Voidstalkers Prologue

Prologue

     “And you are certain of their meaning?”

     Yellow holographic glyphs swirled before his face in a virtual fountain, brilliant amber and transparent. High Eidolon Rollus Xeraan was a severe faced man, lined with creases of great age though not as many as his nearly three millennia should warrant. He was dressed humbly, in a simple soft grey linen robe that shimmered in the dancing light as though made of steel. It was due to the sacred metals woven through the fabric in microfibers that gave the sheen, an honour bestowed only to the highest ranking ecclesiarches of the faith. Such as the slender youthful man standing next to him, enrobed similarly but in a deep black that shimmered like volcanic glass. His head sported the neatly clipped bowl of the pious, jet black too, like the eyes set in his pallid white face.

     “Yes, your worship.” he responded. “Though you can read as such yourself, I'm sure.”

Xeraan merely nodded his bald head, lines deepening in a frown as he studied the whirling glyphs. His eyes flashed and sparked with the rapid light, the irises metallic gold. The eyes betrayed his race, whose ancestors founded the Promethean faith itself. It was fitting that he had attained the highest station of Eidolon, among the trillions of other enlightened spanning the enclaved worlds and systems of the galaxy.

     The chamber the two conversed within was vast, the high vaulted ceiling nearly lost in the haze of scented smokes of a hundred censers burning in sconces around the hall. Their fragrance permeated the air, inescapable, cloying. All walls and floor were made from a dull, brushed silvery metal, hard and cold. There was no obvious source of light in the chamber. No singular bright points illuminated the vast, almost cavern-like space, though no shadows adorned it from any angle. It was as though the very material of the place itself emitted a soft glow, so that no surface could escape the eye.
      The hall of illumination, it was called. One of many such great rooms within the thousands of latticed structures of the artificial planet. Across walls and floor and ceiling ran deep grooves, razor-straight lines in perfect geometric harmony with each other, etched into the metal by processes unknown and long forgotten. The lines made large patterns and shapes, interlocking trapezoids and perfect heptagons, lattices of seemingly crazed topography that made a strange symmetrical sense. No two lines crossed, however. Nor throughout the cavernous space was there one curving line. It was as though the entire place was a complex work of circuitry, which was fitting too, given its nature. He and this place. Both as they should be. Destined, like the prophetic hologram before his eyes.

     The glyphs too, suspended in a bright column in the centre of the floor seemed mechanical. The shapes like micro filaments in nanocircuitry, straight functional lines with sharp corners and sloped bridges. There was no obvious source of their projection. They merely hung there, scintillating before the two observers. Xeraan’s voice rang hard and low against the metal of the place.
     “The cleric who found it? Is he…”
     “Taken care of, your worship.” Voiced the younger man.

     “Good, good. This matter must be kept in the utmost secrecy, you understand. There is none other save you that I trust with this.”

     He broke off in contemplative silence to watched the dancing symbols once more, eyes flashing in reflection.
     “The key, Mathias. After all this time. The key to our progenitor’s ascension, within our grasp. How long I have waited.”
     “Two millennia, your worship.”

     “Two thousand, three hundred and eighty-three cycles.” Agreed the High Eidolon.

     “The Ancient Ones have hidden much from us, in their wisdom. Much we were not ready for, or that which was too powerful to be wielded by beings lowly as ourselves. All of that is about to change, my friend. Of all the wonders they left behind, this planet, this device was their chief triumph. And now, the machine wakes. Blessed are we.” His voice lowered to a hoarse, reverent whisper.
      “It has all led to this moment. I remember, clearly. Those long decades ago when we found this place. The ship Promethean. An apt name. There it hung, orbital rings shining in the sacred star Eyor’s rays. Perfectly still, immobile. Not orbiting, just… suspended. And now our ascension is at hand.”
     There was a light to Xeraan’s eyes, beyond the flashes and sparkles of the incessant stream of glyphs. It was fervent, enraptured. A burning of zeal that shone from within, rather than without. Beside him, Mathias remained silent. There was a look, a cast to his eyes too, though much different to his master’s. Xeraan spoke again.

     “Has the contract been sent?”

     The black robed man nodded.
     “Yes, Eidolon. they have given me repeated assurance that their top operatives only are privy to the contract. The key will be couriered at maximum haste, unblemished and unharmed. They guarantee it.”

     “Their most highly skilled operatives? We cannot afford mistakes with this Mathias. Not with this.”
     “It is as you requested, your worship. Classification Sigma.”

      High above them, the colossal rings of the artificial world turned in orbit.

 

*

 

     “It’s Sigma classification.” Rumbled Burke from behind his Norwood desk. Brightly polished to a high sheen, the varnished grains beneath showed a deep vermillion.
     “I know.” Came the reply, in a deep and electronicized voice.
     The far end of the long office was darkly shadowed, the only light coming from the small desk lamp illuminating Burkes features. Several office plants in chic white ceramic pots decorated a wide drinks cabinet on the left of the room, sporting strangely contrasting growths from Verix, X'etieth, Rhudrir, and more recently from Heranth. They were an odd assemblage of spikes, vines, blades, bulbs, and leaves of a great varying number. Burke cared for them deeply. Opposite them was a wide, long cushioned burgundy coloured couch. But his visitor stood, as always.
     The speakers shape was indistinct, a towering black figure hidden by the shadow of the opposite end of the office. Glowing lines of text flowed across Burke’s eyes as they darted through his virtual feed, examining the contract. He was a squat, balding man, with the long whirling lines of scar tissue about his neck betraying excised cancerous tissue. Several chins fell like a waterfall down his front, threatening to spill over the expensive snow-white pristine shirt he wore. Large liver spots mottled his aged skin and his eyes had permanent bags beneath them, puffy and angry-looking. Behind him, the wall-window was opaque as usual. He had a thing about heights and his stomach didn’t take well to staring down over a thousand stories to the murky haze-hidden street below. The soundproofed room gave no sign nor murmur of the hover traffic surrounding the building outside. It was late, and the cities’ airways would be clogged with the gravcars of workers making their way home to habitation hives, cutting each other off, blaring horns while bikes and small pods zipped around and through them.

     “You’ve never taken Sigma before. No-one in their right mind does. The mortality rate for that level alone is over eighty-three percent, over half of which is accounted to the competition from other operatives.”
     The shadow at the far end of the room didn’t move. For all intents and purposes, it could’ve been a statue. It probably weighed the same.
     “I know, Burke.” Rasped the voice electronically again through helmet voice synthesizers.
     “Epsilon class isn’t doing it. I’m getting nowhere. You know why I’m taking this.”

     Especially with the bagged eyes, Burked looked morose.
     “But it’s dangerous! What happens if you get hurt, or killed? What’ll happen to-“
     “Burke.” Cut in the voice again, harsh. Then softer.
    “I’m sure.”
     The ageing contract broker huffed and sagged back into his Kurg-leather armchair, the midnight black folds groaning with his weight.
     “Fine. Fine! On your own head, so be it!” He waved a stubby hand sporting a multitude of digi-rings, and several of them flashed incandescent blue as a file was shot across the virtual space between the two. A blink later and it was received.
     If anything, the figure grew impossibly taller as it straightened where it stood.

     “Thank you, Burke. For…everything. I’ll be back again.”
     With that the towering shadow turned and strode towards the door, a wide double-panelled affair made also of Norwood. As the armoured being left, its left foot struck something metal on the ground, sending a dull ring resounding throughout the dark office. A huge black steel letter V, thickly encircled was embedded into the simple polished white marble of the floor.
     “For what its worth, I hope you wont be.” Muttered Burke forlornly after his old friend.