Second Dominion (Fourth Age)
Aurean Cycle no. 462 of the Macbeth dynasty, reign of Aldric II
First Quadrant, Alay (Seat-Planet of House Claw — Woimar, Listening Office)
The Listening Office hall was carved into the city's bowels, far from the light. A bunker of metal and holograms, where voices were reduced to whispers and every breath blurred into the hum of the terminals.The analysts were tracing astral currents like accountants ticking numbers on endless ledgers. Nothing living, nothing human: only flows, peaks, coordinates. An anesthetizing routine.
A signal snapped at standard midnight.
A spike from the manor on Woimar's outskirts. Lines of energy twisting like incandescent veins. Values not recorded in years, oscillations no conventional weapon could generate.
"Dorian Claw's manor, refrigeration sector. Intensity level seven. Pattern… irregular."The operator hesitated. His fingers trembled on the keys. "No, it isn't irregular. It's… it's old."
The projection orbs lit a bluish grid. An astral map, and in the middle a luminous scar beating like a heart.
At the center of the room, in his metal chair, the oracle stiffened. He was a spent body—gray skin, bulging veins, milky eyes. Metal tubing entered his arms, keeping him linked to the nets. For hours he had been breathing slowly, like an animal in hibernation.
At the first spike he screamed. Not a human cry: a rending, like iron twisting.Blood ran from his nose in black rivulets.
"Stop him!" an analyst shouted, but no one dared touch him.
The oracle's pupils rolled back. His lips moved, broken by sobs. A voice that wasn't his, and yet filled the room.
"...Severian…"
Immediate silence. Every machine seemed to hush.
"…The Devil's Saber… has returned."
A leaden silence fell on the hall. No one typed anymore, no one breathed.
The commanding officer slowly pushed back from his station. His icy gaze passed from one terminal to another, as if weighing whether anyone would dare doubt. Then he spoke, enunciating each word like a decree:
"Immediate notification… to House Hikari."
The standard formula went out. Seals, ciphers, a digital trail traced like a needle in the dark. When the screen went flat again, no one applauded. The oracle slumped in the chair, exhausted, a thread of vapor venting from the tube joints.
"Note this as well," the officer murmured without looking at anyone: " 'sealed memories unlocked upon contact.' "
--
The shuttle left Snow's manor hangar like wreckage expelled from a dying belly. The engines barely vibrated, a low hum that couldn't fill the void left behind them.
Inside, silence reigned.
Jean was curled on a side seat, her arm bandaged as best she could with a strip of cloth soaked in clotted blood. Her gaze was lost ahead of her, lips pressed into a hard line. Every breath was an unspoken insult, every beat a swallowed accusation. At each vibration of the fuselage her fingers twitched on the seat's edge, as if measuring the time it would take to turn and scream. She didn't.
Lacrosse stared at the porthole. The stars slid like needles of light in a black sea, yet to him they seemed motionless, cold, indifferent. Every so often he raised a trembling hand and clenched it into a fist, as if he could seize the memory of Amarel before it vanished completely. But the hand always fell empty.
Law sat in the center, hands on his knees. His head hung forward, his gaze lost in the metal floor.
His body was wet with blood. Not his.
The metal smelled of oil and ozone, but to the three of them it smelled only of iron. The recirculation fan made a light, regular, unbearable noise.
No word, no gesture. Only that silence that felt like a physical weight, a mantle swathing the entire cabin.
No one dared break that absence.Because it wasn't only silence.It was mourning.It was guilt.It was fear.
But for one person in particular… it was awareness.
The autopilot gave a polite beep. No one looked. The stars kept crawling on the glass.
The shuttle traveled in darkness, a fragile shell carrying three survivors. Survivors, but not unscathed.
And none of the three found the voice to admit it.
--
Fourth Quadrant, Calixis
The shuttle punched through the dark and slipped into low orbit over the planet.Below them, endless stretches of orange canyons, thin rocks rising like blades from the ground. The low sun's light made their flanks glint with golden reflections, but the shadows in the gullies were cold, almost violet. There was no city, no movement. Only the sense that the planet itself was a dry scar, carved by forgotten hands.
Jean watched the landscape with a tightened brow. "Here?" she said, her voice hoarse. "I don't see anything."
Law didn't lift his eyes from the controls. "There's nothing to see."
"Great. We cross half the galaxy to land in a dead place—"
The sarcasm was a thin veil, but beneath it simmered the rancor that had been stewing for hours.
Lacrosse, seated behind them, leaned toward the porthole. His breath caught at the vastness of the gorges. "It's… empty. There's no one? Really no one?"
"No one you know," Law murmured.
Silence stretched. Jean clenched her jaw. Lacrosse hunched his shoulders, unsure whether it was a joke or a warning.
The shuttle tilted and aimed for a gorge wider than the others. From above it looked like a cut in the planet, but on descent a platform appeared, carved directly into the rock—a old dock blending into the landscape. The thin rocks ringed it like stone teeth. A few paint marks, ancient, surfaced in patches.
As soon as they set foot on the ground, wind threaded the gorge's fissures, producing a long, almost human wail. Lacrosse shivered. The soil beneath their boots was granular, friable, and crunched like dry bones.
Jean pulled her jacket tight around her shoulders. "This is madness. Don't tell me someone lives here."
Law moved on without turning. "'Lives' is a big word."
"And us? What are we supposed to do, hole up with him?" Jean followed, limping slightly from the thigh wound. "At least tell me what this place is. Why are we here?"
Law stopped a moment, staring at the gorge opening before them. "I need to pick up my things."
Jean stared at his back. "What does that mean?!"
Lacrosse trailed them in silence, but the question burned in him. "And that thing from before?" he blurted suddenly. His voice shook but came out anyway. "That… light. Those channels on your skin. What was it?"
Law didn't turn. "I'll explain later."
"No!" Jean screamed suddenly. "You'll explain it now!"
She planted herself in front of Law. "What did you do?! Who the hell are you?! You brought us there just to—"
"And who's that?" Lacrosse asked, pointing to a figure behind them.
It was a middle-aged man, skin dark like obsidian worn by the sun, hard brown eyes and wiry hair, features carved by wrinkles and years. His clothes were tired, worn. Nothing regal in him, yet his bearing allowed no contradiction. At his side he carried a sword, the blade still in the scabbard, but his hand was near the guard as if always ready. He walked like one who can count his steps even in the dark.
The man scrutinized them one by one. First Jean, who returned the look full of distrust. Then Lacrosse, who smiled timidly and gave a quick nod. Finally Law.
A grimace creased his face. "You know what happens now, don't you?"
Law snorted, and began cracking his neck. "Don't puff yourself up. You know how it went."
The old man drew his blade and sprang at Law.
"EH?!" Jean barely had time to move aside: she saw two blades flash, one long and one short. Law had almost immediately drawn a knife (courtesy of one of Snow's guards) and parried the sword stroke by raising his arm, holding the blade in reverse grip.
Both weapons had transparent halos: Law's was silvery-blue; the old man's was green, pulsing like sap.
Law deflected the sword upward, flipped the knife into a standard grip with a quick finger-roll and crouched slightly, ready to slash at the exposed stomach.
But the old man, instead of taking the hit, sprang upward with an energy that had nothing human about it. Midair he leveled out, parallel to the ground.
The two cuts met in that suspended instant. The impact sent Law crashing back to the ground, while the man was hurled even higher.
Law stretched his left hand toward the figure in the air, as if taking aim. His knife lit up. The bluish-silver veins flared on his skin. Three quick slashes, thrown into empty air, that generated three curved blades of light. He hurled them upward like projectiles.
Suspended, the old man answered with three perfect counters, dissipating them effortlessly.
"Tsk." Law calculated where he would land and zigzagged toward it. He missed by about ten lumes. The old man touched down in front of him, steady.
"You're rusty," he needled.
They began to circle each other, like two predators in a hunting ring.
"Weaker, slower. Blunted reflexes. Positional drift. Your flow lag has increased," the old man enumerated in a firm voice.
Law grunted back. "Cut me some slack, I woke up a few hours ago."
"How many excuses."
"Okay, let's see how you fare if I don't use kitchen utensils." Law thrust his left arm out toward the void. "…"
Nothing happened.
The old man lunged again. "Well? It's not getting hard?"
Law barely parried, knocked aside a couple of blows and countered, all while keeping his hand outstretched as if waiting for something.
Still nothing.
"What the hell is he doing?!" Jean was furious, halfway between fear and disbelief.
"I've got no idea…" Lacrosse stammered, short of breath, but his sky-colored eyes shone with wonder.
"Where the hell did you leave them, underground?!" Law protested, still dueling. Then a tremor ran through his left hand. "Oh, hallelujah."
He shoved the old man back with a sudden slash. The man retreated a step, jaw clenched.
From afar, a black object sliced the air with an unnatural whistle. It didn't fly: it was being dragged by an invisible recall. It approached at increasing speed, as if the universe itself were returning it to its owner.
Law stretched out his arm. The object dropped into his hand. It was a scabbard: black, metallic, etched with crimson veins that seemed to ooze like congealed blood. The designs were not ornaments but faces: grimaces of pain, mouths screaming.
Jean felt her stomach twist. "What… what is that thing…?"
Lacrosse didn't answer. He couldn't tear his eyes away. It seemed the canyon itself trembled, as if the thin rocks recognized that weapon.
Law clenched the scabbard between his teeth and with a quick motion drew the blade.
A black chokutō, straight, single-edged, without guard. On the blade, in raised crimson, the same tormented figures as on the scabbard, lit by flickers of dark electricity. It wasn't metal; it was as if it had been forged with screams.
The air rippled. The wind in the gorges changed direction, producing a low lament.
The old man tightened his grip on his sword and sneered. "You were waiting for nothing else—tell the truth."
Law smiled crookedly, bringing the blade before him. He inhaled the ferrous smell that seemed to emanate from the blade itself, and tilted his head back, intoxicated.
"Now we're talking." He leveled the blade toward the old man. He was far away. It didn't matter. It was enough to be on the line of fire.
With a twist of his wrist, tormented cries spilled from the sword, which unleashed a myriad of black, tentacular rays, all aimed at the man.
The latter dodged backward, tried to dissipate a few, but there were too many. And too powerful.
The bolts from the sword were utterly devastating the canyon, leaving craters like a missile bombardment. Rock slabs split into new fissures, sand rose in columns, the echo boomed for seconds.
"Alright! Alright! Enough! Enough!"
Law smirked and "shut off" the sword. Afterward, though, he dropped to his knees, drained of his strength.
"Heavens!" the old man exclaimed, seeing him. "You're ready for retirement!"
Law hauled himself up with difficulty. "You'd know something about that, right?"
The two sheathed their blades and found themselves face to face. Up close, both their sweat stank of metal.
"Hi, Veynar," Law grunted.
"Hi, Law," Veynar enunciated.
"Excuse me?!" Jean shouted. "Can we know what's going on?!"
Veynar scrutinized the girl and Lacrosse, his gaze lingering on the red-haired boy a moment longer. An eyebrow lifted by a millimeter: the only sign of surprise.
"Ah, but he…" he whispered to Law.
"Yeah, I know," Law replied. "We'll tell him after. Guys…" he raised his voice.
"This is Veynar; he's my… he was my teacher."
Jean looked him over, arms folded. "Teacher of what, collapsing canyons?"
Lacrosse waved a hand hello.
"If you're here, boy…" Veynar said to Law, "…there's no good news."
"No," Law answered. "Indeed, no."
"The smuggling didn't end well?"
"No."
"It shows…" the old man murmured, eyeing Law's blood-smeared figure.
Veynar jerked his chin toward the platform. A door opened from a cut in the rock, invisible until a second before. The air that came out smelled of iron and old tea.
"Inside," he said. "Too much listening out here."
"There was… an accident," Law muttered, remembering his companion. "It's time to get back on the map."
The wind climbed the gorge with a long whistle, like assent. Then it pushed them in.