Path of the Dark Eldar

by Andy Chambers

‘For exiting the fortress undetected by any of Vect’s lackeys.’

  ‘Ah…’

  Ask Yllithian what he knows about the labyrinth of the Black Descent.+

  ‘How much do you know about the labyrinth of the Black Descent?’ Kharbyr asked the archon in what he hoped would sound like a conversational tone of voice.

  Yllithian looked at him oddly and then smiled again. ‘The usual tales I’ve heard spun about the labyrinth involve its innumerable and fiendish death traps or the hideous fates of intruders. Both you and Syiin, my previous haemonculus, have been singularly close-mouthed about the topic and about the coven of the Black Descent in general.’

  The archon spread his hands in a dismissive gesture as he continued, ‘It’s generally thought best to leave haemonculi covens to their own devices under ordinary circumstances, so obviously I’ve never been down there in person before – that’s where you’ll come in, of course, being the expert in this case.’

  ‘Of course,’ Kharbyr echoed again, his mouth dry.

  They descended through a series of recently drained tunnels for a short time before striking off along a broader branch to drier ground. The dense, stone-like foundation layer beneath the spires (or rather the foundation strata as Yllithian knew it, for it was comprised of many layers) was a dense honeycomb of service tunnels, travel tubes, waste pipes and hidden ways. It had long been used as a way to transport personnel and property without risking the dangers of street and airborne movement. Indeed in some places entire underground rivers passed through the foundations of spires and afforded them either a useful point of ingress or a major security headache depending on perspective.

  Each kabal kept its own secret maps of the foundation strata just as each kabal constantly blocked off or opened up different routes through it from time to time. Some parts of Low Commorragh merged seamlessly into the strata by becoming strings of caverns, quarries or mines. Deeper still the pits of the haemonculi were accessible at the points where they clung, hive-like, to Commorragh’s underside. All manner of dangerous wildlife, escaped slaves, insane Commorrites and other unnameable horrors lurked in the foundation strata, but none of them were more horrifying than the haemonculi themselves. Angevere persisted in ‘educating’ Kharbyr further as they travelled, her ghostly whisper forever at the back of his mind:

  After the Fall the surviving not-quite-yet-haemonculi realised that they stood on a metaphorical knife-edge. With their abilities they could cheat death, age, pain and disease for all intents and purposes. They could have ruled Commorragh and the other sub-realms purely through the promise of granting immortality to those loyal to them. However, the soon-to-be haemonculi were wise enough to understand that they had neither the desire nor the skills to lead the unwashed masses. They were only concerned with pursuing their craft further, but they also knew that if they tried to do so as individuals they would be enslaved and forced to labour for others.+

  So the haemonculi covens formed. Like-minded individuals banded together to organise the distribution of their effort. Pacts were formed between the covens and the ruling authorities – the noble houses originally and then later the kabals when Vect took power. The Black Descent has been one of the more powerful haemonculi covens in Commorragh for longer than anyone can remember. They are also and perhaps not coincidentally one of the more… orderly covens in regard to their practices.+

  The Black Descent has at least thirty-three strictly regulated ranks in its hierarchy, ‘the degrees of descent’ as they call them. Individual coven members are subject to the authority of those further up – or rather down in this case – the organisation. Coven members keep their true identities secret from those of lesser status and are referred to by their ranks alone.+

  You’re wondering how I could possibly know all this. Well it’s easy enough when you’ve had the misfortune to be around the real Bellathonis as much as I have. The problem is that the real Bellathonis didn’t progress very far through the Black Descent’s ranks before deciding to go it alone, and that’s a problem because of the labyrinth.+

  The labyrinth of the Black Descent is not only that – a physical maze to deal with intruders – but also a method of imposing discipline on the membership of the coven. Each member is only taught a limited number of pathways through the labyrinth according to their rank. The more exalted the member, the more routes they will know through the labyrinth.+

  The labyrinth itself is not fixed in place. The primary elements of the labyrinth take the form of interlocking cylinders nested inside one another. The cylinders slowly rotate so that the corridors and entries inside them line up with different points at different times. The routes that the members of the Black Descent learn as they progress are as carefully metered as dance steps so that they can move within the cylinders in time to make their appropriate connections. A mistake will lead the coven member into those fiendishly deadly traps that even Yllithian has heard about.+

  Bellathonis only knew of a fraction of the traps in the labyrinth, but it makes for a long list. Molecular acid jets, kinetic swarms, monofilament webs – both fixed spinnerets and free-floating ones, darklight fusillades, gravitic anomalies, splinter discharges, contact desiccants, nerve gases. The one piece of hope I can offer is that none of the traps will block progress entirely – there’s always a way past if you know the right steps. Bellathonis managed to steal into the chambers of a highly ranked member of the coven once by infecting his superior with a traceable bacterium that he used to follow him through the labyrinth. Unfortunately for you that was quite some time ago and the same trick won’t work again.+

  Twice they passed bodies in the tunnels that had been freshly slain by the White Flames’ vanguard. The first were a sizeable group of half-naked kabalites bearing a sigil Kharbyr didn’t recognise – although Yllithian obviously did. The archon nodded with satisfaction and moved on without comment. The second group of bodies was larger. They all bore the sigil of the Black Heart and it took Kharbyr an instant to realise that in this case there had been casualties on both sides. Some of the fallen were Yllithian’s warriors that had been caught in a vicious close-quarters fight with Vect’s own people. Yllithian looked grim at the sight.

  ‘Curse it all,’ the archon murmured, ‘I had started to think we might get through cleanly. Still, word of the ruse will give the Black Heart kabalites plenty to think about – they’ll be so busy looking at each other twice that we’ll slip past them easily. We’re almost at the sluices already.’

  Kharbyr nodded in a fashion that he hoped looked wise. He decided to try and put up a bit of flattery in the hopes it would keep Yllithian busy too.

  ‘You seem to know the strata very well, Archon Yllithian,’ Kharbyr ventured. ‘An impressive feat if I may say so.’

  Yllithian was dismissive. ‘Any archon worthy of the title knows that nothing enters or leaves his domain without it being reported on by Vect’s spies. It became clear to me… well, let’s just say it was a long time ago now… that I would need ways to move unseen. I made it my business to learn as much about the foundation strata as I could.’

  Kharbyr knew the true import behind Yllithian’s easy statement: teams of desperate agents clashing in the dark, secret maps being stolen, kidnappings and torture for information. A thousand tiny, independent vortices of pain and terror would have been brought into being by Yllithian’s thirst for knowledge. Each one would grind away producing tiny nuggets of information that once placed together made an increasingly clarified whole.

  Just as Yllithian had promised, they reached the sluices shortly afterwards. Kharbyr could tell they were getting close by the trembling of the passageway beneath his feet and a distant rumbling sound that gradually rose to a deafening roar. They emerged on to a gallery that was open along the left to an empty, echoing space while the towering wall to their right was pierced by hundreds of arches. High-walled channels entered through the arches, crossing t
he gallery from one side to the other before dropping away at a precipitous angle when they reached its further edge. Decrepit-looking metal-strutted bridges formed a precarious walkway across the channels.

  Most of the channels were full of swift-flowing liquids that thundered over the edge without pause. However, a handful were entirely dry or carried such sluggish flows that they barely trickled past. It was into one of these that Yllithian and Kharbyr were led, finding the bulk of Yllithian’s false-flagged warriors and a small gaggle of nondescript-looking agents. The archon went over to speak with them while Kharbyr risked a glance over the edge.

  The sluice channel disappeared away at a forty-five-degree angle, its straight edges compressing rapidly towards a vanishing point that was lost in the darkness below. To his left and right the fuller sluices pushed their contents over the edge with an unceasing roar and producing billows of fine mist that Kharbyr wished he could believe was made up of water droplets.

  A thin, black, ruler-straight line followed the sluice channel down at head height before vanishing out of sight. It was secured to one of the less dilapidated bridge struts further up the channel where Yllithian was issuing orders to the warriors. Kharbyr resisted the urge to touch the line. It would be braided monofilament – light and incredibly strong but also apt to shred anything it came into contact with that didn’t have the right kind of protection.

  Yllithian returned and handed Kharbyr a loop of black metal. He recognised it immediately as a friction brake. They were all going to go sliding down that line into the middle of whatever lay at the bottom of the sluice. His look of trepidation must have been obvious because it made Yllithian smile.

  ‘No need to look so aghast, Bellathonis,’ the archon said. ‘You won’t be the first one going down. I’m reliably informed that there’s an entrance to the Black Descent’s labyrinth scarcely a hundred paces from where we’ll arrive.’

  ‘So you’ll be heading down before me, I suppose, it being so safe and all,’ Kharbyr blurted out tetchily. Yllithian simply smiled in response.

  There is one more thing I should tell you,+ Angevere whispered as Kharbyr took a firm grip on the gravity-line and pushed himself away. The initial acceleration was ferocious and he clung on to the friction brake grimly with the razor-sharp line hissing alongside his head as he slid down it. By now he was barely heeding the witch’s incessant, doom-laden prattle.

  The Black Descent will recognise the presence of Bellathonis, of you that is, the moment you set foot in their labyrinth. They’ll do their best to single you out and kill you as a matter of priority. I’m sure they would rather capture you instead, but I suspect they will probably be feeling more pragmatic than that, so do try to be careful.+

  Kharbyr’s exasperated oath was swallowed up by the thunder of the sluices.

  Chapter 12

  ANOTHER REPAST

  Asdrubael Vect had returned to his scrying chamber at the tip of Corespur. Much to his disgust more of the upright crystals had turned to inky black in his absence. It had now reached a point where his view of the lower city was almost totally occluded. Vect growled in vexation as he prowled back and forth between the darkened crystals.

  ‘Even a Fool knew something was going on,’ he announced to the chamber’s only other apparent occupant. ‘I had seen it too, of course, but it seemed to be of such minor import on the broader canvas. A loose end to be tidied up later, nothing more.’ He stopped and shook his head bitterly. ‘My mistake, but not a fatal one. Not yet.’ His self-assurance rang hollowly in his own ears.

  The Fool had been right, something was indeed brewing in Low Commorragh that stank with the abyssal reek of daemonic interference. Vect spat a few sulphurous oaths in the general direction of the ineffable machinations of Chaos as he did his best to mentally set the conundrum to one side. The real frustration was that there was little that could be done about that particular state of affairs at the current time.

  Vect resettled himself in his throne with something of an effort of will as he mentally dissected the complex orrery of interconnecting elements that were already in motion. No, the bulk of the Black Heart kabal was already fully engaged with protecting Corespur and subduing Sorrow Fell. All of his trusted archons were about their appointed tasks or they would be very shortly. The orbit of events had been influenced as much as possible for the present and now Vect had to see the outcome of some of those events before he could make his next move.

  ‘I hate the feeling of powerlessness that waiting can impose at times like these,’ he opined to his silent companion, ‘but over the centuries I’ve come to understand that waiting is an essential, indeed inescapable, part of the role of supreme overlord. All manoeuvres and stratagems come to fruition at their own pace – attempting to hurry them along is usually a precursor to disaster. Even with access to all the power of Commorragh I still can’t make time run faster or slower than it is normally wont to do.’

  He stared down at the grey-skinned Medusae squatting in front of his throne before nudging it with his foot. ‘I think you’ll agree that I speak from experience in this regard.’ The Medusae was silent, its steel visor inscrutable. The clusters of brain-fruit covering its head and back pulsated gently, ripe and swollen with vicariously won experiences. Vect leered unpleasantly before reaching out and plucking a handful of the soft, fleshy nodules. He could at least pass the time usefully by witnessing events as they had unfolded.

  One bite and he was reliving the moment that Valossian Sythrac left the ziggurat to take charge of his forces on the Alzos’Querion Vha. He saw the Harlequin, Motley, blanch at the techniques being employed and eventually get himself ejected by the geldling. On one level the experience made him laugh a little as a master is apt to do when its pet accurately apes his mannerisms. On another level it left a thick bile of frustration on his tongue. By the time Vect’s messenger had arrived carrying orders for them to send the Harlequin and the Medusae back to Corespur the little Fool had already flown.

  Another bite and he experienced the dying moments of a rebel. The idiot gazed hopelessly up into dark, roiling skies as swarms of black, dagger-winged craft descended from them in an awe-inspiring display of raw power. The ground shook as explosions of white fire raced over the battlefield to engulf the rebel and his misguided friends, their agonised shrieks obliterated by the carpet of death that rolled over them.

  Vect selected another fruit. This one carried him with Aurelia Malys as she separated the columns of Black Heart forces leaving Corespur. The iridescent green craft of her Poisoned Tongue kabal spiralled away in a leisurely fashion giving no indication as to what their final destination would be. Vect knew where she was going, of course, he’d given the orders to her himself. Even so it was informative to see how carefully she saw to her own safety before setting about pursuing them. The group that Malys had taken with her was relatively small – a compromise between speed, stealth and strength – but there was a persistent worm of doubt at the back of her mind as to whether she’d brought too many or not enough.

  The next experience was ripe with anguish. One of Sythrac’s heralds was winging his way between palls of smoke towards the White Flames fortress. Its gates and docking ports stood invitingly open and no violence was offered as the herald flew closer to the vertiginous alabaster walls. Emboldened, more heralds descended bearing their swallow-tailed gonfalons and together they hailed the defenders in the name of Vect, supreme overlord. Their answer came sped on rays of all-destroying darklight. The heralds were slashed out of the skies by the retina-scarring beams in a heartbeat. Vect had a momentary impression of burning wings as the ground seemed to leap towards him…

  Yllithian had shown his true colours openly at last. That news had reached Vect already, and the crystals had shown the White Flames fortress displaying its defiance to Sythrac’s first approach. The formalities of it all were irritating but necessary. Word of Yllithian’s stand would be spreading
like wildfire, a focal point for any kind of organised resistance to the evil depredations of the great tyrant, Asdrubael Vect. Vect rubbed his hands with undisguised glee. The idiots would come running to make common cause with Yllithian and the White Flames without realising they were conveniently gathering themselves beneath a single banner for the deserved receipt of his unquenchable wrath.

  The next fruit was strangely bitter. Vect followed the Sybarite Vaellienth as he dropped down into Low Commorragh on his Raider. As the sybarite and his clique entered the rubble-choked lower streets Vect felt the tension growing there in ways a mere warrior would have missed or dismissed. By the time the swarm of ur-ghuls erupted into view Vect was prepared for something of the sort occurring. He ignored the flailing emotions of Vaellienth as the sybarite was torn by hooked claws and bitten by needle fangs. Instead Vect concentrated on observing, dissecting and deducing everything he could from what he saw.

  Vect stood and paced between the darkened crystals once more. Encounters with beasts and slaves released by the Dysjunction’s impact on the city had been universal. They figured into Vect’s calculations as mere tertiary considerations at best or distractions at worst. Now he recalled ur-ghuls figuring in a disproportionate number of reports. Large numbers had been seen in Low Commorragh even before this incident.

  He returned to the Medusae and carefully selected several of its smaller, less-developed fruits. These would be the ones secreted from the very fringes of the Medusae collective’s roving senses. Each one was bitter and evoked another impression of darkness and corruption coming roiling up from the lower tiers. Swarms of ur-ghuls featured everywhere, apparently immune to pain and carrying a disease so foul that the slightest scratch could lay its victim low within minutes.

  Not every such skirmish Vect witnessed was lost, the superior firepower and fighting skills of the kabalites sometimes enough to overcome the overwhelming numbers and preternatural vitality of the troglodytic horrors. Nonetheless the pitch-blackness and tight confines of the lower city worked against his warriors and everywhere they were being forced to give ground. Where the ur-ghuls emerged into the open they were easily dealt with, but the darkness seemed to be forever at their backs, advancing as they advanced.