Path of the Dark Eldar

by Andy Chambers

  Now you can see that I am in no condition to pursue anything on my own. Bellathonis kept me like this for his convenience while he tortured and exploited me. I want my revenge too, Kharbyr, I desire it with a passion that a stripling like you can only dream about.+

  Actually seeing the thing called Angevere had restored some of Kharbyr’s boldness. She was as helpless as a babe in arms, all she could do was cajole or persuade with her mind-speech. He felt confident that he could simply ignore her wheedling if he wanted to.

  You’re wondering where we are. We’re in the foundation strata beneath the White Flames fortress. This is what’s left of a temporary bolthole Bellathonis established while he was working for Yllithian.+

  ‘So how can you help me to catch up with Bellathonis and make him give me my body back when you don’t even have a body of your own?’ Kharbyr demanded with studied insolence.

  Through wisdom, child, a characteristic that you are not overly burdened by. Think! You wear the face of Bellathonis now and that makes you a target for his enemies. It also means that you can find help by tricking Bellathonis’s allies into thinking that you are him.+

  ‘You mean like tricking Yllithian. Those two were always hand in glove together from what I saw, and Yllithian is extremely powerful.’

  Yes – though be warned that until recently Yllithian had thought to rid himself of Bellathonis. Fortunately I know that he’s now had a change of heart. Would you like to spy on Yllithian? There is a simple way that you can do so.+

  Intrigued, Kharbyr followed Angevere’s instructions and dug through some pouches on his belt. From one of them he retrieved a multi-faceted red gem that was a little smaller than his thumb. While tapping it on the top of a crate three times he incanted the name ‘Nyos Yllithian’. After a moment a small, crimson-tinted picture formed in the air above the gem. It showed a first-person perspective view from the deck of a grav-craft that was racing through the spires of Commorragh. Kharbyr heard Yllithian’s voice barking commands to his lackeys and noticed the way they shifted deferentially as the viewpoint was directed towards them. The gem was showing events as seen through Yllithian’s eyes.

  Bellathonis did not trust Yllithian, so when he performed a transmigration to save the archon’s life he made certain modifications to the new body without telling him.+

  ‘Wait, Yllithian’s been transferred too?’

  Of course. Bellathonis had reasons to test the process before using it on himself. Yllithian’s old body was being devoured by the glass plague at the time so he was grateful for the chance to escape from it – although Bellathonis disguised the risks involved anyway.+

  Kharbyr nodded to himself. Tales of strangeness like soul-transfers, body-swaps, transmigration and a thousand others were nothing new in Commorragh. It was common knowledge that for the right fee a haemonculus could reconstruct a body from ashes, or that death was a mere inconvenience for the wealthy elite. Some of those wilder stories had to have a grounding in reality.

  ‘I’m still tempted to just leave you here and go it alone, it’ll take more than a few tricks like that gem to prove you’re useful to me.’ It was a half-hearted threat and by now they both knew it.

  You would never be able to find your way out of the maze of tunnels around here, much less get to the White Flames fortress unmarked. Once there you could never pass as Bellathonis without my help. You need me, Kharbyr.+

  ‘All right, let’s say that I do, what happens next?’

  We watch Yllithian carefully and choose our moment. Then we approach him for help in finding the errant Kharbyr and reunite the two of you.+

  ‘Then what?’

  One thing at a time, child, a moment ago you were within a hair’s-breadth of your doom.+

  ‘You think the Talos will come back?’

  Only if we stop looking for Bellathonis. It wants him too.+

  To Angevere’s expanded perception Kharbyr’s mind was quiescent and malleable. It was simple enough to prod him along into a plan to meet with Yllithian. Angevere chose not to share with her unwitting tool that her real objective was Yllithian, always Yllithian. A chance to repay Bellathonis for his tortures and humiliations would be welcome indeed, but the focus of Angevere’s hatred was reserved for Nyos Yllithian. The archon’s downfall should have been complete by now and yet he kept slipping out of the noose. Angevere planned to change that.

  Chapter 5

  AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR FOR VECT

  Asdrubael Vect was in the midst of a light repast when they brought the calling card to him. He had moved to another of the great atria that girdled the highest peak of Corespur, a vast open space with one wall and most of the roof pierced with hundreds of tall, narrow windows looking out over Commorragh. Ordinarily the view outside was breathtaking – the jagged, precipitous slopes of Corespur falling away to the peaks and valleys formed by the spires of Sorrow Fell, beyond them the shining towers of High Commorragh in all their barbed profusion, and in the distance the radiating talons of the docking ring where armadas of sleek vessels twinkled like stars in the outer dark. Now the view was a hellish scene dominated by clouds of smoke under-lit by sullen fires. The wan, poisonous light from the quiescent Ilmaea that came spilling in through the windows threw dark bars of shadow across the exquisitely tiled floor such that despite its openness the atrium felt like an enormous cage.

  A troupe of scantily clad Lhamaeans whirled and cavorted across the centre of the floor in perfect time with the ululating shrieks of their victims. A veritable host of the poor, damned souls were hanging from the ceiling, dangling in chains so that they were swinging helplessly in the midst of the sinuous dancers. The Lhamaeans stroked and caressed their playthings lasciviously as they gyrated between them. With every scratch of their poison-encrusted fingernails the Lhamaeans introduced more of the nerve-shredding neurotoxins that were slowly, exquisitely killing their victims. The screams embodied not only unimaginable pain, but agonised arousal and unfulfilled lust. Vect smiled as he enjoyed these simple pleasures and feasted on the outpouring of raw suffering that the adepts of Shaimesh were provoking.

  A black-winged scourge came fluttering into the chamber through an open window. Before the scourge even alighted, Vect saw his trueborn warriors moving to bar its path. There was a low, hurried exchange of words and then there were nervous glances towards him as they tried to decide whether or not they should interrupt their supreme overlord with whatever news was being brought. Vect ignored them and continued to watch the Lhamaeans while the guards quietly squabbled over what to do. Finally the scourge seemed to tire of their indecision and broke away, stalking forwards on its own and forcing the guards to follow it with looks of fury on their faces. The scourge dropped to its knees a dozen paces from Vect and held up a small wafer of crystal for his inspection.

  Vect frowned balefully at the interruption and held up one hand to the dancers. The Lhamaeans instantly froze into place mid-step like living statues. The shrieks of their victims faded away into low-pitched babbling and weeping. Vect lowered his hand and twitched his finger towards the scourge to signal it to approach. It did so at a half-crouch as though approaching an open furnace door and trying to avoid the resulting blast of heat. The crystal wafer it held so delicately in its talons was small enough that it would have fitted into the palm of Vect’s hand, rectangular, and unmarked save for a superimposed image of two stylised masks, one laughing and one weeping.

  Vect arched one eyebrow and sighed volubly before turning to signal for the Lhamaeans to continue. Behind him he heard a short scuffle as his trueborn warriors seized the scourge and dragged it away with its talons scraping across the tiled floor. The shrieks of the Lhamaeans’ victims rose swiftly to obliterate the final fate of the unfortunate winged messenger.

  Unusually as he completed his repast, Vect found himself relenting a little. He formed a growing belief that he could gain some value in bandying words w
ith the one that had sent him the calling card and that the momentary diversion in itself might bear unexpected fruit. The individual in question would likely know more about how matters fared outside Commorragh and inside the webway than Vect cared to admit.

  The Lhamaeans had almost completed their performance. The moans and whimpers of their victims were becoming softer and softer as they were finally devoured. The supreme overlord looked up and addressed his trueborn guards as though there had been no prior interruption.

  ‘Very well, I’ve seen his calling card. Bring in the Fool that sent it. Let’s hear what he has to say for himself.’

  The onyx-armoured guards accompanying Vect’s visitor were unsure of his status when he arrived. They compromised by trailing a half-step behind the approaching figure with their splinter rifles held at the ready and looking as if they were preparing to leap into action at any moment. The visitor strode in front of them as confidently as if he were at the head of a guard of honour. He was little enough to look at: small, slight, dressed in faintly ridiculous archaic garb that was patterned with alternating diamonds of black and white so fine that they appeared grey from a distance. He wore a domino-style half-mask beneath which his full, mobile lips were visible, fixed in an overly wide smile.

  For all the visitor’s non-threatening appearance there was, Vect noted, an underlying dynamism to his movements he tried to keep carefully hidden – more than the poise of a dancer or the power of an athlete, something more like the sprung wiriness of an assassin. Vect watched with an inscrutable expression as the stranger sketched a needlessly baroque bow before kneeling. The supreme overlord waved his guards away with an air of disdain.

  ‘What do you want?’ Vect asked without preamble. ‘Your time here with me will be short, so employ it wisely.’

  ‘Supreme overlord!’ the visitor sprang up and wrung its hands in apparent misery. ‘Those I represent wish to extend their deepest and most heartfelt commiserations on the dire events that have beset the great city of Commorragh–’

  ‘My city,’ Vect snapped.

  ‘…Your great city of Commorragh,’ the Fool continued without missing a beat, ‘and to take the opportunity to offer any and all assistance they can in restoring it to its former glory.’

  ‘How very neighbourly of you,’ Vect observed sarcastically. ‘If I find myself in need of troupes of jugglers to fill my arenas and bordellos I shall certainly look no further.’

  The stranger’s smile hardened a little when he responded to the jibe. ‘Of course – you’ll be needing a great many souls to restock your city with, I imagine. I see this particular winnowing has been especially thorough.’

  Vect gave a hard smile in return to acknowledge that the empty pleasantries had now been dispensed with. ‘A culling of the weak, nothing more,’ Vect said dismissively. ‘Commorragh has endured far worse during its history and always emerges the stronger for it.’

  The slight stranger refused to rise to Vect’s bait and opted to nod sympathetically. ‘While I sense that the immediate shocks have passed there is something deeply… moribund about the city in the aftermath, don’t you think? It’s my fear that a canker is forming that might eventually poison this entire reality.’

  Vect reappraised the creature for a moment, looking behind the mask being presented to him at that moment for the real motivations driving beneath the surface. The stranger was a Harlequin, certainly, one of the vagrant warrior-troubadours that claimed a mystical connection with the dead past of the eldar race as they wandered the webway. This one had the bright, fervent eyes of a fanatic, a true believer in their trickster deity, the so-called Laughing God. Although he was trying to disguise the signs, the Harlequin was tense, bursting with barely suppressed energy. Vect surmised that this Harlequin had other work that he was desperate to be doing, but that he had felt constrained to come before the supreme overlord first. It was an intriguing conundrum and Vect decided to strike at the heart of it.

  ‘You know something about the Dysjunction,’ Vect said incisively, ‘something that you felt you had to come straight here and warn me about. Something you’re now hesitant to reveal.’

  The Harlequin spread his hands helplessly and hunched his shoulders as if to feign innocence. Vect smiled maliciously; this one was as weak as all the others.

  ‘I’ll make it easy for you,’ the tyrant added conversationally. ‘Stop wasting my time and tell me what you know or I’ll have my Castigators rip it from your bones.’

  The Harlequin’s ever-present smile became a little wistful, as if he could think of nothing more welcome. Vect scowled and the Fool seemed suddenly to remember where he was with comic dismay. Defeated, the Harlequin blew out his cheeks and puckered his lips as if tasting something bitter.

  ‘Forgive me, great one. I truly desire nothing more than to unburden myself to you. I have borne witness to great and terrible events in the recent past which I’m hesitant to bore you with. Suffice to say that I’ve seen signs that the gods of Chaos have caught up Commorragh in their sport. This is what brought about your Dysjunction. The Grandfather of Pestilence and the Architect of Fate have pursued their mutual conflict into realms that are usually considered the sovereign hunting grounds of She Who Thirsts…’

  Vect laughed outright at the Harlequin’s little speech. ‘Gods! Daemons! Always the same with your kind. You see things only through the lens of the Fall. You endlessly replay the old mythic cycles to teach us about the gods and our past yet you fail to see how utterly irrelevant you’ve become to the present. The past is gone, there is only the future for us. The powers of Chaos have schemed against Commorragh for its entire existence and they have never gained a permanent foothold here.’

  Vect almost smiled to see the Harlequin virtually bouncing from one foot to the other with barely repressed eagerness to contradict his specious claim. ‘Perhaps that has been true until now, mighty lord, I would certainly never gainsay someone so knowledgeable as yourself about the details of their own domain,’ the too-wide smile flashed again. ‘My one fear is that this happy state of affairs may have now come to an end.’ The smile vanished into a concerned frown like the sun disappearing behind a cloud.

  ‘You’re using a great many words to say very little,’ Vect said pointedly. ‘Perhaps the Castigators will be the best solution after all. I often find that hearing reports of what people say is much more efficient and informative than actually speaking with them.’

  The slight figure paled noticeably. It seemed that this meeting was not proceeding in the manner he had anticipated it should. The Harlequin glanced around for a moment as if just now fully absorbing the enormity of where he stood: the chains with the bones of the Lhamaeans’ victims swinging in the breeze, the coterie of the Lhamaeans themselves curled watching the visitor with the insatiable intensity of cats, the legion of black-armoured guards poised in the shadows, the stink of the burning city blowing in through the windows and most of all Vect himself, the pitiless tyrant with the power of life and death over it all. The little Fool looked very lost and lonely as he realised just how much he was at Vect’s non-existent mercy. Vect let the feeling of dread settle in for a few seconds before he considered the Harlequin was feeling sufficiently crushed for him to be able to shake loose some useful information.

  ‘Give me specifics,’ Vect snapped. ‘Give me places, people and details. Tell me how and why you’ve reached the conclusions you’ve reached and you might still walk out of here on your own two feet.’

  The Harlequin, who was named Motley, felt as though he were dancing on hot coals. It had always been a gamble to approach Vect directly, but try as he might Motley could think of no better way to try and protect the city as a whole than co-opting its supreme overlord to the task. Motley hadn’t counted on the fact that Vect did not care about his opinions and saw him only as a resource to be exploited. The idea of torture did not elicit any real sense of dread within Motley, a
lthough he was cautious enough to allow Vect to continue thinking that it did. Imprisonment, however, could be deadly to his cause.

  ‘It began with a real space raid on a maiden world called Lileathanir,’ Motley began and Vect’s dark, disturbing gaze intensified immediately. The supreme overlord had heard that name before.

  ‘During the raid a small group kidnapped a worldsinger from her shrine. As a result of this the world spirit of Lileathanir became enraged and struck back – first at the raiding force to drive it away and later at the raid’s point of origin – Commorragh.’

  For all his avowed contempt for talk of gods and daemons Vect fully comprehended the implications of Motley’s story. As supreme overlord of Commorragh, Vect understood that repositories of souls like a maiden world’s world spirit or a craftworld’s infinity circuit represented a source of real power in the metaphysical realm of warp space – raw, atavistic and potentially supremely dangerous power.

  ‘Continue.’ Vect spoke the word with distaste.

  ‘In the intervening time,’ Motley recounted, ‘the worldsinger was brought to Commorragh and used in an… undertaking to resurrect one of your old enemies, El’Uriaq, I believe. The attempt failed, or rather it seemed to succeed, but the result was corrupt and became the possessed vessel of a very potent daemon. The emergence of the daemon, the destruction of it and its offspring, the wrath of the world spirit – these factors combined, reflected and redoubled their effects to produce the Dysjunction that has wracked the, ah, your city.’

  ‘It should come as no surprise to you that I am aware of these facts,’ Vect said coldly, ‘and – although I find myself wondering at your knowledge of them – I find nothing in what you’ve said that implicates the gods of Chaos at work in some master scheme. Greed, opportunism and a lack of foresight breed disaster. So it ever was.’

  Motley smiled despite himself. Like any good storyteller he had saved the best until last, an implicit twist for the tale that had – so far – kept Vect interested. Now they came to the point where he would find out if his best was good enough. Motley had fought daemons and confronted the darkness in mortal hearts more times than he could speak of and yet his mouth felt dry at this moment. He was wagering his life and his very soul that the tyrant didn’t know what he was about to be told. The little Harlequin moistened his lips and plunged onwards.