‘You won’t have to. The dead aren’t interested in slaughter. At least not these.’ Balthas looked back at the windows, above the main doors. Pale, distorted faces screamed in silence there. ‘They’ll follow us.’
‘How can you be sure?’
Balthas looked down at him. Juddsson grunted and made a gesture of surrender. ‘Fine. You know your business.’ He tugged on his beard, frowning. ‘I’ll just go make the preparations, then, shall I?’ He stumped away, still pulling on his beard.
‘What is going on? What are you planning?’ Calys said, deference tossed aside.
Balthas studied the doors. ‘We must leave this place.’
‘I have orders to ensure that nothing gets past these doors.’
‘And you would perish in the doing so, your soul to be claimed by phantasmal jailers.’ Balthas gestured dismissively. ‘An inefficient use of resources. Once we get into the catacombs, you will be needed.’
Calys shook her head in confusion. ‘Go down - but we can’t…’
‘We can.’
Calys eyes widened slightly. ‘Elya. You mean to use her.’
‘You said she managed to find her way below. We need a guide.’
Calys frowned. ‘She’s a child. It would not be safe.’
Balthas looked at her. ‘Yes, and there is nowhere safer in this city than with us.’ He paused. ‘If we do not do this, the dead will surely break open the Ten Thousand Tombs. You will fail in your duty, Liberator-Prime. We both will.’
She stared at him for a moment. Then nodded. ‘Come. I will take you to her.’
They made their way back to the reliquary, where the air stirred with the echoing hush of prayer. Many of the mortals had wrapped themselves in cloaks and blankets, passed out by the priests who moved among them. Some huddled in the corners, staring at nothing. Others spoke quietly among themselves. This ceased, as Balthas and Calys appeared. A priestess hurried towards them, but Balthas waved her aside. ‘Where is the child?’ he asked.
The priestess hesitated. Balthas realised that specificity was called for - there were many children in the reliquary. ‘The girl,’ he said. The priestess looked around helplessly.
‘Elya,’ Calys called, softly.
‘Here,’ a small voice called out. Calys started towards the back of the reliquary. Balthas followed. They found the child - a girl of perhaps ten seasons - sitting beside a lanky man, sleeping fitfully. A young woman sat near them, and she started at their appearance. Elya whispered to her, and then settled back beside her father.
Balthas could smell the fear that permeated him His mind, slumbering as it was, was an open book to Balthas’ storm-sight and all but impossible to ignore. Scattered memories flashed across his perceptions. The man - Elya’s father - lived in a stew of recrimination and terror. Something had broken him, in ways too difficult to repair.
‘Duvak,’ Calys said. Balthas looked at her. She pulled off her helmet and hung it from her belt. ‘His name is Duvak. Duvak Eltos. He is her father. A lamplighter.’
‘He is broken.’
‘One does not preclude the other,’ Calys said, looking down at the man. There was something in her gaze that made Balthas look away. He looked at the girl. Elya was dark and scrawny. An urchin - an orphan, for all that she still had a parent. She met his gaze without flinching. He was struck, in that moment, by the thought that this was the child he’d seen in Thaum’s memories. He did not question it - something deep in him told him it was true. But what did it mean?
‘Do you have a face?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ Balthas tapped his helm and sat down beside her. ‘This is it.’
‘Father says that we’re fated to die. Will I have a face like that, after I die?’
He studied her for a moment, trying to find the words. He suspected that even as a mortal, he had not understood children. ‘Fate is another word for certainty. And the only certain thing in any realm is that nothing is certain. Not even death.’
‘The cats don’t believe in death. They say it’s just a longer sort of dream’ Elya looked up. Balthas followed her gaze. Half a dozen felines lay nonchalantly among the stacked bones, or paced across the floor, tails twitching.
One, a brute with a scarred lip, leapt up into the girl’s lap. It glared balefully at Balthas for long moments, then turned away with a disdainful twitch of its ears. Elya smiled and scratched the animal. ‘I think he’s the king,’ she whispered.
‘I wasn’t aware that cats had such a thing.’
She frowned. ‘Or maybe he’s a marquis.’
‘Maybe. Despite the folktales, cats have no king. Only a queen. And a queen may have many toms, but a tom only one queen.’ He scratched the animal under the chin. ‘Your mother was from Ghur, wasn’t she? I can see the skeins of amber running through your blood.’
Elya shrugged with childish inscrutability. Balthas nodded as if she’d replied, and glanced at Calys. She was still watching Duvak sleep. He wondered what was going through her mind. ‘Did you know that there were once many gods? As many gods as there were people, for every tribe and clan had their god. They were the gods of small things - of rivers and trees and fair winds. Death gods, as well.’
Elya looked at him, interested now. ‘What happened to them?’
‘Oh, their stories had many different endings. Some weren’t really gods at all, in the end - just monsters. Others became as beasts, and lost sight of all that they had been. A few, like the King of Broken Constellations, were killed, while others, like Yahm, old god of the rivers, were defeated and imprisoned by those who came after.’ Balthas leaned forwards. ‘But some… escaped. They slipped between the cracks in the realms, where even the Ruinous Powers dare not go. One of those gods was the mother of all cats.’
Elya frowned. ‘Not all cats.’
‘The first ones, at least. She left her children in every realm. Some were big, some small. Some weren’t really cats at all.’ He glanced at Quicksilver, who lay nearby, beak resting atop his crossed forepaws, and then at Elya. ‘But all gods leave a little of themselves behind, when they go. An echo, a whisper.’
‘A ghost,’ Elya said.
Balthas nodded. ‘If you like. Not all of those echoes take a familiar form. And maybe the new queen of the cats isn’t a cat at all. Or maybe it’s just a story.’ He hesitated for a moment, considering why Sigmar had seen fit to place this girl in his path. Not just to guide him, but for some other reason, perhaps. He hoped so. He held out his hand. ‘I need your aid, Elya. I must get into the catacombs, and swiftly. I do not have the time to do so by the normal routes. Can you help me?’
She hesitated. ‘Something is coming, isn’t it? Not just the nicksouls.’
‘Yes. But we can stop it. If you help me.’ He turned, suddenly aware that every cat in the room was watching him. Armoured though he was, he could not help but feel almost like a mouse, in that moment. If Elya noticed, she gave no sign.
Before she could reply, Duvak screamed. He’d awoken at some point and was now wailing like an animal, trying to scuttle away from Calys, who reached out as if to comfort him Balthas caught her wrist. ‘Leave him,’ he said, more harshly than he’d intended. Calys jerked her hand free and turned away, pulling on her helmet as she did so. Duvak had pressed himself against the wall of the reliquary, and was muttering a name, over and over again. The young woman Balthas had noticed earlier went to him, murmuring gently.
Balthas stood. He glanced up again, at the cats watching him Watching it all.
Elya looked up at him, her expression unreadable. ‘I’ll help,’ she said.
Pharus stretched out his hand towards the doors and felt heat envelop it. The Grand Tempestus was covered in wards much like those that had protected the city. But only the prayers of those within were keeping them from being overwhelmed by the sheer number of nighthaunts clawing at the structure. Give
n enough time, the gheists could overcome such lesser defences. Especially with Dohl urging them to greater frenzy.
Throughout the city, Dohl’s fellow lantern-bearers were doing much the same. The air throbbed with the agonies of Glymmsforge. Malendrek had wounded the city. Now it was up to Pharus to finish the deed.
Idly, he wondered what the Knight of Shrouds’ final fate would be. As far as he knew, Malendrek still fought somewhere in the city, locked in battle with the golden-armoured Stormcasts. Perhaps he would be destroyed. Or perhaps Glymmsforge would fall, and he would be named Mortarch, to join Arkhan and the others.
Either way, Pharus found that he cared little. Malendrek was a hollow thing, and his petty ambitions paled beside Pharus’ sense of purpose. He drew his hand back and studied the smoking gauntlet. The pain was lost in the cold that gripped him. The satisfaction of battle had faded, leaving him empty once more. Leaving him craving the lives he could sense within the temple. Lives he could not claim. Not yet.
Screams drew his attention above, where a gheist hurled itself away from the temple, its ragged shape crumbling to fiery splinters of ash as it was overcome by the wards. ‘More where that came from, my lord,’ a nearby dreadwarden croaked. The creature still wore the remnants of a roadwarden’s armour over its cadaverous form. In life, it had hunted brigands and outlaws. Now, in death, it acted as their overseer.
It raised its staff, surmounted by a ghastly candelabra made from the hand of a hanged man. The candle-flames dancing atop the tip of each finger flared, and chainrasps drifted towards the gale of howling spirits that enshrouded the Grand Tempestus. ‘Always more,’ the dreadwarden continued. ‘No end to them, my lord. No use in them, save this. As Nagash wills, so must it be.’
‘As Nagash wills,’ Pharus said, turning his back on the creature. He had no interest in speaking to such lowly gheists. Unlike Dohl, or Rocha, their minds were circular tracks, broken only by memories of their mortal lives. Even Fellgrip was more companionable, for all its silence. The jailer floated at his elbow, its chains shimmering with caged lightning.
He could hear the cries of the souls trapped within those links, and wondered what it was like. Were they aware of where they were? Or was their pain that of an animal - senseless and maddening? The thought brought with it only the barest tremor of regret. But pain was the price of truth. Such was the will of Nagash. And as Nagash willed, so must it be. He turned his attentions back to the Grand Tempestus, watching as wave after wave of nighthaunts attacked the outside of the temple, watching as the temple and those within stubbornly refused to bow to the inevitable.
The realms suffered from an excess of will. That was a cosmic truth. Too many souls, too much will, too many lives running counter to the black geometries which guided all things. Nagash sought only to curb this excess, to ensure the continued persistence of the realms. Death was the reaper, and the realms were his fields - overgrown and thick with vermin. Now he plied the scythe, to put right all that had gone wrong.
Was it right, that the grain resisted the bite of the reaper’s blade? Why do it? Pharus thought that he once must have known the answer, but could not call it to mind now. He touched his head, feeling the weight of his helm. It constricted him, in some manner. As the armour caged him, so too did the helmet cage his thoughts. Made him think in orderly lines. He knew that now, but felt no urgency about it. Urgency - worry - these had no place in death’s order. Acceptance of inevitability brought peace.
All things died, and in death was purpose. More purpose than any possessed in life. Purpose… The thought brought back memories of life, of days spent watching over the dead. He remembered the smell of dust and incense, of dry, brittle bones and damp stone. He remembered the sound of ten thousand dead souls, scrabbling at the walls of their tombs. How could he have heard that desperate sound and not felt some touch of pity? How could he not have known the magnitude of the crime he was committing?
The lie of Sigmar blinded you to the truth.
‘But I can see clearly now,’ he murmured. He knew what must be done, and how to do it. ‘I will cast aside the silver chains and shatter the warded stones. I will free the dead.’
You will do all of this and more. You will drag down the cruel stars, and prove their promises false. Such is the will of Nagash.
‘And his will must be done.’ Pharus felt Dohl approach. The warmth of Dohl’s lantern brought its own sort of clarity, different to that imposed by his war-plate.
‘Do you feel it, my lord?’ the guardian of souls intoned. ‘The wards weaken.’
‘Not quickly enough,’ Pharus said.
‘But soon. I-’ Dohl turned. Pharus felt it as well. The wards were falling. As if the prayers of those within were faltering at last. The hateful light that enshrouded the temple bled away, like frost before the sun. There was a sound, as of the shattering of a thousand mirrors and a last flare of cerulean light. It spread outwards, driving his forces back, but only momentarily.
In the silence that followed, he drew his sword and echoed its hiss of eagerness. The time had come at last. The scythe would meet the grain, and there would come a great wailing. Then, only silence.
As Nagash commanded.
Helios knelt in the centre of the nave, head bowed.
He ignored the formless shapes darkening the windows, and the sounds that echoed through the archways. They would be inside soon, but he felt no fear. No worry. Only peace. This was but a - single moment, in a vast sea of such.
Contrary to appearances, the Celestor-Prime was not praying. Prayer was for those in search of reassurance. Helios had no need of such comfort. He simply needed to prepare. He concentrated on the tempest sweeping over the city, and began to draw down some of its strength into himself. He would need it, for a time.
Just until he had passed this final test.
Fear of death was the first test of a Celestor, and the last. It stretched across the entirety of the warrior’s span, akin to a shadow, cast over life. It could not be bested, only endured - acknowledging that was part of the test. He had learned that lesson, among others, atop the towers of the Sigmarabulum Twelve weeks of meditation beneath the firmament, with only the stars for company and rain to quench his thirst.
Helios had seen that what once had seemed immense, was merely an arrangement of small things, all colliding in the cosmic current. The winds of Azyr blew where they would. Uncounted worlds rolled on in the deep. Distant stars were born, and then died, before their first gleaming had ever reached his eyes. And all without regard for what he, or any other, endured. Life was an infinitesimal part of that great dance - it meant nothing to the stars or the winds. With that realisation had come a sense of tranquillity.
A warrior - a true warrior - must have courage. Not the courage of one fighting for hearth and home, or the courage of a beast at bay, but a true courage - to live life to the fullest, even knowing of its unimportance. The courage to lack certainty and yet persevere. Such was the courage a Celestor learned, atop their tower.
He had learned that death, while certain, was only a little thing. Barely a pause in the music of the spheres. It was not an end, for there was no true ending, merely one more moment among many. The stars shone forever in the black, whether one was there to see them, or not. Though, he was not so stoic as to deny that he would miss watching them
Glass cracked, somewhere above him. He could hear the sound of the enemy - like a gale wind, tearing at the stones. The protections of Azyr were fading, the strength of Shyish rising. He stood, stormstaff in one hand, tempest blade in the other. The weapons felt light, lighter than ever before. As if he might wield them forever and never grow tired. Or, perhaps as if he had just picked them up, for the first time.
In the dark above, dead things moaned. Their whispers fell like snow. They recounted the sins of their pasts, attempting to frighten him. But he could not be frightened by mere memories. That was w
hat they were, after all. Bad memories and bitter times.
Then, what was time but a circle of moments? Invariably, the same one came around again, if you lived long enough. It was not immortality. There was no such thing as immortality, for it implied a linear constancy. But time did not flow straight. It bunched and wavered, and finally bent back on itself. One moment, flowing into the next, like a river.
The lord-arcanum thought differently, he knew. For Balthas, the stars were finite. He thought in terms of epochs, of history. One millennium upon the next. Time was a mountain, for Balthas. The future rose ever up and away, while the past crumbled below you. Helios wondered if there was something in that. He shook his head. No. Perhaps not. Balthas saw the heavens, but not the stars which made them up.
Then, that was his duty. To see the grand design, in all its glory. But for a humble Celestor, the stars were enough. He cocked his head, listening to something clawing at the stones. A shard of glass fell from a window above. He watched it fall, watched the light play off the shards as they scattered across the floor.
Miska had not asked him to volunteer. It had not been necessary. When the mage-sacristan had explained the plan, Helios had understood, instantly. The final instant, come around again at last. He had lived, once, and died, in a moment like this, though he could not recall it in any detail. And now, having lived, he would die again. Painfully, perhaps. But gloriously, in a manner befitting a warrior such as himself. Balthas was a generous lord, to bestow such a gift.
He smiled. There was a poem, at least, somewhere in the meandering. He set the tip of his blade against the stones and began to scratch out the first stanza. He was still writing when the first window fully gave way, and the dead poured in.
He wondered what they thought, as they saw the empty nave and felt the silence. Balthas had led the others below, while the dead slammed themselves uselessly against the outside of the temple. Now, hopefully, they were on their way. But he would buy them a few moments more, just to make sure.
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