Lore:Achilles Weaves a Cocoon

"And my vanquisher will read that book, seeking the weapon, and they will come to understand me, where I have been and where I was going."The following is a verbatim transcription of an official document for archival reasons. As the original content is transcribed word-for-word, any possible discrepancies and/or errors are included.

Achilles Weaves a Cocoon is a Lore book introduced in Season of the Splicer, with entries acquired by completing seasonal Triumphs.

I: Eggcloth

He comes to Europa almost the size of an Archon priest, but hollow. He needs Ether. If touched, he fears he will crumble into nothing. His arms will dock themselves, his skin will shed. He has nothing except his armor and the thousand-year-old loom clutched in his four arms.

They mockingly name him "Namrask," which means "empty weaver." Like naming a Human "Norman," which, he understands, means "not really Human."

Eramis separates all the newcomers so they will not retain their old pre-Dusk loyalties. Namrask is shoved into a little warren carved beneath the ice; the moon's surface is so radioactive that not even Eliksni can live there for long.

The little Winterdrekhs are kind to him. Namrask realizes that they think he is too weak to earn the huge Ether ration he needs. He has been put in this warren to die.

"I can work," he rasps. "I can make bandages, capes, armor lining, eggcloth, supsoak, prayer matting, watercloth. I am a weaver!"

"Tall friend," one of the Winterdrekhs says soberly. "No one your size is a weaver. Why not volunteer to fight for Eramis?"

Namrask shudders. He cannot fight. Not after what he saw in the Reef—that THING with its staff. Not after SIVA, Twilight Gap, London. Kridis promised that this was salvation.

"Bring me broken eggs," Namrask begs, "and I will make eggcloth. How will the hatchlings be swaddled if no one weaves the eggcloth for them?"

The Drekhs watch as he uses his teeth to separate the eggshell from the thin, fibrous membrane beneath. He tears it into long fibers and fastens them to his loom as the warp—the threads that run top to bottom. With two hands, he holds the loom in his lap. Carefully, he chisels open the warp with a third hand; moving too quickly will snap the eggthread.

His life depends on this. His fourth hand swiftly passes the shuttle through the warp, drawing the first weft across. The thread does not snap; he has woven.

"Watch me," he tells the Drekhs. "When Eramis is done conquering our enemies, we must know how to make things."

They sit and watch. Their lower arms, half-grown after docking, mimic his motions. Their names are Eoriks, Oeriks, and Yriks: brother, brother, and sister.

When it is done, he gives them the little scrap of eggcloth. They murmur in wonder and rub their cheeks against it. "Bring that to the camp Captain," he tells them. "Tell them that Namrask can weave if he is fed and given fiber."

It is the first time he has ever made anything without ruining it on the loom.

II: Hollowhot

When Namrask has the strength, he uses nonfluid loop cutters to help the Drekhs join their icy tunnels with other habitats. He weaves hollowhot matting to insulate the tunnels, and soon, some places are warm enough to remove a little armor. A clutch of eggs is hatched, and the hatchlings are raised in the warren.

For the first time since he fled the Tangled Shore, Namrask can think of more than his own survival.

Then the warrior Phylaks, a lieutenant of Eramis, comes recruiting.

On the raw ice beneath a black sky, she plays videos of Eramis raising a slab of crystal like a wall; another where she binds a Vex Minotaur in a casket of frost.

"This is the future of all Eliksni. Who among you would wield this power?" she asks.

He keeps his head down.

"You."

Namrask looks up, carefully. Phylaks's shock pistol is pressed to his brow. She puts the weapon down between them, a sign of truce, and makes the ireliis bow of respect. "You have the size of an old fighter. Why not come forward?"

He is afraid his voice will fail. It comes out strong, but like another's voice: "I saw what happened the last time Eliksni reached for new power. And the time before that, and the time before that. I will not be part of it."

Shrugging, Phylaks takes up her pistol and walks away. "There are many others who will take your place."

Later, Yriks tries to change his mind, but Namrask refuses again. "Eramis derives authority from her ability to grant this power. She cannot give it to everyone; if she does, her authority is lost," he says. "Has she destroyed Servitors?"

"I think so," Yriks says quietly. "Drekhtalk says that she broke a Servitor during a ritual to give power. To show that the old ways are done."

"Of course."

Will society always be based on violence? Where the basic worker is not the weaver, the farmer, or the healer, but the Drekh: one pistol, one knife, one unit of labor. Employed to steal what it can—the value of a Drekh life.

And Namrask helped make that law.

He rumbles. "She preaches salvation, but she cannot save everyone. She keeps Ether scarce. More than we can get alone, but not as much as we need. It is the way to rule."

"You have a mind for strategy," Yriks observes slyly. "Who were you before you became our empty weaver?"

"Do you know hollowhot's secret?" he asks and abruptly places some on the ground for a chattering little hatchling to play gathering-games without freezing to the ice. "Why it is so valuable as insulation?"

"What is hollowhot's secret, Namrask? Why is it so valuable?" She mocks him.

Namrask shows her one thread of the stuff, end-on, so she can see the little bubbles of vacuum that fill the center.

"There is nothing inside it," he says. "But if you pry too hard, you break the nothing. And then it is useless."

III: Bannercloth

Europa is colder than the void because the ice steals heat faster than raw vacuum. Locally made Ether tastes of ice and radiation, of metal and blood. Namrask realizes this is not a new Eliksni paradise; it is a very old one. And it always falls.

"Do something," Yriks begs him. "We will all die here if you do not."

"No," Namrask grunts, picking at his loom. He is afraid that if he goes near Eramis, he will accept her gift.

"Do something," Eoriks begs him. "Find us a protector. You must have known great warriors, when you were great."

"No," Namrask says again. He holds a hatchling to the heat lamp so it can bask in the warmth. He fears that anyone he calls to Europa will join with Eramis.

"Do something," Oeriks begs him. "Find a way off Iiropa. If what you say is true, then Eramis will damn us all. What are you afraid of?"

"Fine," he snaps. "Then I will find us a traitor."

For the first time, Namrask makes the long walk to Riis-Reborn. It is built in the ruins of an old Human city and the angular, crowded architecture makes him growl in fear and bloodlust. He remembers when the Eliksni broke the walls of the Not-Quite-Last City and took what was within.

Sniksis and Piksis guard Eramis's chamber. The twins make ireliis to him. "She will honor you if you honor her, O Great Akh—"

"Don't say it," he growls. Not that stolen name. "I'm not here for Eramis. Where is Variks?"

When Variks, the old judge, sees Namrask, he laughs. "I thought you would be in that hole forever."

"You put me there, didn't you?"

"Not I, sir." Variks claps two hands crosswise, one pair, then the other. "It was the day-Captain, who had no idea who you really are. Does it suit you to be forgotten, old Smokesword?"

Namrask grinds his teeth. Laboriously, he lowers himself on all four arms. "I come to beg a favor."

"No." Variks comes closer to whisper. "My judgment stands, woe-of-the-masses. You gave no mercy and you will get none."

"You make a habit of serving queens who will abandon you," Namrask whispers back. "Eramis is doomed, Variks. She is Whirlwind-touched. As I was, once."

"She knows what she risks. Why else would she have sent her mate and children to another star?"

"Athrys is gone?" Woeful news; she was Eramis's guiding glint. "You always have a way out. I want a part of it—"

"Now you run from battle?" The judge's voice is light, unmocking; a sincere question. "When Eramis could make you mighty again?"

"I survive now as a Drekh survives. I have hatchlings; I would see them spared."

"There were hatchlings on the ships you abandoned at Riis. Human infants in London—"

"I am no longer the killer I was then!"

"Yes, you are."

"But I do not want to be! When I was on the Reef, I—" Namrask struggles. "I saw the beast Fikrul. Before that, I saw the Devil Splicers. But this debasement of our form, this revenge—it must stop, Variks. Please. Help me."

"No favors," the judge pronounces. "Not for you. However…"

Variks's prosthetic hand scratches letters in the snow. It takes Namrask several blinks of his second eyes to understand that it is Human script: MITHRAX.

"I will make your name known to him." Variks wipes away the letters. "But this is not a favor." His metal hand touches the tattered blue banners around his waist. "In exchange, I want these redone in fresh bannercloth. I will send you the thread. You will weave for me, 'Namrask.'"

Namrask tries his best. But the bannerthread is too fine, the weave too dense, and he cannot complete his task before word comes that Variks has summoned the Guardians—the Machine-spawn—to Europa.