Ahriman: Sorcerer by John French Page A

something I need. This is what I have been seeking – a point of intersection in the threads of time, a point where I can be certain where she will be. We are not here for what this place is now – we are here for what it will be.’
    Silvanus followed Ahriman’s gaze down to the plains at the foot of the fortress. Drifting dust was burying the Rubricae. Already their feet and shins were beneath the surface, as though swallowed by a rising tide. The light in their eyes was dimming.
    ‘Sleep, my brothers,’ said Ahriman softly. ‘Sleep in dust, and wait.’
    Astraeos felt the Grey Knight’s fingers touch his skin, and a sun exploded in his soul. The tiered chamber vanished. He was blind to everything except the light that was burning inside him. Somewhere far away he screamed. He tried to close his mind off, to contain the star forming in his thoughts. For a second his will held, hardening over his mind. Then the light grew, and his will broke apart. The light was blue with soul fire; he felt his surface thoughts peeling away like charred skin. Memories surfaced, fragments of time spooling backwards through his mind’s eye.
    ‘…we are here for what it will be,’ said Ahriman on a dustblown tower.
    The wind rattled against his armour.
    ‘This is how fate is made.’
    Dust swirled around the waiting dead.
    ‘Why?’ asked a man through cracked lips.
    He tightened his grip, and the Navigator’s face began to bulge and gasp for air.
    ‘Why does Ahriman keep Sanakht so close, and send you away?’
    ‘I watch over you,’ he had said.
    ‘Tell me, Astraeos, why are you here?’
    Stillness filled him, sudden and complete. He sat with Ahriman on the floor of a high tower. He looked around. The floor was lapis, the roof bronze. Silver sigils spiralled across the floor. It was very quiet.
    ‘I am sorry, my friend,’ said Ahriman. He wore a pale blue robe and his head was bare. ‘There must be something to draw the inquisitors together, a cause to create the future. They will be seeking me, and only answers will make them gather to learn the truth. That gathering must happen. You understand why it must be you?’
    ‘I am not one of you.’
    Ahriman’s face remained as still as stone.
    ‘They will try to take secrets from you, first by crude methods, but then they will try to take them from your mind.’ Ahriman paused, and drew a slow breath. ‘They might even have the strength to do it.’
    Astraeos did not move. Part of him knew that he could not, that this was not real – it was a memory of something that had already happened, sealed off and buried within his mind.
    ‘You must keep a part of yourself separate from the rest, a part that they cannot reach unless your entire mind falls, a fortress hidden from the rest of your thoughts. I will be there, this memory will be there. Remember then what must happen. You will not have long, perhaps a fraction of a second.’
    ‘How can you be sure that Iobel will be there when this happens? How can you be sure that any of it will intersect as you predict?’
    Ahriman gave a tired smile.
    ‘I can’t.’
    The memory began to fade, the lines of the chamber blurring.
    ‘Remember you will have an instant,’ said Ahriman’s voice, its tones seeming to reach from a long way away. ‘Remember, Astraeos.’
    Astraeos’s eye opened. Cendrion stood before him. Ice sheathed the Grey Knight’s arm from fingers to shoulder. Silver-blue fire crackled and flickered over the stretched fingers. The world was slow, separate, like the crash of water beyond glass. Cendrion’s hand began to close. Astraeos felt the power boring into him change.
    You will have an instant…
    His thought form leapt into the air. It had the shape of a tattered eagle with feathers of smoke and red flame. The warp broke into storm winds that shrieked past him. The eagle soared through the chamber, searching the souls of the figures gathered there. Some were moving, reaching for weapons. He could feel the