There was...something...someth...

There was nothing.

Wait, something...something right at the edge, a sha...

Gone. There was nothing.

Blurry, elusive, ghostly. Like a silhouette in a snowstorm...

There was nothing.

Tiohja sighed and felt the last breath of hope leave his chest. The was indeed nothing there except for the constant humming of the infinite circuit. Its dead has long since stopped talking to him and now shunned his probing touch. As did the living Eldar on the craftworld, every day he could feel their silent demand that he'd leave them growing ever stronger. He would eventually have to embark on the path of the outcast, that much was certain. The thought of dying cold and alone on distant worlds didn't scare him, he was just as cold and alone in this flying jewelled coffin. In the end, all Eldar would die cold and alone, their light slowly fading until everything was black.

It was that blackness that had consumed his life, the drive inside him that separated him from his fellow Eldar. The black hunger that had driven Itilith away. They all understood it well enough, every Eldar had looked into the endless well of despair that was the fate of their race. There was no hope for them, and they all knew it. Their light was a candle flickering in the wind, waiting for that one last gale to snuff it out. To steel oneself in face of certain death is one thing, but to steel oneself before a life totally devoid of hope is something quite different. Tiohja's life had become nothing but a long death watch.

A life that could have held more joy than most Eldar ever hope to dream for. Tiohja felt his nails dig into his palms as the memories of his early life pounded on his heart like a sledgehammer. Memories of Itilith and the life they were supposed to have had. Itilith, the pale raven haired bonesinger that had been the light of his life since they were only a hundred years old. Quiet and shy even for an Eldar, no one has expected greatness from her. A greatness he had stripped from her with his dark hunger.

The pull was subtle as always. But any further down this line of thought and he might as well throw himself into the Great Enemies welcoming embrace. He could not afford an emotional outburst, that would be like a wounded lamb screaming in a forest full of wolves. The impressive craftworld gave no protection at all if one could not control one's mind. Instinctively the mantra that had been hammered into Tiohja since birth flared in his mind. Focus. Focus on the work. Follow the path. Constrict your thoughts. Suffocate your feelings, clear your mind, focus your soul into a single point. Instantly his mind shut down and his attention flicked back down on the quivering human on the floor whose slow mind would never notice that his thoughts had wandered.

Tiohja path was the path of the interrogator. The torturer. It was the closest you could become to the path of the outcast without actually leaving the craftworld. He loathed it. But then so did all interrogators. Only those who loathed the path were allowed to follow it, lest it leads to damnation. No Eldar in Alaitoc could ever again be allowed to take pleasure from torture. Or take pleasure from anything for that matter. For Tiohja it was the perfect path, he had to distance himself from everything to be able to perform his functions as an interrogator, to be totally devoid of any feeling. And in doing so he could protect his mind from She Who Thrist.

How he envied the dying human in the corner. It had been remarkably resilient, even as he had made a pile of its soft parts on the floor it had told him nothing. It had broken in the end, of course, everyone and everything breaks in the end. Unfortunately, it hadn't known anything the Eldar has any interest in so all was left now was to put it down. Still, Tiohja hesitated. Even now he would trade places with the mutilated human in an instant. Most Eldar contributed human bravery to stupidity and the fact that they were simple brutes not capable of fear as the Eldar knew it. Although Tiohja did not dispute those facts he knew there was something more to it. They had hope. They had faith. Even this one on the floor would die knowing there was at least a glimmer of hope for its children and its children's children. So much he even took it for granted. He had even flaunted it:

"You can not harm me, for the emperor protects us all! You will never win, witches of old! For every one of us you slay thousand more will rise!"

Right about then it had fainted from the pain but the faith it had in its race during those last moments shocked Tiohja. He would have settled on one moment of hope, that one moment of knowing everything wasn't in vain. For that, he would happily have turned his tools on himself. Especially the words "thousand more will rise" hit him personally. Very few new Eldar ever rose anymore. And had it not been for Tiohjas weakness there would be another Eldar child running around the craftworld. For Tiohja had not always followed the path of the interrogator, he and Itilith had once long ago followed the Isharylla together. The path of the soulforger. The path of the parent.

There are many reasons why almost no Eldar children are born and that most of those few who are born are still as death itself. The lifestyle on craftworlds is one of solitude. Passion is all but forbidden and intimacy is all but impossible. And for a good reason for love and lust can if left unchecked lead an Eldar straight into the bosom of She Who Thirsts. As such there are not many Eldar couples to begin with.

But the main reason is even worse, since sex alone is no longer enough for the Eldar. There simply aren't enough essence of Eldar souls left in the warp to merge and be reborn into the new bodies. All that which was once Eldar now belongs to She Who Thrists. And the souls in the infinite circuit are dead and can not be brought into new life. As such the only way for Eldar to have children is to forge a new soul. That soul has to be forged from the love, hopes and dreams of the parents. There is simply no other way anymore.

For this to even be possible the parent's minds have to be totally unchained and allowed to emerge themselves totally in each other. The souls of the parents have to run unchecked at the very brink of their capabilities for extended periods of time without falling. It is an extremely delicate process, to ignite a new life through a dance of minds. This most sacred of Eldar rituals often fails and often leads to damnation. That it is risked at all is perhaps the ultimate sign of exactly how desperate the Eldar have become.

Itilith is a soulforger like the craftworld had never seen. Soulforgers are very hard to discover, for they seldom excel in other areas. However, unlike most Eldar, they have hopes and dreams strong enough to be capable of weaving new life. The one sign common for all soulforgers is that they extreme difficulty expressing their emotions, some have even come to call it a mental disorder. The older they become the more they tend to focus their attention on a single fellow Eldar without even knowing it. Itiliths talent was stumbled upon by sheer luck. Tiohja had never reflected that upon the fact that the quiet girl that he had been with the last thirty years never spoke to anyone but him. It is not unusual for Eldar to be very quiet. He never understood that the words she mumbled in her sleep were children's names. Only when a fellow bonesinger by accident overheard her humming thousand-year-old nursery rhymes did everyone understand.

Itilith's soulforging was a wonder beyond words or song. When making love it was all he could do just to keep conscious. He remembered it like trying to keep your head above water in a storm. Endless oceans of sweetness poured over him, longing to pull him down under. Waves the size of worlds threw him around like he was nothing. And the winds. The fierce craving winds that wanted to strip him of everything.

And in that storm, a light was born. Tiohja remembered the very moment he first glimpsed the spark that was to be their child. The first and only time. Because of him. For while Itilith was like a storm he himself doubted and stumbled. For how could he summon hope when there was none? How could he summon the will to create a child he knew was damned from the moment of conception? He had tried of course, oh how he had tried. With his very soul, for all the good it did. This is how his black hunger began, as a desperate search for something he pin his hopes upon. But he could not find anything. In the end what little dreams and hope he could summon was not enough and their child died. Itilith furious despair knew no bounds as she helplessly watched the light fade. And the craftworld lost a soul instead of gaining one.

In the very last second, the protective walls around his mind slammed down around him, returning him to the path. He put the human out of its misery. No animal should have to suffer in vain, that was not part of his work. Now waited the gruesome work of tearing its body apart to find out if the space marines have introduced any new modifications to their soldiers since the last time. Looking for any weakness the Eldar could exploit to minimize their own losses against the juggernauts of humanity. He looked forward to it. The work itself was nothing he took joy from but the slow ritualistic dissection would make allow the rest of his mind some freedom of thought in relative safety.

The door opened and another Eldar entered the room. It was the last person Tiohja wanted to see. After Itiliths death, the entire craftworld shunned him, every single Eldar except the one that just stepped into the room. The only other Eldar also shunned by everyone.

Kalitha was wearing her mask as usual. She hadn't taken it off in over two hundred years. The mask which normally would be fluttering its eyelashes, licking its lips and mouthing promises of infinite pleasures now had an ugly sullen look. Its eyelids were closed in defiance. Tiohja knew better than to look for too long. He turned back to his work.

"She has brought someone to see you." The Solitaire called to him in a deep husky voice full of resentment. But like her role, she was quite alone.

"She will leave you two alone" Kalitha stated coldly and sat down on the operating table behind him with a small pirouette. The door closed behind her. It all made very little sense, harlequins seldom did outside of their theatres.

Most Eldar would be terrified beyond belief to have a harlequin playing The Great Enemy come for a visit. There were few things short of facing a daemon the Eldar feared more. But Tiohja had known Kalitha long before she walked the path of damnation, long before she even joined the harlequin troupe.

"So what brings you here mother? If you have come to seduce me and devour my soul could you not at least sound a little cheerful? The sweet promise of having one's soul consumed is somewhat less appealing when you look so angry." he sighed.

"Oh, I'm here strictly off the record. Your virtue is quite safe with me." Kalitha voice had changed into the innocent giggling voice of a small child. In the corner of his eye he could make out the contours of her mask, now depicting a small girl. Wearing a veil. The great enemy wore many faces.

"Ever the tease. Well, at least you cheered up. So if you are not here for my soul why are you here?" This kind of banter was his way to handle the fact that his mother had given her soul to be consumed by The Great Enemy for the sake of a play. A thrice damned play. He had lost his only living parent forever so that she could wear a mask and play the doom of all his kin until the day came when she died and her soul would be mutilated, ravished and utterly consumed. How could he not hate her for making such a choice? He turned his hatred into his work. The human corpse did not seem to mind.

"I heard you were looking for me".

"I most certainly am not." He tore out a large piece of the human innards and slabbed in on the table.

"Are too."

"Am n..." It was pointless. There was no use arguing with his mother. Drip drop the human's blood was making a pool on the floor.

"I guess I am. You should know. I have chosen to follow the path of the exile".

"So melodramatic 'the path of the exile'". In the corner of his eye, Tiohja could see the figure on the operating table mockingly waving her arms in the air.

"Yes, mother. Exile."

"And why is that?"

"You know why."

"Because of Yn...?"

"No! Don't say it! Don't...don't speak the name."

The mere mention of the name he and Itilith had picked for their child seared through him. When an Eldar child dies in stillbirth the name picked for them is banished and never spoken again. Both out of respect and out of necessity. Some memories can kill. The hastily constructed walls around his mind were falling. The path was fading. In the distance he could hear the wolves of the warp howling, catching his scent in the wind. Wounded prey.

"That is a promise I simply can not make. It's m..." His mother sounded almost outraged. The continuation of the subject was like a jagged piece glass thrusting ever deeper into him.

"Just stop. Please." The wolves were closer now.

"As you wish". Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his mother making a dismissive gesture with her hand, an annoyed face on her mask. "Shoo".

There was a sound like a startled yelp in his mind. He had been lucky, the warp spiders had apparently somehow found his pursuers.

Tiohja was now panting, trying to catch his breath. He leaned over trying to steady himself. The pile of flesh that had once been a human stared him straight his face. The path. Shivering he picked up his bonesaw and started cutting the human into pieces. The ritualistic work slowly guided him back to familiar territory.

"I can do no longer do any good here. I have become a poison to this place and a danger to everyone. I will soon no longer find my way back to the path. That is why I must leave."

"That answer just leads to another question."

"Why? Because I have nothing left that's why! No life, no hope, no nothing! Because I have come to realise that there is no hope for the Eldar." True or not she was right. It did sound melodramatic.

"You are wrong: There is no hope in life for the Eldar."

Tiohja sighed irritably. He was in no mood for word games.

"Don't try to trick or mislead me with word games mother. That is what I said, there is no hope"

"I was in no way misleading you. Nor I am I much for trickery, that's more my brother's field. I simply corrected you."

"You don't have a brother" Kalitha was an only child, most Eldar were. But then he remembered harlequins sometimes referred to the fellow actors as siblings. As her mother was playing Slaanesh her brother would be one of the other Eldar gods.

"Well if you want to get technical I guess I can't really have siblings. Not yet. But I will have two strong brothers and two beautiful sisters. Sadly I don't get to see them very often. I think some of them need to get used to the thought of having a little sister a bit longer. But my eldest brother seems to like me. He comes to sing me to sleep sometimes. I like him."

Tiohja had seen the plays and knew the story about the two brothers and two sisters, the four remaining gods in the Eldar pantheon. But the rest didn't really make sense. However, there was little point discussing theology with someone playing a god so he decided to go back to the issue at hand.

"You said there is no hope in life. That is the same thing I said."

Tiohja could swear he heard a small amused sigh. That didn't sound like Kalitha at all.

"No, it's not. You said there was no hope."

Tiohja suddenly felt oddly safe, like when he was under the protective gaze of his parents as a young child. But his mother was anything but safe these days. Perhaps it was because he was finished with the dissection. He had found alterations to the heart organ which might be useful for biological warfare. Slowly he lifted his eyes from the space marine cadaver and started washing up. Blood was dripping from his gloved hands.

"Please tell me then: What hope is there then if there is no hope in life?" he asked in an exhausted voice without even looking at Kalitha.

"What hope is there when even this has failed?" He held up his bloody hands for her to see.

"He did not fail" his mother chided him. "Had he failed none of you would be alive". That was weird. A Solitaire speaking praise of the war god? He sucked in air to taunt her with this but before any words came out his mother continued.

"In any case: Have you ever considered that might still be hope even when your life is spent?"

"Hope in death? You of all people should know who awaits us beyond the veil." This was leading nowhere. Tiohja had finished washing up and just wanted to sleep.

"The veil looks a little different when you are wearing it." There was no fear in his mother's voice, there never was. This angered Tiohja.

"Of course she who thirst doesn't scare you. You're on her side." This was a cruel lie and Tiohja knew it but his patience gone, alongside his hope.

"I like to think we are all on the same side. And have you ever considered she might be afraid of you as well?"

"Afraid of us? The lion doesn't fear the sheep." Sheep. That is all the Eldar had become. From masters of the galaxy to being hunted like cattle.

"Look at it from her perspective. Slaanesh did not ask to be born into this world as a monster. It was you who made her into what she is."

"'I' didn't make her anything!" Tiohja was shaken to hear the name of the great enemy mentioned out loud even by a Solitaire. In the corner of his eye he could see Kalitha sitting on the table dangling her legs, she looked oddly young. For some reason, he didn't turn around.

Tabitha ignored his comment and continued.

"And she has known nothing but pain from you. For centuries you summon her, shaping her into your image. And then at the very moment of her birth, you suddenly change your mind, refuse your responsibility, reject her, and blame her for everything. "The Great Enemy" you name her, what a name for a child! And she sees all of her brothers and sisters whom you ignored for so long and now all the suddenly adore. And what did you pray to them for if not her death! Even the ones dripping with your very blood you prefer to her. And she ... lashes out."

At this point, Tabitha made a small pause.

"I feel for her just as much as I do for you."

"You feel for her?" The words felt like ice down Tiohjas spine. Had his mother taken one step too many down the path of damnation?

"I do. I think she fears the final hour more than you do. Much like you, it is death she fears, just not her own. She fears for the death of the Eldar race before they come to love her. In the end, like all children that is all she wants. Her desperation and despair are heartbreaking. She is the sickly child at the window, looking out over the street where the other children play. She tries so hard to be a part of it, to show you that she is a part of you. She can never stop. Not until every single one of you are gone."

Gloved fists slammed into the table before him. His mesh gauntlets hardened the pressure. Tiohja had had enough.

"But that only proves my point. We can hide in our craftworlds and in our soulstones but it won't matter. Even if we wait until the galaxy falls asunder and all other life is spent it won't matter. We can't escape her. She will be waiting for us all in the end."

"She will indeed."

And then Kalithas voice changed into one Tiohja was sure he would never hear again. A soft voice no one but him had ever heard.

"But she is not the only one waiting." The very instance the sentence left Tabitha's mouth every daemon alarm in the sector started screaming.

Tiohja spun around, drawing his shuriken pistol. He looked wildly around the room. Kalitha wasn't there. Later he found out she had left the room, even the craftworld. The logs showed she had been in the room for only a few moments.

The warp spiders stripped the room clean. They found nothing.

There was no one there.

But there was something.