8. Shadows in the Clouds (1/2)
chapter 8: shadows in the clouds
malek sighed, going over what alerarez and her fellow scourges had told him, for what seemed like the millionth time. kaelis was not only a traitor; she could turn herself into a monster. malek buried his head in his hands; that mark on her arm, the one that she told him it was just a tattoo, was a curse mark. he wondered if she had been given that mark when she had been born...
he would have continued rolling the information he had around in his head, had it not been for his realisation of the lack of fighting noises outside. he rushed to the balcony and his eyes widened in shock: a huge wave of darkness was beginning to roll over the city. he could feel eldritch energy writhing in the massive cloud as they either went over or went straight through spires. malek leapt off the edge of the balcony, sprouting wings of darkness. flying through sorrow fell, he noticed movement within the clouds but was sure that whatever came out, everyone else in the city could handle it. as soon he was sure that he was in the right territory, malek touched the ground of corespur, home to lord vect's official palace. going to lord vect's palace was nothing strange to malek, as he had done it so many times, he had lost count but that was to his casual palace in high commorragh. the region of corespur was practically the heart, the core of commorragh, and this was a strange place to malek. malek looked at the elite guards who stood watch upon vect's gates and they let him in. as he looked out, past the fences and into the devil's orchard, he swore he could see creatures that looked completely different to one another running towards the city. as he approached the doors to vect's palace, shards of darkness were hitting the ground and buildings around him. when one hit him, malek almost fell to the side and felt as if he was going to pass out. he entered the palace and proceeded to the throne room. when he entered he saw vect, standing at the window and watching the darkness cover the city.
"my lord, you have noticed?" malek asked, bowing
"i have. rise" vect said waving his hand for his advisor to rise
"i have noticed movement in the clouds and dust columns coming from iron thorn and devil's orchard"
"you think there is something in the darkness?"
"it is rife with eldritch, ancient energy"
vect opened his mouth but his speech was cut off as a guard burst into the room.
"my lord, monsters are attacking the city, from land and sky!" the guard reported
"xadikib" malek growled
"most likely" vect agreed
"my lord, i'll go out and help fight off the monsters and find my
other" malek said, exiting the room.
before vect could protest, malek had already exited the room. he turned to the guard and told him to prepare the kabal for war. as malek exited the palace, he
oke out into a run as he saw winged creatures flying through the city, attacking whoever they could see. he grew wings of darkness and he flew off, firing dark lightning, dark fire and dark energy blasts at creatures that got too close. he saw a large group of bat-winged creatures that were heading straight for him and stopped. he took a deep
eath and when he
eathed out, he
eathed out dark fire, burning the creatures coming at him. malek extinguished the flame and flew back through the raging battle on the land and sky to his territory. the quickest but one of the most dangerous ways to his territory would have to mean going through low commorragh and go straight through port carmine and nightsound ghulen and that would mean having to go through hidden blade territory. malek decided that he would have to go through sec maegra or null city as it more commonly known; this was no time for unnecessary risks. flying through the mercenary city, he could see that all the mercenaries were playing their part, hacking monsters to pieces.
as he entered the middle darkness, he started to avoid all the combat he could, stopping his unleashing of dark fire, dark lightning and dark energy. malek watched as the hellions in this area duelled with the winged creatures that had suddenly attacked commorragh. when he shot out of the middle darkness, he suddenly stopped; there were no monsters in high commorragh. he looked back down and there were none in the middle darkness, the hellions were just standing, well hovering to be correct, there in the poses they were in just after malek got out of their territory, confused looks on their faces and some started to look at one another as if they were expecting an answer. malek speared to his palace to see if yaielna was alright. he landed on the front lawn to see yaielna surrounded by the bodies of dead monsters, winged and non-winged.
"what just happened?" yaielna asked
"i guess xadikib unleashed something" malek answered "but i'm more worried about why they disappeared and how"
"what does it matter now?" yaielna said, triumphantly "i think i just proved to you that i can take care of myself"
"i agree" malek nodded "although i do wish you took a little more caution with the palace"
yaielna looked behind her and noticed that she had blasted huge holes in the walls and
oken several statues and windows.
"hehe, oops" yaielna said, a little sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck.
malek sighed and didn't utter a sound, unlike yaielna, when serelia materialised behind them and spoke.
"it looks like your palace has seen better days"
"it can be repaired, have you got any news whatsoever?"
"well, several buildings have been damaged, many are dead, on both sides, the monsters have suddenly disappeared and vect has moved up to his palace up here" serelia reported "oh and all of the mandrakes have disappeared"
"only that last bit interests me" malek said, not turning around
"many others have noticed it due to the general lack of constant hissing and the lack of twisting shadows"
"where could they have gone?"
"not aelindrach, that's for sure" serelia answered "rumours of them starting to all form a black coven have already started to fly around"
that was enough for malek. that was proof enough that this was something big. very big. the last time that the mandrakes had done that was…. well he'd never heard of them doing that in his entire life. and by any standard, he had lived a long time. malek decided to tell lord vect this and went up to his palace, serelia and yaielna following.
malek entered the throne room with and started telling him the news. malek was interrupted halfway through his talk by the opening of a small webway portal. malek frowned and so did serelia; this had to be the worst time for them to show up. eight figures, appearing very elegant and dressed in all sorts of different colours walked out of the portal with an amount of grace that made both malek and serelia feel very lumpy and rather slow. doing lazy cartwheels and front flips, they seemed to flow rather than walk. it looked like they possessed a certain amount of energy that just was impossible to keep in check. they all wore masks; all of the masks were polished to a mirror shine. malek looked closely, trying to figure out their actual appearance, only to find a rather warped face of his own and turned away. lord vect, however, was not so easily put off and he stood up and walked over to them, speaking without hesitation; he knew full well what had drawn them to commorragh and malek had a fair idea on why the harlequins had turned up in commorragh.
"is it true?" vect asked
the harlequin softly laughed, inclining its masked head to the eladrith ynneas.
"you, above all others here, should know that there is no such thing as the total truth, vect of commorragh and besides, how should we know what you are referring to?"
the voice of the harlequin was like silk and serelia felt like she was off-balance but malek was in no mood for the games of the harlequins.
"you know full well what he is referring to, harlequin" malek said
the harlequin behind the one that malek and vect were talking to softly giggled behind its mirror polished mask. malek glared at it but the harlequin showed no fear.
"is the event that just happened the beginning of the bleeding skies?" vect asked
"we believe so" the lead harlequin answered, doing a lazy twirl "how else would that amount of energy be coming from commorragh?"
"whats the bleeding skies?" serelia asked
"a chance to do some storytelling" the lead harlequin piped up, happily
"that won't be necessary" malek shook his head
"we didn't ask for your opinion, malekith of commorragh" said one of the harlequins
the eight harlequins walked over to serelia and began the tale:
"it was in the time between the fall and vect's rise to power when commorragh was in the most savage civil war in its history. one of the archons, an archon ar'fian created a weapon that could unleash darkness like a cloud and it could spawn monsters of any kind. he used this to his advantage and he gained the upper hand in the war" the harlequins began
"however, this came at a price; soon after he gained the upper hand, daemons began to enter commorragh and wreaked havoc; a disjunction" malek shuddered at the word, as well as serelia "this was the first time daemons ever got into commorragh and the results were not pleasant at all. because it was the first time this had happened and the dwellers in commorragh hadn't fought daemons in such a long time, more destruction than anticipated occurred. ar'fian used the weapon to counter-attack the daemons and boosted its power by using ancient artefacts. the first time it was used with the boosted power levels, it shot the darkness into the place that you now call aelindrach. all of the mandrakes in commorragh all suddenly disappeared into this new place. several emissaries were sent to contact them but none returned. meanwhile, the daemons were still ravaging commorragh and all the warring houses banded together behind ar'fian as their leader. he used the weapon to try to drive back the daemons and it seemed to work for a time" continued the harlequins
"but then, four of the greater daemons that represented each other chaos gods turned up and closely following them were legions of chaos marines. the daemons took back the initiative and they killed many of ar'fian's followers. soon, his generals realised that it was the weapon that was attracting the eyes of chaos. they proceeded to destroy it and to kill ar'fian, thus punishing him for what he had done" the harlequins told serelia
malek had to admit, that this was pretty accurate for a harlequin.
"they attacked ar'fian and tried to destroy him and the weapon but he escaped into iron thorn; he had been driven mad by the power of the weapon and by the power of chaos. his generals followed him with their soldiers, as did all the minions of chaos. his generals got there first and ar'fian's son led the attack on him, whilst all the other soldiers held off the daemons. father and son duelled and the battle lasted for hours. ar'fian was letting no sign of him slowing up show itself. at the climax of the duel, no one is not sure of what happened, whether ar'fian slipped and dropped the weapon accidentally or his son knocked it out of his father's hands but either way; the weapon was dropped and it activated, unleashing millions of beasts that fought the daemons and the dwellers of commorragh. the amount of energy was so great that the sky turned black and storms started
ewing, black lightning streaking down and killing anything it touched and acid rain burning through the skin and armour of warriors and daemons alike. then, a
eak in the storms appeared and the suns, although they had been harnessed and its claws permanently blunted, blood soon started to fall from it and black solar flares started up, sending waves of black fire into the city, destroying buildings and killing hundreds. ar'fian leapt down to the weapon and laughed maniacally. that proved to be his undoing as his son jumped off the beam they were duelling on and dove straight at him. by the time ar'fian had opened his eyes, his son was right in front of him and his son's sword was just about to hit him. his son's sword plunged through him and his son quickly pulled is sword out and shut down the weapon. ar'fian stood up and screamed in agony as he started to disintegrate into ashes. blackness started pouring out of him and his eyes and mouth and blood red light poured out of them and he exploded. his son tried to destroy the weapon but twas nigh impossible. the daemons and minions of chaos soon retreated back to the warp and commorragh was rebuilt. when the weapon was shut off, the storms and the sun quieted down and things resumed to normal. his son, who is known as talon sythil hid the weapon somewhere in talon cyriix. it was declared a forbidden weapon by the three ruling houses that vect destroyed some centuries later. talon soon was rewarded for his actions by vect for his actions during the overthrow. the last thing that was announced about the weapon which is called the casket of the bleeding sun or 'lex khiren ei sesuli moloi' was that if it was activated again, it would generate the same thing but the appearance of daemons wouldn't occur and the storms and the sun would stay the same until it was destroyed" the harlequins finished
"how in the world did xadikib get the weapon then?" malek asked
"we do not know, sythil of commorragh" the lead harlequin answered, the group retreating back to in front of the portal "was talon cyriix not cut off from commorragh?"
"xadikib must have found a way back in" vect answered
"only a sythil can activated and deactivate the weapon. how it can be destroyed, we do not know" the lead harlequin said "but what we do know is that if the sun and the storms start back up again, it will not only affect commorragh, it will affect the entire galaxy and it will have undesired effects for the 'xadikib' person. its outflow of energy could wake up the c'tan that are sleeping and could wake all necrons within the galaxy. daemons will roam free and many other bad things will happen"
and with that, the harlequins went back into the portal, cartwheeling and twirling as they went. vect closed the portal and turned to his high archons. suddenly a flash of light occurred and xadikib's face appeared in the room. malek and vect glared profusely and xadikib chuckled.
"happy with the little display i just gave you?" he asked
"le khiren ei sesuli moloi, candros akra ishai" malek asked
the casket of the bleeding sun, where is it?"
"that's for me to know and for you to find out, my dear
other. i also called to congratulate you"
"on what grounds?" serelia questioned