Unfortunately, as Kraillach sourly reflected, the sad truth was that he was bound to his allies just as Yllithian had said. His noble house, his kabal in the contemptible modern parlance adopted by Vect, was slowly but surely outstripping his resources. Decade by decade, century by century the once fabulous wealth of House Kraillach was being leached away just as his own vitality was being drained away by the eternal hunger of She Who Thirsts.
The orgies and debauches he needed to partake in to slake his own thirst grew ever more extreme and frequent as the centuries rolled by despite his best efforts to control the process. He could perceive a chilling point in his future where his existence could no longer maintained and Kraillach would be drained away to a pathetic, soulless thing, driven out to lurk in the deepest recesses of Low Commorragh with the rest of the Parched.
Whatever reward Vect might deign to bestow for his betrayal would inevitably fall far short of the resources he gained through his alliance with Yllithian and Xelian. It was more likely that Vect would take the opportunity to rid himself of all three kabals at once if they showed any signs of disunity. The Realm Eternal still enjoyed the reputation of vast wealth – even if its coffers were almost empty – and its sybaritic ways attracted many hedonistic devotees, but without Xelian’s lethal wyches and Yllithian’s cunning warriors it would be too weak to stand in battle against the tyrant.
Kraillach found himself wondering if Yllithian had engineered Vect’s intercession at the arena in some fashion. It seemed unlikely but Yllithian had a well-deserved reputation as a master manipulator. Predictably enough events at the arena had driven Xelian into one of her tiresome murderous rages and gained her easy acquiescence to Yllithian’s plans. Now Kraillach was left with little choice other than to join the others or else forfeit the protection of their alliance. It rankled Kraillach to be manoeuvred so adroitly. Ultimately, though, he needed to win more power and influence to stay alive and staying alive was all that mattered. Certainly Vect might catch them plotting against him and punish them in the worst ways imaginable for their trouble, but better that than the slow, dwindling death the future held in store right now.
The portal slid open and Morr reappeared bearing a flat-faced little slave effortlessly in one hand. He brought the slave to edge of the bath and secured him there with silver jaws that rose from slots in the stone.
‘Shall I fetch your instruments, my archon?’ Morr asked when he was finished, gazing across to a side table where a scattering of hooked and straight blades, vials, syringes and elegant little saws lay.
‘No, you do it, Morr. I always enjoy seeing you use that great blade of yours like a paring knife.’
‘Thank you, my archon.’
Morr unlimbered his two-metre-long blade and left it unpowered as he set about his work, using just its razor-sharp edges to efficiently flense the howling slave. Blood swirled pleasingly in the waters of the bath, forming submerged cloudscapes of pink and red as it had done a thousand times before. Kraillach sighed as he settled back and drank in the quick repast. The slave’s lusty screaming was quite musical in its aspect and Kraillach found himself humming along with it, eventually fitting it into a few bars of Velqyul’s eighth sonata.
Kraillach strode into his palace proper much revitalised, moving through colonnaded halls and arched chambers scattered with the detritus of the previous night’s excesses. Supine bodies, both living and dead, lay in secluded boudoirs and public pleasure pits while slaves scurried back and forth frantically trying to clean up the palace and, in some cases, its occupants. As he walked a crowd of sycophants and hangers-on gravitated into his wake, each fluttering over fresh quips and newly minted gossip to ingratiate themselves. Morr followed him like a shadow, his threatening presence serving to keep the swarming courtiers at a respectful distance.
Once he was satisfied with the size of his gathered entourage Kraillach swept into his great hall to take his place on the multi-faceted throne of splendours, a relic from the earliest days of Commorragh and the golden age of the eldar race. Each facet of the throne shifted constantly between different heroic images of the past deeds of House Kraillach and the Realm Eternal, some animated and others still, some of them artistic representations and others that were actual recordings of events. The images were chosen by some not-entirely-random internal artifice and were held by many to be prophetic in nature, showing hints at potential futures with images torn from the past.
As he approached he could see that the throne was displaying stark images of battling figures high up in a war-torn sky. One facet displayed flights of scourges diving like renegade angels between tiny, embattled islands of archaic grav craft that had locked together in combat. Another facet showed one of the black suns so close that it was just a blazing arc on one side of the image. Periodically a blinding flare of plasma punched out from the sun to incinerate a flotilla of jet cycles racing past in an endless loop.
These and other images shown on the throne were from the War of the Sun and Moon, an era over eight thousand years ago and centuries before even Kraillach’s birth. Solar cults that controlled the dark city’s stolen suns had tried to topple the noble houses. For centuries aerial warfare raged through the upper gulfs of Commorragh before the solar cults were crushed. It had been a great triumph for the high archons. The eternal night that enfolded the city thereafter was admittedly in part due to the destruction wrought, but also an abiding symbol of their mastery over heaven and earth.
Kraillach seated himself amid the tumbling images and pondered the portents. The noble houses had triumphed in the War of the Sun and Moon, certainly; they had endured for another two millennia before Vect felled them in turn. A mixed sign at best, a veiled warning at worst. Yllithian and Xelian might succeed in their schemes only to be overthrown later. It was all most distressing, so he ordered his entourage to perform for him and distract him for a time. They set to with a will, giving and receiving pain, straining, dancing and teasing for his pleasure. He envied their youth and energy but felt little moved by what was on display.
Kraillach was about to send for a troupe of more entertaining professionals when Morr signalled minutely for his attention.
‘What is it, Morr? Can’t you see I’m busy?’ Uninteresting as it was the crude orgy developing undoubtedly held more interest than whatever Morr wanted to bring up.
‘Forgive me, my archon, a matter has arisen that requires your direct attendance.’ Morr was apparently not above reminding his archon that however disinteresting his news might be it was important. Kraillach sighed.
‘Go on.’
‘A deputation has arrived from the Blades of Desire, my archon. They claim to bear a gift from Archon Xelian for your personal delectation.’
‘Really? That is more intriguing than I had hoped for, but where is the issue that requires my personal attention?’
‘They insist the gift may only be given into your hands, on express orders from their mistress.’
The images on the throne of splendours were changing. They tumbled in a monochromatic snowstorm all about him, seeming unable to hold a single form for more than a second. Kraillach decided that was certainly not a good sign.
‘What kind of fool accepts a gift with terms attached? Did not Archon Kelithresh perish to a singularity inside a casket presented to him as a tithe?’
‘Indeed, my archon, he and his whole sub-realm with him. They say it was Vect’s work.’
‘Everything is, my dear Morr, everything is.’
To return the gift unopened might be seen as a potential deadly insult by the mistress of the Blades of Desire, especially if it were some sort of conciliatory gesture for her shambles at the arena. Even so, caution was more than a watchword for Kraillach, it was a religion. A nasty concern creased Kraillach’s brow.
‘Where is this “gift” now?’
‘Held in the vestibule with the party that brought it. Suppressors are in place and the package has been examined remotely. No overtly dangerous e
lements have been revealed, though that in itself means nothing, my archon.’
Another not-so subtle reminder from Morr that Kraillach did not require. Brilliant minds in Commorragh had spent thousands of years devising peerless tools for stealthy sabotage and assassination. Compounds of poison and explosive that were to all intents and purposes undetectable had been perfected long since. Nonetheless the vestibule itself was a richly appointed but heavily armoured blast chamber cunningly designed to baffle and deflect unwelcome energies away from the body of the palace. The damage that could be caused in the vestibule was severely limited without resorting to a dimensional warp or singularity, and those could be detected with ease.
‘Very well. Relay my gracious thanks and my regrets that I cannot receive their gift in person at this time. They can leave it behind in the vestibule and return to their mistress.’
Morr’s helm tilted in acquiescence as he conveyed Kraillach’s orders to the unseen guards in the vestibule.
An instant later the stonework of the great hall shook slightly with the impact of a distant explosion. Alarms warbled hysterically. Kraillach enjoyed a moment of smug vindication.
‘Ah ha, so they thought to bring me some crude bomb after all! Xelian must be mad to–’
‘Forgive me, my archon, but that was only a small breaching charge. The assailants have broken out of the vestibule and entered the palace.’
‘What! How many? How armed?’
‘A dozen attackers, lightly armed. If you will proceed to your sanctum I will take charge of hunting them down once you are in a place of safety.’
Kraillach desperately wanted to follow Morr’s advice but could not countenance the loss of face that would be involved. To bolt for his sanctum when his palace was being invaded by such a tiny force was too craven an act to contemplate. Archons had to be bold and fearless, or at least appear so, if they wanted to avoid assassination by their own kabal. Fear was a weakness and showing weakness was invariably a fatal mistake in Commorrite society. Kraillach scowled theatrically.
‘I won’t flee from these whelps that dare to assault the Realm Eternal! Bring me my armour and weapons so that I can drive them from my house!’
A slightly ragged cheer rose from the assembled entourage of hedonists and sycophants. Some brandished hooks and whips in what they imagined to be a warlike fashion. Morr’s shoulders may have slumped by the tiniest amount but he remained taciturn.
Minutes later Kraillach led fifty or more of his kabalite warriors towards the ruined vestibule. He now wore a form-fitting augmetic suit of jewel-like armour plates that shimmered richly behind iridescent force fields. As Kraillach walked he was surrounded by perfect Kraillach doppelgangers created by the protective fields, a host of illusory projections of himself that made it impossible to tell his true location. He bore Quasili, a metre-long blade of living metal that was old when Commorragh was first founded; a relic of the Golden Age, it could split the very vault of heaven.
The attacking group had not penetrated far past the vestibule. A vicious firefight had developed in the atrium just beyond it as Kraillach’s guards sought to keep the incursion in check. Choking black smoke was drifting through the cavernous chamber and bodies lay sprawled across the decorative tilework floor where they had been mercilessly cut down in the opening seconds of the attack. Xelian’s small force had almost overwhelmed the last of the atrium guards by the time Kraillach and his reinforcements arrived.
A wicked barrage of splinter fire drove the attackers back into cover as Kraillach’s followers spilled into the room. He got his first look at his would-be murderers as he strode in after the initial rush with more outward confidence than he truly felt. Lithe, half-naked wyches somersaulted away from the deadly streams of hyper-velocity splinter rounds sweeping across the scene. In retrospect the atrium had been built with too much of an eye for aesthetics and not enough consideration for defence. Its wide-based pillars, low walls and trellis-work bowers provided entirely too many hiding spots for the wyches to vanish into. Hunting them down was going to demand the kind of close quarters fighting wyches excelled at.
Kraillach’s warriors slowed and went more cautiously, spreading out into cover to try and pinch the attackers in a crossfire. They were quickly driven back into hiding as shots whipped back at them across the chamber from a dozen angles. Three kabalite warriors broke cover and sprinted forwards to take station behind a pillar. They retreated just as quickly when several small, oval plasma grenades came looping out of the smoke to land at their feet.
Morr and a pair of incubi broke the deadlock by ploughing forwards, whirling their immense klaives in bright arcs of coruscating energy. Desultory splinter fire from the trapped wyches ricocheted from the flickering weapons as the incubi advanced. Kraillach took the opportunity to leap heroically forwards into some better cover, his spectral cohort of images drawing fire from all quarters. The wyches didn’t wait to get picked off individually in their hiding places and came bounding forward en masse towards Kraillach.
A warrior beside him collapsed with splinter rounds in his throat, the virulent toxins coating the crystalline splinters killing him before he hit the ground. A dense spray of monofilament wire from a shredder sliced through another nearby warrior, reducing him to a cloud of fine red mist. Suddenly Kraillach found himself alone and darted back behind a statue made more obscene by its half-shattered form. A wych leapt out of the smoke and ran at him swinging a wickedly curved falchion at his neck. The blurring blade swept through a ghost image harmlessly and Kraillach countered. The wych spun her blade expertly to deflect the dozen striking blades of Kraillach and his images but his sword easily shore the falchion in two before plunging on into pale, vulnerable flesh.
Two more wyches darted forwards flailing wildly at the many Kraillachs before them. The images languidly shot one of the wyches with a dozen long-muzzled blast pistols before a resurgent charge by a group of his warriors impaled the other on their combat blades. Kraillach beheaded the dying wych with a backhand blow just to be sure. As the headless corpse flopped to the ground the sounds of combat faded away save for the moans of the fallen. Kraillach’s fawning entourage chanted his name with gratifying enthusiasm.
Kraillach caught sight of Morr through the confusion and smiled patronisingly.
‘These fools barely raised my pulse, Morr,’ Kraillach gloated. ‘This has to be the poorest assassination attempt in the long history of our fair city.’
‘That is what worries me, my archon,’ Morr replied with tedious pedantry, ‘I fear that–’
The chief executioner paused, his slit-eyed helm swivelling to regard a bare-headed warrior standing nearby. The warrior was in obvious distress. He clutched at the neck joint of his armour with eyes staring wildly. There was a crash as another warrior dropped his rifle and fell to his knees with a look of horror on his face. Morr’s masked visage swung sharply back to Kraillach.
‘Contaminants! Get to safety, my archon! Quickly!’
Kraillach could see the spreading circle of evidence for himself. Every warrior that had entered the atrium helmetless or only partially armoured was showing signs of contamination. The veins beneath the victim’s skin were turning black even as he watched, spreading to form inky cobwebs over rapidly darkening flesh. Kraillach backed away with a sick feeling of horror.
He was not wearing a helmet himself.
He turned and ran as quickly as the augmented leg musculature of his armour would carry him.
As he fled Kraillach passed dozens more of his subjects writhing in the grip of the unseen killer. It was spreading as fast as he could move, if not faster, striking down anyone not in full armour. He wondered why he had not already fallen prey and felt every twinge in his body as another harbinger of doom. When he reached the great hall the throne of splendours was showing a new kaleidoscopic array of images. An array of tortured eldar faces predominated, each exquisitely sculpted from some black, glass-like crystal.
Kraillach slowed
to a halt as recognition dawned on him. He croaked out a harsh laugh and sat down wearily on the multi-faceted throne.
Some time later Morr came to him with the final tally of casualties. Several hundred assorted warriors, slaves, houris, pets and courtiers had fallen victim to the attack, including the entire group that had carried it into the palace in the first place. This frustrating twist left him with no prisoners to interrogate and precious little material evidence to examine. The contaminant had been identified, confirming what Kraillach had already seen in the throne of splendours – it was the glass plague.
Close to a thousand years before the fall of Shaa-dom a celebrated sculptor named Jalaxlar had enjoyed fantastic acclaim when he revealed his latest works in Commorragh. His amazingly life-like renditions displayed eldar caught in various poses of shock and horror rendered in a black, glass-like crystal. Jalaxlar earned immediate patronage from some of the most powerful kabals but incurred fierce rivalry from others. The very same evening his studio-laboratories were raided and smashed apart. Among the ruins Jalaxlar’s secret was revealed.
The insane sculptor-scientist had isolated a viral helix that was capable of rapidly vitrifying living tissue, transforming warm flesh into cold, crystalline glass within a few heartbeats. His stunning display of artfully posed statues were in point of fact made with the unwilling assistance of his first victims – friends, callers and assistants. The virus was accidentally released in the destruction of Jalaxlar’s workshops and spread through the city with frightening speed. Thousands of Commorrites fell victim to the resulting ‘plague of glass’ before a haemonculi coven known as the Hex succeeded in releasing an anti-virus to quell it.
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