Eldar Prophecy

by C. S. Goto

  Scilti completed his circle and then paused, studying Naois's casual posture as though inspecting an unimpressive but troubling underling. His face snarled delicately, and a flicker of frustration crossed through his gaze, making him blink. For an instant, his eyes strayed to the edge of the small arena. He could see the tall, slim figure of Adsulata, the arachnir that had been charged with overseeing his training. She was standing in silent stillness in the shadows by the crescent shaped doors. Sitting next to her on a lush red cushion was the distinctly eerie figure of Ela'Ashbel, with her eyes glowing softly blue in the half-light. His thoughts lingered on the child seer for a fraction longer than his eyes did. She shouldn't be here, he thought. She changes things. Her presence makes this different. She already knows who has won, it has already happened. They should have kept her in the Seer House of Yuthran. She is not welcome here. A new word arose spontaneously in his head: vaugnh -abomination. A dull shock punched into Scilti's stomach, taking him by surprise. He let the blow push him backwards, tumbling back out of range of the follow-up before planting his feet for the counter, but Naois appeared not to have moved. He remained standing in the centre of the arena with the tip of his staff still caressing the sand. However, Scilti could see the rush of footprints and the skidding of sudden motion in the dirt, and he bit down on his tongue in self-reproach. He knew better than to lose his concentration, especially in front of the uncanny young Ansgar. Spinning his staff over his head and then turning it into a braced position, caught under one arm and held firm against his back, Scilti stalked forwards once again. He closed the gap on Naois with slow deliberation, passing the circumference of the circle that he had been patrolling before and stepping within the death-zone, within the ring defined by the striking range of Naois's staff. He was sick of waiting outside the zone for an opportunity to dart in, and he was sick of Naois forcing him to make his move from the conventional distance. At this intimate range, doing nothing would be even more risky than ploughing in at the wrong time. After years of training, Scilti had finally learnt when to force the situation. For a few moments, nothing happened. Naois and Scilti stood frozen, face-to-face, their uneven breaths mingling between them, each gazing off at the ground next to the other. The atmosphere in the arena shifted instantly as waves of tension, discomfort and anticipation flowed out from the poised warriors. From her cushion near the crescent doors, Ela felt her brother's irritation. She could see his mind suddenly seethe at the intrusion into his space. This was not how he had been taught to fight. Adsulata had told them to keep the correct distance. His thoughts were racing with aggression, and Ela's eyes widened slightly as she saw Naois's body bulge perceptibly, as though the sense of injustice itself had taken on a physical presence. Scilti also seemed to recognise a shift in Naois, and he reacted instantly. He pushed away from his cousin with both hands, even as they clutched around his horizontal staff. As the gap between them increased to the appropriate distance, Scilti twisted his hips and brought one end of his staff sweeping round towards the head of the stumbling Naois. Unbalanced, Naois could do little more than raise his own staff to block the strike as he tried to plant his feet in the fine, shifting sand, but Scilti's staff had two ends, and he could not block them both. As the staffs collided with a solid thwack, Scilti was already reversing his hips and swinging back the other way. In a flash, the other end of his staff smacked into the back of Naois's shoulders and sent him stumbling forwards. 'Stop!' commanded Adsulata, stepping out of the shadows and into the ring. 'That is a death blow. It's over.' Scilti snapped around to face the arachnir, dropping his staff to his side and bowing smartly. Having regained his balance on the far edge of the arena, Naois did not turn. He stood with his head down and his back to the others. From her position near the doors, Ela looked past the beaming Scilti and watched her brother's back anxiously. She could sense his rage building. It glowered in his mind as though needing only the briefest of breezes to fan it into an inferno. She could see his shoulders quivering, as though he were fighting his own instincts to turn around and reap destruction on Scilti and on the arachnir that had told him to keep proper distance. A forceful perception of injustice shimmered around him like a poisonous aura. Ela shivered, realising that she was the only one who could feel the chill descending over the arena.

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  The scene glimmered and then hazed before her, fracturing like a faulty hologram. The images and figures swam for a moment, curdling in her mind as though she were mixing them into new formations. When they settled again, the new scene was shocking. She saw Scilti in the armour of a Warp Spider. She saw the temple around him in flames. She saw the domains of Ansgar smouldering in ashes. Then she saw Scilti lying dead at the feet of her barely recognisable brother, as blood poured from his hands into pools of burning ichor on the ground. She saw a violent maelstrom of warp-fire engulfing Kaelor. 'No.' She whispered it to herself, firmly but almost inaudibly. She had to learn to control these visions, now that the Yuthran had abandoned her, and the slight effort of vocalising sound was enough to bring her back to the present. Without knowing why, Adsulata peered back over her shoulder at Ela, checking to make sure that the childling was all right. The little seer made everyone uncomfortable, and the Warp Spiders were not uniformly pleased that she had returned to the domains of her father and placed herself in the trust of the temple. She had turned up unannounced and unescorted, a solitary, wandering infant in the volatile lands of the styhx-tann. However, after many interviews with the exarch herself, little Ela had still refused to reveal why she could not return to the Seer House of Yuthran, and Aingeal had finally given her leave to stay. 'But,' continued the arachnir, turning back to Scilti, 'do you understand why it was a victory?' The youth looked down into the ground, unsure whether this was a question that required a response. He had won, and that was the important thing.

  'The victory is not the point, young Scilti. The point is that you fought today like a Warp Spider. You kept your distance to survey your prey, as though weaving a web around him, and then, once he was caught in the centre, you closed the distance suddenly and made the kill. This, young Scilti, is precisely the purpose of the warp-pack, it enables you to take control of the proximity of combat. That control must always be yours. Never surrender it to another. The moment when you realised that the regular engagement distance for the staff gave neither of you an advantage was exactly the moment for the warp-pack. Tomorrow, your staff may be a deathspinner. Leap in close and finish your prey with your powerblades: the fangs of the Warp Spider.' 'Yes arachnir. I understand,' replied Scilti, lifting his gaze to look at Adsulata. Was she implying that he was to be given his armour and weapons? She had mentioned the warp-pack, the deathspinner and the powerblades. Could this be the day? His eyes flashed with renewed hunger.

  'Come,' she said, turning her back and leading the way to the crescent doors, 'we have much to do to prepare you for the Rites of Vhaenom.'

  Ela saw the gleam pass over Scilti's face as he realised that he had finally done it. He had finally proven himself ready to join the ranks of the Aspect Warriors of the Warp Spiders. She watched her cousin dash along behind the arachnir as the web-encrusted crescent doors slid silently open to permit them exit, and she noticed with sinking dread that neither of them paused to consider Naois.

  After the doors had clicked closed once again, the silence in the arena felt dense and heavy like ice. Still seated cross-legged on her cushion, little Ela looked over at her brother. His back was still towards her, and his head remained inclined down towards the ground. She could see it moving slightly, as though he were talking to himself, but there was no sound. His shoulders seemed to quake, as though momentous movements were passing through his body just below the surface. It's not fair. The thoughts were childish and almost petulant. Suddenly, Naois turned. His silver eyes were wild with fury, and tiny flames of blue seemed to flicker in their pearly opacity. His ferocity lashed out across the arena like a force whip, crackling over t
he thin layer of sand and disrupting the grains. Holding Ela's gaze for a moment, he spun his unbreakable umbhala staff up into the air. Then, with one magnificent movement, he caught it horizontally in both hands just as he brought his knee up to meet it. He yelled out in pain and defiance as his knee cracked through the shaft, splintering the hard wood into two. As the pieces broke into each of his hands, he dropped his weight to his knees and plunged the two shafts down into the ground, driving them half their length into the hardened floor of the arena as he yelled. Ela flinched under the onslaught and thought that she experienced in those moments something of the fear that the Yuthran sisters had experienced in her own presence.

  IDEN'S MIND WAS racing with the implications of the recent events. The Ceremony of Passing had not gone as smoothly as he had hoped, and certainly not as smoothly as he had needed. There were precious few opportunities for him to demonstrate his sensitivity to the refined customs and practices of the Circular Court, and this had been by far the most high profile. The Knavir had loved Ione, just as the Teirtu had done. She had been a figure of unity, and her passing should have been an occasion to consolidate that. The eldar of Kaelor should have been united in their grief for the fallen Lady. But somehow events had conspired against him. It was as though the gods themselves were opposed to his victories, as though they were working silently and subtly against him to engineer his fall. He looked up at the glorious statue of Khaine, the Bloody- Handed God, which he had brought with him from his root-lands. Long years before, Iden had taken Khaine as his patron, even before he had gone through a cycle of training in the Temple of Dire Avengers. He had known even then that the god of war was a fickle master, but the glory of victory and the thirst for combat had been enough to swamp those subtle confusions. It was only when he had marched triumphantly into the Sentrium that Iden had really understood the consequences of his vows and his allegiances.

  Thinking back to the Mythic Cycles, Iden knew that Kaela Mensha Khaine was a misfit god. He had torn the heavens apart and visited ruin and tragedy on his siblings. He had stripped Isha of her children and chained Vaul to his anvil. He had stood against the Sons of Asuryan until the last, when he had been rent asunder standing valiantly and defiantly in their defence against the Great Enemy.

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  It was small wonder that the effete Knavir looked at Khaine's blessing as a curse, and at those who received it as flawed and debased, but Iden had not properly realised the depths of their disapproval until so many of the courtiers had refused even to stand with him at the Passing of Ione, despite their love for the Lady herself. Then there had been that damned Warp Spider. Iden couldn't believe her audacity. For her to show up in the Sentrium at all after her involvement in the House Wars was bad enough, but to appear within the Shrine of Fluir-haern on the day of the Passing of Ione was simply unconscionable.

  The Knavir would not even deign to descend out of the Farseer's Palace, but the Exarch of Khaine, Aingeal, risked her life to be present in the shrine. It was the precise opposite of what he had wanted. It was the inverse of what he needed. The Passing of Ione had not brought him acceptance at the court, but it had brought the Warp Spiders back into the Sentrium for the first time since the execution of Bedwyr and his treacherous Ansgar warriors. Rather than distancing him from the affairs of Khaine, the events had thrown him back into those bloody hands. And what had been the meaning of that icon? The little silver-black disc that Aingeal had left against the Tetrahedral Altar; it had been carefully decorated with an intricate web, containing a fanged spider in its centre. What was the meaning of it? Was it sup- posed to be an offering for Ione? Or was it a sign, left in the shrine for an accomplice to see and then act upon? Iden's first instincts told him to suspect the worst of all things. He had not become the military master of Kaelor by ignoring the signs.

  'Redouble the guards in the farseer's tower, Lhir,' he said, without turning to face the Guardian who had been kneeling patiently behind him while his mind had run through the possibilities. 'As you wish,' replied Lhir crisply, rising to his feet immediately and nodding a curt bow. He paused for a moment. 'You suspect that the farseer is in league with the Warp Spiders, my Zhogahn?' Iden turned away from the asymmetrical, curving window that dominated the outer wall of his reception chamber. He had rapidly become accustomed to standing in that window to contemplate the strategies and vagaries of courtly life since he had taken up residence in the Sentrium. The view of the sector was unparalleled, and it gave him a sense of dominion. 'Suspicion is never without sense,' he said, smiling in an avuncular manner at Lhir. 'Whether or not it is justified, it is better to be prepared.' Besides, he thought, Ahearn's cursed son, Kerwyn, had once thought it expedient to ally with the Warp Spiders against him, and he would be dull-witted fool not to consider the possibility that the old farseer might harbour sentimental designs in that direction.

  'One further matter, Teirtu-ann, send word to our forces in the Reach of Guereal that an extra tithe will be expected from the domains of Ansgar this year. Tell them to collect it early. Tell them to collect it now.' The Warp Spiders would know that their interference had consequences.

  'As you say. I will see it done,' replied Lhir, bowing again, before turning and striding purposefully out of the room. Watching him leave, Iden admired the disciplined style of the Guardian. He could see why the Knavir might not be too offended by his presence in the palace, and he was reassured about his decision to appoint him as the head of the palace guards. There was something graceful in his manner that appealed to everyone. It was as though his evident discipline was somehow effortless. In some ways, he reminded Iden of the impeccable Yseult, although he was far less of a warrior than his elegant champion, more of a courtier.

  If only there were more Teirtu like Lhir, thought Iden as the young captain disappeared from sight. He looked over to the other side of the chamber where Morfran was reclining in one of the lush couches. Three servants were arrayed around him, one fanning him ostentatiously with the feathers of the long-extinct phaex-firebird while the other two offered a range of foods and liquors. Noticing his father's gaze, Morfran grinned mid-mouthful and gestured to one of the vacant couches. Iden narrowed his eyes disapprovingly.

  'Come father' scoffed Morfran, mocking Iden's seriousness. 'If we cannot enjoy the luxuries of our position, why did we fight for so long to attain it?'

  Without a word, Iden turned back to his window and gazed out over his Sentrium. You did not fight to attain it, he thought, I did. IN THE CENTRAL quadrangle of the Temple of the Dire Avengers, Yseult sprang and twisted, flourishing her diresword through an elaborate sequence of movements until stopping abruptly. She paused for only an instant. Then she lurched back into motion, dropping low to the ground with her blade held out behind her, and then suddenly sweeping her sword forwards whilst leaping back through its attacking arc. The balanced movements brought her to a halt once again, perched on one foot with the other leg extended behind her to balance the diresword to the front. She lowered her rear leg very slowly, bringing her blade up vertically and back towards her face in synchronisation. I see that you have not forgotten your training, Avenger Yseult. The thoughts came from high above, from somewhere around the

  edge of the hollow central spire of the temple. She brought her feet together and whipped her sword diagonally across her body, saluting and symbolically cleaning the blade in a single dramatic motion. Then she nodded a deliberate bow in the direction of the sanctum, offering a moment of gratitude for her training and her skills. She owed the Avengers her life, and she would not forget it. It was theirs for the taking, should they ask for it.

  She looked up. 'A good teacher leaves a profound impression, quihan,' she called up towards the dimly visible figure on one of the circular balconies that ringed the interior of the spire above the arena. 'My skills, such as they are, are a residue of your own work.' There was silence, but Yseult could feel the amusement of the exarch. He could not hide it from her. You
always were my favourite pupil, young Yseult. There was a smile in the tone.

  Just as the thoughts reached her mind, she saw the figure leap from the balcony above her. It dived out into the centre of the spire, as though streamlined for a dive into liquid. Then it tucked neatly, spreading its arms for stability and turning its head back up

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  over its heels. Then it dropped, feet first with outstretched arms like a descending angel, hitting the ground at speed but catching its weight with perfect timing and the honed elasticity of its legs. It is good to see you again, daughter of Asurmen. Exarch Lairgnen stood a breath away from her face, his black eyes shining

  fathomlessly while his long, midnight blue hair writhed around his head, as though animated by its own electrical power. Yseult folded down onto one knee before him, automatically sweeping her cloak over one shoulder in a mark of respect. Do you intend to return to us? There was genuine hope in the exarch's mind.