Purpose was tempered with misery. Subdued, the Eidolon stood over the warrior’s carcass — a position he had been in too many times before. Steam rose from his body, hot with spilt blood and quicksilver. Clutching Menmarch’s sword, cooling in the dim biolight, he stood over Marchemm’s body as it twitched and quaked. Accelerated healing attempted to stave off the fatal damage. But, unfortunately, it would not be enough for him either. The Eidolon turned away.


    Menmarch kicked and screamed, held back, restrained by the giant grasp of Taneberr. The Eidolon gauged his reaction to the death of his brother, one who once shared his body before they were carved apart.


    “My own blade!” Menmarch cried out. “You had no right!”


    But the Eidolon believed that he had every right. Yellow eyes glancing between the freaks still loyal, he hissed and gestured to Menmarch.


    “The pain is effecting his judgement. Relieve him. Now we can finally access the shrine.”


    Sir Enhash watched the interaction closely but made no approach. When the knight superior remained still, Llewtoll hissed, lowered his weapon, and moved closer instead. The brute Taneberr hefted the weight of his injured ally, lifting Menmarch with a firm hold on his shoulders.


    “Enhash!” Menmarch begged — kicking a leg, struggling as best as his broken body could manage — which was nought to Taneberr’s hulking form. “Stop this! Make them stop!”


    Llewtoll took out a squirming, tentacled subling from a satchel, its dozen limbs hungry and barbed. This he put to Menmarch’s screaming, protesting throat.


    The subling tasted flesh and wrapped its many arms around Menmarch’s neck. Barbs pierced thick skin and began to drink his blood — parasitic. Then, more delicate lace pricked deep into his spine, intertwining with Menmarch’s nervous system, numbing the pain, numbing everything. Finally, the grieving vat-born fell slack in the giant’s grip, surrendering with a pitiful whine and a dumb groan.


    Holding his head high, the Eidolon resumed his march. Dripping with gore and quicksilver nanomaterial, he wrapped himself in his cloak, crossed the plaza, and took the passage up to higher reaches. In his wake, Taneberr helped the numbed Menmarch to walk, and Llewtoll reloaded his lance, stalking through the dark.


    Sir Enhash was the last depart. Before moving on, his star metal visor turned to the corpses, bestial and mutant. His throat clicked with contempt, and it was only with a bitter afterthought that his sword flicked against the nets that kept their prisoner bound, releasing the mistreated freak to run screaming back out into the lower cavity of the Gates alone.


    The depths of the city groaned back to life. Barely audible, the little sounds of the structures, the ghostly mutters and moans, carried through the thick, misted air.


    The Eidolon crossed a vast bridge suspended in the dark. He ached. Oh, how he ached. The battle had strained his augs, and the quicksilver burned his pale flesh. But then, the city’s breath caught his cloak and dragged his attention to the wailing towers surrounding him. Embedded in a nearby wall, an ancient form twisted in remorse, grown into the silicon wall across a shadowy gulf.


    “Turn back,” the faceless martyr wept. “Spare yourself.”


    With a sneer, the Eidolon recognised the face of his predecessor. Acetyn had grown him here. But why? Disregarding the traitorous visage, he moved on.


    Shortly before their deaths, the warriors drew to a halt at the foot of the great tower. They stood before the great and monolithic head, the one which they all now resembled, each carved down in their own unique way to resemble a man. At their fore, the Eidolon basked in the sanguine glow of the mother lights. Closing his eyes, he steadied his breathing. It was a poor attempt to crush down his anxiety.


    “Shall we?” Taneberr’s rumbling voice echoed on the concavity’s mantle. “Bask in the glory, my kin.”


    The brute was the first to enter the open passage, unsealed at the base of the tall spire. Dragging the drooling form of Menmarch with him, he quickly disappeared into the translucent glass, heavy basalt stonework, and pulsing arteries that made up the ancient structure.


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    The Eidolon told himself that it was excitement that he felt, not fear. Stepping inside, his yellow eyes were drawn around the entrance to the tower. The floors around him were coated in intricately designed, violet-coloured tiles. Above, the walls and the ceilings were tall and broad. The atrium space was angled, intended to pull the eye upwards to where the ceiling was supported with arching braces, complete with a black marble facade. It was all cut through by a distant, muted glow emanating from further into the tower that cast long shadows behind them. Just out of reach, it opened up into a great nave at the end of the long entrance hall, cast indistinct and heavenly bright by the light.


    “Welcome, welcome, at long last...”


    At the precipice, the Eidolon turned. From the vast space above the warriors came a tremulous voice. Then, on the tapered legs of a grotesquely long mechanical centipede, an elder freak crawled on the ceiling, stretching off into the distance, curling, hidden amongst the buttresses and rafters above. His torso was bent and aged, but his lower half was replaced by the artificial shape of the obscene arthropod form.


    The Eidolon’s lips twisted in contempt to see a creature with such a debased form here, of all places. Here, where the likeness of mankind was to be celebrated and their return worked towards, the progenitors’ shrine was kept by a monster.


    Met with a hiss from Llewtoll, the freak drew to a halt, a dozen metres and more of his body crossing the archways above them, trailing back to distant reaches.


    “Trishek Hash?” The Eidolon called up to the gnarled creature, eyes narrowed intensely in recognition, thinking quickly. “Your brother sends his regards.”


    “I doubt that,” Trishek said, faceted eyes catching the distant glow issuing from the next chamber, belying his place in the shadows. “But yes, be welcomed, you glorious few to this holy place of pilgrimage. I can see you are true believers.”


    “You are the keeper of this shrine?” The Eidolon asked.


    “Yes, yes,” the crawling freak said from above, inching closer. Like a predator, it slowly coiled its body, countless legs tensing, ready to strike.


    The warriors stirred, ill at ease. Exchanging glances, they all inevitably turned to their now-nameless leader. There had been an expectation of a keeper, but not one that possessed such a form, half-finished. Still broken of senses, Menmarch laughed in his daze, his voice echoing throughout the tower.


    The Eidolon stared at Trishek, weighing his fear against his contempt, when the keeper spoke again.


    “You have brought it? The tribute?” Trishek asked as his many legs inched closer. There was something terrible about his head and arms. Like them, its shape had been carved down to possess the upper body of the progenitors. Yet he was knotted with the scars of ancient wounds, barely concealed by a shroud of cloth, not unlike the Eidolon’s own cloak. He was old. He was dangerous.


    “I do. I have come to restore honour to my faith. The Eidolon before me shirked his duty to the Pilgrim and put his loyalties to a false noble instead. So I have taken the mantle. I am here.”


    It was then that the Eidolon offered it up, the little artefact from the stars.


    The keeper snapped forward, viper quick, in a lunge. He instantly took the ancient field projector from the Eidolon’s hand before retreating to the high ceiling. The Eidolon couldn’t have stopped him if he had tried. Instead, his outstretched hand became a fist before lowering to his side.


    “Look at this. Yes, look...” Trishek coveted the artefact in his scar-knotted fingers, whispers barely reaching the warriors below. “You have done very well. Very, very well, yes... Just what I need... Where did you find this?”


    “The witch’s minions took it from her Lord-husband’s holdfast and delivered it to me.”


    “Isn’t that interesting... Now, why would she have them do that...?”


    “Keeper,” the Eidolon hissed and barked up to him. “May we pass?”


    High above them, already retreating into vast upper reaches, the shrine’s master hissed in return. Then, voice echoing across the immense arches and vaults, from a vantage unseen, it answered.


    “You may.”


    Looking around his kin, the Eidolon was met with their gazes in return. A trepidation hung in the air, the knowledge that this would indeed be a final step, a boundary once crossed that could never be undone.


    Impatient as ever, Taneberr grunted, turning first and dragging Menmarch across the threshold. The Eidolon nodded the rest ahead before him.


    “Savour this moment,” the Eidolon said quietly.


    Next was Sir Enhash, who held his head high, helmet gleaming as he entered the wide nave. Just behind him, Llewtoll took a moment to examine the doorway — with its silicon flesh and silverline ribs, grown over the cold metal and stone that once made up this ancient place — before stepping within. The Eidolon was the last to enter, pulling his cloak fast about himself as he crossed into the light.