by Various
First, he turned to Chant. “Why did you not give the key to me? Do you know why Trial took it from you?”
“I asked Splendid Dust why he wanted Lifeworkers,” she said. “I would have come regardless, because of the Librarian’s request. Splendid Dust said that long-ago rumors suspected that the . . . that Abaddon was alive, in some way. Once I saw what was happening, how Abaddon was re-creating our own, familiar technology in a more organic fashion, I realized it was learning from us. And . . . I suspected it needed a template of some sort to be revived.” Not repaired, he noted. “I think Trial believed as I did, that Abaddon needed a Lifeworker mind, or genetic pattern, or something from one of us. She had always told me that the most important thing in life was how one faced one’s trials. And she did not want me to sacrifice myself.”
Their eyes met. Bornstellar longed to speak his heart . . . but not now, not in front of Splendid Dust, to whom he currently turned his attention.
“Chant was wrong,” the former First Councilor said. “I did not intend to sacrifice a Lifeworker. I merely believed we needed them with us, perhaps to advise, to see something a Builder or a Warrior-Servant or an Engineer wouldn’t.”
“Did you know slotting in the key would be lethal to the one who did so?”
Splendid Dust shook his head. “I thought it might be. I didn’t know. I still don’t understand what happened. I don’t know if it even worked. Trial and Voices and Glory and Finder could all have died for nothing.”
“But yet you let Chant take the key.”
Splendid Dust nodded. “I failed you all. As I have failed so many. As we all did. It was too powerful, and I felt too much remorse. And so I stayed, to let Abaddon judge me.” He lifted his eyes to Bornstellar. “We did so many things wrong. We were so foolish, Bornstellar. So unspeakably arrogant. We thought we knew everything, and in reality, we knew nothing.”
Bornstellar did not contradict him. Splendid Dust looked away for a moment, as if upon the ancient suns that gave him part of his name. “I want to do something I know will help the Reclaimers.” He cleared his throat, straightened himself, and met Bornstellar’s gaze. “I agree that the Forerunners need to leave this galaxy.”
Bornstellar listened, having no idea where he was going with this.
“We will leave the Ark to the Reclaimers. But they will not understand it, not right away. They will need a . . . not a guide so much as an interpreter. Someone to share what the Forerunners have learned. I want that interpreter to be me.”
“But how?” And then, with an awful certainty, Bornstellar knew.
So did Chant, who tensed beside him. “Splendid Dust, you cannot be serious,” she said.
“I am. The . . . Abaddon . . . We did that to it.”
“No. Mendicant Bias did that, not us,” Bornstellar said.
“But we made Mendicant Bias!” His voice broke. “Our technology! Forerunner technology! We didn’t listen to him when he attempted to ask for help—we were blind to what the Gravemind was doing to him. We failed Mendicant Bias. And we failed Abaddon. It gave us the Domain. For eons, it had only ever been helpful to us. And we . . . I do not want to let the humans down as well. Therefore, I will stay behind. In the only way I can, I will stay. And I will wait for the Reclaimers to come.”
Splendid Dust had been a politician, one used to interacting with others. It would be more difficult for him than most to adjust to centuries, perhaps millennia, utterly on his own.
“You will be completely alone,” Bornstellar warned.
“I accept that. I want to atone.”
Like Trial, and Chant. Like Mendicant Bias. Like me. Like everyone . . . except the Didact. Who am I to deny him the chance?
“Then you shall.”
Splendid Dust accepted the act of being composed with more dignity and grace than he had ever displayed hitherto. Bornstellar wept and was unashamed. He thought of Guilty Spark, once a human known as Chakas. Once his friend.
Toward the end, Splendid Dust had been his friend too.
“I name you the protector and guardian of the Lesser Ark. You will keep it safe for the true inheritors of the Mantle. Any thoughtlessness, or cruelty, or arrogance is washed clean from you now. Yours is not—cannot be—a happy end. And thus I name you Tragic Solitude . . . for you shall be alone, and your noble sacrifice shall aid the Reclaimers . . . but in doing so, it shall break what is left of your heart.”
“Thank you, Bornstellar-Makes-Eternal-Lasting,” said the hovering monitor, its single eye unwavering. His voice was familiar now; in time, it would become more mechanical. In time, he would forget Splendid-Dust-of-Ancient-Suns.
But the Forerunners, wherever they would be, under an ancient or perhaps a young sun, would always remember.
With Tragic Solitude now the Ark’s caretaker, the final duties of the last Forerunners in the galaxy dwindled to an accessible few. The vessels were checked again, the options discussed, the holographic simulations run two or three times more.
In the midst of the bustling activity, Bornstellar and Chant had carved out time to be alone. As they lay quietly together, without armor, their hearts fully open and their unprotected skin so sensitive to each other’s touch, they spoke of Trial. Bornstellar recounted to Chant of Trial’s words in his head, and Chant revealed that she too had been addressed.
“It was Trial, but also not her. I do not know if she was destroyed, or integrated, or . . . or something else. Abaddon is far beyond even our best guess. But I think she did it, Bornstellar. Trial let us keep our promise. I think the Domain will recover, in time.”
“But not in time for Forerunners.” The thought, oddly, did not distress him. He glanced over at their discarded armor and mused if, in whatever brave new world awaited them, they would choose to leave it behind on the ship.
“What will it be like in our new galaxy, I wonder?” Chant said.
He looked into her eyes and placed her hand on his chest.
“It will be like this,” he said. And smiled.
SHADOW OF INTENT
* * *
* * *
JOSEPH STATEN
This story takes place in 2553 following the Great Schism, a sudden and violent civil war within the Covenant alliance (Halo 2: Anniversary), and in the wake of the thirty-year-long Covenant campaign against mankind (Halo 3).
The longer the countdown went, the more the bunker smelled like fear.
The Prelate scowled at the two Jiralhanae looming beside him. One was covered with rust-red hair, and the other with dirty white. Both warriors were so tall that they had to duck their helmeted heads to keep from banging them on the bunker’s low, flat ceiling. The thickly muscled, sharp-toothed Brutes stood still and silent, like monuments to violence. But all male Jiralhanae were prone to pungent pheromones that mirrored their emotions, and now, so close to the activation of the device, these usually fearless creatures’ panicked stench permeated the cramped, dark room.
The Prelate, Tem’Bhetek, wanted to shout a reprimand. He had handpicked the two Jiralhanae for their strength and mental fortitude. And besides: they were adults, certainly mature enough to regulate their pheromones. But Tem held his tongue, partly because he didn’t want to startle the insectile Yanme’e nervously monitoring the device’s final activation sequence, but mostly because the Prelate knew the Jiralhanae weren’t the real cause of his slowly building rage.
As much as the Prelate’s nostrils recoiled at his warriors’ sharp, sour scent, it was the noise filling his lobeless ears that made him truly angry. A noise that rose over the rapid clicking of the Yanme’e’s claws on the luminous glyphs shining through the surface of the bunker’s obsidian walls. A noise that muted the rumble of the device in the test chamber many levels above. A noise so infuriating that the Prelate finally broke his silence with a strangled hiss: “Why would they sing at a time like this?”
The Minister of Preparation shrugged inside his dark orange robes. His high, thin voice was full of concentration. “We
never understood each other. Not really.”
Both the Minister and the Prelate were San’Shyuum, hairless, slick-skinned creatures with elongated necks that thrust forward from between their shoulders. They shared their species’ large, amphibian eyes. But the Prelate’s eyes were two different colors: one dark green and the other deep blue. Considered auspicious in earlier ages, this trait now marked the Prelate as a member of a genetic line that was overbred and out of fashion.
The Minister, Boru’a’Neem, was two decades older than the Prelate, violet-eyed with a pronounced waddle of fleshy sacks that dangled from his chin. The two had the same pale-gray skin, but the Minister’s was deeply wrinkled and bunched down his skull and along his neck like the meat of a freshly shelled nut. In the tradition of most San’Shyuum of his age and exalted rank, the Minister sat hunched in a bowl-shaped titanium throne that floated above the floor with the help of embedded anti-gravity units. The Prelate stood on his own two feet, his broad shoulders and wiry arms held tight against his black tunic as he glared past the Minister at a holographic projector integrated into the bunker’s primary control surface.
There, in a flickering pillar of lavender light, were the small-scale images of three Sangheili warriors, stripped of their armor and kneeling with their arms bound behind their backs. The Prelate knew the display was one-way; the Sangheili in the test chamber couldn’t see or hear anything inside the bunker. But their leader, a muscular, middle-aged warrior with light-brown skin and bright amber eyes, stared directly at the recording unit, proud and unafraid, as he led his companions in song.
“Do you know the words?” the Minister asked.
“I do not,” replied the Prelate.
“Sangheili, to be sure, but they have so many dialects. Perhaps it’s a battle anthem. . . .” The Minister’s voice trailed off as a line of glyphs scrolled rapidly across the control surface. His fingers fluttered against the intricate symbols, rotating them back and forth to fine-tune the device’s charging sequence. “No matter. This will be their final verse.”
The Sangheili hadn’t sung at first. Indeed, the two younger warriors had bellowed in pain when the Jiralhanae slashed the tendons above their large cloven feet to bring them to their knees, a practical cruelty to keep them from moving too far from the device. The Sangheili leader had said nothing, barely moving his four interlocking jawbones when the Jiralhanae made their cuts. When this stoic Elite refused to fall, the Prelate ordered his Jiralhanae to smash his knees with their armored fists—but, even then, the amber-eyed warrior hadn’t said a word.
It wasn’t until power began to surge to the device, and the younger Sangheili had begun to groan with fear, that their elder finally cleared his throat and started singing. Soon all three were joined in defiant harmony.
The Prelate clenched his fists. I should have ordered my Jiralhanae to cut their throats as well. But the Minister had been clear: the test would be worthless if the Sangheili were already dead when he activated the device.
Near the Minister, the last of the glyphs pulsed and stabilized. The walls of the bunker began to vibrate as the device held its charge. The Jiralhanae growled and the Yanme’e chittered in anticipation as the Minister lifted a single, long finger . . . and gently pressed the static surface of the final glyph.
The Prelate had expected a sound, something spectacularly loud when the device fired. But instead there was a deafening silence, an aural vacuum that seemed to pull every other sound into it. The growling, clicking, singing—even the Prelate’s surprised intake of breath—were sucked out of existence as the holographic view of the test chamber filled with blinding light.
And yet, as the light faded, a ghostly chorus remained. An echo of the Sangheili song rang in the Prelate’s ears for the long minutes it took the Yanme’e to deactivate all the bunker’s warning and containment systems. Then the Minister led them all through a series of thick, saw-toothed shield doors to a gravity lift that whisked them up to the test chamber, where they inspected what remained of the Sangheili.
“Nothing, in fact,” the Minister of Preparation said, carefully inspecting an analysis of the chamber’s air, scrolling up the arm of his throne. “I would say vaporized. But that would mean trace particles remain.” One corner of the Minister’s wide mouth curled into a smile. “They are, simply, gone.”
The Prelate watched as the Yanme’e fluttered on iridescent wings around the device: a ring of marbled onyx, ten meters high and honeycombed with glinting circuits.
The ring stood in the middle of the test chamber, a long room with white, pearlescent walls that angled together high above. This place and everything in it was the creation of the Forerunners: an ancient, vanished race that both the San’Shyuum and Sangheili worshipped as gods—or, rather, used to. For while their shared faith had been the foundation of the Covenant, this millennia-old alliance between the San’Shyuum and Sangheili was recently and irreversibly broken. The device, a miniature version of one of the Forerunners’ seven sacred Halo rings, no longer held any religious significance for the Prelate. Now it was an object to be feared, not revered. And he truly hoped the three Sangheili warriors had felt terror before the end.
“My lord,” the rust-haired Jiralhanae asked the Minister, his gruff voice halting and unsure, “is it possible, perhaps, that the prisoners could have—”
“Their journey was short and led to nowhere,” the Prelate snapped. “Signal the ship and tell them it’s safe to approach. Once we’re aboard, we depart immediately.”
The Jiralhanae shared a dissatisfied glance with his white-haired companion, but they both bowed their heads and retreated from the test chamber across the stretch of floor where the Sangheili used to be. The Prelate noted that even the pools of indigo blood from the Sangheili’s wounds were gone, and the Jiralhanae’s shaggy feet left no prints as they walked the length of the chamber and disappeared into a passage beyond.
“They refuse to understand, no matter how many times I tell them,” the Prelate said.
“Can you blame them?” the Minister replied. “The Jiralhanae’s belief in the Forerunners was stronger than that of anyone in the Covenant. In less than three ages, we lifted them from savagery to starships. They believed—as we all once did—that the Halo rings would open the path to godhood.” He waved a hand over the arm of his throne, blanking the test results. “Do you remember what the Prophet of Truth used to say?”
With as much calm as he could muster, Tem’Bhetek recited one of the deceased Covenant leader’s better-known aphorisms: “ ‘There is nothing stronger than the conviction of the newly converted.’ ”
Boru’a’Neem settled deeper into his throne. His reedy voice was tired, but his words still had all the precision of a practiced politician. “Truth said and did many unfortunate things, but he was right about the Jiralhanae. They will do anything you command, so long as they believe. And while this test may have shaken what remains of their faith in the Great Journey, it has proven, without a doubt, the validity of our plan and the clarity of our purpose.”
The Prelate stared hard at the miniature Halo.
Revenge.
In a flutter of waxy wings, the Yanme’e pulled away from the ring. The Prelate could see a large crack in one of its marbled veins where some of the embedded circuits had burned away. Yanme’e were clever, and in swarms even more so, but this damage far exceeded their technical ability. The Drones hovered nervously until the Minister released them with a swift hand signal, and then they buzzed down a wide shaft behind the ring to examine how the Forerunner power systems buried deeper in the installation had weathered the test-firing.
When they had arrived here, many weeks ago, the Minister of Preparation had painstakingly trained the Yanme’e in their tasks. But the truth was not even Boru’a’Neem, a San’Shyuum renowned for his ability to pick apart and repurpose Forerunner relics, truly understood how this particular device worked. Until recently, the Halo rings had been legend—articles of faith, not somethi
ng anyone in the Covenant had ever seen. It was only after a Halo had been found and activated, briefly, that this installation and others like it had revealed themselves on the Luminaries and other scanning equipment of Covenant deep-space survey ships.
“If only Truth had told me about this installation sooner. . . .” The Minister tugged at one of the many loose threads in his robe. The heavy garment was embellished with platinum brocade that used to dazzle but was now grimy and tattered. They had been on the run ever since the fall of the holy city, High Charity, several months ago. The Minister hadn’t slept for days as he prepared to test-fire the device, and now some of the Prelate’s anger crept into Boru’a’Neem’s voice as he considered the ring with his weary eyes. “I could have transported this prototype to High Charity—brought all the resources of my Sacred Promissory to bear! But that’s all gone now. Wasted.”
The Prelate flinched, seized with a sudden sadness. He heard the faint echo of a different song. . . .
The Minister softened his tone. “Forgive me, Tem’Bhetek. My losses were nothing compared to yours.”
“Many died that day, my lord.”
“But I did not. And for that, I am forever in your debt.”
The Minister dipped his long neck and head, tipping slightly forward in his throne. The Prelate bowed in response, although muscle memory encouraged him to kneel. According to the old Covenant hierarchy, the Minister Boru’a’Neem was many times his better. Tem’Bhetek was a soldier, the Minister’s sworn protector. But after Tem had accomplished their escape from High Charity, Boru’a’Neem had made things clear: they were now partners, with different but equally important parts to play in the execution of their plan.
“Bring the Half-Jaw and his ship to me,” the Minister said. He nudged his throne close to the Prelate, reached up, and placed his hands on the younger San’Shyuum’s shoulders. “And I promise: we will make the Sangheili pay for everything they have done.”