Harlequin by Ian Watson

Author:Ian Watson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

ILLUMINATUS

Zephro Carnelian stared through his spread fingers at the farseer. Ro-fhessi’s robe shimmered iridescently. The eldar’s high masked helm evoked some bleached equine skull set upright upon his shoulders. Crystals studded the helm. From within twin cavities eyes gleamed, seeming crystalline likewise. From Ro-fhessi’s waist dangled a pouch in which would be rune stones. A jewelled holster housed an ornate shuriken pistol.

‘We meet again,’ said Ro-fhessi. ‘I have woken. I have walked.’

Led by a vision, the farseer had evidently walked through the webway from far Ulthwé craftworld, so close to the Eye of Terror.

Zephro laughed softly. How like a child he felt, peeking through his fingers at this farseer!

Ro-fhessi laughed too. The farseer mimicked the exact cadence of Zephro’s mirth – as if he were testing that mirth for any taint of hysteria and madness.

Zephro was peering through his fingers because they were webbed with gossamer. Tiny sparkling warp spiders had emerged from one of the wraithbone ribs which supported the huge amphitheatre, upon the rim of which he stood.

Beneath the soft-seeming terraces of viridian moss was the quasi-living skeleton, stronger than adamantium, which had grown outward from the initial core of this habitat. Akin to a craftworld – although of lesser size – this habitat boasted no vast sails to propel it slowly through the void on a frail plasma breeze of its own production. It had been grown in orbit around a planet. That planet now hovered in holo-projection over the heart of the amphitheatre, a diseased eye hideous to behold.

That phantom world was one on which Carnelian had once walked – and had skipped and pranced – and for which he grieved.

Stalinvast.

The entire land surface of that world, beneath a veil of storm-blown ashes, was scoured rock and cinder desert. Its seas were poisonous sludge. Former cities would resemble dead shattered coral, if indeed any cities had outlasted the worldwide firestorm of exploding rot-gas. Not a microbe would be alive. Even the life-eater virus would finally have consumed itself.

The psychic webs of the warp spiders tickled Zephro’s hands pleasantly.

Really, there was no need for Ro-fhessi to test the quality of laughter – that purgation of horror. If the least residue of Chaos – other than a dire memory – had lurked in Zephro’s spirit, many more of the tiny spiders would have crystallized out of the wraithbone to swarm all over him. By now they would be melting their way into his body to devour the evil and perhaps the host as well.

The spiders had chosen to investigate his hands. Had Ro-fhessi summoned the glittering mites? No longer was the farseer in a trance, in a longdream of communion with the wraithbone of his craftworld, uttering oracles. He had woken; he had walked. Ro-fhessi wore a shuriken pistol. Only in time of crisis would a farseer of his calibre involve himself to this degree.

From behind the projected semblance of that leprous orb of Stalinvast, flying warriors began to glide: Swooping Hawks. Their lightweight blue armour was hard to see against the deeper blue of the dome which arched above the amphitheatre.

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