"The first son of Isha and first of the eldar was the young king, Eldanesh. Held by her and enlightened by Asuryan, he held us. If he was here would my world still be deprived? - Ulthanesh, The second hero.
He didn't visit his mother often enough… Her name must be immortal through him.
It was like he was being pulled up from a lake when the dream finally let him go. With his eyes closed, Callin still felt his lungs heaved more heavily than he wanted. The air felt wet against his skin and cold in his lungs, like the dark stone under him and the darker waters surrounding the stone.
Lying on his back, he felt lost at what to do. Scream? Cry? Both were wonderful options, but lying on the hard surface, feeling the cool air, kept him busy.
The eldars head fell to the side. When enough water to fill an ocean passed by it was easy to find the riot of drops violent, but the thunder of waterfalls was irrelevant to him. Her voice took its place.
He was a small thing in an ancient and powerful scenery. The breath of ghosts was the rolling mists, hiding him and the thousand small and one hundred immense runes engraved in the black stone from the pale sunlight.
Of course, it was a holy place, all land of a craftworld was sacred. That holiness was forgotten when he stroked the rune and lichen. They were as hardened and algid as her gauntlet.
Carefully, he opened his eyes, not wanting his vision of her to fade by the pale light, shining through the water of the material world. He plucked up his mother's ring and returned it to his finger.
Too much time had passed since he had seen her.
On top of a dark stone, a now adult eldar was utterly insensible, the memory had been so vivid…. The soulstone in his necklace brimmed with a vitality of its own.
There was no revelation to be enlightened by here, lulled by ghosts and memories. He already knew he was a terrible son.
…
A craftworld was unexplainable. In the way that the spoken word never lived up to the feeling of walking these ships that carried worlds within worlds. Soundless and weightless it sailed the space between stars, big as a moon and beautiful as its light, but far more beloved.
The celestial ship had been Callins home for the whole of his life, but what conjured around him couldn't be translated into words.
Round pillars raised themself like old trees reaching for the sun. Only they grasped for more than one. Silent stars gave them light through a ceiling more clear than glass and stronger than steel. The rest of the inhabitants of the starwheel never reached the height eldar architecture drifted in.
In the circle of the pillars had the size of a small town, he found himself running with his heart breaking through his chest but still keeping a mindful grace. He was more a tiny spark gotten lost in a hearth meant to house a bonfire than the glowing soul he was supposed to become.
Lowliest of his teachers' pupils, he had only the duties given to him. And now he managed to fumble this light balancing act…
Lowliest of his ancestor's children, he had a legacy to uphold. At least the last part could be buried under moss as long his face and family name remained hidden.
What made young eldar feel even more out of place was running around like a confused bird in the search for his mentor, so between fluttering robes and masked faces he danced. More thankful than ever for his own helmet, he looked like one of many spectres carrying legends on their fabric and souls.
His closest family members couldn't recognise him like this, no one could.
The eldars in armour carried their own red history besides the seers, the decorations of their psychic metal honouring a different god. Callin would recognise Lanmar no matter the purpose of his garments the scars on his face.
The seers had an inception of conversation, voices entangled by reality-shattering language that playfully lept from comprehension and signals and charms that ventured directly through the mind. Those less versed in the outhere worldly gift settled with mutters.
What every voice airborne, immaterial or whatever noise Callin made, shared was the tension of an over-tuned moon lute. In fear or anticipation divided them all again. Except for Callin, he might as well have split in two trying to house his emotions. His farseers teachings would finally bear fruition… the young eldar hoped. The only thing he found was the odd feeling of familiarity he felt with someone else here. Like how a word he knew the meaning of a word just for it to remain on the tip of his tongue, the soul evaded recognition. Like a taste you haven't felt since childhood… Pushing the feeling away, he had no time to waste. That he felt it at all was the biggest surprise.
His heart which wanted to break free finally settled in his chest, freezing into small raptures when he returned to the company of two that he followed closely for the whole evening. The embarrassment that he couldn't find their shared mentor stopped him from standing too close to either of them.
The first seer in deep red and the white of shaded snow snapped at the uncomfortable pupil in humbler colours to close in. Not with her hand, or any way ears and eyes could perceive. It was a shockwave of a commandment his body wanted to follow, his small pendants were wispily pulled towards the seer.
He followed his commandment and made a bow of Lealith where hands sunk from his chest to his belt, a common apology from a younger eldar. "Spiritseer, I-I'm in penitence but all I find is his absences".
"Apologising like a child won't make absconding any less grating" Her voice clanged more determined than the hammer hitting the nail, "our farseer arrives when he needs to". She sounded harsher than she was, though Callin was a child's name, rules were different in the robes of a seer robes.
The straightness of Laconia's posture put the pillars that reached for the void to shame. A seer opposite in every way stood beside her and stared like a hawk at the gate of the centre of their gathering. Edralion didn't say a word but Callin guessed he was somewhat happy to see him again.
"I don't mean to doubt Fara-Kalamar…" he turned away from Laconia to cross back and forth, fiddling with his sleeve as if he were trying to tear it off. A habit he inherited from Lanmar.
"Of course, you don't! He's a high farseer. If he needs you, he'd want you still and here".
"I just thought if the runes had been sung wrong soo I needed to see them. They are fine, clearly. But can you imagine the catastrophe if they had not? How nimbly the connection between worlds and a crass hands forfeits it! Our TWO coming farseers would never look at us again… b-by the lost and forgotten they would have thrown us to Khaine or just-" The young eldar rambled with more emotion he displayed in cycles.
And he would have continued until the end of all eldars was it not for a voice, warm and old like a sun shined "My dear Callin. When have our webway gates ever faltered?".
"I won't leave this chance, my farseers will be watching-" he stopped mid-sentence and mid-step too as he looked up and saw he was talking to his farseer.
A farseer was not like other eldar, like no other seer. A seer saw and followed the future, a farseer decided it, an eldar followed both. At the end and forefront of the path of all seers, he stood as something more and haunting. Fara-Kalamar was in front of him as if delivered from the cold void as a warm beacon beyond this world.
"Fara-Kalamar, I–I… I found you, my farseer? Pardon I did not mean to doubt our craftworld…" The young seer-to-be stumbled out. A hundred and one thoughts swirled in his head of what he should do now.
"No, it was a good call. I nor the gate take offence from your precautions" The farseer replied humoured. A farseer he may be but seldom did he act like the river of ethereal power and visions was just beneath his peculiar and faire surface.
Though the kind eyes and face that looked at Callin were of the same blood as another eldar, the subtle lines of age around them made them so recognisable. It was an oddity among the ageless eldar but a merciful one, how the psychic gift changed you wasn't satisfied with your body and mind.
Edralion's possession by the dormant gate had been broken. He snapped back to be animated to stare at Fara-Kalamar as a new obsession.
"Kalamar, we ought to commence. She and your council will see all imperfections" The light veil of detachment normally found in Edralions voice distorted his alertness uncannily.
The farseer said nothing, he needed not with his old students. Something shimmered in Fara-Kalamar's eyes and his smile too was something other than joy. The other two seers responded in their own ways. The one flimsy like silk made the air thine and coil as his fingers braided hastily, the one with a spine of stone took a heavy breath. With a swift gesture, Edralion turned heel and vanished. After a lingering stare at Callin Laconia followed.
It was close to comedic how a little gesture unnerved him. He could almost taste a pity and solemn regret behind the visor of her elegant helmet.
"Our trusted farseer of myth draws near… Are you prepared?" his farseer asked in a calming manner.
"Of course, my farseer" the pupil lied, pulling a well-worn smile from the far older eldar.
The leaders of the craftworlds armies and swords gave way for Fara-Kalamar, his viel bending armour. The seers did as well, splitting between hidden suspicion and awe in his wake.
To the far more invisible shadow that was Callin, it was rather nice to be so seen and yet far away from being perceived as himself. It was his confusion he did not recognise most of the eldar, those at the edge of the audience never stuck in his eyes.
Callin held the farseer's ghost helmet in a grip harder than wraithbone. Its featureless faceplate stared back at him. Callins face too felt equally nothing when one of the sources of his alarm finally showed himself.
Lanmar was no violent or angry person, he just… tread a violent path. One of the autarchs, he stood brilliant in his armour, a decorated sword and hair adorned him. There was a new light scar on Lanmars face that his nephew had not seen before. It would have suited him if his features didn't have to fight to seem placid and strong. Had Callin not seen that twitching green eye and tight jaw from the view of a son he might have fallen for it too. Lanmar had the same withdrawn look as someone completely within their own mind, something they both shared in recent times.
The browned haired eldar followed the other armoured eldars making way for Fara-Kalamar.
When Fara-Kalamar stopped to trade words with the autarch Lanmar followed, Callin was given ample opportunity to see his family closer.
His usual carefree gait had been brushed straight out of him with iron bristles. Lanmars brown hair was bouned down with small golden rings, and not a strand escaped. The half smile often found on him was still there. No… this was the eldar Callin remembered from his childhood. There were dark circles under his eyes instead.
"How are you feeling?" Callin asked quietly.
Pulled out of his own thoughts, Lanmar blinked frantically at him. Understandable since Lanmars' personal health was the last thing you wished a never seen before seer brought up.
"Good… Of course, I am" Lanmar's voice was the most elegant growl.
"You- your wound is showing"
"What are you insinuating seer?"
Callin wanted to have said less and with Fara-Kalamars leaving he hurried away from the confused eldar.
He bit his lip to the embarrassment. There was a comfort that he wouldn't lie and masquerade for much longer anymore. His study under 'the wrong' farseer would make him a full-fledged seer who needed not hide his true path. As a seer, he would not hide as Lanmar died slowly and his house fell into rot. He would expel Lanmar from his path. And then his family couldn't hate him anymore… not even for the passing of pretending and lying…
And then, perhaps the youngest of the great seers that be written into the chapters of history and change the language and chapters that came after.
In short, he had slithered back to being the shadow of his farseer again. He knew Fara-Kalamar had noticed his absences.
"I know you haven't forgotten what I said," Fara-Kalamar said, resting his bare hand on the webway gate.
"Ahh-no… Fara-Kalamar how could I ever?" Asuryan light your flame and guide me. He might as well guess which star was the right one by the description it's bright.
"Callin I beckoned you to stop with the honour name" The veiled eldar glanced back at him.
Ohh it was just this… again.
"I refer to Fara-Phasalian as I ought, why not you as Fara-Kalamar too?"
"Your bloodline demands it in your house. As anything other than hierarchy I couldn't guess. Would you accept to bow and bend if Laconia or Edralion gave it all up to be farseers?" Fara-Kalamar voice was seldom changed by emotion but now it gleamed.
Callin thought that of course his house rightly demanded it, you test having a bloodline made of heroes and demons, but didn't want to say it.
"I'll add Fara to their name as I weep for what their old ones, farseer" Callin retorted, deepening Fara-Kalamar glance.
The old seer sighed in the way every troubled teacher and worried mind had since time was young.
"Is my question about the funeral redundant?"
"I've prepared as much as my stamina allowed, I'll be perfect" The seer-to-be replied to the weak smile of the seer-of-aeons.
The young eldar returned the ghost helmet to the eldar it longed back to in a floating arc. Fara-Kalamar didn't touch it with his hands until he placed in his head in appreciative bow to Callin.
A child's giddiness over soon seeing a wonder, sparked humbly in him besides the anxious clawing. It was the pupils' time now, as it had been generations of eldars novel on the seers' path. There was a radiating seed in his chest that sprouted over being part of the flowing tradition of a chosen pupile beginning the awakening of a webway gate. Fear of failure and a mountain of nervousness tightened his chest as well.
A deep breath to hush his dancing nerves, Callin closed his eyes. All eldars were beautiful, the painful sharpness of their soul brought every rim of their being to light.
He wasn't Callin now, none bearing a child name should dwell in the psychic gift, that was a death fate.
In a body warm and cold enough to boil and freeze water, the young eldar felt the universe of flesh and stones weaken and set him free. It was strength from nothing but within him, it was only gathered connections from the whole world. What was within wanted to break through his skin and embrace the outside and the ocean souls above his head bathed him with foreign emotions.
Wonderful and painful, it was an addicting he needed to quell.
He felt both Lanmar and Fara-Kalamar's eyes on him, they were more but on the two he looked back. He felt the silk of robes, the addictive weight of a sword and the hard humming surface of wraithbone. The nameless eldar threw the door close on the sensation.
(Give a better description of him pulling away)
The gate of white arcs that broke natural laws and the barrier separating worlds received the end of his reach.
It kindled to life… or close to it. Not living like the rest but half animated and crackling weakness. At another time, he might found it funny how much he could see himself in it. He thought he could do this and it laughed at his hubris….
Callins face subtly morphed at his failure.
Somehow it was enough for the helmeted farseer. With grace, he embraced the river of power in his fathom. The river split and bent for him and when he asked it to travel upstream it had no complaints.
Callin found the atmosphere sparkling, fizzing in his lungs and thinned to a life of its own.
Enclosing himself more from his mentors' powers would spell disaster if he didn't.
The air screamed and withered as Fara-Kalamar ripped in the fabric of the world. The laws the material world abided by were unwritten by him, to which the world gates responded with screeches of cold and a crack black as the void. Callin was made silent how the farseer made the violent act so graceful.
Two slits glowed from the farseers face mask and the pained wound of the world calmed its scream.
The scene became the bottom of a deep black lake where the silence filled.
In a weak voice, a "I'm sorry…" came from Callin.
Unlike his pupil, Fara-Kalamar did not break the silence. His student only saw that the blank faceplate reflected the perfect black crack that formed.
In the blink of an eye, it reflected a white bright enough to blind. The gates looked like they holstered a miniature star, only this new light bragged of its foreign home of another dimension.
Two eldar in wanderers' clothing emerged from the light, two blurred silhouettes cutting black against it.
The first one a soul brighter and older than anyone he ever met, struck his seventh sense like the light struck his eyes.
Even when muted it still made him feel like a thin spectre to something so beyond him. After all that, it still gave him a warmth only a person he knew his whole life could give. She was the beginning of his house, Fara-Phasalian.
The second one carried the same familiarity but Callin could not place him.
Opposite to what he felt, what Callin saw wasn't what he expected, she probably wasn't what any would expect of a farseer.
She was mirrored by the ranger and his clothing cut from dark leather. The torn fabric fluttered like the banner of the side who lost the war.
The farseer didn't move once she arrived but her follower saw no reason to stop whatever argument they arrived with. From where Callin stood he could see the stranger's fluttering hood blend with his dark hair. Like many through the ages, he failed to grab the attention of a high farseer.
Then it struck him, how the figures displacement in a craftworld society and was still not foreign to him. And those dark eyes like his own.
It was his father…
The closer he and Fara-Phasalian came the less control of his shook he had. At least his ghosthelmet saved him from flaunting his wide eyes.
Everything from thoughts to nerves and muscles froze in Callin when the two farseers met. Fara-Phasalian own ghost helmet was sharp and elegant like herself and no one dared to cross its gaze or her path. When it fell on him and nothing else in this or other worlds, it saw through everything, at every secret he ever treasured.
The pupils' duty to their teachers forced him to remain but no higher obligation or force of nature could steady his breathing.
"We stutter alike distant starts to you Phasalian," the second farseer said with a fluent tongue. It was an expected greeting between respected seers, only the honorary name was the costume for eldars from their own craftworld.
Callin bowed like Lealith again, his best to lean towards Fara-Phasalian. All chose the same greeting to the high farseer but every eldar performed it in their own way.
The one everyone looked at looked at Callin.
Dressed as a ranger she still commanded the room a sculpture of a greater-than-life myth.
The one all bows for said nothing and so of course the world was silent with her, sharing her judgement.
The ancient hand of Fara-Phasalian snapped to a fist and the shouting light was silenced and the world tearing gate shut.
Callins vision was a primordial dark before light sparling from the craftworlds bone came to greet Fara-Phasalian. Lit by the ground that changed colour with a night star sky, Callin didn't breathe in his shimmering pale robes.
In the new light, many of the seers and those with steel were gone. Callins already panicked mind found the distraction of the dispelled illusion an easing distraction. Fara-Phasalians eyes set Callin free and took hold of her fellow farseer.
Now finally the farseer spoke in her wise tongue.
"Just stop"
Lanmar who wasn't an illusion and very much real snapped out of his disarray to listen.
Callin reproduced a squeak of a mouse caught by a hawk.
"I'd say the same, but we know it's too late for you" the silken farseer replied.
In a fluent movement, he removed his helmet and lent it to his pupil. Callin didn't drop the thing at least.
"To see you mingle with profane powers after your lineage botch the well-being of our home intrigues us Phasalian. How far can a rotten fruit fall if its leaves don't reach for a sun, I asked our council".
Fara-Kalamar continued in their singing language for all to hear his steady voice.
"Stop" She said, her voice distorted by her helmet.
"I again ask you the same"
"No one ever stops. Too many aeons for you to learn a child's lessons…" As if to distance herself from the conversation she raised herself to her full height. She was taller than the normal eldar and towered over Callin.
Callins father lightly drummed his fingers on his thigh, his gaze stuck on him though. He wanted to shake it off him as much as he enjoyed those questioning eyes. Was it rare to see an eldar so young wanted by a farseers side, fleeing ranger?
"You run so far from your home but your world is just The Mother Isha's garden "she continued.
"Excuse us, the journey was long and my words must reach the whole of our council" The farseer from another world said calmly.
It was far from the first time Callin heard of the strife between the two farseers. Looking away from his leaving ancestress to the helmet in his arms, he never imagined since shortest childhood legs that he would be on another side… No, have some feeble hope yet? His family couldn't throw him away for something they didn't know. In the long run, his seer-dome would mend wounds and not deepen cracks. A young Callin wished he knew some magic words to say to Lanmar, to stop his outdrawn death. One wish and one relief came true when the three of his house were appearing to leave.
In language from another world that made mountains quiver Fara-Kalamar spoke. In this scenery meant for a hundred and their gathering of a few, Fara-Kalamar whispered for only two. Callin found it a beautiful sound, only it threatened to crack his mind if he went closer. She who understood the psychic tongue and didn't find the words beautiful.
"If you so insist to be a farseer, you've outgrown this house" she spoke strangeling Fara-Kalamar and then her gaze landed on Callin.
"My kin, we must be honest in our house".
What? No…
"Come here, Callin"
No, no, no NO! Callin caught Lanmar twitching in disbelief in the corner of his eyes. It was well more than enough for him to refuse to look in his direction. Leaving one farseer for another, his small walk felt like the last steps he ever take. Standing in front of his oldest ancestor and greatest farseer, he was small in every way measurable. It was a saying that after the eyes the soul was close to the hand. Callin's hands shook as he wanted to flee from the body itself.
"Remove your helmet," She said simply.
He complied against every will in his body.
Black hair spilt over grey-robed shoulders, like all eldar his face was like sculpted of cherished stone. High cheekbones were cutting, his father's face mirrored more gentle and still some childish white in his hair.
That face and all the rest looked at him, only him. Himself, ohh he just looked at the ground.
The farseer lifted her hand to the level of his chin, close to touching.
A small psychic push compelled him to look up at her.
"A child has no place in the world of seers. The softer fantasies and weightless heads die among us"
"Your father was Ulrion… Then Calrion will suit you. May you grow into it with grace". When the ancient farseer had said it all in that voice with the grace of a treasured relic she ended his life as he knew it.
There was no smile, if there even a face behind that ghosthelm he doubted it but the farseer turned away from him all the same.
But nothing happened. Soulstone cracking and bodily death didn't befall him, but they were still no breathing. This was a different death. A phantom feeling of someone resting her hands on his shoulder came. Maybe both to comfort and reassure his belief.
I'm sorry, you deserve better.
First, now the young eldar looked up. It was a child's first thought to look for their parent but it was a mistake to look for Lanmar.
Something wounded stared at him back, like Lanmar didn't recognise the creature before him.
In Fara-Kalamar was no comfort, something vacant took place in him. In an irritated child's confusement Fara-Kalamar stared at the high farseer and intangible intentions.
"Callin, what have you done?" Lanmar broke the silence. Calrions skin turned to ice when Lanmars eyes bore into him when he marched towards him.
"I'm- I-I didn't me-mean to… I'm-" his throat physically hurt the more he tried.
It was a reflex from both parts when Calrion turned to flee and Lanmar gripped his wrist. He said nothing but Calrion still heard his name being begged through gritted teeth. Those green eyes were a whole story of anger, a forest burning with loathing and disappointment. That wasn't all, the son saw what was beneath, his dread and a father pleading to him.
Breaking the moment in two Calrion ripped his hand from his uncle.
Getting as far away as he could, the noise from the gathering died halfway to his ears. Maybe he wanted to hear less, then his name wouldn't reach him.
Callins- Calrions ghost helmet hit the ground with a hollow bang. It just weighed him down when he ran.