Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Again and again, the Celestant-Prime swept the fury of Ghal Maraz across the ranks of savage reavers who stood before him. By the score the marauders perished, their broken bodies flung across the hall, yet still they came. Beyond them, the champion could see the huge daemon, its eyes glazed, its wings aglow as it summoned more magic into its loathsome conjurations. The transparent diamond of the Prismatic King’s throne was becoming steadily darker, assuming a reflective sheen. The daemon was exploiting the essence of Chamon itself, using the vibrations of the Realm of Metal to help it transmute the diamond throne into a nest of mirrors — a new maze in which to recapture the Thriceblessed.

‘Don’t let it complete its conjuration!’ Throl wailed, a stream of fire erupting from his splayed fingers to ignite a pack of gors, reducing the beastmen to heaps of ash. Deucius smashed down a dog-faced beastlord that had escaped the immolation of its followers, cracking the brute’s skull with his hammer.

The Celestant-Prime surged forwards, howling a challenge to the daemon. The flesh around the Prismatic King’s eyes twitched in fear but the Lord of Change was too committed to its mighty conjuration to break away from the spell. The creatures still emerging from the throne diverted towards the Celestant-Prime, seeking to answer the threat their master couldn’t face. Already the transmutive energies had wrought a change upon the throne, however. The creatures that staggered and crawled towards the hero were obscene half-formed things, their bodies as opaque as glass, their armour as brittle. When Ghal Maraz struck them, they disintegrated in a spray of shards that were both glass and flesh.

Reaching the daemon, the Celestant-Prime raised the godhammer, ready to strike it down with the fury of Sigmar’s wrath. As he started to swing, his eye strayed to the golden sheen of the hammer’s head. In that mirror-like surface, he could see the Prismatic King, towering and terrible. He could also see the shadows of its diamond throne and the creatures emerging from it stretching towards the wall. These shadows were constant, yet that of the daemon flickered with a grisly inconstancy. Only in the reflection of the godhammer was this weird effect revealed. Looking directly at the shadow, it seemed no different.

When Ghal Maraz cracked against the Prismatic King’s leg, the limb burst apart in a spray of light and thunder. The daemon shuddered, sagging back towards its throne. The shadow it cast flickered once more, then faded completely. The Celestant-Prime advanced on the reeling Lord of Change, but again there sounded within the deepest layers of his mind a cry of warning. Again he wondered at the trickery of a foe who could manipulate the senses as thoroughly as the Prismatic King.

He turned his eyes to the golden surface of Ghal Maraz. There, in the godhammer’s sheen, he saw only an empty throne. There was no daemon, no Prismatic King. Not even a flicker of the fiend. The monster’s sorcery could deceive mortal senses, but it couldn’t obfuscate the holy relic with its trickery. The Celestant-Prime turned, staring at the reflection in the hammer, searching for the true shape of the Prismatic King.

What he found was Throl. In the godhammer, the wizard’s shadow was a long ribbon of darkness, vast and hideous — the daemon had entered the man’s body. The Celestant-Prime glared at his enemy. Around them, the sounds of battle faded away, diminishing into nothingness.

‘Much better than the last time,’ the Prismatic King grinned, laughing at the shock the words provoked.

‘If we’d met before, you would already have found your doom,’ the Celestant-Prime snarled, advancing upon the daemon.

‘Only if you win,’ the daemon hissed. ‘You haven’t. Not now, and not then.’ Its gemlike eyes sparkled with malignance. ‘Haven’t you wondered, all those dim memories tugging at you, pulling you here and there?’

‘They brought me here,’ the Celestant-Prime said. ‘They led me here to destroy you.’

The thing wearing Throl’s body laughed again. ‘That is because you’ve been here before. Some foolish test set by your god for you to prove your worth. Didn’t you know? Didn’t your little godling tell you? We’ve danced this dance before, you and I.’

The Celestant-Prime raised godhammer. ‘I’ve no stomach for the lies of daemons,’ he snarled.

‘The best lies are hidden in the truth,’ the daemon mocked. The flesh around its mouth began to shrivel, scraps of blistered skin sloughing away from the bones. ‘There was a real Throl. He thought he could resist me. I even let his identity linger when I assumed his flesh. But there is only so long a mortal shell can contain the grand enormity of my spirit.’

A rending crash rumbled through the hall. Cries of bewilderment rose from the Stormcasts as their erstwhile foes disintegrated into broken glass. The vast shape that leaned against the throne broke apart like a reflection lost in a rippling pool.

‘Kill it, my lord,’ Deucius cried out as he turned away from the wreckage of his last enemy. Other Thriceblessed were converging upon the strange tableau now, surrounding the wizard who had deceived them for so long.

‘Destroy the traitor and have done with it,’ Othmar cursed.

The Prismatic King held its decaying hand towards the Celestant-Prime. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know where the Pillar of Whispers is? I will tell you. Such was ever my purpose, great Ghal Maraz. I will admit, Sigmar is clever in his way. The Maze of Reflection can thwart his cunning but is hardly capable of holding the hero chosen to bear the godhammer. No, I couldn’t kill you and I couldn’t trap you.’ The gloating daemon’s jaw fell off, crumbling to dust as it struck the floor. Still the fiend’s voice slithered from its decaying mantle of flesh. ‘All that was left to me was to destroy you.’

‘Then you have failed, monster,’ Deucius declared. ‘The Celestant-Prime is triumphant. It is you and your slaves that are vanquished!’

‘Do you know where the Pillar of Whispers is hidden?’ the daemon mocked. ‘It is locked away, buried inside a vessel of my own creation. I have held the Thriceblessed a very long time. While they were my guests, I fashioned a simulacrum in their shape. I took one of the Stormcasts from my maze and replaced him with my copy. A perfect copy. A reflection so complete that even it believes itself to be real! That, Ghal Maraz, is where the Pillar of Whispers is hidden! To find the realmgate, you must destroy the simulacrum! Only the godhammer will free it from its mantle of flesh!’

‘More lies!’ Othmar raged. He swung his hammer at the disintegrating body, collapsing its ribs and smashing the carcass to the floor. The desiccated head continued to grin up at the Celestant-Prime.

‘How many must die to unlock the realmgate?’ the Prismatic King’s mockery bubbled up from the bodiless head. ‘Will it be the first or the second, or the two-hundred and second? How many can you strike down before your spirit is broken? How much innocent blood can stain your hands before you are unfit to carry the godhammer?’

The Celestant-Prime listened to no more. Throwing back his head in a roar of outrage and frustration, he brought Ghal Maraz smashing down, obliterating the last shred of what had been Throl’s body and the Prismatic King’s vessel. Denied its host, the daemon’s spirit would be cast back into the Realm of Chaos.

But it was destruction, not defeat. The daemon was vanquished, yet its evil lingered on.

‘It can’t be true,’ Lord-Celestant Devyndus declared. ‘The daemon lies. We are all of us true Stormcasts. You have seen us fight. You have seen us cut down the slaves of Chaos!’

Deucius gestured to the dust that had been Throl. ‘That thing did the same, killing its own servants, springing its own traps all so that it could lull us into trusting it.’