They continued their descent towards the slowly pulsing light below. After what seemed an age, they could discern a circular platform beneath them, though it was certainly not the bottom of the expanse. Marduk wondered if there truly was a base to this maddening place, or if it extended forever. Or perhaps if they continued down they would find themselves back where they had started.
Shaking his head, he concentrated upon the circular platform. It seemed that it was covered in silver waters that rippled with movement. As they descended, he realised that it was not liquid.
Thousands of tiny, crawling insect creatures swarmed away from the Word Bearers as they stepped down from the last of the maddening steps onto the slick, black, circular platform. The creatures scuttled away on metallic, barbed legs, making a sound like gentle ocean waves crashing, as their metallic carapaces scraped and millions of tiny metal legs scrambled for purchase. Their glistening carapaces were dark and the smallest of them was no larger than a grain of sand.
Marduk bent and grasped one of the larger, scuttling beetle creatures, lifting it up between his thumb and forefinger for closer inspection. Dozens of glowing green eyes were arrayed upon its segmented head and its wickedly barbed mandibles clicked as it tried vainly to bite him. Its eight-spiked legs kicked and pushed at him, surprising him with their strength as it tried to get free. Its carapace was of dark metal and a golden emblem, the now familiar sun circle with light beams streaming from it, was emblazoned across it.
He turned it over in his hand to get a look at the creature’s underside, but its sharp mandibles bit into him, gripping onto the ceramite protecting his finger. It could not pierce his armour, but it would not let go. He flicked his wrist as he lost interest and patience with the creature, sending the mechanical bug flying. It unfurled wafer-thin membranes of metal from beneath its thick carapace and flittered through the air to join its fleeing companions. It landed amongst the scuttling mass of creatures moving like a living, metal carpet away from the intruders who had entered their realm. They streamed towards a sunken, circular pit that lay before the pair, crawling over its lip and down into its protective darkness.
There must have been tens of thousands of the creatures, and they swarmed towards the pit from all directions. Marduk stepped forwards and the living mass of mechanical insects surged away, parting before him.
Stepping to the edge of the hole, he looked down into the darkness. It was impossible to guess its depth.
He felt a presence behind him and quickly turned, moving away from the edge of the abyss, seeing Jarulek smirk at his discomfort. Marduk glared hatefully at his master from within his helmet. Not long, he thought.
The pair of unholy warriors stalked warily around the edge of the pit. Curved walls rose up around the platform, rising high into the air above. The floor gave way a metre before the wall and it fell down into darkness. They walked carefully around the ring of stone towards the pulsating light throbbing from an adjacent chamber.
A short, enclosed passageway linked the two rooms, and the Word Bearers stepped along it warily. Marduk was uneasy, but it was good to feel solid walls on each side rather than an empty expanse. The second chamber was small and its glossy, black walls reflected the glaring, green light of the glowing object suspended in mid-air in the centre of the room. Pulsing light spilled from it as it spun slowly, floating above the tip of a metre-high black pyramid set in the floor. Light rose in a shaft from the tip of the pyramid, encasing the spinning orb in its beam.
It was a captivating piece of mechanical artistry of utterly alien design, and it revolved slowly. Its centre was a glowing ball of harnessed energy, around which revolved a series of metal rings that spun in all directions around the sphere in a complex weave. The rings overlapped and swung around the glowing centre of the sphere, forming intricate and mesmerising patterns. Marduk could not be certain exactly how many rotating rings there were and he saw that glowing, alien hieroglyphs shone across their flat surfaces. He thought he could see something solid within the ball of energy, but the light was too intense for him to be sure.
He was pulled away from the fascinating object by a hand on his shoulder and he snapped his gaze away, a dull pain in his head.
‘Do not look too closely,’ warned Jarulek. ‘It will ensnare you.’
Marduk nodded, his temples throbbing.
‘This is the object you have come to find,’ he said finally.
‘It is. This is the artefact spoken of in the third book of the Oraculata Noctis.’
Marduk’s eyes widened.
‘And with the Nexus Arrangement one shall wield great force, and he shall open and close the portals to the netherward and become Gatemaster,’ quoted Marduk. ‘You believe that this is the… the Nexus Arrangement?’
‘It is,’ said Jarulek, his eyes alight with faith and passion. ‘And long have I waited for its discovery.
‘The Nexus Arrangement is the tool, it is said, that will usher in a new age of destruction. But it is unclear about the destruction of what, or of whom.
‘It is the same as any weapon. It has no will of its own, but is directed by he who would use it. A boltgun is indiscriminate in who it kills, the one who pulls the trigger is the killer. It is a holy weapon to those who use it as such and it is a tool of the great enemy.
‘But this… this is something far more potent. With this, we will be able to strike at our enemies without fear of reprisal.’
‘Open and close the portals to the netherward?’
‘That’s right, my First Acolyte,’ laughed Jarulek. ‘Entire systems could have the warp closed off to them, allowing nothing to pass in or out of the region. Imagine it: systems unable to receive reinforcements, communications, supplies, munitions. Imagine, if you will, if this were activated near ancient Terra,’ said Jarulek, an evil grin upon his face. ‘Terra itself, closed to the warp, the cursed light of the False Emperor effectively kept in shadow, his ships, blind and lost in the turmoil of the Immaterium…’
‘This could bring about the end of the Imperium,’ Marduk breathed, awe and lust in his soul.
‘And it is foretold that it may only be removed when in the presence of a master and an apprentice, holy warriors of Lorgar both. Our being here was prophesied and now that prophecy is complete.’
The Dark Apostle whispered an entreaty to the dark powers and reached his hands slowly forwards, into the light projecting up from the top of the pyramid, reaching towards the revolving sphere. Instantly the light from the pyramid dimmed, plunging the room into darkness, but for the green light emanating from the glowing sphere.
Holding his breath, Marduk watched as the Dark Apostle’s hands neared the spinning rings, reaching underneath the orb to cup it. The spinning rings began to slow. Each pulse of light was timed with the revolutions of the rings. There were seven rings, he now saw as they slowed to a standstill, and they seemed to melt together, their edges merging, so that within seconds all that remained was what appeared to be a solid sphere of dark metal. The green hieroglyphs faded away and darkness descended. The blackness was not complete, for now that the glare of the room had faded, a dim light could be seen emanating from the pit in the adjacent chamber, where the scarabs had retreated.
Jarulek lifted the metal orb out from where it hovered above the black pyramid, awe upon his face.
It was the size of grown man’s heart and he cradled it in his hands like a newborn child.
Marduk felt greed and desire rise within him. He licked his lips and toyed with the activation rune of his chainsword as he stared at his master. As the Dark Apostle had said, the prophecy had been fulfilled.
A flicker of movement in the corner of his eyes drew his attention and he spun towards it.
A dark shape was rising from the circular pit in the adjacent chamber and Marduk thumbed the activation rune of his chainsword, snarling. His gazed shifted between Jarulek, who was focused on the sphere in his hands, and the rising shadow that blocked their retreat.
/> The shape was roughly humanoid, though it was covered in thousands of the metallic scarabs, or more correctly it was formed from them. They skittered over the humanoid torso, rising slowly and silently from the pit, their body mass creating the shape of a man.
‘Jarulek,’ he hissed. The eyes of the Dark Apostle flashed with outrage that he dare use his name, but then he too saw the rising shape.
As they watched, the skittering bugs came to rest as they aligned in their appropriate positions, and their bodies merged, like droplets of water that were sucked together to form a greater mass. Thousands of metallic insects blurred together, their individual shapes and limbs moulding like liquid metal to form the immaculate and perfect form of a skeletal torso, gleaming silver.
Black, carapaced scarabs gave up their physical uniqueness, forming a black chest-plate over the silver ribs of the cadaverous, ancient lord rising up out of the light below. A golden sun gleamed on the centre of the black, lustrous armour plate, golden lines representing the sun’s rays spilling from it. The corpse-machine’s head was down, its chin lowered, and its eye sockets were dark and hollow.
A long-hafted weapon was formed in the creature’s metallic hands, as hundreds of scarabs gripped each other with claw and mandible to form a solid shape. They blurred as they melted together, creating an arcane and impressively sized weapon, a pair of curving blades at each end of a long shaft.
Marduk and Jarulek raised their weapons as one, the Dark Apostle supporting the heavy weight of his archaic bolter on his forearm, the orb still held in his hand. They unleashed a salvo of barking shots towards the forming corpse-machine. Bolts smashed into its gleaming, silver skull, blasting chunks of metal away, and others caused chips of black stone to crack from its chest-plate.
These pieces of metal and stone landed on the black, glossy surface of the floor and immediately returned to their metallic scarab forms. They skittered about for a second before launching themselves into the air, wafer-thin metallic wings clicking out. They hovered over the deathly machine before settling on the damage done by the guns of the holy Word Bearer warriors. The metallic insects disappeared as they melted into the metal body of their master, leaving no appearance of the damage that had been caused.
‘The Undying One,’ said Jarulek.
A scarab with a gleaming, golden carapace skittered over the skull of the forming creature, and it melted to become a shining circlet upon its forehead, glittering with intricate, alien line work. It was an alien yet clearly regal device, and Marduk was left in no doubt that this was some lord of the undead, living machines.
Swarms of smaller insects, some barely large enough for the eye to discern, glided over the silver bones of the creature and blurred together, forming a semi-opaque, wafer-thin, billowing shroud that whipped around the skeletal form. This cloak had a dark, metallic sheen as if it had been woven of infinitely fine mesh, and it shimmered like liquid metal. It fluttered as if caught in a breeze, though there was no movement of air. From beneath the deep hood, the darkness of the creature’s eye sockets began to glow a baleful green and it raised its chin to look upon the interlopers trespassing on its ancient realm. A feeling of dread washed over Marduk. He gritted his sharp teeth in anger at the unwelcome and uncommon feeling.
The creature rose higher out of the pit, accompanied by a rhythmic humming noise, and the light beneath it grew stronger, throwing its skull into deeper shadow beneath its billowing shroud. Rather than ending in hips and legs, the metallic spinal column of the creature merged into a bulky shape that was not dissimilar to the armoured carapace of one of the diminutive scarabs, though on a colossal scale. Thousands of teeming insects scrambled over each other and moulded together to form this lower body, and eight barbed legs hanging beneath the bulk of its armour took shape. The light filling the room came from beneath this carapace, shining out below it and throwing its upper body into gloom.
The creature rose into the air, hovering above the open pit as it awoke, its silver, insect legs curling and clicking beneath it, the humanoid torso flexing as the ancient, unliving being rolled its shoulders. It did not move in the same manner as the skeletal machines guarding the upper chambers of the pyramid. Where they were mechanical and jerky in movement, this creature was fluid and supple, its limbs moving smoothly and in perfect balance.
It spun the staff before it, the twin blades humming through the air. It seemed ignorant or uncaring of the Word Bearers as it went through a series of lithe movements with the double-headed blade, spinning the haft of the weapon around in its metallic hands with consummate ease.
Intent on the monstrous creature, Marduk failed to see Jarulek raising his ornate bolter towards his head.
‘And this, my First Acolyte, is where your education comes to an end,’ breathed the Dark Apostle, and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Marduk threw himself to the side, servo-muscles straining, but he could not avoid the burst of fire at such close range. The mass-reactive tips of the bolt-rounds impacted with the side of his helmet as he dodged and their explosions tore the right side of his helmet and face apart in a gory mess of blood and sparks.
He fell, smashed to the ground by the impact. The inside of his helmet was awash with blood and he ripped it from his head, hurling it away from him as he staggered backwards on the floor.
He could feel that the left side of his skull was shattered and he could not see from his left eye. He felt fragments of bone and tooth in his mouth, and he spat them to the floor amid blood and saliva. He tongued the inside of his mouth and felt that the teeth on his left side had been shattered, and where he should have felt the inside of his cheek, he felt nothing. The flesh had been completely blown away. He heard a chuckle.
‘One shall fall, he of lesser faith, he unmarked by godly touch,’ Jarulek said. ‘Did you think that I did not notice your treacherous intent, whelp? Your usefulness passed as soon as you fulfilled your role in the prophecy.’
Marduk blinked blood from his working eye. He scrabbled on the ground around him, but realised that he had lost his grip on his bolt pistol and it lay out of his reach. He felt dizzy and disoriented.
Jarulek stood with his bolter pointed at Marduk. The metal sphere was still in one hand and the bolter was supported upon his forearm. He stared down the stylised daemonic maw that was the barrel of the archaic weapon and Marduk knew that he was too far from the Dark Apostle to be able to rush him without taking a full clip of bolts.
‘What damned prophecy?’ he spat, his jaw not working properly, spraying blood.
‘Why, the Prophecy of Jarulek, dear Marduk: the prophecy that appears on only one page: my flesh, the prophecy that I have lived with since the fall of the Warmaster. The prophecy says that only one of us will leave this place and I intend that to be me.’
Marduk tensed himself to leap. He wiped the blood from his face quickly with his free hand and he saw Jarulek’s eyes widen in shock.
A searing beam of green light slammed into the back of the Dark Apostle and ripped through him, boring a fist-sized hole from abdomen to lower back.
The bolter in Jarulek’s hand barked as Marduk leapt from the floor, bolts ricocheting around the chamber. With a roar of pure hatred, Marduk swung the blade of his chainsword towards the staggering Dark Apostle, but Jarulek managed to bring his arm up before him and swipe the blade away, though it tore a chunk of armour and flesh from his arm. Marduk felt the faint presence of the daemon Borhg’ash rouse within the weapon as it tasted the sacrosanct blood, and it lent him strength.
‘The mark! This cannot be!’ screamed Jarulek, his eyes locked to Marduk’s forehead, where pain still seared him.
Another blast of green light speared towards the pair and Marduk rolled to the side to avoid it, coming to his feet quickly, positioning himself so he could see both enemies with his limited vision.
The skeletal, ancient xenos lord was hovering towards them, its dark shroud whipping around it furiously. The tips
of its double-bladed staff were glowing with power and it thrust one end forwards, a searing beam lancing from the weapon. Marduk swayed to the side, the blast just grazing against his chest-plate, searing a groove along it as the super-hard ceramite was stripped away.
Bolts impacted with his chest a millisecond later, slamming him back against the wall. He snarled, his attention swinging towards Jarulek.
‘I’m going to rip you apart, you whoreson,’ he spat.
‘Not the way one should speak to his holy leader. Mark or no mark, you are dying here,’ said Jarulek. Seeing movement, he turned and fired a burst towards the advancing alien machine-creature, the bolts making its head reel back, but not slowing its advance.
Marduk rolled as another green lance of light streaked towards him, and came up in front of the Dark Apostle. His chainsword roared and he ripped it up in a murderous arc as he rose, carving it between Jarulek’s legs. Pre-empting the attack, but with nothing to defend against it, the Dark Apostle released his grip on his bolter and grabbed the whirring chainblades with his hand, halting its progress before it struck.
Blood and ceramite sprayed as his hand was ripped apart, but the move had taken Marduk by surprise, and the Dark Apostle slammed a kick into the outside of his knee. The leg collapsed beneath him. Jarulek followed the attack with a thundering elbow that struck Marduk in the head, cracking the bone, and he fell heavily.
Switching the precious sphere into the crook of his other, now handless, arm, Jarulek swept up his discarded bolter with his left hand and fired towards the closing skeletal alien, hefting the kicking weapon with difficulty in one hand. Bolts hammered into the creature’s arm, sending its next shot wide. The Dark Apostle hurled the bolter aside, its ammo spent, and pulled his crozius arcanum from where it hung on his hip, the spiked head of the holy weapon crackling with energy as it came to life. He sprang directly towards the hovering, monstrous creature, a curse on his lips.
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