Angron's Monolith - Steve Lyons
Page 6
‘We must ever be alert for the signs of treachery,’ Baeloch countered. ‘Yes, even and especially in those who are closest to us.’
The captain had taken the inquisitor aside for a private conference. He had removed his helmet to reveal a cracked, leathery face shaded with dark stubble. As the company commander, he had access to all vox-frequencies. He might well have been listening to Tarryn and Baeloch through an earpiece.
He kept it to himself if he was; he didn’t spare a glance towards them. However, the chained man, who was standing beside his master with his head bowed, looked up suddenly, as if sensing eyes upon him. Tarryn turned away from him, quickly.
They took their blades to the already-trampled undergrowth.
On their captain’s orders, they hacked, tore and stamped out a square metre of flat ground, into which the inquisitor lowered his weighty frame.
Sitting cross-legged, with the chained man at his shoulder, he produced a small bundle of black cloth from inside his robes. He began to unwrap it, fastidiously. Six Relictors, Tarryn included, craned to see what the cloth contained.
The seventh, however, clapped a hand on Tarryn’s arm and the other on Baeloch’s. ‘A word,’ said Sergeant Divolio.
He led the pair of them away from the others. In the shade of a thin, crooked tree with helical purple leaves, he rounded on them. ‘Clearly,’ he said, ‘you have both seen more than you were meant to see.’
‘Yes, sergeant,’ agreed Tarryn, because it was all he could think of to say.
‘You would have been made privy to these matters in time,’ the sergeant continued. ‘One day, when you were ready to understand.’
Baeloch found his voice. ‘I have served almost forty years in this company.’
‘You will know, then, that we serve the Emperor well.’
‘I know the reason for our penitent crusade,’ insisted Baeloch. ‘I know of the sin that stains our Chapter’s name and for which we must still atone.’
‘Some of us believe it was no sin,’ said Divolio, quietly. He had chosen to keep his helmet on, so Tarryn couldn’t see his expression. Did he look guilty or ashamed of his actions, he wondered? Or was there an implied threat in his eyes?
‘De Marche lost his head over it, all the same. And now what? Another heretic inquisitor takes his place? Another fanatic who consorts with daemonkind and allows the depravity of the warp to corrupt his soul?’
Divolio’s tone remained calm. ‘Inquisitor Halstron saved your lives, Baeloch – yours and Tarryn’s – and pray that you never know the price he paid for it.’
‘He had to sever a link of the daemon’s chains,’ said Tarryn, remembering what he had overheard.
Divolio looked at him, hesitated for a moment, then nodded. ‘As we speak, he is risking his life, his sanity and, yes, his very soul, once more for the Emperor’s sake. The inquisitor believes he can locate–’
A raw-throated scream drowned out his next words.
It had come from Halstron’s direction. Divolio led Tarryn and Baeloch back to where the inquisitor sat, encircled by their battle-brothers. Apparently, now they were ready to bear witness… His spine was rigid. His eyes had rolled back into his skull and his lips were foam-flecked, reminding Tarryn of the mad Guardsman they had encountered. He threw back his head, so fiercely that Tarryn thought his neck might break, and screamed again.
The black cloth lay spread across the inquisitor’s knees, and cradled in it was a single twisted shard of obsidian. It began to glow, just faintly at first but then gradually more strongly, growing red and then white until it seemed like it would melt. The mere sight of the shard gave Tarryn a queasy feeling: the same one he always had around the chained man. He didn’t doubt that the others felt it too.
‘What is it?’ Baeloch hissed.
‘It’s a remnant, a shard, of a powerful weapon,’ Divolio answered him.
‘A weapon of Chaos.’
‘Any weapon is a tool in the hands of he who wields it. We bend the warp itself to our will every time we haul our sky fortress to a new star. We trust in our faith and in the Emperor’s grace to shield us. Why should this be any different?’
‘You said he was looking for something,’ said Tarryn. ‘Angron’s Monolith?’
‘The shard, it seems, is… connected to other parts of the same relic weapon. It led us here to Armageddon. The Chief Librarian’s research–’
‘Decario knows about this too?’
Divolio ignored Baeloch’s interruption. ‘He learned of rumours, that the jungle concealed an ancient shrine of diabolic power. It is said to have been erected by cultists of the daemon primarch, but its exact location is unknown. Anyone who ever saw the shrine – the monolith – was driven insane or worse.’
Tarryn nodded. That explained why the captain and the inquisitor had been so interested in the mad Guardsman. It also strengthened his fear that something – something in the jungle, not far from here – had been playing with his mind. ‘We never actually saw any monolith,’ he reminded Divolio.
‘But you may have brought us close to it, closer than we have been before – close enough that the inquisitor can now–’
For the second time, Halstron interrupted the sergeant with a sound. This time, it was more a gasp than a scream, as if he had been punched in the stomach. He jerked forwards, then back again. His blind eyes stared up at the jungle canopy, while his mouth moved in fervent but silent prayer – to the Emperor, Tarryn hoped.
‘What if he can’t control it?’ asked Baeloch.
Divolio nodded towards Captain Maegar. He stood behind the inquisitor, grim-faced, with one hand resting on his chainsword’s activation rune. ‘Then the captain will honour the inquisitor’s last wish and take his head.’
Halstron drew a great shuddering breath and his shoulders sagged. His eyes had cleared – they could see his pupils again now – and sweat poured from his face. The fiery glow of the shard in his lap dimmed and reluctantly died. He took a moment to steady himself, until Maegar loomed over him, impatiently.
‘Well?’ he prompted, tapping the grip of his blade.
Still breathless, the inquisitor recited a litany of purity. He stumbled over a few words, but still the captain seemed to be satisfied. He extended his sword hand towards Halstron and pulled him to his feet. ‘Did you find it?’ he asked.
‘We were right,’ the inquisitor murmured. ‘It is close. The shard, it could sense the other part of itself, so strongly… And they want to be together. It was all I could do to…’ He took another breath. ‘I saw it. The monolith. It couldn’t hide itself from… The shard, the other shard, is at the monolith and I saw it.’
‘Can you lead us to it?’ asked Maegar, eagerly.
Halstron nodded. The captain called for water for him, while Halstron called for his aide. The chained man whispered something in the inquisitor’s ear as his master leaned on him. Tarryn couldn’t make it out, but he had no problem imagining the words: You should have let me do it. You had no need to risk yourself – I could have found your lost treasure for you. It would only have cost you one more link…
What would have happened to the chained man, Tarryn wondered, if his master had gone mad, if the captain had been obliged to kill him?
What would have become of the inquisitor’s daemon, then?
Captain Maegar summoned Tarryn and Baeloch to him.
He had asked them again what had happened when they approached the monolith, though they could tell him no more than they had already relayed.
He glanced up at the darkening sky. It had been a long day, he considered, and eager as he was to press on and claim the prize that now lay within his reach, perhaps it would be wise on this occasion to exercise prudence.
They would return to base camp, he decided. They would recall the rest of their combat squads to join them. Then, tomorrow, the full complement of the Relictors Fourth Company would descend upon this area in force, and let the jungle try to keep its secrets from them.
Today, he had discovered a conspiracy – many would say, a heresy – that extended to his Chapter’s highest echelons. He had watched as his captain, on whose orders he would have given his life gladly, had trucked with the forces of Chaos; he had listened while a respected sergeant justified such forbidden rituals to him.
He had learned a dark truth about Relictors history too. The name ‘de Marche’ had not been entirely new to him, but Baeloch had revealed much about the ‘traitor priest’ that he had not known, details he had never been told.
Tarryn knew his duty. We must ever be alert for the signs of treachery. He ought to report all he had seen – but to whom? And wasn’t it also his duty to honour his Chapter and therefore its leaders? Remember, to question is to doubt and doubt is the bane of faith. He had never felt so confused, so unsure of the right path to take. He had never before doubted that he knew what the Emperor required of him.
Tarryn needed time to think.
Ten
It had been some time since Decario had travelled in a drop pod. His duties as Chief Librarian, and the keeper of the Relictors’ secrets, kept him from the battlefield more often than he would have liked.
The Armageddon skies, however, were perilous – even at the equator – and the safest way to reach the planet’s surface was also the fastest way. So, Decario found himself huddled inside a bullet-shaped capsule, sitting across from Chapter Master Bardane and the four members of his honour guard.
He felt the retro-thrusters firing, barely taking the edge off their plummeting speed. He braced himself for the inevitable impact, which sent a shock through his bones despite being largely absorbed by his battlesuit of Terminator armour.
He climbed out of the pod behind the others, treading earth beneath his boots for the first time in over two years. His auto-senses noted the oppressive warmth of the jungle, even though the sun had set, and his armour adjusted its internal temperature accordingly.
They had flattened their own landing site: another benefit of drop pod travel. Their violent arrival would have drawn attention, however. They had put down a short way to the north-east of the Fourth Company’s base camp. Veteran Brother Parvhel led them on their way towards it, following the auspex in his helmet.
Bardane kept his helmet on too, and said nothing as they marched. He had tucked the screaming flail into his belt, where it was hidden by a sweeping grey and black cloak and breechcloths.
Sergeant Illonus had likewise concealed his black-bladed gladius, though this was a comparatively minor artefact. In contrast, Captain Harkus wore his double-headed dreadaxe in plain sight. There was nothing about its aspect, fortunately, that betrayed the weapon’s appetite for condemned souls.
The Chapter Master was brooding, thought Decario. He had crossed a line from which there was no turning back. He wasn’t the type to entertain regrets – not for his own decisions – but then, nor was he one to break a sacred oath lightly. There would certainly be consequences for the decisions he had taken today, and not only for him but his entire Chapter. But whatever they were, he would face them.
Decario would have to face those consequences too. It was he who had advised his Chapter Master to disobey orders. He had sworn that such was the Emperor’s will. Had he offered Bardane another option, he knew he would have taken it gladly. They had to have the shard, though; his dreams had been clear on that point.
Will they take his head as well? the Librarian wondered. Will they drag him to the axe man’s block as they did de Marche? Will I have to bear that additional weight on my conscience? Or, this time, will they drag me to the block alongside him?
They met a pair of sentries at the edge of the camp. The Space Marines snapped to attention and saluted the Chapter Master as he passed. They must have voxed their captain too, because Maegar emerged from his command centre to greet his visitors.
He led them into the prefabricated building. A handful of his closest aides were present, Inquisitor Halstron among them. For once, the inquisitor was without his pale shadow. He had left his bound daemonhost chained up in his transport ship, he explained when Bardane questioned him.
Captain Maegar proceeded to update them on recent events, giving them the news they had been praying for. ‘The inquisitor divined the monolith’s bearing and distance,’ he revealed. He activated a holoprojector and a bright map of the jungle appeared, floating in the air between them. He enlarged a sector of it and pointed to a skull icon in the middle of a largely uncharted area.
‘There it is,’ he announced, proudly: at long last, the object of their quest.
There were strategies to be discussed then, by the captain and the Chapter Master, primarily. Decario left them to it, as he was keen to talk to Inquisitor Halstron. They exchanged formal pleasantries. Halstron had a genial enough manner, at least on the surface, which only made Decario all the less inclined to trust him.
As soon as formality allowed, he asked to see the shard – the one that had been loaned to him from the Relictors Vault. He wanted to be reassured that it was safe. The inquisitor obliged him, unwrapping his bundle of black cloth to display the precious artefact without touching it.
Decario hadn’t trusted any member of the Inquisition fully, not since de Marche. Halstron had arrived at the sky fortress, however, with a gift he couldn’t resist: the knowledge of where a third shard might be located. Nor could he have presented himself at a more propitious time.
He belonged to a radical faction of the Ordo Malleus, as had de Marche. They followed the teachings of the long-dead Inquisitor Lord Xanthus, believing that the power of Chaos could never be truly vanquished but might be harnessed. Xanthus had been executed for his heresies eight thousand years ago. De Marche had been fond of saying that it was easy enough to destroy a man, but near impossible to destroy an idea.
‘There are many of us now,’ he had told Decario once, ‘more than you might imagine. We are… well, if not exactly tolerated, not in official quarters, then at least a blind eye might be turned to some of our activities.’
The Xanthite way yielded results, de Marche had boasted, and few were wont to argue with results, no matter the risks taken to achieve them. ‘Doesn’t the Emperor tell us, after all, that the ends always justify the means?’
A month after making that pronouncement, de Marche had been dead. His name had been struck from the Imperial records, his immortal soul condemned to an eternity of torment. Evidently, a blind eye could only be turned so far.
Captain Maegar asked to see Decario after the conference.
He reported that two brothers in his company – two of the uninitiated – had learned about the monolith and had seen Inquisitor Halstron’s daemonhost in action.
Decario absorbed the news with equanimity. This had happened before and it would certainly happen again. He asked for the brothers’ names and said he would speak to them tonight.
‘I’ve had a close watch kept on them,’ the captain assured him. ‘We may have a problem with one of them.’
The Librarian examined both the Relictors in question. ‘Baeloch,’ he surmised.
‘A fine warrior,’ said Maegar.
‘I don’t doubt it, and a pious one too. His heart is filled with blood and thunder.’
‘In another Chapter, he might have made a capable leader.’
They had talked about inducting Baeloch into the Conclave, once. He had been entrusted with some of the Relictors’ smaller secrets, to test his reaction. ‘He wasn’t ready,’ said Decario. ‘Some of them never are.’ How ready was I, he asked himself, for the secrets I was forced to learn?
‘What of Tarryn?’ he asked.
‘He is still young,’ Maegar answered him.
‘
Indeed he is. Open-minded too, I think.’ In other company, that might have been regarded as a heinous insult.
Maegar considered the point and nodded. ‘He has doubts.’
‘Naturally he does,’ agreed Decario. ‘It’s been a century and a half since I picked up that damned daemon weapon and still I doubt the path I chose then – the path I have guided this Chapter along – every day and every night.’
‘Doubt is the bane of–’ began Maegar.
Decario interrupted him. ‘If it weren’t for my actions, we would still be Fire Claws. We would still have our world. Don’t you think I should doubt myself occasionally?’
‘The Emperor chose our path for us,’ said the captain.
‘And yet, many would swear that I have misinterpreted His wishes. It is through my doubts, captain – because I question myself every day and seek answers to those questions – that I muster the courage I need to tread that path.’
‘As you say, Chief Librarian,’ Maegar conceded, gruffly.
Decario sighed. ‘I had high hopes for Brother Tarryn. I felt we might be able to share our secrets with him, once he was older, wiser and more experienced. His eyes weren’t meant to see so much, so soon. I pray it won’t set his heart against us.’
He received the two Relictors in the crew compartment of an Aquila lander, where they could talk in private.
They stood before him stiffly. Baeloch’s face was stony and he wouldn’t meet Decario’s probing gaze. The younger Tarryn’s expression was equally guarded, but his eyes were more open.
How many did this make, the Librarian wondered? How many like them had he had to face? How many more times must I explain myself? Still, he couldn’t – and would never – delegate this duty to a subordinate. This was part of his penance.
So, he confessed the existence of the Conclave to them: a sacred trust of Relictors who guarded their Chapter’s deepest secrets. He told them that they shared some of those secrets now, and so were a part of that sacred trust too, sworn never to reveal what they had learned. He might well have added, whether you like it or not.