"student of all the wrong things"
He walked through the woods alone. Physically, anyways. Indilic and Vindica'aur were on comms, speaking in his ear where necessary, and they were linked to the live-feed of his helm's inbuilt camera and HUD. The evening was quiet, undisturbed, and Ikharos found it to be somehow both soothing as well as disturbing; he heard animals, distant, and they didn't sound anything like what he would have expected to find on Earth. Even the trees were warped, their trunks twisting terribly and their branches softly whipping through the air like claws. Their bark was dusty with dead organic matter.
"Radiation's much heavier this way," Ikharos commented. "We haven't even hit ground zero yet."
"Seems to be a ways ahead," Xiān added. "Doesn't look to me like anything other than slow fallout, though. Either life bounced back a little too fast or the explosion was contained."
"Are you sure this is the work of an explosive?" Vindica'aur questioned.
"It's artificial," Ikharos bluntly replied.
"Which means it could, yeah, be a leak or something, but surface scans and distant Crow-pics, as well as the witness's testimony, indicate there's a city this way and I'm not picking up on radio chatter. Or significant thermals larger than a cat for that matter. No one's been here for a while. That's the point of the whole thing; you don't get this much radiation in an urban environment unless you were planning to. Or you're an idiot."
"What if this is a trick?"
"Pretty strange trick," Ikharos said. "Who would they mean to catch with it? Us? We landed here by circumstance alone."
"Are you sure it's artificial?" Vindica'aur questioned impatiently. "Perhaps the ozone layer cracked. I know plenty of suns with the strength to-"
"For that to happen there would need to be a real sun," Ikharos said. He stopped and searched for a stray ray of dying daylight. "That's not a sun. Not a proper one anyways."
"The stars are wrong too," Indilic agreed. "Can you see them yet?"
"I can," Ikharos said. He craned his neck up. Some of the brighter constellations pierced through the veil of the orange-purple sky above. "This isn't Kepler-186f's natural position."
"Astral charts indicate somewhere... I don't even know," Xiān admitted. "I'm not sure we're even in the Milky Way anymore. This could be Andromeda, Triangulum, anywhere. Hell, it could even be-"
"A true pocket dimension," Ikharos finished. "Just two shades short of the Sea of Screams. Odds are these stars are nothing more than a pretty sort of set-dressing."
"How do you know the sun is false?" Vindica'aur inquired.
"Because it's a carbon copy of Earth's - of Sol itself," Ikharos finished. "Right to the smallest detail. Xiān performed tests. It's taking all the same roles. Do you know what that means?"
"No?"
"It means something has the power to alter an entire star," Indilic explained. "It means an operation on par with Vex forge-stars - or, instead, something hollow."
"Which strikes you as easier to upkeep?" Ikharos followed up.
"The simulation," Vindica'aur decided. "But that would still-"
"Take an enormous amount of energy? Yes. It would. Though it would be more applicable to refer to it as an illusion than a simulation," Ikharos said. "Simulations are Vex - and we passed through a Dark anomaly to reach this place. That's something they won't dare to touch. So unless we're sharing a system with the Black Garden, I don't think they're involved at all. This is someone else's handiwork."
"Can you be sure?"
"No. Not at all. But I honestly doubt we'll cross with Sol Divisive or a sister-collective anytime soon. There's too much... moderation at work. Too much control. Too much natural freedom. No. Someone did something to this place, something incredible, but at some point they left it as is. That sounds to me more like a living creature with ideas and preferences and dreams than any cold-purpose Mind."
"You both reached this conclusion?" Vindica'aur asked.
"Yes," Indilic replied.
"Why am I last to know?"
"Because, and I'm only assuming for him, our studies aren't anywhere near finished," Ikharos explained, "and because we reached these results independently. Indilic's just cautious enough to want to understand the world he's standing on before he begins to take his first steps. You would be wise to adopt the same approach, Val."
"Optus," Vindica'aur said unhappily. "Relay these tests to me and mine. I want to be informed of everything you find about this world, about this system, all of it. Understood?"
"Yes ma'am," Indilic dutifully replied.
"Let's keep the unnecessary chatter to a minimum," Ikharos ordered. "Indilic, have your Psions study my feed frame-by-frame; be on the look-out for further illusions or signs of psychic wells."
"Sir."
"Vindica'aur, you have the camp. No one is to enter my ship without my explicit permission. Did Xiān hand you some of my spare armaments?"
"The launchers?" Vindica'aur said gruffly. "Affirmative. What for?"
"Some of those rockets have tracking modules installed. We can use them for anti-air in a pinch, provided we're hit with nothing larger than a Skiff."
"We should reclaim what remains with the Rancis Olytus."
"Aye, we will, but I'm not about to leave us stretched thin before having a gander at this place. Miss Láerdhon said the witch flew this way; might be that I can track her."
"She hates you?" Vindica'aur asked.
"Almost certainly," Ikharos replied. "Hive don't take kindly to human faces, mine least of all."
"I'm surprised she didn't bring a battalion strong enough to follow her through."
"Lucent Brood are weak," Indilic cut in before Ikharos could formulate a response. Probably for the best, that. "They remain too young a faction to hold their own even on their own ground, and they are beset by enemies on all sides."
"They burned every bridge around them," Ikharos grimly agreed, "and all it's done is left them stranded. It was a gamble, turning to the Light after all they've committed, all they've inflicted, and it's fallen through for 'em."
"I would like to be there to watch the witch die, commander," Vindica'aur petitioned. "I would like to hear her screams. I would like to hear her shell crack and bones break."
"That won't bring back Torobatl," Ikharos pointed out.
"No, but it would please me all the same."
The line was silent for a while after that. Ikharos trudged on through the brush for miles on miles until the ground sloped up drastically and the forest thinned away.
"Bowl valley," Xiān announced. "There's a bit of a climb unless you want to try and find one of the roads in."
"Climbing it is," Ikharos decided. He ascended up the slope, found where the earth gave way to near vertical sheets of rough stone and he began picking his way along it, searching for handholds and gliding between them. It was a half hour before he reached the summit, with his shoulders aching all over again and his arms burning - but the view was well worth it. The city looked, at a distance, almost like the Cradles formed by the Traveler on Io and Mars, but there were minute differences that offset that assumption. There was less geometry for starters, less symmetry, and the buildings, while large and appearing squat at a distance, were a tad more elaborate than fat columns of white stone.
"It's a caldera," Ikharos noted. There was a lake at the centre of the city, fed by the mountain streams that trickled down. "I don't see a spaceport. Or airport for that matter. No interplanetary transceiver. There's not even a magna-tram line."
"Definitely where the radiation spike is," Xiān said grimly. "Don't remove your helmet in there."
"I'll try to resist the urge. Indilic, Vindica'aur?"
"It's rudimentary," Vindica'aur sniffed. "Indefensible."
"Really? With buildings that large?"
"The size of the bunker doesn't matter. It's how you situate them."
"All the same, one could house an army there," Indilic said. "If only it wasn't so inhospitable."
"Nothing really standing out to me," Ikharos mused. "I mean, there's that giant building by the eastern river - could be important. An armoury, maybe. Or a library. Do you see it?"
"We see it."
"And-"
"What of those bones?" Indilic questioned sharply.
Ikharos paused. "What bones?"
"By the edge of the lake. They appear to be ribs."
Ikharos forced his ocular lenses to magnify the image. "Oh. I see them. And... that's a skull."
"Indeed."
"Long snout, vaguely crocodilian; they look strong. And... I might need a closer look, but those teeth appear pointed."
"A predator."
"And a big one." Ikharos reverted the zoom in his eyes; it left him feeling queasy for a couple of moments. "Not something easily hidden."
"It bears some resemblance to the very creature you slew."
"Sure - but this is inland. Far inland."
"Perhaps there's a tunnel from the sea to the lake?"
"That's a stretch and a half. I might have a look, soon as I'm finished with everything else." Ikharos gave the city another scan. "Indilic?"
"There are pockets of psychic energy here in tremendous quantities. It is beginning to affect the feed."
"Where's the thickest source?" Ikharos inquired.
A white diamond appeared on Ikharos's HUD. "There."
"By the spire?"
There was a long pause.
"Spire?" Indilic questioned, confused. "Sir?"
Ikharos frowned. "There's a spire of rock right where you're pointing at. I'm looking at it."
The objective marker disappeared. "I... don't see a spire, commander."
"What spire?" Vindica'aur asked with uncharacteristic concern. "We aren't looking at a spire, commander-interim. Is your camera pointed the right way?"
"I'm looking at it," Ikharos told them. "Xiān? You see it, don't you?"
"Huh?" Xiān grunted. She sounded... distracted. "What's happening?"
"Xiān?"
"What?"
"Are you... there?"
Another pause. "Something's weird," she admitted. "Zoned out for a moment. What're we doing?"
"Focus," Ikharos scolded. "Do you see that spire?"
"Wha- Oh, that... yeah. 'Course I do."
"Apparently it's not showing up on the feed."
"That can't be." Xiān's voice fizzled with static. "Uh, check again?"
"No spire," Indilic reported. "We aren't seeing anything of the like."
"It's not a translation-gone-wrong, right?" Ikharos questioned. "You know-"
"I know what a spire is, sir."
"Natural rock formation, sharp, pointed up?"
"If it's there, I'm not privy to it."
"And that direction - the direction I'm looking at - is where the psychic interference is strongest?"
"From preliminary footage-scans, yes. The stone of the local architecture may muffle other potential sources, hide them from us."
"Then that's my first stop," Ikharos decided. "Witch won't be able to resist something like that. Is everything alright with the feed? Are we broadcasting clear?"
"Clear as we can," Xiān told him. "This isn't a technical error."
"We'll investigate that."
"What if something happens?" Vindica'aur asked.
"Give me a couple of hours before panicking," Ikharos instructed her. "Continue as you have. See if you can beam a signal home, but don't do it loud. I don't want that Ketch bearing down on us while we're grounded."
"I understand."
"Good luck," Indilic offered.
Ikharos inclined his head and set forth.
The city was even larger up close. Every building was the size of an apartment high-rise, but with doorways large enough to push a jumpship through and great glass windows colossal enough to shove those jumpships back out. The walls were overgrown with ivy and those that framed gardens, courtyards, and city squares were tall enough to necessitate a full glide to get over. The architecture itself was... incredible. It had some gothic and classical influences, Ikharos noted, but it was largely its own thing, crafted in a unique manner via the same source of smooth, firm rock - perhaps quarried from the surrounding mountains? He didn't know.
It was quiet, though, and unlike the forest it only planted in him a deep sense of foreboding; for such a magnificent place to live it was remarkably devoid of actual life beyond mutated plants and more twisting trees. The roads were well-paved and clearly pedestrianised, all the way through, but weeds and weather had cracked them open here and there. The alleys were dark and filthy and all Ikharos heard were the discordant chirps of strange, strange insects and the odd shrieks of something next-to-human.
"I think those are just birds," Xiān assured him.
"If it's not her," Ikharos replied, "then I don't care."
The press of hangar-sized buildings framed the road he walked down, pressing against him, and they creaked lowly - as if the very wind, light as it was, was trying to pick them up and carry them far, far away. Ikharos held his sidearm freely by his side, finger on the trigger, and with his offhand he held a Void supernova just out of sight, waiting to be unleashed. The city carried a presence, heavier even than the thick radiation crashing against his insulative armour, and it wore on him, tugged on him, pulled on his patience and senses.
"I, uh, I'm picking up on-" Xiān cut herself off. "Take a turn. Two turns. Two rights, one left."
Ikharos followed her instructions without question - joining up with a smaller road, following it along, turning at the end of a block and then slipping into a small, gloomy alley with no other exit. He'd picked up on what she had at the lip of the street before, and Ikharos had to keep himself from rushing as he marched to the fallen bow lying there on the cobbled ground. He crouched down next to it, looked it over and found, to his immense relief, it was undamaged. The wire was unbroken and the frame was intact, although...
"Wait," Xiān warned. "Do you-"
"I see," Ikharos said quietly. There, along one of the arches of the bow's ramshackle frame, were a couple of stray droplets of... something. A black viscous liquid. "What is it?"
"I... I don't know," Xiān admitted. "But it's..." She manifested in the air, briefly scanned the bow and its new contents over, and disappeared not a moment later. "Okay, okay."
"What is it?"
"Darkness."
Ikharos froze. "Excuse me?"
"Yeah. It's Dark. It's... it's very, very Dark. Practically pure - like your crystal and your superheated stony stuff. Finer readings than soulfire too."
"Xiān?"
"Can you grab a couple of samples for me?"
Ikharos tentatively pulled a vial out of transmat and tipped the bow just so. One droplet trickled towards it, hit the glass - and passed right through. As if it wasn't even there. It hit the ground and disappeared, melting right through the stone but leaving it somehow intact in its wake.
"Uh," Ikharos said, perplexed, "Xiān?"
"... Okay. Okay! Okay. It's got... weird properties."
He lifted the vial, turned it about, but the glass was whole. Uncracked. And yet the dark stuff had dribbled through it. There wasn't a speck of inky blackness leftover. Ikharos passed it back into transmat and sat back on his haunches, utterly at a loss.
"Indilic?" he questioned. "Are you picking up on this?"
"Yes," Indilic replied, though his voice whispered through the speakers with an undertone of disruptive static.
"Thoughts?"
"It's permeable."
"It's finding permeability where there shouldn't be any," Ikharos corrected. "Xiān, what rock is this?"
"Basalt," she answered, "and not a particularly porous kind."
"Huh."
"It's not passing through the bow, though," she pointed out.
"It's a psionic bow," Ikharos said automatically. "Maybe the bastardised concert within is running its own interference."
"Where did you come by it?" Indilic questioned.
Ikharos shrugged. "Bounty reward. Blind Legion deserter - a renegade Flayer - wanted a former Dust Giants Colossus dead real bad. Spider was the middleman. It was just a couple of years back, after the Dreaming City incident and before the Nightmares on Luna."
"Blind Legion?"
"Penal legion, you know? One of the scout forces for the Empire before the Red War. Anyways, the bow - I understand it was lost during the Midnight Coup?"
"I know this weapon. It really is the Divination of Ticcu?"
"Yeah."
"Then it should be forged entirely of Enactine," Indilic told him. "A hadium alloy, infused with-"
"With psionic power via a Psion Flayer from centuries past," Ikharos finished. "I know. It was the same for Ignovun's funny helmet, Caiatl's family sword."
"Sword?"
"Heartshadow," Ikharos supplied.
There was a pause. "I see," Indilic said. He didn't sound pleased. "You found the blade?"
"Hm? Oh, no, a memory of it - or a Nightmare, rather, from Calus's own mind. Someone else took it from there. Anyways, the bow?"
"If it is Enactine," Indilic reluctantly continued, "then it is an alloy of hadium - which is, itself, a subtype of osmium with its own noncausal properties."
"And osmium is the densest metal on the table," Ikharos added. "We're going to ignore the other implications of the word for the time being. So - you think it could be too dense for this stuff to parse through?"
"Perhaps. Do you have hadium or osmium containers available to you?"
"Uh-"
"We have a couple of Hive-spun osmium platters," Xiān announced. "Let's try one."
A greenish-grey plate with sharpened edges appeared on the ground next to the bow. Ikharos lifted the weapon, angled it, and felt some relief when the next droplet simply splattered against the osmium and gathered up on itself once more. He lifted the plate to be sure it wasn't melting through, then put it aside. Xiān pulled it through transmat. "Sending to you now," she said.
"... Received," Indilic reported. "I'll isolate it from external stimuli, keep it stored cold for your return."
"Thanks," Ikharos said. He straightened up and looked around. "Now - the source?"
"If this is where your one said she was attacked," Xiān said, "then this checks out. She said she dropped the bow, right?"
"And was rendered helpless by an entity through the introduction of a neurotoxin to her bloodstream," Indilic finished. "Only to be saved by your 'contact', yes?"
"That was the testimony she gave us," Ikharos confirmed. "And the venom itself carried traces of Darkness. Heavy traces, non-diluted by lesser power."
"And the witch-"
"Lost her from there. She was here..." Ikharos turned around and scanned the rest of the alley. It was quiet but for more of that irritating creaking noise. "Not enough psychic energy here to pull a Deepsight. Too recent, not enough mind-bleed."
"Hey, the woman, Formora - she was intact when we saw her last, yeah?" Xiān suddenly inquired.
Ikharos frowned. "Yeah. Why?"
"Radiation here's thick enough to have your skin peeling off and eyes turning to goop within a couple of days. It's... well, let's just say it's intense. Now, mind, I didn't get a good look at her, but she wasn't packing a hazmat suit, was she?"
"No," Ikharos realized. "She wasn't. She didn't look... she looked weak, sick, but radiation poisoning?"
"Exactly. She wasn't actually falling apart. The bow's here. She knew about it. The venom and whatever this stuff could be a link; both of it's Dark, but that's... yeah. That's subjective. I'm not picking up on heavy Light traces either. If the witch came this way, then she wasn't exactly pulling a Stormtrance." Xiān paused. "Methinks she wasn't telling us everything."
"We knew that."
"But you didn't press her for it."
"No. I didn't." Ikharos bit the inside of his cheek. "Indilic?"
"She's reached a hamlet just one of your hours ago," Indilic told him. "Lifeless. Desolate. Abandoned like the city. She entered one of the houses and hasn't left since."
"Keep an eye out. I'll see about getting some more answers from her later. Track her if she leaves."
"Understood."
Ikharos picked his bow up, shook off the rest of the Dark substances and wiped it down with cleansing Void until it was spotless. "Now for the spire."
The spire, he found, was flanked on all sides by gardens once glorious, presently reduced to fields of overgrown brambles. A small brook trickled by the foot of the stone formation. Ikharos could feel the psychic energy all around him, closing over him like a wispy blanket of fog, and it all but blinded him to everything beyond a few feet in front of him.
"Now's a good time to check things out," Xiān whispered.
Ikharos stopped by the edge of the brood, at the edge of one of the paved trails through a thorny garden, and he pulled the psychic energy closer, dragging it around him, close enough to tickle the surface of his mind - and then he shoved it away, pulled the veil apart, opened his third eye. Colours flickered and momentum tore through the air around him, replacing thorn bushes with lines of roses, filling the stale air that hissing through his air filter with the smell of lavender. Ikharos looked around him and found... people. Translucent and not-quite-there, but people all the same.
He saw humans, dressed in finery, their hair well groomed. The men wore beards and the women had painted faces.
He saw... more of the same neohuman as the corpse in his ship, as the woman who'd freed his greatest mistake. Their ears were elongated and sharply pointed, and their faces were similarly narrow, but they seemed... lighter. Happier. Like Formora they had vines and flowers in their hair but also along their sleeves, across their necks. They were each so graceful and beautiful alike that Ikharos could hardly tell male from female.
And then, at last, something else stalked down the very same path as the humans and neohumans - something that padded along on four powerful legs, easily as large as a bus and covered entirely in red scales. Two wings sprouted from its back, massive and leathery, and its head was that of a predatory monitor lizard crossed with that of a bird of prey. Teeth, fangs, poked out from beneath thin lips and nostrils rested on the end of its triangular snout, belching rings of smoke. A long powerful tail slithered through the air after the beast. Walking alongside it Ikharos saw another of the slender neohumans, with their hand on the beast's flank, and it looked like they were speaking to it - though he could not make out the words, muffled as the memory was.
It... was so like the image the scholars of the Reef had painted for him, of days past and kinder times - where starry-eyed Awoken and thrice-damned dragons walked hand-in-hand through the temples and meadows of the Dreaming City.
Just as quickly as it had all appeared, fire sparked to life and the air was rent with screams; the people faded away and then re-emerged, dressed as if for battle. Another of the winged creatures swooped down from above - and vomited a veritable river of molten flame. Everything - the people, the flowers, the very air - burned away until all that remained were embers and ash.
The memory died away, leaving Ikharos alone.
No, not alone; one of the figures remained, cloaked and hooded, but they were far more real than the rest.
"Elisabeth," Ikharos cautiously greeted.
She was only a couple of paces away - paces she closed in on, her optics narrowed and jaw set. Her arm pulled back and her fist-
She punched him. Hard. Ikharos did not stumble back, he did not even flinch; he took the blow, his head barely turning, and though he tasted blood that was the extent of it. Her hand had snaked through his overshield, and he had no idea how she'd managed that, but the physical barrier of his helmet was enough to prevent his entire jaw from shattering outright.
"I hope you realize," he said quietly, "that I'm broadcasting live to my Cabal forces. How do you think they'll see this?"
"They're not watching anymore," she icily retorted. "Too much interference."
"She's right," Xiān confirmed. "We lost contact with them a couple of minutes ago."
Why didn't you tell me? Ikharos mentally fired back.
"Because you were lost in your own world. I don't think anyone could have reached you. I did try."
"But I was just..." Ikharos frowned and looked around. "How long have I been here?"
"Longer than you think," the Stranger told him. Her hands were balled into fists by her side. "Oh, Ikharos... What were you THINKING?!"
Ikharos turned back to her. "You'll have to elaborate. I've had a long day."
"And it's only getting longer. You... you are..." the Stranger groaned. "You're killing me."
"Shame."
"You're killing all my hope."
"Elisabeth-"
"No!" She grabbed his collar with both hands and held tight. "A witch?! A Lucent witch?! Are you mad?!"
Ikharos watched her carefully, hands held up in surrender; she looked ready to murder him on the spot. "I take it," he said slowly, "that this never happened before?"
The Stranger glared at him a moment longer before releasing him with a snarl. "No," she spat. "Never before. It's you, it's always you, always bringing in new variables; how the hell am I supposed to plan around you?! Do you want me to kill you?"
Ikharos opened his mouth.
"Don't. Answer that. Don't," the Stranger warned. "Because I am considering it. You're going to drive me into another reiteration, after all I've accomplished here, and I'll have to make sure you die after Rhulk to keep you from mucking everything up again. Do you realize what that means?"
"That you'll be sad? And the rest of us will be dead? Myself twice over?"
"That I'll be forced to find someone else to fill your shoes - and neither of us want that." She glared daggers at him. "You know who I'll turn to."
Ikharos scowled. "Look, I'm sure you're suitably pissed off, but now is not the time. Could we schedule my disciplinary later? I have-"
"She's flown northeast," the Stranger sighed.
"What?"
"Your witch. Agnisia. I tracked her to the northeast. She's taken up roost in an old lighthouse, trying to call home."
"Then I need to catch her." Ikharos made to leave, but the Stranger caught his arm.
"It's fine," she said, but stressed the fine a little too hard. "She won't get a signal out. None of us will. Leave it."
"Never," Ikharos snapped.
The Stranger jerked with surprise, but recovered quickly. Her grip hadn't relaxed in the slightest. He hadn't the heart to shake it off. "Who is she?" the Stranger asked. "To you?"
Ikharos stared at her. "You don't know?"
"Why would I? This never happened be-..." the Stranger trailed off. Her glare softened. "Oh. Oh Ikharos."
"Don't." Ikharos took in a deep breath. "Why are you here, Elisabeth?"
"To convince someone that violence isn't always the answer."
"I'm not going to sit here and listen-"
"I wasn't talking about you," she said sharply. Ikharos quickly shut up. "But I can't let you go after her either."
"Why?"
"Because you wouldn't be the only one converging on her position."
Ikharos sobered. "Who else?"
"Who do you think?"
"Scorn?"
Elisabeth shrugged. "Perhaps. But they're far from the worst of it."
"Look, are you going to tell me anything or are you going to drag this cryptic game for as long as you can?" Ikharos said impatiently. "The woman you left by the Trespass? She told me you'd left to go apologise to something. The very same something that injected her with a venom full of Dark. Elisabeth. What the fuck is going on?"
"She's here."
"Wha-" Ikharos's frown deepened "What? Who's here?"
"Or, she was." The Stranger looked down at the ground quizzically. "Perhaps not anymore."
"Elisabeth?"
"Nevermind."
"No, no neverminds, talk to me!"
"Like you did with me regarding that witch?"
Ikharos flinched. "How would I have known to tell you about that?" he challenged. "You're hardly around long enough, and you're never forthcoming yourself."
"I'm trying to-"
"I know what you're trying to do, but do you think that's the way to go about it? I want the same thing as you. Bring me on-board so I can help."
The Stranger's hand dropped by her side. She gave him a hard look, angry and frustrated - but thoughtful too. "You want to know?"
"Yes."
The Stranger grimaced. "You'll focus too much on the end objective against those we have to start with."
"There's a Disciple here, isn't there? Disciples." Ikharos exhaled. "How many, exactly?"
"Three. Maybe four."
"Sweet fucking Traveler..." Ikharos looked away, biting his tongue until he tasted copper. "There's one here too, isn't there? On this very island?"
A pause. "Yes," the Stranger said softly.
"You... offered it an apology?"
"It's complicated."
"Is it?"
"We aren't technically at war," the Stranger retorted. "Not to them. Not yet. Not while they don't yet realize who we are."
"Are they close?"
"Very. But I think your witch has her distracted."
"'Her'?" Ikharos repeated dubiously.
The Stranger gave him another look. "Zendolyn-Far."
"Is that her name?"
"Yes."
"What were you apologising for, anyways?" Ikharos pressed.
"Shooting at her."
"You... shot a Disciple of the Witness? A harbinger of extinction, a prophet of the end?"
"To keep her from eating Formora." The Stranger made a sound analogous to an exhale, still tense. "She took it well."
"Who? Formora or this... Zendolyn?"
"The latter. How is Formora?"
"Rattled. Very unhappy. Very... unforthcoming," Ikharos said carefully. "She isn't human."
"Not baseline."
"She called herself älfya."
The Stranger nodded. "That's true."
"What's an älfya?"
"No, älfa," the Stranger corrected. "The singular is älfa. Plural is älfya."
Ikharos shifted impatiently. "And?"
"You're-"
"Better off learning on my own?"
"Why don't you ask her?" the Stranger said, exasperated. "She's still there, isn't she?"
Ikharos hesitated. The Stranger's optics narrowed. "We - I - let her go on her merry way," he explained. "I have eyes on her."
"Where?"
"Some hamlet-"
The Stranger sighed. "And what about... no, nevermind."
"What about what, Elisabeth?"
"It doesn't matter. We'll get to it, hell." She looked around. "It's almost night."
"It is," Ikharos said slowly. "You're... waiting for something else. For her?"
"Hm?" The Stranger glanced at him. "Oh, no."
"Then who?"
"Him." The Stranger pointed past him. Ikharos turned. There, by the base of the spire, stood a golem of glimmering steel - a massive Exo eight-feet tall at least, with the stature of a Captain and the mass of a Centurion. It had the body of a man, rippling with false-muscle, and the head of a snarling reptilian beast - of a dragon.
"Dare I ask," Ikharos muttered.
"You know what he is," the Stranger whispered back.
"Do I?"
"You already have your suspicions. You always do, you always will."
"Ah, and that's supposed to be reassuring?" Ikharos eyed the thing. It stood stock still, watching him with shadowed pits where its eyes should have been. "If that's a real person, then they're in actual physical hell. Human bodies aren't shaped like that. DER must be a bitch."
"Not that," the Stranger told him.
"No? Because the alternative paints a pretty damning picture, Elisabeth. Surely not."
She tilted her head. "Please don't make trouble."
"You aren't denying it."
"It's not what you think it is."
"You just said it was."
"It is, just not in the manner you imagine."
"Elisabeth, what the hell is it doing here?" Ikharos growled. He hadn't taken his eyes off the new Exomind.
"Hunting," she said. "I'd hoped that you would have left Formora with your Cabal - safety there, because Cuoroc won't risk crossing Vindica'aur and her troops if they're present - but you've left her on her own."
"Her decision."
"What, you couldn't be more convincing?"
"No. She posed a risk to me. To my command over the company." Ikharos paused. "This... thing is hunting her?"
"It's a long story. He doesn't like trespassers."
"Try me."
"Ikharos-"
"Because unless you give me good reason not to, I'm going to approach it and kindly tell it to fuck off back where it came from - and that's only if I don't find my own reasons to beat it to a pulp. Because if it is, Elisabeth, the very thing you're insinuating, then we've got a problem. A big one."
She didn't say anything. Not a damn thing. Ikharos gave a look to say suit yourself, and he started walking, pulling the Void tightly over his mind in totalistic nullscape - the pretense of nothing, of thoughtlessness. The dragon-headed automaton marched towards him in response, slowly, lumbering, dragging a monstrous sword in the dirt behind it. Ikharos picked up the pace and so did the Exomind; before long the distance between them was reduced to nothing and without even a hello it pulled its sword around in a wide, vicious swing that would have reduced him to red paste - only for it to meet his Ruin and stop well short of his neck. The glaive fizzled and hummed and twisted with living resonance, shrieking where it bit the greatsword's steel edge, and the Exomind pulled back without even the barest hint of surprise, growling low in its artificial throat.
It wasn't promising as first impressions went.
"Really doesn't like trespassers," the Stranger called out.
"Maybe he should've put up a sign then," Ikharos called back. The Exo made a grab for him and he danced around it, tapping its back with the spokes on the end of his glaive - out of curiosity more than anything else. Where was its voice? Where were its teeth, designed to sink into the desires hidden within his own mind? Where-
It turned, abruptly, and faster than he was expecting kicked him hard. Ikharos flew, hit the ground and tumbled; his overshield had held but only just. Didn't stop it from knocking the wind out of him. He quickly staggered back to his feet, found the Exo converging on him with unnatural speed and he raised his glaive - but it batted it aside with a flick of its sword and crashed its heavy fist against his stomach. A little less airtime, but significantly more distance. Ikharos's back cracked against the wall of a neighbouring building and this time it hurt. Overshield was out for the moment. The Exomind was almost immediately upon him again, and this time Ikharos pulled the glaive's shield up.
Didn't stop the robot from smashing them both through the building, wall or no wall. Ikharos fell back, it fell over him and he was still a little too frazzled by the impact to do anything other than dash his glaive across its throat when it came too close. The Exomind staggered back clutching its neck, and he climbed to his feet again, pointing at it with his weapon.
"Close," he said.
And moved - forcing Light into his muscles, Arc to amp them up and Solar to give them momentum. Ikharos flashed over the broad sweep of the thing's giant sword and brought his glaive down, one of the spiked edges of it catching in the robot's eyesockets and burying deep in its head as he darted past it. He held tight, pulled with all his strength and sent the Exo sprawling. Ikharos pulled his glaive free, lifted it up and swung it down again - right on the Exo's neck, cleaving its head clean off. Ikharos knelt down, grabbed its skull by one of its draconic horns and lifted it high into the air. Cables and wires hung from its stump like broken blood vessels, bleeding oil and Alkahest. Ikharos shouldered his glaive, turned on his heel and strolled to the hole in the wall and held it up clear for the Stranger to see. She was still stood there, outside, with a scowl on her faceplates and her optics shining dangerously.
"Some dragon," Ikharos scoffed. He tossed the head away.
"Ikharos," she said.
"What?"
"You're childish."
Ikharos sniffed. "You weren't giving me a reason. I found my own"
"You're also missing something."
"What?"
"That isn't a real Exo."
"What do you-" Ikharos heard a sound, twisted around, but the false-Exo had already risen to a knee and lunged forth. His overshield, still in the midst of recharging, shattered beneath the immense strength of the machine and the blade found the front of his robes, tearing right through him - cracking through his sternum and emerging from his back with a spray of blood. Ikharos looked down at the seven-foot length of fireforged steel lodged in his chest and then back up to the headless thing. Solar gathered between his numbing fingers. He raised a hand to burn the false-Exo away, but it shoved the arm aside, grabbed his shoulder and-
Unfortunately, being pulled apart wasn't quite the quickest way to go. There were a couple of moments where the noise of ripping and tearing and crunching reverberated all the way up his shattered spine before his world went dark.
He came back not moments later, bathed in radiant Light, and found the Exo had stepped over him to move onto the next target. Ikharos unleashed his Arc in a straight beam of energy - hitting the surprised robot and flinging it back, scorching its silvery hide and melting it down to its struts. It staggered back up, though, and roared back at him despite the lack of jaws or even a head to roar with.
And the Stranger just watched.
His anger, his hate of the connotations of what he faced manifested not as Light but as the Dark - and in one hand Ikharos clutched a staff of pure crystal and the other a glaive of rippling, twisting resonant mass. He floated outside, hung in the air on wings of fiery ruin and he glared at the Exo, glared at it as it turned to face him with its sword locked between its half-molten hands and glared as it stood silhouetted in the dying light against the spire-
the spire
the spire
the spire
He stood in front of the spire and beheld the inhuman Exomind, caught in a still-image as it dragged itself away with its remaining arm towards the spire-
the spire
the spire
the spire
The Stranger stepped in front of the spire and waved her hand across his face. Ikharos realized she was shouting - his name no less. "Ike!" she yelled. "Ike!"
Ike. No, wait, that wasn't- Why was she calling him Ike?
"Not your name to use," Ikharos told her, irritated but so, so confused. He looked around - and the gardens, he discovered, had been destroyed. Thorn bushes had been reduced to ash or torn out of the ground, many parts of the earth was glazed over with Void-glass or Stasis crystal, and the very air fizzled with Arc energy. He felt warm inside, the chill of open air kept at bay by the dying embers of heavy Solar Light.
Open air.
"Shit!" Ikharos cursed. "My armour- Shit."
He pulled his sidearm free, tugged his helmet off, and pressed it up under his chin - and pulled the trigger.
Xiān brought him back with his armour repaired and scrubbed clean of radioactive fallout. Ikharos pushed himself up into a sitting position, found the Stranger crouched beside him and blinked. His helmet's HUD was going wild; alert here, alert there, alert alert alert - malfunction in the memetic scrubbers, cognito-firewalls overloaded, his own sensorium filled with the crackling static of his own anti-virus deleting, deleting, pulling a digital scorched earth for the past...
How long?
Ikharos looked at his internal chronometer: twenty-one thirty-seven by Earth standards. He had no idea if it was applicable for Kepler-186f, but all the same that was... nearly three-quarters of an hour lost. Forty-five minutes blank. He… couldn't recall a thing.
"What-" he started to ask, turning his head, but the Stranger grabbed his face and swivelled him back to her.
"Careful," she said. "Let's not lose you again."
"What happened?" he said, muffled by her hand
"Cognito-hazard. It broke through you."
"I... what?" He tried to pull away but she held tight.
"No!" the Stranger snapped. "The spire. It's... stop, you can't."
"It's a cognito-hazard?" he questioned - and then a realization struck him. "It wasn't showing up on broadcasted feed."
"It was," the Stranger shot back, "but it's a self-erasing image."
"I can't look at it?"
"You're already compromised."
"Compro- How?"
The Stranger's optics briefly flicked up the sky above. "What did you see out there?"
Ikharos blinked again. "Up... in the anomaly?"
"Yes. Did you share any of it with your Psions?"
"No, not yet; I was planning to for when I get back."
"Well don't. Not unless you want them clawing their eyes out. What did you see?"
"A..." Ikharos wracked his brain, but everything was so... frazzled. Muted. As if he were in a dream. "A serpent. A horned skull with six eyes. A... an eye, distorted. And a scythe, golden. What were they?" He looked at her. "Elisabeth?"
She, he found, was grimacing hard. "Sometimes," the Stranger started to say, "it's difficult to tell the prisoners from the wardens."
"What do you mean?"
"It's easier to enter this place than it is to leave. They tried. They've been trying for millennia."
"What happened? To me?"
"I told you, you've been compromised. You need to work on repairing your memetic blocks."
"The eye," Ikharos decided. "It... did this to me?"
"You were caught in its gaze?"
"Yeah. I... couldn't think then. Couldn't..." His frown deepened. "Couldn't think now either. Wait, where's the-"
"He's gone," the Stranger assured him. "You beat him black and blue."
"It... he's alive?" Ikharos questioned incredulously.
"Yes."
"But... How the hell am I alive?"
"Ike?"
"You're saying I'm cognitively compromised and you let me duke it out with a fucking dra-"
"It wasn't a dragon," the Stranger said.
"But you said-"
"I mean to say it's not an Ahamkara."
Ikharos pressed his lips thinly together. "You've got to work on communication. What the hell was that thing?"
"Cuaroc. Partial Exomind with some natural compounds."
"Where is he?"
"Undergoing extensive repairs I expect. You almost killed him."
"He attacked me."
"I know. He needed a lesson in caution." She paused and looked past him. Towards that damned spire. "They all do."
"Elisabeth?" Ikharos said quietly. "Why can't I look at the spire?"
"It's laced with hidden cognito-hazards. The proximity only increases its intensity."
"The Cabal couldn't see it."
"I told you, it self-erases."
"But I could."
"Do you really need me to tell you you're more resilient to negative paracausal effects than mortal Cabal?" the Stranger asked incredulously.
Ikharos exhaled. "I suppose not."
"Good. Can you get up?"
"Freshly rezzed. I'm fine."
"Great. Just don't look at it." She offered him a hand.
"You think I want to?" Ikharos grumbled. He let her pull him up to his feet. "How long will that keep him?"
"Some days at least, if not a couple of weeks outright." The Stranger stepped back. She paused and tilted her head, as if to listen to the incessant creaking of trees in the wind. Something tickled at the back of Ikharos's mind but he ignored it.
"What now?" he asked.
No answer.
"Elisabeth?"
"What?"
"What now?"
The Stranger listened a couple of moments longer, but soon the wind died down and the creaking abated. "Now?" she repeated. "Don't you have work to get to? A brigade to command?"
Ikharos breathed in deeply. Now was not the time to let his frustration get the better of him. "Vindica'aur and Indilic can manage fine. Unless I should be worried?"
"Always. This world is a death trap."
"I thought you said it was a paradise?"
"Oh, it is. But again, just not one of our making." The Stranger turned her back to him. "Do as you will. You've always preferred that."
"True. But what about you? You going to meet with this Disciple?"
"Already done."
Ikharos felt surprise, then shock, then dismay. "Oh. And?"
"She's amused. That's all. But I've piqued her interest."
"What the hell do you think you're doing with her?"
"Hopefully making her curious enough not to kill us all on the spot."
Ikharos sighed. "Is she like...?"
"The Subjugator? No." The Stranger paused. "She's... a different tool for a different job. They all are. Look, just leave it, Ike-"
"Don't call me that," he snapped - and instantly regretted it, but he was on a roll and didn't yet feel like showing his belly. "You haven't earned it yet."
She glanced at him with annoyance. "What, am I supposed to prove myself?"
"You can start by being honest."
"Funny coming from you." She pulled her rifle over her shoulder and clicked it on. "You made noise. There's a couple of Snalgí coming this way, hoping for a bite. You can hang around for them to arrive in the next year or you can leave - with me if you want."
"And where are you going?"
"To check up on our local friend - and hoping to hell you haven't made a mistake with this. I'll relay her the good news too; she won't have to worry about Cuaroc for a while."
Ikharos mulled it over. He... didn't really like any of it. Maybe the giant snails would be interesting, but that would waste time better spent elsewhere. "What about your other friend? When do I get to meet her?"
"Hopefully never, if you're lucky," the Stranger shot back. "She'll know you for what you are and she'll push you to your limits."
"Is she going to be a problem?"
"Not so long as you leave it to me. Understand that?"
Ikharos grimaced. "Fine. But the witch-"
"Leave it. Leave her. Leave them. See to your own and be quiet. Everyone knows something's happened, but so long as you keep a low profile you and your Cabal won't be wiped out in the next fortnight." She began marching away. "Coming?"
Ikharos hesitated.
"You're actually considering sticking out in the open? Alone?" Xiān said incredulously. "With a Traveler-forsaken Disciple on the loose?"
"We have no idea if she's telling-"
"Ike, I'm inclined to believe her. Raw traces of Darkness? In this very city? Yeah no, I'm not sticking around. Let's quit this dump."
Ikharos set his jaw. "Don't make this decision for me."
"It was already made. You're just pretending otherwise."
"Fucking... Ghost," Ikharos grumbled. He started walking after the Stranger. She noticed, stopped and waited for him to catch up. He reasoned to himself it was better this way; she could turn him away from any other cognito-hazards while he saw to filling in the apparent holes in his defenses. Better than walking blind - in body and mind both.
The little hamlet was towards the southeast coast, situated on a small plateau surrounded by a sparse smattering of spruces and pines. Each structure was well-built and honestly delightful to look at, but they were almost all overrun with ivy and moss. Gardens were rampant with weeds and the centre of the hamlet was cobbled but cracked in every direction. The central house was a villa of some considerable size, and even stepping beyond the small broken fencing surrounding it Ikharos could feel something... other about it. Wisps and whispers of paracausal energy, infused with the various surfaces of the outside and hanging in the air around him. He could almost hear a voice behind, speaking in a language he didn't understand.
Just as they approached the old porch the front door swung open. Formora stood beyond - changed and visibly tired but high-strung. She held a broadsword in one hand and the other was wreathed in otherworldly energy. She'd had a change of clothes, Ikharos saw, and her hair was wet and in the midst of drying. Her eyes were shadowed over and her scarf had been removed, revealing her dark painted lips and narrow chin. She went barefooted, wearing a pair of black trousers, and over her shoulders she had tucked on a loose red doublet wide open at the front. She wore nothing beneath it.
Formora glanced between the pair of them, her expression nothing short of haughty.
"I haven't called for your aid," she said to Ikharos.
"No, but I did say I may have some questions for you," he replied coolly. "And in this case 'I' means 'we'."
"Already?"
"You have to understand, every moment matters. Never know what the future'll bring. It could very well mean a fight for the island on Tuesday, nuclear meltdown on Wednesday, the apocalypse on Thursday."
Formora furrowed her brow. "It already is Thursday."
"Well shit."
The Stranger elbowed him in the side with her arm spike and left him cradling his side while groaning muffled obscenities. "We don't mean to intrude," she said pleasantly, otherwise ignoring him. "May we come in?"
Formora pulled her gaze away from Ikharos and studied them each in turn - then scanned the area behind them. "Are you alone?"
"Yes-" the Stranger started to say.
"Swear it," Formora demanded. "You know how."
The Stranger nodded solemnly. "Nosu eru einan," she said. It wasn't a language Ikharos recognized. What was more, he could almost understand it. Not that the words made sense, no; it was as if they very meaning of the speech was engraved in his mind.
(We are alone.)
His confusion must have been clear for all because the Stranger gave him a look that translated purely as later. Formora, for her part, glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. "Is something the matter, sir?"
"... No. No, I'm fine," Ikharos lied.
"Very well." Formora stepped back into the hallway beyond the door's threshold and beckoned them after her. She led them to what appeared to be a sitting room, picked up a glass of wine from the low coffee table and lounged across the largest couch there. The Stranger took one of the armchairs opposite her; Ikharos took another.
No one said anything for a moment. Formora sipped her glass, caught his gaze and hid a cold smile behind her wine. She adjusted her position, allowing her jacket to-
Ikharos averted his gaze and looked around the room. "Nice place," he murmured.
Formora hummed. "It's not mine."
"Not one of your usual haunts," the Stranger observed. "It doesn't lend itself well to a defence."
Formora raised her glass in acknowledgement. "Indeed. But there's seldom hope of that regardless of where I go now. Enduriel is dead."
"You haven't been sleeping, have you?"
"How can I? My nights are cursed and my days are spent scrounging for leftovers." She regarded her wine thoughtfully. "We always strayed away from these... delights. To keep ourselves alive, with clear minds and clearer eyes. I'm alone, now. Why not indulge myself?"
"You don't seem very enthused about us," Ikharos remarked.
"Why would I be? You killed him."
"That was the Scorn," Ikharos protested.
Formora tilted her head back and gave him a lazy if exasperated look. "The things you brought here?"
"That's..." Ikharos paused. "That's fair. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. He was a fool and a brute and far, far worse. None will mourn his passing. Only the void that culminates with his death."
"He was your security," the Stranger said.
"He was my partner, for better or worse. My companion. Now he's dead and gone. It bodes poorly for me, doesn't it?"
"Not anymore." The Stranger looked to him. Ikharos cleared his throat.
"I... dealt with the dragon-headed thing you spoke of," he said.
Formora went very, very still. "You did what?"
"I dealt with it."
"If this is a jest-"
"It isn't. We found it in your city, Doru Araeba."
"It hasn't been my city for some time," Formora murmured. She gestured to him. "But do carry on. You... 'dealt' with it?"
"Yeah."
"And by 'dealt', do you mean you fled before it?"
"I mean I tore its limbs from its body, boiled the plating right off its skeleton and removed its head," Ikharos drily fired back. "Which doesn't even fit my usual definition of dealing, given that it's still breathing, but beggers can't be choosers."
"So you are jesting," Formora said. She rolled her eyes-
"Hold on," Ikharos said with a frown. "What... what happened your eyes?"
Formora looked at him quizzically.
"No, don't do that."
"Is something the matter, good sir?"
"Your eyes are different."
"Hm? Oh. Yes. Yes they are."
"They were green earlier today, but now they're fully gold."
"I changed them," Formora said with a shrug.
Ikharos glanced at the Stranger, but she was simply watching him - again. "'Changed them'?" he echoed. "Like just your irises or... Are they lenses?"
Formora gave a chuckle. "You truly don't know what I am, do you?"
"Excuse me?"
"She's älfa," the Stranger murmured. "An elf. They are particularly well-adjusted to magic - and attuned to wielding it."
Ikharos just glanced between them. "What kind of magic?"
"If I were to take a guess, most likely the kind that allows me to shift the colours of my eyes," Formora said with a small grin. "Just a thought."
"We're getting sidetracked," the Stranger cut in. "Ikharos has ensured your safety - for a time at least."
"Make me believe you," Formora softly sang.
"Älfr hainaí du hlutr sem veidhr ono," the Stranger sighed. Ikharos's head whipped around again; more words sinking into the very recesses of his mind, making themselves known as easily as the most powerful of any Hive dialect - only much less painful. (He injured the beast that once hunted you.)
Formora nodded slowly and closed her eyes. "... I see," she said at length, her grin fading away. "But only for a time?"
"Only for a time."
"Hm. Then I propose more wine. Will either of you partake?"
"No," the Stranger said.
"Sure," Ikharos answered. "What's the craft?"
"Brand?" Formora stood up. He averted his gaze.
"He means to ask who brewed it," the Stranger translated, giving him a sidelong look.
"Ah." Formora paused. "I actually don't know. It was all so long ago, and I seldom came this way before... mm. I imagine you already know about that."
"All too well," the Stranger said grimly.
"Anyways..." Formora walked away to an adjoining room and returned moments later with a dark bottle and another glass. She set it down before him, poured him a generous portion, but as he reached for it her hand flashed out and caught his chin. On instinct alone Ikharos had his knife already halfway drawn out of its sheath and his eyes glowed with Void. Formora saw, her own golden eyes sparkling with fearless interest, and she turned his face slightly.
"You asked me before if I knew what you were," she whispered. "I know you're human."
"Clearly," Ikharos muttered.
"But not entirely. Are you? No, I think not." She leaned in close enough that he could smell the lavender in her pale hair. "You're something else. Something more. There's magic in you - but you don't wield it the correct way. That's dangerous. Very dangerous. You're sharp and you're wary and you're confident - and if you've truly wounded the steel beast then you've done something neither I nor Enduriel could have managed on our own."
"Wouldn't that be incentive enough to keep your distance?"
"Perhaps. If I were in a more... self-preservative mood, then likely yes." Her grip tightened and her nails dug into his skin. "If I were to ask you what you are, will you answer me?"
"I'm a Warlock," Ikharos told her, eyes narrowed. "Risen."
"Are those terms supposed to mean something to me?"
"I'm immortal."
"Immortal?" Formora mused. She seemed to be on that precipice that preceded drunkenness - full of liquid courage. Her hand shifted beneath his chin and past his beard and Ikharos felt something cold and sharp; she was palming a blade against his neck. "Shall we test that theory?"
"Dying's messy," Ikharos pointed out. "You sure you want it on your hands?"
"They're bloody enough," Formora shot back.
A moment passed.
"Can you two not kill each other?" the Stranger deadpanned. "Please?"
"I suppose." Formora let go and leaned back. "If only because you've done me a favour."
"I'd hate to see how you'd treat your friends," Ikharos muttered. He only felt a smidgen of regret when he noticed her smile falter.
"Why are you here?" she demanded, returning to her couch and leaning forward. It wasn't quite so audaciously distracting as her prior position.
"To check up on you," the Stranger said softly.
"Oh, because you know me so well, don't you?" Formora snarked. "You haven't explained how that is, Elisabeth."
Ikharos grabbed his glass and took a sip. The wine, he discovered, was of exquisite quality. It left him feeling warm as it hit his stomach. Didn't say anything. It was the Stranger's show to run.
"I..." the Stranger trailed off. "He could tell you mor-"
"Nah, I'm good." Ikharos stood up, glass in hand, and he began strolling along the edge of the room - inspecting the mosaics on the floor's tiles, the patterns woven into the wooden walls, the glazed engravings in the windows. "Really nice place, by the way. Fair digs if you're not worried for your life."
"It plays its part," Formora replied. "And, fortune willing, the totems I left outside will be warning enough to any who come by bearing harm."
"Totems?"
She gestured to the window at the back of the room, towards the sea. Ikharos walked over and looked out - and saw a trio of Scorn Stalkers nailed to wooden posts some distance down the slope. "They're still alive," he observed.
"They were easier to handle than their brethren from last night," Formora explained, "but I can't destroy them wholly. Not so many of them. It would render me exhausted when I could preserve that strength for a threat more befitting of the cost."
"Still, that'll only attract other Scorn," Ikharos pointed out. "They're a hivemind, linked through Dark Ether channels."
"They've left me be for some hours now."
"That's probably because they're busy dealing with something else. Someone else." Ikharos glanced back. "Did Skuldu or her witch say anything about what they were going to do next?"
Formora stiffened. "No," she said sharply. "They did not."
"Shame." Ikharos turned back to the grisly Scorn display. "Don't let me interrupt. Elisabeth was saying something?"
"Thanks," the Stranger drawled unhappily.
"Anytime."
AN: Huge thanks to Nomad Blue for editing!