[Darkblade 03] - Reaper of Souls

by Dan Abnett

  Eldire was already fleeing beyond his grasp, receding like a shadow before the moon. He roared in fury as she simply dwindled from sight, flowing like smoke across the devotional chamber and receding up a long, narrow staircase at the far end of the room.

  The whole tower seemed to shake as Malus took to the stairs, chasing after his mother like a starving wolf. Thunder roared and rumbled as he ran on, blind to everything else but his mother’s pale face. Lost to compulsion and battle lust, he was oblivious to bolts of sorcerous fire and flashes of green lightning that lashed and scored his body as witches emerged from their cells and unleashed their power upon the intruder. He could feel his skin melt and his muscles fray, but the beast inside him would not yield. It knit his body together with skeins of black ice and he laughed as pale figures were caught in his path and were cut down by his gore-stained blades. Malus ran through the stark, grey galleries, climbing ever higher and leaving red ruin in his wake.

  She was always just out of reach, receding like a distant dream. It seemed as though he would run forever, loping across a black landscape and whetting his bloodlust with the slender bodies of novices and witches alike. His armour was falling away in pieces, the straps burnt through and the joints split by savage spells and a haze of smoke from his own burnt flesh wrapped him like a shroud.

  His feet fell upon another stair, this one steeper and narrower than the rest. He climbed in a tight spiral, shrouded by darkness, reaching for the haunting vision of Eldire. Without warning, he emerged from the darkness into roaring wind and rumbles of thunder. Then the blackness surrounding him fell away like a curtain and he found himself on top of the square tower of the convent. Eldire stood less than a dozen feet away, settling like a raven into a spot among a circle of chanting crones.

  All at once, Malus realised he was surrounded by witches and stood within a sprawling sigil that covered much of the tower’s roof. Without hesitation he leapt for Eldire—just as she spoke a word of fearsome power and he found himself wrapped in chains of fire.

  The beast within Malus roared with madness and hate. He writhed and thrashed in the grip of the sorcerous bonds, but the magic of the crones held him fast. The highborn crashed to the stone roof, feeling as though his skin would burst from the fury of the spirit within him.

  A shadow fell over him. Eldire rose above Malus, her arms outstretched. She chanted words that froze the air around the highborn and unseen, icy fingers plunged into his chest. He doubled over, screaming in agony as the sorceress bent her will against the furious spirit. For a moment the two wills contested and neither could gainsay the other, but Eldire had the power of the convent to draw upon and slowly but surely the beast’s strength began to wane. Shrinking like a flame starved of oil, the beast grew weaker and weaker beneath Eldire’s power and Malus felt more of his sanity return. He lay, trembling and insensate, as the fire of the murderous spirit dwindled beyond his ability to ken.

  Then Eldire pointed a long finger at Malus’ face and spoke another command and his body began to burn.

  Lines of transcendent pain burned bright against his skin. He lay rigid, frozen into motionlessness by the sheer power of his suffering. His staring eyes watched tendrils of twisting fire rise from his skin and he realised how they took the shape of symbols.

  Eldire was burning Nagaira’s compulsion from his body and as it was consumed, Malus’ buried memories rose once more to the surface. Illusions faded. No more was he a highborn of Naggor or Hag Graef. No more a general, no more a hero or a leader of men. He was an outlaw, forsaken of his oaths and honour. He was a spent arrow, lying broken on unyielding stone and he wept tears of rage beneath the howling wind.

  Malus looked up at his mother. “You… knew I would come…?”

  Eldire fixed her son with a cold, black stare. The ghost of a smile passed across her perfect lips. “It was foreseen,” she said.

  “But why? Why you and not the drachau?”

  “Because cities and crowns mean nothing to one such as her, not any more,” Eldire replied. “She cared nothing for Isilvar’s aims, or Fuerlan’s, or your own,” the seer explained. “Nagaira returned to the Hag for the purest of all motives: revenge.”

  It was then that Malus noticed the red glow staining the sky. The wind was warm and carried with it the scent of smoke. Thunder rumbled and he felt the great tower shudder beneath him. Slowly, painfully, he rose to his feet. The sigil was dark—indeed, its quicksilver traceries had been burned black in the monumental test of wills. The circle of witches glared at Malus with implacable hate, but no one moved to stop him as he made his way to the tower’s edge.

  Hag Graef was burning.

  From where he stood, Malus could see collapsed buildings and pillars of fire rising high into the night sky. Great arcs of glowing destruction cut through the narrow streets and districts. Steam rose from terrible rents in the earth and the edges glowed with molten stone.

  The rumble of thunder came again and this time Malus saw a gleam of pure yellow-white as a ribbon of fire broke the surface of the ground and slid like a ruinous worm through the Blacksmiths’ Quarter. Where the ribbon touched, stone melted and split and houses burst into flame. Sparks scattered beneath the worm’s writhing course; it took but a moment for Malus to realise the sparks were the burning bodies of people.

  “Mother of Night,” Malus gasped. “What has she done?”

  “She has called up the Dreaming Ones,” Eldire said. “Nagaira has found a spell to disturb them from their sleep and now they vent their rage on the city.”

  “Dreaming Ones?” Malus replied. A memory flowed across his mind’s eye of Nagaira’s acolytes stepping soundlessly into darkness.

  “This is an old world,” Eldire said. “For all that we laugh at the foolishness of humans, we are little older than they compared to the span of this world’s existence. Countless races have come and gone; empires rose and fell aeons past that never knew the light of day. An empire of worms, some legends say, that burrowed up from the burning heart of the world.” She joined Malus, looking out at the devastation. “Some of their children—mere infants—still linger, slumbering in the deep places of the earth.”

  “The burrows,” Malus said, suddenly realising how the tunnels beneath the city had been made. “Will they destroy the city?”

  Eldire nodded. “No stone will remain, which is why you must return to Nagaira and stop her.”

  “Stop her?” one of the sorceresses cried. At the witch’s outburst the sisters of the coven stepped forward, their expressions twisted with rage.

  “If anyone will stop that child it will be us, Eldire,” the witch continued, “and then you will face a reckoning of your own for the meddling you’ve done.”

  Eldire turned to the witches and her alabaster face twisted with black rage. “Be still, you worthless hags,” she said and the air suddenly bristled with power. The circle of sorceresses was flung backwards by an invisible wind, the energy so intense their bodies burst into ravening flame upon contact. Their screams were lost in the howling wind and naught but blackened bones remained by the time they were cast off the tower’s edge.

  Malus watched the display of power with wide-eyed awe. When Eldire turned back to him her face was tight with strain but her voice was calm and even. “Nagaira sought to slay me because she believed I was the only power within the city strong enough to stop her. She used her power to mould you into her weapon, fuelling the compulsion with the daemon’s own energies but erasing the memories of Tz’arkan’s possession from your mind so you would suspect nothing—until it was too late.”

  The highborn’s face twisted into a grimace as he thought of the daemon—he could still feel Tz’arkan inside him, weak but ever-present. Then the import of Eldire’s words struck him like a physical blow. “Tz’arkan!” he exclaimed. “You knew?”

  “Of course,” she said tartly. “It was my machinations that sent you north in the first place.”

  For a moment Malus couldn’t speak. Fir
e bloomed as the city died behind him, but all he could hear were his mother’s words, over and over in his mind. “Nagaira was doing your bidding all along?” he asked.

  “I’m certain she thought otherwise at first, but yes,” Eldire replied. Suddenly she reached out and laid a hand on his cheek. His skin stung at even that faint touch, but he did not flinch. Her hand was cold as marble. “She was just another pawn in a game I have played for a great many years,” she said proudly. “You are the culmination of all my labour, child. From becoming the Witch Lord’s concubine to returning to the Hag with Lurhan, from poisoning Lurhan’s wife and youngest child to becoming Nagaira’s secret patron—all of these acts and more I have done to make you who you are tonight.”

  Malus tried to imagine the tangled skein of manipulations that Eldire described and the sheer magnitude of it took his breath away. “But why?” he asked. Then he remembered Urial’s accusations back on that fateful night aboard the Harrier. “Does it have to do with that damnable prophecy? With my fate?”

  “You make your own fate, child, much good may it do you,” Eldire snapped. “Everything in this world is defined by action and reaction. With causes and effects. If you stab a man, he dies, does he not? When a man reacts to the forces of the world around him, he becomes one link in a chain of events stretching back to the beginning of the world. When he is stabbed, he dies. It is his fate. Do you see?”

  Malus frowned. “When a man’s actions are shaped by events around him, he is acting according to fate.”

  “Exactly,” Eldire said. “Divination has nothing to do with sorcery, Malus, though it is a talent that few possess. Seers intuitively read the tapestry of cause and effect and discern how future events will unfold. A prophecy is a likely outcome—a consequence of a sequence of events that could occur a year, or ten years, or a thousand years from now. They can happen of their own accord—or be fulfilled by design, if one has the foresight to orchestrate them.”

  The highborn’s mind whirled, struggling to grasp the implications. “And you deliberately set this prophecy into motion? You forced this future upon me?”

  “Yes.”

  Malus reeled, his eyes wide with horror. “You sent me into Tz’arkan’s clutches for the sake of some goddess-forsaken scheme?”

  “You are my child, Malus,” Eldire said coldly. “It is my right to do with you as I wish.”

  He struggled with a new spark of rage. “If you know so much then—if my every step has been charted out by you before I was even born—then tell me, do you see my future?”

  Eldire looked out at the burning city. “Your fate, you mean? Yes.”

  “And where does it lead?”

  “To your destruction. To fire and misery and enslavement.”

  “Mother of Night,” Malus breathed. He fought against a rising tide of despair. “No. You’re wrong, mother. I won’t allow it!”

  To the highborn’s surprise, the seer smiled enigmatically. “So you reject your fate?”

  “Of course!” Malus snarled.

  “Good,” Eldire said, nodding to herself. “It is a simple thing to say, but far harder to achieve. For too long you have let yourself be shaped by the actions of others. You have lived from moment to moment, thinking yourself too swift or too clever to be caught up in the consequences of your actions.” Again, she smiled. “But all along you have placed yourself at the mercy of fate and look where it has brought you.” She turned, looking out over the burning cityscape. “She has learned the lesson, child. And it has made her dangerous indeed.”

  Malus considered Eldire’s words. “And if I reject my fate and choose my own path… what then?”

  Eldire looked at him, her eyes alight. “That will be for you to decide,” she said. “In time, you will see that what has happened to you up to this point has been a gift. You have been given the potential for great power and with the death of Lurhan you have lost everything you have ever valued or desired.” She grasped his hand, holding it up to his face. Malus saw the thick, ropy black veins and the dark, corrupted skin. “Fate can no longer touch you unless you permit it. Choose your path, lest it be chosen for you,” she said. “Glories undreamt of lie within your grasp.”

  Malus studied his mother for a moment, trying in vain to fathom the purpose behind her black eyes. Slowly, he clenched his fist. “Very well,” he said at last. “First, the daemon.”

  Eldire nodded. “First the daemon. Nagaira has the three relics—she is using them as the key instruments of her spell.”

  The highborn raised an eyebrow. “They can be used to cast spells?”

  “Not precisely. Their abilities can be used as tools to make certain spells possible,” Eldire explained. The relics were more than just possessions wielded by the five sorcerers who bound Tz’arkan—they were integral to the process that bound him to the physical realm. That is why he must have them if he is to undo the binding laid upon him.”

  She reached into the sleeve of her robe and produced a slim band of silver. “Take this,” she said, placing the ring upon his finger. “After tonight you will not be able to return to Hag Graef. With this ring we can speak to one another whenever the moon is bright. Now you must go,” she said, gently pushing him away. “Once you have dealt with Nagaira and regained the relics, you must seek the Warpsword of Khaine in the city of Har Ganeth. Step carefully in the City of Executioners—your brother Urial awaits you there, scheming to make the sword his own.”

  “Along with my lovely bride,” Malus said grimly. “I look forward to the reunion.”

  He stepped to the tower’s edge, clutching his weapons tightly. The dark courtyard lay thirty feet below. “By now the drachau has called out the guard. I expect they’re searching the convent.”

  “Yes,” Eldire said. They will be here in a few moments.”

  Malus glanced at Eldire and smiled mirthlessly. “Give him my regards,” he said and leapt into the red-tinged night. His cape billowed like a dragon’s wings as he plummeted into darkness.

  Eldire’s sorcery enfolded Malus as he fell, slowing his descent until his landing was no harder than stepping off a staircase. He landed without losing a beat and began to run, heading for Nagaira’s tower.

  On the ground, the rampage of the worms was much more apparent. Waves of heat rose from the paving stones and the ground roiled without warning. Poisonous steam burst from rents in the ground, forcing Malus to cover his face with his cloak and alter his course more than once. Above the groaning of the tortured earth there was a howling sound in the air, as though a cyclone was building overhead. The sky was a deep, bloody red from horizon to horizon as more and more buildings caught fire. From what Malus could see, the damage was still confined to just a few portions of the city, but unless something was done soon Hag Graef would be destroyed.

  Once, just short of the witch’s tower the entire courtyard heaved up before him and a furnace-like blast of heat drove him back as though he’d run into a stone wall. As he watched in horror an incandescent hump of flesh, larger than a nauglir, rose and fell before him like a sea serpent in a rocky ocean. It sank almost as quickly as it appeared, disappearing in a cloud of poisonous vapour. He saw neither head nor tail and thanked the Dark Mother for small blessings.

  It felt as if he spent half the night running through the ruined courtyards of the fortress, until at last he reached his sister’s ravaged tower. With all the destruction at work around him he was amazed the half-melted structure still stood—but then he realised that if Nagaira was inside she would have taken precautions to ensure her own survival. The dead savour nothing, as the old proverb went. Revenge was a pleasure for the living.

  He reached the open doorway and halted, feeling waves of magic rippling across his skin. Tz’arkan lay almost dormant in his chest—the daemon had been leeched of much of its vitality by Nagaira’s compulsion and then Eldire’s spell—so he knew that he could not count upon its strength. His armour was wrecked, hanging loosely from his ravaged kheitan. After a few
moments’ consideration he stripped off the remaining pieces, as they were more likely to hinder his movements than provide real protection from Nagaira’s spells. He was only now beginning to feel the pain from his injuries and fatigue was rolling over him in a slow, black tide. If he did not act soon, he wouldn’t be able to act at all.

  Not that he had the slightest idea how he was going to stop her. The memory of his sister killing one of Fuerlan’s men with a single word stood out starkly in his mind. How was he going to deal with that kind of power?

  The earth trembled and groaned and a hiss of molten stone filled the air as one of the worms broke the surface again. Malus listened to the terrible sound and the beginnings of a plan took shape. Gripping the hafts of his weapons tightly, he entered the ruined tower.

  The entry chamber was deserted, as he expected it to be. Malus crossed to the staircase and descended into darkness.

  He hadn’t gone more than a few steps before he heard the chanting—six voices working in frenzied chorus, braiding words of power together into an ongoing spell. As Malus crept down the spiral staircase the darkness became tinged with a faint blue luminescence. After a few more turns the light grew brighter, until finally he emerged into the open air high above the cavern floor and saw Nagaira’s magical power unveiled in all its terrible glory.

  She stood in the centre of a huge sigil carved into the cavern floor. Silver bubbled and boiled along the arcane markings, glowing blue with sorcerous power. In her hand was the Dagger of Torxus and at her feet lay the Octagon of Praan and the Idol of Kolkuth. How they figured into her workings Malus could not guess and didn’t care to understand.

  Beyond the ring of magic lay yet another, broader circle, attended by Nagaira’s six surviving acolytes. It was their chanting he heard as they faced away from his sister and raised their hands forbiddingly against the cavern’s shadows.