‘May Kheradruakh take my head if I ever fail you,’ the mandrake whispered, his voice thick with emotion. ‘Break the light and set me free!’
Bellathonis smiled thinly as he set down the gene-eagle’s cage and made an adjustment to the slender pistol in his other hand. A single high-velocity splinter from the weapon shattered the circle of light into a shower of tinkling crystal fragments. The moment the light was gone the mandrake seemed to vanish from sight and an icy chill fell across the room. The master haemonculus glanced around, shrugged his narrow shoulders and picked up the eagle cage.
‘I am still here, haemonculus,’ the mandrake’s voice whispered from the shadows, a cold breath against the nape of Bellathonis’s neck. ‘I walk in your footsteps. Leave this place and fear nothing, my blade-soul is hungry. What should I call you, enemy of Zykleiades?’
‘I told you he’s not my enemy, just someone unworthy to be my master, and you can call me Bellathonis. What should I call you, king of shadows?’
‘Xhakoruakh. You should be warned that any master you consider unworthy will become your enemy over time.’
‘All the better reason to be your own master whenever you can.’
Malixian’s eyrie stretched Bellathonis’s normal equanimity where heights were concerned. Tenuous clouds were floating by far below the narrow walkway he was on, the highest cages of the Aviaries thrusting up through them like mountain peaks. The master haemonculus concentrated on keeping his balance against the shifting weight of the eagle’s cage as he walked along the ledge. He had resolutely fought off attempts by minions and flunkies to take the cage from him. Malixian was going to receive the eagle from his own hands and no others.
The eagle had become agitated since entering the Aviaries, hissing and flexing its wings as much as it could within the close confines of the cage. There were times when it seemed to be purposefully trying to throw Bellathonis off the ledge. The haemonculus ignored the attempts and finally made his way to the open balcony where Archon Malixian was amusing himself with some newly hatched razorwings. At the sight of Bellathonis carrying the cage, Archon Malixian dropped the hatchlings and almost trampled over them in his haste to meet him.
‘Magnificent, magnificent,’ Malixian cooed appreciatively as the eagle tried its best to snap his fingers off.
‘No easy task, my archon,’ Bellathonis said with evident relief to be rid of the thing. ‘I fear I may have made some enemies in my old coven, but my appreciation of your patronage knows no bounds.’
Malixian glanced up from the cage with a look of pure joy on his face. ‘Your old coven can go hang themselves – you know they told me they wanted to send someone here to keep an eye on you? Unreliable they said – well they can stick this in their gizzard and swallow it.’
Bellathonis smiled wanly. Malixian definitely had his plusses as a patron; the usual Commorrite secrecy and backstabbing seemed totally uninteresting to him. His obsession made him ridiculously easy to manipulate. Staying at the Aviaries might prove truly profitable after all.
‘Where will you keep your gene-eagle, my archon?’ Bellathonis inquired politely. ‘It seems rather small for your capacious accommodations.’
‘Keep it?’ Malixian said as he lifted the cage up and fumbled with the latch. Bellathonis had a dreadful premonition as the mad archon pulled open the cage door. In a flash the eagle was out of the cage and plummeting away on golden wings that burned like the sun. The glowing speck dwindled rapidly as it dived from Malixian’s eyrie towards the Aviaries below. Bellathonis fought back the urge to pummel Malixian about the head.
Three white shapes flashed past the balcony in pursuit of the eagle, their wings folded back in perfect v-shapes. The eagle had been fast; these were faster. In a moment they were gone.
‘White ruhks,’ Malixian said with relish. ‘Incredibly hard to find things that are a challenge for them to hunt. That eagle could last them an hour or more. Magnificent.’
Speechless, Bellathonis could only look at the mad archon. Something told him that this was a defining moment in their relationship. The thought of that made Malixian’s patronage a considerably less reassuring prospect than it had been a moment ago. Sometimes familiar devils really are the best, Bellathonis reminded himself, and life’s lessons come at too high a price.
Prologue
The flow of events is now sweeping rapidly to its conclusion: a flock of dark birds settles on the carcass it has made, a school of fish darts together at the approach of a predator. To begin a description of an ending one must surely begin at the beginning, but that is a tale unto itself, and in any case the beginning too often flows from a previous ending. I think you’ll agree it’s a pretty quandary and no mistake. So consider this:
We might say that this tale began with the Fall of the eldar race, a race of such brilliance and star-spanning genius that the entire great wheel of the galaxy was their playground. Their collapse, their Fall, only came about through their own hubris. Thinking themselves untouchable they unconsciously wrought an entity that could touch even them. Their doom was the manifestation of their own unspoken desires to indulge without limit, to inflict beyond sanity, to take and to ravish with a force so potent that their boundless passion became atavistic and unstoppable. Their passion gave birth to the entity the eldar call She Who Thirsts, and that entity went on to destroy them.
We could equally say that it began with Commorragh – a place that was old and wicked even before the Fall. Commorragh, the great port-city nestled deep within the void. Commorragh, the unique node lodged into the vast interdimensional labyrinth of the webway, itself the key to the eldar race’s galaxy-spanning empire. Commorragh, the city of portals, from whence its denizens can range across all that remains of the ragged, oft-torn webway to take what they will from a thousand tremulous realities.
Commorragh survived the birth of She Who Thirsts and the subsequent Fall. It seems such a little thing to say it thus, yet it was a dark miracle of such dimensions as to be almost incomprehensible at the time. When She Who Thirsts came into being the vast majority of the eldar race was snuffed out in an instant by the psychic shockwave of her birth. The very home worlds of the eldar race were dragged from the skein of reality and plunged into the roiling madness of warp space to feed the daemon-queen’s appetites. The eldar gods were overthrown and broken by the upstart usurper…
…And yet buried deep within the webway, warded and protected with arcane mysteries, Commorragh survived.
Perhaps the truth is that it began with the denizens of Commorragh. They were too proud, too vicious and too desperate to bow to the madness of the doom that overtook their race. The Commorrites slew all those vulnerable to She Who Thirsts, and then they massacred the fearful, and then they culled the weak. What survived in Commorragh was a race of pure-bred survivors with the blackest hearts imaginable. They became a people of flint and stone, ready to set their faces against any vicissitudes unleashed upon their race by the uncaring Fates. They would live on, no matter the cost, clawing their continued existence from the belly of creation without gods or allies or friends to help them.
Some say the Commorrites were like this even before the Fall, and that it was their own unbridled excesses that brought She Who Thirsts into being. Bitter wars have been fought over such contentions among the dwindling eldar kindreds that survived the Fall. In time wisdom prevailed and it became understood that such recriminations serve only She Who Thirsts. For she still desires the last drops of vitality from the race that gave birth to her. In the depths of the void and deep inside every eldar heart she lurks, waiting to consume the very last of them: a siren sickness, an addiction, a black hole draining away all life, all hope.
But this is still all just ancient history. We must look closer to the present to find the origins of our current tale.
Commorragh itself has been ruled over by a great tyrant named Asdrubael Vect for more than six mil
lennia. This supreme overlord elevated himself from the ranks of the lowliest slaves by dint of his intellect, ruthlessness and daring. He swept away the ancient aristocracy and instituted a new order of absolute meritocracy in its place. For six thousand years only those cunning and bold enough to survive his blood-soaked reign have enjoyed the privileges of rank and survival. The tyrant has many enemies but few that could be called rivals. Past attempts to unseat him have been spectacularly bloody and ineffective, yet this has done little to dissuade those who would see the tyrant fall.
Which brings us to the current conflagration: a trio of Commorrite nobles with dreams of a return to the old order plotted against Asdrubael Vect. These three, Yllithian, Xelian and Kraillach, led the most powerful of the old noble houses and hungered for vengeance against Vect. In their ambition they unleashed forces beyond their capacity to control. As masters of the physical with troops, ships and fortresses at their command, these nobles fatally overlooked the metaphysical implications of their actions. Events spiralled out of control to such an extent that it was almost too late to prevent disaster before wiser heads could intercede.
You must understand that due to its unique nature Commorragh can be both stronger and more fragile than it seems. Its presence at the nexus of so many paths through the webway means that any sufficient perturbation in the void can set the whole, vast place thrumming. Native Commorrites call such an event a ‘Dysjunction’ and it is rightly feared. In a Dysjunction the bubble of reality separating Commorragh from the wild chaos of the void becomes stretched very thin indeed. Under successive shocks it becomes porous to the predatory entities that dwell in the depths, permitting their ingress to the city. Furthermore the galaxy-spanning portals which connect Commorragh to the outside universe can unpredictably reorient themselves and even spew unbounded etheric energies into the city. In short, as a result of a Dysjunction, the entire mighty edifice that is Commorragh teeters on the brink of ruin and madness.
This is what the nobles’ ambitions won for them and now all but one has been destroyed by it. The last noble, Yllithian, can only hope to survive if Asdrubael Vect remains ignorant of his role in the disaster… and it seems possible that the supreme overlord already knows the truth. Yet even in their failure the nobles have succeeded after a fashion. The Dysjunction has damaged much of the city. The resulting chaos has killed or scattered many of its citizens and the whole affair has placed the rulership of the supreme overlord in a highly precarious position. The race is on to see who will adapt and turn the changing situation to their advantage first: Vect, Yllithian, or other, even less savoury entities waiting in the wings.
Come now and we will enter the highest courts of a dark kingdom beset by ruin. See now through the eyes of one without passions, without ambitions – a perfect observer for the events coming to pass.
Chapter 1
THE GELDLING
I have no name, only a function. Though nameless I am bestowed many titles: supreme overlord, great tyrant, archon of archons, Allfather – and yet none of these are my own. I am a living cypher, an encoded shadow given a form that lives and breathes, that observes and learns and yet is nothing, a passing fancy to be used as desired and expended when necessary. If I should sound too dour shed no tears for me. I would not do so for you.
I am the image of my creator, and he is the wellspring of my existence. I worship him with a purity that you cannot imagine. He is quite literally everything to me, the quintessence of all that I am. It is a rare chance that allows us to be together at the same instant – some argue that it diminishes my function, but my creator knows better than they. Once I called him father. He punished me for it.
My purpose is simple. When we are together my creator’s enemies cannot tell us apart. Sometimes he speaks, sometimes I speak. I laugh inwardly to see their eyes flicker uncertainly between us as they try to determine which of us is the master and which of us is his shadow. It is our secret to keep and ours alone. A shared, precious thing.
His true name is Asdrubael Vect, and the titles of supreme overlord, great tyrant, archon of archons and many others belong to him. I have no name, but behind my back those who know what I am call me ‘the Geldling’. They may hold me in contempt, but at times like these it is I who stands unbowed by the aura of black menace that clings to Asdrubael Vect while others quail. I exist to be destroyed and if that becomes my master’s desire then it is my pleasure and my duty to obey.
Vect walks now, stalking from mirror-shard to mirror-shard in the highest tower of Corespur. Each fractal crystal shard shows a different view of his city plunging into ruin. Some of the shards are completely black, their invisible eyes blinded by an unknown agency, and these appear to disturb Vect most of all. He is angry, vengeful. Enemies have struck at the heart of his power and he does not know how or why.
But he suspects. He always suspects.
One living crystal facet shows a mighty spire in High Commorragh. Flames wreathe its base, white-hot and preternaturally hungry. The spire is kilometres high and yet somehow the flames have found a path all the way from its wide base to its narrow crown. Blade-sharp palaces at the tip are melting away, drooling onto terraces below as molten slag. As we watch, the base of the spire flakes away to reveal ant-like chambers and rooms glowing in the heat. These flash into a new inferno as oxygen rushes in. The spire lurches and seems to bulge along one side for a heartbeat before toppling with the slow majesty of a falling forest giant.
I notice a particular set to my master’s shoulders at the sight and I utter a bleak, cold-hearted laugh on his behalf. No doubt some of his enemies dwelled in that fallen spire. He has many enemies.
Another crystal shows a wide curve of Low Commorragh slums, an accretion of slave shops and vice dens wedged between the bases of the spires and their foundation slabs. This area would have once held the inhabitants of a small nation but now it has been inundated. A foul upwelling of toxic wastes from levels even lower than this has drowned the area. Now only a handful of shanty islands and tumbled ruins project from a strangling sea of foul, lapping ooze. Crusting the ooze is a thick layer of bloated corpses that bob obscenely in the swell.
Vect walks past this scene with barely a glance. The battle is already lost in the district shown. He deigns not to notice the black, wavering tendrils that have begun pushing their way up out of the ooze, their presence slowly blotting the crystal’s viewpoint.
He stops before a crystal pane that shows a confusing melee. A great, gleaming gateway of emerald and brass is vomiting an unending stream of multicoloured foulness. Wherever the substance touches the ground it warps and twists it like melting wax. Formless shapes rear up from flux to take on brief solidity: claws, fangs, limbs, eyes, tongues are shaped in an anarchic mockery of natural life. At the edges of the frame kabalite warriors are blasting and slashing their way to the gate. One after another they are pulled down by the gateway’s metamorphic excrescences. They give no heed to their casualties and push on regardless. A bare handful of survivors win through to the gate, but they do stop the flow.
Asdrubael Vect nods in satisfaction. I issue orders for the surviving kabalite warriors to be richly rewarded on their return. My orders will be obeyed as if the great tyrant himself had spoken the words, since few here know that I am not he. In the fullness of time the heroic survivors will be killed off, one by one, to ensure there is no chance of them spreading the ineffable corruption they were touched by as they fought against it.
The final crystalline pane that Vect examines is not like the others. This one shows a bloated, gibbous star against a storm-wracked sky. This is an Ilmaea, one of the captured suns that were enslaved to heat and light Commorragh long aeons in the past. The star appears to be caught within a gossamer net so fine that it is almost imperceptible against its constrained bulk. In reality the half-seen net is unthinkably vast and the star itself is shrunk to a fraction of its normal size, imprisoned in a pocket of di
mensional space like a prisoner in an oubliette.
Angry flares roil from the Ilmaea’s circumference, yet it is clearly quietening now with each black arc of fire weaker and smaller than the last – a reverse of its situation just minutes ago. Vect gestures at the crystal and the view shifts closer to one section of the net surrounding the Ilmaea. It is revealed to be a network of vast structures connected by billions of kilometres of cables. Flights of dark, dagger-like kabalite craft are diving from a towering edifice, a rain of black knives plunging towards Commorragh.
The supreme overlord straightens and stares intently at the scene. Archon Yllithian and his White Flames kabal have survived. I know that Vect’s suspicions about Yllithian run deep. He had ordered archon Aez’ashya of the Blades of Desire to destroy the White Flames. Clearly the task was beyond her. I sense that the true Asdrubael Vect is about to speak and I move to his side as softly and silently as a shadow.
‘Get Sythrac and Malys in here,’ the true Vect says, ‘and send for my Medusae’. A terrified slave gladly flees from the chamber to fetch two of the high archons waiting outside. My heart rises even further at the news that I will have a rare opportunity to see my one and only true friend. This is truly a day of wonders.
In the atrium outside Vect’s scrying chamber an assembly of the most powerful archons of Commorragh awaited the supreme overlord’s command. The lofty onyx walls of the atrium rose to a sloping ceiling inset with unbreakable ruby panels, letting through the shifting light of the Ilmaea even as they transformed it to the colour of blood. A pain-choir had been summoned to supply entertainment and light refreshment for the archons while they waited. The thin, white-skinned choirmaster was a haemonculus named Uverashki who was famed for his discretion and artistic sensibility. The thin, high wails of the choir never interrupted conversation or become atonal for an instant beneath Uverashki’s assured touch.
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