New Ithaca was a hive of activity. Tens of millions of inhabitants, even more who came and went along with their trade. So many lives, colliding, intersecting, passing by. Each a world unto their own, unique aspirations, goals, regrets. An amalgam of experience that summed together to create a 'self'. It was something Slalgulathon would find himself thinking, in those silent moments of hyperspace.
Or now, following Axilis silently, his warning echoing in his mind. How small they really were. The galaxy, a hundred-thousand light years across, more worlds than could ever possibly be fathomed. Amongst that vast sea, what matters a single drop? Springing into existence for the merest moments before once again being subsumed by the greater mass.
We are nothing but those droplets, arcing through the air, some higher than others, yet all returning to one all the same.
They followed a winding path, sometimes going up, sometimes going down. Occasionally they entered a crowded section, though that was always brief, Axilis sticking to largely deserted passages.
The graffiti appeared and disappeared in cycles, marks of territory as well as simple proclamations of existence. Perhaps it was a simple instinct of life, subconsciously aware of its own insignificance, to find some way towards permanence. To enter the collective gestalt and achieve immortality therein.
Perhaps this is what drove all those great men and their great ambitions. Merely a desire not to be forgotten.
If that was the case, then Slalgulathon did not consider himself a great man. He had never once craved to be known, remembered, revered. He merely did what he had to. For a person long gone.
A folly of a different kind, perhaps. He never really grew out of that phase, of chasing shadows. He didn't think he ever would.
It was with those thoughts spiraling away in his mind that it seemed time had jumped forward to them reaching their destination. The dingy corridors had been replaced by a sleek metallic silver at some point, lit overhead by harsh blue lights.
"Not far now," Axilis spoke up, breaking the silence for the first time. He had been uncharacteristically quiet, no doubt more affected by what he saw than he wished to let on.
Soon, he came to a stop. This time, the double doors held a shred more legitimacy than the "Sanitation Office" they had arrived from. Large and made of an opaque glass, Axilis paused before them, knocking softly.
Automatically, they slid open with barely a sound, allowing them entry. Stepping through Axilis bowed his head and Slalgulathon fell to a knee.
"Great Zahto," he intoned reverently.
"Please stand," the black-bandaged figure gestured for Slalgulathon to rise. "There's no need for such unnecessary formalities at this stage, is there?"
Slalgulathon obliged, turning to address the other two figures.
"Kuhto Frend, Juhto Selius. It is good to see you both."
"Likewise," Kuhto Frend hissed, a red tongue flicking out. The soft voice of Juhto Selius sounded from the hovering coffin respectfully.
"Hopefully your travel arrangements were not made too hasty by our presence. It is imperative that your health take priority, we can just as easily wait a few days if that may be the case."
Axilis scoffed quietly, while Slalgulathon raised a hand and denied it politely.
"I had Axilis look me over when I arrived and I wouldn't be here if he had not allowed."
Zahto Zen addressed the room, his deep voice commanding obedience. Despite his face being covered, Slalgulathon could feel the intensity of his piercing gaze.
"Well then, please sit you two. I sense that you have undergone great changes since last we spoke, I look forward to hearing of it."
It truly was difficult to hide anything before Zahto Zen. It was as if he could peel away the surface layers and see directly what lay beneath, in a subtly different way to Axilis. Rather, it felt that the world he saw from that perch up high simply granted him that insight.
Slalgulathon took a deep breath to rid himself of unnecessary thoughts, and to steel himself, and began to regale his tale.
"Along with what was provided, I acquired the final ingredients according to the decoded manuscript. The terms it used were archaic, nothing in the records matched anything, so it took a while. Eventually I managed to gather them, attempting the ritual in a remote star system in the Lucans Sector. Uninhabited, the planets and asteroid belts strip mined centuries ago. Not even a monitoring satellite remained there.
"I completed the steps and nothing was out of place. The ritual seemed to work perfectly, but-"
He paused. His memories from this point were fuzzy, tinged with seven-coloured static like an old recording copied so many times its resolution had deteriorated.
"I'm not sure. Its like the memories are there, but changed."
He amended himself.
"Not changed. Hidden. Veiled, but the veil feels familiar. Like it was my own Pact that acted to do so. Whatever I saw, it deemed that I was better off without it. I remember speaking to...someone. Something."
His voice grew low, as though he feared the walls were listening. Perhaps they were.
"It was ancient. Beyond ancient. I have seen the citadels of our homeworlds, I have walked the crypts of our ancestors. That thing dwarfed them all. A coldness that pervaded my whole body. I have no memories of what it said, or what it did. Nor of the outcome of the ritual. When I came to, my eye was clawed out and crudely bandaged. And I was changed."
"Changed?" Kuhto Frend asked. "Mutated?"
Slalgulathon shook his head.
"No. Maybe."
He struggled to find the words.
"It's my pact. The [Great One's Eye] that changed. Mutated. If before it was akin to a boon, untouchable and out of reach, then now it feels as though a fragment of its control resides in my hands."
At those words, all those present leaned forwards. Zahto Zen spoke quietly and rapidly, clearly perturbed. He turned to ask Axilis, similarly disquieted by that piece of information.
"Have you ever heard of any such thing, Axilis?"
The diminutive figure shook his head, adjusting his glasses nervously.
"Never. The [Great One's Eye] is a pact that has been with us for countless generations, since Algazor the Red received it in the midst of the Carnage of Coltus III and turned the tides in our favour, utterly wiping out our foes. In the time since, its abilities have been thoroughly mapped. Slalgulathon was the first in centuries to unlock Greater Seal as he did when he was granted the title of Beacon, but that is not a mutation. Merely an advancement into a preset state."
Slalgulathon interjected here, his voice uncertain.
"I have no other words to describe it. When I awoke, it was no longer the same. Unlocking the Greater Seal changed it, but it was still the same at its core. Now it feels like the core itself has been...infected."
"Infected....with what?"
The Zahto's question echoed in the silence of the room ominously.
"I...am not sure. Its appearance is changed, shining with an iridescent colour, though it is not related to any other pact or entity I could find."
Zahto Zen agreed, softly shaking his head.
"Indeed that is not a description that matches anything I can think of. Fine then, continue. Perhaps clues may present themselves."
Slalgulathon nodded, resuming his story with a clearing of his throat.
"I knew at once that the ritual had been interfered with. But whether on purpose or by accident, that encounter had left me changed. Instinctually, I understood how to use that change. This was different to unlocking a Seal, where one still has to learn how to use it, like piloting a starship. Instead, the knowledge was within me, as if it had always been there.
"Like breathing. No. Something even more fundamental than that. And so I channeled it to try and find the source of that interfering power from the residual psychic imprint of the failed ritual."
Slalgulathon shook his head, his brows furrowed. He felt the dull ache of his bandaged eye flare up, muted compared to before but still painful. Pushing it aside, he dove back into his memories.
"Whatever I saw, it erased itself. As though the information was too much. Different than my lost memories from the ritual, this one was cleaner. A sharp cutout. But the shape of a void can be elucidated by its reflection onto realspace. Through its left-over edges and corners, it too can become known."
"Incredible," Axilis muttered. "In such a state, you managed a manipulation like that?"
Slalgulathon did not hear him. A mad grin had split his face, his eyes glazed over as the memory surrounded him, encompassed him, drowned him, returning him to that point in time.
That final sensation was clear as day to him. That itch, compelling him even now to go. Do not wait. Hurry. Hurry. Make haste. Come. Come here.
He spoke in a hoarse voice, addressing the room from that half-state, with a burning intensity.
"I saw it! I saw the outline of its soul!"
Zahto shot a worried glance towards Axilis who nodded knowingly. Grabbing a glass of water, he launched it at Slalgulathon's face with barely-hidden glee. Slalgulathon gasped, sputtering and coughing out his words.
"Cough, thank, cough, you Axilis. But was that, cough, really necessary?"
Axilis merely shrugged, accepting the thanks with grace. Shaking his now-wet head, Slalgulathon continued.
"What I ended up with was a single system, burned into my psyche. And a burning compulsion to visit. Even now I can feel it pulling at me, tugging at the deepest parts of my soul. It was only using the blinding pain of my eye that I was able to divert the computer and lock its course to New Ithaca."
The Zahto was silent for a few moments, ruminating on what Slalgulathon had said.
"This system, you located it, yes? Where is it?"
Kuhto Frend passed a tablet over to Slalgulathon who accepted it gracefully. The lights in the room dimmed as a hologram of the galaxy was projected above the table in all its glorious splendour. Zooming in, the stars blurring into lines, Slalgulathon manipulated the image until a single system was displayed.
Binary. A red giant and a red dwarf orbited by only four gaseous giants far enough away that barely any of the meagre warmth of the stellar masses reached them.
"This is..."
Slalgulathon turned to Kuhto Frend, surprised.
"You recognise it?"
The reptilian shook his head, eyes blinking rapidly.
"No, but that sector...you may not have yet noticed...is known to all of us. It is...Outspace."
There was a collective silence as the weight of that word fell upon the table like a hammer. Slalgulathon gritted his teeth. He knew the compulsion was malevolent in its intent, but he thought that it would at least be subtle about it.
Barely being in the right state of mind, he hadn't though to check something so simple as where exactly the system was located. Outspace?!
He scoffed. Clearly this compulsion wanted him gone as soon and as violently as possible.
"Well, looks like that plan's out the window then!" Axilis seemed the only one who was cheerful at the news. "Guess you're gonna be staying at New Ithaca for a whiiilleee then, huh?"
Slalgulathon felt a growing headache, completely separate from the metaphysical assault on his psyche. For a moment, he almost found himself willing to go along with his compulsion.
Almost.
The Zahto sighed deeply, addressing the room.
"This...is too much to decide in such haste. I will have to convene with the other Zahtos, perhaps they may have some insight into this that may shed light where there is only shade. It may be that we will simply have to venture into the Abyss."
Once again fixing Slalgulathon with that uncanny, piercing gaze, he continued.
"When that time comes, I hope to have the light of the Beacon to guide our way."
The burden of that title, the weight of the responsibility it brought, was a mantle Slalgulathon would wear until his final breath.
"Of course, Great Zahto. Until the very end."