A Light Not Extinguished

Chapter 25: Strings of Destiny

Out of the shadows, three Aeldari stumbled towards him, faces flushed with stimulants. Native Commorites. "What's a pretty morsel like you doing here?" One of them leered. "Come, join us..." A grasping hand reached for his face.

"I don't have time for this." The young Aeldari snarled, and thrust his hands forward in a clap, one of the runes on his armor blazing bright red. "Ati'falok!"

The telekinetic blast hurled the three Commorites down the wall as Eldrad broke into a sprint, leaping up the wall in a siderun. Already his opponents had shrugged off the initial blow, snarling as their faces split apart into many-fanged maws. One stepped forward, hand on a phase-whip-

He could already see the whip coming before its owner even drew it, through the skein of the future. One sidestep to the right, and Eldrad's sagesword burst out from its sheath, decapitating the Commorite. A point of a finger, and telekinetic force crushed the skull into paste.

The sagesword continued its arc, the second Commorite barely parrying it aside with a clawed gauntlet that blazed with the power of the Great Ocean. The third one pounced onto the ceiling like a spider, modified joints rotating at impossible angles as it leapt at him. His guard was wide open, he couldn't shield himself in time-

The words of his mentor came back to him.

"You must fight like the Aeldari of old did." Khiraen explained as they stood over the broken body of an Archon that had refused them payment for services due. "It is not enough to be a brute. You must use both mind and body to fight at once- a neophyte seeks to crush the opponent's form. A warrior breaks his foe in both spirit and flesh."

Eldrad's mind responded with a psychic boom, the telepathic equivalent of a flashbang stunning his enemies and sending them sprawling. The sagesword- a fine weapon, taken from the armories of Ulthwe, finished its arc, decapitating both of them and splattering the alleyway with blood before coming to a stop in Eldrad's waiting hand.

"It's here." He sent psychically to his mentor.

Two heartbeats later, and Khiraen emerged from the hallway, flicking away the blood on his composite blade with a motion of the wrist. "What are you waiting for, boy? Do it."

Carefully, Eldrad drew out the Crow's Heart that now glowed brightly, and gently pressed it to the wall. There was a whirring sound. And then for the briefest of moments, a fold in time and space opened to swallow the both of them whole.

The two of them reemerged into a chamber of black metal, with ten psychomatons pointing their Force Staves at them. These were not the rank-and-file; they were Ayhanurdei, the automatons used to guard those with great power and influence. Ten of them would give even Khiraen great difficulty. Eldrad snarled, one hand going for his blade.

"Careful, boy." Khiraen put a warning hand on Eldrad's shoulder, the young adult slowly lowering his blade. "The seers of Morai-Heg are people we can ill afford to anger." He turned and addressed the silent psychomaton guard respectfully. "Bring us to the Coven, if it pleases them."

The sentinel stared at him through the blank visor, then turned and gestured to the curtain in front of them that seconds ago had not been there. Slowly, the two of them stepped forwards past the partition, into a vast, decorated chamber.

On a raised dais, five Aeldari, old and already half-crystallized, each sat on an ornately carved stool in a circle. A vast brazier of ghost-fire crackled in the middle, with bones as kindling. Tapestries made from impossibly thin stone covered the walls, each one detailing some part of the grand saga of the gods.

Carefully, Khiraen drew a pouch of powder from his hip, before carefully scattering it on the floor in the shape of an open palm. Drawing his sword, he struck each of the fingers once, the digits bursting into flame and filling the room with a pungent, heady smoke. In another hand was a phial that he let drip over what was left of the powder, a single drop of blue blood falling down.