Pharos Read online

  ‘Your talk does not deceive me.’

  ‘I am not deceiving you!’ yelled Curze. ‘Listen to me, you pompous fowl! Only you, only you of all them, Sanguinius, only you can understand–’

  Sanguinius interrupted him. ‘You are here for a reason, Curze, what is it? Your sons assail the Pharos world. You–’

  ‘My sons?’ said Curze quickly. Curze’s moods flickered rapidly, the candle of his sanity forever on the verge of extinguishment. A change came over him and he was suddenly thoughtful, his comments of moments ago forgotten. ‘Really?’ He tapped his chin with a ragged nail. ‘How very interesting.’

  ‘You feign ignorance. Speak truth to me in the spirit of honesty you demanded.’

  ‘My ignorance is genuine. I truly have no idea what they are doing. I abandoned them at Thramas. I thought them all dead – that was my intention, in any case.’ He snickered to himself. ‘But I am quite impressed. They start a war on their own! Clever boys, I thought they had lost their way completely. Yes. Murderers and fiends all, I hate them. But perhaps they will have their uses, after all. This rather puts a different light on things. If I cannot control them, and they will not die, then I may choose to direct them once more.’

  ‘The faults of your sons are the faults of the father.’

  ‘Oh, how very apt. As we exhibit the faults of our own. My children are not like yours, so noble, so brave, so beautiful!’ He cupped his face in his hands. ‘Do they know what poison you have put inside them? Don’t be so po-faced. I know the thirst you hide. Such things I saw in the warp. One of Father’s little friends tried to kill me with a daemon. It didn’t work, but it carried me into the empyrean. I had quite the view while I was there.’

  ‘Nothing can survive the warp.’

  ‘I did. Am I nothing? You hurt my feelings. I survived and now I know everything. I know how it will end.’ A sly look came over him. ‘And I know what Father really intended. Not that it matters, the galaxy will burn forever. There are things coming that make Horus’ little insurrection seem positively benign.’

  ‘You are lying.’

  Curze waggled his head. ‘I do lie, that is very true, quite often. I am so sorry about that, call it a personal failing. But I do not lie this time. I am telling the truth. Because, you see, I have no reason not to tell the truth.’

  There was a noise at the door, then a shoving. Muffled shouting came from outside.

  ‘Aha, as I foresaw, the shining sons of the Angel come.’ Curze picked Azkaellon up. His spare frame hid enormous strength, and he carried the Blood Angel like a doll. ‘Time to go, time to finish our little chat. Now I come to the meat of it. Tell me, brother – I saw a great vision of you at Signus, I saw what happened there. I heard the howls of the neverborn as you threw them back into the warp.’

  ‘That was before you came here.’

  ‘There is no time, fool! The warp showed me that, everything happens at once. Don’t you see? That is how we see! Time is a book to be read at will. Tell me, why did you not turn? You could have snuffed Horus out like a candle. They offered you the galaxy as a plaything.’

  ‘You overstate their offer. I will not be a slave.’

  ‘You are a slave. A slave to Father’s will, and a slave to fate. Our only choice is what manner of slavery we shall embrace, and even that choice is an illusion.’

  ‘There is always a choice.’

  ‘There never is a choice,’ spat Curze. ‘Everything goes back to the beginning, round and round and round and round and round, clack clack clack, all the little cogs, turning turning turning turning.’

  The hammering from outside changed. Heavy combat weapons were being employed against the door, a bone-shaking crunching that boomed loudly with every dent put into the metal. ‘Do you not think it should have been you? Should Father have chosen you as Warmaster, do you think?’

  ‘What?’ said Sanguinius incredulously.

  ‘It’s a fair question!’ protested Curze. ‘Roboute sees fit to declare you emperor! Do you not think the Emperor could not have seen fit to declare you Warmaster? You see, although I see your actions before you do, our shared abilities makes reading your intentions so very hard. Your fate is your fate, not mine, and I am genuinely curious. To tell you the truth,’ he laughed apologetically, ‘it is killing me. I have to know.’

  ‘It should not have been me,’ said Sanguinius. ‘I am not perfect. I am not worthy.’

  Curze burst out laughing, so hard he could not control himself. His rank breath choked the room. ‘I am sorry! I am sorry, that is so marvellous. If you were not worthy, then what about Horus?’ He laughed again.

  ‘I would have been tested as he has been tested. I am glad I did not have to risk failure.’

  ‘Then prove it. Prove your loyalty to dear Father.’ Curze wiped tears of mirth from his face. They left tracks in the filth. ‘Kill me. I won’t stop you. Let it be a test. I say that I shall die by Father’s command.’

  ‘Father is dead.’

  Curze frowned for a moment, confusion flickering across his gaunt features. ‘My future cannot be changed, for that is the future, and the future is as dead as the past. You say otherwise. If my conviction is incorrect then you can change it right now. Slay me. I will not hinder you.’

  Sanguinius hefted his sword. For a moment they stared at each other. Curze stood with his arms wide open. The Night Haunter tensed in anticipation. ‘Do it! Run me through with your sword, you coward! Do what Vulkan, the Lion and dull Roboute could not! Kill the monster and prove your worth!’

  Sanguinius ran at his brother, his sword raised. A look of joy crossed Curze’s face.

  The Angel’s sword descended in a blurring arc, and stopped a hand’s breadth from the crown of Curze’s head. The steel hummed at its sudden arresting.

  Something had stayed Sanguinius’ hand. He stepped back, then reversed and sheathed his weapon.

  Curze’s eyes snapped open. His face twisted with fury and despair.

  ‘I will not do it,’ said Sanguinius. ‘Letting you live is punishment enough.’

  ‘Do not lie to me!’ screamed Curze. ‘This is not about punishment, I thought we were being honest with each other.’

  ‘There is always hope, brother. Even for you.’

  ‘Hope is an empty dream,’ said Curze honestly. The unhealthy fervour left his face, taking the madness from his eyes. Without the energy of his broken mind, he seemed diminished and sad. He ran a dirty finger along the pinions of Sanguinius’ wing, a madman touching something he believed too wonderful to be real. The limb twitched angrily, and Curze snatched his hand back. ‘I sincerely wish there were hope, but that I cannot believe.’

  Sanguinius held out his hand to his brother. ‘You are a shadow of what you should have been, Konrad. In spite of everything, I pity you. Come with me. It is not too late. We can heal you, and you might be greater.’

  Curze’s face crumpled, and the spark of insanity ignited in him again. ‘Pity? I do not need your pity! Sanguinius, Sanguinius, fairest of us all… When will you learn?’

  The pounding on the door grew louder. The metal buckled. Curze glanced at it, then back at the Angel. He backed away, held up Azkaellon by the arm and grinned.

  ‘No matter how hard we wish otherwise, in the end, there is only chaos…’

  He raised his other hand. He was nearing the outer wall closest to the doorway.

  ‘You promised you would not harm him.’

  ‘We are like Father in so many ways.’ His eyes glinted. ‘Just like Him, I lied to you…’

  ‘No!’ screamed Sanguinius.

  Curze raised his hand and sliced through Azkaellon’s arm above the elbow. The Sanguinary Guard captain fell, but Curze caught him around his back. Blood sprayed upwards, catching Curze full in the face. He leaned into it, letting it run over him, eyes bright with ecstasy.

 
All this Sanguinius saw through a prism of horror. Time slowed. Every drop of Azkaellon’s blood that hit the floor was an executioner’s drumbeat.

  Shame gripped him as his mouth watered.

  The world was turned inside out.

  The dead man’s switch wired into Azkaellon’s gauntlet tripped, and the statue of the Emperor in the antechamber exploded, blasting the doors inward and annihilating the Sanguinary Guard clamouring beside it. Rubble and body parts skittered across the marble. Sanguinius was sent flying backwards by the shockwave, slamming him into his throne.

  The wall of the throne room collapsed outwards, bringing down part of the ceiling. Blood and powdered mortar stained the flagstones. Ruined masonry thundered down the ramparts of the Fortress of Hera and into the city beneath.

  Curze was unharmed. By chance or design, he had found a place untouched by the blast. He stood by the breached wall, a cold wind from outside stirring his stinking cloak.

  He looked back at his brother, Azkaellon’s mutilated body in his arms. The two primarchs locked eyes, and a flash of profound understanding passed between them. Curze’s sorrow and rage flooded into Sanguinius, and the Angel fell to his knees before the throne.

  ‘How could I have known?’ he gasped. ‘Konrad!’

  Azkaellon’s arm had been severed at the elbow, but a thick clot of Larraman cells scabbed over the stump. Such a wound was grievous for a legionary, but not fatal. Azkaellon stirred and cried out as Curze lifted him over his head.

  ‘You do not have to do this,’ said Sanguinius.

  ‘If you believe that, then my visit has been a waste,’ said Curze gently, almost tenderly. And then he changed again. ‘Everything goes back to the beginning!’ he hissed.

  Then, with a whip-crack lunge, he tossed Azkaellon from the ramparts.

  He lifted skyward, sent high by Curze’s wiry strength and seeming to hang a moment over the city lights of Magna Macragge Civitas. Then he plummeted from view.

  But Sanguinius was already moving, wings spreading, leaping out into the rain and the dark and diving down the soaring ramparts, desperate to catch his beloved son. His feathered pinions beating desperately, he drove himself groundwards.

  His hands closed around Azkaellon’s greave only metres above the tops of the tallest buildings. Sanguinius sent himself up into a long swooping glide as the ground rushed at them, the change in direction tearing at his primarch muscles. He hauled Azkaellon up into his arms, and circled about to the fortress.

  By the time he returned to the throne room, Curze was nowhere to be seen.

  The Night Haunter, from Dantioch’s sketchbook

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The mountain chained

  The festival of flesh

  Unclean illumination

  Of all the weapons in their armoury, pain was the Night Lords’ most favoured, and they did not stint in its application to Barabas Dantioch. Recognising they could not remove his armour without killing him, they had applied their talents to his neural interfacing, attacking his nervous system through its connection to his battleplate.

  Seeing the Emperor’s gifts turned to such unpleasant ends saddened Dantioch. That these brothers at one remove had fallen hurt him far more than their wilful cruelty ever could. They had ever been a vicious Legion, but Dantioch understood their methods, and their exigency. Futhermore, he could not blame them for what they were. Their ways were intended by the Emperor, as much as his own Legion’s expertise had been.

  But if they did not have a choice in what they were, they did over how to be, and they had chosen badly.

  For the seventh time that day Dantioch was dragged before the wooden chair at the centre of the tuning stage and commanded to kneel before Krukesh the Pale. Painfully, he got to his knees. His attempt to shift a little to take the strain from his damaged joints was stopped by his captors, who thrust down on his shoulders with their hands.

  The fortress peak of the Emperor’s Watch had fallen. Night Lords landed upon the promontory unopposed. Primary Location Alpha bustled with warriors in midnight blue. Several Techmarines were meddling with the Mechanicum’s machinery. Off to one side, an Apothecary and Techmarine huddled over the dead Magos Carantine. They held large data-slates whose trailing wires went into Carantine’s exposed skull. They were stripping the magos’ datacore. Death was no release from the Night Lords’ brutal interrogations.

  Seven members of Polux’s garrison had been captured. They had been stripped of their battleplate. Blood leaking around their interface ports spoke to the Night Lords’ lack of care. Six were fastened, naked, to X-shaped crosses set up around the room, but were as yet unharmed. The seventh was upon the floor, his ankles and wrists bound to each other with great shackles that cut into his skin, his head kept on the ground by the boot at his neck.

  ‘This machine – are you ready to tell me how it functions?’ said Krukesh testily.

  Barabas remained stonily silent. Every part of his body hurt. But Dantioch was no stranger to agony. Since the Schadenhold a surfeit of pain was his to enjoy every day, what was a little more? His breathing was more ragged than ever, but he prevailed, and took satisfaction in Krukesh’s frustration at his refusal to talk.

  Krukesh stared at the warsmith. He breathed out loudly and drummed his fingers on the chair’s arms. ‘What am I going to do with you? You really must speak with me, Barabas. I have ascertained the use of this device. It is a beacon, that is obvious. I can safely assume that it is visible in the warp as well as real space. I will discover how it works soon enough. In saving me a few hours, you can preserve the lives of these noble warriors who fought so hard to defend you, when you yourself could not.’ Krukesh’s black eyes flicked over Dantioch’s crippled body.

  Dantioch said nothing.

  ‘This is not only a beacon, that much I have deduced,’ he went on. ‘It must also be useful in other ways. I suspect that it also functions as a communications device. How else does the Lord of Macragge organise his petty kingdom? I see no other way for him to do so. The disturbance in the warp is such that astrotelepathy is somewhat useless, vox, indeed any electromagnetic device, is far too slow and prone to disruption by the physical manifestation of the storm. So, if I am to follow my reasoning to its logical conclusion, my hypo­thesis must be that it has a warp effect. Perhaps it allows untroubled use of your astropaths? Is there a carrying beam for psychic communication? Am I close? No?’ Krukesh leaned forward encouragingly. He threw up his hands when Dantioch looked away.

  ‘Well then, say nothing. I shall rely on my wit. I see no astropaths here, and my own psykers – those that are still more or less sane – tell me that this place is a psychic blank as much as a material one. Is it the machine itself that allows communication? And if it can do all these marvellous things, then perhaps it allows a man to look upon what he wishes? How does it work? Tell me!’

  ‘I will not,’ said Dantioch.

  Krukesh sighed in irritation. ‘Very well.’ He nodded to the Atramentar stood beside the bound Space Marine. The warrior lifted his boot off the man’s neck, then stamped down hard on his head. The Space Marine’s head popped with a wet crack.

  ‘Shall we try again? I think you understand the rules of this game. I ask you a question, you tell me what I want to hear, or one of your lickspittle Emperor-lovers dies. How does it work?’

  ‘You will burn in the Emperor’s wrath. You and all of your murderers. The Avenging Son will destroy you all.’

  Krukesh stood, and backhanded the warsmith across the face. Dantioch’s head snapped round. His mask was dented by the blow and pushed against his face uncomfortably. Dantioch spat blood.

  ‘You will talk, Dantioch.’ He drew his bolt pistol and shot one of the garrison strung up at the edge of the room in the heart.

  ‘Kill them all you wish, kill me,’ said Dantioch. ‘We die knowing we serve the truth and the man who would sav
e the human race. You demonstrate your weakness, siding with the Warmaster for personal gain. Where is your honour?’

  ‘These legionaries died cleanly, the others will not,’ warned Krukesh. He walked around the warsmith. ‘We have become adept at bringing pain to Legiones Astartes physiology, such pain as will break even an Ultramarine. And if they do not talk, your human assistants surely will.’

  ‘If you can find them.’

  ‘Oh, we will. This mountain’s caverns are extensive, not infinite. Such pain we shall show them, they will be eager to tell us your secrets. You have had a taste, but we have been generous with you. Come now! Your entire Legion has joined the Warmaster’s cause, how can you sit there in glorious isolation? You are a relic, clinging to the falsehoods of the past! See your position for the foolishness it is, and side with us.’

  ‘If your truth is self-evident, then why are you resorting to torture?’

  ‘Fear is a weapon, useful as any other.’

  ‘I know no fear,’ said Dantioch.

  ‘We all know fear. It is merely suppressed. Feeble doctrine that can be overcome. You will see fear in the eyes of these warriors again if you do not aid me!’ Krukesh said. ‘Show me the centre of the little town here. There are things there that may convince you to speak more readily.’

  ‘No,’ said Dantioch.

  Krukesh hit him again. Spots whirled in front of Dantioch’s eyes, and he felt faint, but he forced himself to kneel upright, and stare defiantly into Krukesh’s eyes.

  At a gesture from Krukesh, a Night Lord plunged a thin blade into an Ultramarine’s eye and plucked it out. The warrior gritted his teeth at the pain, but did not cry out.

  ‘Show me the city!’