Chapter 21
The pain. Dear God, the Pain!
Humans were cruel. Humans could be the most evil and vile creatures in existence, that I was at least conceptually aware of. What I wasn't familiar with was pain quite as profound as this. At numerous points after each round of torture, I would try to explain to myself exactly how hurt I felt but, I had no words for it. Each attempt left me with nothing, and each time I came up with nothing I felt a keen sense of dread. How much more pain I could take was fast becoming irrelevant, pain was a daily reality.
Had humans achieved such mastery over the body? Could they probe and prod the most sensitive parts of a body and maximise pain like this?
I didn't rightly know. In fact, the amount of time since I'd been captured was slipping away. Fast. Each visitation ended with hours and hours spent passed out and each waking moment was spent listening to the cries of other inmates. Each time the world returned to me a ritual began, one where I desperately searched for damage to my body but each time, all that I could feel was a pained throb from every part of my body. It made me tired, it made me want to sleep.
When I did, it wasn't sleep, just my body trying to protect itself.
The truth, was that I lost track of time after about a week.
Erun stood over me as I was tied to the floor, my armour discarded in the corner without a second thought and my hands and feet were grafted to a glowing set of poles that extended from the floor.
"We would complete the brand quicker had you cooperated." Ketarus said with a huff as Erun dipped his blade back into my shoulder.
Screams filled the room again.
I was ready to tell them everything, from the location of my house to the code to my damned laptop but they refused to stop whatever they were doing to my shoulder, the ice-cold pain tore through my body like the crushing weight of a glacier, carving its way through rock and stone..
"Please…"
Erun lifted the blade and my lungs wretched for breath, gulping and gasping as they tried to prevent shock from setting in.
"If you want it to stop, you should have given in when we asked." The large brute grinned.
Erun looked at me with mere contempt. It wasn't clear if he was enjoying this like the brute was.
"When I touched it…"
The pair of them kneeled to look at me, curiosity plastered across their faces.
"It took me to a memory, an old one, with my sister."
"Why."
"I-I don't know" I replied, bracing for more pain.
Erun dipped the blade again.
My screams filled my ears again. It was too much, there was no way I could ever be ready for this.
"I'm telling you! Damnit, just… stop!" the words came out like a savage growl.
"No. The brand must be completed. You had your chance."
They continued. For almost an hour they picked and prodded at my skin with the blade, carving and slicing a fairly simple layer of patterns into my shoulder.
"The brand is usually much quicker than this, little mouse." Ketarus said, pawing at his chin, "the prophets use a more… ethical method for our disgraced."
"But as you are not one of us…" Erun said, viciously, "you are an exception to the rule."
Ketarus laughed. "Erun takes this very seriously, his is a family line derived from the original ascetics."
"Is that supposed to mean anything?" I asked, genuinely, but through gritted, frothing lips. It might as well have been spoken in ancient forerunner for all the sense the covenant made. They often talked to me about inconsequential things, about religion, and about their journey into the divine beyond.
Ketarus chuckled and then boomed with laughter as he looked at Erun.
"No, little mouse, it does not. Maybe a long time ago, perhaps, but Erun's family still bares the spoils of that golden age of religious piety and truth-seeking."
Erun growled at the brute and stalked over to him, dragging the lit blade through the steel floor, sending sparks flying over me. In one quick movement the elite punched the Brute in the gut and growled at him as he doubled over, grinning through the pain.
"Mind your tongue or I will cleave it from your mouth."
"Heh, as you wish, Zealot." He said, his head bowed low in a mock sign of reverence.
"Now, you are to tell us. What it was that you saw?"
My body convulsed and my breathing became desperate against the reality that set it. Stalling for time wasn't going to work for much longer.
"Not… gonna finish what you started?" I gasped as he brought the shimmering blade to my neck. "You lost your nerve, split-jaw?"
Ketarus grunted, stifling a laugh as Erun obliged, scarring my shoulder flesh as he went to work.
"This is the brand of a heretic. Every Arbiter, every great betrayer, every enemy deserves one. You have joined the disgraced pantheon of Covenant enemies most foul, little mouse."
I screamed, the pain was too intense for a reply, but I needed to buy time. I needed to believe that there was always an end to this where the people of Meridian, and the secrets of Bornstellar's gift remained a mystery to the covenant.
After a while they paused and I panted like a worn old dog, sweat dripping from my brow as I tried to regain my composure. With a heavy sigh I decided enough was enough.
"I saw a memory but I don't see how that would help you, or me." I said, quietly.
"What was the memory?" Erun asked, the blade teased at my shoulder.
"A family holiday, many years ago. I was playing with my sister in the forest."
Erun dipped the blade.
I screamed.
"There is more to it than that. I know there is more to it than that."
"It was fuzzy" I admitted, gasping, I had to make this at least partially believable. "It was like everything was built from pictures and videos. Ones that I didn't recognise."
The lump in my throat refused to be swallowed.
"Don't suppose you know if that's normal?"
They looked at each other.
"Wait, have you ever actually experienced this?" I asked, my mouth open.
More silence.
"You mean… only humans have ever access them?" I grinned, trying not to laugh. "You really gonna tell me that you started genocide against us because we can play with toys and you can't?"
"Silence!"
"No. You want to know what I know; well you are going to listen. You are going to sit here and beg me for every word."
Erun began to carve the symbol until it was completed, the pain was as excruciating as ever, but this revelation buoyed my spirits, and I felt like I could take at least a few more days of this, now.
"It is done."
"I'll wear it with pride." I said, unaware of its shape or design, "It's not like any of you ever gave us a chance to not be heretics, is it?" I growled a low and guttural noise that put the large elite off for a moment. "Did you ever? Ask us, I mean, from what little I know, the Great Journey has similarities with some human philosophies."
"You were judged. And you were found… lacking." Erun said, cautiously. "The prophets can see and create what we cannot."
"So, what was it that makes your kind worthy of salvation, and us only condemnation?" I panted, thoroughly riled, pushing through the pain in my shoulder like a tank through a snowdrift.
"You defiled the holy relics."
"And your kind hasn't? Ever? What about before you met the prophets, were your views so homogenous then? Or did you just submit to their authority?"
There was a silence as Erun's eye's bored deep into my own. My shoulder killed, it felt like it had been submerged in acid, but I maintained eye contact. The brute, Ketarus, simply watched his comrade from the shadows in the corner of the room.
"You know nothing of my people." Erun spat.
"and you know nothing of mine" I replied, not skipping a beat, "and yet you murder us by the billions, cut us down in droves, all in the name of the God's you didn't even try to educate us about. It really doesn't take a genius, to realise that there might be a connection between your blind hatred of us, and the fact that only we can access the realms of the God's."
"You speak of them with the reverence of one of our own…" Erun said, turning his blade off.
"Well of course I do, I just found out that an ancient race of alien's conquered the galaxy. Then, you tell me they undertook a journey to a state of Godhood. Why, in the God's name, would I reject what is so clearly evidenced, so obviously true?" I said, lying with ease. I was impressed with the ease of it, the natural way that the half-truth came to me.
Erun considered this for a long time and even conversed silently with Ketarus on the matter as their expression grew grim and confused. They were an odd pairing, it didn't seem like a normal covenant partnership, given the segregation and animosity I had witnessed thus far.
Finally, Ketarus left the room, the door sliding silently shut behind him as Erun approached a nearby panel and shut off my restraints, dropping me to the floor.
A loud and pained groan escaped me.
"Thanks." I said, into the floor.
It appeared as though it had worked. Half-truths, misdirection, plausible deniability. What little I had picked up from Captain Drake would have to serve me well now.
Or I'll be dead inside a week.
He paced about anxiously. "Inside the dream, you saw something, didn't you?" he asked, looking like Zeus or Thor, Odin or Yahweh. Even in his slightly erratic state, he exuded physical power and authority, likely from a lifetime of being told that was his place.
"I did." My body hurt as it hauled itself upright. I sat panting, looking up at the large creature as he paused to take in the worm in front of him.
Let him think I'm weak. Play to his prejudice. Like all tyrants, hubris will get him eventually.
"This is why you speak of the God's in such a way?"
I nodded. That was true, of course I'd place the forerunners on a pedestal, they were ancient galactic conquerors! They made Rome, Britain, and the UEG look like principalities.
"Hm.." he pondered for some time, likely wondering what revelation to reveal to me, "According to scripture, the Great Journey ascended the greatest life forms in the Galaxy, taking them from this plane of existence and…" he searched for the word, "exalted them."
"Only the Forerunners were worthy?"
He nodded, "There are histories, in the rock of my planet, that suggest we weren't ready. That we were present at the time but not worthy to join in the path."
"When was this?"
"One hundred thousand cycles, maybe more."
"Humanity is much younger than you. We would have been apes at the time… A little more evolved than those Brutes you've thrown in with, but animals all the same."
Erun scoffed. It was quick, and I got the feeling he felt as though he shouldn't have done it but it was progress all the same.
"Why do you put up with them? I mean, the other one seems intelligent enough but I've only known their kind for a week and they don't seem like they contribute much religiously… less than some humans could anyway" I shrugged, as though it was a throw-away comment.
Erun grunted this time and turned away to face the door.
"It wasn't our decision. The Brutes are… useful, in their own way."
"Will they walk the path?"
"It is not for me to decide. The sacred rings decide. They are the arbitrators of our ascendency."
"Do you want them to?"
Silence.
"I don't think they deserve it."
Erun spun on his heels and stalked towards me, with a quick and smooth motion, he reached for my neck and grasped it, hoisting me into the air and choking me as I squirmed and shuddered in his viper-like grip.
"And you think that your kind do? You, who know nothing of the God's? You have sullied every step along our path for the last 20 cycles, you stubbornly fight against us with all the treachery and villainy of hell-spawn!"
In a fit of rage, a genuine sense of anger and indignation I croaked and thrashed in his hand.
"We deserved a chance."
The words were hoarse and weak. They were truthful however, and they were emblematic of the collective rage of humanity. It was unfair. We did deserve a chance, a chance to stand among these vile beasts. To decide for ourselves if we believed. The righteousness of Erun's words drove me on, kicking and frothing at him as he held me there, wriggling despondently against his grip like an earthworm yanked from soft earth.
He released me, allowing me to crumple unceremoniously to the floor.
"You deserve nothing. The God's have judged you unfit to walk the path, and so you shall be cleansed."
"Then you will learn nothing from me."
"You aren't in a position to stop me."
There was a silence, a short but calculated silence on the part of my captor as I glared into his eyes.
"Observe, Nishum." He said, kicking me in stomach. My body shuddered form the impact, my tummy lurched and cramped and a loud, pained yelp screeched from my lips.
He walked to a panel on the wall and fiddled about with something as I clutched my stomach, balled up into the foetal position in a reflexive attempt to protect myself. Erun ignited some kind of elctro-flogger. It was a ghastly device, albeit one that was expertly crafted. As the beatings began, I became increasingly familiar with its ornate and intricately embossed pommel and the brilliance of the plasmatic stun-tendrils that seeped from the handle like vines.
Erun brought it down upon me with such force that the contact of the tendrils burned my skin more than the plasma that coated them.
"It is designed to leave no trace." He said, proudly. "Millenia ago, my ancestors, the Ascetics, would use these to exact their punishment among the ranks." He struck.
"Rarrrgh!"
"Silently, we would pass through unruly and undisciplined units like a plague, purging and purifying the masses with ruthless and divine efficiency."
He paused and I flinched, eye's wide and searching, searching for anything that would save me.
He brought his arm down again, his muscly arms rippling as he slammed the device downwards, cracking it against my body and sending screaming bolts of pain through my body.
My breathing was as ragged as a discarded doll and my back ached as though I had been kneaded bread.
Erun seemed amused as I struggled against the pain to meet his gaze.
"Truly, a fragile race, aren't you? It is a shame that your physical prowess does not match your mental constitution. That would make you… worthy opponents."
"We're… more than worthy. You know that, right?" I coughed, slumped against the wall as my clothes hung loosely from my body, tattered and torn from the lashings.
I wasn't thinking, I just wanted to upset him.
"You want to know if I saw something?"
He nodded and I smirked.
"I saw an ancilla, an ancient helper" I avoided saying AI, I didn't want to undermine the divinity of his idols, I wanted him to feel betrayed by them.
"She said she had a gift…"
His face twisted and he clenched his jaws tightly like a pneumatic clamp.
"Not just for me, but for all of humanity. That the Forerunners held us in regard enough to take their place one day. That inside me now, is the path to a great gift, one destined for humanity – not elites!"
Erun roared and I flinched. Each blow melted into the next as my screams ran out of steam and devolved into unholy retching and gagging.
It was all over quickly, as I passed out before the beating ended. I felt myself dragged by the scruff of the neck out of the room, leaving my helmet and my dignity back in that room as I was pulled along, my clothes and body hanging limp on the short walk to a larger cell block. Most were filled with Kig-Yar but one had a lone marine asleep on a metal bench. He stirred as Erun grunted and tossed me to the ground like wet laundry.
"Damn they did a number on you- wait…" there was a pause as I whimpered in pain. "Maddie?"
I tried to move, to see who it was that was calling my name. My body wouldn't obey me however, and I remained static, simply grunting at the faraway voice as I confirmed that I was alive and slipped into a long bout of unconscious rest.
I}{=}{I
When I woke, it was with a low steely groan.
"Hey, hey, hey, easy there, kid, easy." He said, clumsily moving to my side.
As my vision returned, I noticed that I'd been laid out on the bench and tended to. My clothes felt tighter, as though they had been tied up a little and patched into something more dignified. The ceiling was before me and on my right shoulder if felt a dull throb as the marine placed a hand on it softly.
I swatted at it, "off, please, it hurts!"
He withdrew the hand and apologised, "I'm sorry, I didn't realise it still hurt…"
My head rolled to the right and, sat neatly on the floor next to me was Sergeant Jack Braeburn.
"Jack…" I said huskily.
"It's okay, kid, it looks like it hurt" he said, referring to the brand on the back of my shoulder.
"I hope you have no idea" I replied, darkly.
"Well, I've been through the wringer, but I've avoided torture so far." He said, that familiar twang of his shining through.
"I've been alone for days…"
"I know." He said, soothingly.
"I thought you were all dead. I thought that… that I would have to do it all on my own…"
"Well Drake got the orb away, I think." He said, sighing. "So, there's that at least."
I nodded.
"I was so careless. It got me captured, I thought I could be like you guys and like Drake."
"Hey, there's little to be done about it now, kid. Besides, if you were responsible for what I think you was… well I'd say you more than did your best."
A smile graced my lips. It was brief and forced, but it made me feel better to do it.
"What about you? Did you get up to much?" I asked, dryly.
"Me? Naw, I just got shot out the sky like yourself, except I was strapped in because of my injuries so when the split-jaws came looking, I couldn't run away. Awful shameful."
"It's nothing of the sort, Sergeant."
"Call me Jack… You're a civilian and I've never been one to care for status, kiddo."
"No but… I don't know, you seem to me like the sort of person who deserves that respect."
"Ha! Well, I'm not sure about that, I got a citation after what happened on the highway, think they were gonna demote me too."
He leaned back against the wall; his head tilted up as though he were looking up into a sky that wasn't there.
"Why would they demote you? You're a good soldier, and a good leader, too."
He smiled, "Too strong willed, I think."
"They'd lose a good Sergeant over that?"
He laughed, "naw, but they'd demote me for what happened on the bridge, for my outburst with the Major."
"Seems like a waste of a good man to me, that guy deserved it."
"That he did, but that's not the point."
"It isn't?"
"Soldiers need to have discipline. It's about trusting each and every man in the line to stand headlong in the face of overwhelming fear and terror and danger. You like your history, right? How many battles were won and lost on the discipline of their troops?"
I thought for a moment. The list was long, longer than the hours I had left to live, probably. There was countless battles fought by the Roman's alone, the British at Rorke's Drift, the American's lost battalion in the first world war, and the Norman's defeat of the Saxon army was due to a possible lack of discipline, too. It struck me then, how differently all of history could be, had a few men just held their nerve…
Or lost it…
I settled on a shrug.
"So, you see kid, I have to go. You can't have men that challenge authority like that running around leading the men."
"I hadn't thought about it like that" I said, picking at a piece of lose BDU that hung from my shoulder.
"That's because you haven't been put through basic. That's what you learn there, y'know? Most think you learn how to shoot, but really, it's about building a mentality."
"Is that why you seem completely unfazed by this?"
"Who says I'm unfazed?"
"I do"
"Well…" he said, sighing, "I figured myself for a dead man the moment we were left on that bridge. I should have died then, I should have died in the mall, and I should have died in front of the Chalybs building. I fear the good lord wants me dead."
"Maybe he wants you alive?"
"Ha! Why would he want that?" he asked, tilting his head.
"Wants you to suffer, probably." I shot back, making the beefy sergeant chuckle.
"Didn't take you for the religious type." He replied with a quizzical look that dampened my mood a little.
"Yeah, well… I was christened. We weren't particularly religious as a family but I found it… comforting." I said, blushing a little. It was true, I had never had any compelling reason to be as religious as I was but something really did make me feel safe when I said little prayers. Myself and God would likely have a long conversation when I finally did die about all the swearing, casual relationships and, now, killing that I'd done. My embarrassment occurred to me as Jack smiled warmly. My faith, while incredibly nuanced and passive, really did hold an important place in my life.
"It makes the loss easier to stomach, I find." Jack admitted. His vulnerability was apparent as his head drooped and rubbed a tear from his eye behind the guise of a fake yawn.
I nodded and my hands shook a little as the emotion in the small cell roared and fizzed with the intensity of a plasma grenade.
"It's harder still when you're not responsible for them" he added, staring at the wall in front of him.
"You mean easier?"
He shook his head, "No, if I was ordering them to do something, I'd know exactly why and whether it was worth it. I could judge myself properly. As an NCO, I'm flying blind. Don't know if I'm following the orders of an idiot or a murderer."
"Never had a good leader, then?" I said, picking at dried blood under my nails.
Jack turned to me and looked me over incredulously for a moment, as though he didn't understand; his face softened however, and he itched the back of his head. His cheeks simmered red for a moment before he replied.
"Sorry, kid, I forget you're not 'one of us' sometimes."
"Ouch." I said, reeling, had I still not done enough to earn their respect? What more could a person realistically do?
Jack seemed to realise this and stammered defensively, "I-it's not like that, I mean it's kinda the opposite of what you think. You blend in so well that I forget you didn't do basic or are even part of the corps."
My anger turned, in one sweepingly swift movement, to pride. "Oh" I said smiling, "thanks…"
"Er, well, so I forget that you haven't heard the old wisdoms of the fighting man." He continued, sarcastically. "My Drill Sergeant was a bit like me. Always tipped me for high office or a court-martial, providing the covenant didn't get me first. There was one day, after a really gruelling run up a mountain following a heavy meal, when I snapped and lashed out at my Lieutenant." He shifted uneasily and his face screwed up as he remembered the incident.
"He gave you hell, I bet."
"The Lt? Naw, my dumbass was stupid enough to do it all in front of the Captain and the Drill Sergeant. They gave me hell."
I laughed loudly, before checking myself and listening briefly for stirring from the guards.
Jack grinned and continued on, "In private though, when he had me alone, the Sergeant told me that officers, good or bad always fall under two categories. Those what get you killed by accident, and those that get you killed on purpose."
I blinked, "what does that have to do with the run?"
"Everything. He was telling me that command has its reasons, and that the best thing an NCO can do is work out what his superiors are telling him to die for. That Captain ran that exercise after a heavy meal because he wanted us to suffer together, to put distance between him and us and to prepare us for anything."
"He was a murderer." I said looking to Jack, who nodded in agreement.
"Now Captain Brant, the one you called a prick? He was an idiot. He made the right call on the bridge but you could tell it was an accident. Broken Clocks and all that."
"Well if I ever get out of here, I'll keep an eye out for which one Drake is…"
Jack smiled painfully, "Darlin' you know damned well which one Captain Drake is, those ONI guys? They're the coldest killers of them all."
"Every single one of them?" I asked, not quite sure as to what it was that I wanted to hear.
"Without fail." He nodded sagely, "Have to be. To do the Devil's work like that without breaking."
There it was again. Another damning indictment of my personal talents. How many had said I was suited to Drake's work? And why? Was I really capable of the things Drake was? Could I just order half a fleet to its death to give my mission a slim chance for success?
My body shuddered and I turned reflexively in shame. Jack, for once, didn't seem to notice and yawned.
"How many spooks have you met?"
He thought for a moment. "Enough to know they're trouble. You won't find a single man in green arguing with that point either. Those ONI guys are the best of us, and the worst. Hyper-lethal, quiet like a spring breeze and as vicious as any cobra." He coughed a little and winced in pain. "Drake is something else though, he's the first I've directly worked with."
"Really?"
"Yeah, most were just Lieutenant's out of Section 1. Recon guys, special ops, and intelligence officers. Officially there are two division's, military intelligence and propaganda but… I don't know, seems to me like you'd be naïve to think there weren't a dozen more."
"And Drake's part of one?"
"That man crawled out of the deepest darkest pit ONI have, if you ask me."
I shuddered and left it at that. It was hard to stomach the thought but it made sense, If the rumours about even the SPARTAN program were even a little true, then ONI was far more than an intelligence organisation.
There was little sleep to be had that night.
I}{=}{I
"The Prophet, in his infinite wisdom, has asked that we learn more about you." Erun said, gruffly. "So, I offer you the chance to learn."
My chest wheezed and I strained to look up at the Elite, who bore down on me like a laser. The last few days had slipped into a mindless routine of silent beatings and psychological torture. The only reason Erun didn't have what he wanted right now was because I'd been gagged for most of it…
Or passed out.
"Just… ask your questions and let's be done with it. I'm tired."
"Hmph." The Elite gruffly set down his tools and stalked around me, "why do you pick the planets you do? Why do you choose to pollute the places that you do?"
My brow shot up. It really was strange that they seemed to know so little about us. Surely it was for the same reasons that they did?
"Resources. Habitability. Strategic value." I said, happy to be using my voice again. Jack and I had barely spoken because I had spent all of my time recovering. "Isn't that how you choose a planet to settle?"
"We are directed by the God's. We go where they have been, to walk their path."
A simple 'no' would have sufficed.
"The God's do not favour us, we just get lucky, if that's what you're wondering." I replied, showing as much deference to their God's as possible.
Lucky. Yeah, right.
The elite seemed to buy that but held his distance as he continued to circle me. "Why then, as we get closer and closer to our goal, do we meet harsher and harsher resistance?"
"Well, you are committing a genocide" I growled in disbelief. "What did you expect us to do?"
Thankfully the Elite conceded the point.
"You think we're some kind of divine target, don't you? We aren't, we were just born on a little blue dot and expanded out into the stars one day. We aren't special, we just happen to be on your path!"
"Liar!" he growled, snapping and reaching for his tools.
"No! I promise! No one knows anything about your God's. I swear." That was a lie. Drake probably knew more, but the truth was that I and the rest of the human race, ONI aside, were totally and utterly in the dark about it all.
"Why then, did it speak to you? Why can humans communicate with the relics of the God's whilst we SUFFER IN IGNORANCE!" he roared and tore a shelf from the wall, flinging it across the room and denting the metallic purple wall on the opposite side, barely missing my head as it whipped sharply by.
"How should I know? I'm 16! A month ago I worried about boys and dresses, I hadn't even heard of the forerunners until I got picked up by the Captain."
Erun paced, his anger flaring again.
"What then, is so important about you, that makes you worth a damn to that proto-demon?" he seethed, crouching so that his eyes were level with my own. His breathe smelled like oat mixed with starch and his eyes burned with yellow fury.
I swallowed. "I-I…"
He stood for his tools and all my hesitation melted away.
"Admiral! That's what, m-my grandfather is an Admiral. The Captain realised who I was and received orders to get me off the planet."
"Which?" he said, his eyes narrowing.
"H-Harper" I stammered as he moved closer still.
"I know the one of which you speak. He is… prolific."
Erun's praise stirred a little pride in me. That pride overruled the fact that I felt I had doomed myself. I would be killed as revenge for whatever my grandfather had done but at least I'd die knowing he'd made them hurt for it.
"Do you know where he is?" he asked, circling me.
I shook my head, "would you tell your granddaughter where you were being deployed?"
"My children are not allowed to know me at all."
"To avoid things like this?"
"To stop lineage and bloodlines from getting in the way of those destined for greatness."
"That's… progressive" I noted, "you have fiefdoms?"
"I do not know that word." He replied without shame.
"Like, family holdings."
"Our name is tied to the land, yes. The leader of the Keep is the strongest of the clan, my family stretches back thousands of cycles. The lands of Jag'am once held the highest office in our society."
"Can I ask what changed?"
Erun paused his encirclement as he stalked around me and I felt his eyes burning the back of my head.
"The Ascetic Order was dedicated to uncovering truths, inconvenient ones." He said, his voice quieter and less resonant than it was before. I tried to look at him but I remained pinned in place.
"They called it heretical, didn't they?"
Silence.
"It happened in human history, too. Minority groups, small societies, they all felt the hammer of the state."
"The Prophets are not a state. They are law and truth, there is no politics where they are concerned."
I stifled a laugh; it was strange that such advanced life could be so naïve. It made Erun a little less terrifying, truth be told.
"Well, we humans aren't so advanced. There are hundreds of examples of it happening, there was the Free-mason's, the levellers, and even religious groups like the knights templar or the Jewish diaspora. It's just what happens when small, easily identifiable groups become a little bit too powerful. Even prophet's scare. They aren't God's, they're not infallible."
The last part was a bit of a gamble on my part, and my body tensed, waiting physical reply.
"The nature of the order was… problematic for the covenant." Erun said, before walking in front of me once more.
"Not heretical?"
"Inconvenient. It was a judicial body, mostly, it was said that our agents ruled over Sangheili society like veins of blood in the body. Mostly unseen from the surface but totally intwined with the systems that make it run."
Ah, so it had been about power.
"You resent them for that, don't you?"
He froze and growled.
"Resent them? The prophets purified the stain that was the ascetic order. Heresy and vile mistrust dominated our empires, all of them feeding like maggots upon the corpses of truth, honour, and the revelations of our God's."
I searched for something to say but came up with nothing as he scowled and paced.
"My family are committed to the cause to this day. Tradition does not die easily among my people, we fought against our own prophets, ignored their cries as we decimated their numbers with the ascetics leading the way."
"You want redemption then?" I asked, my body screaming at me as adrenaline coursed endlessly around my body.
He scoffed. "I serve only for penance." He paused, sitting before me and scratching his head, "what do you serve?"
The question took me aback a little.
"I don't fight for anything other than survival."
"You lack honour."
"No" I said with a firmness that surprised me, "I just don't know what I should be fighting for. A month ago, my biggest worry was who to invite to my school prom. If I lack honour, it's because you and your people forced me down this path."
The Elite almost choked.
"I wouldn't be here if you had kept to yourself, or just talked to us when you made first contact."
"The path is obscured by much. Little has obscured our journey greater than you. Tell me, when the device spoke to you, were you impressed? Awestruck? Did you realise your inferiority?"
"The device said nothing about our inferiority. Just a load of garbage about gifts and journeys."
The Elite chose not to take offense to this. Inquisitively he leaned forward, "When you were spoken to, did you misunderstand because it was… vivid, or because of what was said?"
"Both…" I admitted, trying to straddle the line between truth and misdirection as best as I could, "I am… uneducated on the forerunners. My dreams have been strange, muddled even, and I couldn't make any sense of it beyond some vaguely familiar words."
"Dreams?" Erun said, salivating. "Not visions?"
My mouth dried up and he stood. Moving to that damned weapon lying on the floor not far from me. I searched for a way out. I knew what this meant.
But no words came.
Just screams.