Secret War: Warhammer 40,000 by Ben Agar (reading eggs books TXT) 📖

and enjoying the warmth in my lungs. "You got any idea what happened to my friends?"

"Yes, I do but not as of right now," replied Faleaseen, and I could detect an undercurrent of anger in her tone. Or was it frustration? Which was interesting.

"I am limited at this point in time," she said, and I waited for her to continue her sentence, but she didn't.

"Limited?"

"Yes, limited, human, you do not need to know more."

"Of course I don't," I sighed, inhaled again, then exhaled and shrugged to myself; well, I was 'human' now. I guessed that was better than "Mon'keigh," which now I thought about it, sounded somewhat similar to "monkey."

Faleaseen ignored my sarcasm or didn't seem to notice it and began to pace in front of me, her hands clasped behind her back.

"You are aware this is far from over, Mon'keigh?" she said.

I sighed out smoke again; well, I was back to being 'Mon'keigh' now.

"I never thought it wasn't; Edracian is still out there, somewhere; Feuilt was only a lackey. Which interested me."

"Why? Because Inquisitor Edracian did not have more forces to guard the conduit?" Said Faleaseen.

"Hmm, yess," I said, my finger and thumb stroking my thin chin. "You'd think something so important would be more guarded, wouldn't you?"

"Unless it was not actually that important," said Faleaseen. "What if it was not that important to the larger scheme?"

"Or perhaps, perhaps he just underestimated us?" I suggested. "Let his ego get the better of him?"

The Farseer's face scrunched in contempt, and she shook her head.

"I am utterly sure that is not the case. A useless suggestion."

"What? Why?"

"It is no matter; it just is, Mon'keigh."

I sighed heavily and rubbed my closed eyes. Remembering the conversation I'd heard between the Farseer and Glaitis while asleep. Glaitis' frustration was incredibly uncharacteristic, and now I understood why.

"Okay, I'm sorry, I just thought it'd be a potentially plausible explanation."

"Well, it is not; now move on, Mon'keigh."

"Okay, okay, can I ask you a question?"

"It depends upon the question."

I waited for her to tell me to ask it, but Faleaseen just stared down at me.

I sighed yet again and asked anyway, "what exactly did you do to my body?

"I replaced your pathetic, broken bone structure with a material my people call, Wraithbone. Many, many cycles ago, I was once quite the Bonesinger. I had travelled a long way through the webway to save your insignificant little life. You should appreciate what I did more."

Exhaling more smoke, I glared at her.

"But why?"

"Why? I would rather risk you and your entire race than even one of my fellow Eldar and me. That's what you Mon'keigh are, simple tools, tools for us to exploit. Let us say that your enemy, Inquisitor Edracian, is my enemy also."

I clenched my jaw and shook my head, so I'm again, just a tool, a slave of this, Farseer. I've just traded one master for another? Faleaseen, she must've placed something in me that'd make sure I'd be utterly obedient to her. The old axiom 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' was true until that original enemy was defeated, and then what?

"I have foreseen what may happen if the Inquisitor's plans come into fruition, my Craftworld will be affected by it, but if my people directly intervened, it would cause worse destruction beyond your furthest imagination. That is why I am using you and Glaitis as my agents."

"So, if you can foresee so far forward, why did you let us get caught off guard?" I growled.

Faleaseen sneered with disgust. "Because my sight is blocked, I have followed your fates countless times, and I can only see yours up to your confrontation with the Elandria girl; everything else is a blank."

I barely held back a smile; I could see her frustration and anger as clear as day. She'd been outmanoeuvred by Edracian as well. Being outdone by a simple 'Mon'keigh' must've hit her ego hard.

Faleaseen studied me with a furrowed brow, and I wondered if she was reading my every thought.

Shrugging, I said, "do you know exactly what Edracian's plans are?"

The Farseer closed her large eyes and breathed deeply through her nose.

"Again, I do not know. All that I can ascertain is that he is collecting souls. Billions of Mon'keigh souls from the planets he has destroyed to a place that I cannot find. For a purpose that could be countless in potential."

My eyes widened. "Souls?"

"Indeed, that is yet another reason why I am keeping my warriors from direct intervention as I fear the consequences if he got hold of any Eldar soul stones."

I frowned; I didn't really believe in 'souls' I'd always figured when we died, there'd be nothing but blackness. Despite what the church taught us.

"For you, Mon'Keigh, it is most certainly 'blackness'," said Faleaseen, making me blink. "Your souls are too weak to endure long in the warp before losing conscious thought entirely. Us Eldar can endure, but, for, but for."

Faleaseen trailed off and glanced around, almost guilty. "But I will not say anything more on that subject."

Well, this was different, the secret of life after death, a mystery that mankind has been searching for, for countless upon countless generations revealed to me by this Farseer as simply as a scholar-teacher stating how to pronounce the vowels of low gothic to five-year-olds. Of course, she could be lying.

Faleaseen just smirked.

"Do you know what's happening?" I asked. "I mean to me, in the real world?"

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "Of course I do; you are being transported via vehicle back to that puppet Taryst's tower. I am speeding up your metabolism to make your body heal faster. Soon the main conflict will arise, and I will need you amongst it."

"Y-you can do that?"

She smiled, "I can do much to you. Wraithbone is a psycho conductive material; you are, effectively, a conduit for my psychic power and only my psychic power, which I can use on you when even thousands of light-years away. This is why I am able to talk with you now."

"Can you tell me who's alive? What about Karmen? Is she okay?"

"The Karmen woman is fine if that gives you any solace. She is searching for the source of the psyker she battled. That may be where Inquisitor Edracian located."

I sighed, then my suspicious attention shot back to her.

"How do you know all this?"

Faleaseen sighed. "I guess I should tell you this, as you may need to know; Karmen Kons is also one of my agents."

I gaped, my eyes widened, and my heart sank, but quickly everything began to make sense, the how and why Karmen knew what she knew. But why didn't she tell me? Why did she lie to me?

"Does-does Glaitis know that Karmen works for you?"

"No, she does not; the reason why Glaitis did not kill Karmen Kons when she had the chance was that I ordered her not to. I foresaw the one called Estella Erith's involvement in the events leading to this and made sure she was here at the right time. She was once a member of an Inquisitor's retinue, but my warriors and I ambushed them during one of their missions. Killed her comrades, and I took her in. Taught her the true strengths of her psychic potential, then placed her under Taryst's employee. If only I foresaw the Feuilt's betrayal or your kidnapping, then this would not have come to pass."

"There, there really is no such thing as coincidence," I gasped, wondering just how much of my life the Farseer had influenced behind the scenes.

"Wise words, I will concede," said Faleaseen.

"A wise Axiom, I'd say," I said while sighing out more smoke. "Especially for me."

Faleaseen smiled. "Indeed, so."

Quickly I climbed to my feet, flicked away the stub of my Lho stick, slipped my hands into their pockets, then walked past Faleaseen and looked around.

"Well, I've gotta say you did a bloody good job of recreating my old home," I said.

"Of course I did," said Faleaseen. "Would you expect anything less from me?"

"I don't pretend ever to know what to expect from you," I said and clutched my hands behind my back.

To my complete surprise, Faleaseen suddenly burst out in laughter.

"Perhaps, perhaps there is hope for you yet, Attelus Kaltos."

I wasn't sure what to make of that comment.

"You wouldn't know who else made it?" I said.

"Despite everything, everyone you know survived," said Faleaseen. "The main casualties were the criminals under Brutis Bones and the Magistratum agents under Arlathan Karkin; only a very few survived, less than a fourth of their original numbers."

As much as I was glad to hear that my friends were all okay, those Hammers and Magistratum enforcers were innocent; they didn't deserve the fates dealt them.

"Do not feel sorry for them; they are mere insects, nothing more."

I glared over my shoulder at her, disgusted yet unsurprised.

Faleaseen sighed. "There are billions of Mon'keigh infesting the galaxy; losing another thousand or a million more is not going to make any difference. They are dead; there is nothing left you can do for them; move on. You have much more to go through before this is finished."

"Do you have any compassion?" I asked earnestly. "Don't you feel a little bit sorry for those people?"

"No, I do not," stated Faleaseen coldly. "All things die eventually, without exception. Those killed by the daemons would have died later under some other circumstance at a later date no matter what you do. They were destined to die and be pointless in the larger scheme of fate. Be grateful you are not one of them."

I sighed yet again and placed the palm of my hand on my face.

"Yeah, well, now I'm exceptionally grateful," I said. "I couldn't be any more grateful; in fact, I'm so grateful if I was anymore grateful, I'd explode. That's how truly, greatly grateful I am."

"I am not unaware of sarcasm, Mon'keigh."

"I never thought you were, Farseer," I snapped.

Faleaseen shook her head and folded her arms across her chest.

"You should be grateful because you lived over them; you survived to be able to stop more of your kind from dying. Not one of them were as capable as you for stopping Edracian's plans," said Faleaseen.

"What?" I said with a shrug. "You stroking my ego now?"

"No, Attelus Kaltos," said Faleaseen. "I am stating the truth, an irrefutable fact."

"What makes me so special? I'm not any better than any of them; any human is capable of doing great things, and who knows? Perhaps if I died and someone had taken my place, any one of those Hammers, they may've done a far better job? Perhaps Edracian would be dead and this whole debacle over months ago?"

"Now you are just speaking rubbish, I have foreseen..."

"But you haven't foreseen crap!" I interrupted. "You admitted something is blocking your farsight any further! So how do you know!"

"It is because I am here to guide you, and without my direct guidance, no one would have a chance."

"Direct guidance, bull shit!" I snapped. "You haven't guided me through crap!"

Faleaseen just smiled.

Then it hit me. "Wait, that wasn't Karmen helping me; it was you, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was me, I thought at the time; you would be more willing to co-operate if it was her."

I clenched my jaw and bawled my hands into fists as anger raged through me.

"Yes, I deceived you, you should be used to that by now, but if I had not, you wouldn't be alive now, dead along with those pathetic beings you care so much for; what is that saying? 'The ends justifies the means'. I would certainly say it did in this case."

"I bet you'd say it would in every case," I replied.

Faleaseen laughed again and smiled. "You are truly an entertaining little Mon'keigh, are you not?"

'So, what now?" I sighed.

"Karmen will return, soon with the information needed,"

"You think she'll succeed?"

"She will; her skills are beyond that of a normal human psyker," said Faleaseen. "I have taught her everything she knows."

I frowned, and my attention fell to the ground hoping like hell that the Farseer was