Pharos Page 25

  ‘I do not know to whom you refer.’

  ‘Be thankful you do not. This great struggle of yours is but the latest skirmish in a war that has gone on since time began. Look fully upon me! See how my essence reworks the flesh of your comrade at my will. Am I not majestic? Am I not terrible?’ Berenon shuffled from the wall and stood tall. Then he crouched and wagged a finger at Skraivok. ‘But there are worse things in this lifeless realm of yours than a humble interloper such as myself.’

  ‘Our objective is to take the Pharos,’ said Skraivok. ‘I will not profit from its destruction.’

  ‘What I speak of will come in years beyond reckoning. It shall be yours while you need it. Think, Gendor Skraivok! Your own leader despises you. He has promised reward to the one who leads him within. You cannot project your forms of caged energy through the realm of thought. The entropic light of the beacon interferes with your technology, it prevents your passage through the warp. I can bypass it.’

  ‘You speak of the Atramentar?’

  The creature snarled. When it was done, half of Berenon’s face remained locked in the expression, the other half sagged awfully. There was a palpable heat coming from the Librarian. Wisps of steam leaked out around his collar seal, and the veins on his neck stood out. ‘Yes, yes – dead things, dead meat, clothed in dead metal. This reality is so crude. I shall guide your feeble manipulations of dead matter through the realm of the empyrean.’

  ‘I know only a little of your kind. Legends and old stories. What I do know tells me not to trust you.’

  ‘Hearken, and you shall know more! I saw Nostramo. I have walked the dark dreams of the children who cowered there. We are always alongside you, whether you deny us or not, and only ever a nightmare away.’

  ‘The legends are true, and the old stories seem not to be stories,’ said Skraivok, ignoring the daemon’s hyperbole. ‘If there is any wisdom in these… fairytales, all of them are clear on one point. There is always a cost for the favours of beings such as yourself.’

  ‘Naturally,’ said the creature. ‘Service without payment is slavery. I am slave of no man, nor ever shall be.’ Berenon’s body jerked as its puppeteer pulled on unseen strings. His back arched so hard that were he not wearing his full plate, his back would have surely broken.

  ‘Tell me your price, daemon, or begone. What do you want? My soul? A vial of child’s tears?’

  ‘Nothing so esoteric. I desire… ingress,’ hissed the daemon. ‘Let me through, and we shall work towards each other’s aims. Deny me, and in four days you shall be dead. My kind are not bound by time. I have seen it, Gendor Skraivok, as surely as I see you here.’

  ‘Krukesh,’ said Skraivok.

  ‘Frustrated by your failures and provoked by the one called Gesh, he will make an example of you, in the singular manner of your Legion. He will fail here, driven off by the Avenging Son of the thrice-cursed Emperor of Terra. He is coming already. The storm will slow him, but it is only a matter of time. Seek within yourself, you know it is true. Your primarch insists that all is fated. Here is a chance to find out if that is true. I give you a choice. Glory and life or…’ Red tears of blood ran from its daemonic eyes. ‘…death.’

  They stared at each other, the daemon and the man. As much as Skraivok wanted to unload the clip of his bolter into the possessed Berenon and send his passenger screaming back into the hell of the warp, he did not.

  The pressure in Skraivok’s head only grew, making it hard to think. ‘You swear there is no trick to this?’

  ‘None. You desire to survive. You desire power. You cannot have the second without the first, and I will bring you both. In return, you will help me. I am a soldier of the ages, and I offer a warrior’s bargain. That is all.’

  Skraivok hesitated. He had never thought to be faced with a choice such as this.

  Smoke boiled out of the Librarian’s neck seal now. Perspiration ran down that grey flesh. His jaw gaped and popped, and now the daemon’s voice came out of it, and the piscine teeth remained. ‘Quickly! I cannot manifest without your permission. This one swore itself to you, body and soul, when it joined your company. Emptily meant, perhaps, but sufficient for our purposes here!’

  Skraivok gave a quick, reluctant nod. It was enough for the daemon.

  Berenon’s face twisted into a terrible smile, too wide for his face, too wide for any face. A foul-smelling wind blew through Skraivok’s quarters. His flags and papers fluttered. The coals in the braziers flared brightly, the perfume they gave out swamped by a feculent reek.

  ‘Yesss,’ said the daemon. ‘Yesssssss!’

  Berenon’s body rose into the air. Lightning, a mockery of the Night Lords livery perhaps, leapt all over his armour, earthing into the metal floor of the room, growing thicker and more frequent until the Librarian appeared to be standing atop a block of writhing electricity.

  Berenon’s eyes slid closed. Skraivok shielded his own against the radiance, his sensitive retinas seared by the glare as flesh warped under the daemon’s influence.

  Then the Librarian’s eyes opened again, and this time Berenon looked out. His eyes were wild with a terror Skraivok had never thought to see in a Space Marine.

  Skraivok squinted through his fingers, against the blinding light.

  ‘Brother?’

  ‘Damn you, Skraivok!’ howled the Librarian. ‘What have you done? What have you done?’ Berenon struggled to bring his arms up, but they were chained by lightning. He gritted his teeth, his own teeth again, against the strain. ‘Damn you!’

  There was a rending groan, the sound of metal under terrible pressure. Berenon ceased struggling and began to scream, his head thrashing backward and forward. The wind grew stronger, the stink it carried became unbearable.

  With a wet crack, Berenon’s battleplate imploded. Gore fountained from the cracks in his armour and pooled upon the floor as it crumpled into a twisted spike of metal. The lightning dimmed, and the wrecked armour descended, festooned with rags of flesh and gut. The bent tip of it passed into the fluids on the floor, carrying on downward as if there were nothing beneath.

  The metal slid away. A few last arcs of lightning skittered over the stilling surface, dancing over lumps of pulped meat.

  Skraivok approached, gun ready. Blood and slop were all that was left of his Librarian.

  A perfect circle of ripples formed on the blood pool. A round shape emerged. Blood streamed off it so thickly Skraivok could only tell it was the pommel of a sword when the quillons broke the surface. Gore ran down it, but the pool was not replenished – rather it shrank, as if the sword took the mess into itself as it flowed down the metal.

  A blade a metre and a half long emerged, tipped with a broad point. The remains of Berenon were sucked away until nothing was left upon the floor. Then the blood ceased to flow along the surface, and the sword became clean. Gobbets of blood and metal flew from all over the room. They defied the stinking gale, splashed gently onto the blade and were drawn within. Soon there was no sign of what had happened, save a few dents and nicks in the walls and ceiling.

  The sword hovered in the air. The blade was of dark steel, the grip bound in black leather, while the fittings of the hilt were a dull brass. It was an altogether plain weapon.

  Tomorrow, at noon, the way will be opened. The daemon’s voice boomed around the room so loudly Skraivok nearly lost his grip on his weapon with the pain. Noon!

  The wind dropped suddenly. The blade fell from the air to the floor with a clatter that rang on for far too long. When it faded a semblance of normalcy returned.

  Skraivok shook his head. His ears screamed, his vision trailed the bright afterimages of Berenon’s demise, but all was calm. A few of his papers were on the floor. Nothing was amiss. The noises of the camp crept back in from outside.

  He went to the sword. Without thinking, he bent to pick it up. As his hand neared the grip he caugh
t an eager whispering far removed from the room. His hair prickled and a chill ran up his spine.

  He withdrew his hand sharply. A resolution took hold of him. He would never, ever bear that sword.

  Skraivok deactivated the stasis field on one of his trophy cabinets. The weapon within had been won at cost in the service of Terra: a master-crafted kirvani blade that had belonged to their crown prince. Once, it had meant a great deal to him, but no longer. He cast it onto the floor without a thought and called in his servitors. Let them take the daemon sword. They did so with no ill effect, and placed it in the vacant display.

  With relief Skraivok snapped on the stasis field.

  And then, as his wits gathered themselves and his unease retreated, he had a very fine idea indeed.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Emperor’s flight

  Angel of light

  Ave Imperator

  A day had passed since Guilliman’s departure. No word came back through the Ruinstorm. The Pharos field was absent from the chapel. As if in sorrow, Macragge’s weather turned sombre, clouds hanging heavy and grey over the Hera’s Crown mountains. Autumn was nearly done, and the first taste of winter came on the winds out of the east.

  Upon them, too, came an angel and an emperor. Sanguinius clove the sky on broad wings of brilliant white. Roboute Guilliman had suggested with his characteristic lack of charm that Sanguinius not undertake any risky venture; flying was high on that list.

  Sanguinius had nodded at the time, feigning agreement while simultaneously having every intention of ignoring his brother’s suggestion. Roboute might as well command the eagle to stay earthbound. Flying was as easy as walking to Sanguinius, not that any of the others could appreciate that; easier now, sometimes. When the weather was damp like this his legs ached, the only physical legacy of his horrendous wounding at the hands of the warp-fiend Ka’bandha.

  The emotional hurt went far deeper.

  He closed his eyes and soared upon the buffeting updraughts of winds diverted skyward by the mountains. Squalls of sky-trapped rain pattered from his feathers. One mighty stroke sent him in a long loop towards the peak of Andromache. The severe beauty of Hera’s Falls pouring down from the stone fields were hidden by streamers of white and grey, but he preferred this weather, and not only because it concealed him from his brother-appointed guardians. The switching wind made the flight a challenge, and the chill rain on his flesh was exhilarating.

  He wore a simple ceremonial breastplate of gold-plated plasteel cast in the semblance of his muscled torso, and so the rain freely soaked through his robes. A long sword was belted at his side. He could fly with his full battleplate, but it tired him. Besides, to be encased in ceramite and plasteel reminded him of his straitened circumstances; battleplate became a warrior’s prison while he could not go to war. In the air he knew a freedom none could take away from him, and he preferred to enjoy it to the full.

  Stop flying, indeed! Sanguinius held Roboute in the highest regard. He might even love him, he supposed, in that distant way of long separated brothers, but Roboute had an infuriating faith in organisation above all else, as if all his plans and charts and minutely detailed observations could prepare him for anything. There was a reason their father had chosen Horus over Guilliman, to His own ruination.

  Sanguinius thought this even as he knew that he had been higher in their father’s order of choice than Roboute. He could not countenance himself in the role. To think of that, he must consider the possibilities other powers had entertained for him.

  The lies and temptations of Kyriss enraged him still. He shouted into the wind, his fists clenched. ‘Never, never, never!’ Beating his wings, he pushed himself higher and higher, far above the clouds and the top of the mountains, up to the uppermost envelope of atmospheric flight. He surfed on roaring jetstreams. The rain froze on his skin. The air there was thin enough to suffocate a normal human being, but the spareness of it gave the Angel only a thrilling burn in his lungs. He looked down upon the curve of Guilliman’s world, cold and as well organised as the mind of its master. On the horizon the atmosphere became so attenuated he should have been able to see the stars and the blackness of space.

  There instead was the redness of the storm.

  A now familiar image flashed across his mind at the sight of it. His brother Horus, bloated with unnatural power, standing triumphant over his broken corpse…

  The vision had come to him dozens of times and was always the same, starting with his brother’s changed features, the point of view panning inexorably downwards towards his own dead face. He could not turn away, nor could he halt the sorrow that came with it. This was not his own sight he saw, but through the eyes of someone else. By that time, he was already dead.

  How many times he had had the vision, he no longer recalled. The first time he had dismissed it as a bad dream, and so it was. Now it pounded at him with the relentlessness of a truth yet to be.

  An angel’s death.

  The vision changed. He had seen many different ends during the last months. This one was becoming dominant, clearer and more real as the others faded into obscurity.

  This was how he would die. He was increasingly sure of it.

  And so shall die Guilliman’s dream of a new Imperium…

  His mood spoiled, Sanguinius ceased labouring upwards. Any further and the air would not support his wings. Spreading them wide, he plummeted, back towards the peaks protruding from the streaming grey cloud.

  He pierced the weather front out over the sea, and Magna Macragge Civitas opened like a child’s holobook, an ordered display of lights picking out straight roads and stern, martial buildings in the gloomy evening. He flew over the capital, smiling to himself at the thought of panicked gunnery crews rushing to deactivate their weapons lest they kill their emperor. An unworthy jape, but it took the edge from his frustration. He wheeled around the city, heading up the mountainsides again, intending a further circuit, but the vox-band on his wrist vibrated. He glanced at the heart-shaped ruby set into the metal. It pulsed redly, a specific rhythm that identified the caller.

  Azkaellon.

  Sanguinius folded his wings like a stooping hawk, plummeting earthwards at a tremendous rate. The grey faces of the mountains blurred past him. The crowded buildings of the Fortress of Hera swelled, the statuary and decoration upon the ridges and roof peaks presenting themselves in ranks of stone spears.

  He headed for the ramparts near the Sacristy of the Librarius, the blue figures standing guard upon it growing rapidly from miniature proportions to those of warrior godlings.

  Sanguinius spread his wings to their fullest extent. The snap of arrested air stopped his descent with delicious suddenness. With a lightness that seemed impossible, Sanguinius alighted upon the battlement. Cool air spilled from his wings as they beat a final time and folded upon his back. The Master of Angels shook his feathers out as he stepped forward. They ruffled, smoothing themselves with the twinges of minute muscles.

  Sanguinius shivered. Flight aside, the resettling of his plumage was among the most pleasurable sensations he knew.

  When he had been a boy he had preened his wings with his hands, clearing them of dirt and reknitting the barbels together. It had helped him to think, and to come to terms with what he was. Now he had others to perform this duty for him, honoured servants of his Legion. Several of these appeared between the Ultramarines lining the rampart, anticipating his arrival as always. With reverent hands they smoothed down those few feathers that had not settled of their own accord. His pinions took care of themselves, being so large and connected directly to his flight muscles, but his coverts often required attention. He flicked out his wings a little again to allow his servants better access. The feathers arranged to their satisfaction, they draped decorative chains over the closed wrists of his wings.

  He waved them away, and they vanished with bows back into the half-light w
hence they came.

  Sanguinius strode past the motionless guardians of Hera, Invictarus Suzereins, the most highly honoured of Guilliman’s warriors. The Space Marines were locked rigidly as statues. The banners they held in their hands cracked with a life the legionaries seemed not to possess. A cohort of Praecental Guard jogged past. They snapped crisp salutes to him, their perfect lockstep unaffected. Sanguinius returned the gesture with as much respect as he could muster, masking his irritation behind a solemn face. Guilliman’s realm was large by any standard, but it was but a part of a much greater whole, and the circumscribed borders of Imperium Secundus pressed in on him as surely as the walls of a doll’s house. Having his brother’s soldiers crowding his every step worsened the sense of entrapment.

  The Plaza of Attendance was empty of supplicants at this hour. There Guilliman’s warriors gave way to the Sanguinary Guard of the Blood Angels Legion, golden statues replacing the blue.

  The plaza was a vast stepped pit in the centre of the fortress. The doors to his throne complex were at the far side. More arena than public space, the plaza seemed to him. Despite his stature, he felt small as he crossed it.

  This insignificance was in marked contrast to the way it usually made him feel. By day the plaza intensified the claustrophia Sanguinius suffered in his position as emperor. During the early days of Imperium Secundus, legionaries from all Legions clamoured for his attention. That had settled down as the shattered Legions joined the patchwork ranks of Imperium Secundus’ armies. Once the shock of the betrayal was over, they had set themselves upon the business of revenge. They were warriors, after all. But the places of the legionaries had been taken by mortal men and women from all over Guilliman’s realm. The business of government was all-consuming, whether one was a figurehead or not. How Roboute managed to administer such a sprawling collection of worlds without losing his temper every ten minutes was beyond him. At those times the plaza was crammed, it seemed very small indeed.