Necroepilogos

Elpida stepped through Pheiri’s top hatch, onto the carbon bone-mesh of his exterior deck, out into the night.

Darkness stretched away in every direction — a tarry soup congealed in the streets and alleyways, clotting the torn arteries of the corpse-city. Elpida’s revenant night vision could barely penetrate into the lightless gaps between the buildings. The sky was a smothering blanket of absolute black, empty of stars, flat and featureless in the night’s quiet grip. The pitiful excuse for sunrise was still several hours away, the horizon unblemished by blood-red bruise. Noises carried far in the night air — muffled shouts, the crack of occasional weapons discharge, the scurry of claws on brick. The graveworm was a line of writhing motion towering over distant rooftops, easily mistaken for churning clouds. Arcadia’s Rampart strode closer to hand, climbing across the buildings ahead; the combat frame’s silhouette was lost against the blackened skies. Down in the streets, Iriko was completely invisible to Elpida’s eyes.

Far to the south-east — past Pheiri’s rear, back the way he’d travelled for the last twelve hours — a corner of the sky glowed with a faint aura of toxic golden light. The last remnant of central's downed airship, entombed within the ossified guts of the dead city.

Pheiri ran dark. A handful of exterior lights broke the dirty white of his hull, casting a dim red glow at the skirts of his armour. Warning lights, to ward off the attention or curiosity of unwise predators. The deep crimson bloom extended only a few feet into the road. Pheiri’s tracks chewed through crumbly asphalt and churned up broken concrete. He was moving no faster than a walking pace, just enough to keep level with the distant graveworm.

Every minute put Elpida and her comrades further away from central’s physical asset.

Elpida wasn’t certain how to feel about that: on one hand, if the airship achieved self-repair, every inch of distance would buy Pheiri more time to evade or hide; on the other hand, every mile meant less chance of ever returning to extract intel from the wounded machine.

Howl hissed inside Elpida’s mind, How would we even do that, Elps? It took everything we had just to survive that fight. Focus on your shit! Deal with this zombie bitch first.

The top of Pheiri’s hull was a forest of shadows. Beyond the relatively flat area of the exterior deck, curls and horns and knots of nano-composite armour grew wild in frozen waves, supporting and cupping the turrets and sponsons and rack-mounts of his weapons, sprouting upward in crazed fractals of tumorous bone. Pheiri’s turret loomed behind Elpida, a great hill of shade in the night. The main gun was in the rest position, aimed forward, away from the rear area and the exterior deck.

Serin was nowhere to be seen.

Elpida murmured: “We may be too late. She may have already left.”

Amina said: “O-or maybe she’s hiding?”

Elpida looked over her shoulder, down into the shelter of the open hatch. Amina and Melyn were huddled together on the top steps, peering around the sides of Elpida’s boots. Amina was clutching her sheathed knife in one hand, her eyes barely rising above the level of Pheiri’s armour. Melyn was shivering a little, pressed into Amina’s side like a cat seeking body heat. Her massive black eyeballs reflected nothing from the night beyond the hatch; her white-grey skin was dull in the darkness.

Love how that little sprog thinks, Howl purred. She’s smart, you know that?

Elpida nodded. “Good point, Amina,” she whispered. “Serin might be sleeping somewhere nearby. You two stay here, I’ll go check. If anything happens, if anything approaches the hatch, or if you hear any unfamiliar sounds, shut the hatch right away and go wake the others. I’ll be fine by myself.”

Melyn clicked her tongue. “Not by yourself. Not by yourself.”

“Melyn?”

Melyn raised one tiny, delicate-fingered hand. She gestured across the hull. “Pheiri.”

“Ah,” Elpida said. “Of course. We’re never alone, not with Pheiri. Thank you for the reminder, Melyn. You two wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Elpida pulled up her armoured hood, wrapped her left hand around the grip of her submachine gun, and stepped away from the hatch.

She walked to the edge of the exterior deck, where the flat surface gave way to the gnarled and knotted bone armour. Outcrops of soot-stained white climbed level with Elpida’s chest, or spread wide in striated coils of curled bone, or formed pits and dry abscesses in Pheiri’s hide. Shadows pooled in hollows and gathered in the lee of encrusted stalagmites. Elpida stepped into that miniature forest of shadow and bone, then slowly worked her way clockwise, skirting the edge of the exterior deck. She peered around dark corners and into gaping holes, penetrating the shadows with her revenant night vision. She paused to look upward and examine Pheiri’s weapons as she passed beneath them, admiring the clean precision of his autocannons and missile pods, sleeping soundly as they were slowly re-armed from deep within his belly. She wove her way through jutting spears and humped masses of nano-composite bone. She brushed her fingertips over patches of pitted and gnawed material, already slowly re-filling with fresh white bone, where this thick and hoary armour had turned away titanic weaponry. Her breath misted in the air, forming little plumes; the night was cold, much colder than it felt to her undead flesh. No sunlight, no warmth, not even during the dim and dusken hours of ‘daylight’. No wonder the nights were freezing. She stayed close to the edge of the upper deck, never straying more than half a dozen paces deeper than necessary; she kept the open hatch in view as much as possible.

It would be so easy for a small and stealthy revenant to hide up there on Pheiri’s back.

Good thing he’s got great eyes, huh? Howl whispered. Little brother watches himself just as much as he watches the tree line.

Tree line?

Howl tutted. Green metaphor. You know what I mean.

This isn’t the green, Howl. Though perhaps it works the same way, sometimes.

Elpida agreed with the principle; the last thing she wanted was to run into something unknown, out here in the dark.

Three quarters into her circuit of the exterior deck, Elpida found something new — when she peered into a shallow abscess of bone armour, the shadows looked ragged and rough around the edges. She waited, but her night vision did not resolve the dark into the familiar surface of dirty white bone-mesh. She adjusted her position, inching to one side. A strip of mushroom-pale flesh floated out of the darkness.

Serin — curled up inside an abscess in Pheiri’s armour.

Serin’s closed eyelids were framed between layers of black rags and the naked metal of her mask. The face mask covered her mouth and nose and chin, still painted with jagged black teeth. The rest of her was one with the shadows. Elpida couldn’t see any hands, nor any hint of Serin’s long blonde hair, and no sign of a weapon.

Shit! Howl hissed. Would’a missed her for a turd in a cesspit in all this dark. Sneaky little cunt.

She’s out here, alone, Elpida replied. Hiding is only rational. I would do the same.

Tch. Or it’s a ruse. I don’t like this. Tread lightly, Elps.

Will do.

Elpida backed up a couple of paces, keeping Serin’s exposed eyes in view. She did not want to make Serin jump or flinch; this revenant was very well-armed beneath her robes. Elpida opened her mouth and—

A metallic rasp rose from within the shadowy pit: “I know you’re there, Commander.”

Serin pronounced the final word as ‘coh-mander’, emphasising the first syllable.

Inside Elpida’s head, Howl flinched.

Elpida said, “Hello, Serin. I thought I’d caught you napping.”

“Smarter eyes than yours do not see me. Unless I wish.” Serin stayed absolutely still as she spoke. “All your clomping about. Woke me up.”

“Stealth was never my specialisation,” Elpida replied. “Besides, I didn’t want to surprise you.”

“Mmm,” Serin grunted. “Could have put a round through your face from a dozen paces away. All that noise and talking. You would make a poor ambush predator.”

“Good thing I’m not trying to be one, then.”

“No? Were you not?”

Howl tutted, and said: Don’t get drawn into this shit, Elps! She’s playing with you. Just move on quick. Don’t get pinned down.

I know, Howl. Relax. Serin is cryptic and standoffish, but I know this game very well. I played it with enough of the cadre, back in the day, when we were all younger. What’s got you so wound up?

Howl just hissed, then fell silent.

Elpida opened with her strongest volley: “Serin, you wouldn’t have to worry about being ambushed in your sleep if you came down inside Pheiri, with the rest of us. There’s plenty of room. If you need privacy, there’s plenty of cubby holes and secret spaces inside, too. You can hide just as well, inside his armour.”

“Mmmm,” Serin purred. “‘Us’.”

Serin saturated that word with amused scorn.

“It’s an open invitation,” Elpida said. “That’s all. You fought alongside us, you helped me escape the Death’s Heads, and I think I understand that without your mediation, Iriko wouldn’t have been in position to assist Pheiri, either. You have a place inside Pheiri’s security, with the rest of us, if you want it.”

Red eyes opened down in the darkness. High-grade bionics, glowing with inner light. Serin stared up at Elpida.

“Perhaps I was trying to avoid you, coh-mander,” she said.

“Ah?” Elpida raised her eyebrows, miming surprise. “Why might that be? Still don’t trust me?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps I was avoiding this little chat.”

Elpida smiled knowingly, trying to include Serin in the rueful conclusion. “Spooked you with that, did I? ‘You and I need to talk’? It’s not a big deal. I just need intel.”

Serin shifted and coiled within her abscess, fabric rustling against armour, shadows curling down in the dark. Her distinctive scent floated upward, like rotten wood and meaty fungus. Her red bionic eyes turned away and back again. “I see your two little scuttlings. Over in the open hatch. Is this an ambush, coh-mander?”

Elpida sharpened her smile. “If I wanted to ambush you, I’d probably get Pheiri in on the plan. Lure you out into the open, and then have him turn you into red mist with a burst from an autocannon. In fact, if you believe I’m going to betray you, you’re stuck in that dark hole forever. What do you think, Serin?”

The pale skin around Serin’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “I think you can be goaded. Too easily.”

“Perhaps I can,” Elpida admitted. “But that’s not what I’m here for.”

“No.”

“I’ve come to find you because I want to talk to you, yes.”

“No,” Serin repeated.

“No?”

“You want me to talk,” Serin said. “To you. Not the other way around.”

Elpida nodded. That was a fair point. Inside her head, Howl tutted with derision.

Elpida said to Howl: Something to add?

Shhhh! Howl hissed.

Sorry? Howl?

I’m hiding! Shhhh! Don’t talk to me so much, not with her eyes on us.

Elpida almost laughed, but she controlled herself in front of Serin, for Howl’s sake. Howl, I don’t think her eyes are like Atyle. If she could see you, she would have said something by now.

No, she wouldn’t! She’s all secrets and bullshit! And shhh, stop talking to me! She might go spare on us if she thinks I really am a Necromancer hiding inside your head.

Serin’s burning red eyes bored into Elpida.

“Fair point,” Elpida said out loud. “I do want you to talk, Serin. I want your help and your advice, because I suspect you have more experience with survival out here than anyone else in our group. Except possibly Pheiri, but his terms of survival are a little different to ours. We, me and my comrades, whether that includes you or not, we have decisions to make, so I need intel.” She gestured toward the exterior deck and the open hatch. “The two over there, that’s Amina and Melyn. They’re here because they’re my crew, my cadre, my comrades, and it’s not up to me to make decisions or assess intelligence by myself. They’re here because they want to listen as well. Will you come talk to us, Serin?”

Serin’s eyes went dark, then red again — a blink. “Is this an interrogation, coh-mander?”

Fucking bitch, dammit, Howl hissed. Just fucking talk to us! Fuck, you—

Elpida used her broadside again, before Howl could lose her temper. She said to Serin: “Seriously, why don’t you come down inside Pheiri? I’m not going to be offended if you don’t trust us, I’d just like to know why.”

Serin said, “You cannot make me do anything, coh-mander.”

Fuck—

“Hmmm,” Elpida said, clicking her tongue against her teeth. “I seem to recall me and Ilyusha getting the better of you, back when we first met. In fact, I think I countered your sniping techniques, avoided your explosive drones, and then Ilyusha surprised you and knocked you down. If it wasn’t for that symbol on your arm, Illy would have taken your head off with her shotgun.”

Serin chuckled, low and raspy behind her metal mask. “Only because you confused me, not-a-Necromancer. Thought I had you scrambled. Guessed wrong.”

“A draw, then,” Elpida said. “But we’re not on opposing sides now, either by mistake or design. Is that right?”

Serin blinked again. Two red pools closed, then opened, down in the dark. She did not answer.

Elpida said: “Serin, will you help us, or not? If not, I want to get Amina and Melyn back below, just in case.”

Serin said nothing for a few seconds — then climbed out of the abscess and stood up, like a bundle of sticks pulled on a string.

Nine feet of ragged black robes towered over Elpida, topped by a narrow strip of mushroom-pale flesh around two glowing red eyes. Raw meat mushroom reek rolled off Serin’s body. Lumpy shapes adjusted beneath her robes.

“Lead on, coh-mander,” she said.

Elpida turned away and led Serin toward the flat area of the exterior deck. Serin followed in silence, without even a whisper of cloth against the carbon bone-mesh armour. Howl hissed and growled inside Elpida’s head the whole way, muttering dark insinuations about the risk of turning one’s back on Serin.

Elpida reached the hatch, then nodded down to Melyn and Amina; the smaller girls were both staring at Serin’s approach. The massive revenant swayed gently as she crossed the outer deck. She stopped six feet clear of the hatch, haloed from behind by the toxic golden glow in the south-east.

Amina shrank back. Melyn stared openly, shivering in the cold, her massive black eyes reflecting Serin’s glowing red bionics.

Serin said: “Boo.”

Amina smothered a squeak. Melyn didn’t react.

Elpida cleared her throat. She gestured at the hatch. “We could speak inside, Serin. There’s places to sit, or lie down. There would be inches of armour between us and the night. Once we’re done, if you’re not comfortable, you’re free to leave again.”

Serin’s eyes crinkled with crow’s feet at the corners — a smile hidden behind her black-toothed mask. “Too convenient.”

Melyn snapped: “What does that mean? What does that mean? Answer.”

Serin regarded the pixie-like artificial human with mild surprise, red eyes boring into grey flesh. “Oh?”

Elpida said: “Yes, what does that mean, Serin? Don’t leave my comrades in the dark, please.”

Serin did not stop smiling. She said, “You are too convenient, coh-mander. All of you. All of this. Your survival from fresh meat to power player. In less than one life. This tank.” She unfolded one spindly pale arm from inside her robes. Long fingers uncurled and gestured past Elpida, to point at Arcadia’s Rampart. “That mech. The golden mystery back there. And you come away, yet again. Too convenient.”

Elpida nodded slowly. “That’s a fair point, too. We seem to be breaking a lot of norms and expectations. You’ve already tested me, to make sure I’m not a Necromancer.”

“Mmmmmm,” Serin purred, rough and metallic behind her mask.

“Is that not enough?”

“Mmmmm.”

Elpida smiled. “Will you not be satisfied until you test the rest of my comrades?”

Serin made a harsh rasping sound behind her mask. A laugh.

Three spindly pale arms burst from inside Serin’s robes, faster than Elpida could react. She pointed a smooth, boxy, grey oblong down at the open hatch, at Amina and Melyn. A long finger worked a trigger mechanism in silence — once, twice, three times.

Melyn flinched. Amina yelped and put a hand over her mouth. Inside Elpida’s mind, Howl scrambled into a corner, hissing and spitting.

Elpida jerked her submachine gun out of her armoured coat and aimed it at Serin, resting the forward grip on her bandaged right hand.

Nothing happened.

Howl?! Elpida snapped. Howl, are you okay? Did that hurt you? Are you—

I’m fine! Howl spat. Deal with this bitch!

Serin was staring down at Amina and Melyn, ignoring Elpida’s submachine gun. Both of the girls were unhurt, though Amina was panting, flushed in the face. Serin grunted: “Hmm.”

Melyn snapped: “What is this? What is this? This? This gun?”

Elpida spoke quickly. “It’s her anti-Necromancer weapon. Hold steady, both of you. Just hold, you’re perfectly safe. The gun can’t hurt you. Amina, relax. She can’t hurt you.” Elpida took a deep breath, then played a trump card: “In fact, I don’t think the gun does anything at all. I think it’s either a placebo, a show-piece, or Serin is mistaken.”

Serin pulled the gravitic weapon back beneath the black waves of her robes. She was still smiling with her eyes, mouth hidden behind metal. “Then why point your gun at me, coh-mander?”

Elpida lowered her weapon as a gesture of good faith, but kept it ready, mostly to make a point. “Because you shot at my crew. My comrades. I don’t care why, and I don’t care that it doesn’t work. If you want to line everyone up and test them with your gun — sure. You can even cross-reference it with Pheiri’s Necromancer detection systems.” Serin’s eyebrows crinkled at that; Elpida left it unexplained, dangling as bait. “But we organise it first, you understand? Don’t surprise us with a gun. If you do that again with the others I can’t promise that nobody will shoot you.”

Serin chuckled, rough and raw. “The point is surprise. Necromancers play games with us. Hide in plain sight.”

Elpida said: “I know. We’re pieces in a game.”

Serin’s laugh cut off. She stared at Elpida, two red points burning against the night, beneath the distant golden halo.

Elpida went on. “It’s a logical conclusion to draw from what I’ve witnessed so far. You’re right, Serin, all this is too convenient. My working theory right now is that my own resurrection was the catalyst for some kind of plan or scheme, or perhaps just a very small cog in a larger machine. By who, or to what ends? I don’t know. We could be the unwitting pawns of a Necromancer, certainly. Or maybe we’re being puppeted and guided by something else.” Elpida considered how far to push this, then said: “I have reason to hope that my city — Telokopolis — has somehow survived into this afterlife, perhaps as some kind of echo or ghost, perhaps within the nanomachine ecosystem—”

Serin scoffed. Elpida pointed at Arcadia’s Rampart.

Serin ceased her laughter. “Hnnuh. Point to you, coh-mander.”

Elpida smiled. “Yeah. Hard to deny a combat frame, right? I do have other reasons to believe that Telokopolis may have survived, somehow, but … ”

Serin raised her eyebrows.

Elpida turned those reasons over in her head quickly, but found them too raw, too tender, and too tentative to relate to Serin. The city itself may be dead and gone; perhaps Howl’s experiences were nothing but a mirage in the underworld. But while Elpida lived on, Telokopolis stood, whatever unseen phantoms held true to her cause. Right now, Elpida and her comrades were Telokopolis, sheltered within the nano-composite bone armour of Pheiri’s hull.

Elpida continued: “But, even if that is the case, it’s likely that other powers are very interested in either destroying me or using me — or Pheiri, or Arcadia’s Rampart. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know the rules of this game. I can’t see the board, or the players. But I do know one thing.” Elpida raised her bandaged right hand and gestured past Serin, over her shoulder, to the south-east — to the faint toxic golden glow on the horizon.

Serin glanced over her shoulder, then back again. “Mm?”

“Whatever forces set us in motion or guide us now, if they are inimical to us, then I don’t think they expected us to wound that golden diamond. I don’t think they predicted a combat frame. Only one force could have called me to Arcadia’s Rampart, and that’s Telokopolis.”

“Your living city,” said Serin.

“Yes. And from what little I’ve seen so far, I don’t think there’s any other force which would want us free and loose upon the world. If we were meant to be yoked to some purpose not our own, we’ve broken those fetters by now.”

“Hrrrrnh,” Serin rasped. “Lofty words.”

“Perhaps. But I have practical goals. Serin, if we are loose and unconstrained, or if Telokopolis set us in motion, or if none of this is true and I’m just making it up as we go, then I still need intel. I need as much as I can get, to form a picture of this game board, or at least to survive well enough so we can make our own choices. And—”

Elps! Howl snapped. Don’t—

“I think you know more than you’re letting on,” Elpida said. She felt Howl wince. “Some of the things you said earlier don’t quite add up. If you don’t trust us, well.” Elpida waved her bandaged hand to indicate the bone armour on which they both stood. “We won’t be able to make informed decisions about what we should do. Follow the worm, or plunge into the wilderness? But we’ll do one of those things anyway. This is your chance to exert some control over that.” Elpida shrugged. “Or you can keep your silence, and leave us to our own decisions.”

Serin smiled behind her mask, eyes crinkling. “The price of a place is all my secrets?”

“No,” Elpida said.

Serin frowned — Elpida couldn’t see her forehead, but the skin between Serin’s eyes bunched up.

Elpida said: “You can stay and keep your secrets all you like. The price of staying here is nothing. Just don’t be a Death’s Head, I suppose, but I don’t think I have to worry about that with you.”

Serin rasped with laughter behind her mask, harsh and metallic. “Coh-mander. You make it seem too easy. What about—”

“I’ll trade you,” Elpida said, thinking fast. “Your advice and intel, in return for everything the Necromancer said to us. Everything she said while inside Arcadia’s Rampart. Everything she said to me, to Vicky, to Kagami, to Hafina. All of it. Everything she did. Everything we know about her.”

Serin stared at Elpida, eyes burning like twin fires against the dark backdrop of the night. She wasn’t smiling anymore.

Guess that can’t do any harm, Howl grunted. Got her hooked with that. Fuuuuck, this bitch got a one-track mind.

Serin said: “What do you wish to know, coh-mander?”

Elpida smiled. “I want three things from you. Plus.” She gestured down at Melyn and Amina, huddled in the shelter of the open hatch. Melyn was snuggled against Amina’s front now, soaking up warmth. “You answer any questions these two have, in simple enough terms that they can understand it.” Serin glanced at the smaller pair again. Elpida went on: “One, I need to know everything you do about food and predation. We’re on the cusp of running out of raw blue nanomachines. I know we’re going to have to feed, sooner or later, and I don’t have a solution except hunting for meat.”

“Mm,” Serin grunted. “Eat or die. Or live and change. There are no other choices.”

Elpida ignored that for now. She needed to reel Serin in. “Two, I want to know everything you know about Necromancers, because I need to smooth out the inconsistencies. You claimed that you targeted me because my phenotype and my neural lace matches a Necromancer you’d seen before. But that means either you saw a pilot, or a Necromancer imitating a pilot. I need to know why. I need to know what that Necromancer looked like. And I need to know why you hunt them.”

Serin rasped behind her mask. Not a laugh. Something darker. A refusal.

Elpida pushed on before that could turn into an argument. “And third, the symbol. The crescent and line tattooed on your arm. If anything, I think that is more important than the first two questions. If I have potential allies out there, against people like the Death’s Heads, then I need to know about them.”

“Ahhhhhhhhhh,” Serin purred. “Ahhh. Yes. The cause.”

Serin slowly extended another mushroom-pale arm from beneath her black robes. She presented the naked flesh to Elpida, at an angle so Melyn and Amina could also see. Serin’s tattoos glistened black in the night: nine crossed-out skulls indicating nine kills, with the crescent-and-line symbol at the head of the row.

“The cause?” Elpida echoed.

“Ask your Ilyusha,” Serin said.

Elpida sighed. “She can’t — or won’t — explain it, not really. I don’t think she’s capable of it. And I want to hear it from you, Serin. I want you to—”

Amina said: “Why only nine?”

Serin looked down into the hatch, eyes burning. Amina stared back up at her, throat bobbing with a gulp.

Elpida murmured: “Serin, please answer her.”

“Rephrase,” said Serin. “The question.”

Amina frowned in thought, then said: “If you hunt … the … D-death’s Heads, and you’ve been doing it for a long time, why only nine skulls? There were so many of them. Haven’t you killed more?”

Serin grinned behind her mask. “I only mark kills that matter. Not the followers. The foot soldiers. If I counted those, I would be coated in black. But these?” She extended another arm and caressed her tattoos with a hand of long and spindly fingers. “All of these were true fights. Death cultists true. Better off reduced. Better off for humankind that they stay dead.”

“Humankind,” Amina murmured, frowning harder.

Elpida realised Serin had not added to her kills since the first time she’d seen the tattoos. Elpida said: “Didn’t get Yola, then?”

Serin grunted. “The leader? No. Slippery. Lucky. She would not count as one of these. Anyway.”

Elpida opened her mouth to once again request an explanation from Serin — but Amina spoke up a second time.

“How do you do it?” Amina whispered. “How do you … ”

Serin tapped her tattoos. “With great care. And—”

“No!” Amina squeaked. Serin blinked, red eyes going out and black, then back again. “How do you stay so … so strong? And … and … ” Amina panted softly. “I want to be like you.”

Serin stared for a moment, then said: “I will not say it here. Not for the coh-mander. But if you and I are ever alone, maybe I will draw you a picture. Of how I used to look. And then you will know, how far you can go.”

Amina swallowed, loud in the dark. She sniffed, nodded, and glanced at Elpida.

Elpida said: “Well said, Amina. Serin, I would appreciate it if you would do that for her.”

“No promises, coh-mander,” said Serin.

Elpida nodded. “Fair enough. Now, the symbol, the crescent and line. Please, if you—”

Serin interrupted: “Better question. What do you believe? Coh-mander? Telokopolitan?”

“Telokopolan,” Elpida corrected gently.

Howl hissed: She’s fucking bluffing! She made that up on the spot to mess with us!

Maybe. Maybe not. I think she’s being genuine.

“Telokopolis,” Serin rasped behind her mask. She sounded unimpressed. “I have heard of living cities before. All before this. Before the endless corpse of this city.”

“You have?”

“Mm,” Serin grunted. “Zombies tell stories about their own times. Living cities, common enough. Cantor. Yorksend. Irentograd. Hoijing.” Serin shrugged. “Nothing special. Seen demagogues before too. Like you. Capable leaders come and go. But this.” She twitched her tattooed arm. “This is the only eternality. The immortal principle.”

“Telokopolis is forever,” Elpida said.

“Hmmm,” Serin purred. “Maybe. But what do you believe in, Telokopolan?”

Elpida took a deep breath and looked out into the dark and clotted night beyond Pheiri’s hull. Alley mouths rolled past, each one filled with the shades of the dead.

She decided to tell the truth.

Elpida said: “I have a Death’s Head down inside Pheiri. An ex Death’s Head, now. Ooni.”

“Mm,” Serin grunted. “Saw her. Worthless follower.”

“No,” Elpida murmured.

“No?”

Elpida looked at Serin again. The halo behind her seemed faded, dying in the dark. “Ooni is one of us now. Or she will be, given time and support and comradeship. She was something else, something wretched and exploited, turned toward evil ends. But now she’s in my hands, and that is not her purpose anymore. Now she’s within Telokopolis.”

Serin waited, eyes burning red.

Elpida went on: “If I could, I would go out there into the dark, and gather up every lost soul I can find. I would lead them all to Telokopolis. None would be rejected, none left behind, none sacrificed. Not even the Death’s Heads, if they could be contained, made to change, made to see otherwise. Not even the Necromancers—” Serin snorted behind her mask, but Elpida kept going “—if they could be communicated with.” She nodded at Serin’s tattoos. “I will fight as hard as you, when I have to. You’ve seen that up-close, Serin. But I will fight in the spirit of Telokopolis, be the city alive or dead or a memory or something else. None will be rejected, not unless they choose so themselves.”

Serin waited, to be sure Elpida was done. Then she gestured out at the night, down into the street. “What about her?”

“Her?” Elpida followed the gesture, but saw nothing. “You mean Iriko? I can’t see well in this darkness.”

“Iriko. Yes. What about her? A very hungry mouth to feed.”

Elpida laughed. “Didn’t you hear me, Serin? None would be rejected, not even her. None. That was what Telokopolis was for, no matter what the people inside made of it. The city, the only city, for everything and all. You included.”

On a hopeful whim, Elpida extended a hand toward Serin — her bandaged right, vulnerable beneath the dressings.

Serin raised her eyebrows.

Elpida said: “Come down inside Pheiri. Let’s you and I talk. If you don’t want to stay after that, then don’t. If you don’t want to come down inside, then we can talk right here. If you don’t want to talk, then you’re welcome to stay up here, in the cold, in the dark, as long as you like. You want to leave? You’re welcome back any time.”

Serin rasped a metal laugh. “You are too naive, coh-mander. I thought otherwise. Thought you had learned.”

“Learned what? To abandon Telokopolis?”

“The undead will eat you alive.”

“Too late,” Elpida said. “I’m already dead, in case you hadn’t noticed. We all are. You too, zombie. Now, are you coming inside, or not?”