by Darius Hinks
Lord-Celestant Devyndus bowed. ‘We stand at your command,’ he told the hero. ‘Give us your orders and it shall be done.’
Throl stepped forwards, lean and miniscule among the mighty Stormcasts. ‘If you will forgive my impertinence, Ghal Maraz,’ he said, and picked up one of the broken shards from the mirrors. ‘The Maze of Reflection’s presence here and the fiendishness of the trap laid for you was no accident. We were led here, meant to be drawn to this place. It wasn’t mere chance that caused the captive daemons to be loosed against you.’ He held up the sliver of glass, turning it from side to side, letting the light play across its surface. ‘Everything was being directed by the Prismatic King, his terrible magic both setting the stage and moving the players.’
‘The Stormcasts are no puppets to dance for a sorcerer’s whim,’ Othmar snarled, bringing his foot stamping down on a piece of glass.
Throl bowed in apology. ‘No, the warriors of Sigmar aren’t so easily manipulated. That is why the Prismatic King’s trick failed.’
‘But he will try new ways to destroy us,’ the Celestant-Prime said. He clenched his mailed fist, glaring at what remained of the broken maze. ‘Unless we destroy him first.’
‘That is what I propose,’ Throl said. Holding the shard of mirror high, he pointed to its gleaming surface. ‘The Prismatic King spied upon us through the mirrors. More than simply prisons, they acted as windows for his witchsight. Through the mirrors he could watch those he’d caught and those he intended to catch. That is how he knew the right moment to free the blood daemons and when to shift the mirrors to try and snare Ghal Maraz.’
Othmar picked up one of the broken slivers, glaring at it. ‘I hope he’s still watching,’ he growled, scowling at the glass.
‘Is he watching, wizard?’ the Celestant-Prime asked.
‘The spell should be broken,’ Throl said. ‘When the mirrors broke, so too should their magic. But they remain things of the Prismatic King. The thread of his enchantment, the trail of his scrying is still there. My own magic may be able to exploit that lingering thread.’
‘Exploit it how?’ Lord-Celestant Devyndus asked.
Throl gestured expansively at the other shards scattered about the chamber. ‘Gather every piece together. Combine them in a great circle.’ He turned and looked up at the Celestant-Prime, an imploring look on his face. ‘The essence of the Eyrie is the stuff of Chaos – transitory and mutable. It is unfixed and unfinished by the rigours of mortal reality. I can use that shapelessness. My magic can bind itself to the aethyric tether linking the mirrors back to the Prismatic King. I can open a portal that will follow the path right to him.’
The Celestant-Prime nodded. ‘If you can do this, then we won’t need to fight our way through the Eyrie. You can take us straight to the Prismatic King’s throne.’ A concern flared through his mind, a worry that howled with warning. ‘Won’t your magic warn the sorcerer of our coming?’
Throl frowned, the light of vengeance faltering in his eyes. ‘His mastery of the black arts is such that there would be no hiding my magic from him. The instant I evoke my spell, the Prismatic King will know we are coming.’ The wizard shook his head. ‘There is small chance of surprising him if we march through his halls. This way at least you will be brought into the fiend’s presence. This way you will at least see the face of your enemy.’
Feeling the heft of Ghal Maraz in his hands, the Celestant-Prime experienced a sensation of righteous wrath. ‘Let me get that close to him, and your people will be avenged, Throl. The Prismatic King has mocked Sigmar long enough.’ He looked to Devyndus. ‘Have the Thriceblessed gather up the shards. Whatever the wizard needs to work his spell, we will render it to him.’
Lord-Celestant Devyndus clasped his hand to his chest in salute and hurried to pass Ghal Maraz’s commands on to the other Stormcasts. In a moment, the warriors were picking up the broken pieces of mirror, setting them into a growing circle of glass. Throl walked across the jagged shards, seating himself at the very centre of the ring. Closing his eyes, he began to chant.
The pieces of glass began to shift and shudder, quaking upon the floor. Gradually their reflective surfaces became suffused with a brilliant light, a whirring aura that turned from one hue to the next in rapid rotations. The frigid chill of magic swept through the chamber, the breath of each Stormcast ghosting through his helm.
‘The door is open,’ Throl declared, his eyes more glassy and gem-like than the Celestant-Prime had ever seen them. Sweat streamed down the wizard’s strained face. ‘Quickly, while I can still maintain it!’
Devyndus gripped the Celestant-Prime’s shoulder as the champion started towards the glowing circle. ‘Are you certain of the wizard’s magic? Let one of us…’
The Celestant-Prime shook his head. ‘I send no man where I fear to lead,’ he declared. Holding forward the golden head of Ghal Maraz, he shook the weapon at the magic circle. ‘If the godhammer’s might is not enough to bear me to victory, then the valour of the Thriceblessed will be for naught. Let me lead the way, Lord-Celestant.’ His voice grew low, subdued by the magnitude of emotion boiling inside him. ‘This is my trial, and there is none who may lift it from me.’
Without further word, Ghal Maraz strode out into the blinding ring of light. The luminance swirled around him in a coruscating miasma of brilliance, a cascading stream of reflections and echoes that flooded through his senses. With each step he could feel the energies of the broken mirrors engulfing him, blotting out the outside world. He was fading from existence, marching through the passageways between space and time. Where the passage would lead was a matter of faith, not in the magic of Throl, but in the divine power of Sigmar.
A deafening clap of thunder rolled through the Celestant-Prime’s skull as he emerged from the nimbus of eldritch light. One instant he was engulfed in the blinding flash, the next he found himself standing in a grand hall of cyclopean proportions. Titanic columns of crystal soared up into an arched ceiling of uncut gemstone. The floor was like a single mosaic of stained glass, its panes depicting the manifold atrocities and conquests of Chaos throughout the Mortal Realms.
Across the gargantuan hall, an enormous seat rose, a throne fashioned from diamonds that blazed with a kaleidoscope of colours smouldering deep within their facets. Upon the throne sat a vulture-headed Lord of Change, its face turned towards the Celestant-Prime as he emerged from Throl’s portal. There was amusement in the greater daemon’s jewel-like eyes as it sensed the champion’s shock when he gazed upon it. The Celestant-Prime had thought the Prismatic King would be a monster of at least mortal birth. Instead he found himself before an infernal steward of Tzeentch, one of the greater daemons who existed as extensions of their twisted god’s desire.
Bigger than the one-eyed giants he’d fought in the swamp, the Prismatic King rose from its throne. Possessed of roughly human shape, the Lord of Change adorned itself in a long robe of silks and satins, jewels woven into the pattern to form arcane sigils and sorcerous talismans. The gaunt, starveling body of the daemon was covered in black feathers that faded to a leprous yellow at the tips. The vulturine head leered from atop a bare, scraggly neck, the face dominated in a metallic beak of blackened iron. Upon the horror’s talons enormous rings burned with unholy energy. From the Prismatic King’s back spread gigantic wings, exhibiting a dazzle of whirling patterns among the rainbow display of coloured feathers. Upon the beast’s brow, a mirrored crown reflected the Celestant-Prime’s image back at him, but it was a reflection twisted and corrupted by the ruinous essence of the daemon.
‘You have come far to seek an audience with me.’ The Prismatic King’s voice was like the crackling of broken glass and the scrape of steel against stone. ‘In all its long existence my court has never entertained an emissary of Azyr.’
The Celestant-Prime felt every syllable the daemon uttered clawing at him, probing around in his mind and spirit for any trace of weakne
ss. However mighty the godhammer was, however resilient his armour of sigmarite, their strength would account for nothing if the Lord of Change found a flaw within the man himself.
Thunder roared through the hall. The Celestant-Prime could feel the Thriceblessed emerge from the portal. Firm in their faith in the champion chosen by their god, the Stormcasts had dutifully followed him through the magical gate. He could feel the shock that swept through each warrior as he gazed upon the hideous enormity of the Prismatic King, but that shock was tempered, subdued by a sensation yet more powerful: the conviction that each Stormcast held that the Celestant-Prime could overcome even this foe.
Strengthened by the faith of his comrades, the Celestant-Prime took a step towards the diamond throne. ‘I’m not here as emissary,’ he snarled at the daemon. ‘I’m here as executioner. I’m here to answer the cries of the innocent you have enslaved and killed. I’m here to avenge the kingdoms and empires you have annihilated. I’m here to defend the worlds you would despoil with your sorcery.’ He held Ghal Maraz overhead, letting its holy presence blaze forth in a nimbus of sacred fire. ‘Tell me where you have hidden the Pillar of Whispers and earn the mercy of swift destruction.’
The Lord of Change uttered a cackle of withering mirth. ‘I whispered in the ears of priests and emperors in the Age of Myth. I set nations aflame in the Age of Chaos. What are you, Ghal Maraz? A mortal substituting for a god? A nameless vagabond who calls himself by the trinket he carries? Who are you to contend with me?’
The Celestant-Prime felt the bite of the daemon’s words. He felt too the strength of his own faith. His eyes burned behind the mask of his helm. ‘It isn’t who I am that matters – it is what I am!’ He brought Ghal Maraz slamming into the floor, sending a shockwave through the panes that cracked and splintered the innumerable atrocities of the Prismatic King’s glass legions. ‘I am your doom, Soulshriver.’
The daemon’s enraged howl shrieked across the hall. Translucent membranes slid across the fiend’s eyes as it brought its talons together. A surge of crackling magic swept down the gallery, dragging the cracked slivers of the floor into its seething storm. The gale rushed towards the Celestant-Prime and the Thriceblessed, an arcane tornado of boiling sorcery and razored glass.
The Celestant-Prime held his ground, brandishing the godhammer. In a shriek of elemental violence, the dark magic of the Prismatic King crashed into the faith and devotion of Ghal Maraz. The dark storm frayed, its grisly energies blown apart in splatters of roiling corruption that sizzled against the crystal columns and gem-encrusted ceiling. The slivers of glass dropped back to the floor in a cascade of broken fragments.
‘The chosen of Sigmar! The Celestant-Prime!’ Deucius raised his voice in a roar of adoration. The cry was taken up by the other Thriceblessed. Their shame at failing to overcome the trickery of Chaos and at their imprisonment in the Maze of Reflection was now fanned into a surge of judgemental wrath. Like an avalanche, they charged across the hall to confront the daemon who had worked its deceit upon them.
The Prismatic King glared contemptuously at the army of Stormcasts. With a gesture of its ensorcelled talons, the arrows of lightning loosed upon it by the Judicators dissipated into sparks of harmless light. A snap of its mighty pinions sent a gale that staggered the hulking Retributors. A ghastly squawk that was part scream and part incantation bubbled from the daemon’s beak and from the smouldering depths of its diamond throne shapes oozed into being, gaining in size and solidity until they stood within the hall – a mismatched horde of barbaric warriors and snarling beastmen. The Lord of Change extended its claw and the mongrel army leapt to the attack.
Sweeping the Cometstrike Sceptre overhead, the Celestant-Prime once more drew on the relic’s divine power. The ribbon of holy energy swept outward, wrenching a fiery ball from the heavens, flinging the conjured flame full into the swarming foe. Scores of Chaos warriors and beastmen were immolated by the cosmic fury of the comet, their mangled bodies flung across the hall, crashing into the stunned ranks of the Prismatic King’s vassals. Before the slaves of darkness could recover from their shock, the Stormcasts were charging towards them.
The Celestant-Prime led the advance. Faith and conviction were anathema to all things of Chaos, but it would need more than the valour of men to overcome a fiend as ancient and steeped in evil as the Prismatic King. Only a weapon as mighty and sacred as Ghal Maraz could vanquish the daemon.
The Judicators unleashed their skybolts across the hall. The Prismatic King didn’t squander any of its sorcery to protect its slaves, however. Dozens of mortal warriors fell, their blackened mail pierced by the crackling missiles. The Retributors took position before the Judicators, defending the archers against the rush of snarling gors eager for their blood. With precision honed over numberless battles, they swung their massive mauls in a brutal arc, breaking bones and crushing horned skulls. Soon the ground before them was littered with the battered bodies of dead and dying beastkin.
As the Prismatic King’s warriors struck the ring of Retributors, the Liberators pushed their way to the vanguard. With swords and hammers, the Thriceblessed wrought vengeful havoc against the minions of Chaos.
The Celestant-Prime cast down rank after rank of barbarous foes. Each strike from Ghal Maraz sent a thunderous clamour echoing through the hall. With one swing he obliterated a clutch of barbaric reavers. Another blow reduced a pack of horned gors into a heap of bloodied flesh and shattered bone. A hulking, bull-headed minotaur lunged for him, trampling the Thriceblessed who strayed into its path. A glancing blow of the godhammer tore the head from the beast’s powerful body and sent it crashing among the monstrous throng still emerging from the diamond throne.
Any mortal would have known despair as he contemplated the innumerable foes the Prismatic King had already conjured from the depths of its throne. To see still more swarming forth would have broken them. But the Stormcasts had transcended such limits. They had been recast by the God-King, transformed into instruments of Sigmar’s holy retribution. For them, there was no fear in battle, no such thing as unopposable odds. While they lived, they fought and while they fought they did so knowing that the glory of Sigmar shone within each of them.
None embodied this stalwart conviction more than the Celestant-Prime. Here was the fire in which he would be tested, the flame in which he would be proved. Yet as he would have pressed forwards, as he would have battered his way through the hordes of Chaos, a tiny warning made him hesitate. Had the Prismatic King, master of deceit and illusion, limited itself to such crude and obvious measures to protect its domain?
The Celestant-Prime looked beyond the crush of battle and the fires of his own righteous thirst for justice. Despite the ferocity of the fight, none of the Stormcasts had fallen. The chaotic horde was only trying to delay the warriors of Sigmar. After the Maze of Reflection, he could guess their hideous purpose.
Slain, the Stormcasts would dissipate, returning to the Anvil of the Apotheosis to be reforged. Trapped within the mirrors of the Prismatic King, however, they would be lost to the God-King. That was the peril which now threatened the Thriceblessed. The Prismatic King was going to work some feat of sorcery to achieve the same foul enchantment as the maze.
‘Devyndus!’ the Celestant-Prime’s voice thundered above the carnage. ‘The daemon’s slaves are trying to delay us, to give their master time to trap us all.’
The Lord-Celestant bellowed commands to the Thriceblessed near him, who in turn passed the orders down the line. The Judicators loosed a concentrated barrage of lightning-arrows into the midst of the vicious horde, focussing their shafts along a narrow front. Into this momentary gap surged a phalanx of Liberators, their shields locked together to form a wall of sigmarite that would stem the tide of warriors sweeping around them. The Celestant-Prime rushed through the narrow path the Liberators had created for him, Lord-Celestant Devyndus dispatching Deucius to protect the champion’s flank. In their w
ake, the wizard Throl scrambled towards the forefront of the battle.
Again and again, the Celestant-Prime swept the fury of Ghal Maraz across the ranks of savage reavers who stood before him. By the score the marauders perished, their broken bodies flung across the hall, yet still they came. Beyond them, the champion could see the huge daemon, its eyes glazed, its wings aglow as it summoned more magic into its loathsome conjurations. The transparent diamond of the Prismatic King’s throne was becoming steadily darker, assuming a reflective sheen. The daemon was exploiting the essence of Chamon itself, using the vibrations of the Realm of Metal to help it transmute the diamond throne into a nest of mirrors – a new maze in which to recapture the Thriceblessed.
‘Don’t let it complete its conjuration!’ Throl wailed, a stream of fire erupting from his splayed fingers to ignite a pack of gors, reducing the beastmen to heaps of ash. Deucius smashed down a dog-faced beastlord that had escaped the immolation of its followers, cracking the brute’s skull with his hammer.
The Celestant-Prime surged forwards, howling a challenge to the daemon. The flesh around the Prismatic King’s eyes twitched in fear but the Lord of Change was too committed to its mighty conjuration to break away from the spell. The creatures still emerging from the throne diverted towards the Celestant-Prime, seeking to answer the threat their master couldn’t face. Already the transmutive energies had wrought a change upon the throne, however. The creatures that staggered and crawled towards the hero were obscene half-formed things, their bodies as opaque as glass, their armour as brittle. When Ghal Maraz struck them, they disintegrated in a spray of shards that were both glass and flesh.
Reaching the daemon, the Celestant-Prime raised the godhammer, ready to strike it down with the fury of Sigmar’s wrath. As he started to swing, his eye strayed to the golden sheen of the hammer’s head. In that mirror-like surface, he could see the Prismatic King, towering and terrible. He could also see the shadows of its diamond throne and the creatures emerging from it stretching towards the wall. These shadows were constant, yet that of the daemon flickered with a grisly inconstancy. Only in the reflection of the godhammer was this weird effect revealed. Looking directly at the shadow, it seemed no different.