ASHES OF PROSPERO

by Gav Thorpe

  Like an ember, the fragment of Izzakar fell upon his inanimate remains.

  The corpse twitched twice, its limbs jerking with the sudden infusion of mortal energy.

  A gloved hand quivered across the corpse-pile until the fingers found purchase and pulled the Librarian to a sitting position. A wheeze of effort escaped the masked helm and ochre eye lenses turned towards Njal.

  ‘What passes here?’

  The shout from one of the Old Guard echoed across the divide even as Njal helped Izzakar to his feet. A sudden commotion behind the Stormcaller warned of warriors turning in his direction with more shouts of disbelief and calls for the Old Wolf. The Thousand Sons Librarian ignored the disturbance and bent to pluck an undamaged chestplate from a corpse, the hiss of its detachment drowned among a growing chorus of accusing shouts.

  Orr laughed softly.

  ‘Do you mock me?’ demanded Njal, grip tight on his staff. Nightwing poised on his arm, ready to lunge at the Librarian.

  ‘I was just trying to speak to you in my head.’ Izzakar’s voice was harsher than his thoughts had sounded, grating and low. ‘I had become unaccustomed to using my actual voice. I wanted to thank you.’

  Valgarthr and the rest of the Stormriders formed a line between Njal and several packs of Old Guard. The veterans cast looks at Orr but it was clear their loyalty was first to their Lord of Runes whom they trusted without doubt. The weapons of Bulveye’s warriors were trained on the strangers in their midst. The Old Wolf approached, several of his veterans with him. Njal heard the whine of motors and a heavy tread, sensing the weight of the Dreadnoughts at his back.

  The Stormcaller caught Majula eyeing the sorcerer. Her expression told of curiosity rather than anger now that she could finally see that which she had only dimly sensed previously. Dorria stepped in front of the Navigator, trying to usher her away from the advancing Old Guard. Majula sidestepped, eluding Dorria’s outstretched hand to stand with the Stormriders.

  Njal saw her shaking as she stopped in front of one of the Greybeards and folded her arms, a diminutive picture of defiance against the towering presence of the Space Marine. The Space Wolf stepped back, his uncertain glance towards his pack leader answered with a shrug.

  ‘Say nothing,’ Njal snapped at Izzakar, knowing that a stray word of offence from the Librarian could trigger a regrettable incident.

  ‘What Space Wolf lifts his weapon against another with murderous intent?’ demanded Arjac, his Terminators joining Valgarthr’s pack as a physical barrier to the legionaries.

  ‘What Space Wolf resorts to necromancy of a defeated foe?’ demanded Bulveye, pushing through his warriors to confront Njal. He levelled his axe at the Rune Priest. ‘I thought you a brother and you repay me by sharing the treachery of this cur?’

  ‘His name is Izzakar Orr,’ Njal said firmly, his staff held to his side. ‘Without his knowledge we are all doomed to die in this cursed place.’

  ‘So be it,’ declared the Old Wolf. His hand moved to the plasma pistol at his belt. ‘I expect he’ll die a second time as easily as the first.’

  He dragged the weapon free and lifted it. Njal saw the glimmer of the energy discharge for a split second before it was eclipsed by a massive form. The crackle of the shot seemed loud in the moment, the flare of it bright behind the silhouette of the Terminator that had moved.

  The sound of the impact screeched along Njal’s nerves, a shout ripped from his throat as the ball of plasma splashed across the warrior that had intervened.

  Rocked by the discharge, the Terminator half turned and the Stormcaller saw Arjac’s face screwed up in shock, his plastron almost disintegrated by the plasma bolt, droplets of cooling ceramite spattered across his face and tattooed scalp.

  A surge of psychic energy and fizz of static alerted Njal to the reaction from Izzakar and he acted in instinct, swinging his staff blindly. The skull connected with the face of the Librarian as he lifted hands sheathed in arcing bolts of green. The blow spun Izzakkar to the ground, psychic lightning earthed harmlessly through the floor. Njal stepped forward, both shielding the Thousand Sons legionary from further attack and blocking Izzakar’s view of Bulveye.

  ‘Enough!’ roared the Old Wolf, taking a stride, axe brought back for a blow.

  One of his veterans leapt at him, ensnaring Bulveye’s arm with his own, dragging the Wolf Lord down and sideways. The two Old Guard tumbled in a crash of armour, the interloper rolling to straddle his superior, one foot on the Old Wolf’s wrist, pinning his axe-hand down.

  ‘No more!’ barked the 13th Company veteran. ‘We are done here, Bulveye.’

  ‘You defy me also, Jurgen?’ Bulveye sounded more hurt than angry and he made no attempt to unseat his assailant, the fight knocked out of him by the sudden intervention of his companion.

  ‘By the Allfather’s mighty gusts, I do,’ said Jurgen. ‘I just stopped you making another terrible mistake.’

  The Old Guard parted as one of their number moved to attend to Arjac. The Wolf Guard waved him away, pushing to his feet with a wince.

  ‘It’s fine, my armour took the brunt of it.’ Rockfist darted a look at the floored Wolf Lord. ‘Fortunate that you’re such a bloody poor shot.’

  ‘Our oaths… The Allfather’s command…’

  ‘We were betrayed already, Old Wolf.’ Jurgen stood, foot still in place on Bulveye’s wrist. ‘I overheard what the runekast said. Horus turned on the Allfather. Think about that, Bulveye. Horus turned on the Allfather.’

  ‘We did nothing wrong,’ snarled Izzakar. ‘I told you before, imbecile, that your censure was misplaced. You would not listen. You forced us to defend ourselves.’

  ‘What of it? We do the Allfather’s bidding here. He determined your…’ The Old Wolf’s voice trailed away with realisation and his face twisted with consternation.

  The one called Jurgen explained as he stepped away and helped Bulveye to his feet.

  ‘That’s right, Old Wolf. Our orders, they came from Horus. The Wolf King did not speak with the Allfather directly, the execute command was passed on by the Warmaster.’

  A knot of coldness gripped Njal’s gut, knowing the details of the terrible saga that followed. Nightwing took flight with a shriek of dismay, circling above the gathered battle-packs.

  ‘It was all a lie,’ whispered the Stormcaller. ‘The Allfather never ordered the death of Prospero. The thrice-cursed Warmaster had already turned and sought to pave the way to his treachery by turning the Sons of Russ upon Magnus’ Legion.’

  Stunned silence followed the announcement as Stormrider, Old Guard and even Izzakar absorbed the monumental consequences of that simple but most heinous of deceptions.

  The Old Wolf looked broken, axe limp in his grasp, head hung with shame. Njal assisted Izzakar in standing up. The two foes, who just days and yet ten thousand years ago were intent upon each other’s destruction, faced each other, united by the sudden revelation.

  ‘You were not wrong,’ the Thousand Sons Librarian said quietly, the words barely heard. ‘You were tricked, and we see now the path that Magnus took my people.’

  ‘Nor you,’ admitted Bulveye, lips barely moving. ‘Had the Rout not destroyed Prospero, might we have had an ally? Surely that was the gambit of Horus.’

  They looked at each other in mutual understanding.

  A sudden chiming noise rang about the impossibly vast hall, distant yet strong. Izzakar’s helmed face turned towards the other portal.

  ‘Magnus is coming,’ he told them, voice touched with awe. He returned his attention to Bulveye. ‘I feel his presence burrowing into the portal. As before, I control the means of your departure.’

  They turned towards the white pillar as though expecting the renegade primarch to burst through right then.

  ‘Or you can stay and fight,’ the Librarian continued, his tone conveying contempt for such a plan.

  ‘We need you, Old Wolf,’ said Arjac. He gestured at the host assembled under Bulveye’s command. ‘Out there,
the heirs of the Warmaster look to topple what their master couldn’t, a war that has raged for ten thousand years. Don’t tell us about oaths. The Sons of Russ have been fulfilling such feal-words for a hundred centuries. You wish to destroy Magnus? Come with us. Join your brothers who we have already found.’

  A fresh interest brightened Bulveye’s eye.

  ‘Already found? Warriors of the Thirteenth?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Njal, cutting short the conversation before too much detail was revealed. Bulveye did not need to know yet that the majority of those 13th Company legionaries recovered from the warp had succumbed to the mutating curse of the Wulfen. ‘They will need a leader.’

  ‘Do it,’ Bulveye told Izzakar. ‘Send us to Tizca as you would have done if not for my boar-headed pride.’

  The Librarian approached the portal, arms raised, the words of the calculae-incantation already spilling from his lips. The sheen within the circle of energy fractured, jolting forward through an age, lifetimes passing in moments until the temporal distortion between the maze and Tizca was aligned. The sky was of a deeper night, not dissimilar to what the Stormriders had left. A few more words and the gate broadened, revealing a vista of the Pyramid of Photep. On the opposite side, squads of thralls and scattered Space Wolves turned in surprise at the sudden activity.

  ‘Do you still desire my surrender?’ asked Orr.

  ‘I think I do not.’ Bulveye turned to his host and lifted his axe high. ‘We march again for Tizca, the sharp teeth of Fenris about the throat of Magnus once more!’

  CHAPTER 18

  THE CYCLOPS AND THE JACKALWOLF

  Swallowed by the daemon gullet, Lukas lost all sense of motion. He crossed some kind of boundary point, a nullspace without dimension or velocity, though he was somehow still aware of movement. Or rather it was transition, a state of transformation from one place to another.

  He really was in the belly of a beast, he decided. A daemonic entity so vast that it could not be comprehended, and in some way linked to the Portal Maze into which his forebrothers had unwisely ventured. Its guts, limbs, nerves and arteries were the hidden links between the gates, concealed in rational warp-science that had eschewed the existence of the daemonic.

  This state of graceful intuition passed quickly as he was spat forth from the monstrous internal dimensions, falling hard upon unyielding ground. Battle stench of blood, sweat and smoke stung his nostrils. All was black.

  He realised that the darkness was his eyes closed and slowly opened them, not sure he wanted to see where he had been deposited.

  Vision cemented that thought as focus returned, revealing blue giants standing about him. Their armour was chased with gold, banded about chest plates and greaves, their masked helms ornately fashioned with gilded flares and crests. The Rubricae – for such he knew well from the fighting on Fenris – acted simultaneously, their bolters aimed at his face, the glimmer of inferno hex playing about the weapons’ muzzles.

  Another figure pushed past, more ornamented still, wearing a tabard-robe of blue and white that was embroidered with Prosperine sigils and the mark of the Changer of Ways. In the eye lenses of the sorcerer’s helm Lukas could see the portal through which he had fallen, and his own stricken expression.

  The Tzeentchian sorcerer pushed the butt of his staff into Lukas’ chest, a lambent flame pinning him to the ground.

  ‘What is this?’ The traitor’s voice was heavily accented and distorted by the helm’s vocaliser. ‘A scout sent to find us? A spy of Fenris? I think you are a little lost, my wolf-tainted friend.’

  It took some time for the Space Wolves to pass out of the Portal Maze, during which Njal joined minds with Izzakar once more, this time to deflect the energies of the opposing portal. Tendrils of warping power crept into the arcane circuitry seeking to rip open that which the cultists could not part by design. Hot sweat stood out on Njal’s brow as he fixated his powers on keeping the gateway shut. Beside him, the Thousand Sons Librarian constantly chanted psychebraic commands, keeping the portal slightly misaligned despite the efforts of those beyond.

  Just a few packs remained of the Old Guard – and Arjac’s Wolf Guard who had refused to leave without the Stormcaller – when a new presence imparted upon the plane between the Tzeentchian citadel and the heartworld. At first, Njal thought it was a greater daemon, its power evident even from afar, like the first gleam of a raging inferno beyond the crest of a hill.

  The being on the other side of the warp bridge flexed its power and a ripple of consternation passed through the Stormcaller.

  ‘I cannot hold for much longer,’ Njal said with a grimace. ‘Magnus is too powerful.’

  ‘I am also near spent,’ confessed Orr. Rivulets of sparks rolled from his armour as he exterted himself, and in Njal’s wyrdsight he could see the darkening aura around the Librarian as his connection to the warp waned with effort.

  ‘Just a few more minutes,’ said Njal, checking the progress of the evacuation. He knew that they did not have enough time. Another determined assault would see the gateway formed and Magnus would lead his host through the breach.

  As suddenly as it had arrived, the presence dissipated.

  ‘Perhaps we were wrong,’ said Njal.

  ‘It was him,’ insisted Izzakar. ‘The Crimson King is coming for us.’

  ‘I’m not the expert, but you said Magnus built this maze. I don’t think we can hold against him if he desires to enter.’

  ‘No, we cannot,’ said Izzakar, his words touched by the hint of a hidden smile. ‘I advise a rapid retreat before the primarch returns.’

  They broke away in unison, heaving one last psychic push into the portal to send its alignment spinning. Nightwing raced ahead of Njal, cawing madly at the last warriors, pulsing his desire for them to depart. They heeded his intent and all but the Rune Priest and Librarian pushed into the other portal.

  Nightwing dived through and Njal hit the shimmering circle at full speed, leaping into the veil with a gasp.

  Show me the intruder.

  The words trembled through the ground and the limbs of Lukas, bypassing his ears altogether. A rage of stimulants coursed into his arteries as his modified limbic system and armour did their best to dampen the wave of apprehension that rose up in his gut. The mix of hormones and artificial enhancers made him slightly light-headed, which for one of his carefree disposition was not an improvement.

  At an unspoken command from the sorcerer, the Rubricae parted, revealing the approach of the Cyclops, Magnus the Red, a towering apparition of immortal power and infernal sorcery. The sorcerer knelt, giving obeisance to his lord, and in doing so removed his staff from Lukas’ body. The Trickster stood quickly, gaze fixed upon the daemon primarch. It was impossible to take in the majesty and unnatural aura of Magnus, leaving Lukas with just vague impressions and shifting after-images.

  Awe threatened to choke all thought from the Trickster but he would not allow himself to be cowed by the primarch and managed to smile weakly.

  ‘Hello.’

  What is your mission, Son of Russ?

  Lukas glanced around and saw that he was in some kind of citadel hall, banners upon the walls, vast enough to be thronged with sorcerers, Rubricae, cultists and mutants, a thousand-strong and more. Though Magnus’ presence was still like a battering ram against his skull, Lukas’ confidence could not be long depleted. The fact the Cyclops clearly did not know everything lessened his aura of infallibility.

  ‘I don’t really do things on purpose,’ he explained. ‘I’m more the type that just makes things happen and then improvises.’

  The Stormcaller did not despatch you? I sense his spoor. He is close now.

  The primarch’s aura was overpowering, blotting out thought and sensation. It took all of Lukas’ will to form a sentence.

  ‘Njal? He didn’t send me. I mean, I was with him, for a while, on the ship. But I haven’t seen him since we landed in Tizca.’

  The apparition solidified as Magnus bent close
r, forming a body of deep red clad in golden armour. A grimacing face regarded Lukas with its single eye, the other socket a bottomless vortex of swirling darkness. Even so, there seemed something wrong with the daemon prince, like a misaligned vid-projector. Fragmented parts of Magnus flittered and faded, struggling to maintain coherency.

  You will tell me what the Stormcaller intends. You will reveal all to me.

  ‘I know nothing,’ Lukas insisted. He shrugged. ‘I really have no idea where the Stormcaller is or what he wants to do. I’m not the sort of person he confides in.’

  You will not thwart my elevation, child of Fenris. I will align the omnimatrix and ascend fully to my place as a godhead. Worlds will burn at my arrival. Stars shall weep in horror.

  In contrast to moments before, Lukas desperately wanted to stay silent. Every rational part of him screamed to say nothing, to not dare the wrath of this demigod. Magnus had the power to snuff out his life in an instant. Yet… Such power had to be challenged. It was Lukas’ self-appointed mission to thwart highhandedness and the tyranny of authority.

  He could never keep his mouth shut even when it was best for him.

  A nonchalant grin spread across Lukas’ face. ‘Everyone must have goals.’

  You mock me?

  ‘I mock everyone.’

  I can slay you with a thought. Turn your body inside out. Rip your mind from the tethers of your brain and feed it to daemon-hounds for eternity. You–

  ‘No, you can’t,’ said Lukas. Magnus’ assumed visage became a picture of rage and the Trickster quickly lifted his hand, the torn piece of parchment in his fist. ‘Not if you want this.’

  Magnus recoiled, scattering Rubricae with his anger.

  How did you get that? The Spell of Unlocking belongs to me! The primarch gathered himself and loomed again, a clawed finger pointed at Lukas. I will claim it from your dead grip while I torture your soul for this insult.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ replied Lukas. ‘You are said to have foresight beyond imagining. Look now, look into the future to see what happens next.’