Chapter 56:

Chapter 56: Observations and measuring of one's situation is always important


Our husband continues to vex his concubines with his strange actions, for he is a priest and as everyone with sense can tell you, priests are insane and they are insane because they know too much to be sane and because they find sanity too limiting.

When he found me in that forest looking for a cure I did not even dare think that what he would give my family in days was possible.

My mother and grandmother were brought back from unlife, my daughter and myself cured and Immune to the disease and all four of us were pregnant and concubines to the man that did so to us and gave us a purpose beyond just dancing for favors and food.

Our purpose is simple and pleasant too, all we need to do is go from city to city and port to port and kill any holding human slaves and ensuring that the Cult of Strife grows and keeps the various Eldar factions that would oppose the centralization of the Webway under whoever wins the wars is dead and can't oppose it.

A tall order but something our husband and founder told us is relatively easy to do as those that would need to go hunt human slaves would no longer be able to use their gift or sing properly and instead have to rely on their bodies and technology, something we too have access to while we would retain our abilities too as he told us that the Cataclysm that comes will affect our species greatly but he knows of ways to prevent it from affecting us as much.

The humans themselves are tiresome, their civilians at least, and I am glad to see them gone now as we have managed to arrange a flight for them back home and my grandmother left with the pilot to ensure he does as he was paid to do.

She is our best combatant too, as she used to be a renowned warrior before she started wasting and now her abilities are back to their peak.

"Ma'am, Bessar continues teaching his apprentice and will probalby not be back tonight." The Lietutenant said.

I looked down on the small human and considered him. Humans are short and he is not much shorter than me and I am already short by my people's standards.

The man was armed and armored in the Wraithbone armor my husband made for him. It was thick, thicker than any Eldar would wear and his shuriken rifle was a crude thing of three barrels that fired at the same time to provide what my husband called an 'appropriate rate of fire' and his mercenaries agreed judging by how they loved to use what they called triple shuriken cannons and they also had nine times the ammo of a normal rifle too. His helmet was strange too, for it was devoid of any decorations and showcased a transparent visor that could turn opaque without impairing his vision. It was also round as opposed to the oblong shape most eldar favored.

It was crude, it was bulky, it was built to do a single thing and didn't even need a psychic link to operate and it did without care for form. It was not something an Eldar would wear and use and neither was his title which is good for the man I spoke with was not an Eldar.

Lieutenant was a human military rank, a lower ranked officer meant to arrange for conversation between the upper leadership and the actual warriors on the battlefield. There were a lot of officer positions meant to do that in the human armies I had found, as most of them do not sing and they do not trust the few that can sing.

"Thank you, please walk with me Marcus Aurrus as I wish to ask you some things." I informed him.

He acquiesced silently and I still found that unsettling.

Humans do not sing, and after Bessar Agail gave them their armors we could no longer hear their disharmony between mind, body and soul unless we actively tried to focus on it and it was strange to talk with beings that are not Eldar in their own tongue.

We started walking through the city during the morning sun just as it was slowly rising up. It was the patrol route he and his troops would take to show the city that Bessar Agail's presence remains on this world still.

"Why did you accept our husband's offer? I doubt it was just because he offered you gear and life extensions considering what the deal demands of you." I asked softly.

Their deal was known to me. They would join Vect once his apprenticeship would be over as a gift where the man would retain their services for 100 years for free as a 'parting' gift to allow the boy to properly set himself up as a lord. If they survive and manage to make something of themselves they would start recruiting from among human warriors they would find and convince to join and form the one thing Vect needed in his ascent.

Soldiers that can follow orders and don't wish to betray him.

"The pay is that good, but yes, it is not the only reason. How do your people deal religious differences?" He asked back.

His tone was bitter, which was strange as it was always bitter when talking about his home and yet he still loved it.

I considered his question and it was rather strange but easily answered.

"We don't bother. Priests handle it among themselves and the people just go and do as they please. The Pantheon is the Pantheon and while there might some lesser Divines here and there, the Pantheon reigns supreme over the Divinities of the Eldar. If any wished to bother with other divines then I don't know how would that look." I answered calmly.

Religion just isn't something worthwhile as far as I am concerned. The Gods are real, they are powerful and as far as I am concerned they are not my problem. My family is my problem, the Cult of Strife is my problem. Even the food I am going to eat tomorrow is more important than whatever Divine someone holds most dear and my husband solved that issue for us with his food making contraption.

"I wish it was that simple for us. We have thousands of gods, and too many religions to bother finding all of them. Recently on Siccara a new government banned the open worship of Divinities and started a cult of our founder calling him our Lord Protector and he has been ruling for 300 years.

Those like me that still hold our gods in our heart are denied positions of actual importance or something worth doing. My own position before I accepted Bessar's deal was the best those of my faith could hope for." He replied.

The bitterness never left his voice as he spoke.

"And yet you loved it, and yet you let it go." I observed softly.

My words echoed and he nodded.

"I wish for purpose and I wish to feel that my life has meaning. I wish to believe that I do not just serve a tyrant because it is the best I could make out of my life and this path at least has a chance of turning me from a nobody into someone whose life mattered."

'Humans are strange' I thought as I hummed.

They all live under tyranny, they wish to escape it when they find themselves under it and will put others under it if given a cause they believe in. Our husband told us what he is preparing Vect for, and even as he wishes for it to not be necessary he plans for it to happen.

"Why did you and your family choose to make this cult? You had the option not to. Bessar let it slip once and it made me wonder." He asked.

I had to hide my scoff at that. Bessar accidentlly share information? I knew him for a little while but he is a priest and all priests are the same in one regard.

Getting them to give you information they don't want you to know is an exercise in futility. They make sure you find out only what they need you to know and if you somehow found out more, you did it without their knowledge. A priest 'letting something slip' past their lips means they wanted this conversation to happen.

I am unsure of whether what he expressed is curiosity or not for I still am not fully versed in human facial expressions and tone but I would assume it was, but I also felt something else in his tone I could not place.

"Did my husband tell you of the Wasting Disease? Not only what it does, but what it turns us and our cultures into?" I asked back softly.

"No, he told us that it hollows you out of all that you are and can be, but I do not know much more than that." He replied.

"That is far too simple an explanation, but it does that. This world has been inhabited by Eldar for more than 65 million years. I do not think your people were even bipedal then and yet this world had stood populated by our people and once upon a time it was filled with joy and life. You cannot sense it, but it is a hollow thing without the songs that should be there and only us can hear and understand what that means. The disease took them from us, it took our life, it took our songs, it took our memories and it took our ability to even choose a purpose and that hurts in a way I believe you can understand.

My husband and the Divine offered us a purpose if we would take it, and my daughter decided to take it and I support and love her for it." I explained him with steel in voice.

I agreed to sell myself to him for my family, and now my family has a purpose beyond despair and an attempt at eking out a life among a collapsing civilization those in it do not wish to acknowledge it is collapsing.

My husband even released me from bondage after he had recovered saying that he promised my daughter to do so.

The man sighed. I had found they love doing that quite a lot when they deal with us and I cannot imagine why. We have been far more understanding than most to their peculiarities, but I suppose I would be the same if I had to deal with their civilization.

"You did not ask me here just to chat, what do you want?" He asked.

His voice was a kaleidoscope of emotions, but chief among them was tiredness. Humans found our trickery tiresome as the way their civilization works is not built to handle it and with only seven of them it has been difficult for them to adapt to living among us. Being direct is not for Eldar, we can't just get to the point as they wish and so we must meander a bit so that the conversation does not become unbearable for both sides.

"I wish for you and your men to join the Cult of Strife in order to help us deal with the humans we would find and to free them. Our husband told us about your people's complicated relationship with Tyranny and both of us believe that while the chance that you would be able to help with the ork issue exists, you would be much better served in the search for purpose by helping us release humans from captivity than by participating in the other conflicts as mercenaries. Bessar allowed me to give you the choice and told me that either serves his plans in this regard."

Only sighs met my offer as we turned back and started walking back towards the barracks by unspoken accord.

"Giving us a position of trust in the future administration of the Webway, if not actual control, would allow to better monitor and influence things." He tried to bargain.

He was told what was the most likely thing to happen, either a useless death or a slow decay into indifference to horror and obscenity until they forgot their original purpose.

All in the service of making it seem that humanity is not interested in the orks' offer and if by some horror they do accept it, then creating a sub-species away from it to survive would be a better fate than fully becoming a part of the orkoid biosphere.

"Yes, assuming you will survive it or if your descendants will care. The cult of Strife won't remain small and I believe you would find it a much better goal to help your fellow men and women, than by choosing which tyrant to support in service of Bessar's designs." I said as I tried to refute his point.

It won't even guarantee the fact that they would survive the ork's adoption of humanity, or that they would be safer but it would give them a purpose they would be proud of and not one they would hate themselves for taking upon themselves.

"I'll talk with my men and we'll consider your words." He told me as we reached our barracks again.

I was not expecting much else.

They don't have many chances for anything worthwhile and neither of the roads ahead of them gives them any decent chance at surviving what comes.

Joining the webway wars that will come grants them a chance at influencing the future of their people by making sure that those that are the least hostile to their people rise to the top among the chaos and treachery of what comes. It is a small chance, but if it succeeds it will allow them to influence the future to the greatest possible extent.

Joining us removes that chance, but it gives them something they won't have otherwise, and that is a goal worth doing that directly helps their people.

If they didn't take either then they would just join a people that did not appreciate them and they would die without accomplishing anything. My husband gave them a chance at being more than nothing and I wish to give them a chance at living a life they feel is worth living and to spread what my husband gave me to these short people that my husband finds endearing

I nodded at this.

"Please do, that's all I'm asking."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Tell me Vect, why do you seek power?" I asked my apprentice.

Said apprentice was busy cutting down a tree into pieces by using a knife, because he told me that a big brutish axes is far less useful than a hidden blade and as such I had him test it by cutting down a tree with it.

My apprentice is a difficult man to teach, not because he does not learn well, but because he learns the things he finds useful, not the ones he needs.

He continues cutting at the tree with the wraithbone knife the size of his palm I made for him in order to 'punish' him for being an idiot. It was not a punishment, but a lesson

"Why not?" He replies in annoyance as he continues trying to cut down the tree.

"There is no reason you should not be seeking power, true enough, but I would imagine there is a reason beyond a desire to rule and be powerful."

Vect is a petty individual, one with little to no actual levers to push to get him to act as you want. The only two I have been able to find is proving him wrong and humiliating him at the same time as well as tricking him in a way he does not understand but can feel that he is being tricked.

"What is the purpose of this exercise Bessar? Cutting down a tree does not help me deceive others better." He asked me as he threw the knife away.

'Annoying little shit.' I thought in amusement.

Seeing this idiot fail to understand simple lessons will never not be funny, a pity he learns to apply them fast, but it seems he does not understand this one.

"The purpose of this exercise was that you don't appreciate that different tools have different purposes and you were meant to try and cheat by making the Wraithbone knife sharper than the near blunt thing I gave you to prove to me, that yes a knife is actually useful even when an axe seems better. This is meant to teach you that if reality does not conform to your needs, then you cheat and make it fit to your needs when nobody is watching. I am teaching you how to deceive, not how to work hard. Why do you assume you need to do things you don't have to?" I replied amused.

Vect overthinks things too much and makes himself miserable when he doesn't have to.

We've reached an agreement in terms of his education. He tries to find a way to say my training is bullshit or nonsense and I try to prove him wrong and if I prove him wrong he does not complain at the next one.

He grumbled then picked up the knife from the ground and made it sharper and then cut the tree and it fell in in one hour and then it hit the ground in seconds. Previously he'd been at it for two hours and was barely a tenth through the very wide tree but now it fell as he realized what he could cheat with as we can make wraithbone knives extremely sharp.

Hisses and chirps could be heard as the forest reacted to the noise.

I awaited him to answer my first question and put both of us some mint tea on the little table I prepared for both of us to sit at. My apprentice is looking for reasons to call bullshit on my training more than actually learning I have found, as he probably wishes the reward I promised him for it.

The rewards is me answering a personal question truthfully and without trickery and he hasn't been able to get one, for while I am uncertain how to get him to properly walk the path of princes, I am not teaching my apprentices wrong.

I am tricking them in not naming what I wish to teach them properly when I start doing so but I teach them exactly what I wish of them to know and teach them to the best of my ability things I know they will find useful even if they fail their apprenticeship to me.

"I wish for power, because it will make me powerful and the powerful have all they want." He said as he sat down in front of me.

I gave him his cup of tea and then proceeded to pick up mine. He actually thanked me in song this time even if he did not like mint tea.

He sighed theatrically then looked at me with the most annoyed look I ever saw him give me.

"Master, what is deceit? I see that you prepare me for princehood with your lessons but the more you try to teach me deceit, the less and less I understand what deceit is supposed to be." He asked me.

It was the first time he addressed me as Master and meant it as anything but mockery.

Two months is faster than expected and I expected him to only call me perhaps at the end of our apprenticeship and even that was optimistic.

I waited until I finished my tea before answering him because I really needed to calm down. In my walks around the city I had found an orphanage dedicated to Slaanesh and I really needed to make something wish that I would only murder them for it.

My apprentice made no comment on my glowing right eye until now and neither have my men and concubines or their family.

"Deceit is the constructing and rephrasing of reality in the mind of others to fit your designs my apprentice. I can't teach you how to do so to people, because you need to craft your own understanding of the fourth stage, so until you do that I am teaching you mental tricks you will learn to apply on people by yourself once your apprenticeship to me is over." I replied as I refilled my tea cup.

I am running out of tea too, as the Cult of Strife and my human mercenaries have gained an appreciation for it as well, and they have been plundering my reserves. No merchants come to this world with more either.

My stash that should have lasted me 3 years would be gone in three months.

My apprentice offered his cup to me as well as he'd finished his tea too. He may not like it, but he knows I talk more during tea and he is still trying to find an advantage in our conversations, and so he seeks to keep them going for longer.

"Why can't I lie and must always speak the truth then? It would make for a far easier task to do so and you said yourself, why do things I don't have to?" He asked me in curiosity.

He has been taught his entire life that deceit is lies which is nonsense. Deceit is much more than just lying.

"The priests, the priestesses, those coming to them for aid and those they squabbled with. Did any of them believe the words of each other?" I asked back.

Truly this world can't even do deceit right if he has to ask me that.

"No, they did not, but they could still deceive one another into acting as the other wants them to." He replied then stopped.

His face and voice took on a thinking stance as he was finally realizing the purpose of my lessons.

"None managed to get a unified long-term view on reality. They could deceive one another but none of the held dominance, not like you do." He observed in wonder.

Finally, I couldn't just tell him the answer as he needs to understand it himself in order for the lesson to stick.

"Correct my apprentice, each and every single one managed to trick each other into plots, but none won against each other for long, because lies are not real and deceit is the rephrasing and crafting of reality in the minds of others to fit your designs. Lies are not real, so if you lie and they realize it, then they no longer believe the reality you wish to craft as reality. It is why the third stage is the most important and why I forbid you to lie to me." I informed him.

Lying is a short term solution that while useful should not be used in deceit, because once it is found it destroys people's willingness to engage in the reality you wish to craft. Vect is far from being able to get away with lying and so I am not bothering with it.

"Are you going to finally try and learn my lessons properly? None of this constantly speaking in questions and jests you try to get around my lessons. The Cult of Strife and my mercenaries are there to help you get used to using the truth as a tool." I offered him.

He stood silently as he tried to find some hidden angle my words could be used to his detriment and I took his silence as a chance to once more sweep the area with the Flames of Khaine to keep Boredom at bay.

This world does strange things to you, for it reeks of the Virus and it seeps into the very song of the world. It erodes and destroys and the only thing that keeps it at bay is the Flames of Khaine that burn all that affects the Souls of Eldar into the flames of Violence until nothing but the war machines the Old Ones created remain. And because it is made to target Eldar then Khaine's flames easily burn it, for Khaine burns anything that would seek to corrupt the Eldar, as he is the only thing that is allowed to do so and he can only do so to allow us to overcome it.

The virus seeps everywhere, even if you are immune to it as it tries to corrupt you until nothing is left but a shell and as we try to fight it, it finds more things to Bore to death. The very song of this world is infected and the only thing keeping it at bay is Khaine's flames. The husbands of two of my concubines burned long ago to try to give succor to the people of this world and all they did was delay the inevitable.

If they would have kept some piece of themselves in stasis I might have been able to bring them back but they didn't and so my concubines have to live their lives subordinated to me. If they had their husbands still, I could have distanced myself further by making our connection more tenuous but four pregnancies across four generations make it difficult for me to do so, which means I'll see them again and the Divine will conspire to have us meet each other in order to tie me down to a single place.

If they succeed before Slaanesh is no longer an issue I'm screwed, if they do after… well there are worse things in life than having at least six women be willing to cater to you and love you and give you children and I say at least six because I doubt this will stop the Divine from trying to tie me down.

"I already am, but I doubt that I will walk the path of princes as you wish Bessar, for the Path of Priests as you call it is just more powerful." Vect replied.

I hate that I can't show him what a proper prince can do. Ceagauss Croga is the only one I've seen that was capable of it and he nearly managed to kill me as he nearly ended my Narrative Momentum with his cuts that came our of nowhere and nearly derailed everything.

I had the narrative accumulated on multiple worlds and that was growing larger and larger with the Siren Migration, and the Momentum would have normally guaranteed me a quick escape as the narrative attracted everyone where I was not, but a single prince just cut through it to find me out of nowhere and I nearly died for it as I had no defense against it.

If a prince managed to cut through the nonsense of a priest and put him into a situation they cannot recover from or build enough momentum to escape then the priest will die because this is what princes do, they cut through nonsense with their own force of will.

A single action almost destroyed hundreds of thousands of years of careful planning that culminated in my birth and the crowning of a queen, and it actually would have ruined everything if I was alone and did not have the twins with me.

Thousands of dead Followers of Hoeth that sacrificed themselves, ten times that number in nephews and entire planets and species which were condemned to extinction or almost died for good, all of that sacrifice nearly made useless because a single prince wished to fight against the man who had a name that meant similar things to his. It was absolute fucking nonsense you can only appreciate with context, where a single Eldar just cuts through everything everyone else planned and nearly brings them down because his pride stands above the plots of others. And now my apprentice dares call that path more powerful than what a single madman could achieve.

I sighed at his words.

"I will have to find a way to make you realize that the Path of Princes fits you better my apprentice, for your instincts follow it and yet your conscious mind refuses to understand that it is mightier than that of Priests, for it was meant to prey on it." I told him.

The Dark Eldar were meant to be animals, thinking in a predator-prey dichotomy, so maybe framing things this way might make him think things through? I don't have another solution so I might as well take it and see if it works.

My words aren't technically speaking wrong anyway, just viewed through a specific lens and I hope this manages to convince him because if it doesn't then I have no clue how to do so. Asdrubael Vect wants power, he wants the greatest possible amount of power he could get for himself and the greatest power he could see was that of the Divine and I don't have any example to show him that the Eldar stand above it and it is why we are civilized in the first place.

He scoffed at that and all it did is make me feel more tired. At least I am back to my healthy self but the man is tiresome to be around and I am also constantly doing sweeps for the Virus. Assuming Slaanesh dies we should be free of it in some 20.000 years without the main source of infection making our life difficult as those infected slowly die out and the songs of our worlds return.

"How so? You prey on all of this world as you please, how is it the lesser path?" He asked intrigued.

"The path of priests creates the setting for the story of Eldar to be said, and princes take over the story they find themselves in and twist it to their own purposes. I can't show you how it's done because this world has little of it worth noting but I have been close to dying three times in my life, and of those the time the New Divine directly tried kill me herself was the easiest to survive." I told him as I poured some more tea.

I didn't have much more left in the teapot.

"The New Divine tried to kill you herself?" He shouted in surprise.

He knew I did not lie to him, for as I told him in the past I don't need to as the truth is far less believable than any lies.

"Yes, the first attempt at my life was my fight against a prince called Ceagauss Croga, this man managed to corner me and nearly killed me as I was arranging to drown his princedom in water or crush it under ice and nearly killed me before I could reach the fortress of my lady wives. He came the closest to killing me and I only survived because my servants managed to distract him just before he could cut me into pieces and I killed him as he was distracted by them. The third was like I had told you my current concubine and she nearly killed me too and I had to take her and most of her family as concubines for it.

The second time was the New Divine herself wishing me dead. The only thing I needed to stop her from doing it was abuse the Divine Edicts against her and the creature would have been dead for good." I told him tiredly as I pushed one more pulse.

Something was coming, I could feel it in my bones as all my instincts around narratives screamed at me.

"Your words make no sense, why would the New Divine care about laws?" He responded.

"It doesn't make sense because you don't think like a priest and we draw our powers from people's perceptions and laws. You think in actions and if you learn to wield them you will be able to cut through anything that would try to stop you from acting, including the Divine, for your power is your own and depends on nothing but yourself. You might not be aware of it Asdrubael Vect, but our Empire is in decline and it has been for a long time, because no princes exist that know how to handle our current issues, and thus our society breaks apart as Priests try desperately to give them enough time to find a way to act. My own cure working was luck and not skill, and now we can wait for princes to act as we prepare the stage for them to do so in." I said and he acted as if struck.

He wishes power for himself, not to grant it to others and the very thought his own path would serve to empower others made him wretch with disgust. No, he actually puked to the side.

"Indeed my apprentice, I see that you understand now that the path of priests is a path of service, as we provide others purpose and it is why I wish for you to not take it, because if you learn from me you will be able to walk on the stage I and others help prepare and decide if you wish to make it your own, burn it or more." I offered kindly and ignored the stench.

It took him a bit to compose himself. When he did he was focused now.

"Why did you choose it?" He asked with intensity he had never showed me before.

He finally realized the mistake he was making and sought to correct it and the hidden edge of his desperation was music to my years.

"I was raised among priests like you did Vect, but unlike you I received none that would help put me on the path of princes, and it fits my nature as I managed to find a way to live with it and make it everyone else's problem, including my grandmother's who enjoys setting the stage too much to her advantage and keeps suffering for it." I replied softly.

My words echoed throughout the forest despite the fact that they were spoken softly.

"I serve nobody Bessar Agail, and I do not care for what the Divine wishes of me, as the only one whose opinion matters as far as I am concerned is myself. " His voice thundered.

My face twisted into a smile that was too wide to be healthy.

"Good my apprentice, for that is all I ever truly wished of you ."