Chapter Text
Emiline was sleeping.
That wasn't her name, of course; she didn't really have one, barely had a distinguishable sex, had simply been known as Regressor A from the moment she'd been ripped from her mother's arms, been mapped and hooked, submerged in the life water and re-birthed into a silken womb.
But on those rare occasions she could pick the ephemeral thread of her singularity out from among the thousands of memories and thoughts and designs that ran through her veins every day, that was how she privately thought of herself.
She'd taken it on years ago, from a pretty little breeder, an outlander who'd been ripped to shreds seconds after Regressor A had discovered she carried a gene that would infect the Necromonger stock. Her screams had filled the air and somewhere a child had cried out her name in mourning.
Emiline had liked her. She had a cheerful soul.
So she had absorbed the name, added it to the collection of a half dozen memories or so that she was almost sure were really her own.
Now, her mind hummed along at a quiet keel in the darkness of Necropolis, kept company by the nearly identical thrums of her brother/sister minds as they similarly hibernated their way through the night. She didn't dream, she couldn't even really be said to think; there was not room in her truncated brain for her own imaginings. But there was stillness, and calm, and, in those few hours, peace.
Then, the air changed subtly, and Emiline's sightless eyes opened.
'The priest.'
'the Priest.'
'The Priest.'
The murmur ran through the pods as her fellow Regressors similarly returned to awareness, and seconds later, there was the hard click of footsteps and then the Head Priest appeared, his shaved head glinting in the half light.
The priests were the only ones who visited of their own free will, the only ones who voluntarily subjected themselves to the pain of the metal disc, to having every electron in their body tethered and pulled and sucked dry of DNA memory as the Regressors plundered and raped through their pasts and presents and futures and those of every being that had ever contributed a gene to their make up.
No Conversion could fully dull the pain of that experience, and the priests used it as a sacrament, a rite, a reminder of the lingering weakness of humanity in them all.
It was also very useful in rooting out traitors in their midst.
'Nero,' Emiline hissed, as the man, unusually built for the ascetic sect, stepped onto the platform, the flare in his nostrils the only indication he gave that his marrow was suddenly being sucked dry. All around her, her brother/sister minds sighed in pleasure at the flood of sensation being delivered.
'The Speaker sent me.'
The Speaker. If Emiline had been capable of introspection, she would have said she was alternately contemptuous and envious of the office, of those who were infinitely more limited than she, and yet infinitely more free, their ability to move and live and experience widening their vision in ways she couldn't touch. As it was, she barely noted the spike in adrenaline the name caused, before swimming her way down, deep, deep down, into Nero's brain, to the source of his disquiet.
'The new Lord Marshal.' Marshal...marshal...bounced around the room in response.
'He changes...he twists...there is fear....'
The Head Priest spoke. It wasn't really necessary, but over the years Emiline had found that people, Necromongers and breeders alike, always strove to maintain the illusion that their words controlled what the Regressors saw.
'He has accomplished what no man has done in centuries. He was given a gift, and he is misusing it!' The anger in the man's voice rang loud. 'Changing the old ways, filling the people's heads with lies and half truths and visions of conquest and glory. He sweeps aside all that challenge him.'
'He sweeps you aside...'
Nero bowed his head in acknowledgement. 'He appoints new confidants, new positions, people who answer only to him; members of our order are disappearing in the night. How can we save the people? What can we do to stop him?'
For an infinite space of time, the question hung, and then -
'Nothing...'
Nero's head jerked up. 'What?'
The word danced back around the room. 'Nothing...nothing...nothing....'
'Unstoppable...too powerful...come at the front and he will obliterate you...' Emiline picked delicately through the strands crisscrossing the room, finding the only surviving heartbeat.
'Hide...hide...hide...'
'Melt away, disappear, become one of many in the crowd, become compliant. Guard the old ways, give him his ceremony, take his Life Blood, bide your time....the chance will come again...'
The man looked as if to argue, but his voice was drowned out by a sudden and frantic cacophony of warning.
'Wait...wait, wait, Wait, wait, wait, WAIT.' They screamed the last word in chorus, their shrill voices echoing around the chamber before disappearing into silence. The weight of their pronouncement hung heavy for several long minutes as the shorn, heavily muscled man stood immobile.
Then, deciding the hybrids had said all they were going to on the subject, his shoulders drooped in defeat and he stepped off of the platform and strode back the way he'd come. He was halfway out the door when Emiline spoke alone, her voice so soft in its oneness he came very close to missing her final words.
'...for the Furyan.'