R.M: The recording of this account has been attributed to the late Rafaellus Kneg, Heirosavant of the Callidus shrine and self-proclaimed expert on infiltrating fringe xenos societies. It is a transcription of a story told by the Eldar outcast Yvraelle, long-time exile from the Iyanden Craftworld.
THE DEATH OF LIGHT
"The halls of the Craftworld were electrified by the promise of the Harlequin
troupe's coming. None but the most ancient of Seers could recall the last
visitation from a troupe and they would not disrespect our guests by telling
us of it. But one thing they did impart to us; the Harlequins were to perform
one of the Great Dances, the most infrequent and complex of their kind. When
I heard the pulse of thought that signified the troupe's readiness, I
left my duties and hurried to the talaclu. I felt my friends and relatives,
long dead now, race through the wraithbone of Iyanden's infinity circuit
alongside me toward it.
The auditorium was filled by a susurration of whispers; in our excitement we could not sit in silence for long. Nevertheless, when the first of the troupers rose from among us, dathedi exploding into a hundred thousand points of pure starlight, the hall was as still as a tomb. Five, ten, fifteen more revealed themselves as disquieting music, soft as a child's breath, reached a crescendo that was close to physical pain. The haunting melody stopped abruptly and the amphitheatre was pitched into darkness. The Harlequins, their dathedi suits glimmering as bright as the great canopy of the night sky, orbited the centre of the ancient wraithbone dome in arcs as old as the planets themselves.
I suppressed a gasp as a thin metallic figure burst into life in the centre of the amphitheatre where none had been before. My blood ran as ice when I realised what it was. Faceless, it was shrouded in slowly moving rags, its frail arms extended. The star-lit troupers twisting slowly in the air around the amphitheatre joined their voices in a choir of whispers that wove urgently in and out and over each other; Yngir, Yngir. The figure exuded an aura of palpable despair and hatred, spinning slowly, its long, featureless head regarding each of us in turn. I swear I felt my soul recoil in terror when it directed its attention to me, and I had to suppress the urge to run as it drifted down toward me. There are no words adequate to express the fear I felt.
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The apparition slowly reached out, its fingers long and sinuous, and gently clasped its hands around the head of one of the star-figures. The trouper went limp, its dathedi suit flickering and dimming before fading completely, and he soon hung motionless as a corpse. The Yngir glided above us with the slowness and certainty of death, reaching out with sinuous hands, extinguishing the star-figures one by one. Their still bodies hung suspended in the air, the choir of soft voices growing quieter each time the light of a star-figure was quelled. Across the arena four lesser Yngir, played by Death Jesters clad in rags, mimicked the slow, lethal dance. Soon the amphitheatre was close to total darkness.
Suddenly, a bright arrow of coruscating colours darted into the centre of the amphitheatre, myriad colours cycling madly through the air around him. It was the High Avatar, his agaith showing the grinning visage of the Laughing God himself. His mirth echoed around the dome, shockingly loud and clarion-clear above the ghostly whispers. The Yngir stopped its slow dance, its unseeing gaze fixed on this intruder to its celestial feast. By posture alone the figure radiated pure contempt. It started to drift toward the Laughing God, silvered arms outstretched. Closer it came, and every one of the audience held their breath, willing the Great Harlequin to flee, to attack, to do something.
The sinuous fingers of the apparition closed around the head of the Laughing God, who began to shake. The seizures got more and more violent, and one by one the bright colours and whirling, laughing faces drained away until the Great Harlequin became colourless and silent. His limp form fell from the air like a stone, its impact on the floor of the amphitheatre taking my breath away.
Laughter rang out once more around the dome, and when I looked again the fallen figure on the floor of the amphitheatre was one of the bandage-swathed Death Jesters. Another of the Yngir-things in the dome burst into multicoloured light, revealing itself to be the Laughing God. He bowed low as the floating, metallic apparition turned once more toward him. Once again, it floated forward, arms outstretched, and once again, it feasted on one of its own foul kind, believing it to be the Great Harlequin. Again and again the Laughing God led the ghastly figure astray, his complex dance leading it into the path of each of its foul brethren in turn. The projections around its metallic form became broken up by the silent, screaming faces of its murdered kin, and its smooth, measured movements degenerated until they were erratic and irregular. Its long, alien head whipped around, trying to find the Laughing God, the impure energies it had drained from the husks of its fellow Yngir playing around its head in a halo of dark light. It had grown significantly larger, the power it exuded filling the auditorium with crackling static. I tasted the tang of hallucinogens as above us the Yngir became more and more desperate to find the Laughing God, the cackling of its divine nemesis seeming to come from all directions at once. The skull-faces rippling across its metallic form, evidence of its vile fratricide, were screaming, pushing out in all directions. Its madness was so potent that I could feel it in the air, the pressure in the amphitheatre seemed to have increased beyond tolerance.
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In the blink of an eye, the Laughing God appeared behind it, before it, above it, and below it in a whirling, multi-coloured dance of confusion. The Yngir clawed vainly at the air for a few seconds, long fingers passing through the illusions projected by the Great Harlequin. Then, with a piercing scream of rage and defeat, it clutched its head, spasming as it grew smaller and smaller, folding in on itself and growing dim.
The sparkling dopplegangers of the Laughing God leapt into each other with astounding acrobatic grace, coalescing into but one figure, majestic and victorious. His enemy, driven mad by its own greed, dwindled away to a tiny, crackling sphere. The joy I felt at that moment was sublime, and as the star-figures slowly illuminated one by one, I let loose a cry of exultation that was taken up by every Eldar in the room.
But the performance had not finished yet. The entire Harlequin troupe emerged out into the dome, hovering in a great circle with the dark orb at its centre. For long minutes they drifted there in silent observation. Then, as one, the masks of vigilance turned to those of dread, for the sphere had begun to crack, shafts of red light bursting from its core.
And there the performance ended. What the nature of the Yngir-creature was, I will never know, though I have long sought the answer. But of one thing I am certain; the Harlequins greatly fear the revenge the star-leech will visit upon them, for it cannot be killed, and will never rest till it has extinguished all life in its undying thirst for darkness."
