Chapter Sixteen: The Shining Wastes

Nil put his hand to his brow, shading his eyes, and looked out across the white expanse. Salt rippling like sand greeted him, crusting the ancient lakebed that swept out like a sea around him. On its far-off banks, he spied splashes of purple and gold. Wildflowers bloomed, their thriving presence a miracle amid the gray emptiness. And yet they were only tiny specks, their bright colors overshadowed by the craggy mountains whose jagged peaks scratched the sky.

His hand felt for his belt. Metal canteens clinked against each other as he tugged one loose. They were the boon the ill-fated Tenakth riders had bequeathed to him in death. Though he was disappointed when there were no rations among their belongings. Still, five canteens brimming with water might ensure he lived long enough to starve.

He thumbed off the canteen's cap and took a long pull. The water tasted like rust, but his parched throat didn't care, and he gulped it down. He dried his lips with the back of his hand and resealed the canteen before tethering it back onto his belt.

Then his hand found his brow again, and he gazed out at the salt flats. They shimmered white in the sunlight.

A beautiful wasteland.

And he wondered if answers could be found in its vast emptiness. He considered the question Fashav had put to him. Why had he wanted Aloy to kill him? If it wasn't about the contest between two hunters, then did suicidal desire lurk inside his heart? Was that why he courted death? Why he lusted for it, and through his own hand, watched others succumb to its seduction?

Death was natural. The only natural thing he knew. It was his passion. It was his art. It was how he knew he was alive. Every arrow loosed and every thrust of his dagger was an affirmation. Proof that he survived while his enemies fell.

And yet, there was something artificial in his victories. Like a veneer that hid what was missing underneath. Wintry gusts shivered through him, and he remembered clinging to the glacier in The Cut and how the black chasm hung beneath him, a reflection more honest than any mirror. An emptiness, like the souls of the machines that roamed the land, mindless as they churned its soil and mined its metal. Like him, their only concern was their purpose, and they were a cancer in their devotion.

Behind him, something bleated.

He turned and looked back over his shoulder.

The red-eyed charger hobbled on three legs through his trailing footprints. Behind it, the ruins of its fourth leg dragged across the salt. Dried blood coated its neck and shoulders and oozing hydraulic fluid drenched its chest. Straw-thin arrows pricked its body and snapping sparks showered the ground around it. It stopped, glaring at him with its glowing eye as it hovered at the edge of its destruction.

And it bleated again.

Nil furrowed an eyebrow. There was no malice in its electronic gruffness, and neither was there a plea. Instead, it sounded pleasant and unassuming. Like a greeting.

He frowned and squinted up at the hard sun beating down on his head and back. Then he blinked and shook the spots from his eyes. The heat must be baking his brain if he thought a machine was trying to be his friend. When he found enough scraps, he needed to make some headgear. Something flashy but with a visor that shielded his face from the curious, especially in this hostile land with its long memory. For now, he scanned the distance and spotted a rocky outcrop and the promise of shade. Salt crunched under his feet as he started for it.

The charger bleated, and began to follow him, its leg rattling over the ground as it limped.

"When I told you were free to do whatever you wanted," Nil said as he continued to walk, "That didn't include wandering after me into the desert."

Its hooves shuffled and motors whirred.

"I don't know if I've made this clear, but I don't care for machines," he added, his voice growing louder and his pace a step faster. "Never have."

A flurry of sparks buzzed in the air, and the rhythm of its scraping hoofbeats increased.

"There's nothing satisfying about battling against machines," he grumbled to himself, his snapping strides on the verge of jogging, "Destroying them is as dangerous as killing people if you like fighting a glorified ballista. But then you realize there's no proving you're alive by destroying something that just exists. When you realize that something has always been dead, and it doesn't even know it."

Hurrying hoofbeats slipped and sloshed over the salt, becoming an arrhythmic staccato.

He thought about the slain scorcher crumpled in the puddling snow and how its hollow eye sockets stared at him, devoid of light. Another reflection, like the black chasm, and its infinite emptiness resonated in his chest, harmonizing with the hole that was his heart. A strange sensation, tight and boiling hot, surged within him, the pressure rising like a geyser. And it took him a few ragged breaths to realize what it was.

He was angry.

Hooves skidded sharply into silence, and then a hard, metallic crash thudded onto the ground.

Nil spun towards it and shouted, "Why are you here?! What do you want from me?!"

The charger bleated. It lay in a heap with its legs splayed awkwardly beneath it. Syrupy fluid dripped from its neck and its burning eye was webbed with cracks. Its motors hummed to a high pitch as it tried to gather itself up, its scrambling hooves digging grooves into the salt. Then its flailing slowed to a stop, and it bleated again.

"I don't understand why you're following me!" he snapped at it, and he cut the air with a dismissive wave of his hand. "All I do, whether I intend to or not, is destroy things. Even myself. I take them apart, ripping out their threads with my bow and dagger. Is that what you want? Is that why you're here? Are you looking to be unmade?!"

He reached for his dagger and slid it free from its scabbard. The worn-in comfort of violence poured into his muscles and sharpened his senses. It matched the anger hardening his silver eyes, and he strode towards the charger.

The beast looked out over the flats, shining white under the bright sunlight. Black heaps of twisted metal disrupted the smooth vista. Fallen machines with their empty eyes and jaws hinged wide open.

The grip on his dagger tightened, turning his knuckles white.

It would be a mercy to destroy it and end its suffering. He'd seen it on many battlefields. Men clutching at their innards as they spilled out, their bloody fingers desperately trying to press them back in. The soldier in Cinnabar Sands with the grazer rotor planted in his chest. How he begged for help with blood bubbling from his lips.

Nil's cool shadow fell over the charger, and it turned its head to look at him. Its glowing eye painted his chest and his dagger gleamed red in the light.

And it softly bleated its greeting. There was an innocence to it. Like that of a child playing alone in a sunlit room, wishing for a friend.

The dagger clattered onto the ground.

And in a gentle spray of salt, Nil thumped down beside it.

He dragged his hand over his face and let out a long, weary sigh that ended in a groan. Then he planted his chin onto his palm, and together, he and the charger, gazed out over the flats. Without even a vulture circling in the sky, it felt like the antithesis of life, and yet there was a sense of peace in its stillness. Serenity that comes with absence. Afterall, there's nothing to kill when nothing is alive. And with that thought, Nil felt his anger drain away, leached into the dead sea on which he was adrift.

The charger bleated again.

Nil eyed it obliquely and chuckled under his breath. "You're a chatty fucker, you know that? I didn't know machines were so damn talkative."

It snorted indignantly.

He smiled, then his expression softened into wistfulness. "I'm tired of killing." It was strange to hear those words out loud and almost unfathomable to hear them in his own voice. "I mean, I'm not tired of killing in general. I love battle. Crave it. It's the ultimate test of will, skill, and luck. But…" He paused, frowning, and he absently flicked at the salt grains sticking to his legs. "But… it can't be my purpose anymore. When I needed to survive, being a weapon saved me. But now I want to live, and that means being something more."

The charger grunted, and it sounded like affirmation in Nil's ears.

"Feel the same way, huh?" he said, and he watched as electricity arced from an arrow wound in its chest. It buzzed brightly, building up, until it ejected sparks onto the ground. He frowned, and his hand reached out for the arrow. He took it by the shaft and tugged on it. It slid out easily. Arrows from warrior bows were barely more than darts. The buzzing electricity sputtered out, and the charger tossed its head agreeably.

One-by-one, he plucked more of them out, careful to follow the angles through which they had pierced it. His fingers traced the line of its rubbery muscles and insulated conduit to junctures and sockets. He noted brackets with empty holes where its armor had been sheared off. The way the pieces fit together reminded him of the tailored ensembles he would sew in Sunstone Rock. Layers-over-layers, he'd choose their materials and design with care. Every contour he stitched was as seamless as it was methodical. And he could see the same attention to detail in the charger's anatomy.

He dug into its corded throat, coating his hand in ichor.

The charger jerked away with a startled snort, and its hooves scrabbled, kicking up salt.

"It's okay," Nil soothed, and he pet it gently over its neck and withers. "I'm not going to hurt you."

After a few strokes, it settled down, and he slowly slipped his hand back into its throat. He winced as oozing fluid dripped onto him, nearly scalding his skin, and he followed it upward, muttering a prayer hoping any electrical cabling he groped was undamaged and secure. The tension felt good in everything he touched, then a loose bit of hosing tangled in his fingers.

"Here we go," he whispered, and he gathered the hosing into his palm until he felt the metal connector in his fingertips. His tongue protruded from his lips as he turned it over, exploring its shape and imagining what it looked like in his mind. After a moment, he nodded. "It doesn't feel like any pieces snapped off. I think it just came unplugged."

His hand slid along its throat, slowly unfurling the hosing wadded in his palm as he fed it back into position. Then his fingers brushed against a panel. He prodded it until he felt a barren socket, its contours the right size and shape.

"Come on…" he grumbled as the connector tapped uselessly against the socket, then the prongs lined up, and it slotted into place. He could feel fluid rushing through the hosing, the pressure hardening it like a pumping artery, and the charger's slumped body perked up. A thready whine in its motor he hadn't noticed eased, and it began to hum smoothly.

The charger bleated brightly, and its head swiveled with refreshed energy.

Nil grinned.

Then it gathered itself, its hooves slipping awkwardly as it attempted to stand up.

"Hold on," he laughed, and he clasped it by the shoulder, pushing it down firmly. "Let me look at your leg first or else you'll never make it out of this wasteland."

With a final impetuous kick, the charger relaxed, and Nil rounded its hind-end to inspect its dragging, rear leg. Gently, he picked up the split hock, and he thumbed at the tendril of sliced muscle that still tethered it to the charger's body. The Tenakth leader's sword had done its damage. But if there was one thing he could say about the warrior tribe that he couldn't say about bandits, it's that they cared for their weapons. The wound was sharp and clean with perfectly straight edges.

His hand dug into a pouch, and he withdrew spooled thread and a sleeve of needles. He plucked out the biggest, heaviest needle he had, the one meant for thick leather. The thread was a wisp through its eye, and he looped back through, doubling it. Then he took the hock and lined up the muscle, fiber-to-fiber. He positioned the needle for the first stitch, and his thumb pressed hard on its end, punching it through. Carefully, he sewed the pieces together, the quality of his stitches changing to match how the muscles would strain under its weight and while in motion. When he finished, he knotted the thread and snipped the trailing ends with his dagger.

"Okay, you're good to go," he said, and he gave it an encouraging swat on its hindquarters.

With a feisty snort, the charger bolted up, clambering onto its hooves. Nil rose to his feet and watched, his face beaming, as the beast bucked playfully, its rear leg supporting every jouncing kick. Then it trotted around him, its steps lively and head high.

"All right," he said dryly as he adjusted the canteens hanging from his belt, "I get it. You're happy. Like I said earlier, just don't trample me before you run off, okay?"

And then he waited.

He waited for it to turn away.

For it to start galloping across the endless wastes with a plume of dust trailing behind it.

For it to disappear from his life like everyone else always did.

But instead, it sidled up close.

And waited for him.

A lump tightened in Nil's throat and unbidden tears welled in his eyes. He wiped at them with the back of his hand, as mystified by their presence as he was by the charger. The lump felt like the knot that twisted inside his chest when he left Sunstone Rock or when he woke up alone in the Spearshafts, but warmer. Like the best kind of pain. The kind that made you stronger.

He thought about the riders racing through the desert, their mounts bashing against each other as they battled for the lead.

"Okay, let's do this," he said as he exhaled a deep, shuddering sigh, and then he turned to face its flank. With one hand on its withers and the other on the bracket for its blaze canister, he threw himself up onto its back. He floundered for a moment as he struggled to swing his leg over the canister. But soon he found his seat

The salt flats seemed smaller from his new perch. Not quite as vast and empty. Or as static still as the machine beneath him shifted under his weight.

It was time for a new purpose.

Nil leaned down and patted the charger as he spoke to it. "All right, Red-Eye. Let's ride." Then he gave it a wary look. "But if you fucking buck me like you did the last guy, you better break my neck, because after that, we'll have a fight and I will kill you. Got it?"

Red-Eye snorted defiantly.

"I mean it."

Then he slapped his heels against its flank, and it bolted forward in a hard gallop. He held on, his hands buried in its neck and legs tucked tight. The wastes sped past them in a blinding white blur. And over the thundering hoofbeats and whirring motor, he could hear himself laughing with unbridled joy.