Chapter Text
Radjedef's long, skilful fingers turned a blank game piece over, savouring its physicality and potential. It was almost time.
He lowered the piece to the board, placing it in one of the hexagonal spaces in his deployment zone. A small effort of will rippled forth. For a second, the pieces he had set in both deployment zones rippled in red and blue, and he saw them spread across the board. They shifted so quickly that to an unaugmented observer, they might have become a blur of purple. Radjedef was not naturally inclined towards Time sorcery, but he had learned a few tricks over the last few years. As potential gaming scenarios revealed themselves to him, all forking off his opponent's preferred openings, a twisted smile cracked his tattooed face. This was just one part of a larger plan he had prepared for the day. Any moment now…
"Cheating before we start, Setka?"
The spell snapped sharply, casting blank pieces around the board. An echo of his power reverberated around them, ripe for use. Radjedef quickly pulled it back into himself, allowing it to bolster his charisma. Feigning sheepishness, he looked up at Afshar, who stood at the door to his game room. "It's not cheating if we haven't started," he said, his voice mild. "I'm studying your opening moves." He stepped out from behind the table and opened his arms.
Afshar's sapphire sabatons thumped against the smooth floor of dark, stained wood. He teased his old friend as he crossed the room to greet him, saying, "Much good that that'll do. Have you ever won against me?"
"Not once," Radjedef replied. "But the Changer of Ways may yet see fit to grant me a win."
The two sorcerers embraced. In the past, such a meeting would have been typical for them. However, the two had seen much less of each other in the years since Sortiarius’s translocation into the materium and their own return to reality. There was a strange air of formality to their meeting now, punctuated by Afshar’s choice of attire. In a move that secretly shook the other sorcerer, Afshar had come to Radjedef's tower armoured. His flat-fronted Mark IV helmet, a relic of the years before the fall, was mag-locked to his belt. That helmet was the only part of his armour that Radjedef recognised, and even it had been modified with a tall crest and the addition of a pair of curved golden horns. The rest had been completely remodelled in the years since they had last seen each other. Talismans now hung from various corners, clinking against ceramite as he moved. A silvery-white loincloth covered in orange sigils fluttered between his legs. Only his face was largely unchanged; while a friend in the Cult of Mutations had refined Radjedef's appearance and covered his skin with shifting sorcerous patterns of blinking eyes and feathers that often looked more real than the skin underneath, Afshar had stayed pure, touched by neither magical nor mundane augmentation beyond those gifted to him upon his ascension over ten thousand years prior. There was only one exception.
As the two embraced and parted, Radjedef cupped his Brother's face, peering intently at his left cheek. "Is this kohl?"
"No."
Radjedef's thumb brushed the teardrop-like marks mundanely tattooed into Afshar's previously pristine skin. He didn't need to say anything; he knew the mark was intended to replicate the ancient motif of the All-seeing Eye. That same symbol had been carved into the helmet Afshar's idol Ahzek Ahriman had worn before he had supplanted the elder Amon. Radjedef did not remark further upon it. He just shook his head, disappointed.
Afshar didn't say anything either. He reached for Radjedef's bare hand with his gauntleted one, drawing it away from his face before releasing it. "Shall we play?" he said, moving to sit down. "It will have to be a quick game today, no special rules. I have another commitment later."
"More tattoos?" Radjedef joked as he slid into his seat, pausing to unhook the dangling edge of his red robe from the back of his chair.
Afshar didn't laugh. "No," he said quietly. "I'm leaving."
Any mirth Radjedef had been trying to build withered. Though he had no skill in foresight, he had seen this change coming since their legion had returned to the materium. Still, the seemingly imminent nature of his friend's departure surprised him. "Straight after our game?" he asked.
"Straight after."
A profound, aching misery and a strong feeling of doubt gnawed at Radjedef's hearts. "I see," he said. He banished the doubt before it could take root and began to pick blank game pieces from the box, gently nudging them into the shapes of tiny legionnaires. "Well, you can't leave yet. We haven't played."
Afshar removed one gauntlet and joined him, transforming blank pieces into his own army. "Of course. But wait. Before we start, it's only fair…" As he placed his last piece, he made a small gesture with his hand.
The brazier in the corner flared, spilling a sweet-scented smoke out. The smoke whispered, but Radjedef could not understand the words. Afshar inhaled and extended his hands over the board. Power flowed through him so smoothly that it almost seemed to come from his own soul rather than the immaterium. Afshar's eyelids and lips fluttered a little as the board was topped by the translucent purple blur of moving shadow pieces flickering in and out of view. Within seconds, it was done. The final wisps of smoke vanished into Afshar. He lowered his hands, and the pieces stood where the two had laid them. In truth, they hadn't moved; he had merely revealed all their possible moves, sorted to respond best to Radjedef's playstyle. It was a refined little spell in its own right and much more practical than the time-based method Radjedef had employed earlier.
Radjedef couldn't help smiling, proud of Afshar's superior abilities. "The Cult of Prophecy has refined your old skills."
Afshar bowed his head. "Indeed. Now that I've done this, we are on an even footing."
"Ah, come off it. You know our battlefield has never been balanced." Radjedef picked up the terrain box. "Two obstacles since you're in a hurry?"
"Three," Afshar said, reaching for the box. "I have the time to play properly."
"Play properly?" Radjedef laughed. "Tell me, Afshar, what is the goal of this game again?"
Smirking, Afshar reached into the obstacle box with his ungauntleted hand. Between his fingers, the plain cube he drew out twisted into a tower-like shape. "As our long-departed Master Ohrmuzd Ahriman said—"