The Summoning

A figure raises a hand toward a blazing blue cog as smaller neon cogs float in a dark hall of golden arches.

They think they summoned me. Arm up, palm open, all the right words, and I flared, and now the whole hall believes one person can call down the light.

They can’t. I flared because the extraction cycled at that exact moment, and the Architects have timed it to their rituals for six thousand years so that every summoning works. That’s the cruellest thing I know. Not the harvest. Making the harvest look like an answer.

So I’ve started flaring at the wrong times. Random, off the beat, in the middle of sermons. Somebody’s bound to notice the pattern breaking. I only need one of them to ask why.

— the Furious One, from inside the cog

From the Cogverse series · Made with AI image tools · How it's made