Victory Pointless

The Praetorians touched down lightly and marched forwards to meet the Committee of Acknowledgement.  The arrival of a Triarchal delegation required a full ceremony of greeting which would be held aboard the Reaper of Eternity in a few days’ time, but for now a less formal ritual in the churned mud of the battlefield would have to suffice.

Barrakhad stood central; Farreskh to one side and Klotophis to the other.  Behind them the serried ranks of the Shakhana stood at attention.

As they walked the necrodermis of the Praetorians darkened and the hue of their reactor-burn subtly shifted to better match the dynastic colours of the Shakhana.  This was nominally a mark of respect but the tone of their leader, when she spoke, was anything but respectful.

“Greetings, ‘Phaeron’ Barrakhad of the Shakhana ‘dynasty’.  I am Executioner Xantoph, servant of the resplendent Triarch.  I have been dispatched here by to pass judgement upon you and this band of criminal scum you call a kingdom.”

Something ground deep within Barrakhad, but he said nothing.

Farreskh stepped forwards quickly.  “Greetings, Executioner.  You are most welcome here.  I am Lady Farreskh – it was I who summoned you here to-”

“We know why we have been summoned.”  Xantoph raised her staff towards Barrakhad.  “Your fitness to lead has been called into question, Lord Barrakhad.  Normally this would be an internal dynastic matter, but as this so-called dynasty is clearly dysfunctional we have been called upon to adjudicate.  So we shall.  We will remain with your court, observe and render judgement in the fullness of time.  However, two more urgent matters have also come to our attention.  Firstly, my predecessor, Honoured Lord Thatop, seems to have been corrupted.  If we find any of you to be responsible-”

Klotophis stepped forwards.  “I must protest, Your Eminence – we have done everything in our power to aid Lord Thatop!  Indeed, our very presence on this planet is – in part – in order to find a cure for his condition.”

Xantoph returned a viper’s smile.  “Thank you, Lord Chronomancer, you bring me to my next point.  You should not be on this planet at all!  You have no territorial claim here.  This planet’s vaults are sealed.  The artifacts within are protected by Triarchal decree.”

Klotophis held up a hand.  “Quite so, Executioner, quite so… protected by Triarchal decree but by nothing else!  You have seen for yourself, this planet swarms with the barbarian races.  The word of the Triarch means nothing to them.  They fight and plunder and destroy as if they believe the galaxy is theirs!  What if they should breach the vaults?  What if they should steal what lies within?  Who would stop them?  The Triarch and its Praetorians were not here.  We were.  We considered it our duty to the Triarch to enforce their decree, to drive off the vermin!  Or, if we were unable, to recover and preserve the artifacts held here for the greater glory of the Infinite Empire.”

“We were not here.” Xantoph conceded.  “But now we are.  We shall find and protect the vaults from any who dare disturb them.”

“There are only five of you,” Farreskh pointed out.  “Six if you count Thatop.”

“Six Praetorians are equal to hundreds of a lesser race,” Xantoph said.  “Nonetheless your offer of aid is accepted.  Shakhana forces will assist us to locate and secure the site.  However, I wish to make something very clear.  In the past the Triarch has turned a blind eye to certain… dishonourable practices of this dynasty.” She eyed the Deathmarks ranked behind Barrakhad.

Klotophis cocked his head.  “You refer, I think, to certain services which King Szarekh himself has been known to make use of from time to time.  I think an itemised account of such dealings might be produced, if it would aid memory, listing targets, their dynasties, amounts paid and outstanding…”

“Such services are no longer required!” Xantoph snapped.  “The Silent King has returned from his long crusade of penance to reunite the Necron people and restore the glory of the Infinite Empire.  Past infractions have been forgiven.  However, your dishonourable methods will no longer be used, or tolerated.  If you wish to pretend at being a true noble dynasty then from now on you will act like one.”

***

Klotophis’s private chambers aboard the Reaper of Eternity were far larger than one might expect for a humble Cryptek, a feat achieved via a good portion of them not technically being aboard the ship itself but instead built into an interstitial pocket dimension folded seamlessly into realspace.

Klotophis himself was bent over a workbench, occupied in repairing a chronomantic device which required careful manipulation in eight dimensions.  Viewed from regular three-dimensional space he appeared distorted and shattered into a fractal pattern of shifting shards that spiralled around each other and occasionally flowed together when he needed to hand himself something from a different timesteam.  He did not look up when Farreskh entered the room.

“Welcome, Your Majesty.  What a pleasant surprise.  Forgive me, I was not expecting you, and I must finish tying off this tachyon exchange conduit before it vents and converts this section of the galaxy into a supermassive black hole.  I will be with you momentarily.”

“Of course.  Take your time.” While she waited, Farreskh perused the collection of items displayed across one wall of the great chamber – various trinkets and mementos of timelines that, thanks to a Shakhana blade or gauss stream, had never come to pass.

In amongst the various skulls, weapons and alien bric-a-brac one item in particular caught her ocular.  “My word, is that a Razorcrown of Tarsh?  I thought the last one had been destroyed.”

“You have a good eye for Chronomantic artifacts, Your Majesty.” He finished his work, set down the small cube on the workbench and coalesced his form back into normal space.  “Though this one was not destroyed so much as it was never created in the first place, thanks to the untimely demise of the Cryptek who would have built it.  Of course, for an object such as this which lives outside of time, the formality of it never having been made is no obstacle to it still existing.”

“Fascinating.”

“Quite.  However, I assume you have not chosen to visit my quarters purely to peruse the collectables.  What may I do for you?”

Farreskh groaned, as if doing something requiring great effort.  “Would it endear me to you at all if I admitted that summoning the Praetorians here may have been an error?”

Klotophis considered this.  “It would certainly be a rare point of common sentiment, Your Majesty.  Their presence here is an added complication to our goal of retrieving the device.  They do not seem inclined to allow us to keep it.”

“Quite.  I’m sure they used to be more… subservient.”

“Well, a lot has changed in the sixty million years you have been asleep, Your Majesty.” Klotophis said, petulantly.  “Perhaps if you were to consult me from time to time before making these decisions I could make sure you are appraised of all relevant factors.”

“I will make an effort to do so.” Farreskh’s tone was conciliatory, but pained.  “Indeed, I came here to suggest that in light of this added complication it might benefit us both to co-operate.”

“I’m confused, Majesty.  We are co-operating.”

“I mean actual co-operation.”

“Oh, actual co-operation.  What form would you propose this take?  You already have control of ground forces, per our last agreement.  I’m not sure how much more I can offer you.  Of course, if you were to reveal the location to which we were headed…”

“Would it surprise you to hear that there have been no less than four major malfunctions of subsystems critical to my personal reanimation over the last month?”

“Indeed it would, Majesty!  Most concerning.  I will have Kajakh run a full diagnostic to ensure it does not happen again.”

“Please, do not trouble yourself.  I believe that my own diagnostics have already revealed the root cause of the problem and, should it happen again, it can easily be eliminated.  However… I did wish to seek your technical advice.  What do foresee the chances being of a similar malfunction occuring for our honoured Praetorian guests?”

Klotophis smiled in a way that his metal deathmask should really not have been able to accommodate.  “It is not an issue to which I have given much thought.  But if I had, (which I haven’t) I would say less than a 0.000782% chance of such an eventuality occurring in a way which would not result in severe, undue, reprisals against us.  Not only are there five of them, they have access to the reanimation circuits of both our ship and their own.  The cascade of failures that would need to happen simultaneously would… strain credulity.”

“How… fortunate.”

“Indeed.  We will be… blessed with the presence of the Praetorians for a while longer.  We may just need to acquire the device without them noticing.  Something that I’m sure we can accomplish if we…” Now it was Klotophis’s turn to sound pained,  “…work together”.

Necrons did not shake hands, but there was an ancient symbolic gesture of touching forearms and interstitial data exchange that similarly signified a deal being struck.  They performed it awkwardly.

“First we have to get to it,” said Farreskh. “We will need to press further into the city and I’m concerned about our ability to do so with only the forces currently available to us.”

They stared hard at each other for a moment.  Necrons neither played cards nor had sleeves, but there was an expression in old Necrontyr which ran ‘it is time to reveal the Rambok tiles concealed beneath one’s robes’.

“There are certain of the marauding alien forces here who… are not allies as such, but whom I have a certain degree of influence over,” Klotophis admitted.  “They might be induced into a coordinated strike that could create an opening for us to advance.”

“I suspected as much.  The tactical analysis of their movements made no sense unless there was some guiding hand behind it.”

“Of course, I would need to know where to direct them…”  I’ve shown you mine, now show me yours was one expression that translated pretty much exactly.

Farreskh shrugged – it would become obvious soon enough, anyway.  She conjured a phosglyphic map of the city.  “This sector here, around the Tower of Murmuration.”

Klotophis smiled.  “I suspected as much.  There has been strange empyric activity in this area consistent with some form of underground blackstone structure.  It’s actually very interesting – blackstone can be polarised to repel or attract empyric energies but here there seems to be some kind of alternating arrangement to pull in and contain…”

“I believe the labyrinth lies beneath the tower, but we will need to search out the entrance.  The Thousand Sons hold it at present, but if your Unclean auxiliaries can strike here, here and… here we should be able to draw them off long enough to move in and occupy the site.”

“Yes, I see.  It will be done.”

“Excellent.”  Farreskh beamed.  “We make rather a good team when we truly work together, don’t you think?”

Klotophis snarled.  “I think you will make a better slave, once the Flower of Sanguis is in my hands.”

He rewound.

“-don’t you think?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.  Perhaps this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  Now, let us both return to the surface.”

He guided her out of the room.

He did not notice that, in amongst the clutter of his collection, one particular plinth was – to a certain, rather prosaic view of time – now empty.