3 Chp 3: Lessons from the Warp

The previous night Adam had fallen fast asleep like a bee in a bee hive, lulled into the dream world by the hopeful tales and confidence Kaldor had inspired in his explanation of their chances the day before, the lack of luck involved and the general plain sailing that lay ahead of them.

But today was a new day even if the sky was a strange matt aquamarine. The whole morning Adam had been bugging Kaldor to even hint at some of the mysteries of the warp and had received no hints at all.

Old bastard, he thought. Can't he teach me to light a fire or how to bend a spoon with my mind? I'm sure all kids my age can at least do that.

They were still camped in the same crater as before as Kaldor had stated the previous evening that they would remain here until it was safe to make a rush towards the wastes. One step closer to freedom he thought.

Adam didn't know what the danger was but he hoped it wouldn't take to long to pass, not even attempting to understand the ebb and flow of danger amongst the different geographically ambiguous regions of the warp which he and Kaldor had with few exceptions skirted round the edges of his whole life. Perched on the boundary to the deep warp which Kaldor had told him he had appeared in years ago.

Kaldor had gone off some hours ago to find another warp creature to cook.

They hadn't seen any proper demons in a few weeks with how far they were from the nearest chaos gods' domain so Adam was feeling pretty safe, more than that the area they were in was so stable that none of the rocks had moved and the ground was still the same red colour as the past few days.

It had been a few hours but Adam was now bored out of his mind having counted the number of cracks in the ground 3 times over.

'It couldn't hurt he thought a bit of light experimentation.'

Putting himself in a seated position as he had seen Kaldor do time and time again he tried to do something, anything. But at step one, he was stumped.

Thinking another way it's hard to find something when you don't know what you're looking for.

So not knowing what to do he began feeling around letting his mind wander aimless and slowly he began to feel emotions, they seemed relatively serene, but now and again, he felt a sudden flash of anger, pain or the weak allusion of happiness which felt like a brush of fresh air. But it just wasn't enough, nothing stuck around for too long he felt it as the emotions of the warp flowed through him for one moment, then in the next, they disappeared off into the ether.

Standing up he started to head away from their camp, using his newfound perception of these emotions, he moved towards the direction where they were most prevalent, stronger and stronger, changing directions following the ever-increasing intensity of the warp.

With each step, the emotions seemed more bitter, more flawed but they were staying with him for longer each time and with every step further he took he began to feel an unknown force spilling into his body making him feel better than he ever had.

However, so caught up in this ecstasy and senses was he, that he failed to notice that the previously barren rocks around him were dripping with a sickly green moss, nor did he hear the clouds of flies which were swarming in the distance.

His childlike curiosity fulfilled he felt giddy, feeling like today was the day for a change, finally, he thought, an opportunity to do what he wanted to do away from Kaldor away from endless boredom.

A new feeling had entered him though mirroring his thoughts of new growth, he felt what the tree felt always growing pushing ever higher strengthening, growing thicker, languishing between the suns of a million different worlds -OW- supporting animals, insects, bacteria, vines all an ecosystem perfectly balanced a perfect cycle -OW-. This time a pain in his leg pushed him unhappily out of his daydream.

He looked down horrified to see a root sticking up and growing into his leg, rivulets of blood flowing down to the ground, which seemed to egg the root on, to grow faster and to burrow deeper and deeper into his calf which has begun to spasm and cramp.

The pain was quickly becoming agonising as the root pierced a blood vessel beginning to grow up and inside it. Desperately, he tore at the root which resisted growing sharp thorns to make extraction a risky whilst also cutting into his hands as he attempted to pull it apart.

Changing approaches Adam, unattractively flopped to the side careful to keep his leg in place which shot with even more pain from even the smallest of movements. Stretching his arm behind him he felt for a rock just outside of reach. An inch more.

There he had it, his leg smarted having been strained from the overextension of his last reach. Smashing the rock hurriedly on the ground beside him.

Bang, not concentrating part of his fingernails ripped off as he misjudged the strike hitting his nail instead of the rock. He winced his fingertip bursting into pain whilst simultaneously going sort of numb now useless.

Switching hands before readjusting his grip he tried again, bang, this time the rock split but his palm took the brunt of the impact making his bones feel like they had been laid on all night.

Adam, however, didn't dwell on it as a plant growing inside of you really focuses the mind, bringing down the napped rock again and again at the base of the root system.

Cutting through on his 9th swing.

Sweat running down his face he struggled to his feet before quickly limping away on his one working leg, desperate to be as far away from that vine as possible.

----

Getting back to came proved challenging because he hadn't looked where he was going on the way out or even had his eyes open, but Adams sickened revulsion from his unwanted coupling, sped him towards less and less sicking putrid green and back towards hard unforgiving red rock, grimaces leaving his face when he looked back to see maggots swimming around in the blood he had left splattered across the ground trailing back the way he had come.

Ten minutes later he caught sight of the camp rounding an outcropping only to see Kaldor sat on the grey stump of a petrified tree staring at him unmoving and expressionless.

In pain, he hobbled over to another petrified log to Kaldor's left but fell on his arse, when he tried to sit down when the log suddenly skidded back a meter.

This resulted in Adam falling hard to the ground sending pain splitting up his injured leg once again and forcing dust into his partially missing fingernail causing it to sting wildly.

'Fuccckk' said Adam.

Kaldor's head shifted to the left pausing in contemplation for a moment a patronising and insincere smile plaster across his lips.

'Ow is the least of your worries, you got off lucky by any reckoning, as you have just found out I am the kindest teacher around.'

'The warp offers wisdom only through sacrifice. Tell me what did you do.'

'I just wanted to explore okay' said Adam.

Kaldor replied 'As is the desire of any child, but here exploration comes with a pound of flesh. A predator in the jungle doesn't care that you are a child when it goes to crush your spine nor does the maggots when it feasts on your rotting corpse, which I see you've become acquainted with. You will not be thinking then that it was a good idea to explore at the cost of your life such logic is an infallible law amongst the universe unless you have the strength and knowledge to protect yourself but here not only will the creatures of the warp consume your flesh and bones but at the same time your soul will be at their mercy as well should you fall pray to a creature of the warp either you will be consumed entirely so that your soul dies forever or perhaps worse your souls shall be picked apart and tortured till the heat death of the universe so I ask again what did you do.'

'I tried to use the warp' said Adam hesitantly

'No' snapped Kaldor 'You let the warp use you, when you look into the abyss the abyss looks back and when you have no goal the abyss decides for you.'

'I'm sorry' Adam said the angry look Kaldor gave him scaring him a little.

'You've just made my job of keeping you alive harder ... now you get to suffer the consequences. Here's a knife, cut the roots out of you, yourself ... from the look of the thorns it's not going to come out easily.' Kaldor said grunting before stomping away.

Adam stared at the massive oversized knife on the floor which longer than his foreman.

'Damn', he thought 'this is going to hurt'

Looking around for somewhere to place the knife which was much too large and heavy for him to wield he spotted the crack of a split boulder. Using the knife as a crutch he hopped over slowly before spinning it around and cleaning off the tip of the blade with the sleeve of his shirt before wedging it in the crack.

Mentally those steps were easy but now came the challenging part. He raised his leg slowly bringing it to the edge of the knife blade which was sticking out at 45 degrees. Feeling the cold impossibly sharp blade made Adam feel faint, made worse by the substantial amount of blood his small body had already lost. Forcing down the sick feeling in his stomach he turned seeing Kaldor's impassive stare from across the crater.

Not wanting to make Kaldor any more disappointed in him he pressed his weight down on the blade fighting back tears as he self-harmed, drawing the blade up and across the path the root had grown into him at a variety of angles which required him to lean back and then sideways to get the right cutting angle from the stationary blade.

'This hurts so much worse than I imagined it' he thought wincing as he fell to the ground having completed the final long gashing cut.

But he still had to get the root out peeling each side of his skin apart as he felt around in the wound finally feeling the woody texture of the root. Carefully he pulled the root up and out the channel he had cut, in the reverse, but with the same care that an underwater transcontinental cable might be laid with masses of money on the line or in this case the use of his leg.

Pulling the last of the root out he lay back exhausted physically and emotionally spent only to see a shadow pass above him before falling hard with a smarting 'thunk' on his nose.

'Almighty Emperor: he sighed pretty much having given up, 'when will today end' he thought.

Picking the object off his head he got a look at it it seemed to resemble a small canvas bag.

'Open it, that's a medipack I found a few years backp, take out the disinfectant hypo spray the blue one and spray yourself down with it before you sew yourself up unless you'd rather use the fire' said Kaldor a small unseen smile genuine this time cracking across his lips.

---

Sometime later Adam was done, feeling utterly drained and teary-eyed eyed having completed a task unimaginable for a child his age.

As he was about to fall asleep Kaldor finally wandered over to his dismay.

'You asked to learn now we start on lesson one'.

'I'm too tired, I can't think my leg hurts' whined Adam.

'We will begin now, when wounds heal we forget half of the lessons they taught us or as I like to look at it, we misuse the opportunity to avoid pain in the future, you will not go to sleep until your will is like steel incorruptible to the whims of the warp.