by Darius Hinks
Suphys returned the bow. ‘There is no need to thank me, Lord Xhartekh. It is true that not many access the heart of Nekheb-Sur so quickly, but you were personally summoned by his majesty. The phaeron requested you by name and spoke highly of your lineage and your order. His majesty believes that only a cryptek of the Still-heart Conclave can unleash the power of the orchestrion.’
Power flooded through Xhartekh’s circuitry at the mention of the relic. He stepped closer to the herald, forgetting protocol in his excitement. ‘The orchestrion? Is that the war engine I am here to repair? I had my suspicions but I hardly dared to hope. It is a miracle that you have uncovered such an ancient relic. We thought it was destroyed during the War in Heaven. Such a device could transform the fortunes of your dynasty.’
The herald nodded. ‘His majesty has lost faith in his own crypteks. They have been promising him success for decades, ever since we emerged from the Great Sleep in fact, but they have proved unequal to the task.’ Suphys shook his head. ‘His majesty even gave them specific instructions and guidance, explaining how they should awaken the blade, but they lacked the wit to complete this simple task. Most of them have had to be executed for their treason and incompetence.’
Xhartekh pitied the local crypteks. He could well imagine the misguided, distracting instructions their regent would have given them. It was rarely possible to complete one’s work with the ‘assistance’ of unschooled helpers.
‘I and my conclave have researched similar devices, Lord Suphys. I am confident that I can assist in the activation of the orchestrion and help House Khenisi regain its rightful place in the galaxy. If we can utilise the device to its full capabilities, you may well be able to halt the trans-dimensional rift before it reaches you.’
Lord Suphys paused. ‘Rift? I do not think you…’ He cut his words short and shook his head. ‘No matter. All will be explained soon.’ He lowered his voice to a grinding hum, the vowels edged with a faint crackle of distortion. ‘His majesty has deigned to address you personally, Lord Xhartekh.’ The fire in his eye sockets flashed brighter. ‘You are to be admitted to the sixth sepulchre and granted access to the Hall of the Throne.’
Xhartekh bowed again, but after a few seconds of silence he realised something more effusive was expected of him. ‘An unimaginable honour,’ he replied, prostrating himself to the nearest of the scowling statues.
Suphys nodded, then waved for Xhartekh to follow him as he headed back down the smoky colonnade.
At the far end of the chamber they reached a grand portico, built to resemble the angled, elongated design of a necron head. As they approached it, activation runes flashed along the walkway and the skull’s lower jaw slid down through a hole in the floor, creating an opening that flooded the chamber with dazzling light.
Struggling to believe it was finally happening, Xhartekh entered the phaeron’s throne room.
This was the first part of the underground complex to be brightly lit. As Xhartekh strode into the pool of radiance, it took his optic lenses a moment to adjust. When his vision cleared, he saw a vast assemblage gathered to greet him, an entire legion of lychguard standing in motionless ranks, their heads bowed. They might have been statues if not for the electricity crackling around their warscythes. The lines of lychguard were formed into ceremonial blocks, as though on a parade ground, but Xhartekh had no doubt they were ready to cut him down if he did anything to threaten their lord.
The royal tomb was even grander than the rest of the necropolis. There were more statues of the phaeron, but these were too vast for Xhartekh to see beyond their bent knees. He got the impression that, somewhere far above in the perfumed smoke, they were heroically shouldering the weight of a distant ceiling.
The colonnaded walkway continued through the centre of this chamber, bisecting the gleaming ranks of lychguard, its polished black surface flickering with the emerald light of their gauss weapons. At the edge of this central route were lines of musicians: drummers, pounding out a slow, arterial thud.
Most of the walls were too far away for Xhartekh to see, but on the nearest was a mechanical replica of the phaeron’s empire as it must have been before the Great Sleep – an animated frieze rolled slowly across the stone, clusters of jewels and lines of quicksilver set in vast expanses of polished turquoise and diorite, designed to resemble the countless star systems once ruled by the Khenisi Dynasty.
At the far end of the walkway was another piece of statuary, a pitted, copper scarab, hundreds of feet wide. Broad steps led up between its antennae to a circular depression in its thorax, surrounding a dais and the phaeron’s throne.
The phaeron leant forwards on his throne, examining something on a small table. He was surrounded by courtiers and scribes and flanked by two other thrones. Sitting on his left was a ferocious-looking noble whose metal body was painted an incongruous red. Xhartekh presumed she must be the phaeron’s concubine. Unlike the slumped phaeron, she was sitting bolt upright and looked to be rigid with fury, glaring across the heads of the lychguard, directly at Xhartekh. The throne to the right of the phaeron contained an even more unusual sight: half a corpse, propped up by struts, so that it gave the impression of sitting upright even though its body was missing from the waist down. Xhartekh stared, trying to make out the details of this bizarre cadaver. It was partly clad in living, necron metal, but its head and half of its chest were mummified flesh – the rotten corpse of one of their necrontyr forbears, preserved and presented as a living monarch.
Lord Suphys knelt and indicated that Xhartekh and Hattusil should do the same, but after just a few minutes, one of the heralds on the dais called out.
‘His majesty wishes to speak with the cryptek.’
Xhartekh was halfway towards the throne before Lord Suphys had even climbed to his feet. He reached the huge scarab and paused at the bottom of the steps, bowing again.
‘Majesty, I bring you tribute from the lords of the Still-heart Conclave and from my regent, Overlord Osokhor. It is an unimaginable honour to receive a summons from so powerful and wise a monarch. We were delighted to learn that Menkhaz the Unmortal and House Khenisi have survived the Great Sleep and returned to take their rightful place in the galaxy.’
The phaeron continued to stare at the small table in front of him and did not reply. Xhartekh hesitated and glanced back at Hattusil, unsure how to proceed.
‘Approach,’ growled the noble to the left of the king, her tone as furious as her posture.
Xhartekh swept up the steps and knelt before the throne. ‘Majesties, let me introduce myself.’ He waved at the prisms and lenses hung beneath his robes. ‘I am a prismatist of the seventh rank. Amongst all the lords of the Still-heart Conclave, I alone have fully mastered the secrets of phase shifting, anticrepuscular rays, atmospheric refraction, Zemlya effects, tropospheric optics, the true inversion of solar radiation, electroluminescence, sub-parhelic circle theory–’
‘Do you play?’ asked the phaeron.
Xhartekh faltered, thrown by this unexpected greeting. ‘Play, your majesty?’
The phaeron finally looked up from the table. His metal body was clad in the same pristine armour as his lychguard. Every inch of him was inscribed with calligraphy and runes, and like everything else Xhartekh had seen, the phaeron’s metal shell did not carry even the slightest patina of corrosion. Like his necropolis, the phaeron was strangely well preserved, as though his flesh had been forged that very morning. Beneath the armour plates there was perfectly intact circuitry, pulsing with life, unmarred by the ages.
‘Crowns,’ explained the phaeron. His voice, too, was unlike that of any necron Xhartekh had ever met – rather than a thin, distorted scrape, the phaeron’s voice was strong and resonant.
‘Crowns, your majesty?’ Xhartekh had planned this moment for years, but the strangeness of the phaeron had thrown his thoughts into disarray.
The phaeron waved at the tabl
e. There was a small, silver cage on it, and each of the cage’s bars carried rows of emerald spheres, around the size of a knuckle. Each of the gems was engraved with a different hieroglyph. ‘Such games might be too juvenile for an intellect such as yours, but they help me think.’
Xhartekh looked at the other nobles gathered around the throne, wondering if this was a joke, but they were all staring into the middle distance. Only the phaeron’s concubine looked his way, and she seemed more inclined to behead him than advise him. She was clutching an ornate sword and straining forwards in her throne, trembling slightly, as though an invisible harness was the only thing preventing her from slaughtering everyone present.
The phaeron waved a hand and some of the courtiers rushed to respond, dragging a chair from the shadows, placing it next to the table and gesturing for Xhartekh to sit.
‘Simple to learn, but hard to master,’ said the phaeron, looking at the pieces.
Xhartekh surveyed the ornate little cage. It was thousands of years since he had played the game, any game for that matter, and it took him a moment to recall the rules.
The phaeron moved a piece and the frame jerked into life, clicking and snapping into a new shape. It had moved from cube to sphere, and several of the emeralds rolled into new positions on the playing area.
Xhartekh stared at the game for a moment, unable to believe he had been through so much, and waited so long, only to play a child’s game. He clicked one of the gems along a few notches and the cage juddered into a new shape, scattering the pieces into a new configuration.
‘Your majesty,’ said Xhartekh. ‘I believe you require my aid in activating one of your war engines. The orchestrion is an incredible find. It would be an honour to assist you in such–’
The phaeron turned to face the rotten corpse propped in the throne next to his. ‘Clever. See how he attempts to distract me as he makes his move.’
The phaeron spoke to the corpse with such conviction that Xhartekh half expected it to respond. It remained motionless though, a dusty mound of ash and dirt in humanoid form, slumped awkwardly in its throne. The phaeron nodded, as though the corpse had answered him.
‘I believe we have the measure of you, cryptek,’ he said.
Xhartekh’s confusion was quickly turning to anger. ‘Your majesty. Your crown world is dangerously close to the trans-dimensional rift. The orchestrion will be of great use but time is pressing. If you could show me to the device, I can–’
‘Lord Xhartekh,’ said Suphys. ‘Do not look directly on his majesty’s face. It is forbidden.’
Xhartekh looked back at the game. He recalled the rules and saw in an instant how he could complete the puzzle the phaeron had arranged. It would be easy to defeat him.
‘Forgive me, your majesty,’ he said, and moved one of the pieces. It looked as though he could win the game in four moves. Perhaps the phaeron would discuss the orchestrion once the game was over.
The phaeron glanced back at the broken remains in the other throne, then leant over the silver cage, muttering something too low to hear. After a few seconds he moved a gem, clicking it across the metal frame.
This was followed by a quick flurry of moves and, as he had predicted, Xhartekh quickly defeated the phaeron. As he moved the last counter into place, the cage formed the shape of a crown, with all the emeralds on Xhartekh’s side of the frame. He nodded his head in a small bow and said, ‘Your majesty.’
The phaeron stood up slowly. The metal links of his robes clinked against the table as he leant over it, staring at the cage. Then he dropped back into his throne and fell silent.
Xhartekh wondered if he had made a mistake. In his eagerness to finish the game, he had not considered the consequences of beating a phaeron. Menkhaz had probably never been allowed to lose before. He did not look at the phaeron’s face, but he could sense that he was staring at him.
For a few minutes, no one spoke. The only sound was the hum of transformers that came from the various nobles gathered around the thrones, and the slow, constant thud of the drummers that lined the colonnade.
‘Your wisdom grows brighter with every new age,’ said the phaeron. At first Xhartekh thought he was being praised, then he realised Menkhaz was speaking to the corpse. ‘Nobody has ever defeated me at crowns. Clearly, this cryptek has the kind of mind we need.’
‘Yes, your majesty,’ said Xhartekh, even though he was not being addressed directly. ‘I can help. My knowledge of anticrepuscular rays will enable me to discern aspects of the machine your crypteks would be blind to. I studied similar engines in the collections of Trazyn the Infinite. I believe I could activate your weapon.’ He clanged his metal fist against his hollow breastplate, jangling the prisms that covered his chest. ‘With my help you can wage war on the galaxy. House Khenisi will escape the rift and regain its empire.’
‘Wage war on the galaxy? We need to achieve our victory here, on Morsus.’
Menkhaz waved a hand at the silver crown and a courtier strode forwards. The mindless drone recorded the final position of the gaming pieces, then turned on its heel and clanked away. It passed the information to a senior ranking lychguard, who nodded and left the chamber.
Menkhaz walked slowly to the edge of the dais and looked out across the throne room. More courtiers marched from the shadows, carrying the phaeron’s weapons and symbols of office.
Xhartekh was unsure what was expected of him, but the phaeron waved for him to follow, so he hurried to the edge of the dais and stood a few feet behind him.
Menkhaz nodded to one of his servants, who clicked a series of activation runes in the walls of the scarab. There was a hum of electro-magnetics and the friezes on the walls pulsed into a new shape. The galaxy map rolled away and the image focused on a single sphere. Xhartekh recognised the mining towers that covered the surface of Morsus. A green ankh pulsed into life near the planet’s south pole.
‘Nekheb-Sur,’ said the phaeron, his powerful voice ringing out across the throne room.
A collection of alien runes flickered into life, covering almost every other part of the globe. Xhartekh could not read the symbols, but he could recognise the language.
‘Aeldari?’ He had made several studies of Morsus before beginning his journey. There were no such aliens on the crown world. Aeldari had not stepped foot on Morsus for millennia – not since the War in Heaven.
‘Witches are not worthy of so grand an appellation,’ said the phaeron. ‘Call them liars. Call them tricksters.’ The phaeron turned to look at Xhartekh. ‘But rid me of them, cryptek. Ignite the orchestrion and fulfil my destiny. The perfidious ones think they have taken Morsus. They have surrounded the capital and consider themselves victorious. They have no idea they are caught, flies in honey, moments from defeat.’
‘I do not understand, your majesty,’ replied Xhartekh. ‘You mean to turn the orchestrion on the… on the perfidious ones?’
Lord Suphys, standing on the other side of the phaeron, spoke up. ‘May I explain, your majesty?’
The phaeron was staring at the glittering map of Morsus, but he nodded in reply.
‘We mean to use the weapon against the planet itself, Lord Xhartekh,’ explained Suphys. He nodded to one of the servants, who clicked more activation runes.
A red circle pulsed into life on the map, hovering over the ankh that denoted Nekheb-Sur. It looked like a wounded eye. The servant’s hands danced across the map’s controls and the red eye grew, radiating circles of light across the whole map.
‘Detonating the orchestrion here, at the intersection of two fault lines, will disrupt several seismic zones. Our crypteks have predicted that the force of the blast will trigger a global chain of earthquakes and other disasters. And that will only be the beginning. The impact will be magnified a hundredfold by the extradimensional nature of the orchestrion. We believe it will destroy the entire system.’
Calc
ulations whirled through Xhartekh’s mind as he tried to grasp the insanity of the plan. He did not need to imagine the death of Morsus though – it was being illustrated quite clearly on the walls of the chamber.
‘Destroy the system? Is your fleet…?’ He looked at the hundreds of necrons that were gathered in just this single chamber of the necropolis. ‘How will you evacuate an entire crown world?’
‘Evacuate?’ The phaeron turned to face Xhartekh. ‘Why would we leave, cryptek, at the moment of victory, and miss what we worked so hard to bring about?’ He nodded to the pile of rotten meat in the throne beside him. ‘My brother has prophesied this event since before the Great Sleep.’
The phaeron looked up through the clouds of perfumed smoke, gazing on an imagined paradise. ‘Morsus will die, the perfidious ones will die, and we shall be reborn for a second time. We shall ascend, cryptek.’ He tapped his metal chest. ‘Once you have overridden the orchestrion’s security protocols and we have defeated our ancient foe, we will shrug off these crude, temporary bodies and become beings of superlunary power. Our deaths will be a doorway. By defeating those duplicitous aliens I will earn a place beside the Silent King. With him, I and my brother,’ he glanced at the motionless corpse, ‘will form a new Triarch. At the side of the Silent King we will reunite all of the necrontyr into a single, unstoppable force, as it has been foretold.’
A crushing sense of despair pressed down on Xhartekh as he realised how insane the phaeron was. Menkhaz had turned his entire dynasty into a suicide cult. He looked across the royal dais and saw that none of the nobles or courtiers were troubled by their phaeron’s words. They were watching the image on the wall – perhaps the more sentient among them were even picturing the glorious apotheosis they had been promised. They were going to use the most subtle war engine that had ever been designed as a simple bomb. All to kill a foe that did not exist.
