Eldar Prophecy

by C. S. Goto

  С. S. Goto « Eldar Prophecy»

  Ela simply nodded. She could feel the calling, like a vacuum drawing in the thoughts of the Warp Spiders. They were all watching Naois with the desperation of those watching the last flame flickering in the darkness of a subterranean cavern. With their exarch and their temple gone, he represented the dhamashir of the Warp Spiders on Kaelor, and they watched him in awe, as though he were a walking god amongst them.

  I must assist him. She was my exarch too, continued Adsulata. Instinctively, she moved to the edge of the platform and poised for

  the jump.

  Wait, said Ela, staring after her brother but directing her thoughts to the arachnir. There is a more important need.

  Adsulata paused.

  Iden is about to die. Aingeal wounded him mortally, and his son will do nothing to save him.

  Good. The arachnir's response was blunt and aggressive.

  Perhaps, but don't you see what this will mean? Iden's spirit stone will be mingled into the Fluir-haern, injecting a new thread of

  hatred into the soul of Kaelor.

  Surely the spirit pool can absorb the emotions of any eldar, no matter what their disposition? Adsulata seemed doubtful.

  Your question is wrong, arachnir. Of course, the Fluir-haern can absorb Iden's energy. The question, rather, is what effect that

  energy will have on the direction of Kaelor. Already this craftworld teeters precariously on the brink of its own doom, the very

  end of days. It skirts the fringes of a roiling warp maelstrom of its own making, and the atmosphere within the craftworld

  fluctuates between gloom and fury in the Outer Reaches, with indulgence and decadence rooted in the Sentrium. The future of

  Kaelor is finely balanced, so delicately that a single, powerful soul like that of Iden might tip it over the edge.

  You can see this, Ela of Ashbel? asked Adsulata.

  It is clear to see, replied Ela, realising at that moment just how obvious it was. It was almost as though Kaelor had been driven

  directly towards this moment of choice, as though it had been manipulated into reaching a delicate pivot. The maelstrom, the return of war to Kaelor after long ages of peace and then the appearance of the Wraith Spider, all spoke of a well-planned trajectory. It could not be merely coincidence, not under the guidance of such a line of visionary farseers. Had Gwrih seen this in the future? Was this abyss playing in the mind of Lady Ione when she gave voice to the prophecy? Could Ahearn really not see the patterns and threads of the future being pulled into the present? This is the time of fate. What would you have me do? asked Adsulata, returning to little Ela's side and presenting herself, as though being summoned for

  duty by the exarch.

  Perhaps there is nothing to be done, mused Ela thoughtfully. Perhaps it has all already happened, and we are just here to bear

  witness to the playing out of the end of days?

  I do not believe that there is nothing to be done, with the Lhykoisidae and the Ehveline standing amongst us at this time of destiny.

  Adsulata pulled herself to her full height, suddenly filled with pride. Your faith is short-sighted, arachnir of the lost Spider Temple. Naois's role in this is unclear even to me. He does not act out of the

  desires of his soul, so the futures contain no echoes of his will. He is unmoulded and unformed. His resolution is shaped neither

  by us nor by him, but rather by the Fluir-haern. He is an agent, not an actor in this.

  What of Iden's spirit stone? If we could prevent the Ceremony of Passing, would that alleviate the problem?

  Ela paused and turned back to the glittering Sentrium, considering the question. The bright lights seemed to dim, as though a thick curtain had suddenly been dropped over the glorious, central domes of Kaelor. Dharknys fell unnaturally early. It may, for a time, but I suspect that things have already moved beyond such simple solutions. If it is not Iden's soul, it will be the collected souls of

  the dead Guardians or the Dire Avengers. I am sure that these battles have produced a stockpile of spirit stones that have yet to

  pass through the ceremony. Not since the House Wars themselves have we seen such bloodshed in the heart of Kaelor.

  Iden's spirit stone may be more symbolic than pivotal at this point. Whoever is behind this has played a subtle and certain game.

  Perhaps a detachment of Warp Spiders could infiltrate the Sentrium and disrupt the ceremony? We might even be able to steal the

  spirit stone of the Zhogahn.

  Perhaps, replied Ela, unconvinced and unimpressed, but it will make no difference. Finally, she could see that there was nothing

  that could be done to derail Kaelor's journey into the future. It had been fashioned with such skill over such a long time that there was almost no room for manoeuvre in the present. They needed a miracle, an inexorable force to confront the massive, rolling weight of history as it followed its course into the future. OUTSIDE THE SHRINE, the Sentrium was veiled in a heavy and pervasive darkness. It had fallen like a sudden, silent storm. The Kaelorian down-phase of dharknys had arrived earlier than normal, falling over the glittering sector like a shroud. The eldar in the Plaza of Vaul and the Tributary of Baharroth were sullen and sombre, as though manifesting the dark mood that suffused the domain.

  The interior of the shrine was all but deserted. None of the crowd from the darkness of the plaza outside had been permitted entrance. Oriana had swept back into the palace with little Turi, turning her back in horror on the conclusion of affairs that were unravelling before her. She had seen the maniacal glint in Morfran's eyes, and had wanted no part in what was to come. Followed by the shuffling figure of the aged Rivalin Farseer, the shrine-keepers escorted Iden's stretcher down the echoing central aisle of the Shrine of Fluir-haern. They were kept under close observation by Morfran, in case they decided to cause problems because of the unusual condition of their charge. Iden was clearly still alive. Cinnia and Celyddon stood at Morfran's side on the podium before the Tetrahedral Altar. Before Iden died, Morfran wanted his father to see that he had been accepted by a segment of the Knavir that had never taken Iden to their hearts. Iden had always thought that he had been disdained because he was a warrior, and this was certainly the reason why a great many of the Knavir disliked him and his house. Morfran, however, had quickly learnt that at least one group of the courtiers did not care at all about

  С. S. Goto « Eldar Prophecy»

  the death or violence on the hands of the warrior houses. They merely wanted to enjoy the pleasures that had always been afforded to the Knavir of the Sentrium.

  As long as nothing interfered in their cultivation of pleasure, they would accept anyone. These were the Knavir that were after his own heart. They accepted him for all the same reasons that they rejected his stoic father. They accepted him for all the same rea- sons that his father had despised him.

  As the stretcher was brought to a halt before the altar, Morfran slowly descended the steps to stand over his father. The shrine- keepers looked from the prone, wide-eyed body of Iden to Morfran and then to the farseer, whose wrinkled and aged face betrayed no emotion at all. Sharing panicked glances with each other, the shrine-keepers did not know how to proceed. The waystone of a living dhamashir should never be removed from its body. It was monstrous. It was the kind of deed that was retold in the horror- fables of the darklings. It was a kind of torture that cried out to the daemons of the warp like an offering or a sacrifice. The shrine- keepers could not even think about performing the deed, and the prospect of placing the living soul of an eldar who had suffered such a monstrous outrage into the Fluir-haern filled them with terror. They could not even begin to understand what the effects might be, or what kind of horrors would be unleashed into the spirit pool of Kaelor. Get out. The powerful, unequivocal thoughts rolled over the shrine-keepers from the podium, emanating from the red-robed

  Yuthran seer as she strode down the steps to join Morfran next to Iden'
s stunned face. The shrine-keepers seemed frozen to the spot, as though immobilised by fear or disbelief. Out! Cinnia's command jolted their minds and made them move, shocking them back into the immediacy of the shrine. They

  hesitated for an instant, unsure whether to take orders from the Yuthran seer in the presence of the farseer and the dying Zhogahn and his son. Then they bowed swiftly, relieved simply to be released from the scene, and hurried back down the aisle and out into the plaza beyond, moving with the haste of perpetrators escaping from a crime-scene. As the shrine-keepers vanished, Morfran looked over at Cinnia and grinned. He checked back over his shoulder at the handsome figure of Celyddon, who had remained standing before the altar, and he grinned again. Turning back to the prone body of his father, Morfran lifted his eyes into those of the farseer, the wide grin still cracked across his face. Ahearn offered no response, knowing that there was nothing that could be done. He merely lowered his own eyes onto the face of his Zhogahn, who lay helplessly between them. Very slowly, Morfran inclined his body so that he was stooped over Iden, bringing his face within fractions of his father's so that their eyes filled each other's gazes. At the same time, he reached under the folds of the cloak that had been draped over Iden's body to hide the hideous wounds that had been inflicted by the Warp Spider. He felt the shiny, polished gem of a waystone attached to a chain around Iden's neck. It was still warm to the touch, as though radiating life. As his fingers closed around it, he saw his father's eyes flare with panic and fear. There was movement in his pupils, as though he was fighting against his own immobility with all of his strength, battling to empower a last flicker of movement from an arm or a leg that might prevent the terrible violation. His lips moved fractionally, but the old warrior did not even have enough strength to form a single word. After a long life of glorious battles and power, at the last, Iden lay in utter helplessness before the indulgent malice of his own son. Mustering his pride for a final moment of dignity, Iden accepted that this was his end. His eyes welled with resilient pride, hatred and venom, but as Morfran's grip closed on his soul-stone, even Iden's formidable will collapsed into horror. His eyes flared for an instant, and then they suddenly fell into darkness, as though the light of his life had been sucked out into a vacuum. At the same time, Morfran withdrew his hand, clutched around Iden's faintly glowing and blood-slicked waystone. He lifted it over his father's body and opened his fist so that the others could see what he had done, and then he turned and sprang up the steps towards the Tetrahedral Altar. Without ceremony and in excited, undignified haste, he pushed the waystone into the little socket in the side of the altar. For a moment, nothing happened, and Morfran looked back down at Cinnia with confused dissatisfaction written across his face. A glimmer of recrimination flickered in his eyes, as though he was blaming her for promises unfulfilled. As he looked away, sparks of sha'iel arced through the substance of the altar, as though some kind of reaction had been triggered. Threads of light flashed through the floor of the shrine, riddling the walls and then running back together in the middle of the ceil- ing, as though collecting into a pool. After a moment, the pool started to pour down from the ceiling in a rushing, liquid column of warp energy, plunging down into the middle of the aisle. The Knavir, farseer and Morfran looked around the radiant and blazing interior of the shrine with appalled wonder. They could see that the ancient structure of the edifice at the very heart of Kaelor could not withstand the intensity of the energy discharge. It was as though the Fluir-haern were rebelling against the violation done to it, as though hundreds of thousands of passed eldar souls were raging all at once. The shrine blazed like a brilliant beacon in the warp, crying out to the thirsting and lascivious energies and daemons that quested towards it from the maelstrom outside, making the material realms quake and shudder. The dharknys of the Sentrium was suddenly rent asunder as tendrils of purpling warpfire lashed through its structure. All over Kaelor, eldar stopped in stunned and unexpected fear. As the four eldar in the shrine spun and gazed in awe, the Tetrahedral Altar seemed to crack from within, as though an incredible pressure of light was trying to escape from its ancient and impregnable form. The unearthly and unreal pressure from the unseen dimensions expanded suddenly and abruptly, exploding the altar into a fountain of sha'iel-drenched shards that rained down throughout the shrine like the fires of heaven.

  С. S. Goto « Eldar Prophecy»

  CHAPTER TEN: REVOLUTION

  SCILTI COULDN'T BELIEVE what was happening. They had fought their way from the Outer Reaches and through the Ula Pass, chasing the retreating Teirtu army in a drive that would have made Bedwyr proud. The diminished but victorious army of Ansgar was poised on the point of taking the Sentrium, positioned just outside the Rivalin Gates with a powerful force and with the thrill of superior morale still coursing through it. The glittering jewels of the Farseer's Court were within their grasp, radiant and shimmering with temptation. It would take only the utterance of a single word, and the Ansgar would storm into the crystal domains, recapture the farseer and claim the statuesque grandiosity of the Sentrium. Vengeance and justice could be theirs at last. For some reason, Naois did not seem to understand their position. He had drawn the army to a halt, just as he had before the battle of Ula Pass. The Ansgar had stopped short of the final destination, teetering on the brink of their victory like a rock on the point of falling from a cliff. Despite the violence of his initial frustration, Scilti had gradually convinced himself that Bedwyr's son had stolen a glimpse of the future, and that he knew that the Teirtu would ride out to meet them if they held their ground. He presumed that Naois would prefer to fight the deciding battle out in the open ground before the great gates rather than inside the labyrinthine and restrictive crystal streets of the courtly sectors. This would be an echo of his tactics at the Styhxlin Perimeter, where he had waited for the foolish Teirtu commander to rush out of the pass and engage the Ansgar in the open ground of the Faerulh Prairies. However, after nearly a day of silence and meditation amongst his fellow Warp Spiders, Naois showed no sign of preparing for an assault of any kind. Even when the sudden crackling explosion of warp energy had pulsed inexplicably and terribly through the structure of the craftworld, shattering the pristine light of the Sentrium into myriad shards of purple darkness, Naois had not moved to exploit the disarray that followed. He had simply continued to sit with his eyes closed, motionless and calm, keeping the Ansgar army lingering on the edge of readiness and its will to die. He had sat for a day in silent meditation within sight of the Rivalin Gates, in the middle of a ring of quietly chanting Warp Spiders. His fierce silver eyes had remained closed and his mouth had worked through the shapes and sounds of the ritual chant that swirled around him. The Aspect Warriors had separated themselves from the main Ansgar force, but only symbolically. They had remained within a few dozen paces of the ranks at the rear of the spearhead. Suddenly, Naois's eyes had flicked open. For a moment he had looked around the circle, taking in the figures of each of the Aspect Warriors that surrounded him, lending him their strength for his remembrance of the fallen exarch, but high above them, in the distant ceiling, they had all felt another type of energy rippling through the structure of Kaelor. Naois could see it crackling and coruscating like a concentrated storm. Something had been unleashed.

  Then Naois had risen slowly to his feet and bowed respectfully to the warriors around him. We should return to the temple. His thoughts had contained no violence and no coercion, but they had been undeniable. There is nothing more for us here, and the armour of the exarch must be properly enshrined. The Temple of the Warp Spiders must not be

  permitted to lie in rubble.