Eberekt paused at the threshold, the bay doors at his back and the transport behind him. He took a long, steadying breath, his skull turning slightly to regard the Genekeeper. The drone remained where it had fallen, motionless. A lump of metal forged over crystal, fallen gracelessly. It pulsed empty radio noise—an indistinct, staticky keening that carried no words, no counsel. Not even senseless fear or fury. Eberekt’s rifle sat heavy in his hands, and he hefted it once to be sure its weight felt true. He retrieved his knife from where it had fallen during the recent chaos, feeling the steel’s familiar bite against his armoured glove. The Genekeeper was beyond his help now, at least until he dealt with his adversary. The one who had named himself Zablawza Avia.
“None of this makes sense,” Eberekt muttered to no one in particular as he tucked the knife away. Then he stepped through the bay doors.
Beyond them was a passage hewn through the shard’s ancient fa?ade, where the modern hangar space met something far older and more profound. The metal plating underfoot gave way to smooth flooring and strange materials. The design here bore no resemblance to the shelled corridors and rough-lashed bioengineering of the Crawling Cities beyond. Instead, Eberekt found himself walking through a space that was fundamentally, unmistakably… different. Before he even registered the shift fully, the architecture had changed: low ceilings that curved elegantly overhead, sweeping windows—windows of all things!—arched like the wings of some forgotten bird, allowing faint starlight and the dim glow of the burning world beyond to filter in. Tall panes of crystal or glass gave a panoramic sense of openness he could scarcely appreciate. To him, stalking to kill, he felt exposed.
Where his battlefield eye expected cramped corridors and killing zones, he found a series of open alcoves that turned into half-concealed private nooks on the advance, their arrangements a puzzle of minimalism. Even cluttered as it was now—coils of rope, crates of tools, salvaged mechanical contraptions dragged in by contemporary hands—the underlying structure’s purpose eluded him. He supposed this place might have once been a living space for some ancient people. For his ancestors. A place of comfort, rest, and perhaps even beauty. Eberekt could not truly comprehend it. He just knew it felt uncomfortably open, vulnerable. He pressed forward with disciplined care, rifle raised, checking each potential angle for ambush.
His boots pressed into a half-overgrown carpet of vegetation that had reclaimed much of the interior. In one chamber, a spill of soil supported a miniature meadow, delicate grasses swaying in the faint stirrings of air. Just beyond, through another great panel of crystal, he glimpsed a kind of forest—small trees and shrubs, leaves shimmering under starlight. It was impossible and wondrous—alien to him in its makeup. Yet he kept his rifle high, finger near the trigger, suspicion warring with a strange pang of longing he didn’t fully understand.
As Eberekt eased his way deeper into the shard’s inner realm, the low ceilings and sweeping windows gave way to a gentle elevation of the floor, leading him into a space illuminated by faint starlight filtering through crystal walls. Rounding a curve of glass and pale stone, he emerged into a meadow that should not have been there. Grass and slender stems pressed softly against his boots, the scent of damp earth and quiet greenery lingering in the still air. Beyond the meadow, a stand of small trees—an orchard or perhaps a remnant forest—rose in delicate tiers, leaves shimmering faintly as if dusted with silver.
His rifle remained raised, finger poised, as he crept forward. Every step was measured and cautious, boots pressing silently into the moss and wild blooms scattered underfoot. He checked each nook and alcove, half expecting that agent, Zablawza, to appear at any moment. Yet, instead of a threat, he encountered something else entirely.
A shape emerged from between two slender trunks at the meadow’s far edge. Tall and graceful, it stood on four narrow legs, its body a tapestry of dark fur, dappled and freckled white in accent with sweeping lines of muscle. Antlers, ornate and branching, framed its noble head, catching the low light and reflecting it in subtle hues. Eberekt had never seen such a creature. He knew nothing of ancient life beyond the chimaeric horrors of his cursed realm. To him, it was just another anomaly in this impossible place.
He froze, weapon angled. The stag raised its head, and for a moment, their gazes met—Eberekt’s empty skull-like sockets and the stag’s dark, deep eyes—in that silent communion. The stag stood, ears flicking, nostrils quivering, poised to flee but not yet running.
Eberekt’s knuckles whitened around the rifle’s grip. He could fire. Why not? It was unknown, and in his life, unknown often meant danger. The butt of the rifle pressed against his shoulder as he considered the smooth curve of the stag’s flank, an easy target. His finger hovered over the trigger. The stag snorted softly, turning its head slightly, revealing the strong line of its neck.
Yet nothing about it suggested a threat. No augmentations bristled from its hide, no blades or cannons. It bore no crest of bone or sinew to hint at malevolence. It was as if the world itself had conjured a piece of some distant, gentler past, placing it here in the meadow for him to witness. Slowly, Eberekt relaxed. His weapon dipped, barrel pointing harmlessly toward the ground. The stag pawed the earth once, as if acknowledging his restraint, then turned and galloped away.
Eberekt let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. For an instant—just an instant—he considered calling out, but what would he say? He didn’t even have words for what he had just seen. He felt strange, unsettled, yet oddly humbled, as though the stag’s calm stare had judged him and found him wanting.
A voice reached him from just over his shoulder, low and warm, though layered with irony. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
He spun with ruthless discipline, rifle rising again, adrenaline spiking. In that fractional moment of distraction, a shape dropped from the shadows of an overhead beam, moving faster than he could counter. Eberekt tried to bring his rifle in line, but before he could aim, a blow struck the weapon aside, sending it spinning from his hands. Another impact slammed into his chest plate, shattering his balance and throwing him backwards.
Stumbling over a root and the thick cluster of wildflowers, Eberekt crashed down onto the soft, scent-laden carpet of green. The world tilted, the memory of the stag’s gentle eyes haunting him as he lay staring up at the starry crystal ceiling. He had found no threat in that animal, yet here was a true adversary stepping into view with a calm, measured stance.
Before he could recover, the figure—Zablawza Avia—stood over him, one foot pressing down on Eberekt’s shoulder to keep him pinned. With unhurried efficiency, the agent knelt and seized Eberekt’s rifle from where it had fallen. Quick, professional motions followed: Zablawza field-stripped the weapon, pulling its components apart with a calm mastery that mocked Eberekt. In seconds, the rifle was reduced to a handful of useless parts scattered at their feet.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“This world you’ve carved out,” Zablawza said, voice low but carrying easily in the hush of this ancient hall. “It’s a pale shadow of what once was. We had democracy—do you even know the word? We spanned the stars, free people shaping the universe together. We did great things—things your masters would have you think impossible. It was peaceful paradise compared to what is now. But we can have it again, if we find others like us, if we dare to rebuild. That gun, that crude assembly? Even that atrocity you commit outside? It’s a toy compared to what was. What we could achieve if we reclaimed what we lost.”
Eberekt snarled, trying to push up, but the pressure on his shoulder increased. Zablawza met his skull’s eyeless sockets, silently challenging him to reach for his knife again. “I don’t blame you. You’ve been deceived. Used,” he paused to let that sink in before nodding vaguely upwards, “This shard, the remains of mother Avia, it can take us away from this place. You don’t have to follow broken drones and uneducated monsters. We belong amidst the stars.”
That monstrous Pilgrim fell still, a hand clinging onto Zablawza’s armoured foot. His struggling stopped. He listened with silent regard. This time he heard the words.
The air shrieked. A red lance of pure hardlight sliced downward from above, impossible in its precision and speed. It punched through Zablawza’s skull in an instant, bisecting it cleanly before Eberekt could even flinch. The agent’s words turned into a gurgled hiss. His body twitched, legs buckling, as his halved head toppled free. The corpse crumpled awkwardly beside Eberekt, blood spattering across the meadow’s gentle greens.
Hovering in the open space now, having emerged silently from some unseen angle, was the Genekeeper.
It must have dragged itself here after somehow overcoming the arresting signal Zablawza had transmitted. It lulled in the air as if somehow weakened. Yet its engines whined softly, sustaining a low hover. Its hardlight lance—a shimmering, crimson wedge of death—faded from view as it withdrew the weapon’s focus.
Eberekt rolled onto his elbow, pain lancing through his ribs. He looked up at the Genekeeper, stunned by its sudden return. Had it not just been incapacitated? Now, it hovered victorious, regarding him and the corpse with a flat, inscrutable presence.
Ignoring him for a moment, the Genekeeper turned its attention to the tranquil woodland scene. It emitted a harsh, buzzing pulse. Then, cruelly and without hesitation, it conjured the red hardlight cutting field once more and swept it across the silent forest. Trees, shrubs, and crystal panes shattered in a blistering arc, flora disintegrating into ashen fragments, the delicate beauty ruined in a blink. The meadow became a smoking ruin, scattering leaves and petals and ash upon Eberekt’s prone form.
As Eberekt coughed and tried to rise, managing to take to a knee. He looked up as the Genekeeper hovered over him, close and terrible. Taken aback by its raw hatred for what it glimpsed here, what it saw or perhaps remembered, he forced the words out, voice shaking: “Did… did you tell me the truth?” He knew now that nothing was certain. This monstrous intelligence had twisted him into a killer for ends he barely understood.
“I told you what Desht, the old Caretaker, intended,” the Genekeeper replied in that calm, unfeeling tone. “We will gather all remnants of humanity, return them to her. She wants to see them. You may rule over what is left.”
“So this isn’t a weapon. It’s some kind of—...” Eberekt searched for the words and failed, his voice faltering on his tongue. “And I’m not…”
“Your kind will truly believe anything,” the Genekeeper said coldly.
He shook his head, disoriented and distraught. “That can’t be right. You—” But the sentence died between his teeth as a surge of static seized his senses. The Genekeeper’s manipulator modulated a radio command. Eberekt gasped. His chest convulsed, limbs locking rigid. Something inside him, woven into his very neural lace, answered that command with lethal compliance.
He died there amidst the scorched meadow and the ruined grove of alien trees, his body falling limp before he could form another word.
If there was any mercy or justice in this world, this story would end there. The tale of Eberekt, the Pilgrim of the Axiamat, would be concluded—an ending drawn in blood and treachery. But there is no mercy nor justice to be found in this story. His uncertain cause, paved with deceit, continued without him. His loyalty, betrayed, made no difference in the grand calculus. If it was not him, it would have been another. He just so happened to learn too much, and so he was put to death.
No, this was not an end. This was where the real story began.
Loyal hands carried Eberekt’s body down to the shattered earth, wrapped in velvets and held aloft with mournful regard. There was no peace in the descent. True believers wept in the wake of his landing. The air above still howled, scattering freaks who watched with wide, fearful eyes.
For a time, the body rested in silence. Above, the heavens spun, oblivious to the ruin below. But faint flickers of awareness began to stir. In flashes, the body saw its own transport and felt its own weight as it was borne on the backs of those who crept and slithered in the shadow of the shard.
The freaks came in droves. They carried Eberekt into the depths of a catacomb carved from ancient stone. It reeked of dampness and decay, but they moved with reverence, their twisted forms hunched under the burden of what they deemed sacred. They whispered as they worked, voices tinged with awe and fear. They spoke of his honour, of his sacrifice, repeating the lies of the Genekeeper.
The lies.
Eberekt was aware enough to know them for what they were. He had not fallen in glory. He had not been a martyr. The truth of his death churned within him like a wound that refused to heal. Yet the freaks, ignorant of reality, brought their offerings.
They came in the dark of the catacomb, offering their bodies, their minds, their photonic laces and memory cores. Piece by piece, they sought to rebuild him, to make him whole. Their faith was absolute. Each fragment of themselves given willingly, with trembling hands and fractured minds, to the altar of their belief.
And with each offering, the Pilgrim grew.
He grew in mass, in thought, in a boiling sea of stolen selves. Their impulses flooded him—minds that wanted to live, to feed, to grow. Their singular desire overwhelmed him: to be reborn. To become human.
But deep within the patchwork of consumed minds, Eberekt remained. His essence was twisted, a bitter root buried in the soil of their adoration. He knew it was all a lie. Their belief was built upon deceit. Yet their faith was intoxicating, a balm that momentarily dulled the pain of his truth.
The lies tore at him. The belief filled him. He was caught between the two, an irreconcilable boil of festering consumption. He felt their devotion urging him to rise, their desperation fueling his will to move. But every fragment of life they gave him was tainted with the knowledge of what he truly was: a monument to failure, a god forged from grief and manipulation.
Eberekt’s body remained still in the great stone tomb, but his thoughts churned endlessly. The freaks gathered, their minds pressing against his like waves upon a fractured shore. Together, they whispered of his return, their voices a hymn of hope.
And, inside, Eberekt screamed.