The Omnibus - John French

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘The Rubric… it came from you.’

  ‘From my book,’ he snorted. ‘The Book of Magnus. When I wrote it I was whole, but the part of me that laid down the beginnings of that incantation, that was the part that became me.’

  ‘You knew what would happen to us?’

  ‘No. Or perhaps yes. Or perhaps it does not matter. Time and fate and causality are not strict masters, as you know well, Knekku.’

  ‘But the Rubric failed. Ahriman failed. You failed.’

  ‘Yes. And no. Ahriman fell, the weight of his actions dragging him down and down into silence where he wallowed in the darkness of his sins. Until I sent him an emissary.’ The crackle of the fire filled the pause. ‘He was almost gone, the fire of his conviction almost burned away by doubt. But he is my son, and he only needed a reason to rise again. Amon, in his bitterness, gave him that reason, and I… I gave Amon his dream of peace through the annihilation of the Legion.’

  ‘What are you speaking of? Amon has not been seen since the banishment.’

  ‘He died, Knekku. I sacrificed him to bring Ahriman back to his true self.’

  Knekku felt himself shiver.

  ‘You claim to be our father, but you sacrifice your own sons–’

  ‘For a greater end. Yes, I did, and I do. Just as you would.’

  ‘So Ahriman returns to the Planet of the Sorcerers because that is the end you shaped for him? Why?’

  ‘He intends to cast the Rubric again. He intends to save the Legion from both the flesh curse and the effects of its first casting.’

  ‘And he believes that it will work?’

  ‘Of course he does.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he has looked into the thoughts of his primarch, and found the one thing that he was missing the first time he cast it.’

  ‘So he was right, it could work?’

  ‘Your faith in him, and me, is gratifying, but no. It will not work. It will not do what he hopes or intends. It will do something quite different.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I am Magnus, father of the Thousand Sons. Because I changed what Ahriman’s second Rubric will do. Because it is, in truth, my Rubric.’

  Iobel laughed. She could not help it, and did not try to stop it.

  ‘You are a fool, Magnus, just as your deluded sons are.’ She sat, folding herself to the floor. ‘You betrayed the Emperor, your father and creator, and now Ahriman does the same and comes to your world with the power to remake what you have created, and you do not see the jest in that?’ She spread her hands to the fire. ‘Talk all you like, Crimson King, explain all you can. I will watch you, and Ahriman, and all your sons burn, and I will laugh.’

  ‘Except you won’t,’ said the Crimson King. ‘You are judgement, Iobel. You are strong even here, and the echo of your strength keeps its shape. I know the loathing you have for me, for the powers I wield, and what I and my sons have done. We are enemies, you and I. But… your judgement and need to know more are what brought you here, and they will not let you allow Ahriman’s flawed Rubric to succeed.’

  ‘You,’ she said, voice dripping contempt, ‘are lying.’

  ‘I am not. I am telling you what has happened. I was broken, and remade. But that process was imperfect. Minor shards of my being survived and conspired against me, thinking they were the true heart of my being, the rightful heirs to the throne of my existence.’

  ‘How delightfully ironic and irrelevant.’

  ‘Except it is relevant to everything. One such shard has set Ahriman on his course, and lit the fire of the second Rubric in his mind. Ahriman believes he will save my Legion, but he will not.’

  ‘Again, an end I can only applaud.’

  ‘He will not because this second Rubric is built on false foundations, foundations taken from my works, from Ahriman’s own memory, and from what you called the Athenaeum.’

  For the first time since she had sat by the fire, Iobel felt cold.

  ‘You knew it existed.’

  ‘Yes. The Athenaeum was a stream of knowledge flowing from my being, from all my being. I was blind to its existence for a long time, but a part of me, one stray shard of my being, found it. A weak and ragged thing, it is still subtle, and knowing. It used the Athenaeum to feed secrets into existence. From those secrets it grew a following of those who craved that knowledge. I used it to create you. From you, Ahriman learned of the Athenaeum, and then went to find it. Having it, he listened to it. He believed he was seeing into my soul. A mistake you can hardly blame him for. After all, inquisitor, you had believed the same, and for far longer.’

  Iobel had gone very still, her eyes fixed but her thoughts remembering the Ordo Cyclopes. The order of inquisitors who had dedicated their lives to defending mankind against the secrets of the Thousand Sons. All of it built on knowledge taken from the Athenaeum of Kalimakus.

  The Crimson King nodded at her slowly.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I see I have your attention now. You are beginning to see the implications. It burns, does it not? Revelation has that property, when it breaks our beliefs.’

  ‘But the lore that came from the Athenaeum was true.’

  ‘Yes, it was. It is much easier to manipulate using truth rather than lies. You learned many secrets, but those only served to convince Ahriman of its worth, and my ignorance of its existence. When it was in his hands, and babbling my knowledge from out of poor Sanakht’s lips, it still spoke truth. For the most part. Apart from a few subtle and crucial points.’

  ‘The second Rubric,’ breathed Iobel.

  ‘Ahriman believes the Athenaeum showed him the flaw to his original work. It did not. It changed the Rubric. It will not do what Ahriman intends. It will not bring about the resurrection of the Legion. It will bring the last of my lost shards together,’ said the Crimson King. ‘But it will not make me whole, it will destroy me.’

  ‘No. You said that it is easier to manipulate with truth than lies. You are speaking truth as a lie. The Rubric is going to put you back together, but this other you, this part of yourself with which you are at war, it will be in control. It will take the throne from you. That is what you mean by destruction.’

  ‘Clever, Selandra Iobel.’

  ‘I will enjoy watching what you say come to pass.’

  ‘No, no you will not.’ His voice was flat certainty. ‘You will go and you will do what I cannot. You will stop Ahriman.’

  ‘There is no reason–’

  ‘The Imperium, Iobel, my father’s empire of folly, all the souls shielded by ignorance. You swore to protect them, did you not? If you do not stop him then you will not be serving them, you will be serving what I will become. For all my power, I am a broken prince. Made whole again, though… Your kind claim to have the strength to make the choice between ends that are only terrible, and those that are apocalyptic. Choose now, Iobel.’

  ‘How can I allow myself to believe you are telling the truth?’

  ‘Can you afford to believe I am not?’

  She stared into the fire, and felt herself shivering.

  ‘Why don’t you–’ she began to ask, but the Crimson King cut her off.

  ‘I cannot. I tried, and…’ He looked away and the shadows deepened over him, his skin seeming to char and grey. Cracks ran over his skin, and his shape blurred as though he were made of dust being eroded by wind. ‘I am trapped.’

  ‘How can I stop him?’

  ‘By returning to the beginning of things.’ The words echoed through her, tingling with the weight of familiarity and prophecy.

  ‘I was looking for that. I was looking for that because that is where I would find you.’

  ‘No, you were not. You were looking for the heart of him, the secret drive at the core of Ahriman. You always have been.’

  ‘Where does this begin?’ she asked and the ground began to shake beneath her. The fire was guttering. The shadows and cave walls cracked, and bent as though they were paintings on tilting walls.
She was falling but the Crimson King’s voice followed her.

  ‘It begins where all things do,’ called the Crimson King. ‘It begins with blood and guilt. It begins within.’

  ‘It would have worked,’ said Magnus. ‘I would have been whole again, but change is inexorable, and subtle in its jests.’

  Knekku said nothing, he did not know what to think, let alone what to say. He had lived all of his life never knowing a sensation like it.

  This must be doubt, he thought to himself, and glanced at the figure who claimed to be his father. Magnus was watching him, and nodded softly as though in answer to his thoughts. He felt reassured, and then disturbed by that feeling.

  ‘What went wrong?’ he asked to break the silence.

  ‘Your Crimson King, my other face, my greater-self,’ Magnus replied, his voice curdling with scorn. ‘He learned what I intended and decided to interfere. He discovered the Athenaeum and dipped his mind into its stream of consciousness, hoping to alter what Ahriman learned, and so turn the Rubric to his own advantage.’

  ‘As is right,’ said Knekku.

  Magnus snorted.

  ‘Except for all my greater-self’s might and power he made a mistake. He succeeded in insinuating himself into the Athenaeum, but once in the stream he could not break free. And the currents of our minds are the fire of suns and the ice of eternity.’ He reached into the fire and pulled a handful of coals from the centre. They glowed in his palm, but his skin remained untouched by their heat. ‘He burned, and only broke free at the cost of leaving something trapped in the flow, an echo in the signal.’

  Knekku remembered the broken angel form of the Crimson King crumbling on his throne.

  I have made a mistake…

  ‘But he succeeded in undoing your plan?’

  ‘Oh yes, he succeeded in that,’ sneered Magnus. ‘He altered the design that I had seeded into Ahriman’s new Rubric, but my greater-self made a mistake. A very grave mistake…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Rubric that Ahriman will cast, and which he believes will save the Legion, will work, but at a cost, a sacrificial cost.’

  ‘What cost?’

  ‘Me,’ said Magnus and tipped the cooling embers back into the fire. A cloud of sparks fountained up. ‘Me, and the thing you call the Crimson King, and all the rest, whatever, and wherever they may be. All the pieces of me. All of us annihilated.’

  ‘You could have altered it again, corrected the mistake…’

  ‘No. I cannot, Knekku. Time has run out. We are on the brink. There is no way back.’

  ‘The Crimson King…’

  ‘Weakened, trapped here in the Labyrinth. He can do no more to change what he has done than I can.’

  Knekku rose to his feet, silk robe rippling as he straightened. The light caught his shape and threw a towering shadow on the wall behind him.

  ‘I believe you,’ he said, and paused, the words forming in his mind slowly, ‘but I serve the Crimson King.’

  Magnus chuckled.

  ‘You are my son, faithful, unswerving in loyalty, strong in certainty. That was always your greatest quality, Knekku. But simple loyalty will not serve you in this.’ Knekku frowned as Magnus bent down and Avenisi uncurled from a shadow and slunk to Knekku’s side. ‘Avenisi will lead you back out of the Labyrinth once you are ready.’

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘You would go and break Ahriman in battle?’

  Knekku nodded.

  ‘If you do, you will fail.’

  ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘Understanding is the expression of knowledge, and knowledge is power, my son.’ Magnus lifted a hand and beckoned, creased skin creaking around crooked joints. ‘Come, I will give you knowledge.’

  Knekku hesitated for a second and then stepped forward and bent down to hear his father’s words.

  The daemon let the images fade from the broken mirrors. The voices around it became silent. It let what it had heard and seen roll through what passed for its consciousness.

  Things were far worse than it had suspected. Far worse and far better. The others were blind to its hand moving amongst their schemes. The King bloated by power and authority, and devoured by subtlety, and the Father chewing at the possibility of guiding Ahriman against his rival, both blind to what they had each done, both traitors to themselves. They deserved nothing but to see what they wanted most taken from them.

  The daemon rose from where it had squatted amongst the discoloured and crazed mirrors of the Labyrinth. It stretched its wings, and the movement sent cobwebs billowing from where they hung over silver-framed doorways.

  It was weaker than they, but it would take their victories from them even as they reached out to claim them. It could not believe that both the mortal shade and the sorcerer had swallowed the hooks of deception so easily, but then the warp had a punishment for the credulous, and it was the agent of that punishment.

  All would suffer. It would make certain of it.

  It spread its wings, and the floor tilted to become a cliff. The walls and doors flicked past it as it plunged down, back along its path, back to the Monolith, back to Astraeos, and the last step of their journey.

  XX

  RITUAL WAR

  +Launch,+ commanded Gaumata, and the Pyromonarch spat his gunship from its belly. He felt the rush as gravity slammed into him. The fuselage was ringing with heat as it kissed the air. He felt the others follow, and felt the flames peel back from the rune-etched wings. The flight of gunships spread out from the Pyromonarch. +Hear my will,+ he sent.

  The minds of lesser sorcerers on board the other gunships aligned with his thoughts. Their wills became his.

  The gunship began to judder as searing winds slammed into it. He peeled a layer of awareness away and touched the mind of Ignis across the aether. Information flicked between them without words. The precise locations and timings of the second-wave assault became reality. Gunships clustered into diamonds and spread outwards. At the back of Gaumata’s mind he could feel Ignis, watching, counting. Gravity pressed his flesh against his armour.

  +Ten seconds to target,+ sent Gaumata.

  The fingers of the Rubricae were twitching on the grips of their bolters.

  Gaumata’s gunships screamed towards the surface of the planet. Burning haloes shrieked in their wake. Beneath them, beast-headed mutants looked up from amongst the rubble. The gunships fired. Casings rattled into the wind. Shells punched the ground. Stone shards and shrapnel scythed through flesh. Blood and broken meat spattered the earth. Gunfire and witch-lightning leapt up at the gunships, met their shrouds of fire and became nothing.

  Within the lead gunship of his wing, Gaumata held the core of his mind still. His Rubricae were rattling in their harnesses as the fire in his soul mirrored into them. He was sculpting the fire which followed them, watching the altitude shrink through the pilot-servitor’s machine eyes.

  A beam of light stabbed up from the ground, touched the gunship to his left, and the machine became a ball of falling light. Scabs of metal peeled away, and flew upwards. Rubricae within tumbled through the air as the fuselage vanished around them. They fell in silence, green light chewing them as the air screamed past.

  Altitude was vanishing. Gaumata pulsed a command. The gunships stopped firing. The mutant troops still alive amongst the ruins beneath them raised their weapons, or began to flee. The blaze was a hungering roar at the edge of Gaumata’s will. Bullets and las-bolts hissed up as a greeting. The ground was a looming wall. Alarms began to shriek. The gunships were daggers descending on the edge of a burning wave. More of the mutants began to run.

  +Now!+ he willed. The craft snapped level. Gaumata felt gravity punch his body, and gave the fire its freedom. It washed down, pouring past them to cover the already scorched ruins. Bodies blasted to flakes of black bone and droplets of fat.

  +Outer node locations scoured,+ he sent into the web of his brothers’ minds. +Deploying.+

  Gaumata stood. Maglocks snap
ped free of his armour. A hatch opened at the end of the compartment. Heat blasted in. Warning runes burned at the edges of his helmet display. The Rubricae pivoted towards the hatch. Gaumata parted the carpet of flames as they skimmed lower. The open hatch kissed the ground. Gaumata leapt forward. The Rubricae stepped out behind him, hit the ground, and tumbled over and over like thrown dolls.

  Gaumata landed in a crouch. His armour screeched as servos and fibres absorbed the impact. Walls of flame surrounded the landing site and curved away into a wide ring. As desolate as it looked, the site was one of eighty-one spread through the ruins of the City of Towers. Together they made a design, a sigil marked by fire on the surface of the planet. That sigil was only one part of the Rubric, but it was a vital part.

  +Rise!+ called Gaumata.

  The Rubricae pulled themselves upright. He felt presences moving within the flame. The Rubricae raised their weapons. The chain of Gaumata’s morning star rattled taut as he pulled the barbed head from the ashen ground. Shadows grew in the wall of fire. He could feel the things moving behind its surface, heat sliding off them as they walked through it. He began to spin the morning star, its head a red comet.

  The surrounding wall of fire split. A blackened Rubricae stepped from out of the sheet of roaring heat, smoke pouring from its armour.

  Gaumata felt the cords of will holding its being.

  It fired. Pink fire sliced from the muzzle of the gun. Gaumata heard the buzz of the bolt-rounds as they met the air. The morning star was a blurred disc around him, his thoughts running through its crystal core. He pivoted, force and will bending time in a slow beat. The morning star’s head struck the bolt-round in mid-air. Pink and blue light burst out, screaming in hunger. His will changed, and the explosion was sucked into the spiked head. The morning star spun on in his hands. His own Rubricae fired, and more of their enemy brethren stepped from the blazing wall to reply.

  Another sorcerer stepped from the blaze, robes slick with cold light, an axe in his hand. He pointed its head at Gaumata, the gesture as much a promise as a challenge.