For the past week, I had been living on one of the ancient Crone Worlds at the heart of the Aeldari Empire, a world named after Morai-Heg, the Crone Goddess of Fate.
The view was breathtaking.
Even after two weeks in a parallel universe, it still left me speechless. A galaxy-spanning ecumenopolis stretched across the horizon, built with a level of elegance and beauty no human civilization could ever hope to replicate. According to the historical records, however, it had once been even more magnificent. The Aeldari had simply stopped maintaining it. The psychic intelligence responsible for the planet's upkeep had long since failed.
My psychic abilities activated automatically.
A floating display of shimmering energy unfolded before me, elegant lines of Aeldari script cascading across its surface.
[Six hundred and eighty-five orbital cycles ago.]
Converted into Terran years, that was roughly three times longer, and once again, nobody cared. The structures had been built to endure for hundreds of thousands of years. Their civilization was, quite literally, too advanced to collapse quickly.
With a quiet sigh, I left the former owner's residence behind. Months of preparation had yielded impressive results. Technology, historical archives, stellar maps, information on the younger races, psycho-plastic manufacturing schematics, and vast stores of psychoreactive materials. Everything I could obtain. Everything I could carry.
The enormous cargo vessel I had rented resembled a work of art more than a transport ship. Though constructed from psycho-plastic rather than true wraithbone, it remained beautiful beyond comparison, every sweeping curve embodying the effortless elegance that defined Aeldari craftsmanship.
I'd taken out every loan available to me. After all, there would soon be nobody left to collect. Then I'd stocked enough supplies to survive within the damaged Webway for years.
Soon enough, I would need them.
The signs were obvious.
Fortunately, nearly everything I required remained publicly accessible. Any Aeldari could acquire almost anything they desired. The only restrictions involved destroying planets or stars.
Apparently, that still required paperwork.
I had checked.
The government, already consumed by the Cults of Pleasure, couldn't have cared less what its citizens did. As long as nobody opposed the new culture of Eternal Indulgence, almost everything was permitted.
Using an anti-gravitic skimmer, whose actual Aeldari name was far too complicated for me to remember, I ascended toward orbit. Before long, I reached the immense orbital ring encircling the planet. Most Aeldari had abandoned it centuries ago in favor of the world's surface. Only a handful of Cults of Pleasure still inhabited the ring, and those cults used the vast emptiness of space for purposes I absolutely refused to think about.
No.
I wasn't remembering any of that.
Not happening.
Mentally shuddering, I hurried onto my vessel's bridge. Like everything else aboard, it was impossibly elegant. Had I still been human, the design would likely have appeared incomprehensibly alien. Now, however, it felt perfectly natural. Of every interpretation of elves humanity had ever imagined, the Aeldari were by far the most graceful.
So graceful, in fact, that humans often struggled to see them as distant cousins at all. They seemed genuinely alien. But those differences hardly mattered. Maybe it was the influence of my merged soul. Maybe it was simply this body.
Either way, survival came first.
Questions of race could wait.
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With another pulse of psychic power, an immense galactic map unfolded before me, displaying countless Webway gates leading into realspace.
The Aeldari core worlds lay far to the galactic northwest of Terra.
One day, nearby, the Eye of Terror would open.
That meant if my Harlequin plan failed, I would need to get as far away from that region as possible. Preferably somewhere the Tyranid Hive Fleets would never reach.
Not exactly an easy task.
Still.
First things first.
The original plan came before the backup plans.
Ahead of my vessel, the Webway unfolded in all its impossible splendor.
A realm between dimensions.
A manufactured reality.
A masterpiece crafted by the Old Ones themselves.
Whatever humans, Aeldari, Necrons, or anyone else wished to claim, no race in this galaxy had ever surpassed them.
I settled into the captain's chair and watched the navigation displays mark my steadily increasing distance from the heart of the Aeldari Empire.
"Right then... how did that prayer to Cegorach go again?"
After a moment, I smiled.
Then I began.
"Great Fool, Trickster and Knave, Master of every jest and game. The one who turns all worlds upside down. Your performance delighted me. I have glimpsed its grandeur. This actor wishes to see your troupe. For when She Who Thirsts opens her maw, only the Laughing God survives. And the purpose of Harlequins is to make everyone laugh."
The prayer was short.
Improvised, even. But I had intentionally included a few details from the future, details I knew would interest him.
After all, Cegorach was remarkably open-minded. Some stories even suggested he occasionally accepted humans into his service.
Surely he would overlook one unusual reincarnation.
Because I had absolutely no illusions about surviving the Warhammer universe without divine assistance.
I wasn't that arrogant.
Then it happened.
Laughter.
Endless, joyful laughter.
The laughter of the galaxy's greatest fool.
The being ancient humans might once have called Loki, Hermes, or countless other trickster gods.
The sound came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Every corridor.
Every wall.
Even my own mouth.
Cegorach had no need for words.
The laughter itself carried meaning.
He was asking what I could offer him.
Future knowledge?
The laughter intensified.
I understood immediately.
Not enough.
Then there was only one option left.
A completely insane option.
Which made it perfect.
"Tell me, Laughing God... have you ever heard the saying that he who laughs last laughs best?"
I grinned wide enough to reveal every Aeldari tooth.
"I don't want to save this universe. I don't want to destroy it. What I want is something else."
I spread my arms.
"A joke. The greatest joke in the history of this universe. A joke so magnificent that your laughter will surpass even that of the Dark Gods themselves."
For a brief moment, silence reigned.
Then Cegorach laughed even harder than before.
"Oh, little jester... I see. I see exactly what you mean. I like it. No... I adore it. This truly would be the greatest joke imaginable. The unparalleled audacity of humanity mixed with the limitless arrogance of the Aeldari... Oh yes. How could I call myself a jester if I didn't support something like this? How could I refuse to invite you into my troupe?"
His voice danced through every word, each sentence carrying the cadence of a playful rhyme.
"We shall meet soon, young jester. Then we shall see how to bring your joke to life. No, truly... this will be hilarious."
His laughter echoed throughout the bridge.
I exhaled in relief.
At that very moment, I noticed the vessel's course changing sharply beneath an unseen influence. Brilliant colors blossomed throughout the bridge, forming stained-glass windows suspended in empty air. They shattered into countless glittering fragments before swirling together once more, gradually taking the shape of tall, brightly colored figures.
The Harlequins had arrived.
Yet before I could properly look at them, my vision was consumed by a grotesque, impossible clown.
A riot of color.
Madness.
Laughter.
A nightmare for anyone prone to seizures.
For a single, fleeting instant, the Laughing God revealed himself to me.
And he was still laughing.