outofgloom

[outofgloom]

art block toa dume

[outofgloom]

THEY REMEMBER

His eyes hurt, his legs hurt. His arm...it all hurt. The distance hadn’t seemed all that long on the way, but he’d had a vehicle then, and his core hadn’t been exhausted from battle. Now...now the true scale of the Great Basin was made real to him. Kio on torturous kio. Even his farthest psionic senses couldn’t yet detect the minds of the workers that labored on the rim above.

Another step. His bad leg dragged, and he tottered, thrusting his good arm out for balance. His other arm poked uselessly at the air: a stump above the elbow. It didn’t help, and another pulse of telekinetic energy was needed to steady himself. He would’ve fallen headlong otherwise. That’s what it had come to.

The bad arm itched, and he was obliged to go back inside, back to the psionic corner where pain impulses filtered in from his limbs, deactivate the alarms again. Just an empty numbness now. That was better.

He continued on. He was at least halfway by now, and was that a whisper of a thought he heard? One of the dry responses of the automaton-workers, perhaps? They were always talking to the System in their heads: “Confirm this” and “Acknowledge that”. Regular, predictable. Easily tweaked.

Unlike Their minds. Down there, behind him. Theirs had been...unexpected, but he had tried, in spite of it.... Tried to do his duty.

The infestation grows, his masters had said. Down in the pits, between the foundation-ribs. Our scrying shows more hole-boring and tunnels. Toa Orde, it is time for something to be done. 

He had tried to do what his masters asked, but it had not been what he’d anticipated. A thousand eyes had looked upon him from the pockmarked cliffsides, where the creatures had gnawed away the bones of the world. A thousand minds had turned their attention to his approach, as his sky-sled dropped out of the pale light above and landed in their dim realm. He’d extended his mind to them confidently, establishing the required connections, in order to start his work. 

<<Great Beings…?>> 

The first thoughts came through. Questions, even curiosity. About him, about his masters. That was to be expected. He widened the link further, calculating population numbers. So many...a vast number of minds...but it shouldn’t be a problem.

<<Great Beings know...>> 

<<They...remember...>>

<<Remember...us?>>

He focused on the nearest of the creatures, a pair of eyes in an opening several bio above: the strongest link. He called up the mental schematic that had been provided to him, reviewed the changes required.

<<They...have not...forgotten...?>>

<<They...remember us>>

Simple enough: just a matter of finding the right mental threads to pull, the right pathways to re-wire. And then...Even these aberrants shall be brought into the grand design, as his masters had said. Even these. 

All set. He made the first change.

<<What...?>>

Confirmed. The threads yielded to his will, with only a little resistance. It was going well. 

He made the second change.

<<But...>>

Confirmed again. Pathways reshaped at his command, a little harder this time, but no problem. 

He held the threads taut for a moment to suspend the target’s behavior, re-checked the schematic. Right, all correct.

<<Why…>>

Now he made the third change. This was the most difficult, bringing the final components into conformity. More resistance, but he was almost done. Afterward, the alterations would be propagated throughout their network. Simple enough, if his calculations were—

Shock. The mental link snapped off, like a limb breaking. It stunned him, disoriented him, but only for a second. Then he was back in his own throbbing head, feeling sick.

There was a noise in the dark space above, and something smashed heavily into the ground before him: A body, all spines and serrated claws. Now broken.

It was the creature he had linked with.

It was dead.

Confusion. What had happened? He had followed the schematic, all the proper directives. The task had almost been complete, but then.... The creature.... Had it…? No, surely....

Eyes were moving, up in the darkness. Crawling and scuttling. 

He took a step back toward the sled, tried to reestablish his connection. He’d simply try again and then—

<<Rage>>

<<Resentment>> 

He felt his breathing stop. He clutched his head, clenched his jaw involuntarily. 

<<Wrath>>

<<Betrayal>>

A wall of chugging, pulsing malice struck him, and he reeled. 

Thousands of minds bent on him in unison, overwhelmed his weakened defenses. And each one felt the same thing—the same feeling of fury, of violation—all feeding each other and consuming each other in an endless psychic loop.

He’d made a mistake, somehow. These were not like the automaton-minds of the workers above. These were—

<<RAGE>> 

<<RESENTMENT>>

Not simply a web of threads and commands to be altered at his whim. They were...They were like him. How?

<<WRATH>>

<<BETRAYAL>>

Did his masters know?

<<THEY KNOW>>

Eyes moving. Voices croaking. Spines clacking. Closer now.

<<THEY REMEMBER>>

A barbed spear hurtled out of the dark, skewering his sky-sled and showering him with a cascade of sparks, and in the brief flare, he saw Them with his real eyes.

<<WE REMEMBER>>

He raised his hands. Closer.

<<WE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER>>

*  *  * * * *

The basin-rim stood another few degrees higher now, and he was certain that he could catch a few strands of thought on the psy-fields. Almost within range, and then he could summon another sled to carry him the rest of the way. His arm throbbed. He’d not been able to keep the pain down for the last stretch. 

Teeth gnawing, claws raking at his armor, a shriek shattering the air as his telekinesis tore another of Them limb from limb. And still more piled on. More bodies. 

More wrath. 

More betrayal.

Maybe he deserved to feel the pain.

On a whim, he looked back over his shoulder, saw the vast wasteland sloping downward behind him. His feet left faint tracks in the fine protodermic dust that covered every sio of the Great Basin. The trail led for many kio, showing the haphazard route he had taken after emerging from the deep defile, still pursued by the creatures. He had killed more of them on the plain. He’d had to.... They wouldn’t stop.... He wouldn’t stop.

Turning back toward the distant rim, he considered for a moment simply reporting success to his masters. They trusted him. Maybe they wouldn’t truth-test the message. And then...then the last complication would be resolved. Everything in order. The valve-gates would be opened, and silver water would pour into the Great Basin.

All part of the grand design.

And down there, in the pits, down between the foundation-ribs...the flood would sweep in. And maybe that would be the end of it. 

No bodies. No traces left.

<<Rage>> 

<<Resentment> 

<<They know>>

Except with him. In his own memory. He would remember.

<<Wrath>>

<<Betrayal>>

He would always remember.

[outofgloom]

"Pose Study: Glatorian Kiina"

The helms and armor of the Glatori hosts were forged in the image of the mutant beasts that wandered Spherus Magna in the era when its silver oceans receded to the Core.

The armies of the Lord of Water forged their helms to evoke the deepwater Great Maw, and their tridents reflected the tools that the ancient sailors of Aqua Magna would use to skewer the Maw's offspring.

Though long extinct, the spirits of these beasts were said to endure in the fighting spirits of the Glatori soldiers...those who unwittingly fought to unleash the silver oceans once more.

[outofgloom]

"Pose Study: Glatorian Kiina"

The helms and armor of the Glatori hosts were forged in the image of the mutant beasts that wandered Spherus Magna in the era when its silver oceans receded to the Core.

The armies of the Lord of Water forged their helms to evoke the deepwater Great Maw, and their tridents reflected the tools that the ancient sailors of Aqua Magna would use to skewer the Maw's offspring.

Though long extinct, the spirits of these beasts were said to endure in the fighting spirits of the Glatori soldiers...those who unwittingly fought to unleash the silver oceans once more.

[outofgloom]

Tahu

[outofgloom]

SHUN THIS PLACE

The Lord of Steel stood on the threshold, at long last. Behind him, the priests lay dead, splayed across the desert, along with the bodies of his soldiers. The elemental weapons of the priesthood had been as terrible as foretold, but in the end, his power had prevailed.

He scanned the midday sky briefly, but it remained mostly clear. A good omen, although it would not last. Evening would bring stormclouds—red storms, the kind which did not water the dry earth.

In fact, he was counting on it.

He stooped and crossed the threshold, moving out of the desert air and into the cool interior of the structure. His eyes adjusted quickly to the dimness, and he saw that the walls were covered with carvings. No surprise there: He’d encountered versions of them before, on the obelisks of the Great Jungle and the abandoned cliff-cities of the Great Frost. Even so, these were the fullest and most detailed he’d seen so far. There were full words here, in fact, alongside the usual pictograms, written in the strange script of the machines.

He was impatient, eager to take the next step, but he had not gotten this far by ignoring good intel. As odious a task as it was to him, perhaps just this once he ought to give the inscription a full read....

HERE-PLACE IS MESSAGE

...the first line parsed out, alongside a symbol which usually meant “listen” or “take heed”. This place is a message. He read on:

MESSAGE IS BIG

...No, that should be rendered something like “great”, shouldn’t it? He was rusty. “Significant”, perhaps. This message is significant.

HERE-PLACE IS NOT...something. He was unsure. “Virtue”, maybe? That was it: No virtue is here, in this place.

He paused, eyes flicked to the right, looking out at the desert. Had that been movement? A moment passed.... Ah, a thin cloud had passed across the sun. That was all. Satisfied, he returned to the text. Where had he left off? No virtue is here.... Right, and after that, he knew the words “temple” and “shrine”, in series: 

HERE-PLACE IS NOT-VIRTUE NOT-TEMPLE, NOT-SHRINE

HERE-PLACE IS NOT-TOMB NOT-TREASUREVAULT, NOT-VALUE

HERE-PLACE IS.... What was that symbol? The inscription beneath...“danger”, “destruction”?

DANGER IS.... Is what? The glyphs were faded. He squinted at them, traced them with a finger. “Individuated”? “Discrete”, maybe? That seemed right: A discrete size and shape, in a specific location.

Immediately after that, the next line was clear:

DANGER IS WHAT LIES BENEATH

Now that was more like it—

Something struck him from behind, bit into the armor of his upper back, and there was a noise shrieking in his ears and sparks were flashing in the visor of his helmet, overwhelming his senses, sparks burning into his neck. He cried out and twisted away from the stone wall, striking out blindly. 

Contact. He felt metal crumple against his fist, followed by the sound of his assailant thudding against the opposite wall. His hand went to his shoulder, felt wetness there, and sharp, throbbing pain. He gritted his teeth and shook his head, trying to focus. There!

It was one of the machine-priests—heavily damaged, but still alive. It heaved itself up on two bent legs, and the tatter of its robes whirled around it. He and his soldiers must have missed one, somehow...or it had repaired itself. How could he not have noticed its approach?

He stepped back quickly, putting distance between himself and the enemy. The mask that covered the priest’s face was cracked, likely from the blow he’d just dealt it, but the eyes still glowed bright. He realized dimly that the mask was made in the shape of the mythological Stalker Eel—a wide, round mouth, slitted forehead. It was a stealth-mask. Of course....

There was the shrill, whining noise, and he saw that the priest’s remaining arm ended in something like a buzzsaw. That explained his ringing ears and the jagged tear that had been cut into his armor...and the sparks. Surely it had been aiming for his neck. He was fortunate that it did not carry an elemental weapon, or his situation would be more dire.

The priest crouched, weapon held forward. He readied himself, trying to focus against the pain. Searching, searching with his mind....

It lunged. The sawblade shrieked in his ears once more, and he felt the vibration of it in the base of his skull.

Thud. Clatter. The whine of the spinning blade peaked and ramped down, grinding harmlessly against the stone floor as the priest’s arms and legs spasmed where they now lay, along with its body. 

The priest’s head, mask and all, floated in the air before him. He’d found what he’d sought: the small linkages of true metal that joined the creature’s skull to its torso. At this range, he’d been able to detect them amongst the lattice of false protometal and artificial flesh that made up the bulk of the creature’s body. Then, it was only a matter of...unlinking.

The eyes were wide with shock. They remained glowing for a second, then they winked off. A rasp of air escaped the disconnected throat, and the jaw went slack. It was over. 

He set the head down on the floor, well away from the still-twitching body. Then he tended to himself: He removed the damaged armor plates and drew out a spool of metal thread. In a few minutes, he’d used his powers to stitch the wound in his shoulder. It was painful, but necessary. He’d wasted enough time.

He rubbed his eyes and glanced at the inscriptions on the wall once more. They were undamaged, it seemed, but he didn’t have much patience left. He hated reading, especially this kind. Too much ambiguity. And after all, the attack had made him lose his place. He almost left it there, turned to his true goal in the back of the structure, where the walls narrowed down...but the next series of inscriptions drew his attention back. These he had never seen before. He sighed:

DANGER IS TO.... An odd phrasing here. “To anatomy”? Or was it “to geography”? He’d never thought about it, but in the language of the machines, the words were almost the same.

DANGER IS TO THE BODY DANGER IS TO THE LAND TO KILL OR TO CHANGE

His heart beat faster. Ah, this was worthwhile. A confirmation of sorts. Surely he had found the right place. His shoulder ached, but he shrugged it off.

DANGER TAKES A CERTAIN FORM...The same word as above. A certain body?

FORM OF DANGER IS AN OBJECT

OBJECT IS.... He blinked, re-read the word. That did not conform to his research. He read back over the lines again, making sure that he had not missed anything. No, it was clear.

The danger takes a certain form.  The form of the danger is an object. The object is a Mask.

He frowned. A mask? How could that be the fabled weapon of the Ancients? The masks that the machines had worn were so fragile, so easily crushed, as he had just demonstrated. He glanced down at the disconnected head of the priest. Could a simple mask be the same as the weapon that had burned off the surface of the planet in ancient times, dissolving and remaking life into its current form? The Age of Shattering had been ended that way, it was said.... It seemed impossible, but perhaps this too was a distorted myth. There was no way to know, in the end, and it didn’t really matter. He would find out the truth soon enough.

Except...his eyes returned to the head of the priest where it sat on the floor. Yes, it could work.

Click. The cable he had scavenged from one of the other bodies outside jumped with energy from the still-functioning core of the priest’s torso, and after a moment, the eyes sparked on, began to glow, faintly at first, then stronger. 

The limbs did not move this time. He had removed them all, even the connection to the waist, little more than a torso-shaped power source now. The jaw shifted, and a hiss of air went up into the throat as the voicebox engaged. The eyes flicked back and forth, took him in where he crouched, then glanced toward the remains of the body...and quickly away.

What was that expression? Revulsion? Could the machines experience something like this? He had never asked.

“Why...?” the priest said in a raspy voice. 

“For information,” he replied.

“You are...monster. My...my body—”

“May be yours again, once I have what I need.”

The priest did not respond.

“What does this indicate, this word here?” he continued, pointing to the last part of the inscription that he had translated. “Tell me what you know.”

“Mask,” the priest said plainly after a moment.

“Does it have any other meaning?”

“Mask...no. No other.”

“Are you sure? I’ve found that the memories of your priesthood are not always reliable. The Ancients made you badly, I think.”

“No other. Just ‘mask’.”

“And what mask does it refer to? Surely you still know this.”

“I cannot.”

“I’m going down, either way. But if there was, say, some additional warning you wished to add, some further piece of knowledge that might deter me or improve the outcome.... Well, this is your last chance.”

The priest’s eyes frowned—or as close to a frown as a machine could muster. After a moment, it seemed to decide:

“The mask,” it said, “life to the world, it once gave. After an age of shattering, of disjointing.” The wording was strange, as if the priest were repeating some litany.

“Life, you say? That sounds good to me. Have you looked at the state of the world lately? There are few left since the Plague and the petty wars it engendered. Few who remain whole in mind, that is. Even the Tetrate is crumbling, and the Red Storms worsen every day.”

“Beware,” the priest continued, “for life with death comes also.”

“Ah, yes, of course. But that is the Great Cycle, isn’t it? The world has not changed so much that we’ve all forgotten.”

“Life and death.... You are recent, comprehend not.”

“Recent.... You mean young? Hah! I am the Lord of Steel, first of the elements, the true metal, which cannot corrode, spawn of the metal-star Exsidia, which issued unmade from the Void—”

“Life and death and life...” the priest intoned, ignoring him.

“Why do you babble? You’re just a broken machine, I think. Another of Their useless clockworks.”

“I am not machine,” the priest spat back.

“Then speak like it. What more can you tell me?”

“I remember in the Time Before,” the priest said, with the same odd phrasing, “For the world, we were made, to build and to maintain. Nothing more....”

“You were made for such. Not I.”

“...And when the world failed,” it continued, “sacrifice was needed. Always sacrifice. Life was given to us, so that it might be given unto the world. Cores made to burn.”

“You speak of how the Age of Shattering ended, I think.”

The priest hesitated. Its mouth trembled, then:

“Not one age...not one, but many.”

“What? What do you mean by that?”

“The world failed...has failed, over and over. And when the world failed, there was sacrifice. Burning to sustain, to kindle life and light. Over and again.”

“That...makes no sense. The Age of Shattering is—”

“Ended now, and never again.”

“So you say, but—”

“No more sacrifice.” The priest’s voice dropped to a whisper, and its eyes wandered back and forth. “No more, to start the world anew. That destiny is over. No more will our cores burn, to kindle the stars and to light the lamps of the universe. It is enough.”

“What is this sacrifice?”

“Life with death comes also. That is the challenge of the Mask, to remake the world. Beware.”

“So...the mask is not simply a weapon to be wielded for my ends? That’s disappointing, given the enemy that I contend with.”

“A tool may be used for many tasks: to build or to destroy. The potential is in the core of each of us.”

“I have no core. Unlike you, I am flesh, blood, and true metal. But if a sacrifice is needed...perhaps your core will be useful to me after all.”

The priest’s eyes closed behind its mask.

“Any more to say? I confess you have not convinced me of—”

A force took hold of him, wrapping invisible fingers around his throat, and he saw with a shock that the mask on the priest’s face had changed form somehow, becoming smaller, more angular. The air shivered with telekinetic energy, and he was choking, hands clawing at his throat, eyes bulging, but there was nothing there to grasp. He staggered back against the wall as the crushing force increased, and he felt something give way in his chest. Pain shivered up and down his spine. His vision was going dark.

No other choice. With the last desperate vestiges of his power, he struck out, found the linkings of true metal once more, and wrenched the priest’s head to pieces. 

The pressure on his throat and torso released, and he fell to his knees, gasping and retching. His heart pounded in his ears, and his head throbbed, but he was alive. After a few moments, he tried to sit back against the wall, but sharp agony broke out in the right side of his torso. He ground his teeth, breathing in short gasps, eyes clenched shut. He was pretty sure he’d popped a stitch in his shoulder as well. The wound burned.

He held himself still, trying to stay conscious and control his breathing, trying to endure through the surge of pain. It hurt, but after a few moments, he was able to get hold of his panic and focus. He searched within his chest cavity, feeling his power ping off the metallic bones. There: one rib was cracked, another dislocated. Nothing for it. He held the image in his mind, gulped air through his bruised throat, and did what had to be done.

The fusion of the cracked rib was white-hot iron near his heart, and the sound of the other rib popping back into place was audible in the small space. He screamed, writhed, and slumped over into unconsciousness.

Minutes passed, maybe more. He flitted from a dreamless nothing to wakefulness...and then back again. At last, in a half-aware moment, his mind managed to grasp a scrap of reality. His eyes fluttered, and images flickered in his thoughts: A flash of the low stone ceiling above. A glimpse of the lower part of the wall. The last three lines of the inscription were visible from where he lay, and even in his near-senseless state, they were familiar to him. He had seen them before:

HERE-PLACE, DO NOT REMAIN BELOW-DANGER, DO NOT APPROACH HERE-PLACE, SHUN

His mind offered the translation:

Do not inhabit this place. Do not approach the danger below. Shun this place.

He moaned, felt the hard floor on the back of his skull. The world was expanding again, finally, beyond the margins of his pain-wracked body. He was lying on his back, and his injured shoulder was spasming against the stone. He shifted to take the pressure off, and found that the pain in his side was substantially less now. That was good. He blinked, wiped moisture from his eyes, then carefully, he tested the movement of his limbs. No new pain greeted him. Also good.

His vision was clearing up, and he turned his head leftward, took in his surroundings.

The wreckage of the priest’s head was scattered across the floor around him. A fragment of the upper part lay nearby, with a single, empty eye, staring.

Shun this place.

A shame. The machine had been cunning, speaking its riddles and warnings, same as the Ancients. Had any of it been true, or had the priest simply been buying the time it needed to summon a new mask? No way to know for sure. He sighed and swallowed painfully, raising a hand to massage his sore throat. It wouldn’t deter him, and anyways, he still had the priest’s intact core, if some sacrifice was really required.

With effort, he shifted up onto one elbow, glanced over at the limbless body.

Shock. He squinted, shook his head, looked again: The same as before. How? The torso was smashed, torn open from inside. Had he...?! No...no, it must have been the priest. He cursed—the machine had tricked him even as it attacked. But why? Did that mean that it had been telling the truth after all?

No more sacrifice.... No more will our cores burn....

He sat up, breathing gingerly. The wind was rising outside the structure, and he shivered as he looked out: A line of red clouds now limned the horizon, off to the east. How long had he lain here? Too long—It was coming soon now, and he had wasted much time. No more delays. He heaved himself to a kneeling position, raised his head, and there was the inscription again, staring him in the face.

Do not inhabit.... Do not approach.... Shun this place!

He straightened shakily, dusted off his hands. The Protodermic Priesthood had done its work well, to uphold the ancient dictates, to instill fear, and to keep the vaults of deep time sealed. To the very last, it had done its work, and it had nearly been the end of him. But it had failed.

The Lord of Steel breathed in and centered himself, drawing upon his power. He slid a hand along the metal-stone hybrid of the structure around him, feeling its alien composition. It had taken him many years to acquire enough of it, secreted away on underground markets, and more years after that to study the substance, to understand it, and to modify his own power to affect it.

He advanced slowly, leaving the inscriptions behind. The tunnel stretched into cool darkness and ended in a blunt wall. But he knew better. He focused his mind, felt the stone-metal shiver downward, a solid shaft extending deep into the surface of the planet. Not entirely solid, however. He could sense the seams and joints, where the material had been fixed together. Now at his command, the shaft opened in segments, one seal releasing after another, and he shaped it into a stairway, leading down, down....

The danger is to the body, to the land. To kill or to change. 

He turned the words over in his mind for a moment. This world could use some change, that was for sure. He’d always thought so. He moved to the edge of the newly-formed staircase and smelled the dry, sterile air of a previous age.

When the world failed, sacrifice was needed. Always sacrifice. 

If it was true, then the priest had not been willing to make such a sacrifice, going so far as to take himself out of the equation...permanently.

No more will our cores burn, to kindle the stars and to light the lamps of the universe. It is enough.

Was that the reason for all of this, the burying of the past? Those who had been made by the Ancients to sustain the world...whose lives had been used to keep it going, however many times...at last, they’d gotten fed up?

I am not machine, the priest had said. If it was true, then who could blame them? 

Doubt pricked at him. Whatever was to come—sacrifice or not—he himself, the Lord of Steel, would have to face it alone. Was he prepared for that? Surely after all his planning and labors, all the sacrifices he had made since taking up the mantle of Element Lord, this could be no worse. The challenge of the Mask, to remake the world. Beware....

Maybe it was fitting. The legends said that the world began with metal: a great silver sea, hanging in the void.

Perhaps the world to come would begin the same.

He glanced one more time at the carnage that had been the body of the priest, then out at the desert, at the corpses in the sand, at the pale sky. The clouds were piling up now. Stormclouds, shimmering with red light that was not lightning. Ever since the second Dreaming Plague, it had been this way, when the Eater had reemerged—hungry, and hungrier now.

He scowled, allowing himself a moment of the old hatred, for that color and what it represented—ancient enemy of the Children of Iron. Only a moment. In the end, such anger was futile.

His dreams had already been eaten, after all.

Faint thunder reached his ears. The light outside was growing redder by the minute. It would be here soon, just as he had planned, and he would be ready for it.

Ready to risk danger to the body, to the land. Ready to kill or to change.

Ready to remake the world.

He turned back to the staircase and blinked to align the retroflective layers of metallic crystal behind his eyes, enhancing his night vision as he peered down into the dark. Down to where life was hidden....

Do not inhabit this place.

Life with death, whatever that meant.

Do not approach the danger below.

Red light approached, flickering hungrily across the dunes. Could it read the inscriptions, understand the warnings?

Shun this place.

He began the descent.

[outofgloom]

He'd never join them afterwards.

What was the point? They wouldn't have welcomed him with open arms either way after all the tribekin and cousins and friends he'd sold to their death. Let them play with their new oversized tin toys if they were so inclined: now that the Skrall were gone and everything was better, there was no reason in trying to figure out for what price his usual clients would have taken such dangerous curiosities.

Like the Spikit needs to feed itself endlessly, for each head turns almost mad with hunger as soon as the other's meal has reached the intestines, Sahmad had spent the last hundred thousand years biting the misery off of the bones of sapient livestock to fuel the ravenous appetite of his vengeance against the living.

He belonged to the dead. He had belonged to them from the moment his people had become them, and in their stead he'd hated the living as all good dead who die senselessly do.

He remembered it - he'd built the memories himself, cobbled them together in the throes of grief, into something that resembled in shape and composition and imposing sense of scale the marvelous prints his beloved used to mold from graceless raw metal: with the clarity of a survivor he had so clearly seen in his imagination that breathing swarm melt into a brightly colored wall as they left the Iron tribe to die, hands carefully folded near their hearts, appalled and with eyes wide, perfectly still, perfectly quiet; he had seen that mass of healthy flesh staring at them as they tore each other apart in the frenzied fumes of their disease.

Murderers and desecrators, the lot of them. Graverobbers they would have been if there had been graves at all to rob. No, the pretty plates that made their armors sturdy and unbreakable had been ripped from corpses left to rot in the open air as all waste does, for the fauna to feed off of and those soulless little rats to mutilate so horribly for their own gain, because the War was coming, the War for the damned liquid malady that had ripped his whole world from him, and they needed the protection for when they would need to kill each other for the honor and pride of their worthless Lords, you see... He remembered watching from afar the massacres with a gargling feeling stirring in his stomach, drinking deep of their shed blood with his hateful gaze.

He remembered the first one who wandered through the desert with that carapace displayed so proudly to cover their breast. To cover their heart.

He hadn't even sold that one. Just killed.

As furiously and painfully as he could.

And then, he'd ripped each treasure from that corpse with the viciousness of a disgraced heir avenging an offense, and ridden all the way back to the epicenter of the epidemic, and buried that piece of the Fezeri people in Fezeri land and marked it with a rusted stick.

And he'd wondered how many there could have been, out there. How many crumbs of his tribe's body were hanging off of bloodied living meat fancing itself brave enough to traverse the dunes. And while he had already been catching them and throwing them to the best offerer by his own accord (because he needed their anguish to satiate something that food and water could barely mitigate enough to let him live) that was the start of his purposeful hunt.

By the time those beloved shells had disappeared from the ensembles of those unlucky enough to meet him, his collection of graves had grown enough that the center of what had been a village was once more inhabited, only now by dozens, maybe hundreds of rusted metal rods, like fingers of a tentacled beast reaching out through the earth that had swallowed it. A proper, thriving, bustling necropolis - of bits and pieces, of broken shells; but those were once his soul, and even if only in a minimal number they would be allowed some peace once he died properly too.

Not even that thought brought him comfort now.

Everything was better; everything was fixed. It was time to rebuild and restart and return, even slowly, to a better life.

Without the cruelty of a fractured hateful world to spur him, to reward him, to lend him chance after chance to inflict the misery he'd been made a victim of, Sahmad found his hunger wane and slip off of his chest: it leaned left and right, almost confused, moving faster and faster as a sudden anxiety overtook it, but it reacted too late; in a pitiful swirl, like a streak of color in a sputtering stream of water, the endless famine coiled and drained away, and all that was left in the place of its padding was a yawning emptiness sanding him down underneath his shell.

He watched over his rusted forest. Had it been worth it, all this hatred? All this callous ruthlessness and wasted lives for the sake of far too many incomplete burials? Yes. He has no doubt about it. It had all been worth it. But it still made him the last of them in a world far too large for only one.

There had to be others. Out there, away from the invisible confines that had surrounded the former wasteland, into the new budding life sprouting from the melded cracks of the planet. They'd been a very special case, like all warnings from the heavens are - the others must have stopped their mining operations in time before they struck too deep, or abandoned the tunnels in a haste after hearing of their peers' demise. The Lord of Iron had died with them, torn to shreds by the illness, the madness, and the very subjects he had once had command over: the others must have been free to choose to hide away, when the Core War broke out, as they had no one's gluttony to sate but their own, and no hunger would have been enough to lead them to fight for the very thing that had sunk one of their villages in the communal grave of a barren sky.

What colors and patterns would their carapaces have? He'd stuck to a bright rusted orange for so long he barely remembered his own real hue. They would still be digging and welding and melding, and hunting burrowing shrew and grinding who knows what exotic flowers into fragrant paste... He could not remember how it smelled or tasted, neither the dark ground nor the bread he would barely realized he'd eaten when he had plenty of it. No, he could never join them, he could never fit in the mold that had been broken and warped so long ago again: he was the survivor of a plague and a slave trader - two of the many kinds of person everybody feels safer away from; he was part of the dead, and only disaster is bound to follow along when they try to mix with the living.

He remained crouched before Telluris, before the bent and rusted wire marking his grave. That mad fool. He'd found him mangled underneath his skeletonized beast of a machine during his starved wanderings through this new and bountiful world: how he would have wanted to go, most likely, if he'd ever known how to want anything in his endless delirium. Ridiculous, maybe even shameful, to think that he was the only complete corpse in this shoddy cemetery. Better him than Sahmad: the mad do not haunt graveyards, busy as they are enjoying at last some peace of mind. The wrathful seldom find that same idea as soothing.

To curl up in a sunken bed and wait to rejoin his tribe sounded selfish. He'd dragged their grievances along a trail of blood so long as he could feed them; now that his famine had begun ravaging he had nothing to give those grudges but himself, and once that too would have been consumed they would have curled their spindly hands around every bone surrounding him. To die here, brimming with an endless mourning rage, would mean to rattle and anguish his poor kin forevermore in their only time of rest.

If he continued to travel, even though purposeless, he could bring it all someplace else, to haunt unhallowed ground. Or his Spikit, just like him maddened by a fruitless search, would have eaten him first - mauled his flesh off the bone like he'd mauled the fear and resignation from the bodies sold off to a mindless life of pain, until for only a moment its appetite would be calmed.

Sahmad watched the beast grow antsy.

A burial like any other.

[outofgloom]

GOOD SPIKIT

He awakened in the dark of the hive, found that his mind was his own once more—what was left of it, at least. Dug his fingers beneath the brain-husk that covered his face, felt its sleeping mind try to resist him peeling it off. But the queen was dormant and distant, down below.

He was the first awake, the lightest of the sleepers.

Out into sunlight. Early morning. Horrible pangs of hunger and thirst. He tried to recall how long it had been, but memory was short amongst the swarm. All he had left was from...Before.

Escaping. Fleeing across a patchwork desert, a landscape that was both old and new. Escaping...but from what?

Drink from the fetid pool. Eat the creeping fungus. Hope it wouldn't kill him at least. He climbed the cliffside with newfound strength. A grassy plateau stretched before him, and the wind was cool and dry. The sky above him was...too big. Too open. Too long closed inside the mind of the swarm. Too long underground. Eyes down, he walked, and tried again to remember.

Escaping. He was escaping then, just as he was escaping now. Escaping across a patchwork desert....

Escaping from...Dreams.

Tracks in the soft earth. He recognized the shape, the claw-marks, saw the signs of grazing. A herd of them. Follow, as his shadow bent round beneath him. Follow and follow until he found what he sought.

It took a few hours, but at last he caught up to them. The herd was just beyond the ridge now. He peeked over the rise and counted... Twenty-two. Why did he count them? What did that matter? Some old habit, maybe...from before.

What do you seek? Your dream, it shall be granted.

No, too many. No more dreams. Please.

Escaping across a patchwork desert. Escaping from too many dreams.

What do you seek?

Spikits they were called. Yes, he knew that. Spikits, the two-headed beasts. One head stayed up while the other grazed. Hard to sneak up on, but he knew better methods. They were looking thin. Must be the narrow season for them, up here on the plateau with only grass. They'd be hungry for other things.

Hungry. Hungry for...dreams.

No, he'd escaped that too. Somehow he'd escaped, and he'd made his wish.

Hungry...

Not my dreams!

He lay still where he'd crept, a little upwind of the herd. The grass rattled, and he wondered if he should make some noise. Thought better of it—don't want to spook them.

Finally, movement. Two heads went up into the air as a scrawny Spikit caught his scent. The heads turned to and fro, then red eyes settled on him. The left head—that must be the dominant one. The right head tilted to monitor the rest of the herd as the beast loped toward his prone body. Closer. Closer....

Head bent down. Nudged him. His fingers clenched in anticipation. Yes, this is fresh meat. You want meat. No more grass for you.

The jaw unhinged. He saw teeth, smelled breath. Opened wider, then the bite:

Teeth clamped down on the makeshift metal bit that he'd fashioned from the remains of his helmet-spur, and he was moving with all his strength and speed, wedging the bit down further between the two largest back teeth, wrapping the grass-woven bridle round the head-spikes. The right head whirled as the Spikit backpedaled, but he was already on his feet, running with it, between the two necks. He gave the right neck a hard blow in just the right spot, and the right head flinched downward. Enough for him to slide a leg over, heave himself up onto the back, and pull the reins tight on the dominant head.

The Spikit was clearly not at full strength. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to hold on as it tried to shake him. Its croaking and shrieking filled the air, but he kept his grip tight on the reins and his knees hard against the flanks, as he'd done many times before, it seemed. Leaning side to side, back and forth, repeating his strike on the right neck when that head got any ideas.

The beast flagged. The rest of the herd had fled. The sun was starting to go down. He spent some time teaching his new steed the ropes. The heel-jab meant go, a pull on the reins meant turn. Good Spikit, good beast. Pats to the neck, in just the right spot. You're a good learner. No, not that way. Yes, good Spikit. Have a seed-husk. I know you like those. Say, there's greener grass across that way, round this ravine, isn't there? I'll feed you better than you've had. Let's see.

After a while, he chose a direction, off toward the setting sun. It felt right, somehow, like the wind made a good noise that way. And he rode, straight on across the tablelands. Escaping now. Really escaping.

It had been a long time since he'd rode bareback. No wagon or chariot. He'd liked the chariot, but it was probably a wreck now and rusting, somewhere beyond the horizon, along with everything about his past life. It all seemed unreal now, and he had a moment of uncertainty as the Spikit loped beneath him. Maybe it had been unreal, just a dream he had conjured through the mind of the swarm. There were memories of that time too, mixed in. Memories of battle...war, maybe? He alongside the others, fighting for the queen, fighting for the task: to purge the world. To return everything to the Before Time.

He shook his head. No. He'd had a life before the swarm. He knew that, even if the memories were a bit frayed now. There were too many for it to all be false. He'd known people. He'd killed people. He'd loved. He'd hated. He'd captured Spikits and Rock Steeds and Sand Stalkers and made them serve him. He'd raided settlements in the wake of the apocalypse...and enslaved the inhabitants.

And now...Now he'd felt what that was like. Just a fraction, maybe.

Escaping across a patchwork desert. Escaping from too many dreams.

He'd escaped the dream-eater somehow, the entity that had driven his people insane so long ago. And after that, he'd made peace with the cursed fate of his tribe. But then, when he returned, the dream-weaver had taken him. He'd thought that it was his ally, but instead it enthralled him, made him a part of its bizarre kingdom, for however long. He didn't know how, but that dream had ended too, and at last the veil lifted.

He'd fled then, into the waste, heedless of anything else but to get away. To get free. To escape....

Across a patchwork desert. Escaping from too many dreams.

His life was cursed, maybe because of his lineage. Maybe to pay for past misdeeds. But for that moment, he'd been free. No more illusions or false realities. He could breath. He could think. No more insanity.

A rumble in the distance, off where the mountains were strange. He hadn't seen those peaks before, and there were lights up and down the hills. The rumble growing closer.

And there was a mind. It touched his.

Her mind.

He'd dozed for a second, nearly slipped from his steed, but now he was awake. Lucky it hadn't tried to buck him at unawares. It was a good Spikit. Pats to the neck. Now, where were they?

The sun was very low. Almost gone. It lit the horizon into a jagged red line ahead. They'd come pretty far, but without a destination, it didn't matter much. Still, he felt somehow that they were going in the right direction. The wind still made that good noise, almost calling him, and—

And there was something on the horizon. He squinted through shading fingers. It was murky against the red, but as the sun faded, it became clear.

It was a tower of some kind. Ram-rod straight against the sunset. Unmistakable. He was aiming right for it. What luck! Elation rose in him. Good Spikit. We might make it there by nightfall, if we double-time. It's a good wind. It sounds right. It's calling me there. We're going to make it.

What luck...!

Her mind had touched his, and he knew that he stood no chance. Whatever She was, She was in terrible haste.

Flee the Great Wreck, She called, and all the units of the swarm answered back: Flee the Great Wreck and rebuild, till my sister can be repaired, and the swarm renewed. Come all, come to the swarm!

Frozen to the spot. The rumbling noise came up over the edge of the patchwork desert in a great wave of round metal bodies, and they poured over him and around him in their haste. He never even saw the queen, but felt Her pass by. Felt Her awareness touch him briefly. The briefest of commands. He could not even resist as they fastened one of the brain-husks over his face, and the voice of the swarm filled his ears and mind.

And just before the fear left him and the despair evaporated, just before that, he had a brief final thought:

This must be what it was like, for those he'd captured and sold over the years, back in the raiding days. Helpless. Knowing they stood no chance. Must be how they felt. He'd never really thought about it before. Maybe he should have.

Then there was no feeling. Just the swarm, calling him. A good voice. It sounded right....

A good wind. It sounds right. It's calling me there. What luck....

There had been no luck. It was a signal. He could hear it plainly now: a high-pitched tone ringing across the distance. He'd thought that he'd gotten away. She was asleep, dormant and deep below. He'd simply slipped the swarm's awareness, just this once.

But the signal was clear in his ears and in his mind. A signal of awakening, and he was responding to it. Elation. Excitement.

Make haste. You are the first, sent forth to make contact, to bring news back. News of renewal.

His hands raised slowly to his face. He thought that he'd—

All your skills are in service to the swarm. In service to Her.

...thought that he'd peeled it off, thrown it away....

Make haste!

The brain-husk was still there, covering his true face. He felt it throb at his touch. How had he not realized?

All your skills are in service to the swarm. To Her.

Was he still a puppet, simply acting out Her desires? No, She was asleep. He knew that. He'd felt it. Dormant and deep below. Her will wasn't on him, not at this moment. But he was still under its influence. He could still hear the voice.

But maybe...maybe he could....

He gouged at the fringe of the brain-husk suddenly with one hand. Viciously, and it stirred. Pain needled into him as he tore at it, got the tips of his fingers under one edge.

Agony. He writhed in his seat, and the Spikit kicked warily beneath him. The strength in his arm failed as the husk's own will strove with his own, and he dropped the reins.

Quickly, before She awakens. Before She comes!

Small movement in his vision, blurring red with the red sunset. The Spikit's right head glanced at him sidelong.

He raised his other hand to his face now. The husk didn't expect that. Both sets of fingers tore at the fringe behind his temples and under his chin, and he screamed, twisting and arching his back.

You have to...before....

The Spikit croaked and shifted again. The reins were free. The right head squinted at him darkly.

Turning his body back and forth, he felt the husk give way a little. Fire along his skin. He pried his fingers further, but....

She will awaken. She will know....

His arms were numb. His fingers wouldn't work. Couldn't push back against the brain-husk's will. It was too late, and now She would have him again—

Teeth. Jaw open. Foul breath. The Spikit's right head had taken its chance, snapping right at him, at his face.

But that was not his face.

Incisors pierced through the brain-husk and grazed his skin, and he heard the husk's voice leap and then die away. With the last of his energy, he twisted, flinched back as the jaws closed and tore the thing off of him. It ripped away and left his face raw and stinging, and he watched as the Spikit's right head bolted the strange meat of it. Gone.

The reins were back in his hand before it finished, pulling hard to head off the beast's inevitable attempt to throw him. Knees went in tight at the flanks. The right head whipped round again.

Surprised I'm still alive?

There was a moment of stand-off. His hand was raised to deliver a blow to the neck. The mouth was open, dripping spittle. Red eyes. Both breathing hard.

He patted the neck instead. Gentle with it. Good Spikit. Good...good beast. You saved me. The meat's good, right? Told you I'd feed you better.

The right head tossed. A conflicted look. It licked its lips. Good meat. More.

Good Spikit.

The red light darkened, down into orange-blue. The tower was still there, standing straight, far away. For a moment, he imagined that he could still hear the voice, calling him to it.

...Till my sister can be repaired, and the swarm renewed...

Was that the source of the signal?

...Come all, come to the swarm...

No, just the wind.

He pulled lightly on the reins, and the Spikit agreed, turning to face the opposite direction.

Did you like the taste of that? I know where we can find a lot more, though we might have to dig a little. Might still be time....

A light prod, and they loped off together along the plateau, back the way they'd come, as night fell.

...And then we'd better find someone to warn about what might be waking up soon.

[outofgloom]

GOOD SPIKIT

He awakened in the dark of the hive, found that his mind was his own once more—what was left of it, at least. Dug his fingers beneath the brain-husk that covered his face, felt its sleeping mind try to resist him peeling it off. But the queen was dormant and distant, down below.

He was the first awake, the lightest of the sleepers.

Out into sunlight. Early morning. Horrible pangs of hunger and thirst. He tried to recall how long it had been, but memory was short amongst the swarm. All he had left was from...Before.

Escaping. Fleeing across a patchwork desert, a landscape that was both old and new. Escaping...but from what?

Drink from the fetid pool. Eat the creeping fungus. Hope it wouldn't kill him at least. He climbed the cliffside with newfound strength. A grassy plateau stretched before him, and the wind was cool and dry. The sky above him was...too big. Too open. Too long closed inside the mind of the swarm. Too long underground. Eyes down, he walked, and tried again to remember.

Escaping. He was escaping then, just as he was escaping now. Escaping across a patchwork desert....

Escaping from...Dreams.

Tracks in the soft earth. He recognized the shape, the claw-marks, saw the signs of grazing. A herd of them. Follow, as his shadow bent round beneath him. Follow and follow until he found what he sought.

It took a few hours, but at last he caught up to them. The herd was just beyond the ridge now. He peeked over the rise and counted... Twenty-two. Why did he count them? What did that matter? Some old habit, maybe...from before.

What do you seek? Your dream, it shall be granted.

No, too many. No more dreams. Please.

Escaping across a patchwork desert. Escaping from too many dreams.

What do you seek?

Spikits they were called. Yes, he knew that. Spikits, the two-headed beasts. One head stayed up while the other grazed. Hard to sneak up on, but he knew better methods. They were looking thin. Must be the narrow season for them, up here on the plateau with only grass. They'd be hungry for other things.

Hungry. Hungry for...dreams.

No, he'd escaped that too. Somehow he'd escaped, and he'd made his wish.

Hungry...

Not my dreams!

He lay still where he'd crept, a little upwind of the herd. The grass rattled, and he wondered if he should make some noise. Thought better of it—don't want to spook them.

Finally, movement. Two heads went up into the air as a scrawny Spikit caught his scent. The heads turned to and fro, then red eyes settled on him. The left head—that must be the dominant one. The right head tilted to monitor the rest of the herd as the beast loped toward his prone body. Closer. Closer....

Head bent down. Nudged him. His fingers clenched in anticipation. Yes, this is fresh meat. You want meat. No more grass for you.

The jaw unhinged. He saw teeth, smelled breath. Opened wider, then the bite:

Teeth clamped down on the makeshift metal bit that he'd fashioned from the remains of his helmet-spur, and he was moving with all his strength and speed, wedging the bit down further between the two largest back teeth, wrapping the grass-woven bridle round the head-spikes. The right head whirled as the Spikit backpedaled, but he was already on his feet, running with it, between the two necks. He gave the right neck a hard blow in just the right spot, and the right head flinched downward. Enough for him to slide a leg over, heave himself up onto the back, and pull the reins tight on the dominant head.

The Spikit was clearly not at full strength. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to hold on as it tried to shake him. Its croaking and shrieking filled the air, but he kept his grip tight on the reins and his knees hard against the flanks, as he'd done many times before, it seemed. Leaning side to side, back and forth, repeating his strike on the right neck when that head got any ideas.

The beast flagged. The rest of the herd had fled. The sun was starting to go down. He spent some time teaching his new steed the ropes. The heel-jab meant go, a pull on the reins meant turn. Good Spikit, good beast. Pats to the neck, in just the right spot. You're a good learner. No, not that way. Yes, good Spikit. Have a seed-husk. I know you like those. Say, there's greener grass across that way, round this ravine, isn't there? I'll feed you better than you've had. Let's see.

After a while, he chose a direction, off toward the setting sun. It felt right, somehow, like the wind made a good noise that way. And he rode, straight on across the tablelands. Escaping now. Really escaping.

It had been a long time since he'd rode bareback. No wagon or chariot. He'd liked the chariot, but it was probably a wreck now and rusting, somewhere beyond the horizon, along with everything about his past life. It all seemed unreal now, and he had a moment of uncertainty as the Spikit loped beneath him. Maybe it had been unreal, just a dream he had conjured through the mind of the swarm. There were memories of that time too, mixed in. Memories of battle...war, maybe? He alongside the others, fighting for the queen, fighting for the task: to purge the world. To return everything to the Before Time.

He shook his head. No. He'd had a life before the swarm. He knew that, even if the memories were a bit frayed now. There were too many for it to all be false. He'd known people. He'd killed people. He'd loved. He'd hated. He'd captured Spikits and Rock Steeds and Sand Stalkers and made them serve him. He'd raided settlements in the wake of the apocalypse...and enslaved the inhabitants.

And now...Now he'd felt what that was like. Just a fraction, maybe.

Escaping across a patchwork desert. Escaping from too many dreams.

He'd escaped the dream-eater somehow, the entity that had driven his people insane so long ago. And after that, he'd made peace with the cursed fate of his tribe. But then, when he returned, the dream-weaver had taken him. He'd thought that it was his ally, but instead it enthralled him, made him a part of its bizarre kingdom, for however long. He didn't know how, but that dream had ended too, and at last the veil lifted.

He'd fled then, into the waste, heedless of anything else but to get away. To get free. To escape....

Across a patchwork desert. Escaping from too many dreams.

His life was cursed, maybe because of his lineage. Maybe to pay for past misdeeds. But for that moment, he'd been free. No more illusions or false realities. He could breath. He could think. No more insanity.

A rumble in the distance, off where the mountains were strange. He hadn't seen those peaks before, and there were lights up and down the hills. The rumble growing closer.

And there was a mind. It touched his.

Her mind.

He'd dozed for a second, nearly slipped from his steed, but now he was awake. Lucky it hadn't tried to buck him at unawares. It was a good Spikit. Pats to the neck. Now, where were they?

The sun was very low. Almost gone. It lit the horizon into a jagged red line ahead. They'd come pretty far, but without a destination, it didn't matter much. Still, he felt somehow that they were going in the right direction. The wind still made that good noise, almost calling him, and—

And there was something on the horizon. He squinted through shading fingers. It was murky against the red, but as the sun faded, it became clear.

It was a tower of some kind. Ram-rod straight against the sunset. Unmistakable. He was aiming right for it. What luck! Elation rose in him. Good Spikit. We might make it there by nightfall, if we double-time. It's a good wind. It sounds right. It's calling me there. We're going to make it.

What luck...!

Her mind had touched his, and he knew that he stood no chance. Whatever She was, She was in terrible haste.

Flee the Great Wreck, She called, and all the units of the swarm answered back: Flee the Great Wreck and rebuild, till my sister can be repaired, and the swarm renewed. Come all, come to the swarm!

Frozen to the spot. The rumbling noise came up over the edge of the patchwork desert in a great wave of round metal bodies, and they poured over him and around him in their haste. He never even saw the queen, but felt Her pass by. Felt Her awareness touch him briefly. The briefest of commands. He could not even resist as they fastened one of the brain-husks over his face, and the voice of the swarm filled his ears and mind.

And just before the fear left him and the despair evaporated, just before that, he had a brief final thought:

This must be what it was like, for those he'd captured and sold over the years, back in the raiding days. Helpless. Knowing they stood no chance. Must be how they felt. He'd never really thought about it before. Maybe he should have.

Then there was no feeling. Just the swarm, calling him. A good voice. It sounded right....

A good wind. It sounds right. It's calling me there. What luck....

There had been no luck. It was a signal. He could hear it plainly now: a high-pitched tone ringing across the distance. He'd thought that he'd gotten away. She was asleep, dormant and deep below. He'd simply slipped the swarm's awareness, just this once.

But the signal was clear in his ears and in his mind. A signal of awakening, and he was responding to it. Elation. Excitement.

Make haste. You are the first, sent forth to make contact, to bring news back. News of renewal.

His hands raised slowly to his face. He thought that he'd—

All your skills are in service to the swarm. In service to Her.

...thought that he'd peeled it off, thrown it away....

Make haste!

The brain-husk was still there, covering his true face. He felt it throb at his touch. How had he not realized?

All your skills are in service to the swarm. To Her.

Was he still a puppet, simply acting out Her desires? No, She was asleep. He knew that. He'd felt it. Dormant and deep below. Her will wasn't on him, not at this moment. But he was still under its influence. He could still hear the voice.

But maybe...maybe he could....

He gouged at the fringe of the brain-husk suddenly with one hand. Viciously, and it stirred. Pain needled into him as he tore at it, got the tips of his fingers under one edge.

Agony. He writhed in his seat, and the Spikit kicked warily beneath him. The strength in his arm failed as the husk's own will strove with his own, and he dropped the reins.

Quickly, before She awakens. Before She comes!

Small movement in his vision, blurring red with the red sunset. The Spikit's right head glanced at him sidelong.

He raised his other hand to his face now. The husk didn't expect that. Both sets of fingers tore at the fringe behind his temples and under his chin, and he screamed, twisting and arching his back.

You have to...before....

The Spikit croaked and shifted again. The reins were free. The right head squinted at him darkly.

Turning his body back and forth, he felt the husk give way a little. Fire along his skin. He pried his fingers further, but....

She will awaken. She will know....

His arms were numb. His fingers wouldn't work. Couldn't push back against the brain-husk's will. It was too late, and now She would have him again—

Teeth. Jaw open. Foul breath. The Spikit's right head had taken its chance, snapping right at him, at his face.

But that was not his face.

Incisors pierced through the brain-husk and grazed his skin, and he heard the husk's voice leap and then die away. With the last of his energy, he twisted, flinched back as the jaws closed and tore the thing off of him. It ripped away and left his face raw and stinging, and he watched as the Spikit's right head bolted the strange meat of it. Gone.

The reins were back in his hand before it finished, pulling hard to head off the beast's inevitable attempt to throw him. Knees went in tight at the flanks. The right head whipped round again.

Surprised I'm still alive?

There was a moment of stand-off. His hand was raised to deliver a blow to the neck. The mouth was open, dripping spittle. Red eyes. Both breathing hard.

He patted the neck instead. Gentle with it. Good Spikit. Good...good beast. You saved me. The meat's good, right? Told you I'd feed you better.

The right head tossed. A conflicted look. It licked its lips. Good meat. More.

Good Spikit.

The red light darkened, down into orange-blue. The tower was still there, standing straight, far away. For a moment, he imagined that he could still hear the voice, calling him to it.

...Till my sister can be repaired, and the swarm renewed...

Was that the source of the signal?

...Come all, come to the swarm...

No, just the wind.

He pulled lightly on the reins, and the Spikit agreed, turning to face the opposite direction.

Did you like the taste of that? I know where we can find a lot more, though we might have to dig a little. Might still be time....

A light prod, and they loped off together along the plateau, back the way they'd come, as night fell.

...And then we'd better find someone to warn about what might be waking up soon.

[outofgloom]

Im in a discord with a few people who have bionicle-related projects and they were wondering about incorporating your matoric conlang in them if possible, but we're unsure on whether that would be ok with you so id rather ask first

I am always happy to see people incorporate Matoric and related stuff into their own projects. In fact, I'd say that's largely the purpose of the project: to provide inspiration and creative material for use in the fandom. If any of these projects become public in the future, I'd love to see them as well!

[outofgloom]

New masterpost to pin:

OC blog: @boriginalcharacter

Comics:

Pirates:

Volume 1: The Regathering

Volume 2: Thieves and Murderers (in-progress)

One-Shots:

Date Night: Bounty hunter Thode reunites with an old flame named Tayluu

Vs Zyglak: Toa Lesovikk defends a village from rampaging Zyglak

Sand And Glass: Order of Mata Nui agents Johmak, Krakua, and Winged Female Member stop a drug deal

Old Friends: Ekimu reminisces about a brighter past

Toa Orde in: Riddle of the Abominable Snowmen: Toa Orde helps a young Toa of Psionics fight a Dark Hunter

Zaria Infinity: Toa Zaria faces his demons

The Beacon: Beacon faces his destiny

[outofgloom]

alright back to catching up on mechtober... four months later. ack.

day 25: Hahli Mahri from Bionicle!

[outofgloom]

"Witch of Old Skralla"

Soldiers of the Second and Fourth Kingdoms marched upon the Iron Mountain of Angon, thinking to retake the ancient site of Roxtus in the name of the nascent Quadrate.

But to their dismay, they found that the Mountain was not uninhabited.

[outofgloom]

"Witch of Old Skralla"

Soldiers of the Second and Fourth Kingdoms marched upon the Iron Mountain of Angon, thinking to retake the ancient site of Roxtus in the name of the nascent Quadrate.

But to their dismay, they found that the Mountain was not uninhabited.

[outofgloom]

"Lord Dume"

When the Lords of Order fell, a new Order was needed.

And so, in the early days of that conflict, the Toa themselves took up the title.

Since then, it is to be hoped, they have learned humility.

[outofgloom]

We lost a long time member of the conlang community today. Jim Henry's primary work was his longtime personal language gyâ-zym-byn (frequently referred to as gzb), in which he was completely fluent. He'd journal in it daily, which I found astonishing. I used gzb in a reverse relay, where you use someone else's conlang to translate a text, and then send it to the conlanger who created the language. I spent time with him at a number of conlang events over the years, and was saddened to hear of his passing. If you have a spare moment today, take a look at gyâ-zym-byn. It was a large, impressive work. Jim will be missed. <3

[outofgloom]

REPLACEMENT

The itch had begun an hour ago, somewhere down at the base of her skull. She'd thought nothing of it at first. She was deep in meditative thought, doing what she loved best: postulating graph nodes and arcs, verifying loops and connection-points and—

It wouldn't go away. She tried to maintain focus, but it was no use. At last she stirred, rolled her shoulders and clacked her jaws in discomfort.

The noise awakened two of her brethren who sat in alcoves nearby. Their eyes glowed in the dark of the deep cave, annoyed at the disruption of their own meditations. She bared teeth, and they left her alone. She wished that she could dismiss the itch just as easily.

To her left, down below her own alcove, another of her brethren appeared in a puff of closing vacuum and stepped out onto the vast Amaja which dominated the center of the cave. The flat area was intricately carved with cartographic notations: the accumulated efforts of many thousands of journeys through the pathways of warped space which made up the universe.

She watched as her brother stooped far below to scratch a tiny addition to one of the many offshoots of offshoots of paths that made up the Great Map. Her eyes widened, and a sharp anticipation filled her: Her duty and the duty of all her people, was to maintain this map and to refine it, to keep the fixed points true, and to keep the Void at bay. It had been so long since the last Addition. She would have to study this new feature, trace its contours, commit it to memory, and then—

No, not right now. Right now...the itch! It was a mounting pressure, pushing everything else aside. She slumped against the stone and writhed, trying to shift her body, trying to get away, but she couldn't. Her jaw clenched tight, and she raised clawed hands to her head....

Something changed. She sat bolt upright, and the feelers on her head twitched back and forth. Her jaws click-clacked involuntarily, and the two pairs of eyes glared at her again, but she paid them no heed. A door opened in the back of her mind somewhere, and she was hearing something...seeing...knowing something. It was a path, down by the south margin of the larger whorl of the Map. Had it always been there? She'd never noticed....

Abruptly, her mind was there, though her body was not: Her awareness traced the pathways and alighted upon a desolate island, flanked by crashing waves and jagged rocks. This was new to her...she had never fully projected before—that was an ability reserved only for the elders, wasn't it?

The landscape impressed itself upon her awareness—dull rocks and clinging, silver lichen—and somehow, it was all familiar. How could that be, when she'd never traveled there before? Or maybe...maybe she had forgotten? Impossible.

The itching sensation consumed her again, and her mind was pulled further: Now a decrepit fortress rose in her vision. Once more she found that she knew the path, all the way in, through the walls, into stone.

A blue-armored figure tapped its foot in a gray chamber. Its eyes turned round the room, turned, turned...then fixed on her.

Those eyes were familiar too.

Another rush of closing vacuum, and her body vanished from the alcove in the far away cave. The network of the Great Map opened, and she skipped from junction to junction along the clusters of warp-veins and capillaries. Down a side-path, she felt her awareness fixate for a moment on a small islet, where a crushed corpse lay under the daystars, and she understood....

By the time she appeared before the ancient blue-armored Toa, more memories had solidified. Memories of training, of testing...but were they her memories? They seemed real, but how could she know?

"Botar," the Toa said, frowning a little. "Took you three seconds longer than usual."

"The...the Botar is dead," she replied, her tone flat. The words simply came out of her, like a pre-recorded message.

The Toa's eyes widened imperceptibly. A moment passed.

"Well," the Toa said, "it's not the first time. Do you know me?"

Memories of training, of testing....

"Yes. You are...Toa Helryx."

"Just Helryx. I am no Toa. Do you know yourself?"

"I do."

"And who are you?"

A crushed corpse, under the daystars....

"I am...the Botar."

"And the Botar serves the Great Spirit."

"The Botar serves..." she trailed off.

"...Yes?"

To maintain the map...to keep the fixed points true...to keep the Void at bay.

"The Botar serves the Great Spirit," she said, and again the words seemed like they'd already been said for her. "The Great Spirit has called, and I have come."

"Affirmative," Helryx replied, smiling a little. "Hopefully you weren't in the middle of anything."

Postulating graph nodes and arcs...verifying loops and connection-points....

"No...nothing."

"Good. Then let's get back to work."