Broken Circle

by John Shirley

  “Truth is blaming Regret’s guard for the High Prophet’s death—the Elites were tasked to protect him. Their failure to do so has cost the Covenant a Hierarch. The High Council is not taking it lightly, nor did they take the catastrophe at Alpha Halo well, which as you know was laid at the feet of the Sangheili. And I do not think the Elites on the Council will be listened to, were they to raise their voices in dispute.”

  “What?”

  “That is just a guess. I am quite certain, however, about the Honor Guard, and a general demotion of the Sangheili. Exquisite Devotion told me so personally.”

  “The High Council Elites, silenced? Such a thing would be unprecedented. And this idea of pushing all Elites from their posts, demoting them . . .”

  “There’s more—I have gathered much information since we last met. Truth has apparently sent special orders to Brutes stationed around Earth. Why would he be giving such orders, from here? That task is below him. And orders only for the Jiralhanae? He’s also sent another fleet to Earth—again, not a job for his high station. Why? And according to data I’ve acquired from comptroller files, he has already placed a large order with the Sacred Promissory—the weapons armory here on High Charity—but he has kept this quiet even now. The order, as I understand it, is the mass production of traditional Brute weaponry. It appears to me at least that he is arming the Brutes to a perilous degree. I personally believe that he is setting a trap for your people—and reaching for full control of the Covenant.”

  “What you speak of will not be taken lightly by the Sangheili.”

  “I am aware, hence our counsel.”

  “What I mean to say is: if Truth takes such an action, it will most certainly lead to war. Civil war, Zo!”

  “I suspect Truth may welcome a civil war with the Elites; that is likely his very trap. He can then eliminate them quickly—and consolidate his strength with the Brutes . . .”

  “This validates my own news. Truth gave orders to assault the temple before any news of Regret’s death became known. Our ships fired down onto the Sacred Ring after the Demon made his approach, but the Honor Guards within the temple had almost no chance to defend Regret—he was already marked, and all help that could have been afforded him was restrained. I have confirmed it—my uncle had word from a captain on one of the Phantoms. Truth did pull out the reinforcements.”

  “So it’s true . . .” Zo now suspected that Truth had little interest in sharing power with the other Hierarchs. He wondered just how far Truth would go before the activation of Halo and the commencement of the Great Journey. Would he even strike at the High Prophet of Mercy?

  “This is insanity. The High Council will not stand for this.”

  “Listen to me, G’torik—do not inform everyone of this. Choose specific Sangheili in the right positions, those who can keep their mandibles shut, lest your people lose the advantage of surprise if news gets back to the Hierarchs. Understand that you cannot trust the High Prophet of Truth any longer. And beware the Prophet of Exquisite Devotion. It will be only a short time now.”

  G’torik snorted. “The High Prophet of Truth. The Prophet of Exquisite Devotion. These titles they bestow upon themselves bring shame to the Covenant. They have no loyalty to the Writ.”

  “There is, of course, another complicating factor: the Flood.”

  The Flood—the startling, gruesome outpouring of ancient parasitical creatures accidentally liberated from the containment vaults in the first Sacred Ring, Alpha Halo. They’d spread quickly, infecting any within their grasp and incorporating whatever sentient life they came upon. The Flood seemed mindless as individuals yet guided by some mysterious, overarching intelligence. The Flood had been presumed to be obliterated when Alpha Halo was torn apart by the Demon, but recent reports from the surface of Delta Halo indicated that the parasite had already been released from its containment by the time Regret’s forces had first arrived. Now it was causing havoc on the surface and had complicated all efforts to acquire Delta Halo’s activation key, the fabled Sacred Icon.

  G’torik scratched a mandible in puzzlement. “The Flood—the parasites were contained for a time.”

  “The Flood is a great disruption—at least now, Truth knows this. It may well aid him if he intends to replace the Elites, even at the risk of civil war. He’ll no doubt use it to his advantage somehow.”

  G’torik waited before taking in his next breath, as the dark weight of realization took hold. Then at last he asked, “Zo—I must know. Do you have some . . . some agenda of your own in telling me all this?”

  “Have you not learned to trust me?”

  “Of all the San’Shyuum I have ever known, you were the only one who troubled to know my people, beyond what was necessary for the purposes of the Covenant. You do see us as we are, as a people. As souls. I believe that. But speaking of all this surely must be a great risk for you. Why do you take that risk?”

  Zo was taken aback. It had not occurred to him to question his own motives. He supposed that on some level, his ambition did enter into this. If, as he suspected, the High Prophet of Truth was going to manipulate the Jiralhanae to seize control over the Covenant, then Zo might have a corresponding influence over the Elites. Who knew what that could lead to if the Elites were triumphant?

  But perhaps more than anything else, his taking this risk was all about the inner revulsion he felt for Truth’s schemes, and of course, for Tartarus.

  Privately, the Prophet of Clarity had begun to question the Great Journey, though he had long practice at pretending to be a zealot. In truth, he respected the Forerunners and their astounding relics, but it did little for his faith when he saw the treachery of those who called themselves High Prophets, those who were tasked with protecting that ancient, superlative knowledge. If Truth was capable of such schemes in the very light of a Holy Ring, then what parts of the Covenant’s own origin might also be false?

  But the Covenant and High Charity—this was all he’d ever known, it was all any of its members had ever known.

  And it seemed to him that Truth was putting them all in grave danger, with or without the consummation of the Great Journey. If civil war took hold, would such a thing even be possible?

  “G’torik,” Zo said at last, “I am risking myself telling you all this, because I do not think San’Shyuum can long survive without your people. None of us can survive the Flood and the humans without unity.”

  “So be it. Some of us will be on guard, and we will make the necessary contingency plans, as you advise.”

  Delta Halo

  Control Room

  2552 CE

  The Age of Reclamation

  Stepping off the Phantom’s gravity lift with the others, G’torik gazed up in awe at the Chamber of Consecration—Delta Halo’s immense control center. Fittingly, it was more like a temple in its shape, at least on the exterior, than some module used for controlling a mechanism. Ornate walls of silvery-gray alloy converged on an intricately configured dome from which sprang a tower . . . the focal point of the energies that would activate the Halo, beginning the purification that would open the doorway to the Great Journey itself.

  He had already been awestruck several times on this visit to the Sacred Ring. First, arriving on the cruiser, G’torik had seen the Halo itself, or a portion of it, from space—it seemed impossible to witness the entire Sacred Ring with the naked eye. Its immense size held aloft in orbit around a blue gas giant, a perfect circle—and within its band, the surface of a world. Surely no ordinary mortal could have created such a thing. He had never been, inwardly, a particularly pious Sangheili, but just looking at the Halo in the viewport gave G’torik a shudder of religious wonder.

  As they’d gotten closer, he could make out the clouds in filaments and broader strokes of white, over the land within the ring; the marbling clouds parted in places to reveal water, structures, hills and valleys—the handiwork of the gods. Astounding.

  Then he had been summoned to the purpose that had br
ought him here, as guardian for High Councilor Torg ‘Gransamee. It was not normal for an Elite of his stature to be called to protect a High Councilor—traditionally a ceremonial role reserved for the Honor Guards. But the Jiralhanae had now become Honor Guards, and these Elites chose not to employ them.

  Things were anything but normal, for the original Sangheili Honor Guard was no more.

  Since his alarming conversation with Zo, ominous clouds had gathered. Citing the death of Regret and the colossal failure that took place at the first Sacred Ring as evidence, the High Prophets of Truth and Mercy publicly handed the role of Honor Guard to the Jiralhanae, a unilateral move without the approval of the Council. In response, some Sangheili within the High Council threatened to resign, while others saw fit to come here to the Ring and prepare the Chamber of Consecration for the Sacred Icon. Still, there was a danger that the High Prophet of Truth might make the final move that Zo had foreseen, with civil war to erupt at any moment.

  And there was the Flood.

  G’torik had watched on remote viewscreen as the Flood had been encountered in the quarantine zone, the vast, frigid territory between the Ring’s massive containment walls and the Sacred Icon’s central housing—a location on this Halo the Covenant had designated as the Repository of Fate. The Icon was the key to activating Halo. Without it, the Ring could not achieve the purpose for which it was designed. Only hours ago, the Hierarchs had sent a small team to retrieve it, but there had been no reports since then. Did they perish in the sweeping depredation of the Flood?

  G’torik knew that once the Sacred Icon was put into play, activating the Halo at the control room, all that was impure would be burned away—which would surely include the parasite—and faithful Covenant believers would be transported to the realm of the divine. This very act could stave off the potential war to come Zo had warned about.

  For a moment, G’torik wondered what that meant—faithful Covenant believers.

  Now, striding just behind Torg ‘Gransamee, who in armored finery and towering headpiece led a column of Sangheili High Councilors and a handful of other Elites who had once served as Honor Guards, up to the Chamber of Consecration. G’torik felt a flush of shame as he thought of his own doubts—and, yes, they still troubled him. Was this impossible creation, the Halo, not proof of the reality of the Great Journey? So the Prophets insisted.

  They trooped along a bridge arching over a large body of water near a series of canyons—the control center stood on a single giant parapet, with large doors opening to a narrow corridor, an antechamber, and eventually the central chamber of the control room, where more bridgelike structures converged on the control board itself. There, the Sacred Icon would be applied, activating the Halo, and the Great Journey would finally commence.

  Torg ‘Gransamee looked around in puzzlement. “Where are the San’Shyuum, G’torik?” he muttered. “They were to be here at the same time for the activation ceremony . . .”

  G’torik had been wondering the same thing. “I had thought you might know.”

  “It is the San’Shyuum who have the key, the Sacred Icon—they claimed that Tartarus acquired it, and the others who went with him were lost to the Flood. They may have been delayed. We will wait—we have waited centuries, as a people, for this moment, after all . . .”

  They waited a good deal longer, murmuring, stealing reverent looks at the control panel. G’torik all the while wondered if that tingling he felt at the back of his neck was the consequence of the regard of the gods. Would they not be here, however invisible—watching?

  At last they heard the clomping of boots.

  “Look. There are the Jiralhanae,” said Torg, pointing at the large forcenumber of Brutes marching over yet another peripheral bridge.

  G’torik didn’t like this at all. The Brutes seemed overarmed for the occasion. “So many of them. Why? And where are the San’Shyuum Councilors . . .” His voice trailed off as he saw that some of the Jiralhanae were heavily armed with bulky ballistic weapons of their own kind, ones he’d only rarely seen before—might these be the weapons Zo spoke of? The new ones secretly ordered by the High Prophet of Truth? The Brutes were being led by a close associate of Tartarus, a captain called Melchus, the chieftain’s thick-chested, brown-furred second-in-command, carrying an imposing gravity hammer somewhat smaller than the Fist of Rukt, though likely just as threatening.

  And there were no San’Shyuum to be seen at all. There was no High Prophet of Mercy. No High Prophet of Truth.

  “This must be treachery,” G’torik said under his breath.

  “Nonsense,” Torg sputtered. “They would not conceive of such a thing in this holy place. The Prophets must be—”

  But then Melchus roared—and charged the Elite Councilors.

  The other Jiralhanae who accompanied him took this as a sign and flew forward in concert, converging on the outnumbered Sangheili.

  The battle quickly came to a fever pitch. The two groups exchanged shots in the open before violently colliding at the center of the bridge, the Jiralhanae burning, blistering, smashing with shock waves—killing before the Councilors could reach them with their energy swords. Other Elites managed only light damage with plasma rifles and needlers, while the Brutes’ double-bladed carbines fired spikes that breached the Sangheili’s energy shielding and tore into exposed flesh. The Brutes had the element of surprise, forcing the Elites backward against the control mechanism near the sheer drop to the control room floor far below. The Sangheili had come here on a spiritual mission and were unprepared for this turn of events—with no cover and no place to turn.

  Melchus reached two brave Elites who rushed to meet him, their crystalline-pink needler rounds glancing off the Brute’s thick shoulder plates. Melchus slammed his powerful gravity hammer down on one guard, turning him to exploding flesh and bones; the other was knocked off his feet by the impact of the weapon on the walkway, the gravitational wave launching him off the bridge. Another Elite came at Melchus with an energy sword, swinging it viciously. The Jiralhanae captain sidestepped the blade with surprising speed for his bulk, and slammed his hammer into the attacker’s midsection, throwing the broken body into the air. The guard was dead before he hit the ground.

  “Get behind me, Uncle!” G’torik shouted. He sprinted toward Melchus, hoping that if he could take down the Brute captain, then the Jiralhanae, leaderless, might be confused enough to give the Sangheili Councilors a path through, and perhaps a sorely needed advantage. If he could get close enough, jam his rifle into the Brute captain’s mouth, he might do it . . .

  Melchus was howling with glee and bloodlust, dispatching another Sangheili guard who’d fallen, wounded, under a barrage of spikes. The guard was splashed into nothingness by the Jiralhanae as the air resounded with shouts of pain and fury and the sizzling, cracking sounds of the weapons, the echoing thunder of war hammers.

  Maddened with fury, G’torik heard himself shout, “Melchus! Face me and die, traitor!”

  He was almost upon the Jiralhanae captain. He poised the plasma rifle as Melchus started to turn toward him—

  But almost as if swiping at some tiny flying pest, Melchus swung the hammer to swat the plasma rifle, and it shattered like a thing of thin glass in G’torik’s hands. The smashed rifle exploded in an expanding bubble of blue plasma, which knocked G’torik backward so that he skidded over the smooth surface of the bridge, fetching up against the rail.

  Stunned, G’torik fumbled around for another weapon. His hand closed on the dropped hilt of the energy sword; he then saw another, still in a dead Elite’s hand. He got dizzily to his feet and snatched up that one, too, activating both swords, a plasma blade in each grip. Their translucent blue-white blades crackled into being, charged with electrons flowing through magnetically shaped streams of superheated plasma that narrowed into two razor-sharp cutting edges.

  G’torik looked around and saw that nearly all the High Councilors were dead, many of them shattered, crushed unrecognizably. Some o
f the wounded Elites were still being shot up by the snarling Jiralhanae. Others were summarily tossed off the balcony onto the distant floor below. The Sangheili had fought valiantly and only about half the Brutes remained. But the trend of the fight was obvious.

  Why didn’t we bring more protection?

  And where is my uncle?

  “Torg ‘Gransamee!” G’torik shouted. “Torg!” Then smoke from burning flesh wafted away and he saw it—Melchus standing over his unarmed uncle. The brute captain was crushing Torg ‘Gransamee’s throat under his enormous, hooflike two-toed boot.

  And Melchus was laughing as G’torik’s uncle gurgled and died.

  “Traitor!” G’torik shrieked, rushing at Melchus. “Monster!”

  This time he got close enough to slash the captain with both swords—the Brute’s shoulder plates partly saved him, but G’torik managed to cut Melchus’s ribs, slashing to the bone, making him roar in pain. The wound gave off smoke, and a spurt of the Jiralhanae’s blood coursed past the blade—while the only other surviving Sangheili guard was coming at Melchus from another side, distracting him with an appropriated spike rifle.

  Far from mortally wounded, Melchus leapt back from the energy blade and slammed his hammer down on the other, closer Elite. The Sangheili guardian flew to pieces.

  Frustrated to the point of madness, G’torik rushed in, both his blades flashing, one after another slashing down at Melchus. The Brute captain ably blocked the slashes with the handle of his hammer, snarling, “You will die like the others, weakling!” The energy swords spat sparks as G’torik struck again and again, looking for an opening.

  Melchus jumped back, trying to get room to swing the hammer. G’torik braced to rush him, but Melchus was faster than G’torik expected. He swung the enormous hammer in a blur of speed, and G’torik just managed to duck it, a split second away from having his head disintegrate into a cloud of vaporized flesh and bone. G’torik threw himself aside, slashing at Melchus’s booted ankle, drawing blood but not cutting deeply.