Lords of Uncreation (The Final Architecture Book 3)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

“Because it’s wrong to strive against the way the universe is made. The Essiel do not prey upon the lesser, nor rebel against the great. They know their place, as masters of those things they hold to, and that act on their behalf. When comes the fire, the tide, the storm, they have their shells. That is the way. Except there’s no perfection in this world, hence there must be exception made. Hence those who cannot live within their bounds are yet made use of. If railing against fate is wrong, let us do wrong. Let us do all the acts unspeakable. Break all the laws. Fight that which must be borne. Be wicked, know no grace. Refuse all walls. And so, though we be cursed, reviled, denied, so we yet serve the way that we have left behind. When comes the threat the shell cannot resist, there shall it find us, waiting.”

“It is not meet—” the Hiver’s voice was reverent and low “—to so profane these words of council. What may pass between divinities is not for mortal ears. Know only this: Th’Unspeakable, the Razor and the Hook, petitions for the strength to bring a final reckoning to those who’ve wronged their majesty. These things may not be borne, to tread upon the hem of the divine. The Razor seeks an edge to carve this hubris from the universe.”

It was something he’d seen plenty of times in his job, the way that kind of mindset worked, spiralling inwards into itself. Until at some point, the necessity of doing bad things for a good cause became, by the inexorable ratchet of cognitive dissonance, the insistence that doing things the bad way was a virtue in itself. Because otherwise how could one justify all the bad things already done?

The Skathi was a big ship. There was a lot of ground to cover, between her and the thing that couldn’t possibly be in here with her. But it was getting closer, even if it was just in her head. It was groping its blind way towards her. A thing that had existed alone since the dawn of time and could not abide to share its unreal universe with anything else. A thing so alien that to confront it would be to die of abject horror. Utterly beyond any human connection save that Mercy understood, beyond doubt, that it knew her. Knew her and hungered for her, her specifically, the fragile mind of Fleet Exemplar Mercy.