Prologue
Adept Carska sat in the lotus position before his Veil shrine. The spinning mandalas and fractal orbits wavered and gave way to static as they spun within the twin curved pillars. Every sound of gunfire and cry of pain from outside the small temple lessened Carska’s hold on the shrine.
A stray plasma bolt blew out a stained glass window of the first Paragon. Carska fought back emotions as the battle grew closer. He knew his fate, but the artwork was irreplaceable after the death of the artist nearly two thousand standard years ago.
“Adept!” An acolyte in rough spun clothes and carrying a battered coil rifle burst into the temple. “We can’t stop them! There’s too man—”
A bestial claw with obsidian nails reached out of the darkness and wrapped long fingers around the acolyte’s face. He vanished into the night where his muffled cries ended abruptly.
Carska tried to align his mind with the shrine. He needed a few moments of peace to seal it shut until the next Breaking, but the chaos around him reverberated into the Veil and there he lacked the strength to overcome the disruptions caused by the death and violence all around him.
Cries came from outside. The assailants were taking their time with the last of the men and women who’d attended to the shrine alongside Carska these many decades of service to the Veil.
Heavy blows cracked the wooden doors. A slope-shouldered creature with a glowing, cybernetic eye ripped through the barricades . . . then slunk away.
Carska took a deep breath and reached into the Veil. He floated several inches off his bench as the sound of metal-shod footfalls closed in on him.
The flat of a blade made of solid light was set on his shoulder. Drops of blood hissed and snapped as the sword extended past his chin and pointed to the center of the moving rings within the Shrine.
“You’ll get nothing from me,” Carska said.
“I’ll have what I need one way or another,” a dark voice said. “I will give you a choice. Where is the next locus? Tell me where it is, and it’ll be quick. Prolong the inevitable and I’ll give you to my Draug to gnaw on.”
“I will suffer anything you can imagine to protect the Veil,” Carska said. “That is my vow to this Shrine.”
“I’ve heard that from better men than you”—the blade turned to set the edge against his neck—“and you’d be surprised how many of them broke apart once their vows met the reality of pain . . . What are you trying to hide from me?”
The Shrine pulsed.
“Someone was here. Someone powerful. I can sense it in the Veil . . . Who?”
Carska put a hand perpendicular to his sternum in the ancient seal against fear and a crack broke through one of the pillars.
The sword lopped his head off with a quick swipe.
A lupine alien stomped into the Temple and kicked Carska’s head to one side. The Dark figure lowered his blade and flicked blood away. The crack in the pillar healed itself as low chant sounded through the Temple.
“Do we have it?” the Draug asked.
The dark figure kicked Carska’s corpse off its bier, then thrust his sword into the light swirling within the Shrine. Flecks of blood rose from the edge and melded into the swirl as ghostly figures and constellations manifested and disintegrated.
“The Breaking nears . . . just as was foretold. I have their next step.”
“And then?” The Draug’s lips pulled back, revealing metal-capped teeth.
“Vengeance.”