Chapter 93: Slaying the beast

Garen had forbidden anyone access to the throne room; he had smashed the cameras and sensors. He hadn’t even cleaned the human and animal viscera, nor the stars of blood. The morbid map they composed was the object of his contemplation.

His power-rather mysterious even to himself-had granted him vengeance, status, and above all, protection; but paradoxically the dangers were becoming greater and greater, at least in his mind. He was perfectly aware that this was an illusion, the turmoil of his emotions, and yet those emotions dominated him and overcame his rationality.

Foremost among the dangers was the loss of his power. The Blind Gods had entrusted it to him with a specific mission: to go to the planet where “the Gates of Empyrea” were located (whatever that might be) and to slay a great creature there. He did not know what this planet or these gates were, even though his power had whispered to him with certainty that it was that small uninhabitable sphere on the Antiochian war front called Caliban.

This piece of information had, strangely enough, slipped into his mind to hide there. He disliked the idea of serving a master, and he was torn between two options:

– He fulfills his mission, and his masters take back his tool-his power.

– He does not fulfill his mission, and his masters take back his tool to give it to another.

Of course, he had at one point considered going there, finding and perhaps opening these Gates, but that idea had struck him as strangely uninteresting, unproductive, unworthy-and he trusted his instinct. The anti-entropic radiation was dulling the thought in his mind without his realizing it, and from the height of his pride, he could never have conceived it.

He told himself he was going to carry out that damned mission, and then he would “enjoy life” as a reward. After all, his entire existence had been nothing but service to humanity, punctuated by a grim episode of survival in exile.

He cleaned the throne room with a thought, and summoned a high-ranking official, dry as a mummy, supposedly forty years old-he looked a hundred-by the name of Evalds. Evalds was a psychopath, particularly useful for tracking and reporting delicate affairs like Lodovico or the slain Wau. He had sexual fantasies tied to murder that constantly haunted his psyche, and Garen had long since given up probing him. That such a vile being could be allowed in the Tower of Origin revolted him: Garen saw him as the symbol of a corrupted and degenerate era, one that had ended thanks to him, and he only kept Evalds around under the current state of emergency. When all was over, he told himself, Evalds would pay for what he had done.

- “Evalds, I am leaving for Gilgamesh to reach Caliban. I want it done as soon as possible.”

- “Aleph,” said Evalds, bowing. “Today I was to take you to Munich to retrieve the UniPsi report on the Wau.”

- “I no longer wish to deal with that matter. The Wau are no more. Take an A-Wau with you and arrange for journalists to see the A-Wau carrying the inert body of the Wau. And bring the Armor to Lodovico, along with the UniPsi report.”

- “Aleph, you told me you wanted-”

- “Evalds, I know perfectly well what I told you. I know everything, including the apocalyptic painting you hide in your head. I want no more talk of this Wau. I have faith in Dian-she is an upright person and of rare intelligence. I am aware that I do not have her respect nor her affection, but my actions will inevitably win her over to my cause. She is the most competent and motivated person to uncover the secret of the Wau’s psi power. If she finds it, so much the better. If not-well ... the Order has fallen silent, and I have the intuition that it will remain so. I have better things to do than chase ghosts.”