Ghost warrior, p.15
Ghost Warrior, page 15
‘Or some kind of penitent aesthetic?’ Iyasta leaned closer, a finger directed towards the square windows and doors. ‘Faux-barbarianism?’
‘I do not like this,’ announced Iyanna, turning away. ‘It feels as though we are looking for excuses to judge them.’
‘If you think they are not subjecting us to equal scrutiny, you are naive,’ said Yvraine. ‘We must learn all we can, the better to conduct negotiations.’
‘Negotiations?’ Iyanna shook her head. ‘This is not a trade embassy. These are our distant cousins, potential allies, not a resource to be exploited. Your time in Commorragh has robbed you of empathy.’
Nobody replied, though all shared the thought that for Iyanna to speak of empathy was rare, if not outright hypocrisy. She had previously espoused great sacrifice, even the ruin of her own craftworld, if it brought about the summoning of Ynnead. Azkahr was, predictably, the one who could not let this stand.
‘Let me say what everyone else is too polite to voice,’ said the kabalite. ‘Even your brief contact with members of your distant family have distracted you from our cause. Sydari is a stranger, even if he shares your name. Your bond of House is no basis for trust.’
‘Do not confuse the Houses of the aeldari for the squabbling kabals of your home city,’ snapped Iyanna. ‘Even across the generations there is loyalty and honour to be found there.’
‘There is no confusion,’ Azkahr replied with equal vehemence. ‘The kabals were born of those noble Houses. I fear you will find Zaisuthra closer to the internecine rivalries of the old dominions than you would like. Make no error, they see us as rivals at the moment.’
‘That does not mean we must reciprocate,’ said Meliniel.
‘Nor assume that the Zaisuthrans will aid us out of any sense of common purpose,’ said Yvraine, whose own experiences in Commorragh had taught her to be wary of any alliance not forged on mutual self-interest. ‘We may not have come for barter, but we must bear something to offer the Zaisuthrans in return for access to the Gate of Malice.’
‘We have warriors,’ said the Visarch. ‘And ships.’
Though his words were few, his meaning was clear. The craftworld could not match the might of those it had left behind, and its fleet was little stronger than a corsair flotilla in the eyes of the Ynnari. The fleet they had brought with them, itself not even half of their total void assets, was more than a match for the vessels that currently orbited Zaisuthra.
‘Threats?’ Iyanna shook her head, missing his intent. ‘Who are we to arrive with blade at their throat?’
‘Military assistance,’ the Visarch explained with a sigh. ‘They have been in wars, that much is plain.’
‘A pact,’ said Meliniel. He looked towards Iyasta and Telathaus. ‘I am sure that would also work in the interests of Iyanden.’
The warlocks shared a thought and a look, and then signalled their assent.
‘Iyanden can offer little but the dead–’
‘–and we are in need of allies of late.’
‘Let us hope that Zaisuthra is in better shape than it appears from outside,’ said Yvraine, seeing more darkened domes and broken strata as their ship turned across the midsection of the craftworld. ‘Or it may not only be spirits that we need raise from the dead.’
It hopefully suffices to say that the arrival of the Ynnari – and the small contingent of Iyandeni – was met with suitable dignity and occasion, without delving into too much tedious detail of the greetings, introductions, rituals and ceremony that accompanied the meeting of the two peoples.
Three facts are of remark, thoughts that lodged in the mind of Yvraine as she bowed and nodded and committed a seemingly endless stream of names to memory.
The first was that the Zaisuthrans were religious. She was not one to cast aspersions on those who wished to dedicate their lives to a god or gods, after all, but it struck her as strange that the pantheon of old had been resurrected. Voices had not been raised in prayer to such as Asuryan and Isha, Vaul and Lileath since the War in Heaven, which predates the Fall by a score of lifetimes and much more.
Perhaps in their isolation, or in seeking for some cause or guide in the anarchy of the post-Fall dominions, the Zaisuthrans had sought answers from the old ways. The nobles they were introduced to all seemed to fulfil the dual role of family matriarchs and patriarchs, and a priesthood as well. Sydari was not alone in wearing the sigils of almost every god and goddess, every demigod and ascendant power in the ancient myths. One god was notably absent from their worship, one rune that they did not use – Ynnead.
Yvraine can be forgiven for calculating that this made them ideal candidates for conversion to the Ynnari. It is understandable that if one worships one god, they might worship any, and so it occurred to the Emissary of Ynnead that she should endeavour to spread the deeds and words of Ynnead and look to recruit some or all of the Zaisuthrans to the movement.
The second of her observations somewhat tempered her expectations in this regard, for it quickly became plain to see that like their home, the Zaisuthrans had suffered much predation in their generations of removal from the rest of the aeldari. Several thousand turned out to commemorate the Ynnari, but they lined avenues and galleries that could have held ten times that number.
Though never one of the largest craftworlds, upon the eve of its departure Zaisuthra would have housed a million souls and more. Over time, that number had dwindled significantly if the size of the greeting crowds was any indication.
Even more striking was the ageing population. There seemed barely a handful of aeldari less than halfway to their old age, and of infants there was no sign at all.
‘Perhaps they are shy,’ answered the Visarch when she shared her thoughts.
‘Unlikely that they would be reluctant to see others after so long in the wilderness of the void. One would think they would raise the greatest clamour possible.’
Iyanna had clearly noticed this as well, but all attempts from her or Yvraine to draw Sydari or one of the other Zaisuthran nobles to share some measure of the sorrows that had beset them were met with polite dissembling.
Even for such a small attendance, the welcome was sombre rather than celebratory. No small proportion of the Zaisuthrans eyed the newcomers with suspicion; admittedly a goodly percentage of the Ynnari were no less blatant in their appraisal of their hosts, particularly those that heralded from Commorragh.
The entrance of the Harlequins should have brought some lightness and frivolity to the sincere proceedings. Dreamspear and his masque displayed their full motley, conversing with their audience in movement and verse, the embodiment of Cegorach the Trickster. Like Ynnead, the Laughing God was conspicuous in his absence from the temples and talismans of the craftworld and though a relative few of the crowd showed delight at the Harlequins’ performance, many had deeper scowls by the end of it.
Sydari and the other nobles clapped, their smiles a little too fixed for genuine amusement, though none displayed outright antipathy to the cavorting, singing warriors. They paid respect to Dreamspear and his cohort equally to the other Ynnari and listened with rapt attention to the Great Harlequin’s tales of the Laughing God’s escape from She Who Thirsts and his subsequent exploits stealing the souls of Harlequins from the clutches of the Great Enemy.
Again there was a notable silence around the matter of how the Zaisuthrans had coped with the peril of She Who Thirsts. They did not wear the soul-protecting waystones, but there was none of the vampiric aura of the Commorraghans either. Such a sensitive matter was clearly not for public discussion, but Yvraine could not help but harbour suspicion regarding this facet of Zaisuthran culture.
Lastly was the matter of the infinity circuit itself, or the groupmind as the Zaisuthrans referred to their psychic network. It was like a prototype of the matrices that powered other craftworlds, based upon the same rudimentary psychic engineering but very different in execution.
For the most part, Zaisuthra was a blank shell. The craftworlders could feel the psychic presence around them, as with any of the aeldari world-ships, but those that had honed their talent such as Iyanna and the warlocks, or those whose minds had been opened by godly intervention in the case of Yvraine, could no more access the crystal pathways than they could pass their hands into the structure of the walls. It existed but could not be penetrated.
‘It reminds me of an Exodite world spirit,’ said the Visarch. ‘A shell, the energy passing only one way.’
‘When did you sojourn among the Exodites?’ asked Yvraine.
‘Between before and now,’ the Visarch replied with a shrug.
It was impossible to know if the resistance of the circuit was some innate function of its make-up, or if it had been deliberately shielded against their inspection. Neither was a damning fact in its own right and, as with the other observations, it was not cause alone to be wary of the Zaisuthrans.
‘Taken all together, though, it feels as though Zaisuthra is not quite alive,’ explained Yvraine after spending the better part of the cycle being repeatedly blessed, gently interrogated and given a quite precise and structured tour through parts of the craftworld.
‘You should find it–’
‘–most welcoming, in that regard,’ rasped the twins.
A whole dome was given over to house them – the Highlands of Distant Repose, Sydari had called it. Within was a beautifully rugged moorland for the most part, covered in purple-flowered low bushes, and copses of trees with intricately interwoven branches. The leaves were dry, turned to russet and ochre by the season, the first drops covering the ground with a carpet of reds and oranges. The sky of the dome presented as cloudy, the underside of the drifting masses dappled with golden light from a hidden source.
Several manses had been erected upon the rounded highlands, looking down into boulder-filled valleys, the escarpments and cliffs pitted with burrow holes, stippled with mosses and lichens. Marshlands and fens were home to long-legged wading birds with hooting calls, which strode among the rushes and reeds, dipping for orange-flanked fish, and snapping the air at the finger-long wyvernflies.
The Ynnari were housed in one complex of sprawling buildings, known as Withershield, which delved as deeply into the foundations as it rose into the air. The upper storeys were many-roofed, flanked with turrets, the grey walls broken by broad transparent doors that opened onto dozens of balconies. The ancient palace was more reminiscent of a hunting estate than the city-bound expanses that had housed the majority of the aeldari before the Fall.
In one of the upper floors the leaders of the Ynnari made their lair, securing chambers with high, wide windows that looked out upon a shimmering lake. When all had performed their cleansing and rested for a while, they met again on one of the upper plazas, a wide deck furnished with enough low chairs and tables to host several dozen.
There were no slaves here, no aeldari on the Path of Service, and so the cup holders remained empty, the tables bereft of fayre. Dreamspear crunched on a piece of fruit he had mischievously obtained somehow. Others wandered to the rail and looked out upon the meticulously constructed melancholic landscape.
This was a craftworld, when all was said, and the seasons only turned by the will of its inhabitants. The entire dome was a purposeful study in transition and fading glory.
‘There is immense loss here,’ said Iyanna. ‘They are struggling, I can feel it. Regret permeates everything.’
‘Did Sydari give any indication of why they have returned now?’ asked Meliniel.
‘The galaxy is in turmoil, even the forgotten frontiers have felt the effects of the Great Rift,’ replied Yvraine.
‘They need our help,’ Iyanna said bluntly. ‘I cannot say exactly what, or why they have been dashed against the troubled shores of our lives now, but it is clear everywhere we look that they are foundering fast. Some cataclysm connected to the Great Rift might have befallen them, or simply the inexorable erosion of time has finally laid them low. It doesn’t matter! They are our people, they need our assistance.’
‘Then they need to ask for it,’ said Azkahr. ‘Do you think pride holds them back?’
‘Or fear,’ countered Iyanna. ‘Would you willingly admit to strangers that you are weak? Defenceless? We must earn their trust first.’
‘And they ours,’ Yvraine said sharply. She picked up a crystal goblet and held it to the light, casting rainbows against the palm of her other hand. ‘Blessings and banquets are flattery and bribery, nothing more.’
‘Those that had gone, have now returned,’ said Dreamspear, tossing the core of his snack over the edge of the balcony. ‘If they did not desire contact, their lips would have remained sealed and none would have witnessed their passing. The performance has much changed since they departed the stage. Perhaps they falter simply through ignorance of the revised script.’
‘I will speak again to Sydari,’ said Iyanna. ‘If we can find a meeting of minds, our factions will also find accord, I am sure of it.’
‘You seem… anxious to spearhead this engagement,’ said Meliniel. ‘You would not let personal desire cloud your judgement, I hope.’
‘I was not asking permission.’
The spiritseer stalked back into the chamber, shoulders hunched, the eyes of the other Ynnari upon her back. They watched her leave the manse, a brighter mote of gold and red among the autumnal shade that would soon be lost in the carefully generated mists.
Yvraine crouched and tickled Alorynis behind an ear, and with a thought bid him to depart. The gyrinx purred once, rubbing a cheek against her calf, and then leapt to the balcony. Three more bounds followed – from rail to roof, roof to sill, sill to ground – and with tail high he followed after the departing spiritseer.
CHAPTER 17
THUS SPAKE ZAISUTHRANS
A picture is a poem of a thousand verses, claims the wisdom of the ancient philosophers. In that regard, the meeting between the delegations on the broad balcony of the manse spoke a long ode to discomfort, distrust and disdain, via lyric diversions to mutual antagonism, secret agendas and simple clash of personalities.
It was more than negotiation, it was war by body language. To the casual observer it appeared as a polite but heated discourse. To the informed observer it was a series of salients and thrusts, counter-offensives and hapless slaughter. The aeldari are a people ever given to the most subtle of non-verbal communications and the least subtle of interpretations. They offer little offence but take much.
A glance, a tilt of the head, a pause of a half-breath carried the same weight as a flat denial or soliloquy. Every measured sip of wine, each shift of posture, the merest change of intonation signalled a thunderous charge or terrified rout; a surprise flank attack could be initiated by a blink and an untimely cough might bring about utter capitulation.
Imagine the scene:
Two groups, seated for the most part though occasionally they stood, paced, or otherwise displayed patience, frustration and irritability in the cycle of never-ending debate.
On the one side, the Ynnari and Iyandeni. The tables before them held platters of barely touched food, their goblets of crystal clear water, fruit juices and aromatic spiced wine equally neglected.
Yvraine sat like a queen among a court, resplendent in full aristocratic attire, immaculately coiffured and arranged with her war fan held lightly in her lap. She feigned the appearance of a doll, but none present were deluded enough to believe the facade. Her lips formed a tight line when not speaking, her eyes alert for the slightest gesture or expression that would expose the intent of those opposite before it was made plain in word or deed. Even if not for this telltale sharpness of demeanour, the psychic purring of the blade beside her chair betrayed that she was anything but an animated figurine.
The Visarch stood at her shoulder, a splash of blood against the grey and pastel blue of the surrounds, unmoving and silent. For the entirety of the conclave he had remained static and unspeaking, not the slightest tremor or reaction to anything that was said or done. Yet for all his immobility there was a latent energy in him, of a storm behind a door that could be opened on a whim. So utterly without involvement had he been that it was hard not to study him, waiting for the moment for his opinion to be unleashed with all the fury of an artillery bombardment and full aerial assault.
And yet even when Yvraine was hardest pressed he held his tongue, true to his promise made before the talks had begun that he would not act until called upon.
About them sat and stood several of the Ynnari, present to murmur appreciation or damnation as required, and to add an undeniable physical edge to Yvraine’s petition. They loomed when needed, touched hands to sword hilts and pistol grips when occasion demanded, but were also ready to idle and relax to show goodwill and leeway.
To Yvraine’s right were the twin warlocks from Iyanden. They had removed their helms to reveal identical, slender faces and arched brows. They tried their best to interject their desires and demands into the conversation, often at the most inopportune times, and the vigour with which they delivered these interruptions increased the longer they were ignored, much to the annoyance of everyone else present.
Outnumbered, the twins were utterly mercenary in their dialogue, leaning first to one side and then the other, and reversing their temporary allegiances in the breadth of a twin-finished sentence, and occasionally departing in a third direction that stalled both lines of argument in return for some minuscule concession.
They showed no favour for the Ynnari, treating Yvraine’s discourse no better or worse than that of the Zaisuthrans, their loyalty not simply foremost to Iyanden but all-consuming.
Opposite, upon chairs angled with subtle meaning to deflect and distract, their tables placed to affect openness or barriers, the Zaisuthrans had adopted a strategy of attrition. Feeling comfortable on home ground, in control of the environment, they held back any sign of their needs and offered only grudging accommodation. Agreement was rationed as sips of water in the desert, extracted only at great effort.
