Atlas Infernal
Page 9
‘That would be you,’ Klute said. Czevak gave a small shake of his head.
‘The warp-seer speaks of the future, not the past.’
Klute returned his attention dourly to the tarot spread.
‘“Eight of Swords”,’ Epiphani whispered, drawing it alongside a wafer bearing a pale saint in ornate golden armour. The wafer was upside down, allowing Czevak to make out a bloody tear drop on his breast and the halo above his head. ‘“Sanguinius”,’ the prognostic announced. ‘Inversed. Sacrifice and strife before its time.’
Between the two, Epiphani turned the wafer she had used to flip the previous two, laying it down with the final determiner. ‘“Maiden of Spheres” and the “Galactic Lens”; great distance and little time – the swift movement of events that are to come to pass.’
Epiphani let the reading hang in the silence, her audience wrangling with the possibilities the Imperial Tarot had touted.
‘Interesting,’ Klute said, breaking their thoughts. ‘Could the High Inquisitor and I have the room?’
‘Raimus, there’s still much to discuss,’ Captain Torres insisted. ‘The warp gate cannot remain on the Malescaythe. It poses a constant danger to the ship and our lives.’
‘The Lost Fornical of Urien-Myrdyss is an operational artefact of incalculable power and opportunity,’ Brother Torqhuil reminded her. ‘We have barely begun to understand its full potential.’
‘I don’t care about its xenoarcheological significance.’
‘It’s priceless.’
‘So are my ship and my life.’
‘The portal is sealed, for now. The gateway is dormant. Nothing more can pass through,’ Czevak more informed than assured her.
‘And what about Hessian?’ The rogue trader captain was not asking after the daemonhost’s wellbeing.
‘Secured in the chapel,’ Epiphani told her, standing and gathering up her wafers. From Father came a succession of clicks and scratches as the vellum spool suspended where the servo-skull’s jaw should have been began to unscroll. Epiphani tore off the enscribed length and handed it to Klute. ‘The wards and circumscriptions you asked for.’
As the Relictors Space Marine strode out of the stellagraphium, followed by the cyclopteryx-feathered warp-seer and her servo-skull, Torres stared hard at Klute.
‘All this, for one man?’
‘Yes.’
The rogue trader captain went to leave the chart chamber. Klute called after her. ‘Reinette.’
‘Inquisitor?’
‘Plot a course for Cadia. You’ll need Epiphani. Get us out of this hell hole.’
‘With pleasure,’ she answered coldly before closing the stellagraphium door.
A long silence passed between the two inquisitors.
‘I was hoping for the Golden Throne,’ Klute admitted. ‘A wafer that signified safety, security or at least a return to normality.’
Czevak held his former interrogator’s gaze, the glimmer of a smile appearing on his lips.
‘The Golden Throne means none of those things, my friend.’
Klute couldn’t find it in himself to match Czevak’s smile with one of his own.
‘I don’t care what the cards say. Come back with me, my lord. Return to the Imperium. To the ordo. Leave this terrible place with its corrupting and alien influence.’
‘I won’t go back to Cadia. Or to Our Lady of Sorrows or Nemesis Tessera,’ Czevak told Klute in syllables of stone. ‘A cell, an eternity of questions and a heretic’s death wait for me there, and it waits there for you too, my friend. And if it isn’t the Puritans, it would be the cultists. Ahriman has eyes and ears everywhere. Your precious Imperium is rotting from the inside out. My freedom must be my own. I cannot put it in the hands of others – not again.’
‘My lord,’ Klute begged, his head bowed, recalling events from their past. ‘Please forgive me. If I’d remained by your side, perhaps…’
‘Raimus, you can’t blame yourself for…’
‘I do.’
‘Then you’re a fool. If you had been by my side, then you would be dead right now, instead of sitting opposite me debating the fact.’
‘I have long tried to imagine the trials you endured at the dark hands of that abominate sorcerer,’ Klute went on with feeling, but Czevak cut him dead.
‘Don’t,’ the High Inquisitor said – his words once again laced with hard edges. ‘You couldn’t. But I don’t blame you for the actions of a warp-souled heretic.’
Silence passed between them.
‘He’ll never stop, will he?’ Klute admitted to the High Inquisitor and himself.
‘And that, my friend, is why I must stop him – by any means at my disposal. He wants the Black Library and its secrets. He knows I am a key to those secrets. He must be stopped. I must stop him.’
‘There must be another way,’ Klute insisted. ‘With the knowledge you carry we could unite the ordos behind a single cause and the Imperium behind them. Launch a White Crusade, if you would, and take the battle to this horrific place and its denizens.’
‘Romantic.’
‘Better than running and hiding from shadows,’ Klute shot back cuttingly.
‘Touché,’ Czevak said. ‘I may be running but I’m not hiding. I asked you not to imagine what I suffered at Ahriman’s hands, but if you did, even for an agonising second, then you would know what I had to give him. A thousand facts from a thousand pages of the Black Library of Chaos – just to keep the location of its hallowed doors from the bastard. Every life Ahriman takes with those secrets burns my soul. The least I can do – the very least – is try to undo some of that damage. Get ahead of him, destroy the artefacts he seeks and turn his ambitions to dust.’
‘You are but one man, my lord.’
Czevak bit at his lip before nodding slowly to himself. Reaching down into the seemingly bottomless depths of his outlandish coat, the inquisitor extracted a bulky tome and laid it on the table before him. Its gilded covers were crafted from a burnished, golden metal that had a sheen like nothing Klute had ever seen. A set of three robust clasps held the volume closed and the spine housed an intricate and ancient mechanism that sighed rhythmically, like the beating of a mechanical heart. Placing his fingertips on its aureate, ornamental surface, Czevak slid the tome down the table towards his former acolyte.
Klute stopped it and was immediately surprised at how light the object was – bearing in mind how much metal covered its surface. The crafting and gilded depictions on the cover looked both ancient and Imperial and its title was rendered in High Gothic.
‘The Atlas Infernal,’ Klute translated in a whisper. ‘You stole this from the eldar?’
‘Liberated it – from the Black Library of Chaos.’
Klute’s face creased with disapproval. Czevak continued defensively. ‘It’s obviously Imperial. I stole back an artefact that was already stolen.’
Klute returned his attention to the magnificent tome. Carefully unclasping the covers, he opened the volume. Almost immediately Klute’s face changed. A feeling of distaste and discomfort washed over the inquisitor. It was difficult to look directly at the Atlas and instead he looked up at Czevak.
‘Is it corrupted?’ Klute asked fearfully, wondering if Czevak was showing him some cursed or possessed object.
‘Quite the opposite,’ Czevak reassured him. ‘My researches into this object are limited – I was too busy trying to steal it. I have theories though.’
As the High Inquisitor spoke, Klute forced himself to look inside the Atlas Infernal. He was surprised to find an absence of paper. In its stead were a stacked panel of lightweight golden frames, all built into the spine, that sat like pages between the Atlas Infernal’s covers. Each page contained a piece of ancient flesh, stretched to transparency across the frame so that its labyrinthine network of veins, arteries and capillaries were visible at its surface. Klute was amazed to see that actual blood circulated through the tiny system, fed oxygen by the clockwork pump in the spine.
‘This is a map of the eldar webway?’ Klute marvelled. ‘But created by whom?’
‘That, I don’t know,’ Czevak admitted with not a little vexation on his young face. ‘There is, however, some compelling evidence in the text itself.’
‘It’s amazing,’ Klute managed as he thumbed through the flesh pages. Scribbled over each were annotations – light scars originally sliced into the flesh with a crystal-tip quill.
‘The casket-covers of the tome are made of a lightweight metal that I have yet to identify. It is incredibly resilient – leading me to believe that it was originally armour. Amongst the filigree and detail I found markings remarkably like those honouring the Terran Unification Wars.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question. It just generates more questions.’
‘The guardians of the Imperial Palace and personal bodyguards of the Emperor himself would have worn such markings on their armour previous to the Heresy. They would undoubtedly have provided security for a project as ambitious as building a human section of the webway. The Magos Ethericus and Artisans Empyr of the Adeptus Mechanicus are probably responsible for its construction – although I doubt the Priesthood of Mars has seen anything of this kind for thousands of years.’
‘And the flesh?’ Klute interrupted, clearly unsettled. ‘What unfortunate sacrificed themselves to become part of such a treasure?’
‘The Mechanicus and Adeptus Custodes would have required psychic protection on the human section of the webway and the militant arm of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica would have been the ideal choice to deliver it. The Sisters of Silence were exclusively recruited from Untouchable stock. This is the flesh of such a Sister, a Pariah, your reaction upon opening the Atlas testifies to that – and you and I aren’t even psykers. The blacksoul blood that still flows through these vessels floods veins, arteries and capillaries in representation of the webway’s labyrinthine pathways – as the nullified pathways of the webway weave through the immaterial plane.’
‘Incredible,’ Klute mumbled in wonder.
‘I can only imagine that this text was a macabre, if inventive, attempt to catalogue the wanderings of the unfortunate army of Adeptus Custodes, Sisters of Silence and Adeptus Mechanicus working on and securing the human section of the webway after their gateway to Terra collapsed.’
‘An incredible story,’ Klute agreed.
‘Yes,’ Czevak nodded with regret. ‘And that alone infuriates me. Who beyond the God-Emperor himself could corroborate even half of it?’
‘But if the webway is as expansive as we are led to believe it to be, then how could one tome – even one as fabulous as this – map it all?’
‘Look again,’ Czevak prompted.
Klute looked back at the page he had been perusing.
‘It’s changed,’ he murmured in wonder. The blood vessels were reconfigured; fresh ones flooded with blood were now at the surface, while others had faded to obscurity in the parchment flesh as the flow of blood dissipated. The skin tone of the flesh had changed slightly also, allowing different scars to appear in the forms of white scratch-writing, annotating the new pattern on the page. ‘Mirador?’.
Czevak smiled. ‘Cadia, presumably before any Imperial had set foot there. I haven’t worked out how it does that, but it certainly seems to be sensitive to the eyes on its pages. You want to return to the Imperium. It shows you Cadia.’
‘A wondrous artefact, truly,’ Klute told his master before carefully closing the golden casket-clasps and placing it carefully on the table before him. ‘But, my lord – answer me this; what do you want?’
‘What do I want?’
‘It’s a simple enough question.’
‘I know what I don’t want.’
‘My lord,’ Klute said, his words straining. ‘I’ve spent decades of my life searching this horrific place for clues of your existence. I’ve kept company with renegades, heretics and daemonhosts and committed acts of faith-treachery that can never be forgiven, by my brother-inquisitors or by myself.’ Klute paused – the weariness and exhaustion of his search seeming to take over. ‘This place, it pollutes my very being. I can feel it, under my skin. I’ve taken every physical and spiritual precaution but still, I fear for my soul. I want to leave. I want to go home – to persecution, if that is the price of a ticket.’
‘What you want is an absolution,’ Czevak said sharply. ‘Which no Puritan or bonfire can offer you. What do I want? Well, I never wanted this. I’m deeply honoured that you would do this for me. If there was a soul in the galaxy upon whom I would rely, it would be yours. You have been an excellent apprentice and as I’ve said before, more of a friend than I deserve. But I never asked this of you. You asked this of yourself – your guilt asked this of you. The same guilt that would have you return to an Imperium that would rack you for your loyalty and good intentions. As you have discovered, my friend, the road to the Eye of Terror is paved with such intentions.’
‘Then you won’t come back? All of this has been in vain,’ Klute settled, getting older and greyer by the moment in his stellagraphium seat.
‘Raimus – you have achieved the impossible. I’m terrified that you actually found me. If my enemies had half your instincts then I would already be a dead man. Take some of that fire in your belly and continue what you really started, the Emperor’s work – here, with me, in a place where few have the courage to carry it out. I’ve been alone for a long time and you of all people know I have my ways, but I’ve always valued your counsel and would value it again, should you decide to stay the course.’
Klute’s expression remained unreadable.
‘“The Wanderer”,’ he repeated from Epiphani’s reading. ‘A visitor, unannounced – bringer of opportunity…’
‘…and destruction,’ Czevak added, completing Epiphani’s description. ‘Your young warp-seer may have the gift, but her reading leaves a great deal to be desired. You worry about “Sanguinius”. You fear his sacrifice is yours and that you will share his fate.’
Klute raised an eyebrow. ‘The wafer was inversed,’ Czevak continued. ‘It represents not sacrifice – especially combined with a Sword wafer – but an enemy exposed, a chink in the armour – as the strike of Sanguinius exposed Horus to destruction.’
Klute nodded and a long silence passed between the two men.
‘Do you want to hear something ironic?’ Klute finally asked his master.
‘Always.’
Klute gestured at their surroundings. ‘Because of the controversial nature of its destination, I chartered the rogue trader under the Inquisitorial authority of your rosette. The Malescaythe is chartered in your name.’
The two men risked a smile. ‘I’m not authorised to order this vessel back to Cadia.’ Their smiles turned to laughter and pouring a dram of amasec for Klute and taking the decanter for himself, Czevak toasted their spiritual health.
The peel of the Malescaythe’s alarm bell cut across the decks and through their laughter, although hilarity was still dying in both men’s throats when Captain Torres came over the vox-hailer.
‘Code Crimson: we are under attack. Inquisitor Klute to the bridge, immediately.’
Grabbing the Atlas Infernal and stuffing it into the folds of his Harlequin coat, Czevak followed Klute out of the stellagraphium, leaving the quietly insane Guidetti to rock gently in his gibbet cage.
Alarum
ACT I, CANT
O IV
Command deck, Rogue trader Malescaythe, The Eye of Terror
Enter KLUTE and CZEVAK
The bridge was in an uproar.
Captain Torres was everywhere, bawling orders above the sound of the alarm bell at several deck officers. Numerous servitors hardwired into the Gothic splendour of the bridge chattered runecode at one another through drawn lips and yellowing teeth as the logic banks on the command deck exploded with data.
Epiphani and Father were present, the warp-seer’s arms draped around the back of the captain’s throne and Torqhuil was down in the transept with the logi and bank servitors, his servo-arms and mechadendrites moving across ancient dials and plungers. The lancet screens towering around them were flooded with the heliotropical haze of the Eye and the baleful glint of distant stars.
‘Get me a pict-feed,’ Torres barked past Klute as the inquisitor arrived on the bridge. ‘And kill that damned bell.’ Czevak ghosted around the rear of the command deck, hands in the pockets of his breeches, occasionally reaching across an oblivious lexomat to twiddle a switch or toggle. ‘Where’s that feed?’ the rogue trader captain called with menacing insistence.
A lancet screen above the transept blinked and crackled before the dismal vision it presented immediately outside the ship was replaced with a rear-angle view. As the Malescaythe blasted away from the distant memory that was the stomach-churning disc of Iblisyph, another vessel hove into view. Her engines blazed and her hull was a sickly white. ‘Magnification!’ Torres ordered.
As the lancet screen brought the full horror of their attacker into focus, Torqhuil interpreted the data chugging through the logic banks.
‘Iconoclast-class destroyer – closing at sub-light speed. She’s running with no shields and her batteries are cold – no power signature.’
‘What’s happening?’ Klute demanded.
‘Ask the High Inquisitor,’ Torres said. ‘When he collapsed the Geller field the ship launched an automatic distress beacon. Our predatory friend here couldn’t have been cruising more than a system away and was drawn down on us like a shark to a distressed fish.’