LotS/The Story/Scaean Gates/Intro

"Never to bid good-bye
Or lip me the softest call,
Or utter a wish for a word, while I
Saw morning harden upon the wall,
Unmoved, unknowing
That your great going
Had place that moment, and altered all."

-- Thomas Hardy, The Going

---

It begins with a funeral.

No, that's not right... There were things before. Events leading up to this moment. They just seem meaningless, cerebral shadows flitting beyond the periphery of reason. The past has tumbled into a black sea, castles of memory and history submerged and subsumed by tenebrous waves. You have to think, to concentrate, to remember that the universe didn't begin with mourning and mourners, grief and grievers. But it's hard while two coffins stand before you, their occupants laid out in taunting fabrications of peaceful repose, forcing your eyes and mind to follow bitter paths.

Things before...

---

The corridor was empty. Hollow. There was no one to greet you, no watchful soul standing vigil to await your decision. It was as though the galaxy had forgotten about you, turned a blind eye to your turmoil -- scorning your existence, informing you that the choice which had carried such immense, incalculable magnitude in your little mortal mind was but a mote in the eyes of creation.

In that moment the room behind you seemed to beckon, trying to draw you back into the shadowy depths where you'd intended and prepared to die. The doorway was still open, responding to your proximity -- a mouth daubed with black lipstick, a dark lover offering to kiss your soul before swallowing it into merciful oblivion. But it was too late. You'd made your decision, painful but unalterable.

So you stepped into bright bleakness, and the door slid shut behind you with the softest of sighs.

Corridor after corridor flowed by, devoid of life. Not even the hard metal of a robot appeared before you, to prove that the ship was anything but a silent tomb and you a phantom left wandering its passages. But at last you reached the medical bays. There at last was life, or its remnants -- broken bodies to greet your broken soul.

A doctor looked up from her terminal when you entered the first chamber. Her eyes bulged and her mouth gaped as though in a silent scream. Fear. Of course. She saw what you did. The whole galaxy saw...

You freed her from your gaze and walked across the room. You heard her scurrying away behind you, footsteps drumming their retreat out into the corridor and away into obscurity. No matter. You weren't there for her.

Viscous green fluid encased the muscular frame in the tank, enveloping a body that seemed mighty and monstrous even here in this place of weakness and frailty. Tubes sucked at his flesh like impotent leeches, their snaking lengths passing through the thick glass and joining the machines which hummed and flickered outside the liquid's embrace. Your skin itched in subconscious remembrance, half-forgotten sympathy. Your mind rebelled against the memories. Back when you thought she was lost... A sliver of anguish, adumbration of what was to come.

Little robots floated around him, mechanical beings with bodies like eggs and spindly arms that ended in strange contraptions. They were idle, pressed up against the edges of the tank like minnows trying to keep their distance from a shark. Their work was done. Cybernetics had been repaired -- cold, unfeeling metal and circuits fixed whilst flesh still languished in the fluid's embrace and succumbed to its ministrations.

"Ragnar!" you called. Then once more, this time through the implant in your throat: "Ragnar!"

His eyes opened in the greenness, above the respirator that masked the lower half of his face. They fastened on yours, focusing and understanding.

The Niflung's fist clenched and rose. The glass broke, thick fragments clattering on the floor before being drowned in the emerald wave that gushed forth, lapped across and around your boots. Robots tumbled into the escaping sea with little whines of protestation.

He grabbed at the respirator, tore it from his face.

"I'm ready," he said.

He strode from the tank's exsanguinated carcass. The tubes fell away and dangled in sadness, their thankless work rebuffed.

You found Talia next. She was in her quarters, lying on her bed -- disgorged by her own healing tank, spat out into the world to fend for herself like a child flung from the womb. She still wore the infirmary gown. The gunslinger sat up, staring at you with red eyes. Sad, surprised, accusing eyes.

"I... I thought..."

You said nothing. What could you have said? She knew. Of course she knew what you intended to do. She expected you to abandon her, desert her, leave her to pick up the pieces as best she could. And you would have done.

She got up, pulled you into a hug. The feel of her warmth, of her wet cheek against yours, made your selfishness claw at your heart. You would have left her... And even now part of you wishes that you had.

Ragnar was waiting in the corridor when the two of you came out, the gunslinger dressed and armed, her eyes dry. He bent his head towards her ear when she put her arms around him. You turned away, before your aural implant could betray his whisper.

The three of you paused outside Telemachus' quarters for a long moment, wordless, unsure. Talia was the first to move towards the door. But you caught her arm with a gentle tug. A guilty memory pierced you, of a time when you abandoned him to his sorrow -- shirking the unpleasant burden, leaving it to another. No... You wouldn't do that again. He deserved better from you. They all did.

So you entered instead.

The room was dark, just like yours was, just like Talia's. All three of you had wrapped yourselves in shadows, shied away from the light. Or so you thought. But then you realized that you were alone, the gloom around you untenanted.

Of course... He would have gone somewhere else.

When you arrived at the bay you didn't hesitate. You gestured for the others to remain while you went in. There it was... The hulking metal goliath, standing unmoved and untroubled.

"Tel?"

The cockpit was black, its filters cranked up to shut out the world. But you knew all the same. So you waited. And at last the canopy opened, unsealing the young prince's cocoon. You climbed up to sit beside him, unwilling to make him leave his sanctum just yet.

There were no tears. And you hoped that it was because he'd already cried them and wiped them away, not because life had succeeded in deadening him with its endless barrage of tragedies. His mother, his father, and now her... So much suffering for so short a life. Loved ones leaving him in turn. Just as you were going to do.

He looked at you. Uncertainty trembled on his lips. You read it in his eyes. As young as he is, he was wise enough, unselfish enough, to know that your grief was greater than his. That realization was perhaps the most heartbreaking of all.

There was a moment's hesitation when he left the cockpit. But he clambered down from the mech and walked away at your side.

Lu Bu proved the most difficult to find. The engineer who'd overseen his repairs could only tell you that he left the moment the work was finished, without saying a word. In the end you had to ask one of the droids tasked with monitoring the ship's camera network for information.

The answer was like a fresh wound.

The walk to the morgue passed in silence. When you arrived there you stood in the doorway, held at bay like a mythical fiend barred from crossing a threshold. You couldn't even bring yourself to look at the figures on the slabs, though each was shrouded by a white drape.

Your friend stood before them, his back to you, as motionless as a sculpture. His metal body, repaired and reconstructed, was as it had always been -- his bearing firm and upright, his gold plating proud and regal. Yet there was an indescribable misery that radiated from him.

None of you could bear to raise your voices and call out to him. Not there. To violate that quietness would have been wrong... almost blasphemous. But the robot turned around and came towards you. He fell into place without a word.

It wasn't until you were far away from that chamber that you spoke -- and then only to tell the others what you planned to do.

Wilex and Wu Tenchu were in the Chief Assembler's communications room. Both men looked impossibly ancient, the lines on their faces deep like knife wounds. Wilex's hair seemed hoarier than before, his frame gaunter. When they turned to you, staring from deadened eyes, you felt as if you were looking at a painting instead of beings of flesh and blood -- the eyes meeting yours only at the behest of an artist's skill.

"Have the Silver Shadow repaired," you said. "We're going to kill Councilor Dule."

Master Wu rose from his chair. He glided towards you with swift but sedate steps. The punch he threw was so fast that you felt the explosion in your jaw before you saw his arm move.

"You are the Imperial Jian of the Sian Empire," he hissed. "Carry out your duties, not your desires."

His features were impassive. But his eyes burned like twin infernos, raging battles, exploding stars.

And you bowed, for you knew he was right.