"shedding responsibilities like snakeskins"
He remembered burning. He remembered feeling heat and energy sift through his body, injecting into his every cell and forcing them to tremble, to vibrate with power - threatening to rip him apart from the seams, rupture him on a molecular level, eliminate him forever. Ikharos remembered gritting his teeth against the pain (agony) and gathering up all the malevolent essence like a million grains of sand; can't catch them all, no sir, but I'll grab for you the biggest handful I can. He remembered how it lingered in him, how it built up enough to emanate from him like a vector of raw Dark, and he remembered discharging it - right into the controls of the superweapon above all superweapons. The Worm Mother roared. The Subjugator staggered.
I've found your weakness, Ikharos would have said - but it wasn't some incredible discovery. It was the same for every man, every woman, every other; it was the same of all set against him, one way or another.
"Men put too much of themselves in their weapons," Socrates, his first mentor, had once told him - and once became twice, thrice, four times, as many times as he could count. Always after a fight. Always with the feeling of fire in his veins and blood on his tongue; always with ash in his eyes and a pounding roar in his ears. "That's a truth none can escape. Without a weapon, a man cannot fight. If a man cannot fight, he is dead."
"I've killed men with my bare hands," Ikharos often replied, lifting his chin with defiant pride. "No Light, no blade, no bludgeon."
(Just the sheer fucking determination to make sure the other guy stopped breathing.)
Socrates had just as often regarded him with a cold frown. "Then your hands become your weapons."
"And there is weakness in that?"
"Always."
"Where's the lesson here? Are you going to keep me guessing or-"
"As soon as your foe discovers how to best your favoured weapon, you will only ever find yourself at a loss. Our enemies have already discovered ours. Remember Calwas."
How could he ever forget? Calwas, gunned down with a shrapnel launcher. Calwas, her Ghost clawed apart. Calwas, formerly of their crew, their brotherhood forged through the incessant human desire to FIND OTHERS LIKE YOURSELF.
(What a joke that turned out to be.)
It had been the same with their rivals at Mumbai - the Risen raiders from Pacifica.
It had been the same at Twilight Gap.
It had been the same at the Great Hunt, the Great Disaster, the not-so-Great Despair that soon followed.
And it had been the same at the precipice of that sunken pyramid. Ikharos had turned the architect's weapon against him. Prophet and destined hero of the End became a desperate child clawing for victory, and he threw the others back from him again and again - but the lingering essence in Ikharos's cells were a blessing as well as a curse, and though his bones cracked and his blood spilt beneath every brutal blow the creature brought against him, in the end it was HIS glaive that snaked past his opponent's and buried in his dark heart.
The sadistic six-eyed grin faded. The Ruin dropped. The Enigma's blade snapped. A moment's pause - and then a scream. Matter, resurgent matter, emanating matter consolidated in the Subjugator - and this time it had nowhere to go. Nowhere to leave but out in all directions all at once. A terrible tree was planted, seeded in pain and blooming in death. It grew out of red hide and dark plate and it ripped the Worm Father apart. Heavy mass hung in the air, dark and flexing and coursing with pale yellow lightning.
Ikharos remembered the lingering burn of it - because it had never really left him. It remained there, lodged in his body, and the sensation had lost its edge; now he all but welcomed the feel of it, the warmth like a homely hearth buried deep inside, and he found searing courage in the feel of it as it filled his hands, becoming solid, becoming sharp.
He remembered the burn - because now IT defined HIM.
The burn in his shoulders built and built until it had almost overtaken him completely. It was the bite of lactic acid in his muscles, spider-webbing across his body, tearing across his tendons and making his skin flush. On either side of him a pair of Colossi strained; they were twice his size, maybe more, and compared his wiry frame they were monumental and almost dramatically more robust, but even they huffed and puffed as they tugged on the chains hooked to the body of the mosasaur. It had weighted bones, Ikharos had to guess - which was a strange adaptation altogether. Easier to dive with, harder to ascend up the water to the ocean's surface. Was breathing, then, not an important trait? It had moved quick enough around him in life, but in death it was as unwieldy as a flightless Vex Hydra.
All the same, there wasn't a chance in hell he was going to leave it out for the crabs. He could hear their little chittering, rising from the waters for the scent of so much blood, and he had to wince every time a Psion helpfully shooed them away with a psychic lash - and that only kept them at bay for so long before they tried again. The only thing Ikharos was truly thankful for was the distinct lack of gulls, skuas and petrels above - of the Earth-like variety or some alien creature filling a similar niche. Crabs were one thing, with their beady little eyes and horrific mouthparts, but the sheer unapologetic audacity possessed by most predatory seabirds were something he wouldn't have had the patience to contend with. Good riddance.
They marched through the night like that, stopping on occasion when one of the wounded deteriorated to a state that necessitated Ikharos's intervention - a rift here, a healing orb there. It quickly became exhausting; the strain on his physical body became too much and he had to turn to his shrinking stores of Light for the energy to keep going, keep moving. At last, at long last, after sheer hours of pulling the sea-beast Xiān reported that they were closing in on the Shadow Trespass's crash site just when the sun began to peek over the horizon behind them.
It was then Indilic stalked over to say, Something is wrong.
Ikharos gave him a serious look, forced the fugue of exhaustion from his mind with some difficulty. The Colossi stalled when he did, heaving air in and out of their giant lungs. "Explain."
I feel LIGHT, the Optus hissed worriedly. Like yours.
Ikharos paused. "Xiān?"
She appeared between them, opened her shell... and froze. "Oh," Xiān said. "Uh... yeah. That's Light. Arc Light. Ahead of us. Just a couple of hours old. It's... it feels like the real thing."
"Arc Light?" Ikharos questioned with a frown. "But I haven't..."
(But he knew who would.)
"Ike?"
Ikharos dropped the tethers he'd been clutching, stumbled forward and doubled over as he struggled to catch his breath. His shoulders ached. "You two," he said, panting, and pointed to a pair of Centurions. "Take over for me. Where's- Someone get the Val. Indilic, grab me a pair of Opti Flayers."
Sir, Indilic said, bowing his head before quickly marching away.
Ikharos straightened up, pulled his sidearm free of its holster and blinked as it reconnected with his sensorium - partially linking his ocular implants with the firearm's holographic sights, showing up on his retinas as a hallucinatory sidescreen in the right corner of each eye, opposite the inbuilt radar. His current position was smattered with a thick gathering of blue dots, with a new, if dull red field showing ahead. "Thanks Xiān," he drily murmured.
"You never know," she retorted, before decompiling and settling against his Light. Ikharos's helmet manifested in place with the glitter of transmat. A click rang out as the airseals closed tight. His air filters rasped to life and Ikharos cycled the stale air in and out. The interior of his helmet's visor danced with symbols and widgets, and with a command from his sensorium he banished all but the essential functions from his sight.
Indilic had returned by then with a pair of Flayers in tow, each of their helmets bearing only a single curved horn-crest - one on their right side, the other on their left. The right-horn Psion wore a purple holographic mantle and her partner a blue one, Void and Arc. Indilic had donned his own helm in the meantime, and unlike the other pair his came with a full halo. The eye-port on the front of his helm had a glowing orange ring around it - as if to signify that he was there to complete the elemental spectrum of the trio. I have a spear, he said, holding out an ornamented device bright with psionically-infused power.
"Good," Ikharos said. He stepped past the three and indicated for them to follow. "Names?"
"Optus Ellecta," the Void-Optus said in a blank, emotionless voice.
"Optus Yu'uro," the Arc-Optus eagerly answered. "You have orders?"
"Has Indilic informed you of the situation?"
"Yes," the two said in unison.
Ikharos nodded, satisfied. "Primary priority is to observe. Don't take action unless absolutely necessary, no matter what you see, and only upon my explicit instructions. Circle around, keep the concert quiet, keep me linked and keep yourselves inconspicuous. If this is Risen handiwork... Have any of you served in Operation Elbrus?"
I served, Indilic said, his projected voice teeming with pride - taking the shape of golden foil-ribbons dancing in the light of a treasured star.
Ikharos glanced at him. "I know that. I was asking them."
"Negative," Ellecta sullenly reported. "Though we received counter-attrition measures training through psychic simulation. Tasted the memories of those who fought."
"'Spose that's good enough. Can you raise a psycho-kinetic containment field?"
"Upon a Lightbearer?" Yu'uro inquired dubiously.
Ikharos took a breath. He felt something inside him curl up, tighten around his heart. A painful reminder - this is your doing, it said in her voice, venom dripping from every word. Your mistake. I bask in it. "If that is what's necessary," he said, keeping his tone of voice blank and neutral.
"Perhaps," Ellecta told him. There was a hint of hunger in her psychic presence. "If the subject is appropriately weakened."
They found Vindica'aur at the head of the company, dressed for war. Or a Cabal naming ceremony; the two were largely indistinguishable. A pair of Bracci stood on either side, carrying headhunter rifles, and the pair of them saluted at the sight of Ikharos.
"Light?" the Val said in a low, gravelly voice. "What kind?"
"The kind that comes from sparkly fingers," Ikharos automatically retorted. "My Ghost thinks it's the genuine kind; unaltered, unprocessed, unbroken. Possible Risen source."
"A Lightbearer? Here?" Vindica'aur was incredulous. "Your kind never venture so far from your watery world."
Hence my concern, Ikharos thought. Only Indilic seemed to pick up on it - if only because he felt a soft pulse of confusion from the Psion. "We'll get to the whys later. First we understand what we're dealing with, then we neutralise the threat, if there is any."
"Agreed."
"That doesn't necessarily mean kill."
"Of course not," Vindica'aur half-grumbled, half-drawled. "What will you have me do?"
"Gather the company up, raise a Phalanx shield-wall, have a team of marksmen waiting on standby - for my call, mind you, nothing else - and keep the metaconcert peeled for oncoming entities. This could be bright enough to drag in every Scorn in a twenty-mile radius, let alone whatever else is lurking about. Clear?"
"Clear." Vindica'aur shooed the Bracci away. They dutifully marched back to their ranks of Psion and Cabal snipers, all of whom were in the midst of fitting their rifles with fresh slug rounds and batteries with higher charges. "And if it is a Lightbearer?"
"Then I'll be more inclined to take them alive," Ikharos replied. "Is that a problem?"
"What if they aren't compliant?"
"I'll introduce them to a psionically-induced coma. The metaconcert can have at them afterwards."
Vindica'aur's eye narrowed. "What if they are violently noncompliant?"
Ikharos looked up at her. "You want to crack skulls?"
"I am not averse to the notion."
"We'll see how it pans out. That's all."
Vindica'aur grunted unhappily. "As you see fit, commander-interim."
Ikharos nodded tightly and moved past her. His Psions three followed after him in dead silence - with even their thoughts, once loud, growing increasingly muted. They left behind the press of hulking bodies, the wall of energy shields and slug rifles, and they marched on in comparative silence. Ikharos allowed the Void to overtake him, to veil him from the world - and the Psions followed a similar route, projecting thoughts of ignorance, unimportance - dampening the perceptibility of their own bodies. It became near impossible to make out their outlines, and Ikharos would have written them off as mere props of the background if he hadn't known any better.
They crested the ridge. By then Ikharos could feel the Light in the air - and the ticklish static yield of Arc sifting over his armour, through his filters, across his skin. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The sight that awaited them, though, was not one he'd been expecting - and everything he'd been hoping for: the fields were clear but for scorch marks gouged into the earth, and his ship laid there still apiece, still as he'd left it. There were wisps of Dark Ether and traces of someone else's Light, but if the jumpship was intact then it wasn't yet a worst case scenario.
Only thing was - there was someone sitting against his jumpship, on the side lodged in the ground, facing down towards the beach and ocean below. A human someone, he wanted to say. Ikharos saw hair on their head, white-ish or maybe silver, though he couldn't be sure of the exact colour with how the light bounced off it. Definitely hair, though, and of all the extrasolar species the only to actually possess anything like hair were the Eliksni - and those were stiff setae that stood on end and never, ever fell over their shoulders like so.
His surprise was soon overtaken by suspicion. Ikharos managed to float a thought out to the Psions - a desire for subtlety and calm - and he began making his way down the small valley, followed it along to the Shadow Trespass, and gingerly closed in on the stranger, who he quickly saw was a she. She was sat with her back to the Trespass's hull and had her eyes closed, with her arms crossed over her chest and legs pulled up, but her muscles were tense. Though he hadn't made even a sound by own volition, something must have given him away because she sat up, opened her eyes wide and glanced over his way. She didn't see him; she couldn't. All the same-
"No Risen," Xiān reported, if a touch hesitantly. "No Light in her, but... but she's not right, Ike. There's something off."
You're telling me, Ikharos mentally groused. The woman's face was... it gave him a moment's pause. It wasn't quite... human, he wanted to say. Almost all the way there but there were a few tiny, minute differences he could scarcely pin down that just offset the assumption. The tips of her ears, though, were one of the more immediately upfront changes; they were long, sharp, and tapered to a fine point that cut through the shroud of her pale hair, and they were capped in metal guards. And her eyes, they were too cutting by half - severe and dangerous, scrutinizing everything at once.
Ikharos, mostly on a whim, dropped his Void cloak. Her gaze settled on him and a quick breath stalled in her chest. She didn't move, though. Not even a little. He did - stepped around until he was in front of her, a good eight feet away, and hunkered down to sit on his heels. He felt the Psions closing in, Indilic stalking over the top of the Trespass behind her and the other two on either side. They didn't make a sound, just waited for him to give the signal.
He didn't offer them one.
Ikharos looked her over; she was armed, a curious shortsword by her side coloured from hilt to bladetip the hue of oak with a garnet set in its pommel, and there were a couple of packs arranged nearby, within easy reach. No firearms. Plenty of power though - the kind that made things happen where nothing should happen. The kind that begged for a spectral analyzer to be pulled out. It coiled around her, invisible but thick, and it felt strange against his Light.
He put his sidearm down on the ground in front of him, gathered his thoughts and said, "Hi."
The woman blinked, quickly, and that was the extent of her reaction. Muscles still tense. Arms still crossed. Barely breathing. Her face was narrow and her eyes angular - coloured a rich, almost suspect shade of green peppered with golden flakes, and each was framed by tattoos. The markings were three dots etched in a series over each brow and atop each cheekbone, dark and neat. Her hair actually was white, he noted, and he wasn't sure whether it was dyed or its natural hue, but the ends of it as it gathered over her shoulder and some ways beyond were coloured a crimson red. There were vines, small, and some tiny blooming flowers woven between her tresses. It framed her face and he could only barely make out the sight of earrings embedded in her ear lobes - a single blue gem each framed with gold leaf.
Her garb was similarly odd. She wore a dark red scarf about her neck, pulled up over her nose to obscure her mouth and lower face, and it was delicately embroidered with more gold lining to resemble what looked like a continuous flock of swallows in flight. She wore a black tunic and loose black leggings, with grey leather-like boots almost up to her knees, both of which had pointed upturned toes. Her shoulders were bared, olive skinned like her face but etched over with pale silvery markings not unlike scar tissue, all carved in the elegant shapes of glyphs he did not recognize. Of her right arm she wore a bracer of black metal studded with gems on her wrist, and on the other was a bracer of iridescent brown scales plucked as if from some great reptilian beast. There was a cloak hanging from her shoulders, nearly diaphanous like spun spidersilk, and it gathered on the ground beneath her. Her fingers bunched around her biceps, long and slender with some callous under her fingerpads. Someone accustomed to holding a tool - or swinging a weapon. The muscle they grasped was defined too, though her frame was slim and wiry; she had all the musculature of a leaping, rolling Hunter if noticeably slighter. Height-wise, even sitting down, Ikharos judged her to be tall - easily as tall as him.
Ikharos clicked his tongue off the roof of his mouth, watching her closely - watching her carefully. "Dare I ask," he slowly said, "what happened here?"
The look she gave him was reserved, suspicious, needling. "This is your craft," she said in a low voice, smooth and rich and full of exhausted anger and wary tension. She had an accent. One he didn't recognize; nordic, maybe, but with some French undertones and a Gaelic lilt - mixed with some other influences he couldn't place.
"'Tis indeed," Ikharos evenly replied, "my ship."
"Ship..." the stranger repeated.
"Do I detect a dubious note?"
She looked at him pointedly. "I let them out," she said.
A moment. A beat.
And his heart plummeted, the ground beneath him going with it.
"I... see," Ikharos said, his voice turning icy. He stood up so quickly he heard something crack. "Watch her," he said, and without waiting for a response he made a wide berth around the ship until he found enough room to drag himself beneath it, into the opened entry hatch and tugged himself inside. The stench of Dark Ether was stronger there; something had torn up one of the cushioned seats. There was more Arc Light, too, from deeper within. Ikharos hurried down to the storage room, stopped by the broken doorway and there found his worst fears realized.
His helmet dematerialized. The stench of Dark Ether and Arc Light was stronger, so much stronger, and there was a corpse in the middle of the room, but the locker, the locker, the LOCKER- It was broken. It was empty. The sigils he'd paid good glimmer for a Techeun to carve, to erect anti-acausal fields around the storage unit were broken. Defunct. And the prize within was out, out out out out. Free. Free. Gone.
She came to him, then. In the comparative silence of his ship, shielded from stray voices and meandering minds, she came to him swathed in red and took his face into her clawed hands, tilting his head up to look at her as she floated mere inches away. Her macabre skull tilted to the side, grinning with teeth that wouldn't have looked awry on a shark - and above those dark fangs hung three pale, bright eyes full of terrible fire.
"We'll dance our little waltz forever," Dûl Incaru sang in a low husky voice. "Forever you and I. We may take new shapes and new lives, but you and I - forever and ever. You made it so, the moment you first killed me. Would that I could one day return the favour." Her claws caressed him as if to wipe away tears that weren't there, but instead cut his cheek. The blood welled and dribbled down his face, over her fingers. She raised a talon up and licked a droplet away - a long, sinuous tongue slithering out from her fanged maw to lather over the end of her long, skeletal finger.
Ikharos reached up, grabbed her wrist and pulled her lingering hand away from him. Her bone and flesh was solid beneath his touch; she was manifesting as more and more real the deeper into his despair he sank. He wanted to kill her then, he needed to kill her - but how did one begin to destroy a Nightmare?
(With kindness, as those who boarded the Leviathan had - but he had no kindness to spare. Not for her. The universe would boil down to cold cinders before he would ever consider forgiving her.)
Ikharos fell to his knees. Above him, she laughed. LaughedLaughedLaughed.
"Hunt me if you dare," she giggled, spreading her arms out as if to pull him into a skin-tearing embrace. "Do it. Renew the war between us. We are linked through murder and this murder is love. I adore you, Lord of Loss. Show me you feel the same."
"Fuck. Off," Ikharos heaved.
"Never," she darkly promised. Dûl Incaru lowered herself down in front of him; she was large, even for a Wizard, and she had to curl over to keep her head level with his. Her horns scraped through the emergency red light filling the room and shadowed them over in a gloom so thick it felt like being caught in hot amber. Her hands slid around his neck, fingers interlocking behind his head, and she leaned so close he half expected her to bite his face off. Or kiss him - which would have ultimately boiled down to the same.
(He'd already felt those teeth before, locked around his throat as he filled her heart with violet fire.)
"I'm yours," she said with a lipless grin. "I am your muse. I fill your nights with violence and I drive you to bloodshed. Without me, you are rudderless."
"I'm everything without yo-"
"You are nothing. One Sister left and She knows you're coming for her. Curiosity drove you to the King. Lies drove you to my dear mother, the Queen. But now you tire, now you balk before that final night - and here I am, to guide you along. I am Hive and when we love we war. She, my good aunt, my fair aunt, my apocalyptic aunt - She is War Incarnate. She is our God of Love. Only this love we wage will drive you to Her ending. Aiat."
Ikharos's eyes burned with hatred. That same heat raged inside him, in his chest, sprouted out from his back as immolated wings of ruin and they beat back at the Dark consuming them both. "I will kill you," he promised for the umpteeth time, meaning it now more than ever before. "I will rend you apart. I will flense your soul into nothing. I will end you."
Dûl Incaru merely smiled. "I know," she said. "Shall we see if it sticks this time around?"
He stood. The Solar flames caught onto the Nightmarish mist and the room filled with the stench of smoke - of burning flesh and melting, screaming Worm.
"I look forward to it," Dûl Incaru said, unfazed even as the fire reached to her neck. "You are more dear to me than my own mother, for you have-"
"Don't you say it," Ikharos snapped. "Don't you dare fucking say it."
Her smile grew and, as she faded, it was the last thing he saw of her. The Darkness dissipated. The room cleared of fire and red mist both. Ikharos stared at the spot where she'd been floating and - at last, at long last, something deep inside of him broke and a ragged cry forced its way up his dry throat, past bloodied lips. He staggered back, braced against the broken doorframe and gave into it. He could hear her laughter still.
Xiān very quickly replaced her; she compiled and flew to him, pressed up under her chin and Ikharos cupped his hands around her, finding some meagre comfort in the heat radiating from the core, in the points of her fins digging into his palms, in the smooth feeling of her plasteel shell. She didn't say anything for a while. She didn't need to; all she wanted him to know was that she was there - and on that count Ikharos was well aware.
Didn't help him much.
"They're awful," Xiān whispered. "They're horrible. They never deserved the Light. But this - we have to fix this. Before it actually becomes a problem."
Ikharos scrunched his eyes shut.
"Ike, she can't have gone that far yet. Neither of them. But they will if we stick around. Skuldu's mad, but she's no fool - and you already scare the bejesus out of her."
"No," he croaked. The anger had left him - just paved the way for so many other shifting emotions, none of them pleasant. Terror placed highest among them; he couldn't... he wouldn't... not again. Please not again. No more.
"Ike-"
"It's Dark enough," he reasoned. "Something else might nab her."
"Ike, she's Savathûn's Righ- Look, what if that doesn't happen?"
"She's a traitor. They're all traitors - Lucent Brood, their Ghosts, all of them," Ikharos said. "No one will take them in. No one will spare them."
"They don't need to be spared. They're Hive; all they've needed is to be strong - and she's strong enough. If you kill her it might end."
"It won't."
"It might. You won't know until you've tried."
"And if I do, and it doesn't, she'll stay with me until my dying day," Ikharos whispered. "I can't, Xiān, I just- I can't. I can't take this. Three fucking years and I've aged another five centuries. I need to keep all my options open."
"You weren't doing anything with her," Xiān furiously pointed out. "Ike, you're languishing in this. You gotta dig yourself out."
"Xiān, I don't even know which way is up."
"I'll show you," she reasoned, almost as desperate as he. "Please just let me show you. Please."
A moment passed. "Xiān," Ikharos sighed, "I don't kn-"
"Sir?"
Ikharos sobered in an instant. He pushed away from the doorframe and turned around. Xiān darted out from under his chin and hung in the air beside him, her shell stiff. Indilic stood at the other end of the hallway in broad view, watching them.
"Has something happened?" he politely inquired.
Ikharos glanced at Xiān. She looked back in challenge - and when he didn't rise up, she turned back to Indilic. "Hive Lightbearer broke loose," Xiān told him. "It broke loose."
Indilic didn't immediately reply. With his face covered and his thoughts pulled back Ikharos could scarcely make out how the Psion was feeling; he judged the man to be... surprised. And not at all pleased. "Hive," Indilic slowly repeated, "Lightbearer."
"A Wizard," Xiān added.
"A witch," Ikharos exhaled.
Xiān gave the impression of a shrug with two of her forwardmost fins. "It's almost the same thing."
"From whence did it co-" Indilic looked past them. "From here. It came loose from here."
"Yeah," Ikharos said hollowly. "It was mine."
"Yours."
"I kept it locked up. It was my responsibility. I'll deal with it." He felt Xiān's stare but stubbornly ignored her. Ikharos walked forward and made to pass the Psion - but Indilic reached out and grabbed his arm. Ikharos froze, pointedly looked down at his hand, and Indilic quickly let go.
"Vindica'aur will use it," he murmured.
"I'm sure she already has ammunition enough," Ikharos snarked. "I'm not exactly officer material."
"Mistakes have been made, yes, but nothing unsalvageable."
"When this gets back to her, it will be. Cabal pride won't stomach otherwise," Ikharos all but spat. "A living Hive will destroy their goodwill."
"Yes," Indilic confirmed, "it will. If they knew, they would never forgive you."
"No avoiding that now."
"But there is." Indilic once more looked down the hall. "Can your Ghost scrub Light traces?"
"What does it matter to you?" Ikharos challenged.
Indilic turned and regarded him carefully. "Do you know why I am here?"
"To make sure everything goes smoothly."
"To ensure Vindica'aur and her company remain compliant - to the Empress, through you."
"I'm not Caiatl's."
"No, sir, you are not - but the Empress, in all her wisdom, gave you this command. She offered you the lives and souls of these Cabal. She saw you."
"I don't care about being seen."
"They do." Indilic gestured back towards the hatch - towards all the Cabal they'd left behind. "You are legend. Is that not what you Guardians always say? It is true enough of you. Don't break that image."
"They'll learn eventually."
"No. Not if we erase the evidence." Indilic leaned in close. "Clear the traces in here, remove all memory of the truth. The witch... followed us. Through Hive ruptures and old Ley Lines. Does she hate you?"
"Undoubtedly," Ikharos grunted.
"She hates you, then. Easy enough. You killed her queen. Massacred her brothers and sisters. You did those things. She is hunting you out of grief."
"She's run from us," Ikharos pointed out.
Indilic's eye flashed. "She came with a brigade of Lucent killers, but lost them in transit through the anomaly. She runs because she fears facing you alone."
"True," Xiān chipped in.
"And she will die alone," Indilic promised. "Operation Elbrus sharpened us. Valus Forge honed those outsi-"
"Stuffy old dog," Ikharos muttered.
Indilic's eye flashed again. "Sir? Are you listening?"
"Yes, I am," Ikharos said, annoyed. "We kill the witch. And her Ghost. Who are bound to babble when they realize they've been got."
"Hive lies," Indilic dismissed. "From the mouths of those spawned from the Witch Queen's brood? Deceptions upon deceptions."
"And the metaconcert?"
"It will not know - because we will not capture her alive."
Ikharos pursed his lips. No, he wanted to snap, we can't. Not unless we know for sure it frees me. "Fine. But there's still too much evidence."
Indilic once more looked back to the storage room. "A body. The Dark Ether; a Scorn came through here."
"Looks like Scorn handiwork, sure. But where's the Scorn?"
"The witch killed those who converged here. She was tracking you, this is where it led her. She realized her error when those same forces began to overrun her."
"And the woman?" Ikharos challenged. "Who's at this very moment sitting outside, looking for all the world like she's seen hell itself? She's a witness. She said she freed it."
"We could-"
"I'm not killing her. I'll do whatever barbarism the universe needs me to keep it in one fucking piece, but that's not it. I've had my fill of that life."
"We could try to remove the memories from her," Indilic decided. "Plant new ones. I could do it."
"That's..." Ikharos looked away.
"Just because she is human-"
"And if she resists? We don't even know who she is. She could have been from the ship above - or maybe the parts that fell inside."
"If I have not to strength to do so, Ellecta and Yu'uro will assist."
"Will they know to keep silent?"
Indilic simply looked at him. "They will," he promised. "They are Opti."
"What does that-"
"They know what to say to keep those larger and stronger than themselves satisfied. They know the worth of words chosen carefully."
"You say that like you don't care there was a Hive here," Ikharos muttered.
"Are you so eager for our hatred? To be vilified?"
"I might prefer to feel validated as an endangerment for everyone around me. I feel as if I'm toeing that edge and I'd rather be firmly in one camp or the other than torn between. Easier to see where I'm standing in relation to everyone else from there."
"No."
"No?"
"If you're asking for my hate, I will not give it to you so easily."
"Why?"
"Why?" Indilic sounded frustrated. Confused, but also... yeah.
"What, are the Hive not enough for you?"
"I was born on Brand. I lived on Torobatl most of my life, but Brand was my home - home of all Psions. And now War wears it on Her crown, Her diadem of hollowed worlds. Yes, I hate them. Is that what you want to hear?"
"Then where is it? Where's the hate?" Ikharos demanded. "I've been remiss. Isn't that close to being complicit?"
"You are self-destructive," Indilic accused.
Of course I am, Ikharos darkly thought. I've been free-falling for years now, but I still haven't found that rock bottom. Give me my limits so I know where to draw the line. "I'm just... forget it."
Indilic studied him. "The Hive are beasts and they deserve to be put down as such." He radiated anger. Ikharos didn't need to be in touch with his mind to pick up on that. "You held one here? You are foolish. You are misguided. I cannot presume to understand your reasoning, if you had any, but what does it matter? I have this, senseless as it may be" Indilic said, gesturing between them, "or I have nothing. Calus's promises are empty. The universe is growing smaller; it has been reduced to the fate of a single pitiful star system. The Empress - my Empress - decided on you. On your kin. I will not speak of the relationship between her and your own commander, and I will not suffer those rumours in my presence, but we flew upon your home and there we stayed, goblet offered. We drank from it together. You... you are a ruffian, a fiend, a creature of terror - but you are that to them, those eyes in the dark, those claws in the night. If the goblet tilts, it spills, yet if it shatters in two neither of us may sup from it ever again. Do you understand, sir?"
Ikharos regarded him curiously. "Sounds like you've been practising."
"Enforcing Imperial conduct does not always mean setting the noncompliant before a firing squad. We are more efficient than that."
"A Cabal would feel differently."
"I am not that kind of Cabal," Indilic shot back.
"... Fair." Ikharos finally looked to Xiān and indicated back to the storage room. "Could you-"
"'Course," she said, and flew back to tidy things up.
Ikharos's hand fell back by his side. He turned to Indilic. "I don't... It wouldn't feel right, breaking into someone's mind like that."
"Our witness?" Indilic tilted his head. "It is harmless."
"It's a gross overstepping of boundaries."
"Humans so love their boundaries, true. But boundaries won't protect us from the Black Fleet. Vindica'aur is a gifted officer deserving of her current station, but her ambition blinds her. She will follow so long as she doesn't believe she has reason to break rank. We must be certain she finds no reason. Alone your Light will drown. Unwarded by your power we will be slaughtered. Cabal shields will guard your back, commander, and you will be the blade that will find the Locus's heart - and that of whatever other horrors lie in wait."
"Very inspiring," Ikharos drily remarked. "I'm sure the poor woman outside will be comforted to hear that."
"Would you rather she live to tell Vindica'aur the truth? Endanger the entire operation because pride and loathing?"
"No, but-"
"I cannot presume to know where this sudden impetuous attitude stems from, but I humbly request that you stifle it at its source, commander-interim. The Empress offered you her favour; it would not do to waste it. I will not have it."
"You're a bold one," Ikharos bitterly mused. He would have liked nothing more in that moment to just leave and keep on walking, to go find his own way - alone. But he couldn't. He couldn't. Damn them all, this - this - was why he'd always kept himself at a distance, why he'd always shied away from Titan orders and Hunter posses and most Warlock covens. And after how his own itty bitty coven had ended...
(When had his world become so crowded? At what point had their words - their pleas - begun to take the shape of hooks?)
Indilic eye shifted colours. "Is that all, sir?"
"I..." Ikharos trailed off. "No, forget it. Let's just..." He sighed and walked to the hatch, dropping outside. Indilic followed close behind. They emerged from beneath the Shadow Trespass, circled back around to the other side and stopped before the stranger. Ikharos looked around again, but there wasn't a flicker of new Light to be felt - nor the howls of frenzied Scorn to be heard. Everything... was just quiet. Beautifully so - in a desolate, lonely sort of way. He nodded to empty air and Ellecta and Yu'uro appeared, discarding their masking projections. The woman gave a start as they did so, sitting up straight, but she did not rise - which Ikharos somehow found remarkably odd. It was like she was allowing herself to remain defeated - or at least feigning it.
He crouched down in front of her, Indilic at his side, and he asked, "What's your name?"
She gave him a look.
"I won't bite," Ikharos gently promised. "I'm not mad."
"I stole your bow," she said.
Ikharos frowned. "Which bow?"
She just held out one of her hands - and he saw that the undersides of her fingers had been burned.
"My Ticcu's Divination?" Ikharos groaned. "That was my favourite. Where is it now?"
"I dropped it," she explained blankly. "In the city."
His frown deepened. "Which city would that be?"
"... Doru Araeba," she said at length.
"Where's that?"
One of her eyebrows twitched. "Some ways north of us."
"Who rules there?"
"The Snalglí."
"Who's that? Or they?"
"Giant snails," she deadpanned.
Ikharos opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "Snails?" he questioned incredulously.
"Yes."
"How giant? Like a giant African land snail or-"
"Near as tall as you and I."
Ikharos balked. "Sweet Traveler," he murmured. "Are they friendly?"
"No. They will try to eat you."
"Ah. That's a shame." He offered her a wan smile. "So - name?"
The woman just looked at him. She hadn't stopped doing that. It was bordering on impressive; it was like she was trying really hard to make him seem small and lesser and inferior in every way without even trying.
Ikharos took a breath. "Well, my name is Ikharos. Ikharos Tor-"
"Torstil."
Aaaaaaand his frown was back. "You know who I am?"
"She told me," the woman said.
"Who?"
"Elisabeth."
Ikharos blinked once, twice, and exhaled hard. "Elisabeth," he said quietly. "She's alive?"
"She was some hours ago."
"Good. That's... that's very good. Excellent, actually."
"She wanted me to give you something," the woman added.
"Oh?"
She reached for one of her packs, slowly, and Ikharos couldn't help but put one hand on the grip of his sidearm - but when she retracted the limb all she held was a pair of glass vials that looked suspiciously like they'd been plucked straight from his own little lab. Ikharos paused, forced a sensorium scan, but nothing showed up on the results; the glass was clear of poison and nanite sleepers. He gingerly took them from her and held them up to the light. One was much fuller than the other, but both held a clear golden-ish liquid. "What're these?"
"Neurotoxins," the woman told him. She sounded so tired - as if the act was starting to wear on her.
Ikharos glanced at her. "From what?"
"Something that attacked me. In the city."
"You look like you got out in one piece."
"It stung me," the woman retorted. She rubbed the back of her neck. "Here."
"You look like you came out of it alright."
"She treated it," the woman murmured. "It did not go willing."
Ikharos slowly nodded. "Neurotoxins aren't fun," he said sympathetically. "Where's Elisabeth now?"
The woman hesitated. "She left. To offer apologies."
"To whom?"
"The very same thing that laid me low."
Ikharos paused. "O... kay." He stood up. "Was there anything else?"
The woman gave him a cautious look - and spared the same look for each Psion present, glancing at them in turn. "She requested that I give you a message."
"What kind?"
The stranger took a moment. "Paladin Oran built everyone's haven after Vesta's end. Faulty... orientation offsets... latency?"
Ikharos took a moment to digest that - and he found himself in a little dire mood right after. "She's one to talk."
"Pardon?"
"... Nothing. It's..." Ikharos shook his head. Oh the NERVE of her. "It's fine. It doesn't matter." He looked at Indilic. Indilic looked back.
I've told them, the Psion reported. They know.
Ikharos grimaced.
They will do exactly as you command.
"Even if it's wrong?" Ikharos muttered. The woman looked at him with surprise, her brow furrowing.
Even if it's wrong, Indilic calmly replied.
Ikharos looked away. "What's your name?" he asked again.
A moment paused.
"Formora," the woman reluctantly informed him. She watched him closely for a reaction. Ikharos wasn't sure what to make of it.
"No surname?" he queried
"Láerdhon."
"Formora Láerdhon," Ikharos said, just to get a feel for the words. It didn't seem like he was pronouncing them right. Not the same way she had. There was a slight difference, one he found difficult to emulate. "Do you live here?"
"Yes," she said after a moment's hesitation - one she tried to disguise as further reluctance. Even so, it didn't sound like a lie.
"And the man I found inside my ship? Did he live here too?"
She took another moment. "He did."
"What was his name?"
"Enduriel Iomurth."
"And... what was he to you?"
Formora's eyes bored into him. "A necessity."
"... I… see. You have my sympathies," Ikharos said softly. "But, and I have to ask this next, what killed him?"
"The creature that came from the water. The ghoul."
"A Scorn?"
"Yes."
That made sense. "Do you know what I am?" Ikharos questioned.
Her eyes roved over him. "No," she admitted, "I don't. Unless you were asking if I recognized you as human. You have a human face. Human ears."
"Well, I am that, but..." Ikharos shrugged. "No?"
"Is there something you want me to say?"
"No then." Ikharos glanced at Indilic. "Do you know what they are?"
She looked at the Psions. "They are not human."
"No."
"Ra'zac?"
Ikharos made a face. "The hell is a Ra'zac?"
"I assume not. No. I do not know what they are."
"Alright. Thank you." Ikharos turned to Indilic. "Optus-"
She has defenses, Indilic suddenly projected to him. Mental blocks.
Ikharos glanced at Formora.
Not unlike yours, Indilic continued. But more animated. More alive.
Then leave it, Ikharos responded. Let's just play it by ear. He crouched down again. "You came here. Did you see me crash?"
"Yes," Formora evenly replied.
"And-"
"I saw you march to the water."
"... Alright." Ikharos frowned, though. He hadn't seen her - hadn't detected any sign of her, hadn't noticed anything to even hint that there was someone else watching the day prior. "A little off-putting, but I think we can ignore that for now. Care to tell me what happened?" He gestured to the craft, to the Arc marks carved across the crash site, to the taste of Dark Ether still hanging in the air.
She took in a deep breath. Ikharos waited. "We... investigated your craft," Formora said at last. "Inspected your belongings."
"It's a nice ship, sure, but why-"
"I've never seen a ship like... this," she retorted. "Not a ship that flies."
"... Ah. Sorry." Ikharos dipped his head, though his confusion only grew. "You were saying?"
"We entered it while you were gone."
"Just the two of you?"
"Just... yes," Formora said coldly. "Just Enduriel and I."
She's lying to you, Indilic told Ikharos. Something else is here. It is hiding. I can feel it.
Find it, he replied. "Were you two alone or is there a, ah... a facility? A village or complex or something nearby?"
"A settlement?" Formora guessed. "No. None. None but for Doru Araeba."
"The city of snails."
"It was the city of..." Formora trailed off. "It matters not."
Ikharos held out his hands in surrender. "I was just curious. Where are you from?"
"Du Weldenvarden, as all älfya are."
"Älfya?" Ikharos echoed. "What's that?"
Her expression only became more stony. "It's what I am."
"... Alright," IKharos said dubiously. "Can we, ah, steer this back to my ship - like what you did with it?"
"We entered," she said, annoyed. "I found the creatures you kept. Including the eye."
"The... eye," Ikharos said slowly. What eye? His mind flashed back to the anomaly above, to the giant eyeball the size of worlds. Had that-
"Skuldu," Formora said.
"Oh. The Ghost," Ikharos realized. "That makes more sense. She told you her name?"
"I freed her. She was grateful. Initially."
"Do you mind if I ask why you freed her?"
"The ghoul-"
"Scorn."
"-had killed Enduriel," Formora said vehemently. "It was attempting to kill me. And nothing I tried kept it down."
"Did you try burning it?"
"I set it aflame. It did not work."
"No, not-" Ikharos took a breath. "Scorn'll come back so long as there's still something leftover to come back. You'll want to disintegrate them."
"I know." Formora paused. She closed her eyes. "Skuldu's... creature did so. Killed it. It did not return."
"The witch."
"It was..." Formora trailed off, looked back at him. "Skuldu named it Agnisia."
"I'm aware of what it calls itself," Ikharos said unhappily. "High Agonarch. So you freed them after entering? Because a Scorn followed you inside?"
"No. We investigated, we... we took some weapons," Formora said carefully, "and we left. It was only when the sun set did the Scorn arrive."
"And they chased you?"
"Yes."
"From where?"
"We had made camp in a barn to the east," Formora explained. "We were... forced from it."
"And you ran to the ship."
"They were upon us. They were tireless. We could outpace them, but not outlast them."
Ikharos nodded solemnly. "Probably the better decision, to hole up."
"And what good did it do?" Formora snapped furiosly. "Something in your ship trapped us inside for the Scorn to corner. It turned to mist and killed Enduriel. It almost did the same for me."
"But it didn't. You freed Skuldu and she raised Agnisia. You ran from them?"
Formora hesitated. "They... asked me questions."
"Oh?"
"And spared me for a moment. They cut their way outside, slew the rest of the Scorn. I... fled from them then. Them and the beast."
Ikharos raised an eyebrow. "A beast? The same that attacked you?"
"Yes- No. Not the same. It..." Formora trailed off. "It stalks this island. It hunts us at night."
"What is it?"
"A creature of carved metal. It looks like a man with the head of a dragon."
... Fuck. The last dregs of Ikharos's good mood evaporated on the spot. "Dragon?"
"Yes. And it dragged a sword." She shook her head. "But it was they who gave chase. To the city. Where I was struck."
"By this," Ikharos murmured, looking back to the vials. "Or whatever injected you with this. And... Elisabeth went to apologize?"
"That is what she told me."
"Did you get a look at it?"
"... No," Formora said. She looked at him, as if daring him to contradict her. She had seen it, Ikharos thought. But she wasn't forthcoming. Someone's patience had run out. "That's all there is. That's all I have to say."
Bag, Indilic said at last. There's something in her bag, but it's quiet. Sleeping. Or hiding. It could be-
It's not Skuldu's style, Ikharos responded coolly. This isn't an illusion. She isn't Agnisia. What we're looking at is the real thing - a person.
Do we press to remove memories? Sir?
"What are you going to do now?" Ikharos asked instead of answering - ignoring Indilic entirely.
Formora mulled it over. "What is happening?" she whispered. "The dead rise? They hunt the living. A ship that flies? And men that walk unseen? A woman in metal and a crystal eye that floats, that speaks?"
"None of it makes sense when you take a step back," Ikharos agreed. "The key is to just roll with it. Learn what you can, but never stand around with your mouth hanging open."
"Who are you?"
"Ikharos Torstil. Warlock - Voidwalker, Shadebinder, Resonator, Sunsinger and Stormcaller."
"Are those titles?" Formora curtly inquired. "Am I supposed to be impressed?"
"It's more of a resumé," Ikharos admitted. "In case I need a Trials team. Brings all those who swear by the Crucible running-"
"Am I free to go?" Formora snapped. She glared at him in expectant challenge.
Ikharos inhaled slowly. "Where would you go?"
"Away."
"Somewhere within reach?"
"Why?"
"In case I had a couple more harmless questions."
"I am leaving," Formora told him. It wasn't a request. She staggered to her feet, pulled her packs up and threw their straps across her shoulders. Exhaustion hung in the stiffness of her limbs, but the dangerous determination etched across her otherwise expressionless face told Ikharos she was dead serious.
"We won't hold you against your will," Ikharos decided. He sent Xiān a ping via his sensorium. She gave him a wordless response and a small device transmatted into his hand. He held it out. "Distress beacon. If you need us. Can't promise there won't be more Scorn."
Formora eyed it suspiciously.
"It's not a tracker," Ikharos assured her. "Not until you press that big button. Surely it wouldn't hurt."
"Why?" she demanded.
"Because I'm nice like that - and you look like you've had a rough week."
She took it gingerly and inspected it for a couple of seconds before shoving it into one of her bags. No thank yous, no nothing. Formora looked at him a moment longer before turning westwards. Ikharos waved for Ellecta to get out of the way and Formora began walking away. They watched her go, watched her march without looking back - shoulders tense, bags pulling on her, sword loose in its sheath. She soon disappeared behind the next ridge.
Why? Indilic questioned.
"Because what we found up there," Ikharos murmured, indicating upwards, "was a colony ship - and that," he pointed in the direction, "was no colonist. She wasn't even baseline human; that, my good sir, is a neohuman - and like none I've ever encountered before."
Clearly, Indilic said, growing annoyed, but regardless of evolutionary divergence, why let her go? You didn't allow us-
"Because Elisabeth is involved. And I want to be careful wherever she involves herself. This world is important somehow. She promised me it would be a paradise." Ikharos looked around. "And it is. More lively than Earth at the moment."
But-
"Didn't you feel it? The pure potential around her?" Ikharos shook his head. "That was paracausality - or some acausality at least. Power. Magic. And mental defenses? Baseline humans don't have that. Awoken do, and they're complicated enough.
That's no good reason not to detain her. If she is affiliated with any local factions...
"I know. Probably is. But hell - I wouldn't be surprised if we're already under watch. We don't have the measures to keep a prisoner, Indilic; certainly not a paracausal one. I'm not risking bloodshed either.
Why?
"Because Elisabeth Bray just passed us a damn warning, that's why. Built everyone's haven after Vesta's end, faulty orientation offsets latency. Give it a guess."
Indilic gave him a dismayed look. So we simply release her?
"She might show us something," Ikharos said. "Hell, I'll even give you the reins if you feel so strongly about it."
Sir?
"Xiān," Ikharos said. Another object manifested through transmat between them, dropping onto the ground with a dull thud. Ikharos leaned over it, drew his fingers down a coating of smooth synth-feathers, and he found the microscopic switch that activated the drone. It stood up, shook its dark feathers out and quirked its head to look at him with a dark, glassy eye.
"Master," it said in a cold, mechanical voice - speaking through a tiny voicebox lodged deep inside its chipped grey beak. Ikharos plucked the command codes from his sensorium's memory logs, compressed them down and beamed a secure digi-package directly to the smart-computer built into Indilic's battle harness.
Indilic's psionic field rippled with surprise, and that was soon replaced with interest and curiosity. You play a defter game than most on the War Council, he said. The Crow-drone raised its wings, took to the air and circled around to land on his bony shoulder.
"There's five more where that came from," Ikharos told him. "And you can have them all. She said this was an island. I want to know everything about it. Follow her. Watch what she does. Find the witch. Find the other creatures she spoke of; I want to know about this dragon-headed thing now. And locate the Scorn who escaped that sunken Ketch. Find them all, before they get away. Do you understand?"
Indilic bowed his head. I understand, commander.
"Good." Ikharos turned to Yu'uro. "Bring the rest up. Make sure that mosasaur gets here; I'm going to perform an autopsy as soon as I'm done with these neurotoxins. Clear?"
"Clear." Yu'uro gave him a salute and raced away.
"And you," Ikharos said, swiveling around to face Ellecta. "Set up a perimeter two miles wide - that's analogous to two point one five of your chrens. Lace it with Void-traps, bubble-pitfalls, whatever. Have able-bodied Legionaries set down physical barricades in a smaller radius around the Trespass and the camp. Make sure the metaconcert remains awake at all times; pass along shifts to Psions not under other orders to keep it stable. Go."
Ellecta brought her hand to her cuirass in a typical Cabal salute, though said nothing. She quietly slipped away after Yu'uro. Ikharos glanced back to Indilic and gestured to the Trespass. "I'll set you up with the rest of the Crows inside."
Awoken surveillance drones, Indilic mused. We've been trying to catch them for some time yet. How did you come by them?
"They were given to me," Ikharos replied. He began to head inside.
As a gift?
"Not as such," he corrected. "Weregild."
A blood-price? Indilic murmured.
"Something like that."
On a second inspection he found the Trespass's interior almost completely cleared of Light-based radiation and Dark Ether stains. The door to the right corridor at the back was still broken, but the entrance to the storage bay had been repaired. He saw Xiān flitting around within, dusting away scorch marks and tidying the place up. Ikharos meandered inside and discovered she'd even given the dead man - what was his name, Enduriel? - a makeshift burial wrap stamped with the locked fangs of the Vestian crest of arms.
"Waste of good cloth," Ikharos murmured.
Xiān looked over. "She left?"
"Yeah."
"And she didn't want him?" Xiān's shell twitched. "That's some hard grief."
"Didn't look much like grief to me," Ikharos mused, "but she was fair for hiding things. Who am I to judge?"
"He looks like her, though."
"I know. Apparently he was... what, a 'necessity'? Something like that."
"Jeez. Okay." Xiān looked at the body. "So... what do we do with it?"
Ikharos waved his hand and encased the remains in a solid layer of glittering Stasis. "She knows where we are. We can spare a couple of days for her to change her mind. Not like we can move yet."
"'Spose." Xiān looked around. "Space is clear - which means you're clear."
"Great," Ikharos drawled.
She snorted. "Like, I never understand why people even bother helping. You're not even likeable."
"Thanks." Ikharos turned around, walked down the hall and slipped into his trophy room. To his delight he found the terrariums were still in operation, their heating and lighting still going strong. For the tarantula from Amalthia he sprinkled in some extra feed, mostly scraps of cryo-frozen beef and minced shrimp. The slug from the rogue planet was visibly content with all the moss left for itself, and the red scorpions he'd dug out of Pluto's ice gobbled up the ground protein flakes he dropped in. The serpent, though, turned away the processed cricket he offered it and instead pulled its body up around his wrist and began slowly slithering up his arm. Ikharos dropped the cricket inside - why not leave it there for later - and double-checked that the other terrariums were stocked up with humidifiers and pressure gel before making his way back out, all while the feathers of the Venusian quill-boa tickled his neck as it settled over his shoulders. It wasn't a large animal, nor particularly heavy, but it was certainly long enough to all but lather over him like a Captain's furred mantle. It pressed in softly against his body heat and remained like so, its forked tongue briefly flicking out as it studied its surroundings with lidless black eyes.
Ikharos stopped in the hallway outside and said, "Xiān. Give Indilic the birds."
"Got it!" she called back.
Satisfied, he made his way back to the central chamber and then to the other hallway, waving his hands before every door in the way until he arrived at his cramped laboratory. The first thing he noticed was the missing medkit on the wall. In its stead hung a thin layer of Stasis - a promise to replace it later. It still left him feeling bitter; some of those supplies had been difficult to come by and were going to be even more difficult to replenish.
Ikharos closed the door behind him, set the vials out, and pulled out the rest of the tools he thought were necessary. The first was a datapad outfitted with a biometric scanner. The next was a collection of Petri dishes, and he used two to cradle a droplet from each of the vials. Ikharos allowed the substances to settle for a moment, then activated the datapad and ran it through the processes. It was exactly as Formora had told him; both of them were strong neurotoxins. He ran them through two separate simulations - first on the biological systems of rodents and then on humans. Of the first vial, the one almost halfway filled, the result was complete paralysis leading to respiratory failure and then to death for both mouse and human. It was rather quick too; nerve signals ceased circulating to the brain within seconds and it took only half a minute for every muscle in the body to lose control.
The second vial was more interesting. The effects were largely the same if even quicker: complete paralysis, but strangely enough the lungs, eyes and cardiac systems were spared - almost intentionally. The toxins, he saw, spread throughout the body via introduction to the bloodstream, but it made every turn to avoid those necessary organs. Almost like it were conscious.
Ikharos took another scan, this time searching for artificial elements, but he found nothing. No nanites. No artificially engineered smart-proteins. Nothing to indicate conscious control. Ikharos put the datapad aside after that, pulled a spectral analyzer from a nearby drawer and ran it over both Petri dishes. The first venom, the synthesized one, came up empty. The second? Not so much. It was rife with paracausal readings - and that was just from a single drop. It wasn't Light, either. No, quite the opposite.
It was Darkness. A tiny, minute reading in the grand scheme of things, nowhere near on par with Stasis or Resonance or even Taken energy, but it was decidedly still in the same ballpark. Ikharos dug deeper, fiddled with the spectral analyzer, and he pinpointed that the traces of Darkness came from the very cells of the neurotoxin. It hurried the process along, allowing the toxin to block calcium ions from entering host cells in a method reminiscent of the venom of a krait snake, just a whole lot more efficient. Ikharos resorted to the datapad again, framing the venom against known toxins archived in the device's database, and he found it had a forty percent match to the bungarotoxin of a banded krait, a twenty-one percent match to the neurotoxins of a variable coral snake, and the remaining thirty-nine percent had no known correlation with the toxins of any logged flora or fauna. The datapad's scanner highlighted some strange proteins in the venom as well, the kinds that wouldn't have evolved on Earth; Ikharos assumed that to indicate a xenological origin. It wasn't just a single case of fractional resemblance either - because the neurotoxin samples were a direct mixture of those snake venoms and whatever other alien substance had been purposely, though delicately, mixed to create a more efficient biological weapon.
And with the Dark inside it, it was purpose-built for keeping its victims alive.
It was designed to capture prisoners.
The serpent around Ikharos's neck shifted. He idly reached up and gently ran a finger down its neck, just behind its small head. He tidied up after himself, put the vials in cold storage and disposed of the compromised Petri dishes via a Void-based waste funnel. He wasn't going to leave it to chance. Not with the Dark involved. Finished, Ikharos left and locked the laboratory behind and found Indilic by the coffee table, looking over one of two remaining Crow drones. The latest blinked its lifeless eyes, hopped to the open hatch in the floor and jumped out. Indilic looked up. Is something the matter, commander?
Ikharos's mouth was dry. "Make sure that Crow is following her. If there's anything out of place, tell me immediately. I want to know is something else is after her." He settled down in his favoured arm chair and leaned his head back. "They're already here."
"Sir?" Indilic questioned aloud.
"Them," Ikharos sighed. "The very thing the Scorn are here for. They've already found us."
AN: Thanks to Nomad Blue for editing!