Ghost Warrior, page 6
The Oracular was an open space near to the top of the hub, higher than the residence spires around it, seemingly within hand’s reach of the stars beyond the protective fields of Iyanden.
From the centre of the plateau there grew a tree, of crystal bark and bole shot through with veins of red and yellow, capillaries of the infinity circuit. It was hard to look upon the tips of its branches, where the splitting bough shifted and changed in the blink of an eye. The Tree of the Crone. A living map of the ever-changing future. Upon the branches hung dark leaves, in whose black reflections could been seen glimpses of events yet to pass.
It was not this, however, that was the purpose of the Oracular, for scrying the fates was conducted elsewhere in the hub. The Oracular was a place for the sharing of visions, so that together the seers could explore as one, working within a psychically constructed alternate reality.
Waiting there was the seer council of Iyanden. If ever a collective noun were required to describe an institution that prides itself on its vision and leadership, whilst simultaneously peddling riddle-strewn ambiguities, then seer council fits the need precisely. Here was the reason Iyanna had been drawn to the dead, for they no longer harboured mortal ego and ambition. The five senior members stood in a line in front of the Tree of the Crone, as though arranged for trial, staves in hand, faces hidden behind the jewelled masks of their ghost helms. Others watched from either side, warlocks and lesser seers among them.
Dhentiln Firesight took a step forwards, assuming the role of speaker and authority for the council, as was his custom; he would argue his right as the longest-serving member, though period of service is no sure gauge of wisdom. He had little affection for the Ynnari, who he held in blame for the turmoil and incursions that had beset Iyanden even while the craftworld attempted to recover from the ravages of the Great Devourer. In this, he was perhaps not wholly deluded, for Yvraine and her followers were as much a lodestone for danger as they were the embodiment of hope.
‘You deign to attend at our request,’ said Dhentiln, which was a bold opening considering that he supposedly required the assistance of Iyanna. Humility has never been the strongest trait of the aeldari, at any age or from any kindred. ‘I hope we did not disturb you from some overdue reverie or urgent yearning.’
‘Speak your piece, or hold your peace,’ Iyanna replied, banging the butt of her spear against the ruby floor. ‘You overstep your bounds to issue such demands of my time when there is still so much to be rebuilt.’
Firesight tilted his head a fraction of an angle, the very barest admission of an apology it was possible to give.
‘My thanks for your attendance,’ the seer mustered.
The other psykers separated, forming a ring around the chief of their order and the head spiritseer. Iyanna fought back the moment of alarm, assuring herself that had they desired ill intent for her, the farseers would have dispatched warlocks to ensure her attendance in person, rather than a mental summons.
Stroked by their thoughts, the Tree of the Crone thrummed with unleashed psychic power, the starlit shadows of its branches creeping over the red floor to form a pattern that linked the assembled seers, with Iyanna and Dhentiln at its heart.
A coldness swept into the last scion of the House of Arienal, a touch of the dead she knew well.
She closed her eyes for no more than half a heartbeat, but when she opened them the Oracular had disappeared. She and Firesight stood alone in a barren dome, the vast expanse filled with nothing but flat, grey sands. The artificial haze of the dome itself was lost in distance, a vague blue smear on the edge of consciousness.
Iyanna’s attention was drawn to the grains at her feet, and those around the boots of the farseer. The sand shuddered, dancing rhythmically to a pulse she could not feel, each perturbation forming a new structure, slowly accruing and spreading outwards from them. The coalescence gathered pace, forming walls and ceiling around them, blandly sketching out adjoining rooms until these were hidden by flowing curtains and closing gateways.
Finally, colour. Like the wash of an artist’s brush, vibrant hues painted upon the interior landscape, in pastel blues and ochres, patterns of sharper red and green upon the walls.
Then, with vertigo-inducing speed, the image fell away; or perhaps it was the aeldari witnesses that ascended, until they looked down upon a drifting craftworld. She could see forests and mountains through the domes, and judged that it was less than a quarter the size of Iyanden, though still large enough to be considered continent-sized on many planets.
The whole process was dramatic, one might even say needlessly theatrical, but Iyanna was impressed.
‘Where are we looking?’
‘We do not know,’ confessed Dhentiln. ‘Look at the stars.’
Iyanna adjusted her focus, so that the spray of stars beyond the craftworld came into sharp view. They formed a rune, highlighted by distant galaxies and nebulae. There was no mistaking the meaning of the sigil: it was the rune of Ynnead.
‘I do not understand,’ said Iyanna. ‘A craftworld of the dead?’
‘A craftworld from the dead,’ corrected Dhentiln. ‘Look upon the devices marked upon the prow.’
Iyanna did as he asked, for a moment unable to decipher the interlocking bars and swirls. The lines were arranged in archaic fashion, at odds with the flow of runes she had learnt as a child. Haltingly, she translated.
‘Zaisuthra…’ she murmured. It took a moment for her to recognise the name. ‘Zaisuthra! It disappeared just after the Fall and has not been heard of since. Some say it passed beyond the galactic veil, others say it was destroyed, or devoured by the Great Abyss. Zaisuthra is a myth.’
‘So is Ynnead.’
She could not tell if his remark was a barb or not, but chose to take it thus on the balance of former evidence.
‘Is this some kind of warning? That Iyanden will die the same as Zaisuthra?’
In reply, Dhentiln merely held out his hand, for Iyanna to take it. Such enigmatic gestures are the foodstuff of farseers and Iyanna was in no mood to pander to her companion’s sense of drama.
‘Just tell me.’
‘I need to show you,’ insisted Dhentiln with a flick of his fingers, ‘if you are to believe.’
Reluctantly she slipped her gloved hand into his, and at the moment of contact their thoughts entwined. She heard a distant voice, but it was not that of Firesight. It was deeper, emanating from the image of the craftworld below.
Those that had gone, have now returned.
Even as the psychic message infiltrated her thoughts Iyanna was convinced. Ageless weight and depth carried with the communication, of such enormity that it could not have been fabricated. The broadcast was like a beacon, resonating through the spurs of the webway, but carrying only a short distance as measured between stars.
‘It is not without precedent,’ said Dhentiln. ‘Has not Altansar been returned after long suffering?’
‘It is possible the Great Rift has freed them from some similar fate,’ she agreed. She thought on the message a little longer. ‘They are near at hand. The psychic pulse is very localised. Was it intended for Iyanden?’
Before the farseer could answer Iyanna, another realisation dawned. A thought that set her heart trembling and weakened her limbs.
‘The House of Arienal…’ she whispered.
‘Indeed,’ said Dhentiln. ‘A branch of your House was lost with Zaisuthra. This is why we need you to make contact. A connection that they will recognise.’
‘Make contact?’ The thought tightened in the pit of Iyanna’s stomach.
‘Yes. We think they are asking for help, but they do not respond to our attempts at psychic connection. We hope that one of their own, one from the bloodline of Arienal will persuade them. We will send you to Zaisuthra.’
CHAPTER 6
A SHARED AGENDA
It had been some time since Iyanna had used her seer skills to commune with the living rather than the dead. She had become so well-versed in walking in the shadows, the brightness of the star-spanning webway offended her senses at first. Lying upon her plain cot, eyes closed, she let the heat and light and energy and movement of the gathering mass that was the webway wash over her. She did not even try to form thoughts, but simply allowed the matrix to become part of her, its power flowing into and around her spirit.
She felt the twitch of her spear in its cabinet, like a pinprick on the skein. Iyanna ignored its siren call, for this was a journey she needed to make alone. Not simply for her ego, but also for more clandestine reasons.
Though she was, in theory, free to associate with whomsoever she pleased, to come and go from Iyanden as a free citizen of the Asuryani, the seer council would look dimly upon what she intended. They would never openly try to thwart the machinations and movements of the Ynnari – if only to avoid making an enemy of Eldrad Ulthran, who had proven himself far more resilient than foes more powerful than Iyanden’s much depleted guiding party. Even so, they would curtail Iyanna if they knew that she communicated her movements abroad, thus it was as a thief in the darkness rather than a torch bearer that she finally allowed her full consciousness to slip into the psychic stream.
Her course was, for the most part, straightforward. She knew not where Yvraine and her cohort currently could be found, but the presence of Eldrad Ulthran was a weight upon the skein that none could ignore. His were the fingers that twisted a thousand strands of fate to his purpose, a meddler who would not baulk at matching arcane wit against even the Changer of the Ways.
If anything, avoiding Eldrad was far harder than finding him.
Like a featherseed drifting from the bough of its tree, Iyanna let her thoughts fall away from her physical shell. Form released mind, mind released thought. Thought alone drifted on the currents of the aetheric link.
In time the skein formed, countless strands and knots and splits of lives and fates, of every sentient creature in the galaxy – and few beyond and less than sentient. The vast mass made up the foundation of fate, the unending cycle of birth, reproduction and death that sustained the whole mass. Occasionally, one of these seemingly inconsequential threads deviated from the warp and weft of destiny, to briefly fling out a loop or frayed end, causing momentary discord before ending or falling back within the ceaseless binding of history.
Other cords, stronger and longer, the lives of the great and the heroic, the planetary rulers, army generals and fleet commanders, the psykers with the power to break cities and the warlords that would ruin worlds.
She felt the scrutiny of farseers like beams of light crossing the dark void, scintillating and piercing as they probed the skein for means to guide their far-flung craftworlds to the most favourable future. Where their gaze paused for a moment, the threads hummed with life, keening for attention as the farseers perused the pages of destiny unfolding before them. Each story was laid bare: the rise and fall of empires, the myths and legends of peoples across time and space, every blossoming tale examined as to its import to Iyanden or Ulthwé, Biel-tan or Saim Hann and other craftworlds besides. The majority were discarded, vibrating like the plucked string of an instrument before falling to grey obscurity.
Into the gaps and gloom slipped Iyanna.
She filtered her thoughts along the fates of menials working the palace-peak of a human hive city, masked by the swarm of innocuous drudgery. Before the light of their master’s destiny betrayed her presence, she danced across to the shuttle pilots bringing in goods to a starport, and from there to the labourers, caterers, slaves and a million other pointless lives of humanity.
The humans made good cover for her glittering progress, the fate of trillions ground beneath uncaring bureaucracy, milled through the stones of ten thousand wars, the dust of their souls scattered upon the tombs of long-dead heroes. An umbra of remorseless mediocrity shielded her within its bosom, the great wash of unremarked mankind a blackness far denser even than the cursed Shadow in the Warp of the Kraken.
Her thoughts gained speed as she distanced herself from the fates of the Iyandeni.
For an age, the craftworld of Ulthwé had turned about the visions and will of a single seer – the inestimable Eldrad Ulthran. Yet all ages come to an end, and Eldrad’s meddling and his thwarted attempts to bring about the rise of Ynnead had left him few allies outside the Ynnari. He had been cast out, riven of rank and influence, and for a longest time had wandered as many of the Ynnari do, seeking some fresh purpose.
In time, divides heal a little and though never more to be welcomed, nor accepted into the seer council, Eldrad was allowed to return to Ulthwé on occasion on the agreement that he would no more attempt to be puppet master of the aeldari. Such had been the assertions made, but Eldrad was the canniest of minds and even as wars were launched against the Dark Powers and alliances made and broken with the humans, he had inserted himself back into the affairs of his home, and through them had started to wield fresh influence on the wider galaxy.
Such was the state of affairs when Eldrad invited Yvraine to his private chambers in anticipation of Iyanna’s contact. He had been expecting her arrival and had prepared trustworthy messengers among the Harlequins to take the Hand of Darkness to Guilliman. This task complete, thankfully without coming close to the artefact himself and all the lures of curiosity that came with it, Eldrad had returned his pondering to the raising of Ynnead. The fates were in motion again and from Iyanden he had seen that Iyanna would attempt contact, and desired Yvraine to be present also.
He could not reveal as such to the Opener of the Seventh Way. If there is one thing that seers value above enigmatic pronouncements and the veneer of otherworldly guidance, it is an occasion to remind others of their supposedly infallible foresight. To wait in expectation of an event yet to occur is to the farseer as delicious as a cup of the best wine, reinforcing not only their appearance of superiority but also disarming those wishing to contact them. Even so, it is considered crass for a farseer to answer questions before they are asked – and indeed doing so can cause strange ripples in the cause-and-effect foundations of the skein – so it was with silent patience that Eldrad Ulthran awaited the psychic visitation of his ally from Iyanden.
He had brought with him a Sphere of Projection, allowing him to act as a conduit to the incoming psychic manifestation of the spiritseer. It sat on a silver stand between him and Yvraine, not quite obscuring their view of each other, its pale surface dappled with pastel blue and grey. Through Eldrad’s runes and the sphere’s carefully aligned crystal heart, Iyanna would appear in the thoughts of others – and since perception is very much the greater part of reality, that effectively meant she would, for a short time, be in the chamber with them.
Iyanna could not help but enjoy a few precious moments of unburdened selfishness. The weight of Iyanden lay far behind, the responsibility of her coming mission still lay ahead. And between, skimming and prancing across the lives of mortals and immortals alike, Iyanna remembered again the passion and excitement of her first time upon the skein.
For a short while she gloried in the sudden sensation of freedom. It had been many passes since the Great Rift had opened and her labours had multiplied a scorefold and more; a hundred orbits of the Emperor’s throneworld about its unremarkable star since the renegade Abaddon had breached the defences around the Eye of Terror and his minions and allies had unleashed terror and destruction across the skies.
Her thoughts turned her attention to the Womb of Destruction, that bleeding heart torn from the centre of the skein. In the roiling darkness there lay the ruins of the aeldari civilisation, the birthplace of the Great Enemy. She Who Thirsts had waxed strong in the time since the Great Rift had torn asunder the real universe and spewed forth the polluting energy of the warp.
And through it was an echo, a persistent thought that she could not ignore, growing in her mind.
Coheria, the moon that no longer was. The site of Eldrad’s attempted resurrection of Ynnead, soured by the intervention of the Space Marines. She could still feel the ripples of that disastrous ritual, washing back and forth across the skein. She could not be sure, but also could not ignore the possibility that Coheria’s demise had been one of the events that had ushered in the Great Rift, one of the punctures in reality that had become an immense rip between dimensions.
Eldrad had shown himself capable of risking everything for a chance at victory, and certainly he was willing for others to pay a high price for his successes. If the humans ever knew what calamities had beset them, what wars had slain billions of their number because of his intervention… Worlds snuffed out, generations lost to Eldrad’s scheming.
She admired him.
There was no binary morality, of good and evil. The only absolute was survive or die. The aeldari had clung to survival far past their allotted span, but such had not been achieved with kind words and well wishes. War was commerce and death the currency in these times – in all times since the Fall. Eldrad spent wisely the coin of others’ lives, and Iyanna herself was willing, if not happy, that her people should sacrifice themselves for a greater goal.
Death came to everyone. For many, it rendered their lives meaningless, their ambitions nought but vainglory, their achievements forgotten in a generation. Her family had literally died for nothing, extinguished in an act of spite. The Ynnari had another cause. No death would pass in vain. No life lived would be wasted.
Ynnead was the only way. In death the aeldari would find peace.
The scale of the threat and the task at hand quashed all lightness of spirit. The oppressive presence of She Who Thirsts smothered the last vestiges of Iyanna’s delight, crushing the flutter of hope in her breast.
Hitching a ride on the destiny of an autarch of Ulthwé, Iyanna allowed the eternal matrix to carry her thoughts to Eldrad. There was still much work to be done.
