“Welcome, at long last.”
A crooked bone monk, garbed in the simple robes of his order, met them at the doorway. A pair of lesser ordained members of his entourage lowered their heads deferentially in suit. They clutched in their hands rolls of leathery parchment and needle-like writing utensils to record this day.
The Voice strode past them, heedless.
The large sitting room had been torn apart, and a wide table had been fitted. An oriel window looked out over the rooftops of the palace and the urban bioscape beyond — the screaming depths of Enelastioa. The pale stalked to the room’s corners, standing disciplined and silent as they took vantage alongside six scarlet-clad xenos already keeping watch.
All were tense, acutely aware that two opposing forces stood shoulder to shoulder, armed and ready for murder.
At the table sat a vat-born freak dressed in the red clothes of his cult. The elderly xenos slowly stood, the only recognition that he gave The Voice and Ay’s entrance, the dark eyes behind his mask remaining fixed on the doorway. Ay recognised him — the figure that had loomed upon the walls to spy his arrival.
Feeling at a distinct disadvantage, Ay found one side of the room to coil into, where he could stand without drawing undue attention. The herald nodded his approval as, in a flurry of activity, the monks, too, repositioned themselves by the foot of the table and unfurled their scrolls.
The herald seemed agitated, taking position behind one of the ornate seats. Ay gave him a long look, met with a subtle shake of the head — a warning.
Another wave of pale guardians arrived. Their vanguard peered in through the doorway before stepping aside and securing the atrium outside.
From amidst their number stepped a white-clad reptilian figure, long tail dragging behind his tall and slender form. The sibilant warrior adjusted his only piece of armour, a gilded gauntlet affixed to his right forearm, not looking up as he entered. Despite receiving not a mote of attention, Ay bent at his belly in a clumsy bow, beak low.
“Agitator,” the reptilian figure hissed, black scales shimmering as he moved. “I expected Jhedothar.”
“He will not be joining us. It seems treachery is abound, these long days. It’s not only your Lord of Bones who must contend with knives in the back.”
The Agitator’s mask flicked towards The Voice, the first acknowledgement of that herald since he had entered. Ay watched closely as the herald squirmed.
“I have heard your armsmen accosted one of our company,” the reptile — who Ay assumed to be The Hand of Zolgomere — took a casual grip on the back of a seat. “Should I call that treachery, as well?”
One of the pale at the side of the room rested his armoured hand on the hilt of his blade, a casual gesture indicating both his pride and the threat he posed here and now.
“Bold,” the Agitator said, fixing his masked stare on the Hand as a shadow crossed the doorway. “I remind your host that the Vat-Mother of Acetyn is an order of magnitude above your Lord and his Least-Lady. Should you think to threaten us in the name of your old God then you will be scoured back to the ash from which you crawled.”
It was at that moment that she entered the room — the Eidolon.
At once, the pale took to a knee, the xenos they stood at odds with suddenly irrelevant.
“My shape, my kin,” the pale guardians said as one, kneeling.
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Ay felt a chill shoot up his spine. His scales prickled in terror, and he swept lower, three hands on the chitin-shelled floor to show his deference.
Ay knew an aug hound when he saw one. She was a mechanised killing machine, her flesh replaced with a cybernetic nightmare. Her shape — though possessing the silhouette of a human woman — was instead made of heavy biomechanical musculature punctured by thick black cables and pneumatic hoses.
It was with this mix of fear and fascination that Ay dared raise his eyes from the floor.
The Eidolon did not wear the pale. She did not serve the Lord of Bones. Instead, she was dressed in a ragged brown cloak, a wide hood spilt down around her shoulders.
She strode across the chamber, around the table, and planted herself before the Vat-Mother’s Agitator. His mask turned to her as if to speak, and she leaned in to meet him.
What passed as her face — a dozen concentric rings of prehensile teeth surrounded by twelve shining eyes — pressed close to his. Her head tipped, challenging him, daring him to continue.
The Agitator turned his mask away, faltering.
“Somehow, I doubt that,” The Hand of Zolgomere said from across the room. “The truth is that that we have little to fear from your Vat-Mother’s horde of starving, ill-disciplined wretches.”
Ay’s eyes widened as he looked at the Eidolon. Here was someone who had remade themselves — who took power for themselves — to stand shoulder to shoulder with the elders and perhaps even the Sisters. It was possible. No, it was not just possible. It had been done.
And she was here.
The Eidolon turned away, and, in that instant, Ay averted his eyes back down to the polished floor. The bone monks hurriedly scribbled down their interpretation of this historic meeting, needles staining their leathery scrolls.
“Is this the freak I have heard so much about?” The Hand said, indicating Ay.
“It is,” the herald quietly confirmed from over his shoulder.
“You.”
Addressed, Ay lifted his gaze as far as the Hand’s taloned feet, beak closed to the barest of slits.
“You can fetch a lone child from Sestchek, can’t you?” The Hand asked.
“I can,” Ay said.
Even as they spoke, the Eidolon sat in her chair indolently, slouching back. Ay tried not to return her gaze as those twelve eyes fixed on him. The Eidolon didn’t have the politesse of a courtier nor a politician. She drew a star metal sword from her cloak and rested it on the table for all to see, all without saying a word.
“I still caution you that this may be a trap,” the Agitator said, having finally recovered his ability to speak.
“All the better to send a lone independent then,” The Hand reasoned before addressing Ay again.
“You can report back if you find some hidden army out there, can you not? Not so stupid as to run to your death, are you?”
“I can,” Ay repeated, trying not to wither under the Eidolon’s gaze.
“Good,” The Hand said before looking back to the Agitator.
“The Vat-Mother yet offers her blessing to resist the shining of the day star,” the Agitator carefully pointed out.
“However, I am not so stupid as to submit to her manipulation, myself. You can have a small contingent to geneshape, though, I am concerned about how long that will take.”
“Mere days,” the Agitator insisted.
“Yet anything could happen in mere days,” The Hand said, sweeping out his arm towards the wide bay of windows and the city beyond. “We can send this one our herald has found in the meantime.”
“So be it.”
“If this freak dies or does not return with our prize, then we can indeed send out the larger joint force.”
“We can all agree that the capture of the childe is our priority,” the Agitator confirmed.
“And once seized, her generic material can be sampled and apportioned judiciously,” The Hand said through a cold-blooded smile.
“Of course,” the Agitator said as he held The Hand’s sibilant gaze. “As honour demands.”
The Eidolon gave a quiet little laugh before simply standing, taking up her sword again, and walking out of the room, all without having said a single word. At once, the pale returned to standing. Their guardian vigil resumed in an instant.
Ay breathed a sigh of relief, daring to look up far enough to catch the herald’s eyes. They shared a single nod.
“Oh, hunter,” The Hand said, turning back towards his guard at the door.
“We have wasted enough time as it is. I suggest you hurry.”