Halo: Primordium Read Online Free

across its surface. At the center of the ring-shaped island stood a tal mountain. Very few chamanush had ever visited that mountain.
    As the days passed, I came to realize that despite my urges, I could not hurt this Manipular—this young Forerunner. Despite his irritating manner and obvious feeling of superiority, there was something about him that I liked. Like me, he sought treasure and adventure, and he was wiling to do wrong things.
    Meeting him, I began my long fal to where I am now— what I am now.
    The Didact was in fact the secret of Djamonkin Crater. The ring-shaped island was where the Librarian had hidden her husband’s warrior Cryptum, a place of deep meditation and sanctuary—
    hidden from other Forerunners who were seeking him, for reasons I could not then understand.
    But now the time of his resurrection had come.
    A Forerunner had to be present for the Cryptum to be unsealed.
    We helped Bornstelar raise the Didact by singing old songs. The Librarian had provided us with al the skils and instincts we needed, as part of our geas.

    And the Didact emerged from his long sleep. He plumped out like a dried flower dipped in oil.
    He rose up among us, weak at first and angry.
    The Librarian had left him a great star boat hidden inside the central mountain. He kidnapped us and took us aboard that star boat, along with Bornstelar. We traveled to Charum Hakkor, which awoke another set of memories within me . . . then to Faun Hakkor, where we saw proof that a monstrous experiment had been carried out by the Master Builder.
    And then the star boat flew to the San’Shyuum quarantine system. It was there that Riser and I were separated from Bornstelar and the Didact, taken prisoner by the Master Builder, locked into bubbles, unable to move, barely able to breathe, surrounded by a spinning impression of space and planet and the dark, cramped interiors of various ships.
    Once, I caught a glimpse of Riser, contorted in his il-fitting Forerunner armor, eyes closed as if napping, his generous, furred lips lifted at the corners, as if he dreamed of home and family. . . .
    His calm visage became for me a necessary reminder of the tradition and dignity of being human.
    This is important in my memory. Such memories and feelings define who I once was. I would have them back in the flesh. I would do anything to have them back in the flesh.
    Then what I have already told you happened, happened.
    Now I wil tel you the rest.

THREE

    THE HUTS STOOD on a flat stretch of dirt and dry grass. A few hundred meters away was a tree line, not any sort of trees I recognized, but definitely trees. Beyond those trees, stretching far toward the horizon-wal and some distance up the thick part of the band, was a beautiful old city. It reminded me of Marontik, but it might have been even older. The young female told me that none of the People lived there now, nor had they lived there for some time.

    Forerunners had come to take away most of the People, and soon the rest decided the city was no longer a safe place.
    I asked her if the Palace of Pain was in this city. She said it was not, but the city held many bad memories.
    I leaned on the girl’s shoulder, turned unsteadily—and saw that the trees continued in patches for kilometer after kilometer along the other side of the band, for as far as the eye could see . . . grassland and forest curving up into a blue obscurity—haze, clouds.
    The young woman’s hand felt warm and dry and not very soft.
    That told me she was a worker, as my mother had been. We stood under the blue-purple sky, and she watched me as I turned again and again, studying the great sky bridge, caught between fear and marvel, trying to understand.
    Old memories stirring.
    You’ve seen a Halo, haven’t you? Perhaps you’ve visited one. It was taking me some time to convince myself it was al real, and then, to orient myself. “How long have you been here?” I asked her.
    “Ever since I can remember. But Gamelpar talks