Slayer, come on, Saren - keep that barrier steady and fire the next ritual - we can get him out! FIGHT, SAREN! FIGHT IT! YOU CANNOT GIVE IN! NOW FIGHT!
BOOK ][: Oh Slayer, please, help us in our time of need, I beg of you! Help Lord Arterius, please, oh mighty Slayer, hear my prayers, please - and if not you, then whatever gods watch over the turians, hear my prayers! Save him! Please save him!
VOLUME ][: Less praying, more shooting, Katherine! Ritual fired - THE BARRIER, HOLD IT STEADY - Mordin! How long until the next - HOLY SHIT, HE'S BROKEN FREE, GET BACK, GET BACK-
WHEN ONCE MORE ETERNAL NIGHT / MOTHER TURA / BEGINS OUR ETERNAL FIGHT!
(OH HOLY! OH GLORY! OH HOLY!)
You close your eyes - and try to keep a lid on the anger.
Sure, none of this old-timey Valluvian stuff really captures your interest, but it's not like you get to go on field trips to Palaven very often, and especially not to a big, holy place like this. The statues on the walls, the ancient carvings protected by stasis fields, the handful of super super old people acting as priests - this is where turian civilization was born and came of age, or something like that.
"Come on," Desolas whispers, "leave it. If you start a fight now, in a friggin' temple, we'll never hear the end of it."
Viter and his cronies still think they're tough shit - think they're the coolest things to exist - as they linger near the back of the group, loudly sucking down cans of tupari, blowing obnoxious clouds of chem-clouds from overtuned chemsticks, mocking the clergy who tend to the temple and generally doing their best to live up to their reputation as absolute dickwads.
Up until now, you've ignored them - you'll be enlisting next year, and you'll never see them again anyhow - but, as Viter hurks up a gobbet of soda-laden spit and makes a show of coughing it directly on a nearby statue, the last strands of your patience starts to fray.
"Relax, Des. I'm not gonna start anything," you reassure your brother; instead, you walk over to Miss Clotianus and clear your throat quietly. "Ma'am?"
Your Ancient History teacher smiles down at you. "How can I help you, Saren?"
"It's Viter and his friends," you start to explain; she sighs, and shakes her head.
"I know, Saren, I know. But you know how it is," she mutters, careful to keep her voice low. "Ever since his dad went from being mayor to having a seat in the comitia…" she trails off, and sighs again. "The tour's almost over, anyway."
"I…yeah, I understand."
Miss Clotianus smiles, a little. "Sorry, Saren. Just try to enjoy the rest of the trip, okay? Not often a student as bright as you gets a chance to see a place like this."
Your reply is polite, though you don't bother masking your audible frustration."Sure thing."
"Oh, but before you go," Miss Clotianus adds, her smile growing, "don't you think that someone ought to do something about this?"
"Well, yes," you reply, scowling. "That's why I brought it up."
Miss Clotiania taps an idle talon against her lips. "Ahh, yes. Viter Belanus, son of Fauter and Obia. His sins are not grave, not compared to some of the people against whom you have meted out justice, but he is worthy of judgement, no?"
Something cold - not uncomfortably so - soothing, like a mentholated candy - fills your mouth. Like a bark soda. Like air on a cold winter's night. Like snow, freshly fallen.
"But, all the same, relatives being relatives, all those who upon others inflict suffering should, if the scales of justice are to be balanced, receive punishment comparable to the nature of their sins. This, I am sure you agree, is self-evident," Clotiania coos, looming over you as her smile starts to grow so wide it splits and cracks the carapace around her mouth. "You agree, yes?"
"Of course," you reply. "That's not how the world works, not really, but, you know, it should be that way."
She lays a talon on your forehead.
"It could be that way," she adds, nodding sagely. "Imagine a world - a galaxy - a universe! - like that - where all who are wicked face the retribution they deserve."
"If only," you whisper, staring deep into the blackening eyes of the woman before you.
"No, no, no, Saren. Not 'if only.' That could be yours. It could be you - ye who would sit atop the throne of bones, clad in gilded crimson, and pronounce the severance of all sinners from the holy coil. In thy left hand would be a staff of eternal night, and in thy right a blade of sempiternal fire."
For a brief instant there is a vision of a thing before you - tall, clad in a bloody cloak with golden trim - but it dissipates as Clotiania pushes the thing out of sight.
"The burden of sitting atop that throne would mere mortals shatter, for what soul, feeble and finite, could bear the weight of such things?" She strokes your face with a soft, fleshy finger, the spot where she touched your forehead growing numb. "But yours would not be the mantle of the damned and the dying. Thy name would be Judge, for your station would confer upon thee the authority your mewling ancestors could but dream of as they turned their backs upon the sibilant voices of things which called out from beyond the fickle lights of their fires."
In an instant, you no longer look up upon the Teacher, for now you, yourself, tower over them.
You are tall.
You are strong.
And you are capable.
You whirl around, one cracked fist raised as your throat roars with the might of an authority conferred upon you by He Who Sits On High. "VITER BELANUS," the voice says, spilling from your lips unbidden, "REPENT FOR THY SINS."
From your outstretched palm comes a torrent of unlife; screaming, seething cloth spiralling through the air as they wrap the wretch and smother his face in bloody, dripping rags-
Bliss.
Like cold, soft blankets on a hot summer's night.
There is nothing here.
You are safe.
You can rest.
Finally.
See? Does it not suit you, child?
When you open your eyes, you are not standing, but lying down - for upon the deck of the ship, your loyal servants have crafted a palatial bed of flesh for your pleasure, its bedposts twisting pillars of bone and the pillows a tapestry of entrails woven for your exclusive use.
All bow before you.
Worship you.
As they should, no?
For a moment, you look up at the [] which, bereft of the challenge of chasing your boat, begins to engulf all that exists.
It is of no matter, you think, as a cowering batarian slave-trader with his eyes burned out offers you a fresh plate of fruit.
You take it and stuff it into your mouth, letting the juices spatter down onto your bare chest.
Is this not how it should be?
Is this not the dream of the righteous?
To rest, duties fulfilled, and to enjoy the fruits of their labours?
After all, your servants have already changed the course of the boat. You watch as the boat turns, sinks into the crimson tides, and dives deep beneath the ocean of crimson. As you watch all be engulfed by the flood of blood, and you see and that lives and dies and lives again, you smile.
Yes.
It is, isn't it?
Before the age before ages, before there was endless night, there was nothing.
None gazed upon the infinite emptiness, and none were pleased, for in the ocean of the unlit spheres there it was the way of things to be free of existence and the burdens it would bring.
So it was that nothing slept and dreamed of nothing, and all was peaceful and calm.
At a fated time, though, nobody beheld the things which did not exist, and nobody felt displeasure for the first time since the very first moment in all uncreation.
And nobody saw this, and it was not good.
Nobody wept, and from nothing there came tears of something; not many tears, for this was not sorrow or loss, but anger at all the untime which had been wasted, but there were enough tears shed and lo! So was formed the endless sky from nobody's tears as they filled the void with the inky blackness of the sky.
So then did the unperson who beheld nothing and felt nothing until the time ordained by the weave of void become someone.
Thus began the age before ages, at the coming of They Who Were Of The Void And Walked Its Infinite Length.
The ship runs aground on the banks of the ][.
This is good.
Trapped aboard that pathetic excuse for a sailing craft, your whimpering slaves could do nothing but craft you an unworthy domain from those brought before your exalted self.
Now, though, you have made landfall, and the Land of ][ is a paradise of the greatest sort. Stretching across the abyssal plains are trees of meat and rivers of blood; mountains of bone stretch into the skies and cold, unclean fire roils in the heavens below.
Ah, see? Is this not a home fit for you?
This is not the diseased dustbowl of the Mortal, where you warred for scraps with lesser creatures; this is not the River of [], where all that clings to the desire of existence flee from the un-things which feed upon the real. No, this is ][, o Judge. See your new domain. See your home. See the place in which you belong and all behold you and weep at your magnificence.
You sit atop your throne of bones, watching as the endless line of the sinful are paraded before you.
You do not need to speak your commands, for the slaves who have sinned least know your will and toil for all eternity to impress your desire upon the very nature of all things.
You are Judgement and your very being is the law of reality.
How pathetic you once were!
Even now, it sends tendrils of flaming fury through your body to think that once you breathed the same air as the unclean masses below you.
How childish, to think that any were truly innocent.
How weak, to think that yours was the duty to sort through the sinners and judge them for their deeds. How could you have, with such feeble eyes? How could you have, with such mortal failings?
No.
It is only now, seated atop your throne, garbed in your cape of flayed skin and wearing the crown of severed fingers, that you truly are made whole.
A noise.
You turn to your right.
The Tyrant is there, kneeling twenty paces away.
"Oh Judge, I bring news of the unclean thing which spreads heresy through your most blessed domain," it says, eyes downcast.
"Speak," you command.
"The one who is known to your exalted radiance as the Wanderer makes ready to defile your palace," the Tyrant whispers.
"It matters not." You dismiss your courtier with a wave of your hands. "The guards will see to them."
A voice like a burning star. "Is that so?"
A flash of light.
The Tyrant - your Tyrant - gasps as an unseen figure steps from the shadows, ramming a blade of gleaming, raging fire through its chest that cooks the - demon? - into ash.
"You," you snarl, raising your flesh-scepter as you behold the thing which has savaged your kingdom for so long. "You dare set foot in my domain - dare to lay hands upon my slaves?"
What a curious thing, this Wanderer is: a queer, two-legged creature, its head covered by a heavy hood and garbed in a battered, bloodstained cloak of purest black.
"For this transgression," you snarl from your many mouths as you rise from your throne, "there will be only an eternity of penance!"
You surge forward, your six arms wielding blades and curses and rage-
-but there is no punishment. No duel.
The Wanderer simply takes every blow.
His cloak rips and tears and burns away as he take step after step towards you, that shining, pure blade of flaming light only growing hotter and hotter-
-and you gasp as the Wanderer rams it through your heart.
You gaze up at the man, his hood burned away.
"Who are we," Saren roars, "to judge everyone? We, of all people? You think everyone's sinned, and that gives us the right to pretend we're better than them? That they don't need protection, but punishment? Have you looked in a Spirits-damned mirror? How many sins do we bear?"
"It is our birthright," you gasp, "our nature!"
"It's yours, you demonic shitstain," you scream, plunging the blade deeper. "Judge? What a fucking joke! My sins - my failures - the burden I carry is MINE AND MINE ALONE!"
The world is beginning to swim as the fire consumes you.
You look into your own eyes:
Despair.
Loathing.
WRATH.
Your voice is distant, crumbling, crackling beneath that all-consuming fire.
"You…do this..for those…false…gods?"
"There are no gods," you snarl, hacking away at your body with furious, raging strikes of fire. "There are people who need protecting, and people who need to die."
Think.
How many innocent people have you killed? How many victims have you failed to save?
Calculate.
How many good lives have you taken in the name of the greater whole? How many more will have to die before your journey ends, Wanderer?
KILL.
IT DOES NOT MATTER. YOUR BOAT MUST SAIL AND TO SAIL THE FIRE MUST BE FED.
Think.
What if the journey never ends? What if, in the end, there is no destination, only an eternity of cruelty to feed a fire that will always hunger for more?
Calculate.
Who fucking cares?
KILL.
-you open your eyes, roaring with infinite, surging rage that burns the very air around you.
The thing that you thought was all you wished for is gone, for now, even as your eyes begin to melt from the heat of the Sun itself, you see the Tyrant cowering before you in the engine room.
With one final scream of righteous anger you grab the unholy thing with both hands-
-and hurl it into the fire.
The engine ROARS.
Beneath you, the frame of the boat shudders as the vessel accelerates to speeds beyond comprehension.
The next set of footsteps is a human family. Two fathers and a young girl.
"It's okay, Saren," they say as they, without even waiting for you, make their way towards the fire. "It's okay. We forgive you."
They climb into the fire.
The blood that sloshes in your boots is warm and gentle.
The gore on the walls is so thick that there is no trace of the walls below.
The engine room is orderly.
Calm.
All is right with the world.
YOU BREAK FREE OF THE FOUL CHAINS OF THE UNCLEAN
PURE, CLEANSING FIRE BURNS WITHIN
YOU DRAW YOUR BLADE AND IT ROARS WITH THE RAGE OF A DYING SUN
THE WORDS COME FORTH AS YOU MARCH INTO BATTLE
"I AM THE ONE WHO IS CALLED THE STANDARD-BEARER OF THE SINNER! MINE IS THE WEIGHT OF THE SINFUL AND THE FORGOTTEN!"
THE BLADE IS GONE AND IN ITS PLACE IS A PILLAR OF BLACK VOID WHOSE EMPTINESS SWALLOWS THE LIGHT
"I AM SAREN ARTERIUS! I AM DAMMED, YET UNBROKEN! CURSED, YET PURE!"