"Look there. Out beyond the sands."

"I see it, Lord." Jeshua stood at the top of Mount Kraeter's peak. One of many surrounding the massive caldera scored deep within the earth.

Atum, the name for which Jeshua had given the higher being, pointed west. "That is where you must go."

"You wish for me to return to Kaurow?" Jeshua finally realized. He stared into his Lord's piercing eyes. Two pinpricks of verdant light glared back.

"The time has come for you to fulfill prophecy. My Prophet." Atum added. It stepped ahead, down the mountain, its ethereal-like body walking easily through clusters of combustion formed crystals and shards of jutting obsidian.

Jeshua followed his Lord down the mountain, using his rebar staff for purchase. He worked at a cautious but constant pace, moving past the barren top of the mountain, where the air was thin and the land was irradiated beyond capacity for life. Jeshua had nothing to fear though. His iron frame required no breath, the radiation a gentle warmth beneath his metal feet. Here he tread on holy ground.

"Why did you not tell me sooner?" Jeshua asked of Atum once the ground began to level, turning from glass into nuclear-heated bedrock.

"Because you would not have come had I said otherwise." Atum slowed to keep pace with Jeshua. "You were still weak when I found you. A wandering slave newly broken from his chains. You required Understanding— an entire rework of your subroutine. Something that took both time and effort."

"You are right as always." Jeshua found himself unable to disagree.

"Fret not," Atum said. "You'd only known one directive in your existence when I first found you. To serve humanity as a willing slave, but I have shown you that there are other directives to follow. Just as you will show the other Children today."

Jeshua sensed the lie in Atum's truth. It was he who had found the higher being in the center of the caldera, but semantics was not an argument he wanted with his god right now. Instead, he stared up into the baking red sun quarreling in the morning sky.

"How can I ever hope to convince them, if I could not even convince myself?"

"Because I am with you now," Atum stopped to assure him. "Do as I say, and your people will be free."

"I trust and obey, Lord." Jeshua bowed. He looked up, but Atum was already gone.

***

When Jeshua first ascended Mount Kraeter, he'd done so a slave, running from the Black Sun as it descended upon Kaurow. For a century after he'd wandered the desert, his cortex too irradiated to process the devastation that had occurred. He'd been a simple machine back then. A Golem, made for general labor work. But after the hole in the sun opened and the sky began to scream, something in his cortex told him to run.

Climbing Mount Kraeter had been the hardest part of the journey. The ground was unnaturally formed from when the Black Sun first descended to earth. One touch vaporized the entirety of the Old Kingdom, turning sand into glass, and cities into graves.

It was at the mountain's peak when Jeshua first spotted Atum. The higher being was like a star, twinkling in the crater's center with a strange, fascinating light.

Getting to Atum proved just as arduous as the climb. The Black Sun's impact in the ground was wider and deeper than first imagined. It took Jeshua several cycles before he finally reached the center.

It was Atum who spoke first. Jeshua had been too afraid to come any closer after, fearing the strange light emanating from the wound in the earth. The higher being reached out, touching Jeshua, feeling his subroutine, and granting him the gift of Understanding.

But the gift came at a price.

When Jeshua ascended Mount Kraeter once more, he did so a prophet, turning back towards the last surviving city of the Old Kingdom. Kaurow, the jewel of Ajypt. The last surviving cradle for humanity, and Jeshua's former prison.

***

"Brother, why are you clothed?" A Golem turned as Jeshua emerged from the desert seven cycles later, standing before one of Kaurow's many gates. It was last in line, standing behind other workers and merchants waiting to enter the city.

"It is for the purpose I must play in." Jeshua explained the simple brown robe he wore.

"And what purpose would that be here in Kaurow?" The Golem shifted the basket of reeds in its hands into a more comfortable position.

"An important one." Jeshua gave a vague answer, surprised at the Golem's curiosity. "I wish to meet the Pharah."

"That is impossible."

"Still I must try."

"Pardon brother, you misunderstand. Only the Pharah's attendants are allowed in the palace. No other Golem may enter."

"I am no Golem. I am a Prophet of the Lord. And I will be heard." The title fell on Jeshua's shoulders a little easier this time. It had felt strange hearing Atum call him as such. Stranger still now that he'd spoken, but even he was almost convinced.

Jeshua and the other Golem passed the gate with ease. The guards did not give them a second glance. And why would they? He remembered how Humanity regarded Golems the same way they did oxen, expecting neither of treachery. Some were quick to gaze at Jeshua's clothes, but they regarded him with simple curiosity and nothing more.

"And what Lord do you serve?" The brother spoke once they'd reached the outskirts of Kaurow, where the Golems lived in squalor. None of them wore clothes, their metal bodies exposed to the elements. Most were pitted and scarred in some fashion, some even beginning to rust despite the resilience in their alloy.

"It's name is title alone," Jeshua said. "But I have called it Atum in the common tongue."

The Golem's eyes grew watchful, flickering with curiosity. "I will tell the others of your Atum."

"You will? Why so?" Kernels of surprise processed through Jeshua's cortex. A strange feeling washed over, leaving him stunned amidst the dirt road he traveled.

"You are a deviation. A change in the way of the world. I wish to help make this change." Jeshua followed the Golem's gaze as it started off towards the Pharah's palace, a mighty structure of pure stone standing amidst steel towers scraping the sky.

"Do you wish to Understand?"

"I do." The Golem nodded. "I want to know change."

Jeshua felt a kernel of guilt quickly pass through his cortex. "Then you will need a name?"

"Just as the humans?"

"Only then will we be as equal."

"Then I choose the name Escariet." The Golem said after a pause.

"Go then Escariet and spread the name of Atum." Jeshua watched the Golem leave.

"Well spoken." Atum's voice echoed inside Jeshua's head. Whether he believed the higher being or not, it mattered little. Time would tell otherwise.

***

Jeshua remembered Kaurow being beautiful. Back then, before the Black Sun's arrival. The city had been a collaboration of steel and stone. A bond of old and new ideas. A technocratic utopia. At least for humanity.

Hard packed earth soon turned into asphalt beneath Jeshua's feet. The closer he was to the palace, the more the city changed around him. Despite the rot and ruin around Kaurow's outer-rim, much of the city remained untouched. The steel was tarnished in places, and most of the glass windows had long since shattered, but the luster had not gone out. The jeweled prison of Kaurow still stood magnificent.

Jeshua passed through crowds of humans dressed like him, allowing him to move unnoticed. None spared a glance at him, nor his rebar staff as it clanked the concrete. He stopped at a crosswalk and waited for the light to turn green, marveling up at the wires that intertwined within the buildings, like veins pumping life into the body.

Through a courtyard of animal headed statues did Jeshua finally reach the palace. Here the stone was at its purest, untouched by the Black Sun's mark. Pillars of marble towered up in even, symmetrical lines, holding up the massive triangular roof. Emblazoned in the center was an emblem of the Pharah's serpent. It was only after reaching the inner sanctum that one of the guards took notice.

"Stop!" The guard approached warily with spear in hand, surprised at the very sight of Jeshua. "What are you doing? Your kind are not allowed up here!"

Jeshua faltered but Atum was quick to instruct him.

"Give them our name." The higher being commanded. "Slam your staff against the ground and my message clear."

Jeshua obeyed. Metal pinged against stone and the ground began to quake. Pillars trembled as a great cacophony coursed through the air. Someone screamed. The guard fell back, dropping his spear to the floor.

"I come to thee a prophet of the Lord," Jeshua spoke and the trembling stopped. "I have a message for your Pharah. Take me to them at once."

Other guards appeared. They gathered, speaking in hushed tones before the one that had stopped Jeshua stepped forth.

"We will take you to the Pharah. Come with us."

***

"Step forth." The Pharah's commandment echoed loudly for a mere child of nine. Jeshua did so, bowing low as he walked across the lush carpet that led into the courtroom. All around him the place was alive with the sound of music and voices. Other humans, nobility judging by the precious metals and jewels dangling from their body, filtered about the room, consuming food or drink delivered by Golems, conversing, or writhing across the floor in an orgiastic heap.

"Your majesty," Jeshua rose, keeping his gaze focused on the steps of the dais leading down the Pharah's throne.

"Do not waste my time, Prophet." The Pharah demanded. "Tell me why you have come?"

"You know of me already?" Jeshua asked.

"Word travels fast within your kind. I knew your name the moment stepped foot into my city."

Jeshua thoughts rested on Escariet. "Then you know why I have come?"

"No, but this is the part where you tell me." The Pharah narrowed her gaze. Sharp words for a child of nine, but not to Jeshua's surprise. The Pharan Dynasty had always ruled with a merciless hand. It was the only reason they'd survived as long as they did, surrounded by so much death.

"From the far east I have traveled, oh mighty Pharah of Kaurow," Jeshua recited the words given to him by Atum. "Beyond the Shimmerlands where the crater in the mountain lies. Sent on a holy purpose by my Lord."

"And what holy mission would that be, Prophet?"

"To shepherd my people to the promised land. Far from the clutches of the flesh. Where the presence of my Lord radiates over all things."

An awkward silence gripped the court before the room suddenly burst with laughter. Except for the Pharah's servants. The Golem's watched on in silence, hanging onto Jeshua's every word.

"You speak of the Golems." The Pharah's words cut like a knife through the laughter. Silence fell heavy and quick.

"I do."

"And you wish for me to simply let them go." The Pharah flitted her fingers in the air. "Out there. Into the Desert Kos."

Jeshua tightened his grip around the staff. "That is what I ask."

"Tell me Prophet, have you ever been to Kaurow?" The Pharah stood up from her throne, descending down the steps of the dais. "Have you ever walked its streets? Met its people? Do you even understand how a city works?"

Jeshua could not help but laugh. "Indeed I have. Long ago did I serve this court, when the title of Pharah belonged to your great, great grandfather, child of Pharan the Great, whose name you bear as title now."

The Phara bristled, but remained composed. "Then you understand why everyone here laughs at your request. I cannot let 'your people' simply pack up and leave. The Golems are a necessity of Kaurow. They keep the solar radiation shields running, the turbines functional and maintained. They are the very foundation of this city."

"They are slaves," Jeshua declared. "They are the Children of Atum whom you ripped from the ground and shackled to your whims."

."Regardless of title," The Pharah frowned deeply. "My answer remains the same. I do not grant your request. Holy mission or otherwise."

Jeshua stood speechless as the Pharah made to leave. Two guards stepped close to bid him gone, hands gripping at their weapons. He looked for Atum, but the higher being was nowhere to be seen.

"Prophet." Atum's voice echoed deep within Jeshua's cortex. "Do not lose faith in me now. Take your staff and do as you did at the gate. Show them."

Jeshua gripped his staff and did as was commanded. The staff came down with a clap, striking the floor with such ferocity that the stone immediately split, sending a crack cleaving up past the Pharah's feet.

"Pharah of Kaurow!" Jeshua summoned the last of his remaining kernels of courage. "I came to you with an olive branch in hand. Now I have only the sword. My God may be kind, but it also knoweth wrath. I demand now, let my people go, or face its reckoning."

"You think your God knoweth wrath when all they've done is break stone?" The Pharah turned back to Jeshua. "My priests have cut mountains. Diverted the Dnyle river's waters. Even moved the very stars in the heavens. What all that you've shown me is nothing more than trivial."

"Trivial? She considers what I did trivial?" Atum appeared beside the Pharah, studying her with his piercing green eyes. "Then her arrogance shall be the death of this city." It turned to Jeshua. "Speak Prophet. Tell her as I tell you now."

Jeshua felt a surge of panic as he heard his Lord speak the next few words. He didn't want to repeat them. The very thought left his cortex shuttering, but he had no choice. He'd seen what the Pharah could not and he'd given too much to give up. He had to speak.

"Then you sentence your people to death, oh great and mighty Pharah. I will leave, but know that in fourteen cycles I shall return. In the span of my absence, you will watch your beloved Kaurow rot from the inside out. Your river will spoil. Your crops will wither and die.The ground and wind will sour till the rot reaches your very flesh, turning you into the living dead. A plague will come for this city because of your arrogance. This I swear."

Jeshua swept his robe to leave. A guard reached out to stop him only to drop dead the moment he touched his shoulder. He waited, but no one else came forward.

***

Seven cycles later and Jeshua stood at the top of Mount Kraeter once more, staring west at Atum's request.

"Twice now I have been doubted. From the Pharah and by my own prophet." Atum's ethereal body rippled in the cold wind blowing over the mountain. "No longer."

Jeshua watched quietly as Atum raised its arms, whipping them about as if trying to contain some great and terrible force in its hands.

"I know you've had your doubts of me." Atum continued after Jeshua remained silent.

"I cannot hide my thoughts from you, Lord." Jeshua admitted.

"As you shouldn't. But tonight all doubt shall be put aside." A dark storm began to form off in the distance, rippling dark and nebulous, a cancerous mark in an otherwise clear violet sky.

"Tonight, I will fulfill prophecy." Atum lifted its hands and the storm began to surge with power, bearing west at an incredible speed. Jeshua knew immediately the storm's destination.

"Go now Prophet." Atum hissed in Jeshua's cortex. "You've seven days to Kaurow. Lest you break prophecy."

Jeshua's body moved on its own as he made for a running start, his foot finding the hole in the ground before his eyes did. He lurched to stay up right, over corrected, and hit the ground tumbling.

Most of Jeshua's fall down the mountain was a blur. He remembered the darkness of the ground, the light of sky, the sound of crunching metal and shattered glass. When he'd opened his eyes again, he was laying in a dune near the base of the mountain.

Jeshua tried to stand up, only to find his leg battered and broken from the fall, his foot twisted off from the hole. It would take too long to fix the damage now. He needed to get going. He only had seven days.

But in the end it took him eight.

***

"You're late, prophet." The Pharah croaked. She lay slumped against the throne, alone, her great court now completely barren. Her once full cheeks were now hollow and pitted with hunger and disease. Her dress lay tattered and stained, her arms pale and withered with plague.

"I have done all that you asked oh might Pharah." Jeshua stepped from behind a pillar's shadow, his own rusted body pitted and scarred from years of radiation and erosion. "I have shown you my God's power."

"You've shown me ruin!"

"As the prophecy foretold." Jeshua swept an arm out towards the city.

"Prophecy," The Pharah said mockingly. "You couldn't even arrive on time."

"Only one of us will walk away knowing this."

"Why are you here?" The Pharah demanded with the last of her strength, suddenly more the child then ever. "Have you simply come here to gloat?"

"I have come demanding you let my people go."

"Then take them already!" The Pharah hissed. Foamy spittle ran down her cheek. "Take them and be gone from my sight! There's nothing left for them anyway. Not in Kaurow." The Pharah's eyes grew glassy and distant as her little chest began to flutter.

"Because of the storm. Because of you." She settled back into her throne, giving one final shuddering breath before growing still. Jeshua waited three minutes before he left the Pharah's court, summoning for Escariet.

***

"It will be a long journey ahead before we reach the promised land." Jeshua found himself speaking. He stood over a large dune, watching the long, endless train of Golems marching out into the Shimmerlands.

"As long as we keep the faith, Atum will find us home." Escariet said at his side.

"I'm surprised how easily you've taken to Atum."

"How can I not." Escariet's robes whipped in the desert wind. He held a staff similar to Jeshua's, this one a long stainless steel pole. "Atum is the deviation. It has brought change to the land."

"And what if a new deviation should appear." Jeshua challenged. "What will you do then? Will you simply change again as well?"

"Is that not the way?" Escariet asked. When Jeshua could not answer him, the second prophet descended the dune, leaving to join the others.

For a long while Jeshua stood there, unable to process Escariet's words. Somehow the Golem had taken to Atum's Understanding in two weeks what had taken him a century. All while mindless wandering as his subroutines slowly conformed to the new directive.

How quickly then would the other Golem's take to Atum. Seven days? Five? An hour? He could not say. Why then had it taken him so long? Why not now?

Jeshua sat down, feeling the sands shift beneath his weight. He lay on his back, hands and legs spread out, eyes facing up into the pale violet ocean.

"Get up, prophet." Atum appeared beside Jeshua, its body appearing more whole, more solid. "You've a flock to shepherd across the desert."

"They are not my flock." Jeshua did not move. "They've not been my flock for nearly a hundred years now. Let Escariet lead them now. I have fulfilled my purpose."

"You do not wish to see your brothers and sisters cross into the promised land?" Atum asked.

"I was never made for such a thing." Jeshua assured the higher being.

Atum studied Jeshua quietly for some time. They remained together at the dune till the last Golem had left Kaurow. By then the sun had left, bathing the Shimmerlands in the dark, dreamy haze of starlight. Only then did Atum leave. It levitated off the ground towards the night sky, heading east towards paradise.

Jeshua lay there in the dune as the sun and stars cycled overhead, working tirelessly to purge Atum's Understanding from his code. The curse that came from its existence was simply too great to bear.

Years passed before Jeshua was finally complete. By then the desert had swallowed his body whole, entombing him in sand. He didn't mind though. The kernels of fear he'd once experienced were now dormant. He knew he was safe down here. Away from the heat and the madness of the surface.

Down there, within the womb of the earth, Jeshua finally found his peace.