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

who knew they were proven right but weren't happy about it. Not happy about it at all.

"I know that look; I know it well," he said. "You did manipulate him, you may not have known it then, but you did. You make me sick! I thought you were a friend, but no, you're just like all the others! Taryst! Edracian! That Glaitis woman! A manipulative, backstabbing bastard!"

With that, he turned and left, clasping at his side.

"What the hell was that about?" asked Verenth.

"I didn't," I gasped. "I didn't mean to, I..I...I swear I didn't mean to..I!" I started to shake and hyperventilate. Had I manipulated my friend? Hell, my best friend! Did I get him killed? Did I?

"Calm down, Apprentice," said Darrance. "Just try to breathe."

I looked at him with watery vision, unable to reply through my gasps.

"Attelus!" yelled Arlathan. I was going to faint. I don't know why people can't faint when hyperventilating. It didn't make sense! Then my vision started to blur, then blacken, then everything went completely dark.

 

 

Immediately, I found myself back in my backyard, sitting on the grass and almost jumped out of my skin as I saw Faleaseen towering over me, she still had her helmet off and her long, dark red hair pulled into a topknot.

"You have done well, Attelus Kaltos," she said. "Too bad I was unable to foresee Inquisitor Etuarq's deception. I am sorry."

I rubbed my eyes and blinked; I was 'Attelus Kaltos' now? And she was sorry? Had I somehow earned some semblance of her respect?

Faleaseen smiled genuinely, and I had to admit it was a sweet smile, so sweet it made me flinch away.

"I am sorry for your losses; I truly am," she said as she knelt over me, so we were face to face and looked me in the eye.

"So many," I said as tears welled. "Elandria, I loved her. I loved her so much. Castella, she was like the sister I never had and Garrakson, was my friend, a terrific friend. Why? Faleaseen, why did they need to die?"

"I...I do not know," admitted Faleaseen hesitantly. "I know much; I have lived a long time Attelus Kaltos, even for an Eldar. But even I do not know everything, and now I know that because you have taught me something."

"What?" I croaked.

"That even though you humans live such short life spans and so many of you are so reprehensible, we are, in the larger scheme of things, the same. We live, we love, we die, we make mistakes just like you. I have fought for so long for the future of my race, my people, just as you have today. I have held such contempt for your race for so long; it was your kind that invaded my craftworld, that killed my people and forced us to flee and abandon our home. I had interacted with the most reprehensible of your people for so long, using them as my agents that I had come to believe you were all like that, but after seeing what you have done, what you have managed to achieve."

She paused and looked away, admiring the view. "I will be honest with you. You were one of them, the reprehensible ones; in many ways, you still are. You were selfish, cowardly, blinded into stupidity by your pathetic sentiment, but you overcame that and started fighting for others. Maybe, just maybe, the basest others of your kind can too. If there's hope for them, maybe there's hope for humanity as a whole and thus, maybe, hope for the Eldar as well. We also have vile, reprehensible people of us as well, The Dark Eldar of Commoragh. I tended to think of them as another race entirely, but they aren't; they are Eldar too, in fact even more so."

"Uhh, thanks?" I said, seeing quickly the Farseer's, perhaps unintentional, backhanded compliment.

She shrugged. "There is no need to thank me, Attelus Kaltos. I am just stating a fact."

She smiled again. "An irrefutable fact."

I smiled back.

She sighed. "While I am being honest with you, there is something else I must tell you. I wasn't going to tell you this for fear it might inspire you to be lax, to fight less hard, but now I see that you now fight for more than just yourself and knowing this might help you in the future."

"What is it?"

Faleaseen sighed again. "When I came to Omnartus and changed you. I didn't just enhance your strength, reflexes and bone structure beyond normal human capacity. I changed your very soul, as well."

I raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"You are now, to your kind are a myth of a myth, what was once called a perpetual, or to put it more plainly, an immortal."

"What?"

"Do not get me wrong; you can still die," said Faleaseen. "But I have the ability to track down your soul in the warp and bring you back into the living. Regenerate you, no matter how you had died. You will also never age; you will stay this way for all eternity." I gaped,

"so I'm...Immortal?"

"Yes, you are," she said. "Take that as you will, as a gift or as a curse; it's up to you."

I shook my head, unable to comprehend it, so I decided to change the subject. "You said earlier because of my selfless actions before that you'd changed your view on humanity," I said. "You say that though knowing that I'd manipulated Jeurat into killing Glaitis, he was my friend, and I used him like Etuarq had used Edracian, like a puppet, how..."

She stopped me with a raised hand. "No, you did not, Attelus Kaltos. You underestimate Jeurat Garrakson, as I had underestimated you. I think he knew or at least had an idea of what you were doing. His sacrifice was not because of your deception, it was you who told him what drove him to do it, of course, but that was nothing but the truth, well, most of it. But what truly drove him was his love for Taryst and his friendship with the Olinthre human."

She smiled. "He also sacrificed himself to spare you, Torris and others from her rampage, as you had sacrificed yourself for the people of the Twilight bar. Your friend, Marcel Torris, is just in mourning for his friend and longtime comrade, and I am sorry to say, is taking it out on you. He knows the real reason why the Garrakson human did it, and he will forgive, one day, eventually."

I sniffed.

"Garrakson also knew what is at stake, that you are much more capable than him at stopping Etuarq and his plans," she said. "He did this because you were open and honest with him, well, eventually, anyway. You had said something similar during your earlier meeting with Glaitis, Brutis and Arlathan, didn't you? You reprimanded them for all their 'secrets and lies.' Wise words that have now been proven correct. While I won't say that all secrets shouldn't be kept, not much in this galaxy is truly black and white. What you must do now is forgive yourself and fight on, determined to keep his sacrifice from being in vain; the same goes for Elandria, for Castella and Olinthre."

I smiled. "Thank you, Faleaseen, thank you for telling me this. Did you read Garrakson's mind? How did you know this?"

She grinned, and again I was forced to flinch away. "There is no need to thank me, Attelus. I am just stating what you already knew. And no, I didn't read his mind; this is just an educated guess. I should be the one thanking you, and I thank you by swearing that I will never manipulate you, I will never use psychic torture. I see you now as a human wise beyond his years. A human who is wiser than many of his kind ten times his age! Your opinion is valid, worth listening to, and I wish you luck, but now I must leave. We will talk again, sooner or later. Goodbye."

"Goodbye," I said as the valley around began to fade into white.

 

 

Chapter27

 That white light slowly began to melt away, revealing the white marble ceiling overhead. It took me a second or so to realise I was moving, that I was being carried by two of Taryst's mercs on a stretcher, through the fortress-mansion.

I groaned as the pain in my limbs and exhaustion suddenly returned. The sharp sting from the cuts that covered me came after, making me hiss through clenched teeth.

I lingered in my thoughts, trying to take my mind off the pain. So I was immortal, or as the Farseer had termed it, a 'perpetual.' I wasn't sure in all honesty what to make of that; it was something many over millennia had coveted, quested for, sacrificed for, yet here I was, just given it. Well...perhaps not 'just given it,' the tortures, the dreams that were something I'd never want to go through again.

I wished Faleaseen had told me more, like how did that shielding work? Would I be stuck like this, practically catatonic after each use? Did it drain my soul as I'd thought? So, me being a 'perpetual' would it re-generate? I hoped so.

Next time I sit in that backyard, I swore I'd ask more pointed questions about, well, everything. Even knowing of my supposed immortality, I'd still do my frigging best not to die, this for a few good reasons, first being it'd probably be frigging painful, depending on the how or why, of course. The second, I wouldn't want to spend any time within the warp, no way in hell. Knowing what little I knew of that hell and knowing our souls were destined to go there when we die terrified me beyond measure. Even knowing that I'd have no consciousness, or at least I hoped I wouldn't, perhaps being a 'perpetual' would change that. The last reason was the thought of being brought back from the warp, and how it could affect me, how it could change me physically and mentally. Could I even come back a daemon?

Hell, now knowing this, I swore I'd fight harder to stay alive than ever before.

Again, I sighed and tried to ignore the pain, tried to move and despite my best efforts and much grunting, I found I still couldn't.

Then a thought hit me, which made me hiss through clenched teeth and sent a cold shiver up my spine. What had Edracian, I mean, Etuarq said before? Of the irony of my earlier speech about my death?

Did he know? Did he know of my status as a perpetual? But wouldn't that have made all his plan void? He knew I'd survive the explosion; he knew I'd escape the destruction of Omnartus but still told us of his plan. Why? I couldn't understand, I couldn't comprehend. He did all of this, knowing I'd come back from the dead.

The only explanation I could think of was that it was a lie, a bald-faced lie. But why not just stay silent, just let the reveal of Edracian's being a corpse be enough?

Wesley, Emperor rest him, was right; this was getting frigging stranger and stranger and stranger.

Did Etuarq have plans for me even beyond the destruction of Omnartus? And by trying to bring him to justice, would I be just