by Gav Thorpe
‘Life’s too long to spend it being miserable.’
9
‘It’s too dangerous,’ announced Laurennin. ‘Reaching the planet is going to be impossible.’
‘You cannot be serious,’ said Taerathu. ‘Asurmen said that billions of our people will die if we do not rescue that starship.’
‘He could be wrong,’ said Laurennin. He darted a look at the immobile figure standing in the corner of the room. He squirmed as he uttered the words, seeming to hate himself for voicing them but forced by his cowardice to do so. ‘Or exaggerating, or both. How can one starship be that important?’
‘He is the Hand of Asuryan,’ Neridiath said, her sharp voice cutting across the debate for the first time since the crew had gathered to discuss their new arrival.
The merchant and Neridiath’s crew sat and stood around the largest of the Joyous Venture’s three communal chambers. Fael played with Manyia while Neridiath did her best to stop the debate becoming an outright argument. They had arrived at their destination, sliding from the webway into the outer system so that Kaydaryal’s sensors could locate the enemy ships. There seemed little chance of bypassing them to reach the crashed battleship and several of the crew had baulked at the danger, despite being called upon to do so by a bona fide legend.
The Phoenix Lord stood to one side, saying nothing. His presence lent an air of gravitas to the discussion, as though fate itself hinged on every word. It was not altogether a welcome sensation and Neridiath felt nervous under his scrutiny.
‘Do you really think you can live with yourself if we just turn tail and run?’ asked Fael. ‘You want to give up just because there might be some risk?’
‘Some risk?’ Tharturin was in Laurennin’s camp and stood behind the merchant’s chair, one hand on his shoulder. ‘We cannot fight warships, each of which is more than capable of destroying us, and we have to get past them twice. That’s assuming that we can find the battleship and that it can actually take off when we get there.’
‘I can’t imagine these ships can outrun us,’ said Taerathu. ‘For a start they would need to build up momentum from orbit – we could be halfway back to the webway before they’ve even broken out of the gravity thrall.’
‘What about missiles and torpedoes? Can we outrun them?’ said Laurennin.
‘You are all missing the point,’ Asurmen said suddenly. The room fell silent as they all waited on his next words. ‘The battleship is capable of defending itself and destroying the enemy vessels. Your reluctance is unhelpful, your concern a needless obstacle. In fact, your compliance is unnecessary. I have not asked for your aid, only the pilot’s. It is her decision. Neridiath, we waste precious time with this indulgence.’
‘We have been called and must answer, said Neridiath, stirred by Asurmen’s prompting. It was hard to argue with a legend. ‘The world was once ours, we need not risk open void. The webway extends through the system, to the ground itself if need be. We will use the tendril to get into orbit and then emerge to scan the surface and find this battleship. Kaydaryal, join me in the control pod.’
She ignored the protests that followed her out of the room, the matrix pulsing with conflicting emotions of excitement and concern. Despite their misgivings, the crew complied and took up their positions while Neridiath assumed the piloting duties and Kaydaryal interfaced with the scanners.
The pilot pulsed a message out into the ship’s matrix, seeking Asurmen. A heartbeat later she felt the telltale chill of his presence, albeit psychically rather than physically.
‘You said that humans had attacked the ship we are seeking,’ Neridiath remarked. ‘Those we detected were not human in origin.’
Of a sort, the Phoenix Lord replied. The humans are under the sway of a dark mistress sworn to the Powers of Chaos. It seems that she desires that which lies beneath the surface of the world, an ancient weapon from before the Fall. It is the promise of this prize that has bought her an army. The humans have a name for them: the Vanguard. They are like a plague in certain parts of the human-held galaxy, following no greater cause than to fight on behalf of the Dark Gods with whichever champion rises amongst them. They are cosmic flotsam. The craftworld of Thiestha was nearly destroyed by them, and earned them the name the Flesh-thieves. They have brought with them fragments of an ancient weapon, a device of Chaos that should have been destroyed. Chance, or fate, brings them to this world at the same time as the expedition from Anuiven.
‘You never mentioned the starship is from our craftworld!’
Is it important? My desire is to benefit all of our people. The politics of the craftworlds is not my concern. The rescue of the ship is a catalyst, not an end – the consequences of what happens here reach far beyond the demesne of Anuiven.
‘You are right, this is more important than the affairs of a single craftworld. It doesn’t change the fact that the enemy ships are clearly something more than I was expecting. There is no way we’ll be able to get a starship past them.’
The plan is sound. Follow the webway as far as you can and we will exit close to the moon. We will move into material space when the satellite’s position shields us from detection.
Faced with such conviction, she was left in no doubt about their course of action. Neridiath pushed away the psychic link and concentrated on guiding the Joyous Venture along the narrowing webway tunnel that curved towards the system’s major planets.
It took most of the rest of the cycle to traverse the star system to their destination and Neridiath was tired. An abrupt message from Kaydaryal brought her back to her full senses.
‘A taint on the webway,’ the navigator hissed beside her. Kaydaryal’s thoughts projected across the ship. ‘Fael, get to your post.’
Neridiath quickly took stock of the situation. Kaydaryal’s assessment was correct, there was some kind of warp-leak infecting the terminus of the webway ahead. She slowed the Joyous Venture, unsure what to do.
We have to turn back, said Laurennin. That is Chaos-taint! Would you doom us all for vanity?
‘We only need to pass through for a moment,’ said Neridiath. ‘If we leave the webway now, we’ll be detected before we reach the moon.’
It is the Chaos vessels. Asurmen’s thoughts were calm and reassuring. They exist partially within the warp and their presence buckles the wards that guard the webway.
Neridiath accelerated again, allowing the Joyous Venture to reach top speed. She tapped into Kaydaryal’s mind to look ahead at the encroaching Chaos corruption around the exit gate. Normally she would not leave the webway at full speed, there was too much danger of colliding with a celestial object in real space. The tendrils of dark energy seeping through the fabric of the webway sent a chill through her, leaving no option but to power through and hope for the best.
She placed her faith in Asurmen, and the belief that he would not have brought them here simply to die, his mission unfulfilled. Where Asurmen walked, victory followed. That was the legend.
The thickening roots of the Chaos incursion suddenly sprouted thorny vines that speared along the webway towards the approaching ship. Neridiath reacted, detaching the matrix from the psychic wall to drift through the webway gate, but she was too late. A fragment of the Chaos energy lodged in the matrix like a thorn from a bush pricking skin.
‘Get it out!’ she snapped, her thoughts moving to Fael. Her companion initiated the psychic defences, shutting down every system across the ship except life support. Silvery energy flowed from the matrix core, cleansing, burning the infiltrating motes of corrupting power. The taint was contained but the threat was not. The Chaos-thorn grew a lashing psychic tail, latching onto the black tendrils of its parent taint, slowing the Joyous Venture.
Neridiath could not access the engines without feeding more psychic energy to the shrivelling Chaos-thorn and the starship slowed to an agonising stop as more tendrils enveloped it, the webway gate
fully dilated just a short distance ahead.
‘Push through!’ snarled Fael. ‘Push through! It can’t hurt us once we’re in r–’
He did not finish what he was saying. Something noxious hurled itself through the matrix and into his mind, splaying out through his thoughts like a virulent infection. Neridiath cut off contact with Fael out of instinct and physically recoiled, the piloting harness unfolding to deposit her on the deck of the pod. Fael was dead in the embrace of his gunner’s couch, eyes black pools, his skin dry like dead leaves.
The walls were fading, the warp energy leaking through to pool like water on the floor. Something was forming from the sludge, a grotesque humanoid figure made of blackness and blood.
Run!
Asurmen’s impulse flared through Neridiath. She turned and grabbed Kaydaryal, who was stumbling from her cradle-point. The two of them fled the control pod as more daemons manifested behind them.
The two of them headed down to the main deck, almost falling over each other as they descended the steep stairway. Kaydaryal headed aft, seeking the others, but Neridiath turned back towards the prow, to her chambers. The floors and ceiling of the passageways were contorting, shapes moving beneath the surface like trapped air bubbles. Here and there the bubbles cracked open like obscene eggs, grasping hands and tentacles forming from the pus and bile within.
Neridiath felt like screaming, but she held the terror at bay with a single thought: Manyia.
The door to her personal chambers cycled open at her approach and Neridiath dashed inside. Her daughter was where she had been left, in her cot. The floor beneath was like a dark pool and the bed was sinking, the legs disappearing into inky shadow. Manyia was waking, disturbed by the deadening of the matrix.
Her fear lending speed to her thoughts and deeds, Neridiath waded into the blackness that had consumed the floor of the room. She snatched Manyia from the cot and turned back, but it was like walking through tar. Eyes materialised in the surface of the warp-pool and claws and maws opened, flexing and gurgling.
Reaching the doorway, Neridiath dragged herself free, only to find the route aft blocked. Daemon apparitions thronged the corridor, at least a dozen of them. Though the matrix was shut down, Neridiath caught the faint wash of death and terror from the other crew across the Joyous Venture. The ship was being overrun.
Something hot touched the back of her neck and she glanced over her shoulder to see a monstrous fiend heaving itself out of the mire that had been her rooms. Slug-like, but with spindly arms and rows of jointed legs, the daemon-thing formed out of the oozing Chaos filth.
They were trapped. A panicked thought caused the chamber door to slide shut, but Neridiath knew it was only a physical barrier, no defence against the immaterial invaders. Manyia was whimpering and wide-eyed with fear. They were both going to die here.
No sooner had the thought come to Neridiath than a white fire blazed along the corridor.
Asurmen was there, sword in his hand, his shuriken vambraces sending slashing salvoes through the daemons. He looked different here, where the warp overlap was tearing apart what was real and what was dream. To Neridiath it appeared a white-clad knight cut and thrust through the mass of daemons, the blade in his hands a burning pale flame that fed on the energy of the daemons it touched.
She saw his face, or the imagining of his face. He was handsome, his jaw set in determination, eyes piercing blue points of light. The image faded, leaving the blue armoured figure she had known since an early age.
The corridor was empty, the daemons banished for the moment. Where Asurmen passed, the taint recoiled from his presence, like a plant touched by too much sun, withering and flaking.
‘We have to run,’ said Asurmen, taking her wrist in his hand. She flinched at the touch but found it oddly warm and comforting.
‘Can you kill them?’ she asked.
‘The ship is trapped. It is lost. We must leave in my vessel.’
‘What about the others?’ Neridiath pulled her hand free as Asurmen set off down the corridor, blade glowing in his other hand.
‘I need you to live,’ the Phoenix Lord replied. ‘No other. We have to escape and save the battleship.’
Neridiath was frozen to the spot, horrified by the thought of abandoning her companions. She was broken from the trance as a wet exhalation flowed through the opening door behind her. With a shriek she started to run. Asurmen forged ahead of her with half a dozen long strides.
They headed down, towards the berth where Asurmen’s ship was latched onto the Joyous Venture. Daemons assailed them, some shapeless, clawed and fanged monstrosities, others humanoid with cyclopean faces and rusted blades. Asurmen never broke pace, cutting down every intruder that crossed his path. Neridiath felt herself dragged along in his wake, drawn through the nightmarishly contorting ship by the force of his will and the strength of his sword arm.
A cluster of daemons was crowded around the boarding portal, kept at bay by a shining light from beyond the connecting chamber. The barrier wavered as the daemons lashed their anger upon it, bright cobalt coruscations thrown up by every blow.
Asurmen fell upon the daemons with his blade, each stroke felling an attacker, every movement precise and deadly.
The Phoenix Lord grabbed Neridiath’s arm and almost tossed her through the portal. As she passed the shield around his ship she had a sensation of falling. She almost tripped as she found the deck beneath her feet after a moment. Asurmen stepped backwards through the psychic barrier, firing shurikens at some unseen foe further along the passageway.
Come aboard.
The ship’s words entered Neridiath’s thoughts, a command rather than an invitation. She plunged through the docking link and onto the Phoenix Lord’s vessel. Asurmen followed on her heel, his blade hissing with vibrant life. The moment they were both aboard the portal sliced closed and Neridiath felt a lurch as the ship detached itself from the Joyous Venture.
‘Hurry, we cannot withstand the incursion much longer,’ said Asurmen. It took a moment for Neridiath to realise he was speaking to the ship. ‘We must break free of the webway.’
II
Gently placing his fingers on the veined surface of the contact pad, Illiathin allowed his mind to flow into the soaring dream-tree. The tree was as white as snow, with deeply ridged bark. But in the depths of those folds glittered traces of crystallised sap. In places the crystals grew like fungus, fronds and pods that stood out from the pale surface. A branch contorted around his body, supporting him as he relaxed, letting his mind go further, drifting into the heartwood of the dream-tree.
Laughter drew him on, up through the tree and into the higher boughs. From here he could feel the wind swaying his branches, and the moisture on his leaves. The mists swirled as limbs spread out in the dawning sun, and he felt the surge of strength as heat touched upon the leaves.
There were others with him, each sharing in the dream-tree’s awakening. Some, like Illiathin, were alive still, using the contact pads to commune with the psychic tree. Many were dead, in body at least. Their remains had been buried beneath the island-spanning root system of the dream-tree, their spirits taken up into it as a normal tree would siphon water.
There were hundreds in this dream-tree alone, seeking a form of immortality. Illiathin could feel them, pulses of energy alongside his, not quite aware or conscious, as much memory as thought. But they lived on in essence, granted an eternity to continue to experience the universe, albeit it second-hand.
Illiathin shared no such desire himself. Life was long enough, even longer if he wanted to regrow or join the growing numbers of the reborn. The natural span of his people, already measured in hundreds of stellar orbits, had been extended tenfold, a hundredfold even, by the technologies they had invented over the aeons. The gift of Vaul, the knowledge of artifice, had made them masters of the stars and their own bodies.
Illia
thin was not like those that embraced longevity for its own sake. There were some eldar that sought to outlive even the stars, being rebirthed again and again and again down the ages. Illiathin had no time for a universe without stars. What a cold, empty place that would be. The Immortal Intellects, as they were sometimes known, argued that thought and will existed in isolation to the physical. They alone would know how the universe would end, and were willing to endure eternity to see it.
Not for Illiathin such a tedious existence. He was no sensationalist, like the star-riders or the war-thieves and void-chasers, but one life was hard enough to fill with meaningful interaction. The thrill of danger held no allure for him, but he had lived long enough that the simple pleasures he knew were starting to bore him.
On the other end of the scale, he wondered how the lesser races coped, with illness ravaging them, and the predations of age making their bodies infirm long before it took its last toll. They seemed so desperate to explore, to battle, to breed. Their time was so short, their lives so pointlessly brief.
There were some amongst the eldar that envied the lower creatures this vigorous existence, extolling the virtues of toil and endeavour. The worst were the doomsayers. Joyless pessimists, their forecasts of a collapse in society and civilisation would be ludicrous if there were not so many of them. They had become like a plague in recent times, and now the disillusioned youths had some politically powerful sympathisers.
Worlds were being seeded in their cause, on the far fringe of civilisation, close to the barbarian species. Such a waste of resources, but if the doomsayers wanted to run away to the darkest corners of the galaxy to live out their time in miserable labour and crude hardship, that was their prerogative. They were just as entitled to their own particular mania as the bodyshifters, warpwalkers, turnskins and the other vagabonds and fanatics.
