Ghost warrior, p.18
Ghost Warrior, page 18
‘We are here at the sufferance of the Zaisuthrans, Meliniel. Should they desire us harm, it will happen regardless of what we do. If you wish for safety and surety I suggest you return to the halls of Biel-tan. If you desire to make progress, then you must learn to gamble occasionally.’
He watched her leave and moved to the window. It was not long before Yvraine, the Visarch and their entourage of the soulbound set off from the manse, along with the Iyandeni. They were escorted by Monsattra, the other envoys and several squads of silver-and-purple clad warriors.
‘Azkahr!’ The autarch took up Ahz-ashir from where he had leaned the spear against a wall, and strode to the door to the adjoining bedchamber, where his second-in-command was asleep in an armchair. The Commorraghan was on his feet in a moment, blade in hand, pistol in the other. He narrowed his eyes in annoyance.
‘One should step carefully about a sleeping viper, for they are known to strike on waking.’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Meliniel said dismissively, in no mood for his lieutenant’s self-aggrandisement. ‘Post guards at the perimeter and draw up patrol plans. The viper sleeps no more while on Zaisuthra.’
Their craft swooped over roaring cataracts and wove down intricate valleys wrought from multicoloured crystals, expertly accentuated by cliff-top trees and curling falls of foliage and creeper. Birds darted in and out of the rainbow mists around the water, beaks snapping at iridescent invertebrates that buzzed fitfully through the spray.
They hummed past isolated mountain peak retreats – walled courtyards holding painstakingly maintained fruit trees and ornately arranged stone gardens, linked by winding pathways to secluded grey stoned cloisters beside shrine-like hermitages. Scattered aeldari looked up from contemplation or study, on benches or strolling the spume-flecked paths, briefly following the passage of the skiff before returning to their scrolls and books, or turned to distant, unknowable sights of mental fabrication.
‘You have not spoken of the gods,’ said Iyanna, noting a temple dome topped by an emerald incarnation of Asuryan’s rune. There were other sacred buildings crafted from the bedrock or built upon the steep inclines and terraces that surrounded the Skytowers. ‘It is unusual for us to see active worship of those that abandoned us during the War in Heaven and the Fall.’
‘Abandoned?’ Sydari looked angered by this assertion and the skiff shuddered briefly, diving through the thermals rising from a plateau of geysers and hot springs. ‘Shunned, you mean. It was our ancestors that turned from the gods, not they that turned from us.’
‘I believe differently, as most craftworlders, but the reality is that the gods disappeared. You worship only memories and legends.’
‘A strange assertion coming from one sworn to a cause such as yours,’ the Lord-Guardian said.
‘What do you mean?’ Iyanna’s grip on the seat tightened in reaction to tension in Sydari’s mood.
‘While I have hosted your enquiries, others of the Guardian Council have been speaking with your companions. Yvraine has been forthcoming about the reason for your arrival and her role as emissary of this new god, Ynnead. I do not understand why you would seek to keep this from me.’
The skiff slowed, peeling back its canopy as it spiralled towards a white and grey mosaic landing pad situated close to one of the main towers, dropping smoothly between the slender edifices. The windows were tall and narrow, an aesthetic that had ruled the styles of the aeldari since time immemorial, the panes reflective, allowing no view of within, only clouds and rainbows mirrored upon their surface.
‘No deception was intended,’ said Iyanna, but her words lacked conviction. Perhaps not deception, but the omission was deliberate. She sought to explain, and in doing so gave voice to doubts she had harboured since the arrival of Yvraine. ‘The rise of the Ynnari has not been welcome elsewhere, so it is natural that we expected resistance here also. We did not… Zaisuthra is very different from what we thought we would find here. We have so many questions, perhaps uncertainty and fear were allowed to rule our thoughts too strongly.’
The sound of bells gently tolling greeted the arrival of Sydari and Iyanna. Just two at first, but rising in volume, from surrounding pinnacles and temple halls, until a rolling melody ushered them to a gentle landing, the bells joined by gongs and chimes. A whisper of a chorus floated among the clear notes, a quiet hymn that echoed down from the peaks and towers.
‘I hope that in openness we can proceed,’ said Sydari. He stood and gestured for Iyanna to disembark from the skyskiff. ‘From secrecy comes misunderstanding, and from misunderstanding is sown the seed of discord. I would learn more of Ynnead and the Ynnari, and in return I shall share with you the truth of the House of Arienal. In such exchange may we find greater strength.’
Iyanna nodded, grateful for the sincere offer, and stepped down from the skiff. She looked about, finding herself in a courtyard surrounded by a low circular wall, past which could be seen the slopes and structures of Sundervale. The chimes and bells had ceased but she had barely noticed, their ring replaced with the hiss and distant thunder of water that echoed from cunningly shaped chasms and drops to swirl in volume from one direction and then another.
‘If you would?’ Sydari offered a hand, palm down like a courtier of the ancient days. Iyanna laid hers upon it and together they strode towards a nearby gate.
CHAPTER 20
FORESHADOWING
The hall was dim, lit by twilight globes that hovered just below the high vaulted ceiling, casting an ochre and orange suffusion over the interior. Dark timbers lined the floor, each etched with linear patterns incorporating old runes, whose meaning Iyanna could guess at – names of the members of the House of Arienal. On the walls hung holo-tapestries that changed view depending on one’s perspective, so that mountainsides and valleys became columned bridges and slender towers, rolling meadows transformed into seas of domes and steeples.
Other furnishings were laid in clusters about the hall, giving a sense of space despite the gloom – a few benches alongside each other along one wall, low chairs and couches around trios of tables. At the far end a light projection of the House rune slowly revolved above a ramp leading down into the floor, rendered as a mandala, repeating itself within again and again until too small to discern. Great doors, open to reveal the corridors and chambers beyond, spread patches of paler light at the periphery.
It was welcoming but sombre, and noticeably devoid of occupants.
‘Have you not signalled ahead?’ asked Iyanna. ‘I thought you would bring more of our family to meet me.’
‘In time, Iyanna, but we must talk a little more first,’ replied Sydari. ‘Through me, and thence the groupmind, there are others listening, learning, so that we can avoid repetition. And I would not like to overwhelm you.’
He seemed content to allow Iyanna to wander the hall for a short time, moving from one display to the next. Sydari murmured names such as the Vale of Wintering Sorrows, the Whitepeak and the Seven Daughters of Isha, and she presumed he referred to the scenes depicted.
Guided by nothing more than whim, so Iyanna thought, she sat in a high-backed chair, carved from pale wood, beside one of the tables. She looked up and regarded the holo-tapestry of a bare rocky slope upon which had been raised five silver domes, the portico to the half-dug temple visible in a cleft in the bare ground. Monoliths marked a path down to the entrance, somewhat sinister and unwelcoming.
She looked away quickly, unsettled, and noticed a half smile upon Sydari’s lips as he sat opposite, hands clasped in his lap, gaze drawn to the depiction.
‘Something is humorous?’
‘A quirk, I am sure,’ he replied, ‘that you chose to seat us beneath the Shrine of the Severed Hand. One of our temples to Morai-Heg, the shaper of fates.’
‘Her myths we know well, and no doubt from the discussions with Yvraine you also are aware of our quest for the last cronesword.’
‘I am, and hence perhaps it is more than chance that brought you to sit here, under the gaze of she whose digits you seek.’
They spoke more of Ynnead and how Iyanna came to be one of the Ynnari. She was cautious not to speak too much on account of the others, preferring that they explain their own motives and beliefs, for she was well aware that the followers of the Whispering God came to the cause for many different reasons.
In return, Sydari spoke of the House of Arienal, of what was remembered from the time before the Fall and the earliest cycles of Zaisuthra. He shared the tales of common ancestors, remembered only in name on Iyanden, founders that had embarked upon the tradeship’s first desperate flight from the aeldari dominions.
‘I am sure I need not spell out how fraught those times were,’ said the Lord-Guardian. ‘Disaster loomed everywhere and even though our ancestors did all they could to remove themselves from the degradation that had beset our people, the claws of the Ravenous One reached far.’
He fell silent, gaze fixed upon the carved table between them, eyes moving along the lines of the organic, curving design that followed its rim.
‘We know what happened next,’ said Iyanna. ‘Our people were all but destroyed. Less than one in a thousand, one in ten thousand survived.’
‘But they survived, and Zaisuthra forged on, into the unknown beyond the borders of the dominions.’
‘Your founders did not think to return to see if anything remained worth salvaging?’
‘Why should they? They had escaped once, what price a return to that benighted realm? They could see well enough, feel in their souls the creature that had been birthed from the evil of those that had remained. They continued on, seeking somewhere new, something purer from which to build a future.’
‘A noble thought, but as you are now here, and beset by the same malaise that has engulfed so many of our people, a mission that was to fail.’
Sydari sighed and met her gaze.
‘We thought we had escaped, in the voids where the light of stars grows dim, away from the harsh blare of the other races’ thoughts. But it was not to be, and so we have returned.’
Meliniel stood at the balustrade of a high platform, which was part bridge and part terrace, stretching from one of the steeply pitched roofs of the manse to a leaf-wreathed hillside, shaped stone giving way seamlessly to bare rock and then earth. It afforded a broad view around three-quarters of the splay of ranged storeys and wings that made up the main building, and far across the moorlands beyond.
There was no reason to suspect attack, nothing in the behaviour of the Zaisuthrans to make him think there was any danger. Even so, he scanned the gloomy skies constantly, his gaze roamed across the far heathland looking for the slightest sign of something – anything – amiss.
Behind him, Azkahr paced relentlessly. The former dracon was not one to demonstrate nervousness and had complied with the autarch’s preparations with the bare minimum of effort, making clear his belief that it was a waste of their time and energy. His pacing was intended simply to annoy Meliniel, who could not ignore the footsteps approaching and receding across the grey stone, nor the movement in the corner of his eye when Azkahr reached the limit of his self-defined patrol and turned with a deliberate scrape of a heel.
The autarch fought the urge to speak out, preferring to suffer in silence than give his second-in-command any satisfaction from his antisocial behaviour.
Instead, Meliniel turned his attention to the dispositions of his people. Splashes of colour among the browns and greys of the manse’s environs betrayed the presence of the eclectic squads under his leadership. All were where he expected to find them – aspect warriors and kabalites, former craftworld guardians, arena fighters of Commorragh and disparate rogues and pirates from no acknowledged kindred.
There were even a few Exodites numbered among them, drawn to the Ynnari when Yvraine had come to the defence of their world, Solomonesh-Asah. They patrolled in small parties, leading pairs of raptorhounds on golden leashes, their reptilian charges attuned to scent and thought beyond the senses of an aeldari.
It was the most remarkable host ever assembled, he realised. Meliniel had taken the bizarre alliance for granted, but seeing them working together beneath his command, on a lost craftworld separated by another gulf of time and culture, brought home the challenges he had overcome. The force was in constant flux with new recruits arriving whether direct from contact with Yvraine, or through the continual spread of the Whispering God’s cult to the corners of the galaxy. Add to that the losses to wanderlust and battle and barely fifty cycles passed when there was not some gap to be filled or new addition to be incorporated.
It was unlike the Swordwind of Biel-tan in every way imaginable. The battlehost of his home had been a thing forged of precision, a weapon of carefully arranged elements guided by the prophecies of the seers and the time-honoured strategies of the autarchs. Between such rune-castings and ancient wisdom there was not a threat the bahzhakhain could not be turned against with predictable, lethal result.
The warhost of the Ynnari was more akin to a loose, ever-changing confederation of powers, an elemental force that could be swayed and directed but not truly controlled. Every moment in battle was a test of his abilities, each encounter enriching what he knew of his own mind and the abilities of those beneath his command. It was often frustrating – dealing with the likes of Azkahr was the least of it – but also far more rewarding than any campaign he had waged as a wielder of the Swordwind.
He was almost lost in this musing when his eye caught a dark shape against the horizon, moving swiftly beneath the scudding clouds. The messenger-waves buzzed with alerts from his sentries and patrols.
The distant shape resolved into an elegant ornithopter, slow flaps of its wings propelling the sleek craft towards the manse with an easy motion. His gaze drawn to this craft, he almost missed several other vehicles emerging from the dome gateway to his left – a handful of anti-grav transports that looked more like primordial sea creatures with segmented slats for shells than the flowing curves of the craftworlds and baroque styles of Commorragh. Fish-like, armoured tails swaying, they slithered through the air more than glided, the blister of weapon pods like crustacean antennae.
The sound of footfalls behind turned Meliniel, to find Azkahr had gathered the squad of kabalites that had been stationed by the steps to the terrace.
‘Welcoming committee for our visitors,’ said the former dracon, baring gilded teeth in a cruel smile.
‘Have the raptorhound patrols brought in,’ said Meliniel. ‘Let’s keep everyone inside the walls for the moment.’
Azkahr hesitated, a questioning look on his face.
‘You disagree?’ asked the autarch.
‘On the raptorhounds? No. But let us not keep all of our eggs in this pretty nest, eh? Always wise to have a knife out of the sheath and in the sleeve.’
‘I take your meaning,’ said Meliniel. ‘In fact, you will arrange my hidden blade, Azkahr. Swiftly, before our hosts arrive, send two raiders and as many of our warriors as they can carry.’
‘I would ask the Harlequins but Dreamspear has not returned from wherever he disappeared to, and the Midnight Sorrow refuse to commit to anything without him. I’ll send Sairua’s wyches from the outermost tower and Lasaikka and her howling banshees from the reserves. A slender but deadly weapon, you’ll agree.’
‘Very well,’ said Meliniel, adjusting the image in his head of the warriors arrayed about the manse. ‘We dare not communicate over conventional means, we have no way to tell if the Zaisuthrans have ways to trace it, or intercept what passes between.’
‘The leash is off, but they’ll not stray far, my master.’ Azkahr’s sarcasm was reinforced with an overly obsequious bow, his nose almost touching the floor.
Meliniel ignored him and turned back to the incoming ornithopter. The hawkship was still heading directly for them, angled to alight upon one of the landing aprons close to the main gatehouse. Meliniel signalled for the kabalites to accompany him and set off towards the steps, determined to be present when the craft landed.
Sydari and Iyanna talked a little more, but it seemed they both skirted around revealing too much of their current beliefs and thoughts. Iyanna knew nothing of what transpired with the other Ynnari, nor what Sydari learned of them from the groupmind. She started to feel alone again, disconnected from her companions. The isolation fuelled her suspicion that she was being kept apart for a reason; that Sydari used the connection of the groupmind to lever some kind of advantage from her for other discussions of which she was being deliberately kept ignorant.
As she distanced herself from the conversation, the spiritseer became more aware of her surroundings. Iyanna realised that the hall was not quite built as she had first assumed. There were hardened plates on the walls, like ridges of protective bone, coloured slightly darker than the rest. Ribbing held up the ceiling, not shaped vaults of wood or stone, mostly concealed within the substance of the walls but the shadow just visible to show the presence of the skeleton beneath the surface.
She turned her attention to the table and chair itself, which she had ignored on sitting but now realised was subtly different from furniture on Iyanden. Organic shapes had always been a part of the aeldari aesthetic, but both the hall and its contents took this a stage further with knuckle-like nodules, and skin-like textures taut between fused skeletal infrastructure.
‘You seem perplexed,’ said Sydari, breaking her contemplation. ‘Perturbed, I might say, and not by your recent experience.’
‘I was examining your materials and designs,’ she replied, indicating with a wave of her hand. ‘Our bonesingers grow the foundations and spars that underpin all of Iyanden, but Zaisuthra seems even more a living thing.’
‘It is,’ replied Sydari. He stroked a hand along the edge of the table and at his touch tiny hairs quivered into view. ‘When our ancestors fled the dominions’ worlds they had little to work with – few bonesingers, as you call them. They did have, however, an abundance of fleshcrafters, those that used to provide the sects and cultists with extreme physical modifications.’
