The Board is Set

by Gav Thorpe

  Occasionally it seemed as though Revelation played to lose, His positioning making Him vulnerable for a short time before it was revealed that move by move Malcador became encircled until he had no option left but to attack directly, initiating the second phase of the game.

  There was no choice but to act aggressively now. Though the Warmaster held the numerical and positional advantage, Revelation held a hand of cards, as yet unplayed; Malcador’s current draw were all spent save one. He laid it down on the Lord of the Clouds.

  Malcador blinked and checked the card again. It was different from their previous games, depicting not the defiance of the Wall but a maggot eating its way out of a stylised heart.

  ‘Corruption.’ The word came to him unbidden and he said it quietly, unsure what to think. He looked up, realising that for some time – hours perhaps – he had been focused wholly on the board. Revelation studied the pieces where before He had been casual, offhand almost.

  Going through the motions, thought Malcador. Indulging me.

  He was rapt now, eyes moving from one piece the next, fingertips pushing down into the table, the immaculate fingernails pale against the lacquered wood.

  ‘What has happened?’ asked Malcador.

  ‘Play on.’ Revelation did not look up.

  ‘The game has changed. Why have you changed it?’ Malcador felt a yawning gulf opening up in front of him. It was for answers that he had come, but suddenly he was wary of that knowledge. In truth, he had expected everything that had passed so far – perhaps he had simply been seeking comfort in the familiar exchanges before everything would be thrown into the anarchy of war.

  ‘What does it mean?’

  Revelation broke His attention from the pieces and for just a moment Malcador thought he saw a hint of sadness. It was gone in a heartbeat, perhaps had never been there at all, replaced by a flinty glare. Revelation barely moved His lips as He spoke, teeth gritted as His eyes bored into the High Lord of Terra, each word enunciated sharply.

  ‘Play. On.’

  Malcador’s next moves were half-hearted, playing for time as he tried to assimilate the events of the last few minutes.

  ‘You are not trying hard enough, Warmaster,’ said Revelation, eyes flashing with anger. ‘If you do not win, you are damned.’

  The Regent paled, not sure whether his Master referred to him literally or in his adopted role. He was never sure how much Revelation really knew, or had known, of the events that had spiralled since Horus had stepped from the path of loyalty. He had the maddening ability to appear both informed and enigmatic in equal measure, but at that moment the affectation – if it could be called such a thing – did not irritate Malcador as before, but terrified him. His gut shrivelled at the notion that Revelation was moving into uncharted waters as ignorant of the outcome as the rest of them.

  He had thought the game would be a way for the embattled Emperor to impart His plan for the defence of Terra and, ultimately, the defeat of Horus. It had not been the first time Malcador had received guidance through the cards, allowing his master to contact him whilst remaining focused on His task upon the Golden Throne. Now the Regent watched the immortal ruler of humanity intently studying each move and realised that the game might well be the means by which Revelation would devise His strategy.

  As Warmaster he had to test Revelation’s thinking every bit as much as Horus would challenge it in real life. If he did not…

  ‘I cannot do this,’ he said, straightening as he pulled his hands back from the board.

  ‘What would you give for me?’ asked Revelation, once more laying His hands in His lap, His attention focused on the Sigillite.

  ‘My life.’

  ‘You have already given that.’

  ‘My death, if you wish to be pedantic.’

  ‘What of your soul?’

  ‘You say that no such thing exists.’

  ‘We are short on time, allow me a little metaphysical shorthand. What is your soul worth to you?’

  ‘I still do not understand the question.’ Uncomfortable under the scrutiny of his lord, Malcador started to consider the board again. ‘I cannot play like Horus, I do not have his mind, his motivations.’

  ‘Then I will assist you.’ Revelation reached into the game box and His fingers reappeared holding a new piece, one never seen before. It was shaped like a jester of the most ancient days, complete with gormless expression. Real, tiny cap-bells tinkled as Revelation shook it. ‘This is you, Malcador. The Fool. I have used you for millennia to suit my own purposes and before the end I will discard you without a second thought.’

  ‘I know what you are doing,’ said Malcador. ‘You think to make me angry, like Horus.’

  ‘You exist only to further my ambitions, a callous on the toe of history and nothing more,’ said Revelation, not making the slightest sign that He had even listened to what Malcador had said. ‘You are just an invisible, nondescript foundation stone in the edifice that will be my undying glory. I have lied to you from the very first moment, and all that you believe of me, of the universe and mankind’s part in it, is fiction. I have manipulated you, abused you and I will toss you away without a single shred of care. One of my legionaries has more consideration for a bolt that he fires than I do for you, Malcador.’

  Swallowing hard, the Regent reminded himself of what he had just said – that Revelation was trying to elicit an emotional response.

  And yet when he looked into the gaze of Revelation, he saw only implacable, unflinching truth. He had never harboured dreams of glory or even ambitions of temporal power, but Malcador had believed himself valuable. He had taken strength from being counsellor and… advisor to the greatest intellect the human species had ever created? An aid to the most gifted psychic being ever born? Companion to an immortal who had lived a thousand lifetimes?

  ‘I see that you are starting to understand.’ A hint of a sneer marred Revelation’s expression. He gestured towards the pieces set between them. ‘My sons were taken from me, whispered to during transit to set dark thoughts in their minds. Temptations. Lies. Propaganda. Tell me, Malcador the Sigillite, how many times have you resisted the efforts of our enemy’s lures?’

  The Regent did not answer, for the Dark Gods had never attempted to sway him. They had occasionally, and very recently, sought his death, but that was not a distinction he uniquely held.

  A brutal, short bark of a laugh made him flinch.

  ‘You thought yourself too loyal? Your faith in me unshakable? They did not try to recruit you because you have nothing to offer them.’

  ‘I have created much for you, in your name,’ said Malcador in a wavering tone, searching for clarity. ‘There would be no Imperium without my efforts.’

  ‘In my name.’ Never had three words sounded so scornful. ‘You are a master of tax collectors and clerks. No Imperium without you? No Malcador without the Imperium, you mean. What justification would there be to keep you around without your countless army of bureaucrats to sustain you? Even my Remembrancers – poets and pict-takers – contributed more to the Great Crusade than you did.’

  He felt a tear roll down his cheek, his whole body quivering with shame. Malcador looked at Revelation with silent pleading and was rewarded with a contemptuous sigh.

  ‘Some call you my left hand.’ Revelation held up the five digits and wiggled them. ‘It is true. That is all you have ever been, an extension of my will. I twitch a thought and you act. I care nothing for the hopes and fears of my little finger, and less still for yours.’

  Malcador opened his mouth but could think of nothing to say.

  ‘Do not stare at me like some docile ruminant. You said you fear failing me, but the truth is that you know that you already have. You cannot even bring yourself to hate me when I need you to.’

  Revelation tossed the playing piece aside. It shattered against the wall. He d
id not even spare a glance for the discarded fragments.

  There was no hint of remorse in His hard stare.

  Malcador looked at the splintered pieces of the Fool. Betrayal slid a hot knife in his chest. Its fire spread, enflaming his anger. And one thought burned hotter than any other: that Revelation thought he might care about any of what He had said.

  ‘I have never harboured ambition or sought glory,’ growled the Regent, his fingers moving to the King of Nothing. He thrust it directly towards the Angel defending the Emperor’s home squares. ‘You seek to wound a pride that does not exist. But you think it does, and that is your shame, not mine. It is your pride that will undo us all, not mine.’

  He turned the top card. The picture that resolved upon its surface showed a mountain of bodies with a hound at its top, muzzle red with their blood.

  ‘Massacre,’ snapped Malcador.

  With all semblance of empathy stripped away, Malcador’s next moves were swift and direct, happily pairing off his own pieces against Revelation’s, sacrificing them if need be. As much as the Regent pushed hard, Revelation dissembled, robbing him of control of his own figurines, diverting them from their planned courses and even matching them against each other with a timely play of ‘Internecine Feud’.

  Having lost command of the Perfection, Malcador countered with a picture of a weeping mother. ‘Unspeakable Suffering,’ he announced, shocked by the satisfaction he felt as he pulled away the Warhawk from its position next to the Invincible Bastion. He really wanted to win, to prove the lie of Revelation’s affectation of infallibility.

  Even so, however strongly he pressed to have an overwhelming advantage in the Emperor’s base positions, his opponent always seemed to spare a card to bring another piece into play from elsewhere on the board. Turn by turn a ring of attacking pieces converged around the rear of Malcador’s positions: the Hungering Wolf, Uncrowned Monarch and Double-Edged Blade were all poised to strike.

  ‘I win in my next move,’ declared Revelation, dropping the ‘Salvation’ card in front of His Regent. Malcador looked at the portrait writ in the coloured crystal, unmistakably that of Roboute Guilliman.

  ‘A turn too late,’ Malcador replied, his expression grim as he realised the meaning of what he was about to do. He whispered the next word as he turned a card depicting a bloodied white feather. ‘Sacrifice.’

  With shaking fingers he picked up the Angel and removed it from the board, leaving an opening in Revelation’s defence. His fingers gripped another piece, about to move it into the space. A piece he had been holding back for just that occurrence. The last to have been given to him, though in reality it was the first Revelation had put into motion.

  The Lord of Hearts.

  ‘Wait.’

  The single word, softly spoken, stopped Malcador as surely as a roared command. Still with the Lord of Hearts poised to claim victory, the Regent looked up.

  Revelation stared at Malcador, seizing him with His dark eyes. The Regent was not sure what he saw in there, aside from tiny reflections of himself, haggard within the shadow of his hood, cheeks glistening with the streak of tears.

  ‘I win…’ croaked the Sigillite, but as he returned his attention to the board to place the King of Hearts, there was another piece occupying the space he had to take.

  The Fool.

  ‘In ancient days, the Fool could say anything to anyone – in theory, at least,’ Revelation said. He smiled and warmth flooded through Malcador to see the expression, but then both the smile and his moment of hope faded. ‘It was the Fool’s task to remind kings and queens that they were mortal, and weak, and not above any other. In the parlance of a later time they existed to speak truth to power, to defy authority and, most importantly, puncture tyranny.’

  Malcador choked on his next words, not sure what to say. Even at the instant that he collected his thoughts, a distant ripple flushed through his mind. It stank in his nostrils, and brought the thunder of a great storm to his ears, prickling skin and psychic sense alike.

  He felt the rift opening, tearing apart reality at the edge of the Solar System. A chorus of infernal clarions screeched across his othersense.

  ‘The Warmaster has arrived,’ he said, though he knew his opponent could not fail to know also. He looked up but the chair opposite was empty.

  ‘To whom do you speak, master?’

  The voice of Latdava was like a hammer on a pane of glass, shattering the wall of concentration that Malcador had erected around himself. He glared towards the door where the functionary stood, fingers making clumps of her white robe as she stared fearfully at him.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Several minutes, master,’ the functionary told him. ‘The Astrotelegraphica Exulta sent me with word that the traitor fleet will breach the warp-veil within the hour.’

  ‘And why do you stare at me like that? What have you seen?’

  ‘You, master, playing the game by yourself. You turned the cards and moved the pieces with terrible contortions of the features.’ She wrung her robes a little more and her eyes moved to the table. ‘What does it mean?’

  Malcador was not sure as he followed her gaze, seeing the pieces arranged at the endgame, the Lord of Hearts still in his hand. Yet where the Fool had been was now another piece, uniquely golden, shaped as a crown.

  Beside it lay the last crystal card, its image that of an eagle tearing out the throat of a serpent.

  About the Author

  Gav Thorpe is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Deliverance Lost, Angels of Caliban and Corax, as well as the novella The Lion, which formed part of the New York Times bestselling collection The Primarchs, as well as several audio dramas including the bestselling Raven’s Flight and The Thirteenth Wolf. He has written many novels for Warhammer 40,000, including Rise of the Ynnari: Ghost Warrior, Jain Zar: The Storm of Silence and Asurmen: Hand of Asuryan. He also wrote the Path of the Eldar and Legacy of Caliban trilogies, and two volumes in The Beast Arises series. For Warhammer, Gav has penned the End Times novel The Curse of Khaine, the Time of Legends trilogy, The Sundering, and much more besides. In 2017, Gav was awarded the David Gemmell Legend award for his Age of Sigmar novel Warbeast. He lives and works in Nottingham.

  Inquisitor Crowl, who serves on Holy Terra, follows the trail of a conspiracy that leads him to the corridors of the Imperial Palace itself…

  A Black Library Publication

  Published in Great Britain in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

  Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

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  ISBN: 978-1-78572-864-8

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