Fabius Bile: Clonelord

by Josh Reynolds

  ‘I agree. Filthy beasts,’ Merix murmured, watching the other mutants vanish into the darkness. Unlike faithful Evangelos, they were nothing more than scavengers.

  ‘They’re not so bad, once you get used to the taste.’

  He looked up. Skalagrim crouched on the hull of a nearby craft, his axe cradled in the crook of his arm, his head bare. ‘The secret is in the temperature the meat is cooked at – too hot, you sear away all flavour. Too low, and all you can taste is the diseases they carry. Moderation is the key.’ The renegade slipped from his perch, and landed with a deck-shaking thud. Evangelos made to interpose itself, lupine jaws wide, but Merix stopped his servant with a gesture. Skalagrim grinned. ‘Then, I suspect that you did not request this meeting in order to talk about how best to cook mutant flesh.’

  ‘I did not, but thank you for the advice.’

  ‘That one behind you would make a fine meal,’ Skalagrim pressed, indicating Evangelos. ‘And a finer coat, hairy as he is.’ The lupine mutant snarled and reached for its blade. Merix turned and gestured sharply.

  ‘Leave us.’

  Evangelos whined. The creature was loyal to a fault, dull-witted as it was. It would not think twice about hurling itself into death, on his behalf. And such loyalty was not to be wasted on a fool like Skalagrim. Merix stared at the beast, until it acquiesced and slunk off, casting sullen glances at Skalagrim as it did so. Merix turned back to Skalagrim. ‘Touch my serf without my permission and you will have more to worry about than Abaddon, Twice-Damned. This I promise you.’

  Skalagrim snorted. ‘There’s plenty more where that one came from.’

  ‘Yes, but that one is mine, and I do not wish to see him harmed.’

  ‘You treat your slaves well, for one of Fulgrim’s lot.’

  ‘Yes, well, you would know all about slavery, wouldn’t you?’

  Skalagrim’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why did you want to see me, Merix? Why all the secrecy? We could have met somewhere more convivial than this frozen antechamber of hell.’ His breath plumed as he spoke, and Merix noted the rime-encrusted tangles in his beard and hair. He wondered how long the renegade had been waiting for him.

  ‘True, but this is one of the few places on this ship not infested with either wraithbone, or the Chief Apothecary’s scuttling vatborn servants. It is private.’

  ‘Ah. As I thought. You want to escape his ever-watchful gaze, eh?’ Skalagrim laughed. ‘Well, fine. Speak away, then. Let us be at it, before the cold causes that hand of yours to snap off.’

  ‘The Chief Apothecary… he treats you poorly. As he treats us.’ Merix flexed his hand, and studied the other legionary. Skalagrim reeked of bitterness. Of stifled ego and ambition turned sour. It was a familiar odour. ‘But what is to be done about it?’

  Skalagrim grinned and looked at him, his eyes like chips of obsidian. ‘A rhetorical question, I assume. Otherwise we would not be having this conversation.’

  ‘Consider it an exercise in possibility.’

  Skalagrim gave a bark of laughter. ‘Oh, very good, Merix. I knew there was a spark of ambition in that crumbling husk of yours. Thinking of picking up where Thalopsis left off, are you? I wish you luck, in that, given Savona’s continued survival.’

  ‘I need more than luck. I need an Apothecary.’ Merix clenched his prosthetic. Skalagrim winced at the shrill creak of ancient mechanisms. ‘We need an Apothecary, rather.’

  ‘We?’ Skalagrim frowned. ‘You and Savona – no. No, not Savona.’ His eyes widened. ‘Alkenex?’

  ‘As I said, an exercise in possibility.’

  ‘And Alkenex isn’t the sort to take much initiative, so… Eidolon. Interesting.’ Skalagrim scratched at his tangled beard. ‘And what does the Lord Commander Primus want of me? I am not of the Third Legion, after all.’

  ‘But you are a legionary. And not you, necessarily. Any fleshcrafter will do. But one familiar with the Chief Apothecary’s methods would be preferable.’ Merix would have smiled, if his facial muscles still functioned correctly. He could hear the interest in Skalagrim’s voice.

  ‘His methods, eh? Which ones, in particular?’

  ‘Gene-seed recovery and preparation.’

  Skalagrim grunted. ‘He’s taught me that much, aye. And I learned more on my own, beyond what I already knew, as an officer of the apothecarion. We learned to make do, after the retreat from Terra. Why?’

  ‘That is not a question you have the privilege of asking, at the moment.’

  Skalagrim laughed. ‘So, I am to trade one master for another – is that it?’

  ‘Why break the habit of a lifetime?’

  Merix could almost see the wheels turning in Skalagrim’s head. The renegade was a born schemer, and he might already know what they were after. Or at least have a suspicion. ‘What do I get out of this?’ Skalagrim asked. ‘What is my reward?’

  ‘Protection.’

  ‘I already have that.’

  ‘You have the protection of one as hated as yourself. We can give a mightier shield to crouch behind. Eidolon himself will welcome you into our Legion – allow you to take our colours, even, and serve in the apothecarion of the Third. No one will dare touch you then.’

  ‘Abaddon might.’

  ‘Eidolon is Abaddon’s ally. And in all honesty, do you think the Warmaster cares about you?’ Merix laughed. ‘You’re nothing but a footnote in the history of your Legion. The nameless traitor who held open the door for their enemies. If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else.’

  Skalagrim stared at him. For a moment, Merix wondered if he’d pushed him too far. Skalagrim was only a coward in the moral sense. He’d happily butcher any number of foes, face-to-face, if the mood struck him. Then, the Apothecary nodded. ‘There may be something in what you say.’ He smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. More like a wolf baring its teeth. ‘What is required of me, beyond my skills at the harvest?’

  Merix paused, studying the scarred, hairy features. ‘You will kill him.’

  Skalagrim hesitated. ‘He can’t be killed.’

  ‘You will kill his body. When he’s distracted, put him down.’

  Skalagrim grunted. ‘No easy task, even with surprise on my side.’

  ‘You will have help.’

  ‘Even then…’

  ‘Either you have the courage, or you don’t. Decide.’ Merix spoke forcefully. Skalagrim was in no position to bargain, but that didn’t stop him trying. Apothecaries were possessed of a particularly stubborn streak, even among the warriors of the Legions. Becoming used to denying death with such regularity had a regrettable effect on most of them, in Merix’s opinion. They thought they could spit into the teeth of the gods and get away with it. Pale faces clustered like new-bloomed flowers at the edges of his vision. The Neverborn whispered encouragingly to him, urging him to strike Skalagrim down, to show the wolf his place. He ignored them.

  Skalagrim smirked. ‘Fine. Let us say, for the moment, that I will bury my axe in his brain pan…’

  ‘Not his head,’ Merix said, quickly.

  ‘Ah. Clever. Waste not, want not, eh? You have picked up some lessons from him. Fine, I will kill him and devour his brain. I doubt that will be the end of him. He has other methods of transferring his consciousness, these days. Soon enough, he’ll pop up somewhere else to bedevil us.’

  ‘Which is why we will tame the war hound, and bend him to our cause. While you dispatch him, we will find Bile’s secret caches aboard this ship and destroy them.’ Merix closed the artificial fingers of his false hand into a fist.

  ‘And then I will paint my battleplate purple and we will march happily into the future, eh?’ Skalagrim snorted. ‘A fine plan. You will have to kill Arrian. And Khorag. And the Gland-hounds.’

  ‘Yes.’ Merix felt a flicker of unease at the mention of the Gland-hounds. The augmented humans were more dangerous
than Alkenex admitted, and they outnumbered the Emperor’s Children four to one, at least. But there was no reason to let Skalagrim see his worry. ‘Plans have already been made, and discussed at length.’

  ‘And we all know how you Emperor’s Children love your plans.’ Skalagrim nodded. ‘Fine.’ He smiled. ‘Let us hope Fulgrim is a more satisfactory master than Horus ever was.’

  The transit tunnel had once been one of the hundreds that was used to ferry ammunition from the Vesalius’ factorium to the gunnery decks. Now, it was an isolated stretch of ill-lit, steam-choked corridor, isolated by reinforced bulkheads and sentry-servitors, waiting in their alcoves. The machine-slaves were little more than oscillating gun platforms no larger than a dog, hunchbacked with ammunition hoppers, and supported on jointed spider-legs. Periodic sensor sweeps, keyed to certain genetic markers, fed back data to the servitors. Anything outside those genetic parameters was gunned down with brutal efficiency.

  Fabius strode along the tunnel, whistling tunelessly. Despite everything, his mood was good. They had passed through the last of the webway portals without incident, and were now nearing the edges of the Maelstrom. Once they had successfully navigated its unnatural currents, they would pass safely into real space, and be one step closer to their goal.

  As he sidestepped one of the sentry-servitors, he wondered whether any of them would live to see it. Things were coming quickly to a head. Alkenex was gathering his supporters, and probing for weakness. But like Fabius, he was patient. If it had been any other scion of the Third, they would have already struck the first blow. But Flavius was a perfectionist. He would wait until the ideal moment, when his triumph was assured, as well as undeniable, and strike.

  Like the Harlequins, with their narrative obsessions, that was a weakness to be exploited. So long as Alkenex was left uncertain, he would stay his hand. Keep him off balance long enough, and he might hesitate until it was too late. Then, they would have him. ‘Or I am wrong and I will pay the price,’ Fabius murmured.

  Behind him, metal creaked. He paused, but only for a moment. Whatever was behind him had somehow avoided the sentry-servitors. He spun, Torment sliding up and out for a clubbing blow. He pulled the blow at the last moment, recognising the shape as it loomed out of the steam. A tall shape, clad in an environmental suit that strained to contain it.

  Fulgrim jerked back, eyes wide, as Torment came to a halt just before his face. The sceptre strained in Fabius’ grip, like a hound at its leash. ‘What are you doing here?’ Fabius hissed, his previous good humour evaporating swiftly. That the primarch had managed to slip up on him so noiselessly was another sign that he was approaching full maturation. ‘More to the point – how did you come here?’

  ‘I wanted to know where you were going.’

  ‘You followed me,’ Fabius said, lowering Torment.

  Fulgrim nodded hesitantly. ‘I was curious.’

  ‘I told you that you were not to leave the laboratorium.’

  Fulgrim said nothing. Fabius grunted and looked away. Anywhere but at the clone. At Fulgrim. For it – he – was Fulgrim now. Fulgrim as Fabius remembered him. Taller than any mortal being, and perfect in every way. Beautiful, in that way that his sons had so desperately aped, and still did. Of all the Emperor’s sons, only two had been called beautiful. But Sanguinius’ beauty had been alien. Inhuman. A thing wrought from humanity’s dreams.

  Fulgrim, on the other hand, was humanity personified. The apex and aleph of human. The canon of proportions, in the flesh. Vitruvius Ascended. It was painful to look upon, as if Fabius had been trapped in the dark for years, and was only just now seeing the light. He rubbed his face, suddenly tired and very, very aware of the frailties and imperfections of his own form, rejuvenated as it was. Everything was beginning to hurt.

  ‘Are you well, teacher?’ Fulgrim asked. His voice had deepened. Become something at once familiar and painful. ‘Do you need aid?’

  ‘More than you can give,’ Fabius said. He took a steadying breath. Turned. ‘Don’t change the subject. You disobeyed me.’

  ‘I was curious. We are on a ship. Gladius class. It… sings to me.’ He touched the sides of the corridor easily, almost caressing the rust-streaked metal. Something – a sound – echoed dimly through the tunnel. A low reverberation, cast up from some deep place within the bowels of the frigate. As if in reply to the clone’s comment.

  Fabius cast about with a wary eye. An unsettling thought. He had long resigned himself to the fact that whatever dark spirit empowered his vessel was there to stay. So long as it was content to keep to itself, he cared little. ‘Do not listen to it,’ he said firmly. ‘Such things are not to be trusted.’

  ‘But you trust it to carry us.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t talk to it,’ Fabius said, in exasperation. ‘Do not argue. Obey.’

  Fulgrim frowned. A hint of that old, familiar petulance. ‘I am bored.’

  Perilous words. Even before his leap into damnation, a bored Fulgrim had been a dangerous Fulgrim. ‘I will bring you more books.’

  ‘I grow tired of reading. The apothecarium feels cramped. I wish to walk. To see. There are strange things here, in these hollows of steel and steam. They fled from me, but I would find them.’ He looked at Fabius, his expression uncertain. ‘Why are they afraid?’

  ‘Because they have sense. Unlike you.’

  Fulgrim flinched. Fabius hesitated, uncertain now, for the first time in a long time. How did he proceed from here? ‘Go back,’ he said.

  ‘Why can I not go with you?’

  ‘Because I have matters to attend to, and you would be a distraction.’

  ‘I would not. I only wish to see.’ More petulance. Almost a command. Fabius felt the old flicker of subservience within himself. The need to please his gene-father, to obey his every whim and order. Fulgrim, more than his brothers, had commanded complete obedience. Some twist in the helix had chained his sons more tightly to him. It was why so many of them had so eagerly followed him off of the edge of the cliff. An unnatural charisma. People wanted to please Fulgrim. To make him happy. That was why he had worked so well with the mortal adherents of the Great Crusade… millions had hurled themselves into death, in order to provide the Illuminator with a road to victory.

  But Fabius was not a mortal. And he was older now, and this was not Fulgrim. Not really. No matter what his blood whispered, or his senses told him. ‘Go back,’ he said again. Then, after a moment, he added, ‘But take your time. You may explore if you wish. Provided no one sees you.’

  Fulgrim’s smile lit the dark. ‘I will be a shadow, teacher. Inconspicuous and unseen.’ He stepped back, making barely any noise on the walkway. A moment later, he was gone, moving soundlessly through the steam.

  Fabius snorted and turned away. ‘Not on your best day could you be inconspicuous.’ Despite his amusement, he was troubled. Fulgrim was becoming more independent. More capable. In the weeks since they’d left Harmony, the clone had grown from an infant to a young man – a young primarch. Soon, he would begin to do what ­primarchs did, and seek to control the world around him.

  Control…

  The echoes of his thought bounced ahead of him down the corridor. As he advanced through the steam, indistinct shapes seemed to retreat before him. More intruders? Or merely figments of paranoia? Neither was a pleasant prospect. ‘If you wish to speak, speak. But I have no time for your cryptic whispers.’

  Silence. He shook his head. ‘As I thought,’ he muttered. He pushed the thought aside as he reached his destination. The hatchway sat at the tunnel’s midpoint, protected by a crackling defence field. The field flickered and thinned as Fabius stepped through it. The field responded to a signal emitted by his battleplate. Only the members of his Consortium – and Igori – possessed similar emitters. And of them, only Arrian and Igori knew of this place. The hatch hissed open, accompanied by a billowing cloud of cold mist.
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br />   As Fabius entered the chamber beyond, frost crawled across the stretched faces of his flesh-coat and the plates of his armour. The chamber was a box of repurposed metal – an artificial cyst, constructed to his specifications. A backup laboratorium, it was small and sparsely equipped. Only the bare necessities, including a single bio-mechanical womb. Within it, a familiar form floated in a nutrient-bath of his own devising – one of several clones he kept aboard the Vesalius. His armour’s systems synched with those of the laboratorium, and hololithic data-feeds sprang into view around him.

  ‘Well?’ he said, after a moment of perusing the feeds. ‘Are you going to say anything, or are you going to remain in a sulk for the duration?’ He glanced at the chamber’s only occupant, sitting silently in a corner, watching him.

  Savona spat and glared. ‘I have been here for twelve hours.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I could not get out.’ She rose to her feet. ‘You trapped me here for twelve hours.’

  Fabius sighed and looked at her. ‘And? You wished to see me. Here I am. What do you want?’

  ‘I wanted to warn you, Manflayer. Now, I want to kill you.’

  ‘If I thought you meant that, you would be dead. You wanted to warn me about Alkenex, no? I am already aware. More, you wished to propose an alliance, conveniently leaving out the part where you already serve me. You wish to offer your services in the fight to come. Why? Most likely due to spite – Alkenex is a traditionalist and will not see fit to include you in any treachery he is planning. Thus, if you wish to survive, you must throw in behind me. Is that it?’

  Savona stared at him. Then, she smiled. ‘Yes. That’s about it.’

  Fabius turned away. ‘Good. You have proven yourself remarkably useful, Savona. I would hate for that to change.’

  ‘You could simply have told me,’ she said.

  ‘I could, but I thought it wise to take you off the board for a while, before you attempted something we’d both regret. Patience is a virtue you have yet to learn.’

  Before she could reply, a warning signal chimed through the chamber. One of the data-feeds shimmered, becoming a pict-stream of the corridor, filtered through the eyes of the sentry-servitors. Fabius saw a dark figure approaching. ‘Ah. Right on time.’