by Guy Haley
Outside, it remained the same day it had been when Rotigus entered. A day in the garden was a billion wet, hot Seventhdays compressed. It rotted the soul with its tedium.
This did not make him happy either.
Finally, he knocked upon a tree that pleased him. His eyebrows arched, and he dashed to the next, and the next, knocking and listening, listening and knocking, until he reached a majestic gnarlwood, so huge and fulsome with decay it teetered on the brink of collapse. Most of its branches were bare of leaves, and from them dangled flaccid birth sacs black and hard with age, within them the half-formed bones of daemons who had returned to the garden but never won back Grandfather’s approval, and so had truly died. Only one living sac hung from the sole living branch, and this held out with the promise of a dunking over a small mere.
Rotigus did not need to knock upon the tree. He had found his rival.
‘Ku’Gath!’ he said. The bloated birthing sac reacted to his call, and twitched and rolled, shaking the gnarlwood tree. Rotigus leant his staff against the trunk and went to the sac, placing his fat, wet hands on the slick tissues, stroking until the movement inside calmed. ‘Shh, shh, my old enemy. Be calm. Now is not your time to emerge again into the world. We all must wait on Grandfather when we are foolish enough to get ourselves killed, is that not so?’
The outline of an antlered head, prenatal and unformed, pushed out into the rubbery surface, and revolved out of sight.
‘There there,’ Rotigus said, and sat down by the mere. ‘I thought I’d just come to tell you that you may not be getting out for a little while. In fact,’ Rotigus gave a small, embarrassed chortle, ‘Grandfather is a little upset with you.’ He pulled a thoughtful face, and his pursed lips let out a spill of maggots. ‘Actually, he’s a lot upset. You see, not only did you ignore his command to withdraw from the Anathema’s realm to fight the Changer, you failed to achieve your own goals.’ He laughed, and maggots fell in a torrent from his maw. ‘I mean that would be bad enough, if that selfsame error had not allowed the son of the Anathema to wave His blade about in the garden, and scorch it, and so Grandfather, and so me, and so you. You are, to put it somewhat mildly, in a degree of serious trouble, my friend.’
The sac jerked with Ku’Gath’s misery.
Rotigus allowed himself a satisfied sigh. Now this was fun.
‘You may be thinking, how did I avoid censure? Why am I still strolling about, jolly as you like? Well, I’ll tell you, it’s why I’m here, in fact. So are you ready?’ Rotigus looked at the sac. It did not move, but he went on anyway. ‘It’s simple, my friend. My plans are better. My plans,’ he whispered theatrically from behind a raised hand, ‘are bigger. You sought to snatch Ultramar into the garden. Too modest! I have my eyes on a much, much more majestic prize. Imagine, if your limited intellect can encompass it, not just this disgustingly well-ordered corner of reality brought within the Grandfather’s fold, but the whole of the Imperium, in all its rotting glory! This reality is falling apart. The powers fight over the carcass. Now is not the time to be meek, but bold, for the most daring scavenger shall have the greater share.’ He leaned forward, so his great head was reflected in the water. ‘Let me show you how this is going to happen.’
He waved a hand over the mere. The water shimmered, and an image took shape there, overlaid on Rotigus’ diseased features. It showed a man in a dark room reading a small book. It was obvious from his body language that he was not enjoying what he learned.
Rotigus dabbled his fingers in the water. Pale things fled into the peaty murk. The image of the man wavered.
‘This is Fabian Guelphrain. He is one of the primarch’s most senior ferreters of facts. He is a poker-about-in-the-dust. A hoarder of forgotten dates. He is supposed to construct true histories. Remember that detail. In the book, which I led him to, is the only account of an empire deliberately unremembered. I thought it time to remind everyone about it, and the true scale of the oh-so-perfect Roboute Guilliman’s ambitions. What this Fabian reads in there will infect him like a disease, he will not be able to divest himself of the knowledge. From this point on, he will never be free of doubt – it will fester, and that doubt will shake an empire.’
He chuckled, and stroked the tentacles of his left arm with his right.
‘The rot is setting in, like a crack that lets in moisture or bad air, and with it comes the burgeoning of new life. An idea is as dangerous as the most potent virus.’ Rotigus reached up and patted the sac. ‘I came to tell you this, so you can think about my superiority while you wait to be reborn. Now I have done so, I shall leave. I have work to do. Unlike you.’ He giggled.
Rotigus got up, the labour of lifting his flab causing him to grunt.
‘Oh, and one other thing,’ he said, as if he had forgotten, which of course he had not. ‘When we next meet, you may address me as first in Nurgle’s favour. That honour is no longer yours.’ He dusted flakes of bark from his legs, smearing lichen into his slimes, and picked up his rod from the side of the tree. ‘If I may be so bold as to offer you one piece of advice, Ku’Gath, it is that you are too limited in your thinking. You are obsessed with plague when the universe offers so many more paths to entropy.’
He whispered loudly, right against the sac.
‘You forget that there is more than one form of corruption.’
Rotigus gave a cheery wave and departed, leaving Ku’Gath’s lonely cocoon dangling from its tree. The mists closed around it, and within, the half-formed Plaguefather began his wait for Nurgle’s forgiveness.
He was going to be waiting a very long time.
Chapter Forty-Three
MATTERS FOR THE MAGOS
Shortly before Felix was due to depart, the primarch sent the Tetrarch of Vespator a command to attend him. Felix dropped everything, as one must when called upon by the most powerful man in the galaxy. He answered Guilliman’s summons on an out-of-the-way observation deck in his palace. The place was empty of the bustle of diplomats and Imperial officials that had greeted him when he’d arrived, several weeks ago now. Felix liked it that way. He had a feeling Guilliman did too.
He found the primarch unarmoured, dressed in a simple uniform, looking down on Iax. The toxic clouds that had swathed the planet were receding. It was not natural that they had dispersed so quickly, but their provenance was not of this reality, and once the touch of the warp had loosened, Iax’s natural cycles reasserted themselves. Felix did not allow himself to feel hope because of this, because Iax was ruined. The continents were all sludgy browns hardly distinguishable from the seas. There were a few places where the usual hues of the planet clung on, in the deepest oceans, in the most hidden valleys and points furthest from the cauldron’s site. A few others leapt out from the devastation, and Felix wondered what had sheltered them, for only some variant of warp magic would have kept them pure. These spots were small, and dispersed. There were larger areas of lesser contamination, but lesser in this case was purely relative. There was a blackened patch around where First Landing had been. There was a matching field of devastation at Hythia, out of sight on the far side of Iax, where the cauldron had polluted space and time. But both these wounds had been inflicted by the Imperial fleet.
‘You came quickly, Decimus,’ said Guilliman. ‘I thank you. I have so much to do, and so little time to do it in. Every second saved is a gift to me.’
‘You order, I obey, my lord Guilliman.’
‘I think it’s about time you call me Roboute, don’t you?’ said Guilliman. He did not take his eyes off the planet, but stood bathed in its sickly shine. ‘You have served me well. You are a man of rare qualities. No one can stand alone. We need comrades.’ Guilliman looked at him sidelong. ‘We need friends.’
‘I am honoured that you bestow this privilege upon me, my lord–’
Guilliman raised an eyebrow.
‘Roboute,’ Felix said. Using the name felt like a transg
ression, and for some reason he had a flash of his childhood, and disobeying his tutors.
‘It is no privilege to be counted among the friends of a primarch, trust me, Decimus,’ said Guilliman. ‘But is it not the case that we do not choose our friends, but that they choose us?’
‘I do not know. I have no friends, only brothers,’ said Felix.
‘Then consider this an act of friendship,’ said Guilliman. He looked down upon Iax with a sorrowful face. ‘I called you here to bid you farewell. I will be departing Ultramar before the year is out, and you and I shall not see each other before I do. It may be that we never meet again.’
‘Then you will still make the crossing, despite what is happening at the Pariah Nexus and at the Cadian Gate?’
‘I have to,’ Guilliman said. ‘The forces of Abaddon are held at bay, at great cost in blood. The necron threat is temporarily contained. They gain no ground, but lose none either. Imperium Sanctus is in peril, but it is no longer on the brink. Now Imperium Nihilus must be saved. We face two great foes. I can beat neither of them with only half an empire.’
Felix considered carefully whether to voice his next thought before he did. ‘If you can find any consolation in my words, I see the burden you bear, and it saddens me you must bear it. If there is anything I can do to help, then I shall.’
‘You already help, Decimus,’ said Guilliman. ‘You and countless others like you. You are heroes in an age of horror. Without you, I could do nothing. I have felt and still feel alone.’ He clasped his hands behind his back. ‘I wish my brothers would return. The other primarchs are not all accounted for, but I cannot afford such hope. It strays into fantasy. The Logos Historica Verita has looked into many legends, and I can only conclude that my brothers’ disappearances are heroic myths. They are doubtless all dead. The prime theoretical suggests that I am the last of the Emperor’s sons and will remain so. But I realise that I am not alone as long as I have the likes of you.
‘Calgar is bound for Vigilus again. The campaign there will drag on for some time, but the Nachmund Gauntlet must still be in Imperial hands when I complete my traversal of Nihilus. My fleet lords will continue the crusade on this side of the Cicatrix Maledictum. In the meantime, I leave Ultramar to the trust of you and the other tetrarchs. At your command are the fleets and armies of this realm, and ten Chapters of Space Marines who may heed your calls for aid. Be ready, Decimus, because what will be required of you is not only consolidation. After I return to Macragge, I will announce a decree to the houses of the rogue traders to seek out new worlds for Ultramar, places where the good governance we perform here and the noble culture it supports might be transplanted. It is too dangerous now to have the best of humanity located in one place. Mortarion’s hate makes that all too apparent.
‘There are a hundred billion stars in this galaxy, untold numbers of worlds that are suitable for human life, even more than can be made so, and we cling to this thin spread of a million planets. No wonder we are doomed. Our ambition has perished. We lost what made us human. When this crusade is over, there will need to be a time of rebuilding, then a period of conquest. Only through expansion can the Imperium survive.’
‘If I may be forthright, my lord… Roboute, I look at Iax now and fear we may not succeed. What use is victory if the price is ruination?’
Guilliman nodded. ‘We have won a campaign. We have won this war, but what will be left? Iax will take centuries to recover, and then I doubt it will ever regain the beauty for which it was known. We cannot sustain this endless struggle against Chaos. It cannot be fought. It must be contained, or destroyed.’
‘How can it be contained, my lord?’ said Felix, forgetting his permission for intimacy.
‘This is a puzzle of cosmic scale and nigh intractable complexity, yet all the pieces exist, I am sure. The necrons and the aeldari know things we do not, about the nature of the warp, and the Emperor. Somewhere, amid the excesses of them all, a solution can be found.’ Guilliman’s eyes were losing their focus on the moment. He looked off into the void, gaze fixed on horizons only his primarch’s mind could perceive.
‘Cawl,’ said Felix. ‘You are talking about Cawl. Is that what he has been doing, trying to find a solution?’
‘I chose you well. Yes, Cawl. He believes the work of the necrons holds the key. I have received a message from him, the first in some time. I go to speak with his proxy when we are done here. Is there anything you wish to say to him? I understand he is peculiarly fond of you.’
‘Nothing,’ said Felix, who found the idea of Cawl’s affection repellent.
Guilliman nodded again, distant once more. He could be like that sometimes, merely accepting what was given him without recognition, his mind too busy with eternal affairs to engage too closely with human niceties, even the withered social conventions upheld by the Adeptus Astartes. The contrast with his earlier warmth was striking.
‘What are you going to discuss with him?’ Felix asked.
‘Many things. But foremost I shall tell him that he has been gone too long. I will tell him I wish to see him before we depart for Imperium Nihilus. That will not be a request, it will be an order. If by any chance you see him first, please pass that on.’
‘I will try.’ Felix paused again. ‘Can you order Cawl to do anything, Roboute?’
Guilliman made a noise of weary amusement. ‘We shall have to see, shan’t we?’
He turned to Felix and reached out. Felix took his massive hand.
‘Farewell, tetrarch,’ said Guilliman. ‘Fight well, rule better. I leave a great number of my people in your hands. Try to save them. And, if you can, remember this – although the aeldari seer helped plot the course to our victory, our plan would have failed had I not had a little faith. Perhaps we all should have.’
Felix nodded, and the disquiet he had felt on Iax at Guilliman’s beliefs resurfaced. He struggled to hide it. ‘For the Emperor. I wish you good fortune on the far side of the Rift.’
‘It will be needed, and I thank you for it. We march for Macragge,’ said Guilliman.
‘No, my lord,’ said Felix. ‘I march not for Macragge, but for you.’
Guilliman took the secure lifter down from his palace into the bowels of the ship where the Cawl Inferior lurked. He underwent the multiple security protocols automatically. He was deep in thought. The needs of war in material space seemed increasingly insignificant, and although he understood this, he felt poorly equipped to formulate a strategy against the powers of the warp. They were deep into the realms of the abstruse, the domain of psykers, sorcerers and hypertechnologists, and he was none of those things.
Guilliman arrived to find the armoured doors to the Cawl Inferior already open, where Guidus Losenti met him for once on the threshold of the machine. The astropath looked older and frailer every time Guilliman saw him. His files stated that he was a little over forty standard Terran years, but he appeared twice that age. The sureness with which he used to move was failing, and he trembled a little as he greeted Guilliman.
‘Master-Astropath Losenti,’ Guilliman said.
‘Lord commander,’ said Losenti. ‘I felt a great weight lifted from the empyrean. I assume you have been successful?’
‘Mortarion has been driven from Ultramar. His necrotic network is dispersed,’ Guilliman said. ‘But for enemy hold-outs, the Plague War is over.’
‘That is good, that is good,’ said Losenti. His lips were slack, and a string of drool trickled from the corner of his mouth. The astropath wiped at it hurriedly with his sleeve. ‘I am sorry, my lord.’
‘Your duty weighs on you?’
‘These months in Ultramar have been difficult,’ Losenti admitted.
‘They are done,’ said Guilliman. ‘Are you well, master astropath?’
‘I persist,’ said Losenti, forcing himself a little more upright and putting strength into his voice. ‘My
lord, I shall activate the machine for you. It will not be the last time. Not yet.’ He smiled. The orbs of jet he had in place of eyes glinted in his sockets. ‘You offered me mercy not so long ago. I see your concern. I am still not ready to accept it.’
Guilliman nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said.
A look of relief passed over Losenti’s features. ‘Thank you. If you please, my lord.’ He stepped aside so Guilliman could enter the chamber.
They underwent the awakening of the Cawl Inferior. Although stripped of all the Adeptus Mechanicus’ usual cant and ritual, the procedure still had the sense of an invocation. When Losenti called out the coded sequence he had received from Cawl, and the machine came online, it was as if some elder being rushed in to mundane reality from a place obscure to human knowledge.
Losenti retreated more quickly than was usual. The look of strain on his face was greater. Guilliman regretted his suffering. Another individual life used up for the sake of humanity. He could not bear to calculate how many more sacrifices there must be.
The machine concluded its activation. The severed heads in their containment tanks did their gruesome dance. The alien circuits flared into life. Psychic pressure built, and died, and the racket of the machines beneath the floor followed.
Finally, the Cawl Inferior was ready.
‘Roboute,’ it said. ‘How very, very nice to see you.’
‘Cawl Inferior, let it be known now that I have little time for your impudence.’
‘A busy man, as always,’ said the machine. It used one of Cawl’s many voices, and today seemed to have settled on a sly, insinuating personality. ‘Very well. My master, Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl, sends this communique and hopes it finds you in good health. If this message has been activated, then you have been successful and have saved Ultramar from the designs of your brother. He therefore extends his congratulations to you.’
