So, he’s the one. The catalyst of change our farseers had foreseen.
Warlock L’Adriath Eli’amaur scrutinised Daincaz Kesaeal, captain of 8th Company of the Sons of the Phoenix. And whose death was imminent, should Eli’amaur choose not to intervene.
Unimpressed by what he saw, only necessity lifted Eli’amaur’s hand. Channelling the aether, he winced, feeling the pressure of resistance as he released a devastating psychic charge, smiting the mishappen fluxmaster before the daemon could discharge the mutating force of its changebolt.
Rather than offer gratitude for extending his paltry existence, Kesaeal turned murderous intent upon Eli’amaur.
‘No need to thank me, barbarian.’
Despite the deafening clamour of battle and the distance separating them, Kesaeal couldn’t fail to hear Eli’amaur’s psychically projected voice. All around, chaos had been unleashed, desecrating this once beautiful world. Eli’amaur and his kin had come to extract their exodite cousins from encroaching danger, whereas the mon-keigh’s arrival had been accidental—or so they erroneously believed.
Before the barbarian could charge him, Eli’amaur withdrew into the melee being fought from the ground and above.
‘Benevolent of you, little hatchling. I had not expected such impracticality.’
The unctuous voice insinuated itself along Eli’amaur’s surface thoughts, splitting off in hissing reverberations that shook the labyrinthian layers forming his psyche. Within his mental landscape, protective sigils blazed in a lattice of iridescent light as the psychic intrusion sought to twist the core of his mind—and failed. Partly, because the daemonic presence was far from physical proximity. Only its mind was near, a distant echo that held the power to scratch at Eli’amaur’s sanity.
Beneath his helm, sweat slicked Eli’amaur’s brow as the Lord of Change continued to test his defences.
‘By touching the Realm of the Gods, you risk everything for a creature you scorn.’ Then came a velveteen hiss. ‘What are you scheming?’
Ignoring an Eye of Tzeentch was akin to dismissing an oncoming avalanche. However, to survive, Eli’amaur could not allow himself to be distracted by the battle raging within from the struggle being fought without. Not unlike the mon-keigh, he and his kin had become ensnared. Their fate depended on Eli’amaur outmanoeuvring a master of deception.
Eli’amaur connected to their minds. ‘Warriors of Varantha, remain steadfast! Upon your brow rests the crown of enduring hope.’ With a psychic push, he gave them visions of victories past—and felt their resolve strengthen.
Even as his own shook beneath a fresh assault as a daemonic image appeared. An avian skull. A raptor’s beak.
Eli’amaur swiftly severed the link before he could catch even a glimmer of the creature’s eyes, knowing if he had, he’d be lost.
Energy surged behind him. Pivoting, he brought his witchblade to bear. The runes along the blade flared, negating the warp-fire meant to consume him. Retaliating, he cut down half a dozen horrors, only for more to reincarnate and attack.
Eli’amaur wrapped the aether around a pink horror and sent it flying. Before Kesaeal could be struck by a flamer daemon’s burning ichor, the horror intercepted. And melted. The flamer’s death followed.
Once again, Kesaeal was displeased with his salvation.
‘I do not require your aid!” he spat, only to notably stiffen.
Palm raised, energy flew from Eli’amaur, causing shards of agony across his mind. But Kesaeal was saved from a daemon striking from behind.
For a time unending, the mon-keigh refused to join forces with the aeldari, even going so far as to strike them down in a slew of ‘friendly fire’. They were not enemies this day, but unwilling allies. Or could have been. Pride unbending, the savages would rather die than fight alongside ‘xenos scum’.
After rescuing Kesaeal—thrice now, Eli’amaur cast the weight of judgment upon him, along with a faint, psyche push.
He sensed it, the captain’s volatile emotions, and subtly…manipulated them. No easy task. The mon-keigh’s natural defences interfered with psychic persuasion, along with the barbaric augmentations deforming Kesaeal’s mind.
Nevertheless, Eli’amaur was getting somewhere…
Purposefully, he turned his back on Kesaeal—and felt his burning rage.
‘How amusing. You offer deliverance to one who would see you dead. Do you seek your own end by his sword, believing it might deliver you from me? Foolish little hatchling.’
Within Eli’amaur’s psychic fortress, a crystalline spire shattered.
Immediately, psyche runes ignited, sealing off sections of his core from the Lord of Change, who sought to collapse his mind.
Resolute, Eli’amaur fought against the end.
The end was upon him.
A trio of changecasters surrounded Eli’amaur, along with a fluxmaster, hiding high above within a warp miasma. Battered—in body as well as spirit, Eli’amaur knew he would not survive another changebolt.
With his psyche defences near collapse, he felt the Lord of Change hold its breath. Waiting. Expectant.
Sensing another’s attention upon him, Eli’amaur gathered his reserves and flung a subtle persuasion.
The next moment, the fluxmaster fell, pierced by a spear. Followed by a battle cry as Kesaeal cut down a changecaster attacking Eli’amaur. The warlock took advantage of the other daemons’ confusion, killing them with a dance of his blade.
‘’No need to thank me, xenos,’ Kesaeal mocked.
‘Indeed not. This moment was preordained.’
‘What is this nonsense?’
‘My demise had been foreseen long ago. Yet by some cosmic error, the path to my salvation rested in your hands, Captain Daincaz Kesaeal. All you needed was a little…encouragement. It was not difficult. Mon-Keigh are such simple creatures, easily manipulated.’
Hearing this, Kesaeal exuded killing rage.
‘We are even, barbarian,’ Eli’amaur taunted further. Pushing, altering the steins of fate.
With a roar, the mon-keigh swung his eviscerator as Eli’amaur raised his charged palm.
Abruptly, time halted, before it began to flow in reverse. Faster and faster, until time rightened itself, resuming at the moment Eli’amaur had first saved Kesaeal from a fluxmaster.
Caught within the Changer of Way’s time vortex, Eli’amaur fought a seemingly unending battle, but with calculated manipulations that had been foreseen years before, the sequence of events subtly altered with each reversal.
