Lord of the Mountain Roads

Chapter VI: Illusion

He followed the sounds – faint steps in the darkness, her breathing, her heart-beat that he was maybe hallucinating. She was gone, and gone was the witchlight in her hand, and he had to rely on his ears. He wasn't sure how long he had walked, slowly beginning to doubt his decision to try and bring her back.

This was no usual mine. He had been reluctant to tell her, for some things are better left untold. Even speaking of the dark presence inside the cave would wake it – that was what Ruathac's great grandmother, the witch of the clan, the one who listened to the somber and deadly musings of the entity named Ereth Kial, had whispered to the curious child that Ruathac had once been.

The Blackspines held many secrets under their rocky roofs - old graves, lairs of forgotten horrors from times before the memory of Elves and monumental temples. Temples once built to worship the dark gods of the wild, of Khaine's jealous and passionate sister Anath Raema and of the savage god of nature Ellinill, in his aspects as Hukon, the earthquake, and Addaioth, the fire under earth.

Even more sinister and mysterious shrines were placed deeper below; shrines for Nethu, the guardian of the gate, and for the Dark Mother herself, shrines that once guarded secret paths the labyrinth web under the rocks. By now, the seafaring Druchii have discovered the Sea Beyond, using it as a passage to the eastern seas, to take what was rightfully theirs, to found colonies in lands as foreign and exotic as Cathay, to bring home riches formerly unheard of, in silk and jade and gold. The shrines, once thought to be entrances to the Underworld itself, where the Dark Mother kept the souls of the Elves captive, had since lost their worshippers and priests, and new ways had been found to access the dark waters beneath the mountains. The Cult of Ereth Kial, the Dark Mother, was now the responsibility of the Convent of the Sorceresses, and only the Khainite assassins still kept the knowledge of the deadly runes of Nethu. But Ruathac had seen one or two of the old shrines, and even though he was not much of a believer in the Cytharai, he could have sworn upon the honor of his clan that something was still waiting there, alien and cold, waiting for a new sacrifice. The old gods never forgot.

Yet these tunnels he was following here was no part of a temple, nor a road to the Sea Beyond. This was a mine. It was visibly made by dwarven hands that were motivated by a Druchii whip. The mining had been hasty and careless, but still more masterful than any elf could perform in the hard stone of the Blackspines.

...

Ruathac's great grandmother had remembered the tale of this mine. She had not witnessed what happened there herself, and she was not sure which of her ancestors did. It must have been thousands of years before Ruathac was born. The Druchii had found a very special metal ore here. Harder and lighter than silversteel and even the Ithilmar of the weakling Asur, this metal was the most sought after in the old world – and it was believed to only be found there, in a few select places, mines guarded by dwarves ferociously.

Gromril. They had found Gromril here.

Of course, only dwarves would know how to mine for, or even forge this metal, and so it were dwarven slaves that worked here. But dwarves are a proud people, and they wouldn't give the metal they treasure most, this holy gift of the Ancestor Gods, to their enemies. And the slaves that were brought here spoke to each other deep under the earth, on those nights when the Druchii guards and slave drivers, all decadent Dark Elves of the Cities, were playing dice, drunken with herb-infused wine that kept them warm, or indulging in their torture games. The slaves spoke in Kazalit, the language dwarves hardly ever teach to anybody. They knew what they would find underneath the glittering surface, they knew what neighbors the living veins of Gromril often had. And they made a plan to use this secret against their oppressors. Dwarves didn't lie, as they never do. But the Druchii never asked them, and so the slaves didn't need to tell them the truth.

Beneath the vein of the ore, there was another mineral to be found in these caves. The dwarves dug deeper than required, and the overseers didn't notice.

When finally the greenish, ghostly light that emanated from the deepest cave beneath the mine tunnels was noticed by the Druchii overseers, they were overjoyed instead of frightened. Pure magic, the power of the eight winds, gathered and compressed in stone, had been revealed to their greedy eyes. Vast amounts of warpstone were waiting for them, material sought by the most depraved and courageous magic wielders for dark and magnificent rituals. The Convent of the Sorceresses, so they thought, would pay them well for this treasure.

Human slaves were brought from Clar Karond and Karond Kar to work the new mine. Every day, the overseers counted their fortune in shining metal and luminescent green stone, and every night became a celebration of their future success. Their hopes grew higher than the peaks of the Blackspines, and even the lowest ranking guard began, in feverish dreams, to see himself as a rich salesman, wealthy enough to buy a whole fleet, or as a head of a new Highborn house. At night, seductive voices whispered in their ears that through the benevolence of the Convent, even the Witchking would at last see their worth; they deemed themselves generals of new armies already, Dreadlords with hundreds of Cold One Knights and thousands of spears under them.

And with the ambitious and haughty dreams, the nature of all Dark Elves awoke to a new passion in them. Mistrust, jealousy and treason burned in their hearts with a scorching, restless flame. Every Druchii suspected that the other one would try to steal their chances from him. The guards turned against the slave drivers, and the overseers fought duels against each other.

When finally the Highborn to whom the mine belonged arrived, alarmed by a frightened herald, he found the mine deserted. He was sane enough to take a Sorceress with him, an ally who had accompanied his Black Ark to many battles; for the herald had spoken of dark magic. He entered the tunnels, both curious and fuming with anger, determined to punish both the Druchii who had neglected their duty and the lazy slaves.

All he found were corpses, hacked into a mess of bone and organs by blades, or entwined in a strangling embrace with each other; severed heads and limbs, skulls broken in by mining tools. At first, he suspected that he was seeing the evidence of a slave rebellion, but as he descended deeper into the mines, the more he saw dwarves and humans, in the same state as their elven tormentors above. Hundreds of workers, all dead.

It was only when he entered the Warpstone Chamber, Ruathac's great-grandmother had whispered, that he saw the truth. But he never lived to tell about it. The Sorceress was the only one who had escaped, and she had fled the tunnels, screaming inconsistent curses and crying, her voice hoarse from the efforts. The local Autarii had found her and enslaved her, for she was not able to cast a spell anymore, her mind destroyed by whatever she had encountered in the mine, neither did her withered, bony frame, hardly more than a skeleton, give her enough strength to resist physically or even to try and kill herself. More than that, she seemed glad; she let herself be blinded willingly, as if she couldn't stand the sight of the world anymore; she stopped screaming instead of crying out her pain when her thumbs and ears were removed, and after the healer of the tribe severed her vocal chords and she came back to conscience, her lips kept moving, forming words of gratitude.

Ruathac had asked his great-grandmother if the former Sorceress was still alive, but the old woman just shook her head and laughed. No, she had answered, after a year or two of service, the insane slave had run off again; the clan found her dead body frozen cold at the entrance of the cursed mine.

Hundreds and thousands of years had passed since those gruesome events, and the Shades of Ruathac's clan had killed anybody who tried to enter the unholy mine and seek out the hidden treasures.

...

But now, Ruathac was the only one left of his tribe. The secrets of his great-grandmother were buried in ice just like the deadly efficiency of those who once guarded the place from careless adventure-seekers. And he was about to descend into the darkness of the horrors beneath.

A revolting feeling bend him in half, and he landed on hands and feet, his head spinning. The knowledge that he was committing a sacrilege, turning against the rules of his clan, was almost a physical pain, pushing his last meal back up his throat and wringing out his brain. Soundlessly, he begged for forgiveness; whether from his dead clan or from the Dark Gods, he didn't know.

…

She buried her nose in Umdar's neck, the faint fragrance of winter, road dust and mountain herbs and the well-known smell of horse bringing her mind to peace. For a moment, she allowed herself to relax. Everything was well again.

On horseback, she moved further into the mine, the ceiling at once high and the walls far away, and there was light shining everywhere. An endless ride, and at last a rest, and she slept curled up by Umdar's side, listening to the steady breathing of the animal.

She dreamed, a dream she had almost forgotten.

...

A small child, an elven girl of two or three years, hardly more than a helpless infant, plastered to the metal and wood of a heavy door. Her fear so great that it engulfs her whole body, turning her blood into liquid ice, constricting her innards and shaking her small, pale limbs under the simple dark brown clothing which is wet from her sweat and urine. Fear of the ones who are dancing and laughing in the streets, their shrill, malevolent voices that are woven into a tapestry of death and danger by the clashing of metal on metal, of metal on bone.

The door has been locked, and little hands hit its surface, trying to evoke a sound. The room is tiny, and it has pictures on the wooden wall panels, people with strange faces, dressed in limbs and veins, in snakes and scorpions, their hands holding weapons and items that the child doesn't know the names of. A table in the middle, a grey stone plate on six solid legs of black pine wood, is covered in sticky red-brown, and the child knows that this is where the slaves get put, as gifts for the Gods. The little girl has seen how they struggle when her father raises the long curved dagger. They are silly, the slaves, they don't know that it is good when the gods eat their souls. They are not Druchii, and that is why they are silly.

But the last time the child was in this room – "You are not to tell anybody about the shrine, Setharai, have you understood me?" – was not scary. Back then, there were father and mother with her in the room, and uncle, and grandmother.

Now the faces from the walls look at her with bloodlust in their carved eyes, and their swords and claws are all pointed towards her, and she is alone, and locked in, and there is this terrible howling outside. Knocking doesn't help, it is not loud enough, and despite being awfully ashamed – "Don't cry for help, you have to learn to defend yourself, Setharai!" – she screams.

Her high-pitched scream, the voice of a whelp in need, pierces walls and hurries down corridors. Druchii have hearts of silversteel, but their instincts are older than their pride, and the adults turn their ears to the wailing of the young of their kind involuntary.

And one of them answers the call. Lands in shards of wood and glass through the window, breaks through the barricades that the child's parents have so carefully build of shields and bags of sand and furniture, and enters the secret room in the middle of the estate, her voice cooing – "Come, little girl, are you made of courage? Come, little girl, Khaela Mensha Khaine wants you…" – but her face and nearly naked body covered in fresh, fresh blood, and a crown of bowel strings on her white hair, a kidney as a jewel in the middle.

For a moment, the girl child wants to follow, the adult in front of her is everything the child adores, strong, lithe, powerful, and beautiful, and the smile in her blood-covered face is warm and reassuring, even though the eyes are cold brass – "Come, little girl, the God of Murder has chosen you!" – and maybe the dagger in the adult's right hand will protect the child instead of burying itself in the small warm body – "Come with me to the Temple of Khaine!" – and she is one step closer, and another.

But it is father's head that the adult holds in her left hand, by the long black braid that the little girl always wanted to play with.

The child steps back. Her shoulder blades touch the stone wall, and she looks back, frantically, in search of an exit – "Come, little girl, there is only one door in this room, and you will go through it with me!" – and sees skulls and hands at the belt of a huntress.

All teachings of her parents forgotten, there is no pride or courage left, when the child cowers under the relief of one of the Cytharai, the priestess of another in front of her. The threat of being killed and the promise of being chosen are equally frightening at once, and the girl covers her eyes with her hands, awaiting the final blow.

It never comes. Steps, hasty and stumbling, rustle of linen and silk, and her mother's voice – "Hide, Setharai!" – and then the twang of the crossbow string, a bolt emerging between the breasts of the blood-colored priestess, a thump. Long white hair pools at the child's feet, the body of the Witch Elf on the stone table, her blood and that of her victims mingling with the rusty old remains of old sacrifices. Arms dangling, dagger jingling on the stone floor, and father's head looking at the child with dead black eyes.

She takes the dagger with her, crawling under the table, and then reaches for fathers head and cradles it in her arms. She hears her mother locking the door from the outside again.

The wild dance of Khaine's brides continues, but the girl child is not afraid anymore. She plays with her father's hair, unbraiding it and braiding it again. He had never allowed it before. It is sticky with blood.

Her uncle arrives at midday, and wordlessly pulls her out from under the table. Her mother, pale and shaken, circles the room like a captive manticore, and noisily worries about the body of the priestess – "We must destroy it before the Temple notices!" – , but the little girl knows everything is well again. She looks back to the picture of the huntress.

There are two new trophies at the belt of the goddess. The dead Witch Elf's dagger pins a black braid and a white one to the wooden wall panel.

Setharai would have rather taken the heads for that, but she knows her mother would object.

…

Setharai shivered, waking up. She had had this dream so many times, but it was still unsettling.

"So you really think that Anath Raema chose you, saved you from her own brother?"

The voice was vaguely familiar, and Setharai looked up, startled. Umdar had disappeared, and she was sitting against a cold cave wall. Greenish light allowed her to see the figure approaching her.

"Do you think it was a lucky turn? Foolish child." The elf stepped closer, and Setharai recognized a Druhir symbol on the woolen robes that the man wears under the long chain mail coat and simple metal breastplate. It was the family crest of her house.

"How do you know…" Her voice broke, as if she hadn't spoken in a long time, and her throat was terribly dry.

The man pointed a crossbow at her. "Oh, I had more than enough time to analyze the situation. I had hoped that I could be proud of you… If I was to die, at least you could have used the chance well and become a With Elf." His black eyes narrowed. "I have only had one child, and I hoped that it would try to raise the status of our family and earn honor for the House of the Hound." His left hand took off his helmet, and messy black hair fell over his armored shoulders. "And you could at least have had the decency to keep your dirty little hands off my braid."

Setharai shook her head, trying to chase away the illusion. "My father is dead." She stood up shakily. She must have lost her sword somewhere, but if it was necessary, she was ready to fight the impostor, be it demon or mortal sorcerer, with her fists. "And he should stay dead, too."

…

He heard the Dark Rider speak, voice hoarse and full of bitterness. Finally, he thought, it has been long enough. The labyrinth mine was confusing even for his excellent sense of orientation. The angles and patterns of the corridors seemed to change all the time. The chaotic nature of the cursed mine had led him astray for days, and he was not sure anymore if he would ever find a way out – or find Setharai.

Maybe it was another trick of this damned place, but he felt relieved nonetheless. Crossbow and sword in his hands, he ran down the tunnel into the direction where the voice came from. It was getting less dark, and the greenish light told him there must be Warpstone in the near – or witchlight lanterns.

As he stumbled into the huge cavern, he was almost blinded by the radiant green. It took him some moments to realize what he was staring at – and as it turned its head towards him, he almost jumped back.

The huge, bloated body covered in chitinous plates and patches of fluorescent fungus was balancing upon eight long legs bent at irregular angles. The abdomen of the creature ended in two scythe-like claws, or stingers, that were moving slowly, a gland secreting a web thread as thick as Ruathac's arm hidden between them. At the front end, the body became thinner, almost building a waist, and flaring out again into a writhing mass of humanoid arms and legs, only partly defined faces, torso halves and organs that would normally belong on the inside of a living being. Appendages reminding of animal snouts or toothed tentacles were showing here and there in this chaotic fusion, rusted swords and spears, once driven into the creature's flesh, protruded in between the moving limbs, and in the middle of it all, on a long, crane-like neck, a head resided. Arrogant, aquiline features, black fearless eyes, and a mass of night-black hair – it was a head of a male Druchii, pictured quite authentically. Only the pale skin was not skin, but hundreds of white maggots moving simultaneously to create a mimicry of an expression; the hair was not hair but a nest of thin, black worms, each one ending in a small sucker.

The thing smiled. The head rearranged itself, maggots crawling in a seemingly random pattern, and Ruathac held his breath.

The creature was now wearing his dead wife's face.

The memory was painful, and he heard her voice in his head, whispering sadly that he didn't only abandon the clan, but also broke their rules, entering a place they wished to stay sealed forever. His arms felt weak, the sword and the crossbow useless against a horror like this, and for the first time in all those lonely months, he felt his despair defeating him.

But then there was a sudden movement, the front legs of the thing, ending in serrated blade-like claws, twitched, and without looking away from its new prey, the creature parried a blow.

The distraction was enough for the creature to lose a bit of control over him, and Ruathac tore himself from the hypnotic gaze to look at the attacker. It was Setharai, throwing herself at the monster with her bare hands, trying to hit it, but unable to injure it. Her feet were caught in a sticky mess that covered the floor – a parody for a spider web, just like the creature was a parody of a spider – but she didn't seem to notice that her movement was hindered by it.

"You have let them corrupt me, too." The voice had changed. Surprised, Ruathac turned back to where the thing was. Or had been – in its place, a young Druchii stood, hardly more than a child. Someone he knew, and with whom he had fought together, though not jet a friend. Someone with whom he had shared meat and salt. They had been retainers of the same noble lord in those long, hardly bearable years before Ruathac had came back to the Blackspines to find his clan erased. The boy was someone whom he had warned but failed to keep from falling, and whom he had watched slowly succumb to the way of the lost.

The youth smiled friendly. Garish robes barely covered his body that had once been severly disfigured by thousands of scars. The skin was pure white marble now, and the body shape seemed weirdly distorted, feminine curves gracing the right side of it, while the left remained that of a male. "You have told me that you are not moved by Chaos," the young Druchii purred, "But when I needed you, my only trustworthy ally, to guide me away from the disgrace of the Cult of Pleasures, you turned your back on me."

Ruathac shook his head, annoyed. "I never said I was your ally."

"You? You are nobody's ally. A traitor, no more. You left your clan to die; and now you are even betraying your foolish war on Chaos. Breaking the rules of your clan, descending into the depth of a cursed mine, infested by demonic entities... For what? A useless passion, a hope for a brief moment of future lust with a female..." The youth laughed. "The Dark Prince would surely approve."

"You are not who you pretend to be... He was a damn good liar, and talented at reading minds." Ruathac laughed coldly. The creature had chosen wrong, and his will was returning. "And you are not." And despite his arm with the crossbow still feeling as heavy as lead, he raised it. And shot.

The bolt crossed the distance between the Shade and the apparition, and with a metallic sound, jumped off the hide of the spider-like thing that was hiding behind the illusion.

The apparition faded, and with a hiss, the monster jumped towards Ruathac, the face of the Druchii youth dissolving into a mass of mandibles and feelers. He darted forwards and under the black towering body, escaping the serrated blades by a second, and struck out with his sword, aiming upwards.

His sword scraped the abdomen of the creature, not even leaving a scratch. The natural armor was too strong for usual weapons to break through.

Ruathac used his momentum to roll out between two of the many legs and came up directly in front of the Dark Rider. Setharai had used the distraction to grab and hold on to one of the other legs, trying to use the fact that her own feet were caught by its web against it, slowing it down.

"Fools!" The creature's voice was now a cacophony of hundredfold whispers and screams, as it let its attempts to entice and confuse fall. The cavern shook, and dark shadows crawled over the bleak green stone in the walls.

"I am omnipotent! I offer riches beyond compare!" The thundering voice echoed eerily, the sound distorted by the magical power of Warpstone. "I would have given you eternity, in exchange for a little bit of petty life magic that flows through you!"

Dark figures rose from the floor of the cavern, stumbling skeletons held together by pure hate and greed, bodies dried thousands of years ago into parchment skin and twig-like limbs.

The words of the thing became a screeching sound, loud enough to cause pain. "Now those who had followed my call will feast on your flesh, and instead of a dream-like death that I would have given you, you will suffer unimaginable pain at their withered hands and poisonous jaws!"

Ruathac tried to cut through the viscous cords that glued Setharai's legs and boots to the floor, but the Druchii woman shook her head, screaming something. The material was elastic, giving in, but not ripping, and he could not severe the binds.

Setharai pointed towards the upper torso of the creature with one hand, holding on to the monster's leg with the other, screaming against the noise again.

Finally he understood. He jumped onto the thing's back, balancing the few steps towards the mass of limbs and tentacles, and gripped one of the rusty swords protruding between them. Ghostly blue runes flashed up on the rusty blade. An enchanted weapon that had once wounded the monster, and around which the demonic flesh had healed. Ruathac pulled.

The monster cried in pain, its voice at once almost that of an elf or a human, and a wound bleeding black liquid opened where the sword had just been.

The Shade threw himself from the creature's back, and with one strike, he cut through the web-like substance that bound his companion.

Moments later, the two Druchii were running through the dark corridors, hearing shuffling steps of the undead behind them.