The Tower of Pleasure was a great black and smooth stone edifice that stretched high into the sky above one of the Seraph's empires many cities, on the outermost world. It was the seat of power, ruled by the Lady L'Marr, who had a direct link to her master by a mirror attuned to the sphere the daemon dwelled inside. She was aware, like her master, that a Doomed One approached the empire, but she had no idea that the Hand of Malal would come here first.
The bottom door of the tower was simple heavy wood, heavy and barred several times. Two legionaries in silver armour and silken cloaks, carrying spherical shields and short swords guarded it, pistols holstered on their belts.
Kheléqui emerged from the lesser municipality stepping up the wide stairs that led to the great gate, swords drawn. They paused, placing their shields before them in defensive positions, waiting for attack. Another crazed pleasure seeker, probably, but from his size he would be a tough one.
Kheléqui walked up to them, and one charged. The Doomed One stabbed him through his shield, lazily. The man fell to the floor, gasping, and Kheléqui removed his head.
The second Legionary was warier, backing to the door. Kheléqui turned aside his desperate stab and tore him apart. The swords split the door apart and he strode through, killing the guards behind it that been blinded by splinters.
It was not long before the inhabitants of the tower were aware of a stranger in the midst. To most this would have been unwelcome, but to the servants of Slaanesh it was chance to pursue sensation they had not felt for some time. Baying, whooping servants of pleasure came screaming with anticipation as they attacked Kheléqui. He tore them apart with the minimum of effort, parrying their clumsy attacks and killing then cleanly, his sword carving through other weapons and their bearers with ease. They had received no formal training in arms, they had learnt how to fight from a life of battle. In his way, so had Kheléqui but Scylla was a far better place to learn such skills and putting them into practise was essential.
Kheléqui tried to make their deaths as quick and clean as possible, to rob them of the dying agonies they would so enjoy.
Kheléqui continued up the long, winding stairwell, leaving bodies in his wake. The mistress of the tower could feel him approach.
She was still relatively human in features, but her eyes were black and wider than normal. Her face was pale, perfect as though it had been sculpted. She was lithe, attractive, but muscular. Her pale handed were terribly scarred, however, but she no longer saw them as her true hands anyway. She was naked, to display her luscious body, tattoos and devotional scars.
She looked into the mirror, a great polished silver piece that curved around a small round room and over the roof into a dome, a perfect half-sphere It was the highest room of the tower, and was entered only by a ladder of golden thread. It would break if someone a pound heavier than L'Marr put a foot upon it, and the woman was as light as she was beautiful. The trapdoor was also protected by an enslaved daemon - only a true servant of Slaanesh could overpower its essence and live.
"Seraph! The Doomed One is here!" she cried, her voice soprano and elegant, words flowing from her pale tongue and thin, supple lips like music, poetry.
"Face him," replied the Seraph, his words harmonising gently.
"Yes, master," she intoned, without a hint of reluctance. She left the room, and when into her own chambers below. She took out her whips, which were an leathery black, and gripped them. Suddenly the tiny haft extended over her hand, barbs digging into her hands so that they could not be removed until they had their fill of pleasure. She bit her tongue at the pleasure as her rich blood seeped down her wrists and dripped onto the floor and ran slowly down her body.
Kheléqui ascended the final stair to the chambers atop the tower, and two final guards in golden armour attacked him, centurions, champions of chaos with little compare. One carried a two-pronged spear, designed to pin, and a short, one-edged sword made to decapitate. The other wielded a small spiked mace of dark iron in one hand and a stabbing-knife in the other. It had no edge, just an exceptionally sharp point that would easily punch through even the strongest armour.
The Hand of Malal was revealed. He was huge, easily seven feet in height, and he had a handsome face, pale with strong cheekbones and dark eyebrows. He had a long black ponytail, tipped in purest white. Kheléqui's left eye was totally white, his right utterly black. One void, one oblivion. He wore only neat black trousers, devoid of decoration. His pale skin was marked with black tattoos that had grown out of his very flesh. They were of tendrils and talons clawing down his arms and legs, up his neck to his chin. They did not quite touch his face, but curled away from it. His body was a mass of daemonic hands, claws, tendrils and similar, in some maddening pattern.. His back was adorned with tattoos of midnight black angel wings. In each hand he gripped a sword with but one edge, and a point made for stabbing. One was black with a white handle, the other white with a black handle. Both were coated in blood, as was the alabaster skin of the Doomed One.
The first guard moved quickly, thrusting with his spear. The black sword cut the spear in two. The other blade moved faster than the eyes of any watcher bar the Seraph, and the man's head fell off. The other swung his mace at Kheléqui, but the Malalite ducked back and then flew forward , stabbing both swords up the very haft. He pulled them out and kicked the body aside.
The mistress of the tower charged, her whips hissing as they sliced through the air, her true hands revealed at last.
Kheléqui's chest and back burst outwards, his tattoos coming to life. Black claws, hands and tendrils writhed upon his chest and abdomen, and two great wings unfolded from his back, splattering the room with blood and pieces of torn skin.
The mistress of Slaanesh faltered for a moment before renewing her attack with greater fury, whips slicing across Kheléqui's flesh, cutting him. She danced around him, her whips leaving gashes and bruises across his body. He swiped at her once or twice, but she dodged aside with prenatural agility, writhing and dancing like one of the cities many pleasure girls. She giggled, and winked at Kheléqui, but then one sword found its mark and left deep gash in her left arm, bright blood dribbling onto her whip and arm. She moaned in masochistic pleasure, and her attacks became fiercer, faster. Like so many of Slaanesh's favoured servants, pain fuelled her.
A whip wrapped around Kheléqui's leg, barbs driving into her skin. L'Marr tried to pull him over, but her whip let go of the Doomed One's leg with a squeal as the sword moved downwards to slice it.
What Lady L'Marr had no idea was that Kheléqui was testing her to see how much effort the mistress of the tower would need to kill. Not enough, it seemed, for this charade to continue for any longer. With a symmetrical movement he severed her hands, whips attached, at the wrists. They writhed on the floor, dying. The mistress closed her eyes and panted in pleasure as her blood haemorrhaged all over the floor, but Kheléqui grabbed her by the throat with one of the clawed hands upon his chest, lifting her off the ground.
He swung both swords, and she fell apart in front of his blank eyes.
He strode onwards, ignoring the sights of L'Marr's personal chambers, and he proceeded through to the mirror room. The golden ladder of thread was nothing to him, his wings beat and he cut the ladder down. The enslaved Slaanesh daemon sent spurts of fatal pain and shivers of lethal pleasure coursing through his body, but he forced the vile power of the Flesh God from his own, stabbing hard with the white sword. The trapdoor, emblazoned with dark symbols, melted away into black curling smoke with a parting scream. He rose into the dome, surveyed it slowly, then drove each sword into the silver. The false mirror of silver shattered as though it was a real mirror, and in a moment of endless reflected universes from each shard Kheléqui leapt into a fragment that showed the gaze of the Seraph.
He emerged inside the Seraph's silver sphere, through a ragged crack it seemed. His wings held him suspended in the air, facing his anatomical foe.
"Seraph."
"Doomed One. To whom do I have the honour of addressing?" replied the Seraph in its usual overlapping tones. Kheléqui could see the larynx move, see the throat tremble as the words were formed.
"You may address me simply as the Hand of Malal."
The name of another god had not been spoken in this room ever. Muscles twitched on the Seraph's face in angry annoyance.
"Very well, Hand. What brings you here? Business or pleasure?" it trilled.
"Business, Seraph, but don't worry. I won't kill you yet, that would sadly come under pleasure. I'm here to make a deal."
"Really? Do my girls have such a good reputation? Or would you prefer my boys?"
Kheléqui did not rise to it. "If you wish, I can kill you and find another willing to negotiate."
The Seraph chuckled beautifully. "Name your deal, Hand."
"There is a man Malal wishes dead, although man is certainly not what he should be called. A daemon prince, like yourself, one of the god you hate so much; Khorne."
Speaking that name was even more of an affront than Malal. The Seraph scowled.
"He has built himself an empire, or at least a base, upon a world. He has sent raids and attacks out for centuries, testing for weaknesses in empires like your own and destroying others. Many Khornate raids have been the actions of the Vermillion Knight. He is a daemon prince of Khorne who thinks. He plans. He plots the best ways to provide the most bloodshed and death and a result is much more favoured than most of Khorne's daemons, crazed killers and nothing more. He must be put down."
"Why cannot you kill him, Hand?"
"He is powerful, Seraph. Probably more so than you, and he is protected well from any attack by excellent soldiers, not the incompetents you posted in the tower, and enslaved psykers. I can give you his location, and you will wage to war against him. I will be there to strike the killing blow."
"And in return?"
"You live, Seraph, as does your empire, at least for a while."
"To do this would render my empire weakened, unprotected. The cursed Nurglite Dagon has been making advances for some time against my empire, stretching his forces towards it. Were I to send legions to battle some distant foe he would attack."
"Perhaps, but rest assured if he does so he will soon regret it. What would happen to his empire if he died?"
"The people of it would become confused - it has remained unchanged, stagnant and stable for longer than any of them have lived. It would splinter, the greatest champions fighting one another for power, his armies clashing. Other empires would raid him, pirates would gleefully attack, lands once protected now lawless killing zones. Khorne forces would be drawn to the conflict quickly."
"And so you lose an old foe. Your will empire be protected far better by you agreeing to my offer than what your soldiers offer."
"Why should I trust you won't kill me the second the Vermillion Knight falls?"
"You have my word."
"Is the word of a Malalite worth anything?"
"It is worth more than the word of a Slaaneshi, snake."
The Seraph shrugged, Kheléqui watching his shoulder blades pulled around by various twitching muscles, slick with blood.
"So it will be, then,"
The daemon held out a hand, offering Kheléqui to shake it. He could see muscles around the bones of his fingers, see the white knuckles, see the pulsing arteries pump blood there.
The Hand of Malal took it wordlessly and shook it lightly. It felt wrong, but not a drop of blood was upon his hand when they let go.
"I shall leave you now," Kheléqui said a smile crossing his stony lips "I'm sorry about your mirror, and your whore."
The Seraph made a dismissive gesture. It knew what it was.
Kheléqui was gone, but the hateful presence of Malal still filled the befouled room simply from the mention of its name and that of the Slaughterer. It would need to be replaced utterly.
The Seraph smiled to itself. A new chance to pursue new sensations was never to be ignored.