The Transmiasmic Vapours
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A few years back I submitted a proposal for a short story to Black Library. They apparently liked the quality of my writing, since they asked to see more, but they weren’t sold on my story idea. The excerpt I submitted was written as a vignette, so even without being developed into a complete short story I think it more or less holds up and makes for a worthwhile read. I’ve repurposed it as a piece of flash fiction, and you can read it right here.
The Transmiasmic Vapours
Gronn adjusted his rebreather and risked a glance at the grim idols looming out of the fog. Barak-Myzgar's ancient magnates stood in judgement of his ruinous failures and mocked his every faltering step. Not daring to hold their gaze, Gronn's eyes darted elsewhere. They told him that all was still, but they lied. Only the fluttering shreds of hastily torn tapestries gave an honest account of the skyport's descent. His gut churned with the sensation of plummeting through unfathomable depths at dizzying speed. There was the truth of it.
Barely half way. Faster you old fool.
"Old, right enough." rasped Gronn, chest heaving with the effort, "Ain't no-one younger t'hand, is there now?"
The gantry shuddered gently as the skyport's angle shifted, and Gronn perceived that he was now climbing upwards at a sharper incline. Again he paused for breath, peering ahead into the distant void of the atrium where the reassuring geometry of the gantry melted into an ocean of shifting phantoms. The walkway continued trembling but now it felt more erratic. A distant shadow seemed to coalesce into a more solid form. Something was rumbling down the gantry towards him.
"Old endrin? Shook loose from yon vault afore us, eh?"
The object was still obscured by the fog, but already it looked bigger, closer. Gronn saw that it wasn't spherical as he'd first thought, and there was something almost... organic, about the way it moved. A chill crawled over his skin despite the sweat that clung to the inside of the aethermatic suit. Were those tendrils of vapour or something else? Did the shadow, just for a moment, seem to stumble? Was it rolling?
Or running?
The echo of Gronn's cocked pistol died in the air just as the frenzied clatter of the approaching thing became audible, rising in intensity until its reverberations filled the space as densely as the fog itself. His outstretched arm quivered.
Prepare yourself.
Gronn was knocked off his feet before he could take a shot. An apparition of limbs and jaws burst from the fog, the howling faces of every duardin he had failed cascading across its flesh. Manic fingers tore into Gronn's suit and burrowed greedily under his skin. Then the creature was inside him. His every fibre burned as the atrium burst into a kaleidoscope of iridescent hues, its topography splitting and flowing into abstract forms that consumed him utterly. With his matter cast across the unfolding landscape of eternity, Gronn lived the desperate lives of all Barak-Myzgar's doomed exiles and screamed in agony at the catastrophic futility of their suffering.
At the very moment his shrieking reached a pitch beyond mortal hearing, the gantry slammed into Gronn's back, knocking the breath from his lungs. The creature and its terrible visions were gone. Gronn choked down air, twisting and turning to locate the assailant, but there was no sign; just a loose endrin rumbling away into the fog behind him.
