‘Irrelevant. Supreme Overlord Asdrubael Vect will mete out punishments regardless of the culpability of the recipients. The guilt of past association will be more than sufficient pretext to make the Coven of the Black Descent a target.’ The master elect was dispassionate, almost mechanical in his dissection of the likely future of the coven. Fear and vindictive rage warred for possession of the intimate secretary’s face. Rage quickly won.
‘This cannot be borne!’ the intimate secretary spat. ‘Bellathonis is the one responsible, he should be the one to pay! We must silence him before he is taken by Vect!’
‘Such words have been spoken before,’ grated the master elect. ‘The one who spoke them was sent against the renegade and failed in his task. It is believed that Bellathonis has destroyed him.’
‘Then another must be sent! And another! Until…’ the intimate secretary suddenly understood the path he was being led down and baulked, stammering. ‘I mean… with respect, master elect, I meant no–’
‘Your enthusiasm and loyalty is warmly noted,’ the master elect smiled with no discernable trace of warmth. ‘You may begin your preparations immediately.’
CHAPTER 8
Inheritance
A blinding flash, a wrench of disassociation and for a moment Motley found himself falling into a green pool. No, the pool was behind him, and he was falling away from it. Up and Down fought a brief civil war over their respective claims for territory while Motley tumbled helplessly between their frontlines. Armistice only occurred when the green pool was declared the sovereign territory of Down and Motley obediently began falling towards it. The numbing pain in his chest and arm throbbed in anticipation of a return to its point of origin. His fall back into the pool was abruptly halted by an armoured arm that reached out to seize Motley’s limp body and drag him aside.
Motley blinked up gratefully at Morr towering over him. Over to one side of them lay a flat pool that spilled jade light into what appeared to be a cave. Motley puffed and blew for a second before bounding onto his feet with exuberant energy. He then struck a warlike pose with a slight wince.
‘Brothers in arms!’ he declared with bravado. ‘Equal to any and all challenges precisely as previously advertised!’
Motley abruptly slid back down onto his haunches with a bump and looked back up at the incubus. ‘Don’t you think?’ he said a little plaintively after a moment. Bright beads of red showed on his clothing where the shrapnel had pierced it. The holes themselves had already been knitted over by its clever fibres even as they set to work on the torn flesh beneath.
‘That was as brave an act as any that I have seen,’ the incubus said thoughtfully. ‘I was… surprised by your survival.’
‘I thought you’d left me behind again.’
‘There was no time to explain that the emergence would be vertical. Once I was sure that you would follow I entered the gate to ensure I would be in a position to prevent you falling back.’
‘That world was your home once upon a time, wasn’t it, Morr?’
The silence stretched for long moments before the incubus answered.
‘That was my home long ago,’ Morr said slowly. ‘Ushant, a maiden world. It is my eternal shame that I was born there of Exodite blood.’ Morr paused again and gazed down at Motley, his blank-faced helm studying the harlequin for indications of judgment or contempt. Motley smiled back uncertainly and feebly waved a hand for the incubus to continue. Morr snorted.
‘Perhaps you had imagined all maiden worlds to be virginal paradises like Lileathanir? Not so, Ushant. My elders told me that the world was once covered by mighty oceans, but in my time they had become little more than deserts. The Exodite clans were hardy and endured, some even thrived. They remained numerous if not prosperous throughout the slow draining of the seas. Fourteen centuries before my birth the clans gathered to fight off an invasion entering Ushant through the gate that we just used.’ Morr nodded across to the greenly glowing pool and lapsed into silence.
‘Were they victorious?’ Motley prompted. ‘The peace they won would seem to have been sadly temporary if they did.’
‘The clans were victorious but they became cursed in the process. In the conflict they learned new ways of making war from their enemies. Crude, indiscriminate, effective ways. Once the immediate threat was overcome the clans turned their war machines on each other.’
‘What?’ Motley was incredulous. ‘Why would they do that?’
‘Honour, pride and stupidity in equal measure. The dispute began over which clan should control the gate and guard against future incursions. The strongest clans – the Far Light and the Many Islands – each opposed the other gaining the prestige of controlling the gate. The two sides’ blood-kin and allies aligned with them in pressing their claims. Many had become so invested in making war during the conflict with the invaders, so my elders said, that they were loathe to give it up when peace was won.’
‘Tragic,’ Motley frowned unhappily. ‘I’m ashamed no one came to intercede and make peace between the clans.’
Morr laughed, a mordant cough of humour soaked in bile and bitterness. ‘Oh, they came. Many times. Finely dressed ascetics came from those drifting cradles we call craftworlds to tell us how to improve our lot. They hid behind their masks and shed crocodile tears at our misfortunes while discomforting themselves not one iota to help. In my own time they came once again and sat in judgment of us like celestial beings that had reluctantly descended into the common muck. They had finally tired of the dispute and announced their intention to give their support to the survivors of the Far Light clan.’
Motley pursed his lips but did not speak as he wondered which craftworld it was that had so thoroughly bungled their guardianship of Ushant. Each craftworld accepted nominal responsibility for a number of the maiden worlds scattered across the great wheel. Some viewed the maiden worlds as the hope for the future of the eldar race, the seeds from which the eldar might once more grow to prominence on the galactic stage. Other craftworlds viewed the maiden worlds as no more than a burden, mere primitive backwaters, the resource-sucking wreckage left behind by a failed survival plan.
‘Instead of quelling the conflict the decision lent it renewed vigour. The Many Islands clan attacked the Far Light and their craftworld patrons that very night… they appeared to be surprised by this turn of events. They defended themselves poorly.’ Morr’s helm tilted up at the memory, its bloodstone tusks catching the light and creating the illusion that they were slicked with fresh gore.
‘Is that when you saw the figure that you followed?’
‘Arhra,’ Morr spoke the name with conviction. ‘Make no mistake – it was Arhra himself that came to me then. He told me without words that I was worthy to test my strength at his shrine. He challenged me to do so.’
‘The legends say that Arhra was destroyed.’
‘Nothing ever truly dies.’
‘Perhaps the legends meant that he was changed beyond recognition.’
‘Tread carefully, little clown. You know nothing about what you speak of.’
‘My profuse apologies. I am cursed with a propensity for asking impertinent questions at inopportune moments. Forgive me.’
Morr grunted and walked away. Motley saw that the incubus was making for an exit from the cave, a ragged gash in the stone that showed a pale hint of daylight beyond. Motley wearily pushed himself to his feet and began to follow. The gash opened out into a narrow cleft in bare rock that soon became a treacherous ledge. One wall disappeared to reveal an almost sheer drop into a valley on that side, the other wall extending up in a cliff face softened in places by moisture-dripping clumps of grass and lichens. Above that was a golden haze of indeterminate source, sunlight with no sun. Below them the ledge descended towards a layer of coiling mist that covered the land like a blanket. There was a suggestion of the skeletal silhouettes of trees poking up through the mis
t, but they shifted and wavered uncertainly in a sea of whiteness.
‘Would it be impertinent to ask where we are and where we’re going?’ Motley said hopefully as he skipped nimbly down uneven steps after Morr.
‘We come to journey’s end,’ the incubus said eventually. ‘The shrine of Arhra lies in the valley below.’
Motley began brushing fastidiously at the dried blood on his tunic, even though it was fast becoming invisible against the cloth anyway. ‘Well that was a good deal easier to reach than expected,’ Motley exclaimed a little unconvincingly. ‘Always a positive sign, I say, smooth sailing ahead!’
‘The swamp is not without challenges,’ Morr cautioned pedantically. His tone could not disguise that even his melancholy spirit seemed to have risen fractionally.
Bezieth edged carefully forward, aware of the dull ache in her leg and the way everyone else was clustering behind her as if she were some sovereign shield of protection. There was music playing ahead of her, a wild, disquieting tune that skirled and whined in a way that set her teeth on edge. There had been doors at the end of the corridor, ornate sheets of precious metal pierced and worked into the form of twin phoenixes. These had been twisted and thrown aside with unthinkable force. Shadows from within flickered and danced across the opening, the music twisted and contorting around their shambolic rhythms. Bezieth of the Hundred Scars feared nothing living or dead, but even she hesitated to look inside.
She could feel the pressure of a dozen eyes on her back willing her to step forward, while the amorphous, unknown horror ahead of her held her back. The pressures were equal for a moment, but pride drove her relentlessly forwards to look around the door jamb and reveal the scene. The floor was made up of runnelled porcelain tiles leading to hexagonal, silver-topped drains. These, the clustered stab-lights overhead, and the hanging chains showed the place had been a slaughter faire where passing denizens could enjoy exhibitions of the public torture and humiliation of slaves and eager masochists.
Now the chains hung empty and the only light came from acrid bonfires that had been rudely piled around the hall out of debris. Figures cavorted madly around the flames in time to the piping music. Most of them appeared to be slaves, looking even more twisted and ugly than usual, but there was also a smattering of pure-blooded Commorrites leaping and capering with uncommon vigour.
At the centre of it all lay the source of the madness – a great mound of pink and blue flesh with only vague approximations of limbs and a head. It writhed and wriggled obscenely like a questing maggot while rows of flaring, hollow spines opened up and down its length emitting the hideous, piping music. The revellers danced around it, dashed offerings of wine and food over it, suckled on it and screamed out their devotion. Periodically the skirling pipes became insistent, almost whining. At this the dancers would seize one of their own number and hurl them onto the fleshy mass. The piping became ecstatic as the mound closed over the sacrificial victim like a blunt-fingered hand. In the last moments the victims would suddenly snap out of their ecstatic revelry and scream piteously in the grip of the thing. The insane piping interwove mockingly with their dying howls.
Bezieth had seen enough, the piping was starting to get to her too. She pulled her head back behind the ruined door jamb. Naxipael looked at her questioningly. She shrugged slightly and nodded back the way they had come. Naxipael shook his head in irritation and raised his blast pistols, his motion silently echoed by the other survivors. They were feeling frightened, angry and powerless – they all wanted to fight something. Bezieth rolled her eyes and gingerly hefted her djin-blade too. It emitted a chafing whine as if irritated by the hideous fluting sound ahead. Bezieth held it out before her and virtually let it lead the charge into the room.
She attacked silently, cutting down two of the dancers before they even registered her presence. darklight beams suddenly slashed across two more of them, vaporising the leaping bodies in nebula-dark explosions of matter. Naxipael tried to hit the piping beast but revellers hurled themselves in his path to make a living shield of themselves. He laughed cynically as he blasted his way through them one by one.
Bezieth carved her way forward too, outpacing Naxipael as she waded through the minions striking left and right almost disinterestedly as she concentrated her energies on limping towards the beast. Too slowly. The piping was changing, becoming a shrilling saw upon the ears as it called its children to war. The remaining dancers turned on Naxipael and Bezieth with hostility written over their mad faces. Pallid fires glowed in every eye, and phosphorescent drool fell from every lip. The marks of corruption could already be seen: flesh melting into tendrils or fur or feathers or scales, limbs that were strangely twisted and a distinct surfeit of orifices was in evidence.
Hypervelocity splinters and disintegrator bolts ravened across the chamber as the rest of the Metzuh survivors opened fire, mercilessly cutting down the revellers where they stood. Some of those hit vanished like hydrogen-filled balloons sent alight, the skin peeling back as its contents ignited in a multi-coloured flash. Most of those struck accepted the wounds as stolidly as if they were made of clay rather than living flesh. The pink, fleshy craters that opened on their bodies dripped the same phosphorescent slime as drooled in ropy tendrils from their lips.
The piping beast’s minions raced forward, their outstretched hands flashing with etheric flames. Fire leapt up around Bezieth and Naxipael, deceptively vaporous pink and blue gossamer blazes that seared armour and charred flesh at the slightest touch. Both archons were forced onto the defensive, concentrating only on trying to fend off the capering horrors that leapt around them. Shrill screams sounded from behind as some of the survivors trying to push into the hall were consumed by the scorching blasts. Bezieth saw one warrior burning like a torch, still firing his splinter rifle as he was overwhelmed. The fires leapt higher still, creating the illusion that the entire hall had become a pavilion of woven flames.
Bezieth sheared through a leering face, ducked a gobbet of multi-coloured fire and cut off the arm that spit it at her. Axhyrian’s captured spirit energised her through the channel of the djin-blade, obedient and deadly in her hands for the present. Her enemies fought with no method, they leapt back and forth randomly, tumbling over each other in their haste to grasp and burn. She doggedly fought her way closer to Naxipael, who was reaping a great ruin of his foes but had been badly burned over his chest and back.
The other survivors were formed in a tight knot just behind them and were likewise badly beset on all sides so she could expect no help from them. The numbers of their attackers did not seem to be lessening at all, if anything there seemed more of them now than when Bezieth had entered the hall. The shrill piping was becoming triumphant, a mad cackling sound that drove against the soul.
A hoarse cry made her twist around to look back at the other survivors again and she gaped at what she saw. The wrack that had tended her, Xagor, was being hoisted onto their shoulders while the rest were fighting almost back-to-back to protect the execution of this peculiar manoeuvre. The wrack was in the process of awkwardly trying to level a long, thick-barrelled rifle.
Bezieth understood what they were trying to do. The survivors were lifting up the wrack up to get a clear shot over the heads of the capering minions at their daemonic master beyond. The wrack’s heavy rifle wobbled around alarmingly in the melee and the flame-handed dancers leapt madly everywhere, obscuring his target. The long-barrelled rifle finally spat once to no visible effect. To attempt such a thing only showed the survivors’ desperation. They had taken a fool’s chance, a futile last throw of the dice before the end came and it had failed.
The horrific fluting suddenly oscillated wildly, wailing up and down scales with agonising swiftness. The dancers whirled away clutching flame-wreathed hands to their heads, staggering even as Bezieth, Naxipael and the other survivors fought back a wave of sickness. The fires guttered out and the beast was revealed to be rearing and
bucking, seemingly twisting in pain as its flesh rippled obscenely. With a final heave the fleshy mound split from end to end, unleashing a wave of bile, maggots, foulness and corroded bones across the floor. The mad piping ceased abruptly. The dancers wavered and collapsed into sacs of deflating skin. Naxipael and the impromptu pyramid of survivors fell too, depositing the wrack unceremoniously on the floor. Bezieth stood speechless for a moment, waiting to see if some new horror was about to burst forth. The hall remained silent and dark.
Bezieth noticed the wrack was quick to scurry after his dropped rifle, cradling it to himself protectively as if it were a cherished pet. To her surprise one of the other survivors offered his hand to help pull the wrack to his feet. Now several more clapped the wrack on the back and congratulated him as if he were one of their own pulling off a tricky shot, rather than the surgically-altered meat puppet of a mad torturer-scientist. Bezieth shook her head. Part of the curse of the Dysjunction was to create strange bedfellows out of necessity, ripping apart the societal fabric of the city as well as its physical one.
There were only seven survivors left now, not including herself and Naxipael. The odds against his ascension to High Commorragh had lengthened considerably and he was not happy about it. She looked toward Naxipael and called the wrack to attend him, her voice a whip-crack of discipline. The wrack jumped to obey, almost dropping his beloved rifle again in the process.
‘Possessed!’ Naxipael raved. ‘Traitors all, every damn one of them! Giving their own flesh away! Bah!’
The wrack hurried up and carefully laid his weapon on the floor before seeing to Naxipael’s injuries.
‘We were too late,’ Bezieth shrugged. ‘Whatever got in there first was nasty enough to hold on when the warding closed. Every major daemon within a league probably squeezed itself into the first warm body it could find to avoid being drawn back. We can expect to see more possessed.’
‘I bow to your superior expertise in the field, Bezieth,’ Naxipael said through gritted teeth.
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