Path of the Incubus

by Andy Chambers

  They stood on a narrow terrace overlooking an azure lagoon with slender towers of orange-glazed ceramic flanking them to either side. Gaudy streamers floated from a balustrade at the edge of the terrace and banners fluttered from the tower walls in the salt-scented breeze coming off the water. A yellow sun high overhead warmed the air and scattered scintillating diamonds of light across the deep blue water. On the beach below them Morr could see brightly garbed people strolling casually past, chattering and laughing together apparently in complete ignorance of the grim incubus glowering down on them from above.

  ‘I hope you don’t want to go back to Caudoelith instead,’ Motley remarked pointedly.

  ‘No. I was satisfied to leave that place and our pursuers behind.’

  ‘Hmm, I should think so too, you know you could always try being just a little bit grateful for me getting you out of these frequent jams.’

  Morr tore his gaze from the people below and gave Motley a withering look. Motley spread his hands deferentially. ‘Mind you it’s just a suggestion.’

  Morr turned back to the sunlit lagoon. ‘You have never fully explained your stake in helping me,’ the incubus rumbled. ‘To save the city, you say, but you are no citizen of Commorragh. Your kind only wander into the eternal city to perform your morality plays or mythic cycles and then leave, you have no commitment to it or its survival. So why do you so smilingly offer to help me at every turn? Where lies your advantage in all this?’

  Motley gazed up at Morr’s face helplessly. The incubus looked shockingly aged in the warm sunlight: his cheeks were sunken and cadaverous, the creases around his mouth and brow were more deeply defined, his skin dry and lifeless, the dark wells of his eyes were lit by disturbing gleams of hunger and madness. It was as if Morr had aged fifty years within the last few hours in the webway. The incubus caught Motley’s expression and smiled mirthlessly.

  ‘The hunger is upon me. She Who Thirsts demands her due. Soon I must slay to renew myself or I will become one of the Parched, a mewling half-minded thing existing only on what scraps She might choose to let fall from her table.’ Morr eyed the peaceful strollers with intent and then grimaced. ‘You said this place is from your memories, so the people are ghosts. None of this is real.’

  Motley sighed. ‘It was real, and the people were real and so it is still real to those who remember it – which in this case is mostly each other. To put it another way these people are real and we’re the ghosts here. You cannot harm them and even if you could I would not permit it.’

  ‘Bold words. Do not imagine I have been weakened by my trials, little clown,’ Morr sneered. ‘if anything, my inner fires blaze all the stronger.’

  ‘Well… that’s good. You’ll need everything you can muster for Lileathanir, although there won’t be any slaying to be had there either. Sorry.’

  ‘We shall see. You still have not answered my question – why should you care what happens on Lileathanir or Commorragh for that matter? What is it to you?’

  Motley pondered on how to explain the concept of altruism to someone who has done nothing but claw and fight for every possible advantage throughout their life. Morr’s loyalties extended only as far as himself. He had abandoned his clan on Ushant for the Shrine of Arhra. Duty had bonded him to Kraillach and by extension Commorragh at large but he had turned on Kraillach when the archon fell to corruption. All that held meaning for Morr was the savage code of Arhra, to slay or be slain without morality or compunction, even unto a student slaying their teacher if he saw them weaken. The silence between Morr and Motley drew out painfully until it was clear that Morr was not going to go one step further without an answer that fit into his own peculiar code of ethics.

  ‘Isn’t it enough that we both want to save Commorragh that we should act in concert?’ the harlequin demanded.

  ‘I accept my duty to Commorragh because my actions on Lileathanir led to the Dysjunction,’ Morr replied. ‘I will rectify them because should Commorragh fall to entropy the incubi will be destroyed and Arhra’s teachings will be lost. You have no such motivation and even less to help me. So explain to me what you gain from all of this or we go no further.’

  ‘Because…’ Motley began helplessly before inspiration struck him. ‘Because the eldar race is more than just the sum of its parts. After the Fall three completely different societies emerged from the wreckage of what came before: Commorragh, the craftworlds and the maiden worlds. Each of them has preserved some part of what was lost – yes, even Commorragh as much as many would wish to deny it. Each branch has prospered in its own way, or at least not collapsed totally, over all the centuries since the Fall and that tells you something in its own right – these are stable societies. Each has learned to adapt to a terrible new universe that has no rightful place for them in it.’

  ‘So you believe that each should be preserved,’ Morr grunted. ‘How very noble of you.’

  ‘Oh it extends beyond mere preservation, my dear, cynical friend. There is a fatal flaw present in all three of our societies – all of them look only inward and believe themselves to possess the one, true path forward. If they plan for the future at all it’s only with their own people in mind and most can’t even think that far. Survival has become the absolute watchword of the eldar race, a sort of siege mentality that has ruled over us for the last hundred centuries. It’s leading to stagnation, a polar opposite from the excess that brought forth She Who Thirsts, and so now instead of entropy we fall prey to stasis; a slow, cold death.

  ‘Not everyone thinks that way, of course, there are some in each generation that look up from the mire created by their forefathers and glimpse the stars again. We can still learn from one another, support one another. A shred of hope still exists,’ Motley looked out over the lagoon wistfully for a moment.

  ‘So now you declare that you are making a better future,’ Morr said flatly. ‘I have heard such protestations many times. As chief executioner to Archon Kraillach I sent thousands of similar claimants to their final reward.’

  ‘No doubt, but I’m not talking about overthrowing an archon here,’ Motley replied wearily. ‘I am talking about reunification of the eldar race.’

  Morr snorted with derision at the idea of any true eldar of Commorragh mingling with the pale aesthetes of the craftworlds or the half-bestial Exodites of the maiden worlds. Motley looked up at the incubus curiously, head cocked to one side as he waited to see if Morr could recognise the hypocrisy of his attitude. The incubus gave no indication that it was going to happen anytime soon. Motley rallied himself for one more effort.

  ‘Simply look at our own experiences,’ Motley said. ‘Archon Kraillach, along with Yllithian and Xelian, wanted to bring someone back who was long-dead – impossibly long-dead. Yes it went horribly wrong but how did they do it? By going to someone who had the power to achieve the impossible–’

  ‘The haemonculus?’ Morr rumbled uncertainly.

  ‘No, no, no! The worldsinger – you know, the muddy-footed primitive with supposedly nothing to offer to the magnificent grandeur that is Commorragh. They needed her to make their scheme work and they went to considerable efforts to get her because she could do something that no one in Commorragh could do. Doesn’t tell you that the Exodites are far from being beneath your contempt? That they have achieved something in their own right worthy of praise and emulation?’

  ‘No, it denotes that they can be uniquely useful slaves at times.’

  ‘Morr, I do believe that you are being deliberately obtuse for your own amusement – which is something that in an odd sort of way I find to be very encouraging. Let’s take a different example instead – you and me. At the point where you discovered that Kraillach had been corrupted you called for my help. You knew that no Commorrite could be trusted to see the job done without exploiting the situation and most likely being corrupted in turn. Have I or have I not been a trustworthy and valuable ally ever since?’


  ‘You have,’ Morr admitted grudgingly.

  ‘And yet I am not from Commorragh, and I have no vested interest at stake in it or you.’

  ‘That… is not true,’ Morr said with a grim smile. The incubus looked as if he had just solved a complex puzzle that had been nagging at him for a long time. Motley frowned, seemingly discomfitted by the change in the incubus’s demeanour.

  ‘You’re implying that I have a vested interest? Do tell, please.’

  ‘Of course you have. It’s me.’

  Motley only smiled in response, motioning politely for Morr to continue.

  ‘You need me because you need a dragon slayer.’

  Bellathonis rubbed his hands together – both of them, new and old. One was delicate and long-fingered, the other stubby and dark. Well you couldn’t have everything, he consoled himself, the acuity of his new digits seemed fine and that was the important thing. Dust flaked down from the ceiling and over his bloody instruments in a most unsatisfactory way that ruined Bellathonis’s marginally improved mood. Tremors again, closer this time than the last series. The lab was becoming decidedly unsafe and he couldn’t return to the White Flames fortress without running the risk that something worse than Venomyst infiltrators would be there waiting for him.

  The haemonculus looked around the chamber, his gaze taking in the three wracks hurrying to pile boxes of equipment onto a crude sled, the sarcophagus they were sadly going to have to abandon, the examination tables with their aggregation of dirt and debris. It was a melancholy sight. He reached down and pulled the fourth of his wracks upright from where he had been lying on one of the tables. Bellathonis fondly dusted the leather-clad, bloodied minion down and set him onto his feet.

  ‘Now go and help the others and take care not to pull those sutures out,’ Bellathonis admonished.

  ‘Yes, master, thank you, master,’ the one-armed wrack replied unsteadily before staggering away to the sled.

  ‘Death is coming,’ Angevere whispered at Bellathonis’s elbow. He frowned at her tone, there was something off about it: not jubilant or mocking or sneering this time, just fearful.

  ‘That’s enough from you, old crone,’ Bellathonis said decisively and snapped the cylinder containing the witch’s head shut. He hauled the container over to the sled and stowed it carefully among the piles of boxes, cases and jars already there. The wracks milled uncertainly around their master awaiting orders, sensing his distress at having to abandon the lab but unable to offer any help. Bellathonis turned to them and spread his hands philosophically.

  ‘My faithful acolytes,’ Bellathonis said. ‘It falls to us that we must move on once again. Though we were here only a brief time it’s my belief that great things were achieved in this place, and I shall al–’

  The slope of rubble that had buried the cells was shifting, individual chunks of it slipping and rolling down to the floor. A dull spot of cherry red appeared in the midst of the fallen masonry, brightening through orange to yellow to white within a few heartbeats. Waves of palpable heat flowed from the glowing spot and an awful grinding noise could be heard behind it. Bellathonis and the four wracks instinctively began to back away.

  ‘I think we’d best–’ was all that Bellathonis could say before the rubble slope exploded in a shower of molten rock and something sleek came surging through the white-hot debris. Bellathonis had only the briefest impression of a silvery carapace and scorpion-like tail before he darted out of sight behind the sled. The wracks cried out in alarm and threw themselves at the intruder without hesitation, which Bellathonis considered a creditable show of fervour if not wisdom.

  The one-armed wrack barely even got to swing his cleaver before a nest of barbed chains flailed around his neck and bloodily pulled his head straight off his shoulders. The second wrack managed to snap his dagger’s blade against the foe’s adamantium hull with an enthusiastic but ill-considered lunge. Two sets of shears caught the wrack at shoulder and crotch before hurling him bodily across the chamber in a hideous show of strength. The unfortunate wrack struck the far wall in three separate pieces.

  Bellathonis recognised the assailant as a Talos pain engine. It was smallish, perhaps half the size of full-sized engine, but it had a definitively assassin-like cast to its design. The finest Talos engines were mobile monuments to pain and slaughter, more living works of art than mechanisms with purpose. Bellathonis found the concept of this Talos rather contemptible, akin to hobbling one’s offspring so that the resulting pygmies would make better servants.

  The two remaining wracks hesitated for a split second and then ran in opposite directions around the Talos. The barbed sting atop the invader’s tail flashed and one wrack’s torso simply vanished in a mass of flames. The other wrack took advantage of the momentary distraction to charge in behind their metallic assailant and jam a gnarled-looking agoniser rod under its carapace. Lightning flared at the juncture and the machine jerked violently before whipping around with eye-blurring speed to confront the source of its pain. Even machine-life could be hurt with an agoniser, circuits as well as nerves could be induced to a pitch of screaming pain by its touch. The Talos did not allow the wrack to strike again, using its whirling chain-flails to flay the flesh from the wrack’s bones with machine-precision.

  With all four of its attackers neutralised in a matter of seconds, Vhi turned and came for Bellathonis.

  Kharbyr awoke to the popping and creaking sounds of cooling metal. The air was filled with a hot, ozone-tainted smell. He tried to move but that set off fireworks of pain throughout his body and he groaned involuntarily. There were broken parts inside that refused to do anything he told them, most especially down around his legs. He tried to remember how he got there – the last thing he remembered was a speeding Raider with him braced at the tiller… the floor of the tunnel coming up fast towards them. Them? Yes, he remembered now, there had been others aboard the Raider: Bezieth and Xagor, where were they? Why weren’t they helping him? He tried to call out their names and that hurt too.

  He looked around, moving his head cautiously to keep a foaming black sea of nausea at bay. He was trapped in the wreckage of the Raider. The mast had fallen across his legs, pinning them against the deck. Only the wrist-thick tiller bar had saved his torso from being completely pulped, and now that bar was now bent across him forming part of the wreckage that held him in place. Tatters of the orange and yellow aethersail hung everywhere like bunting, a bizarrely cheery-looking sight against the dark, mangled hull of the Raider.

  He called out again. He was helpless to do anything else. Even the act of breathing made the nausea rise and fall in waves. At least he was still breathing, it was starting to seem like Xagor and Bezieth hadn’t survived. Kharbyr struggled to remember the crash in more detail. He’d been hauling the Raider across to a branching tunnel, desperately trying to check their headlong descent down a horizontal shaft and turn, turn, turn. A chill came over Kharbyr as he remembered the roiling darkness below, a darkness that every instinct told him to avoid. He’d hauled for the side tunnel thinking they weren’t going to make it in time. The prow came up and then he’d seen… he’d seen what?

  Kharbyr stiffened, involuntarily hissing with pain. There had been a whisper of sound out in the darkness, the gentle hiss of something gliding stealthily through the air. He didn’t call out again. There was something sinister and insidious about the sound that did not presage the arrival of help. A sudden clangour nearby made Kharbyr recoil and set off explosions of pain in his legs that brought him close to retching. Through the haze of agony he saw the familiar, barred mask of Xagor thrust over the edge of the Raider.

  Kharbyr croaked wordlessly in relief as the wrack hauled himself over the Raider’s twisted gunwales and squatted down beside him. There were fresh wounds on the wrack that oozed sluggishly, deep abrasions that had scoured through his ribbed, hide-like robes and into his equally gnarled, hide-like skin. />
  ‘Bad landing,’ the wrack said, making no move to help.

  ‘Not… my… fault,’ Kharbyr grated through clenched teeth. ‘Something… hit us!’

  Xagor sniffed and cocked his head to one side as if listening. ‘Not by our stalker. It still follows,’ the wrack said cryptically after a moment.

  ‘Just… help… me!’ Kharbyr snarled.

  Xagor shrugged, fishing a small device out of his belt pouches that he pressed against the side of Kharbyr’s neck. The pain and nausea vanished as instantly as if a door had been slammed. A vague sense of discomfort was all Kharbyr could feel from his trapped body and legs.

  ‘Now, that’s better,’ Kharbyr blurted in heartfelt relief. He tried to move again but the discomfort flared alarmingly and he quickly abandoned the effort.

  ‘Nerves blocked, not better,’ Xagor said as he started levering the fallen mast out of the way in a surprising show of strength.

  ‘Where’s Bezieth?’ Kharbyr asked.

  ‘This one does not know,’ Xagor grunted shortly. ‘Gone.’

  The mast shifted with a complaining screech and Kharbyr was free. Xagor reached down and dragged him clear with scant regard for his battered limbs. The wrack set him down and set to work on his injuries, meticulously straightening bones and stitching ripped flesh as he went.

  ‘You – ah – seem to have a lot of experience at that,’ Kharbyr gasped.

  ‘A wrack has no worth if he cannot mend broken clients for his master,’ Xagor muttered. To Kharbyr it sounded as if the wrack was quoting someone else, Bellathonis probably.

  Kharbyr could see over Xagor’s shoulder to where the ribbed wall of the tunnel rose a dozen metres away. A few scattered lamps hung from the wall and shed a dim light over the scene. As Kharbyr watched he saw one the lights momentarily eclipsed by something moving across it, a silver crescent that gleamed briefly and was gone again before Kharbyr could be sure he hadn’t just imagined it. Kharbyr decided that he didn’t need to be sure