The Unremembered Empire

There was silence. No sound at all except John’s stumbling breath. The voice had not been that of the cruel autarch, steel sharp and cold-edged.
It had been as dark and dense as ebony.
John opened his eyes.
The entire tavern had suspended. The candle flames, frozen, radiated a cool blue light, and that light sparkled off the chandeliers, the sconces, the ormulu, the mirrors, the stacked shelves of clean glasses for wine and amasec. Daylight falling into the grand salon through the tavern’s handsome windows was stained blue too, as if by very diluted ink. John could see serving staff across the room, poses locked mid-gesture, mouths open in mid-exchange.
Silver shoals of ghost carp hung, stilled, in the blue air above the tables.
The eldar stood at his table. His lean frame in its form-fitting armour, combined with his crested helm and flowing robes, made him seem extravagantly tall and thin, like a gaunt spectre of death, or a skeletal giant.