Chapter 9-4 The Stolen Thrones (I)

Chapter 9-4 The Stolen Thrones (I)

+FIND HER! FIND THOUSANDHAND! GATHER YOUR WAR NODES AND RECLAIM THE HELIX! ATONE FOR YOUR SHAME!+

-Thoughtcast from Hungers to their Low Masters

9-4

The Stolen Thrones (I)

+Well, lets start with a few things,+ Walton said, glancing sidelong at the small mutilated version of himself writhing on the ground. +Im sure youve figured out this isnt any old tower floating in the dark. Its a ship. Older than those under Voidwatch, I figure. Youre going to want to access its command functions now if you havent. Itll make the next part easier. You always were more of a hands-on learner, so you should get used to the instrument. Youll be using it a lot.+

The interfaces were already aglow in Avos mind. Casting commands into them was a simple thing of desire, but he waited for Walton to continue.

+Theres a story to each part of this place,+ Walton said. +Well. More sins than stories, if I gotta be honest. Evil is easy to run from. Theres almost always an excuse. But not here. Not for what we did to the crew of this ship. There were approximately twenty thousand alive after we dug up the ship. And we used all of them.+

Used? Kae whispered. She was listening too. Only then did Avo realize that the ghosts bearing Waltons final words were echoing in the real. Something twisted inside him. By patterns of habit layered over intrinsic nature, he was a private creature. Before, it was to hide from a world that desired him dead. Now, the places unseen served him as new angles to strike from.

Walton didnt sigh much in life. Matters big and small passed through him, his vessel more gate than person, accepting of all, and turning to face each situation with measured intensity. For him to reveal such strain now roused dread and curiosity within Avo, the emotions a chill spreading up through his bones. +Im not going to talk about it without you seeing. You should see my mistake for yourself and decide how you feel. I know youre not well, thats not your fault. You never asked to be, but youre different. I made you different. I made a lot of things different.+

A pause lulled as Waltons face went distant. +Of all the symbols Ive carved into this world, youre about the only one I dont regret. Its not supposed to be my designation to think this way but you dont live amongst your enemies this long without learning something from them.+ A smirk came, it arrived a flicker, a shadow. +Third Law. Voidwatch had a saying about that from someone long passed called Newton. You should send an order to the EGI. Have it take you to see the core. Youll see what I did there.+The initial posting of this chapter occurred via Ñøv€l-B!n.

The effigy of the man froze there. Hesitation found Avo before will did, his reluctance to proceed fixated on his fathers savaged form. Rising from the throne, he ignored the warnings cast into his mind by the hive as to better look upon the man he knew as father. He never remembered Walton to be so small, so shriveled in stature and life. Halfway into deaths embrace, the fourth of the Low Masters still possessed an inquisitive shine to his eyes. Where flesh failed, his will was never quenched.

Blanketed by his old coat, Walton slouched under the weight of countless suppurating pseudo-wombs as Avo regarded his father with new eyes. Something between them was irrevocably broken. After the incident in the Bazaar, even by proxy, to kill ones own kinown god!was a mutilation of the spirit where only two paths could follow.

Suicide, or transformation.

Changed, augmented, and ascended, the Godclad ghoul stared down at a shadow of a man who fled from his own duty, his own design, even his other selves. All that given away, just to see his child made powerful?

Why, Avo asked, uncomprehending. The power of his Soul sang within him, a steady rippling radiance growing vaster by the day. But if this could have been granted to him, it meant another one of Waltons nodes could have taken the Frame for themselves. Or given it to Zein.

You will never know the answer with that one, Zein said. She added a scoff afterward to dissuade Avo from thinking she was complimenting Walton. The knowings Walton earned across the long stretch of his life is more than words can convey. You are more symbol to him than person. Atonement perhaps. Or an idealized form of that he lost, resurrected and ascended to deification.

That which he lost, Avo said. He considered Zeins words. A single name came back to him, pushing past all he spoke of with the Hungers. Avohakten?

He did not read certainty on Zeins face. Perhaps, though even I know little of his tale. Nor do I care. Thousandhand shrugged. It was of little concern to me. I would have only been interested if my love told me to kill them. Jaus was the one that cared. Him. And only him.

A wisp of sadness leaked into the Nether, but in its wake, the waters of hope stained the periphery of the emotion bleeding out.

Glancing at Waltons frozen face once more, Avo turned back to the task and cast out his command.

HELIX ACTIVATING

TRANSITIONING TO EGI CORE

The chamber they were in did not move suddenly. Nor did they ascend like an elevator. Rather, parts of asymmetric staircases tore away from the walls in series, particulates splitting as the steps turned parallel with the walls, backs fusing into eight main columns. Then, the steps spilled down, washing down and past the command nexus.

Within his mind, he saw that the command nexus was but a small bowl protected by layers upon layers of smart-matter hulling. They were located kilometers deep and the room itself was formed from countless minute pieces. Like blood cells. Technology here resembled biology closer than he first anticipated.

There is a poetry to eternity, the Woundshaper murmured. A rhythm that comes to every eon. When you have lived and learned and suffered and slaked every pleasure there is to please, every pleading desire within, some time afterward, perhaps in another place altogether, you find yourself faced with a moment of uncanny symmetry. Such is the tapestry of existence.

Reaching out, the Hungers shuddered as Avo tried to understand just what was happening with them. He saw no ghosts flow out from it. He saw it take nothing from those who died.

+Dont look for reason where there is none, son,+ Walton said, shaking his head. A frown of shame shadowed his face. +Everything that happened here was just a ceremony. Something that we thought would offer us more guidance.+ He laughed. +Me, and the ones I served both. You know the Hungers are religious. Its absurd to say. Gods usually are seen as the endpoint of the thaumic pipeline but I was a priest to an esoteric cult, and I mean that in the deepest sense possible.+

Why? Such was the question Avo had for his father. Was it ignorance?

The answer came thereafter. +I suppose already knew we were just killing people for the rote of it. I had a son once. A blood son. Iuh.+ Waltons lip quivered. +There was a war in Noloth. A war before all the others. A war with ourselves. The hive can tell you about the details. Ill just lie about parts of it. It came down to me and my faithful on the side of the Hungers, and my son, Avohakten well, he decided he wanted nothing to do with that.+

Back in the memory, someone handed Walton a knife. It was the same kind of blade that the two sacrifices used to finish themselves. The girls voice turned mouselike, squeaking.

+I killed him,+ Walton said. A quavering breath left him. +I killed my boy. And not even for a real god.+

The blade descended andto Avos surpriseshattered against flesh. Walton stumbled back, hissing as jagged pieces bit into him. The girl, meanwhile, coughed as if she had been struck by a hammer than a blade.

Walton chuckled at that back in the real, seemingly shaking his head at his prior folly. +Her name was Sarah Myers. She was from a place called Mars, I believe. I didnt know this at the time, but I just tried to stab someone with combat-grade nanosuites with a brittle piece of crystal. I was a fool. A damned fool. If you can see the Hungers drifting over me, theyre telling me to find another knife and try again, cursing at me for not believing enough in the promise of paradise.+

The memory shuddered. Time skipped forward. Daggers broke, and in their place came actual blades, first mundane, then god-touched.

+It took me three days to finally kill her. I bled her out. By the second, she had somehow learned my language and was begging me directly to spare her. I understood her, and I still cut into her. The thought was to use her as an offering to the Hungersto feed her mind to their consensus so they would understand the secrets within this place. It worked.+ Waltons face turned ashen. +It worked+

And suddenly, in the place of the girl were countless other members of the crew. Each by each they were bled. No improvements were made to the process of butchery; the ritual was repeated in rote repetitions as if the mistakes themselves were deemed sacred by the Hungers.

They parted the bodies of their implants and unclasped the flesh from bones. One hundred. Two hundred. Three. And then the sacrifices stopped. Suddenly, the scene was different again, and Walton was standing in the middle of the ship, looking at rows of cryopods grown into the wall, the structure like a hive, a honeycomb.

+You know the worst thing about serving the Hungers,+ Walton said, gazing off into the distance. Another one of his rashes popped. This time, Avo could hear the soft cries of the homunculi. +Theyre uninterested in the truth. Theyre uninterested in the true nature of things. I suppose thats what happens when you make an eternally self-repeating city from all those marked of the noble caste. The voiders were a sign there was a time before us. But to the Hungers, we had to be the eldest city, the first city, the first civilization. And it so it came to be that the voidships were a Nolothi invention and that this was a birthright was just kind of forgot.

A chuckle of disbelief escaped him. He shook his head.



+As for what followed. Ask the EGI to show you the extension.+

Avo did, and the arms connected to the core went transparent as well.

He saw them. All them. The remaining members of the crew. Their bodies twitched like wrinkled fruits on grapevines, the branches made from the purest crystal. There were thousands of them. More. Much more. Each one had tubes grafted into them, their shapes disfigured but their survival was ensured by being fused to the ship, to the core.

+Even after drinking those minds, the Hungers still didnt fully know how this place worked. I doubt the crew did either. Whatever that core was, there was a lot more to it before it went down. Even now, were using the living crew as extensions. Scaffolding. Interfacing points for our ghosts.+ Walton turned, then, seeming to gaze out the window as well. +Theyre still aware, you know. Still aware somewhere inside. But theres nothing left of them to protest. Not since we modified their minds after.+

Walton gave a chuckle. +You know the funny thing is, this might not even be the worse thing I did to these people.+

Some part of Avo wanted the tour to stop. He didnt want the Low Masters and Walton to join. He didnt want atrocity to be the last thing he knew of his father.

He was supposed to be the ghoul. The monster.

Walton should have been pure.

Someone should have.

+Youll see when we get to the cloning pool,+ Walton said. +Youll understand.+