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that you chose to come, being who and what you are.
But I am.” The voice seemed inhuman, though not for a
different arrangement of vocal mechanisms, but rather the
odd modulations affected to the speaker’s tone by way of
what seemed an intervening mechanical filter. I could feel
something drawing closer to me from somewhere below,
and I could hear the careful and repeated contact of metal
meeting stone.
“No,” I said, “you certainly shouldn’t be,” I offered with
a slight bow. “I thank you for meeting with me.” I could
still hear the metallic stride in the wide silence around me,
suggesting the approach of something rather large. I muted
my family’s howls for blood and felt their soundless and
searing reproach.
The speaker’s words now drifted down from a height
well above me. “I assume we both know, to some extent,
who it is we’re dealing with. This is to the good, I would
wager. As far as your reason for coming to us—yes, we do
know something of the entity you mentioned, this Shepherd
of Wolves. Let us sit and talk.” The darkness shifted into
intelligible shapes and discernible distances. Not through
the ordinary medium of light, but rather by some alien
wavelength of darkness—it didn’t expand on what could be
seen, but only revealed what my mind was allowed to know.
The darkness showed me my host—a large mechanized
thing that stood well over eight feet tall. Great lengths of
black cable tumbled from its back and slithered down a great
stone stairwell, both unravelling into oblivion. It looked
something like a vintage deep-diving suit, complete with the
round iron helmet.
The creature noticed my curiosity and offered an
explanation of its attire. “The dark, even at this depth, is far
too bright for the likes of my kind. We must channel what we
require through the mechanical apparatus you now admire.
But let us discuss the matter at hand, shall we?”

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