Dreadfleet
Page 17
Roaring out from behind the sea-monarch was a living column of flame as broad as the Reikstemple’s main sanctum, its twin heads screaming with the crackling roar of a forest fire. The Sultan of Flame curved up into the air before plunging itself into the maelstrom’s weakest point, turning a mountain’s worth of brine into foul-smelling steam. The creature seared upwards once more, greatly diminished in size, but in its wake there glittered pure water instead of the dirty cobalt swill of the Graveyard.
A raging tempest in the shape of a god roared into the firmament with a boom of destructive force. It whirled around at tremendous speed contrary to the waters of the whirlpool, whipping itself into a tornado that utterly absorbed the deathly miasma emanating from within the whirlpool’s gullet.
The maelstrom unravelled in an explosion of currents, great plumes of spray reaching up to the heavens. The clean waters of the ocean crashed back into place, filling the tunnel that led to the abyss and erasing it from existence completely.
Slowly, the thundering waves subsided until there remained only a scattering of skulls bobbing where once had reigned a living maelstrom. Sunlight sparkled from the crests of the newborn waves.
Their boons granted, the elemental kings dwindled into spheres of light, free once more after three thousand years of incarceration.
Of the warships, and crew that had fought so hard for their release, there was no sign.
EPILOGUE
The Golden Magus basked in the sunshine of the new dawn, turning a translucent bottle over and over in his hands. He felt content, happy in fact, as he surveyed the horizons of his new realm. It would take some time to refashion what had been a graveyard into a form more pleasant to his delicate sensibilities, but change was the only constant in the universe. There were powers in this world greater than the forces of undeath, after all. Oh yes. Great Tzeentch, the Master Manipulator and Father of Sorcerers, had shown him the light many centuries ago.
The Magus stood up, stretching like a cat in the morning sun. He would allow himself a break from the frenetically entertaining world of men for a while, perhaps, and spend a little time as a king instead of a servant.
The sorcerer padded through the minaret corridors of Flaming Scimitar, whistling a complex tune of his own devising as he wound his way through the crystal-walled labyrinth he called home. Sketching a flaming sigil in the air, he opened a secret door into a plush study, its centerpiece a tangle of blackened vampire-bone fused into a throne.
The study’s walls were almost completely covered with shelves, and each shelf was clustered with bottles of every conceivable shape and colour. The Magus took the bottle he was holding over to the shelves and replaced it amongst those that sat on individual pillows of pale leather made from human skin. Every one of the bottles contained a tiny warship, perfect in every detail.
The Magus’ broad smile distorted in the walls of the bottle as he leered down over his new favourite. Inside the glass prison was a tiny warship, severely damaged in her last battle, but a fascinating sight nonetheless.
Its hammer-wielding figurehead was cast in the image of a warrior god.
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