Atlas Infernal

by Rob Sanders

  Czevak shuffled about the crystal-clear walls of his doorless, hermetic chamber in sandals and the Shadowseer’s Harlequin coat – the garment in which he’d been wrapped upon being rescued from Ahriman’s ruinous clutches. The inquisitor had come to realise that he had become an organic artefact, like the wraithbone prison itself. His knowledge of the Dark Powers of the universe had been captured and reclaimed by the eldar for permanent study and display. Outside the see-through walls lay the expanse of the Wraith Tower’s minaret chamber. Here, some of the most ancient, heretical and incisive works ever committed to paper by human hand were crammed and collected on stasis-shelf compartments, in spiral stacks of translucent obsidian, which bobbed across the chamber on anti-gravitic fields. A galactically young evil literally ebbed from the sea of dusty spines and pages.

  Damned like the texts about him, Czevak had been buried in arcana for all eternity, for his own safety and the safety of the galaxy. He never felt more like an artefact or exhibit than when colourful and unknown eldritch forms put their tall, tapering helmets and fingertips to the transparent wraithbone and stared inside. He once even saw a human, a gunmetal grey-haired member of some Illuminati or xenos sect, entrusted like the inquisitor had been with the craftworld’s secrets. As the two men looked at one another, the pony-tailed visitor gave what the aged Czevak assumed to be grim pity with his spiky, furrowed brow and steely eyes. That was the day Czevak started talking the lunacy of escape.

  It was the solemn responsibility of the craftworld’s Guardian-Scribes to collate and transcribe the awesome knowledge of the Black Library, gathering and interpreting its collected wisdom for use in the eldar race’s everlasting battle against the dark forces of Chaos. Whereas the enigmatic warrior cult of the Harlequins were the keepers of the Laughing God’s Black Library, the hunters of Chaos in all its forms and collectors of the Black Library’s dark lore, the Guardian-Scribes were the custodians and caretakers of the craftworld’s treasures. This included Bronislaw Czevak, who had been allocated a sable-robed, argent-helmeted Guardian-Scribe to attend to his recovery and supply the Wraith Tower’s prisoner with simple human sustenance, water and a neverending supply of requested tomes and tracts from the surrounding shelves that could be seen but not reached by the inquisitor.

  With the light waft of the coil curtain and pages on the wraithbone deck, Adara-Ke’s appearance was heralded by the static spiral of phase-field materialisation. The Guardian-Scribe had two long armfuls of gathered texts, which she deposited on the desk. Slipping out of her tall helmet the eldar allowed her blue-black hair to fall down the back of her long robes. Despite being several times the ancient inquisitor’s age, her alabaster skin was still soft and tight over her high, elfin cheekbones. The only betrayal of her age were the lines around her unsmiling lips and alien eyes.

  ‘This wasn’t on my list,’ Czevak mumbled with a crabbiness born of old age and repetitive disappointment. Adara-Ke often brought him incorrect texts, although whether this was down to the Guardian-Scribe’s misunderstanding or the fact that the inquisitor had dreadful handwriting was unclear. On the top of the pile sat a bulky tome amongst gilded casket-covers. Its snap-lock and the burnished radiance of its golden frontispiece and bulky spine grabbed Czevak’s attention immediately. The spine contained some kind of rhythmic pump that sighed with gentle, hypnotic regularity. Czevak’s aged fingers were immediately drawn to its gilded representations and aureate lettering. ‘The Atlas Infernal,’ Czevak translated from the High Gothic, and his fingers drifted towards the text’s cover clasps. Adara-Ke’s long, pale fingers found their way urgently to the inquisitor’s and stopped him.

  ‘Don’t open that,’ the eldar insisted with uncharacteristic urgency. The Guardian-Scribe’s Gothic was perfect and such articulation appeared strange spilling as it did from alien lips. The marble smoothness of Adara-Ke’s brow creased. The Black Library of Chaos was a place of silent study, of quiet research and reflection. Czevak had never experienced such insistence in Adara-Ke or the Black Library and the inquisitor was immediately curious.

  ‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong? Is it corrupted?’

  Adara-Ke knelt down beside the wraithbone desk, her hands laid across the Atlas Infernal’s magnificent cover.

  ‘Listen to me very carefully, mon-keigh, for I have little time. This tome is an Imperial artefact from the early history of your human empire. It is one of the most dangerous and powerful works to be housed in the Black Library, although no ordinary eldar can know this because no eldar has seen what is written between its covers.’

  Czevak nodded uncertainly. He went to speak but the Guardian-Scribe placed the tip of one willowy finger upon his cracked and aged lips.

  ‘I have no time for questions, son of man – only answers. Deep within the Black Library at this time is a gathering. Vespasi-Hann has returned and the Harlequins perform, for the pleasure of the Laughing God as well as an audience of the Black Council and the Guardian-Scribes of the Black Library. You have borne privileged witness to such an event, have you not?’

  Czevak nodded, remembering his exquisite experience at Iyanden, where the delicacy of narrative and fabric of reality became as one.

  ‘At this moment,’ Adara-Ke continued with grave determination, ‘I am one of very few that walk the Black Library’s halls.’ The inquisitor nodded his understanding, even through the crystal wraithbone of his prison walls he could see that the Wraith Tower’s chambers were unusually devoid of scribes and seers.

  ‘The Black Council have watched while you have slept and studied. It sat to decide your fate, Czevak of the Holy Ordos. The Black Council is made up of the most powerful farseers of our race, drawn here periodically, in secret and safety. They discuss their divinations and guide our people through disasters yet to happen and threats we have yet to face. Morcan Fiorinintal of Alaitoc, Eiladar Ys of the Lugganath and Ffaid Karhedra of Eyslk-Tan, all sit on the Black Council. My father also sits on the Council; the devastated people of Iyanden have always known you as friend. Eldrad Ulthran – a most gifted ancient of our race – and chief farseer among the Ulthwé, could not sit for he fights the forces of darkness during your Thirteenth Black Crusade, both amongst the stars and on the webway. The fell-sorcerer Ahzek Ahriman has used the secrets he stole from you and breached one of our sacred thresholds.’

  The Guardian-Scribe looked through the glass walls of the cell and about the chamber before continuing.

  ‘I am here with this news because the Black Council is split over your fate. Some say that they have come to see the Laughing God’s servants show them the path, to read the truth in their art and war. Many favour your perpetual imprisonment in these hallowed halls, for the security of both our races…’

  ‘As another relic,’ Czevak said miserably.

  ‘But some speak of futures yet to come,’ Adara-Ke continued in precise syllables. ‘Ahzek Ahriman was not to have breached the labyrinth dimension. His successes have already surpassed what the Black Council saw for him. Many fear what havoc the Changer’s Chosen will wreak with the damned secrets you bled him from this sacred place. Even from afar, Eldrad Ulthran of the Ulthwé lends them voice and calls for your execution. He claims that you are too dangerous to keep alive. He says that you will betray us and yourself and as the oldest, most gifted and influential of the Black Council, his word will eventually be heeded.’

  ‘So I’m a dead man, that’s what you’re here to tell me,’ Czevak put to the eldar, his blood turning to icewater.

  ‘The Black Council struggles with its own visions. The future is fickle. Even Eldrad Ulthran has been known to be wrong about that which comes to pass.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’

  ‘My father alone feels you still have a role to play in the galaxy’s tumultuous affairs. He always has, ever since he sent for you with Iyanden’s dark invitation. He listens to the Black Library; he tastes the future of history’s past mistakes here and drinks its thirst for the morrow. He sees for a
people on the brink of extinction; as Iyanden, he feels without fear the fate of our race. He feels you have yet to prove yourself. And that is why he has instructed me to set you free.’

  Czevak took a moment to digest the alien’s words.

  ‘You and your father risk everything.’

  ‘My father’s reputation and my own will be saved by the simplicity of a clerical error,’ the Guardian-Scribe told him cryptically. She took the parchment list of books Czevak had given her and showed the inquisitor his blots and scribbles. ‘You truly have abominable handwriting, Czevak of the Holy Inquisition.’ The eldar screwed up the list and tossed it over her shoulder – evidence to be discovered – before taking her hand from the casket-cover of the Atlas Infernal.

  ‘Why would you do this?’

  ‘I am a father’s daughter,’ was the eldar’s simple reply.

  ‘You are sending me back?’ Czevak whispered, hoping, fearing.

  ‘The doors are locked, I can but give you a key,’ Adara-Ke instructed bleakly. She pointed at the burnished cover in front of him. Czevak looked from the ancient tome to the Guardian-Scribe’s face.

  ‘How is this a key?’ Czevak demanded.

  ‘It’s a map – the only one of its kind. It will show you the way. It will show you many ways.’

  ‘You have seen this map?’

  ‘Like I said, no eldar has seen what is between these covers. Its pages are death to my kind.’

  ‘But…’ The inquisitor didn’t have the words. ‘Why?’

  ‘The Black Library has spoken. Suffering and sacrifice are universal constants, are they not inquisitor? You of all people should know that. Besides which,’ she repeated, unclasping the lock on the Atlas Infernal’s casket-covers, ‘I am a father’s daughter.’

  ‘Adara!’ the aged inquisitor called but the tome was open. Both of them felt the irresistible pull of the pages. They stared down at leaves of ancient flesh, stretched to transparency across lightweight golden frames and scarred with antique notations. The spine pump sighed its beating rhythm, injecting oxygen and circulating the Sister of Silence’s equally ancient lifeblood through the labyrinthine network of veins, arteries and capillaries. All were visible at the surface and represented the present configured insanity of interdimensional tunnels known as the webway, closest to the incredible text.

  The eldar screamed, clawing at her scalp and skull with her long fingers. She fell back, away from the field of nullification that the open pages radiated around the tome. Czevak scrambled to the translucent jet of the wraithbone floor. He dragged the thrashing Guardian-Scribe away from the horrific influence of the artefact’s warp-blankness. Adara-Ke, who had given the Black Library of Chaos three centuries of loyal service, died swiftly in its hallowed halls.

  As the eldar stopped shaking, Czevak turned her over, revealing a pool of blood and Adara’s soul-scorched face. Czevak sagged, soaking up the enormity of the alien’s sacrifice.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I’m so very sorry.’

  He allowed himself the unadvised luxury of several more moments of guilt and pain before moving on the ancient text. There were other existences ending around the inquisitor. He could see pin-pricks of soulfire slowly burning their way through the lucent wraithbone walls of his transparent cell. The negative psionic field of the open Atlas Infernal was scorching the infinity circuit and withering the soul matrix of the wraithbone structure.

  The wraithbone desk began to melt beneath the Atlas Infernal’s armoured covers. As solidified warp energy, shaped by the psychic engineering talents of eldar Bonesingers, the material lost its solid, supernatural state. Wraithbone dribbled and bubbled to a viscous resin about the artefact. As the tome slid to the floor on the liquefying sheen of the disintegrating substance it rapidly turned the floor of the cell into a vortex of melted wraithbone. It spumed and blistered to gossamer thinness before glooping down through the ceiling of the Black Library chamber below.

  Czevak reached for the Atlas Infernal but the armoured tome slipped through the scorched hole in the floor. As the opening grew Czevak could see the vast vault of books below, equal in height and size to the colossal hall in which his cell was situated. Immediately below the gaping wound in the floor and ceiling was one of the chamber’s towering spiral stacks that were crammed with ancient texts and daemonic tracts and drifted around the hall on anti-gravitic fields.

  Forced to make the most of Adara-Ke’s sacrifice and the precious time and opportunity the inquisitor had, Czevak allowed himself to fall through the rapidly melting floor and land in the treacle-slurp topping of inert wraithbone that had begun to gather at the top of the stack’s spiral staircase.

  Czevak skid-slipped down the melting steps, following the tumbling path of the Atlas Infernal. Several storeys down, Czevak came across the corpse of another Guardian-Scribe, clearly on his way up the stack to investigate the strange phenomenon in the ceiling. His helmet was off and the unfortunate eldar had made the mistake of picking up the closed Atlas Infernal and opening it before his face. The tome sat open once more in the alien’s death grip, the Guardian-Scribe’s eye sockets now two smouldering pits burnt out of his skull.

  Grabbing the open tome, Czevak hobbled down the rest of the steps in panicked exhaustion. Engaged in the creaking awkwardness of an old man’s run, Czevak loped across the vast chamber. It was largely deserted, no doubt due to the performance of the visiting Harlequin troupe. As he approached the looming archway connecting the hall to an antechamber, his heart hammering inside the fragile bones of his ribcage, he ran straight into two further Guardian-Scribes, carrying piles of grimoires and forbidden volumes. The eldar immediately crashed to the ground shrieking, their coordination gone, spasming and slamming their helmets into

  scattered tomes and wraithbone floor.

  Skidding to a sandaled stop at the arch, Czevak put his back to the obsidian lustre of the wall. As a long time resident of the Wraith Tower and frequenter of the halls, Czevak knew that each antechamber contained a sentinel, a largely ceremonial guardian armed with ceremonial weapon – a broad, leaf-shaped blade sat atop a long spear shaft.

  Czevak desperately searched for a way to bypass the Black Library Guardian without getting skewered on the extensive reach of the weapon. Something suddenly clattered to the floor beside the inquisitor and Czevak was shocked to see the self-same weapon lying on the floor in the archway. Peering around the doorway fearfully, Czevak found that the Guardian too had toppled, the alien laying dead in a gently growing pool of blood leaking from his helmet.

  Slamming the casket-covers of the Atlas Infernal shut, Czevak dashed across the antechamber. Not favouring the inconvenience of clunky elevators or legions of steps, all floors of all towers were equipped with sizzling wraith gates to aid swift and open movement within and between the craftworld’s expanse of buildings, vaults and chambers. An interdimensional portal was all Czevak needed, however, and as the High Inquisitor clutched the Atlas Infernal to his chest, he turned and took one last glance at the dark magnificence of the Black Library of Chaos, before stepping through the crackling static of the portal to his freedom.

  Exit

  ACT V, CANTO I

  Archeodeck, Rogue trader Malescaythe, The Eye of Terror

  Enter CZEVAK with FATHER

  Stumbling back through the Lost Fornical of Urien-Myrdyss, Czevak had sensed something was wrong immediately. The ship was moving once again, not holding on station as Czevak had instructed. The inquisitor, scorched and soot-stained from his adventures on Melmoth’s World, assumed that the Malescaythe had run into further peril in the stormy region of hell that was the Scorpento Maestrale. This was until the two magma bomb warheads streaked past the archeodeck’s hangar at screaming velocity. The ship lurched with such force that the rogue trader’s artificial gravity struggled to negotiate the erratic movement. Even Father’s anti-gravity drive failed to anticipate the pitch and the servo-skull swooped at the deck before recovering. Once again, the Malescay
the was under attack but from who or what, Czevak could not imagine.

  The elevator ride to the command deck was a stomach-flipping cacophony as klaxons wailed and the car rattled up the shaft, unsure during the rogue trader’s evasive manoeuvres whether or not it could reach the bridge. As the door opened, Czevak was treated to an apocalyptic vision of destruction as the smashed planetoid, already missing one third of its torn and rocky mass at the pole, exploded spectacularly. Magma bombs had continued to fly at the Malescaythe, one of which had found the already storm-ruptured planetoid. Fragments of rock and streams of molten core rocketed in all directions, turning the existing debris field into an inescapable tsunami of tumbling rock shards and accelerating rubble, ready to cave in the side of the tiny rogue trader.

  Captain Torres was not her usual self. Gone were the frenetic questions, savage demands for data and shouting. Her ship was dead and the situation futile. The best she could do was keep the Malescaythe out of the lethal path of both asteroids and magma bombs for as long as she could and this she did with an accepting, professional calm. As she issued desperate but peaceful orders to the helm, Czevak stepped out of the elevator. Father immediately detached and drifted across the bridge. All eyes were on the devastation raining down on them outside the lancet windows. Rasputus still sat in his cage with Hessian and Epiphani holding onto the gibbet bars for support. They were still dripping with tubes and wires from the sick bay, where presumably Torres summoned them upon regaining consciousness. If there was a slim chance that the enginarium might be able to restore the Malescaythe’s warp capabilities then the ‘freak’, as the captain had put it, was needed on the bridge ready to plot a new course through the maelstrom of the Eye.