The Omnibus - John French

by Warhammer 40K

  A sword blade hacked down into the back of the creature’s neck. The power field activated just before the edge met flesh. Scales, flesh and bone sprayed out, as the blade cut down and down.

  My back hit the wall. I punched my hand into the metal and jerked to a stop. Sanakht was tumbling beside the daemon, pushing his blade deeper into the hounds lower neck. I raised my pistol and fired. Three bolts ripped the creatures head free and blew it into splinters and froth.

  I let out a breath as my thoughts and the warp reconnected. That, more than still being alive, was a sublime relief.

  Sanakht struck the wall next to me and gripped onto it.

  +Are you injured?+ he asked.

  +Your concern is refreshingly unexpected,+ I managed. Blood was still pumping from the slit in my arm. +I am functioning.+

  +Can you move?+

  By way of reply, I kicked off the wall and shot down the corridor. We had to reach our gunship. We had to get back to the Sycorax. My mind reached out, trying to find Ahriman, trying to speak to him, but the only answer was the fading cries of the dead. Sanakht followed, kicking off walls and gantries in the spinning silence

  +This was not a random attack.+ I sent as we hurtled through the dark. +They were waiting for us. This was their message. The hounds have been loosed to hunt us, to hunt him.+

  It was one of the moments of my life where my capacity for something approaching loyalty surprised me. I should have known better. I should not have been so naive.

  +Which power unleashed them?+

  It was a good question, and I should have seen that it was the only question which really mattered. Hindsight makes us all seem fools.

  +Pick one,+ I spat back.

  On the edge of my mind I could hear more howls rising from the distant night.

  Ahriman was waiting as we jumped the gunship. I had managed to connect to his mind only minutes before we docked, blurting out a warning as my body fought to staunch the blood flowing from my wound. Sanakht had his swords drawn and lit as we hit the floor. Blood scattered from me as I rose from where I landed. My eyes took in the rings of Rubricae covering the hangar deck. Astraeos and the rest of the Circle stood beside Ahriman, helmed and armoured.

  Surprise spilled through me. It was so calm. So still. No blood. No howl of hounds. Bright stablights reflecting on azure armour. I felt myself sway.

  It was wrong.

  Or was it I that was wrong?

  +Ctesias,+ sent Ahriman, stepping forward.

  The hounds were coming. I had heard their cries. They had tasted my blood, and I knew that they were coming with total certainty.

  +Ctesias?+

  I heard the thought, but it was distant. I blinked and tried to form a sending, tried to open my mouth. But nothing happened.

  The world was cracking. Smears of red marked the light touching my eyes. I felt one of my legs slide out from beneath me and the deck met me as I fell to my knees.

  Red. Everything was calm, but all I could see was red: the red of thick blood rippling in a pool, the red of a sun hidden by the smoke of a burning world and the red of a sword pulled from the forge. The world was drowning in crimson and I was drowning with it.

  And then a portion of my stupidity fell from my mind. I should have known. Of Ahriman’s entire Circle I should have known, and seen, and not been so blind. I am, it seems, not immune to my own form of hubris.

  I tried to rise, but I could not.

  I felt hands touch me, and try to pull me up.

  I forced my mouth open.

  ‘They…’ I began, and felt thoughts try to reach my own, but my mind was a blur of sharp edges and heat. ‘They are coming,’ I rasped. My breaths were coming fast. The air in my lungs was smoke and cinders.

  ‘We are ready for them,’ said Astraeos.

  ‘They need a scent,’ I said, and with each word I heard the patter of my blood on the deck. I think they understood then, because I felt them draw back, and heard the sound of weapons crackling to life.

  The hound had not failed in its purpose. It had maimed me, and tasted my blood so that it could have my scent.

  So that they could follow me from beyond the veil.

  The howl rose within my mind. First one, then a second, then more than I could count. I could feel fire in my blood. The whirl of crimson was all around me, a wall of blood fog and black smoke, and I knew that my long and pitiful life was at an end.

  But I knew that I was not going to meet my end on my knees.

  I stood and forced my eyes open.

  For a second everything was as it had been. Ahriman, Astraeos, Sanakht – the ranks of Rubricae – all facing me with weapons drawn. Then, with a last howl in my skull, the hounds fell upon us.

  They bounded from the edge of sight. Crimson bodies flickered into being. Lightning formed around Astraeos, lashed out towards the forming shapes, and vanished before it fell. Light stuttered and ripped into shreds of black and glowing red. I saw a hound, the first to take full flesh, leap into the air as the Rubricae fired as one. The bolts exploded in midair, the blue and pink fire within flashing out and collapsing in an eye blink. The hound landed amongst the Rubricae, its jaws locking around the chest of one and tossing it into the ranks behind. Dust fell from the pierced armour. I could hear high, dry screaming in the warp.

  Sanakht was running to Ahriman’s side, his swords a blur. More hounds bounded into sight. I heard the stutter of bolt-rounds, and the splash of explosions. The Rubricae began to jerk to stillness as the presence of the hounds severed them from the power animating their armour. Voices called across the vox. I saw Astraeos battering down a creature with the pommel of his lifeless force sword. Ahriman was calling to us as he wove amongst the devastation, firing with each step.

  ‘Ctesias!’ he called, and my head turned. A hound cleared the immobile line of Rubricae, and loped towards me, muscles bunching to pounce. I pulled the pistol from my thigh. My fingers were wet with my own blood. Blazing orange eyes fixed upon me – they were already too close, and my hand was still rising.

  A figure in blue armour cannoned into the hound from the side, pitching into it with raw physical power. The hound landed, its claws raking the deck for purchase. Then Astraeos straightened and fired, his bolt pistol breathing rounds into the creature as he walked towards it. The hound came apart in spills of red smoke and jellied flesh.

  He turned. Hissing blood coated his armour and robe.

  ‘Thank you,’ I managed.

  He turned away, already firing. Blurred shapes, cries and the roar of weapons rolled like a storm through the air. I looked for a target, but my limbs were moving as though I was wading through water. Blood fell from my arm. It fizzed with fire as it fell through the air.

  The one possibility that I had overlooked came to me then, and I cursed myself that I had not seen it sooner.

  I focused my mind and turned it within, reaching down into the base beat of life within my veins. I felt the blood pouring through me, and the dual beat of my hearts became the roar and clash of battle. Like all daemons the hounds were of the warp, even if their brass collars and the blessing of their lord made them immune to our powers. The warp is their existence, and at that moment their existence in reality hung by the thread of blood they had followed. My blood.

  They felt it as my mind began to reform. They howled and turned towards me. I was fighting to stand. I saw Sanakht cut the legs from one as it turned from him and bounded towards me. Formulae were unfolding in my mind, multiplying as my will gave them life.

  The hounds were steaming towards me, closing with flickering bounds. Frost covered the deck beneath their feet, and their blood spun into the air as smoke. Gunfire and blades cut into the pack, and some fell or blew apart. They did not stop or turn aside. They knew what I intended, and they would bring me down before I could complete my plan.

  The formulae of banishment are old, their secrets known for millennia and forgotten many times. Their preparation should be done with care, th
eir use controlled with every precaution. But I did not have time, and I did not have the strength for caution. I unleashed my thoughts and let them pour across the blood bond.

  The hounds screamed but their howls died in their throats. Their bodies began to burn. Flakes of ash peeled from them. Their scales cracked. The fire in their eyes blazed. They were choking in reality, and mine was the hand on their throat.

  Ahriman, Astraeos and the others began to fire. Bolt-rounds struck crumbling flesh, and blew it into grey clouds. For a second I thought I had succeeded, that I would survive.

  A hound leapt over the powdering form of its pack mates and landed before me. Molten brass bled from its flanks and the edges of its shape were a haze of cinders and ashes. The last segment of the formulae completed in my mind, and I felt the warp buckle as it reached in to reality to yank the hound back into its own realm.

  The hound’s mouth opened. Its teeth were black slits in the world. I could hear shouts and the stuttering boom of gunfire. The hound’s body broke apart as surged towards me. The sound of its howl swallowed my mind.

  Its jaws closed on my neck.

  Silence rushed up to meet me as the clamour and colour of life vanished, and then I died for the first time.

  IV

  THE FIRST PRINCE

  ‘There is power enough in man to overturn all creation, were not for the shackles of pride holding our souls.’

  – Fatidicus, founder saint of the

  Temple of the Saviour Emperor

  The light is fading. My eyes which have seen so much, struggle to see these words as I write them. It will not be long now until I die for the second, and final time. My soul will go to the reward that a life of wielding forbidden knowledge has earned me.

  I say that it will be my second death, and that is true, after a fashion, for in the three thousandth and eighty-first year of my life I died for the first time. It was not the end, though. After all, here I am.

  My name is Ctesias, once of the Thousand Sons, and this is a story of lies and deceit, and of why I lived through one death to die again. I was not this tale’s creator. That dubious honour falls to my then-master Ahriman. This is his story, though I was its witness.

  And it begins as razor teeth ripped my throat open, and I fell, screaming, from reality…

  Death is silence. The place between here and there, between the noisy beating of heart and blood and the hush of eternity. Blank blackness surrounded me, total and complete. All I could feel was wind and the touch of dry dust. I could not feel my body: not my face, not the weight of my muscles, or the ache of the bones in my hands. And I could not remember who I was, or how I came to be there.

  ‘Greetings, Ctesias.’ The voice was so sudden that it did not seem real. ‘Here we are at last, old friend.’

  I did not know the it, though I knew that I should. I tried to open my mouth to ask the speaker who they were. Nothing happened.

  ‘Do not speak, Ctesias,’ said the voice. ‘You have no tongue for it. Not here. Here you are nothing but a silent name.’ I did not know what the voice meant, but I knew it was right. I felt its truth like the cold edge of a knife on my skin. ‘You know where you are, do you not?’

  I remember then. The memory came slowly, pouring into me, wet and sharp. My body was lying on a metal deck, on a ship called the Sycorax. Blood was spreading in a slowly clotting pool around my broken limbs. I was not breathing, and both of my hearts had just drummed their last beats.

  ‘Yes, that is right. You are dying. You are on the threshold of the gate of souls. All of those centuries crawling away from it, and here it is, open beneath you, waiting for you.’

  The rest of my past came, all the broken and bloody details of a life lived too long. I remembered that I was born a man, and raised to become a demi-god in a time when men no longer believed in them. I remembered that I had been a warrior and a scholar who had become a peddler of atrocity. I remembered that the last moments before I began to die were filled with the howl of hounds, and the reek of burning blood.

  ‘I would ask if you saw it coming, said the voice, but you were never a soothsayer, were you, my friend? No, that art was never to your taste.’

  Ice folded through me. I knew who was speaking to me as well, and why, and as soon as I knew I wished I did not.

  ‘I am here for the debt that lies between us, Ctesias. I am here by the power of the bindings you laid on yourself. I am here for the last thing that is yours to give.’ It chuckled, the sound a dry rustle of cracked skin. ‘Forgive the formalities, you understand. You always knew the power and importance of words. I always admired that, a mortal who could make such chains of words and names that he could not move for the clinking of pacts and bargains. Clink-clink, clink-clink…’

  I could hear it smiling as it spoke, lips pulling back over sharp teeth, tongue sliding over the points. I could not see its face, but I did not need to. Some things are best known but not seen.

  ‘I am sorry, Ctesias, it purred. I will miss you… I will miss watching you.’ Something touched me then. The sensation of flesh and skin formed around the claws as they dug into my soul. ‘I would ask if you wished to live again, but I am afraid that you do not have anything left to bargain with. At least you had this time. A small thing, but all I can give.’

  The claws began to cut deeper.

  ‘Leave him!’ A new voice echoed in the blind void. I felt heat and for an instant the blackness was smudged by white light. I knew the voice, but it was impossible that he was there. It was impossible that he would come for me now. I tried to call out, to warn him, but the silence still held me. ‘You will go from this place, daemon, and send my brother back to the living.’

  ‘A mortal shade, oh what a delight. Should I quiver with terror now, or would that not be appropriate?’

  ‘I make this offer once. Go now.’

  ‘And who are you to make such an offer?’

  ‘My name is Ahzek Ahriman.’

  The daemon snorted.

  ‘Of course, the beggar thief of secrets. This creature you call a brother lies in my debt, his bond pledged in willing exchange. I am here for what is mine, sorcerer, and you do not have the power to prevent that.’

  The darkness vanished. Thunder split the world. Pain became me, and I screamed in silence as the lightning lashed on. I could hear Ahriman’s voice resonating as it cast words into the storm, and the daemon hissed and roared.

  Then the storm was gone. The darkness returned, and with it the daemon’s voice.

  ‘Impressively foolish.’ It did not sound angry. It sounded like it was enjoying itself. ‘The Court of Change cackles in appreciation of your subtlety, Ahriman. The Plague Children fear the fire of your power. Even the dogs of the Skull Throne curb at the sound of your name. Yet you do not realise that that I have unrivalled power in this place. I am disappointed.’

  ‘What are you?’ growled Ahriman.

  ‘A good question. The simplest questions are so often the best and the last asked, do you not find? I am the heir to the warp. I am the death of kings. I am the first son of the gods.’

  ‘An impressive collection of words.’

  ‘You should know that words are never just words.

  ‘You are a creature of the warp, nothing more. Even with power you are the slave of false gods.’

  ‘I am not theirs.’ The daemon’s voice was a whip crack of anger.

  ‘Yet here you are, a princeling coming to pick a soul from a carcass like carrion.’

  ‘I am not here for his soul. What use have I for rags? No, I am here for something greater.’

  The daemon’s words hung in the empty wind, like a baited hook in water.

  ‘What?’ asked Ahriman.

  ‘That is a secret I will not speak, and Ctesias… cannot speak to tell you. But…’ I felt the tip of a claw brush me again, and again the fire of pain burned bright. The daemon sounded disinterested, almost bored. ‘But I will offer you something else. You care for Ctesias, a br
oken, vile thing though he is. You want to see him live, and I will see that done, and withhold my hand from collecting what is mine. I will do this for you… but such things are not gifts that can be given without an exchange.’

  ‘What is the price?’

  ‘A pact, your bond for his. Take his place in my debt and you can have him… what remains of him.

  ‘I will not accept that.’

  ‘In that case I shall be about my business.’

  The claw touched me again. The feeling of muscles and flesh flashed into existence an instant before the razor tips plunged into me. I screamed. In the physical world I can endure pain that would kill mere humans. But there, in the gap between substance and emptiness, I was just the mind of an old man. So I screamed, and screamed, but made no sound.

  ‘Hold!’ called Ahriman

  The claw withdrew. Cold numbness flooded me.

  ‘Control is made of knowing what we have, and what we want,’ said the daemon, and I felt an echo of its satisfaction shiver through me. ‘Power is having something that someone else wants and cannot have.’

  I tried to force a voice into being. Ahriman did not know what he was facing. I have never seen the like of his power, but the daemon who had come for me was of another order –older and more terrible than any being beneath the Dark Gods themselves.

  ‘You cannot destroy me,’ said the daemon. ‘Such a thing is beyond you. So do not try and pretend that it is within your power.’

  ‘Your coin is false, daemon,’ sneered Ahriman. ‘Its glitter no more than the shine of lies believed by fools.’

  ‘Know the value of a thing before you refuse it. I can offer you much, Ahriman. Kings have burned their heirs and offered up their realms for a fraction of what might be yours.’ I felt the daemon’s presence move away from me, as though it coiled closer to Ahriman as it spoke. ‘I know you, Ahriman. I have glimpsed your deeds, and heard great Lords of Change speak of what you yet may be. Others have made offers to you. The greatest servants of my four sires have courted you, and failed. But they did not hold what you feared to lose, and they could not offer you what you truly desire. Only I can do that.’