Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘The Stormcasts are no puppets to dance for a sorcerer’s whim,’ Othmar snarled, bringing his foot stamping down on a piece of glass.

Throl bowed in apology. ‘No, the warriors of Sigmar aren’t so easily manipulated. That is why the Prismatic King’s trick failed.’

‘But he will try new ways to destroy us,’ the Celestant-Prime said. He clenched his mailed fist, glaring at what remained of the broken maze. ‘Unless we destroy him first.’

‘That is what I propose,’ Throl said. Holding the shard of mirror high, he pointed to its gleaming surface. ‘The Prismatic King spied upon us through the mirrors. More than simply prisons, they acted as windows for his witchsight. Through the mirrors he could watch those he’d caught and those he intended to catch. That is how he knew the right moment to free the blood daemons and when to shift the mirrors to try and snare Ghal Maraz.’

Othmar picked up one of the broken slivers, glaring at it. ‘I hope he’s still watching,’ he growled, scowling at the glass.

‘Is he watching, wizard?’ the Celestant-Prime asked.

‘The spell should be broken,’ Throl said. ‘When the mirrors broke, so too should their magic. But they remain things of the Prismatic King. The thread of his enchantment, the trail of his scrying is still there. My own magic may be able to exploit that lingering thread.’

‘Exploit it how?’ Lord-Celestant Devyndus asked.

Throl gestured expansively at the other shards scattered about the chamber. ‘Gather every piece together. Combine them in a great circle.’ He turned and looked up at the Celestant-Prime, an imploring look on his face. ‘The essence of the Eyrie is the stuff of Chaos — transitory and mutable. It is unfixed and unfinished by the rigours of mortal reality. I can use that shapelessness. My magic can bind itself to the aethyric tether linking the mirrors back to the Prismatic King. I can open a portal that will follow the path right to him.’

The Celestant-Prime nodded. ‘If you can do this, then we won’t need to fight our way through the Eyrie. You can take us straight to the Prismatic King’s throne.’ A concern flared through his mind, a worry that howled with warning. ‘Won’t your magic warn the sorcerer of our coming?’

Throl frowned, the light of vengeance faltering in his eyes. ‘His mastery of the black arts is such that there would be no hiding my magic from him. The instant I evoke my spell, the Prismatic King will know we are coming.’ The wizard shook his head. ‘There is small chance of surprising him if we march through his halls. This way at least you will be brought into the fiend’s presence. This way you will at least see the face of your enemy.’

Feeling the heft of Ghal Maraz in his hands, the Celestant-Prime experienced a sensation of righteous wrath. ‘Let me get that close to him, and your people will be avenged, Throl. The Prismatic King has mocked Sigmar long enough.’ He looked to Devyndus. ‘Have the Thriceblessed gather up the shards. Whatever the wizard needs to work his spell, we will render it to him.’

Lord-Celestant Devyndus clasped his hand to his chest in salute and hurried to pass Ghal Maraz’s commands on to the other Stormcasts. In a moment, the warriors were picking up the broken pieces of mirror, setting them into a growing circle of glass. Throl walked across the jagged shards, seating himself at the very centre of the ring. Closing his eyes, he began to chant.

The pieces of glass began to shift and shudder, quaking upon the floor. Gradually their reflective surfaces became suffused with a brilliant light, a whirring aura that turned from one hue to the next in rapid rotations. The frigid chill of magic swept through the chamber, the breath of each Stormcast ghosting through his helm.

‘The door is open,’ Throl declared, his eyes more glassy and gem-like than the Celestant-Prime had ever seen them. Sweat streamed down the wizard’s strained face. ‘Quickly, while I can still maintain it!’

Devyndus gripped the Celestant-Prime’s shoulder as the champion started towards the glowing circle. ‘Are you certain of the wizard’s magic? Let one of us…’

The Celestant-Prime shook his head. ‘I send no man where I fear to lead,’ he declared. Holding forward the golden head of Ghal Maraz, he shook the weapon at the magic circle. ‘If the godhammer’s might is not enough to bear me to victory, then the valour of the Thriceblessed will be for naught. Let me lead the way, Lord-Celestant.’ His voice grew low, subdued by the magnitude of emotion boiling inside him. ‘This is my trial, and there is none who may lift it from me.’

Without further word, Ghal Maraz strode out into the blinding ring of light. The luminance swirled around him in a coruscating miasma of brilliance, a cascading stream of reflections and echoes that flooded through his senses. With each step he could feel the energies of the broken mirrors engulfing him, blotting out the outside world. He was fading from existence, marching through the passageways between space and time. Where the passage would lead was a matter of faith, not in the magic of Throl, but in the divine power of Sigmar.

A deafening clap of thunder rolled through the Celestant-Prime’s skull as he emerged from the nimbus of eldritch light. One instant he was engulfed in the blinding flash, the next he found himself standing in a grand hall of cyclopean proportions. Titanic columns of crystal soared up into an arched ceiling of uncut gemstone. The floor was like a single mosaic of stained glass, its panes depicting the manifold atrocities and conquests of Chaos throughout the Mortal Realms.

Across the gargantuan hall, an enormous seat rose, a throne fashioned from diamonds that blazed with a kaleidoscope of colours smouldering deep within their facets. Upon the throne sat a vulture-headed Lord of Change, its face turned towards the Celestant-Prime as he emerged from Throl’s portal. There was amusement in the greater daemon’s jewel-like eyes as it sensed the champion’s shock when he gazed upon it. The Celestant-Prime had thought the Prismatic King would be a monster of at least mortal birth. Instead he found himself before an infernal steward of Tzeentch, one of the greater daemons who existed as extensions of their twisted god’s desire.

Bigger than the one-eyed giants he’d fought in the swamp, the Prismatic King rose from its throne. Possessed of roughly human shape, the Lord of Change adorned itself in a long robe of silks and satins, jewels woven into the pattern to form arcane sigils and sorcerous talismans. The gaunt, starveling body of the daemon was covered in black feathers that faded to a leprous yellow at the tips. The vulturine head leered from atop a bare, scraggly neck, the face dominated in a metallic beak of blackened iron. Upon the horror’s talons enormous rings burned with unholy energy. From the Prismatic King’s back spread gigantic wings, exhibiting a dazzle of whirling patterns among the rainbow display of coloured feathers. Upon the beast’s brow, a mirrored crown reflected the Celestant-Prime’s image back at him, but it was a reflection twisted and corrupted by the ruinous essence of the daemon.

‘You have come far to seek an audience with me.’ The Prismatic King’s voice was like the crackling of broken glass and the scrape of steel against stone. ‘In all its long existence my court has never entertained an emissary of Azyr.’

The Celestant-Prime felt every syllable the daemon uttered clawing at him, probing around in his mind and spirit for any trace of weakness. However mighty the godhammer was, however resilient his armour of sigmarite, their strength would account for nothing if the Lord of Change found a flaw within the man himself.

Thunder roared through the hall. The Celestant-Prime could feel the Thriceblessed emerge from the portal. Firm in their faith in the champion chosen by their god, the Stormcasts had dutifully followed him through the magical gate. He could feel the shock that swept through each warrior as he gazed upon the hideous enormity of the Prismatic King, but that shock was tempered, subdued by a sensation yet more powerful: the conviction that each Stormcast held that the Celestant-Prime could overcome even this foe.