NECESSARY EVIL

Rob Sanders

THE WRAITHGATE SAT in damnation’s darkness, lit only by the dread twilight of the Eye. Dusted in brimstone, its curves and arches cut a skeletal silhouette into the puce yonder. Here, among the perversity of a daemon world - where reality was twisted and the impossible ruled - the portal waited in the gloom. It waited for a visitor: one with reason to leave the interdimensional labyrinth of the webway beyond and step through a gateway to hell. Not many would accept such an invitation, but in a place where time had little meaning, the xenos artefact did not have long to wait.

From the archway’s agitated nothingness proceeded the sizzle of warp static. Immaterial energies arced between the slants and barbs of the wraithgate’s alien architecture, shattering the space between. Drawing on unimaginable power, the portal scorched a hole through the fabric of time and space. Piece by piece, the reality beyond was assembled like the fragments of a stained glass window.

Bronislaw Czevak stepped forth from this new reality and out onto the surface of the daemon world. His eyes were unmistakably ancient, yet his features were those of a much younger man. His coat was an abomination of eldritch design and alien fabric: ankle-length, incorporating a nauseating clash of colour with the insanity of interlocking patterns. As its harlequin tails flapped in the light breeze, the fabric’s surface rippled with a form of alien field technology that played with the eye. Inquisitor Bronislaw Czevak of the Emperor’s holy Inquisition, interdimensional refugee. Hunted by the Ruinous Powers for what he could do; by the Imperium for what he had done; by the alien eldar for what he might do. Inquisitor Bronislaw Czevak - known himself to hunt, on occasion.

Taking in his surroundings, Czevak raised one furrowed brow. His shoulders sagged at the indication of a destination reached, before snapping the gilded covers of the Atlas Infernal shut and burying the antique tome in the depths of his alien coat. Still bathed in the protective purity of the book’s power and with the webway portal dying to inactivity behind him, the inquisitor jumped down from the gate and strode out across the hellish surface of an accursed world.

Nereus had once been covered with fertile oceans and even now no sand or soil graced its surface, just rust and sulphur-dust. Stamping, the inquisitor found that beneath the powder was solid metal. Wrinkling his nose at the rotten stench, he climbed an escarpment of reinforced scrap and corroded plating, reaching the irregularity of an apex ridge. From this vantage point, the inquisitor took in the daemonscape. The rusted archipelago extended for some distance and height, reminding Czevak of a volcanic island reaching out of the waters. The blood-red of a brimstone ocean boiled beyond, the sulphurous surf lapping up against the metal shore, encrusting the coast with yellow crystals. The waters thrashed with larval daemons, swarming and snapping like carnivorous fish in an evaporating pool. In the thin skies above, flocks of furies soared on the hunt for soul-prey.

Beyond the predators, Czevak was treated to an unnatural celestial phenomenon. In the night sky, he could see the gaping mouth of the warp rift known to Imperial Navigators as the Craw. While Nereus bathed in the warplight of the rift’s exit point, its twin raged to the galactic south, erupting without warning to snatch vessels on the Imperial trade routes that skirted the Eye. Reports of Imperial ships lost to the Craw had been circulating for nearly a thousand years, with lost vessels forming the mountain of scrap that now reached up from the depths to create the rusted peninsula. Far out to sea, Czevak could hear the mournful drone of daemonsong: monsters of the deep, rumbling below the waves. Above, furies had started to circle, drawn down by the scent of fresh flesh.

The daemons scattered unexpectedly.

Czevak squinted, then shook his head slowly. Against the backdrop of the Craw’s swirling vortex, a silhouette grew. The horror of a doomed vessel, freshly tossed from the mouth of the rift. A freighter. Wreathed in spectral flame, the ship streaked down through the daemon world’s atmosphere, on a crash course for the archipelago.

Czevak dropped down onto an expanse of rust-riddled hull plating and began to run. He felt the impact of the crash through the superstructure of the derelict below. As he sprinted, hurdling twisted scrap, he felt the ship grind its way up behind, cleaving through the hullscape. Time seemed to slow as Czevak became enveloped in the enormity of the catastrophe unfolding around him.

The metal quaked beneath him as the vessel’s prow struck the escarpment. The freighter flipped, its colossal aft section thrown up towards the sky. It balanced for an incredible moment, like a great ferruswood about to topple, before rolling over and crashing awkwardly down on its side. The freighter - already wracked with explosions - erupted, sending a shrapnel-storm rocketing in all directions.

Czevak threw himself to the ground, but a blast wave of debris struck him from behind. Metal bars shot past and sheets of hull plating pranged and rattled off the ground before the inquisitor. A section of decking flew overhead, smacking Czevak on the back.

With nothing but the hiss of the crash in his ears, Czevak lay there. Blood ran down the side of his face. There was also something wrong with his leg. Turning his head he saw that he was not the only body out on the sulphur-dusted expanse. Czevak’s eyes met those of an ejected crew member who was trapped nearby, under a flaming girder. There was little the inquisitor could do to help, but instinct prompted him to go to the man’s aid. He tried to get up but agony shot through his leg and letting loose an involuntary howl, Czevak allowed his throbbing head to sink back to the metal floor.

Something hit the metal beside him. At first the inquisitor assumed it was more debris but, as he blinked the blood from his eyes, he saw that it was a snaggle-fanged fury that had thunderbolted down from the wretched heavens. Tossing the huge girder aside with ease, the daemon sank its brazen talons into the victim’s flesh. With a swoosh of ragged wings, the thing shot back up into the sky, taking the screaming survivor with it.

As the static of the crash faded and became replaced with screams, Czevak fancied he could hear, of all things, a bell; the clear ringing of a solitary bell coming from beneath the ground. Again the flock of furies scattered. Beside him, a rust-encrusted pressure wheel began to turn, and a maintenance hatch opened in the floor. From the opening surfaced a young woman dressed in scavenged rags. Her face was gaunt and sulphur-smeared, yet full of determination. As she climbed out beside him, Czevak could make out the bump of a swollen belly beneath her rags. A filthy sling held an infant to her breast and several sallow children followed in her wake, clinging to the ragged edges of her cloak. About them hatches, airlocks and bulkheads opened in the archipelago floor. Tattered figures poured out: scrawny men, women and children emerged and spread out across the crash site. All looked thin and unhealthy; some were hunched, while others bore the affliction of extra limbs and cancerous growths. The underdwellers were clearly not daemons but had suffered in the toxic environs of a daemon world. On Nereus they could not hope to escape the warping influence of the Eye of Terror. If it hadn’t been for the nullifying influence of the Atlas Infernal, Czevak would long since have suffered the same fate during his travels. The horde began checking for survivors, scavenging from bodies and stripping salvage from the wreckage.

Turning, Czevak found the woman over him, checking his leg. She pulled back her hood to reveal a tumble of copper curls. She directed the children to gather around and the inquisitor felt their bony little fingers dig into his flesh. The redheaded woman inspected a wound on his scalp and then came in close to his face. She attempted a weak smile but her features fell out of focus. Czevak’s head hurt and he felt the irresistible pull of unconsciousness.

‘Your vessel crashed. We’re going to take you somewhere safe

‘ he heard her say, but his eyelids fluttered closed. As the darkness claimed him, Czevak was left with doubt that any such place existed on the daemon world.

THE INQUISITOR AWOKE on the grubby mattress of a medicae cot. Reaching for the dull ache in his temple, Czevak found a bandage around his head and a filthy intravenous line drooping from his arm. He was alone in a small, roofless cubicle of stacked crates. Above he could see flickering lumen-strips in the ceiling of a much larger chamber. Tensing, he thrust a hand into the folds of his harlequin coat. He found the Atlas Infernal where he had hidden it, and fell back on the cot in relief. He allowed himself the luxury of a moment’s further respite before tearing the morphia line from his arm in disgust and swinging his legs over the side of the cot. His right thigh burned, again with a morphia-dulled delay, and upon inspection Czevak found that it too had been tightly bandaged.

‘Going somewhere?’

Czevak looked up to find the woman he’d seen out on the archipelago in the cubicle doorway. She took her hands from where they rested on the bump of her belly and set to rearranging the infant at her breast within the ragged sling.

‘Where am I?’ Czevak asked, with little indication that he was about to engage in pleasantries.

‘Perdition’s Landing,’ she said, watching the inquisitor struggle to get to his feet before his thigh’s refusal to support him put him back down on the cot. ‘Careful, you’ll tear your stitches.’ She presented him with a shattered length of pipe. ‘We took this out of your leg.’

‘How long was I out?’ Czevak said, an expression of gratitude once again failing to fall from his lips.

‘About ten hours.’

‘Ten hours!’

‘About,’ the woman confirmed. ‘I’m Myra.’

‘I’m getting out of this cot,’ Czevak assured her.

Myra hovered for a moment before taking a makeshift metal cane from where it leant near the cubicle door and tossing it to the inquisitor. Snatching it out of the air, Czevak got to his feet. ‘Who’s in charge here?’

‘The Curator minds the colony’s interests,’ Myra replied.

Stabbing his cane into the metal floor, Czevak hobbled towards the cubicle entrance. ‘Well, I need to see this Curator. I needed to see him ten hours ago.’

‘The Curator is extremely busy with colony matters. He doesn’t usually meet initiates.’

‘Initiates?’

‘Newcomers,’ Myra explained. ‘The colony is the only hope for those left at the mercy of this world - and there is precious little of that. All who arrive at Perdition’s Landing join the colony, enjoying its protection and the fruits of collaboration. We are as one against the evil of this place.’

‘You say that the colony is the only hope for survival.’

Myra nodded.

‘I am the colony’s only hope,’ Czevak told her. ‘You think that the darkness of this place is the only thing to fear? As we speak, there is an evil that makes its way here, as I have. It is no casual malevolence, no indiscriminate daemonic dread. It is driven by unfathomable desire and its mindless servants will stop at nothing to satisfy its insatiable craving.’

‘Why would it come here?’ Myra asked.

‘Simple,’ Czevak told her. ‘You have something it wants.’

MYRA TOOK CZEVAK through the crooked quads and thoroughfares of the castaway colony. Perdition’s Landing had been constructed in the cargo bay of some ancient vessel, long buried below the surface of the crash-site archipelago. The settlement was a labyrinth of crates and salvage recovered from the vessels that had come to their end on the rusted surface above. Myra took the inquisitor through habitation quarters and small markets of salvaged wares, as well as sparse devotional spaces housing silent multitudes at prayer.

The colonists themselves were a motley collection. There were refugees of a hundred Imperial creeds and cultures, with a sprinkling of xenos unfortunates adding some exotic colour, but all uniform in their wretchedness. Their dirty faces poked out of ragged hoods, while tattered cloaks and shawls seemed the order of the day, presumably so that the men, women and children of Perdition’s Landing might hide the shame of their deformities.

With the morphia wearing off and the demand of the walk searing through his injured thigh, Czevak found himself rubbing his wound. About him, the surroundings began to change. Instead of the haphazard structure of crates, objects seemed to have been placed deliberately, exhibited almost. Myra led the inquisitor through shattered murals and frescos, cracked busts and dusty urns. Singed tapestries sat alongside faded paintings and ancient treasures. Hooded colonists looked to the antiquities with the care of reliquary custodians. Thousands of precious artefacts, from huge sections of gargoyle-encrusted architecture to torn tracts and verdigris-covered coins were hung, arranged and displayed about them. Above Czevak’s head a mighty bell was suspended, dull with age.

‘What is this place?’ Czevak asked.

‘This is the Archive,’ Myra replied. ‘The colony forefathers thought it important to keep a little of the Imperium alive in this benighted place. The Archive reminds us of where we came from. A haven of normality in the most abnormal of places.’

‘I heard a bell,’ the inquisitor said, peering up at the large instrument.

Myra reached out for the improvised bell cord that hung down and snaked about them on the floor.

‘It sounds the arrival of fresh wreckages and mobilises the colony for the reclamation.’

‘The reclamation?’

‘The warp rift might have marooned us here but it is also the source of uncorrupted supplies. Each wreck brings us food and fresh water, much needed equipment and, most importantly, arrivals like yourself. New blood, with knowledge and skills essential to the colony’s growth and security. The bell sounds and we all climb topside to recover salvage and survivors.’

Czevak shook his head.

‘What?’

‘I’m just

astounded,’ the inquisitor admitted. ‘How you have survived in this place, amongst its corruptive influence, amongst its threats?’

‘There is little we can do about those,’ Myra said. ‘The colony survives because it stands together. A collective. We stand as one, against all threats.’

A hooded colonist attending to the decorative detail on an aquila carved from dark wood looked up and approached them.

‘Admiring our collection?’ the colonist enquired. Czevak nodded up at the bell above.

‘Neutran. Early M37,’ Czevak told him. ‘Before the Abyssal Crusade but definitely post-Drachmere and the Volk Abstentions. Looks like a Gorshac or Vanderghash. Some form of Adamantique alloy with angelic depictions of the Adeptus Astartes. The Fire Claws, I believe. Probably a Gorshac, then. Vanderghash favoured ferrum.’

‘I’m impressed,’ the colonist told him. His smile was a warm greeting but his eyes were cold and piercing. ‘Few come to the Archive so qualified to be here.’

‘You’re the Curator?’

‘I am,’ he replied. ‘I look to the preservation of the colony’s treasures, both those alive and long dead.’

‘Then, Curator, this will concern you,’ Czevak announced. ‘A danger approaches that far exceeds the peril of your present circumstances. A war host intent on your destruction.’

The Curator raised a bald brow. ‘A day does not go by without one of our number falling foul of the predations of this world, but what would a war host want with us? How would they even know of our existence?’

‘That’s not important right now and I don’t have the time to explain it to you. Know only this: I found you - and they won’t be far behind. They never are.’

‘Who is this war host?’ the Curator demanded. ‘What do they want with us?’

‘They are witchbreeds and faith-traitors. Servants to Dark Gods. They come looking for an ancient artefact. A gift for their distant master. A relic of ruinous power.’

‘You believe this artefact to be here, in the Archive?’ Myra asked.

‘They search for the Bacillum Formidonis,’ Czevak told them. ‘The Dreadsceptre. An accursed crozius arcanum carried by the infamous Word Bearer Dark Apostle, Rhadamanthys - the dread Herald of Sicarus.’

‘I fear you talk of the Traitor Legions,’ the Curator spat. He shook his head. ‘You or any that follow will find none of their warped artefacts amongst our collection.’

‘Listen to me,’ Czevak implored. ‘Rhadamanthys is long dead, but the Fire Claws recovered the damned weapon from the ice world of Perboreas IX, where the Chaplain froze to death with dark prayers on his lips. It was said that no army marching with the Dreadsceptre before it could ever suffer defeat. With the Bacillum Formidonis, a fighting force would become unstoppable. This is what interests Ahzek Ahriman and the Thousand Sons—’

‘The Thousand Sons!’ Myra exclaimed.

‘You insult us with your accusations. We do not harbour artefacts of the damned here,’ the Curator seethed.

‘Curator,’ Czevak said. ‘Help me find the Dreadsceptre and destroy it. In return, I will take you and your people offworld, to safety. Perhaps not back to the Imperium, but certainly somewhere safer than this.’

The Curator turned angrily on Myra. ‘You bring me this false prophet?’

‘All of this,’ Czevak gestured with his cane, ‘is Neutran. Antiquities from the Fire Claws’ homeworld, no doubt loaded on the reliquary vessel that came to crash land here. The Adeptus Astartes masters of Neutra failed to tell your forefathers why such treasures were being evacuated. The Fire Claws were declared heretics by the Imperium and branded Excommunicate Traitoris for dealing in damned artefacts. The Dreadsceptre is here, hidden among Neutra’s holy relics, and your masters - now known as the Relictors - would have recovered the ruinous weapon, had your ship not fallen foul of the Craw. I’m here for that artefact.’

‘Spread not his lies,’ the Curator commanded, looking at Myra. ‘He is no saviour. There is no artefact and no threat. It is foretold. Our people will come for us. We shall be patient and await our deliverance. It will be our reward for preserving these great treasures so that they, like we, might join a greater collective. Only then will evil be wiped not only from this world but from the galaxy itself. It is foretold.’

With that, the Curator hurried off into the depths of the Archive.

Czevak looked to Myra.

‘Enough,’ she said softly. She lowered her eyes. ‘You’re bleeding,’ Myra observed, looking at the dressing on the inquisitor’s thigh.

Czevak said nothing, his mind elsewhere.

‘Stay here. I’ll get my kit,’ she said.

With Myra gone and blood running down his leg from his ruptured stitches, Czevak limped off after the Curator.

Turning the corner, the inquisitor was surprised to find himself at a dead end. A stone sarcophagus decorated the space, the carved detail of its lid slightly ajar.

Czevak hobbled across to the relic. Slipping his metal cane between the lid and the sarcophagus rim, the inquisitor prised the cover open and it slid across. Allowing the light of the chamber into the sarcophagus, Czevak found that the coffin lacked its stone bottom. Instead, a hole had been cut through the metal decking beneath and a flight of steps descended into the darkness. Czevak descended with them.

SEVERAL DECKS BELOW the cargo bay, Czevak began to question the rashness of his pursuit. He could have been in the same vessel or another derelict entirely; there was little in the way of illumination. Several times he had halted, massaging the savage burn in his bleeding thigh, and squinting into the murk. He was sure he’d seen the faint glimmer of movement and his imagination began filling in the blanks, painting a picture of daemon world monsters stalking the darkness of the colony underworld.

On a small landing, Czevak found he had to rest. The wound on his leg was streaming with blood now and the inquisitor felt it prudent to take off his belt and tie it off above the dressing. Leading off from the landing was a bulkhead. The metal door had been lowered but still cleared the landing slightly, allowing a little of the sickly light of the chamber beyond to filter through. Bringing his face down to the stairwell mesh, Czevak peered beneath the bulkhead.

As his eyes adjusted further, the inquisitor could make out the cloak-tails and sandals of various colonists standing about the chamber. They were gathered around a grotesque throne, two fat cloven-claws scraping the deck at its base. A shiver of horror ran through the inquisitor at the prospect of the daemonic monstrosity to which they belonged. One of the colonists came to his knees and with hood retracted, kissed the hideous feet. The Curator. It shouldn’t have surprised Czevak. The colony of Perdition’s Landing could realistically stand little chance of survival on Nereus without daemonic sponsorship.

The mesh began to quake beneath Czevak’s cheek. The boom of a bell rang through the derelict superstructure. With his movements masked by the pealing, Czevak hurried back up the steps. A fresh vessel-victim was tumbling out of the dark heavens and the colony mobilising for reclamation meant the Curator would be returning. As he staggered up the stairwell, Czevak couldn’t help feeling that it wasn’t the ascending Curator he had to worry about. In the back of his mind, the blackness below was giving birth to the obscene monsters of dark fancy. He heard a hiss right next to his ear. Unmistakable. Not the fleeting notion of an overactive imagination. With the shiver down his spine trumping the bloody blaze of his thigh, the inquisitor hurried, stumbling up the steps to safety.

*

CZEVAK FOUND MYRA below the bell, alongside a particularly unfortunate colonist. The ragged bell-ringer not only had a small mountain for a back but heaved on the cord with three muscular limbs.

‘Help me find this damned artefact!’ Czevak called as he approached. Time was running out for all of them. Myra couldn’t hear him above the boom of the bell and set to work immediately inspecting his thigh. ‘Leave it,’ Czevak snapped. ‘We have to find that sceptre.’

‘What?’ Myra said, angling her ear up at him.

‘Could you not do that?’ Czevak shouted at the bell-ringer, but the mutant’s brute features just creased with confusion.

‘Reuban,’ Myra called, putting her hand on his hulking shoulder. He released the rope and the bell slowed to silence above them.

‘What?’ Myra repeated but Czevak didn’t reply. He was staring up into the darkness of the bell. He gave a perverse chuckle before hobbling over to the wall and wrapping the cord around a section of recovered cathedral architecture. ‘What are you doing?’ Myra asked again. Czevak braced his cane between the gargoyle-encrusted stone and the Archive wall. Toppling the stone dead-weight of the relic, the irresistible tug on the cord tore the bell from the chamber ceiling. The great Neutran bell bounced, cracked and clanged to the metal floor.

‘What are you doing?’ Myra screamed.

Czevak limped over to the shattered dome of the bell. He stabbed at the darkness inside with the tip of his cane. The clapper within lay still. It appeared strangely at odds with the Neutran design of the bell itself. The clapper rod was adorned with raised glyphs and symbols of dark origin and the clapper head was a brazen, horned skull. The skull was encircled with metal bands, creating a globular cage shot through with spikes and giving the object the unmistakable appearance of a weapon.

‘The Bacillum Formidonis,’ Czevak said. ‘Dreadsceptre of the Dark Apostle Rhadamanthys.’

Myra went to say something.

‘Listen!’ Czevak hissed.

With the boom of the bell gone, the three of them could clearly hear the roar of engines.

‘What is it?’ Myra asked fearfully.

‘They’re here,’ Czevak replied. ‘Help me get this bloody thing topside. We have to destroy it.’

THE ARCHIPELAGO RANG with the sound of screams.

Czevak hobbled across the mangled landscape, assisted by Myra at his side. Behind them, the hunchbacked Reuban humped the further handicap of the Dreadsceptre across one shoulder. About them, a massacre unfolded. Haunting the sky like a sacrilegious ornament was a spacecraft, a warship. It had clearly reached Nereus by means other than doomed passage through the Craw and hung pristine and deadly in low orbit.

‘They have come, as the Curator predicted,’ Myra mumbled. Czevak recognised the vessel as a Traitor Astartes frigate and its markings as belonging to the Thousand Sons. He didn’t need to correct Myra, however, the teleporter flashes on the scrapscape below did that. Crowds of colonists emerged from the archipelago and fell to their knees at the sight of seeming salvation. As they did, Traitor Space Marines in ancient cerulean plate marched out of the light with the cold certainty of executioners. They opened fire with their bolters almost immediately, hammering the approaching colonists with precision fire in silent impunity.

‘You can’t help them,’ Czevak insisted as Myra came to an astonished stop.

‘We are as one‘

‘It’s over. Help me and help yourself,’ the inquisitor told her.

The Dreadsceptre clattered to the floor as Reuban dropped his burden and began an afflicted bound back towards the carnage.

‘Reuban!’ Myra called, tears rolling down her sulphur-smeared cheeks.

‘Think of your child!’ Czevak implored, his hand on her shoulder.

Reuban didn’t get far. The Thousand Sons were making short work of the colonists and, even at long range, their disciplined gunfire riddled Reuban’s unfortunate body with ragged holes. That was enough for Myra. She clutched the sling containing her infant closer to her chest with one hand and took up the unholy Dreadsceptre with the other. Together, the pair heaved the accursed crozius up the hull of a crashed alien vessel. They reached the precipice of an unnatural cliff face, where the crash-site peninsula met the bloody waves of the brimstone ocean below.

‘One.’

‘Two.’

‘Three!’

As Myra and the inquisitor released the ends of the ruinous object, the Dreadsceptre flew off the cliff-top and tumbled down into the surf. There the relic would be lost forever in the raging, daemonic depths.

Bolt-fire sang off the wraithbone nearby, announcing the approach of Rubric Marines. Abandoning his cane and snatching Myra by the hand the inquisitor ran for the warp gate. Czevak’s leg was sodden with blood and his thigh seared with pain but the thunder of armoured boots and bolter rounds drove the pair on.

‘Come on!’ Czevak roared, putting one arm around Myra’s shoulders and the other around her swollen belly. The two of them slid onto their backsides and skimmed down the sulphur-dusted wraithbone of the alien hull. Leaving a cloud of brimstone behind them, Czevak and Myra reached the bottom, a short distance from the warp gate. ‘This way,’ the inquisitor called, climbing up towards the portal.

On the summit of the wraithbone rise, the silhouettes of Traitor Marines punched through the cloud in indomitable pursuit. Czevak reached the gate first and began the rune sequence required to activate the ancient artefact. As the portal crackled to interdimensional life and began assembling an alternate reality behind him, the inquisitor reached down to help Myra.

‘Give me the child,’ he ordered. Myra was having difficulty climbing with the bulge of her pregnant belly, and the infant held to her breast in the sling presented a further burden. Slipping the babe out of the ragged material, she thrust the child up to him.

Czevak took the swaddling and parted the rags.

Within was no human child. Where there should have been innocent vulnerability, there was carapace and the horror of claws and jaws. A xenos abomination: a genestealer hybrid. Four arms. Bulbous head. An ovipositor slipping out from between needle-like teeth.

‘What’s wrong?’ Myra called from below. The revulsion on his face had frozen her to the spot.

Czevak looked at Myra. For the inquisitor it all began to fall into place: the colonists’ survival in such a hellish environment; their deformities; the collective. Perdition’s Landing did not benefit from daemonic sponsorship. The colony could protect itself. Czevak shuddered at the enthroned monster he’d discovered below the Archive. The Curator: the face of the cult. A genestealer cult, a brood, marooned here on a daemon world.

Czevak considered the Curator’s words to him, his insistence on their deliverance. On their joining a greater collective and how then the evil of the Eye would be wiped clean of the galaxy. Czevak nodded to himself. Should the xenos plague ever come for its lost brood, it might well assimilate the darkness of the Eye and leave this terrible place a barren empire of forgotten evil.

On the rise, still enveloped in the dust cloud, a shadow puppet show played out. Monstrous genestealers were climbing out of the floor, while silhouettes of the Thousand Sons marched on towards the new threat of alien abominations with impassive discipline.

With a heavy heart, Czevak handed back the infant to its confused mother. Looking down into her pretty eyes, he realised that Myra couldn’t see the monster in her arms, only the one before her, about to leave her and her child to their deaths on the surface of a damned world.

‘What are you doing?’ she said in disbelief as Czevak backed towards the portal. ‘Take us with you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he told her and, with grim determination, limped back through the interdimensional static of the webway portal. With a flash, she was gone - and the daemon world of Nereus with her.

Sealing the wraithgate, Czevak was left with possibilities. Perhaps the Thousand Sons would exterminate the genestealer brood in their futile search for the Dreadsceptre. Perhaps the xenos abominations would end Ahriman’s Rubric Marines and their armoured husks would join the Craw-spawned scrap of Perdition’s Landing. Turning his back on the portal, Czevak limped away - undecided which of the two hosts, the Chaos Marines or the xenos filth, were the more necessary of evils.

DEATHMASQUE

Graham McNeill

DEATH’S MESSENGER STALKED the streets of Tor Yvresse. Clad in a fuliginous cloak that cast off light and shadow in equal measure, he ghosted towards his inevitable destination with grim strides. He wore his hood up, and the gleam of a white porcelain mask beneath reflected distant torchlight and gave the impression of features moving from youth to death in a heartbeat. A few platinum tresses were all that escaped from behind the mask, like the last wisps of hair clinging to a fleshless skull.

He could hear voices raised in song and his bloodless lip curled in disdain.

On this night of nights, they mocked him with their vibrancy and sense of hope.

This portion of the city was in darkness, the magnificent buildings to either side of him empty and abandoned. No glow of candles or softly-shimmering magic shone from their lightless windows, and only ghosts haunted their echoing vestibules and dining chambers. He liked to roam the streets here, finding comfort in the silence and absence of the living. Solitude was peace, social interaction was torture, and he relished the time he could spend in the twisting, empty streets with only the ghosts of the past for company.

He remembered a time when Tor Yvresse had bustled with life. It had been a city of grace and wonders that outshone Lothern, which had been little more than a city-port in decline until Finubar the Seafarer became Phoenix King. This street had once boasted a thriving market where the choicest sweetmeats and pastries could be purchased. An epicurean delight, the many stalls had groaned under the weight of delicacies from all across Ulthuan, food and drink to satisfy even the most demanding gastronome.

Before the coming of the goblin king, he had come here with his brother and happily whiled away the hours haggling with traders, sampling dreamwine from Avelorn, shimmer-fish caught off the coast of Cothique and lion meat hunted in the forests of Chrace. It angered him now to think of those days, how he had wasted time with frivolity when the world was just waiting to tear away the comforting illusion of peace.

He turned a corner, following a marble-flagged thoroughfare that led to a wide amphitheatre where plays commissioned in the time of Aethis had been performed. His mother had loved the theatre and had come here with his father whenever the demands of duty allowed him the time.

He walked into the centre of the amphitheatre, hearing the long-dead voices of performers as they strutted across the proscenium, delivering their lines with theatrical aplomb. Even before the beginning of the end, he had loathed the theatre, preferring the blood-thundering fury of war. Like many of the brash asur his age, he had lived life with fierce relish, taking pleasure in the arts of death over all others. As a youth he had led daring expeditions to Naggaroth, fought the druchii on the shores of Ulthuan and slain the dread beasts that ventured from their lairs in the Annulii.

His mother had chided him for being so sombre in times of peace, but as he stood in the centre of the deserted amphitheatre, he knew time had proved him right. The songs from the distant festival were louder here, the perfect acoustics throwing back random echoes of words and music. Even in this gloomy, shadow-haunted part of the city, there was no escaping the fierce sounds of life resurgent.

He knew he would need to venture out into the festival. The thought held no joy for him, but there was blood to be spilled this night. The Festival of Masques was a time for wild abandon, the pursuit of excess without consequence. For some that meant indulgence in food, others in drink or opiates. Far more indulged their hedonistic impulses, flouting all bounds of decency behind their anonymous masks and painted on identities.

For others, it allowed darker appetites to be sated.

HE LEFT THE amphitheatre and made his way towards the centre of the city. At the heart of Tor Yvresse reared the gleaming tower of the Warden, and he made that his destination. The minstrel he came to find had announced he would play out his tale at Dethelion’s Theatre.

That would be the perfect place to end this charade.

The song-tale the minstrel was reciting had spread throughout Yvresse, and this grand retelling would no doubt be best served with the tower as a backdrop. He had the minstrel’s name, but little else to go on, but that was all he needed. In any case, a physical description would do him little good on this night. Behind their masks, the players of the city were invisible and free from repercussions.

Once again, he made his way through the empty streets. It seemed an age ago that the city had been so full that this many dwellings had been required to house its inhabitants. Since the invasion of the goblin king, the city could house many times the number of elves who called Tor Yvresse home.

The walls of the city were high and strong, made mighty by the magic woven into their construction, but there were too few warriors left to defend them. Tor Yvresse was finished as a bulwark against invasion, and the knowledge was galling. How could so formidable a city have come to such a low ebb?

The noise of the festival was getting louder, and he steeled himself for the discomfort and irritation that close proximity to others engendered. The music bounced from the walls, skirling through the streets like serpentine streamers of light. It sought to lift him, but only depressed him more. Anyone with a brain could see there was no room for songs of love and victory.

Just because elves still occupied Tor Yvresse didn’t mean it wasn’t already lost.

The street he was following bent to the north and a soft, flickering glow of light, both magical and natural, illuminated the road. Ahead was the River of Stars, a street of magic and light, a place of wonder and glittering enchantment. Shadows danced on the walls, a mockery of life and animation that sent a spike of anger into his heart. The minstrel’s arrival had brought joy to the city, sending a spreading wave of euphoria through its inhabitants. Everyone had heard fragments of his song, but tonight would see it played out for people who had seen the events it described first hand.

The Theatre of Dethelion would play host to this rogue minstrel’s dangerous work, but surely anyone who had witnessed the bloodshed of the goblin king’s assault would balk at its horrors being told in song. Some things were best consigned to history - not forgotten, never that - but not celebrated. Not immortalised in song. He paused to draw a calming breath, feeling his hands bunch into fists. His was a quick temper, but he forced his anger down with a series of mental exercises taught to him by his father.

He turned into the River of Stars and let the full force of the festival wash over him.

EVERYWHERE WAS LIGHT and magic. The elves of Tor Yvresse, normally so stolid and not given to gaudy behaviour, thronged the streets in their hundreds. They wore their grief like a cloak, but tonight it was cast off as costumes of all description and colour bedazzled the eye. Revellers dressed in a riot of flesh and fabrics that would make a courtesan of Lothern blush. Magical will-o’-the-wisps darted overhead, flitting to the sound of music played by unseen lyres and flutes.

Fire breathers capered in the centre of the street, and a spellsinger wove their blazing exhalations into dancing forms above the heads of the crowd. Blazing representations of colourful dragons, eagles and battling warriors burned the sky. A troupe of dancers and tumblers spun and wove through the fire, twirling in tight spirals as they performed an ancient dance from the time of Aenarion. Their robes were like wings and they moved as though in defiance of gravity.

He moved into the mass of cavorting anarchy, feeling the press of bodies around him like a physical pain. He longed for his rune-encrusted sword, but the shimmering chimera-skin sword belt lay in his bedchamber. Only a slender, leaf-bladed dagger hung at his thigh, in defiance of the joyous spirit of the festival.

The fire breathers moved on, and another band of entertainers took their place, a host of painted figures more akin to the barbarously insane wardancers of the asrai than any noble family of Ulthuan. Like the acrobats before them, they darted through the crowd, spinning swords and spears in dazzling displays of martial skill. Their oiled bodies gleamed in the torchlight, and laughing revellers pawed at them with lewd caresses.

He felt the woman’s touch coming a heartbeat before she made contact with his arm.

He spun, catching her wrist as it reached out to his shoulder. Acting on instinct, he twisted the wrist and sent his free hand pistoning towards her masked face.

His fist never connected, the killing blow intercepted a hair’s breadth from the bejewelled features of her mask. As he held one of her wrists, she too held one of his. They released each other in the same instant, and he stepped back as the crowd pulled away, his violent outburst a flagrant breach of festival etiquette. The woman straightened and massaged her shoulder where he had twisted it fiercely.

She took in the darkness of his robe, and the pale, lifeless white of his half-hidden mask.

‘You are fast,’ she said. ‘As a banshee should be.’

‘As are you,’ he replied. ‘I might have killed you.’

‘But you did not. Be thankful for that, for it would have displeased my husband greatly, and he is a great hunter.’

‘Really?’ he said. ‘And who is he, this great hunter?’

She cocked her head to the side, and he saw that her eyes were the most brilliant amber colour. Silver flecks of icy white glittered there, and he saw her great sadness, like a mother who has outlived all her children. Golden hair, like fresh-ripened corn, framed a delicate heart-shaped mask of silver with a single painted tear that curved down her cheek.

‘You know it is impolite to ask for names during the Festival of Masques.’

He shrugged. ‘Then do not answer. I care not.’

He turned to walk away, but the woman caught up with him.

‘I will tell you if you really want to know.’

She had intrigued him at first, with her speed and secret beauty, but he was already weary of her presence and had no wish to indulge her further. He had work to do.

‘His name is Kurnous,’ she said, and he stopped in his tracks.

‘Ah,’ he said, without turning. ‘You are mad.’

She danced around him, trailing her fingertips over his chest. ‘If grief makes one mad, then yes, I suppose I am.’

‘Your husband is dead, is he not?’

‘No, not dead,’ she said, looking furtively around her as though afraid of being seen talking to him. ‘He is merely

elsewhere.’

He pushed on through the crowds, watching a tumbler in the guise of Loec spin and laugh through the revellers like a mischievous child. A troupe of cloaked shadows followed him, forever dancing to unheard music and never stopping. The followers of the Shadow Dancer were capricious and given to unpredictable behaviour, teasing and cajoling, stealing and giving offence in equal measure.

‘I love watching their dance,’ said the woman. ‘It gives me hope.’

‘Then you are deluded as well as mad,’ he replied, increasing his pace.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because hope is a fool’s refuge. Where is the hope left to this world?’

‘Look around you, banshee. It is everywhere. You can see it in every smile, taste it in every tear and hear it in every tune. It is sung from the highest tower and every shadowed arbour. Even in the darkest times, there is always hope.’

He rounded on her as a carnival of sword dancers paraded down the street, their blades spinning silver webs around them, through which the followers of Loec tumbled and twisted. Wild cheers echoed from the buildings to either side of them, and the music swelled in volume as the crowd applauded their skill.

The woman gripped his arm in fear as the warriors moved past, their leader naked save for a crimson mask of Khaine.

‘Their swords are bloody,’ she said.

‘No, it is just the firelight.’

She gripped him tighter. ‘You are wrong. Khaine’s swords are always bloody. Vaul’s labours are never-ending, and many are the weapons of infinite cunning he crafts for the wars against the Dark Prince. And no sooner are they forged than they are bloody.’

‘I see no blood,’ he said. ‘Only the silver-white of the finest ithilmar.’

‘You do not see the blood, for you do not know grief as I know it,’ she replied.

Anger touched him, and his hands bunched into fists. His heart surged with the urge to strike her, to show her just how well acquainted he was with grief. He had sacrificed all that he had in service to Ulthuan, and still that had not been enough. No one knew the terrible price he had paid to keep these lands safe, and she thought the loss of a single loved one could outweigh his pain?

‘Your anger will be your undoing,’ she said, and his fury ebbed to the point where he felt he could speak without violence.

‘I know grief,’ he said, every word forced from behind clenched teeth.

‘You know mortal grief,’ she said. ‘When you must watch the beautiful children you love above all else wither and die throughout eternity, then you will know true anguish.’

Yvresse had more than its share of grieving widows and mothers; goblins, druchii and men had seen to that. Every family in the city had suffered loss, and the white cloaks of mourning were more common on the city streets than the gaudy silks of Lothern’s latest fashions. He remembered his own father’s death, which had been swiftly followed by his brother’s. He had had no time to mourn, the demands of war allowing no respite for grief.

Chains of duty held him fast, and the life he had known, where hope and the promise of a return to the Golden Times, was a distant memory. This woman was an irritating distraction, and had already wasted too much of his time. Whatever sorrow had undone her sanity was of no interest to him, and he stepped away.

‘I must take my leave, madam,’ he said. ‘I am sorry for your loss, but I have other duties to attend to this night.’

‘On festival night?’ she said. ‘Tor Yvresse sheds tears enough throughout the year, do not sully this one night of revelry and hope with anything as tawdry as duty. All year, these people mourn and walk through life like shadows. Allow them this one night to remember that they are alive, to act with abandon and live a few hours without fear for the future.’

‘They should fear for the future,’ he snapped, no longer caring whether he offended her with his boorish behaviour. ‘The future is blood and war, death and grief. That is all there is, and all there will ever be. To believe anything else is delusional.’

He turned and moved deeper into the crowd, ignoring offers of companionship from naked elves of both sexes. Their painted bodies writhed in the magical light that bathed the city, and the tempo of the music increased the deeper into the city he went. From street corners, he heard snatches of verse, drifting echoes of the minstrel’s song. His heart hardened with every fleeting glimpse of joy, every tantalising echo of the hateful ballad that told of the city’s greatest battle. Everywhere he looked, he saw eyes shining with tears, yet they were not tears of sorrow and emptiness, they were shed in newfound hope and the promise of a better tomorrow.

‘Fools,’ he hissed, watching as couples swayed in time to the song.

‘Is it foolish to believe things can get better?’ said the woman, appearing at his side.

He sighed. ‘Will I never be rid of you?’

‘Never,’ she answered with a laugh like the chiming of silver bells. ‘It is my nature to be persistent, to always believe that spring’s hope will follow winter’s despair.’

He halted as pleasurable warmth spread through him, the restful peace of a good night’s sleep. Ever since that night in the tower he had been wracked by dreadful nightmares, and had almost forgotten how it felt to be rested. He turned to face the woman, feeling her hand in his, though he had not felt her take it.

‘After all, a world of winter will die, just as surely as a world of summer. Hope is the light that offers a chance for life, and without it there will only ever be darkness. Remember that before you drive that dagger home.’

He snatched his hand back as though burned. The crowd surged, and a star-burst of magical fire exploded overhead to rapturous cheers. Spirals of white and gold light tumbled through the air, and a thousand songs filled the glittering heart of the city, drifting out through the empty streets, abandoned villas and deserted markets. Distant echoes seemed to answer, the memory of those beyond death roused by the potency of this night.

The sounds faded and he looked for the masked woman, but she was nowhere to be seen.

‘Thank the gods for that,’ he muttered, turning and following the crowd.

To Dethelion’s Theatre.

THE GREAT DRAMATIST Dethelion of Tiranoc had penned some of Ulthuan’s greatest artistic works, such as The Forest of Midnight, Amelia and Timore, as well as composing many of its most heart-wrenching songs of lament. His work had travelled beyond Ulthuan’s shores, though little of the true power of his works survived translation into human tongues. The songs men knew of the fey folk were poor shadows compared to the originals. Dethelion had been a melancholy poet, his works inevitably ending in tragedy, with star-crossed lovers doomed never to find happiness, heroes cursed to triumph at the cost of everything that mattered to them most.

He had read all of Dethelion’s compositions, and admired the long-dead poet’s work greatly. Despite the grand melodrama of his epic tales, there was a commendable lack of sentimentality to his characters. Was it an affront to have this minstrel’s work played out in Dethelion’s theatre, or was it more apt than he cared to admit? In truth, he did not know.

The excitement of the crowd was palpable, a delicious frisson that passed from skin to skin like a charge of tingling magic. He felt it pass through his own flesh, the gestalt magical nature of his race buoying him up on a wave of shared wonderment. He viciously suppressed the feeling, knowing it would only serve him ill were he to be caught up in the tale like the rest of these fools.

These are your people, said a treacherous voice inside him.

He shook his head as the River of Stars widened into a great piazza which, to the untrained eye, appeared to be ruined. Designed by Dethelion himself, it was a recreation of one of the ancient cities of Ulthuan that now lay at the bottom of the ocean. No one now remembered the city’s name, though it was said that its ruins could be seen far beneath the waters off the coast of Tiranoc when the skies were bright and the seas calm.

Fashioned from artfully sculpted stone of pale blue and green, it resembled a coral reef raised from the rock upon which Tor Yvresse was built. It had all the appearance of a labyrinth, yet no matter where a viewer was to stand, they would have a perfect view of the proscenium. Islands of tiered seats worked in fluted stone and bathed in the light of the stars gave prince and pauper an unrivalled perch from which to enjoy whatever play or drama was to be acted out before them.

Beyond the majesty of the theatre rose the Tower of the Warden.

Its blue marble was subdued, where normally a fine web of magical energies pulsed through its stonework. Its base was obscured by the rained artifice of the theatre, yet its windowless length reared up over the skyline, dominating the fanged peaks of the Annulii in the distance. Crepuscular light glimmered weakly from the Warden’s lonely windows, and a single balcony gave its solitary occupant an unrivalled view of his empty city.

Shadows danced in the window, as though a lonely figure stirred within, and he turned away from the sad tower. It was within the tower that the city had been saved, and a soul damned. He never knew how to feel whenever he saw the tower from this angle, for it was a symbol of great victory and a reminder of dreadful loss.

A figure jostled him, an elf clad in a robe and horned mask intended to render unto him the semblance of Orion, the atavistic huntsman of Athel Loren. It was a poor likeness, for the King of the Wild Wood was a fearsome avatar, a ferocious, elemental force that chilled the soul with its rapacious fury. The figure bowed to him with an ululating laugh, and spun away into the crowd. The sight unsettled him, for he was seeing the faces of gods in every fleeting glimpse of a mask, every half-concealed smile. The Festival of Masques was a time of miracles and raptures, when poetic souls claimed that the gods might walk the earth, but he had never thought it to be a literal sentiment. He shook off his unease and moved on, pushing ever closer to the stage.

Never before had the theatre played host to so many. Every portion of wall and tier was occupied, all of Tor Yvresse spilling from their draughty homes to listen to this minstrel’s tale of their greatest tragedy. It seemed at once abhorrent and self-flagellating to come out in such numbers to hear the tale of so terrible a battle.

He moved through the throng, making his way towards the stage, where the lilting sounds of music and voices preparing for song could he heard. He attracted no little attention as he moved with grim purpose, each masked face that turned in his direction quickly averted as the eyes behind it beheld his garb as one of Morai-heg’s deathly messengers.

The dagger at his side grew warm, and he realised he was gripping its hilt tightly. He couldn’t remember slipping a hand beneath his dark cloak, and it took all his self-control not to draw the weapon. He blinked away a blurred red haze from his eyes, pushing through the murmuring crowds with ever greater urgency as he felt his heartbeat pulse in time with the swelling music. The light, the noise and the heat assaulted him, and the breath caught in his throat as he felt the crowd pressing in on him, smothering him and threatening to crush him beneath their constant demands, the never-ending duty and the fear that he could never match up to their expectations. He was deep in the labyrinth of twisting walls and passageways, lost in a maze of possible routes, and his skull throbbed with pain.

He paused, releasing his grip on the dagger and pressed his hands to his temple. The pain building behind his eyes was like a spike of hot iron driven into his skull. He threw back his head and loosed a wail of anguish and pain, the sound echoing from the walls of the theatre and bouncing back and forth across the suddenly quiet crowd.

The silence that followed his wail was like a void in the world, an emptiness of the soul, and he ran from the hostile stares and quizzical looks he was attracting. He ran past dancers, singers, musicians, spellsingers and weavers of enchantments. The beat of hammers rang from the walls, sparks flying as a blind and hooded priest of Vaul shaped swords and armour by the light of the moons.

He ran until he came to a secluded hollow behind the stage, where a trio of brightly painted wagons had been left. Each was gaudily coloured and lacquered so that their flanks shone like rainbows in the light reflected from the tower. A tall elf with lush features and silver hair stood beside the wagons, pacing back and forth and waving his arms as though debating with an army of invisible ghosts. Alone of all the people he had seen tonight, this elf wore no mask, but was clad in armour that was ludicrously impractical, and so ornamented in gold and over-elaborate fretwork that it would be impossible to wear in combat.

A long sword was belted at his waist, but it was too low to draw without effort. Whoever he was, this elf was no warrior.

The costumed elf turned and his handsome features paled at the sight of him.

‘Dear boy, one does not sneak up on one of artistic temperament dressed thusly,’ said the would-be warrior.

‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I believe I am lost.’

‘Aren’t we all in the grand scheme of things?’ replied the handsome elf, taking a step towards him and extending his hand.

‘I am Narentir,’ said the elf. ‘You may have heard of me.’

Narentir’s features were soft, gentle even, and his warrior’s garb now seemed offensive. Only one who had faced the enemy and drawn blood had the right to dress like this. Not some poet who took the horrors of others and turned them into bloodless dramas.

‘I have heard of you,’ he said, feeling his heart-rate return to normal. ‘In fact I have sought you all night.’

‘But of course you have,’ said Narentir, closing his eyes and smiling, tilting his head back to breathe in the air and listen to the murmur of the crowd from beyond. ‘Everyone in Tor Yvresse has come to see me. My music and poetry fills a need in these people they did not even realise they had until tonight, an unrequited urge to relive their greatest joy and most poignant sorrow.’

‘Some sorrows should be left alone,’ he snarled. ‘No good can come of reopening old wounds.’

‘I disagree,’ said Narentir, oblivious to his threatening tone. ‘If we ignore such wounds they fester like the fruit left too long on the branch. No, we must embrace the glories of the past and all our memories of them. Those joyous and those painful, for without the bitter the sweet tastes not so sweet.’

The hilt of the dagger slipped into his hand once more, and the urge to plunge the blade into the minstrel’s neck right now was almost uncontrollable.

‘You speak of things you do not know,’ he said. ‘You sing songs of honour, hope, love and triumph, when such things are for children’s stories. They are not the way of the real world.’

Narentir laughed. ‘Oh, my dear fellow, how mistaken you are. You, who come dressed as a harbinger of death, have allowed the grim fatalism of Morai-heg to enter your soul, but I now see that your arrival is the very thing that will make this night complete!’

A swelling roar of applause began spontaneously as the gathered elves sensed that the grand retelling they had come to witness was about to begin. Narentir swept forward and took him by the arm, leading him up a curved flight of steps towards the marble proscenium. His heart filled with warring desires as he realised where Narentir was taking him.

‘The Tale of Eltharion is nothing without the spectre of death hovering in the wings!’ exclaimed Narentir. ‘I am but one player, and in my time play many parts, but you will be my muse, the living promise of death’s dark shadow. What say you, nameless banshee, will you strut upon this lonely stage with me, the darkness to my light?’

He hesitated, unsure of the turn this night had taken. ‘I will,’ he said at last, feeling a measure of the minstrel’s enthusiasm pass between them.

‘Wonderful,’ said Narentir, striding past onto the stage as the throats of Tor Yvresse opened to welcome him. Still clutching the dagger, he followed the minstrel as he took his position and the applause began to fade. He had expected the ludicrously armoured elf to wax lyrical upon taking the stage, but he began his tale without grandiose pontificating.

Narentir spoke with the perfect pitch and timing of a professional teller of tales, a saga poet with the power to enchant an audience with words. Like all good storytellers, he set the stage upon which his tale would be told, a mordant coastline of mist and shadow amid a storm of ill-omen. From this splintered darkness came the goblins, a ragged fleet of them, drunk on slaughter and hungry to wage war on the island home of the asur.

From the wings of the stage, he felt Narentir’s gaze upon him and he stepped onto the stage, letting the shadows curl around him as he prowled the edges of this retelling of his nightmares. His anger built as he heard Narentir speak of the goblin king, he who called himself Grom. Prowling the stage, Narentir’s voice dropped as he spoke of how the goblins had laid waste to the land of Yvresse, burning mansions and castles that had stood for thousands of years in a single night.

The audience responded to his softly-sung tale as the music built from wistful lament to horror. Emotions filled the air, and even though he knew the truth of those days, his throat choked as Narentir retold the fall of Athel Tamarha and the death of Lord Moranion. He had not seen that beautiful castle burn, and had never visited its blackened ruins, but as Narentir spoke of Lord Moranion’s selfless valour in facing the goblin king, he dearly wished he had taken one day to fly to the fallen castle and breathe in the past.

He was circling Narentir, and the audience gasped as they saw him clearly now. The dagger was unsheathed in his hand, and Narentir nodded to him as he drew closer with every circuit. He barely heard the rest of the tale, his attention fixed on the pale neck of the minstrel. A vein pulsed below the curved sweep of his jaw, an ideal place for the keen point of a blade to plunge home.

What an ending this would be. Not the terrible battle fought around the Warden’s Tower, but the curtain falling on the narrator’s death. No one who saw this bloody truth would fail to see the lie of hope. Without its weight, the elves of Tor Yvresse would be free to fight with the grim knowledge of their doom, for what warrior ever fought harder than the one with nothing left to lose?

The clouds parted and stars came out in droves, bathing the stage in their ancient glow. Narentir’s armour shone with their light, and he now displayed not the soft features of a minstrel, but the hard, hollow-cheeked visage of a killer. So complete was the transformation that he paused in his circular path, the breath catching in his throat as Narentir sang the conclusion of his tale.

Behind him, the tower shone in the starlight, as though a willing participant in this retelling. He listened as Narentir held the audience spellbound in the palm of his hand, singing in hushed tones of Eltharion entering the tower with his closest companions and returning the following morning alone.

He felt a keening moan of sorrow begin in the back of his throat as he thought back to that terrible night. The horror and unimaginable sacrifices he had made that night were too awful to remember, and here they were being paraded for the aggrandisement of a mere bard. He took a step towards Narentir, the dagger’s blade glinting in the moonlight. The crowd hushed. Not a breath of wind or a rustle of fabric disturbed the silence. He and Narentir might as well have been the only two souls left in the world.

Narentir turned to face him, and they walked towards one another slowly. He lifted the dagger until it was aimed at Narentir’s throat. A chill passed through him, and he heard distant laughter, at first girlish and full of childhood mischief, then rich with age-won wisdom, finally brittle and cackling, like that of an ancient crone.

His steps faltered, and he looked out into the audience. An entire city watched him, utterly still and silent but for one figure, a woman robed in cream with a silver mask. She seemed to glide through the audience, though no one acknowledged her. Wherever she passed, he saw the faces of the elves around her bathed in light. Every one of them shone with hope and joy, their spirits soaring to hear how Eltharion had saved them all.

He saw the strength and courage that filled them. His example had lifted them to greater heights of nobility than ever they could have imagined. They loved their grim liege-lord, understanding on levels they could never articulate that he had sacrificed everything he was to save them.

Hope is the light that offers a chance for life, and without it there will only ever be darkness.

He stood face to face with Narentir. Barely a foot separated them, and the minstrel tilted his head a fraction, exposing the delicate flesh of his neck.

‘Do you still desire to slay me, my lord?’ he said, fear making his voice tremble.

The dagger shook in his hand. He looked out into the audience, hoping for another glimpse of the silver-masked woman. The audience waited with bated breath to see what would happen next, knowing that events of great moment were unfolding before them.

Would it be murder or salvation?

He lowered the dagger. ‘You know who I am?’ he asked.

‘You are Eltharion, Warden of Tor Yvresse,’ said Narentir. ‘And you are here to kill me.’

‘You knew?’

Narentir nodded. ‘I knew the moment I heard your banshee wail.’

‘Yet you did not flee?’

‘What would have been the point?’ said Narentir, his voice regaining a measure of composure. ‘I could die alone begging for life, or I could die on stage, remembered forever by all who saw me struck down. Which would you choose?’

‘You are braver than you look,’ said Eltharion.

Narentir laughed in relief. ‘I assure you I am not, my lord. If this has been my greatest performance, it is in no small measure thanks to the fear that your dagger would spill my blood across this fine stage. Dethelion would, I am sure, have approved of the suitably tragic ending for the noble minstrel.’

Eltharion took a deep breath and turned to the crowd. He reached up and tore off his mask, letting it fall to the stage. It shattered with a thwarted shriek, and Eltharion sighed to be rid of the ghastly visage.

The crowd erupted in applause, and wild cheers filled the air as Narentir took his bow. Though Narentir waved at him to do likewise, Eltharion did not follow the minstrel’s example, for this night was not his. It belonged to Narentir.

‘What changed your mind?’ asked Narentir as he stood straight once again.

Eltharion considered the question, and the ghost of a smile split his bloodless lips.

‘I met a woman,’ he said.

‘Ah, the fairer sex,’ said Narentir with a theatrical sigh. ‘Truly they tame the raging beast within us and make us yearn to be better than we are. Was she beautiful?’

Eltharion tried to picture the woman, her golden, corn-coloured hair and amber eyes, but the image was already hazy and indistinct. His gaze swept the farthest reaches of the theatre, longing for one last sight of her. He caught a flash of golden hair and a mask of purest silver at an arched entrance. Though a great distance separated them, he could see the pools of her amber eyes as though she stood right next to him. The silver that concealed her face no longer seemed like a mask, but the embodiment of her divine radiance.

A single tear rolled from her eye and a great weight lifted from Eltharion’s heart. The doom he had brought upon himself on that dread night remained, as it always would, but the all-consuming despair that had almost driven him to murder was gone.

She had come to save him, when he had not even known he needed saving.

‘Who was she?’ asked Narentir. ‘This handmaiden to whom I owe my life?’

‘She was hope,’ said Eltharion. ‘Simply hope.’