What had it signified when a Harlequin had snatched Mile’ionahd’s spurious pebble from her?
Had one purpose of the terrible rite enacted in the habitat orbiting Stalinvast been to summon these Phoenix Lords from wherever they lingered while time elapsed in the ordinary universe?
‘Ah, the Crossroads of Inertia,’ she echoed. ‘Those crossroads in our webway where time stands still.’
This was the most likely meaning of inertia. She hazarded rhapsodically: ‘Where time shifts sideways, where time twists backward.’
‘
Uigebealach
,’ whispered the Harlequin. ‘If Great Harlequins have discovered the place where time twists backward, is that location now encrypted in the mutable
Book of Rhana Dandra
in the Black Library? When the Rhana Dandra comes time itself must rupture.’
‘The secret place,’ she mused, ‘where what has been can be again.’
Could it be that some eldar mystics hoped to regain their past glories by turning time itself backwards, in a cataclysm where reality was utterly disrupted? Was that the purpose of this mutual annihilation of reality and Chaos known as the Rhana Dandra? The annulling of history? The abolition of aeons of elapsed time?
Lex continued to struggle massively. His suit groaned and creaked as he tried to thrust the tightening fibres apart. From his arms, from his legs. The fibres could not prevent him from exerting himself within the suit. Was he trying to compel the tendrils to tighten so much in response to his amplified movements that finally strands must snap? Lex may as well have been encased in solid rock. He might force the suit beyond its design limits until its systems failed.
Of a sudden, many things happened.
T
HE HARLEQUIN’S MASK
became a pearly blank, cutting Mile’ionahd off from all communion with him, or her. Its chameleon suit was aswirl with all the sickly lurid hues of the Eye of Terror. The Harlequin was pointing a laspistol at her head...
From away across the rubble other black guardians came bounding, guardians with golden helms – and also a kaleidoscopic Harlequin with the all-too-familiar human features of Zephro Carnelian.
‘Brother Harlequin, don’t kill her yet!’ Carnelian shrilled. He was swinging what appeared to be a primitive sling such as Meh’lindi had known on the feral world of her childhood.
Guardians and Banshees were now utterly alert. Any leap which Meh’lindi might have undertaken would surely have resulted in her immediate death. Swiftly guardians had discarded their rotund web guns for their long-barrelled lasguns.
In amazement Meh’lindi recognized exactly what that sling was. A sling? It was none other than her stolen thong with her speckly pebble attached to it!
Carnelian halted. He surveyed webbed prisoners and the webbed Marine who still strove ponderously – and he surveyed Mile’ionahd. His laughter was a pealing bell.
‘This time it isn’t you who are ensnared, my dear!’ he mocked her, in Imperial Gothic.
How she wished to spit poison at this person who had entrapped her once in the coils of the hydra and who had ravished her with enforced ecstasy within her very brain, stimming her pleasure centres unbearably!
He tossed the pebble dismissively at her. ‘Your gewgaw, I believe.’
She caught it. The thong had been reknotted. She slipped the pendant over her head to rid herself of it. Foolish Carnelian! He had prompted her to use her hands. Now she could make other movements without inviting instant death.
‘Your stone was stolen for a soul-tasting,’ Carnelian explained. ‘It didn’t taste of much soul at all, let alone of any eldar spirit.’ So that was the reason why the pebble had been snatched away – to discover whether she was genuine or fake.
Meh’lindi retorted: ‘And now I know that you and your Illuminati aren’t very genuine, either, in your claims.’ She spoke in Imperial Gothic for Jaq’s benefit, so that he would learn what the eldar Harlequin had divulged. Jaq couldn’t move, but at least he could hear. ‘The long watch of knights is a hoax, Carnelian! You mean to use those immortal Sons in the same way as sprightly young psykers are fed to the Emperor. They’re all to be sacrificed and consumed.’
Down on the ground Grimm heaved a groan – and came close to choking as fibres cramped him even more tightly. Grimm had discovered his own gullibility.
‘Is this true, Carnelian?’ came Jaq’s voice. His lips hadn’t been sealed by tangleweb.
‘True?’ shrieked the Harlequin Man. ‘What a futile question,
true!
I thought you were worthy of becoming an Illuminatus!’
‘And I thought,’ retorted Jaq, ‘a qualification for
that
was to be possessed by a daemon.’
‘And to survive possession. With or without assistance.’ Carnelian leered at Jaq. ‘
You
would have had assistance.’
‘Emperor’s tears,’ murmured Jaq in horror. The Illuminati, who loathed daemons so utterly, would have contrived that his soul and body might be possessed for a while – for a week? for a year? for a century? – so that later he could join their ranks.
‘Why me?’ Jaq breathed.
Frustration and exasperation goaded Carnelian.
‘Because Eldrad Ulthran saw this,’ he raved. ‘Because it is written in the Black Library in the mutable
Book of Rhana Dandra
!’
‘
Emperor’s testes...’ Oh, an oath of such sacred mystery.
‘His testes, eh?’ Carnelian sneered. ‘Why, those testes must have been full to bursting once. His prodigal secret Sons are so numerous! I tell you, together the Sons will form his Son. The Numen, the light to New Men! To renew humanity, to thwart all daemons, when the Sons are sacrificed in the bonfire of transcendence! I speak as one illuminated by pre-vision of that bonfire of souls. Sir Jaq, you would have understood this wonder after being possessed and purged.’
‘You,’ he snarled at Meh’lindi, ‘you’re such a damned distraction!’
Z
EPHRO TRIED TO
calm himself. He must not appear possessed in front of his mentors whose mannerisms he aped as the sincerest form of gratitude and admiration.
His mentors were quicksilver by nature. He had needed to cultivate hectic affectations as an equivalent to their rush and dazzle. Seeing one of his long-term projects undermined due to this assassin – who must certainly abominate him! – his reactions had become unstrung.
Did the insanity which had once possessed him haunt him anew in his frustration at the spoiling of a cherished plan? A plan for Jaq Draco’s own benefit!
Once Draco had been redeemed from possession and become illuminated he would have appreciated Carnelian’s long-term wisdom!
Now, damnably, Draco was deterred... thanks to the assassin, and to his inquisitorial programming regarding daemons and the tarnished rotting glory of that wretched Emperor. Emperor’s testes, indeed! Draco should have learned better by now!
Zephro must calm himself.
C
ARNELIAN SPOKE IN
eldar to Meh’lindi. ‘Let your pistols drop,
imposter.
Prepare for an exhibition of your paltry skills.’
A Banshee skipped forward. Holstering her laspistol, she cried out in a harsh voice, ‘I challenge. I claim the honour!’
Meh’lindi had little choice but to discard her weapons. Even so, she was herself a living weapon.
The aspect warrior flourished her power sword. Her armour was the hue of blood except for the round poleyns protecting her knees. Those were bone-white. And except for the golden helm. Her mandible-blasters jutted from that helm, deadly pods, scorpion-stings. A mane of black hair waved behind the helm, the lacquered tentacles of a medusa.
How close did the Banshee have to come to an enemy to use those helm-pods? Would it be part of her Banshee code to use them against an apparently unarmed opponent? From the way in which the Banshee swished her power sword it seemed that her main desire was to decapitate Meh’lindi with a single swing dealt whilst dancing. Or perhaps mockingly to slice off one hand at the wrist, and then the other hand, before delivering a coup de grace.
‘Traitor!’ cried the Banshee.
‘No,
impostor
,’ Carnelian corrected her. ‘A human transformed by a metamorphic drug. A mimic.’
‘Aieeee!’ How offended the Banshee sounded at this impersonation by an alien of an eldar.
The genuine Harlequin was cursing himself for his earlier credulity. He, a supreme performer! True, he had grown suspicious even before the arrival of this human ally in Harlequin gear. To have been duped even for a while was detestable.
‘Sister Banshee,’ he called out, ‘kindly slice off her nose first of all.’
Lex had quit moving. He appeared to have abandoned any attempt to snap the web. While guardians and Banshees were distracted by the onesided duel, would Lex make one further supreme effort to wrench his powered arms apart, to reload his boltgun as quickly as could be, and to use it? Meh’lindi must survive as long as possible.
‘Don’t I get a sword as well?’ she asked.
Carnelian considered this, as did the Harlequin.
‘
Honour
,’ prompted some guardian of Ulthwé.
‘Honour,’ echoed another.
‘Indeed,’ said the Harlequin slowly.
‘She’s fairly dangerous,’ warned Carnelian.
The genuine Harlequin was not to be instructed by a protegé. However, he did pay some attention.
‘Let her have a disabled sword,’ he decreed.
‘Her with a dead sword against two Banshees—’
‘I am insulted,’ the challenger snarled at Carnelian.
One of the Banshees ejected a tiny power-pack from her sword. She tossed the inert weapon at Meh’lindi’s feet. Meh’lindi did not pick the sword up quite yet.
‘I prefer to fight without this clumsy armour,’ she said. Thus she wasted a little more time. In actual fact the eldar armour was far from clumsy. Might she inject a sting of self-doubt, a mite of inadvertent clumsiness, into her opponent! Probably not. More importantly, without the pearly armour, in this sombre gloom in her assassin’s black tunic Meh’lindi would be a little less visible. Carnelian was making an error in allowing her to continue living even for a little while longer. Sentimentality could hardly be a factor, merely because he had once ravished her so ecstatically and insultingly. Being himself only a kind of cadet Harlequin, plainly he must take account of eldar sensibilities. She would surely die within the next few minutes. She also intended to kill – Carnelian, if she could. Carnelian was withdrawing himself to a judicious distance.
What distance was far enough away from a Callidus assassin? Slowly Meh’lindi unpeeled her armour until she stood in her clingtight tunic.
‘The red sash! She mustn’t wear that! It’s full of tricks—’
Digital weapons. Toxins. A garrote.
‘She must drop the sash—’
So be it. She could always snatch the sash up again. At last Meh’lindi picked up the inert brass-hilted sword. She hefted it to test the balance. Her opponent’s sword blade shimmered with a hazy blue energy which could cut through her own dead sword blade – which at least boasted a razor-edge.
‘Begin,’ said the Harlequin impatiently. His mask, now, was a skull with pools of blood in the eye sockets.
The Banshee howled. Meh’lindi screamed back at her with all of her voice. They circled. They feinted. The Banshee leapt ballet-like, twisting in mid-air, slashing.
Meh’lindi had already ducked and sprung sideways. She touched the ground with her spread palm. She pivoted in a different direction. The Banshee sliced the air where she had been.
Again the Banshee howled. Again Meh’lindi shrieked as if she had been lacerated. Briefly she had indeed been stunned. However, Callidus reflexes sent her somersaulting one-handed. The tip of her sword struck the Banshee’s bone-white poleyn – a visible target and the blur of scarlet. The knee-hood brushed off the disabled metal. Yet it was a strike.
Meh’lindi’s hilt was against the hilt of the Banshee’s power blade. The blade hummed in front of Meh’lindi’s face. The scream-mask confronted her so closely. The Banshee had been almost faster than Meh’lindi could match. Would the mandibles discharge whatever they were loaded with? Meh’lindi threw herself aside. She rolled. She was about to bounce to her feet.
The Banshee was already beside her, judging her swing. Oh yes, the aim was to slice off Meh’lindi’s nose first. To graze the tip of her nose with energy. Any closer, and half of Meh’lindi’s face would tear off, bare to the bone.
As the power sword swung, Meh’lindi could only parry the stroke. With a crackling shudder the power blade met her own sword. Meh’lindi’s blade ruptured apart. How the vibration jarred her wrist. Now she held only a hilt and a jagged stump. Diverted, the power sword swung by, caressing Meh’lindi’s nostrils with ozone rather than with amputation.
And in this moment Meh’lindi stabbed upward elastically into the Banshee’s armpit where shoulder-joint met breastplate. The toothed stub of her sword penetrated. It must have severed an auxiliary muscle. The power sword flew from the Banshee’s grasp, and bounced upon rubble, inactive as soon as she had lost hold of it. Meh’lindi scrambled to seize the weapon, to restore its energy – no, not to kill the Banshee but to settle scores with Carnelian.
A skull-numbing howl hammered Meh’lindi as her fingers closed on the hilt. She sprawled prone, a bird of prey beaten down by a thunderous gale.
This sprawl might well have been the saving of her. In the air there was another kind of thunder.
RAARK RAARK RAARK CRUMP CRUMP RAAARKARAAARKACRUMPACRUMPACRUMPA
Boltguns!
Though a guillotining by power blade might have been her fate, she craned her neck.
Almost a full squad of Imperial Fists, wearing wonderfully welcome pus-yellow armour, were powering forward, blasting at guardians and Banshees.
Taken by surprise – even astonishment – Banshees and guardians were being ripped apart by exploding bolts.
The Fists were already so close. Banshees howled, but the Marines had their visors down. A jet of clingfire gushed from one exotic gun held by a guardian. Fire wreathed a Fist. Las-bolts impacted on his suit. The suit was blasted open. The blazing torch which was the Space Marine careered onward for a while before crashing into a broken rib of wraithbone.