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Archmage – Evan Dicken

About the Author

An Extract from ‘The End of Enlightenment’

A Black Library Publication

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ARCHMAGE

by Evan Dicken

Cerith Anlethir watched the tower burn. Sorcerous flames devoured gleaming marble as the living spell overwhelmed the warding runes and annihilated the Lumineth within. It was an artist’s rendering, one of a thousand such animate visions crafted by Syari magewrights, for there were none alive now who remembered the Ocari Dara, none except the gods.

As it always did, the sight conjured a cold tightness in Cerith’s chest.

‘The perils of magic uncontrolled.’ Cerith turned to address the score of arcane initiates ranged around the lecture hall. ‘Each school was convinced their vision alone stood supreme, to compromise even one aspect was to see the whole shattered. Pride masquerading as righteousness.’

An initiate raised her hand. ‘But is it not right for an artist to take pride in their work?’

‘Pride in work, pride in accomplishment – great Teclis teaches these are worthy endeavours,’ Cerith replied. ‘But when pride takes root in one’s heart, arrogance blooms.’

‘And the living spells?’ she asked. ‘How could the ancients lose control of their own enchantments?’

‘Magic is not craft, requiring only knowledge, talent and practice.’ Cerith noticed movement near the rear of the chamber, and glanced over to see Master Seraval, his pale robes almost luminous in the half-light. Cerith acknowledged the mage’s presence with a slight nod, receiving nothing but cold scrutiny in response.

‘It is will that imbues the arcane,’ Cerith continued. ‘A sorcerer weaves each incantation with threads of their very being. Like art, magic can achieve life beyond its creator’s original intent – only, in this case, we mean “life” in a very literal sense.’

‘Are all spirits rooted in such sorcery?’ another initiate asked. ‘From whence sprang Celennar? Or the Stoneheart King?’

‘A fair question, but one for another day.’ Cerith waved a hand across one of the firefly globes scattered around the chamber. Blinking in the sudden light, his students gathered up their scrolls and arcane minutiae.

‘Next lesson, we will be discussing Yvira’s Lament of Broken Spires,’ Cerith called as his students began to file from the room.

Seraval remained behind, arms folded within his robes, bright blue eyes cold as a Ymetrican wind.

‘You oversimplify.’ The mage’s words came like a spear thrust.

Cerith waved the enchanted mirror to darkness, then shouldered his satchel.

‘I hardly think first-year initiates are prepared for the complexities of recombinant foci.’ Cerith slipped past the younger aelf with a respectful bow. Although Cerith had been at the Lyceum longer, Seraval was a mage, and power overmatched seniority.

‘The same could be said of some masters.’ Seraval followed him into the hall with a hiss of robes on stone. The barb earned a stifled chuckle from the initiates lingering outside the lecture hall. Cerith gave them a warning glance, and they scattered down the hall, albeit slowly.

‘If you are having difficulty, I would be honoured to tutor you.’

There was a gasp of indrawn breath from the lurking initiates.

‘You test my patience, old man.’ Seraval’s patient veneer melted like a morning fog. ‘It is enough you teach sorcery without the ability to work it.’

‘Can only the performer appreciate music?’ A flush crept up Cerith’s neck, but he kept his voice level, his tone respectful. Seraval’s arrogance was a flame fed by pride, and nothing Cerith did or said would quench it.

‘Hear, see, experience – yes. But truly understand?’ Seraval leaned close, eyes narrowed to glittering slits. ‘This is not a place for hobbyists, nor for retired Vanari to indulge their arcane fancies.’

Cerith took a deep breath, quelling the urge to respond in anger. He might lack ability, but his commitment to arcane study was as sincere as any mage’s. Seraval’s pride burned bright enough to blind, and only a fool threw more fuel upon a raging bonfire.

Cerith’s low bow hid the hard set of his jaw. ‘Each must strive for perfection in the life they are given.’

‘You dare quote Teclis to me?’ Seraval moved to block the hall.

Cerith felt the familiar prickle along his arms as arcane energy gathered around them. Like a heat mirage, it bent the air, sharp as woodsmoke in Cerith’s nose. But whatever enchantment Seraval was about to unleash fell away as a bell sounded.

High and clear, it echoed within the ears of all in the hall. Golden runes sparkled in the air. Seemingly woven from the motes of evening light, they formed two words:

Cerith. Come.

There was no need for clarification. All here knew where Cerith was bidden.

Seraval released the gathered magic with a casual flick of his wrist. ‘It seems the aelemental masters also question your fitness.’

Head low, Cerith hurried down the hall, Seraval’s self-satisfied grin like a knife at his back.

The grand hall was a marvel of light and air. Pale walls rose like snow-capped cliffs, unbroken by joint or mortar, their broad expanse fitted with hundreds of cut-crystal windows. In the brilliance of day, the hall was filled with prismatic brightness; at night, the soft glow of Celennar imbued the delicate spiralled pillars with an almost ghostly quality.

Cerith had expected to be met by one, or even several, of the Lyceum’s aelemental masters, but the hall stood empty, silent but for the distant cry of a prism hawk hunting in the last glimmer of evening.

It was not Cerith’s place to question the masters’ absence. His years in the Vanari Auralan Wardens had accustomed him to long stretches of inactivity. He employed an old patrol trick to keep his mind alert. Working through the foundational runes, he sought complementary aspects in his surroundings. Alaithi, the rune of mountains, was evident in the heavy stone of the chamber floor; Senlui, swiftness and accuracy, embodied by the delicate pillars and capstones; Ydriliqi, the river, reflected in the pale moonlight that seemed to flow like water through the high windows.

Cerith noticed a shimmering ripple pass down the moonlight, a lambent tremor that seemed to echo through the chamber as a whole. Like mirror-caught light, the shafts bent towards one another, their brilliance multiplying until the centre of the hall shone bright as day. From the silvery glow stepped a tall figure clad in simple robes of blue and white, his hands empty, his head adorned with little more than a circlet of twining aetherquartz.

Though they had never met, Cerith would have recognised his god anywhere.

‘Master Teclis…’ Cerith dropped to his knees, forehead pressed against the cold marble.

A hand fell upon his shoulder. Gently but firmly, Teclis guided Cerith to his feet.

‘No Vanari need ever kneel before me.’ The Archmage’s voice was soft, but seemed to press upon Cerith like a physical weight. His limbs felt wooden, and it was all he could do to keep his feet as Teclis’ gold-flecked gaze pinioned him sure as an Auralan bowshot.

‘I am sorry the aelemental masters are not here to welcome you, lord,’ Cerith stammered. It was as if there were a silken cord around his chest, drawing tighter with every breath.

‘They are not here because I did not ask for them.’ Teclis glided back, seeming almost to float upon the flow of moonlight that suffused the chamber. ‘I came for you, Cerith Anlethir.’

‘There must be some mistake, lord. I am but a simple scholar.’

‘You would question me?’ Teclis’ rebuke came cold as a crashing wave.

Cerith leaned against a nearby column to steady himself, the tatters of his composure swirling away like scraps of burnt parchment. It was a long moment before he could find the strength to reply.

‘N-never, lord.’

‘Worry not, simple scholar.’ Teclis’ tone took all sting from the barb. The Archmage’s kind regard seemed to fill the whole of Cerith’s being with bubbling warmth. ‘It is not always power that carries the day.’

‘I am yours to command.’ Cerith began another bow, but caught himself as a grin flickered across Teclis’ face. He did not bother asking why the Archmage wanted him; Teclis would explain himself when the time was right.

‘Come. We must away.’ In a flare of brilliant light, Teclis was suddenly clothed in his war glory. Sword and staff gleaming in his hands, the great horns of his peaked helm echoed the gentle curve of the moon overhead. Prismatic fractals of arcane power flickered across the Archmage’s silvered breastplate, a thousand thousand runic permutations playing out faster than Cerith could comprehend. Where Seraval’s conjuring had come like a heat mirage, Teclis’ was a brand white-hot from the forge, impossibly bright, but expertly controlled.

It was only when the Archmage glanced back that Cerith realised he had been staring like a child overwhelmed by festival conjurings. He hastened to join Teclis in the circle of brilliance, shielding his eyes with one hand against the concentrated moonlight.

A shadow flitted amidst the ghostly radiance. Broad, elegantly pinioned wings spread above the figure; the hint of tawny muscles, of wide, curving horns, a face delicate as porcelain, yet hard as worked marble.

Celennar, the Spirit of Hysh.

Cerith gasped as the Lunasphinx’s avatar took hold of him, claws pricking through his robes, yet not breaking skin. There was a moment of weightlessness, then they were up and through the chamber windows, ephemeral as thought. Cerith glanced down to the courtyards and gardens below, scores of masters and students staring up as the Lunasphinx and her charges flitted overhead. Cerith was tempted to search for Seraval among them, but discarded the impulse as unworthy.

A mage’s pettiness amounted to nothing against the will of a living god.

‘You study living spells. I seek one of great power and subtlety, a terrible working crafted in the dying days of the Ocari Dara,’ Teclis began without preamble, his words cutting through the howl of the wind as if he and Cerith stood in quiet conversation. ‘Known as “the Winnowing”, it was meant to destroy the mightiest of mages, feeding upon arcane power.’

Cerith swallowed against the dryness in his throat. He had read of such horrible things – arcane gyres that devoured entire cities, feeding upon enchantments levelled against them.

‘I had thought all such abominations destroyed,’ Teclis continued as they flitted across mountain and valley, borne impossibly fast by the sweep of Celennar’s mighty wings. ‘But servants of the Dark Prince forever gnaw at the skeins of possibility. One of them, a Shardspeaker by the name of Arkathi, teased out the location of the Winnowing. Locked away against future need by mad and paranoid mages, it has been released once more, and gathers strength even now. Enough, perhaps, to compromise the fabric of Hysh itself.’

Celennar set them down near the ruins of an ancient city, fading back into diffuse moonlight with a flutter of broad wings.

Even at a distance, Cerith could feel the wrongness of the place – an unsettling thinness that seemed to tug at his concentration, bubbling like oil through cracks in the bedrock of his composure. Broken towers stood like shattered spears around the ring of tumbled marble that had once warded the bluff. The remains of palaces and temples spread along intersecting lines, their geomantic perfection marred by scars of blistered destruction carved into the very stone itself.

With a wave of his staff, Teclis drew the air around them like a cloak, folding reality over itself to form a temporary pocket of non-existence. Like a river around a stone, arcane energy flowed past them on every side.

‘Always hungry, the Winnowing seeks power like a hunting hawk. Even I cannot shield us from its attentions for long.’ Teclis regarded the ancient city with narrowed eyes.

Cerith stepped to his side. ‘What would you ask of me, lord?’

Teclis glanced to the ground nearby. Cerith followed his gaze to see a set of Auralan Warden armour, complete with shield and sunmetal Champion’s Blade. The thought of taking them up gave Cerith pause. What if his skills were not up to the task before him? To fail was one thing, but to fail his god… Cerith caught himself – once Vanari, always Vanari. He would do as he was bidden.

‘Senlui.’ With a nod, Cerith slipped from his robes and began belting on the armour.

‘Arkathi and his servants dwell within, drawing upon the horrors of this place to fortify their dark working,’ Teclis continued. ‘I would scour them from this realm, but Celennar and I burn like beacons. Our very presence lends strength to the Winnowing.’

‘I am but one Warden, lord, what am I to do against dark sorcery?’

‘Arkathi dare not use his magic lest the spell feast upon him as well. Celennar and I shall draw the Winnowing to us while you enter unnoticed.’ Teclis gave a quick nod. ‘I mean no insult, scholar, but mundanity shall be your surest shield. You must seek the centre of this broken place, the recombinant foci by which Arkathi draws forth this ancient horror.’

‘I will do all I can.’ The words seemed to catch in Cerith’s throat, and it was only with effort he continued. ‘But while I understand sorcery, I have not the power to break even simple enchantments.’

‘You will not go alone.’ Teclis turned to regard Cerith, his lips pressed into a tight line. ‘I shall send a sliver of myself with you, buried deep inside, dormant until the proper moment.’

Cerith took an unconscious step back. To bear even a fraction of Teclis’ power was daunting. ‘I am not sure if I have the strength, lord.’

‘To question yourself is to question my wisdom in choosing you.’

Cerith looked to his hands – weathered and scarred, but strong as old stone. It had been years since they had used a blade in earnest, but the sword and shield felt right in his grip, their weight a comforting presence at his side. A flutter of old pride rose in Cerith’s chest, but he tamped it down – arrogance would only slow him in the battle to come.

He dropped to one knee.

Teclis stepped forward to lay a hand upon Cerith’s brow. There was a flash of disorientation, a sense of seeing both from his eyes and Teclis’. Power flowed through him, eldritch formulations resounding through the corners of his mind. For a moment, Cerith felt true sorcery blossom within him – the ability not just to see, but to manipulate the threads of magic. Power pulsed around him, a complex weave of interrelated variables gleaming in the very fabric of Hysh itself.

When Cerith lifted his head, Teclis burned bright as the Perimeter Inimical, surrounded by an impossibly intricate constellation of sorcerous possibility. His connection to Celennar was a scintillating weave of brilliant silver, the Lunasphinx herself almost too bright to look upon.

Cerith blinked back awestruck tears. Although his barbs had been meant only to wound, Seraval had been right. To understand sorcery was one thing, but to see and work it… He lifted a hand, feeling the energy gather, only to have it slip like sand through his fingers as the shard of Teclis’ holy will nestled into his soul. He could still feel it, beating like a second hidden heart deep within his breast.

‘Go.’ With a nod, Teclis stepped into the sky.

Cerith hurried towards the ruined city. Behind him, with a crack like a thousand pennants snapping in the breeze, Teclis drew tight the skein of his mighty sorcery.

Veins of darkness threaded the horizon. The Winnowing came like storm clouds rolling off the ocean, a writhing blot of eldritch nothingness that scarred land and sky.

Cerith sprinted across the cracked plain. Passing into the Winnowing’s shadow was like stepping into a river fresh with snowmelt, but, true to Teclis’ predictions, the living spell seemed not to notice him. Cerith could feel Teclis’ sorcery like the thrum of distant drums. Incantations that would have challenged even the mightiest aelementiri spilled from the Archmage’s lips, an arc of brilliant lines transcribing the Winnowing’s vast bulk, carving the spell to ribbons. But rather than fall apart it flowed around the assault, using Teclis’ sorcerous blasts as scaffolding to drag itself closer.

Spurred by the battle above, Cerith steeled himself as he entered the city. Two men clad in opalescent armour stood in the shadow of the tumbledown wall – worshippers of Slaanesh, no doubt come to watch the sorcerous duel. They stood with their weapons low, slack grins on their pallid faces.

Cerith leapt the ragged wall, the two cultists’ smiles turning petulant as they moved to face him. Their expressions held neither surprise nor fear, but something akin to irritation at having their viewing interrupted.

The first crumpled with a delighted sigh as Cerith’s blade slid into the gap between his breastplate and pauldron. Eyes wide and excited, the second raised his curved polearm for a thrust, only to stumble back as Cerith rammed the edge of his shield into the man’s unprotected face. The cultist raised a hand to wipe the blood from his eyes, and Cerith stabbed him through the heart.

A broken thoroughfare led between rows of once beautiful manors. Now blistered and blackened, their elegant marble spires twisted into all manner of obscene shapes. The wrongness of their angles tugged at Cerith, trying to draw him deeper into the abominable interplay of outline and form.

The crackle of arcane conjurings snapped Cerith’s attention back to the present. He forged ahead, Teclis’ power like a bonfire at his back.

Spinning like a festival dancer, the Archmage threaded the Winnowing’s questing tendrils, blasts of silvery light from his staff boiling away the darkness wherever they touched. The brilliance revealed indistinct shapes within the roiling morass overhead – a writhing carpet of shadowy bodies, all struggling to reach Teclis. With mounting horror, Cerith realised they were the tortured echoes of mages consumed by the Winnowing.

He turned a corner only to find a score of cultists blocking the street ahead. Grins wide, they advanced on Cerith, whips cracking, blades shimmering like oil on water. He ducked the slash of a polearm, then twisted to avoid a clacking claw. Sunmetal gleamed in the scintillating glow as Cerith hacked the arm from the clawed cultist, reversing the blow with a flick of his wrist to send the razored edge across the throat of another of the Dark Prince’s corrupt followers.

A purple-masked brute with a massive club sent Cerith sliding back with a blow to his shield, while another slashed at his face with a barbed whip. They struck at him from all sides, tittering and moaning, seeming not to care if their blows hit their fellows. Jaw tight, he watched another dozen charge from a nearby alley, hacking at their comrades in their furore to reach him.

The masked brute’s tittering howl became a wet gurgle as Cerith’s blade carved into the jagged circle of his mouth. Cerith bulled the dying man back with a thrust of his shield, and used the momentary space to slice across the eyes of a woman with a whip in each hand. She staggered back into the press, blindly laying into her fellows.

Cerith’s respite was short-lived as more enemies pressed in. He saw the spear thrust a moment before it pierced his throat, and turned to take the blow on his pauldron. Another blade shrieked across his back. Desperation clawed at his chest as he ducked and blocked, but there were simply too many.

Through his connection to Teclis he saw flashes of the struggle against the Winnowing. The Archmage struck out at the ever-growing net of darkness that sought to ensnare and overwhelm his wards. Runic formulations blazed against the encroaching shadow. Cerith saw spells he had only read about, incantations culled from the ancient Lumineth’s finest magewrights, their secrets lost to mortal aelf. Had he been but an observer, Cerith would have happily dedicated the remainder of his life to teasing out the arcane minutiae of but one of Teclis’ enchantments, but there was no time to appreciate the Archmage’s craft.

Cerith ducked and parried, forced to go on the defensive by the sheer weight of his foes. Although Teclis’ struggle mirrored his own, Cerith felt no concern in the Archmage’s thoughts, only calm calculation as Teclis sent a call spiralling up into the Hyshian night.

Light seared the broken ground around Cerith. Brighter even than the golden glow of his Vanari sunmetal, it cast the cultists’ twisted faces into sharp relief – a sea of fanged mouths and lashing tongues, eyes glittering like coins tossed in a murky fountain.

With a snap of pale wings, Celennar dived into the crowd. The Lunasphinx carved through steel and bone even as the light of her very presence boiled away the cultists’ flesh. She scattered them like leaves caught in a gale. Those too brave or foolish to flee were eviscerated with a casual flick of her crescent-moon claws.

All the while, her noble gaze remained fixed on Cerith, as if the cultists were below her notice. Although the Lunasphinx spoke not a word, Cerith’s bones resonated with the power of her message.

He dodged through the dying men. One of the Winnowing’s tenebrous tentacles sheared through a row of nearby buildings as it groped for Celennar, showering Cerith with debris. He felt rather than saw the Lunasphinx take to the sky once more, flying up to join Teclis in his deadly struggle against the ancient nightmare.

Ahead, Arkathi’s temple loomed. It seemed to shift in Cerith’s vision, a web of impossible angles, walls and parapets bending back on themselves. Strange faces leered from the shifting gaps – creatures of terrible beauty pressed against the places where the Realm of Light grew thin. Cerith knew they searched for a way through, seeking to spill forth as they had in the Ocari Dara.

The temple shifted around Cerith. Ways that seemed open one minute disappeared the next. Floors suddenly fell away in precipitous drops, halls becoming pits as the very pull of Hysh seemed to change. A stair came apart beneath his feet, individual steps curling up like the fingers of a grasping hand, trying to crush him against the wall. He leapt to catch the lip of a door above, almost losing his sword as he scrambled into the chamber beyond, only to find a dozen branching passages leading off in all directions.

The struggle outside wore upon Cerith’s thoughts. Even with Celennar’s aid, Teclis could only keep the Winnowing occupied for so long. Each deflection and counter-spell served only to increase the strength of their dire enemy. The darkness multiplied, ten inky tentacles becoming a hundred, a thousand.

Time grew short. It seemed Cerith could not pierce the temple’s secrets through will alone. Drawing in a deep breath, he worked the foundational runes, seeking to centre his thoughts and sift some clue from the mad jumble of architecture.

With a start, Cerith realised his new-found sorcerous sight discerned runic mandalas within the labyrinthine architecture. Arkathi sought to tear the delicate tracery of geomancy that rooted this place within Hysh. Still, he yet needed to work within the bounds of the realm itself. The patterns were corrupt but recognisable, and, with a growing sense of hope, Cerith realised he could follow them to their source.

‘Senlui,’ Cerith whispered as he negotiated a narrow hallway, balancing upon a thin line as it unfolded, corners becoming edges.

‘Ydriliqi.’ Rather than dodge away as a chamber shifted, Cerith stood and let it bear him forward.

‘Alaithi.’ He did not leap free as the floor fell away, but dropped into the darkness below, landing in a low crouch.

‘Very impressive, scholar.’ A warm voice slipped from the shadows to his left, coiling around Cerith like a snake. ‘Come closer, and let me know you better.’

Ignoring the voice, Cerith advanced towards the root of the twisted mandala. Prismatic light blazed around him, the riot of colour a hideous echo of the Lyceum council hall.

The chamber was large, the vaulted ceilings and clean lines of Lumineth architecture marred by layer upon layer of ornate adornments. Thick velvet drapery warred with silken curtains, the fabric rustling in an invisible breeze to reveal erotic statuary, scattered pillows and piles of cast-off finery.

The whole room reeked of incense. It curled thick about Cerith, an overpowering fog of fragrant wood and heady spices that stung his nose and made his eyes water.

One of the curtains twitched aside to reveal a young man.

‘Forgive me my petty obfuscations. They worked on the last few, you see.’ Brown haired and handsome, with eyes that seemed to shift colour as he moved, he looked to be perhaps twenty summers – but Cerith had never been good at judging the ages of humans. He wore robes of deep purple over sections of armour dripping with golden filigree. His horned helm was a poor mockery of Teclis’ pale crescent moon sigil. In one hand he bore a long staff, in the other a mirror, its hazy surface almost invisible in the curling mist.

‘Arkathi.’ Cerith aimed a slash at the Shardspeaker, but distance had become strange and his blade cut only mist.

The man tilted his head, smiling. ‘I haven’t come to fight you, friend.’

‘Then why have you come?’ Cerith searched the forest of swirling draperies for a snatch of arcane scrollwork – something, anything, to point him towards the source of the Winnowing’s power. But the fog seemed to close in around him, clinging to his clothes, his hair, even as it seeped into his nose.

‘To help you, of course.’ Arkathi brandished his mirror. Within the dark glass, swirling mists resolved into a reflection of Cerith. In the mirror, he wore not the panoply of a Vanari Warden but that of an aelemental master – a high-collared robe embroidered with Ymetrican mountain sigils and runic mandalas. All around him, Cerith saw a weave of power. The Cerith in Arkathi’s mirror raised a hand, deftly weaving enchantments from the fractal threads of eldritch might.

‘You lie.’ Cerith scrubbed a fist across his eyes, but the vision remained branded upon his thoughts.

‘Why lie when the truth is so much more useful?’ Arkathi was moving, but also standing still. Cerith could not seem to focus. ‘For instance, do you know you aren’t the first fool Teclis has sent to stop me?’

Cerith swallowed, trying to get his bearings amidst the sickly-sweet fog. He raised his shield only to find it gone, his sword replaced by a golden staff, his armour transformed into the soft fall of a master’s robes. Arcane energy flowed through him – not just knowledge, but ability. Cerith had but to raise his staff, to call out the runes. But it was a poisoned promise, an illusion of power that led only to pride and destruction.

Dimly, Cerith reached for Teclis, seeking some underpinning amidst the roiling fog of his perceptions. But the Archmage was distant, muffled, his words and thoughts lost against the Winnowing’s raging maelstrom.

‘Feels right, doesn’t it?’ Arkathi’s voice seemed to come from everywhere. ‘It can be yours.’

‘You offer nothing but slavery.’

‘And you are free now? Crawling into the lair of a dark sorcerer at the behest of an uncaring god?’ Arkathi chuckled. ‘Teclis first sent a choir of aelementiri, powerful masters of stone and air and light. They screamed as the Winnowing unravelled them, begging their master for aid. None arrived.

‘Then came the Vanari, bright legions of pike and bow. We swept their bones into the midden. Your master watched them die, from a safe distance of course. More grist for his inscrutable plans. Tell me, do you Lumineth ever grow weary of being sacrificed?’

‘You speak to me of sacrifices, daemon?’ Cerith knew he should not converse with Arkathi, but the words spilled from his mouth.

‘We are more alike than you know.’ Arkathi stepped in front of Cerith. ‘Bound to powerful masters, desirous to serve well and thereby be rewarded. The only difference is that while your master cares nothing for you, mine only wants me to be happy.

‘Do you know what power is? True power?’ Arkathi spread his arms. ‘Power is choice. The ability to act rather than react. Soldier, scholar, pawn – for once in your life, don’t you want to decide for yourself?’

Cerith saw himself reflected in the Shardspeaker’s eyes, not the gleaming Archmage in-being, but an old Vanari, scarred and battered, doomed to spend the rest of his life grasping at mysteries he was never meant to know, ridiculed by those who, through no merit or sacrifice, possessed gifts Cerith could never have.

‘Take my hand, and we shall right this grievous wrong together.’ Arkathi stepped closer.

Cerith butted him in the face.

The sorcerer stumbled back, cursing.

‘You understand nothing.’ Cerith slashed at him, but Arkathi raised his staff and Cerith’s sword struck sparks from the cursed metal.

‘You will suffer for your hubris, aelf.’ Arkathi’s words came muffled by a broken nose. He hammered his staff into Cerith’s shield, the unnatural weight of the blow driving the aelf back a pace. He responded with a quick cut to Arkathi’s forward leg, but the sorcerer’s glittering staff seemed to be everywhere.

The edge of Arkathi’s mirror caught Cerith on the cheek, snapping his head back. Searing pain spread through his face and neck as the barest touch of the vile artefact blistered skin and muscle.

Agony sharpened Cerith’s perception, clearing the mist from his thoughts for a moment. Shards of Teclis’ struggle outside danced across his vision. He saw the Archmage floating amidst a network of lines and vertices, Celennar at his side. They had bent the very fabric of Hysh back upon the Winnowing. The flickering webwork shifted and bulged as the living spell strained against it, threatening to burst free. Celennar’s mask remained impassive as she whirled and twisted through the air, claws carving bits of shadow-stuff from the writhing mass of darkness. And still the Winnowing grew. One of the silvery lines burst, then another, and soon the whole eldritch net was unravelling.

Teclis’ hands danced through intricate conjurations, his voice cutting through the din. Spell layered on upon spell, rune upon rune. And yet the Archmage looked not at his opponent. His gaze remained fixed upon the ruined city below, upon Cerith. For a moment, their eyes met.

Teclis gave a slight nod.

In that moment, Cerith understood Arkathi was nothing but a distraction. Rather than attack the sorcerer, Cerith pivoted to cut at the concealing drapery. Curtains fell before the razored edge of his Champion’s Blade, and he charged into the swirling mists, hacking his way through the forest of silk and velvet.

Arkathi’s staff came arcing from the gloom, and Cerith deflected it with his shield without pausing in his forward rush. He hit the chamber wall hard enough to drive the wind from him. Gasping, Cerith leaned close, the light from his sunmetal weapons illuminating the play of runes upon the stone. He might not be able to manipulate the warp and weft of their arcane permutations, but he could read the weave laid before him.

Cerith followed the corrupt mandala, dropping his blade to trail one hand along the stonework as he traced the runes to their source.

Behind him, Arkathi shrieked a desperate spell.

A bolt of prismatic energy slammed Cerith against the wall, his shield spinning from his hand. Armour spitting sparks in the arcane blaze, he twisted to look up at the dark sorcerer standing over him.

Rage became horrified surprise as darkness bled along the corners of the chamber – the Winnowing, summoned by Arkathi’s arcane working, driven to assuage its unending hunger for sorcery. Arkathi reached for his enchantments, trying to leash the living spell once more, to turn its full attentions back to Teclis and Celennar.

But the Winnowing could not be contained.

A tendril of nothingness curled around Arkathi’s leg. Howling, the sorcerer raised his mirror to crush Cerith’s skull. ‘I do not need my sorcery to finish you, aelf!’

‘I am not the one you need worry about.’

Cerith turned back to the mandala. One trembling hand pressed to his chest, he felt deep within him for the kernel of Teclis’ power.

It burst from him in a spray of silvery sparks. Cerith’s skin became as parchment held before a flame, his bones backlit by the arcane glow radiating from within. Wherever light touched the runes, they flared, then went dark, running from the ancient stone like wet ink.

Cerith opened his mouth to scream, but all that emerged was more light. He felt as a bit of ash upon the wind, borne aloft, still burning, as radiant flame scoured his vision and boiled away his thoughts.

Then, he was free.

Cerith felt as if he floated within an ocean of warm moonlight. He tried to raise a hand, but the motion seemed both impossible and unnecessary. On the floor below lay his burnt and blackened body. The chamber was empty save for a few scraps of burning finery, the walls barren. Of Arkathi and the Winnowing, there was no sign.

‘You have served me well.’ Teclis was beside him, all around him.

‘What happened?’ Cerith did not speak so much as weave the words from the light suffusing him.

‘No summoned magic could uproot the Winnowing,’ Teclis replied. ‘So I made of you something different.’

‘Am I a living spell?’

‘Yes… and no.’

‘How is this possible?’ Cerith asked.

‘I learned much from the Winnowing. Also, I am loath to part with such a diligent servant,’ Teclis said. ‘You will be… part of Hysh, part of me.’

Cerith made to drop to his knees, only to realise he had no body.

‘You need not bow before me, Vanari.’ Teclis gathered him up like water spilled from a broken ewer. ‘Now or ever.’

Arcane power pulsed through Cerith. All around, Hysh gleamed, sign become form, name become function. Cerith was no longer an observer, a performer – there was no longer any need to study or understand. He was magic.

Cerith felt his awareness dissolve within the fullness of Teclis’ being. Like a vial of ink emptied into a vast ocean, Cerith’s thoughts became thin, his sense of self bleeding away amidst the crashing waves of the Archmage’s arcane majesty.

In the quiet span of moments before he ceased to exist, Cerith allowed himself a moment of pride.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Evan Dicken’s first story for Black Library was ‘The Path to Glory’, and he has since penned several more tales set in the Age of Sigmar, including the novella The Red Hours, and short fiction for the anthologies Gods & Mortals and Myths & Revenants. He has been an avid reader of Black Library novels since he found dog-eared copies of Trollslayer, Xenos and First and Only nestled in the ‘Used Fantasy/Sci-fi’ rack of his local gaming store. He still considers himself an avid hobbyist, although the unpainted Chaos Warband languishing in his basement would beg to differ. By day, he studies old Japanese maps and crunches data at The Ohio State University.

An extract from The End of Enlightenment.

In the depths of the Temple of Ultharadon, Carreth Y’gethin wallowed in the pain and squalor of the past.

Standing on a slight rise in the shadow of Ultharadon, the temple was orderly and clean, a space reflecting the austere beauty and elemental holiness of the mountain that had given it its name. A large rotunda three storeys high was capped with a dome of vibrant, polished silver, and the arches above the pedimented windows complemented the soaring peaks of the mountain as it rose from the valley behind. Flowing from the rear of the rotunda was a long hall built in roughened stone, with two large quadrangles on either side. It was a complex of dark sandstone and polished marble, of shadowed cloisters and cool peristyles that stretched along the borders of cultivated gardens and courtyards. The soft chant of prayers and the sandalled scuff of passing feet blended with the gentle breeze. Birds fluttered in crimson plumage from tree to tree, their simple melodies spilling across the temple grounds in perfect mimicry of the waters that bubbled in the ornamental streams.

It was a place of peace and comfort, of art and beauty, but as Carreth plunged deeper into his studies the temple was none of these things. It receded from him the more he read. The world revealed in the pages of his books became more real than the world that surrounded him, and in his mind peace and comfort were replaced by bloodshed and cruelty, art and beauty with savagery and pride.

The Ocari Dara, the Spirefall… the line we walk across every day. On one side is order and balance and equilibrium. On the other side is possession and slaughter, and the very gates of damnation…

Although he was an Alarith Stonemage and the sacred head of the temple, Carreth’s private chambers were modest and functional. The only decoration on the otherwise unadorned marble of his walls was a simple framed sketch of Alaithi, the rune of mountain, which Carreth had drawn in the earliest days of his magical training. His bed was a simple pallet in the corner of the room, and on a washstand beside it sat a plain clay bowl and a water jug. His desk was placed underneath a window that gave a clear, unobstructed view of the holy mountain’s higher slopes, the mountain rising up from a mist-shrouded valley in sweeping, jagged peaks, vast and dominant, frosted with a dusting of snow. Across his desk were strewn volumes and scrolls he had taken from the temple library. As he read, Carreth paused to note down salient details, his quill scratching frantically against the parchment.

The Duel of Hexes, he wrote, when the mages Maey’ve and Corah fought for six days, each unravelling six hexes against the other, the lands around them melting and reforming into what we now know of as the Crystal Caverns, in southern Ymetrica. Six, of course, is the number of the Thirsting God, Cursed Slaanesh, now bound and chained, and in the rift torn open by those hexes came pouring the daemons of its unholy order, in dread spectacles repeated countless times across the bleeding lands of Hysh…

He turned a page and read on, noting further details down.

The Slight of the Broken Shards, when the great land bridge between Ymetrica and the Yntril Coast was swept away by a cascade of boiling warpflame, a host of Tzeentchian Flamers descending from the inverted portal that Uribalar of Iliatha hoped would banish her arch-rival Aranalei to the outer darkness beyond the realms…

He sighed and threw down his pen in disgust, stretching the crick from his neck and rubbing the heels of his hands against his pale grey eyes. How could they have been so blind, so selfish! Aelves driven to madness in their lust for power and fame, that they would come so close to destroying an entire civilisation. Everything he had read about those times made Carreth shiver in fear. All Hysh had teetered on the edge of the abyss and so many aelves of that awful age had felt no compunction about leaping over. He had read everything there was to know about the Spirefall, but still, buried deep in the temple archives, there were stories that remained new to him. Civil war between the continents, epic bloodshed that peeled open the veneer of reality and gained admittance to the daemonic hordes of Chaos. He well remembered the aftermath of those dreadful days, the battles he had fought as a young warrior to rebuild the realm, in the years after the Mage God Teclis had brought the teachings of the aelementiri to Hysh. A time of madness and despair, and the first faint glimmerings of hope…

The light was fading. The last of the sunset fell across the shoulder of the mountain like a cloak – red and ochre, fire and gold. It streamed from the mountainside to strike his chambers and bathe his desk in light. The pale moons of Hysh were drifting into being above the slanted peak. There was no true darkness in Hysh, but soon those moons would reach down with their silver fingers and craft the mountain into a cold and mysterious thing, and no less beautiful for that. Carreth smiled. He held the image of Ultharadon in his mind and closed his eyes. He saw the shape of it, that familiar silhouette, but he felt it too – the majesty of stone, the strength of its patience, its durability. He used the image of the mountain to draw his mind back up the paths of horror and despair to a pinnacle of purity and grace, and before long the brutality of the Ocari Dara was no more than words on parchment once more. It was ancient history, a lesson from dusty books.

Carreth sighed and stood up from the desk. He stretched his back, leaned for a moment against the open window as he stared out at the sunset. The temple grounds were spread out before him, sultry and peaceful. As the sun faded, they released the rich, dormant scents of the calcimine flowers and the stargazer jasmine in the eaves. Below him in the gardens was the simple juxtaposition of rock and water, where a moon bridge passed over a trickling brook. Trees murmured in the breeze. He could hear the Stoneguard being put through their paces, Alithis drilling them in the courtyard on the other side of the Avenue of Mages. Her voice rose and fell like a melody, moving swiftly between the martial forms.

He gathered up his books and scrolls and stacked them neatly on his desk, and something in him recoiled from the touch of the parchment. He closed his notebook and returned it to the drawer.

What is it I am looking for in these ancient accounts? What secrets can be revealed that have not been revealed already? Is enlightenment its own reward? The past must ever be a living flame, casting its light on the present and banishing the shadows of ignorance.

As he turned away from the window, Carreth’s eyes fell on the brooch his sister had left him, which she had placed on the table by his bedside. It glowed softly in the declining light, a spark of flame crafted in such a way that it reminded him of Tuareth’s passion, her determination. He saw her face in his mind’s eye, the firm set of her jaw as she passed it to him, their fingers meeting. Aelven siblings most often shared a strict family resemblance, but Tuareth could have come from a different family altogether. She was lithe and compact where Carreth was tall and refined, her hair flame-red where Carreth’s was the silver of new-fallen snow. Most strikingly, her eyes blazed with a fierce green in fervid contrast to the pale grey of her brother’s. She had the spirit of Senlui, the rune of swiftness and action, and as Carreth picked up the brooch and turned it over in his hands he saw the bold and flashing lines of the rune carved with delicate precision into the facets of the aetherquartz jewel. The stone gleamed, first red and then green, and as he held it to the light he saw the deeply embedded gold move sinuously through the crystal. It was perfect, he thought. A feat of great craft, a testament to Tuareth’s ability to temper her passions into the refined work of true artistry.

Tuareth… he thought, and the thought pained him with all the words he had left unsaid. My young sister, so bold, so free. What darkness do you move through now, and to what end? Come home, if you can. Come home.

Click here to buy The End of Enlightenment.

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This eBook edition published in 2021 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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Cover illustration by Catherine O’Connor.

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