‘It will be both of them,’ she said out loud. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘Yes.’
She turned. The Benefactor stood behind her, leaning on his sceptre. She had smelled him coming. He stank of chemicals, worse than normal. Strange stains, not blood but something worse, marked his fleshy coat and battleplate. ‘Will you resist, child? Or will you let them kill you?’ His tone was flat. Curious, but unconcerned. She smiled. He trusted her to make her own decision. The Benefactor had always abided by the decisions of his New Men, whether he approved of them or not.
‘I have not decided yet,’ she said. ‘I am glad you are safely returned. Will we be leaving this place, now?’ He had returned alone to the Vesalius several hours earlier, but had remained sequestered in his laboratorium before heading for the command deck, ignoring all attempts at communication. So relieved was she by his safe return, she had not questioned his need for privacy. Now, however, she was beginning to wonder why he had chosen to hide himself away, rather than reassuring them of his well-being.
‘Soon,’ he said. He looked tired, though his face was full and ageless. It was always unsettling to see him thus, after he had shed old flesh for new. ‘We have… guests. I am assured that they will be on their best behaviour, but assurances by themselves are worth little. Keep peace among the packs. I want as few incidents as possible, for the duration.’
She heard the warning in his voice. ‘They are… prey?’
‘Not at the moment. But one never knows what the future holds.’ He smiled thinly. ‘I want guards posted on my laboratorium, cycle by cycle. Visible and otherwise. No one is to enter without my express permission.’
‘Even Honoured Arrian?’
‘Even him. I am… conducting an experiment of some delicacy. Any interruption might prove catastrophic.’ He strode to the edge of the deck and looked down, watching the Twins at their play. The other Gland-hounds had begun to clap and howl, encouraging the combatants to more enthusiastic feats of skill. ‘They are quite impressive. They handled themselves well aboard the craftworld.’
‘So you said. Are you well, Benefactor?’ The question came unbidden to her lips.
‘As well as can be expected, my dear.’ He glanced at her. ‘Tell me, have you had any more dreams of the sort we discussed earlier?’
She frowned. ‘No.’ An odd question.
Fabius nodded. ‘Good.’ He turned away. ‘See to those matters I mentioned. I must speak with our resident diabolist.’ He paused. ‘Remember what I said, Igori – no incidents. Not unless you are provoked.’
‘And if we are?’
‘Then do as you were made to do, my child.’
Saqqara sat in meditation, his flesh bare to the stifling humidity of his quarters. His crimson battleplate stood nearby, arrayed on its rack of iron and bone, awaiting the call to service once more, his weapons hanging from it. His precious bottles of glass and clay sat around him, arranged according to the old rites. The things within them murmured incessantly, like the tides of the empyrean, washing over the rocks of his soul.
The caged Neverborn whispered to him of the horrors yet to come, and showed him what had been. These tantalising glimpses were offered up as bribes, the way a prisoner might seek to ingratiate himself to his jailer. He had long since grown used to ignoring their blandishments. It was best not to give daemons any more attention than necessary. A look, a conversation. All were cracks the Neverborn used to insinuate themselves into a psyche. Better diabolists than him had succumbed to the whispers of the warp.
But few had his purity of focus. The scope of his existence had narrowed greatly in the centuries since he’d been taken captive on Urum. Since the Manflayer had cut him open and carved monstrous secrets on his bone and muscle. Since he had become home to a thousand and one puzzles, each more fiendish than the last.
Thus far, he had solved seventy-five of them. He marshalled the internal processes of his body like a warlord, seeking out and striking at each enigma in turn. At the moment, he was circling the latest riddle woven into his flesh. Micro-ampoules, inserted into the lining of his stomach, each one containing a different mixture of chemicals, some lethal, some not. Each one was a distinct ache within him, and each could only be rendered inert by careful manipulation of his preomnor and oolitic kidney.
Biofeedback manipulation was a common enough skill among the Legions. Every Space Marine had some degree of voluntary control of their automatic bodily functions. But the Diabolists of the 17th Legion had refined the process to a high art. The body was a temple, and temples could be infiltrated or invaded. One had to be aware of every nook and cranny, every secret river and hidden passage, lest one find themselves playing host to an invasive entity. A cunning Neverborn could nestle in some out-of-the-way node for centuries, before striking out at the heart and mind of its host.
Often, Saqqara found himself wondering if his enslaver knew this. It would explain the sheer number of lethal additions the Manflayer had made to his body over the centuries. Some of them were familiar, but others were obviously experimental. He was at once a servant and a test subject. An efficient use of materials.
Erebus would approve. Efficiency was one of the thirteen virtues, along with self-reliance and ruthlessness. Saqqara glanced at his armour, with its wine-dark hue. There were currently three hundred and forty-seven approved hues for battleplate within the Legion. That number changed, depending on the whims of the Dark Council. Following those whims was considered another virtue.
He heard the sensors of his chamber chime, and the sudden hiss of displaced air. He cracked an eye. ‘We are not dead.’
‘Don’t sound so disappointed, Saqqara.’ Fabius said, as he entered the chamber. ‘Or have you at last grown tired of trying to solve my little riddles?’
‘Each successful attempt only further strengthens my faith, monster.’
Fabius nodded. ‘I’m sure.’ He fell silent. Saqqara closed his eye, and continued with his efforts to isolate and eradicate the poisons lacing his stomach. He could sense the discontent radiating from his enslaver, and he allowed himself a small, taunting smile.
After a time, he said, ‘You smell of Neverborn.’
Fabius cleared his throat. ‘It called itself the Quaestor.’
‘Ah… that one.’
‘You know it?’
‘Not personally, but I have read the Epistles of Korazin. He is an in-between thing, owing no true allegiance to any of the great powers. An impoverished noble, flitting from court to court. There are many like him in these unquiet times.’
‘Is he – is it known for lying?’
‘All daemons lie.’ Saqqara opened his eyes. ‘Unless the truth will hurt more. What did he say to you?’
‘Nothing that need concern you.’
‘Then I cannot help you.’
‘Did I ask?’
Saqqara bowed his head. ‘As you say.’
After a moment, Fabius said, ‘They are not real, you know.’
‘They are both real and not real. That is their nature. They are self-aware falsehoods, delighting in the mischief they can cause the unwary.’ Saqqara looked up. ‘That is their purpose. They are a test of our will, and our resolution.’ He smiled. ‘But you know this.’
‘I know only that I grow tired of such arrogant fictions attempting to impose their narrative over my own.’
‘The gods yet have use for you.’
‘There are no gods. No devils. Just us, and the things we draw out of the deep. Why, then, should I pay any attention to such agitations of psychic effluvia?’
Saqqara studied Fabius’ face. Youthful now, but he could see the cracks beneath the skin. The skull would surface soon enough, and the body would wither and shrink into itself. Bile by name, bile by nature. A tree watered on spite could not long flourish. ‘Is that a question, or a statement?’
‘Both,’ Fabius spat. He clenched and relaxed his hands, causing the servos in his gauntlets to whine softly. ‘Neither. I saw…’ He shook his head. ‘I would be rid of all gods, and their worshippers.’
‘Do you include yourself in that wish?’ Fabius looked at him sharply. Saqqara spread his hands. ‘Pater Mutatis – Father of All Mutants. You are a god, if only a little one. Smaller even than the Quaestor, who is worshipped on a million worlds as the Bringer of Dark Truths. But a god nonetheless to those small things that worship you. I do not approve of it, but that does not make it so.’
‘I have never demanded worship.’
‘Neither did the Corpse-Emperor on his hateful throne. And look what happened.’ Saqqara snorted. ‘How many times have we had this conversation, heretic? We both know that you do not keep me as an amusement, or as a tool, but as someone to argue with. You know that I am right, and yet you desperately hope to prove me wrong.’ He fixed Fabius with a hard eye. ‘If the Quaestor told you something, it was a truth. Not the truth, for there are as many truths as there are stars in the heavens, but a truth nonetheless. You do not believe in gods, but that does not mean that they do not believe in you.’
‘Ridiculous.’
‘They cannot ignore you, for you have sent them many offerings over these long centuries. You serve them better than some who sing their praises loudest. I have seen it with my own eyes. And heard it from the lips of those who love you best.’
Fabius froze. Saqqara laughed. ‘Oh, yes. We have spoken often in dreams, she and I, your wayward child. I have seen her, in the musky gardens of the Dark Prince, dancing in the silver light of a caged moon. She is beloved by him, and by his chosen heir…’
‘Heir… Fulgrim?’ Fabius’ voice was hoarse. A rasp of confusion. His hand shot forward, catching Saqqara by the throat. The Word Bearer gagged as he was wrenched from his feet and hoisted into the air. The blades, saw and drills of the chirurgeon flared like the limbs of an angry insect, and stretched towards him. ‘Explain,’ Fabius hissed. ‘And be quick. What did she say to you?’
Saqqara clutched at Fabius’ forearm, attempting to lessen the pressure on his throat. He knew his captor would not kill him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be hurt or injured. ‘Only that the path you follow now is the same as it has always been, and that death awaits you both ahead and behind,’ he croaked. ‘But that when the fire comes, you will hold to your path regardless.’
Fabius dropped him. ‘Riddles. More riddles. If she wishes to warn me, why can she not simply do so?’
Saqqara coughed and rubbed his throat. ‘The ways of the Neverborn are not ours, and she is Neverborn now, whatever she might once have been. Whatever you desired her to be.’ He looked up at his captor and laughed. ‘The irony here is that even with all of your wisdom, you do not understand so simple a thing as this.’
Fabius glared down at him. ‘Then perhaps you should explain it to me.’
‘No, I do not think I will.’ Saqqara arranged himself more comfortably, crossing his legs and straightening his back. ‘I think, instead I shall leave you to come to your own conclusions. And then, later, you will return and we will argue again. And again and again and again.’ He closed his eyes, and once more began the work of centring himself. The Neverborn screeched and scrabbled in their bottles, eager to be free.
He heard his captor leave, coat slapping against ceramite. He allowed himself a small smile of triumph. ‘The gods love you, Fabius,’ he murmured. ‘You delivered up a Legion to them. You opened the door with your twisted ingenuity, in ways Erebus could not conceive. And you are still opening that door, every time your scalpel draws a red line across flesh. The universe is made of two parts – a knife and a stone. If you do not wield the one, you must lay upon the other.
‘And you wield the knife very well indeed.’
Chapter twelve
Imperfection
Fabius stood, ramrod straight, on the starboard observation deck, watching the tides of the empyrean wash across the hull of the Vesalius. The ship was humming to itself. Every deck plate and bulkhead was reverberating gently with the sound. Occasionally, lances of silent destruction thrummed from the forward turrets to destroy the debris that hove into the frigate’s path. The crumbled remnants of forgotten worlds and lost ships, lost to the tides of the warp in centuries past, or even decades yet to come.
It was hard to tell how long it had been since they’d left Harmony, passing in and out of the webway as they were. His armour’s chronometer flickered with random numbers, or things that were not numbers at all. He’d long since grown used to losing time, but at the moment, it bothered him. Anxiety ate away at his calm like a slow acid. He thought of the infant – no, the child – sitting quietly, hidden away in his laboratorium. So far, the clone showed no sign of abnormality. No sign of the mutations that had afflicted so many of his previous attempts.
That in itself made him cautious. The clone had been slumbering since he’d been driven from Harmony by Abaddon. It had spent centuries gestating, down in the dark. It seemed improbable, if not impossible. And yet, it was aware. Perfect. Fulgrim, as he must have been, millennia ago. Or perhaps, Fulgrim as he was always meant to be.
The thought ricocheted around his head, knocking his certainty off course. Destiny was an excuse used by lesser men. Only purpose mattered. But this occurrence had disturbed those once iron-hard assumptions. The poet in him could not help but see some grand intent in the discovery. And that frustrated him to no end, for it muddled things. Without clarity came indecision.
He hoped that his uncertainty was simply the lingering effects of his encounter with the Quaestor. His mind still ached from its psychic assault. He suspected that was part of the point. Trust Eidolon to debilitate others, in order to maintain whatever perceived supremacy he clung to, rather than rising to the challenge. But Fabius was made of sterner stuff. His mind was a citadel – and one not so easy to conquer as all that.
‘Or so one can hope,’ he muttered. He watched the shattered hull of an ancient warship tumble slowly past, its identity lost beneath a skim of frost and ash. Lights flared within it, and he noted that its remaining turret tracked the passing Vesalius warily. It was not unusual to find such wrecks inhabited by the descendants of their crews. Or even the original crew itself, preserved like insects in amber by the restless tides of the warp.
A foul smell intruded on his reverie, and the deck creaked beneath a great weight. He called out, ‘The hardiness of the species confounds even me, at times.’
‘It is why the gods prize us so, I think,’ Khorag said as he stumped onto the deck. ‘We can be bent into ever so many shapes, with so little effort.’
Fabius glanced at him. ‘There is an archaeomarket of some infamy near here, though I have forgotten its name. Nestled within the bowels of some ponderous hulk, long since amalgamated with others of its kind. Whole kingdoms exist within that wreck, warring and trading with each other as well as the occasional visitor. It beggars belief.’
‘Humans are wonderfully tenacious.’
Fabius smiled. ‘Yes. So I hope.’
‘This vessel seems to have joined Eidolon’s fleet,’ Khorag rumbled, joining Fabius at the observation port. ‘I see his warriors everywhere.’ Since they had left Harmony’s orbit, the lumbering Apothecary had ventured rarely from his lair near the hydroponics bay. Like Arrian and Skalagrim, he had a small laboratorium hidden away aboard the ship, where he conducted his own studies in private.
‘A temporary alliance.’
‘Do they see it that way?’
‘How they see it is of no concern to me,’ Fabius said stiffly. ‘They will be gone soon enough, and we can concern ourselves with more important matters.’
‘Such as?’
Fabius hesitated. There were few among the Consortium he actually trusted. Arrian. Saqqara, if only because of the dead man’s switch in
his body. And possibly Khorag… The former Grave Warden had been an attentive student, though his focus was distressingly narrow. Then, perhaps that was to his credit, in this regard. ‘Gene-seed,’ he said finally.
‘That hardly seems important. More like business as usual.’
‘Pure gene-seed.’
Khorag stiffened. ‘That is interesting.’ He leaned forward. The miasma that seeped from the hoses and pipes of his armour mildewed the viewport, spotting it with black mould. ‘In return for what?’
‘Nothing. It is what we are being sent to collect.’
‘Are we errand boys, then?’
Fabius smiled thinly. ‘So Eidolon thinks. I saw no reason to disabuse him of that notion. Not when it serves my interest to do otherwise.’
‘And you think he has not considered that as well? I recall hunting the Khan’s sons with Eidolon in our wayward youth. He was most cunning.’
‘Hence Flavius and his warriors, taking up precious space on my ship.’ Fabius leaned on Torment. A knot of pain had been growing in him since they’d left Harmony. The ache was persistent and familiar. It had become such a part of him that he almost missed it, in that brief period between death and dissolution. The chirurgeon chimed interrogatively, but he dismissed it. He could function on his own, for a while longer, at least. ‘They are here to keep my feet to the path Eidolon has laid out.’
Khorag chuckled. ‘A losing battle, if there ever was one.’
‘Indeed. But we can deal with them easily enough, when the time comes.’ Fabius watched the stars, spinning in a sea of hateful colour. Motes of sickly light, piercing mauve gas clouds. Distant coronas swirled like the eyes of hidden gods, peering through holes in the shroud of the universe. The stars formed unrecognisable, nonsensical constellations that even his transhuman sight found difficult to perceive. ‘It is beautiful, in its way.’
Fabius Bile: Clonelord Page 18
