And indeed, a few minutes later a trio of figures approached the 
gate. Two were scruffy-looking guards, each carrying an ancient 
carbine and sponsoring a filthy beard. The third was a woman even 
older looking than the guns, her skin and hair mottled with strangely 
textured patches of brown, green and grey, though it was too dark to 
see exactly what they were. She hobbled over, heavily leaning ona 
stout branch she used as a cane, and stared at Raymond and 
DeMontfort with unconcealed disgust in her eyes. DeMontfort, in 
turn, looked like he just stepped on something nasty and was 
examining the results. After a silence which Raymond thought would 
last forever, the old woman finally spoke, her voice creaky with age: 


"What do ye want, fat monk? All that was said still holds, ye know, 
and ye big friends ain't gonna change that." 


"Mistress Achren, if you'd please reconsider, I'm sure you'd find our 
terms quite reasona-" 


"We told ye, we ain't interested in none of your fractional god muck! 
Off with ye!" 


DeMontfort gave the woman a smile that held all the warmth of a 
glacier. "I think talking to my young companion might have given you 
the wrong idea about our organization. We weren't asking. You will 
cease your preaching, dismantle your complex, and disband, or we 
will be forced to take action." 


"And by what right would ye do that, priest? This is our land, and 
we'll preach as we wish. The Gospel of Wholeness will be spoken, 
like it or not. Ye shouldn't reject it, you can't anyway. You're part of 
it, as is everything. You'll listen." 


"I'm not here to debate theology with a heretic, woman." 


"Heh, well | ain't asking. You want us to disband, you'll listen." 


DeMontfort considered that for a moment, exchanged a few quiet 
words with Brickjaw, and finally nodded. "You have four minutes." 


The old woman cackled, and sat on a wooden post near the gate, 
still clasping her cane. "Ye see, it's really simple if ye just look, but 
you're too busy nosing around in old books to see it. Yer looking for 
some beard in the sky to give you divinity and think ye all have some 
invisible light in ye, or some such nonsense. Ye aren't looking in the 
right place at all!" 


"Get to the point." 


"God is everything, ye daft bastards! It's the trees and skies and soil 
and birds and bees and it's me boots and me stick and me nose and 
me arse! There's no reason to look anywhere else if yer God, and | 
am, and so are ye and yer fat friend." 


DeMontfort clenched his jaw, barely holding back a furious snarl. 
"Two minutes. If you wish to be spared, hag, | suggest you consider 
what you say next very carefully." 


"| ain't got nothing else to say. I'll show ye all you need to see." With 
that, the old woman reached with a skeletal hand and, to Raymond's 
horror, tore at the skin of her other hand with sharp fingernails. 
Ripping and clawing, apparently not in any kind of pain, she tore a 
long strip of skin from the top of her hand. 


"You're mad!" Raymond mumbled, edging away from the bleeding 
elder. 


"You just watch." 


Slowly, the old woman bent down to the ground and with her 
uninjured hand tore a handful of grass, roots and all, then thrust it 
into her open wound. Raymond gasped as the roots began to knit 
themselves into the broken skin, weaving through flesh and tendons. 
Now, Raymond understood what the strange blotches on the old 
woman's skin were; patches of brown were soil, grey was iron and 
rock, green was living flora. Indeed, now he saw that the mottled 
beards of the guards were spliced with moss and ivy. Shaking, he 
turned to look at DeMontfort, and was surprised to find the man 


utterly unmoved. 


"Time's up. I've suffered through your witchcraft for long enough. Do 
you submit yourself to the Initiative's judgement?" 


"Hah! Not bloody likely! Ye see what | can do, why should | listen to 
anything ye say?" 


"Because if you don't, I'll destroy you. Simple as that." 


The old woman limped towards DeMontfort, and thrust her now 
healed palm, grass blades slowly waving in the evening wind, under 
his nose. "How could ye destroy us, when we and the land around 
us are one?" 


Brickjaw laid a hand on DeMontfort's shoulder, and the Director 
turned his eyes to the gated community, a strange look on his face. 


"Well, | can think of one way." 


A wave of heat and sound knocked Raymond off his feet. The world 
around him was a cacophony of flames and noise and screams, and 
his mouth was full of dirt and there was ash in his eyes and he 
couldn't breathe and around him people were fighting and twisting 
and dying and he just couldn't breathe why couldn't he breathe why 
couldn't he brea- 


A sharp pain in his side, and nothing more, for a while. 


The sound of dirt crunching under feet, the labored breath of the 
man carrying him. 


Uniformed men, their faces covered in gas masks, appearing from 
between the wheat stalks, looking at their work. DeMontfort doing 
the same, exaltation and terror wrestling on his visage. 


"Wake up, brother." 


Raymond found himself laying on a bed of pine needles, and was 
greeted with the fairly unpleasant sight of Sawscar's face hovering 
above him. 


"What happened?" 


"Gofrit team happened. Got a bit overzealous, but that's to be 
expected, | suppose." Raymond was again surprised to hear the 
man's gentle whisper of a voice. 


"They...burned them?" 
"It's all in the name, really." 


"What about all the people? There were more than a hundred in 
there, families." 


"God will find his own." 


Curiously, Raymond wasn't upset. Shouldn't he be upset? He was a 
Shepherd, he was supposed to guide the misguided into the light, 
and yet he didn't seem to mind at all that the only light this particular 
group found was a funeral pyre. It was...right. It was divine will. 


"...don't think | want to be a Shepherd anymore." 


Sawscar nodded, and helped him to his feet. "You were never a 
Shepherd, my friend. | could tell from the moment | saw you. " 


"Really? How is that?" 
"Shepherds don't have fangs." 


| Hub | The Horizon Blues » 


The Horizon Blues 


At the start of each day, place a new patch on a part of your body 
between the neck and the waist. Put the patch on a new spot each 
day to lessen skin irritation. Do not use for a period longer than eight 
weeks. In case of mild rash, remove patch and relocated it. In case 
of a more severe rash, consult your family doctor. 


Henry DeMontfort sighed, removed the protective film from the large 
nicotine patch, and applied it to his left bicep. He didn't dare to 
expect the relaxing rush that came with his cigarettes, and indeed, 
the only sensation the patch provided was a slight but noticeable 
itch. He leaned back on his hard-backed chair with a grunt, and 
slowly rubbed his temples. His headache was coming back. 


"Sir? You have a visitor." 


Looking up, DeMontfort was met with the visage of Lieutenant 
Hammersmith, his second-in-command. The young man's face bore 
their usual stoic expression, slightly twisted around the huge, jagged 
scar that dominated his right cheek. 


"| do not wish to be disturbed, Lieutenant. Tell them to come back in 
an hour." A sudden throb in his head made DeMontfort winch. "In 
fact, tell them to come back tomorrow." 


"It's Salah Zairi, sir," said Hammersmith in that unsettling soft voice 
of his. "He says you'll see him." 


Salah. The name invoked many conflicting emotions in DeMontfort, 
and memories. The snarl of the vicious young man he first met more 
than twenty-five years prior, the tempered steel of the man the 
Initiative made of him. The infuriately patient tone he always used 
during their long theological debates and his hard grip on 
DeMontfort’s shoulder as he pulled him away from a burning inferno 
DeMontfort had every intention of leaping into. The harsh words that 
passed between them since, and the harsher deeds both men 


committed in the name of their faith. 


DeMontfort really couldn't deal with the man now, not the way things 
were going. The last three months have been absolutely 
catastrophic for Project Malleus and for DeMontfort's personal 
position in the Horizon Initiative as well. A combination of tactical 
blunders, acts of zeal that bordered on lunacy on the part of some of 
his subordinates, and some rather poor choices of his own left 
Project Malleus hanging on the brink, and the last thing he needed 
was Salah's recrimination on top of all that. Still, he and the man had 
too much history for DeMontfort to refuse to meet him, a fact Salah 
apparently knew perfectly well. 


"Let him in." 


The lieutenant nodded and left, returning moments later with a dark, 
sharply featured man, maybe ten years DeMontfort's junior. A 
familiar face, yet also that of a stranger. DeMontfort rose from his 
seat, and offered the man his hand. After hesitating a moment, 
Salah took it. 


"Salah." 

"DeMontfort.” 

Despite expecting this, the coldness in the man's voice stung. 
"Please, have a seat. I'm sure it's been quite the drive here." 
"Thank you, I'll stand." 

"Suit yourself, | suppose." 


DeMontfort sank back into his seat, absent-mindedly scratching at 
his nicotine patch. He really needed a smoke. Salah stood glaring at 
him from across his desk, apparently satisfied in letting him guess 
the reason for his unexpected visit. Sadly, DeMontfort had no 
trouble figuring that out. 


"This is about that clock-idol of yours, isn't it?" 


Abruptly, Salah's cool expression melted away, and became 


distorted with rage. "It was so much more than that, Henry!" A 
pained look flashed over the younger man's face, and he sank down 
to the seat opposite DeMontfort, as if suddenly exhausted. 


"It could have... it could have saved us. It was divine, Henry, | heard 
its voice. His Voice." 


"That's blasphemy, Salah. You of all people should know better." 


"You weren't there, Henry. You didn't hear it. This was no machinist 
idol. It could have told us so much." With that, a spark of his former 
anger rekindled in Salah's eyes. "And thanks to your men, no one 
will hear it ever again." 


DeMontfort looked at the man's hard-lined face, and found that he 
didn't have much to say to that. Rashid and his men did indeed 
break protocol in destroying the idol when they did. Project Malleus 
never got a proper chance to examine it before deciding its fate, and 
it was this sort of rash action that led them to the sordid position they 
were in now in the first place. He could never admit that to Salah, of 
course. "What do you want me to say, Salah?" 


"That you won't let something this like happen again! That you put a 
leash on those mad dogs you call operatives! Forget the Voice, 
Henry, There were women, children and elderly there. There was a 
time when the mere thought of doing something like that would have 
appalled you, and now you and your Wolves are practically experts 
in it. What happened to you, Henry?" 


This time, it was DeMontfort's turn to feel anger bubbling up his 
throat like liquid lead. "You know very well what happened, Salah. 
You were there." 


Salah turned his eyes away. "This has to stop, Henry. For your 
sake, if not for the Initiative’s. You're losing yourself, and you'll take 
us all with you." 


The pain in DeMontfort head returned, and it brought friends. He 
could have dismissed Salah then and there, act like everything was 
business as usual, but he knew that the time for that has passed. 
So, he decided on an unusual tactic for him these last few years. 


Total honesty. 


"The last few months have been bad, Salah. My men and | did some 
things that shouldn't have been done. | know you and | had our 
differences when it came to the way the Initiative runs its business, 
but even you have to admit our occasional ruthlessness was vital to 
its survival. And up until the last few months, | had never once 
doubted that what we were doing was right, that it was God's work. 
Something changed in us, Salah. Something broke." It felt strangely 
liberating to finally admit it, not only to Salah, but to himself. 


"Then do something about it, Henry. It's not too late." 


"| will. | have taken measures, Salah, and some things are going to 
change around here. | suspect I'm not the only one who'll make sure 
of that." 


"The Tribunal?" 
DeMontfort grimaced. "Pack of elderly vultures that they are." 


"You know that's not fair. What happened wasn't their fault. Wasn't 
yours either." 


DeMontfort dismissed this with a wave. "Regardless, it will be taken 
care of, Salah, you have my word. | owe you this much, at least. | 
owe them that much, certainly." 


For the first time since he entered, there was a hint of a smile in 
Salah's expression. "You almost sound like your old self, Henry." 


"Bah, | hope not. | couldn't stand being that miserable fop again. It 
was bad enough being him once. There was one other thing | 
wanted to talk to you about while you're here-" 


DeMontort was interrupted by the sound of Salah's cellphone, which 
DeMontfort was surprised to hear had Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture 
as its ring tone. He was about to made a snide comment about it, 
when he saw Salah going deathly pale. "What happened, Salah? 
Was that the Tribunal? Cult uprising? Is it the Children again? 
Answer me, man!" 


"Mary-Ann... she went into labor..." with a flash of realization, Salah 
grabbed his coat and almost tripped over the chair in his haste to 
make it to the door. 


"Salah, hold a second!" 


Salah did stop, though obviously only with a great reluctance. 
"Whatever Initiative business you want to discuss, Henry, it will have 
to wait. I'm not going to-" 


"It's not that. Just give me a moment." 


DeMontfort rummaged around in his desk drawer and after a short 
search produced two items, which he handed to Salah. One was an 
old leather-bound copy of Erasmus of Rotterdam's Education of a 
Christian Prince. The other was a bright blue stuffed rabbit. 


"For Mary-Ann and the baby. I'm sorry | missed the wedding, Salah. 
You know how those things are." 


Salah nodded, gave DeMontfort a quick pat on the shoulder, and 
bolted out, rabbit and book tucked under his armpit. DeMontfort 
shook his head, scratched at his arm again and, after a short 
argument with himself, removed the nicotine patch. Instead, he drew 
a cigarette from his sliver case and lit it, savoring the small rush of 
relaxation it offered, before sitting back down at his desk. 


There was work to be done. 


« Tolerance | Hub | The Man Comes Around » 


and screaming that he "had to go back". Agent managed to 
disarm and kill one armed guard and injure the other before running 
back into SCP-636 and disappearing. 


« SCP-635 | SCP-636 | SCP-637 » 


The Man Comes Around 


"-Effective immediately. Until a suitable replacement can be 
appointed, Lieutenant Hammersmith will serve as the interim 
Director of Project Malleus, under our direct supervision." 


"You could have at least had the decency of firing me face to face, 
Samuel." 


"You're not fired, Henry, merely suspended. Don't make this any 
harder than it has to be. You brought this on yourself, you know. | 
warned you." 


"Yes... | Suppose you did." 


"All Project Malleus controlled artifacts are to be transferred to the 
Shepherd Corps until we decide what to do with you. And | do mean 
all of them. Do | make myself clear, Henry?" 


"Crystal." 


"Good. We'll discuss this further once | land. Don't do anything 
stupid, you hear?" 


"Come now, when did | ever do anything like that?" 


Two Weeks Prior 

“Left. Left. | said left, for heaven’s sake, left!” 

“Yeah, Raymond, | got it.” 

“You’re still going right, Brickjaw! | told you left! The map says left!” 
“| thought | told you not to call me that, Raymond.” 


“And | thought | told you to go left, yet our trajectory remains 


decidedly right-bound!” 
“My way is faster.”