by Gav Thorpe
Alpharius sensed something, a motion or sensation on the edge of awareness. It seemed that he heard distant howling and screaming, for a fraction of a moment. It was as if he was in the heart of fiery battle, his body responding as if he was fighting for his life, hearts pounding, blood racing. A looming presence filled the corridor, an oppressive surge of power that seemed to compress Alpharius’s skull. From the disconcerted murmurings of others, he knew he was not alone in feeling it.
A dull clang echoed from the door.
All eyes turned towards the portal, where a golden gleam emanated from the metal, glittering with power. The door swung inwards and lights flickered into life beyond as the auric glow faded to reveal a white-walled antechamber. There was a smaller door beyond, of silvery metal. Every surface was covered in a thin icy sheen. Vapour swirled as cold, sterile air washed from the entranceway.
The silence was absolute as the assembled warriors stared in disbelief at the open doorway. Corax briefly bowed his head, eyes closed, his lips moving, though the words he spoke were too quiet to hear.
Alpharius glanced at Balsar and saw a few golden motes of energy dancing from the lenses of his helm. Corax noticed this too and stepped between the former Librarian and Arcatus, quickly blocking the Custodian’s view.
‘It seems the Emperor has intervened,’ said the primarch, directing his gaze towards the Custodians.
Arcatus and his warriors remained poised. Corax motioned for his Raven Guard to lower their weapons, some of them doing so only reluctantly. The primarch turned his attention back to Arcatus, who stood down his own men after a moment.
‘Wait!’ said Corax. Suddenly weapons were raised again. Behind the primarch, Nexin had taken a step towards the opening. The magos stopped and looked back to see the scowl on the primarch’s brow.
‘Apologies, Lord Corax,’ said the Martian, with a deep bow. ‘You will lead. I will follow.’
Alpharius lingered a moment as Corax and the others headed towards the vault. He stopped Balsar with a hand on his arm.
‘That was not the will of the Emperor, was it?’ Alpharius said.
‘I do not know what you mean,’ replied the legionary. ‘It is forbidden for me to use my powers. I was not relieved of my oath.’
‘But still,’ said Alpharius. It seemed unlikely that the Emperor had intervened on their behalf, having not made his presence felt throughout the tortuous journey through the death-traps. It had to have been Balsar’s doing. ‘That wasn’t really the Emperor, was it?’
Balsar said nothing and left Alpharius to fall in behind the departing primarch and commanders. Alpharius could not tell whether Balsar was lying or not, though there had been no trace of deception in his voice. He felt tense at the thought of psykers using their powers again, and equally disturbed by the idea that the Emperor had perhaps witnessed what went on and intervened on Corax’s behalf. No amount of deception would protect him if one of the former Librarians decided to delve into his mind, despite the precautions taken by the psykers of the Alpha Legion to shield his mind from casual inspection. The threat of psychic discovery had always been present, but the realisation that such a warrior was in Alpharius’s squad was a more distinct worry.
If the Librarians returned, his task would become a lot harder. He would have to watch his thoughts as much as his deeds and words.
THE MAIN VAULT was a circular room, with a domed ceiling carved into the naked rock. There were several other doors leading from it, but it was the contents of the central chamber that dominated Corax’s thoughts as he stepped across the threshold. He could not recall any defences in this inner sanctum though he had a flash memory of a final failsafe – any interference with the outer door would have seen the contents destroyed by a fusion charge set underneath the vault. Perhaps it was the presence of this memory that had stopped the primarch ordering the cutters and drills brought forth, though it was only now that the dire consequences of such an act were clear to him.
His misgivings about the events that had just transpired evaporated, replaced by satisfaction, curiosity and a sense of awe. Here was the Emperor’s laboratory, where it could be said the Imperium was truly created. This was the birthplace of the primarchs.
Everything was pristine, environmental regulators and stasis fields maintaining the facility in the exact condition it had been left. The air was clean, every surface brightly scrubbed. A large device sat at the heart of the room, dormant for the moment but riddled with energy cables and pipes, not dissimilar to the machinery Corax had thought he had glimpsed around the Emperor’s Golden Throne. It reached to the ceiling, covered with glass-panelled openings that showed hundreds of dials and phials, tubes of coloured liquids and touch-screen interfaces.
Under the direction of Agapito and Arcatus, the Custodians and Raven Guard fanned out, securing the other doorways. The Emperor’s memories were hazy on what lay behind them, but Corax had a dim recollection of vast generators, freezing chambers, databanks and room upon room of cogitating machines.
Thick cables coiled out from the central machine, snaking across the plainly tiled floor to twenty other devices, arranged in a circle around the chamber. Corax recognised them immediately: the incubators of the primarchs. They were empty of their artificial amniotic fluids, their glass cases raised open. Where lights had flickered, gauge needles had wavered and monitoring systems chirped and beeped, now there was lifelessness and silence.
Magos Orlandriaz started gasping and muttering, wandering from one machine to the next with wide eyes. Corax smiled at the almost childlike delight with which the tech-priest was drawn from one sight to the next, occasionally pausing to place a reverent hand on a piece of technology, often stopping to gaze dumbly at something suddenly revealed to him.
Each of the incubators was numbered on its side. Corax quickly sought out number 19, his own chamber. He realised something was wrong as he approached. The incubator was incomplete, its insides missing like a tomb with no coffin within. Only the casing and outer protective canopy remained: a mess of cables and pipes lay loose at the bottom of the shell, disconnected.
He remembered the cracked and broken machine that had been found beside him beneath the glacier. For years, long and lonely years, he had wondered about that machine and its purpose. Only when the Emperor had come to Deliverance had the primarch learned what he was and how it was he had awoken on that strange, desolate moon.
Corax still vividly remembered that meeting. Laying his hands upon the incubator chamber brought it back to his thoughts.
‘SCANNERS HAVE PICKED up an object moving towards the main dock,’ reported Agapito, standing at one of the scanner arrays. The youthful freedom fighter was wearing the black trousers of a guard, the jacket that had completed the disguise discarded once the tower had been opened to the guerrillas. A curving slash was slowly forming a scab across his bare chest and his left arm was wrapped in a fresh bandage. ‘Trajectory implies a landing pattern, but it is impossible to say what sort of craft.’
The main tower was still heavily damaged and in disarray from the fighting. Corvus’s followers manned the stations as best they could, but the equipment was barely functioning and most of them were working from guesswork rather than training. That anything had been detected by the shattered scanner array was remarkable.
The bodies of those who had worked here before had been removed, but there were still bloodstains on the grille of the floor and brushed metal consoles; cleaning up the detritus of revolution was low on Corvus’s list of priorities whilst there remained men alive on Kiavahr who opposed his rebellion. Many of the screens and keypads were shattered from weapons fire and exposed wiring burst messily from larger rents in the equipment banks, but power had been restored and a few crackled with life under the nurturing of Corvus’s most technically gifted followers.
The defence turrets that littered the immense spire of the main guard tower were definitely operational. The revolutionaries under Corvus’s command had ensured th
ey had been taken intact, as their leader had instructed.
‘Bringing the weapons systems to lock-on,’ announced Branne, standing at the firing console. Like his brother, he showed the wounds of war, sporting a graze across his cheek, a patch of blood matting the light scattering of downy hair on his chin.
The tower rumbled as immense turrets moved into position, targeting their mass drivers towards the incoming vessel. Branne looked expectantly over his shoulder at the revolutionary leader, tousled hair falling over his youthful face.
‘Shall we fire?’ asked Branne.
‘No,’ replied Corvus.
He stood at the armoured window of the control room looking out into the darkness. Kiavahr was waxing towards full, looming large behind the mineworkings and crane gantries on the horizon. From this distance it looked the same as ever, but Corvus knew that below the welter of swirling red clouds the planet was in turmoil. He fancied he could still see the aftermath of the atomic detonations unleashed by the mining charges his forces had dropped down the gravity well to the import station below, but it was just a fancy.
The guilds were broken, that much he had already learned. Denied the resources of Lycaeus, their counter-attacks against the moon bloodily repelled, they had taken to fighting amongst themselves, pitting the strength of their city-factories against each other. Some had sent signals asking for truce, fearing further atomic bombardment from orbit. Corvus had ignored their pleas. Let them kill each other, he thought, staring at the world that had enslaved millions for generations.
Corvus’s reflection was superimposed over the rising orb of Kiavahr against the thick glass. He was a grown man now, more than a grown man. There was barely room for him to stand straight in the control chamber at the summit of the Black Tower. They were calling him the Saviour now, those he had led to freedom, and he had felt their awe at his continued growth. A decade had passed since his first encounter with the inmates of Lycaeus, but it was only now that he enjoyed his first moment of celebration.
Victory was his, the overlords had fallen.
‘Craft still approaching,’ said Agapito, his voice betraying nervousness. ‘Branne, how is that lock-on holding up?’
‘Still have half the weapons systems targeted, brother, no problems,’ replied Branne. ‘Corvus, we only have a few minutes until the flight path brings the approaching craft too close to fire.’
‘We will not fire,’ Corvus said, turning to face his companions. ‘It may be a diplomatic mission from Kiavahr. I can see it: it is a shuttle, nothing more. It can’t hold more than a dozen men at the most, no threat to us. Have a company of the Eighth Wingers meet me at the main dock.’
There was something else about the shuttle that intrigued Corvus. At the moment it was barely a glint of gold in the distance, but the revolutionary leader was filled with a sense that its passengers were important. The sense nagged at him, not as a warning, but something else he was unable to define. Corvus felt assured that those aboard the approaching craft bore him no ill intent, though he could not say why he felt such conviction that this was true.
‘Let me know if anything changes,’ he told the others, patting the bulky communications handset hanging from his belt.
Corvus ducked under the rim of the mangled security door and into the corridor beyond. A handful of prisoners with scavenged shotguns stood guard outside; an unnecessary precaution, but one that had been insisted upon by his followers. The self-appointed bodyguard fell in behind their commander without command, joining him in the chamber of the Black Tower’s main conveyor.
The elevator rattled down several dozen floors until it reached the accessway that led to the main port landing apron. Ignoring his companions, Corvus strode quickly along the passageway, past work teams that were busy labouring with welders and metal panels to reinforce the repairs that had been hastily made after the tower’s occupation. Blue sparks danced in the air as Corvus made his way towards the landing port.
Gapphion, one of his senior lieutenants, waited for him on the main deck with a hundred of his men from the company of the Eighth Wing. Above, the energy dome of the landing field crackled yellow against a starless sky.
‘That was quick,’ Corvus remarked to his lieutenant.
‘We were close by,’ Gapphion replied, a hint of a smile on his lips. The left side of his face was heavily bruised, his eye closed tight, a cut running across his brow. His grey hair was cropped short but his beard dangled almost to his belt. He still wore his grey prison coveralls, but the collar was marked with half a dozen lapel studs taken from dead security officers. There was blood on most of them.
‘A happy coincidence,’ said Corvus, directing an inquiring stare at the man. Gapphion shrugged away his leader’s suspicion and turned to shout an order to his men, directing them to set up perimeter around the landing apron.
They moved like soldiers, Corvus thought as he watched the ex-prisoners spreading out across the ferrocrete. A few years ago they had been gangsters and philosophers, thieves and agitators. Now they were his army, well-drilled and highly motivated. He knew much of the credit was his, but in turn he owed a lot to whoever had given him the gifts he possessed. People listened to him without doubt, and he had an innate understanding of fighting. To direct an attack or devise a strategy came as naturally to Corvus as breathing.
Some of the men were pointing upwards and shouting.
A craft appeared beyond the field barrier, twin trails of plasma bright against the dark sky. As it descended through the barrier high above, Corvus saw that it was shaped like a great mechanical bird of prey, golden in colour, with angled wings that stretched back like those of a diving hawk.
It hovered for a moment, and plasma engines dimmed as the pilot switched to anti-gravitic impellers to land the craft. Falling slowly, the shuttle came to rest at the centre of the apron, within the inner circle marked there in red paint.
Corvus looked through the canopy and was surprised to see that the cockpit was empty. He suddenly felt a hint of suspicion at the seemingly unmanned craft; perhaps it was loaded with explosives, a desperate act of petty revenge from one of the guildmasters.
‘Ready weapons!’ Gapphion called out.
The men raised an assortment of slug-throwers, shotguns and lasrifles looted from dead guards and captured weapons lockers.
A door opened in the side of the shuttle beneath the right wing, directly opposite Corvus. Light spilled from within as a gangplank extended from the craft with a clang. A shadow appeared in the light, waiting for a moment at the entryway before emerging into view.
Whispers spread through the men, of surprise and amazement. Guns quivered in shaking hands and there were clatters as some of the soldiers dropped their weapons. Seemingly without prompt, the men lowered themselves to the ground, putting aside their weapons and bowing their heads. Some prostrated themselves, whispering fervently.
Corvus glanced to Gapphion beside him. The lieutenant was on his knees too. There were tears in his eyes and an expression of joy etched on his slack-lipped face.
‘So majestic…’ Gapphion muttered. ‘What glory. What power.’
Confused, Corvus directed his attention to the man descending the landing ramp. He seemed unremarkable. In fact, he seemed so unremarkable that Corvus could not discern a single distinguishing feature about him. He was of average height, with dark hair and moderately tanned skin. In build he was neither bulky nor slight, but of normal proportion, slightly larger than the malnourished men who now abased themselves before him. He was dressed in a robe of white linen, free of ornamentation except for a necklace of gold on which hung a pendant fashioned in the shape of an eagle with outspread wings, a lightning bolt in its claws.
The man’s eyes were as indistinct as the rest of him, neither blue nor green nor grey nor brown, but a flecked mixture of all. Yet there was something in those eyes that reached into Corvus and touched upon his inner self. There was wisdom and kindness there, and antiquity that was very humbling
but also disconcerting.
And at the same time as Corvus saw this, he also witnessed the arrival of a demigod, wreathed in golden light and dressed in white finery that burned with its own light. He saw a stern face set with two golden orbs for eyes, piercing in their intensity, searing into the core of his being. The stranger seemed to tower over the kneeling men, borne forwards upon a carpet of undulating flames.
It was impossible to reconcile the two images. The supreme, grandiose king of men approached Corvus, but all the while the slight, unimposing man flickered within. Finally Corvus’s mind could fight no longer against the glamour and he saw the new arrival as his followers did, and was filled by an overwhelming urge to pay obeisance to this stranger.
He fought that instinct. He had waged a war so that his people would not bow before another man. The newcomer’s effect on Corvus’s men unsettled the rebel leader. He stared with narrowed eyes, unable to discern which image was true and which was illusion as the stranger paced slowly and confidently across the ferrocrete.
‘Who are you?’ Corvus demanded. ‘What have you done to my men?’
The stranger looked around at the guerrilla fighters regarding him with adoration, seeming to Corvus slightly nonplussed at the scene. His blond hair fell in waves across his shoulders as he turned his head, spilling like fiery liquid. Another wave of majesty swept over Corvus and again the guerrilla commander had to make a physical effort not to fall to his knees.
‘An occupational hazard,’ said the man, returning his attention to Corvus. He fixed the rebel leader with a stare, his eyes now permanently golden like bottomless wells of light. There was a glow of power beneath his skin, as if the stranger’s flesh were embers masked behind thin paper. Corvus experienced a momentary fluttering in his breast and a knot of anxiety in his gut, a fraction of the effect the man was having on his warriors. ‘I am the Emperor of Mankind. I created you.’
Hearing these words was like a veil lifting from Corvus’s eyes. He saw the Emperor as he had seen him before, watching the growing infant through the canopy of an incubator. His face had been distorted by curved plates of glass, but the features were unmistakeable. The guerrilla leader had long pondered the face from his earliest memories, wondering to whom it belonged. Now vague recollections became sharp memory. Corvus recalled the noise and lights and booming voices that had engulfed him, remembered the surge of power and disorientation as unnatural forces had borne him away from the place of his creation.
