The First Heretic

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  ‘Qan Shiel Squad,’ Argel Tal spoke into the vox. ‘Make your way to Geller Generation on deck three. Squad Velash, move to support Qan Shiel.’

  Affirmations crackled back. ‘Orders, sir?’ asked Sergeant Qan Shiel. ‘I... we have all heard as you heard.’

  The captain swallowed.

  ‘Destroy the Geller Field generator. That’s an order. All Word Bearers, stand ready.’

  Ninety-one seconds later, the ship gave the slightest rumble beneath their feet.

  Ninety-four seconds later, it pitched to starboard, wrenched from orbit by the storm’s rage, drowning in the thrashing tides.

  Ninety-seven seconds later, light died on every deck, bathing the crew and their Astartes protectors in the red gloom of emergency sirens.

  Ninety-nine seconds later, every vox-channel erupted in screaming.

  Ingethel uncoiled itself and launched forward, reaching for Malnor first.

  Xaphen lay dead at the creature’s feet.

  His spine twisted, his armour broken, a death that showed no peace in rest. A metre from his outstretched fingers, his black steel crozius rested on the deck, silent in deactivation. The corpse was cauled by its helm, its final face hidden, but the Chaplain’s scream still echoed across the vox-network.

  The sound had been wet, strained – half-drowned by the blood filling Xaphen’s ruptured lungs.

  The creature turned its head with a predator’s grace, stinking saliva trailing in gooey stalactites between too many teeth. No artificial light remained on the observation deck, but starlight, the winking of distant suns, bred silver glints in the creature’s unmatching eyes. One was amber, swollen, lidless. The other black, an obsidian pebble sunken deep into its hollow.

  Now you , it said, without moving its maw. Those jaws could never form human speech. You are next.

  Argel Tal’s first attempt to speak left his lips as a trickle of too-hot blood. It stung his chin as it ran down his face. The chemical-rich reek of the liquid, of Lorgar’s gene-written blood running through the veins of each of his sons, was enough to overpower the stench rising from the creature’s quivering, muscular grey flesh. For that one moment, he smelled his own death, rather than the creature’s corruption.

  It was a singular reprieve.

  The captain raised his bolter in a grip that trembled, but not from fear. This defiance – this was the refusal he couldn’t voice any other way.

  Yes , the creature loomed closer. Its lower body was an abomination’s splicing between serpent and worm, thick-veined and leaving a viscous, clear slug-trail that stank of unearthed graves. Yes.

  ‘No,’ Argel Tal finally forced the words through clenched teeth. ‘Not like this.’

  Like this. Like your brothers. This is how it must be.

  The bolter barked with a throaty chatter, a stream of shells that hammered into the wall, impacting with concussive detonations that defiled the chamber’s quiet. Each buck of the gun in his shaking hand sent the next shell wider from the mark.

  Arm muscles burning, he let the weapon fall with a dull clang. The creature did not laugh, did not mock him for his failure. Instead, it reached for him with four arms, lifting him gently. Black talons scraped against the grey ceramite of his armour as it clutched him aloft.

  Prepare yourself. This will not be painless.

  Argel Tal hung limp in the creature’s grip. For a brief second, he reached for the swords of red iron at his hips, forgetting that they were broken, the blades shattered, on the gantry decking below.

  ‘I can hear,’ his gritted teeth almost strangled the words, ‘another voice.’

  Yes. One of my kin. It comes for you.

  ‘This... is not what... my primarch wanted...’

  This? The creature dragged the helpless Astartes closer, and burst Argel Tal’s secondary heart with a flex of thought. The captain went into violent convulsions, feeling the pulped mass behind his ribs like a bunch of crushed grapes, but the daemon cradled him with sickening gentleness.

  This is exactly what Lorgar wanted. This is the truth.

  Argel Tal strained for breath that wouldn’t come, and forced dying muscles to reach for weapons that weren’t there.

  The last thing he felt before he died was something pouring into his thoughts, wet and cold, like oil spilling behind his eyes.

  The last thing he heard was one of his dead brothers drawing a ragged breath over the vox-channel.

  And the last thing he saw was Xaphen twitching, rising from the deck on struggling limbs.

  Lorgar lowered the quill once more. An unknowable emotion burned in his eyes – whatever it was, Argel Tal had never seen it before.

  ‘And so we come full circle,’ said the primarch. ‘You died and resurrected. You found the crew slain. You sailed out from the Eye, taking seven months to do so.’

  ‘You desired answers, sire. We brought them to you.’

  ‘I could not be prouder of you, Argel Tal. You have saved humanity from ignorance and extinction. You have proved the Emperor wrong.’

  The captain watched his father closely. ‘How much of this did you already know, sire?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘You lingered for three nights in the Cadian caves with Ingethel. How much of this tale had the creature already told you before you sent us in to the Eye?’

  Lorgar released a breath, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. ‘I did not know what would happen to you, my son. Please believe me.’

  Argel Tal nodded. That was good enough.

  He started to answer, but the affirmation caught in his throat. Was this the genetic loyalty all Astartes felt for their primarchs, only magnified in the XVII Legion? Would he ever be able to see deceit in his father’s eyes, even if the Urizen lied right to his face?

  Entire worlds had fallen to Lorgar’s oratory without a single shot being fired in anger. In his son’s eyes, he personified the persuasive, soulful charm so resplendent in the Emperor – always seeming above anything as base and crude as deception.

  And yet, Ingethel’s words cast the shadow of doubt.

  ‘I believe you, father,’ he said, hoping the words were true rather than knowing they were.

  ‘We must cover our tracks.’ Lorgar shook his head slowly. ‘The Cadians’ lives are evidence that the Emperor must never see. With his watchdogs among us, my father will know we witnessed the Cadian rituals, and that we ventured into the Eye. We must remain pure in the Emperor’s eyes. The storm revealed nothing. The Cadians... well, they were destroyed for their deviance.’

  Argel Tal swallowed acid. ‘You will destroy the tribes?’

  ‘We must cover our tracks,’ Lorgar sighed. ‘Genocide has never given me pleasure, my son. Tales of unrest will be spread among the fleet, and we will use tectonic weapons on the landing site to destroy the tribes that occupy the wastelands.’

  Argel Tal said nothing. There was nothing he could say.

  ‘You are reborn,’ Lorgar pressed his palms together. ‘The gods have reshaped you, granted you this great blessing.’

  That’s one way of seeing this, Argel Tal thought.

  ‘I am possessed,’ he replied. The words did no justice to the sense of violation, yet any other explanation would be too crude a fit. ‘We were possessed, as evidence to you that Ingethel’s words of the gods were truth.’

  ‘I need no more convincing. Everything, at last, has fallen into place. I know my role in the galaxy, after two centuries of struggling to find the right path. And we will come to see your... union... as something avataric, something that exalts you in the eyes of the gods. Not a sacrifice. You were chosen, Argel Tal. Just as I was.’ And yet, he did not sound as certain as his words insisted. Doubt shadowed his tone.

  Argel Tal seemed lost in thought, watching the skeletal play of his opening and closing hand.

  ‘Ingethel warned us all: this is merely the beginning. We will change as the possession takes hold, but not until the ordained time. These gods will cry out from their h
aven here in the storm, and when we hear them call to us, we will begin our... “evolution”.’

  ‘What form will these changes take?’ Lorgar was writing once more, recording every word in his rapid, elegant script. He never went back to amend mistakes in his handwriting, for there were never any errors to amend.

  ‘The daemon said nothing of that,’ Argel Tal confessed. ‘It said only that this age was coming to an end before another century has passed. When it does, the galaxy will burn and the gods will scream. Until then, we carry a second soul, letting it ripen inside us.’

  Lorgar said nothing for some time. At last, he laid the quill aside and smiled at his son – a reassuring, welcoming smile.

  ‘You must learn to hide this from the Custodes. You must hide this from everyone outside the Legion, until you hear the gods call.’

  NINETEEN

  Confession

  Restoration

  The Gal Vorbak

  The Blessed Lady knew who it was even before the door opened.

  She sat comfortably on the edge of her bed, hands folded in her lap, clad in her layered priestess’s robe of cream and grey. Her sightless eyes turned to him as he entered, following the sounds of his bare feet. She heard the swish of robes rather than the thrum of active armour, and the novelty brought a smile to her lips.

  ‘Hello, captain,’ she said.

  ‘Confessor,’ he replied.

  It took considerable poise to hide her shock. His voice had changed from the months of privation, sounding dryer as it left his throat. And there was something else... Something more: a new resonance despite the current weakness.

  She’d heard the rumours, of course. If the talk was true, they’d resorted to killing one another and drinking their brothers’ blood.

  ‘I thought you’d have come to me before now.’

  ‘Forgive the delay. I have been with the primarch since my return.’

  ‘You sound tired.’

  ‘The weakness will fade.’ Argel Tal sat on the floor by her bed, taking his customary position. He’d last sat there only three nights before, though for the Word Bearer, almost a year had passed.

  ‘I missed you,’ he told her. ‘But I am glad you were not with us.’

  Cyrene wasn’t sure how to begin. ‘I heard... things,’ she said.

  Argel Tal smiled. ‘They are likely all true.’

  ‘The human crew?’

  ‘Dead, to a man. That is why I am glad you were not on board with us.’

  ‘And you suffered as the rumours say?’

  The Word Bearer chuckled. ‘That depends what the rumours say.’

  His casual stoicism charmed her, as it always did. The hint of another smile tickled the corners of her lips.

  ‘Come here. Kneel, and let me see you.’

  He complied, bringing his face before her and holding her wrists in a gentle grip as he led her hands. She brushed her fingertips along his skin, tracing the contours of his diminished features.

  ‘I have always wondered if you were handsome. It is so hard to tell with only touch to rely on.’

  The thought hadn’t really crossed his mind before. He was bred above such matters. He told her so now, with an amused addendum: ‘Whether I was or not, I have looked better than I do now.’

  Cyrene lowered her hands. ‘You are very gaunt,’ she noted. And your skin is too warm.

  ‘Sustenance was in short supply. As I said, the rumours were true.’

  When silence reached out between them, she found it awkward and unsettling. Never before had they struggled for words to share. Cyrene toyed with a lock of her hair, which her maid had painstakingly arranged only half an hour ago.

  ‘I have come for confession,’ he said, breaking the silence at last. Rather than soothe her, it sent her heart racing faster. She wasn’t certain she wished to know what depredations had occurred on the Orfeo’s Lament.

  But Cyrene, above all else, was loyal to her Legion. Hers was a cherished role, and she was honoured to perform it.

  ‘Speak, warrior.’ A friendly formality came over her voice. ‘Confess your sins.’

  She expected him to relate how he’d butchered his brothers and supped their blood to survive. She expected tales of horror from the warp storm – a storm she’d never seen herself and had only the poorly-worded descriptions of other crew members to rely on.

  The captain spoke slowly, clearly. ‘I have spent decades of my life waging war in the name of a lie. I have rendered worlds compliant to a false society. I need forgiveness. My Legion needs forgiveness.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  He began to describe the last year of his life for Cyrene, just as he had for his father. She interrupted a great deal less often, and once the retelling was complete, she focused not on the greater ramifications, but the moment that she’d heard Argel Tal’s voice wavering more than any other.

  ‘You killed Vendatha,’ she said, keeping her voice soft to rob the accusation of its bite. ‘You killed your friend.’

  Argel Tal looked into her blind eyes. Since returning from the storm’s depths, looking at living beings had a strangely pleasant edge. He’d always been able to hear the liquid rhythm of her heart, but now the sound was accompanied by the teasing sense of her blood running through her veins. All that warmth, all that taste, all that life: scarcely beneath her fragile skin. Looking at her, knowing how easy it would be to kill her, was a guilty pleasure he’d never felt before.

  And it was so easy to imagine. Her heart would slow. Her eyes would glaze. Her breath would shiver as her lips trembled.

  Then...

  Then her soul would fall into the warp, screaming in that tumultuous abyss, to shriek into those thrashing tides until it was devoured by the neverborn.

  Argel Tal looked away.

  ‘Forgive me a moment’s distraction, confessor. What did you just say?’

  ‘I said, you killed your friend.’ Cyrene touched a hand to her plain silver earring. A gift from her lover, Argel Tal suspected – Major Arric Jesmetine.

  The Word Bearer didn’t reply right away. ‘I did not come to be forgiven for that.’

  ‘I am not sure you can be.’

  The captain rose to his feet once more. ‘It was a mistake to come here so soon. I had feared this hesitance between us.’

  ‘Feared?’ Cyrene smiled up at him. ‘I have never heard you use that word before, Argel Tal. I thought the Astartes knew no fear.’

  ‘Very well. It is not fear.’ Those words spoken by any other might sound petulant and defensive, but she heard no such emotion in Argel Tal’s voice. ‘I have seen more than most Imperial souls will ever see. Perhaps I possess a greater understanding of mortality – after all, I have seen where our souls go when we die.’

  ‘Would you still give your life for the Imperium?’

  This time, there was no hesitation in his answer. ‘I would give my life for humanity. I would never offer my life to preserve the Imperium. Day by day, we have sailed farther from my grandfather’s empire of lies. There will be a reckoning for the deceptions he has draped over the eyes of an entire species.’

  ‘It’s good to hear you speak this way,’ she said.

  ‘Why? You delight in hearing me speak blasphemy against the Emperor’s dominion?’

  ‘No. Far from it. But you sound so certain of everything once more. I am glad you made it back from that... place.’

  Cyrene offered her hand, the way a Covenant priestess would offer her signet ring to be kissed. It was an old ritual between them; with no signet ring to kiss, Argel Tal’s cracked, warm lips met the skin of her knuckles for the briefest moment.

  ‘War will come from this,’ she said. ‘Won’t it?’

  ‘The primarch hopes it will not. Humanity has only one choice, and it must be made by those who have sought out the answers.’

  ‘Such as yourself?’

  He chuckled again. ‘No. By my father, and the brothers he can trust. Some will be brought to his side by
deception, if they are too dull-minded to come in perfect faith. But we are a populous Legion, and our conquests are many, with many more to come. Much of the Imperium’s border worlds will answer to the warriors of Aurelian first, and the Emperor second.’

  ‘You... you’re planning this, already?’

  ‘It may not come to war,’ he said. ‘The primarch is venturing into the Great Eye to witness his own revelations. Evidently, the lives of the Serrated Sun were spent and warped in what was merely truth’s prelude.’

  Cyrene could hear the discomfort in his voice. He was making no move to hide it.

  ‘Do you believe the primarch sent you in first out of... fear?’

  Argel Tal didn’t answer that.

  ‘Tell me one more thing before you leave, captain.’

  ‘Ask.’

  ‘Why did you believe all of this? Hell-worlds. Souls. Humanity’s slow extinction, and these... monsters... that call themselves daemons. What convinced you that it was more than some alien trick?’

  ‘Such creatures are no different from the gods of countless faiths that have risen and fallen over the millennia. Few gods were benevolent creators to any culture.’

  ‘But what if we’re being lied to?’

  It would have been easy to say that the faith was its own sustenance and that humanity always reached for religion; that almost every rediscovered human culture clung to their own belief in the infinite and the divine; and that here was a realm of prophecy – where beings with the power of gods had proved beyond doubt that they’d summoned the Lord of the Seventeenth Legion, shaping fate to make these events unfold.

  Whether they were benevolent creator gods from mythology or mere manifestations of mortal emotion was irrelevant. Here was the divine force in a galaxy of lost souls. On the edge of the physical universe, gods and mortals had finally met, and mankind would fall without their masters.

  But Argel Tal said none of this. He was weary of such explanation.

  ‘I remember your words after Monarchia died in the Emperor’s fire. You told me it was the day you truly began to believe that gods were real, once you had seen such power unleashed. I felt the same when I saw the power at work in this storm. Can you understand that, Cyrene?’