Pantheon Read online

  ‘Of course you may,’ said Bayla, who was wise to the ways of strange encounters. ‘Please, sit. I have a small measure of ale and food that I would gladly share.’

  ‘Well!’ the duardin said in appreciation. ‘Hospitality like that in the wilds, eh? Very good, very, very good.’

  Bayla handed over his ale skin, which the duardin drained to the last drop, and gave over his food, which the duardin shared generously. They ate in companionable silence. When they were done, the duardin sniffed deeply. ‘Not bad. Tasty. I long for a crumb of chuf, but they don’t make that in this time and place.’ He fell silent a space and twiddled with his pipe, lost in his memories. ‘So then,’ he said brightly. ‘What’s a manling like you want with the smith god of my people?’

  ‘I seek a key to the door in the mountains that will lead me to Realms’ End,’ Bayla said. He blinked in surprise. He had not intended to reveal his purpose, but there were the words, tripping off his tongue!

  ‘Ahhh, well, Grungni can be a prickly sort. I have known him for, well,’ the duardin laughed again, a sound like rough stones being rasped together, ‘a very long time. Tell you what, why don’t you borrow mine?’

  The duardin reached into his dirty jerkin and pulled out a slender key with five pointed teeth, three on top, two on the bottom, upon a leather thong. His massive fingers should never have been so deft, but he undid the tiny knot in the necklace easily and tossed the key across the fire. Bayla caught it in surprise.

  ‘There you are, lad.’

  ‘Is it real?’ Bayla asked in amazement. ‘I was told there was no key in all existence!’

  ‘An aelf tell you that, did he?’ said the dwarf sourly. ‘Don’t trust them. Besides,’ he added slyly, ‘he never said anything about outside existence, did he?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Bayla said.

  ‘A fair bargain for your kindness, and that ale.’ The dwarf stood up and brushed off his knees. ‘Right then, got to be going. Things to do, people to sneak up on unawares.’ He laughed at his own jest.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Bayla.

  Deep in the stranger’s hood, eyes twinkled. ‘Just a traveller, lad, much like yourself.’ With that, he went into the night, and disappeared.

  Bayla could not know if the key was genuine or not, but he had no choice. By the same tortuous route, the mage returned to Ghyran. The road to the mountains took him far from his home, but he was eager to complete his quest.

  For a further three years he searched for the gate. Only by questioning the local inhabitants carefully did he glean an inkling as to its whereabouts, and even then he wasted many months in fruitless search. Strange lights shone on the far side of the mountains that no mortal had ever crossed, tantalising him unbearably.

  Eventually, by chance it seemed, he came across a door barely big enough to admit him, set high in a cliff face. With trembling hands, Bayla slid the key home. It fit perfectly and turned smoothly, as if recently oiled. The door swung inward, and Bayla squeezed inside. At first he had to wriggle his way down a tiny tunnel, but it soon opened up into a wide, well-made passageway, with walls of fine masonry. By his magic he lit his way. Soon after his entrance, Bayla’s ears were troubled by a thundering rumble, and a hot wind that went in and out – the breath of the monster that guarded the way. Several days of travel later, during which Bayla lived off bitter mosses and water dribbling down the walls, the tunnel opened up into a giant cave. At the centre was chained a wolf of impossible size. Its head was as large as a cathedral, and rested on paws big as houses. Four thick chains ran from its collar, securing it to anchors set in the wall. All through Bayla’s walk the noise of its breathing had become louder. In the cave it howled like a hurricane. It looked asleep, but as he approached, eyes big as pools opened and stared redly at him.

  ‘You cannot pass,’ it said. ‘None can, whether god or mortal. It is the law, of which I am prisoner and guardian both.’

  ‘Then I shall kill you,’ said Bayla.

  The wolf gave out a howling laugh that buffeted the mage back and forth.

  ‘You can try.’

  Bayla had come prepared with every spell of death he could muster. Raising his arms, he flung back his head, and called down the most potent slaughter-curse in the realms.

  The magic released was primordial and deadly. It screamed as Bayla drew it from the rock of the mountain and fashioned it into a spear of crackling power. With a roaring incantation, he cast the energy at the wolf.

  The magic hurtled at the beast, piercing it between the eyes. The wolf cocked its eyebrow, unharmed. ‘You will have to do better than that,’ it said.

  Sanasay Bayla tried. Nothing worked. The wolf was impervious to the direst magics known. Frustrated, Bayla even attempted to stab it in its massive paw with his dagger. The metal shattered. The wolf grumbled with mirth.

  ‘I have not had such entertainment in many ages,’ it said.

  Bayla glared at it. ‘Let me pass,’ he said.

  ‘I shall not,’ said the wolf.

  ‘Then you leave me no choice.’ Bayla pulled out a crystal phial, full of a dark liquid. Defiantly looking the wolf in the eye, Bayla threw down the stopper and drained the bottle. ‘Poison,’ Bayla said. ‘Now we shall see who has the last laugh.’

  He fell down, dead.

  The world changed. Bayla’s soul rose from his body. From rocks that now glowed with inner light rose screaming ghosts, luminous scythes in their hands. They rushed at him, fleshless jaws wide, swinging their weapons for the thread that joined Bayla’s body to his soul.

  Bayla had no intention to die completely. As the cavern receded from him at tremendous speed, he fought against the gatherers of souls with his magic, keeping them from severing his connection to the Mortal Realms. Through planes inhabited by the strangest things they sped, thundering down through veils of layered realities toward the Realm of Shyish, where the abode of mortals abut those places beyond even the gods’ ken.

  Bayla burst through a cavern roof, the gatherers swooping around him. Shyish revealed its dreary landscapes. He flew over shadowy villages and moonlit meres, vast bone deserts and forests of trees that shivered with the sorrow of imprisoned souls. Parts of this land were roofed in stone, and from holes gnawed through it tumbled an endless rain of corpses, the dead of many realms come to take their final rest.

  Ahead there was a mighty necropolis, a city of pyramids and bone towers whose edges crackled with a nimbus of soul light. The gatherers redoubled their attacks, their wails draining the warmth from Bayla’s being, their scythes only ever a moment from reaping his soul.

  The battle continued right to the gates in the city’s wall of bone. Bayla halted. A man stood there, cadaverous, but alive. With a flick of his wrist he dismissed the gatherers of souls, leaving the disembodied essence of Bayla alone.

  ‘You are dead, and yet your thread is not cut,’ said the necromancer. ‘Why do you resist the inevitable?’

  ‘I am Sanasay Bayla, of Ghyran. I die because I wish to speak with the Lord of Death.’

  The necromancer smiled, exposing black teeth. ‘Be careful what you wish for, Sanasay Bayla. My lord has been expecting you.’

  Bayla was led through streets of bone and dark granite where the dead were legion. The recently dead were engaged in the never-ending task of expanding Nagash’s city, heaping bone and fashioned stone into new buildings. Skeletal warriors tramped the streets in rattling cohorts. Vampire lords rushed by in dark carriages. But though the city was huge, and populous, there was not a voice to be heard. The dead executed their duties in silence but for the hideous clattering of bones that echoed from every street.

  They went to a black pyramid whose sides gleamed like mirrors, and whose capstone was of pure wyrdstone. Deep inside, past numberless deathrattle regiments, Bayla was brought into a lofty hall. There sat Nagash, Lord of Death, surrounded by the ageless pomp of
his court. Ghostly handmaidens circled him, singing mournful songs.

  ‘Who dares to tread the road of death to Shyish, and yet is not dead?’ said Nagash.

  Bayla’s soul stepped forward boldly, the thread of his mortal life held lightly in one hand. ‘It is I, great one, Sanasay Bayla of Andamar in Ghyran. I have come to seek an audience.’

  Nagash’s bony jaws clacked mirthlessly. ‘To beg a favour, I think. What do you seek?’

  ‘I have sought many years to find passage to Realms’ End,’ he said. ‘I have come close to fulfilling my quest, but my way is barred.’

  ‘Afrener, the wolf at the door,’ said Nagash. ‘He keeps guard.’

  ‘I was told only death can kill him. You are death. Strike him down for me, so that I might look into the spaces beyond reality, and discover my true purpose in this life.’

  Nagash stared at him with empty eye sockets. ‘Sanasay Bayla, I know you as I know all mortals. All creatures pass through my domain sooner or later, and echoes of them are here forever. I never grant mortals favours, but for you I will make an exception, if only because you are a mage of awesome power. Agree to serve me for five hundred years and five days after your death, and I shall grant your desire, and slay this beast.’

  ‘And what after five centuries?’

  ‘You shall pass from Shyish, which for all its affinity with the beyond is but a Mortal Realm, into the Unknown Countries past my borders, as all souls ultimately must.’

  Bayla knew better than to make foolish promises to a god, but he was desperate. ‘Agreed!’ he said.

  ‘Then go, and do not forget our bargain,’ said Nagash. He tilted his head to one side. Witchfire flickered in his eyes. ‘It is done. But be swift, such a beast cannot remain dead for long. Awake!’

  Sanasay Bayla returned to life with a moaning breath. He rolled onto his side, his restarted heart banging painfully behind his ribs, and vomited out all trace of the poison in his body. When he was done, he rose shakily, and looked upon the still corpse of Afrener. Mindful of Nagash’s words, he hurried past. Shortly past the beast’s reeking hindquarters, he came to the land of Realms’ End.

  What can be said of a place that defies mortal comprehension? Few have seen the Realms’ End, and all who have have witnessed it differently. Bayla saw the far side of the mountains, sweeping down from unscaleable peaks to a short plain of bare rock. The horizon was close, the space beyond boiling with crimson and gold lights. There was no sky.

  Full of relief that he would soon know his purpose, Bayla began a staggering run toward the edge of the worlds.

  It was not far. He stopped where the land did, and peered down into a maelstrom of noise and fury. Amid roaring networks of lightning, lands were being born, coming into being fully formed, with forests, rivers and cities upon them, and no doubt peoples and histories too. They began as small floating islands, but grew quickly as more land solidified from the energy around them. Enlarged, the worldlets sank under their own weight, spinning slowly back toward the edge of Ghyran. At some preordained depth, they vanished in a burst of light, and so the process continued. Three lands were born while Bayla watched.

  But of his purpose, he could see no sign. Searching up and down the uncanny shore, he spied a robed figure clutching a staff in three hands. Bayla did not recognise its sort, and was suspicious of it, but having no option he made his way toward it.

  ‘Sanasay Bayla,’ the creature said raspingly as the mage halted a staff’s length away. ‘You have come to discover your purpose in life.’ Its robes were a crystal blue, and a stylised eye topped its staff.

  ‘I have,’ said the mage.

  ‘Here the worlds of Ghyran are born from nothing. This is a place is of purest magic. Everything can be seen. Behold!’ said the creature. It opened out its arms, and pointed to the roiling energies beyond the final shore.

  A vision of Bayla as a wise lord appeared, surrounded by adoring subjects.

  ‘To be a king?’ he asked the being. ‘Is that my purpose?’

  ‘More. Watch!’ commanded the creature.

  A procession of images paraded through the sky. Bayla saw himself in his library, moving faster than the eye could follow as time accelerated and the years coursed through the land of Andamar. New buildings sprouted, fashions changed. Wondrous devices were installed around the city, but Bayla did not age. His library grew in size and content. Knowledge unbounded filled his mind, he felt an echo of what he might learn, and was amazed. The great and the wise of many nations and peoples consulted with him. His name was known across time and in every realm. He watched avidly, eyes wide, and yet, and yet... There was something missing.

  ‘Where is my wife?’ he asked. ‘My family?’

  ‘They are not what you desire,’ said the creature. ‘Else why would you be here?’

  The thing’s words rang falsely, and Bayla set his powerful mind to work on the stuff of creation where the vision played. He found it easy to manipulate. The creature shrieked out a spell, but its staff flew from its hand at a thought from Bayla and he refocused the scrying. The mage saw his wife and children grow old, unloved and neglected. As he succeeded, they failed, and were shunned. Palaces were constructed in his honour, while their graves were choked by vines and crumbled into the dirt. Realisation hit him. He wrenched the focus of the vision to the present, back to his home.

  His wife waited for him. They had a new house, it seemed, and she bore all the trappings of success. Yet she looked sadly out over the minarets of Andamar. He was shocked at the signs of age that had settled on her, though she remained beautiful. His eldest son came to her side, to discuss some matter of business, and he saw he had been forced to become a man without his father to guide or nurture him.

  Bayla stepped back in shock. ‘I have been away too long!’ he said. ‘What am I doing?’

  The creature was hunched over, two of its long-fingered blue hands clutching at the scorched third. ‘Eternal life, ultimate power. These things are within your grasp,’ it croaked. ‘That is what you desire! Pledge yourself to my master, and they will be yours.’

  The vision wavered, back to the hollow glories of an endless future. Bayla’s face softened a moment at the opportunity offered, but hardened again.

  ‘No. That is what I think I should want, but it is not.’ He concentrated, and the image shifted back to the domestic scene. ‘That is what I wanted, all along. To be a father and a husband. That is the purpose of a man in life. Power is fleeting. Family is eternal.’ And it was. He saw son after daughter after son being born to the line of his people. Among them were many who were mighty and wise, and Andamar prospered under their guidance. It seemed it would remain forever so, until suddenly fire rent the sky, and the city fell into ruin as a great cataclysm passed over all the realms.

  ‘Too much!’ screeched the creature. The vision fled like ripples over water. Bayla looked at the thing sharply.

  ‘What was that?’ he said, rounding on it. Arcane power glowed around his hands. ‘I do not know what you are, but I know of your kind. You are told of in the oldest books, the things of the formless realms. The daemons of Chaos.’

  The creature laughed, and raised its hands in conjuration. But Bayla was a mage beyond even the servants of Tzeentch, and he blasted it from existence. Its soul fled shrieking into the maelstrom, and passed beyond the fertile voids of Ghyran’s edge, whence it would not return for thousands of years.

  Bayla was troubled. War would come, one day.

  Perhaps he had found two purposes.

  He would warn the gods.

  Turning away from the formless spaces, Bayla began the long journey home.

  The mirror cleared of mist. Sigmar and Alarielle stared at their own faces caught in the silver.

  ‘That was why he made us the mirror,’ said Sigmar. ‘Little attention we paid to his warnings.’ The God-King shook his head in
regret. ‘Bayla was rare among men. He learned wisdom. With his gifts he could have risen and joined the ranks of the gods, but at the last he turned back. He understood that immortality is not to be craved, that the end of life gives the little span it has great meaning.’

  ‘The gift of all mortals,’ Alarielle said. ‘They are free of the burden of life eternal. There is no surprise in this, and no new wisdom.’

  ‘Every time they learn it, it is new,’ Sigmar insisted. ‘So few of them realise it from the beginning. Their lives are so short, their fear of death prevents them from recognising the gift they have.’

  ‘You are immortal,’ said Alarielle. ‘They will find your sympathy false.’

  ‘I did not seek to be so,’ said Sigmar. ‘I would have happily lived and died a mortal king. Some higher power had other plans for me.’ He looked at her earnestly. ‘Many chose Chaos because they had no other choice. They can be redeemed, even those whose hearts may seem black. But there are always those that seek to cheat death, and the lords of Chaos offer a way to do so, and are cunning enough to allow a few to ascend to become their immortal slaves. That is how they gained access to the realms in the first place. We became too distant from our charges, and they grew afraid. Chaos offered them immortality, of a sort. They did not know it was a trap.’

  ‘Then what do you want of me?’ said Alarielle.

  ‘You have held yourself aloof for many ages, my lady,’ he said. ‘It would aid us all in defeating the four powers for good if you went again among the mortals. Teach them your wisdom. You of all the gods understand the ebb and flow of mortality best, and that death is but a turning of the way.’

  ‘I do not know what becomes of the souls of men,’ she said. ‘Does even Nagash? You ask me to lie to them.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I wish you to invest in them a love of all that is natural and alive, to appreciate its power and fecundity. If they learn to follow the rhythm of life’s wondrous patterns, fewer of them will be tempted to fear its end. There always will be those who are incapable of fellow feeling, or whose greed outmatches their empathy,’ he said. ‘Many others can be saved by you.’