The Magos

by Dan Abnett

  He tossed the tube back to Davinch.

  ‘I said get the kit, Davinch,’ he snapped. ‘So, get the kit.’

  Davinch hurried back to the lockers. Gobleka peered into Eisenhorn’s eyes. Eisenhorn just glared into the distance and ignored the eerie violet eyes fixing him.

  ‘Did you search him?’ Gobleka asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Davinch called back. ‘A few bits and pieces. A back-up gun in his chest rig. I took that.’

  ‘Now, what’s going to happen,’ Gobleka said to Eisenhorn, standing so close they were nose-to-nose, ‘is that I’m going to help you. That’s a surprise, isn’t it? I’m going to keep you alive. I’m going to take the pain away. All the pain, physical and mental. That frigged-up psyker mind of yours must be ready to burst by now, right?’

  Eisenhorn said nothing.

  ‘This is a big day for you, you know?’ said Gobleka. ‘Think of it like… think of it like this is what your entire life has been about. Everything you are, everything you’ve ever done, leading up to this moment. Right here.’

  ‘I think he was trying to trick us,’ said Davinch, returning with the kit. ‘You know? Like… get caught. He knew he couldn’t get past us, so I think he figured he’d let us take him so he could pull some stunt once he was here.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Gobleka asked Eisenhorn sidelong as he prepped an injector. ‘That didn’t work out so well, did it? If that was your plan, it turned into all kinds of shit, didn’t it? And there’s no one to bail you out, either. They’re all dead. You understand that, don’t you? They’re all dead, all your followers and associates. And if they’re not, they will be soon. The magos is hunting them down, any that are left. His instruments are loose in the tower. Your friends, Gregor Eisenhorn, you’ve brought them to a very, very bad end, you know that? If there are any left alive, which I very much frigging doubt, their deaths will be the most awful thing you can imagine. I bet they wish they’d never signed on. I bet they wish they’d never followed you, and never trusted that you knew what you were doing. You know, I bet their last living thought is hate. Hate for you. Hate for getting them into this mess. Your friends will die hating you for–’

  ‘They’re not my friends,’ said Eisenhorn.

  Gobleka grinned, and checked the dose-load of the injector. ‘Oh, I don’t think that’s true. You’ve got to be a man’s friend to follow him into hell.’

  Eisenhorn turned his head, slowly, and looked at Davinch.

  ‘He follows you,’ he said.

  ‘Davinch?’ Gobleka laughed. ‘He’s paid to. Paid very well. Besides, he sees the bigger picture. The great reward awaiting all those who participate.’

  ‘So do the people who follow me,’ said Eisenhorn.

  ‘Do they?’ asked Gobleka. ‘Do they really? Did you ever tell them, your friends, that you lied to them? That you’re mad and outlawed and obsessed? That the path you walk is one of pain, and it’s untrue? That your cause is doomed, and everyone knows it? Even the Rot-God-King. Your side is the losing side. You follow the False Emperor, Eisenhorn. You pledged your life to Him. You backed the wrong side in this struggle. And that’s just a fact.’

  ‘We’ll agree to disagree,’ growled Eisenhorn.

  ‘No,’ said Gobleka. ‘From day one, since before the Emperor was the Emperor, it was always going to go this way. Ordained, predicted, projected, prophesied. Chaos will always prevail. It’s a universal law. Order does not endure. Chaos overwhelms. Entropy, Eisenhorn. All systems break down eventually. Everything wears out, everything falls apart. The universe returns to its preordained natural state, and that’s Chaos, forever and always.’

  Eisenhorn remained silent.

  ‘You don’t have to take my word for it,’ said Gobleka. ‘I’m going to show you. That’s part of my gift to you today. I’m going to share the truth with you, the truth that’s always been, so you can see it and know it for yourself. The scales will fall from your eyes, man, and you will think yourself such a fool to have believed otherwise.’

  ‘You don’t know me very well, do you?’ asked Eisenhorn.

  ‘See this?’ asked Gobleka, raising the injector. ‘Sark’s masterpiece. An engineered viral inoculant. A miraculous thing. He isolated it from samples collected by his grandfather–’

  ‘The Torment,’ said Eisenhorn.

  Gobleka grinned. ‘A man of learning! Yes, the Torment. Uhlren’s Pox. It had so many wonderful names. A gift of the warp, a pestilence like no other. This is inert, of course. An antigenic Sark engineered from the original pathogen. It won’t kill you. Well, it probably won’t. It will transform you… what you are… how you think. It will remake you in wonderful ways. The way Sark remade himself so he could operate the Loom.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Eisenhorn.

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why are you giving it to me?’

  ‘Well,’ said Gobleka, ‘for one it will transfigure you and allow you to see the truth, and–’

  ‘Make me, what? Join you?’ asked Eisenhorn.

  ‘Pretty much,’ laughed Davinch.

  ‘That won’t work,’ said Eisenhorn.

  ‘Ah,’ said Gobleka. ‘Of course. Because of your infamous willpower. Your will, so firm and unshakeable that no temptation or malice can topple it. Eisenhorn, listen… I may have mocked you, but I’m not an idiot. I know you’re a man of considerable talents and abilities. Your career shows that. You have particular strengths and skills that could make you very useful to us. To Lilean. Not in your present state, of course. I know you’d never join us. I respect that, even. But this isn’t a choice you’re going to make.’

  Eisenhorn glared at him.

  ‘Seriously,’ said Gobleka. ‘The Torment antigenic is horrible. This will hurt. Most subjects do not survive. Only Magos Sark has ever lived through more than one shot of it. But I think you will, simply because you’re so strong. And the inoculant, once it’s scorching through your system, will have plenty to work with. That psyker mind of yours, for example. You have walked in the dark for too many years, exposed your psi-active mind to the warp. It’s left its imprint on you. You are an… etheric sensitive, far closer in nature to the creatures you hunt than you’d ever care to admit. You are ripe and ready. A very suitable candidate.’

  ‘Where do you want it?’ Davinch asked.

  ‘Throat,’ replied Gobleka. He looked back at Eisenhorn.

  ‘Forget your will,’ he said. ‘Forget resisting. It’s not a matter of that. The Torment antigenic will modify you, alter your entire state of being. You will see the warp and be the warp, and that will be all. It won’t be a matter of accepting it. It will simply be true.’

  ‘You’re very certain of these things you keep describing as facts,’ said Eisenhorn.

  ‘It’s my job,’ said Gobleka. ‘My service to Orpheus, the King in Yellow. He trusts me to get it right.’

  He glanced at Davinch.

  ‘Hold him steady,’ he ordered.

  Davinch closed in, reaching up to drag Eisenhorn’s collar down and expose his throat. Gobleka stepped forwards with the injector.

  Eisenhorn’s hands were cuffed with military-issue binders. He couldn’t pull them apart, so he clenched them together instead, fingers intertwined. As Davinch closed in to seize him, he swung his fists like a club into the tattooed man’s gut.

  He was not as tired and weak as they had presumed.

  Davinch barked out air and doubled up. Eisenhorn brought his hands down, now separated, so that the cuff-chain hooked around the back of Davinch’s neck. He slammed down, driving Davinch’s face into the metal bracing of his rising kneecap.

  Bone cracked. Davinch fell away, moaning and choking. Gobleka was lunging in with the injector.

  Every movement hurt. Eisenhorn’s gut wound was severe, and just moving abruptly, raising his knee to take down Davinch, had torn the traumatised wound and broken the sealant packing. He felt blood suddenly spill down his back.

  He raised both arms and blocked Gobleka.
Gobleka was bigger than him and much stronger. He elbowed Eisenhorn’s block aside and punched him in the jaw. Eisenhorn staggered a few steps, inadvertently stepping on Davinch’s splayed fingers. Davinch was down on his hands and knees, trying to recover. He yelled in pain as Eisenhorn’s iron-shod boot crunched across his hand.

  Eisenhorn turned and kicked Davinch in the rump, throwing him flat on the deck in Gobleka’s path. Gobleka vaulted the fallen man deftly and came at Eisenhorn again. With his hands cuffed, Eisenhorn could only upper-block to one side or the other. Gobleka feinted a punch from the left then kicked hard with his right foot. The kick hit Eisenhorn in the hip, but his bracing armature took most of the force. Eisenhorn swung his fists at Gobleka, but the man leaned out of the swing, then lunged in and caught the chain of Eisenhorn’s cuffs with his left hand. He wrenched Eisenhorn’s hands and arms down and to the side. Eisenhorn had no choice but to twist away, exposing his neck to the injector Gobleka was stabbing in with his other hand.

  There was no point fighting Gobleka’s haul on the cuff-chain. Eisenhorn went with it instead, allowing himself to be dragged down. He ducked into the stabbing motion and rammed his shoulder into Gobleka’s chest.

  Gobleka stumbled backwards, cursing. He had dropped the injector. He reached for it. Eisenhorn kicked it further along the deck.

  ‘Is this it?’ Gobleka taunted him angrily. ‘Is this the trick you were going to pull? The stunt you were waiting to play?’

  ‘Seems to be working,’ growled Eisenhorn.

  Gobleka sprang at him. Eisenhorn blocked again with both forearms, then swung his fists together hard. He caught Gobleka’s bearded jaw and knocked him sideways across the platform. Gobleka crashed into the bank of cogitators. A screen smashed. Data-slates tumbled to the deck.

  ‘Frigging help me, you idiot!’ Gobleka yelled at Davinch.

  Davinch was getting up. His nose and lips were a mangled mask of blood. He spat, drawing one of his laspistols.

  ‘Don’t kill him,’ Gobleka ordered.

  The tattooed man cursed aloud and went for Eisenhorn. He twisted the laspistol in his grip and began to beat at Eisenhorn with the weapon’s butt. Eisenhorn tried to evade. He raised his chained fists to deflect the blows. Davinch kept hitting. Eisenhorn ducked low and hooked the cuff-chain around Davinch’s elbow. Eisenhorn locked his fingers and swung, throwing Davinch off his feet.

  He landed hard. Eisenhorn kicked him to keep him down and unlaced his fingers, freeing his cuffed hands from the man’s arm. But Gobleka had grabbed him from behind. He had the injector again.

  Eisenhorn tried to tear himself away. Gobleka stabbed in with the needle. Eisenhorn got his hands up, trying to block. The injector’s needle wedged in the taut loops of the cuff-chain, centimetres from Eisenhorn’s throat.

  Eisenhorn twisted his wrists, and the cuffs plucked the injector out of Gobleka’s hands. It went flying down the platform.

  Gobleka broke off and turned to run for it. Eisenhorn moved after him, but was tackled from the side by Davinch. Together, they slammed into the cogitator bank. They grappled. Teeth gritted, hissing blood, Davinch clamped his hand around the back of Eisenhorn’s head and rammed his face into the edge of a cogitator’s casing. Eisenhorn stamped back into Davinch’s shin. As the man screamed in pain, Eisenhorn rotated, grabbed him by the front of his jacket and heaved him into the bank of screens. Another shattered, billowing sparks.

  Eisenhorn had his weight on him. Davinch couldn’t pivot. He reached up and clawed at Eisenhorn’s throat. He got a grip and began to throttle, his fingers biting into Eisenhorn’s neck. Eisenhorn let himself be pulled down. He let go of the tattooed man’s jacket and allowed his hands to slide up the man’s chest, until he had a hand on either side of the man’s neck. The cuff-chain bit down into Davinch’s throat. Davinch started to splutter and choke, spitting gobs of blood. His legs milled wildly. He let go of Eisenhorn’s neck and began to pummel frantically.

  Eisenhorn knew he didn’t have time to finish the kill. Gobleka was coming in again from behind. He grabbed Davinch by the shoulders, pulled the thrashing man around and smashed his head backwards through a cogitator screen.

  Davinch slithered out of the unit in a shower of broken glass and tubing valves, and fell sideways onto the deck.

  Eisenhorn turned to meet Gobleka. Gobleka circled, head low, tossing the injector from hand to hand like a knife, daring Eisenhorn with each hand. He dummied, then lunged, the injector in his right hand. Eisenhorn sidestepped and tried to sweep Gobleka into an over-extension with his cuffed hands. But Gobleka was surefooted, and he shoulder-barged Eisenhorn in the belly. He carried him backwards and drove his spine into the platform’s handrail.

  Searing pain flared from the exit wound as it hit the rail. Eisenhorn gasped. Gobleka drove him again, then threw a low punch into his gut to agonise the entry wound as well. Eisenhorn stumbled sideways, flailing with his cuffed hands, trying to keep Gobleka at bay.

  ‘We’re done, you old bastard,’ said Gobleka, panting, and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He hawked and spat on the deck. ‘All done now.’

  Eisenhorn swayed, leaning on the handrail to stay upright. He clawed with his cuffed hands and found the injector sticking out of his neck. He tried to pull it out. His fingers were numb and wouldn’t work properly.

  He fell to one knee, gasping. He finally managed to yank the injector out, but he could see it was empty.

  He looked up at Gobleka. Davinch hobbled into view, dripping blood. He clutched Gobleka’s shoulder for support.

  ‘You get him?’ he asked through swollen lips.

  ‘I got him,’ said Gobleka.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Sark’s Instruments

  ‘Look away,’ said Drusher simply. He grabbed Macks, pushed her face into his shoulder, and fired. The shot went through Hadeed Garofar’s chest. The pinpricks of emerald light in what had once been the deputy’s eyes went out. His body fell back hard on the catwalk decking.

  Macks looked up at Drusher. Her eyes were streaming with tears.

  ‘Those bastards,’ she whispered. ‘I am going to kill all of them.’

  ‘Keep moving! Keep moving!’ Voriet yelled.

  More animations were approaching around the curved catwalk. One was a rotting thing, the others, two skeletal horrors that looked like they had been burned and fused. All crackled with green electricity. They all advanced slowly, one halting step at a time, but a fourth appeared behind them. It was Deputy Edde. Her eyes were blank, and her throat was a black mess of clotted blood.

  She pushed past the skeletal things, advancing swiftly, with expressionless determination.

  ‘Go!’ shouted Nayl. He knocked Edde down with a single shot, then turned to run after the others. Drusher and Macks were almost carrying Voriet. He was murmuring in pain from the vigorous motion. There was no time to be gentle about it.

  They came around the curve of the catwalk. There were two more animations right in front of them. One, the closest, was a stained brown skeleton draped in tatters of skin and disintegrating clothes. The other, a woman, was a mangled nightmare that looked like it had been systematically pulped with a hammer.

  She was moving faster, blood leaking from her ruptured flesh. Drusher fired, but he was hasty, and his shot went wide. He fired again, and the mangled thing dropped bonelessly onto the deck.

  But the skeletal animation was right on them. Macks yelled and shoved Drusher and Voriet out of the way. Voriet fell hard, jolting his arm and shrieking. The skeletal thing reached for Macks, clawing, but she evaded and turned her dive into a tumble that took her out from under its swinging arm. It turned instead on the helpless Voriet. Soil-caked finger bones grasped at him, flickering with the lambent ghosts of the flesh and tendons that had once been there. Voriet tried to crawl out of its path, dragging urgently with his working arm.

  Drusher shot it point-blank through the back of the skull. The cranium exploded in a shower of bone shards and old loam, and th
e entire skeleton disarticulated, falling in an avalanche of disjointed pieces.

  Nayl hauled Voriet to his feet.

  ‘The stairs!’ he barked. There was a long ascending flight to the next platform level further down the curve of the catwalk. Macks grabbed Drusher by the hand, and they started to run. Ahead and behind them, they could see more animations: slow plodding things of bone and faster, striding things that still had some or all of their soft tissue. The closest was a grim cadaver with an arm missing. Ghostly green light flickered an afterimage of where the limb had been.

  Drusher shot it in the chest. He turned his aim towards the other advancing animations.

  ‘No, magos. We can make it,’ Nayl advised. He had Voriet hoisted over his shoulder. ‘Don’t waste any more rounds.’

  ‘All right,’ Drusher agreed.

  ‘How many have you got left?’ asked Nayl.

  ‘I don’t know. How many fit into one of these?’

  ‘Eight,’ snapped Nayl. ‘How many did you fire?’

  ‘I have no idea! Stop asking me questions!’ Drusher replied.

  ‘How many have you got left, Nayl?’ asked Macks.

  They had reached the foot of the stairs. The nearest animations were rushing to block them, marching briskly, like passengers late for a transit. One was a woman with part of her face missing. The other was a man who had no head at all.

  Nayl put a careful shot into each of them. They toppled.

  ‘How many shots, Nayl?’ Macks roared.

  ‘Now?’ Nayl replied. ‘None.’

  They ran up the stairs. It was a long flight, straight up to the next level. Drusher and Macks led the way, with Nayl lagging behind supporting Voriet. Animations were closing in at the stair foot.

  From somewhere very high above, somewhere up in the sickly light, they heard a scream. The sound of a man in unbearable anguish. It rang out for several moments above the din of the working Loom, then faded.

  ‘That was him,’ said Nayl, a look of horror on his face.