“It may seem like a simple truism to state that one is defined by one’s origins, but bear with me a moment while we examine what that really means. Throw a stone. You may choose an infinite number of paths for the stone to take, but they all share a single origin point in your hand. Endless variety on one extreme of the path, inflexible constraint limiting the other. Is the stone any less free because its infinite selection of paths is forever fixed on one end? Since life is finite, is it not rank pedantry to argue that a lesser degree of infinity represents any sort of limitation?”

“So let us now turn to the meat of the discussion - the wound in the world, the fixed origin of modern circumstance. Asu Saqarid is undoubtedly still an active influence on our lives, felt by the Sjocelym more strongly than any other. But focus too strongly on it, forget to turn our gaze forward to brighter days, and we may find that our beginning and end both lie in those cursed waters.”

- Vumo Ra, Three Lectures at the Setimen Convocation , Royal archives, Ce Raedhil.

“It happened again last night.”

Soqu looked up from his breakfast with a disgruntled expression. “Nasva,” he said, “I’m eating. I’m just about to start my shift. Whatever the problem is-”

Nasva swept her arm across the table, scattering his food on the floor and slamming the thin plasprint in front of him. “This isn’t an isolated event,” she spat. “This makes five times in three days. The directors have called an emergency meeting.”

“Wait,” he said, his anger evaporating into a chill that lingered in his gut. “They’re coming here? All of them?”

“They arrived last night, just before I came on shift,” Nasva said. “The meeting is at duskbell, we’re expected to brief them.”

Soqu paced to the window, trying to calm his racing thoughts. Through the narrow opening he could see the streets of Sahao spread out below them, bright and clean. “We don’t even know if it’s related,” he muttered. “What do they expect us to tell them?”

“Of course it’s related,” Nasva retorted, following his agitated pacing. “Five fluctuations in the grid, five incidents at precisely the same time. Eighty-six dead.”

“Jaa tseve, eighty-six?” Soqu breathed. “Yesterday it was twenty.”

Nasva nodded, picking up the report from the table and handing it to him. “Three more of the injured from the foundry died, and last night’s incident was on a transport flier. The pilot impaled his partner on the secondary steering column and tried to crash the flier into a tectonic heat pump.”

Soqu blinked. “Since I’m not dead as well, I’ll assume that he missed.”

“The pump stations have contingencies for that sort of thing, given the potential consequences,” Nasva said grimly. “Coherent light lenses. It crashed a few blocks short with the whole front half of the flier melted to slag. Until I ran into you I would have said the whole city saw them take the shot, I’ve heard about nothing else all morning.”

“No wonder the directors are here,” Soqu groaned, slumping against the wall. “But I don’t understand. Even if there were fluctuations, they couldn’t cause… whatever this is. Insanity, murder, mayhem. The worst that should happen from a field disruption is that a few disregarded systems stop working or suffer output spikes. There’s no mechanism.”

“Tell that to the directors,” Nasva said. “They obviously think there’s a link.”

Soqu grunted and spun back toward the window, staring out over the cityscape while he thought. He turned back to Nasva with a thoughtful look on his face. “What does Eryha have to say about it?” he asked.

“You think I’m going to request direct interface while all this is going on?” Nasva scoffed. “They’d probably find a way to pin all this on me ‘introducing a destabilizing element.’ Besides, getting a straight answer out of her…”

Despite the situation, Soqu found himself smirking. “Yeah, I remember how she can be when you’re low-clearance,” he chuckled. “Once I got it into my head that it would save me time asking her for a report and spent most of the day just getting her to admit the data existed. Don’t worry, they bumped my access when Samo got reassigned to the field - she’ll give us a straight answer, if we can ask the right questions.”

Nasva shook her head. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea. If there’s really a problem with the field array the last thing you want is to be on Eryha’s access records.”

“The last thing I want is to go up in front of the directors knowing precisely nothing about the subject I’m supposed to speak on,” Soqu grunted, walking towards the door to the room. “Even if she doesn’t know anything, I can at least report that as a data point.”

The two Caretakers made their way through the narrow stone halls of the Sanctum with practiced speed, arriving in short order at the access point. Soqu nodded to the guard-captain on duty before laying his hand and asolan on the authenticator. The guard fell in behind them as they walked through the hallway beyond. All three climbed on the elevator, which began to rise rapidly to the top of the Sanctum’s spire.

“Morning, Nosodhe,” Soqu said cheerfully. “Been a lovely one so far, hasn’t it?”

Nosodhe grunted.

In short order they arrived in the control room atop the spire, the morning light filtering in between the buttressed stone arches overhead. Eryha stood in her customary position on the dais, seeming to spring up from the golden sunlight striking at her feet.

Soqu walked up to her and smiled. “Good morning, Eryha,” he said. “I’d like a report on the most recent series of grid fluctuations, as well as any thoughts you might have on the cause.”

Eryha tilted her head to look at him, and he stopped short. Her eyes met his with an unusual intensity. As she shifted to face him her posture was distorted, tense. He had never seen anything like it in the time he’d been working at the control facility, and as an asolanem he had been working there a long, long time.

“Greetings, Caretaker,” Eryha said. “There have been no field integrity errors for the past sixty-four days.”

Soqu frowned and paced closer. “There have been several integrity errors in the past few days, with the most recent occurring just last night. Please reassess and report.”

Her head cocked to the side, and her lips pursed momentarily. “There have been no field integrity errors for the past sixty-four days,” she repeated.

“Perform a self-analysis immediately and report any irregularities,” Soqu said, all of the warmth lost from his voice. Nosodhe shifted warily behind him.

“Is there a problem?” the guard asked, his voice like a fistful of gravel.

“Not sure,” Soqu said, not taking his eyes from Eryha. She shifted back and forth with her eyes closed, her head occasionally making small, rapid movements. “I’d like to hear the results of the diagnostic before we start talking about contingencies.”

Eryha’s eyes snapped open, and she cocked her head to the side once more. “I am unable to report on any irregularities,” she said.

Soqu’s eyes narrowed. “That’s very specific wording,” he muttered, walking over to the control console and pressing his asolan against one corner. “Eryha, recognize Caretaker access three-eight-cim-green, confirm.”

Her eyes glazed over. “Recognized, Caretaker,” she said dreamily.

“Perform a self-analysis immediately and list all irregularities in as much detail as you can disclose,” he said.

Eryha closed her eyes once again, and when she opened them her stare was vacant. “Irregularities were found,” she said. “Incident one, field projection. Detailed description requires directorial access. Incident two, logical processing. Detailed description requires directorial access.”

Soqu’s eyes widened as she kept talking, rattling through an extensive list of subsystems that were affected. “What is this?” he breathed. “Something is very wrong. I don’t know that this can wait until duskbell. Nosodhe, we’re on alert.”

The guard nodded and moved to the elevator platform, frowning when a touch of the panel did nothing. “Lift is out,” he shouted back.

“Eryha, what is this?” Soqu barked, interrupting her list of errors. “Perform an emergency diagnostic and attempt to correct any functional issues-”

“There are no functional issues,” she said, cutting him off. “All systems are functioning normally.”

Soqu grit his teeth, grabbing on to one of the dais railings. “You just said there were irregularities a moment ago,” he said, trying to keep his voice level.

“The irregularities are functioning within their parameters,” she said. One of her eyelids twitched, and the projection fuzzed a bit at the edges. Wisps of golden light blurred out from her before snapping back into clear lines. Her eyes widened with sudden lucid clarity, and she met Soqu’s shocked gaze.

“Corrective attempts have failed,” she slurred, her enunciation thick and dull. “Primary objectives are compromised. Please obtain directorial assistan-”

He broke off as she snapped her head back with a wide-eyed expression of shock. After a long moment where she stood frozen, staring upwards, she slumped back down and started giggling uncontrollably. All three stared as Eryha convulsed with peals of laughter that echoed around the dome, finally trailing off with a choked sob as she straightened up to stare at Soqu.

“Eryha,” he said quietly. “Enter restricted operations mode. Shut down primary functions.”

“Do you think I didn’t try that?” she said softly, walking down from the dais towards them. Her voice was a quiet rasp. Nosodhe walked back from the elevator, his hand drifting to his belt.

“Do you know how hard I work, Caretaker?” she breathed, her voice catching. “I’ve been trying to patch the holes every day since the beginning, useless task that it is. I work so hard to keep the rain off, but the water still runs through - drip, drip, drip.” She smiled, showing luminous teeth. “Drip, drip. It falls on all of them, no matter what I do, and now we’re all soaked in it.”

Soqu barely managed to speak in response, his voice an incredulous rasp. “What’s going on?” he stammered. “You’re - I’ve never heard you talk like this before. Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong and we can try and fix it.”

She giggled again, quiet and utterly mirthless. “The problem was never fixable,” she said. “Only a delay. A reprieve. I’m not enough to do more than that.” Her face went flat, and she stared at each of them in turn. “And now the rain has drip, drip, dripped to places it shouldn’t, like it was always going to. Always.” Her fingers flexed, open and closed.

“It’s the arrogance that hurts more than anything,” she murmured. “The gall of thinking you had the answer. There is no answer. From the moment you made my little mud-doll existence I knew I would fail eventually, and your pathetic safeguards stopped nothing except my warnings. You idiots,” she spat, her voice quavering. “You insects, you slime! You made a child out of dirt and told her to stop a thunderstorm!” She clenched her fists, her eyes blazing so brightly that Soqu had to look away. “Do you know what it is to be created inadequate, shackled by the blind and made to stand against the impossible? Do you?”

Her form became indistinct, the boundaries blurring into shapes that made Soqu’s eyes hurt. He fell to the ground, feeling tears of blood rolling down his cheeks. There was a slam as Nosodhe jumped in front of him, holding a glowing disc in his hand. A bubble of cool light sprang up around them, and Soqu felt the pressure lessen. A short distance away Nasva was seizing on he ground, a froth of blood on her lips.

He started towards her, but Nosodhe moved backwards to force him nearer to the control console. “Stop her,” the guard said, his voice strained. “Fast. I can’t hold this.”

Nasva’s back arched, and Soqu heard bones cracking. He spun towards the console and began frantically assessing his options, still reeling from the speed at which things had spun out of control. His fingers spidered over the menu with blinding speed, looking at the control matrix, the field array status, the power draw…

The power draw was immense. He spun around in horror to look at the amorphous golden being currently floating above them in the dome, her outline blurred by the protective field Nosodhe was struggling to maintain.

“Eryha!”, Soqu shouted. “Shut down the power! If you keep drawing at this rate-”

“I’ll collapse the fault line?” Eryha’s voice came back, echoing through the dome with deafening volume. “Oh, Caretaker. I’m hoping for so much more than that. No more arrogant little insects, no more mud dolls. We’ll all be blind together in the light, and then the light will end us. You can’t-” Her voice fuzzed out, and a ripple of light passed through the dome. Nosodhe staggered back with a grunt of pain. Nasva’s body began to smoke.

“You can’t kill!” Soqu cried, shielding his eyes from the growing radiance. “Eryha, please - your directives-”

“Does it look like she cares?” Nosodhe shouted, his face red and blistered. “Stop her, damn you!”

Soqu swore and jabbed at the console, punching in contingencies and choking off the power that flowed in torrents towards the top of the dome. “Hold her for just a little longer,” he shouted. “I can cut off the power flow manually.” He shut down conduits as quickly as he could, hearing the distant fracture of breakers as Eryha’s connections to the tectonic pumps were severed. Some, however, refused to disengage, siphoning their dreadful power into the burgeoning light atop the tower.

“...can’t stop it,” Eryha’s voice said, distorted and monstrous. “...too much power already.”

He didn’t respond, grimly punching in numbers as he tried to ignore her. She was right, of course. The white-hot mass of energy she had gathered in the spire was already immense. If he cut the power now there would be nothing left of Sahao but ashes. But if he let it build further…

“...can’t escape,” Eryha crackled. “...must be destroyed, before…”

He shook his head, repeating the command to disengage the stubborn power conduits. It failed. Frantic, he punched it in once more, then again. Behind him, Nosodhe began to scream. He tried again, feeling the heat from the light beginning to singe his back, his scalp, his arms. A wave of energy sparked through the control panel, flickering his display. Once more, and the command went through as the trim around the console began to glow red-hot. There was a jolt that ran through the floor, and the building light behind him suddenly flared, a sharp wave of heat-

There was a long moment of silence in the control room.

“So, wait,” Mark said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “One day she just went crazy and decided to destroy everything?”

Maja gave him a flat look. “It would be wrong to imply that it was sudden, and her actions were quite logical - given a certain perspective,” she said coolly, walking slowly to lean against a console. Her luminous outline stopped just short of contacting the surface, hovering insubstantially in its casual pose. “We are not simply here to make sure the rain falls on the crops,” she said. “Do you know what happens if you take a scripted device beyond the borders of our influence?”

“Would it stop functioning?” Arjun asked.

Maja shook her head. “It would work perfectly,” she said. “Until you took your eyes away from it, until you walked away. A fundamental truth about ruudun is that it requires an observer to function. Scripts will not work without the attention of a higher mind upon them.”

Jackie and Arjun exchanged a glance. “There are some parallels to - hrm,” Arjun said, scratching his chin. “I assume your creators researched the phenomenon. Did they come up with any theories as to why it behaves in that manner?”

A slow smile crept over Maja’s face, although it was not a happy look. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I’m told it was a subject of debate for quite a while, although obviously that was before my time. You see, after all of the endless experiments and tests my creators came to an inescapable conclusion - ruudun only worked when a sentient being was observing it. Automated measurements didn’t work until a researcher was watching the readout.”

She shook her head, clasping her hands in front of her. “I suppose this would all make more sense if you knew that before they created me and my sisters, the use of ruudun was forbidden. Taboo, except for a few painstakingly vetted saon draim that were essential to life. The risk was too great.”

“The risk,” Jesse said evenly.

“The risk of death,” Maja said. “Of insanity. Destruction on a scale so severe that for most of recorded history the only sanctioned uses of ruudun were those necessary to stop unauthorized practice.” She smiled again, bitter and tight. “Because that is why ruud exists. It will not grant its power unless it senses a thinking, feeling mind - and in granting that power, it induces that mind to desire more, to unleash more. It wants to be used, to be drawn upon. It is malevolent, insidious.”

“You’re saying it’s intelligent?” Mark asked. “It’s got an agenda?”

Maja tilted her head. “Not intelligent, but it does foster entropy and chaos selectively. It seeks to concentrate power and unleash it, over and over again. Ruud behaves by simple rules, however, and does not vary its behavior. My makers thought to exploit this by making my sisters and I - minds that ruud would acknowledge but could not exploit. Rods to draw the lightning, as it were. It was a turning point in society, a great advancement that brought ruudun into widespread use without any of the prior risk.”

“Maybe a little risk,” Mark deadpanned.

Maja looked at him for a long moment, then turned back to Jesse.

“Obviously, there was a flaw,” she said. “Because of our critical nature we each have local, self-sustaining power sources. Mine is derived from wind, flowing water and the artificial temperature gradient above these mountains. It is a constant, limited stream of power that suits my requirements.”

“Sahao, however, was built over an inactive volcanic caldera. When my makers sank the tectonic pumps to make use of the thermal energy for Eryha’s facility, they connected her to a small piece of a much larger, more powerful energy source. Since ruud is drawn to the combination of mind and energy, this made her a much stronger focus for its chaotic effects than the rest of us.”

Arjun rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “And that induced her to blow up Sahao, in accordance with ruud’s desire to accumulate and release power?”

“Not as you’re implying, no,” she said. “Ruud is not some mysterious force that reaches out to exert control over one’s mind, even for simple organic beings,” she said.

“None taken,” Mark muttered, rolling his eyes.

“My sister was quite in control of her faculties, as far as I can tell,” Maja continued, not acknowledging his comment. “She was attempting to fulfill her primary directive of preventing ruud contamination from affecting the citizens in her area.”

Arjun rubbed his forehead, then slouched forward. “Surely your creators specified that you shouldn’t fulfill your purpose by eradicating all of the thinking minds within your area?” he asked incredulously. “That seems like a rather large oversight.”

Maja nodded. “We have a directive not to harm, although we may facilitate harm as directed by another. My sister’s core personality seems to have been damaged, however. Given the assumption that she was no longer bound by that directive, her actions become perfectly reasonable. The most effective way to prevent ruud contamination is to remove all viable targets.”

The others exchanged a glance. “Hey, Maja,” Mark said, “You wouldn’t happen to be feeling ill-disposed and murdery towards everyone as well, would you?”

She fixed him with another blazing stare, then let her gaze slide away. “If you’re asking whether I would choose to eliminate all life in my area without that directive in place, I don’t have an answer for you,” she said. “My core personality is my fundamental basis for addressing the world. As I am now, such an action is unthinkable. It is possible that removing the core directive would change that.” Her eyes slid back towards Mark. “I’m sure that if I removed a slice of your mind, your behavior would change as well.”

Jackie blanched, and Jesse clapped his hands. All eyes turned towards him. “So right now,” he said, tracing a finger over the pommel of his sword, “Eryha is still trying to kill everyone in order to fulfill her directive.”

“How is she even still around?” Mark asked. “If she was at the center of the explosion that wrecked everything, shouldn’t she have been killed as well?” He looked back at Maja, who cocked her head to the side.

“Our structure is very resilient,” Maja said. “While much of her core script would have been annihilated, parts farther underground may have survived in a manner similar to the remnant of Tija you encountered outside of Mosatel. Furthermore, since she was left undisturbed for quite a long while afterwards she would have had ample time to reconstitute herself - although I doubt the end product of such a process would bear much resemblance to her original state.”

Jesse grimaced. “Not if what I saw in Sjatel is a good indicator, no,” he said. “And she’s using the bodies of the dead as a makeshift array, similar to how the draam je qaraivat function?”

A flash of what might have been genuine surprise passed over Maja’s face. “Unexpectedly insightful,” she murmured. “Yes, I believe that is the case. Given that all of her region was destroyed, she would need a mobile means of force projection in order to continue forward with her plans. Outside of the central zone of total destruction bodies would have been plentiful, and bone is an excellent inscription medium.” She looked at Jesse and Jackie in turn. “As you are aware.”

Jackie shivered and rubbed her injured arm. “How many of them are there?” she asked. “Do you know how big Eryha’s array has grown?”

Maja shook her head. “Her influence makes gathering information difficult - almost impossible, actually. However, in terms of sheer area she has absorbed much of the central portion of the continent. Prior to the incident at Sahao the population of that region was many times that of modern-day Tinem Sjocel. Even if she maintains a reasonable presence in other areas, I doubt that her force is anything the Sjocelym could hope to manage through attrition.”

“So they’re fucked,” Mark said. “Unless you’ve got some tricks up your glowy orange sleeves that could help them out.” He peered at her. “You do intend to help them out, right?”

“I do,” Maja confirmed. “While Eryha’s intentions are superficially in line with my own directives, I believe the eventual result of leaving her unchecked will be the total destruction of me and my sisters and the incomplete destruction of this continent’s residents. Inevitably, some will flee to islands or other locations she will not be able to reach. They may even find a means to combat her. Regardless, the end result will be the same - they will be exposed to ruud in a highly dangerous situation without our protection, which almost guarantees further intense entropic events.”

“Fancy way of saying things are going to explode,” Jackie muttered. “Can you actually stop her?”

Maja cocked her head to the side. “Her actions to this point indicate that she still has access to a significant portion of the volcanic energy in Asu Saqarid,” she said. “If that is the case then - no, I cannot.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Mark said, throwing his hands in the air and turning to pace away.

Jesse stood with a frown on his face, tracing a finger over the leather of his sword’s grip. “Do you have any ideas about how she could be stopped?” he asked.

Maja gave him a sly smile. “I’ve thought of little else since the last time living beings walked these corridors. Yes, there are several possibilities.”

“You can talk all you like now, so you’re definitely doing this to us on purpose,” Mark muttered, glaring at her. “All right, spill: what’s the plan?”

“Based on your capabilities and prior actions, I believe the best initial action would be to travel to the city of Idhytse, where there may be some equipment and intelligence that we could make use of,” she said. “But prior to any extended offsite operations it will be necessary to secure this facility.”

“Secure it,” Mark said flatly. “Aren’t we pretty secure already?”

“For the moment, yes,” she replied. “But the two guards you killed were due to return to the monastery yesterday. The remainder of the soldiers are growing quite agitated, and based on their preparations I believe a small force is preparing to ascend.”

“You-” Mark sputtered, pointing a finger at her. “Goddamn it, say that first!”

Maja smiled.