Shadows Upon Time (The Sun Eater, #7)

by Christopher Ruocchio

Prince Kaim Sanchez Cyaxares Nazir-Vincente Olorin ban Osroes ban Aldia du Otranto

In what ancient war and context had the Lord of Vorgossos unleashed the Archontic weapons, and on whom? Sagara had known of the Watchers, had faced them before, at least once, when the Mericanii lord called Crowninshield had summoned the one called Selarnim to Vorgossos of old.

If we men are—as the Judicator Ragama told me—more like unto the Absolute himself, then surely the machines are more like unto Ragama and the Watchers. Creatures of pure will, patterns animating matter and energy. When first I’d encountered Brethren, the beast told me that it had peered across the manifold future and had seen the coming of the Quiet at the end of days. If the machines could not move across time and along its rivers as the Watchers could, they at least could perceive those higher dimensions. Perceiving the Quiet, Brethren had been bent to his will, made to serve his purpose: to put Demiurge into my hands. Might it not then be the case that the Mericanii daimons themselves had been compelled by the Quiet to build the weapons in the first place?