Liriel released her hold on the stones with a flash of relief. The roiling horror of the Warp receded from her mind, the protections of the runes around her safely warding her from its denizens. Her scrying stones fell to the ground in a clatter, and she bent to collect them once more.
Nothing. The path ahead remained shadowy and uncertain, yet she could not understand why. She was skilled enough to divine the future, tease the probable from the impossible, trace the threads of fate. But it was as if some other force was twisting the future, or casting a veil across the Warp. Such a task should be impossible; the power involved would be beyond even the greatest psyker.
Or perhaps it was yet more proof that she was not ready. Despite her bluster and supposed confidence, she was a century younger than any other Seer who had taken the title and felt keenly her lack of experience in the role. She put that thought from her mind with a savage shake of the head. She knew that it was entirely unhelpful, more likely than not to sabotage her future attempts at divining fate. Better to tend to her body and settle her mind instead. Though she had eaten before scrying - dried fruits and nuts left over from the previous day's dinner - every scrying session seemed to end with the Seer ravenous again. She would descend on the victuals of the palace kitchens with little of the grace and restraint that was expected of a Seer, doing her best to ignore the affronted looks of the staff and the pointed nonchalance of the aristocratic elite.
And afterwards, there was one activity which always improved her focus, unusual as it might be. Her body ached for the strain of combat, to test itself against another. It had been too long since she had fought anything but a beast in the wilds.
A pale morning sun illuminated the figures of nearly two dozen of the royal guard in training. Training swords and spears clattered against one another, made merely of iron-hard wood rather than crystal sharpened to razor edge or more exotic materials. Stripped of all vegetation but the most stubborn grasses, hard-packed dirt filled the majority of four fair-sized dueling circles and archery targets occupied the entirety of one side of the yard. The targets were no larger than Liriel's palm, and moved across a wooden fence in unpredictable patterns. The half-dozen or so arrows embedded in that fence already spoke to the reason these warriors were being assigned this practice.
At the center of the yard was an older warrior with a well-worn face, directing the others in their training. He ignored Liriel as she vaulted the the waist-high wall bordering the yard. There was a refuse barrel tucked into a corner, where broken arrow shafts and training dummies had been discarded. She tossed the remaining bones of her breakfast into the barrel.
She strode towards the centre of the yard, ignoring the curious looks cast her way from the warriors resting around the dueling circles. Instead, she raised her voice to carry it to the corners. "Hail, troop-leader. Are there any who might spar with me?"
Silence answered her as the warriors of the royal guard laid down their weapons. None spoke in answer. She waited, arms open, taking in the troop slowly. She couldn't quite read the emotion on their face; it was not unlike fear, but not directed at her. Still, the warriors remained silent. The master of the yard, the grizzled aeldar she had first addressed, finally responded. "It would be improper, honoured Seer, for us to spar with you. We've been given orders that you are not to be touched."
Embarrassment filled her to the tips of her ears, and she felt her face flush. She kept her face stoic and smothered the hot ember of anger that flared up within her. To be treated as a fragile doll was a worse insult than she had thought the pampered nobles here capable. "So be it then. I hope I shall not inconvenience you, troop-leader, if I trained here anyway. I need to feel the strain of the forms."
"It would be no trouble at all, Seer," the sergeant nodded his assent, grateful for the easy compromise.
She considered taking up a dueling circle for the exercise, as would be her right, but thought better of it. As much as it would gratify her, she recognized that the warriors here needed the training more than she did, even if they were moving their staves and swords lazily to her eye. The wages of peace, she recalled from one of the oldest stories of Khaine, were weakness.
Liriel took the first stance, the thought of Khaine allowing her to slide easily into her mantra, the gods' names rolling through her mind as she swung her staff through its opening movements. As she focused herself into the familiar words of the almost-prayer, she began to feel the Warp beyond the skein of reality. The endless abyss of daemons and madness, hungering ever and always for the slightest window into her world.
The second movement, and her limbs limbered, the weight of the staff as familiar to her as her own hands. Wider swings, sharper switches. The staff was quiescent yet in her grip, but the call of the Warp was strong, as if it could sense and reflect her anger, promising her satisfaction and amplifying itself off her emotions.
Her mind became an auger, sharp enough to open a hole in the veil between and precise enough to control the leak thereof. A small trickle of its power filled her, too small for the entities that swam through the empyrean hell to notice, but wild and raucous in her mind. The Warp itself was the stuff of dreams, the domain of emotion. Like all dreams, it was never far from nightmare, and only the laser-tight focus of her will restrained that trickle of power from overwhelming her.
Third movement. Grander now; her entire self consumed by the exercise. She leapt, the staff clearing the area around her. She spun, and it blurred the air. Limb, body, and weapon were all simply part of one unified system. The small excess of Warpstuff she allowed to leak through her grounded itself in the channels in the staff, energizing the whole. The runes in the weapon stabilized the flow, regulated it safely. The prized result of sober and cautious Warpcraft, the pinnacle of aeldari arts. The crystals in the head of the staff activated as the Warp filled them, unpredictable energy forming at their edges as they extended themselves, carving paths of vacuum through the air. She imagined she could feel a shrill keening, as if tiny, voracious mouths were screaming for blood at the borders between Warp-spawned singularity and physical space.
The fourth movement was calmer, the staff swooping in graceful arcs as she finished the form. Her body, loosed of all its tension, fell into the patterns easily. Liriel's focus remained sharp, paying no attention to the watching troops but monitoring instead her own body, keeping track of the errant twinge, the overstrained ligament, the weakened muscle. The forms were not intended to be used in combat; she had been in enough fights in her life to understand that. Real combat was quick, vicious, dirty. It had no place for the elegant moves and elaborate gestures.
Their purpose instead was twofold; a way for a warrior to test their body and ensure it was in proper working order, and as practice for those who used the psychic arts to assist themselves in battle. It was all too easy to allow oneself to be consumed by the rush of bloodshed, losing the mental stillness that was necessary to avoid being swallowed by the Warp. To pierce the veil safely - as much as that term could be used in matters of that hellish place - one needed to be able to split their mind between survival and sorcery.
She came to herself as the last vestiges of the Warp power left her, breathing heavily in the chill morning air. The crystal shards ceased their mournful keening, and her limbs felt suddenly, pleasantly, heavy. Liriel finally allowed herself to notice her audience. The warriors of the royal guard had ceased their practice and in the centre of the yard was a familiar figure. Tellyth looked her over with some interest and, seeing her exercises finished, approached her.
"You fight differently than last I saw you," he said by way of greeting.
Liriel stood straighter, gripping the staff tightly lest he see how tired the morning's scrying and exertion in the forms had made her. "I was untrained the last time we fought."
Tellyth nodded, though whether he believed her she couldn't say. "My men here said that you were looking for a sparring partner. I don't think anyone here considers themselves your equal, but my morning is available if you're still willing."
Liriel considered him carefully. Tellyth was a loyal servant of the King; this was known by all. He had risen to his position during the Ashawir Coup, and remained a fixture of the royal court ever since. Anathan, who had little positive to say of anyone, had noted the steadfastness of the leader of the royal guard. She wondered what he desired from her, beneath the veneer of his politeness. She had thought that if anyone was to be genuine in their intention, it would be a warrior like Tellyth; he was also the most likely noble in the palace to understand the stakes of the problem facing them.
"Certainly. Allow me a moment to recover and I'd be pleased to join you."
Tellyth nodded and walked to a dueling circle, the aedari inside swiftly vacating the ring for their leader. Liriel followed more slowly, catching her breath. Her opponent brought no weapon with him into the training circle, so she set her staff leaning against the wall at the yard's edge. She adjusted her tehra, allowing greater freedom of movement. The forms had revealed that the garment as she had arranged it limited the mobility of her shoulder. Just before she crossed the ring's edge to join him, however, Tellyth called out to the sergeant in charge of the troops, no longer training but instead assembling to watch the sparring session.
"Myrvach, perhaps your men would be put to better use training outside the city? I saw a few of them winded during their bouts; a few hours running could do them some good."
The sergeant nodded in understanding at the order, commanding the men to form up and continue the morning's training farther from the palace. Liriel and Tellyth watched them go, the former sure now that the latter had some agenda for this meeting.
"Shall we begin?" Tellyth said nonchalantly, assuming a ready pose.
"Are we to pretend that your arrival here was a coincidence?" Liriel countered, standing similarly. The two opponents began circling one another three paces apart, looking for any weakness.
"The captain of the royal guard seeking out the King's Seer would be noted. For him to chance upon her in the training yard is mere coincidence," Tellyth answered, a probing jab punctuating his words.
Liriel gave ground to it rather than reveal her style. Another moment passed in silence as he pressed closer, giving her no room to manoeuver to the side. "And why does the captain of the royal guard need to see me?"
"I should think that obvious to a Seer," he said, attacking more aggressively.
She ignored the feint from his left hand, pivoting to block his opposite leg on the strike. The blow jarred her, so before she could punish his vulnerable position he sprung back. There was at least enough space to move to the side now. They resumed their circling as she responded. "The sickness. Did the King send you to confirm it? Or did you already notice?"
"Apparently not so obvious. No, I have other suspicions." He struck again, driving her back with a flurry of blows. Liriel dodged what she could, blocked what she could not, and waited for her opportunity. A few of his blows struck home past her defenses; a punch deflected to her side, a kick that she caught in her upper thigh - avoiding collapsing her knee by bending her leg at the right time. He was larger than her, with longer reach, but he was not stronger - or at least, he was pretending not to be. Still, drawing him out would likely do more harm than good. He was nearly as skilled as she was at ranging his opponent. She needed to take a risk.
She dove closer, accepting a blow to her ear to get within his reach. It took only a single blow from her elbow to daze him. He grappled her by instinct, trying to twist her arm out of its socket. Liriel gritted her teeth against the pain and drove her free hand into his sternum once, twice, and a third time before he collapsed, gasping, to the ground.
"Enough!" he choked out, and Liriel stepped back from him as he climbed back to his feet.
She stood more quickly than she should have, brushing dirt from her tehra with both hands despite the pain. Some prideful part of her would not allow the trembling limb any rest. Tellyth appraised her once more with something like wariness in his eyes, soothing his bruised ribs. "You're a much better fighter than you used to be."
"Like I said, I was untrained last time we fought."
"And yet you managed to do quite a bit of damage."
Liriel shrugged. "You weren't expecting me to attack, and your guard was down. What else could you expect?"
Tellyth grunted his assent, then motioned to the racks of training staves. "Perhaps you would like to spar with a weapon? I don't think unarmed combat is an appropriate test for either of us."
"It suits me just fine," Liriel shrugged. "But first, explain. If not for my warning, why seek me out?"
He did not speak as he retrieved the staves, selecting straight-cut weapons of dark wood a hand-span taller than himself. They were both padded at their ends with tight bundles of cloth. Liriel thought the padding would blunt all but the strongest of blows. However as she caught the one he tossed to her, she realized how thin the cloth truly was; there was enough there to lower the risk of a lethal strike in training, but a broken bone or concussion was still a possibility.
"We normally use reed bundles for the newest recruits, but given what I know you can do, I thought that might be a little insulting to you," Tellyth said by way of explanation, taking his place at the opposite end of the dueling circle. "As to your question, I have seen no evidence of this sickness you claim is killing us. But there is another that strikes at the court, one that I was hoping for your help in combatting."
There was no signal to start the bout. As he spoke, the combatants simply approached one another. Liriel was less familiar with the staff than her own hands, despite her training with Anathan. She could not take similar risks with this weapon; a single heavy strike could incapacitate her if she acted too rashly. Tellyth, by his movements, remained assured of himself, the weapon familiar to him. Again, he started with probing attacks and this time Liriel stood her ground, moving laterally rather than backing away.
"You don't believe me, then." Her staff flashed forward as he advanced, forcing him to block hastily. Liriel followed the blow through, swinging the opposite end of the weapon to his right side. "You think I speak lies? To what end?"
He was too busy to respond, his staff a blur before him as he fended off her strikes. Their weapons made a staccato drumbeat as they circled around the ring. But he defended himself well, suffering no more than a weak strike to the arm by the time she was forced to break off her attack. As Liriel caught her breath, he spoke. "Misdirection. Create a panic about one plague to hide the evidence of another. There are many people in the court with designs upon the King, many intrigues I have neither the time nor temperament to root out. I have stopped, by miracle and skill in equal measure, a number of threats to his reign over the years. A Seer on my side would help me root them out entirely."
"I bear the King no ill will," Liriel said, hiding the guile of the lie with an obvious feint, transitioning the obvious swing into a narrow blow, "but I am not a soldier, and I am certainly not your soldier. You try to pull weeds, but there are no crops left in the soil."
"Then what is the point of your own endeavour?" Tellyth asked as he ducked the staff, thrusting his weapon forward and forcing Liriel to dodge aside. "If we cannot clear the daggers at our backs, how exactly do you intend to cure the planet entire?"
Liriel gave him distance, unsure now of where to attack. They had each taken the measure of the other. He no longer had a significant reach advantage, but she had less experience with the staff. She probed his defences again, looking for a weakness to exploit before he could go on the offensive again. "A fair point. I will admit to focusing overmuch on my goals. But what do you suspect that I could assist with?"
"You are a Seer," Tellyth said simply as he lunged forward, his thrusting staff batting aside her hasty swipe. He followed as she retreated, his weapon coming at her from all angles. "Find evidence of the corruption of the tribal leaders. Theft, malfeasance, treason. I need to know who my enemies are to strike at them."
"But you cannot investigate the other nobles yourself. You're needed here, guarding the palace and the King." He was overextended, his attacks outpacing his footwork. Liriel danced forward, narrowly avoiding the backswing of his staff and trying to hook her own between his legs.
He dodged through the attack deftly, following the momentum of his own swing to end up by her side. He bore his staff down on her, locking her weapon up and shoving her to the floor. He ended the movement with the point of his staff at her throat. "Precisely. My actions and movements are known. I cannot extend my gaze in any direction without a conspiracy rising at my back."
Tellyth offered her a hand as she rose, then they both stepped away from each other.
This time, the duel was faster, the strikes harder. Both combatants were aware of the skill of the other, each unwilling to allow the other an unearned strike. They fought warily, both more comfortable at a distance than close in. Liriel was the first to speak in the first lull of the melee. "And what of my warnings? Strike down the traitors, and I assure you another ten will rise in their place. As well hunt Hoec's eternal phoenixes."
Tellyth did not answer at first, catching his breath after their furious exchange. At length, he said, "Due to this sickness, I presume. How sure are you of its existence? What evidence is there?"
"Let me answer with a question; how long do aeldari live?" She feinted low to his left, then brought the other end of her staff high to the right.
He backpedalled from the attack, correctly predicting the feint and deflecting the true blow. "Two, perhaps three hundred years if they are lucky."
"No!" She struck hard where she had feinted before. Expecting deceit, he moved too slowly, the blunt tip of the staff striking true across the length of his left arm. Before she could capitalize on the blow, he flicked his staff upward, forcing her back. "You know the old myths, the legends of our people. Our ancestors lived centuries longer. The Seers of old measured their lifetimes in millennia! No one believes it. No one even cares! What is happening to us that causes us to die so quickly?"
"Stories? Your proof is stories?" It was hard not to hear mockery in his disbelief. Tellyth spun the staff differently now, presenting what should have been an obvious target, and yet Liriel hesitated. There was a system there, a form she did not recognize. To strike into the unknown was to court disaster. She needed another way to approach.
"The stories are a starting point. They tell of what we once were. A Seer must learn to see reality for what it truly is to navigate the paths of the future, and I have seen this world, these people. I see their… smallness, even in their own minds. I have seen where our course leads us."
"Scant evidence, Seer, much as I respect what you can do."
And Liriel saw it, in the blurring of the staff, the trap that Tellyth was setting. Strike high now, and the weapon would strike like so, strike low and he could evade and counter. But attack at the right moment - the temptation to tap into the Warp and guide her strikes with all the benefits of foreknowledge was immense, but she fought it down. Some part of her felt it would be dishonourable to rely on such a technique. And there was more at stake than simple victory in a duel.
"True, but my calling is to sift grains of truth out of the desert of reality, and this is true. We die sooner. We betray one another more readily. We turn inward, our culture incestuous and morose. We take no risk, and die slowly as a result." She dodged through his defence, accepting a hard blow to her leg in and twisting her staff inside his reach. Both weapons useless, the two aeldar released them. Before he could recover, she stepped closer, aiming a palm strike at the bridge of his nose. "We have no more heroes!"
It wasn't enough. He snapped his head backward away from her, and the melee began. They matched each other blow for blow. There was no room for strategy or speech now. A cut opened across Tellyth's lip when he ducked too late; her vision erupted in sparks when his elbow connected with her ear.
Liriel landed another flurry of blows to his sternum and sending him down. Before she could claim her victory, his low kick sent her tumbling as well, and though she tried to roll back upright, her leg couldn't support her weight. They lay on the ground, gasping for air. It was Tellyth who spoke first. "Perhaps you have a point. Help me put out this fire, and I will help you root out your sickness. We have common cause, after all."
Liriel could have cried with relief at finally making progress in this place. "I'd be happy to."
