Ember's Rest was built from failure and compromise. A trading post that had survived the Severance by virtue of having nothing valuable enough to fight over. The walls were scavenged pre-Severance concrete, cracked and patched with newer stone. Guard towers listed at angles that suggested they'd fall eventually, but not today. Inside, perhaps three hundred people lived in structures that ranged from actual buildings to lean-tos made of sheet metal and hope.
But it was alive. That was more than most places could claim.
The guards at the gate checked them both with the professional boredom of people who'd seen everything terrible and couldn't be surprised anymore. They examined the Cartographer's papers, travel permits signed by some authority Jiko didn't recognize, and waved him through. When they turned to Jiko, their expressions shifted.
"Arms out," the lead guard said. She was maybe thirty, with scars crossing her face in patterns that suggested she'd earned them the hard way. "We check for Marks before entry. Settlement policy."
Jiko extended his arms. The second guard, younger and nervous, approached with a device that looked like a dowsing rod made of crystallized virtue. Golden and humming with low energy. It was a Mark-detector, Jiko knew from the Cartographer's lessons. Point it at someone and it would resonate with their moral weight, glowing bright for Saints, dark for sinners, balanced grey for average citizens.
The young guard passed it over Jiko's arms, his chest, his back. The device stayed inert. Dead. Like Jiko wasn't there at all.
"That can't be right," the guard muttered. He tried again. Nothing. He looked at his commander. "Ma'am? It's not reading him."
The lead guard's eyes narrowed. She drew her own detector, this one older, more worn, but clearly functional, and ran it over Jiko herself. Same result. She stepped back, hand drifting to the blade at her hip.
"You're blank," she said. Not a question.
"Yes," Jiko said.
"Born that way or made?"
"Don't know."
The Cartographer interjected smoothly, "He's traveling under my supervision. I have the appropriate permits for research subjects." He produced another paper, this one covered in official-looking seals that meant nothing to Jiko but seemed to satisfy the guard.
She studied it, then Jiko, then the paper again. Finally she nodded, though her hand stayed near her weapon. "Fine. But he stays in the outer quarter. No access to the market commons or the Siphon halls. And if he causes trouble, you're both out."
"Understood," the Cartographer said.
They passed through.
Inside the walls, Ember's Rest revealed its true nature. The settlement was divided into visible tiers. Literal stratification built into the architecture. The outer ring, where they entered, housed the desperate: lean-tos and sleeping mats, people with sunken eyes and too many black Marks crawling up their necks. Sinners, or those too poor to trade their sins away.
The middle ring held the market. Stalls and shops where the real economy happened. Jiko saw memory-Shards displayed in glass cases like jewelry, marked with labels: Grandmother's Lullaby, three White Shards. First Kiss, ten White Shards. Swordsmanship Fundamentals, fifty White Shards or two Azure. People haggled, traded, sold pieces of themselves for survival.
And above it all, built into the settlement's center and elevated on pre-Severance foundations, the inner sanctum glowed with golden light. The district of Saints. Or at least, those who'd accumulated enough virtue to afford the luxury of goodness.
The Cartographer led Jiko through the market, unbothered by the stares that followed them. Jiko's blankness was obvious to anyone who looked, and people looked. Some with curiosity, others with suspicion, a few with something like hunger.
"You're a novelty," the Cartographer murmured. "Most blanks don't survive long. Either killed by those who fear them or broken by the isolation of being unable to connect through shared moral experience. The fact that you've made it this far is remarkable."
"Maybe I'm just lucky," Jiko said.
"Maybe. Or maybe you're something else entirely."
They stopped at a stall near the market's edge, run by a woman who looked to be in her forties, though Wastelander aging was unreliable. She had the sharp eyes of a merchant and golden Marks on her forearms. Mercy and Honesty, visible proof of virtue. Her merchandise was memory-Shards, hundreds of them organized by color and quality.
"Cartographer," she said, her voice warm but her eyes calculating. "Long time. What brings you to this dying little outpost?"
"Research," he said. "And commerce. I need a private room for the week, access to your Siphon connections, and discretion."
"Discretion costs extra these days." Her gaze slid to Jiko. "And I'm guessing he's the research?"
"In a manner of speaking."
The woman studied Jiko with the intensity of someone appraising merchandise. "Blank. Haven't seen one in three years maybe? Last one got lynched by the Testimony for heresy. They don't like people who can't be controlled through guilt."
"This one won't be lynched," the Cartographer said. "I'm ensuring it."
"Your funeral." She named a price in White Shards, memory currency. The Cartographer paid without haggling, producing Shards from a pouch that seemed far too full. The transaction completed, she handed him a key. "Third building, second floor. Don't make noise, don't cause trouble, and we're square."
"Appreciated, Maera." The Cartographer pocketed the key. "One more thing. I need an introduction to your Siphon contacts. I'll need extractions done, and I prefer operators who know how to be subtle."
Maera's expression flickered, just for a moment, with something that might've been concern. "Extractions on him?" She nodded at Jiko.
"And potentially for him."
"He can't feel guilt," Maera said slowly. "Which means if you extract his memories, they won't carry moral weight. They'll be empty. Useless for most trades."
"Not useless," the Cartographer said. "Different. And difference has value in the right markets."
Maera was quiet for a moment, then shrugged. "Your Shards. I'll send word to Lenko. He runs the best Siphon operation in the outer quarter. Expensive, but clean. Expect contact by nightfall."
"Perfect."
They left the stall. Behind them, Jiko heard Maera muttering to herself: "Madmen and monsters. This place attracts them like flies."
The room was small but functional: two sleeping mats, a table, a locked chest for valuables. A single window looked out over the market, where evening was beginning to settle and lanterns, powered by memory-light, soft and nostalgic, were flickering on.
The Cartographer set his pack down and began unpacking with the precision of ritual. Books, Shards, strange devices Jiko didn't recognize. One looked like a mask made of crystal. Another resembled a cage built for something very small.
"Sit," the Cartographer said, gesturing to the table. Jiko sat.
The old man produced a Shard, this one dark, almost black, but shot through with red veins. Obsidian-class, Jiko remembered. Identity-core memories. Dangerous.
"Before we begin your real education," the Cartographer said, "I need to understand what you remember. Most blanks have memory gaps. It's theorized that the process of removing or nullifying guilt also damages the mechanisms of self-recall. Tell me: what's your earliest memory?"
Jiko thought back. The caravan wasn't his earliest memory, though it was close. Before that...
"Waking up," Jiko said. "In a settlement I don't remember the name of. I was nineteen, I think. Maybe twenty. I knew my name, Jiko, and I knew how to walk, speak, feed myself. But I didn't know where I'd come from or who I'd been."
"Nothing before that?"
"Fragments. Images. A woman's face, maybe my mother. A room with machines. Pain." He paused. "But they don't feel like memories. They feel like someone else's story."
The Cartographer's expression was unreadable. "And you've been wandering since?"
"Eight years. I worked where I could, learned what I needed. No one taught me about Marks until three years ago. I just thought everyone stared at me because I was a stranger." Jiko looked at his unmarked forearms. "When I learned what I was missing, it didn't change anything. I still couldn't feel what they felt."
"And you've never tried to acquire guilt? Some people seek it out. Do things they know are wrong, hoping to feel the weight."
"I've done wrong things," Jiko said. "Or things others call wrong. I killed a man who tried to rob me. I stole food when I was starving. I lied to guards to avoid complications. None of it marked me. None of it made me feel."
The Cartographer leaned back, studying him. "You're remarkably functional for someone with your condition. Most blanks either become sociopaths, performing evil without restraint, or catatonics, unable to navigate a social world built on moral cues they can't perceive. But you've found a middle path. You mimic. You learn patterns. You survive."
"Is that what you want to study?" Jiko asked. "How I survive?"
"Partly." The Cartographer picked up the Obsidian Shard, turning it in his fingers. "But mostly I want to understand if you're a natural phenomenon. A genetic aberration that's existed throughout human history. Or if you're something made. Something created."
"Does it matter?"
"It matters tremendously." The old man set the Shard down. "If you're natural, you're a curiosity. Valuable, but limited. If you're created, you're a prototype. And prototypes can be replicated."
The implications hung in the air. An army of blanks. Soldiers who couldn't feel guilt, couldn't be broken by conscience, couldn't be controlled through moral weight. Jiko imagined it and felt nothing. No horror, no fascination. Just the mechanical understanding that such a thing would change the world's power structure fundamentally.
"And if I am created," Jiko said, "who made me?"
The Cartographer smiled. "That's what we're going to find out."
Nightfall brought the Siphon operator. A thin man named Lenko with nervous hands and the golden Marks of Honesty running up both arms. He set up his equipment on the table: a crystalline apparatus connected to what looked like needles made of frozen light.
"First time?" he asked Jiko.
"Yes."
"It doesn't hurt, exactly. More like pulling a thread out of fabric. You'll feel the memory leaving, becoming external. Some people find it disturbing."
"I'll manage," Jiko said.
The Cartographer specified which memories to extract: anything from Jiko's earliest years, any fragments of his origin. Lenko worked with practiced efficiency, pressing the light-needles to Jiko's temples while muttering words in a language Jiko didn't recognize. Pre-Severance scientific terminology mixed with post-Severance ritual. The needles hummed.
And then, pulling. Not painful, but wrong. Like something that should've been internal was being turned outward, translated from private experience into public commodity. Jiko felt the fragments of his earliest memories, the woman's face, the room with machines, the pain, being drawn out through his skull and crystallized in the apparatus.
When it was done, three Shards sat on the table. Black as obsidian, veined with red. Lenko stared at them.
"These are..." He looked at the Cartographer. "These are empty."
"Empty?"
"No emotional weight. No moral context. Pure information without feeling." Lenko picked one up carefully, as if it might break. "I've never seen anything like this. Usually memory-Shards carry the emotional charge of the experience. Fear, joy, shame, love. But these are sterile. Like reading a medical report instead of living a life."
The Cartographer took one, held it to the light. A smile crept across his face. Small, satisfied, triumphant. "Perfect," he murmured. "Absolutely perfect."
"What does it mean?" Jiko asked.
"It means," the Cartographer said, "that you're not just unable to feel guilt. You're unable to attach moral weight to experience at all. Your memories exist as pure data. Uncolored by conscience, judgment, or emotional context. You don't just lack guilt, Jiko. You lack the fundamental capacity for moral interpretation."
Lenko looked disturbed. "That's not human. Humans interpret everything through emotional and moral lenses. That's how we make meaning. Without it, you're..."
"A machine that walks," the Cartographer finished. "Or a god that doesn't know it yet." He pocketed the Shards. "Thank you, Lenko. Your discretion is appreciated."
The Siphon operator packed his equipment quickly, clearly eager to leave. Before he went, he looked at Jiko one more time. "For what it's worth," Lenko said, "I'm sorry. No one should have to live without meaning."
"I'm not suffering," Jiko said.
"That's what makes it worse."
Lenko left. The Cartographer sat back down, examining the Shards with the intensity of a man who'd just found treasure.
"These memories," he said, "show fragments of a laboratory. Pre-Severance technology mixed with post-Severance metaphysics. And pain. Not emotional pain, but physical. Surgical." He looked at Jiko. "Someone made you, Jiko. Someone cut away your capacity for guilt with intention and precision. You're not an accident. You're an experiment."
Jiko processed this. "And you think you know who?"
"I have suspicions." The Cartographer's expression was carefully neutral. "But confirming them will take time. In the meantime, we need to test your capabilities. If you can absorb guilt without corruption, we need to know your limits. How much can you carry? What happens to the guilt you take? Does it disappear, or does it go somewhere?"
"You want to use me," Jiko said.
"I want to understand you. And yes, using you is part of that." The old man didn't flinch from the accusation. "But in exchange, I'll protect you. The Iron Testimony hunts blanks. They see you as heretics, people who reject the moral order they've built their power on. The Choir Sanctum views you as abominations, beings without divine spark. And the merchant guilds would sell you to the highest bidder. Without protection, you'll die within the year."
It was pragmatic. Honest, even. Jiko appreciated that.
"What's the first test?" he asked.
The Cartographer smiled. "Tomorrow, we visit the guilt-market. And we see if you can save a dying man by taking his sins."
That night, Jiko lay on his sleeping mat and stared at the ceiling. In the market below, he could hear the sounds of evening commerce winding down. Merchants packing their wares, guards changing shifts, the distant cry of someone selling roasted meat.
He thought about Lenko's words: No one should have to live without meaning.
But Jiko didn't feel meaningless. He felt efficient. Clean. Free of the weights that bowed others down. He'd watched people in the market that day, seen the way they moved as if carrying invisible burdens. Guilt, shame, pride, love. They stumbled under it, made poor decisions because of it, destroyed themselves for it.
He had none of that. He moved through the world like water, taking the path of least resistance, unaffected by the moral topology that shaped everyone else's choices.
Was that inhuman? Maybe. Was it worse? He didn't think so.
But Lenko's disturbed expression lingered in his memory, the pure, empty memory that carried no emotional weight but still somehow mattered.
I'm sorry, Lenko had said. No one should have to live without meaning.
Jiko rolled over and closed his eyes.
If he was an experiment, then someone had made him for a purpose. And purpose, he'd learned, was the closest thing to meaning that existed in this broken world.
He'd find out what that purpose was. Not because he felt curious, exactly, but because the question had been posed and questions demanded answers.
That was just efficient.
Outside, in the darkness between buildings where the lantern-light didn't reach, something that looked almost human watched his window and smiled. It had followed him from the caravan, from the Wastes, tracking the strange absence where a soul should be.
Syla had found her new favorite toy.
And the game was just beginning.