Godclads

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, let’s start with a few things,+ Walton said, glancing sidelong at the small mutilated version of himself writhing on the ground. +I’m sure you’ve figured out this isn’t any old tower floating in the dark. It’s a ship. Older than those under Voidwatch, I figure. You’re going to want to access its command functions now if you haven’t. It’ll make the next part easier. You always were more of a hands-on learner, so you should get used to the instrument. You’ll be using it a lot.+

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

+There’s 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. There’s 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 Walton’s 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 didn’t 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. +I’m not going to talk about it without you seeing. You should see my mistake for yourself and decide how you feel. I know you’re not… well, that’s not your fault. You never asked to be, but you’re different. I… made you different. I made a lot of things different.+

The effigy of the man froze there. Hesitation found Avo before will did, his reluctance to proceed fixated on his father’s 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 death’s 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 one’s own kin–own 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 Walton’s 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 Zein’s words. A single name came back to him, pushing past all he spoke of with the Hungers. “Avohakten?”

He did not read certainty on Zein’s 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 Walton’s 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.”

Series of locks sounded as the stairs finished forming along the chamber. Brightly lit fabrics bearing the eight planet insignia hanging around them shivered as a hum of something ran through the walls. And then, a thin veil formed overhead, pouring down like a transparent sheen. Something snapped into place.

Spreading his awareness wide with his Heaven of Wind, Avo sensed the surge lancing through the structure around him before the hive even filtered the knowledge over.

The ship was reconfiguring its organs to something of a rail line, converting the steps into railings and remolding the shape of their chamber in totality.

A light lurch greeted him. A velocity vector flashed in the corner of his interface.

100 KM/H

Their acceleration rose fast, but he felt little of the drag, the ground itself conspiring against physics as the depression beneath his feet helped cup him in place. Using the chance to examine the ship itself through the various feeds, he found himself drifting through emptied halls and quivering gray hallways.

Small cells lined the walls. There were communal areas that shuttled aside upon their approach. The ship held as much control over its own internal architecture as he did his blood using the Woundshaper. And there wasn’t even the touch of the divine about this place.

“There’s a testament if I’ve seen one,” Draus said. She was looking around as well, examing the material of the surfaces around her. “Always knew the voiders been holdin’ out on us. But this.” She gritted her teeth. “Yeah, that’s right. We were somebody even without the gods.”

A muted bemusement pulled Zein’s lips into a silent sneer.

It took little time for them to arrive at the EGI Core, its location but five kilometers toward the stern. Through sensor feeds connected to Specters connected to ghosts connected to hyper-advanced technology, Avo watched as walls melted into halls and checkpoints. Junctions built themselves ahead of time as something akin to a G-Tube platform.

Curiosity consumed him as he reached out with a strand of blood and felt the pattern around him. A stable structure greeted him. Silicon of a strange nature. Silicon and no more. Perhaps with more memories could he match the versatility of this vessel, but as of now, it possessed a means to feed him properties of different pieces of matter. He need but consider–

He considered adding the structure of a locus to his Canon of Memory. He considered the locus embedded in the throne, but stopped himself. He would check the other thrones later. If they would not do, then the aerovec would present a consumable option.

Perhaps there was something here. Something that could allow him to augment his threat potential in the Nether while still keeping his profile low.

ARRIVED AT EGI CORE

A loud note pealed through the room suddenly as they came to a halt. As the protective dome shielding them melted away, they found themselves standing before a vast pane of crystalline glass–the properties of the matter making the Woundshaper shiver with excitement. Beyond the limpid wall, however, a vast orb spun in layers of matter and fluid.

At its core, Avo thought he could see something swirling, the hive telling him it was some manner of ferromagnetic substance to help improve the non-newtonian computation efficiency of the governing intellect. Curved plates spun at an impossible rate while four large arms extended out to fuse into the walls of the vast assembly. Massive rods ejected an endless spew of heat into the spatial darkness, the temperature capable of reducing an entire megablock to molten slag in seconds.

Whatever it took to power this engine conventionally, it would be enough to unmake several districts should they be bereft the blessings of a sufficiently powerful Heaven.

Walton began speaking again then, his presence bleeding over into the hive as he materialized in the Nether as well. +When we found the core all those years ago, it was damaged. Leaking radiation. But thankfully dormant. I spent a hundred thousand slaves trying to march in and plug its gaps. A hundred thousand wasted lives. The solution came in the form of the flesh-carved that the Sang were offering at the time. They weren’t yet plagued by their gender split with their chrono-dynastic overlords then, so dealing with them was easy.+

Avo realized then that the Walton in the Nether was but a recollection. A replay of the past. A mirage of thousands of blood slaves, each marked by a pale owl painted onto their chest, flickered and broke within the EGI core. They barely lingered, the heat so intense it would have vaporized the screams leaving their cooking lungs.

Beasts took their place, most of the creatures rubbery in texture, with a few certain humanoid individuals behind them. Those looked like Essus. Like the boy Embers. Was that what his clade was called? Avo blinked. The father. The father had slipped from his mind again. How long had they let him linger? Looking within himself, the promise he made to the man hung like a weight chained to an unseen noose.

Just another reason to strip immortality from Mirrorhead.

+We didn’t know much about the nature of radiation then,+ Walton admitted. +But ignorance, as you might have learned, can be overcome through raw logistical output. I fed lives into this chamber as the Hungers studied the damage and tried to tease out its secrets. Necrotheurgy wasn't quite what it was now. Between us and the Ori Overclan, there were maybe a few thousand ghosts at the most. No phantasmics. Certainly no Nether. We had to do things a more direct way. Thankfully, we had help.+

The girl they pulled from stasis returned. She was not yet deed. Upon a sacrificial altar, she was placed and she thrashed against the thick chains, howling, crying out in fear and confusion. He watched as Walton–or the complete person that Walton had been–tread over to the struggling girl, the crystal impaled through his head casting a haze of thoughtstuff into the air, the faint visage of the Hungers drifting over him like a cloud.

In pristine white robes he was garbed, and on his back was the blackened shape of an owl smeared. Flanking his sides, filthy slaves knelt, openingly weeping as he tread upon every teardrop without fail. As he approached the altar, two muscular figures step forth and stilt their own throats.

The captive shrieked with terror as their blood spilled down, painting her red as waterfalls of blood gushed from their throats. Avo realized their daggers were both ceremonial and crystalline. The same structure as a locus. The same hue as that which was embedded in Walton’s skull in the past.

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.

+Don’t 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. It’s 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. I–uh.+ Walton’s 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. I’ll 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 girl’s 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 and–to Avo’s surprise–shattered 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 didn’t 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, they’re 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 Hungers–to feed her mind to their consensus so they would understand the secrets within this place. It worked.+ Walton’s 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. +They’re uninterested in the truth. They’re uninterested in the true nature of things. I suppose that’s 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 didn’t 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, we’re using the living crew as extensions. Scaffolding. Interfacing points for our ghosts.+ Walton turned, then, seeming to gaze out the window as well. +They’re still aware, you know. Still aware somewhere inside. But there’s 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 didn’t want the Low Masters and Walton to join. He didn’t 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.

+You’ll see when we get to the cloning pool,+ Walton said. +You’ll understand.+