## The Cartographer’s Bone
Dust tasted like regret. Old Man Tiber, they called him, though no one knew his real name anymore, coughed it up with every wrench of the lever. The machine groaned, a metallic lament against the flat ochre horizon. I watched his hands—gnarled, spotted maps of a life spent chasing echoes—guide the auger into the shale.
“Anything?” I asked, shield visor down against the glare. The sun here in the Scatterlands wasn’t kind.
Tiber didn’t answer immediately, just adjusted a dial, sweat beading on his brow. The auger shuddered, then snagged. He killed the engine.
“Feels…warm,” he said, voice raspy as wind through canyons. “Not rock-warm. Bone-warm.”
I moved closer, the sand crunching under my boots. The air *did* feel different here, a subtle thrumming against my skin. We were looking for Vessels. Everyone was, these days. Pieces of fallen stars, they said. Constellations broken and buried after the Amnesia—the day everyone forgot the sky.
“Projection’s strong,” I noted, glancing at the device strapped to my forearm. It pulsed, a sickly green. “Local resonance high.”
Tiber grunted, already rigging the excavation claw. He’d found three Vessels in his lifetime. Small ones. Enough to keep him going, enough to trade for water and synth-meat in the settlements. I hadn’t found one yet.
My Order, the Sky Weavers, were supposed to be different. More attuned. We believed the largest fragments weren’t just buried, they were…hidden. Guarded.
“You think this is one?” I asked.
He didn’t look at me, just focused on the claw descending into the earth. “Could be. Feels…important.”
The claw retracted, bringing up a chunk of shale embedded with something dark and smooth. Not rock. Something…organic.
It was a skull. Roughly human-sized, but elongated, the eye sockets cavernous and filled with swirling obsidian dust. A network of delicate veins traced patterns across its surface, glowing faintly under the harsh sun.
I reached out, ignoring the prickle of unease creeping up my spine. The moment my fingers brushed against it, a jolt surged through me. Not painful, but disorienting. A flood of images—a city built of light, a burning sky, faces I didn’t recognize screaming names I couldn’t hear.
“Whoa,” I muttered, pulling my hand back.
Tiber stared at the skull, his eyes wide behind thick spectacles. “That’s not…normal.”
The projection on my forearm flared, shifting from green to a violent red. Static crackled.
“Something’s interfering,” I said, checking the device’s diagnostics. “Strong bio-resonance…not Weaver type.”
“The Bone Guild,” Tiber breathed, his voice barely a whisper.
They were our rivals. Scavengers who didn’t care about sky powers, only control. They used bone marrow channeling—a crude form of energy manipulation—to bend the environment to their will, creating warped ecosystems and shadowy creatures.
“They’ve been here,” I stated, scanning the horizon for signs of their presence.
“And they want that.” Tiber gestured to the skull with a trembling hand. “That’s not just any Vessel. That’s a Cartographer. They hold the star maps.”
“The sky charts?” I asked, adrenaline pumping. “You mean…they could restore the constellations?”
He nodded slowly. “If they can keep it intact long enough.”
A ripple distorted the air behind us. A figure materialized, tall and gaunt, cloaked in shadows that seemed to absorb the sunlight. His face was hidden behind a bone mask, polished to a mirror sheen.
“Interesting find.” The figure’s voice was cold, devoid of emotion. “You have something that belongs to the Collective.”
“The Collective doesn’t *own* stars,” I countered, instinctively reaching for the energy pistol holstered at my hip.
“Ownership is irrelevant.” He took a step closer, and the ground beneath our feet began to tremble. “That Vessel is vital to the restoration of balance.”
“Your ‘balance’ looks like a twisted mockery of life,” I said, activating my pistol.
“Naiveté is a luxury you can’t afford.” He raised his hand, and thorny vines erupted from the sand, snaking towards us. “Return the Cartographer willingly, and I might consider letting you live.”
“I think not,” I replied, firing a shot towards the vines. The energy beam sliced through them easily, but more sprang up in their place, faster and thicker than before.
Tiber scrambled for cover behind the excavation machine. “They’re channeling the local flora!” He shouted.
“Weaver energy won’t work against that,” I said, dodging another volley of vines. “It’s too…corrupted.”
The figure advanced, his eyes glowing with an unsettling intensity. “You cling to ancient ideals. The sky is fractured. It needs to be *controlled*. Not restored.”
“You’re destroying it,” I retorted, switching my pistol to overload mode. “Turning the sky into your personal garden.”
“Efficiency is key,” he replied, his voice flat. “Adaptation is survival.”
I unleashed a concentrated energy blast towards the figure, but he deflected it with a sweep of his hand. A wave of dark energy washed over me, momentarily disorienting me.
“Impressive,” he said, his voice laced with amusement. “But ultimately futile.”
I stumbled backward, trying to regain my footing. He was too strong. His bone channeling was warping the environment around us, creating a suffocating web of thorns and shadows.
“You can’t win,” he said, his voice echoing in my ears. “The Collective will reshape the sky in its image.”
I knew he was right, logically. But I couldn’t just give up. The sky deserved to be restored. The memories, fragmented as they were, of the light city and the burning stars fueled my resolve.
“Maybe not,” I muttered, reaching for a small device strapped to my wrist. “But I can make things difficult.”
It was a Resonance Disruptor—a Weaver technology designed to temporarily disrupt bio-energy fields. It wasn’t powerful enough to defeat him outright, but it might buy me time.
I activated the device and launched a concentrated pulse of energy towards him.
The figure recoiled, clutching his head in pain. The thorny vines withered and died, the shadows receding slightly.
“Insolent fool!” He roared, his voice distorted with rage. “You dare interfere with the Collective’s work?”
I didn’t wait for him to retaliate. I grabbed the Cartographer skull and sprinted towards my sandcrawler, ignoring the pain in my lungs.
“We have to get out of here!” I shouted to Tiber, scrambling into the vehicle.
He slammed the engine into gear and we roared across the Scatterlands, leaving the Bone Guild figure—and his twisted garden—behind us.
“What now?” Tiber asked, glancing back at the receding horizon.
I clutched the Cartographer skull tightly in my hand, feeling its faint warmth against my skin.
“Now,” I said, “we find someone who can read the stars.”
