A Light Not Extinguished

Chapter 41: Shatterpoint (2)

She has traveled so, so far. Across desolate planets and flaming stars, searching for any of her kind in a galaxy scoured clean by war.

Even as the other races picked up the pieces and the Enslavers retreated back to where they came from, she was met with no success. And now, as the Nameless Soldier stood in the husk of a city abandoned by the same race that made her, she cursed them, cursed the world.

"You damned me!" The warrior screamed out into the empty streets. "You made me for your war, and now what?!" She pounded her fists against the blackstone floors, pulled the crystal towers down for their foundations. "You left me with nothing! No cause to fight for!" Pyroclasts flew from her hands, striking buildings at random. "Why did you leave me here?"

"And you!" She spat at the presence behind her. "You are not my God. None of you are, so go back to your people."

"████████..." The divinity murmured, haloed in a soft green luminescence. "It doesn't have to be like this."

"And what would you know of that?" The Soldier shouted, long ears flattening against her head as she stomped forwards, towering over the goddess. "Look upon me, mother of the Eldar!" Clawed hands gestured at her own face. "Both you and I know there is no face like mine in the universe anymore! All the others are gone and I'm still here!" She looked down at the ground, trembling. "Why me? Why leave only me here?"

A warm hand touched her shoulder. "All of us were their weapons, some more than others." Another hand reached up, brushing away the tears. "But we are not only what the Old Ones designed us to be. Yours does not have to be the plight of the lone wanderer."

"What... are you even saying?"

"No longer must you walk this path in solitude. My children would honour you. And perhaps amongst them, you can weave your own fate." The Everqueen's voice flowed like a songbird's melody. "Will you take my hand, ████████?"

***

Black-robed techno-sorcerers moved hurriedly around the ritual site, doing their final checks. In the centre on pillars of gold lay the shards of a Dissonance Engine that the first masters of the galaxy had used to shape the Webway network; the last one now, with the others having been destroyed or lost in places that even divinities feared to tread.

Ouroboros. Tulchulcha. Enigma. Three-in-One. Triumvirate. The complete set. Possessed by the Aeldari Empire at the very zenith of their power, split apart and cast away into the hidden places of the universe in the moments after the Sundering.

"Command?" One of the figures spoke into his comms. "Give me a status report."

"You have half an hour until the syzygy ends. Window's fading fast."

The technician looked at his compatriots. They looked back.

"We're all set. Do it."

They began the retreat to the blast shelter, a good few miles away from the site. The ritual site itself was on a spinning asteroid of iron, located at the end of a syzygy nine planets long in a system with a neutron star.

Each planet in the chain has a ritual site on it, timed down to the last millisecond with their participants ready to act. The wards and symbols do not correlate with any known human thaumaturgic system. No, these were older, written when the Aeldari were but still an idea.

It began with a phial of blood split on the surface of the fourth planet, sprinkled with ground beryllium. Cybernetic throats spat out arcane syllables, while fires fueled by the powdered dead roared bright. Across nine planets the chanting grew in pitch, the spheres writhing in agony as their physical forms begin to superimpose together, caught between forces both physical and psychic.

For a moment, it seemed it may all be for naught as the spheres started to crack under the awesome pressure, the crude workings of such a young race insufficient. This was an ancient work, replicated imperfectly with human hands, whispered to them by an Engine. A beam of light was drawn out from the star, slamming into the first planet before being reflected between its siblings, before finally reaching the asteroid.

A pillar of ninefold-sanctified plasma slams into the shards. There is a sound like the tearing of a vast membrane, a screech of agony indistinguishable from joy. Ancient laws of the universe are forced to listen.

Superheated metal cooled in an instant, the gold pillars now frozen puddles on the floor. Trace swirls of ether in the air dissipate as the hole where an object was supposed to be makes itself known. Something was supposed to be in that opaque void where the three spheres once were; but humans did not have the faculties to comprehend the existence of such a thing half-phased out of reality.

It spoke.

[We are I now.] Flickers of its true self seeped through; brass shapes interlocked in impossible configurations, a lattice of dust and blood. [Now, the Work continues.]

"Our work comes first." The cold voice of a SHEOL agent rang through speakers as armored warmachines dropped down from the pitch-black sky, weapons aimed. "Remember the covenant. What we used to reforge you, we can use to unmake you again."

[Of course.] There was a slight hint of annoyance in the ancient machine's voice. The Dissonance Engine began to float on its own towards the landing shuttle that was coming down, which would soon take it to the ship headed to the local Mandeville Point along with its escort fleet, and then Beta-Garmon. [Now... tell me. Which herd of my creators' scions do you wish to expel from my domain?]