As Artorian begins to make his way to the city of Gravenport, other forces set their eyes upon the Court of the Silver King...
The aelf screamed, her throat running ragged and her lungs burning dry as her eyes were slowly torn from her skull. The ancient sorcerer was taking his time, ensuring Lilith felt every motion of his cruel implements. The sorcerer was blind himself, as were the aelfs who held her in place, and Miderion became painfully aware that he was the only individual in the room who retained his mortal sight. He blinked twice to remind himself he had eyes and continued to watch passively at the scene unfolding before him from behind his gilded mask.
The sorcerer eventually finished his task, plucking the aelf woman’s eyes from their sockets in short, swift movements. She had stopped screaming, lacking the energy to do so as crimson tears spread across her face. The two guards holding her dropped her to the floor. They had voluntarily surrendered their eyes to the sorcerer, becoming his slaves. She had failed him and thus was no longer permitted her freedom. Miderion planned to not make the oracles mistakes and blinked again.
The sorcerer glided across the dark stone floor to one of the myriad jars that lined the walls of the chamber. Some were large, being taller than a man, others were no bigger than a thimble. The walls themselves were carved with scenes from times and places long lost to all but the sorcerer himself, and thus the jars were confined to the floor. Miderion had almost tripped over some of the smaller jars on his first visit to the audience chamber but had been swiftly pushed away from them by one of the sorcerer’s diminutive familiars who tended to them. It was one such familiar who scurried through the sea of glass towards its master, carrying a small jar freshly filled with preservative liquids. The sorcerer delicately dropped the two eyeballs into the jar before his familiar scurried away with it to find a suitable position for this new trophy. The masked alchemist winced slightly as the familiar placed the jar on the floor not too far from him, the woman’s blue orbs staring in his direction.
Miderion couldn’t help but feel the sorcerer’s gaze upon him through the eyes, the thousands of them that filled every jar in the cavernous audience chamber all seems to bore into him in that moment before he felt their oppressive gazes fall back upon the now-blinded woman. The sorcerer would not share the secrets of his magical sight with her, not the more primitive versions of it he taught his slaves, of that Miderion was certain. She would be left to fumble around in the darkness of her failure, until such a time as the sorcerer felt she had redeemed herself, though the alchemist had never known him to be so forgiving.
The sorcerer once more loomed over the woman, his ancient armour giving his withered frame a tall and menacing presence. It was composed of plates of elegantly sculptured marble carved with screaming faces, and adorned with dark emeralds. Over this was layered robes of crimson and furs from an animal long since rendered extinct. Surmounting this panoply, the sorcerer’s helm was tall and bore a death mask lacking eyes but possessing a shadow of a smile. While the death mask may have depicted the sorcerer in more youthful days, Miderion knew that beneath its visage was an impossibly wrinkled aelven face marred by a pale silver scar that horizontally mangled flesh and bone across where the sorcerer once had eyes.
“Kneel” he commanded. The woman managed to pull herself to her knees awkwardly, though her flesh was turning pale and Miderion doubted she had much strength to manage a long audience.
“You failed me oracle, you have alerted the God-King to our designs” the sorcerer continued, his voice calm and even despite his anger. “Knight-Venators prowl the space around the Doom Spire and my allies in Azyrheim have been executed”. Miderion was grateful he had not been in Azyrheim on that bloody day, had his duties not taken him to Ashqy he would surely have fallen to the blades of the Witch Hunters for the oracles incompetency. Lilith offered no apology, her visions had been misguided, her plans laid poorly.
The sorcerer turned away from her, and silently regarded the huge glass windows that comprised the far end of the chamber. They looked out onto the deep space of the realm of heavens, innumerable stars littering the skies of Sigmar’s realm. The fortress of the Doom Spire orbited one such star whose strange light bathed the audience chamber in fell shadows. The star was wrapped in four great chains forged by the God-King himself, sealing away something from the Age of Myth that should have been long since forgotten. Sigmar could not destroy it, nor could he destroy the Doom Spire while the thing in the star still lived, so he left it far from the shining walls of Azyrheim and every few thousand years sent emissaries to remind the star-gazing sorcerer who ruled in Azyr.
Miderion thought he could almost hear the old sorcerer sigh as he looked up at the star, his eldritch mind pondering deeply. As the oracle groaned, the sorcerer turned to face her again.
“Fortunately for you Lilith, you are too valuable to me alive” He reached down with one armoured gauntlet and raised her chin towards his helm “There are tasks still you may perform for me, and should your efforts break but a single link in those chains I shall consider restoring your eyes”
“Thank you, my lord” she managed to stammer eventually, the oracle attempted to rise but she was too weak.
“I have an old ally in the realm of death, you are to take some of my void-slaves and find him. You may bring him here by force if you must”
“I understand”
“I shall have Master Stormblade brief you later, now go and gather what strength you have left” the sorcerer turned his back upon the oracle and returned his gaze to the star. After much difficulty, Lilith was able to find her fallen staff and used it to pull herself to her feet, then with the aid of familiars protecting their jars of eyes, she left the audience chamber, leaving Miderion alone with the sorcerer and his guards.
“Miderion?” asked the sorcerer, and suddenly the alchemist felt the oppressive gaze upon him again. The sorcerer gestured for Miderion to join him staring at the star, which the man did, carefully walking around the small puddle of gore created from the oracle’s blinding, and dreading what task or punishment was to befall him…
Lilith is based on the very first Warhammer fantasy miniature I owned which was a gift from a mentor and an old friend, having been painted and repainted innumerable times over the years to fit various projects. I therefore felt it was only right that I bring her forward into Age of Sigmar, once again seeking to prove her worth and accrue more arcane knowledge. I had a lot of fun painting her up in a scheme that I think will look quite unique and quite striking once placed alongside my other miniatures that are part of this project. I am going to base her at a later date as I'd like her war band to appear slightly different to the regular bases my ghouls have, but I'm not sure how to do it yet.
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