But this time, they were keeping their distance, watching. Observing. Calder was forcibly reminded of Ach’magut’s title: the Overseer. It made sense that any minions of his would keep their distance and watch before engaging, but if that was the case…
Why hadn’t they done so last time?
On the crew’s last visit to Silverreach, the Elderspawn had attacked outright, forcing them into the hands of the cultists. They were acting differently now, more cautiously. What had changed?
It was sheer madness to try and guess the mind of an Elder, but Calder had a disturbing thought. What if they had acted this way, four years ago? What if the two Inquisitors they saw were just the Imperial Guard of their kind, sent to take them into custody, while hundreds more watched?
An image formed in Calder’s mind, of Silverreach above with its streets of “empty” buildings. He was beginning to see the town differently now.
Not a town at all. A hive.
But ultimately this was all just speculation, and in reality, the Inquisitors hadn’t attacked yet. The sooner they reached the end of the room, the sooner they could find an exit. The ceiling had curved down low enough now that they should come upon the end any second.
No sooner did the thought come to him than they reached the end of the library, the ceiling flowing down to meet the floor in a polished gray wall. The light of Petal’s quicklamp spilled onto the wall in front of them, illuminating a vast door of bronze.
He wasn’t sure it was a door, at first. There were no hinges he could see, and the bronze was almost a perfect circle. It only made contact with the floor at one point. Its surface was covered in symbols and diagrams, interacting in a way that reminded Calder of ancient astronomy texts. Like someone had charted the movements of the stars on this ancient panel of bronze.
It was only when he extended a hand, intending to Read the panel for instructions, that he became certain it was a door. Its Intent flooded his mind, hammered his awareness, as though this was the very picture of a door and anything that he had once recognized as a doorway was only a feeble delusion of his pitiful mind. This was a door, and all else was but a pale copy.
He trembled at the overwhelming gut-punch of Intent, sucking in a deep breath.
The others had begun to quietly debate what this bronze circle was, and what the diagrams on its surface meant. Maybe they were a map, maybe directions, maybe a dire warning to travelers.
“It’s a door,” Calder said, walking up to it.
“Are you sure?” Urzaia asked doubtfully.
Calder’s nose tingled, as though it was about to bleed, but he put two fingers to his face and they came back dry. The aftermath of his attempt at Reading. “I have never been more sure of anything in my entire life,” he said.
He quested around the edges of the bronze doorway until he found three symbols in a row—like human thumbprints, though the lines were too twisted and irregular. Calder pushed on them, only the slightest application of force, and the door began to slide upwards into the wall.
“Wait,” Andel said, as the door began to move, but it was too late.
If Calder had thought his impressions of the entrance were overwhelming, if he thought the previous wave of Intent was too much for his senses, they were nothing compared to the seething ocean of information that violated his mind now.
On the other side was a writhing, pulsing, squirming mass of limbs, eyes, tendrils, ears, appendages without name and without number.
On the other side was a vast book of endless pages, containing all the knowledge of countless years, such an unknowable repository of truth that a thousand humans could not hear it all with a thousand lifetimes of study.
On the other side was a world unto itself, a complex and ancient dream more real than waking.
On the other side was Ach’magut.
Calder stood frozen, all his senses consumed in the Overseer, but in many ways he was more aware than before. He knew when Foster broke free of the spell binding him, turning to flee from the Great Elder, only to come face-to-face with an army of Inquisitors.
He knew that Petal’s fear was crystallizing into the knowledge that she could not fight Ach’magut, which brought with it a measure of relief.
He knew Andel’s revulsion, which was matched only by a bizarre knowledge. The former Pilgrim was disgusted by Ach’magut’s existence, but he was still on the lookout for something to gain from this. As though he could turn Ach’magut’s knowledge against the rest of its kind.
He knew Urzaia’s grim resignation, as the Champion realized that some things could not be fought.
And he knew Jerri was terrified and excited all at once, as though she’d come face to face with everything she’d ever wanted…and it could kill her at any second.
All this, Calder knew in an instant.
The Great Elder’s tentacles slithered between them and among them, analyzing their emotions, their pasts, their physical compositions. He knew them, weighed them, factored them into his plans.
And within Ach’magut, at the nexus where all the tentacles originated, a single eye opened. It was human in shape, but bigger than Calder’s head, with an iris of hypnotic, poisonous blue.
INTERESTING.
The voice scoured Calder’s mind like a desert wind, carrying with it all the meaning one word could possibly have.
YOU ARE THE RESULT OF A DEVIATION.
From that sentence, Calder learned more than he wanted to know about how he’d ended up in Silverreach.
Centuries ago, Ach’magut had allowed an alteration to his grand, cosmic plan. He’d been willing to risk a small change that might disturb the future, in the hopes of opening up new facts and new results. That deviation had resulted in everything in Calder’s past, from the personal to the very distant—everything from the death of the Great Elders to the formation of the Empire, and everything from the meeting of Calder’s specific parents to his birth to his expulsion from the Blackwatch. Everything, as moment toppled into moment, was the inevitable result of Ach’magut’s action in the distant past.
The Elder could see it, could read the potential paths of his choices as easily as Calder could predict how a ball would roll across the floor. But the world was more interesting when it was unpredictable, as the Overseer knew well.
And Calder had ended up in this room, at this moment, with this precise group of people. Which Ach’magut had not predicted.
All this and more, Calder learned from what was essentially a single sentence. He didn’t feel like part of a conversation, he felt like a student desperately trying to keep up with a ferocious lecture from an ancient Witness.
THIS OPENS NEW PATHS. NEW DOORS. NEW ANOMALIES.
Calder tried to respond, to barter for his life, but this was nothing at all like bantering with Kelarac. This had more in common with being flattened underneath a collapsing building.
He could feel it when the Great Elder turned his attention from Calder to the others, as though the point of a sword had been taken away from Calder’s throat. To each of them, Ach’magut spoke.
Petal trembled, facing something that was so much more than her that she felt like a grain of sand that would soon blow away. She clutched her quicklamp to her chest as though it might protect her somehow, and the subtle warmth on her fingers was only a distant comfort.