[Battlefleet Gothic 02] - Shadow Point

by Gordon Rennie - (ebook by Undead)

  Delicate eldar fingers flickered in complex patterns over crystal and wraithbone control settings. There came the quiet whispering of Thought Talker communications officers as her orders were disseminated to the rest of the reaver force. There was a palpable surge of energy within the wraithbone structure of the Vual’en Sho, and all within the vessel felt something of the surge in their own minds: a rising tide of bloody-edged excitement at the prospect of the slaughter to come.

  Lileathon felt it, and welcomed it, but at the same time her superior aspect warrior senses detected a note of faint discord within the mood of the moment. She mind-reached out in search of the puzzle, and found it. A vague forbidding dissonance emanating from far away, but growing nearer and stronger even as she observed it. The ship’s wraithbone spirit sensed it too, and picked up on it, broadcasting it to the mind of every eldar aboard the cruiser. The ship’s spirit-song changed as systems powered down, apparently of their own volition, and, scant seconds later, the other ships in the reaver fleet did likewise as their own vessel-minds responded to the silent call of the command ship.

  Eldar eyes looked at Lileathon in question, everyone on the command deck radiating the same range of confused emotions: puzzlement and surprise, mixed with a vague and angry accusation as they suddenly found themselves denied the prize that had been promised to them.

  She looked at the ritual place where the Thought Talkers stood, angrily gesturing at them in curt command. Explain. Now.

  “A summons from An-Iolsus, craftmistress,” said Nemhain, the oldest and most experienced of the quartet. “We are to break off and return immediately to the craftworld.”

  “Now?” asked Lileathon, looking towards the pict-skin showing the image of the remaining escaping mon-keigh vessels.

  “An-Iolsus has spoken,” bowed the Thought Talker. “Its summons carries the word and name of Lord Farseer Kariadryl himself.”

  Lileathon and Ailill exchanged glances and mind-thoughts, the same reaction passing between them. Kariadryl, a farseer so old and venerable that he had seen many farseer brethren pass along the journey from birth to spirit stone while he still walked the witch path. What could have happened to have roused him from his reveries inside the dome of crystal seers?

  “Wisdom commands,” said Lileathon, giving the required obedient reply and indicating to her crew that they were to comply immediately with the summons-order from the craftworld. A few seconds later and the Vual’en Sho was swinging about to sunward, abandoning the chase and setting its prow towards the system’s hidden webway portal, located at a point in space between the orbits of the third and fourth planets.

  “Ceiba-ny-shak,” she cursed to herself in the coarsest possible dialect of Bel-Shammon battle-cant, taking a last look at the rearward-view pict-skins and the image projected there of the human vessels as they escaped to undeserved safety. The mon-keigh aboard them had eluded her, she knew, but the next of their species to cross her path would not. In the name of the murdered kin of Bel-Shammon, the next time she would kill five, ten, a hundred times the number of humans who had escaped her wrath today.

  As always, Kariadryl’s dreaming mind took pleasure in the smallest of things. At the moment, his universe centred on the tiny jewel-carapaced insect-drones which drifted lazily through the humid, misty air of the dome chamber, looking like small drifting starpoints of light in the dim ambience of the place.

  The tiny mechanoid creatures were a marvel of technological achievement, nano-devices the secrets of which had taken the eldar thousands of years to attain, and far in advance of anything the galaxy’s younger and less refined races could yet manufacture. Their purpose was to tend and clean the crystalline wraithbone material of the spirit trees which filled the dome all around the resting farseer. Kariadryl could—and, on at least one occasion actually had spend days studying the patterns of the creatures as they drifted through the chamber in their never-ending work, seeing in their behaviour an endless and silently joyful symphony of movement and purpose.

  How many of them are there, he wondered. Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands, even? And, yet, each year there seemed to be a few less, a fact which he doubted anyone else even noticed or cared about.

  We are a dying race, he reminded himself, without even the ability to repair or replace these precious little things. Study the patterns and facts of the smallest of things, for that is where the greatest truths are to be found.

  He sighed, and began to stir himself, seeing the patterns of several possible near-futures shift and coalesce into one clear moment-soon-to-come. Someone was coming, and soon his rest would be necessarily disturbed. He had lived a long life, even by the standards of his long-lived kind. A long and arduous life. Limbs and joints once supple and strong ached in the humid heat of the dome chamber. Eyes which were once a deep golden hue had faded to a milky amber, while hair that was once raven black was now shocked with bright silver. The intricately-worked wraithbone staff was now more than just an affectation of rank, and he leaned on it heavily as he began to climb awkwardly to his feet.

  He remembered days more than one and a half millennia ago, when, as a fleet-limbed young warrior amongst the ranks of his craftworld’s guardian militia, he had fought and triumphed in the great dithyandli competitions of martial strength, besting the champion guardians of three other craftworlds, the mighty Ulthwe amongst them. He had considered then setting his life’s course along the path of the warrior, but the fatelines had led him to his true calling along the witch path.

  He sighed again, casting his gaze across the thousands of wraithbone trees which filled the wide expanse of this place, the crystal dome of seers. One day, not too distant now, his spirit would take its place here amongst his brethren, and his journey along that long and often shadow-shrouded path would finally be at an end. It was not a thought which daunted or alarmed him, and he had already left instructions as to where he wished his spirit stone to be planted in the rich psycho-plastic loam, so that it might take root and form the seed of another crystal tree, releasing his spirit to join those of the others in the craftworld’s infinity circuit mind. He looked at the spot he had long ago picked out, between the spirit trees of Agilthya, his first soul-mate, killed twelve hundred years ago defending an Exodite world from an ork attack, and that of his old mentor Dodona, who had travelled this same path nearly a thousand years previously. He often communed with their soul-spirits here inside the dome, and those of other friends, rivals and lovers, but it would be good to finally be at one with them all.

  But not yet, he reminded himself. Not while there was still one last vital task to perform.

  He heard the silent psychic murmur pass through the spirit-mind of the crystalline forest, and turned to see the three figures which his farseer prescient-sense had told him minutes ago would soon be here.

  They stood silent and reverent in a clearing amongst the trees, awaiting his attention. Darodayos, Craftworld An-Iolsus’s master warrior and keeper of the shrine of Kaela Mensha Khaine, and two of his aspect warrior lieutenants, Chiron of the Dark Reaper aspect, and Freyra of the Striking Scorpion aspect. Freyra shared kinship with Kariadryl, being the grand-daughter of a brother dead these last eight hundred years, and so there was an extra gesture of familial respect in the bow she offered to the farseer.

  Kariadryl returned the warriors’ greetings, noting how oddly ill-at-ease Darodayos seemed here in the craftworld’s most precious and sacred place, then realising that it was because the aspect lord was without his warrior’s mask and weaponry, removing them as a mark of necessary respect before entering the dome, the one place in the craftworld where weapons of any kind were forbidden. Without his fierce aspect warrior’s mask to hide them from view, Darodayos’s features were sharp and keenly intelligent, although his discomfort at his surroundings was betrayed by eyes which constantly searched for threats which could not exist in this of all places, and by hands which protectively sought out the empty places on his belt-harness where sword a
nd shuriken pistol would normally have hung.

  He is far upon the warrior path, Kariadryl thought. Perhaps too far to turn back now. Soon, in only a few decades, perhaps, he will turn his back on all else which he could have been and take on the title of exarch. It had been many centuries since An-Iolsus had witnessed the nomination of one of its own to the rank of exarch, an eldar who had become trapped in one aspect role, dedicating their existence solely to the pursuit of war, although Kariadryl could remember when there had always been at least one such terrifying and awe-inspiring figure aboard the craftworld.

  We are a dying race, he told himself again. We only have to open our eyes to see the evidence all around us.

  “The summons has been received and acknowledged?” the farseer asked, already knowing what the answer must be.

  “She is coming,” replied the aspect lord. “The Vual’en Sho and the other craft under her command are returning to An-Iolsus.”

  “You do not approve of the choice of Lileathon for this task?” The inflection Kariadryl used made his words less of a question and more of the statement. The aspect lord considered the matter for a brief moment before giving his answer.

  “Her soul is not in harmony. She is too full of anger and a thirst for vengeance to be trusted with the task you have commanded.”

  “Anger? A thirst for vengeance? Strange to hear one of the warrior path condemn such traits in another. Are these not aspects of one’s own soul-self which all who walk the path you have chosen must find and embrace within themselves?”

  “We use them as tools,” replied Darodayos. “Emotions to be mastered and used to give us greater strength of purpose. The eshairr Lileathon does not use them in such a way. She allows them to use her as their tool instead. She has allowed her hatred of the humans and her grief at the destruction of her craftworld to blind her to all else around her.”

  Eshairr, noted Kariadryl. The fourth of the five words for outcast, only one meaning above the level of true outcast, the murderous eldar pirate raiders who roamed space killing at will, and who were without both honour and craftworld. Had Darodayos used that term in Lileathon’s presence, the life-blood of one or the other of them would surely have been spilled.

  “There is truth in much of what you say,” conceded Kariadryl.

  “And still you insist on using her in this matter, despite all I and others have said.” The aspect lord shifted stance, assuming the correct posture to signify his official opposition to the farseer’s command.

  “So noted,” nodded Kariadryl, making the gesture of conciliation. “Nevertheless, Lileathon will accompany me on my mission, as will you, Darodayos. An-Iolsus commands it,” he added, gesturing around them at the crystal forest of the craftworld’s collective spirit-minds, “and I shall need your strength and counsel close by my side.”

  The aspect lord’s voice and expression were sharp with displeasured surprise. “Accompany you? It was our understanding that we were to lead this expedition. There is much danger in what lies ahead, Lord Kariadryl, we do not need the witch-gift of farsight to know that much, and An-Iolsus has much need yet of your wisdom and seer-vision. You should not take such a risk.”

  “I can, and I must,” answered the farseer. “There are matters of prescience which are yet far from assured.” He broke off for a moment, looking at Darodayos and whispering to him in mind-speech.

  “Chiron and Freyra, how far can they to be depended on?”

  The answer came back almost instantaneously. “I trust them with my life, lord farseer. And with yours.”

  Kariadryl nodded in acknowledgement. Then I must tell you that in this matter, there are shadows across the path of the future. Even to one with the gift of farsight, the outcome of events we are about to set in motion, and those which have already been set in motion, is unknown. Too many fatelines intersect together at some point in the kilithikadya, in the near-future-to-come, obscuring the way ahead.”

  “You speak of a fhaisorr’ko, a shadow point,” said Darodayos, noting the farseer’s surprised reaction to his use of the term. “A convergence of many possible futures which not even the farsight of our race’s greatest seers can discern. “Yes, the ways of the witch path are not unknown to even an aspect initiate such as this one,” Darodayos added with the hint of a knowing smile. “If that is the case, Lord Kariadryl, then my concerns about your involvement in this expedition are multiplied many times over. If you cannot see the future ahead, then the danger to you becomes more than can be safely imagined.”

  “An-Iolsus shares your concerns, friend Darodayos,” said the aged farseer, indicating the crystalline forest around them with a sweep of his withered hand, “but, if we do face a shadow point, then my presence becomes even more vital. It is only by being there, standing at the centre of the moment of convergence, that I will be able to see and choose the one truth path ahead amongst the many other false futures.”

  The aspect lord paused in thought for a moment, considering the farseer’s words, and then, with an air of reluctant obligation, bowed respectfully to Kariadryl.

  “Wisdom commands, lord farseer. I go now to make the necessary arrangements for the expedition, ahead of the arrival of the eshairr outcast Lileathon and her vessels.”

  He bowed again and departed, accompanied by his two lieutenants.

  Kariadryl watched them go, wondering if they had detected any hint of the half-truths he had told them. Yes, his farsight had detected the mystic shadow point ahead, but his gift of prescient-vision was far in advance of that possessed by many of his brother farseers, and it had shown him tantalising hints of the form of things to come. These were not mere ferishimm visions, fragment pieces of false futures or possible futures still waiting to be born into realtime, for his farsight was powerful enough to tell the difference between such phantom visions. No, they were images from the t’hao-ny, the true future-yet-to-be, and they showed mind-pictures of things that would and must come to pass if the course of the true future were to be safely found amidst the entrapping maze of the shadow point ahead.

  He closed his eyes and focussed his farsight again, seeing the same images which he had already committed to memory a thousand times before.

  A laughing mon-keigh giant, his brutal, scarred face splashed with blood, his bare, thickly-muscled arms covered in the crude, tribal tattoo-markings typical of his barbaric race. He had weapons in his hands, crude and noisy mon-keigh weapons, and he laughed as they spat forth metal death into the bodies of his unseen enemies. Was this terrifying vision that of friend or foe, Kariadryl wondered, knowing that only the events which awaited him within the darkness of the shadow point would reveal the truth.

  He concentrated further, and the torrent of mind-images continued.

  The eshairr outcast Lileathon upon the command deck of her vessel. The features of her face were twisted in violent anger. She was shouting orders, and the void around her ship was filled with a flurry of destructive energy. Gunfire. A space battle. There was another vessel there too, alongside Lileathon’s ship. The other vessel’s hull-lines were vulgar and ugly in comparison to the sleek, almost organic shape of the eldar craft. A human warship. A mon-keigh craft, the fury of its firepower unleashed in the same direction as that of the eldar ship beside it.

  Now do you see, Darodayos, Kariadryl asked himself? Now do you see why the eshairr outcast must go with us? She is there already at the shadow point, waiting for us in a future which, for better or worse, I know will come to pass. Already the shape of the hidden future commands that she be there with us.

  He looked further. More visions swam up into focus.

  The webway. Its shifting psycho-structure was as familiar to Kariadryl as the walls of his own living chambers, although it had been over a century since he had left the craftworld to walk the webway’s strange and near-limitless paths. There was something there in the webway, something vast and terrible, travelling even now towards the shadow point and carrying with it portents of futures the sha
pes of which even the veteran farseer hesitated to look at. He saw the presence’s name written in the burning trail it left in the wake of its journey through the webway, and his mind recoiled in fear at the promise of the bloody-handed slaughter the burning lord carried with it.

  He saw the shadow point itself. A giant, glittering black gem blocking the route ahead to the future. It was slowly spinning, presenting first one facet to his gaze, then a different one. Even as he watched, images flickered and cascaded across its clouded surface, tantalising hints of futures yet to be, some of them perhaps also never to be.

  Himself, lying dead on the barren surface of some bleak and sterile world.

  A human, stern and hawk-faced, dressed in the strange uniform of one of the corpse-god’s bewildering number of warrior tribes. He is aboard a starship, shouting orders in vain as his vessel turns to fire around him.

  A great battle among the stars, greater than any Kariadryl had ever seen before, greater perhaps than any he had heard tell of except in the dimmest and oldest of legends. Mon-keigh and eldar ships together, fighting not against one another but combining against a mutual enemy.

  A star exploding, its ancient nuclear heart as old as the galaxy itself and now ripped asunder by a force more destructive and deadly than a thousand of the mon-keighs’ proudest battlefleets. The other stars witnessed the death of one of their own, and the galaxy mourned its passing and feared the awakening of weapons the secrets of which it had long hoped had been lost forever.

  The faces of Darodayos, Lileathon and other elder known to him. They were imprisoned somewhere terrible, a no-place at once both strangely familiar and grotesquely alien. They were screaming, all of them, their broken bodies pinioned down upon machines constructed of gleaming bone and metal, while twisted, barb-fleshed things stood over them and opened them up with fingers transformed into thin, cruel scalpel edges.