Imisha's powered chair hummed aimlessly forward over the ashen ground. The wind howled relentlessly around her, carrying with it a strong smell of smoke. All around her lay the signs of utter destruction. Human soldiers stared up at her from the ground, their white skulls, polished clean, showing through twisted slate grey armour. They looked like broken cans of food that someone had ruthlessly cracked open to gorge upon the meat within. Having followed a streak of worlds just like this in a trail that spiralled ever closer to the eye of terror, Imisha no longer held any illusions about who that someone could be. The worlds were all the same. Completely dead, down to the last microorganism. Whole continents, moons, planets, wiped clean of every single trace of life. Imisha had seen and caused a lot of horror in her long life but never before had she seen anything like this.
When she had first felt the touch of her goddess upon her mind again Imisha had been overjoyed. After so long, her prayers had finally been answered. Through wile and wit, she had quickly procured the goddess' own flagship and raced off after her. Imisha had imagined herself coming home in a blaze of glory, her vision redeemed, carrying a spark of hope that would spread like wildfire through her people. A living god to guide them, someone to stand tall against their enemies, a stubborn light in the darkness when all other lights had faded. Fate would finally smile down upon the Eldar.
So enthralled by her dream had Imisha been that, at first, she hadn't noticed the small sign that something was wrong. No that wasn't true. She had known from the very first moment, but she had pushed those thoughts aside. The worse it had gotten the more she had turned a blind eye, using humour and rationalization to mask her growing fears. Ignored that they were travelling deep into chaos territory, ignored her master's silence, ignored the death and destruction. Despite the distance between her and Ynnead shrinking every day, the golden thread of hope had grown fainter every day.
When she finally had come close enough to touch the goddess' mind she first thought she must have been mistaken. Ynnead was so different. Alien, cold, indifferent. Gone was the mischievous stubborn little girl who had threatened to spank Imisha. What remained was something entirely different. Something odious and hateful.
I no longer have any use for you. Go away.
Those were the only words her master had for her.
Imisha reached down and picked up a piece of broken cloth, turning it over in her hand. The previous worlds had all been military outposts, space hulks or chaos fortresses. They had made Imisha hope that Ynnead somewhere still deep down remembered the lesson that she had taught Imisha. That all life was supposed to be sacred.
Not so with this one. Sure Imisha could feel the taint of chaos still lingering in the air. Ynnead had come here for a reason. Yet looking around it was clear that this was no military target. Perfectly intact skyscrapers lined the horizon. Hollow grey leafless trees stood like gravestones over empty parks and playgrounds. And worst of all, most of the skeletons that littered the ground wore no armour.
Imisha felt the piece of cloth between her finger and held it up towards the dim sun. Bitterly she realized was it was. It was a dress for a doll. Uttering a silent prayer, she released the dress into the wind. It soared upwards, high into the sky. Imisha followed it with her eyes. Somewhere up there in the blue, like a lonely star, orbited the Stablemaster's Pet.
Davar was up there. Just the thought of him brought a sad smile to her face. Then came the realization that she would no longer be able to keep up the facade that everything was going according to plan any longer. Imisha dreaded telling him the truth she had kept from him so far. He was already starting to see through her. Last night as they lay in bed, he had spoken about it.
"Imisha, are you happy?" Davar had asked.
If leading questions would elect a leader this one would have won by a landslide. The man was sweet but blunt as a mace. Imisha found she didn't want to answer so she did the wife thing to distract him.
"Of course I am silly," she had purred back. But before she was able to take the conversation into nonverbal territory he had stopped her again.
"Are you really? Is it really you who's happy?"
Imisha had stopped, flabbergasted.
"It's not like I don't approve," Davar had tried, seeing the look on Imisha's face.
"I love to see you happy, and you know I love you, always, no matter what." Imisha must have been looking miserable indeed because Davar had looked down when he had uttered the next words, refusing to meet her eye.
"It's just...sometimes I don't know where you end and where she begins."
Imisha had thought a lot about those words. And when saw this grey world, scrubbed clean of life, those same thoughts came back to her.
How long had the child goddess been shedding her skin, throwing off these parts of herself? As her only worshipper, had Imisha unconsciously picked up on those lost fragments? Had Imisha become more merry and childish to balance for the fact that her master was rejecting those very traits within herself? Or even worse was it as Davar said: Was the line between her and her goddess blurring and would Imisha as a result now also become cold and uncaring? Dominated and swallowed whole by the stronger presence of the death goddess.
Previously Imisha had been frustrated by these thoughts. Questions, ever questions. And never any answers. Now, looking around, she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answers anymore.
"Isn't it beautiful?" whispered a voice right behind her ear. Imisha whipped her head around.
"Greetings seer, we meet again." The face of the great enemy was smiling down at her, but an inch from Imisha's face. Kalitha the solitaire was standing right behind her. In a flurry of cloth and shadow, the solitaire bowed low before Imisha.
"What are you doing here?" Imisha stuttered.
"Amusing, the dancer wanted to ask the seer the same question."
"I thought you were tending to your son."
A picture of a man hanging from the ceiling by metal hooks flashed through Imisha's mind. The pain was supposed to keep his soul out of the great enemy's grasp and the solitaire had proclaimed it was she wanted for him. Yet Imisha couldn't help to pity Kalitha and her son. Even for a harlequin, it can't be easy to resign your only child to such a fate.
"My son is hanging in there." The solitaire giggled in a way that made bile rise in Imisha's throat. The solitaire wagged her finger back at Imisha's disgusted guise. "Now now, why does the seer look so sad? Look around! After ten thousand years of loss, victory is beautiful, is it not?"
"Victory? You call this victory?"
"For so long have we waited. And now it is finally here. This is the fruit of all our labour." The solitaire picked up a skull of the ground and studied it with an amused look on her mask. The skull was nauseatingly small.
Imisha's jaw just hung open in horror. Smiling grimly, the solitaire gripped the little skull with a single hand and held it up in front of Imisha. The ropey muscles in her arms grew taut and with a hollow crack, the skull broke apart.
"Now it is her turn to suffer. To run and hide, cowering in darkness, fearing the night."
"All of these people were not servants of the great enemy."
The solitaire shrugged and dusted broken bone shards off her hands. "They were not our kin."
"They were alive!"
"Were." The solitaire's mask smiled grimly.
"This is wrong. This is not what she wanted."
The solitaire stood silently before Imisha, her colourful cloak fluttering in the wind, the mask as still as the ground below them. Frustrated by the lack of response Imisha pushed her chair forward.
"Don't you understand? We must find her, talk to her, convince her! Something must have happened to her! It is up to us to bring her back if you help me-"
In the blink of an eye, the solitaire moved right up against Imisha, silencing Imisha with a single slender finger pressed against her lips.
"Hush now, little seer. There is nothing to worry about anymore. We have taken care of everything."
In days past Imisha might have been afraid or angry by the sudden movement and patronizing words. Now she simply very calmly raised her own hand and removed the solitaire's finger from her lips, not letting go of the eyes staring down at her from behind the mask. The face upon mask smirked down at her as she moved the harlequin's hand away. But when Imisha looked behind the mask into the eyes of the solitaire she found them soft and pleading. As if they were trying to tell her something that could not be spoken out loud.
"This is not her. All life is sacred."
For the briefest of moments, the eyes behind the mask lit up as Imisha spoke the old words. The smirk on her mask fluttered for a second before stabilizing again.
"Empty words that have long since lost all meaning," the solitaire spat back, retreating away from Imisha. "Just like the little goddess, the seer refuses to see things for what they really are. But no longer, my master has...persuaded her."
At first, Imisha just stared at the solitaire. Then she clasped her hand over her mouth, her breathing ragged and rapid.
"By Isha, what have you done?"
"We have given the Eldar teeth once again. We have reached beyond the veil and unleashed death itself upon the enemies of the children of the stars. We have taught hope itself how to hate."
"You did this? You betrayed her?"
A mock visage of shock flooded the solitaire's mask.
"She has not betrayed anyone. She still serves her people as she always has. She simply helped do what had to be done." The solitaire stretched out her arms, spinning around in a pirouette.
"But...but you helped me..." Imisha stammered. The solitaire laughed a mirthless laugh.
"Did the dancer indeed now? Tell her, did the seer find her master?"
"No...but..." I found myself, Imisha thought. But it sounded so pathetic that she kept the words for herself.
"It was all a ruse. It was her job to lead the seer as far away as possible from her master. To make sure your little goddess would be all alone when she lost everything. With no one to help her. Only then would she break and allow the seed of hatred to take root. Now she is becoming one of us."
Imisha wanted to scream but no words came out.
"The seer should rejoice. The great enemy will finally pay for what she has done to us. The Eldar will, at long last, have their vengeance." The harlequin's mask contorted into an ugly visage, one of pure hate.
"But at what cost?" Imisha managed in a whimper, looking around her. There was nothing but death as far as she could see. The daemon she had helped pass had felt more like her kin than the thing standing before her at this moment.
"Why, at any cost, of course. Farwell, seer."
With an elaborate bow and a flick of her hand, the solitaire cackled madly and exploded into a million tiny fragments of light, leaving Imisha once again alone on the surface of the dead world.
Trembling the seer's hand reach out after the fading mirage of the harlequin, as if searching for something she could no longer find. A lone tear ran down her cheek.
The golden thread of hope she had followed for so long, the dream of a better world for her children that had transformed her life, was no longer there.
All her dreams, everything she had lived and strived for. Gone.
A sharp pain ran through Imisha, causing her to fold over double in her chair, clutching her stomach. When she withdrew her hands they were soaking wet. For a moment she stared at them in disbelief. Then another contraction sent her tumbling from her chair onto the ground.
Her water had broken. The children were coming.