The hair & the talon

[OwlandMoonGuy]

Prologue

 

In the dark annuls of Lorgar’s Legion, several would-be disciples of most forbidden lore became strangely different from their fallen brothers. Though they were still augmented as Astartes and twisted by their descent into Chaos, their typical behaviors drastically altered. For they abandoned all want to hear the roar of the bolter or to march with their brothers toward galactic conquest or to even to see the defeat of their enemies. No longer did they spit vengeful spite at the Imperium or the corpse god that sat on the Golden Throne. Instead of such material things they only longed for Chaos.

 

Forsaking sleep at night and food when they hungered they submitted their bodies to the most horrid of disfiguring tortures. They did all they could to abandon their physical beings in an ever deepening attempt to surrender to the immaterial. In this way, this Lorgaran sect, spent their lives and when their lives were fully spent they paid with their eternal souls. They sought to purchase for themselves the brittle crumbs and off-scouring their daemonic masters chose to let fall from their hell blasted tables. Those that delved deepest, the ones that dared the most, became like living libraries. Warp bound secrets that the most venerated Eldar Farseer would dare record in the books of Black Library, these Word Bearers absorbed into their own bodies.

 

These hollowed out husks of men whose former souls haunted them like restless ghosts became so familiar with the forbidden that they no longer perceived the mundane. Their bodies became like withered specters. Their eyes sunk deep into vacant sockets. Their voices hushed to a rasping whisper. Even their whispers were only shared with the dark shapes that clung about them like soot, like blackest oil, like invisible parasites. And in their sealed chambers they gathered; only keeping their own company. It was to one of these living grimoires that the “Lie” who was called the great “Sa’lili” became known.

 

The story of this elusive daemonkin cannot be told without its Word Bearer vessel, the Chaos Warlord, Vaspace the Piper. He was one member of this silent sect who lived his wretched life and died after asking far too many questions. What was preserved of him remains the only known record of the events that transpired in the timeless swirling devilry that spawned the great Lord of Excess and all the lesser minions thereof.

 

From the vassal serfs and servitors that attended the cursed Vaspase, this was the story that was retained.

 

 

The hair & the talon

 

Before it was to when it was whole

 

In quickening eons after Excess awoke, the Ruinous Lord of Change knew jealousy, for the fledgling Power of Chaos had taken too many honors to itself. Slaanesh lavished in all extravagance. It paraded itself in all pride and flaunted all that it had obtained so that all the Warp was made to notice. And in the wandering ways of their diabolic hearts they paid their dark homage where that homage was due. Yet the deep inner passions of the Blue Lord of Sorcery could only bear so much. No infant god should strut before the ancient doors of the Crystal Labyrinth so lightly. This new upstart must be put in his place.

 

So clad in all colors, both obtuse and invisible, the breadth of all horror beamed in bright lights into the farthest wastes of the Warp. For it was Tzeentch in all his idol glory, standing at the soaring heights of his sorcerous tower. No lesser light could challenge it (for there was no Astrinomicon in those days). With a thousand arms outstretched across the cosmos, the variegated Lord bellowed his great defiance,

 

I am the CHANGER of WAYS! The great disciple of the font of time and the delver of the timeless wells! All paths start and end in my presence and none passes lest they take heed! None may unravel my riddles and none can confound me! None can discern my lies nor bear the burden of my immutable truths!

 

When the words swept to the ears of the Excessive Ruin, one hair on the great Slaanesh’s head stood up. It was a shining strand that stretched from the piled mane behind his left ear and traversed his long length till it brushed the hem of his train as it flowed behind him. The Lord of Excess was caught in a swoon over the echoing words of his brother god, Tzeentch as they pealed across the Warp. So choice, the Excessive god thought in ways that only the gods know wonder. So real and with such grief of the likes that have never been known. The dark lord swirled in a sea of imagined visions that made corporeal the unthinkable.

 

But the hair was not lost in heady ecstasy. For the resonating power of Tzeentch’s words shook it along its entire length. These vibrations resonated, giving the hair a voice of its very own and once it came to full fluttering volume it spoke, directly into his master’s ear. “What - are - his - Lies?” it asked as it could.

 

The Lavish god, Keeper of all Secrets, was struck sober but not in a way that displeased him. He knew well his brother Tzeentch was a contradictory enigma ensnared in a paradox. What great gulf must lie between his web of lies and far flung truths? What secrets must lie within? Shrewd as he was, the young Slaanesh became wiser that day but perhaps not as much as his chatty hair who had became the wiser still. But how could any, even a Chaos god, fathom the depth of Changer of Ways? There was no plumb in all the empyrean or the substantial that could measure his ceaseless thoughts.

 

These lies his brother told spun secrets. Secrets the Great Keeper longed to know.

 

Send – me, came a tickling twitter at his elfin ear. And a glint of whimsical mirth stretched the daemon god’s lips. With an absent pluck, Slaanesh removed the curiosity from the silk of his flowing mane.

 

What is this? He thought in the way that gods ponder but the hair lay inert in his hand. He then wound it tight between two fingers and stretched it to the breaking point. Speak now! he bellowed in aroused delight for the child god knew no patience. With taught stretching the hair spoke again in quivering but audible words,

 

Lies – for – the liar – and – some – truth – besides – send – me.

 

But the great Slaanesh was not the only one who could hear the verbose hair. Beneath the arching pleasure dome laughter burst aloud from the host of gathered mouths. For every greater daemon and every fleshy thing that slunk among the softest cushions comprised Slaanesh’s Lavish Court. Every daemon assembled danced, made merry and slashed themselves with painful merriment. They found the hair amusing to say the least. The greatest of Slaanesh’s devilish champions, accompanied by the entire assembled host would never assail the mysteries of the Changing realm. They mocked the hair’s stuttering voice. They tore ropes and rent sashes in symbolic execution of the upstart curious hair. But the great god himself did not laugh then or in the end. Instead, his voice blustered with commands.

 

Bring to me a gilded box! And an opal with fiery depths! Bring me an onyx, an amethyst and garnet all perfect, without cloud or inclusion, each one more lustrous than any seen before them! A dazzle to every eye and imbued with slavering lust; for all who look will covet!

 

And so it was that even the greatest of the Lavish Court fumbled to carry out their Lord’s command. The gilded box emerged and all four precious stones within. Each gem showed with such a luster that every eye in the court beheld and wanted. They ached for them deep within their devilish hearts but none would dare move to possess them.

 

Once presented to Slaaesh the great, he added one final thing. He took his errant, lively hair and carefully wound it round each gleaming stone.

 

There! breathed the Eternal Power, I’ve given you more than your wildest dreams conceive. Learn for me my brother’s truths and cut from them his many lies. Return to me with secrets and you’ll be blessed with all your heart would never dare desire!

 

 

When it was whole to when it was first broken

 

On the clacking claws of sinewy daemons, the precious box was borne. They rode in a procession of slender beasts, whose tongues lapped out the full length of their oily white forms. Chariots of Heralds rode behind and made for a wild parade. Trumpets blasted and voices sang as the procession cut a path through the Chaos. A brotherly gift had been prepared and swiftly sent on to his brother’s maze.

 

Fire flashed as they crossed the Warp and arrived at the Changing realm. Overhead, sky sharks swam in circling schools while a great host of bobbling Horrors joked and danced. The Slaaneshi daemons looked on perplexed as the mirth was lost on them. For only the sifting mind of a Horror can appreciate their shifty wit. With sweet blaring trumpets the Slaaneshi delegation pronounced; A loud voice has been heard in the Pleasurable Realm and its master grants this in reply. We come bearing tribute to timeless Tzeentch! In whom all ways come and alter! And after taking deep bows, the luxurious procession left their gilded treasure, turned and made back across the Warp, back to their palace of delights.

 

The Horrors slunk back in huddled up gaggles wrapped in a multitude of arms. Flamers gaped and belched up Warpfire in bright plumes. Even the Blue Heralds wouldn’t dare approach the luxurious and alluring thing. None at first would even take the first step near until a surging voice compelled them; Bring me my brother’s gift, and in spite of their fear they could not but obey.

 

A spray of colors swept every visible surface as the hands of Horrors took up the gilded prize. They held it high over their heads held downcast. They bore it into the fathomless maze and into the puzzling court. And there, all the grandeur of an ancient god spread out fast in all directions, along the cloudy corridors of time.

 

With one blue hand the titanic god plucked up the golden box and with a pink hand he opened it before them; and even the great Changer was struck aghast at what his gaze beheld. The opal tempted with unsearchable depths, the garnet dripped like blood. The amethyst tingled with its own light and the onyx drank up all light about it. As the Changing Court beheld the godly gift they lost themselves for the lust of it and made to ascend to their godhead and snatch them from his very hand. And with barely a motion, a thousand hands held up outstretched palms. Each one of the changing daemons was suddenly struck, held fast and then each knew shame. Never did the great lord Tzeentch look up from his new found treasure. His eyes were locked in place. And for a short pause, the flow of time cramped into small spaces before him. For a brief movement, he cared not if time passed or ended or began anew. For a single instance in all the cosmos the changer allayed his want of change.

 

It is right, the colored god said to himself in the ways that the gods know pride. The infant power may yet know its origins and place.

 

And in that unchanging moment, even the perplexing mind of the great was distracted. There was strange motion among the stunning stones that languored in their plush enclosure. Even in his instant of fascination, no change, however so subtle could escape him.

 

The breath of uncountable mouths exhaled and gave a vibrating voice to a glistening hair.

 

All – hail – my – Lord, it spoke in its hackneyed tone.

 

In words not uttered the Changing god passed a multitude of hands over the gilded box and took from the hair its stutter and granted it clear speech that brightened the air as it spoke.

 

All hail my liege Lord who gives me breath to speak! The hair exclaimed much to the shock of the Shifting Court, every painted daemon all around.

 

Heed this one chance, the Changling god spoke with the presence of Warpstorm thunder, show me your treachery or be no more. For tricks and plots are the playthings of the great Tzeentch. His brother Slaanesh’s malice was too obvious and no gift paid without returning its due. The guile was too easy to decipher. Without hesitation the shimmering hair replied;

 

I am a trapping, my new found liege for my god sent me with cause to know your truths and to cut from them your lies.

 

The color of the very air shifted from blue to red. The members of the Changing court swirled and became diluted with their minds blasted of foul weather. The psychic storm that then arouse polluted everyone except the hair. Again the assembled daemon host sought to rush the gilded box. In their rage they would tear the hair from its honored place and damn it to tortures most hideous. The only one that did not flush or falter was the aged god himself. Amidst the rage he spoke,

 

I possess the sum of all knowing and yet am not omniscient. My brother, though young, keeps secrets from me as I keep knowledge from him.

 

A hush then fell about the court. All assembled poised to catch what should happen next.

 

I am from my master, said the hair, I listen at his left ear.

 

Seldom does the great Changer hear a perfect utterance yet he heard one that day.

 

Letting the box fall from his grasp, the gemstones scattering carelessly to the far reaches of the Warp, Tzeentch took the strand into his many grasping hands. Three separate limbs coiled in the hair and wound it around three protruding fingers, measuring it out; one third, one third and one third its length. They spun and twisted it in a gyre until the hair’s thoughts became delusions and coherence was lost to dementia. In an effortless snap, when the swirling tides of time had set, when celestial bodies aligned and the gravity pools of clustering stars assembled all in a row, down to its most fundamental particle, exactly one third of the hair broke free.

 

One left side appendage took up the broken portion and fastened it to Tzeentch’s uneven scalp. Without question, it was the most beautiful feature to adorn his ancient head. And with that he said;

 

You are a lie in truth and I send you back hence. Thank my brother for me.

 

With the breath of Warp spun winds, the remaining length was set adrift in the air. Alone it wafted through flames and freezing winds but ultimately it drifted back to the Palace Dome of its birth.

 

 

When it was first broken to when it was twice broken

 

A tear had appeared at Slaanesh’ left eye the day the unnamed hair went away. For in it was some of his own beauty and even more so, some of his own guile bound within it as well. It was a delightful shock when it so soon returned, despite the fact that it was no longer whole. The young god leapt forward and formed a graceful pirouette and set in perfect repose, the eldritch winds that bore it, blew the errant hair lightly into Slaanesh’s reaching hands. Impatience overtook the passions of the dreaming god,

 

Quick tell! Did you make good your boast? Tell me now my brother’s greatest lie entwined within his greatest truth. Failing this I’ll tell you of your most exquisite doom!

 

The two thirds hair alit with its own glow spoke sure and fast in a way so articulate it arrested every ear.

 

I’ve been adrift upon the bitterest waves and found blaring with the clarion call. I’ve been past the maze un-navigable and smelled the fumes that drift from the Infinite Well. Timeless hands have touched me and ripped a part of me to possess. I am the lie you sent me to seek and I am the truth as well.

 

Tears streamed from the eyes of the Excessive god. A sweet sorrow blossomed throughout the realm and its entire kin wept with heavy tears and loud sobbing. As the great Slaanesh wept, he brought his hands to his moist face, the remaining length of the hair with it. And at that stroke, rivers reversed their course and oceans dried to bone. Breathtaking, lush garden worlds became torrid, lifeless wastes. Living creatures of the most exquisite guise gasped for life but were driven extinct for all time to come. And in the moment of rapturous pain, the Pleasure god took in the mighty hands each end of the astute hair. With one effortless pull the hair again was severed, this time in two equal parts.

 

The broken segment was placed back from where it was first extracted, leaving the one final length in Slaanesh’s tear soaked hand.

 

You have done so very well, the great Ruin exclaimed between his roaring sobs, You have done so very very well. All the worlds’ eternal will never be the same. All the heights of pleasures are extended and the depths of pain made more excruciating this day. One length to know the unknown, one length to reveal the hidden and one length we give to itself the way my bother ordained it; of which I was too blind to see. You have bested me brother god! The great Slaanesh exclaimed. And it shall never happen again!

 

And the Pleasure Court shook and shivered. At that time their god’s attention was wrested from them to settle lustfully on the errant hair. Their eyes could not see nor could their hearts embrace what they had been so privileged to behold. They were dumbstruck in their sorrows and feeble in their weakness. Yet each one knew that the darkest channels of the Warp had been made yet darker still.

 

All at once, the tears ceased as the Ruinous god decreed, apprehension grasping the gathered hoard. The daemon thing Slaanesh bent down and placed the remaining length on the floor at his feet. To the amazement of all the slathering beasts and fleshy things, the hair stood upright, on its own.

 

As I sent you, arrayed in lustful wonder, so you have returned, Slaanesh declared. You are more than what I avowed and more than my brother imbued as well. Name your reward, born of my follicle. Your heart is darker than any of my host and your thoughts more compelling as well. For even I, who sees the spirit from the soul cannot guess what your desire holds most dear.

 

 

When it was twice broken to when it was made again

 

The fragment of the slender thread though the smallest thing in all the pleasure court, spoke as if it was the commander of them all. It stared as it could up at his master’s face and bellowed out its demand.

 

Give me the talon from your big right toe! That I may walk the Warp and the Material world at will. That I may wear my own raiment and strike out at my enemies with all the might of your right thigh!

 

A quizzical silence befell the pleasure palace in that fateful moment. Dare the lesser make itself the greater? Many of the Lavish Court envisioned an exquisite death for the upstart hair. Yet others imagined more exquisite tortures that transversed the eons and yet knew no end. But shock betook them all as a smile curled the lips of slender Slaanesh. There was no displeasure to be seen. The smile broadened until row after endless row of slender teeth glistened like the gold and jewels that adorned his youthful head.

 

A snap of his majestic muscles shot from his lofty foot to the floor. Its speed cracked like the strike of a whip and the lick of lightning as thunder peals. A crack was heard that shattered glass and fragile bones and slapped the faces of all about. And in the Ruinous Master’s outstretched hand was the bloody nail from big right toe. In sly tones he said,

 

How lovely, how wily, my shining hair and how deadly my broken toe. A measure I give you, mete out my pain, my beauty and pour forth to all the worlds of the cosmos till every being, living or dead knows well to honor me!

 

And the dissonance that erupted was defiling to hear. Jeers of jealousy merged with cries of outrage all swirling into a choir of sound only a member of that infernal court could consider lovely. But wild hair’s bid was fairly earned but how could the Great Lord allow it? One of his lesser minions possessing both the beauty of Slaanesh’s mane and the deadly kiss of Slaneesh’s spines?

 

Silence my languishing pets! The Lord of Excess exclaimed. For I name this one Sa’lili as his is from me and of me and hence, now and forever, will be one of my great avatars for all times to come!

 

And so is the abomination known as Sa’lili the Lie.

 

 

Epilogue

 

Vaspace, the sequestered Word Bearer, became known to the thing Sa’lili from the onset of his monastic life. The two were known to each other in ways that became maddening for them both. Upon his death, the old Legionnaire was placed in stasis so his vast forbidden learning could be “read” by generations of Word Bearers to come. In a deep subterranean chamber, his carcass rests in a transparent case entwined with an adamantine frame.

 

On the great feast days of Slaanesh, the monastic Word Bearers gather around Vaspase’s crypt. There is no peace to be found on his lifeless face. The preserving energies hold true the grotesque expression that creased his features when he met his final reward. For they say that on those suspicious days, the corpse’s right toe is said to bleed and his white hair sets to stand on end. The wisps of quavering strands vibrate with their own sort of resonant magic. And for those who listen close, his hairs speak with cacophonic harmonies, telling tales of long forgotten lore and may even chance to utter a secret of delight.

[Roguemarine]

This was to say the least very interesting....I liked it. Was a bit confusing at parts to see where your ideas were coming from but they are your ideas ;) keep up the good work, can't wait to see more from you.