Ambition and Ascension
Section I: The Founding
Beautiful. ‘King’ Noatalba gazed out across the area before the Hyshian gate to Carcosa, where the brilliant, glimmering landscape stretched far and wide. Such a place was surely an abode of gods and wondrous men, where each one could be a titan. It would be his home, or so he had been told by Cassilda and Camilla, the twin sister-queens of Carcosa.
At the beginning of things, Noatalba had been an aristocratic noble from Aqshy, a tyrannical man who, growing up in luxury and decadence, was exiled by his own family for his myriad sins. He became a wanderer, his burnished and darkened armour slowly growing famous. Even in his exile, he was allowed a good portion of his family’s wealth, and brought with him many soldiers, servants, and decadent delights as a personal caravan. In time, this wandering exile-band came to Carcosa, and made to settle in the lawless city that was growing – the man was determined to stake his claim.
Still, during the chaos of the city’s growth against the titanic walls of the Cyrenaic Citadel, there were others who were equally skilled, and whose ambitions were inflamed and engorged by the influence of Czumenth and her legion. Noatalba had nearly come to blows against the twin sisters during the power struggle to dominate the city, but in the end had not. He knew when he was overmatched, and the pact they signed promised him rulership of the first Carcosan holding beyond the borders of its tiny realm. It was this kingship he craved, even if it was ostensibly lordship beneath the rule of Carcosa itself. After all, a distant city in a far-away realm had little hope of reigning in his worst excesses…
So it was that Noatalba found himself in Hyish, alongside his retinue. Nearby, Queen Cassilda brought her own retinue – and of the same size as his, in deference to his burgeoning kingdom, and Queen Camilla rode her daemonic beast, guardless but with speed to outmatch them all. They had even wrangled one of the great Carcosan daemon-beasts through the gate, and brought Noatalba’s personal champion. They were ready to found the colony of Yhtill.
Of course, it was not so simple. Though the Carcosans would never admit it, they were tainted by evil – by Chaos. This intrusion into Hysh, already contested territory, could not be ignored, and so as the Carcosan band began to expand across the landscape, Sigmar sent his Eternals to oppose them, standing solemnly before the ruins of a great temple from the Age of Myth.
Queens Camilla and Cassilda, and King Noatalba, of course, wouldn’t have their plans stopped by stoic statues of forgotten heroes, and so they threw their forces headlong into the fray – the clash of arms was terrific, as the superhuman Carcosan warriors, infused with the magic of their dimensional demesne, fought against the wrathful Sigmarites in their gleaming armour.
The clash and clamour of battle died for only one moment, as King Noatalba’s personal champion sprinted between the cleansing phalanxes of Eternals and challenged the general of Sigmar’s force to personal combat, his axes gleaming in the Hyshian glow. The outcome was inevitable, for the Exalted Champion had poisoned his blades with an ecstatic elixir derived from the manic waters of Carcosa; the Stormcast general fell. While the rest of the Sigmarite infantry began to gain an advantage over the Carcosan retinues, it fell to the writhing, betentacled warp-beast of the Carcosan forces to achieve victory – and despite the best efforts of the Sigmarites, the temple was despoiled, the writhing mass oozing sensuous corruption over the hallowed landscape.
Seeing no further purpose for which to lose bodies, the Sigmarites withdrew… for now.
Section II: Razed to Immortality
There was no word. No word! The growing city was oddly silent. Usually, Carcosa was vibrant and vivacious, full of music and sound, the streets a riot of colour and erotic motion – but on this day, it was, for the moment, silent. The Realmgate to Yhtill had abruptly shut, even as construction commenced on the trading post that would have formed the core of the Hyshian colony. Both queens had departed, leading their retinues as well as King Noatalba himself, the future regent of Yhtill, to ensure the construction proceeded smoothly. But with the Gate closed, there was no way of knowing…
…and so it sat. For days, nearly a week, with no word, nor even an attempt to open the gate on the Carcosan side. The sorcerous regent, Navarra Kulenov, ruled in the stead of the Queens, and her impassive porcelain mask remained unmoving even as she telepathically addressed her erstwhile subjects. She maintained order, and continued the lavish feasts, musics, and burgeoning traditions of Carcosa – a hedonistic paradise huddled against the walls of the Cyrenaic Citadel. Gradually, life and music returned to the city, and the public grew comfortable with their silent ruler. Still, there was no word from Yhtill. Had the colony been destroyed?
Even more time passed, and all hope seemed lost. The colony was almost certainly razed, and those who had gone to defend it either perished or lost – including the twin Queens, Cassilda and Camilla. The city continued under the porcelain-shrouded gaze of Navarra, but the cloud of defeat hung over them, and the absence of the Queens was a constant source of consternation and sadness, for they had been thought to uplift Carcosa from a small refugee camp for exiles and wanderers into a large city, bringing organization and order to the otherwise mercurial inhabitants. Their loss would be felt.
Not all was lost, however, as they had thought. Soon enough, the trumpets of the Cyrenaic Citadel blared with a cacophonous wail, a thundering note of song that was not so unpleasant; indeed, an alien mind could have even found it attractive. Carcosa lurched with alarm, its inhabitants shuddering into the streets in a great wave, dropping what they were doing. The hitherto silent citadel had stood like a motionless stone monument for as long as the city had existed – what was this newfound activity? Dread crept into the minds of some, while still others whooped and hollered with excitement. It was a new experience!
The pink-marbled walls of the Citadel, against which the city’s most riotous pleasure-houses buttressed, split as if by magic. Stone itself parted like a sea, gently and without protest, before the note ended. Softly, as the walls gradually made way and the ruins of the oldest mortal industry collapsed from the heedless motion of their supports, music could be heard. A gentle harp-song, glittering in vibrant arcs and crescendos of soft sound. Carcosa was absolutely silent, the music straining to be heard by every ear in the city, as if it itself was some secret that could answer the questions of reality.
It was the segment of the populace who lived against the Cyrenaic walls – the hedonistic degenerates, the naive tourists, the most erotic dancers – who were treated to the procession first. A cavorting pack of dancers, a riot of beautiful singing, all of them women, flooded from the Citadel. Some bore wicked claws, whilst still others had horns sprouting from their head, and all were irresistible. These frightening, foreboding aspects only added to the titillation – fear, desire for the forbidden, sin. These were Daemonettes, lust and love given form, and they danced into the city with a pitter of sound. Behind them strode – or rather, slithered – a multi-armed creature with her own elegant beauty, a sinuous thing which undulated in tune to the music with a grace and shivering sensuality that none other could match. She towered above most of the city, her burning yellow gaze plucking the souls from mortals with but a stare, causing many in the crowd to collapse, their bodies shuddering with orgasm as their souls were consumed with love.
But it was the second large creature that strode behind Ophidia’s sibilant slithering which perhaps caused the greatest reaction from the entire city. It looked like Cassilda, one of the former queens, but changed somehow. Her left arm had become a snapping, claw-like appendage, phallic and trembling with excitement and lust. Her right arm grasped a wicked glaive, not wholly unlike the one she had carried with her to Yhtill but larger, different, twisted. Three legs instead of two joined together in her twisted hips. Her eyes were blindfolded, hidden now – yet she moved as though she could see. Her lips were full and silken, her jaw soft but defined; the watchers beheld more and greater beauty than the already gorgeous woman had possessed in her mortal life. And she was naked – or at least naked aside from the organic armour that sprouted from her body in places, and the horns that ringed her head as if in mimicry of the crown she once wore. Queen Cassilda… but also not-Cassilda. Something new, something different, something Daemonic.
Navarra, who had been ruling in the Queens’ stead since their departure, fell to her knees first in adoration of this reborn being. As Cassilda’s blindfolded gaze swept the crowds that gathered around the procession, they too all knelt, every one. The godlike being was too much, this flesh-made Daemon whose life had become something altogether different. She was a Queen-in-Being, but no longer mortal, nor even human, like she had been in her past. She was a Daemon Prince, and even as the crowds averted their gaze to the ground, having fallen to their knees, still a larger and greater being’s hand reached out from the Citadel and set it upon Cassilda’s shoulder.
“You shall be my interface with these creatures, Blessed Cassilda. I dub thee Daemon Prince of Ambition Ascendant, who sacrificed her sight, her army, her colony, her friends, and her own twin sister in pursuit of immortality. I will see to it that your reward is worth it.”
