Gumshoe

by Keltoi

A murder in the Throne World. A plot in the City. A feud between Warlocks. One Hidden agent has to tackle it all.

He looked up from the datapad. "You can't be serious."

Ikora frowned. "Lisbon..."

"You can't. I said-"

"You're familiar with these systems."

"Only because you put me through them," Lisbon-13 sullenly muttered.

"There was every chance to leave that assignment behind," Ikora reminded him. She looked so proper, sat in an office chair behind her sprawling desk. So official. "You could have left. You didn't."

"You know why."

There was a pause.

"This investigation is yours, if you'll take it," Ikora said slowly. "I hope you will."

"It's more Aunor's work." Lisbon-13 scrolled down the datapad she'd given him. "Suits her to a tee."

"This one's different."

"Oh?"

"It requires a..." Ikora hesitated, "a more thoughtful approach."

"Someone who won't muck it up," Lisbon realized. He felt exhausted. "Someone who won't break what little we understand by simply touching it."

Ikora nodded. It was a quick, minute motion - something easily missed. He caught it. He was quick like that. He had to be. Used to be someone else was on the lookout for it, but now...

No. No more of that. Leave it at the Altar. That was... too much.

"Will you take this case?" Ikora asked. She said it with concern and understanding both, trying to present a place of support. Lisbon only saw how she pleaded.

"I'll take it," Lisbon-13 exhaled. Feigned a heavy sigh. However that was supposed to go.

Ikora sat back. Finished at last. Trying to gather her strength. "Thank you," she said softly.

Lisbon-13 turned and left. He gave no goodbyes. She knew not to expect any. Not from him.

---

It was late when he returned to his ship. Late enough for him to call it a day. Lisbon set the datapad aside, fell over the top of his bed's covers and simply laid there. What remained of his humanity urged his eyes to shut, his mind to quieten. It demanded. Lisbon resisted, stubborn to the end. Even at his own detriment.

The urge won out, after hours of fierce internal squabbling. His optics offlined and his hands interlocked on top of his chest and he drifted off to troubled sleep. He dreamed - not of a golden field or a tower in the distance, not of an army wearing the faces of everyone he'd ever known, none of that. He simply dreamed of her. Her discreet, knowing looks. Her hollow smiles. Her eyes, electric at last as she exulted in freedom beyond anything she could ever have conceived of. He remembered how the moment her chains fell away, she flew.

And then - she dove.

He was helpless to follow.

Lisbon sat up with a jolt and scrabbled at his chest. His fingers traced over the spot where she'd last touched, across his sternum. Where her power, burning cold had pierced him through and through. He tried to remember the good times - and it turned to ash in his mouth; hollow. It was all hollow.

It left him hollow.

He pushed out of bed and grabbed the datapad, switched it on. Piri peeked over from the corner of the room, but he ignored her in favour of reading the files Ikora had given him. She floated over, settled on his shoulder and stayed there, following along as he scrolled down and down and down.

"This isn't you," she whispered.

Lisbon stopped and offlined his optics. "There is no me."

"You've changed."

"Yes."

"She broke you."

"... Yes." Lisbon turned his optics back on. "This is how it is, now."

"A body in the bog," Piri remarked. "It's an odd job."

"Supposedly important."

"You used to track Archpriests through Old Russia. Not... this."

"It needs doing."

"Give it over to someone built for it."

"That's what I'm trying to do," Lisbon said quietly.

"What? Build yourself a new life?"

"Why not?"

"Because you won't let yourself leave your old life behind, Lisbon. At every turn you try to remember, then forget, then remember all over again. You won't change."

Lisbon disagreed. He didn't say as much, but he couldn't listen to Piri and just nod along. That was too defeatist for him to humour. He shrugged her off and returned to the file.

"It's just a corpse," Piri said. "They're dime a dozen. 'Specially back in that twisted hellhole."

Lisbon scrolled down to the bottom. His optics hovered over the name - to the Guardian identified. "Not this one."

"Who- Oh." Piri paused. "So that's why Ikora wants you in on it."

Lisbon's fingers tightened so hard the screen cracked. "Yeah," he said. "Maybe."

---

The City morgue was a cold dark place only a couple of blocks down from the old Tower, sat on the edge of a desolate street still scarred over from the Red War. It was early enough in the morning that the sun hadn't risen and the city could almost be considered quiet. There was an undertaker waiting by the entrance for him - a mortal woman, dark-skinned and bespectacled, with a clipboard cradled in the crook of her arm.

"Hi," she said, disarmingly eager. "I'm Jemimah. You must be Lisbon-13, Hidden Hunter?"

"The same," Lisbon grunted. "You have a body for me?"

"Uh, yes. Yes we do. Please, follow me." Jemimah walked inside and held the door for him. Lisbon obligingly followed, offering her a nod of thanks. She led him through the squeaky-clean reception, down through a hallway flanked by office after office and then split off down another, adjoining corridor. "Special containment," she explained, opening another door - heavier and built of steel as cold as ice. "This is where we keep the remains of the not-so-dead."

"Not-so-dead?" Lisbon questioned.

"Oh, right. Just our little lingo." She laughed to herself, then stopped when she realized he wasn't joining in. "Sorry, uh... it's for the remains of Guardians whose Ghosts are still missing in action."

"The unconfirmed dead," Lisbon noted. He nodded along. "I see."

They stopped by a wall dotted with hatches. Body-freezers or whatever they were called, Lisbon mused. Jemimah walked to one at the other end of the room and pulled it out. It slid easily on well-oiled rails - a whole stretcher with a massive black body bag arrayed across it. Jemimah took a deep breath, reached for the zipper and pulled it down just as far as the corpse's navel.

"There you have it," Jemimah said, exhaling heavily. Her smile had disappeared. She fidgeted uncomfortably.

Lisbon stepped closer. He looked at the face - both blue with cold and an Awoken's sunless hue. He noted the hair, red and neatly braided. He looked down at the corpse's chest and saw a neat mark over where its heart would be. A knife-wound, looked like. Something sharp, but jagged. No clean steelwork. There was chiseled bone at work. Or shell, chitin.

Jemimah lifted her clipboard. "Let's see... Nasarya, Warlock, thirty-five years old. She came to us some two days ago, found another day before that. In-"

"Savathûn's Throne World," Lisbon finished. He reached for her - and only just managed to stop himself. Jemimah saw, her eyes widening, and she cleared her throat.

"Did... did you know her?" she asked.

Know? No. Not really. "We met once or twice," Lisbon-13 muttered. His hand fell back by his side. "Friend of a friend."

It was HER friend. HER peer. HER fellow Warlock. It always linked back to HER. Lisbon felt some of that old hate, that old love claw at him from inside and he shoved it all back down.

"Right," Jemimah said slowly. "I'm sorry."

"No loss of mine."

"... I see." She hesitated. "Should I go on?"

Lisbon motioned to her. "Please."

"'Kay. Cause of death is..." Jemimah gestured to the stab wound, "traumatic incision to the chest with some kind of blade. Cut right through her ribs and heart both."

"Evidence of soulfire?"

"Excuse me?"

Lisbon looked at Jemimah. "Were there trace elements of soulfire? This is the work of a Hive weapon."

Jemimah floundered. "Uh... some? We ran her over with a spectral analyser, but given how long it took to port her remains back City-side, we can't be sure if the Soulfire essence present is the result of degraded venom or just latent toxins from the place she was found. It was outside the new fortress, as I understand it. In the old Throne World."

"Harvest."

"Pardon?"

"The case file says they found her in Harvest," Lisbon elaborated. "The Dark City."

Jemimah nodded slowly. "O-okay."

"And her Ghost was nowhere to be found?"

"No." She looked back at her clipboard. "Ghost's name is... Toph. No distress signal documented. They just... slipped off the grid. Then they found her like this. No sign of Toph. He wasn't anywhere nearby."

"How long ago?"

"Sorry?"

"How long ago did they disappear?" Lisbon asked. "And where?"

"Um... a week, it looks like. At least on official logs. And Nasarya had announced she was investigating a Hive resource-shipment on behalf of the Hidden." Jemimah put her clipboard aside. "Her equipment was in superb condition and... well, relatively untouched. Most of her documented ammunition clips were still on her person when they found her."

Lisbon cocked his head to the side. "So whoever killed her took her Ghost and only her Ghost."

"Seems so." Jemimah hesitated. "That means... a Hive killed her?"

"That's what it looks like."

"Are you sure it isn't Scorn?"

"Scorn weapons are more obvious, more blatant," Lisbon explained. "And besides, if it were Scorn we'd have less to work with."

"How do you figure that?"

"Scorn are liable to eat their kills."

Jemimah froze, then shivered almost violently. "Oh," she said faintly. "Then..."

Lisbon inspected Nasarya a couple of moments longer. "Yes..." he said thoughtfully. "This definitely looks like Hive work."

"I see," she said faintly. "Can... can you track down the Hive responsible?"

"Perhaps."

"Will they have kept her Ghost alive?"

Lisbon shrugged. "Maybe. Lucent Brood aren't Light-hungry like other Hive are."

"So there's a chance?"

"Not even a little."

Jemimah frowned. "Why's that?"

Lisbon shifted. "Because it wasn't Hive that took her Ghost. Or that killed her."

"But you said-"

"That it looks like Hive work." Lisbon raised his head. "That'll be all."

"What are- Wait," Jemimah blinked. "You're leaving? Already?"

"Yes."

"But-"

"Thank you, Jemimah." Lisbon stepped back. "I know the way out." He started to leave, then stopped. "Actually, was there anything directly on her person when they found her?"

Jemimah nodded. "Yeah. Just about everything a Guardian would pack."

"Send me one of her guns. And her helmet."

"Uh, sure. We can do that."

"Thanks." Lisbon left.

---

/VANNET/VANGUARD-AUTHORIZED SECURE TERMINAL/ENCRYPTION ENABLED/
/TRANSMISSION ORIGIN: LAST CITY OF EARTH/
/AUDIO CONVERSATION LOG/
/USER: LISBON-13—VIP#0357/
/USER: IKORA REY—VIP#0006/
:: Thank you for using VANNET ::
:: Your conversation may be recorded ::
:: Connecting you with your party / TOWER COMMAND::

LISBON-13: I see now why you wanted me on this case.

IKORA REY: How are you feeling?

LISBON-13: No different than before. What happened to Nasarya?

IKORA REY: That's what I want you to find out. Be thorough, Lisbon. If there's any chance Toph can be saved-

LISBON-13: He can't.

IKORA REY: Are you sure?

LISBON-13: It wasn't Hive that killed her. You know that. That's why you're involving me.

IKORA REY: I assigned this case to you because you might see something the rest of us have already overlooked.

LISBON-13: Figured as much.

IKORA REY: I've heard that you requested Nasarya's personal effects be transferred into your custody.

LISBON-13: And?

IKORA REY: Evidence is already en route. Are you going to bring them to the Altar?

LISBON-13: Memories are skewed. Our eyes are liars. I'll take a look after I've drawn up the frame of a picture.

IKORA REY: That could plant personal bias.

LISBON-13: Bias was a risk the moment you shoved this my way. Nasarya was a friend of Rekkana.

IKORA REY: Once.

LISBON-13: Was Nasarya interviewed? Was she-

IKORA REY: She wasn't a Cryptochron.

LISBON-13: They were of the same clique. Same coven.

IKORA REY: Of which most are now dead.

LISBON-13: Cuts down the list of suspects, at least.

IKORA REY: You think it was someone close to her?

LISBON-13: I'm not making any assumptions yet - but a Guardian's dead and it wasn't Hive, though they tried to make it look like it. First port of call is to bounce between her friends and her enemies, see which is which.

IKORA REY: Nasarya was a liaison for the Vanguard with the House of Light. She had plenty of enemies.

LISBON-13: I'm aware. Should start with where it all began, then.

IKORA REY: You mean-

LISBON-13: The Warlock who taught her. Who taught Rekkana.

IKORA REY: He had no more idea what she was than you did.

LISBON-13: So I hear.

IKORA REY: She betrayed him as much as she did you, Lisbon.

LISBON-13: Yeah, I bet he's so broken up over it.

---

It was midday when Lisbon finally arrived at the apartment complex. Most everyone was out by then, for work or school or otherwise. He rode the elevator up to the forty-third floor in silence. There wasn't even a peep from Piri, squirrelled away in transmat as she was. The elevator stopped, dinged, and he looked out, scanned the hallways. Empty. Clear. Lisbon dragged his fingers over the rough grip of his hand cannon as if for comfort and walked down - stopping by the room numbered 1134. Lisbon reached for the doorbell, then thought better of it and rapped his knuckles against the wooden frame. He waited.

The door opened a minute later. Ikharos Torstil stood beyond, dressed so casually Lisbon almost didn't recognize him. He had a chequered shirt and ripped jeans on; nothing like the illustrious robes he'd been expecting.

"Oh," Ikharos said. His eyes, hard grey flints, settled on him. He was a thin man, tall. His long auburn hair had been tied back into a tail and his full beard looked freshly groomed. "Lisbon."

"Lord." Lisbon-13 inclined his head. "Can we talk?"

Ikharos scrutinized him. "I suppose we can," he said. "Come in." He held the door open. Lisbon stepped past him. The main room beyond was richly furnished and immaculately kept, though the window blinds were still drawn. A soft red lamp sat on the coffee table, feebly swatting at the darkness that threatened to envelop everything.

"Sit," Ikharos said, filing past him. The Warlock disappeared into the kitchen. "Whiskey?"

"Please." Lisbon sank down on the couch by the table and waited. A Ghost appeared in the space opposite him, her orange eye fiercely aglow, and she glared at him before flying after her Guardian. Ikharos soon returned with her at his shoulder, carrying two glasses and a clean bottle full of some Golden Age vintage.

"Found this in Geneva," Ikharos explained. "Old stash I'd all but forgotten about. Buried it some time before the Kings picked the place clean. Just picked it up a couple of months back." He set the glasses down, popped open the bottle and poured them each a generous amount. Lisbon murmured his thanks and lifted his glass, swirling it gently.

"How've things been?" Ikharos asked. He sank down into an armchair. His fire-eyed Ghost landed on top of the headrest.

Lisbon-13 shrugged with mechanical proficiency. It was a hollow motion. Fit him just right. "Some days good," he murmured, "and some days... not."

Ikharos nodded sympathetically. Somehow it didn't strike Lisbon as strange coming from the old Warlock. It should have. His earlier notions of the man was of a grim-faced reaper standing atop a mountain of violence and hate. "It's never easy, that," Ikharos said. "Losing the ones you love."

Ah.

He knew, then.

That made things both a little easier and a whole lot more difficult.

"And she loved you right back, in her own way," Ikharos continued, unperturbed by Lisbon's silence. "Every good actor falls a little for the characters they play."

"Never asked to be in a musical," Lisbon grunted.

"No musical." Ikharos smiled ruefully. "Ours is a classic tragedy with increasingly brutal twists."

Lisbon sipped his drink. It was strong and burned going down, but the initial shock quickly gave way for a soothing warmth. "Good stock," he mused.

"One of the last of its kind," Ikharos elaborated. "Don't just throw it back. Savour every drop while you can."

Lisbon dipped his chin down to his chest. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

There was a long pause.

"At what point did you realize?" Lisbon inquired.

"About Rekkana?" Ikharos asked

Lisbon winced. He tried to hide it, but it escaped him too quick to smother. "Yeah," he said in an empty voice. "Rekkana."

Ikharos took a deep breath. "I knew from the get-go something wasn't quite right," he said, "but nothing ever is with those I take in."

"But she was the only Cryptochron under your wing?"

"I assume so. If not, then there's nothing more to be done. Most are dead and the others... well." Ikharos looked away. "There isn't a big list and I'm finding it remarkably easy to cross off what names remain."

"How many?"

"Hm?"

"How many did you personally train?" Lisbon questioned.

Ikharos took a moment. "Nine? No, ten."

"I was expecting more."

Ikharos harrumphed. "People are annoying. Couldn't give a toss about most of the Warlocks that pass through the streets these days. It takes something special to catch my eye."

"And Rekkana did?"

"She was strong. She was patient. She had the potential to be something incredible."

"And she just threw it away," Lisbon sighed.

"She did. But that's the Warlock way," Ikharos said, uncharacteristically gentle. "An old Titan becomes a military commander, a bastion to stand behind. An old Hunter becomes a trailblazer, walking the hidden paths of the worlds we used to own. An old Warlock simply turns insane. Rekkana just tipped over that edge far earlier than is the norm."

"You're old," Lisbon-13 pointed out. "Older than most. Bordering on the oldest on record, actually."

Ikharos smiled thinly. "What makes you think I haven't snapped already?"

"Not yet," a third voice cut in. Ikharos's Ghost quickly decompiled as a new, distinctly more macabre face swung up to replace it - a narrow black skull with long, wicked fangs and two ivory horns framing its alien head. Claws skittered around and traced the air over one of Ikharos's shoulders. The Warlock tensed.

"Go away," he whispered.

The Nightmare, cast in a soft, translucent red hue, laughed throatily. "Make me," she dared.

Lisbon sat back. He'd reached for his 'cannon, but then thought better of it. "A Wizard," he remarked. "You should get that checked out."

Ikharos's eyes flashed violet, brimming with smoky Void. "Don't press it," he warned.

"Oh, don't worry dear Hunter," the hallucinatory Hive witch purred. "He's perfectly fine as he is. Teetering close to that thin, thin line, but still the very picture of health. Of strength. Of ferocity."

"I will fucking kill you," Ikharos seethed. Violet energy flashed from his eyes, radiating Voidsmoke.

"We're having a conversation here," Lisbon said, raising his voice. "Can you give us a minute?"

The witch eyed him. "A minute," she relented, "and nothing more. He's mine." She slithered back into the cover of darkness and disappeared.

There was another long pause. Ikharos hunched over on himself, his fingers tightening around his whiskey glass, and he breathed heavily. The purple in his eyes faded away.

"Does Ikora know?" Lisbon softly asked.

Ikharos numbly nodded.

"Eris?"

"Don't talk to me about her," he snapped.

"What about Nasarya?"

Ikharos straightened up and glared. "Get to the point," he snarled.

"Nasarya's dead," Lisbon said matter-of-factly. "And her Ghost is gone."

The fire in Ikharos instantly quenched. "I know," he sighed. "I know."

"You do?"

"She stopped answering my calls." Ikharos looked away. "She always answered my calls. Her or Toph. Always."

"And that's all it takes to think one of your students has died?"

"You don't know her like I do. You don't know them. They... it doesn't matter. How did she die?"

"Hive knife," Lisbon answered. "Her body was in the Throne World."

"Savathûn's?"

"What other Throne World do we have access to?" Lisbon questioned.

Ikharos exhaled. "There's always a way," he whispered. He sat up straight. "A Hive weapon. No Ghost?"

"No."

"Was the wound envenomed-... no. Stupid question," Ikharos said. "Latent energies of the Throne World would be impossible to parse from Devourer-esque hex-injuries on a spectral level. Anything to note?"

"Her equipment was untouched," Lisbon told him, "and she was only stabbed once. Through the heart."

"Clear-cut picture, that."

"How do you figure?"

"Nasarya was City-based, but I taught her to fight. She could hold her own better than most the Vanguard could field. Hive wouldn't put her down so easily, so cleanly. They certainly wouldn't have even gotten so close to stab her even once. Their Lightbearers aren't that subtle yet. So what does that leave? Scorn are even more unlikely - and the only other force in that place... is us," Ikharos finished. "Us. What you're looking for is another Lightbearer. A human Lightbearer."

Lisbon nodded slowly. "You'd have experience with that?"

Ikharos tiredly raised an eyebrow. "You trying to say something?"

"You're a Guardian-killer. Everyone knows it."

"That was a long time ago."

"And, what, you haven't killed another since? You haven't caused another true-death in the last hundred years?"

"None that you know of," Ikharos shot back. "You think I killed her? I killed Nasarya?"

Lisbon-13 studied him. "No," he decided. "Not you. You're too close to the problem."

Ikharos snorted. "That's your logic? That I'm too close? Your issue, Lisbon, is that you haven't looked close enough."

"You think you know who did it?"

"I have my suspicions."

"Care to share?"

Ikharos grimaced. "I should, shouldn't I?" he said mostly to himself. "I should tell you. It would be the right thing to do."

But he didn't say anything.

"Strange," Lisbon mused.

"What's strange?"

"You. This. I know you enough. You're a killer, Ikharos. You love your friends, few as they are, and you're a monster to your enemies. If you're hesitating then I can only presume whoever you have in mind is a bit of both."

Ikharos sighed. "Keres Taryche."

Lisbon-13 quizzically tilted his head. "Say again?"

"I think Keres Taryche killed Nasarya."

"Who's that? Another student of yours?"

"My first," Ikharos reluctantly clarified. "And my best, if we're not including Jaxson in that list."

"That's high praise. You always raise good stock."

Ikharos shot him an irritated look. "Most of them are dead," he bitterly spat. "If I were a better teacher they'd be alive."

"If you say so." Lisbon took another sip. "Tell me about him."

Ikharos glared a moment longer, then deflated. "Keres came to me over a hundred years ago," he explained. "Young Warlock, bright of mind and of Light."

"Where did you go wrong?"

"Wrong? No, Keres is a success story through-and-through. I just... opened him up to the wrong influences," Ikharos admitted. "It was a little after Twilight Gap that it started, but before the Great Disaster. He was my apprentice, joined me at a... what was it, that little get-together meeting thing Osiris set before his exile, some ways outside of the City. Toland was there, even though it was well after his exile."

"Right, yeah," Lisbon nodded slowly. "I heard about that. You came away from it shouting."

"As did every Warlock present. Osiris was a fool, putting us all under one roof like that. Warlocks never get along. If he was expecting anything other than a heated debate concerning the major threats against humanity of the time, then he was even more misguided back then."

"I'm guessing he wanted your support in diverting resources towards dismantling the Vex."

"What else? I declined. Put forth a plan of action regarding the Fallen and the old Houses, to enact in tandem with Saint's crusade. And Toland... well, he planted ideas. We still weren't sure what the Hive really were back then, but we were plenty curious. Some of those ideas found their way into Keres' head. There they bloomed." Ikharos paused. "The Great Disaster - now that was the real push. Seeing Crota rise up, tear the Moon's surface apart with that monster sword of his, filling the sky with green fire - that sent him hurtling down a dangerous path."

"So he turned Dark?"

"Not even. Not for a while, anyways. He just... devoured everything we could learn from them. From the Hive. He managed to get access to some of the old Dredgen Yor logs. To some of Toland's papers. You see where I'm going. We split over it a decade or so ago, just a couple of years before Lennox and I stumbled on Jaxson."

"Where does Nasarya fit into this?"

"They were an item before that, Keres and Nas. She loved him. He loved her. But then she came to me, worried, and explained what he'd been doing. I only ever saw half of it beforehand. Warned him softly and the like, as I'm wont to, but offered him my help anyways - because that's how I teach. I offer, never demand. Well, not after that. I... saw red. We argued. Keres stormed out, left me and mine behind, and he fell hard. Would have made the Praxics squirm in their boots if they'd heard."

"You didn't tell them?" Lisbon questioned.

"What, like you didn't report Rekkana?" Ikharos retorted.

Lisbon flinched and drew in a shaky breath. "Fair," he croaked with some effort. "That's fair."

Ikharos pressed his lips together. "What happened after isn't as clear to me. Word found its way over, but not often enough to paint a pretty picture. Keres was always a social creature. He had charm. And he had something most people lack - the ability to empathise."

"What difference does that make?"

"Every difference. Keres could look at someone, read their life's story and put himself in their shoes with such relative ease. He could understand them, intimately. Almost as if he was them. Good trait for a Sunsinger, y'know? Not quite so enticing when turned towards less desirable ends. Drew himself a firm crew; people he could really relate to. People he could convince to think his way. And well, after the Shadows of Yor did their thing, he got creative."

"A Dredgen," Lisbon realized. "Your Keres is a Dredgen."

Ikharos nodded. "Aye. Dredgen Lapse. Has himself a little gathering, all loyal to the bone. Don't know half of them, maybe more. Calls them his Shape. Nasty little cult, working out of caves and abandoned Hive cathedrals."

"Do you know where they're stationed?"

"Nope."

"What makes you think he was responsible?"

"Wasn't just me he fell out with. Nasarya too. She stuck by me, us. Couldn't keep supporting him. It turned bad. Turned to hate. Same kind of hate I imagine you're feeling - when you love someone and you realize they've been lying to you the whole time."

Lisbon felt something inside him ache. "Yeah," he said hoarsely, "could be."

"Nasarya hated him. Keres wasn't feeling so good after their row either, from what I hear. Which isn't an easy thing to do; people liked Nasarya. Hard not to." Ikharos grimaced. "Poor girl."

"So you... what, think he caught her unawares? To punish her for not sticking by him?"

"I think he lured her out for the sheer fucking joy of it. She has work here enough, what with House Light to look after. Nasarya loves helping them. Strikes me as suspicious that she'd leave that behind at the drop of a pin. And Keres - I don't... I don't even know who he is anymore."

It made sense, Lisbon decided. A lot of sense. Too much. "Still seems too circumstantial," he said at length. "I'll have to cross-check it. Do you know where I can find Keres?"

Ikharos snorted. "Not a clue. He's not an easy man to find."

"Anyone who might?"

"We were Keres' last link to this place. Nasarya and I. Arthur too; he idolized the man. Keres drove him to his own Dark magics. But good luck getting a word out of him. No idea where he's gone now, or what state he's in. And with Nasarya... well, you understand as well as I do why that's not an option."

"Anyone else?" Lisbon pressed. "Any other protégé of yours?"

"Mikhail's the only other one still alive - and he's on the opposite spectrum. Enrolled in Praxic support, last I heard." Ikharos pursed his lips. "That one's not fond of me. Keres even less so. They wouldn't talk."

"And Nasarya? What does Mikhail think of her?"

"I wouldn't know. Mikhail was pretty vehement in cutting all ties. They got along before that, but not to any great extent."

Disappointing - but still another avenue to explore. "What about outside your coven?" Lisbon inquired. "Anyone at all. Anyone, Ikharos. I'm not choosy."

Ikharos opened his mouth. Closed it. Sighed heavily. "Sure," he said after a length of time. "There's... yeah. But it's at your own risk."

"Oh?"

"Imezanthes."

"Who-"

"Old acquaintance. Hunter. Dark Age survivor. Near as old as I am. She's worked with Keres in the past. Often enough to know each other by name at least."

"Imezanthes," Lisbon said, if only to get a feel for it. "Know where I can find her?"

"I don't... Maybe," Ikharos said.

"Maybe?" Lisbon echoed.

"Imezanthes' an old Hunter. Remember what I said - trailblazer, knows every nook and cranny in this system. If she doesn't want anyone to find her, they won't."

"I'm sensing a but..."

"You might find her at the Seven Stars."

"Why's that?"

"Hm? Oh, she likes to dance, likes to mingle. The atmosphere helps. Place can get wild at night." Ikharos shrugged, but there was a glint in his eyes. "You going to search her out?"

"I might," Lisbon-13 said noncommittally.

"Ikora put you up to this, didn't she?"

"What difference does it make?"

"I don't like people letting her down. She's got enough on her plate as is." Ikharos leaned forward. "So, for her sake, be careful. You're a killer yourself; Rekkana can attest as much, six feet under as she is."

Something savage rose up Lisbon's throat. Something sharp and something hot as the sun. Anger was what they usually called it. It took everything he had to keep it bottled up.

"But Imezanthes," Ikharos continued, "is a grade above you. Tread carefully, Hunter. She's Dark Age stuff. Irk her in any way and you're dead. Truly dead. And no one's going to find your body. Oh, she'll eat you up."

"I see," Lisbon said in a coldly emotionless voice. A far cry from the whirlwind picking up inside. "Thank you." He stood up, finished his whiskey and looked around to check that he had all his things. "I wish I could say it's been a pleasure."

Ikharos waved him off. "I've given you all I could," he said. "If Keres killed her, find him."

"And kill him?"

"Do what you will, Lisbon. I don't care anymore. I'm washing my hands of this." Ikharos refilled his glass right to the brim. "This is your case now."

Lisbon made to leave. He stopped at the door, though - and reluctantly half-turned. "Ikharos," he said. "You should see Eris. See if she can help-"

"That would mean letting his anger go," the scarlet-wreathed witch snidely whispered. She manifested over one of the armrests, looking down at the Warlock. "And he never lets anything go." She raised her head and stared directly at Lisbon. "Not even this." The Hive witch grinned. "But he's betting on you. So - good hunting."

Lisbon closed his mouth, opened the door and walked out. He only made it halfway down the hall when he heard the crack of a gunshot ring out.

And then - the hideous lashes of cruel alien laughter.

---

/VANNET/VANGUARD-AUTHORIZED SECURE TERMINAL/ENCRYPTION ENABLED/
/TRANSMISSION ORIGIN: LAST CITY OF EARTH/
/AUDIO CONVERSATION LOG/
/USER: LISBON-13—VIP#0357/
/USER: IKORA REY—VIP#0006/
:: Thank you for using VANNET ::
:: Your conversation may be recorded ::
:: Connecting you with your party / TOWER COMMAND::

LISBON-13: I spoke with Ikharos.

IKORA REY: And?

LISBON-13: The man has demons enough to make Saladin weep.

IKORA REY: I've tried to push him to seek help. He's more stubborn than you are.

LISBON-13: Picked up on that.

IKORA REY: Did you learn anything?

LISBON-13: He knew less about the circumstances of Nasarya's death than I did, but a whole lot more of her history. He's pointed me towards another Warlock - Keres Taryche.

IKORA REY: I'm familiar with him. A Sunsinger, one of our best.

LISBON-13: Ikharos says he's a Dredgen.

IKORA REY: What?

LISBON-13: Part of something called 'the Shape'.

IKORA REY: That's... troubling.

LISBON-13: Anything I should know?

IKORA REY: The Shape's radical. Dangerous. They've been prodding at places we've least expected.

LISBON-13: Like?

IKORA REY: A Praxic operative was diverted from a joint Vanguard-Imperial reconnaissance mission aboard the Leviathan to investigate potential Dredgen activity on the Moon some weeks prior. Most Dredgen cults break and run at the first scent of Praxic fire.

LISBON-13: I'm guessing the Shape didn't?

IKORA REY: Operative disappeared. So did all reports of possible Dredgen sightings Moonside. Operative has since been declared MIA.

LISBON-13: Sounds almost like what happened to Nasarya. Fell right off the grid.

IKORA REY: But my Hidden found her body. Not so the Praxic.

LISBON-13: Which Praxic was this?

IKORA REY: Siegfried, Titan.

LISBON-13: Feels intentional. They could be getting bold, setting out a challenge. Saying "look what we've done. Look what we can do. Cross us at your own peril."

IKORA REY: If they are responsible, then why disguise it as a Hive kill?

LISBON-13: Exactly. It adds up too well.

IKORA REY: Are you sure about Keres?

LISBON-13: I have no idea. Ikharos was relatively honest, I think. He definitely gave me more than enough leads to follow up on.

IKORA REY: But?

LISBON-13: He's hiding something. He was too upfront about everything. He wants me to believe him. There's enough truth in his story to convince a lesser man. I think he's keeping something out. To protect himself, maybe. Or someone else.

IKORA REY: Lisbon. I trust him.

LISBON-13: I know. But I don't. And this is my case. It's my job to play devil's advocate.

IKORA REY: What next?

LISBON-13: Seven Stars.

IKORA REY: The nightclub?

LISBON-13: Heard I could find someone with a link to Keres there. Hunter by the name of Imezanthes.

IKORA REY: Careful, Lisbon. She's-

LISBON-13: Dangerous. I've heard. Ikharos said as much. It's the only thing he told me I'm willing to put my full trust in. But why haven't I heard of her? Dark Age veterans aren't common enough to just blend in.

IKORA REY: Because that's how she likes it.

LISBON-13: And you know her?

IKORA REY: What else would you expect?

LISBON-13: So she's an old hand.

IKORA REY: A Light-snuffer.

LISBON-13: A Warlord, you mean.

IKORA REY: She never held territory. Not like Ikharos did.

LISBON-13: Why are these people allowed to run free? If she's responsible for Guardian deaths - and we all know Ikharos is too - then why hasn't the Vanguard sentenced them?

IKORA REY: Different times. Our jurisdiction doesn't cover the Dark Age.

LISBON-13: I really find it hard to believe no one argued against it. What about Saladin? Surely he had something to say?

IKORA REY: He did. You should read up on your history.

LISBON-13: Maybe I will. But where does Imezanthes fit in this?

IKORA REY: She's not a citizen of the City.

LISBON-13: What?

IKORA REY: She never registered with the Vanguard. Never purchased property in the City. She doesn't live here.

LISBON-13: But if she's-

IKORA REY: How could we ever say no without kicking up a fuss?

LISBON-13: Will she be at the Seven Stars?

IKORA REY: Almost certainly.

LISBON-13: Why's that?

IKORA REY: Because Ikharos told you so.

---

Lisbon strode through the City after sundown with his hood up and stopped on the opposite side of the street from the Seven Stars. The club was bustling; there was a line of people waiting to get in stretching halfway down the road. Five bouncers stood at the doors, checking everyone with the credentials to get inside - four of them mortal, one of them a hulking Titan.

"No easy way in," Piri remarked.

"No," Lisbon-13 agreed.

"Flaunting Vanguard authority won't work either. Not on a place like this."

"I suppose not."

"What are you going to do?"

"... Make a call, Piri."

"Oh? To who?"

"Lady Alderdice."

Piri hummed. "She'll ask for a steep price."

"That's a problem for future-me," Lisbon replied. "Just see it through."

"Got it." Piri disappeared for a couple of minutes, then returned with a glint in her eye. "Okay, good news."

"What?"

"She hit up one of her old friends. That Titan over there'll let you pass. Don't even have to queue."

"Great." Lisbon walked across the street.

"Bad news is she wants an arrow from your quiver," Piri continued. "Garden-forged."

Lisbon stopped by the curb. "I see," he said in a neutral voice.

"You going through with it?"

"I think I have to. Send her one over transmat."

"Will do. Good luck." Piri disappeared again. Lisbon-13 pulled his hood back, skipped up the steps to the club's entrance and ignored the frustrated grumblings of the people lining up as he passed them. Two of the bouncers watched him approach, made to stop him at the top, but then the Titan stepped over into view and motioned for them to see to the rest of the queue.

"You must be Karl," Lisbon greeted.

'Karl' harrumphed. "You're the Hunter she called about."

"What, you get the message already?"

Karl tapped the side of his head. "Sensorium," he explained.

Lisbon nodded his understanding. "Ah."

"Look, this is a one-time favour. Tell your friend that there won't be a next time."

"I'll be sure to bring it up to her afterwards." Lisbon made to step past him. Karl caught his shoulder; it took all his resolve not to pull a knife then and there.

"Hunter," Karl warned. "No funny business. You follow the rules or I'll smash your face in."

Lisbon just looked at him. "I'll keep that in mind."

"No killing, no shooting or stabbing, no harmful Light-play, no injuring mortals. You find a Guardian, I don't care what you do - so long as it doesn't last. And don't you dare bring one of Alderdice's inventions in here. Capiche?"

"Uhuh." Lisbon roughly pulled away and walked inside. "I won't be long."

"Better not," Karl grumbled from somewhere behind him. "Fucking Hunters..."

---

Lisbon-13 hit the bar first - straight in, overlooking the massive atrium that made up the dancing floor. It was a big place, the Seven Stars. Fancy and wild. He mostly saw human mortals at every turn, some Awoken and Exos sprinkled in, but there were Guardians and even stray Eliksni too. Everyone was dressed up in their own way. The whole place stank of drinks and sweat and perfume and the moment he sat down he even caught a whiff of strong ether. A Captain-sized Eliksni was seated some rows down, nursing a cup full of a bright blue liquid and listening intently to the Awoken woman beside it. Reefborn, if Lisbon-13 had to guess. Both of them. An off-duty Corsair if the woman's biosuit was any indication and the Eliksni was probably a former Wolf, what with the dark navy scarf thrown around its shoulders.

The woman caught his gaze and answered it with a challenge, her brow furrowed and teeth bared in a less-than-friendly smile. The Eliksni followed her line of sight and straightened up, exhaling a cloud of frosty ether, then raised its cup as if to salute him. Lisbon raised his index finger in acknowledgement - then looked away as one of the bartenders stopped in front of him.

"What can I get ya?" the short Exo asked. Her plating was pink and her optics were a soft blue.

"Something strong." Lisbon dropped a handful of glimmer cubes on the counter. "Vodka cranberry."

The Exo smiled. "Sweet tooth?"

"Something like that."

"Sure thing, honey. Be right up." She took the glimmer and moved away. Lisbon leaned back, drew in a deep breath and offlined his optics. When he reactivated them he realized he wasn't alone. The Captain had settled down onto the stool to his right and the Corsair to his left.

"Hi," the woman greeted. She still wore that wolfish smile. "You've been eyeing us."

"Lima," the Captain scolded.

The Corsair rolled her eyes.

"Are you here alone, Hunter?" the Captain asked.

Lisbon turned to look at him - or at least he assumed it was a him. "You talk smooth."

The Captain smiled. Somehow, even with those wicked mandibles and all those needle-sharp teeth, he managed to look that little bit more earnest than his Awoken friend. "I've been practicing for a long time," he chittered. "You didn't answer my question."

Lisbon shrugged. "I am now. Alone, that is."

"Would you like to change that?" the Captain purred almost conspiratorially. He closed his outer pair of eyes.

"Kiph," the Corsair - Lima - warned.

The bartender came back, raised her synthetic brow and laid a tall glass in front of Lisbon. "Here you are, sweetheart," she said. "Anything else I can get you?"

"Definitely." Lisbon lifted the glass, took a sip and exhaled. "That's good. Yeah, so... if I were to say the name Imezanthes, would you be able to point me in a direction?"

The bartender's smile faded. "Imezanthes?" she echoed warily."

"Yep."

The Exo took a deep breath. "Out there," she said, gesturing towards the dance floor - where the steady beat of club-music was coming from.

"Gimme something to look for."

"She's got eyes," the Exo cryptically told him.

"Eyes? Huh. Cool, thanks." Lisbon pushed his drink to the Captain and stood up. "Here. On me."

"What..." the Corsair started to say, but by that point Lisbon was already walking away.

The Captain raised the glass to his mouth. "Cheers," he called out.

Lisbon replied with a wave as if to say don't worry about it. He took a turn for the dance floor, walked down a long set of stairs and found himself faced with a press of shifting, writhing bodies. The air was warm and stuffy and the music was almost too loud, reverberating through his body, but those sensations just... rolled over him.

Rekkana would have loved this, he thought. That notion should have shoved him towards fury, towards hate - but he couldn't summon the effort. All he felt was longing. The contagious air around it all - she would have dived headfirst into it. And he - he would have followed.

Not anymore.

Lisbon lingered by the base of the stairs and looked up over the crowd, picking through faces. Eyes, the bartender had told him. A little strange, but she'd said it with meaning. Eyes... He looked from person to person, slowly but steadily parsing through the crowd of what had to be over a hundred people at least, and-

Then he saw her. Imezanthes. As her face turned towards him for the briefest split-second, Lisbon realized that eyes was as good a descriptor as any - because Traveler above, she definitely had eyes to remember. They glowed, her irises, a soft golden yellow. Her pupils were just as remarkable, no simple black circles but shaped like those of a serpent, of a viper; straight vertical lines bisecting each iris right down the middle. There was nothing natural about them. She wasn't even Awoken. Though the dance floor was blanketed in a dull purple light that coloured everything and everyone in an indigo hue, her eyes persistently shone through.

She was slimly built and of average height, Lisbon observed, and wore nothing to mark her as a Guardian - no cloak, no hood, no Hunter insignia. All she wore was a short leather skirt, an even more revealing corset and a small glittering jacket of which the sleeves stopped at the elbows. Her skin was light and in many places coloured with dark ink, a canvas to so many thorny tree-branches and sharp-scaled snakes peeking out across her bared midriff, around her neck and down her arms, slithering over defined muscles. Her hair was silver and tied up into a bun and her fingers, all ten, were all capped from the last digit right to their tips with ornamental claws. She swayed to the beat of the music, flitting from partner to partner and riding out the throes of heavy delirium. At some point her face turned back in his direction and her eyes settled on him.

Imezanthes smiled.

Smiled like Rekkana used to - a smile just for him, knowing and amused.

Lisbon suddenly felt sick and anxious in equal measure. He delved into the press of bodies, brushed past mortal and Risen alike, and just when he figured he'd lost track of her Imezanthes all but swept in front of him, her hands sliding over his shoulders.

"Hey," she said softly, sweetly. Lisbon couldn't place the accent. He'd been around to hear them all, but hers - no. Not because she spoke so differently, no - it was almost like she didn't have an accent, not even a little. It was a little strange to hear.

"Hi," Lisbon-13 replied, taken aback.

They spun, the two of them, with Imezanthes directing how they moved. "You're overdressed," she laughed.

Lisbon didn't know what to say.

"I could pick you off a mile away," she continued. Her eyes bored into his own and the smile softened to a slight quirk at the corners of her lips. "You'll have to move more subtly than that if you want to play this game."

"What game?" Lisbon asked. He almost felt... dizzy, being so close to her. Not in any way he could understand.

Imezanthes laughed. She let go, twirling, and he definitely lost track of her then - only for her to reappear, her back pressing against his chest. She laid her head over his shoulder and looked up at him, so close. Too close. "I know who you are," she whispered. "I know who you were. I know where you've been. So bold."

She turned again, facing him once more, and her hands slid around his neck, her clawed fingers interlocking right behind his head. "Man of the Kenta-"

"I have questions," Lisbon-13 said, perhaps a little too quickly.

Imezanthes slowed down and the music carried on without her. "Do you, now?" she said in a quiet voice. Something about it struck Lisbon as frightening. Dangerous.

"I do," he said, stubbornly pushing onwards. "For you."

"For me," Imezanthes sighed softly. She kept looking at him. "I'm not feeling talkative tonight."

"It's important."

"Then convince me." She pressed forward, pressed into him, and her lips grazed across his cheek. It was maddening. "You have one shot. Make me interested."

Lisbon stared at her. Imezanthes, for her part, just leaned back and gave him an impish smile.

"Suit yourself," Lisbon murmured. One of his hands settled on her hip. He took one step forward, she took one back. Dancing wasn't usually his thing, but... Rekkana had taught him how to hold his own.

A part of him wondered if this was the reason why, as warped and convoluted as that logic was.

"Good," Imezanthes exhaled, pressing her face between his shoulder and neck. He could feel her lips climbing up towards his face, closer and closer, and he guided their movements as best he could, driving them back into the music, moving them to every pounding beat. It was as if everyone around them had ceased to exist; he focused entirely on her, and she on him.

Her lips settled against his own - and Lisbon felt something soft and wet parting his mouth. Imezanthes held him close. She had a piercing, he felt, on the end of her tongue. Something solid and almost sharp. It felt a whole lot cooler than the rest of her. Whatever it was, it was something that required higher thinking - and higher thinking was something Lisbon was quickly leaving behind.

Moments turned to minutes, minutes to hours, their Light flowing invisibly through the air around them, coursing through their bodies, intertwining where they touched. A shift from Imezanthes' end rebounded through Lisbon-13's Light and the ensuing Blink carried them both away, right out of the club and into the street beyond. Lisbon stumbled back, the cool night air taking him by surprise, and his back hit an alley wall. Imezanthes followed. She was on him again before he could think twice, her face pressed against his own and her hands running along his chest.

Convince me, she'd said. It lingered in his mind, making him smile despite himself. The only convincing that had been done, he mused, had come from her end. They grasped and fondled and pulled at one another, moving slowly but surely elsewhere, and they ended up... well, somewhere. An apartment, probably hers. Lisbon didn't ask questions. He wasn't in a position to ask anything, what with Imezanthes all but smothering him with long, heart-racing kisses. They staggered and lurched into a bed, fell onto a soft silken mattress and from there... there he lost track of his reasons for meeting her.

She peeled his armour off, all but tore through the biosuit beneath and bared him to the cold air. Lisbon sat up, kissed her hard enough to bruise, and pulled her jacket free. Her corset followed soon after - and then she was reciprocating the kiss again, pushing him down with her palms on his chest. No words were shared. No questions were asked. Lisbon just looked into her viper eyes, her bright irises rippling at the edges with red essence, and he lost himself. Imezanthes stared back, hungrily - and she smiled.

He saw her tongue.

He saw the flake of runed black that was her piercing.

And then - clarity crashed back home at long last.

"Dredgen," he exhaled softly. "You're a Dredgen."

Imezanthes cocked her head to the side, still grinning. Her lips were wet and her hair was running free, but it was her eyes that captured him. Her eyes. "Later," she said. "You can have your questions later."

"When?"

"Tomorrow." She leaned down close. "You're mine tonight."

She broke his belt, tugged his pants away and Lisbon unzipped her skirt until she wore nothing but her underclothes. Her tattoos, he saw, were extensive - but always the same thing. Thorny brambles and razor-backed serpents. If there was a story in there somewhere, he didn't ask. Too afraid to tick her off the wrong way; that paranoia only seemed to spice his other, more instinctive interest in her.

Rekkana would have laughed at him, seeing him fall apart like this. Or at least he imagined she would. It was difficult trying to separate the person he'd loved and the person he hated, and even now Lisbon couldn't decide whether it was an honest assumption or a trick of his old, old rage bubbling back up.

"You're thinking too much," Imezanthes said. A thumb, still clad in its claw ornament, brushed his cheek. The talons weren't sharp, Lisbon discovered much to his relief - but they were certainly pointed. "Stop. Just... feel."

Lisbon felt. He felt as they discarded the remainder of their clothing until neither of them had a stitch on, he felt as Imezanthes pinned him down again - and he felt as he found his way inside her. She was hot to the touch and wrapped herself around him so tightly he could hardly breathe. He felt a surge of strength and tossed them over, rolled onto the other side of the bed and chose a harder, more taxing pace. Her smile disappeared but her eyes still glittered.

"Good," she gasped. "More."

There was more.

There was plenty more.

---

He slept soundly until the very end - when a phantom from the past tore through his dreamless sleep and closed her hands around his neck. It wore her face, shrouded in red. Her face. Rekkana, delicate and beautiful and so, so driven - driven to play him like a fiddle. Right up until they entered the place where predictions came to die and he'd shot her down with a power unlike any other.

Lisbon sat up, quickly. He didn't recognize the room. No, wait, it was-

"Bad dream?" a woman asked. Imezanthes. She was by the side of the bed, pulling her skirt back on.

Lisbon-13 opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Her eyes were viper pits, sharp and dangerous and so, so alluring in the most terrifying way. She stared back at him with one eyebrow raised and the shadow of a grin playing across her lips. Lisbon had to shake his head to clear it of thoughts like grabbing her and kissing her all over again.

"My drink wasn't spiked, was it?" he questioned warily.

Imezanthes rolled her eyes. "Nothing so primitive."

"Then what?"

"You didn't do anything you weren't already yearning for."

"That sounds a whole lot like gaslighting to me."

Imezanthes laughed softly. "It does, doesn't it? I gave you dreams, Gardener. Just without the nightmares. That's all. Everything you did, everything you wanted - that was just you without the weight of old torments holding you down."

Lisbon's optics were drawn back to her mouth - for the briefest glimpse of the tip of her tongue for that little piercing. "Without the nightmares. Then what was that that woke me up?"

Imezanthes shrugged and pulled her corset back on. "Paradise can't last forever, love. Neither does my patience."

"What do they call you?" Lisbon questioned. He made no move to get up. "In Yor-circles?"

"Yor-circles," Imezanthes snorted. "Funny. What makes you think-"

"You're part of his Shape, aren't you?"

Imezanthes paused. Turned to face him for real. The smile she wore was thin and at the mere sight of it Lisbon realized how utterly exposed he was. She leaned close... and caressed his cheek. "You're lucky you're Hidden," she whispered. "If you'd been a Praxic... well."

"Does Ikharos know?" Lisbon said, his throat feeling dry. Or drier than usual, anyways.

Imezanthes studied his face, then hmphed and leaned back. "What does he matter?"

"He called you about me, didn't he?"

"You're making a lot of assumptions, Exo." She picked up her jacket and started sliding on her high heels.

"You said you'd answer my-"

"Not here," she said sharply. Lisbon fell silent. "You want to know how the little Warlock died."

"I want to know why," Lisbon corrected. "Keres did it. Everything I'm hearing is pointing towards him. But he had to have a reason. Everyone always has a reason."

Imezanthes said nothing.

"And Ikharos - he wants him dead. But he doesn't have the spine to do it himse-"

"Watch your tone," Imezanthes warned. Her eyes flashed. "That man's sacrificed more than you could ever know. He's killed things you wouldn't be able to even fathom."

"You are with Ikharos, then," Lisbon observed, feeling brave.

"Oh, love." Imezanthes leaned back over and kissed his cheek. "You test me. If you want answers, you're going to have to work for them."

"How?"

"Harvest."

Lisbon frowned. "Back to the Dark City?"

Imezanthes just smiled. She stepped back and made to leave.

"Wait-" Lisbon called, and to his surprise she stopped by the door.

"Dredgen Grave," she said. "My name in those circles that count." Imezanthes looked over her shoulder and winked at him. "It'll be our little secret, yeah?"

She left. Lisbon didn't get up until he heard the sound of the apartment's door closing - and only because he realized the place maybe wasn't hers. "Piri," he said as he picked up his clothes. Some of it was torn. Waste of good glimmer, that.

"Mmm?" Piri compiled in the air beside him. "Yeah?"

"Bring the ship around."

---

/VANNET/VANGUARD-AUTHORIZED SECURE TERMINAL/ENCRYPTION ENABLED/
/TRANSMISSION ORIGIN: EARTH TRANSIT/
/AUDIO CONVERSATION LOG/
/USER: LISBON-13—VIP#0357/
/USER: IKORA REY—VIP#0006/
:: Thank you for using VANNET ::
:: Your conversation may be recorded ::
:: Connecting you with your party / TOWER COMMAND::

LISBON-13: Met with Imezanthes.

IKORA REY: And you're alive.

LISBON-13: I want to say barely. She's... intense.

IKORA REY: What did she say?

LISBON-13: Plenty of things, and little of it direct. She knows about the murder. She knows what happened. She's promised to tell me more - but only in the Throne World. Oh, and she's a full-fledged Dredgen.

IKORA REY: That... doesn't sound inspiring.

LISBON-13: I know. Sounds more like a trap. Thing is, that would be too obvious. This whole case is too obvious. It's... it's almost like they want us to find out what happened.

IKORA REY: What are your thoughts?

LISBON-13: That we're watching an invisible war between Warlocks unfold, with Keres on one side and Ikharos on the other. Imezanthes is with the Shape. She all but confirmed that. But she was there where Ikharos told me she would be. And... and she was expecting me. As in me. Not just any Hidden agent. Either we've got a mole-

IKORA REY: These lines are secure.

LISBON-13: Or he's in on it. He wants me to find out what happened. He wants... he wants Keres dealt with. By us. He wants us to take Keres out of the equation. I mean, we'd have to. Confirmation of a kill would mean involving the Praxic Order. It's vengeance, plain and simple, but maybe with some ambition sprinkled in.

IKORA REY: Ikharos isn't a Dredgen.

LISBON-13: He's got Dark powers enough. And Imezanthes - she's on his side. She's a double-agent.

IKORA REY: They're acquaintances.

LISBON-13: Sounded to me like a whole lot more than 'acquaintances'. Partners more like.

IKORA REY: They used to run with the same pack, before the City. Before even the Iron Lords. Before Ikharos settled down to build up his own territory.

LISBON-13: Oh yeah? Any other survivors from this group?

IKORA REY: The last, Persaeus, was assumedly killed by the Man with the Golden Gun two years ago. He wasn't a citizen of the City. We saw no reason to involve ourselves.

LISBON-13: Do you hear how suspect that sounds? The Man with the Golden Gun kills one of the last three members of a Dark Age crew. Now one of the remaining pair was mentor to both our murder victim and our prime suspect - and the other is somehow affiliated as a confederate with every living person involved. Along with being a Dredgen.

IKORA REY: ... You have a theory, then?

LISBON-13: Ikharos is angry. He's having Keres removed. What if he's doing more than passing a punishment? What if he's trying to replace Keres? He definitely has the kind of reputation these people love to follow. Godslayer. Dragonbane.

IKORA REY: I don't know. I don't like it.

LISBON-13: Look, we'll see it for what it is when I get my answers.

IKORA REY: The Throne World, then? Should I-

LISBON-13: Thank you, but no. Tag-alongs will only complicate things. Imezanthes likes me for some reason. I'm not keen on changing her opinion of me. I probably wouldn't survive it.

IKORA REY: You see, then, how dangerous she is?

LISBON-13: Ikora. She's got a piece of Pyramid material on her tongue as a piercing. Dangerous doesn't even begin to describe her.

IKORA REY: Are you sure?

LISBON-13: Saw for myself, up close. Felt it.

IKORA REY: I... won't ask.

LISBON-13: Look, I don't know what to make of it. She's got no fear of tapping into hazardous sources for an edge, that much is clear, but I don't know why. I don't know any of the whys. I'm looking at all the hard details but there's no reason to any of it.

IKORA REY: Lisbon-

LISBON-13: Approaching Mars now. I'll speak with you as soon as I can. If I fall off the grid... don't send out a search party.

IKORA REY: I can't promise that.

LISBON-13: It won't change a thing and you know it. Wish me luck.

---

The Throne World hadn't changed. Not really. Every time he sailed in, Lisbon-13 expected to see something - some great shift in the landscape, like all the Hive Ghosts had yammered about. A pulse of Light, maybe, to scour and push at the ruins still infused with Darkness. Maybe the Hidden's monitoring and protection of the Wellspring was preventing just that. Lisbon didn't know. Only that the Throne World had been subjected to a sudden bout of decay, what with its primary architect out of the equation, and was suffering for it.

He landed in the Quagmire, staggering out of transmat into a murky, filthy bog. The air was filled with the buzzing of foreign insects and the trickle of brackish water. The pressure was different than what he would have found comfortable, even if minutely - but the abundance of ambient Light in the air felt soft and warm on his face. A couple of Scorn brigands came by to investigate the noise and he put them down with three consecutive cracks of his hand cannon - hardly even looking at them as he passed them by.

"Piri," he muttered into his helm's receiver. "Any lock on a psychic lodestone?"

"Deeper in the keep," Piri replied.

Lisbon trudged onwards. He marched through the gatehouse to the Lucent palace, every roar of his cannon marking another Hive guard down, and made his way up to the Fluorescent Canal. His route took him alongside the balconies that overlooked the grand pool and only when he'd reached the lifeless portal at its summit did he turn inwards, delving into the alcove that led into the catacombs beneath. The ivory walls of the place still resonated with Light, with so much raw power, and Lisbon's synth-nerves tingled as he passed through the corridors. At last the tunnels opened up into a larger, broader chamber - an armoury of sorts, perhaps. Unmanned. Not a Knight to be seen.

"Here," Lisbon decided. He could feel so much raw essence in the air, so much latent Dark constricted by all the Light around, and he took it in his hand and imagined himself wiping it away - tearing away the veil of reality to look into the past. A portal, green and powered by stolen soulfire, hung in the air. Lisbon took a deep breath.

He stepped through.

The space beyond the portal was something he was already intimately familiar with. The architecture was pale and spectral, almost not there, and it was of a warped gothic build. Oddly, there weren't any meagre rune-puzzles set before him, not even a small garrison of Lucent Brood to guard the way. The path was clear. Lisbon-13 advanced with caution, but he discovered there was no new ambush or waiting team of Hive Lightbearers at the end of the trail. Only the Altar of Reflection - sitting there lonely, the crown jewel of the other-space.

Lisbon-13 turned the whole way around just to check he was alone - and he was - before producing both a small House Light-crafted sidearm and a Warlock's helmet. The sidearm was the first object he placed on the Altar. Psychic energy coalesced around it, becoming bright, enveloping the near-translucent architecture surrounding him

And Lisbon saw it.

A memory.

A woman, Awoken and red-haired. Ghost at her side and pistol raised. She stared down the barrel at a mortally wounded Thrall, bedecked in the ornamental veils and spikes of the Lucent Brood. A moment's hesitation - and then she pulled the trigger. The Thrall's hissing head snapped back, neck broken, and there was a smoking hole in the middle of its forehead. It slouched back in the mud.

Dead.

"Hey," someone said. A man's voice. Soft and smooth; delicate and warm. The woman bristled and twisted around, her Ghost decompiling, and she aimed elsewhere. Her delicate face contorted into a snarl.

"Don't," she warned with extreme vehemence. There was acid in her voice. It dripped from every word. "Don't you dare."

And it came to a stop. Everything shifted away. Lisbon drew in another breath.

"Piri," he said in a quavering voice, "record this. The memory bears extreme clarity, but it's limited in length. It encapsulates the surprise. No, not the surprise, scratch that - it encapsulates the anger of the moment. The rage. Nasarya went in with fire. But... her robes are stained with the Quagmire's filth. No. It's not the moment of the kill. If she dropped there, it would've gotten into everything. There wasn't even a fight."

He removed the sidearm and studied it. "Full clip," he remarked. "If this is untouched, then she had time to reload. Or someone else did. There's more to this. Just not for us to see."

"Got it," Piri reported.

Good, Lisbon-13 thought. Now the helmet.

He picked it up, stared into the visor, then placed it across the Altar. Once more everything shifted. Once more his surroundings morphed into a static figment of the past.

Same woman as before - Awoken, red hair, Warlock. Her helmet was tucked under one arm and her other hand was on the shoulder of someone else. A man - blond hair, olive skin, green eyes, wearing similar robes. Another Warlock. He glanced at her, smiled, and they leaned into each other. They kissed, parted. Someone else said something. They weren't in the memory, just a shadow on the periphery, and their words were muffled.

"Don't get ahead of yourself," the woman whispered, rolling her eyes.

The man chuckled. "Me?" he questioned. "Never."

The memory faded. Lisbon felt his fingers pressed tightly against his thighs and he pulled them away. Had to remember to breathe again. It was a daze, every time. The memories weren't his life to live - and sometimes he'd get too caught up to remember how when he returned to his own body.

"They..." he started to say, then sighed. "The helmet's strongest memory is from some time before. Unless it's someone else, another partner, this memory pertains to Keres Taryche - before Nasarya separated from him. The voice in both memories are almost a match. If Ikharos's report is to be believed, then this is at least ten years old. It's... a strange memory to cling to. My assumption was it would be a battle, or maybe a flash of the events that led to her death. The only conclusion I can draw from this... is that at the time before Nasarya's passing, the emotions she'd assigned to this helmet, even subconsciously, hadn't entirely faded."

"Meaning?" Piri pressed, whispering.

"Meaning," Lisbon continued, "that she still held affection for Keres. It collides with the other memory's emotional contents, but it's there. She was furious with him - but on some level she still loved him. And she wasn't as surprised as she could have been. Not for the first memory. That jolt was almost solely of anger. It stands to reason, then, she was expecting to see him. She was meeting him. Or hunting him. It wasn't a chance encounter - not in the slightest."

He trailed off.

"Now what?" Piri questioned.

"Now?" Lisbon muttered. "Now we head over to Harvest." He stopped. Looked back at the Altar. Thought about pulling his cloak free and looking inside, just one more time.

Just to see her again.

"Let's go," Piri urged.

Lisbon dropped his head and sighed. "Okay."

---

The Dark City was at war. Lisbon came to the conclusion that the reason the Altar of Reflection was devoid of guards was because the Lucent Brood had allocated those troops elsewhere - towards storming the Dark's foothold in the northern swamps of the Throne World. He hid among the reeds, half-cloaked with Void, and watched as a cleaver-bearing Knight led a charge against the ragged Scorn brigade at the entrance of the old caves and smote down a lumbering Abomination - only for a Chieftain to tackle it to the ground and pry its bony face apart with jagged, rotting fingers.

It was chaos.

And it was ultimately to his advantage. Lisbon-13 dropped a smoke bomb, hurried past the squabbling grunts and slipped inside. He ran down, leapt over the open space where once an old Thrall-carved bridge had stood and slid to a stop by the entrance to the City. The doors were ajar - but the air stank of Void Light, and it wasn't his own.

Lightbearers.

He advanced, cannon drawn, and he found the way ahead had been smashed open. Scorn bodies littered the path inside, some of them twitching with incoming reanimation, and there were some Hive corpses scattered within the heaps of swollen, mutated bugs. Here and there he saw signs of more Void usage - bright violet scars left in the rock and even the Dark architecture of the City's entrance. He continued onwards, breaking out into the City proper, and only with the aid of false sunlight did he finally see the pace of the true battle. Gunfire sprayed through the air in the distance like fireworks. Wizards flitted away, pulling back, but the other Hive didn't have that option. They must have advanced too far, charged too recklessly. What Scorn they hadn't disintegrated would have risen up behind them, bogged them in. Hive were vicious, but Scorn were worse. Lisbon wasn't even convinced a full team of Lightbearers would be able to dig the survivors a way out.

To his good fortune, however, he discovered that the old portal systems were still online. The Dark rifts hung in the air, humming and rippling with some kind of resonant energy, and Lisbon felt it prick at his Light as he passed through. The first brought him through a hallway stained with Dark Ether and the torn limbs of a couple of dead Screebs, and the next dragged him out into a new building - a temple of some kind. The platforms within had already been summoned.

"How are we doing?" Lisbon inquired.

"Getting close," Piri replied. "Just... wait."

"What?"

"Picking up on a Ghost signature."

"Where?"

"In front, closing in- Dammit, they've noticed me!"

Lisbon skidded to a stop before the third portal just as something stepped through: a massive Knight, clad in ivory armour and helmed with a glassy visor flanked by frilled horns. It clutched a colossal Boomer in its right hand. The other supported a wrist-mounted shield shimmering with Void Light. A Ghost flew over its shoulder, dragging its green eye across the room, and it whispered something in the Hive language. The Knight grunted and shrugged; the Hive Ghost disappeared.

"Local interference," Piri whispered. "Bounced off me for a split second, like echolocation. They saw it. They know we're here."

Lisbon, still cloaked in invisibility, toed his way to the side of the room, falling back behind a statue that half-resembled a kicking horse.

"If you jump for the portal..." Piri advised.

Lisbon watched the Knight. He waited. Kept watching. Kept waiting. The Knight scanned the room, sniffed the air - took a step forward.

That was the moment.

Lisbon-13 sprung past the Hive, lunged for the portal and made it thro-

A hand, massive, closed on his ankle. The ground rushed up to meet him and his helmet cracked against the floor. His cloak fell away, the Void around him flowing to his hand and converting into a blade of pure absence. Lisbon sliced it across the Knight's limb, severing it at the wrist, and he kicked away. The beast roared behind him as he hopped through to the other side. More floor there. More bodies. A couple of Acolytes picking through the remains, but they surged up the moment they saw him and raised Shredders.

Lisbon had his Ancient Gospel drawn in a nanosecond. He fired once, twice - and no more Acolytes. The Knight, though, was a different story; it lurched through the portal after him, one-handed and still holding that Boomer, and it aimed at him.

He Blinked. Across to a different platform, to the left of the room. He knew where the next portal was. Lisbon ran for it, dragging the Void back over his body, and he heard more than saw the Knight tearing after him. It had his scent, now. Invisibility or no invisibility, it was on his trail.

"Change of plans," Lisbon said quickly. "Nearest Scorn mass, where?"

"Uh, keep going!" Piri instructed him.

He flew through the next portal, danced down the next hallway, and stopped himself at the top of the next bridge. What he saw ahead of him weren't Scorn - not living ones anyways. Just their killers, freshly painted with blood and gore. Hive. And a lot of them. They were just out of a fight, dazed and ill-tempered, but the closest of the (at least four, he counted) Lightbearers raised itself up and its head snapped in his direction.

"I think their Ghosts are communicating," Piri murmured.

"Yeah," Lisbon-13 deadpanned, "you don't say."

The Knight erupted out of the doorway behind him, sheening with sizzling Void and whole once more. Lisbon's cloak fell away as he diverted his Light into a crackling Arc Staff and he deflected the first thrown shield with a flick of his spear. The other Hive roared with surprise and rallied on the other side; he heard another pair of Supers activate, with at least one Blade Barrage. Lisbon twisted around, his staff twirling, and the jagged flaming knifes bounced right off the volt-shield he erected in front of him. The Lightbearer Acolyte responsible fell back to the ground, the Solar Light peeling away from its shell, and it glared right at him.

Lisbon backed to the edge of the bridge, looking between the Knight and the Hive mob - aiming his Gospel at the former and his Arc Staff at the latter. Priorities and all that. The Knight advanced on him, slowly, and it's purple eyes narrowed in on him. The Acolyte on the other side did the same, with a series of lesser Hive and another Risen Knight right behind.

"Not the trap I was envisioning," Lisbon-13 muttered, "but... Piri. Can I jump down?"

"I don't like the look of the water below," Piri warned. "There's things in there."

"Yeah, well, there's things up here too."

"Your choice."

Lisbon eyed the approaching Hive. It wasn't an easy choice; monsters in Light on solid ground or fathomless terrors in the misty, murky deep below. He scowled and tightened his jaw. Better the devil you know, Lisbon figured. He Blinked again, this time holding a suppressor grenade in hand, and he landed atop the shoulders of the first Knight. It bucked and roared and as it did so he caught hold of its horns, yanked its head back and shoved the grenade into its open mouth. Lisbon Blinked again, up in the air, and as the Void explosion ripped through the Knight's cranium he peppered the rest of the surging Hive below with a single Deadfall arrow. It hit the ground where he'd been standing, where they'd been closing in on, and so many tethers lashed out, ensnaring every beast in range. Only the Lightbearer Acolyte, so quick on its feet, managed to dodge out of the way in time. The others staggered and doubled over as the Void overcame them, weakened them, laid them low.

It gave him an opening. Lisbon forwent snatching the Knight's Ghost as it appeared in favour of running, and he dashed between the dazed Hive. The Acolyte launched itself at him, snatched at his cloak, but Lisbon twisted and sliced away the cloth with a single swing of a Spectral Blade. The Acolyte landed poorly, stumbled, and he ran onwards - entering the temple ahead. The Worm factory. Where the howl of distant Scorn and dying Hive emanated from. Some Thrall, lowly and clumsy, skittered after him so he dropped a Voidwall in his wake. The blind creatures ran right into the purple flames and burned away.

Inside. He was inside, running so fast he bounced off the walls at every corner, emerging into the preparation chamber and-

The Acolyte appeared in front of him, right out of its own Blink. Lisbon skidded to a stop, optics bright and wide, and some distant part of his mind wondered why he was feeling so surprised because of course the Hive were going to learn how to do these kinds of things at some point. It fired its Shredder point blank, tearing through his overshield and singing his armour as he rolled. It came after him, confident because of how much larger it was compared to him, how much stronger it was, how much faster it could sprint. It didn't need to be human for him to read as much. Lisbon avoided the brunt of its gunfire as best he could, weaving between the frozen displays of dead Worms caught in crystal like insects in amber, and he answered it with swift barks of his hand cannon. In that regard he had the upper hand; the Light enhanced weaponry in the hands of a Lightbearer, but most Hive weapons were shoddy at their core. His hardware was a whole different story. Each bullet chipped at the Acolyte's armour, needled at its shell, and its glassy visor cracked under a lucky shot. It backed away, having learned its lesson, and Blinked again - right on top of him with a Solar knife aimed at his neck.

Lisbon twisted and rolled, but he hardly needed to - because a flaming hammer hooked under the Acolyte's chin and cracked its skull, sending it a whole yard across the room. It landed in a heap, staggered back to its feet and glared, right at the Titan standing where Lisbon-13 had just been.

But it did not fire.

It did not unleash another Super.

It didn't even Blink to close the distance. It just snarled, bleeding from its mouth.

"Hey," the Titan said - a behemoth of muscle and metal clad in Sunbreaker armour and bearing a Loreley Splendor helm. He pointed his hammer at the Acolyte. "Fuck off. Stick your nose elsewhere."

The Acolyte snapped in its own brutal tongue, but then, to Lisbon's utter surprise, turned and fled.

"Thanks," he panted.

Then the Titan turned to him and his relief died on the spot. The man's hammer still burned. His fingers tightened around its grip. Another manifested in the Titan's opposite hand.

"Oh," Lisbon groaned. "Right. Yeah."

He Blinked as a wave of Solar smashed down on his location. He fired at the Titan's back, but the other Guardian had entered his Super and the bullets simply disintegrated on impact. Lisbon bit out a garbled curse as the Sunbreaker closed the distance again, leaping on a jet of fire, and he dodged beneath the second Consecration strike - but this time he lunged up, a pair of Void-manifested blades planting in the Titan's chest. The other man fell to the ground, his Light hissing out, dead before he even hit the floor.

"Look out!" Piri cried out.

Lisbon danced away as a lightning strike scorched the ground. His head tilted up and he saw the oncoming Warlock, floating on a shackled storm. He dropped a smokebomb just as the Stormcaller, dark-robed and much more slender than their companion, lanced his previous position with a burst of Arc. He dodged and weaved, all but invisible to the eye, and the Warlock dragged out a stormcloud over themselves, giving themself a ring of protectively aggressive lightning strikes. That was fine. That was perfectly fine. Lisbon, unseen, pulled his Divinity over his shoulder, aligned it with the Warlock and opened fire - the concentrated beam hitting them full in the chest and trapping them in a bubble of Vex-like datalattice. All it took was one follow-up shot from his Gospel and the Warlock was down, their body fried.

The Sunbreaker was up by then, lifting a heavy machine gun, and-

"What the hell are you doing?! Enough!"

Lowered it.

Lisbon glanced around and stared as the shortest Knight he'd ever- no, wait, it was a human person, a Titan. Just dressed up in Hive-harvested armour, with a fanged helmet like that Warpriest he'd heard so much about. They had a sword braced against their shoulder, almost as tall and broad as they were, and it resembled nothing short of a giant saw clapped in Hive chitin. They raised their offhand in greeting.

"Hunter," they said sheepishly. "Sorry about that."

Lisbon-13 raised his cannon - only to freeze as the Sunbreaker aimed his own weapon right at him. Off to the side, the Warlock's Ghost expanded its shell and cast their body in healing Light. They rose up, took one look at the situation and cocked their head to the side. "What's happening?" they asked. He asked. Another human. They all were.

"'Zanthes's guest," the Knight-wannabe replied.

"... Ah," the Warlock said. "So-"

"Yeah, no."

"Right, right." The Warlock glanced at the Titan. "Vullund. Drop it."

The Sunbreaker growled something indecipherable and holstered his massive weapon.

Lisbon looked at each of them in turn, taking note of the weapons they carried, the armour they wore and the sheer Light that coiled around them. Ready for a fight, each one of them - even the second Titan, though it was the Dark that wrapped around their form, not the Light. "Dredgens," he remarked. "Or am I wrong?"

The Sunbreaker said nothing. The Warlock didn't either. And the Knightly Titan simply shrugged. "We are what we are," they said. "You're the Hunter, then? The Hidden agent?"

Lisbon didn't immediately respond. He looked them over again, just one last time, then exhaled and holstered his cannon.

"Wise," the Warlock remarked.

Lisbon ignored them. "I take it you expected me," he asked the Knight-Titan. "That was quite the welcome."

"Yes, well, I suppose you can never be too careful. No harm done?"

"Nothing permanent."

"Good, good." The Knight shot the Sunbreaker a warning look. "Grave would have been upset if something happened."

The Sunbreaker, Vullund, snorted derisively. Still said nothing.

"Right then," Lisbon said coolly. "Now what?"

The Knight-Titan gestured to the back of the room and started walking towards it. "If you'll come with me..."

Lisbon glanced at the other two before following. The Warlock, he saw, trailed after him. The Sunbreaker remained where he was, glaring at him the whole way until they circled around to an alcove behind the room's primary pedestal and entered a narrow hallway. Sunlight streamed in from ahead - and in no time they were back outside, walking across another causeway over the swamps.

"Sorry about... them," the Titan said.

"You aiming to kill?" Lisbon questioned.

"If needs must."

Lisbon checked on the Warlock again, but they were simply following along at a leisurely pace. "Where's Imezanthes?"

"She'll meet us soon," the Titan explained.

"You're with her?"

"We might be."

Lisbon traced the grip of his Ancient Gospel. "You're of the Shape," he said. It wasn't a question.

The Titan looked halfway over their shoulder at him. "And you're too curious for your own good."

"Lucky that 'Zanthes's got patience," the Warlock added. Their tone was lazy and smug and Lisbon didn't like it one bit.

"Who are you?" Lisbon-13 demanded.

"That's for me to know and for you to never-" the Warlock started to say, but the Titan cut them off.

"Just tell him. It's you or 'Zanthes. She'll be pissed off as is."

The Warlock paused. "Armotek-5," they reluctantly answered. "Dredgen Volant."

Lisbon looked back at the Titan ahead. "And you?"

"Navasc Reive," they replied. "Dredgen Reave."

"Imaginative."

"I know."

Lisbon took a deep breath. "This isn't the tune I expected you people to sing."

"What, being all open and honest?" Navasc inquired. "Don't get used to it. It's a gift, nothing more."

"For what?" Lisbon questioned.

"Hm?"

"A gift for what?"

"For Keres to feel better about himself," Armotek-5 grumbled.

Lisbon looked at the Warlock out of the corner of his optics. "It's true, then," he said in a low, dire voice. "He killed her."

Neither Navazc or Armotek deigned to grace him with a response. They just trudged onwards, with him between them.

"No denial," Piri whispered.

No, Lisbon mentally agreed, but then, it was always a clear-cut case - and yet we're still treading unknown water.

---

The causeway led down to a pier. Lisbon considered it a miracle that the Scorn hadn't bothered them; he'd spotted distant arthropodic shapes scuttling between the many temples of the Dark City, crawling around vile aqueducts choked with dead Worms. Why the ghouls hadn't converged on them, he had no idea. Their Light, even dimmed by Void, should have been a beacon for every Dark aspirant to charge towards for miles around. There were even less signs of Hive too; it was as if the mere presence of Dredgens terrified the Lightbearers into full retreat.

As it was, there was someone down at the pier, waiting for them. Two someones. A small boat, some sort of canoe forged of silver-green osmium, had been tied up by the Dark platform, manned by an emancipated Hive creature - like some sort of cross between a Thrall and Acolyte. It was stick-thin and very near lifeless, but it possessed three bright green eyes that glowed with a spiteful sort of determination. It clutched a long pole halfway embedded in the bog and stood by the rear of the canoe. The other figure was a Hunter, human, and even with her helmet on Lisbon recognized her from stance alone.

"Grave," he greeted.

Imezanthes glanced at him. "Hello lover," she purred, then turned and stared out across the vast swampy wastes that stretched out for as far as the eye could see. Lisbon saw Navasc shift with surprise and Armotek make a double-take, but he ignored them and strode forward, coming to a stop beside her at the edge of the pier.

"We've passed the place where her body was found," he observed.

Imezanthes hummed wordlessly. Her armour was heavily plated, coloured a ruddy pinkish-copper, and her hooded cloak was like blue oil - iridescent and shimmering, though heavily worn and torn at the edges. Her helmet was carved in the likeness of a Cabal War Beast, all silver and fanged, and it was compounded by a number of lights shaped like so many eyes.

"I'm guessing you're bringing me to the place where she really died," Lisbon-13 continued.

"Yep," Imezanthes replied. "Exactly that."

"Dare I ask why?"

She shrugged. "Hindsight is painful and regret will eat you alive."

"That's what Keres thinks?"

"Who am I to judge? No one knows what Keres thinks. He's on another plane entirely." She spared him a thoughtful look. "Take that as you will, Hidden."

Lisbon gathered his thoughts. "Am I ever going to meet him?"

"Meet him? In time. But catch him?" Imezanthes chuckled. "Never."

"What's this all for?"

"Hm?"

"Where does Ikharos fit in all this?"

"Ikharos?" She sounded surprised. Lisbon wondered how much of it was for show. "Ikharos Torstil... I wouldn't know where to place him. Oh Ikharos. Poor, haunted Ikharos. No. It's not for me to say where he stands."

"What about me?"

"What about you?" Imezanthes shot back.

"You're playing around with me. Why? What part do you want me to play?"

"Now that," Imezanthes said slowly, "is entirely up to you. There's no such thing as no choice, Lisbon."

Lisbon tilted his head. He hadn't heard her use his name before. He hadn't been sure she even knew it.

"What happens next - to you, to me, to lonely Navazc and young Armotek - is for each of us to decide. You're the one who chooses where you walk next. You're the one who chooses how you live your life. It's up to you."

"We have choices," Lisbon agreed. He had some idea where she was taking the conversation - not a clear one, but an idea nonetheless. "But that isn't to say there aren't poor choices and better ones."

"Exactly."

"You're not going to lay it out for me, are you?"

"Not at all," Imezanthes told him. She sounded amused. "You have the whole universe before you. We all do. We all did. If I start giving you options, that's cutting the universe down. You're a Hunter; you know the difference between true freedom and the illusion of it. I won't do to you as she had."

Lisbon looked away and offlined his optics. He could still see her, even then, in his mind's eye. Rekkana. Her eyes, luminous blue. So stunning. So... so her. He remembered her. The murkiness of forced amnesia still clawed at him on the edges of his mind, but there she was. There she would remain - a mere memory and nothing more.

"You're still leading me on," Lisbon croaked. "I'm still nothing but a tool."

"We're all pawns in someone else's game," Imezanthes said, though not without a note of sympathy. He wondered whether it was feigned or real. "The difference is we see it loud and clear and we're not content to wear those shackles."

"I'm not a slave."

"Aren't you? When they found you with your mind blank, hobbling outside the gates to the Garden, did they let you walk free?"

No, he almost said. Of course not. That would have been foolish. But he kept his mouth shut.

"They took you into their custody. They interrogated you. Only when they realized there was nothing to learn did they move on - and even then they kept you close."

"Ikora was right to do so," Lisbon weakly argued.

"Do you really believe that? Do you really believe you've come away from this arrangement for the better?"

He saw her in front of him, strange power crackling between her fingers, and he knew she was never going to leave him. Rekkana. Rekkana. Oh Rekkana, why?

He remembered lifting his Divinity.

He remembered aiming it.

He remembered pulling the trigger.

And he remembered...

He remembered.

"No," Lisbon-13 whispered.

To her credit, Imezanthes didn't pounce on his moment of weakness. She didn't follow up with some other needling point. "Come on," she said, and walked over to the canoe. She turned to Navazc. "Guard the way. Keep the bugs out. Kill anything that comes looking."

Navazc bowed their head. "Understood."

"Go."

Navazc turned and marched away. Armotek-5 stepped onto the small craft after Imezanthes and clambered up to the front to hang from the tall prow. Lisbon reluctantly climbed on after them, settling between the Risen pair. The Hive creature he was content to put some distance from, scarce as that was with the diminutive size of the vessel. The dilapidated beast grunted something and levered them from the pier, shoving them on with a push of its long pole - which looked conspicuously like it was formed from a series of grafted finger bones. Lisbon dragged his optics away from it - and settled them on Imezanthes upon noticing she was staring back. She pulled her hood down, removed her helmet and graced him with a fleeting smile that looked too hungry to instill any modicum of comfort.

"You said you had questions last night," she said. "Now's your time to ask them."

"Your eyes," Lisbon started. "What's up with them?"

She fluttered them. "Oh these? Just implants."

"Where'd you get them?"

"Born with them." She tilted her head. "What, you think tech like this just gets found lying around in the Dark Age?"

"There's a reason for them, then?" Lisbon-13 inquired. "I'm guessing thermal sensors?"

"You'd guess right." Imezanthes nodded. "I'm surprised the Bray foundation didn't outfit Exos with this kind of software."

Lisbon grimaced, confident it was still hidden beneath his helm. "Don't know. I hear Clovis wasn't a man predisposed to oversharing his toys."

"He had the resources for it."

"But not the trust."

"Ah," Imezanthes nodded again. "Always boils down to that. The trust."

"Yep." Lisbon looked out across the bog. The pier was steadily shrinking behind them; fragile as their Hive boatman looked, it was stronger than Lisbon gave him credit for. He nodded towards the creature. "What's his deal?"

"Oh, him?" Imezanthes offered the beast a lazy glance. "I think he pushes the boat."

"I got that."

"Then ask the real question."

Lisbon-13 hesitated. "What's your deal with the local Hive?" he asked. "I saw them inside. In the City."

"They're pushing against the Scorn," Imezanthes explained.

"No, not just that. I saw one of their Lightbearers get smacked by Vullund. It just... ran."

"He hit one?" Imezanthes tutted. "Oh Vullund Pirks, you silly man. Keres won't be pleased to hear about that."

"I'm assuming, then, you have an understanding with the Lucent Brood?"

"We have respect," Imezanthes clarified. "And maybe some long-seeded agreements - Keres likes to talk and the local witches aren't so different in that respect. High Coven's always been something of a lukewarm port for us - neither welcoming nor outright hostile."

"You've been here before, then?" Lisbon questioned.

"Before what?"

"Before the Light came to this place?"

Imezanthes chuckled. "Oh love. Not I. With Keres, though, you might find a different answer. That man's always getting into secret places." She looked past him. "Watch your head."

Lisbon looked around with a frown. "For what?"

"The gnats." When he gave her a confused look, Imezanthes continued; "Mosquitos. Their proboscises are strong enough to drill right through a Knight's shell. Native fauna of this place is, ah... well-adapted."

Lisbon-13 suppressed a shiver. "Got it," he muttered. He tried to imagine a blood-sucking insect large enough to trouble a whole Hive Knight - and the image was a little more unnerving than he was comfortable with. "You come through often, then?"

Imezanthes nudged his leg with her own. "What's got you curious? Want to find me again?"

"Would that be possible?" Lisbon asked. "A couple of official interviews could make the investigation a whole lot easier."

"Funny."

"It wasn't a joke."

"You better pretend it is," Imezanthes said softly, her eyes narrowing. A cold tremor swept down Lisbon's spine. Armotek-5 snorted from his position further down the boat and Imezanthes' gaze shifted. "Is something funny?"

Armotek straightened and sobered. "No," he said quickly, averting his eyes. "Nothing."

"Thought so," Imezanthes said coolly and turned back to Lisbon. "If I were you I'd stamp out any notions of attaching me to any official report of yours - in any great capacity, anyways. Drop my name if you see fit, but photos and recordings... that I don't like. You'll accommodate me there, won't you?"

"I'll see what I can do," Lisbon-13 said, daring to be brave.

Imezanthes' smile momentarily faltered and she scrutinised him. "You're a cocky one."

"Maybe." Lisbon exhaled. He decided to change the subject. "What's this for?"

"What's what?"

"This. Bringing me out. You aren't killing me, so... what?"

"You think we won't?" Imezanthes questioned.

"We are currently off the grid," Piri reported, whispering through Lisbon's helmet. "Can't get a signal. We're at their mercy, Lisbon. Just like Nasarya. Just like that Praxic."

"You won't," Lisbon decided, directing the response Imezanthes' way. "Not after all the effort you made to catch my attention."

"Oh, don't call it effort," she said. Her smile was back. "You make it sound like a chore."

"Then what was it?"

"It was fun, love. It was you and I deciding on a whim then and there under the directive of none but ourselves."

"A whim," Lisbon said blankly.

"Were you expecting more?"

"I wasn't expecting anything, actually. Just wondering what your angle is."

"My angle?" Imezanthes leaned over. "From my angle you're looking dashing. From my angle you're interesting. That's my angle."

"Alright."

"And yours, love? What about your angle?"

"My angle," Lisbon slowly said, "is seeing this investigation through. My angle is seeing that the guilty parties account for the crimes they've committed. My angle is seeing justice done."

"Justice," Imezanthes actually laughed. "I love that word. You used to hear it all the time back when I was fresh to Light and life. 'Course, that's not usually what they meant. Just giving killing a new name. Waste of breath for more of the same. You know it."

"I-"

"You visited the same unto those who wronged you," she continued. "Those who turned their backs on you and everything you used to stand for."

"I never stood for anything," Lisbon said.

"You did. You just didn't realize the weight was there until you were holding it up on your own - like our friend Atlas, the whole world on his shoulders. And it was. It was, wasn't it? Whole world. You found things out there, in the Garden. Things you knew wouldn't fly with the brass or the mob back home. You took matters into your own hands, to protect the funny little people buzzing along those broken streets."

"Did you know her?" Lisbon asked, his mouth dry - just to cut her short.

Imezanthes blinked and frowned, but her smile came back. It always came back. "We met," she confirmed. "Just a couple of times, but enough to recognize the signs in hindsight. You knew before the rest of us, though, didn't you?"

"She told me," Lisbon said warily.

"Trust. She gave you trust. And you killed her for it."

"She betrayed me."

"Twice. You forgave her once. Killed her for twice. Best approach, the scholars say these days. Give an enemy a grace period, a time to give in, and if they don't you bring everything down on them. We need the Light to be gentle and productive - and we need the Dark to be terrible to those who don't play along." Imezanthes shook her head. "Do they even get enough air up in that Tower of theirs? What drives that kind of thinking?"

"You're saying I should have killed her from the get-go?" Lisbon coldly asked.

"Hm? Oh. That's up to you, isn't it? You made your choices. She made hers. Hell, even that annoying Titan of yours made his." Imezanthes rolled her eyes. "But they're dead. You're not. So chin up, love. You've got some road left in you. Enjoy it. You never know when it'll all come crashing back down again."

Lisbon huffed. "Last question," he said.

"Shoot."

"Where are you from?"

"Now that's a good one," Imezanthes said with a smirk. "Baikonur."

"... Oh," Lisbon-13 murmured.

"So everywhere and nowhere at all, really. No way to tell. That's the thing with rising up out of a spaceport," Imezanthes said. "Plenty of bodies to choose from, but none of them will ever get a chance to really know who they are. Suits me just fine."

Lisbon tucked his chin against his chest and sat down, his back to the side of the boat. He didn't say another thing. Neither did Imezanthes nor Armotek-5 - and their steersman was just as quiet as the rest. They remained like that for a time, listening in vain as the noise of the greater Throne World fell away behind them. Ahead was nothing - just more bog.

And more bog.

And more bog.

Until a dark monolithic structure broke above the brackish water some tens of miles away, both familiar and alien and more than a little foreboding. Lisbon-13 recognized the shape of the structure. He'd seen one before, on a moon in realspace.

"A Ziggurat?" he said.

"Mhm." Imezanthes stretched. "Quiet place. It's nice to get out here, away from everything else. That was Keres' thinking; he loves that kind of thing. Tranquility amidst desolation. It certainly has its merits."

Like having a private quarter to bring your victims out and kill them without anyone noticing, Lisbon darkly mused. Better than a dark alley.

They steadily closed in on it, their boatman hard at work, and it wasn't an hour before the prow scraped along the side of the Ziggurat's own stairway. Imezanthes was the first off - hopping from the canoe over to the steps in one nimble motion. Lisbon-13 was quick to follow, landing as gracefully as he could manage, and Armotek glided after him. The three of them hiked up and up the structure, taking two steps at a time, and they reached the summit. It was steeper than Europa's structure, Lisbon thought. Larger overall. At the top he saw no Dark Cruxes in place, waiting for potential sycophants, but a simple ring engraved in the floor.

There was blood there. Red blood. Dried and flaking but present. There was enough of it that Lisbon doubted the wounded party came away from it alive. In the middle of the dark red a knife had been set, pale and carved straight from bone, with a serrated toothy edge and a curved length. It was Hive make, clearly, and there was a channel of soulfire essense running along the back of it. A Light-killer. A Guardian-breaker.

"She's really dead, then," Lisbon-13 said. He felt... disappointed. He knew it was unlikely, he didn't even really believe there was any changing things, but a part of him had hoped that maybe the death could have been undone. Now, though - now he knew.

"I have to log this," Lisbon-13 announced. He looked at Imezanthes. She gave him a nod as if to say go ahead. He stepped forward, knelt down and looked the knife over. There was some red on the bone too. More blood. Definitely the murder weapon. He picked it up for a closer look, then lifted it into the air. Transmat ate it up. He looked around. There wasn't much else to see. Just more of the metal-stone material of the Ziggurat, engraved with strange lines, and-

Wait. There. against one of the pillars of the open doorframe. A small scrap of cloth. Lisbon walked over and picked it up. It looked like... He didn't know. Hadronic weave, possibly. The material used in most Warlock robes.

"Hey-" Armotek-5 started to say, but when he looked over Imezanthes had already shut the Stormcaller down with nothing but a glance.

"Take your time," she said. "You can be thorough. We won't impede you."

Lisbon grunted his wordless thanks. He offered the scrap to Piri, who gladly compiled it away, then looked the Ziggurat over once more. "You taking pictures?"

"Yeah," Piri replied.

"Don't show yourself."

"I know. Look back at that ring... there we go. Right. Now the top of the Ziggurat. Just crane your neck... yep. That's good."

"We done here?" Lisbon-13 questioned.

"I think so."

Lisbon turned. "Yeah, we're done."

Imezanthes gestured back to the boat. "Back we go then."

Lisbon boarded the canoe, the other two right behind him, and at a whispered word from Imezanthes the Hive creature set them off once again - levering them back towards the landmass they'd left behind. The hours passed them by but no one said a thing. Not until the Dark City loomed up ahead of them. Imezanthes touched his shoulder.

"Remember," she whispered to him. "Remember you have your choices."

"What do you mean?" Lisbon sharply asked.

"Nothing more than I say. There are always other options," she said meaningfully. "Don't keep me waiting."

They docked. Lisbon-13 stepped out. The other two didn't. The boatman pushed them away again the moment he was clear and then they were drifting away.

"Well then," Piri huffed. "That was weird."

Lisbon hmphed.

"Back to the Altar?"

"What else?"

---

The Altar - transparent and bright and smelling of cleaning liquid. Lisbon-13 strode up to the pedestal, hardly even hesitating, and he placed the knife upon it. There was little time to waste. The blade crackled and hissed with Hive magics and it at first resisted the allure of stolen memory, pushing back at the psychic energy with lashes of soulfire. With a final push the Altar broke through.

And Lisbon's vision swam before him.

Nasarya trudged up the Ziggurat's steep stairs, sidearm in hand. Her helmet was nowhere to be seen, allowing her hair to fly in the wind and the world to see her fearsome scowl. She reached the summit - and there he was. The other Warlock, wearing a heavy trench jacket torn at the edges and clad in rare plates of old, old armour. His own helmet, some warped thing fused with sections of green-veined chitin, was clutched under one arm. He was unarmed.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Keres Taryche commented. He stared across the endless swamps.

Nasarya glared at the back of his head. "It's a wasteland," she retorted.

Keres shifted and turned to her - his hair was longer than before, but still a gold-blond. His eyes were a gentle blue and his face was angular, appealing. He looked... sorry. Upset. Hurt. "Can't you at least try to understand?"

"Understand?" Nasarya echoed with ridicule. "Keres, you're a monster. A heathen. A heretic."

"I didn't realize I was betraying a faith," Keres drily remarked.

"You know what you did."

"No. I don't. I remember doing as I'd always done. At some point along the way everyone decided they didn't like it and cast me out. You, Mikhail, Oisín, hell, even Arthur gave me distance. And Ikharos..." Keres' jaw tightened and he looked away.

"Ikharos cared for you," Nasarya said in a low, tense voice. "He still does. You were always his favourite - but you had to throw that away. You had a good thing going for you and you ruined it."

"I ruined nothing," Keres snapped. "I just wanted what we all did! The wisdom and power to PROTECT! To serve. To make him proud."

"He was never-"

"Wasn't he? Last I heard, he's got his own strain of Darkness. That's more than I ever did. Only difference is the political climate."

"Ikora will never welcome you back," Nasarya bit out. "Zavala won't. They know what you've become. I know it."

"I'm just so... curious. All the time," Keres said, growing quiet. "When did that become a crime?"

"Don't give me that. Don't act like you're the victim."

"Nas, please. Be kinder to me."

"Kinder?" Nasarya laughed without mirth. "You KILLED. You've been consorting with Hive. Hive!"

"They're not all bad," Keres muttered.

"Where were you?"

Keres frowned. "What?"

"Where. Were. You?!" Nasarya shouted. "Where were you? I waited for you for YEARS. I waited for you to come back during the Red War. They killed... they killed people. They killed our friends - OUR friends. Where were you then?"

Keres looked away. "I was... preoccupied."

"You're always preoccupied," Nasarya snorted derisively. "I used to believe in you - that you were good at heart. That you'd always be reasonable, even in your darkest hour. You always were before. But you've changed, Keres. You've changed for the worse."

"I haven't."

"The Relinquant."

Keres stiffened. He looked back at her, face contorted with worry. With fear. "What about it?"

"I know you were there," Nasarya said. "Reef ship. Lost in transit. You were there."

"Nas-"

"I know you were there. I can tell the traces of your Light apart from every other Risen's. Your Light. It was there."

"I didn't have a cho-"

"We always have a choice," Nasarya snapped. "Always."

Keres slumped back and leaned against one of the Ziggurat's pillars. "You sound just like 'Zanthes."

"She's wiser than you are."

"Even though she's made the same choices?"

"She has an excuse - a fuck-load of nightmares and trauma to pick from. You - you were raised into the perfect period of history and you know it. You've lived most of your life without existential dread."

"You haven't seen the things I have," Keres muttered. "There's... terrible, horrible entities out there. Monstrous THINGS. I've seen more than enough."

"And what are you doing about them?"

Keres didn't reply.

"What are you doing, Keres?" Nasarya questioned. She sounded tired. "What is it all for? All the death and misery? All the murder? What're you even trying to do?"

"Giving us an edge."

"Who's us? It isn't the City. Not with how you've been going about it."

Keres sighed and straightened up. "My Shape."

"Your cult," Nasarya said with a scowl. "Killers and outlaws."

"I'm giving us an opportunity."

"What kind of opportunity? A place beside the Witness?"

"Goodness no. Just..." Keres hesitated. "Come with me."

"Keres."

"We'll get away from all this. You and me. We'll carve out a new set of laws and we'll give ourselves and everyone around us a better world. We can do it. I know we can. We have the power; we have the knowledge. All those years away from everyone and everything - they weren't for nothing."

"You're a murderer," Nasarya said. "Keres, no. You're not the man I knew. You're not the man I loved. You've killed him and taken his face, his voice, but that's it."

"Nas-"

"You used to care about the little things."

"The little things won't survive what's coming," Keres murmured. "We have to hold onto everything we can't bear to lose. Nothing more."

"Is that what this is? You can't bear to lose me?"

"Of course I can't."

Nasarya shook her head. "Keres. No. We're done. We were done ten years ago and we're done now. I know where I stand, I know where you stand. We're too far apart. You're... you're too far gone."

The view shifted, zeroed in on the two of them. Keres glanced at it, from where the memory peeked in, and his frown deepened. Nasarya simply raised her sidearm at him.

"I'm sorry, Keres," she said.

Keres' eyes widened but he wasn't looking at her. "No. No, no don't-"

The memory flew to Nasarya. She fired. She stiffened. She stumbled forward and looked over her shoulder with surprise. "What?" she whispered. There was a knife in her back, the bloodied tip of it emerging from her sternum. A hand was holding onto the hilt of it - three-fingered and cast in sharp, elegant chitin.

"You will not," something snarled. Something close by. Something... inherent to the memory.

"No, no, NAS!" Keres was there, grabbing her as she fell, shoving the memory's host away. "No," he cried out, tugging the knife free of her. There was Light in his hands, golden and bright, and he pressed it against her. The soulfire in the wound fought him every step of the way. "Nas, look at me, don't-"

"Keres," she slurred. Her eyes fluttered - and then, they glazed over. Dead.

Nasarya was dead.

"No," Keres wept. Tears ran down his cheeks. He cradled her, held her against him, and convulsions of misery wracked his slender frame. "Why?"

The memory's host floated up. "It was folly," the disembodied voice spat.

"I never wanted this!" Keres' face tilted up. "You... I promised her I wouldn't hurt her."

"You did. Not I."

"Nas..." He glanced down at her, then looked up again. Something hardened in his expression. Rage burned in his eyes, made them cruel - made them dance with green, green fire. "You killed her."

His hand glowed and crackled with fierce Arc. It slipped away from cupping Nasarya's head and pointed. Right at the eye of the memory.

"Better," the other voice crooned. There was a note of finality to it. "Now you understand."

Keres opened his fist. The Arc fizzled and became a stream, a veritable river of searing energy. The host's own hands reached out for him, yearning for his touch.

And everything ceased to be.

Lisbon fell to his hands and knees, gasping for breath. He could still feel his nerves screaming, his flesh tearing away, his body burning up and dying. It was hell - torn between the memory of death and the reality of life. An inconsistency that ripped at the supports in his psyche, tore at the firewalls that kept DER at bay. Without really thinking he pulled his hand cannon free of its holster, shoved it up under his chin and pulled the trigger.

---

Clarity. Relief. Cold air. His cheek against the cool floor textured so much like bone. He lifted himself up onto his hands and coughed. He felt... empty inside. Rotten. A shell with a cavity beneath the surface; something sculpted just enough to resemble a man. Was he even that? A man? He blinked and saw claws instead of fingers below him, laid across the floor, and another blink forced them to revert. How many fingers was he supposed to have? Ten? Six? One or the other, but he was having trouble deciding which.

"Lisbon." That was Piri. "Lisbon, get up. You're okay. You're alive. You're you. You're Lisbon-13. Do you hear me? Fucking Lisbon-13."

Right. That. His name was definitely Lisbon. He'd lived thirteen true lives before this one. He couldn't remember them, but he instinctively knew they'd been there. His body remembered, even if his mind forgot.

"I'm good," he weakly croaked. Lisbon-13 grabbed the edge of the Altar and pulled himself up. "What the hell..."

"Bad memory, looked like," Piri supplied.

Lisbon-13's optics landed on the knife. "Yeah..."

"You gonna make that report?"

"I... not yet. Just notes. Make notes. Jot this down." He panted and staggered back, trying to find his balance. It was an elusive thing. "Memory revealed the cause of Nasarya's death. Keres was present - but he wasn't responsible. The whole time they made it look like Hive; the whole time I was convinced it was someone else. A Dredgen. Only a Dredgen could make such a clean kill. I was wrong. It was Hive. I just... I don't know who. Or what." Lisbon-13 grimaced. "Not that I suppose it matters now. They're just as dead. Keres made sure of that."

He heaved a sigh. "Nasarya came out here to meet Keres, but Keres wasn't planning to harm her. What happened was not his intent. He's no murderer - not of her, in any case. He played a part but it wasn't a malicious one. That makes it a little harder to point a finger at him."

"And the Hive?"

"Keres knew it. Knew them. His people here have some sort of... deal with the local brood. Scorn keep their distance too; don't know the nature of that arrangement, but it's worth some looking into by someone more collected than me. Probably a Lucent critter, hitched a ride over."

Piri made an unhappy sound. "You're starting to sound like you're finished."

"Aren't I?" Lisbon-13 challenged. "Look, investigation's over. Nasarya's dead, Keres is in the clear, the killer's dust on the wind. That's all Ikora wanted."

"She'll want to hear more."

"Then she can get someone else to do it. I'm done. I'm done with this place and I'm done with these people. All of them." Lisbon inhaled deeply. "I'm done, Piri."

"No," his Ghost retorted, "we're not. There's one more thing."

"What?"

"The Ghost."

"Fuck the Ghost. He's just as dead as Nasarya. If he got away, the Scorn would have killed him. Or the Lucent Brood. They know a City-aligned Ghost when they see one."

"Lisbon-"

"No." Lisbon shook his head. "Piri, I am done."

"We still have another lead." Piri transmatted the tiny scrap of cloth onto the Altar. Lisbon felt the air tense and shift as psychic power coiled around it and he reluctantly turned around to face it.

The memory flowed over him, softer than its predecessor.

They threw him into a dank, dark cell somewhere along a forgotten maintenance tunnel. He hit the floor, weakly raised himself up and saw the guards - four-armed and four-eyed and growling to themselves - shut the barred door behind him. His Light was strained and weak and no Ghost emerged to heal him. Keres Taryche, scratched up and filthy, leaned against the bars of his cell and watched as the last of the Fallen Vandals' yellow cloaks disappeared as they climbed back up the stairs. A door shut somewhere above, thrusting him into near total darkness. Keres squinted through the gloom, looking for something, anything.

And across from him, in the cell adjacent, three green eyes flared to life.

Lisbon pulled back out of the memory, relieved to feel like himself again. The sensations of the vision had been weak, vague, but they were defined enough to paint a picture for him, brief as it was. "Eliskni," he observed. "Kings."

"The Kings are dead," Piri dubiously remarked. "This could have been from a while back."

"Maybe."

"But those eyes. There was something Hive there. Might've been the killer."

"Maybe," Lisbon tiredly said again.

"Lisbon," Piri said impatiently. "C'mon. Don't just give up."

"Piri, case's closed."

"No it's not."

"Keres is-"

"He's not the murderer, maybe, but he was an affiliate nonetheless," Piri snapped. "Look, we can't arrest him for killing Nasarya anymore, but he needs to be dealt with - and we've just stumbled on the mother of all dirt. Consorting with Hive? The Praxic Order would be beside themselves."

"There's evidence enough."

"Circumstantial."

"Enough for Aunor, I bet."

"But for Ikora?" Piri paused. "Look, Lisbon. Vanguard's stretched thin. They can't just send a team after Keres unless there's confirmation of crimes against the City. He needs to go."

"Then get someone like Ikharos," Lisbon snapped. "If he wants to take Keres down so bad, let him."

"He won't."

"Piri-"

"You know why he won't. Because he's not like you. He can't hurt the ones he loves."

Lisbon-13's stomach dropped. "Piri..." he whispered.

"Yeah, I said it." Piri raised her voice. "You killed Rekkana. You killed Yardarm. You tried to kill me! You're stone-cold, through and through. Ikharos won't strike Keres because he still loves him. But you - you'll kill him because you've never respected the sanctity of life."

"He'll kill me," Lisbon shot back.

"What, are you scared? Where's the Lisbon I used to know?! Oh Traveler above, you entered the Black Garden! Cop on and some good for once in your life!"

There was a long pause. Piri blinked. Lisbon stared.

"Is that how you see it?" he asked.

"Lisbon, I-"

"Fine," Lisbon bit out. "I'll do some good. But then? Then I'm really done. With everything. And nothing you say will change that." He pocketed the knife, the scrap of cloth and he marched down the steps from the Altar. "Call the ship. We're leaving."

---

/VANNET/VANGUARD-AUTHORIZED SECURE TERMINAL/ENCRYPTION ENABLED/
/TRANSMISSION ORIGIN: EARTH TRANSIT/
/AUDIO CONVERSATION LOG/
/USER: LISBON-13—VIP#0357/
/USER: IKORA REY—VIP#0006/
:: Thank you for using VANNET ::
:: Your conversation may be recorded ::
:: Connecting you with your party / TOWER COMMAND::

LISBON-13: Found the site of the murder.

IKORA REY: And?

LISBON-13: They brought her out there. Nasarya. Or Keres did, anyways. But she went with him willingly. To talk, I think. There was a Ziggurat out on the edge of the Throne World. That's where she died.

IKORA REY: And Keres?

LISBON-13: He wasn't there for me. Imezanthes showed me everything. They even left the murder weapon out to be collected.

IKORA REY: Did you-

LISBON-13: I did. I learned what I could. Keres didn't do the actual killing.

IKORA REY: Then who did?

LISBON-13: Still trying to figure that out. Give me a couple of days.

IKORA REY: However long you need. And Lisbon?

LISBON-13: What?

IKORA REY: Thank you.

---

They flew all the way back to the City. Piri dropped him off at the Riverside District via transmat, then looped the ship around for a nearby hangar. Lisbon landed well, ignoring the cool looks of the nearby citizenry, and he strolled along the riverside for a while. The water below was clear and lush; City purifiers had finally recovered to the state they'd been in pre-Red War at some point in the last year. The Vanguard-officiated news stations had lauded the achievement for weeks on end. Clean enough to drink, they said. Lisbon hadn't tried. Seemed like a silly thing to do.

He followed the riverfront along until it meet the road leading to the Botza District. The Eliksni Quarter was visibly shabbier than the rest of the City, even with the damage from the Red War, and the walkways were less densely packed. Some modicum of tolerance had built up since the Endless Night and the old tensions seemed like a thing of the past, but the scars remained. Not a lot of people living in close proximity to the Eliksni. If Lakshmi's fearmongering hadn't run them out, then the screams of invasive Vex finished the job. What remained were those folk too stubborn to seek housing on the other end of the Wall.

That said, it wasn't a ghost town. The beginnings of a bazaar had begun to spark up in the past couple of months - mostly stalls stocked with Eliksni craft, with a few ambitious human traders sprinkled in. Lisbon passed them all, ignoring merchants human and Eliksni alike. He probably should have changed; the cloak gave him away - and no one packed so much glimmer as Guardians. All the same, though, he continued on to the heart of the Quarter. More and more the people he passed traded in two eyes for four and more arms than were the norm. The cacophonous din of human speech shifted to a needling, constant chatter of clicking mandibles.

He stopped in the courtyard of the Quarter's core, staring at the huge, half-crumbled ruin that marked the Kell's makeshift palace. A couple of Eliksni on the periphery of his vision gave them the side eye. One dared to approach, wringing both sets of hands and lowering its head - just enough that they were on eye-level.

"Guardian, yes?" they questioned. "Braksis help?"

"I'm looking for Mithrax," Lisbon-13 announced. "He in there?"

"Misraakskel... fly." Braksis made a motion with their hands, raising them up.

Lisbon nodded slowly. "Ah. Anyone else I can talk to? Anyone with connections?"

"Uh, eia, Eiy-do Imaxes." Braksis gestured to the side of the complex, to an adjoining building. One in slightly better shape than its neighbour.

"Thanks." Lisbon procured a glimmer cube and flicked it to the Eliskni, then continued on. He stopped by the open doorway and rapped his knuckles against the frame. It was dimly lit within and he couldn't see more beyond the first hallway. No one answered but he could hear chatter from somewhere inside. With a wary look around Lisbon entered, picked his way along and found himself in what looked to be an impromptu cross between a living room and an office. There was an Eliksni inside, robed and tall, and a Hunter - Awoken at that. They both looked over as he peeked in.

"A Guardian?" the Eliksni said, her speech oddly smooth. She perked up. "You know where she is?"

"Eido-" the Hunter warned. He looked a little familiar but Lisbon couldn't place why.

"You have news of Nasarya?" Eido approached him, eyes wide with hope.

Lisbon looked between them with a frown. "You know Nasarya?" he asked, surprised.

They looked at each other - Eido and the Hunter. "Yes," Eido said warily. "Is that not why you're here?"

"I'm looking for Mithrax," Lisbon explained.

"Oh," Eido seemingly shrunk and retreated to one of the couches shoved against the wall. "My father is away on business."

"Is there anything we can help you with?" the Hunter asked.

Lisbon eyed him. "What's your name?"

"Crow."

"What're you doing here?"

Crow furrowed his brow. "Is something the matter?"

"What's your business here?" Lisbon pressed.

"I don't think I need to tell you that."

Lisbon took one step closer to him. Crow straightened and his eyes widened with alarm. "'Fraid you do," Lisbon retorted. He flashed his ident-tags. "Lisbon-13, Hidden. So I'll ask again: your business here?"

"Uh, my Ghost-"

"Glint and I were researching the Headless Ones," Eido explained. "Crow came by to check on us."

"Yeah," Crow said. "Is... is something wrong?"

"The... Headless Ones?" Lisbon dubiously echoed.

"Oh yes!" A Ghost manifested in the air between them. "You haven't heard of the Headless Ones?"

"No..."

"They're-"

"Of disputed origin," Eido interrupted. She threw Glint a warning look. The Ghost's shell flared with indignation.

"Look, okay, doesn't matter." Lisbon shook his head. "Is Mithrax due back soon?"

Eido shrugged. It was a very human motion. The anger in it translated well. "I don't know," she said sullenly. Lisbon was of the opinion that her problem wasn't necessarily with him. She looked over. "Is it something I can help with?"

"That depends." Lisbon leaned on one leg. "I'm looking for House Kings."

Eido and Crow shared another look. They even included Glint. "House Kings?" Crow repeated. "I thought they were extinct?"

"Could be," Lisbon admitted. "I've been tipped off regarding... well, something, and I'd like to get to the bottom of it."

"Kings..." Eido said, trailing off. She stood back up, strode across the room and picked up a datapad - then put it down in favour of another. "I might be able to help. What is it you want, exactly?"

"That's the thing. I'm not sure." Lisbon crossed his arms. "I'm looking for records, really. Anything pertaining to prisoners of war."

"Prisoners..." Eido looked up. "That will be... difficult. I don't have anything of the sort transcribed already."

"Know anyone else who can help?"

"Oh, I can help, I just don't have the information you need handy." Eido opened a drawer and started ruffling through what looked like a massive pile of datasticks. "There's still so much material to work through. My people brought all this from their old houses - Wolves, Winter, Devils, Salvation and even Dusk, disorganised as it was. I'm sure there's something from Kings too."

"Even a manifest regarding hostages?"

"Who'd they take?" Crow asked. When Lisbon looked at him he raised an eyebrow. "Could make the search easier."

"A Warlock," Lisbon clarified. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he added, "And maybe a Hive. I'm not sure."

"A Hive?" Eido shot him a strange look. "What are you looking for?"

"That's Hidden business," Lisbon-13 replied. "If you want more than that you'll have to take it up with Ikora."

"Didn't the Devils catch some Hive?" Crow said.

"Yes, but those were SIVA Splicers under the command of Vosiks," Eido explained. She resumed her search through the drawer. "Not Kings. The SIVA Splicers were beyond their control."

"Huh," Crow murmured.

Lisbon made a sound analogous to a throat being cleared. "Would it be easier to ask some former Kings?" he inquired. "Do you have anyone from that house in your own?"

"A couple." Eido straightened up. "That might be wise."

"Point them out for me?"

"I'll translate for you." Eido filed past him with a datapad on hand. Lisbon followed after her; with a pang of annoyance he saw that Crow and Glint were trailing after them, but he didn't speak out. He was tired enough as it was. Eido led them outside, across the courtyard and entered what looked like to be a ramshackle garage of sorts. Lisbon spied a well-painted Sparrow hovering in the middle of all the chaos, its wires peeking out as a Vandal laid beneath it and rummaged around inside it.

"Klyfiks," Eido said.

The Vandal gave a start, smacked its head on the Sparrow, and cursed as it crawled out from under it. "Eia?" it grumbled

Eido pointed to Lisbon and said something in her own language. Klyfiks glanced between them, barely looked at Crow, then nodded vigorously. Eido turned around. "He says he might know something," she said, bobbing her head. If the gesture meant anything it was lost on him. "He'll answer any question we have, but for a price."

Lisbon produced a fistful of glimmer. "This work?"

Eido's eyes widened, but Klyfiks' practically boggled. "Eia!" he exclaimed and reached out. Lisbon pulled his hand back.

"Only if you have the answers I'm looking for," Lisbon told him. Eido translated. Klyfiks tilted his head, then slumped his shoulders and nodded. "Good. You were with House Kings?"

"Eia," Klyfiks said after the translation went through.

"Was your crew ever associated with keeping prisoners?"

Klyfiks hesitated and chittered. "Not really," Eido supplied. "It was a large House."

"Do you know if any crews took Guardians prisoner?"

"Some."

"Any in recent years? Any, let's say, in the past decade?"

Another hesitation. "Some," Eido said again.

"What about Hive?"

Klyfiks tilted his head the other way and clicked his mandibles. "Not really," Eido translated, "but there... were some raids into Hive territory? Near the Cosmodrome."

Lisbon frowned. Baikonur, he thought. That's a little suspect. "When did these take place?"

Klyfiks said something. "Around eight years ago. Nine, maybe. Before the Taken War. After the Hive of the place had begun to rise back to the surface."

"I... see," Lisbon said. "Who was involved? Any commander?"

"Craask - and then some of his Barons. There was Iniksi, Valiks, Persiks, Reksii, Aksim, Vulis-"

"Any of them still alive?"

Klyfiks clicked his teeth. "Iniksi is now of House Salvation," Eido translated, "and Aksim of Dusk, but Reksii still holds firm to Kings' colours."

"Where are they?"

"She. Paris, he says. Old Europe."

Lisbon nodded slowly. "So... what, there's still a holdout in France?"

"Klyfiks claims so," Eido said warily. "What remains of the Kings still wield Dusk like puppets. It is a favourable position for them, to scheme from behind the ruins of your Dead Zone."

"Right." Lisbon paused. "Does he know a way of contacting this Reksii?"

Eido hesitated. "We have tried that before, with crews in that area," she said. "My father and I. I think we called her once. She is not... agreeable to our cause."

"But will she hear us out?"

"... Perhaps. More likely my house than yours, Hidden. I do not mean to offend."

"None taken." Lisbon put a hand on his hip. "Reckon you could do that for me?"

"Contact Reksii?"

"Yeah. See if she's open to meeting us."

"Here?" Eido asked, aghast. "She would never accept."

"On her ground, then. That work?"

"... It could. If we follow the rites of the old ways. If she has assurance this is no attempt at duplicity. Only then might she humour us."

"Worth the risk." Lisbon held out the glimmer. Klyfiks made a happy snuffling sound and cupped his hands together to catch it all. "Any idea how long it'll take?"

"I'll get started now," Eido promised him. "Do you need to be somewhere or..."

"I'm in no rush," Lisbon-13 told her.

"Ah. Feel free to wait around. Our home is your home." Eido offered him a gracious bow before leaving. Crow offered him a slight nod and filed after her.

"Cool," Lisbon murmured to no one at all. "Thanks."

---

He strolled through the Botza District, looking at all the damage inflicted over the years - from Cabal, from anarchic Fallen, from a surge of furious Vex. The place hadn't been treated kindly. He stopped by the corpse of Insurrection Prime and took it in, looked it over, mentally compared it to the Brigs he'd faced on Europa and abroad. Larger, stronger - but not so easily produced. He wondered if it would have figured into one of Yardarm-4's weird metaphors, had he been alive long enough to see it.

A Skiff for Rekkana, a Pike for you, a Brig for me. All's fair, right?

Piri found him like that, lost in his own thoughts. She landed on his shoulder without a word and perched there. Lisbon... suppressed a sigh. He could feel the warmth of her shell through his armour. He could feel the weight of her. It was something he feared he was starting to lose - or that he'd lost it already, so long ago. When was the last time they'd been so close? Before the Garden, certainly. Before he'd tried to kill her. Before he'd tried to wipe her off the face of the universe.

And all because he'd wanted to forget... HER.

Lisbon-13 saw her in front of him and he wanted to embrace her. He wanted to shove his cannon between her eyes and pull the trigger. He... he wanted to bury her. Keep her from the Garden - but the vines wouldn't let go of either of them. The Garden claimed them, claimed their bodies and power for itself. Replaced flesh with steel. Blood with radiolaria. Eyes with red, red optics. He remembered watching them rise, reborn anew.

But it wasn't them.

Just the Minds the Garden had managed to salvage from their dead remains. Consecrated in Dark, sanctified in betrayal - lost forever. They'd killed their own Ghosts too. No way back. Not for them.

Not for him.

"I'm sorry," Lisbon-13 whispered.

Piri shifted. Said nothing. Neither did he. Those two words were all he had in him. They stood there as evening fell and they stood there and night swept over the City. Only when the stars framed the Traveler above did they move - and only because Crow had emerged to fetch them. "C'mon," he said. "Eido needs you."

Lisbon wordlessly followed. He found Eido back within her own room next to the Kell's complex and watched as she all but skipped over, trembling with excitement. "She answered," she exclaimed. "Reksii answered."

"And?" Lisbon-13 inquired.

"She's willing to humour you."

"Alright. So... Paris? Any idea where?"

"Eh, a valley to the south. She says her people will meet us on neutral ground," Eido explained. "They'll bring us to her."

"'Us'?" Lisbon echoed questioningly.

"Yes," Eido replied. She raised her chin in defiance. "If we are to honour the old ways, then we must follow them closely. And you, I'm afraid, are no Eliksni."

"Shocker that," Lisbon-13 drily replied. "Fine."

"I'll come too," Crow added.

Lisbon looked at him quizzically.

"Keep Eido safe," he explained.

Eido glanced at him, her outer eyes shuttered. "I don't need your protection."

"No, it's a good idea," Lisbon cut in. "Paris isn't the kind of place you want to visit without taking every precaution. If the Kings don't hang us out to dry, then it'll be Red Legion deserters or Hive packs. Hell, or even human bandits, if there's anyone still alive out there. Doubt any of them would think twice before gutting a little... what are you?"

"Scribe," Eido grumbled. "And I'm larger than you."

"I bet," Lisbon muttered. He offlined his optics with exasperation. "You're also mortal. What I say goes, understand?"

"I need to lead-"

"I'm not talking about dealing with the Kings. I mean in general. While we're out there, you do exactly as I say when I say it. Do you understand? You will die out there if not. And there's no coming back for you."

Eido opened her mouth. She looked at Crow. He gave her a helpless shrug. "Fine," she growled. "I'll listen to you."

"Good." Lisbon stepped back. "Did she say when?"

"Now."

Lisbon inclined his head. "That's handy. We'll take my ship." He paused by the doorway. "Do we need to tell Mithrax?"

Eido's mandibles flared. "No," she muttered.

That's a yes, Lisbon thought. He'd get Piri to do it. "Alright. Let's go."

---

They flew through the night and, by the time they'd crossed the Atlantic and soared over the EDZ, they met back up with the sun as it rose into the sky - only a little past midnight for the Last City. When one ranged all across the world from within a jumpship, jetlag was more a constant than not. Lisbon was content to stave off what sleep he could anyways; the less chance he had to dream of her, the better. He didn't need his every night haunted by her face, her eyes. As much as it felt like it as of late, she wasn't his whole world. Lisbon had other nightmares to confront.

He brought them low across the ruins of Paris. The ruins below were sprawling, blanketing the ground below for miles on miles in every direction. He felt exposed, circling above like he was, and every moment he spent doing so was another moment a Fallen Captain could order a Walker to fire on him.

"I've got it," Eido reported. She was sitting beside him in the copilot's seat, her datapad in hand. "They see us. They're transmitting us coordinates now."

"Piri," Lisbon-13 said. Piri compiled in front of her, scanned the datapad and disappeared all over again.

"Got it," Piri said, her voice whispering through the ship's intercom. "I'll take us down. Get ready."

Lisbon swivelled his chair around, pulled himself up and checked his cannon. Full ammo drum, he noted. Eleven good bullets. He drew a bow out of transmat too and strapped a quiver over one shoulder, under his cloak. Eido eyed him unhappily. "We aren't here to fight," she said.

"Pays to be prepared," Lisbon replied.

Eido hesitated. He noticed and turned to her. "What?" Lisbon asked.

"You... you asked us before," she started to say, "if we knew Nasarya. Do you?"

Lisbon paused. He looked away, framing it as disinterest. "Not really. We'd met once or twice."

"Do you know where she is?" Eido chittered. Her mandibles pressed close against her teeth. "I'm worried. Is she on a mission for the Vanguard?"

"You're friends with her?"

"Yes, eia." Eido nodded vigorously.

"Right." Lisbon took a deep breath. "I'll look into it when we get back."

"Thank you," Eido exhaled. There was a dull, muted thud as they landed. Lisbon climbed down into the ship's main body, Eido right behind him, and they met Crow by the loading ramp. He raised his head and greeting, then pulled the lever that opened it. Daylight broke through, all but blinded them, and Lisbon raised a hand to shade his optics as he stepped out. It was an old landing pad, he discovered. Ground level. Low rolling hills framed the valley in a gentle, idyllic bowl, but when he looked around he saw only rubble and desolation. A testament to humanity's fall and someone else's conquest.

Lisbon stepped out into the open, despite every instinct that screamed at him to cloak himself in Void, to take cover, to get back inside and fly far, far away. Nothing moved. Nothing jumped out at them. There wasn't even a single glow of an activated wire rifle. Just... the wind. The sun above. The smell of old, old earth and wet mold.

Eido stepped past him, her eyes glued to the screen of her datapad. "That way," she announced, pointing right. On she walked. Crow hurried after her, shogun strapped to his back and a silver hand cannon holstered at his hip. Lisbon lazily strolled after them.

They didn't make it five yards before Shanks rose up from the broken buildings ahead of them.

"Easy," Lisbon murmured, but he found it was unnecessary; Eido and Crow stopped in place and calmly looked up at the flock of approaching drones. One of the robots swooped down in front of Eido, whirred, and she nodded vigorously. "Eia," she said, and drew a knife and wrench from beneath her robes. She crossed them in front of her. The Shank flew back up. A couple of figures stepped out from the ruins ahead, four-armed and big. Lisbon squinted. Vandals, looked like. With a Captain at the front. Their cloaks shimmered in the sunlight, liquid gold, and the pale white rune woven into them was neat and elegant - a far cry from most Fallen glyphs.

The House of Kings. Still alive. Still kicking. Lisbon foresaw a couple of reports pertaining to the old houses in his future - though he imagined Ikora already knew. Seldom did something like this escape her. The Hidden numbered far more than just one measly Hunter.

Eido met the Captain halfway. Lisbon trailed behind, keeping a respectful distance, and he noted how most of the Vandals behind their leader either watched him or Crow - as if Eido wasn't even there. Their Captain said something; Eido responded in kind, speaking with the Fallen tongue. Lisbon wasn't even remotely familiar enough with it to pick out anything but a couple of Eias and Namas. It must have been going well, though, because before long the Captain raised its head and roared, pointing back with a sword the way it came from. The Vandals approached and fell in around them, holding rifles and blades in tightly-clenched claws. Eido spared Lisbon an excited smile, as if to reassure him it was a good thing.

"Good work," he softly told her.

The Captain led them from the landing strip, down through a couple of cracked alleys and roads, and brought them to the entrance of what looked like a subway system. There were another couple of Fallen waiting, armed with strange sensors. Eido took one look at them, then turned to Lisbon and Crow and said, "They're checking for trackers and communicators."

"Riiight," Lisbon drawled. "And we're okay with this?"

"I am. Are you?"

"Piri," Lisbon said, swiveling his head.

"I'm here," Piri answered. Her voice emanated from within his helmet.

"Cut us off."

"You sure about that?"

"No, but it's too late for that."

"... Right, let me-" Piri cut off. "Uh, Lisbon?"

"What?"

"You have a tracker on your cloak."

Lisbon stiffened. "What?"

"Signal's thing, but it's low. Small electronic presence. Looks like a sensor mite."

"Nip it." Lisbon pulled his cloak off and held it out at arms length. Piri took it into transmat.

"Right," she said. "Done. Neutralized. It's quiet now."

"Find out-"

"I'll see what I can do."

Lisbon grimaced, nodded, and turned to face Eido. "We're good."

"So am I," Crow said. He looked remarkably okay with everything, watching their escorts with something akin to wonder and awe.

The new Fallen approached, raised their sensors and, after a moment, chirped to the Captain - who waved them off. They all set off down to the subway, stopped by the edge of rails and... waited. Lisbon only caught on when he heard the electric hum and metallic shriek of a train hurtling around the corner of the tunnel and sliding to a sharp stop in front of them.

"That's cool," Crow breathed.

The doors opened. The Captain directed them to the middle of five carriages, where other Fallen were waiting, and graciously handed them over to another Kings officer. The two shared some hushed words in their own language and then the door closed, and the train chugged on. Lisbon looked around, took to one of the benches built into the side of the carriage and leaned his head back against the cracked window. It trembled as the train moved, a steady beat that, at any other time, would have annoyed him - but now all he could think about was the fact that someone had planted a tracker on him. The ramifications were... worrying.

No time for that now, though. The train began to slow down again, hardly ten minutes after first setting off, and the doors on either side of the carriage slid open to reveal another dimly lit station. There were more Kings beyond, all of them armed, and another pair of Captains waited beyond. The larger of the two approached and pulled a pair of knives, slotting both blades together in a plus sign. Eido emulated the gesture with her own dagger and wrench, bowing her head with it.

"Velask," the Captain said.

Eido's head bobbed. "Vel."

The Captain turned first to Crow, then to Lisbon. Its eyes settled on him, looking him over. "Welcome, humans," it said in warped English. "Come. Follow."

Lisbon-13 pushed himself back to his feet and strolled after the Fallen.

---

They arrived at a massive enclosed atrium that had been converted from an office space into a kind of throne room, with a walkway down the middle towards the grand pedestal of scrap, and on either side there were standing platforms for higher-ranked Kings to perch and look down on those who had come to petition favour from their unofficial queen - and she was all but deserving of the title, Lisbon thought with some amusement. The Eliksni seated on the grand throne at the end of the room was massive, fourteen feet tall at least, and her armour was sculpted like that he would have expected to see on an Archon-Aspirant or an Archpriest - ornamental, most of it silver but for her horned helmet and cloak. Two dark horns from some old alien beast stuck out from the heavy mantle of fur about her shoulders. Her lower hands clutched the ends of the throne's armrests and her upper pair were clasped over the pommel of a huge shock sword, the tip of the blade braced against the concrete floor below.

Even her throne was magnificent, in a brutal sort of fashion. Where other Fallen would have been content to shove some skulls on spears, the Kings settled for something less primal - though equally grim. Crowning the back of the massive chair were helmets - some Eliksni of varying houses, some belonging to Cabal in both red and blue, some formerly of Hive Knights and Wizards, and there were even the helms of Guardians, of which a couple were quite valuable. Lisbon spotted what looked like a Crown of Tempests nestled between a Legionary's skullcap of the Cabal Ascendancy and a mask for a Wolves Marauder. A grand curtain had been drawn across the space behind the throne, as if to cordon off a separate room. A weak light within illuminated a shape standing just behind - massive and bulky and vaguely humanoid. Not Eliksni; heavier. Larger. Cabal or something similar. Lisbon kept an eye on it as he approached.

The chamber had filled with the noise of gnashing teeth and sibilant hisses the very moment the court of Kings had noticed him and Crow entering alongside Eido, but their Baroness raised a hand into the air and very soon all was silent again - or as close to it a room full of half a hundred people could be.

"Velask, Reksii-Mrelliks," Eido quickly greeted. She performed the same act as before, with her knife and wrench, but the Baroness made no move to repeat it. She just watched them with distant boredom, her greathelm's ten optics flickering blue and orange.

"What do the Light-thieves want?" the Baroness rumbled in clear, fluent English.

Eido shifted, from excitement straight to unease. "Noble Baron of House Ki-"

"Enough from you, Light-Scribe." Reksii leaned forward. "You. Awoken. Why are you here?"

Crow hesitated and glanced Lisbon's way.

"For Eido's protection," Lisbon-13 supplied, making sure his voice carried loud and clear across the entirety of the hall. "Or he is, rather. I'm the one with a request."

"Oh? And what brings a Lightbearer all the way here, for little old me?" Reksii asked sweetly.

"Vanguard business," Lisbon-13 announced. "I have a couple of questions to ask you, if you're up to it."

"What kind of business?"

"A Hidden investigation regarding possible illicit activity - Hive lore and Worm magic."

Reksii sat back and grunted. "We don't practice that here."

"No, but that's not why I've swung by." Lisbon-13 paused and looked around. "Would it be possible to speak in relative privacy?"

"No." Reksii waved to him. "Continue."

Lisbon tried to keep his irritation from showing. "I have reason to believe a Warlock was detained by Kings forces in the last decade-"

"That's what this is about?" Reksii huffed with amusement. "We've taken plenty of your kind over the years."

"I'm aware," Lisbon said, growing annoyed. "I'm referring to a specific Warlock. Your people detained them opposite a Hive creature."

Reksii tensed. It was a subtle, slight thing - but Lisbon caught sight of it, noticed how her fingers tightened on the ends of her armrests. "Go on," she ordered. "Does this Light-thief have a name?"

"Keres Taryche," Lisbon-13 told her. "Are you familiar?"

"... Unfortunately." Reksii stood up, towering, and her shadow fell over him. "I know the Warlock you speak of."

"He was in your custody?"

"Once. Then my sister's."

Lisbon inhaled. "Alright."

"What is it you seek?" Reksii demanded. "My patience wears thin, human."

"The Hive creature. What was it? Who was it? Where did you find it? Why did you keep it?"

"That is a lot of questions." Reksii closed the distance between them in two bounding strides and hunkered down in front of him. She was taller than him even like that. One of her hands ranged forwards and traced over his cuirass. "What price are you willing to pay?"

"I have glimmer-" Lisbon started to say, but Reksii shook her massive head.

"No," she barked. "Something more. Something... valuable." She looked him over. "This bow."

"It's not for sale," Lisbon-13 quickly replied.

"I could kill you and take it."

"The Vanguard would rip Paris apart looking for you as a result."

"They wouldn't find me."

"But they'd run interference with your operations here. All that for a bow?" Lisbon-13 challenged. "It wouldn't even fit you."

"Not I," Reksii agreed, "but one of my hatchlings is almost of age to raid. A Guardian weapon like this? Now that is a prize befitting of my blood."

"You can't threaten me for it."

"And what of your companions?"

"Them?" Lisbon glanced at Eido and Crow. They watched him closely, their eyes wide and limbs tense. "Kill the Hunter and you'd have the same result. The Scribe? That would be to declare war on House Light - and their Kell's just after humiliating House Salvation. You want that?"

Reksii hummed. "Doesn't sound so frightening to me," she murmured thoughtfully. The air around them... chilled. Lisbon heard a crackling sound first, and only then did he notice the glass-like substance running down one of the Baroness's arms. He backed away just as the crystal reached her claws, narrowly avoiding it spreading onto him.

"I could do things to you," Reksii said in a low voice. "Such terrible things."

"Nothing I haven't seen before," Lisbon-13 shot back. His words sounded braver than he felt - because he hadn't been expecting to see Salvation-tech smuggled back to Earth so soon and it shook him, left him scrambling to think. "Nothing I haven't already survived before."

"Are you so sure?" Reksii looked him over. She stood up again, forcing him to crane his neck to meet her gaze. "Give me the bow, willingly, and I'll even share you a secret. One you want to hear."

"If it's knowledge or death by Stasis," Piri whispered to him, "then pick knowledge. There's more things at stake, Lisbon."

Like what? he wanted to snap. Giving up on everything that got me out of that hellhole?

"Give it up," Piri urged. "It's just a bow."

It was more than that. It was his only real attempt at redemption.

... But look how well that had turned out.

"So be it." Lisbon shrugged off the quiver and handed both it and the bow over. Reksii softly laughed, a sound that resembled nothing more than the growl of a dying jumpship, and plucked them out of his hands.

"See?" she said - both to him and everyone else in attendance. The other Kings listened closely, though Lisbon doubted even half of them could understand a single word that was being said. "Even a Light-thief's pride can be set aside - for the right price."

"The Hive creature," Lisbon-13 reminded her.

"Hm? Oh, that." Reksii passed the bow and quiver off to an attendant, then returned to her throne. "Some witch-spawn lashed in wire and pulled from the catacombs of your Cosmodrome. My sister was digging for your old machine, Ra'asperutiin. She found those beasts instead - and burned them out. Took a prize to account for her mistakes." Reksii chuckled. "I hear that the Hive matron of that place screamed when she discovered her daughters dead or gone."

"Which sect?"

"Those Hive accompanied the Hidden Swarm in their Seeders from the Moon," Reksii explained, her tone one of disinterest. "But the creature my dear Persiks claimed wore a different shell. Yellow."

"Spawn of Crota," Lisbon-13 realised.

"Just so."

"And your sister - she put Keres next to this thing?"

"The Light-thief was my prisoner," Reksii corrected. "And I put him there."

"Why?"

"Why not? We have no love for your kind nor the Prince's brood. If they drove each other to madness, it would save us the use of knives." Reksii looked past him. "Oh? Does that bother you, Scribe?"

"It's... it's despicable!" Eido exclaimed, aghast.

"We are Kings, not the whimpering cretins Misraaks offered to the thieves," Reksii said with what sounded like a sneer. "If plain speech bothers you so, inform my guards and they will see you out."

"What happened next?" Lisbon interjected.

Reksii looked back at him and shrugged with one mighty shoulder, the pauldron over it shifting and clanking. "The Ghost escaped before my Splicers could peel its shell away and released your kin. The witch-spawn followed them out."

"You didn't catch them?"

"It was the time of Dusk," Reksii rumbled. "Craask demanded our attentions elsewhere."

"Did the Hive thing have a name?" Lisbon questioned.

"None that I recall. We referred to it as the thing."

"Do you know if they left together?" Lisbon pressed. "Keres and the Hive?"

Reksii shrugged again. "I doubt it."

"Did you check? Were there any security cameras?"

"Why do you ask this?"

"I want to secure evidence," Lisbon explained.

"That we capture Hive and Light-thieves alike?"

"That Keres and the witch-spawn were in cahoots."

Reksii snorted. "Perhaps once, maybe, if one or the other fell far enough. But now? No."

"No?" Lisbon tilted her head. "How do you know that?"

"Because they only just passed through here recently," Reksii explained. "They sought me out individually - the Warlock through an agent, yes, but both came with requests."

"That's your other secret?" Lisbon asked. "I already know the Hive's dead. Keres killed it some days ago."

"Really?" Reksii inquired. "Now that is strange. She met with me only yesterday."

Lisbon frowned. "Yesterday? You're sure?"

"Her shell was changed, but she wore the same shape. She spoke with the same voice."

"And, what, you just invited her in?"

Reksii wagged a finger at him. "Don't you start now, thief. You may steal their flesh and their tools, but a Hive's true strength is their knowledge and words and that they will never part with, even unto death; I can respect that. If only you humans were the same. Your kind all sing the same song when I lift you up and pull your limbs off one by one. Where is the bravery in that?"

Lisbon ignored the barb. "What did she want?"

Reksii waved flippantly. "Answers, same as you."

Lisbon-13 narrowed his optics. "What answers?"

"As I said, the same as you."

"And the Dredgen?"

"The what?"

"The agent Keres sent," Lisbon clarified. "What did they want?"

"To ask after what she had asked," Reksii chuckled. "Just as you are." She cocked her head to the side. "They are not with your Vanguard, are they? Not with your City. I dare say a race has just commenced." Reksii leaned forward. "I wonder who will reach her first."

"Lisbon-" Piri started to say, but he shushed her.

"Where is she now?" he questioned urgently. "Where is she going?"

"Given all that you have learned, is there really any question of that?" Reksii mused. "Figure it out, thief. I've given you all you've paid for - and my hospitality has its limits."

"The Cosmodrome," Lisbon-13 realised. He took a deep breath. "Then we're done here."

"We are." Reksii barked something sharp to the guards. The lead Captain bowed and gestured back the way they came.

"Wait!" Eido cried out. She brushed past Lisbon. "Great Baron-"

"You mistake your place," Reksii growled warningly. "Leave my sight, Scribe."

"But you offered-"

"To hear the thieves through. And I have." Reksii huffed. "They were only things interesting about your request. Unless you're to deliver Misraaks' plea for aid against the Tower, keep your tongue still and your eyes averted. You are not worth the breath I waste on you."

Eido blinked fast.

"C'mon," Lisbon quietly urged her, touching her shoulder.

"I... I see. My apologies." Eido coldly curtsied, turned on her heel and quickly strode out of the throne room. Crow followed close behind, shooting Lisbon a troubled look, and he made to go after them.

"Wait," Reksii called out.

Lisbon slowed and turned his head.

"Should you meet with Keres," Reksii said, "and lay him low, I am willing to pay generously in glimmer and ether to see my property returned to me."

"What property is that?" Lisbon drily asked.

Reksii indicated upwards, to one of the spikes of her throne - one that stood empty, bereft of a helmet. "A relic," she explained. "You'll know it. My Splicers will offer you access to the proper channels for when you find it."

"When?" Lisbon-13 dubiously echoed.

"Or am I putting too much faith in you?"

"We'll see, won't we?"

"I suppose we will."

Lisbon thought it over. "I'll take a favour over hard goods," he concluded. "Does that work?"

Reksii made a thoughtful clicking sound. "It does. Hunt well."

Lisbon inclined his head and slipped out of the throne room. It erupted with noise just as he left it behind, what sounded like all the Kings in attendance struggling to speak over each other all at once. His escort led him back to the station, loaded him up onto the train again and passed him, Eido and Crow back over to the custody of the guards within.

"So rude," Eido grumbled to herself.

Crow barked a laugh. "I thought she was pretty straightforward."

"Still rude."

"Maybe."

Eido looked over Lisbon's way. "Did you, at least, find what you were searching for?"

"Something like that," Lisbon replied - outwardly calm even if his mind whirled with the revelation. Nasarya's killer, alive? But Keres had ended it, her, with a Chaos Reach, he thought. At least the memory had shown him as much - and skewed as they could sometimes be, he never knew a memory from the Altar to be false. Ascendant, then. Or something else like it.

And if Keres was hunting the killer... then Lisbon was pressed for time. If Keres got to her first, he could kill her and claim innocence - conveniently destroying the strongest evidence for his betrayal of the Light and the City while avenging Nasarya's death and presenting himself to the wider City as nothing short of a hero.

Lisbon couldn't allow that.

He wouldn't.

---

They emerged back into daylight. Lisbon took point, cannon drawn, and led them back out to the LZ - and sitting there, beside his jumpship, was a Skiff painted in the brick red and neon green of House Light. A trio of Eliksni were standing below, their leader - a Captain-sized critter - pacing to and fro in between both vessels. One of the other Eliksni saw them, pointed them out, and the Captain turned and ran their way.

"Oh no," Eido muttered.

"Eido!" the Captain exclaimed with relief - though at that point Lisbon realised he wasn't a Captain.

"No." Eido stopped and took a step back, raising a hand as if to ward him away. "Leave me alone."

"You cannot keep doing this!" Mithrax scolded. "First Eramis, now the Kings?! Do you not see the danger?! They are-"

"More honest with me than you ever were," Eido coldly shot back.

Mithrax flinched as if struck. He removed his helmet and looked at her, evidently torn between anger and worry. "Please, Eido, try to understand-"

"I can't. I won't. I cannot even talk to you."

"... Then how can you think to speak for our house, if you will not speak with your Kell?" Mithrax said, upset. "How... we will speak of this later. We will."

"Maybe," Eido replied, though her tone seemed to insinuate the opposite.

Mithrax sighed and turned to Lisbon. "Thank you for telling me."

"It was nothing," Lisbon-13 said. He ignored how Crow and Eido turned to him with surprise - and the latter with anger.

"You summoned him?!" Eido growled.

Lisbon shrugged. "Wasn't going to leave it to chance."

"I helped you!"

"And I'm thankful for that." Lisbon offered them a two-fingered salute. "I have to go. Mithrax-Kell, can you bring them home?"

"I will," Mithrax vowed. "Thank you, Hunter."

"Just doing my job." Lisbon-13 stepped past them, climbed up into his jumpship and released Piri. She flew ahead to the cockpit and started the preparation for lift-off. He braced himself against the wall of the hold, cycled in air and groaned. Too tired for this shit. Traveler-damned HIVE.

---

/VANNET/VANGUARD-AUTHORIZED SECURE TERMINAL/ENCRYPTION ENABLED/
/TRANSMISSION ORIGIN: EARTH TRANSIT/
/AUDIO CONVERSATION LOG/
/USER: LISBON-13—VIP#0357/
/USER: IKORA REY—VIP#0006/
:: Thank you for using VANNET ::
:: Your conversation may be recorded ::
:: Connecting you with your party / TOWER COMMAND::

LISBON-13: I'm in a bit of a predicament.

IKORA REY: What's the matter?

LISBON-13: No time to explain; closing in on the Cosmodrome as is. I need someone with a portable containment field to swing by ASAP.

IKORA REY: What for?

LISBON-13: Hive specimen, not sure of the morph but I suspect it's a Wizard.

IKORA REY: The Cosmodrome you said? I'll have an agent come by. You're hunting a Wizard?

LISBON-13: Seems so, and racing against the clock while at it. Any scouts in the field?

IKORA REY: Shaw Han, local Vanguard correspondent. He oversees the retrieval of New Lights there.

LISBON-13: Plenty of bodies about, I suppose.

IKORA REY: Lisbon-

LISBON-13: Out of time. Talk later.

---

"Coming up on the Cosmodrome camp," Piri announced. Lisbon-13 loaded his rifle and held it tight. "Dropping you in three... two... one."

Transmat swept across Lisbon's vision and the interior of his jumpship shifted into a wide, open wasteland dotted with rusted hulks and fragmented rock. His feet hit the ground, he fell to one knee and braced the stock of his auto rifle against his shoulder. Lisbon swept the sights of his weapon across the horizon. "No movement," he noted, standing back up. "Radar looks clear. Right, where-"

He turned around, took one look at the old scout's camp huddled within a blown out room of the spaceport's colossal complex and went stock still. "Piri," Lisbon said lowly, "we have a problem."

"Is Shaw there? He's not picking up."

"He's here alright." Lisbon grimaced. "Oh, he's here."

"What's the prob- Oh fuck." Piri manifested in the air beside him and recoiled. "What. The. Hell?"

The camp was a mess; drawers had been torn out, stashes emptied, supply closest upended and the floor was splattered with blood. A body from the roof, pinned through with chitin-carved blades. It stank of copper and soulfire. Below it, on the ground just underneath the Hunter's remains, were the fragmented pieces of a Ghost.

"Lisbon," Piri whispered.

"What?"

"I'm reading trace elements of Light."

He exhaled slowly. "The Shape."

"Yeah..."

"What time is it?"

"Five-thirty-two, local zone."

"Right. Get out of sight."

Piri de-compiled.

"Okay," Lisbon breathed. He advanced on the camp, gave the body a wide berth and looked around. The main comms-terminal had been smashed up, looked like. The whole place was a mess; it didn't look like there was any real order to it. "An act of rage," he murmured. "Someone was not happy."

"Shaw..."

"He's beyond help." Lisbon glanced up. "Doesn't look like they let him suffer, though. Small mercies."

"Small ones," Piri echoed.

"Some things have been taken. Maybe a couple of ammunition clips, some grenades and..." Lisbon frowned. "Patrol beacons. Piri, log this now. Send a message to Ikora immediately."

"Will do, just-" Piri gasped. "Lisbon, we're being jammed."

He whirled back towards the camp's sole exit. "What?"

"We're being jammed. Could be a local field; it wasn't like this when we came in."

"That or someone is tracking us right now." Lisbon rushed back out, rifle at the ready. "Piri?"

"Still... okay, it's thinner out here. It doesn't have much elevation, I think. If you get high I could put a message through."

"Where's it coming from?"

"I mean, looks like..." Piri paused. "Looks like the Divide."

Lisbon started moving.

"Wait, shouldn't we call first?"

"I'm not waiting any longer," Lisbon muttered. "I'm going. If you want to take the time to call this in, go ahead, but I'm heading for the jammer."

He felt Piri separate from him and fly off. Lisbon suppressed a shrug and carried on; it was ultimately her choice. There wasn't a chance in hell he was going to personally waste a single moment longer, but if she thought it better to signal for help, then more power to her.

---

The Divide was... oddly abandoned, empty, devoid of the mean sort of life that carved a home there. The whole Cosmodrome was usually buzzing with activity from errant Thralls to Devils sniffing out new scrap spots, and though the chatter usually cleared out when a Guardian who knew up from down came through, there were always the distant howls and leftover tracks. What Lisbon found in the Divide was none of that - just more bodies than usual, most of them fresh and none of them moving. Fallen, he saw. With a couple of Acolytes too. The air was thick with the smell of ozone; the very air still thrummed with Arc Light. Someone had swept in, killed everything, moved on. Something quick and vicious and a couple shades short of death.

Lisbon called his own Light to him, empty Void and searing Solar. He cupped a spark of violet power in one hand, all but ready to throw it over him as a concealing cloak at the first drop of a hat, and in the other he carried the burning form of a Golden Gun. Bright, yes, but it was the next best thing to a Gjallarhorn he had at hand.

He picked his way through rusted automobiles and around broken Spider tanks, he slipped through the hollowed interior of a downed aircraft and meandered down an alley that fed into the next scrapyard. In truth, he had no idea where he was headed in relation to the jammer - but there was a clear trail of destruction left behind. More Arc Light. More bodies. More scorch marks. More wisps of fading soulfire. They weren't even being subtle anymore.

The trail led him into the basement of a dilapidated hangar bay, where the concrete had been cracked and blown open to reveal a series of rough, claw-carved steps hidden beneath the earth. It stank of mold and dust and the very air fizzled with static. Whichever of the Shape had passed through, they'd delved right into the depths. Lisbon double-checked that he was armed and equipped once more before dropping in and quietly, delicately making his way down the largest tunnel - the one that sloped down, down, down into complete murky darkness.

At some point after what felt like hours of pointless meandering, Lisbon found himself faced with a divergence set in the path ahead. The Arc trail led right. The scent of soulfire turned left. He stopped to consider his options; the Arc Light represented a Dredgen killer. Someone he could maybe get the drop on, if he was lucky. The soulfire, though, was a little less certain; if it was the Hive creature that had killed Nasarya then that was promising. But if it wasn't - well, that either meant a local Hive chieftain or one of the Shape's upper echelons. A witch he could handle; someone like Keres or Imezanthes was a different matter entirely.

In the end there was no decision to make - because the skittering sound of claws on rock echoed down the tunnel to the left so Lisbon, out of that understandable urge to not get pinned down by a pack of Thrall, turned right and just started walking. He'd attached a torch to the underside of his rifle, the weak beam cutting through the gloom ahead of him, but it barely helped him avoid tripping up on the odd rock or bone, let alone illuminated anything far ahead.

Then - there was a light ahead. A soft green, pulsing from a sharp Hive-groomed crystal. And another a yard or so down the tunnel from that. And another again, another, each bushel of crystals blooming closer and closer together the farther down he travelled. Until-

It opened up into a massive chamber lined with dark, wet matter and the centre of it was occupied by a brutal totem, some crystalline tree with skulls hanging from sharp, thorny branches. A number of shorter slabs had been arranged around it, with pedestals before them occupied by sacrificial stakes, and Lisbon saw it for what it was - a Hive reliquary, their own kind of computer database. He looked around and was unnerved to find the rest of the room... empty. Devoid of guards; no Knights to bar the way, no Wizards to regulate access to it. The stench of soulfire clouded around the apex of the fell tree, thick enough to weave through its branches as strands of spectral green webbing. Something, someone had come through for it - and then disappeared, seemingly. The trail was fresh enough to still worry Lisbon. He walked around the edge of the room, but there was nothing behind the tree. No hidden Wizard, no cowering Acolyte, no waiting Warlock.

Just the tree.

And just him.

One of the sacrificial stakes was occupied with the skull of a Knight, burned black and brittle by unseen flames. Someone had accessed the database within, and recently too. Lisbon approached, touched the skull, and watched, disappointed, as it crumbled to ash from the slightest pressure. The tree was hungry. It wasn't satisfied with just one offering of tribute. It needed another. Lisbon clicked his rifle's safety off, turned to leave-

And there a Hunter stood, by the lip of the entrance. "Oh," the other Hunter breathed, just as surprised as he felt. She shifted minutely, her free hand dripping back towards what looked like the grip of a hand cannon. "Hi."

For a moment Lisbon had feared it was Imezanthes - but no. The voice was different. Lisbon raised his rifle. "Hands up," he barked. "Show your Ghost."

The other Hunter chuckled. "No. No, that's not going to happen."

"I will shoot you."

Her hands flexed and the dull glow of the tree caught them at just the right angle that Lisbon finally made out the shape of spikes over her knuckles - two of them per hand, shaped like the fangs of a cobra.

He fired.

She Blinked, right in front of him, and pressed the barrel of her cannon against his belly. She pulled the trigger, he Blinked, the bullet whizzed through empty air and he cracked the stock of his rifle across the back of her head. She stumbled, Blinked again, and he felt something sharp slide across his throat as he recoiled. Lisbon-13 staggered away, looked at her, and found her staring right back.

"What's your name?" she asked idly, as if she hadn't just tried to kill him. When he didn't answer, she said, "Mine's Venera."

"I don't care," Lisbon retorted.

The Hunter shrugged. "Suit yourself," she said - and Blinked again, fist aimed at his neck. Lisbon twisted aside, rifle already dropping to the ground, and he caught her wrist, pulled her close. Close enough to get his leg around hers, kick it out and drop her - all the while shoving a suppressor grenade into the back of her hood. He made to roll away, but she caught him as she fell, pulled him along.

The explosion of disruptive Void energy hit them both hard.

Lisbon's helmet smacked off the rocky floor, rebounded, and he heaved a gasp as he settled there. Everything had gone numb for a moment and in the aftermath he could barely move, feeling physically weaker than he ever had before. A coldness settled inside him, a cavity where he drew his Light and strength from, and it left rudderless.

"You-" the other Hunter coughed. She tried to get up, faltered, and fell back down. "You bastard." He heard the shrill whisper of a knife being clumsily drawn. Lisbon rolled over onto his back, watched as the other Hunter levered herself up and all but fell over him with her knife pointed towards his sternum - hoping that gravity would take the place of her Light-imbued strength. Lisbon's hand shot up and the knife pierced right through, grazing his cuirass. Pain flared up from where the blade ran through his palm - and it was that pain that prompted him to scrabble around the floor with the other, searching, looking, finding something and closing his fingers around it. He brought it against the side of the Hunter's head once, twice, and the third time elicited a low grunt and forced her off. She lost her grip on the knife. He didn't. Lisbon dropped his rock, tugged it out and brought it down on her - steel to the throat.

Her Ghost appeared in the air above them, looked at him, looked at her, and opened its shell. Lisbon pointed at it and a snare of Void lunged out, catching around the Ghost and throwing it across the room. His Light surged around him as it recovered from the suppressive effects, furious and lashing at the edges. Lisbon pushed himself back to his feet, inspected the damage done to his hand and groaned. It ached and stung; it was rough damage and not something he could patch on the spot. Piri's kind of work. He needed to get back to her.

Lisbon scooped up his rifle, slung it over his shoulder and walked over to collect the Ghost. It writhed as the threadbare tendrils of Void that held it down and glared up at him as he knelt next to it. "Puppet," it snapped. "You'll get your due. Keres-"

"Yes yes, I'm sure he'll do something appropriately horrible," Lisbon-13 muttered. He closed his fingers around it, pulled it free and walked back to the tree. The Ghost in his grasp stilled.

"What are you doing?" it whispered.

Lisbon-13 ignored.

"Wait wait wait, don't, don't do that." It began writhing again as he stopped onto one of the pedestals and stopped in front of its stake. "Don't, there's some Thrall-"

Lisbon clenched his hand around the Ghost. Its shell seized up and it screamed, briefly, before it cracked apart and the Light burst from its shattered shell. Lisbon allowed it to crumble away until only the fractured core remained. He lined it up onto the stake and drove it down - and the stake glowed a sickly green, eagerly lapping at what Light remained. Wisps of soulfire condensed around the dead Ghost. A sigil in the floor awakened, burning green, and it sputtered with effort - drawing forth memories, speech, thoughts from the amalgamation of dead voices stored within the crystal, frozen in their passings.

Lisbon saw in the smoke of lost souls the imprint of the last questions asked.

He saw... a horned face, ornamented and cruel - Omnigul.

He saw... a crested head, powerful and elegant - Hashladûn.

He saw... other faces behind them, lesser witches but still of great power, great standing - Voshyr, Besurith, Kinox, the many conniving daughters of Crota.

He saw... the Hellmouth.

He saw... the baleful city within, their haunted Necropolis.

He saw...

Smoke.

Ashes.

Bloody incense.

A home.

Lisbon-13 recoiled and repeated the word over again. Home. Home. Home. The thought was not his own, nor that of the computer's; there was too much choking emotion behind it and, for all his deference to the Last City, it was not a concept he ascribed much value to. He was a wanderer. His home was where his feet took him. So whose thought was it?

Even asking himself that, Lisbon knew the answer. He let go, allowed the smoke and soulfire to sift away and drew his rifle back out. He gave the console and its offering one last look, barely glanced at the dead Dredgen in the corner, and left without another word.

---

/VANNET/VANGUARD-AUTHORIZED SECURE TERMINAL/ENCRYPTION ENABLED/
/TRANSMISSION ORIGIN: EARTH TRANSIT/
/AUDIO CONVERSATION LOG/
/USER: LISBON-13—VIP#0357/
/USER: IKORA REY—VIP#0006/
:: Thank you for using VANNET ::
:: Your conversation may be recorded ::
:: Connecting you with your party / TOWER COMMAND::

LISBON-13: Piri and I are back. Going to need that containment field transmatted over into my cargo bay.

IKORA REY: Piri reported Shaw was dead.

LISBON-13: As a dodo.

IKORA REY: Who did it?

LISBON-13: Pretty sure it was one of Keres' lackeys. He's getting angry. He's slipping.

IKORA REY: Which one?

LISBON-13: Venera. Don't know if that's her first name, surname or Dredgen title.

IKORA REY: Did you-

LISBON-13: She's dealt with.

IKORA REY: What do you mean, dealt with?

LISBON-13: I mean she's dead and her Ghost with her.

IKORA REY: Lisbon-

LISBON-13: Now's really not a good fucking time, Rey. Target's fled to the Moon. To the Scarlet Keep. I'm going after it.

IKORA REY: The Scarlet Keep? I'll call for backup.

LISBON-13: No fucking way. This beast's digging down into the Necropolis. If you send a team down there, they're not coming back out. Don't waste lives you can't spare.

IKORA REY: It's almost time for a Pit-sweep. Zulmak's rising again.

LISBON-13: I'll deal with it.

IKORA REY: I'll contact Eris, at least. What about Keres? Do you know where he is?

LISBON-13: No. My contact with House Kings put out a semi-bounty, though. He stole something from her; she wants it back. If that's been blared across Fallen channels, there's a good chance someone will sniff him out eventually.

IKORA REY: How old is that bounty?

LISBON-13: Eight years or so.

IKORA REY: And you think it will flush him out now?

LISBON-13: With how sloppy he's been lately? Maybe. He's losing control. Crack down on all flights in and out of the City if you can; his people have access to those streets. I'm not convinced they won't try something there with how bold they've been of late.

IKORA REY: That's easier said than done.

LISBON-13: These people just murdered a Vanguard scout. They didn't even bother to cover it up. Just left him there. Ikora, the time for approaching this delicately passed a long time ago. Just call the Praxic Order.

IKORA REY: I can't.

LISBON-13: Why not?

IKORA REY: If the Shape's already inside our walls, it would mean war on the streets. I need you to settle this quietly, Lisbon.

LISBON-13: Look, I'll see what I can do - but I'm telling you now, they've already gone too far. Heading for Luna now.

---

The Moon. Queen of Earth's midnight sky. Pale, barren, forever scarred with the marks of nightmare and disaster. Lisbon-13 landed in Sorrow's Harbour, heard the shriek of unfathomable terrors as they marched to the pyres of self-sacrifice, and entered the gatest of the Scarlet Keep unmolested by claw or Shredder-fire. The tunnel to the city below was just inside, and he hardly even hesitated before stepping out into open air and falling within. Lisbon-13 softened his landing with a secondary jump on an invisible platform of Light and his feet hit solid ground, dusty rock that whispered with every step he took.

The shadows around him writhed and crawled. Red illusions in the shape of Thrall skittered across the walls and the spirits of long dead Guardians watched his progress with longing eyes. He knew the way and he made no delay. There wasn't time to spare.

Lisbon-13 dropped down onto the cliff that overlooked the Necropolis - and it was at that moment he realized he was already too late. The beacon for the gatehouse was already shining. The great holographic soulfire runes over the other temples had already blinked out. The way was open. Someone else had already come through. Lisbon bit out a curse, ran to the edge and leapt - riding out his fall to land on the very walkway that led to the gatehouse. Hive bodies lined the road, broken and burned and tossed aside as if they were nothing. The whole place stank of soulfire and worse - something cold and ashy, not fire but not so different either. A choking, bloody essence; it was red and thick like winter smog, lathering over every surface with distortive effects.

The Necropolis trembled as he arrived at the threshold of the gatehouse. A roar, deep and guttural, emanated from deep below - full of rage and murder. Zulmak was awake. Zulmak had risen again. Zulmak was facing something, someone, and Lisbon was already too far behind.

He rushed through the Tunnels of Despair - where, he found to his dismay, even the lumbering Ogres normally cast in wards of relative invulnerability had been put to the death. They laid in a heap of broken limbs and cracked chitin at the beginning of the catacombs, their bloated faces unmoving and blank. The Chamber of Suffering they were charged with guarding was similarly ajar; an entire army of Hive within had been put to the sword, ten Knights spitted upon sharpened stakes and arrayed around the central pedestal. Even the outpost beyond, the Harrow, was rendered harmless and lifeless. The Wizards were gone and only ash remained. The traps had been dismantled, shattered, thrown down the chasms waiting below. There was Light in abundance there. And soulfire. So much of it. Enough that Lisbon hesitated, considered calling Ikora again to get those reinforcements she'd offered. But - no. Something this powerful wouldn't be deterred by a full fireteam. Just more souls for the grinder, that.

Lisbon-13 leapt over to the tower that fed into the Cradle of Damnation. He made his way to the ledge overlooking the grand temple, took in the sight of so many Hive bodies, but the specific carcass he was looking for was absent.

And all was silent.

"Piri," Lisbon whispered. "Ping an alert across all Vanguard channels Moon-side."

"What will I say?" Piri asked.

"Zulmak is gone. The Instrument of Torment is no longer within the Necropolis." Lisbon's gaze settled on something - an object placed on the pedestal where Zulmak's hex-crystal once stood. "Send Ikora a secondary message. That the Shape have come through. That they've taken everything."

He jumped down with his rifle at the ready, half-expecting a hidden Shrieker to open up and unload on him, but there wasn't a sound. Everything was dead. Everything. It was a thorough job; bordering on too effective, almost. He approached the pedestal, stepped over body after body, and as he closed it was nothing more than a small red glassy optic. Just an optic, with a couple of broken connectors at the back of it. It took Lisbon a moment to comprehend what he was looking at - but the realization hit him like a blow to the stomach.

Lisbon turned on his heel and he started running.

---

He met Eris halfway up, just in front of the Ogre pile. She held her glowing bone orb in one hand and a makeshift sword with the other - some kind of salvaged pickaxe sharpened all the way down to the hilt. Lisbon came to a stop as she appeared right out of the dark like some kind of spectre and resisted the urge to shoot her where she stood; he'd almost mistaken her for an Acolyte.

"What happened?" she hotly demanded, fingers tightening around the grip of her sword. "The Young Wolf was due to come through only a couple of hours from now. Why are you here?"

"Jaxson Ineta?" Lisbon asked, then shook his head. "Doesn't matter."

"What. Happened?"

Lisbon hesitated. "Hidden business," he said, and made to leave.

Eris kept pace with him. "You know as well as I, Hunter, that I am still partial to that knowledge."

I'm Hidden too, Lisbon heard. He wanted to retort Then why didn't Ikora give YOU this case?

But he didn't. No, he had to play nice, didn't he?

"Dredgen came through," Lisbon hastily explained. "Tracking a runaway Hive creature. One of Crota's spawn. I followed them here. Zulmak's gone. Place is torn up. Hive have been slaughtered.

"Crota's spawn?" Eris echoed, concerned.

Lisbon grimaced. "That was the impression I got."

"Crota's progeny are dead. All of them. Osiris exterminated the last of their line before Xivu Arath."

"Well, looks like one survived. She came this way, hoping to find her kin."

"And where are they now, this spawn and Dredgen?"

Lisbon hesitated a second time. "I found a Vex eye back there," he told her.

Eris paused. Lisbon walked ahead, hoping that she'd leave it well enough alone, but she rushed after him. "The portal," she said urgently. "The gate to-"

"The Black Garden," Lisbon-13 grimly finished. "That was my thinking."

Eris stopped. Lisbon heard a hissing, fizzling sound behind him, and he turned around to find her tracing a green portal in the air. "Oh yeah," he breathed. "You can do that."

"Come along. We may yet catch them." Eris stepped through. Lisbon hardly waited before following her through - and his optics landed back on the dusty, scorched battleground of Sorrow's Harbour once more. Eris was already moving ahead, rushing fast. Lisbon ran after her.

"Piri," he said. "Tell Ikora, now. Broadcast a distress signal on all local channels; possible Vex incursion imminent."

"On it!" Piri replied.

---

They found the Lunar Battlegrounds a realm of chaos. Hive burned. Hive screamed. Hive died. And those were just the leftovers, still reeling from the wounds recently inflicted into their ranks. There was Light in the air but no Guardians in sight. They'd already moved on, looked like. Other jumpships circled ahead, coming out of warp - but they were too quick to arrive to be Vanguard forces.

"They're not answering me," Piri warned.

Lisbon-13 inhaled. "Shape's coming in force," he muttered. He turned to Eris. "Those aren't friendlies up there."

Eris said nothing. She looked up at the jumpships diving down towards them, then shifted to face where the others had gone - to the cave that led to the portal. That accursed portal. She walked to the lip of the tunnel and glanced back at him. Lisbon set his jaw, mumbled a curse and trudged after her. They entered together, listening, expecting to hear that telltale shriek of frenzied robots. There was nothing. No, not nothing; a steady hum reverberated through the air, set Lisbon's nerves on edge. He knew that sound. He dreaded that sound. He'd yearned for it, once, but only on the other side.

They turned a corner and there it was. The portal. Open. Online. Rippling with acausal power and inconceivable potential. The frame of it was brassy and silver both, but where it met the floor flowers had begun to bloom, breaking through the geometric rock beneath. Mosses flourished. Vines slithered. The Garden was taking root.

"They're already through," Lisbon-13 observed.

Eris took a couple of steps forward. "A Hive," she started to say, "in the Garden."

Lisbon's fingers tightened around his rifle.

She looked back at him. "You know what lies within."

"Yes," Lisbon-13 whispered - furious and terrified and so, so much more. He saw her in the buzzing vortex of Vex energy. Her face. He heard her voice - a siren's call, inviting him in.

"Come back," Rekkana seemed to say. "Come back."

Lisbon hung his head. There was a growl from behind, too; the others had landed and were laying waste to the Hive still littering the battlegrounds. Someone had drawn a Hammer of Sol. Someone was summoning an Arc storm. Someone was letting loose a Nova Bomb. Gunfire accentuated every explosion, every scream.

Lisbon looked at Eris.

Eris looked back at him.

"Fuck it," he whispered.

They advanced.

---

They stepped through. Moon rock swapped for a mossy floor. An alien sun beat down on them with unbearable heat. Planets, worlds, astral bodies hung in the sky above. Diaphanous clouds smothered the stars. The air buzzed with the cricks and chitters of unliving insects, their shells empty of flesh and their multi-faceted eyes every colour of the rainbow. There were flowers of red and white in every direction, for as far as the eye could see - arranged carefully in overgrown fields divided by great, perfectly cut furrows for the Sol Divisive to parse through. A colossal rock structure stood proud in the distance - forever distant, forever a dream. A checkered paradise of green, red, bronze, white. Carefully cultivated. Ferociously wild.

There was no Light to follow.

There was no Hive to be seen.

All Lisbon felt was dismay and a dark certainty that he was dead. They were dead. Everything was dead.

Eris knelt down and picked a flower. He almost shouted a warning, but he knew better than that. Better to talk quietly lest a Vex construct hear - or something else answer. Eris pulled it free and another flower took its place. Her three eyes blinked together and she looked at the petals of the rose she'd picked, watching as they decayed on the spot and withered away to nothing at all.

"That which does not fit the pattern," Lisbon said lowly, "is removed."

Eris looked at him. She understood. Of course she did; if anyone would, it was her.

"How does it feel?" she asked. "To be back here?"

He twitched.

"I know who you are, Lisbon-13," she said, then tilted her head. "I was there when we found you."

"I'm aware," Lisbon muttered. He looked around. "We're too exposed."

"What of the Hive?"

"We'll find her when the Vex do. Not before. This isn't our domain. It never will be."

---

They walked. They hid. They did not speak. Lisbon-13 guided the two of them down paths he barely remembered, slipping into alcoves and narrow tunnels where they could, where the roving eyes of the Garden's many progeny would not find them. Each step he took thumped in his head, his ears, as if he still had the heart, the blood to pulse, to race with fear, to turn to ice as he retreaded lost ground.

With each step he remembered.

With each step he recalled a little more about her. About him. About them.

With each step he felt his finger closing on the trigger and firing the Divinity.

With each step he saw her fall to the ground.

With each step-

Eris touched his arm. Lisbon-13 blinked, noticed her pointing outside to one of the causeways and he understood. "I'll get up top," he said. "Throw you a rope."

She nodded. Watched as he slipped out of their newest hiding spot and clambered up the sheer wall of stone and brass - driving his knifes into the rocky surface to create new handholds. It took him a minute, but eventually he reached the summit. Lisbon-13 looked around. He saw... smoke in the distance. Genuine smoke, not the soulfire equivalent. He had Piri transmat a cable into his hands and he tossed it down, held tightly as Eris clambered up after him. She joined him up there, saw what he saw and nodded.

They closed in on it, leaping across the ravines that bisected the plateau. They descended down a verdant valley, picked along streams of freshwater and radiolaria both, pushed through the brush of reed and saplings both. They crested the far incline of it, just a stone's throw from the tower of building smoke. Lisbon stopped by the edge of a newly-dug crater and saw at the bottom of it a dead Hydra, its carapace skewered through with lances of crackling Arc Light. Beside it sat a woman, a Lightbearer, exhaustedly sitting back against the side of the crater with her face in her hands.

Lisbon-13 raised his rifle. Eris put her hands on the top of the barrel and pushed it down. "Wait," she said so softly he could barely hear her.

Yet somehow, the other Risen down below caught wind of it too, because she gave a start and looked up at them. A Warlock, Lisbon guessed, but he wasn't sure. No, the only certain thing he could glean from looking at her was that she was one more rough encounter from falling for good. Her helmet was cracked open, one of her eyes was caked over in blood and there was a not-so-neat gash running above and beneath the socket, left by a bladed instrument of some kind. One of her arms was more sluggish than the other and her hands were equally bloodied.

"Shape," Lisbon-13 said.

Eris made a low sound. "No," she hummed, staring right back at the Lightbearer. "Not this one."

It wasn't Rekkana. It wasn't Yadarm-4. The Garden could do strange things to people, but Lisbon-13 knew it wasn't them - and of the list of people recorded entering the Black Garden, this wasn't someone he recognized. If she wasn't of the Shape, then…

Eris knelt down the edge of the crater, laying her sword aside. She tilted her head. The other woman mirrored the motion.

"You..." the stranger croaked, then gathered herself. "You're not like me."

Lisbon flinched. The voice... was wrong. He couldn't pinpoint how, but it was - and his thoughts landed on another conclusion. One that became more certain the more he entertained it, the more he noticed.

"Toph," he said. "Toph, get the fuck out here."

The woman's head snapped in his direction. She said nothing.

"Toph," Lisbon-13 demanded again. "I'm Hidden agent Lisbon-13. Get the fuck out here now. I know you're there. I know you're listening."

A Ghost appeared, right over the woman's shoulder. His shell was pink with white flowers painted across it. "I don't know you," he accused. "Where's Keres?"

"On his way, I'm sure." Lisbon took a step forward. The woman slowly rose up, her hands glowing with Arc, so he stopped. "Why?"

The woman looked at Toph. Toph glared at Lisbon. "I had to."

"You could've come back," Lisbon told him. "You could've offered the Vanguard a full report."

"And then what? Let Keres hide away? They were never going to catch him." Toph's shell flared. "He deserves this. They all deserve this."

"Even her?" Lisbon looked at the woman. She simply glanced between them, bewildered. "She doesn't know, does she? How you're leading her on to die."

The woman flinched.

Toph's singular eye darkened. "It wasn't enough, what he did to her."

"That's cruel."

"So were they. She. Was. My. Guardian."

"Then what's this?"

Toph didn't even look at his new charge. "Retribution. Justice."

"Have I missed something?" Eris warily inquired.

"Just one little Ghost giving us all the slip," Lisbon-13 muttered. He looked at the woman. "You can drop it. We know what you are."

She looked around, at each of them - him, Toph, Eris. Didn't say another word. She took a breath - and peeled apart, illusionary skin tearing as shell and horns and spikes burst out, her body growing, lengthening, billowing out with luxurious pale robes woven from Wormsilk and Hive leather. There was no woman anymore; a Lightbearer Wizard hung in the air in her place, hovering weakly, its glassy visor cracked and broken over where one of her three eyes should have been. Wisps of soulfire rose from the wound.

"Oh, Toph," Lisbon-13 exhaled. "What have you done?"

---

AN: Spent a week on this, a one-shot with the word count of a novella. Procrastination's a helluva thing. Big thanks to Nomad Blue for editing! I can see myself continuing this at some point via another one-shot or even a longfic, but that likely won't be for some time yet.