A sixth figure emerged from the ruins, this one swathed in rune-covered robes and with its head enclosed by a bulbous, insect-like helm that was affixed with antlers of wraithbone. The warlock, for such it was, bore a witchblade that was as tall as himself. It seemed a curiously delicate-looking, academic weapon in comparison to Morr’s brutal klaive.
‘A curious sight,’ the robed figure said equably, ‘to find entertainer and murderer travelling as boon companions together.’
Morr laughed mordantly. ‘“Murderer”? Come closer, little seer, and I’ll add another to my tally. In your case it would be my pleasure.’
Motley stepped quickly to interpose himself between the warlock and the injured incubus. ‘What brings you here, fellow travellers?’ the Harlequin asked brightly. ‘This is a secluded, not to say delicate, spot. I hope everyone can be relied upon to behave themselves. Why don’t we introduce ourselves, my angry friend here is Morr, you can call me Motley – now what should I should call you?’
‘My name is Caraeis, I tread the Path of the Seer,’ the warlock said reasonably. ‘We have come for your companion, he is to be taken before the council of seers and punished for his crimes.’
‘Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself there, Caraeis?’ Motley asked acidly. ‘Surely there’d be all that trial and judgement stuff first, an opportunity to answer the accusation thrown in there somewhere, evidence, impartiality and suchlike and so forth before we arrive at any talk of punishment?’
‘This is none of your affair unless you would fight against us on his behalf,’ the warlock said with a trace of irritation in his voice. ‘If that is the case I’ll have to regretfully order the Avengers to cut you down where you stand.’ Motley noticed that his words provoked the slightest of head twitches from the Dire Avenger exarch leading the squad of Aspect Warriors. She evidently disapproved of the warlock’s actions in some way.
‘I would rather see the best possible outcome for everyone involved,’ Motley replied carefully. ‘At this very moment we are on our way to Lileathanir to attempt to rectify matters, you’d be welcome to accompany us.’
‘So you do admit the culpability of your companion after all,’ Caraeis said with some relish. ‘Under the circumstances I think you had best accompany us to the council too, so that you can fully explain yourself and your role in the affair on Lileathanir.’
‘Explain myself? I am no more beholden to your council of seers than my dear friend Morr is,’ Motley responded with some heat. ‘By what right do you claim to order us around like captives? Are we your captives, do you think?’
The slight Harlequin stepped closer to the warlock, seeing how the robed battle-seer flinched ever so slightly as he did so. This one was full of fear and ambition, a nasty combination. Two of the Dire Avengers pointedly swivelled their shuriken catapults to cover Motley while the other three remained locked unwaveringly onto Morr. Motley stepped back again with open hands and a wide grin to show he meant no harm.
‘The incubus is my prisoner,’ the warlock said smugly. ‘If you wish to remain with him you must also become my prisoner.’
‘Motley,’ Morr said quietly, ‘this is not your battle, none of it has been your battle from the moment we met. Now it is time to leave me to my fate.’
Motley turned to look up at the unmasked face of the incubus now standing close behind him with his klaive in his hands. Morr’s lank, pale hair had fallen forward to hide his features but the fierce, mad gleam of his eyes still glittered between the strands. Motley could see a taste for self-destruction burning there, the exultation of slaughter to come even if it was his own.
The Dire Avengers could cut Morr down before he took a single step, the warlock could boil the incubus’s brain inside his thick skull just by looking at him – but Morr still wanted to fight them. The incubus must be seeing this as his reprieve, a chance to go out fighting against a properly hated foe instead of the brotherhood of his shrine.
‘I cannot do that, Morr, as much as you’d like me to. Not while there’s still the faintest shred of hope left,’ Motley said heavily, ‘and I am truly sorry for this. I only hope you can forgive me for it later.’
Motley snapped his leg up and out so fast that even the Aspect Warriors didn’t have time to react. A perfectly executed nerve-kick to Morr’s temple dropped the towering incubus like a felled tree – a slight sway and then a gathering rush before he crashed to the ground.
Motley turned back to the warlock with a heavy sigh. ‘There, now you can’t “accidentally” kill my friend while apprehending him. I think I will come along with you, just to make sure everything stays nice and friendly.’
The warlock inclined his bulbous helm sardonically, seemingly well pleased by the outcome. The Dire Avengers came forward warily, three covering the fallen warrior as one of their number brought out a set of heavy manacles. The Dire Avenger exarch was watching Motley with her beautifully crafted star thrower held at ease in what was probably intended to be interpreted as a conciliatory gesture.
‘You have not spoken of the craftworld you hail from,’ Motley remarked. ‘Where do we have the honour of travelling to?’
‘Biel-Tan,’ the exarch said before the warlock could intercede and stop her. The warlock glared at the exarch and Motley sensed some silent exchange was taking place between the two.
‘Ah, that explains a lot,’ Motley interrupted. ‘As I recall Biel-Tan claims jurisdiction over a great many maiden worlds.’
‘They are the future of our race,’ the warlock said sharply.
‘Not to mention excellent recruiting grounds for Biel-Tan’s efforts to reforge the old empire,’ Motley remarked impertinently. ‘Lots of eager young Exodites ready to fight and die for a great cause with the right grooming. You should be careful, Caraeis – your bias is showing.’
The amber lenses of the warlock’s bulbous helm regarded the Harlequin silently for a moment before the seer turned and stalked away. Motley looked back to the exarch and her squad. Her warriors had shackled Morr’s arms behind his back and strapped him to a collapsible bier that floated a half-metre above the ground. The Dire Avengers had evidently come prepared to take a living prisoner and transport him back, which Motley took to be an encouraging sign in some regards. To Motley’s relief the Aspect Warriors also retrieved Morr’s klaive and strapped it onto the bier alongside the thoroughly restrained incubus.
‘We would have taken him alive,’ the exarch told Motley. ‘There was no need for you interfere.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt that a group of finely honed Aspect Warriors like yourselves would have executed the plan perfectly,’ Motley replied with a frown. ‘It’s your warlock friend over there that I’m concerned about.’
The warlock had moved off among the ruins to an intact arch of pale lavender stone. He stood facing it for a considerable time, muttering and making passes through the air with his hands. Eventually a sheen of silver drifted into being inside the arch, wavered and then strengthened into a rippling veil. Motley noted with dismay that blue and green threads coiled within the veil – even here the Dysjunction could be felt. Its effects were flooding the entire webway. The four Aspect Warriors took up positions at each corner of the bier carrying Morr. With the exarch leading they began guiding the bier to the gate. The warlock held up a hand to stop them as they approached.
‘There is a disturbance in the webway,’ the warlock said. ‘A direct link is impossible. I must make a rune casting to divine our best path forward.’
‘Well yes, that would be entirely the issue wouldn’t it?’ Motley snorted derisively. ‘The disturbance will only get worse the longer that we stay away from Lileathanir.’
The warlock ignored him, concentrating fully on bringing forth tiny wraithbone runes from his satchel with quick, practised movements. He placed each into a growing, spinning array suspended in the air before him.
The correct interpretation o
f rune casting is a nuanced art form that takes quite literally a lifetime to master, as evinced by the craftworld eldar in their Path of the Seer. Eldar runes embody symbolic concepts deeply rooted in ancient mythology and philosophical schools of thought that were already old when the eldar race was young. Runecasting came down fundamentally to interpreting the alignment of the psycho-active wraithbone runes when they were set ‘adrift in the ether’ to reproduce in microcosm an idea of the emergent patterns in the macrocosm.
It took no special expertise to see that the warlock’s reading was erratic, the broken orrery of runes twisting around one another chaotically. The warlock flinched as two of the runes actually touched, the resultant discharge of psychic energy blasting them apart with a crackle of static. Both runes dropped to the ground charred and smoking.
‘Not that way, I’m thinking,’ Motley suggested helpfully. The warlock only emitted a low growl in response before focusing his concentration back onto the rune casting. The wheeling runes slowed a little, re-aligned and several of them reversed direction. The warlock kept reaching into his satchel and pulling out more runes as if trying to balance the casting. Motley tried to make sense of the runes being shown to him.
There was the rune for Anarchy/Disorder/Entropy most prominent orbiting at the outermost reach of the casting, encompassing everything within it. To Motley’s mind that could only represent the Dysjunction in this case, its erratic influence affecting all the other elements. His eye was drawn to the rune of weaving as it looped back and forth within the orbit of the Dysjunction, seeming to shepherd the other runes before it. It fluttered unnaturally between the jagged, scimitar-like rune of the dark kin and the serpent-like rune of the world spirit as they swung through perilously close gyrations. It sped around the dire portent of the soul-drinker rotating around the bottom of casting, and encompassed salvation orbiting the top. Numerous lesser runes wove back and forth between the major ones: the sun, the moon, the scorpion, the devoured and more. At times the rune of weaving darted between them all.
‘You know I could always lead you to Biel-Tan if you like,’ Motley said hurriedly. ‘No one knows their paths through the webway better than me, well nothing mortal anyway.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ the warlock announced sharply. ‘I see the way forward clearly enough.’
Motley pursed his lips uncertainly, darting a quick look at the exarch. She stood as still and imperturbable as a statue, her tall crested helm turned to the gate. Aspect Warriors, Motley lamented to himself, were always so hard to read. Caraeis was retrieving his runes now, capturing them one by one and returning them to his satchel. The moment he had the last rune secured the warlock unsheathed his witchblade and stepped through the gate. The exarch followed, then the bier carrying Morr and its four attendant Aspect Warriors.
Motley hurried to follow as it really wouldn’t do to lose them now. As he passed the spot where Caraeis had performed his rune casting he saw the two blackened, twisted runes that had struck one another were still lying ground untouched and abandoned by the warlock. They were damaged but still recognisable before they crumbled to dust when Motley tried to touch them. They were the rune of the Seer and the rune of the Laughing God or, to put it more commonly, the runes used to represent the warlock and the Harlequin.
‘Oh dear,’ Motley muttered to himself as he stepped quickly through gate at the heels of the Aspect Warriors. If he could read those runes then Caraeis had most certainly seen them too. That didn’t bode well at all.
‘Turn around very slowly,’ Bezieth said.
Kharbyr did as he was told, turning slowly to find Bezieth’s djin-blade levelled at his throat. Somehow she had got right behind him, crept up through the loganiaceae shrubs without a sound while he was watching Xagor coming down the path. The tip of her blade was vibrating with a high, keening whine, as if it wanted to lunge forward of its own volition. Kharbyr’s mouth was suddenly very dry. He was dead, he’d seen Bezieth of the Hundred Scars fight and she could carve a gutter-rat like him into pieces one-on-one without even breaking a sweat. Xagor whimpered pathetically behind him, making Kharbyr reflect grimly that he could expect no help from the wrack either.
‘You had better have a more detailed plan in mind than “run away into the park”,’ Bezieth said eventually and lowered her blade. Kharbyr experienced a giddy rush of relief.
‘You’re not taking us back to Naxipael?’ he blurted in disbelief.
‘Or killing you,’ the archon reminded him pointedly, ‘even though you’ve already shown yourself to be faithless and untrustworthy. You’re lucky you have a useful friend to speak up on your behalf.’
Kharbyr glanced back at Xagor, who was nodding emphatically. ‘Don’t look at him!’ Bezieth snapped. ‘Look at me! That’s better. Now, tell me all about your genius plan to get out of this.’
‘By going down, not up. Down to Null City,’ Kharbyr said reluctantly. ‘The xenos and mercs down in Null City will be pulling together at a time like this, not pulling apart at the seams like they are in High Commorragh. I know people that’ll help,’ he ended weakly. It didn’t sound like such a good plan anymore, not with Bezieth’s eyes boring into his as she searched for any hint of evasion. He felt particularly weak and stupid beneath that pitiless gaze.
‘And just how were you planning to get there?’ Bezieth asked impatiently.
‘I was going to find some transport and use the… travel tubes,’ Kharbyr replied, even as the words left his mouth he knew that he had probably just signed his own death warrant. Anything capable of moving under its own power would be long gone from Hy’kran and probably everywhere else within a hundred leagues by now. The tubes would be blocked by debris and who-knows-what crawling out of the pits to join the fun. It was a weak plan, doomed to failure before it even began. Bezieth held his gaze for a long, painful moment before she spoke again.
‘Not bad, but your chances of finding transport just lying around rest somewhere between slim and none. We’ll have to steal it or do without.’
Kharbyr grinned stupidly. ‘You want to go with my plan? What about Naxipael?’
‘Naxipael will most likely get shot the moment he tries to set foot in Sorrow Fell. They won’t be taking in any waifs and strays up there,’ Bezieth said carelessly. ‘If I ever see him again I’ll claim we got separated in the park and I couldn’t find my back to him. Believe me he won’t push the point – especially if no one is stupid enough to try and contradict me.’
Kharbyr glanced at Xagor again despite himself. The wrack merely shrugged helplessly. He was right, it didn’t matter what reasons Bezieth had for splitting with Naxipael – it wasn’t like they had a choice whether she came along or not. Besides, her sword arm and that nasty blade of hers would be a real boon if they ran into trouble again. Bezieth seemed to be amused by watching him working it all out.
‘Listen. It’s Kharbyr, isn’t it?’ she said reasonably. ‘Listen, Kharbyr, and I’ll tell you the same thing I told your friend. In every crisis there’s opportunity, you just have to make sure you survive the crisis for long enough to take advantage of it. I intend to survive this crisis and personally I rate Naxipael’s chances of surviving as being significantly worse than my own. That assessment extends to the people with him. Don’t you agree?’
‘This one agrees, mistress!’ Xagor squawked obediently.
‘As does this one,’ Kharbyr assented.
‘Good, because by extension the people that stay with me have a better chance of survival too. Now let’s get going, you first Kharbyr – and try not to get distracted.’
Archon Yllithian exuded confidence as he unhurriedly mounted a set of low, wide steps that swept up to the doors to the grand auditorium in Corespur. He took note of the host of greater archons assembled there also awaiting audience with the supreme overlord. They were strung out along the steps in cliques and clumps, the leaders of the most powerful kabals
in Commorragh standing around waiting at the overlord’s door for their instructions like expectant slaves. Many he recognised, some he acknowledged with a nod, others he greeted warmly or pointedly ignored.
Fear lurked behind every face. It was masked by bravado or pugnacity or humour or boredom, but fear hid behind the hard, black eyes of every archon present. The assembled host were the ones who stood to lose the most in the Dysjunction. They had unleashed unspeakable terrors on the slave-races across the galaxy, revelled in inflicting exquisite pain and suffering for centuries beyond numbering yet now they were the ones in fear. Anarchy had broken upon their own strongholds and they found it had an entirely different timbre when it was raging so close to home. Yllithian recognised the fact that there were no archons present from the satellite realms, presumably because the portals were still too unstable to find them. More pointedly every archon present was either from Sorrow Fell or one of the upper tiers, a fact which did not bode at all well for the status of Low Commorragh.
Yllithian came to an individual that he recognised, but not one that he acknowledged as a great archon. His surprise caused him to pause for a moment. The lithe succubus Aez’ashya stood before him, looking magnificent in skin-tight flex-metal and bladed shoulder guards that spread fans of knives at her back. Yllithian recalled that this erstwhile archon that had been propelled into leadership of the Blades of Desire after the fall of his ally, Xelian.
Yllithian had distinctly mixed feelings about Aez’ashya. She was trueborn but of inferior stock without a trace of noble blood. She had unwittingly become El’Uriaq’s catspaw when he had decided to rid himself of Xelian and now she was left a puppet without a puppet master. He wondered how she was managing to maintain her control over the notoriously fickle Blades of Desire. Yllithian smiled and addressed her warmly.
‘Why if it isn’t Aez’ashya. What an unexpected surprise to find you here,’ Yllithian said with mocking gallantry. ‘I am delighted to find you weathering these difficult times so well – a true test of leadership even for experienced hands like mine.’
Path of the Dark Eldar Page 55