Dark Imperium: Godblight Read online

  ‘Should I be?’ said Guilliman mildly.

  ‘I have come to recommend you do not do what I think you are about to do.’

  Guilliman’s smile was audible in his voice. ‘You disapprove so much you will not specify my actions? How do I know you and I refer to the same matter?’

  ‘Such things as you intend should not be named,’ said Felix.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Guilliman. ‘But you do not have to agree with everything I do, my son. You do your duty as you see best. You are not an unthinking man, you are not afraid to defy me. I gave you the role of tetrarch because of that. If anything, I am pleased you came.’

  ‘And if I had remained at Alveiro instead?’

  ‘Then I would also have been pleased,’ said Guilliman. ‘But you are here. Your instincts are good. What we are about to attempt is a risk. You see that. You come to warn me. Good intentions should not be punished.’

  Felix looked up. He was mystified. No matter how much he thought he understood the primarch, he realised he never would. If one of Felix’s own men were to behave as he had, then Felix would not hesitate to censure them. Often, Felix felt himself to have left humanity behind, but Guilliman had never been human, not truly.

  ‘You plan to question it. That is why you called it back rather than allowing me to destroy it when it was found. I am right?’

  Guilliman did not answer, but looked down at him, giving him his full attention for the first time. Felix felt his gaze as a weight on his soul.

  ‘There is no need to kneel, Decimus. Please stand.’

  Felix got to his feet. The smallest noises were made large by the chamber. Its acoustics were perfect, designed to amplify the reediest voice of the most ancient sage, and it lent the sounds of his panoply, even the swish of his cloak upon the mosaic floor, great portentousness.

  ‘There, that is better,’ said Guilliman. He clenched his fist in the heart of the hololith, banishing it. The primarch looked Felix up and down, and approved of what he saw.

  ‘You seem well. Strong. The office suits you, my son,’ he said. ‘How do you like your new domain?’

  Felix was still angry, and could not keep it completely from his response, so his words came out tersely. ‘I was on Vespator for precisely twenty-three hours before I moved on to continue my inspection of the province, my lord. I couldn’t tell from so short a visit, but it seems defensible enough.’

  Guilliman smiled again. He had a sad smile, full of the pain of understanding. His melancholy smothered the fire burning in Felix’s heart. ‘I meant the people, Felix, I meant the world.’

  ‘Both seem pleasant enough,’ said Felix, less angry now. ‘But neither of those things are worth much if they cannot be protected. Your entire realm is under threat. Mortarion’s hordes are not the only danger.’

  Guilliman nodded. He was distracted. The running lights of voidships close by the Macragge’s Honour filled his eyes with stars. ‘What about the rest of the Eastern Tetra? Will you be able to bring it under our control?’

  ‘May I speak honestly?’

  ‘When have I ever asked that you do otherwise?’

  ‘It is a shambles,’ Felix said, and in remembering his tour of the worlds he was responsible for ruling, he tasted the primarch’s burden. ‘Nearly every planet is in disarray. Mortarion’s armies have not done much direct harm to the east, but the Sotharan League was hit hard by the tyranids, and there has been raiding by orks, and recently by the necrons. Human pirates are also a problem. But the hive fleets are the worst. There were a dozen inhabited worlds stripped to bedrock at least. I do not know how many unknown planets suffered the same fate. If the xenos were not rapacious enough, years of corruption have hollowed the old League out. I have not been to a single planet where the defences, or any other asset for that matter, military or other­wise, match the records. Tithes have been falsified. A significant proportion of sector finances have been embezzled. Much has been stolen, sometimes openly. They have no fear of Imperial authority there, but they will. I have begun an inquisition. Agents of the Ordo Hereticus and the Adeptus Arbites assist me. There will be executions. A great many.’

  Guilliman’s face was unreadable, prompting Felix to apologise.

  ‘I am sorry, my lord, I do not have time to be gentle. Examples have to be made.’

  The primarch shook his head. ‘No, no, you do right, the League was the worst of all political systems,’ said Guilliman. ‘Enough centralised power to embolden the elite, not enough to keep them in check. Untrammelled flow of coin amplifies greed. It allows acquisitiveness while enabling the shirking of responsibility, and so the weak suffer. It must be corrected with maximum prejudice. Again my errors confront me. I say once more that Ultramar should never have been divided.’

  ‘Things will change,’ said Felix. ‘The Sotharan League is no more. The populace will find direct rule by Ultramar a more just solution.’ He paused. ‘I have wondered what the Scythes of the Emperor were thinking, letting it get so bad.’

  ‘They had their own wars to fight,’ said Guilliman, ‘and they paid dearly to fulfil their duties. It was not their place to interfere with civilian governance. That too will change.’

  Felix could not disagree. The tyranids had stripped Sotha, the capital of the League and the home world of the Scythes of the Emperor, and nearly annihilated the Scythes in the process. He’d exchanged a few messages with the reduced Chapter, continuing negotiations to supply them with Primaris reinforcements to bring them back to full strength, but they were a ruined brotherhood, and shame dripped from every message they sent him.

  ‘One good thing to be said, is that the people were pleased to see us,’ Felix said. ‘We will not find much resistance there to reimposing direct rule, not if the ruling classes know what is good for them.’

  ‘In your experience, do people often know what is good for them?’ asked Guilliman.

  Felix said nothing for a moment. ‘In truth, I do not know. I was a boy when I was taken by Cawl’s agents. I have been active only a dozen years since my reawakening from suspended animation, during which time I have known nothing but war. You told me I retained much of my humanity when many firstborn Primaris brothers did not, but I have had to take that on trust. I do not know people, my lord. So how can I tell?’

  ‘You are wrong, Decimus, you do know people. You have a facility for empathy. What does your instinct say?’

  ‘My gut says that people do not know what is good for them.’ He hesitated.

  ‘And?’

  ‘As individuals, people are intelligent creatures, but as a group, they are animals, and animals need a firm hand.’

  ‘I see,’ said Guilliman, and there was the space for an ocean of disappointment between those two words.

  ‘The philosophy is unimportant,’ Felix said hurriedly. ‘Action is. I have not had much trouble with the Imperial governors, and if any oppose us the people are ready to rise up. They have had enough of human greed and xenos terror.’

  ‘Then I trust you to put it right for me, my son,’ said Guilliman. He looked out of the window. ‘This war will never end. We can only fight for brief moments of peace. Once Mortarion is driven off, there will be other foes. The tyranids, the necrons, the t’au. I must leave you and the others to deal with them here. I have a galaxy to save.’

  The primarch was unusually troubled. He stared off into space, then seemed to come back into himself.

  ‘Ultramar is nearly ours,’ Guilliman said briskly. ‘Not before time. This war has been a dangerous distraction from the Indomitus Crusade, and although I have tried to spare most of its assets from my duties here, relying instead upon forces gathered from the surrounding sectors, several battle groups of Fleet Primus are still occupied in Ultramar, where they could be liberating other worlds.’

  ‘It is all the same fight,’ said Felix. ‘Chaos must be defeated wherever it i
s found. This is an important war zone.’

  ‘It is,’ agreed Guilliman. ‘Ultramar is important for all sorts of reasons. But we must take politics into account, and politics do not speak the same language as logic. There are those who use my desire to save Ultramar as a weapon against me, naming it a sign of favouritism for my own people. Terra seethes with discontent still. The agents of the enemy are everywhere. The greed of humanity is not restricted to the dead league of Sotha, but is found wherever mankind goes. Avarice clouds men’s vision, it makes them blind to anything but the short term and their own gain.

  ‘The Council Exterra does what it can to refute these claims, but its members are not the High Lords, and even its existence is another fact used to prove my desire to become Emperor. The politicians in the Imperial Palace call them lapdogs. There has been rebellion on Terra while we fight for survival,’ he said, referring to a plot of several deposed and new High Lords to usurp him. Guilliman glanced at his gene-son. ‘I have limited time to save the Imperium from the external threats of Chaos and xenos before the whole rotten structure implodes. I must be triumphant here. The heart must be torn from Mortarion’s efforts. The crossing of the Attilan Gap to Imperium Nihilus cannot be delayed any longer. Abaddon pushes hard at the Nachmund Gauntlet and around the remains of the Cadian Gate. Marneus Calgar must return to Vigilus soon. I have been here too long. No doubt this is part of the Warmaster’s plan. He strikes at what I hold dear to distract me, and I am ashamed to say it has worked.’

  ‘Do you believe Mortarion is working with the Warmaster?’

  Guilliman let out a bark of mirthless laughter. ‘He does no bidding but his own. This is not the Heresy. There is no central command, only the whim of madness. No, Mortarion only wishes to humble me. He will care nothing for Abaddon, but his actions play into other plans. He is unaware that by following his supposedly indomitable will he is merely the puppet of others, like all the followers of Chaos. He has been manipulated into this. I need a quick solution. I need to know what is happening on Iax before we attack, and I need to know now. I am in some peril. I cannot go in blindly.’

  ‘Is that why you are going to speak with the inquisitor’s slave?’

  Guilliman’s mouth set. ‘We come to the crux of our disagreement. You disapprove. That is why I knew you would come.’

  ‘Why did you not tell me?’

  ‘Because in all honesty, my son, I anticipated this, and realised it would be easier to handle your anger in this situation, rather than having you arrive with the slave. I calculated that you might attempt to destroy it, there and then, at terrible risk to yourself, in order to save me from making a mistake.’

  ‘You are making a mistake.’

  ‘That is not impossible. If it calms you, the slave’s destruction is only deferred. It will die.’

  ‘But not before you use it. It is a thing of the enemy, my lord. Inquisitor Tjejren went too far. He is a dangerous radical who has betrayed his office.’

  ‘His actions enrage you, and yet he eluded you,’ said Guilliman. Felix felt the sting of criticism.

  ‘I regret to say he is still at large,’ he admitted, ashamed.

  ‘No matter,’ said Guilliman. ‘Tjejren was a servant of the Emperor once. He still believes he is. He may yet serve.’

  ‘I fear he is beyond hope. Everything touched by the warp is corrupted.’

  Guilliman looked down at him. ‘Then we are all corrupt, for in the existence of our souls, a fragment of the warp is lodged in us all.’ He shifted. The Armour of Fate growled.

  ‘Have you seen the slave?’ said Felix harshly. ‘Have you seen what Tjejren did to this interrogator yet?’

  ‘No, I admit I have not,’ said the primarch. ‘I have many matters to occupy me.’

  ‘Then you may speak differently once you have, my lord. Remo and his parasite will bring you nothing but evil,’ said Felix.

  ‘You underestimate the strength of will of the Emperor’s servants. I have been told Interrogator Remo clings on. He is in thrall to the thing occupying him, but he desires to perform one last service, and I trust that will see the creature remain truthful while it is interrogated. It is an opportunity, Felix. Understand that I do not undertake this course of action lightly. Only a thing of the warp can tell us what occurs on Iax. It teeters on the brink. One push may see it turned to a daemon world, or sucked into the empyr­ean entirely, and it may take many other worlds with it, no matter how much damage we have done to Mortarion’s plans. This is an opportunity that I cannot pass up. It will save lives by the million. It may save my life. I cannot win this war if I am dead.’

  Felix was silent a moment.

  ‘You swear you will kill him afterwards?’ said Felix. ‘My lord, forgive my presumption, but if you witnessed what it did to the kill-team sent to apprehend Tjejren…’ Felix let his sentence trail off. He had no heart to put his memories into words.

  ‘It will be a mercy to the interrogator, if nothing else.’ Guilliman moved away from the window. ‘Do you wish to attend the questioning, now that you are here? Perhaps if you see the interrogation and execution it will put your mind at ease. I would have no differences come between us.’

  ‘You will kill him afterwards?’ Felix asked again.

  ‘I swear,’ said Guilliman. ‘Do not be afraid, it can do no harm. The Concilia Psykana hold it, under Brother-Captain Ionan Grud’s guidance.’

  ‘The Grey Knight?’ Felix asked. ‘He who bested Typhus aboard Galatan before Parmenio?’

  ‘The same. He is strong, and incorruptible. I say who better than the Knights of Titan to chain a daemon?’

  Chapter Two

  DAEMONHOST

  The Space Marine Librarius occupied the tower behind the palace, and it was to here that Guilliman and Felix went next, going by swift lifters and private ways until they were hidden in halls of adamantium far from the ship’s hull. Heavily armoured, only the vulnerable reactor was more protected than the Librarius’ inner wards, and they needed to be.

  Most capital ships belonging to the Adeptus Astartes carried replications in miniature of the various subdomains found in their fortress monasteries: forge, reclusiam, apothecarion and the rest, each one necessary for Space Marine forces to act independently for protracted periods. One section of such ships was always set aside for psykers, and the needs of the esoteric battles they fought. The Imperium faced many differing forms of super­natural foe. Warded cells and ritual sites were as necessary as guns and tanks to its most elite armies.

  Where the Librarius of the Macragge’s Honour differed from those on other Space Marine ships was only partly due to scale – though it was undoubtedly larger than most. The chief difference was in its purpose. Rather than the mystics of one Chapter, the Librarius of the Macragge’s Honour played host to Librarians of many brotherhoods, and others who were not of the Adeptus Astartes, for there were unaugmented human psykers present there, and a few who were not human at all. Whatever their origin, the occupants were mighty in the warp, and the chiefs of this group made up Guilliman’s Concilia Psykana: his council of seers. Once, a long time ago, Guilliman would have thought the idea of his council ridiculous – something from children’s tales, a cabal of wizards to guide a king. Now, he found them indispensable.

  The membership of the Concilia Psykana was fluid, as members came and went on to other missions or fell in battle. There were never more than a hundred, and never fewer than a dozen. Though the Concilia changed with time, of their number there were a handful Guilliman had come to rely on especially, and they were a valuable constant to him in his war against the gods.

  Guilliman and Felix arrived at a cell made entirely of iron rusted to the colour of old blood. It was small, hardly fifty feet across, beehive shaped, taller than it was wide, with warding runes cut into the metal in such number that there was not a smooth surface in the room. The single caged lumen at the ape
x of the ceiling was barely sufficient to illuminate the place. Rings of tarnished silver lay on the floor, the staples holding them in place sunk deep into the deck. Narrow observation slits ran all around the room at a Space Marine’s head height. Black glass glinted deep in them, and their frames and transoms were made of sanctified lead, also cast with many sigils. It was a place of extreme spiritual danger, best looked on from outside, but Guilliman and Felix went within.

  ‘We must see what we are to see first-hand,’ said Guilliman, before they passed the threshold.

  The thick door squealed aside. Guilliman put on his helm, told Felix to do the same, then bent to go through. He did not pause once inside, but crossed the floor and took up a place by the far wall. Felix, on the other hand, hesitated. He smelled blood. He sensed suffering. There was a wide iris hatch in the floor, and from it emanated a foreboding of dread so intense it made the hair on his neck prickle.

  ‘This is a wicked place,’ said Felix.

  ‘There are degrees of wickedness,’ Guilliman replied. His machine-projected voice seemed robbed of power, dulled by malice, a bell with its clapper muffled. ‘In a perfect universe, I would not have anything to do with this, but the universe we have been given is not perfect, and so some wickednesses must serve, dangerous though they be. Enter, Felix, no harm will come to you, I promise.’

  Reluctantly, Felix joined the primarch, and turned to face the door. A Space Marine Epistolary and two Codiciers came in. One, Felix knew as Donas Maxim of the Aurora Chapter, the others he did not. They were helmed, their eye-lenses already glowing with gathering psychic power. They arranged themselves equidistantly, their silence adding a sense of dolefulness to the evil permeating the metal.

  The next person to come in would have surprised some in the fleet, for he was not a Space Marine, nor was he even human, but an aeldari, garbed in the black robes and mystic gear of a farseer of Ulthwé. His tall, curved helm nearly touched the doorway top as he entered.