20th of November, 3754
Vernazza, Italy, Earth
The Warlock drifted. Drifted in the currents. Drifted on lukewarm waters. Drifted above vibrant corals and shadowy trenches. Drifted. Drifted. Drifted.
His raft was a thing of decaying resin, waterlogged cloth and rotting wood. It floated - because all it could do was float, float, float. The Warlock fished for food and boiled for clean liquids. The Solar purged the salt from his drinking water. The Arc lured the thoughts in like hungry little sea beasts. The Void spiked through them with forced calm, injecting them with its serene poisons.
His food was foreign thoughts.
His water was inspiration.
The very air he breathed was willpower. It felt like fire, filling his lungs with smoke.
A storm boxed him in. The waves came, breaking the calm and rocking his raft. He held to the mast, held tight even as the rough wood left splinters in the meat of his palms. The blood slickened his grip - but he held on still, digging his nails into the surface of the mast.
"Keres."
He opened his eyes. He was hovering above the ground, legs folded and hands on his knees. Gradually he floated down. Imezanthes, standing before him, gazed down at him. Her warbeast-mask painted a cold, primal visage. She offered a hand. He took it, allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.
"How long was I...?" he asked, voice raspy and dry.
"Three days," she grunted.
Three days. He felt it on his shoulders, his knees, in his back and through the pangs emanating from his stomach. His head pounded with the fever-ache of dehydration.
He could've dreamt for longer.
Imezanthes glanced down. The hand she'd drawn him up with was slick with red. As was his own. Both of them. "Some dreams," she muttered.
He couldn't have agreed more.
"What did you see?"
"I saw..." Keres licked his dry, cracked lips. "I saw a typhoon on the horizon."
"And?"
"Sharks. The kind that only live in the deep."
"What were they doing?"
"Coming to the surface. I don't know why." Keres blinked. "What is it?"
Imezanthes shifted. Looked around at the crumbling ruin. It had once been a villa, set aside in an idyllic little valley for a Golden Age superstar. An actor-politician, maybe. Maybe a rich Martian, having come home to enjoy their wealth in traditional comforts.
"We caught a fly," she said softly, at long last.
Keres' resolve hardened. "Where?"
"They're bringing him in now."
"I want to speak with him."
"Where?"
"By the cliff."
She gave him a lazy, borderline mocking salute. "You've got it."
"Oh, and uh..." Keres indicated behind him, to the pair of Psions chained up and squirming with terror. Their gills pulsed wetly in the dry air.
"On it."
Two explosive roars rattled his eardrums - and the air was filled with the bittersweet sulfurous stink of old fashioned gunpowder.
He took his time. Donned his robes. Took a drink. Nibbled on some stale crackers. Wandered through the villa's overgrown orchard. The trees were genetically engineered to bear fruit fast, keep them ripe for a while. He liked strolling through it, feeling what little Mediterranean sunlight trickled through the canopy above fall on the back of his neck. Liked to reach up and softly run his bloodied hand through the leaves. Snagged an apple. Plucked it off its branch, dragged it down and took a bite.
It tasted sweet and it tasted like copper.
"If only we'd found this place earlier," he sighed.
"If only," his companion of forever agreed, her voice silken-soft. Kypris cozied up between his shoulder and neck, nestling in the hollow between. Her shell was smooth and cool, a sensational comfort, and there was a warmth under the thin layer of metal.
She was everything to him.
They made their way to cliff together. Keres looked over the edge, to the crashing waves half a kilometer below, and swiveled to face the other. Imezanthes stood with her hands on the pommel of her stolen cleaver, bone-claws tap-tap-tapping against the chitin-hadium blend. Jābir and Hevon dragged another man beaten and bruised towards him while Verena held the trap-ring containing their visitor's outraged Ghost.
"The audacity!" it complained. "This is no way to-"
"Shut it!" Verena shook the thing, jostling it about.
The beaten man snarled. Tried to lunge at her. Jābir slammed a fist against the man's face to keep him down, snapping his head back.
"Here," Imezanthe growled, indicating to the cliff.
Jābir and Hevon dragged their prize to the edge. Turned him about, kicked the back of his knees to force him to kneel - and stepped back.
Keres crouched in front of him, resting on his haunches. Offered him what was left of the apple. The man, a Titan if the remains of his shredded armour were anything to judge, looked at, scowled and finally glared at him. Spat a fat globule of blood past shattered teeth. It hit the front of Keres' robes and dribbled down.
Keres tossed the apple over the cliff and sighed. "As you will. What's your name?"
The Titan said nothing. Just gave him a stony look.
"A Praxic," Imezanthes murmured. "I think this one is called... Siegfried, was it?"
The Titan switched targets and glared at her instead.
"Siegfried, then. Wonderful." Keres sat back. He gestured to Venera. She handed over the trapped Ghost. "And what about you?"
The Ghost fumed. "I say, this is most outrageous! Brothers and sisters of Light have no need to do battle with one another!"
"Brothers and sisters of Light," Kere whispered. He ran a finger over the edge of the Ghost's shell and then its eye, leaving a red mark in his wake. "Do you know what we are?"
The Ghost blinked at them. Glanced at Kypris. "Sister, please, inform your Guardian-"
"Mmmm," Kypris made a show of thinking about it, "no."
"Your name," Keres said again, with a touch more firmness.
The Ghost glowered. "Ogden."
"You are aware of who we are, aren't you, Ogden?"
"Ruffians."
"Ruffians!" Keres chuckled. "Ruffians. I... I like that."
"Traitors," the Titan weakly snarled.
Keres smiled. Stood up. Raised a hand to shade his eyes, judged the distance - and tossed Ogden. The trapped Ghost shrieked as he went, fell out of sight and plummeted to the dark waters below. Helpless to save himself.
The Titan gave a start, eyes wide, and tried to turn around - but Keres grabbed his hair and held him still.
"Wait," he ordered.
The Titan yelled, batted at the hand.
"That was a beautiful toss," Kypris remarked, voice hushed - right by his ear.
"Be still," Keres barked. "He's alive."
Siegfried stopped struggling - but if looks could kill, Keres would have been in dire need of a rez. "You-"
"Me," Keres agreed. "And you - you could have left well enough alone. I admire the Praxic perseverance, but not so when it means butting into matters you have no reason to. This is on you."
"I'll kill-"
"No, I don't think you will."
There was movement behind. Foreign essence brushing against the field of his Light. Siegfried glanced past him - and stared.
Keres let go and stepped back. Held a hand out. A dark knife was handed over, chitin brushing against bare skin. There was a hiss and a click and a guttural laugh as the creature danced back.
"You are a traitor," Siegfried accused.
Keres offered him the barest of shrugs before plunging the green-edged knife into the Titan's heart. He gasped, the very breath leaving him. His veins blackened as the venom ran its course. His Light flickered out. Keres pulled the blade out, dripping with blood and venom, and kicked the Titan square on the chest.
Siegfried's body tumbled off the cliff.
"That won't be the last of them," Kypris whispered. "They'll come looking for their lost brother."
"They'll never find him," Keres replied. "Him or his Ghost." He turned around. Took a moment to look at each face, human or otherwise. "Our timeline has moved up."
"You still have an appointment to keep," Imezanthes reminded him. "In four hours. Rheasilvia. By the Harbinger's Seclude."
"True. I best get cleaned up." Keres looked down at the knife. "This is beautiful. Some of your best handiwork.
The Anointed, shackled and scarred, bowed deeply. "A gift for you, commissioned from up high."
"I am most thankful." Keres allowed Kypris transmat it away. "I'll make good use of it - I promise."
Rheasilvia was beautiful, but it was in the long shadows of Harbinger's Seclude that he found his solace - and his new posting. Keres cleared the place of Scorn and Taken both in anticipation, waiting by the entrance to the elevator shaft leading to the Hall of Names. The local Abominations gave him trouble, but nothing he couldn't simply retreat from and pick off from a distance with his linear fusion. He was in the midst of cleaning that very weapon with a dirty rag when a Titan and Hunter made their entrance.
The latter was garbed in gold and black. He had a dark porcelain mask over his face, but his eyes - oh, his eyes, they told a tale all on their own. Orange, glowing with that Awoken magic. Full of exhaustion, but young too. Guarded. Not guarding enough. Keres wondered how many words he'd need to sent the man down a darker path. Enough to seed some doubt. Three or four, he imagined.
Who'd you lose? or some variation of it.
The Titan was different. Young too, but he had some years on the other. It was clear in the way he walked, the way he carried himself, the way he hefted both arms and armour. A Tex Mechanica rifle, clearly, but it looked custom. The armour he wore was custom too, but it didn't look like anything Keres had seen before - as if forged out of the scales, hide and horn of some great mythic beast. The man was tall, taller even than Keres himself, and built like brick-wall.
"Hey," the Titan greeted. "You the bookworm Ikora sent us?"
"Yes sir." Keres slung his fusion rifle over his shoulder and clasped his hands behind his back. "Keres Taryche, at your service. You are-?"
"Jaxson Ineta." The Titan offered his hand. Keres took it. Jaxson had a strong handshake.
"You're the Young Wolf," Keres said with a smile. "It's an honour."
"That I am. This here's Crow."
Keres offered the Hunter a nod. It was stiffly returned.
"You ever do a Throne run?" Jaxson asked.
Keres shook his head. "Can't say I have."
"That's fine. It's routine at this point."
"So I've heard. But..." Keres offered him an innocent look. "I thought Lord Ikharos was staple to these sorts of ventures."
Jaxson shifted. Minutely, very easy to miss - but Keres was watching for it. "We take turns," the Titan explained. There was a concealed edge in his voice. Don't press it, he was saying.
Keres dipped his head. "Right, right, sorry. The nerves, you see. It's... I've read the reports, this always seemed so... chaotic. Difficult."
"Just stick by us and you'll be fine." Jaxson turned to the elevator shaft. "C'mon you two. Before Dûl Incaru gets the wrong idea."
Crow snorted. "Wrong idea?"
"Wouldn't want our girl to think we've stood her up, now do we?"
They ventured down into the Hall of Names. Keres had a look at the skulls within - Huginn and Muninn. Beautiful creatures. Long since rendered into little more than whispering slabs of yellowing bone, but they must have been glorious in life.
"Shush," Keres told the thing rattling in his breastpocket. "Shh."
It trembled still. He was left under the impression it was trying to speak with the discoloured craniums.
Damn right adorable, that.
He turned a full three-sixty, looking up at the high walls, the amethyst and marble carved into the ceiling, the slender pillars and strange Awoken contraptions radiating ethereal light. "So this is the Confluence?"
"Yep." Jaxson activated his radio. "Team 2, we're in position. What's-"
"Blind Well is go," came the blurted reply.
The entrance to Eleusinia yawned open before them.
"Ready?" Crow asked.
Keres made a show of nodding uncertainly. "I think so."
Erebus welcomed them with shadow and howling winds. It was home - or the closest thing to one Keres could find. Each prickling sensation of sea-salt flakes lashing across his robes, his skin, left burning marks in their wake. His blood sung with it; he'd never felt so alive.
The first Labyrinth Architect fell under a barrage of furious gunfire - and they sped past its dissipating remains. They hunted their prey in the murky dark of the Sea of Screams. Taken champions fell left, right and centre before the might of their Light. The shrieks and roars of will-less things began to thin out as their crusade neared its completion. At long last they returned to the entrance of Erebus and faced the last of the Architects - a Taken Captain bearing twin sabres.
Jaxson took it on alone. His rifle was swapped out for a sword seemingly forged out of molten metal glowing with heat, which he used to utterly butcher the Labyrinth Architect's shield, and a shield bearing the scaled face of a demon, which broke every blast of flung Darkness to come to his way. The Architect was brought to its knees by a flurry of savage, hammering blows and run through. It screamed as it went, melting back into whatever hellish reality the Taken stemmed from.
Keres approached him after all was said and down, after the elevator shaft to the next sector had opened up. "Hadium?" he guessed.
Jaxson looked at him, then lifted up his sword. It was a brutish thing, more like a Hive cleaver supercharged with Solar Light than the usual toothpicks their people used. "Not quite," the Young Wolf grunted. "More like dragon-fire, caught at just the right time."
"I imagine there's a story there."
"Oh, you have no idea."
Crow cleared his throat.
"On we go," Jaxson said. "Watch your angles; there'll be snipers in abundance these next few rooms."
They cut their way through to Vorgeth, the Boundless Hunger, and fattened the Taken Ogre up on the essences of slain Wizards. The Ogre's shield faltered; they unleashed their Light as one and reduced it to a streak of ash on the floor. The fight had been anarchic, dangerous, delicious. Keres came away from it exhilarated, high on adrenaline and wanting so much more.
"My name is Sjur Eidor," the statue of a bow-bearing Awoken woman said, but he ignored it in favour of treading ever deeper into the Ascendant realm - already anticipating the next struggle for life and death with bated breath. Crow and Jaxson followed, the latter barely winded, and they leapt down a stream of floating islands to reach the next grav-lift.
They ascended. Up and up the layers of Eleusinia until they reached the highest chamber in the shattered tower - and there... they found her.
Dûl Incaru did not disappoint. She was an elegant creature of black shell wrapped up in robes of innocent white. Her forearms rattled with bracers alighted with Hive runes, and her snarling face was framed by the ivory crests of her headdress. Her three noble attendants - Gaurog, Alak-Tor, Ba-Kuur - were Darkblades each, bearing the mighty axes of Hive executioners.
Keres had to resist the urge to bow, to greet them as their stations deserved, and instead fired on Gaurog's skull with a single needling beam of his fusion rifle. Dûl Incaru shrieked and fired upon them with a storm of Dark spells; Alak-Tor and Ba-Kuur led the charge while Gaurog staggered back. Jaxson met the Darkblades in kind, raising his shield to take the brunt of each cleaving strike and battering them in return with ambitious sweeps of his own cleaver. Crow provided covering fire for them both, his shotgun catching the splitting Psions at their flanks before they could multiply beyond anyone's control.
Only when the Darkblades were slain, each by Keres' rifle, did they turn onto the daughter of Savathûn. The death-essence of each Hive champion powered their assault, and brought the dread sorcerer crashing to the ground. She laughed as she died, laughed as Jaxson brought his sword down and split her head in twain.
Keres panted. He pulled his helm off and breathed in the stale, lacking air. Did some chuckling on his own - and played it off as nervousness when Crow gave him a strange look.
"Is that it?" he asked.
Jaxson dropped a hand on his shoulder. It took every iota of control inside him to not rip the limb off. "It is. You doing okay?"
"I... yes. I'm fine. Thank you."
"Have enough for your report?"
Keres nodded vigorously. "So much! Thank you, Wolf."
Jaxson peered down at him with concern. "You sure you're alright?"
"I am. I really am. This has been... educational." Keres stepped back. Jaxson's hand fell away. "Thank you again."
He met with Imezanthes a few days later, after having handed in his near-honest report of the Eleusinia situation to Ikora, and found her in a bar dug into the rock of one of the Tangled Shore's asteroid-frontiers. The bouncer was speared up over the entrance to the Empty Tank, dead-eyed and hanging limp. The interior was much in the same vein - with dead Fallen scattered throughout. The dancing floor was slick with blue.
Imezanthes sat by the only relatively clean table - or at least the only table free of viscera and scorch marks - and sat back with her boots propped up.
"How'd it go?" she asked.
Keres smiled. Sat down opposite her. "Smoothly, I think." He tossed her a datastick. She caught it and shoved it into a pocket.
"Any suspicion?"
"None. They were earnest boys. Innocent. I do hope they'll keep in touch."
A hotwired Shank flew their way, balancing a tray of drinks over the top of its hull. Imezanthes swatted one and indicated for Keres to take another?
"Ether? No thank you."
"It's not that bad." She took a swig. "Anything of note?"
"There was Awoken technology within. It allowed us to funnel the essence of the slain into power with which to breach the shields of otherwise untouchable foes."
"Did you get the schematics?"
"Not so - but we don't need them."
"We don't?"
Keres nodded. "That was but for the Ogre. The witch we invoked a raw spell instead, much to the same effect."
"You have this spell?"
"Not so, but given the readings Kypris picked up on, I dare say it won't be overly difficult to emulate it."
"Good, good."
"What about on your end?"
Imezanthes kicked away from the table and straightened up. "Something's happening."
"Oh?"
"It's not just this... whatever, this Exorcism these Reefborn are attempting. This is system-wide."
"Xivu Arath's forces-"
"No. Not them. The Witch Queen's."
Keres quirked an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
Imezanthes hesitated. It wasn't like her. "They're falling back," she said. "Nothing we didn't expect - but it's like they're trying to consolidate their power. Save their strength. This isn't... Savathûn hasn't lost them yet. She has another plan in action. I just... don't know what."
"Find out. If this rattles the board-"
"I know. I'll see if I can catch a witch, make her talk." She paused. "You could ask your... friend."
"I don't know where she is."
"We could pick up some Conclave runaways, use them as new anchor-points."
"And let my mind wander the other-planes?" Keres questioned. "Leave myself at risk?"
"There's risk in everything we're doing."
"Fine," Keres sighed. "I'll give it a try."
Imezanthes gave him a nod. "I'll leave you two, then."
She departed without another word. Keres didn't call after her. There was no point. Smalltalk simply wasn't in her blood. That was fine; he respected it. Left him yearning for engagement, though.
The noise of the place - the rattling of pipes, the hiss of converting ether, the rumbling reverberations of power generators below his feet, the buzz of the winking lights above - momentarily lulled and faded away. Then-
"-OPE FOR THE FUTURE
IT'S COMING SOON ENOUGH
HOW MUCH CAN WE ACHIEVE?!"
Keres leaned back and smiled.
"I love this song!" Kypris squealed. She hovered over the music-box, shell swaying with every beat, with every rising pitch of the gaudy Golden Age track.
"Hope for the future
It will belong to us
If we believe
If we believe!"
Keres tasted the ether. Too sweet for his tastes. He returned it to the tray and shoved the Shank back; it whirred as it beat a retreat. He dragged his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.