Ahriman: Sorcerer by John French

allowed the dust to settle the entire planet would be dry and stripped of life, a desert with the broken remains of its civilisation sticking up from the desolation like dry bones.
    ‘This is how fate is shaped,’ said Ahriman. His voice was low, calm, the voice of rationality, the voice of reason. Hemellion spat. Silvanus watched the dust-clogged saliva drool thickly down Ahriman’s armour. Part of him, a part he did not often listen to now, felt envy of the man’s defiance. Kadin made a noise that might have been a chuckle. Ahriman nodded carefully.
    Silvanus looked away. Out beyond the tower’s parapet the rest of the fortress fell away. Fires burned in its broken stones, fires which flickered with green and blue-edged tongues. They had needed to take the fortress by force. It had not taken long, not for the forces that now waited beyond the walls, hidden by the murk. The billowing dust parted as he gazed beyond the parapet. Rank upon rank of motionless Rubricae stood on the plains around the fortress, the dust turning the green glow of their eyes to haloes. Static discharge crackled across their blue and gold battleplate. The clouds shifted and the Rubricae became smudges in the ochre gloom.
    Silvanus still wondered why it had been necessary, why they were even here on the surface, why he was there standing amongst Ahriman’s inner circle. The rest of the planet was to be allowed to die slowly, but the might of Ahriman’s fleet had descended on this primitive fortress like an executioner’s axe.
    Ahriman moved away from Hemellion, his armour purring as he turned to Sanakht.
    ‘He comes with us,’ said Ahriman, and nodded at Hemellion. ‘He may hate us, but his mind is strong, and he will serve.’
    ‘Master?’ said Sanakht, his dry paper voice an echo of the wind.
    ‘He lives. He has earned that much.’
    Sanakht must have nodded, or spoken in thoughts, because Silvanus heard no reply.
    We kill a world for a king who will now be a slave, thought Silvanus . Is that what we did this for? He paused, suddenly aware that he had thought of the sorcerers and the fleet, and their chattels, not as they , not as traitors who were different from him, but as we , as something of which he was a part.
    Ahriman turned to face Silvanus. The Navigator felt his hairless skin prickle. He did not look up at his master.
    ‘Ask your question, Silvanus,’ said Ahriman, his voice low and resonant. ‘They all wish to know as well, so ask.’
    Silvanus swallowed in his dry throat.
    ‘Why am I here?’
    ‘So that you can be here, so that you can touch this place, breathe the air of its death. So you can find your way back.’
    Silvanus shivered again.
    ‘My way back?’ he said and looked up at Ahriman. Clear blue eyes looked back at him without blinking.
    ‘Yes,’ said Ahriman. ‘We will leave here soon, but we will return. It may be many years, but we will return. You are our eye into the warp, so you must see clearly where I guide you.’ He looked away from Silvanus, his gaze passing over Ignis, Sanakht, and the other sorcerers. ‘Let this place touch your mind, hold its memory clear inside you so that you can stand here again by closing your eyes. We must all be ready to return.’
    ‘Return?’ Silvanus realised he had spoken a second too late. The gaze of every eye on the tower top turned to him. Even the bitter gaze of Hemellion was locked on him. ‘Return for what? Why are we here? Why have we stripped this world of life to then return?’
    A hint of a smile formed and faded on Ahriman’s face. It was the most terrifying thing Silvanus had ever seen. The clouds of dust were shifting, the winds pulling the drab curtain back again. The Rubricae still stood there, but now all of them were staring up at the fortress.
    ‘In time this place will change. Others will find it, and their hands will remake the fortress we stand on. Then, in that future, one person will come here. Her name will be Iobel, and she will have