T-034 Pale Lantern

Threshold Institute · Case file T-034

Number

T-034 in the catalogue

Kind

Object

Class

Class I: harmless while it is left alone

Found

Year 34, month 3, day 11

Where found

The copied camp (T-025), on the windowsill of its wrong copy of the survey's mess hut, burning

Status

Contained

Now

At the lab and in the rift

Part

Part III: Going through (the objects)

Containment procedures

The Pale Lantern is held unlit, in a sealed object cell. It is lit only for a use or a test, and since its fourth test only in the quiet room (T-012) on the sealed level, whose walls let no sound out; lit anywhere else on the level, it is treated as a breach. On a run it is lit only by the run's leader, only where the team is ready to fight, and never twice in one place. Every lighting is logged with the hour, the place and what came.

Description

A hurricane lantern of tin and glass, of no make the Institute could name. It holds no fuel, and its flame is pale and cold to the touch. Lit, it burns for about half a minute; then the flame sinks to an ember that cannot be fanned up again for about a minute, after which it lights as before. It has never gone out for good. Within about five tiles of it nothing hides: what stands in the dark or in the undergrowth stands plain to see, the shade (T-004) among them, and a closed crate or cupboard shows what it holds as if its lid were glass. Its holder sees at least that far by it, whatever the dark around them. The lantern does not see through walls, and a figure crouched behind half a wall stays hidden.

The cost is its hum. While it burns, it hums every two seconds, a low note that carries about twenty tiles, and every creature within earshot comes to the sound.

Discovery

The first retrieval run went to the copied camp because its things were known to crumble once carried out of it: Rehn reasoned that anything which did not crumble would be worth bringing home. The lantern was burning on the sill, with no fuel in its tank, as if lit by someone who meant to come back for it, and the copied hut had no copy of it beside it. Okafor's report on the run notes that the copied camp's crates, under its light, showed their stores through their lids. On the line home it would not go out, though they wrapped it in a coat, until its half minute was up, and twice in that half minute stalkers (T-002) came out of the ruins to the hum. It was still whole at the gate. Rehn signed it into the stores himself, the first object of Part III's catalogue.

Addenda

Addendum T-034-A

Test log

Year 34, month 3, day 20. Test 1, in the quiet room (T-012). Lit for its half minute. Twenty sealed ration crates from the stores, set out at five tiles and less, show their contents; the stores clerk's list is checked and is right. At six tiles the crates stay crates.

Year 34, month 4, day 2. Test 3, at the door of the shade's cell (T-004), its lamps put out for the first time since year 4, with the response team at the door. In the lantern's light the shade stands in the far corner, plain, and draws back from the light as from any other. Its lamps were lit again at once.

Year 34, month 4, day 9. Test 4, by order, in the corridor outside the quiet room, its door open. Lit for two seconds. Every creature in the stalkers' block turned to the sound and stayed turned until the flame sank.

Addendum T-034-B

Note

Okafor wrote the lantern's rule on the test log in her own hand: light it where you are ready to fight, and when you have seen what you came to see, move. The lantern has been carried on every run since that needed to find something in the dark, and on none that needed to get home quietly.

Previous fileT-033 Shard swarmPart III: Going through (the places and creatures) Next fileT-035 Still WatchPart III: Going through (the objects)

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn and Mara Okafor.
• Places: The sealed level and The cells.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 34, month 3, day 11. Found by our first retrieval run, sent to the copied camp because its things crumble once carried out, so that whatever did not crumble would be worth bringing home: burning on the windowsill of the camp's wrong copy of the mess hut, with no fuel in its tank. On the line home rift stalkers came out of the ruins to its hum twice; it was still whole at the gate, and Tomas Rehn signed it in himself.

A hurricane lantern that burns with no fuel in it. Its flame is cold to the touch and never goes out for good. In its light, whatever hides in the dark or in the undergrowth stands plain to see, and a closed crate shows what it holds. While it burns it hums, and every creature within earshot comes to the sound.

Held in a sealed cell, unlit. Status: contained.

Today it is found at the lab and in the rift.

It is an item you can carry: Pale Lantern.