[Dawn of War 03] - Tempest

by C. S. Goto - (ebook by Undead)

  It was an ocean of Chaos being drained through a plug. The rupture seemed to function like a hole in a pressurised cabin, sucking monstrous forms through a gap that was only a fraction of their size, compressing them and tearing them asunder, igniting infernos of warp fire that blazed and licked at the opening. But the daemons poured against the webway, clawing and lashing at each other and the structure itself, in a desperate, thirsty passion for birth into the materium.

  Something seemed to prevent them from getting through, as though the breach had been ward-sealed from the inside. A twinkling sheen was collecting around the tear within the golden tube, glittering like a constellation of tiny, crystalline stars—like little warp spiders trying to pull a silken-web over the breach to patch it.

  From the control deck of the Ravenous Spirit, Sergeant Kohath watched the rugged but diminishing shape of the Blood Ravens Thunderhawk; it was tiny in the fury of the daemonic tempest as it dropped away from the cruiser. The little gunship had no warp engines and only limited manoeuvrability in the immaterial mire—the Spirit had ejected it like a drop-pod, setting its path and then jettisoning it like a projectile towards the raging breach in the webway. From the very first moment that it had emerged from the shielded hull of the Spirit, the Thunderhawk had been like a magnet in a sea of molten iron. It was as though the energy flows of the warp itself had suddenly shifted, and a massive current of Chaotic forms had washed back from the webway, crashing over the tiny gunship like a tidal wave of hate and ferocity. Kohath had never seen anything like it.

  The viewscreen began to flicker and the image started to dissolve; whatever the eldar witch had done to the sensor arrays of the Ravenous Spirit could clearly not function without her presence.

  “Stabilise the picture, Loren,” snapped Kohath, keeping his eyes fixed on the screen as the Thunderhawk was ripped into a spin by the lash of a great, vaporous, snaking tendril of energy.

  “There is nothing I can do, sergeant,” answered the serf. “The image should not be there at all, according to our instruments.”

  As the picture cracked and fizzed into incoherence, the last image that Kohath saw was of a giant, ghostly, incisor-riddled mouth emerging out of the chaos of ethereal forms and yawning around the tumbling, uncontrolled shape of the Thunderhawk. The jaw tensed, as though gathering into solidity, and then it snapped closed. The viewscreen hissed, crackled and then went black.

  One of the heavy, stone desks had been dragged across into the pool of red light that flooded through the circular window cavity of the librarium. The Harlequin mime had been strapped to its surface and was pinned by four Marines, each holding one of its limbs in place. The thin, rubbery armour over the alien’s chest had been sliced open and peeled back, exposing its porcelain skin. In turn, the skin had been cut, burnt and shredded until it was awash with bloody colours, almost as vibrant as the eldar’s armour itself. The alien’s mask had been removed, and I could clearly see its startling blue eyes bulge with each incision.

  Ahriman circled the table slowly, muttering quietly to himself in a tongue that I recognised but could not fully recall. He was lost in concentration, and seemed to be almost oblivious to the presence of the dying Harlequin on the table next to him. But as he muttered the secret words of his forgotten language, more cuts and gashes appeared in the flesh of the prisoner, each wider and deeper than the last until blood started to ooze out of the joints in the creature’s armour, pooling on the table and then on the floor below.

  But the Harlequin said nothing. It made no sound at all. Its eyes bulged and widened with each stroke of the invisible knife; it was clear that the alien was suffering terrible pain. “What do you hope to achieve through this?” I asked, daring to interrupt Ahriman’s litanies or spells. “You haven’t even asked any questions.”

  The sorcerer showed no signs of having heard me, and continued his circuit around the table. One of the Prodigal Sons glanced up from the prisoner and fixed me with a hollow, cold and ineffable gaze, cautioning me into silence. His features shifted slightly as I looked at them, as though they were not really fixed into place on his face.

  “Ahriman! Answer me! What are you trying to do?” I was shouting. My confusion and frustration was building to a head. I felt suddenly and starkly out of place amongst these Marines. “Ask it a question, Emperor damn you!”

  My words echoed in muffled tones around the librarium, murmuring through the sudden and oppressive silence. Ahriman stopped circling the Harlequin and turned his face towards me. At the same time, each of the other Prodigal Sons released the alien and pulled themselves to their full height, looking over at me with vacant eyes. Their faces swam like watercolours in the rain. The hostility palpitated in the air.

  Friend of Ahriman, began the sorcerer; a slick smile creasing his ghostly features. Rhamah of the Sacred Blood, what would you have me ask this creature? Should I ask it for the secrets of the Arcadian Librarium? Should I ask it where they have hidden the broken blade of Lanthrilaq?

  “Ask what you need to know,” I stated simply. If you do not ask, it will tell you nothing. Our power resides in our choice of questions.

  “Need?” he laughed. It was a sick, gurgling noise from a distant place. “What do I need to know from this wretched creature? What could this twisted and broken alien possibly know that I do not know already? Do you know nothing of me, Librarian Rhamah?” It is not what we need, but what we desire to know that brings us power.

  “If you need nothing from this thing, kill it and be done with it.” Its very existence is offensive to the Emperor and this ritualistic play merely prolongs its existence. “Why must it suffer this way if it need not? We are wasting our time.”

  “I am testing a theory. I need not, but I desire to. How else do we learn the secrets that lead us beyond self-preservation and into the grandeur of power itself? Desire is the father of innovation and greatness. Need merely births solutions.”

  “What is your theory? What are you hoping to prove?”

  “I suspect that this distaur, this mime, can speak. My hypothesis is that it will do so when it reaches its pain threshold. This is part of a general theory that I have tested many times before, and it appears to hold true: all life forms change their nature after they experience a certain amount of pain. Of course, the thresholds vary by species and training, but the general theory appears to be sound.”

  You are torturing this mute creature to see whether it will become something else? Something that can talk, I asked?

  Exactly. You boil water and it becomes steam. Extremes make things change. Remember this, Rhamah, Son of Ahriman: extremes change everything. We must always explore the limits of ourselves and our knowledge; to place limits on exploration is to live a lie.

  I watched the sorcerer as he turned away and continued to circle the desk. His Prodigal Sons returned to their positions, stooped over the hapless alien prisoner, clamping its limbs to the corners of the table. For a few more seconds I watched the cuts and the gashes continue to appear across the Harlequin’s silent body, seeing its sparkling blue eyes bulge in agony even as the life drained out of them. Just as I turned away, one of the eyeballs ruptured and a wide cut ripped across the eldar’s face, covering his features in ocular liquids and blood.

  I strode away from the desk and the bloody red light of the triple suns, moving deeper into the librarium, letting the heavy shadows of the book stacks shroud me. Just as I passed out of sight, I heard the mime scream and cry out for mercy.

  He can talk after all.

  When Captain Ulantus strode onto the control deck of the Litany of Fury the glittering shapes of two eldar cruisers already loomed large on the main viewscreen. The captain had been summoned back to the bridge by Sergeant Saulh as soon as the alien vessels were first sighted emerging out of the shadow of Lorn VII.

  Ulantus had been down in the Implantation Chamber, watching Apothecary Medicius perform the next operation on their most recent and promising neophyte, the young Guardsman Ck
rius. Despite or perhaps because of the tumult of war that had gripped the Third and Ninth Companies of Blood Ravens, attention to these ritual details was vitally important for the future of the Chapter.

  “What do they want, sergeant?” asked Ulantus, positioning himself in the middle of the deck and gazing at the image of the elegant cruisers as they prowled around the Litany like sharks.

  “Unknown, captain. We have received no communications.”

  Ulantus shook his head in a wave of disbelief. “Throne damn him,” he muttered under his breath, silently cursing the Commander of the Watch for leaving him to deal with this on his own, again.

  “Have you asked them what they want, sergeant?” There was irritation in Ulantus’ voice. “No, captain.”

  “Then ask them.” He shouldn’t have had to say it.

  There was a moment of silence, and then a squeal of feedback cut through the control deck as the servitors struggled to find the appropriate frequencies. A loud whine was followed by the hiss of static and then a click into silence.

  “We have no way of reaching them. Their communications arrays appear incompatible with our own.”

  “Great,” snarled Ulantus.

  As he spoke, the viewscreen flickered and snowed as though a signal were interfering with the image. Gradually, a pale face became discern-able behind the interference patterns, but the picture rolled and shivered as though projected from an ancient movie-reel.

  “Stabilise that screen,” snapped the captain. “Locate the origin of the new signal, and stabilise the transmission. Bring us into phase.”

  The snow and the rolling stopped suddenly, revealing the porcelain face of a painfully beautiful female eldar, her eyes alive with emerald fire.

  “Gabriel.” The tone was bizarre, making the familiar name sound like an alien word. There was no doubt in the voice, and it was not a question. Its uncomfortable assertiveness verged on being a command-tone.

  “I am Captain Ulantus of the Blood Ravens Ninth, commander of the Litany of Fury. Identity yourself and your purpose,” replied Ulantus, ignoring the farseer’s opening word.

  “Gabriel?” This time the word was a question, or at least a doubt. The eldar female’s face creased slightly, as though she were confused or in pain. At that instant, Ulantus found himself wondering whether she was injured or exerting herself. For a flicker of a second, he felt sympathy for her efforts. Somewhere in his mind, he thought that he could hear the whispering of her voice trying to communicate with him. He shut it out resolutely.

  “No, I am not Captain Angelos. I am Captain Ulantus,” he repeated, feeling suddenly that his own identity was somehow inadequate when compared with that of the Commander of the Watch.

  “Gabriel.” The word pressed forcefully. It suggested that the alien had understood him, but that she expected Gabriel to be brought before her.

  “He is not here.”

  “Where?”

  “Who are you?” Ulantus was not going to be treated like Gabriel’s secretary.

  “Macha.” The name meant nothing to Ulantus. “Farseer of Biel-Tan. Where is Gabriel?” Macha’s face twisted with pain as she tried to form the human sounds of High Gothic. “He is not here, alien. What do you want?” Finally, revulsion settled into Ulantus’ mind as he realised that these offences to the Emperor were asking for Gabriel as though they were acquaintances. Anger tinged his thoughts: Gabriel was worse than he had thought.

  “What happened here? All dead?”

  “The orks are dead. The eldar are dead. Many of our own are also dead.”

  “And the Yngir?”

  Ulantus hesitated. “Yngir?” The sound was ugly and he could not form it properly.

  “The… necron?” Macha tried the name like an experiment.

  “Yes, the necron are dead too. Your people helped us,” conceded Ulantus, nodding his head in an instinctive show of respect for the deeds of warriors.

  “Not dead. There is no dying for the Yngir. You destroyed the portal on the planet. When the Yngir return, things will be worse.”

  His argument with Gabriel spun back through Ulantus’ mind, and for the first time he began to wonder whether the Commander of the Watch might not be losing his mind. “It was not us who destroyed the webway portal.”

  “But the ruination stinks like humans,” hissed Macha, clearly unconvinced. “I can smell your minds in the warp even as it spills into the ruptured portal.”

  “It was not us. We have reason to believe that there were other humans in this area after the battle—powerful psykers.”

  “Why should I believe you, human? You would like to see my people suffer and die.”

  “You are right, alien. But this is not our doing.”

  “Without the portal, much knowledge is lost. Much hope is lost. The future grows darker.”

  Ulantus hesitated, unsure about how much to reveal to this alien witch. He could see her pain and for a moment he realised the potential value of her knowledge. “Your Gabriel has gone in search of that knowledge.”

  Macha’s eyes flashed. “Gabriel?”

  “He has taken one of your own—an eldar witch like you—and is searching for an alternative way into the webway.”

  “Taldeer is alive?” There was a mixture of relief and concern written across Macha’s alien features. “She is with Gabriel. They must move quickly.”

  The interior of the Thunderhawk was groaning with effort. Its structure vibrated and shuddered, like a body immersed in deep cold, and a persistent moan of bending metal filled the compartments. The familiar thunder of the gunship’s engines was completely absent—they were not even firing. If there had been any up for them to fall down from in the warp, the vessel would simply be dropping.

  “Integrity?” asked Gabriel calmly, looking around the walls of the transportation compartment that dominated the interior of the craft. He thought that he could see the metal warping and bending, as though it had been heated to the point of malleability.

  “Holding, captain,” answered Ephraim, his augmetic arms blurring across the dials and switches of one of the monitor-terminals. “Just.”

  “Just is good enough,” replied Gabriel with a faint smile. He glanced over towards the hatch that led into the small control chamber, little more than a cockpit. It was shut and sealed, but every few seconds Gabriel could see flashes of something that wasn’t light bursting within the confines of that tiny space; the brightness pulsed through the armoured hatch as though it were made of paper.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could hear piercing cries and screams, but he could not tell whether they emanated from the cockpit or from outside the Thunderhawk. He couldn’t even tell whether they were cries from within his own head; perhaps they were the voices of reason rebelling against his actions.

  Turning away from the hatch, beyond which Taldeer and the three Blood Ravens Librarians toiled in a secret and terrible Rite of Sanctification, exhausting themselves to preserve the little gunship from the immense psychic pressures of the warp outside, Gabriel looked towards the rear of the compartment. There, in full battle armour with weapons primed and shining, stood the magnificent figure of Tanthius, his legs astride and braced against the rocking motion of the vessel. Next to him, Corallis appeared light and nimble, despite the majesty of his own ancient power armour.

  The two sergeants stood sentinel over the main exit-hatchway, unflinching like guardian angels waiting at the gates of hell. As the ship rocked and rumbled, making the hatch-frame shift and warp, the seam around the frame glowed and flashed like the fire of a star probing into the confined darkness.

  “And so even the righteous heart is besieged by the blinding light of false knowledge,” muttered Gabriel, only half to himself. The famous lines would be familiar to all the Blood Ravens. “Falsity is like an ocean that presses around solitary moments of truth, threatening to overwhelm or blind the seekers of knowledge, to eradicate them in an instant of self-deceiving brilliance.”

 
“Knowledge is power; it guards our souls—guard it well,” chanted the others in response, completing the Prayer of Resolve that had been left to them by the Great Father after he had vanquished the renegade Father Librarian Phraius.

  A sharp keening shrilled suddenly through the floor, sending tremulous waves of energy pulsing up through the Space Marines’ armoured boots. A roll of thunderous noise crashed along in its wake, rippling through the metallic plating over the floor as though rendering it liquid, firing the rivets out from the edges of the panels like shrapnel.

  Gabriel turned just in time to see the cockpit hatchway buckle and shudder. A brilliant flash of deep purple laced through the structure, like radioactive veins. Then the metal hatch bulged like a diaphragm, expanding and contracting as though the cockpit beyond was gasping for breath as it suffocated. Claws, talons and snarling faces began to form in the metal, pressing out into the compartment and stretching the fabric of the hatch-door behind them.

  Then nothing. Suddenly the hatch was smooth, cold and grey again. The rest of the compartment had dropped into silence; even the creaking and moaning of the gunship’s joints had stopped. The Space Marines shifted their weight, instinctively checking their weapons with unconscious movements of their fingers. The silence was eerie and unsettling.

  Taking a step towards the cockpit, Gabriel felt his boot sink slightly into the metallic deck, as though it had been rendered slightly spongiform in all the chaos. Lifting his foot carefully, he observed threads of metal as they stretched and stuck to the sole. He stepped back, checking the ground around him as it shimmered and rippled faintly, like the surface of pristine, still water. Behind him, he could hear the muffled and squelching sounds of Tanthius and Corallis as they began to fight against the unexpected gravity that seemed to push them inevitably down into the metallic quagmire.