The Prize

[Andrew Benn]

The Prize

 

Charn the Blind, Sorceror of the Thousand Sons advanced on the door. Behind he could hear the lumbering footfalls of Semik and his smile broadened. His warp-eyes flared momentarily and the door before him buckled. It collapsed in a silent cascade into liquid ruin that bubbled and spat into nothingness as Charn and his followers marched over the threshold.

 

Within was a circular room, with a high ceiling and wide floor. It was cluttered with barbed and spiked implements of pain, of many and varied design and function. In the centre however, illuminated by the room’s single light source, set directly above the door, with obvious purpose, Charn realised, was the prize.

 

It, or rather he, hung limply from a large alien mechanism which was attached to the ceiling far above. It clung to him via a network of needles driven deep into his head, neck and shoulders. He was naked, his wide chest and bulging muscles told Charn instantly that this was a Space Marine. The alien machine that was holding him kept his head a clear nine feet from the floor, and yet the tips of the prisoner’s toes nearly touched it as they swayed gently in the air disturbed by Charn’s arrival.

 

He reached out with his mind, his eyes flaring bright adding a second ghostly glow to the room. He slipped in amongst the complex circuits and functions of the machine he now saw was half torture device, half life-support system. Quickly he found what he was looking for and with a flick of his psychic finger disengaged the pain engine.

 

The many needles retracted with a pneumatic hiss. The prisoner dropped the few inches to the floor. Stood for a moment, swayed and collapsed in a heap, making no sound or or other movement. He wasn’t breathing as Charn moved closer. Then a massive spasm gripped the body, a huge gasp heralded the filling of his enhanced lungs and the eyes snapped open.

 

The prisoner screamed. Long, unbroken and piercing he shrieked so loudly and so shrilly that the chamber rang with it and Semik’s new bestial form growled and pawed the ground in sympathy. As he screamed he writhed. Not the frenzied thrashings of a man tormented or the ragged twitchings of a man dying, this seemed as much a stretch of muscle sinew and bone than anything else. Arms and legs traced odd concentric shapes in the floor, he rolled onto one side and then the other. When is inhuman scream finally died down he was half crouched, leaning forwards, hands and knees supporting is weight. The sound died, and for a moment there was silence, before the prisoner looked up, meeting the warp-gaze of Charn. He grinned.

 

“You are late.” he said before falling back to the floor, flat on his face.

 

---

 

The prisoner seemed to recover rapidly. He regained conciousness after only a few moments, hauling himself back into a sitting position and staring up at Charn and his Acolytes a strangely relaxed and knowing way. All thought of the terrible things he must have endured at the hands of the Dark Eldar seemingly forgotten, at least for the moment.

 

Charn had watched his collapse and recovery with vague amusement, still unsure how or why, but absolutely certain this was what he had been brought here to find.

 

“Who are you?” the Sorcerer asked at last, breaking the contemplative silence.

 

The prisoner rose to his feet and saluted by pressing his right fist to his chest.

“Dariel El’Stander, formerly Second Librarian of the Fifth Host, I Legion.” he rattled of his name and rank in recognition of a tradition they had once both shared.

 

The Chaos Sorcerer raised an eyebrow.

“Charn, formerly Captain of the Forth Fellowship, XV Legion.” he replied, indulging in the pantomime but not going so far as to salute.

 

“And your next question will be: ‘what you doing here?’” Dariel added, folding his arms over his bare chest, “The one after that will probably be: ‘is he the Eye that we have seen?’. I venture to guess your third question will be ‘and why should I do that?’. After that, I’m afraid I cannot say with sufficient certainty what you may or may not ask. To answer your first question however, I was waiting for you. Not the least pleasant place I have been forced to wait, but ill enough as you can see. I had to be here however, I had to let these aliens capture me and endure the pain as you wound your way closer to where you had to be. Until your dark master at last deigned to uphold his end of our bargain.”

 

Sepharion paused, almost smiling, almost waiting. Charn sighed.

“Well, is he the eye that we have seen?”

 

“Yes and no, my lord.” Dariel added the courtesy because despite his elation at finally being free he could see the frustration in those warp-eyes that were so infamous and thought it wise not to try the still battle-marked sorcerer, “He, I am sure, sent you those visions, for I did not and my master would not. But the eye is not him. The eye is my master and him alone. He is the walker of the Straight Path. He is the one for whom I stand before you now as Herald to beg your attention and make you an offer, if you will listen.”

 

Charn sighed again.

“And why should I do that?”

 

“Because you have not fought through all this, not journeyed to the very edge of the galaxy not to learn of the prize you have earned.” Dariel replied, knowingly, “I have learned much of you Charn the Blind, your fame and your legend, your history and your goals. You and your followers have journeyed as far or further than any others who stood and fought in those ancient days. You have cast aside the petty struggles of our fellow legions, the ruinous powers of the gods, even the scheming of your own Primarch to pursue knowledge. You have learned more than nearly any other mortal yet, or still to be born, and with that has come wisdom and the creeping understanding of something… Beyond all that you have learned. That is what has driven you on, what prevented you form returning to Magnus’ side when he burned Fenris, what kept you out here when your followers wanted to turn around to return to the Long War; the dawning realisation that all you have learned, all that you have gathered is but one fragment of one volume of the totality of what is possible, what can and does exist out there, beyond the warp.”

 

“You flatter me.” said Charn, unimpressed by Dariel’s oratory, “But perhaps that is enough to convince me to listen to your offer. Speak then, and we shall see what questions I ask.”

 

Dariel bowed his head again in thanks, and did as requested.

“My lord, you know that this life is a game. A game with the highest of stakes. Each soul is a piece, each life a series of moves and counter moves. You know that knowledge is the single most powerful tool in playing this game. You see knowledge for what it is; the rules of existence. Those who know the rules, win the game. And yet, you know that there is more. Just as there is the one who makes the rules of the game, who sets up the pieces on the board, who defines what the board is, there is one who makes the rules of creation, who sets the first souls on their journey, who builds reality around them. My Master is such a one. Our journey, and his, will lead beyond this reality, beyond the warp, into the Great Beyond, and thence, into new realities of our own creation. New games, new pieces. New power. New knowledge.”

 

Dariel paused, letting his words sink in, not only to Charn but to his various Acolytes who were also listening intently to the conversation.

 

“Some of that new power exists already; carried in myself and my Brothers when our Master, Kraven Lord of Chaos Primordial, sent us back from the depths of the warp to spread his word amongst those who are worthy of joining with us in the Great Beyond.”

 

“And we, among all those legions of souls making their moves and counter-moves, are worthy?” Charn’s tone was openly sceptical as he continued to regard this Dariel of the First with his uncovered warp eyes. There was something about him, something about the ghostly image of him projected into the Immaterium that was different. Deep within, in the most secret recesses of the Fallen Angel’s soul something glimmered.

 

For he certainly was a Fallen Angel. Charn had learned much over his long lives, and one of the lesser secrets had been what had befallen the I Legion while Prospero was still smouldering. He had encountered several of the mysterious Fallen Angels over the millennia, some had been champions of Chaos, others renegade agents, all though were as steeped in secrets and subterfuge as their loyalist brothers. Always there was ulterior motives, feints and counter-feints, schemes so complex it often taxed even his mind to contemplate. This Former Angel seemed no different. Whatever ‘Power’ or ‘Master’ he served or wielded was probably some deception, and certainly not what it appeared.

 

“We are so worthy, indeed, that to recruit us you allowed yourself to be captured and held here? In the den of the most unspeakable torturers and sadists in the galaxy? So worthy you say my Master guided me to you? The greatest of the Four himself seeks for my path to join yours? Is it not far more likely that you are one prisoner amongst many others? How are we to believe you, or anyone, would willingly enter into a bondage you claim to have endured?”

 

“For here is where I was. And because this is where you would be. Neither of us are novitiates in the nature of the warp; we know the effects it has on time. From a the linear perspective of the mundane, we met many years ago. You came to me, to us, sailing back through time from this conversation, and from my current perspective we have already fought many battles and discovered many secrets. Indeed, once you leave here, when I meet you for the first time, we will embark on the next phase of our plan. So I walked willingly into the jaws of the beast and endured the torment. Not only because I knew it had happened and I had survived, but because of that power that you can glimpse inside me, that thread which connects me to a place beyond all pain and beyond all darkness.”

 

“Beyond all darkness?” Charn’s voice was soft and knowing, “I have walked the paths of the Warp, I have plumbed the depths of the Crystal Maze, and I have seen nothing beyond, dark or otherwise. All I have seen is the Warp; the mirrored soul of humanity stretching away and curving round again enclosing us, imprisoning us. Whatever dimensions the physical world may have, the Warp encloses is spiritually and inescapably. To speak of beyond the warp is to speak of south of a southern pole, of before the beginning. It is a contradiction; anything you or your master think you have seen is but the after-image of your own hopes reflected back into your longing, mortal eyes.”

 

Dariel just smiled.

 

“To the man within a bubble, what can possibly exist beyond its walls? Moreover, what can it matter? It lies so fully beyond reach; the grasping of any such distant promise naturally requires bursting the bubble, demands the destruction of every tie you hold to this world. Only then will you see the Straight Path through those warped Mirrors in your soul and be free to pass beyond.”

 

Charn narrowed his eyes, the immaterial glow from within diminishing to two white hot slits, his voice when he spoke was still soft but had regained some of its earlier menace.

 

“How many times have we heard similar promises? How many champions of Chaos have claimed transcendental knowledge only to end as all the rest; dead by their own hubris, by their own vainglory. You have yet to show anything to make your claims, or those of your supposed master seem more credible than any of them were.”

 

Charn had intended to continue, to issue some veiled threat about his patience wearing thin, but the words were lost in the nova of crystalline brilliance that suddenly erupted across his vision. He didn’t know what his Acolytes with their mortal eyes saw, but they must have felt the force rippling over them as Charn himself did. Semik roared behind him and Charn closed his eyes reflexively in an effort to shield himself from the intensifying brilliance. It made little difference, his inner eye was similarly blinded by what seemed now to pour in a torrent from the very body of the Fallen Angel, still standing placidly in the centre what was now a white storm of light. When Dariel spoke, all heard it ringing through their minds, echoing through their very souls and though those of their comrades. Charn felt them slice psychically through the Warp and winced.

 

“Behold, O Sorcerer of Tzeentch. That of which I speak is no parlour trick or slight-of-hand, nor is it the ravings of a delusional fool too weak to admit ignorance and grasp a new, higher truth. Behold the raw radiance of the Great Beyond, where Kraven Lord of Chaos Primordial awaits us all. Behold the highest truth, behold the force that set the Universe in motion.”

 

Charn was powerful. Charn had lived long lives in the service to the power he called Lord and had been rewarded accordingly. He stood tall beside the many great champions of chaos, and yet here now he had to resist the urge to kneel before this expression of transcendental power. His Acolytes were already down, knocked or simply slipped down into bows of reverence and acquiescence, even Semik, his drooling maw slack and silent, folded his wings close to his body and held his head low.

 

Charn was still standing when the light faded an eternal moment after Dariel stopped speaking. The naked Fallen Angel seemed diminished in size somehow, though that took away none of the new watchful respect that the assembled Thousand Sons now regarded him with. He had dismissed the eruption of energy with a short sigh, then folded his arms, watching as Charn straightened up from his almost-crouch.

 

“That was no Warp-borne energy.” the Sorcerer said, his grip not slackening on his staff, “That was nothing I have seen come forth from human, alien or daemon. What was it? What laws does it obey?”

 

“It is everything.” said Dariel simply, “It is the potential of all creation distilled and displayed through the lens of my own soul. It is that from which all things came; the same fire that flickers at the heart of each mortal soul, it is the infinity of possibilities tied up within each of those souls. It is the endlessness, it is the beginning, the end, the world which contains all other worlds. It is the power that can be yours, if you are willing to follow the Path of Kraven. Myself and my brothers paid a high price to seal a pact with your master so that it might bring us together at the appointed time, do not now turn from the path of wisdom into the same pettiness that swallowed your Legion, and mine, and the others.”

 

Charn said nothing, his eyes were still closed. He found it easier to think this way sometimes. He could still see, but somehow things were clearer when the physical world wasn’t intruding. Before him was a coal black, living statue. He could see ghostly terminator armour playing around it, a memory of past and future years spent inside it’s carapace. He could also see the afterglow of the power that it now occluded. Then he realised; it was not a statue, it was not made of anything; it was a shadow. It was a perfectly opaque shape of a man cast by something between Charn and the light, except where one would expect to see the light behind, beyond the shape, there as just the room, just the real world and the warp, what ever he was, this Fallen Angel, this Herald, he was not, despite appearances, a being of either of the realities Charn knew. He understood now how Dariel could have survived captivity with the Dark Eldar.

 

“I am forced,” he said at length, “to recognise the power of you and your master.” he inclined his head, but did not bow, “and give you my allegiance.”

 

“I do not ask your allegiance, only your assistance. We do not act out of petty revenge or a need to dominate; we are agents of the apocalypse. We wage war only to bring about the end of all things, to tear this universe down around ourselves so that we might rise like the phoenix into a new dawn. Together we will build the road that will take us all into the great beyond. Together we will soar into the next universe, to shape it as we will.”

[Brother Lunkhead]

Wow! I want to read more. You weave a very compelling tale. Evocative description without being ornate or overly verbose, intriguing characters,  and vivid dialogue. I LIKE IT!