Empire of Lies, page 32
I say ‘supposed to be’, because as far as I can tell, t’au society still works without them.
Farsight is convinced he will have to undertake the trial the fire caste call ‘malk’la’, but as yet, none have called for it. No one wants him to fail it, I think, for then they really would have no figureheads left, and the leadership vacuum would be immense. Throne’s sake, they call it the Farsight Expedition, this entire initiative. Without him, where would they go? Where would they find their poster child?
Brightsword is too young and rash, I think, even now. The fact he secretly wants the role of high commander so badly is exactly what disqualifies him for the role. Bravestorm is selfless to a fault; an impressive sight in his iridium battlesuit, but eye-wateringly hideous beneath it. I saw him in the flesh, once, and to say he is badly burned is a grotesque understatement. Sha’vastos is officially deceased, Ob’lotai is actually dead, and Moata gave his life in vain on Arthas Moloch.
Without their beloved Farsight they would have nothing to focus their efforts around, nothing but a slow dissolution. Given the deliberate weighting of the castes so that one dominates each of the principal planets in the four enclave systems, that divergence would possibly even court a return to something like the Mont’au, that time when the castes fought against one another for supremacy. Whether he has done so deliberately or not, Farsight has engineered a system where he is the lynchpin for an entire string of planetary conquests, and they cannot do without him. I personally believe it was not a calculated measure, but a by-product of the water caste utilising his image so extensively for their own purposes.
Already the grief felt over the loss of the ethereals has begun to fade into acceptance. Time, as we know from bitter experience, can heal even a wound to the heart. They are spinning it that theirs was the sacrifice of shattered jade, and it enabled the t’au of the enclaves to finally be free of the orks that had hounded them even as they hunted their old adversaries in turn. Personally, I see the entire thing in a different light. I believe the ethereals wanted to understand that which defies all logic, and trusted no one outside the aun to draw the right conclusions. They dipped their toes in those inky-black seas that lie beyond reality, and were quickly savaged by the monsters within. So quickly, in fact, I cannot help but think there was agency behind it, that the ethereals too were led to that point just as was Farsight. That somewhere, perhaps not even in this reality, there is another player in the t’au’s destiny, deliberately diverting the course of fate to its own ends.
And who stands to gain from a de facto military coup? Farsight himself, of course, but he could never deliberately cause the deaths of his ethereal masters, not even by omission of action. The same could be said of the entire species, I feel.
As the grief of the enclaves has cooled, a new level of hero worship has grown around Farsight. The water caste made sure of it, as ever, showing carefully doctored footage that focused on Farsight’s victories over the orks on the relic world, and kept the so-called ‘Molochites’ in the background. The water caste very much wish to forget the truth of Arthas Moloch, it seems, allowing the assumption to be drawn that it was the orks that killed Aun’Los, Aun’Xa and Aun’Diemn. I can hardly blame them. They have plenty to distract them, especially with their living legend, their Student of Puretide, walking amongst them.
Farsight’s controversially liberal attitude towards the idea of one caste mingling skill sets with another already seems to have bled out into the enclaves to some degree, even over the course of the Damocles Gulf crossing. Perhaps I found that more noticeable, having spent the time in cryostasis; no doubt the change was gradual, invisible to those experiencing it in real time. But the t’au mindset here has changed subtly, I am sure of it. It is a fascinating development of their sociopolitical structure, which has until now been extremely resilient in its cultivated blindness. Even in the face of the horrible truth, they convince themselves that all enemies can be overcome with skill, self-belief and unity. If only it were true.
The high commander returned to a true hero’s welcome in the enclave worlds. He has capitalised greatly on the expedition’s victory, though I fancy I know him well enough to see the shadow behind his facade. Even in the space of a few months Farsight has put into place an impressive array of initiatives, scouring the ork presence everywhere it is detected with merciless focus. Lub’grahl has been restored to its former reflective quietude, on the surface at least, with every dwelling and laboratory reinstated after the seismic burial removed all trace of the orkoid invaders. Since that time every life lost during the ork invasions has been commemorated with a white oval, a little like the graves of an Imperial cemetery world. It was no doubt a point of pride for the fire caste to do this, to ensure that everyone robbed of their dignity and recognition by the ork invaders was afforded that which Farsight believed they deserved.
The fiery heart of the planet Vior’los has been harnessed once more under Farsight’s collaboration with O’Vesa and his caste-mate Worldshaper. She is one to watch, a fine example of a ‘hidden menace’ who poses more threat to the Imperium with her advances in terraforming than any number of fire caste commanders do with their military acumen. Their bleeding-edge technology has advanced to such an extent that even far-flung satellite worlds are kept well supplied by Vior’los’ energy exports. The firestorms that Farsight engendered there, artificially inducing cyclones that scoured those lands infested by the orks, were so fierce they have rendered the planet’s ecosystem functionally sterile, but the swift installation of modular biodomes has allowed controlled growth to flourish once more.
Project Tinek’la, which Farsight told me he saw as a massive waste of resources upon his return from Atari Vo, is now back on track. One need only look at the night sky from any of the principal enclave worlds to feel a sense of wonder and communality from Tinek’la’s lambent, artfully sheared surfaces. Perhaps it was worth shaping it after all, to reinstate the t’au’s faith in their manifest destiny as masters of the cosmos.
Salash’hei has essentially taken the role of diplomatic hub through the virtue of its stunning beauty. It is a centre of edification that has in many ways filled the hole the ethereals have left, for in following the teachings of the Golden Ambassador the water caste keep the sept worlds’ legacy alive, just as the fire caste keep Puretide’s teachings foremost in their minds at all times.
The principal worlds are connected by trade routes plied by hundreds of ZFR-capable ships per day. Despite centuries of conditioning that it would soon flounder without ethereal guidance, t’au society out here is thriving.
I asked Farsight flat out, once, whether he had communicated with sept space, or requested some more aun overseers to replace the ones they lost on Arthas Moloch. He shook his head, made a gesture of futility, and left the room without further comment.
I think perhaps in that singular, silent admission, he rebelled against the structure of t’au society more than any other member of his race before or since.
And what is my place in all this? Of that, dear Xyndrea, I am no longer sure.
I am no longer a biomancer, that much I know. Those powers that once came easily to me – too easily, in fact – have shrivelled and died away, turning to so much dust in my memory. It is a sacrifice I made gladly, readily, in order to escape the warp creature that I believe had parasitised me for so long.
I still have the burns that the arcane collar seared into my flesh. I have dressed them, padded them, worn throat-claspers around them, and even worn unfashionable ruffs, but they refuse to be hidden for long. The ragged burn-scars itch, blaze, insist on being seen, a mark of shame and triumph all at once. It is my blessing and my curse, for every time I touch that hated cicatrix that rings my throat, I feel my emotions flare hot.
It is the strangest thing, but I swear my temper has grown shorter since I have borne it. I have fierce dreams, though I remember them rarely. Is that really such a surprise, given that I took an artefact likely forged in the energies of another dimension and clasped it around my throat? What would our colleagues in the Ordo Malleus make of that, I wonder?
What would you?
I don’t expect you to love me, now. I have been through too much. I had the spawn of one evil power within me, and now wear the slave-mark of another. I am broken beyond repair, a plaything of entities so far beyond me that I cannot hope to refute them. To return to the Inquisition now would be to die. Only in t’au society can I hope to hide from the hangman’s noose, the hunter’s pyre. Here, I shall become gue’vesa, one of countless billions, and live a new life.
It is a wonder I am still able to do something as normal as to pen a missive. Perhaps there is enough Vykola left in me to spend my last few years wisely.
Perhaps not. Perhaps I am damned, and the reprieve I have won for myself is temporary, and bought at terrible cost. Amidst that cost, I fear, is our soul-bond.
In truth, I do not know. But I do know this has to be my last letter to you, dear heart, lest I endanger us both. I must look to obscurity now as my saviour, and hope for better days to come.
Goodbye, beloved. I will always adore you.
Vyk
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
AFTERMATH
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER
SHAS’AR’TOL VASOCRIA
VIOR’LOS
The planet Vior’los burned with a new sense of purpose. Through the lozenge windows of the Shas’ar’tol communion room, Farsight could see rebuilding works in the middle distance, the earth caste’s FX-09 Leviathans lowering new habitation hexes in a tessellating pattern over freshly made foundations.
He watched, outwardly calm, whilst his commanders were at council behind him. Under those smooth white plinths were the remnants of Imperial rule, the wreckage of the ork invasion, the whole sorry history of Vior’los. The first human settlements, the legacy of the Silken Conquests, the Imperial counter-invasion, the Great Reclamation that drove most of the humans off-world and turned the rest to gue’vesa, the ork assault of Grog Ironteef – and, finally, Farsight’s crusade of artificial firestorms that had seen the planet scoured clean. All of it would be buried in a matter of a few short rotaa.
The earth caste were admirably focused, and their rebuilding strategies fell into place with practised ease. He had watched similar endeavours on a dozen worlds brought into the T’au’va, and the sight usually made a warm swell of pride rise through Farsight’s soul. But not today.
The high commander’s mind turned to the cost in lives for the thousandth time. That, and the lies that had been put in place to shore up the edifice of the T’au’va within the Farsight Enclaves. They were so thick, so cloying, that Farsight thought he might choke on them.
The ethereals had died willingly on Arthas Moloch, leading a courageous strike against the odds to ensure the orks could be purged once and for all.
There were more ethereals inbound to aid the enclaves, just as there were more t’au of every caste from the sept worlds to reinforce them with new technology.
The Molochites were but another alien species. They had been offered a chance to join the T’au’va, and refused. They were too alien to be able to communicate, more like animals than a race capable of higher thought.
The Imperials had been driven from the Farsight Enclaves – not once, but twice – and they would never be coming back.
The orks were finally defeated, already relegated to the status of a fading nightmare by the steady march of progress.
All these and more the water caste had spun time and time again, the streams and tributaries of their carefully worded truths flowing together to form a river of falsehood that buoyed up the t’au people, yet had jagged rocks beneath the glittering surface, just waiting to tear at the flesh of their society.
And then there were the greatest lies of all. That there was nothing more to this reality than the material dimension. That the t’au were the rightful inheritors of the galaxy. That the T’au’va was pure, righteous and incorruptible.
These facts, once inalienable, Farsight now knew to be false. So did the tight-knit minds of the ethereal caste; he was sure of it. They had expended t’au lives with callous disregard, claiming benevolence all the while. They had seen to it that those who challenged their rule, even those that came across unpalatable truths, were removed from society at large. And most damning of all, Aun’Xa had spoken of a ‘nemesis’ before the return to Arthas Moloch – they had insisted on going to study it themselves, despite the fact it flew in the face of every established procedure.
The word had stuck in Farsight’s mind ever since. How could a society have a nemesis, yet be so utterly unaware of its existence? It could only be the case if the very highest powers in all society decided to keep it secret – and in doing so, blind an empire.
And should he expose the ethereals, whether intentionally or not, he would disrupt the status quo of the entire race, shaking the foundations of its philosophy. The doom of the T’au’va would come not from the orks, nor the Imperials, nor even the Molochites that lurked beyond the cosmic façade of order and reason.
It would come from him.
‘High commander,’ said Bravestorm. ‘Are you not joining us in council?’
‘Of course,’ said Farsight, ‘I was distracted for a moment. The efficacy of the fio’s work is spellbinding as ever.’
‘The immediate danger may be past, accomplished one,’ said Brightsword, ‘but the future of the enclaves is the matter at hand. A hearth-fire untended may glimmer and go out.’
‘It is the future of the entire t’au race that occupies my thoughts, Brightsword,’ said Farsight. ‘Not merely that of the enclaves.’
‘“Learn to shorten your reach!”’ quoted Brightsword, his tone authoritarian despite the half-smile on his lips. ‘“If your foe can come close enough to negate your striking power, all stratagem is lost.”’
Sha’vastos made the pursed lips and crossed fingers of the statement abhorred, though even he had a glint in his eye. Nearby, Ob’lotai chuckled, his sense of humour rebuilt into iteration 5-0 through O’Vesa’s lengthy code work after Atari Vo.
Farsight sighed, and it felt like part of his soul departed from his lips. There was no fire inside him, then. No instinct to spar with his old friends, to rail against Brightsword for quoting his own wisdom back at him. He just felt tired, and lonely, and ancient.
Yet his reflection in the viewing window was more youthful than it had been for long tau’cyr. His near-death on Arthas Moloch had been somehow reversed, and ever since he had stood invigorated. A side effect of the dark powers he had seen on that cursed planet, perhaps – some mind-science blessing that he had never asked for, that made him feel tangled and conflicted in ways he could not name or process. It was undoubtedly something linked to the realm he had seen every night since, with the spinning disc and its visions of the hellscapes beyond reality forcing its way into his dreams.
He had seen the evil truths behind reality, and it had divorced him forever from his people. How could he keep those truths to himself, without them eating him alive? How could he be the hero the enclaves needed, with the burden of such knowledge upon his shoulders? Knowing that the ethereals had kept the nature of the universe from the other castes for so long… it was vitriol upon the spirit and the mind.
Outside the window, on the shoulders of Mount Vasocris, the dust thrown up by the hustle and industry of Vior’los’ recovery moved like flurries of snow, swirling in patterns rich with hidden meaning.
The winter after the Crossing of the High Pass
Shoh looked out across the valley at the waterfall beyond, or rather what was left of it. Thin trickles of water covered the flank of the mountain, most of which had frozen into a sculpture of a hundred thousand icicles. Kan’jian ibexes picked their way across it, sure-footed as the mountain goats of the lower slopes, to pick at the last of the lichen that had dotted the waterfall’s banks. As he watched, sections of the great rock detached like crumbling clay, and fell down into the chasm beneath.
‘This part of the mountain is dying,’ said Shas, her hand brushing his as she climbed the last few metres to the lookout point. ‘It is a sadness.’
Shoh nodded. He felt that sadness on a very personal level, for it was he that had caused it.
The previous winter, when Master Puretide had sent him out to slowly starve, he had reached the nadir of hopelessness. There, at the bottom, he had found inspiration. By climbing to the peak above the High Pass and clapping together two pieces of shaped wood to create sharp, sudden noises, he had started a targeted avalanche that had caused a massive section of Mount Kan’ji’s snow to tumble down across the home territory of the snow lynxes that had barred his path. It had killed a vast number of them in one fell swoop, and allowed him to pick his way across the top of the resultant drifts after repurposing the same wooden tools as makeshift snowshoes. At the time, it had seemed a fine leap of logic, for it had saved his life.
Now, however, the mountain was paying the price.
With the snow lynx population so dramatically reduced, that of their natural prey had boomed. The spiral-horned, gormless-looking Kan’jian ibex had bred so quickly it had effectively conquered the slopes through sheer numbers. The beasts had ripped, torn and eaten every green thing upon the mountainside’s upper peaks, including the tough green-black iron lichen that could grow in even the harsh conditions of the upper slopes. That weed had inveigled its barbed roots deep, and wherever it was tugged from the stone, it left a legacy of crumbled rock behind it. Where the mountainside’s exterior had been weakened to the point it became scree, whole sections fell away, each landslide redefining the shape of the peak and killing another swathe of plant life in the process. With so many species of flora buried, the fauna would follow soon after in a cascade of consequences that would ripple across Kan’ji’s ecosystem. Not that the ibexes had the slightest conception of the disaster they were causing. It was in their nature to eat, just as it was in his to fight.
Farsight is convinced he will have to undertake the trial the fire caste call ‘malk’la’, but as yet, none have called for it. No one wants him to fail it, I think, for then they really would have no figureheads left, and the leadership vacuum would be immense. Throne’s sake, they call it the Farsight Expedition, this entire initiative. Without him, where would they go? Where would they find their poster child?
Brightsword is too young and rash, I think, even now. The fact he secretly wants the role of high commander so badly is exactly what disqualifies him for the role. Bravestorm is selfless to a fault; an impressive sight in his iridium battlesuit, but eye-wateringly hideous beneath it. I saw him in the flesh, once, and to say he is badly burned is a grotesque understatement. Sha’vastos is officially deceased, Ob’lotai is actually dead, and Moata gave his life in vain on Arthas Moloch.
Without their beloved Farsight they would have nothing to focus their efforts around, nothing but a slow dissolution. Given the deliberate weighting of the castes so that one dominates each of the principal planets in the four enclave systems, that divergence would possibly even court a return to something like the Mont’au, that time when the castes fought against one another for supremacy. Whether he has done so deliberately or not, Farsight has engineered a system where he is the lynchpin for an entire string of planetary conquests, and they cannot do without him. I personally believe it was not a calculated measure, but a by-product of the water caste utilising his image so extensively for their own purposes.
Already the grief felt over the loss of the ethereals has begun to fade into acceptance. Time, as we know from bitter experience, can heal even a wound to the heart. They are spinning it that theirs was the sacrifice of shattered jade, and it enabled the t’au of the enclaves to finally be free of the orks that had hounded them even as they hunted their old adversaries in turn. Personally, I see the entire thing in a different light. I believe the ethereals wanted to understand that which defies all logic, and trusted no one outside the aun to draw the right conclusions. They dipped their toes in those inky-black seas that lie beyond reality, and were quickly savaged by the monsters within. So quickly, in fact, I cannot help but think there was agency behind it, that the ethereals too were led to that point just as was Farsight. That somewhere, perhaps not even in this reality, there is another player in the t’au’s destiny, deliberately diverting the course of fate to its own ends.
And who stands to gain from a de facto military coup? Farsight himself, of course, but he could never deliberately cause the deaths of his ethereal masters, not even by omission of action. The same could be said of the entire species, I feel.
As the grief of the enclaves has cooled, a new level of hero worship has grown around Farsight. The water caste made sure of it, as ever, showing carefully doctored footage that focused on Farsight’s victories over the orks on the relic world, and kept the so-called ‘Molochites’ in the background. The water caste very much wish to forget the truth of Arthas Moloch, it seems, allowing the assumption to be drawn that it was the orks that killed Aun’Los, Aun’Xa and Aun’Diemn. I can hardly blame them. They have plenty to distract them, especially with their living legend, their Student of Puretide, walking amongst them.
Farsight’s controversially liberal attitude towards the idea of one caste mingling skill sets with another already seems to have bled out into the enclaves to some degree, even over the course of the Damocles Gulf crossing. Perhaps I found that more noticeable, having spent the time in cryostasis; no doubt the change was gradual, invisible to those experiencing it in real time. But the t’au mindset here has changed subtly, I am sure of it. It is a fascinating development of their sociopolitical structure, which has until now been extremely resilient in its cultivated blindness. Even in the face of the horrible truth, they convince themselves that all enemies can be overcome with skill, self-belief and unity. If only it were true.
The high commander returned to a true hero’s welcome in the enclave worlds. He has capitalised greatly on the expedition’s victory, though I fancy I know him well enough to see the shadow behind his facade. Even in the space of a few months Farsight has put into place an impressive array of initiatives, scouring the ork presence everywhere it is detected with merciless focus. Lub’grahl has been restored to its former reflective quietude, on the surface at least, with every dwelling and laboratory reinstated after the seismic burial removed all trace of the orkoid invaders. Since that time every life lost during the ork invasions has been commemorated with a white oval, a little like the graves of an Imperial cemetery world. It was no doubt a point of pride for the fire caste to do this, to ensure that everyone robbed of their dignity and recognition by the ork invaders was afforded that which Farsight believed they deserved.
The fiery heart of the planet Vior’los has been harnessed once more under Farsight’s collaboration with O’Vesa and his caste-mate Worldshaper. She is one to watch, a fine example of a ‘hidden menace’ who poses more threat to the Imperium with her advances in terraforming than any number of fire caste commanders do with their military acumen. Their bleeding-edge technology has advanced to such an extent that even far-flung satellite worlds are kept well supplied by Vior’los’ energy exports. The firestorms that Farsight engendered there, artificially inducing cyclones that scoured those lands infested by the orks, were so fierce they have rendered the planet’s ecosystem functionally sterile, but the swift installation of modular biodomes has allowed controlled growth to flourish once more.
Project Tinek’la, which Farsight told me he saw as a massive waste of resources upon his return from Atari Vo, is now back on track. One need only look at the night sky from any of the principal enclave worlds to feel a sense of wonder and communality from Tinek’la’s lambent, artfully sheared surfaces. Perhaps it was worth shaping it after all, to reinstate the t’au’s faith in their manifest destiny as masters of the cosmos.
Salash’hei has essentially taken the role of diplomatic hub through the virtue of its stunning beauty. It is a centre of edification that has in many ways filled the hole the ethereals have left, for in following the teachings of the Golden Ambassador the water caste keep the sept worlds’ legacy alive, just as the fire caste keep Puretide’s teachings foremost in their minds at all times.
The principal worlds are connected by trade routes plied by hundreds of ZFR-capable ships per day. Despite centuries of conditioning that it would soon flounder without ethereal guidance, t’au society out here is thriving.
I asked Farsight flat out, once, whether he had communicated with sept space, or requested some more aun overseers to replace the ones they lost on Arthas Moloch. He shook his head, made a gesture of futility, and left the room without further comment.
I think perhaps in that singular, silent admission, he rebelled against the structure of t’au society more than any other member of his race before or since.
And what is my place in all this? Of that, dear Xyndrea, I am no longer sure.
I am no longer a biomancer, that much I know. Those powers that once came easily to me – too easily, in fact – have shrivelled and died away, turning to so much dust in my memory. It is a sacrifice I made gladly, readily, in order to escape the warp creature that I believe had parasitised me for so long.
I still have the burns that the arcane collar seared into my flesh. I have dressed them, padded them, worn throat-claspers around them, and even worn unfashionable ruffs, but they refuse to be hidden for long. The ragged burn-scars itch, blaze, insist on being seen, a mark of shame and triumph all at once. It is my blessing and my curse, for every time I touch that hated cicatrix that rings my throat, I feel my emotions flare hot.
It is the strangest thing, but I swear my temper has grown shorter since I have borne it. I have fierce dreams, though I remember them rarely. Is that really such a surprise, given that I took an artefact likely forged in the energies of another dimension and clasped it around my throat? What would our colleagues in the Ordo Malleus make of that, I wonder?
What would you?
I don’t expect you to love me, now. I have been through too much. I had the spawn of one evil power within me, and now wear the slave-mark of another. I am broken beyond repair, a plaything of entities so far beyond me that I cannot hope to refute them. To return to the Inquisition now would be to die. Only in t’au society can I hope to hide from the hangman’s noose, the hunter’s pyre. Here, I shall become gue’vesa, one of countless billions, and live a new life.
It is a wonder I am still able to do something as normal as to pen a missive. Perhaps there is enough Vykola left in me to spend my last few years wisely.
Perhaps not. Perhaps I am damned, and the reprieve I have won for myself is temporary, and bought at terrible cost. Amidst that cost, I fear, is our soul-bond.
In truth, I do not know. But I do know this has to be my last letter to you, dear heart, lest I endanger us both. I must look to obscurity now as my saviour, and hope for better days to come.
Goodbye, beloved. I will always adore you.
Vyk
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
AFTERMATH
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER
SHAS’AR’TOL VASOCRIA
VIOR’LOS
The planet Vior’los burned with a new sense of purpose. Through the lozenge windows of the Shas’ar’tol communion room, Farsight could see rebuilding works in the middle distance, the earth caste’s FX-09 Leviathans lowering new habitation hexes in a tessellating pattern over freshly made foundations.
He watched, outwardly calm, whilst his commanders were at council behind him. Under those smooth white plinths were the remnants of Imperial rule, the wreckage of the ork invasion, the whole sorry history of Vior’los. The first human settlements, the legacy of the Silken Conquests, the Imperial counter-invasion, the Great Reclamation that drove most of the humans off-world and turned the rest to gue’vesa, the ork assault of Grog Ironteef – and, finally, Farsight’s crusade of artificial firestorms that had seen the planet scoured clean. All of it would be buried in a matter of a few short rotaa.
The earth caste were admirably focused, and their rebuilding strategies fell into place with practised ease. He had watched similar endeavours on a dozen worlds brought into the T’au’va, and the sight usually made a warm swell of pride rise through Farsight’s soul. But not today.
The high commander’s mind turned to the cost in lives for the thousandth time. That, and the lies that had been put in place to shore up the edifice of the T’au’va within the Farsight Enclaves. They were so thick, so cloying, that Farsight thought he might choke on them.
The ethereals had died willingly on Arthas Moloch, leading a courageous strike against the odds to ensure the orks could be purged once and for all.
There were more ethereals inbound to aid the enclaves, just as there were more t’au of every caste from the sept worlds to reinforce them with new technology.
The Molochites were but another alien species. They had been offered a chance to join the T’au’va, and refused. They were too alien to be able to communicate, more like animals than a race capable of higher thought.
The Imperials had been driven from the Farsight Enclaves – not once, but twice – and they would never be coming back.
The orks were finally defeated, already relegated to the status of a fading nightmare by the steady march of progress.
All these and more the water caste had spun time and time again, the streams and tributaries of their carefully worded truths flowing together to form a river of falsehood that buoyed up the t’au people, yet had jagged rocks beneath the glittering surface, just waiting to tear at the flesh of their society.
And then there were the greatest lies of all. That there was nothing more to this reality than the material dimension. That the t’au were the rightful inheritors of the galaxy. That the T’au’va was pure, righteous and incorruptible.
These facts, once inalienable, Farsight now knew to be false. So did the tight-knit minds of the ethereal caste; he was sure of it. They had expended t’au lives with callous disregard, claiming benevolence all the while. They had seen to it that those who challenged their rule, even those that came across unpalatable truths, were removed from society at large. And most damning of all, Aun’Xa had spoken of a ‘nemesis’ before the return to Arthas Moloch – they had insisted on going to study it themselves, despite the fact it flew in the face of every established procedure.
The word had stuck in Farsight’s mind ever since. How could a society have a nemesis, yet be so utterly unaware of its existence? It could only be the case if the very highest powers in all society decided to keep it secret – and in doing so, blind an empire.
And should he expose the ethereals, whether intentionally or not, he would disrupt the status quo of the entire race, shaking the foundations of its philosophy. The doom of the T’au’va would come not from the orks, nor the Imperials, nor even the Molochites that lurked beyond the cosmic façade of order and reason.
It would come from him.
‘High commander,’ said Bravestorm. ‘Are you not joining us in council?’
‘Of course,’ said Farsight, ‘I was distracted for a moment. The efficacy of the fio’s work is spellbinding as ever.’
‘The immediate danger may be past, accomplished one,’ said Brightsword, ‘but the future of the enclaves is the matter at hand. A hearth-fire untended may glimmer and go out.’
‘It is the future of the entire t’au race that occupies my thoughts, Brightsword,’ said Farsight. ‘Not merely that of the enclaves.’
‘“Learn to shorten your reach!”’ quoted Brightsword, his tone authoritarian despite the half-smile on his lips. ‘“If your foe can come close enough to negate your striking power, all stratagem is lost.”’
Sha’vastos made the pursed lips and crossed fingers of the statement abhorred, though even he had a glint in his eye. Nearby, Ob’lotai chuckled, his sense of humour rebuilt into iteration 5-0 through O’Vesa’s lengthy code work after Atari Vo.
Farsight sighed, and it felt like part of his soul departed from his lips. There was no fire inside him, then. No instinct to spar with his old friends, to rail against Brightsword for quoting his own wisdom back at him. He just felt tired, and lonely, and ancient.
Yet his reflection in the viewing window was more youthful than it had been for long tau’cyr. His near-death on Arthas Moloch had been somehow reversed, and ever since he had stood invigorated. A side effect of the dark powers he had seen on that cursed planet, perhaps – some mind-science blessing that he had never asked for, that made him feel tangled and conflicted in ways he could not name or process. It was undoubtedly something linked to the realm he had seen every night since, with the spinning disc and its visions of the hellscapes beyond reality forcing its way into his dreams.
He had seen the evil truths behind reality, and it had divorced him forever from his people. How could he keep those truths to himself, without them eating him alive? How could he be the hero the enclaves needed, with the burden of such knowledge upon his shoulders? Knowing that the ethereals had kept the nature of the universe from the other castes for so long… it was vitriol upon the spirit and the mind.
Outside the window, on the shoulders of Mount Vasocris, the dust thrown up by the hustle and industry of Vior’los’ recovery moved like flurries of snow, swirling in patterns rich with hidden meaning.
The winter after the Crossing of the High Pass
Shoh looked out across the valley at the waterfall beyond, or rather what was left of it. Thin trickles of water covered the flank of the mountain, most of which had frozen into a sculpture of a hundred thousand icicles. Kan’jian ibexes picked their way across it, sure-footed as the mountain goats of the lower slopes, to pick at the last of the lichen that had dotted the waterfall’s banks. As he watched, sections of the great rock detached like crumbling clay, and fell down into the chasm beneath.
‘This part of the mountain is dying,’ said Shas, her hand brushing his as she climbed the last few metres to the lookout point. ‘It is a sadness.’
Shoh nodded. He felt that sadness on a very personal level, for it was he that had caused it.
The previous winter, when Master Puretide had sent him out to slowly starve, he had reached the nadir of hopelessness. There, at the bottom, he had found inspiration. By climbing to the peak above the High Pass and clapping together two pieces of shaped wood to create sharp, sudden noises, he had started a targeted avalanche that had caused a massive section of Mount Kan’ji’s snow to tumble down across the home territory of the snow lynxes that had barred his path. It had killed a vast number of them in one fell swoop, and allowed him to pick his way across the top of the resultant drifts after repurposing the same wooden tools as makeshift snowshoes. At the time, it had seemed a fine leap of logic, for it had saved his life.
Now, however, the mountain was paying the price.
With the snow lynx population so dramatically reduced, that of their natural prey had boomed. The spiral-horned, gormless-looking Kan’jian ibex had bred so quickly it had effectively conquered the slopes through sheer numbers. The beasts had ripped, torn and eaten every green thing upon the mountainside’s upper peaks, including the tough green-black iron lichen that could grow in even the harsh conditions of the upper slopes. That weed had inveigled its barbed roots deep, and wherever it was tugged from the stone, it left a legacy of crumbled rock behind it. Where the mountainside’s exterior had been weakened to the point it became scree, whole sections fell away, each landslide redefining the shape of the peak and killing another swathe of plant life in the process. With so many species of flora buried, the fauna would follow soon after in a cascade of consequences that would ripple across Kan’ji’s ecosystem. Not that the ibexes had the slightest conception of the disaster they were causing. It was in their nature to eat, just as it was in his to fight.
