I would visit, if duty allows.'

Neyhus bared his teeth. 'If duty allows. So he might be reminded you and all your artifice failed to protect him?' His broad shoulders rose, flexible pauldrons moving with them. 'By all means. Resenting you, fearing me, he might become someone worth moulding. You might even try to turn him against me, give me a reason to break his every bone whenever we cross paths.' At the Neptunian's expression, he winked. 'We have great healers.'

As if that was what he was about to protest.

Days later, as he toured the weapon factories of Old Earth - Sol Three; void, there was being technical, then there was tastelessness - alongside the Imperial Regent, the Neptunian, about to turn a corner, stopped, one hand on the chromed wall, supporting him, the other cradling his head.

Mhalvur Bramus stopped, the wide sleeves of his brown robe hiding his folded hands. The second most powerful man in the Empire went around in what you'd expect some benighted medieval world's clerks to wear (something Mhalvur had implied was the result of the Bloody's sense of aesthetics; "being the humble shadow of his glory" or some claptrap), though his distaste towards opulence seemed genuine, from the Neptunian's conversations with the man.

Oh, he cared about things. Fancied himself a collector, a historian. But it was all about the power they could give him, or failing that the sense of being the only person to have such things, than their value as seen by the unenlightened - Mhalvur's own words.

'But do not tell Emperor Othlan that,' the older man had advised in a reedy voice, 'for everyone knows only a man's deeds in war have any real value.' There was no irony apparent in his tone, but the Neptunian believed anyone with half a brain cell could tell he didn't really care about that tinplated chimp's martinet fantasies.

Bramus, from what the Neptunian had gathered, was part of the Empire as a matter of expediency. As far as he knew, few in the Milky Way with the capacity to explore the whole galaxy had the desire to, and vice versa. The old goat fancied himself a realist, a pragmatist; in the Neptunian's opinion, he was just a greedy coward who liked to make excuses.

He understood the lure of knowledge, well enough. He was a genius, after all, and only smart people were able to admit they had more to learn. But the only reason he had not turned against these power-hungry, bloodthirsty fascist cretins was because they had his son. And, as long as the boy lived, he could not, in good conscience, kill himself. Doing so would only cement him as an useless coward in the child's mind, and he doubted his boy needed any help after the fiasco at home.

He had been told he'd get to see his son on birthdays, and the thought made the Neptunian's blood run cold. Who knew what propaganda they were already drumming into his young head?

'Are you unwell?' Bramus' voice was thin, sharp, but not unpleasant. It put the Neptunian in mind of a stuffy but well-meaning professor. 'We can call the heale-'

The Neptunian held up a hand, cutting him off. A part of him was irritated by the Empire's insistence on calling medics healers as if they were using psychic powers or some other paranormal means to mend people. In his opinion, it had to do with this warlord of yore mystique hogwash Neyhus' shoved down everyone's throats.

'No need,' the Neptunian managed. 'I would not bother them, if I can avoid it.' He'd rather get some terminal disease than go to those butchering sawbones.

He had seen their works, and found them fell. No other word fit, he thought. The fruits of their diseased minds were too ghoulish to be called anything else. Do no harm? Ha. That ancient Terran was gone, along with almost every good thing to come out of mankind's cradle. And it was like every shunned back alley quack with power fantasies, every mad doctor from cheap horror stories, had appeared and been given free reign; or else, maniacs who had held themselves in check due to their tribe or town's customs were now able to cut loose.

Hmph. What appropriate phrasing.

At their Emperor's direction, or with his tacit approval, they'd taken apart people and put them back together twisted, when they did not just leave them broken. In order to broaden his knowledge of biology, genegineering and cybernetics - their knowledge of alchemy was yet too limited to dabble in supernatural fleshcraft -, the Neptunian had been made to watch nightmarish operation after nightmarish operation.

Some were relatively benign, as such things went, though he'd have decried them as monstrous just a week ago. Not that they weren't; his faith in man was just dying with each moment.

He'd seen soldiers go under the knife and be turned into beetle-eyed, slope-browed things that did not need to eat like their former selves, but could draw sustenance from their surroundings, or indeed, the sunlight that reached a planet they might be fighting on. Their bloodlust was artificially heightened, their fear and pain deadened by chemicals; their loyalty became slavish as their brains were tinkered with.

Of course, Neyhus would've never admitted his warriors could be anything but fierce, fearless and obedient. The regulars didn't undergo such treatments. But those who had been marked by their officers, during the Solar Wars the Neptunian understood were still raging, for disobedience, cowardice or incompetence were taken away, to be made better. They would be sent on suicide missions, the sort not even the most optimistic could expect to return from. Not that they cared about such things, anymore.

Humanity, the Neptunian mused, was lucky that Neyhus bought into his own cult of personality enough that he refused to accept the thought of mass rebellions. A smarter dictator would've spread chemicals through water and air to ensure loyalty. It was a damned bleak thing, for that ape's arrogance to be in any way positive, but fortunate.

The failed troopers' metamorphoses into hulking, grunting things had been appalling to watch, indeed, but far from the worst he'd been put through over the previous days.

He'd seen those who passions aligned towards those of their own gender be corrected, as the phrasing went, so their deviance would no longer trouble the people, and their suffering might amuse them. The Neptunian would've said no one who found such things funny deserved amusement, but who'd have listened?

Their urges hadn't been removed, but they'd been muted, so they'd be unable to ever act on them, or to kill themselves if the despair that caused became too great. Whenever thoughts of either true gratification or suicide filled their minds, paralysing agony and irremovable despair followed, leaving them curled up on the floor, crying. Everyone who saw them knew the cause, for their bare flesh - no clothes allowed, anymore, for they were no longer considered necessary - was covered in vulgar insignia, featuring hideous caricatures cavorting. They way Neyhus and his followers saw them, before they'd been cleansed.

Nowadays, they were made to fulfill the natural purpose they'd grotesquely defied: their genetic material was taken to grow new workers and troops in labs, but anyone whose fancy they struck could take them whenever and however they wished. Just a trip to the breeding pens that already dotted every Imperial world. It was rumoured that soldiers were sometimes sent to mockingly force themselves upon the men, and female criminals were likewise sent to the women, and that such punishment did not count as deviancy, for it was sanctioned by the Emperor, may he rule forever.

This was all cruelty, as far as the Neptunian could tell. Genetic sample taking was much easier, less traumatising, and consumed far less time.

But it didn't hurt people. It didn't feed the hatred of the jeering commoners, who, he was sure, secretly harboured the urges of the broken, or who had simply worked themselves into a fear, then disgust, then hatred at the sight or even knowledge of someone different.

Those who did not feel like themselves in the bodies they'd been born with, or who saw themselves as neither men or women, had been put to use as well. Their procedure was similar to their companions in suffering, mentally, but physically, they were changed to have both sexes' genitals, so they could breed and be bred at the same time. The Neptunian had heard discussions of how "the faggots and dykes act like they're women or men anyway, why not give them what they're missing?" followed by coarse laughter and cruder, crueller suggestions.

It was, he was beginning to believe, all due to hatred. At the beginning, he'd expected greed, that most common driver of tinpot despots. But there was wealth on Old Earth - had been, even before its restoration, when it had still been ragged and scarred - enough to sate the appetites of any man, or an immortal's for millennia. There was only so much even the most avaricious could experience at once.

Then, he'd thought it was spite. Some insane grudge against spacers who'd come to Terra and slighted Neyhus. That couldn't have been true, for the last meeting with even the closest systems' inhabitants had occurred thousands of years ago. Indeed, he'd been told Neyhus had never dealt with someone from even Alpha Centauri.

It was hatred. Loathing, of all that was not masculine and warlike, words that were synonyms in the Emperor's mind. Everything else, the suffering his conquest of the galaxy would cause, or the things he would gain, was either a side effect or an incidental benefit.

Mhalvur's voice pulled him back to reality. 'It could be a consequence of the wine of wakefulness.' The version of the drug they'd given him, still able to keep someone up for weeks, had been watered down so as not to cause addiction, which was - a testament to Imperial chemistry - the only negative effect of the substance. 'Mayhap the bouts of weakness are a side effect.'

No one says mayhap anymore, you shrivelled baboon. 'It might very well be.'

The Neptunian was not a good liar, but if Bramus saw through him, he made no mention of it. 'Shall we find somewhere to rest, then?'

'Freak event,' the Neptunian replied. 'I'm sure it won't happen again. I am feeling quite energetic.' The faster he indulged them, the faster he'd get some breathing room. They'd opened a wormhole to Neptune because the meta-maps needed for that had been in whatever database they'd plundered, but they could not get further than the Oort Cloud, in any reasonable timeframe at least, in STL ships.

The Bloody believed that the Neptunian could rectify that, if he got a look at their amassed information. The scientist had never felt more demoralised by someone's confidence on him. Not that he'd met many people.

A dark look flashed across the Neptunian's features, but he quickly adopted a pleasant, if bland expression. No need to make this harder than it had to be. 'Milord Regent, if I may. I understand that the Emperor and his warriors made their way to Neptune by wormhole-'

'Indeed! And with you working on the generators, we will soon bestride the galaxy.'

The Neptunian would've slapped his teeth loose if he'd been able to. He might've had some anger issues, he reflected. 'And I will do so gladly. But I was meaning to say, I know they tracked me down by technological means. But how did they know there was anyone to track there? Not to be modest, but I'm hardly famous.'

Maybe one of the Bloody's shackled paranormals? Bigots often made use of things they hated, especially when such offered alternatives better than "their" methods.

And he meant what he'd said. His parents had made their way to Neptune because no one sane (or who wanted to do more than fight for survival) would enter that nest of monsters; broken Machinist inventions and runaway Convention experiments themed after the deep ocean and its contents roamed the ice giant. The few people who had come to him, on derelict starships, had, half the time, done so by chance: the result of some Jupiter-bound expedition whose commanders had overshot, overestimating their vessel and its instruments. The others had heard rumours of the Neptunian hermits, and come to seek their knowledge.

Even if he hadn't been secretive, the Neptunian hated guests. The way he'd vigourously chased them off had resulted in stories about a warlock-engineer who lived atop a tower of icy storm clouds, and who cursed anyone that entered his sight to suffer beyond mending.

He wished. Magic sounded so much easier to use than what he had to do to defend himself and his secrets. Not that it had amounted to anything, in the end.

Mhalvur's explanation fell well within his expectations, something he could say about what passed for Imperial philosophy. "We want to hurt you and can, so we're doing it." Dressed up in more pompous terms, of course.

The warmongers had conquered enough to waste resources on wild goose chases (apparently some extinct Terran birds that were supposedly hard to catch, the Neptunian had been told) that might amount to nothing. Except there had been no waste, for their suspicions had been confirmed, and he'd been conscripted.

Not into the Eternally Victorious And Peerlessly Glorious Army Of The Empire That Will Never Fall (which was the shortened version of the official name). He'd follow them along as necessary, and get some basic combat training, but they wanted a thinker, a tinkerer. Neyhus had implied the Neptunian might get away with much, if he "properly applied" himself. As if he were some skilled but lazy schoolboy in need of prompting.

If this Empire's people had a hundredth of a brain between them, they'd crown him Emperor and beg him to turn them into a functional society. But what could he expect from uneducated simpletons who'd never known anything but drudgery and fighting? When it came to matters that concerned all humans, intellectuals like him were useful, but labourers and brawlers were infinitely more common - in every sense of the word - and that settled matters.

'This tour,' the Neptunian began, straightening, removing his hand from the wall, 'has been enlightening.' Not really. But he knew where he'd work on Terra, at least. 'May I return to my quarters now?'

Terms like "apartments" and "rooms" stuck in his craw, and not just because they were untrue. He had all of one room, more of a broom closet, and not even a kitchen or bathroom of his own. He had to wash and relieve himself alongside the dogfaces, after eating the same tasteless, colourless *yet stinking - how'd they manage that?) slop as them, a process he had been assured fostered camaraderie.

The Neptunian was an older man, though still fit, and not vain (for that was the province of those who overestimated themselves, and he was too smart for that), but he didn't need some pea-brained jungle escapees to giggle at him and make childish jokes while he showered. Or making insufferable noises of fake pleasure while eating the same greasy slime he was practically force fed.

The "good grey", aside from the shamelessly lying name, was bloody baffling. How come something feel like a chalk block while being swallowed and immediately race down his throat like filthy water the instant that was done? The sudden change of texture, unpleasantness the only constant, did not help. He was surprised he hadn't retched yet, but he wouldn't show weakness to Those buzzcut throwbacks.

At least he'd managed to keep his hair the way he liked, just above his shoulders. He did not cut it, or shave, until his grey hair and beard got in the way.

'You may,' Mhalvur answered. 'But be ready if you are called upon, always.'

While the Neptunian had no affection towards the grasping opportunist in front of him, he could admit Bramus was more tolerable than Othlan. The Bloody would've made him prostrate himself and lick his boots, all the while mewling about how generous his Emperor was to allow himself to be touched by an unworthy old man who wasn't even a warrior.

He'd already done so twice: once in a military base's main training yard, once in a public square, to great amusement in both situations. The Neptunian had never thought he could hate one person, aside from himself, this much.

But there would be a reckoning. Oh, there would be a reckoning. Even if it meant killing himself to hold them back, thus disappointing his son farther...but perhaps he would find likeminded souls, and stage a true rebellion. If he wore Bramus down, appealed to his cupidity, somehow, offered what the Emperor couldn't...

Was he overreaching? He had, before. He had thought he could make life, perfect children. The same children who'd hugged his legs, pleading shrilly, promising they would become whatever he wanted, as he chopped their heads off or put a bullet or energy beam through them.

There had been so many of them. He'd almost forgot. How proud could one man be?

'I will be,' the Neptunian replied, beginning to walk away. No side effect of their damned drug, his "weakness." Just his sins crawling on his back, weighing him down. Just-

[A blubbery face, the features exaggerated as if pushed out by some sickness under the bones. Skin like slate, in both texture and colour. And three misshapen hands, one small and useless for carrying anything, clutching at his shins.

'Don't do it, father!' Tears and snot and other fluids running down a moon-like face. 'You can have my body! To experiment on, or recycle for m-material, or for yourse-'

He'd ended it there, with a bullet to the brain. Mercy aside, his own discomfort with the malformed clone's begging aside, he could not afford afford for his new people to think of him as someone who consorted with mutated deviants.]

-his sins.

Oh, yes. He knew very well, how proud one man could be. And this Neyhus made him seem humble.

* * *

Arvhek of Arcadia had, many times, been accused of being a spoiled, idle princeling, unable to do anything but abuse the fortune he had been handed thanks to an accident of birth.

Hmm? Am I arrogant enough to talk about myself in third person?

Hah. Well, am I, David? Think you I am proud of the man I once was - a man so different I can only speak of him as I would of an almost-stranger?

All illusions I have ever laid over my eyes have been torn away, along with everything else. I am of Naught, and so, I have Nothing. No inflated view of my self-importance; the knowledge of the fact that I do matter is something else entirely.

Peons, whose achievements are only known by their kin and neighbours, rage at such facts; they are offended at being forced to face their own insignificance, so they decry the successful as freaks, and braggarts if they do speak of their accomplishments.

...Is what I would've said, once.

The pettiness of man and his counterparts is still there, and will be until something drastic occurs. But I know better than to think the little people are useless, now. I have witnessed them in peril. I have seen you, and the thought-reading alien and the little witch go to them with warnings of doom, gathering more and more support with every pass. Oh, most of them were driven by self-preservation, or interest, or fear, or greed, not kindness; but worse people would not have gone along.

This showed me my love was right, as she so often was, and so my Empress' last wish was fulfilled. I was not much of a man to her, or my wife, when it mattered, but I stayed my hand, now. I did not smother everyone's future in the crib, as I would have done if your overtures had been met with disbelief and apathy.

Let us leave aside the awakening of the Mover which the moment of unity prompted. A cynic might then say their only value is that which I, a more powerful being, assign to them. I will not hear of such.

There are some acts that are good, and some that are vile, and all the sophistry and philosophising in existence will not change that. And such deeds matter, however small in scale they might be. Something needn't be monumental to be important. I wish I...we, had understood earlier.

Yes, David. You too; not just my old compatriots. But you've grown as a man, have you not? That matters, too.

It might be easy to overlook, for the eternal and powerful, but even meagre achievements matter to those who accomplish them, and those who know them, at least for a while. You shouldn't gloss over an improvement just because it doesn't shake existence.

...What was that? I'm stalling because I'm uncomfortable with talking about my sins? Perish the thought, David. I have written an autobiography, you know?

Yes, because I did not trust OTHERS to describe me properly. What if they made me sound better than I am?

As I was saying...

* * *

Arvhek of Arcadia's plans to while away the days in luxury had been torn apart by something quite literally out of his world.

The idyllic world of Arcadia, named after that pastoral paradise from Old Earth's legends, had been terraformed after the Workers' War. A relative handful of refugees, mere billions fleeing the galactic conflagration, had picked one of the least likely planets to be sought by either of the warring factions: a wasteland of a globe, with no real resources to speak of.

Knowing human lives were a resource in of themselves, in that war, the refugees used the best of their technologies to veil their new world and its system. This did leave them with a paltry military, but since they'd never have to fight anyone - for who could find them? -, they were not worried.

We, my ancestors, should have been. But we closed our eyes and told ourselves nothing wrong would or could ever happen, until it did.

Delusions. Awful things I am happy to have done away with.

For millennia, Arcadia was as peaceful a world as any populated by humans can be: not completely, but pleasant enough. Even with all the accords and treaties between global powers that prohibited outright war, lest we draw unwanted attention from outside, there was conflict. But it was limited to organised crime and short-lived terrorism, at its worst, and our peacekeepers were always able to protect the population at large.

The leaders of Arcadia's first settlers became the roots of my family tree. As the most capable members of the expedition, they were capable of producing matter-energy convertors and using them to transmute parts of our world into useful substances. A planetary wormhole network, another fruit of their minds, assured instant travel and communications. To power the first generation of convertors and wormhole projectors, we harnessed our star by the means of a Dyson swarm, which we called a sun net. The satellites were dismantled after we had enough projectors to reach into other places, other times, for energy.

But such endeavours were limited, compared to what others might have attempted in our place. We drew just enough to ensure everyone could live comfortably, but no more, just in case the energy could somehow be senses.

Eventually, it was. Oh, how the mighty gnashed their teeth and wailed, when the Emperor came for us! How they wished we'd died in the wasteland Arcadia began as. Others muttered that we should've become hunters-gatherers, living in primitive ignorance behind our veil, but it was too late for second thoughts.

Neyhus had a knack for causing such situations. And appalling people. Somehow, he never got the hint.

In any case...the Bloody burned through several of his shackled clairvoyants before they were able to spot our veil, and even then, it was happenstance: they were scanning the galaxy at large for anything unusual and potentially useful, and found a gap where there should've been none. Alas, my forebears had not counted paranormals among their numbers. They'd had little experience with the transmundane, so they had been unable to raise defences against it.

But seeing a disguise is one thing, and ripping it away quite another. The Bloody, hateful as he was, was too smart to leave his armies toothless on the metaphysical front. He was, also, cunning enough to understand the symbolism that so often guides paranormal powers.

So, when he had the Neptunian make a "revealer machine" (a name Nept later told me he found stupid), a larger, more powerful version of the devices used to spot mines and other hidden traps, he had as many clairvoyant mages and psychics as he was willing to part with strapped to it. The warhead on missile, as it were.

"You will all die today," he told them, "but that's a sacrifice I am willing to make."

The moment was later immortalised, with the resulting portrait depicting Neyhus grimly and stoically giving up the mutated wretches he, in his boundless kindness, he had given a purpose in life. Imagine my surprise.

The revealer, shaped roughly like a wheeled drill with rocket boosters strapped to it, melted half of itself and killed its "crew" as it tore away our veil. The contraption crashed into a park, flattening most of it and splattering hundreds of people under its slagged mass. The Eternal Empire would later present this incident as a sign of inherent imperial superiority: their inventions, even when not intended for such, still cleansed the cosmos of the decadent and feeble.

Now, the Empire of the First Age had parks. They were not an alien concept. But they were mainly areas cleared of trees, where workers hale enough not to require shelter slept. Soldiers also used them as training areas, and any menial deemed disrespectful, or thought to be loitering, or just suspicious could find themselves the target of an impromptu shooting contest.

You'd think the Bloody would've realised his martinet society could not go on like this forever. Eventually, the underclass would either rise up or kill themselves out of despair or spite, and then who would be left to torment? After all, Neyhus, while consistently hypocritical, could be quite perplexing when it came to "allowed deviations": he refused to create enough automatons for drudgework, despite quite happily conscripting supernaturals. If you'd asked him, he'd probably have said something about how those beneath valorous warriors were fortunate to get to serve their betters.

That was one of the reasons for why our rebellion gained traction so quickly. Soldiers sent into factories for "conduct unbefitting a true man" wanted robot slaves, like their ancestors had possessed.

It sounds stupid, I know, for Neyhus to have denied them this when he allowed his army so much else. But this is the same man who effectively enforced rape because he was disgusted by the thought of men pleasuring themselves: a man's pleasure ought to come from glorious battle, not from a man (even if that man was actually the same person, giving himself a hand). And if a warrior was lily-livered enough that he hungered for women, he ought to go and take one. Who was going to stop him? Her?

In a way, the women plagued by this had it almost as bad as those in the breeding camps. Those, if nothing else, had got used to a routine. The "free" ones, however? They never knew when a soldier bearing the Emperor's authority could show up, wanting to satisfy himself.

It was a wretched thing, this Empire we built, David. The horror we delivered unto the outsiders we slaughtered was no lesser than that that stretched behind us. One could not even speak of the end justifying the means, for we did not improve the lot of many, and often made their lives worse. Not that this stopped the propagandists from trying to justify it.

Yes, justifications only matter to the just. But you must remember, David: they had to keep pretending they were, to the people and to themselves. They, of all, perhaps needed that reassurance most.

Given how most folded at the sight of what I was going to hurt them with, when the Cold cleaned house, I am quite confident in that assessment.

But that time was centuries away yet, for I had not even been conscripted into the Empire's war machine.

I had never concerned myself with the possibility of leading anything more glamorous than a group of drunkards, for I was far from the first in line. House Arcadia's main family was quite fertile, and I had grown up with several younger brothers and sisters, as well as two older ones. Out of that dozen, I was perhaps the least inclined towards or capable of statesmanship, entirely due to laziness.

I had never loved the sword or the gun, the pulpit or the factory, as my kin did. I wanted to coast through life, and many of a similar temperament were irritated when faced with my admission of the fact. I didn't lie about seeking myself or any such excuse. I just wanted to rip the benefits of my bloodline.

My older brother, Arhold, began being prepared for kingship as soon as he showed the aptitude. The child in me thinks that happened when the nosy, officious bastard began dragging me out of bed and to my lessons, having never heard of sleeping in.

I'd do anything to see him again, and not just because I need to return the favour of the manhandling.

Arhold was so irritatingly successful, I spent half of my adolescence looking for evidence of him having been genetically engineered to resemble the stereotypical fairytale princeling. Alas, none was there to be found. The ox succeeded through merit, and that was no small reason for my wanting to forget about the world through drinks and powders.

My brother enjoyed sports, hunting, sparring - anything that pushed his body to the limit. He was not the most learned man around, but he could read people, and surrounded himself with those he knew surpassed him in one field of knowledge or another. Knowing when he was outmatched, he thanked them for their advice, because he couldn't have been jealous, could've he? Spite and envy are matters for younger brothers.

For all the preparations, Arhold knew well he was never going to have absolute power over Arcadia. He was also aware of being the darling of the Crownsmoot, the planetary assembly that gathered whenever the most powerful and capable Arcadians needed to take decisions that would impact everyone. My older brother was meant to embody that harmony, to mediate disputes between the members of our world's ruling council. For the few years he held that office, he managed it well enough.

Then the Empire came, and my brother went to war.

Most of the world rallied around him, some silently thankful that their favourite had been offered a chance to truly prove his mettle. With heavy heart, Arhold asked every able-bodied Arcadian to enlist; even if they could only help with logistics, he promised, it would matter.

'I know you're scared, Arv,' he told me in the early days of the war, putting a hand on my shoulder. From the corner of my eyes, I could see the Imperial infiltrators who had attempted to sabotage the global wormhole network point by point being taken away, those who still lived killed with a quick round between the eyes. 'But we can beat them. We will, and everything will be back to the way it was before.'

My brother was taller than me by nearly a head, blond like our mother, and though we both had inherited our father's dark brown eyes, I also had his dark hair and beard, which somehow always looked scruffy next to Arhold's. 'How can you be so sure?' I demanded in a whisper, hands clasped together so they wouldn't shake. The battle had happened close enough to our family seat that I had been able to heat the screams, the sizzling of flesh cooked by plasma bolts, even if I'd been too scared to request an image of the fight from our computers - the windows had been entirely out of the question. 'Don't you remember this is why we hid in the first place? Outsiders, Arhy! And not roving monsters or madmen escaped from some laboratory-prison, but an empire! They...t-they-'

Worthless as I was then, my greatest fears were that these harsh, warlike conquerors would not be willing to let me continue my lifestyle, while a part of me more spiteful than cowardly quietly hoped they would humble my golden boy of a brother.

I gulped to steady myself, though my voice still cracked as I spoke. 'You're here to conscript me, aren't you?' I accused, slapping his hand away. 'You know I-'

'Arv, no one sane would push you into war,' he replied softly, stepping back, hands raised in a calming gesture. 'You are not in the best shape, brother, and the substances you can't do without aren't the sort of things one can take on campaign. You think I want to add another corpse to the family crypt?'

Frankly, I doubted he really cared about me, in that moment, for the same reasons I didn't care about maggots. Why would you be interested in something lesser than yourself? But to get him off my back, I asked, trying to sound shocked, 'Another? Who's died?'

'Arnhult was cut down after ripping his way through a few companies of the monsters. Aurhelle made a last stand a few days ago, went down with a handful of their battalions rather than let them plunder her life's work.'

I drew a blank. 'They're...were, the botanist and the musician, right?'

Though the household guards around us stiffened, Arhold's gaze held only disappointment, not anger. And, perhaps, some pity. 'Brother,' he said chidingly, 'Arnhult overdoes himself on combat drugs so I could have a chance to return here and speak to you. Aurhelle sacrificed her exotic munitions lab so they couldn't loot it.'

I turned away, arms crossed and - there was no other word for it - pouting. 'They've been ignoring me since childhood. Why should I remember them now?'

Arhold sighed patiently at my petulance. 'Arvhek, they left you alone because you hated any activity you didn't lead.' And always blamed others when I failed, though he was too gracious to say that. 'They never disliked you, brother, and you shouldn't dismiss them or their sacrifice.'

'Watch me,' I snapped.

But Arhold wasn't listening anymore. Looking at our guards' captain and performing a handful of gestures too fast for me to catch, much less understand, he spoke absently to me. 'Arvhek, for your sake, I need you to remain home. I will make sure you are protected and every way in watched, but I need you to audit our reserves, and help ration them if refugees come. Put them in the main ballroom, the one bigger on the inside than it looks looks from outside. Can you do that for me?'

'If you think I can't, why are you ordering me to?' I asked acidly.

He winced, either at my words or at how high my voice was, and said, 'We are all scared, brother. But we will pull through. We have already been found, and blooded, and have nothing more to fear from the outside - for have we not already faced invasion?' Arhold winced, laughed with just a tinge of nervousness. 'Our tinkerers are already working to break down our veil into stealth equipment. If we cannot face them on the field, we will harry them as long as they can stomach it, or until we kill them.'

'And if we break first?' I asked. 'If we find ourselves overwhelmed?'

Arhold's smile was sad, but he still tried to look brave, even if he might've been scared, himself. 'You haven't seen what they do to people, Arv. To women. I believe that if we willingly go under their yoke, we will be as dead.' He clapped my shoulder as he left. 'And so, we will not! Now please, brother, return to safety. I am glad you came to see if I was well - I am, as you can see, though shaken -, but you might be in danger. I will call upon you if I need your help.'

I did not love him as I should have, as he deserved, until after he was dead. And I...never gave him a reason to love me as he did.

But my brother cared not, David. He cared not.

Feeling more jealous than patriotic - inadequate, too -, I sought a way to turn the tide of the war. I could not fight, did not want to, for I was too much of a coward, in those days. Besides, I wanted to outshine Arhold, not necessarily drive our enemies back. As long as the Empire let me live as I had, I would not oppose them.

Foolish. How could I look at those men and think they would welcome my excesses?

Before my hopes were crushed, they had time to rise. I did not have to manage anything, or anyone, as my brother had thought I might. Our people found their ways to other shelters, closer to their homes, while I sat on my hands, and told myself what an awful idiot Arhold was, so proud of himself just because he'd been born with a stronger body, because he was empty-headed enough to think of nothing more than preserving his muscles. Why, he hadn't even noticed how his existence made me feel snubbed.

As I waited for everything to be over - such phrases are hilarious, from where I stand now -, I informed myself about every facet of the conflict I could find in our family's database. I set our AIs to simulate the conflict over as long a period as possible, and even the lowest estimates of how long it could go surpassed my lifespan.

I balked at the predictions. A man of my station, forced to spend the rest of his life stressed by the war outside, unable to enjoy himself? How was I supposed to get ready for a woman with such things on my mind?

Yes, David, I was a grown man, yet in many - most, perhaps - ways a boy. I see that, and can admit it, now. Just like you, I was unable to see the worth of those around me, and instead grew obsessed with my own selfish desires.

Oh? Did that put your back up? The truth? Ah...no, I see, it's not the facts themselves. It's that we prove more similar the more we talk about ourselves. And that raises your hackles. Well, my heir, take solace in the fact you would never have become as vile as I almost did.

But I am not here to taunt you, David, difficult as that might be to believe, sometimes.

My brother's stealth project, the rending of our veil and the repurposing of its fragments into personal equipment was, according to the analyses, the main reason for the war lasting so long. If only the damned fool hadn't been so hellbent on fighting like a man, I thought as I cursed him.

Now, I might sound as if I was alone during this period, but I was not, truly. There were the machines, of course, some almost like people, and there were our family retainers, but back then, I did not see much difference between them, the robots and the furniture. The one person who could catch my eye from time to time was my niece, Carissa.

Cari was a lovely young woman I could stand, unlike her father. Arhold's wife had died young, and he had never remarried, nor did he ever take another lover. I was absurdly offended on behalf of women everywhere, seeing this as a veiled insult to their beauty and charm, as if there was no one who could replace a corpse in the ground.

(If you keep listening to me, David, you might actually develop something resembling a decent opinion of yourself. Or not? No? Too optimistic, am I? I see.)

I was a fool who had confused lust and interest and drunken, drugged hazes for love, and who had never cherished anything enough to understand the grief of such a thing could bring.

Carissa did not begrudge me my shallowness because, to be blunt, she knew I was stupid. Though she had only loved men for their bodies, and had only thought about love, she understood more than I did. Not a high bar, admittedly, but at least she didn't try to avoid me.

My curious niece spent her time in the mansion's various workshops and laboratories, tinkering with this and that. It was, she confessed to me in her last moments, that she only began forging my weapon when our forces began being pushed back across Arcadia. Such confidence, from a woman who'd left her girlhood behind only years ago! And yet was braver than I, for all that.

One day, taking a pause from skulking around the family home and snapping at the staff - they had, using matter-energy convertors, transmuted all my good drugs into food, and I was irritatingly sober -, I wandered into one of the labs Cari had taken over, mainly because she made the most use of them.

My niece was taller than some men, broader in the shoulders than most, and always looked flattered when I said she looked like a blacksmith's daughter.

At the time, she was working on something that had to be made by hand, with the help of the subtler arts: those scraps of paranormal knowledge we'd managed to glean from captured Imperials. The idea of a weapon of ultimate destruction had appealed to my brother, though the duration had made him and his commanders postpone its creation unless they were losing; until then, all facilities would be used to make more mundane war gear.

'But we're losing ground now,' Carissa said, and I could see her sooty face though she hadn't turned to look at me. The flames she was feeding were darker than a moonless night, and the room grew colder with every eerie crackle of the fire. 'One city at a time, but we're losing. It will take a while, uncle - age will take you before this war -, but we might-'

'Why don't you shut up about that?' I asked acerbically. 'Acting as if you know about more than hammering weapons together.' I had the feeling she stuck her tongue out at me, then. 'Look at your hair! I remember when it was brown. Now it's as dark as that filth on your face.'

'I was still learning to walk back then, Arv. Colour can change.' She indicated her short hair. 'This doesn't have anything to do with my passion.'

I sniffed. 'As you say.' I had actually met Carissa since she was a toddler. I was just too intoxicated to say much, each time. My childish annoyance with her aside, I didn't want to beat her to death, the way I did her father. 'What are you making, anyway?'

'War secret.' A heavy hammer fell, and sparks flew, covering a wall in hoarfrost upon contact.

I held my arms to the side as I protested, loudly, 'I can't even tell what shape it is!'

'Exactly,' she replied in a singsong voice, making me scoff.

I drummed my fingers against the wall I was slouching against, my other hand in my sleeping robe pocket. To my irritation, and no small amount of shame, I had been completely unable to satisfy the last woman who'd warmed my bed, though she'd made all the appropriate sounds of protest. I was getting annoyingly good at telling when women were pretending; many learning opportunities. 'Cari,' I made my voice level, 'do you love your father?'

She turned to me, befuddled, then grinned. Her middle upper teeth were missing, the mark of a childhood fistfight with a boy she'd declined to have healed. After he claimed women couldn't do men's work, such as fighting (and pushed her to the ground, as proof, I suppose), she had no recourse but to return his favour. I heard he still stuck to soup after his mouth was healed, out of reflex. Between it, the marks of other fights and sporting stunts and her modest chest and muscled limbs and stomach, my niece was not exactly the picture of classical womanhood. Now, I'm no longer insane enough to think muscular women aren't beautiful, but back the, I thought she looked boyish.

'What kind of question is that, now?' She took a heated rag and rubbed her hands, now bereft of protective gloves. Behind her, the amorphous device floated in sphere of dark fire. 'Don't tell me you're jealous because I talk about him so often. It's just that he's not here.'

It wasn't that, though it did rankle - not being the centre of attention, and being overlooked for an absent Arhold? My ego was practically in the hospital. 'No, I mean, do you truly not mind that he might die an old man with this war still raging around him?'

Carissa frowned, slinging the rag over one shoulder. 'I don't like it, but unless I finish this,' she jerked her head at her project, ' I can't tip the scales in our favour.'

'And if that isn't enough?' I asked. 'If he still wastes his life like this?'

'Arvhek - I know you're scared, but listen, I can't make decisions for him. And it's not like he'll surrender...'

I was storming out of the room minutes later, leaving Carissa behind, shrugging. By then, she had grown used to my moods. But I had grown certain my intervention in the war effort was needed, or that madman Arhold would drag us into a centuries-long war.

I wasn't planning to enlist, of course.

* * *

One of the flaws in my home's security was the implication that family members were not dangerous. As I made my way to the infirmary where my elder brother - and only remaining sibling - lay, I carefully crippled or shut off the various sensors and recorders with mental commands. I could have no witnesses for this, living or mechanical.

The family doctors had been notified of my visit hours before, and they welcomed it. My wounded brother, now mended and resting, would no longer ache with a familiar face around, they said.

They were right.

I had been taciturn, by my standards, that day. People assumed I was just pouting over being unable to addle myself at will; in truth, I was conserving as much energy as I could.

The poison I'd concocted was based on a roundabout enhancement drug for bedroom games. The person who injected it within themselves felt dizzy and filled with pins and needles, but those whose skin they broke - for the drug permeated the body, down to the nails; the swapping of fluids was another venue, but I didn't want to do that with my brother - would find their bodies overclocked, a pleasant experience for masochists, if no one else. I had used this to get a few enthusiastic women off my back, sometimes literally.

I'd upped the dosage to the point of lethality. While I, the bearer, only felt as if I'd been mauled by a bear (it was a strange sense of reverse phantom pain, feeling hurt despite no physical damage), the receiver would die. I was proud, giddy: for once, my knowledge of dubious substances had proven more than useful, I told myself. I was, after all, going to save the world from pointless slaughter.

Arhold's face was pale, drawn, but his eyes brightened when he saw me. I thought he was happy at the chance to inwardly laugh at me, couldn't accept that he genuinely loved his brother. It was strange: usually, I had no issue believing people were pleased to see me. I think it had to do with him making me look bad, or rather highlighting my flaws by his mere presence.

'Arhi,' I greeted him, faking a sweet voice. 'How goes the war?'

He gestured for me to take the seat besides his bed. Instead, I sat on the bed's edge, wanting to be closer. My brother's wan smile widened, glad to see me wanting to reconnect, as it seemed to him. 'It could be better,' he answered honestly, 'but worse as well. For are we still not fighting, brother?'

'Indeed,' I replied. 'One could say that, if not for your repurposing of the veil, it would already be over.'

Arhold grinned modestly, shrugging. 'If only I could've done more, Arv.' He did not hear the accusation for what it was, mistaking it for praise. I took his innocence for arrogance, callousness towards the most important person alive: me. We were both wrong. 'But we might yet turn the tide. Cari...'

'Aye. I saw the thing she's making.' I paused. 'You are to wield it?'

'It-' A cough cut him off. 'It must be attuned to the wielder. There is to be a ritual, I am told.'

'And after? Will you take it into battle, rout the invaders?'

My tone must've come across as sceptical to him, because he gave me a searching look. He gave a small laugh when he thought he figured it out. 'I know I must seem weak now, Arvhek, but I will recover. Why, I can already feel myself growing hale since you came in.' He attempted a flex of his arms, for my amusement, but winced halfway through and stopped, chuckling self-deprecatingly. 'Well. Maybe not that hale. To tell you the truth, brother, I struggle to imagine myself wielding that sword in battle.'

A sword, was it? Yes...that fit. Saw himself as some knight in shining armour out of Terran legend, did he? The smug bastard.

'So do I.' Arhold briefly grew alarmed when I produced a small knife and cu my palm. 'Arhold...brother, swear to me that if you fall, this sword will find its way to me. We cannot let the enemy harness it power!'

Arhold held my eyes for a long moment, then nodded firmly. 'Aye, Arvhek. I wish not to burden you, but death stalks us all. We might yet need.' Another cough. 'A new bearer, for the sword.'

He was kind enough to take the knife and slit his palm himself, so our blood could mingle as we shook hands. When he tried to pull his back, after a few seconds, I held it, with a pleading look, and my brother smiled understandingly, thinking I sought comfort.

Then the convulsions began.

The death the drug brought was quick, but painful: you felt as if you were shaking apart and melting alive at once, not an inaccurate way to describe the process. But it took long enough that I had time to embrace my brother, thankfully rendered voiceless by the pain, and whisper, 'Fear not, Arhold. I will finish what you started.'

Then, as his flesh lost colour and began peeling, I stood up and ran, filling my voice with panic. 'Help, help! A doctor! He's dying - some imperial weapon?1 Help...my brother, he's...'

Medics and guards rushed in, while I reactivated the devices that watched the infirmary. I would have to tamper with them before anyone found the blank period during my visit, edit in some fake footage, lest I draw suspicion.

Arhold's right eye lasted long enough that the last thing he saw was me, smiling at him from behind the frenzied crowd.

* * *

My sword took a while to be finished, not least of all because Arhold's funeral - the burying of what was left of him, in any case - dimmed everyone's spirits.

Thankfully, he and his stealth experts had worked alone or in small teams, so I had few people to remove as I gradually took command. There were suspicions about the delayed-reaction bioweapon, which had left no mark until its effect killed Arhold, but the doubters quickly found themselves on the front lines of our fighting retreat, as I termed it.

As I spun it, it was better to mass as many Arcadians around my command centre, in order to make the Imperials commit all their forces, which we would defeat, forcing them to retreat. A stupid plan, but my people had become desperate.

In truth, I intended to sell them out and let the Imperials slaughter them in one place, then gift me the governorship of the world.

I couldn't do so right away, however. It would've been perceived as betrayal, of our world and my brother's memory in particular. Thankfully, I didn't have to fake much.

With the Imperial noose drawing tighter every day, we fell back. I became a sort of supreme civilian leader, while a council of generals, rightfully not trusting me to lead troops due to inexperience, handled matters martial.

But experience can only do so much when you are simply outmatched. What we had dismissed as boasts and scaremongering turned out to be true: the Eternal Empire, though still in its infancy, was far from some fragile polity bound to one world or even one system. By the time the Bloody's hordes reached Arcadia, led by the Goldenclaw and wielding the Neptunian's inventions, the Empire held entire star clusters in its grip.

A straight fight was out of the question, and we couldn't elude thvm forever. One way or another, they would batter down our defences, and we'd fall under the Imperial yoke. The only thing I could change was to spare us a longer, bloodier war, through surrender.

Time passed, and I grew older, colder. The pleasures of the flesh fled my mind, not that I had time for them anymore. The moment I made my decision was when I saw my niece being blamed for her allies' failures, by one of the same allies.

'You are always tinkering with that damned pig-sticker!' The soldier jabbed an accusing finger at the incomplete sword, which shuddered as if taunting him. 'By now, you could've updated our cloaks to let us elude reality itself! Phasing, teleportation-'

'It would take too long,' Carissa replied evenly. 'And I would need to abandon the forging for an even more demanding project, which might not even work.' She shook her head. 'It wouldn't be practical. Might take longer than the war is projected too, and that's if it all goes perfectly.'

He laughed derisively. 'What do you know? You're always cooped up in here, instead of putting that muscle to real work.' The man looked my niece up and down, leered. There was little lust in the expression. 'Do you know, there's a bet in the ranks that you were too scared to be a man, so you changed yourself into a ma-'

'That is quite enough,' I interceded, stepping into the laboratory with a flourish of my cloak. Luckily, the man was in love with the sound of his (loud) voice, or I wouldn't have managed the dramatic entrance. He'd have noticed me lurking in the doorway. 'My good sir! Who do you think fashioned those cloaks you put to such good use, your mother?' Not waiting for a retort from the gaping man, I asked, 'What is your name?'

He clicked his heels, absurdly. A habit. 'Sir, I am Rudheus of...' he rattled off the name of a township I'd never heard of until recently.

'And why is a nobody from West Nowhere harassing our greatest inventor?' I asked sharply. 'Because you know she is too kind to throw you out? Hm? I am not.'

He closed his eyes, silently counting, to master himself. 'Sir Arvhek, when I returned home, there was...nothing there. I don't mean it had been razed. There was no crater, no scorch marks. It was like no town had ever been raised there.'

I had read the report. A strange event believed to have been the result of an esoteric Imperial weapon. Or perhaps the invaders stealing everything, but I was unconvinced. 'A bizarre occurence indeed, trooper. Do you wish you had been there?'

'Sir? That is, yes, I wish I'd been there to fight, to...' He clenched and unclenched a hand, saying no more. Carissa was still watching the exchange.

'Perhaps you will join your fellows soon,' I said softly, and that was indication enough that he should leave. A weak later, he blew himself up alongside an Imperial squad. I thought it was too easy a death, for this man who'd insulted Carissa.

She didn't thank me for making him leave.

Heedless of our dramas, the Imperials kept coming, until there was little between the conquered areas and my family lands.

It was time to turn my coat.

* * *

The home I'd walked since I could walk at all had become a maze. Seen through the haze of my fear, the labyrinthine mansion seemed to twist and bend mockingly, presenting me with sudden dead ends and empty rooms as distractions.

By the time I made my way to Carissa's lab, I was bruised and bleeding, one eye swollen shut, the other streaming pained tears. My niece was, fortunately, a pillar of calm, not even rising from her seat at my gasp as I stumbled in.

'Cari, it's horrible! They...took everyone, and the staff...' My ingenious niece said nothing throughout my stammering, horrified explanation. As I described how they made sport of our women, and women of those men they deemed weak. The others, the survivors of the Imperials' amusements, would be put to work, I had been informed.

This was an Imperial staple. Recalcitrant worlds were depopulated and repopulated with loyal citizens, while their former inhabitants were taken to the Empire's core, to be processed and assigned wherever it was appropriate.

I had expected a string of public executions, but not this...spectacle. Had I really thought my betrayal would buy my people's dignity?

Now, they were making my family's employees kneel, while waiting for me to return, so I may witness this circus' final act. The Imperial commander, a stone-faced giant of a man called Gryzhus the Goldenclaw, had told me to take my time. Evidently, my presence wouldn't affect anything.

It was an educational experience.

As my story wound down, I noticed that Carissa was barely breathing. Thinking she was too angry to face me, I went around her chair to face her instead.

The sword was buried into her heart, and the blood flowing from her mouth was black as pitch. But she was smiling, and her eyes had never been clearer.

'You called them,' she declared, voice almost too small to be heard. 'You...brought them here.'

I knew what she meant, though I could not see how she knew it.

Or why I should lie.

'Yes,' I confessed, crushed. Taking her face in my hands, I went on, desperate to redeem myself in at least one person's eyes.

'You knew what they would do, uncle.'

'Cari-' I closed my eye. 'All the other times, we fought them to the last child. I thought surrender-'

'Surrender?' she echoed, laughing. 'Surrender is not enough, for these people. They seek the obedience...of the broken.' She took a shallow breath, the black blade pulsing in response, and blood began dripping from her eyes and nose, as well. 'And you broke Arcadia, Arvhek. If we ever recover...'

She left the thought unfinished, and I asked, 'You killed yourself to escape, didn't you? To avoid their-'

'Avoid? I avoid nothing. This,' she tapped the flat of the sword with a callused finger, and I could swear it cooed, 'is sacrifice.' Her grin was apologetic as she elaborated. 'I was not fast enough, uncle. This awakened the weapon, but it is not whole. Not yet.'

For a time, there was only silence, and the wriggling of the sword, the motions of a maggot in an open wound. 'Because of you, they knew how much it would take to bring us to our knees. They no longer had to be cautious.'

'Yes.' My voice was hollow.

'Think yourself a saviour, still, uncle? I know your dalliances no longer interest you much. But that...'

I laughed bitterly. 'A saviour, I? I think not, Carissa. Not at all.'

She shuddered, and the sword kneened. Suddenly, her face was sallow. 'You must take the blade. Name it. Wield.'

'Then it will be whole?'

'Then it will be whole,' she confirmed, and pulled me closer to kiss my cheek. 'So will you, uncle. This, I know.'

'Carissa,' I said firmly, watching her eyes dim. 'The sword. What does it do?'

'For now? For now, it cuts. Whatever may bar its path. And it takes, and gives. You will remember.'

I pulled the humming blade out when I could no longer bear the sight of Carissa's shrinking corpse. When the tip left her chest, the hilt jumped in my hand, and veins or vines of blackness dug into my hand and wrist, thorned tendrils seeking purchase.

My scream could have woken the dead.

When I came to, vision no longer blurry and grey, I could open both eyes - now dark, dark, I saw in a mirror, as if iris and pupil were one and the same. I was paler, too, like I had been scared nearly to death, and it had stuck. Not untrue.

My walk back was slow but sure. With the sword in my hand, literally, I felt a certainty I had never known. The confidence of the doomed.

'Apologies for the wait.' I held up the blade. 'A family sword, reserved for executions.' What a truth I would make of that claim, which the men of the Imperial Army welcomed with hoots and cheers.

They wanted me to destroy these embodiments of decadence that were my servants. Mechanically, I made my way to the butler, the most composed of them. As always.

Erhodus of Arcadia, for the family's helpers were considered part of the helpers. Erho's steely eyes met my dark orbs, and there was no fear in them. Only weary defiance. 'Make it quick, sir,' he requested, 'and seemly, if you can.'

So it was. And, as his blood flowed into the dust, so did his memories into my mind. The old man had never hated me or loved my brother more. He had simply been dismayed at my behaviour, and awkward when it came to expressing his views.

Eudhoca of Arcadia, our chief cook, had spurned my childhood affections. She had grown plump and pretty at the side of a household guard, bearing him two strapping boys who had died to defend their world, as their father did.

The widow's voice was flat. 'Still bearing that grudge, then? Or did they simply turn you?'

My laugh was mirthless. 'The truth is, I never deserved you, Docha. And I doubt I ever will.'

A glimmer of hope returned to her gaze. 'You will spare me, then?'

I did. From a fate worse than death.

Nothing else could have followed her wish.

By the end, as I waded through a field of corpses, boots slick with blood, my head was fit to burst with memories.

Even as they cursed my treason in uncomprehending anger, they pitied me. If only I'd been stronger. If only they'd defended my brother better, so he could protect me.

If only...

I was staring at nothing as Gryzhus informed me that my pacification of the hostile world of Arcadia would likely mark me for consideration as possible Marshall of Defence, a newly-created office meant to oversee the Empire's police forces and defensive armies, the distinctiin between which was fairly thin.

You have heard how uniting the police and the army will result in an oppressed people, yes? Well, you first need a free people to oppress, and separate institutions. But the men who kept the Emperor's laws had always been the same who watched over the borders of his Empire, protecting them from enemy polities. And the Imperial people? They had never known aught but the Bloody's yoke, following conquest.

But I cared not about that. I heard, and scarcely listened, heart full of regrets: mine drowned out by those I'd inherited.

That was the day I learned there is mercy to be found in oblivion, and to be given through its bringing.

[See, wielder? You are already growing.]

The sword's voice was feminine, and I fancied it resembled Carissa's, when she'd chided me in her dying moments.

Because she cut short the threads of those otherwise certain to suffer, and taught me what they'd experienced, I called her the Killing Kindness.

Nowadays, she is known as the Edge of Oblivion, for there is nothing left once one meets her.