by William King
He knew that no matter how potent the shields of his vessel, and how thick its armoured hull, there was always the chance of a breach, and, if that should happen, a dreadful death. Anything that increased the number of attempts to penetrate the hull, and therefore increased the chance of disaster, was to be avoided. Suddenly, he thought of all those ships that had responded to the ancient golden argosies that had never returned. Was it possible he was close to divining the reason?
'What you are telling me is not good,' he said eventually.
'We want you to be aware of what might happen. Auric would do his best to shield you, but there is always the chance that his attempts might backfire.'
'You can thank Auric for me. Tell him I will do my best to save you from the daemons that might come for you.'
She rose to go in one smooth sinuous movement. When she turned in the doorway and gave him a sinister smile, he knew that she had saved the worst for last.
'It is not just for us they will come,' she said. 'It is for your friend, Janus Darke.'
THIRTEEN
CONCERNING DAEMON PRINCES
Angrily, Janus Darke smashed his palm into the override on the door and strode into the eldar's suite. Rage filled him, but even so he had enough self-control left to wait until the door slid shut before he started to bellow. He hoped he would find Athenys, but she was not there, so he took his anger out on the eldar who was present.
'Just what the hell do you think you are up to?'
Auric looked up mildly. His eyes had a slightly glazed quality that suggested the contents of the hookah he smoked were more than mildly narcotic.
'What do you mean, Janus Darke?'
'I mean, it's not bad enough that you have to weld this blasted gemstone to my forehead so that all my crew look at me like I am a pox-ridden shore boy. Now you have to go and tell my bloody Navigator that I am an Emperor-accursed sorcerer.'
Auric made a pacifying gesture with his left hand, and took another puff at the hookah. Smoke bubbled slowly out from between his lips.
After a moment, he spoke, 'I told Simon Belisarius no such thing.'
'No, but your bloody girlfriend did!'
'Athenys is not my lover, Janus Darke.'
'I don't care if she is your hell-accursed doxie—she had no right to go telling him that!'
'Be calm. Are you sure that she told him that?'
'Simon says she told him my soul was in peril from the creatures of the warp. Just the thing to be telling him a few hours before a warp jump.'
'And you take that to mean that she told him you are a psyker?'
'No. She told him I am an Alderanian bloody cat dancer! Of course, I take it to mean that. What else could it mean?'
'She told him your soul is in peril. It is nothing less than the truth.'
Janus shut his mouth. He realised that his anger came from the fact that Athenys had told Simon his secret. He had half expected the Navigator to turn the ship around there and then and take him back to the Inquisition. Hell, he might be doing that right now. Janus had not waited to learn what else she might have said. As soon as Simon had told him the part about souls and peril, he had stalked from the room and come right here.
A lot of his anger came from his guilt about keeping secrets from his crew and leading them into unknown dangers. Still more of it was coming from the strain of learning so recently what he had become. More of it came from his memories of what had happened in the meatpacking plant on Medusa. What if he lost control now and did that here? He might slaughter everybody on board. The farseer raised an eyebrow; he seemed to be reading Janus's mind.
'She had no right to do that,' Janus said weakly.
'Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps it is better for your Navigator to know some of the perils that await him. He must be prepared for what might happen.'
'And what exactly might that be?'
'This ship is about to travel through what you humans call the immaterium, and which we eldar call sha'eil.'
'So?'
'It is more truthful to say we call it hell.'
'What do you mean?'
'Things live in the immaterium, Janus Darke. Frightful things. Things you could not, in your wildest nightmares, imagine.'
'I have some pretty bad nightmares,' said Janus in an attempt at humour. Once again the eldar seemed to have turned the tables on him. He felt his anger begin to dispel to be replaced by a feeling of nameless dread.
'I imagine you do. But nonetheless, your worst fears are but pleasant daydreams compared to what lurks in sha'eil.'
'More vague warnings.'
'No—a very concrete and explicit warning. Whatever you do, whatever you see, whatever happens, however you feel—once this ship enters the Beyond, you must not for any reason tap the powers you possess.'
'Why?'
'Because if you do, it will be like lighting a beacon for whatever awaits us. It will be like throwing blood into a sea full of sharks. There are things out there in sha'eil to whom your soul would be a feast, and to whom your use of power would simply be a signal to come and feed.
'Moreover there are things that hunt for you. They might find you if you give them a sign.'
Thinking back to what happened on Medusa, Janus sensed that Auric was telling him nothing less than the truth. 'I think whatever it is you fear has already found me.'
'No!' The vehemence of the eldar's response surprised Janus. 'That is not true. When you used your powers to kill those men, the evil you sensed came from within you. The evil that waits cannot take you without your consent—not yet, and not here anyway. What happens when we enter what you call the warp is a different thing.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean if you draw on those powers of yours in any way, you will set off a flare that will attract the attention of daemons. You will invite them to a banquet, the main course of which will be your soul.
'More to the point, knowing that there is such a tasty morsel here they will stop at nothing to get at it. The primitive shields on this ship are most likely sufficient to keep the denizens of the other world at bay under normal circumstances, but these would not be normal circumstances. They would gather together and unite in their power until they could crack this ship like a man would crack open an egg—'
'You are not telling me everything.'
'Good—you are already becoming more acute.'
'What is it you are hiding? Why did Athenys tell Simon what she did? Would it not have been simpler just to warn me? What sort of game is it you are playing?'
'I am playing no games. What Athenys does is for the most part her business.'
Janus looked at the farseer and felt his head spin. He was still weak from the after-effects of his actions on Medusa and the fumes from the hookah were fuddling his mind. He slumped down on a cushion near the eldar and tried to guess what was going on behind that blandly inscrutable alien mask.
What Auric had just said suggested that he and Athenys might be working at cross-purposes. No, that was an assumption he was making. He was claiming that he had nothing to do with this business with Simon. Of course, he might be lying. Janus shook his head.
Dealing with the eldar was starting to feel like walking through a peat-swamp back on Crowe's World. Ground that looked as if it would be stable under your feet, turned out to have the consistency of jelly; paths you thought you knew shifted in the slow swirl of currents. Briefly, he considered ordering his crew simply to execute them, and push their bodies out the airlock. Perhaps that would be safest.
And yet, maybe not, for the farseer did seem to know something about what was happening to him, and might be able to save him from his daemons. No, not a swamp, he thought, a devil-spider web, one of those cocoons that look as soft as silk yet grow tighter as the prey struggles to escape.
Memory reminded him of how beautiful the devil-spider was too. Eyes like jewels, chitin patterned like a hallucinogenic flower. Mandibles that dripped a venom that caused ecstatic death.
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'You are thinking of spiders,' said Auric and smiled. 'Spiders and childhood.'
'Can you read my mind then?'
'Only because you broadcast your thoughts so strongly they are almost deafening. You must learn control, Janus Darke, and you do not have much time.'
Once again Janus sensed deception. There was something Auric was not telling him, but he could not work out what. He also realised that earlier the eldar had managed to distract him from what he had wanted to find out. He must be more tired than he thought, or somehow they had fuddled his thoughts.
Determination filled him. This time he would not be put off.
'Will you teach me how in the time we have left before the jump?' Janus asked.
'That is not possible. However, I have medicines that will... dampen your power.'
'Why are you so interested in what happens to me?'
'You mean other than to preserve my own life?'
'Yes.'
'You would not be happy if I told you.'
'Try me!'
'You possess a very great power, Janus Darke, the like of which is manifested in your species perhaps once in a thousand years. That alone makes you a prize worth having for many creatures of the Old Night.'
'A prize?'
'Beings of power are always useful to the creatures of sha'eil. They are a link between the two realms, the realm of mortals and the realm of Chaos.'
'You are saying psykers somehow stand between these two planes of reality—'
'I am saying that they draw their power from it, and not just power. They can draw other things too.'
'Like daemons?'
'Yes. Your Inquisition is not so wrong with its tales of daemonic possession. Daemons can reach through and influence the thoughts and minds of unguarded psykers—'
'The voices,' snapped Janus.
'I fail to understand you, Janus Darke.'
'Sometimes...' Janus was suddenly embarrassed and ashamed. 'Sometimes I hear voices in my head, whispering, telling me to do things, bad things...'
'Go on.'
'The priests say this is a sure sign of possession.'
'They are close. Sometimes humans think they hear voices when sometimes it is only their own repressed desires seeking to get out. And sometimes—'
'Sometimes they really do hear voices, right?'
'Yes. That is how it always begins.'
'What begins?'
'The process of possession. Then they are seduced into using their power more and more, strengthening the link between their souls and the warp, and then when the link is strong enough, they are devoured.'
'What exactly do you mean by that?'
'The thing that wants them can reach through the link and consume their soul. It is worse than that though for they then have an empty shell of a body and a mind which is capable of being a vessel for a power.'
'Possession.'
'Precisely, Janus Darke.'
'You are saying that this will happen to me?'
'It may happen to you. I fear though that—'
'You are telling me there is something worse!'
'Unfortunately, yes. Normally a human body is not strong enough to hold the essence of even the least of daemons for long. Even with the darkest and most potent rituals of sorcery, the stress ages it and consumes it very swiftly. The body grows older at an accelerated rate, mutation occurs, stigmata appear.'
'I have heard of such things.'
'Such would not be the case with you.'
'Why?'
'Because you are so powerful. Your body is a vessel fit for a daemon prince. It could hold his essence for a very long time without showing any sign. A daemon could wear your flesh and walk among men and do untold harm.'
'Why is this of concern to the eldar?'
'It is not. At least not yet. It is of concern to me.'
'Again I ask why?'
'Because I know the name of the thing that wants your flesh and your soul. And he is concerned with the eldar.'
Janus felt numb. It seemed inconceivable that he should be sitting here discussing such things as daemonic possession and the nature of daemon princes so calmly, but there was something about Auric and the drug-fume filled air, and the quiet musical sound of chimes in the background that made it seem very natural. Slowly, realisation dawned. Perhaps there was some sort of spell at work here? Perhaps the eldar was using some sort of psychic sorcery of his own.
He made an effort to rise, but somehow it was too difficult and the eldar's soft beautiful hypnotic voice continued to speak: 'The greatest of daemons are bound by strange laws. They can manifest themselves only at certain times and in certain places. But for the one of whom I speak such a time is close, and you are to be his chosen vessel.'
'Surely there must be others?'
'Oh yes, many others, but such a form as yours so perfectly adapted to his purposes, so blessed with the ability to wield power would be his first choice.'
'So you have taken me under your protection then,' said Janus ironically. You have spirited me away from his clutches.'
'I doubt that I or anybody else would be able to protect you from Shaha Gaathon. Not without a far more potent weapon than I now possess.'
'But even if he does not possess me, there will be a daemon prince walking the realms of men in mortal form.'
'Perhaps—but his power is limited unless he can find a sufficiently powerful vessel. He will only be able to leave the daemon worlds for short periods, as indeed he can even now. But if he wears your flesh, he will become terrible. The harm he will wreak will be incalculable. The destruction beyond comprehension.'
'Forgive me for saying so but dreadful as this would be for mankind, how would it affect your people? I don't think you are helping me out of altruism.'
'Shaha Gaathon is one of the greatest of the servants of He Who We Do Not Name. He existed before the Great Enemy came. Since before the birth of his master he has a terrible hatred for the eldar, and, I believe, he wishes to use your people as a weapon against mine.
'There are futures waiting to be born in which the followers of the Emperor will turn on my people and destroy them utterly. There are timelines in which the eldar respond with our forbidden and ultimate weapons and both races are so dramatically weakened that Chaos overwhelms them.
'Your people are numberless as the grains of sand upon a beach. It does not matter how powerful our weapons are, you will eventually overwhelm us, for the Harbinger of the Lord of all Pleasures knows the location of all our hidden home-vessels.'
'Why do Shaha Gaathon and his master, the Unspeakable One, hate you so?'
'There is an ancient link between my people and the Unspeakable One. We do not often talk about it, but since it is necessary, I will tell you that the Unspeakable One is our own creation. He was born from our lusts and our passions, shaped by our ancestors' use of what you would call psyker powers and technologies.'
'You are saying your people created the daemon gods of Chaos?'
'One of them.'
'That is not possible.'
'It is if you sacrifice an entire race.'
Janus considered what the eldar was saying. He simply did not believe it. It was pure madness, the drug-dream of an insane sorcerer. Seeing his bewildered expression, Auric smiled. 'It was a horror on a cosmic scale.'
'Who did you sacrifice?'
'Ourselves.'
'I do not follow what you mean.'
'Yes, you do. I mean my people willingly gave themselves over to the evil one.'
'Then you are everything the Inquisition say, and worse.'
Auric shook his head. 'I believe my people were deceived, just as yours might be. They thought they were creating a new god, one who would lead them into a new age of universal peace, plenty and harmony.'
'You believe—'
'I do not know for certain. No one can now. So much was lost when our civilisation fell, when our worlds were despoiled, and our souls devoured.'
&
nbsp; 'Devoured? You are saying that Sla... the evil one devoured your people, the way Shaha Gaathon proposes to devour me?'
'In a similar way.' Auric reached within his robe and produced a glowing gem on a chain of silver metal. Strange runes glowed on it. It appeared to glow with all colours and none. This is a waystone. Every eldar carries one. It is grown from the same stuff as dreamstones. And for a similar reason.'
'I am sure you are going to tell me why.'
'It is a haven for my soul. When I die, my spirit will take refuge within it, and the stone will be returned to my craftworld for inclusion within the infinity circuit where it will join the surviving spirits of my ancestors.'
Janus considered this piece of pagan eldar theology. He supposed it made sense. He doubted the souls of the xenogens would be in the keeping of the Emperor as humans' souls were. It was a strange idea though.
'Why do you need to imprison your soul within a machine?'
'It is not a machine as you understand it, but that is beside the point. If I were to die and my spirit was to walk the paths of sha'eil, as our ancestors did in ancient times, it would be devoured by He Who We Do Not Name, and as he consumed it, the evil one would become that fraction stronger, just as he did in days long gone.'
'Why does this not happen to humans?'
'How do you know it does not?'
'The Emperor protects us.'
'You have answered your own question then,' said Auric nastily. 'Or perhaps once the eldar fall, Shaha Gaathon will lead your people into an age of darkness from which they never emerge. Puny as most human souls are, they will provide the evil one with some nourishment.'
'It has been tried before. Other Chaos worshippers have arisen. Daemons have been vanquished. The forces of the Imperium have triumphed.'
'The worshippers of the Lord of Pleasure are subtle. They will not face you in open battle, and you will discover that pleasure can be as mighty a weapon as the bolter or the blade. If they were too subtle for the eldar, they will surely be too subtle for you.'
'You are being too subtle for me,' Darke said.