Legend / Triumphs

At the time, it seemed natural to pursue the creature at the hour of night when it was most likely to be on the hunt. I was distracted from all thought of fear by Kiiraskes, who decided to question me briefly on the qualities of Tenar, Brossk, and Liisok [1]: which excelled as purgatives, and which burned through chitin and stone alike.

At last, she said, "You said you studied. From records?"

"Yes, Baron." There were no Slayer-apothecarists left to train under. And even if any survived, none who would visit the common quadrants of the small city where I was raised.

Kiiraskes paused in her trudging progress up the path. We had divided the supplies between ourselves this time, and now she passed me a vial. "Drink this."

I was quick to obey, noting the odor of sunsoak root that clung to the liquid. I hoped this first taste of a Slayer's tonic would fill me with strength, or make me grow as if I had molted five times over.

It tasted foul. I became very aware of how little I had eaten since arriving.

"Come," Kiiraskes said. "I think I smell one of Haaksis' guards."

I could not smell anything but Kiiraskes. I followed her as she stepped nimbly across one of the sluices and onto the rich, loamy soil that marked the wildest part of Haaksis' property.

It was around this time that I started to feel the tonic's effects. I saw Light—a tiny luminescence at the edge of my sight. I turned to watch it drifting slowly toward the ground, and by the time it landed, I could see more motes gathered over the undergrowth in clouds, like dust. Far above, I read the flow of Ether like a river through the sky. I set my bags down, looked at my hands, and saw a glow beneath my shell, as if the tonic had illuminated me from the inside out.

But it was not just me. I looked at Kiiraskes and saw Light. The push-pull of air through spiracles, the misting of expelled Ether, the fervent radiance of her eyes.

She had stilled to observe me, and now she spoke.

"The Light is in all things. We cannot control it, but we can entice it. Draw it close." She chuffed. "Like a greedy pellauk."

I was cradled in the grip of awe, and the interruption was like a clout to the face. "The Great Machine is not a herd-animal sniffing after Yka fruit!" In my offense, I forgot that I was her apprentice, and at her mercy.

Kiiraskes laughed. "Don't you like Yka fruit?"

Annoyed, I looked away, to the sky. On a clear night like this, it was possible to watch the Great Machine drift across Riis's upper atmosphere. Under the tonic's influence, I saw it trailing Light—Life, I thought dizzily—like a comet.

The Great Machine had terraformed Riis's moons in four blinks, then brought the Ether-flood to Riis. A time of plenty, when no hatchlings starved and foundered in their development. A time of too-much, as the House of Judgment would tell it. A time without hierarchies, without sense. Our people had to change, to adapt.

In this new age, they called me a "Drekh." Useless, House-less.

"And now, the body," Kiiraskes said.





It was Eliksni—or had been. The mangled form at our feet had been twisted into a tangle of limbs. If not for the torn mantle attached to it, I am not sure I would have known the body to belong to one of Haaksis' guards.

Worse was the emptiness of it. Every living thing around the body shone with the Great Machine's influence. I had not known this stranger [2], but their death left a void in the world which the tonic now permitted me to see. I was glad then for my empty stomach.

Kiiraskes crouched down near the body and at once began touching it, shifting an arm here and there, inspecting it. I stood by, uncertain of whether I disapproved, too afraid to complain in any case. The plant life here was not yet so dense, and we were exposed, though—as Kiiraskes had pointed out—any creatures would be as well.

"Was it an animal?" I asked. There were predators out here, after all. Though nothing that would voluntarily attack Kiiraskes unless it was desperate.

She gestured for me to crouch beside her. "Look," she said. And then, once I had settled beside her: "What don't you see?"

"Light," I said, suffused again with sudden grief.

She swatted me. "Look down."

I did. I saw a cluster of lights—small larvae that had gathered in the footprints I'd left around the body. I brushed one absently from my leg, then realized…

"They're avoiding the body," I said.

Kiiraskes grunted, pleased. "Touch here. Tell me what you feel."

I touched the guard's carapace and felt something wet under my claws. I had long enough to recognize that the beast had cracked his shell down the middle, and to fear that I could never stomach a meal again. And then, suddenly, it was as if I had dipped my hand into a cold pond.

I felt anger. A sharp, foreign fury that had nothing to do with my own revulsion and fear. Beneath it, there was something like… remorse [3]. Could an animal feel remorse?

"You feel it? We cannot see this evil [4], but it's there," Kiiraskes said. "Come. Judgment was wrong. I'm taking you back to the boat—if we're quick, it won't have time to follow us."

But the monster did not stalk us across the forest.

It poured out of the air in a cloud of billowing shadow.



[1: For reference, I believe Brossk is the purgative. Liisok translates as Rock-Destroyer, or maybe Stone-Eater.]
[2: Technically, the archaic word used here means "Eliksni from outside one's House."]
[3: This word is not quite right, but I don't know a better one. Guilt for something that has not yet occurred? A voluntary acceptance of responsibility that was not yours. Variks has not been forthcoming.]
[4: I believe we would now call this "Darkness."]

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