Chapter 73: Order’s Remnant
The dead Aries Astrant’s name was Ikleni Ferrer.
One of the older volunteers found it in the evacuation records after Marek warned everyone not to touch the body. Ikleni had registered at the evacuation point several light periods earlier, although nobody there seemed to know much about him beyond his name, his Sign, and the fact that he had volunteered to help after the collapse.
Marek stared at the entry for several seconds and thought, ’So much for having no name.’
Rhovan had asked him during the fight, and Ikleni had answered as though the name no longer mattered. Marek had assumed the response was another strange consequence of Black Errancy. Now, knowing that Ikleni Ferrer had once been ordinary enough to write his name on an evacuation record somehow made the corpse lying on the pavement more unsettling.
The gray scale beneath Marek’s clothes remained occupied.
The foreign fragment had stopped its constant movement after the shadow finally received the ending it had never reached, but Marek could still feel its presence. It had not disappeared with the Unclaimed Trace, nor had anything changed about the thin black defect crossing Ikleni’s Astral Mark.
Several volunteers placed another barricade around the corpse without approaching it. The injured civilians had already been moved toward a temporary clinic farther inside the residential block, while the families who had fled during the fight slowly returned to whatever remained of the evacuation point.
Marek stayed near the damaged barricade with Rhovan and the others. Kellan’s injured arm had already been wrapped, while Nadia had somehow taken over one side of the volunteer desk despite nobody asking for her assistance. Silas stood beside her and corrected two names she had written incorrectly.
Dario, meanwhile, had brought several cups of water from the clinic on a tray and handed one to Marek before sitting against the side of the van.
For several minutes, nobody mentioned the corpse.
Marek eventually broke the silence. "Where does Black Errancy actually come from?"
Rhovan leaned against the wall of the evacuation booth. He lifted his eyes toward Marek as though he had expected the question sooner. "From something older than the Houses—oh, it seems I haven’t explained those to you yet. By Houses, I mean the Twelve Houses that currently rule the Prime Continuum."
"Twelve..." Marek muttered, immediately catching the number. "So, I presume no Ophiuchus?"
"None among the ruling Houses."
Marek thought about everything Earth had discovered since Day 367. "So that was why our government failed to recognize it. The current order of the Twelve Houses no longer recognizes Ophiuchus."
Rhovan’s expression changed slightly. "As part of their current order, yes. But don’t confuse a Sign with a House. Ophiuchus existed before the Houses. It was not some forgotten Thirteenth House. No Thirteenth House ever existed in the first place."
That distinction made Marek pause. "So Ophiuchus was already there before those Houses were established."
"Exactly. That’s obvious enough. No Houses would be formed in the first place without the existence of the Thirteen Signs."
Marek wrote that information on his note right away alongside the increasingly long collection of things he intended to question Rhovan about later. "Anyway, back to Black Errancy. You said it came from something older than the Houses?"
Rhovan stared at him for a moment before continuing. This time, the theatrical edge in his voice disappeared.
"Yes. Before the Prime Continuum existed, the oldest records described something called the Unbounded. There were no proper borders between things as we understand them now. No lawful distinction between what belonged to one thing and what belonged to another, because the laws that made those distinctions possible had not taken shape yet."
Marek listened without interrupting.
"Then came the First Separation. Thirteen Sign-laws took distinct form, and the Prime Continuum was born from that separation. Once things could finally be distinguished from one another, consequences could be distinguished as well. A wound belonged somewhere. A burden had to be carried by something. An action needed a destination, and an ending had to be allowed to end."
Rhovan looked toward Marek’s right shoulder. "Ophiuchus once held much of the law responsible for keeping those distinctions intact: Boundary, Custody, Transfer and Release."
Marek’s expression changed slightly. Rhovan noticed it, but continued before Marek could ask another question.
"Then came the Signfall. Ophiuchus was fragmented, and when the Twelve Houses later rebuilt what remained, they restored order without restoring everything that had once kept consequence properly assigned. Things were left behind. Burdens without rightful custodians, actions without destinations, and endings nobody accepted responsibility for."
"Like what happened here?"
"On a scale so small that comparing the two would probably insult several ancient catastrophes, yes."
Marek glanced at him. "Was that necessary?"
"Accuracy often sounds offensive."
Rhovan straightened from the wall. "Those abandoned consequences accumulated. Eventually, the oldest records gave that accumulation a name: the Unclaimed Dark."
Marek repeated the term silently. ’Unclaimed Dark...’
Marek narrowed his eyes. He remembered stories and myths from Earth that he could probably connect to this setting. Then, he asked, "Is it some type of god?"
Rhovan’s expression almost became offended. "Definitely not. People enjoy giving intention to things they fear because intention is easier to understand. The Unclaimed Dark doesn’t hate anyone, nor is it waiting somewhere and deciding whom to punish. It is simply consequence that was never given lawful custody, destination, or release."
Marek looked toward the sealed section of the collapse.
William Rivera had died believing somebody remained trapped within the fallen debris. The rescue had ended, but his fear had left behind something that continued behaving as though the ending had never happened.
"Then an Unclaimed Trace is one of those consequences?"
"Not quite the whole thing," Rhovan replied. "An Unclaimed Trace is what an unfinished consequence leaves behind before Black Errancy begins. The shadow, the footsteps with no one walking, and the repeated movement were all part of that Trace."
Marek remembered the eighth footstep. "And Black Errancy?"
"Black Errancy begins when that unfinished consequence reaches an awakened Sign and twists the way its Authority responds."
Rhovan’s eyes moved briefly toward Ikleni’s corpse.
"It doesn’t give the Sign a new power. It removes one of the rules that normally tells its Authority when to stop, who it can affect, or how far it can go. Without that rule, the wrong answer can become absolute."
That explanation settled more easily in Marek’s head after what he had just witnessed.
Ikleni’s Aries Authority had recognized that something demanded action and had begun that action. There was nothing inherently wrong with the ability itself. The problem was that once the rescue started, his Authority had lost the ability to accept that the rescue was already complete.
"So Ikleni lost the part that told his Authority when to stop."
"Exactly."
"And another Errant wouldn’t necessarily lose the same thing."
"No. Another one might lose the rule that limits who the Authority can affect, whether the target has to agree, how far it can spread, what it costs, or when it should end. Black Errancy removes whichever limit keeps that Authority from becoming absolute."
Rhovan paused before giving an example.
"For Gemini, the difference between the original and the copy could disappear. A copied voice or identity might start being treated as the real one. For Leo, recognizing someone’s authority could become the same as obeying it."
Marek slowly turned toward him. "That Leo example sounded suspiciously personal."
Rhovan smiled faintly. "I was merely being accurate."
"You were describing yourself."
"I was describing Leo."
"You are Leo."
"A fortunate coincidence."
Marek decided not to continue that argument. Instead, he placed a hand over the gray scale beneath his clothes. "How does someone actually become contaminated?"
Rhovan’s amusement disappeared again. "There are two ways Black Errancy can spread. The first is a carried route, which means the contamination is already being carried by someone or something. Simply touching it or standing nearby won’t contaminate you. Your Authority still has to interact with it before a route into your Sign can open."
Marek thought about the stranger he had killed before. "And the second?"
"The second is a first-carrier route, which may be what happened here. That happens when nobody is carrying Black Errancy yet. Instead, something from an event that should have ended remains behind as an Unclaimed Trace. If an Astrant uses their Authority on that Trace, Black Errancy can begin with them."
Marek glanced toward the damaged section.
Rhovan continued, "Think about what happened here. The rescue was already over, but the Trace kept acting as though someone still needed to be saved. Ikleni’s Aries Authority responded to it, and that opened the route for contamination."
"And seeing one isn’t enough."
"Exactly. Seeing or touching it alone won’t contaminate you. The danger begins when an Astrant uses their Authority on the Trace."
Marek remembered what the volunteer had told them earlier. Ikleni had taken William Rivera’s hand before the rescue officer died, but the contact alone could not have contaminated him. The important event happened afterward, when something left behind by the unfinished rescue drew Ikleni’s Aries Authority into acting.
"He encountered something that made him believe a rescue still needed to happen," Marek said. "Then his Authority answered it."
"That’s what the evidence suggested before."
Marek caught that wording as well, but Rhovan had already looked toward the gray scale.
"And now I’m carrying part of it."
"In custody," Rhovan corrected. "Not ownership. Keep those two words separate."
"Can it contaminate me?" Marek cautiously asked.