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If Fabius Bile could see him now, he'd be ashamed.
Khafra sighed as the thought entered his brain like a scalpel welded by an amateur surgeon. He resisted the urge to pitch the bridge of his nose to help banish the headache that arrived with the thought. Considering he was currently elbow deep in the intestines of a dead mutant, that wouldn't be the best of ideas.
He wasn't sure how many years it had been since he had parted ways with his teacher. More than he wanted to admit, that much was true. He'd heard the rumors of what else he had done, of course. It was hard to be in the Eye and not hear about the IIIrd's chief apothecary, whether or not Bile agreed with that title. It didn't seem to matter what legion they were from, everyone in the Eye had an opinion on the Clone Lord, even those who had never met him or his works. It was one of the reasons Khafra never advertised the time he'd spend in the Consortium. His skills spoke for themself, of course, so he hardly needed to brag about who he had served under. But when it was impossible to tell if mentioning the Spider would gain you glory or earn you a knife in your back, it was best to keep silent on the matter.
Not that Khafra was ashamed of having training under Bile. The skills and knowledge he'd picked up under his tutelage had furthered his own studies exponentially. He'd just reached a point where his research needed more... hands on work than he could find at the Consortium. It was, after all, hard to study warp mutation in humans and Astartes when the only humans were Bile's new race and the other Astartes weren't willing to go under his knife. It was always easier to study others when they weren't just as capable of patching up their own injuries as he was.
Which was how he'd ended up here, elbow deep in the guts of a mutant, another unconscious on the slab behind him. Skilled fingers quested through blood and viscera, searching for the organ he knew was in there. He had, after all, implanted it in this beast only a few days earlier. He had hoped it would have been at least a week before it ended up back on his table, but apparently the Gods were not smiling on him currently.
The creature on his slab barely seemed human, though Khafra knew for certain it had come from the slaves in the underbelly of the ship. The warp had stretched its flesh, making it tower over the other humans, almost tall enough to look an Astartes in the eye. One arm was thin and lanky like the rest of its body, ending in claw tipped fingers that were twice as long as they should be. The other, grafted on by Khafra during the same surgery that had gained the creature the organ the apothecary was currently hunting for, was covered in chitin, the fingers fused together to form a pseudo stinger. Or, at least, it had been pseudo on the original owner. If Khafra's additions had worked correctly, then the venom sac he was currently searching for would have given the mutant a venom strong enough to even give an Astartes pause.
Of course, that only worked if the creature actually used said stinger. If it didn't just use the new arm as a club until said Astartes cut off its legs and let it bleed out on the sand.
Despite the countless mutants, creatures, and fellow Astartes he'd stitched up or upgraded to serve in them, Khafra had never visited the fighting pits that the leader of his little warband, Kharth Gorestained, ran between raids. Unlike his cousins in the XIIth, Khafra thankfully did not suffer from the bite of the Butcher's Nails so he did not crave the blood and violence that the pits offered.
He just created the monsters that fed them.
A smile split his face as his fingers closed around the venom sack. The sudden emotion sent the flames that flickered under his dark skin dancing, familiar nerve pain shooting down his back and legs. The smile quickly turned to a teeth grinding grimace, eyes snapping shut. His gift was already at work, hardly needing his directions as it flowed down familiar routes, repeating time worn patterns of soothing nerves. The pain didn't always come when the flames decided to move, nor did it always hurt in the same places, but Khafra had long gotten in the habit of allowing his gift to settle those nerves the flames did enrage. He knew he could turn his studies to fixing it all together, after all, what was the point of studying warp mutations if you couldn't fix the problems with your own? But he also knew that it wasn't worth the time it would take.
After all, he'd gotten off easy. Some inconvenient nerve pain was nothing compared to what his brothers had gone through.
Once his nerves were no longer screaming at him, he directed his gift towards the other mutant instead. As he extracted the venom sack, his mind slid into the living mutant's thoracic cavity, sliding through slippery organs and firm muscles. He had to admit, the pit masters had chosen a good specimen this round. He could feel how strong the muscles were, prepped for the violence ahead. With a thought, he started to shift the organs around, making room for the venom sack. Luckily, the living mutant had lost an arm while in the pits, though unlike his unlucky co-patriot, he'd survived the amputation. That meant Khafra wouldn't have to amputate two arms today, only the one.
Speaking of...
The venom sack slid out of his hands, his gift shifting it over towards the living mutant. Like many of his brothers and cousins, his memories from before his transformation into an Astartes were mostly a blur. But he could remember learning how to multitask with his gift like this, how he'd struggled as a small child, but despite that he had still been chosen to become an Astartes. As a neophyte, he'd thrown himself into his studies, growing and refining his gift with the same enthusiasm he'd thrown himself into studying to be an apothecary. The years of study had paid off, though he doubted any of his teachers would be proud to see him now.
With skillful hands, he removed the stinger, slicing through it carefully to make sure the nerves, tendons, and ligaments stayed intact. It wouldn't do for him to be relocating this arm to another mutant only for shoddy workmanship to remove the ability to use the very venom sack he'd so carefully extracted. True, he could use his gift to rewire things if he needed to, but sometimes it was more satisfying to get his hands dirty.
His gift was one of the reasons he'd work alone since he'd left his legion. Even at the Consortium, very few of his fellows had been psykers and some had even been from legions hostile towards the gift. Between that and the suspicion of so many of his fellow Consortium members, it had been easier to work alone than risk owing a favor he wouldn't want to repay. After he'd left, it'd been hard enough to find a warband with another apothecary, let alone one with the same level of skill, so he'd resigned himself to working on such things alone. At the very least, it meant his skills were always in demand.
The arm came off cleanly and as he went about transferring it to its new owner, he sliced into the living mutant with his gift. Skin, fat, and muscle split as easily as if they'd been under a surgeon's scalpel, revealing the inside of the thoracic cavity. The venom sack slid easily into place as he started to connect the arm, his gift sealing closed both the slice into the thorax and division between old and new arms. With nothing else to do physically, he proceeded to clean up his hands, the rhythmic motion the perfect background as he connected nerves, ligaments, and muscle to each other, making sure to connect the venom sac with the stinger so that it could be used properly.
Hopefully this mutant would actually use it for more than a club.
Once that was done, he unlocked the apothecary door, voxing down to the pits to inform the pit master that his new fighter was ready to go.
With nothing more to do except wait for the pit master to send slaves to fetch both living and dead mutants, he quickly finalized his notes before moving to clean up the lab. He couldn't help but bite back a sigh as he did, wondering what had caused such a nostalgic mood today. He tried hard these days not to think of the places he'd once called home. Not that the thoughts were willing to let him go. He'd lost count of the nights he'd woken gasping for breath, dark skin covered with a sheen of sweat as the fires of Prospero burned in his mind's eye. The colorful flames that danced just under his flesh, his own gift from the warp, didn't help of course, as likely to randomly bring back the memories of a lost home as they were to trigger his pain receptors. At least with the pain receptors, he could tinker with his own nerves to counteract the sensation.
He had yet to figure out how to do the same for the dreams.
Sortiarius had been easier to leave, though it pained him that the situations were so similar. True, no wolves had descended from the sky in a storm of flames and bolter fire. But the sound of sand echoing inside armor haunted his dreams just as much as the crackle of flames. More brothers lost to one man's arrogance, now nothing more than corpses puppetted by the survivors.
The Consortium at least didn't haunt his nightmares. His leaving there had been peaceful enough. He had enjoyed learning under the Clonelord, no matter what some members of his Legion thought of him. But it had gotten more and more difficult to continue his own studies without being out and exploring the warp. He hadn't been there when the drukhari had attacked, slaughtering many of his fellow students, so he didn't have the same nightmares as his other homes had brought. Even if he had the same sorrow for those who were lost.
He wondered, sometimes, if Bile felt the same way. Or if they were all as replaceable as the countless other bodies the IIIrd's Apothecary had discarded over the years.
He would not call the current ship he was on "home", of course. The _Savage Might_ had given him a place to rest his head for the last few years, just like the half dozen or so other ships he'd found himself on since leaving Urum, but just like those others, it was a means to an end. Nothing more.
The apothecary door beeped as the door slid open, drawing Khafra from his thoughts. However, rather than the pit master or any of his slaves, Khafra was surprised to see Kharth Gorestained on the other side. The warband leader rarely visited the apothecary now that Khafra had been here long enough that he knew the quality of mutants he'd get for his fighting pits. The World Eater must have been a large man even outside of his armor, though Khafra had never actually seen him take it off. Wearing his simple robes, Khafra couldn't help but feel small next to the man, especially since, even in armor, he had always been small compared to his brothers and cousins. The red ceramite of Gorestained's armor was crusted with decades of old blood and viscera, the bright red of fresh gore telling Khafra he had come from the fighting pits. His chain axe was strapped to his back, the teeth equally packed with gore. Khafra had never understood the XIIth's love of close quarters combat. True, someone needed to do it, but as an apothecary he had seen more than enough of the injuries such fighting caused. Ranged fighting was far more clean. Gorestained's eyes were blood shot as usual, though he had at least taken the time to clean the blood from his face and the Nails that hung from his scalp, which told Khafra that he was most likely meeting with another warband leader today. He didn't even bother trying to wrack his brain to remember who or why. Such things had long since stopped affecting him. If a battle was expected, he would have been notified, so he doubted this meeting would go farther than a trading of words and materials.
"Yes?" He wasn't sure why Gorestained was here, unless they were stopping at the Maelstrom these trades with other warband leaders didn't affect Khafra. And he would have been able to recognize the shift from the Eye to the Maelstrom even focused on his surgeries. There was a different feel to the warp between the two locations, subtle, but there if you knew what to look for.
"Come," Gorestained grunted, jerking his head to the side in a motion so violent Khafra's neck almost popped in sympathy. "You're part of the landing crew today."
Khafra frowned, continuing to clean his scalpel to give him a chance to think. It was hardly the first time Gorestained had traded his mutants for either favors with other warbands or rarer creatures to add to his fighting pits. While Khafra had gone alone with the warband to help facilitate the first couple trades, after word had gotten out about his creations' quality, he'd preferred to stay behind in the apothecarium. The time both during the trade and the few weeks after were precious to him after all. They were some of the few hours he could spend delving into his own interests rather than crafting new beasts for the fighting pits.
It wasn't that he hated creating the creatures. If he had, well, it would have been easy enough to leave the ship during the chaos of a raid or the next time they stopped by one of the dark mechanicum outposts or the Maelstrom for repairs. It wasn't as if warbands would turn their nose up at an apothecary, even without knowing his history with Fabius Bile. Even those who had a grudge against the Clonelord for one reason or another would begrudgingly admit that the apothecaries he trained were highly skilled. Some were just more willing to overlook said skill for the chance at petty revenge against the Spider. Despite the fact the man himself would most likely never know about his pupil's demise nor would he care if he did learn of it. Such was the way of far too many who haunted the Eye.
So it wasn't that Khafra hated creating the creatures for Gorestained. In fact, there had been points when he had truly enjoyed himself. Gorestained's slaves and mutants had provided him a wealth of information into his studies of how the warp affected those who dwelt within her Eye. He had spent months dissecting specimens, taking careful notes to be cataloged in his digital library later. But Gorestained didn't care about the intricacies of warp mutations. He didn't care about how a feeble slave with an extra eye might lead to the next breakthrough in Khafra's studies. All he wanted was for Khafra to meld together the biggest, strangest mutants so that he and his men had something to fight in the pits.
And, to be honest, Khafra was getting bored. There were only so many times one could graph a xenos or warp entity's arm onto a mutant and send it off to die in the pits before one wanted something different. The problem was, it was very hard to find something different when all the warbands they ran across either wanted to kill them or wanted some of Gorestained's mutants. He wasn't going to trade one warband leader who wanted him making mutants for another.
"Why?" He asked, maintaining eye contact as he picked up another scalpel to clean. From the way Gorestained's lip curled, he was well aware Khafra was stalling. The fact that the scalpel the apothecary had just picked up was already sparkling clean was probably a good enough hint that even someone with the Nails' bite could understand. It was a delicate line, pushing the World Eater like this. Even beyond the Nails' push towards anger, he was technically Khafra's captain. By rights, the apothecary should just follow his orders. But Khafra knew how valuable he was to Gorestained. They both knew that half of the influence Gorestained had was because of Khafra and the creatures he created.
And the Thousand Sons psyker was not above using that information to his advantage.
Gorestained broke the stare down first, snarling as he turned to leave. "The Dancer insisted. He wanted to see the 'artist' behind the mutants."
The sarcasm that bled through the world 'artist' was lost on Khafra, his mind focused instead on the information Gorestained had just let slip. He'd heard of the Masked Dancer of course, considering his specific search for knowledge it would have been hard not to. Though he was surprised that Gorestained not only knew of him but had sought him out to trade. From what Khafra knew, what the legionnaire had to trade was more in his sphere than in Gorestained's.
No one he'd spoken to seemed to know what legion the Dancer hailed from, though he'd heard every answer from the IIIrd to the XXth to even some of the legions that had remained loyal to the corpse emperor. What people did know seemed to be a mix of rumor, lie, and half truths. The only common thread between all of them was that the man had laid claim to some shattered piece of a world, filling it with trinkets and curiosities that he had collected since the retreat to the Eye. Items he might be willing to part with, for the right price. Perhaps that was why Gorestained was here. No doubt he hoped to trade some of the mutants for access to a weapon or information that would give him an edge in the next raid.
Khafra just didn't know why the Dancer insisted he be present as well. It wasn't like it really mattered who had created the mutants after all. As long as they fought well, did it matter if his hands or another had created them?
He pushed the thought to the back of his mind as he set down the twice cleaned scalpel. In the end, did it truly matter? As much as he was annoyed about the interruption to his own private time, he had to admit he was curious about the Masked Dance's collection. If even half the rumors were true, then there may be pieces that would further his research hidden in the halls of his domain. Even when he was part of the original landing parties, Khafra had never cared about the negotiations between Gorestained and the other warband leaders. None of them ever had anything he wanted after all. But now, as he summoned his armor with a thought and felt the familiar weight of ceramite settle around him, he couldn't help but think of all the rumors he had heard. Perhaps, if the Dancer accepted the deal, he'd be able to leverage some of that hoarded knowledge for his own use.
The Dancer's Repose was not what Khafra had expected, even with all the rumors surrounding it. As he stepped onto its surface surrounded by the other members of Gorestained's band, it was easy to tell that his were the only eyes drawn to the strangely fluid architecture of the building in front of them. Perhaps the other members of the band didn't care to notice, after all the ragtag mix of the XIIth and VIIIth that made up the group had never been known to stop and ponder the architecture of the places they were there to decimate or terrorize unless it was the VIIIth finding places to lurk for their next victims. Or perhaps it was his time on Urum that caused the unfamiliar building to still stir recognition in his gut. How long had it been since he last stepped onto the remains of an eldar crone world? Had it truly been since he left Urum? It wasn't like there weren't other crone worlds in the Eye, but most of the planet time Khafra had spent in the last couple years had been either in the midst of battle or facilitating trades like this. And none of the other warband leaders that Gorestained dealt with chose a crone world as their base.
Khafra's fingers itched to study the place better, to see how different it was from Urum, or how similar. The studies he'd done while he was still with Bile had barely touched the surface of all the ancient race had to offer. And while the eldar themselves held little interest in his studies, he had heard rumors about the strange way the warp affected their flesh and creations and his fingers itched at the thought of being able to study a specimen.
As the landing party waited to be given the order to move out, Khafra couldn't help but wonder about the coincidence between his sudden thoughts of a teacher he hadn't thought of for years and landing on another crone world. Unlike some of his brothers, he rarely delved into the art of prophecy, his interests had always been in the physical world of bone and blood. But he would have been slacking in his own studies of the warp to not realize how strange its whims were. The memory could have just been a coincidence, of course, but he'd be remiss to let his guard down until he figured out the truth.
Behind him, a sudden increase in snarls told him that the mutants for today's trade had been unloaded, but he ignored them. They ceased to be his responsibility once they left his slab. Yes, he could have calmed them easily, could have reached out with his gift and adjusted the cocktail of endorphins running through their brains. But Gorestained had made it clear he wanted the mutants as vicious as possible before fights or when showing off for a potential trade. One of the earliest jobs Khafra had had when he'd joined the crew was to create the unique cocktail of chemicals that now pumped through the mutants' veins to ensure they were in peak form. It was a chemical cocktail that Gorestained refused to trade away, no matter how much others offered for it.
There was too much of a risk that it would be used against him in the future after all.
Once the mutants had been unloaded from the transports, Gorestained gave the order to move forward. Around him, the rest of the landing party cradled bolters or chainswords in their hands, ready for any kind of ambush the Dancer may have planned. Experience had taught all that wandered the Eye that just because a deal had been agreed on, it didn't mean the other party didn't plan to double cross them. Khafra's fingers twitched along his staff as a low buzz of violence filled the space around him. He'd had more than enough practice ignoring it over the years. An apothecary was no good if he got drawn up in the same wave of violence that sent his brothers racing into the waves of destruction, after all. Even before the exodus into the Eye, Khafra had been trained to take careful measures of the situation before acting.
It was why he'd been able to escape Prospero, after all, as much as it pained him. The decision to focus on the legion's gene seed rather than race out to face the Wolves had kept him from the initial bloodbath and the recovery of the gene seed for those brothers who weren't as lucky had taken up the remaining time it had taken for Magnus to finally intervene.
He forced his thoughts away from his primarch as the warband entered the ruins. Unpacking his feelings about Magnus the Red, about everything that had happened leading up to the burning of their home and after, had been a labor of years in the making, one he still wasn't done with. He knew some of his cousins hated their primarchs, knew some of them still worshiped the ground they had walked on, or could no longer find it in themselves to care either way. But his emotions had never been as simple as feeling one way or the other. Not as an apothecary who had watched the flesh change take so many of his brothers no matter what his Primarch did. Not as a sorcerer who watched his Primarch stand back as the Rubric took just as many.
He barely resisted the urge to physically shake his head, doing his best to shove down all those memories and thoughts. Today apparently was just a day for memories to surface, but he didn't have time for them now. While he doubted the meeting would dissolve into a fight, especially right as they were coming through the door, being lost in his thoughts would be the worst place to be in the off chance it did. If he had learned nothing else from living in the Eye, he'd at least learned that the expectation for violence was always higher than he expected.
The first thing he noticed when they entered the building was the amount of eyes everywhere. None of them appeared to be real eyes, a fact he'd long ago learned not to take for granted traveling with the VIIIth, but flesh was about the only medium that hadn't been used to craft the eyes. Craved, drawn, even crudely hand-stitched patterns covered the walls and door frames, at least two to every door and corner. Some were low enough that it was obvious slaves or serfs had drawn them, but others were higher than a normal human could reach. Had the Dancer or another member of his warband carved them? Khafra couldn't imagine a reason they would, but there seemed to be little other option. While he was no Word Bearer, he'd studied the Warp enough to recognize the Changer of Ways' symbol of course. But to have it so frequently around the place seemed a little excessive, even if it turned out the Dancer was a member of the XVIIth legion. The Word Bearers might have been a little... overbearing in their faith towards the Warp gods, but one only needed so many eyes around the place.
Their party wove through the twisting halls, watched on all sides by unseeing eyes. It was clear from the grumbles around him that he was hardly the only one wondering just how long the halls were. He could feel the annoyance of the warband curdling into blood lust and was about to speak up, to ask Gorestained how much longer the walk was, when they turned a corner and the room opened up around them.
The receiving room was large, far bigger than it needed to be, and Khafra was suddenly thankful that years of working under different warband leaders had taught him how to school his expressions. He had never been a fan of extravagance for its own sake, just like he had never been a fan of bloodshed for its own sake. Set ups like this were a waste of time and resources and almost always a sign that the owner of such a space thought far too highly of themselves. This room too was covered in eyes, though the ones in this room seemed to seemed to be of higher quality than the ones in the halls.
He made a point to let his eyes skim over the throne in the center of the room, skipping over its occupant in favor of looking at those he surrounded himself with. To his surprise, there were only a few people on either side of the throne. Most warband leaders were quick to make a point of surrounding themself with a show of force when meeting with other groups. Several people around the throne he discounted right away, noting their all too human form. Slaves no doubt, and while some had unusual features, he forced himself to let his eyes drift over the mutations like they'd drifted over the throne. He wouldn't be staying here long enough to make an examination, he couldn't get his hopes up now.
The one that caught Khafra's attention, however, coiled like a snake in a white robe next to the throne, was a member of the Dark Mechanicum. Of course the tech priests who had followed Horus on his failed crusade weren't that uncommon in the Eye. If anything, Khafra wouldn't be surprised if they were more numerous than the remaining legionaries. After all, the Dark Mechanicum were far less likely to throw themselves into fruitless scuffles over a patch of dirt or a few scraps of a ship. Plus their mechanical bodies could come back from far more grievous injuries than the flesh and blood forms of the legionaries.
But it was so rare to see them outside of their own strongholds. There were entire planets within the Eye that they had taken over, turning the very ground to metal and steel like they did their own flesh. What was one doing so far from their compatriots? Was the knowledge the Dancer had to offer so great it could pluck one of their order from their metal nests?
He didn't have long to wonder though. His mind would no longer let him ignore the Dancer on his throne. Reluctantly, he let himself give into his curiosity, shifting his eyes back up to where the Dancer sat.
Like the rumors said, it was impossible to tell what legion the Astartes who sat in front of him once hailed from. His armor had been scoured of all traces of previous allegiance, its ceramite painted in a constantly swirling blend of colors that appeared white until one looked closer. He wore no helmet and from that alone Khafra could see why some thought he'd been with the IIIrd before the Warmaster's failed crusade. The IIIrd had always had a strange almost unnatural beauty to them, matched only by the Angel's sons. Of course, by now most had traded that beauty in pursuit of whatever addiction had them in its grasp, but there were still a few who held onto their genefather's legacy. Even Bile, though his faded quickly each time he switched into another of his clones. Khafra had never asked him why it happened, but it was easy to tell how recent a switch had been by how old or young the man looked. But the Dancer didn't have the same coloring as other members of the IIIrd, dark skin and hair only offset by his bright blue eyes.
But it was not the strange shifting colors of the man's armor that truly caught Khafra's attention, nor was it the man's strange beauty. Rather, Khafra's eyes locked with the third eye that sat just below the Dancer's right eye as if emphasizing his sharp cheekbone. Unlike the blue of his two normal eyes, this eye couldn't seem to decide on a color, shifting through natural and unnatural colors as Khafra watched. His own warp gift itched beneath his skin, the flames not so much painful as a tickle along his muscles and sinew. There was something familiar about the gaze of that third eye. If Khafra didn't know better, he would say that the eye peered at him with the same gaze as the lifeless facsimile of eyes they'd passed on their way here.
"So you're finally here." Even the Dancer's voice was beautiful, sliding through the room like music. He didn't shout, but his voice carried easily across the room. He rested his head on his hand, a smirk playing across his lips as he stared down at the group. "Here I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten lost."
Khafra couldn't help but wonder if this was how the man normally acted or if he was purposely trying to piss Gorestained off. Every action screamed a king surveying his domain and Khafra had been around enough arrogant warband leaders to know how badly this could end.
"Maybe next time you shouldn't have the meeting so far from the entrance then," Gorestained growled and Khafra saw his hand twitching by the handle of his chain axe.
"Ah, but how else would I know you are dedicated enough to do business?" The smile that stretched over the Dancer's face was almost unnaturally wide. "I hardly have time for someone who's only here to gawk at my collection."
Khafra could feel the tension slide through his warband like a chain sword through a guardsman. Even the mutants could sense it, sifting in their bonds and growling as the agitation started spreading.
"We are here now," he said, suppressing a sigh as all the eyes in the room turned to face him. "And since we have proven our... 'dedication', perhaps we can get the demonstration underway?"
He knew Gorestained wouldn't be happy that he was speaking, he was supposed to stand here prepared for battle or to repair one of the mutants should the demonstrations strain them too hard. But he really didn't want to fight his way back through the twisting halls with their ever watchful eyes.
Thankfully, the Dancer let out a chuckle and sat back in his throne, the tension draining out of the room as he did. "Your sorcerer speaks true, that's all in the past. Why should we let it affect our negotiations now?"
Conflict averted, Khafra let his mind slip out of focus as the negotiations began. Gorestained would show off what the mutants could do, a carefully controlled demonstration that held the promise of what was to come but wouldn't actually damage any of the goods. Then he and the Dancer would go back and forth over the price, each starting at the extreme ends of the scale until they either reached a decision or tempers flared high enough that things turned violent. He really hoped the latter didn't happen, he would hate to destroy such a strange place before he'd had a chance to study the knowledge within.
Instead, he let his mind and gift drift out, sliding through the various hallways of the labyrinth the Dancer called home. And labyrinth was right, he couldn't quite figure out a rhyme or reason for the layout of the halls and a part of him suspected that they might be moving when he wasn't watching. It wouldn't have been the strangest thing he had run into in the Eye, but the feeling was certainly disconcerting.
He was careful to stick to the halls for now, something about the concentration of eyes around certain doors warned him away from stretching his gift into them. As much as he ached to understand how the warp affected this place, he had no desire for his mind to become trapped within its walls because of a foolish misstep.
Far worse had happened to others like him who had gotten too cocky with their gift.
"And what about the maker of such delights?" The Dancer's voice pulled Khafra out of his mental wanderings and as irrational as it was, he could have sworn from the smirk on the man's lips that he knew exactly what the sorcerer had been up to. The Dancer wasn't one of the gifted, he'd have been able to tell if he was. But that didn't mean that the Eye hadn't given its own blessing. "How much for his services?"
Even with all his training to retain his composure both on and off the battlefield, it took every ounce of Khafra's iron will not to react to the comment. While apothecaries were certainly a highly coveted resource in the Eye, he had never before had someone talk about him like he was just an object to be bartered and sold at will. And he was quickly finding out he was not a fan of the experience.
But that didn't mean he didn't have his own price. He'd heard enough about the Dancer's collection to have his own interests piqued after all.
But before he could open his mouth to respond, Gorestained let out a snarl of his own.
"My warband's apothecary is not for sale."
"Hmm..... disappointing." The Dancer sat back on his throne, resting his chin on one hand as he studied the warband and mutants before him.
For a long moment, there was only silence in the room, its presence thick and solid. Around him, Khafra could feel the warband shifting, hands finding weapons, fingers itching to curl closed. Even free of the Nails' Bite and the tendencies of the VIIIth, he could feel his own fingers tightening on his staff. He recognized this kind of silence, they all did. It was the silence that came before an engagement. The silence that preluded bolter fire and the rev of chainswords. That preluded the smell of blood and viscera, the sounds of screams and death. It was a silence that they were created for, one that was built into their very bones.
And then, the Dancer broke it.
"Well then, sorcerer," he turned his mix matched eyes on Khafra, a knowing smile on his lips, "what is your answer? Do you wish to join me?"
"I already to--" Gorestained paused mid-snarl as the Dancer held up a hand and cut him off. He seemed shocked by the fact that he had actually stopped at another's command, but the Dancer ignored the anger burning in his eyes.
"I'm asking him, not you. I believe he can answer for himself." The Dancer did not look away from Khafra even when he cut Gorestained off, his eyes locked on the sorcerer.
Khafra swallowed, feeling an unfamiliar chill slide down his spine. Beside him, he could hear Gorestained protesting, spitting threats he would only carry out if the bite of the Nails took him. But Khafra's focus had narrowed to the Dancer's mismatched eyes and that knowing smirk on his lips. And as Khafra saw the growing amusement in the Dancer's eyes, the dawning realization of his situation struck him. It was clear the Dancer had already made up his mind. Whether Khafra answered yes or no was irrelevant, his time in Gorestained's warband was over. The Dancer was not asking him if he wanted to join. He was asking if Khafra would like his illusion of freedom whole or shattered. Khafra did have a choice, of course, just as the Dancer had promised. But no matter what he answered, he was going to be a part of the Dancer's warband by the end of the night.
Acutely aware of all the eyes on him, both real and painted, Khafra weighed his options carefully. He thought of his boredom. Of the rumors around the Dancer's collection. Of all that it promised if the rumors were true. In the end, after all, it was his research that mattered the most. Everything else was just background noise. Even pride.
And as long as he maintained this illusion of freedom, then he could continue his experiments to his heart's content. It'd been what he'd been doing since he first came to the Eye after all. Was that was the memories had been trying to tell him today? Had they been trying to prep him for this very decision.
He wasn't sure what answer they wanted him to give, but he knew the one that would fall out of his mouth even before he opened it.
Taking a step forward, and ignoring Gorestained's angry snarl, Khafra dropped to one knee in front of the Dancer.
"It would be my honor."