by Gav Thorpe
‘What does Typhus want with the Rock?’ Azrael demanded. He looked first at Cypher and then at the gold-flecked globe. ‘Is it you he comes after, daemon?’
‘I am not a daemon,’ the servitor mouthpiece replied, almost petulant. ‘I am far greater than some mindless facet of an incomprehensible entity. If you wish to see a daemon, cast your eye out to that abomination close at hand. This physical vessel is incapable of pronouncing its name, but it has been known by many titles by the generations of humans that have worshipped it. The latest was the Plagueheart, in the prayers of the people of Ulthor.’
‘There are no people on Ulthor,’ said Ezekiel, no doubt remembering the reports of Belial and Sammael.
‘They were there,’ Cypher replied. ‘Your warriors did not recognise them. I have been to Ulthor also and saw them. Like shadows enslaved to the will of the Plagueheart. Souls damned to eternal servitude.’
‘So this is a plot by the followers of the Lord of Decay?’ the Librarian continued. Azrael was uncomfortable referring to the Chaos Powers even by euphemism and was content to let his companion deal with the discussion. ‘Methelas was obviously corrupted. Typhus and the Plagueheart are conspiring to some advantage of their necrotic master.’
‘They believe they are,’ croaked Tuchulcha’s flesh puppet. There was a dry cough that might have been a laugh.
‘I do not expect this… creature to tell me the truth or a straight answer,’ said Azrael, glaring at Cypher, ‘but what do you have to say on the matter?’
‘You have been lured into a trap that has waited three thousand years to be sprung,’ Cypher replied. ‘I thought it impossible but the pieces of a key have been brought together. I did not realise until now what Tuchulcha is. It is the bridge between the Plagueheart and the Consumer.’
‘Your words make no sense. Speak plainly,’ demanded Azrael.
Cypher frowned, insulted, and shook his head disparagingly.
‘It is not difficult to understand.’ The renegade looked at Ezekiel. ‘Perhaps you are more accustomed to discussions of this nature. This artefact, creature, call it what you will, was made to create pathways through the warp.’
‘As we have witnessed,’ said Azrael, annoyed at Cypher’s dismissive tone. ‘It brought us here swiftly and transitioned the whole fleet into the central system.’
‘I am so glad you appreciated my work,’ said Tuchulcha.
‘But the warp does not just ignore the physical properties of space, it bends time.’ There was a look of triumph on Cypher’s face, whether from realisation or some deeper motive Azrael could not tell.
‘A device that burrows through time,’ said Ezekiel. His eye widened with recognition. ‘Brought to Caliban!’
It took several seconds for Azrael to follow the Librarian’s line of thought. When he had come to the same place in reasoning, the notion staggered him.
‘Tuchulcha said we could save Caliban, save the Lion. We can send back a message, to warn him of the treachery?’ He resisted the urge to grab the decrepit servitor and shake it until Tuchulcha answered. ‘We can stop the schism?’
The thought silenced all present, save for Tuchulcha, who chuckled drily through its half-mechanical avatar. The corpse-puppet turned jerkily towards Cypher.
‘Would that make you happy?’ it asked.
‘Wait.’ Azrael thought about what Tuchulcha had said, and tried to figure how it was relevant to the plot that had brought the Dark Angels to Caliban. He felt pressurised by events to act and deliberately took some time to appraise the situation from a position of detached calm. ‘Why would Astelan want to save the Lion?’
‘He would not,’ said Cypher. ‘The Terran renegade had nothing but hate for our primarch.’
‘Indeed. What would be Astelan’s greatest revenge against the Lion?’ Azrael did not wait for an answer. ‘To steal his Legion from him.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Ezekiel.
‘What if instead of us going back to warn the Lion of what was happening, Astelan and his allies went back ten thousand years and saved the Fallen from his retribution?’
‘By bringing them here, to the present…’ suggested Ezekiel.
‘Tharsis was to be the home world for the renegade Dark Angels?’ Cypher looked aghast at the suggestion, but soon he accepted the possibility. ‘The recruits, the gene-seed… More than thirty thousand renegade Dark Angels. He was founding a new Legion, but not from scratch.’
Azrael suddenly recognised the warning that Luther had been trying to give him. The Dark Oracle had not been spouting madness about Cypher, or the Lion, but about Astelan.
‘We have to stop him,’ said Azrael. He looked at his two companions in turn. ‘But I do not know how.’
‘I do,’ replied Cypher, his expression grim. ‘But you will not like it.’
‘I have to release you?’ Azrael said. He had been wondering when Cypher’s assertion that the Supreme Grand Master would let him go would bear fruit. ‘Is this what you were waiting for?’
‘There is something, was something, on Caliban. A dark core, an infectious madness in the heart of the world. It gave rise to the Nephilim and great beasts.’
‘A Chaos taint?’ said Ezekiel. ‘Caliban was corrupted?’
Tuchulcha’s living dummy laughed again, hands slapping limply together in a parody of clapping.
‘They made us, the one split into three,’ the puppet cackled. ‘The essence of Chaos, refined and shaped. They thought they could tame the warp, use me to dig their tunnels and secret ways hidden from the eyes of the Powers That Rule. They did not know that they made something else. Something far grander.’
‘Who? Who made you?’ Azrael demanded.
‘At the dawn of the galaxy, so far removed from humans they might as well be gods. But even they could not tame the warp, only corral it for moments at a time. But that which creates also devours, and I am the foundation of all that was, is and will be. I am the lens, the bridge, the doorway.’
Azrael pulled his pistol and aimed it at Tuchulcha.
‘If you are the bridge, we only have to destroy you and the threat is over.’
‘Your pistol will have no effect,’ said Cypher. He looked as though he might lunge for the weapon, but held himself in check. ‘Besides, even if you had the means to destroy this thing, you cannot.’
‘Why not?’ said Azrael, turning the pistol on his captive.
The vox buzzed and Nakir’s voice interrupted proceedings.
‘Supreme Grand Master, the Terminus Est has taken up station fifty thousand kilometres away, advance halted. The warp-comet has also ceased its attack. The rift is growing in power, doubling intensity every ninety seconds. What are your commands?’
Azrael was caught in two minds, his pistol veering between Cypher and Tuchulcha as his mind lurched from one problem to the next. He forced himself to analyse the situation as best as he could.
‘Call the fleet to create a fresh cordon around our current position. All warriors on all stations prepare for void transport. All First Companies to muster at the Rock if possible. Tell the Master of the Forge to make ready to power up our full teleport capabilities.’ Azrael cut the vox and turned on Cypher. ‘Tell me why I should not destroy the sphere?’
‘It exists across the entirety of its timeline. It is divorced from the normal turn of temporal matters. If you destroy it now, you will destroy it in the past also. It will never have been.’
‘So?’
‘In short, the Emperor will lose the war against Horus. The Lion used Tuchulcha to come to the aid of Guilliman in the Eastern Fringe, and in doing so forced Horus into attacking Terra before the Ultramarines could arrive. Without Tuchulcha, Guilliman and his allies would be slowly destroyed, cut off from Terra by the ruinstorm of the Word Bearers. Horus would attack at full strength and the Emperor would fail.’
‘You cannot know that,’ said Azrael, not sure he understood all of what Cypher had said. More convincing though was the memory of the vision from Luther returning to haunt him, of an empire burning, a Lion dying in the flames.
‘Can we risk it?’ said Ezekiel. ‘Also, if this thing is the doorway back to the past, if we destroy it then we cannot use it to warn the Lion.’
Azrael shook his head, clearing away the distracting thoughts to focus on a single issue.
‘We cannot allow Astelan to succeed. Whatever that takes.’
‘Including allowing Horus to rule?’ said Cypher. There was an intrigued look in his eye rather than horror at such a suggestion.
‘Except that.’
‘There is another way,’ said Cypher. ‘As I said. The taint of Caliban, the canker at its heart, must be close at hand. That is why the Terminus Est and Plagueheart are not attacking. The three elements of the ritual are within range of each other.’
‘Ritual?’ said Ezekiel. ‘What do you know, that you have not told us?’
‘I swear by the Emperor that this is all I know,’ said Cypher. ‘From Tuchulcha itself. One divided into three. It is the bridge, between the Plagueheart and whatever dwells in the core of Caliban. It is reuniting, becoming one again, tearing open reality to conjoin the material and immaterial as it was designed to do.’
‘What happens then? It destroys us?’
‘I can stop it. We can stop it.’ Cypher implored Azrael with his hands. ‘I know the beast of Caliban, I can kill it. If we break one part of the triumvirate the other two will fail.’
‘And this is where I give you your freedom?’
‘Send me with guards, I do not argue against that. Just return my armour and sword and give me a gunship. By my honour, I will return.’
Azrael looked at Ezekiel and then the renegade. He clenched and unclenched his fists, knowing that he was being forced into making a decision but powerless to avoid whatever fate was awaiting him. To simply not act would hand victory to his enemies.
‘I will not pin the future of the Chapter, of the Imperium, on the worthless oath of a renegade on a dubious mission.’ Cypher seemed as though he might argue but a look from the Supreme Grand Master silenced the protest before it took shape. ‘You will be released, but I will send Tybalain and his Black Knights to escort you. The enemy will intervene if they have any notion of what you are attempting, so we must give them reason to occupy themselves elsewhere. And, if the Emperor’s spirit favours us, we might even vanquish the enemy in the act. The rest of the Unforgiven will attack the problem from the opposite end. We will seize the Terminus Est and kill Typhus, and Astelan if he is there.’
Honour Repaid
Incoming projectile warnings blared at the back of Telemenus’s mind, but he was too preoccupied to take evasive measures. The rocket struck the left side of his sarcophagus, leaving a half-metre jagged crack in the ceramite shielding. Ignoring the damage indicators, the Dreadnought pilot slid his targeter onto the bulky form of a Rhino transport accelerating across the broken ground towards the gate.
Twin beams of light stabbed from his lascannons, slicing into the transport’s left-hand track housing. Glittering metal spun into the air as links shredded against the twisted hull, throwing the vehicle into a wild skid. He unleashed a flurry of krak missiles as traitor legionaries piled from the hatches, the armour-piercing warheads slamming into their corroded and battered plate.
Eight surviving Terminators were valiantly holding to his left, their bone-white armour lit by the flare of cyclone rocket launchers and the muzzle flash of assault cannons and storm bolters. There were a handful of other battle-brothers to the right – squad remnants from the starship crash that had been forced south rather than back to the Tower of Angels.
Widening the scope of his appraisal, whilst sending another shaft of laser energy punching through the armour of a traitor, he saw that his brothers did not fare well at the eastern gate. The Death Guard were mounting assaults from three directions.
‘We cannot remain here,’ he told Caulderain, the remaining sergeant at hand. ‘Master Belial requires our assistance.’
Caulderain did not reply straight away, his sword lashing out to meet the neck of a traitor as the Space Marine pulled himself towards the Terminators, dragging his stained armour over a chunk of broken masonry, knife and bolt pistol at the ready. There were others in the debris no more than ten metres from the line, their bolters spitting a constant hail of fire.
‘If Belial needs our assistance, he will call for it,’ the sergeant replied, kicking away the headless corpse. He fired his storm bolter. ‘We cannot abandon our position.’
‘The eastern line must hold or we all shall be lost,’ insisted Telemenus. He let loose a flurry of missiles – he had only six remaining – and turned his huge body eastward. ‘Our position is no longer tenable, we must relocate.’
He twisted the huge torso of his shell so that he could continue to fire at the Plague Marines, even as his legs trundled towards Belial and his beleaguered warriors. Caulderain followed, the Terminators covering their retreat with a heavy flamer blast and a salvo from the remaining cyclone launcher. Through the mist, the other battle-brothers hurried past, their long strides carrying them quickly across the ruined ground.
They reached a semi-intact bastion a few hundred metres from Belial’s defensive cordon. The battle-brothers quickly took up firing positions in the ruins while Telemenus and the other Deathwing continued on. Seconds later the blast of a plasma cannon broke the fog as the Dark Angels gave the pursuing Death Guard a hot welcome.
The unnatural smog of the Death Guard played tricks on Telemenus’s augurs, but he could sense the bulky Land Raiders forming a line a few hundred metres ahead, and the gloom was lit with constant flashes of plasma and the strobing of intense storm bolter fire.
Something as large as him stalked through the mist, one arm a crackling, swaying flail of barbed blades, the other mounting linked heavy bolters. The instant he detected the enemy Dreadnought, Telemenus was raising his weapons. He waited until both aiming reticules were centred on the target and opened fire, sending a krak missile flying a couple of seconds before unleashing the beams of his lascannons.
The missile struck the housing protecting the central sarcophagus, shattering the outer plates. An instant later the lascannon hit the same spot, punching straight through with a ruby shaft. The Dreadnought stumbled and toppled sideways, heavy bolter rounds detonating in its ammunition pods.
Another dozen metres on, Telemenus came upon the Grand Master and his Knights. Another Dreadnought loomed above the Deathwing commander and his companions, lashing out with its flail. The Terminators’ locked shields sent out a storm of cerulean sparks with every blow. The Death Guard machine’s autocannon chattered constantly, blazing shell after shell into the shieldwall, but it found no weakness.
A third Dreadnought was trying to circumvent the Knights’ solid barrier, but there were other Terminators moving to intercept. He recognised the black livery of the Consecrators. Nakir’s guard had hung up their storm bolters and advanced with greatswords, four blades shining like slivers of sapphire in the jade fog. Their sergeant led the way with power sword and shield, driving into the blasts of plasma erupting from the Dreadnought’s cannon, risking himself to ensure his warriors reached their foe.
The Dreadnought swung a censer-like morningstar in a whirling arc towards the Terminators. It smashed into the closest, sending him reeling, but the others closed in, their greatswords rising and falling with lethal precision. The morningstar’s chain was severed and the plasma cannon exploded as a shining blade thrust into its containment chamber, gouting fire over the Dreadnought and its assailants.
Telemenus opened fire on the Plague Marines surging up behind the Dreadnought assault, trusting that Belial and the Deathwing Knights would overpower the last of the war engines. With h
im Caulderain and the other Terminators scourged a wound in the packed mass of advancing Death Guard, pitted armour shattering, their encrusted war-plate and desensitised flesh no match for the raw firepower of the Deathwing.
After a few minutes of frenetic fighting, during which Telemenus had to use his lascannon as a lethal club on two occasions and stamp a Death Guard to a pulp, the pressure finally eased. The Dark Angels Dreadnought moved to stand close to Belial, heavy weapons watching over his Grand Master as the rest of the Deathwing regrouped.
‘I think we have broken the impetus of the attack, brother-captain,’ said Telemenus.
‘I think you are overly optimistic, Brother-Dreadnought,’ the Grand Master replied. He pointed his sword to the sky. ‘They were simply keeping us occupied while other matters took their course.’
Telemenus directed his surveyors skyward, but could make no sense of the jumbled signals that came back. The whirl of contradictory returns reminded him of the insanity that had overwhelmed the sensorium when they had teleported on Ulthor. He cut out all but the basic visual suite of inputs and looked at the sky with the closest he had to normal eyes.
The Gorgon’s Aegis had dimmed, but of the stars beyond nothing could be seen. The heavens were tearing apart, a three-way rip erupting across the ruins of Caliban. It was as though the star system was being pulled, the fabric of the material universe stretching and then shredding from the titanic pressures.
The wound appeared to be caused by three objects – the Terminus Est, the doom-star, and the Rock itself. As it opened wider, Telemenus saw another world silhouetted against the system’s star. Just the edge, highlighted by dawn or dusk, it was impossible to say. In orbit over the world were hundreds of ships, a forest of glittering engines that obscured the field of stars.
The scene was impossibly close, as though he was in orbit with the ships, although at the same time he knew that a universe divided them.
