Warhammer 40K - Farseer Page 25

  He had his own problems. That eldar witch had done him some damage. It felt like ribs were broken within his armour. It was not just his body that was hurt. It was his pride. She should not have been able to do that. It was impossible, in fact. Over the millennia, Zarghan had fought against the eldar and dark eldar many times, and no mere trooper had ever been able to harm him. There was no way a lightly armoured female should have been able to, not unless she was much more than she seemed.

  He would have his revenge shortly though. As soon as he got himself back on his feet, he would make her pay. Somehow, his body just did not seem to want to obey him.

  Janus screamed. The flow of power from the Chaos sorcerer was almost overwhelming. He felt his mind being eroded by the wash of energy, his soul being whittled away by the corrosive evil of the daemon that lurked within the old man's rapidly aging form.

  The worst part was that it was not entirely unpleasant. There was even a certain pleasure along with the agony: at moments the two were so intense that he had some trouble deciding which was which.

  The gem on his forehead glowed like a red-hot coal. He could feel and smell his own flesh burning around it, and he knew that the stone's powers were all that allowed him to resist Shaha Gaathon's might. As an untrained psyker he had no chance whatsoever of withstanding the daemon's ages-old malevolence. The daemonic entity knew it too. It smiled at him.

  'Give in,' it said. 'You will enjoy millennia of ecstasy as part of my consciousness before you are finally absorbed. What is your mortal life but an eyeblink of time anyway, before your soul is reabsorbed by the warp? This way you gain tens of thousands of years, and they will be years of utter pleasure.'

  'Go to hell,' Janus told it.

  'Did you not know? Most of me is still there, at least according to the bizarre doctrines of your pathetic church. This pitiful human host is barely capable of holding a tenth of what I am. You on the other hand are capable of so much more. As I will shortly demonstrate.'

  A lance of pure agony passed through Janus's forehead. The gem there felt as if it were on the verge of cracking. He forced himself to resist but knew he could not hold on much longer.

  Resist, Janus Darke, hold out! You are doing much better than the daemon wants you to believe, said another voice, which sounded like Auric's but might just have been a product of his own pain-twisted mind. Janus was not encouraged. What was the point of resisting? He was only prolonging the agony.

  Just a little longer, the voice whispered. Then I will be in a position to help you.

  Janus exerted his will. He did not think it was going to be enough.

  Zarghan watched the eldar and his cohorts storm the stairwell. By Slaanesh, they could fight, he had to give them that. Of course, that terrible sword made a huge difference but even so, it was impressive. Normally, he would not have expected them to cover twenty strides, but they had gone all the way to the foot of the stairs and were making their way up it.

  Half a dozen humans even managed to survive, although there was a daemonette waiting for them at the top of the stairs.

  Zarghan tried to force himself to move, desperate now to get into combat, before the battle ended, but his body refused to obey.

  Janus felt as if he was caught in a massive vice. He had reached the end of his strength; he could not go on any longer. He was about to let his mental defences crumble and the daemon flow in when he heard a real voice speaking behind him.

  'Your day is done, daemon,' said Auric. A whirlwind of magical energy surged around Janus. The pressure on his mind relaxed. He felt capable of movement once more, but when he tried to do so, he found that all he could do was stumble a few steps and then collapse onto the ground.

  He noticed the glow of eldar sorcery still surrounded him, cocooning him against the daemon's evil energies. Looking up, he could see that Auric had cut down the last daemonette and had emerged onto the top of the great mandala. Behind him stood Athenys, Kham Bell and a few of the surviving warriors.

  'What an amusing concept,' replied Shaha Gaathon. 'You think to pit your pitiful spell-singing against the power of a daemon prince. You must be more drunk on the life energy of those you killed than I thought possible.'

  Somehow, over whatever tenuous psychic link they now shared, Janus sensed the eldar's shock. It seemed the daemon did too.

  'Do you think I do not know what that weapon does?' asked Shaha Gaathon. 'My, my—how will you explain this to your precious council? How will you manage to preserve your fabled purity having drunk their tainted life force?'

  The daemon's voice was at once conversational and malevolent. Janus could sense that it was summoning more and more energy from somewhere, plotting a killing stroke. The body it wore was now truly ancient, withered and stooped; it looked as if it were a hundred years old. Janus could smell the burning flesh and noticed that its perfumed sweat glistened the colour of blood. The eyes were now pure raging furnaces of hate, windows into the deepest, darkest levels of the most forbidden hells.

  'Kill him, kill him now!' Janus gasped, trying to warn the eldar before it was too late.

  The daemon's laughter roared across the room like thunder in a storm. 'Not even with that sword could he do so,' said Shaha Gaathon. 'All he could do is kill this host form. I would survive.'

  'Not if the deathblade feeds on your soul,' said Auric.

  'Not even then,' said Shaha Gaathon, 'for only a part of my essence is present here. Your little toy might prove painful temporarily but it would not slay me. Now I am too great.'

  'We shall see!' said Auric, springing forward and lashing out with incredible speed. The daemon leapt back to the centre of the mandala. Janus slumped to the ground. The constant attack on his mind had suddenly let up, as the daemon concentrated on his main opponent. The shield of energy slipped away from around him as the eldar focused on Shaha Gaathon. The daemon prince gestured and a sword of coruscating energy appeared in his fist, flickering like a dark flame. For all of the decrepit appearance of the body he wore, he moved with eye-blurring speed.

  Watching the two of them fight was like watching a swift intricate dance. Their movements were amazingly quick and supple, and utterly fluid. Their actions appeared intertwined and almost ritualistic. When Auric advanced a step, the daemon gave ground. When the daemon won back two steps, Auric matched him pace for pace in time to the rhythm of his movements. Their blades flickered faster than the eye could follow, leaving lines of solid-seeming light burned on the observer's retina. Nobody, not even Athenys, moved to intervene. Everyone there sensed that they were in the presence of powers far greater than they, witnesses to a struggle the outcome of which it was far beyond their feeble powers to affect.

  At first Auric had the upper hand. Slowly, making progress painfully, advancing two steps for every one he was pushed back, he drove Shaha Gaathon back to the centre of the mandala. With every parry, the daemon's blade grew a little dimmer, as if its energies were being consumed bit by bit when they came into contact with the lightning entwined crystal of the eldar artefact.

  The eyes on the Wall of Faces seemed to flicker and grow brighter. The effect was eerie, making some of the ancient deities appear to twist, giving them a semblance of a smile. Janus began to feel a little hope.

  Perhaps, armed with the deathblade, Auric might triumph. Perhaps his own life need not be forfeit. Perhaps he would live to learn what the eldar could teach him, and avoid having his own soul and body consumed, in the way the ancient form Shaha Gaathon inhabited was being devoured.

  Auric advanced in a whirlwind of blows. His movements were graceful and utterly controlled. The daemon's form seemed to be flying apart. Multi-coloured light leaked from cracks in the disintegrating skin. Bones were becoming visible through the parchment thin flesh. His eyes glowed ever brighter.

  Then, just as it seemed the deathblow might fall, Shaha Gaathon's blade flared brighter than Auric's and he parried.

  The two figures stood locked in position, their power app
arently equally balanced.

  'Enough,' said Shaha Gaathon. 'This farce has gone on long enough. Did you think you might actually win here, eldar? Do you not realise that I have been toying with you? Do you think that your puny powers might actually be a match for those of a daemon prince? I have grown stronger since this weapon was forged, and it is grown weaker. Watch and learn wisdom in the few moments remaining to you.'

  He moved his arm suddenly and the blade was sent flying from Auric's hand to land at Janus's feet, then the daemon lashed out with the fiery blade and drove it directly through the breast of the farseer's armour, pinning him to the floor of the mandala. The farseer's whole body spasmed and an eerie cry was torn from his lips. His body flexed and went still.

  'Death has come for you, Auric Farseer,' Shaha Gaathon said. 'Just as it will come for your world.'

  The daemon prince reached forward to pluck the way-stone from within Auric's armour. He held it up to the light, an amused smile playing on his decaying lips.

  'And your soul will find no haven,' he said and thrust the gleaming waystone into his blazing mouth.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  THE FINAL BETRAYAL

  The daemon prince stood there roaring with laughter. An aura of blazing power played around his head. His smile was broad and triumphant. At that moment he was the very picture of invincibility. Athenys and the others looked appalled. Janus, who had believed in Auric's prophecies insofar as they concerned him stood there, awaiting death. He was sure that it would not be long in coming. After all, the eldar was gone; not even his soul would remain once it was sucked from the waystone and consumed by the daemon.

  Shaha Gaathon would take Janus too, and eat his soul, and he would become a vessel of wrath, as the daemon prince worked his wickedness on the eldar and upon humanity. He considered how he might avoid this fate and could see only one way. The deathblade was close at hand. Lightning still flickered around it, discharging itself into the mandala. The air smelled of ozone. The heat of the gemstone embedded in his brow was almost unbearable, and if anything seemed to be increasing.

  He decided that he could throw himself upon the weapon and kill himself, thus denying Shaha Gaathon what he most desired. It was pathetic, he thought, that his whole life should be reduced to this, but he could see no other way out. His fingers closed around the hilt of the ancient eldar weapon. Instantly strength flowed into him. He felt his despair lift, and he recognised it for what it was—the product of the daemon prince's magic and the corruption from the daemonette's venom that still flowed in his veins.

  The power surging into him increased. As it did so, he heard a myriad of voices babbling in his head. Chaos cultists, daemonettes, even faint eerie echoes of the voice of Shaha Gaathon himself, as stolen vitality poured in and made him stronger. He raised himself to his feet, filled with a renewed confidence. Careful, he told himself. Such confidence might be a trap. If he was going to use the weapon on himself, he should do so now, while Shaha Gaathon was occupied with digesting the soul of the farseer.

  Even as the thought occurred to him, he knew he was not going to do it. He was not going to kill himself, not when he had a weapon of such power in his hand, and a foe before him. Now, for the first time, he noticed how weak the daemon's body seemed. It looked on the verge of coming apart. Perhaps because it was just about used up, burned through like a log in a fire. Perhaps because of the wounds Auric had inflicted. Perhaps due to some combination of both. It did not really matter. All he wanted was the chance to kill it.

  Bright anger burned in him. This creature had hounded him right across this sector of the galaxy. It had tortured him, tormented him and driven him to the edge of despair and madness. It wanted to kill him and eat his soul, just as it had already done to the one man who had tried to help him in his extremity.

  No more, he thought. I have come far enough. I will be hunted no further. I will make you pay for what you have done to me.

  He strode forward, filled with the evil energy of the blade. Shaha Gaathon stood there frozen for a moment. Perhaps he was having more difficulty than he had expected consuming the eldar's soul.

  'Curse you, eldar,' the daemon shouted. What have you done? How have you eluded me?'

  Janus did not know what Shaha Gaathon was raving about but the anger and frustration were evident even in the daemon's beautiful voice. He bent down over the eldar's corpse to inspect the body, as if he suspected that Auric was not quite dead yet, and that perhaps he had devoured the waystone prematurely. Even as these thoughts flashed through Janus's mind, he felt the gem-stone on his own forehead grow warmer still.

  He raised the sword to strike and as he did so, Shaha Gaathon turned to face him. The daemon's anger subsided. The rage vanished from his face.

  'You at least will not escape,' he said, and raised his burning sword.

  Janus lashed out with a mighty blow. The ebony blade felt light as a willow-wand in his hand. The daemon blocked it and parried. Shaha Gaathon's response was so fast it should have been impossible to stop, but somehow the deathblade was there, turning in his hand to block the daemon's stroke. Janus felt a surge of pain flash up his arm from the point of contact, a burning stinging sensation. It was as if the deathsword had become an extension of his own flesh and his own nervous system. What it felt, he felt. It was not a reassuring idea.

  Even as the thought crossed his mind, he realised that battle was being joined on another level. A wave of psychic power surged outward from the daemon's host form and threatened to overwhelm him. Perhaps it was because of the sword, but he sensed more of the mind behind the attack, its unquenchable hunger, and its desire to possess him utterly and devour his immortal soul. He caught a glimpse of bottomless hells in which evil immortals writhed in what might have been ecstasy or might have been torment, over which presided Shaha Gaathon, a luminous being of tremendous will, and over which loomed the titanic presence that was the immortal entity Slaanesh. He found the image being forced into his mind along with promises of eternities of pleasure if he surrendered, eternities of pain if he resisted.

  Frantically he closed his mind to the daemon's whispered promises and tried to block out the hot waves of pleasurable pain that gripped his body. The sword lent him strength. In the depths of his mind, he tapped into his own rage and pain, as he had done what seemed a lifetime ago, in the meat processing plant. He forged his emotions into a thunderbolt and cast it at the daemon and at the exact same moment lashed out with the deathblade.

  It was a feeble, clumsy effort and Shaha Gaathon blocked it easily. He knew that even if his sword-augmented powers matched those the daemon prince had vested in his host-body, he simply did not have the skill to match the daemon's. He was like an inexperienced boy facing a grand master at pharaoh, or a novice warrior going blade to blade in close combat with a Space Marine. He did not have a chance.

  At least he would go out fighting. The daemon countered both his strokes and his riposte was fierce. The burning blade seared flesh; the awesome psychic pressure scarred his soul. It was all Janus could do to retain consciousness. Red darkness threatened to drown him, but from somewhere came knowledge that told him not to try and resist the pain, but to bend before it like long grass in the wind, which endures the hurricane that a mighty oak cannot. He obeyed and rode out the waves of pain, like a sailing vessel at anchor riding the waves of a giant storm. The gem on his brow burned brighter, but now it caused him no pain, instead it seemed to be feeding him the knowledge he required to match his power, and the power of the sword.

  And now he noticed something more. The runestones that had once hovered over Auric's body, and now lay atop the eldar's corpse, were starting to rise into the air. One by one, they flashed towards him and began to rotate around him as they had once done around the farseer. As they did so, greater and greater confidence filled him, as they added to his strength.

  'I see your plan now,' said Shaha Gaathon. 'You desire this one for yourself.'

  Janus wondered what
the daemon prince was talking about. Without quite knowing how he did it, he fashioned a mighty psychic bolt, drawing all of his power together then sending it scything outwards. As the daemon prince parried the bolt, it split into two. Part of its force slid around Shaha Gaathon's psychic defences, and split again and again. Janus sensed the daemon's desperation as it attempted to block all of the incoming attacks and failed. Two parts of the bolt struck home, causing the crumbling flesh to disintegrate still further.

  Perhaps, Janus thought, he might actually be able to win this. The earlier battle with Auric had weakened the daemon. Janus sensed too that drawing on all that power had weakened the host body to the point where it could barely contain the power Shaha Gaathon was sending it. Briefly, he wondered where the knowledge was coming from then decided he did not care. The important thing was to win the battle, then he would have time to ponder mysteries.

  'If I cannot have this vessel,' Shaha Gaathon stated in the voice of an angry god, 'no one will.'

  Apparently Shaha Gaathon had come to a similar conclusion. Janus felt a change in the aura of magic swirling around him. A shield of pure dark energy sprang into being around the smouldering corpse inhabited by the daemon's essence. It resisted all of Janus's attacks, while within it, he could see an enormous firestorm of force being assembled. He knew that if he did not smash through the daemon's defences now, he would be unable to survive the counter-stroke when it came.

  It seemed the daemon prince wanted him dead. Why? He appeared to think that Janus's body and soul were now beyond his reach, so he might as well destroy them. Does he really fear me so much, Janus wondered as renewed despair filled him?