Alright, fellow lore enthusiasts, hold onto your hats because we’re diving deep into the mysterious world of Krethusa the Croneseer and her cryptic plans in the Mortal Realms!
‘We are close,’ said Scala, hauling herself up onto the slick shelf of obsidian and extending a hand to aid her companion.
Velaxya, dangling by one hand over a hundred-metre drop, refused the gesture. She swivelled her body, taking in the impressive view. The Liar’s Teeth spread out beneath her, the canvas of shadow-mountains illuminated by the faintest sheen of luminescence – a by-product of the fungal forests that covered their flanks.
It was rare in Ulgu for anything to be so vibrant, and of course this shimmering vision of beauty was nothing more than a dark illusion: unwary travellers seeking to follow the faint splashes of colour would find themselves ensnared in the filament spools of sentient myxospore clusters, condemned to a slow and horrible death.
‘Not an easy ascent,’ Velaxya said. ‘I can see why this place was chosen.’
‘Drucha Thrul serves well enough for now,’ Scala said. ‘We never meet in any location more than once, in any case. Hagg Nar’s spies are swift to punish complacency. To question the High Oracle’s ascension is to become their prey.’
‘I know this better than you could imagine,’ Velaxya muttered, effortlessly swinging herself up onto solid ground. ‘I have witnessed Morathi-Khaine’s version of justice firsthand. We are all here for the same reasons, are we not?’
‘One would hope.’ Scala’s expression was impassive.
They left the narrow shelf of rock behind. Velaxya followed her companion along a narrow path hewn through the glass-textured stone, so dark it seemed at points as though they were walking across a plunging abyss. The path was just barely illuminated by streaks of lichen that glowed a soft purple – not a natural trail, but a cleverly arranged one. Only an aelf’s keen eyes could have caught the subtle patterns, and even then only if they were searching for it.
‘These watchposts were employed during the Cathtrar Dhule,’ said Scala. ‘To observe the enemy’s movements through the Ulgurothi valleys. Most have been abandoned for a long time. The others will be waiting for us ahead. Say nothing until I give you leave.’
Velaxya nodded. She had waited for this moment for a long time. She would not ruin it now with a foolish breach of protocol.
The path wound down in a tight spiral, so narrow that even the lithe aelves had to turn sideways to progress, easing themselves through a narrow crevasse as sheets of icy rain lashed down on them from above.
Eventually they entered an amphitheatre carved out of the mountain itself, with an empty pool at its centre. Winding channels were carved into the stone, all of them leading to the shallow bowl. Velaxya knew this had once been a shrine to the Bloody-Handed One, designed to host displays of ritual bloodletting. On three sides rose steep walls, riddled with shadowy alcoves. The black shroud of the Ulguan sky hung low and ominous above their heads.
‘You bring a stranger to our gathering.’
The voice echoed around the chamber so strangely that Velaxya could not place its location.
Scala fell to one knee. ‘I do, Croneseer. She has earned my trust. She protected me from the High Oracle’s interrogators, at great risk to herself.’
The voice drew a rasping breath. It might have been laughter.
‘Trust is a fool’s comfort,’ it said.
‘I implore you, wise one,’ said Velaxya, grasping the hilts of her sciansá and inclining her head – as close a gesture to submission as it was possible for a self-respecting Khainite to endorse. ‘Word of the Crone Heralds and their defiance has reached even the highest corridors of Hagg Nar. There are many who cannot accept the blasphemies preached by Morathi-Khaine, nor the persecution of those who express any flicker of doubt.’
Silence. Then figures began to emerge from the alcoves, robed in black and wearing feathered masks of silver, their forms half concealed by the gloom.
‘Do you wish to glimpse the truth, Velaxya of Hagg Nar?’ came the soft voice, no longer accompanied by that maddening echo.
Perched upon a sharp ledge a dozen metres above their heads was a spindly, pale-skinned figure. Long, white hair obscured the being’s face, and wings of sable feathers protruded from bony shoulders. It clutched a staff capped with an angular rune in the shape of an eye. The mark of Morai-Heg. A forgotten god from a bygone age, once more – inexplicably – imbued with importance.
‘You are she, then?’ said Velaxya, running her tongue along her lower lip. ‘The fabled Croneseer, voice of dissent and disquiet? She who denies the holy truth of Morathi-Khaine, and preaches dissension against her? You are Krethusa?’
The figure simply gazed down at her, cocking its head in an unsettlingly avian manner.
Velaxya’s smile widened.
‘At laasst,’ she hissed.
With a contemptuous flick of her head she dismissed the magic of her kragath war-mask, and layers of illusion peeled from her like shed skin, revealing her true form. Her serpentine tail shivered in anticipation, and she let loose an ululating cry, brandishing the glaive that had appeared in her hands as if summoned from the ether.
Shadows plummeted from the sky above, twisting in mid-air and spreading leathery wings to halt their descent. Two-dozen masked Khinerai, javelins in hand and aimed to pierce the heart of the Croneseer.
‘I have been searching for you for a long time,’ Velaxya said.
‘I know,’ said Krethusa. ‘You are a gifted hunter, Ailezinya.’
The melusai’s expression of triumph froze on her face. How was this possible? Only her brood-kin knew her true name. Melusai did not reveal such things to outsiders.
‘One of Morathi’s most ruthless scáthborn spies,’ the winged aelf continued. ‘Skilful. Cruel. Merciless. And overconfident.’
‘Take her!’ snapped Ailezinya.
Before she could even finish the order, havoc broke loose. Emerging from alcoves along the rocky wall came the blunt snouts of repeating crossbows, riddling the hovering Khinerai with missiles. The scáthborn fought back, hurling their own javelins at their ambushers. Corpses rained down upon the floor of the ritual chamber, their blood spilling into the narrow channels and filling the central font.
Ailezinya cursed as another Heartrender spiralled towards the ground with a scream, crashing with a bone-jarring impact. Figures charged at her from the shadows, and her glaive spun and danced in her hands, opening the throats of two traitors and stabbing through the belly of another.
The melusai could have screamed in frustration. Despite all her careful planning, despite her exhausting reconnoitre of this mountainside temple and all its hidden passages, somehow the Croneseer had concealed a cadre of heretic followers that outnumbered her scáthborn. Though the Khinerai slew two aelves for each of their own losses, the enemy was more than willing to accept that ratio. More fell, pierced a dozen times by well-aimed bolts or blasted by sorcerous fire.
Scala came leaping at Ailezinya, twin sciansá slashing wildly. The melusai blocked with a two-handed grip and slammed the haft of her weapon into the aelf’s chest, driving the air from her lungs and dropping her to the floor.
‘Traitor!’ she hissed at the Witch Aelf. ‘You will know an eternity of suffering for your heresy!’
She drew forth all her hatred and rage at this enfolding disaster, channelling that black fury through the ensorcelled steel of her glaive and plunging the weapon’s point though Scala’s chest. The aelf screamed, writhing and shuddering as a patina of icy rime crept across her flesh, sealing her in a crystal tomb. The scáth touch. Even as her own visions of glory collapsed around her, Ailezinya took bitter satisfaction in her foe’s suffering.
An icy coil of blackness seized the melusai around the throat, and others wrapped about her serpentine torso, sapping her strength and clouding her vision. She struggled, hissing, but to no avail. Her weapon tumbled from her nerveless hands as hooded figures ran forwards to bear her to the ground.
Krethusa’s winged form loomed over Ailezinya as she lay stricken on the floor. The Croneseer wove her fingers in a graceful pattern, and the melusai felt the magical fetters binding her constrict, locking her arms behind her spine.
‘Do not resist,’ Krethusa said.
‘Curse you!’ shrieked Ailezinya. ‘Her Magnificence will avenge me, you wretched traitor. You will join this deceiver here in eternal agony.’
She nodded towards the crystalline statue that was Scala, its mouth locked in a silent scream.
‘You name her deceiver,’ said Krethusa. ‘But was it not you who came here under false pretences to apprehend me?’
‘Morathi-Khaine wills it.’
‘Scala knew, of course. I showed her. I told her too, of the fate that awaited her this night. She chose to serve the Crone Goddess regardless. Do you know why?’
‘She was a deluded fool.’
‘No,’ Krethusa shook her head. ‘She possessed rare insight. She knew that the weave of fate cannot be undone. Destiny comes for us all. To fight it – that is foolishness.’
‘You must know I will give you nothing, heretic,’ Ailezinya said.
Krethusa leaned upon her staff. ‘You do not have to speak a word, Ailezinya. There are other ways to glean what I need to know about Morathi’s plans.’
Coils of cold metal locked painfully tight around Ailezinya’s wrists, and she felt herself dragged away into the waiting mouth of an alcove, tail lashing as she shrieked her rage into the uncaring darkness.
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