Previously…

“Dad? Dad!”

With a startled jerk, Karambit looked up to see the petite worried face of his haokah daughter. A grimace escaped him as he noticed that his subjective internal chronometer was off by at least half an hour.  #wha…what’s happening?#

The dark-haired haokah girl – almost a woman now at seventeen winters of age, with a pair of magnificent antlers beginning to take shape – gestured at the large viewport before her. “There’s someone out there.”

Karambit got up from his seat, his cyclo-pneumatic joints whirring and clicking at the seams as it lifted his aged frame. He glared at the image of the outside world that the viewport allowed, frowning as he took in the large mound of white dust that stood in the path of their vehicle. #so there were chirals in this region# he mused. Then his eyes went wide as they fell on the figure lying face-down on top of the mound.

“The scanners say that he’s still alive. Just barely, but alive.” Guam gave him a questioning look with a hand on a blinking button that rested on the control bank of the gypsy rig. “Should we…?”

#yeah, bring him in# His own words sounded strange to his ears, as if they came from someone else.

Guam punched the button. “You heard the captain, Rett. Go get him.”

A series of thumps across the roof of the rig informed Karambit of the third member of the crew’s whereabouts. “Yeah, yeah. Keep your pants on,” came the bored voice of Rett Solder. A moment later, a tall figure in an all-white protective hardsuit bearing the legend ‘C.H.I.’ on its back jumped down into view. Rett scrambled up the heap of powdery dust, his helmeted head swinging left and right as he kept a lookout for trouble. Karambit barely noticed him; his gaze was solely fixed on the figure in the black-and-silver form-fitting outfit, limbs splayed out awkwardly in a bloody mess. In the pilot seat, his daughter looked from the scene to the battered old machina, a look of concern visible on her face.

“You ok, Dad?”

#i’m fine# he lied without thinking. Had he been a completely organic construct, his trembling body would have given him away.

Guam opened her mouth to say something, hesitated, then wisely decided to keep it shut. She looked on as Rett scooped up the body in his arms, flinging it over a shoulder before starting the walk-run back to safety. “What do you think happened here?” she asked eventually.

Karambit said nothing, for he was already heading towards the door.

Rett got the Nihei’s onboard Mobius to work with a kick and a few choice swear words. He dropped the dying man’s body into the machine, then stepped back as it closed its own lid in jerky starts, activating its internal mechanisms in a sound like a jet engine taking off.

“Well, it should take about -” He leaned over the metal sarcophagus to check the sigils ticking across the surface of the lid. “- two hours and forty-four minutes, give or take.”

#i see# said the machina captain of the gypsy rig Nihei.

Rett blinked. His superior stood by one end of the Mobius, staring down as if he were scanning the body laid inside. “Uh boss? You doing ok? You look a little spooked.”

#i’m fine# Karambit said, with an angry edge in his voice. He looked up at the only golem member of the crew as if seeing him for the first time. #you should be sterilizing that suit. Do you know how hard they are to get these days?#

Rett threw his hands up. “Ok boss, I’m going. I’m going already. Yeesh.” He slowly backed up to the door, watching as his boss went back to staring at the Mobius. Shaking his head, he slapped the keypad next to the door, then hurriedly stepped out of the room. The door swished shut behind him, cutting off his view.

In the corridor outside the miniature rebirth chamber, Guam was waiting with her back against the wall. She looked up as Rett walked up to her, her worried look replaced by a slight scowl. “Well? How is he?”

“Eh, he’ll survive. He’s not as badly hurt as the wounds suggest. Sure fooled me when I first saw him.”

“Not him. I meant Dad.”

Rett scratched his head. “I dunno. Weirded out, I think. I mean, he’s not getting any younger and he’s always spaced out now but…” The golem glanced back at the chamber’s door, frowning. “I’ve never seen him like that before.”

Guam’s scowl grew deeper. “It’s because of that stupid vision.”

“Eh?”

The haokah sighed, and there was a note of sorrow in the sound. Her lilac-colored gaze shifted to the ceiling. “Remember when we were kids and had to stop over at the cultists’ place?”

Rett flashed a lopsided grin. “Yeah. The good old days with Captain Hayate and Kiri.” Then the grin froze, transforming into a wide-eyed look of comprehension. “Oh shit,” he said. “That day…”

Guam nodded. “He’d probably forgotten all about it like he’s forgotten about Janbiyah. Heck, even I don’t remember much of it. But seeing that man…it’s brought it all back to him now.”

“The vision of the end.”

Karambit awoke when the rig’s intercom squealed to life. “Captain! We have a situation!”

#damn it# he swore as he shot to his feet, knocking over the chair that Rett had brought for him. He swiftly swept a scrutinizing gaze over the rest of the rebirth chamber, noticing the open steel sarcophagus of the Mobius and the busted remains of the door. He relieved himself of some more vulgar phrases as he proceeded to run out of the room, dark and dangerous thoughts swirling within his cognitive circuits. If he’s laid a hand on her…!

Somewhere in the cold mothering darkness of the beyond, his sister was laughing at him.

He made his way to the bridge of the rig, bursting upon a scene straight from a mixture of the distant past and his coldest nightmares. The indigo-haired golem they had rescued stood with an oddly humming blade placed at the neck of his adopted daughter. Just a few steps off to the side, Rett had a bolt rifle out and trained on the stranger’s temple, still dressed in the hardsuit sans helmet. Furrows in the walls and ceiling and Rett’s hardsuit assembled a picture of the fight in the machina’s wizened synthetic neural cortex.

#stand down, son# In spite of his choking rage, Karambit managed to force a modicum of calm into his tone of voice. #we’re not your enemy#

The stranger shifted a death-eyed gaze at him, an utterly expressionless look on his visage. Just like the vision, the unbidden thought ran across Karambit’s mind. “Where is this rig headed, junkie?”

#Nastrond, the last bit of civilization between this side of Drakonia and the core. Now please…just put down the sword#

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the infinitesimal hardening pull of the rifle trigger by Rett.

“Dad…” Guam’s eyes seemed to plead with him.

For the second time that day, Karambit was shocked into silence as the stranger lowered his weapon, then flicked it into the sheath at his back. Both Guam and her father breathed a sigh of relief.

“I need to…”

With a cry Rett sprang into action, swinging his rifle around like a club. The stranger went down without a sound.

At the end of the Quietlands rose a wall, sheer and impossibly smooth, topping out at eleven hundred feet. Atop the wall lay the settlement of Nastrond; a haphazard scattering of low misshapen buildings fashioned out of synthesized coralite, all surrounding a large towering obelisk structure from which a hazy blue beam pierced at the eternal starlight sky. The wall was just one face of a colossal cylinder, the base of which was riddled with tunnels like the roots of a tree digging into the soil.

A tree, she mused to herself, was not a bad analogy for the final bastion of civilization on Drakonia.

She soared high above the settlement, her wings stretched to their fullest by the warm air currents that radiated from the obelisk. She took care not to get too close to Nastrond; a stinging burn across her left cheek reminded her of the extent of the invisible protective barrier that surrounded the small city. She sailed in a slow repetitive loop as she pondered over her next course of action, half-heartedly keeping watch over the ball of inky black liquid that swirled in her left hand. Far below, the inferior beings – some organic, some not – went about their meaningless existence without care or worry. And how could they not, when they lived in the shadow of one that was scalebound?

She frowned at the mere thought of those cold-blooded kin of hers.

Here, he is here…Zen is here…

She came to a dead stop in mid-air, hovering in one spot. The remnants of the other one’s consciousness plagued her from time to time like a rotten tooth, but occasionally it helped her inadvertently. She smiled as a plan began to take shape in her mind. Humming a tune that she had no idea what it was about, she swooped in closer, as close as she could dare. Then she dropped off her package, flaring her wings out in time to arrest her fall before she plunged headfirst into the pulse barrier. She watched the package’s plummet with a satisfied grin.

“Now this should be fun,” she said.

Karambit sat in the pilot’s chair alone, the warm electron glow of screens scattered across the Nihei’s control bank washed over his plated face. A series of cables extruded from his chest, plugging into the available ports on the bank’s left hand side. The old machina sat back in the padded chair, his face buried in one hand like a man in thought.

A set of steady footfalls caused him to raise his head. A jerky whirring sound accompanied his motion.

#so you’re awake then#

The young golem they had rescued stood still for a moment, looking around the cockpit. “Where are the others?”

#off to get supplies# With a weary sigh, Karambit unplugged himself from the control bank, retracting the cables into their sockets in his solar plexus. #we’re in Nastrond#

“I see.”

Sighing once more, the ancient machina stood up, turning around to face the young man. Even then, he found the golem’s silver eyes unnerving. #your name is Zendar, right?# The golem said nothing. #i’m Karambit, formerly of Tangray…a town that was destroyed long before you were born. You’ve already met my engineer and shiprat, Rett, as well as my daughter Guam#

The slightest of nods met his words.

He walked over and past the one named Zendar. #c’mon. Walk with me for a bit, won’t ya?#

The young man fell into step a little way behind him as he climbed out of the gypsy rig. They emerged in a large hangar-like space, filled with other vehicles of varying sizes and configurations. Most of them were covered in a layer of dust, while a few – like several other gypsy rigs not unsimilar to Nihei – looked well-worn from constant use.  The pair walked in silence between the parked vehicles for a while, but eventually Karambit began to speak;

#You hunt them down don’t you?#

“What are you talking about?” Zendar asked back.

#The scalebound#

The golem stopped in his tracks, and half a moment later, so did the old machina. “How do you – ?”

#once I had a sister. Something close to the meatbag meaning of the word anyway. Her name was Janbiyah# Karambit looked away under the youth’s dispassionate stare. #she had a gift. An unusual one, which allowed her ‘glimpses’ into the future. Most of my kind denounced her talent, and she was banished from home for it. When she was dying, she briefly passed the gift onto me, allowing a glance into the eternal#

The machina held Zendar’s gaze with his own, a firm unyielding gleam burnishing in the depths of his eyes. #what I saw there…was you#

The golem said nothing. His lips were a thin humorless line on his face.

They started walking again, weaving their way through the maze of vehicles. #i saw your future, Zendar, amd I witnessed how it would cross my path on this day. And yet# Karambit exhaled. #and yet it did not come to pass as I saw it, and honestly I don’t know what to make of it. An old friend of mine told me that the future was not set in stone, and I didn’t use to believe in these illogical superstitions…but Janbiyah…she had not been wrong about the visions she witnessed towards the end#

“I’m sorry,” Zendar said.

Karambit grunted. #eh, don’t mind this old-timer. Just a little world-weariness talking, that’s all#

The pair strode in the direction of the hangar’s large doors. Two tall figures in black armor stood by the entrance, with greatswords almost as long as they were tall hanging off their backs and a dark shield covering the length of their left forearm. The mirror smooth faces of their helmets turned to observe the two men as they walked past them, a strange flickering horizontal line of light flashing underneath the surface of the helmet.

#enforcers# There was a mild distaste in Karambit’s voice at the mention of the word. #never could get used to them, despite our glorious overlords’ encouraging words#

Zendar grunted by way of acknowledgement.

As they stepped out into the outdoors, Karambit continued, #this quest…this mission of yours…it will fail. I’m sorry, son. I don’t need no fortune telling to know that much. The Ancients…they left a long time ago, moved on without us. Our world, Drakonia, is all we have and the scalebound helped make it so. Getting close to them will get you burned and I know you do this for that girl’s sake but…#

“I need to get to the inner core,” Zendar said.

For a moment, the machina was quiet. Then he chuckled. #there’s no stopping you, is there? Well then…#

Two things happened at that instant, almost simultaneously. The first was that the catan at Zendar’s back came to life with a double-click sound. The second was that an explosion from somewhere not too far off rocked the ground beneath their feet. Zendar caught the machina before he could fall over, and looked up to see a plume of orange-tinged smoke rising into the air only a hundred and eight feet away to the south.

#3PO’s golden turd, what is going on?!# Karambit sputtered.

“Trouble,” Zendar growled as he pulled out his blade.

The dragonslayer prepares for battle! The first arc of the journey draws to a close…