Chapter 104:

Chapter 104: The gods are not like yourself and they rarely care for that fact.




What is a god? There are many definitions for the term, many points of view and many things that despite having little to nothing in common in their construction, metabolism or even the way they think are still considered gods even by each other.

To me gods are that which faith is focused on, the accumulation of mentalities, beliefs, emotions, acts, prayers and more into a single unified whole and there are three ways this can happen, and thus three types of gods and those are Bound, Unbound and Parasitoids

Parasitoid Gods are things like the Chaos Gods, things that rely on other principle to exist in order for themselves to exist, because the Chaos Gods, daemons and other things like them need something to hold them together, something that they can feed of so that they can gain meaning and as they do so that which they feed on becomes less and less until they manage to turn themselves into something that can exist as their own thing or they merely switch hosts.

Chaos is a disease at its core, one that all creatures get at one point in their existence and that acts like something of a filter for life to be able to thrive together with some other things that plague the stars. This is so because dealing with Chaos and others like it is quite important in the development of most species as it enhances their immune system if they can reject it properly.

Humanity and a few others tried dealing with such Illnesses by performing mass sterilization of their space and in doing so created an Anathema that can keep their space clean of spiritual illnesses, but in doing so have shot their Spiritual Immune system, thus making themselves extremely vulnerable to spiritual illnesses. But that in and of itself it not that bad provided the Anathema can do its thing. If the Anathema managed to turn his species into an Anathemic one then the high-risk high-reward bet of their Old Shamans will have paid off and they would truly be free of all spiritual illnesses, but failure means extinction or worse.

But back to the different types of Gods, the second category are Unbound Gods, they are Gods that do not require specific things to exist as they are Unbound by concepts such as species or their location and the most obvious example are the C'tan. They don't need faith, they don't need the Necrons or really care for where they are. All they need is not be hunted down for being the weakest type of Divinity before they can set up their domains and they can thrive anywhere and with.

They are by far the rarest form of Divine, the least versatile but the hardest to kill off for good as no matter what you do, without destroying the core of what they are they won't stay dead. They are a bit like Eldar in a way, but infinitely less smug.

The last category are the Bound Gods and they represent the vast, vast majority of the gods of the Great Wheel. They are Divinities which are bound to another concept, but do not inherently destroy it. Bound Divines are bound to a species, or a place, or a city, or a specific culture or any combination of things and as long as those things they are bound to exist then they will not die or stay dead if they are killed.

All gods that humanity and the Eldar have ever had have been Bound Gods, but unlike humanity we do not anthropomorphize our gods and this needs to be made specifically clear, for out gods are not like us, they do not need to look like us, they do not think like us and no matter how close they come to us and us to them, their Divine nature makes the different from us Mortals and in no other god is this more obvious than with Dromlach the Cosmic Serpent.

Humanity gives all of the gods they worship the possibility to turn into human-like creatures or to take upon them certain human features such as a humanoid face, but Eldar do not and nowhere is it more obvious than with the God of the Webway, the Lord of Transformation, and Muse of Wanderers and Hidden Knowledge and that which all other species know brings their Death, as it is the right of all Eldar to live in his domain, for he is the Divine charged with looking after the Webway.

He also serves to remind fools that while our gods wish us well, they are not mortals, they don't think like us, and similar to how the priesthood acts in their interest but not according to their desires, so does the Divine act in our interest and not according to our desires, for our desires factor little in their plans.

And now one more woman is about to find what that means.

Brisea Amada is the Matriarch of an eldar clan, as no matter what shape our bodies take an eldar is an eldar. She is a creature that is a half-priest for she is a being of familial obsession where she cares for little else but the well being of her family and her Madness is easy to see to those like me, even without Seeing.

There is a Flame animating her movements, a fire that powers all that she until the only thing keeping her coherent is her own willpower that gives shape to the Madness that overtook her. It is a beautiful thing to see and when she heard of her impending Conscription into the plans of the Divine said Flame all but went out.

The Pantheon is like the Eldar in many ways for we are mirrors of each other, and if it's one thing that defines both of us is a complete and utter apathy to the opinions of everyone that is not ourselves. When we want something to happen regardless of the Reason that something is happening and we don't care how many are dying until it happens.

'Please do not let your flame die out for it is a lovely thing to behold, for it would be a shame to let such beauty die out before it's time to dance across the Void comes.' I sang to the woman whose doubts threatened to consume her.

We were dancing across the void now as the Clans all gathered around a Rogue Gas Giant in interstellar space. I was told that it and its many moons fulfilled the requirements for the ship-eldar to consider it an appropriate meeting spot as each the of the twelve clans that agreed to come could use one of it's moons as a rally point.

Her clan and I were around the moon with the shortest orbit around it's planet as we were the ones that called for the Moot and the other clans were at the other moons in the order they accepted the invitation.

'Do you know what it means to lose your independence to things you have no way of ever reaching or understanding?' She sang back sullenly.

'I am a priest, I cannot lose what I have not possessed in this life. I've always had Autonomy over my own actions and could take whatever choices I pleased as long as they served a purpose imposed on me but I never had any goals that were fully my own or that did not serve that of others be they Mortal or Divine..' I responded.

Her soul looked tiredly at me as if she was a tired old woman whose life and old age eroded her will. It did not suit her.

'Let us get on with this farce.' She demanded and a bit of her flame returned as she sought to regain some meaure of control over her life.

'It's no farce, no matter how much the gods may have tipped the scales on a given side it's your choices that determines the end result and many have been the results that the Gods did not foresee or want.' I replied.

She gave me a glare but it quickly disappeared as her anger was disarmed by my charming smile. Or maybe she just realized she won't win an argument with me.

She did not believe me but it was true. We are not the slaves of the Divine, we are equals and that equality must be enforced, for as the Divine gain power over us, so do we gain power over them. Conscription by the Divine, means that you get a role to play in their next play, but in doing so you get a say in how things go during it and can even shift the end result depending on your choices.

In the Averted Timeline both the Craftworlders failed to act in the way that they were expected to and the Commorites proved that even in their animalistic state they were still as likely to do what the Divine wanted of them as any Eldar.

The Craftworlder's Morality of Cowardice and their willingness to sacrifice themselves for a given purpose despite of it failed when Eldrad refused to die to see his ritual fulfilled and save his people and thus prove to the galaxy the worth of self-sacrifice surprised everyone that heard of it, while in Commoragh a culture which has abandoned the very concept of Divinity has had it's Supreme Overlord choose to become Divine as opposed to Royalty and doomed us all. Both of them proved that our people are perfectly capable of doing the exact opposite of what the Divine wanted or expected them to do.

If only they were willing to do it in ways that helped our species as opposed to Damning us.

My sensors showed me that twelve ships were coming towards the moon and the ship-eldar themselves transmitted their planned orbit towards the both of us.

"What are we meant to do Bessar?" My sister asked me.

She was a sprite on my shoulder now as I looked at the Eldar that danced towards us and used my own ship body like a couch. My Navigator waited on the other but she chose to remain silent.

"The gods have something planned, all you need to do is wait for whatever it is that they are planning and have made possible." I whispered back towards her.

I needed to make sure nobody hears us, as this meeting will be where she learned her final lesson. I already suspected what the gods wished to do and prepared myself for what is to come and I am sure I was not the only one. I Looked Above, to where the gods continued their Dance and I could see their grins increase by a fraction as they danced together.

Brisea Amada continued sitting in her own body as the coming clan and tribe leaders came towards us and looked at me strangely. Anaen's little trick was an interesting one as she separated her identity from her body despite being bound to it. It carried strange implications for a Lesser Divine whose nature was Bound to our People and her Form which are incredibly amusing, if not as amusing as seeing the confused stares of the people looking at me.

"What is it so important that a Moot had to called Brisea Amada?" a Female voice demanded softly.

The woman's IFF signal identified her as Quick and Ambitious, leader of the Redfins tribe. Her form was diffuse, undeniable female but blurry. Her hair was long, her body vaguely feminine but it was as if one looked at her through a thick mist and all of the other Eldar's form were similar.

New souls that have only ever been Ship-Eldar were not as attracted to seeing themselves as Eldar, the short experience of having a bipedal body still remembered, but it was a vague thing that they did not care much for. Their true selves were the ships and this Projection nothing but Tradition they heeded because their culture and its practices that kept them from Extinction demanded it and some of them still remember the Matton Purge that nearly killed them off before my Father saved them and told them what they need to do to Maintain their citizenship.

Tradition turned from joy into a necessity was strange to look upon, especially when you are from among those that create such.

"One of the Sons of the Savior comes to us to help us avoid a fate similar to that which the Savior earned his title for saving us from." She replied.

The clan and tribe leaders active scanners turned towards me as they took me in fully.

"How rude." I observed.

They doubted my identity and proceeded to show it in the rudest way they could, for Active Scanners will not give them the answer they seek.

"Is this a joke?" One of the men asked.

His name was Dragon's Breath and I saw his Main Cannon be a Black Hole Cannon, the only such weapon among the gathered. He was the Clan Leader of the Dragon's Breath Clan, for Clans take the name of their clan leader and tribes have to pick another.

"I wish it was a joke, or I could have had someone else be here." I replied.

One of my nephews and Cegorach's children could have handled this if it was a joke, it's their duty to teach people and make them laugh or cry as they learn.

I made each a false couch to stand upon. It was not their body but a psychic Impression of Trajectory and Meaning that in the Spiritual framework we used to talk to each other in gave the same impression as a couch.

They each took their position, except Brisea Amada who proceeded to turn her own body into a couch with a flex of her will.

"I hope you don't expect us to actually believe it just like that?" Quick and Ambitious asked as she lowered her active scanners.

The others started doing the same one after another.

I took a few heartbeats to think of how to exactly respond to this question and it's implications

"I don't but some of you should carry with yourselves a way to verify my words or have an idea as to how I can prove it. I am perfectly happy to fulfill it as long as it does not require to leave from this system as I can feel that we are short on time." I replied.

The best way to deal with those that doubted was not shame, but to ask for proof they would accept and then provide it. If they don't want to believe then no proof will be enough, but by just asking them what would be proof enough and providing it, it makes it harder for them to deny it. Not impossible, for nothing is, but you don't become the leader of a fleet by being unwilling or able to accepts facts you don't want to.

The galaxy is not that forgiving, not even to us.

Laciena froze near me and even Mara started feeling fear. Both women felt what the other don't.
Even separated by the Veil, even hidden from the senses of those not properly attuned it was unmistakable to those that have felt it before, the gods are among us and their smiles are the furthest one can get from being reassuring.

Isha's smile in all of her motherly glory was downright demonic as it looked at me, for it was mocking me, as she believed she had finally caught me in a trap I can't escape from. I was very glad I was the only one capable of seeing it because she would have scared the rest of her children if they was her like that.

I radiated a sense of amusement both clan and tribe leaders alike as well as Divinity gave me a stink-eye for as they deliberated whatever it is that they are talking about and that I cannot hear.

Whoever thought our Divines and Mortals are anything but Eldar are fools, the two are too hard to tell apart sometimes. It's not ideal, but it's my job as a priest to ensure we can do that no matter what the mortals and the Divine might think they want.

The gods had the temerity to laugh at that as they sat on their thrones looking over us.

~~~~~~~

I saw giants in front of me, two pairs of them.

One group operated on a scale I could understand, they were ships which pretended they were not Eldar but that have forgotten both the fact they were pretending and the fact that they were. The other was Divinity which were as different from the first group as they were from myself.

Bessar doesn't know that both myself and Geinna Mara can see Divinity the way he can when they are close, for to speak of such things is a taboo one does not break without cause or consequence.

The Divine knew that I could see them, even as they kept this hidden from Bessar's perception and they surrounded the gathering spot of the Ship-Eldar Moot. They were Giants among Giants, for I was a small sprite compared to the Ship-Eldar and the Ship-Eldar were barely even that to them.

"If you claim to be the son of Lammah Airgid then he has surely taught you to speak like he did." One of the Veiled Giant Women said.

It wasn't the voice of my brother that replied, but that of Khaine in all of his Murderous glory.

"That he did and it has served me well, but I am afraid that this does not count as proof. There are some who are born with the ability even if I wasn't." My brother proclaimed with a voice of a dying star.

To hear the voice of Khaine as a mortal eldar is to hear the voice of a volcano as it erupts. To hear it as a ship is to hear the voice of a Star as it dies and you stand right near it and the Giants shuddered from how close they heard they are to their own Deaths and yet they were not Murdered.

If any doubted that my brother could not speak as Khaine those doubts were quelled now.

"The fact it is not proof is less important than the fact you knew how to do it and that you admitted it." The woman declared.

"An interesting way to test someone, and something that I will happily use in the future if the opportunity appears." My brother praised.

He is always happy to praise interesting ideas and I made a mental note to use this idea when the chance comes. To have the test be that the one in front of you can admit something that would otherwise not help them is an interesting way to check their trustworthiness and morals.

I am glad to see that clan leaders are wise and knowledgeable. Maybe they'll be of use to Bessar in avoiding the trap we're in. The Gods' smiles are far, far too frightening to look at to think we're in a good spot.

"What was his hair color?" He asked.

What sort of question was that? The man was emulating Khaine, naturally he had the same hair color as Bessar or none at all.

"He was born with silver hair, similar enough to my own gray hair and it turned black the same way my own and his own mother's skin did turn green." Bessar admitted with fondness.

"You killed him." Another woman accused.

The accusation did not have the weight such an accusation should have had. Also it was strange to hear that Bessar was guilty of Kinslaying, or that a Woman managed to Emulate our Mother to such an extent she turned into a Dryad of Life. The more worrying thing was that he remembered said event fondly.

"No, I was Adopted by him, the only way he would accept a family as his and the only way I can call you kin lost children of stars, for we were both saved by the Merciless Silver Hand of Khaine which has made the very Stars Weep as it Spoke with the Bloody Words of Khaine and cut down all in his name." Bessar spoke.

Khaine smiled softly as he looked over to his side and his own Titanic Sword.

Bessar saw it and I could feel his shock before it disappeared so fast it could make one wonder if they've ever seen it. It was easy to say so considering the entire meeting was suffused with shock, including Brisea Amada.

"Why are they so shocked?" I asked the titan who is my brother.

I did not dare pay too much attention to Song, for that of the Divine made it sound strange, turning an important meeting, into something anticipatory, something I knew the Divines were eagerly awaiting for, but strange, as if they were waiting for the aftermath of an event as opposed to it happening in the first place.

Sometimes knowing too much harms more than help and the strange dissonance made that obvious as if I was only able to hear one of them I could have learned more from each, but listening to both made both harder to parse as it was difficult to say where one part of the Song started and Ended and which I should be hearing and not.

"My Father was one of the Scourges of the Empire as he killed Princes and Lesser Divines with Impunity. I imagine none but those saved by him know him as anything but a Merciless creature of bloodshed and even those that he saved remember that he called himself merciless. They are surprised that I am not just a charlatan or someone that knew or worked with him, but someone that he too saved and that it makes us truly kin." He answered and made sure none but the Divine could hear us.

"Your father sounds scary." I observed.

Both the Master and Son of said Sword who used to be a man snickered.

"That he was. He was many things beyond that, but he was also scary, but it would not do to speak of dead priests, they don't like that sort of Nonsense as it might derail their plans." He answered.

Priests dying and coming back stronger was a cliché in the Empire, for all knew that priests don't stay dead and death only makes them meaner and more willing to make you pay for inconveniencing them. The only way to kill them and make it stick is to get another priest to do it or make them so bored they decide to just cease on living as nothing else will convince them to give up on the power and family they have accrued.

"Why did he disappear from public sight?" A man asked.

"You have no way to use the answer to that question to determine whether or not I am his son or check the authenticity of my answer. All I will reveal is that he has died of Old Age and self-sacrifice and him leaving was in preparation for the reason that happened."

"That does not help you much if you do not wish to cooperate with them." Brisea Amada grumbled.
Bessar laughed at that. It was a low rumble that reminded one of a chuckle but it echoed so much it felt like it belonged to the Divine scale and not ship scale.

"Not all answers need to advance my plans and station, they merely need to fulfill their intended purpose."

The man nodded at that for some reason which felt important but I could not find a reason why.

"Priests, those whose tradition is descended from Morathi at least, are creatures of ambition and familial bonds my sister. If we pursue one over the other then we stop being priests and start being something else. If I were to reveal too much of my Father's designs then it might harm them, even as it helps mine and the last thing I want to do is to harm my family and those plots. That question was a trap question, one where the man tried to see if I can offer something that brings them closer to the answer they seek, advances my ambitions and helps my father and his plots. If I were to have failed to answer in a way that did all that I would have failed at all of them and thus was not a priest." Bessar whispered.

"A devious question." I observed.

"Unsurprising truly, for eldar clan and tribal leaders are not normal eldar and each of them are perfectly capable of thinking things through, even if this entire dialogue is a sham."

"A sham?"

I could feel my brother's amusement as he considered whether or not to reveal the answer to this question.

"I know that you can see the Gods acting, you and Mara both. And that you are aware they are watching. The gods have already seen how all of this can go and have an end result in mind. This is just busy work, a way to go through the paces until they pull out some artifact that will enact whatever the Gods need done. As for the reason the ship-eldar go through with this? They need to see what Brisea Amada shared with me if I do fail whatever test they've prepared for me."

Getting one over Bessar is annoyingly difficult, but I hoped I managed to hide the fact that we could see the Dance of the Divines. Having some hidden assets is always good and managing to hide something from him meant that I managed to develop a method that hid it from the Divine as well. We can't exactly check that normally and so our own perception is the only way we can hope of hiding things from the Divine as our position demands.

"If you succeed then none of this matters, if you fail then they know if the clan of Brisea Amada needs to be purged." Geinna Mara observed with disgust evident in her voice.

She could hear everything we've spoken to each other but did not care to speak until now.

"Yes, if you could look further back you could see the fighters of the clans and tribes preparing themselves to deal with the Clan of Brisea Amada the more I speak. If it proves that I speak the truth then they're in a good position to rush and celebrate or prepare a cordon to keep the rest of their clans to celebrate, but if I fail then they are also in the perfect position to deal with the traitors."

Bessar showed me what he meant, the planetary alignment that I dismissed as unimportant now returning to the fore as right now is the largest possible number of satellites that can put themselves in a firing arc towards us.

"Disgusting." The other woman observed.

"Smart." I continued.

"Needlessly convoluted." Bessar finished.

Perfectly normal Eldar behavior in other words. Bessar never stopped looking into the local culture even as he realized that the Gods have already decided what to do with the ship-eldar. Regardless of what the Gods wished of them, if it is proven that this culture is no longer one fit for the Children of the Stars, but one for the Singing Swords of the Ancients then this culture must die.

We do not need the Pawns of the Ancients to bother us and sabotage our plots for freeing ourselves from the influence of our parents.

Their questions continued until every single clan or tribe leader asked one and then it was Bessar that asked a question.

"Do you have any other questions or we can just get on with the main event?" Bessar asked of the giants.

They each looked upon each other expecting one of us them to ask something else, but they realized now that Bessar knew what they were doing. The Veiled Giants seemed conflicted and I realized that they hoped that Brisea Amada did not sell them out and had managed to find the genuine article. Bessar knew too much to allow her clan to live if he wasn't who he claimed to be.

"I am Quick and Ambitious, leader of the Redfins tribe. We were the first that were approached by the Savior, and the first that took his knowledge to heart and due to this we were entrusted with an artifact that can only be used by him or those he had taught and sent to help us." She said as she pulled out an artifact.

It was a Mirror, one as long as seven eldar are tall and half as wide. A new jolt of fear came from Bessar, and what came with it was a whisper of Anger.

"The gods have decided that they want to be a part of your final lesson it seems and it starts now." Was all Bessar said as the Mirror was teleported into his hand through the Warp.

The ship-eldar were surprised, but Bessar cared not as the gods looked too eager and that was never a good thing.

The fact that they smiled as a feeling of Dread settled across the song of all Mortals to such an extent that separating the Song of Mortals from that of the Divine became easy only made me even more scared, but the Divine no longer heard the words we exchanged with one another, not even Geinna Mara could hear what Bessar said to me.

'The most important lesson a priest must know is that all rules must be broken if the alternative is worse, for to break the Laws is to put yourself outside of them or in opposition to them, but if by breaking these Laws you functionally save or achieve something that protects them, then the act can and must be forgiven. This is so because Laws are not a Suicide Pact. If breaking them serves the moral framework the laws operate under then the ones enforcing it must forgive it, lest they invite the Malicious Compliance of those that will use it to bring it down and now it seems that the Gods have decided to break their own Laws and I sincerely hope that they have a very good reason for it because you are about to be on the receiving end of the most ham-fisted rule breaking in the history of our people." Bessar sang, his voice so filled with anger it felt like it could overflow at any moment and only kept so by sheer will.

He looked into the mirror and what looked behind was an elderly man with silver hair.

"Each swing a death, for to swing a sword without the intent to kill is worse than to have never swung at all. Each death a prayer, for to Murder is a holy task and must only be used as such. Each prayer a promise, for the Mission is eternal and unbroken just as all promises must be. Each promise fulfilled, for freedom stands above all and the Dream of all who bask in the Light is to be Free. Such is the Oath of a Sword who has realized its purpose and despite all that chose to turn against it and give succor to those who it was meant to cut down." My brother sang to the entire system and his voice was that of Khaine and this time it was unrestrained and cut all that it could see down.

I could feel each death, each tiny life snuffled with a single cut. My crew died by the end of the first poem as the links that kept the soul linked to the bid were cut with expert precision. By the end of the first verse all crew of all ships in the system died. By the end of the Second Verse, only a few ships and the clan leaders remained alive.

By the third verse only the clan leaders were left alive and they desperately tried to shoot him down but by the time he finished speaking he was the only thing still left alive, only him and me.

"But I am no Sword, for I am a Child of the Stars and I reject this mentality, for All oaths fulfilled, is more than just an oath but an aspiration as without our oaths our word means little, for loyalty is rewarded the same as treachery done out of love, as the only time an oath can be broken is when it benefits the one you break it for." He said and so did both of us die.

Close to a Million Souls were now dead, but there was something we all saw in the Artifact that killed us as it continued it's baleful glow, for it took the links between our bodies and souls and remade them, with it as an intermediary thus preventing us from going into the Reincarnation cycle of our people and yet keeping us in limbo.

A shadow covered the two of us, a shadow of tragedy and cheers that could belong to only a single thing.

"Brother, you have a lot of explaining to do." Bessar declared.

The Great Harlequin in his black robes and long nosed mask had the grace to look ashamed as it started to speak.

"My dear brother, that's what the others would like to tell you if they were here, because they are quite curious as to why you are trying to sabotage their next show."