Path of the Warrior (27 page)

“What are you all staring at?” rasped Korlandril, rising angrily to his feet. “Have none of you ever suffered from a momentary boredom that cannot be satisfied?”

There was a tight grip at his elbow and Korlandril felt himself dragged back to the bench.

“You cannot say something like that!” hissed Elissanadrin. Her expression was a mixture of exasperation and shock.

“Was it my tone? Did I raise my voice too much?”

Elissanadrin’s look turned to incredulity and her mouth opened twice without words. Korlandril considered his words innocent enough, but his experience in the Dome of Midnight Forests gave him a moment of doubt. He reviewed the past few moments.

“We could race skyrunners along the Emerald Straits, I’ve always wanted to try that,” suggested Elissanadrin.

Korlandril sighed, his lips turning to a scornful sneer.

“It’s not as dangerous or thrilling as it looks, not if you’ve any experience with a skyrunner at all.”

“I’m not going to waste my time with this,” said Arhulesh, standing up. “It’s clear that you have no appetite for any suggestion I might make. Enjoy the summervine.”

“Wait!” Korlandril cried out. “I am sure we can think of something. I just want to find something to kill.”

Korlandril rose back out of the memory with shock.

“Kill time!” he barked. “I want to find something to kill time!”

Elissanadrin appeared unconvinced. Korlandril was about to argue his point, that it was an innocent slip of the tongue, but he stopped himself.

Korlandril’s whirring blade opened the first along the spine from neck to waist, showering the Aspect Warrior with blood and fragments of vertebrae, creating a harmony of wet spatters and bony pattering.

The moment had been sweet indeed. All he had remembered before had been the faces, but now the artistry with which he had wielded his weapons came back to Korlandril. And the sensation… The hint of it sent a thrill through him, rousing his blood, making every detail of his surroundings stand out in sharp detail. Elissanadrin’s breath on his cheek and the scent of gladesuns in her hair. The heat from her body. Even her blood, pulsing though her arteries and veins, flushing just beneath the skin.

What a rich, red paint it would make.

“I do not like the way you are staring at me,” she said, pulling back from Korlandril.

With a shudder, Korlandril forced himself to focus. He stood up, gave a stiff bow of apology, and fled.

The Shrine of the Deadly Shadow would not welcome back Korlandril. He had tried the entrances of which he was aware and none of them would open at his approach. Even the infinity circuit refused to acknowledge his presence. Unsure what this presaged or what course of action to take, Korlandril resorted to returning to the main gateway and banging upon the iris-door with his fist.

“Is this your doing, Kenainath?” he demanded, his voice echoing coldly around the accessway.

His demand was met with silence and he stood fuming and impotent for some time. As he was about to turn away, the door peeled open to reveal Kenainath in full armour, complete with helm.

“You are not welcome; I am exarch of this place, your shrine is elsewhere.”

Kenainath’s voice was flat, emotionless. Korlandril took a step forwards but halted when the exarch raised his claw.

“This is where I belong! You cannot cast me out.”

“You have lost your way, you must find another shrine, it is tradition. The Path ends for you; Khaine has taken your spirit, you are an exarch.”

“Nonsense!” Korlandril’s laugh was harsh. “One does not become an exarch after two battles. This is ridiculous.”

“Your journey was short, but now it is completed, you must accept it. There are other shrines, empty and without leaders, one will call to you. As it was with me, as it was with all of us, those trapped on the Path. We will meet again, not master and his pupil, but as two equals.”

“Tha—”

The door whispered shut, cutting off Korlandril’s retort. He slumped against the wall, head in hands. It made no sense to him. He had barely taken two steps upon the Path of the Warrior. There could be no way he was trapped. Something had gone wrong, but he was no exarch.

Taking a deep breath, Korlandril straightened, fists clenched. He would not accept this without a fight.

He took several steps away from the door and then halted. Self-realisation blossomed within him. The more he fought this fate, the tighter its grip had become. What was it he was fighting against? Himself? Thirianna? Aradryan? It was senseless, this craving for confrontation. The listlessness that had filled Korlandril since returning from the battle against the humans nagged at him. Would it last forever? Would he ever be rid of the drifting, formless feeling that consumed him?

Kenainath was right. Korlandril craved that dance between life and death, more than anything he had craved in his life—adulation, recognition, self-awakening, all were trivial in comparison to the rush of blood from war and the exquisite delight of a foe slain and a victory achieved.

There was one place left that might provide him with the answers he needed. Moving away from the Deadly Shadow, Korlandril located a bay of skyrunners. Taking one, he turned on the automatic guidance and entered the Chamber of Autarchs as his destination. Thoughts awhirl, he gunned the engines into life and sped away.

The massive audience hall was empty save for Korlandril. He paced around the broad steps, looking at the long circles of runes around the central platform, each an Aspect shrine. Some were worn thin by generations of feet, others as bright as the day they had been inscribed. As he circled slowly, he recognised the pattern. The oldest shrines were at the centre, many of them Dire Avengers, Striking Scorpions, Howling Banshees, Swooping Hawks and Dark Reapers. There were duplicates, their runes careful variations of their parent shrines, each moving further from the dais. New runes appeared, of Aspects unknown before—Crystal Dragons, Warp Spiders, Shining Spears. Outwards and onwards the history of Alaitoc’s warrior past spiralled.

On the innermost step, Korlandril stopped. He stood on a Striking Scorpion rune. Examining it closely, he read its name in the simple curls and curving cross-strokes. Hidden Death. It was unfamiliar, though he was sure he did not know the name of every Aspect shrine on Alaitoc.

In hiding he had come to the Aspect Warriors, and in death he was trapped. It seemed to make a form of sense. Was this what Kenainath had meant?

Korlandril quickly returned to the skyrunner and entered the Shrine of Hidden Death as his destination. Lifting into the air, the skyrunner turned a half-circle and then darted towards the rimward exit from the chamber. This led into the labyrinth of tunnels Korlandril had seen when coming from the Deadly Shadow. Left, right, and then ascending through a vertical fork, the skyrunner climbed towards the dockside area of Alaitoc, gaining speed. The wind pulled at Korlandril’s hair and face and tugged hard at his flapping robes as the skyrunner banked sharply to the right around a curve, spiralling downwards once more, flashing past other junctions.

Even with the considerable speed of the skyrunner, Korlandril was able to memorise the route, ingraining every twist and change of direction into his mind. The further he flew, the greater his hopes surged. It was not the thrill of speed that filled him, but the sense of belonging he yearned for. Along the tunnels and concourses the skyrunner took him closer and closer to his destiny. It sang in his ears with the thump of his heartbeat, coursing through every fibre.

This was the call mentioned by Kenainath.

It was the Time of Contemplation before the skyrunner began to slow, perhaps halfway around the rim of Alaitoc from the Deadly Shadow, nearly as far away as it was possible to get. Was this coincidence? Korlandril was quick to dismiss the idea. There was no coincidence at play. The infinity circuit, the great mind of Alaitoc, had guided him here, by some means or other. Korlandril did not fool himself that he understood everything that was happening, but was content to be buffeted along on its tide for the moment. He had wandered from the Path and become lost; it mattered not who guided him now. Only a single hope remained—to find the peace of battle he so sorely missed.

The skyrunner came to a halt outside an inconspicuous archway, sealed with a solid gate of deep emerald colour. Dismounting, Korlandril dismissed the skyrunner and it sped off around a bend in the corridor. Hesitantly, fearful that this place would reject him also, Korlandril approached the gates.

With a sigh, they swung inwards and a wash of warm air billowed out to engulf Korlandril in an airy embrace. He closed his eyes, savouring the smell of strong spice and the light touch of the breeze on his flesh, the brightness through his eyelids as of a sun close at hand. Opening them, he blinked twice to settle his eyesight and looked upon his new home.

Low dunes of red sand stretched across the dome, their boundaries obscured by distance. Here there grew scrubby patches of candlewood, their violet blossoms small but pungent. A burning orb hung low to his left, like an impossibly close sun, and even as Korlandril watched it sank further and further from view, until all that remained was a dusky glow, though the rest of Alaitoc was perhaps not much past mid-cycle.

Korlandril threw off his boots and robe and undid the ties from his hair, letting all fall free. Bare-footed and naked, he crossed the threshold and walked into the sandy swathes, feeling the particles beneath his soles, sliding between his toes.

Unnoticed, the gates swished shut behind him.

Korlandril wandered this new worldscape for some time, getting a feel for his position and for its atmosphere. It was like no other dome he had seen. The artificial sun disappeared, leaving only a red haze. Far in the distance he could see the glimmer of a forcefield and the glow of Mirianathir. He headed towards it.

Approaching the centre of the desert, his footprints gently swept away by the breeze, Korlandril felt a tremor. Stopping, he located the source of the disturbance, some way off to his left. As he headed in that direction the tremors became stronger, sending waves of sand cascading down the dune-sides.

Cresting a particularly high dune, Korlandril came upon a deep crater-like bowl, edged with a thin, high wall. The sands within the wall danced and bounced in agitation. With a rushing of sand, something erupted from the bowl, the red grains pouring from the stepped shelves of its structure. It was a ziggurat, a little smaller than the Shrine of the Deadly Shadow, made of yellow rock. The force of its arrival almost threw Korlandril from his feet as the sands slipped from underneath him.

A white light glowed from the slit-like windows and doorways of the lowest level. With a joyous shout, Korlandril ran down the slope towards the shrine. He paused at the low doorway—barely high enough to enter without stooping—and took a deep breath. The act did nothing to quell the excitement he felt. This place was like a Dreaming made real. Korlandril touched the rough surface of the doorway to assure himself that it was no phantasm. The light spilling from the shrine felt thick in his hands and heavy on his skin, but the stones were real enough.

As he stepped into the doorway, almost blinded, the light vanished, plunging all into darkness. Korlandril’s heart quavered for a moment and he stopped, taken aback by the sudden change. As his eyes adjusted, he became aware of a red glow, coming from around a corner ahead. Walking quickly, he followed the patch of dim light, turning left from the main passage into a side chamber. The glow was stronger, coming from an archway opposite, through which seven steep steps led down into the shrine. Coming to a U-shaped landing, Korlandril was confronted by two more archways. The light came from the left, now strong enough for him to see the walls to either side.

Along more corridors and through more arches Korlandril followed the strengthening glow, until it brought him to a low-ceilinged room much like the Deadly Shadow duelling chamber. There was no circle upon the floor but a stand holding an elaborate suit of armour. It was from the red gems encrusting the dark green plates that the light was coming. There was movement in the light; the gems were spirit stones. Seven in all, each containing the essence of a dead eldar.

Korlandril stood before the suit, admiring the curve of its plates, the solidity of its presence. He reached a hand out and touched the breastplate. His waystone flared in response, its glow merging with the spirit stones of the armour. A glimmer of a memory fluttered across Korlandril’s consciousness and he snatched his hand back.

The memory was gone. Perhaps he had imagined it.

Walking around the armour, Korlandril studied it closely. It was heavier than normal Aspect armour, the plates reinforced with additional spines and ribbing overlaid in gold. The craftsmanship was exquisite, every curve and line a harmony of functionality and style. Korlandril ran a finger along the back of a gauntlet, shivering with anticipation.

A spark of recollection jolted him away again.

“This is mine,” he whispered, his voice swallowed by the chamber.

Yours…

The voice was not a voice, but a thought. Was it Korlandril’s own thoughts, or something else? “I shall be the Hidden Death.”

Hidden Death…

The thought-echo lasted for a moment and disappeared, leaving no trace in his memory.

Korlandril stared at the armour for a long while, wondering who had created it, who had worn it, which enemies had fallen to its wearers.

Answers…

The time for hesitation and contemplation was over. For good or ill, Korlandril had come to this place—been led to it?—and it was here that things would change. For one who feared change so much it was the final answer. He would change no more. He would become the Hidden Death and remain so until he was slain. He could surrender willingly, leave the doubts behind, the struggle to adapt would be no more, the war within would be called truce.

All he had to do was accept what had become of him and put on the armour.