Extremus Fors Chapter 12

By the time they had been granted an audience Rebre had the enforcers fully under her spell. It had taken time and effort but their wills were blunt and unsubtle. With a combination of pheromones and subliminal cues she convinced Millic and Goresh that she must be taken to their leader, not as a prisoner but as a visiting worthy, one to be treated with the utmost respect. The spells had been increasingly familiar as she practised, old skills coming back as if never gone.

Now she walked through the derelict Forge-fane, taking in the state of her host's degeneration. Once mighty halls were filled with squatters, hulking men and wiry women, talking in low grumbles that cut off as she passed by. She drew many stares but did not deign to look back, she acted as a ruler touring the slums, gracing the lowlies with her presence. They lurked in the ruins of majesty, unable to comprehend the wonders they desecrated as they dwelt in squalor.

She passed dilapidated machine shops, where man and machine were hammered together. Crude tools suturing mechanical limbs onto bodies with none of the customary rituals the Tech-priests demanded. In other halls bodies taken in raids were cut open, so implants and glands could be removed. She saw two twisted surgeons rip out an adrenal gland and salivate over the prize. They soon fell to squabbling, throwing punches as they fought for the delicacy. Garages had been turned into an algal farm, where workers with glassic eyes stirred mouldy trays with long poles. A Templum was now a latrine and a production line converted into a hall for styling dyed hair.

Rebre observed all this with cool disdain. These people were pathetic dregs, leftovers of a worthier time, clinging to the vestiges of glory. It was unlikely they knew how far they had fallen, unable to grasp the depths they had sunk into. They were scavengers and looters, worthless and unworthy. Even their dreams were shallow, thinking no further than surviving to the next day. The grandest ideal they could conceive was a vague myth of a saviour leading them back to the sun. That Rebre could use.

Soon they ascended to the summit of the Forge-fane and here they entered what passed for a throne room. Rebre recognised it had once been a Logic Engine room, where Data-looms housed Machine Spirits. Now it was a tawdry ruin. Cogitators had been scooped out, leaving hollow shells of circuit and wire, like rotten teeth in a gum. Warm air billowed out of vents that once pumped chill into the room and flickering lumen orbs wavered uncertainly, unintentionally casting the illusion of firelight over the room. Smelly furs were thrown over the cold stone floor and leathery banners of human skin lined the walls, failing to the graffiti beneath. Rebre spent a moment reading the ancient carvings and saw faded words declaring that for a good time one should visit Berlinda, that Wacra was an inbred moron and that someone called Heore had shafted Melina right here.

Rebre's estimation of these fools fell another notch, but she put it from her mind as she cast her gaze upon the chief of this tribe. Lugdac sat in a throne carved out of a Cogitator, flanked by twin banners of human leather, dyed yellow and marked with an orange circle to depict a sun. He was surprisingly slim, not the bulked out monster she expected, but thinned by years of exposure to hard elements. His arms were slight compared to Goresh's, yet her eye noted hard muscles underneath, and she did not doubt his strength or speed. The left side of his face was metal, with a staring augmetic eye, and his right hand mechanical from the wrist down. His bald head had many scars and the set of his jaw was grim and unforgiving. Lugdac didn't stand out but he oozed hardness, one who had lived where louder and bolder men had fallen, one who had taken every hit life had to give and endured. Trial and tribulation had not weakened this one, it had hardened him like old oak. A survivor through and through.

Lugdac looked upon the visitors and grumbled, "What's this then?"

Millic spoke up, "We brought you a guest chief."

"I told you to keep her locked up, till I decided what to do with her."

Goresh however countered, "She has much to tell you."

"Like what?"

"I…" Goresh's addled wits stumbled over the question, "I dunno."

Rebre took the opportunity to step forward, "Great and wise Lugdac, I am Rebre and I bring you glad tidings!"

Lugdac didn't reply but from the shadows a harsh voice echoed, "Show respect!"

Rebre's eyes slid to the corner and from a gaggle of hangers-on and lackeys emerged a most curious individual, heavily augmented with metal callipers for arms and a face made up of multiple glassic eyes and a metal vox-horn. Over the floor they floated, a body without legs held aloft by straps bound to the waist and shoulders. Those straps connected to an oval machine that hovered overhead, shimmering with anti-grav forces. They looked like a blimp hanging from a gasbag, drifting forward with a swaying motion as they hung from the straps.

"Shove off Werrey," Millic snapped, "This doesn't concern you old woman."

"Watch your tone girl!" this newcomer snarled, "I gave you your gifts, I can take them back."

Some form of degenerate Tech-adept, Rebre guessed, the barbarian's equivalent of a savant. She supposed someone in this rabble had to specialise in technology, the feral shaman hoarding knowledge and dispensing it as a witch doctor would charms. It seemed this Werrey had bartered her knowledge into a position as an advisor, playing the part of vizier. Not a bad scheme, but it stood in opposition to Rebre's goals.

Rebre looked down her nose as the balloon-woman and uttered, "Who are you to address me so?"

"Who am I?!" Werrey snarled, "I am the keeper of Lazar's gifts! The mistress of Old Tech! I stand at the right hand of the Lords of Sinew and Steel, I make the people strong with metal. Who are you to question me?!"

"I am the emissary of the stars," Rebre uttered coolly, "I bring you word from Lazar himself."

That produced gasps of awe from the enforcers and Werrey cried, "Blasphemy! Rip out her tongue for taking Lazar's name in vain!"

Yet Lugdac sat forward in his throne and snarled, "Shut it hag, I'm talking. You, you claim to come to us from the stars?"

"I do," Rebre declared, "I bring you great gifts and the revelations of pleasure and pain. I am here to make you beautiful and beloved."

Lugdac scowled, "You speak nonsense, what is pain but life, what is pleasure but a distraction?"

Damn, Rebre berated herself, she'd misjudged this one's heart. A hard life had stripped these people of decadence, grinding down their desires to base survival. They had little use for indolence and beauty and grace, love was nothing to them but a passing meeting in the night. Promises of carnal pleasure would find scant purchase on their souls. Yet the gifts of Slaanesh were many, and the ways to the heart manifold.

Rebre hastily shifted tone and uttered, "Wise Lugdac, I am here to make your visions real, to offer you the means to achieve your goals."

Lugdac snorted, "I need no help from the likes of you. I have led the Sunsider clan for longer than any of these fools have drawn breath. I bled the Nightsiders and broke the Icefield-clan in my youth. I hold back the Undying. My name is feared among the clans, the Lords of Sinew and Steel do not dare cross me!"

There it was, Rebre understood, glory, this Lugdac craved glory. "That is why I come to you, above all others. Lazar has heard of the might and power of Lugdac and sends his envoy to the most worthy chief of all. Your deeds ring loud in the heavens, but they could be louder still. As it stands your name will endure for ten generations, but with my aid you could become eternal. Your name will last so long as men draw breath."

"This is too much!" Werrey shrilled, "This one claims to speak for Lazar, it is offensive. Let me take her down to the slabs and chop her up for spare parts!"

"No one's touching her," Goresh rumbled without knowing why.

But Lugdac snarled, "Shut it! You woman, you promise much but I have yet to see proof. Why should I believe a word you have to say?"

Rebre had been preparing for this. All the while they had been talking she had been building her most potent glamour, a spell of seeming so mighty that none of these lowly dregs could withstand it. At the accusation she completed the cantrip, casting a blaze of light across the room. Gasps of awe let slip as the fools beheld glory incarnate. Her height towered over the room and eyes shone with captured stars. Her hair was a cascade of midnight and hands caressed the heavens. Her stance was that of a goddess and her face was the embodiment of perfection. To look upon her was to see one's ideal made real, each person seeing something different but majestic. Their personal dream of glory brought to life, demanding obedience and fealty.

Thuds rang loud as the various people fell to their knees and Millic gasped, "The Star Queen!"

"She comes, she comes at last," Goresh breathed as his eyes filled with tears.

Even Werrey breathed, "Such depthless knowledge, such wonders of Old Tech."

Rebre felt the strain of ensorceling so many minds at once draining her strength quickly, the demands of the spell taxing even for a Sorcerer favoured by Gods and Daemons. Yet she turned her gaze upon Lugdac and proclaimed, "I have come, as was prophesied!"

Lugdac stared in disbelief, "I don't believe it, you've come… you've come for me?"

"I come to you Lugdac, for only you have proved worthy. Join me and we shall rule this world together."

"To unite the clans, defeat the Undying and lead us back to the sun."

"So shall it be," Rebre declared, "Take my hand and I shall show you wonders."

Lugdac didn't blink, he couldn't, even a second without the glory in his eyes would be too cruel. He stood up from his throne of ruin and stepped forward, arm held out as if imploring a lover to return. Rebre clasped his hand firmly as she focused her spells upon him, wrapping his mind in chains unbreakable. His will was hers, though he would never know it, though all would think he was unchanged he was now her slave forevermore. Rebre smiled coldly, unseen by all, the first step on her journey was complete, soon she would take the next, to total dominance of this ice-ball and then to the stars themselves.