Incantator Congressus Chapter 36

In the first hour Arvael had a suspicion where they were heading and by the second he was sure. Straight as an arrow they ran across Holdfast, chasing Jubila's tracks across the hilltops. They could not have been more than a few minutes behind and yet they never caught sight of him. The tracks grew more numerous, then changed to deep wheel marks and churned earth but they never wavered from their heading and after the sixth hour Arvael could have found their destination on his own. Harbinger's ritual site, the place they had consciously chosen not to go, but it seemed cruel fate cared nothing for their opinion.

Finally they came to a halt before a wall of dull crystal. Thrice their height and thick enough to withstand their fiercest blows. Curved slightly, creating a ring around their destination. Arvael tried to scry above but it resisted his efforts, an immaterial shimmer blinding farsight and making it impossible to chart the interior. Featureless and blank as far as the eye could see, save for a single gap, leading inside then turning right to vanish.

"That's a problem," Jhur muttered as he eyed the walls.

Ashuay scoffed, "It's only a crude maze, can't even be that big."

"Great and terrible magics have been woven into this construct," Imix cautioned, "Traps and snares for the body and spirit. To step within is to endanger one's soul."

Arvael cast his eye down the interior and sighed, "The tracks lead inside, Jubila passed this way. If we are to catch him, we must follow."

"On that we agree," Sythah stated solemnly, "Our options are nil, we must dare the maze."

"Then there's no use standing about chatting," Chamat concluded.

The six surviving Librarians shared loaded glances but all knew there was no other way. Their sacred charge had been stolen and to give up the chase was unthinkable. They would have to face the danger within and meet it as best they can. Instinctively they drew together, closing ranks for mutual protection as they steeled their souls. Imix was the first to step inside and Arvael was relieved he didn't suddenly disappear, merely walking down the passage without any sign of distress. Quickly the rest followed, the air grew cold and the thin light was diminished by the high walls but other than that there seemed no immediate danger, yet Arvael didn't lower his guard.

They turned right and followed the passageway, then took a left and another right. Then they found their first fork in the road. Two passages spilt off, identical in all respects and with nothing to distinguish them. Arvael found nothing to recommend either route but Jhur suggested, "Head right."

"Why?" Ashuay queried.

"Because I'm right-handed," he replied.

"That's what you're basing this on?!" Ashuay hissed, "Sythah, knock some sense into him… Sythah?"

All heads turned and Arvael was stunned to realise the Librarian was not to be seen. The passageway behind was bare and straight, with no turnings or junctions for Sythah to have wandered down. He hadn't gone ahead, they would have seen, but there was no hint of where he had vanished.

Arvael nervously stated, "There's no way he could have turned aside."

"The maze has taken him," Imix declared warily.

"Some form of fractal nexus," Chamat mused, "A multi-dimensional knot of spacetime, or a tesseract…"

"Quit guessing," Ashuay muttered, "Seems we are going to be separated and picked off. Unless someone has the means to penetrate a Daemon's spellcraft?"

"Without knowing exactly what we face, no," Imix sighed.

"Then we press on and trust one of us makes it through to the other side," Jhur declared.

Imix gripped his staff tight and declared, "Illusion and lies await but the righteous heart may withstand any travail if it is true to itself. Dark deceits will try to claim us, but the shadows always yield to the light of truth. Remember always who you are and heed not calls to stray from your course."

Arvael followed them as further did they press. Turns came and went without comment and soon they were truly lost. Arvael counted footsteps as the minutes crawled by and reckoned they had walked several times the length of the maze. That space was twisted within was clear but hardly shocking, his own Order's tower housed a Library of similar design, but this felt hostile and malevolent in a way his home never did. He spied enticing sights in the corner of his eye, glimpses of lavish feasts and blood-soaked fields of victory, but when he turned to look they were gone. Then when he looked back he found himself alone, walking without companions.

Arvael steeled himself, knowing the test was at hand and continued on. He took a left at the next fork and was surprised to see a body laid upon the ground, face down but with a huge hole blown through its spine below the backpack. "Sythah?!" he cried as he leapt to the corpse but when he rolled it over he was confronted by his own face. Despite all his years of training bile arose in Arvael's throat and he jerked back. The face was his own, identical in every way save for the cold light of death in the eyes.

"Nothing but an illusion," he told himself as he stood up and stepped over it. He left the sickening sight behind and carried on but soon discovered it was not alone. Another dead Arvael waited at the next corner, and another and another, a parade of dead Arvaels. Each one had been killed by different means. Guts torn out, throat slashed, speared through the hearts, one was nothing but his head mounted on a pike. They nauseated him but he was a Librarian, and he told himself, "It will take more than false visions to scare me."

"I'm sorry to inform you they aren't fake," a familiar voice uttered.

Arvael spun about and found himself confronted by another Arvael, this one very much alive. This face was weathered and bore many additional scars. Yet more surprising was his plate, blackened from head to toe, with one pauldron left Storm Herald grey and the other silver and etched with Inquisitorial symbols. The distinctive heraldry of the Deathwatch.

Arvael backed up a pace and hissed, "Who are you?!"

"I'm you dolt," the other replied, "Or rather a possible you."

"You speak riddles, are you me or not?!" Arvael spat

"Throne I was simpleton back then," the other growled irately, "Be quicker on the uptake, if you want to survive long enough to become me."

Arvael swallowed as he recalled his training and guessed, "You are only a potential future, a version of myself that could, yet is not certain, to be."

"Finally. Yes, I am what you may become, if you make certain choices in the days to come. The Daemons Harbinger and Ozymandias have forged a Tesseract, a confluence of time as well as space. You stand within a nexus of possibility and your decision within will define your future."

Arvael looked down and questioned, "A future where I join the Deathwatch? I never imagined that in my future."

"Crap happens," the other sniffed.

Arvael glanced at the dead bodies and asked, "What of them?"

"They made the wrong choices."

"But how did they die?" he pressed.

"You go to confront a Greater Daemon, the futures where you survive are rare."

Arvael gulped, "I see scores of dead me's and only one of you… I don't like those odds. You've done this once already; tell me what choices to make."

"If I tell you, it will change the outcomes. You must navigate your own path."

"That is extremely unhelpful," Arvael snapped.

"Tough, I had to walk this way once, you must do the same. Trust your feet and not eyes."

Arvael growled, "I'm getting the impression I don't like myself all that much."

"When you've done the terrible things I have, you won't either."

Arvael blinked and the Deathwatch version of himself was gone. He sighed deeply and turned to press on. Turns came and went, as did the dead bodies. If each of them was a future possibility then he cared little for the odds. The number of futures where he died seemed to be mounting and so far he had only seen one where he lived. If this was divination then he was suddenly glad that he never developed the ability.

Arvael was relieved when he turned a corner and found a version of himself still alive. This one was in the same heraldry but his iconography was more elaborate and detailed. Runes and marks covered his plate and they hurt the eye to dwell upon. Older by some years, but not so many as the first vision. He seemed calm and collected and yet a gleam in his eye seemed expectant, as if he had been looking forward to this.

Arvael halted as he stated, "You've been waiting for me."

"Of course," the newcomer said, "You walk into danger and need my wisdom, I can offer you the means to defeat Harbinger."

"You have the power?" Arvael probed.

"The power is within you already, you have only to open your mind to the limitless possibilities of your soul. You are mighty Arvael but you could be magnificent, you could soar."

"I'd settle for knowing the right way to go," Arvael retorted.

"That's easy," the newcomer quipped, "It's that way."

Arvael saw him gesture down towards a junction, seemingly identical to the ones he had walked already. Arvael however did not step down it, instead he took a small token from his belt, a lightning bolt emblem, and threw it down the passage. As the gewgaw entered the space it contorted, twisted and warped by intense gravity. It stretched like putty, then ripped apart and splattered brass across the walls.

"Very clever!" the newcomer laughed, "What tipped you off?!"

Arvael growled, "The last me I met told me nothing useful, you are all too helpful. You try to lead me astray; I smell the taint of Chaos upon your soul!"

"Yes, I am you unbound, free of restricting dogma and limiting doctrine. I am what you become if you embrace the boundless power within your grasp. The Dark Gods offer anything you can imagine and you can become glorious with their backing!"

Arvael spat, "I would never become you. I know not what evil choices you made but you strayed too far into the darkness. I would die before becoming you!"

"So I told myself once, but you have no idea what horrors squat in your future. Death and disgrace are only the beginning, but I can help you avoid that."

"You offer nothing and I reject you. Begone shade, you are not me and never will be," Arvael snarled as he turned and strode away.

Yet a mocking call followed, "You cannot escape me, I am always with you!"

Arvael strode off, closing his mind to the possibility. Chaos ever sought to tempt the Psyker, he was no stranger to the wiles of the archenemy. He had always rejected them before and he always would, so he told himself. He was almost glad when he saw the next shade. This one seemed identical to him, every mark and icon unchanged. The figure stood with eyes closed; face bearing the same pattern of scars and seemingly the same age, a future not too far away by his reckoning. Arvael opened his mouth to hail this alternate self, but then the eyes opened and pits of eternal night were revealed, where stars were born and died.

"Harbinger!" Arvael cried in shock. The alternate-self grinned and pounced, grabbing him about the gorget and slamming him into a wall. Arvael's head rang as he was hoisted aloft effortlessly and shook like a rag doll, helpless to resist the infernal strength of his foe. He tried to summon a telekinetic blast to break free but the possessed Arvael twisted and threw him across the way, smacking his head into a crystal barrier. Arvael's head swam and he couldn't summon his powers but he felt cruel hands grab him as a hissing whisper cried, "You are mine!"

"Nev…" Arvael gasped deliriously, "Never…"

The host of a Daemon growled, "You cannot avoid this fate. Harbinger is going to take your flesh, one way or another."

"I won't…"

"No clever words can avert your doom, no last-minute escapes for you. Harbinger will triumph and take you as his prisoner, to torture in the fires of Harasmaha. A century or a millennia of defiance, it matters not, your will eventually breaks and you become his host!"

"Death first!" Arvael cried.

The Daemonic vessel sneered in contempt but then a stern voice cried out, "Avant fiend! By the Sacred bonds of Greaya you shall not take him!"

The evil shade spun about and snarled, "You have no power here, old man!"

"I have strength enough to break you," came the stony rebuke, "Test me, if you dare."

Suddenly the hands holding him vanished and Arvael slumped. His head swam but he saw a bulky figure loom overhead, blocking out the thin slice of sky. He blinked furiously and wheezed, "Imix…"

"No, I am not the Shade-Seer, may his restless spirit find the peace it deserves."

Arvael looked up and saw a version of himself, older and more weathered than any other seen so far. This face was craggy and sported a goatee, iron-grey and speckled with white. Pain was in those pale eyes, things he had seen and things he had done that burdened his soul. He wore Terminator plate and carried a Force-Axe while his markings were those of a senior Librarian, very senior.

"Epistolary Arvael?" Arvael gasped.

"Chief Librarian," the terminator corrected.

Arvael forced himself to his feet and squinted as he questioned, "I'm going to become Chief Librarian?"

"It's a possibility, but not if you don't start applying yourself and stop daydreaming like a slothful waste of the Emperor's gene-seed."

"Wonderful," Arvael grunted, "Another me who hates himself."

The Terminator's lip twitched as he said, "You'll get over it boy, if you live."

"About that…" Arvael probed.

"Sorry but I can't tell you what path to take. This is your moment, not mine. All I can say I trust yourself, trust your comrades but don't trust your eyes."

"I'm grasping that already," Arvael snorted, "These visions are turning my head inside out."

"Visions are only the start," the haggard Chief Librarian sighed, "Deadly danger awaits, but remember you do not stand alone. Find the others, confront Harbinger together and expect the unexpected. And if by some miracle you survive, steel yourself for the consequences. Death is the least of the horrors you face."

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Arvael snapped, but in doing so he blinked and the Terminator was gone. Arvael sighed deeply and knew there was no point trying to summon him back. All he could do was carry on and try to navigate this maze. Surely more visions lurked ahead but there was no way to avoid them. All he could do was keep walking and try to find some way through, while not going mad. Weary already he turned and walked away, with no idea of what nightmares were to come.