©/Copyright Jacques Chester, 1996.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to people alive or dead, situations, plans, events, and ideas are purely coincidental and not intended on the part of the Author. The Author reserves all copyrights to this work. In no way can this work be copied or transmitted without the express, written consent of the Author. Exception is made for limited electronic propagation with authenticated, e-mailed permission. This permission is only to certify and distinguish the Author's and any authorised work as the genuine article. However, constructive criticism and experimental extension of the Author's work is allowed for and encouraged. Permission is given to read, save, copy to diskette and edit file for re-propagation, with the condition that the original document be acknowledged prominentely.

Some material contained in this document is based on publishing by the Games Workshop games company, and material published by numerous other companies and is used without permission. This story uses 'standardised' settings to reduce reader confusion over terms, places and characters. Also, readers may feel free to use characters herein in their own games; and with permission and prior consultation, their own stories. All trademarks and copyright material are the sole property of their owners.

A note to hardcore fiction DIY universe people - I do not feel ashamed for writing my stories in a setting defined by someone else. I feel no obligation to make up my own universe, and indeed I feel that it would most likely be derivative anyway.

Instead, I am of the opinion that 'off the shelf' universes can be of as high quality as any home-brew stuff. The quality of the universe now boils down to me, no matter who creates it, so please refrain from recommending me to make up something 'original'. It has been shown time and time again that a good author writes good stories well, but does not have to invent the best background.

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ASHES TO ASHES.

It just lay there.

Well, actually, a gauntlet seemed to reach out of the marsh at him. The rest was barely visible beneath all the accumulated grime and sediment. There was a shape - of finely tuned physique, of glowing strength and endurance. The shape was indistuingishable. It was a suit of armour created by the Eldar. And it was *his* now.

Jamos glanced guiltily left and right. He quietly covered the gauntlet and the shape with some handy leaves, careful to make sure that the disturbed fernery would not be too obvious. He promised himself that he would dig the suit up, and then . . .

He had heard the stories of the Eldar fighters from his father.

Great, towering warriors of indefinable bloodlust, mysterious and withdrawn solitaires, their souls already owned by the dark gods. And the overwhelming numbers of Guardians, fighting intensely and and devotedly, for a cause to which no human could ever determine.

The mightiest of the Eldar fighters, his father assured him, the mightiest mortal warriors were the Exarchs.

The Eldar exarchs, whose every incarnation was an echo of all the previous ones, whose powers were re-invigorated at every ingestation of a warrior's strength - mental and physical.

Jamos felt that the suit was calling him - he could sense a *power* that held in an aura about it. Or was that just his imagination?

He scurried home, lest he be missed.

***********************************

For several weeks, Jamos scarcely thought of the suit. That is, he tried not to think of it - the merest flitting across his self of the shape would give him shivers of anticipation, with ambition and fantasy and fear and hate and love and bloodlust all mixed up into a nauseous knot in his guts. Instead, he began to study everything that he could on the Eldar, to learn better how the Exarch's armour would work. He couldn't learn much - that the Eldar believed in paths, where an Eldar would dedicate themself to a profession with utter discipline and purpose. Some would choose the path of the warrior, and become Aspect Warriors. Most, eventually, would judge themselves to have travelled the path far enough, and would then choose another - perhaps tending their craftworld's infinity circuit, or growing wraithbone plants in their garden.

But for some, the path of the warrior wouldn't be quite complete. Still further would they travel along it, until eventually they would become entrapped in it, fated to be grafted into a long dead Exarch's suit of aromour; doomed never to join their brothers in the infinity circuit - trapped instead with thousands of years of dead warriors within the suit's own wraithbone core.

The soul of a long-dead Exarch existed in every suit. Whenever a new

warrior was grafted in, it would merge with them. Quite usually, the warrior's own persona was simply absorbed - true death in life. But power unknown.

All this and more wormed its way deep into Jamos' mind. Jamos decided that he would need to prepare himself for the suit - the suit that would be waiting patiently for one of the mighty Eldar warriors - not some simple boy. He began immediately to study the chivalrous art of war, also embarking to teach himself meditation and mental fortitude.

It was not easy. Every day, something new would call to him, some sensation that his growing awareness craved in a perverse way. Jamos was suffering as the Eldar, and was trying to defeat temptation in the same fashion - devotion. Devotion to cause, to knowledge, to self, to Emperor. Devotion above all things, above friends, family, loves.

Devotion ultimate, devotion prime, devotion pure.

Jamos spent a lifetime alone with his devotion. As the years passed in their unimpeded cycle, Jamos retreated to what little wilderness lay on his world, to further his isolation. In quiet, he would contemplate destiny, the universe. He would sit all day, blocking all from his mind but his devotion, until he could no longer see nor hear. On the day he did not feel thirst or hunger after a year, Jamos concluded that it was time.

Time. Time . . .

The suit still hung in the same place, soulstones catching the light and reflecting it in a fantastic but barely visible show of colour. Wraithbone, mesh armour and psychoplastic was interwoven together, all in perfection, all pure and amazing to his brutal human eye. Gingerly, for the first time, Jamos began to disconnect the components of the suit. First the torso from the legs, then the helmet from the neck, and the arms from the torso.

Each component sighed as he dis-attached it, and a little ash fell out.

He put his legs into the armour. Nothing, save for a warm tingling sensation. Next, the torso, the two arms. His body was warming, despite his attempts to block it out. Finally, he lowered the ritual helmet down, snuggling it around his head.

He meditated for some time before anything happened. Firstly, he felt the psycho-plastic of the suit begin to melt and reform itself about his body; filling a gap here, reducing pressure there. The armour made Jamos feel like he was inside a balloon of water that did not obey the law of gravity. It flowed over his skin as he stretched and postured experimentally. And his body was warming, again. He stopped moving, lay down. He meditated.

Time. Time passed.

How much, he did not know. But he became aware of a *prescence* . . . was it the soul of a dead Exarch? Had Jamos suceeded?

"What is this?" Said a voice. The voice seemed to reverberate within the suit as if it were a giant cave, scaring and exciting Jamos simultaneously.
"What is this?" Came the voice again. Jamos began to form words in his mind. They were excruciatingly loud.
"YOU ARE THE EXARCH?"
"Why do you shout at your ancestor, warrior?"
"I DO NOT MEAN TO SHOUT. I AM JAMOS."
"Jamos?" There was a questioning pause, which lengthened into angry silence.
"Jamos? A HUMAN!?"
"YES. I AM HUMAN."
"a HUMAN using a SACRED SUIT OF ARMOUR? Using *ME*?"
"YES. I AM YOUR WARRIOR. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE, EXARCH. I AM YOUR WARRIOR, NOW. THERE ARE NO ELDAR FOR MANY LIGHT YEARS."
"Yes. That is true."

The voice snapped off, and Jamos came to with a start, tired. He tried to remove the suit, but the seals remained firm. He remebered now what he had forgotten in his devotion - that the Exarchs were doomed, doomed to be warriors for ever.

"Ahhhh, human. You see the stupidity that leads you to me. Your mind is weak, and your flesh is mediocre. But, as it is, you can return me to my homeworld, where a proper warrior may inhabit my body. We shall begin immediately."
"And what if I refuse?"
"You cannot. You no longer exist, human. I am all to you now."

The Exarch walked away, with Jamos' body. Jamos could only curse himself in his disembodied state, and watch as the Exarch drove him, using his own feet and hands.

And so began the trek across space. From his humble hut on the side of a mountain, Jamos was led down to the imperial space port, to be travel to the Exarch's home.

* * * The guard sat, bored. Like every other night, this night was exactly the same. Nada.

He glanced at his weapon: A laspistol. Whilst others in the Imperial Guard (a force frequently seen about the spaceport) were carrying Lascans, plasma weapons and stubbers, he was stuck with a weapon that would scarcely scratch them.

He fantasised, briefly, about blasting a few Orks, or leading a raiding party against some Eldar. Armed with a laspistol? Wouldn't work. He'd been to bars, he'd heard Imperial guardsmen talk about their exploits. Great green hordes of fanatic death, armed to the teeth with a variety of hodge-podge weapons.

Or silent, swift and effecient fighters, condemning many with shuriken weapons.

And suddenly, he stopped thinking about it. About the ImpGuard, about his laspistol, or about just how bored he really was. His muscles loosened, including his bowels. The foul stench of death gathered it self about the cooling, headless corpse where a single shuriken had sliced clean through the neck.

The Exarch continued its walk.

* * *

Smoke filled the little booth. It was a public booth, probably tapped - but the dealer didn't seemed to worried. Perhaps he had a deal with the local Comnet.

"Right, let me get this straight," He said in accented Imperial Gothic, "You want, ahhh, secure passage to the Segmentum Centexus?"
"Yes."
"And, ahh, what is your destination?"
"The Edaneer craftworld."

There was a pause.

"Will that cause you any .. difficulties?"
"Errr, no. Just cost ya extra, thets all."
"That is not a problem. I have an excellent line of credit. What do you want as payment?"
"Err, for the trip to the Segmentum Centexus, its two hundred thou Imperial Credits. For the books, ya know. We'll teleport you aboard the craftworld, for our safety. That's one hundred thou ImpCreds."

There was a thoughtful pause, whilst the dealer gauged his client's reaction. Most were usually shocked by those sorts of prices.

"And, arrr, to ahhh, ensure your safe passage, and ahhh, 'isolation' from the crew, let's say about four hundred thou. In Guilder's credits - not imperial."

Guilder's credits - twice as valuable and impossible to trace. They'd never make the books - just a little bank account waiting for the dealer on the eastern fringe of the galaxy.

The Exarch glanced towards the body of the planetary ruler, and further to the open treasure vault.

"Done. Half up front, half to be left behind on the ship. And no tricks, please, or I will be forced to respond."

And with *click*, the dealer was staring at a blank screen.

*****************************

The dealer was as true to his words as the Exarch was. Nobody would know that a stowaway had been slipped aboard - all they knew was that there was a crate, and a suitcase for a Mister Turlon. A Mr. Turlon came for the suitcase, opened it a crack, grinned and nodded to the captain.

Two hours later, and the ship was in orbit, preparing to make a highly illegal warp-jump to the segmentum centexus. The navigator, a renegade runaway from his family, was quietly meditating alone in the ship's heart. He was locked in, prayers were briefly offered to an emperor that would have them all dead or employed for their crimes, and they were away.

But the warp was never meant to be easy. Just a few days later, the navigator cracked.

Sitting alone, looking forwards fixedly with his warp-eye, the navigator would concentrate on choosing the most favorable path for the ship to follow, sensing the the rifts and eddies of warp-space currents.

Always, always had he to concentrate. Just a few minutes earlier, he had appealed to the captain for a break. But the warp-jump was illegal as it was - no rego, no declaration of plan or cargo, and only one navigator. They could not risk to expose themselves to realspace detection.

The navigator could hold out for just one more day. Couldn't he?

Exhaustion crept around the edges of the navigator's perception. Fear flickered through his mind, cackling and dancing upon his self. The navigator ignored it. But it grew and grew, surely the work of Chaos. Soon, he was so distracted by his attempts to supress his fear that it became true. The ship passed into a Warp-rip.

****************************** The first that the captain knew of it was a shuddering groan from the hull. Wisened with the experience of thirty years smuggling, he knew.
There was no chance for them now.
He prayed, as the engines were torn off by unseen power, as the tendrils of soul-thirsty daemons tugged at the hull armour, then the pressure hull, and then the corpses within. The psychic power of the crew of twenty was absorbed, like a drop in the ocean. Doubtless, the ruined ship would wind up as part of some gargantuan space hulk or another.

Doubtless, their souls would never be recovered.

The Exarch was still locked in stasis, as was part of the 'standard' package. And the stasis generators were some of the best, lovingly maintained for just such high class customers as the Exarch. They were in mint condition, charged enough to halt time within the drifting crate for another several decades, unable to be touched by the longing daemons.

The psychic enregies of the Exarch slept, the soul alseep inside the armour's wraithbone core.

******************************

"What is it?"
"Don't know, captain. Looks human .. some sort of live cargo container. Chronoloium decay indicates that it is about twenty sol years old. And still current."
"So whatever was in it is alive?"
"Possibly. I'd say it may be valuable."

The captain sat back in her seat. She mused over the crate for a few thoughtful moments. As an outlaw Eldar pirate, she knew that she was wanted by the human Imperium. She'd heard stories of ingenious traps set by the Tech Adepts for her brethren - harmless packages in warp-space, waiting to brought aboard before detonating.

On the other hand, she knew that the Tech Priests had been pulling all such mines from warp-space, ever since most imperial ships had been upgraded. All the old Mk.4 mines worked by scanning a ship's structural makeup and mass - if they fell outside preset parameters, then they would be destroyed.

However, imperial ships had in the mean-time become larger and more complex - falling outside the mine's parameters. And so, the mines had to be removed, as threats to imperial shipping.

But the Tech Adepts were not god-like, though they wished to be. It was possible that this was a mine that had been overlooked, or even one of the rumored Mk.5 mines.

All this contemplation took place in the space of just a few milliseconds.

However, on the other hand, it may have been some long lost cargo, of perhaps valuable admantine ore, or perhaps of some live human, in transit to a new role elsewhere in the imperium.

"Teleport it aboard to cargo bay one. And try to lay in some sort of protection for us."
"Teleporting . . now. Cargo aboard."

The captain braced herself. Five, four, three, two, one.

Safe.

She rose from her chair and headed for the cargo hull. What treausre had she nagged - was it of value enough to warrant a pardon from the imperium?

*****************************

Machine Fabler was there when she arrived. He was already examining various consoles and controls that had been covered by a well-secured panel. He pointed to one.
"This," He said, nodding thoughtfully, "This, this is the stasis retractor control. We'll need to use it if we wish to use what's within."

The captain was puzzled. Weren't stasis units able to be opened during stasis, so that the contents could be inspected?

"Aren't we supposed to be able to see it before we retract stasis?"
"No, captain. A human has rigged this somewhat clumsily to explode if we look inside before we retract stasis." He gestured to a side of the crate she hadn't inspected yet.

There, as subtle as the human mind could devise, was a tiny lead from the 'crate open' control to a small Krak grenade. To the Eldar, it was like a neon sign.

"The crate is ceramite, with an adamantine frame. Whatever's inside would never even notice the explosion."
"Hmmmm."

She pondered again. To view the contents, they would have to risk retracting stasis inside the crate and allowing time to slip inside. They could not know just what was in the crate until they did.

The dillema was simple - risk opening the crate, and reap the rewards or the dangers.

Simple.

She decided that seeing as they'd come this far, they might as well continue.

"Alright, then. You have my permission to retract stasis. How long will it take?"
"This is a low power unit, highly effecient but slow. It will take several hours for realtime to pass inside the chamber. I guess that whatever is inside is probably also in a Cybernetic trance. They'll come to suddenly, avoiding time slips."
"Sounds good. Call me when you've finished."
"Yes, captain".

* * *

Machine Fabler worked long, and he worked hard, with total devotion to the task at hand. Devotion.

Devotion prime, devotion ultimate, devotion pure.

He spent many hours alone with his devotion. Feverishly, he flicked switches, turned primitive dials, monitered a hundred constants. Retraction rate. Timeslip percentile. Warp-flux. The chaos factor.

Devotion was required, lest he would go insane, insane from the power he wielded as an Eldar. The Eldar, the children of the God of the Hunt and the God of the Harvest.

The once prophesised downfall of Khaine, god of war - who now led them, as the one thousand avatars, against the great enemy.

Devotion. Devotion and time.

Time. Time passed..

A little light glowed a pale orange, highlighted by a row of green diodes. Recalling human Tech-Rites, he mumbled suggestively to the crate, smiled, ranted, cursed, threatened, caqjoled. Then, finally, he collared a staff and whacked the crate. The light turned green.

His stiffened forefinger reached for the open control, confident that the grenade had been disactivated.

With a *chung* and a *hissss*, the crate began slowly to open, great adamanitine pins falling into line, ceramite plating grating into position.

Jamos awoke.

********************************

"An Exarch, captain."
"You're sure?"
"An Exarch. Hidden inside human cargo."

She offered a word up to the laughing god.

"Which one? Is it active? Where does it come from?"
Questions, questions, questions.
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know was her only answer.

Jamos tapped the communication jewel. It darkened, its energies released into the ship's psychoplastic core.

He was nearly home, nearly home. He could sense it - he was just a few light years from his craftworld.

Things where not happening fast enough - proceedings needed to be accelerated, actions sped up. The Exarch's mind raced through the options.

Kill the crew? Take control of the ship? Not enough knowledge of warp navigation.

Take a hostage? No good. Eldar pirates didn't have many friends.

Or perhaps .. Yes, yes that would do.

**************************

The captain was dreaming. Her ship was in the warp, and they had been fleeing from the imperium. She had decided to go further than what was normally considered safe for Eldar, gambling that the imperium would search for her band only within a normal radius.

So far, it had been working, but suddenly, her ship was splitting like an eggshell, and she and her crew were outside, floating in the warp.

They were all alive and intact, as if the warp were just air they could float in. Something was hatching out of the ship. It unfolded, growing and assuming many shapes in her mind; the crate, the faces of of her crew. Each face wore a different mask of expression; one being saddened over a past loss, another perhaps happy in remembering of a triumph. Finally, the face of Machine Fabler, his face engraved with the unmistakable mark of raw fear.

And then, the Exarch emerged from the polymorphous shape, reaching to her, reaching, reaching...

She jerked awake, alert. To the Eldar, dreams can often be prophetic. To her brethren on any of the craftworlds, the next course of action would be to consult a seer. Too often had such dreams saved a craftworld for them to be ignored.

The captain did not have this option. She was alone, isolated from her craftworld by her choice. She lay still, considering the possiblity that her home was calling, in the soft, insistent tones she had run from. The tones she would always answer, in times of the craftworld's most dire need. Always.

On the other hand, there had been no visions of her home in the dream. Only of her.. She reached out for her shuriken catapult, suspecting that a member of her crew was trying mutiny. Perhaps another craftworld altogether was calling its children. She had to be wary. She shifted from her bed, as silent as the Black Library.

Her bed was neatly sliced in three a second later.

So there *was* a mutiner on the ship. She moved behind a low seat, and into the arms of the waiting Exarch.

*****************************

"Increase to full speed, heading four two six, three six six. Full speed."
"Captain."

The Exarch allowed itself a grin. Already, the captain's soulstone added to his light display, her soul added to his miniature infinity circuit.

Jamos had felt it too, the *absorption* of psychic energies, of an entire mind into the whole. It made him feel ..

"Human. Do not think that because you are conscious, that you are powerful. I have suspended you from the whole because you are not Eldar, and your human tendancies would certainly taint me."
"I UNDERSTAND, EXARCH. I SHALL TRY TO BANISH SUCH THOUGHTS FROM MY MIND."
"Good. And don't shout. You are alive at my pleasure."
"AND YOU TRAVEL AT MINE."
"If you wish to delude yourself thusly."

And into the eternity of nothingness continued the Eldar ship, making its way at superlight speeds to the Segmentum Centexus, and the Edaneer craftworld. Soon, soon the Exarch would be home again.

Soon.

****************************

Just one ship day later, and they were in teleport range of the craftworld. Three crewmembers had had their soulstones added to the Exarch's collection, to keep its prescence secret.

"Teleport the crate aboard the craftworld in ten minutes, then set course for our staging base. And do not disturb me."
"Captain."

There was a pause, but the communications gem didn't darken.

"Ahhh, captain? Have you seen Machine Fabler about? He's gone missing."
"Be assured, he is with me."
"For two whole days??" Came the incredulous reply. "He must be pretty fit. When's the happy day?"
"Just follow orders."
"Yes captain! I won't breathe a word!"
"I bet." Laughed the Exarch, mimicing the captain using her soul.
"Just teleport in ten, ok?"
"Ok, captain."

Finally, the gem darkened, and the Exarch made its way to the crate, ready to go home.

Ten minutes later, there was a flash. The Exarch was home.

****************************

Time. Time ...

The Exarch had time. No greeting, no welcome home.

No Eldar. None alive, anywhere. No familiar throb of life, no pulsing of psychic power. All that moved in the craftworld now was the Exarch and the little warp spiders.

He wandered through wraithbone gradens, staring blankly at sparkling soulstones. All about him, the infinity flowed with the minds of hundreds of thousands of dead Eldar, watching his fustration. There were no Eldar.

And no Eldar aspect warriors. Just Jamos.

Jamos watched the Exarch raging, almost with abandon. Daemons looked on, hungrily hoping that the Exarch would attack, anything.

But it did not.

It wandered though great works, viewing with a heavy eye the grandeur of gathering places, the neatly arranged guardian armour on racks. It passed through countless shrines to it and other Exarchs, all untouched.

The Eldar had disappeared, vanished.

Then he noticed the bloodstained walls. Eldar blood. A blank stare and some vague, disjointed thought made it clear where he was: Just outside the Avatar's throne room. It pushed through the doors.

The Avatar watched with hollow, cold eyes. It had no life to feed on, either.

There were six smaller thrones, arrayed at the Avatar's feet. Five were filled, from the lowest from left to right, until only the top right was empty.