So, Sindiel the fool had come wandering into the monster’s lair without a plan, as if a single idiotic act could redeem the murder of companions and the betrayal of secrets he had sworn to keep for all eternity. It struck him that perhaps he was being motivated by some self-destructive urge to court death in an effort to assuage his guilt. He found the idea oddly cheering and pushed on with a lighter step.
By now his feet had carried him to a bell-shaped chamber with three other passages leading out of it. Down the left passage he could hear distant sounds like shrieks or skirling music or some mixture of both. From directly ahead blew warm, moist air that was heavy with the sickly-sweet scents of roasting meat. Neither sounds, smells nor lights emanated from the right-hand path, and after a moment’s hesitation Sindiel turned and went in that direction.
The passage twisted and sloped downwards, the rough-hewn walls occasionally lit by a dully-gleaming light gem. The walls sweated moisture that dribbled down into a small rivulet that was slowly eroding a channel in the centre of the passage. Sindiel avoided the sluggish liquid with distaste, trying not to think about what manner of effluvia might have seeped its way down here over the millennia.
He already felt he could confirm his worst fears. There was definitely a pervasive sense of wrongness in the catacombs, and it was more than just paranoia that was making Sindiel fear some hideous monstrosity lurked in every shadow. He stopped in his tracks, trying to make out the blurred form he could just see up ahead. The corridor appeared to open out and there was… something just visible where the light grew dimmer. It looked uncomfortably like an uneven, vaguely conical boulder made of flesh.
Sindiel turned to retreat but a sound made him stop short. Thin and distant, it plucked at his consciousness, sounding as much in his mind as in his ears. His first flush of terror drained away as he listened. It was a song being sung without words. There was nothing insidious or threatening about it as he had first feared, it was no net for the mind or soul except in the subtlest sense. It was a song filled with sadness and longing, with a faint but lingering undercurrent of hope.
Sindiel’s mind staggered. Surely only one soul in Commorragh could give voice to its suffering so poignantly as this. A pure heart. He had convinced himself that she had been killed and her soul devoured in some hideous orgy by Yllithian and his cohorts long ago, never quite knowing if he should hope that the worldsinger was really dead or not. He had not heard the worldsinger’s voice since Linthis had first introduced them at the World Shrine on Lileathanir. Happier times, of course, before he had decided to sell her into slavery for his own gain.
It had all seemed like a game at first, with Sindiel destined to be the winner. He couldn’t believe his luck when he’d found the message sphere, apparently dropped in haste during the aftermath of a sharp skirmish with the Dark Kin. Lately he found he wondered about that seemingly chance discovery, knowing the depths of Commorrite cunning as he did now. Without really knowing why he’d concealed the smooth sphere of chalcedony from his companions and began to study it without their knowledge. After much secret experimentation he’d found the sphere allowed him to communicate with an earnest-seeming prince from the dark city, a semi-legendary place of wickedness and depravity that had always exerted a deadly fascination on Sindiel.
Archon Yllithian had made Commorragh seem romantically dangerous and alluring. He made no attempt to conceal the fierce competition and the high stakes, nor the boldness and determination needed to thrive there. It had all been music to Sindiel’s jaded ears – freedom at last! An opportunity to live life to the full! Sindiel bitterly realised now that Yllithian had been artfully manipulating him, stringing him along with hints of the forbidden pleasures that came with mastery over others as he decried the dull, monastic strictures of the craftworlds.
Sindiel wondered how many other disaffected eldar had been drawn in by the siren call of Commorragh in similar ways down the centuries. Many, it seemed. Commorragh seethed with teeming multitudes more numerous than a thousand craftworlds, a million. From Sindiel’s perspective it seemed as if his entire race was gathered in this one city, the craftworlds and Exodites merely country cousins that were indulged despite their introverted ways. The proud remnants of eldar power and majesty resided firmly in Commorragh, dark though it might be.
When Yllithian had asked for something it was always a trifle, merely warnings of where the rangers travelled to avoid accidentally clashing with his warriors or news on where the resource-starved city could find certain ores and minerals it required. In exchange Yllithian took Sindiel into his confidence and explained his hopes of reuniting the disparate branches of the eldar; a process that must be begun by confronting the cruel and terrible tyrant that ruled Commorragh, Asdrubael Vect, and making him mend his wicked ways.
One day Yllithian had told him that the dark city needed a sacrifice to usher in the new age, a sacrifice that they could not make themselves. Commorragh needed a martyr to break its chains and only he, Sindiel, had the strength and clarity to help his enslaved brethren in their hour of need. From there Sindiel had done most of the work by convincing himself that one life being sacrificed to save billions was a small price to pay. At the time it had seemed an absurdly simple conclusion to reach, so clear. Only later did Sindiel, fool that he was, begin to understand the dark schemes he’d become ensnared in.
He’d thought they had killed the worldsinger in some daemon’s bargain to bring back El’Uriaq. But the worldsinger was alive, at least in some sense of the word. Sindiel wondered with sick horror whether she had been transformed into the lump of flesh ahead of him. That was apparently exactly the kind of twisted thing the haemonculi did with their spare time.
It took a long time for Sindiel to screw up enough courage to move forwards and investigate. He could think of a hundred reasons to retreat and only one to go on, but that one beat the rest hands down. He simply had to know. Eventually he drew his pistol for a little moral support and crept down the passage. He reached a point where he could see that the passage became a causeway across a darkly glistening pool. In the distance a single, broad pillar wider than a tower reared up to support a ceiling lost in the shadows above.
The fleshy boulder he had seen sat halfway between Sindiel and the pillar. He realised with a rush of relief that it seemed as if the singing was coming from beyond, from the tower-like pillar in the distance. Watching the disturbing object before him more closely Sindiel became convinced that it was a creature of some kind, a guardian sculpted by the haemonculi from living flesh. He could make out scarred skin stretched over bunched shoulders and thick haunches. The thing was squatting in the centre of the causeway, head tucked down and out of sight beneath slab-like arms. A miniature forest sprouted from its thick spine, rows of syringes and bio-pumps that were burbling quietly as they circulated whatever acidic ichor had been used to replace its blood. Sindiel felt absurdly relieved that he couldn’t see the thing’s face.
Sindiel edged out on to the causeway, his courage growing slightly when the thing didn’t react to the movement. He walked closer slowly, placing each foot carefully to produce not a whisper of sound. The guardian-creature shifted slightly and Sindiel froze. The worldsinger’s lament continued to weave through the still air, telling of a place where all life came together within the world spirit, where all anguish was eased and all enmities forgotten. Several deep breaths huffed from beneath the creature’s arms before the thing settled down again into what Sindiel hoped was a deeper slumber.
There was barely enough room on either edge of the causeway to squeeze past the creature without touching it but Sindiel wasn’t prepared to try wading into the pool instead. Something about the dark, still expanse seemed more dangerous to him than the guardian squatting before him on the causeway. The enigmatic tower and the plaintive sounds of the worldsinger’s song drew him onwards.
He moved with painstaking precision, mastering his fear to walk softly past the thing. He reached the halfway point safel
y and drew a little courage from that, horribly aware of the animal warmth and closeness of the guardian. He had just stepped onto the causeway beyond the creature when the singing stopped. Sindiel froze again, willing himself to become invisible.
The mountain of flesh beside him erupted with a roar, its tree-trunk arms flailing at the causeway with hammer-like blows. A face masked in black iron glared out at Sindiel from beneath hulking shoulders, its red, soulless eyes aflame with hatred of all living things. Sindiel shrieked and leapt backwards, his heels skidding at the brink of the sinister pool.
With a motion almost too quick to see the thing grabbed for him with spade-like hands. Sindiel tried to hurl himself to one side but couldn’t make his limbs move fast enough to evade the rampaging creature. It seized him and pulled him close to its scarred chest in a bone-crushing embrace. Iron-fanged jaws scraped through his rich clothing to reveal the fine mesh armour he wore beneath. A few seconds more and the clashing fangs would bite through into his flesh.
Sindiel’s pistol had flown from his hand in the instant he was grabbed. Now in desperation he tried to punch forwards with his pinned arm. The feeble impact of his knuckles barely scuffed the iron-hard flesh that they struck, but the device still bound to his wrist was infinitely more effective. Invisible strands of gossamer wire shot out of the concealed weapon, slipping through his sleeve, through the creature’s scarred hide and into its flesh as easily as if they were all made of water. The guardian roared again and dropped Sindiel, bruised and bleeding, onto the causeway so that it could clutch at the tiny wound he’d succeeded in making in its side. Syringes in its spine hissed as they began automatically injecting coagulants to seal the minor breach and stimulants to provoke the grotesque guardian into a berserker frenzy.
But the wound was deceptive. Sindiel’s hidden weapon was Motley’s parting gift to him in Iron Thorn: an ancient type seldom seen in the later ages of the eldar, called a harlequin’s kiss. In the brief instant that the kiss touched the guardian’s flesh, metres-long monomolecular filaments were sent looping throughout its body. As tough as it was the altered creature could not survive having its insides reduced to the consistency of soup by the unfurling wires. The hulking guardian sagged and then toppled from the causeway with a final, despairing groan, disappearing into the dark pool with barely a ripple.
Sindiel lay where he had fallen, gasping for breath. He waited helplessly for a rush of running feet and hands roughly seizing him, but no one came. Slowly his heart stopped hammering and he began to recover his wits. He cautiously moved his limbs one by one to find if any of them were broken. Wrenched and painful as they all were everything seemed to be fully functional, although his ribs were aflame with agony at every breath he took. After some minutes he rolled over and cautiously levered himself upright. He stood gazing along the remaining strip of causeway to the tower, wondering if the unseen worldsinger had deliberately tried to bring about his death. He tottered forwards, unsure whether he now sought absolution or vengeance.
A rough stair had been hacked out of the dull stone of the pillar. The stair rose in a precipitous spiral from its base and quickly disappeared from sight. Sindiel wearily began to climb upwards almost on hands and knees, his torn clothes flapping about him.
After a seemingly endless climb the stair opened onto a low landing that had been made by widening a great horizontal crack in the pillar. Many lamps were hung within, illuminating the grotto-like crack with a wash of soft white light. Of the few furnishings to be found there the only one of note was a richly carved bed of dark wood, or more accurately its occupant. The worldsinger Laryin sat in the bed watching Sindiel struggle up the last few steps into view. She was bound at the neck by a metal collar with a chain attached that was in turn stapled to the wall. Otherwise she appeared unharmed, though her eyes seemed like limpid pools of misery. All thoughts of vengeance fled from him at the sight.
‘It’s you,’ she said.
‘That’s right, me. The one that got you into this. I–’ Sindiel fell silent, unable to meet her eyes. He had rehearsed many scenarios in his mind but found them all in tatters now that he had reached the moment of truth.
‘I–I’m sorry,’ was all he could think to say.
To his surprise she laughed, not with bitterness or mockery but with a pure sound of joy that seemed like a breath of spring in that dark place. Sindiel blinked at her in surprise and that made her laugh again. He wondered if she had been driven insane by her experiences.
‘After all you’ve done you’re still an innocent,’ she said at last. ‘That gives me hope. You’re wondering if I’ve gone mad – no I haven’t. They can hurt me but they can’t touch me.’
‘Then we can escape! I’ll take you away from here!’ Sindiel said, his mind whirling with schemes to escape the catacombs and reach a webway portal unseen. But then what?
Laryin was shaking her head sadly, soft golden hair brushing the dark metal collar at her throat. ‘There’s no escape for me now. I’m committed to this path. I’ve become Morai-Heg and given birth to a monster. Without me to nurture him who knows what he might become?’
‘Nurture? How can you say such things?’ Sindiel choked. ‘Motley said there were always more choices, more chances to take…’
‘And I choose to stay. What El’Uriaq takes from me would otherwise come from a hundred thousand of my brothers and sisters. I’ve accepted that burden in their stead. The thing that is El’Uriaq owns me now. We are bound together as tyrant and pain-bride.’
Sindiel’s face was ashen, all the hopes that had blossomed in him a moment before withered utterly. The worldsinger looked at him sympathetically with eyes that seemed too old for her youthful-looking face.
‘Don’t be sad, Sindiel,’ she said earnestly. ‘I brought him to life and I hope to see him returned to death, for is that not the cycle of life? Birth and death? Your part in this is over, you should save yourself if you still can.’
‘You’re going to try and kill him?’ Sindiel asked in wonder.
‘I wouldn’t know how. His is the power of domination and destruction while mine is in the nurture of growing things. But life will find a way to end in death as it always will, and when it does I will be there to mourn its passing and sing of the hope of a happier rebirth.’
‘I was given this as a gift,’ Sindiel said as he came to a decision, ‘but I think that it was really meant to be given to you.’ He unstrapped the harlequin’s kiss from his wrist and laid it on the edge of the bed. ‘Press the narrowest part of it against the target and the weapon will do the rest.’
Laryin looked at the elongated black diamond shape but did not touch it. ‘Is that what you used to kill the guardian?’ she asked eventually.
‘Yes. Did you use the guardian to try to kill me?’
‘No, it was just in such torment that I sang to soothe it. When I sensed someone coming near with purpose in their heart I stopped and hoped they would put it out of its misery.’ The worldsinger smiled sweetly up at Sindiel. ‘And you did. I’m sorry if it hurt you.’
‘Should I put you out of your misery too?’ he asked her quietly.
‘No! My ending now won’t solve what has been begun. I will follow the path to the end, bitter though it might be.’
Sindiel looked away for a long time in silence, only finding the bravery to meet her eyes when his own were blurred with tears. ‘How is it that you can forgive me after what I’ve done?’
Laryin was silent for a long while before answering.
‘You know I can’t forgive you, Sindiel, you’re the only one that can do that.’
But Sindiel, with the last of his courage spent, had already fled.
CHAPTER 17
A TRIUMPHAL BANQUET (THE HANDMAID’S PROMISE)
‘Don’t speak ill of father Shaimesh, he is a friend and ally to all in need. The old and the weak he lends his strength to equally, and lovers too call upon him at need. Where would the widow and the orphan find their bite if not in his f
angs? He is the gate keeper and the path maker, and he holds the key to many paths to oblivion, full as many as his forked tongues…’
The fool Mecuto to the Broken King, in Ursyllas’s Dispossessions
To descend into El’Uriaq’s realm was to enter a land of faerie. For weeks slaves had been feverishly gnawing floatstone and cracking bedrock to enact a transformation of the darkling catacombs that almost beggared belief. Where there had been narrow paths and blind ways there were now wide halls and passages opening to richly appointed chambers furnished with delicate chairs and tables of ivory. Lofty ceilings were supported by tapering pillars that reached up into the darkness, sloping runoffs had been cut into low steps, bottomless pits had been bridged. A hundred thousand lamps were suspended in the air lighting the way, their brilliance pushing back the reluctant shadows behind translucent hangings of many soft hues. In their golden glow El’Uriaq’s excavations seemed rich and welcoming, a place of wonder and miracles.
The slaves that had laboured so diligently to effect the metamorphosis of foetid dungeon to noble palace were still present, after a fashion. Their hides hung from the walls in stunning profusion, their bones had been cunningly wrought into new forms to serve their master in death as they had in life. Of their flesh, their blood and their souls there was no sign, but an aura of death and suffering clung to the golden halls of El’Uriaq’s hidden kingdom.
For months now the subtle tendrils of El’Uriaq’s influence had glided outwards into the eternal city. His faceless agents had been moving among esoteric cults and obscure kabals reminding them of their forgotten duties. Guarded approaches had been made to the power-hungry and leaders had been bribed or replaced by the hundred. A thousand delicate movements were orchestrated to shift power or allegiance away from Asdrubael Vect. The great tyrant still knew nothing of El’Uriaq’s return, but he had certainly sensed the movement of another predator in Commorragh’s political jungle. Recently inter-kabal fighting had intensified as Vect sought to reassert control. Vect struck blindly but often, and some of his blows fell true upon the slaves and property of El’Uriaq’s followers. Fear gripped the city, and El’Uriaq’s cohorts most of all. Just as the noose started to tighten the old emperor of Shaa-dom sent the coded call for his chosen to come to him.
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