The Path to Glory

by Evan Dicken

  ‘Have to go through the palace to get to the Underway,’ The woman said with a scowl. ‘And the autarch has that place locked up tighter than a duardin vault.’

  ‘We must stay calm.’ Kaslon used a harmonic cadence to lend his voice strength and resonance. It was as much for his benefit as the crowd’s. The people were too frightened for Kaslon to transmute their nervous energy to true calm, so he settled for directing it towards a purpose, threading his speech with rhythms of command. ‘Go back to your homes, arm yourselves and await word. I must return to the tower.’

  For a moment, Kaslon worried he might have to resort to more invasive sorcery, but thankfully the crowd dispersed with only a few anxious glances at the walls. When they had cleared a path, Kaslon hurried off.

  The tower rose like the fist of Sigmar, a monument to perfection, its every curve, every angle in perfect symmetry. There were no doors or windows, only the subtle interplay of dimensions, the walls composed of interlocking tesseracts. Kaslon picked the closest one and followed one of its shifting faces into the tower.

  The interior was honeycombed with libraries and workshops, repositories nested within classrooms within great halls, all separate, all together. Kaslon sent a globe of glowing silver spiralling up through the overlapping planes of the tower, a call to any who might yet remain.

  When he received no answer, he conjured another, and another, quick as the stutter of a dying glowbug. Bloodtongue couldn’t have annihilated the whole Order. Lips numb, Kaslon mounted the steps to the Auracularium at the tower’s apex. Formerly, it had been barred to all save masters, but there was no one to stop him.

  Scores of cochlear spines studded the long, vaulted chamber, rising through the mirrored ceiling and into the open air beyond. There was one for each gilded tower in the Lantic Empire. Once they had hummed with life, bearing messages from the cities across the Mortal Realms – Chamon, Hysh, Aqshy, and beyond. Kaslon walked the length of the chamber, pausing to rest his hand upon each as he passed, feeling, pleading for the vibrations that would tell him he wasn’t alone. But the spines lay still and dead.

  All save one.

  The quiver was slight, barely an echo, but Kaslon recognised the tell-tale rhythms of an Order cipher. He pressed trembling fingers to the vibrating metal, lips pursed as he translated the message.

  All is lost.

  The empire has fallen.

  Flee to Azyr. In Sigmar’s name, flee.

  Before it is too late.

  The message repeated, over and over. Kaslon stepped back, the air seeming too thin to fill his lungs. The masters must have received the warning, they must have known Uliashtai stood alone, and yet they’d said nothing.

  Comprehension settled on Kaslon like a shroud.

  To leave Uliashtai would be to admit the sacred geometries were flawed. The masters had put their faith in reason, blinded by familiar patterns, but Chaos knew no order, no pattern. Bloodtongue couldn’t defeat their logic, so he had changed the rules of reality.

  Kaslon staggered from the Auracularium. Everything seemed strange to him. The great orreries, tracking the motion of the Mortal Realms; tall pillars of steel and silver; walls inscribed with immutable constants in delicate gold filigree; vast libraries, their broad shelves creaking with millennia of collected knowledge, all useless. Bloodtongue would shatter Kaslon’s geometries as easily as he had Grandmaster Lek’s.

  He needed something more powerful, and he needed it quickly. The layered wards on Uliashtai’s walls kept the horde at bay for the moment, but without mages to defend and repair the apotropaic formulae, it was only a matter of time before Bloodtongue bludgeoned his way inside.

  Kaslon ventured into the depths of the Gilded Tower, to where the Order locked away the most powerful and dangerous artefacts. There was no time for caution, so he made for the greatest concentration of sorcerous energy.

  Stumbling down a flight of uneven stairs, Kaslon found himself in a room unlike any other. It seemed to have no walls, no ceiling, the floor soft and yielding. Strange fractals blossomed in the gloom, tugging at Kaslon’s eyes, their razor-edged intricacy surrounding him like an embrace. Something rested at their centre – a shadow, long and thin as a serpent’s slitted eye.

  Kaslon stretched out a hand, flinching back at the flash of golden light. The masters had warded whatever was in this room. They couldn’t countenance any flaw in their design, any truth they couldn’t bind and quantify, so, like the message, they had hidden it away.

  Kaslon tore into the wards, singing errors into their design, tiny faults that slipped into the cracks and uncoupled the chains of logic. Such blasphemy would have brought every mage in the tower down on him, but Kaslon was alone.

  As the last of the protections fell away, he plunged his hand into the heart of the fractals, drawing forth a long, jagged staff. Fashioned of hard crystal, it seemed to shift in his hands, a riot of interdependent patterns sparkling within. He could feel the power radiating from it – more, he could see the promise. The staff contained multitudes, infinity writ small, bounded, yet somehow also without end.

  Kaslon strode from the tower, heading for the eastern gate, staff in hand. It was all so clear now, how rigidity had destroyed the Order, how it had doomed their city, their empire.

  ‘Master Kaslon, praise Sigmar you survived.’ Relief was plain on the guard captain’s face as Kaslon climbed the stairs to the eastern gatehouse. ‘Bloodtongue’s creatures are swarming like locusts, but they can’t breach the walls.’

  Kaslon surveyed the battlefield from atop the crenelated gatehouse. Uliashtai’s walls still held, millennia of overlapping wards proof against Bloodtongue’s sorcery for the moment. Twisted forms capered through the streets of the shanty town outside, tearing into the fleeing refugees. A mob had gathered outside the eastern gate, hammering at the great golden expanse while, inside, the guards watched with numb resignation. They had their orders, their foolish, inflexible orders. The guards were Lantic, there was no question – they would die rather than abandon their posts.

  Not unless Kaslon made them.

  The wards along the wall were ancient and powerful, but Kaslon knew their weakness. Like the people they shielded, they were hard, but brittle. It was delicate work, threading inconsistencies into the logical framework, but Kaslon drew upon the staff, spiralling down into its arcane fractals, each new revelation like a jolt of lightning down his spine.

  Cracks began to form, wards flickering as the constants that bound them frayed. Kaslon could see it all, the fallacies, the inconsistencies. The masters had been wrong, they had all been wrong.

  ‘What are you doing?’ The guard captain stepped forward, hand straying to his sword hilt.

  ‘Saving us all.’ Kaslon let out a long breath as the gate burst open.

  The guards came at him with swords and spears, their blades skittering from his wards in showers of sparks. With a sad grin, he turned to them. ‘The walls are breaking. There is nothing left. Spread the word – only the Underway remains open. Flee.’

  And at last, they did.

  Kaslon rode a twisting spiral down to the gate, spreading his arms wide to welcome the refugees. They came in a mad rush, filling the plaza inside the gate in a throng, their expressions wild and panicked.

  ‘You must remain calm.’ This time, Kaslon dispensed with subtlety, imbuing his words with enough magical force to cut through the babble. Normally, he would have been hard pressed to affect a dozen people with so blunt an enchantment, but the staff magnified Kaslon’s power. The refugees turned almost as one, eyes wide, mouths hanging open as Kaslon’s sorcerous command pressed down on them.

  Kaslon tried not to wince at their glazed expressions. To lay such a compulsion on Lantic citizens went against everything the Order stood for, but if the decision was between dominating his people or watching them die, Kaslon knew what he would choose.

&n
bsp; The mob parted as he strode towards the gate. Many of the refugees were inside, but the creatures of Chaos would be quick to follow.

  He was surprised to see the flash of steel beyond the gate. A small force of men and women in Lantic gold had formed a cordon across the broken portal, holding the gate so the refugees could flee inside.

  They were a ragtag bunch, their armour battered, their tabards almost unrecognisable beneath layers of blood and grime. At their fore stood a tall woman with tarnished silver captain’s stripes picked out on her breastplate. Helmetless, her dark hair was cut short in the legionary fashion, her expression sharp as the notched greatsword she swung in bloody arcs. The lines of her long face were picked out in dusty filigree, her scowl seeming bone deep.

  For all her fury, Kaslon saw the legionaries would soon be overwhelmed. He drew on the staff, using the power within to lend strength to his sorceries.

  He struck the ground with his staff, lines of force radiating out, shifting, transmuting. Chaos spawn floundered in earth gone suddenly soft, drowning in quicksilver. Spikes of liquid steel arced up from the ground to carve into the horde, as a golden lattice formed between the legionaries and their attackers.

  The Lantic soldiers fell back, surprised, the captain calling out orders.

  ‘Quick, to the gate. My spells won’t hold them long!’ Kaslon shouted. The staff was like a living thing, writhing in his grasp, struggling to wrest free of Kaslon’s sorcerous bonds.

  The legionaries rushed past, the captain stopping beside Kaslon while her soldiers filed inside.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, her expression guarded. ‘You’re of the Gilded Order?’

  Kaslon nodded, still struggling to cut the flow of energy from the staff. It was like trying to dam a river midstream.

  ‘My name’s Sulla. I command what’s left of the empress’ legion,’ she said.

  ‘Kaslon,’ he gritted out, sighing as the staff finally quieted.

  ‘We saw your battle with the Chaos sorcerers. How many Order mages remain?’

  ‘I may be the last.’ Kaslon turned back towards the gate. ‘Uliashtai has fallen. I can lead you from the city, but we must hurry.’

  She snorted. ‘You’ll get no argument from me.’

  Together, they hurried through the gate, Sulla already calling to her soldiers. ‘Ardahir, have the legionaries keep the people together, we need to move quickly.’

  A small man clutching a broken staff nodded, and began shouting orders. With Kaslon’s enchantments tamping down their fear, the crowd fell in with no argument.

  Sulla watched them, frowning. ‘Those people were screaming their heads off just five minutes ago. What did you do to them?’

  Kaslon kept his expression neutral. ‘I did what was necessary.’

  Sulla opened her mouth as if to speak, but her words were drowned out by the shriek of tearing metal.

  ‘They come!’ Kaslon shouted, already making for the far end of the plaza.

  Sulla followed, her long legs easily keeping pace. ‘We’ll hold them off. You lead the others to safety.’

  ‘No need.’ Kaslon regarded the toothy border where the gate plaza’s ancestor gear met that of Clock Street. Already the street was almost blocked, the wall of a huge storehouse obstructing more than half of the entrance as the gears ticked their inexorable progress. ‘Get your people through that opening. In another minute or two Bloodtongue’s creatures will have to tear through half a district to catch us.’

  Sulla raised an eyebrow.

  ‘This is Uliashtai.’ Kaslon spread his arms. ‘The city defends itself.’

  With Kaslon’s enchantments and Sulla’s legionaries driving the crowd the refugees made good time, the stragglers slipping through the thin opening just as the first of Bloodtongue’s creatures burst into the plaza.

  ‘We must make for the Autarch’s Palace,’ Kaslon said. ‘The Underway opens beneath.’

  Sulla’s scowl relaxed a fraction. ‘Lead the way, mage.’

  They hurried through the shifting city, the distant roars of Chaos monstrosities urging them on. More people joined them from the surrounding houses and storefronts.

  ‘We’re making good time.’ Sulla joined Kaslon at the front of the column. ‘I set a dozen legionaries at the back to round up stragglers.’

  ‘I’m grateful for you and your soldiers, captain.’ He glanced at her uniform. ‘I thought the Lantic Legions were lost.’

  ‘We were,’ Sulla replied.

  ‘What are you doing in Uliashtai?’

  She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘We came to save you.’

  Livius

  Livius awoke among the dead. Corpses sprawled across silken divans, lay draped across marble balustrades, and were wedged amidst the larger gears of the palace’s clockwork. Some bodies were prepared as if for a funeral, although whoever had begun the ritual appeared to have either died or fled before the transmutation from flesh to metal could begin.

  Livius called for his mother, his father, anyone, but his throat was dry, his voice a weak croak. His last memory was of stumbling to his knees, Countess Ikara shrieking as blood came pouring from his mouth. With a groan, he rolled to his knees. It took him some time to rise, and even longer to find an unopened bottle of wine.

  Not that Livius wanted to get drunk, he just knew better than to trust the water.

  The Autarch’s Palace was unnaturally quiet. Gone was the music and laughter, the whispers, the raised voices and drunken slurs, the clash of duelling sabres. Blood and vomit stained the nobles’ fine robes a muddy brown, their exposed flesh covered with weeping sores. Livius’ memories came on like a nightmare.

  The siege had done nothing to lessen the autarch’s already acute paranoia, and he had ordered the palace sealed at the first signs of plague, ancestor gears churning, every egress barred by heavy steel shutters. No one questioned his decision. Rumour had it that the sickness was worse in the streets, but few had any interest in venturing out to see. To leave court was to give rivals the chance to plot in your absence. Great families had been undone by less, and Livius’ family was far from great.

  It had been too late. Death stalked the vaulted halls, the gear-lined chambers, snatching up people without regard for wealth or station. Livius had been one of the first to succumb, to no one’s surprise.

  He stumbled past the bloated corpse of Baron Haakon, surrounded by the bodies of a dozen of his moon-faced progeny. A fat man even before the plague, the Baron’s skin had split to reveal rotting abscesses, red-tinged bile staining the thick carpet beneath.

  Livius took a long pull from his bottle. Then again, perhaps he did want to get drunk.

  A sudden bout of dizziness left Livius leaning against the wall, panting. He took a long drink to steady himself then stumbled down the hall towards the duelling floor. Alive or dead, his mother would be there.

  Livius felt a flush of familiar embarrassment as he stepped into the enormous duelling hall. The chamber was circular, stepped seats surrounding a floor studded with raised gears. Livius winced as he recalled the one and only time he’d stepped onto a duelling gear. It’d been over a stumble on the dance floor that jostled Countess Atia’s skirts. Livius had been so nervous, his legs trembling, his skin seeming too tight. Atia had barely needed to take a step before he’d lost his footing, stumbling from the gear without her even needing to draw blood. Worse than the laughter were the beatings his mother had given him under the guise of ‘training’, as if bruises and broken fingers could wipe away the stain of embarrassment.

  The memory stung Livius’ eyes like smoke. He drained the last few drops of wine then tossed the bottle aside. It made a very satisfying crash.

  He found his mother sprawled across a sparring gear, Widowbane, the family sabre, clutched in her rotting fist as if she planned to cut the plague’s throat. Livius knew the sight should make him
sad, or glad, or relieved, but he couldn’t seem to summon even the barest flicker of emotion.

  Livius stepped up onto the gear and squatted next to the corpse, eyeing the rune-inscribed sabre. It might have been his imagination, but he could have sworn his mother’s pale, glassy eyes followed him as he moved.

  ‘Our family has boasted heroes, kings, emperors. You’re not even worthy to speak their names.’ His mother’s voice echoed in Livius’ thoughts. ‘I’ll die before I pass Widowbane to you.’

  ‘You never could be wrong, mother.’ Livius pried the rune-inscribed blade from her grip, wondering if she’d died just to spite him.

  He half expected sparks, or light, or flames, something to mark Widowbane as special. Family legend said the blade was a gift from Sigmar himself, transmuted from the bones of a hundredfold great-granduncle who had died nobly on some hoary battlefield of old.

  Nothing happened, so Livius ran through some forms, drunkenness blurring his movements, and causing him to stumble.

  Sloppy. Disgusting. An orruk could do better.

  He winced, shoulders high.

  You’re an embarrassment to the empire, to our family.

  ‘You’re an embarrassment!’ He whirled on his mother, stabbing down. Widowbane slid into her chest, necrotic flesh parting like clouds before the enchanted blade. He slashed at her again and again. ‘Commoners die in plagues, mother. Not nobles, not heroes. What does that make you?’

  The exertion left Livius lightheaded. He overbalanced, ankle twisting to send him toppling from the gear. It was only a foot or so to the floor, but Livius landed awkwardly, skinning one knee on the tiles, Widowbane clattering from his grip.

  Face burning, he snatched up the sword and stumbled from the chamber, his mother’s laughter chasing him from the hall.

  Livius ran until his legs gave out, then slumped against the wall, gasping. Thankfully, the palace was silent save for the slow rasp of ancestor gears. He could feel their cold regard, blood calling to blood, however distant, however diluted. Transmuted from the flesh and bone of those who had come before, the Autarch’s Palace was the work of generations. Like his mother, the palace despised weakness, and Livius was nothing if not weak.