Bella and Redana!
The grapes of these ancient days are far from those grown for the pleasure of Empress Nero and yet it cannot be said that they are entirely lesser. Certainly, they do not carry the nutritional density or depth of flavour of a modern vine (and truth be told, it is unclear if one of these ancient heroes would even survive drinking Imperial wine), but neither do they lack value. The Biomancers worked their looms, but they were working with a material that humanity knew in its cradle. Before the domestication of the horse came wine, and twenty thousand years since then did not pass without progress. The ancients understood that the soil was of import just as much as the seed.
So you drink and make merry in the light of a heroes sun. They find ways to coax boasts and stories from you and regale you with their own. And while the story of their end is well known, they delight when they realize that you do not know the end of the civilization that came before, the transformation that allowed the Knights to conquer this world of screens and commerce and render the Tunguska a relic for Hades.
The Tunguska was a bank, they explain as they take you up to the great pyramid. A vault where every soul's value was tallied on a ledger. All of this space and all of these rows of ancient machines were required to administer the traverse of grain and silk, to smooth the passage of silk and silicon. Power in this era was not in the weave of gene code or the strength of titans but on the number by your name. This place was fortress and tomb, the scales that judge the dead rebuilt in mortal form.
On and on through the vaults, the machines still whirring and humming away in their grinding attempt to judge the souls of every mortal. On and on and on. The offices of Judgement's clerks. The strategiums where military campaigns would be waged against those who defied their ordained number. Planets catalogued and sliced into pieces and assigned names and numbers, further and further out into the void.
And then they take you to the heart of the vault, into the depth of this machine built to judge the galaxy. It is made entirely of gold and heavy with jewels, for sentimental reasons, though the computer panels spoke of the place's true power.
And in its heart is an arrow.
It is mounted on a pedestal, a shining blue crystal with a tasteful little plaque added by Hades. This arrow was, it explained, the first of a new generation of quatronic computers. Within this tiny fragment was all the same power as the entire pyramid and all of its subsidiaries across the galaxy. Or not even power, but the ability to think in lateral and unpredictable ways. It could change the number. It could cut through the chains of math that secured the number. It could fit in a pocket.
Even that did not need to be the death blow for the Tunguska. Perhaps in time they might have been able to integrate the crystal's new power into their machines, rebuild an even more perfect system. But there was no strength behind this place then. It was old, it was rotted, it was tired. When it stumbled nobody caught it. When it fell nobody rebuilt it. When it was buried in the tomb it had built for itself those who held the shovels were feted as the heroes of a new age. And this is the lesson of the turning of aeons: systems perish and pass from this world not when they are killed in battle, but when none tend their wounds.
*
Alexa!
You do not see Zagreus. He wears his father's helm of invisibility and no sight nor scent could ever defeat it. All the tools of science and religion could not undo it. It is the will of the gods. Against the will of the gods, you will fall.
Hades sits in the royal box. He was always here but previously it was he who was invisible. You see him now. The hollows beneath his sapphire eyes. The sag of his cheeks. The box of tissues by his left hand. The beat of his pulse, so slow and lethargic.
He raises a bloodless hand.
And points.
Your spear follows. Follows all the way to the heart of Zagreus.
Against the will of the gods you will fall, but mortals were never powerless. It is theirs to make their case. To make their offering. To declare their sacrifices, their virtues, their courage. A judge does not make the plaintiffs irrelevant. Quite the opposite.
Blood flows down your spear. The last it will ever draw. Zagreus sinks down amidst the crimson waters. Hades stands and every eye is upon him.
He throws something at your feet and turns to go.
You look down. It is a ball. Blue and yellow and thick with bite marks. To see it is to know that this was Cerberus's favourite, and they could never have truly left home without it.
*
Dolce!
It has been a month. Time enough for everyone to work through fears and doubts and the longings of heart and blade. Time enough for those who will stay to sort themselves from those who will go. Time enough to unpack the ship of possessions and cargo, to swear oaths and say goodbyes.
Staying on the Tunguska are the Coherent, the Alcedi, the humans, the Biomancers and the Lanterns. These societies, born in the shadows of darkness and war, love or have been taught to love their new lives and their bonds. For love, they will not dare Aphrodite. These are the vast majority of the ship's crew and compliment, the ratings and the deckhands, and they empty from the Plousios in their tens of thousands.
The core of those who remain on the ship are the Order of Hermes, lead by Iskarot. There is a quiet conviction there, a dedication to the journey for its own sake as the ultimate act of service to their goddess. It seems like this should not be an easy decision for them, these creatures to whom knowledge is the greatest virtue and their stores of arcane secrets the keys to prestige and power within their great organization. And yet, they do not hesitate. Knowledge is power and power must be used for something. And so they bid goodbye to their ranks and titles and lore, for all their secrets were merely coin to pay their way on this, the greatest journey.
The assassins too follow. Beljani and Epistia, linked through Ceronian pack-bond, are the most wildly optimistic about the future, sharing a warrior's conviction that nothing could ever come between their new unity of purpose. Beautiful, having solved every mystery aboard the ship and watched every mystery movie in the stacks, is excited for the possibility of getting to solve them all anew. Mynx has not spoken overmuch but the idea of the future seems to bring her relief as much as anything.
Jil and a handful of Lanterns are coming, champions from every clan who competed for the right to go. The clans collectively have decided to stay behind but such is their debt of honour to Bella for bringing them from the darkness that they send their greatest as an honour guard into the next life. Those elected are fearful but excited, and aglow with the idea that they will carry the example of the Lanterns on to the next world.
The Tides of Poseidon, too, are all coming. It is unclear if they even have memories to lose in a way that others understand them. The crab need not know the past to clack its claws at the sun, and the Assistant Secretary of Fear and Doubt has, perhaps foolishly, become inspired by the idea of a universe without death.
Not counting the Tides, the total number aboard the Plousios after all is said stand at around a hundred, mostly the Order of Hermes and Lanterns, along with small clusters of others whose reasons do not align with their factions. A small crew, but still many more than the journey began with.
There seems to be one other guest. Smoking and looking out of the window towards the Rift, present on every floor and every gallery, is Aphrodite. The scent of his cigarettes sinks into the furniture. Ash and ruin in the form of a million small coughs.
No one comes for love alone.
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