by Ian Watson
Jaq could only rejoice at her offer. He nodded in grateful admiration.
‘Do it, Meh’Lindi. Do it.’
THIRTEEN
LIGHTNING FORKED ACROSS a jaundiced sky as if discharging the tensions between reality and irreality. Some clouds suppurated, dripping sticky ichor rather than rain. Clumps of clouds resembled clusters of rotting, aerial tumours. Some of the scene was lit biliously by a green-seeming sun filtering through that apparently chlorinous overcast. The sun mildewed the gritty landscape from which fretted spikes and spires of stone arose. The camouflage-screened Tormentum Malorum appeared to be but one more natural feature.
Illusions whirled as if attempting to solidify themselves, the way that milk turns to butter. Globular plants twisted hairy flowers that were all the hues of rotting flesh in the direction of those dancing wraiths, hungrily.
THEY WERE CHALLENGED to combat an hour later, in a fiendishly playful fashion.
A bull of a man clad in plate-mail led a dozen capering monstrosities out from behind a stalagmite-like tower of rock. ‘Ho-ho, ho-ho,’ bellowed the bull-thing. ‘What have we here to divert us, my lovelies?’
Formidable horns curved from the sides of the leader’s head, jutting forward streaked with dried gore. His armour was wrought in the contours of bones. Metallic bones were bent into hoops around his thighs. Bones welded to bones made runic designs. Leering alien skulls capped his knees. Giant toe and finger bones encased his boots and gauntlets.
An obscene codpiece of artificial bone bulged, encrusted with bloodstones suggestive of ulcers. He also wore a fine satin cape that cut a dash in the breeze, and a golden necklace with an erotic amulet. To Jaq’s senses, the bull-man radiated an eerie, brutal sensuality. His gear seemed to say that even bones could copulate, that even metal could debauch itself... though not in any soft style.
Behind the leader trotted an upright tortoise of a man, whose squamous head poked out of a barrel-like shell spangled with iridescent stars and crescents as if he was a walking galaxy or a mad magician. Silk ribbons fluttered like streams of burning gas. Did he ever crawl out of his shell on to some couch at night, tender-bodied, squashy, all of his pleasure-nerves exposed to the ministrations of some large, wet tongue? Jaq shook his head to clear that image away.
Another warrior wore a brass waistcoat and leggings glued with gold braid as if furry caterpillars crawled upon his armour; in place of his left arm he sported a sheaf of tentacles. On his head, an exuberantly ringleted periwig.
Yet another, who was visibly hermaphroditic, in plascrystal armour, thrust forth a great lobster claw studded with medallions. One thin tall small-breasted fighter, braced with a clanking baroque exoskeleton, bore the head of a fly, upon which perched a cockaded plumed hat. A brassbound ovipositor jutted from her loins. Her neighbour was a striding, slavering, two-legged goat in rut, with a starched organdie ruff fanning around his neck, lace ruffled at his elbows, and a velvet cloak.
Only one massive man appeared to be true human. He wore a nightmare parody of noble Space Marine armour, engraved with a hundred daemon faces, though disdaining a helmet. Great flanged pipes soared sidelong from behind his head as if copying the bull-man’s horns in reverse. That head was of statuesque marble nobility, the hair bleached white and permed into waves. At the tip of his aquiline nose he wore an emerald ring that suggested to Jaq a drip of mucus. One cheek was tattooed with sword and sheath poised like lingam and yoni.
Alongside this Traitor Marine there danced a mutant woman who was at once beautiful and hideous. Her body, clad in a chain-mail leotard trimmed with rosettes and puffs of gauze, was blanched and petite, her hair blonde and bounteous. Yet her jade-green eyes were swollen ovals set askew in an otherwise sensual face. Her feet were ostrich-claws, ornamented with topaz rings, her hands were chitinous, painted pincers. A razor-edge tail lashed behind her plump buttocks. How like a daemonette of Chaos she seemed! Googol groaned at the sight of her, and took an involuntary step forward. Grimm gritted his teeth.
This band were armed with damascened boltguns and power swords, the shafts of which were inlaid with mother-of-pearl. They spread out in a fanciful skirmish line and paused to scrutinize the three figures attired in orthodox power armour – two full-sized, one dwarfish – their open visors framing natural faces.
Before disembarking, Grimm had sprayed their own great-shouldered armour a jaundiced hue to blend with the desert and to mask the counter-daemonic runes and devout red icons. Feeling a sense of disgust and deep unease, Jaq had daubed on some warped renegade emblems such as the Eye of Horus – sloppily so that they might have less efficacy, but could persuade at a casual glance. Jaq’s weapons rack cradled a force rod, psycannon and a clingfire thrower tubed to a clip-on tank; in a steel sleeve-holster nestled an ormolu-inlaid laspistol. Grimm and Googol favoured boltguns, laspistols, shuriken catapults.
The band eyed three ambiguous, well-armed intruders... accompanied by a version of a genestealer. Oh yes, she was their safe-conduct, their guarantor, if anyone could be.
‘Slaanesh, Slaanesh,’ bleated the goat, and fluffed his ruff. The fly and the tortoise took up the chant. The fly doffed her hat sarcastically.
‘Glory to the Legion of the Lust!’ shouted that caricature of a Marine. Was he saying “the Lust” or “the Lost”? Or both? The man grinned mockingly.
Ice slithered down Jaq’s spine. Slaanesh, lord of perverse pleasure and of joy in pain, might indeed preside over a planet where an entity could be forged that would tamper with the pain and pleasure centres in the brain.
This motley crew that barred the way – these chic abominations – seemed inclined to play some absurd if vicious game. The question was, could they be fooled? At Jaq’s side, Meh’Lindi hunched as though about to rush into their midst with the lightning speed of a stealer.
She clacked her claws together; her savage equine head jutted forth. With a gesture, he checked her.
‘As you can see by the shape of my companion here,’ Jaq called out, ‘we have spat on the so-called Emperor’s face.’ He clapped Meh’Lindi proprietorially on the shoulder. ‘This is my familiar lover, my changed one who shows me bliss and agony.’
The bull-man gazed at Meh’Lindi. Did he truly perceive her as someone possessed? He licked his lips and turned to his band.
‘We embrace renegades, do we not, my carnal companions?’ He snorted mightily. ‘Though of course first we must test their sense of ecstasy, hmm?’
Their thenth of ecthathy... The Imperial Gothic of these degenerates was decadently accented with lisps.
The fly giggled. ‘Oh yes, an initiation is doubtless in order.’ Inithiathon ith doubtleth in order.
Which, thought Jaq, it was doubtless important to avoid if possible. Adopting an air of lordly disdain, he gestured around.
‘This is a sordid, dreary refuge. I seek more than a rocky desert watered with pus. I seek the home of the hydra. I’m an emissary from the High Lords of the Hydra.’ Jaq plucked a strand of the entity from the containment pouch in his suit and threw it, writhing, upon the ground.
‘Haaa,’ the bull replied with a grin, ‘those lovely cheating lords...’
Cheating? In what way, cheating? Had the cabal cheated the traitors on this world – or were the cabal cheating on the Imperium? The bull-man called out, ‘You must visit the delightful torment dungeons in our city, Renegade, for full appreciation of what this world has to offer.’
Was that an invitation, or a terrible threat? The thought processes of this champion of Chaos eluded Jaq, being in themselves... chaotic.
At that moment Jaq felt a powerful urge to divest himself of his armour and grapple with Meh’Lindi. If he should but demonstrate his boast before this audience of monsters, why, they would let him pass. They would tell him everything he yearned to know.
The malign insinuation blasphemed against all that he had felt was precious in their lovemaking on the ship. He was under psychic attack of a lascivious and perfidious kind.
> So was Meh’Lindi. She hissed and clutched a claw to her midriff. Stealers did not possess reproductive organs other than their tongue that kissed eggs into victims. Yet now a pouch was forming below Meh’Lindi’s belly, as if to receive Jaq. Her mind – the mind that controlled her false body form – was being manipulated. Not by the scrap of hydra that flopped on the gritty ground. She was immune to that. But by...
And the aim? Why, to divest Jaq of his power armour, to seduce him out of its sanctuary. The dozen mustn’t exactly trust their own weapons and strength against power armour. Jaq snatched out his force rod and fired at the goat, who staggered back, his sly psychic attack neutralised.
‘I shan’t be cheated so easily,’ Jaq shouted in defiance.
‘Evidently not,’ replied the bull. ‘Graal’preen here misinterpreted me. As I said, we must test your ecstasy before we embrace you. This means that your loving champion must accost our paramour.’
The lovely and ghastly female shimmied forth, tail slicing the air, pincers clicking.
‘Are they well matched? Perhaps not well enough. Our nephew – and niece – in debauchery, Cammarbrach, will assist her.’
The hermaphrodite with the giant claw and the power sword clutched in his/her true hand stepped forward, and bowed derisively. ‘And, I think, Testood too. Though without his gun. We do not wish to be unfair.’
So the tortoise tossed down his boltgun and advanced, still armed with a power sword.
‘Ah, but wait,’ added the bull. ‘We will draw a battle circle and enforce it with a little spell of containment. With which, lord psyker,’ and he eyed Jaq venomously, lowering his horns, ‘you will not interfere. Slishy, do it!’
The mutant woman danced at speed, dragging her sharp tail through the dirt. She cut a wide circle, leaving only one little gap unsealed.
Jaq calculated. Surely he and Grimm and Googol, being better armoured, stood a good chance of cutting down all dozen of these warped renegades?
Yet what would he learn then? Of course, they might succeed in taking the leader prisoner...
What use would Jaq’s excruciator be against a disciple of Slaanesh who taught his minions how to revel in agony? Meh’Lindi chittered. Grimm interpreted.
‘Use subterfuge, boss. She’s prepared to fight.’
Subterfuge was the better strategy. So therefore Jaq must seem to accept the challenge. Meh’Lindi must fight against three opponents, two armed with power swords. She wasn’t a complete genestealer with four arms. Wouldn’t her stealer crouch impede an assassin’s acrobatic skills?
Meh’Lindi didn’t wait for instructions but paced into the circle to join the other three. Slishy sealed the line with her tail. The air shimmered as if an energy dome enclosed the arena.
‘I can’t bear to watch,’ muttered Googol.
‘Go to it!’ shouted Grimm.
Jaq reminded himself to remain wary of any psychic thrusts; he mustn’t let the fight occupy his entire attenrion.
Rearing as high as she could, Meh’Lindi darted at the tortoise, who looked to be the most cumbersome of those who faced her. He swung his sword high. She threw herself flat. Rolling under the swing, she gripped his feet with her claws and tugged, sending him crashing backwards to the ground, head already retracted within his shell.
Instead of pressing her advantage by mounting her adversary, she immediately rolled in a different direction. Thus she avoided the down-sweep of Cammarbrach’s power sword – which sawed into Testood’s shell instead, opening a rift, before the wielder reversed its course.
During that moment while the hermaphrodite and the tortoise man were tangled, Meh’Lindi leapt at the pseudo-daemonette. Claws grappled with pincers. The tail whipped round, slashing Meh’Lindi’s horny skin. The mutant woman pivoted backwards in Meh’Lindi’s grip bringing up both sharp-taloned ostrich feet in an effort to eviscerate her opponent. Talons raked across Meh’Lindi’s toughened carapace. Already Meh’Lindi was tossing Slishy away, one pincer crippled. Meh’Lindi even caught an ankle in her claw, crushing quickly, releasing her hold while Slishy shrilled with what seemed to be elation.
Meh’Lindi wasn’t seeking to kill any of her opponents outright. The extra moments involved in such a manoeuvre could have hindered her long enough for one of the others to surprise her.
Instead, she darted from one to the next, delivering a blow, a bite, a pinch of her claw... until the three who confronted her were tattered and tired.
Now Meh’Lindi paused a little longer with each. Batting Testood’s sword arm aside, she ripped at his riven shell, wrenching it further apart. She snipped off Slishy’s injured pincer. Wary of Cammarbrach’s lobster claw, she tore armour from his/her sword arm – and returned to lacerate flesh and muscle; the sword fell.
Slishy died first, warbling deliriously.
In a moment of confusion, Testood slashed Cammarbrach; the lobster claw sagged, spasming.
Moments later Testood was disarmed. Meh’Lindi punched through the gap in his shell, crushing organs. The tortoise man collapsed. Cammarbrach fled, though only as far as the edge of the circle. Shrieking, he/she batted against the invisible barrier of force – until Meh’Lindi reached the hermaphrodite, whose neck she crunched with a claw.
‘Ha!’ cried Grimm.
‘So we embrace you,’ roared the bull-man. He pointed. ‘That jelly thing is some powerful talisman.’
‘You don’t know what the hydra is, do you?’ Jaq accused. ‘Or who the High Masters are?’
‘Maybe I do, cousin renegade. Truth is mutable in the Eye of Terror. All is mutable. You too will soon be mutable – if you’re to win favour.’
‘Cancel the force field.’
‘The enchanted circle?’
‘Psychic barrier! Whatever. Lower it.’
‘You have destroyed our luscious deadly heart-throb. You must donate your champion to our group in exchange.’
‘Boss.’ Grimm was nudging Jaq’s midriff.
From the east, scuttling from the shelter of one rocky column to the next, came Chaos spawn: dozens of spiderkin, hideous hairy unhumans with eight arachnid legs.
‘Bastard’s been playing us for time, boss.’
‘I regret so.’
‘What do those things do, you reckon?’
‘Spin webs around us? Sting us?’ Jaq levelled his force rod and discharged it at the circle inscribed in the grit. Meh’Lindi charged free and ducked out of the line of fire as Jaq shouted, ‘Destroy the polluted!’
After which, he could no longer keep up any pretence of being a renegade. He and Grimm and Googol opened fire simultaneously at the devotees of Slaanesh.
Jaq’s laspistol sewed silver lines across air and armour and parts of warped limbs that were exposed. Grimm’s boltgun bucked and clattered, its little shells exploding percussively on contact or else winging away vainly to fall elsewhere – until, to his annoyance, it jammed. He too plucked free a laspistol to cross-stitch the scene. Googol had levelled a shuriken catapult resembling a species of miniature starship with its flat round magazine apeing an elevated control deck and its twin pod-tipped fins abeam of the muzzle suggesting thrusters. Their magnetic vortex hurled a swishing hail of star-discs with monomolecular cutting edges.
Most targets fell quickly. However, the big Chaos Marine charged, firing bolts. An explosive concussion against Grimm’s armour knocked the abhuman over like a skittle. A similar hit winded Jaq, blurring his vision. Blinking, he slammed his visor shut and fired a stream of superheated chemicals at the bull-man who was charging thunderously too. All was happening within moments. The bull raced past, screaming rapturously, haloed with clingfire, trailing an odour of boiling gravy.
The Traitor Marine was singling out Googol. That statuesque bare head seemed impervious to weaponry, protected by some great hex. Googol’s star-discs flicked to left and right as though deflected by a fierce magnetic or anti-gravitic field. Shurikens, that could slice bone like butter, only scratched the man’s armour. Though the fals
e Marine’s boltgun had also seized up, he had pulled a power sword from a scabbard in his armour. That warrior was almost upon Googol when the Navigator dropped his catapult and reached inside his own open helmet. Googol tore the bandana from his brow and stared death from his warp eye.
At last that mighty blasphemy of a Space Marine sagged, drooled and fell, almost crushing Googol.
Jaq wrenched the ribbed, flanged, exorcistically garnished psycannon from his weapons rack and sprayed at the onrush of spiderkin. Those were summoned creatures. In the normal universe outside of the Eye summoned creatures were unstable, vulnerable to a psycannon beam. But here inside the Eye?
One burst followed another.
Googol writhed free. ‘Don’t look me in the eye,’ he warned. Finding his bandana as first priority, he wadded the material across his brow inside the helmet. By now Grimm was on his feet again, lasering at the spiderkin, severing legs, though there were many legs to laser. As the rush arrived, Meh’Lindi leapt high to stomp down on the Chaos spawn with her genestealer feet. She crumpled bodies with her claws. Spiderkin keened. Their spinnerets gushed milky adhesive threads, which she dodged. Jaq reverted to laser. Googol joined in.
Presently, thwarted and leaderless, the remaining spiderkin scuttled away, scaling spires.
‘We won,’ said Googol.
‘We lost,’ Jaq corrected him. ‘We learned nothing.’
They continued circumspectly through the desert of spires, Meh’Lindi ranging ahead as a scout.
FOURTEEN
LUMINOUS VEILS DRIPPED from the glowing soup of the night sky. The buildings of the city ahead were gross idols to corrupted pleasure.
Some of those buildings were modelled to represent lascivious deities: many breasted, many organed avatars of twisted lust. In the weird veil-light the hunchbacked shadows of dark gods seemed to brood everywhere. Spouts of flaming gas leapt up, adding further spasmodic illumination.
