The forest was nothing but a contrast of greys and blacks as Rial made his way towards the pagoda, only the crunch of leaves and cracking of branches underfoot breaking the silence. He saw no sign of the khiladri after he left Trian but he had no doubt they were there, moving silently through the night, each individual a tiny cell in the greater organism.

Rial almost felt sorry for them. None of the creatures had a choice in what was to happen next. Only the pack could choose.

The pagoda loomed out of the darkness, one moment unseen, the next framed tall against the stars. Something large and leathery took flight from the eaves high above, wings framed for one pure second against the moon. Whatever it had been, it was soon far away.

The long, layered eaves coated each floor of the structure in darkness, draining the gold and silver filigrees of their colour and bleeding out the red etchings that Rial knew ran across each wooden support. Only the twisted spire atop the building gave any hint of its material, the copper finial shining in the moonlight. The star atop the very tip of the spire was said to spare the village from the strikes of the mercurial weather gami, drawing their ire upon itself instead.[1]

On each side of the entrance sat a stone khiladri, carved so long ago that most of the features had been rounded to near nothingness. They reached to Rial’s waist, no more.

The entrance itself was a simple wooden frame within which was set a heavy timbre door, one solid slab of wood into which were wrought decorative images of the mountains and the wildlife found upon them. He remembered running his fingers over these grooves as a child, following smooth paths that flowed with the grain of the wood, a testament to the genius of the sculptor. The door was replaced every ten suns in a ceremony Rial had seen once, when he was little. It was usually left open.

This time however the door blocked his way. It was locked, something he had never seen before. It didn’t have any locking mechanism that he knew of.

“Mead,” he called, raising his voice so that it carried up and through the windows of each floor. “Open the door.”

Nothing happened for several seconds, and Rial felt a humiliated flush of heat start beneath his bloodied collar. The feeling was replaced with satisfaction as the door was enveloped in a yellow field of energy, whorls of opaque and clear colour spinning their way across the surface.

The next moment the field, and the door, was gone. In its place stood a dark opening.

Rial stepped inside without hesitation.

“Mead?” he called out.

No answer was forthcoming.

He strolled calmly through the room, seeing with new eyes the shelves he knew from childhood. They were stacked two or three high, littered with objects both large and small, objects that Rial now imagined contained lost knowledge and hidden secrets.

He picked up an item at random, a glazed doll of some porcelain-like material Rial knew did not exist outside. It felt strong in his grip, strong enough to hit the floor without breaking despite its insubstantial weight. He didn’t test it, however, instead replacing it and moving to the narrow steps that ascended to the next floor.

This floor had always been the one of most interest to young children, for it contained the instruments. The old mokugyo, hollow wooden percussive instruments fashioned in the form of fish, hung from nails hammered into each wall next to detuned three-strings and battered bolangs. More mysterious objects littered the floor, several of which no-one in the village could play.

Mead was on the third floor, wrapped in cloth. It sat atop a pedestal off to the side as if forgotten, unremarkable amidst the collection of strange and curious items that littered the shelves. Rial recognised its outline immediately.

He raised the weapon and allowed the cloth wrap to fall to the floor. Mead had returned to the iridescent, reflective state Rial had first seen it in. The slight amount of starlight that entered through the murky windows broke into a prism of colours that span and danced across the room, sweeping over every surface. Rial stood and watched as the light moved hypnotically in unpredictable patterns at the slightest tremble of his hands.

“Activate, Mead,” he said eventually.

The colours disappeared instantly, the sheen of Mead’s surface snapping back to the matte grey it affected when active.

“Good evening, Rial,” it said.

Rial stared at it, feeling the tingling sensation that indicated Mead was scanning him.

“You are suffering the effects of severe dehydration, malnutrition and fatigue. A course of at least several days’ rest and nutrition is recommended.”

Rial continued to say nothing, holding the weapon out in front of him.

“I am detecting elevated catecholamine and norepinephrine levels as well as unusual activity in the somatic nervous system. This would seem to indicate you are angry. The focus of your attention indicates you are angry at… at me.”

Some part of Rial wondered if he had really heard the hesitation in Mead’s voice, or just imagined it.

“A calculation of probabilities leads me to the conclusion that you are angry at me for not taking action to neutralise clear threats to your safety,” continued Mead.

Rial did not respond.

“I am unable to take aggressive action against carriers of a pre-programmed set of genomes and DNA codes. The ‘Kotaku,’ as he is termed, carries these genes,” said Mead, and fell silent.

Rial had never heard the terms ‘genome’ or ‘DNA’ before, but he was well aware of the existence of genes, small parcels of information that contained all that you were and could be. They were impossible to see, yet nevertheless defined a person and their relation to the gami.

He supposed Mead had a way to see these magical parcels. Rial felt no shock; very little surprised him anymore.

“And why are you unable to neutralise people with those genes?” Rial asked.

“My code leaves me security locked to a family, a common method of securing weapons such as I to prevent crimes of passion. I cannot fire on members of that family.”

“Family? I thought you were last activated thousands of suns ago? How can he be family of anyone you were owned by?” asked Rial.

“Incorrect. Though there are traces of a large number of previous generations within the mitochondrial DNA of those currently living, it is a far more direct connection that prevents me from taking action against the Kotaku. My current owner is you, Rial. I am locked to your family.”

Rial dropped Mead to the floor in exasperation and stormed across to the window, resting his hands on the windowsill to look out over the dark forest. The light of the First Family’s compound was visible even from here, though now it shone into the night sky as an eerie blue, the vivinder leaves swaying in the breeze and causing the light to shift every second. Rial’s hands whitened where they gripped the ledge.

Khaf didn’t begin to cover it.

“You don’t have to use me, you know,” came Mead’s voice.

Was it just him, Rial wondered, or did Mead sound different?

“I may be prevented from neutralising members of your genetic line: you, however, are not.”

Something… wheedling. It was the most emotive sentence Rial had ever heard coming from the machine. Except, once. When he had first taken the treasure in his hands. When it had asked to neutr… kill the slaver.

Something to consider.

“Maybe,” said Rial, turning from the window and picking up the weapon. “But first, we’re going to get out of here. I need time to think.”

[1] And yet at the same time most villagers were well-aware of the fact that raised conductive metal points provided conduits down which lightning preferred to flow, and from Mead he knew that it was two areas of opposing charge that caused this to happen. Rial wondered what that actually meant.