Path of the Seer

by Gav Thorpe

With a blinding flash, green lightning arced down upon the eldar army, shredding tanks and Aspect Warriors in a barrage of pyrotechnic destruction. Whole squads were vaporised in a heartbeat. Falcons exploded or were sheared into small pieces or crashed into the ruins of the city.

  The order came to retreat.

  Within moments, the Wave Serpent that was to carry the Dire Avengers slid into view just to one side of the squad, sheltering behind a crumbled archway. Mythrairnin and the four other survivors headed towards the transport, pausing only to unleash one more volley at the necron warriors closing in on them.

  They were almost at the Wave Serpent when the shadow of the necron war engine fell across them. A moment later, the ancient stones around them detonated as lightning engulfed the Wave Serpent. The transport exploded, sending a shard of hull scything through the Dire Avengers.

  Mythrairnin was flung back by the blossom of fire and hurled into the remains of a wall. She stumbled as she tried to stand and realised dully that her right leg had been cut off by the blast of debris.

  She saw the necrons advancing and suppressed a cry of fear and pain. Khaine was with her, and with Khaine’s strength she would not die without some retort. She fixed on the image of her daughter’s face and activated her shuriken catapult, sending volley after volley into the necron warriors stalking closer.

  A bolt of green energy hit her, and for the briefest of moments her entire body filled with pain, every molecule torn apart.

  Thirianna clawed and struggled to rip herself from the grip of the skein, but Kelamith would not permit her to leave. Trapped, Thirianna caught herself in a loop, experiencing the last moments of her mother’s life, desperate to cling on to any connection to her, yet torn apart by the nature of her doom.

  Kelamith intervened, prising Thirianna’s spirit away from the thread of her mother, withdrawing from the intimate contact so that she could establish some semblance of rational thought and balance.

  ‘Why?’ demanded Thirianna, recoiling with horror from the memory of what her mother had experienced.

  ‘It is not the pain of your mother that you must understand,’ the farseer replied, his voice distant and dispassionate.

  Before Thirianna could raise any objection, she felt herself drawn down into the material of the skein again, this time flowing along a faint after-thread left by her mother’s death, to where it intersected with the line of her father’s life.

  The glowstone let out only the feeblest amount of light, barely touching the blackness of the room. Yrlandriar sat cross-legged in the middle of the chamber, hands on his knees, staring at the darkness.

  How could he tell Thirianna what had happened? How could he explain to her why her mother would not be returning?

  These questions nagged at him, more than the grief that was even now crushing his heart and running veins of chilling venom through his gut. In a moment of self-reflection, Yrlandriar realised that it was not the thought of answering these questions for his daughter that so vexed him; he could not answer them for himself.

  He knew it was a fallacy to expect meaning from the random chance of fate, and still he struggled to find some sense in the death of his beloved Mythrairnin. He could find none. He could find no solace in a meaningful death because he could not comprehend how it was that she had first taken to the Path of the Warrior. The causality of her ending led back to that decision, and it was this that defied logic more than anything else that crowded Yrlandriar’s thoughts.

  She had known death was a possibility and yet against all reason, Mythrairnin had abandoned her child to his care to follow in the footsteps of the Bloody-Handed God. It was a decision that seemed perverse to the artisan, to seek destruction instead of the joys of her own creation.

  He had not wept. It seemed a pointless exercise in vanity, a physiological response that would do nothing to fill the gulf that yawned wide in the core of his being. He was empty and cold, all sense of love and warmth ripped from him for no reason at all.

  The child would need him.

  It was too painful to contemplate. Yrlandriar was surprised by his own reaction, yet every thought of Thirianna mutated into memories of her mother. They were so alike in many ways the slightest thought of his daughter sent spasms of grief through Yrlandriar.

  There was nothing he would be able to do to ease the hurt, and Thirianna’s grief would compound his own. Yrlandriar’s misery would reflect in his daughter and her woe would stir his own. She would be better free from such a taint, able to live her life untouched by the gnawing sadness that would now be his burden.

  Thirianna was still absorbing this, trying to reconcile her own memories of the time with the thoughts of her father, when Kelamith moved them again. This time it was to a juncture of her life and Yrlandriar’s, and from the first moment she recognised it: the time before she had left to become a Dire Avenger.

  ‘You cannot tell me what to do!’ screeched Thirianna, snatching up her bag of belongings. ‘You just don’t understand.’

  ‘No, I do not,’ said Yrlandriar, his heart sinking as Thirianna took another step towards the door. He had failed, and now Thirianna would suffer the same fate as Mythrairnin. He tried to calm himself, but the mere thought of his daughter becoming an Aspect Warrior filled him with foreboding.

  ‘Can you not see how selfish this is?’ he said, spitting the accusation at his daughter. Her anger deepened and Yrlandriar realised he was not conveying what he meant properly. She simply would not listen to what he was saying. ‘Why do you have to do this to me?’

  ‘This is not about you, father,’ said Thirianna. ‘Why does everything have to be about you? And you accuse me of being selfish!’

  ‘You are making a mistake,’ he said. He had let Mythrairnin leave for the shrines without argument and was not going to do the same with Thirianna. ‘You are being hasty and immature.’

  ‘I am not being immature,’ said Thirianna, her tone cold. ‘As a child you would always tell me what to do. I will not accept that any more. You cannot control me; I am not your possession. You should support me, and understand that I have to do this. I have little left to remember mother, but perhaps I can know her a bit better if I follow upon the Path she trod.’

  ‘That path leads to death and despair,’ said Yrlandriar. The slightest hint of the thought that Thirianna would die as well sent a chill through every part of him. It would be too much to bear and he could not allow it, for the sake of both of them. ‘I forbid this. As your father, I cannot allow you to do this.’

  ‘Forbid?’ Thirianna’s voice rose to a piercing pitch. ‘Forbid? I am not some lump of wraithbone to be moulded and shaped and teased by your command. That is your problem, father. You think that you can be the master of everything you touch. Well, you will not be my master. Turn your fingers to another purpose and leave me to live my life as I choose.’

  Yrlandriar could think of nothing else to say that he had not said already, over and over. He had known that he and Thirianna were becoming estranged, and had expected her to leave even sooner. Yet to learn that she was to tread in the footsteps of Khaine was too much for him to accept.

  Thirianna stopped at the door and gave him a final backwards glance. Was that hesitation he saw? Did she wait for some last argument from him to dissuade her from this madness?

  It did not matter. Clearly he had failed. He had failed Thirianna and he had failed the legacy of Mythrairnin. Both of them were lost to him and perhaps they were the better for it.

  ‘Just leave,’ he said, turning away, finding no consolation in his decision.

  After returning to her body, Thirianna excused herself from Kelamith and left the Chambers of the Seers. She did not return to her own rooms, but instead took the gravrail across Alaitoc, back to the Tower of Ascendant Flames where she had been raised.

  The tower was close to the hub of Alaitoc, the highest on the craftworld, a massive edifice of walkways and bridges and balconies and windows. She sat on a bench hidden away in t
he depths of the park surrounding the tower, beside a pool filled with blue-scaled skyfins and purple dawnsails. In the bushes nearby, a green-furred leathervole rustled through the fallen leaves, its ridged proboscis nuzzling through the mulch.

  Thirianna allowed herself to relax, concentrating on the small details of the scene. Yet for all that she tried to separate herself from what Kelamith had shown her, the experience continued to tickle away in the depths of her mind. She had deliberately closed off the memories from the skein, unwilling to relive them until she had settled herself. It had been a cruel tactic of Kelamith, one that was now blatantly manipulative, and part of her railed against the farseer’s transparent bullying.

  Though she refused to recall in detail what she had witnessed, she could not avoid the imprint they had left upon her consciousness. Thoughts of her father were still overwhelmingly associated with frustration, but the edge was not so keen, her anger not quite so sharp.

  Thirianna could not quite believe the cold-hearted behaviour of Kelamith in subjecting her to such distress, but she realised that whatever his intentions she was left to deal with the consequences.

  Carefully, like someone opening a door a crack to peer into the room beyond, Thirianna peeled back the layer of ignorance shielding her recent memories. She veered away from those of her mother, instantly feeling a stab of pain as soon as she approached them. It was her father that concerned Kelamith, and now her, and so it was to that train of experience that she now paid attention.

  Reviewing what she knew of Yrlandriar, she was no closer to forgiving him for his selfish ways. It had been wrong of him to shut Thirianna out from his feelings after the death of her mother, no matter how he justified it to himself.

  Yet despite that, Thirianna had now seen herself through his eyes, and that was something she could not simply ignore. While his behaviour had been poor and his reasoning unsound, Yrlandriar’s decision to withdraw into himself had not been helped by Thirianna’s increasingly demanding nature. The more she had pushed for his attention, the further he had withdrawn from it, fleeing his daughter as if she were the spectre of her dead mother.

  As hard as it was to accept, Thirianna came to the conclusion that she had acted selfishly as well. She had made no attempt to bridge the dark gulf between them and had simply expected her father to cross the divide and come to her.

  Thirianna was upset and scared by how little empathy existed between her and Yrlandriar. How could father and daughter grow apart so swiftly? In retrospect, it occurred to her that it was what they had both desired, even if only subconsciously. Without Mythrairnin to bind them together, each of them considered themselves and the other best left to be on their own.

  If Kelamith had expected some great change of Thirianna’s outlook, some revelatory thawing of her feelings towards her father, he was going to be disappointed. The farseer’s callous stunt in the infinity circuit did not deserve such a reward and Thirianna was appalled that Kelamith had thought it plausible. Despite everything, she still considered her father a stranger, and she owed him nothing.

  Rousing herself from her reverie, Thirianna looked up at the Tower of Ascendant Flames, silhouetted against the dim glow of the dying star. She had been born up amongst the cloud-wreathed heights of the tower, but her life had not started until she had left. She could not defend her father in any way. He had not tried to do his best; he had made little attempt to give her the love and affection she needed.

  With that thought came a realisation. It was not her father’s love she desired, not his apologies nor his forgiveness. All she required of him was a rune, fashioned from wraithbone.

  He was a stranger and she was attaching too many other emotions to the relationship. It did not matter whether they were father and daughter, whether they agreed on her choices in life. He was a bonesinger and she was a seer. She required a rune, and he would make it for her.

  The following cycle, Thirianna returned to her father’s workshop. Yrlandriar was working on the starship frame, but she waited patiently for him to return, examining the pieces on display. Many were unfinished, their purpose, whether functional or artistic, not clear. Others were little more than three-dimensional sketches, rough shapes and angles that held some semblance of the form they would become but nothing more. There seemed to be quite a few of these which she had not seen before, which led Thirianna to wonder if perhaps Yrlandriar was trying in his own way to come to terms with their fresh meeting and not yet succeeding to find the means.

  Her father announced himself as he returned, and Thirianna put back the object she had been looking at with a pang of guilt. Remembering how mortified she would have felt had someone been examining her poems, she suddenly wondered if she was intruding into Yrlandriar’s privacy.

  The bonesinger did not seem surprised at her presence.

  ‘So you have come back, Thirianna,’ he said, sitting beside the table again.

  ‘I wish you to fashion a rune for me, father,’ she replied, using her most formal tone.

  ‘And why would I do that for you?’ said Yrlandriar. ‘What you ask for is not some bauble. What assurances will I have that my efforts will not be wasted? That half a pass from now you will not have tired of being a seer and moved on to your next flight of fancy?’

  Thirianna refused to rise to the taunt, and held her temper in check.

  ‘None of us know for how long we might tread a Path, and it is not for you to judge anyone but yourself,’ said Thirianna. ‘I am committed to learning the secrets of the seer. Such is my commitment, I am willing to offer you an apology so that we might understand one another better.’

  Yrlandriar raised an eyebrow in surprise.

  ‘An apology?’ He seemed genuinely pleased. ‘What is it that you regret so much that it is worth apologising to me?’

  ‘I am sorry that we do not like each other better, and do not know each other better,’ Thirianna said. She bit back the criticisms that surfaced in her thoughts and paused, taking a breath before she continued. ‘I am sorry that I did not realise that as much as I needed your comfort and attention following the death of my mother, you equally deserved the time and solitude to deal with your own loss.’

  Yrlandriar swallowed hard, his expression softening. He glanced away, towards the looming bulk of the starship, and his next words were softly spoken.

  ‘I am sorry also, Thirianna,’ said the bonesinger. ‘Sorry that I cannot mend the past as I might repair a broken spar or heal a splintered node.’

  ‘I need your help now, father,’ said Thirianna, the words coming with difficulty. ‘Will you fashion a rune for me, so that I might learn to be a seer?’

  Still looking away, Yrlandriar touched a finger to the side of the table. A shallow drawer slid out, and from this the bonesinger brought out a small object, as slender as one of his fingers. Finally he turned his gaze to Thirianna and his face was stern.

  ‘It is not yet finished, but I was going to bring it to you when it was complete,’ he said. ‘Your coming here stirred up many painful memories for me, but I cannot blame you for that. More than anything else I have created, this has caused me much hardship. It is your rune, wrought in wraithbone, conjured forth by my hand and my will. Perhaps you will care for it better than I cared for you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Thirianna, bowing her head. ‘It means much to me that you have done this.’

  ‘Though it was not my intention, I raised a daughter who was strong of will and knows what she desires,’ said Yrlandriar, placing the unfinished rune on the table top. ‘I wish I could take some pride from that, but it leaves me hollow.’

  ‘Pride is fleeting,’ said Thirianna. She felt uncomfortable with the silence that followed and Yrlandriar was faring no better, fidgeting with the fittings of his gloves. ‘I hope you will deliver it in person when it is finished.’

  ‘I hope it guides you to a fulfilling future,’ said Yrlandriar.

  ‘It is folly to chase after fulfilment,’ said Thirianna
. ‘If you taught me anything, it is to accept what fate brings us, good or ill. To deny that is to forever postpone contentment.’

  Yrlandriar nodded thoughtfully, his gaze straying back to the starship.

  ‘I will not keep you from your other work,’ said Thirianna.

  Her father said nothing in reply, so she turned and left, resolving to find Kelamith as soon as possible.

  POWER

  The Siren Mirror – Eldanesh’s Shield. As the ward of the Sire of the Eldar turned back the blows of his foes, so the Siren Mirror acts to reconstitute the energies of an enemy. One of several runes whose use is specific to battle, Eldanesh’s Shield works by channelling the power of the skein harnessed by the enemy, so that it might be wielded in the favour of the seer.

  The rune of Thirianna floated a little more than an arm’s reach in front of her, utterly still. She drew the image of the rune into her thoughts as Kelamith had shown her, creating a bond between the mental and the physical. The rune glowed slightly with the psychic power and Thirianna could feel more energy flowing into her mind.

  She sat in the middle of the main chamber of her apartments, performing the exercises passed on by the farseer. At first she attained control of the rune, mastering it to her purpose. When balance was met, she took the power of the rune into herself.

  Now that she had completed the first two stages, she could choose how to wield the psychic energy that was now hers to possess. Thirianna chose an external focus, using the rune to extend her influence on the physical world. She concentrated her thoughts, narrowing them to a single point at the centre of the rune.

  The rune acted as an amplifier, adding power from the skein to Thirianna’s innate psychic energy. With this, the seer reached out across the room, picking up several objects from the tables and shelves: a brush, a necklace, her discarded bag and a small bust of Asuryan. Thirianna’s eyes flickered from one to the other as she moved them around the chamber, delicately placing each one in a new position.