[Dawn of War 03] - Tempest

by C. S. Goto - (ebook by Undead)

  “Yes, I have many questions.” The name of Ahriman suddenly seemed to make a connection in my memory. I knew that name. It meant something to me. I had heard it before, or read it in some forgotten manuscript. My mind coated it in a sense of urgency, as though it knew that the name itself was important or dangerous, but I could not remember what it meant.

  “You wish to know who I am?” The figure in the light did not move, but his voice seemed to shift freely around the room—at once behind me, beside me and in front of me.

  “You are Ahriman,” I replied, realising that it must be true even as I spoke.

  “And you?” There was a new quality in the strangely disembodied voice, but I could not tell whether it was surprise or pleasure. “Are you a friend of Ahriman?”

  “You have said so. I am better at questions than answers today.”

  “As you say, so it is.”

  He’s testing me, checking my responses. Is he playing? No, this is too serious: he suspects something.

  What do you think I suspect of you, friend?

  “As I said, I am not good at answers today.” I cursed inwardly for letting the stranger into my mind. I must keep my guard—I do not trust this one. He is more subtle than his Marines. His thoughts carry death in their undertones.

  “Where is this place?” I asked, taking my eyes off the silhouette and looking around the librarium.

  There was a pause, and I imagined a smile on the indiscernible face. “You have many questions, I’m sure.”

  “That is not an answer.”

  “What makes you think that I have any answers for you?”

  “Did you bring me here to ask me questions? I have no answers for you, Ahriman. I don’t even have answers for myself. I don’t even know who I am.

  “You are Rhamah, a lost brother of Ahriman.” I nodded. Yes. He has some answers after all.

  “This place is part of the fabled Arcadian Librarium, one of the most extensive repositories of knowledge in the galaxy.”

  Ahriman stepped into the room as he spoke, emerging from his own silhouette as he moved away from the flood of light in the window. The golden details on his deep blue armour shone with life, bursting into ruby radiance as the light of the triple suns bounced off the purity seals. The armour was inscribed from boots to shoulder guards in intricate, cursive scripts, only some of which were recognisably human, and only a few of which I could understand. I realised immediately that this was the sorcerer that I had seen in front of the Thunderhawk in the desert. “And this room,” he continued, waving a casual and encompassing hand, “is perhaps the most valuable room on the entire planet. It is the resting place of the Legend of Lanthrilaq.”

  Ahriman strode over to a heavy stone desk between the book stacks. It was covered in piles of manuscripts, tomes and scrolls. The great sorcerer tossed a few volumes aside, checking their spines casually, and then he pushed a whole pile off onto the ground, disregarding the ancient tomes as though they were little more than irrelevances.

  Picking up one of the remaining books, he turned and offered it to me, holding it out like a gift. “You have heard of this book, I’m sure.”

  I shook my head and took a step towards him, reaching out my hand to take the book. “I do not remember.” But something stirred in my memory; the name meant something to me, although I could not yet recall its significance. I knew that I could not resist the offer to touch such an ancient text. Its lure was sufficient to momentarily overcome my suspicions about the mysterious sorcerer.

  As my fingers closed around the edge of the book and I began to pull it out of his grasp, I felt Ahriman resist me. For a moment, we stood alone in the blood-lit librarium, our fingers only centimetres apart as we both gripped the tome. Delicate tendrils of energy arced between our hands, dancing over the dusty cover of the book. I wondered whether Ahriman had suddenly changed his mind and decided not to let me hold the book, but then I looked up into his face and saw the truth.

  It was a face unlike any that I had ever seen.

  With a faint smile, the features tensed suddenly and then relaxed. At the same moment, the book slid from Ahriman’s grasp and I withdrew it, taking a step back to put some distance between me and the sorcerer, holding his inexplicable gaze all the time.

  “Lanthrilaq the Swift was one of the great eldar warriors that once did battle with the star god, Kaelis Ra. It is said that he wielded one of the hundred Blades of Vaul in that epic duel.”

  I carried the book over towards the circular window, holding it carefully into the flood of ruddy light. The cover glittered with runes and images that had been etched delicately into the dark material. I could make out the phonetic ideograms for Lanthrilaq—the swift one. They were run through by the image of a glorious blade, striking diagonally across the cover. The blade was damaged and chipped; its tip was missing completely, but it was decorated with a breathless whirl of alien characters that seemed to charge even its image with life and energy. On the jewel of the pommel there was a single runic symbol: Vaul—the smith-god of the ancient eldar.

  “In times long ago, before even our Emperor drew breath in this galaxy, it is said that the Death-Bringer brought portents of the eldar’s demise,” continued Ahriman. He was speaking slowly and with affected drama, watching me study the book, waiting for a response.

  What does he want me, to say? He mentioned “our Emperor,” but his words were chilled and tinged with something other than reverence—or, perhaps, with something in addition to reverence. Who is this Ahriman?

  “None could stand before the might of this star-god, for it carried the scythe of death itself. The blood of entire systems could not slake its thirst, and the greatest of eldar heroes fell under its blade. But the ancient eldar were cunning, and they knew that there was more than one way to humble a god—this is their first great teaching to us, my friend: even gods can be shown humility. Through their whispered cunning, the eldar turned the c’tan against themselves, and they watched as the galaxy degenerated into unholy feasts of star-flesh. But Kaelis Ra saw the plan and turned his own wrath against the c’tan that betrayed his cause. The Nightbringer butchered its own kin, laying waste to the stars themselves in order to bring the necrontyr back into line.

  “Meanwhile, the eldar were not idle. Their greatest warrior, Kaela Mensha Khaine consulted with the Laughing God and his Harlequins, receiving wisdom and advice. Then he struck a bargain with Vaul, the smith-god, commissioning him to forge one hundred blade-wraiths—swords of such glorious craftsmanship and power that they could slay the gods themselves. These were the legendary Blades of Vaul.

  “With rage incandescent in his soul, Khaine led one hundred of his finest warriors in a final stand against Kaelis Ra. Each of the eldar faced hordes of silvered necrontyr so vast that the horizon glittered like the heavens in all directions. Yet, armed with the blade-wraiths, the eldar warriors knew no dread and no fear. They formed into a sweeping circle, each defending the back of another, and they fought like mythical heroes for seven days and seven nights, never tiring or falling back.

  “But then the ring was broken. Lanthrilaq the Swift grew suddenly tired and drained of energy. His face turned pale and his features became gaunt. In an explosion of darkness, his blade-wraith cracked, falling from his hands into the corpse-strewn earth.”

  I could feel Ahriman’s eyes on me as he spoke, but I did not look at him. My attention was captured by the image of the broken eldar blade on the cover of the book, and saw that it resembled the now mutilated form of Vairocanum. I realised that the sorcerer could see the association growing in my mind.

  “Vaul had tricked the eldar; one of his blades was imperfect and flawed. The energies that pulsed and glowed within its mystical structure were imbalanced and unstable. Vaul had tricked Khaine, leaving him vulnerable to the wrath of the Nightbringer. Lanthrilaq fell and Khaine’s formation was ruined. What followed was little more than a slaughter—the eldar heroes fell one after the other, valiant in their desperat
e and futile fight, as the thousands of silvering necrontyr overran their position. Their blades were shattered and ruined, falling into the rivers of blood as sparkling shards.

  “Only Khaine himself stood above the fray, his spear flashing like lightning. On the point of his own exhaustion, Khaine came face to face with Kaelis Ra. At the last, as the Nightbringer’s scythe sliced toward his neck, Khaine remembered the words of the Laughing God and he danced inside the blow, thrusting forward with his lightning spear and skewering Kaelis Ra just as his form solidified in order to land his own strike. The star god screamed and exploded into a rain of silver. The scattering essence of the Nightbringer shredded the teeming necrontyr, vaporising them and rendering the world into a mercurial flood, leaving only Khaine standing, howling his costly victory to the heavens.”

  “Why are you telling me this story, Ahriman?” I asked, finally looking up from the book. The sorcerer was leaning against the stone desk with a heavy book in each hand, casually glancing at the pages as though mildly indifferent to the ancient knowledge that they contained. His manner sent a chill through my spine.

  Is he suggesting that I am a weak link, like Lanthrilaq? Perhaps he implies that I have been cheated by those whom I have trusted?

  “What do you find in that tale, friend?”

  “Is this a test?”

  “Everything is a test. There are treasures hidden in all our words and in every story. The test of our power is whether we can identify and find those treasures.”

  “The story is about Lanthrilaq’s blade,” I concluded quickly.

  “How so?”

  “We know that the other ninety-nine blades were destroyed, but Lanthrilaq’s fell from his hands whilst only damaged. The story does not say anything about what happened to it after the battle. We might suppose that it still exists in some form.”

  Ahriman’s face shifted into a smile. “Very good, friend Rhamah. What is not told is often more important than what is pushed into our faces.”

  “You suppose that this blade is here?”

  “Supposition is bad scholarship; I would not presume. But its location is certainly worthy of investigation.”

  “Why would you want to find this blade? Do you seek to wield it for yourself, Ahriman? Should we not exercise judgement about the types of treasures that are appropriate for us to possess? Some types of knowledge are too dangerous, no matter what their potential power.”

  “Why should we be deprived of such things? We are not responsible for the mistakes of others, nor for the existence of any artefacts. We are responsible only for what we choose to do: knowledge is never dangerous on its own, friend Rhamah. Despite its imperfections, this is clearly a weapon of immense power, fashioned by the hands of a god. Certainly this is a blade worthy of Ahriman. I would be as blind as a fool not to recognise this. At the very least, we have a responsibility to investigate.”

  I watched the sorcerer’s eyes light up as he talked about the lost blade. He cast the two books from his hands, sending them skidding across the floor, and his face glowed with a sudden and maniacal flush of life. Just talking about the ancient eldar artefact seemed to animate him, and a shimmering energy field flickered into life, oscillating around his body like an aura. But there was something about his attitude that disturbed me. I shared his excitement about the possibility of discovering more about ancient and forgotten lore, but I felt an instinctive sense of scepticism about utilising one of Vaul’s blades: it was a treacherous and alien artefact, with no place in the hands of one of the Emperor’s angels. Knowledge is power.

  Exactly so. The thought was Ahriman’s but it resounded in my mind as though it originated there. I had only just met this charismatic sorcerer, but already he was inside my mind, planting the seeds of a thirst for new knowledge and wisdom.

  “Knowledge has many guardians,” I began, studying the sorcerer’s unreal features as they shifted and moved over his face. I wondered whether we understood this role in the same way. “Should I assume that the dead eldar in the hall downstairs were the guardians of this librarium?”

  “That would seem to be a sensible conclusion.”

  As Ahriman spoke, a flicker of blue flashed between the shafts of red light. A fluttering of green danced between two of the book stacks, and a blur of darkness streaked past the window. Instinctively, I tugged Vairocanum from its sheath and turned, tracking the vague and indiscernible movements. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ahriman lift his force staff from the desk, a broad grin cracking through his shimmering face. He turned, bringing his staff around in an ostentatious flourish, and then stepped back towards me. As the swirling colours started to solidify all around us, crystallising into the recognisable shapes of eldar Harlequins, I found myself standing back to back with Ahriman, surrounded by a ring of alien menace.

  “Knowledge is power!” I yelled, hearing my words echoed from the mouth of the great sorcerer behind me. Then I sprang forward towards the Death Jesters, bringing Vairocanum around in a punishing arc.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: RUPTURE

  Any rupture in the webway is like a magnet for all the daemonic energies of the warp. To begin with, it might be little bigger than a man, perhaps torn out of the fabric of the timeless maze by the blaze of a force weapon, or perhaps it might grow from the tiniest of imperfections in the structure itself, gradually eroding and expanding throughout the millennia by the persistent and desperate thirst of the chaotic powers.

  Time passes strangely in the warp, if it can be said to pass at all, but that does not mean that it is a static or changeless realm. The real character of the immaterium is Chaotic; it contains time and space, but not in the ordered and predictable ways that they are contained in the material realms.

  In the ancient texts of the eldar farseers, now hidden in the depths of the fabled Black Library, it was once hypothesised that the warp was an expression of the terrible responsibilities of the farseers themselves. It contains images, echoes and reflections of the myriad time lines that penetrate reality, swirling and congealing around possibilities that seem satisfactory according to the natures of whatever unspeakable beings could be satisfied.

  In the story of the Great Fall of the eldar, it is told how the daemon of Slaanesh was given form in the warp because of the lascivious, decadent and thirsty turn in the consciousness of the eldar themselves. As soon as the daemon roared into existence, it had suddenly always been there, and the farseers of the eldar people suddenly realised that they had always known that it was there, lurking on the fringes of their vision, waiting to emerge into a fully shaped nightmare. The webway itself is only partly contained within the warp, although it has no existence outside the immaterium. It is an artefact from the golden days of the eldar empire, criss-crossing the galaxy like an intricate, dew-dappled spider’s web. It is a maze and a labyrinth. It is a network of tunnels and passages, some as small as a man and others so large that a great space fleet could pass through unconstrained.

  Like the foresight of the farseers and the emergence of Slaanesh, the webway is a testament to the profound and intimate connections between the eldar and the warp itself. The project to harness the spaceless and timeless warp was the greatest of the ancient eldar’s achievements. To travel through the webway is to traverse the warp itself, insulated and protected by the golden passages of material space that the eldar managed to stabilise.

  The ancient and glorious fleets of the Sons of Asuryan could blink across the galaxy in an instant, dropping into the webway in the eastern rim and emerging almost instantaneously in the cusp of the western arc; the trip through the warp was literally timeless when perceived from the material realm.

  In the impossibly ancient past, at the time when the wars between the Old Ones and the Star Gods raged, the webway was the salvation of the eldar and the bane of the c’tan. The terror of the night, Kaelis Ra, vowed to return and destroy the structure that riddled the universe with the psychic curse of the eldar. Although the Nightbringer fell un
der the shining spear of Khaine, its vow remains to be fulfilled.

  (Extract from The Quest for the Black Library, author unknown. Fragments of the original text recovered by Librarian Jonas Urelie of the Blood Ravens, and stored aboard the Omnis Arcanum [Librarium Sanctorum, 23.1274:c.xvi])

  A red light pulsed on the bridge, and a harsh klaxon pounded out an intrusion alert. Something alien had penetrated into the very heart of the Third Company’s strike cruiser.

  The Ravenous Spirit streaked through the timeless dimensions of the warp, ripping through the tempests and storms of uncontrolled energy that roiled and lashed around the venerable hull. The control deck was strangely silent, as the crew sat transfixed, staring at their terminals like an audience watching an intricate performance. The vessel was being controlled from elsewhere, and there was nothing that the serfs could do but watch. Aside from the persistent alarm, nothing in the chamber suggested that the Spirit was in peril; the crew appeared calm and there was only one Blood Raven officer at his station. Sergeant Kohath stood immovably in the centre of the deck, his eyes fixed on the dizzying kaleidoscope of colours that whirled and smeared across the main viewscreen. Yet there was something inexplicable in the air, a tension that held the scene on the cusp of a flashing red hysteria.

  “Loren?” growled Kohath without shifting his gaze. “Anything?”

  “No, sergeant. Nothing that I can detect… But these sensors are not designed—”

  “—to work in the warp,” cut in Kohath irritably. “Yes, I know.”

  Loren nodded silently, understanding the sergeant’s brusque manner. None of them liked what was happening, but it was certainly not the place of a pledged-serf to question the plans of the Commander of the Watch. He knew the meaning of his pledge, and he was proud to be in service. However, he had never anticipated that pledging service to the Blood Ravens and the Emperor would place him under the power of an alien witch. The serf was accustomed to feeling powerless: his function was to follow the orders of the commanding officer without question, hesitation, or error. But this was an impotence of an entirely different nature: the Ravenous Spirit had been placed under the control of an alien consciousness, and even the Blood Ravens themselves had lost their usually implacable sense of control. It was like being in free-fall, waiting for the final impact.