The Unforgiven

by Gav Thorpe

  The Supreme Grand Master looked each of his lieutenants squarely in the eye, his jaw set.

  ‘We will not make the mistakes of the past. There will be no in fighting, no personal agendas and no cross purposes. My will, my word, is absolute and any that choose to think otherwise will be held instantly accountable.’ He took a deep breath, his point made. When the Supreme Grand Master continued, his voice dropped to a determined whisper. ‘The future of the Chapter, of all the Unforgiven, has been placed in our hands and we shall not squander it.’

  Dark Prophecies

  Watching the others leave, Azrael understood their bewilderment and frustration. He had related everything he had learned about Cypher from the ledgers of the Chapter Masters, and it was woefully little. The position of Lord Cypher had been shrouded in mystery throughout the history of the Order, and such secrecy had endured for the warrior bearing the title at the fall of Caliban. Despite clear opportunities to subject Cypher to excruciation at the hands of the Interrogators, Azrael’s predecessors had singularly failed to do so, unless some record was kept in one of the other hidden libraries he had spoken of.

  Of the previous seven occasions of Cypher’s incarceration, four had resulted from the rebel presenting himself to his captors. The three remaining circumstances were vague, the reports of dubious authenticity, so that Azrael suspected the encounters had been arranged by Cypher but the chronicler was reluctant to admit as much.

  He wondered how he would write this latest entry into this particular tale.

  Similarly, the reports were unclear on the manner of his departure. Escape from the Rock was impossible, yet Cypher had found freedom seven times before. Azrael had instituted new security regimes and guard doctrine as soon as he had learned from Sammael of the arch-renegade’s capture, but he feared it was not enough. Earlier Chapter Masters must have tried similar strategies, without success.

  The only other connecting theme between the encounters was their timing. Every appearance of Cypher happened just before a pivotal moment in the Chapter’s history – the eve of a great victory or defeat.

  There were many missing elements of these accounts too. Supreme Grand Master Cariontis had not disclosed why he had despatched the entirety of the Third and Fourth Companies to Trangenia, where they had been wiped out at Clevinger’s Pass by unknown assailants. Equally, Master Dameus shared nothing of the instinct that had guided him to move the Rock to the Akartier System where it met with several of the Successors to intercept a sizeable traitor legionary force breaking out of the Eye of Terror. Again and again, calamity and triumph were presaged by Cypher’s arrival.

  Azrael had to know which it was this time. There was only one source that could tell him.

  He turned around and saw that the Watchers had anticipated his desire. The wall behind him was broken by a slender arch, beyond which the Deep Stair led into the bowels of the Rock. Half of the creatures had already descended, the rest remaining as escort to the Supreme Grand Master. They held small lamps that glowed with amber light, but still nothing could be seen of their faces. All that showed of them were hands, mostly hidden by the voluminous sleeves of their robes, gloved in a material so black it might have been woven from the shadows in the cosmic depths between stars.

  Not for the first time, Azrael wanted to know what was beneath the hoods. Even as the thought entered his mind, he felt he was being observed, the presence of the Watchers becoming suddenly obtrusive and judgemental.

  It was always there, that last secret, a subtext in every memoir and chronicle he had studied. The Watchers in the Dark had been part of Caliban, part of the Order, but there was nothing to suggest that they were anything other than true to the Lion. Like those that had borne his title before, Azrael simply had to accept the Watchers as what they were – guardians of an older mystery he would never unveil.

  ‘Your secret is safe,’ he told them, not even sure they could hear or understand him. Communication was more primal, a shared instinct or desire, a subtle entwining of thoughts.

  The Watchers in the Dark were shadows again, as unheeded as the material of the Rock itself. Azrael started towards the revealed stairs and remembered the first time he had descended them.

  The dream returned. Seven days had passed since the mantle of Supreme Grand Master had passed to Azrael. Seven nights had come and gone, each bringing with them the same nightmarish apparition.

  The tower stood on a hill, broken, windows empty, battlements crumbled.

  A flash of lightning, highlighting a face in the lowest slit, hands clasping bars. A plaintive howl split the night air, from no wolf or animal, unleashed from a human throat.

  The sky reddened, with flame not a new dawn. An inferno rose up from the ground, its sound the cackle of laughter, the movement of the bright fire like grasping fingers. It surrounded the tower, throwing ruddy light onto ancient stones.

  The moans and cries of the man in the tower were piercing, his agony as the flames consumed him more visceral than any experience Azrael felt in waking. In the shrieks he felt his own body burning, his flesh stripped away, soul bared to the licking flames.

  He was in the tower, he realised. He must rescue himself.

  For the seventh time, Azrael awoke on the cot. The chambers of the Supreme Grand Master seemed strange, still new and awkward. He ran a hand over his chest, wiping away waxy sweat. His fingers followed the ridges and whorls and holes of battle scars, feeling the rigid surface of the black carapace beneath a layer of leathery skin and fat.

  By the doorway, a Watcher in the Dark stood, regarding him silently, the glow of red eyes sharp inside its hood. It turned away and walked into the outer room.

  This time Azrael followed, finally understanding the summons of the dream.

  The Watcher waited patiently as Azrael pulled on his bone-white robe and belted it tight. Symbolic and real keys clattered together, along with the talismans of lamps and hourglasses, amulets of swords and angels’ wings. Centuries of service rendered into symbols with hidden meanings.

  Barefooted he padded after the diminutive creature. The chamber door swung wide at his approach, though he voiced no command nor bade the locks to open.

  I am still in the dream, he decided.

  The sense of unreality continued as he stepped out into the corridor. It was dark. Not just shadowed, but utterly black, save for the glitter of bright eyes lining the passage to his left. The row of light points headed towards the Great Library.

  His escort produced a torch from somewhere. It burned with white flame, but its illumination did not reach the lines of creatures flanking Azrael’s path, creating a deeper darkness in which they hid.

  The Watcher in the Dark led him on, until they came to the huge double doors of the Great Library. Azrael moved towards the portal but found it barred against him, the Watchers refusing to part ranks. Something – not a sound but some other instinct, a twitch on the nape of his neck – caused him to turn.

  In the wall, where he knew there was bare dressed stone, an archway had appeared. The keystone was moulded with the winged sword symbol, its blade broken. The sigil of the Deathwing, Azrael knew. But in this context he realised that it was not for the Deathwing that the icon had been created – the First Company merely borrowed it from a far older time.

  Steps led down into the darkness, and into that gloom the Watcher disappeared.

  Hesitantly, he followed, just about keeping the dim flicker of the Watcher’s brand in view.

  The steps continued for some time and he passed doors and archways, but his guide continued straight down. He would explore these hidden depths given time, but he knew that his present destination lay at the bottom of the stair.

  He reached that point and found the Watcher waiting for him. There were lit torches in sconces on the walls, lighting the near end of a rectangular chamber no more than ten metres wide but disappearing into da
rkness thirty metres away. Azrael proceeded down the hall and more brands burst into life to either side, lighting his path by a few metres at a time.

  Iron doors, riveted and reinforced, locked with heavy bars, lined the hall. Azrael heard only the sound of his steps and felt only the beating of his twin hearts. He knew these cells were empty.

  The torches brought him to the last cell, set into the end of the hall. There was no door here, no bars. A shimmer of energy three metres by three metres obscured whatever was within, but Azrael could make out the outline of a man, arms upraised as if pleading with unknown gods.

  He realised that the Watchers in the Dark had joined him, clustered around him in a semicircle, as though stopping him from retreating from that cell.

  The figure inside was unmoving and it occurred to Azrael that he was looking into a stasis field. He could not hear the slightest buzz of power, though, and he wondered if the field was physical in origin at all.

  The field dimmed and cleared, revealing the cell’s occupant.

  He was tall and broad, for a human, though not as large as a Space Marine. He wore a ragged kilt of stiff leather, revealing that he had undergone extensive augmentation and alteration. Azrael could clearly see the ridged tubes and reinforcements around muscles and bones. The man’s skin had a slightly jaundiced cast to it, evidence of extensive stimulants and steroidal boosters – piping inlaid between his shoulder blades and sprouting from the small of his back paid testament to surgically implanted reservoirs for these substances.

  The prisoner had his back to Azrael but his face was in profile. Noble of bearing, but contorted in a pained expression, eyes cast up to the heavens in despair. The glitter of cybernetics lay in his eyes and there were auto-sense-like receivers inserted into the back of his ears.

  The field snapped off.

  ‘…and rightful restitution shall be made! I beseech you, heed my cries, master!’

  The man’s lament faltered away, his head cocking to one side as he turned towards Azrael.

  ‘Ah.’ The prisoner looked surprised. ‘A new one.’

  ‘A new what?’ demanded Azrael.

  ‘A new Lord of Aldurukh, of course. What did they call you? Thy name?’

  ‘Azrael,’ he replied without thinking.

  A smile twisted the man’s lips, but there was little humour in his eyes. He flinched suddenly, at some thought or sight unknown to Azrael. The prisoner started to whisper, in no tongue that the Supreme Grand Master recognised.

  ‘What did you do with the Lion?’ the man suddenly demanded, face contorting into a feral snarl.

  ‘The Lion is dead,’ Azrael said.

  ‘Of course.’ The captive slumped, shaking his head. His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘That’s what they want thee to think. But he hears my pleas, I know it.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Azrael demanded.

  ‘Thou know not?’ The prisoner looked crestfallen at this revelation. ‘Some of the others realised straight away. I am disappointed. Your angels gave me many titles. Your predecessors spat many epithets in my face, but my name is Luther.’

  That had been the first time, but not the last.

  Without the Watchers to open the path, Azrael descended by a slightly different route, coming to a huge iron gate sealed with a silver lock in the dressed stone wall beside it. He unsheathed the Sword of Secrets and pushed the blade into the locking mechanism. There was a sensation of warmth from the weapon and the lock opened with a clatter of hidden gears and bars. He withdrew the sword and the gate swung open onto the corridor that led to the abandoned cell block.

  Azrael came to that cell again, a plain wooden chair set facing the haze of the stasis field. A cluster of Watchers waited in the shadows. Inside, Luther was hunched forward on the bench at the side of the cell, his hands making fists in his lap. What could be seen of his face was a mask of anguish, teeth bared, droplets of spittle from his lips suspended in mid-fall.

  Azrael sat down, and as if this was an instruction the stasis field flickered and died.

  ‘…burning twin moons of life and death, sundering from the world of men…’ Luther’s rant died away as he realised time had moved on. He sat up and looked at Azrael with uncomprehending eyes.

  ‘Welcome back,’ said Azrael. ‘Four hundred and thirty-eight days have passed for me since we last spoke. Or thereabouts. Warp travel makes it hard to keep track of precise dates.’

  The Lord of the Dark Angels had discovered that it helped Luther settle if he was given some sense of the passage of time. From the Dark Oracle’s viewpoint his life had become a stuttering existence of minutes at a time, each period of activity no more than an hour, eked out over ten millennia. Context made the architect of the Calibanite rebellion more coherent. For a short time, at least.

  Azrael had read the earliest records of the Dark Prophecies, and it was clear that Luther had never been sane, not from the time he surrendered to the forces of the Lion and was placed in the stasis cell. Even so, his grasp on reality had slipped more and more with each passing century. Azrael considered himself fortunate if he gleaned four or five sentences of cogent thought from his captive.

  ‘The visions,’ said Luther. His eyes filled with intelligence and recognition. His voice was deep, assured, authoritative. It was the sort of voice Azrael could see himself obeying. The voice of a leader.

  The Dark Oracle was a psyker of prodigious talent, though he had never possessed such abilities in the service of the Lion. A gift from the Chaos powers, the old chronicles proposed, in reward for heretical loyalty. Despite his mental puissance, he had never once used his abilities in aggression against his captors.

  ‘What about the visions?’ the Supreme Grand Master asked quietly, leaning forward, arms resting on his knees.

  ‘They break mine intellect, Azrael. I sensed the query in thy thoughts. The answer is yea, the visions take a toll upon my mind.’

  ‘You seem lucid enough now.’

  ‘A serpentine piece of string to which I cling, how depressing. It will slip from my fingers soon.’

  ‘You already know why I am here. What can you tell me about Cypher?’

  ‘My Lord Cypher? He is dead. Slain by the hand of the Houndlord who bore my master’s blade.’

  ‘You know that is not true. Cypher was saved, as were the other Fallen. What does it mean? Why has he come here?’

  ‘My Lord Cypher returns to me?’ A look of hope passed across the Dark Oracle’s face, but was swiftly replaced by a mask of paranoia. ‘My companion in treachery, the goad and the hand of my darkest will. He knows that I must confess. But he cannot hear it. Only the Lion can give mine absolution! Only the Lion can name my penance!’

  Luther’s words devolved into growling and muttering, a mix of archaic Imperial Gothic, High Gothic and ancient Calibanese. Azrael would usually wait for the fits to pass but anxiety forced him to be hasty. Every minute Cypher was in custody was time that the Chapter could be moving towards a catastrophe.

  ‘Why has Cypher come here? Why now?’ Azrael demanded, standing up. ‘What does Cypher want?’

  Luther fell silent and stood up as well. Though Azrael knew for a fact that the heretic was not even as tall as a Space Marine, at that instant the Dark Oracle seemed to fill his cell. The shadows crowded close about Luther, the lamps in the outer chamber guttering. Azrael sensed agitation from the Watchers in the Dark and realised that several more had appeared.

  In the gloom, Luther’s eyes were silver points, like distant stars.

  ‘The fall of Caliban approaches!’ the Dark Oracle declared. ‘The sky will burn and the ground will tremble and a world will die!’

  ‘That is an event ten thousand years past,’ said Azrael. It was not uncommon for the Dark Oracle to lament his actions of the rebellion. Sometimes this yielded valuable information, but the digression was unwelcome now. ‘Caliban broke a
hundred centuries ago. Cypher. Tell me about Cypher.’

  ‘The herald sounds the clarion. The dark heart stirs and all will be broken asunder. The past, present and future, that which was, is and will be, united again.’

  Luther’s gaze moved away from Azrael, no less piercing, but directed towards a spot on the wall, seeing something that was not smooth-cut stone.

  ‘I have wronged thee, my Lord! My transgressions are beyond the counting, my wrongs innumerable. Hear my confession, master, and release me from their torment of guilt. I demand justice, punishment for my sins, and the release of my soul! Why won’t thou heed my pleas? Thou listen but do not reply.’

  The Dark Oracle fell to his knees, sobbing.

  ‘He cares not for my lament. Hard as the stone, unfeeling. I will whisper it, and shout it, and whisper it again. I failed you, master. I failed you.’

  It was obvious that Luther would be no more use at that time. The shimmer of the stasis field returned the instant the thought occurred to Azrael, freezing Luther in a pose of obeisance and petition, hands clasped and imploring, staring at the wall as though his master was before him. Crystalline tears welled in his desperate eyes.

  ‘A madman,’ Azrael muttered, turning away. The circumstances gave a venomous edge to the Supreme Grand Master’s thoughts. ‘I hope the Lion’s shade torments you in your sleep, you traitorous dog.’

  Penance

  The penitent’s robe chafed. It was meant to. It vexed Annael as much as the harsh cloth itself, to think that he had been engineered to endure all manner of pain, to survive wounds that would slay lesser mortals, and yet a simple linen tabard could irritate him so thoroughly.