SERMON OF EXODUS
David Annandale



THERE ARE VOICES and words in the echoes. Some of the words are spoken by the voices, but not all. There are words born from no tongue. They are heavy with dark meaning, sharp with truth and coiling with toxins. And there are voices that say nothing, yet howl the void of madness. So many echoes shatter against each other, slithering down the slopes and bouncing off rocks with predator leaps. They do not travel on the wind. They are the wind.
And some of them have come for him.
Tsi Rekh stands on a bluff. He has left his acolytes at the camp. Before him is the plain. It is a vast expanse of dry, cracked mud. It looks like the flaking carcass of Davin itself. In the centre, half a day's march away, a single conical peak rises - the Mount of the Lodge. Its silhouette darkens with the falling night. It becomes a shadow, one that reaches out to him with its absence and echoes.
The echoes are everywhere on Davin. It takes skill and faith and sacrifice to hear them, to draw their scattered force into knots of prophecy and revelation. They touch even those who cannot hear.
The truths of the gods are not limited by distance. To parse the truths, though - to sift through and truly understand them - that is a gift. It is the province of the few. And the closer one comes to the source of their propagation, the greater the density of the echoes.
Is it clarity that Tsi Rekh hopes to find? Revelation, certainly, but that is not the same as clarity. Revelation can strip the flesh from the soul. Mysteries can step out from the night. They can descend from on high with fury. To witness them is to be laid bare before something far more terrible and powerful than simple clarity.
He is so close now, so very close. So close to the source. So close to the Lodge of Echoes.
Close enough that the voices are so numerous, they must weave and tangle and entwine. Fragments and laughter, secrets and cries, the screams of torn vision and worse truths are gathered together. From their midst, they select a single thread for Tsi Rekh alone. It is gossamer venom. It will not speak its revelation, but this echo will speak to him. He closes his eyes. He opens himself to its touch.
He does not presume to take the thread. He lets it circle around his skull. Thin beyond vision, coiling, sharp as darkness, it reaches into his ears.
This is his echo. This is his truth.
A mouth that he must never gaze upon begins his word. A sin¬gle sound.
Mmmmmmmmmm…
That is the gift. That is the echo that has come for him.
Mmmmmmmm…
Beneath sound, beneath bone, as great as a continent's stone.
Mmmmmmrnmm…
The promise of more, if he proves worthy, if he passes the test.
And he will. This is his vow. He will hear the full expression of the echo that is his destiny.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm…

*  *  *

…Memory.
His tent, the flaps parting to admit Akshub. She is alone, this high priestess of the Serpent Lodge. The old woman is half Tsi Rekh's size and many times his age. Thin. Bones in her hair, older bones beneath her flesh. Age is everywhere upon her. His tribe, stronger in weap¬ons and armour and body than the vermin who live in her camp, could slaughter all her kin. He could kill Akshub with a single blow.
The half-formed thought is terrifying. Why? Because he would be dead as soon as he raised his hand. Because he would anger the gods.
Banishing the idea before it takes hold. Listening to Akshub open the doorway to destiny.
'On this day, the Lodge of the Hound has the favour of the gods,' she says. 'To the Serpent Lodge fell the honour of turning the Warmaster. His change is the work of my lodge. It is our serpent that whispers in his heart. He walks from us to bring the fire to the stars.' She grins. Insects crawl over her teeth. 'But you, priest, have a great claim too. You will hear the sacred from the source. You will touch it. You will be it. It is time to proclaim your right.'
'My right to what?'
He knows. He understands the meaning of the word source. He must hear her say it, though. Akshub's voice will make it law.
'The Lodge of Echoes.'
Sighing. Glory, a burning coal in his chest. 'We have tried before.' As have all the lodges.
Older memories, transmitted memories, the lore of Davin: the Lodge of the Serpent, of the Bear, of the Hound, of the Hawk, of the Crow, all - all, all - have sought to own the Lodge of Echoes, the first lodge, the lodge that precedes and surpasses all animals.
All - all, all - have failed.
Has any worshipper ever even crossed the plain? No answer. Not one has returned. The mountain, always a distant and forbidden marker of power.
But Akshub's voice comes, cracked and insistent. 'Go, priest. Cross the plain. Climb the mountain. Open the doors.'
'The gods will permit it?'
'The gods command it. Go and meet destiny.' She stretches out a hand and jabs a hooked fingernail against Tsi Rekh's chest. 'Open the doors,' she says again.
'And why does the Serpent give this honour to the Hound?'
Insects and smiles. 'I give nothing. I am the messenger. I am the opener of ways, but it is not for me to travel them.'
And Tsi Rekh to the dark mountain has come.

HE OPENS HIS eyes. The memory burns off like mist before the magnificence of the present. The shadow of the mountain has almost reached the bluff. The details of the plain have vanished. There is only the dark. The loam of whispers.
The last of the light is fading, its lie stabbed to death. This is how it has always been on Davin. There is no rebirth at dawn - there is only the primal sacrifice of nightfall. With every sunset, the gods reassert their rule with sacred murder. The shadow draws closer yet, then closer: a shadow with mass, strength and will. It reaches the base of the bluff. Minute by minute, it climbs higher. The tide of dark reaches for Tsi Rekh. He watches. He will not blaspheme by looking away. He will see the very second that marks his fall toward apotheosis.
The shadow reaches him. It touches him.
It is more than cold. It is a freezing agony, as though his limbs were being severed one by one. He welcomes the shadow and its will. And so much more than cold, more than pain. This is a test.
Then, through the act of his welcome, it becomes a claim. It is ownership. It is a grasping. In the echoes, he hears nods. He has been found worthy.
'Now!' he cries.
'Now!' he calls.
'Now!' he thunders.
His voice is picked up by the echoes. It too has been welcomed by them. They carry it before him, across the plain, bringing his ferocious joy of worship to the mountain. They carry it also behind him, to his followers, and beyond. Because he is blessed, because he is chosen by the Lodge of Echoes, his voice has joined the dark chorus that rings the planet. On the other side of the globe, sorcer¬ers of the lesser lodges will hear his voice amidst the fragments that come to them, and they will wonder at the summons.
Does he feel power now?
Yes. Yes.
Wait, say the echoes.
More, say the echoes.
Mmmmmmmmmm… says his fate, growing louder, stronger, on the verge of transformation.
He waits, motionless, arms outstretched, staring into the rich dark¬ness. His followers arrive from the camp. They number thirty-one. With him, their party is thirty-two, a sacred grouping: the eightfold path of Chaos multiplied by the will of the four gods. They are rab¬ble and they are faithful, sacrifices to be used without thought and martyrs to be praised for their willingness to die. Like him, they bear weapons and armour. They are powerful amongst their fellows. They come from the Lodge of the Hound and that is enough, whether they are alive or dead, to make them supreme over all other Davinites.
Tsi Rekh walks into the shadow. They follow. They descend the slope. The ground of the plains is uneven, jagged. Some of the pilgrims are barefoot, and before they have gone many steps they leave a trail of blood behind them. They do not light torches. They march into the very origin of night. They cannot see where they walk. Tsi Rekh strides with certainty, guided by the pull of destiny. The others do not have an echo of their own to sustain them. They stagger. They trip. They fall. They do not cry out but Tsi Rekh knows that there is pain and the ruin of flesh. Beneath his feet, he can feel the squirm and crunch of insects. They scrabble out from the cracks. They are thirsty for the wounds of the faithful.
All is as it should be. His chest swells. He could swim through the dark to the mountain. But he will walk with his acolytes and bring them to whatever role it is that awaits them. They are ele¬vated, because the Lodge of the Hound has been, but they are not chosen.
Unlike him.
Always chosen.
The wait of years.
A stirring in the depths of his mind. Thin as hair, jointed, with a scorpion's sting. What is it? He cannot grasp it. It grows stronger, more insistent as they walk through the night. In the hour before dawn, when at last they reach the foot of the mountain and begin to climb, the thing blossoms. The moment he touches the sacred rock, the coiled irritant strikes.

MEMORY AGAIN. DIFFERENT. Older yet new. The event forgotten, erased from his consciousness. Born-reborn-exulting only now, answering a moment in time.
Tsi Rekh is a child. He is very young, a few years old. Can he speak yet? Barely. Can he understand? Yes. That is important.
Inside a tent. Whose? He can't tell, because that is not important. Akshub is there, the witch seeming old even then.
She has always been old.
Two other adults are there. His parents, speaking with Akshub. Why her and not an elder of their own lodge? Her presence is its own answer. She is that powerful, often transcending the lines between lodges.
His parents' attention goes back and forth between the witch and their son. He stands in the centre of the tent. Circles drawn in salt surround him. There are designs between the circles. The child does not know what they mean but they frighten him. The adult Tsi Rekh tries to read them in this new-old memory. They defy him. They keep shifting. They twist, they slither. They are serpents, and they are language. They are envenomed meaning.
'Hail,' Akshub is saying. 'You are blessed among our people. You have found favour with the gods.' She looks at Tsi Rekh. 'He will be the passage. He will be the way.'
His parents laugh with pride. Their pride sounds like the squeal¬ing of rats.
'Stand over him,' Akshub instructs.
They take their places inside the circles. Facing each other with Tsi Rekh in between. He looks up at these giants, his mother and father. This is the first time the adult priest sees their faces. Two more of the faithful, bearing the scars and damage of worship.
Strangers. They mean nothing.
Yet they mean everything, because they are the instruments nec¬essary to achieve his glory.
Looking down at him, still laughing.
Still squealing.
Akshub's movements are a blur - graceful in their perfect brutal¬ity. His parents still stand but their throats are slashed wide by the old woman's knife. Blood falls in torrents onto his upturned face. A cataract, a flood, a rising sea. He is drowning. There is no tent, no ground, no air, only the blood.
The blood and the circles.
And the old woman's voice. 'Listen,' she hisses. 'Lissssssten!'
The drowning child obeys. The echo speaks to him for the first time then. Into his ears comes a whisper. It is a name. The memory loses definition there. He cannot be told the name yet. But now he knows the nature of the revelation, and the name with the great hum.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm…
And then.
Now. Outside the memory. Climbing the mountain. The echo, the word, the name, so vast and terrible that minds cannot hold it, begins to take shape. After the hum that is the thunder of earth comes the choir of dead stars.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…
'Light the torches,' Tsi Rekh says.
It is done, and the torches are strapped to leather harnesses on the acolytes' backs, to burn high above their heads. The worship¬pers can climb with both hands. So there is light now. Smoke, too, and a stench. The heads of the torches are wrapped in cloth dipped in human tallow.
As the climb beings, Ske Vris, the most promising of Tsi Rekh's aco¬lytes, stops, her hands frozen where they first touch the mountain.
'I cannot,' she says. She struggles, but a greater will holds her. 'I am forbidden.'
Tsi Rekh nods and leaves her. It occurs to him that she is being spared. Sacrifice, then, is ahead. He has no fear that it will be his - the end of his path is still as distant as it is grand.
So he leads the climb up the steep face. There are many handholds. There are also many shadows. They cannot always be distinguished from one another. The mountain's jaggedness exacts its tribute of pain. With every injury, the victims scream their gratitude to the gods. That there would be a price was a given. It would be blas¬phemous to wish things otherwise. Victory without sacrifice is meaningless.
The closer they come to the peak, the greater the agony. The hand¬holds are the edges of blades. Blood is the key to elevation, and Tsi Rekh is bleeding too. Hands, arms, legs all robed in crimson. He feels the honour of the pain. It spurs him to greater speed, to hurry to his appointment.
Almost at the end of the climb now. There is a wide ledge com¬ing up and perhaps a route into the complexity of the peak, which appears to twist like a nautilus shell.
Beschak climbs to Tsi Rekh's right, one respectful handhold behind. He has been Tsi Rekh's chief acolyte for years. Akshub presented him to Tsi Rekh when the follower was a child.
'The boy is important to you,' she had said. 'Prepare him. Make him ready for the moment.'
'How will I know when it comes?' Tsi Rekh asked.
'He will know.'
Beschak grabs a spur of rock with his left hand. He hauls himself up. His feet lose their purchase. He slips. Clutches the spur hard. A blood-slicked palm slips.
Tsi Rekh stops to watch.
Beschak's eyes shine in the light of his torch. He looks at Tsi Rekh. 'Now?' he asks.
Tsi Rekh says nothing. He waits to see.
The spur crumbles to dust, as if it had been nothing more than crusted sand. Beschak laughs and falls.
In Tsi Rekh's ear, in his mind, in his soul, he hears the echo's ecstatic Aaaaaaaaaaa…
And new echoes. Granted to him alone? He would think so. Ancient ones, so forgotten that they can no longer reach much beyond the mountain's peak. Given strength at the moment of Beschak's shattering.
Tsi Rekh pauses. These echoes are startling. He did not expect this.
Images. They must be of another place. This cannot be Davin.
No, no, there is certainty. This is Davin. Of another time, buried beneath millennia of savagery and blood.
Images of cities, of soaring structures, of proud light.
Tsi Rekh's lips curl in hatred. He wants those towers brought low. So does someone else, the being to whom these memories and this hatred belong.
The echoes fade. That which is dead is less important than that which will die. There is work to be done.
A name to be spoken.

*  *  *

TSI REKH CLIMBS again. He reaches the ledge. It is a path, sloping up and curving into the rock. It will lead him into the nautilus. He waits for his acolytes to gather behind him and then starts forward.
The path itself is a coil. The sides of the rock fissure are barely wide enough to permit passage. The light from the torches feels weak, as if the rock absorbs the shine. The pilgrims walk into the spiral of midnight. Then there is a sharp turn, and they are out. They stand in the interior of the peak. Perhaps the mountain was once a volcano. This might be a crater. If it is, then the volcano has been extinct for a very long time.
'Put out the torches,' Tsi Rekh says, obeying not an instinct but a command. He hears it in his head, and the voice belongs to Akshub. Another memory. She gave him the command forty years ago, then buried it.
The acolytes do as he says. The fires die but the light does not. There is a wash over this space. Grey of mould, green of rot and white of hate. It roils and shifts, it turns, it—
It looks. The light sees.
And it is bladed. A beam glances over the ground, sweeps over the pilgrims. One, Hath Khri, reaches up with her arms in ecstasy and the light cuts through them. She falls, blood spouting from stumps below the elbow. She gasps her praise to the gods.
Movement must be earned, Tsi Rekh thinks. It must be understood as a gift. It must be presented as a form of worship.
Hath Khri turns toward him. She smiles before she dies, bleed¬ing out onto the cold rock.
Like Beschak, this was her moment. All in the service of the path Tsi Rekh must walk.
Mmmmmmmmm…
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…
There are ruins everywhere. They are low, broken, vague. Impossi¬ble to tell what they had once been. Tsi Rekh sees the trace of walls, the gaps of doorways. Nothing else. Simply the ghosts of history, a phantasm of a time when the Davinites built something more sub¬stantial than yurts.
There are other echoes of this time, of course - the lodges them¬selves. And in the centre of the hollow peak rises the Lodge of Echoes, the greatest of them all. It is the source of the light. This light, Tsi Rekh realizes, is another manifestation of the echoes. If he had the skills, perhaps he would see more than the glow of thought's decay. He is humbled by the revelation of how far he has yet to go.
The Lodge of Echoes is suspended above the ground by eight huge pillars. They are squat, wider than they are high, though they are five times taller than Tsi Rekh. The structure they support is vast, monolithic. Its side walls are vertical, smooth as glass, regular as iron, but they are stone. The four corners are turrets but the tow¬ers bend in at sharp angles to point towards the centre of the roof like clutching talons.
The front of the lodge is different. This wall is not smooth. It is a complex of whorls, depressions and protuberances. The glow dances over the shapes, revealing and concealing details, creating shadows and meanings that shift, slippery, into something new before they can be understood. The wall is disease. It is song. It is the echoes given shape in stone, and it is their medium. It is the agent of their transmission to the whole of Davin.
And inside? Inside is the origin of the echoes. Inside is Tsi Rekh's quest. Inside lies his destiny.
Inside is what he must accomplish.
He must open the way.
But there is no door. He has stood before the gates to the Tem¬ple of the Serpent Lodge, where Horus was given the truth. Those gates are majestic in size and power. They are masterpieces of art, their engraving of the serpent-entwined tree beyond anything the Davinites could accomplish today, and greater even than those of the Lodge of the Hound. No amount of pride can deny that it was right that that particular ritual should take place in the home of the Serpents. The gates might as well be the work of the gods themselves.
Here, gripped by holy awe, Tsi Rekh has the sensation that the lodge might be a god. How should he presume to bend it to his will? He cannot even see how to reach the height of the temple. The pillars are too high and too smooth to scale.
He moves forward, wary of the lethal light. His disciples fall into line behind him. He can feel the caress of edges against his limbs, against his throat. Hath Khri's propitiation has been sufficient. They approach without harm. No other blood is drawn. For the moment, at least.
As they walk through the ruins, Tsi Rekh feels the thrum of the structures' ghosts. There are flickers of the earlier vision at the edge of his consciousness. With them arrives understanding: what is important is not what was destroyed, but the fact of its destruction. That is the gift that fell upon Davin. It is the gift that is now being renewed. The gift that is travelling the galaxy.
The ruins end outside a circular space surrounding the Lodge of Echoes. There is nothing between this perimeter and the lodge except blackened stone. Tsi Rekh stops. He pulls his serpent-headed staff from the leather straps holding it to his back. He holds it high in response to the prickling he feels on the back of his neck. There are eyes nearby.
They are not divine. They are human.
One by one, from widely separated points along the edge of the ruins, come the other priests, and with them are their followers. The priests hold up their staffs too. There are different heads upon each: bear, hawk, crow, wild cat, hound, wolf, wyrm, rat…
They are all here, all the lodges of Davin. The priests regard each other with hatred.
We have all been drawn here, Tsi Rekh thinks. He wonders if Akshub visited every clan, whispering words of prophecy and fate. Were they all lies? Is there no destiny here for him? No echo that is his and his alone?
Thrum and choir surround him, Mmmmmmmmmm… Aaaaaaaaaaa… and his fears vanish. He would not have been bred from childhood for a pointless game. He sweeps his eyes over his approaching rivals. He suppresses a smile, though a sharp lower canine pokes out from his lip. These others are not his peers. Some do not wear armour, and he towers a good head over most of them. His weapons transcend the crude blades he sees in the hands and hanging from the leather belts of these people who walk beneath the banners of lesser beasts. The priests' staffs alone are the equal in workmanship to his own, but they are all holy relics, passed down through the millennia.
Behind Tsi Rekh, there is the sound of weapons being drawn. He brings the tip of his staff down hard on the rock. The crack is sharp, startling. Its echoes do not vanish. The physical sound goes on too long, grows louder than the original noise, then is incorpo¬rated into the ocean of psychic whispering.
'State your business here,' Tsi Rekh commands.
'State yours,' says the priest of the Wild Cat. He steps forward as chief rival. His armour is as elaborate as Tsi Rekh's. Crimson metal bands circle his torso and limbs. His pauldrons are horned. A great furred pelt hangs from his shoulders. The fingers of his right gaunt¬let extend into iron claws as long as his forearm. In his left hand is a curved, serrated blade. His boots, too, are clawed. He is ready to challenge, eager for battle. He believes himself superior to Tsi Rekh.
What an illusion. What ignorance. He will be taught.
They all should know. They all should know their place.
'I am here to open the Lodge of Echoes, and to claim it in the name of the Lodge of the Hound,' says Tsi Rekh.
The priest of the Wild Cat glares. His mane of hair appears to bris¬tle. Behind him, and to his right, stand followers of the Lodge of the Serpent. The new priestess, some acolyte of Akshub, wears armour of long curved, warding spikes on her shoulders, and her robe is finer than the rags worn by her followers. Her face is unreadable. Tsi Rekh wonders if she knows about her mistress's contact with the Lodge of the Hound. Does she know that the next phase of destiny has passed from her lodge? Is she foolish enough to think Akshub disloyal?
No. No one is that mad. There can be no challenge to Akshub. Davin has never had a prophet of her like.
A whisper echoes in the depth of his mind. Not since…
Not since when? Why, for the first time in his life, does he believe there was another?
Memory. A new one. Fresh. From the night before he set out, yet Akshub had buried it for him too. Uncovered now, words of prophecy: I am the opener of the ways. He is the walker of the ways. You will be the way.
Knowledge without understanding, promises couched in riddles.
Tsi Rekh swallows his impatience. Revelation will come. He smiles, taking pride in that certainty.
The priest of the Wild Cat sees the smile as an insult. 'The Lodge of Echoes is not for the likes of you,' he says. 'It has been promised to me.'
'Who made you that promise?'
'The gods granted me a vision.'
Tsi Rekh continues to smile. Oh, the lesson that is about to descend upon this pretender! How weak a claim. Tsi Rekh is not here because of a dream shaped by his own desires. He is here by the command of the gods.
But why are all the lodges here?
He dismisses the question and the doubts. The answer doesn't matter. Only the prophecy is important. Only his destiny. Unalter¬able and glorious.
'Leave or die,' he says, but the choice is a lie. He has already begun the attack.
He does not move. His acolytes charge past him, hissing wrath. The followers of the Lodge of the Wild Cat rush to meet them, their priest remaining just as motionless. He and Tsi Rekh stare at each other. Between them, the butchery begins. The killing is an extension of their wills. Their underlings might as well have no volition of their own. They are their masters' instruments as much as the weapons they hold.
Blood splashes on the ground. People die in violence and hatred. And the light changes. It absorbs the blood. It shifts towards the crimson. It grows stronger. Patterns on the face of the Lodge of Ech¬oes twist. Lines appear. The echoes grow louder, more eager. More death, more blood, and the lodge feeds. Tsi Rekh can feel the touch of the light upon his skin. It is cold, dry, and it grips like victory.
Understanding. Revelation.
He and the Wild Cat look at each other. Their antagonism evapo¬rates. They know that they are instruments. They know what must happen. So do all the other priests. And so, thanks to their faith, do all the assembled acolytes. Without needing an order, they run to the slaughter. The priests step back to give them room and gather together at the edge of the ruins.
In the empty ground before the lodge, hundreds of worship¬pers fall upon each other with blades, fists and teeth. The battle is savage. It must be. The massacre must be total and it must be bloody. This is not about victory. There is no attempt to triumph. There is only the need for pain, for the rending of flesh. Blood everywhere, slicking hands and faces and bodies. And all the time, joining in the exultant, gorging echoes, the songs of dark praise. The acolytes know that they have been blessed. They have lived this long to give their lives to the gods now, in this place, for this purpose. They bleed for this purpose. They will not live to see it fulfilled, but they die in the certainty that their sacrifice will lead to the deaths of entire worlds.
If something greater did not await him, Tsi Rekh would envy them.
The light is still dry, a caress of scales, but the air is humid, redo¬lent with the heat of opened bodies, the stench of bowels, the slick of gore. The lodge feeds. From deep within its walls, something begins to sound, huge and earthshaking.
Heartbeat, drumbeat, and the hammering of a fist upon a door.
The lines on the wall lengthen and join. They outline an opening, one that has not existed since the lodge was completed and its sole occupant entered.
Occupant.
How does Tsi Rekh know this? Because as the door comes into being, and the slaughter reaches its completion, the visions and the echoes shout to him, teach him, seize him. His knees buckle. For a moment, he is not outside the lodge. He is not Tsi Rekh. He is inside, surrounded by the all the shapes and jaws and the gibbering of darkness. Inside, watching the door arrive. Inside, the walker of the ways, ecstatic as the great promise at last comes to pass.
The beat of the lodge is in the special echo too - Tsi Rekh's echo. The name so large it must be carved out of the spirit one sound at a time. A great hammering caesura strikes the choir.
Mmmmmmmmmmmm…
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…
D-D-D-D…
Tsi Rekh, back in his own being, back outside, claps a hand to his head. The stuttering D, a short, sudden shatter, threatens to crack his skull in half. The name has a form. It is incomplete, but he can begin to pronounce it with his tongue. He dare not, for fear of anger¬ing the power. He will not insult it with a half-name.
He blinks back the pain and rises to his feet again. He will stand as the door opens. Is he the only one to be afflicted? Are none of the other priests struggling? Perhaps they are. He cannot tell. He cannot look. His gaze is held by the lodge, by the formation of the door.
By the opening of the way.
The walker of the ways is coming.
The door is complete. The pounding from the interior is also com¬ing from the ground, from the air, from behind Tsi Rekh's eyes. The pulse of the Lodge of Echoes and the battering against the walls of reality are one and the same.
And now the glory. The door opens.
The grind of stone, crackle of energy and a sigh from a bladed throat. Two massive slabs on the facade have come into being, and they open outwards. Echoes, long contained, fly out from the dark interior, louder than ever, crowing victory.
A ramp emerges, stone deploying as though it were articulated metal. It stretches down to the blood-soaked earth. For a minute, there is nothing more, nothing except the ecstatic, mad choir of the echoes.
Then a figure appears in the doorway.
A silhouette first. Big. Ill-defined, infected by the shadows of the lodge. Now clearer, the truth of the form announcing itself. The dec¬laration is fearsome. The walker is twice the size of the Davinites. It walks on two legs. One is thick, hoofed. The other is a jointed arach¬nid limb. The being's syncopated gait should be clumsy, a broken limp, but it moves with grace and the suggestion of barely restrained speed. The torso wears a robe… No, Tsi Rekh realizes. That is no robe. It is flesh, this being's own flesh. It hangs from the torso, sickly white, dropping away from exposed bones, transformed into a long sheet, marked by runes of blood and tattoos that blink and mutter. The exposed sections of skeleton look blackened by fire, but glint with coils of barbed iron. The arms have been denuded of all flesh and their joints have multiplied. They resemble long spinal columns, ending in long elegant hands that gesture with the care of knives.
The head.
The face.
Tsi Rekh revels in the debasement of the human. It is part of his life's mission, but his throat goes dry before this sight. He has never seen the transformative art of disfigurement taken so far. There is no doubt that this being was once human - there is just enough recognisable in the face to mark the beginning of the walker's jour¬ney. This wonder, this transcendence, was once as Tsi Rekh is now.
Such a miracle.
The face.
The skull has grown, bulbous encrustations of bone swell¬ing in many directions. A horn sprouts from just above the right cheekbone. It curves upward then branches into two, the extremities sharp enough to cut dreams. The lower jaw juts forwards, as long as Tsi Rekh's forearm. Some of the teeth are still human. Others belong to an ancient carnivore. At the tip are a serpent's fangs. The upper jaw starts wide but then narrows to a point. It is a black beak. Lips hang, torn, on either side of the jaws. All the flesh of the head is in tatters, strips and strings of muscle. The forehead, the bone masses and whorls mirroring the patterns on the lodge, is filled with eyes.
The human is long gone, but it was there, once. Its banishment is a gift beyond measure.
The miracle walks down the ramp, its gestures flowing. It will tangle all that is real in its dance. It stops midway and sweeps its many eyes over the priests. It pauses for a moment when it comes to Tsi Rekh.
…blind another's eyes another's thought an immensity waiting at the other end of the way learn its name its name its name…
New sound, new signification, after the hum, after the choir, after the stutter, the wail.
Aaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiii…
Tsi Rekh blinks. He sees again, in time for the next wonder.
The being spreads its arms. It speaks. How can it speak, with that mouth that is not a mouth, those lips in two parts, with the ser¬pentine tongue embedded with bone shards? It speaks because it must, because the time has come at last for its voice to be heard. It speaks with the echoes. The legion of voices and memories and crimes are one, the instrument of a single will. The voice booms. Tsi Rekh shakes. The air shakes. The mountain shakes.
'Children of Davin,' the being says. 'Children of the gods. My chil¬dren. I am Ghehashren!'
Ghehashren. The night writhes beneath the force of the name. Ghehashren. The prophet who first brought the word of the gods to Davin. There was a Davin before his revelation and Tsi Rekh under¬stands that this was the Davin in the dead fragments of dreams he saw before. And there was a Davin afterwards, the Davin that built the lodges as its last act before the great fall. Ghehashren is the father of all that Davin has become. His memory has sat enthroned in the Lodge of Echoes, governing all others. He is Davin's beacon. He taught the people how to worship, and when the Lodge of Ech¬oes was complete, he disappeared into it to walk the ways.
Tsi Rekh knows all this now, because the prophet of the warp has returned, and with him has come clarity for his children. Before this moment the name was holy, its teachings followed, but its legends as vague as the echoes themselves. Now Ghehashren is here and all will be revealed. The time of prophecies is over. The time of their fulfilment has begun.
Ghehashren leans back. He looks up at the sky as if to pronounce its doom. His arms embracing the whole world.
And then he shouts. For the whole world.
'Gather!'

AND DAVIN GATHERS. The summons is heard around the globe - not just as a stronger echo, not just as a voice in the soul, but as a sound. There is no escaping it. There is no disobeying it.
And so the people come. They begin walking the very second the word reaches them. The migration of millions begins. The prophet has called.
Ghehashren climbs to the outer rim of the peak. He carries with him the light from the lodge. It pulses and flows from him, a liq¬uid illness, coating the mountainside. The realm of endless night becomes a beacon of diseased illumination. The prophet stands there, visible across the plain, and waits.
The priests wait too, in silence. They will not speak until he gives them leave. All language belongs to Ghehashren. There is no mean¬ing except that which he creates, and so they wait. They survive by eating the bodies of their acolytes.
Seven days pass and then Ghehashren calls to them. They file out through the spiral path in the rock and take their places on the ledge below the father of Davin.
As the seventh day ends, hundreds of thousands of worshippers throng the great plain, with more arriving all the time. Seeing the multitudes, Ghehashren opens his mouth and teaches them, say¬ing, 'Blessed are the cruel, and the carriers of plague. Blessed are the driven, and the killers, and the defilers of order. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst, who rage and curse, who stand with me before the gods, for the death of the galaxy will be theirs!'
The people cry out to the glory that stalks the peak. Their adula¬tion is added to the echoes and Ghehashren thunders ever louder. Davin vibrates with his tones.
But Tsi Rekh, through his awe, feels a lack. There is an echo miss¬ing. His echo. It is not a part of Ghehashren's tapestry of meaning and it does not speak to the priest any longer. Absence. A fault in his soul. It has abandoned him at the penultimate moment, when it was about to grant him its full name, and so reveal his destiny. Where has it gone?
Bereft…
How did it go?
The hum… How…
No. He cannot even find that.
There is Ghehashren's sermon, and that is enough. It is more than enough.
But still…
Ghehashren says, 'Think not that I am come to destroy the uni¬verse of law. Nor have I come to fulfil the prophecies. That is for you. You, my children, shall be that fulfilment. You will carry the flame to burn the galaxy. I have come to charge you with your great task. I have walked the ways of the gods, and you see my blessings. I have travelled between the stars, and touched the worlds of the enemy. Now you will follow in my footsteps. You have waited and served on this planet. That wait and service are at an end. Now is the time to leave the cradle of Davin and spread the truth of the gods. Now is the time of exodus!'
He pauses. 'You will travel. How will you travel? In the guise of sheep.'
He brings his hands together. They compress space between them. He sinks his claws into the air. Tsi Rekh's eyes widen as he bears witness to the tearing of the flesh of space. Ghehashren clenches his fists, and the vertebrae of those serpentine arms flex. He tears the real open.
The rip shoots up, a wound of blood and flame. From within, a deeper night appears, the night of the void. The rip spreads wider as it reaches up. The low clouds are torn asunder. The sky peels back. The materium shrieks, and from the warp comes a fleet.
At low anchor over Davin are ships of every description. Tsi Rekh should not be able to see them so clearly, but the rip summoned by Ghehashren makes them appear as close as if they were in the lower atmosphere.
Or if he were suspended on the edge of the void.
Merchant. Military. Colony transport. Tsi Rekh understands the broad types of the ships, but only at the most basic level. The vessels are ancient. They are battered, worn, and the warp has gnawed at them, leaving the marks of its teeth. The longer Tsi Rekh looks up, the closer his perspective comes to the ships. He can now pick out individual details. He focuses on one freighter. He marvels at its size. He wonders how many thousands it might carry. But none of them has ever set foot in a starship. He will not question Ghehashren, but cannot understand how the prophet expects the people of Davin to get aboard. And even then, how are they to pilot these vessels? He sees within the bridge now. It is massive.
He is on the bridge. Surrounded by the control surfaces. He is standing beside the command throne. A frayed mechadendrite coils beside him. He reaches out. He grasps the limp cable. He can feel the metallic ridges against his palm.
He gasps.
He is back on the mountainside, blinking, stunned by awe and ter¬ror. In his hand is a piece of the mechadendrite. He stares at it, then looks up at Ghehashren. Some of the prophet's eyes have turned his way. Ghehashren's mouth is not capable of expression, yet the beak and the jaw are parted slightly, as if in a smile.
'Do you see?' Ghehashren asks. The voice is soft, for Tsi Rekh alone.
The priest nods.
He knows of Akshub's ability to travel behind the barriers, to arrive in an instant anywhere on Davin. How much greater the prophet's power must be, after walking so long in the realm of the gods. Thousands of years in the Lodge of Echoes, long enough for the old Davin to pass away, long enough to become the marvel of horror that strides along the ridges of the peak. The scale of what Ghehashren will accomplish staggers him anew. The prophet will transport the people to the ships. Will he or some other power guide them to their destinations? That truth is hidden.
But this truth is upon him: the walker of the ways will be the Exodus.
The people are shouting crying screaming in the ecstasies of faith. They praise Ghehashren, they praise the gods. There is a massive surge forward towards the base of the mountain, where the rip waits, in blood and darkness and the torment of light. But Ghehashren holds up a hand, and the surge stops in an instant. The thousands upon thousands see and hear and obey.
The prophet looks down upon the priests.
'All lodges are one,' he declares, and Tsi Rekh can see the truth of that pronouncement. The masses below are a unity, fused together by the fire of their mission, and by the thunder of the Lodge of Ech¬oes. Ghehashren continues, 'But the followers of the one will need voices of guidance. My journey is not with you. And so I shall give each of you charges.'
Serpent and Wild Cat, Wolf and Bear, Wyrm and Rat, they all face each other with new purpose. Rivalry died in the sacrifice of their followers. They are tiny instruments in the hands of the Ruin¬ous Powers. What wars and schisms may wage in times to come are not for them to decide. The greatest of them all has spoken. The honour of their task and the promise of infinite corruption is all they need.
Tsi Rekh needs more. He hides his anger. He will never disobey the commands of the transcendent being who has come among them, but he will not be robbed of his destiny.
Where is his echo?
It can be in only one place.
The other priests descend from the mountain, and the great parti¬tioning begins. The masses know by instinct whom they are meant to follow. Destiny has come to all. Ghehashren speaks the will of the gods, and his thunder guides the preparations.
Tsi Rekh dares the great forbidden. To pass one more time through the cleft in the mountain. To spiral through stone. To stand before the Lodge of Echoes. Alone.
To mount the ramp.
He will find his destiny. It must be here. The echo will come back to him. It will complete the lesson that was intended for him and no other. Fate has called him this far. It cannot have been a trick. Not with the name so close to revelation.
The ramp is not stone. It is bone, and the marrow of compressed echoes. Whispers move under his feet. For the first time in his life, Tsi Rekh knows fear untouched by the conviction of faith. He fears punishment but he walks on. He reaches the entrance to the lodge. He must not pause.
He crosses the threshold.
The echo is here. It is massive. It strikes. It uses all of his senses to speak at last the full measure of the name.
The hum. The choir. The stutter. The wail.
And the constriction, serpent strong. Lllllllllllllllllllllll…
The name is taking Tsi Rekh in its claws.
MADAIL.
MADAIL.
MADAIL.
Carving him open. Revelation yes, knowledge yes, truth yes, all claws, all teeth, all pain.
Wonder of destiny. Agony of fate.
He will be the passage. He will be the way.
Vision returns, and he is on the ground outside the lodge, Ghe¬hashren standing over him. The parting of the beak and jaw, that smile of darkness. The gaze of all the eyes.
The prophet speaks. No thunder. A whisper using the returned echo, knowledge shared by the two of them alone. 'You understand?'
Tsi Rekh nods. The full sweep of the glory that awaits still unfold¬ing in his mind. The destruction he will wreak. The name he will serve.
MADAIL.
'I will be the passage,' he whispers, throat bleeding.
'One more gift,' Ghehashren says, and speaks two names. They are death, rattle and hiss. They await at the end of the path.
Pandorax.
Pythos.