Nanomech

By R. David King

Left behind by his childhood friend, Aiben ekes out his existence as a cybermancer acolyte and part-time starship mechanic on a backwater world. He leads an uncertain life until the Zenzani Protectorate invades his home and destroys everything he has ever known. Aiben soon learns that the molecule-sized machines, which augment his mind and body, have a centuries-old plan for him involving nanotechnology, genetic manipulation, and hyperspatial thought. Now, along with his companions, an old soldier, and a sentient mechanoid, he journeys to a world of fabricated prophecies where he must navigate the treacheries of war and espionage to find an ancient weapon and a long-forgotten people that will bring his past crashing into his future and seal his destiny forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. David King
• Release date: Feb 26, 2011
• ISBN: 9798215297704

R. David King

R. David King lives near Seattle where he works for an international tech company by day and thinks up stories to tell at night. Somehow, in between, he helps raise smart and creative kids and the best aussiedoodle alive. When the occasion permits, you might find him enjoying the beautiful nature of the Pacific Northwest, curled up with a new and exciting book, or binging the latest science fiction or fantasy show. Feel Free to Contact me at [e-mail].

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Aiben communed with molecule-sized robots inhabiting his body. They protected him from infection and strengthened his bones and muscles. They heightened his vision, hearing, and sense of taste and smell. They enabled him to control devices with the proper interfaces by thought alone. He could use them to penetrate hyperspace with his mind and communicate with others of his kind. For the moment, though, he had silenced the machines. It would be much easier for him to concentrate without them cluttering his thoughts.

Aiben stood at the bottom of a giant well walled with rusty iron grid-work. Countless levels of habitation, caked in filth, had been stacked ever higher with each new decade. The honeycombed girders of overgrown city sprang up all around him, constructed weeds that hedged up his view on all sides for hundreds of feet. Between the slats and gangways that thatched together the ground, the depths stretched down into subterranean infinity and left to his imagination what his enhanced senses couldn’t perceive.

Industrial emissions, cotton balls of cloudy soot, rode breezes stewed up by pressure and temperature differentials of the urban canyons. The oils of morning sunlight had already spilled over the tops of the enormous buildings like a muddy waterfall. Random flashes echoed off the reflective windows that tiled the buildings and lit up the metallic carapaces of spidery mechanoids, robotic creatures that climbed along the edifices and polished off the dirt and grime. Aiben’s eyes followed them, waiting.

A dirty gust of wind hammered thick poly-fiber pants against his legs. He pulled the collarless charcoal button-up shirt, and the sleeveless black leather vest, so popular on human worlds, tighter around his broad shoulders. His black hair, short in some places, long in others, tinted with a hint of bronze, looked ragged as it thrashed back and forth in the filtered gray light of the industrial world. He rubbed at a week’s worth of beard sprouting on his jaw. Despite what was going on inside him, his outward appearance gave the impression he was just a normal citizen of any Seven Guilds world.

Are you going to stand there all morning and just stare at those buildings? I don’t pay you to daydream, you know.

The smooth baritone of the man’s voice intertwined with the perfect rhythm of tools striking metal. The constant cadence would have been enough to stir up movement in most beings, but to Aiben, the tempo simply framed his thoughts as they raced to keep time.

I’m just waiting for them to get off, Aiben said. He watched the enormous structures planted across from them in centuries of built-up sod. And I’m not daydreaming either.

The tools ceased their beat.

What are you talking about? Those little mechs are always up there, you know that. They’re not coming down any time soon with all this smog around.

A moist breath brushed the back of Aiben’s neck. Startled, he turned to lock gazes with a pair of electric cobalt eyes, one cradled by a scar that writhed each time it blinked. He scorned himself for allowing his friend, Ballis, to come so close without detection. He was distracted more than usual this morning.

Not the spider-mechs, Aiben shook his head, I meant...

What? Ballis eyed him.

Nairom. He has to come back sometime. Today could be the day. Orbital ferry just docked. I’m waiting for the passengers to disembark.

Ballis sighed and turned away. Aiben, he’s gone. It was his choice. We’ve been over this so many times before and I have no desire to go over it again. Let it be.

Aiben gritted his teeth and steeled himself for a confrontation. I don’t have to agree with his choice, though, do I?

I didn’t say you had to agree with it. Ballis turned around. But you have to live with it.

But what do you personally think? Aiben asked. Did he do the right thing? You’ve never said anything about it.

And it’ll stay that way, Ballis said. It’s not my place to say one way or the other. He made his decision and that’s all there is to it. It’s in the past. Now it’s time to move on.

Aiben had expected as much. Ballis was a man who lived very much in the present. Usually, he was quite passionate, but talk of the past often wrung the emotion right out of him. For years, Aiben had tried to figure out why this was, but he had only ever learned one thing: the man’s eyes were the true measure of his state of being. The depth and complexity they betrayed during these times exposed the true turmoil that raged behind them.

Thought that’s what you’d say. Guess I shouldn’t even bother.

OK, look, ten years ago there was this holocast they did on me, said I was a military hero of the Seven Guilds. They told everyone about the medals for bravery and valor they gave me. Nobles from the jaded halls of the Old Houses... Ballis stretched out his arms wide ...down to the lowliest workers in the Guilds that dominate our economy knew my name. He brought his hands so close together they were almost touching as if to show Aiben how even the minutest of citizens had been aware of him. I was Colonel Ballis Ceimor, hero of the Nor Joon uprisings. They said the most searched for topics at the time were, and I quote, ‘my rugged dark looks, angular jaw, scarred cheek, and muscular frame’. My charisma and efficient mind were supposed to be the stuff of legend, you know.

The sarcasm was not lost on Aiben.

I’m a simple starship mechanic now who works on a small industrial planet, in a small insignificant docking garage, and just tries to escape my past. That was my decision and no one else’s business. It’s the same with Nairom.

OK, I hear you. Things were finally starting to make some sense. A constant war waged inside his friend between the past adventure he yearned for and the present simplicity he had settled for to protect his anonymity. That’s what wiped away his emotional connection to the past.

At least you know how to deal with fate, Aiben said.

The retired soldier, his features coarsened these days with smeared grease and stubble, just laughed. You mean I know how to hide from it. Come on now, enough chatter. Let’s get back to work.

Wait, there they are. Aiben saw movement and pointed at one of the docking struts that arched a hundred stories above them. Just one more minute...

An access causeway butted up against the side of the orbital ferry and people marched out of it like a line of ants stepping out of time. Aiben sent a ping into the hypernet. He hoped to connect with Nairom, but as usual, the contact failed. With one last effort, he powered up the range of his enhanced senses and swept them across the moving black dots. None of them was Nairom.

Any luck? Ballis asked.

No, nothing. It’s the same thing every week since he left Besti. I’ve been hoping for the past year that he’s coming in on that ferry. Aiben shrugged. Guess I’m just wasting my time.

Looks like you’re the one who’s going to have to learn how to accept fate, Ballis said. You need to acknowledge that he might never come back.

I can’t help but wonder where he is, though. Aiben clenched his teeth, a habit that caused his jaw muscles to spasm and an eyebrow to twitch. With the war going on... but Aiben didn’t want to think through a situation that he wasn’t ready to face yet.

"Well, he might be out there somewhere doing who knows what, but right now you’re here. Ballis’s cobalt eyes sparkled in the morning sun. That means you need to get that particle-shield generator fixed before mid-day. You know how Raatha feels about his precious ship. I hate to think about what will happen if repairs fall behind schedule. Now for the last time, get working!"

Ballis slapped Aiben’s shoulder with a callused hand and dissolved back into the shadows of the garage, tools rattled in his wake. Aiben looked down at his feet. A small laser housing had found its way there among the gathering dust. He kicked it away. It bounced across the dirty cement floor where they had strewn a hundred mechanical and electrical starship components.

Why did he have to leave? Aiben said quietly to himself. Why didn’t I have the guts to go with him? The young, part-time mechanic took a deep breath, let it out in a slow calculated sigh, and turned towards the pile of jury-rigged electronic components and optical wiring that would have to pass as a generator.

Before too long, Ballis was back at Aiben’s side to check on his progress. Aiben held up the assembled lump of machinery. Ballis’s brows drew together, but he nodded approval as he turned it around in his hands to inspect it.

You know, I was still pretty young when Oand-ib rescued me from the slum orphanage, Aiben said. I thought he was like my new father and teacher all rolled into one. He sat down on a makeshift bench they had assembled in the open-air foyer of the garage. Ballis joined him. Aiben continued, To tell you the truth, I can’t remember anything about my life before coming to this industrial pit of a city. All I can conjure up are a lot of distorted images and bizarre sounds. Oand-ib brought me to Roonagor, gave me a new home with the cybermancers, and made me one of their apprentices, just like that. He snapped his fingers. I don’t know what life was like anymore without the nanomechs. Oand-ib taught me how to control them even before I learned to read and write.

Yep, was all Ballis said as he tweaked a connection on the generator. He already knew all of this, of course.

Nairom was one of the memories that started the day my life began in Roonagor. He didn’t have any family either, except Oand-ib. We were like soldiers, you know. Common needs allowed us to bond quickly. We became inseparable comrades, brothers in a world governed by the strict traditions of the Cybermancer Guild.

Ballis nodded. He could understand that analogy.

At first, it was just friendly competition. We drove each other to learn faster than the other cybermancer apprentices. As we got better and better, I didn’t think it mattered who won and who lost, just sharing our triumphs and disappointments seemed to cement what I assumed was an unbreakable friendship.

How old were you two again when you started here? Satisfied, Ballis placed the generator on the floor in front of them and leaned back.

Seventeen, Aiben said.

Never could figure out why you two came to me.

Oand-ib thought it would be a good idea if we found jobs that supplemented our cybermancer training. Something we could learn without using nanomechs. Nairom saw you working your magic in the garage one day and since your reputation is well-known in Roonagor...

OK, let’s not exaggerate, Ballis said.

Aiben smiled and thought back on the day. Nairom had to convince me to approach you with him. Remember, you refused to take us on at first, didn’t think we could learn one end of a starship from the other.

I’m still not sure you can, but you were tenacious, I’ll give you that. Guess that’s what won me over in the end. Maybe I even saw a little bit of my younger self in you two. Oand-ib once told me he wanted me to help you build character and I needed a lot of that when I was my younger self.

Really?

Don’t go there, Ballis warned with a raised eyebrow. Remember, we’re talking about you.

Well, Oand-ib wanted us to become cybermancers and serve the Guild as he does. It didn’t take us long, though, to make plans of our own. We dreamed of becoming the best starship mechanics on all of Besti, maybe even in the whole Seven Guilds. Present company excluded, of course. Aiben chuckled at that, but then his mien darkened like the sooty clouds hovering above them. And then Hezit came and ruined everything.

And we come back around to that, Ballis groaned.

Aiben ignored him and pressed forward. When Oand-ib learned that Hezit claimed to be a master cybermancer, he warned us about him. He told us Hezit was a rogue, which means he’s not registered with the Cybermancer Guild, and that we should stay away from him.

I remember you telling me that, Ballis said.

You have to agree, though, he was charismatic, Aiben said. When he showed interest in Nairom’s skills, Nairom couldn’t get enough of his praise. He acted like a little kid who was getting all the candy he ever wanted. All those adventures Hezit promised to lead him on just seemed to hypnotize him. It’s been exactly one year ago today that Nairom left with Hezit. Aiben clenched his teeth; jaw and eyebrow twitched again.

That explains why you can’t drop the subject today. Ballis sounded a bit more sympathetic.

We fought with each other the day he left. I still don’t know the reason why he was so mad at me. I turned our argument over and over so many times in my head that I thought the reason for it would somehow slosh out. It never did. Nairom grew faster and stronger than I did in that last year we were together, so he couldn’t have been jealous of me. Even now, I compare my skills to Nairom’s and judge myself by it.

You have to stop with that. Ballis shook his head. That’s the kind of thing that will ruin you in the end.

Yeah, I know. It just seems like I’m following along with Oand-ib’s plans to make me a cybermancer in the Guild now. Sometimes, I just go through the daily motions of being a cybermancer, and sometimes, my only goal in life seems to be the need for Oand-ib to accept what I can do, to let me know I am as good as Nairom was. Although he didn’t admit it to Ballis, there were times that he pushed himself to the brink of mental and physical breakdown to exact such praise from his teacher, which was difficult because of his biomechanical augmentation.

You’ve got to start living your own life, Aiben.

You know what, Ballis, you’re right, Aiben pushed up from the bench. It is time to move on and forget. Aiben secretly hoped a growing relationship with one of the other cybermancers, a beautiful woman named Achanei, would be the new balm for his old wounds.

Now you’re making sense, Ballis stood and clapped Aiben on the back.

But can I ever really accept who I am? It was a battle Aiben had fought with himself for as long as he could remember. It raged especially strong within him these days. A sharp stab in his forearm followed the thought, quick but intense. He imagined for an instant that a razor-sharp blade had cut into his bone. He grimaced but tried his best to ignore the excruciating pain. It had become a common enough occurrence lately. It was an agonizing twinge in his limb, which the nanomechs couldn’t seem to pinpoint and repair. Not even conventional medicine had been able to tell him the cause of it. It only occurred when he pondered the tangle his life had become recently.

Right, pull yourself together, Aiben, he announced out loud.

Ballis grinned and retreated again into his light-shy domain, whistling as he went as if all was set right again in his slice of the world. Aiben took one last look into the bright oily sky, telling himself it would be the last. He shielded his eyes with one hand; the other clenched the energy modulator he had just connected to the generator. He could almost imagine Nairom’s ship appearing out of the sky and racing over the tops of the city’s jagged buildings to set down on one of the giant landing platforms that hovered above him.

He almost didn’t believe it when he saw the shadows that sprang up against the glare of the morning sun. At first, they were indiscernible shapes, but soon became angels of death silhouetted by a halo of bright, yellow-red fire. As they crossed over the city, their profiles transformed into the distinct outlines of Zenzani attack ships. They had penetrated the planet’s atmosphere at incredible speed. Almost instantly, a sonic boom crashed down, as the fighters, too numerous to count, rocketed overhead with such deafening force that Aiben thought his eardrums would burst. The exhaust of chemical fuel spewed out of their engines and descended upon Roonagor like a black shroud of impending doom.

CHAPTER 2

Aiben bounded out of the small hoverflyer and took off through the pedestrian walkways. He weaved his way through the crowds already forming as people heard the pounding of the flyby and spilled out into the streets. The constant buzz of hover traffic slid along the city’s main electromagnetic arteries behind him. It was more hurried and frantic than usual.

The wind whipped at his face, assaulted his nostrils, and stung his eyes with the manufactured fog of the city. He tuned down his senses so the stimuli wouldn’t overwhelm him. Suddenly, a brilliant flash of color covered the sky. A giant rainbow had sprung to life and then died in one massive spark of light. The Zenzani had brought down the old planetary shield network. More attack ships would be swarming down from their carrier high up in orbit.

The Zenzani Protectorate was a brutal regime that held an ever-expanding mass of worlds in violent subjugation. Its hungry belly grew in girth as it gobbled up more and more planets. The Protectorate’s principal architect, Magron Orcris, had seized power by promising victory against enemies that had decimated the Zenzani homeworld centuries earlier in a war whose cause was all but forgotten.

The Zenzani’s awakened bloodlust, bolstered by Magron’s fanaticism, compelled them forward to conquer unceasingly. Magron clamped the yoke of dictatorship on the necks of hundreds of billions with an unwavering resolution, his iron will having been hardened by the forges of war. Where peace had once spread its fingers among the Seven Guilds, war now curled its fist in domination.

Aiben had been trying to link his thoughts with Oand-ib or Achanei ever since the fighter wing had thundered through Roonagor’s airspace. Something was wrong; he couldn’t sense the hypernet at all. His cyberlink to it was hot, but there was nothing there for him to connect to. Aiben couldn’t remember ever experiencing the absence of the network before. It terrified him that his mind was cut off from the others and it was beyond his control. It was a painful and mystifying silence.

When Aiben reached the black marble steps of the Cybermancer Citadel, he climbed them two at a time. Lesser apprentices, the silence in their minds reflected as fear on their faces, were already pulling on the large ornamental chains used to close the heavy wooden and steel doors of the main entrance. Aiben slid sideways between them. They clapped shut like the jaws of a hungry beast. By entering the Citadel, Aiben disrobed his identity as a starship mechanic and clothed himself in the guise of a cybermancer apprentice, a halath.

The great hall was already full of people who hoped they had chosen a haven from the bedlam to come, but their faces said they knew otherwise. The stunning ink-stained tapestries, the sculpted beauty of wooden pillars, and the intricate frescos on the ceiling were just backdrop to the pandemonium. Swaths of colorful silk fluttered through the crowd as the traditional robes of Roonagor’s city dwellers took on twirling flight.

Aiben sieved his way through the main hall; a forest of fabric caressed his face. He secreted himself into the vast subterranean catacombs that lay hidden beneath the stronghold. His eyes adjusted to the dim corridors as Nanomechs clinging to his optic nerves allowed him to see in the infrared spectrum. Achanei could be anywhere, but he knew that even in such disquiet, his teacher would be in his meditation chamber focusing his thoughts. Aiben would find Oand-ib first. He wound his way deeper through a maze of mile-long passages at a dead run until he reached the concealed room.

Hegirith! Aiben called out. He used the formal address for ‘teacher’ in the cybermancer’s dialect of Guildish. He stormed through the door without knocking and stumbled on the threshold. Dust from the top of the doorway shook onto his head. Aiben inhaled the cloud, which forced out a cough.

There in the middle of the bare chamber sat the man whom Aiben knew as his teacher and surrogate father, Hegirith Oand-ib. He was a member of the Hegirith’hi Shez, masters of the Cybermancer Guild. Nanoscopic familiars of carbon, silicon, and energy sustained the minds and bodies of the men and women who belonged to this seasoned group of people. Mastering this blending of body and machine was the ideal path Aiben had been learning to travel since coming to the Citadel.

Oand-ib wore his customary dilapidated leather smock and pants that were a mish-mash of earthen tones. A maroon robe writhed around him like living liquid. Aiben knew the nanomechs that saturated its fibers could transform it into pliant but impregnable armor in mere seconds. Oand-ib’s hair contained the usual chaotic jumble of small ornate sticks and beads he twisted into its roots as he meditated. His wrinkled face was an apple that someone had cooked too long in an oven and sprinkled with brown splotches of sugary syrup. He was kind but carried with him a serious strictness for his students.

Oand-ib opened his eyes and looked up from the meditative pose into the frantic gaze of the halath.

Aiben?

An attack force. The Zenzani... Aiben gasped for air from his hurried pace through the catacombs. He wasn’t accustomed to speaking aloud with Oand-ib.

I know about the Zenzani. Their ships are almost as loud as you are. For a few brief seconds, faint flashes of color reflected in his teacher’s eyes. Oand-ib had already activated his ocular nanomechs and established a link to one of the cybermancer’s observation satellites. They were painting a picture of the situation for him directly onto the lenses of his eyes. They’ve passed Roonagor and are heading for the capital. We’ll be all right for now. Go ahead and sit down, Aiben. Oand-ib gestured to one of the wooden cheeba chairs in the dim chamber.

But Hegirith, Aiben continued between gulps, What are we going to do? What’s happened to the hypernet?

Take a breath. Oand-ib smiled. If you’re going to run like that, and then try to talk, use the nanomechs to increase your oxygen. Now, after you breathe, please sit down.

There must have been a hundred ships. Some of them looked a little battered too. Was there a battle up there? Aiben rolled his eyes towards space. Can you...

Would you please sit down, Aiben!

Oand-ib’s sharpness sliced off Aiben’s further utterance. He felt compelled to sit as dizzy tingles at the back of his mind blossomed to cover his entire head.

There was a battle, yes. Oand-ib’s eyes vacillated with ribbons of color once again. It’s over now. Nothing but wreckage... he cocked his head to one side, and then added, and a ship so large that it’s blocking out most of what I can see.

"The Ma’acht Vor?"

Aiben hoped he was wrong. Everyone in the Seven Guilds knew the name of that evil flagship. They had seen it a hundred times, depicted in various holocasts swooping down on another unlucky planet. It was a raptor caught up in the vengeful fury of the Zenzani.

Yes.

Aiben swallowed hard. The hypernet, what happened to it?

"It would appear the hyperportal is offline and has disconnected us. The cause, no doubt, corresponds with the appearance of the Ma’acht Vor."

There was silence between them for a moment as the meaning of Oand-ib’s words made itself clear to Aiben.

I’m glad you’re here. There was a twinge of hoarseness in the old teacher’s voice. There’s something we need to talk about before it’s too late.

Aiben squirmed in the uncomfortable chair. The frayed weave of the coarse cheeba branches pierced through his shirt and vest to claw at his back. Their sting drove him to speak once more. But you know what’s been said about Magron Orcris. Now that we’ve been cut off from the hypernet...

I know what’s been said, but right now, we need to talk about your future, halath. Oand-ib snapped his fingers so loud that it forced Aiben to sit up straight in the cheeba chair. The loose branches dug deeper into his back and he winced in pain.

You want to talk about my future at a time like this? Aiben’s eyes were wide, his head shaking. I don’t mean any disrespect, Hegirith, but I’m sure we can wait under the circumstances to talk about my future.

Iniri, now is exactly the right time to talk. Oand-ib had addressed Aiben with the word for son. This was Oand-ib’s way of signifying to him that the conversation was now more than just between teacher and pupil.

There were times during Aiben’s life that he had bit his tongue and taken on the challenges of his teacher. Since Nairom had left, however, it was different when they spoke as father and son. Conflict churned up in the pit of Aiben’s stomach. Which voice should he speak with? Would it be the pupil seeking his teacher’s approval or the son seeking his father’s comfort? There shouldn’t have been any difference between the two roles, but Aiben’s mixed-up emotions wouldn’t let him see them as the same anymore.

It’s the right time to talk about what, Hegirith? Instead of anab, or father, Aiben called him teacher and ushered in the voice of conflict. More lectures on how I need to improve my techniques before I can become a full cybermancer? We don’t have time for that now!

Oand-ib blew out a disapproving puff of air through rounded nostrils. He shuffled over beside Aiben and dropped into the cheeba chair next to him. The small spears of the weave reached out to dig into his back. He didn’t pull away. Instead, he ignored the pain it would have induced.

Why do we speak Haman, iniri? Oand-ib bent the conversation. It’s an old dead language after all. Dead like the Haman themselves.

Huh? Aiben wrinkled his eyebrows. We don’t speak it. It’s just a few words, names of cybermancer techniques, rituals, and things like that. They’re just a part of our dialect of Guildish, aren’t they?

Anab and iniri are those related to cybermancer techniques then?

No, but we’ve always called each other that. Why? They spoke many other words to each other as well that were strange in sound to common Guildish, but closer in phonetic composition to the Haman words that were part of the cybermancer training. He had never realized this before or even thought much about it. Confused at the conversational tangent, Aiben searched the round rumpled face of the ancient teacher for an answer. The calmness residing there made him explode.

I don’t understand what this has to do with anything, anab! We’re under attack!

One thing I’ve never been able to teach you, iniri, much to my embarrassment with the Hegirith’hi Shez, is patience. Your skill with the nanomechs might save you at other times but not when long-suffering is required. Please be willing to listen. This is more important than you realize.

Aiben got up but Oand-ib’s strong hand on his arm stayed him. The surprising grip of bony knuckles almost bruised his skin. His head tingled again. Oand-ib pushed him back down, he was too stunned to resist further. The teacher continued as if nothing had happened.

We use those words because they’re a part of who we are. A millennium ago, the followers of two Haman brothers, Tulan and Nograth, fought a war. Conflicting ideals about the morality of their mental abilities motivated each one differently. The Nograthi’aak believed in conquering the lesser-advanced races. The Tulani’aak believed in helping them. Eventually, the two sides melded their minds together in a battle, which led to the complete annihilation of both sides.

Aiben had spent many hours at the Citadel learning the history of the Cybermancer Guild and the galactic arm it inhabited. His head contained information on many things historical, but he knew little more than a cursory account of the Haman. They were an ancient race that had once dominated entire sectors of the galaxy before the Seven Guilds. They had been quite advanced and were responsible for the war that had created the cybermancer technology, which Aiben and Oand-ib carried inside them. Until now, Aiben had never heard of two brothers being the agents of that great historical battle.

Tulani’aak means the followers of Tulan and Nograthi’aak means the followers of Nograth, Aiben reflected. It was a thought that hadn’t sprung from conscious memory. I’ve never heard these two names before, but somehow I know what they mean.

How do you know about these brothers? How do you know about the... Aiben rolled the names around in his thoughts and wondered whether he wanted to speak the strange, yet familiar words, ...the Tulani’aak and the Nograthi’aak?

Yes, that’s it. A slight upturn at the corners of Oand-ib’s mouth made Aiben feel he had just admitted to something his teacher had been waiting to hear. I know about them because I’m the keeper of that knowledge for the Hegirith’hi Shez. This is why it is clear to me, a thousand years later, that this new power, the Zenzani Protectorate, strives to revive the legacy of the Nograthi’aak. They aim to dominate through our inherited power.

I thought Magron Orcris was nothing more than a crazy dictator trying to avenge some war the Zenzani lost centuries ago. Are you saying he’s connected somehow with these Nograthi’aak? But the Haman are all dead and long gone, anab.

"But their influence lives on, iniri. You and I, the halath’hi here in our