The corridors of Aethelburg did not echo. Sound was an impurity, an inefficiency of vibration, and the seamless white alloy of the walls was engineered to absorb it completely. Lucian Crell moved through the silence, his black Censor Robes a stark, moving void against the shadowless luminescence of the capital. His path was a perfect, straight line from the transport hub to the central spire, a trajectory of pure intent. He was a geometric proof in motion. The summons had been a simple pulse of light on his datapad, a single, non-negotiable command from the apex of the Consensus Mandate.
He passed citizens in their simple Axiom Jumpsuits, their faces serene and untroubled. They moved with a placid, flowing grace, their paths weaving around each other without conflict, a complex but predictable dance. They were the living embodiment of the Canon, their collective, stable belief the bedrock of this reality. Crell felt nothing for them. Not affection, not contempt. They were a system, and the system was functioning within acceptable parameters. His function was to correct deviations.
The doors to the First Consul’s office slid open without a sound, revealing a space that was an extension of the silence outside, only larger. The room was a vast circle of the same white alloy, the ceiling so high it seemed to recede into a mathematical infinity. At its precise center, behind a desk of polished black stone that absorbed all light, sat Loric Tiberian. The First Consul of the Consensus Mandate was a tall, slender man whose silver hair and seamless grey tunic seemed as much a part of the room’s architecture as the walls. Only his pale, icy blue eyes moved, tracking Crell’s approach.
Crell stopped exactly three meters from the desk, the regulation distance. He did not speak. He waited. The objective of a summons was for the summoned to receive instruction. The silence was part of the protocol.
— The Glass Abyss is an unacceptable paradox, — Loric Tiberian said. His voice was a calm, deep baritone, each word a perfectly polished stone dropped into a deep well. — It is a wound that invites infection. The herd is frightened. They require a narrative.
— They have one, — Crell replied, his own voice a flat monotone. — Corian Severus is the architect. His conceptual plague is the cause. The narrative is sound.
— It is incomplete, — Tiberian corrected, a subtle, almost imperceptible shift in his tone. He steepled his long, perfect fingers. — A dead heretic is a martyr. A martyr is a seed. I do not want him erased, Lucian. I want him broken.
The First Consul’s objective was not extermination, but conversion. Not of the man, but of his meaning. He wanted to turn Corian Severus from a symbol of rebellion into a monument of failure. The mission’s parameters shifted in Crell’s mind, the tactical problem becoming more complex, and therefore, more interesting.
— I want him brought back to Aethelburg, — Tiberian continued, his gaze unwavering. — I want him to stand before the Grand Council in a public trial. His heresy must be seen to confess its own failure. The people must witness the inevitable collapse of a mind that embraces chaos.
The price of this strategy was risk. A live heretic was a dangerous variable. But the potential reward was the absolute reinforcement of the Canon, a lesson in obedience that would echo for a generation. It was a cold, elegant calculus. It was a logic Crell understood perfectly.
He gave a single, emotionless nod. The movement was small, precise. It was acceptance.
— The integrity of the Canon will be restored, — Crell stated. It was not a promise. It was a declaration of an inevitable future state. The relationship was now formally defined. He was the hunter. Corian Severus was the lesson.
Tiberian’s eyes held his for a moment longer, a silent confirmation of the pact. Then, the First Consul looked down at a data-slate on his desk, a minute gesture of dismissal. The meeting, which had lasted ten minutes and fifteen seconds, was concluded. Crell turned and walked out of the office, his black robes swallowing the light as he went.
He did not proceed directly to his ship. In the sterile corridor, he stopped and produced a thin, black datapad. His work was not merely to obey, but to succeed. Success required a complete data set. He began his own research for the hunt, his mind a cold engine of analysis. He pulled up the complete Collegium file on Corian Severus. The theories on generative chaos were there, elegant and flawed. The schematics of his vessel, the scout ship Vagrant, were detailed. The profile of his single known associate, the student Elara Vance, was sparse.
Then Crell found the file for Severus’s primary navigational tool. It was a custom device, a modification of a standard Wayfinder’s Compass. Crell studied the schematic. The design was an offense. Instead of a single, stable needle, it was built to measure the tension between two conceptual poles: a perfect circle for Order and a jagged, chaotic scribble. It was a tool designed to find meaning in ambiguity. Crell’s lip curled in a microscopic expression of distaste. He saw the flaw in the design noted in the file, a hairline fracture across the crystal face. Of course. A map built on the principle of its own imperfection. It was the perfect symbol for the heretic’s entire philosophy: a broken instrument for a broken mind.
He closed the file. It was useless trivia. He needed tools, not metaphors. His clearance was absolute. He bypassed the standard Collegium archives and delved deeper, into the redacted histories of the Mandate, the records from before the Great Concord had solidified reality into the Canon. He was looking for unconventional weapons, forgotten methods of containment, anything that might give him an edge in capturing a man who thought in paradoxes.
Most of the files were lists of failed realities, catalogs of dead worlds consumed by their own incoherent beliefs. He scrolled past them, his search parameters filtering for artifacts and protocols. An entry flickered, almost entirely censored. Two words remained in clean, sharp script: Reality Anchors. The file was classified at a level that bordered on mythical. The brief, unredacted text described them as pre-Canon artifacts of immense, absolute stability, objects that could impose a single, unwavering physical law on a small region of space, regardless of the ambient belief. They were relics from the primal war against the Dissolution.
Crell paused, considering the information. A tool that enforced order. It was interesting. But it was a sledgehammer for a surgical problem. He was hunting a man, not fighting a god. He dismissed the file and closed the datapad. His path was clear. He did not need ancient myths. He had logic, a superior vessel, and the full, righteous weight of the Consensus Mandate.
He proceeded to the docking bay where his ship, the Certainty, waited. It was a heavy cruiser, but it served the Collegium, a mobile lecture hall and instrument of purification. Its lines were as severe and functional as his robes. The air inside was cold, filtered, and smelled of nothing at all. The crew, all Censors-in-training, moved with a silent, disciplined precision that was a mirror of his own mind.
He walked onto the bridge and took his position at the central command station. The space was white, grey, and silent. He did not need to speak. His crew saw him, and they knew. Consoles came to life. The low hum of the ship’s drive began to build, a sound of pure, controlled power.
The hunt for Corian Severus had begun.
