Hammer and Anvil

by James Swallow

  It was the survivor that troubled him more than anything else. He had done so very much to take the female to the ragged edges of her body’s endurance, cut her and modified her and made her his great experiment. When she escaped from confinement all those cycles ago, he had almost been able to process something akin to disappointment.

  He felt – if it was possible for Ossuar to actually feel anything – betrayed by her. The cryptek had let her live after all her fellow humans had been culled, and all he had asked was to observe her pain and catalogue it. He had learned much about the manner in which organics operated, recovering vast quantities of data that had been considered irrelevant during The Uplifting. Then, the Stargods had promised the necrontyr they would never again need to consider organiform matters… But that had been one lie among all the others.

  Ossuar’s work was important. He and his fellow psychomancers were the harbingers of despair, and to fulfil that title they needed to understand pain in all its forms. The female had been of great help in that regard.

  But she had fled, and the cryptek had reluctantly closed the book on that research. He had never computed the possibility she might have still been alive down there on the desert world, and certainly not after all this time. The odds were too great.

  The humans seemed to have a knack for defying probability. Ossuar idly wondered if he could set up an experiment to test that theory; he would need a lot of disposable organics for it to work.

  Another carrier halted and disgorged a fresh cohort of drones, ready to board a waiting Ghost Ark. There were now two battle-strength phalanxes of warriors armed with charged gauss flayers, several of them still bearing the command mark of the Atun dynasty. This great complex and the Dolmen Gate at its heart had once been an important base for the Atun, before the war broke up their dominions and left them fragmented. It had been easy for the Sautekh to take the Obsidian Moon for themselves sixty million years later. In time, every necron bearing the mark of the Atun would be re-branded as Sautekh. Inwardly that was already so, as insidious abjuration programs crafted by the Stormlord’s cybermagii had already reset their allegiance to the great Imotekh.

  The warriors were joined by a unit of immortals. These were necrons of a more powerful build, with greater battle-zone survivability, shock troopers armed with twin-chamber gauss blasters or the crackling power of tesla carbines. The nemesor’s own lychguard were also there, including the pair that had menaced Ossuar in Khaygis’s crypt. There was more than enough for the task at hand, he estimated, much more. And yet, the general’s army was still not yet complete. Other transport frames were coming closer, some bearing heavy autonomous weapons and even a Monolith.

  ‘Do you think the humans will be so great a threat as to require this much firepower?’ He asked the question as Khaygis strode past him. ‘The organics have a term – overkill.’

  The general halted and his emerald eye band took the cryptek’s measure. ‘I have heard of it,’ he admitted. ‘I should like to observe it first-hand.’ Khaygis advanced on the other necron. ‘This deed will fulfil more than one purpose, Ossuar. Perhaps, if your consciousness existed outside of the abstract of your theorems and experiments, you would be able to process that fact.’ He gestured at the assembled ranks of drone-soldiers. ‘This time, I will wipe out every organic on the planet.’

  ‘Events repeat themselves,’ offered the cryptek.

  ‘Negative,’ replied the warlord. ‘This time there will be none of them left for you to keep as a plaything, no pets left for you to let run wild and unchecked. Nothing but ashes. Not even a trace, a fragment, a splinter.’

  Ossuar raised a taloned hand. ‘With respect,’ he began, ‘it remains important that I be allowed to research the organics. The Stormlord himself ordered that I do so.’

  ‘The Stormlord ordered that to be rid of you from his war fleet,’ Khaygis shot back. ‘How else could Imotekh divest himself of your peculiar obsessions?’

  ‘It is not an obsession,’ Ossuar insisted. ‘It is science!’

  The general turned and sent a summons towards one of the new arrivals. ‘Justify it to yourself as you will. But the humans will die, and the termination of that broken little toy of yours will be foremost among them.’

  ‘I would prefer otherwise,’ said the cryptek, trailing after the nemesor as he walked away. ‘I have invested much in her… At least, allow me to recover the implants inside the female for repurposing–’

  Khaygis did not answer him. Instead, the warlord waited as the soldier he had called upon approached and bowed. Ossuar recognised the configuration of the new arrival’s wargear; the hyperspatial waveguides etched into the dull steel armour, the airstream lines of the metallic skull and the dark gaze of the solemn optics within. All these things were characteristic of a deathmark, the marksmen assassins of the great dynasties.

  The sniper bowed to his commander. Across his back was the slender, lethal shape of a synaptic disintegrator rifle, the signature weapon of the necrontyr’s most deadly killers. Khaygis offered the deathmark a glassy bead, a data-jewel containing information on the sniper’s assigned target. The bead activated, displaying a DNA trace and energy signature that the cryptek identified as belonging to his test subject.

  ‘With respect,’ Ossuar ventured, ‘would it not make a more efficient use of forces to assign the deathmark to eliminate the human commander instead?’

  The sniper silently absorbed the data and returned the bead to Khaygis. ‘No,’ said the general. ‘The hybrid you made offends me. And there is another reason.’

  ‘Which is?’

  The nemesor gave him a cursory glance. ‘Because you wish it.’ Khaygis nodded to the assassin. ‘Go now.’

  The deathmark bowed once more, and the dimensional matrix in its armour glowed brightly. The sniper became insubstantial, ephemeral, before vanishing entirely. Unstuck in space-time, the assassin now existed in a hyperspace oubliette, a micro-dimension out of synch with this universe. From there, the deathmark would track the woman and be drawn to her, waiting in nothingness until he was ready to execute his sanction.

  Khaygis looked back at him. ‘A lesson must be learned. Not just by the humans, but by you, harbinger. You will be reminded of your place.’ His grim visage loomed. ‘We are necron. We ascended above these meat-things when the fleshtime was forgotten. But you still dally with them, and it repulses me. I will break you of this addiction.’

  ‘You do not understand,’ Ossuar replied. ‘The human organics are not a real threat. They present no danger to the great works to repair the Dolmen Gate.’

  The general’s manner shifted, and his eyes flashed. Khaygis stiffened. He was not one to have his edicts questioned. Resolute ire built behind his words as he spoke again. ‘Arrogance brought you to this place, psychomancer. If your skills were not so rare, I would have dissipated your consciousness on the Stormlord’s command even before the Timeless Dream! Had you adhered to the letter of Imotekh’s commands instead of nurturing desires for power above your station, these other humans would have never been allowed to set foot on the planet! Your pitiful attempts to conceal the depth of your illicit works have been fruitless. I know the full scope of what you have done. There will be censure for your acts, Ossuar. Know that.’ He turned away, signalling the activation of the portals. ‘But first I will correct your mistakes.’

  Zara brought what was needed from the medicae tents set up in the convent courtyard, and as the Sisters Militant looked on with their doubts clear upon their aspect, Verity and the other hospitaller set up the monitorium units.

  Imogen had found them a room inside the central donjon, what had once been a chamber for storing prayer books. The space had only high, unreachable slit-windows thick with silt and a single doorway. Outside, Sisters Helena and Danae stood in the corridor with weapons drawn and ready; within, the canoness stood with Miriya and Cassandra as her guardians, watching like a hawk.

  Decima sat in a reading chair of old, distressed oak, unmo
ving, barely breathing. The business of disarming her, of persuading the woman to give up the weapons concealed beneath her cloak, had not been easy. It was only Verity’s steady, careful entreaty to her that had finally convinced the revenant survivor to agree – that, and Sister Imogen’s departure.

  Typically, Imogen’s blunt manner had been at the forefront, and finally Canoness Sepherina had ordered her to stand down and convey Tegas and his party away, to a place where they could be put under house arrest. If she remained close by, it was clear that Decima would never relax. She feared the Sister Superior’s intentions towards her, and rightly so. Verity did not doubt that Decima would have joined her long-dead comrades already, had Imogen been in command here. For now, the Sister Superior had been charged with imprisoning the questor and preparing the convent’s defences for the threat of attack.

  ‘What kind of blade is this?’ Sepherina asked the question as she turned Decima’s night-black sword over in her hands. ‘The metal of the grip and the pommel is unlike anything I have ever seen.’

  ‘The edge cuts through steel as if it were smoke,’ Cassandra told the veteran. ‘I saw her use it on the necrons. It is some product of alien science.’

  ‘Yet it weighs next to nothing.’ The canoness made a slow practice swing with the weapon, and the air crackled quietly in its wake. ‘Where did it come from?’ she asked.

  Decima blinked. ‘I don’t remember. I think I took it from them. It was a long time ago. When I escaped.’

  Sepherina handed the sword off to Cassandra, who took it as if it were coated in poison. ‘It is important that you remember,’ she told the ragged woman. ‘Your life depends on it.’

  ‘Ours too, I think,’ noted Miriya.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ Verity told her, as she connected a thin wire to an auspex, then the far end to a probe disc she placed on Decima’s throat. ‘You’re safe here.’

  ‘No,’ Decima told her, with chilling firmness. ‘None of us are safe here. They came once, they will come again. There will be no errors this time. They learn.’

  The canoness found another reading chair where it had fallen, and righted it, dragging it to set herself down at arm’s length from the other woman. ‘Decima,’ she began, ‘if that is who and what you are… You will remember for us.’ Sepherina gestured at the walls. ‘Our records of what transpired here are full of blank spaces and voids, half-facts and missing time.’

  ‘Yes,’ breathed the revenant. ‘I know.’

  ‘I need to understand,’ the canoness went on. ‘I need to be sure of what you are, beyond all shadow of a doubt. Are you the woman Sister Verity believes you to be, or some cleverly constructed proxy that speaks with her voice and apes her manner?’

  ‘I have no answer to give you,’ came the reply.

  ‘For your sake,’ said Sepherina, signalling Miriya and Cassandra, ‘I hope that is not so.’ The two Battle Sisters raised their bolters and took aim. Miriya felt reluctance drag on her a moment, but she pushed it away. Orders were orders. If the proof Verity was looking for could not be found, then Miriya would put a bolt-shell through Decima’s heart, and Cassandra another through her skull.

  ‘Rest now,’ Verity was saying, as she held an injector bulb at Decima’s throat. ‘This will ease you into the memory.’

  The injector touched her flesh and Decima went rigid, her bony limbs stiffening. ‘Don’t speak to me,’ she hissed, glaring past the Sister into the middle distance. ‘I won’t stay silent for you! I won’t!’

  ‘She talks to ghosts,’ Zara said, with trepidation. ‘To voices only she can hear.’

  ‘Perhaps we need to listen to them as well,’ Verity shot back, gently soothing the other woman’s distress.

  Decima slumped as the drug from the injector passed through her. The revenant’s eyes lost focus, and her arms slackened, hands falling into her lap.

  ‘Is it done?’ said the canoness.

  Verity nodded. ‘She is on the edges of a trance-state, lulled by the philtre. She won’t harm herself.’

  Sepherina leaned closer. ‘Hear me. You will tell the tale of what happened here. Spare no detail. How did you survive the attack on Sanctuary 101? How have you managed to live in the wilderness for more than ten years? What did the xenos do to you? Answer me.’

  ++Confess to them++ said the Watcher. ++Tell them the truth of how you failed so utterly. And when you are done, they will execute you++

  The voice seemed to boom off the confined walls all around her. She blinked, peering at the faces of the Battle Sisters. Couldn’t they hear it? It was so loud, so strident. It was impossible to ignore. How could they be deaf to it?

  ++You failed. You know how they punish failure++

  ‘I failed…’ The words left her lips.

  The canoness eyed her. ‘Explain.’

  ++Tell them and you will die for it++ screamed the voice. ++You can still escape, kill these ones and flee, back to the desert where it is safe++

  Her hand gave a reflexive twitch, and she felt betrayed by the impulse.

  The Watcher seized on the moment. ++Out there you cannot die, out there you will be free to hide and watch these ones perish when the attack comes, you alone will survive again++

  A dark emotion took hold in her chest. ‘I survived,’ she went on, sickened at the horrible, inescapable truth of that statement.

  With care, the woman called Decima pressed her torn nails into the palms of her hands until they pierced the skin and drew thin rivulets of blood. The pain provided a focus, and it made the voice turn distant.

  At first, the words came with hesitation and care. She cautioned herself and edited her speech before uttering it, but from moment to moment that began to change. The pain, the buzzing burn from the small cuts on her hands, was magnified through the echo chamber of her memory. She remembered hard, the terrors of capture and confinement, of escape and evasion, all of them returning to her as little by little Decima allowed the floodgates to open.

  The other women fell silent as she told them of the first attack. ‘There was no warning. They came just before the dawn, destroying the power plant. In the gloom, they hunted the Sisterhood down every corridor and passage.’

  ‘The necrons,’ prompted the canoness.

  She nodded. ‘Skeletons of steel… I saw a…’

  ++A sickly green glow following them wherever they went. Silver cutting blades++

  Decima heard the words and could not be certain if she had said them. And suddenly she remembered a face that had been lost to her for years. Elspeth. Her dear Sister, her confidante and close friend.

  ++Clever Elspeth, who was good at regicide and games of tall card++ The Watcher was very far away, but not enough to go unheard. ++Pious Elspeth who sometimes mumbled the catechisms in her sleep++

  She shook her head, bringing up one blood-marked hand to grind the heel of her palm into her eye-socket. ‘Iron skulls,’ she managed. ‘A baleful gaze like burning emeralds. We had never seen anything like them.’

  The others were hanging on her every word. The canoness studied her, and for an instant, her face flowed like wax and she took on the aspect of Decima’s own commander, a decade now dead and gone. She heard her words rise up from the depths of memory, and for a blessed moment the Watcher was blotted out.

  ‘The artefact must never fall to the xenos.’ She repeated the order that had been given to her on that final day.

  Sepherina reacted as if she had be struck, jerking back so much that the reading chair she sat upon scraped across the stone floor. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘This is my last command to you,’ said the revenant, a faraway look in her eyes, her tone thick with emotion. ‘Go now. Take it and go.’

  ‘Take what?’ whispered Cassandra, from the side of her mouth. ‘What artefact?’

  Miriya could only guess; but then she caught Verity’s eye and saw a measure of understanding in the hospitaller.

  The canoness held up the blade of her hand to silence them before anyo
ne else could speak. ‘Who said that to you?’ she demanded.

  ‘You did,’ said the ragged woman. ‘She did. Agnes. The canoness.’ Her bloodied hands came up and she held them in the position one might adopt if they were holding a newborn child. ‘I cradled it,’ she went on. ‘Against the storm and the fire, I was mother to it. Protector.’ The hands began to tremble and they dropped away.

  Colour darkened the woman’s face. She slumped forwards, and her manner shifted as Miriya watched a great shame overcome her.

  ‘Where…’ Sepherina stopped, and glanced around at the others. She was hesitating, afraid to complete her question within their earshot. Finally, the canoness’s gaze crossed that of Verity, and her tone grew firm again. ‘Where is it now?’

  It was a long time before the revenant answered, in a small, sorrowful voice. ‘My disgrace is eternal. He Upon The Throne sees it still. I can never escape it.’

  Sepherina shook her head in frustration. ‘Where?’ she insisted, heedless of the other woman’s distress.

  ‘I was unable to complete my mission. They came and took us both. I expected to die…’ A shudder passed through her thin frame. ‘The cryptek had other intentions for my flesh.’ Suddenly she was shivering, even though the air in the store room was close and warm. She began to whimper and mutter in low, almost inaudible tones.

  ‘The alien broke her mind,’ said Verity. She glanced at Zara, who looked up from the auspex and returned a grave nod. ‘But did not destroy it.’

  ‘The power of faith can endure much,’ said Miriya. ‘The Emperor protected something in her.’

  The canoness’s brow furrowed. ‘How did you escape?’

  ‘The Watcher told me how,’ she admitted. The name meant nothing to any of them. ‘I fled into the desert, and I survived. Alone with only the voice.’ She tapped a torn finger on her temple.

  ‘She hears voices we cannot,’ Cassandra repeated quietly.

  ‘Is it any wonder?’ said Verity. ‘Surviving alone out in the desert wilderness, recovering from torture and experimentation.’ The hospitaller gently took the revenant’s hands and dressed the self-inflicted wounds there. ‘Her persona must have fragmented and crumbled as she struggled to stay alive and search…’ Verity looked at the canoness. ‘For that which she lost?’