Ahriman: Exile

by John French

  Astraeos let his gaze lock with Ahriman’s and let his mind form the image of a candle flame.

  +Good,+ said Ahriman. Astraeos felt a stab of cold between his eyes. The image of the candle flame grew in his perception. +Now,+ sent Ahriman. The flame split and became two. Astraeos blinked and the two flames began to flicker, one dimming while the other brightened, then reversing. The flames split again. Now four flames each flickered to a different rhythm. Astraeos was not breathing, and the beat of blood was almost silent in his veins.

  Suddenly the flames split again, and again and again until thousands of flames sparkled in his mind’s eye. Waves of rhythm flowed across the field of flames in increasingly rapid and complex patterns. Astraeos held the image firm in his thoughts. The patterns were not under his control, but that was not the lesson. He had to hold the image together as Ahriman changed it. They were learning to share their strengths, to become stronger by being of one mind. At least that was what Ahriman had said. Astraeos was still not sure that he believed him.

  The flames were gone. In his mind’s eye there was only a field of golden thread that wove together forming images from smoke and light: a bird beating its wings, a scarab eating the disc of the sun, a jackal-headed man with nine arms, each holding a bright symbol. He could not feel his body now. The division between what his mind saw and imagined it saw had vanished, but he knew that if his concentration slipped the vision would shatter. He felt his mind stretch, as if the architecture of his soul were realigning. He had trained his mind and powers for war and strength, and trained others to do the same, but he had never known anything like this. It felt like burning, like the joy of breathing after suffocating, like laughter and tears.

  The image vanished. Astraeos’s eyes opened. Rage flashed through him. He wanted the sensation back; he wanted to feel the universe singing to the tune of his will. Ahriman’s eyes did not move from his; they seemed to glow like sunlight catching ice. Coolness spread through Astraeos, and the euphoria drained from him, leaving a cold emptiness and a taste like iron on his tongue.

  ‘What are you doing to me?’ said Astraeos. The words felt thick in his mouth. Ahriman gave a small shake of his head, stood and walked to a vox-horn mounted by the chamber’s only door.

  ‘Mistress Carmenta,’ said Ahriman. ‘Please wake Egion and bring the ship to warp transit readiness.’ Her reply was short, and Ahriman turned to look back at Astraeos.

  ‘I have done what I said I would do. I have trained you so that our minds can work in concert,’ said Ahriman. ‘We are about to steer deeper into the Eye of Terror, following a broken path. I will need to be in communion with Egion as he guides the ship. For that I need you to lend me your strength.’

  ‘No,’ said Astraeos without moving. ‘No, you were doing something else as well.’

  Ahriman stared at him for a long moment.

  ‘Your mind was built to be a fortress, but here…’ Ahriman gestured to the jagged pupil of the Eye of Terror. ‘Here the warp is everywhere. We breathe it. We touch it when we dream. Your mind will not withstand that, not over time, not as we pass deeper into the Eye. Your mental defences are no proof against it: they are too blunt, too simple. To survive where we must go you need to be able to ride the tide, not stand against it. What I am giving to you is only the beginning.’

  ‘I swore to obey you, not to become like you.’

  ‘You must, or you will fall.’ For a second Astraeos said nothing. He thought he believed Ahriman, and part of his soul ached to ascend to the heights it had touched under Ahriman’s tutoring.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Astraeos, his voice cold. ‘Did the brothers you betrayed believe you?’

  Ahriman stared at him for a long minute. Astraeos’s gaze did not waver. Then Ahriman let out a slow, controlled breath and walked slowly to the chamber’s door.

  ‘We have a few hours before our journey begins,’ said Ahriman without looking back at Astraeos. ‘Rest. You will need it.’

  Ahriman walked the decks of the Titan Child alone. It had become a habit, he realised, a way of trying to release the pressures of worry. Its effectiveness was limited. Passages opened silently before him as his thoughts churned on. In places the darkness was absolute, in others the low arrhythmic pulse of a dying glow-globe lit his path. He passed lifeless servitors, slumped against walls or collapsed on the floor. An aura clung to everything he looked at, like a ragged layer of luminous green mist seeping from the edges of sight. It had a taste in his mind, as well: dust and grave soil. The passages went on; now narrow with rust-layered pipes running over walls, ceiling and floor, now wide and silent apart from a distant hum like a sleeping heartbeat.

  It was his fault, of course. All of it. Ohrmuzd’s death, the banishment from the Planet of the Sorcerers, this doom that stalked him and his exiled brothers. He had set it all in motion without realising, the entire line of cause and effect that stretched back to before he had cast the Rubric. Intentions and ignorance of consequences did not matter. He would never escape it, and the only way of trying to solve anything was to pile another risk on the mistakes of the past. He would have to use more power to try and find answers, but then what?

  No good can come from pursuing that question, he thought to himself, but knew that the thought was a weak protest. He had to know. His worry was just his mind accepting the inevitable.

  All that I touch returns to dust, he thought. He had stopped noticing where he walked or what he saw. I am responsible. Not someone else, not a higher power, but me and me alone.

  ‘All heaped on the pyre of pride and left to become ash,’ he muttered to the shadows.

  ‘The truth,’ cackled a voice from behind him. ‘The truth, the truth. So easy to find, so difficult to hear.’

  It was Maroth. The soothsayer shambled out of the shadows. His armour was hissing from lack of repair, and in places Ahriman could see something wet staining the dark battle plate. Maroth wore no helm, and his hands moved continually over the surface of his own face, long nails pinching his skin. He was babbling and crooning to himself as if he were comforting a child that was not there. Inside the crushed shell of his mind Maroth’s soul was rotting, but somehow, in all that had happened, he had survived.

  Ahriman was about to turn away when Maroth sniffed, and turned his head from side to side.

  ‘Is that you, Horkos?’ The flesh around his empty eye sockets had flaked away to reveal yellow bone. ‘Yes. I see you. It is you. You will serve me, won’t you, when the time comes, when I take the Lordship. Yes?’ Maroth walked forwards, straightening himself, grinning a skull’s grin.

  Ahriman considered saying something, then considered putting his sword through the creature’s neck. He shook his head and began to turn away.

  ‘It would be better to kill me, you know, Horkos. Yes?’ Ahriman shook his head. He had hoped the soothsayer dead many times over, but he would not murder something so pitiful.

  ‘Why not?’ called Maroth. ‘Is the delusion of nobility still so important to you that you must let me live because you promised?’ Maroth laughed, and kept laughing until the sound was a wet hacking from his throat. ‘Don’t you ever think of why you made such a promise, or how ridiculous it is? Your problem is pity. Pity combined with pride. What if I said that I want to die, that it would be a kindness?’

  Ahriman took a stride forwards and pulled an inch of his blade from its scabbard.

  ‘Very good, very good.’ Maroth grinned wide. ‘Now all you have to do is cut. All you have to do is show that you are a betrayer and a liar.’

  Ahriman shook his head and walked away. He had to clear his mind fully before he tried to guide the ship to the edge of the Imperium.

  ‘Be silent, and crawl away.’

  ‘See you again, my friend,’ laughed Maroth at Ahriman’s back.

  ‘Mistress, I cannot. Please. I cannot. Not again.’ There were tears in Egion’s voice. She did not like it any more than Egion, but Ahriman had told her it was the only way, and she believed
him.

  He won’t destroy us, she thought. He promised me.

  ‘Egion, my friend, you must. I have told Master Ahriman that we will go where he needs, and I cannot swim the Great Ocean without you.’

  ‘I have had dreams, mistress. Sometimes when I wake I think my dreams have followed me. Sometimes I think they are here with me, standing where I cannot see.’ His voice stopped and for a moment Carmenta felt his fear bleed over the link; it felt warm, like an overheating machine. ‘I don’t want to go further into the Eye. It’s wrong, mistress. Can’t you feel it? None of us should go any further.’ He was quiet for a long minute, and when his voice returned it sounded as if he were talking to himself as much as to her. ‘It’s thinner here. Reality is like gauze. I can see the stars when we are in the warp, and I see the warp even when I close my eyes now. I see it when I dream.’

  Carmenta paused. She had no idea what Egion was talking about. In the Titan Child’s embrace she only felt the raw surge of power and the pulse of systems.

  The dreams of the living are not those of machines, she thought.

  ‘You must do this, Egion. You must do this for me.’

  A pulse of fatigue and fear shook the link, but after a moment he replied in a weak voice.

  ‘As you command, mistress.’

  Six hours later the Titan Child slid into the warp. Its engines and Geller fields filled Carmenta’s mind as they drew almost all the power from her reactors. She shut down her links one by one until the slow, patient roar of her ship was the only sound in her head. It sounded comforting.

  The last thing Carmenta heard before she cut the direct link to Egion was the Navigator muttering to himself.

  ‘Like fire,’ said the Navigator. ‘Like a million candles.’

  VII

  Oracle

  ‘It is beautiful,’ said Carmenta, her voice echoing from speakers high in the roof of the Titan Child’s bridge. Astraeos turned to look at the tangled lump of cables hanging above the command dais. He could see the tech-witch’s hand, limp and unmoving amongst the oiled metal coils. He wondered if she had meant to speak out loud. Sometimes he wondered whether she was entirely aware of what she did. He frowned. The bundle of cables twitched as he looked at it, as if she had sensed his gaze and flinched away. He turned and looked back at the bank of pict screens that formed a pillar which rose to the arched roof high above.

  Images of space flowed across the screens, showing them all what Ahriman had led them to. Astraeos saw a sun; bright blue, it burned at the system’s heart with a cold radiance. Curtains of pale gas filled the void. They folded and shifted as the Titan Child cut through them. Occasionally Astraeos thought he saw the outline of a watching face or figure, then the angle or flow of light would change and it would vanish. Static bloomed in the image from his augmetic eye. His skin was prickling. Tinnitus rang in his ears, rising and fading. They were deeper inside the Eye of Terror than he had ever been before. He felt as if something were crawling under his skin, seeping into his blood and thoughts. Had it always been like this, even on the Eye’s edge? Had he become dead to the warp’s touch?

  He realised that someone had spoken, and turned sharply. Ahriman stood behind him gazing at the screens, a frown making ridges on his smooth forehead.

  ‘What?’ he said. The ringing in his ears rose in pitch. Ahriman looked at him.

  +Look,+ Ahriman’s thought spoke inside Astraeos’s skull. He flinched at the telepathic intrusion, and then followed Ahriman’s gaze as he turned to look at one of the largest screens. A planet loomed out of the spills of gas. Astraeos did not know how he had not seen it before. It was massive, its surface flowing with spirals of ochre yellow and dark red. He could see other planets looming close beyond it, bloated spheres in the mist. They were far too close together for them to be in stable orbits. The planet was getting larger and larger, and for a second he was not sure if it was swelling, or if they were moving closer.

  We should not be moving that fast. He felt Ahriman chuckle in his thoughts, and slammed his mind shut with a snarl of will.

  ‘My apologies,’ said Ahriman. He turned and looked to Carmenta’s nest. ‘The moon, mistress. Bring us to a dead stop within shuttle range.’ Astraeos saw it then, a black sphere hanging above the yellow and red swirled surface of the planet, a lone moon orbiting its parent. He saw light glint where it touched the moon’s surface.

  He stared at it.

  He would go to it, he must go to it, he knew he must, as if the ringing within his ears were suddenly a voice, just on the edge of hearing, calling for him to come and see. Ahriman turned to leave the bridge and Astraeos moved to follow. Ahriman stopped and looked at the Librarian.

  ‘I need no bodyguard for this, Astraeos. I will go alone. No harm will come to me.’ Astraeos glanced at the crowded planets and the billows of gas. For a second he saw an eye, larger than a gas giant, the black moon forming its pupil. Then he shuddered and it was gone.

  ‘How can you be sure?’ he asked, but Ahriman gave no answer.

  The shuttle settled onto the cavern floor in a whirl of venting gas. It was a small, blunt-winged and box-sided vehicle, its grey fuselage chipped and streaked with rust. In the small crew compartment Ahriman heard the servitor pilot blurt a string of code, and felt the vehicle frame shake as the seals unlocked and the rear hatch descended to reveal the gas-fogged world beyond. He stepped out. A dim blue light shone from within the fog. Atmosphere safety runes pulsed green for a second, blinked out, and then returned in unresolved amber.

  The cavern floor was black and as smooth as polished glass. He could see reflections slide across it as he moved forwards. The whole moon was a black crystal orb hanging in space, its surface smooth and unbroken except for a kilometre-wide circular opening. The shuttle had descended into that opening, and had kept descending for over an hour. At least it had seemed an hour to Ahriman. He was not naive enough to believe that such things as time were absolute here.

  He began to walk, his footsteps clicking on the black crystal. After a few moments the fog swallowed the shuttle behind him. Other shapes appeared in the thin light. He saw walls of the same black glass as the surface he walked on. White stone statues appeared from the fog. Some had their arms raised as if in greeting, others looked terrified. One appeared to be weeping. Carved images of eyes looked back at him, and he thought their stare followed him. The flow of the warp was so strong that he was not sure what he was seeing with his eyes, and what with his mind.

  I am a pilgrim, he realised. As the ancients ascended the steps of Parnassus, so I come here hoping for a revelation.

  ‘History is the turning of a circle’, Magnus the Red had once said. ‘Nothing dies, not truly. The symbols of old change and are reborn, and the new paths turn out to be already well worn by time.’

  After a while Ahriman realised that he must have passed into a tunnel. When he glimpsed walls they seemed closer and curved up to some point lost in the fog. He was also not alone.

  He saw the first of them as he looked up into a break in the fog. The figure was walking on the ceiling. It was spindle-limbed, its legs back-jointed like those of a bird. Half-formed quills covered the skin visible between the plates of its sapphire armour. It carried a halberd, the blade polished to a silver edge.

  Ahriman felt his hand go to the hilt of his sword without thinking. The creature stopped and bent its head back to look at him. Clusters of blue and yellow eyes glittered across its face. It did not move, and after a second he took his hand from his sword and walked on. He saw others: tall creatures with helms like long-beaked birds, hunched figures swathed in yellow robes, squat things in silver scale armour with many arms. Some followed him, trailing him through the mist, walking on the walls, or floor, or ceiling as they pleased. None approached him, nor spoke a word. He walked on for what felt like days, never knowing if he was closer to his goal. All the while the winds of the warp blew over him, carrying a taste of dry sand and lightning.

  At last, when h
e had wondered if he was walking an eternal circle, he took a step and the fog vanished. He blinked. He stood at the base of a spherical chamber that could have swallowed a battle Titan. The light was stark and bright, but had no source and seemed to come from every angle. The black walls were featureless and mirror-smooth but reflected nothing. He could see no doors and when he turned there was no sign of how he had entered. The warp was utterly calm. That more than anything sent his hand back to his sword.

  +There is no need for that.+ The voice filled Ahriman’s mind. He could feel the soothing notes in the sending, the surety, and amusement. Ahriman kept his hand on his sword.

  +I come for answers.+ A wall of sound hit him, shaking his flesh inside his armour. He heard his own voice repeating his words in fading snatches.

  ‘Answers to questions…’

  ‘To questions…

  ‘Questions….

  +Of course,+ said the voice in his head. There was something behind him, not a presence but an absence in his mind, like a shadow cast by something he could not see. He turned, his sword in his hand, fire flaring from the sigils worked into its blade. The light of it shone out, reflecting off the black mirror walls.

  The sword burned in his grip, pain spiralling from his hand into his mind. He screamed and dropped the hilt. +I said there was no need for that,+ said the oracle.

  ‘I don’t like the look of that,’ said Thidias. Astraeos followed his brother’s gaze to the images of the pict screen. Both Thidias and Kadin had joined him on the bridge while they waited for Ahriman’s return from the black moon.

  ‘No,’ agreed Kadin. ‘That looks less than positive.’

  Astraeos frowned at the screens. The clouds of gas that filled the void had thickened and darkened, their colour shifting from pale blue to a cloudy green. He looked away. His head had been aching since they had arrived at whatever this place was. Looking at the screen just made the pain behind his eyes worse.