He thought he had known better than his father how to wield the power of the Great Ocean. He believed he was its master, but in the ruins of his father’s great work, he had seen the truth. The Golden Throne was the key. Unearthed from forgotten ruins sunken deep beneath the driest desert, it was the lodestone that would have unlocked the secrets of the alien lattice. Now it was in ruins, its impossibly complex dimensional inhibitors and warp buffers fused beyond salvage.
The control it maintained on the shimmering gateway at his back was ended, and the artfully designed mechanism keeping the two worlds apart was fatally fractured. In the instant of connection, Magnus saw the folly of his actions and wept to see so perfect a concept undone.
Unspoken understanding flowed between Magnus and the Emperor. Everything Magnus had done was laid bare, and everything the Emperor planned flowed into him. He saw himself atop the Golden Throne, using his fearsome powers to guide humanity to its destiny as rulers of the galaxy. He was to be his father’s chosen instrument of ultimate victory. It broke him to know that his unthinking hubris had shattered that dream.
Without will, the spell that had sent him to Terra was nothing, and Magnus had felt the pull of flesh dragging his spirit back through the gateway. He did not fight it, but let his essence fly through the golden lattice to the tear he had so carelessly torn in its fabric. Vast shoals of void predators were already massing, swirling armies of formless monsters, fanged beasts and awesomely powerful entities that lived only for destruction.
Would the Emperor be able to hold them back?
Magnus didn’t know, and the thought of so much blood on his hands shamed him.
He’d flown back through the timeless depths of the Great Ocean and awoken within the Reflecting Caves in the midst of a vast hall of the dead. The Thralls were no more, each and every one reduced to a withered, lifeless husk by the power of his spell.
Only Ahriman remained, and even he looked drained.
With tears in his eyes, Magnus retreated from the scene of his crime and all but fled to the Pyramid of Photep, ignoring Ahriman’s shouted questions. Alone, amid the lies of his centuries of study, the red mist had fallen over his sight. He’d mocked Angron for his rages, but at the thoroughness of his destruction, he understood a measure of the satisfaction such violence could bring.
Magnus stood and walked from the ruin of his study, ashamed at his loss of control and needing to clear his head. The glass doors that led to his balcony were smashed, the glass lying in accusing shards that crunched as he stepped through the wreckage.
He leaned on the balcony railing, supporting his weight on his elbows and letting the cool wind ruffle his hair and caress his skin. Far below him, Tizca carried on as though nothing had happened, its people oblivious to the doom he had unleashed upon them all. They didn’t know it yet, but a terrible retribution would soon fall upon them.
What form that retribution would take he did not know, but he recalled the Emperor’s words at Nikaea, and feared the worst. People moved through Occullum Square and along the Street of a Thousand Lions, congregating in the many parks and Fountain Houses that dotted the western areas of the city where the bulk of its citizens dwelt.
The port was to the north, a walled area of the city built on the gentle slopes that led down to the curved bay. Golden beaches spread further along the coast before sweeping beyond sight into the Desolation. Hard against the flanks of the eastern mountains stood the Acropolis Magna, a raised spur of rock that had once been a fortress, but had long since fallen into ruin. A great statue of Magnus stood upon its highest point to mark the place where he had first set foot on the surface of Prospero.
How he wished he could take back those first steps!
Dozens of theatres clustered around the base of the Acropolis Magna, their tiers cut into the lower slopes of the rock, home to actors who strutted like martinets on each marbled proscenium. Five perfectly circular Tholus stood in areas of rolling parkland, open-air structures built according the principles of the Golden Mean. In the forgotten ages they had once housed temples, but were now used as sports arenas and training grounds.
Numerous barracks of the Spireguard dotted the city’s plan, and Magnus felt a twinge of regret for these men and women most of all. They were all going to die for the crime of being born on Prospero.
The cult’s pyramids dominated the skyline, looming from the gilded city like cut glass arrowheads. Sunlight reflected on them, dancing like fire in the polarised crystal. He’d seen the vision once before and had thought it allegorical. Now he knew better.
“All this will be ashes,” he said sadly.
“It does not have to be,” said a voice behind him.
Magnus turned, and harsh words died on his lips as he saw it was not an intruder that had spoken.
He had.
Or at least a version of him had.
The mirror hanging beside the doorway was broken, yet dozens of splinters still clung to the copper frame. In each of them, Magnus saw a shimmering reflection of his eye, one mocking, one angry, one capricious, another aloof. The eyes stared with sly amusement, each a different colour and each now regarding him with the same quizzical look.
“A mirror? Even now you appeal to my vanity,” said Magnus, dreading what this signified.
“I told you it was the easiest trap to set,” said the reflections, their voices slippery and entwined. “Now you know the truth of it.”
“Was this always what you wanted?” asked Magnus. “To see me destroyed?”
“Destroyed? Never!” cried the reflections, as though outraged by the suggestion. “You were always to be our first choice, Magnus. Did you know that?”
“First choice for what?”
“To bring about the eternal chaos of destruction and rebirth, the endless succession of making and unmaking that has cycled throughout time and will continue for all eternity. Yes, you were always first, and Horus is a poor second. The Eternal Powers saw great potential in you, but even as we coveted your soul, you grew too strong and caused us to look elsewhere.”
The reflections smiled with paternal affection, “But I always knew you would be ours one day. While suspicious eyes were turned upon you and your Legion, we wove our corruptions elsewhere. For that you have my thanks, as the Blinded One has lit the first fire of the conflagration, though none yet see it for what it is.”
“What are you?” asked Magnus, stepping through the doorway to re-enter the wreckage of his chambers. Hoarfrost gathered on the splintered glass and his breath misted before him.
“You know what I am,” said his reflections. “Or at least you should.”
One splintered eye shifted, swirling until it became a fiery snake with multi-coloured eyes and wings of bright feathers: the beast he had killed beneath the Mountain of Aghoru. It changed again, morphing through a succession of shimmering forms, until Magnus saw the shifting, impossibly massive form of the shadow in the Great Ocean.
“I once named myself Choronzon to you, the Dweller in the Abyss and the Daemon of Dispersion, but those are meaningless labels that mortals hang upon me, obsolete the moment they are uttered. I have existed since the beginning of time and will exist beyond the span of this universe. Names are irrelevant to me, for I am every name and none. In the inadequate language of your youngling species, you should call me a god.”
“You were the one that helped me save my Legion,” said Magnus with a sinking heart.
“Save? No. I only postponed their doom,” said the shadow. “That boon is now ended.”
“No!” cried Magnus. “Please, never that!”
“There is a price to pay for the time I gave your sons. You knew this when you accepted the gift of my power. Now it is time to make good on your bargain.”
“I made no bargain,” said Magnus, “not with the likes of you.”
“Oh, but you did,” laughed the eyes. “When, in your despair, you cried out for succour in the depths of the warp, when you begged for the means
to save your sons – you flew too close to the sun, Magnus. You offered up your soul to save theirs, and that debt is now due.”
“Then take me,” declared Magnus. “Leave my Legion and allow them to serve the Emperor. They are blameless.”
“They have drunk from the same chalice as you,” said the eyes. “And why would you wish them to serve a man who betrayed you? A man who showed you unlimited power and then told you not to use it? What manner of father opens the door to a world of wonder and then orders you not to step through? This man who planned to use your flesh to save his own from destruction?”
The images in the glass changed once more, and Magnus saw the Golden Throne, its mechanisms wreathed in crackling arcs of lighting. A howling, withered cadaver sat upon the throne, its once-mighty flesh blackened and metastasised.
“This is to be your destiny,” said the mirror, “bound forever to the Emperor’s soul-engine, suffering unendurable agony to serve his selfish desires. Look upon this and know the truth.”
Magnus tried to look away, but the horror of the vision was impossible to ignore.
“Why should I believe anything you say?” he cried.
“You already know the truth of your doom; I have no need to embellish. Look into the warp and hunt for your nemesis. He and his savage dogs of war are already on their way. Trust yourself if you do not trust me.”
Magnus closed his eye and cast his senses into the seething currents of the Great Ocean. Its substance was agitated, and roaring tides billowed with tempestuous force. All was chaos, but for a slender corridor of stillness, through which Magnus felt the passage of many souls.
He closed upon their lifeforce and saw the form his doom would take.
Magnus’ eye snapped open and anger boiled over. His hand erupted in searing white fire, the most prosaic and primal of the arts, and his chambers were filled with billowing flames, burning everything within to cinders. Wood and paper vaporised in the white heat of Magnus’ rage, and what little his despair had not destroyed, his rage consumed.
A column of blazing fire erupted from the summit of his pyramid, and a rain of molten glass shards fell from the summit. All eyes in Tizca turned towards the Pyramid of Photep, the plume of fire dwarfing that of the Pyrae.
Only the Book of Magnus remained inviolate, its pages impervious to the killing fire.
Nothing was left of the mirror, its fused shards bubbling in a molten pool at his feet.
“You can destroy them,” said the fading reflections in the liquid glass. “Say the word and I will tear their vessels asunder, scattering them beyond all knowledge and hope of salvation.”
“No,” said Magnus, dropping to his knees with his head in his hands. “Never.”
MAGNUS HAD NO knowledge of how much time had passed when he heard the crash of his door breaking open. He looked up to see Uthizzar enter his chambers, his youthful features shocked at the devastation he saw within. A squad of Scarab Occult came with him, their visors marred by a single vertical slash that obscured the right eye lenses of their helmets.
Magnus had heard that the tradition had become commonplace after the Council of Nikaea, but to see such a visible sign of his sons’ devotion was a poisoned barb in his heart.
“Uthizzar,” said Magnus through his tears, “get out of here!”
“My lord?” cried Uthizzar, moving towards Magnus.
Magnus raised a warding hand, his grief threatening to overwhelm him as he thought of all he had seen and all that the monstrous god of the warp had shown him.
Uthizzar staggered as the full force of Magnus’ thoughts struck him like a blow. Magnus veiled his mind from the young telepath, but it was too late. Uthizzar knew it all.
“No!” cried Uthizzar, crushed by the gut-wrenching hurt of betrayal. “It cannot be! You… Is it true? Tell me it is not true. What you did… What is coming…”
Magnus felt his heart harden, and cursed himself for such an unforgivable lapse of will. “It is true, my son. All of it.”
He could see Uthizzar’s eyes begging him to say he was joking, or that this was some hideous test. As much as Magnus wanted to save his sons from the sins of their father, he knew he couldn’t. He had lied to himself and his warriors for too long, and this last chance for truth and redemption could not be squandered.
No matter what it entailed.
“We have to warn the Legion,” hissed Uthizzar, spinning on his heel and barking orders to the Scarab Occult. “Mobilise the Spireguard and stand the fleet to battle orders. Disperse the Arming Proclamation to the civilian militias and issue a general evacuation order for non-combatants to the Reflecting Caves!”
Magnus shook his head, and a wall of unbreakable force sprang up before Uthizzar and his warriors, trapping them within his scorched and smoking chambers.
“I am sorry, Uthizzar, I really am,” said Magnus, “but I can’t let you do that.”
Uthizzar started to turn towards him, but before his son could look him in the eye, Magnus ended his life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A Good Student/My Fate is My Own/Dispersal
THE TANG OF salty air was strong. A stiff breeze blew in from the sea, and Lemuel felt a pang of nostalgia as he thought back to the sweeping coastlines of Nordafrik. The waters around his home had long since retreated, but the exposed seabeds shared the memory of their days at the bottom of the ocean with the air.
He shook off the memory. He needed all his powers of concentration.
The port area of Tizca was heaving with bodies: sweating stevedores, teamsters, servitors and load-lifters. The Cypria Selene was scheduled to break orbit in four hours, and the last-minute preparations for her departure were in full swing. Trucks, supply tankers, baggage lifters and water bladders carefully negotiated the busy port, and the noise of horns and shouting drivers rivalled the roar of engines.
The hot reek of burning metal saturated the day as shuttles and lifters screamed into the sky to deliver the last crewmembers and passengers to their berths. Few remained on Prospero, and a palpable sense of excitement suffused the port.
Lemuel’s nerves were stretched bow-taut. Red-jacketed soldiers of the Prospero Spireguard circulated throughout the port, and officious docket-supervisors checked and rechecked passes and permits.
Beside him, Camille walked with her hands clasped demurely before her. She wore a long dress of emerald green, cut low and embroidered with black lace around the hems, sleeves and collar. She had balked at wearing the noblewoman’s dress before Lemuel had pointed out that a patrician gentleman’s consort would need to be seen in such a garment.
At this moment, that patrician gentleman was reclining in his palanquin, its ostentatious appearance enhanced by silk brocade and velvet cushions stolen from their living quarters. Bedecked in an exquisitely tailored suit, Mahavastu Kallimakus was failing miserably to look like an arrogant nobleman of Terra by looking down his nose as he tapped an ebony cane on the pillars of his conveyance.
Only Lemuel was spared the indignity of disguise, wearing his beige remembrancer’s robes to masquerade as Mahavastu’s personal scribe and eunuch escort to Camille. That last element of his disguise had raised a smile as they planned how best to reach a shuttle bound for the Cypria Selene. At least it had raised a smile with everyone except Lemuel.
Behind them came a team of bearers, nine servitors carrying a collection of steamer trunks filled with the mass of papers, sketchbooks and grimoires written by Mahavastu in the years he had spent as Magnus’ puppet. Lemuel had urged Mahavastu to leave them, but the old man was adamant. The past needed to be preserved. History was history and it was not for them to judge what should be remembered and what should be forgotten.
“I won’t be a burner of books,” said Mahavastu, and the discussion was ended.
They had entered the port area without incident, for centuries of peace and an increasingly compliant galaxy had made the people of Prospero complacent.
“So how are we going to do this?”
asked Camille. It was the first thing she had said this morning, for there had been a furious row the previous night as she had told Chaiya of her decision to leave.
“Trust me,” said Lemuel. “I know what I’m doing.”
“You keep saying that, but you never say what you’re going to do.”
“I won’t know until the time comes.”
“Well that’s reassuring.”
Lemuel didn’t reply, understanding the root of Camille’s harsh words. They moved through the crowds, avoiding the main thoroughfares of wide-wheeled trucks as they ferried soldiers and crew to the loading berths. Tall-sided hangars, storage silos and fuel towers made up the bulk of the port facilities, and they threaded a path between them as they wound towards the silver platforms built on the edge of the shoreline.
A dozen craft growled in their berths, the last to join the orbiting mass-conveyer. This would be their last chance to get off Prospero.
Lemuel led them towards the launch bays as two more craft climbed into the sky on shrieking columns of jetfire. Camille walked alongside Mahavastu’s palanquin, trying and failing to look decorous as the bulked-out servitors bore him without complaint. They made for an unusual spectacle, but one Lemuel hoped looked about right for passengers who had every right to be taking flight on the newly refitted Cypria Selene.
“This isn’t going to work,” said Camille.
“It’s going to work,” insisted Lemuel. “It has to work.”
“No it won’t. We’ll be stopped and we’ll be stuck on Prospero.”
“With that attitude we definitely will be,” snapped Lemuel, his patience wearing thin.
“Lemuel. Camille,” said Mahavastu from the palanquin. “I understand we are all under a lot of pressure here, but if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, would both of you please shut the shirring hell up!”
Both Lemuel and Camille were brought up short, shocked at the old man’s language.
Lemuel looked up at Mahavastu, who seemed, if anything, more offended than them.
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