The Crimson King

by Graham McNeill

  All killed, friend and foe alike, by the traitor Reaver.

  The god-machine was on its knees, its lifeless head hung low over the molten ruin of its torso. Blue-hot fires flickered within its skull and a rain of burning machine-blood drizzled from its shattered body.

  An Imperial Warhound lay beneath it, both its legs crushed and its plasma blastgun still lambent with the heat of a killing shot. Magos Videns and the rest of the Mechanicum contingent rushed heedless through the battlefield towards the fallen Warhound, but there was nothing to be done for it.

  The others followed more warily, despatching wounded enemies and checking for survivors among the Sisters. One thing swiftly became clear.

  No Thousand Sons numbered among the fallen.

  Nor was there any sign of enemy gunships.

  ‘Antaka Cyvaan destroyed the enemy vessel?’ asked Promus.

  ‘He is Raven Guard,’ said Nagasena, which was answer enough.

  Promus swore. ‘Then the enemy are loose in the void, and they will try to seize a ship.’

  The Librarian opened a vox-link to the Arethusa.

  ‘Magos Uexküll,’ he said. ‘This is Promus. The enemy is en route to you aboard gunships. Prepare to repel boarders.’

  ‘Boarders?’ replied the master of the Arethusa. ‘The void churns with e-mag distortion, but I detect no incoming craft of any description.’

  ‘They are not aboard mere gunboats,’ said a woman’s voice thick with pain. Sister Caesaria’s armour was sheeted with blood from pauldrons to greaves, her breastplate split down its centre and her skull gleaming red. But for Svafnir Rackwulf’s supporting arm, she would not be standing.

  ‘Do you know how they escaped?’ said Nagasena.

  ‘They took the Osiris Panthea,’ said Caesaria, coughing up a wad of bloody tissue. ‘Right from under us, cargo and all…’

  ‘Osiris Panthea?’ said Promus. ‘What is that?’

  Caesaria gave a bitter bark of irony.

  ‘It’s a Black Ship.’

  Thirteen

  Osiris Panthea

  A vast and terrible thing

  Find him

  The others hated the Black Ship, but the sepulchral compartments within the Osiris Panthea’s void-dark hull were a blessed relief to Hathor Maat. The layered walls of cold-forged iron and null-carbon dulled his connection to the Great Ocean, calming the sedition of his flesh.

  Thus far, his Pavoni artes were keeping the mutiny in check, but when it became impossible to conceal… what then?

  In response to such careless thoughts, his hands stirred with motion. He slammed them against an iron bulkhead hard enough to buckle the metal. He’d broken their bones and filled his gauntlets with blood a hundred times over. It didn’t make any difference; they always healed, treacherously remaking themselves with milky eyes, crooked teeth or suckered tongues.

  For now they remained the hands of Hathor Maat, but who knew how long that would last? And how long did he have before their rebellion spread to the rest of his anatomy?

  Not long, but maybe just long enough.

  This deep in the Black Ship, the wards graven into its walls and deck were brutally direct. None so potent as to keep a sorcerer of the Thousand Sons from his powers, but enough to contain the vessel’s psychic misery.

  This ventral transitway ran arrow-straight for a kilometre, its length partially lit with stuttering lumen strips. Warded cells were sealed with roller shutters on either side, bearing the ship’s living cargo of witches, mutants and warlocks. Tolbek wanted to vent them all into the void, but Ahriman believed a use might yet be found for them.

  Of course, Ahriman’s star had fallen since the debacle on the prison orbital. Dozens of their cabal were dead and all they had to show for it was a remembrancer of only fractional power. The primarch’s scribe remained lost, and Ahriman had even managed to lose his former neophyte to the Wolves.

  The Chief Librarian was seldom given to outbursts of fury, but he had raged for days following their silent escape aboard the Black Ship. He had been so utterly certain one of the shards they sought was within Kamiti Sona.

  Sequestered with Aforgomon and the Book of Magnus these last four days, Ahriman sought to divine where they would sail next. And while the cabal waited, Hathor Maat’s flesh plotted against him.

  He followed the transitway, marking the angular cyphers chalked on the cell shutters. Words held power, a fact well known to the Silent Sisterhood, hence the use of primitive pictographics to designate threat levels, psy-grades, current occupation levels and projected survival rates.

  Halfway along its length, Hathor Maat came to a battered roller shutter upon which were sketched the precise combination of symbols he sought, an arrangement indicating this hold contained dangerous mutants. He rose to the fourth enumeration, spotting fresh-cut sigils at the bottom corner of the door, all but obscured by the lip of the shutter runners.

  ‘Thothmes,’ he said, intrigued.

  He tested the chain mechanism, and wasn’t surprised when the shutter clattered upwards. A wave of psychic pain gusted out, and Hathor Maat recoiled at the fetor of human waste and lunacy. Reluctantly, he hauled the shutter fully open.

  The cargo hold was dark, the fitful light of the transitway illuminating only the first ten metres. Beyond that, the darkness was a solid thing, a wall of jet that allowed nothing to penetrate. Perhaps ninety mortals swathed in long shawls crouched against the walls, keeping their eyes averted as he entered. Their body language spoke of abject subservience.

  Hathor Maat glanced down at the threshold, seeing more of Master Thothmes’ warding sigils, this time made with no attempt of concealment.

  ‘Someone doesn’t want anyone else to know what’s going on in here,’ he said, his voice loud enough to echo. ‘Why is that?’

  A figure stepped into the light, a swordsman with frost-white hair and a face Hathor Maat had made beautiful.

  ‘Lucius,’ said Hathor Maat. ‘Why did you bring me here?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ said Lucius. ‘I promise you’ll like it.’

  ‘I know you didn’t mark the Symbol of Thothmes,’ said Hathor Maat, extending his senses, but finding only more pain, more anguish. ‘So who else is here?’

  ‘One who can help you,’ said Aforgomon, emerging from the darkness. The prisoners pressed themselves tighter to the walls at its appearance. Lucius grinned at their terror, and not even Fulgrim’s likeness could hide the foulness within.

  ‘Help me with what?’

  ‘Come,’ said Aforgomon, drawing closer. ‘No one can hear us in here. You need not hide your condition.’

  ‘I have no condition.’

  As the light touched Aforgomon, Hathor Maat saw its enamelled body was cut with new markings: stars of overlaid arrows, serpentine coils that beguiled the eye and formulae composed entirely of irrational numbers. The aether-fire burning in its ovoid skull flickered, as though distorted in a cracked lens.

  ‘You know, for a moment I could have sworn I saw two flames burning within that head of yours.’

  ‘You are mistaken,’ said Aforgomon.

  ‘And you are lying.’

  ‘So are you.’

  Hathor Maat turned on his heel. ‘No, I am leaving.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Lucius, reaching down and hauling a terrified young man in rags from the ground. ‘Hear the thing out. I’ve seen what it can do and it’s impressive.’

  Hathor Maat turned and gave the swordsman a pitying glance.

  ‘Are you now this thing’s errand boy?’ he asked, grinning as he saw Lucius’ eyes darken. The adolescent held by the swordsman was handsome for a mortal, whimpering as the swordsman’s grip on his neck tightened.

  ‘You did me a service,’ said Lucius. ‘I return the favour.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Watch,’ said Lucius, tea
ring the tattered rags from the prisoner and passing him to Aforgomon. ‘Then decide if you want to leave.’

  Hathor Maat grimaced as he saw the young man’s beauty was a lie. His body was rank with knotted lumps of gristle and bulging growths, symptoms of some mortal affliction.

  Then one of the lumps moved.

  A malformed head lifted from the boy’s chest, its rheumy eyes rolling blindly in distended sockets as other growths were revealed to be malformed limbs or sensory organs in partially realised stages of unnatural evolution.

  Aforgomon slid its metalled hands over the boy’s outgrowths, as though reading his life in the texture of his flesh.

  ‘This is Doryan,’ said the daemon, pressing a hand to the boy’s undulant stomach. ‘On the thirteenth anniversary of his being into existence, he began to hear the thoughts of those around him. At first it was a trickle of whispers – a stray thought here, a powerful desire there – but soon it grew to a deafening torrent.’

  The daemon cupped its hands over the boy’s ears.

  ‘Can you imagine hearing every inane thought and babbling inconsequence that passes through mortals’ stupid heads? Poor Doryan had never even heard of the Athanaean Fellowship, no way to know what was happening to him. I think it drove him a little bit insane, but who can tell in mortals? And the more he heard, the more his body transformed until he couldn’t hide what was happening any more. His people feared his power, of course, and set the witch-seekers on him. By the time the Silent Sisterhood found him, he had become quite the freak.’

  ‘It would have been a mercy to end him in the womb,’ said Hathor Maat, revolted by the boy’s deformities. ‘Only misery awaits such monsters, for them and those that sire them.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the daemon, ‘but it does not have to be so.’

  Aforgomon plunged a hand deep into the boy’s stomach, churning its fist within his flesh. The boy screamed and tried to pull away, but the daemon held him firm. Raw power flowed from Aforgomon, and as it went deep into the boy’s marrow it undid the horrors of his flesh.

  One by one, the hideous growths and grotesque aberrations receded, leaving the boy unblemished by mutation.

  Yet this was not a cure without cost.

  The boy was unsullied by deformity, but he was no longer young or beautiful. Now he was ancient and withered, his flesh whole, but his life drained to the instant before his death. Aforgomon released his grip, and the skeletal figure fell to the deck, all life absent.

  ‘Ahriman promises he can stop the flesh change, but he lies,’ said Aforgomon. ‘I can do what he will not.’

  Hathor Maat laughed and pointed to the withered corpse.

  ‘That is no cure,’ he said. ‘I will find my own way.’

  ‘This?’ said Aforgomon. ‘This was simply to demonstrate my power. I can show you how to use mortals as homunculi, living repositories into which you can pour the horrors of the flesh change. My knowledge can make you whole again.’

  ‘And what will this knowledge cost me?’ asked Hathor Maat.

  ‘Only a very small thing,’ promised Aforgomon.

  They held Menkaura in the least of the Arethusa’s embarkation decks. Naked but for a plain training robe, his muscle-corded limbs were outstretched and fettered by bow-taut adamantium chains bolted to a pair of mooring rings rated to anchor superheavy battle tanks. A dozen more chains were attached to a ward-inscribed null-collar locked around his neck.

  Sister Caesaria lifted a sensory-deprivation helm from Menkaura and took position behind him, her melta pistol aimed at the back of his skull. A circle of Vorax powered up lightning guns and beat the flats of their powerblades on their thorax sections. Servo-skulls flitted overhead, capturing everything via picters and vox-thieves.

  The sorcerer blinked rapidly, squinting in the glare of blinding stablights. He let out a pained breath as Caesaria’s pariah energies snuffed out his powers.

  Promus and Bjarki watched the sorcerer take in his surroundings: the spartan embarkation deck, its automated weapon systems and the Vorax. Menkaura tutted as he noticed the ring of bird skulls, animal bones, furred totems and tribal fetishes Bjarki had laid around his feet.

  ‘Really?’ he said.

  ‘Just being thorough,’ said Bjarki with a wet growl.

  Menkaura tried to face Sister Caesaria, but the collar and chains prevented him from looking over his shoulder.

  ‘Her mutation blocks your connection to the Great Ocean as much as it does mine,’ he said, ‘but given what we must talk about, that is probably for the best.’

  ‘Why were the Thousand Sons on Kamiti Sona?’ said Promus.

  Menkaura studied him, and even though the sorcerer’s power was blunted, Promus felt his skin crawl at the intensity of the scrutiny. He expected to feel hate or the urge to wreak vengeance on Bjarki, but Menkaura appeared utterly calm.

  ‘Straight up and down, no embellishment, direct and blandly efficient like all in the Thirteenth,’ said Menkaura. ‘Tell me, Chief Librarian Promus – why have you forsaken the Primarch Guilliman’s colours? And you, Bödvar Bjarki, Rune Priest of Tra, how does it feel to know you will never see Fenris again?’

  ‘How does he know you both?’ demanded Caesaria.

  ‘He is one of their gothi,’ said Bjarki. ‘A reader of the unlived wyrd.’

  ‘We call ourselves Corvidae,’ said Menkaura.

  ‘But that’s not how he knows me,’ said Promus, and Bjarki favoured him with a gaze that reminded him of the Wolves’ sometime-role as executioners.

  ‘You didn’t tell them you were at Nikaea?’ said Menkaura with a wide grin. ‘You haven’t told them you spoke in defence of the Crimson King?’

  Bjarki turned to him. ‘Is that true?’

  Promus nodded. ‘It is.’

  ‘Yes, Promus here stood with Targutai Yesugei of the White Scars and his brothers of the Librarius,’ said Menkaura, enjoying his moment of revelation. ‘It filled me with pride to hear you all speak out against our censure.’

  ‘Do I need to chain you next to him?’ said Bjarki.

  ‘You could try.’

  Bjarki stared into Promus’ eyes, and Promus met his flinty gaze. The moment stretched until the Wolf nodded slowly.

  ‘You have recognised your failing and made sure to correct it. And Magnus fooled a great many people cleverer than you.’

  Promus tried not to take offence at Bjarki’s casual dismissal, and turned back to Menkaura.

  ‘Why were the Thousand Sons on Kamiti Sona?’ said Promus.

  Menkaura sighed and shook his head.

  ‘Answer him,’ snarled Bjarki, stepping close and slamming his fist into Menkaura’s face.

  Bone cracked. Teeth flew and bounced on the deck.

  Menkaura gagged and spat a wad of blood.

  ‘If you are going to ask questions to which you already know the answer, then your wolf is going to kill me before you learn what you need.’

  ‘Answer the question,’ said Promus.

  ‘For the same reason as you,’ snapped Menkaura. ‘To find Mahavastu Kallimakus, the former scribe of Magnus the Red.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Promus.

  Menkaura tilted his head to the side, his eyes moving from Promus to Bjarki.

  ‘You don’t know yet…’ said Menkaura to himself.

  ‘Know what?’ said Bjarki.

  ‘Tell me, Master Promus, why were you there?’

  ‘To stop you.’

  Menkaura gave a bitter laugh, the sound incongruous from one bound by chains and psychic wards.

  ‘You don’t know anything, do you?’ he said. ‘You were there because you were told to go there, not because you actually knew why. Don’t you know that why is always the most important question to ask? What, when, how – just window dressing. Why is always the question you should be asking.’

/>   The sorcerer turned his gaze on Bjarki.

  ‘Tell me, Rune Priest, do you even know why you were sent to Prospero? Do you truly know why you murdered my Legion?’

  Now Promus saw genuine emotion rise in Menkaura. Veiled by a mind consumed by thoughts of potential futures, yet there just the same. But it wasn’t hatred, only the frustration of a master whose student fails to grasp a seemingly obvious point.

  ‘Maleficarum,’ said Bjarki.

  ‘That’s it?’ spat Menkaura, when Bjarki didn’t go on. ‘That’s your reasoning for burning a world and murdering its entire population? One word?’

  ‘That’s always been your Legion’s problem,’ said Bjarki. ‘Too many words.’

  Menkaura looked to Promus, as if expecting to find him just as incredulous at Bjarki’s rationale for the wholesale extermination of a planetary population.

  ‘You want more?’ said Promus. ‘I understand that. I too need to have reasons for why things happen, so I will play the role of the orator this once. I will tell you the real reason you died. You died because your master broke his oath to the Emperor and expected no one to care. Your lord and master looked his sire in the eye and lied to Him. To all of us.’

  Promus turned to Bjarki and said, ‘And do you know why? Can you guess the reason he gave, the excuse? Bear in mind he did not pretend he hadn’t delved into the forbidden places. No, he proudly stood by what he had done, and said, “It’s all right, it’s all perfectly fine – I know best.” That’s his rationale. That’s his excuse. That he knows best.

  ‘He knows best because he is so sophisticated, so mentally advanced, so wise in the complex, cosmological minutiae of the subtle arts. He knows best because he is more enlightened and we are too unevolved to recognise the truth. We don’t see the universe the way he does, we don’t appreciate its detail. We are too stupid to understand the bigger picture.’

  Promus stepped away, spreading his arms in a gesture of false humility and faux magnanimity.