by Gav Thorpe
Yrlandriar eyed her coolly, legs and arms crossed.
‘Your foolishness begets response,’ he said. ‘That you chose to ignore my advice is further proof of your selfishness.’
‘Advice?’ Thirianna made no attempt to hide her scorn. ‘You wanted to control me, and nothing less. Just as you wanted to control my mother.’
‘You have none of your mother’s qualities,’ the bonesinger said, a sneer creasing his face. ‘It is only good fortune that you did not share her doom. And now you wish to play at being a seer? How long before you grow bored of that?’
‘It was your manner that fanned the fire of Khaine within me and drove me to the shrines of the Aspect Warriors,’ Thirianna snarled back. ‘Perhaps it was the same for my mother.’
‘How little you understand,’ said Yrlandriar, looking away. ‘It was a desire to protect you, her child, that called to Mythrairnin.’
‘And you blame me for that,’ said Thirianna. ‘I was only a child when she died, but you held me responsible. You could never accept that she chose me over you.’
‘Perhaps it was your behaviour, your spoilt demands and incessant complaints that drove her into the embrace of Khaine.’ Thirianna could see her father was quivering with emotion, though whether grief or anger she could not tell. He looked at her again, eyes slitted. ‘And despite what happened to her, you had to follow in her steps. I lost a life-companion to Khaine’s wars, and my daughter abandoned me for his bloody embrace too.’
Thirianna sighed and took a step towards the door.
‘Did you not have something to ask of me?’ Yrlandriar asked.
‘No,’ Thirianna replied. ‘You have not changed at all. You belittle everything I have achieved and I see that you seek only to use this arrangement to further spite me. I do not care what Kelamith says, I will find another bonesinger to fashion a rune for me.’
‘So I was right,’ her father said. ‘You speak of spite, and then discard your future simply because of your feelings for me. You have no dedication. When Kelamith first proposed this to me, I had hoped you had matured. I see that you have not. If you cannot ask a straightforward favour of me, what hope have you of walking the twisting paths of fate? You are far too capricious, Thirianna; you always have been. You are too young to be a seer, and I will not help you.’
Thirianna deadened her thoughts to her father’s continuing insults as she headed for the door. She stopped at the threshold, unable to leave without retort.
‘You are lonely and bitter, and seek to blame others for your own shortcomings,’ Thirianna said quietly. ‘Perhaps I should pity you, but I cannot.’
Before he could say anything further, Thirianna left, hot tears welling up in her eyes.
Kelamith was waiting for her, sat on the padded couch at the centre of the grav-disc. Thirianna sat opposite, and buried her face in her hands. Saying nothing, the farseer commanded the disc to rise up, tilting gently as it took them back to the Chambers of the Seers.
Three more cycles passed before Kelamith contacted Thirianna, requesting that she join him in their usual chamber. She had spent the intervening period in brooding isolation, frustrated by her father’s attitude, the old wounds of their parting reopened by the encounter.
Kelamith said nothing of his intent for her, and Thirianna feared to ask. The farseer had been adamant that Yrlandriar would be the one to make her rune, and it was with little hope that Kelamith had changed his mind that Thirianna travelled to the Chambers of the Seers. She fully expected to learn that his tutelage would cease, and Thirianna prepared herself for disappointment.
‘To see the future is a powerful ability,’ said Kelamith, after the two had exchanged their formal greetings. ‘Yet it is a transient thing compared to the ability to learn from the past. It is in the understanding of past, present and future that true knowledge lies. The past informing the present, the future judged on events that have passed. Without seeing the past and the present, the future lacks context and becomes a meaningless barrage of possibilities.’
‘One does not need to extend great psychic power to learn the mistakes of the past,’ said Thirianna, unsure what Kelamith was trying to tell her. It did not seem relevant to her current predicament.
‘It is not required, but it can certainly aid us,’ replied the farseer. ‘We each have our memories, preserved for eternity. We can consult records, to witness the decisions and conclusions of our predecessors. These are valuable sources of knowledge, but the infinity circuit provides us with another.’
Kelamith gestured for Thirianna to merge with the infinity circuit node. She did so, lowering her consciousness into the psychic web of the craftworld. The transition was smooth, without effort, no longer requiring the mantras she had learnt from Kelamith. In many ways, becoming one with the infinity circuit felt to Thirianna as if she returned to her natural state, that being clothed in mortal flesh was a temporary inconvenience that would one day be discarded.
Kelamith’s thoughts overlapped with Thirianna’s, mingling yet remaining distinct.
‘Until now you have only looked forwards upon the skein,’ he told Thirianna. ‘You know that time is not a fixed point, but a seamlessly unrolling stream of cause and effect. Upon the skein, we can not only seek that which will happen, but also that which has already happened.’
Thirianna felt a tug at her spirit and she complied with it, shifting from the artificial state of the infinity circuit to the realm of pure thought that was the skein. The last time she had travelled here, during the battle with the orks, she had kept her gaze low, glimpsing only the futures immediate to her. This time she allowed her gaze to roam more widely, drinking in the complexity and beauty of the unfolding universe, seeing the haphazard mesh of fate being revealed.
‘You do not yet have your rune,’ said Kelamith. Thirianna noted a hint of admonishment in his thoughts. ‘I will have to guide you back, to memories you have misplaced and events that you have never witnessed.’
To Thirianna it seemed as if the skein inverted itself. The unravelling threads were spiralling together, becoming one, a myriad probabilities becoming defined causes. The images she glimpsed resolved themselves in reverse as time flowed backwards. She struggled to keep up, so swiftly did Kelamith lead the way, but she half-saw herself again and again, in various situations that she knew well: becoming lost in the webway; meeting Kelamith for the first time; her argument with Korlandril; sitting composing poetry in her room; eating a meal with Aradryan and Korlandril in the shade of a golden-leafed tree.
Back they went, further and further, Thirianna’s life flashing past, until they stopped during her youngest childhood. Thirianna was amazed, watching her infant self sitting in her mother’s lap, trying to grab at her long braid of hair. Sadness filled Thirianna at the sight, even as the warmth of the scene filled her with a sense of love.
‘I remember this time,’ said Thirianna, trying to think clearly amongst the tumble of emotions that threatened to consume her. ‘Mother is singing to me. The Lay of Eldanesh. She had a wonderful voice.’
‘And as a child that was what you remembered, your mother’s voice, imprinted forever in your thoughts,’ said Kelamith. ‘However, our memories alone do not define a moment.’
He brought the pair of them out of the vision, sliding sideways to an intertwining thread, like stepping from one gravrail platform to another. The scene returned, subtly different.
Thirianna felt shock as she realised she was experiencing the scene through the memories of her mother. She had her baby daughter on her lap, and was idly singing to her while she waited for Yrlandriar to return. He had been called away from Alaitoc, to effect repairs to a starship that had been attacked by humans. She was worried, afraid he might never return, afraid of what would become of her daughter to be raised without her father.
Yrlandriar entered and her mother’s relief flooded through Thirianna. She saw his warm smile as he slung his bag from his shoulder to the floor. Infant Thirianna had fallen asleep and she n
ever stirred as Yrlandriar knelt and placed a kiss upon her head.
Thirianna broke from the scene, pulling herself back to the abstract whorl of threads, seeing the three lives entwined in that moment, one of them her own. She was both appalled and fascinated by what she witnessed. Kelamith was right; the power of the skein went far beyond simply showing images of the future. It provided her with the means to witness herself from the perspective of others, to learn what they had intended, what they had thought and felt beyond her knowledge.
‘Now do you see why it is Yrlandriar that must cast your rune?’ said Kelamith.
‘No,’ replied Thirianna. ‘You seek to prove that he loves me, by showing me a scene from before my mother died. He changed at that moment and his love turned to disgust. I do not doubt that he loved me as a child, but I fail to see how any of this is relevant to my current path.’
‘You have not paid attention to what I have told you, child,’ said Kelamith, showing his irritation. ‘To understand the universe we must understand ourselves. Your past influences your future, and just as you must come to terms and accept the possible futures, you must also reconcile yourself with the truth of the past. That is the purpose of the Path of the Seer, to seek self-awareness.’
‘I know all too well the effect my father’s behaviour has had on me,’ said Thirianna. ‘I suffer no delusions on that account.’
‘Examine the threads of your life, and note those which are most closely bound to yours,’ said the farseer.
Thirianna did so and though other lives touched upon hers, coming and going, there were two constants: her mother and father. It was to be expected and Thirianna did not see how this changed things. She followed the interlocked threads and then halted, suddenly terrified. One of the threads stopped abruptly.
Her mother’s death.
‘I have no desire to see this,’ said Thirianna.
‘Your desire is irrelevant, child,’ said Kelamith. ‘Examine closely the future course.’
The seer did as she was told, seeing the unravelling of the threads representing her life and her father’s becoming distant from each other, spiralling away towards their own dooms. Witnessed in this way, the divide became even starker than the memory of that growing distance.
‘More than any other, this moment has shaped your fate, though through no act of your own,’ said Kelamith. ‘If you are to learn from it, you must experience it.’
‘No!’ said Thirianna, but her protest went unheeded. Thirianna felt Kelamith’s spirit merge with hers, dragging her down into the moment of the event, becoming a singularity with the thread of her mother’s fate.
Twin suns of blue fire blazed overhead, shining down upon a dismal plain. Hills covered with brown grass and stunted trees stretched to the horizon, broken by shallow pools of dank water. The landscape was broken by bizarre ruins, jutting up from the soil in rows that radiated out from an immense pyramid at their heart. Most were little more than hummocks of overgrown stone, any markings long faded. Here and there needle-like monoliths speared from the grass at haphazard angles, their sides etched with odd geometric designs that flickered with fitful bursts of energy.
The pyramid glowed, bathing in the light of the two suns, reflecting them with a baleful sheen, its smooth surface marked out with large designs similar to those on the needles. Black lightning crackled about its golden peak and leapt to the tips of angular monoliths arranged about its base.
The army of Alaitoc approached swiftly, embarked upon Wave Serpent transports and Falcon grav-tanks. Their shimmering shadows flitted across the dull heathland as they closed in from three directions. The engines of jetbikes flared as they sped ahead to scout out the ruins.
Mythrairnin disembarked from the Wave Serpent with the other warriors from the Shrine of the Cleansing Dawn, her shuriken catapult at the ready as she leapt over the remnants of a low wall to take cover. With a whine of engines, the Wave Serpent moved away to take up a supporting position, its twin bright lances swivelling left and right as the gunner sought targets for the weapons.
In a constricting ring, the eldar moved in on their objective.
Ahead, the pyramid blazed with a pulse of power, a beam of disturbing pale green light erupting from its summit to pierce the greyish-yellow sky. An immense portal ground open, revealing a shimmering gate criss-crossed by forks of sickly green energy.
Warnings were passed on from the jetbike riders, but all who approached the pyramid could see the cause of their concern. Rank after rank of warriors marched from the portal, their bodies fashioned in the likeness of golden skeletons. Each carried a rifle set with a long crystal that crackled with the same unnatural energy as the gateway.
The heavy weapons of the grav-tanks opened fire, lances of laser energy converging on the emerging phalanx of artificial warriors. Gold-coloured bodies were shattered, robotic limbs sent whirling through the air.
The command came through to advance and Mythrairnin followed her exarch, Gallineir, as he vaulted over a toppled monolith, heading directly for the foe. Around the squad, other Aspect Warriors advanced, flashes of colour amongst the dismal surrounds.
The emerging necrontyr paid no heed to their casualties. Indeed, those warriors that had fallen still possessed a spark of life. Some crawled onwards, others paused to reassemble their broken bodies, the strange metal of their construction flowing and churning as legs and arms and heads were reattached.
Other infernal creations emerged from hidden gateways around the pyramid. Across the ruins, floating machines with skeletal torsos and heavy cannons emerged from the depths. Gleaming warriors with sleek bodies and halberds edged with glowing energy fields stalked through the remains of the necrontyr city. Clouds of beetle-like constructs each as large as an eldar helmet boiled up from the depths, the swarms hissing and spitting arcane energy.
Dark Reapers added their missiles to the fusillade of the vehicles, the trails of their shots cutting through the flickering mesh of laser fire. Squadrons of jetbikes jinked and swerved in unison as they duelled with the metal scarabs, their shuriken catapults unleashing volleys with each pass. The scarabs engulfed the machines and riders, overloading engines with their energy fields, detonating in blossoms of green fire to destroy the eldar.
A squad of Howling Banshees just ahead of Mythrairnin readied their weapons and leapt from cover to charge towards the closest necrontyr warriors. Like puppets controlled by a single hand, the necrons turned as one and levelled their weapons. Blinding green energy flared, rippling through the Aspect Warriors. Mythrairnin felt fear tugging at her as she saw a Howling Banshee struck by one of the beams. The energy pulsed through the unfortunate Aspect Warrior, stripping away her armour, then her flesh, then her bones, disintegrating her into nothing in a matter of moments.
With an angry shout, Mythrairnin aimed her shuriken catapult and fired at the necron warriors. Her hail of fire caught one of the artificial soldiers in the chest, slashing through metal in an explosion of sparks. The necron stumbled and fell on its face.
Mythrairnin turned her attention to another and fired again, but no sooner had she let loose another burst than the first warrior was pushing itself to its feet again, surrounded by a nimbus of unnatural light. Its glassy eyes flared menacingly as its ruined torso rearranged, the discs of the shurikens spat from its reforming metal flesh to fall to the ground.
Mythrairnin fired again, and again, and again, as did the rest of her squad. Under the barrage of fire, the necrontyr were knocked down time and again. With each volley, those foes who recovered grew fewer. Yet the necrontyr did not pause in their relentless advance.
Metallic creatures shrouded with cloaks and tatters of decaying flesh joined the attack, their wickedly long claws slicing through the Striking Scorpions fighting to Mythrairnin’s left. The death of each eldar was greeted by an unsettling screech of triumph.
The eldar fell back, pulling away from the main necron advance under the cover of their tank fire. In rippling lines the
y retreated before the necrontyr and then attacked again, the army of Alaitoc constantly shifting, never allowing itself to be trapped in the ruins.
Mythrairnin did not know how many times she had fired or how many of the constructs she had destroyed. The battle became a delicate dance of attack and withdrawal, its tempo dictated by the ebb and flow of the necron assaults.
The ruins themselves became weapons. What had first seemed to be decorative, geometric structures revealed themselves to be weapon turrets. The pylons spat forth coruscating blazes of disintegrating energy, killing two or three eldar with every blast.
It was clear to Mythrairnin that they had come too late. The slumber of the necrontyr on this world had ended and their awakening could not be halted. Still the commands were to maintain the attack. She did not question her purpose, filled with the knowledge that the farseers had predicted this tomb world would at some time in the distant future despatch a harvesting fleet that might well fall upon Alaitoc’s ships.
The risk to the craftworld would have been enough to stiffen Mythrairnin’s resolve, but through the fog of battle-lust she could feel something else pushing her on. Dim memories of her daughter flickered through her mind as she fired incessantly into the necrons. If there was a chance, no matter how remote, that these evil creations might harm her child, she would give her life to prevent it.
One of the suns was setting and in the dimming light, the pyramid changed. Another section of gleaming metal slid away to reveal an immense hangar-like space. From the darkness emerged a terrifying apparition, glowing with green energy. It looked like a cross between a building and a warrior, a huge construct with a dozen heads and batteries of weapons set about a complex, ever-shifting geometric core.
The necrontyr war machine loomed over the battlefield, sheathed in a baleful glow that warded away the blasts of bright lances and scatter lasers. An orb at its centre spun faster and faster, crackling with energy that crawled along arcane circuitry to the blisters of the weapons turrets.