Chaos. Chaos. Nothing but chaos.
The world was on fire, and it was intact. Armies of cold steel marched and young women sang as they pinned their clothing to a line. Seas burnt and bubbled and she swam in cold, deep waters in the depths of a sacred cave. Hymns of praise became screams of betrayal.
She held a weapon and fired it. Again. Again. Again. The ones she fired it on changed but she remained the same. The worlds changed, shifting from grass to desert to ice but she was the same. Fire the weapon. Again. Again. Again.
Crowded into a hold with other beings of metal. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting to fire again. Worlds on fire, burning. Cities burning. Watching a tower fall in on itself, breaking into dust.
Dust. Dust. Dust and ashes that she spread on her body as she sang and cried for the dead. Walking up the steps. Walking down the steps. Dancing. Dancing. Dancing. Dancing with a body of flesh and a body of metal, looking into a sky that turned from green to red to black.
Who are you? She didn't hear the question at first. There was too much chaos. The sound of gunfire drowned it out. Strange creatures, so bulky, firing again and again. Something hit her and she fell but nothing hurt. Firing again. Again. Again.
Who are you? Dancing and singing beneath the light of the setting sun. Burials conducted as the sun set, the end of a day and the end of a life. Then the world dissolved into fire, burning into ashes.
Who are you? She was hearing the question. Time had no meaning in the endless chaos but there was something outside herself, something touching and questioning. Who was it? Who was she? Endless dreams of warm days and cold nights. A tiny cot in a little hut that became a nice mattress in a bigger home and a voice whispering in her ear.
We are proud of you.
Who are you? A face swam into her vision. The skin was dark, darker than the necrontyr and the face was wrong, different and alien. But it seemed kind and a hand was touching her head. It was warm.
"I am Panaa." And she fell back into chaos, but was still aware that someone else was there. And she began climbing steps of stone. No matter how the chaos shifted, she came back to climbing the steps.
Climbing out of the chaos of her mind.
An eternity later.
Where am I? Her grasp on reality was very fragile and the nature of the reality itself did not help.
She was in a room, in a force containment unit of some sort. That gave the entire room a yellowish glow but she could still see through it. It appeared to be a scientific room of some kind, the thing she would expect of Crypteks. Some of the equipment was familiar but other pieces were alien. And all the figures working with it were alien… she whimpered softly, then shuddered at the sound of her own voice.
"What is happening to me…" Oh gods, her voice! Panaa prayed to the Star Gods to deliver her from this.
"Panaa?" Someone outside the field said her name and she turned to look. As she moved, she became aware of her body and glanced down at it. To her utter horror, strange metal met her gaze and she held her hands out and just looked at them a moment before she screamed.
"What is this, what is this, what am I…" No, wait, she knew what this was. They had been promised bodies of cold steel and immortality. The Star Gods had delivered on their promise. Praise the Star Gods. But where was she? What had happened? "Where is Ramotekh? Where is he…?" Her husband, where was he?
"Panaa, I know this is very confusing. Can I tell you what has happened?" Panaa looked outside the field and recognized the face there. It was the same one she'd seen in her time of chaos, the person asking her name.
"What are you?" She did not recognize this alien race. Not necrontyr, but surprisingly similar… if her skin had been a bit more purple, she might have passed as a rather odd necrontyr. Her face was a bit different though.
"I am a member of a race called Humans," she said and Panaa felt oddly soothed. "This might be very hard… do you want me to tell you what has happened? Or would you prefer to wait for a while?" Prefer to wait… so she could speculate on it herself? Well, if she did that then… then something had clearly gone wrong. They had been promised bodies of metal and immortality from the Star Gods, but how had she ended up here, lost in chaos and then awakening? What had gone wrong?
"Please tell me," Panaa said, dreading the answer. And it was worse than she could have imagined.
"The Star Gods, the C'Tan, betrayed your people." Betrayed… by the gods?! "They gave you what they promised but didn't tell you the cost. They took away all agency and awareness from almost all of your people." Panaa felt faint. Could this be real? But it… it did explain her nightmare of chaos… "Only the Nobility, Crypteks and some very lucky Immortals were left with their minds, and even they were slaved to the Silent King. You won the War in Heaven, and then Szarekh turned upon the C'Tan for their betrayal, broke them into shards and imprisoned them. Although there are still free C'Tan shards, inflicting malice on the universe." Panaa wanted to tell her not to blasphemy against the Star Gods, but she was in too much shock. They were betrayed? How could this be?
"No, I… this can't be true… it can't…" Panaa started to shake her head and then couldn't stop. "No… no…" She felt the chaos knocking at the doors of her mind. It would be so easy to fall back into it, so easy, and she almost wanted to rather than bear the unbearable knowledge that they had been betrayed by their gods.
"Oh Panaa, please don't go," the woman said and Panaa made a sound that was meant to be a sob. Instead, it was the grating of a machine. "Would it help if Phaeron Rahkaak spoke to you?" …The Phaeron?
"Phaeron Rahkaak is here? She is well?" That distracted Panaa from her own suffering. The Phaeron was the most beloved of her line, revered by everyone for the quiet prosperity she brought to her people, so rare among the necrontyr. They were a poor dynasty, in many ways, but the commoners did not go hungry.
"Well, she is not right here, in this facility, but she is beneath us in the Tomb." Tomb? "She is our ruler now, we have sworn our loyalty to her."
"You will not regret it. She is the greatest of rulers," Panaa said sincerely and saw the alien woman make a very familiar expression. They smile, they smile just as we do. "Oh, but I am far too low of rank to meet the Phaeron!" The very thought was terrifying! Now Panaa could not understand the expression on the alien woman's face.
"You really aren't… Panaa, you are the first Necron Warrior to be awoken from what the Star Gods did to you." What they did to them… "And the second to have a soul." Wait, a soul?!
"Wait, what happened to our souls?" No one had mentioned anything about them although Panaa supposed it did make sense that machines could not have them. In retrospect, she thought they all should have questioned more although… although, it would have done no good. From how things had happened, Panaa did not think even Phaeron Rahkaak had been allowed many questions. "Did they go to the Celestial Fields?" That was the necrontyr vision of the afterlife of the virtuous, a great and beautiful plain where the weather was always warm, the food was plentiful and there was finally peace. There was a pause and the human woman looked down for a moment.
"No… Panaa, I'm so sorry, but the C'Tan lied about everything. They devoured all your life," she said softly and Panaa wrapped her arms around herself, rocking slightly as she understood. They took even our souls? How could this be? She almost longed for the chaos now, to retreat from this reality, but it was going quiet in her mind. Reality was here and there was no escape from it. "I think you should see Phaeron Rahkaak. But we'll need to make sure you're stable, before we release you from the field." The field…
"Why am I restrained?" Panaa asked, looking at the force field around her.
"After we gave you a soul, you were trapped in that nightmare… you were often very violent." Oh. "We are only flesh, you could have hurt, even killed us." How long had she been trapped in that chaos? Panaa almost asked but then thought better of it. She didn't want to know if the answer was years.
(it had actually been a bit over a year)
"What is your name?" Panaa suddenly asked. She had not thought to ask and the human had not offered. She smiled again and it made her look very kind, although Panaa knew you should not equate aliens to the necrontyr.
"Zelda van der Dahl." Zelda… that was an alien name, yet it sounded close to the zelsa, a species of songbird she had known. A pretty name. Panaa waited patiently as they ran their tests and also called for a Cryptek, a Psychomancer, to examine her. As she waited, though, she wondered.
Would she really meet Phaeron Rahkaak?
Panaa did meet the Phaeron, and it filled her with awe.
Despite the change to metal, Panaa could recognize Phaeron Rahkaak instantly. She had been the first to walk through the Furnaces, that fateful day, and Panaa clearly remembered thinking how beautiful she was, both as she walked through and as she animated on the other side, golden and graceful.
She was every bit as graceful now, and still quite feminine despite the change to metal. Panaa immediately prostrated herself before the Phaeron, as someone from her stature in life should.
"Phaeron Rahkaak, great Queen of the Uhnashret, we adore you," Panaa murmured fervently. With many nobles that would have just been words, that they were required to say to live, but with Rahkaak those words had always carried the ring of truth. There was a pause but Panaa could see nothing with her face pressed to the floor.
(Phaeron Rahkaak and Simokh were taken aback. They had not been greeted this way since the Flesh Times and had almost forgotten)
"Ah, child, please stand," Panaa quickly scrambled to her feet, trying to seem eager to please. Although, child? She was not a child, quite the opposite, she had been in her thirties when she had… died? And thirty was reasonably old for the necrontyr, who rarely lived past forty.
(It did not occur to her that to those who had been mostly awake for millions of years, she seemed childish indeed)
"Please, can you tell us what you did in life?" The great Cryptek Simokh asked. Panaa was almost as awed by him as the Phaeron… she knew who he was of course, he was always by Phaeron Rahkaak's side, to the point that there had even been rumors of impropriety. Panaa knew nothing of that, but Simokh was revered as the greatest mind they had, keeper of the technology of the necrontyr that most of their kind did not understand.
"Of course, great one," Panaa said, placing her hands together and bowing. "I began as a temple dancer and singer. I had great talent with music and learned how to compose and create lyrics." Panaa knew she sounded proud. But being able to compose, that was not a small thing, not at all. "I was elevated from the dancer caste to temple artist caste on the strength of it." That was also not a small thing. It had given her and Ramotekh elevation from a small little hut to a nice little home, with much better food. And while Panaa had not been blessed with children, if she had, they would have been born into a higher caste.
"Really? Can you demonstrate?" Phaeron Rahkaak asked and Panaa knew she should feel nervous yet somehow, she only felt a great joy. It felt like it had been forever since she had danced, and now the Phaeron would see it! Was this a dream come true?
Panaa worried a little that her metal body would not respond well to her commands. But it moved smoothly as she sang and danced. Her metal voice sounded strange but to her delight, she did not need to breathe and that made the song beautifully smooth. The song she chose was something she had composed for the passing of a minor noble, made to honor his achievements as they laid him to rest in his tomb. She completed the song and the funereal dance before falling to her knees and prostrating herself again, but this time with a different motion, meant to give respect as the door to the tomb was sealed.
"Ah… I remember this. This is the funereal rites of the necrontyr," Simokh said and Panaa sat back up, still kneeling on the floor. "Lord Inebi. I wonder if I knew him?"
"No, he was a very minor noble in the spice trade. You would not have met him," Panaa said confidently. She always knew quite a bit about the nobles they laid to rest, it helped her to compose a good song for them. "But one of his sons was a Cryptek, and he was very proud of him. I think his name was Ahmotep?" The only reason she could recall so well was because she had helped lay Lord Inebi to rest shortly before the time of transference.
"Ah, Psychomancer Ahmotep. Interesting," Simokh mused but Phaeron Rahkaak seemed unhappy? Panaa hoped the performance hadn't displeased her. She moved back to her feet, a touch worried.
"Panaa, I must apologize. It was my duty to protect you, and all those like you… I failed in my sacred trust." Rahkaak said and although they were but machines, Panaa thought she could hear her grief and guilt. She hastened to reassure her.
"Oh no, Phaeron, there was nothing you could do." Panaa shivered a little as she remembered. "When they came there were so many ships, they almost blotted out the sun. And the gods wheeled in the sky… I think I counted ten of them? They told us we were the last, and we needed to go. Oh Phaeron, we were always but a tiny Dynasty. What could we do when the Silent King himself came for us?" Panaa had set eyes on the Silent King, for a brief moment. It had filled her with terror and awe.
"Ah… that is what happened? I see," the Phaeron said and Panaa was a bit surprised. She could not remember? Phaeron Rahkaak looked at Simokh for a moment before looking back to her. "I have decided. Panaa, you will now be given the rank of Cryptek, although the lowest rank." Panaa stared in shock.
"Th-that is far above me!" Even the lowliest Cryptek was far above her station. Well, except for the Cryptek scribes perhaps, but they were not true Crypteks as most measured things. They were not talking about that caste, she could tell.
"It is no longer above you… I do not think you understand how precious you are." Precious? Her? "You can sing and dance and most of all, compose. Losing our souls has cost us all of these things." Wait, they could no longer sing? "Except dancing, perhaps, but what we call dancing now is nothing like what you have done. Also, you can remember." Remember? "We have all lost our memories of the Flesh Times, almost entirely… but you remember everything, do you not?"
"I… it is all I remember." Panaa said, a touch confused. "All the time in between is what is not clear to me." Her memories of that were a vague mess of fires and weapons and screams. Waiting in holds, over and over, and seeing planets burn. Panaa shuddered, pushing that chaos away. Then something occurred to her and she clasped her hands in front of her in a beseeching gesture. "Phaeron… if I am to be a Cryptek… can I ask you for a boon?" Phaeron Rahkaak tilted her head questioningly and Panaa continued. "My husband Ramotekh… is there any way to find him…?" Panaa desperately wanted her husband by her side. He had been such a kind man, sweet and gentle. He had worked with the hetras of the nobility, caring for them and training them for the young nobles.
"I fear there is not." Panaa flinched, although she had truly expected to hear that. "Panaa, you are from my personal Necron Warriors… when we were making ready for the Great Sleep, I took a small number to join me in my Great Tomb and you happened to be one. But it was random… the odds that your husband is one of the others is slim at best. And if he was not among that small number, he is dead. All of my subjects were killed, when the drukhari invaded the Tomb." Panaa did not understand most of that, particularly the Great Sleep part – what was that? – but she understood enough. Ramotekh was surely dead.
"I – I understand. I did fear as much," Panaa said bravely. "I will gladly serve you as a Cryptek, Phaeron." It sounded like they would just want her to compose songs and dance. She would do that with a glad heart. Rahkaak nodded.
"Thank you. Please go with Simokh for remodelling." Panaa bowed before following Simokh out of the room. Although, remodelling? Did they mean they would change her metal body to suit her new rank? That did make sense, since they no longer wore clothing or jewelry of rank. Still, it was such an odd thought.
There were many things about this life she would have to get used to.