Advertisement
Onething123456

The breath of he gods

May 5th, 2018
1,856
0
Never
Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features!
text 11.22 KB | None | 0 0
  1. Whatever they called themselves, they passed through our galaxy millions of years ago. They were godlike beings, sculpting the matter of the universe to suit their desires with technology far beyond anything you could possibly imagine. They came here, perhaps hoping to begin the process anew, extending the limits of this innocuous spiral cluster of star-systems. They thought to connect all the universe with stepping stones of newly wrought galaxies they would build from the raw materials scattered by the ekpyrotic creation of space-time itself.’
  2. ...
  3. I created this entire region of space,’ roared Telok, his voice afire with the passion of an Ecclesiarchy battle-preacher. ‘I have reignited the hearts of dead suns, crafted star systems from the waste matter of the universe and wrought life from death.
  4. ...
  5. Telok’s machine steals from the future and past to rebuild the present, heedless of the damage it wreaks.’
  6.  
  7. Despite Bielanna’s fractured syntax, Roboute saw the light of understanding in Kotov’s eyes.
  8.  
  9. ‘These creatures are acting as a temporal counterbalance to the space-time distortions caused by the Breath of the Gods!’ said the archmagos. ‘That is why every auspex reading of Katen Venia and Hypatia showed them to be simultaneously in the throes of violent birth and geological inertia. Hyper-accelerated development balanced out by ultra-rapid decrepitude. Ave Deus Mechanicus!’
  10.  
  11. ‘Speak plainly, archmagos,’ said Tanna. ‘I am not stupid, but I have not access to the knowledge you possess.’
  12.  
  13. ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Kotov, trying hard to keep the excitement from his voice. ‘Space-time is being violated on a fundamental level. Put bluntly, Sergeant Tanna, Telok’s machine is undoing the basic laws of the universe in order to achieve miraculous results.’
  14.  
  15. Kotov paced the edge of the gorge, his head hazed with excess heat bleeding from his cranium as his cognitive processes spun up to concurrently access tens of thousands of inloaded databases.
  16.  
  17. ‘If I am understanding… Bielanna correctly, the Breath of the Gods feeds its vast power demands by siphoning it from the future and the past, most likely from the hearts of dozens of stars simultaneously. It then uses that power to accomplish its incredible feats of stellar engineering,’ said Kotov, his mechadendrites tracing complex temporal equations in the air. ‘But the fallout from employing the machine created the many spatial anomalies Magos Tychon detected at the galactic edge, stars dying before their time, others failing to ignite and so forth. In all likelihood, the Breath of the Gods probably created the Halo Scar in the first place.’
  18. ...
  19. Very well, Mister Surcouf, I believe you may be correct. Perhaps some aspect of necrontyr technology does lie at the heart of the Breath of the Gods, and if that is the case, then it is doubly imperative we prevent Telok from leaving this world.’
  20.  
  21. ‘Why?’ said Anders, ‘I mean, besides the obvious?’
  22.  
  23. ‘Because if there is any truth to the old legends, then it is entirely possible that a vast shard of one of the ancient necrontyr gods lies entombed within the Noctis Labyrinthus.’
  24.  
  25. And suddenly it all made a twisted kind of sense to Roboute. He turned to Bielanna, who appeared to be studiously ignoring their conversation.
  26.  
  27. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘You said as much back in the cavern. What did you call it? “The infernal engine of the Yngir?” I’m going to assume that’s your word for the necrontyr gods.’
  28.  
  29. Bielanna nodded slowly.
  30.  
  31. ‘Now you see why we fought so hard to stop you,’ she said. ‘And why we now spill our blood to help you.’
  32.  
  33. Roboute began pacing, as he always did when he needed to force a train of thought to its logical conclusion. His fatigue fell away from him as he spoke.
  34.  
  35. ‘I’d bet every ship in my fleet that one of these Yngir is at the heart of the Breath of the Gods. Or at least it was. It’s dying now or Telok used the last of it transforming Katen Venia’s star. That’s why Telok’s so desperate to get back to Mars, to open the Noctis Labyrinthus and resurrect the god in his machine.’
  36. ...
  37. All times become one,’ she said. ‘Even as the threads of the past and present are cut, new threads are drawn from the future into the engine’s gyre.’
  38. ...
  39. Your machine was wrought for creatures who are anathema to life. Their servitor races built it to drain the life from stars and feed the monstrous appetites of their masters. It was never intended to be employed by a species with so linear a grasp of the temporal flow and with no sensory acuity to perceive deep time.’
  40. ...
  41. A shadow rose up to envelop Bielanna, shockingly sudden and suffocatingly intense in its darkness. Like a veil of black velvet had been drawn across her sight, she saw the skein blacken as the terminus of every thread came into view, unravelling towards extinction with horrifying speed.
  42.  
  43. The end of all things.
  44.  
  45. An impossible boundary in what should be infinite space.
  46.  
  47. Bielanna gasped, her chest constricting at the sight.
  48.  
  49. This was the doom she had seen ensconced within the Speranza. Space and time were coming undone, ripping apart like the solar sails of a wounded wraithship.
  50.  
  51. Doom had come to this world, but that was the least of the danger. The rift beginning here was pulling wider with every passing second, drawing every thread within the skein to it. Like a weaver’s shuttle reversing through the warp and weft of a loom, the future was unravelling to its omega point.
  52.  
  53. Exnihlio was becoming the temporal equivalent of a black hole, a howling abyss in which no time would ever exist again. Its effects were yet confined to the deeps of the planet, but Bielanna felt the catastrophic geomantic damage the hrud had wreaked racing to the surface.
  54.  
  55. The physical death of Exnihlio was nothing, but the temporal shock waves would spread into the glacial void of space, reaching into the galaxy of Bielanna’s kin.
  56.  
  57. It would be a slow death for the galaxy, as all time was devoured by the rift torn by the Yngir’s device. But that it would end all things for evermore was certain.
  58. ...
  59. Everything is ending,’ she said. ‘What Telok has set in motion will end everything. Your Emperor, His domain, my kin and all we have fought to preserve. Everything will die. Worse, they will never have existed. All that was and all that might ever come to pass will be wiped away.’
  60. ...
  61. Bielanna’s flesh was cold and hard, as glassy and reflective as the crystaliths. Her spirit and those of her fellow eldar burned brightly inside her. She took that energy and wove it around the power the Breath of the Gods had unleashed. The energy of a supernova condensed into a pure form of thought and expression.
  62.  
  63. Bielanna was done with her body of flesh and blood, and it had no more need for her. Only one realm called to her, a place of dreams and joy, where past and future entwined and the fate of all things was revealed.
  64.  
  65. Where the Path of the Seer inevitably led.
  66.  
  67. Bielanna cast off her mortal shell and threw her spirit into the skein. Freed from mortal constraints, she saw more than ever before, with a clarity the living could never know.
  68.  
  69. From this vantage point, Exnihlio appeared as a single atom out of place in the structure of a vast crystal. Any force applied to the crystal would always be concentrated on that atom. Soon another atom would be out of place, then another. And another.
  70.  
  71. Through such mechanisms were cracks in the universe begun.
  72.  
  73. And once begun, they propagated.
  74.  
  75. Like scissors cutting fabric.
  76. ...
  77. This was the end of all things.
  78.  
  79. The mon-keigh believed the End Times would come in a tide of battle and blood, of returned gods and the doom of empires. Even the eldar myth cycles spoke of a time called the Rhana Dandra, when the Phoenix Lords would return for the last great dance of death.
  80.  
  81. Bielanna knew of no species with legends that spoke of things simply ending. Where was the mythological drama in that?
  82.  
  83. The skein’s golden symmetry was unravelling, the futures collapsing. The fates of all living beings were unweaving from the great tapestry of existence. Entropy in the material world was mirrored in the skein, and its shimmering matrix was falling apart as the tear in space-time caused by Archmagos Telok ripped wider
  84. ...
  85. Everywhere she looked, the potential futures were narrowing to a vanishingly small number. Bielanna wept to see the universe’s potential so cruelly snuffed out. To wipe out the future by design was a scheme of purest evil, but to erase it unknowingly… that was the act of a fool.
  86.  
  87. Another path into the future slammed shut, a billion times a billion unborn lives denied their chance to exist. Bielanna despaired as the skein folded in on itself everywhere she turned. With every slamming door, that despair threatened to overwhelm her and extinguish her spirit entirely. Bielanna wept as she realised she could see no way onwards. Every route was sealing ahead of her and closing off every avenue of hope.
  88.  
  89. Hope…
  90.  
  91. Yes, hope was the key.
  92.  
  93. Because other farseers must have seen this.
  94.  
  95. To believe otherwise spoke of great arrogance on her part. But if they had, why had none of them taken any action to prevent this universal extinction event from coming to pass?
  96. ...
  97. Put simply, Exnihlio is tearing itself apart and collapsing into a primal cauldron of time singularities like the heart of a supermassive black hole. Once it reaches temporal critical mass, the fabric of space-time will tear itself apart. And, trust me, we do not want to be here when that happens.’
  98.  
  99. ‘Just out of interest, how far away from something like that would we want to be?’ asked Surcouf.
  100.  
  101. The augmitters beneath Blaylock’s hood barked with Azuramagelli’s bitter answer.
  102.  
  103. ‘Let me put it this way, Mister Surcouf. Within two hours this system and everything within it will cease to exist.’
  104. ...
  105. With the destruction of Exnihlio and the restoration of violated physics, the temporal hellstorm at the edge of the galaxy was stilled. The time streams diverted by the Breath of the Gods and the imprisoned hrud snapped back to their proper places, undoing thousands of years of damage.
  106.  
  107. Stars that ought to have died in ages past and which the Breath of the Gods had returned to life burned towards their end once more. Those that had been drained of life now surged with renewed fury and light.
  108.  
  109. System space around Telok’s forge world was lousy with e-mag disturbances and lacunae of space-time that would persist until the end of the universe, but that was a small price to pay for the restoration of the future.
  110.  
  111. The Halo Scar was gone, but it still took the Speranza almost two months to return to Imperial space. Exnihlio was no more; the temporal aftershocks of its demise and the hrud’s vengeance had reduced it to little more than inert rock, aged billions of years in the space of a few hours. A glittering debris field of silver fragments englobed its corpse, the remains of the Breath of the Gods.
  112.  
  113. To ensure no one ever rebuilt Telok’s infernal machine, the Speranza unleashed all manner of arcane weaponry into the debris. Chronometric cannons, anti-matter projectors and hypometric weapons of such power that they caused entire regions of space to simply cease existing.
  114.  
  115. No one knew who had given the orders to unleash those weapons.
  116. -Gods of Mars
Advertisement
Add Comment
Please, Sign In to add comment
Advertisement