Direchasm (Warhammer Age of Sigmar) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2020-12-12T00:00:00+00:00

V

I am dead.

The thought anchored itself in my mind, gaining surety from the tortuous perfection of my memory. I’d died before, in Shadespire. Hundreds of times. Each time I remembered the sensation of being dead, of being free, before Nagash’s damned curse vomited me back into the world of the living. After the first time I’d been returned to life death lost its grim allure. I knew the promise of oblivion was a vile lie; a cruel punishment inflicted by a false god on arrogant fools who’d endeavoured to deny the divine its due.

Now, ensconced in darkness that knew no end, there was a certain lurid peace to it.

But slowly, like an ember gradually catching fire in tinder, I felt consciousness returning to me. To my body. To the warped, unnatural flesh that grudgingly jailed my soul. And with the prickling sensation dawned a truly hideous realisation, the likes of which I hadn’t felt in centuries.

I’m not dead. I’m alive.

I opened my eyes.

I was prone, but… floating. I glanced around, seeing the walls of Beastgrave pass beside me, its floor pass beneath me, yet my limbs remained unmoving. It took me a moment to realise that I was recumbent but borne aloft by a magical hand.

I craned my neck to look ahead. Before me, mumbling a tune in a language I’d never heard, stood Vortemis.

‘You disappoint me, my child,’ the magister hissed.

I tried to speak, but my tongue felt dry, turgid. I grunted and clicked my beak.

‘Can you stand?’ the magister asked.

I nodded my head. Without turning his eyeless face the All Seeing perceived the gesture. The bonds around me vanished and I crashed to the cave floor, my sword clattering beside me. As the aethereal funeral-wrappings sloughed away I was slowly able to rise to my hooves. My clawed hand went to my throat, feeling the parted flesh knitted to wholeness without a scar.

‘We’re alive,’ I choked out. ‘How is that possible?’

Vortemis continued walking without breaking stride. ‘I had hoped the answer would have been obvious to you, my child. At least before you decided to embarrass yourself with that foolish attempt at rebellion.’

My eyes caught something glittering in the unnatural darkness. ‘The shadeglass,’ I breathed, feeling the grave-chill of the Mirrored City seeping through the cave walls.

Vortemis nodded sagely, raising his staff to illuminate the chamber we found ourselves in. Jutting from the cave wall, between strange statues and ominous carvings, were thousands of glittering shards, lodged like daggers in flesh.

‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘It appears the Necroquake shattered the very foundation of the Mirrored City across the Mortal Realms. Perhaps beyond as well. The magic of the Katophranes, along with the curse wrought by the Lord of Death, lingers within the shadeglass.’

I felt sickness rising in my stomach. I’d been smashing shards of the accursed shadeglass since the moment we’d found ourselves in Beastgrave, and never once did it occur to me that such a thing was possible.

We turned a corner, finding walls coated in freshly hardened amber. Beneath the golden surface I saw Narvia and Turosh, trapped like insects.

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