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Soul Warden – Miles A Drake

About the Author

An Extract from ‘The Court of the Blind King’

A Black Library Publication

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SOUL WARDEN

Miles A Drake

The Woven Gate, the entrance to the Ymmerloc Enclave, was a sight to behold. It was an immense ring of interlocking branches, sculpted from the bone-like fronds of the bryozoan trees that hung from the Helfrost ice cap above. The bioluminescent symbiotes threading through the structure made it shimmer with ghostly light.

Beneath the gate there was only darkness – the yawning abyss of a hidden ocean, entirely concealed from Shyish’s pallid sun by the ice overhead.

Keeping a hand on the rail of his Leviadon’s howdah, Lotann steadied himself against the undulating motions of the enormous bond-beast as it meandered its way towards the gate.

Lotann knew the gate was a symbolic thing. Predators and enemies could simply approach the city from below, making it useless as a defence. It existed to provide an entrance for other Idoneth to pass through, seen and announced. Attempting to enter the enclave by other means would be seen as an act of hostility.

‘Truly remarkable,’ Lotann said, marvelling at the ring as the Leviadon passed through it.

The nearest harpoon gunner, an Akhelian woman, glanced at Lotann, her expression masked by her black helm.

‘I was speaking to Mnemesthli,’ he added, gesturing at the man-sized Ochtar that drifted behind him.

The cephalopod’s tentacles pulsed as it kept pace with the Leviadon.

The Akhelian turned away, uninterested.

Lotann’s escorts were Mor’phann, and were thus a reticent lot. Throughout his journey from Mor’drechi, they’d hardly spoken to him. And so he had discussed his work with Mnemesthli. The Ochtar couldn’t speak, of course, but that was no representation of its intelligence.

The rest of the city, a pale tangle of hanging, tree-like bryozoans, came into view. The inverted forest was sculpted by the Chorralus to form hollowed tunnels, flattened walkways and spherical buildings, all hanging from the ice above, and glowing with ghostly bioluminescence.

One of the Leviadon’s harpoon gunners called out as a shoal of Akhelian cavalry emerged from a gloomy thicket in the city ahead. They rode pallid Fangmora Eels, and wore translucent, glasrime armour. Their meshed underarmour was as pale as their colourless skin. More bizarrely, their Fangmora mounts did not possess the blinding skullplates fitted onto most bond-beasts – but then, they had no eyes to blind.

Lotann steadied his entourage, and the Leviadon slowed. ‘’Tis but our welcoming committee,’ he said. ‘We have obeyed the custom. We will be allowed to speak our piece.’

The approaching riders, shrouded in rippling corposant, circled the Leviadon, lowering their voltaic lances. The leading rider, clearly marked as a Lochian Prince by his spined helm, spoke first, his voice a sibilant hiss.

‘By the words spoken by Ymmeros of yore to Volturnos the Uniter, and the assembral woven henceforth, we grant you words to proclaim your intent before our judgement. Speak true, and we shall grant you assembral. Speak false, and we shall grant you our lances!’

Lotann spoke. ‘I am Lotann. You may know me as the Warden of the Soul Ledgers.’

The Fangmora riders looked between each other. They clearly recognised the name.

The Lochian Prince turned a cold glare to Lotann, his grip tightening on his lance. ‘For years, we have beseeched the Ionrach for aid. And now, their answer is to send one errant Soul Warden?’

Lotann blinked. His escorts tensed further.

The prince continued, his voice dripping with spite. ‘We require phalanxes with which to repel the deathly tide that encircles us. Not more Soul Wardens. Our own Soul Wardens have been enough help already.’

Lotann detected further spite in his voice, but before he could wonder why, the prince lowered his lance and spoke again. ‘Nevertheless, warden, we will grant you assembral.’ The prince wheeled his Fangmora around, directing it back into the hanging city. ‘Follow,’ he commanded.

Lotann nodded, and bid his escorts to comply.

With a crack of the ma’harr’s reins, the Leviadon drifted into the passages of the city-forest.

As they made their way into the enclave, Lotann marvelled at the grace of the architecture. The Chorralus sculpted cities from benthic life forms, and this place was no exception. It was simply… upside down. Precarious walkways sculpted from flattened branches wound through the forest, but beneath many of them, there was simply nothing. Lotann found it disorienting.

The city’s Namarti appeared from time to time, pruning the branches of the bryozoa, or catching swarming ghost-krill with mesh nets. Most faded into the dense tangle as soon as they detected the passing Leviadon.

Such reclusiveness might be expected if the Namarti knew Lotann and his entourage were outsiders, but blind as they were, there was no way for them to tell.

‘Do the Namarti seem… afraid to you?’ he asked the nearest harpoon gunner.

‘They are Namarti,’ the Akhelian said, her tone dour.

As if that were an explanation.

‘Perhaps it is a remnant of the war,’ Lotann mused. The prince had confirmed the rumours Lotann had heard back in Mor’drechi. ‘Nagash’s wraiths search for this city, do they not?’

The Akhelian nodded.

Lotann sighed. The Mor’phann were very reticent.

Lotann guessed the constant threat of discovery and invasion would require many Namarti to take up arms. He also knew certain enclaves were more aggressive with their recruiting than others. Perhaps the Namarti thought his Leviadon was coming to gather them, and press them into the fighting ranks.

Either way, that they seemed so skittish spoke of potential misconduct by the higher castes, and that was something Lotann detested. The Namarti were the lifeblood of the Idoneth, after all.

But he quelled his concerns, for the enclave’s heart, Yggisilarc, came into view.

Yggisilarc was an enormous bryozoan, descending far deeper than those around it. Its twisting boughs were sculpted with perfect elegance. Much like the rest of the city, the tree shimmered with pale bioluminescence. Shoals of fish swarmed through its branches, and six Leviadons drifted beneath its hanging canopy, warding away threats from the deep.

Yggisilarc had four trunks, each splaying out at the base to pierce deep into the ice above. Lotann’s Leviadon and its new escorts easily slipped into the gap between two of the trunks, and came to a halt in the tree’s hollow heart. The hollow descended deep into the gloom below, lit by stepped gardens of iridescent sponges. Several robed Isharann of the Chorralus fane, wielding pole-mounted tools, pruned the gardens from atop the backs of giant, spindly sea spiders. Above, the chamber widened into a roof of gleaming ice, suspended between the trunks. A glasrime stair descended from the roof, widening into a platform.

The Leviadon came to a halt at the platform as a lone Akhelian descended the stair. He wore the spined helm and pale mantle of a Lochian Prince.

‘Warden,’ he said. ‘Your presence is expected.’

Lotann glanced around. In the gloom below, he spied the telltale glowing eyes of a shoal of Scryfish. They had been following his Leviadon ever since it had passed through the Woven Gate. ‘No doubt,’ Lotann said dryly.

Such surveillance was not uncommon.

‘The Dialochian is waiting,’ the new prince continued.

Lotann nodded and disembarked from the Leviadon, drifting onto the platform.

The prince then glanced up to the Fangmora riders drifting overhead. ‘Prince Karandrys,’ he said, his voice conveying a certain disdain, ‘escort the Mor’phann back to the Woven Gate, and ensure that they depart the enclave with due haste.’

Lotann tensed, and looked sharply at the unnamed prince. ‘Am I not permitted my escort?’ he protested.

‘You are not,’ the prince returned, coldly. Clearly the matter was not up for debate.

‘Very well,’ Lotann said. He would not push the point. The Ymmerloc could just as easily banish him as well. He looked back to his escorts, and reluctantly bid them a safe return journey back to Mor’drechi.

Mnemesthli joined him on the platform, its tentacles coiling around the ornate railing.

‘Your familiar must stay here,’ the prince said.

Lotann narrowed his eyes. ‘Fine. Mnemesthli, wait here.’

The prince nodded, and bid Lotann to follow him up the stair.

Giving his Ochtar a reassuring glance, Lotann did exactly that.

Ascending, he entered a chamber of eerie organic shapes, sculpted from Yggisilarc’s bone walls and glasrime. Lotann beheld a dozen glaive-armed Akhelians standing sentinel around the edges of the chamber, and nine ornate thrones looming along the far wall, propped up by curving stilts of ice. A robed Isharann, each belonging to a different fane, sat in each.

Lotann knew the Ymmerloc had no High King. Instead, the Dialochian ruled as a council.

After a moment, a male Isharann, wearing the spined headdress of the envoy fane, spoke. ‘Your name precedes you, warden.’ His voice was low and hushed. ‘I take it you are not here as a prelude to an Ionrach relief force?’

‘I am not,’ Lotann answered, bowing his head. ‘I must apologise. I do not come for the reasons you hope.’

‘We lament the absence of your kin,’ the envoy returned. ‘After we offered our assistance to the Uniter and his stormbound allies, Volturnos’ phalanxes could be of great aid in our current plight.’

Lotann needed to steer the conversation away from what he could not provide. ‘I will bring your plight to Volturnos when next we speak,’ he promised. ‘But, as I have said, that is not why I am here. My role as the Warden of the Soul Ledgers has bestowed upon me the burden and honour of completing a task of great importance. A task that will benefit our entire species. In order to complete my task, I request access to your chorrileum.’

For a moment, the Dialochian said nothing.

It was his counterpart upon the council, a female Soul Warden with icy skin, shrouded in a diaphanous white robe, who spoke next. ‘And what is this great work, warden?’ Her voice was cold and lifeless. Her face, from the mouth up, was obscured by a veil.

Lotann drew an ornately sealed scroll from one of his satchels, and held it up. ‘It is the Soul Ledger – a compilation documenting each and every soul taken and used by our people,’ he answered. ‘It will, once completed, allow me to assess which prey can be most efficiently harvested in the long term, and which enclaves bear the most stable Namarti populations, with the lowest rate of required revitalisations.’

‘And how will that benefit our entire species?’ an Isharann clad in the armour of a Soulrender asked, his voice distorted by his anglerhelm.

Lotann had, of course, expected scepticism. ‘It will allow me to disseminate information to all enclaves. Information that will aid our people in maintaining sustainable soul-raids against coastal populations that can reproduce at a rate required to endure our harvests. In addition, it will allow me to discern potential causes for the increased longevity of certain Namarti populations.’

‘An admirable goal,’ the female Soul Warden said, her tone barbed.

Lotann turned his gaze towards her. ‘Do you find fault in my work? I am searching for ways to perfect it. Input from a fellow Soul Warden would be of great value.’

The other Soul Warden gave a thin, mirthless smile. ‘Truly, your work is commendable. I am, however, concerned with other implications.’

Lotann sensed veiled hostility. ‘Please elaborate,’ he offered.

‘It is the other information you might discover while sifting through our chorrileum,’ she said. ‘One can learn much from the records of an enclave’s soul-raids – strengths, weaknesses, numbers. I wonder how Volturnos the Uniter might exploit that knowledge in future negotiations, were he to somehow obtain it.’

The Dialochian broke into a chorus of concerned whispers at those words.

Lotann drew his lips into a line, and waited for them to subside. ‘I may be of Ionrach blood,’ he proclaimed, ‘but I do not answer to Volturnos. He has given me autonomy because he believes in my work. I do not share the secrets I might stumble upon.’

More whispers answered his words. Eventually, the other Soul Warden stood. The voices quieted around her. The act made Lotann keenly aware of the influence she had.

‘I do not doubt you would do anything to see your work completed,’ she said. ‘What would you do if the Uniter offered his support directly, in return for what you know of the other enclaves?’

For a moment, Lotann said nothing, fighting to control his irritation, lest it stain the ethersea around him.

The other Soul Warden continued, stirring further concern within the Dialochian. ‘How many enclaves knelt before Volturnos’ unity before his spies began dredging up secrets he could use against them? When presented with a superior military power that is already aware of your weaknesses, it is a rather foolish thing to deny their more diplomatic offers, is it not?’

She paused for a moment, addressing the court. ‘We Ymmerloc will not submit to the Ionrach because some wayward spy discovers a chink in our armour. We will only submit when the Uniter offers us favourable incentives to do so.’

Lotann narrowed his eyes at the Soul Warden, realising that he had little hope of persuading her. And so he spoke his words to the rest of the Dialochian, hoping at least some might listen. ‘As I’ve stated, I owe no allegiance to Volturnos or the Ionrach. If they offer their services to aid me in my endeavours, I will accept them, but I will not compromise the purity of my work by selling secrets. I implore you, for the sake of our future, grant me access to your chorrileum so I might assay your records, and join them to the Ledger.’

His words were met with more whispers. As he waited, he made eye contact with the representative of the envoy fane. The envoy gave him a look he could not quite place. The expression seemed to convey worry. And warning.

And when the whispering ceased, the envoy spoke. ‘We must convene, warden,’ he said, deathly calm. ‘We ask that you return below. One of the Telechari will bring you to a place of lodging–’

The other Soul Warden interrupted, her icy voice hostile. ‘Would it not be more pertinent for our esteemed guest to be escorted by one of the Ishlaen Guard? Or do you wish to insult him by dispatching him with a lowly Namarti courier?’

The envoy tensed. His pale eyes fixed onto Lotann’s once more. This time there was no mistaking the caution, and plea, within his gaze.

‘I meant no disrespect,’ the envoy said. ‘You are, of course, free to choose your own escort.’

The female Soul Warden protested again. ‘His station demands the respect of an Akhel–’

The envoy held up his hand for silence. ‘It has been decided, Annamaras. The treatment of our enclave’s guests is my purview, not yours.’

Lotann suspected this trivial disagreement was a sign of a greater issue. It couldn’t be simple propriety. The Ymmerloc cared little for such things.

He glanced between the envoy and Annamaras. ‘I would be accompanied by one of the Telechari,’ he said casually. ‘I have always preferred the company of Namarti.’

With that, Lotann bowed, and returned the way he came, descending back into Yggisilarc’s hollow heart.

Upon his return, he waited on the platform and found Mnemesthli. The Ochtar affixed him with its alien gaze.

‘That did not go well,’ Lotann said.

The Ochtar wrapped its tentacles around the railing.

‘Something is off here,’ Lotann continued.

Two of the Ochtar’s tentacles extended in a menacing manner.

‘No,’ Lotann mused. ‘Not the war. Not directly in any case. The Ymmerloc have been fighting Nagash’s wraiths for decades. I suspect this has something to do with the Namarti. There seems to be a disagreement about whether or not I should be allowed to speak to one of them. I must know why.’

The Ochtar shifted its colouration back to its usual red.

Lotann said nothing for a while, watching the Chorralus and their sea spiders. Eventually he spoke. ‘The Namarti we passed on our way here did seem rather skittish. Perhaps this has something to do with that?’

The Ochtar brightened, but Lotann’s thoughts were interrupted as his Telechari escort arrived, ascending from the darkness below.

The elegant chariot was pulled by an enormous, but docile, lampmouth grouperfish. The Namarti sitting at the vehicle’s prow was shrouded under a heavy, pale robe. Only his scarred arms were visible.

Without word, Lotann boarded the vehicle, and sat on the second bench behind the Namarti. The Namarti cocked his head to the side, feeling the ripples in the ethersea as Mnemesthli fastened itself to the chariot’s underside.

The Telechari accelerated a moment later, undulating with the ponderous tailstrokes of the grouperfish. The bond-beast’s bioluminescent whiskers illuminated the way as it exited Yggisilarc and re-entered the city.

Watching the inverted forest go by, Lotann took note of the Namarti they passed. Most abandoned their menial tasks, and retreated into the ghostly boughs as the Telechari drew near. They did seem afraid of something.

Lotann decided to follow up on the envoy’s hint.

‘What is your name, courier?’ he asked.

The Namarti tensed, but answered after a moment. ‘Syarrach.’ His voice was deep, but devoid of tone.

‘Your scars tell me you were a warrior,’ Lotann noted.

The Namarti nodded.

‘You aided in soul-raids?’ Lotann enquired.

The Namarti shook his head. ‘Not raids. Diversions.’

Lotann nodded, understanding. That was how the Ymmerloc were fighting Nagash’s forces. By distracting them from the enclave’s true location. ‘And why did you fight, Syarrach?’

The Namarti tensed again, his breathing slowing. ‘For my children.’

Even through the numb tone, Lotann sensed anguish. ‘For their future?’ he asked, projecting an invisible, soothing presence through the ethersea. To the acute senses of a Namarti, the sensation would be calming.

‘For revitalisation,’ the Namarti answered.

Lotann knew of the tradition. The kin of Namarti who volunteered to fight would receive priority when it came to revitalisation. While the custom was not practised by most enclaves, it was a strong incentive. It made Lotann even more certain the fear he’d seen in the Namarti had nothing to do with being forced to fight.

Lotann believed the envoy wanted him to learn why the Namarti were afraid, even if the envoy wasn’t able to state as much in the court.

‘Do you know who I am?’ Lotann asked.

‘An outsider,’ Syarrach answered.

‘Yes. I come from Priom. I’ve come to survey the records of your chorrileum. I do this because I wish to ease the suffering of Namarti across all enclaves. So, know that I do not answer to the Dialochian, or to anybody else here. I merely wish to speak to you.’

The Namarti said nothing.

‘Your children…’ Lotann continued. ‘Tell me of them.’

After a few moments, Syarrach did. Calmed as he was by Lotann’s presence, he spoke of a son who tended the anemone gardens up in the polynias near the surface. And then, he spoke of a daughter.

‘Telenshe…’ he mumbled, pain choking his words. ‘She went to the chorrileum. For her second soul. But she did not return.’

Lotann frowned. All Namarti required new souls every decade or so to stave off their fatal curse. Revitalisation, the implanting of new souls performed by the Incubati, was, by now, an old art, nearly perfected across all enclaves. Lotann knew mishaps occurred, for the power of a stolen soul could burn a Namarti out from within, but he knew such cases were now rare.

‘Do you know what happened?’ he asked, projecting compassion into the ethersea.

‘The Incubati said her revitalisation failed. They said… she died…’ He trailed off for a moment, and then continued. ‘But she was not the only one.’

Lotann felt something cold creep across him. ‘Not the only one?’

‘No… Others too. Many accidents…’

‘When did this happen?’ Lotann asked.

‘Two years ago,’ the Namarti mumbled.

‘And how many others did not return from their revitalisations?’

Syarrach almost answered, but shook his head instead, shuddering. ‘No. You… You are making me say things. You make it seem as though it is… acceptable to say things.’

Lotann tensed. ‘Is it not?’

‘No,’ Syarrach mumbled, and fell silent.

‘Why?’ Lotann enquired, after a moment.

‘Those who make rumours,’ Syarrach muttered, ‘they disappear. Please, outsider… I do not wish to speak.’

Lotann nodded slowly, feeling rather cold. He had enough information. Now he knew something was certainly amiss. He would not burden this Namarti further. And so, he offered his condolences, and said nothing more.

Syarrach directed the Telechari through the boughs in silence, crossing an eerie gap over the abyss below, before arriving at Lotann’s guest lodgings.

The lodging, like most structures in the city, was a spherical dwelling sculpted from interwoven bryozoa fronds. The branches at the entrance were twisted open, and sealed by a kelpmesh door, though Lotann saw several holes in the walls that functioned as vents.

As the Telechari stopped, Mnemesthli detached itself and squeezed into one of the vents to scout out the dwelling.

Lotann disembarked onto a bone walkway and bid Syarrach good fortune. The Namarti did not respond, and lashed the grouperfish onwards, disappearing into the gloom of a nearby waterway.

When Mnemesthli returned from the vent, Lotann entered the dwelling, looking back for just a moment.

And in that moment, he caught a glimpse of a trio of fish watching through the boughs across the waterway. The fish were small. Their eyes glowed faintly and jutting spurs protruded from their lower jaws. As if sensing his gaze, they darted back into the gloom.

‘Naturally,’ Lotann said, closing the door behind him.

Casting his belongings into a webbed hanger, he sat in the dwelling’s lone chair. The pale bioluminescence of the symbiotes bathed the room in a ghostly glow.

Lotann looked to Mnemesthli. ‘I must rest, shortly. Keep vigil, if you would.’

The Ochtar moved towards the vent to comply.

‘And watch for Scryfish,’ Lotann added. ‘We are being surveilled.’

The Ochtar disappeared into the vent, and Lotann closed his eyes, reflecting upon what he’d learned.

He remained that way until Mnemesthli returned. The Ochtar’s skin shifted to a dull orange, prompting Lotann to jolt from his ruminations. Mnemesthli jetted across the room and, with two tentacles, took a spiked cudgel from Lotann’s belongings, before jetting upwards to attach itself above the door.

At that exact moment, the chimes out beyond the door rang.

Lotann moved to the door, and cautiously opened it.

He was greeted by a pair of glaive-armed Akhelian guards and a lone Isharann. The Isharann was female, and robed in white, her face concealed by an elegant headdress of pearl-strings.

Lotann glanced between them. They didn’t look as though they’d come to kill him.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked.

The Isharann spoke, her tone icy. ‘The Dialochian has decided. You are not permitted entry into our chorrileum, for reasons of security.’

Lotann nodded slowly. He’d expected as much. ‘To the point, as ever,’ he muttered. There was no use in arguing with underlings.

‘When the Rimeway’s current next shifts,’ the Isharann said, referring to the enclave’s lone whirlway, ‘an escort will collect you, and guide you through it. The Dialochian is sure you have important matters to attend to elsewhere.’

Lotann drew his lips into a thin line, but kept his emotions in check. ‘Yes… I’m sure that is what they’re worried about.’

The Isharann said nothing.

‘When, pray tell, will the current shift next?’ Lotann asked.

‘In eleven Hyshian hours,’ she answered. ‘It would be in your best interests if you did not stray before then.’ Her words had all the warmth of an icy current.

‘I see,’ Lotann answered, as frigidly as he could. He couldn’t quite manage her coldness. ‘I’m not the adventurous type. I’m sure I’ll stay right here.’

There was a moment of tense silence, after which the Isharann nodded, and departed.

Lotann watched her and her guards retreat to the main passage and mount up on their Fangmoras, before closing the door and returning to his chair.

Focusing his frustration into the ethersea around him, he created a swirl of turbulent ripples. They would befuddle the senses of any Scryfish that came too close.

‘Something is happening here,’ he said, spitefully.

Mnemesthli detached itself from the door frame and slithered across the ceiling. Its skin shifted from red to neutral grey, and became smooth in texture.

‘Yes, I know. Secrets are not my business,’ Lotann protested. ‘But this clearly involves the enclave’s Namarti, which are my business.’

The Ochtar curled its tentacles beneath it, taking a pensive, meditative pose.

‘This Annamaras masks something,’ Lotann continued. ‘She only makes paltry efforts to hide it. Concealment by threat – the typical qualities of an overconfident despot. I represent an unknown, hence her censure. But I will not let threats deter me.’ He put a certain venom into his voice. Lotann hated deception and misdirection. Or, more specifically, he hated it when they were directed at him.

He looked at the Ochtar, which pulsed between purple and cold blue once more.

‘Yes, yes,’ Lotann said with a sigh. ‘I must approach this calmly.’ He took a deep breath.

Mnemesthli descended from the ceiling, settling onto the table before him. It stared directly at him, shifting its skin back to its original colour and complexion.

‘I know,’ Lotann said. ‘Be more like you. Your kind are superior, you don’t need to keep reminding me.’ And then Lotann narrowed his eyes, an idea forming. ‘Oh yes… Indeed. So superior.’

He had unwittingly stumbled onto something of a plan. He looked at the Ochtar. In his experience, most other Idoneth thought Mnemesthli to be little more than a soulbond familiar.

He gave a thin smile. ‘Mnemesthli? I need you to do something for me.’

The Ochtar stared at him.

‘I would like you to locate the chorrileum.’

The Ochtar shifted across the table, its skin changing texture and colour to match that of its surroundings.

‘Yes,’ Lotann said. ‘Map it out for me. This Annamaras clearly doesn’t want me inside, which means there must be information hidden within.’

The creature rose from the table and squeezed through one of the vents, exiting the dwelling.

Alone again, Lotann leaned back, closed his eyes, and waited once more.

The wait took some time. The symbiotes, their luminescence synchronised with the light of Hysh, dimmed at the onset of night far above. When Mnemesthli slipped back inside, Lotann surfaced from his thoughts quickly.

He released a pulse into the ethersea. As the pulse rippled back, he detected the minds of half a dozen Namarti, sleeping dreamlessly within the general vicinity. He also detected Mnemesthli’s compound, alien thoughts, and a myriad of tiny, primitive minds bustling about. He focused on the latter, and was surprised to discover nothing was attached to them.

Lotann found that intriguing, for it meant the Scryfish were gone.

Standing, he drew a large, unmarked scroll from his satchel, and splayed it out across the table before him. Placing a philtre of mercurial ink beside it, he drew a trio of spinefish quills and handed them to Mnemesthli. The Ochtar dipped the quills into the ink, and began drawing an unnervingly precise map of the chorrileum.

Lotann watched, committing the lines and shapes to memory. His memory was, of course, not as perfect as the Ochtar’s, but then, he only had one brain.

‘You weren’t noticed?’ he asked it.

Mnemesthli’s skin darkened.

Lotann nodded, and gestured at the strange, blotchy marks on the map. ‘And these?’

One of the Ochtar’s tentacles pointed at Lotann’s helm.

‘Guards,’ he muttered. ‘Not overly many. Nothing we cannot slip past. And what about the way to the chorrileum? Where is it, exactly?’

Mnemesthli drew branch-like patterns around the drawing.

‘In the lower city,’ Lotann said, taking the scroll and rolling it up once the Ochtar was done.

He put the scroll into a pouch alongside several others, and retrieved the rest of his belongings, looping a short sword and the spiked cudgel to his belt. Then he removed his armour and placed it back into the mesh hanger. It would only slow him down.

When he was ready, he looked to Mnemesthli. ‘Now if you would… lead me there. I want answers.’

The Ochtar jetted to the door, and Lotann followed.

Outside, his eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness. A few symbiotes still glowed, illuminating the pathways threading through the city.

Mnemesthli immediately retrieved something from a nook between two of the branches adjacent to the dwelling. It offered its prize to Lotann.

Lotann grimaced, but did not touch the slimy, mangled fish. It was the length of his forearm, and it looked half-eaten.

‘Why, Mnemesthli? I’ve made it abundantly clear that I do not wan–’ But then he saw why Mnemesthli offered it to him.

Lotann looked closer. ‘Most fascinating…’

The carcass looked as though it had been cut in half. A single spur jutted from the fish’s lower jaw.

‘Dead Scryfish,’ Lotann said uneasily. ‘What did this?’

Mnemesthli darkened. It didn’t know either.

Lotann closed his eyes and pulsed his will outwards again.

The returning ripple revealed nothing. Nobody was watching, with real eyes or through a proxy.

He dropped the carcass between the branches, and let it sink into the deeps.

‘Somebody wants me to snoop around,’ he said, signalling Mnemesthli to lead on.

The trek did not take long. They avoided the broad walkways in favour of the narrower passages through the lower canopy.

The few Namarti they passed cocked their heads and listened to Lotann’s unfamiliar strides. In response, he soothed the ethersea, hoping to dissuade them from alerting the authorities about his obviously foreign presence.

They reached the chorrileum without incident. The arboreal walkway ended abruptly, becoming a ledge of interwoven branches that looked down over the abyss below.

Above, hanging from several trunks, the chorrileum’s structure was a network of densely woven branches, clustered into several interconnected spherical chambers. The central sphere was larger than the others, and featured a small copse of twisting, spire-like protrusions that dangled below.

Some of the passages from the city connected to the chorrileum like a web. Those walkways that led into the structure were all guarded by glaive-armed Akhelians.

From Lotann’s hidden vantage below, he was certain the guards couldn’t see him. ‘How do we get in?’ he whispered.

Mnemesthli pointed with a tentacle towards a window set into the side of one of the spires hanging from beneath the central sphere. It hung down to the level of their vantage point, though the window was rather small.

Lotann gave Mnemesthli a sidelong glance. ‘You do realise I have bones, yes? I cannot do the things you do.’

The Ochtar stared at him blankly.

Lotann looked back to the window. He could probably fit. Getting to it was what concerned him. He would have to cross the dark gulf to reach it.

‘Fine,’ Lotann muttered. ‘You’ll have to help me get there though.’ The ethersea, for all the miracles it provided, did create some disadvantages when swimming. Water did not function as it usually did for those not inherently adapted to it.

Mnemesthli wrapped its tentacles under Lotann’s arms, and began jetting its way over the darkness below. As the Ochtar carried Lotann to the hanging spires, it released plumes of ink that would camouflage it against the darkness below, and conceal it from any eyes watching from above.

When they finally reached the window, Lotann gripped the sill while Mnemesthli let him go and darted in ahead, returning a moment later to signal that the vicinity was clear. Squeezing inside, Lotann dropped from the window into a spiralling stairwell, and took a moment to calm himself.

Then he ascended the stair until it reached an arched door. Opening it a crack, he waited for Mnemesthli to squeeze through and scout out what lay ahead.

When the Ochtar returned, Lotann proceeded, sneaking through several hallways and passages, following Mnemesthli deeper into the central structure.

Eventually, after moving through a dim ring-like hall whose radiating passages presumably connected to the adjacent structures, Lotann slipped through a door along the interior wall, and ascended another stairwell. Mnemesthli jetted through the door at the stairwell’s end while Lotann waited.

It returned a moment later, its skin flashing red.

‘How many?’ Lotann hissed.

Mnemesthli held up two tentacles.

‘Guards?’

The Ochtar’s skin darkened.

‘Incubati then.’

Mnemesthli’s skin brightened, and Lotann cursed.

‘Then we must wait until they’re done.’

The Ochtar drifted away in response, and Lotann followed, retreating back into the lower ring hall, and entering one of the doors along its flanks. He stepped into a small storage closet and closed the door. The Ochtar remained outside to keep watch.

The wait took a nervous hour, but eventually Mnemesthli creaked the door open, and Lotann exited.

‘They’re gone?’ he asked.

Mnemesthli’s skin brightened.

‘Then let’s be quick about it.’

With that, Lotann followed the Ochtar back up into the chorrileum’s central chamber.

The chamber was dominated by the soul repository: an enormous cage of ribbed coral. Each segment of the cage was studded with lines of gemstones, and inscribed with an intricate mesh of glowing runes. The soul-lights within the cage seethed, casting pulsing ripples of violet incandescence across the chamber.

Seven pillars surrounded and leaned inwards over the cage. Six were tipped with giant nullstone gems that dampened the trapped spirits’ ferocity. The seventh was equipped with a ladder and a platform at its top. It overlooked a warded vent that hissed with escaping ephemeral vapours.

At the base of the seventh pillar, a strange instrument resembling a hybrid between a multi-banded orrery and a gem-studded abacus stood, surrounded by clustered lecterns. Each lectern bore cubbies filled with scrolls.

Lotann advanced towards the instrument, and bid Mnemesthli to keep watch. The Ochtar jetted off into the gloom.

Lotann inspected the device. He had worked with its like countless times, and read its bands and beads at a glance. It displayed the type and number of souls currently contained within.

Drawing one of his scrolls, he began jotting down notes.

At the same time, he sifted through the scrolls in the lecterns, reading only the most recent documents. The documents displayed the numbers of souls taken in recent raids, and the numbers used in the recent revitalisations of Namarti. He parsed the information with fluid alacrity, ignoring details he ordinarily obsessed over as he searched for what he truly sought.

Anomalies. Anything that might explain the amount of Namarti deaths Syarrach had spoken of.

It did not take him long to find them.

Frowning, Lotann discovered that the amount of souls withdrawn from the chorrileum was far higher than the number of Namarti implanted with new souls.

Biting back his unease, he read further. Too many Namarti were dying in the revitalisation process. Too many to be accounted for by simple mishap.

‘What is happening here?’ Lotann whispered. ‘This cannot be right.’

He shook his head and continued.

‘The number of failed revitalisations doesn’t explain the number of extracted souls either…’ he muttered. ‘What are they doing with the excess souls? What are they using them for?’

He looked through the documents again, and noticed another peculiarity.

The deceased Namarti were too old to have been revitalised at all. Namarti scarcely lived more than forty or fifty years. Typically, they could not stand more than half a dozen revitalisations before the trauma of the process literally burnt them out.

The Namarti that had died here were all too old. As terrible as it was, no Incubati would willingly waste souls on Namarti that would likely die in the process anyway.

It simply didn’t make sense.

Unfortunately, Lotann’s furtive investigation ended abruptly when Mnemesthli jetted back into the chamber, flashing a warning red.

Quickly replacing the scrolls, Lotann turned to follow the Ochtar back down into the ring hallway. There, he stopped and listened.

His heart thumped nervously, but he heard nothing.

The Ochtar jetted forwards, leading on.

‘Out is that way!’ Lotann hissed, pointing in the opposite direction.

The Ochtar reddened again, and Lotann cursed.

And then he heard voices. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they were approaching through the hallway behind them.

The Ochtar jetted towards the storage closet once more, and Lotann quickly opened the door, allowing the two to slip inside just as lanternlight illuminated the hall.

Holding his breath, Lotann listened as several Idoneth moved past. He heard them speak, and more pertinently, he recognised the voice of his fellow Soul Warden, Annamaras.

‘…poses a problem,’ she said. ‘If he is missing, it can only mean trouble. Find him.’

‘Something is killing my Scryfish, High Warden,’ another female voice responded. ‘And I don’t think it is his creature.’

‘So he has help?’ Annamaras asked.

‘Yes,’ the other voice answered. ‘Nsenthwe perhaps. The arrival of someone of his reputation must be making her bold.’

‘That does not change our course,’ Annamaras responded. ‘You will find and corral him. I will proceed with the work. My subordinates have already brought newly extracted souls to the animation chamber. I will attempt another binding with what I now know.’

The voices were moving further away. In a moment, Lotann would not be able to hear them. Against his better judgement, he opened the door a crack, and peeked through.

Annamaras moved with a pair of armoured Ishlaen Guard, and the female Soulscryer Lotann recognised from the Dialochian.

‘And if the process fails?’ the Soulscryer asked.

‘Then there are still many unglimpsed secrets hidden within our prisoner’s compound mind. I will try again until it succeeds.’

‘I pray your success comes soon,’ the Soulscryer said. ‘As I’ve warned, the enemy is using the prisoner to home in on us.’

‘When the Vacuari are ready,’ Annamaras snapped, ‘it will not matter if they find us. We will have power enough to obliterate them.’

‘Still, your game is dangerous. If you misstep now, it could…’ The voices trailed off into an indistinguishable murmur as Annamaras and her entourage left through one of the connecting passages.

After a few minutes, Lotann and Mnemesthli emerged.

‘My arrival has clearly stirred something up,’ Lotann whispered, wondering what the rest could all mean. ‘And what, exactly, is a Vacuari?’

Mnemesthli ignored him, drifting towards the exit.

Lotann followed.

They left the way they came in, and crossed the gulf to settle back into the canopy passages below.

Stopping for breath between a cluster of Namarti dwellings, Lotann realised he could not return to his lodgings. Annamaras would likely have it under watch again. Whoever was aiding him had killed the Scryfish to give him a window to sneak out. He needed to learn the identity of his benefactor, and how to contact them. But first, he needed other answers.

‘Mnemesthli,’ he said, ‘I need you to locate this enclave’s waning creche.’

The Ochtar stared at him.

‘The place where old Namarti go for mercy?’

It continued staring. Intelligent as it was, certain nuances confused it.

‘Where Namarti go to die,’ Lotann articulated.

The Ochtar brightened, pulsing away into the gloom, leaving Lotann to wait once more.

He found a branch to sit on, overlooking the drop below, and pondered his discoveries.

‘Why would they be wasting souls on Namarti too old to benefit from them?’ he muttered, speaking to the pale lobster grazing on a nearby branch.

‘Whatever Annamaras is doing, she’s clearly putting the whole enclave at risk. And what was all that about a prisoner?’ He narrowed his eyes, and let his thoughts run wild with potential conspiracies.

Losing track of time, he was surprised when Mnemesthli returned, beckoning him to follow. Lotann did exactly that.

Sneaking through the city once more, he and Mnemesthli were forced to hide in the tangled fronds twice as lone Fangmora riders ghosted through the passages, panning their lanterns about, searching. As such, when the waning creche finally came into view, Lotann sighed in relief.

The large, spherical structure was built into the canopy, and hung from a webbing of pathways and branches. Lotann and Mnemesthli approached it from above, concealing their movements in the gloomy tangle.

The structure was dark and unguarded, but that came as no surprise. Waning creches were not strategically important.

‘We cannot know the disposition of the Tru’heas tenders,’ Lotann said. ‘Coercion may be necessary.’ He handed his sword and cudgel to the Ochtar. ‘Don’t use them unless you have to,’ he added.

And then he pushed himself off a branch, and descended towards the waning creche, slipping in through one of its many doors.

The structure’s interior was a dark honeycomb of passages, and as Lotann and Mnemesthli snuck through, he passed numerous doorways connecting to resting chambers. The hammocks in many of the chambers were occupied by withered Namarti, resting through their final nights.

Further down the hall, he spied light flickering from a chamber. Creeping forwards, he peeked around the open door and saw a robed Isharann sitting at a desk in what looked like a small study. The Isharann was female, and judging by the markings on her robe, she was a Tru’heas: a spirit healer. She was reading a scroll by the light of a caged lanternfish.

Creeping up behind the Isharann, Lotann brandished a spinefish quill, and lunged forwards to put her into a headlock before she could even react.

Wisely, the Tru’heas stifled her cry of fear.

‘We are going to have a talk,’ Lotann hissed. He wasn’t going to kill her, but she didn’t need to know that.

‘I didn’t tell anybody,’ she stammered, her voice wavering. ‘I swear by Ymmeros.’

Lotann narrowed his eyes. That was an interesting response.

The Tru’heas picked up on his confusion. ‘You aren’t with her?’ She almost sounded hopeful.

‘By her, I take it you mean Annamaras?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m not,’ Lotann answered.

‘Then who?’ She sounded confused. ‘I’ve only done what she made me do…’ She trailed off. ‘Wait… You’re…’ She struggled to turn, but Lotann’s grip prevented it. ‘Who are you?’

‘An interloper,’ he answered, cryptically.

‘You’re not with Nsenthwe then?’

‘Who’s Nsenthwe?’

‘Nobody,’ she mumbled.

Lotann repeated the question more firmly.

‘A rebel!’ she cried. ‘Please don’t kill me!’

Lotann ignored her. ‘And how would one get in contact with this Nsenthwe?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t know!’ she exclaimed, desperate. ‘I’m just a healer. The Namarti speak of her sometimes, but please, don’t disturb the ones here… They need their rest.’

‘How do they speak of her? With fear? Respect? Reverence?’

‘Reverence mostly!’

‘Now, about the Namarti. You wouldn’t, by chance, know why Annamaras and her Incubati might be trying to revitalise Namarti too old to survive the process, would you?’

That only deepened the Tru’heas’ confusion. ‘That’s why they’re taking them?’

‘Taking them?’

‘The Incubati. They come every week to take some of the wilted under my care. I’m told not to ask questions!’

Lotann frowned, disturbed. ‘And they take these Namarti to the chorrileum?’

The Tru’heas nodded, affirming his suspicion.

‘Do they ever leave the chorrileum?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘That begs the question,’ Lotann muttered, ‘if they’re dying in there, where are all the bodies?’

‘Down?’ the Tru’heas guessed. ‘In the darkness below?’

Lotann shuddered.

‘How is Annamaras getting away with this… whatever it is?’ he asked, easing the pressure on the Tru’heas’ neck, and lowering his quill.

‘She has considerable influence,’ she managed, calming. ‘Most of the Dialochian is under her control. All of the Incubati, too. She even has a cadre of Akhelians serving her.’

‘Someone on the Dialochian opposes her?’

‘I think so. There is dissent. That’s what I’ve heard.’

‘If she has so much influence, why tolerate dissent? Why not simply kill those who oppose her?’

‘Because killing a member of the Dialochian will cause the Akhelian garrison to intervene. The last time they intervened, nearly a dozen Isharann died!’

Lotann blinked. Most enclaves worked in an opposite manner, with the Akhelians scheming and the Isharann acting as peacemakers. Naturally, the Isharann were more diplomatic about it.

He released the Tru’heas. It was clear she wasn’t an enemy.

She stumbled away, retreating into the corner.

Lotann realised she was young, likely only a recent initiate from the túrscoll. He felt a moment of guilt for threatening her. ‘What is your name?’ he asked.

‘Cynthari,’ she stammered, studying Lotann. ‘You’re not Ymmerloc… Who are you?’

‘I am Lotann, Warden of the Soul Ledgers. You may have heard of me.’

Her eyes widened. ‘By Ymmeros, you’re… Oh… Does that mean the Ionrach are coming to–’

‘No,’ Lotann interrupted. ‘I’m here on my own. For personal work.’ He didn’t elaborate.

Cynthari glanced between him, the Ochtar and the door, but stayed put.

‘When did the Incubati start taking your charges?’ Lotann enquired.

‘A year and a half ago… after everything changed,’ she answered.

‘After what changed?’

‘The war.’

‘When did this war start?’ Lotann asked. The demand had left his voice. He felt as though Cynthari wanted to speak.

‘Technically, with the Khaphtar Incident,’ she started. ‘When Nagash learned about the Idoneth. It took his forces decades to start searching the Helfrost, and when they did, the phalanxes kept them from finding the enclave, but then things changed. Two years ago, a new enemy arrived. Not the Nighthaunt we’d faced thus far, but something else.’

‘What new enemy?’

‘Something nobody speaks of, lest it cause a panic. I’ve only heard rumours…’

Lotann stared at her expectantly.

She sighed. ‘Rumours of a coming doom. Of an army of soul-infused undead constructs methodically searching the ice, ever closing in on us…’

Lotann shivered. He knew what Cynthari was speaking of. He’d encountered them while aiding the Mor’phann on Hallost. ‘Ossiarchs,’ he muttered, gravely.

‘You know of them?’ she asked, hopefully.

‘Some,’ he answered. ‘But what does this new enemy have to do with the Incubati taking your wilted charges?’

‘Annamaras began joining the war parties shortly after these… Ossiarchs… arrived. Her Incubati started taking away my charges shortly after.’

Lotann frowned. The Telechari courier’s daughter had died around the same time.

He wanted to ask more questions, but it was clear this Tru’heas didn’t know what he needed. He would need other assistance. And he would need to get back into the chorrileum. He doubted Cynthari would be of further help. ‘Can I trust you to keep our meeting quiet?’

She nodded. ‘I want my charges to be left in peace. So yes, I will keep this quiet.’

Lotann beckoned Mnemesthli, and made for the door. He looked back. ‘I apologise for the coercion. I couldn’t be certain you weren’t under Annamaras’ employ.’

Cynthari’s eyes flicked between him and the Ochtar. ‘What will you do now?’

‘I think I’ll have a look around,’ he said with a thin smile. ‘It’s probably best I don’t stay in one place for too long.’

And with that, he left.

Outside, he and Mnemesthli re-entered the tangled pathways and returned to their prior vantage beneath the chorrileum. Infiltrating it had been illuminating, but Annamaras had mentioned her work taking place in the animation chamber. She had, presumably, been heading there when Lotann had spied upon her. He’d seen her move into one of the connecting passages. Using Mnemesthli’s map he worked out which of the passages she’d taken.

‘That one there,’ he said, pointing towards one of structures attached to the central chorrileum. ‘We need to get in there.’

The structure was, unfortunately, windowless.

And then six Fangmora riders came into view, emerging from behind the primary dome. It was clear they were acting as sentries.

‘I see she has increased the guard,’ Lotann said sourly. ‘I think we’ll need to wait for an opening…’

And wait they did. But no opening came. For two hours, they sat there, watching to no avail, until Mnemesthli alerted him to movement in the passage behind them.

Lotann turned. Something emerged from a thicket of fronds scarcely a dozen strokes from where he was hidden. It had a pointed, sword-like bill, and the sleek body of a predator. Like everything else Lotann had seen in this enclave, it was pale. It drifted forwards, and then looked directly at him.

Mnemesthli spread its tentacles in a menacing manner, but Lotann quelled the Ochtar’s aggression.

The approaching creature was a Rakerdart.

Rakerdarts didn’t have the strange quality that allowed Soulscryers to use their senses, but they were notoriously intelligent, and were often used by Isharann as familiars.

Lotann saw fresh gouge wounds in the creature’s flanks. He frowned, narrowing his eyes. The shapes of the wounds were wedge-like. Like the jawspurs of Scryfish.

‘I see,’ Lotann muttered, intrigued. He moved towards the Rakerdart, signalling Mnemesthli to follow.

The Rakerdart swam further down the passage, then turned to face Lotann again. It looked as though it wanted him to follow.

Beckoning Mnemesthli, and without any other leads, Lotann did exactly that.

The creature led him across several walkways deeper into a withered portion of the canopy, overgrown by pale anemones. The branches became cracked and brittle, and the nearby Namarti dwellings became wilted and hollow. The void beckoned below, and a strong current tugged at Lotann’s robes. The wounded Rakerdart struggled against the current while Mnemesthli used its tentacles to pull itself between the branches.

Eventually, the Rakerdart stopped, and Lotann heard footsteps behind him.

He wheeled around.

An armoured Soulrender stood a dozen paces away, looming in the door frame of a hollowed dwelling. She was tall, her height only exaggerated by her crested anglerhelm. Her translucent armour was decorated by long spurs of bone, and she leaned on a cruelly bladed talúnhook.

Lotann didn’t move, though Mnemesthli took up a defensive position beside him.

‘Warden,’ the Soulrender said, her voice husky and distorted.

The Rakerdart swam past her and disappeared into the broken dwelling.

Lotann inclined his head. ‘Nsenthwe, I take it? I’m going to assume you’re the one that’s been aiding me from the shadows.’

The Soulrender nodded, and moved towards Lotann. Her height and armour made every movement look menacing.

‘I’ve heard stories about you,’ she said, stopping a few paces from him. ‘Intrepid. Determined. At times, even moral. I assumed you would find the will to act if you knew you weren’t being watched.’

It almost sounded as though she respected him.

Lotann gave a half-nod. ‘Yes, I took the hint. How did you find me now, and why bring me out here?’

‘There are only so many Ochtar-accompanied foreigners traipsing about,’ she answered. ‘You were noticed. And this old spur of the city is exposed to the currents. Scryfish cannot swim here, and thanks to the cyfar compass of Annamaras’ pet Soulscryer, I cannot leave here either without drawing their attention.’

Lotann understood. Cyfar compasses could illuminate the location of an individual. If she left this place, the Scryfish would be guided to her location in minutes.

‘Thankfully,’ she said, patting the Rakerdart as it circled around her, ‘nobody thought to mark Tleshkar.’

‘Why are you being watched?’ Lotann asked.

‘Because I tried to uncover what was happening here when it first began,’ she answered. ‘Obviously, I failed. And now, there is little I can do without outside aid.’

Lotann nodded, understanding. ‘What have you managed to discover?’ he asked.

She turned to stare down into the abyss. ‘I learned that Annamaras began abducting Namarti two years ago, obscuring the disappearances as revitalisation accidents. Now, she has expanded her operations, plucking wounded from the front lines, and wilted from the waning creche.’

Lotann nodded, feeling a surge of disgust. ‘But why?’

‘I do not yet know,’ Nsenthwe answered. ‘I placed my Soulrenders into strategic positions during the campaigns, hoping to put a stop to it, but Annamaras’ agents are masters at obfuscation. I found little evidence prior to my exile.’

‘Why were you exiled?’ Lotann asked.

‘A lie,’ Nsenthwe answered. ‘I was accused of being mallachi.’

Lotann grimaced. That would be a death sentence. No Idoneth fallen to Slaanesh could ever be permitted to live.

‘Well, you don’t act like mallachi,’ he muttered. ‘Surely the garrison must be hunting you though, with an accusation like that on your shoulders?’

Nsenthwe chuckled. ‘They did. But they don’t come here any more.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Because any that do never come back.’ There was a cold amusement in Nsenthwe’s voice. ‘But it’s not the garrison that should concern you. They don’t trust Annamaras. They only do her bidding because it is their duty to serve the Dialochian, and, as of now, Annamaras is the Dialochian. Her loyalists are the real problem.’

‘How many loyalists does she have?’

‘Aside from the Dialochian,’ she answered, sourly, ‘nearly two dozen Akhelians, all drawn from the phalanxes on the front line.’

‘Why do they follow her?’ Lotann enquired. Typically speaking, Akhelians didn’t concern themselves with the schemes of Isharann, and vice versa.

‘Because she has given them hope,’ Nsenthwe answered. ‘It is no secret that our enclave is doomed. A new enemy has come. They are–’

‘Ossiarchs,’ Lotann interrupted. ‘I know of them.’

Nsenthwe nodded, and continued. ‘They are closing the noose. We have years left, perhaps less. As I understand it, Annamaras’ Akhelians believe she has found a solution – some way to save the enclave. That is why they serve her.’

‘The Vacuari…’ Lotann said. ‘I overheard her speak of it. I believe that is the name of her solution.’

Nsenthwe nodded. ‘Then you know as much as I. Now, since we work towards the same purpose, what have you learned?’

Lotann explained what he’d done, and discovered, thus far. When he was finished, he looked at her. She still stared down into the abyss.

‘So… what do you propose we do?’ he asked.

‘You are here,’ Nsenthwe said. ‘You have gravitas. If you present incriminating evidence against Annamaras, the garrison will be forced to act. Regrettably, I cannot do this myself, for obvious reasons.’

‘So, what? We storm the chorrileum?’ Lotann asked. The notion sounded ridiculous.

Much to his surprise, Nsenthwe simply nodded. ‘Yes, that is exactly what we do.’

‘How?’ Lotann enquired. ‘We are two. There are well over a dozen Akhelians guarding it now.’

‘I do not act alone,’ she said, with grim certainty.

‘You have allies?’

‘There are those amongst the Namarti who have lost kin to Annamaras’ cabal. They are… ready for vengeance. I will use Annamaras’ surveillance against her. I will present a direct threat. You will use me as a distraction, and find what must be found. Ideally, you will find what is needed before the garrison answers the alarm calls. I have the numbers to fight Annamaras’ loyalists, but not her loyalists and the garrison.’

Lotann frowned. ‘You are taking a great risk. If I fail on my part, the garrison will kill you.’

She nodded. ‘I have been staying my hand, waiting for an opportunity ever since this began. Your influence is exactly what I need to put an end to this.’

Lotann thought for a moment, and then nodded. He understood her commitment.

He had stirred something up with his arrival. He was duty-bound to see it through. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Then you storm the chorrileum from one side, while I sneak in from the other.’

Nsenthwe turned to him. ‘I expected more reservation.’

‘Reservation and calculation have their uses,’ Lotann agreed. ‘But so too does action. Without solid evidence to incriminate Annamaras, I fear she will eventually apprehend and banish me. Then the abductions and disappearances will continue.’

The Soulrender nodded. ‘Then return to where you were last hidden. I will gather my followers. You will know when it is time to strike.’

With that, she turned, and disappeared into the withered branches.

Lotann looked to Mnemesthli, who had been prowling about for the latter half of the conversation. ‘Don’t ever say my work is boring,’ he said, and set off back towards the hidden vantage beneath the chorrileum.

From his concealment, Lotann observed the patrolling Fangmora riders for over an hour, steadying himself for what was to come.

Suddenly, lights blinked from the spires hanging beneath the central structure. The Fangmora riders shifted, shuttering and unshuttering their own lanterns in response.

Lotann watched intently.

After a few minutes, shouts began to echo through the ethersea. Two of the Fangmora riders on the far side of the chorrileum lurched back, falling from their mounts, one constricted in a razor-edged retiarius net, the other pierced by multiple arrows.

In an instant, the four other cavalry spurred their mounts on towards the commotion, their sinuous motion blurred by the biovoltaic shimmer surrounding them. The dismounted Akhelians, standing guard before the chorrileum’s entrances, shifted. Some ran inside. Others remained where they were.

Lotann understood. He pushed himself from the branches, and was caught by Mnemesthli, who once more carried him up towards the chorrileum.

On the way, he saw Nsenthwe’s attack engage the Akhelians across the web of walkways on the far side of the chorrileum. The Soulrender’s imposing form duelled with two dismounted Morrsarr Guard at the front while a dozen Namarti, shrouded in pale, tattered cloaks, fended off circling Fangmora riders with bow and lanmari blade.

Two Namarti stood atop a dwelling beyond the fighting, manning a stolen retiarius net launcher. They loosed their deadly projectile at one of the Fangmoras just as it snaked towards them.

The razor-net caught both eel and rider, shredding flesh as it closed on impact. The rider tumbled from her mount and sank, thrashing as blood misted from her.

Lotann grimaced, reaching the first dome and climbing up its incline. His heart pounded. Mnemesthli kept close.

Bells began to toll, and Lotann hoped the garrison wouldn’t be too quick to respond.

Breaking into a run, he descended onto the roof of the connecting hallway, and dashed across it to leap onto the incline of the central structure’s domed roof.

One of the Fangmora riders, circling wide as it attacked the clustered Namarti insurgents, drew perilously close to Lotann’s position.

‘Window, now!’ Lotann called.

Mnemesthli jetted down the side of the dome and slipped into the nearest window.

Lotann followed, leaping into the void and grabbing the sill. He slammed into the flank of the structure, but was quickly able to pull himself inside.

Drawing his weapons, he proffered them to the Ochtar.

Mnemesthli pulsed a violent red.

‘Yes,’ Lotann exclaimed, catching his breath. ‘Subtlety has run its course.’

Glancing around, he saw nobody. To his amusement, he realised he was not far from the storage closet he’d previously hidden in.

‘That way,’ he said, pointing to where the hall intersected with a connecting passage. It was the one Annamaras had taken. It would, hopefully, lead to the animation chamber.

He broke into a run, with Mnemesthli moving at his side, weapons held ready in its tentacles.

Entering the connecting passage, he saw it ended in an arched door. A lone Akhelian stood guard, his face obscured behind a heavy Ishlaen helm.

Lotann cursed, and charged, drawing his quill. Mnemesthli jetted ahead of him.

The Akhelian called out, drawing his helsabre. ‘Intruders! Intruders inside!’

Mnemesthli surged towards the warrior, aborting the charge at the last moment just as the Akhelian readied a counter-thrust. Splaying out its tentacles, the Ochtar loosed a jet of ink directly into the warrior’s face.

The Akhelian coughed and staggered back.

Mnemesthli dipped low, wrapped three tentacles around its cudgel’s haft, and smashed the weapon into the blinded Akhelian’s kneecap. The warrior toppled with a scream.

Lotann barrelled past and shouldered his way through the door, entering a sizeable chamber from atop a ring-shaped mezzanine. The mezzanine surrounded a lower floor bedecked with arcane instruments and glasrime slabs. Four of the slabs had withered and naked Namarti shackled to them.

A pair of robed Incubati, faceless within their glassy helms, sprang into motion. One carried a lurelight lantern, its unshuttered radiance swirling with violent intensity. The other carried a soulsnare rod, its hooked prongs trailing wispy, violet light.

One of the chained Namarti thrashed about. Violet light blazed through her open mouth, and from beneath her parchment-thin skin. A modified binding collar, featuring six gem-studded prongs, was seared onto her neck, shrouding her with ripples of arcane force.

But Lotann’s attention was drawn away as the nearest Incubati charged up the short stair towards him, lowering the soulsnare rod like a lance.

Lotann grabbed the stair’s railings and launched himself feet first over the cumbersome weapon, planting both boots into the Incubati’s helm, tumbling down the stairs on top of his adversary.

On the far side of the room, the other Incubati dropped its lantern, and darted to the wall to pull a hooked snarestaff from a rack. But she barely managed to seize the weapon before Mnemesthli reached her, slashing both of her hamstrings out with a swipe of its sword and wrapping the rest of its tentacles around her throat and arms.

Lotann landed and rolled, twisting to face his opponent.

The glassy mask of the first Incubati’s helm had shattered, but the Isharann fumbled for his dropped weapon nonetheless. Lotann lurched forwards and repeatedly thrust his spinefish quill into the Incubati’s back with frantic abandon.

Blood misted from the wounds, and Lotann scrambled back, horrified at his own savagery.

The wounded Isharann gasped, still trying to reach for his improvised weapon.

Ahead, the other Incubati struggled in vain against Mnemesthli’s grip. The Ochtar brought itself down onto its victim’s neck, and used its beak to puncture her throat. Blood misted around the grappling pair as the Incubati thrashed.

To the right, the Namarti on the slab convulsed, shrieking. It was no natural sound. It was a chorus of a dozen agonised wails, unspeakably distorted and deafeningly loud.

Lotann stood, kicking his still-struggling opponent in the back, and sending him slumping forwards as he rushed towards the convulsing Namarti. He watched in horror as the lights threaded through the Namarti’s flesh, bursting through her skin in places.

Shapes, like faces and grasping hands, writhed under the Namarti’s skin, causing Lotann to gasp. Larger cracks began to rip through the prisoner’s flesh as the screams intensified.

On the far side of the chamber, Mnemesthli rose from his still-convulsing kill, and shot towards the first Incubati, finishing off the Isharann’s struggles by cudgelling him in the skull.

Lotann stared at the horror before him. He didn’t know what this was. He had no idea how to stop it.

Glancing frantically at the Namarti’s binding collar, he saw the ripples of force spread from it, realising it was the only thing keeping the raging spirit trapped within its living host.

Except… it wasn’t one raging spirit.

He saw multiple faces writhe through the Namarti’s disintegrating flesh.

The runes on the collar flared. The metal warped. The gemstones cracked.

Lotann backed away, horrified and appalled.

‘Why?!’ he cried, holding up his hands as the Namarti stood, shattering the glasrime manacles chaining it to the slab. Its limbs twisted, bones snapping. It moved as though it were being pulled by invisible strings. In that instant its jaw distended, and a gyre of swirling spectres erupted from its opened throat.

The shrieking souls stormed through the chamber, their long ghostly forms tethered to the convulsing Namarti, pulling it forwards like a broken puppet.

Mnemesthli disappeared under one of the glasrime slabs.

Lotann expected the entire gyre of spirits to descend upon him. He expected to die, right then and there. He was, as such, surprised when a number of them twisted to the right, surging up towards the entrance hall.

Lotann turned, and saw Annamaras at the top of the stairs. Her hood was lowered, revealing sharp, angular features as pale as ice. Two more Incubati stood beside her, one armed with a snarestaff, the other brandishing a lurelight lantern.

The first spectre rushed towards Annamaras and her cohorts, but the leading Incubati stepped forwards, raising his lantern. The raging spirit, in mid-dive, was pulled into the lantern’s vents. It disappeared with a screaming hiss of violet light.

Another arced around towards the trio, but the second Incubati plucked it from the ether with his hooked snarestaff, and dragged it towards his lantern-bearing companion.

It, and a third attacking spirit, were simultaneously sucked into the lantern’s vents.

Lotann ducked, just as a spirit dived at him, narrowly avoiding its spectral claws as he rolled towards the abandoned lantern discarded by the Incubati Mnemesthli had slain.

Another spirit descended upon him just as he grabbed the lurelight lantern and rolled. On his back, he raised the lantern, and drew the spirit into it, feeling its cold, seething hatred claw at his mind and soul for a brief instant.

The other spectres wailed in anguish, reaching with accusing fingers down towards him. The Namarti host danced about, its broken body moving at the deranged whims of the spirit host.

Two more came at Lotann, but he twisted, and angled his lantern just in time to pull them in. The rest of the spirits rushed towards Annamaras and her followers, but fared little better than the first wave.

And then, the Namarti puppet collapsed in a heap and all went quiet. With ringing ears and pounding heart, Lotann stood and turned towards the new arrivals. ‘What… is this?’ he demanded, enraged.

‘The result of an interruption,’ Annamaras hissed, surveying the carnage, her eyes ablaze with cold ire. ‘You are lucky the spirits were newly implanted, and still disoriented!’

Miraculously, the three other shackled Namarti were untouched, though violet lights coursing within them caused them to shudder in unnatural ways. The rest of the chamber was utterly ravaged.

Annamaras’ eyes settled on the dead Incubati. ‘You killed them,’ she hissed.

‘In the interest of stopping this… madness,’ Lotann snarled, ‘yes, I did!’

Annamaras shook her head in rage. ‘You… you will not stop me.’ She looked to her compatriots. ‘If it ends now, then all that was sacrificed will have been in vain! He cannot be allowed to jeopardise the work!’ Her eyes seared with cold determination: the fire of a zealot, certain in her beliefs.

The two new Incubati leapt into motion, rushing down the stairs towards him.

As they passed the first glasrime slab, Mnemesthli, still hidden beneath it, lashed out with its tentacles to trip the lantern-bearing Incubati.

Lotann sidestepped the snarehook thrust of the other, and with a deftness that surprised even himself, lunged forwards and jabbed his quill into the Incubati’s throat.

More blood misted into the chamber, and Lotann shoved the gurgling Incubati away and rushed towards Annamaras, catching sight of Mnemesthli bashing in the skull of the other with its cudgel.

As Lotann ascended the stair, Mnemesthli detached itself from its squirming victim, and jetted upwards to aid him.

‘Alive!’ Lotann cried. ‘I need her alive!’

Annamaras fled, and even though she had all the grace and agility of an aelf, her speed hardly matched that of the Ochtar.

Mnemesthli descended upon her from behind, wrapping its tentacles around her neck and arms, and slashing her hamstrings with its borrowed sword.

She fell with a cry just as Lotann reached her and wrestled her to the ground.

Screaming in rage, she tried to elbow him, but his grip, and Mnemesthli’s enveloping tentacles, kept her pinned.

‘Kill them!’ she shouted down the hall. ‘Kill the intruders!’

Lotann looked up to see a pair of Ishlaen Guard running down the hall towards him, helsabres ready.

He cursed, realising he and Mnemesthli had little chance of taking two Ishlaen Guard.

But then one of the Ishlaens fell, crying out as something struck him from behind. A nimble, blade-snouted fish darted away in a mist of blood, having skewered the Akhelian through the lower back.

The other Ishlaen turned, only to be felled alongside his companion by a volley of arrows.

Beyond them, entering the hall, Lotann saw the menacing form of Nsenthwe advancing at the head of a dozen ragged-looking Namarti. In the gloom, her translucent armour gave her the countenance of a scythe-wielding wraith.

As she reached the entrance of the animation chamber, the crippled Akhelian Mnemesthli had left at the door lunged at her with suicidal abandon.

Her greave deflected the helsabre slash, and, without breaking stride, she beheaded the Akhelian with a one-handed stroke of her talúnhook.

Her lurelight swirled as it absorbed the warrior’s escaping soul.

‘Warden,’ Nsenthwe said, her armour reflecting the flashing lights as the soul hissed into the lantern.

The Namarti moved into the animation chamber. Lotann could hear their alarm as they saw what lay within.

‘The garrison is coming,’ Nsenthwe said. ‘They’re already mobilising on the platforms. Tell me you have what we need.’

‘Oh, I’m sure I do,’ Lotann snarled, putting more pressure on Annamaras as she struggled. There’s plenty of evidence here, no doubt. You keep your band out of the way. I’ll deal with the garrison. Just keep her alive.’ He gestured at his captive.

A pair of Namarti pinned Annamaras to the ground. They were not gentle.

He looked over the group. Nsenthwe looked unfazed by the battle, but most of the Namarti looked as though they’d suffered wounds.

It had clearly been a hard fight, even if it had lasted no more than five minutes.

The garrison arrived moments later, two dozen dismounted Morrsarr Guard advancing down the hall, their spears and shields raised in formation.

Lotann beckoned Nsenthwe and her ragged band to stand behind him.

The advancing Akhelians came to a halt a dozen strokes from Lotann and his allies. One, wearing a spined helm that Lotann recognised, called out. ‘Outsider! Were you not denied entry into the chorrileum? This is an act of war against Ymmerloc!’

Lotann raised his hands and bowed. ‘Rest assured, Prince Karandrys, this is not an act of war. I have uncovered a terrible truth. I’ll admit to using subterfuge to do so, and I will accept any punishment for disobeying your laws, but see for yourself.’ He gestured towards the animation chamber.

‘You consort with exiles and mallachi,’ the prince spat, gesturing at Nsenthwe, ignoring Lotann’s offer.

‘She is no mallachi,’ Lotann countered. ‘And all those here have been exiled by Annamaras’ lies, nothing more.’

‘The outsider is the one who–’ Annamaras’ protest was cut short as a Namarti clubbed her senseless with the haft of his whisperbow.

‘See for yourself, prince,’ Lotann said again, standing aside.

He motioned for Nsenthwe’s band to do the same, and soothed the ethersea to calm the tension. ‘Please,’ he said, looking to his allies. ‘Let there be no further violence. Put down your weapons.’

The Namarti reluctantly complied, and, after a moment, Nsenthwe lowered her talúnhook.

The Akhelians advanced cautiously, keeping their spears levelled at Nsenthwe and her Namarti.

Lotann could see their tension. They’d come expecting to quell an insurrection. They’d found something entirely different instead.

After a moment, the prince broke ranks with three of his men, and advanced through the Namarti, into the animation chamber. There, he saw…

‘Ghost of Mathlann,’ he whispered, staring at the chained, shuddering Namarti, and the distorted, burnt-out husk lying in the centre of the chamber. ‘What is this?’

‘An atrocity,’ Lotann answered. ‘This is what Annamaras has been hiding. This is why Namarti have been vanishing.’

The prince looked at him, his cold, normally stoic features displaying visible shock. ‘Then Annamaras has been lying to us this entire time… But why? What purpose does this serve?’

‘I aim to find out,’ Lotann said, grimly, ‘if you would allow me. I am a Soul Warden, and I might thus be able to glean some answers from the magic at work here. So please, unless you plan on trusting the wardens loyal to Annamaras to provide you with clear answers, let me assist you.’

The prince looked back to his men. ‘Lower your weapons,’ he commanded.

They did so, and the Namarti seemed to sag in relief.

It was over. The garrison had seen reason. Annamaras’ cabal, and her experiments, had been halted.

Lotann simply needed to know why this horror had occurred.

‘I would investigate this mess immediately,’ Lotann said. ‘I will, of course, accept punishment for my intrusions later,’ he added, diplomatically.

The prince nodded, and Lotann got to work.

Sifting through the scattered scrolls, Lotann was joined by Nsenthwe. The rest of Annamaras’ cabal had been apprehended elsewhere in the chorrileum, and Prince Karandrys and his cohorts were busy interrogating them in the hall.

In contrast to the prior hostilities, half of the garrison and most of Nsenthwe’s Namarti insurgents joined forces to search the rest of the chorrileum, while the rest remained in the animation chamber to watch over the other chained Namarti.

Lotann described what had happened, and those in the room watched the shuddering prisoners with concern.

Sifting through the scattered scrolls, and listening to the words drawn forth from the Incubati prisoners, Lotann learned that these Namarti were Annamaras’ Vacuari: living vessels implanted with entire hosts of spirits. He learned that Annamaras’ cabal had used specialised binding collars, imbued with Nadirite gemstones, to shackle and control the trapped spirits. Obviously, the process had only been partly successful thus far.

As he read further, he learned that Annamaras had begun her experiments shortly after encountering the Ossiarchs. She’d begun with many Namarti, both young and old, but over the last two years, and with many unsuccessful trials, she had learned that older Namarti were, for reasons unknown, more receptive to the process.

The record scrolls of prior experiments indicated that the Vacuari didn’t last long, but that Annamaras’ cabal was getting closer to creating a Vacuari vessel that could indefinitely contain and control the spirits trapped within it.

Lotann simply didn’t know why.

When Annamaras finally came to her senses, Prince Karandrys dragged her down into the animation chamber, and kicked her to her knees before Lotann. She was bruised and bloodied, but the cold determination still burned in her eyes.

Lotann loomed over her. ‘Why?’ he demanded.

‘Because we face an enemy we cannot defeat through conventional means,’ she wheezed, clearly in pain.

‘How will these Vacuari change that?’ Lotann pressed.

‘They are… hosts to the ethereal. They can absorb the souls infused into Ossiarch constructs, drawing them into themselves, and leaving the Ossiarchs inert and broken.’

‘You have tested this?’

Annamaras gave a thin smile. ‘Oh yes… I’ve seen it with my own eyes. It works… It would have… saved us from what is coming. But you…’ Her smile turned into an expression of loathing. ‘You have doomed us.’

She twisted, trying to look up at the prince. ‘Unless your cohorts kill these wretched traitors and interlopers and let my work continue!’

The prince elbowed her in the collar, causing her to double over, gasping in pain.

‘I never believed the rumours about you,’ he spat. ‘I believed it all to be meaningless lies told by your enemies. But you have played me for a fool. How many of our people have you killed?’

Annamaras gritted her teeth. ‘Their… sacrifice, was for the good of Ymmerloc.’

Lotann saw it in her eyes. The devotion. The mad certainty.

She truly believed in what she was doing.

He frowned, shivering. With their enclave’s doom approaching, he almost couldn’t blame her.

But his thoughts were interrupted as Nsenthwe got his attention.

She directed him to a strange, circular marking on the floor.

‘A trapdoor,’ he said.

Nsenthwe knelt, and wrenched it open.

They were greeted by a rush of stale, dead ether. Preparing themselves, they descended the ladder into whatever lay below.

As Lotann dropped into the lower chamber, he saw a table filled with surgical implements, a dissection slab and a lectern bearing a lone grimoire. He saw shelves containing specimen bottles, fragments of strange-looking bone, and perfectly cut Nadirite gems. And worse, he saw racks bearing the dissected remains of burnt-out Namarti husks, neatly stacked in rows along the walls. There were dozens of them, at least.

But for all the macabre horror, Lotann’s eyes were drawn to the giant, transparent glasrime tube at the centre of the chamber. It was connected to various arcane implements. What was contained within made Lotann’s heart skip a beat.

It was an enormous, humanoid skeleton with four arms, draped in sinister regalia, its leering, inhuman skull adorned by a peaked crown. Lotann realised in an instant that this was no natural skeleton at all. It was an amalgamation of sculpted bone. It was an Ossiarch.

Nsenthwe stared at it. ‘Ghost of Mathlann,’ she said, clearly dumbfounded. ‘The witch brought one of them back into the enclave?’

‘It is a Mortisan construct,’ Lotann said, his voice cold and disturbed. ‘A weaver of souls… This is where Annamaras learned how to do what she did.’

It all made sense. This was the prisoner Annamaras had been referring to. This was the source of her knowledge.

In its serene, seated position, it looked as though it might be dead, or inactive. But Lotann saw the fell, violet glow in its eye sockets. His sight showed him the truth of it. It was not dead. Not at all.

And it was watching him.

He shivered, looking away from its baleful gaze. ‘She was trying to imitate their magic to create a weapon to use against them,’ he said, aghast and mystified by it all. It would take a particular sort of twisted genius to reverse-engineer the magic of the Mortisans, but it was clear enough that Annamaras had almost succeeded.

Lotann opened the grimoire and sifted through pages while Nsenthwe searched the rest of the macabre chamber. He saw arcane symbols and unfathomable formulae. It was a deconstructed recreation of Ossiarch magic. Annamaras had found a way to use the soulless bodies of Namarti as vessels in a similar manner to how the Mortisans used the bone constructs of their own kind. It was equal parts terrible and fascinating, for Lotann knew there would be much to learn, about both the Ossiarchs, and the true nature of his own kind, within the tome.

Furtively, he took the grimoire, placing it into one of his scroll satchels. Nsenthwe didn’t notice. He would read the tome. He needed to know what secrets Annamaras had unearthed.

And with that, he turned and ascended the ladder back into the animation chamber. He told the prince of the Ossiarch prisoner, and suggested that it be destroyed.

And then, beckoning Mnemesthli, he left the chamber, taking the dark tome with him.

Nobody stopped him. He had, in all likelihood, earned the enclave’s trust by now. He would return to his lodgings, free from suspicion. If further diplomacy went well, and he didn’t end up facing punishment for his subterfuge, he would re-enter the chorrileum later to complete his true task. The task he’d come here for. But in the meantime, he would sift through Annamaras’ twisted writings. And then, once he had a clear understanding of everything she knew, he would decide what to do with that knowledge, and how it might best serve the Idoneth race.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Miles A Drake is a professional bartender and aspiring author based in Amsterdam, Holland. His work for Black Library includes the short stories ‘The Flesh Tithe’ and ‘Ghosts of Khaphtar’.

An extract from The Court of the Blind King.

Prince Lurien slumped boredly into the Jade Throne of Briomdar. An artefact of whale ivory and aquamarine, it had thin strands of jade woven through an armature of living coral by the shamanic tide magicks of the isharann chorralus. The physical discomfort of that seat was offset somewhat by the novelty, and by the still-fuzzy glow of his mother’s death. Lurien smiled and shifted position. It was the ‘living’ part, he decided. The coral. In essence, he was sitting on a cunningly crafted rock, one that would regrow itself for each new generation of royalty and never be worn to fit an aelf’s shape. There was a lesson from the gods there, his mother would have said, about hubris and impermanence.

And Queen Lágethé, Tidemistress of the City of Seers, a proven authority on hubris, was now well placed to muse on impermanence.

Her soul, on the other hand…

With a weary sigh, Lurien wound a gauntleted finger through the algal strands of his periwig. The lengths were tied into knots and braids, luminescent turquoise wound with coarse-textured gold. The royal colours of Briomdar. With the bone of his jaw resting against his knuckles, he watched the performance.

The néthic dancer swirled, fishlike, between scattered groups of hooded isharann and ceremonially armoured akhelian, swimming through the deep green ethersea of the hall with the glowing chorrileum shard held above her head. Her body had been painted in mourning purple, marked further in subdued golden pigments with the runes of Erek, Thial and Néthu, with long streamers of black algal hair arranged in fishtails that swarmed over the emblems of the old gods of the dead like cleaner fish about a sacred allopex. Slave dancers of both sexes rippled through the hall in her wake, ribbons trailing from poles. With graceful tumbles, they swam together to conjure scenes from the age of eolas: red dragons breathing golden fire, white isles falling under black seas, golden goddesses devouring the world.

Surrounded by whorls of flesh and colour, the nobility of Briomdar engaged in abstinence, performing the solitary dances of the court. The avarai. The sarail. Or even, for those more daring, the iltaer, in which an aelf partnered with another on the opposite side of the hall. Every great house was accounted for but one, and yet the sense Lurien took from it was emptiness.

Nothing upset the sensibilities of the deepkin like the company of another of their kin.

Lurien watched the dancers with a curled lip. The Dance of the First Age, from the epoch before the Awakening, was a little morbid, even for his idea of entertainment.

With his left hand he wiggled the stem of his wine flute.

A girl bearing a conch shell was beside him almost immediately.

She looked about thirteen or fourteen, although her actual age was impossible to determine: namarti souls aged more quickly than the ivory-skinned perfection of their bodies could show. It was her scars, though, that fascinated Lurien. The namastir ‘half-soul’ rune branded into her forehead. The imperfect flesh that had grown over her hollow eye sockets. The hadrilkar slave collar with the swarming reef emblem of the house of Lágethé. Her bald white scalp had been polished with scented fish oils. Lurien held out his flute, already looking away. The girl flinched from the sudden movement, but didn’t allow any of the dark caulep wine to splash the turquoise-and-gold mosaic of the prince’s armour as she poured.

‘Will that be all, my prince?’ she murmured.

‘For now.’ Lurien darkened his ghoulishly white lips with wine. ‘But do not venture far.’ He watched the dancers distractedly as the conch girl eeled away.

He took a sip of the wine, amusing himself with the thought of how much more enthralling it would be to have the slaves calling him ‘my king’ after the assembral.

‘I hear that the Mirai Wardens are going to inter her above King Lorthael.’

Lurien turned to the three knights lounging variously about the foot of the throne. Each had come clad in piecemeal armour of turquoise scalloping and fine lace, the heraldries of their akhelian houses drifting with their long cloaks in the currents. The hall was a lattice woven of coral strands and gossamer algal netting that draped the original wooden scaffold of the Crannstock, and the icy currents in the ethersea that drove through its many openings never ceased. Lurien frowned down at the three. He was not sure which of them had spoken.

‘The namarti wench?’

The three akhelian laughed, a sound like the last air gurgling from the lungs of a drowning man.

‘Only you would have his mind on his slaves at a time like this,’ said Éodrain, his own gaze nevertheless lingering overlong on the departing girl. His colourless eyes were hooded, as though what he saw both bored and disappointed. His chin was pointed. The pale flush of too much caulep blued his cheeks. He drained the flute.

‘He pities you your royal duties,’ said Calohaire. A scar from a fyresteel axe cleft his left eye up the middle, which, coupled with the angular, ashen jawline of the Briomdar idoneth, lent him a permanently critical look. He glanced to Éodrain and smirked. ‘Or should that be envies?’

Éodrain’s shapeless leer took on an appearance of disgust.

Calohaire laughed coldly. ‘A king must set aside his spiritual discomfort and think of the enclave. Would you not agree, Vágös?’

The third aelf gave a disinterested grunt, his eyes fixed on the eolas dances.

‘Your problem, my prince, is that you treat the namarti almost as though they are real people with feelings,’ Calohaire went on. ‘It confuses them. They do not understand it.’

‘Do you not whip a fangmora that defies you?’ said Éodrain, speaking with a faint slur.

‘And when did you last mount a bound-beast, Éodrain?’ Calohaire laughed.

Lurien laughed as well.

Éodrain said nothing, instead summoning the conch girl for more wine.

‘Do you mean to leer through the entire rite of passage, Prince Lurien?’

An aelf in an austere harness of translucent white plate and a high-buckled cloak swam up to the throne. She was as bald and grey as a manatee, and cadaverous as a skeleton crab, all sharp bone and thin cords of muscle. Her cloak bore the spiked-gauntlet emblem of Túrach – the City of Spines. A group of asglir’akhelian in coats of silvered scales, conical helms and cloaks of identical bearing milled amongst the dancers, disarmed as the custom of assembrals required. Lurien put away his smirk. His retainers studiously occupied their gazes elsewhere.

‘Queen Anaer.’ Lurien bowed his head. ‘Do you come to request the next dance?’

Éodrain sniggered softly.

Anaer glared at him, unblinking.

‘I come because this is an assembral, and you are my host.’ She dipped her head to the precise angle of Lurien’s bow. ‘Were it not for our traditions, the descendants of the cythai would have scattered into the oceans when they first found their way from the Bright Haven and lived solitary lives until one by one they perished.’ Her mouth firmed slightly, noticeable only because of the wastage of flesh from her jawline. ‘Traditions such as rising when you address a queen.’

Lurien startled himself by rising, swiftly covering his embarrassment with a florid bow and then offering the Queen of Spines his hand once more.

Éodrain covered his mouth with his hand.

‘I am considered the finest dancer in the Jade Court,’ said Lurien.

‘Lágethé must have been very proud.’

Lurien felt the spite trickle out of him.

He sat back down.

‘I disliked your mother very much,’ said Anaer.

‘You were not alone.’

‘I found her ambition to rule vulgar. Hers and her sister’s. And I thought her energy… distasteful. You.’ She pursed her lips as she appraised him, slumped in his chair, caulep flute hanging limp between the fingers of one hand. ‘You I have not seen since the tyrant of the azydrazor invited me to witness your mhair trials.’

‘I passed, if I remember.’

‘Everyone passes mhair, Prince Lurien. It is how you pass that defines an akhelian warrior.’

Lurien spread his hands. ‘And?’

‘It can take a century to properly appreciate an ishratisar-made sword.’ Her gaze flicked up from her shallow appraisal and back to Lurien’s eyes. Her stare was lazy and unfocused. ‘A glance alone will show the faults in a bad one.’

The queen of Túrach bowed once more, then turned to rejoin the mailed knights of her entourage. Éodrain emitted a snort that Lurien choked, stillborn, with a glare.

‘I am told she does not even eat,’ Calohaire whispered. ‘They say she sustains herself on malice and the beast souls that she consumes.’

Vágös nodded as though this were truth, incontrovertible as the Light of Teclis.

‘My prince?’ Éodrain waved his fingertips across the twisted barbs that decorated Lurien’s pauldrons as a delegation of warriors armoured in lapis blue came next to pay the customary respects to the throne.

Lurien straightened, determined to make more of an impression on the king of Guethen than he had with Anaer.

‘Galrohir,’ he said, bowing his head lower.

The giant aelf’s face was marbled with scars, new and old, from a hairline nick across his pointed chin to an ugly knot of pallid lines around his eyes that were so tightly drawn that Lurien initially thought they had to be tattoos. His eyes were yellowed, his flesh sickly in hue if not obviously deficient in health. His armour was twisted and barbed to evoke angry waves, coloured every blue-green shade of a slaughter at sea. A dark haze of imprisoned magic gave him a shimmering outline, though it was not of the armour. Magic both ancient and potent abounded in the deep places of the oceans, but the Guethen infamously never employed such materials in their armour. It came from the poleaxe sheathed diagonally across his back. A hilt of merkraken bone and black jewels projected over his left shoulder.

‘King Galrohir,’ said the aelf. His voice was like shingle being slowly worked into sand. He did not bow.

Lurien bit his lip. Even Anaer had bowed.

‘I thought there were no titles amongst equals.’

‘There aren’t. You may claim equality when Vanglyr and the akhelian council emerge from conclave to give their verdict to the assembral.’ He looked around. ‘Where is the House of Vanglyr anyway? Is it not time?’

‘I am sure he will be here soon.’ Lurien held on to his smile. The verdict of the akhelian council was, of course, only a formality.

As well as he could remember from the lessons that he had cared to attend in the first instance, only a handful of heirs in the thousand-year history of Briomdar had ever been rejected by the akhelian council. The incompetent generally removed themselves from contention through death and misadventure long before the incumbent’s demise, and Lurien was nothing if not cautious in his misadventures. If that were not reassurance enough for him, and if he were of the kind that sought after reassurance, then Raidlord Vanglyr’s infamous devotion to Queen Lágethé would suffice. Lurien smiled to himself. For a race that clove to material abstinence and seclusion as its ideals, the idoneth took a rare delight in intrigue. The tyrant of the azydrazor was known to have been a frequent night guest of his queen. He would do nothing to harm her legacy now.

Lurien bowed as though accepting Galrohir’s critique. ‘I am just relieved that you could attend, King Galrohir. None of my invitations were returned.’

Galrohir crossed his arms over his chest. ‘I was out raiding. You might be familiar with the idea of it.’

‘I am passingly familiar with the notion,’ Lurien replied, more caustically than he had intended. ‘And in fact it is my opinion that the enclaves have been raiding rather too frequently of late. It is more than just fishing villages and lost sylvaneth for the picking on the shores of the Green Gulch these days. The stormclaimed have raised a mighty keep of Azyrite stone on the mouth of the River Dwell, and claim a thousand leagues of coast for their own. Those fishing villages are great towns now, with walls and armies to defend them.’

He sat forwards, feeling his cold flesh warm to the passion of the old argument.

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Soul Warden © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2022. Soul Warden, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-80407-170-0

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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