by Ian Watson
Both mouths cried out at once – one in an anguish of frustration, the other snarling mind-curdling curses.
A tide of nausea swept over Lex, blurring his perceptions – his grasp of the world – to such a degree that he gagged, almost vomiting with vertigo. Up was down. Left was right. All was fluxing. Hallucinatory pink fumes gusted from Sagramoso’s open mouth, like some cloud of diluted blood vented underwater, as the rebel lord rocked in agony, clutching the haft of the axe locked there in that rib-rent cleavage in his bosom. Foggy, twisted pink creatures seemed to fill the whole amphitheatre – squirming, clawing creatures of suckers and claws and grinning fangs. They packed the air – as if they had been there all along, and only now were rendered visible… as if those insane beings were the ultimate texture of reality itself, and behind all appearances – hidden within the very texture of the cosmos – lurked such festering daemons, coexisting with air and void itself, swimming unseen even through the spaces occupied by human bodies, eager to manifest themselves if only they could, to claw and sucker tight… and feed. And giggle and snigger. Lex could not hear their crazy laughter, but he could well imagine it.
And it came to Lex then that the warp through which star-ships flew was the true home of such creatures; that the warp was dense with a shifting flux of potential entities such as these – coalescing, dividing, bubbling into phantom existence, and dissolving again.
Starships might well be little fortresses of plasteel and adamantium, and devoutly shielded, yet in the light of his new vision they were but… eggshells, soap bubbles of sanity.
Knowing this – this madness – how could he ever again traverse the warp with his battle-brothers without experiencing constant dread? Without suffering a sickness unto death?
The destabilising flux of vexed mutability plainly affected the minds of everyone in that cavern. Karks finally fired their shuriken catapults – at the Ancient who stood opposing the conjurations of their fatally wounded lord. Blood sprayed from the entry points of the razor-sharp spinning stars. Hearthguards replied with bolter fire. Some hearthguards shot at one another.
Sagramoso rocked to and fro, barely alive, held up as though by puppet strings. One of the mouths in his chest puckered out of existence, but the other gaped wider. Its lips peeled back, curling and fattening, yawning ever wider – to swallow Sagramoso into themselves, incorporating his tissue into their own immaterium.
Lex gawped at this impossible spectacle, more appalled by such a sight than by his own predicament, shackled naked as he was while a murderous battle raged across him and above him…
Yeri had at last torn himself loose.
And he did cast himself upon Lexandro – as the butt for any stray bolts or stars. He hid from Lex’s gaze almost all the thronging phantasmal entities… even as those were weakening, losing coherence, thinning and drifting towards Sagramoso, back to their source.
Gaps were showing in that mouth-traversed man where parts had been digested, sucked elsewhere. Organs hung dripping loosely in mid-air, strung by tubes and nerves and arteries…
“Vileness,” that muscular bulk hissed into Lex’s captive ear. “Madness…”
The two mobile pink lips flayed Sagramoso, enlarging, peeling him open, one of them travelling down the remains of his trunk, the other navigating the residue of his back. Cloudy ghosts of madness were sucked into the gape of those lips to mingle with the exposed organs which themselves were becoming mouths.
And just then an explosion rocked the seething chamber. Just then a coughing thunder spoke.
Armoured dwarfs began to fly apart as if they too were vaporous, bloody ghosts.
Dwarfs died fast.
So did the remaining Karks.
On the blasted threshold of the cavern had appeared two Librarians of the Fists in lustrous armour, their storm bolters firing rapidly.
The psychic Librarians of the Chapter in their sublime, engraved Terminator armour!
The daemonic maelstrom stirred by Sagramoso had guided them here as surely as bees to pollen, or rats to an abandoned baby.
Bolts tore into those mobile, travelling lips that were consuming what still remained of Fulgor Sagramoso.
Did all of those bolts even detonate within the known universe of sanity? It seemed not…
One last time the lips screamed: Tzzzeeeeentch—
In vain.
With a glutinous slurp the ravaged lips swallowed themselves.
THE TREACHEROUS NAUSEA was to linger long in Lex’s mind, connected intimately with the memory of the pressure of Yeri’s body upon him, shielding him… though what shelter could there be from an insanity which existed only a membrane away from the ordinary world?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DEEP BENEATH THE Apothecarion of the fortress-monastery lay an Isolatorium.
In common with the nearby dungeons where surgeon interrogators plied their trade, the isolation complex was fabricated of adamantium. Furthermore, it was shielded psychically in the way that starship hulls were shielded – with a layer of psycurium alloy to resist the seductive dreams and ravenous nightmares of the warp, and to repel entities that inhabited that zone where raw thought could become hideous substance.
In extremis the whole Isolatorium – as well as individual chambers within it – could be blasted free of the fortress-monastery and detonated.
The cells, of varying sizes, were coated internally with black rubber by way of protective padding. Diagnostic sensors and extrudable chirurgical equipment studded their ceilings like malign nipples.
It was here, to a triple cell, that the armoured Librarians had finally brought the three brothers – locked in stasis caskets – for scrutiny and therapy.
Freed from stasis, but secured in this impregnable chamber, the three brothers had been asperged and drugged and exorcised and mesmerised.
Canticles from the Codex Astartes played constantly from several speakers in the rubberised ceiling, weaving a polyphonal web of additional protection and reminder of sacred duty.
Somnified, the three brothers had been interrogated by the Chaplain attached to the Librarium. Their very dreams had been dissected.
Now at last Lex, Biff, and Yeri were declared cleansed. To mark which, silver purity seals hung round their necks and wrists and ankles.
The question which remained was how much these three young Marines should be permitted to remember about the denouement to the Karkason Crusade…
For they had witnessed abomination.
ABOMINATION…!
A Librarian of the Fists could cope with such horrors to a remarkable degree. A Librarian was graced – or cursed – with a potent psychic streak. He was relatively learned in the wiles of warp daemons. All Librarians must pore over occult texts chained within a restricted room in the Librarium – the very hasps of those locked volumes were enchased with prohibitive runes.
Such investigations were by no means the métier of an ordinary fighting Marine – who could easily be vexed to madness by exposure to manifestations of such evil, world-warping forces.
It wasn’t unusual to erase the recent memories of Marines who had been thus exposed and sorely affected by the experience. Such spiritual casualties might even require really radical mind-wiping, returning them to the condition of innocent infants.
Yet Yeremi Valence had been instrumental to a large degree in writing finis to Fulgor Sagramoso – with that ancient Squattish axe.
At the ultimate hour, the conjuring of a daemon of one of the unspeakable Chaos Powers – and a consequent cascade of gibbering deadly daemonic underlings – was aborted.
Admittedly, premonitory psychic tremors had led the Librarians to that arena-cavern. The Librarians had followed the scent of Chaos like some red thread through a labyrinth – to scourge it.
Yet had the axe not been hurled, the Librarians might have arrived too late. Giggling fiends might already have been boiling out through the maze of tunnels, spreading madness and death amongst the invading Marines.
Surely the survivors of the recce squad deserved to remember the details of their victory?
Yet on the other hand, the members of the recce squad had let themselves be lured to become sacrificial victims, stripped of their armour…
Dusky Librarian Franz Grenzstein, his cheeks nicked white with duelling cicatrices, stood surveying the brothers who had now been allowed gold-embroidered hassocks to kneel on.
At his side, Chaplain Geistler, in alb and chasuble of the Cult of Dorn, force sword in scabbard. That grim-eyed man’s shaved brow was tattooed with a vermilion starburst resembling a lurid birthmark. In his right eye he wore a scrutinising monocle.
“As we understand it,” Grenzstein was stating in measured tones, “the Chaos Power known as Tzeentch conceives plans to alter history – schemes which are altogether too devious and far-flung for any human being to hope to comprehend…”
Patterns, thought Biff. Arcane patterns.
Chained on that slab, he had almost been on the point of grasping a certain pattern… Yet it had eluded him in the ensuing swirl of nausea and mutability…
The Librarian went on, “We doubt that the cursed Fulgor Sagramoso understood the peril of possession, even towards the very end.”
“Possession, Sir?” asked Yeri humbly.
“Aye… possession. The emergence of a daemon within a living man – whereby he will act as a conduit for its power, and will progressively assume the warping marks of Chaos. Moreover, we doubt that Lord Sagramoso even realised how his blasphemy rendered him liable to such possession…”
“His impious craving for worship,” added the Chaplain. “We found no evidence of the stain of Chaos in the ruins of Sagramoso’s palace. No idols, other than of himself. He made himself vulnerable unwittingly. He believed he was a miraculous godling, and he became a puppet of Tzeentch.”
Grenzstein shrugged. “Still, this is not the province of a Chapter such as ours. We of the Librarium must be aware of Chaos. Yet we do not ourselves aim to contend with Chaos, unless compelled to. We have signalled for an Inquisition research team to investigate Karkason and Antro too.”
“Antro will soon be brought within the fold!” promised the Chaplain. He coughed to clear his throat, for the salvation of a world was an emotional matter.
Yeri looked at the Librarian. “Sir, could the presence of so much psycurium in Sagramoso’s vaults possibly have acted as a kind of lens around him…?”
It was Geistler who answered. “Maybe! Though that’s a mechanistic rationale. The universe is far from being a machine, Valence. Or, if so, it’s an infested living machine which protrudes from a swamp of turbulent spirit… Cleave to that explanation of Sagramoso’s corruption, if you wish, to help salve your sanity. And adore the Emperor and Dorn, so as to scour the eyesight of your mind. To scrape your eyeballs clean of phantom parasites!”
Biff’s hands clawed at the air to try to inscribe the hex pattern he still felt he was on the point of sensing – a hex with which to banish horrors that were currently invisible and undetectable yet which might nevertheless be hiding in the very air he breathed.
The Chaplain raised an eyebrow.
“Ah, you’re sketching the crux dentatus inversus… The toothed, upside-down cross. Would that power sign really have banished an agent of Tzeentch, had you made such a sign at the time? When you yourself aren’t a psychic adeptus? Alas, no… The axe blade answered Tzeentch. And that must always be the star warrior’s final response. Weaponry, wielded with ingenuity and foresight. The toothed power blade, and the bolter.”
It had been Biff’s idea, of course, to throw the axe which had shattered both Sagramoso’s rib-cage and his deluded hopes as the flux of changes took full hold of him.
Perhaps the axe had been a blessing for Sagramoso. And perhaps not. Swallowed half-alive by those lips into the warp, where and what was Sagramoso now?
Lexandro remained unsure whether the three of them, in the final analysis, were being praised or blamed. Thank Dorn they had not brought the taint of this… corrupting Chaos… back into their fortress-monastery! It had been such a very close call – as close as Yeri’s body squashed upon his own… pressed bravely, yet in seeming parody of the true valour that was Lex’s own destiny.
If only they could have erupted into that amphitheatre in full armour, fully armed! Yet how would they have found the place if they had not followed that teasing trail into a trap?
Truly, their survival and their triumph over the heretic was hedged irritatingly, damnably, with many ambiguous might-have-beens.
“You are clean. You are clear,” concluded Chaplain Geistler. “Pray constantly that you will never again find yourselves in the presence of such a malevolent power. Still, you conducted yourselves adequately. We will allow you to remember – how a blasphemer against Him-on-Earth met his end. Yes, Valence? Your eyes are questioning me.”
“That old gnome who told the hearthguard to unshackle one of us with the axe—”
“Indeed, he must have sensed the truth – somewhat late.” The Chaplain frowned. “He died – absolved, in a sense. No doubt the Inquisitors will bear that fact in mind when they purify Antro.”
The Librarian leaned forward. “You’re concerned with the… justice of their future treatment?” Yeri nodded.
Damn fool Yeri, thought Lex, harping on the fact that he had not primarily been instrumental in freeing himself! How much finer if he had torn himself free unaided.
Or if Lex had done so…
Grenzstein tapped his fists together. “Don’t confuse gratitude for a serendipitous event with any… cloying compassion towards the author of that event, Valence,” he said. “True justice is quite simply the will of the Emperor.”
“You will remember,” promised Geistler, “but you will not be otherwise honoured. The manner of Sagramoso’s departure from the cosmos shall remain a black secret – restricted. You may tell none of your brothers other than that Librarians rescued you. You will swear this before you leave the Isolatorium.”
The Chaplain had brought a bulky burden with him into the rubber-bossed cell, wrapped in black satin. He had handled it with exquisite care. Might the satin conceal some final psychotheological device for diagnosing any stain of possession?
No…
For now Geistler peeled the inky fabric aside – to disclose a stasis case with a magnilens insert.
“If you ever break this vow, your bodies will slowly be immersed alive in acid until only your bones remain. Then execrations will be carved upon every inch of those, and your skeletons will be cast adrift – for some alien to find, in awe and horror, in a million years time, or a million more. And perhaps to hang in its alien temple, as hoodoo trinkets.”
Within the box was… Dorn’s right hand, the surfaces of the carpus, the metacarpal bones, and the phalanges dense with scrimshandered heraldry.
Dorn’s actual hand, borrowed from the Reclusiam…
Lex understood now how narrow was the ledge their lives had been poised on ever since they entered the Isolatorium – balanced between honourable euthanasia if they were tainted, return to duty as amnesiacs perhaps requiring much retraining… and return as themselves entire – which only the most solemn of oaths could permit.
Geistler held the transparent box tightly as, one by one, the three brothers placed their right palms upon the surface, barely inches above the actual bones of Rogal Dorn.
Each recited after the Chaplain: “Per ossibus Dorni silentium atque taciturnitatem fideliter promitto.”
Only then were they at last released from the Isolatorium… to walk up presently past a surgical interrogation cell where a Squattish Living Ancestor gibbered to himself…
AND SO, AS ever, the fortress-monastery flew onward through measureless nothingness and endless night from year to year, the far stars only shifting their positions by a fraction.
Within, the great community went about its familiar regime of existence, a regime so long sustained that almost any acti
vity was gilded with ritual, a rich thread in a tapestry ever a-weaving.
Weapons practice. Prayers. Pain machines. Feasts. Duels of honour. Expeditions of squad and company size…
Yeri was the first of the three brothers to fight a duel in the Hall of Steins, fixed in the Boots. He fought to defend Lex’s honour, to the latter’s embarrassment, and was sliced across the jaw in the contest. Thereafter Yeri tended to make his chin jut, displaying the scar that honoured his supposed devotion to a brother…
Biff, somewhat to his own surprise, was the first of the three to feel the scrimshaw itch. Before many years had passed, he was often to be found in his cell polishing an antique jackknife on a gritty piece of lizard skin, or buffing a finger bone on a wheel of unstitched muslin to raise a fine lustre on it, or treating the osseous pores with paraffin. The primal, primeval feel of that ancient blade appealed to him more than a sophisticated silicon carbide graving tool.
The art appealed to the atavist in Biff – just as the final delicate etching bespoke the way in which his own crude bone and brawn and brain had been refined into a gracious maturity. His flesh as fine as marbled beef massaged with milk and wine, though almost as tough as marble… A mighty delicacy of intellect and feeling, balanced upon a ruthless brainstem…
Biff’s first finished scrimshaw scene, inscribed minutely on a single finger bone, depicted a Librarian in Terminator armour advancing through dwarfish armoured warriors. This was judged worthy to be placed in a small silver reliquary set in a niche along the Corridor of Comfortless Courage. Lexandro hinted sinisterly that Biff’s scrimshaw image was perhaps “just a little too near the knuckle”.
The three brothers flew with the whole First Company to a great space hulk which was reported by a freighter captain as drifting in the void and approaching the vicinity of a prosperous solar system. There, they destroyed a lair of genestealers before those cunning and savage alien enigmas could infest the planets of that star, hypnotising and hybridising with the citizenry…
