040.M42
Chamber of the Stars
Craftworld Ulthanash Shelwe
There was something awfully off-putting about the Craftworld Ulthwe. Perhaps it was the vast expanses of wraithbone constantly keening with the sleeping songs of the dead, inducted along each spire and strut from the Infinity Circuit ensconced within the heart of the world ship. Or maybe it was the songs of the living, Bonesingers bringing about new creations, Aspect Warriors singing of war and battle to focus themselves, Warlocks honing the craft of the Warp or Farseers seeking out the future.
More than likely, it was the way each and every last one of them, young and old, dead and alive, looked at her with fear and derision as they passed her by, like a mongrel dog that had grown plasma cannons and sepsis. Ten thousand years since the Fall ended, fifteen thousand years since the Dominion broke, and the one thing the Asuryani kept from their roots was an overbearing superiority complex.
It would be so, so easy to hide herself, wear the skin of an Eldar in their eyes, or simply disappear. Part of her even considered wearing the guise of a Daemon, just to see how quickly before the swords and shuriken guns came out. But alas, she came here with a job to do. Because her big sister asked her nicely.
"If it helps," the raven-haired Archangel next to her mused, "They aren't thrilled with me, either."
Mona shrugged in part-commiseration, part-instinct, before she frowned as the implication processed. "Wait, but Ulthwe actually likes Pandora."
"They respect her, I don't know about like. But I ate a Lord of Change, so."
"Ah, right. I always forget that part about you."
Lily Archaman, the Thief of Time, smiled angelically. "Some say I'm quite a charmer."
"You're Pan's girlfriend-wife. That's probably religious canon."
"It is, actually!"
Footsteps approached. Mona's ghost of a smile vanished and she rose to her feet, meeting the Exarchs that followed behind Eldrad Ulthran. Nine Exarchs for nine Phoenix Lords, each of them looking warily at her as they stood clad in ancient armour and new flesh. She crossed her arms back at them, clad in armour of black carapace and yellow electric veins of a design older than their vaunted Exarch armour. None of them stood a chance against her, even together, and she knew that bothered them.
Unlike his escort, however, Eldrad had the temerity to smile, though it was only the slightest curve in an otherwise terse line.
He glanced to the side and a Bonesinger choir belted an elegy. A table rose from the ground of the garden, as well as a trio of stools. He took his seat, as did Mona and Lily. For a time, the atmosphere of the gathering was tense and thick, too thick for even the peerless blades of the Howling Banshees.
"The Harlequins have proven helpful in the preparations," Eldrad said, his fingers tented for of course they were. "The five Croneswords of Morai-Heg have been located and we may be able to claim them. The last, whose name has been lost to the ages, lies within the Palace of Slaanesh, but with your aid, reclaiming it should be no trouble."
"That sounds like a lot of trouble," Lily retorted.
"So we have a better solution," Mona replied. She held her hand up and grasped at the air, turning her wrist as a sorcerous array twisted. From it she pulled and a cylinder followed, silver and grey. Popping the cap off, she removed the scroll carried within and laid it out for all to see, long enough that it draped over the edge by Eldrad. "This is the plan that we've drafted for Pandora. It will give you Ynnead, provided everything goes to plan."
Eldrad frowned and he read the scroll, his eyes widening with every passage he saw. With his fingers he traced each line, reading it over and over, before he looked up. "Can this work? Can this design even be drawn by mortal hands?"
"No. But the one drawing it is hardly mortal, is she?"
Lily smiled kindly. "I'm proof, if you're looking for credentials."
Eldrad read them again, but now he frowned. "But there's a flaw. Power alone is not enough to bring forth Ynnead. We will need a focus in order to draw her forth, and there is no place in the pattern for such a focus, much less one large enough to bring forth a God."
"Normally correct. And Pandora is not as great a Sorcerer as my brother, so she cannot compensate for that on the fly. But," and Mona raised a finger, "You misread the design, Ulthran. Expand your understanding. The circle can make use of such a locus, you just need to think bigger."
"The only such locus would have to be the ground it rests upon, and-"
Eldrad Ulthran held his breath suddenly. Then he released it and let out a laugh. "Ah, I see. I see! You will use a world for her! The death of a planet, fitting for the birth of a God of the Dead!"
The Exarchs felt a wave of wary, but were blown more away by a sweep of the Ninthborn's hand. "Don't worry, it's not going to be bloody Ulthanash Shelwe. A Craftworld won't be enough, anyways, and why spend a good thing when there are plenty of other candidates available? Lily and I have had this pattern ready for years, we were simply looking for a number of suitable worlds to plant it on."
"A number larger than none, I would hope?"
Mona scoffed openly before the oldest of the Farseers, which galled the Eldar greatly - save Eldrad himself. "Obviously. When I take a job I make sure it's done, even if it means I do it myself. And we have three candidates. I'm sure you can guess at the first."
Eldrad breathed and the name left his lips as a shallow whisper. "Virmosae, the Last Watchworld… Asuryan's fetters would be suitable for her birth. A rebirth."
Mona nodded. "And there are two more after that."
"Eidafaeron," a voice like a gentle shriek said, and suddenly Mona felt her skin tense, the hairs on her arms standing on end. It was a rare feeling for her. The knowledge that a proper peer was present. As she and Lily turned about, the Phoenix Lord Jain Zar, Storm of Silence, strode towards them with languid, yet purposeful footsteps. "A place I once called home, now fief of the Daemon Ali'Slath'Sleresh the Heartslayer. A Daemon World. It will be a suitable offering for the Bane of the Usurper."
"Can it truly be, my Lady?" The Howling Banshee that stood with Eldrad asked, all but speechless to see her Phoenix Lord present. Jain Zar simply glanced in Lily's direction, and when the Archdeva nodded did the same.
"One who has walked there recently will know better than I, who have not been home since the Dominion fell," Jain Zar spoke, each word carefully measured before it was spoken. "But as the birthplace of the Warrior Path and the homeworld of Asurmen and I, the myth that binds us makes it a suitable sacrifice indeed."
She turned then to Mona. "But there is one place left. Yes?"
"Yes," Mona replied. "En route to Eidafaeron, I found a path that my sister Valeria blazed a long time ago. On a whim I followed it while Lily visited the Crone World and braved many dangers as I delved deeper and deeper into the Warp. But I found it, in a place so deep that not even Gods enter carelessly."
"I hardly believed it when she told me of it," Lily said. "But it has the potential to be the most promising sacrifice of all."
"And it would cost very little, even compared to Eidafaeron," Mona said. "For it is a place that has been dead for eons and eons. The Homeworld of the Asur, Ulthuan."
If there was a gasp, Mona did not hear it, nor did she feel it. But the hollowness in the atmosphere she sensed was as good as could be expected.
"That is a name not even I have heard except in old stories from my childhood," Eldrad said. "But even I know that Ulthuan was destroyed when the Starborn invaded the Sea. How is it that anything survived?"
"A good question, and one I can't answer," Mona replied. "But the piece my sister found and walked a path towards is perhaps the best that could be hoped for. For is Ynnead not the embers of Asuryan, inheritor of the mantle of Phoenix King, yet a title she cannot claim while She Who Thirsts sits the throne?"
"Then what have you found?" Eldrad asked, almost desperate now to know. "Tell me! What else remains of Asuryan?!"
"Not only Asuryan, but the others who claimed the crown before him," Mona replied gracefully. "For I have found the Island of Flame and the Shrine of the Phoenix King upon it, from where the Phoenix Kings of old once ruled, where the Phoenix Kings of old once inherited their crowns and reignited their flames, and where the Incarna of old once bent the knee and paid homage to the King of the Firstborn. Now that flame is cinders and Ulthuan broken, but were Ynnead to be born from that brazier's embers by the efforts of an Incarna…"
Mona trailed off, her words unsaid yet deafening. And not one, not even Eldrad Ulthran or Jain Zar, dared speak, lest they undermine the gravity of those words.
For were Ynnead born in such a place… There may be a Phoenix King once again.
