Yllithian glimpsed something behind Aez’ashya that surprised him so much it made him momentarily drop his guard. Aez’ahya instantly sprang back out of reach suspecting some sort of a trick. Then she saw it too and her relentless knives hesitated in their courses.
‘Is that–?’
The hideous, vibrant colours that had smeared the wardings since the beginning of the Dysjunction were fading. They were dimming and scattering moment by moment like a storm blown away by a fresh wind. Below their feet Gorath was calming as its fiery corona began shrinking back within its normal parameters.
‘Yes, it’s ending. The Dysjunction is over,’ Yllithian said, sidling carefully away from the edge of the bridge as he spoke. Aez’ashya watched him coolly.
‘You think this changes anything?’ she said.
‘Of course it does! It changes everything!’ Yllithian exclaimed passionately. ‘Clearly our brave assault on the Ilmaea has met with stunning success and put an end to the menace. We should be praised and rewarded to the highest degree for our efforts, don’t you think? Although naturally that will only work if we’re both around corroborate one another’s story to Vect.’
Aez’ashya considered this for a moment and laughed.
‘I like your thinking, Yllithian,’ she smiled nastily, flourishing her daggers, ‘but I think that Vect will reward me quite adequately enough when I bring him your head!’
Yllithian took another step back as Aez’ashya tensed to spring. Over the succubus’s bladed shoulder he could see his incubi bodyguards pounding down the bridge toward them.
‘Then I’m afraid you’ll have to see how he responds when you report your failure instead. Vect’s terribly unforgiving of that kind of thing as you’ll soon come to learn.’
Aez’ashya caught his glance and heard the approaching clatter of their armoured sabatons at the same moment. Yllithian was thrilled to see the anguish in her eyes as she realised she had failed. A few more heartbeats and the mistress of the Blades of Desire would be the one losing her head. He was surprised by the fierce grin she gave him.
‘Until next time, Yllithian,’ Aez’ashya said spitefully, ‘be a darling and try to become more of a worthy opponent by then, won’t you?’ So saying she turned and leapt from the bridge to apparently certain death in the embrace of Gorath.
Yllithian knew better and cursed as he bounded to the edge to see her fate. He was just in time to see the blur of a fast moving Venom transport come curving around the tower and intersect with the falling form before speeding away. He was still nodding in admiration when his incubi arrived. He noted with chagrin that only three of them had survived their battle with hekatrix.
‘Better late than never, I suppose,’ he commented acidly. ‘I believe I’ve found myself the motivation to ensure Xelian returns to lead the Blades of Desire, I like not their new archon.’
Aiosa, her armour riven and scored in a dozen places, found the Harlequin waiting for her in the World Shrine with a relieved-looking smile on his face. It took all of her considerable self-control not to lay hands upon him and shake him until his neck snapped.
‘What did you do?’ the exarch snarled dangerously.
‘Do? I did nothing but bring people together so that they could mitigate a threat to all of us. Everyone played their appointed part beautifully and now the threat is over. I’m spectacularly happy that you and your warriors survived, and very sorry if I offended you along the way.’
‘You sent Caraeis to his death!’
Motley frowned unhappily at the accusation, stepping back with his hands spread helplessly. ‘No. He found a doom that has been waiting for him for quite some time. I merely ensured that his sacrifice aided the eldar race instead of the Chaos powers. Caraeis’s overweening ambition did not come entirely from within, Aiosa, surely you must have sensed that.’
Aiosa shook her helm grimly before stopping herself and reconsidering. The tension she’d felt had been real, a sense that the warlock was overstepping boundaries and flaunting traditions without thought. She had repeatedly put it down to youthfulness and arrogance but it had been very real.
‘And the incubus?’ she said more slowly. ‘He was trying to slay the dragon spirit, an impossible task. Did you tell him that he would succeed?’
‘I never lied to him, if that’s what you mean, he took on the task willingly enough for the sake of his honour and his adopted city. He knew if he went in there he wasn’t coming out and that’s what I call bravery no matter where you hail from. He should be mourned rather than vilified.’
‘He created the situation,’ Aiosa said flatly. ‘He led the Commorrites that violated the shrine and they brought their doom upon themselves.’
‘Morr was a weapon wielded by others,’ Motley said wearily. ‘He was no more culpable than a gun can be guilty of murder… May I tell you a fundamental truth, Aiosa?’
The proud mask of the exarch inclined minutely and Motley was struck once again by how much like Morr she looked in that moment.
‘When I became old enough – and I am very, very old despite my youthful appearance – there came a point when I began to question how many lives a difference in philosophy is truly worth. Upon reaching that point and asking myself that question I started to consider just whom all the death and destruction that is visited upon our fractured race really serves.’
The slight Harlequin looked up into the hard, crystalline eyes of the exarch for some glimmer of understanding. He found none.
EPILOGUE
And so I stand revealed at the end of my tale. I, the one called Motley, player and orchestrator both. It would be false to claim that I foresaw every outcome, but it would be fair to say I predicted more rightly than wrongly.
It comes to this – the great cosmic joke. All we do is fight against ourselves. The material existence we defer to and rely upon and believe in is illusory; it gives the impression of solidity when in point of fact there’s nothing in the universe more destructible and short-lived. It appears from nothing and it goes to nothing while only the soul endures.
And you see that’s really the key: Immortal souls adrift in an endless sea of aeons eternally at war with themselves, being driven by passions so strong, so primal they have become entities we have come to call gods. Little do those poor souls know that it’s their own belief that gives shape to what oppresses them and that they lend it their strength with every struggle. Poor, lost, immortal souls; they can be crushed, they can be consumed, they can be enslaved, they can be corrupted, but they can never, ever be completely destroyed.
And souls can always be reborn.
BELLATHONIS AND THE SHADOW KING
Even among the jaded citizenry of Commorragh, the Aviaries of Archon Malixian, whom some unkind souls call ‘Malixian the Mad,’ are a place of dark wonder. In the Aviaries sculpted parklands of exquisitely-cut topiary and soft green sward extend between steep-walled structures of a thousand different designs. At first glance there appears to be a host of strangely-wrought cathedrals, tenements, domes and towers rising from the sumptuous gardens, a city reproduced in miniature within the greater city of Commorragh. Closer inspection reveals that every tower and dome is a cage, and that their inhuman inhabitants are all captives of Archon Malixian’s singular obsession.
The cages of the Aviaries range from simple pagoda-like cages of gilded bars to immense wire spheres, leaded glass cubes and cones of interwoven bone. Their numbers beggar belief, each one a skyscraper-sized habitat for a unique winged life form plucked from some far-off world. Above it all lies Malixian’s eyrie, a single spike of silver thrust up to scrape the heavens. The spike is tipped with a silver sphere a hundred paces across. It is a structure more of empty space than metal yet it has landing points and unrailed walkways for the convenience of those that must stride upon two legs. Here Archon Malixian holds his court.
It was to the Court of Malixian t
hat the Master Haemonculus Bellathonis fled when he was driven out of Lower Metzuh. On this day, not long after his arrival, Bellathonis and a pair of his wrack servants emerged from the modest tower Malixian had graciously granted him as a place of sanctuary. It was the first time Bellathonis had taken his servants into the parklands between the cages and the wracks seemed nervous, weighed down as they were with hooked poles and grapnel chains.
To enter the Aviaries was to enter an alien world where the air was filled with the competing squawks, songs, trills and cries from a billion different species of avian. Within the gigantic cages wings flapped and fluttered endlessly, the polished beaks and beady eyes of creatures from a million different worlds flashing in the light. Archon Malixian’s greatest passion was the flying predator in all its forms, from slow-flying arcotheurs to lithe stingwings, from majestic white ruhks to darting shaderavens. He had dedicated his long life to amassing his collection from all corners of the galaxy and even in Commorragh it remained worthy of the term ‘exotic.’
The master haemonculus found what he was looking for just a few hundred paces away from his new quarters. Near the base of a golden-barred tower filled with crimson pteraclaws he directed his wracks to pry up an ornate grating set into the turf. An impressively foul stench emanated from the shaft that was revealed; so impressive that Bellathonis had to inflict some sharp physical punishments to induce his wracks to climb down it.
The master haemonculus stood and waited, passing the time by watching the pteraclaws cavort on leathery pinions hundreds of metres above him. The reptilian predators seemed particularly agitated for some reason. They kept forming into cawing spirals, only to break up and reform moments later. Bellathonis only understood the import of all the activity when none other than Archon Malixian himself came strolling around the corner of the pteraclaws’ cage and directly towards him.
The archon was tall and long-legged. He wore an iridescent cloak of feathers and walked with a curiously stiff-legged gait that gave him the undeniable aspect of a great raptor stalking forward. A group of heavily-armed warriors followed Archon Malixian at a respectful distance, their heads constantly swivelling as they searched for potential threats. Bellathonis was acutely conscious of the open grating on the ground behind him. It was a mute accusation that Malixian’s newest guest was already poking his nose into places he probably shouldn’t.
‘Greetings, Bellathonis. I trust you are settling into your new demesne satisfactorily?’ Archon Malixian said breezily enough as he came closer.
‘I am, although I still lack certain materials to begin my work for you,’ Bellathonis replied cautiously. ‘I must confess I find myself surprised to see you afoot in the parks, my archon. Certain doubtless wild and unfounded rumours purported you had foresworn the touch of doleful earth once and for all.’
Malixian’s eyes twinkled merrily. ‘Oh it was so for a few centuries – I thought that to truly appreciate my magnificent collection that I must become more like them by endlessly sailing the upper airs and spurning the ground.’
‘May I ask what changed?’ Bellathonis said promptly. He was pleased to be able to so easily divert Malixian’s attention away from the accusatory grate behind him.
‘I came to understand that many gifted with wings also touch upon the ground often. Xhaloic butchers fly only when they move from one ambush spot to another. Myvigian death runners certainly glide aloft to locate their prey they but choose to land to chase it down. So you see, the true airborne predator does not spurn the earth but uses it at his convenience – as do I.’
‘And what is it that brings you forth into your beautiful gardens this day, my archon?’ Bellathonis asked.
Malixian’s smiling face clouded suddenly at his words.
‘Your questions are becoming tiresome, Bellathonis. I am master here and I will pass to and fro as I see fit without recourse to your inquisitions,’ Malixian said icily. A moment later the archon was all smiles again and Bellathonis experienced a curious roiling sensation as he saw how quickly the transformations of Malixian’s mood came and went. The archon truly was insane.
‘I came looking for you, you silly haemonculus,’ Malixian continued. ‘Just what do you think you’re doing?’
Bellathonis glanced at the open grate as if only just remembering its existence. ‘The materials I mentioned as lacking – my wracks are below searching for them. I needed basic clay to work with, bio-mass if you will, and had none readily available.’
Malixian’s head cocked to one side in a mannerism that could only have been copied from the avians he loved so much. Bellathonis realised the archon was waiting for a better explanation.
‘Corpse-fishing,’ the Haemonculus said with some relish. ‘My wracks are below in the waste-tubes dredging them for any usable flesh and bone that may float by.’
Malixian grinned widely and then began laughing in an uproarious hooting that his attendant bodyguards dutifully joined. Bellathonis smiled thinly as he waited to find out the joke being played at his expense. Malixian eventually wiped his eyes and calmed himself to mere chuckling.
‘Hoo, I’m sorry Bellathonis, your servants won’t find anything of the sort down there. Dead flesh doesn’t get thrown out in the waste here at my aviaries.’
Malixian turned to gesture up at the crimson pteraclaws. As he did so, the reptilian creatures whirled upwards into another tight spiral inside their golden cage. The whipping and snapping of their blood-coloured wings was deafening.
‘Everything gets fed to something in here,’ Malixian said over the noise. ‘Bone and sinew, grist and offal – it’s all a delicacy to something in my collection. In fact some of my charges will only eat what’s been excreted by other ones.’
‘Then I ask that you forgive my trespass, my archon,’ Bellathonis said humbly. ‘My unforgiveable ignorance led me to believe I would be performing a useful service for you by unblocking the pipes while at the same time gaining what I needed to begin my work for you. I was mistaken.’
Malixian waved away the master haemonculus’s contrition carelessly. Bellathonis was fascinated to see how the pteraclaws swirled back and forth in response to the gesture. The creatures definitely recognized the mad archon; doubtless they expected to be fed when he was present.
‘I’ll have some slaves sent to you later,’ the archon said. ‘But that isn’t why I sought you out. Come and walk with me, Bellathonis.’
They wandered among immaculately cut hedges and across lawns as soft as a newborn’s blanket while Malixian told Bellathonis what he wanted of him. By the time the mad archon was finished Bellathonis had begun to wish he had stayed in Lower Metzuh.
As the supreme genetic manipulators, drug distillers and flesh sculptors to be found in the dark city, the skills of individual haemonculi are always in great demand among the Commorrite kabals. To avoid excessive coercion or outright assassination, like-minded haemonculi traditionally band together into covens for mutual benefit and protection. The rivalry between some of these covens extends back for millennia although it must be said disputes between haemonculi tend toward wicked, slowly-maturing schemes rather than paroxysms of outright conflict. The covens demand absolute fealty from their members and always mask their activities with utmost secrecy.
For centuries the haemonculi covens have had their own territories in the razor-edged pits beneath the Core of Commorragh and in those benighted realms even death itself offers no escape. Oubliettes and torture cells exist in the pits that can defer the point of termination indefinitely. There are also haemonculi who live to exercise their arts with surgical precision in pursuit of finding the perfect scream. It is an unlucky soul that finds itself in the pits of the haemonculi, and woe to any that should stray into them without the protection of a coven.
It was into these pits that Bellathonis was forced to come at Malixian’s behest. The master haemonculus crept along narrow walkways over black gulfs
and through twisting corridors piled high with detritus as he wormed down into the guts of the dark city. As he progressed he looked for signs of a spiral symbol on the corrosion-stained walls. In some places he found it in faded paint, in others fresh chalk, at other times grim fetishes of twisted bone and sinew in the familiar spiral led him onwards. The symbols led him ever deeper towards the territories of the coven known as the Black Descent.
The covens guarded their territories according to their individual credos: To wander into the pits claimed by the Prophets of Flesh would have been to court mutilation by the most brutal grotesques and vicious chainghouls. Violating the outer seals of the realm of the Hex would have brought a swift doom from mutant pathogens so potent that they lasted only seconds outside those rarified halls. The Black Descent guarded itself with an eternally revolving labyrinth filled with traps of fiendish complexity and diabolic variety.
Each coven had its own method for granting safe passage to its members: The Hex gave precise instructions of the necessary body modifications necessary to survive the attentions of their microscopic pets. The Prophets of Flesh used command phrases to temporarily pacify their ravening golems. In the case of the Black Descent, the coven’s secrets came in the form of the mnemonic directions necessary to pass unscathed through their tortuous labyrinth to reach preset ‘interstices’ at particular locations. Progression (descent, to be most specific) through the coven’s ranks included further instruction on navigating the deeper and more inaccessible paths of the Black Descent’s demesne.
Bellathonis had gained a reputation as a renegade while he was in Lower Metzuh, a master haemonculus unaffiliated with either coven or kabal who was open to hire by all. In reality he was a member of one of the oldest and most powerful covens in Commorragh. At least he was in theory, anyway, although that was a matter of some dispute in Bellathonis’s own mind. Nevertheless, technically Bellathonis was still a member of the Black Descent and Malixian had managed to discover the fact. The mad archon’s demand was doomed to rejection in Bellathonis’s opinion, but he had scarcely been in a position to refuse to carry it to his supposed superiors in the coven.
Path of the Dark Eldar Page 66
