Rodekhil
Offaleater joined his companions halfway along the temple bridge. The Chaos moon was now practically at its
zenith, hanging so low overhead that it almost filled the eye of the unnatural
storm above the Great Maw.
Welhung
had returned to comfort his wife. Hellun
herself was now barely conscious, her brow glistened with sweat and her eyes
were rolled back.
Four
lizardmen stood in an arc in front of the Slann's floating throne. The fifth, Caneghem, knelt before his Lord
and proffered the cube from the solar engine.
Taisteslaikch'ken
lifted his alien hands forward and the cube rose from the skink priest's
grasp. He raised his arms until the cube
floated directly above his palanquin. The
Slann Mage Priest spoke a command. It
was not in the common tongue, the language of the lizardmen, nor even the
secret language of the Slann. The
command was given in the ancient tongue of the Old Ones.
The
floating cube had not previously shown any seam or irregularity on its surface,
but at the word its edges split with gradually widening lines of painful yellow
light. The six planes retained their
orientation as they drifted apart above the Slann's head. Within was revealed a hard bright orb, like a
tiny star, which remained trapped within their bounds.
"Yield
the tokens," Taisteslaikch'ken commanded.
Bob
and Joe gaped at him in confusion.
Rychek and Mahtis looked around for something to offer.
Only
Skink Priest Caneghem understood. He
lifted the Dark Magic Pendant of Khaeleth from around his neck. The Slann kept one spidery hand aloft,
telekinetically holding the components of the cube in place. With his other hand he mimicked a grasping and
twisting motion toward the pendant.
The
pure black heart of the gem screeched like a blade being drawn down glass but
its protest was in vain. It could not
resist being torn free, leaving Caneghem holding an inert bauble with a clear
white gem. With obvious effort,
Taisteslaikch'ken reeled in the black spark, which twisted and fought until he
had managed to force it into the space between the planes.
The
spark of dark magic zinged between the walls of its open prison. Whenever it approached the tiny star Rodekhil
felt a pressure build inside his skull.
Mahtis
caught on. He raised the Rune Hammer o'
Anti Magic in salute to his lord.
Taisteslaikch'ken made a gesture, like two fingers delicately picking a
ripe berry, and the golden dwarven rune on the face of the hammer peeled
off. It floated two dimensionally in the
heavy air. The slann drew it into the
cube.
The
pressure inside Rodekhil's head doubled.
Within the confines of the open cube, starlight, darkness and runic
power struggled to avoid each other.
Where their influences overlapped, pressure built to the point where
detonation seemed a distinct possibility.
The
Bob's warp stone Sword of Abstinence was the next to yield its magic. The Slann drew the vile green warp power out
of the crystal on the guard. Its evil
oozed like a poison, and squeezed between Taisteslaikch'ken's telekinetic
fingers, but it could not escape. Inside
the cube, its tendrils flowed to explore its new world. As they approached each of the other forces
they recoiled. It became a sullen blob,
radiating hostility from one corner.
The
pressure built to the extent that Rodekhil didn't just feel it in his
head. The air became almost too heavy to
breathe.
Rychek
held up the sceptre of Gork with leaden arms.
This time Taisteslaikch'ken did not reach out his hand. Instead he spoke aloud.
"Mighty
Gork!" The sceptre's eyes flashed
in response. "Mighty Gork, I cannot
compel a god. However, if you yield this
fragment of yourself, I will guarantee that there will be a crumping which will
be recorded in the histories of all races!"
The
image of Gork on the sceptre kept its arms stubbornly crossed.
"Oh
dear. Perhaps your twin will get to do
the crumping instead......."
With
a roar of jealousy and annoyance, the essence of Gork burst out of his icon
and, for a fleeting instant, Rodekhil
could perceive the full, towering belligerence that was a greenskin god. The manifestation of Gork charged headlong at
the dismantled cube, and, just as it seemed he would scatter its elements, he
shrank and hurled himself inside.
Within
the mystic cube's confines, the greenskin god of animosity amused himself by
beating up the other four energies: Starlight, Dark, Dwarven and Warp.
"My
lord, that is all we carry...." Bob
spoke. "...but surely you need a sixth.
A mystic cube. Six sides. The Law of Six. You know..." He hopped from foot to foot in consternation,
as the slann turned his ancient gaze on him.
"Life." Taisteslaikch'ken croaked. "A life will provide the necessary sixth
magic token." Bob gulped and pushed
Joe off balance, forcing his spawn-brother to stumble forward.
The
Slann croaked a bitter laugh. "Your
generosity is noted, B'ob of Los'tmabo'tl, but Joe cannot fulfil this
role. And you, B'ob, I have another need
for.
"However,
the cube does need a life. A pure life,
having never set foot on this tainted earth.
Did no one else carry a burden here?"
His
eyes raked the party and finally rested on Hellun's heaving belly. There was a heavy pause.
Welhung
started. "What? No!
No! Not my unborn
child!" He clutched his wife
tightly with one arm and groped for his weapon with the other.
"Not
your unborn child? You seem ungrateful
for those you already have."
"They
are mine and I love each one! I just
wish they would stop appearing so, you know, often."
"Ah. Keep your formidable weapon down."
"What?"
"There
is no need to threaten me."
"Oh. For a moment I thought you were offering
contraceptive advice."
The
Slann rolled his golden eyes. "What
would I know of such things?"
Taisteslaikch'ken
returned his attention to the cube and it's floating contents. "There is but one alternative."
The
Slann Mage Priest took an enormous breath, held it for a moment and then expelled
it for an impossibly long time. His arms
fell to his sides, his great head bowed, and his chest never rose again.
Something
like a silver mist drifted from his parted lips and hovered above his
head. Caneghem, with his mage sight
could see that the threads of the geomagnetic web, which connected the slann to
his kin, still maintained their ethereal connection to the mist.
Inside
Bob's mind, words formed. "Bob. When it is complete, you must cast the cube
into the Great Maw."
Bob
wrinkled his brow, "Why do you need me to cast the cube?" he said out
aloud.
"This
work, which has been in the planning for millennia, has succeeded to this point
with an uncommon measure of luck. It
could do with a little more."
The
silver mist entered the cube, and the pressure built to such levels that those
that still stood were driven to their knees.
The slightest movement was almost impossible, as if they were buried
under tons of sand. The faces of the
cubed closed together and the pressure was relieved with a sudden snap.
The
Cube of the Old Ones tumbled down and clattered to Bob's feet.
Each
plane glowed with a different power.
Starlight glowed pure and bright opposite to the midnight of Dark,
venomous green Warp fire cowered away from the duller green of Gork's simmering
animosity. Gold Runic power glittered
coldly opposite the soft silver glow of Life.
Bob
lifted the cube. To the eye, it seemed
that each surface was flat, but in the hand they felt as if they bulged as each
force repelled five other incompatible essences. Bob carried the cube to the end of the bridge
with Joe trailing a step behind.
Bob
stroked the cube against his scaly cheek.
He turned it in his hands. He blew
on it. He tossed it from hand to
hand. He did a lucky little dance.
"Stop
wasting time! The conjunction is
now!" The command pierced Bob's
mind. In fright he dropped the cube and
it tumbled into the Great Maw. He and
Joe leaned over the edge and watched it dwindle away to nothingness.
"How
will we know if anything is happening?" asked Joe.
Half
the world away on Ulthuan, the Vortex of the Great Ritual slowly began to
rotate again.
Backwards.
The
vortex, which had previously drawn the winds of magic and the energy from the
geomantic web and funnelled it into space, now began to draw energy from the
stars of space and pump it into the geomantic web.
The
geomantic web increased its energy collecting function one hundred fold and
tightened like a noose around the daemonic forces which assailed Lustria. Each Daemon was dragged squealing from
physical manifestation and back into its native form of magical energy. Their mass was converted to vast stores of
power, supplemented by the fury of the global storm of magic. Both were gathered by the vast net. Within seconds the trap had been sprung, and
the daemon host were banished from the world's surface.
The
geomantic web fizzed with power, and the white hot tendrils could be easily
seen by mundane eyes. When it seemed that
no more energy could be contained in the web, it pulsed. The power contained within surged into the
four meridians which circled the globe.
The
four channels, charged with the energy of a hundred thousand storms and a
billion elemental souls, poured into one small, highly unstable cube deep in
the gullet of the Great Maw. As they
delivered the power they squeezed against the earth's flanks.
The
planetary equivalent of the Heimlich manoeuvre met the magical equivalent of
two fingers down the throat.
The
Maw heaved and churned and with one great spasm vomited the contents of its
gullet, including the alien warp matter which had sat uneasily within it for
millennia.
The
fountain of material would have fallen back to earth within moments, but for
power of the disintegrating cube and the rivers of geomantic energy which
spiralled around the stream of ejecta and kept it on course.
Atop
his temple at the precise, diametrically opposite point on the globe, the great
Slann Mage Priest, Tecciztec, Lord of Tlaxtlan, played the geomantic streams
like a musical instrument. Whenever the
tower of undigested matter threatened to topple, he would shepherd it by
balancing the power of the four strands.
With
the guidance of the spirals of energy, the warp asteroid was hurled directly at
its target. The heart of the chaos moon,
which hovered so close, and directly overhead.
The
initial impact shattered Morrslieb's surface and blasted a crater hundreds of
leagues across. Warp stone meteorites
were hurled into the void between the spheres and much material rained back to
the earth' s surface.
The
torrent of ejecta and geomantic power continued to pour into the moon,
gradually pushing it away. It began to
slowly but visibly shrink, transfixed by the column. Finally, as the stream petered away to
nothing, Morrslieb loomed no larger than the earth's natural moon.
The
Great Maw and the Geomantic Web were spent.
On
Ulthuan, the Vortex of the Great Ritual stopped its counter-rotation, and
resumed normal service.
The
wisest and most ancient of the High Elven mages furiously scratched his sleek
head. "That's weally stwange. I thought the Witual was Bwoken, but now its
alwight! Has anybody seen my
hairbwush?"
*****
Atop
his temple in Tlaxtlan, Slann Priest Tecciztec's arms, too, fell to his
sides. He withdrew within himself and
was not heard to speak by earthly ears for years to come.
*****
When
the Great Maw began its convulsion, there was a blast of such force that it
knocked all of the group on the ramp off their feet. After the acrid wind had abated, Bob and Joe
scampered back to the others.
"We
should, erm, run for our lives, maybe?" Joe suggested.
Hellun
was not fit to run anywhere and it was too late anyway.
The
initial blast had lifted the warp stone asteroid clear of the maw, and the
swiftly accelerating stream of matter and energy from the geomantic channels
created a Venturi effect. The resulting vacuum
drew in the air for miles around. The
gale was not strong enough to dislodge the ogres, but the smaller lizardmen
were helpless to withstand it.
Rychek
clawed at the deck as he skittered along.
His spawn kin, Mahtis grabbed him and hugged him to his chest.
"Must
I always be looking after you?" the Kroxigor rumbled.
Caneghem
would have been sucked into the void if not for the iron grasp of his friend,
Rodekhil Offaleater.
Joe
tumbled dangerously close to the brink before he was able to anchor himself by
thrusting his spear tip into a crack in the deck. Bob slid past, clutching his hand
weapon. Joe proffered a claw and clung
to the bending spear haft with his tail and other hand.
Scant
feet from the brink, Bob managed to clasp Joe's wrist. The spear creaked and bent further, but
remained intact.
A
sudden gust lifted Bob's eggshell off his head, and he had only a split second
to decide what was more important. Hand
weapon or shell. He clamped the shell
firmly onto his head and watched the Sword of Abstinence spiral into the void.
Once
it had vanished, he turned to thank Joe for the rescue, only to find his
spawn-brother looking unnecessarily smug.
"Oh,
shut up!" Bob snapped.
The
Slann's Palanquin, with the empty husk of its owner, was tossed by the storm
until it was very nearly spent. As the
tornado eased to a gale and then a breeze, the throne steadied and sailed
serenely away from the bridge and far out over the Great Maw.
