The sundering, p.33
The Sundering, page 33
Malekith drew Avanuir and urged his horse forwards, eyes intent on Kheranion.
Another shadow eclipsed Malekith for a moment as Merneir swept across the square atop his pegasus, his staff blazing with golden light. With a shout, the mage unleashed a ball of blue fire that hurtled across the open space and detonated with a flash beside Kheranion. The prince was hurled into the air and the manticore flung sideways by the blast. The gold-shod hooves of his steed flailing, the mage descended upon the manticore with his sword, hacking away at its venom-tipped tail while Kheranion shook his head and groggily stood.
Behind the renegade prince, Bathinair rose to his feet also, Nagrain grasped in both hands. His face was a mask of anger as blood trickled across the left side of his face from a cut on his forehead. He swept the point of the spear towards Kheranion and a hail of icy shards erupted from the weapon’s tip, slamming into the prince’s armour and smashing him from his feet once more. The firesword spun from his grip.
Out of desperation, Kheranion flung forwards an outstretched hand and a blast of power caught Bathinair full in the chest, sending him crashing into the wall a dozen paces distant. The prince collapsed to one knee, panting hard, while Kheranion scrabbled on all fours to reclaim his blade.
Just as Kheranion’s fingers curled around the hilt of the accursed sword, Malekith arrived. He leaned low in the saddle and Avanuir carved a furrow into the renegade’s armour and bit into his spine. Malekith leapt from the back of his horse as it galloped on and landed cat-like next to the stricken prince. Kheranion stared into Malekith’s eyes and saw the prince of Nagarythe’s murderous gaze.
‘Spare me!’ begged Kheranion, falling to his back and tossing away his magical sword. ‘I am crippled and no more a threat!’
Malekith saw that this was true, for the prince’s legs hung limply from his body as he dragged himself away across the cobbles.
‘Perhaps you would have me end your suffering?’ said Malekith, taking a step forwards, the point of Avanuir aimed towards his foe’s throat.
‘No!’ cried Kheranion. ‘Though I am undone, perhaps my wound is not beyond that of the finest healers.’
‘Why would I allow you to live, so that like a pet serpent you could rise up and bite me again?’
Kheranion sobbed with pain and fear, and held up an arm as if to ward away the killing blow.
‘I denounce Morathi!’ Kheranion shouted, his voice reverberating around the courtyard. ‘I will swear anew my oaths to Malekith!’
‘You are a traitor, and yet have not the conviction to stand by your treacherous path,’ snarled Malekith. ‘Betrayal can be forgiven, cowardice cannot.’
With that, Malekith drove the point of Avanuir downwards and Kheranion shrieked, but the tip of the sword stopped a fraction from the fallen prince’s throat.
‘Yet I also swore to be merciful,’ said Malekith, lifting away his blade. ‘Though you have done many wrongs against me, I must stand by that oath and offer clemency to those who repent of their misdeeds. Perhaps I will find a way even for a creature as craven as you to make amends.’
With an agonised grunt, Kheranion threw himself forwards and grasped Malekith around the leg and whimpered meaningless gratitudes. Malekith kicked him away with a sneer.
‘Pathetic,’ the prince rasped, turning away.
Twenty-One
A Destiny Manifested
The closer Malekith and his host drew to the central palace, the more disturbing Anlec became. Many of the buildings here had been turned into immense charnel temples, their steps stained dark with blood, the entrails and bones of the cultists’ victims hung upon their walls as decoration. Hundreds of braziers burned fitfully, spewing noxious, acrid fumes through the streets. The air itself clung with the stench of death and all was silent save for the crackling of flames and the tread of the warriors on the bloodstained tiles of the streets. They came at last upon the palace of Aenarion, a large building that doubled as the central citadel of Anlec. It appeared deserted, and the broad doors were opened wide. Dismembered skeletons, rotting organs and other detritus littered the steps leading up to the entrance.
Malekith stopped at the foot of the steps and looked up into the beckoning door, seeking an ambush. Lanterns glowed with ruddy light from within, but there was no sign of any other living thing.
Slowly, Malekith ascended the steps, Avanuir in hand. His knights dismounted and followed a short way behind, similarly ready for attack. Malekith paused before he stepped across the threshold and checked one more time for hidden attackers. Satisfied that there was no immediate threat, he strode through the doors into the chamber beyond.
It was as he remembered from a millennium ago. A long colonnaded hall led away from the doors, much like a larger version of the entrance of Ealith’s keep. There was no evidence of the murder and slaughter of the rest of the city here. The floor was a vast mosaic of a golden blade upon a storm-filled sky, and Malekith remembered it from when he was a child.
He had crawled upon this floor and happily stroked the golden tiles even as his father had told him of its story, for it was a depiction of a dream, the vision that had beset Malekith’s father and spurred him to take up the war against the daemons. Though his father had not known it at the time, it had been the Sword of Khaine calling to him, from hundreds of leagues distant, suddenly awoken from its eons-long slumber by the anger of Aenarion.
The slamming of the doors behind him shattered Malekith’s thoughts and he spun around, expecting attack. He heard thuds and thumps as his followers outside attempted to open them, but Malekith knew it would be fruitless; the tinge of ancient magic hung about the portal, spells laid upon it in the time of Caledor.
‘Come to me,’ a voice echoed along the empty halls, and Malekith recognised his mother’s tone.
Still wary of attack, Malekith stalked along the hallway, all childhood thoughts forgotten. His eyes roved across the archways and high galleries, seeking any sign of a hidden assassin, but there was none. Passing through the great doorway at the end of the entrance hall, Malekith came to an antechamber from which two sets of stairs spiralled upwards to the left and right.
The one on the left led to the bedchambers, guardhouses and other domestic rooms on the first floor, while the stair to the right wound higher to the throne room of Aenarion. Without hesitation, Malekith turned to his right and slowly ascended the marble stair, a carpet of deep blue running down its centre. His footfalls made no sound as he walked, and in the silence there came a noise on the very edge of his hearing.
It was weeping, a constant low sob. Stopping, Malekith listened more intently but the noise could be heard no more. Walking again, Malekith heard a distant, dim shriek and a yammering for mercy. Halting once more to listen, the sound faded away again, leaving only silence.
‘Spare us!’ said a voice behind Malekith, and he spun, sword in hand, but there was nothing there.
‘Mercy!’ pleaded a whisper in Malekith’s right ear, but turning his head he saw only empty air.
‘Not the blade!’
‘Free us!’
‘Give us peace!’
‘Justice!’
‘Show us pity!’
Malekith twisted left and right, seeking the source of the voices, but he was alone on the stairway.
‘Begone,’ the prince growled, holding up Avanuir.
In the flickering glow of the blade, Malekith finally saw movement: ghostly figures dimly reflecting the blue glare of Avanuir’s fire. He could see the spirits only in glimpses, and saw flashes of headless bodies, children with their hearts ripped out, mutilated women and victims of all kinds of vile torture. They reached out with broken hands, skin hanging in flaps from mutilated arms. Some were eyeless, others had their mouths stitched shut or their cheeks pierced with spikes.
‘Get away from me!’ snarled Malekith, turning and leaping up the stairs, casting glances over his shoulder as he hurried upwards. The swirling ghosts chased the prince up the steps and he slashed at them with Avanuir, parting their insubstantial forms with its glowing blade.
Panting, he reached the upper landing and stood before the high double doors that led to the throne room. Soundlessly, they opened inwards, bathing Malekith in the golden light from many lanterns within.
At the far end of the hall sat Morathi, clad in a draping wind of golden cloth that obscured very little of her nakedness. She held her staff of bone and iron across her lap, her fingers toying with the skull at its tip. Morathi sat in a simple wooden chair next to the mighty throne of Aenarion; which was cut from a single piece of black granite, its back shaped like a rearing dragon, of which Bel Shanaar’s throne was but a pale imitation. Magical flame licked from the dragon’s fanged maw and glowed in its eyes.
Malekith’s eyes were drawn to the throne above all other things, ignoring even his mother, for this was the strongest memory he had of this place; of his father girded for war sat upon that immense chair, in counsel with his famed generals.
The memory was so vivid that Malekith could hear his father’s soft yet strong voice echoing around the throne room. The prince was but a child, sat in the lap of his mother beside the Phoenix King, and Aenarion would occasionally pause in his conversation and look down upon his son. Always stern was that look; not unkind, yet not compassionate either, but full of pride. For years Malekith had gazed back at those strong, dark eyes and seen the fires that raged behind their quiet dignity. Malekith imagined that he alone knew the sinister spirit that hid within, clothed in the body of a noble monarch, masked against the eyes of the world lest it be recognised for what it truly was.
The soul of a destroyer, the wielder of the Godslayer.
And the sword! There across the Phoenix King’s lap lay Widowmaker, Soulbiter, the Sword of Khaine. Even at a young age, Malekith had noticed that only he and his father ever looked upon its blood-red blade, for all other elves averted their gaze and would look anywhere else but directly at it. It was like a secret shared between them.
‘Yet you did not pick up the Blade of Murder when it was offered to you,’ said Morathi, dispelling the illusion that had so gripped her son.
Malekith shook his head, confused by the enchantment cunningly wrought upon him by his mother. Truly they were real memories she had stirred, but her spell had made them as tangible as life, if only for a moment.
‘I did not,’ replied Malekith, slowly, realising that Morathi had seen into his thoughts and learned of his episode on the Blighted Isle, of which he had spoken to nobody.
‘That is good,’ said Morathi. She was sat in stately pose, despite her near-nudity, and exuded regal poise. Not here the barbarous priestess who tore living hearts from the breasts of her victims; not the seductive, wily seeress who wove lies with every word and manipulated all around her into a tapestry to her liking. Here she was as queen of Nagarythe, full of quiet majesty and grandeur.
‘The sword controlled your father,’ the queen said, her tone hushed, reassuring. ‘Since his death, it has yearned for you to seek it out. I was worried that you would be ensnared by its power as well, but I am proud that you resisted its bloodthirsty call. None can truly be its master, and if you are to rule, then you must be master of everything.’
‘I would rather the world was devoured by daemons than unleash that fell creation upon it again,’ Malekith said, sheathing Avanuir. ‘As you say, once drawn it will consume its wielder until nothing but blood remains. No person can become a king with its power, only a slave.’
‘Sit down,’ Morathi said, waving a hand of invitation towards the grand throne.
‘It is not yet my place to sit there,’ replied Malekith.
‘Oh?’ said Morathi, surprised. ‘And why is that?’
‘If I am to rule Nagarythe, I shall rule it alone,’ said Malekith. ‘Without you. When you are slain, the army of Nagarythe will be mine again. I shall hold power over the pleasure cults and with them secure the Phoenix Throne.’
Morathi remained silent for a moment, looking at her son with ancient eyes, gauging his mood and motive. A sly smile then twisted her lips.
‘You mean to slay me?’ she whispered, feigning shock.
‘While you live, always will your ambition be a shadow upon mine,’ said Malekith, angry at his mother’s charade. ‘You cannot help but be my rival, for it is not in your nature to serve any but yourself. I cannot share Ulthuan with you, for you could never truly share it with me. Even my father was not your master. I would exile you, but you would rise up again in some forgotten corner, a contender for everything that I aspire to.’
‘Cannot share power,’ Morathi said, ‘or will not?’
Malekith pondered for a moment, examining his feelings.
‘Will not,’ he replied, his eyes full of intent.
‘And to what is it that you aspire, my son?’ Morathi said, leaning forwards eagerly.
‘To inherit my father’s legacy and rule as Phoenix King,’ Malekith replied, knowing the truth of the words even as he spoke them. Never before had he so openly admitted his desire, not even to himself. Glory, honour, renown; all but stepping stones towards his ascension to the Phoenix Throne. The circlet had revealed to him the true nature of the forces that now ruled the world, and he would not stand by while Ulthuan slowly succumbed to them.
‘Yes, Chaos is strong,’ Morathi told him.
‘Stay out of my thoughts,’ Malekith snarled, taking an angry step forwards, his hand straying to the hilt of Avanuir.
‘I need no magic to know your mind, Malekith,’ said Morathi, still gazing fixedly at her son. ‘There is a bond between mother and son that does not need sorcery.’
‘Do you submit yourself to your fate?’ Malekith said, ignoring her obvious reminder of their relationship; an attempt to stay his hand.
‘You should know better than ask such a pointless question,’ Morathi replied, and now her voice was stern, harsh even. ‘Have I not always told you that you were destined to be king? You cannot be king unless you are prince of your own realm, and I will not surrender it willingly. Prove to me that you are worthy of ruling Nagarythe. Prove to the other princes that the strength within you is greater than any other.’
At some silent command, four figures emerged from the shadows, two to Malekith’s left and two to his right. They were sorcerers by their garb, two male and two female, swathed in black robes, tattooed with dark sigils.
Malekith struck out with a blast of magic, materialising as a thunderbolt from his fingertips. Instantly Morathi was surrounded by a shadowy sphere of energy, which pulsed as the bolt struck it. Her adepts unleashed spells of their own, fiery blasts that rushed in upon Malekith in the guise of howling wolf heads, and the prince cast his own shield of darkness to ward them away.
The sorcerers and sorceresses closed in, hurling fireballs and flares of dark power. Malekith protected himself, drawing in more and more magic from the energy seething around the throne room as the spells cascaded towards him.
Morathi sat contentedly upon her chair while her followers unleashed their hexes and curses, watching with interest as Malekith countered each. Churning and bubbling, magic flowed around the hall, growing in intensity as both Malekith and his foes reached their minds out further and further, drawing energy from the city outside.
‘Enough,’ barked Malekith, letting free the energy that he had pulled into himself, releasing a blast of raw magic not shaped by any spell.
The power blazed, surrounding each of the dark wizards, filling them with mystical energy; more than they could control. The first, a red-haired witch, began to quiver, and then spasmed so hard that Malekith heard her spine snapping as she flopped to the ground. The other sorceress screeched in agony as her blood turned to fire and exploded out of her veins, engulfing her in a tempest of lightning and flames. The third of them flew into the air as if struck, his nose, eyes and ears streaming with blood, his ragged body smashing against the distant wall. The last was consumed by the ravening magic and collapsed in upon himself, crumpled like a ball of paper until he disintegrated into a pile of dust.
‘Your followers are weak,’ said Malekith, rounding on Morathi.
The seeress remained unconcerned.
‘There are always more minions,’ she said with a dismissive wave of a beringed hand. ‘That trinket upon your head gives you impressive power, but you lack subtlety and control.’
Quicker than Malekith’s eye could follow, Morathi’s hand snapped out, her staff pointed at his chest. He fell to one knee as his heart began to thunder inside his ribs, drowning him with pain. Through the haze of agony, Malekith could feel the slender tendrils of magic that extended from Morathi’s staff, almost imperceptible in their delicacy.
Whispering a counterspell, Malekith chopped his hand through the intangible strands and forced himself back to his feet.
‘You never taught me that,’ said Malekith with mock admonition. ‘How unmotherly to keep such secrets from your son.’
‘You have not been here to learn from me,’ Morathi said with a sad shake of her head. ‘I have learned much these past thousand years. If you put aside this foolish jealousy that consumes you, then perhaps I can tutor you again.’
In reply, Malekith gathered up the coiling magic and hurled it at the queen, the spell materialising as a monstrous serpent. Morathi’s staff intercepted it, a shimmering blade springing from its haft to slice the head from the immaterial snake.
‘Crude,’ she said with a wag of her finger. ‘Perhaps you impressed the savages of Elthin Arvan and the wizardless dwarfs with these antics, but I am not so easily awed.’
Standing, the seeress-queen held her staff in both hands above her head and began to chant quickly. Blades crystallised out of the air around her, orbiting her body in ever-increasing numbers until she was all but obscured from view by a whirlwind of icy razors. With a contemptuous laugh, Malekith extended his will, looking to knock them aside.
