Karkasy froze as he heard the clink of a bottle on a glass, his hand outstretched to another table.
'What are you doing?' asked a cultured, but clearly drunk, female voice.
Karkasy turned and saw a bedraggled woman slumped in one of the booths at the far end of the Retreat, which explained why he hadn't seen her. She was in shadow, but he instantly recognised her as Petronella Vivar, the Warmaster's documentarist, though her appearance was a far cry from when he had last seen her on Davin.
No, that wasn't right, he remembered. He had seen her on the embarkation deck as the Astartes had returned with the Warmaster.
Obviously, the experience hadn't failed to leave its mark on her.
'Those papers,' she said. 'What are they?'
Karkasy guiltily dropped the sheets he had been holding onto the tabletop and shifted the satchel so that it rested at his back.
'Nothing really,' he said, moving down the row of booths towards her. 'Just some poems I'd like people to read.'
'Poetry? Is it any good? I could use something uplifting.' He knew he should leave her to her maudlin solitude, but the egotist in him couldn't help but respond.
'Yes, I think they're some of my best'
'Can I read them?'
'I wouldn't right now, my dear,' he said. 'Not if you're looking for something light. They're a bit dark.'
'A bit dark,' she laughed, the sound harsh and ugly. 'You have no idea.'
'It's Vivar isn't it?' asked Karkasy, approaching her booth. 'That's your name isn't it?'
She looked up, and Karkasy, an expert in gauging levels of inebriation in others, saw that she was drunk to the point of insensibility. Three bottles sat drained on the table and a fourth lay in pieces on the floor.
'Yes, that's me, Petronella Vivar,' she said. 'Palatina Majoria of House Carpinus, writer and fraud… and, I think, very drunk'
'I can see that, but what do you mean by fraud?'
'Fraud,' she slurred, taking another drink. 'I came here to tell the glory of Horus and the splendid brotherhood of the primarchs, you know? Told Horus when I met him that if he didn't let me do it he could go to hell. Thought I'd lost my chance right there and then, but he laughed!'
'He laughed?'
She nodded. 'Yes, laughed, but he let me do it anyway. Think he might have thought I'd be amusing to keep around or something. I thought I was ready for anything.'
'And has it proved to be all you hoped it would be, my dear Petronella?'
'No, not really if I'm honest. Want a drink? I'll tell you about it.'
Karkasy nodded and fetched himself a glass from the bar before sitting across from her. She poured him some wine, getting more on the table than in the glass.
'Thank you,' he said. 'So why is it not what you thought it would be? There's many a remembrancer would think such a position would be a documentarist's dream. Mersadie Oliton would have killed to land such a role.'
'Who?'
'A friend of mine,' explained Karkasy. 'She's also a documentarist.'
'She wouldn't want it, trust me,' said Petronella, and Karkasy could see that the puffiness around her eyes was due as much to tears as to alcohol. 'Some illusions are best kept. Everything I thought I knew… upside down, just like that! Trust me, she doesn't want this.'
'Oh, I think she might,' said Karkasy, taking a drink.
She shook her head and took a closer look at him, as though seeing him for the first time.
'Who are you?' she asked suddenly. 'I don't know you.'
'My name is Ignace Karkasy,' he said, puffing out his chest. 'Winner of the Ethiopic Laureate and—'
'Karkasy? I know that name…' she said, rubbing the heel of her palm against her temple as she sought to recall him. 'Wait, you're a poet aren't you?'
'I am indeed,' he said. 'Do you know my work?'
She nodded. 'You write poetry. Bad poetry I think, I don't remember.'
Stung by her casual dismissal of his work, he resorted to petulance and said, 'Well what have you written that's so bloody great? Can't say I remember reading anything you've written.'
'Ha! You'll remember what I'm going to write, I'll tell you that for nothing!'
'Really?' quipped Karkasy, gesturing at the empty bottles on the table. 'And what might that be? Memoirs of an Inebriated Socialite? Vengeful Spirits of the Vengeful Spirit?'
'You think you're so clever, don't you?'
'I have my moments,' said Karkasy, knowing that there wasn't much challenge in scoring points over a drunken woman, but enjoying it nonetheless. Anyway, it would be pleasant to take this spoiled rich girl - who was complaining about the biggest break of her life - down a peg or two.
'You don't know anything,' she snapped.
'Don't I?' he asked. 'Why don't you illuminate me then?'
'Fine! I will.'
And she told Ignace Karkasy the most incredible tale he'd ever heard in his life.
'Why did you bring me here?' asked Horus, backing away from the silver tank. The eyes on the other side of the glass watched him curiously, clearly aware of him in a way that everyone else they had encountered on this strange odyssey was not. Though he knew with utter certainty who those eyes belonged to, he couldn't accept that this sterile chamber far beneath the earth was where the glory of his life had begun.
Raised on Cthonia under the black smog of the smelteries - that had been his home, his earliest memories a blur of confusing images and feelings. Nothing in his memory recalled this place or the awareness that must have grown within…
'You have seen the ultimate goal of the Emperor, my friend,' said Sejanus. 'Now it is time for you see how he began his quest for godhood.'
'With the primarchs?' said Horus. 'That makes no sense.'
'It makes perfect sense. You were to be his generals. Like unto gods, you would bestride planets and claim back the galaxy for him. You were a weapon, Horus, a weapon to be cast aside once blunted and past all usefulness.'
Horus turned from Sejanus and marched along the walkway, stopping periodically to peer through the glass of the tanks. He saw something different in each one, light and form indistinguishable, organisms like architecture, eyes and wheels turning in circles of fire. Power like nothing he had known was at work, and he could feel die potent energies surrounding and protecting the tanks, rippling across his skin like waves in the air.
He stopped by the tank with XI stencilled upon it and placed his hand against the smooth steel, feeling the untapped glories diat might have lain ahead for what grew within, but knowing that they would never come to pass. He leaned forward to look within.
'You know what happens here, Horus,' said Sejanus. 'You are not long for this place.'
'Yes,' said Horus. 'There was an accident. We were lost, scattered across the stars until the Emperor discovered us.'
'No,' said Sejanus. There was no accident.'
Horus turned from the glass, confused. 'What are you talking about? Of course there was. We were hurled from Terra like leaves in a storm. I came to Cthonia, Russ to Fenris, Sanguineus to Baal and the odiers to die worlds they were raised on.'
'No, you misunderstand me. I meant that it wasn't an accident,' said Sejanus. 'Look around you. You know how far beneath the earth we are and you saw the protective wards carved on the doors diat led here. What manner of accident do you think could reach into this facility and scatter you so far across the galaxy? And what were the chances of you all coming to rest on ancient homeworlds of humanity?'
Horus had no answer for him and leaned on the walkway's railing taking deep breaths as Sejanus approached him. 'What are you suggesting?'
'I am suggesting nothing. I am telling you what happened.'
'You are telling me nothing!' roared Horus. 'You fill my head with speculation and conjecture, but you tell me nothing concrete. Maybe I'm being stupid, I don't know, so explain what you mean in plain words.'
'Very well,' nodded Sejanus. 'I will tell you of your creation.'
Thunderhea
ds rumbled over the summit of the Delphos, and Euphrati Keeler snapped off a couple of quick picts of the structure's immensity, silhouetted against sheets of purple lighting. She knew die picts were nothing special, the composition banal and pedestrian, but she took them anyway knowing that every moment of this historic time had to be recorded for future generations.
'Are you done?' asked Titus Cassar, who stood a little way behind her. 'The prayer meeting's in a few moments and you don't want to be late.'
'I know, Titus, stop fussing.'
She had met Titus Cassar the day after she had arrived in the valley of the Delphos, following the secret Lectitio Divinitatus symbols to a clandestine prayer meeting he had organised in the shadow of the mighty building. She had been surprised by how many people were part of his congregation, nearly sixty souls, all with their heads bowed and reciting prayers to the Divine Emperor of Mankind.
Cassar had welcomed her into his flock, but people had quickly gravitated to her daily prayers and sermons, preferring them to his. For all his faith, Cassar was no orator and his awkward, spiky delivery left a lot to be desired. He had faith, but he was no iterator, that was for sure. She had worried that he might resent her usurping his group, but he had welcomed it, knowing that he was a follower, not a leader.
In truth, she was no leader either. Like Cassar, she had faith, but felt uncomfortable standing in front of large groups of people. The crowds of the faithful didn't seem to notice, staring at her in rapturous adoration as she delivered the word of the Emperor.
'I'm not fussing, Euphrati.'
'Yes you are.'
'Well, maybe I am, but I have to get back to the Dies Irae before I'm missed. Princeps Tumet will have my hide if he finds out what I've been doing here.'
The mighty war engines of the Legio Mortis stood sentinel over the Warmaster at the mouth of the valley, their bulk too enormous to allow them to enter. The crater looked more like the site of a military muster than a gathering of pilgrims and supplicants: tanks, trucks, flatbeds and mobile command vehicles having carried tens of thousands of people to this place over the past seven days.
Together with the bizarre-looking locals, a huge portion of the Expeditionary fleet filled the crater with makeshift camps all around the Delphos. People had, in a wondrous outpouring of spontaneous feeling, made their way to where the Warmaster lay, and the scale of it still had the power to take Euphrati's breath away. The steps of the temple were thick with offerings to the Warmaster, and she knew that many of the people here had given all they had in the hope that it might speed his recovery in some way.
Keeler had a new passion in her life, but she was still an imagist at heart, and some of the picts she had taken here were amongst her finest work.
'Yes, you're right, we should go,' she said, folding up her picter and hanging it around her neck. She ran her hand through her hair, still not used to how short it was now, but liking how it made her feel.
'Have you thought about what you're going to say tonight?' asked Cassar as they made their way through the thronged site to the prayer meeting.
'No, not really,' she answered. 'I never plan that far ahead. I just let the Emperor's light fill me and then I speak from the heart.'
Cassar nodded, hanging on her every word. She smiled.
'You know, six months ago, I'd have laughed if anyone had said things like that around me.'
'What things?' asked Cassar.
'About the Emperor,' she said, fingering the silver eagle on a chain she kept tucked beneath her remembrancer's robes. 'But I guess a lot can happen to a person in that time.'
'I guess so,' agreed Cassar, making way for a group of Army soldiers. 'The Emperor's light is a powerful force, Euphrati.'
As Keeler and Cassar drew level with the soldiers, a thick-necked bull of a man with a shaved head, slammed his shoulder into Cassar and pitched him to the ground.
'Hey, watch where you're going,' snarled the soldier, looming over Cassar.
Keeler stood over the fallen Cassar and shouted, 'Piss off, you cretin, you hit him!'
The soldier turned, backhanding his fist into Euphrati's jaw, and she dropped to the ground, more shocked than hurt. She struggled to rise as blood filled her mouth, but a pair of hands gripped her shoulders and held her firm to the ground. Two soldiers held her down as the others started kicking the fallen Cassar.
'Get off me!' she yelled.
'Shut up, bitch!' said the first soldier. 'You think we don't know what you're doing? Prayers and stuff to the Emperor? Horus is the one you should be giving thanks to.'
Cassar rolled to his knees, blocking the kicks as best he could, but he was facing three trained soldiers and couldn't block them all. He punched one in the groin and swayed away from a thick-soled boot aimed at his head, finally gaining his feet as a chopping hand struck him on the side of the neck.
Keeler struggled in her captors' grip, but they were too strong. One man reached down to tear the picter from around her neck and she bit his wrist as it came into range of her teeth. He yelped and ripped the picter from her as the other wrenched her head back by the roots of her hair.
'Don't you dare!' she screamed, struggling even harder as the soldier swung the picter by its strap and smashed it to pieces on the ground. Cassar was down on one knee, his face bloody and angry. He freed his pistol from its holster, but a knee connected widi his face and knocked him insensible, die pistol clattering to die ground beside him.
'Titus!' shouted Keeler, fighting like a wildcat and finally managing to free one arm. She reached back and clawed her nails down the face of the man who held her. He screamed and released his grip on her, and she scrambled on her knees to the fallen pistol.
'Get her!' someone shouted. 'Emperor loving bitch!'
She reached the pistol, hearing the thud of heavy impacts, and rolled onto her back. She held the gun out in front of her, ready to kill the next bastard that came near her.
Then she saw that she wouldn't have to kill anyone.
Three of die soldiers were down, one was running for his life through the campsite and the last was held in the iron grip of an Astartes warrior. The soldier's feet flailed-a metre off the ground as the Astartes held him round the neck with one hand.
'Five to one doesn't seem very sporting now does it?' asked the warrior, and Keeler saw that it was Captain Torgaddon, one of the Mournival. She remembered snapping some fine images of Torgaddon on the Vengeful Spirit and thinking that he was the handsomest of the Sons of Horus.
Torgaddon ripped the name and unit badge from the struggling soldier's uniform, before dropping him and saying, 'You'll be hearing from the Discipline Masters. Now get out of my sight before I kill you.'
Keeler dropped the pistol and scooted over to her picter, cursing as she saw that it and the images contained within it were probably ruined. She pawed through the remains and lifted out the memory coil. If she could get this into the edit engine she kept in her billet quickly enough then perhaps she could save some of the images.
Cassar groaned in pain and she felt a momentary pang of guilt that she'd gone for her smashed picter before him, but it soon passed.
'Are you Keeler?' asked Torgaddon as she slipped the memory coil into her robes.
She looked up, surprised that he knew her name, and said, 'Yes.'
'Good,' he said, offering his hand to help her to her feet.
'You want to tell me what that was all about?' he asked.
She hesitated, not wanting to tell an Astartes warrior the real reason for the assault. 'I don't think they liked the images I was taking,' she said.
'Everyone's a critic, eh?' chuckled Torgaddon, but she could see that he didn't believe her.
'Yeah, but I need to get back to the ship to recover them.'
'Well that's a happy coincidence,' said Torgaddon.
'What do you mean?'
'I've been asked to take you back to the Vengeful Spirit.'
'You have? Why?'
'Does it mat
ter?' asked Torgaddon. 'You're coming back with me.'
'You can at least tell me who wants me back, can't you?'
'No, it's top secret.'
'Really?'
'No, not really, it's Kyril Sindermann.'
The idea of Sindermann sending an Astartes warrior to do his bidding seemed ludicrous to Keeler, and there could only be one reason why the venerable iterator wanted to speak to her. Ignace or Mersadie must have blabbed to him about her new faith, and she felt her anger grow at their unwillingness to understand her newfound truth.
'So the Astartes are at the beck and call of the iterators now?' she snapped.
'Hardly,' said Torgaddon. 'It's a favour to a friend and I think it might be in your own best interests to go back.'
'Why?'
'You ask a lot of questions, Miss Keeler,' said Torgaddon, 'and while that's a trait that probably stands you in good stead as a remembrancer, it might be best for you to be quiet and listen for a change.'
'Am I in trouble?'
Torgaddon stirred the smashed remnants of her picter with his boot and said, 'Let's just say that someone wants to give you some lessons in pictography.'
'The Emperor knew he would need the greatest warriors to lead his armies,' began Sejanus. 'To lead such warriors as the Astartes needed commanders like gods. Commanders who were virtually indestructible and could command superhuman warriors in the blink of an eye. They would be engineered to be leaders of men, mighty warlords whose martial prowess was only matched by the Emperor's, each with his own particular skills.'
'The primarchs.'
'Indeed. Only beings of such magnitude could even think of conquering the galaxy. Can you imagine the hubris and will required even to contemplate such an endeavour? What manner of man could even consider it? Who but a primarch could be trusted with such a monumental task? No man, not even the Emperor, could achieve such a god-like undertaking alone. Hence you were created.'
'To conquer the galaxy for humanity,' said Horus.
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