Magnus smiled at the thought, wishing he could show his persecutors the things he had seen, the wonders and the beauty of what lived beyond the veil of reality. Notions of good and evil fell by the wayside next to such power as dwelled in the warp, for they were the antiquated concepts of a religious society, long cast aside.
He stooped to retrieve his goblet and filled it once more before returning to his chambers and taking a seat at his desk. Inside it was cool and the scent of various inks and parchments made him smile. The wide chamber was walled with bookshelves and glass cabinets, filled with curios and remnants of lost knowledge gleaned from conquered worlds. Magnus himself had penned many of the texts in this room, though others had contributed to this most personal of libraries – Phosis T’kar, Ahriman and Uthizzar to name but a few.
Knowledge had always been a refuge for Magnus, the intoxicating thrill of rendering the unknown down to its constituent parts and, by doing so, rendering it knowable. Ignorance of the universe’s workings had created false gods in man’s ancient past, and the understanding of them was calculated to destroy them. Such was Magnus’s lofty goal.
His father denied such things, kept his people ignorant of the true powers that existed in the galaxy, and though he promulgated a doctrine of science and reason, it was naught but a lie, a comforting blanket thrown over humanity to shield them from the truth.
Magnus had looked deep into the warp, however, and knew different.
He closed his eye, seeing again the darkness of the corrupt chamber, the glitter sheen of the sword, and the blow that would change the fate of the galaxy. He saw death and betrayal, heroes and monsters. He saw loyalty tested, and found wanting and standing firm in equal measure. Terrible fates awaited his brothers and, worst of all, he knew that his father was utterly ignorant of the doom that threatened the galaxy.
A soft knocking came at his door and the red-armoured figure of Ahriman entered, holding before him a long staff topped with a single eye.
‘Have you decided yet, my lord?’ asked his chief librarian, without preamble. ‘I have, my friend,’ said Magnus. ‘Then shall I gather the coven?’
‘Yes,’ sighed Magnus, ‘in the catacombs beneath the city. Order the thralls to assemble the conjunction and I shall be with you presently.’ ‘As you wish, my lord,’ said Ahriman. ‘Something troubles you?’ asked Magnus, detecting an edge of reticence in his old friend’s tone. ‘No, my lord, it is not my place to say,’ ‘Nonsense. If you have a concern then I give you leave to voice it,’ ‘Then may I speak freely?’ ‘Of course,’ nodded Magnus. ‘What troubles you?’
Ahriman hesitated before answering. ‘This spell you propose is dangerous, very dangerous. None of us truly understand its subtleties and there may be consequences we do not yet foresee.’
Magnus laughed. ‘I’ve not known you shirk from the power of a spell before, Ahriman. When manipulating power of this magnitude there will always be unknowns, but only by wielding it can we bring it to heel. Never forget that we are the masters of the warp, my friend. It is strong, yes, and great power lives within it, but we have the knowledge and means to bend it to our will, do we not?’
‘We do, my lord,’ agreed Ahriman. ‘Why then do we use it to warn the Emperor of what is to come when he has forbidden us to pursue such matters?’
Magnus rose from his seat, his copper skin darkening in anger. ‘Because when my father sees that it is our sorcery that has saved his realm, he will not be able to deny that what we do here is important, nay, vital to the Imperium’s survival!’
Ahriman nodded, fearful of his primarch’s rage, and Magnus softened his tone. ‘There is no other way, my friend. The Emperor’s palace is warded against the power of the warp and only a conjuration of such power will breach those wards.’
‘Then I will gather the coven immediately,’ said Ahriman.
‘Yes, gather them, but await my arrival before beginning. Horus may yet surprise us.’
PANIC, FEAR, INDECISION: three emotions previously unknown to Loken seized him as Horus fell. The Warmaster crashed to the ground in slow motion, splashing into the mud as his body went completely limp. Shouts of alarm went up, but a paralysis of inaction held those closest to the Warmaster tightly in its grip, as though time itself had slowed.
Loken stared at the Warmaster lying on the ground before him, inert and corpse-like, unable to believe what he was seeing. The rest of the Mournival stood similarly immobile, rooted to the spot in disbelief. He felt as though the air had become thick and cloying, the cries of fear that spread outwards echoing and distant as though from a holo-picter running too slow.
Only Petronella Vivar seemed unaffected by the inaction that held Loken and his brothers firm. Down on her knees in the mud next to the Warmaster, she was weeping and wailing at him to get back up again.
The knowledge that his commander was down and a mortal woman had reacted before any of the Sons of Horus shamed Loken into action and he dropped to one knee alongside the fallen Horus.
‘Apothecary!’ shouted Loken, and time snapped back with a crash of shouts and cries.
The Mournival dropped to the ground beside him.
‘What’s wrong?’ demanded Abaddon.
‘Commander!’ shouted Torgaddon.
‘Lupercal!’ cried Aximand.
Loken ignored them and forced himself to focus.
This is a battlefield injury and I will treat it as such, he thought.
He scanned the Warmaster’s body as the others put their hands on him, pushing the remembrancer out of the way as each struggled to wake their lord and master. Too many hands were interfering, and Loken yelled, ‘Stop. Get back!’
The Warmaster’s armour was beaten and torn, but Loken could see no other obvious breaches in the armoured plates save where the shoulder guard had been torn away, and where the gaping puncture wound oozed in his chest.
‘Help me get his armour off!’ he shouted.
The Mournival, bound together as brothers, nodded and, grateful to have a focus for their efforts, instantly obeyed Loken’s command. Within moments, they had removed Horus’s breastplate and pauldrons and were unstrapping his remaining shoulder guard.
Loken tore off his helmet and cast it aside, pressing his ear to the Warmaster’s chest. He could hear the Warmaster’s hearts, pounding in a deathly slow double beat.
‘He’s still alive!’ he cried.
‘Get out of the way!’ shouted a voice behind him, and he turned to rebuke this newcomer before seeing the double helix caduceus symbol on his armour plates. Another apothecary joined the first and the Mournival was unceremoniously pushed aside as they went to work, hissing narthecium stabbing into the Warmaster’s flesh.
Loken stood watching them, impotent and helpless as they fought to stabilise the Warmaster. His eyes filled with tears and he looked around in vain for something to do, something to make him feel he was helping. There was nothing, and he felt like crying out to the heavens for making him so powerful and yet so useless.
Abaddon wept openly, and to see the first captain so unmanned made Loken’s fear for the Warmaster all the more terrible. Aximand watched the apothecaries work with a grim stoicism, while Torgaddon chewed his bottom lip and prevented the remembrancer from getting in the way.
The Warmaster’s skin was ashen, his lips blue and his limbs rigid, and Loken knew that they must destroy whatever power had felled Horus. He turned and began marching back towards the Glory of Terra, determined that he would take the stricken craft apart, piece by piece if need be.
‘Captain!’ called one of the apothecaries, a warrior Loken knew as Vaddon. ‘Get a Stormbird here now! We need to get him to the Vengeful Spirit.’
Loken stood immobile, torn between his desire for vengeance and his duty to the Warmaster.
‘Now, captain!’ yelled the apothecary, and the spell was broken.
He nodded dumbly and opened a channel to the captains of the Stormbirds, grateful to have a purpose in this maelstrom of co
nfusion. Within moments, one of the medical craft was inbound and Loken watched, mesmerised, as the apothecaries fought to save the Warmaster.
He could see from the frantic nature of their ministrations that they were fighting an uphill battle, their narthecium whirring miniature centrifuges of blood and dispensing patches of syn-skin to treat his wounds. Their conversations passed over him, but he caught the odd familiar word here and there. ‘Larraman cells ineffective…’ ‘Hypoxic poisoning…’
Aximand appeared at his side and placed his hand on Loken’s shoulder. ‘Don’t say it, Little Horus,’ warned Loken. ‘I wasn’t going to, Garviel,’ said Aximand. ‘He’ll be alright. There’s nothing this place could throw at the Warmaster that’ll keep him down for long.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Loken, his voice close to breaking. ‘I just do. I have faith.’ ‘Faith?’
‘Yes,’ answered Aximand. ‘Faith that the Warmaster is too strong and too stubborn to be brought low by something like this. Before you know it we’ll be his war dogs once again.’
Loken nodded as the howling downdraught of a Stormbird snatched his breath away.
The screaming craft hovered overhead, throwing up sheets of water as it circled on its descent. Landing skids deployed and the craft came down amid a spray of muddy water.
Before it had touched down, the Mournival and apothecaries had lifted Horus between them. Even as the assault ramp came down, they were rushing inside, placing the Warmaster on one of the gurneys as the Stormbird’s jets fired to lift it from Davin’s moon.
The assault ramp clanged shut behind them, and Loken felt the aircraft lurch as the pilot aimed it for the skies. The apothecaries hooked the Warmaster up to medicae machines, jamming needles and hissing tubes into his arms, and placing a feed line of oxygen over his mouth and nose.
Suddenly superfluous, Loken slumped into one of the armoured bucket seats against the fuselage of the aircraft and held his head in his hands.
Across from him, the Mournival did the same.
TO SAY THAT Ignace Karkasy was not a happy man was an understatement. His lunch was cold, Mersadie Oliton was late and the wine he was drinking wasn’t fit to lubricate the gears of an engine. To top it all off, his pen tapped on the thick paper of the Bondsman number 7 without any inspiration flowing. He’d taken to avoiding the Retreat, partly for fear of running into Wenduin again, but mostly because it just depressed him too much. The vandalism done to the bar lent it an incredibly sad and gloomy aspect and, while some of the remembrancers needed the squalor to inspire their work, Karkasy wasn’t one of them.
Instead, he relaxed in the sub-deck where most of the remembrancers gathered for their meals, but which was empty for the better part of the day. The solitude was helping him to deal with all that had happened since he’d challenged Euphrati Keeler about her distributing the Lectitio Divinitatus pamphlets – though it certainly wasn’t helping him compose any poetry.
She’d been unrepentant when he’d confronted her, urging him to join her in prayer to the God-Emperor, before some kind of makeshift shrine.
‘I can’t,’ he had said. ‘It’s ridiculous, Euphrati, can’t you see that?’
‘What’s so ridiculous about it, Ig?’ she’d asked. ‘Think about it, we’ve embarked upon the greatest crusade known to man. A crusade: a war motivated by religious beliefs!’
‘No, no,’ he protested, ‘it’s not that at all. We’ve moved beyond the need for the crutch of religion, Euphrati, and we didn’t set out from Terra to take a step backwards into such outmoded concepts of belief. It’s only by dispelling the clouds and superstitions of religion that we discover truth, reason and morality.’
‘It’s not superstition to believe in a god, Ignace,’ said Euphrati, holding out another of the Lectitio Divinitatus pamphlets. ‘Look, read this and then make up your mind.’
‘I don’t need to read it,’ he snapped, throwing the pamphlet to the deck. ‘I know what it will say and I’m not interested.’
‘But you have no idea, Ignace. It’s all so clear to me now. Ever since that thing attacked me, I’ve been hiding. In my billet and in my head, but I realise now that all I had to do was allow the light of the Emperor into my heart and I would be healed.’
‘Didn’t Mersadie and I have anything to do with that?’ sneered Karkasy. ‘All those hours we spent with you weeping on our shoulders?’
‘Of course you did,’ smiled Euphrati, coming forward and placing her hands on his cheeks. ‘That’s why I wanted to give you the message and tell you what I’d realised. It’s very simple, Ignace. We create our own gods and the blessed Emperor is the Master of Mankind.’
‘Create our own gods?’ said Karkasy, pulling away from her. ‘No, my dear, ignorance and fear create the gods, enthusiasm and deceit adorn them, and human weakness worships them. It’s been the same throughout history. When men destroy their old gods they find new ones to take their place. What makes you think this is any different?’
‘Because I feel the Emperor’s light within me.’
‘Oh, well, I can’t argue with that, can I?’
‘Spare me your sarcasm, Ignace,’ said Euphrati, suddenly hostile. ‘I thought you might be open to hearing the good word, but I can see you’re just a close-minded fool. Get out, Ignace, I don’t want to see you again.’
Thus dismissed, he’d found himself outside in the companionway alone, bereft of a friend he’d only just managed to make. That had been the last time she’d spoken to him. He’d seen her only once since then, and she had ignored his greeting.
‘Lost in thought, Ignace?’ asked Mersadie Oliton, and he looked up in surprise, shaken from his miserable reverie by her sudden appearance.
‘Sorry, my dear,’ he said. ‘I didn’t hear you approach. I was miles away; composing another verse for Captain Loken to misunderstand and Sindermann to discard.’
She smiled, instantly lifting his spirits. It was impossible to be too maudlin around Mersadie, she had a way of making a man realise that it was good to be alive.
‘Solitude suits you, Ignace, you’re far less susceptible to temptation.’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ he said, holding up the bottle of wine. ‘There’s always room in my life for temptation. I count it a bad day if I’m not tempted by something or other.’
‘You’re incorrigible, Ignace,’ she laughed, ‘but enough of that, what’s so important that you drag me away from my transcripts to meet here? I want to be up to date by the time the speartip gets back from the moon.’
Flustered by her directness, Karkasy wasn’t sure where to begin and thus opted for the softly-softly approach. ‘Have you seen Euphrati around recently?’
‘I saw her yesterday evening, just before the Stormbirds launched. Why?’
‘Did she seem herself?’
‘Yes, I think so. I was a little surprised by the change in her appearance, but she’s an imagist. I suppose it’s what they do every now and again.’
‘Did she try to give you anything?’
‘Give me anything? No. Look, what’s this all about?’
Karkasy slipped a battered pamphlet across the table towards Mersadie, watching her expression change as she read it and recognized it for what it was.
‘Where did you get this?’ she asked when she’d finished reading it.
‘Euphrati gave it to me,’ he replied. ‘Apparently she wants to spread the word of the God-Emperor to us first because we helped her when she needed support.’
‘God-Emperor? Has she taken leave of her senses?’
‘I don’t know, maybe,’ he said, pouring himself a drink. Mersadie pushed over a glass and he filled that too. ‘I don’t think she was over her experience in the Whisperheads, even if she made out that she was.’
‘This is insane,’ said Mersadie. ‘She’ll have her certification revoked. Did you tell her that?’
‘Sort of,’ said Karkasy. ‘I tried to reason with her, but you know how it is with those religious types, never
any room for a dissenting opinion.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing, she threw me out of her billet after that,’
‘So you handled it with your usual tact then?’
‘Perhaps I could have been more delicate,’ agreed Karkasy, ‘but I was shaken to know that a woman of intelligence could be taken in by such nonsense,’
‘So what do we do about it?’
‘You tell me. I don’t have a clue. Do you think we should tell someone about Euphrati?’
Mersadie took a long drink of the wine and said, ‘I think we have to.’
‘Any ideas who?’
‘Sindermann, maybe?’
Karkasy sighed. ‘I had a feeling you were going to suggest him. I don’t like the man, but he’s probably the best bet these days. If anyone can talk Euphrati around it’s an iterator.’
Mersadie sighed and poured another couple of drinks. ‘Want to get drunk?’
‘Now you’re talking my language,’ said Karkasy.
They swapped stories and memories of less complicated times for an hour, finishing the bottle of wine and sending a servitor to fetch more when it ran out. By the time they’d drained half the second one, they were already planning a great symphonic work of her documentarist findings embellished with his verse.
They laughed and studiously avoided any talk of Euphrati Keeler and the betrayal they were soon to visit upon her.
Their thoughts were immediately dispelled as chiming alarm bells rang out, and the corridor beyond began to fill with hurrying people. At first, they ignored the noise, but as the number of people grew, they decided to find out what was going on. Picking up the bottle and glasses, Karkasy and Mersadie unsteadily made their way to the hatchway where they saw a scene of utter bedlam.
Soldiers and civilians, remembrancers and ship’s crew, were heading for the embarkation decks in a hurry. They saw faces streaked with tears, and huddled weeping figures consoling one another in their shared misery.
‘What’s going on?’ shouted Karkasy, grabbing a passing soldier.
The man rounded on him angrily. ‘Get off me, you old fool.’
‘I just want to know what’s happening,’ said Karkasy, shocked at the man’s venom.
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