Shield of Baal: Tempestus

by Braden Campbell

  Taking her cue, Margene stepped forward.

  ‘Until M38, Lysios was a populous and productive Imperial world. Then, for reasons unknown, the binary stars at the heart of this system began a period of increased activity. The environment on Lysios changed radically, and within a year, the planet suffered a class-5 environmental collapse. Both of its ice caps melted and created a new ocean, which was pulled into a central location thanks to the gravitational influence of Lysios’s single natural satellite, Ixoi. The ocean now trails behind the moon as it orbits, completing one revolution every ten local years. The surviving native populations have, over the past three millennia, developed a trio of heretical pagan belief-systems stemming from this catastrophe.

  ‘First are the followers of Cryptus. Cryptus is an angry sky god, and according to those who believe in him, the twin suns are his hate-filled eyes. Cryptus burns everything he gazes upon, and smites those who disrespect him with various cancers.’

  Behind her, Ulrich snorted.

  ‘In actuality,’ Margene continued, ‘Lysios does boast both a very high UV rating, and an abundance of gamma particles at ground level. Everyone involved in this mission has been issued a supply of satyx, an anti-rad elixir. Take it daily, or face the consequences.

  ‘Secondly, there is the moon. Ixoi, as he is known to the locals, is a warrior. He also loves to eat, as evidenced by his great size. His worshippers are few on Lysios, but are very dangerous. They spend their lives as nomadic raiders, attacking hab-crawlers and making off with all the food supplies they can lay their hands on.

  ‘Third is the so-called “Goddess of the Brine”, Shelse. According to the mythos, the ocean goddess is in love with the moon, and follows him everywhere. She reaches up as high as she can towards Ixoi, but is never able to touch him. This makes her angry, and so she causes storms and floods.

  ‘In 998.M41, the Ecclesiarchy began a mission of repatriation on Lysios, under the command of–’

  Ulrich cut her off with a clap of his hands. ‘It’s the third of these so-called deities that concerns us. The records are spotty, but it would seem that when the moon is at perigee, a creature of unknown origin can be seen rising up out of the worldwave.’

  ‘What do we know of its capabilities?’ Tempestor Chavis asked.

  ‘Almost nothing. There are no known picts of it, nor any vid-pict recordings. What there are in plenty, however, are paintings and drawings. It seems the people who worship this thing find a particular joy in depicting it.’

  ‘I have several examples on file,’ Margene offered. ‘I will of course provide them to you.’

  Chavis paid her no heed. ‘How would you like to proceed, inquisitor?’

  ‘My plan is this: the worldwave is currently passing through the Kephorous mountain range. We will ascend to the top of Mount Loraz, whose plateau should put us near the upper third of the wave. We will establish a base camp, and when the tidal swell is greatest, we will lure the creature to shore.’

  ‘How?’ Chavis asked.

  The inquisitor smiled slyly. ‘Leave that to me.’

  The tempestor rubbed his chin in thought. ‘These worshippers you speak of, are they numerous? Dangerous?’

  Margene answered before Ulrich could. ‘There has been a concentrated effort to put them down for nearly a year now,’ she said. ‘It is still ongoing.’

  Ulrich put his hands in his coat pockets. ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about the Shelsists. I doubt they’re any match for trained and properly equipped soldiers.’

  ‘What I mean to say, sir, is do you expect them to attempt to stop us?’

  ‘Stop you from doing what?’

  ‘From destroying the thing they revere.’

  Shaking his head, Ulrich walked slowly up to Chavis. ‘Although I appreciate your enthusiasm, tempestor, you and your men are not here to destroy the creature. You are here to capture it.’

  Chapter Three

  The inquisitor and his retinue descended to the planet’s surface in a boxy landing craft. Margene and the Scions were crammed into the cargo hold along with the pair of armoured vehicles. Chavis and Ulrich occupied the cockpit. As they passed through the cloud layer, the inquisitor drew an undecorated black handkerchief from the inside pocket of his coat. Carefully, he unfolded the corners. Wrapped inside was a stack of seventy-eight crystalline wafers that resembled a deck of cards etched in glowing glass. Ulrich shifted the deck to his other hand, and began to shuffle it.

  Ulrich had always aspired to be someone of great import. He had worked ferociously to gain the attention of the Inquisition, and once he had it, he pushed himself even harder to gain entrance into their ranks. The authority he now held was vast. Still, it did not entirely satisfy, for within the Inquisition itself, there were hierarchies. For years, he had tried everything he could think of to promote himself, to win favour, to be inducted into the ranks of the Inquisitor Lords. He had failed.

  Then he discovered the reports.

  It had happened quite by accident. Ulrich had been in a vault of the Ordo Xenos, the Imperial agency tasked with identifying and countering the threat of the alien, desperately searching for a hint, a clue, anything that might let him discover an entirely new xenos life form. He envisioned dragging the carcass of some titanic beast back to Terra, throwing it down in triumph before his masters, and defying them to discount him any longer. Unfortunately, it seemed that everything had already been discovered or exterminated. He was close to despair, when he happened to come across a series of data-slates. To a casual observer, they were nothing: a series of field reports from a Battle Sister Canoness on the planet Lysios who was apparently having trouble eliminating a cult of heretics. Printed into the margins, however, were annotations written in a perfect, almost dainty hand. It was the excellence of the penmanship which caught his attention, and their content which held it.

  The side notes proposed that the heretics might be influenced by an actual creature of unknown or alien origin. Ulrich tracked down the commentator, and discovered Sister Margene. She was alone and working by candlelight in a vault filled to overflowing with books and files. She was only too happy to expound upon her theories, and showed the inquisitor legends and observations dating back three thousand years. Ulrich became convinced that he had finally found a means to promotion.

  He stopped shuffling and held the crystal cards face down. His fingers hovered over the deck.

  ‘Will I find what I am searching for here on Lysios?’ he whispered.

  He flipped the topmost wafer, and smiled. Depicted on the reverse side was the Emperor, seated like a mummified corpse upon His Golden Throne, screaming silently for all the galaxy to hear.

  ‘Warp travel, discovery, and hope amongst the stars,’ Ulrich said, taking it to be a good omen. He placed the card back, flipped the entire deck over, and began to wrap it back up in its protective cloth.

  He paused for a moment. The card on the bottom showed a planet, cracked apart like an egg. Chunks of it were tumbling off into the void of space. It was number fifty-two in the Emperor’s Tarot: the Shattered World. It signified monumental events, conflict on an enormous scale.

  Is this a portent? he wondered.

  Tempestor Chavis’s voice crackled through vox-speakers throughout the lander. ‘Stand by, Scions, we are on final approach.’

  The lander began banking in a long curve. Ulrich craned his head. They were through the clouds now. The land stretched away barren and brown in nearly every direction. To the west, the horizon lurched vertically in a wall of dark blue. Directly below was what appeared to be a large town. It was square and flat, with low buildings the colour of rust.

  When Ulrich had finished wrapping up his cards, he returned the bundle to its resting place above his heart. If the tarot was trying to warn him of something, he decided, it was to beware the ugliness of the world outside the window.

  He pushed up his left sleeve. Wrapped around his arm was a data display of exquisite quality. A series of numbers fl
ashed on its emerald screen. He nodded in approval. The data from the torpedo probes hadn’t changed. They had delivered their radioactive payload into the worldwave, and it had been absorbed by something big. The creature was real all right, and now, he would be able to find her with ease.

  Ulrich pushed his sleeve back down. He checked his faded reflection in the window, adjusted his cravat, and then made his way down to the lander’s main deck.

  The shuttlecraft lurched and came to rest. Ulrich was the first to exit, followed closely by Margene. Behind them, the inquisitor could hear Chavis barking orders for his men to begin deploying themselves.

  The first thing that struck him was not the smell, as he had thought, but the light. It was early afternoon on this part of Lysios. Everything was bathed in oversaturated, crimson hues. He squinted and made a shade with his right hand. Purple and yellow spots formed in his vision, and he blinked to clear them. The lander sat in the centre of a square area barely large enough to contain it. Three sides were hedged in by storage buildings with only the vaguest memories of having once been painted. In one corner was a four-storey tower with large glass windows on the top floor and a satellite dish mounted on the roof. A chain-link fence cordoned off the remaining side. Through the haze, Ulrich could make out the silhouettes of people there.

  ‘Angry sun god indeed, yes?’ he quipped, turning to Margene.

  ‘Sir?’ The young woman was unaffected by the blinding double suns. She’d had the forethought to bring a pair of tinted goggles.

  ‘Nothing.’ Ulrich sighed. He looked down at his boots. ‘Is the ground vibrating?’

  ‘It’s the crawler treads, inquisitor. This entire settlement is moving, if you recall.’

  ‘And it does this all the time?’

  ‘Constantly, albeit very slowly. It takes each crawler ten years to circumnavigate the planet. If it stayed still, it would eventually be swept away by the worldwave.’

  ‘How annoying.’ He looked about. ‘Where is our reception?’

  He dropped his hand and began to walk towards the fence. His sword banged against his leg. His coat tails ruffled behind him. He was halfway to his destination when a section of the fence drew back. He stopped. Marching towards him was a group of Battle Sisters. They wore white power armour and black cloaks. They were led by an intimidating middle-aged woman whose most distinguishing feature was the scar that ran down one side of her face.

  Pursing his lips and frowning, he muttered, ‘And what have we here?’

  ‘Inquisitor?’ the woman called out. Her voice was as loud and as clear as a chapel bell.

  Margene gave an audible intake of breath.

  ‘I am,’ Ulrich said. He rested his hands on the pommel of his sword, and shifted his weight onto one leg. ‘Who might you be?’

  The Battle Sisters came to halt. ‘I am Magda Grace, a Canoness for the Sisters of the Sacred Rose.’

  ‘You may address me as Inquisitor Ulrich. This is Sister Margene. She’ll be acting as my dialogus.’

  Margene nodded curtly.

  ‘Very good,’ the Canoness said approvingly. ‘Inquisitor Ulrich, it falls to me to bid you welcome to Lysios.’

  ‘Falls to you? Why? Where is the planetary governor?’

  ‘Governor Strachman has abandoned his post,’ the Canoness said.

  ‘Are you certain?’ Ulrich asked. ‘I wasn’t aware of any such problems when I left Terra.’

  Canoness Grace was steadfast. ‘I can assure you, sir, that Governor Strachman and everyone attached to him have been in absentia for quite some time. Not long after we began our campaign against the Shelsists, he vanished and has not been seen since. The only conclusion can be that he is a heretic, and that he chose to flee our wrath.’

  ‘I see. Well then, where is the commander of the local military forces?’

  Margene leaned forward again. ‘Inquisitor, Lysios has no indigenous regiment.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There hasn’t been an Imperial Guard unit on this world in three thousand years, inquisitor. Not since the environmental collapse.’

  ‘Governor Strachman had a few units of professional soldiers who acted as his personal guard,’ Canoness Grace offered, ‘but they went into hiding with him. Until such time as he and his people are found and dealt with, you may consider Lysios to be under my control.’

  Ulrich stared at her. ‘So, you and a dozen Sororitas are the only Imperial authority on this world?’

  ‘Myself and several thousand Battle Sisters, yes,’ the canoness said, emphasising the true number.

  For a moment, the only sounds on the landing field were the whistling of the wind and the distant sounds of the Scions’ transports rumbling slowly out of the belly of the lander. Ulrich squeezed his eyes tightly, but when he opened them again, he still felt blinded.

  ‘You will get used to the light here,’ Canoness Grace offered.

  ‘Thank you, but I won’t be staying that long. In fact, I must be about my business.’

  ‘You should be made aware, then, that my Sororitas are heavily involved in combating the three local heretical cults. If you plan to conscript some of them under the authority of the Immortal Emperor of Mankind, then our overall efforts to restore this planet will suffer.’

  ‘I have no intention of taking your Sisters away from their duties. I have Tempestus Scions to assist me in my mission.’

  ‘Scions? Is it not a waste of their particular skillsets to use them only to ferret out and destroy heretical cultists?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The Shelsists, of course.’

  ‘What of them?’

  The Canoness frowned. ‘I presumed that as an officer of the Ordo Hereticus, you were here to offer us your assistance in purging them.’

  ‘No, not at all,’ Ulrich said.

  ‘The inquisitor is of the Ordo Xenos, Canoness,’ Margene said quietly.

  ‘Xenos?’

  Tempestor Chavis had made his way towards the group. He stopped behind the inquisitor, stamped the ground, and saluted.

  ‘Sir, all men and materiel are safely groundside. Taurox transports are armed and ready, and awaiting your orders.’

  ‘Very well. Sister Margene and I will travel with you in the lead vehicle. I’ll decode our destination coordinates once we are under way,’ Ulrich said. He gave a slight bow at the waist. ‘Canoness, I’ll take my leave.’

  ‘One cannot take what is so freely given,’ the Canoness said.

  Ulrich narrowed his eyes. Her words sounded like a quotation of some kind. Uncertain as to whether or not he had actually been insulted by the woman, he simply gave her a slight bow. He took four steps towards the landing craft, and then spun back around. ‘Oh, actually, there is one area in which you and your charges might be of assistance to me.’

  ‘Yes, inquisitor?’

  Ulrich pointed towards the fence, where a number of curious onlookers were gathering. ‘Keep the local riff-raff away from this ship. Set up a perimeter, or some such.’

  Canoness Grace’s eyes went wide with incredulity. ‘Guard duty? You want to use my Battle Sisters for guard duty?’

  ‘The Emperor’s Inquisition is tasking you with securing a valuable location,’ Ulrich said. He watched her clench her jaw. It could be a dangerous thing, he knew, trumping someone’s personal pride with Inquisitorial power. But damn if it wasn’t satisfying.

  ‘Your lander will be accorded the same level of security as that of any Imperial visitor to this world,’ the Canoness growled.

  The inquisitor returned to the Scions with Chavis. Margene bowed to Canoness Grace in a gesture of respect mingled with awe. ‘It was an honour to meet you at last, Canoness.’

  The Canoness gave her a quizzical look.

  ‘I am stationed at the Convent Prioris, on Holy Terra. I have been the recipient of your progress reports. I know all about your struggles here on Lysios, particularly against the Shelsists.’

  ‘But it’s not them that br
ought you here.’

  Margene seemed torn. ‘I… I cannot speak of the inquisitor’s mission. I am bound by an oath of servitude and secrecy. We all are.’

  ‘Of course. I understand.’

  ‘But I can say that I think our efforts will aid you greatly. If we are successful, that is.’

  Margene backed away, and then ran to catch up with Ulrich and Chavis. Canoness Grace returned to the other Sisters.

  ‘Superior Cairista, we have new orders. This field is to be secured and guarded until the inquisitor returns. No one goes near that landing craft, and we are to keep any and all citizens away from the entryway. See to it.’

  ‘At once, Canoness,’ Cairista replied. As part of her promotion, she had traded in her flamer for a boltgun with a small fire launcher mounted beneath it. She hoisted it up over her shoulder and began to issue commands to the other women.

  Grace watched from a distance as the Scions, Ulrich and Sister Margene climbed into the two transports and rumbled away from the tiny space port. Overhead, the blazing eyes of Cryptus became obscured by wisps of blue cloud. A cool breeze ruffled her cloak.

  Canoness Grace ran her fingers along the beads of the rosarius that hung around her neck, praying as she did so. ‘Emperor, if it be Your will, watch over our sister, Margene. Grant her strength, and courage, and the conviction to do Your will in all things.’ She touched her forehead, chest, and sword hilt, and then moved to supervise the establishment of the security perimeter.

  She and Margene would never see each other in person again.

  ‘I am the Brine. Everything that lives within me, I have made a part of me. Since you spurn me, Ixoi, the creatures of Lysios will suffer my wrath. I will devour them, and greatly. The things that live in me will feast upon the things that live outside of me, because without you, I am craven.’

  – Cantos Continuous, M41

  Chapter Four