Yazata’s bindings came undone, and from within fell a formless mass of smoke and tar, and upon its fall it instantly began coalescing, moving along the angle-web in the only direction permitted to it by the ritual — into the Gate of Metamorphosis, along the Initial Angle, towards the dreg-gem of Joseph Ogura. Slowly, it moved, leaving the unguent in its wake lifeless and spent, enveloping the dreg-gems of the four dead men as it moved. Slowly, it grew into the shape of a raven, and then further still, twisting that animal form towards a humanoid direction, legs elongating and bulking up, wings receding towards the back to make room for the arms that burst forth. As this body took form, so too did Barzai’s movement quicken, from crawling to dragging himself along by all fours to stumbling on two feet. Upon arriving at the Ultimate Angle, the center of the angle-web, the humanoid raven turned its head sideways such that one of its eyes met Krahe’s gaze. It was then that the world flickered with the impossible colours of Kenoma, and all things halted.

  Krahe found herself here, yet also not here.

  The general shape of the ritual chamber remained, but that was all. No pillars, no other people, nothing.

  Just a flat outline with the ritual angle-web as the only remnants of reality, and, in Barzai’s place, there stood a featureless table and two chairs. Upon one of the chairs sat a figure of blackest blackness with a luminous band of gold around its neck. For a moment, at least. Like assets loading in, the figure grew more distinct with each passing moment, and so did the furniture, taking on the carved-and-lacquered-wood aesthetic that Krahe had gradually been getting used to as she lived in church safehouses.

  The figure took the form of a young, pale-skinned man of indeterminate ethnicity, wearing a dark suit of black pants and a maroon satin shirt. It was in the sharp, overly-clean cut Krahe had come to know as corpo-chic. His hair was tied back into a ponytail, with a texture that produced the illusion of feathers at a glance. His face was sharp, nose was pointy, and he had a golden, shining collar with seven spikes around his neck. His eyes shone red.

  The man that Krahe knew to be Barzai looked up at her, and, with a grin of razor teeth, nodded towards the chair opposite himself.

  “This is not a normal eidolon evolution ritual,” Krahe stated the obvious, walking towards him. She almost expected this un-place to have similar rules to the Astral Gulf, but it felt no different to physical reality, at least in the superficial sense.

  “It is, and it is not. To the outside observer it makes no difference. This-”

  Barzai gestured around.

  “-is a moment.”

  “And that’s not the form of any eidolon,” she deadpanned again, gesturing at him as she sat down.

  “In this, the blame lays with you, I am afraid. This face is the meaning of a servant. The manner of my speech, too, is part of that projection,” Barzai said, looking himself up and down. The appearance checked out, though the fact he spoke like a stereotypical butler had more to do with fiction than reality.

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  “Fine. You say this is a moment. Perceived time dilation isn’t anything new to me, the question is how you’re doing this and why. More importantly, what made you think it was a good idea to force the evolution rather than just, oh, I don’t know, speak up.”

  “I would have spoken up were I able, truly, but… The force of stasis that the Seven Spokes System exerts upon an eidolon to keep it stable in such an in-between state is something truly remarkable. To illustrate my point,” he gestured to the collar around his neck, and a muzzle took shape upon his face, and a leash of light extended from the collar, towards Krahe, fading out halfway. After exaggeratedly yanking on the leash for a moment, he dismissed the projection. “As I was, I could pull on the leash and not much else. At this moment, I am completing my evolution, and my manifestation — the me that you understand to be Barzai — is in a state of flux. Through that state of flux, I can momentarily show another facet of myself, one that you would never see under different circumstances. That is all. For this moment, we can speak in this manner. I have done this, knowing that you would lose all trust in me if I forced the evolution without properly explaining myself. Shall I?”

  "You're clearly not an eidolon. You can fool the system, but anyone with eyes to see can tell that you are something in the guise of an eidolon. What are you really?" Krahe questioned.

  Barzai smiled, clearly having expected that question.

  “I am that I am. Forever repeating. A new face. A new form. The same old me. I am that I am. No matter the contractor, no matter the form I take for them, I am always the same at my core. I sup upon the anguish of sinners brought to justice, for it is to I as ambrosia is to the gods of Olympus. Nothing more. Nothing less. I am the raven that pecks out the eyes of a hanged murderer. I am the hound lapping up the blood of a beheaded tyrant. I do not grow, I do not wither, I do not die, I do not live; from whence I have come, so too shall I there return. I am not an eidolon, I am not an Outer God, I am none of the things to which the tongues of those who dwell in light or the astral twilight have given a name. In the next life, perhaps we will reunite, god-eater, you who have consigned yourself to the eternal pilgrimage, perhaps not, it makes no difference to either of us. Know this, my master: I have chosen to wear the Collar-With-Seven-Spikes and to place the leash in your hands. As any loyal hound, I would not pull the leash without good reason. Know that I am not capable of even attempting to harm the one with whom I am contracted, lest the Wheel cast me out of this world and never allow me back in. Speak the word, and I will don a hundred more chains — but you must speak now, for only now do I possess the power to change myself in this way. Trust in me, or do not. The choice is yours, contractor. It makes no great difference to me, for I know that I will eat my fill either way. After all, to whom else ought I flock than the murderer of murderers?”

  “I take it that you either can’t or won’t act outside the system’s rules, then, by, for instance, jumping yourself to a level of power wildly disproportionate even for an evolved True Eidolon.”

  “Correct. I am neither able, nor willing to do such a thing.”

  “Communication, then. Absolute communication. No more incidents like this one.”

  Barzai thought for a few moments.

  “It can be arranged,” he eventually nodded. “The leverage-point is to be a high degree of cognitive strain in order to facilitate such communication, that is to say mental effort.”

  Their surroundings shuddered, and Krahe began hearing Firminus’ organ music once more, albeit faintly.

  “Our time is up.”

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