The lifeforms designated as ur-ghuls attempted to impede Cho’s progress, leaping at her wasp-like hull as she raced overhead. The impacts of the bodies could do no damage to her armoured, curving carapace, but they clawed and bit at exposed vanes and probes with a strength which indicated they had the potential to inflict harm on her. Quite apart from that factor their attacks were slowing her pursuit of the target by a perceptible margin. Cho quickly reclassified the ur-ghuls as hostile and thrilled as she unsheathed her sting-like spirit syphon.
Baleful energies suddenly played ahead of her hull, a teardrop-shaped negative feedback loop that sucked the very life out of the ur-ghuls caught in its grasp. The wiry troglodytes simply withered in that awful glare. At its touch they shrivelled up into doll-like cadavers of stretched-taut skin holding together mouldering bone as centuries of ageing took place in moments. The survivors broke and fled croaking in terror from the death machine in their midst and she pursued them a short distance seeking satiation. It was weak, vermin-like fare for Cho to feast upon, so unlike the rich-bodied fullness of a living eldar. Yet quantity had a quality of its own and Cho’s capacitors drank in the stolen vitality readily, setting her whole resonation array alive with coursing energy.
Emboldened, she sped away, curving her course to plunge into the open mouth of the travel tubes in the wake of the rapidly vanishing Raider. The craft was plunging vertically down the shaft with reckless haste, still outpacing Cho’s maximum speed. Reluctantly Cho reduced power to her impellers back within safe parameters. There was always the psychic trail to follow. Even if the lifeforms moved fast enough to escape her immediate sensor sweeps the trail would inevitably bring her to the target.
Imagine a lantern. It’s an old kind of lantern containing a flame for light, with glass walls and a wire cage to hold them in place. Now imagine that the flame is a dying sun, fat and sullen, caught between walls not of glass but of extra-dimensional force that have pulled it outside the material universe and into the shadow-realm of Commorragh. The lantern’s cage is now of steely webs endlessly spun by countless spider-constructs. These webs hold in place distant, horn-like towers that regulate the unthinkable cosmic flux to keep the whole ensemble under control. This is an Ilmaea, a black sun, and such is what the dark kin use to light their eternal city.
Several such captured suns orbitted Commorragh, artefacts of past ages when eldar power waxed so strong that such prodigious feats were no great undertaking. In realspace a single Ilmaea could swallow all the vastness of the eternal city at a single gulp, but each is constrained like a prisoner bound in a cell with only a single chink opening into the world. Their baleful glare lights the frosty spires of High Commorragh and lends a sullen, animal heat to Low Commorragh even as their dying agonies are tapped to supply limitless energy to their captors. Thus even the stars themselves are slaves to the eternal city, bound and exploited like every other resource.
In the context of a Dysjunction the Ilmaea formed vast, open portals that had the potential to turn into giant fusion bombs without warning – a very bad combination indeed. The ordinarily feeble solar flares of the captive suns sped into torrents of blazing plasma that curled across the heavens and fell upon the city leaving only devastation in their wake. Yllithian had seen the other danger with his own eyes (technically they were his eyes now, possession being nine-tenths of the lore). Countless entities from beyond the veil were leaking into the city from the Ilmaea’s unstable portals and darkening the skies around them with their obscene swarms. Regaining control of the black suns was vital to the survival of the city during a Dysjunction, vital and incredibly dangerous. That Yllithian had been selected for such an honour made him strongly suspect that the supreme overlord desired his death.
He had been assigned the Ilmaea Gora’thynia’dhoad, commonly known as Gorath, currently in the seventy-seventh gradient over the city. His orders had been as brief as that with no indication of reinforcements that might be available or what actions it might be wise to take in order to regain ‘control’ of a rogue star. Yllithian had decided to focus his efforts on the towers surrounding Gorath, seeing no gains to be made in even approaching the extra-dimensional walls of the prison itself. His force flew through flickering, vivid skies of a thousand unearthly hues with gigantic thunderbolts flashing down all about them. His followers had learned their earlier lesson well and spread out to take their chances, racing along at top speed towards their destination.
‘We’re being followed, my archon,’ called Yllithian’s steersman shortly after Corespur fell away behind their stern. Yllithian twisted around on his throne to view the crazed skies in their wake. After a moment he saw them, a host of black dots cutting steadily through the air on the White Flames’ trail. That was no pack of winged daemons, Yllithian reckoned, it looked like another kabal was trailing him – but there was no guessing to what purpose. Yllithian could only hope they were reinforcements as turning around to confront them in the teeth of the storm was simply not an option.
Constrained though it might be, Gorath still swelled enormously as the White Flames force approached the captive star, becoming a huge black orb set among a billowing backdrop of multi-hued clouds. Tendrils of ebon fire twisted back and forth around the Ilmaea like a nest of snakes. Between them ominous-looking clouds of dark fragments swirled between the flames, winged shapes dancing restlessly through the infernal maelstrom that lashed about them.
‘There’s another group coming up behind us, my archon,’ the steersman warned. ‘They’re fast – already overhauling the first group now.’
Yllithian looked back, startled by the development and nursing just the tiniest thimbleful of hope. The newcomers were larger and few in number, their distant profile jagged and blade-like as they pushed past the swarm of smaller craft that were trailing the White Flames. They were closing with Yllithian’s craft so quickly that they made him feel as if he were standing still. The dagger-shapes rapidly filled out to reveal scimitar-sharp wings hung with missiles, pulsing engines and crystal canopies. It was a flight of Razorwing jetfighters that swept arrogantly past on trails of blue fire to leave Yllithian’s craft bouncing through the turbulence in their wake.
Timing, Yllithian thought to himself. For all the difficulties involved it represented a nice piece of timing on Vect’s part to have the Razorwings arrive just before Yllithian’s group. That or it was merely a happy coincidence that the Razorwings happened by at the right moment but that seemed too unlikely to credit.
The Razorwings quickly shrank into the distance and became visible only by their engine-fires as they closed in on the black sun. The flight broke up abruptly, needle-thin traceries showing a starburst of divergent courses as they went in to the attack. Each fiery pinpoint seemed to give birth to a litter of tiny offspring as they launched their missiles. Bright, brief stars of light flickered through the flapping hordes before winking out with deadly finality.
Gorath was becoming massive now, its bloated form filling half the sky. Details of the surrounding structures were visible: a faint, gauzy glitter of spun steel and bone-white spines that appeared little bigger than Yllithian’s finger joint at this distance. These latter were in fact the kilometres-tall towers that controlled the cosmic forces holding the black sun in check. There were over a hundred such structures around Gorath – far too many for Yllithian to even dream of taking them all. No, the only logical choice was to board the primary tower and see if it could be used to bring the others back under control.
Without warning a river of black fire swept down from above. The rogue solar flare crackled and roared in raging torrent as it curled past within a few hundred metres of the White Flames’ craft. The raw heat of it beat on the decks in searing waves that raised blisters and spontaneously ignited anything flammable. Yllithian’s force scattered away from the titanic conduit of flame as it twisted and bucked indecisively for few heartstopping seconds before rushing onward to claw out a new
path of destruction elsewhere.
‘How much longer to the nearest tower?’ Yllithian shouted to the steersman.
‘Two minutes, less!’ yelled the steersman over the howling slipstream.
‘Make it less,’ Yllithian snarled.
The double-bladed silhouette of a Razorwing flashed past with a twisting funnel of flapping shapes in pursuit. As Yllithian watched a second Razorwing swept down on the horde and tore ragged holes in it with a burst of fire. A few stray daemons darted towards the White Flames and were met with a withering hail of splinters and darklight beams. The wind roared and crackled like a living flame as Gorath filled more and more of the sky.
‘One minute!’ the steersman called desperately.
The tower was visible up ahead. It was oriented with its crown towards him and its base pointed towards the black sun. The web around the tower gleamed like delicate brushstrokes of silver against the boiling dark mass of Gorath in the background. He spared a glance behind him to see if they were still being followed and saw that they were, although the pursuing swarm definitely seemed to have thinned. The tower grew from palm-sized disk into a huge, intricate structure that was more like a cluster of barbed towers interconnected by slender arches and flying buttresses than a single edifice.
Yllithian’s force dived down towards a wide terrace that clung between the cliff-like flanks of the tower, re-orienting themselves at the last second to place the terrace under their keels. Yllithian experienced a brief moment of vertigo as the barque flipped through ninety degrees and the wall that had been rushing towards them became ground beneath them. Then he was leaping from his barque in the midst of his incubi bodyguards and surveying the chaos around him. Black armoured warriors were jumping down from their Raiders on all sides, hellions and reavers wheeling overhead giving them cover.
Splinter fire crackled out suddenly and Yllithian snapped his attention to the source in time to see distant white figures pouring from doorways in the tower onto the terrace. There was a new sound mixed in with the familiar snap and hiss of eldar weaponry, a deeper, throatier roar of projectile weapons that Yllithian had not heard in a long, long time. It was the sound of bolter fire.
CHAPTER 21
BAD LANDINGS
‘What is this place?’ Morr grated in a tone of bemused contempt.
‘You have your memories, I have mine,’ Motley said defensively. ‘I just needed somewhere safe to get my bearings and rest for a moment. This was the best place to come at short notice.’
They stood on a narrow terrace overlooking an azure lagoon with slender towers of orange-glazed ceramic flanking them to either side. Gaudy streamers floated from a balustrade at the edge of the terrace and banners fluttered from the tower walls in the salt-scented breeze coming off the water. A yellow sun high overhead warmed the air and scattered scintillating diamonds of light across the deep blue water. On the beach below them Morr could see brightly garbed people strolling casually past, chattering and laughing together apparently in complete ignorance of the grim incubus glowering down on them from above.
‘I hope you don’t want to go back to Caudoelith instead,’ Motley remarked pointedly.
‘No. I was satisfied to leave that place and our pursuers behind.’
‘Hmm, I should think so too, you know you could always try being just a little bit grateful for me getting you out of these frequent jams.’
Morr tore his gaze from the people below and gave Motley a withering look. Motley spread his hands deferentially. ‘Mind you it’s just a suggestion.’
Morr turned back to the sunlit lagoon. ‘You have never fully explained your stake in helping me,’ the incubus rumbled. ‘To save the city, you say, but you are no citizen of Commorragh. Your kind only wander into the eternal city to perform your morality plays or mythic cycles and then leave, you have no commitment to it or its survival. So why do you so smilingly offer to help me at every turn? Where lies your advantage in all this?’
Motley gazed up at Morr’s face helplessly. The incubus looked shockingly aged in the warm sunlight: his cheeks were sunken and cadaverous, the creases around his mouth and brow were more deeply defined, his skin dry and lifeless, the dark wells of his eyes were lit by disturbing gleams of hunger and madness. It was as if Morr had aged fifty years within the last few hours in the webway. The incubus caught Motley’s expression and smiled mirthlessly.
‘The hunger is upon me. She Who Thirsts demands her due. Soon I must slay to renew myself or I will become one of the Parched, a mewling half-minded thing existing only on what scraps She might choose to let fall from her table.’ Morr eyed the peaceful strollers with intent and then grimaced. ‘You said this place is from your memories, so the people are ghosts. None of this is real.’
Motley sighed. ‘It was real, and the people were real and so it is still real to those who remember it – which in this case is mostly each other. To put it another way these people are real and we’re the ghosts here. You cannot harm them and even if you could I would not permit it.’
‘Bold words. Do not imagine I have been weakened by my trials, little clown,’ Morr sneered. ‘if anything, my inner fires blaze all the stronger.’
‘Well… that’s good. You’ll need everything you can muster for Lileathanir, although there won’t be any slaying to be had there either. Sorry.’
‘We shall see. You still have not answered my question – why should you care what happens on Lileathanir or Commorragh for that matter? What is it to you?’
Motley pondered on how to explain the concept of altruism to someone who has done nothing but claw and fight for every possible advantage throughout their life. Morr’s loyalties extended only as far as himself. He had abandoned his clan on Ushant for the Shrine of Arhra. Duty had bonded him to Kraillach and by extension Commorragh at large but he had turned on Kraillach when the archon fell to corruption. All that held meaning for Morr was the savage code of Arhra, to slay or be slain without morality or compunction, even unto a student slaying their teacher if he saw them weaken. The silence between Morr and Motley drew out painfully until it was clear that Morr was not going to go one step further without an answer that fit into his own peculiar code of ethics.
‘Isn’t it enough that we both want to save Commorragh that we should act in concert?’ the Harlequin demanded.
‘I accept my duty to Commorragh because my actions on Lileathanir led to the Dysjunction,’ Morr replied. ‘I will rectify them because should Commorragh fall to entropy the incubi will be destroyed and Arhra’s teachings will be lost. You have no such motivation and even less to help me. So explain to me what you gain from all of this or we go no further.’
‘Because…’ Motley began helplessly before inspiration struck him. ‘Because the eldar race is more than just the sum of its parts. After the Fall three completely different societies emerged from the wreckage of what came before: Commorragh, the craftworlds and the maiden worlds. Each of them has preserved some part of what was lost – yes, even Commorragh as much as many would wish to deny it. Each branch has prospered in its own way, or at least not collapsed totally, over all the centuries since the Fall and that tells you something in its own right – these are stable societies. Each has learned to adapt to a terrible new universe that has no rightful place for them in it.’
‘So you believe that each should be preserved,’ Morr grunted. ‘How very noble of you.’
‘Oh it extends beyond mere preservation, my dear, cynical friend. There is a fatal flaw present in all three of our societies – all of them look only inward and believe themselves to possess the one, true path forward. If they plan for the future at all it’s only with their own people in mind and most can’t even think that far. Survival has become the absolute watchword of the eldar race, a sort of siege mentality that has ruled over us for the last hundred centuries. It’s leading to stagnation, a polar opposite from the excess that brought
forth She Who Thirsts, and so now instead of entropy we fall prey to stasis – a slow, cold death.
‘Not everyone thinks that way, of course, there are some in each generation that look up from the mire created by their forefathers and glimpse the stars again. We can still learn from one another, support one another. A shred of hope still exists,’ Motley looked out over the lagoon wistfully for a moment.
‘So now you declare that you are making a better future,’ Morr said flatly. ‘I have heard such protestations many times. As chief executioner to Archon Kraillach I sent thousands of similar claimants to their final reward.’
‘No doubt, but I’m not talking about overthrowing an archon here,’ Motley replied wearily. ‘I am talking about reunification of the eldar race.’
Morr snorted with derision at the idea of any true eldar of Commorragh mingling with the pale aesthetes of the craftworlds or the half-bestial Exodites of the maiden worlds. Motley looked up at the incubus curiously, head cocked to one side as he waited to see if Morr could recognise the hypocrisy of his attitude. The incubus gave no indication that it was going to happen anytime soon. Motley rallied himself for one more effort.
‘Simply look at our own experiences,’ Motley said. ‘Archon Kraillach, along with Yllithian and Xelian, wanted to bring someone back who was long-dead – impossibly long-dead. Yes it went horribly wrong but how did they do it? By going to someone who had the power to achieve the impossible–’
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