by William King
He focused his mind, seeking the one fixed point of stability, the mighty beacon of the Astronomican. It took him some time to lock on to it. It seemed very faint and far away. Somewhere far off, he heard the faint chorus of the psychic choir, then he heard the first faint pulse of the Astronomican as the mighty psychic beacon's signal echoed down the canyons of infinity.
The voices of the choir were almost drowned out by the thunderous roar of the Eye of Terror. The signal seemed weak and distant. He paused for a moment, to make sure that he really had fixed his position with relation to distant Terra. Many a ship had foundered when its Navigator took position from something he thought was the beacon, and was in fact some other astral phenomena or worse a lure set by pirates, wreckers or the spawn of Chaos.
He listened with his psychic senses, catching the regular pulse of the chant, the weird eerie sound of psychic plainsong echoing down the corridors of time and space in time to the pulse of the beacon itself. To him, the pulse of the Astronomican was like the tolling of a great bell in a vast cavern. He looked within himself as he had been taught and found truth. It felt right. That was the great beacon.
From the hidden sub-basements of his mind he brought up pictures from the charts he had been studying earlier. Now, superimposed on his view of the warp, they made far more sense. Triangulating from his entrance wake at Medusa and the position of the Astronomican, he located Belial IV. It did not look good. The world lay somewhere within the edges of the Eye, and the Eye did not feel calm today.
Now he gave his attention to the thing he dreaded. He cast his gaze ahead along the path he had chosen. There lay the mighty spiral vortex of the Eye of Terror, a huge whirlpool of energy, a massive unending sea of warp storms. The best he could hope to do was to find a patch of relative calm and guide his ship through the eye of the storm. It would be a feat worthy of a master Navigator.
Somewhere far off the puppet that was his fleshly body touched the controls in the arm of his throne. The ship yawed as he sought the first of the warp streams that he hoped would carry him to his destination. He felt the tug of the current as it bore him towards the Eye of Terror. For a brief insane moment, he felt like he really was looking into a giant eye, the mad malevolent orb of an insane god. It seemed to bore into his very soul. Illusions, he told himself, or perhaps omen or portent. Ignore it. Concentrate on the ship.
The vessel shook now as the current took hold. He communed with the spirits of the datacore. Fair going, the electric ghosts whispered. The ship can take it. Well within the tolerances she was built for. The sense of speed built within him as the ship accelerated towards the Eye. He guided her gently, moving into midstream, trying to avoid the worst of the turbulence in the current. It was not easy. Here at the edges of the Eye, disturbances were far more common and violent than they normally were. There was a sickening lurching, bumping sensation as they hit some distortion pattern, but Simon righted the ship and they clove on through the eternal void. He kept part of his mind focused on the Astronomican, keeping himself always oriented towards it.
The Eye swelled in his view, losing all outward appearance of form as it grew so large it filled the entire field of his pineal eye. The roar of the void all around him had taken on a terrifying sentient quality. It was the voice of an army of hungry daemons chanting for a soul they could sense but not quite perceive. He tried to ignore them and concentrate on the ethereal song of the Astronomican, but the voice of distant Terra was hard to hear now. Behind him, he knew, desperately locking on to its position.
The ship shook more as the current grew stronger. Simon studied the warp around him. Vast tendrils of power reached out from the edges of his vision, attempting to grasp the Star of Venam as it passed. Simon corrected his course for what he hoped was a passage between them, then realised that he was heading towards a fast-forming temporal whirlpool. Here the energies of the immaterium were being sucked out into real space somewhere in a swirling vortex of madness that could easily destroy a ship that fell into its clutches. Worse, such vortices often led directly into long fast-flowing tunnels that could emerge almost anywhere, including, it was speculated, the heart of a sun. Frantically, he wrestled the ship away from the deadly current.
He almost managed it. The Star clipped the very edges of the vortex and began to spiral inwards. Simon cursed the mad flows of the immaterium through the Eye. He was encountering more hazards on this one trip than was normal for a year in normal travelling.
He pushed such thoughts aside as a pointless distraction; he needed to keep all of his wits about him if they were to have any chance of survival. Already the hull echoed as the maelstrom of wild energy smashed against it. Once more Simon thought he heard the howl of daemon voices.
There was only one chance now. He allowed the ship to go with the flow, cutting all power for a few moments, and letting it orbit around the edge of the whirlpool. As they reached the point where they had been sucked in, he applied massive amounts of power to the drives, hoping to slingshot the vessel outwards.
We are close to destruction, whispered the ship's ghosts. Our end is nigh. Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard the spirits screaming. You have doomed us all, said a sad, desperate voice which bore some resemblance to his own. Somewhere in the distance the Astronomican pulsed.
The hull resonated as the huge reinforcing struts flexed under the strain. Somewhere down in the bowels of the ship, emergency generators were coming online in a crackle of thunderbolts and an eruption of ozone Simon could almost taste. He focused on the Astronomican and kept the ship on course, aiming for a small window of calm he could see in the warp flows. The ship leapt forward, pulling clear of the terrible suction of the temporal whirlpool, and sped like an arrow towards its goal. Simon offered up a prayer to the Emperor, hoping that the spirit that ruled the Astronomican could hear him.
The ship slid into the chosen channel. The retreating warp current carried it through the tempests of energy. Now the flows were behind, adding their own power to the engines of the ship. The Star of Venam hurtled through the immaterium towards its goal.
He became aware of other things around him now. He could hear something above the roar of the warp storm and the song of the great beacon. This was another song, astonishingly sweet and pure, its very beauty demanding all of his attention. Simon ignored it. He had been warned of such things, the sirens of Slaanesh, as they were known to Navigators. He had no idea what they really were. Perhaps they were indeed daemons that sought to lure ships to their doom. Perhaps they were simply some strange form of astral phenomena. It did not really matter at this moment. All that counted was that he did not succumb to their wiles.
He concentrated on the Astronomican, praying for the salvation of his ship and his soul, wondering whether, even if the Emperor heard him, he would grant them succour. They were after all heading directly into an area forbidden by his Ecclesiarchy, and marked as under interdict on all the navigational charts of the Navis Nobilitae. Perhaps by offering up a prayer in such blasphemous surroundings, Simon was bringing doom on himself and his ship. This was an eventuality that had not been covered in his training. Still, his instincts told him to do it and he listened to them.
Suddenly, the ship emerged from the battering stressful current and entered an area of relative calm. Now the huge flows pushed them peacefully onwards. It seemed like they had passed out of an area of extreme turbulence into an area of utter stillness. The realisation struck Simon that he had never quite seen the immaterium like this before, but then that was hardly surprising since he had never passed through the Eye of Terror before. The very fabric of the warp felt different, thicker and more viscous, yet at the same time hinting at hidden depths. He felt that if he turned the ship into the current here and forced it downwards, he might emerge at the very birth of the universe, in the formless primal void that was said to exist before being. More than that, here in this place, more than anywhere else he had ever been in the immaterium, he could feel a se
nse of wrongness.
The very stuff of the warp felt corrupted somehow. He recalled tales of how the Chaos stuff of the Eye of Terror often overflowed into worlds.
Was it possible, he wondered, that matter from the material universe had somehow invaded this place, and transformed it? Could there be all manner of stellar reefs and shoals here, the like of which were not to be found elsewhere?
He kept every pineal sense strained, watching the void around him for any danger. Slowly as he did so he became aware of things that either he had never encountered before or never truly noticed before. All around him flowed lattices of energy, small permanent disturbances in the immaterium. They pulsed and moved of their own accord, and as he watched he noticed that they seemed to be performing regular actions. Some of them engulfed each other, devouring and absorbing like huge amoeba enveloping their prey, while some danced around each other like performers in a strange ritual. Suddenly some hurled themselves against the ship, slamming into it and screaming their frustration.
Those things over there were sentient, Simon thought! Perhaps this is what daemons are made of. He brought his gaze back from infinity and cast it along the length of the ship. Three mighty glowing lights shone from within the Star of Venam. So brilliant was their illumination that they were visible as a dim glow even through the duralloy walls of the hull and its enveloping psychic screens. What was going on here, he wondered?
More and more of the alien shapes hurled themselves onto the Star of Venam. At times he thought he saw strange humanoid shapes crawling all over the ship, banging at it with weapons and pincer-like claws, seeking to gain admittance through any entrance or weak spot they might find in the force fields surrounding the ship.
Madness, he thought, the effects of the Navigation drugs and my own mind projecting its fears onto the warp. Yet somehow he knew that it was not. Those things out there were real and becoming ever more concrete as if his own terror gave them form. Did they feed on strong emotion, he wondered, or was it something else? Were they taking shape in response to the fears of those within the ship or was it just that now he was seeing them as they actually were? He gazed on them, afraid that they might notice him, but they did not.
Some of them gazed right through him, as if he were invisible, although he was aware of their presence. He had heard it said that the daemons of the warp devoured any souls they encountered save those of Navigators. Somehow, it seemed that his people were invisible to the creatures as long as they did nothing to attract their attention. Had he discovered one of the secrets of why his people could live where others could not? Why of all the sub-races of humanity they did not go mad after prolonged exposure to the warp? He watched in panic as armies of the things appeared to swarm over the craft, gnawing away at its protective spells and runes.
It seemed like the whole outside of the ship was a seething mass of daemonic flesh, drawn to whatever was inside, battling with each other for places, like miners staking out a claim. Suddenly Simon was certain he knew what had happened to the ghost ships, those vessels whose crew had been found insane within gibbering tales of monsters, phantasms and devils. These were creatures of nightmare, and they lusted for something within his ship.
Three things, he thought, those three mighty glowing lights. What could they be? What made his ship different this time from all of the other times? Was it simply that they were now within the Eye of Terror and the power of daemonkind was stronger, or was it something else, something connected with his quest or his passengers? Three lights—Auric, Athenys and Janus perhaps?
He thought about the eldar. It was virtually unheard of for them to take passage on a human ship. He thought about the argosy ships and the disaster that inevitably overtook them. Was there a connection between these two facts? It seemed likely.
Right now, though, he had a decision to make. He needed to work out a way of saving his ship. In his ears the ghosts gibbered, shrieking warnings. This ship was now the only home they would ever have, and if it died, so did they. It did not matter to them that they were merely resonances of dead men within the ship's datacore. They were afraid, though they did not know of what, and Simon did not blame them.
He attempted to gauge how long the shields would hold. Not much longer against the horde of things assaulting them. Would it make sense to try and tear the ship from the immaterium now, cast it out of the warp before it achieved the angle of exit he had decided upon? That strain also might destroy them. And if the ship were damaged by a forced exit, then there would be no drydock in which to execute repairs here in the Eye of Terror. That would leave the choice of trying to make another jump with a crippled ship, or being stuck within the realm of the Chaos lords. Not really much of choice at all, he decided.
How much longer till they hit their exit vector? Judging as best he could by the position of the Astronomican, not that much longer in the subjective time of the ship. He could almost see the dull cluster of lights that he guessed was Belial system. He made up his mind. If he crippled the ship coming out of the warp prematurely, there would be no chance of survival. They would simply have to repeat this performance in a ship already partially broken. He decided to stay running with the warp current for the time being. If it looked like the shields were going to give way, he would make the break then.
At least that way they would have a chance of a clean death, starving or suffocating as the ship's systems slowly failed in real space. He offered up a prayer to the distant Astronomican and fed more power to the shields.
He sensed the daemons' frustration as the resistance increased. Their efforts redoubled. The ghosts whispered frantically that the shields had given way in a dozen places. They were down to the ship's armour. There were times when he was certain he heard the scrape of claws along the hull. It did not matter how often he told himself that was impossible either. He still felt it was the case.
Fear gnawed at his vitals now, the stark fear of the unknown. He had no idea what might happen if those things out there breached the hull, but he knew it was not good. Perhaps some future starsailors would be destined to come across the Star of Venam, a ghost ship, peopled by men who had died in mysterious ways, or worse yet inhabited by walking corpses possessed by the malevolent spirits of daemons.
He checked his position against the Astronomican. Not much further now. The current had carried them a long way into the Eye, and their exit gate should be upon them soon. Briefly he wondered how the others were taking this. At least he had some idea of what was going on; the people within the ship, sealed within their vessel like corpses sealed in a tomb, had no knowledge. They could only wait and pray and imagine the worst.
Ten more pulses of the Astronomican, Simon decided, and he would angle the ship upwards and outwards. He cursed himself for ever being foolish enough to agree to take the eldar anywhere. What if he had simply refused to acknowledge the coin they had presented? Perhaps others had in the past. No, that was not at all likely; he would have heard of such a vast breach of trust. House Belisarius prided itself on its honour.
Nine pulses. He wondered if he would ever see the distant world of Terra with its sculpted hanging gardens and its city-size palaces ever again. He doubted it. A pity he thought, he would liked to have looked on the Sanguinean Gate once more, and see the palace of the Emperor rise in the distance above the lesser mansions of the great lords.
Eight pulses. He gazed out of the observation portal at the seething mass of creatures that had attached themselves to the hull. He could make them out better now. Some were lizard-like things with long snaky tongues and eyes that reminded him of a beautiful woman's. Some looked like beautiful women, only with a single breast and pincers instead of hands. Madness, he told himself. Hallucinations induced by the warp. The women fought with enormous reptilian hounds with collars of brass and teeth like crocodiles. Their psychic howls reminded him of starving beggars fighting to get at a feast. Their jaws slavered. Their eyes were bright with mad hunger.
Seve
n pulses. One of the clawed women scratched away at the crystal of the observation dome. Her single breast was flattened against it. He could see her head was bald. She wore a necklace that bore the sign of one of the Dark Powers. She gazed straight at him without seeming to see anything. How was that possible, he wondered, as her claws drew a neat line across the supposedly impermeable crystal? What would she do when she broke through? What would happen to him? Would he be sucked out into the warp?
Six pulses. He saw something monstrous and slimy, all tentacles and teeth, throw itself on the woman. They fought with an insane ferocity. Simon had once seen sharks in a feeding frenzy; this was worse. They lashed at each other until it looked like they would be hacked to pieces.
Five pulses. The woman slashed her assailant in two and returned to her task. Simon was sure he could hear the scratch of her claws on crystal now. He fought down the urge to begin the ship's exit from the immaterium. This was the critical time.
Four pulses. He felt certain that the armoured crystal was about to shatter. The whole structure rang with the force of the daemonette's blows. He found himself unconsciously holding his breath. The ghosts gibbered crazily in his ears. Spawn of Slaanesh, they screamed. Child of Chaos. You will die horribly but in ecstasy. Simon wondered where that knowledge came from. Some long dead ancient, he judged, for he could put no face to the voice.
Three pulses. No doubt about it, the crystal was giving way. Simon could see shards of the stuff drift past the she-daemon's head.
He reached down with weakening fingers and found the bolt pistol strapped to his thigh. He was not sure whether he intended to use it on himself or the thing. He was not even sure he would get the chance if the warp burst into the vessel.
Two pulses. Simon poised his fingers over the activation runes and tried to drown out the fearful shriek of the ship's ghosts. His fingers grew tense from an eternity of waiting.
