Chapter 8.1

I was captivated by the study of magic like nothing else. Isites turned out to be a good teacher. And her practical lectures were fascinating. In addition, I often visited the training ground just like that - I was taught by the changed ones, although not as well as my sister, but also not bad. But if Isites taught only Darkness, and Atera - only Fire, then the changed ones taught all powers at once. It was a surprise for me to learn that Darkness and Life love unhurriedness, and Death and Light have a lot in common, first of all, the speed of attack spells. But if Light had more than fifty of them, then Death only fifteen. At my request, the changed ones focused on the Death-Life pair. By the way, I gave names to the changed ones, and they willingly responded to them.

- Understand, Asheras, the speed of operation is not the same as the speed of filling. The spells start to work after they are filled with mana and a target is assigned to them. Look here... - Kerat shook her white hair with red tips slightly and slowly, for clarity, began to create a web of "weak healing" with her terami. - Do you see that I am filling the weave with mana? This is the speed of filling the "pattern" of the spell. There is a minimum and maximum indicator for forces and elements. What is the minimum speed of filling? This is the speed below which the power poured into the spell will simply dissipate, leaking into the surrounding space. The maximum speed is the speed above which nothing will enter the node and will simply disperse into space. But we have gone off topic. So, the filling speed of Death is low, but the speed of operation is at the level of Light.

- But then why is Death practically never used directly in battles?

- How many attack spells does Death have? Fifteen, with a maximum pumping of five hundred and thirty ergs, plus ten high-level ones with a minimum pumping of three hundred ergs. All of these spells are known and have one big minus - an extremely slow maximum filling speed.

- But then why are Death and Life so highly rated?

- When a powerful necromancer or druid attacks, he is supported by one and a half to two hundred low-level creatures or a dozen high-level ones. The enemy simply won't have time to attack the necromancer - he will be busy saving his own skin from the creatures. That's your time to fill powerful attack structures... However, it often happens that the creatures themselves, without the support of the one who summoned them, destroy the enemy.

- And what should I do if I encounter a powerful necromancer?

- There is only one recipe: the fastest mass spell and attack. You must not let him get distracted from defense. Use what the goddess gave you. You, Asheras, have sixty-three tera, which means you are able to create the same number of spells, knots, weaves at the same time, and with some tera you can simply draw a summoning seal, create, raise your creatures or simply use them in battle. Do not forget, Asheras, you have an elemental and a goddess. And that is a lot, a lot. Few of those living have as many opportunities as you.

There was something new in each lesson. Magic was completely absorbing. I read all the books that they gave me (and there were quite a few) in half a year and slowly began to study the ancient tomes in the small library that I had in my chambers. The books presented there were very interesting in terms of magical knowledge, but they were written in high speech. So I had to study each book with a dictionary, which I found right there. The Altered ones could not help me with this, at times I had the impression that the Eternal and the goddess had sharpened them for specific tasks, namely combat magic. As for other aspects of their knowledge, it was a disaster. What can I say, they did not even know the history of the dark eldar (even in general terms). So I ordered them to study with me. Sometimes it was even funny. In general, I felt such a strange feeling towards them... As if I had sisters of the same age, something native and close...

The science of spell creation was something else altogether. It turns out that a spell consisted of certain energy parts that the magician combined into a single whole. Moreover, different frames were used for different forces or elements. And then this three-dimensional structure was pumped with energy of a certain type. Multi-layered spells were pumped with mana in a strict order, otherwise the structure could explode. Frames, called "at", were connected to each other like pieces of a construction set. With a certain amount of training and experience, the magician created the entire structure at once almost instantly and immediately began pumping it with mana. Thanks to this system, magicians were divided into certain "general" levels of art. The first level was the initial one and was simply called a priestess or a priest. Owning it meant that the magician could create only one spell at a time. The second level was called eg-priestess (eg-priest) and implied the simultaneous creation of several spells, but since all athars were eg-priestesses (or priests), at least in my house, and among atretases there were only a few eg-priestesses, this title was not actually used.

There was also a division of spell creation into: creation with the help of ters, facial expressions, gestures, words, rituals. Atere told me that it is possible to create spells even by an effort of will, but this is already the level of gods. In general, he said, the more actions are performed, the less mana will go into the environment and, accordingly, the mana consumption will also be less. This is unnoticeable when creating a "fireball", but is significant when creating creatures, incarnations and powerful mass spells of forces. That is why after Fire they will begin to teach me gesture magic and rituals.

Creating spells was difficult and tedious only at first. Learning the frameworks exhausted me mentally. But having learned these "building blocks" and their meaning, I began to understand the construction of spells. The first spell I learned was, naturally, "fireball". I was so happy that I threw this one-erg spell at everything that was lying crookedly on the training ground. At the same time, it turned out that my restoration of the fire part of the gift was much greater than this petty expense. Atere tried to teach me the second spell, or rather, technique - this was the "flamethrower" that I learned myself. Scientifically, it was called "dragon's breath" and was simply an open frame from which pure Fire mana flowed. The teacher explained my fiery clots as a high level of mastery of Fire and an elemental, which gives me almost complete immunity to pure Fire. But he reminded me that this does not mean that I will be able to walk on hot lava. On the contrary, in this way, indirectly, enemy mages using Fire can try to get me. Splashes of molten stone, metal can cause me a serious wound or even kill me. What can we say about proto-powers?

Since then, the rest of the Fire element spells were easy to learn, and even the two- or three-layer "fireball" did not cause me any particular difficulties.

In general, the element of Fire was particularly destructive and capricious among its comrades and had a great effect on the neighboring elements - Earth and Air. Under the supervision of the teacher, I used the teras to mold molten sand into a large lava bomb and threw it at a special phantom target on the wall of the training ground. When I asked what would happen to this piece of black and unsightly onyx next, the teacher pointed to the frozen drops of molten sand on the floor, and, bending down, I saw how they again disintegrated into white grains of sand. As it turned out, this sand was a passive magical formation created specifically to extinguish the negative effects of spells on the training ground. Its negative side was that it was saturated with pure Death during creation, and only magicians were safe to be on it for a long time. In addition, it absorbed blood and sweat and did not stick to the body and clothes.

Unfortunately, Fire could not inflict pinpoint damage. And its use was very revealing. In fact, all spells of this element had multiple side effects - flashes of light from explosions or a constant glow of Fire itself, some generated shock and sound waves, and all radiated heat very strongly, to the point that mass skin burns could occur or clothes that were not directly affected could spontaneously ignite. Therefore, Fire had to be used with an eye on your companions, so that the secondary effect of spells did not blind, deafen or burn them. In addition, Fire burned out the oxygen in the air, and given that the dark eldar mainly lived and fought underground, it was necessary to take this feature into account. In addition to this, it was necessary to realize that flammable gases often accumulated in some caves, and, naturally, the use of this element in such conditions was tantamount to suicide. Other elements did not have such large-scale limitations and were preferable to Fire in underground combat.

I grasped everything almost on the fly. It was simple for me - obviously, the body of the Atar had a wonderful brain and clarity of thought. And Fire itself was not difficult. However, when I mentioned this out loud, Atere only smiled and said something like we had not even touched on the spells of the high Elemental Circles yet.

If Atere had already taught me eight forms of "at" and fifteen spells in half a year, then studying the forces was much more difficult. The thing is that each element had exactly forty "at", and each force had about a hundred. Moreover, if each "at" of the elements was a completely independent spell that was activated when pumped with mana, then the "at" of the forces were only parts of spells, not capable of anything on their own. In general, the "at" were incredibly fascinating. The elemental ones were almost a chaotic interweaving of power bundles and outwardly looked like strange glowing lumps of God knows what, but the "at" of the forces were correct volumetric transparent geometric figures that determined the different actions of the spell. Some were responsible for the damaging effect, others for guidance, and others for pumping and charging mana. Isites explained to me that there are magicians who create spells without understanding the "at", and there are those who know every "at" to a single one, but the latter are not necessarily better than the former. A blacksmith who forges swords is unlikely to be a good swordsman, and a bladesmith does not need to understand much about how and with what swords are forged.

* * *

Time flew by, and four years passed, during which I grew significantly and became chest-deep in change. I achieved serious success in magic and had already learned not only all the "at" of Fire, but also attack spells up to the first circle. There was serious progress in studying Darkness - we completely learned all its "at" and began to build spells from its section. The first spells amazed with their complexity: the weakest Dark spell "Lash of Terror" consisted of ten blocks, the lion's share of which went to forming the "handle", and could be extended almost infinitely. And the spheroid spell, similar in appearance to the "fireball", but called the "Sphere of Darkness", consisted of thirty "at". It is good that its components were duplicated ... Isites also paid a lot of attention to protection and taught me five protective spells from the arsenal of Darkness. By the way, I managed to learn how to create two spells at once. In general, I learned spells up to the sixth level of Darkness.

Every day I studied with the changed ones, who taught me attack spells of Death and Life at once, without analyzing the "at" of these forces. Also, at my request, my priestesses taught me the language of death and rituals. My training in spells with the changed ones resembled the army - they showed spells, the principle of their construction, but did not explain what they consist of and what this or that "at" is responsible for.

I never saw my mother and father during this time.

My teachers, having united, arranged a blitz survey to check all the acquired knowledge, and, having gone through the entire course of Fire, Atere and Isites informed me that now another teacher would be present at our classes - an expert in the field of rituals and the gesture section of spell weaving, who would teach me in parallel. The thing was that further on there were only spells of enormous power, and for additional control of the mana flows that pumped them, as well as for reducing losses, gestures and rituals were actually created. This news almost made me laugh - I already knew most of them.

The next day began unusually - I had another nightmare, which I hadn't had for a long time.

I walk through the black, smoking darkness of the swamp. It seems that if I stop, I will be sucked in. In front of me is a completely white wall. From the blinding whiteness suddenly emerges the body of an atar chained to the wall. She is naked, and because of this it is visible that her body is monstrously emaciated and covered with many scars. There is no hair left on her head. The priestess slowly raises her head, bent to her right shoulder, and I see that her face is disfigured and eyeless. She whispers something soundlessly and again drops her head helplessly. I wake up from the grinding of my teeth.

I greet the beginning of the day standing by the pool. I haven't closed my eyes again. Time is running out. I need to move on to action... I need to tell my mother about the dream. Having sent a servant to warn me of my visit, we headed to the matriarch's chambers.

Almost three years later, nothing had changed. Even the guards, I think, were the same. Only the mother had changed – she had become more powerful and cold. As usual, the anti-spy artifact was working.

Taenori spoke in an even voice, her words falling like stones into the surrounding space.

- Listen, Asheras, we can't afford to fight the illithids now. We haven't found any spies from other houses or the Sixth Temple. And without that, the attack is pointless. We'll only suffer additional losses, which will weaken our house even more. If you want, you can drive the goblins along the distant borders of the house with a small detachment. And as for Elviaran... I'm afraid she'll have to die against the will of the goddess... As sad as it is...

- But, matriarch?

"I understand that this is difficult for you to accept, but I am the head of House I'si'tor, and you will have to carry out my will.

I tried to hide my disappointment and devastation behind a mask-like face. But my teeth creaked traitorously. After a short internal struggle, I managed to gain control.

- Yes, Matriarch. Who am I allowed to take hunting?

- Take two guard areks and your curator with you - let him relax too.

Clenching my jaw, I walked out of the office without waiting for my mother to turn off her device.

While I was lost in thought, my legs themselves carried me to the training ground. There I saw Atere waiting for me and a dark-skinned priestess next to him. Really? I headed towards them.

As I approached, my teacher and the dark-skinned priestess nodded respectfully.

"Greetings, Asheras, this is..." Atere made a weak movement towards the priestess, "Arichitos, the high priestess. She will teach you ritual and gestural magic.

For a few seconds I fell out of reality. The legendary Arichitos! So unusual and beautiful that she was nicknamed "Black Flower". She has been called heshri, the high priestess, for a hundred years. I saw her only from afar - usually she was meditating in a meditation room, having connected four sand diamonds into one. Smooth skin, as if made of black porcelain, a perfect face, straight white hair, intertwined with a black ribbon with the symbols of the house embroidered on it, a chiseled, flexible figure with ideal proportions and the clothes of the high priestess that emphasize all this - beautiful in everything.

There are four stages of the Dark Eldar's magical development. The first stage is called velter, although they are often simply called initiates. They have a very small gift - less than five hundred ergs, and may not have any at all. Atretases born with such a gift devote their lives to serving the dark gods, becoming arirs. Next come reasht, or priestesses. In order to receive this title, an atretas must know one or two elements and two forces at a decent level, the potential is approximately equal to one thousand to two thousand ergs. The next stage is the most common title among atretases - kheart, from ancient times - senior. The potential fluctuates between two thousand and five. An atretas wearing this title must understand all four forces, be able to resist Order and Chaos and understand the astral. And the last title, the pinnacle of atretas development, is heshri - high priestess. The potential of their gift is more than five thousand ergs. Usually, this is an Atretas who has lived through life and endless battles, who has exchanged his fifth hundred years. Heshri have colossal experience in battles and are afraid of only one thing - not living up to the responsibility entrusted to them. Thanks to their authority, the high priestesses are the support of our power among the other Atretas. The fact that Arichitos received this title at less than three hundred years old speaks volumes.

When she spoke, I had to make a great effort to concentrate not on her moving plump lips, but on the meaning of her words.

- Today you will begin to study the spell "Firestorm". This is a spell of the first circle of the element of Fire. It consists of cells, each of which contains ten "at". It is possible to create it without a ritual, but it will be created around the caster and, in addition, it will also be emitted in all directions. In order to limit the sector of its application, as well as reduce losses when pumping it, we will analyze the four-sector circle. Each of these sectors is responsible for the direction of the impact of this spell. To control this spell, the spirit of the element is called. It limits the sector of damage. In your case, it also needs to be called - the elemental does not control weak flows well and can damage the circle itself. - After this short explanation, she began to draw a circle and various details with the help of ters. Then, having pumped the signs with mana, she froze, closing her eyes. A couple of seconds later, a small light appeared in front of her face - obviously, the spirit. The priestess opened her eyes, and the light, obeying her gaze, descended on the drawing in the part farthest from us. Arichitos smiled contentedly and began to weave something like a large, large-meshed orange net with her ters. Having completed one rectangular sector with sides of ten by fifty cells, she tied its ends to the signs on the circle and turned to us:

- Now we pump up the weaving itself, and activate the sign by sending a command to the spirit.

Several of her Teras stuck into the drawn sign on the sand and began to pump orange mana.

- Spirits are not intelligent, but they are capable of performing simple commands. We will analyze the summoning of the elemental spirit and rituals later. - She turned around, and at the same moment the spell worked - the network instantly rushed forward, constantly increasing with distance: the cells themselves increased in size, becoming blurry. An increasing hum was heard. Having moved away to a distance of about ten meters, the spell touched the sand with its lower cells, and the next moment the air literally roared and howled. The spell lost its dense structure and turned into a huge, constantly increasing wall of fire, drawing sand into itself. The flame quickly reached the edge of the polygon and literally engulfed it, forming a real wave of fire on the wall, which, however, quickly died out, leaving behind a cloud of overheated, slowly settling sand. Arichitos turned around and said:

- This was the minimum pumping of the "Firestorm", and the maximum has not yet been discovered. Here it should be said that five thousand years ago, during the last war of forces, the light Eldar created a "Firestorm" with a pumping of a million ergs. Then the Orks tried to land on their islands. Nothing was left of their fleet - only a few survived, and a wave of hot steam rolled to the other coast. Well, let's start analyzing the control circle.

I already wanted to say that I am, in principle, familiar with the circle and even know most of the signs - after all, it is not for nothing that I study with the modified ones, but something held me back. The thought flashed that I could learn something new and supplement my knowledge, and I also wanted to have a couple of aces up my sleeve. In general, my small library only contained books on powers and a little information on protopowers. This is something that could be read normally in the simplified dialect of children's speech. In general, it is one thing to read, and quite another to delve into it, and a third to create.

When the class was over, I turned to my teachers and said:

- The Matriarch has given me permission to go hunting for goblins, taking my curator and two guard areks. Can you tell me where my sister is?

My teachers looked at each other in surprise, and Atere said:

- I will inform her, and... Asheras! Will you take me and my soldiers with you?

"I think it's possible," I shrugged.

- Then my squad will be ready tomorrow and will be waiting for you.

In general, the structure of the Dark Eldar army is cellular and similar to a honeycomb.

The smallest and most indivisible unit is the five, pronounced in the language of the Ancients as ratsh. Ratsh is the main combat unit in the army. The Eldar who are part of it have been working together for decades and after a couple dozen skirmishes and hundreds of sorties understand each other without gestures or words. The most experienced, not the strongest Eldar, commands the ratsh. Although everyone says "five", there are six warriors in it with the commander. The composition of ratsh can be very diverse - sometimes they even consist of only Arirs, serving at least one or several gods.

Next comes the spear - arek in ancient. It consists of two ratsha. This formation is commanded by either the senior or the high priestess.

Above is a large formation of four areks - a whip, in ancient it sounds like eash. In some houses, certain eashes are commanded by an athar. It is considered fifty, although physically there are forty-nine soldiers, magicians and priestesses in it. Unfortunately, in the house of I'si'tor, as, indeed, in all other houses, there is a shortage of athars, therefore in their place there are atretases from ersteta ("guards in the guard") or even just high priestesses. Eash is a multifunctional, flexible and powerful formation, as a result of which it is widespread.

And the last, largest and most powerful, military unit of the Dark Eldar is the tatrett, from the ancient - the concentration. Consists of ninety-eight soldiers, but is considered a hundred and is reinforced by a separate detachment of highly specialized support - magicians, healers, high priestesses or high-level arirs. Their number can reach a full arek. It is formed only for a massive attack, strike and subsequent control of the battlefield or territory. Tatretts were created to confront the battle hirds of the dwarves, and later were used against everyone in a row. There are only ten tatretts in House Y'si'tor. But even the First House, Khitan, can boast only twelve formed tatretts on a permanent basis.

So Atere will be at the head of his small army... If I'm not mistaken, he has only Arirs under his command. At the same time, I'll see what they're like in a fight. Plus me, the changed ones, and Isites. Seriously...

In the evening, Isites came to my chambers with several servants. She brazenly and unexpectedly burst into my chambers, finding me swimming in the pool naked. However, I was not embarrassed, and neither was she. The Eldar had a cool attitude towards the naked body. Or maybe they had simply seen and tried so much in their long lives that not every whore on Earth could boast of? Or did they skillfully hide their emotions behind an indifferent mask? In any case, Isites calmly stopped at the edge and began to watch my movements with an expression of mild displeasure. Servants crowded behind my sister, holding strange cloth bundles in their hands. I slowly walked out of the pool in front of my sister and began to dry myself with a towel given to me by Hetahi, one of my bodyguards.

"Greetings, sister," I said, combing and drying my white hair with the provided artifact, similar in shape and use to a comb.

After a short pause, Isites replied:

- Your armor and weapons have arrived, Asheras. Try them on. If anything is wrong, they will be adjusted overnight.

The bundles contained a combat suit – a priest's outfit. With the help of the servants, I began to put it on for the first time. As I was dressing, the sister walked around and pointed out to the white-haired servant what, in her opinion, needed to be adjusted. When I was completely dressed in leather and they pulled me together with lacing and straps, they began to put steel parts on special fastenings – shoulder pads, depicting the shape of an open dragon's mouth, knee pads and elbow pads with the same image, thigh pads, greaves. The armor practically did not reduce mobility, but its protection was limited to protecting the limbs. In the end, the sister herself unwrapped the last bundle, showing me a black atretas mask. To the silent question, she frowned and answered:

- Only those of the Athar who have reached adulthood receive a white mask. The signs on the mask indicate the level of mastery of magic or weapons, as well as the position in society.

She helped me put it on and secured it with a set of straps on my head. After that, they put two sets of twin curved swords on me and a sling with small throwing knives. The sister added:

- You weren't taught much about weaponry, and the main emphasis was on magic. I thought that your father would teach you weapons when he returned from the Depths. In general, it's strange that the matriarch let you out of the house before you came of age and completed your training. - Turning to the servants, she said: - Leave us.

When the servants had gone far enough, Isites turned to me and waved her hand in the air, creating a spell from the power of Darkness called "Silence" with a gesture, I did not yet have it. It absorbed all sounds within a certain radius from the place of activation. It had many drawbacks, and the first of them was that even without hearing the sounds, the words could be read on the lips. The sister moved her lips, silently saying:

- This is very strange. What is the real reason for this sortie? Taenori did not tell me anything.

Is the matriarch playing again? And what is she up to? I answered her in the same way, only moving my lips:

- I had a dream. The goddess showed me Elviaran's appearance. Apparently, she will be killed much earlier. I am afraid she will die within a month, or maybe even a week. I told my mother, but she does not want to prepare a rescue and punitive operation. Instead, she offered me to "hunt"...

To say that Isites was surprised would be an understatement. Her beautiful slanted eyes almost popped out of their sockets. With great effort, she returned the "mask" of imperturbability to her face, but judging by her clenched, graceful fists, she was still in shock. She took a couple of deep breaths and said:

- This is a hard blow.

- I agree. But also, her salvation is the reason for my appearance in this world.

Isites suddenly covered her face with her palms, and for the first time in this world I saw tears flowing between her fingers. Unexpectedly for myself, I hugged her and said:

- Hold on, sister. You are the great priestess of our house. You can show your weakness to me, but to no one else. We will think of something. At worst, we will take revenge.

Isites calmed down and, kneeling down, washed herself from the pool. When she turned to me again, she was already completely fine.

- Yes, brother, you are right - I must not show weakness. And the pain - it will burn out... - The sister turned away and with one hand made a gesture to summon the servants, and with the other she dispelled the spell. - Tomorrow at six at the first training ground, the assembly. Oh, I almost forgot! - one of the servants handed Isites a small box, opening which she pulled out a set of strange trinkets. - These are combat amulets for you and the priestesses. This servant... - she pointed at the old servant, - will adjust your armor. Okay, I'll go - I also need to get ready. Take provisions for three days, if there is not enough, we will get something or even return immediately.