by Gav Thorpe
For a while she lingered close to the webway portal. There was a coldness here that seeped through her spirit. She realised that she was alone, though the presence of other seers flickered past occasionally as they made their own forays across the interstellar distances between craftworlds.
She felt a tremor of life as the portal opened and a ship passed into the webway, bringing its own miniature version of the infinity circuit. Spirit stones at the heart of the starship sent out psychic tendrils, their feathery touch on the webway moving through Thirianna as the ship accelerated away from Alaitoc towards its unknown destination. The crystalline matrix within the ship drew energy and information from the structure of the webway, becoming part of its psychic construction whilst its physical form remained distinct.
Thirianna suppressed an urge to take hold of one of the psychic tendrils and slide aboard the departing vessel. That would be too much of a risk, and she was content to wander by herself, glorying in the ever-widening branches of the infinity circuit as it traversed the galaxy.
There was no sense of time in this place, but Thirianna knew that she had been inside the infinity circuit for quite a while. In comparison to her earlier travels, this journey was by far the longest. Undeterred, she allowed herself to drift away from Alaitoc, following the after-echoes of the ship that had left, buffeted gently by its psychic wake.
The webway split not far from the Alaitoc portal, becoming several large shafts and many more smaller ones. With a metaphorical last glance back at the portal, Thirianna chose one at random and swooped along it, breaking free from her worries as she broke free from the psychic well of her home.
Here it was truly lifeless.
The coldness of the void between stars permeated the webway’s walls, dissipating its energies. As Thirianna moved on, she encountered patches of resistance, areas of thinness in the fabric of the webway where the physical universe was trying to encroach upon the framed space created between realities.
There were signs of damage, or perhaps poor maintenance. She did not see them, she had no eyes to speak of, but became aware of the frailty of the infinity circuit along certain stretches.
Everything had been silent and blissful after the relative metropolis of the dead that was Alaitoc’s circuitry. Now came a distant whispering.
Fear gripped Thirianna as she realised how far she had come and how foolish she had been to venture here without protection or escort. She felt alone and tiny, a mote of existence suspended between life and death by a fragile thread of ancient engineering.
As the whispering grew louder, coming closer, Thirianna moved away from it, frightened by its presence. It was not just the material world that could break into the webway; the warp also exerted its own pressures on the structure, and where it was breached, the denizens of that immaterial realm could enter.
Thirianna stopped her retreat, aware that she could not discern whether she was moving back towards Alaitoc or further from it.
She had ventured far enough and it was time to return, Thirianna decided. The seer let her grip on the psychic matrix loosen, expecting to be drawn back to her body.
Nothing happened.
She tried again, thinking of her body, of the physical Alaitoc, of the singularity of Mind and Being and Form. Still she was bound within the twining energies of the webway and the haunting whispers were now almost upon her, chilling her spirit with their presence.
Thinking that perhaps she could broaden the vista of her interaction and find the way back, Thirianna allowed her presence to dissolve, spreading along the skein in every direction. She thought she saw a glimmer of heat, of life, of energy that could be Alaitoc. Yet at the same time, her spirit touched upon something utterly alien and utterly repellent.
Disembodied, Thirianna could not scream. Her flare of despair and dread caused a ripple across the skein as she drew herself back to a single point of consciousness. The wave of fear seemed to echo forever, betraying her presence to every sentience in the vicinity. Thirianna was aware of being discovered, of being exposed to any passing predatory thing. She tried to make herself invisible, to blend with the fabric of the webway, but her fear caused convolutions to pulse across the infinity circuit, spasming its structure as sobs might wrack her physical form or a twitching fly might alert a waiting spider.
Like a noose tightening around her, the things that hunted Thirianna closed in. If she stayed where she was, she would be trapped and helpless. Mustering all of her courage, Thirianna summoned up as much willpower as she could find. She became a sparkling mote of energy in the webway and in a moment she had fled, flashing across the infinity circuit, turning left and right, heading up and down, turning around and about, heedless of the direction as long as it was away from the things that had stalked her.
Stopping, Thirianna knew that she was truly lost now. There was not the faintest glimmer of Alaitoc’s warm presence.
There was something else though, bending the skein with its weight, distorting the webway. Thirianna could not sense it directly; whatever it was had a masking field around it, shielding it from detection. It was only by its effect on the nearby strands of the webway that it could be located, like a glass lens that can only be seen because of the light passing through it.
Thirianna had a suspicion that she knew what it was: a reality pocket. A piece of the material universe had been wrapped up in the fabric of the webway, hidden from both the mortal and immortal realms. There were many reasons for such pockets to exist, and most of these webway sanctuaries pre-dated the Fall. Given her recent experiences, Thirianna was reluctant to investigate further, but necessity outweighed caution; she had to find some means of getting back to Alaitoc and the bubble world might contain someone that could help.
Thirianna moved towards the reality pocket, probing gently at its borders. It did strange things to her sense of self, like a convex or concave mirror bending her image; she felt herself simultaneously stretched thin and yet terribly heavy.
Pushing past the discomfort, Thirianna slid into the pocket world. A moment later she saw that she had made a terrible mistake.
A spire of dark material speared up from a rocky foundation, extruded from the inner surface of the webway duct. At first Thirianna had no comprehension of scale; she was a fragment of consciousness with no form to judge her surroundings. As she observed the black tower, she realised that it was enormous, and that the flecks of darkness spiralling around its summit were in fact eldar with winged flight packs.
Everything moved with such slowness here, compared to the thought-quick interactions of the unfettered infinity circuit. Dragging herself around the edge of the reality pocket, catching a glimpse of a miniature dark blue star above the tower, Thirianna saw three long walkways extending from one side of the tower. The pair of starships docked at two of them revealed their function as quays, but the ships were like nothing Thirianna had seen coming or going from Alaitoc.
They were undoubtedly warships: weapons blisters extended the length of their hulls. Their lateen-like solar sails were raked heavily back, two large and one small, and the prow of each vessel had a ram-like extension that glittered with an energy field.
The webway encompassed the world of the tower but did not penetrate it. The threads of the infinity circuit surrounded the bubble but made no inroads towards the tower itself. Thirianna could see small figures of eldar walking along gantries and the docks, but she had no means of approaching closer.
When she realised what the eldar on the dockside were doing, she decided that it was for the best that she could not come any closer.
The eldar, garbed in highly stylised, barbaric clothing, bearing whips and scourges, were leading a seething mass of aliens from their ship to a yawning gate in the side of the tower. As the portal opened, the sound of shrieks and moans filled the air. Thirianna felt wave after wave of torment roiling around the reality bubble; agony unending poured like a flood from the gate of the tower.
Turning her att
ention to the newest arrivals, Thirianna recognised humans, several dozen of them, amongst the miserable throng. The other creatures, some hairy, some scaled, some squat and misshapen, others upright with two arms and legs like eldar, were not known to her. They were all bound in energy cuffs, glowing bands of red around their ankles and necks. She could not see any more detail, and for that she was grateful.
Thirianna felt herself being ripped apart as a portal appeared in the fabric of the pocket, tearing from the webway into the compressed region of reality. Another ship appeared through the gate, an armed sloop smaller than the two other vessels. Its black and red hull glistened like the scales of a fish as it banked towards the highest of the docks.
The pirate lair could not provide the information Thirianna required and to be here was dangerous in the extreme. She extricated herself from the reality pocket with another mind-churning sensation, leaving the raiders to their despicable lives.
Now that her panic had subsided, Thirianna was able to take better stock of her situation. She was lost in the webway, some distance from Alaitoc. The best way to locate the craftworld would be aboard a ship, and her best chance of finding a ship would be to locate one of the larger arterial routes. She could sense that the webway around her was a tangled mess of smaller passages and tunnels, caused in no small part by the distortion of the pirates’ sanctuary. She would be lost in here forever if she tried to get past the lair, so she turned back, her nervousness returning as she considered the fact that she was moving back towards the place where whispering creatures had come for her.
A moment or an eternity passed, it was impossible to tell which. Thirianna was sure that she was heading in the right direction. The webway seemed to be widening, but Thirianna could not shake the nagging feeling that the further she moved, the greater the distance was growing between her and Alaitoc.
Her mood flitted through various phases: frustration, fear, hope, anxiety, and back to frustration. The infinity circuit responded to her presence, her state of mind, echoing back her inner thoughts, reflecting her sudden moments of excitement and dread.
After some time Thirianna realised again that she was not alone. This time she tried her hardest to master her fear, balling it up deep inside her, not allowing it to disturb the skein of the webway. Things, formless things of dead eyes and dagger fangs and eternal hunger, flitted past her.
Their touch was freezing, but Thirianna did not respond. She was a patch of energy in the webway, an aberration not prey, nothing of interest to the mindless hunters.
The predators circled slowly, nudging at the fabric of the webway from without, trying to push their way in. Thirianna moved slowly away, so slowly it was almost imperceptible in comparison to the lightning-fast speeds she had travelled before.
Now and then she stopped, sensing the hunters coming closer again, their interest piqued by this fuzzy patch of warmth and life. Thirianna tried not to panic, tried hard to dim her thoughts, to suppress memories of home and friends, giving nothing for the predators to seize upon. She was a mote of existence, a part of the universe, and nothing more.
Heat suffused the infinity circuit. It grew gradually, like dawn breaking. From its warmth the hunters turned tail and fled.
Relief flooded through Thirianna. She was sure the warmth was something good. As it crept across the skein, it filled her with hope. It was like the caress of a lover, gentle and relaxing, coaxing her into sleep. It was the embrace of a mother, swaddled in soft cloth, gently rocking into somnolence.
Violet surf lapped at the pale blue sand, the warm water touching Thirianna’s toes. Above, a bright orb of silver illuminated the scene, casting soft shadows across the rippled beach. A figure approached from Thirianna’s right still some distance away. She smiled, recognising the gait of Aradryan. He was dressed in a loose-fitting robe of white and grey, and held a hand to his brow to shield his eyes, which glittered in the silvery light.
Thirianna stood up, reaching out a hand in welcome. As her friend came closer she realised she had made a mistake. It was not Aradryan that approached, but Korlandril. The sculptor’s face was masked by his hair, tousled across his features by the gentle breeze. He was smiling, eyes alight with amusement.
‘This is a nice place,’ said Korlandril, stopping beside Thirianna. He looked out across the glittering water. ‘It was nice of you to invite me.’
‘I thought we should spend a little time together,’ said Thirianna, though in truth she could not recall any agreement to meet her friend. ‘We have to talk.’
‘We can spend more than a little time,’ Korlandril said, smiling lopsidedly. He reached out a hand and stroked Thirianna’s arm. His touch set her nerves alight, sending a shiver of pleasure through her body. ‘We can stay here as long as we want.’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Thirianna. She wanted to pull away her arm, but Korlandril gently gripped her wrist and tugged her closer. His dark eyes bored into hers, full of passion.
‘I made something for you,’ he said, producing a fine golden bracelet from his robe. He held it out for Thirianna to slip her hand into.
She hesitated.
‘When did you start making jewellery?’ she asked. ‘I thought portraiture was your speciality.’
‘Let us see what it looks like on your arm,’ said Korlandril, ignoring the question. He pulled her hand closer. ‘Just put it on and we can see.’
‘You have never given me a gift before,’ said Thirianna, disturbed by Korlandril’s insistent manner.
‘You have never declared your love for me before,’ replied her friend. He moved the bracelet towards Thirianna’s fingers but she snatched away her hand.
‘This is not right,’ she said. Thirianna looked around, not recognising where she was. There were few parts of Alaitoc she had not visited, in person or in spirit, and her surroundings felt unfamiliar. The thought spurred a memory.
‘You stopped being a sculptor,’ said Thirianna, taking a step back from Korlandril. ‘You became a warrior.’
‘I could not bear to be away from you,’ said Korlandril, pacing forwards to stay beside her. ‘Your love has conquered my hate. Why not just accept my gift for what it is? Put it on and we will sit here and talk. We have as much time as we want, nobody will disturb us.’
‘No,’ said Thirianna, shaking her head. She tried desperately to recall how she had come back to Alaitoc. She could not. The last thing she remembered…
‘This is not real,’ Thirianna said, backing away from Korlandril. ‘I was stuck in the webway. I still am, aren’t I? What are you?’
‘I am your friend,’ said Korlandril. ‘You know who I am. Put on the bracelet and together we will go home. I know the way.’
‘You are not Korlandril.’ Thirianna felt panic rising in her breast. She did not know what the apparition was, but it was certainly not her friend.
Korlandril looked genuinely hurt, his brow furrowing with disappointment. Clouds gathered quickly overhead, obscuring the silver sun, swathing the beach in gloom. The figure of Korlandril pursed his lips and gently shook his head.
‘Why did you have to spoil this beautiful time together?’ he asked. ‘I thought you wanted to be with me? Is that not what you desire?’
‘You are not Korlandril,’ Thirianna said again. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the beach stretched away to the horizon in every direction. The thing pretending to be Korlandril grabbed her wrist again and held up the bracelet.
‘Put it on,’ he insisted. Thirianna splayed her fingers as Korlandril tried to force the band over her hand. He snarled and twisted her arm, forcing her to her knees. ‘Put it on or I will get angry!’
The clouds had become very dark now and the sea was heaving, flecked with foam, the waves crashing noisily against jutting crystal shards that had thrust up from the sandy shore.
‘Leave me alone!’ shrieked Thirianna, squirming in the grasp of the imposter.
‘We will be together for eternity, just as you desire,�
� said Korlandril. ‘It is what you want above all other things.’
‘It is not,’ said Thirianna, falling still. ‘I do not love you.’
‘Everybody loves me,’ said the apparition. ‘Do not lie. Do not resist your own heart’s desire.’
Thirianna kicked out at the creature’s leg, ripping free her hand as it stumbled. The sand had become beads of black glass, shifting underfoot as Thirianna tried to get to her feet. The waves were black too, and the sky a menacing purple and red.
‘You cannot leave me,’ Korlandril shouted after her as Thirianna turned and ran.
She had taken only a few paces before she stopped, the apparition appearing in front of her.
‘It is better that you choose to spend eternity with me,’ it said. ‘I can make your existence an unending pleasure. Love me as I love you and you will never know fear or anger or sadness again. Accept our love for what it is, binding and forever.’
The thing took a step closer, hand held out, but stopped and glanced up at the sky. Thirianna looked to the clouds as well and saw that they were parting. It looked like snow was falling, though the clouds were shredding above, turning to thin wisps of grey. The white shower fluttered closer and closer.
‘No!’ snarled Korlandril. ‘Leave us in peace!’
As the flickering downfall of white came closer, Thirianna could see beyond that the world was melting away. The sky had becoming the whirling miasma of the webway, the sea likewise dissipating into tatters of colour.
There was not just one of the creatures, there were dozens. They were all possessed of half-male, half-female bodies, with a single breast each, and huge, glittering, entrancing eyes. Thirianna was surrounded by them, as the daemons stalked forwards on bird-like legs and taloned feet. They had long claws for hands, which snickered and snapped in a staccato rhythm as they closed in. The closest held a golden manacle and chain, and lunged for Thirianna, but she dodged aside to evade its clacking grasp.