by John French
I know what this is,+ I said, and there was laughter in my thought-voice. Even now, with all that has happened and all that I am, the foolishness of those words makes me shiver. +I know what you are.+
The wolf paused. I could see the blood-clotted fur on its back rise into serrated spikes. The snake laughed, and the moth buzzed its wings. I did not respond. I was sure, so sure that I understood.
The bloody wolf, which represents destruction from within. The serpent, which is the temptation to turn aside. The spectre of the grave, which is the fear of failure. You are my weaknesses come to pull me back to the dark. The seeker of truth must face you all if he is to ascend, but you are nothing more than reflections, and I do not fear you.+
‘Is that what you seek?’ said a voice. It was quiet, but it shook with different sounds, as though stitched together from many voices. The wolf went still, and the serpent hissed but did not move. The rotting moth buzzed backwards. The hunched creature at the edge of the circle turned and looked at me. It had the head of an eagle, a crow and a vulture stacked one above the other. Its eyes burned gas-flame blue. ‘Is the truth why you are here?’ It paused, savouring its next word. ‘Magnus.’ The words chilled me. The creature should not know my name. It should not know me. ‘Oh, but how could I not know you, my son?’ it said.
No,+ I said. +You are not my father.+
The four creatures laughed with a crackle of bones and a rustle of feathers. Their shadows grew, crawling towards me. Their hunger was all around me, pressing close, churning like waves against my mind. Then, suddenly – so suddenly that I felt their absence as a cold shock – they were gone. I was alone, surround by nothing but silence.
Where had they gone? Why had they gone? The answer came, clear out of the silence. They had fled. And that meant that the silence was a lie.
I was not alone.
I felt it then: the presence in the emptiness, vast and so bright that I could not see it.
Why are you here?+ I asked. When the answer came it echoed through my being.
I have been searching for you,+ it said, +my son.+
I open the idea of my mouth to answer, but the memory is gone and I am falling again, trying to remember if I answered, or if in that moment I was, for the first time, afraid.
The memory has gone but it has given me part of myself.
I am a son.
A son…
I remember earth. The earth was red, it rose in dry ribbons on the wind. He stood before me, his armour powdered by dust and marked by fire. His brothers stood beside him: Amon with his head bowed, Tolbek, his face blanked by shock, and the others. My sons. My defiant sons. My murderous children. So clever, so gifted and so blind.
Ahriman stared back at me. He knew what he had done; I could see the truth haloing him like black smoke around a flame. He had defied me, he had wielded the fire of the gods to remake the present, and he had failed.
I turned and looked at what my son had left of my Legion. Thousands of blank eyes stared back at me from the helms of motionless suits of armour. I could see the soul caught in each one, held like smoke in a bottle, drowning in oblivion, dead yet not gone.
Rage. Even now the memory shakes me. Our anger is not the anger of mortals. It is the lightning bolt which breaks the high tower – the hammer blow which shakes the heavens.
I looked back to Ahriman, to my son, the best of my sons. We spoke, but the words held no meaning. There could be only one answer for what he had done.
Banishment.+ I spoke the word, and the word remade the world.
Ahriman was gone.
My son is gone. I remain. Falling. It is he that is calling me, back to the world of mud and flesh. I see his face as I fall from the cradle of gods. Was it a memory of what has been, or is it yet to come? Is there a difference?
I am not what I was. I am not even a fraction of what I was.
I am the broken son of a false god.
I am dust.
I am time scattering from the hand to be blown on the wind of fate.
I am the whisperings of the dead, forever cascading into the grave.
I am the king of all I see.
I open my eye. Reality screams around me as it rushes and tumbles past. Time surrounds me, scattering and gathering me. Once I would have thought this power, but it is not; it is a prison.
There are shapes in the tempest: faces, towers and plains of dust, possibilities waiting to be seen, to be made real. I can decide to make them real, or to make them fade. I can slip back into the dark silt of dreams that might not be dreams. I choose to let them become real. My throne builds itself from shadow. The boiling sky and dry red plain congeal and harden above and below me. I still have no form besides a jagged line of golden light which hangs above the throne like frozen lightning. Then the tower splits the ground beneath me, and thrusts me up into the air. Other towers shimmer into sight as I rise, a great forest of obsidian, silver and brass. I look, and see through the veils of matter, see the weave and flow of the aether beneath. It has been a long time since I have taken my throne, an age in which empires could die and be forgotten. For the half mortal creatures which dwell in the towers, though, I have been absent for no more than a turning of one of this planet’s nine suns.
My remaining sons are waiting for me. They kneel, high-crested helms dipping, silk robes rustling in the wind. Each of them sees me differently. I know this, though I cannot know what it is that they see – that insight is denied me. Perhaps they see me as I was when I was half mortal: copper-skinned, red-maned, and crowned by horns. Perhaps they see only a shadow cast across my throne as though by a flickering fire. Perhaps they see something else.
Knekku raises his head first, and the questions begin to form in his thoughts. What is my bidding?
The exiles are returning,+ I send. I feel their shock, their anger, and their hope. +He is returning, and war is coming with him.+
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John French has written several Horus Heresy stories including the novellas Tallarn: Executioner and The Crimson Fist, the novel Tallarn: Ironclad, and the audio dramas Templar and Warmaster. He is the author of the Ahriman series, which includes the novels Ahriman: Exile, Ahriman: Sorcerer and Ahriman: Unchanged, plus a number of related short stories collected in Ahriman: Exodus, including ‘The Dead Oracle’ and ‘Hand of Dust’. Additionally for the Warhammer 40,000 universe he has written the Space Marine Battles novella Fateweaver, plus many short stories. He lives and works in Nottingham, UK.
The epic saga of Ahriman, greatest Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
‘Hounds of Wrath’ first published in Honour of the Space Marines (2014).
‘King of Ashes’ first published in Renegades of the Dark Millennium (2014).
‘All is Dust’, ‘Hand of Dust’, ‘The Dead Oracle’ and ‘Gates of Ruin’ first published as eBooks (2012-2014).
‘The First Prince’ first published as an MP3 audio drama (2014).
‘Fortune’s Fool’ is new to this collection.
First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2015 by
Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Ahriman: Exodus © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2015. Ahriman: Exodus, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78251-315-5
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
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