Path of the Incubus

by Andy Chambers

  Xagor was caught still in the act of diving across Bellathonis in a vain attempt to shield his master when the negative feedback loop was established. Dark energies bathed them both, utterly indifferent to the wrack’s desperate act of self-sacrifice. Kharbyr – now Bellathonis’s – flesh was sinking onto his bones, his face becoming a skull wrapped in papyrus with his dark, shrunken eyes blazing as his vitality was drained away. The haemonculus had never imagined that it would end like this. The very least of his kind were unnaturally long-lived – nigh immortal – and his newly stolen body had been young and fit. Even so the relentless vortex produced by the spirit syphon was stripping away centuries of Bellathonis’s lifespan in seconds. Seconds more and he would be nothing but dust and mouldering bones.

  The feedback loop ceased abruptly, leaving Bellathonis and Xagor feebly groaning in an advanced state of decrepitude. Bellathonis blinked rheumy eyes and tried to focus on the hovering Cronos engine to see why it had stopped. Perhaps it was going to take its time after all, he thought, indulge in a little torture before it got on with the murder part. Part of him approved.

  Curiously the wasp-like engine seemed to have sprouted a distinctly humanoid-looking pair of legs beneath it. Bellathonis realised belatedly that there was a torso too, connected to a pair of arms that had impaled the underside of the Cronos engine with a large, baroque-looking sword. He vaguely recognised the distinctively scarred arms somehow, a petty archon he’d dealt with in Metzuh? Bellathonis couldn’t remember anymore, everything seemed dim and half-forgotten. He looked again, unable to shake the feeling that something important was happening.

  The murder machine was hanging at an angle with its claws waving frantically, its array of sensor probes and vanes fluttering wildly like a trapped bird. Sparks were pouring out of it where the sword had plunged into its vitals. It seemed unable to move, only bobbing in the air as the sword was ripped free in a disembowelling deluge of components. The gleaming machine sank slowly as if the sword had been its only means of support, guttering and sparking as it rolled over onto its side, lifeless. It was then that a dark miracle occurred, or so it seemed to Bellathonis.

  Without Cho’s consciousness to control them her capacitor-valves tripped open and all the vitality she had stolen poured out through her resonator vanes at once. The rich, dark prize of spirit-essence she had taken, all the nourishment that should have been presented triumphantly to her creator was instead released back to her prey and her killer. It was macabre feast for Bellathonis, Xagor and Bezieth, a bathing of stolen life-energy that made them young and vital again in accordance with the dark and terrible rites of the eternal city.

  In moments flesh filled out and became firm once more, wrinkled skin smoothed and showed the first blush of youth, limbs regained their strength and vigour with the unwitting gift the pain-engine had supplied. It was a long time before any of them spoke.

  ‘Bezieth!’ Bellathonis exclaimed finally, still basking royally in the dying radiance. ‘I remember now, I helped you against the Scarlet Edge not so very long ago!’

  Bezieth squinted at him uncertainly. ‘It is master Bellathonis! Is mi–’ Xagor announced proudly before Bezieth raised a hand to cut him off.

  ‘What do you mean? This is Kharbyr, I remember Bellathonis and this isn’t him.’

  ‘All possible through the magic of the art, my dear archon,’ Bellathonis said with insufferable smugness. ‘Forgive me if I don’t explain the whole thing over again. We must all keep our little trade secrets, after all. Most fundamentally I must thank you for your timely intervention against the Cronos parasite, I am in your debt and I do not take that lightly. I must ask – how did you manage to surprise it?’

  ‘You certainly sound like Bellathonis, you use too many words like he does.’ Bezieth said and shrugged indifferently. Stranger things had happened in Commorragh and especially ones involving haemonculi. ‘Your wrack there came up with the idea. We knew that we were being followed by something too wary to attack all three of us together. After the crash we decided to try and use the opportunity to trap it. Xagor gave me something to put me in a kind of trance so that I’d appear dead while he was tending Kharbyr. It took some trust on my part, but Xagor was right – the thing was so busy going after him and you that it missed me altogether. I walked right up behind it and gutted it.’

  ‘Bravo Xagor, very well done,’ Bellathonis smiled indulgently. ‘And bravo Bezieth, that was no mean feat to pull off.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Bezieth said impatiently, ‘but it doesn’t get us anywhere. I’m expecting the motherlode of ur-ghuls to come sniffing around this crash at any moment, and we’re still barely halfway to Sec Magera – unfortunately your predecessor in that body destroyed our only transport and I’m still wondering whether I should take that out on your hide.’

  ‘Hmm, three things occur to me,’ Bellathonis said, apparently disconcerted not at all by Bezieth’s threat. ‘First: ur-ghuls? That doesn’t bode well for the state of the portal to Shaa-dom. Second: That going to Sec Magera is a terrible idea, I can take you somewhere much safer and much closer. Third: That Kharbyr probably didn’t crash without some help – he is, or rather was, too good a pilot for that.’

  Bezieth frowned. ‘In that case what happened?’

  ‘Kharbyr-before-Bellathonis said the craft was struck,’ Xagor offered. ‘This one saw something come up from below. Darkness reaching.’

  ‘Ah. Well then it’s probably easier to show you than explain,’ Bellathonis said, ‘if we can go to the place where it happened.’

  Bezieth jammed a thumb towards where the tunnel had branched. ‘Back that way, where the ur-ghuls are at.’

  ‘Splendid,’ Bellathonis said imperturbably. He attempted to stand but found his damaged limbs still too unserviceable to support him. At his call Xagor obediently scurried forward to lift his master onto his back, useless legs dangling and arms clutched around the wrack’s neck.

  ‘Onward!’ Bellathonis called cheerily, and with Bezieth leading they began to pick their way along the travel tube back to the fork.

  Archon Yllithian and his White Flames warriors stalked warily up the ramps to the higher levels of the tower. The wraithbone walls showed spider web traceries of cracks that wept pus and foul-smelling ooze. The tower itself shook in the grip of the Ilmaea Gorath, the captive sun now so close to freedom. They eventually emerged into another vaulted chamber where open arches on all sides led out onto slender bridges. A profusion of inscribed plinths and jewel-encrusted pillars within the chamber indicated that it had been some form of control room, with the emphasis on had been before Aez’ashya and her wyches had burst onto the scene. Now bolter rounds criss-crossed the space like tiny meteors blasting craters in flesh, metal and stone with equal abandon. Half-seen figures dashed through the smoke and flames, struggling and hewing at each other maniacally.

  There were many of the green-armoured Chaos warriors in the chamber, and perhaps an equal number of wyches playing a deadly game of hide and seek among the plinths and pillars. It was easy to see what they were fighting for control over. In the centre of the space a huge crystal floated above the chaos with multi-coloured light leaking from its every facet. Smoky, pulsating tendrils extended from the crystal to penetrate pillars and plinths all around the room. There was a distinct sense of wrongness about the crystal, a poisonous alien taint that flowed off it in palpable waves. It didn’t belong in the chamber any more than the hulking invaders did. The White Flames hesitated for a moment on the threshold, an instinctive fear of the warp-spawned gripping even the most hardened reavers among them.

  ‘Shoot it, you fools!’ Yllithian snarled. ‘Your tormentor stands before you! Shoot!’

  In an instant splinter weapons, disintegrator pulses, monomolecular nets and darklight beams slashed upwards. In truth Yllithian had little hope that the floating crystal would prove vulnerable to mundane weapons, but the crystal surprised him
by instantly exploding under the barrage, the glittering shards of it scything through the chamber like shrapnel. For the briefest instant Yllithian caught sight of the abomination that had been metamorphosing inside the crystal, a being that seemed too monstrously huge to have possibly fitted within its confines. Yllithian was inured to the worst of horrors but even his black soul was scarred by the sight of the thing, at the terrible sense of closeness of an entity so utterly alien. Waves of sickness radiated from the entity as it writhed. It was attempting to complete its transition into the shadow-realm of Commorragh, to birth itself fully through the rapidly shrinking rents in the Wardings. Yllithian’s followers needed no prompting to open fire again.

  The tower made a sickening lurch as a torrent of writhing foulness splattered onto the ground beneath where the crystal had floated a moment before. Leech-like, putrid vestiges of the crystal-encased entity went wriggling in all directions like animated offal, hungrily flowing over fallen bodies and struggling fighters alike. Above them blackened remnants of the entity folded back into unseen dimensions like a burned limb being withdrawn.

  Bloated, shambolic monstrosities of dead flesh lurched forward to drag the living eldar into their foetid embrace. Once cut off from their progenitor the vestiges of the entity instinctively sought to grow and multiply like microbes. Fire, as ever, proved to be an invaluable ally against the more obscene manifestations from beyond the veil. The bright flare of plasma grenades cut through the murk as Yllithian’s warriors fought back against the new menace. The remnants were blasted, burned and hacked into oblivion in a matter of moments, a following rush of clumsily reanimated Chaos warriors meeting with a similar fate. As the last corpse stopped twitching silence descended across the room.

  Just a summoning then, Yllithian thought to himself as he led his incubi into the chamber. The pawns of the Ruinous Powers had tried to bring something more powerful through from beyond the veil, a prince or patron from their insane daemonic court. Yllithian’s studies of forbidden lore told him that if one Chaos power was intent on Commorragh as a prize then there would be others too. The Ruinous Powers regarded the mortal realms as little more than game boards upon which to play out their endless rivalries. If Nurgle, a force of morbidity and stasis, sought a foothold in the dark city it would automatically be opposed by Tzeentch, the lord of change and vice versa. The Ruinous Powers had been stopped in time though at least here. Yllithian allowed himself to relax fractionally and looked around for Aez’ashya.

  It was then that Aez’ashya’s wyches attacked Yllithian’s warriors. A sudden shout went up and the two forces were instantly at one another’s throats. The White Flames found themselves at a disadvantage in the confines of the chamber where the close and bloody fighting favoured the lightning-fast wyches. Yllithian glimpsed Aez’ashya racing towards him through the warring throng with a clutch of her hekatrix bloodbrides close at her back. He quickly backed up a pace to let his incubi form a solid wall in front of him and found himself on one of the bridges leading out of the chamber. The dark, hellish surface of Gorath raged far below and Yllithian could see that the intervening space was filled with darting, swirling Raiders and reavers battling beyond the tower’s walls.

  Hekatrix and incubi clashed in a deadly fury of swinging klaives and darting blades. One of the hekatrix gave up her life to force an opening for her archon to exploit, dragging aside a klaive for a critical instant even as it slashed open her midriff. Aez’ashya shot through the gap and sprang towards Yllithian with a wild shout of laughter, her knives twin bright blurs as they sought his life.

  CHAPTER 24

  Sacrifice

  The floor of the World Shrine on Lileathanir tilted and shook like a ship caught in the teeth of a storm. Rocks and ice rained from above and dashed themselves to pieces all around the group as they ran. Molten rock jetted up in glowing geysers, bulwarks of ice flashed into clouds of steam that hissed and screamed in counterpoint to the thunderous roars coming from ahead.

  ‘By all the gods what has he done?’ Caraeis raged as he plunged beneath the arch at the heart of World Shrine. Close behind him the sapphire figures of the Dire Avengers kept pace warily, their exarch silent as they followed the warlock into the dragon’s lair.

  Caraeis stumbled through the quivering tunnel with witchblade in hand, the chained lightning of his own power coiled and ready to strike. A psychic storm of crimson fury raged ahead of him, and it was soul-shaking in its intensity. His own senses, physical and metaphysical, were deafened and blinded by the dragon’s anger but he pushed forward guided by instinct alone.

  The warlock emerged from the tunnel onto a slope still smoking and scarred by the sullen glow of cooling rock. Below him was a great cavern in tumult where coils of crimson light twisted and thrashed like a gargantuan nest of snakes. Caraeis could perceive a moving speck of darkness within the energised mass, something constantly tossed back and forth but always at the epicentre of maelstrom. Here was the incubus! Here was the violator that had been sought for so long! The dark one was goading the world spirit into unthinking fury, recreating his crime and magnifying it a thousand times over!

  Caraeis plunged a hand into his satchel of runes, grasping one and bringing it forth to hold aloft like an icon. He would destroy the incubus, annihilate the violator utterly and save the world spirit of Lileathanir. It was hard to grasp his own powers and marshal them in the face of the turmoil all around him but grasp them he did. He poured every ounce of his ability into summoning the deadliest manifestation of psychic power that he knew of – the eldritch storm.

  A lenticular blaze of blue-white lightning ravened across the cavern, bright bolts crashing into the looping coils as they sought out the dark speck within them with unstoppable force. The rune between Caraeis’s fingers blazed with light, growing hotter and brighter by the second as he channelled unimaginable energy through it. The lightning of the eldritch storm clashed with the unleashed fury of the dragon, provoking an earth-shattering howl that bludgeoned the mind and blasted the senses. The rune was shining like a star, its retina-burning image piercing the amber lenses of Caraeis’s mask.

  It was only then that he realised he had made a mistake.

  He had sought the rune of vengeance, he felt sure that was what he had drawn forth from the satchel, but the image burned into his sight was that of the rune of weaving. His concentration was shattered by the shock of recognition, the eldritch storm dissipating in an instant. He flung the treacherous rune away, his mind filling with horror at the implications.

  The rune of weaving had many meanings but behind them all lay the weaver of Fate, also known as the Chaos Power Tzeentch, the Lord of Change…

  Into his mind there came unbidden the hundreds of times that the rune of weaving had led him upon this path. A push here, a shove there. The guiding rune always twisting at the center of it all, seeming to feed on his ambitions after he first perceived the coming crisis. He felt all the passionate emotion that had raced through his mind in times when he had thought himself calm, the sick realisation that he had been closer to the edge of his sanity than he believed and that he had now passed beyond it.

  It was already too late, something was rising from the coils of crimson light, a dark, broken body splayed out as if on a rack. It rose at the head of a serpentine coil of crimson energy, questing, turning back and forth before it fixed upon Caraeis. Momentary silence fell across the cavern, an indrawn breath in the midst of a primal scream. The incubus laughed mercilessly down at him from the head of the crimson serpent before he spoke in a voice like the dry whisper of billon dead souls.

  ‘Fool. Fool to come here. Fool to use your powers against the dragon. Your hubris has become your undoing.’

  Somehow Caraeis found a voice in his terror. ‘This… this is impossible, how– ‘

  Morr’s laughter was a roll of distant thunder. Crimson energies writhed around his limbs, poured from his fingertips in rippling
falls of flames. He brought his palms together and a whirling ball of fire sprang into being between them.

  ‘I long since learned to master my rage, to make a weapon of it,’ the incubus whispered. He opened his arms wider, the ball of fire growing into a miniature star. ‘At Arhra’s knee I learned its direction and purpose. I cannot master the dragon, but I can help channel its fury. You angered it and so now I can direct its rage into you… and through your sacrifice this world shall be made whole again.’

  Morr opened his arms and the fiery nova swept down on Caraeis with elemental quickness. The warlock marshalled his defences into a sparkling hemisphere of counter-force that sprang into being around him. The barrier shivered with the impact yet it held. An inferno of flames washed over it and it crackled like frosted glass as it resisted the crude, powerful attack. Caraeis enjoyed a brief moment of hope. The incubus was no battle-seer. Even with the limitless potential of the world spirit fuelling the dark one Caraeis still might gain victory with a well-timed counter blow.

  Yet the blast did not end, instead it intensified into a roaring firestorm. Caraeis sweated beneath his mask as he hurled all of his psychic strength into maintaining the barrier. He felt as if he were braced against a fortress door that was shaking beneath the assault of a monster outside. He began to pull runes from his satchel to help weave the protective barriers of force more tightly, fumbling as he built a constellation of tiny floating runes around himself. The runes sparked wildly as they sought to dissipate the dangerous levels of etheric energy leaking past the barrier.