Dark Imperium: Godblight

by Guy Haley

  Felix understood his gene-father’s rage. He had felt similarly on visiting the worlds of the Eastern Tetra, and seeing the damage xenos had inflicted. What the Death Guard had done to Iax was worse.

  The planet endured a living death. From the distant years of Felix’s childhood right to the present day, Iax had had a reputation as one of Ultramar’s most beautiful worlds, and it had only become more precious since its chief rival, Prandium, had been rendered barren by Hive Fleet Behemoth. Iax had stood for so long as an example of humanity’s best, a world where mankind and nature lived in harmony. It was no bauble, no cultivated indulgence, but a productive world in its own right, an example to Ultramar and the Imperium beyond.

  Mortarion had rotted it through and through.

  Clouds blanketed both hemispheres in a drab, cirrhotic yellow. Iax had been known for its crystal skies, so this seemed a particular insult. Where the clouds broke, abused landscapes showed: seas choked with overgrowths of algae, forests decayed, marshlands spilling from their limits and gone to stagnant blackness, and its many waterways flowing with colourful pollutants and dammed by dead vegetation, so they overtopped their banks and spread illness over the land.

  Iax’s biomes had been sculpted by human hands. There were no true wilderness areas upon it, but every inch was gardened so skilfully it was said even the aeldari admired the work. From the least ecological niche the most was coaxed. Crops grew among ancient trees. Livestock lived alongside native beasts. Seas teemed with life that was exactingly husbanded, so that were mankind to depart, rather than being richer, Iax would have been poorer in life and diversity. Now everything was spoiled. Felix imagined seashores piled with skeletons, and woods where dying trees leaned upon the dead for support.

  Atmosphere went from attenuated to resistant. The ship shook with friction and compression burn. The view below was obscured for a moment by bright fire, but the approach brought with it the sense of illness, as if the occupants neared the hospices of mercy where the aged went for peaceful death, and found there only indignity.

  The ship braked. Sulphur-brown clouds streamed past the viewports. As a ship descended into a gravity well, one expected increasing violence, but the atmosphere was lethargic, and Guilliman’s shuttle passed through something more akin to a dead, plastek-clogged sea than air.

  They pierced the lower cloud layer, and finally saw their destination coming up to greet them. Hundreds of horns of hard limestone upthrust from the land. First Landing occupied the largest; the others ran away from the city in lines of crocodilian teeth. Miles away, linked by tree-lined highways, the modest void port occupied multiple spires planed down to take landing grounds. The rest were less touched, those far out seemingly natural, though gun emplacements topped many, and on those nearest to the city were suburbs where large mansions occupied sharp-cut terraces. Throughout, garden and forest predominated. A hint of beauty lingered beneath the dying trees, and in the arrangements of the gardens now jaundiced with disease.

  Whereas the other teeth were paragons of the horticulturalists’ art, First Landing was the opus of sculptors, the stone pierced and carved through, as complex as a scrimshawed tusk. Giant walls girt it. A huge barbican protected its only gate, which opened up onto a wide plain crossed by a multi-lane highway. Between the grand hab-terraces and the three-tiered city walls there were more gardens. All were dead, and what must normally have been a floral display was reduced to a sludgy hue.

  Fires burned in the void port. A half-hearted exchange of fire was going on between the city walls and landing mounds.

  A palace of rare splendour occupied the summit of First Landing, though this too made room for orbital defence batteries carefully hidden amid its architecture. They passed over, circled about. Felix looked into deep streets cut cleverly into the rock, and saw the inhabitants moving. But they, their draught beasts and even their cybernetic drones seemed torpid: not yet sick, but sickening.

  Energy barriers along the walls registered in Felix’s auto-senses, but the city had no void shields, which he did not regret, for the touch of the warp on his soul would have been nigh unbearable in that diseased place. The ship slowed further, coming to a halt over a small landing pad within the palace precincts. It turned a quarter, achieved the best fit, and set down. Engines fired and died. The ship gave a last shake. Chimes announced their arrival. Only then did Guilliman speak.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘We will disembark immediately, and bring comfort to these people. This planet suffers by my brother’s hand. I will make what amends I can.’

  He said no more, but took his helmet under his arm and walked out of the stateroom, down the ramp and onto the languishing world of Iax.

  Shadows from the highest minarets lay across the barque. The air was heavy and hazed, as if with pollen. Felix’s helm gave a warning chime and his retinal displays alerted him to high concentrations of toxins, non-native fungal spores and viral fragments. The rest was smoke particulates.

  Guilliman had gone down the ramp first, accompanied by four Victrix Guard, led by Sicarius. Felix followed after, Sergeant Cominus at his back. A number of other dignitaries and high officials from Fleet Primus accompanied them, most notably Fesrain Odos, Adiutor Principe to Isaiah Khestrin, and Maldovar Colquan, Stratarchis Tribune Actuarius, with a squad of his Adeptus Custodes. Felix was uneasy in their presence. He imagined what would occur should they learn of the interrogation of the daemonhost.

  Nothing good, he thought. The images as he remembered the event were unusually vivid in his mind. He put them to down to contamination of his psyche, so ignored them as best he could.

  There appeared to have been a breakdown in the normal social order. The gardens around the palace were crammed with every manner of people, on cots under canvas shades. Despite the gulfs in station between them, they were all diseased. A line of Iaxian Ultramarian Auxilia held back those that could walk, and who had gathered to see the regent, with shock poles, clearing a path from the ship to the palace entrance, but still the crowd’s hands reached through the gaps. They were desperate, risking a jolt of pain to call for Guilliman’s miraculous touch.

  Guilliman stopped in the centre of the path.

  ‘Hear me!’ he said, and his commanding voice quieted the crowd. ‘I have no power as you think to drive your ailments from you. But I am here to help. We will remove Mortarion from this world, and return it to its former beauty. You have my word on that.’

  Having spoken, he moved on, and their moaning pleas rose again. They smelled of sickness. Some were close to the end, dragging themselves from their deathbeds in the last hope of a cure. Felix was forced to harden his heart. He had seen faces like these on every planet in the star realm. Whether diseased, or starved, or mad with grief. He could not save them all. He could not save even a few of them.

  ‘My lord, please! A blessing, a blessing!’ a man cried at the tetrarch, but he marched onward, his eyes forward.

  The shouts continued as Guilliman was greeted at the palace gates. Planetary Governor Costalis had come out himself for the meeting, though he too had a fever’s pallor, and an aide waited discreetly near the back with a wheelchair.

  ‘My lord,’ he said, and struggled down to one knee. ‘The honour I have in seeing you transcends the capabilities of human speech to convey. I can only give my humblest apologies…’ His soliloquy broke into a rasping cough. He gasped in air. ‘My humblest apologies for the poor state in which you find this most beautiful of all your worlds.’

  ‘Governor Costalis, please, rise,’ said Guilliman. When the man struggled to get to his feet, Guilliman himself bent to help him up. He looked into the man’s watery eyes. ‘By Terra, man, you should be with the medicae. Is that your chair? You, come forward.’

  Costalis gave a weary smile. ‘By that measure, we all should,’ he said. ‘Iax is a sick world.’

  ‘Then I insist you at least rest before we take counsel
. There is a battle to be finished in the heavens, and landings to be undertaken.’ Guilliman put him firmly in the wheelchair.

  Costalis nodded. ‘Then please, follow me, I shall show you to the command suite for the auxilia here. It is yours, everything here is yours. I hope you will find my stewardship satisfactory.’

  ‘It is a long time since I came to Iax,’ said Guilliman. ‘Even steeped in misery, it holds its beauty. Fear not, Costalis, this shall pass, as all sicknesses do.’

  Costalis nodded miserably. ‘I pray to your father nightly it is so.’ He coughed again. A man in the uniform of the medicae dabbed at his mouth. His handkerchief came away red. Costalis sagged. ‘My seneschal… My seneschal shall show you the way. I apologise once…’

  ‘There is no need,’ said Guilliman. ‘Back to your sickbed. The Emperor commands it.’ Uniformed men came forward, and asked the party to follow them. Costalis was wheeled away.

  ‘He’s a dead man,’ said Colquan quietly to Felix. ‘He has seen the last of his days.’

  Felix could not disagree. Costalis’ head was slumped on his chest, his strength used up.

  ‘Emperor aid us all,’ Felix murmured.

  They were taken through corridors and staircases whose walls were carved with fretwork intended to let through the pleasant climes of Iax, but now admitting noxious smog and foetid winds. The smell of the planet’s ailing was slight, but pervasive, and insidious, until after a short while it became unbearable, and Felix sealed his helmet against it. They looked out through hazy air, past the city, onto agricolae where crops stained with blights drooped into the dirt.

  Presently, they passed a long set of windows looking down upon a large market square. A crowd gathered in an open area surrounded by boarded-up stalls. From there came a familiar voice raised high in prayer. The murmured responses of the crowd followed every phrase. It was a new prayer, one that praised Guilliman, and not only the Emperor.

  ‘I know that voice,’ said Guilliman. He stopped. Their guides looked up at him in puzzlement. Only one, a man with the rank insignia of an auxilia general, dared address the primarch. Although the primarch was looking out over the square, the general kept his eyeline above Guilliman’s head when he addressed him, frightened he might capture his gaze.

  ‘It is your militant-apostolic, my lord. We assumed you had ordered him to drive out the traitors in our void port. He landed half a day before you did. When he came into the city, he asked for the largest place of gathering. We showed him to the market square and he began to preach. The people are enraptured.’ The man approved.

  ‘I can see,’ said Guilliman neutrally.

  ‘We thank you for sending him. It is good to be reminded that the Emperor is with us in these dark times.’

  ‘It is,’ said Guilliman, and his words sounded dangerous. He caught the man’s eyes deliberately. A shudder passed down the officer’s spine at the contact, but he held, and looked back. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘General Tawik Ilios, my lord,’ he said.

  ‘And what is your role here?’

  ‘I am general of the city defence regiment,’ he said. ‘It is my honour to be asked to escort you.’

  Guilliman looked down at Frater Mathieu.

  ‘Adiutor Odos, go to the command suite and establish contact with Khestrin. Have our staff begin preparations for assumption of command. Contact my equerry, Marius, and have him come down from the Macragge’s Honour, along with divisio three of Primus’ command staff. Colquan, send some of your Custodians with him. Make sure he is safe.’

  ‘We are within friendly territory,’ Ilios said.

  ‘Nowhere is friendly territory any more,’ said Guilliman. ‘Colquan, Odos, about it.’

  ‘As you command, regent,’ said Colquan. He split a pair of Custodians from his squad.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ Odos said and moved to obey, the golden giants following him.

  ‘I can help them, if you wish,’ said Felix.

  ‘You are not my equerry any longer, Felix, leave Odos to his work,’ said Guilliman. ‘You will accompany me and the tribune to the market square. I wish to hear what Mathieu has to say. You should hear it too.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  A PRAYER FOR THE PRIMARCH

  Ilios had his men clear the way down a covered stair to the market square, so Guilliman would not be seen. When he went down, he remained concealed from the crowd under the stair’s exit. Colquan and Felix flanked him. The Victrix Guard spread out, Sicarius alert as ever for threats to his lord. In any case, it appeared to Felix that Guilliman would have had to step into the square’s middle and announce himself, the crowd were so enraptured.

  ‘What now?’ Felix asked.

  ‘We listen,’ said Guilliman.

  The party could not see Mathieu from where they stood, but they saw the faces of the crowd listening to him, their eyes alight with devotion and hope.

  ‘…for is it not true that the Emperor came to the human race, and saved us from the tyranny of the xenos and the warlord?’ Mathieu said. ‘Did He not set out upon His Great Crusade and drive back the persecutors of mankind, and when challenged by the heresy of the Arch-Devil Horus did He not cast him down, and send him along with his eight fiends into the fiery pits of damnation? Even mortally injured, did He not take upon Himself the burdens of humanity’s suffering, and ascend to the Golden Throne, where He bears the ills of this universe for us, and watches us, and keeps alight the great beacon that binds together His domains? Do His armies not strive tirelessly to ensure all the children of Terra can live and die in His light? Does He not protect us from the triple horror of the xenos, the mutant and the witch?’

  ‘Yes! Yes!’ said a voice in the crowd. ‘He does!’ said another, and ‘He is our master!’ These protestations of faith were mingled with the sounds of weeping, and coughing, and other signs of sickness, but neither hunger nor disease could dampen the crowd’s fervour. Felix could almost feel it, coalescing over them into something solid.

  ‘These are the truths of the faith,’ Mathieu went on. ‘They have always been so. For ten thousand years the Emperor has watched over us, and protected us.’

  ‘The Emperor protects!’ This shout came from several quarters.

  ‘Yes, my brothers and sisters, the Emperor protects. He protects us because it is His will that humanity survives. Now He sends His last son back to us! What more proof do we need? And yet, not all believe! There are disaffected people in this Imperium of ours.’

  Bitter laughter at that.

  ‘Yes, yes, I know!’ said Mathieu, sharing the crowd’s irony. ‘They say we are doomed, that these are the end times. They say that we have failed. That the Emperor has failed. This is blasphemy.’

  ‘Burn them!’ shouted someone, to a chorus of ‘Yes!’ and ‘Bring them to the fire!’

  ‘No, my brothers, and my sisters. We must be merciful. It has been a long time since the Emperor walked among us. Is it any surprise that doubt has worked its way into men’s hearts? Best convince them. Be the bearers of good news, for there is a new truth.’ He paused dramatically. ‘The days of the Emperor’s silence are coming to an end. The Emperor is at work among us, yes, even now!’

  Now the crowd let out murmurs of disbelief, and of hope. Several calls of ‘Praise be!’ set off a ripple of the same.

  ‘Praise be!’

  ‘A new Great Crusade cleanses the stars, led by Guilliman, His only living son, returned to us by the Emperor’s will and the Emperor’s mercy. Think you that the Emperor has been idle all this time upon His Throne? I tell you all, He has not! He has a plan. He has a plan for you, and you, and you!’

  Felix imagined him pointing at members of the crowd. A child shouted.

  ‘Yes, even you, little one, especially you,’ Mathieu said joyously.

  Laughter passed through the crowd. Felix marvelled. Mathieu had per
formed an orbital combat drop, fought a battle, made his way across this dying land and was now delivering a sermon. Whatever faults his faith had, it made him strong.

  ‘Through us, He works His will. I have seen this with my own eyes. Through Guilliman, His holy son, He sets His plan in motion.’

  Colquan took an abrupt step forward. ‘This has gone on long enough.’

  Guilliman put a hand on the Custodian’s pauldron. ‘Let him speak.’

  ‘Can you hear what he is saying?’

  ‘I can, and I wish to hear the rest. It is no more and no worse than what a hundred thousand preachers are saying at this very moment all across the Imperium. I shall rebut his opinion when he is done.’

  ‘You plot a dangerous course, my lord,’ said Colquan, but stepped back. ‘He does not heed the warning you gave him. You must act.’

  ‘I will not, and I cannot. So we will let him finish.’

  Felix sent Colquan a request for private conversation.

  ‘What has occurred between them?’

  ‘You remember the day Guilliman spoke with Mathieu, after the Battle of Hecatone?’

  ‘I do. I was set to watch outside. I remember he left the room in a towering rage. Not long after, I went to the east. He never told me what happened.’

  ‘The primarch had a conversation with the good frater,’ said Colquan. ‘I will not betray Lord Guilliman’s confidence, but I shall say that he was warned, and that he does not appear to have heeded that warning. They have not spoken since. Mathieu has gathered a horde of like-minded fanatics to himself, including the Cadian Four Thousand and Twenty-First Armoured Regiment. These are awkward developments. Mathieu all but preaches Guilliman’s divinity, and Guilliman can do nothing to stop it. It is ironic, but his dilemma has deepened my trust of the primarch.’

  ‘You do not trust him?’ said Felix.

  ‘Felix, I know you are not a naive man. My disapproval of seeing a primarch at the head of a crusade is known, and I have done nothing to hide it, though I serve him as well as I can. But lately, I find my attitude shifting. He believes in what he is doing, and if he finds himself on the path to the Throne, it will not be willingly taken. His belief in the old truths is unshakeable.’