The portcullis stood open, shelled walls supporting serrated crenelations and looming towers fat with glistening eyes. A long line of petitioners — lost and desperate — was penned to the side and made to squat beside ulcerated trenches carved into city flesh at the foot of the armoured palace. Patrols of black and scarlet-clad freaks, each twisted into their own contorted shape and possessing their own reason for pledging their life to a cruel elder, made their way around its perimeter.

One of them, craggy-masked and dark of eye, watched Ay from atop the battlements. The hunter clacked his beak together as he stared back before finally turning his serpentine body and pushing his way beneath the living gate.

A pair of xenozygote guards intercepted Ay. They handled him with contempt, as a freak both unpurified and bearing no colours.

“How dare you come here, filth?”

“Voice,” Ay spat, still learning his new mouth. “The Voice summoned me.”

The first cultist shoved Ay back by his shoulder. The hunter let him, glancing at the biocannon in his companion’s grip, all too aware of the eyes lingering on them. The vat-born chittered at Ay, brandishing a blade. Its tip threatened the hardened edge of the hunter’s beak.

“This one has been called!” A whistling voice filled the courtyard.

The Voice of the Lord of Bones descended from one of the many swollen halls that made up this tumorous palace. He was kept by a small contingent of pale, picked out in this dark and sodden place by their gleaming metal and sweeping white raiments.

The two forces broke down, rabid and territorial. More xenozygote freaks spilt out to meet them. They bore lances and claws, clutched in their motley hands more scored blades, marred from a lifetime in this oily den. Ay drew back imperceptibly with a careful glance all around. He did not want to be caught in the middle of a brawl.

One of the pale — dutiful and disciplined — stepped before The Voice to shield him. The shrouded warrior intercepted the horde, standing twenty to one, drawing his sword. It gleamed, star metal shining as its polished lustre caught the biolights. Pointing his weapon at a shrieking beast, he met the challenge.

In an instant, both sides ringed around the combatants. The pale grappled with a gnashing beast, the xeno raking biomechanical claws over his glimmering armour. Sparks flashed bright as mechanised razor claws met a swing from his star metal sword. The pale first carved the mutant’s fingers from his weaponised hand in a bloody arc and then struck a gauntlet-clad fist across the side of its head with a mighty smack.

The xenozygote beast fell to its side, a shelled body clattering across the cement ground, splashing in the mucus and runoff. It snarled and clutched its wounded hand before being dragged to its feet by its scarlet-clad allies. They pulled it back into the crowd, hot blood and oil still pouring from its savaged claws.

Almost as one, the crowd dispersed. The confrontation ended as quickly as it began, sharp eyes and bitter whispers cast between them. Ay breathed a sigh of relief but knew this restless peace wouldn’t last. He had to get the job and leave as quickly as possible. Lingering in the Enelasian court was tantamount to suicide.

“I am glad you came,” The Voice whistled low.

Ay turned to face the looming herald.

“Better to serve,” the hunter said.

“Walk with me.”

Ay slithered beside the herald as the pale surrounded them in armed escort. They crossed the yard proper. Keeping an eye on his surroundings, the hunter noticed that they entered a killing field. The tumorous buildings, armoured and squat, were slitted with narrow windows, emplaced for fortified biocannon fire. Each structure stood corner to corner, lines of sight overlapping, doors heavy and reinforced with metallic bone. The palace was designed to cut down any invaders in pitched battle.

“You would do well not to speak unless spoken to,” the herald advised as they moved between the halls, taking a circuitous route through the grounds.

“Fine.”

Ay eyed the pale warrior at their side, who cleaned his blade with a rag. The victor then sheathed his weapon with an arrogant flourish before meeting the hunter’s eyes with his visor. His armour was etched with the iconography of the towering, tree-like shape of the many-limbed Axiamat, who once dared to reach for the stars.

“The ennobled are considering their options,” The Voice said. “You are one of many. Best you do not test them.”

“How?”

The herald drew to a halt, looking down at Ay, considering the hunter as he might any other freak of the depths.

“Kneel when they enter the room — or best you can, I suppose. Do not meet their eyes. Do not question them. Submit.”

“Who are they?” Ay asked, leaning in and giving the herald a plaintive look. He knew when it was time to drop the act and admit he knew nothing of the elders and their courtiers.

“I am an envoy accompanying The Hand of Zolgomere and the Eidolon herself.”

“Thought the Eidolon was a man,” Ay muttered, glancing at their escort again.

“The forty-third Eidolon sacrificed himself to restore hope to this world, and his replacement has been chosen,” the herald explained with surprising enthusiasm. “The Lord of Bones and all his forces have knelt to the Pilgrim returned — which I suspect you have heard even down here — and the Eidolon is His appointed champion.”

The long-winded explanation caught Ay off guard. Clearly, The Voice relished the opportunity to speak of the intricacies of his ecclesiarchy. Still, despite this herald’s supposed patience, Ay knew that the Axiamati were dangerous, an armed insurrection led by some elder God who had seized the territories of the Lord of Bones and devoured all who opposed him.

“What are they like?” Ay asked as the herald resumed their slow walk.

“The Hand won’t suffer further delays, but he is — of course — second to the Eidolon.”

“And her?”

“Best you do not attract her scrutiny.”

“You still wear the white,” Ay said quietly, testing him.

“It’s only proper. We are still the pale servants of the Lord and his witch-Lady, regardless of his new allegiance.”

Ay nodded at that, eyes searching the herald for any signs of deception. It was difficult to tell whether that haughty maw was smiling.

“Politics,” the hunter eventually relented.

“Yes. I imagine that it’s difficult for you. Still, do not make a fool of yourself.”

“Putting a lot of faith in me.”

“I, of course, only seek the best outcome for our ennobled rulers.”

Ay grunted, then asked, “The Vat-Mother?”

The herald laughed softly and shook his fluted head.

“We will not be entering Her presence. Paradise be. She will be represented by one of her servants.”

“Who?” Ay asked, his relief palpable.

“Jhedothar the Lance, one of her knights-tyrants. He’s a prat, and easily flattered — driven by ego. Act the simpering sort, if he addresses you.”

They arrived at the inner ward, before a great set of flagstone steps carved and carried some immeasurable distance into the depths of this crawling city. Ay looked at the stone, briefly confused to see it here. The fleshy lips of the main entrance opened for them, inviting them in. The hunter considered the path before them cautiously, claws flexing and muscles taut, every instinct commanding him to run.

Of course, The Voice led the way. Against every sense of self-preservation, they ascended to the entrance and stepped inside the colossal chamber within. The cartilaginous palace was a domain of status and worship in equal measure. Hints at ashlar, masonry long ago worn down to crumbling mass, belied the foundations of this place. The edifice bore shrines to its holy mother, imagery embedded into the curving walls, her bondage a sacred affliction. She created this deep realm, having shaped Enelastioa from the mutant chaos of the city, and presided here as its ruler beyond reproach.

Ay looked up. Piercing the murk, the swirling mists of this humid lair, a giant moved. The colossal Golcothia — the guardian of this hall — leaned down over them, shapeless in the void. Its eyes, gleaming sharp yellow in the dim, watched over their passage.

The pale escort marched tensely as they entered the vastness. An arcade of towering pillars supported the domed ceiling, shaped with the likeness of twenty generations of the mother’s greatest champions — their victories, their rule.

Countless urns and glass vessels, reinforced with heavy bioceramics, filled this space. They stood as rows that stretched out beyond the mist-shrouded distance, cast an ill shade by the biolights. Ay eyed the shapes within, freaks growing or preserved in gel, trapped here at the behest of the Xenozygote cult.

In this dungeon, a line of women were bound and chained, overseen by cruel and twisted warriors bearing brass rods. Pregnant with children, they cried out to Ay and the pale to save them. Unable to interfere with the malignant rites of this dark demesne, the hunter looked away and left them to a fate worse than death as heretics in this low order.

Then, they came within sight of that profane vault. Its towering portal stood, overgrown with pulsing arteries and barbed growths. A heavy pressure filled the air, some invisible force that distorted the body and mind in equal measure. Ay knew well what lay beyond that door. No doubt remained as he felt the mutagen crawl throughout his body, conjured by a terrible entity unseen, desecrating his form to please an imperious master.

The Vat-Mother of Acetyn, the Immortal’s first daughter.

“Come,” The Voice urged them on. “It does us ill to linger in this place.”

They ascended to the next level on winding stairs, an atrium still within sight of that evil portal, crossing a balcony braced with skeletal rails.

“All this for one vat-born?” Ay said under his breath as he slithered, noticing a cadre of guards to receive them.

“You cannot imagine,” the Voice said, stopping before the door to a solar repurposed for their meeting, with a final note of caution. “Remember what I told you.”