Sigmar stood between the columns. Overhead the spectacular heavens of Azyr turned, to the south blazed matchless Sigendil, almost but not quite obscuring the husk of the World-That-Was behind it. Scented wind teased out Sigmar’s long golden hair and stirred his cloak.
He waited impatiently. Though a god, he had a man’s humours still. His patience had been exhausted by the long vigil of the Age of Chaos. Now his war was in motion, Sigmar had ceased to plan. He wanted to act.
Yet he must wait.
Night did its complex dance, the wheeling stars a backcloth to the motions of zodiacal beasts and divine mechanisms that sailed the lower heavens. Dawn arrived to find Sigmar deep in thought, head bent over the Mirror of Bayla. Would she come? He did not truly know. Their friendship had passed with the elder days.
The first rays of the sun struck the white pediment of the colonnade, washing marble orange. Sigmar’s head rose. Sensing magic, he stood.
A glow took hold around the throne of Alarielle. The ancient wood creaked and groaned. It emitted a screeching crack, so that Sigmar thought it might explode, but it shuddered, and from its tall back fresh shoots sprouted, growing unnaturally fast, leaves budding from them as they unfurled and reached skyward. The throne’s roots flexed, cracking the paving, the slow might of trees quickened by divine power.
There was a wink of light, then another, and another still, until a cloud of golden motes danced around like fireflies. The swarm thickened and coalesced, becoming the form of a tall, proud woman. The scent of rising sap and luxuriant flowers wafted over the god king. The lights solidified, until the features of Alarielle could be clearly discerned. Light faded. The throne put out a crown of fragrant blossom, framing the goddess’ broad wings of leaf and wood in white flowers.
Alarielle wore a crescent helm-crown, and carried a sinuous glaive. Her pale green skin was like that of a beautiful mortal’s, save her right hand, which was of strong, clawed branches.
Sigmar broke into a smile. ‘Alarielle, the lady of life. You came.’
Alarielle walked toward him, the motes of magic that made her image breaking apart a little as she moved. Her presence made the mirror shine. ‘I can spare you this projection, Sigmar of the tribes of men, for a short while. Speak and tell me why you called me back to this place.’
‘I thank you for coming. I appreciate the effort you have put forth.’
‘You do right in thanking me.’ Where she trod, delicate flowers sprang from the cracks in the paving. ‘The days when you might summon me are no more, prince.’ Her pupilless green eyes flashed in challenge.
Sigmar bowed. ‘I would not dream of summoning you. I invited, you responded. It is so good to see you again.’
A small smile curved Alarielle’s lips. ‘So the mighty Sigmar has learned humility. I had thought to find you more arrogant than ever. Your armies march across all the Mortal Realms. To unleash war on the four lords of Chaos alone is not the act of a humble man. Your rashness almost ended me, you realise.’
‘For that, my lady, you have my eternal apologies.’
She walked past him, trailing the smell of growth and new life, and looked out over the Highheim’s deserted ways. ‘No matter. Your actions, though impetuous, led to my rebirth and reinvigoration. You reawakened me. I spent too long brooding on defeat. If you had not caused my death, I would have been destroyed.’ She swept her gaze across the empty city. ‘So much beauty here, but it is sterile, bereft of life and purpose. It saddens me,’ she said. She looked at him. ‘I believed in your vision once, but it failed. If you have come to ask me to rejoin you here, to reform the pantheon of old, I will not.’
‘I did not ask you here to reform our old order,’ he said. ‘Perhaps one day, but not now.’
‘Perhaps then I will be interested, when a new season comes upon me,’ she shrugged. ‘Perhaps not.’ She sighed, the air she exhaled dancing with colourful insects. ‘If you ask for alliance, you already have it. My warriors fight alongside yours. Any reluctance the wargroves felt toward your warriors of lightning is fading. War is joined on all fronts.’
‘I thank you for that also,’ he said, ‘and my Stormcast Eternals will aid the people of the forests wherever they may be found. But asking for alliance is also not my intent.’
‘Then what do you want from me?’ she asked, curious.
‘Something more subtle than blades,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’ He reached to take her hand. His fingers passed through the glowing lights making up her form, but she followed when he walked to the flat silver of the Mirror of Bayla.
‘The gift of the Mage Bayla to the pantheon of old,’ he said.
‘I remember,’ she said. ‘Its use allows the viewer to see whither he will, be it in any realm.’
‘That is so,’ he said. He passed a hand over the metal. ‘It is into the past that we shall look, into another time and place. We will witness the quest of Sanasay Bayla himself.’
‘Are we to see the forging of this artefact?’ she asked.
Sigmar smiled. ‘We shall look back further than that, to the time he was a sage and a seeker in Andamar, at the far edges of Ghyran.’
‘A seeker after what?’ asked Alarielle. Her concern was rarely with thinking creatures of flesh. Her domain was of plants and growing things, and the wild spaces of the worlds. She knew little more of Bayla than she did of other short-lived fleshlings.
The mirror filled with swirling cloud. Lights flashed in the vapour, steadying until an image could be seen: a handsome man with walnut brown skin and a ready smile. Intelligence flashed in his eyes, and a hunger.
‘He sought what all mortals seek,’ Sigmar said. ‘Knowledge.’
The image clarified, and the two gods looked back far in to the past, to a time before the coming of Chaos.
There came a day when the Mage Sanasay Bayla had learned all he could from the great minds of his era. After long study he was acclaimed as the finest thinker of his generation, and the most powerful wizard in all of Ghyran. His family rejoiced in his achievements, but for him it was not enough. Sanasay Bayla lacked purpose, and it troubled him.
He lay in bed, staring through the glassless windows at dancing green auroras over the south. In Andamar, Ghyran’s life ran even into the sky.
Bayla exhaled loudly, waking his wife.
‘What are you sighing about there, Sanasay?’ she said sleepily.
‘I do not mean to wake you,’ he said.
‘You did.’ She smiled and rested her hand on his chest. ‘What troubles you, my love?’
He was silent, and so his wife poked him.
‘You lay hands on the greatest mage in Andamar, if not all of Ghyran?’ he asked in mock outrage.
She laughed, a sound that meant the most to him in all the world. ‘Tell me. If the greatest mage in Andamar, if not all of Ghyran, cannot confide in his wife, then he is a poor man, though a great wizard.’
Bayla frowned and laced his fingers behind his head. ‘I have unlocked many of the mysteries of the world,’ he said. ‘I have mastered five of the eight schools of pure magic. I understand the rest well enough, and know sufficient of the darker arts to leave them alone. Every question I ask, I find the answer to. I am bored, my wife. I must set myself a challenge that will test me. I need a purpose. I need to know why I do what I do, and to what end I should put my great knowledge.’’
‘You could try getting up early every day, organising the household, seeing the children are cared for and that our finances do not collapse while you are riddling with fell beings,’ she said. ‘There is purpose there.’
He harrumphed.
‘I am teasing you, my love.’ She yawned.
‘I am without goal or cause. I must find out what it is I want,’ he said. ‘Then I shall be satisfied.’
‘What of the Realms’ End? You have never been there. It is said all knowledge can be learned where the realms cease to be.’