"At this early stage of development, events still appear to seem chaotic. No clear pattern is visible. But the seeds have already been laid."
***
Darkblade Solitude was, for the first time in his life, at the mercy of another being. It was just as distasteful an experience as it had seemed. The blindfold blocked his vision, the bag over his head overkill. Or perhaps an attempt at humiliation.
He grinned in the darkness. His captors would find that such pitiful mind games would do little against him. Trained since childhood by the Brotherhood of Starcrow, a premier assassination group within this sector of the galaxy, he had more mental resilience when he was a boy than most trained soldiers ever would.
His captors had also failed to block his ears. Incompetence or overconfidence, it mattered not to Darkblade. But it was not an opportunity he was willing to waste.
His memories from before being knocked out were hazy, whatever gas they used had bypassed his suit's protections as well as his innate resistance. Still, the training had been ingrained into him so deeply he almost did it on autopilot.
Two in front. Three behind. All of them favour their left-hands. Carrying plasma rifles, safeties off. Judging by the gravity, we're on a small moon. These winding corridors...
He sniffed, brow furrowed as he sorted the thousands of scents. There was the musk of the unwashed bag, still soaked in the fluids of the poor fellow who wore it last, there was the smell of plastic and heat from their rifles, of metal and dust.
There it is...that faint, unmistakeable odour of death.
This is New Ithaca.
From being completely lost, having no idea where he had been taken, Darkblade Solitude had, while blindfolded and handuffed, narrowed down his location to that of a single moon. Others may allow at least a few moments to be impressed at themselves.
Darkblade Solitude felt no such useless emotion as 'pride'. He was closer to machine than man, an outlier even amongst the Brotherhood of Starcrow, a unique disposition. And so, with nary a moment lost, he filed away that piece of information and moved swiftly onwards.
I was out for 17 hours, 35 minutes and 3 seconds counting. That matches the distance to New Ithaca. Judging by the vibrations beneath our feet, we are not near the surface. The deep bowels then.
Of course an assassin of his calibre had memorised the labyrinthine layout of the moon in its entirety, and it did not take his calculating mind long to cross reference the turns and twists he had already taken to find his exact position.
From an entire galaxy, he had narrowed down his exact position to the metre. A feat even the most advanced computer would have a hard time pulling off. He filed that piece of information away and, once again, moved onwards to the next step.
Already, his mind had raced ahead, countless thoughts colliding and coalescing, reaching a single conclusion.
The job on Kassius V was a ruse. This was the plan all along. So it has come to this then.
For a brief moment, his thoughts faltered, but his iron-bladed will cut down that weak hesitation without mercy.
I understand. The final tool of an assassin, after all, is his death.
With that final conclusion came the sense of serenity and calmness that arises from complete and utter confidence in one's purpose. All unnecessary questions such as "why" had been banished from his mind, leaving only a single, lit pathway to his goal towards which he stepped with unshaking feet.
***
Elsewhere, the Zahto was in his own quarters. They were barebones, the habit of his ascetic lifestyle not one he would give up despite the insistence of his hosts. His title "Zen" was one he had chosen long ago, when he had made the ultimate choice, for the first and last time.
Shaking his head, Zahto Zen laughed at himself self-deprecatingly. He had found himself reminiscing more and more of late. Perhaps Axilis was right, and his age really was catching up to him. He touched the golden circlet, still resting on his head lightly. The light hum of its response washed away any doubts that clouded his mind.
He had iron in him still.
The call with the other Zahtos had just finished, and they too agreed on the urgency of the situation. Each was more than willing to put forward members of their own Orders, even after they had heard of their destination.
"Outspace."
Even muttering the word felt ominous. Such an unholy thing.
Regardless, they had eventually come to a conclusion, and the finalised crew had been put together. It was going to be a busy few days when they arrived, preparing for their expedition.
Still, despite all of Axilis' reprimanding, Zahto Zen could not help but continue to hesitate. Some bone deep instinct that warned him about what was to come. Something so vague that on any other day he would have dismissed it as a mild discomfort.
But when so much was at stake, how could he forgive himself if he were to overlook even the smallest detail? Idly spinning the circlet around his head, a soft glow overtaking it, he concentrated on that feeling, entering the state of his namesake.
He felt the barriers of his mind fall away, his thoughts expanding like an ever-growing bubble of gas. A freeing sensation, like finally removing shackles after years of imprisonment.
The cognitive plane was visible to him, sparking and dancing with the stuff of ideas. But that was not why he was here. He turned his attention inward, focusing on the deepest parts of his soul. The fear centres of his brain, those primal structures unchanged since their inception billions of years ago, honed during a time his people were naught but prey for greater things.
Ancient things.
From a time before they wore bandages to shield others from their power. For no mortal could look into the sun unharmed.
He stripped away all else, leaving behind that a single thread that shone with a different colour. Tinged with the colour of dread. He traced its origin, all the way down into his subconscious.
Here the thoughts were less clear-cut, amalgamated into a single, colossal sea. Yet it was often the case that its currents would be hiding something that even the higher mind would not have noticed. Most would remain forever ignorant.
Zahto Zen dived into those waters, following that illusory thread into its depths. There he saw it. He saw-
A loud beeping sound interrupted him, and his expanded mind rushed back into place. The brilliance of the cognitive plane slowly faded, the material plane coming into view.
"Yes, what is it?" his voice was uncharacteristically hoarse. A response came after a few seconds.
"Sorry for the disturbance, Great Zahto. We found an intruder, it seems like Silence Reunion are making a move again."
Sighing, the Zahto responded.
"Bring him to my chambers. I will deal with him here."
"Yes, Great Zahto."
The connection cut out, and the room was returned to silence, allowing him to ponder once again on that inescapable feeling. He had found its source, but the pattern still eluded him, like it was being obfuscated by a colossal shadow.
Still he had understood its gist. That pull, that compulsion that enamoured Slalgulathon, it had caught his attention from the beginning. For something that so meticulously made sure to remove its traces, it had left something so obvious like that behind? This force, whatever its goals may have been in interfering with the ritual, was incredibly intelligent while at the same time adamant about its own anonymity. So why would it leave behind a trail of breadcrumbs?
Unless...
The realisation struck like a lightning bolt from a clear blue sky. But before he had a chance to consolidate it, he heard a knock on his door.
Shaking himself from his trance and walking over, he pressed on the keypad, the camera outside displaying a hooded figure being led by an escort of armed guards. Briefly checking the authenticity of their markings, he input the code and the door slid open.
As it did so, the hooded figure came into view. His appearance was pitiful, blood-soaked and breathing heavy, but his thoughts were uncharacteristically calm.
No...focused. His entire being is intently focused on...me?
It was already too late. His circlet spun into power, but he had already used it just now, and that split-second delay was something he could not afford.
He felt the heat before he saw it. Intense, burning radiation.
Then, as though in slow motion, he saw it. A blinding white.
Bursting out from within the bagged and bound captive. At that distance, the armed escorts were incinerated instantly, boiled alive as their plasteel armour melted through them.
Then the sound. A deafening roar like an exploding star, unchecked in its furious wrath.
The roiling heat spread in a cone shape channeled towards Zahto Zen, the concentration of heat and radiation enough to cook a planet twenty times over. At the very last moment, his mental energy finally flickered into existence, a flimsy barrier forming before him.
But it was like a soap bubble in the face of the sun.
The explosion scraped and gnawed at it like a ravenous beast, radiation leaking through a web of spreading fractures. His bandages had begun to singe and curl under the heat. He roared out, but no matter a man's strength of will, he could not hold back a hurricane alone.
Ah...so like this...
His barrier did not burst, nor explode in glorious fashion. It simply shattered into nothingness. And the stalled explosion swept through the room like an uncaged hurricane.
The heat alone sublimated the room and its contents into plasma within a fraction of a second. The radiation shielding barely held out for a few more seconds before succumbing to the same fate.
The tunnels collapsed as all the matter within a ten metre radius simply ceased to exist. Yet still, even within that boiling, seething, scorching tornado of super-heated plasma, a single object still remained.
A golden circlet, albeit warped, withstanding a temperature thousands of times hotter than the core of a sun.
Eventually, the roaring beast died down, its hungry blaze satiated, having gorged itself on all those caught within its reach. The alarms began to sound out, though it was far too late.
All that remained, amidst the rubble, was a single, soot-covered circlet. Warped and melted, as inert as the rock around it. The light that once dwelled within, extinguished for the final time.