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The Eyeless Mask – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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The Eyeless Mask

Liane Merciel

Whoever had built the Yellow City of Arphallos had not been human.

It had been a true city, once. That much was unmistakable. The broad canals and repeated symmetry of its grand edifices were the works of a high civilisation, and the archaic machines that slumped beneath centuries of loam and flowering vines were of extraordinary sophistication. The yellow stone of Arphallos hadn’t been quarried from anywhere near the sweltering jungle that now engulfed it, and must have been transported across the reaches of Ghyran by some well-developed means.

But no one knew how that had been done, or where the stone had come from, or what the purpose of those long-dead machines, or the city’s porous, flower-like buildings, had originally been. Tall, sinuous and riddled with innumerable holes of varied size and shape, the buildings weren’t constructed to accommodate human shapes, nor did they serve readily discernible purposes such as sleeping or eating.

What they did do was drive interlopers mad. Mortals could not long stay near Arphallos, for the sound of wind and water passing through its inhuman structures eroded their minds like sandcastles claimed by the tide. Covering their ears and eyes did nothing to protect them, and no magic had yet been found that could defy the insidious effect.

This was one of two things that were widely known about the Yellow City.

The other was that, from time to time, those who ventured into the ruins returned with wonders.

Over the centuries, scavengers and ruin hunters had tried their luck in Arphallos. Most died, or else returned with nothing but new-found gratitude for their lives. But now and again, just often enough to keep legends and dreams alive, someone found something more.

One of those discoveries had been deemed significant enough to affect the course of history in this portion of Ghyran. What it was, and what it did, were closely guarded secrets; all Neave knew was that it had driven armies to contest control of Arphallos. Given that none of them could hold the city long before going mad, however, the campaigns had been indecisive.

Most recently, a Freeguild force, accompanied by a brotherhood of the Hallowed Knights Stormhost, had marched forth to challenge the Disciples of Tzeentch who currently possessed the ruins. It was to this force that Sigmar had sent the Blacktalons, for the Freeguild army faced a peril that was far beyond them. What that peril was, Neave did not yet know.

Half a mile from the ruins of Arphallos, the Blacktalons reached the Sigmarite camp, and Neave dispersed her companions with little more than nods and gestures. Everyone knew their roles; no more was required.

Anda took wing over the jungle canopy, scouting from the air, while Shakana melted silently into the undergrowth. Rostus stood guard over Lorai as the Idoneth, sitting cross-legged, began her scrying spells.

‘I’ll make contact with the Liberator-Prime,’ Hendrick volunteered. ‘He might know something about our target.’

Neave nodded. She’d been about to suggest it, but she was glad he’d offered first. It still felt strange giving orders to the Old Wolf. It hadn’t been so long since she’d been taking them from him, and hoping desperately not to disappoint. Though Sigmar had chosen to reverse their roles, and she didn’t doubt the God-King’s wisdom, it was one thing to know that and another to feel it.

‘Sigmar be with you,’ she said, and loped into the tangled green.

The jungles of Arphallos were dense with treachery. Chokevines closed around any moving prey they sensed, exuding a numbing toxin as their toothed pods came in for the kill. Mats of rotting vegetation hid beneath slimy, thorned brambles, waiting to slide underfoot and plunge unwary walkers into the rivers and ravines that criss-crossed the earth, almost impossible to see through the thicket of green. Oversized bonebreaker ants and brightly coloured amphimanders, whose skin could kill with a touch, clambered across every stem and lurked under every leaf.

Within minutes, sweat dripped down Neave’s neck and stung her eyes. She moved on her hands as often as her feet, for little of the jungle was flatland, and she had to climb or descend constantly. Slick red clay smeared her armour’s sigmarite and squished inside her boots, and yet for all the danger and discomfort of the jungle, Neave vastly preferred it to the ruins proper.

She had heard tales of the Yellow City of Arphallos, but seeing it first-hand was more disconcerting than she’d expected.

The ruins were quiet. The calls of jungle birds and the bass thump of amphimanders’ courtship cries went silent as soon as the first stones of the Yellow City rose from the rust-coloured mud. Even the insects stopped hovering around her, as though some invisible wall held them back.

An unseen vibration buzzed along Neave’s skin. It wasn’t painful, or even unpleasant precisely, but it felt alien and unwholesome – as though she were listening to a song not meant for her, played in a key that her senses couldn’t translate and recoiled against.

Ahead, the jungle parted to reveal expanses of yellow stone structures that seemed to be ornamental rather than functional, although Neave couldn’t imagine why anyone would have built a city entirely of decorative sculptures. It was even harder to imagine what purpose the structures could have served, though. Each one was a wavery disc riddled with uneven holes, like cross-sections cut from diseased lotus roots. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands. Some were as small as Neave’s fist. Others stood twenty or thirty feet tall. They were arranged with great precision, although not according to any pattern she could discern.

The strangest thing, Neave thought, was that they all appeared to be intact. The Yellow City was ancient, and had been abandoned for centuries. Nothing stood that long in Ghyran without being reclaimed by wild greenery. Yet the monuments of Arphallos were whole, and apparently in their original formations.

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A Black Library Publication

This eBook edition published in 2023 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Nuala Kinrade.

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