Dark Mother - I
009.M42
Khermuti
The raven spoke with two heads, lies and truths whispered in a single voice. One hissed at its twin, seeking to pluck out its eyes and devour them whole. The other, feathers bristled in defence, snapped back, scoring a wound on the neck of its rival. Both struggled for dominance. In the end, the first raven broke the neck of its brother. Its vainglorious cry was short-lived. Realisation of the symbiotic nature flashed in its ebon eyes as the twin's death lead to the great raven's demise. The bird flapped its black wings and shrieked as death claimed the short-lived victor...
"Neferuaat, what did you see?"
Honesty demanded truth between the roles of mentor and student. She chose deceit as sweat poured from her face, dripping on to her robes and psycurium veil. "Nothing, just ravens in flight. The birds were spiralling into darkness."
Osis Pathoth was not convinced. To Neferuaat's surprise he did not challenge her. "Calm your mind, fortify your mental barriers, and do not play coy in my presence. Today you give an exhibition of your skills to Ahriman."
"I don't want to." Blinking away afterimages of the double-headed raven, Neferuaat mood turned sour. Delicate golden curls framed a virtuous face, always at odds with her conceited eyes. "There's no point in these tests, not with who I am. Not with what I've been told I can do." She wrinkled her nose against the acrid incense smoke suffusing the vizier's private scriptoria, intangible clouds forming and reforming possible futures. Pathoth waved these potential fates aside, mind focused on the immediate present.
"What you want and what is required are two different matters, child. Hold to your training, recall your Warp lore, and keep your grimoire close. Loathe as I am to admit it, seek the Enumerations and their calm. I anticipate nothing today except your victory." He stood, the servos in his opulent armour growling. "Wound Ahriman's arrogance for your father's pride."
Humiliation. The emotion took time to comprehend when he felt it, having been so long. Close upon its heels came the burning of lofty pride. Shame never coloured his face or reflected in ever-changing eyes, yet it tinged his aura. His presence commanding the enclosed duelling ring, Ahriman perceived this psychic wave of bruised conceit as a blind man heard sound. It echoed in the amphitheatre as thunder swelling into a roaring crescendo. The vizier's lapse of poise, his crushed vanity, lay at the feet of the grand sorcerer. Neferuaat vomited up bile and ectoplasm, emptying her stomach's contents on the great arena's interlocking circles. On hands and knees, long hair unkempt and her face covered in tears, Neferuaat knew disgrace. Her failure brought the Vizier of the Magus low to those assembled today. The Sorcerer of the Red Cyclops refrained from attacking further, looking past the mortal psyker to Pathoth.
"What have you taught her? When I entrusted her schooling to you, I presumed the child's abilities would not languish. Was it wrong of me to assume so little?" The superior tone dripped condescension. "Where is the mastery of mental offence she ought to demonstrate? How painless to rend her mind's barricades. She's retained nothing, her mind an open sieve."
Sorcerer-adepts from either lord's faction warily exchanged looks, gauntlets resting on staffs and spell books. Flickering light from large braziers reflected off the curving edges of partially drawn blades. Each insult flayed Neferuaat's confidence. Yet each word was worse for Osis Pathoth. She weakly raised her head, searching his impassive face, hoping to find the barest trace of compassion. His eyes caused her to tremble in misery; the five words he uttered threw acid on her open wounds.
"Neferuaat, return to the Meskhenet."
Bethos escorted her from the amphitheatre. Neferuaat walked under her own power, summoning what remaining dignity she had. Wiping her face with her veil, she chose silence to accompany her removal, just as the sorcerer-adepts wisely held their tongues. The much-flaunted abilities of the Alpha-plus psyker contrasted against the reality departing their midst. Ahriman ordered his and Pathoth's retainers to disappear, leaving him and the advisor alone.
"Should you wish to placate her self-worth, she retained her focus until the end. Giving praise is rarely as beneficial as exposing the flaws for a humbled apprentice to become an eager student." Descending the dais, Ahriman circled the outermost ring. "What is her age? How many years of rigorous training has the girl undergone?"
The answers were irrelevant. Ahriman knew all Neferuaat's comings and goings, her lessons and growing aptitude, right down to the cryptic secrets Pathoth taught, if not their nature. Secrets, Ahriman admitted privately, he did not possess. Undoubtedly penned in the Book of Magnus after his exile, the grand sorcerer sought to wrest them from Neferuaat's mind during the one-sided duels. Either the knowledge was concealed too well in her psyche or forgotten. Knowing her tutor, Ahriman suspected the former.
"She has become the foremost of any mortal under our tutelage after a decade of studying the mysteries and paths of the Warp. However," Pathoth reflected, "Neferuaat's reached a stage where changes to her adolescent body might craft havoc in her mind. I have approached the last year of her studies with this knowledge. I advocate caution to your undoubtedly myriad plans even should you fail to heed my warnings."
"It's time for her to enter into the ranks of the cults. Which shall she prefer, vizier? The Corvidae? The Athaneanans?" The Chaos sorcerer's stride halted and he looked upward, seeing the currents of the Great Ocean through the dome crystal ceiling. Ahriman held the mantle as one of the most preeminent psykers in the galaxy; he would remind Pathoth who controlled the future of those aboard the Khermuti and Meskhenet.
Pathoth kept his hand on the hilt of his khopesh. "Word never reached your ears? Magnus disbanded the cults. He found the arrogance of many did not suit the design of the Thousand Sons Legion. The infighting of each trying to supplant the next became intolerable."
Ahriman shrewdly watched the viceroy's movements. "Did your schemes play a role in the eradication of the cults or was it the mandate of our Primarch?"
Osis Pathoth replied, "I mete out the rumours and idle words of the Legion proper to the Primarch. It became apparent the cults were dividing, not strengthening, us as a whole. To disband them was the only solution, certainly after the failed coup against Fenris. Hence, Neferuaat will not be inducted into any singular cult." That patronizing smile returned.
"Her initiation into my cabal is imminent." Ahriman's decree suffered no insubordination.
"When shall the ceremony take place?"
"A day's cycle from now," Ahriman replied. "As wise men have said, when the present suffices, it becomes prudent to act in the moment. I will govern the ritual on the Khermuti. As you are her mentor, ceremony dictates you provide the essential sacrifice. Make it a worthy one, Osis."
Pathoth bowed just enough to not be insulting. "I know the perfect one, Ahzek."
Neferuaat slunk to Pathoth's alchimia for the refuge it offered after she had cleaned and fed herself. She kept away from her slaves with orders to remain undisturbed. Inside the chamber, itself an amalgamation of library and laboratory, Neferuaat hunched over her thaumaturgy books and let herself drift between the astral and physical planes. Tomes of power filled ivory-carved shelves; scrolls held in stasis to preserve their teachings; specimens hung in bell jars filled with mucus liquid. Lying imperiously at the feet of the high chair, her Gyrinx turned his head up to her mutters. Her mood was fitful, trickling through the shared empathic link to make the feline growl under its breath.
"'Neferuaat, return to the ship. Neferuaat, transcribe your lessons. Neferuaat, never eat dessert before a meal.' I made the last one up," she glanced at Argos, "but it would hardly surprise me if Pathoth said that." She idly played with the bejewelled fringe of her veil, staring at the ceiling. Hovering close to the sub-structural spine of the alchimia, a colourful borealis provided light for the grand hall. Harnessed from the Empyrean, the borealis was pure energy controlled by his might, Pathoth claimed.
Lazily watching the shifting colours ripple over the marble floors and granite walls, Argos bolted upright at the sound of thundering ceramite footsteps outside the alchimia. The doors opened, admitting Osis Pathoth and his honour guard of Rubricae. Behind came Bethos and Mhkai. Neferuaat could sense them all, from the withered souls trapped in the armour to the oily personalities of the sorcerer-adepts. The girl straightened her back against the assemblage, grounding herself to the material realm.
"I am working," she stated, frustration and ache whispering across her aura. "I need to keep to my lessons, Lord Pathoth. You always say I mustn't become lax."
"Leave your thaumaturgy, for your presence is demanded once more upon the Khermuti. It is time for your coven induction." He came around the desk and closed her grimoire. "Ahriman's instructions are clear. You will follow his orders and mine."
"What brought this about?" Neferuaat laughed sharply to hide her confusion. Curling around the base of the chair, Argos hissed his discontent.
"Make ready to leave. The honour guard is here for you, daughter." Pathoth watched her carefully. He rested a gauntlet on her trembling arm, sapphire war plate glinting under the borealis' light. "This order is unchanging."
"I don't want to go." A flare of nervous energy coiled up from the girl onto the vizier. It raced through Pathoth's arm, gouging both the bone and sinew of his body. Lurched violently to the side, his body caught up in the mental grip of the young psyker, the warlock spat out a quick incantation. The words released Pathoth from Neferuaat's exerted will. Neferuaat's eyes grew wide in fear at her frenzied psychic eruption. "I didn't mean to do that."
The sullen atmosphere in the great chamber changed to enmity. Even the Rubricaes' bolters were half-raised. Carefully flexing his wounded arm, Pathoth grimaced. "Do not force my hand, child, for this is one charge is I cannot contradict."
"May I speak to Tariq first?" Slinking off the chair, Neferuaat hastily drew her veil over her face. She cringed at Osis Pathoth's ill-humour. When the vizier spoke, she heard the frown in his words.
"You may, but do not dally. I give you an hour. We shall meet at the shuttle deck."
Bowing hastily, she took off at a run, Argos at her heels. Shadows peeled away from the ship's rune-worked walls to trail after the girl. Argos growled at the phantasms drawn by the psychic spoor of his mistress and they scattered at the Gyrinx's warning. A psionic predator after a fashion, the Gyrinx's claws could rend aether-born life from the Materium. Neferuaat mentally prepared herself while descending the ship's decks. She always did before speaking to Tariq. Not a thrall nor a Thousand Sons scholar, he was someone Neferuaat talked to without fear of reprisal. Though being prepared became commonplace. His caustic tongue upset many.
Tariq, Raven Guard, captured in battle with his squad and the last to survive the damning sorcery Pathoth and his coven wove. Neferuaat's tutoring in soul transference began with the sons of the Raven as unwilling participants. Ripping the soul's essence from a corporeal source, an intricate art, was one Neferuaat blundered through. The minds destroyed and bodies mutilated under her inexperienced hand were many, the alchimia an abattoir in her passing.
"Tariq," she hovered outside his cell. "I was just informed that my coven ordination is today." She peered in at the pale marine lying recumbent on the floor, his back to her. Without his armour he should have appeared weak. He was anything but that.
"This affects me how, murderess?" The last of his battle brethren, Tariq's mind was hardened that he would die as his brothers did. This knowledge sustained his hatred against the aberration conversing with him. "Should I wish you luck?"
If there were any failings to the Raven Guard, their autonomist views and heroic recklessness was the flaw. That was how the Raven Guard squad of Sergeant-Brother Tariq ran afoul with the Thousand Sons under Pathoth's cabal. Neferuaat found his defiance against the vizier bewildering, shocking and, ultimately, compelling. It was this spirit which drew her to converse with him.
"When I return, I won't be a neophyte. Why, I can order your release from this cell if I choose so. You should pray my trials go perfectly for you to gain a measure of freedom."
Tariq chuckled mirthlessly. He knew when Neferuaat came, even with his eyes blinded from torturous Warp magic. He noted, with great distaste, how the girl's heartbeat accelerated in his presence without external factors contributing. He sat up, black hair covering a sharply defined face. "My freedom comes with my death. It doesn't take secret wisdom to know that truth, witch. Corax never forgets his sons, no matter how deep the shadows may be."
"My father will accede to my request for your freedom."
A snort of derision echoed off rough cell walls. "Why give a familial title to a monster?"
"He raised me when no one else would. He knows better than I for his life has been long and illustrious. I give him the title as a mark of respect." Quickly she added, "He is my father, just as your Primarch is yours."
"Does your father respect your wishes? My eyes are dead but the manipulations Chaos uses are clear. A father considers his child's state against the wants and needs of his ego. That fiend shod in ceramite who killed my brethren while you-"
Neferuaat psychically cuffed the Raven Guard. "It must be done because Ahriman wills it. I am not afraid of what the grand sorcerer wills." She almost believed her words. "When I return, you can be free of this cell. You'll see that not all followers of Tzeentch do things merely for their own benefit. I am forgiving."
White orbs turned on Neferuaat. "Leave now. Our conversation's finished." Tariq, content having the last word, said nothing more.
"When you die," her tone was scathing, "can I have your helm to remember you?"
Pathoth and Neferuaat walked the Khermuti's twisted corridors with the vizier's honour guard protecting them. Magic infused the enormous ship as water filled a cup, offering servants of the Great Deceiver sips of its power to slake deep thirsts. Neferuaat spared no glance for other practitioners, beings who would never measure to her abilities. Absolution from Pathoth and his ruined pride lay within her grasp; she only needed to conquer Ahriman's trials. There was no hesitancy when she stepped into the immense amphitheatre or a sideways glimpse to those present.
Ahriman's cabal maintained protective wards around the vast duelling ring, powers merging to form a unicursal hexagram beyond the interlocking rings carved in the amphitheatre's floor. Their efforts created a barrier where Neferuaat's trials would take place inside. Pathoth and his retinue joined their erstwhile brethren, the vizier standing to the left of Ahriman. Giving her veil to one of the many nameless serfs, Neferuaat felt her body grow light without the psycurium shielding her mind. She sensed the thin barrier of the Immaterium and Materium with each step. The psionic barrier was lowered; Neferuaat stepped inside before it was raised once more. Taking her position on the centermost dais, the inductee faced the Sorcerer of the Red Cyclops with a flourish of emerald-violet robes.
"This coven bears witness to your first steps into the realms of the sorcerer." Ahriman magnanimously waved a hand at the assembled mages. "Your mind will become the battleground against the winds of magic. So few survive intact; weak minds and weaker souls do not last. You shall be challenged to the limitations of your mortal psyche. Your frailties' will be no more... should you pass. Bow if you accept these conditions." Ahriman's words were met with a pretentious curtsy.
Osis Pathoth stepped forward to lead the opening ritual. Raising his staff, powerful words spilled from his lips, charging the air and manipulating dark energy. Inside the barrier Neferuaat saw the weaves of magic contort and bend reality. Beyond the psionic bastion the images of the Thousand Sons washed away. Colours saturated to where looking at them became painful. She gazed down to find the stone floor roiling, shivering as...
...ruined landscape greeted her. Shattered buildings replaced both amphitheatre and the rows of Thousand Sons. The Khermuti, drifting in the void, gave way to the dusty atmosphere of a desolate planet. Neferuaat viewed her surroundings as though it were a half remembered dream. She attempted looking to either side, her vision wavering each time, displaying the same cityscape on the horizon. Standing in the center of a plaza, light and dark were thrown at crazed angles. The ground was soft under her feet. She found herself atop a pile of mangled bodies, deep shadows hiding the dead eyes of festering corpses. She retched, stumbling down from the mound.
Clutching a withered tree for support, Neferuaat's mind struggled to compose itself. Bodies lay butchered, gutted open to lie out in the sun, their ropy innards pooled on the ground. Ravens cawed loudly in the tree, laughing at her weakness. Neferuaat watched the carrion birds feast on scraps of flesh torn from those same bodies. With a scream of disgust she set the birds alight, adding their charred flesh to the rotting stench on the wind.
"Great Weaver," she whispered in a choked voice. She sought the Enumerations while a perverse sense compelled her to look back to find… "No children. Where are the children?"
A scraping sound came from her left where two girls huddled in an alley. Dressed in tattered clothes, they cagily watched the richly robed stranger. Harmless half-starved urchins, the larger one held the smaller one upright, both ready to run. It was a pitiable sight. Neferuaat walked toward the children left in the wasteland, one hand outstretched in concern. They ran at her advance, the smaller one falling as the other scampered down the dark lane, bare feet slapping against the cobblestones. Reaching the child, Neferuaat thought she was looking into a hazy mirror. A psychic shriek of misery threatened to overwhelm her as the image of a child searching for its mother entered her psyche.
"Get away! Don't you touch her!" The other child came out of nowhere. Grabbing the girl's arms, she backpedalled quickly, dragging the smaller one away.
"You need help. Don't you know what might happen to you out here?" Neferuaat surprised herself with the vehemence in which she spoke. "Stop being foolish and accept my aid."
"Stay away," the child's green eyes flashed venomously. "We don't need help. We don't want it!"
A rock flew fast at Neferuaat; a kine shield deflected it away. The children were already fleeing, skeleton-thin bodies wavering in the dusty air, the red sun outlining their vanishing frames. The ravens were back, taking their place once more on the tree's branches to mock the psyker. Neferuaat ignored their jeering cries.
"Children," said a familiar voice, "are the lost innocents of the galaxy. Who saves them from nightmares in their sleep and the horrors when they awake?"
"How are you here?" Spinning on the ball of her foot, Neferuaat saw Tariq under the dying tree. He loomed tall in full war plate, cradling his bolter in both hands, his Mark VI helm hiding his face
"Haven't figured it out yet?" Tariq continued as Neferuaat remained silent. "This world is not one Ahriman created to challenge you. He's inside your thoughtscape as we speak, toying with you. Your shortcomings, fears, even ambitions are on display for him to see and turn against you."
"You ignored my question." Neferuaat took a step back when the Imperial Astartes walked toward her.
"This is your mind, yet the dangers are fed from external sources. Ahriman will attack you with traps, try to waylay and ambush you. Your thoughts created a guard to help you through these dangers. I am that guardian."
Neferuaat circled around the Astartes, still maintaining a safe distance. "If you're my escort, will you follow me wherever I go? An Imperial Space Marine aiding a heretic. Where is your hatred against me?"
Zephyrs kicked up dust in the plaza, rustling the ravens' feathers, erasing the children's footprints. "I'm but an echo to the real Tariq and even then a distorted projection of how you want him to be. If you want advice, you should be focusing on escaping your mind and Ahriman's tightening noose." In the west, the sun began to sink on the horizon.
"If Ahriman is hunting me, he might try and take the children first. They could be bait. Prescience aside, I – we – will find them before he does." Ravens croaked at her proclamation. "Promise your help and protection, Tariq."
"I swear." For a distorted projection, Tariq's brusqueness remained. Neferuaat turned to where the children had fled, their footprints nearly wiped clean. She would seek them out...
... and found herself walking through wheat fields. Flaxen stalks parted before Neferuaat and Tariq, allowing unhindered passage toward their destination. Their goal was the manse overlooking the fields, a magnificent structure of white marble and rich brown wood the young woman was certain she knew. When she paused, attempting to recall from where the memory came, the first pealing of the bells began. Weighty notes, a mournful sound carried on the wind, either to welcome or ward visitors away remained unanswered. At the edge of the fields Tariq halted, his targeting reticule looking for threats along the high stone walls protecting the affluent dwelling.
"It appears abandoned. You don't like having your mind cluttered with others, it seems." Tariq sneered. "Your thoughts show how selfish you are with nobody populating this world unless you want them to."
Admitting to Tariq's observation was beneath her. His words sparked ruminations, ones Neferuaat did not wish to dwell on. It was her mind; why not snap her fingers and summon the children? Centering her thoughts while drowning out the knelling bells, Neferuaat unshackled her astral form from its physical body, Tariq catching her body before it fell to the ground. Liberated in flight, she left behind the fields, hurdling over the high walls, ghosting through the compound and up to the manse doors. A psychic clout, brutally swift, staggered the young woman and threw her back into her mortal frame. Tariq steadied Neferuaat when she faltered.
"What did you see?"
She rubbed her temples. "Nothing but psionic wards." No need to mention the sudden attack, not to Tariq. "I have to traipse around to find the children like a normal human, it seems."
"Hard work," Tariq mock sympathized. "Do we continue?"
Waving Tariq ahead, Neferuaat followed her protector inside the mansion. Grimy dust sheets covered the furnishings, turning everything into misshapen lumps where the cloth needed lifting to discern what lay underneath. A hundred perfect hiding places for children. The reverberating bells clanged on. Vacant chambers of panelled wood and mosaic floors were searched, the children remained unfound, and the Tzeentchian acolyte and Imperial Astartes moved on.
In the manse chapel the portal stood. It was too easy, too simple. Yet in its obviousness Neferuaat felt the dreaded pull of fate. Compelled to step closer, she leaned against the frame, peering into thick shadows. As the bell tolled again, resonating up from the sepulchre's depths, she knew she had to descend.
"Tariq."
The Raven Guard did not question. He led the way down the wide flagstone steps, bolter ready. Neferuaat followed. With each step the bell's rumbling grew heavier, its tone higher. It never stopped until Neferuaat thought the bell was in her mind, threatening to break open her skull with its incessant pitch. She gritted her teeth against the pain. If Tariq heard the sonorous knell, he made no mention. The staircase spiralled down sharply as slivers of light flared, guttering out, and reappearing further down in the gloom.
When Neferuaat's feet touched the stairwell landing, the bell abruptly halted, only for the whispers to begin. Dervishly spinning about her, capering over the stone walls and tumbling from the ceiling, a cacophony of voices assaulted Neferuaat. They urged her on, guiding her footsteps with sly rebukes that they knew where the children hid better than she could guess. Tariq covered their approach as the voices guided Neferuaat through the maze of corridors. They ceased when she approached the black iron door, a grinning death head affixed to the metal. Her hand paused over the handle, uncertain of what lay on the other side. If her actions were being observed by the same attacker from before, she needed to ensure her own protection first—
While she delayed, Tariq acted. He pushed her aside and opened the door.
Two high-pitched voices screeched in alarm, two small bodies hurtled out of the gloom, and two little girls fought Tariq as he caught them. The more spirited one, the near-feral child, squirmed free. Darting away from the Raven Guard, who handed the smaller child to Neferuaat, the girl child stuck her tongue out at the Emperor's angel of death.
"All will be well," Neferuaat whispered in the quiet child's ear. "You'll be kept safe. There aren't any monsters here."
A whispering chuckle slithered in the air, followed by an arrogant tone. "Many deaths through the centuries were the result of such misguided naivety. Your thoughts are hardly the first down that path."
Ahriman, coalescing from the shadowy thoughtscape, struck fast. Telekinetic energy sheared the air, snatching up the defiant child and into his grip before Tariq could grab her. Even then, the Raven Guard acted, his bolter aimed unwaveringly at the sorcerer's helmet. Neferuaat fled behind Tariq with the terrified youngling.
"This isn't the urchin I have need of," Ahriman's poised manner spoke of one who knew his rivals moves. He looked beyond the Raven Guard, unconcerned of the bolter, to Neferuaat. "What would you do to save this one, Neferuaat? Will we exchange one life for another?"
"Let the child go, fiend." Tariq's aim did not waver, targeting reticule flashing a high-level threat rune. Ahriman's taloned fingers scratched the youth's skin, drawing pinpricks of blood. He felt the child's fear, knew it was Neferuaat's. Terror rippled down every chord of her thoughtscape, every nuance a tell to how powerless she was.
"Would you want the child returned even should she change?" The girl whimpered as her left arm twitched involuntarily, beginning a horrid metamorphosis as the Warp was channelled into innocent flesh. Blossoming scales shimmered as bones popped. New digits grew over the child's hand, tearing skin to accommodate the transformation.
Tariq's aim shifted to the child's head. "Those not pure in the Emperor's sight-"
"Neferuaat, control your overeager watchdog. Command the situation," Ahriman's voice goaded. "Can you influence this outcome? Save the child if you can, Neferuaat, for in your own mind should you not be the mistress?"
Tariq's finger tightened on the trigger. The mutation spread up the girl's arm, flesh sloughing away to reveal muscles the colour of rotten fruit. Neferuaat clutched the child she held closer, keeping her from gazing on the horrid scene. She strove to embrace the Enumerations and retain her calm, heart thumping wildly against her ribcage.
"You will not shoot," she ordered Tariq. "I forbid you to shoot."
"Release the child," the Space Marine snarled.
"Cast me out, Neferuaat. Save this child before she becomes a spawn." Tariq's aim moved, reticule targeting the space between the child's eyes. A vexed sigh escaped the sorcerer. "Allow me to remove this brat for us to continue without distraction."
Fragile bones broke, the sound ricocheting off the walls with gut-sickening intensity. Tossing aside the limp, still shivering and mutating corpse, Ahriman advanced, his black staff glowing in eldritch fire.
"Run!" Tariq roared the order as he advanced.
Each bolt round fired was the howl of cannons in the enclosed space. Jarred by his command, all control over the deadly encounter lost, Neferuaat screamed as the air exploded in a dark red mist. Ceramite plates clattered to the floor as what had been Tariq saturated the air. Through the misty rain of blood Ahriman strode, a remorseless, nightmarish figure. Neferuaat could take no more. Hoisting the surviving child in her arms, she raced down the warren of halls. Whispers cajoled her to give up. She barrelled on, skirting corners too quickly, robes tearing, flesh scraping against rocky outcroppings.
A door appeared in the murk. Neferuaat leapt through it and into the sanctity of the cell beyond. The iron portal slammed behind her, its lock grinding into place. Neferuaat flexed her panicking mind over the younger one, wrapping her body around the little girl's. She sought to obliterate their psychic trail and hide them until it was safe to move. Tense moments grew as Neferuaat imagined the door crashing open, Ahriman's wrath descending over them, her unable to defend against his psychic mastery. When the worse did not come to pass, she cautiously raised her head. Dust motes danced in a weak sunbeam illuminating the room of undressed stone. A ruffle of feathers alerted Neferuaat to the ravens at the window high above, their bodies quivering in flux, blocking out the sunlight. They began pecking at the glass. She fixated on the avian forms, hearing Tariq's voice.
My freedom comes with my death. He did not fear death. Astartes held no fear. She fled in blind horror while he remained; the noble guardian to the last.
"I never gave you permission," Neferuaat muttered hollowly. "I never commanded you to attack."
The child's sobs reached her ears. "Stay with me! I can't be alone!"
"Be still." Neferuaat's hand clamped over the girl's mouth. "Be still and don't cry out. I promise I won't leave you. What's your name?"
"Katea." Tears spilled from frightened eyes.
"Katea, it's important that you be brave now."
She held the girl's hand as the ravens beat their wings against the weakened glass. Neferuaat swallowed her fear. The window pane shattered. Black wings obscured what little sunlight remained, feathers edged in dry blood coating the cell as the ravens tore downwards, shrieking in delight having found their prey. Claws tore at their hair, beaks stabbed into soft flesh. In the fading light, a...
...reflection of her face off the gossamer wings of a double-headed raven. It perched on Ahriman's shoulder, who now stood under the same tree where Tariq had appeared. Occupying its solitary place in the same plaza, the tree was the only point of reference in the barren landscape. There were no bodies now; the city was dust; no ravens were present save the one attending the mage. Katea cowered behind Neferuaat when she saw the helmed sorcerer.
"I would have thought you to fare better," Ahriman serene voice cut the dead silence. His staff struck the earth, sending a wave of corrupted aether outward. "You hesitate committing yourself to the conflict. You lack swift judgement in securing your devices. Poorest yet, you never scry the future before each fate marker, Neferuaat." The double-headed raven clicked its tongues in disapproval.
"Leave my mind," the young woman whispered. He was the reason Tariq was dead and Katea alone. The potential in defeating Ahriman, the impending fight Neferuaat kept running from, brought her a giddy sensation of elation. She would not be humiliated in her own mind. Revenge, she realised, was truly a powerful motivating force. Her grasp on the Enumerations, already fragile, loosened further. She felt an untapped psychic well inside her when she chose not to strive for inner calm.
"You lost your guardian to find an infant. Do you feel powerful knowing you control a weaker being?"
"Leave my mind." Neferuaat repeated. She crafted a bolt of psychic energy, hurtling it at the sorcerous lord to prove her threat. Ahriman's staff flared. Deflecting the strike, he sent it ricocheting into the rotting wood.
"Petulant girl, now you seek a challenge? Judge how you will attack my person and defend the child at the same time. Let your pride in your abilities lead if it will secure your victory."
"Leave her alone," Neferuaat whispered. "If you touch her, I will-"
The psychic blow, stronger than the one at the manse, sent her reeling. The two-headed raven took to flight, darted madly overhead, spectator to this battle. Neferuaat spat blood from her mouth, letting the crimson liquid cover her hand as she closed it into a fist, feeling the blood squeeze between her fingers. She pushed Katea back with a thought, keeping her at the edge of her sight. Ahriman's staff crackled as tendrils of lightning leapt off its surface. His calm remained unbroken, a figure of legend unafraid of the confrontational whelp.
"What attacks has Osis Pathoth taught you that could end me? He lets others do his work for him, just as you are now."
All attempts at poise and remembering the Enumerations were stripped from Neferuaat. She wanted to crack open the power armour of the warlock and strike at his flesh. She wanted him to bleed. Air froze; earth broke into dust, the roots of the great tree ripped free from the ground to attack. Ahriman supercharged the air with flames, held the landscape firm about his feet, raised his staff to splinter the roots. The tree crashed to the earth, branches snapping off and turning to powdery remains. A psychic blast from Neferuaat, sharp as a force halberd's edge, sheered away a section of Ahriman's right vambrace, taking with it heavy strips of skin and muscle, exposing white bone. The double-headed raven croaked an exhilarated cry.
"Blood paid by blood," Neferuaat taunted, sending a devastating whirlwind of lightning at Ahriman. "Lord Pathoth taught me enough to deal with you." Neferuaat's heart thundered as her feet stepped through the trail of blood Ahriman left. She was rage. She was wrath incarnate. She was relentless. His staff fell from nerveless fingers. Under her blazing sight as the aether roiled through her body and washed over her limbs, Ahriman collapsed to one knee. He raised a hand to supplicate the Alpha-plus psyker. Neferuaat would not be entreated.
She fell into his trap sensing her victory.
Ahriman's retreat had been planned from the start. Pooling his talents for a devastating strike, Ahriman phased through the body of the neophyte, barbed hooks of aether drawing out her very essence. Neferuaat clutched her flesh and soul together as Ahriman ripped at her astral form. Searing cold raced down leaden arms and legs. Life leeched from her skin. Her lungs rasped for breath as the veins in her body burned brighter than a nova. Her mind fought to retain its existence as her vision began to fail. Her frail shell was dying.
Gripping the clawed edges of her aura, wrestling against Ahriman's attack, Neferuaat's custodianship over Katea was taken. Taloned gauntlets descended on Katea's shoulders. Neferuaat turned darkening eyes to the sorcerer and his prey. Pulling the helpless child through a vortex rent from Neferuaat's fragmenting thoughtscape, the grand sorcerer vanished through it, the tear reweaving itself with no way to follow. Neferuaat's mind disintegrated as she fell on hands and knees, seeing nothing, sensing everything.
Above her the sky spun drunkenly. The double-headed raven was caught up in its destruction, shredded into feathers and innards to rain down on the psyker. Scarlet clouds tumbled overhead; speeding past in their flight to a distant horizon Neferuaat would never reach. Moments ticked by in infinite slowness where she watched, for hours, the ominous approaching thunderhead. The sun was snuffed out by a darkness even her burning eyes could not sense, something only felt at the soul's level. Ravens cawed in the tree's broken branches while Neferuaat crawled into the dead roots. She pressed the heel of her bloodied palm to her forehead, finding no use in screaming. No one would hear. The noose had tightened around her throat as Tariq said it would, leaving her choked in the labyrinth of her mind with no escape.
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
There, in a pile of windswept leaves beside her, her aching eyes saw it even in the dark. The girl picked up an all too familiar silver death helm. Rare gems covered the stylized crested hood, the Eye of Tzeentch at the center emanating a faint pulse of light. The madness of her mindscape made Pathoth's talking helmet the sanest thing to encounter. "Another riddle."
You delighted in riddles when you were younger.
"I'm older now."
I know. The silence stretched out, empty and cold. Neferuaat turned the viceroy's helm over in her hands, corpse-coloured fingers tracing the adamantium contours. Silver flakes peeled off the ornate surface to be caught up in the wind and spun away into nothingness. What once had been an inferno inside the psyker was now cold, the embers of her anima raked bare. Emptied of emotion, her soul's light weakened.
"Are you still here?"
I am always here. Today you set yourself free of the limitations your mind imposed on itself.
"Limits set by my watcher and tutor."
Until you learned to control your powers. It was never permanent.
"But you still limited me." She jabbed a nail at one of the blue lenses, seeking to dislodge it.
For your safety. Now that you have overcome these obstacles, you may ascend to a higher plane of acuity and knowledge. Osis Pathoth's voice grew mellifluous. Daughter, there is one final task I would see completed. Should you fail, there will be grave consequences.
"Just what is that?" The supine armoured form of Tariq materialised through the swirling wind and dark. Neferuaat's eyes burned uncontrollably. Even when she closed her lids for a moment's respite, she could see beyond them, images overlapping of the recent past and unknown future.
Kill the Raven Guard. He has polluted your mind and will limit your further growth until he is forgotten.
"Ahriman killed him. I saw Tariq's death." She gazed dispassionately at the Imperial Space Marine. "He holds no power over me. In the end, my trust was misplaced in his strength."
He must die by your hand for Ahriman only stripped the weak projection from you. You must do this final act. If the Raven Guard is allowed to live in your mind, he will fester unchecked, your potential halted with the doubt this Loyalist filth instils in you. Trust the words of your father.
Trust, the very lynchpin from the very beginning which had never existed between Neferuaat and Tariq. Every conversation and one-sided debate elicited, Tariq had sown the seeds of doubt. Without her ever knowing, his cancerous speech undermined the foundations of the world and father who raised her. Her merits jeered. Why be drawn to someone who considered her as anything but anathema?
We, the chosen of Tzeentch, see clearly through darkened glass. Nothing is left untouched in our passing and nothing unknown. Our future is ours to shape, to direct. We guide those too weak to guide themselves. End his influence over you, cut the binding cord.
Pathoth's helmet liquefied, the metal knitting itself into a dagger in her hand. Rising to her feet, Neferuaat thought she heard the distant cry of a child for her to stop. Unclasping the seals holding the despicable helmet in place, she tossed the offending piece of armour aside, laying the flat of the blade across Tariq's exposed neck.
"You could never protect me," she hissed at the Astartes. "My great father considers my state and safety, while you would seek to break it."
She was the mistress of her own mind. Neferuaat brought the blade down while Katea's distant voice wailed in alarm. It rose to a shriek and was silenced as the cold metal slid into Tariq's throat. The wind died away. The darkness ebbed as colour returned across her thoughtscape's horizon. Reality seeped back as the noose constricting Neferuaat released, exposing the amphitheatre where the Thousand Sons watched the end of her trial.
Tariq stayed solid. His blind eyes fixed on Neferuaat with the light in them fading, not a projection of her mind but part of a horrid actuality.
The young woman's sacrifice to Tzeentch was accepted. Blood gushed from slit arteries to drain into carved runes, funnelled from the dais and collected in silver bowls. Hot blood covered her as Neferuaat frantically pressed her hands against the wound, so great even the enhanced physiology of a Space Marine could not stop it. In the great duelling circles of the Khermuti, Neferuaat screamed herself hoarse. Even then, her mind continued, psionic waves cracking the ancient crystal roof. It was only the powerful aegises of Ahriman which kept the vessel from sundering.
Medicae suppressants given to the psyker forced the new being back into its crystalis without letting it encompass the depth of its new abilities. Imprisoning powers beyond its reach until its talents could be allowed – in increments' – to slip loose at the behest of the masters, the psyker was restrained. Ahriman said he never ordered the production of the psycholatent drugs. As with many things, Ahriman lied. The cocktail of suppressants would keep Neferuaat sane, poison slipping through her bloodstream to control a terrified child left with no certainties.
Osis Pathoth administered the dosage. It was his duty as father, the least of all evils he visited upon his child. "In time you will come to understand and be grateful for these tinctures. There is no malice or ill-intent within my actions. I do this for your safety."
Neferuaat was beyond Pathoth's justifications. His voice did not reach her with the potent sedatives rushing through her changed body, mutations brought on by the coven's trial. Where flawless skin showed the night before, now an intricate map of veins traced itself under the thin surface. Lips the colour of a corpse parted slight to draw in a ragged breath. Conceited eyes showed the true mark of the psyker. The once white sclera had turned pitch black; the irises burned an intense blue, while the flesh surrounding her eyes was circled in dark shadows.
"I look hideous," she murmured, a hand limply resting on the Mark VI helmet of the dead Raven Guard. From the corner of her chamber, Argos meowed in sympathy across the shared mental link.
"Do not let your emotions overwhelm you. These changes only show Tzeentch's favour. In time, you will accept them as naturally as you breathe." He brushed back a strand of her hair. "Your accomplishments fill me with great pride once more." The psycurium-laced walls of Neferuaat's opulent chamber eased against the mental bombardment as the remedy took hold. The vizier left her in a drug-induced sleep.
In falsified memories made real, Neferuaat dreamed. Her thoughtscape was her world, far from the course the Meskhenet and Khermuti sailed, removed from the machinations of deranged sorcerers. She sat patiently under a blooming tree where a solitary raven kept watch in its branches. Here she waited for a black-plated Astartes to come. Together, they would search for Katea. Together, they would keep her and the lost innocents' safe in the Dark Mother's reality, far from the violence of nightmares.