Silver Skulls: Portents

by S P Cawkwell

  ‘I know the Silver Skulls of old,’ Karteitja replied eventually. ‘Once, perhaps, they were worthy of consideration. In times long past…’ He broke off for a moment, his lightning-fast mind peeling back the years. He had encountered the Silver Skulls perhaps three times in several thousand years. They had been a force for such a long time, it seemed impossible that their paths had not crossed more frequently.

  But then, following the last meeting, the Oracles of Change had retreated to nurse their quite considerable wounds. Stalwart warriors the Silver Skulls might be but as far as Karteitja was concerned, that merely made them a nuisance. ‘In times long past they were a force of considerable might,’ he continued. ‘But they have fallen into disarray. Their leaders are dying and they are losing their way. In time, perhaps, what remains of their pitiful force will find their way to our side anyway.’

  He extended a forefinger and stroked it gently along the length of the withered heart. He would need to make another sacrifice soon, before the dying flesh failed and the gods turned their eyes from Valoria. The Silver Skulls were a distraction he could not afford to invest time considering. ‘No, Cirth, there is nothing they can offer me. They can be consumed with the rest of this worthless planet. When Valoria is reborn as a world for our lord and master, they will simply become slaves to its new order. Or die. Either result is satisfactory.’

  Nathaniel could feel nothing. He had been seeking evidence of the inquisitor’s psychic trace as they moved through the floors of the palace but there was none to be found. The auspex had identified a number of life signs as they climbed, but thus far all they had found was a mob of crazed servants and a menagerie of xenos pets. His frustration with the situation was impairing his own ability to concentrate and he paused, breathing deeply.

  He had spent many years being instructed in the means to control his powers and yet here, when he needed to employ the less confrontational spectrum of his abilities, he could hardly remember any of that advice.

  ‘Master Gall?’ The voice belonged to the brutish sergeant who had picked him up and reprimanded him as though he were no better than a child. Nathaniel felt a heavy, gauntleted hand beneath his armpit, dragging him into a more upright position. ‘Are you well?’

  ‘I am fine,’ he snapped in reply. ‘I just need… a moment to gather my thoughts.’

  ‘As you wish, but time is not something we can afford to squander. Brothers, hold.’ Gileas’s manner was, if not deferential, at least respectful and Nathaniel let this fact squirrel itself away at the back of his mind to deal with later. If there was a later. He did not claim the gift of foresight, not like his post-human counterparts, but still he had a very bad feeling about this situation. That, coupled with the endless whispers of the Things Beyond that were constantly trying to break through his waning defence, left him feeling weak and feeble.

  He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. He could feel the psychic spoor of the warriors who accompanied him. It was an ability he had always had and the visualisation in his mind’s eye had always been that of cord-like tendrils that connected his mind to the individual concerned. Whilst each of the Silver Skulls bore traces of similarity due to their shared genetic brotherhood, there were also subtle nuances; variances in the effect.

  The sergeant’s echo for example would best be described as a silver thread with flecks of red and black rage running through it. The others bore notable differences that marked them out; Reuben’s had a golden glow, something that Nathaniel had always attributed to a protector spirit, whilst Tikaye’s was a stoic and solid silver, untainted by anything but purity of thought.

  He knew Liandra Callis’s psychic trace well. Scarlet, with no imperfections. Her sheer determination and single-mindedness had long been part of the attraction for Nathaniel; an attraction that he had only ever acted on once and which had cost him dearly. But there was nothing other than the three silvery threads and the varicoloured, complex tendril of his own psychic trace.

  ‘Keep moving, sergeant,’ he said in due course, his heart heavy. ‘I still do not sense her.’

  She was in considerable pain, of that she was certain. With regard to everything else around her, the inquisitor had no idea what was happening. The return to consciousness had come with considerable suffering. Slow awareness crept through her body and she realised that she was lying face down on a cool surface with her hands bound behind her back. A crude gag of torn material had been forced into her mouth. It tasted vile.

  Her head ached and she remembered the suddenness with which she had been flung against the wall. For decades she had been trained in the art of self-defence and at the last, she had fallen victim to a duplicitous, scheming witch…

  ‘Awake at last. I had hoped it would only be in time to hear your own screams as they opened your flesh,’ came Sinnaria Gryce’s voice. ‘But no matter.’

  The inquisitor lifted her head from the floor. She could feel the taut muscles in her abdomen complain at this sudden use of them, but ignored it. She took in the peculiarity of her current surroundings with little more than a widening of the eyes. The room was vaguely octagonal, but it was difficult to tell exactly how large because the walls were lined with flawless mirrors. It was impossible to determine where one started and the next began as each surface reflected its opposite number into an eternity of distorted images.

  Standing in the middle of the room was Sinnaria Gryce, dirtied and bruised. She turned this way and that, admiring her many reflected forms in the mirrors.

  The inquisitor could not raise her head far enough to see her own reflection, but she could see those of the traitorous witch and what she saw made her heart hammer harder in her chest.

  The reflected images of Sinnaria Gryce were each subtly different to the woman who stood before them. As Callis’s eyes moved from reflective surface to reflective surface, she felt a prickle of nausea. From her prone position, she could barely make out more than two images clearly. The first one showed Gryce not as she was, but as she clearly preferred to see herself. Tall and slender, endowed with womanly curves that were far more becoming than the rake-thin creature she actually was. The reflection held itself with all of the strength and dignity that befitted a wife of a planetary governor.

  But the eyes…

  Was this the woman she believed herself to be? The inquisitor recognised the nature of the Dark Powers at work and her stomach turned in revulsion and hatred. You needed to be a fool not to determine that from the image of the staggeringly beautiful woman in the mirror. Her eyes moved to the reflection behind Sinnaria and a stifled cry of pain left her lips as the hexagrammic wards branded across her back flared into life.

  Sinnaria turned to see what it was that the inquisitor was so shocked by and her smile grew broader and crueller. The image was that of an avian daemon; shimmering blue and ethereal, with cold eyes and a sharp, wicked beak that curved into an evil-looking hook. Sinnaria reached up a hand and stroked it lovingly across the glass.

  ‘Are they not beautiful? They have such plans for this world! They have granted me their power and they have given me a task. I am to take you to their greatest and best and you will be the key to this planet’s salvation. But I am weary.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘The Oracles are attending to the ritual and it took a lot of my power to bring you this far unspoiled. This room…’ Waving a hand around dismissively, a thousand or more Sinnarias waved back. ‘This room sustains me. Gives me strength.’

  She preened for a while longer, her bird-like movements more exaggerated the longer the inquisitor watched her. ‘My idiot husband did not agree with me that we should embrace the will of such greatness, but then he was ever the short-sighted fool.’

  It was you that killed him.

  Unable to give voice to the accusation, Callis stared at the madwoman with malevolence and contempt. The pain in her head was forgotten. All she wanted to do now was be free from her b
onds and break the woman’s neck with her bare hands. Such heresy was anathema to the inquisitor and hatred unlike anything she had ever experienced was racing through her veins.

  Sinnaria’s brow furrowed briefly as she picked up a psychic echo that she recognised. A small smile played about her lips as another piece of the design fell into place. ‘Your pet psyker is still alive,’ she said. ‘And he brings the Emperor’s lackeys with him. They are looking for you.’

  Inquisitor Liandra Callis had never been helpless in her entire life, but as she lay there, her arms tightly bound and her captor giving her the look a predator gives its meal just before tearing out its throat, she finally knew how it felt.

  Nathaniel, she thought furiously, pushing out her mind with everything she had towards the old man. Nate. Find me.

  ‘Oh, please do call to them.’ Sinnaria stepped away from the mirrors, although the bird-creature lingered awhile, staring after her with its unfathomable eyes. ‘You have been annoyingly difficult to capture, inquisitor. Do you really think you would still be alive if there was not some purpose to it?’ She let that thought sink in for a few moments. ‘You are supposed to lead them here, my pet, it is all just another part of fate’s grand tapestry. So please, call him, call all of them… call out to your little pawn.’

  The inquisitor shook her head desperately, but the damage was already done. She had reached out to Nathaniel and the psyker would no doubt hear her cry and lead the Space Marines into whatever snare Sinnaria had set for them.

  Seventeen

  The Enemy Within

  ‘I sense her.’

  They were making their way steadily up through the floors of the palace and were approaching the audience hall when the psyker suddenly stopped. During the ascent the structure had been eerily quiet, with only a handful of crazed retainers still in residence. The auspex and Nathaniel’s senses had detected little of worth until now.

  Nathaniel, when he spoke, did so with the easy confidence of a man who knew he was quite correct. Gileas liked that trait as much in the psyker as he did in any individual: a sense of absolute certainty. There was no hesitation about him and he knew from his own dealings with those endowed with the Emperor’s gift that hesitation was something that could cost the wielder dearly if indulged.

  ‘Good,’ replied the sergeant, shouldering his chainsword. ‘Would you care to share some sort of direction with the rest of us?’ He spoke without mocking and Nathaniel glanced up briefly to see if the sergeant was jesting at his expense. There was nothing he could read in those glowing red eye-lenses.

  ‘I can lead you,’ he replied. ‘If you imagine the inquisitor’s psychic trace is like an uncoiled ball of string that I’m winding back in behind her…’ He tailed off and gave a rueful, self-deprecating smile. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘This way.’

  He had felt the inquisitor’s cry in his mind as something barely tangible; a butterfly wing of thought that had brushed the surface of his senses through the building maelstrom of horror. But it was a voice he had come to respect so deeply that it was instantly recognisable.

  Nate. Find me.

  Liandra.

  Nathaniel raised his head and turned slightly, veering towards the massive stairs that would carry them to the last few floors of the palace. ‘She’s up there. I’m certain of it.’

  ‘Then we had better get moving.’

  The three Space Marines and the psyker began to wind their way upwards.

  His lungs were fit to burst by the time they finally reached the top staircase, but Nathaniel struggled on with the determination that had so marked his entire life. He was not unfit, not by any stretch of the imagination, but his human body had limitations. He couldn’t keep up with the three Space Marines no matter how hard he tried – and yet he had tried. Worse was the pain in his twisted leg.

  ‘Wait,’ he called out, pausing briefly. ‘Wait a moment, Sergeant Ur’ten.’

  Gileas turned and moved to stand beside him. ‘Are you well enough to continue?’ The question was harmless enough, but it triggered a response in Nathaniel Gall that fired up his pride.

  ‘Of course I am. Just give me a moment to… to… gather my thoughts.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Gileas surveyed the psyker, the scroll of his retinal feed noting that there was a marked increase in the psyker’s body heat and that his jugular vein was visibly pulsing. Gileas watched in silence until the man’s heart rate slowed a little, then spoke again. ‘Which way do your senses tell you we should go?’

  The psyker concentrated and nodded. ‘There. The inquisitor’s trace leads through that doorway there.’ He raised a bony finger and pointed at one of the many portals that lined this richly decorated residential level of the palace. There was something unsettling about the door that he couldn’t put his finger on.

  Reuben put a hand to the door. ‘Locked,’ he reported.

  Gileas strode forward and punched his way through. He tore the door from its frame, sending it flying down the corridor, and then squeezed his massive bulk through the opening.

  ‘Unlocked,’ observed Reuben with heavy sarcasm.

  ‘Wait!’ Nathaniel called as the Space Marines barged their way inside. As the last of the squad pushed through the entrance he managed to identify the sense of disquiet. The psychic trace of the inquisitor did not just feel like it was in the next room, it felt like it was incredibly far away, everywhere and nowhere all at once. The space beyond the door could not possibly exist in any conventional sense. Realising that the Silver Skulls were completely unprepared for what they might face, he rushed after them. But his warning cry came too late.

  The room opened out into an impossibly large chamber and for the briefest of seconds, Gileas was quite disoriented. The hairs on his neck tingled and he stepped further into the hall. He sensed his brothers enter the chamber behind him and turned to address them, but they were no longer there.

  All he saw were infinite reflections of Gileas Ur’ten. Reflections of reflections that poured into each other like water into an ocean. He took another pace forward and stepped into a nightmare.

  He saw himself as he was. A stalwart hero of the Imperium; a warrior of the Silver Skulls Chapter who carried out his duty commendably. One of the Emperor’s finest. His battleplate was worn but well cared for and polished to a mirror shine. He carried a Chapter relic, the chainsword Eclipse, in his hand and his face was hidden behind an expressionless helm.

  He turned.

  He knew the warrior who stood before him now as well as he knew the previous one. The differences were so subtle as to be barely noticeable. He concentrated hard and stared. He had seen that aspect in countless dreams and flashes of what he had always taken to be déjà vu. The stance was the same, the prideful set to the shoulders, and he nodded. This was a fine warrior. A perfect example of his breed.

  His reflection nodded back, but that was where the mirror image ended. Reaching up to pull free its helmet, the reflection of Gileas exposed its face to the sergeant.

  He recoiled in sudden disgust as the daemonic being beneath the armour gave him a leery, toothy grin. And despite its very alien nature, a skull-like face that was bronze-skinned and studded with spines, there was still something he recognised.

  The Gileas-thing raised Eclipse in salute and stepped back, allowing more reflections to fill his vision. Somewhere on the very edge of his awareness, he could hear a low moan of horror, but it did not register straight away. He was too absorbed in the sorcery trapped within this mirror room to even remember that he had not entered alone.

  The moan came again and he spun around with his chainsword at the ready to deal with the intrusion on this moment of revelation. But he saw nothing but Gileas Ur’ten, reflected again and again.

  He was falling into this deep well of infinity and he was helpless to stop it. He was seeing the man he was, the man he could be… his potential…<
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  Serve my needs, Gileas Ur’ten Da’chamoren, and you will be well rewarded.

  The voice was a thing of nightmares, a shivering sound, wet and breathy as though the words were wheezed through collapsing lungs.

  Da’chamoren. Son of the Waxing Moon. The tribal name of his father. A name he had only ever spoken to a handful of brothers. A name from a past he had long forgotten. The daemonic face in the mirror warped and twisted and became someone he had not seen for many years. His soul swelled with fraternal affection and delight.

  ‘Captain,’ he said, joy bubbling to his lips. He took a step forward and reached out a hand. The reflection was no longer his; now, the face of Andreas Kulle looked out at him. His former mentor did not reply, merely smiled a little sadly and reached up a hand. Gileas raised his own in response.

  This is wrong.

  The thought came unbidden from the well of his piety and he was startled at its determined emphasis. This is wrong. You must not fall, Gileas.

  He stared at the man he had thought of as a father-figure for long moments. It would be the easiest thing in the world to step forward and fall into the darkness beyond the mirror, but he did not touch the surface of the glass. The long years of service and loyalty combined with his own fervent nature prevented him from taking the damning step.

  Do not touch the glass.

  ‘No,’ he said and there was something like regret in his tone. ‘No. This is not real. This cannot be.’

  Then his world shattered.

  ‘Sergeant, you must hear my voice!’

  Nathaniel was agitated beyond belief. The moment the four of them had walked into this room, the Space Marines had all become entranced by whatever it was they saw in the mirrors. Gileas had been the last to be caught in the mesmerising trap, as first Tikaye and then Reuben had stopped dead, staring into their reflections. Nathaniel could see them shaking as they strained to free themselves from whatever spell had snared them, arms straining to lift their weapons against a foe they could not see, but only experienced in their minds.