Age of Darkness

by Christian Dunn

  ‘Where is he? What happened? Why are we leaving?’

  He tried to get free but he was too weak. His armour was broken and bloody.

  A beaked battle-helm, the forest-green streaked with arterial crimson, looked down at him. ‘He is gone, brother.’

  ‘What? No!’ Heka’tan struggled again, but a jolt of pain from his injuries crippled his efforts. ‘We have to go back.’

  ‘There is no back. There is nothing there. Vulkan is gone.’

  Railing that they had to turn around, they had to find him, Heka’tan passed out and saw only darkness.

  Suddenly aware of being watched, Heka’tan came to and looked around. A landman, one of the labour-claves that worked the sump farms at the periphery of Bastion’s major cities, stood watching him. He wore a rebreather, anti-rad coat and sumper-boots. In his left hand, he carried a tilling-stave used to test the depth of sump-ash.

  The landman, never before looking upon such a warrior, nodded.

  Persephia had gone after Arcadese. Heka’tan nodded back, then went after them.

  Negotiation

  I

  ‘Relinquish your weapons, brother.’

  Heka’tan kept his voice calm and level inside the gallery. Beyond it, through a vast stone doorway, was the auditorium where Bastion’s clave-nobles would hear their petition. As well as being sealed for the duration of the proceedings, weapons were strictly forbidden in the chamber.

  It was a fact the Ultramarine didn’t take well.

  ‘A Legiones Astartes does not surrender his arms. Prise my weapon from my cold, dead fingers – that is the only way a warrior of Ultramar would give up his bolter, so says my Lord Guilliman.’

  ‘And my Lord Vulkan counsels temperance in the face of impasse. That pragmatism not pride is the solution to seemingly irreconcilable discord.’ Heka’tan unloaded his bolter clip and sprang a shell from the breech before handing it over to a sanctum-marshal. ‘Relinquish it, Arcadese. We cannot negotiate armed and armoured. Nor can we go back.’

  The Stormbird was destroyed, and the march through the sump swamp had done nothing to improve Arcadese’s mood, even though Heka’tan had carried the artificer to speed their progress.

  ‘We will be defenceless.’

  Heka’tan returned a carefully impassive expression. ‘A warrior of the Legion is never defenceless, brother.’

  ‘Cold, dead fingers, remember. I am an Angel of Death. I am death.’

  Heavier-armoured marshals entered the gallery and levelled rotator-cannons at the Ultramarine.

  Arcadese drew his combat blade with a belligerent shriek of steel. ‘To take arms against one is to take arms against all the Legiones Astartes!’

  A stern grip on his wrist brought more anger but stopped any potential bloodshed in the making.

  Heka’tan’s hold was unflinching. His red eyes blazed with captured fire. ‘Think. Any killing here won’t further our cause, it will end it… And us. Use the wisdom your father gave you.’

  Though reluctant, Arcadese saw sense and relented. Scowling at the relieved marshals, he relinquished his weapons.

  He was about to move forwards into the auditorium when a pair of marshals blocked his path.

  Arcadese glared at them.

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘Your armour, too,’ said the high-marshal from behind him.

  The Ultramarine shook his head and gave Heka’tan a rueful look as he unclasped a gauntlet. ‘This gets better.’

  Persephia moved in to assist him.

  ‘See that they are well tended,’ Arcadese said in a threatening undertone. The artificer merely nodded, carefully removing a vambrace.

  The high-marshal looked on. ‘Who speaks for the Imperium?’

  ‘I will,’ said Arcadese. He’d removed his breastplate and pulled the torso portion of his mesh under-layer away. Grotesque bionics were revealed beneath, a legacy of Ullanor where he’d fallen in battle to the greenskin. He’d been comatose and hadn’t witnessed the Emperor’s last war, his greatest victory. Instead, he’d awoken to a world that no longer made any sense.

  Heka’tan smiled, starting to remove his own battle-plate. ‘Can’t you tell he’s the natural negotiator?’

  II

  They stood before the clave-nobles wearing borrowed robes.

  ‘We are a sight to stir even the Sigillite to laughter,’ Arcadese had remarked upon their apotheosis to diplomats.

  Persephia had rejoined them later, having disappeared with the equipment to ensure it was properly stored.

  Though they still wore their boots and mesh leggings, the fact of being unarmoured still rankled at the Ultramarine and he took the artificer to one side when she returned. ‘I need you to do something for me…’

  The rest of his request was lost to the sound of the great doors to the auditorium closing behind them.

  After a loud, concussive boom, a quintet of sombre figures emerged in the sepulchral gloom. They were under-lit by a dimmed lantern array that cast haunting shadows over their faces, and seated on a dark balcony. In a gallery looking down on the auditorium floor and the petitioners was a host of shadow-veiled faces – lesser nobles of Bastion, their politicians and leaders. Judges all.

  In the darkness, the vast auditorium’s form was only hinted at. Heka’tan discerned more hard edges, square and functional. The air smelled of stone and steel. The chamber was much more than its name suggested. It had multiple levels, corridors and conduits. Labyrinthine, the auditorium was just a part, and a small one at that. The Salamander’s gaze rested on the other petitioners.

  ‘Hard to believe Horus sent an iterator and not a Legion.’

  Arcadese looked over at the oleaginous men and women clustered around a besuited central figure. ‘I thought the enemy had disbanded the remembrancers, like us.’

  ‘Horus is a conqueror, brother. He wants his victories to become a part of history.’

  ‘Aye,’ Arcadese agreed, bile rising in his throat at the sight of the craven humans, ‘he seeks immortality, and to assert his cause is righteous.’

  Heka’tan muttered, ‘Tell that to my cold brothers on Isstvan.’

  The Ultramarine was only half-listening. His gaze went to a benighted balcony, high in the auditorium’s vaults opposite the clave-nobles. ‘Don’t be sure the Warmaster hasn’t sent warriors. Our ship didn’t crash itself.’

  A brazier ignited with azure flame, ending the conversation on a tense note, and illuminated the form of the high-marshal standing in the middle of the auditorium floor.

  ‘All attend,’ he boomed, his voice augmented by a vox-hailer unit attached to his mouth like breathing apparatus. ‘Senate is in session.’

  Arcadese scowled at the ceremony. Fighting the ork would be preferable to this. ‘Take me back to Ullanor,’ he grumbled.

  III

  Vorkellen affected a serious and professional air. Inwardly, he was ecstatic. This was his battlefield, a war in which even against the Legion he had the surer footing.

  He eyed the Ultramarine briefly. ‘I will destroy you,’ he whispered. He needed no Legionaries. What use were they? All their strength and power would only go so far; hearts and minds could not be manipulated by brawn.

  ‘The Emperor sends warriors to do the work of ambassadors,’ Insk smirked.

  ‘Indeed,’ Vorkellen agreed, averting his gaze when he noticed the Salamander was looking at him. ‘An abject failure.’ He chuckled mirthlessly. To see them humbled, without arms or armour, was delicious.

  The clave-nobles were addressing the assembly, explaining to all that this was a negotiation to decide the fealty of Bastion and its armies, for Horus or the Emperor. Both sides were permitted to petition for their allegiance and based on their arguments Bastion would make its choice. The losers would be granted immunity until they had returned to their starships, then they
would be considered an enemy combatant and treated as such.

  As they arrived first, the representatives of Horus were permitted to speak first.

  As the high-marshal retreated into the shadows, Vorkellen stepped forwards.

  ‘Our Lord Horus is portrayed as a monster and a tyrant by some. That is not so. He is a warmaster, a warrior-general who seeks only to unify mankind under a single rule. Pledge your allegiance to Horus and become part of that unity,’ he said, ‘I will tell you of tyrants, of butchers and massacres most foul. On Monarchia, where the Emperor’s hubris turned to madness…’

  IV

  High up in the vaulted auditorium echelons, far from the audience, a shadow stirred. Ready and in position, it contented itself to watch. For now.

  Tyrants

  I

  Vorkellen thrust out an arm, ‘Behold.’

  A hololithic image materialised in front of him from a sub-projector in the auditorium floor. It depicted a glorious city of temples, spires and cathedra. Even in the flickering haze of the hololith’s resolution it was possible to pick out statues of the Emperor, great arches of veneration carved in his image.

  ‘Monarchia…’ Vorkellen said again, leaving a pregnant pause, ‘…before the Legion of Roboute Guilliman levelled it.’

  A second projection crackled to life, replacing the first. This was of a sundered ruin, little more than a smoking crater where civilisation had once existed. Bodies were strewn across the wreckage, those too foolish or adamant, or too afraid, to leave.

  ‘Devastation.’ Vorkellen announced it like a death knell. ‘And for what reason? Why was this massacre sanctioned by the Emperor, beloved of all?’ He opened his hands in a plaintive gesture. ‘Love. The people of Monarchia dared to show their love for their Master of Mankind, they dared to honour and revere him, and this was their reward – death.’

  He eyed the Legionaries, his gaze studiously accusing. This was their fault too. They were his warriors, his butchers.

  ‘And look,’ said Vorkellen, his eyes going to the Imperial representatives, ‘one of the Ultramarines warriors is with us. The Thirteenth Legion, those who consider themselves above all others, the very template that their fellow Space Marines should aspire to conform too, are the slayers of innocent women and children.’

  II

  Arcadese glared, observing the self-assured gait, the undercurrent of arrogance in the iterator’s expression, the finery of his attire and the many expensive rejuvenat surgeries employed to preserve his youth. Vanity and confidence bled off him like an invisible fluid.

  He clenched a fist. It was his Legion at Monarchia, though he himself had not been present.

  ‘Stay calm, brother,’ whispered Heka’tan. ‘He is trying to anger you.’

  Arcadese nodded. He would not rise to it. All eyes turned to the Ultramarine then, inviting his riposte.

  ‘The citizens of Monarchia were given ample time to evacuate. We are not monsters. We–’

  The iterator cut in. ‘So the Thirteenth Legion did not perpetrate the destruction of Monarchia and the subsequent massacre of much of its population?’

  ‘They were warned,’ Arcadese growled. ‘Monarchia practiced proscribed religion. Idolatry is the path to damnation. They would not see the light.’

  ‘An intriguing turn of phrase,’ Vorkellen bit back. ‘Isn’t religion the true path to enlightenment?’

  ‘It is not a question of theological debate. This is law. Monarchia was–’

  ‘And who laid down these edicts, these commandments that all of mankind shall adhere to upon pain of brutal sanction? Was it the Emperor?’

  ‘You know it was.’

  ‘And so tell me this, also. Who was it that the people of Monarchia were revering that such stern measures be taken against them? Some despot’s graven image, a demagogue of a corrupt and baseless faith, or worse, perhaps a denizen of Old Night?’

  ‘They worshipped the Emperor.’

  ‘He who lays down his laws from on high, he who created the most formidable fighting force the galaxy has ever known through science and gene-craft, this… being, who taught men how to span the great gulf of the galaxy and can kill with a thought, this is the one they honoured?’

  Arcadese spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Yes.’

  Vorkellen snorted his impatience and turned to his audience. ‘How can you trust an Emperor who punishes those that worship him, that makes hypocritical decrees? Is this the Imperium you wish to serve?’

  There were mutterings from the shadows and even the five high-nobles swapped remarks and glared seriously at the Ultramarine.

  ‘Those people were given seven days to evacuate the city. Faith is dangerous; it unlocks the road to destruction.’

  ‘Spoken like a true fanatic,’ Vorkellen replied. ‘This is the reward the Emperor offers for your loyalty. He sends his Legions to murder and burn and sunder. It is the fate that awaits you should Bastion side with the Imperium.’

  He paused and his voice changed. It was level, matter of fact, infused with irrefutable truth. ‘Horus did not rebel against an absent father; he opposed a tyrant, masquerading as a pacifist and a benevolent ruler.’

  ‘Lies!’ Arcadese’s voice echoed loudly, betraying his anger.

  A shocked silence filled the auditorium.

  Heka’tan shifted uneasily behind him. ‘Brother…’

  Arcadese unclenched his fist. The Ultramarine opened his mouth to speak but could find no words. It was heresy, wasn’t it? That was why Monarchia burned. It was a lesser evil to prevent a greater one. It was…

  ‘My apologies.’

  The eyes of the entire assembly aligned on the Ultramarine, heavy with the weight of judgement.

  One of the high-nobles gave their disdain a voice. ‘Then prepare your next words carefully.’

  Arcadese nodded stiffly, glancing daggers at the iterator. He turned and hissed at Heka’tan, ‘I knew this was folly.’

  ‘It is barely begun, brother. Have patience.’ He looked around. ‘Where did you send the artificer?’

  ‘To watch over my bolter and blade. We may need them before this farce is over, if only to skewer Horus’s pampered snake.’

  Heka’tan was about to reply when his gaze was drawn inexplicably to the upper echelons of the chamber.

  III

  The shadow figure hiding on the balcony shifted slightly. The red-eyed one was looking at it. For a moment it thought it was discovered and its hand strayed towards the rifle. Then the warrior turned away and the shadow figure relaxed. Not yet… not yet…

  IV

  Persephia had been an excellent artisan. Before the Edict of Dissolution, she had been a sculptor – it made the transition to artificer easier. It also meant she wasn’t pressed into the service of the Imperial Army or sent into the manufactorums to make shells and bombs. She heard about the conditions of those places, of the relentless overseers that made men and women into the blood-gruel of the Imperial war machine. Gone was the era of hope, of glorious conquest she’d longed to be a part of – in its place reigned an age of darkness instead.

  The armoury where the Legionaries’ equipment was being kept was directly below the auditorium in a

  sub-level. As unthreatening as she was, the guards allowed her passage into the darkened under-deeps without question. Their attention was wholly fixed on the two massive warriors addressing the clave.

  The words of her master returned to her.

  I need you to bring me my weapons. Smuggle them back into the auditorium – no one will pay you any attention – and put them somewhere I can easily find them.

  She’d nodded, not daring to question the cobalt giant.

  Our ship was attacked, you know that. There are enemies on Bastion. I believe they want to kill us and tip these negotiations in the Warmaster’s favour. I would not have us exposed.

>   She’d headed off after that, fearful of what she might discover.

  Cold, grey stone and struts of functional steel lined the corridors below the auditorium. There were anterooms and chambers, mainly stores or vast offices cluttered with slates and papers. The armoury was ahead and Persephia was still trying to work out how she would smuggle out one of the Ultramarine’s massive weapons when a light prickling heat assailed her skin and nostrils. It was heady, and if she strained she could hear the droning of machinery.

  She continued to her destination but found more guards outside the corridor to the armoury that hadn’t been there before. She ducked into an alcove before she was seen and after a minute decided to double back. She couldn’t get through that way but perhaps she could go around and find a different route in.

  Another corridor led off from the main, grey artery. It was here that the machine-drone was loudest, so she followed it hoping it might bring her out on the opposite side and let her slip past the guards.

  The further Persephia went, the louder the sound became. Some kind of vast machinery she could only guess at. Soon the barren walls and struts gave way to engines and pipes and conduits. There were temperature gauges and funnels, oblong chambers shielded by many-layered plascrete. A throbbing nexus of energy glowed somewhere beneath her. She had reached the end of the tunnel and found herself standing at the edge of a circular chasm ringed by gantries.

  Bizarrely, the way was open. None of the gates this far down were locked and there were no further guards she could see. Intermittently, she came across slumped gun-drones but the cyb-organics were deactivated.

  Labour servitors moved back and forth, though, engrossed in menial tasks. Persephia moved around them gingerly, careful not to interrupt their routines or touch them, as she descended. The heat was increasing. Patches of sweat darkened her underarms and a veneer of perspiration circled her brow.

  She saw a servitor at work by one of the consoles. A bank of screens displayed some of the other geothermal nuclear sites on Bastion. They all looked disturbingly alike. Persephia moved on, drawn by curiosity and the distant nuclear glow coming closer.