Chapter Twenty-Two: Rising from the Ashes (Part V)

The remaining Solitaires leaped forward to dance with the Primarch in a duel of blades, souls, and minds. Eleven Aeldari blades twirled around humanity's champion, hunting for any weakness. They found none. In fact, Iskandar was winning more and more with every clash of blades. With each parry and thrust, Iskandar was growing faster, stronger. Capable of not only holding his own against nearly a dozen of the Galaxy's greatest warriors but winning. The rest of the battle continued, psychic powers and spiritual adrenaline pumping through transhuman muscle. The Astartes drank deep of the Talismans essence. Laughing, singing and cheering as they carved through the never-ending tide with newfound vigor. The Custodes, by contrast, were struggling. The warp-song channeled through Iskandar's talisman wore on their minds. Its wild beauty/horror grinding at the Custodes restructured post-human minds.

Iskandar was thoroughly intoxicated with power. Laughing madly as he danced with the Harlequin. Roaring ancient Terran battle anthems with pitch-perfect precision. His body was cloaked in a cloud of iridescent smoke. A byproduct of the talisman and its effect on Iskandar's soul. It followed his every movement and persisted a moment or two after. As the Primarch lept and struck, its trail formed a serpentine tail of kaleidoscope vapor. With his remaining arm and a telekinetic lance formed around his stump the Primarch struck. Blade and psychic energy lashed out at the Eldar which, to their merit, blocked what should have been hundreds of killing blows, relying on their own gifts of physical and psychic skill to duel a demigod.

It would not be enough for the youngest remaining Harlequin. A prodigy by Aeldari standards, she had kept up with her seniors, surviving even as two fell to the god-prince's blade. She alone of the Harlequin attackers was born after the Fall. Her mother had hidden away among hundreds of fellow refugees in a webway realm barely a mile wide. As a child, she alone escaped this pocket's collapse. When She Who Thirsts children came calling, this daughter of the new galaxy had been given a wraithbone dagger and told to run. She ran for what could have been days or weeks, eventually collapsing at the base of a technicolor shrine. The Laughing God's followers found her there, realizing that she was an example of the new Aeldari, the fractured Eldar. Newborn to a dying species. A spark of light in the Dance Without End. As she clashed with the Primarch, a whip of warp-smoke and telekinesis wrapped around her leg. Pulled from her performance, she died thinking of her mother's face as the Uru-Blade sunk through armor and flesh.

This death was of course expected by her god. This was a performance, a tale of the foolish Mon'keigh struggling against an unstoppable tide of darkness. Iskandar had felled three of his children, each playing the role of Slaanesh, but won the duel at great cost. He was forced to rely on increasingly mad and dangerous power, which set the stage perfectly for act two. The death of three Harlequins is not an event to go unnoticed. Somewhere deep in the Warp, the Dark Prince and the Laughing God dueled for three souls, distracting the God of Pleasure just enough to let other prey sneaks by, giving the Harlequin an opportunity to dive into the sea of souls. Teleporting vast distances, in a chaos-defying feat of psychic prowess.

Just as Iskandar pulled his blade from his kill, the world cracked. A fissure of space/time splitting from the fallen Aeldari body to the sky, ripping straight through the dome and the corpses scrabbling across it. The Primarch jumped back as it widened, alarmed at the new, yawning grin into the Warp. Music of haunting beauty and disoriented volume shook the plaza, blasted forth from the Xeno ships on great vox-equivalents. The sound expanded the new crack in the crystal bubble encasing them. This was the stage cue the Harlequins were waiting for. With a flash of light comparable to an atomic weapon, the Rift exploded and shattered the dome into a billion pieces, releasing a deluge of flesh-puppets. The safety and protection the Imperials had fought to keep were gone in one horrifying instant.

Then the rest of the play's performers arrived. Using the Solitaires' death and subsequent warp-rift as a door, the Harlequins arrived in force. Appearing from thin air in a motley detonation of color and light. Hundreds of Aeldari attacked, leaping from the warp-rift in grandiose displays of inhuman acrobatics. Mimes and Death Jesters careened through the air. Wearing the garish grin of Cegorach, the High-Avatar flipped over the head of the human soldiers, decapitating an Astartes and Custodian with a single magnificent stroke. Gas canisters filled with powdered wraithbone and hallucinogens capable of driving planets mad were unleashed. Troubadours attacked the Imperials in perfect synchronicity, forming a whirling maelstrom of holo-fields, shuriken fire, and wraithbone blades.

Reacting quickly, the Imperials abandoned the kill-box formation they had used with such effectiveness against the Corpse-Puppets. The puppets seemed to be slower and less coordinated. They were no longer an unliving tide, but a shuffling mass of corpses. The Imperials had no way of knowing this, but it was actually their doing. The increased psychic interference from Iskandar and the rift was wreaking havoc. Now the Imperials joined together into sword-squads. To cover each other, and hunker down from the Xeno onslaught. Even as they parried and blocked the Custodes and Astartes moved into a tighter formation around the Emperor's body. Each sword-squad becoming a living bailey in a shrinking fortress with the Emperor at its center. As the dome had cracked and rained crystal-dust and broken bodies. The Emperor lay undisturbed. His slumber undisturbed, guarded by Valdors blade and will.

Throughout this, Iskandar fought on, providing the Imperials valuable time to regroup. The Primarch reaved a path of death through the Eldar. Standing alone, drenched in gore and laughing maniacally, an incarnate of Wars madness. The Harlequins danced through the air, leaping from corpse pile to corpse pile. Weaving between Imperial blades and Bolts. Faced with a proper target the Custodes and Astartes had opened fire. They filled the air with exotic energy and diamond-tipped rounds. Every shot that missed pummeled the Corpse-Puppets, turning them into sprays of red mist and bone fragments that added another gory display of pyrotechnics to the battle.

Imperial transhumans are some of the most deadly warrior-types in the galaxy, fusing the armor and killing power of a tank with the mobility and reactivity of special forces. Few things could withstand an attack by them, or pierce their defense. The children of the Laughing God could be counted among that small number. Exhausted physically and mentally, overdue for armor and weapon maintenance, the Astartes and Custodes were faced with a legitimate threat. The grinning players of Cegorach danced between the human bullets and blows, slashing with force-swords and cruel monofilaments. Though they were cut apart by Xeno weapons the Imperials fought on. Talon Pellon of the III Legion would later become renowned for his incredible feat of impaling two Trouper, one in each of his blades. After one of the perfidious Xenos drove a crystal dagger into his right eye and out the back of his head. It was just one of many acts of heroism the III Legion and Custodes performed in the line of duty.

Throughout this bloodshed and madness, the Primarch fought on. Separated from his sons and kin by Flesh-puppets and Harlequinn. He drank deeper from the Singers talisman. Forced to draw upon greater and greater amounts of psychic power to keep up with his enemies. The remaining solitaires and the High Avatar fought perfectly together, pushing the Primarch to his limits. The High Avatar was fast and powerful, playing the role of Cegorach and channeling a drop of the Clown God's power. This troupe master Avatar danced around Iskandar, exploiting every opening created by the Solitaries. The carved bloody marks into the demigod, all while whispering dark lies and cruel truths to the infuriated Primarch.

"The thing you call father thinks of you as nothing but a tool." the Avatar called, jabbering away in its lyrical accent " It is a miscarried god wearing a Mon'Keigh skin. You are marked by She Who Thirsts. Even now I can see her fangs in you. Once you are used up and damned, he will cast you into the void or her mouth. Why do you think he clothed you in flesh, God-Golem? A vessel for the gods! Let us pass! We will erase the Emperor from this universe and save it. He is but another pawn of the Enemy. As deluded and mad as Chaos. You just need to let me pass, you poor, deluded thing."

Ignoring these taunts, a whisper stroked against the Primarchs mind. A faint alien thought of seductive potency. "It is the right of sons to surpass their fathers. Let the Aeldari do what it will. Stop fighting the inevitable. Why struggle for 10,000 years against me, when I want nothing more than to embrace you?"

The Dark Prince had found Iskandar. The Singer's Talisman drew from mankind's creativity and experience. Casting a bloody lure into the Warp for the youngest God. Now xhe had found him. Xer favorite Primarch, xer destined serpent. Slaanesh coveted the III Primarch, and would never let go. Iskandr felt the tendrils of corruption slither across his psyche. Even with a feast of Aeldari souls, he was what Slaanesh wanted. The Dark Prince desired him, as consort, scion, prophet, trophy, and champion. Intoxicated by arcane power and esoteric experiences, the Primarch laughed. Facing the Chaos God's lust and the Harlequins malice he proclaimed: "I have tasted madness! It burns in my soul like a mighty star! It mine and mine alone. Xeno, Daemon, whatever comes, has no claim. This is my doom, you shall have no part in it."

Across the Warp a psychic thunderclap echoed, blowing away tendrils of corruption and shocking the Dark Prince. Iskandar knew his time was limited. The power drawn into his flesh was distorting him, infecting his mind with the Warp's poison. Yet he would not let this path of lunacy be dictated by another. To defend his father and ruin the schemes of both Chaos and the Aeldari, he would fight. Iskandar Basilious was going insane on his own terms.

Gene-forged flesh rippled and shifted. It became near impossible to tell where the psychedelic mist covering Iskandar ended and where his body started. Limbs ending with whips, talons, and blades faded in and out of being. His face was a spectral projection flickering between Imperial Adonais and eldritch rictus. The High Avatar took this manifestation of the demigods unraveling mind and body as an opportunity. With force sword in one hand and monofilament sting in the other. The Xeno plunged his weapons into the Primarchs twin hearts. Psychic plasma and thrashing filaments eviscerated the Primarchs organs.

Iskandar's legs buckled, his new talons and tentacles gripping the ash-covered floor. Where the Primarch once towered over the Avatar he now faced its mocking mask at eye level. Cupping his face like a lover the Avatar whispered ancient lullaby, willing the demigod to die. Removing one of the Dark Prince's destined Princes. Iskandar stared into the Harlequins eyes, hidden behind its dreadful mask, and smiled. From the iridescent fog covering them both, a blade erupted. An Uru-Blade in the shape of a stiletto knife shot through the Eldar's skull. With a super-sonic killing blow, the Primarch drove the dagger from one side of the Xeno's head to the other.

Stumbling back, like a drunken fool the Avatar grasped at the blade stuck through its brain. Dying neurons misfired as it thrashed pointlessly until the spasms of death ended and its movements became fluid again. Blood far too bright to be human dribbled down its costume as the Harlequin cocked it head to one side. Looking into the eyes of the mask, a chill erupted through Iskandar. The Avatar was dead and its master stared at him through stolen eyes. Cegorach had come to orchestrate the performance.

Spinning with grace beyond any mortal Aeldari, the Cegorach-Avatar started to clap. Dead-hands cracking sarcastic applause, soon mimicked by his followers. The Harlequins disengaged from the Imperials as one, applauding and making gestures of mocking congratulation. Soon the flesh-puppets took up the display as well. They began to fill the air with a thunderous ovation. After a perfect Terran minute, it stopped, instantly. Where echoes should have followed there was perfect silence, as if some great conductor had turned off sound.

Cegorach-Avatar saluted the Primarch and spoke, the god's words were eldritch caresses upon the psyche. "Oh, noble sons of Terra! You have performed wonderfully. In the face of betrayal, death, and madness you held firm, doing everything possible to save your God-Caller. You sacrificed your minds and bodies for an unloving father-smith. Such a tragedy, such talent, such will. All wasted on a wasted second chance. You rage against the dying of the light, uncaring that this struggle is what will extinguish the stars. The Mon-Keigh King will only lead your species to a miserable end. I will not insult you by asking you, his most loyal thralls, to abandon him. I will, however, tell you this. The Anathema must die for the universe to live. His own arrogance and blind ego convince him otherwise."

Taking a deep bow the Cegorach-Avatar continued: "Now, the show must go on. The betrayed Mon-keigh suffer and struggle. Fighting against impossible odds and enemies beyond your ken. Do you see light at the end of the path? It is but an illusion. Rage! Rage mon-keigh. Show the universe your willful madness!"

Still bowed low, the Cegorach-Avatar lifted its face up to peer at Iskandar. With a dramatic gesture, it grabbed its smile. A hand on the masks upper and lower lips. In an act of grotesque farce, the Clown God pulled the mask's mouth apart. Stretching it open wider and wider, all without breaking its form. In the space drawn between the mask's fangs was a void of pitch darkness. Just as the mask would stretch no further, the darkness erupted. From it came to light. Blinding, ugly light.

The Cegorach-Avatar seemed to deflate as it disgorged a hulk of fire and gilded light. Standing before Iskandar was the newest member of the Dance without End. An Eldar clad in gilded armor of sickening ostentatiousness. The Xeno stood taller and broader than any Aeldari Iskandar had seen. Layers of sigils, medallions and skull ornaments covered it. In one hand it held a sword of cruel flames. In the other a vicious talon. Where other Harlequin wore masks of oversized expressions or haunting plainness. This Harlequin was clad in a helm crafted like a screaming corpse. A rotten death rictus cast in chipped gold. Staring into the mask, Iskandar realized what he was facing. Before he could voice his horror, the quickly collapsing Cegorach-Avatar proclaimed: "In this act, the Mon-Keigh Corpse-Tyrant joins the performance. The infant Chaos God of Oppression joining the dance without end. Alongside its siblings of the first order of Solitaries!"

Turning to face Iskandar the Corpse-Tyrant lifted its sword and charged. It roared in twined voices: "Purge the unclean/Mael Dannan"

Moving like some ancient serpent of Terra Iskandar dodged its blow. Hissing in pain as a wave of flames forged in mindless hate scalded his skin. Diving past the Corpse-Tyrant he pulled the Uru-Blade from the Avatar's corpse and faced the Xeno parody. With new vigor, the Harlequins attacked the Imperials who fought back with reckless abandon in turn. The mockery of their wounded liege ignited the blood-fury even in the Custodes.

Desperately, Iskandar fought the Corpse-Tyrant. Its blows matched meteor strikes in power and heat. Wounded and exhausted, the Primarch fought against this horror almost beyond imagining. Protected by Cegorach and infused with Anathemic energy, the Corpse-Tyrant easily matched the Primarch. If this continued much longer Iskandar would be struck down. Feeling his mounting corruption seeping into his soul, Iskandar laughed. The Dark Gods wanted him to strike down his father. What better way to deny them by killing this mockery.

Space/Time twitched and convulsed. The Primarch pulled maddening amounts of psychic energy into the materium, flooding his body and mind with unbound magik. Iskandar was shedding his corporeal form. All that was left was the innate spirit of a Primarch glutted on the power of Mankind's imagination, bleeding out of his body and dissolving it. More ideas than matter, the Primarch attacked. Blades and thoughts, equally sharp, lashed and bashed the Corpse-Tyrant. Its flaming sword and wicked claw scything at Iskandar's mercurial form. Sobbing and laughing the Primarch slithered around his foe. Attacking with everything he had.

An inferno of dominating light clashed with a storm of rabid colors. The Imperials and Harlequin soon found themselves disengaging from each other. The energy discharged from the duel of demi-gods created a gale-force, sending corpse-puppets flying off the cracked plaza and forcing the warriors to brace themselves. The Corpse-Tyrant was an abomination that mocked the Emperor and mimicked him in a twisted way. At its core was a powerful and arrogant Eldar. In another life, he might have become an Archeon, Trope Master or Autarch. Yet today, Cegorach had stolen his fate. The god manipulated and twisted the possible champion into a titan of ego and psychic power, protected from Slaanesh and abetted by the Harlequins. Creating a sacrificial lamb glutted on dominion and arrogance. Cegorach's altar is the stage, and his sacrifice played its role perfectly. The possible champion's soul ignited with stolen fire, creating a mockery of the Anathema which would burn itself to nothingness. Until then, it fought like a god and boasted the killing flames of the Fire-Tide.

It was a living inferno that burned away at Iskandar. The twisted warp-stuff infusing his body ignited in the presence of this false-Anathema. Screaming in delirious agony, the Primarch pushed through the flames, raining blows upon his foe and fighting for his last scraps of sanity. Overwhelmed by a billion, billion ideas, dreams, fantasies and delusions. The Primarch was rapidly succumbing to the Warp. As his mind eroded his power increased. Iskandar's soul was ripped open by the talisman, twisting him into a living warp-gate. A hole in the bottom of the Sea of Souls. Pouring out the raw stuff of possibility through the Primarch and onto his foe. This is what a Primarch is. It is a living warp-rift, given flesh and anchoring in mankind's psyche. That fundamental nature exploited to devastating effects. As Aeldari Corpse-Tyrant and Human Primarch raced to engulf each other in their death throes.

Space/Time along with matter itself distorted around the duel. Existence weakened under the strain of this clash. Power of this nature was rarely seen since the War in Heaven. They were dueling singularities, each desperately devouring each other. Not even a hint of humanoid, or even living shape could be seen in the thrashing storm. Instead, they were two fonts of runaway energy. Each witness saw it in a unique way. The Harlequins saw songs, and stories exchanged in a clash of wit, spirits waging a war in metaphor. The stoic Astartes and Custodes glimpsed the clash of blades and the discharge of weapons. Each group interpreting the incomprehensible through a personal filter.

The duel reached its conclusion as the technicolor dynamo that once was a Primarch grew in size. Swallowing the searing flames of the Corpse-Tyrant like some massive black-hole devouring a dying star. The Corpse Tyrant used his own soul to fuel its dreadful power. Iskandar, by contrast, had only to open up the floodgates hidden within him. In a keening screech that somehow sounded both like a blaze being extinguished in cold water and musical strings snapping, the Corpse Tyrant was snuffed out.

A wave of subconscious disgust rippled through both the Custodes and surprisingly the Harlequin. Even in this play-act version of the Great Game, the death of an Anathema to unbound psychic power resonated darkly. Little time to contemplate was given. The vaguely spherical maelstrom of impossible colors that had been Iskandar was growing. Losing cohesion, the storm grew larger and larger. A living warp-rift that threatened to swallow worlds if unchecked.

Every eye on this warp-swept battlefield of ashen remains and splintered crystal watched the Primarch's doom grow. His physical form destroyed and his soul turned into a gaping Hellmouth. Iskandar Basileus could only scream as he died. Sanity and substance peeled away from him. Leaving the flayed soul of a young god unleashed. Enraptured by this beautiful nightmare, no one noticed a kneeling figure stand. Constantin Valdor, First of the Ten Thousand, rose to do his duty.

With the Apollonian Spear in hand, the Captain-General walked towards the dying Primarch with calm confidence. Moving between the lines of Astartes and Custodes who stood by, shocked by his sudden movement. Valdor approached the maddened Primarch, the lashing wind and warp-lightning coming from it unnoticed by the Custodian. The Aeldari watched with alien curiosity. They had discounted him as another Mon-Keigh golem. A crucial mistake. Valdor had not spent the battle sulking away with the Emperor's fallen form, hiding from his duty. He had been engaged in a higher calling. Putting his, mind, body and soul to the test. He had communed with the damaged soul of the Emperor, providing the Master of Mankind a handhold in the materium to guide his efforts to heal. Now the Anathema of Mankind stirred in his healing slumber. Unable to awake, but aware enough to direct His Spear.