Let The Galaxy Burn

by Marc

  ‘I don’t follow. How can a killer be mad and yet not mad? You’re not making sense?’

  ‘There is something strange about the bodies. They are each missing part of their anatomy. This is something that had been missed in all previous examinations but I made the connection after examining Crans. Even in the case of the body that was missing its arms, while the fact of the missing arm was obvious, what was less so was that the arm had been removed, carefully and surgically, after death. It was amputated, not ripped off.’

  Grogan had become still, his jaw twitching slightly as Anselm spoke.

  ‘We are missing a heart, brain, eyes, a number of bones and many kilos of muscle tissue from various parts of the body. In one case the face had been torn away, but in such a way that it would have been undamaged by the removal. The question I put to myself was, why?’

  ‘And what did you come up with?’

  ‘I wasn’t able to come up with an answer, until I made a final discovery which meant that the answer to the riddle became secondary to the real truth about what’s happening here on Barathrum. This mark was burned into the back of the eye socket of Tech-priest Crans.’

  Anselm leaned over and thrust a thin dataslate towards Grogan. The older inquisitor took it and thumbed the activation button. The dataslate glowed pale and illuminated the man’s face from below as he gazed at it. Anselm watched as an image, upside down from his perspective at the other side of the table, began to coalesce on the slate’s screen. It was a symbol, dark and clear-edged, yet hard to see, as if it was being inspected under ultraviolet light, or another wavelength just beyond the limits of human eyesight. He knew that he wouldn’t have been able to describe it if asked. The symbol seemed to twist and turn in on itself like a writhing creature, yet Anselm knew that logically it could not move; it was a snapshot captured on the data-slate, yet it was an image with both meaning and power. Despite himself, he shivered.

  ‘So,’ Grogan stated, the word slow and ponderous, hanging in the air between them. ‘Chaos has come to Barathrum.’

  THERE WAS A knock at the door. Grogan thumbed the slate clear and slipped the inert machine into the voluminous sleeve of his robe and called out: ‘Enter.’ The door opened a crack and the anxious face of Eremet appeared. ‘Your eminences.’ he began. ‘I think you had better come with me.’ ‘Has there been another death?’ Grogan asked, standing up. ‘No, but there has been a discovery. Please follow me.’ ‘Where are we going?’ Grogan asked. Out of the corner of his eye, Anselm could see his companion’s right hand wandering towards the holster where he kept his hellgun strapped tight to his thigh.

  ‘Inquisitor Anselm’s discovery of the door was followed up, as per orders.’ The Excavator seemed nervous, as if the whole investigation was starting to take on a life of its own and was running away from his control. Anselm felt for him. The man’s job was risky, but the kinds of risks he faced were ones he could normally tackle – here he was, faced with an investigation with not one but two of the Emperor’s finest inquisitors, one of whom was evidently getting increasingly trigger-happy.

  Eremet led them quickly through the pathways and tunnels towards the area where they had discovered the body of the unfortunate tech-priest.

  This time Anselm felt no eyes upon him and he was glad. He felt a rising excitement: they were starting to make some headway. He had done well to put together the clues held in the bodies of the slain. It was a difficult conclusion to have come to but it held up. If things worked out on Barathrum, there would be nothing standing in his way. Barathrum would be simply the beginning. He would be elevated through the ranks of his brothers and he would lead them. Those who stood in his way would be quashed…

  He shook his head to clear it and forced his mind back to the present. He was tired. He had not slept since leaving Atrium two days ago. After they saw whatever it was that Eremet was bringing them to, he would rest for a couple of hours. Or at least take some stim to keep him going and risk the attendant headaches.

  THE ROOM WHERE they had found the body was unchanged since they removed the corpse. Anselm could still see the spatters of blood and the dark shadow where the body of the tech-priest had lain in a pool of its own blood. Now, however the single glow-globe had been replaced by an array of harsh arc-lamps, casting their stark light on the scene. To his left stood a doorway, in the place where his fingers had traced out the line in the mud bricks. The doorway led into a room that was filled with lambent light that seemed to create, and then chase away, shadows on the walls. Eremet stood at the side of the doorway and extended his arm, almost as if he were inviting them in.

  Anselm took a deep breath, almost without knowing why, and stepped through the doorway, Grogan close behind him.

  The first thing he noticed was Cantor, locked in conversation with a recorder, the servitor a mass of audio-visual feeds, spectrometers and devices for measuring humidity and air density. Cantor looked up as the inquisitors entered and ushered the servitor away. It bowed briefly and then went back to its work. Cantor’s face was aglow with excitement as he faced his old friend.

  ‘I would say congratulations if you had been a member of my team.’ he said. ‘You seem to have stumbled onto some sort of heart of our enterprise, I would say, no?’ He gestured expansively around him.

  Anselm gazed around him in wonder. The room was huge, a great pillared hall, the trunks of the pillars like a forest of great trees. The ceiling was high and seemed to glow with an angry red light, almost as if it were some sort of burning sea. It was this ceiling that lit the room and the waves of light washing across it had caused the play of light and shadow that Anselm had noticed when he had entered. Suddenly, he realised what it was – lava, molten rock, swirling above them, held in place by who knew what artifice. They stood under a lake of fire that swirled in the air above them.

  Ahead of him there were great double doors, almost twenty metres tall, each door perhaps five or six metres wide. It seemed to be made from what looked like beaten copper, or perhaps bronze – it glowed dully in the reflection of the ceiling. Around the doors were carved great hieroglyphics in a language that was unfamiliar to him. The glyphs were mainly pictoral, with lines and circles making up the remainder. Although he couldn’t read them, they didn’t look alien and he was relieved.

  He noticed other tech-priests in the room, some directing servitors who lugged great chests of instruments, trailing wires, struggling under the immense weight. Others were taking notes on data-slates, still others appeared to be transcribing some of the hieroglyphics. He watched idly as one of them approached the great copper doors and reached out to touch them.

  There was a high pitched hum and a beam of intense red light erupted from a point above the doors and focused on the tech-priest. The luminescence washing over the ceiling darkened momentarily as if someone had thrown ink into a bowl of bright liquid. The tech-priest writhed as he was caught in the beam of light, a silent scream forced from his lips. Then the light was gone and the man collapsed, like a puppet Anselm had once seen on Darcia that had had its strings cut. Grogan ran over to the man and prodded him with the toe of his boot. Nothing happened. He knelt down and pressed his finger to the man’s neck.

  ‘Dead!’ he announced.

  He raised his voice so that all could hear him. ‘I want no one to touch this door. I want these glyphs read and deciphered and the results delivered to me in my quarters within the hour. Anselm, I want to speak with you. Privately.’ He turned to Eremet. ‘Get this place sealed off.’

  Cantor faced him, apoplectic with rage.

  ‘Inquisitor! This area is under the jurisdiction of the Adeptus Mechanicus. There is so much to learn here, from the inscriptions, from the structures. You cannot make such an order. We must lose no time.’

  Grogan refused to be countermanded. ‘On pain of death, tech-priest, I order you to stay away from here. And that applies to everyone.’ He whirled on his heels and stalked out of the room.

  ANSELM FACED GROG
AN across the table in the younger man’s hab-mod. The senior inquisitor looked as if he was barely containing his anger. Anselm knew that look. It meant that Grogan smelled the stink of corruption and knew exactly how to deal with it. It also meant that he was not prepared to discuss any alternative.

  ‘I’m ordering immediate evacuation of Barathrum and requesting back up from an Astartes kill-team. I want Terminator squads to scour this place and if they find nothing I will be recommending full Exterminatus.

  ‘Barathrum is a threat to the Imperium. The Imperium is a city built behind high walls and these frontier systems are the unknown beyond. It is our job to defend those walls and what shelters behind them, whatever the cost. If there is the influence of Chaos at work here, then I will stamp it out. It is unfortunate but necessary – I will be demanding that the explorator mission here be relieved of its duties and subjected to rigorous review.’

  Anselm knew full well what that meant. He had been party to Grogan’s reviews before, when he was an acolyte. It meant death for those who confessed, and torture for those who did not. Until they did. They all confessed in the end.

  ‘Grogan, we must investigate further. If there is a manifestation of Chaos here, we must get to the bottom of it, certainly, but we should root out its heart, not destroy the body just to get at the tumour. There is something unspeakably evil here but there is also great good in what we can learn from this planet. You heard Cantor – the archaeotech finds are immeasurable, there may be standard template devices that the Adeptus Mechanicus have only dreamed about. You cannot take the decision to destroy all that these men have worked and died for simply because we have only just begun to understand what has been happening here.’

  ‘That is weakness, Anselm. Everything contrary to the rule of the Imperium is heresy and there can be no exceptions. I’m surprised you do not remember that after what happened on Tantalus. That is what happens when you show weakness.’

  Anselm looked into the dark eyes of Grogan. His voice shook with anger.

  ‘I did not show weakness, Grogan, as you well know. It is not weakness to show restraint. What you did on Tantalus was unprecedented and unnecessary. To destroy a planet because of an insurrection that was limited to one city was arrogant, and typical of your approach.’

  Grogan’s eyes remained enigmatic, unreadable. ‘I seem to recall, Anselm, that you were in charge of suppressing that insurrection. A charge you expressly failed to carry out. I did what I did only when the rebellion threatened the stability of the whole star system.’

  Anselm kept his voice calm. There was no point in getting angry with Grogan. The man’s icy manner would never crack, and Anselm knew from bitter experience that if he lost his temper, he would be the loser. He took a deep breath, and when he spoke, his voice was again calm. ‘May I remind you, Grogan, that I had only been on Tantalus for four days when your agents had me pulled out. Of course I failed to halt the insurrection; I hardly had time to open my office.’

  ‘Tantalus was under your jurisdiction. The insurrection should have been crushed. Instantly. Diplomacy is only useful after force has driven the other side to the table. Alone, it is a tool for the weak, for effet Imperial ambassadors. The Inquisition is not a tool, it is a force in itself. As I’m sure you remember.’ Grogan breathed in deeply.

  Anselm forced a tight smile to his lips. ‘I remember only too well, inquisitor; your classes made a great impression on us all. But perhaps we should concentrate less on what happened in the past, and more on the present.’

  There was a shuffle of robes as Grogan stood up. He checked his chronometer. ‘I have ordered that no one leave their quarters tonight. Barathrum has moved into its night cycle. There is nothing we can do until light, when the planet has turned its face once more towards the core systems and we can send word back to the Ecclesiarchy.’

  ‘Yes.’ Anselm’s silence swallowed up the end of the word, and dismissed his erstwhile tutor. The old man gathered up his robes and left, closing the door after him, leaving Anselm exhausted. Why was it that every time he spoke to Grogan, he felt himself back in the Scholarium, being tested on Imperial ethics or some obscure matter from a legal codex?

  He moved his weapons case from his bunk and set it on the table. He lay back on the sleeping pallet and closed his eyes, allowing his mind to clear, leaving it open to thought.

  ANSELM AWOKE AND looked at the glowing chronometer next to his pallet. He had been asleep for only a matter of minutes but something had woken him. There was a strange scratching sound, almost at the edge of his hearing. No, not scratching, more like a shuffling, soft fabric being drawn across polished stone. He shook his head and sat up. The sound wasn’t coming from inside his hab-mod, it was coming from outside, in the corridor.

  He moved across to the door, silent on bare feet, rubbing his eyes with tiredness. Opening the door a crack, he looked out into the corridor. There was nothing there. The corridor was empty. He closed the door again, but this time he locked it. He lay back on his pallet and closed his eyes.

  ANSELM WAS DREAMING. In his dream, he was gliding through the labyrinth below the dig site. Again, he felt eyes on him, many eyes watching him as he moved through the darkness. Although he had no torch with him, he could see as if it were day, and in his dream, the darkness and complexity of the labyrinth held no fear for him. He came at last to the room where they had found the body. It sat slumped against the wall, its front stained with blood and the empty hollow eye sockets seeming to watch him, a dark fire burning within them.

  To his left was the doorway cleared by the servitors and he felt himself being drawn towards it. He passed through, but instead of the great hall with its brass doors and pillars, he found himself in a throne room. Warm light streamed over him. Before him stood a dais with a throne on it. The throne was enormous, bigger then a building, and on the throne sat a great figure, haloed in golden light. In his dream, Anselm knew that this was – praise be the holy throne of Terra – the Emperor himself, great father of mankind.

  His heart soared and he felt himself sink to his knees. He looked up into the ancient wise face of the saviour of mankind… and saw it swim before his eyes, seem to melt and flow, and there on the throne sat a beast, the face of a hyena, eyes glowing red with immeasurable evil, the muzzle long, creased in a bestial snarl or smile, he couldn’t tell which. The creature stood, its rich robes sweeping the floor. It held out one arm and Anselm could see fine rings glittering on dark fingers. The creature gazed at him.

  ‘Anselm!’ it said, the voice deep, dark, rich, evil. ‘Anselm, my servant, you have come to me. Anselm!’ The voice drove into his skull and his heart began hammering as if it would burst from his ribcage. And then the scene faded and the hammering of his heart became the hammering of someone banging on his door and calling ‘Anselm, Anselm! Open the door!’

  HE LEAPT UP, dazed with sleep, his fingers instinctively reaching for his shotgun.

  ‘Who is it?’ he called.

  ‘Eremet,’ came the reply. ‘A transmission has arrived from the Ecclesiarchy with the translation of the hieroglyphs.’

  Anselm opened the door cautiously.

  ‘Come in. What does it say?’ Eremet came in, looking behind him before he closed the door. Silently, he handed a dataslate over to Anselm.

  ‘The transmission was coded and bears the highest seal of your Ordo. I cannot read it.’

  Anselm thumbed the power rune and the screen lit up. There was a brief moment while the slate read the print of his thumb and verified his identity. He entered his personal code number, then a jumble of hieroglyphics swam across the screen, resolving themselves into neat rows. Slowly, starting at the top, the glyphs began to change into the regular characters of High Gothic text.

  He read: ‘Inquisitor Anselm, this transcription is for your eyes only. What it contains is reserved for the highest level of the Ordo and the Ecclesiarchy. The information cannot be revealed to any outside our order.

  ‘The hierogly
phs of Barathrum have been translated as follows:

  ‘Let it be known that we, the Mugati, humans, descendants of the tribes of the Ilatrum, claimed this world for our people in the name of the Holy Emperor. The land was cultivated and great cities we built in his name. We grew strong, our people were brave; many journeyed beyond the stars amongst their brothers in the armies of the Imperium. Our trade stretched beyond this system. We were a proud people. That pride was our downfall. The eye of the Evil One turned its gaze upon us.

  ‘When the warp storms came, we were cut off from our brothers who had left to protect other parts of the galaxy. For years, we trembled in fear as foul raiders came out of the Immaterium to attack us. Our cities fell, one by one and we drew back to our capital. Here was the scene of our last battle.

  ‘We fought hard and pushed the foe back, but then it called up Szarach’il, foul servant of their gods, and terrible was the destruction he wrought. Our city could not stand against such a foe, and so it was that our world teetered on the brink of oblivion.

  ‘The final battle took place deep in the catacombs beneath the city. Our finest warriors fought a desperate battle, until at last Szarach’il himself stood face to face against Amaril, leader of all our people, brother of the Holy Inquisition.

  ‘Amaril knew that Szarach’il could not be killed, nor banished by his powers, diminished as they were by the months of battle. Instead, in a final act that destroyed his mortal body, he bound Szarach’il behind great doors of promethium, sealing them with words of great power such that he should never be released.

  ‘Our planet is destroyed, our people no more. I, Dramul, last of the Mugati, have caused these words to be carved on the prison walls that any who read them will know.’

  Anselm felt his heart grow cold. What have we uncovered here, he thought?