A Light Not Extinguished

Chapter 38: Warp Pierce Him

Another Epoch

The world was smooth. This was not a metaphor.

The entire planet's surface had been smoothed down to the bedrock, as if someone had taken a grindstone to it. The only thing of significance was a humble spire of wraithbone that stood at the very center of its northern pole, with nothing else around it. The planet was also frozen in place; it did not rotate, nor did it orbit around its sun. It simply hung there, unmoving.

It was here that the Phoenix King had come to find someone.

He dismissed his guards, and step by step ascended the stairs. The doors parted of their own accord, and eventually he found himself in front of a curtain. Aenarion carefully pushed aside the drapes.

The mysterious seer sat cross-legged in a meditative posture, the incense censers around her burning with a smoky fragrance. Dressed in plain gossamer robes, attached to her elaborate headdress was a veil that obscured her features.

Aenarion bowed slightly. "Greetings, great seer."

The mystic didn't move from her position. "The Phoenix King seeks an audience with this humble seer?"

"Humble wouldn't be the word I use to describe you." Aenarion slowly knelt down on the floor, one hand twisting in an elaborate gesture while the other traced a glowing glyph of orange and magenta in the air. "Ashim me'al huyrat, kulayim."

"Gashan mul hudrayna." The seer finished. "Under the eyes of the Gods and the old law, you shall have an audience with me, anointed of Asuryan. Speak your mind, Aenarion Eldanesh."

"I would ask for your counsel, if not your aid." The Phoenix King replied. "The galaxy lies in ruins. Our people are the only bulwark against the Enemy, and we cannot hold forever. How do we defeat them?" He clenched his fist. "How do I avenge my family?"

"Revenge?" The seer's eyes landed on the sword strapped to his back. "Ah. The eyes of the Bloody-Handed One are upon you, I see. Tell me, you of Eldanesh's line— how does it feel to bear the mantle of the War God?"

"It burns."

"As it should." The seer hummed. "Do you know why I've come here to this backwater place, away from the shrines of the gods and life and laughter?" The seer whispered. "I am tired, Aenarion Eldanesh. I was there long before your father's father was conceived, and in all likelihood I will still be here after you die. Existence holds nothing more for me. Why should I aid you, when the Wheel spins on, heedless of no one?"

"What can I offer you?" Aenarion asked plaintively. "I know that you have no use for priceless relics or ancient heirlooms, nor the wealth in my coffers. What would you ask of me, so that you can join me on the righteous path?"

"It is true that I do not desire wealth." The seer hummed. "But I do desire interesting things. Anything that can break the dull predictability of fate's strings." She looked Aenarion up and down, and chuckled. "Spill your blood on my table, Aenarion Eldanesh."

Slowly, the Phoenix King raised a palm over the table. The flesh of his hand split apart of its own accord, and a single droplet of blood welled in the wound before falling to the table. The liquid began to shine bright, its volume somehow increasing from a single droplet to a cupful as it formed a complex spiraling pattern on the surface.

"Interesting." The seer stared at the spirals which made no sense to Aenarion, and the Phoenix King was someone that had been taught in millennia of magecraft. "Very well then. You will have not only my aid, but my blade. I will fight by your side, and with my strength even the Annihilator will fall before us." She held up a finger. "I ask for only one thing— your son."

Aenarion's eyes turned cold and hard. "My son is dead."

"You will have another." The seer declared. "I have seen it, and I know it to be so."

The space between them crackled with golden lightning. "I will not conceive again, after what I have lost."

"Then by all means this should be easy for you, if you are so certain of it." The seer's invisible gaze bored into him. "A price without payment."

"I accept." Aenarion said without hesitation. "I hold you true to your words, and me to mine."

"Very well, then." The seer reached up and threw aside her veil.

For a moment, the Phoenix King saw nothing but a howling void where the face should be, in which glimmered the light of countless stars. Something primordial stared back, ageless and out of time in a place that didn't belong.

"Ah, I must apologize." The seer chuckled. "I'm not used to wearing a face after so long." She dragged a hand across the screaming void, and flesh grew from where she touched. An impossibly perfect face made itself manifest, with porcelain skin, delicate features, and eyes that shimmered like twin pools of liquid silver. The seer's newly formed countenance exuded an otherworldly beauty that was both captivating and unsettling, one that made even the Phoenix King feel a twinge of something in his heart before he suppressed it.

"You look..." The face was not quite Eldar; the lines and contours were just a touch different, the eyes a bit narrower. There was nothing out of the ordinary with the individual features, but when put together they evoked a sensation of both beauty and uncanniness. "What are you?"

"I am an Aeldari in every sense of the word." The seer huffed. "Let us attend to the matter at hand, Anathema." The ancient Eldar they called Morathi smiled. "We will talk, and perhaps we can save the world from itself."