Clack…
Clack…
Clack…
“Hmmm…” the Eldar muttered as he stared upon the rune stones cast about upon the wrathbone floor, seeking meaning within their pattern. Like all of his race, he was haunting lithe and were one to see his face under the ghosthelm that crowned his head, they may be quick to consider him as hauntingly beautiful beneath the weight of age and weariness. However, this weariness was well earned on the face of Eldrad Ulthran, Farseer of the Ulthwé Craftworld, one of the few remaining bastions of the once mighty Eldar race. Revered by his people as their great leader, and feared by the xenophobic Imperium of Mankind, he has guided the Eldar through the strands of fate for countless centuries. It was he who foresaw the treachery of Horus, the arch-heretic and Warmaster of Chaos, yet the seer Emperor failed to heed his warning. It was also whispered that he was the one who led the Ork Warlord Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka to the Imperial hive world Armageddon, sacrificing millions of human lives to save thousands of Eldar in return. Now, having conducted numerous divinations of the future, for one of the few times of his long life, a consequence of Ulthwé’s proximity to the Eye of Terror, the massive warp storms that had consumed the Eldar homeworlds at the Fall, Eldrad was puzzled.
“Mon-keigh, yet not of the Imperium…strange.” Eldrad whispered, using the Eldar’s derogatory reference to masses of humans that had risen up in the void left when the Eldar’s massive empire collapsed in the birth cry of Slaanesh, the dark prince of excess. In the rune stones, he saw faint images of a group of being that were in no way, shape or form a product of the harsh society of the Imperium. A young woman, burning with the flames of knowledge and accompanied by a large fool and a small rogue. A warrior driven by honor. A child standing of the precipice between light and darkness. A living machine more in common with the Mon-keigh than with the C’tan’s metal warriors. Two women, one whose mind was completely consumed by insanity and one who’s hold on life was tenuous at best. And finally a warrior-seer whose abilities mimicked that of an Eldar. Yet amongst these images was that of a human animal, a cat he believed, that seemed to emit a playfulness that was out of place in this nightmarish universe.
“Arquellia?”
“Yes Lord Farseer?” responded Warlock Arquellia, a member of the Seer Council that ruled Ulthwé at the behest of Eldrad’s visions of the future paths, who was standing by to inform the Council of what course of action to take.
“I have foreseen something unusual in my meditation, of several beings whose course is locked with ours.”
“Agents of the Great Enemy?” Arquellia asked, unconsciously glancing towards the massive warp storms of the Eye, which served not only as a fountain of corruption into the material universe, but home of the so-called Traitor Legions that turned against the Emperor in the Horus Heresy nearly ten millennium ago.
“No. So far, the Despoiler has remained silent since his hunt for the Blackstone Fortresses, yet this lull is more worrisome. He is planning a major storm soon. This disturbance is far different ” Eldrad replied, the mixture of apprehension and disgust at discussing the Great Betrayer’s heir, Abaddon the Despoiler, whose Black Crusades threatened time and again to complete the work the fallen Primarch had begun ten thousand years before. “Yet the potential of their path crossing with that of Chaos still exists.”
“Shall I give word to the Aspect Shrines to prepare themselves?” Arquellia asked, fingering the potent witchblade that hung by her side, ready to answer the call to war.
“Not yet.” Eldrad replied as he used his staff to bring himself to his full height. “Send word to the council and to the other Craftworlds scattered across the void of this development. I must enter the Black Library and consult what I can. If this is a threat, we must truly prepare for it.” Eldrad ordered as he began to collect the scattered rune stones while the warlock left to do his bidding. ‘After all, it is likely that in their bumbling about the Mon-keigh will take care of this matter for us.’
Or turn back to Mace and his newest Padawan
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(Posted Sun, 19 Jun 2005 04:54)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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