Early 36th Millennium, dawn of the Plague of Unbelief
Surface of Ceg Y Neidr
Basil opened his eyes, expecting to feel pain, but he felt fine. He channeled the Warp to see in the darkness and glanced around. The stasis box was exactly where he had positioned it with the gravitic lockdowns. The Condenser had broken free from its straps and had rolled on its carriage to the far bulkhead but appeared unaffected by the rough landing of the drop pod.
Then his eyes rested on her.
"Siân!" Basil cried aloud, looking at her body, half-crumpled around the carriage she had been sitting in, her grey mask lying on the deck beneath her. A broken femur punctured through skin, a bruised face with closed eyes, a visibly broken ribcage, and blood on the deck. I tried to shield you first! How? Basil watched her deformed ribcage slightly expand and contract. She's still alive! Basil cried to himself. But hurt, badly. He sprang from his carriage and to her in a bound, then reached to the Warp. Basil glanced at a kit on the bulkhead marked with a Caduceus. That's for space marines and she's an Aeldari. Basil quickly decided he would need to heal her himself.
Basil fashioned a thread from the Warp and then recalled what he could from his training with Ansgar. He pulled forth from his memory the Aeldari dissection diagrams he had studied, then considered how to weave the Warp to do what was needed. But he just stared at her, not knowledgeable in what he needed to do. Basil had not learned enough genetics to understand how to weave bones together with the Warp. He had instead learned how to destroy.
Basil dropped his hands into his palms looking for something to say to her as she lay there but something else popped into his mind. A song. Not just any song, but a song he had read in the tome Mistress Ilronanna had told him contained fragments of the Words of Creation. He cleared his throat and began to sing. Sing as best he could in the Aeldari tongue. Sing the fragments of Creation that were woven into the song. The cant calmed him as he sang. Then his throat burned like fire as he sang the first fragment. And Siân's ribcage reformed itself. Basil kept singing, Aeldari words awkwardly leaving his mouth, then another fragment, and again, the fire in his throat. Her femur moved back into place and flesh closed around it. He continued to sing and the proper pale colour returned to her face.
Basil collapsed to his knees and cried.
After a moment, he stood and picked up her limp form as he did so. Basil walked to the hatch and telekinetically operated the control panel. The hatch creaked momentarily and then sprang open. "I'm sorry for what I said. I need to tell you that," he said with his face nearly touching hers. "Rest now, and I will tell you when you wake." Basil walked down the hatch with Siân in his arms and came to a stop.
He was again on a rocky moor with scattered wreckage from a battle between the Slann and the Sons of Horus, but his gaze focused on none of that. Standing before him on the grass covered moor were four tall and slender figures, Aeldari. Three wore featureless grey masks like that Siân had worn, yet their tunics were bright red and gold, rather than the simple colours she had worn. Each held a Singing Spear in hand and had a shuriken pistol on his hip. Warlocks, Basil quickly realized, Aeldari who had walked long on the Path of the Warrior before walking the Path of the Seer. They were similar to Siân in that regard, though she had chosen to walk the Path of the Outcast after her other Paths. But Basil did not know what to make of the fourth Aeldari.
He was taller than the other three, and even more slender, with long white hair. Nor did he wear a mask like the others, leaving its smooth features and unusually pale skin, even for an Aeldari, visible to all, as well as its lavender almond shaped eyes. The figure was clothed in red tight-fitting meshweave armour and carried no visible weapons.
"Shall we slay him now, or leave him for you, Druthact?" asked one of the Warlocks in Aeldari to the fourth.
Druthact, Basil said to himself as he realized the threat he faced. The most powerful Farseer to have come from Rubha Àird Driseig, Siân's home. He looked at Druthact's form through the Warp and was shocked at what he saw, or rather what he didn't see. Druthact cast no shadow into the Warp, as if he had no soul. Perhaps he was once possessed and personally cast out the daemon like I did, Basil guessed. He snatched hold of the Warp and all three Warlocks instantly stepped back, giving their profile to Basil, and snatched hold of the Warp too. With but a thought, Siân's sleeping form rose from his arms and slowly floated to the side.
Druthact simply stared at Basil as Siân's form floated away. "Leave the boy to me," he said to the Warlocks without taking his gaze away from Basil. "Tend to her and see she is safe. Siân Aanwen is one of our finest. She was invited to study at the Black Library as was I. We need her to be well." Siân came to a rest on the ground and the Warlocks ran to her limp form.
Come to me, Basil said in his head and let loose a trickle of power. In the next instant, Basil's Singing Spear appeared in his hands and the Golden Bow appeared too, slung over his shoulder.
"Those do not belong to you," snapped Druthact, his speech changing from Aeldari to High Gothic. He quickly calmed. "The Golden Bow was a gift to the Interex during a time when we were more naïve and thought we could work with you humans against the Primordial Annihilator but you are all fools. The Singing Spear was never meant to be wielded by any save an Aeldari."
"The Spear was given as a gift to me," Basil answered in Aeldari. "A gift from the Masque of the Horned Serpent." Surprise momentarily flashed in Druthact's eyes at mention of the Masque, then disappeared as his violet gaze darkened. "I will give up neither of these, nor will I allow you to take the Condenser." Dark clouds gathered in the sky overhead and the moor darkened as Basil drank in the Warp.
Druthact's eyes narrowed and a long dark sword, similar to Siân's Witchblade, appeared in his hands. As he did so, the moor grew even darker, and the dark clouds overhead began to churn and lightning flashed across the sky.
They began to dance. Basil slid forward into a low guard as Druthact slid toward him and did the same. Lightning rained down, bolt after bolt on top of Druthact, but caught by his kine shield. And fire rained down from the heavens too. Rained down on top of Basil and was cast aside by his shield. Other bolts of lightning and drops of fire arced across the heavens and scorched scattered chunks of the moor.
The Warlocks gathered over Siân and constructed a shield to protect themselves and her.
Basil sank into the battle, his mind expanding to the entire field, and everything slowed for him. He slid forward with a thrust that Druthact simply batted aside, then returned with an overhand diagonal cut. Basil swatted the blade wide and brought the haft of his spear around to strike Druthact in the head but the Aeldari had already stepped back and brought his sword back in another over hand diagonal, completing a cross. Back and forth they went. Strike high and low. Cut and riposte. A spike of psychic force tried to pry itself into Basil's head but he dismissed it. Basil attacked Druthact's psyche with feelings of guilt and inadequacy to no effect. Lightning and fire rained from the sky.
And as the battle continued, Basil came to realize one thing. Battling Druthact's psychic might was like battling the Black Council and measuring his own skill with the Spear against the Aeldari was like measuring his skill against the Solitaire. And he knew what that meant. The battle had been lost before it had begun. That's why he had been chosen to play the part of Asuryan. But what were they trying to teach me? Basil asked himself as he parried a series of blows, both physical and psychic. And as Basil had made a fateful decision when he first set his eyes upon Siân four years before, he pondered another fateful decision, a gamble for everything.
Basil turned square to Druthact, instead of profile, and raised the Singing Spear high over his head. Basil saw a moment of surprise flash in Druthact's lavender eyes, but the Aeldari did not hesitate. He thrust forward with his Witchblade. The blade struck at Basil's chest while the psychic energy contained within it exploded forth to rend his soul. The psychic energy was stopped by the mental wall Basil had erected to prevent the dissolution of his soul, but it was of no matter, for the physical form of the blade itself ruptured the kyne shield protecting his physical body and passed through his heart. The lightning and fires in the sky stopped the instant Basil's heart stopped.
"No!" cried a voice, Siân's voice, as Druthact simply flicked Basil's body off his blade and onto the ground, lying face up.
Druthact glanced over at her for a moment, then back to Basil. He simply stared at the limp body for a few moments and ignored the sounds of Siân struggling against the Warlocks.
"I know that you cared for him," Druthact said. "It is our lot to know passion more deeply than the other races. Love more deeply. Hate more deeply," he added. "And a fine lot it is. But the boy is dead and you know how the others will treat us. You have seen their works and know what they will do without him to tell them no."
Siân grew quiet and stared at Basil's bloodied chest for a moment and then at Druthact. "You speak the truth. I know it."
"The Condenser is inside," Druthact said. "I know it. Destiny has brought me to this world and Destiny will lead me back to Scholomance when I put my hands on it." Druthact continued. "We are your people. Come with us. You can help bring about the Dream of Asuryan's rebirth and end this madness. Some Exodites will be lost. That is a terrible price, but a necessary one. The humans who will die are worthless."
"I will work with you," Siân answered. "Allow me to gather the Aelion Corsairs. They have many Seers whose might will be helpful." Her emerald eyes met his lavender ones. "I have touched the Condenser too. It showed me the way to Scholomance. I will meet you there."
"Good," Druthact answered.
Without another word, Siân turned and walked away. Druthact and the Warlocks gathered Basil's singing Spear and Golden Bow, then entered the drop pod. They worked together to remove the Condenser by hand, struggling to roll the weight of the wheeled shock carriage. "Once we control the Oculus, moving this will be much easier," Druthact said. The Warlocks stared at him without comprehending.
Basil's eyes opened, golden orbs staring into the sky. "Now I understand," he said to the heavens above.
