The word sarcophagus tumbled out of Shepard's mouth like a stone, like a curse. It took a moment for Garrus' translator to catch up, but then the turian word came through his comms.
Tomb. It was just another word for tomb.
I can't say I'm surprised, thought Garrus, too exhausted for sarcasm. What else could it mean?
If he'd listened to that plausible, yearning voice, and laid his head next to Shepard's, the room would have been a tomb, instead of a trap.
The back of his neck prickled and flushed hot. Somewhere in the not-quite distance, his head ached, but he held the potential misery at arms'-length. He already had enough to worry about, right in front of him: Tali, still and quiet on the ground, the woman kneeling by her head, the darkness gathered and waiting all around them. And Shepard, her eyes locked in a staring contest with the woman, her private smile sharpening to a sliver of white teeth.
A bare handful of seconds passed before Shepard groaned and reeled away. "Hurts more than the last time," she murmured, scrubbing at her mouth with the back of her hand. "Fuck. It hurts. Can't think."
"Shepard?" Garrus swung the flashlight to follow Shepard as she staggered against toward the wall. "What are you — are you all right?" The words last time clattered in his head. When? And how could he have missed it?
"Horizon," said the woman. In the thin blue beam of Garrus' flashlight, her eyes flashed like an animal's. "Not all of them were Collectors," she said. "Not all. Some were sour, they were hungry, they followed the taste —"
He let out a groan of his own. There had to be a limit to the garbage spilling from the woman's mouth. There had to be a place where the cryptic half-answers stopped and the truth came out.
Shepard coughed wetly and spat to the side. "Not choking yet," she slurred. Garrus tore his gaze away from the woman and Tali — reluctantly; you don't turn your back on an enemy, you don't give them more weapons than they already have — and stepped closer to Shepard. She met his eyes with a dazed, weary smile, so pale the white of her eyes looked blue against her skin.
"It's always Akuze," she said, in a flat voice, calm as a dead sea. "I can't get away from it. Can't let it go. Haven't choked yet. That's something, right?"
Garrus opened his mouth, but Shepard cut him off with a shake of her head, wiping at the trickle of blood from her nose.
"I know why they don't want Alchera," she said. Garrus recoiled from how the words rolled out of her mouth as flat as paper "Most of the crew lived. Not enough to feed on. Akuze, that was me and Toombs. And now it's just me, because I…killed Toombs." Her mouth sagged in a broken line, and she would have tumbled forward, face-first into the ground, if Garrus hadn't caught her with his free hand and held her up.
Her dull eyes met his, no recognition in them, before her gaze moved past his face and sharpened so abruptly he pulled back, startled.
"No," she snapped. "Not me. Tali. Help Tali."
The cowl of his armor kept him from seeing more than the woman's hand reaching toward them, little more than a blur in the darkness.
"Nor," Shepard said. "Tali."
"You are —" the woman protested, even as she crouched again, but Shepard gave another hard shake of her head.
"I'm not thinking straight." Shepard reached up and gripped Garrus' wrist, squeezing until he looked at her. "It should have been the first thing I said," she said. "I can barely think, my head —" She pushed away from the wall, weaving a little even without letting go of Garrus' wrist. "I just hear that damn word, over and over."
Sarcophagus. Garrus ignored the slow clockwise turn of dread in his gut, and kept his eyes on Shepard.
"What the hell happened in here, Shepard?" Impossible to keep the harsh edge out of his voice; the way she said I know why they don't want Alchera still made him sick, made him dizzy. "That thing — you've seen it before?"
She gave him a weak, wry smile, dried blood flaking off her lips. "Which thing, Garrus?" she asked. "We're spoiled for choice here."
Frustration snapped at his control; he barely resisted the impulse to pull his arm out of her grasp. "I don't find any of this funny," he hissed. "The woman — you don't remember what she did, do you?"
Shepard paused. A grimace, not all from pain, flashed over her face. "Omega." She sighed. "Garrus, I don't remember, but you've got to believe me. Nor's not going to hurt Tali."
"Nor? She has a name? You - you've got to be kidding me." This time, he did pull his arm away, and took a step back. "You actually listen to her?"
The anger from his last days on Omega rolled sluggishly through him. Oh, he had hoped, seeing the old smile, that she would have something more than a handful of memories. Hadn't they paid enough already, to be allowed just one happy moment?
If not that, why couldn't she remember the woman, and how they had first seen her with her fingers tracing a bullethole in a corpse's armor? Or how a touch had sent Shepard spiraling away?
Grief didn't soften his anger; it coated the anger's killing edge with poison, and it burned as it moved through him. Three months. Ninety days. They were dead, Mierin had lost one of her boots and Monteague hadn't reached Ripper before they bled out, and how could he be angry at Shepard for not being there, when he had let Sidonis lead him away?
It would be so much easier to forget, to let it all go as you lay down your head and let your breath wash away the anger, the grief, the memory. Let this room be where you let your watch end. Memory is a curse that you do not need to suffer. No more of this dry ache. No more questioning yourself. No more —
He shuddered. The room was stifling, but his hide had gone clammy under his armor as the plausible whisper worked its way into his head. Yes, it would be easier to lie down and forget, but it wasn't what was right. It wasn't what was best. The possibility of rest tempted him: to feel nothing but the darkness rolling over him in quiet, patient waves until Garrus Vakarian was nothing more than a name, a footnote, a —
"Garrus."
Shepard's voice. Shepard's hand on his arm. Shepard's eyes on his. Pulling him back, anchoring him against the current. She said his name again, and again, until he nodded.
"She won't hurt Tali," she said.
The inertia faded; Garrus was himself again, with his aching head and sore legs. "How do you know?"
"Do you trust me?" Shepard countered.
The question startled him so completely it offended him. Did he trust her? He was here, wasn't he? He'd followed her again, back to the Normandy, on another mission into hell's mouth. After that, and after Ilium, she still had to ask about trust? His hand tightened around the forgotten flashlight until his armor creaked and his fingers ached. Of course he did.
Her eyes stayed focused on his, pale and steady. She already knew the answer, he realized. It was the same answer he'd give her if she asked do you have my six?
"Yes," he said, not for her, but for himself. The answer would always yes; armor against what whispered in the dark.
Her grip on his arm didn't loosen; it tightened, the pressure almost painful through his armor. "I trust her," she said. "I know it's hard, but she's here to help." Shepard winced, her free hand going to her temple, but she recovered almost instantly, her eyes still fierce.
Trust or not, Garrus nearly asked How? He remembered the empty, cold bed stretching out next to him, and his promise of waiting for five days. Being sure of Shepard was easy. The rest of the universe presented a challenge.
"It is done, Shepard," said the woman. Garrus turned in time to see the woman rise, hands clasped behind her back, and step into the shadows clustered along the wall. At the woman's feet, Tali groaned and pushed herself up on her elbows, lifting a hand halfway to her head before letting it fall back to the ground.
"Keelah," Tali murmured. "Head hurts. Belit? Vor? Are you —" She turned her head. The beam of Garrus' flashlight reflected off her mask, her eyes two dim sparks in a wash of violet. "Shepard, I — Garrus? What are you doing here?" She sounded sleep-drugged, voice a little blank with shock, but still so wholly like herself that Garrus couldn't find the words to reply. He thought he could smell her — engine grease, eezo, fabric dye, and something warm and redolent with spices — through the stale air.
Shepard let go of his arm and crossed the room. Slowly, with a hitch in her step that made his throat ache, but without a stumble. She crouched at Tali's side, with one arm under Tali's shoulders and her free hand pressed against the ground for balance. Her new armor didn't suit her; too heavy, too bulky. Garrus missed her old armor, with its sleek, predatory lines, her body familiar ground underneath it.
Dangerous, distracting thoughts. He focused again and brought the light to bear on Tali and Shepard's faces while he turned his hearing outward, listening for anything beyond their breathing or Shepard's soft murmur as she eased Tali off the ground.
"Take it easy, Tali," she said. "Might take you a minute to find your feet."
"I'm dizzy," Tali said, plaintively, younger than ever. "Did I hit my head? Are the geth still out there?" If they are, said the undertone in her voice, clear enough for Garrus to hear without subvocals, kill them all. Make them pay for what they did to us.
Thrace's voice spoke in Garrus' head, stern and implacable as a fortress. Debts that demand blood never get paid, son, said Thrace's voice, calm . Don't you ever forget that. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
You might be right, Dad, Garrus thought, hand tightening around the flashlight again. His arm was starting to ache. But that's not going to stop me from trying. Some debts you have to try to collect. Isn't that right, Sidonis?
The name set a brushfire in his head, but he shoved the name and the face away. Not here. Not now. He needed to save his anger, ration it out in small, frozen doses. He needed to get out of here first, with Shepard and Tali in one piece, and then he could go back to his hard bed and plan, piece by piece, what he would do to Sidonis when he found him.
Giving into his anger, letting himself dream of getting payment for that debt, was as tempting in its way as the voice telling him to lie down and sleep. He could lose himself in either, in rest or revenge and —
Not here. Not now. Shepard was calling his name.
He blinked, flushing and guilty, and met her eyes.
"Can you take Tali? I can't…" Her voice drifted, and he saw the trickle of blood from her nose had started to run again, thick, rich, and black in the beam of his flashlight. "I don't want to drop her," she said, with a weak smile.
Tali tried to pull away, weaving slightly. "Shepard, are you all right?" The moment she caught sight of Shepard's face, she gasped. "Keelah, you're bleeding! What happened?"
"Had a bad moment," Shepard said as Garrus eased Tali into the curve of his free arm. He couldn't get to his weapons now, but that thought didn't bother him as much as what Shepard had said did. A bad moment, she said, when what she meant was Akuze, awake and hungry in her head. "I'll be fine." She plucked the flashlight out of Garrus' hand and turned, pointing the beam at Nor, still standing silent and impassive against the wall.
Tali gasped. "I saw her." She pulled her arms tight to her chest. "Before the geth came. She was watching me from one of the bridges. I thought it was a mirage. I…" She shook her head, still staring at Nor. "What's going on, Garrus?"
He tried to find a way to explain — you were attacked by something that makes you live your worst memories all over again, which would have killed you, except Shepard distracted it, and now something that I hoped was a hallucination put your brain back together — but in the end, settled for saying, "Even for us, it's complicated."
Tali peered up at him, blinking, then looked back at Shepard without saying anything.
Shepard and Nor stared at each other, without speaking, two unmoving figures in black armor.
"I know what that cost you," said Shepard finally. "Thank you." The hand holding the flashlight shook, but she held herself straight, without wavering.
Nor nodded. She stepped away from the wall, hands outstretched, and Garrus felt a lurch of not possessiveness, but the need to put himself between Shepard and Nor. Tali seemed fine, but he couldn't shake the mistrust. Not yet, and not with Shepard.
"I could help you," said Nor, but before her hands reached Shepard — hands that were cracked in a fine web of raw, deep cuts that made Tali gasp again — Shepard stepped away. She shook her head.
"Don't waste it on me. I had my chance."
"Shepard," said Nor. "Let me help, this is not — this ground is sour, and you are in no condition to walk it if you do not let me help."
"It's time I stopped letting this chase me in circles." Shepard let out a dry, brittle laugh, and glanced over her shoulder at Garrus, almost smiling. Her words might have been meant for Nor, but she didn't look away from him as she spoke. His heart clenched. "But I've got to face it first."
Nor shifted, her hands twitching in the air, but she nodded and stepped back.
"And now that Tali's awake, you can finally tell us what the sarcophagus is."
"The Sarcophagus?" said Tali, tearing her gaze away from Nor with a jerk of her shoulders. "Where did you hear about that?"
Shepard whipped her head around, eyes wide. "You know what it is?" she said.
Tali nodded, shrinking back into the curve of Garrus' arm under Shepard's bright scrutiny. He felt like backing away too; he'd seen that look before, and even when he wasn't on the receiving end, it still made him feel like prey flushed from cover.
"Tell me," said Shepard. "Everything you know."
Tali twisted her hands together. "We're right above it. But it's just a room, Shepard. There's nothing in it. The geth took anything of value years ago, just like the rest of the compound. Why does it matter?"
"Everything matters," Shepard murmured. She swore, spat to the side, and swore again, one hand moving to the side of her head. Garrus' headache stirred, then faded as Shepard looked up, her jaw set. "How do we get down there?"
"There's a door behind you," said Tali. "Hidden in the rock. But I promise you, Shepard, there's nothing down there."
Shepard ignored her. The hard set of her jawline was all Garrus saw before she turned her back on him and Tali as if they no longer existed. Over her shoulder, Nor watched him, eyes gleaming in the dark, until Shepard found the handle and pulled it down.
The door opened with a dusty groan, cold air pouring out of a wide, lightless tunnel. Shepard sighed. The weariness in the sound carved its way through Garrus, down to his gut. He watched her wince, her fingertips brushing her temple; then she rolled her shoulders back, and he knew exactly what she would say before her voice traveled back to him.
Shepard stared into the tunnel for a long time. The air flowing out of the tunnel slid over the sunburn on her nose and cheeks; for a moment, she closed her eyes and sighed. Compared to the throbbing in her head, the sunburn barely registered, but relief was relief. Flaring her corona had let off some of the pressure, and bought her a few minutes, but it lasted a barely a minute before the pain crept in again.
If she thought medi-gel would help, she'd already have pumped herself full of it, but the only thing that could really fix her was too precious to waste.
I can find my own happy memories. Shepard opened her eyes and raised the flashlight. That's got to be armor enough, right?
Can you really, Shepard? asked a sly, near-contemptuous voice. You couldn't last time. Just focusing on the fight, trying to get through the day. You've done it for years. You couldn't find something happy in this head of yours if you tried. Give up.
She sighed again, audibly this time, and heard Garrus shift behind her as her sigh turned into a wince. Get it together, Shepard, she told herself, and straightened. If there's one thing you can do, it's keep going.
"Neither of you have to go with me," she said. Her voice echoed back to her, flattened by its journey over the rocks. "You should focus on finding a way out. I'll —"
Garrus' voice might have been chipped out of the rock itself. "Not happening."
Tali murmured an agreement. Shepard caught herself before she sighed again, and met Nor's eyes by accident, just in time to see Nor raise one shoulder in the infuriating half-shrug.
Shepard felt her mouth twitch in a smile. It didn't do anything for the storm waiting to break in her head, but knowing she didn't have to face whatever lay under her feet alone was another, unexpected relief.
She never knew how long the journey took. Only Tali's omni-tool still worked, but after trying to raise Miranda on the squad comm channel, Shepard avoided asking her to check the chronometer. It seemed like pressing their luck to know how much time had passed since she Charged into the observatory. Was it reluctance, or superstition? Trying to answer that question made her pulse throb a warning through her neck and temples. She let it fade into the distance, concentrating on the heavy tread of her footsteps and keeping the flashlight held high.
So they walked in silence, through a blank tunnel, as empty and blameless as a sky after a thunderstorm. Nor hovered at her side, staring at the side of her face, but Shepard ignored her. Given half a chance, Nor would crack the flesh on her hands down to the bone to help — Shepard was as sure of that as she was of the air in her lungs, as sure of Garrus and Tali's footsteps behind her. Shepard wanted the relief, but some quiet conviction told her to wait. You've had your chance, Shepard. Bear this. Carry it down.
Down and down, till the last of Haestrom's heat was gone and her breath fogged ahead of her. Shepard waited for Garrus to complain about the temperature — turians don't like the cold, Shepard, did I ever mention that? — but he didn't make a sound, not even when the moisture beaded on the smooth walls turned to slick sheets of ice.
Where am I taking us? She gnawed the inside of her lip and counted her footsteps. I'm trusting what I saw in a nightmare. God, I could be leading us into another trap.
No, she wasn't. Wherever they were going, whatever they would find, it wasn't a trap. Which didn't narrow the field of possibilities too much, but the conviction stayed. She had to keep walking, she had to carry the pain in her head. Just a few more steps, not that much farther now.
The tunnel abruptly widened ahead of them, to a yawning gap torn in the stone. Beyond it lay a cavern, filled with black jagged edges, and the sound of running water. Shepard stopped and looked at Nor, arching one eyebrow in a question she was too worn out to ask. So tired, tired enough to lie down and let herself freeze all over again. She could sleep until her lungs froze, and it would be a kinder death than fire. The cold would seal away her memories, just like it sealed away Omega, and she could rest, safe and forgotten. No one would call her name again, no more impossibilities. No more pain waiting at the edge of her skull, restive and hungry. No more —
Her body hadn't lost all its momentum. It carried her the last few steps into the cavern without her telling it to, only stopping when her boots splashed in shallow water. Ahead of her, she sensed a massive shape, stretching up out of sight.
"Shepard," said Nor — and was that dread in the spirit's voice? — "we have arrived. It is here. The Sarcophagus."
Shepard's first thought was blank awe. She turned the beam of the flashlight up to follow the shape filling the cavern. Black stone flowed in every direction in sprawling, jagged spokes, with a towering pillar filling the center of the room. The thing was too large to make sense of; even if light filled the cavern, her eyes could only process it in sections, like the way the veins of slick, oily color ran through the stone — color that she tasted, and heard, sweet-sour notes pricking along her tongue. /p
Silently, Nor walked ahead of Shepard through the dark water, stopping when it reached her knees, and stood as still and silent as the rock itself, her head tilted up.
"This is —" Tali made a weak, choked noise behind Shepard. A moment later, a second beam of light joined Shepard's, and Tali moved to stand at Shepard's left. "The records just said it was an empty room," she said, shaking her head. "I thought the name was a joke, but this is — I don't know what to say."
Shepard's mouth and sinuses ached. The space behind her eyes ached. Everything ached, and the sickly light woven through the rock wasn't helping. "No one get too close," she said, over a whispered Keelah from Tali's direction. "Until we know what this thing can do, we aren't taking any chances."
"Besides coming down here to begin with." Garrus circled around to her right. He plucked the flashlight from her hand and ran it up the length of the main pillar. "This thing is huge." His eyes met hers, and he tossed her a quick, unexpected grin she only caught thanks to the light from his visor. "The Thorian wasn't enough for you, Shepard?"
"You know me, Garrus," she said, fighting to keep her tone light as her head pulsed a warning and her vision wavered. "Never could resist creepy."
"And we've got that to spare." He hummed and backed away from the pillar. "It's just stone, but I don't like it. Probably sounds stupid, but after what we saw up above, I'm not trusting anything."
Shepard chose to ignore the barbed edge to his words, and moved carefully through the water, testing each footing before putting her full weight on it. Was this all she had seen in her vision? Dead rock and uneasy streaks of color?
A new burst of pain cut her off. Running out of time, Shepard, warned the sly voice. Better get thinking all those lovely thoughts. "It's more than just stone." Her voice rang distantly in her ears. "It's —"
Sleeping. Waiting. Yes, those were the words, or as close as she could get. The thing in front of her wasn't alive in any way she could comprehend —
No. She moaned, the color's taste thickening and curdling in her mouth.
I am beyond your comprehension.
Like the peal of a maddened, cracked bell, Sovereign's voice shuddered through her.
Before us, you are nothing. You exist because we allow it —
"They thought it would bring them immortality." Nor's voice cut across Shepard's mind like an arrow. "They did not know what would come after the Reapers rose, the sour ones, the ones who hunger, the ones who tasted your will and —" The spirit paused. "I am sorry, Shepard," she said, and Shepard sobbed, too late for dread to warn her away. "This will —"
— and you will end because we demand it.
When the pain hit — truly hit, and Horizon was nothing, nothing at all in comparison — she felt the blood vessels in her sinuses and the roof of her mouth break. Blood coated her mouth and throat, and twisted in her stomach, all copper and iron.
You are an insect. Your will is an affront to us. Lie down and die. This we demand. This we shall receive. Your little life is over.
No! Shepard clawed at her temples. She knew the voice. No, you bastards, I won't just lie down -
There were fingers in her mouth again, plucking at her tongue, sliding down her throat and up, into her head, where the pain salted her guilt. They would make a meal of her, piece by piece, and what they didn't want would slip under the water and be washed away. She was too heavy to float. Too heavy to fight. Akuze took up so much space.
Let it go. You lived. So live. Take the good and the bad. She pressed her hands to her temples as a fresh, vicious twist stabbed through her head. Take it all, dammit, and let Akuze go. Remember it, but don't let it choke you.
She'd never be free of Akuze, or any of the dead worlds she carried in her heart — but she could be forgiven, and washed clean. There would always be more dead worlds, more failures to pile on her back. The important thing was not to forget what good she had done along the way.
Simple truth, but oh, it had taken her so long to believe it. What else was true?
She was Commander Shepard, the first human Spectre, the captain of the Normandy, the savior of the Citadel. She was Hannah Shepard's daughter. She was still standing. Death hadn't been able to hold her.
She still had work to do, but she wasn't alone. The simplest truth of all: she was not alone. She never had been. Whatever the weight on her back, it would never be too heavy.
Live, she told herself, squeezing her eyes shut. It's that simple. For Mom, for Lamia, for Garrus, for everyone who gives a shit about whether or not you come home. For yourself, too.
For me.
The pain in her head crescendoed into a wail. It blotted out every other sensation, good or bad, but Shepard had her truth clenched in her fists: remember it all and live. Pressure exploded in her sinuses, blood filled her mouth, but she was Commander Shepard, and she held the words in her hands as the pain grew. She would not break, even when the darkness around her swarmed into her head, ready to carry her back to Akuze and pick the bones of her memories clean.
— no, no, living is more of this, over and over, oh lovely one, let us taste you and take it away, we will make you clean again, clean as water clean as snow you will be the snow driven through the mountains by the wind, let us drink down what is in your head and carry it far from you, our mouths are waiting for what you hold, your will let us eat your will, you will not need it, lay down and be free of all of this, we will make you free of this we will eat you, sweet one, eat you up —
No. She would not be eaten. She inhaled, fighting past the blood and bile in her throat, and focused.
All of it.
The light of the Serpent Nebula flowing over her mother's scent of peonies. Ash crowing over beating Tali at Skyllian Five. Waking up without an alarm. Lamia's hands running slowly through mnemonic forms. The first conscious Charge. Thick toast smothered with butter. Velvet moving over her bare skin. The fleets tearing Sovereign apart, the cheers from the Normandy as the monster blasted one long death note into space. Garrus sleeping, light gathered under his skin.
Not all the worlds in her heart were dead, and there were still worlds to come, after —
Something screamed. The sound rose from the rocks under her feet, not a living throat, and as the scream ratcheted higher, the pressure in her head sank back to echo in her bones.
All of it, thought Shepard, a golden joy bursting in her. I'll take it all.
Incredibly, she started to laugh, the sound buoyant against the scream. Could it really be this easy? Nothing ever was, but maybe, maybe it could. It had been so long since she had felt hope solid enough to clutch in both hands, and how strange to find it in a place so unforgiving - but she hoped, and laughed, the pain fading farther back with every moment.
The scream broke. Shepard opened her eyes, the last of her laughter fading, and caught Garrus' stunned look before the rocks under their feet cracked, and the Sarcophagus began to crumble.
Light - faint light, but hot and golden - began to shine on the far side of the cavern.
"Let's move!" Shepard yelled, and started to run.