The stage is set, the players are ready. Indulge in this free piece of fiction about the Hedonites of Slaanesh.
[Be welcome, seekers of satiation, to this, the culmination of our performance. If you are new amongst the audience then fear not, for the denouement alone of our tale shall serve its purpose.
But so it is not said that we are unconscious hosts, we shall furnish you with a brief summation. In a Hyshian scholar-city, the apprentice mage Andresh Vivallgo mourns rejection by his love Beata, who has teasingly dallied with his affections since youth. To soothe him, his guardian, the mirthful Duc Silling, has introduced Andresh to the Many Passions – sweet diversions and scandalous excesses that have expanded both his senses and his mind. Yet though Andresh has tasted wines both fair and depraved, walking down a path of excess, still his heart yearns for his lady. Thus stand our principal players:
ANDRESH VIVALLGO – A student of the Collegiate Arcane, gifted but prone to entitlement.
DUC SILLING – Andresh’s guardian who claims a noble heritage none can prove; a morally lax old satyr indeed!
THE LADY BEATA ALBEDENZ – Heiress to the old Hyshian noble line of Albedenz, former paramour of Andresh.
THE GLITTERING KNIGHT – A phantasmal figure, who has appeared to Andresh many times, speaking of the sins and intents of others. Nothing of their aspect can be discerned from their voice or high closed helm.
Now away to shimmering Hysh! The curtain rises and young Andresh stands forlorn…]
ACT VI, SCENE 1
[We see the upper gallery of an elegant Hyshian spire – the Polychromatic Tower. The orange glow of evening enshrouds more great spires set in the distance. The despondent form of ANDRESH leans upon the window, head hung low.]
ANDRESH: All is now lost; my dignity lies slain.
I am prince to fools, save only my motley.
[The playful twang of a violin echoes. SILLING enters stage left.]
SILLING: My boy, I feared the knockergheists had come
And stole you down to Elder Bones’ drab hall.
Why languish here when more yet awaits us?
ANDRESH: Your vices have rattled me, old friend.
Can they bring Beata back into my heart?
Will they restore me into her esteem?
SILLING: Ah, this is what stalls your education?
You can conjure spears of flame, but no heart’s warmth?
ANDRESH: Have a care, Silling; my wounds are still raw.
Last night, I would have confessed my feelings.
The Symposia Ball was fated ground.
There, we might finally have been as one.
Yet… she was engaged with another soul.
Do not think that I was not diligent!
At her behest, I stole restricted tomes.
For her joy, I mocked the noble gods.
Year after year, I have tried to please Beata,
To take peace in her as she might in me.
I feel I have chased some Ulguroth shade.
An illusion swaddled by your Passions.
[SILLING laughs.]
ANDRESH: So now you have come to mock your own ward?
SILLING: Indeed, Andresh! I come now to mock you.
For you are most worthy of mockery.
A jester who only now hears his bells.
You see the wound, not the healing balm.
But you may find the sweetness in pain still.
ANDRESH: What do you mean? How can hurt be sweet?
SILLING: All hurt is sweet – have you learnt naught these nights?
To hurt is to know that you live.
Every act I see I then covet.
Love is the bane of most wanton pleasure,
and in pleasure is found the truth of life.
[Silence fills the chamber space. Myriad strange and delightful colours play over SILLING, tapering away to grey-white as they reach ANDRESH. At length, SILLING turns away.]
SILLING: You have heard me not; you have seen me not.
You hoard a childish yearning in your heart.
But you, Andresh, I cannot simply spurn.
For you, I shall make one last exertion.
I will show the final form of the Passions
and speak a secret name!
[SILLING exits stage left. The lights dim around ANDRESH, casting him into monochrome.]
ANDRESH: The Duc is unlike himself these past days.
Always he has acted the most ribald brute,
A mummer thumbing his nose without need.
Yet now a fell animus is in him.
[THE GLITTERING KNIGHT enters stage right.]
THE GLITTERING KNIGHT: See, his Seduction is Carnality.
All these acts thus far have not sated him.
ANDRESH: You return, my myrmidon. Yet too late.
Even thy counsel cannot now aid me.
THE GLITTERING KNIGHT: You must see, experience and then choose.
Joy. Pain. Where you stand betwixt these great poles.
ANDRESH: I have already endured the Passions.
Passions of mind and flesh and art and sword.
What lower pit could Silling have in store?
THE GLITTERING KNIGHT: It is always possible to sink further.
[THE GLITTERING KNIGHT exits.]
ACT VI, SCENE 2
[We see a corridor, deep below the Polychromatic Tower we are familiar with; three doors are set along its length. Though the stonework here is a fine white, there is something ominous about the place; none of the lavish, vivacious decoration that we have seen elsewhere. Staring into its starkness is like staring into one’s own innermost thoughts. It is not a good place. SILLING enters stage left, playing his violin, with ANDRESH in tow.]
ANDRESH: We are far from the high seats of truth, Duc.
Our revels did not intrude on this hall?
SILLING: Yes, for hidden places feed hungry hearts.
Too often the mind, basking in its freedom,
Suddenly gives way to rank cowardice,
Seeking to blame others for its shame.
Yet desire must be proved in clear view;
Thought alone is no more than blasphemy.
ANDRESH: The aelves teach that much is best left unsaid.
That indulgence leads only to one’s ruin.
SILLING: That is spurned defeatism talking.
A life chained by small-minded expectations.
Instead, consider these rigorous gents!
[The first door opens, revealing long tables creaking with culinary delights, each more delectable-looking than the last. The air shimmers in a mouth-watering haze. Men sit around the table, faces buried in plates and bowls like hogs in troughs. Curiously, they are all emaciated, and their hands are tied behind their backs.
The feasting figures look up. Their eyes are covered by spiked iron bands or otherwise gouged out; their ears and noses have been crushed or sliced away, all to sharpen the sense of taste. Each time they bite or chew, a horrible crunching sound rings out, and blood runs from between mangled teeth. They chew shards of aetherquartz and squeal like swine as they eagerly shred their faces, fragments of realmstone poking out from within their throats.]
ANDRESH: Oh, what horror – I recall these poor souls!
In our Fourth Passion, these chefs did join us.
From their hidden stores, we feasted and drank
And all partook of tastes that addled us.
Now they destroy themselves for such wanting.
What madness is this? What grotesquerie!
[SILLING plays an eerie note on his violin. His lower limbs now appear clawed and digitigrade beneath his finery.]
SILLING: All deviances have their devotees.
Nothing has transpired more than they wished.
They sought to stoke emotion in their craft.
Now it is their dish, and they must partake.
A bargain made, and lo, a bargain kept.
ANDRESH: Who would pervert such a simple pleasure?
SILLING: He has a secret name!
Behold, though: these folk languish not in chains.
See how they plunge forth, even as it cuts!
More willingly than you, they accept their cravings
and they are more worthy for their great abandon.
[THE GLITTERING KNIGHT enters stage right.]
THE GLITTERING KNIGHT: See, their Seduction is Gluttony.
The tastes they crave will unmake their spirits.
ANDRESH: No, this cannot be a true form of want!
[SILLING plays his fiddle with a supple ease.]
SILLING: A hard man as you are, my youthful ward.
But perhaps your pleasures are more subtle.
For such scorn I hail you, quivering soul!
Consider, then, the truths of this next door.
[SILLING opens the second door. Upon a raised throne sits an elderly aelven woman with bright silver eyes. She is dressed as a sophist, a teller-of-tales, brow and arms garlanded with flowers that are eye-stingingly bright. From her fingers spin cords of magic that worm their way into the flesh of the servants dancing around her rondel. They move as elegant cogwork figures, airy smiles pulled taut across their faces.]
ANDRESH: It cannot be – what strange debauchery!
Thelwen, first and most kindly of tutors,
In our Twelfth Passion, you wielded your arts,
Clouded my reason at a silvered fane,
Filled my mind with fantasies of days gone.
Now what great evil has become of you?
[SILLING somehow appears from behind the opened door, now wearing an androgynous tragicomic mask.]
SILLING: No less than has become of you, my boy.
She squirms in the memory of her youth.
She clutches the ghost of majesty tight.
THE GLITTERING KNIGHT: See, her Seduction is Paramountcy.
She cares only for the lustre she lost.
No other soul is truly real to her.
ANDRESH: Hark, she sings of the Ocari Dara.
But does she weep for shame or for longing?
And lo, each twitch of her fingers brings pain!
[The aelven crone lifts her hands and voices a piercing note. She yanks tight the magical cords; singing panegyrics of praise to her former glory, her ‘actors’ begin to spasm and jerk. Knives, blades and claws seem to move beneath their flesh, seeing a bloody organ slurry slosh from their mouths and the seams of their jerkins. Still they sing on, though it is interspersed with sobbing. Indeed, their recollections become all the more passionate and vivid as Thelwen recounts the destruction she unleashed in the Spirefall. Their bodies are torn apart as the aelf writhes in glee, falling deeper into memory.]
ANDRESH: Who would delight in such low selfishness?
SILLING: He has a secret name!
[Suddenly ANDRESH slams the door closed and turns to SILLING in a fury, some of the vigour and nobility he possessed in the first three acts returning. He extends a hand, light magic crackling about his fingers.]
ANDRESH: Twice now you have spoken such to me, goat!
Contemptible guardian and traitor.
You who suckles at these sordid displays!
I see how my weakness has enticed you.
I reject all your most heinous Passions,
Your wicked excesses of flesh and mind!
BEATA: Andresh?
[The third door opens of its own accord, revealing BEATA. The finely dressed woman looks around in confusion for a moment before stepping into the corridor. She passes THE GLITTERING KNIGHT, appearing not to see them, and moves towards ANDRESH at centre stage. SILLING ceases playing his violin. BEATA does not seem to see him either.]
ANDRESH: Beata? How came you to this hall of sin?
BEATA: I thought to look for you, my roaming lamb.
Your behaviour these past days worries me.
They say you have profaned yourself gladly.
What Passions have carried you far from me?
ANDRESH: Far from you? Surely, Beata, you speak jest.
For you are the mirror knife that strikes me.
These sins I feed are all for want of you.
All the years I longed for your true accord
Left me weak to these dark crimes of the soul.
BEATA: Andresh, my fool boy, please – hear your own words!
You were never one for such delusions.
What of our many hours spent in bliss?
You thirst so deep for pleasure still unearned.
Do not let it blind you to humbler joys.
ANDRESH: But you, Beata, are all that I wanted.
BEATA: The act of wanting has made you weak, dove.
[BEATA turns and begins to walk away; the lights fade on her and she freezes in place. ANDRESH stares vacantly into nothingness.]
ANDRESH: Weak?
Here, now, does she think to name me as weak?
When I have both thrilled and suffered in this.
When I thought to cast off this sinful garb
And when her own delights are not so twee.
[SILLING and THE GLITTERING KNIGHT approach. They begin to circle around ANDRESH. It is hard to tell where each of the three begins and ends.]
THE GLITTERING KNIGHT: See, your Seduction is bright Vainglory.
For even now, you believe yourself true.
ANDRESH: All would think to tell me it is not so.
But who instead would accept my true soul?
SILLING: He has a secret name.
[For long seconds, ANDRESH pauses.]
ANDRESH: Tell me.
THE GLITTERING KNIGHT AND SILLING: Slaanesh. And we shall show you how he loves you.
[THE GLITTERING KNIGHT steps behind ANDRESH; they seem more his shadow than a person. They take his arms and move him as a marionette, leading him through exaggerated mimes of the Passions, now wild, distorted and cruel. SILLING plays on; his violin has assumed a vicious, mocking character as he dances and pirouettes around ANDRESH like some perfumed wraith. From behind the three doors, a purple light leaks and claws scratch. There is giggling, and crooning, and sighing, and none of it is pleasant to hear.]
[The lights come up on BEATA and she is able to move once more.]
BEATA: Andresh, dear friend, what madness now takes you?
You waltz and writhe in your dread sins.
This is not the way of true noble hearts!
[ANDRESH is still being dragged to and fro by THE GLITTERING KNIGHT, miming spite and indignity. He seems to speak in two voices, both his own and his puppeteer’s. It is hard to tell if he is laughing or weeping.]
ANDRESH: Nay, Beata, stay your weak and craven heart.
I see now – and though it stings, I relish it.
Passions are all that truly lurk within.
Passions are all that rule these droll realms.
You rejected the heat of my Passions.
But I see now a dark prince who loves them.
With each indulgence, we have honoured him.
Sin is ritual; performance is rite.
Come! Let us attend to his courtiers!
[The three doors burst open. Mist and incense spill from within. Shapes, too, move within; lithe shapes, slithering shapes, with whip-slender limbs and elongated faces and snapping claws, carrying the bodily remains and stretched-taut spirits of sinners. As ANDRESH continues to suffer in his hysterics, the daemons flood across the stage. They overwhelm a screaming BEATA in a tide of claws and hisses. SILLING too is lost amongst them – he vanishes laughing, and his violin can still be heard playing. All is a riot of noise and taste and scent, of painted flesh and bright blood. Do you not wish to join our actors?
Yes, dear audience – you. We see you. Did you think you could witness such excesses and not consider your own wants? Did you think you were not also part of the show?
The eidolon that was ANDRESH is brought to the fore of the stage. He meets your gaze. So do the daemons. Do they look like costumes to you?]
“ANDRESH”: Sin is ritual; performance is rite.
You have witnessed us; we have witnessed you.
Your rapt eyes feed our master’s longing heart.
So pray, deny us not your desires.
Sweet Slaanesh would hear them, each and every one…
[Every wish you have ever had, every passion you have suffered, every shame you have kept hidden: these take you now, dragging you gently, a warm caress that feels only a measure like knives. You rise from your seat, towards the beckoning limbs of the court arrayed before you. Their eyes are black. Their teeth are sharp.
The curtain falls.]
The play may be over, but the performance is just about to begin. Pre-order the new Hedonites of Slaanesh battletome from tomorrow, along with the new Lord of Hysteria, Spearhead, and more.
