The designers behind Filigree’s planetary palace probably aimed to inspire awe, wonderment, or majesty by their work. Indeed the shark fin shaped spire was a feat of engineering, and in a vacuum it might be some degree of impressive. It’s black stonework was an obvious homage to the Darkmount. The shape invoked the idea of a great predator swimming just beneath their feet. Voy felt none of these things.

  As he and the other torchbearers were led from their trucks in the adjoining courtyard it was not wonder, nor awe, nor majesty which built up in him. No, Voy was absolutely livid. The polished granite floors they walked in upon sparkled as veins of gems refracted light up and around them. Jeweled treasures, artifacts and banners with faded heraldry hung along the walls in a careless display of wealth.

  Attendants rushed up to the newcomers with platters overflowing to offer hors d’oeuvres and beverages to the newcomers. Only a small portion of it was derived from the sea, meaning that the platters the servants carried held meat worth more than their wages would ever compete with. If they were paid at all. Outside, the palace township was a far cry from the conditions of the capitol. It was clean, it was spacious, a perfect little micro community built to reward those fortunate enough to earn their despot’s favor with a life of relative comfort.

  Disparity was not a foreign concept to Voy. Wherever humanity existed so too did disparity follow, but worlds in Thurgia were never so blatantly flawed. They had the blessing of kartorim to guide them and temper man’s shortsighted pursuit of needless wealth. Most worlds were ruled by a Kartorim House headed by a centuries old, at minimum, kartorim that had earned their aerials. Without the needs of mortality and the whip of a finite life’s ambition driving them into recklessness such leaders were able to make stable, safe worlds where the gap between the greatest and the least was a narrow thing.

  Voy knew it could not be that way in the Buffer, in a place devoid of such timeless guidance, but he was not prepared for how proximity to it would make him feel. Evidently it made him rather angry. When one of the servants approached him with a tray of seared meats, he held up his hand to politely decline. Ideas swam through his head, simple things like taking something to offer back to the servants or stealing some away to give to beggars back on the capitol island, but they did not materialize into action.

  They moved to Elara next. Voy looked away just as she took some. She wasn’t the only one either, everyone in the torchbearer party graciously accepted the offerings presented to them as the doors to the palace shut behind them. Voy ground his teeth and did his best not to fault them for it, he couldn’t expect others to feel the same. Most people didn’t consider what structures supported their everyday lives, or the lives of others, because it wasn’t relevant to them.

  Voy knew he would be no different if he’d not been made to notice these things by Avaron. As the ruler of Thurgia this sort of thing couldn’t slip beneath his notice, and he made certain it never slipped beneath Voy’s. Kartorim were warriors first, but it was of near equal importance to the High Marshall that they embodied the very best of leaders as well.

  ‘The burden we bear is the price of our blessings. With a few words we can be boon or blessing to those we are charged to preside over. The frailty you will one day shed is theirs for all their days, and every decision you make carries the weight of life and death for them. You must know how to dispatch the avatars of Pantheon gods just as well as you know the crop cycle on the world you do battle on, or your victorious parade home may leave famine in it’s wake’

  Voy milled his mentor’s words around in his head as the attendants finished offering refreshments. The diplomat began to lead the group down the corridor. Pit sharks took up the front and rear of the group, subtly corralling them into a set path. Niho and Mata, the two who had met them on the Auric Wind, were in the back while two others took up the front.

  “So who is Bascimus? You mentioned him in the truck on the way over,” Elara asked in a whisper to the armor clad warriors behind them. A chuckle escaped from the one called Mata.

  “He’s the one your people have been calling ‘the raikon’,” both he and Niho made a show of their disgust, “whatever you call him though, he’s the top of the food chain. The ruler of Filigree, for whatever that’s worth anymore,” Mata’s demeanor was jovial, but in the way one becomes happy when the outcome is determined and the only other options are despair or apathy.

  “Do not call him Bascimus to his face though, not unless you want to piss him off. He’s a fickle bastard on the best of days,” Niho whispered his derogatory advise so only the kartorim could hear. Up ahead the corridor seemed to end as the black sandstone curved gently into a rounded wall. Voy expected the diplomat to stop, or to turn, but her and the pit sharks were unbothered by the obvious barrier they walked towards.

  Just as the diplomat should have face planted into the wall, the stone seemed to melt and fizzle away until it was little more than a smokey vapor. The party walked through the now intangible wall without issue and it re-solidified behind them.

  “Fascinating technology, is it not?” the diplomat called back in an effort to involve the kartorim in the conversation ahead.

  “Sure is,” Voy answered dispassionately. The gimmicky use of such tech for what amounted to party tricks was wasteful, but what concerned him more was that such a door would make leaving of your own accord a very difficult prospect.

  “I’m more interested in the stone work they’ve used. The black sand worked into the composite here isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen, and I can’t get a good read on what it’s made of,” Undahiil said over low-net to his kartorim companions. The Jeremayne was barely keeping up, his attention fixed hard on the walls as they passed. Several dexfils were out and taking scans, to the wary observation of the pit sharks.

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  “You’ve been in that junk pit of yours for too long if walls are that eye catching, Coggy,” Elara teased as she grabbed the edge of his robe and gently pulled him away from the wall. She offered a friendly wave to the pit sharks as she did in order to diffuse their unease with the mechanical man.

  “It’s not the walls themselves that caught my attention you rube,” Undahiil protested, “It’s what they’re made of.” When the filigreans led them to another wall at the end of the hall it once again became vapor as they passed through the now open wall. If he listened in Voy could just about hear Hembrandt and the diplomat’s discussion now. Unfortunately it wasn’t worth eavesdropping, their topics were staggeringly mundane; weather, local celebrities, housing prices… come to think of it Hembrandt had an uncomfortable familiarity with local goings-on.

  Past the open doorway the hallway abruptly ended and became a large, open banquet hall with a throne situated at the far end. It was made of the same black composite as the tower itself, but long tables were set with white cloth and silver polished dinnerware. The room was outfit to seat nearly eight times as many people as those present in Hembrandt’s party, but they were the only ones in the room.

  “Oh no… no no no… we’re early!” the woman who had escorted them began to panic, frantically checking and re-checking her wrist watch. She spun on her heels and began to usher the group back out. “We need to leave, now! Just for a moment, everyone please go back through the-”

  “You’ve arrived! And early no less!” the filigrean woman froze, her eyes wide. Color drained from her face. She turned slowly back toward the throne, prompting everyone else to face the same way. Upon the raised floor where the black throne sat, a kartorim in all black carapace stood with his arms out wide, like he was trying to hug the room. His eyes were crimson coals and his crown aerials took the shape of two horn like fixtures that bent down and curled over themselves once before pointing where his mouth sat behind his faceplate.

  Voy recognized the kartorim from the statue he’d seen in the capitol. And cautious recognition began to connect this figure with the phantom that had plagued him ever since absorbing the living data. This figure was more resolved, nothing hidden, nothing left to interpretation. The raikon next to his throne.

  “I’d hoped to make a better welcome, but I can certainly appreciate your punctuality!” he was loud and emotive but devoid of substance. One could at once hear the smile in his voice and know that it was entirely performative. The diplomat bowed her head.

  “My raikon I am sorry, my watch-” the woman stammered while trembling.

  “And now you’ve gone and spoiled my introduction again! We will talk later!” he cut her off, putting one hand on his hip and wagging his other hand’s finger at her like he was scolding a child. She went silent and stared off at nothing, a single tear running down her cheek.

  “But yes, as the lady said I am the raikon of Filigree!” he clapped his hands together and stepped in front of his throne before falling back into it. “And with your contribution today, I’m hoping to expand that title from Filigree to all the Buffer!” he let out a contented sigh. “You may prostrate yourselves now, if you so wish.” Hembrandt, his guards, the diplomat, and the pit sharks all dropped to one knee and bowed their heads forward.

  “All hail the raikon!” they cried in unison, except for the pit sharks. They kneeled, bowed, and spoke with the others but their words carried one key omission. Rather than say ‘all the hail the raikon’, they instead said ‘All hail Raikon!’. If Bascimus caught their little sedition he made no mention of it, his focus instead fell upon the three who had not knelt.

  “You three, yes you in the back!” Bascimus made a show of grabbing their attention as if they’d been ignoring him, “Is there a reason you are disrespecting me and my hospitality so blatantly?” Voy’s patience for this showman had run its course. Thankfully Undahiil spoke first.

  “Our apologies mister raikon, we are unfamiliar with filigrean custom. We mean no disrespect, but I must also regretfully admit that I am too rigid to kneel or even bend. I’m more machine than man you see,” Undahiil placated the tyrant while also excusing himself from playing along. Cheeky bastard, Voy thought.

  “Ah, you are a Jeremayne. The value you bring is prostration enough,” Bascimus moved his expectant gaze to Elara. Elara looked at Hembrandt, then Bascimus, before she dropped to into an unwary kneel.

  “All hail the raikon?” she said without conviction, more so a question asking if her display was enough to make Bascimus leave her alone. Bascimus scowled, but turned his gaze at last on Voy. Unmoved, Voy simply met his eye contact with his own.

  “Well what do we have here? A half baked washout with an attitude? Don’t see that every day,” Bascimus leaned forward in his throne. “I’m not a patient man, half breed. Do your ears work? You a bit slow?” Voy had heard about how terrifying the ire of a crowned kartorim was to a kartorim without aerials of their own. It wasn’t the aerials themselves but something else, they way they were always bigger, stronger, or more seasoned perhaps. It was like staring into the sun and waiting for it to blink.

  Evidently his condition did not free him of that physical response. His heart raced, his subconscious animal mind screamed for him to yield, to relent to this apex predator staring him down before it struck him. But firmer than that fear was the wellspring of hate he’d amassed for this being, and this moment. This man’s phantom had traipsed around his mind for weeks, taunting him with the inevitability of his eventual success, of the carnage he would wreak, of the friends and loved ones he would cast into the grave. The demagogue’s words burned in his mind. ‘On this world you will kneel before me.’

  “All hail Raikon.” Voy answered with calm defiance as he refused to kneel. Realization was immediate in Bascimus’ red eyes. A pregnant pause followed. The pit sharks looked up from their bow at Voy, but their helmets hid whatever emotion they were feeling. Bascimus’ eye twitched, which for helm eyes looked like a flickering of the light behind one of his eyes and a slight narrowing of the metal around it.

  “Close. Enough,” Bascimus forced the words out as he buried his fury back beneath his curated optimism. “Welcome to Filigree, welcome all!” Bascimus popped up from his throne and descended down the steps just as another nearby wall opened. A crowd of formally dressed men and women entered, led by pit sharks. Smiles adorned their faces and an atmosphere of cheerful celebration surrounded them as they took their seats. Hembrandt rose and immediately went to speak to Bascimus face to face, his bodyguards scrambled to catch up. Elara stood up and watched him race off, but did not follow.

  Voy remained where he was, the come down from the adrenaline anchoring him in place. Suddenly a firm yet friendly hand clapped him on the back. Niho and Mata came into view from his left side.

  “That was extremely stupid,” Niho said sternly.

  “But stupid and brave have a lot of overlap, so we treat it like a virtue,” Mata added, lightly punching Voy’s right shoulder. Niho patted him once on the back before letting his hand fall.

  “Keep your head on straight. Even if you have something that keeps him from killing you over, he’ll just work three times harder to work around it,” Niho quietly advised like before.

  “What does it mean?” Voy asked. The two pit sharks looked at each other with disbelief before bursting into hearty laughter.

  “You mean you pulled that stunt on a whim? Just for kicks?” Mata laughed with his hands on his belly.

  “You’d have made a fine pit shark with that low-drag brain of yours,” Niho remarked as he caught his breath from laughter. Out in the banquet hall the guests had finished seating themselves and left only a few scant patches of unoccupied table. Elara made eye contact with Voy, her helm now retracted, and waved her whole arm in the air while pointing to the open seat beside her just as an overweight man in a several years too young suit dropped into it and began to gab loudly with other guests. Elara deflated, Undahiil sat next to her in the other seat but had become enraptured in conversation with a couple of engineer-looking fellows.

  Niho nudged Voy. “Bring the lady, you two cat sit over with us.” Retracting his helm Voy offered a gracious smile and mouthed ‘over here’ to Elara. She needed no further convincing and practically jumped from her seat before running up to Voy and the pit sharks. A handful of dirty glares followed in her wake from the ‘dignified’ guests she passed.

  “Thanks! I was one more mention of ‘exotic nuclear stability’ away from finding the nearest bridge to jump off,” Elara said as she came within earshot. Niho and Mata nodded and led them over to a black curtain doorway and out of the banquet hall.