by Dan Abnett
The most striking figures were the giants dressed in gold. There were at least a dozen of them in the chamber, supervising different tasks. Their armour was ornate, like that worn by the Astartes, but it was more lightly and finely built, as if forged by more subtle craftsmen. Some of the giants were bareheaded. Others wore conical golden helmets with green-glowing eye slits and red horse-hair plumes.
They were Custodes, the praetorian bodyguards of High Terra. Their accelerated post-human nature had been derived by yet another different principle to those which had produced the Astartes and the primarchs, and they fitted in magnitude between the two: far fewer in number yet greater in faculty than the Astartes.
‘I can think,’ Hawser began.
‘What?’ asked Russ gruffly, swinging round to look at the skjald behind him. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said I can think of only one reason why the warriors of the Legio Custodes would be here,’ said Hawser.
‘Then you’re thinking well,’ Russ snapped.
‘He’s here,’ said Hawser.
‘Yes, he’s here.’
Kasper Hawser slowly tilted his head back and looked up at the roof of the glass-rock cave. Magmatic light pulsed inside the volcanic walls, but all he really saw was the light in his imagination. He had never thought, never ever thought, he would stand in such proximity—
‘He’s here?’ he whispered.
‘Yes! That’s why we’re on our best behaviour.’
The Wolf King gestured insistently at one of the noble golden figures who was standing at a codifier not far away, observing the crew of operators at work. The figure had already noticed the entry of the glowering Wolf King. So had other people in the room. They were approaching with some haste, as if they didn’t want to keep him waiting.
Or they didn’t want to leave him alone long enough to cause a problem.
The Custodes reached them first. Close up, it became clear how ornamented the surface of his gilded armour was. Serpents curled around the seals of the gorget, and writhed around the shoulders and breastplate. Suns, stars and moons of all phases ran around the vambraces and the arm-guards. There were trees, flames, petals, diamonds, daggers, figures of tarot and open palms. Eyes and circumpuncts gazed out. The symbological historian in Hawser saw a lifetime’s work in every part of the Custodes’s plate, in the heraldic and cultural significance of every mark and engraving, every inscription and device. The man was a walking artefact. An incomplete but tantalising primer to mankind’s esoteric tradition presented itself in the form of power armour.
Over his armour, the Custodes wore a long red cloak and a red kilt covered by a war skirt of studded leather. His all-enclosing conical helm with its flowing plume of red hair made him a towering prospect. He regarded the Wolf King with his softly glowing green eye slits, and curtly nodded his head in deference.
‘My lord, is there something the matter?’ he asked, his voice sounding slightly boxy due to the helmet vox.
‘I was just saying, we’re on our best behaviour, Constantin.’
‘Indeed, my lord. Now, is there something? I thought you were resting in the quiet room. We are rather occupied at the moment.’
‘Yes. Constantin, this is the skjald of Tra Company. I’ve said he can look around. Skjald, I present to you Constantin Valdor, Praetor of the Custodes. Look suitably impressed. He’s a very important fellow. It’s his job to keep my father safe.’
‘My lord, might I speak to you privately for a moment?’ Valdor asked.
‘I’m making introductions here, Constantin,’ snapped Russ.
‘I insist,’ said Valdor, his vox-clipped tones sounding threatening. A second Custodes had arrived behind Valdor, along with two fully armoured Astartes, one in crimson armour, the other in heavy Terminator plate that was ash grey trimmed with green. A single horn protruded from his helmet like a tusk. A lot of other personnel in the immediate area were stopping to watch the exchange. Two cherub servitors, the size of real human babies, flew in low on damselfly wings. Their faces were silver masks and their wings made drowsy, thrumming beats like outboard motors.
‘You know what?’ said the Wolf King. ‘The last time anyone insisted anything to me, I twisted their arms off and stuck them up their arse.’
The cherubs squealed and swooped into Valdor’s shadow to hide.
‘My lord,’ replied Valdor levelly. ‘This constant need of yours to playfully maintain the role of barbarian king is most amusing, but we are busily occupied with—’
‘Oh, Constantin!’ Russ chuckled. ‘I honestly hoped you’d go for it!’ He gave the Praetor an open-handed slap on the arm that Hawser was quite sure left a dent in the golden plate.
‘Lord Russ, I must support Lord Valdor’s statement,’ said the Astartes in red. ‘This is no place for a…’
His voice trailed off to the crackle-stop of a vox speaker turning off. He nodded his head at Hawser.
‘A person brandishing an axe,’ he finished.
Hawser realised the axe was still in his hands. He quickly slipped it back into the loop at his hip.
‘Look now, skjald,’ said the Wolf King, sweeping his hand out to encompass all four imposing figures confronting them. ‘They’re ganging up on you. You see the one in red? That’s Raldoron, Chapter Master of my brother Sanguinius’s Blood Angels. And the handsome brute in grey, that’s Typhon, First Captain of the Death Guard. Remember their names so you can tell the account of this day in all detail and particulars at Tra’s hearth-side.’
‘Enough, my lord,’ said Typhon. ‘There are matters of security—’
‘Oh-ho! Over-stepping your mark, First Captain!’ said Russ, taking a step forwards and aiming an accusing finger at the Astartes in ash grey. ‘You do not… You do not tell a primarch “enough”.’
‘Maybe I’m allowed to, then,’ said another voice. They turned. The towering newcomer had the presence of Leman Russ and the charisma of a main sequence star. He was light and aesthetic perfection where Russ was visceral dynamism and blood-gold hair. Between them, they outshone even the magnificent Custodes.
‘You,’ said Russ grudgingly. ‘Yes, you’re allowed to, I suppose.’
He glanced at Hawser.
‘You know who this is?’
‘No, ser,’ mumbled Hawser.
‘Well, ser, this, ser, is my brother Fulgrim.’
The Primarch of the Emperor’s Children was dressed in finely wrought wargear of purple and gold. His white hair framed a face of almost painfully perfect grace. He smiled down at Hawser politely, briefly.
‘Were you getting fretful in your quiet room again, brother?’ Fulgrim asked.
‘Yes,’ Russ admitted, looking away.
‘You realise you need to stay there for now? Your presence might be seen as inflammatory, especially when he finds out you pushed for this censure.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Russ impatiently.
Fulgrim smiled again. ‘Console yourself. Concealing you means that the revelation of the evidence we have at our disposal will carry more effect. Your man Wyrdmake is about to step up to make account.’
‘Good. Then the secrecy will be done with and I can stop hiding behind the sisters,’ said Russ.
‘Still,’ he added, with a plaintive tone, ‘how I would love to see the look on his face when Wyrdmake is revealed. Or, at least, how I would love to hear that look described at the fireside in years to come by my skjald here.’
The Wolf King got hold of Hawser’s upper arm and dragged him forwards, shaking him a little for emphasis.
‘We’re trying to be patient with you, brother,’ said Fulgrim.
‘Please, my lord,’ added Valdor. ‘It’s inappropriate for—’
‘You never let me introduce him properly,’ said Russ, blithely cutting them off. ‘Not very polite of you. He is skjald of Tra, also called Ahmad Ibn Rustah, also called Kasper Ansbach Hawser.’
There was a pause, a hesitation.
‘You dog, Russ,’ murmured Fu
lgrim.
Valdor reached his hands up to the sides of his steeple helmet, disengaged the neck seals with a pneumatic hiss, and removed it. He handed the helm to his fellow Custodes.
‘Playing games with us a little, my lord?’ he asked. It sounded from his tone as though he was trying to appear amused. Valdor’s head was shaved back to a stubble of white, and he was deep-browed and aquiline. It looked like he seldom found cause to smile at anything.
‘Yes, Constantin,’ Russ purred. ‘I got bored in my quiet room. I had to find something to do.’
‘You might have told us this man’s identity a little sooner,’ said Valdor. He took a hand scanner from his companion and swept Hawser.
‘Because my identity matters somehow?’ asked Hawser.
‘Of course, Kasper,’ said Fulgrim.
‘You know who I am?’ Hawser stammered.
‘We’ve been briefed,’ said Raldoron in a crackle of helmet vox.
‘Kasper Hawser, distinguished and fêted scholar and academician,’ said Typhon, ‘founder and director of the Conservatory project that enjoys the Emperor’s personal approval.’
Typhon removed his brutally horned helm. The choleric face beneath was bearded and framed by long dark hair. ‘Resigned suddenly about seventy years ago adjusted, and subsequently disappeared, apparently while making an inexplicable and ill-advised voyage to Fenris.’
‘You know who I am,’ Hawser breathed.
‘Let’s get him debriefed,’ said Constantin Valdor.
‘You talk as if my whole life has been played out to someone else’s rules,’ said Hawser. The servitors hummed around him.
‘Perhaps it has,’ said Valdor.
‘I refuse to accept that,’ said Hawser.
‘How many people have got to tell you before you start listening?’ asked Russ, his voice a rumble.
‘Please, my lord,’ chided the other Custodes attending them.
‘Constantin, keep your puppy in check,’ warned Russ.
Valdor nodded in the direction of the other Custodes, who had removed his engraved helm to reveal the face of a younger man.
‘Amon Tauromachian is a bit more than a puppy, Wolf King. Don’t goad him.’
Russ laughed. He was sitting on the raised edge of the command post’s staging area, watching the bio-checks. Standing at his side, arms folded, Fulgrim smirked and shook his head.
They had taken Hawser to a small medical monitoring area set up in a corner of the main hall. He had been required to lie down on a padded couch. Specialist personnel were running biometric scans using both paddles and skin-patch contacts. Servitors were swabbing spots on Hawser’s skin so that small terminals could be attached.
‘I went to Fenris because I was driven by the same urge to learn and discover that has inspired me since childhood,’ said Hawser, aware that his tone was defensive. ‘The decision was prompted by dissatisfaction that after long and devoted service to the cause of Unification, my work was being sidelined and shelved. I was frustrated. I was disappointed. I decided to turn my back on the ridiculous politicking of Terra that was foundering my efforts, and undertake an expedition of pure research, as a cultural historian, to one of the wildest and most mysterious worlds in the Imperium.’
‘Even though you’ve suffered from a crippling fear of wolves since your earliest years?’ asked Valdor.
‘There are no wolves on Fenris,’ replied Hawser.
‘Oh, you know there are,’ growled Russ, his voice a wet leopard-purr, ‘and you know what they are.’
Hawser realised his hands were trembling slightly.
‘Then… then if you’re searching for some deep-seated psychological reason, perhaps I was seeking to face and overcome my childhood phobia.’
Aun Helwintr had joined them from the outer halls. He sat nearby on one of the other padded couches, rolling polished sea shells out of one gloved palm into the other. The weight of him put huge strain on the adjustable rod frame of the couch.
‘Doubtful,’ he said. ‘I think it’s the key. The fear. That specific fear. It has potency. I think it’s how they found a way into you in the first place. Still, we’ve never been able to discern the trigger, despite what we milked from your thoughts during the cold dreaming, and despite how close Longfang came to seeing it. The trigger remains too well clouded.’
‘What trigger?’ asked Hawser. ‘What cold dreaming?’
Constantin Valdor was consulting a data-slate.
‘You won the Prix Daumarl among many other citations. Your work was acclaimed by academicians throughout the inner systems. Some of your papers became springboards for lines of research and development that have had profound and positive implications for society. The Conservatory wielded formidable political influence.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Hawser. ‘We had to fight for every centimetre of ground.’
‘And other political bodies did not?’ asked Raldoron, who stood nearby.
‘No,’ said Hawser, moving so sharply that one of the terminals detached from his skin. ‘The Conservatory was an academic foundation with a simple mandate. We had no influence. By the time I left, we were going to be absorbed into the Hegemonic administration. I couldn’t stomach it. Don’t tell me we had influence. We were thrown to the wolves.’
He looked over at the Wolf King.
‘No offence, ser.’
Russ boomed another laugh that showed his teeth in a distressing way.
‘Try not to do that, dear brother,’ said Fulgrim. ‘You’re scaring him.’
‘I believe you may have had a great deal of influence,’ said Valdor. ‘If I may say, ser, your greatest crime was naivety. At the very highest level, your work was admired, and received tacit protection. Other institutions of the Imperium’s political machine were aware of that. They were afraid of you. They were jealous of you. You didn’t see it and you didn’t know it. It’s a common mistake. You were a superb academic trying to run an academic foundation. You should have got on with your study and left the job of management to someone more suited to the task. Someone sharp and savvy who could have kept the wolves at bay.’
Valdor turned to Russ.
‘I speak metaphorically, my lord,’ he said.
Russ nodded, still amused.
‘That’s all right, Constantin. Sometimes I dismember metaphorically.’
‘Navid always filled that role,’ Hawser said quietly, to himself. ‘He loved the machinations of the Hegemony and the academies. He was never happier than when competing for a stipend or negotiating for a procurement fund.’
‘This is Navid Murza?’ asked Valdor, consulting the slate. ‘Died young, I see. Yes, you were quite a team. Your brilliance at field work supported by his boundless enthusiasm in the bureaucratic arena. He was killed in Ossetia.’
‘The death may have been significant,’ said the other Custodes.
‘Oh, please!’ Hawser snorted. ‘Navid was killed by an insurgent’s bomb.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Valdor, ‘it removed him from the Conservatory and took him from your side.’
‘I did not decide to go to Fenris because Navid Murza was killed in Ossetia,’ said Hawser angrily. ‘A number of decades separate those two events. I refuse to believe—’
‘The scale of your thinking is too small, ser,’ said the other Custodes, the one called Amon. ‘Murza was eliminated, and the benefits he brought to you and the Conservatory were eliminated with him. Did you ever replace him? No. He had been your friend for a long time, you were used to him. You took on the responsibilities yourself, even though you knew you weren’t suited to them like he was. You forced yourself to be a political animal because to find a replacement would have felt like a betrayal. You didn’t want to dishonour his memory.’
‘So you were much more worn down when the time came, Kasper,’ said Fulgrim. ‘You were tired from years of bureaucracy, years of doing the job Murza always should have done, years of not getting on with the work you really enjoyed. You we
re absolutely primed and ready to throw it all away and go to Fenris.’
‘There’s still the matter of a trigger,’ said Aun Helwintr.
‘Yes, that remains a mystery,’ Valdor agreed.
‘Not the timing,’ said Typhon. The ash-grey Terminator stood on the far side of the medical couch. Like Valdor, he was consulting a data-slate.
‘He was ripe,’ said Fulgrim.
‘With respect, yes, my lord,’ said Typhon. ‘The subject was ready. I meant the timing in terms of who was directing the subject.’
He looked at his data-slate again.
‘Spool eight-six-nine-alpha,’ he said. Valdor consulted his slate, and Fulgrim produced one of his own.
‘I refer you to the report filed by Henrik Slussen, the undersecretary brought in to facilitate the Conservatory’s incorporation into the Administration.’
‘That was the straw that broke my spirit,’ said Hawser. ‘Slussen was an odious man. He didn’t begin to appreciate what I was—’
‘He may have been a more sympathetic ally than you thought, Kasper,’ said Fulgrim. The primarch’s smile was calm and reassuring, and his tone supportive. ‘At the time of your resignation and disappearance, Slussen filed a report to his superiors. There’s a copy in the file spool here. He was recommending that the Conservatory’s independence be preserved. He suggested that absorption into the Administratum would seriously hamstring the Conservatory’s work, and the benefits it could offer.’
‘The proposal was approved by Lord Malcador,’ said Valdor. ‘The Sigillite placed his personal seal upon the ratification of the Conservatory’s autonomy.’
‘The Sigillite?’ asked Hawser.
‘He always took a great interest in your work,’ Valdor replied. ‘I think he was your champion behind the scenes. If you had not vanished, ser, you would have been granted the authority you craved. Your staff would have increased, along with the scope of your operation. I believe that within three to five years, you would have found yourself with a secretarial position on the advisory council of the Inner Hegemony. You would have been a man of great influence.’
‘First Captain Typhon is quite probably correct,’ said Fulgrim. ‘You would have been less malleable. Your frustrations would have receded. Whoever was running you had to pull the trigger, in that small window, or run the risk of losing all control over an agent they had spent upwards of five decades developing.’
