Mark of Calth
Page 3
He did not deny it. ‘Will I succeed?’
Her grass stalk scratched the dust, writing things only she could see.
‘We shall see,’ she said abruptly. ‘We shall see.’
By day they walked, heading for a range of black mountains in the distance. They saw no other living soul as they went. Erebus thought back to the last time he had set foot upon the planet’s surface.
‘The plains and settlements are almost empty,’ he observed. ‘But of course – the exodus has already begun, has it not?’ With a smug grin, he directed his words at the priestess’s back as she walked. ‘Tell me, why did you not join them? Why did you not take your tribe into the stars, like so many of the other priests?’
Akshub did not respond.
The eight legionaries talked at length of the plans for the coming battle: the ambush of Guilliman’s hated Ultramarines that would open wide the way to Terra. Their defeat would be a blow to the morale of the so-called loyalists – the realm of Ultramar that Guilliman ruled was a model of what the Emperor said he had always intended for the Imperium.
Lies, all of it, thought Erebus. The Emperor sought only his own aggrandisement, and would abandon mankind to rot. Had he not hidden himself away for millennia? Mankind would fall as the eldar had fallen, its potential unrealised, all because of the Emperor’s desire for apotheosis. This had been revealed to him long, long ago.
Talk of ambush, of scrapcode, of deceit and murder washed over him. They all knew the strategy back to front. It had been almost a year since Lorgar had first tasked him and the others with the destruction of the XIII Legion, and Kor Phaeron’s plans had been long in the making. He let the Dark Cardinal talk, as he so liked to do. So sure of himself, this half-man – so sure of his adopted son’s affection for him. He was prideful at his command of the attack.
But Erebus knew that a thorn of irritation dug at him too: his own refusal, until now, to reveal the purpose of these particular athames. This pleased the Dark Apostle. He and Kor Phaeron, once close conspirators, were more often at loggerheads of late.
He watched the others. Quor Vondar, swollen with confidence. The embittered Foedral Fell, angered by duties he deemed unbefitting of his station. Hol Beloth, thirsting for power. Murderous Rabor, cautious Cxir. All were wrapped up in their own concerns in some way, but only Morpal Cxir looked genuinely troubled. The attack was essential to the winning of the greatest war, but it would be costly, no matter that surprise and fear would be on their side.
As Erebus looked around the circle of Space Marines, arguing and manoeuvring for whatever small glories were to be had, he wondered – and not for the first time – if Lorgar had meant leadership in this battle to be an honour. This campaign was crucial, but it would also prove bloody. Not all of them would survive. Perhaps Cxir, always glancing at his blade, was also beginning to see the truth of it.
No matter. Erebus would complete his part in the ritual. The great spell had been prepared, and the rest of the Legion was already on its way across Ultramar. He had the place for the summoning marked. His acolytes were gathered, and the myriad names of the daemons he would call forth were committed to his memory.
All was ready.
Cxir looked up at him, wordlessly. Erebus nodded.
In the ruins of an old temple in the foothills tended by grim-faced sentinels, Akshub began to teach him the way to open the skin of reality.
Erebus’s first attempts were clumsy and humiliating. He would pass Akshub’s knife through the air as instructed, only rarely causing the tear he required, and then it would be too small or too short-lived. Many temple slaves were violated and sacrificed before he had mastered even this first part of the ritual.
‘To move one’s mind into the empyrean is one thing, warrior, but to go bodily into that place is another.’ She rapped the back of his head for effect. ‘You must concentrate. Learn! Watch!’
She took back her knife. She muttered her words, and slid it along an angle that earthly dimensions could not describe. A crack of light split the air.
With a feral smile, Akshub disappeared.
Erebus noted again that she needed no sacrifice to open the way and, for a moment, his resolve wavered.
Patience, he told himself.
She returned as she always did, bringing with her yet another entranced victim for Erebus to bleed for the glory of the gods, and then he would try again.
At night Akshub kept him awake, forcing him to meditate to clear his mind and safeguard his soul. She armoured his spirit with incantations, but the lack of sleep began to take its toll, the genetic gifts of the Legiones Astartes notwithstanding.
The pile of glassy-eyed slave heads that she was making on the far side of the temple – the mark for his re-entry into the material realm – grew steadily.
Then, on the sixty-fourth day, he succeeded.
He made the pass with the knife, weary beyond telling. He was drained by the endless repetition of the spell, annoyed to breaking point by Akshub’s imprecations and insults. He felt dull inside, the words tumbling from his lips without conscious thought.
‘Yes! Yes!’ the priestess screeched. ‘The way, it is open! Now go. Go. Shield your mind. Remember all I have told you.’
He lifted his eyes and stepped through without hesitation.
What did he feel? Tumbling. Things plucking at him. Great, unwavering power. To see into the warp with one’s mind was one thing, but to be physically in it…
He could never have put it into words. Few could, for to enter that realm was death to any soul. And yet…
He felt where he should exit with senses that he did not know he possessed. He tumbled to the ground only a couple of metres short of the pile of mouldering heads.
Akshub sat down beside him as he lay, heaving. She looked him up and down, then stretched out her hand and closed her eyes. She spoke a spell of divination under her breath. Her mind probed at his, before her inhuman eyes snapped open again.
‘It is you. Nothing rides your body.’
Erebus pulled himself from the floor, exhausted.
‘Now rest,’ Akshub said, with the slightest hint of pride in her voice. ‘Tomorrow you shall do it again.’
His trips grew longer. First outside the ruins, then onto the plains, then later into the settlements further away. Erebus stalked the dusty streets by night. He was not out of place in the largest settlements, for the Word Bearers had a presence here, although when he caught sight of his legionary brothers he would duck quickly out of view. He struggled to maintain his composure; such was his sense of triumph that he would gladly shout it to the heavens.
He started to bring his own victims back to their lair. The place became foetid, buzzing with blowflies and rank with the stench of old blood. For the shorter trips, however, he no longer needed to kill.
He plotted longer and longer journeys – at first only in short steps, until he could circle the whole planet in a single night.
Akshub’s short-lived pride in her teaching grew into wariness as his competency increased. She kept her distance, and became almost entirely passive. She barely spoke to him, spending long periods seemingly in a trance, but did nothing to disrupt his learning.
Then he dared the moon. He stood in its daylit swamps, gazing up in amazement at Davin’s night side where he had been only seconds before.
No matter how far he went, the time he felt within the warp varied little. The same sensations of power and fear. The struggle to keep his mind blank of all but his destination. The tumble from one realm to the other. He lacked Akshub’s elegance, but he knew that he could go farther than she. He had grown more powerful than her, and they both knew it.
She ceased to guide him at all. She stopped eating. Erebus guessed that she was preparing herself for the end. He was angered by that, but still she did not leave the temple.
He s
et himself one final test.
He emerged into his quarters aboard the Destiny’s Hand with a clatter, spat from the warp with force. He slammed into his iron lectern, scattering books, manuscripts and data-slates onto the floor.
Laughing, he fell back into them. Surrounded by a jumble of arcane knowledge, he laughed long and loud.
He had pinpointed a ship, moving through the warp at speed, without any beacon or homing signal. He had arrived within his locked and barred sanctum, and no one had detected him in any way.
‘I truly am the Hand of Destiny,’ he murmured to himself.
He left again before he was discovered, back to the ruined temple on the other side of Ultima Segmentum.
Now it was time for that old witch to die.
‘So sure have you become, Lord Kor Phaeron, that you think yourself worthy of the very secrets of the gods themselves?’ said Erebus.
‘I am foremost among the servants of the gods!’ insisted Kor Phaeron. ‘I followed them of old. I demand to know their purpose. They do not deny me, Apostle, and yet you do. You promised to reveal the purpose of these athames. Do so. I command it.’
Erebus scowled. The old man disappointed him.
‘So be it, my lord. Like the warp-flasks, they are gifts of the gods. They possess the power to shield the wielder from harm, or to aid him in the working of great sorceries. Know, however, that these things are dependent on the ability of he who carries them.’
‘That is worse than cryptic, my lord,’ offered Undil with a knowing grin.
Foedral Fell laughed.
Erebus shrugged. ‘I speak words of truth to the deaf, then. These athames are not merely ritual tokens, but tools of enlightenment. A wound from them can turn the mightiest hero to our cause, opening his eyes to the majesty of Chaos, and the perfidy of the Emperor.’
‘I sense no such power beyond the gift of death,’ muttered Quor Vondar, holding his blade close to his closed eyes. ‘Though there is an echo of something…’ A frown creased his brow, as though he were straining to listen.
‘As I said, Master Vondar,’ said Erebus coldly, ‘it would depend upon the abilities of those that carry them. One might use it for whatever purpose they set their mind to.’
Kor Phaeron seemed to regard his blade in a new light. ‘You say that they are tools of enlightenment?’ he said, his eyes gleaming. ‘Enlightenment, or corruption?’
‘Of conversion, my lord. Amongst other things.’
‘And doubtless you will not tell us what those things are?’ said Cxir.
‘The gods will not spoon-feed you power, my lords, and nor will I. It must be learned and seized. Learn as I have, or fall by the wayside in the months and years to come. The choice is yours – I have simply given you a focus for your future endeavours, in the hope that you might…’ His words trailed away, and he cast his eyes downwards. ‘Well, there you have it. I see a touch of greatness in each of you.’
‘Of course,’ said Fell. ‘But why? Tell us, or we will not take your blades, no matter what wonders you promise. You surely do not expect us to follow your whispers so blindly?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Then for what reason do you hand us these athames?’
Erebus smiled widely. He restrained himself for a moment, savouring the pent-up irritation of the others.
Rabor slammed his blade down flatly upon the table, and stood.
‘Destiny,’ Erebus said eventually, and a delicious shiver passed up his spine at the sound of it.
Kor Phaeron, Dark Cardinal of the Word Bearers
Akshub was waiting for him when he returned. She watched him as he approached.
‘I have learned all I can from you, priestess,’ Erebus said, casting off his rough robe.
‘That is so.’
‘Only one more task remains to me, here.’
‘I have foreseen it,’ she agreed.
She did not resist as he knelt and pinned her to the floor in the centre of the temple with seven of the athames, their unnatural blades sinking into the stone as hot knives might sink into ice. She cried out as he repeated the ritual that he had seen her perform upon the Davinite priest the day she had sent Erebus to meet the Warmaster.
She did not plead with him, not even as he peeled back her withered skin, though she gasped as he sank the last of the blades into the exposed muscles of her chest.
She was still conscious as he cut out her heart and bit into it. Her eyes fluttered as her blood ran down his chin. ‘It is…’ she hissed, ‘the will… of the gods…’
Curiously, she died with a smile upon her face.
As Erebus chewed and swallowed, his transhuman physiology took over. The memories and thoughts of the priestess came to him in fits and flashes. Her wisdom was his, and he revelled in–
His chewing slowed. There was a recent recollection there that he had not expected.
A shadowed face. A furtive meeting.
He swallowed again, and took another bite, his teeth worrying at the tough muscle.
No matter how hard he focused, he could not bring that face into the light. Whoever the stranger was, though, they had told Akshub something that had gladdened her greatly.
Erebus knew then that he had been cheated of his revenge. She had waited for him to slay her. As much as she had wanted to live, Akshub had died in service of the gods, perhaps party to something greater that he would now never know.
He cast the remains of the heart aside with a cry of frustration. He rocked back on his heels next to the ruin of the priestess’s body.
Patience.
He had learned what he needed to learn, but he was not content. Akshub had won.
The knife in his hand began to hum a harsh, troubling note at the edge of his perception. One by one, the others picked up their own discordant tone. It was a terrible, raucous sound, until the eighth knife sang out, and the cacophony became a thing of riotous beauty. Just as the primarch had written, Erebus heard for the first time the eightfold song of Chaos, and the future opened up to him.
Then the notes slowly died.
Erebus plucked the blades from the priestess’s body. The final act of consecration was complete, and his shards were ready.
They tingled in his grasp as he gathered them. With an easy flourish he drew one – the one he had selected as his own – across the skin of reality, and stepped back to the Destiny’s Hand.
Erebus left the chamber first, followed closely by Sergeant Undil. Kor Phaeron had an evil look about him, and the Dark Apostle did not have the patience for any more of his posturing.
Many of the others were angry at his obtuseness. What did he care? They were also more than a little afraid of him now, and that gave him a hold over all. His goals were close to fulfilment. The shards would be present as he needed them to be, and the blood they would shed could only hasten the future that he had foreseen, even if nothing else.
If Lorgar did intend to rid himself of Erebus, then he would be disappointed. That the eight Shards of Erebus now also offered his fellow commanders the opportunity of escape from Calth was unimportant to him. Whether or not they would learn how to effect flight through the immaterium should they need it, well…
That was something he would leave to the will of the gods.
++data-inload suspended. purge routine initiated+++
++FATAL ERROR: CANNOT FIND VARIABLE “ushkul thu”+++
++ERROR+++
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++ERR–we are the dawn of sanctity. what lives in the eighth shall not die. those that cast down shall sit upon thrones. what changes is eternal. that which writhes in the grave’s womb will be reborn. they who live
without shackles shall be freed. we are the footsteps of the new sun. we are the pyre’s children–OR+++
++ERROR+++
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++ERROR+++
+WE RISE++
IT BEGINS+
~ DRAMATIS PERSONAE ~
The XIII Legion ‘Ultramarines’
Remus Ventanus, Captain, Fourth Company
Kiuz Selaton, Sergeant, Fourth Company
Lyros Sydance, Captain, Fourth Company
Ankrion, Sergeant, Fourth Company
Barkha, Sergeant, Fourth Company
Eikos Lamiad, ‘Eikos of the Arm’, Tetrarch of Ultramar (Konor)
Telemechrus, The Sky Warrior’, Contemptor Dreadnought
Aethon, Captain, 19th Company
Octavian Bruscius, Captain, 24th Company
Colbya, Techmarine
Urath, Sergeant, 39th Company
The XVII Legion ‘Word Bearers’
Foedral Fell, Anointed commander
Hol Beloth, Anointed commander
Maloq Kartho, Dark Apostle
Eriesh Kigal, Terminator Sergeant
Zu Gunara, Dreadnought
Imperial Personae
Meer Edv Tawren, Server of Instrumentation, Mechanicum
Subiaco, Ingenium, Calth Pioneer Auxilia
Riuk Hamadri, Colonel, Defence Auxilia
Volper Ullyet, Captain, 77th Ingenium Support Division
Kadene, Major, Cardace Storm Troopers
Bartebes, Corporal, Cardace Storm Troopers
I
Who will be the last to die?
Honorius Luciel’s name is entered in the Operational Records as the first, but who will be the last? The treachery orchestrated by the Warmaster began with the death of an Ultramarine, but Captain Remus Ventanus of the Fourth Company has sworn that it will end with the death of a Word Bearer. Not one of their rag-cloaked rabble of cultist-brotherhoods, not one of the skinless abominations dragged from the empyrean, but with a warrior of the XVII Legion.