Calys shook her head in confusion. ‘Go down – but we can’t…’
‘We can.’
Calys eyes widened slightly. ‘Elya. You mean to use her.’
‘You said she managed to find her way below. We need a guide.’
Calys frowned. ‘She’s a child. It would not be safe.’
Balthas looked at her. ‘Yes, and there is nowhere safer in this city than with us.’ He paused. ‘If we do not do this, the dead will surely break open the Ten Thousand Tombs. You will fail in your duty, Liberator-Prime. We both will.’
She stared at him for a moment. Then nodded. ‘Come. I will take you to her.’
They made their way back to the reliquary, where the air stirred with the echoing hush of prayer. Many of the mortals had wrapped themselves in cloaks and blankets, passed out by the priests who moved among them. Some huddled in the corners, staring at nothing. Others spoke quietly among themselves. This ceased, as Balthas and Calys appeared. A priestess hurried towards them, but Balthas waved her aside. ‘Where is the child?’ he asked.
The priestess hesitated. Balthas realised that specificity was called for – there were many children in the reliquary. ‘The girl,’ he said. The priestess looked around helplessly.
‘Elya,’ Calys called, softly.
‘Here,’ a small voice called out. Calys started towards the back of the reliquary. Balthas followed. They found the child – a girl of perhaps ten seasons – sitting beside a lanky man, sleeping fitfully. A young woman sat near them, and she started at their appearance. Elya whispered to her, and then settled back beside her father.
Balthas could smell the fear that permeated him. His mind, slumbering as it was, was an open book to Balthas’ storm-sight and all but impossible to ignore. Scattered memories flashed across his perceptions. The man – Elya’s father – lived in a stew of recrimination and terror. Something had broken him, in ways too difficult to repair.
‘Duvak,’ Calys said. Balthas looked at her. She pulled off her helmet and hung it from her belt. ‘His name is Duvak. Duvak Eltos. He is her father. A lamplighter.’
‘He is broken.’
‘One does not preclude the other,’ Calys said, looking down at the man. There was something in her gaze that made Balthas look away. He looked at the girl. Elya was dark and scrawny. An urchin – an orphan, for all that she still had a parent. She met his gaze without flinching. He was struck, in that moment, by the thought that this was the child he’d seen in Thaum’s memories. He did not question it – something deep in him told him it was true. But what did it mean?
‘Do you have a face?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ Balthas tapped his helm and sat down beside her. ‘This is it.’
‘Father says that we’re fated to die. Will I have a face like that, after I die?’
He studied her for a moment, trying to find the words. He suspected that even as a mortal, he had not understood children. ‘Fate is another word for certainty. And the only certain thing in any realm is that nothing is certain. Not even death.’
‘The cats don’t believe in death. They say it’s just a longer sort of dream.’ Elya looked up. Balthas followed her gaze. Half a dozen felines lay nonchalantly among the stacked bones, or paced across the floor, tails twitching.
One, a brute with a scarred lip, leapt up into the girl’s lap. It glared balefully at Balthas for long moments, then turned away with a disdainful twitch of its ears. Elya smiled and scratched the animal. ‘I think he’s the king,’ she whispered.
‘I wasn’t aware that cats had such a thing.’
She frowned. ‘Or maybe he’s a marquis.’
‘Maybe. Despite the folktales, cats have no king. Only a queen. And a queen may have many toms, but a tom only one queen.’ He scratched the animal under the chin. ‘Your mother was from Ghur, wasn’t she? I can see the skeins of amber running through your blood.’
Elya shrugged with childish inscrutability. Balthas nodded as if she’d replied, and glanced at Calys. She was still watching Duvak sleep. He wondered what was going through her mind. ‘Did you know that there were once many gods? As many gods as there were people, for every tribe and clan had their god. They were the gods of small things – of rivers and trees and fair winds. Death gods, as well.’
Elya looked at him, interested now. ‘What happened to them?’
‘Oh, their stories had many different endings. Some weren’t really gods at all, in the end – just monsters. Others became as beasts, and lost sight of all that they had been. A few, like the King of Broken Constellations, were killed, while others, like Yahm, old god of the rivers, were defeated and imprisoned by those who came after.’ Balthas leaned forwards. ‘But some… escaped. They slipped between the cracks in the realms, where even the Ruinous Powers dare not go. One of those gods was the mother of all cats.’
Elya frowned. ‘Not all cats.’
‘The first ones, at least. She left her children in every realm. Some were big, some small. Some weren’t really cats at all.’ He glanced at Quicksilver, who lay nearby, beak resting atop his crossed forepaws, and then at Elya. ‘But all gods leave a little of themselves behind, when they go. An echo, a whisper.’
‘A ghost,’ Elya said.
Balthas nodded. ‘If you like. Not all of those echoes take a familiar form. And maybe the new queen of the cats isn’t a cat at all. Or maybe it’s just a story.’ He hesitated for a moment, considering why Sigmar had seen fit to place this girl in his path. Not just to guide him, but for some other reason, perhaps. He hoped so. He held out his hand. ‘I need your aid, Elya. I must get into the catacombs, and swiftly. I do not have the time to do so by the normal routes. Can you help me?’
She hesitated. ‘Something is coming, isn’t it? Not just the nicksouls.’
‘Yes. But we can stop it. If you help me.’ He turned, suddenly aware that every cat in the room was watching him. Armoured though he was, he could not help but feel almost like a mouse, in that moment. If Elya noticed, she gave no sign.
Before she could reply, Duvak screamed. He’d awoken at some point and was now wailing like an animal, trying to scuttle away from Calys, who reached out as if to comfort him. Balthas caught her wrist. ‘Leave him,’ he said, more harshly than he’d intended. Calys jerked her hand free and turned away, pulling on her helmet as she did so. Duvak had pressed himself against the wall of the reliquary, and was muttering a name, over and over again. The young woman Balthas had noticed earlier went to him, murmuring gently.
Balthas stood. He glanced up again, at the cats watching him. Watching it all.
Elya looked up at him, her expression unreadable. ‘I’ll help,’ she said.
Pharus stretched out his hand towards the doors and felt heat envelop it. The Grand Tempestus was covered in wards much like those that had protected the city. But only the prayers of those within were keeping them from being overwhelmed by the sheer number of nighthaunts clawing at the structure. Given enough time, the gheists could overcome such lesser defences. Especially with Dohl urging them to greater frenzy.
Throughout the city, Dohl’s fellow lantern-bearers were doing much the same. The air throbbed with the agonies of Glymmsforge. Malendrek had wounded the city. Now it was up to Pharus to finish the deed.
Idly, he wondered what the Knight of Shrouds’ final fate would be. As far as he knew, Malendrek still fought somewhere in the city, locked in battle with the golden-armoured Stormcasts. Perhaps he would be destroyed. Or perhaps Glymmsforge would fall, and he would be named Mortarch, to join Arkhan and the others.
Either way, Pharus found that he cared little. Malendrek was a hollow thing, and his petty ambitions paled beside Pharus’ sense of purpose. He drew his hand back and studied the smoking gauntlet. The pain was lost in the cold that gripped him. The satisfaction of battle had faded, leaving him empty once more. Leaving him craving the lives he could sense within the temple. Lives he could not claim. Not yet.