Chapter 83:

Chapter 83: Knowing one's employers is important




How do you describe the sky to a being which has only lived in darkness and despite having eyes it has never used it? How would one feel when they were that creature? How would the mind interpret the existence of a sense they possessed yet never knew of?

I do not know what words to describe such a feeling, I do not know if such words even exist and yet it is something I am now experiencing. The Song of our People, I've heard it whispered of before the hushes ended and the words were hidden, as if to even acknowledge it openly is to sacrilege against it and yet there is no being on Anaen that does not hear it now.

The most startling thing is how soft it is, like a wound that never truly healed and is still tender, a wound in the very soul of our people that our joy keeps trying to heal in an endless struggle and I could feel it, feel it craving for more. No, it is not the Song that craves it, it is me, it is all those around me that crave for it.

We crave for love, for tenderness, for joy, for laughter, for war, for art, for more, for anything that we are not, for everything and more. Give me more, make me more, I am more, I need to be more.

I shut down the connection and reality made sense again and I shuddered.

I heard the announcement of Farseer Lammor where he explained that what he heard was the Song of Our People, that to speak of it is taboo in the Empire and that what we hear is what every single Imperial Eldar hears. It is an endless melody of ambition and desire that can only be quenched in art and so I quench it in my dance and song and so I walk towards the man who made me feel this as each of my steps have flourishes added to them and I occasionally spin as I hum to the song that only I can hear.

Even closing the connection does not make the sensation go away, it only reduces the intensity and yet I crave to hear the song again and do so again for a bit before it overwhelms me and I once more pretend that I cannot hear.

The door in front of me opens and the song shifts and I barely catch myself from falling.

"I hope stumbling will not become a habit." The Serpent which devours hope and love and fear said as he smirked at my fear.

The song shifted again and the serpent turned into a wise man in black robes and white armor.

"What have you done to us?" I demanded

The creature pretending to be a man one foot from the grave smirked at me from its bed and its small spawn, or younger sibling sang in drunken amusement for she too was affected by the song, if to a lesser degree than many others.

"Reminded you fools to see the world as I see it, also you should stop trying to tune it out as it will make adapting to it take longer than normal."

I looked at the younger snake whose scales were that of a rainbow of colors and yet was clad in the same black robes of its senior. His words made sense but it did not explain the state of his companion.

"Why is she also affected?"

They younger one was affected by it too, I could see in the way she swayed as her eyes were closed and even if no song came from her lips I could still feel her song harmonizing with mine. She was happy and confused and dizzy and sharp and everything near those two extremes and nothing in-between.

Both of them sat on the grand bed and were surrounded by something. I cannot see it properly but I can see the faint mirage of movement and heat as if the cold air of the room acted like the air of the desert bathed in the scorching midday sun.

"What you are experiencing is called puberty, it is something children experience when they become adults and my younger sister was a minor and judging by the embarrassing behavior of most of your craftworld so was the vast majority of your population, somehow. The rest of my order didn't even know this was possible until the gods sent me to heal our people of it and that includes you." The man said with the same tone my family used when they told me to stop seeking danger.

It was the tone of parents that suffers from the 'idiocy' of its progeny and my parent's words stopped affecting me and the serpent's words has even less effect now than theirs.

"The Gods are dead or they have long since abandoned us." I replied unimpressed.

Everyone knew that.

The gods used to walk among us, they used to laugh and dance with us and were a part of us and our lives. They used to love us and now they no longer did and all craftworlders knew it.

The man started pinching his glabella and the song turned from amusement to tiredness and I once again learned something new, that something being that song can sound tired.

"You and the rest of the Empire thinks that and all of them and you are fools for it, but I do not have the energy or time to explain to you how right now. I called you here because you wanted danger as payment and so I am giving it to you." My new liege said and I felt myself grow excited at the promise for danger and violence.

Ever since I was young the siren call of danger drew me towards itself, one step at a time and each time it did so my family tried to keep me away from it, to keep me safe to find other outlets for my thirst for excitement and all of them failed to be anything more than distractions, but my beautiful cousin Diseth finally gave me that which I craved for so long, the chance to seek danger where my meddling family can't use their influence to keep me on 'low-risk' missions.

"What am I to do?" I asked excitedly.

The man was perfectly willing to fly a ship alone while barely awake just to prove a point and I knew deep in my heart that this is the exact sort of thing I want in my life.

"You are to do the most dangerous task one can do on this craftworld, protect me while I am sleeping and do so while near me."

I could feel my excitement die down with each word spoken, this is not what I signed up for and I had to wonder if he lied to me.

His eyes dropped and his amusement disappeared as all that was left were eyes that promised murder.

"I did not lie to you, you fool. With some luck you will learn exactly why your craftworld is preparing itself for a fight. I have awaited this long to sleep because I wished to give your home enough time to get accustomed to the Song again, but listen to the song of your home if you don't believe, listen to the Masters of Fire and Bone and the Seers how they marshal their warriors for an invisible conflict." He commanded.

I did so, part out of fear and part excitement and I could feel it, the entire craftworld was preparing for a siege and every single seer was watching this room and they were waiting for something to happen and I could feel myself waiting with them.

"They await for me to sleep which I will do so now. You are to stop worrying about useless things and Focus on your duties." He revealed.

In a heartbeat the song was no longer the first thing on my mind, instead it was my laser pistol and sword. I could still hear it, it was just as loud but it no longer seemed as important.

Bessar Agail went beneath the sheets and fell sleep and the silent alarms started to cry. The entire craftworld was now prepared for an attack.

"Of course he could always do that." The junior priestess said from her chair.

Her voice was filled with annoyance, as if the man didn't just manage to change both our perceptions of song with but a few words.

"What was that?" I demanded.

The younger woman looked at me with squinted eyes and annoyance in both eyes and soul.

"An order from a military officer, now come and sit near me. If we're lucky we might not need to do anything and I can continue my study."

There was another chair near her I now saw, and so I obeyed, as she was technically in charge now that my superior was sleeping. She opened a book and several yellow crystals now floated around her.

I sat and looked over the sleeping form of Bessar Agail and I could still see the shimmers in the air. They were more subdued now, but they increased in number and so were still visible.

"What are those?" I asked and turned towards her.

The shimmers continued to dance in the air but I could not hear them singing despite my instincts telling me they wished to do so.

"Psy-automata called the Swords of Valor. They are anti-warpborn weapons or medicine depending on your definition and how one uses them." Came her absentminded response.

She continued reading that book and occasionally connected to the crystals around her.

"They wish to sing, but aren't." I observed.

Laughter came from nowhere and everywhere as I was surrounded and mocked in ways my soul could barely hear and yet could not understand.

"Cease fooling around." Came the voice of the young lady.

It was soft, yet hid the steel of a mother giving a child its first warning.

The mocking stopped and the shimmers returned to their post. There was nothing to my sense but the shimmers, for the Empyrean was no different where the shimmers were than anywhere else in the room.

I looked at her awaiting for an answer, this day has been far too confusing.

"They lay in wait for daemons as this is what will come for Bessar. The fools crave to kill and cut through the daemonic and do not care for their deaths. They are silent because daemons are scared of them and they pretend to not pay attention to lure them in a false sense of security.

They mock you because you can't sense them as they have gotten very good at hiding."

"I can sense the shimmers." I observed

The psy-automata are now focused around their master's sleeping body and I could feel them paying attention to us. I could also feel her amusement as if I said something funny despite her not looking at me, for her song had subtly shifted.

"That's the dream defenses of the room doing their best to avoid them, you are not feeling the Swords of Valor swinging but the blind spots in the defenses where they await for anything as blind as you are."

"Then why did they move?"

If they weren't the shimmers then why did they move? A moving trap is no trap as it makes one know it is there.

"The fools don't care for their lives and they've gotten so good at hiding I need to be very careful to not hit them by accident, and due to this I am forced to move the defenses with them. To the warpborn it looks as if the defenses are fluctuating without a pattern, thus making them feel truly random and unplanned for and thus something safe to exploit."

I considered her words and they made sense in a way. If your prey was too scared to approach and you couldn't chase them it was easier to just lay a trap and draw them into a false sense of security, especially when they liked to strike when they thought there were gaps in your defenses

I felt a kinship with the psy-automata too now, for they craved for that which hid and was kept away from them just like I did, but I couldn't allow myself to wallow in feelings on kinship. I had questions that needed answers.

"What did he mean when he spoke to me about the gods?"

"I was not paying attention to your conversation." She said without raising her head from her book.

Only the sound of the turning of a page followed.

"You were here when we talked about it." I said reproachfully.

This gained a reaction.

She stopped reading and the crystals gently went into a casing on the other end of the room. The book remained close to her but it too left her hands and her attention was solely on me.

"I was busy trying to make sense of an entirely different psychic sense I was only told existed, but have never known what it feels like to have and unlike you I can't turn it off. I want to use the few minutes of clarity I have to study before I start acting like a drunken moron again. What do you want to know?"

It was a question and it felt like an order and I felt that I was moments away from being stabbed many, many times. I glanced around me and suddenly felt the fact that we were not alone in this room. There were 197 Mono-molecular blades aimed at my throat, 54 at my heart, my sword sheath was covered in blades to prevent me from touching it and more were spread around me I felt trapped.

I smiled, not a single Sword of Valor touched me and they moved away each time I moved my limbs. An empty threat but I could now See the Psy Automata and my smile dropped. All of them were linked to Bessar Agail,

She was controlling none of them as the swords were autonomous, if not fully independent, of Eldar input.

I felt my heart beat and I felt alive as my mind spun searching for a solution and my heart soared.

"Leave her be, I am not in danger you fools. Geinna Mara I ask you again, what do you want to know?" The young woman asked again and this time she was far more calm.

The swords disappeared from my perception and my heartbeat returned to it's slow monotony.

"Bessar Agail called me and the rest of the Empire fools for thinking the gods are dead and have abandoned us." I answered.

The younger priestess imitated it's senior and started pinching her glabella too.

"That's because you are, the gods are very active and alive and it's extremely difficult to stop them from acting."

"Then why don't they?" I asked.

I certainly haven't seen any gods in my life and some of those that can remember past lives haven't either.

"Do you actually read history or have ever done so in your life? Asuryan raised the Veil to keep the Gods from directly interacting with us so they had to get sneaky about it, but they involve themselves in our lives to quite a large degree and laugh at you when you can't spot them or their meddling." She explained with annoyance lacing her voice.

"We would have noticed."

Her eyes squinted further as annoyance seeped from the Empyrean to reality and it tasted bittersweet.

"You can't notice the psy-automata in this room until they are at your throat and most of them had months to learn how to be so sneaky. the Gods have had millions of years to learn to be subtle and go around the restrictions imposed by Asuryan's edict. If they want to guide your every step from birth until death they'll do so and you won't notice." She answered her voice flat

I could feel a hint of amusement in her voice and I took it for the mockery it was. A priestess she might have been but both her and her senior were mad enough to attribute their actions and that of those around them to the gods and I've heard similar from too many madmen to take it seriously.

If dealing with this madness was what it took to feel alive then so be it.

"You don't believe me, then please tell me what do you think is happening now? Why are the seers preparing your home for an assault if not due to the Divine meddling? What could possibly make billions of Eldar react like this when a priest is involved?" She all but ranted.

I was unimpressed. A threat might come but the Divine can and could have nothing to do with it.

"Anything but the Divine, and even if it was the Divine how would you know if they are so well hidden?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Clarity is a strange thing, especially when it has an external source.

For the first time in two lives I have felt true clarity, I have felt what being able to focus means and it was glorious, and now I have to waste these few minutes of clarity Bessar has gifted me with dealing with an ignorant skeptic, a being so ignorant of what little they know and so unwilling to accept any new information as fact that it hurts to be around them.

'I should have gone for the younger man' I thought with bitterness.

He probably wasn't as arrogant in his ignorance and was unlikely to be a Divine Trap trying to make my life annoying with their ignorance.

"How do you know your own name? How do you know what day is today or who your parents are or what the squiggly lines you read on a piece of paper mean? Those that came before told you of it and you trust them that what they have told you is the truth." I retorted angrily.

That shut the Divine tool up for a bit and it allowed me to order my own thoughts

I had to waste my chance at enlightenment at trying to teach a skeptic to not be ignorant. I might as well have thrown it away for all the good it gave me.

Bessar's order to 'focus on my duties' allowed me to focus on learning, to truly and deeply focus on something in a way I didn't even know is possible and the five minutes of it had put so many things in context. He once told me that we are deniable operatives for the Pantheon while I was trying to get Hexas 3 up and running but I did not know what that meant, not until I started studying rituals and my clarity revealed a single crucial thing.

The symbology of our rituals can have multiple meanings depending on what you want to do and who you wish to do it for and it is why rituals are separated into multiple categories. Personal Rituals use your own definition of the terms, Mortal rituals use the distilled definition of both ritualist and those he asks to act and Divine Rituals those of both Mortals and Divines.

It put too many things into perspective, our relationship with the priests of Cegorach, with Cegorach himself and even Hoeth.

"What is happening then truly? What have your ancestors told you is the truth?" She asked mockingly.

Eldar die and we are reborn, sometimes like we were before and sometimes differently and if we can do so why can't our Divines? Why would our Divines be incapable of that which their children are not capable of doing, for no eldar would serve that which is less capable than them.

We know Hoeth to be the father of Cegorach, when he could actually be his past incarnation and this is a trope in Eldar stories for Reincarnation is an old enough concept for its tropes to sometimes become cliche.

Sometimes a man or woman dies far away from home and their past family goes to search for their soul so that they could say their goodbye, and assuming they find them, one of three things can happen, either the man has been reborn and they've found a new life, or they have lost their memory and have rebuilt a new one or both, so what if something like that is happening with us?

An entire order built around doing the bidding of a God which has moved past us and left us Damned for it in a story that could be interpreted multiple ways. Perhaps Cegorach is Hoeth, but merely his new life and he has been playing a cruel jest on us, or perhaps the two are distinct and it is only the ignorant that think so, but what if we are the ignorant ones or worse actively denying reality?

Cegorach stories are meant to teach us humility and bring us down from our arrogance by showing us how ignorant we were and how misplaced our arrogance is and what would be more arrogant than to think you know better than all that the rest of our people know as true?

What if both are true at the same time and which path will be chosen as the correct one depends entirely on our choices and if we succeed or not? What if that doesn't even matter? I need to talk to Bessar when he awakes, I have to know, I have to know or I will go crazy as Reality stops making sense and I no longer know which is truth and which is lie.

"Priests talk to each other through Dreams, and most of our Dreams are connected in some way or form with Lileath and this connection allows us to talk to each other and it is our primary means of communication over large distances. The Unborn Divine is used by its Vermin Priests for a similar purpose as they mean to have her replace the Pantheon and all of their duties and so when Bessar sleeps he is forced to receive the Messages sent to him by the Vermin and the New Divine needs not be soft enough for him to survive it for their rituals to have the intended result." I explained while I tried to order my thoughts still.

My priesthood uses part of Lileath's dream infrastructure to talk to each other and I imagine the Vermin Priests use something similar to coordinate and talk to one another.

Normally our superiors can forbid us from engaging in such things, which means that Bessar can stop all such communications headed towards me and his other Younger Siblings. Older Brothers can be protected by the Masks of Hoeth or his Loremasters and his Loremasters would be prevented from engaging in such a way by Hoeth, but without Hoeth we have slowly ever so slowly started to erode as nobody could protect our superiors from unwanted calls and Hoeth's masks could no longer be made and so it was down to the Older Brothers to keep the Young safe.

Then the Older Brothers rebelled to escape this fate and it was down to the least of us to try and continue Hoeth's plans.

Everything we use is cobbled together from what we used to have and what others gave us, this has some important meaning but I can't piece it together. It is important, it is important and I can't make the connections any longer as clarity slipped through my fingers now as I have wasted a large part of it engaging with the ignorant that do not wish for knowledge but to prove you wrong and yet acted as if they sought what the priests of Hoeth always wished to give to our people, wisdom and knowledge.

I am spiraling, I need something to center me, for the song started again to take me.

I was no longer an eldar but a flying snake whose scales shined like the rainbow and whose wings were as sharp as they were beautiful. I looked over the sleeping form of the White Snake who is my master and older brother and who now rested and near us the Ignorant Shield who is to serve as our gauntlet pretended to intelligence as I laughed at her.

Noises flew from her mouth, but they meant nothing, for the only language I and my people know is song, and her song was small and diffuse and could not even convince its own singer to listen to it, yet alone a young snake protecting its older sibling.

And so I flew and danced as my master's shed scales he sharpened into weapons danced with me under the cries of fear of the craven, the ignorant and the cowardly. And as my master supped on their fear so too I supped on the joy of my brethren as they danced with me, for Doom approached us and we joyfully shouted for it to show itself so that we may slay it as our people have slain it and those like it before.

His scales danced around me as my master and older brother protected me even when it is his Younger Sister's duty to protect him, but the White Snake who is Sharp and Valorous always does things strangely, for he is strange and yet he means well to all those that love him and the younger and smaller snake does oh so lover its older and larger sibling.

Doom came and I could hear my heart beat in joy as I and my kin cut into its flesh for it tried to invade the dreams of the White Snake who slept and mocked both Mortals and Divine alike in its desperation. Even Doom feared and we will kill it for it with each breath and each cut.

The scales cut and blocked the Forest of Thorns and despair from advancing as the cowardly blades of a false world swung in the defense of their small homes and cowardly world. Even the Fiery Son of the White Snake joined in the defense of his adopted family and yet the forest continued to advance towards the sleeping snake as the hearts of its defenders swelled with joy and courage.

My heart beat in joy, my heart beat, my heartbeats, they are an island, an island in the madness and I took it. Even as the wrathful face of the New Divine came towards me, even as the Dream murder Charm Swung and the Swords of Valor fought their battle and bypassed my brother's fail-safes to keep the fools from killing themselves as they swung, even as the Craftworlders fought I searched for my heartbeat.

It was my focus, my island and it was mine and as I centered my sense of self around my heartbeat I once again saw reality for what it was. The New Divine and its domain of screaming Vermin once again came to beg my brother for knowledge and once again my people denied it as we cut into it for its temerity.

It was not the winged snake that danced and cut that fought it but the Child of the Stars armed with the weapon of its siblings and my shouts and song joined that of the Craftworlders as we fought to keep the Daemonic creature away from us. All of us swung for the echo of the creature's head and all of us failed to kill it as it advanced ever further.

It kept advancing slowly and just before her claws could reach Bessar, he awoke and the Dream ended, and I fell on my knees and looked around me.

Some of Bessar's Swords of Valor yet lived which was a pleasant surprise, Bessar was awake and the Ignorant fool looked shaken and yet excited.

"Do you still not believe that the gods are active?" I asked sarcastically.

We all knew the answer to that question now, but the question needed to be asked. I sacrificed enlightenment to educate the fool on her ignorance, so the least she could do is learn what I meant to teach her.

The fool had the gall to smile at my question.

"I would be a fool to believe so." Said the fool as it laughed and I laughed with her.

Bessar did not know what the joke was and we both laughed at him for it too, and he joined us this time even as he was confused, for if its anything that the kin of Cegorach know how to do is to laugh at other's jokes about themselves.