Cause Célèbre

‘Order! Order!’

Sevastean Mench banged his ceremonial hammer on the polished surface of the wyrmwood debating table. The priceless antique had taken quite a beating these last few days, but it seemed to be the only way the Master Patriarch could get the two hundred and forty-four Lords of the Heavenhall to keep their peace.

‘This is getting us nowhere!’ he shouted. The delegates of the Grand Conclave stared at him in various states of affrontery or contempt. ‘We cannot meet this new era of darkness divided, or we will be picked off, whittled away, and slain in our beds!’

‘We will indeed,’ said Osrua of the Gilded Abacus, ‘if the Artisans keep all the wealth for their pretty castles.’

‘This is not some savage horde that can be held back with walls and war machines,’ roared Barragust, the High Despot of the Order of Azyr. ‘This is a supernatural scourge. It will claim us all unless we meet it with faith and fire!’

‘So you have no need of our defences,’ said Evandelle, Wallmistress of the High Artisans. ‘Nor the cog-forts, nor the magma canals.’

‘That is not what I am saying,’ said Mench, inclining his head towards the beringed doyenne as her steam-cherubs clucked and muttered in disapproval. ‘I am saying that without a set of laws and principles, we will be isolated and slowly destroyed.’

The clarion sound of the herald’s trumpet rang from outside the hall. Its jarring fanfare was cut abruptly short, and a moment later the chamber’s doors were flung open. A statuesque female stood silhouetted in the archway.

Two hundred and forty four mouths hung open, agog at the grandeur of the visitor as an entourage of hauntingly beautiful witch aelves slunk in behind her. The dignitary’s shoulders were framed by a pair of metallic wings, each rendered in wrought gold and stylised to make her appear like a goddess of elegance made flesh.

Finally, the auditorium knew silence. Morathi, the High Oracle of Khaine, had arrived.

The aelven delegation was some three days late, but clearly for good reason – some amongst them still had clotted gore upon their blade tips. Morathi strode toward the assemblage, the click of her footsteps quick and definite on the cold marble floor. ‘Welcome at last, my queen,’ said Mench as she drew close. ‘In the name of Hammerhal’s grand conclave, please feel free to rest your—’

‘Oh do shut up,’ said Morathi, her scarlet-black lips in a moue of distaste. ‘I am in no mood for platitudes. This council must put aside its differences immediately and send every available army to Shyish, or the forces of death will overwhelm us.’

‘That is what I have been saying for the last fourteen hours,’ said Mench, looking around the delegates. ‘But my peers seem ill-inclined to listen.’

Excelsis’ Alumnus Verita, Hennerdorf, bristled so much that his dense moustache quivered like a scared vole. ‘You know as well as I do, Mench, that we cannot—’

Morathi whispered something inaudible. Hennerdorf made a strange choking sound, eyes bulging, but did not say another word.

‘We cannot,’ said the queen. ‘That is the unspoken motto of this ungainly, soot-stained sprawl. Always, ‘we cannot’. We shall reverse that, my friends. We, the champions of progress, can achieve lasting victory. It is the will of Khaine.’

‘Khaine?’ said Elethrus Vinx, the Supreme Pontifex’s chins wobbling in disdain. ‘The aelven god of war? Is he not long—’

‘But how to unite our efforts?’ said Mench, interrupting Vinx before she said something she would regret.

Morathi stared long and hard at Vinx, her eyes wide, before replying. ‘Lend me your hosts,’ she said. ‘Put your efforts toward mine, and I shall do the same.’

‘You want us to simply give you our armies,’ said Evandelle flatly.

‘Of course not,’ said Morathi, her tone arch. ‘We shall march to war side by side. And what I wish for is irrelevant. I am the Oracle of Khaine, his high priestess and the mouthpiece for his divine will. I translate the desires of the Bloody-Handed One. He wishes us to coordinate our attacks on the heartlands of Shyish, before this pall of death suffocates every one of us.’

Mench looked pointedly at Hennerdorf, who by this point was turning a delicate shade of mauve.

Lord Aventis, Magister of Hammerhal, spoke up. ‘Say we march tomorrow, and make for the Abyssal Fires. What guarantee is there you stay to the bitter end, and do not abandon us as soon as the hour grows dark?’

‘The hour is already dark,’ said Morathi. ‘But that is a fair question.’ She gestured with one fair hand to her followers, all alabaster skin and sculpted armour. ‘Look at us,’ she said, gesturing with her other hand at the obese mountain of velvet and peacock feathers that was the Lord Vintner. ‘In form we are different. But we all live. We all want to live, to feast, to love, to grow old in the service to our gods. These things unite human, aelf and duardin alike. And what does Nagash want?’

‘Death,’ said Mench.

‘No,’ said Morathi, ‘he wants undeath. He wants the realms to be reshaped in his image, to be little more than clockwork machine of bone, sinew and magic that obeys him and him alone. And he is every bit as dangerous as the warlords of Chaos.’

‘So we divide our forces between the fight against Chaos and the rising tide of death,’ said High Castellan Brutar. ‘Divide, and be conquered.’

‘No, idiot,’ spat Morathi. ‘We unite, bolstering our numbers, then divide as necessity demands. The sum total is the same. By working together, by giving free access to hard-won Realmgates, we can stop Nagash in whatever dire work is sending visions of doom through every culture and creed.’

None spoke out against her.

‘This way,’ she said, smiling as she realised the audience hall was hers, ‘we invade, we destroy, and we bring a new order to Shyish.’

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