by John French
But when we, base creatures that we are, dive into the Sea of Souls, we do not drown.
We burn.
The inferno around Ahriman spread out in every direction. His shape blurred, dissolving into bright particles at the edges. Sanakht fell, convulsing, arms and neck snapping out as though a lightning bolt had passed through him. Astraeos froze, his limbs locking even as he fought to move. Screaming haloes surrounded the Rubricae, howling with faces formed from splintered light and billowing dust. I do not know how I appeared in that moment, I only know how it felt – it was as if every thought I had held in mind was being pulled by hooks, drawn out of me, and spread across a gulf which grew wider and wider. Everything that made me was a thin sheet of ideas, and memories and will. The daemons were no longer creatures of rotting bone and skin. They were the mirrors of my despair and hope, thin-faced nightmares pulled from every regret I had ever had.
Into this garden of decay slid the being that had been waiting for us. Its shape and form began as a slick bulb of pale slime. Fat and muscles bloated into being, and it swelled, taking on shape and texture like the stuttering image of a plant growing and flowering, then compressed into a few seconds. Its body was a huge mound of moist and torn flesh, its head a mass of broken horns. I could taste burning, the thick, heavy stink of rendered fat and bone soot. The power radiating from it was suffocating. The other daemons fell back, sliding beneath the surface of my sight. It was all I could do not to let my soul spin away into the vast creature’s orbit.
I knew it.
I know of many daemons. Some I have bound, others I have glimpsed, many more I have only heard of. Lesser creatures often spin names and titles for themselves, cloaking their weakness in false infamy, as a beggar who imagines himself a prince will wear a coat of bright feathers and silk. Others have no need of such adornment – their existence resounds through the warp. Titles gather to them like flies over a midden, and their power is second only to the Dark Gods that spawned them. This was one such creature.
Maggot Lord, Lord of the Plague Pit, The Seventh Leech of Sorrow, The Crow Worm – I had heard heralds weep its glory in the depths of the Eye, and seen its shadow in death of billions.
It looked at me. Not at Ahriman, not at the others.
Just at me.
It had blisters for eyes.
It spoke, the words shaking the cloud of my mind.
‘Do you hope to bind me, little witchling?’ It smiled. A thick bead of blood-marbled pus oozed from its lips. Maggots squirmed in the roots of its teeth. Its tongue was a mass of dried skin and hair.
I simply shook, fighting to gather my thoughts back into myself, to hold on to what made me.
The Maggot Lord chuckled, and patches of its skin split as its body rippled. It turned its great head to the others. The fire had fled from around Ahriman. No other sorcerer I have ever met could truly rival him, but even he does not challenge the most exalted of daemonkind unless there is no other way. Watching him, I knew that he would be searching for a way out even as the beast loomed above us.
‘You do not know me,’ croaked the daemon. ‘We have never met, but I have watched you. I have seen you rise and fall, and rise again.’
‘Where is our brother?’ asked Ahriman, his voice cold with control. ‘Where is Menkaura?’
‘Gone, exiled son, gone down to the pits to feed the fresh-born. Gone down to become no more.’
‘No,’ said Ahriman. ‘Your kind consume, corrupt and corrode, but you do not destroy.’
‘Do we not? The corpse mires of history and the tears shed beside graves sing a different song.’
‘Give him to us.’
‘No. No, I do not think I will,’ said the daemon, and shook its head. White worms and tatters of flesh scattered from its rolling chins. ‘This gathering is not for demands. It is for offers, for the consideration of possibilities.’
‘You have nothing to offer us.’
The daemon’s laughter boomed out, great balloons of skin pulsing in its throat. It licked its lips.
‘Oh, but that is a lie.’ It raised a huge hand and indicated the Rubricae, and their haloes of scattered pain. ‘You are the lord of a dead brotherhood. You tried to save what you cared for, but there is only one who can end such suffering.’ Its voice had become the glutinous rumble of mucus filled lungs. ‘We would see an end to your hollowness, Ahriman. We would see you and your brothers rise from their dry graves. You feel pain for what they are, for what you did, and for what you think you must do. That pain can end. There needs to be no more sorrow. You can save yourself, and save your brothers.’ It raised both its arms, fat fingers open, appealing. ‘All you need to do is ask. Let it go. Let the chains fall. You do not have to embrace this release. You just have to let it embrace you.’
Sanakht was forcing himself back to his feet. Defiance screamed in his every agonised movement. The daemon turned its gaze to the swordsman as he rose.
‘And you, Sanakht – broken swordsman that you are, would you not see the wounds to your soul close? Astraeos, sweet suffering child, the needles of guilt in your heart are lies. They can be plucked out. You can know hope again. Not just the promise of it, but the sweet, wet nectar of its truth.’ The daemon looked back to Ahriman, and nodded slowly. ‘All this, the Lord of All offers to you.’
There was no mention of alternatives. They did not need to be put into words. The hungering silence of the daemon throng told of what any refusal would mean. I was also not surprised that it made no offer to me. There is little meat on my soul to satisfy a daemon of any kind. I have bound and broken too many of their kind for them to offer me anything but retribution.
‘We shall leave this place,’ said Ahriman, his voice clear and hard.
The daemon shook its head again, its tattered face heavy with sorrow.
‘That cannot be,’ it said. The daemons encircling us heaved forwards.
‘No,’ said Ahriman, his voice the ring of a hammer on steel. ‘By the terms under which we came to this temple, I deny you. This is a fane of oracles, daemon. You have corrupted it, you have made its seat your own, but its chains still bind you. You sit where the Oracle once sat. You have taken that throne for your own purposes, but it is not a seat of power. It is a cage’.
The daemon’s jaw shook with anger. Folds of rotted fat trembled. It was afraid.
For just as I saw the truth, so too did the daemon.
The rotten bowl of the chamber shimmered back into sight. Its excrement-slicked walls pulsed in time with the great daemon’s panting breaths. It was trapped. It was a creature of power, of might, but it was blind to the greater subtlety. Those currents lay in another power’s hand.
‘You who sit in the seat of the Oracle, I demand truth,’ said Ahriman. ‘Name yourself.’
‘Sac’nal’ui’shulsin’grek…’
The syllables broke from the daemon’s lips. The sound ripped through the empyrean, each a broken tooth of spite. The daemon reared up, mouth moving, its face splitting as it fought to keep the words inside. Blisters of blood formed and popped in the air. Its left fist crashed down in front of it, as its right rose above its head. It had to speak its name to us, but it intended to kill us before that name was complete. A great, rusted cleaver grew in its grasp as it lunged forwards.
‘…ih’hal’hrek…’
Sanakht met and turned the blow, his paired swords hissing as they kissed the cleaver’s tainted iron. The daemon pulled its blade back and charged, liquid bulk rolling. Sanakht spun aside, slicing as he moved. Ribbons of yellow fat and congealed blood fell from twin wounds.
‘…nh’gul’rg’shargu…’ The bloody words poured out as the deamon’s cleaver chopped down again.
Astraeos’s sword was a tongue of white and blue flame as it cut the beast’s arm at the wrist. The cleaver and severed hand hit the ground. Ropes of sinew lashed out from the daemon�
�s arm, and tried to drag the hand and weapon back onto the stump.
‘…sal-hu’ne’gorn’shu’sai’sa…’
It reached up with its remaining hand, fat fingers ripping at its own tongue.
Still the links of its name came from its mouth.
Ahriman had not moved, but now he turned his head to me. ‘Bind it, brother,’ he said.
And then – in that cold instant – I knew that I should never have agreed to serve him.
‘…vel’rek’hul’scb’th’rx.’
The last syllable fell from the daemon’s lips, sliding into the air like a scorched snake. I looked at Ahriman for an instant that felt like eternity. My mind was ready. The divided cells of my memory and psyche, intended to hold Menkaura, stood open. I had heard each beat and splintered tone of the daemon’s name. It was mine. A net of chains lay in the fingers of my will.
I turned to the daemon. Its lesser kin had begun to move again, slithering and scrabbling forwards, blades scraping, teeth champing. The Rubricae fired: cobalt light exploded soft skulls. The daemon inhaled, its stomach and throat bulging. It vomited. Blood, bile, and shadow gushed towards us. A dome of flame met the deluge. Black smoke and yellow steam tumbled up through the air.
I was still hesitating, still unsure that I wanted to play the part that Ahriman had created for me in this layered deception.
Ctesias, now!+ Ahriman’s thought voice split the warp-flooded chamber like a thunderclap.
I spoke the daemon’s name. The syllables tore my tongue and lips. Frost bloomed across my helmet. Blood was running down my throat, filling my lungs as I forced air from them.
I kept speaking, feeling the chain of sounds draw the daemon’s essence into my hand link by bloody link.
The daemon crashed forwards, hammering its bulk down upon the burning dome above us. Flesh flashed to smoke.
As each syllable left my lips I split it from my memory, and locked it within the divided walls of my mind. Others use grimoires, arcane ciphers or other ritual emblems to hold the daemons they bind. I use my mind, and write the keys of summoning on my psyche.
The daemon tilted its head back and bellowed. The rotting throng surged to answer the call.
I was drowning in my own blood. Blisters had grown and burst on my tongue. The chamber around me was lost in a fever blur.
I chewed the end of the name out, and suddenly I was on the filth soaked floor, shivering.
The others were still fighting, still hacking, still burning as the lesser daemons threw themselves at us.
Above us the daemon held still, flesh pulsing in a mockery of breathing. Its name was within me, divided and locked away, like a weapon broken into parts until it is needed, until it is allowed to be whole again. It looked down at me, hatred in its blood and pus-filled eyes.
‘Be gone,’ I said in a cracked voice. ‘Come not again, until I call.’
Its shape broke apart, shredding from the edges, reducing until it was nothing. It watched me until the last gust of the invisible wind took its eyes.
I passed into blackness then, unconsciousness falling across thought and sensation like a knife.
The voice came from emptiness. ‘You are owed a question.’
I recognised it. It was a voice I had not heard speak with a tongue since… since… a time, the memory of which I have bartered away.
‘Menkaura?’ I asked, and the image of the dead Oracle appeared as though created by the name. He no longer wore his silvered armour, or eyeless helm. An open, simple face watched me from above the red armour of the Thousand Sons Legion.
I turned my gaze, and looked into the flat nothing of… wherever I was. I could feel nothing but the turning of my thoughts. It did not feel like a dream, but it did not feel real either. It did not feel like anything.
I looked back to Menkaura.
‘Ask your question,’ he said.
‘You are dead,’ I said. His face did not even move. ‘Your soul was taken by the daemons of the Plague Father. You were unmade.’
He just looked at me, unmoving, his expression blank.
‘What is your question? A question was bought, payment was made. It must be asked.’
I shook my head. My thoughts were clear, but seemed to be coming together with frozen slowness.
‘It was Ahriman’s question, and he asked it of the daemon that had taken your place.’
Menkaura did not move or speak. I smiled grimly to myself.
‘He knew that something would be there, but he kept that from me while making me ready to bind you. Lies, and half-truths, hidden ends and greater purposes. He has not changed.’ I laughed, the noise flat in the black space. ‘But he was right. If he had asked me to bind one of the exalted ranks of the neverborn I would have refused. I would never have stepped into such a trap, not for any promised reward. I should have expected the deception. I should have known. And now I have turned a creature sent against us into my slave.’ I paused, hissing breath between my teeth. ‘Our slave. That was what he wanted, what he needed me for. Why dirty his hands with such things? Why swallow the poison himself?’
‘He is afraid,’ said Menkaura. My gaze snapped up to him, the words of the questions still lingering in my mouth. ‘He is afraid of what he has begun. A destiny awaits him. A chance to be many things draws closer with every step he takes. He can see that. It is like a mountain of fire burning the sky beyond the horizon. He sees its light, but not its shape. He knows that others see it too, powers that move in the mortal and immortal realms. And he fears them. He fears that he might fall on his journey, and that he might reach the end of it.’ Menkaura paused, nodding slowly as though in agreement with a voice that only he could hear. ‘He is right to fear.’
I knew then that what I was seeing and hearing was not a dream. It was something else, a scrap of unfinished time resolving itself, a conversation that needed to play out for fate to be satisfied. The Dead Oracle’s words passed through me, cold, shivering with implication.
‘That is it? He is arming himself against… against what?’
‘Against everything that could try to stop him.’
‘And he makes me a weapon for that war.’
‘He neither adds nor takes away from your nature. You are as you are.’
Menkaura began to fade as he spoke.
‘There should be payment.’ I called after him. ‘Those are the bindings on you, brother – an oracle’s words must be bought.’
He shook his head as his features sunk into the blackness.
‘The payment has already been given,’ he said, and was gone, as though he had never been.
I stared at the void.
Then I found myself looking into the face of Ahriman. There was no blink, no transition, just the brightness of lights, and the sound of the Sycorax suddenly in my ears. I sat in a chair of black granite, in a chamber of tarnished bronze. My armour hung from the walls in polished components, and my staff rested in a rack of bone.
You dreamed deeply and long, brother,+ Ahriman sent.
I did not reply. I was flicking my awareness through my mind and body searching for a sign of how much time had passed.
Ahriman spoke again, this time with his true voice. ‘You have my thanks, Ctesias. I know it cost you.’
My body felt leaden, my thoughts sluggish in my skull. Fatigue washed through me. Bright colours smudged my eyes. My tongue was a dry leaf in my mouth. Any wounds I had suffered had gone, but the shadow of the binding hung over me, pressing in through every sensation. One does not simply swallow the true name of an exalted daemon and then shrug it off. Everything – as never fails to be proved true – has a price.
‘You lied to me,’ I spat back at him, my anger suddenly raw and fresh. He tilted his head, the gesture half an acknowledgement, half a question.
‘I did what I had to, brother. As d
id you.’
‘What are you doing Ahriman? Why did we go to the Oracle? What do you intend for us now?’
‘Us?’ he said, and the thinnest hint of a smile touched his eyes. ‘I thought you were not part of anything beyond yourself.’
I shook my head, suddenly feeling deeply tired. Ahriman nodded, and turned towards the chamber’s door.
‘Rest, brother,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Rest, and dream.’
‘I do not dream,’ I protested, but he was already gone, and the words rang hollow in the still air. ‘I do not dream,’ I said again, more quietly, shaking my head as my eyelids flickered over my sight. My mind and limbs felt heavy, as though the act of returning to consciousness had used up my full store of energy. I was draining down into blank oblivion again, the features of my new chamber sliced away as my eyes closed.
In the black flicker of my eyelids I saw again the face of Menkaura, and heard words I was not sure had been real.
‘He is arming himself against… against what?’
‘Against everything that could try to stop him.’
II
FORTUNE’S FOOL
Those who think the gods uncaring know nothing. The gods care for us all: for each pitiful spark of life born in screams, each life lived in lust and ambition and each soul passing in silence. They care for us as we care for food, water and air. We are their life: our dreams are their strength, our weakness their existence. They care for us. They need us. But to need and to care does not require kindness.
– Numious, The Illuminator of Hilicia, executed for heresy
The second service I did for Ahriman was to kill one of our own.
I am not a creature given to sentiment; that should not surprise you. But if these words I write have come to be read by another, you will know me to have been led by his thirst for power. I do not feel guilt at the lives I have taken or the deeds I have done. I have killed many, thousands certainly, millions perhaps; the number is as irrelevant as any claim that those deaths damn me, or any counterclaim that they were justified. They are beyond justification, and my soul is forfeit because I want power that mortals should not have. I am willing to seize that power.