‘The pain of Lileathanir is felt far and wide,’ the warlock said. ‘It must be healed before it can cause yet greater harm.’
‘How can all this be healed?’ Sardon murmured in disbelief. ‘The very core of the world is violated, the spirits hunger only for bloodshed and revenge.’
‘Precisely,’ said Caraeis. He released another rune above the whirling confluence and it steadied the dissonant patterns immediately. The rune of vengeance. ‘I have tested a thousand other variants,’ the warlock said, ‘each with the same result. This is the only path forward.’
‘Vengeance?’ Sardon cried bitterly. ‘How can we avenge ourselves against what we cannot reach? With so few of us left, how can we even think of fighting back?’
‘I ask only that you permit us to be your instrument in this. Allow my companions and I to bring the perpetrator of this heinous crime to justice.’
Sardon blinked in disbelief. ‘You-you could do that?’ she stammered, daring to hope for an instant. ‘Find them and punish them?’
The warlock’s antlered helm nodded solemnly. ‘It is within my power to trace the destinies of the dark kin that came here and violated the shrine. The pattern is shifting and diffuse, but there are junctures yet to come where decisive action can be taken. Do you give your permission for this to occur?’
Punishment, vengeance. Ugly words to Sardon, but what she had seen in the World Shrine had shaken the very core of her beliefs. If the warlock was right and they were the things to begin the healing process who was she to deny the dragon its due? A part of her wished she could consult her people and hear their wishes, another part knew precisely what they would be. The hard life of the Exodite clans gave them an uncompromising view of justice – an eye of an eye, blood for blood. It would be hard to restrain their basest instincts after all they had suffered.
Sardon wasn’t even sure she could find her way back down the mountain in her weakened state. Would the warlock be prepared to sit by while the trail grew colder and she wrangled with the clans? Probably not. He stood patiently watching her, the pattern of runes rotating between them silently as he waited for her response.
‘Very well. Bring them to me, I ask this of you, Caraeis.’
‘You wish to render judgement yourself?’
‘I want to look them in the eye before I give them to the dragon,’ Sardon said with finality.
The flickering light and close horizon made it hard to judge how far away the gate truly lay across the ravaged plain. Perhaps as little as a few thousand metres, perhaps as much as twice that.
‘Will they actively try to hit us or is it in the hands of lady luck?’ Motley demanded.
Morr looked across at his slight companion with a sharp movement that denoted surprise. ‘I do not know,’ he admitted, ‘but the weapons are crude and highly inaccurate, they rely on blast and impact.’
‘And real? Here and now real, I mean!’ Motley yelled.
‘Very real.’
‘All right, then I’ll try to draw their fire while you make for the gate,’ Motley shouted over the shell impacts. ‘Don’t. Leave. Without. Me.’ With that final admonishment Motley ran swiftly down the slope and out onto the plain. As the slender grey figure ran its silhouette flew into a storm of brightly coloured shards that whirled and darted capriciously. A new multi-coloured, kaleidoscopic explosion leapt up among its sullen cousins of orange and red, and it danced among them.
The traceries of fire were the first things to react to the upstart presence. They whipped around to chase after the dancing motes of light as they raced away across the plain. Moments later the explosions came crowding in, their roar and tumult overlapping as they sought to crush the newcomer.
Morr struck out towards the gate across sands that were still warm from the pounding of the bombardment. Tiny, twisted fragments of smoking metal lay everywhere – shrapnel to give it the properly archaic term. Occasionally there were fragments of what used to be living things too, chunks of meat and bone barely recognisable as having once been part of a greater whole. Blackened pits showed where larger shells had landed in contrast to the almost comically small scorch marks from smaller bombs. Not all of the incoming rounds were chasing after the madly running harlequin. The heaviest of them continued to rain down on the plain seemingly at random, each one shaking the ground with its impact and throwing up a huge plume of dust. Morr bent low and pushed on toward his goal, the drifting clouds of dust soon swallowing him completely.
The ground shivered beneath Motley’s flying feet. The air was filled with the whoops, whistles and shrieks of flying metal. He listened intently for the distinctive slobbering noise each shell made as it flew through the air incoming, and the dopplering whine of the shrapnel outgoing from each impact. He twisted back and forth to spoil the aim of his unseen attackers, dancing through the inferno with seemingly reckless abandon. His Domino field dispersed his image and made it impossible to pinpoint him exactly. Unfortunately most of the primitive weaponry being used did not need to pinpoint him exactly – in fact it only needed to get lucky once. The slow-seeming swarms of tracer fire would have been the most dangerous without the field, however, and even with its help he had to skid aside or leap over its questing fingers a dozen times.
Even Motley’s preternatural agility had its limits. He was forced into doubling back as the fire became too intense to go on. Unfortunately that placed him in just as much danger of running back beneath a stray salvo behind him. A chain of explosions erupted within a dozen metres and threw Motley off his feet. Shrapnel whirred around him like a swarm of angry bees busily stinging at his chest and upper arms. He tumbled instinctively with the blow, bouncing to his feet and coming up running. Within a few paces he staggered, still dazed from the impact and almost fell.
‘No time for a sit-down right now, old boy,’ he told himself drunkenly, tittering as he mastered his wobbling legs, got them beneath him and ran on. A cold ache was spreading across his chest, never a good sign. Motley decided that he’d had enough of playing at being a target, the audience seemed unappreciative and surely Morr was approaching the gate by now. He deactivated the Domino field and became an invisible flicker of grey among the flames as he sprinted off on a straight course for the gate.
Morr emerged from drifting curtains of dust onto a beaten circle of dirt surrounding the gate. It loomed over him from a hundred metres away, an angular-looking sheet of jade six stories high that shone with its own inner light. With the barrage shifted away in pursuit of Motley’s distraction the area seemed almost peaceful for a moment. Morr’s headed snapped up at the sound of rifle fire crackling close by. He wasn’t the only one taking advantage of the distraction.
The barrage raged impotently behind Motley, blindly smashing down on where he had been rather than where he was or (better yet) where he would be. However some of the tracer-gunners kept coming uncomfortably close as they sent their bursts of fire after his flitting grey shape. Motley increased his pace, each bounding stride taking him five or more metres at a time. Ahead and to the side he could see a flickering of tiny sparks on the ground. Two groups were firing rifles at each other as they tried to creep closer to the gate. Beyond them he could see the tiny figure of Morr standing beside the gate itself.
Motley grappled with the moral implications of the situation for an instant before reactivating his Domino field. His running form splintered again into an explosion of light, a stained-glass image that flew apart virtually above the riflemen’s heads. Bullets zinged past him as they fired wildly at the swirling motes but he sprinted through their positions without a scratch. Whips of tracer-fire pursued him as the unseen gunners re-acquired him. Seconds later the first slobbering sound of an incoming round could be heard.
Up ahead Motley saw Morr turn and quite deliberately enter the gate without him. Motley cursed in a rich and scorching stream as he flung himself after the treacherous incubus. A sheer
face of glowing jade reared up before him even as the first multi-throated howl of the barrage was renewed behind him.
CHAPTER 7
An Interlude in the Depths
The haemonculi are the final arbiters of life and death in the eternal city, gaunt gatekeepers to the great beyond. With their blessings no wound is fatal and any fatality short of complete destruction can be undone. They are essential to the ageless rulers of Commorragh. Only with the help of the haemonculi can they continue to cheat death and spin out their long, wicked existences. Such power could surely allow the haemonculi to rule Commorragh if they desired it, and if any of its inhabitants would countenance it, but their true passion lies only in the pursuit of their arts. Or at least so they would have it believed.
In the lightless pits beneath low Commorragh lie the lairs of the haemonculi covens. It is there that this dark brotherhood of flesh sculptors and pain artists practice their arts in the most diabolical ways imaginable. A thick miasma of anguish pervades the narrow cells and crooked passages that make up their demesnes. Here altered throats gabble in endless torment as base flesh is sculpted and re-sculpted over and over, twisted and cracked into endless new forms of suffering. In this benighted realm the haemonculi covens each plot their own aggrandisement and the downfall their rivals, hatching centuries-long schemes of genetic blackmail and manipulation to secure their access to the most powerful and influential kabals.
The Coven of the Black Descent lies within a twisting labyrinth of utter blackness filled with traps for the uninitiated. It is said that the depths of their labyrinth extend beyond Commorragh and into the webway itself, touching on split filaments and crushed strands long since abandoned by those whole and sane. Members of the Black Descent are taught the routes they must use to navigate the labyrinth between separate ‘interstices’ step-by-step according to a strict order of precedence. At the lowest ranks wrack apprentices know only the route necessary to reach the first interstices. As a coven member descends through the ranks more routes are revealed, the correct paths towards the second, third and fourth interstices where the true labyrinth begins. A Perfect Master must learn dozens of individual routes, an intimate secretary has memorised hundreds, while a patriarch noctis knows thousands.
A single misstep along these memorised routes would bring a messy death or, at the very least, violent dismemberment upon the transgressor. Just one step need be miscommunicated to send the victim off-course into a maze of monofilament nets, singularity traps, blood wasp collectives and corrosive mists from which there will be no return. The number of times this technique has been used by members of the coven to dispose of undesirable rivals would fill volumes, so much so that it has acquired the status of a tradition.
At the sixty-fourth interstice of the labyrinth a gathering of coven members was taking place. Four masked secret masters stood in attendance on a fifth, one in the viridian and black of an intimate secretary. By accident or design the sixty-fourth interstice was a pentagonal chamber with archways entering through each of its five walls. Each member of the gathering had stepped from a separate arch into the space only moments before as if summoned by a single call. Even the emotionally-neutered haemonculi could sense the miasma of rage built up within the chamber. It pressed on the subconscious like an inaudible, endless scream of inchoate fury.
A glass-fronted sarcophagus stood upright in the exact centre of the chamber, its contents invisible due to a blood-red mist swirling within. Several chains of dark metal enwrapped the sarcophagus and connected to rings set into the floor. It appeared an extreme measure of security in view of the already sturdy construction of the sarcophagus, a heavy, unlovely thing of ochre-coloured stone only rudely given humanoid shape. Nonetheless the assembled coven members appeared to view the chained artefact with exaggerated caution.
‘Check the restraints again,’ said the intimate secretary to the secret master to his right.
‘Secretary?’ the sable-masked haemonculus responded nervously.
‘If I have to repeat myself I’ll shear those deaf ears from your head. Do it. Now.’
The secret master stepped forward reluctantly and began to examine the chains, twisting them expertly to test their flexibility and strength. The masked haemonculus tested all five ringbolts first but eventually he could not avoid moving closer to the sarcophagus to check the chains wrapped around it. The red mist inside swirled rapidly in response, its tendrils seeming to jab towards the secret master only to dash themselves against the impermeable barrier between them.
‘There is some exceptional wear apparent, secretary,’ the secret master pronounced after a brief examination. ‘I find it hard to ex–’
Two skeletal red claws slammed against the glass with sudden violence, making the secret master recoil with a curse. The claws scraped down the glass for a second and then withdrew to be replaced by a face in the mist. It was hideous, grinning mockery of a face. Red flesh stretched into a facsimile of cheeks and lips, open wet pits instead of eyes. The coven members gathered to look upon the ghastly apparition with wonder.
‘How-how can this be?’ stammered one of the secret masters.
‘Impossible!’ exclaimed another.
‘Silence!’ hissed the intimate secretary. ‘You chatter like slaves!’ The secret masters quieted at once and obediently turned their masked faces toward him.
‘This function now exceeds your degree in the descent. Leave now and speak to no one of this. I have summoned the Master Elect of Nine. He will determine the correct course of action. Remember, tell no one! Your lives depend on it!’
The secret masters were eager to leave that accursed place and fled through their respective archways without further comment. The intimate secretary smoothed his robes and stared back steadily at the impossible face grinning at him from behind the glass.
‘I confess I don’t know how you’ve managed to recover so quickly either, but it will do you no good,’ he told the face primly. ‘When the master elect arrives we will simply determine a new way of restraining you here.’
Fastidiousness and a general distrust of underlings had done much to gain the intimate secretary his current rank. It wasn’t long before he began testing the chains for himself while he awaited the arrival of the Master Elect of Nine. The secretary’s taut, viridian-stained lips twitched and writhed as he whispered to himself and his captive.
‘The instructions were precise on that point, very precise. There can be no escape, no resurrection except under specific conditions. You will not be leaving us just yet.’
The chains were slack and the secretary found himself wondering uneasily how they had got into such a state without visibly loosening at all. Re-tensioning the chains would require releasing one chain from its floor-set ring to draw more links through. He glanced back at the sarcophagus but the face had vanished and once again nothing but roiling mist could be seen inside. He reached out hesitantly to unhitch the chain from its ring.
‘Don’t touch that,’ said a voice behind him.
The intimate secretary whirled to find himself face to face with the hatchet-faced Master Elect of Nine. The master elect’s eyes had been replaced with plates of black crystal that winked ominously at the secretary.
‘Assuming you wish to live, of course,’ grated the master elect. His voice was a special torture, a grinding sound of sharpening blades, shrieking wheels and saws cutting through bone. To hear it was to have ears and senses mercilessly flensed by its hideous timbre. The intimate secretary recoiled as if he had been burned.
‘Forgive me, master elect!’ babbled the secretary. ‘I sought only to undertake necessary preventative maintenance while I was awaiting your arrival.’
‘Not a threat, secretary, merely an observation,’ the master elect grated pedantically. ‘In point of precision, you were trying to let her out. You simply didn’t realise it.’
The master elect stepped cl
oser to the sarcophagus and gazed at its contents before moving out to circle the chamber and examine each of the tethering chains in turn. He tested nothing, touched nothing, the haemonculus keeping his hands tucked within the sleeves of his slate-grey robe at all times. He walked with a curiously precise, stiff-legged gait as though his limbs were constructed of wheels and steel rods. The sickening psychic miasma within the chamber seemed to be thickening into a palpable aura that beat upon the mind in waves. The intimate secretary found that he was sweating despite the chill air. A faint tremor ran through the floor when the master elect finally turned back to the intimate secretary at last.
‘There is danger here, but not from the source you perceive. This is ultimately Bellathonis’s doing. The bitter fruits of his labour, the Dysjunction is fuelling this one’s efforts to revive. Her desire is strong and draws strength to it.’
The master elect paused as another tremor ran through chamber, longer and more distinct than the first.
‘Bring acid to refill the sarcophagus and enough wracks to keep her distracted while we do it.’
‘Very good, master elect,’ the intimate secretary grovelled before daring a question. ‘It-it is certain then? Bellathonis initiated the Dysjunction?’
‘Certain.’ The word fell from the master elect’s lips like the blade of a guillotine. The intimate secretary paled visibly at the prospect before his face contorted with fear as another ramification dawned upon him.
‘If the Supreme Overlord learns of Bellathonis’s involvement…’ he whispered.
‘Dissolution of the coven. Exile or true death to its membership for their crime of association with the culprit.’ The master elect’s tones cut the word association into screaming fragments steeped in an acid bath of revulsion. ‘There is precedent for this on the basis of prior events.’
‘But Bellathonis is a renegade!’ the intimate secretary screeched. ‘He fled from our ranks! We gave him no succour!’
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