The Divine Rite: A Warhammer 40,000 Fanfiction

Part 12

My first trip into the bowels of my new home held as much fear as excitement. The air was thick, warm, and heat radiated from the obsidian on all sides. The smoke around me took on pink and purple hues, as did the motes of light dancing in the wall. Rather than flowing, the oil danced, twirled, pirouetted around the motes, occasionally embracing one and snuffing it out. Every step down into the earth, I drifted further out of my body, my mind adrift in an ocean of gentle sensation.

So enraptured was I that my foot reached out for another step, and instead found the bottom of the stairs. Stumbling, I entered the first temple, the southern temple.

The Chapel of Whispered Promise.

Lavender wisps of mist shrouded the vast space, the heights and depths lost to distance. Carved statues filled the floor, each upon a pedestal rising from a circular depression in the ground. Cushions, divans, couches, beds, these filled each depression, a place to recline and appreciate the art. And such magnificent art I had never even imagined.

A shy maiden, perfect in every aspect of her form, decency granted only by hands over her breasts and the casual caress of mist. A powerful male stood, head turned, gazing intently into the distance, his muscular body inspiring awe, and other sensations besides. There, a grizzled and wounded woman, head thrown back, roaring in rapturous triumph, her bare body honed with beauteous perfection akin to a hunting cat in aspect. The statues were everywhere, sometimes life sized, sometimes smaller, and some towering into the vaulted ceiling. All were of people, most were fully human, many were not.

Here, the caress of a hand was instead that of a claw. There, a playful tongue was forked, the teeth it flit across razor sharp. There, delicate tendrils replaced flowing hair. Graceful legs were reverse jointed, ending in dainty hooves. Little pieces of Shiss were everywhere, adding to the perfection of each piece, enhancing their impeccable beauty. I do not know how long I walked amongst them, I only recall the multitude of images seared into my mind, impossibly clear while I perceived them, then vanishing into ephemeral smoke the moment I turned away.

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Then I reached the wall.

A kaleidoscope of colored glass painted infinite images into the walls. Scenes of ecstasy, joy, frivolity, passion, romance, love, everything that humanity had ever found pleasure in, or ever would. They were depicted with uncanny precision, ready to spring to life as the statues were, but this was not all.

Behind the mosaic panes drifted the motes of light, the oil dancing with them. They shone through, their own hues mingling with that tinted glass, transforming the steady illumination into ephemeral glimmers. The images portrayed by the glass seemed to shift with the lights, to move, to come alive. Very rarely one of the motes would ignite, burning brilliantly, throwing the colors all across the vast hall. And while it did, heavenly music hummed through the air and into my very core.

During those brief flashes, not only the mosaic was alive, but the statues shifted too.

It might have been hours I spent there, just staring, basking in the sights and sensations brought on by that incredible light. It could have been days. Had my whole life passed during that first visit, I’d barely have noticed, and certainly not regretted it.

But it was not my fate to fade away in such a leisurely manner.

Faint whispers tickled my ears, brushed across the fog that had settled over my thoughts, sweeping it away with reluctance only exceeded by my own. Eventually I managed to turn, to blink, and as the magical mosaic left my view, the world seemed to be made up of nothing more than grays. Even the marvelous statues seemed lifeless now, in light of what I had seen.

This journey back up was more typical, time no longer shifting and twisting around. Instead, the trip lagged for very mundane reasons.

Even the shining lights drifting in oil didn’t ignite me the way they did before. I longed to return to that room, to never leave. I could die there, be unmade there, and I’d be nothing but grateful.

But no. Such rewards would not be bestowed, not yet. I knew this much but I did not yet know why. What possible purpose could be important enough to keep me from that paradise? There was something, it itched the corner of my brain but refused to come forward. I did not grasp it then, for I had yet to see the state of the galaxy. To my mind, life was relatively leisurely with a few difficulties tossed in. My innocence had not yet been shattered by the horrors of a universe drowning in blood and violence, in hatred.

Soon, I would realize, but not yet.

At that time, all I felt was the tug to move forward.