Atlas Infernal

by Rob Sanders

  ‘Get back!’ Czevak called with authority across the hush of the hangar.

  At first there were swirls and eddies; reversed ripples and then forms, drenched in the slick, silvery warpflesh of the ichneuplasm. The immaterial monstrosities from outside the ship were breaching the weakening integrity of the Geller field and using as their anchor the warp presence of the ichneuplasm to help heave their savage ethereal selves across the border into reality. As a legion of daemonspawn drew themselves up out of the mirrored surface of the pool – from the creeping to the colossal, the horned and the horrific, both mockeries of nature and the formless natures of the unseen and unknowable – Czevak adjusted his mind-impulse interface. The inquisitor was fearful that he would lose his connection with the ship. He’d exchanged one hellish entity for a thousand and they had done their part in burying their proverbial and literal claws into the warpflesh of the ichneuplasm. Czevak decided that it was now time to send them all back to the nightmare from which they had come.

  ‘Reinstating Geller field; directing all power from the warp engines…’ Czevak mouthed as he communicated the same to the Malescaythe’s machine spirit through the hard-wire interface.

  As the Geller field built to full power, effectively cutting the link that the daemonic entities had forged between the unreality of the Eye and the inside of the rogue trader, the foothold that the creatures had established became progressively less stable. Like liquid in zero gravity, pulled droplet by droplet towards a crack in the spacecraft’s outer hull, the daemon interlopers began to dissipate. They reached out with claw and pincer, tentacle and jaw, for the souls on the archeodeck. The essence of their existence bled from them, drizzling their argent manifestations back to the dreadspace from which they were spawned. One by one the daemons were forced back behind the prison walls of reality, re-erected by the Malescaythe’s powerful Geller field force generator. As the phantasmal miasma of the entities wept to nothingness, accompanied by the fading insanity of unearthly screams, Czevak unplugged himself from the mind-impulse interface and tossed the cable to the deck.

  From the catwalks to the Fornical, mouths were agape and weapons trembled in adrenaline-addled grips. Klute strode across the decimated archeodeck towards his master, touching Torqhuil’s armoured elbow as he went. The scene had a hint of the ridiculous about it, the all too human inquisitor checking that a superhuman member of the Adeptus Astartes was all right, after the trauma of the daemonic incursion. Torqhuil himself simply towered in Czevak’s vicinity, helmet still on, power axe still humming away in his gauntlets – deciding which side of insane the newcomer really was.

  Epiphani had Father lead her over to Hessian’s broken body. No one else in the gathering would have cared if the daemonhost was alive or dead, but as Klute suspected, Epiphani had a soft spot for the monster, sharing years together trailing Phalanghast on his warped ventures across the segmentum.

  ‘He’s alive,’ she called softly, remarkably softly for Epiphani, as she leant in to listen to his breathing. Klute shouldn’t have been surprised; loosening the wards and spiritual impediments to the realisation of even a fraction of Hessian the Abominate’s true power had allowed the beast certain invulnerabilities. These invulnerabilities had saved the creature’s life as he in turn had helped save the lives of everyone in the hangar. It was not an experiment Klute intended on repeating often, and he was unashamedly glad that the daemonhost had been smashed senseless. It would make the process of inflicting fresh wards and circumscriptisms on the creature all the easier.

  ‘It’s alive, Epiphani. It’s an “it”,’ Klute reminded her with an almost paternal authority. The inquisitor moved towards the spectacle of his rediscovered master, his chest bursting with a mixture of pride and relief. He had achieved the impossible; thank the God-Emperor, he’d found his long lost master – it was over. Before Klute could reach Czevak, Torres got to him first.

  The captain opened with, ‘Are you out of your mind?’

  Czevak seemed to notice her for the first time: the full figure, the Imperial Navy uniform, the lustrous hair and less attractive furrow of her brow and fury in her eyes.

  ‘Well if I was – how would I know? You tell me. How do I look?’

  The captain was caught off guard by the playful answer, but rallied swiftly.

  ‘You almost got us killed. Twice.’

  ‘I’ve always found the operative word in that sentence to be “almost”.’

  ‘Little surprise that you make a habit of such recklessness. Your flippancy disgusts me, sir. Men did die here today. Defending this ship: my ship, my men.’

  Czevak’s words grew colder. ‘No man enters the Eye of Terror under the illusion that he will face anything other than a horrible death. Like sword swallowers and men who climb mountains for sport, I have little sympathy for them. They have it coming.’

  ‘I hope you would include yourself in that category,’ the rogue trader captain shot back.

  Czevak turned, straightening the collar on his outlandish coat and hanging his hands on his gaudy lapels.

  ‘Doubly, madam.’

  Exeunt

  ACT I, CANTO III

  Stellagraphium, Rogue trader Malescaythe, The Eye of Terror

  Enter HIGH INQUISITOR BRONISLAW CZEVAK, attended by KLUTE, CAPTAIN REINETTE TORRES, EPIPHANI, FATHER and SAUL TORQHUIL

  Torres had forgotten about Guidetti.

  As the assembly swept into the stellagraphium, the rogue trader captain came to regard her former Navigator. Rasputus Guidetti had been a tall, proud, alabaster-skinned charmer whose family had charter ties with the Torres-Bouchier Mercantile Sovereignty on Zyracuse. During the Malescaythe’s extended stay in the Eye of Terror, Guidetti’s singular talents had become all but redundant – the Astronomican failing to penetrate the deeper reaches of the maelstrom. Some of the ship’s company claimed that the Navigator had caught a variety of ether-fever, others that without the Astronomican’s constant chorus of angelic light, Guidetti went insane. When several crew members were discovered with their throats torn out, initial suspicion had fallen on the monster Hessian or some daemon world stowaway. This was until the body of the Malescaythe’s chief astropath was found on the lower decks with Guidetti still feeding on her.

  Torres had been tempted to destroy him there and then but reasoned that in his lucid moments, the Navigator and his extensive knowledge of the segmentum might still be useful to her. Instead she opted to imprison him in a gibbet cage, restricting his movements and hang him in the corner of the stellagraphium. She had placed him there for two reasons: firstly, as the Malescaythe’s chart room, it was a place that the insane Guidetti felt calmest – which was the way Torres preferred the psychopath; secondly, since entering the Eye of Terror, where star charts were all but useless, the stellagraphium was rarely used.

  Czevak barely acknowledged the scaly mutant, merely ducking beneath the snatching grip of Guidetti’s dirty, webbed claws before walking on. Captain Torres placed a threatening hand on the grip of her laspistol and held it there, which was enough to prompt the Navigator to slink back into his cage. He blinked subservience from where his head was secured in an iron bridle and restricted himself to sibilant mutterings.

  Turning, Torres went to take her traditional position at the head of the stellagraphium’s great table but found that Czevak had already taken the ornate leather chair for himself. Casually reclined, he propped his boots up on the polished surface of the great table – as well as the ancient vector charts, celestial cartograms and warp dilation tabulata that had been the captain’s inheritance along with the Malescaythe. In silent disgust, the captain took an alternative seat and began assembling the delicate collection of scrolls and maps. Epiphani took a seat opposite, resplendent in a two-piece bedlah of bronzed silks, a chain circlet and a high collar gown of magnificent cyclopteryx feathers, and began shuffling a pack of psychoactive crystal wafers.

  Despite Klute’s own youthful forays into spire fashions, the inquisitor had
initially thought it strange that the blind warp-seer took such an interest in clothes and her appearance. Her mother, Lady Casserndra Laestrygoni had been a spire-style sensation, but Epiphani was not privy to that information. She saw the future and not the past. The inquisitor slowly came to understand, however, that while most people saw others and consulted mirrors to see themselves, the warp-seer constantly saw herself through the eyes of another. Constantly viewing herself through her drone’s bionic eyes had made her more self-conscious – and fashion conscious – than anyone Klute had ever met and this manifested itself in the spectacular arrangements the warp-seer was seen wearing about the rogue trader.

  The servo-skull, Father, hovered over Epiphani’s silk shoulder, watching the tarot unfold. Saul Torqhuil was forced to stand by the wall, the ornate furniture not hoping to accommodate his bulk, armour and servo-appendages. As Klute hurried in past the two goggled Savlar Guardsmen stationed on the entrance arch, he positioned himself at the other end of the table. He was followed in by a servitor carrying a tray of food and drink. Laying a dish of steaming ichthid eggs and black bread before Czevak with a decanter of amasec and a glass, the silent servant left the chamber.

  Sitting up to the table, the young-looking inquisitor scooped up a pronged spoon before shovelling the food down. The assembly waited, fascinated by the spectacle of the clearly ravenous Czevak wolfing down such luxurious fare. Still chewing and with some of the tiny eggs running down his chin, the inquisitor addressed the room with an all encompassing gesture of his spoon.

  ‘Don’t wait for me,’ he said through a mouthful, before pouring himself a generous glass of amasec.

  Torres didn’t wait, she launched into a series of questions directed at Klute, ‘Raimus, please. What is going on? Who is this man?’

  Klute nodded in acknowledgement that the captain was absolutely right to ask.

  ‘May I introduce,’ Klute began, ‘High Inquisitor Bronislaw Czevak, of the Ordo Xenos.’

  Apart from Guidetti’s gibberings and the snap of crystal wafers on the smooth surface of the table, the chamber fell to a dumbstruck silence.

  ‘This isn’t Czevak,’ Torres spat. ‘Czevak’s dead.’

  ‘Well, that is a relief,’ Czevak said between spoonfuls.

  ‘She’s correct,’ Torqhuil weighed in. ‘Even those that believe him alive say that the eldar have him. Others, that the dark sorcerers of the Thousand Sons Legion made him their plaything.’

  ‘Besides, what would he be?’ the rogue trader captain put to them. ‘Four hundred years old?’

  ‘Four hundred and thirty-three,’ Czevak corrected her, his face hard.

  ‘This is Bronislaw Czevak,’ Klute told them as the two inquisitors regarded each other along the length of the table. Czevak went back to his eggs. ‘I should know; before achieving rank in the ordo, I served as his acolyte and apprentice for twenty of those four hundred and thirty-three years. I then used that rank, influence and power to engage the three of you in locating him in this benighted place.’

  ‘But…’ Torres murmured, her mouth running before her mind.

  ‘The eldar, to be sure, are a long-lived race,’ Czevak said with authority. ‘This longevity is only partially determined by their biology. I don’t pretend to fully understand it, but the trans-dimensional travel that dominates their faster-than-light movements across the galaxy seems to have a regressional effect on their cellular senescence.’

  Torres turned from Czevak to Klute. ‘In simple language?’

  ‘Increasing time spent on the webway stalls and then reverses the ageing process. And not just for the alien eldar,’ Torqhuil informed her with professional interest. Then, to the inquisitor, ‘You visited the fabled Black Library of Chaos, did you not?’

  Czevak tossed his spoon on his plate and then went to work on the amasec. ‘As both guest and prisoner. I don’t intend to return as either.’

  ‘And what of Ahzek Ahriman and his Thousand Sons?’ Epiphani put to the High Inquisitor, her voice excitable, like a child trying to be noticed in an adult conversation. Her eyes never left the wafers of the Imperial Tarot and their Aquilique layout.

  Klute seemed agitated at the mention of Ahriman in Czevak’s presence.

  ‘Ahriman covets the Black Library and the arcane, forbidden lore it contains,’ Klute enlightened her with gravity. ‘His search for its secrets is galaxy-wide and never ending, for surely if such a master of the dark arts ever gained access to the shrine, the Imperium would witness the birth of a Chaos god.’

  ‘And you were slave to this accursed sorcerer for how long?’ Torqhuil pressed darkly.

  ‘Brother Torqhuil, that’s enough,’ Klute interjected, but the question remained.

  ‘I am a member of the Holy Ordos. I have a title and I’ll remind you to use it, Brother Torqhuil,’ Czevak testily returned.

  ‘Inquisitor,’ the Space Marine addressed Klute – laying special emphasis on the title. ‘Ahriman of the Thousand Sons is peerless in the arts of deception, and cunning. How can you be sure that this is Czevak and not some imposter – even worse, how do you know that this is not some servant of the Ruinous Powers or even Ahriman himself?’

  ‘He has a point,’ Czevak agreed mordantly.

  Losing patience with the hostile reception and Czevak’s antagonism, Klute said, ‘It’s crossed my mind. Please, friends – enough of these inflammatory questions.’

  Now it was Czevak’s turn to lose what little patience he had. ‘I am surprised, Brother Torqhuil to be lectured thus by a member of an Excommunicate Chapter. A Chapter whose glorious history ended in dishonour, a Penitent Crusade abandoned and vile acts committed in the name of the Emperor to cover searching out artefacts and using the forbidden weapons of Chaos…’

  ‘… against Chaos!’ Torqhuil rumbled with conviction.

  ‘A fool’s bargain,’ Czevak said. ‘Chaos cannot be turned against Chaos, proud Relictor. You are less a heretic than an imbecile if you believe that. The Dark Powers know your desire to use their sacrilegious tools; they exploit and manipulate it for their own ends – even in the loyal subjects of the Imperium.’

  ‘As Ahriman’s slave, I assume you would have learned much of those Dark Powers,’ Torqhuil returned harshly.

  ‘I learned not to put my trust in them.’ Czevak then turned on the rogue trader captain. ‘And you, captain. You trade in corrupt and destructive wares, pilfered from this damned place, to return their polluting filth to an unwitting Imperium – all to line the hold and pockets of your precious cartel. You talked of my recklessness in the hangar; consider your own, captain.’

  Epiphani smiled at the High Inquisitor. She already knew she was next. ‘Witches and daemonhosts?’ Czevak spat incredulously. ‘And you sit here and judge me. Klute?’

  Klute held his master’s gaze.

  ‘We are in the Eye of Terror,’ Klute informed him. ‘Searching for you. Only now do these people learn of my objective. You might want to allow them a moment to adjust. God-Emperor knows, I instigated the endeavour and I’m still reeling. An Inquisitorial rosette does little to buy you allegiance in this lethal place – as I’m sure you know, my lord. These people work for me and for themselves. They all have their own reasons for being here – as they must. If anyone had agreed to travel with me without those reasons I would have dismissed them out of turn for being insane.’

  Czevak nodded with a grim certitude.

  ‘By that reasoning, you yourself must be insane,’ Czevak accused, with returning lightness.

  ‘Another thing that had crossed my mind, my lord.’

  Czevak looked back at the daggered glares of Torqhuil and Torres and the simpleton’s smile of the zoned-out warp-seer.

  ‘One thing that you might come to learn about me – if you live that long – is that my words are often hasty and choice. Raimus will tell you this. Think not on what I have said. In turn, if my time in the Black Library taught me anything it was – rather controversially – that Chaos is already
very much part of us. It deals in the currency of mortal souls and feeds off states and emotions that are in essence natural. Without us there would be no Chaos. Good and evil? Right and wrong? These are binary oppositions that the inhabitants of this galaxy use to comfort and define themselves. I’m afraid much of the God-Emperor’s work is done in the grey area in between.’

  There were nods, slow and unsure, from about the room.

  ‘Let us put this to the test,’ Czevak decided, suddenly animated. ‘Enough of the past, warp-seer. Leave history to dusty books on lonely shelves. It’s the future that interests me. Ask no more questions. Tell, instead.’

  Klute gave a hesitant nod. Epiphani manipulated the wafers with light ease, all fingers, thumbs and edges. She had uncovered several already, providing context for the reading.

  ‘Three, High Inquisitor,’ she instructed.

  Leaning over he walked his fingers across the tarot spread, touching three cards as he went. Using one card, she flipped the other two over. The gathering, including the caged Navigator, watched with interest.

  Flicking the pack of wafers, Epiphani laid out Minor Arcana determiners aside their Major Arcana counterparts.

  ‘“Knave of Wands”,’ Epiphani began, nudging the first card of the reading, ‘and “The Wanderer”.’ The wafer to which she referred showed a colossal space hulk, vomited forth from the warp. ‘A visitor, unannounced – bringer of opportunity and destruction.’