Eldar Prophecy

by C. S. Goto

The Aspect Warriors had risen and then dropped back down onto their knees, pushing their fists to the ground in a show of deference and duty to the Wraith Spider in their midst. With the exarch dead, Naois was the unambiguous emblem of their shrine. His word was their law, and if he said that they should turn away from the Rivalin Gates and return to the forest zones of Ansgar, then that was what they would do.

  That is precisely what they had done.

  To Scilti's amazement and horror, Naois had simply ushered the Warp Spiders back into their Falcons and then left, taking Adsulata and little Ela with him. They had merely nodded and followed him, as though his choice made immediate and natural sense, or as though it didn't really represent a choice at all. They had made no attempt to convince Scilti to join them, and Naois had left the impression that Scilti should remain in front of the Rivalin Gates to police the route and to prevent the Teirtu from pursuing him as he returned home to the outer realms. It seemed that he had no ambitions to occupy the glittering prize, only to ensure that the Teirtu could not inflict any further ills on the eldar of Kaelor. As he watched the contingent of Warp Spiders disappear into the distance along the wide Boulevard of Koldo - the legendary and wide throughpath that led from the centre of civilisation out into the retrograde styhx-tann provinces - Scilti shook his head in dismay. He could not believe that the long-hidden Ansgar warriors had emerged from the depths of the forest zones to fight for this cousin, just because he was Bedwyr's son. Look at the heir now, walking away from the battle that would define their times. He would not walk away. He would show the Ansgar Guardians and the whole of Kaelor that he was the rightful patriarch of this great house. He would show them that Khukulyn had been right to accept his leadership without question, but to challenge that of Naois. The merciless way in which his cousin had dealt with the honourable challenge of the veteran warrior should have been enough for all the eldar of the Ansgar to judge his worth, and yet still they poured out of the forests to follow him. Now, the so-called Wraith Spider was fleeing the battlefield. His taste for blood and death were diminished, and the touch of Khaine had deserted him. Instead, it was Scilti who stood before the Rivalin Gates at the head of the Ansgar army. It was Scilti who held the fate of the Sentrium in his grasp. It was Scilti who felt the seductive whispers in his mind, drawing him on into the glittering, crystal sectors of the court. Although he could not identify the source of the tempting and sensuous voices, he found them almost irresistible. They spoke to something deep within his dhamashir, moving him at a level that was essential and beyond rational control.

  Scilti knew the word of Khaine, and that word was war.

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  When Scilti and Naois had faced each other in combat in the arena of the Spider Temple, Scilti, not Naois, had emerged victorious. So, as Naois was vanishing back into the cursed, filthy and oppressed domains of the styhx-tann, leaving Scilti with the glittering glory of the cultivated heart of Kaelor, things were merely returning to their correct order. Scilti turned away from the diminishing shape of the Warp Spider convoy as it neared the distant horizon and stared at the grandeur of the Rivalin Gates as though with freshly awoken eyes. Great sheets of warp energy arced and crackled through the ceiling and the floor under his feet, as though underlining the drama of the moment. Something had changed in the atmosphere of the Sentrium. To Scilti it felt as though the balance of power had shifted. How could any eldar stand so close to such glory and not feel the righteousness of grasping it in their hands? To turn away would be to deny his essential nature.

  He could feel the eyes of the Ansgar Guardians pressing into his back. They were wondering what he was going to do. There was a wave of anticipation, as though the house warriors expected him to turn around and lead the army back to Ansgar, following in the footsteps of Naois. He could sense the expectation, as though it was somehow unthinkable to them that he would do anything independently of his mysterious cousin.

  In that moment, he hated Naois. He realised that he had always hated him. Everyone had always thought that his cousin was special. They had whispered about a prophecy that laid out a dark and powerful future for the little sleehr-child. They were frightened of him, just as they were of his abominable and unnatural sister, but it was all because of his father's execution. It was the stuff of legends, but that didn't mean that the legends were anything more than rumours or fictions invented by the idle minds of the Knavir or the rune-singers. Everyone made such a fuss about the intervention of Lady Ione to save the Ansgar heirs, as though that in itself were proof of a great and mysterious destiny. Well, it wasn't. Even in the temple of the Warp Spiders, the shrine-keepers and the Aspect Warriors had all treated Naois differently from him. The arachnirs had granted him special privileges and singled him out for praise, even when Scilti had performed in a superior manner. That was why he had been so pleased when, at the last, he had bested Naois in their final combat before he had ascended from the apprentice rank of tyro to take on the full armour of a Warp Spider. As far as he knew, Naois had still not passed the tests to become an Aspect Warrior. He was still too young. Whatever had happened to him, or whatever he had managed to convince everyone had happened to him, Scilti was certain that Naois had never found a victory in an ascension match in the arena. He was just a tyro in fancy, golden armour.

  Technically, Scilti should still be the patriarch of the House of Ansgar, not that precocious and spoilt little runt. How typical that the eldar of Ansgar and the Aspect Warriors of the Warp Spiders could not see the difference between the glitter of golden armour and the substance of real fighting spirit. Emotional creatures were easily duped by show rather than substance. Could they not see that Naois had turned away at the vital moment? That even now he was heading back to the crumbling remains of a ruined temple in the decimated domain of Ansgar rather than claiming the glittering prize for his own house. The Sentrium glittered like a trophy before him, and Scilti realised that this was his opportunity to show the Ansgar and all of Kaelor what he was made of. Before the up-phase of laetnys returned in a few hours, he vowed that he would be feasting in the splendid decadence of the Farseer's Court, and that the farseer would serve him a glass of steaming Edreacian wine. Lifting his hand, he gave the signal to start the assault on the gates. THE JOURNEY BACK to the domains of Ansgar was fast and uneventful. The route had already been pacified during the crusade to the Sentrium, and the eldar of the intervening domains had welcomed the Ansgar forces as liberators, even if they had retained a mea- sure of suspicion about the Warp Spiders. Hence, the return route was simple. A number of settlements along the way had tried to extend warm welcomes to the returning warriors - they too had been told the legends of the Lhykosidae in their childling days, just like the eldar of Ansgar - but Naois had simply swept past them as though he hadn't even noticed their hands of hospitality. They left a trail of confused and disappointed Kaelorians in the domains of Eaochayn and Rhouearn, before they finally plunged back into the forests of Ansgar.

  When they emerged from the tree line into the clearing around the once proud temple of the Warp Spiders, the Falcons trickled to a halt, as though staggering with shock. The temple lay in ruins, with masonry scattered all over the glade. The walls had been blown out by some kind of explosion from inside, and the spires had collapsed down onto themselves, leaving piles of rubbles to mark their original positions.

  Lying in amongst the debris and masonry, just before the broken and cracked remains of the steps that had once led up to the fabled crescent doors, a patch of shimmering red marked the location of Exarch Aingeal. Her waystone was missing from her chestplate, and her armour was all that was left of her, as though her body had drained away into the ground or infused into the psycho-plastic, armoured shell that she had not removed for so many years. Only her head retained any organic matter and, although her face was stretched into a grimace of pain, her mouth betrayed the crease of a grin, as though she had experienced an instant of satisfaction amidst the agonies of he
r death. Vaulting down out of one of the Falcons, Naois looked down at the fallen exarch and then up at the ruined temple. A flicker of outrage burned coldly in his silver eyes, and then he clambered up the remains of the steps to inspect the extent of the damage within the depths of the interior of the shrine. He reached down and lifted a couple of chunks of masonry, casting them easily aside as he sifted through the ruins. Eventually, after a few moments of searching, he located a large, heavy, horizontal slab of sha'ielbhr that was still undamaged and fixed in place against the ground, where the floor of the temple had once been. He found several unbroken shafts of umbhala wood amongst the rubble and, spinning one in his hands, he thrust its tip under the edge of the wraithbone slab to use as a lever. With a single, smooth movement, he prised the slab out of the ground to reveal a dark passageway with a stairwell underneath. It led down under the ruined sanctum that had once housed the webbed altar, where the ancient Spider Thrones had lain hidden for eons.

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  Pushing the slab aside, Naois flicked a hand signal to Adsulata, who had already descended out of one of the Falcons and was stooping at the side of the deceased exarch. The arachnir gathered the body of Aingeal into her arms and then walked slowly up the steps to join Naois. As she clambered carefully through the rubble, Naois nodded crisply at her and then vanished down through the opening into the vaults under the shrine. The cave under the temple was wide and high, with a series of arches and pillars speckled through it, holding up the structure of the temple above. It was like a cavernous catacomb, and the staircase spiralled down out of the ceiling like an elegant helix, touching down onto the shimmering, liquid surface of the floor. The darkly reflective, oil-sheened pool that covered the ground was run through with a network of narrow, white walkways each of them appearing to run a vaguely concentric but interconnected pattern around a central point, in which the liquid bubbled with barely suppressed energy. Flecks of darkly flashing light arced through the fluid, like electricity running through water. From the stairwell, the floor resembled a giant, intricate web, radiating out from a funnel-trap in the middle, which simmered with a hidden, sinister and lurking life. Naois waited at the bottom of the carved steps for Adsulata to join him, and then led the way through the labyrinth of pathways, criss-crossing his way sure-footedly towards the centre, as though the path was hardwired into his brain. Once they reached the pool in the centre, Naois muttered a few inaudible words and moved his hand slowly over the bubbling liquid. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, but then the bubbling grew more intense and the thick liquid began to seep grad- ually over the lip of the walkways around it, as though the level of the pool was steadily rising. Adsulata stepped back instinctively, springing from one pathway to the next concentric ring out from the centre, but Naois stood unmoving, letting the strange liquid lap around his golden boots, as though he drew some kind of comfort from it. As its level rose, it oozed around his feet, viscous and thick, and then it started to creep up his boots, drawing dark shimmering tendrils of liquid out of the pool. It was as though the liquid wanted to absorb the lustre of the golden armour. Naois half turned and held out his arms to Adsulata, nodding to encourage her to pass Aingeal's body over to him. He gripped the exarch's armour and turned easily, holding it in his arms as if it were an infant. Meanwhile, the simmering oily liquid had risen to a boil, sending waves of viscous fluid gushing over the inner walkways and over Naois's feet. As he watched, Naois saw the tips of spikes begin to protrude from the roiling turmoil. The tips rapidly became eight long, inwardly curving shafts arranged like a circular, open-topped cage. After a few moments, the base of the cage emerged out of the rush of liquid, and it became immediately clear that the object was a kind of throne. It resembled an inverted spider, with its legs pushed up into the air to form the back and sides, and its stomach was the seat. At the front of the throne, wide fangs protruded from a gaping mouth, out of which poured an oozing torrent of fluid. Turning Aingeal's body as though it were weightless in his arms, Naois carefully lowered her onto the seat and laid her back into the Exarch's Throne of Enshrinement. After a short delay, a series of glittering wraith-threads started to solidify out of the dark, bloody liquid, questing over the enthroned armour, quickly covering it in an elaborate, sparkling web, cocooning it in the throne's clutches.

  An instant later, Aingeal was gone. The throne sank almost instantaneous back into the pool, leaving a momentary vortex to indicate the abruptness of the motion. There was silence, and then Naois muttered a few words of closing, sealing the passage to the subterranean throne chamber in which the armour of the exarch would remain until summoned once again by the calling of the next Warp Spider soul to be lost to Khaine. As the level of the strange liquid gradually subsided, Naois knelt down on one knee and inspected the fluid. He poked an experimental finger into its gooey substance and then withdrew it, letting a long, sticky tendril draw up after his hand, as though the liquid were reluctant to release him. What is it? asked Adsulata.

  It is the Fluir-haern, replied Naois absently. The knowledge was lodged deep in his species-memory, as though it were merely

  part of his mind. It is the blood of Kaelor, the conductive wraith-fluid that rushes through the arteries and veins of the craftworld. This reservoir beneath the Temple of the Lhykosidae was discovered at the time of the First Incarnation. It manifests the intimate

  connection between the Warp Spiders and the spirit pool of Kaelor. It reminds us of our duty to keep the craftworld pure. In

  return for our devotion, it holds our exarch in trust, enshrining it in the raw energy of Fluir-haern until it is called once again.

  As Naois's thoughts eased into Adsulata's mind, the pool in the centre of the great web started to simmer once again. Jagged lines of purple light sparked and flashed suddenly, and the pool bubbled and rippled with a new energy, as though animated from beneath. The sickly, viscous fluid curdled and moved, swirling with the currents and ineffable tides far beneath. Naois rose quickly to his feet, instinctively recoiling from the sudden change in the mood of the conductive liquid. Then he saw something familiar begin to form in the pool. The ripples began to morph and settle, as though the liquid were becoming increasingly dense and rubberised. The contours of a giant face began to push up through the pool. The farseer! Adsulata's thoughts were alarmed and surprised.

  The dark, oozing face of Ahearn Rivalin took an approximate form in the pool, and its mouth moved slowly, as though struggling to form words through a time-lag. The liquid continued to pour into the cavity formed by the open mouth, flooding the words into gurgles.

  'Warp Spiders of Ansgar... Naois, son of Bedwyr... Scilti Ansgar-ann has slaughtered the court... palace runs with blood... out of control... lost souls.'

  Suddenly, the image seemed to lose all coherence and the face simply collapsed, slumping back into the pool and leaving no evidence that it had ever been there in the first place. THE COURTIERS SAT in stunned silence as Scilti drank glass after glass of Edreacian wine. He sat back in the farseer's ornate seat at the table, with his feet kicked up on the tabletop in a manner that reminded some of Morfran. Cinnia sat primly at his side, grimacing with a thrilled mixture of fear and disgust, hardly knowing how to react to the orgiastic transformation that had

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  suddenly gripped the Sentrium. Intricate crackles of sha'iel flashed through the wraithbone elements in the room, revealing the shifting and inconstant mood of the craftworld. Meanwhile, the other courtiers sat in stunned awe, unable to react properly to anything. Whilst they had despised Morfran for his slovenly decadence and his vile lack of cultivation, they had never feared him, except because of his association with Iden. They looked at the Warp Spider with an altogether different attitude. He frightened them as much as he repulsed them.

  He had breached the Rivalin Gates without so much as an opening exchange. There had been no ceremonies of commencement, and no bandying of insults or ambitions. The gates h
ad been simply blown apart by a constant and relentless tirade of fire, splintering them into little more than shredded curtains, and annihilating the Guardians who had sat in the gun boxes, unable to dent the fury. There had been no chance for surrender, despite the crushing victory that the Ansgar had won against Morfran in the Faerulh Prairies, and despite the fact that the Guardians of the Gates had no hope of standing before the assault and no honour code that would have called on them to die in a futile last stand. Scilti had offered them nothing but death. Once inside the Sentrium, the fury of the Warp Spider had not diminished, but rather it had soared. As the structure of the courtly sector had flashed and cracked with the furious warp-storms that continued to rage within the material edifice of the craftworld, it was as though Scilti was suddenly infected by a contagious rage, and he had Jed the once honourable and immaculate army of Ansgar Guardians into a frenzy of violence. As the army advanced through the streets and boulevards of the Sentrium, pushing closer and closer to the Farseer's Palace, they had become less and less restrained, as though their inhibitions were being gradually eroded. Their famed discipline and self-control seemed to collapse, as though their wills had been compromised by luscious temptations. There was a lust for blood coursing through the streets. By the time that the Ansgar had reached the Plaza of Vaul, where the remaining Teirtu Guardians had mustered for a last stand, Scilti had lost all control over both himself and his warriors. It had been more of a slaughter than a battle, as the Ansgar had carved through the defenders as though possessed by the force of Slaanesh, thrilling with the ecstasy of blood, death and spilt souls that swirled around them in a tempest of violence. Never before had the streets of the Sentrium run with the blood of eldar. Not during the Craftwars and not even during the worst excesses of the House Wars had the violence clawed so closely at the Farseer's Palace. The Knavir had never had to witness it before. Only a handful of Teirtu had escaped the slaughter, and some had even turned against their own, as though caught up in the contagion of Scilti's rampage, turning their blades and shuriken catapults against kinsmen or even against themselves. It was a frenzy of killing, an orgy of violence. It was as though the combatants fought merely for the thrill of feeling the blood of another speckling against their skin. All thoughts of goals and higher purposes seemed to have vanished. A clutch of the Knavir had watched the bloodbath from their balcony, high above the frenzied scene. Whilst many had turned away in horror or disgust, a number had remained at the railing, staring down in gruesome fascination, feeling the thrill of voyeurism caressing their souls. Some of those that had rushed away in a show of revulsion gradually seeped back to the balcony until it was nearly full. As they looked up, they could see the lightning arcs of sha'iel coruscating through the buildings and structures of the Sentrium as the Fluir-haern seemed to rail against the violations done to it by the deeds of Morfran and by the incursions of the Maelstrom outside. As they looked down, they could see the blood-slicked Plaza of Vaul reflecting the crackling damnation back up at them, as the Ansgar and Teirtu warriors hacked into each other with passionate abandon. Scilti had found the cowardly Morfran cowering in the farseer's personal chambers, hiding behind the proud, fair Oriana and the innocent infant Turi. Even the frail old Rivalin Farseer himself had tried to stand between the maniacal Scilti and the cowering son of Iden. Morfran had not gone out with the Guardians to confront the attack of the Ansgar, but had watched the events from the farseer's balcony. There was the glitter of excitement in his eyes, and his thin lips were wet, as though he had been drooling. Without even pausing for thought, Scilti had marched across the room, pushed the farseer aside and punched his powerblades into Morfran's abdomen. Evidently satisfied that the Teirtu heir was as good as dead, Scilti had then turned and left as abruptly as he had come. However, whether by coincidence or design, Scilti had missed all the vital organs, and Morfran had lain in a growing pool of his own blood for a long time before two Ansgar Guardians had appeared and dragged him down to the banquet chamber with Oriana and Turi, leaving a slick trail of blood along the polished and pristine floors of the palatial corridors. All three of them were strung up over the table. Beautiful silken ropes had been tied around their necks and they had been hoisted one after the other. They had been suspended from the high chandeliers. One member of the little family group hung from each of the three chandeliers that lit the ends and middle of the head table. Morfran had not even put up a fight. He had already lost too much blood and had never been strong enough to confront a Guardian in any case. He simply swung limply from the cord around his neck, dripping a steady trickle of blood from the wound in his abdomen as his face grew paler and paler. The Glimmering Oriana had also failed to offer any resistance. She had stared Scilti in the face with the composure and dignity that marked the very best of the Knavir. When the rope had been tied and drawn tight, just before she was lifted off her feet, she had spat her contempt for the Warp Spider into his face, in a rheumatic globule. Little Turi had screamed. They had left him until last, so that he could watch Morfran and Oriana's suffering. They had let him scream and thrash and fight helplessly. Then they had simply strung him up next to them, letting him kick and swing until the last of his childish rebellion was spent.