The last stars of the night streaked the android’s chassis with flecks of light. She clanked across the stone floor of the temple, one foot dragging behind the other.
“You’re alive?” Khadam asked.
“I am.”
Khadam tried to push herself up from the bed, but with her joints still resisting, her arm gave out at the elbow, and she ended up collapsing on the bed, her head landing hard on the bed. She spoke, with her mouth squashed against the mattress.
“He infected my implants. I cannot move. Did the Emperor not get to you?”
“He only thinks he did,” Laykis said.
When the android passed the low, flickering light of a torch, Khadam finally saw what was wrong with her.
“You’re hurt,” Khadam said. An understatement. The android’s innards were spilling out of her. Her arms and legs were trailing wires, some of which Khadam knew weren’t native to the construct. Her chest cavity was indelicately pried open, and Khadam could see the machine’s core—a dully, glowing orb of Light—slowly pulsing in the darkness.
“My motor functions are less than optimal, but I do not experience pain like you do,” the android said.
“How did you get out? I had restraints put on you. And the Emperor must’ve done worse—”
Laykis lifted her arms, dragging wires and torn gimbals and metal restraints scraping along the floor behind her, with more spilling out of her chassis. Her voice was full of infinite patience. A teacher, speaking to a child, “Always, the same mistake. First, the Swarm. Then, the Emperor. And now, you. I am only one machine, and I may be swallowed, broken, or torn to pieces. But I am also Tython’s daughter, and I cannot be bound.”
As she spoke, the light from her exposed core swirled and burned bright enough to cast shadows that crawled up the columns and rippled over the fountain’s water.
Khadam didn’t know what she felt. Admiration, certainly, for the Tython’s seemingly endless skill. And a new pang of fear. The first time she had laid eyes on Laykis, she thought she was little more than the Destroyer’s own pet. But even I could not escape the Emperor…
What power did this android truly possess? And am I not at her mercy?
Laykis clanked to the foot of Khadam’s bed, and Khadam had not the strength to crawl away from the android. But Laykis offered no threat. Instead, she merely kneeled at the foot of her bed. All the mangled scars of her face, illuminated in the fast-disappearing starlight.
“Divine One,” Laykis’s voice clicked softly, “The sun will be up soon. I fear we don’t have much time.”
“I spoke with him,” Khadam said. “The Emperor told me so many things. He said that humanity has been gone for tens of thousands of years. That the dams are breaking, and all the scars will tear open.”
“That which is broken may always be repaired.”
“He said the universe is ended. My visions don’t matter. And everything we do... That I’ve come all this way for nothing. Is it true?”
As Khadam spoke, the android’s eyes turned from a glowing white to a pale orange.
“A fragment of the truth is not the truth,” Laykis said.
“He said there is only one hope; to leave this universe behind. He said that others have gone already. And… he said that Poire is only a symptom of the end. Neither savior nor destroyer. Only a distraction.”
The android’s eyes went from pale orange to a burning red. And when she spoke, her voice clicked deliberately, as if she was measuring each word. “Only the Savior may know the truth. And the Emperor is no savior.”
“How can you claim to know that?” Khadam asked, struggling to lift her head, “What if your piece of the truth is also wrong?”
“The Makers know.”
“Humanity is dead!” Khadam spat, “Me and Poire, we’re all that’s left. How can you claim to know anything about what they believed? They’re gone.”
“It is written.”
Khadam felt a wave of frustration rise in her throat, but something else held it back. If this android knew how to evade the Emperor’s grip, then what else did she know?
“You’re talking about the Historians again.”
“I am talking about the Unfinished Book. You ask how I can be certain, and I tell you: it is written in the Book. And I have read it. The Emperor has not. The Historians would never let a non-human near it.”
“And they let you?”
Laykis’s eyes shrank slightly, becoming two thin slits of red. She bowed her head, and Khadam thought she sensed a bit of embarrassment from the android.
“I pursued other means.”
“Why should I trust you?” Khadam asked. “Why shouldn’t I listen to the Emperor?”
It was a false question. She said it merely to get a rise out of the android, to see how Laykis would react. But the android, as ever, was unfazed. Only disparaging Poire’s name seemed to cause her pain.
“Both the Emperor and I were made to serve. To search and find a way to escape fate. This is true. But he believes he is enough to save us. Where as I know that I am not. I am the last of Tython’s heirs. I was created to serve the truth. Thus, I am destined to die.”
“According to this Book.”
“It is written.”
“Do the Historians have visions, too? The Emperor said they could be lies. How do you know these Historians actually see the future? ”
“They can’t,” Laykis said, “The First Children have only the power to look only into the past. And even then, only that which is touched by the light. Which, fortunately, includes all of humanity.”
Our curse. Our gift.
“How long have they been watching us?”
“Since the first scar gave the first drop of light. I don’t pretend to understand how it works, only that it does. Undeniably.”
Khadam let out a doubtful, “Hm.”
“They have seen your visions. They look into your past, to see our future. The Book speaks of how the Savior came to be, and what he is destined to become.”
“Do you forget, android, that I am human?”
Laykis’s eyes glowed brightly. “Never, Divine One.”
“All my people have seen him. Every time I dream, I watch him turn the stars into ash. I have seen him shatter all existence. He is always there, at the end.”
“And after that?”
Khadam grimaced at the question. “The end is the end. What do you mean?”
“Your vision is incomplete. Salvation is coming, Divine One. Even for you. You name him Destroyer. Herald of Ruin. And the Emperor names him nothing. But I know what he must be. I have been to the machine worlds. I hid from the Sovereign so that I might find them. But the Sovereign is mighty, and everything was taken from me. Everything but this one truth. Even though my body was torn asunder, and my core was cracked open, my faith could not be shaken. I knew this long before I came to the home of the First Children. The Savior Divine has returned. And he will save us all.”
“Where does that faith come from? There was no salvation in any of our visions.”
“Then why, Divine One, have you come all this way?”
Khadam opened her mouth. And no words came out.
Laykis shook her head as if Khadam still didn’t understand. She could act so human, sometimes.
“There is always more,” Laykis said. “Vul, did the stars tremble. And the void was torn asunder. And there was he, the light who drove back the eternity of darkness.”
“How? The Scars will break open. The Sovereign still lives. He’s a child. A runt. A reject from his own Conclave. He was a failure.”
“Not all of them believed that.”
“His blood was supposed to bring back the human genome. And it didn’t. I mean, where is everyone?”
“If he is only a child, then why do you think he is dangerous?”
“Because!” Khadam shouted. A surge of energy flooded through her, and she felt she finally had the strength to sit up. To stand. She pushed herself to her feet so that she towered over the android. “Because we’ve seen him, Laykis. For hundreds of years. Thousands. He was there, and it didn’t matter how loud I screamed, he wouldn’t stop destroying everything. And then he would look at me. And I saw his face. But… But he was no child. He was old. If we’re here, at the end, then I don’t see how that’s possible. I—” the words stuck in her throat, and it felt as if she had to rip them out. “I don’t know, Laykis. I don’t know what it means, or where the visions come from. I don’t know what he is. I don’t know.”
The rush of energy ebbed. Her lungs burned, unable to get enough oxygen. Her knees buckled. She refused to sit back down, but she wasn’t in control. Khadam crumpled, plunging towards the floor.
The android was there to catch her. Cold, metal arms wrapped around her torso. Mechanical fingers dug into her shoulders. A mangled face, looking up into hers. Khadam gasped for her breath, and Laykis just held her.
When Khadam’s breathing had evened out, Laykis laid her back on the bed. And kneeled before her once more.
“Divine One,” those brilliant, white eyes burned holes into Khadam, pleading with her, “Come with me. We may seek your answers together.”
No, Khadam thought. I have to go back to Gaiam. It was the only way. She could go back and fix herself. And then, she could build something bigger. A weapon, enough to destroy this planet. Whatever it took to conquer the Emperor.
And all those innocent xenos?
Then something else. Something targeted, something made just for him. But Khadam had felt his power. Even now, she could barely fill her own lungs with air. He had done all that, with a flick of his mind. I could strip out every last implant. Whatever it takes.
And then what? And then nothing. The Emperor was in her way. And even if he wasn’t, she had no idea where to find Poire…
Wait. Khadam looked into the android’s glowing eyes. “You said the Historians see the past?”
“The First Children were designed for one purpose. Forgive me for saying this, Divine One, but not even you approach their powers of sight.”
Maybe, Khadam thought, if they really can see the past, and she wasn’t ready to believe that yet, then maybe they can tell me where Poire has gone. Then she would not need the Emperor’s help at all…
And my other questions? Khadam had not realized she had them. But they were there, and they were growing.
“Fine,” Khadam said.
“Fine?”
“I…” Khadam said. She hated how weak she was. Hated that she needed to ask this. “I will need your help, android. I cannot walk.”
“I am stronger than I look.”
Khadam’s stomach clenched. Touch was not her strong point. She’s just a machine, Khadam thought. She just caught you. Still… Khadam took a deep breath and nodded. “Carry me, then.”
“First, you will need this.” She unfurled Khadam’s tattered shreds of fabric—all those days spent weaving that rope, undone in seconds—and wrapped it around Khadam’s body. “The home of the First Children is nothing like Cyre.”
Laykis scooped her up in her arms as if Khadam were as light as aluminum.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
There was a body on the steps. And then, more. Laykis had left a trail of carnage that seemed to wind through the entirety of the Everthrone. Cyran priests were strewn down the stairs, their clothes torn and bloodied. Guards lay slumped on the wall, their necks bent the wrong way. The only sounds on their way down the steps were the android’s clanking footsteps and the blowing of the wind through the stone workings of the Everthrone. One of her legs still dragged, but she kept Khadam steady as she descended.
“Did you have to kill them?”
“I could suffer no risks for your cause,” Laykis’s said easily as if speaking about the weather. She could be so inhuman, too. “Most of their deaths were painless.”
Most of them? Khadam thought.
They crossed the threshold, out into a stone courtyard that was just large enough to make one feel insignificant against the grand might of the Everthrone’s shadow. The breeze tasted of salt, and the bloody light of the sun stung the horizon, painting the clouds with a citrus pink, except where they parted, and the Scar peeked through, casting its eerie light.
The dam was a black speck, floating across the center of the scar.
Laykis’s feet grated on the brick. And then clanked on metal. Khadam turned to see they were standing on a gate. A small one, built for personal use.
“A moment, Divine One. I cannot activate this gate through impulse. May I put you down?”
Khadam nodded, and she could hear the scraping of the android’s parts grinding against each other as she reverently laid Khadam down. Why does she go to such great lengths for me?
What am I to her?
The android pressed her face to the disc of the gate, and her voice clicked, not words, but the distorted screech of an electronic signal. The arms of the gate began to spin.
“You really think I’m Divine, don’t you?” Khadam asked when Laykis picked her up once more.
“I do not have to think it,” Laykis said, her head craned up. Looking at the scar overhead. “It is the truth.”
***
Eight black hallways intersected the room. Polished floors shone glistened ebony, and the vaulted ceilings, too, were black. This dam, identical to every other dam, was made entirely of that black metal that dampened the effects of the Light. Dampened, but did not curb completely, for Light was potent, unchained energy that, frustratingly, did not always obey the laws of physics.
But it seemed the black metal of the dam had another effect, too. Something about this place—the Light-absorbing metal, maybe, or simply the distance from the Emperor’s throne—had severed the Emperor’s grip.
Khadam’s breath froze on her lips. The thin sheets wrapped around her body did little to combat the cold. She could already see her fingers growing blue. But still, she could not help but smile.
Her body was hers again. Her implants responded to her impulses. Her joints moved, not against her, but with her will. She flexed her fingers, delighting in the lightness of her hands.
“You can put me down now,” Khadam said.
Laykis helped Khadam gain her feet, for Khadam’s body was still waking up. And shivering. Her teeth chattered.
“I will ask the servants for warm clothes. Perhaps they have extras-”
“No need,” Khadam said. The connection was right there in her mind, waiting at the edge of her mind. She could feel the whole structure of the dam. Too large for her mind to comprehend; Khadam was no architect. She didn’t have the implants or training to deal with such scale but she didn’t need to control the whole station. She just had to find the small controls…
There. A small, shining thread ran through the body of the dam. She tugged at it, and felt the menus cascade open in her mind. She impulsed a command. Words without sound appeared in her thoughts:
>Confirmed. Raising local temperature.
A subtle, almost inaudible hum droned from the walls as they warmed the air.
Laykis held out her hands, sensing the change. Wondering at it. The android spun slowly, her voice clicking out a sigh. And as she turned, Khadam could not help but feel bothered by all those wires hanging off the android. The Emperor’s leaches.
“Stand still a moment,” Khadam said. Warmth and strength returned to her in waves, and she wanted to test her body’s movement. Laykis stood still as Khadam peeled and pried and dislocated the extraneous wires, her finger—still numb, but gaining back their feeling—working clumsily as she fixed as much of the android as she could.
“Help me with your breastplate,” Khadam said. She pointed to where the android should apply pressure, and the android’s machine strength made easy work of flattening down the metal, covering up her core once more.
“Better?”
“Better,” Laykis said, her eyes glowing a bright white. Then, the android’s head jerked to the side. Her voice was a whispering click, “We are watched.”
At the end of the hallway, there was not one, but four pairs of glowing eyes. Each one, like Laykis’s, though even at this distance Khadam could see they were only crude imitations of a vaguely human form. Androids, but nothing like Laykis. How long had they been there?
“Who are you?”
“Divine One,” three of them said in unison, each with the same voice, worn down in separate ways. “We are your servants.”
“Come here,” Khadam commanded, and they obeyed. At first, their feet were slow and hesitant. One of the androids shouldered a fourth, whose leg joints ground with every step so that Khadam couldn’t help but cringe at the sound.
The four androids stopped short of the room with the gate. The ones that could, kneeled. The fourth one simply collapsed into a heap of limbs and metal. All of them shielded their eyes as if it burned them to look upon Khadam.
And for once, Khadam felt like a god. Her body was her own, once more. Her lungs filtered the air, purifying every breath. Every joint in her body flowed with seamless grace, the muscles supported with machine implants that worked without her thought. The lenses of her eyes flickered back through all the spectrums, bringing the world into complete focus once more. She could see the androids clearly, noting every piece of wear and signs of crude maintenance. She could read the walls, and follow the paths of this enormous station with her mind.
This was her dam.
“I have come to seek answers. I will read the Unfinished Book.”
On the ground, the androids shuffled as they looked at each other. Flickers of uncertainty. They were speaking to each other through the subsystems. Apparently, they didn’t know Khadam could read those thoughts:
“What say the Historian’s rules?”
“They said one would come.”
“Then we must permit her. But what of her construct?”
“My android comes with me,” Khadam interrupted them. All four of the androids started and turned to look up at Khadam.
One of them, with a speaker so ancient that its words came out in a distorted crunch, said, “Divine One, foreign constructs are forbidden in the upper library.”
“It is her library,” a new voice called from down the hall.
This time, there were no glowing eyes. And though the voice that came out was electric, and clicked just like the androids, the speaker was anything but a machine. Long tentacles writhed wetly across the floor. The androids parted, making room for an alien so tall that she towered even over Khadam. Her head was huge, almost too large to be supported on such an elongated body, though it was hard to tell the exact shape of her body due to the flowing strips of her black robes that fluttered with every step.
The Historian performed a kind of curtsy with her tentacles, lowering itself deeply before Khadam. Instead of a mouth, the Historian spoke through a black medallion, a simple speaker box, that emitted sound as slight muscles of her throat pulsed.
“We have waited for you, Khadam of the Makers.”
Khadam shot Laykis a questioning glare, but the android only shook her head, as if to say, “I told them nothing of you.”
The Historian’s gray skin shone with moisture and sweat in the dam’s rapidly warming air. She clasped two tentacles together like hands, the ends curling and uncurling as she gazed down on Khadam. White stains, lesions perhaps, ran up and down her tentacles, and there was a kind of dry age in the sunken flesh around her enormous, black eyes.
The Historian’s voice crackled out of her medallion, and her tentacles lifted towards the ceiling, “Praise and jubilation, for the day has come. I am the Speaker of this sect.”
“How do you know my name, Speaker?”
“‘And so, the veil of sleep was lifted. And across the worlds, through the bridge of light, she came to walk these hallowed halls. And therein, shall Khadam of the Makers seek the truth.’ “
“You knew I was coming?”
“It is written,” the Historian said, “All futures are woven from the one past. We have only to follow its warp and weft to see the pattern as it will be. Your presence heralds a new beginning for our kind. “Havoch, you mortal children. Witness the Maker’s return, and make ready the way. For they have come to find the lost, and heal the wounds beyond all time.”
The Speaker’s gaze fell upon Laykis. She stared at the android for a long moment. “You are not one of ours.”
Laykis said nothing. Did not even look at the Historian. Did not move at all.
“Why do you look familiar?” the Speaker asked.
“All androids look familiar,” Laykis said. “We were made in the image of the Makers.”
Khadam could feel the bristling tension between the two. The android did not move, and the Speaker curled and uncurled her tentacles. The weak lights from the walls, human lights, gleamed over every spot of age on the old Speaker’s pale, gray, wet skin. And still, neither one moved.
“Speaker,” Laykis broke the silence, “We have come to seek answers from the Unfinished Book.”
The Speaker’s arm tentacles flicked back and forth with agitation. “Dare you, construct, to presume to speak of the Unfinished Book? No machine is worthy to bear witness.”
Indignant fury rose in Khadam’s chest. “The android is with me,” she said firmly.
The ends of the Speaker’s tentacled arms flicked uncertainly. Khadam felt the Speaker’s resistance. The cold smith clenched her fists, impulsing her implants to be ready.
Reluctantly, the Speaker tore her gaze away from Laykis and bowed to Khadam. “In the house of the Makers, we are merely its stewards. Forgive me, for I have upheld our rules for so long, and many try to break them.”
“You will take us to the Book,” Khadam said. “Both of us.”
The translucent membranes of the Speaker’s eyes blinked.
“It will be,” the Speaker said, “The Unfinished Book awaits you.”
At the end of the black hallway, an elevator waited for them. The inner shell was made of some hard-spec glass that was probably proofed against the vacuum of space. Anti-gravity plates capped the top and the bottom, and a low-grade reactive metal covered the glass, probably to act as a shield against space debris and radiation. But this close to the Scar…
She felt a twinge in her temples. She squeezed her eyes shut until it went away.
The elevator lifted smoothly, and the metal dripped away so that Khadam could see the whole dam spread before her: its shape was reminiscent of an enormous, black flower. The main stabilization rings, like eight round petals, were surrounded by hundreds of smaller rings, all of which were covered in extractor towers and drone bays and service traverses. But all this was cracked, the towers scarred or snapped off, and two of the main rings had shorn away, ripping away mountains of black metal and creating a massive tail of debris that spread for thousands of miles in the dam’s wake. Wires and connector ropes, some as thick as cities, dangled behind the dam like tentacles waving in the abyss.
A flash of light, and the world went dark for just a moment. She blinked it away, trying to ignore the growing pressure in her skull.
The pieces of the dam that were still intact showed cracks, where white streaks of lightning sputtered and flashed in the black night of space, and lassos of unbound energy rolled down the towers of the great rings. All that Light, completely uncontained.
And the elevator climbed ever higher, rising up the central spire that pointed directly at the Scar.
In her past life, she would have seen it as a waste. Now, she could only feel her skin prickle at the thought of the danger it presented.
“Why have you let it fall into ruin?” Khadam asked, massaging her head with her hand.
“Divine One?” the Speaker asked. “We have taken care of all that we could.”
“The Emperor could have helped. He has machines and the knowledge to guide the repairs.”
The Speaker’s voice medallion clicked pensively, as if she did not know how to answer Khadam.
It was Laykis who offered the reason, “The Everlord of Cyre is not human.”
“Is he not close enough?”
“No,” The Historian said sternly, “Our father made us to protect the sanctity of this place. None but us are allowed to dwell here. The Emperor is an abomination.”
“Your father?”
“Auster of the Makers.”
Cold smiths didn’t work with biologists often, even before the Lightning Wars and the fracturing of humanity. She did not know this Auster, but the Emperor had spoken of him, and now the Historians. The Emperor spoke the truth, then. At least, part of it.
Still, whatever this Auster had demanded of his “children,” Khadam doubted this ruin was what he had in mind…
The dam was crumbling. This floating city would fall, and soon. And high above, the Scar glittered with all its gray-white light. Like someone had taken a knife to the fabric of space, and cut it open. There were cracks at the edges of the Scar, long and thin as spiderwebs, and Khadam could see the mist leaking from them. And lightning, flashing in the mist.
Again, brighter. And again. And—the Scar. It was splitting open. Tearing the void. Its edges rippled like waves rushing out from an explosion. It pulsed with an angry, gray light as it spread across the black canvas of space. Until there was nothing but the Scar, and all the Light pouring out from it. Reaching down toward the dam. Toward her.
A single black line, straight and infinite and thin as thread, reached down from the Scar. It intersected the dam, and the dam shattered. Billions of pieces of metal, broken like glass. The black line raced forever, down into the planet - which crumbled from the center, out.
Even the Scar itself began to crack and become fractured, and blow away like sand on the wind.
The line, impossibly straight, moved without moving. It touched all the stars, without changing its direction. She could see into it. A glimpse of something that could not be. A world that should not exist.
A face that she knew, all too well. Withered, and ancient. But it was him.
Poire’s eyes were wide with unspoken emotion as he watched her. And all she could do was scream—
“Khadam.”
Khadam.
“Khadam!” Laykis’s cold fingers gripped her by the arms. Holding her in place as she writhed. The metal was dripping back over the glass walls of the elevator, and the elevator came to a halt, nestled in the high peak of the central spire.
The vision receded, leaving a faint imprint over everything. She could still see the cracks. In the elevator. In Laykis’s mask. In her own hands, the veins turned to glittering black, eating away at her flesh. And still, it faded.
The Historian was pressed against the wall, her tentacles perfectly still. Eyes cast up at the ceiling, now covered with metal. “The scar. I saw it change.”
“Are you well?” Laykis asked.
Khadam could not speak. She felt almost too weak to stand, so she impulsed all her implants into wakefulness. Her dream dampener had failed and did not respond to her impulses, but the rest of her implants were still online.
That had never happened to her before. But then, she had never been this close to a Scar with a dam as broken as this one. It took so much out of her.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Open the door.”
The Historian waved her hand, and the door whispered as it slid open.
Hundreds of Historians huddled on the ground, forming an aisle down the ill-lit floor. The halls up here looked identical to the ones down below. Every single one of them looked identical to the Speaker. All that gray flesh, and tentacles, and robes made of strips of fabric. They were waiting for her. Too nervous to even look at her.
“This way,” the Speaker said, walking down the aisle made by their prostrate bodies.
Khadam leaned on Laykis as they walked through the aisle. On either side, the Historians breathed and made wordless, anxious clicks with their medallions. Hundreds of voices, afraid to say anything, but not quite silent, made an otherworldly sound.
The hall ended in a set of impressive doors, as black and angular as the walls. The doors were already open, leading into a kind of atrium where black columns ran down into pools of water, deep enough to drown in. At the end of the atrium, there was an altar, upon which shone a single, bright light.
And in that light, there sat the Book.
It was a simple, fragile thing, with a rectangular screen and a black body so thin, she wondered how it had not snapped in all these millennia. Tens of thousands of years. That number still didn’t feel real to her, but after seeing the dam so utterly decayed…
The Speaker kneeled at the foot of the altar, not daring to come closer. And here, even Laykis would not approach.
“I can walk,” Khadam said, for the implants were feeding hormones into her body, helping her regain her strength. She came to the Book, alone. She held her hand over it, and felt its gentle power. So much data. Millions of pages of text gave Khadam a sudden, dizzying sense of uncertainty.
“Where should I start?” Khadam asked. She hadn’t touched the book, though she could feel its proximity controls waiting for her, brushing at the edge of her mind.
Laykis and the Speaker looked at each other.
Something about their shared look sparked frustration in Khadam. Like they knew something she didn’t. When had the world become so alien to her?
“Tell me,” Khadam said, unable to hold back her anger, “You were the one who said I should come here. Where should I start?”
No answer from the android.
“You, Speaker. It’s your Book.”
“No, Divine One, we are only the keepers. It is yours.”
Khadam turned back to the Book, sitting on its pedestal. Her hands hovered over the slender, fragile device, trembling slightly.
Afraid. But of what? It was only a book. What could it tell her that she did not already know?
Then, there was only one place that made any sense. She would begin where it always began: at the end of all things.