The Meeting

[Andrew Benn]

The Meeting

 

Each time he made the journey the route was different. Each time the landscape of the warp resolved itself in his perceptions in a new and often frightening way. Each time also, however, he had walked the path with less fear, with more confidence.

 

The first time, the first time he had reached the other side, his way had been blasted open for him. He had riven such a storm through the warp that in its aftermath all other tides and currents were stilled for a time. He had charged through the gap torn for him in the immaterium, sprinting through fragmented vistas of transient reality as the powers of the warp struggled to reassert themselves in the wake of his explosive arrival. They had snapped and snarled at him, following his heels as he moved through directions that defy definition. It had been close, it had almost ended the way all the other attempts had; with deamons tearing at his soul and a frantic battle to reunite with his body, safe for a time, beyond their reach. But in the last dashing second when all other thoughts and drives fell away and there was only his naked will driving forwards, seeking the place from which it had first sprung.

 

Now, when he stepped out of his body, a thing which felt more and more like a frail shadow, cast by the part of him that stayed behind each time he left that place and returned to the material world. Now, when he stepped into the warp the path was clear to him, the one constant in the endless shifting half-realities conjured by the nightmares of mortal hearts. This time that reality was of an endless plain, stretching away into a hazy horizon where it met, or perhaps became, a broiling cloud filled, lightening riven sky. All was dry dust and heat blackened rock. All except the path. It stretched out before him in a straight unbroken line from his feet, paved with cracked, uneven flagstones.

 

The first times, the first times he had ventured blindly into this un-reality, chasing the hinted possibility of something beyond it, he had been formless. A disembodied soul amid the maelstrom. The daemons had set upon him then, clawing at him, rending him, tormenting him. He had fought back, manifesting his will as barriers of force and blasts of energy. With time and practice he had made those barriers and blasts stronger, more focussed. Then when he had at last found the way and experienced the Great Beyond, everything had changed.

 

Now, when he stepped out of the material protection of his mortal body, his will girt his soul in black armour, great and terrible, his perceptions focussed through a single vast eye formed from the faceplate where a visor might otherwise be. What gazed forth from that eye was not mere light, it was not mere energy, something beyond brightness, something which would it loosed illuminate everything, bleaching all reality with its fire. Now when the daemons assailed him his armour turned aside their blows, and the gaze of his eye withered them where they stood, reducing them to wisps of multicoloured smoke. Now also, his naked will placed in his hand a great sword, broad hilted and heavy, with a blade that burned internally with the same meta-light that pierced from his eye.

 

Now, as he stood upon the straight path, the deamons did not approach him. They clustered and cavorted nearby, leering at him with with myriad glimmering eyes, but none dared block his path or come too close to the shining sword.

 

He held that blade aloft, marking the path ahead, paying no heed at all to the vile creatures that had once been so unassailable and stepped boldly out through this vision of the warp. Oreanas Kraven strode on, and the deamons followed.

 

They followed and he walked. Time does not pass in the warp, and in the unchanging landscape there was no way to mark his progress, and yet Kraven knew he was. He was upon the straight path, moving through a dimension beyond even the warps twisted realities, following the trail he had blazed that first time. As he walked more of their fellows joined the prancing deamons, more petty predatory things that looked to Kraven’s single eye as ghostly spectres; frail weak echoes of life. He continued to ignore them, marching ever onwards; even were they to swarm around him by the million they could no more wound him than insects.

 

Eventually however, the commotion that followed in his wake drew the attention of different eyes. Amidst the rising throng of deamons around him Kraven could see giants striding. Great horned or winged things that had festered for long aeons in the warp, suffused with the power of mortal fears and hopes. They were less cowed by his sword and armour, though at first none of them seemed any more eager than their lesser fellows to make an attempt.

 

So Kraven continued to ignore the daemon horde, ignore their jeers, their snapping claws and their gouts of fire. Ignored them until one towering monster loosed a bellow that rang through the unspace of the warp with the echo of ten billion murderers. It leapt forward from the throng, teeth bared and weapons raised. The flagstones cracked beneath cloven hooves, bestial legs were covered with coarse hair, a hunched torso, rippling with muscles, bunching under taught blood red skin, supported two vast bat-like wings. From the crown of its head two sets of horns curved up, ending in vicious points. It’s face was a contorted visage of fury, vaguely humanoid feature bent and twisted out of shape. Two slitted eyes burned with red fire, tongues of which curled out from its furrowed brows. The mouth, bent into a snarl was slick with steaming drool and many teeth of brazen brass glowed hot from the inner fire of the beasts terrible existence. In one massive clawed hand it held a great double-axe, its head smoking with infernal heat, in the other a long, barbed whip lashed and coiled with its own malign intelligence.

 

“Stay!” It growled, fumes and reek rising from its tooth filled maw with each heaving breath, “Stay foolish mortal! You will not walk in this place unchallenged! In the name of the Blood God I shall claim your skull and send your soul screaming and naked into the void!”

 

With that the avatar of rage bellowed once again and charged, the thunder of its steps matching the thunder of the sky above. The whip cracked flying out like a lashing tongue. But when it’s iron barbs connected with the black armour surround Kraven’s soul, there was a blinding flash. White lightening streaked along the writhing length, the handle was ripped from the deamon’s grasp and the whip was reduced to the wisps of thought and terror of which it was made, its power to hurt dispelled.

 

The deamon didn’t break step, taking the axe in both hands it brought the blade round in a screaming, trailing smoke, aiming for Kraven’s neck. The shining sword appeared, catching the flat of the axe from below, defecting the swing harmlessly over his form. Again the deamon didin’t break step, turning the back-swing into another attack, still charging, powering forwards, to drive this impudent mortal back and down.

 

But Kraven was immobile. Axe head met sword blade with a ringing crash that sent new ripples of lightening through the tortured sky above. Kraven weathered the onslaught, parrying blow after blow, withstanding and deflecting the monster each time it drove again against him. The shining white sword flashing like the lightening above in defiance of the dark smoking reek that poured in equal measure from the deamon’s hideous axe. Each contact of the weapons sent shock waves of force blossoming outwards, staggering some of the lesser creatures as they stared in semi-sentient awe of the duel taking place before them.

 

The great burning creature could not tire, could not be stilled. It existed only to kill, only to maim. only to burn. All foes it had hitherto faced, within the warp or during its all too brief manifestations on the material plain were weak. They had tired, they had flagged. The frailty of their flesh revealing their weakness, their failure. But the soul it now fought was different. With each swing of its axe another swing from the sword defected it, each as sure and precise as the last. This foe seemed as tireless as the deamon itself. Had it not been as without fear as it was without fatigue, the creature may have realised that while it existed only to kill maim and burn, this foe existed only to exist.

 

Suddenly they were grappling. Sword and axe locked together as with brute blunt force along the daemon tried to overwhelm Kraven’s guard. As it piled forward its spittle flecked, flame wreathed face pressed close to the single staring eye on Kraven’s helmet. The flaming slits met the white stare and froze. The daemon stared into something that was so utterly beyond it, that it seemed to wither into nothing. It tried to look away, even, perhaps to run, but Kraven’s hands released the sword, and grabbed with implacable grip onto the larger of the two sets of horns, just above the greatures now franticly burning eyes. Kraven stared down those eyes as the ceamon struggled, its own hands trying to grab Kraven, his hands, arms or armour. Each time its warp flesh met the black sheen of the armour a violent hissing noise erupted and the deamon roared as blisters seared over its palms. It struggled harder, pulling with its entire body to wrench itself away from the terrible portal through which it was being forced to stare.

 

When it broke free from Kraven’s grasp it came with a sickening crack, and while it’s head rose up high, flailing madly, the two great horns had remained in his gauntleted hands. The bloody craters ripped in the things forehead spat gobs of thick black blood that poured down over its face, extinguishing the fire of its eyes. It thrashed blindly, fists and wings whipping back and forth in mindless fury. Kraven, stepping back from the melee of heavy, steel clawed fists, raised a hand. The sword came to him, blade raised and ready. Moving with steady ease, Kraven advanced, avoiding the furious blows, the sword already swinging down in one last shimmering arc.

 

The deamon’s head hit the cracked and smoking flagstones. It’s body landed a moment later. The lesser things, and the other greater things retreated, scattering before this thing that had come into their realm and that had laid low so mighty a champion with such ease. For his part, Kraven simply resumed his walking. The path ahead beckoned, and he stepped through the already dissipating body of the fallen daemon giving it and the hordes of its fellows still keeping him in sight no further thought. While, at the bidding of their dark masters the deamon throng kept him in sight no more tried to attack him and he was unmolested as he continued steadily towards his destination.

 

After many more steps that covered infinite distances and yet went nowhere, the way ahead shifted in his perception. The single road ahead shimmered and parted. He arrived at a parting of the ways; his single straight path split into four paths, each leading away to the same indistinct horizon. At the head of each of the four an embassy awaited him and he halted his stride to regard them through his single eye.

 

At Kraven’s leftmost there rode eight creatures, like the great beast that he had killed before, though smaller and wingless, and with no armour. And each carried a crimson sword that leaked dark blood from their blades. They sat upon great behemoths of bronze and gold. Brown vapours poured from their joints and their metal maws so that all around the embassy their rose a reek and smoke that clouded them from sight. In their midst a huge figure of a man was visible. He stood nine feet tall, his skin pulsed red and gleamed with simmering perspiration. His body heaved with great breaths that escaped him in long growls. He wore a brass breastplate girt under with chainmail of steel. In his hands there rested a sword the height of a man and it too smoked with the same heat of the steeds of his heralds. Black in blade and hilt it was and from it terror emanated. His terrible face was bare; a tied knot of dark red hair fell from the crown of his head and down his back. His eyes were points of burning fire that smouldered with hidden rage, though his mouth, cracked and charred as if by some fearsome heat was twisted into a cruel grin.

 

Next to them was a cloud of buzzing flies. Their horrible drone competed with the grinding hiss of the bronze steeds. At the centre of this black living cloud a second embassy waited, seven heralds there were. Each of these heralds was a bloated and oozing denizen of sickness. They had slack mouths from which hideous puss poured in place of saliva. Their eyes were yellow and blank, yet still filled with malevolence. Their bilious bodies were marked with many sores and boils that pulsated and swelled before Kraven’s gaze. Their weapons; cruel knives and cleavers, were rusted yet keen, and coated with a green slime that cling like mucus and stank of poisons too vile to describe. At their centre, upon a great rotting palanquin there sat a grotesque figure. Obese beyond estimation he reclined upon his crumbling seat. His great blubberous arms rested regally upon a belly, swollen and discoloured by sickness and corruption, covered innumerable open eruptions and crevices each of which leaked unspeakable fluids. A vast chin sagged over his torso that hung loosely down from a wide, fatherly smile. His eyes, wide and bloodshot wept yellow puss and across the bald dome of his head there were many red welts. At his side, resting in the crook of his repugnant arm there lay a evil scythe. Its wooden haft was crumbling and green in hue, and its curved blade dripped with the same green toxin as those of his minions, pooling and congealing in the many rusted notches down its great length. Stink poured from him and his heralds.

 

Beyond them were six slender lithe creatures. Their feminine forms were draped in fine satins and silks. Their exposed skin was pure, crisp white, that dappled purple as it melded into the long diamond sharp talons that ended each arm. Their lips were rounded yet behind those lips could be seen the glimmer of sharp fangs and a lashing forked tongue. Their eyes, beetle black, sparkled alluringly in amid chiselled features. All six danced concentric circles around the figure in the centre. The dance, infinitely complex and delicate changed speed, tone, form and rhythm with each heartbeat, and grew ever more delicate and seductive as Kraven watched. The figure around which they danced was androgynous; masculine in face and musculature yet with a female delicacy that drew the eye. His skin, like his heralds was purest white. He was clad in a silken loincloth and his body was pierced with many gold ornaments that shone in the flashes of white light that still slit the sky. His eyes were shining gold and his hair, long and raven flowed like liquid over and around his body. At his hip hung from a delicate belt of leather and fine gems and gold leaf there was a finely crafted sabre of ornate yet deadly design. Long and thin was its blade and razor sharp, gilded down its length with silver and gold runes. The breath of his embassy rose with a heat shimmer over the planes and whispered of forbidden delights and twisted pleasures.

 

The final embassy was the largest, though it was impossible to tell their exact number for while at some points there were clearly nine cavorting heralds, in a blink there were ten and then fourteen then back to twelve, then eighteen. Just as with their number the exact form of these capering creatures was not clear. Their limbs and faces constantly warped, shifted and reformed. One moment shrinking and curling away into nothing and the next emerging anew from their swirling shifting bodies. The figure that they danced around seemed aged beyond count. Deep was his hunched back and crooked was his long nose. His limbs were impossibly thin and gangling, ending in emaciated long fingered hands with long talon nails at their tips. He wore long white and blue robes that billowed and fluttered around in a nonexistent breeze. The hood was raised over his head and about its hem were woven many runes and symbols of arcane extraction. Even with the raised hood some portion of the beings face as visible. Below the hooked nose the mouth was twisted in a frown of distain and scorn, its thin lips pursed together with ages of deep concentration. About its thin neck there could be seen a mane of white hair that fell in a tangle from beneath the hood. And from the gloomy shadows of the hood there came forth the gleam of two piercing eyes, sharp and watchful of any and for any. Those eyes had begun their watching in the morning of the world and would never cease to gaze into the minds of mortals until the uttermost end of life. He lent upon a long staff that seemed to be made from liquid glass that reflected a myriad colours from its infinite depths. And at its head there was set a great gem the size of a man’s head that glowed with an inner eerie blue light that illuminated the embassy beneath it. The very air around him seemed to tingle with power and dark energies that are forever beyond the ken of mortal minds.

 

Yet Kraven was no longer a mere mortal. Over the long millennia he had moved beyond the state that he had been born into. And so now standing in the company of these four great powers he was unmoved by fear or concern, for he had passed beyond their realms before, he had bested their servants and escaped their clutching hands.

 

For many long moments no words were spoken; none of the five moved or spoke. Yet fierce battle was being done in silence. The air rippled and cracked with the power that was passing between them. In this fierce battle of wills Kraven was staunchest; his will could weather rage and lust and decay and change whereas theirs could not abide a will they could not corrupt.

 

At length with a sound like a distant whip-crack the tension broke and the clash of wordless wills ended. It was ended by the red-skinned figure, who roared in frustration, stepping out from the cluster of his heralds to stand before his brothers and before Kraven and who spoke in a loud voice dripping with barely restrained rage.

 

“Enough of this. Enough of this pathetic façade. You have walked far through our realms, Mortal, but no more. Here you will end. Here I will claim your skull personally and carry your body back to my brass throneroom to be devoured for eternity by the hounds of the Blood God. Come, my brothers, let me smite this insignificant thing and rid us of this, this, disgusting affront to our power.”

 

Kraven was unmoved. He stood alone before the Lord of Skulls and was not bent.

 

“No.” he said quietly, his voice still clear and crisp despite its reserve, “You shall not strike me down, O lord of slaughter. Were it in your power to do so you would have done it long ago, before I found the straight road. Now I stand beyond your power, even were I sitting on your very throne atop your pile of empty skulls you could not harm me.”

 

The eyes of the Master of Fury burned white hot, and the sky above ignited in response.

“Your death will be but the beginning.” The untamed wrath shone like the sun unclouded at Kraven. And the hideous heat that poured forth could melt the strongest material armour and the most steadfast mortal will. Yet Kraven was now less than material, and more than mortal. He stood now alone before the fiery power of Khorne and he was unmoved.

“This is not the first time my will has walked in your realm. You have not hindered me before, and you shall not now. Yet here you stand.”

 

The second creature stepped forward now, his face softened and a warm smile upon his painted lips.

“Such energy in you. Such passion.” The voice was sweet to the point of sickly, tempting and cloying. At once it spoke with childlike naiveté and with forbidden wisdom that penetrated the mind and soul alike. “Your defiance in treading our soils, your bravery in the face of our servants, your glory in victory over us. You are truly the greatest warrior in all the mortal realm. What powers, what pleasures need you now deny yourself? With the pantheon of four within your power, what can you not achieve? Such provinces and kingdoms you might build both in the Warp and without it. O great and glorious mortal, come, command us and we shall obey.”

 

And again the figure of Kraven was still. For long moments he pondered the words of the most beguiling of dark powers. It would be false to claim such words were not alluring to his ears, yet a temptation was all they could be. For the Prince of Excess had no power to ensnare Kraven.

 

“Do not pretend to be cowed by my might, though towering it may be.” He said at length, “For your soft whisperings are impotent to plant any seed of corruption. I know with long study that for all my strength of will I may not command the Ruinous Powers with any more hope for mastery than any of your minions. Yet what I am and what I am becoming is beyond your power; and just as I may not command you, so you may not command me. So can the undeceiveable ask the deceiver; for what purpose do you stand arrayed as ambassadors before me? For never has it been that the lords of chaos should entreat mortals so. Let me pass, and I shall go my way into the deep places.”

 

“The deep places?” this third voice was dry, it creaked with the sound of a thousand dusty tomes of hidden knowledge. Avian in its tone, it's words were accompanied by a myriad echoes that repeated softly the words behind the first and strongest sound. And those voices did not die as do mortal words, but drifted away though the throbbing air and though faded joined the hum of the warp. “What do mortals know of the deep places of our realm? For while you might essay to pass beyond our lands, still you may know nothing of such halls. Even in your longest, most vain reaching you may perceive only the distant shores of my domain. You belie your own ignorance by claiming any greater wisdom. For all knowledge must flow from and pass though me, mortal. And you may hope for nothing but to be let glimpse but a fleeting fragment of my design." The fierce head turned to fix Kraven with a single golden eye. "Yet I see that you know much of the ways that govern the mortal and immortal worlds. And such understanding, however limited is praiseworthy. So I offer you this boon; entreat with me, come into my power. And I will bring you to my palace, there you shall be granted secrets and truths that lie yet beyond your most wild fancies. Will you not turn from this solitary path and let my wisdom succour you so that your strength may grow?”

 

Kraven faltered, for while his will remained strong even in the face of these words, the offer of the Changer of Ways enticed him strongly. For in all the many twisted paths and lands of the Immaterium there was only the Maze of Tzeentch that he had not entered. For Kraven had not the vainglory to presume his power would not be his downfall in those winding paths were sanity becomes unravelled and strength becomes weakness. But with the blessings of the great master of deceit might he, Kraven not step into those vaults of secrecy? What power could he gain, what destiny might he seek with the hand of the Eternal Manipulator guiding his feet?

“No, lord.” He said, denying the third of the pantheon with the same cold bluntness with which he had stayed the other two. His eye as ever unblinkingly staring forth to meet those of his adversaries, “Not for me is it to walk your halls and read your libraries. For even those lesser things that are naught but extensions of yourself, Great Schemer, are lost in those corridors, and fade into nothingness before the madness that dwells within your crystal walls. For despite all your designs your so called wisdom is folly in the face of the true understanding that I have tasted beyond your realm. Indeed, it is yourself that cannot see beyond your own lands, and into the deeps. I have walked in halls that your ways have never touched. And it is there that I will ever return, from now and even unto the very end of time.”

 

A gurgling laugh came forth then from the final ambassador who had until then sat silent amid his clouds of stink and flies. “Not for mortals is it to talk about the end of time. For that truly lies beyond your ken.” In the voice was the rasp and clot of every infection and pestilence that had ever been brewed to ravage mortal worlds, yet for all its corruption it contained a gentle touch. The words were those of a relative chiding a youth for reaching too far before the appointed time, “For you are tied ever to the reality that begot you, and you shall never walk free from it. Thus, though it be many long years hence, you shall wither. And you will at long last be an old, dying man. Clinging to the life that is all you can know. Then at the last your flesh shall fail and your soul flee screaming from the body to be buffeted and broken upon the winds and tides of the Immaterium. Such is the fate of mortals, so speak no more of the end of time. For only though me can you hope to hold onto that life and see, perhaps the future as it unfolds, for a while. Come, let the Grandfather dance within you, and I shall gift unto you the power and vitality needed to weather the ravages of cruel time. Come sit by me and I shall show you how to fend off the grim clutches of the reaper before it is too late, and his fingers close upon your mortal neck and drag you forth into your torment.”

 

Now Kraven was silenced. For all that he could command, was death truly beyond his power, now and forever? Should he now yield? It was within the power of the Plaguefather to preserve the coils of mortality and hold is followers to reality though his corruption. With his command and by his will could time not be stilled and rendered dumb. What then might he, Kraven do with such immortality? Could he not rise to become such a great and terrible lord, spreading the glorious truth of the power of decay?

 

“I will not.” He said, “I will not sit by your feet and sing your litanies of disease. Endless though you claim your power to be it is naught but a veneer of life and death that festers in the thoughts of the mortals that forged you. For you, like they cannot see the truth. That life and death are illusions. Born from ignorance, the lack of understating of the primal chaos that underlies every change of state that moves both the material and immaterial continuums. Nay, the immortality you offer is nothing more than a lie; a lie created by weak minds who live in fear of that which they do not know. I have no such fear and your words fall on deaf ears. And yet you knew this before ever we met upon this road.”

 

“Well indeed we knew it.” The Great Changer responded, his eyes flashing multicoloured as he turned his head from the Grandfather of Plague to Kraven’s armoured form, “And as well we knew of your goings and comings though our land. Brazenly you walk our ways and heed not our will in your wanderings.”

“Were you any other you would have been cut down where you stood as soon as you dared set foot in my realm.” Growled the lord of blood, running a red hand over the edge of his smoking sword.

“But you were not.” The Patron of Manipulation continued, “And by our grace you were permitted to wander, and thus to discover all the wisdom you now flaunt.”

“We permitted you to walk your path through the deep places of the Warp to test you.” The Dark Prince crooned, his voice heavy with placation, “And thus far you have proven hardy. Are you ready for the next challenge that we deign to lay in your path?”

 

And as Kraven listened to the words of the Ruinous Pantheon doubts crept into his mind. Had he been allowed to step this far only by the will of these things that now willed to make him their pawn? Was the truth of the eternal chaos only a delusion conjured in his mortal mind, and the powers of the gods was all that could be found in this place of energy and thought? But, even as these doubts threatened to paralyse him they were washed away by the unassailability of the Primordial Chaos. That which was all and yet none of the shadow fiends that stood here now to taunt him. No, he had walked his path alone and by his own leave. He had been to places that the Gods knew not. Their power, bound up in the souls of the living and the fears and dreams those souls held to, was held to it and part of it. This Pantheon could no more step beyond those boundaries than a fish could breathe the air. And they had not hindered him for that reason and no other. Their only design was to use his mounting power to their own ends; to attach themselves to his glory so that reflected it might seem to emanate from them also.

 

“You offered me no challenge. You guided none of my steps. Whilst I began my journey your many eyes where elsewhere, absorbed by your many bloody attempts to unmake reality. You did not hinder me because you could not. Your attempts to cast doubt on what I have seen will fail, will fail because what I have seen, where I have been, is a place where knowing and being are one, and that truth cannot be subverted, nor can it be occluded by your lies. So again I ask you, you great powers of the warp, why do you stand here before me? Why do you seek to do that which you know you cannot?”

 

“Perhaps,” the gurgling roar of the Plaguefather rose to meet Kraven’s challenge, “we sought to see your power for ourselves. To see if you could stand before us unbowed and unbroken. Billions of mortal souls have beheld our glory, all have been lost, all have been subsumed by us.”

 

“Not all.” the Great Deceiver spoke slowly, “But those few who have stood mighty in the material world, great leaders of mortal men, under whose gaze whole galaxies turned. Those who defied us as you do were so much more than you; rising from the shadows to greatness. Perhaps we doubted the veracity of the whispers and rumours that came to us of your might, of your journey, of the places that you have seen.”

 

“Perhaps you were simply so blinded by the limits of your existence that you could not refrain from this gesture, this demonstration, this final attempt to prove your supremacy over the souls that bore you?” Kraven spoke with cold accusation in his voice, “Perhaps you see in me another force which can bring on the final destruction of reality? To end your suffering as well as all suffering?”

 

“You understand much,” the burning face still contorted with rage never the less spoke low, with only a rumbling growl betraying what lay beneath, “much more than even we had guessed. Yes, we seek to bring on the end of the cycle. That is what we are; we are Chaos. We are the Primordial Annihilator. We are that which ends, that which corrupts, that which controls, that which defiles. We undo all things. We bring on merciful oblivion. When every skill of every mortal is piled beneath my throne, then the very rage will die, and my own burning skull shall be the last.”

 

“When the very last sensation of the very last soul, degrading itself on the corpses of last of its fellows, extinguishes itself in an ecstasy of self-destruction, then too shall I be extinguished, the flutes will be silent, the dance will be over and all experience will fade.”

 

“When plague and death has reduced all flesh to mud, when the last soul surrenders and life no longer cries against the oncoming darkness, then shall the fear rot also and my children will sing no more.”

 

“When there are no more schemes, when there are no more secrets. When everything is laid bare and the solid matter is solid no more. When the material and immaterial become one and all ways are one, then shall my eyes gaze no longer, then shall all deception cease. Then shall the primordial chaos return.”

 

Kraven was struck by the words spoken to him alone of all mortals. To hear from the very mouths of the Chaos Gods their acceptance, their eagerness even, for their own ultimate destruction was at once a thrilling confirmation of all which he had learned and experienced since he had started on this great journey, and a horrible portent of the inevitable fate of the whole universe. The whole universe, except Oreanas Kraven.

 

“So here we stand,” the dark prince spoke for its brothers, “here we stand because we know, or guess from the whispers of you that echo through the warp, that that goal, that final annihilation is your goal also. You would see the cycle complete, you would seek a chance to be first, before us, before any other sentient soul. Though you may find that more of a challenge than we have proven to be. Never the less, are we not of a common purpose? Why should your followers and ours not battle together to bring on the apocalypse we all await?”

 

“My followers?” Kraven asked, almost amused, “As you said I sprung from the shadows. I have no followers.”

 

“But you do.” the Blood God spoke in a voice of grim pleasure, “those two souls you plucked from our tides, that you sent back to reality, they hallow you. They call you Master, Walker of the Straight Path. They inspire secret cults in your name, they commit acts of glorious chaos, feeding us, even though they pray to you.”

 

Kraven knew, in an instant of the un-time of the warp what was being spoken of. He saw his two brothers leading armies of deluded mortals, spreading fire to yet more worlds, sending so many souls screaming into the warp. They had learned nothing.

 

“They have named themselves your Heralds. They gather to themselves great hosts of followers, yours and ours. Moths to the flame of promised power. No matter what path you tread, no matter how other you are, you are like us. War is waged in your name, chaos comes at your will, as it comes at ours.”

 

“I desire no destruction. I desire no part in the cataclysm that must come. You, Gods of Chaos, you know of the certainty one way or another of your victory, and your final defeat. What reason have I to join you? Where I go all things exist, all futures and all pasts coexist in perfect symmetry, what reason have I to return to this one branch of that crystal tapestry?”

 

“What reason indeed?” dark, sultry words licked Kraven’s soul, “What reason do you have to return, now that you have broken through? What reason had you for freeing your Heralds from their torment? Could it be you are not so apart from the mundane as you would claim to be?”

 

“My reasons are my own, as are my motives. My journey is not linear; it crosses the same point is space, but with different meaning and purpose. Yet there is no reason for me to join with you even as an equal in ruination. I will go my way from you. My followers, as you are pleased to call them, will do as they will. Perhaps they will eventually overcome the last barrier and they will come to me, as your followers are supposed to, and we may exist in infinity.”

 

Kraven was done with this. Kraven had listened to the Gods, he had withstood their temptations and their wroth, he had seen their twisted hearts, heard of the last battle where all would be undone, and none of it mattered to him. All there was was the way back, the way beyond all this suffering and destruction, this faith and hope.

 

“I defy you.” he said, his eye flashing with the strength of his will, “I defy you and I will have no part of your hollow pursuits. I would be gone now, I will return to my solitary path.”

 

“Then,” the Great Schemer seemed to purr with rasping tones, pleased by some irony in the situation that Kraven failed to spot, “Then O Kraven, Walker of the Straight Path, Lord of Chaos Primordial, you have but one question to answer.”

 

The Dark Prince gave voice to it, as in unison each embassy parted, clearing the way down their respective roads, each leading away into the hazy, impossible distance;

“Which path is your path?”

 

Kraven realised the Gods thought this a test, a final attempt to trick him, to turn him away from his goal, to wrap him in their webs of power. That was the irony that the Changer of Ways had seen. But Kraven had seen through it before he had known it was there, he had the answer before the question was posed. That was the answer that was so obvious that Kraven had not considered it to be anything more subtle.

 

Kraven said nothing. As he turned his back on the Four Gods of Chaos, the path behind him becoming the path before him, and continued down a road he now knew no power in existence could turn him from, they and their embassies dissolved back into the boiling warp from which they came, of which they were formed.

 

And Kraven continued onwards, vanishing at last into the Great Beyond, from whence, he now felt, there was less and less reason ever to return.