Ghost warrior, p.17
Ghost Warrior, page 17
As he considered this, he lifted a finger to her cheek, where a single tear rolled down flawless skin. He caught the droplet on a knuckle and wiped it away, cautious lest she stir at the touch.
Iyanna did not move, still locked inside her own mind, in the place to which she had retreated when she had tried to make contact with the daemon-cursed psychic vessels of the lost dome.
Why did she do that? asked Atalesasa across the groupmind. The inquiry resonated, echoed and reinforced by others inside the shared psychic cloud-thought. Their presence was instantly heartening, soothing Sydari’s nerves after the vexing episode with Iyanna’s seizure.
She is an explorer, a seeker after truth, replied Sydari. He shared the swell of affection he felt, the thought amplified by some within the groupmind, rebuffed by others. Atalesasa was among the latter.
Do not forget that she is an outsider still.
She is of the family.
The old family, not the new. Not until she shares our blood again.
A clamour of sensations and voices reinforced this point, echoing the earlier demands for Sydari to bring Iyanna before the groupcouncil.
I have another way, as I have told you. We do not have to take what we need. Can you not feel her emptiness, the yearning that eats at her soul? We are the part that is missing from her, the bond that will bring her out of the clutches of despair and back to the warmth of a family.
And through her, the others will follow?
Iyanna stirred, a whisper escaping her lips, but nothing that could be understood. Sydari settled back as the skyskiff slewed sideways down a linking conduit, drawn by homing instinct. The Iyandeni seer settled again, no more alert than before, though her expression seemed more serene.
You tell me. Sydari answered Atalesasa. How fares Monsattra?
He is being typically stubborn. Have the two of you made some bargain or wager as to which will turn one of them to our cause first?
We are both passionate, that is all we share.
The Houses of Ashana and Daethrosa stand ready to take matters further. If the leaders do not acquiesce, there are ways in which the family can reach out to Iyanden.
Sydari considered this, uncomfortable at the notion.
We are not animals, Atalesasa. It is better this way.
Further communication was interrupted by a low moan issuing from Iyanna. She retched as though violently ill, hands clutched to her gut and then rising to seize the sides of her head. But it was not pain – of the physical kind – that washed from her thoughts.
Sydari tapped into the groupmind to use its strength to siphon away a small part of the seer’s emotions, as much as he could through the rigid discipline of unconscious defiance that kept her mind safe despite her discommoded situation. A memory both recent and old burned fear and disgust through Iyanna, turning everything within to ash.
‘We both have need, or you would not have returned and we would not have come,’ said Yvraine, looking Monsattra directly in the eye. If he wished for openness he would get it, but she would expect the same in return. ‘I seek a portal, which legend holds to be on Zaisuthra, beyond which…’
‘The truth?’
‘A truth. Perhaps.’
‘And we require allies. We tried to survive alone, but the doom of our people, as you say, has caught up with us. Our defences shudder beneath the renewed attacks.’
‘Attacks?’ The interruption came from Meliniel, who for the greater part of the deliberations had been relegated to the background chorus. Now the autarch stepped up, disrupting the balance between Yvraine and Monsattra.
The disturbance was exacerbated when Telathaus and Iyasta rose also.
‘If it is perilous to remain–’
‘–we should be told everything.’
‘You are all quite safe,’ declared Nasithas, dragged to her feet in order to remain relevant to the exchange. She rallied quickly, turning retreat to fresh offensive, her next words directed at Yvraine. ‘What do the legends say of this portal you seek?’
‘In legend it is called the Gate of Malice,’ Yvraine answered, but offered no more.
‘And you would use it to seek these artefacts of your faith?’ The question was accompanied by disquiet murmuring from the Zaisuthrans. In a moment of insight, Yvraine realised that this auditory expression was simply a distraction, a feint to mask their communion across the groupmind. The looming presence of the craftworld’s psychic network dulled everything else, so that it was an effort for Yvraine even to sense the minds of the others about her, and rendering any meaningful contact impossible. She railed against this skewed battlefield, but before she could put her anger into words Monsattra read it in her expression.
‘I cannot in conscience allow you free rein with your thoughts,’ he said. ‘The groupmind protects us as best it can, but to allow another within would be a grave weakening of our defences.’
‘Defences that have already been breached,’ guessed Yvraine, her speculation confirmed by Monsattra’s pained expression. ‘Even the outer void did not put you beyond the reach of the Dark Powers.’
‘It was dealt with,’ Nasithas said quickly, ‘and it will not happen again.’
‘But you must understand our caution,’ said Monsattra.
The Zaisuthrans knew nothing of the travails of Biel-tan and Iyanden, and others, but by happenstance had come upon the perfect argument. Though the memory of the daemonic infiltrations and assaults on the craftworlds was not as fresh as it had been, it was still a stark event in the mind of Yvraine, a reminder of the foe she hoped to extinguish.
‘I understand,’ she admitted. She closed her fan and turned, her elaborate gown like a breeze given form around her. ‘We are not inexperienced in such tribulations and would lend whatever assistance is required.’
Nasithas was taken aback by this artful turn of her admission into a request for help, and this time the consultation over the groupmind was not hidden.
‘No,’ declared Monsattra. His companions flinched, blinked and shuddered at the rebuke, accompanied as it must have been by a similarly powerful chastisement across the groupmind. ‘We must find common ground here, not seek leverage and advantage. Yvraine, your offer is welcome, though we have no current need. As a sign of our goodwill, I can confirm that the Gate of Malice is indeed located on Zaisuthra.’
‘But our gateways have not seen use since our departure from the greater disk of the galaxy,’ Nasithas added quickly, seeking to hold a little ground despite Monsattra’s signalled withdrawal. ‘It may lead nowhere. Or worse. We cannot open that portal without proper ceremony and circumspect examination.’
‘But you can open it?’ asked Meliniel, driving a secondary attack into her line of argument, exploiting the gap she had unwittingly left. ‘It is possible?’
The scion-elaborate was forced to concede this with a simple nod.
‘Let us tarry no longer,’ said Monsattra, stepping away from the balcony rail. He inclined his head towards Yvraine. ‘If the lady of the Ynnari and her lieutenants are willing, let us seek out this object of debate and see it for ourselves.’
Much time in the courts of the archons had taught Yvraine to hold in even the slightest reaction, but at the thought of coming before the Gate of Malice she could not suppress the tremble that set her gowns moving and momentarily fluttered the fan in her hand.
She thought of Iyanna, briefly, but decided that until the spiritseer had settled the ghosts raised by the reappearance of her family, she was better left to her own course.
‘Yes, gentle Monsattra,’ she said as evenly as she could muster, ‘let us do that.’
CHAPTER 19
THE HOUSE OF ARIENAL
The skiff raced from the dome, twisting at precipitous speed along the connection tunnel, driven by the naked impulse of Iyanna to flee.
She sat almost doubled over, heart thundering, gut devouring itself, mind raw.
Sydari slipped into the seat beside her and laid a hand on her arm, causing her to flinch. Iyanna shrank back from his presence, pushing herself against the side of the skyskiff.
He tried again, pulsing gentle, comforting thoughts that settled Iyanna’s mood, bringing calm to the turbulent psychic aura that swathed her.
She tried to prise herself free of the horror that gripped her heart and mind, remembering mantras not used in a long time, giving focus that slowed the whirling abyss that swallowed all rational thought.
‘…safe,’ she heard Sydari say. ‘…this is a sanctuary…’
She looked up, forcing her eyes open, but still darkness remained. Iyanna realised her hands were clasped to her face and it was an effort of will to force them apart, revealing the concerned features of her distant relative.
Again the similarity to her father was stark, but in that moment it was also a salvation, a rock jutting up from the wash of psychic tide that threatened to drown her. She fixed on those features as though dragging herself from the battering surf, taking strength from the familiar.
Iyanna’s breathing slowed, her heart settled and she was able to break from that dark gaze to look around them.
The skyskiff had brought them into a small chamber, barely twice the size of her quarters on Iyanden. The light was soft, as one might imagine the inside of a bird’s egg beneath a full sun, the warmth on her face reassuring and welcoming.
There was little else, just a pair of arches to each side, leading to broader transitways. A cross-junction, she assumed, to traverse from one corridor to the next.
‘What was that?’ she asked, and even the question brought back a vivid memory that sent another shiver of apprehension coursing through the spiritseer.
‘Our woe,’ Sydari replied with a quiet sigh. ‘The reason that we have been forced to return.’
Iyanna could sense that even this confession was not complete, that Sydari was holding back something. In her distraught state she was willing to let it pass, for fear of opening up herself to counter-inquiry – questions she was not yet willing to answer.
They sat there in silence for some time, Iyanna taking simple comfort from the presence of Sydari, while he seemed content to allow her to gather her wits and recover her mood in her own time.
‘Zaisuthra is not safe,’ Sydari said eventually, moving away to sit straight-backed opposite Iyanna. ‘We thought we were… protected, but there is no sure defence against the Oldest Peril.’
‘Iyanden is no stranger to the assaults of Chaos. No craftworld is.’ Iyanna sensed unease from the Lord-Guardian and felt drawn to assuage the guilt that emanated from him. ‘Zaisuthra is not alone in knowing this woe, nor having suffered greatly the predations of the Dark Gods’ servants. Our own House…’
She could not continue, throat dry even as the words formed.
‘The taint is upon us.’ Sydari shook his head sadly, gaze cast over the side of the skiff. ‘You felt it. Felt it more than any I have seen. Perhaps its stain runs deeper even than we feared and we shall never be rid of it.’
Iyanna wanted to offer words of comfort, to assure Sydari that the effects could be expunged, that Zaisuthra could recover. She could not. The lie would be too much.
‘We are a people wreathed in woe,’ she said instead, struck by a rare sympathy for her companion, moved by a certain naivety he displayed at his people’s plight. ‘The servants of the Lord of Decay brought ruin to Iyanden, from which we have yet to recover.’
‘Is that why…?’
Iyanna nodded. A deep breath loosened the tightness in her chest and allowed the words to finally soar free.
‘Because of them, I am the last member of the House of Arienal on Iyanden.’
It was such a release, to share this revelation. Iyanna wondered why she thought it had been necessary at all to keep it hidden.
‘That is a tragedy,’ said Sydari. He looked away, lost in thought for several heartbeats, perhaps trying to contemplate the importance of this announcement. It was only later, on reflection of these events, that Iyanna would realise that he had been communicating this information to the groupmind.
‘There is somewhere I must show you, a place that might bring some succour to your pain.’
She said nothing but signalled her assent with a single nod. At Sydari’s touch the skiff turned and glided back into the transitway. It swiftly came to an ascending spiral that took them into the higher level of domes, beneath the starlit galaxy. Continuing to gain speed, the craft extruded a new skin, sheathing them in a protective, streamlined bubble. The wind whistled past and the ground sped below. Casting her gaze into the distance, Iyanna thought she saw in a neighbouring dome the manse where the Ynnari had been quartered, and realised they were heading even further away.
There was no overt cause for concern, but Iyanna felt trepidation at this thought.
‘Where are you taking me?’ She asked the question lightly, or attempted to, but Sydari’s smile of reassurance confirmed that her anxiety was plain to see.
The Lord-Guardian manipulated a control nodule and a projection screen sprang into life on the canopy above them, magnifying a dome directly ahead. It was dominated by high towers of silver, white, blue and grey, surrounded by majestic peaks, foaming rapids and cascades of waterfalls, criss-crossed with scores of bridges further encrusted with turrets and balconies. It was impossible to tell where tower, mountain and water met, the entire edifice seemed to float on a swathe of mist.
‘It is beautiful,’ whispered Iyanna. ‘We have nothing like this on Iyanden.’
‘The House of Arienal’s capital, the Skytowers of the Sundervale.’ Sydari gazed with affection at the image. ‘My home.’
It would be fair to say that, among such a disparate and passionate company as made up the Ynnari close to Yvraine, Meliniel could be considered the most level-headed. Bearing in mind that his associates ranged from bloodthirsty arena fighters to incarnations of demigodly power, warp-touched seers, estranged rogues and enigmatic followers of the Laughing God, this was not a difficult achievement.
It was also true that his eternal fair-mindedness, calm demeanour and dispassionate assessment were often as welcome as a gyrinx hair in one’s cup, but it was a reputation he was prepared to endure. When he had finally sworn himself to the Ynnari cause it had been in the full knowledge that he was attempting to tame a wild wave, and would frequently be bruised and exhausted by the effort. For him the reward was in the undertaking as much as the goal – the unifying act of Ynnead’s awakening that crossed all divides that had sundered the aeldari for several generations.
He had trodden the Path his entire life. He had embraced the teachings of Asurmen completely, turning his focus and steely will upon each part of his troubled psyche in turn. Numerous times he had returned to the Path of the Warrior, to exorcise some fresh angst or brooding battle-fever, and each time he had torn himself free of Khaine’s grip. It was this iron hard discipline that had brought him to the Path of Command and ultimately the rank of autarch. Which was, as his companion Azkahr frequently pointed out, as much of a trap as being a farseer or exarch.
‘One never escapes the Path,’ the former dracon often quipped, ‘one is simply carried away from it in a casket.’
A depressing thought that had, in other forms, occurred to Meliniel more and more before he had met Yvraine. One simply stayed upon the Path until one died. It was a control, not an escape. Asurmen had always asserted as such, that the Path was a journey towards enlightenment, not a destination to be achieved.
And then Yvraine had happened and suddenly Meliniel had been assailed by all kinds of possibilities; the very notion of Rebirth had at first seemed grotesque, something akin to the soulthirst of the Commorraghans.
But it was an end.
And he craved an end more than anything else, because if he could not have victory, he would rather die fighting than retreat one more step. He would be trapped no more.
Which was foremost in his mind when Yvraine told the autarch he was to remain at the manse with the greater part of the Ynnari contingent.
‘It is a ploy to divide us, to split our numbers,’ he said when the Opener of the Seventh Way informed him of her plan in one of the reception chambers of the great spread of halls and rooms. ‘The Zaisuthrans are far weaker than we expected and they want us to believe. What better way to gain advantage than to isolate our leaders from their warriors?’
‘Prudence all too often gives way to a paranoia,’ said Yvraine.
‘First, Iyanna, and now you,’ replied Meliniel. He stood between her and the main doors, shut behind him, his intention made clear though both he and Yvraine knew he would never physically stop her from leaving.
‘The Visarch goes with me, and the soulbound.’
‘Depleting the strength left here,’ the autarch pointed out. ‘At least let us bring down the Ghost Warriors from the ships. Kelmon…’
‘The Zaisuthrans will not allow it,’ Yvraine said sharply. ‘Such was made clear on their first meeting. They find our use of the dead disconcerting, and any increase in our numbers would be seen as intimidation. Why do you wish to prepare for a battle that is not yet to be fought? In doing so you may precipitate the conflict we seek to avoid.’
Meliniel stepped closer and dropped his voice, aware that it was possible the Zaisuthrans were attempting to monitor the exchange in some fashion. Their talk of groupmind unsettled him in much the same manner that the Ynnari’s interactions with the departed was difficult for the Zaisuthrans.
‘If it goes ill, what do you intend, mistress? We have not felt a thought from Iyanna since she departed. Without an infinity circuit, how are we to remain in contact? Should the Zaisuthrans attempt something… amiss, the other would have no warning.’
Yvraine walked around him, each pace measured and slow. Her fan flicked open, obscuring her face but for the cold eyes that glittered beneath her ornate headdress.
