The Omnibus - John French

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘I need your help, Ctesias.’

  ‘My help? And what can you offer for that help? More to the point, why do you need it?’

  ‘Things have changed.’

  ‘Where Amon stood, now you stand. You are master of an army of our exiled kin who, until so recently, were hunting you across existence. An unenviably difficult position. And if that is the case, as I suspect it is, then you still have not lost the habit of understatement.’

  He nodded once. ‘I do not know if I can trust them.’

  ‘But you know that you can’t trust me, and that makes me… what, trustworthy? The irony is quite pointed, don’t you think?’

  ‘Will you follow me as you once did, brother?’

  I let my head rest back against the frame holding me. ‘What do you offer?’ I asked, and let my eyes flicker closed. The warp was a thin, aching presence against my mind, its full weight held back by the remaining wards.

  Silence grew in the moment, swallowing the beat of my hearts, and the sound of my own breath. Everything was suspended, held in place as though by the touch of a hand. And beyond that silence, Ahriman’s mind hung – a cold star drawing heat and light into its core. The power of him almost stilled the breath in my mouth.

  I am not blind to Ahriman’s failings. I do not like him, and he returns that scorn in full measure, I am sure. We are different in every way that matters. But any who deny that he is the most terrifying being to walk the mortal plain is a liar, or a fool.

  I opened my eyes.

  He had not moved, but his focus had hardened. I felt as though he was inches away from me, breathing my air, looking through the windows of my eyes, seeing the ambitions in my broken soul. Cold needles slid through my mutilated memories, and I knew that he was seeing every bargain, every scrap of my life traded for the one thing that I needed above all else. And I knew that he saw why, and I knew that he understood.

  I hated him in that moment, hated him more than the simple dislike of two siblings made to make all the wrong decisions for different reasons. My hatred fumed from me in the silence, answering and pleading in equal parts. That sudden, bright emotion surprised me – it felt like the return of a life I had cast away.

  It was, of course. That was exactly what it was.

  ‘What do I offer you, Ctesias?’ he said at last, his voice low. ‘I offer you everything you have searched for.’

  I know that my eyes went wide at that, because he nodded.

  ‘I offer you your dreams.’

  I would understand later why Ahriman truly needed me. It had nothing to do with trust, or power, at least not as I had thought of it. He knew me better than I knew myself, better than he knew himself as a matter of fact. He always saw others so clearly, and himself so dimly. At the time, though, I thought of his offer as one of old fashioned simplicity: the promise of reward, and the threat of retribution for betrayal. It was enough.

  ‘Free me,’ I said, ‘and I will serve.’

  ‘As you wish,’ he replied, and I felt the warded silver of my restraints shatter. Pain lanced through me, as metal fragments showered into the air, and then stopped dead. I fell to the floor and lay in a tangled heap, breathing hard for a long minute.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

  Ahriman had already turned away. He paused at my words, and turned his head to cast a single-eyed stare back at me.

  ‘You are starting something,’ I said, peeling myself from the floor. ‘That is what you are doing, isn’t it? Why Amon is dead, and why you wear his crown? I can feel it on you, Ahriman. The old dream made anew. So where do we begin?’

  ‘We are going to see another of our brothers,’ he said. ‘We are going to see an oracle.’

  The black moon hung in folds of glowing madness, its glass-smooth surface reflecting back the brittle skins of decayed rainbows. The planets which it orbited hung behind it, vast and pale, like cataract blinded eyes looking up through silt-clouded water. The laws of nature had long fled this place. We had come deep within the Eye, to a land that existed on the blurred boundary between this and that, between the real and the other.

  Our fleet had not left the warp as it arrived. There was no reality for it to return to. The Sycorax and its carrion flock had simply slid over an invisible boundary within the tides of the aether, and there had been the black moon – watching us, as our warships settled to stillness around it.

  There were at least a hundred craft, each one different, each one marked by the Eye’s poisoned tides. The geometry of nightmares cloaked the bones of what they had once been. Gun muzzles snarled at the void with tooth-ringed mouths. Azure stained silver clung to the hulls of some, while others were sculptures of pale bone and wet gold. Swimming in the warp-thickened orbit of the black moon they looked like fish from a diseased ocean. In a sense, that is just what they were.

  Between them they had enough firepower to break planets, but that power meant little in the shadow of the warp. This was our realm, the realm of paradox and possibility. The realm of sorcery.

  +It is waiting for us.+

  I turned from the view in the floating crystal sphere. It hung in the steam-fumed air beside the open hatch of the gunship. Astraeos – the mongrel battle psyker whom Ahriman had adopted, for no reason which made sense to us – stood behind me, his blunt face set in an expression as bitter as it was burdened.

  +We came here before,+ he sent again. +Something was waiting for us then, and something waits for us now.+

  +I did not realise you had a poet’s soul,+ I sent, and turned away.

  He was right though. Something was waiting. I could feel it – most likely every soul on every ship could feel it, even if they could not understand it. My skin was clammy within my armour, and the sweet taste of vomit lingered on my tongue. Had I not warded myself many times over in preparation, then the sensations would have been much worse. Strips of tanned skin bearing seven hundred and twenty-nine incantations written in blood hung from me like feathers, rustling as I moved. A mortal had died to create the wards, but it was a small price to pay. Without them perhaps I would have felt the skitter of insects on the inside of my eyeballs, or the shiver of blade tips over my tongue. There are other ways to hold the touch of the beyond back, but I have my ways, and while Ahriman did not like them he did not object to their use.

  I wondered how Astraeos was coping. Perhaps he was not. Perhaps that was why he looked as though he was trying not to explode. I hoped so.

  +What he has asked of–+ Astraeos began.

  +What he has commanded of me,+ I corrected him. +Ahriman does not ask. He is a master, and masters see their will enacted by others. They do not ask. If they do, it means only that they feel the tug of a velvet cord preferable to that of a chain.+

  +What he has asked you to do,+ he sent, his dislike bleeding across the mental connection, +it is… vile.+

  I may have smiled behind the twisted bronze of my face plate. +Yes. It is. That is why the task falls to me. He considers some of the necessities unpleasant enough to let others do them, but do not think that it means he will hesitate to use any method to reach his end. He never did. Even before his principles murdered our Legion.+ I smiled again, and let the image of it flow to Astraeos. +Surely you have noticed that about him? He is an idealist, but beneath his high and guiding light all the dark deeds of the soul may walk in his company.+

  +You are…+

  +I am surprised that you consider my arts so unpalatable. After all, what is that barb and thread I can read in your soul?+ Shock radiated from him, darkening his shadow in the warp. It was pleasing to taste. +Tell me, did you bind the creature to you, or are you also bound to it? The first is dangerous, the second endearingly idiotic.+

  He was very, very close to trying to kill me. I saw the taint of it within him.

  +Yes, it has some of you, doesn’t it. I see that now. Tell me, how much of your soul did it take? Please tell me you know the answer.+ I said.

  His hand moved to the sword at his
waist. His mind burst its bonds with a thunderous roar. I staggered. He came forwards, his will flooding the edge of his blade with fire. I admit that I was surprised – his mind was strong, stronger than I had guessed, and its power was an avalanche fall of fury.

  The idea of a kine shield formed in my mind, and became real, but slowly – much, much too slowly. I am a warrior of knowledge, most particularly knowledge of the creatures that swim the depths of the warp, creatures that most call daemon. Their calling, binding and bidding are my tools. I can destroy entire civilisations, given time. Astraeos was a killer of less sophistication, but a hammer blow will not accept its own bluntness as a reason to not kill you.

  The sword touched the edge of my kine shield, and I felt the barrier shredded before I could even change the pattern of my thoughts.

  +Brothers!+

  Ahriman’s thought-voice was almost a physical touch in the warp-thickened atmosphere. Rebuke, entreaty and regret rode in that one word. It was enough to drain my focus and send me back a step.

  Astraeos stopped dead, his halo of power vanishing like a doused fire. He stepped back, his sword flickering cold.

  Ahriman walked towards us across the deck of the hangar bay. The Rubricae followed him, two lines of blue and gold armour, their movements locked into a single pattern.

  +Ahriman,+ I sent, with a tilt of my head. As I have said, weakness only invites slavery or treachery, and excessive deference is the surest way of showing weakness.

  Ahriman did not acknowledge my greeting. He did not acknowledge me at all. He is many things, but never weak.

  Astraeos sent something that I felt but did not hear. I was looking at the other figure who walked at Ahriman’s side.

  Sanakht returned my look. His movements were relaxed, yet precise. His face was hidden by the silver-fronted helm that he had worn since the fall of Prospero. His twin swords hung close to his hands, the hilt of one the head of a jackal, the other that of a hawk. Besides Ahriman himself there was only one other of our brothers that I would have been less pleased to find still breathing.

  He said nothing. And for that, at least, I was grateful.

  +This is all that you are taking with us?+ I asked.

  +This is all that is needed,+ replied Ahriman.

  +You are lying, brother,+ I sent to him alone. +The aether here is bloated. It is ready to tear. Your tamed renegade is right. Something has waited here for you to return. You cannot be blind to that.+

  He did not reply, but I could feel his thoughts turning over. He had received my words. +You are not blind to it, are you?+

  We boarded the gunship in silence, and the world became the thrum of its engines and the red-stained light of alert lamps. Ahriman was a still statue, his face hidden beneath the high horned helm, his thoughts behind hard walls of will.

  +It is not all that is needed, is it?+ I needled at him, my own thoughts turning in my head as my fingers tapped the silver half of my staff. +You do not want anyone else to see, do you? You want what we are here to do to remain a secret.+

  Ahriman turned his head to me. Beside him Astraeos and Sanakht stirred, and the gunship shivered on through the void.

  He did not answer.

  The silence followed us through the moon. A tunnel threaded its substance, leading ever deeper, though with every turn we had felt as though we were travelling further from the centre. We walked from the gunship, mist coiling around us, swallowing the passage beyond and hiding what waited. The eyes of the Rubricae glowed with green halos, and voices seeped from them, whispering just beyond hearing. Ahriman remained quiet, and Astraeos followed his example. Sanakht alone had reacted to the deadness of the place. He had drawn his swords, and walked with them held loosely at his sides.

  +Was it like this before?+ I asked, and my thought-voice echoed as sound in the mist.

  …like this before?

  …before?

  Ahriman half turned his head.

  ‘No,’ he said with his true voice, the sound of it flat and dead in the still air. ‘It was not like this.’

  ‘That does not give you pause?’ I halted in my stride. Ahriman did not stop or deign to answer. After a second I followed, my staff clicking dully on the passage floor.

  ‘Well that is reassuring,’ I muttered to myself.

  It was not the nature of the moon that troubled me. I am a creature who has lived many lives of mortals in a realm saturated by the stuff of manifest insanity. I have walked between worlds with a single step, and seen cities raised from nothing with a gesture. The warp is a place of horror, make no mistake, but it holds no terror of strangeness for me. But within that dead-glass moon my instincts were screaming to turn back, pact with Ahriman or no.

  The warp was there – it lapped through the air and the polished glass of the walls. The substance of the place itself buzzed with the stuff of impossibility. What worried me was that it was quiet, calm, and as featureless as the surface of a deep, stagnant pool. The warp is life. It is change eternal, and the power of unbounded possibility, but here it hung over everything like a lank shroud.

  And as I followed Ahriman, the Rubricae walking in lockstep behind us, the worse thing was that I was beginning to recognise its texture.

  I was opening my mouth to speak when we reached the Oracle.

  One moment we were walking through the mist-filled tunnels, and the next we were standing in a spherical chamber of polished stone. No door broke the sphere’s inner surface. We had simply arrived without need of an entrance.

  The Oracle hung at the sphere’s centre, arms spread wide. I recognised the shape of power armour, but the warp had woven its mystery over its form. It glinted with a mirror polish, and its helm was featureless, without eyes or mouth.

  The Eyeless Oracle, I thought, and it echoed through the space as though I had shouted aloud.

  The Oracle’s true name was Menkaura, and once he had marched to war with the rest of the Thousand Sons. He had changed much since then, though. We all had.

  He had left his name and Legion in the past, and grown to become what now hung above us. Eyes orbited his blind body, like planets around a parent star. I had heard of him, of course, and long known that he was one of my gene-brothers, but I had never come to his temple. I had never felt the need to know the future.

  The Oracle did not move as we walked to the centre of the chamber.

  ‘Menkaura,’ said Ahriman, his voice neither raised nor whispered. ‘I have returned, brother.’ He paused. Beside him, Sanakht and Astraeos shifted. ‘I have questions.’

  Still Menkaura did not move.

  Prickles rose on my skin. Something shifted at the corner of my eye, and I turned my head to look at the curved wall. A distorted image of myself gazed back at me. I licked my lips carefully, tasting the slight tinge of acid in my spit. I wanted to extend my will into the aether. I wanted to pull at the stilled mirror of this place, to stir it, to send it churning. But I did none of these things. Even though everything was telling me that we had walked into the heart of something that we had not anticipated, I restrained myself. Instead I began to prepare for the deed that I had been brought there to perform.

  Menkaura. I spoke his name in a chamber of my thoughts.

  Men-kau-ra. The syllables spilt and echoed within separate compartments of thought.

  Men.

  Kau.

  Ra.

  Each sound became a separate box, labelled and sealed, like a body sliced and portioned into grave jars. My mind spun over each fragment of name, preparing mental ciphers and patterns that would snap shut when I willed it. Names are more than titles. They pin our existence in place. Unname something, break its title, undo its calling, and you pull it apart. Ahriman did not want to talk to the Oracle – he wanted to chain him, and he had brought me to forge the links.

  Binding a daemon is not a simple matter. It is creating a prison for a creature whose being is corrosive to existence. It requires subtly, brutality, and knowledge. One misstep, one falter
ing instant or error, and you do not die; you become the toy of torment for a creature of infinite spite and imagination. Many fail and are enslaved by the beings that they seek to master. So when I say that binding the soul of a living creature is of another order of difficulty, you should know what I mean. Life fights to be free of the tyranny of others. Even life twisted by and shackled to lies will claw, and thrash, and shriek before it allows another being to put a collar around its neck.

  Vile.

  That was what Astraeos had called what I was preparing to do. He was right. It was vile.

  The formulae spread through my mind like snares set in the long grass to wait for a lion’s tread, like razors set out beside a dissection table. Silently, unseen, held ready but not brought into being, it took seconds to make the bindings ready, and all the while I looked up at the unmoving, unspeaking shape of the Oracle, and knew that I was about to break what remained of its soul.

  ‘I come to you now twice, brother,’ said Ahriman, and the Oracle turned to face him. ‘As I did before, I demand the truth that is owed to all who enter this place. I submit to the ordinances of this temple, and will not pass from its doors without truth received and payment given.’

  +You should not have come, Ahriman.+ The psychic voice was thin, as if forced out between dry, cracked lips.

  ‘I need answers, Menkaura. We are at a new beginning. I need to find a path into what will be. My sight is clouded, storms hide the way ahead. I need your eyes. I need you to see for us.’

  +You…+ The Oracle trembled where it hung.

  At the edge of the chamber, something moved, just on the edge of sight. I ignored it.

  +You… need…+ hissed the Oracle.

  The shape in the corner of my eye was growing, bloating like paper soaking up black ink, like a tick feeding on blood. My skin suddenly felt very warm. I could not help it. I turned and looked.

  +You need to run…+ said the Oracle.