The Omnibus - John French

by Warhammer 40K

  He looked down from the tree. The palace of his memory extended away and down around him. Towers of rippled black stone and silver rose like half-burned candles from a web of bridges and stairs. Some were brass, others jade, others verdigris-dusted bronze. Domes and cupolas sat like blisters amongst the reaching fingers of the towers. Here and there the white marble of the original palace could be seen peeking out from the new. The whole now resembled something grown rather than built, a vast coral reef of stone and metal, which sprouted new structures even while he watched.

  ‘You will fail,’ she said, her voice closer behind him.

  ‘So you have said before,’ he replied and turned.

  Iobel stood before him. She had shape, but it was like a charcoal sketch pulled into three dimensions, a blur for a body, limbs that bled into nothing, a face formed by suggestion and shadow. She turned, and appeared to look out over the memory palace.

  ‘You did not try to find me.’

  ‘I have found you now,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘What need is there to hunt you through my own mind?’

  She smiled.

  ‘You don’t know how I am still here, do you? Have you ever thought how much of your mind now exists beyond you, out there in the warp?’ He watched her but said nothing. ‘I have walked the edges of your psyche, Ahriman. There are parts of you which are not wholly yours any more, parts which think and dream outside of your skull.’ She looked back at him, her eyes two smudges of shadow under the sun. ‘I am here with you now and forever, sorcerer. I live in the shadow of your mind, and until you fall I will walk with you.’

  He turned away from her, and started down a flight of stairs which spiralled down from the tower’s summit.

  ‘You will fail,’ she called to him, but he did not respond. ‘I have seen the insides of your knowledge, I have walked your thoughts. Even with the Athenaeum you will fail. The Crimson King will oppose you. Time itself will defy you. You are alone. Kadin, Carmenta, Astraeos – everyone gone, all spent to take you closer to ruin.’ Ahriman kept walking, descending through the towers and storerooms of his past. High above him Iobel’s voice called after him. ‘Only enemies and betrayers remain to you now, Ahriman.’

  The waking was slow and filled with pain.

  Cendrion, Cendrion, Cendrion… his name beat softly around him, like a reminder left for him to find as he returned from sleep. His limbs were dull aches, both numb and brittle at once. Shocks ran up and down his nerves, while blackness filled his eyes. He reached out with his mind as soon as he was aware, and found the minds of his brothers present but distant.

  +What is happening?+ he asked them, but they did not reply.

  He tried to wake further, tried to move, but could do neither. He waited.

  Sight returned, sudden and sharp in its brightness. He tried to blink, but could not. Static fuzzed across the monochrome vision of a chamber hung with thick cables and chains. Inquisitor Izdubar stood in front of him, a patient expression on his thin face. The crone Malkira and the glass-eyed Erionas stood at his shoulders.

  ‘He has woken?’ asked Izdubar, glancing to someone that Cendrion could not see.

  ‘Where. Am. I?’ Cendrion heard his own voice echo through the chamber like metallic thunder. Izdubar looked up at him again.

  ‘Titan,’ said Izdubar. ‘The Hall of Ancients.’

  Cendrion understood then. The knowledge shivered through his body which was now no more than a broken foetus curled inside the iron womb of a Dreadnought sarcophagus. The pain in his limbs was a ghost, a scrambled sensation that now related to nothing at all.

  ‘How. Long?’ he asked.

  ‘Eight years since Apollonia, seven in warp travel, one in preparation,’ said Erionas, with cold precision.

  ‘Ahriman?’ he growled.

  ‘Escaped with a few vessels.’ Izdubar paused, his tongue poised on his teeth. ‘And with the Athenaeum. Only the Sigillite’s Oath returned from the battle. Ahriman had… allies that attacked us and gave him a chance to dive back into the storm.’

  ‘The. Storm…’ he began, the words forming ponderously.

  ‘We cannot hope that it destroyed him. He planned for it, and the allies that rode on its winds,’ said Malkira. Cendrion thought that she had withered even further in the time since he had last seen her.

  ‘Allies?’

  ‘Space Marines taken and twisted by the warp,’ said Erionas. ‘They fled after Ahriman dived into the storm. We recovered bodies, though. The creatures bore the mark of Russ.’

  ‘The. Wolves. Of. Fenris?’ Cendrion growled, half in shock, half in anger.

  ‘A remnant perhaps, or a diseased offshoot.’ Izdubar tilted his head. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Our eye has turned on the sons of Russ,’ said Malkira.

  Cendrion let the thoughts and information flow around him. He kept feeling the tug of unconsciousness, like a hand trying to beckon him down a dark set of stairs. He shut it out, and asked the question that above all others he now needed answered.

  ‘Why. Have. You. Woken. Me?’

  ‘Because it is not only the inheritance of Ahriman’s saviours that we have discovered,’ said Erionas. ‘The gene-samples taken from the traitor Astraeos, before his escape, have been identified, as has the Chapter that created him.’

  ‘Chapter?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ smiled Malkira. ‘He is not of the ancient breed of traitors, but of a Chapter that lives now, and still claims loyalty to the Imperium.’

  Izdubar looked from the crone back to Cendrion.

  ‘I know I have asked much of you, but now I must ask more of you and your brotherhood.’

  ‘What. Is. Your. Will?’

  ‘Their home world, and every one of their kind must burn, Cendrion. You will lead the execution of that sentence.’

  Cendrion looked back into Izdubar’s thin emotionless face.

  ‘As. You. Will. It,’ he said.

  The warriors watched the sorcerer as he walked between their lines. The polished bronze of his armour shimmered under the dirty light of the fires. Blue and green stones set amongst etched patterns of feathers and claws winked in the low light. A helm covered his face, its surface smooth and featureless except for a single blue gem set into its forehead. A serpentine amulet of azurite, brass, and copper hung from his neck. The silver staff in his hand tapped on the stone floor in time with his steps. Some amongst the warriors stirred as the sorcerer passed, their hands brushing their weapons as though half in temptation and half in threat. The sorcerer paused in his procession, his head turning slowly to look at the stirring warriors. Stillness formed under that gaze. After a second the sorcerer continued, his tread unhurried.

  When he was at the foot of the altar he stopped and looked up at the three figures who stood beside a wide bowl in which yellow and red flames danced. Each of them wore armour that bore the echo of Prospero in its lines. The heads of serpents, hawks and jackals looked out from carved armour plates, and high crests rose above slit-visored helms. They watched the sorcerer for a long moment, not moving.

  ‘I am Calitiedies,’ said one. ‘These are my brothers, and this is our circle of warriors.’ Calitiedies paused, and his eyes flicked to the armoured figures lining the temple’s tiers. ‘You come before us bearing the marks of ancient lore on your armour, and knowing the words of passing from ancient Prospero.’ Calitiedies blinked slowly, and the air became taut. Beside him the flames in the wide bronze bowl dimmed and shrank. Throughout the temple weapons armed with a roll of metallic clatters and the shiver of energy fields. ‘But you are not of our blood, and you have never seen the skies of Prospero. Who are you, that you can come so before us and hope to live?’

  The sorcerer looked around slowly, as though taking in the temple and all its occupants with brief interest.

  The fire in the bronze bowl exploded upwards, flames writhing blue as the light drained from the air. Calitiedies began to move, but the voice stopped him in mid-step, and the invocation forming in his mind died b
efore it could complete. The voice was not loud, but the air quivered at its sound.

  ‘I am Astraeos,’ said the sorcerer, ‘and your oaths will be mine.’

  HAND OF DUST

  The dust blows from my hand towards a far horizon. I watch it turn on the wind. My mind can feel every particle of it, can taste the bone, metal and flesh that it once was. I can hear the dead in the dust’s soft touch. For a second I think I recognise a voice, but then it becomes just the soft rattle of dust against my armour. The sun is setting. The sky is a pyre of molten colour. The wind shivers close to my skin. It has a voice of thirst and whispers. I look down to where the dust has heaped against the charred remnants of a building. This is the place where everything began, and everything ended. I thought I would never return here, but here I stand and wait and watch the dust dancing on the wind and I remember. I am Ahzek Ahriman, exiled son of Magnus the Red, destroyer of my Legion, and I remember.

  I remember red. The red was the blood gloss of armour under the high sun. A warrior crouched before me on the polished, white stone. Ivory edged his armour and symbols curled in silver on the polished plates. He was trembling as though from a chill.

  ‘Helekphon?’ I said slowly. He did not move.

  I shifted half a pace forward. Deep, laboured breaths buzzed from the vox-link.

  ‘Brother?’ I tried again. Nothing. Just the trembling and the hiss-sigh of breath and static.

  +Helekphon?+ I sent.

  His head snapped up. Blank eye pieces met mine. The trembling stopped. He had gone very still. I shifted my grip on my boltgun. I could feel his eyes follow the movement.

  +Ahriman?+ he sent, his voice a crushed whisper of thought.

  +I am here.+

  +Please…+ The thought was a moan. It tasted of desperation, of the last breath of life. +You have never… seen this before… have you? You were not on Bezant… or Clorphor.+

  He paused and I felt the dull echo of his panic as his will slipped. +You have heard… but have not seen. This is our curse, boy. This is our fate. You should have killed me when it began. Do it now, before…+

  His thought drained away, and the hiss of his breath rose in my ears again.

  +Brother I cann–+ I began, but never finished the thought.

  Helekphon’s head wrenched back and he screamed to the noon sky. His shape distorted. Armour shrieked as it tore apart. Wet flesh expanded out of the cracks. Blind eyes rolled in the branching mass of blood-slicked flesh. Claws and hands reached down, slapping on the stone floor as the flesh that had been Helekphon pulled itself from the cracked shell of his armour.

  I fired. I fired again and again, until the firing pin clacked on an empty chamber. Then I stood for a long time, looking at the blood and pulped flesh glinting red under the sun.

  The memory slides away with the dust, becoming small and distant as I watch. I breathe. I can still smell the blood. The wind and the dust rise from my hand.

  I remember water. The water was black and still, like a mirror waiting for light. The still surface shattered as my hand scooped up a palm of water to my mouth. It tasted of pollution and chemicals, and life allowed to rot out of the sight of the sun. I took another mouthful and gulped it down. My mouth was still dry.

  Where am I? I thought, as though the question alone would bring an answer. I looked up. There were stars in the sky, but their light did not reflect from the water’s mirror. A swirl of colour lay across the blackness like a stain of rot blossoming on a bandaged wound.

  ‘The Eye of Terror still holds me then,’ I said to myself as I looked down from the bruised night. A world of leaping flames and broken stone extended away from me on all sides. Somewhere in the distance gunfire chattered and rippling detonations smudged the horizon. My armour hung from me, blackened as though by fire. My shattered staff lay beside me, still smoking. I closed my eyes and saw again the face of Magnus, and felt the roar of the warp as I tumbled away from that face.

  Banishment: the last word spoken by my father, the word which followed me as I had fallen through the warp. Seconds had become years and years seconds. I had passed through fire, light and ice so bright it was blinding. All the while the last word spoken to me by my father had followed me, and with it the fact that the Rubric had failed – that I had failed.

  Pride – last of sins – it finds us in the end. Always.

  I reached for more water and saw the figures watching me. I should have sensed them approaching, should have heard their thoughts and read the paths of their next moments before they reached me. But I did not. My mind was a dull stone in my skull.

  There were five of them. Their armour was the ochre of dried bone. Their weapons glinted in the light of the Eye above. I stared at them, my hand halfway to my mouth, the water draining between my fingers. They looked at me for a long moment, and then one spoke in a voice like gristle cracking between teeth.

  ‘Who are you, who comes to our realm?’

  Who am I? I thought.

  I am Ahriman, came a thought that sounded like a distant shout fading into the distance.

  Banishment. The word rang clear and fresh through my mind. I looked down at my hand. The water had drained away.

  I am failure, I thought. I am the sinner chained to life for his hubris while all he valued became dust.

  I looked up.

  ‘I am Horkos,’ I said.

  The memory fades. The sun is setting in a final glimmer of red fire.

  I am still banished, I am still an exile, but I am no longer broken by the burden of the past.

  I see fading light. The last rays of the red sun catch the motes of dust as they spread through the air. I see the future in their dust dance. Possibilities and unborn fates spin before my eyes, each one a universe that shall live, or shall remain unborn. I see worlds burn, and ashes become the beds of the children of humanity. I see all that was, and I see how it may end. I see hope. We will rise again. Salvation will come, even if it takes ten thousand years.

  The sun has set, and this dead land of ashes and dust is an ocean of black velvet beneath my feet. I let my hand fall, and watch with my mind as the last of the scattered dust settles with the night. I turn. Behind me a sea of eyes glow bright in armoured faces. They wait, silent, watching.

  ‘Come, my brothers,’ I say. ‘It is time.’

  KING OF ASHES

  Someone is calling me. I feel his voice pull me to wakefulness. How long has it been? Cold darkness surrounds me, unbroken by the beat of a heart, or the hiss of breath. How long have I slept? Why can’t I see? I try to look around, but there is nothing to turn through, no light to break the blackness. I could be falling. I could be tumbling over and over without realising.

  Who am I? The question echoes, and is lost in silence.

  What am I?

  Then I remember. I remember what I was, and the first time I glimpsed what I would become.

  I remember gold. A golden web of glowing threads, spreading through the black, stretching into infinity. The threads split and divided, met and joined, over and over, slicing the emptiness into sharp slivers. I spun through the web. My body blinked between shapes: a silver hawk, a circle of fire, a sickle of moonlight. Rainbow sparks danced in my wake, and the golden web sang at my passing. I felt joy. I had made that journey many times in dreams before that moment, but that was the first time I had dived into the Great Ocean at my own will. It felt like breaking into air after drowning. It felt like returning home. I flew, my thoughts stretching across time and space, my will snapping realities and remaking them. It was so easy, it was like nothing, but it was everything.

  They came for me then.

  I felt them before I saw them. They cackled with voices of cracking ice. The golden web became fractures running through a plain of obsidian. I fell and hit the black glass. My shape became that of a human, hard-muscled and black-haired. I stood, and turned my single eye to the shadows which crawled above the ground. Cold poured over me. I tasted blood, hot and spiced. Laughte
r breathed across the idea of my skin…

  None of what I saw or felt was physically real – it was all metaphor, a shadow play projected onto the curtain of the aether. But unkind dreams can burn deeper than true fire.

  A wolf stepped from behind the darkness. Blood matted its pelt and hung in droplets from its teeth. Scars marked its muzzle and twisted between eyes the colour of molten brass. Those eyes did not leave mine as it paced forwards. Breath panted from its open mouth, and I felt rage and hunger in each exhalation. It began to circle. I thought I heard laughter in the click of its claws.

  +What are you?+ I asked. The wolf growled, jaws snapping out and back, faster than a blink of lightning. I felt the tips of its teeth brush the skin of my face. Pain detonated inside me at the touch. The obsidian beneath my feet shattered and I plunged down, through into the oblivion below.

  The wolf was all around me, circling like a hurricane-force wind. I pushed against its presence with all my strength, but the storm swallowed my power. Its hate surrounded me, hot and red, but even as its teeth ripped me I could feel that it was sparing me, that it was holding itself back. I was not afraid. I had always known that there were creatures in the Great Ocean, things that call it home just as I do. Old things, formed from mislaid thoughts and stranded dreams, dangerous, cruel. They had always seemed to ignore me. Until that moment.

  I hit another glass plain, and pulled myself to my feet. Aetheric blood was sheeting down the idea of my skin. The wolf was circling again, but it was not alone. Three other shapes stood beyond the wolf. A serpent glided and coiled across the black glass, its scales changing colour with each stretch and squeeze of its body. There was something soft and obscene about its every movement, like the taste of vomit made solid. It reared up and looked at me with a human face. Its features were perfect in every way. I knew as I looked back that it saw everything I had ever hidden from anyone or anything. It licked its lips, the hood of scales flaring behind its smiling face. Behind it hovered a thing like a rotten moth with the cataract-white eyes of a dead fish. Its thorax shuddered as it expanded and contracted, phlegm popping and rattling with each breath. There was another shape further away, indistinct, yet I was sure that it had had its back turned to me. The wolf circled nearer, and the snake glided in its wake.