- "We are your slaves, mistress. We live only to abase ourselves at your feet and give our lives for your slightest pleasure."
- —Elrion to N'Kari[1a]
Elrion was the head of a cult of twenty asur who followed the Way of All Pleasures. Described as a tall, stately Elf of considerable dignity, he and the others would become recruits to N'Kari, the daemon having sensed their corruption from afar, smelling their decadence like the odour of a rich and corrupt night-blooming orchid. In the form of an elf-maiden with hooves and curled horns, N'Kari surprised the cultists, filling them with equal parts wonder and terror by materializing during their orgiastic rites to celebrate their devotion to Slaanesh.[1a]
The cultists, Elrion included, were initially confused. They had been playing a dangerous game, performing rites of pleasure for their own gratification, thinking that there was no price to be paid, that nothing would come in answer to their summons. So it was that they discovered they were wrong and they were at once exalted and terrified by what they had done.[1a]
In order to appease his new master, Elrion tricked his childhood friend Fayelle into opening the front door to her father's palace, quietly telling her he was being followed. He would continue his deception by telling Fayelle that he had urgent news for Prince Faldor, stating that the wedding between Fayelle and Moralis wouldn't happen. In doing so, he allayed suspicion for his late coming, letting the servant Peteor explain how news after dark was always bad news. Patting him on the back caused Peteor to cough and lurch forward. Unable to speak, the servant tried to grab Elrion. By the time Fayelle realized Elrion had stabbed the old elf with a knife, it was too late. Elrion proceeded to twist Fayelle's arm painfully up her back and push her towards the gateway, telling her how everyone here would soon be dead, and that there was someone he wanted to introduce her to. Elrion ignored her screams, even as they roused the entire household. Lights were coming on everywhere and the sound of retainers moving within, but nothing would save them from the will of N'Kari.[1b]
Elrion and his followers would follow their master to Tor Annan, where they would aid the few dozen daemons bound by N'Kari. After the death of two more of Aenarion's bloodline, several hundred cultists would count among N'Kari's army. Some of said-cultists would be recruited from farmers and smallholders encountered en route to Tor Annan. Many more had joined them after the destruction of their town. The souls of those who refused to submit to the ecstatic disciplines of the Cult of Pleasure were swiftly dispatched to the netherworld, bait and sustenance for the daemons N'Kari had used them to summon. In general that had not proved necessary to more than half the cases. To the Keeper of Secrets' perspective, there was a strong pleasure-loving streak in most elves, and given the choice between death and a life of drug-filled, esoteric pleasure a significant number made the "right" choice. The rest proved an interesting distraction.[1c]
As for Elrion, the asur began to look haggard as the toll of nights of pleasure and days of horror overtook him. He twitched and frothed and broke into tears at odd times. Sometimes he would rant at the other cultists, delivering terrifying if somewhat unimaginative sermons on the nature of Chaos and the goals of their master. In the elf's storytelling - and embroidering of the facts - N'Kari found amusement, and found no reason to contradict him. If anything some of Elrion's more visionary passages had made the rest of his cultists even more devout. He had acquired a small harem among the impressionable worshippers but seemed not to take much pleasure in it. N'Kari found this typical of mortals. So hard to please. Give them what they claimed they wanted and they would inevitably discover it was neither what they expected nor desired. Ironically, even to a devotee of the Lord of Perversity this seemed a little too perverse.[1c]
When N'Kari told Elrion to prepare the daemon's best beloved, that they would bear witness to a miracle, the Elf's face lit up with curiosity. Elrion knew that his master did not make such promises lightly, and therefore knew something both ominous and awesome was about to occur. He watched as N'Kari made a sacrificial altar of the local waystone, slitting the throats of six cultists all too willing to give of their souls. Their blood was used to make a six-pointed star, N'Kari then placing a severed head at its centre. In a ritual only he could know, the Keeper of Secrets made ready a portal that would lead to another waystone elsewhere on Ulthuan.[1c]
Mutation
With time came more followers and daemons to N'Kari's army. Captives were made into pleasure slaves, recruits, or mere cattle for the Dark Feast. As chief among them, Elrion would be forced to eat spiced elf-meat alongside N'Kari's mortal servants, the Keeper of Secrets imbuing said-meat with dark magic. To the daemon's satisfaction, this brought the stigmata of mutation. Elrion's condition continued to degenerate, his skin hardening around his arms and chest to become as natural armour at the expense of his personal beauty. Wild were his staring eyes, whilst a crack into his voice came whenever he tried to pronounce certain words. His teeth became fangs, and something was happening to his tongue and throat.[1d]
During N'Kari's assault on Tor Yvresse, Elrion would leap forward to lick up his master drool, the Keeper of Secrets' secretions always causing ecstatic pleasure in mortals. N'Kari then trampled on Elrion's back, leaving great talon marks on the writhing acolyte's flesh, forcing the elf down in the puddle of drool as the daemon strode forward.[1e]
Elrion's condition would continue to worsen till N'Kari's army reached by way of portal the Island of Flame. Rain poured down on what would become the battlefield, not far from the walls of Asuyran's Shrine. The mutant elf looked at his master with mad, adoring eyes, his rain-soaked clothes clinging to his skin. He was like a hound now; living only for N'Kari's approval, the daemon planning to teach him hatred, that Elrion might adore and resent him at the same time. At the promise of elven flesh, saliva dripped from the corner of the elf's mouth, vanishing amid the raindrops running down his face.[1f]
Source
- 1: Blood of Aenarion (novel) William King
