Ghost Warrior, page 7
While others debated the course of fate, the Visarch sought solitude. The nagging opinions of seers had always irritated him, though he knew himself well enough to understand that it was his inability to shape his fate that had contributed in major part to the wanderlust that had ruled much of his life. With Ynnead, and in the company of Yvraine in particular, he had found a peculiar sort of peace. A contentment that had eluded him in the service of war as an exarch and a life of mercenary killing when an incubi hierarch, but was now to be found as a servant of the dead.
Feeling prying eyes and minds on him in the domes of the seers, he sought more familiar environs where honest enquiry did not travel. To the shrines of Khaine.
He knew little enough of Ulthwé or its layout, but the beating iron heart of the Bloody-Handed God was a beacon to his thoughts, drawing him across the great plates and domes, across mountains and down the levels to the core of the craftworld. Deep within the structure of Ulthwé lay the shrines of the aspect warriors, a maze of sub-domes linked by dark tunnels and bright highways, leading to vistas and temples he could only guess at.
But if he was expecting welcome, he was mistaken.
At the first arch stood a warrior in the magnificent bone-coloured armour and bright mane-crest of the Howling Banshees, her executioner blade held across her chest. A wave of antipathy greeted the Visarch when he stopped, the pulse of hostility enough to still the ritual greeting on his tongue. The exarch’s murderous gaze followed him along the corridor as he moved on, lingering until he came into view of another – a black-clad Dark Reaper exarch stood beneath the rune of his shrine, which translated as the Broken Storm. His missile launcher pointed unwaveringly at the interloper.
Here, too, the Visarch was met with cold contempt. The chill hatred of the Dark Reaper crackled along the buried matrix of the infinity circuit, making itself felt at the edge of thought. A shudder of distaste trembled through the psychic network, arranged web-like through the many shrines of the craftworld, the throne room of the slumbering Avatar of Khaine at its heart. Ulthwé was an ancient domain, the aspect temples numbered in their hundreds, and ill-intent flowed towards the Visarch from all of them.
Traitor, the meme-thought snarled. Traitor!
Along the circuit he could feel others regarding him, standing at the thresholds of their sacred places. He could see many of them, weapons bared even as their hostility was plain to sense on the psychic matrix. They were arrayed in all the colours and styles of the aspects, some well known, others found only on Ulthwé. He spied among their multitude the blue and white of a Dire Avenger – the exarch of the Rising Dawn shrine.
The Visarch hurried along the twilit corridor, the ambiance chilling at his approach, the lighting dimming to a fiery orange to match the wrath of those he passed.
His thoughts were a whirl. The voices of those that had come before, the wearers of his armour in ages passed, crammed into his mind, distressed and angered by the circumstances. They demanded many things: answers, vengeance, escape. It was impossible to accommodate their raging, whining pressure and the Visarch faltered, assailed by the spirits’ insistent presence.
They were emboldened by the circuitry of Khaine, the blood-stench of the shrines invigorating their warlike desires. The Visarch forced them back, meeting their war-hunger with the yawning emptiness of Ynnead’s gift, quelling their cacophony.
He strode up to the exarch and bowed in formal greeting.
The exarch gave no such polite response, the face of her helm styled in a blank mask that watched him impassively.
‘There is no place for you. These walls recall, even if you do not.’
‘Recall what?’ he asked, dismissive of the ritual speech, the ancient modes that he had once used. ‘I trod the Path of the Warrior before you were born.’
‘No longer do you walk in the shadow, as priest of the aspects. You have turned from our lord, become a dead thing, your anger a broken blade.’
‘Khaine will not save our people.’
‘Saving the aeldari, Eldanesh’s folk, has never been Khaine’s gift. We fight their wars for them, bleed for their fate, and they despise our king. It matters not to him, nor his exarchs, who lives and who will die.’
‘Then you have failed in your duties of care,’ snapped the Visarch. ‘You may be trapped in the embrace of Khaine but your shrines are dedicated to dealing with the taint from his bloody touch, not welcoming it. Your pupils fight for their souls, for their future. I have found another way to do that. There are many that agree with me – exarchs and aspect warriors that serve Khaine and Ynnead in equal part. Khaine cares not for the cause in which blood is shed.’
‘There is no future for you, Ynnead’s get, while you deny your fate. Khaine laid his hand on you, made you a son, and you disrespect him. Your fate was sealed in blood, a bond now broken, and in blood you will pay. The Hand of Khaine beckons, battle awaits, your destiny arrives.’
He turned, startled as though by someone behind him, though he saw only the long shadows of the exarchs as they had gathered around him.
Traitor, they willed, filling his soul with their condemnation.
Without thought, he pulled free Asu-var and brandished it at the priests of the Bloody-Handed God. Its blade crackled with the energy of so many nearby spirit stones, and he felt the hunger of the sword, the yearning of Ynnead to feed.
‘I do not attempt to outrun my fate,’ he told them, taking a step, parting the ring of warriors with sheer force of will. ‘Nor do I hide behind the cloak of Khaine as I once did. Death takes us all, eventually. When mine comes, I shall meet my master. Which of you can say as much?’
As he was about to leave, the Howling Banshee whom he had seen first barred his path with her glaive pointing to his chest. Her face mask wrought in a screaming visage, she was the embodiment of the banshee, one of crone Morai-Heg’s daughters. Her gaze moved to the sword in his hand.
‘That blade is not yours, it is a cronesword, gift of my mother.’
‘Your founder, Jain Zar, thinks otherwise.’ He moved the tip a fraction towards the exarch’s throat, blood racing, the spirits in his armour clamouring to answer the insult with violence. ‘This is the Sword of Silent Screams, whose touch steals your last call, draws your spirit from the final breath. Think on this, banshee. Why would Morai-Heg allow such a weapon to be created from her hand if it was not to still the voice of her own daughters?’
The exarch staggered as though the words were blows, her executioner trembled in her grip. He tried not to take pleasure in her moment of uncertainty and failed miserably. Buoyed by his petty triumph, lauded by the crooning souls inside his head, the Visarch swept past, paying no further heed to the damned warriors around him.
Though he had been one of them, trapped in the same cage, he had broken free and, by circuitous route, returned to become their saviour.
Yvraine had spent much time with Eldrad but still knew very little about him. It was he who had first recognised the presence of Ynnead, a meta-thought existing in the ‘tween realm of the webway, feeding upon the trapped energy of the craftworlds’ infinity circuits. How long had he nurtured that secret, changing fatelines and lives to mould that slumbering deity? What manner of mind conceived of such a thing?
She had fought alongside Eldrad in battles and debated his cause in counselling chambers across the galaxy, but never before had she been welcomed into his sanctum. The Opener of the Seventh Way hated the feeling that she was privileged in some way, that this act was a recognition of her status and importance. Even so, she could not help but feel she had been allowed to look upon something few others could, so she took the opportunity to examine her surroundings in some detail, memorising every piece of furniture and ornament, every artwork, in the hopes of deciphering meaning from them later.
The farseer’s tastes were eclectic – if one was too polite to say random, gauche and prolific. At least, such was Yvraine’s initial thought as she sat on a long couch, the trail of her immaculately tailored Commorraghan court dress heaped around her. She was reminded of the throne rooms of archons that had tried to woo her – romantically and politically – laden with trophies of conquests and subjugations, declarations of power and prestige.
Except that Eldrad barely glanced at them. And his displays, such as they were, had been confined to a set of three chambers that would barely qualify as an archon’s cloakroom. In fact, it was the lack of space, except for the high-vaulted ceilings customary in aeldari architecture, that reinforced the meandering, unkempt nature of the collection.
‘It is just…’ began Eldrad, sensing Yvraine’s thoughts as her eyes roamed the room. He searched for a suitable aeldari word and found nothing that quite fitted, and so settled for one of the few perfect human words instead. ‘Stuff.’
Yvraine realised immediately what he meant. These were not heirlooms or trophies, treasured possessions or valued research materials. They were cultural accretions. The accumulation of a life that had spanned five generations of his people. They had been placed with no consideration at all, simply fitted into whatever space had seemed right at the time, and never given a second thought.
He had not even spared them the mental effort of how to discard them.
She stood and gracefully paced to the adjoining chamber for a better view, her long gown sweeping across the red floor tiles. Alorynis looked up from his position on the back of a couch, one eye open, and then settled again, uninterested in her exploration.
The room beyond the archway was almost full with miscellany from a hundred different cultures across a dozen races. Most of it was piled like the spoil heap of a museum, the effluvia of fashions, trends, fads and philosophies as old as Ulthwé itself.
‘Why?’ She did not turn as she asked the question. ‘What is the point of having so much… stuff?’
‘Badges of allegiance. Patronage of artists. Objects of psychic significance I used to trace the fates. Bequeathed artefacts. Ambassadorial bribes. Grave goods. The gifts of suitors. Items absent-mindedly left by visitors. Borrowed objects, equally forgotten.’ The farseer shrugged, his heavy robes barely moving with the gesture. Yvraine caught a tiny flutter of pain, of ancient aching in the body and soul, attuned to his mood and thoughts through their mutual contact with Ynnead. ‘I have another tower, a dozen rooms filled with such detritus of my long life.’
‘I forget how old you are,’ said Yvraine. She sat down again, flicking open her fan in the manner of a kabalite courtier. She regarded the seer over the serrated edge, her smirk hidden. ‘How very old you are.’
‘Old enough to know better than trade quips with the likes of you,’ replied Eldrad, humour in his voice.
Then he grew sombre again as he pulled back the sleeve of his robe and removed his glove. Beneath, his arm was pale, the glitter of crystal veins clear under the surface. It was the curse of all seers that eventually they would become one with the infinity circuit of their craftworld. How Eldrad had so far eluded that fate was unknown to any but him, and perhaps Ynnead, and he did not share his secrets freely. Yet the grip was there, the chill touch of the Crystal Seer slowly creeping, even if much delayed.
‘It gets harder,’ confessed the seerlord of the Ynnari. ‘Every cycle now, another atom of crystal, another piece of myself lost.’
‘Is that why you dared Coheria?’ asked Yvraine, with sudden insight.
The farseer shrugged again.
‘If I really knew my mind so well, perhaps I would have been content to wither away an age ago.’
‘But you want to live long enough to see Ynnead restored.’
‘Not for myself,’ he said. ‘Not to save myself, if that is what you mean. But I have worked for a long time to see our people delivered from the fate we created, and it would be a peace to know such labours had borne fruit.’
‘They have, in me. I am the Opener of the Seventh Way, and I will recover the last cronesword and see Ynnead risen from the dead.’
‘Many uncertainties cloud your path, Yvraine,’ he told her. ‘If I knew which course to chart for you, I would guide you every step, I swear. But that is not the way of the universe. We can challenge and cajole fate, make bargains with Morai-Heg to cut a thread shorter or longer, to silence the banshee and dodge the blade of Khaine. We can do this, but we cannot stop death. And it is upon that road you tread, Emissary of Ynnead. As such, your fate is cloaked with the dark shroud of the tomb, the province of gods alone.’
This pronouncement sat heavily on Yvraine’s thoughts. She had been many things in her life – artist, warrior, courtesan, pirate and gladiatrix among others – and had never felt anything remotely like a sense of responsibility. Carefree is an overused term, but Yvraine had indeed been without a care for any other, and barely for herself, for most of her span.
It was not often that she wondered why Ynnead had chosen her. Or, if she had been chosen at all, and not simply been a random but convenient conduit for the lashing warp energy unleashed by Eldrad at Coheria.
Her musing was interrupted by movement from Eldrad. The farseer slipped his glove back on and lifted his palm towards the Sphere of Projection. Golden energy gleamed from beneath his slitted eyelids and matching wisps of power crawled across the globe.
He opened his eyes wider, orbs of pure gold, the hint of two small black skulls for pupils. The farseer stared at Yvraine, sending a shiver through her.
‘She is coming,’ he announced.
Like a beacon, the beam of Eldrad’s mind sprang out across the immaterial firmament, illuminating Iyanna with its intensity. Though it did not snare her, there was an irresistible quality to his thoughts, drawing her to Ulthwé like a stone rolling downhill. As Iyanna’s spirit-meme neared the other craftworld, her power dragged to its limits by the vast distance from Iyanden, she felt a sudden influx of energy.
It came from Eldrad himself, reaching out across the gulfs of space to connect with her dormant body back in her chambers. It was incredible, almost as blinding as the navigator-light of mankind’s Emperor, yet far more personal and specific; despite the intensity of its power, Iyanna had no doubt that only she alone could feel its presence.
She covered the last moments in a rush, her mind compressed and rearranged and ordered through the intricate atomic alignments within the Sphere of Projection. One instant she was a mote of thought upon the webway, the second she had mind and form again, standing in a cluttered chamber.
Everything was… distant. A haze separated her from her surroundings, a shimmer of half-seen veil between the real and unreal. Iyanna wondered if this was how the world of the living appeared to the spirit walkers – the animated dead like Althenian.
In front of her Yvraine sat forwards on a couch, the gyrinx at her shoulder wide-eyed, teeth bared, ears flattened. The spiritseer saw them as corporeal beings, their flesh and clothes, the air in their lungs, the static across the feline’s fur. She also saw their otherself, the echoing aura of spirit that followed them. Yvraine’s was a pale, icy rime on the skein. The gyrinx a fluttering, always moving butterfly of a thing, linked to his mistress by a slender tendril of psychic connectivity.
‘Welcome to Ulthwé,’ said Eldrad, behind her.
His voice was muted, as though her head was bound in a scarf. Or, perhaps there was some other noise near at hand that she had to filter out to hear his words – the whisper and moans of the universe around her.
She turned, the movement making her feel somewhat insubstantial, disconnected with the floor beneath her feet. She felt the pulse of the infinity circuit more than the hardness of the craftworld, the psychic energy within the matrix more solid than the molecules of reality.
To her host and his other guest, she appeared as a ghostly figure clad in her robes of office, semi-transparent. A starfield sparkled through her, though no light or shadow fell in the space she occupied. She drifted, moving slightly away from the shimmering globe that projected her spirit, so that she could see them both at the same time.
Yvraine soothed Alorynis, petting with a gloved hand even as she stroked with comforting mental waves.
‘Greetings, sister-of-Ynnari,’ said the Opener of the Seventh Way. She stood and regally inclined her head, her fan held to her thigh. ‘I see the purpose of Eldrad’s invitation now.’
‘You expected me?’ Iyanna’s brows creased at the thought.
‘This is an important moment, Iyanna,’ said the farseer. ‘Such events cause ripples. I sensed you would be coming, but I have not determined the purpose of this visitation.’
‘I shall not strain my power nor yours with unnecessary politeness,’ said Iyanna. ‘I request your help. The seers of Iyanden have discovered the return of a craftworld we all thought lost – fabled Zaisuthra.’
‘Interesting,’ said Eldrad. He stroked his chin with a gloved finger, the dark of the cloth stark against the whiteness of his skin. ‘I had not seen this. But then, I was not looking for it. What importance does this have for the Ynnari, or Ulthwé?’
‘They are not responding to psychic communion. Due to possible familial connections, I have been chosen to lead an expedition to the craftworld. When I heard of the return, I consulted the remains of the family archive, to see what I might learn of this distant branch of the House of Arienal. The details matter only to me, but in my reading I came across a reference to the Gate of Malice.’
‘I have heard of it,’ said Eldrad.
‘I have not,’ said Yvraine. ‘What is it?’
‘A webway gate,’ began Iyanna. ‘Zaisuthra was one of the first craftworlds to flee the dominions-core as the birth of the Great Enemy approached.’
‘It leads to the Well of the Dead,’ interrupted Eldrad, impatient. ‘A portal to the tomb of Eldanesh.’
