A Thousand Sons

by Graham McNeill

  “Always,” said Ahriman.

  MAGNUS FELT THE world fall away from him, shedding his corporeal body as a serpent sheds its skin and rises renewed. Ancients watching such creatures believed they knew the secrets of immortality and named their houses of healing in their honour. To this day, the symbol of the Apothecary, the caduceus, bore serpents entwined in a double helix.

  Chains of flesh were shrugged off, and Magnus distilled his molten core into a seething arrow aimed from Prospero to distant Terra. With a thought, he shot up through the Occullum and into the heavens. His body of light was a beautiful thing, existence as it was meant to be experienced, not the mundane solidity endured by mortals.

  Magnus shook off his revelries, for the energy of the spell was propelling him ever onwards. He felt Ahriman’s words, the words of ancient sorcerers of Terra, wrapping his incandescent body in purpose, the life energies of the Thralls empowering him with their vitality.

  This was a dangerous spell, and no other being would dare wield it.

  The blackness of space dissolved, and the raging torrents of the Great Ocean surrounded him. Magnus laughed with the pleasure of it, rejoicing in the familiar energies and currents that welcomed him like a long lost friend.

  He was a bright star amid a constellation of supernovas, each a flickering ember next to his beatific glory.

  Here in the Great Ocean, he could be whatever he wanted to be; nothing was forbidden and anything was possible.

  Worlds flashed past him as he hurtled through the swelling tides of colour, light and dimensions without name. The roiling chaos of the aether was a playground for titanic forces, where entire universes could be created and destroyed with a random thought. How many trillions of potential lives were birthed and snuffed out just by thinking such things?

  Predators avoided him as he sped towards his destination like the most incredible comet ever set loose in the stars. They recognised him and were fearful of his brilliance in a realm where the light of creation blazed in every breath. Stagnation was anathema to Magnus. All life needed to progress through a series of evolved stages to prosper, and change was part of the natural cycle of all living things, from the smallest single-celled organism to the radiant creature encased within the crude matter of humanity.

  The nobility of his cause threw off sparks of potency that created phantom worlds and concepts in his wake. Entire philosophies and bodies of thought would be born in the minds of those lucky enough to have his leavings descend upon their dreaming minds.

  His course altered, a roving thought steering him around a monstrously dark shadow, the heaving bulk of something enormous shifting in the depths of the Great Ocean. Magnus felt a glimmer of familiarity in the stirred-up memories, but suppressed it with a shudder that sent a torrent of nightmares into the dreams of the tribal warriors of a feral world soon to encounter the 392nd Expeditionary Fleet.

  There were no landmarks in the Great Ocean, its topography ever-mutable, yet this landscape of streaming colour and light was familiar by its very changeability. He had flown this shoal before, and he recoiled from it, concentrating on keeping his course true.

  A shudder passed along his bright essence, and Magnus felt the first clutch of his Thralls die. Their soul lights winked out and a measure of his incredible, ferocious speed bled away.

  “Hold on, my sons,” he whispered, “just a little longer.”

  What he sought was close, he could feel it: the same subtle vibration in the fabric of the Great Ocean that had drawn him to Aghoru. It was faint, like a distant heartbeat hidden within a rousing drum chorus.

  Its creators had selfishly sought to keep it for themselves, little realising their time as masters of the galaxy was over. Even with their empire in decline, they kept their secret jealously close to their hearts.

  Magnus sensed one of their hidden pathways nearby and opened his inner eye, seeing the glittering fabric of the Great Ocean in all its revealed glory. The hidden capillaries of the alien network were visible as radiant lines of molten gold, and Magnus angled his course towards the nearest.

  Distance was a similarly meaningless concept here, and with a thought he spiralled around the golden passageway. He focussed his energy and unleashed it at the lattice in a blaze of silver lightning. Scores of his Thralls died in an instant, but the shimmer-sheen of the golden passage remained unbroken. Magnus hurled his fists against the impervious walls, snuffing out his Thralls by the dozen with every blow, but it was useless.

  It had all been for nothing. He couldn’t get in.

  Magnus felt his glorious ascent slowing, and howled his frustration to the furthest corners of the Great Ocean.

  Then he felt it, the familiar sense of something titanic moving in the swells around him, a continent adrift in the ocean with ancient sentience buried in its aetheric heart. Infinite spectra of light danced before him, more magnificent than the most radiant Mechanicum Borealis. Even to one as mighty as Magnus, the flaring eruption of light and power was incredible.

  Its communication was sibilant, like sand pouring through the neck of an hourglass. It had breadth and depth, yet no beginning and no end, as though it had always existed around him and always would.

  It spoke, not with words, but with power. It surrounded him, offering itself freely and without ulterior motive. The Great Ocean was truly a place of contradictions, its roiling, infinite nature allowing for the presence of all things, good and bad. Just as some entities within its depths were malicious and predatory, others were benevolent and altruistic.

  Contrary to what most people believed, there was uncorrupted power here that could be wielded by those with the knowledge and skill to do so. Such gifted individuals were few and far between, but through the work of adepts like Magnus, it might yet be possible to lift humanity to a golden age of exploration and the acquisition of knowledge.

  Magnus drank deep of the offered power and tore his way into the golden lattice. He felt its shrieking wail of unmaking as a scream of pain. Without a second thought, he flew into the shimmering passageway, following a route he knew would lead to Terra.

  FAR BENEATH THE birthrock of the race that currently bestrode the galaxy as its would-be masters, a pulsing chamber throbbed with activity. Hundreds of metres high and many hundreds more wide, it hummed with machinery and reeked of blistering ozone. Once it had served as the Imperial Dungeon, but that purpose had long been subverted to another.

  Great machines of incredible potency and complexity were spread throughout the chamber, vast stockpiles and uniquely fabricated items that would defy the understanding of even the most gifted adept of the Mechanicum.

  It had the feel of a laboratory belonging to the most brilliant scientist the world had ever seen. It had the look of great things, of potential yet untapped, and of dreams on the verge of being dragged into reality. Mighty golden doors, like the entrance to the most magnificent fortress, filled one end of the chamber. Great carvings were worked into the mechanised doors: entwined siblings, dreadful sagittary, a rearing lion, the scales of justice and many more.

  Thousands of tech-adepts, servitors and logi moved through the chamber’s myriad passageways, like blood cells through a living organism in service to its heart, where a great golden throne reared ten metres above the floor. Bulky and machine-like, a forest of snaking cables bound it to the vast portal sealed shut at the opposite end of the chamber.

  Only one being knew what lay beyond those doors, a being of towering intellect whose powers of imagination and invention were second to none. He sat upon the mighty throne, encased in golden armour, bringing all his intellect to bear in overseeing the next stage of his wondrous creation.

  He was the Emperor, and though many in this chamber had known him for the spans of many lives, none knew him as anything else. No other title, no possible name, could ever do justice to such a luminous individual. Surrounded by his most senior praetorians and attended by his most trusted cabal, the Emperor sat and waited.

  Whe
n the trouble began, it began swiftly.

  The golden portal shone with its own inner light, as though some incredible heat from the other side was burning through the metal. Vast gunboxes fixed around the perimeter of the cave swung up, their barrels spooling up to fire. Lightning flashed from machine to machine as delicate, irreplaceable circuits overloaded and exploded. Adepts ran from the site of the breach, knowing little of what lay beyond, yet knowing enough to flee.

  Crackling bolts of energy poured from the molten gates, flensing those too close to the marrow. Intricate symbols carved into the rock of the cavern exploded with shrieking detonations. Every source of illumination in the chamber blew out in a shower of sparks, and centuries of the most incredible work imaginable was undone in an instant.

  No sooner had the first alarm sounded than the Emperor’s Custodes were at arms, but nothing in their training could have prepared them for what came next.

  A form pressed its way through the portal: massive, red and aflame with the burning force of its journey. It emerged into the chamber, wreathed in eldritch fire that bled away to reveal a robed being composed of many-angled light and the substance of stars. Its radiance was blinding and none could look upon its many eyes without feeling the insignificance of their own mortality.

  None had ever seen such a dreadful apparition, the true heart of a being so mighty that it could only beat while encased in super-engineered flesh.

  The Emperor alone recognised this rapturous angel, and his heart broke to see it.

  “Magnus,” he said.

  “Father,” replied Magnus.

  Their minds met, and in that moment of frozen connection the galaxy changed forever.

  OCCULLUM SQUARE WAS busy, though Lemuel saw an undercurrent of nameless fear in the auras of the traders and buyers. They haggled with more than usual bitterness, and the sparring back and forth was done with tired eyes and heavy hearts. Perhaps it was a mass hangover from the riots two weeks ago. No one had adequately explained why such violence had broken out on the streets of a city that had not known unrest in hundreds of years.

  He sat with Camille on a wrought iron bench between Gordian Avenue and Daedalus Street, watching the crowds go about their business, pretending nothing was out of place, as though they were not living on a world ruled by warriors who regarded them as nothing more than playthings.

  In the fortnight since Kallista’s death, he and Camille had spent a great deal of time together, mourning their lost friend and coming to terms with their current situation. It had involved many stories, many tears and a great deal of soul-searching, but they had eventually reached the same conclusion.

  “She thought this world was a paradise,” said Camille, watching the forced laughter of a couple strolling arm in arm beneath the shadow of the Occullum.

  “We all did,” said Lemuel. “I didn’t want a tasking order to come for the Thousand Sons. I wanted to stay and learn from Ahriman. Look where that got us.”

  “Kalli’s death wasn’t your fault,” said Camille, taking his hand. “Don’t ever think that.”

  “I don’t,” he said. “I blame Ahriman. He may not have pulled the switches or pressed the buttons, but he knew what they were doing was wrong and he let it happen anyway.”

  They watched the crowds for a moment longer, before Camille asked, “Do you think he’ll come?” Lemuel nodded.

  “He’ll come. He wants this as much as we do.” Camille looked away and Lemuel read the hesitation in her aura.

  “We do both want this, don’t we?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Camille, a little too quickly.

  “Come on,” he said. “We have to be honest with one another now.”

  “I know, and you’re right, it’s time, but I—”

  “You don’t want to leave without Chaiya,” finished Lemuel.

  “No, I don’t. Does that sound stupid?”

  “Not at all. I understand completely, but is what you have worth dying for?”

  “I don’t know yet,” said Camille, wiping the heels of her palms against her eyes. “I think it might have been, but this is her home and she won’t want to leave.”

  “I won’t force you to come, but you saw what I saw.”

  “I know,” she said, through moist eyes. “It’ll break my heart, but I’ve made my mind up.”

  “Good girl,” said Lemuel, hating that it had taken him this long to understand the truth.

  Camille nodded towards Daedalus Street and said, “Looks like your friend’s here,” as a servitor-borne palanquin emerged and turned towards them. The servitors were bulk-muscled things, broad shouldered and wearing silver helmets and crimson tabards. The crowds parted for the palanquin, and it stopped before Lemuel and Camille.

  The velvet curtain parted and Mahavastu Kallimakus emerged. A set of bronze steps extended from the base of the palanquin and he climbed down to join them.

  “A grand conveyance,” said Lemuel, impressed despite himself.

  “A waste of time that only serves to draw attention to my irrelevance,” snapped Mahavastu, sitting next to Camille on the bench. “Sobek insisted I travel in it to save my old bones.”

  The venerable scribe patted Camille’s hand, his skin gnarled like old oak.

  “I was sorry to hear of Mistress Eris’ death,” he said. “She was a quite lovely girl. A real tragedy.”

  “No it’s not,” said Lemuel. “It would have been a tragedy if she died thanks to a weakness of her own making, but she was murdered, plain and simple.”

  “I see,” said Mahavastu. “What do I not know?”

  “The Thousand Sons burned her out,” said Camille. “They used her, and she died so that they could glimpse echoes of the future. Fat lot of good it did them. All she did was talk in riddles before it killed her.”

  “Ah, I was told she had another of her unfortunate attacks at Voisanne’s?”

  “She did, but that was only the beginning,” said Lemuel, standing and pacing back and forth before the bench. “They killed her, Mahavastu. It’s that simple. Look, what do you want me to say? You were right, there is a curse upon the Thousand Sons. If what Kallista said means half of what we think it means, this world is doomed and it’s time we were gone.”

  “You wish to leave Prospero?” asked Mahavastu.

  “Damn right I do.”

  Mahavastu nodded. “And you feel the same, Mistress Shivani?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “When Ankhu Anen moved me away from Kallista, I felt something of his memories, a fragment of something that passed between him and the other captains. I didn’t get more than a flash, but whatever they know has them terrified. Something very bad is happening, and it’s time we put some distance between us and the Thousand Sons.”

  “Have you given any thought as to how we might do this, Lemuel?” asked Mahavastu.

  “I have,” he said. “There’s a mass-conveyer in orbit right now, the Cypria Selene. It’s completing an engine refit and is resupplying in preparation for despatch to Thranx. She’s scheduled to depart in a week, and we need to be on that ship.”

  “And how do you propose we manage that?” asked Mahavastu. “Its crew will be monitored, and we have no legitimate reason to be on the Cypria Selene.”

  Lemuel smiled for the first time in weeks.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ve learned a thing or two that should help with that.”

  THE BOOKS WERE scattered like autumn leaves across the floor of his chambers, their pages torn and crumpled. The orreries were shattered and the astrological charts torn from the walls. The globe of Prospero was broken, its ochre continents lying in broken shards amid the cracked cerulean fragments of its oceans.

  A torrent of destruction had swept through Magnus’ chambers, but no thoughtless vandal or natural disaster had wreaked such havoc. The architect of this destruction squatted amid the ruin of his possessions with his head buried in his hands.

  Magnus’ white robe was stained and unkempt, his flesh worn
with weeks of neglect, his body wracked by inconsolable grief. The shelves behind him were shattered, the timber splintered and broken to matchwood. Almost nothing remained in once piece. The mirrors were cracked and reduced to shattered diamonds of reflective glass.

  Magnus lifted his head, out of breath from his rampage.

  The exertion was nothing; it was the scope of what he had destroyed that took away his breath, the sheer, mind-numbing horror of what had been lost and could never be retrieved.

  Only one thing had escaped his destructive rampage, a heavy lectern of cold iron upon which was chained the Book of Magnus, the grimoire of all his achievements, culled from the unexpurgated texts penned by Mahavastu Kallimakus. Achievements.

  The word stuck in his throat. All his achievements were lies in the dust.

  It had all been for nothing. Everything was unravelling around him faster than he could weave it back together.

  Magnus rose to his full height, his body diminished from its former glory, as though a fundamental part of him had been left on Terra after his confrontation with his father. The moment of connection they had shared had been sublime and horrendous. He had seen himself as others saw him, a monstrous, fiery angel of blood bringing doom down upon those mortals unlucky enough to fall beneath his gaze.

  Only his father had recognised him, for he had wrought the life into him and knew his own handiwork. Magnus had experienced that awful self-knowledge in an instant, feeling it sear his heart and crush his soul in one dreadful moment of union.

  He had tried to deliver his warning, showing his father what he had seen and what he knew. It hadn’t mattered. Nothing he could have said would have outweighed or undone the colossal mistake he had made in coming to Terra. The treachery of Horus was swept away, an afterthought in the wake of the destruction Magnus had unwittingly unleashed. Wards that had kept the palace safe for a hundred years were obliterated in an instant, and the psychic shockwave killed thousands and drove hundreds more to madness and suicide.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it, not by a long way. It was the knowledge that he had been wrong. Everything he had been so sure of knowing better than anyone else was a lie.