He had been careful to ensure that the energy fields in the keep’s entry hall were properly activated. He even had the servants unlock the primitive pit traps that were ranged along it just to complicate matters for any intruders. Guards were posted on the battlements and at the entry, but most of their numbers were ranged about the walls of the banqueting chamber with splinter rifles, disintegrators or dark lances in hand. Vyle kept his own blade naked at his side and his fingers were never far from its well-worn pommel.
There was a palpable sense of fear in the darkened chamber. Vyle’s diminished coterie of slaves and courtiers eyed the remaining Yegarans with obvious signs of mistrust. The two groups quickly settled into mutually antagonistic islands around the handful of tables that had been dragged into the chamber. The heavily armed guards made them fear they had all been brought here to be massacred. Vyle glowered at them from his throne and did nothing to alleviate their fears.
Eventually Vyle drank slowly from the goblet at his elbow to give the sign that his guests might do likewise. Some were hesitant, no doubt fearing poison, but none of them had the courage to defy him and spurn his feast. Vyle watched and waited. Before long the banquet warmed itself a little as the food and drink served to lift the spirits of those present. Presently low conversations and muted, nervous laughter fluttered through the gathering.
It was instantly silenced as Vyle rose to his feet.
‘So… here we are,’ the Shrike Lord said menacingly as he began to pace slowly through the blackened chamber, his fingertips tapping on his sword hilt. ‘Our so-called entertainers have seemingly abandoned us after two nights of revelry, and now I must make my own entertainment…’
Vyle paused for a long moment, his eyes travelling to the shadowed corners of the chamber expectantly. The only sound to be heard was the rush and hiss of the waves crashing against the cliffs below. The Shrike Lord shrugged and continued speaking, although his gaze continued to rove back and forth constantly in expectation of some manifestation from the Harlequins. They were listening, he knew they were.
‘A tale was begun two nights ago by poor, un-mourned Olthanyr Yegara that deserves a proper conclusion. That fool only ever knew half of the story in which he was so instrumental. When he crept into Commorragh to bargain for his own worthless hide he did not suspect that his miserable little sub-realm held the keys to something much more valuable. Had he but known, he could have dictated his terms and I would have gladly seen them fulfilled. In truth, I would have given him my own concubines just to gain access to the Sable Marches.’
Vyle returned to his goblet and drank, finding so much talk to be thirstier work than he’d anticipated. As he drank he looked out through the torn gaps in the outer wall where the last, dying light of the day was flushing the undersides of the clouds a nacreous pink. Still no performers took advantage of the natural break to slip themselves into the scene. Vyle shook his head ruefully and carried on with his story.
‘I have little doubt that he sensed his error by the end. He must have realised he had given up a princedom for the laughably low price of his own miserable existence. There are doors, you see, and doors, and doors in Commorragh. It is a place of a million portals. There are doors that open onto palaces of wonder, realms of stunning artistry, undiscovered treasures, hellish pits, unrestrained Chaos and much more…
‘I’ve heard the young and the ignorant say that you can reach anywhere and everywhere using the portals in Commorragh, but that isn’t the truth. The truth is that some of those doors have long since been broken, some have been forgotten and some have not been opened in ten thousand years with good reason. What lies beyond the doors has been broken too, whole sections of the webway are gone and more of it unravels with every cycle. I have no doubt that soon there will be nothing left.’
Even this jibe failed to raise a response as Vyle had expected it would. Harlequins were nomadic citizens of the webway, this much he knew. They were supposed to know all kinds of hidden backdoors and secret paths through it. He’d thought they wouldn’t be able to resist gainsaying him about his knowledge of the medium. He gazed around again at his guests, all watching him fearfully and wondering what he would do next, and his guards, all poised and ready for action. Perhaps the Harlequins had fled after all. Vyle drank again and continued his efforts to draw them out as he warmed to his tale.
‘Anyway, I digress. My bloodline, the Menshas, have reaved and explored from Commorragh since before the Fall. We know a great many secrets. One such, just a whisper of a rumour from my grandsire’s days, spoke of a hidden portal leading from here to a faraway place in the void. This singular prize was alleged to be a world-ship lost among the Ghost Stars and left untouched by the Fall, its crew out of contact, naive and vulnerable as they awaited a sign that it was safe to return. The custodians of this knowledge – those who were to give the signal – first dwelled here, hidden in the Sable Marches, but they were driven out and had the misfortune of running into my illustrious forebears long ages past.’
There was a definite sensation of being watched and listened to now. It was not the guests nor the guards; something else was listening. Vyle could virtually feel the invisible eyes upon him. They were here all right. He licked his lips and gave a wry smile of satisfaction. He spoke more loudly now, his voice rising.
‘We kept this secret in the Menshas line but it was useless to us. As long as the Sable Marches remained unreachable the world-ship remained unreachable. So now you may understand my enthusiasm on hearing of Olthanyr Yegara’s arrival. I undertook the journey to High Commorragh, to Sorrow Fell, to the Core Spur, to abase myself before Asdrubael Vect and beg his favour…’
Vyle’s voice momentarily deserted him as he recalled the dark majesty of the Core Spur and its circle of giant, screaming statues of the Supreme Overlord. The memories evoked a sense of dread that surprised him with its immediacy. He swallowed and spoke on. His proud, hectoring tone was gone and his final whispers were more akin to a confession.
‘It was hard for me… I’ll admit that. The hardest thing I have ever done. I value my pride, but to speak with Vect my pride had to be… humbled, crushed before the great tyrant. I entered with thoughts of making a deal, of coming to a mutually beneficial arrangement for access to Yegara and the Sable Marches. Before I was permitted to leave I promised Vect everything – a vast plunder in wraithbone and spirit stones. In exchange I asked only to be permitted the honour of extending his rule over the Sable Marches as its appointed suzerain.
‘And so here we are,’ Vyle concluded, more to himself than to any listeners real or imagined. ‘Besieged, beset, belaboured by Fortune, with enemies without and within. I’ll see an end to it, I will…’
He stiffened and whirled at the sound of hands clapping politely behind him. The small, grey-clad Harlequin was there, the one they called Motley. Vyle smiled grimly and made a slight gesture. Immediately his guards stepped away from the walls and began to close in around the slight figure.
‘My colleagues believe the performance is unsalvageable,’ the small Harlequin said equably. ‘That the third act must remain incomplete, given the appalling auspices of the previous two.’
Motley smiled broadly and cocked his head at the closing circle of guards before raising empty hands in surrender. ‘I feel otherwise and I see that you agree with me, Archon Vyle Menshas.’ Motley grinned. ‘We’ve come this far, we have to see it through. Do you intend to capture me?’
‘Perhaps,’ grated Vyle as he levelled his long, straight sword at Motley. ‘I see now that you came here expressly to ruin me, you and your pack of players. You must be here for vengeance over the world-ship.’
‘Me personally?’ Motley shook his head vigorously. ‘No. I’m here for you, Vyle Menshas, you might say that you’ve summoned me here. Your lust and your cruelty called me into being as an inevitable consequence of your actions. It’s a fine irony don’t you think? Quite perfec
t in its conception if you connect all the dots. Don’t you see? We are the third act, you and I, in Ursyllas’s tale of the Fall. You’re the eldar race, and I’m She–’
‘Where are the rest of your troupe?’ Vyle interrupted. ‘Answer quickly or it will go hard for you, little clown.’
The guards had stopped a respectful distance from the Harlequin with their weapons aimed directly at him. Motley grinned and kept his hands up. ‘Would you believe that they’re right behind you?’ he replied innocently as he reached to remove his mask.
With his nerves already stretched tauter than steel wires Vyle could not prevent himself from reacting, nor could his guards. Their attention wavered for only a split second but in that instant the grey-clad Harlequin exploded into action. His solid-seeming image fractured into a blinding kaleidoscope of colours. The guards fired almost in unison, slashing the glowing cloud into fragments, but their splinters and beams passed through empty space.
The avalanche of glowing motes swirled and reformed for an instant to show Motley at one side of the ring. His hands were reaching out to touch two of the guards on the forehead, almost in an act of benediction. Vyle cursed and lunged at the Harlequin’s back but the little figure spun away again before his blade could connect, the laughing image disintegrating into a darting whirlwind of sparks.
The two guards began to slump but then straightened again, apparently unharmed. Vyle saw that they had a blazing, brand-like mark where the Harlequin had touched them. He also saw that their armour now swirled with sickly colours as they levelled their weapons at their comrades. Vyle slashed one of them down in an instant, but the second got off a rippling burst with his disintegrator cannon before he could be killed. Guards, guests and chunks of wall flashed into momentary incandescence before they exploded into spurts of grey dust beneath the unleashed power of stolen suns.
Amid the confusion Vyle saw two more guards reeling with the branding mark on their foreheads. Motley reappeared then vanished again and again, each time leaving two more victims in his wake. His loyal guards had grasped the situation and fought back furiously, yet each time the laughing Harlequin struck, the odds shifted against them. There was pandemonium in the chamber and Vyle caught sight of the same swirls of sickly colours and branding marks among the guests. The Shrike Lord felt fear shiver down his spine as he realised the situation was rapidly spiralling out of control. A familiar, mellifluous voice suddenly called to him out of the chaos.
‘Archon Menshas! Come quickly! We can protect you.’ It was Ashanthourus, the Harlequin troupe-master still clad as he had appeared last night in the guise of the Laughing God, Cegorach. Behind him were ranged the other gods Vyle had seen in the previous performance: Asuryan, Isha, Lileath, Vaul, bloody-handed Khaine and others were all there. The Harlequins brandished weapons and fought back-to-back to defend themselves against the rising tide of corrupted guards and guests being created by Motley’s rampage. After a moment of hesitation Vyle darted into the protection of their ranks.
‘The cursed one has gone mad, She Who Thirsts has consumed his soul,’ Ashanthourus called out to him, his voice edged with desperation. ‘Your only hope is to escape while you still can!’
‘So you’re still trying to play me!’ Vyle snarled in response and raised his sword. ‘Damn you and your games!’ In the same moment the whirlwind of sparks that had been spinning around the chamber returned and swept through the assembled troupe.
For an instant Vyle had the impression of Motley – no longer small and slight but a bloated and monstrous shadow – engulfing the goddess Isha. The other gods swarmed in to do battle with the entity but it swatted them aside like children. The first Harlequin it had grasped fell to the ground rippling with sickly colours, no longer the image of a god but a corrupted, mewling plaything.
Within seconds the ground was littered with writhing forms. Khaela Mensha Khaine, the god who had been namesake to Vyle’s bloodline, survived a little longer than most by wielding a great two-handed glaive with desperate vigour. Crouching behind the war-god, Ashanthourus was momentarily protected and the High Avatar turned to Vyle, shouting.
‘Believe what you will but go! For the love of Isha, get out of here if you don’t want to share our fate!’
Khaine crashed to the ground like a falling statue, his armour crawling with worms of vile hues before he shattered into a million blood-red shards. Ashanthourus darted to one side with an impossible twist and evaded Motley’s first rush. The two of them leapt and spun around one another with dizzying speed, each movement anticipated and countered before it could be begun.
Vyle watched the whirling conflict for a second, took two paces backwards then turned and ran for the exit. He was pursued every step of the way by the sound of Motley’s insane, daemoniacal laughter.
Vyle emerged, panting, into the Confluence to find it strewn with corpses. The energy fields that should have been barring the entrance hall were down. At the end of the entrance hall, almost at the outer doors, Vyle caught sight of a figure limping away from him. The figure only shuffled away faster in response to Vyle’s hoarse challenge so the Shrike Lord gripped his sword and ran in pursuit of it.
At the doors the figure twisted around and for an instant Vyle caught sight of Olthanyr Yegara’s agonised face. The last Yegara was hunchbacked and broken. He had four ornate jars hanging from his flesh like obscene grapes, their buried heads seeming to suckle at him. With a mad cry Olthanyr heaved the outer doors open and ran out with Vyle hard at his heels.
Immediately outside Olthanyr vanished into a wall of smooth-skinned bodies as he was dragged in by the hooked claws of the waiting natives. Hundreds of saucer-like, unblinking eyes stared at Vyle as the shrieks of Olthanyr Yegara began to rise to an unbearable pitch. Vyle seized the door and heaved it shut in their faces. He experienced another cold chill at the nape of his neck as he realised that someone had used the distraction to get behind him.
‘And darkness and decay and death held illimitable dominion over all,’ whispered Hradhiri Ra as his thrust took the Shrike Lord through the heart.
As the life rushed from Vyle Menshas’s body he felt the unholy pull of She Who Thirsts waiting to consume his soul. Dimly he saw his skull-masked killer was holding something bright and hard before his eyes.
It was a spirit stone.
A tear of Isha, a sanctuary for his departing essence. A blessing.
Vyle Menshas almost wept with relief until he saw something approaching over the Death Jester’s shoulder. It was the slight, grey figure of Motley, no longer a flashing cloud but returned to his old self with his full, red smile. Vyle struggled for words, for a warning to shout, but he had taken his last breath. All that was left of Vyle Menshas was being drawn into the spirit stone. In his dimming sight it swelled to encompass his universe…
‘A quite stunning performance, don’t you think?’ Motley laughed wildly. ‘Very convincing. It’s a shame there’s no one left alive to appreciate it. Oh well, we’ll always have the troupe and each other, I suppose.’
Hradhiri Ra let the Commorrite’s corpse slide to the ground as he looked at the dimly glowing stone in his hand. He spoke to it softly, whispering the words.
‘Such a little thing, a soul, and all the same when reduced to this.’
‘For better or for worse we are judged by our actions, my skeletal friend,’ Motley said more soberly as he reached for the stone, ‘not for our potential. If the universe has one message to relate to us about universal justice it is surely that one. May I?’
Hradhiri Ra surrendered the spirit stone to Motley’s nimble fingers readily enough. However he chose to look away as, with an indescribable look of pleasure in his eyes, the slight Solitaire consumed the stone containing Vyle Menshas’s soul.
This was the price the Harlequins must pay to evade She Who Thirsts – one of their number already promised to her unrelenting hunger. Legend had it that whe
n a Solitaire’s soul was parted from his body Cegorach might appear and try to cheat She Who Thirsts of her prize. Until then Motley’s pre-ordained doom protected the entire troupe from extinction – but only at a price.
After a moment Motley tittered, belched and excused himself comically. The Death Jester’s skull mask grinned sardonically, but inside it Hradhiri Ra could not escape the feeling of sick horror that crept over him.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author of the dark eldar series, along with the novel Survival Instinct and a host of short stories, Andy Chambers has more than twenty years’ experience creating worlds dominated by war machines, spaceships and dangerous aliens. Andy worked at Games Workshop as lead designer of the Warhammer 40,000 miniatures game for three editions before moving to the PC gaming market. He now lives and works in Nottingham.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Neil Roberts.
© Games Workshop Limited 2013. All rights reserved.
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