Void Stalker

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  ‘And that would be?’

  ‘You have come to destroy the sarcophagus, and slay Malcharion within it.’

  ‘Good guess.’ Talos turned away, heading into the annexed chamber where the war-sage’s ornate coffin was being held.

  ‘Wait.’

  Talos halted, but not because Deltrian ordered it. His shock froze him in his tracks, the blade still held in a loose fist. He took in the sight before him: the ornate sarcophagus linked and chained into place, mounted on the ceramite shell of an armoured Dreadnought. The blue aura of weak, focused stasis fields still played around the war machine’s limbs – locking them into immobility.

  ‘Why have you done this?’ Talos didn’t look away. ‘I gave no orders to prepare him as a Dreadnought.’

  Deltrian hesitated before speaking. ‘The later rituals of resurrection require the subject’s installation within the holy shell.’

  Talos wasn’t sure what to say. He wanted to object, but knew nothing was likely to move Deltrian to see any kind of sense. His surprise doubled when he saw another figure was already in the chamber. He sat with his back to the wall, idly squeezing the trigger of a chainaxe, listening to the blades whine.

  ‘Brother,’ the other Night Lord greeted him.

  ‘Uzas. What brings you here?’

  Uzas shrugged. ‘I come here often, to watch him. He should come back to us. We need him, but he doesn’t want to be needed.’

  Talos breathed, low and slow, before addressing Deltrian. ‘Activate the vox-speakers.’

  ‘Lord, I–’

  ‘Activate the vox-speakers or I will kill you.’

  ‘As you command.’ Deltrian walked on his stick-thin legs, clicking his way over to the primary control console. Several levers cranked with unhealthy grinding sounds.

  The chamber filled with screaming. Breathless, animalistic, exhausted screaming. Somehow, it sounded like an old man – that degree of ancient, weary weakness.

  Talos closed his eyes for a moment, though his helm stared ahead, as remorseless as ever.

  ‘No more,’ he whispered. ‘I am ending this.’

  ‘The subject is biologically stable,’ Deltrian vocalised louder, to speak over the screaming. ‘He has also been rendered into a state of mental stability, as well.’

  ‘You think this sounds like mental stability?’ The prophet still hadn’t turned around. ‘Can’t you hear the screaming?’

  ‘I can hear it,’ Uzas interrupted. ‘Bitter, bitter music.’

  ‘I am indeed aware of the vocalised pain response,’ Deltrian said. ‘I believe it indicates–’

  ‘No.’ Talos shook his head. ‘No. Don’t try that with me, Deltrian. I know there’s something human inside you. This isn’t a “vocalised pain response”. It’s screaming, and you know it. Lucoryphus was right about you: no mind could conceive of the Shriek and be as truly detached as you claim. You understand fear and pain. I know you do. You are one of us, whether you wear ceramite or not.’

  ‘The “screaming” then,’ Deltrian allowed. For the first time, there was a nuance of tone in his voice: an iota of displeasure. ‘We have brought him to a state of mental stability,’ he continued, ‘relatively speaking.’

  ‘And if you deactivated the stasis locks on the machine-body?’

  Deltrian had to pause again. ‘It is likely that the subject would kill us all.’

  ‘Stop saying the subject. This is Malcharion, a hero of our Legion.’

  ‘A hero you mean to murder.’

  Talos rounded on the tech-priest, the blade flaring to electric life in his hand. ‘He has already died twice. A fool’s hope allowed me to let you play your games with his corpse, but he is not coming back to us. I see that now. It is wrong to even try, for it goes against his final wish. You are no longer allowed to toy with his remains when it keeps him locked in some eternal, dead-minded agony. He deserves better than this.’

  Deltrian hesitated again, processing through potential responses, seeking one to appease the ship’s master in this uncomfortably mortal outburst. During the short pauses, the screaming continued unabated.

  ‘The subject – that is to say, Malcharion – can still serve the Legion. With applied excruciation and the correct pain control, he would be a devastating presence on the battlefield.’

  ‘I’ve already refused that path.’ Talos still hadn’t deactivated his sword. ‘I will not tolerate abuse of his body, and in his madness he’d be just as likely to shoot our own forces.’

  ‘But I can–’

  ‘Enough. Throne in flames, this is why Vandred lost his mind. The infighting. The bickering. The claws killing one another with knives in the dark. I may not have desired this idiotic pedestal my brothers have placed me upon, but I am here now, Deltrian. The Echo of Damnation is my ship. We may be running, we may be doomed, but I will not die without a fight, and I will not meet my end condoning this disgusting indignity. Do you understand me?’

  Deltrian didn’t, of course. This all sounded so very mortal to his audio receptors. Any actions based on emotion or mortal chemical processes were to be purged and ignored.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  Talos laughed, little more than a bitter bark of amusement against the backdrop of the Dreadnought’s screams. ‘You’re an awful liar. I doubt you even recall what it means to have any regard or trust in another soul.’

  He turned his back on the priest, hauling himself up the sarcophagus, climbing it one-handed. The power sword crackled with a buzzing drone as it came close to brushing the stasis fields.

  Talos stared at the image of Malcharion wrought in precious metals – his lord, his true lord before the years of Vandred’s reign – resplendent in that ancient moment of ultimate glory.

  ‘How different all of this might’ve been,’ Talos said, ‘had you lived.’

  ‘Do not do this,’ Deltrian vocalised his final objection. ‘This course of action violates the tenets of my circle’s oath to the Eighth Legion.’

  Talos ignored him. ‘Forgive me, captain,’ he said to the graven image as he raised his blade.

  ‘Wait.’

  Talos turned, but only from surprise at who’d spoken. He remained as he was, halfway up the Dreadnought’s armoured body, ready to sever the power feeds linking the life support machinery to the sarcophagus.

  ‘Wait,’ Uzas said again. The other Night Lord still hadn’t risen to his feet. He tapped the blade of his axe on the decking, tap-tap… tap-tap… tap-tap. ‘I hear something. A pattern. A pattern in the chaos.’

  Talos turned to Deltrian. ‘What does he mean?’

  The tech-adept was so confused by the exchange that he almost shrugged. Assuming a less-human behaviour instead, he emitted a spurt of negative code.

  ‘Clarification required. You are querying me as to the meaning of your own brother’s words, in the expectation I can provide some insight?’

  ‘I take your point,’ said Talos. He dropped from the sarcophagus, boots thudding onto the deck. ‘Uzas. Speak to me.’

  Uzas still tapped the axe in a soft, clanging rhythm. ‘Beneath the screams. Listen, Talos. Listen to the pattern.’

  Talos glanced at Deltrian. ‘Adept, can you not scan for what he might be speaking of? I hear only the screams.’

  ‘I have sixteen slave processes running continual diagnostics.’

  Uzas looked up at last. The bloody palm-print over his faceplate caught the chamber’s dull light. ‘The pattern is still there, Talos.’

  ‘What pattern?’

  ‘The… the pattern,’ Uzas said. ‘Malcharion lives.’

  Talos turned back to the sarcophagus. ‘Honoured adept, would you do me the service of explaining exactly what constitutes your order’s ritual of resurrection?’

  ‘That lore is forbidden.’

  ‘Of course. Then maintain the sec
rets, simply… be vague.’

  ‘That lore is forbidden.’

  The prophet almost laughed. ‘This is like drawing blood from a stone. Work with me, Deltrian. I need to know what you are doing to my captain in there.’

  ‘A combination of synaptic enhancement pulses, electrical life support feeds, chemical stimulants and invasive physiological stabilisers.’

  ‘A long time since you played Apothecary.’ Uzas’s grin was obvious from his tone. ‘Shall I run and find the Flayer?’

  Talos almost smiled despite himself, at hearing his lost brother making a jest. ‘That sounds close to several of the methods we use in excruciation, Deltrian.’

  ‘This is so. The subj–Malcharion has always been a troubling project. Awakening him requires an unusual degree of effort and focus.’

  ‘But he’s awake now,’ Talos said. ‘He’s awake. Why maintain the ritual?’

  Deltrian emitted an irritated blurt from his throat vocaliser.

  ‘What in the warp’s many hells was that?’ Talos asked.

  ‘A declaration of impatience,’ the adept answered.

  ‘How very mortal of you.’

  Deltrian made the sound again, louder this time. ‘With respect, you are speaking in ignorance. The rituals of resurrection do not cease purely because the subject is physically awakened. His mind is not cognisant of his surroundings. We have awakened his physical remnants, allowing him to bond with the holy war machine. But his mind is still lost. The ritual proceeds in order to refuel and restore his anima.’

  ‘His… what?’

  ‘His sense of self-awareness and capacity to reason in response to stimuli. His conscious sentience, as the manifestation of his living spirit.’

  ‘His soul, you mean. His mind.’

  ‘As you say. We have brought forth his brain and body, but not his mind and soul. There is a difference.’

  Talos breathed in stale, recycled air through his teeth. ‘I had a dog once. Xarl used to poke it with sticks.’

  Deltrian froze. Although his eye lenses remained focused and unmoving, his internal processors raced for some kind of comprehension to find purchase with the current conversation.

  ‘Dog,’ he said aloud. ‘Quadrupedal mammal. Family Canidae, Genus Canis, Order Carnivora.’

  Talos was watching the sarcophagus again, listening to the screams. ‘Yes, Deltrian. A dog. This was before Nostramo burned, before Xarl and I joined the Legion. We were children on the streets most nights, little knowing of the lawless madness taking hold of the world outside our city. We thought we lived at the heart of the gang warfare. That delusion came to be almost amusing, in time.’

  Talos’s tone never changed as he continued. ‘The dog was a stray. I fed her, and she followed me forever afterwards. A mean bitch, never shy to show her teeth. Xarl would poke her with sticks when she slept. He found it hilarious to have the dog waking up, barking and snapping her jaws. He kept poking her once, even when she was up and barking at him. After a few minutes of his teasing, she went for his throat. He got his arm up in time, but she savaged his hand and forearm.’

  ‘What happened to the dog?’ Uzas asked, surprising Talos with the curiosity in his voice.

  ‘Xarl killed her. He broke her head open with a tyre iron the next morning, while she was asleep.’

  ‘She didn’t wake up barking that time,’ Uzas observed, in the same strange, soft tone.

  Deltrian hesitated before replying. ‘The relevance of this adjacent conversational pathway eludes me.’

  Talos inclined his head to the sarcophagus. ‘I am saying he’s already awake, Deltrian. What have you done since he awoke? You told me he needed to be stabilised, but the fact remains: he’s awake now. What have you been doing?’

  ‘The rituals of resurrection. As stated: synaptic enhancement pulses, electrical life support feeds, chemical stimulants and invasive physiological stabilisers.’

  ‘So you’ve filtered maddening chemicals and electrical stimulants through the body of a warrior wounded unto death, who has already demonstrated his symbiosis with the sarcophagus doesn’t follow standard patterns.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘He’s awake now, and in his madness, he’s trying to go for your face. You’ve poked him with sticks, Deltrian.’

  Deltrian mused on that. ‘Processing,’ he said. ‘Processing.’

  Talos was still listening to the screaming. ‘Process faster. My captain’s screams aren’t music to me, Deltrian.’

  ‘At no juncture has the subject registered within acceptable levels of higher cognitive function. If he had, then the rituals of resurrection would immediately be terminated.’

  ‘But you said, Malcharion’s reawakenings never followed conventional patterns.’

  ‘I…’ Deltrian, for the first time in centuries, began to doubt his findings. ‘I… Processing.’

  ‘You process that,’ said Talos, walking away. ‘Sometimes, Deltrian, it pays to share your secrets with those you can trust. And it isn’t always a curse to think like a mortal.’

  ‘A potential flaw occurs,’ Deltrian vocalised, still watching the reams of calculations playing out on his retinas. ‘Your supposition breaks the established and most holy ritual for a guess based primarily on emotion. Should your assumption prove incorrect, the damage to the subject physiology may be irreparable.’

  ‘Does it seem as if I care?’ Lightning danced down the golden blade as Talos drew near the central control console. He glanced across it, at the army of dials, scanning screens, thermal gauges, levers and switches. This was what pumped poison and pain into the body of his captain.

  ‘Shut this down,’ he said.

  ‘Negative. I cannot allow such an event to come to pass, based on something as flawed as mortal supposition and a metaphor centred on the interrupted sleep of a quadruped mammal. Talos. Talos, do you hear me? Deactivate your sword, my lord, please.’

  Talos raised the blade, and Uzas started laughing.

  ‘NO.’ Deltrian vocalised a piercing, weaponised burst of sound that would deafen any mortal and render them incapacitated. Talos’s helm left him immune to such theatrics. He’d used the same scream himself as a weapon too many times to fall for it now. ‘TALOS, NO.’

  The blade fell, and the repellent union of the power field and the console’s delicate machinery bred an explosion that hurled debris across the chamber.

  Talos rose to his feet in the silent aftermath, and his first thought was a bizarre one: Uzas was no longer gunning the chainaxe’s trigger. Through the thin smoke, he saw his brother standing by the wall, and Deltrian halfway across the chamber floor.

  The stasis fields were still active, imprisoning the Dreadnought’s limbs, generating a hum severe enough to make the prophet’s teeth itch. But the screaming had ceased – the sterile chamber felt somehow charged by its absence, akin to the richness of ozone in the air after a storm.

  Talos watched the towering war machine, waiting, listening – his senses keen for any change at all.

  ‘Talos,’ Uzas called.

  ‘Brother?’

  ‘What was your dog’s name?’

  Keza, he thought. ‘Be silent, Uzas,’ he said.

  ‘Hnnh,’ the other Night Lord replied.

  The Dreadnought didn’t move. It didn’t speak a word. It stood in silence, finally, finally dead.

  ‘You killed Malcharion,’ Uzas said as he walked closer. ‘That was always your intent. All those things you said… You wanted to help him die, no matter what else you said.’

  Victory had a foully hollow taste. Talos swallowed it back before speaking. ‘If he lived, so be it. If he died, then the torture would end and we’d have complied with his final wish. But either way, I was ending it.’

  Deltrian circled the ruined control console, his auxiliary arms deployed and picking up chunks of sm
oking debris.

  ‘No,’ he was saying. ‘Unacceptable. Simply unacceptable. No, no, no.’

  Talos couldn’t keep from smiling an awkward, bitter smile. ‘It’s done.’ The relief was palpable.

  ‘Talos,’ said a voice, avatarically guttural, loud enough to make the deck rumble.

  In the same moment, the chamber’s doors opened on grinding hydraulics. Cyrion entered, tossing a skull into the air and catching it each time it fell. Clearly it was one of the skulls from his armour, the chain broken and rattling at his hip.

  He stopped, took in the scene – Talos and Uzas standing together, staring at the Dreadnought; Deltrian standing with all arms deployed, staring in the same way as the legionaries.

  ‘Talos,’ repeated the booming, vox-altered voice. ‘I can’t move.’

  Cyrion laughed as he heard the voice. ‘Captain Malcharion is awake again? Wasn’t that worthy of a shipwide message?’

  ‘Cyrion…’ Talos managed to whisper. ‘Cyrion, wait…’

  ‘Cyrion,’ the Dreadnought intoned. ‘You’re still alive. Wonders will never cease.’

  ‘It’s a fine thing to see you again, captain.’ Cyrion walked over to the Dreadnought’s chassis, looking up at the sarcophagus chained into its armoured housing. He caught the skull one more time.

  ‘So,’ he said to the immense war machine. ‘Where should I begin? Here’s a list of what’s taken place while you slumbered…’

  XXI

  DEAD WEIGHT

  The last warriors of the Tenth and Eleventh Companies had gathered in the Echo of Damnation’s war room. For seven hours, none of them moved, all remaining around the prophet and the war-sage. Occasionally, one of the warriors from the other claws would speak up, adding their recollections to those spoken by Talos.

  At last, Talos released a long, slow breath. ‘And then you awoke,’ he said.

  The Dreadnought made a grinding sound deep within its innards, akin to a tank slipping gears. Talos wondered if that was the equivalent of a grunt, or a curse, or simply clearing your throat when there was no longer a throat to speak of.