Silver Skulls: Portents

by S P Cawkwell

  None of them were gifted with psychic abilities and so they had all fallen into the cunning trap that had been laid for them. But Nathaniel had sensed the seeping horror that oozed from the countless silvered surfaces. The years of building up his psychic defences had ensured that he had seen nothing in the mirrors but his own image. He knew the face that stared back at him well; a gaunt man aged and haggard before his time, his youth stolen too early by the harshness of his life.

  But the three Silver Skulls had no such bulwarks and they fell one after the other, gazing into the void, trapped by the entity that lurked beyond the skein of reality. Nathaniel had screamed, yelled and attempted to physically push the Adeptus Astartes warriors to no avail. It was like trying to shake a mountain. The taunt of the inquisitor’s proximity had made him more and more agitated until he had attempted to communicate in a psychic whisper. He poured all of his attention onto Gileas and sent the thought deep into the sergeant’s mind.

  Do not touch the glass.

  It had come as a surprise to Nathaniel when it apparently worked. The sergeant’s hand, which had been half raised to the mirror, stopped and Nathaniel dared to hope that he had succeeded. But he had to break this power and there was only one way he knew of that he could do that.

  Do not touch the glass.

  Gileas’s head turned towards Nathaniel, and the psyker stared up into the unreadable mask of the sergeant’s helmet and smiled slowly. It was a sad expression.

  ‘Save her,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  He summoned every ounce of power he possessed – and with the storm raging above, it poured in like a flood – and closed his eyes. He let out a small sigh and, as Gileas stepped towards him, let the unfettered strength of the warp flow through him. His thin body shook in unnatural ecstasy and a faint nimbus of blue glowed about him. Then he threw back his head and roared out his defiance.

  There was a deep, ominous rumbling and then an ear-splitting sound of cracking glass. Nathaniel could feel the taint of the power being utilised in this foul place and it turned his stomach to the point of making him want to vomit. But he did not. He could not afford to give way to physical weakness, not now. Not for the first time in his life, Nathaniel Gall was filled with hate for his slight build and poor constitution, but he pressed past it into something he had never thought he could accomplish.

  ‘No,’ he bellowed. ‘No! I defy you!’

  He flung his arms out, and the energy gathered within him erupted in a coruscating shockwave that burst the closest mirrors apart. Silver, razor-edged shards chimed from the Space Marines’ armour as the hall filled with lethal shrapnel. The blast continued to spread, the psychic nova ripping the sorcerous artefacts apart throughout the chamber.

  Nathaniel barely noticed the lacerations that the flying glass from the mirrors wrought on his body. He was too focused on ensuring that they were utterly destroyed. The taste of the foul Chaos taint in their enchantment brought bile to his throat again and he spat it out. Blood ran in rivers down his face and there was a terrible burning in his chest. He was certain that he must have ruptured something. His clothing was torn to shreds that hung in ragged strips from his body.

  He laughed. He had done it. He had freed the three Space Marines from the trap that had been laid for them. He had accomplished it. Gileas and Tikaye took abrupt steps backwards, both speaking soft words of Varsavian. From the tone of their voices, Nathaniel could only guess that they were wondering what had happened.

  He glanced around, noting that Reuben was still standing stock-still, staring at the empty space where moments before he had been confronted with his own reflection. Nathaniel watched, his consciousness beginning slowly to slip away from him as the sergeant moved towards the frozen Space Marine. Then Nathaniel wrapped his arms around his body. The temperature in the room dropped noticeably and he saw Gileas’s breath ghost before him as he called out the psyker’s name.

  ‘Nathaniel!’

  Gileas caught him as he fell. Nathaniel was gravely wounded and bleeding from countless injuries on his body. Smoke curled from his eyes and ears from the backwash of the power he had unleashed. Blood ran in a scarlet river from his nose and there were trickles coming from his ears as well. Gileas laid the man on the ground and stared in consternation at him. ‘What happened?’

  ‘No time,’ gasped Nathaniel. ‘No time. Save her. Please.’ He pointed a shaking, bloodstained finger in the direction of the inquisitor’s scarlet trace. He could feel his own life slipping away from him, but he had perhaps bought the Silver Skulls enough time to ensure the inquisitor’s continued survival. ‘She is still alive. And she is here. Close by. I see her thread, still. Go. Get…’

  He let out a rattling breath as darkness reached up to claim him. Unresisting, Nathaniel let it swallow him and he fell gladly into its welcoming embrace.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Tikaye had moved to stand behind him.

  Gileas shook his head. An unsteady pulse still fluttered weakly in the psyker’s throat. ‘He is not,’ replied the sergeant, ‘but he has paid a terrible price in order to release us from the grip of this evil. Reuben, see what you can do for him and try to raise de Corso on the vox.’

  No answer came to his order and he swivelled his head to stare at his other battle-brother. Reuben still had not moved from the spot where he had been standing. Like Gileas, his hand had also been raised and from where the sergeant was crouched beside Nathaniel, it seemed that his brother’s hand was trembling slightly.

  ‘Reuben!’

  ‘Of course. Yes, brother.’ Reuben seemed to snap out of whatever trance he had been in and took a step back. He stared at the blank wall a moment longer, then turned to Gileas. The sergeant studied him before speaking.

  ‘Are you quite well, brother?’

  There was a fraction of a hesitation before Reuben replied. ‘I am. I… think. I saw…’

  ‘We have no time to discuss it, brother. Raise de Corso on the vox and see if there are any medics free to attend Nathaniel, if any have endured the madness. This man needs to be treated quickly if he is going to live.’ Gileas trailed off and seemed to consider his words. ‘Although he may well be better off if he does not survive.’ It was remarkably pessimistic and highly unlike Gileas to sound so inclined. Even the sergeant seemed startled by his own pronouncement.

  He shook his head again and turned to his other battle-brother. ‘Tikaye – with me. He sensed the inquisitor’s presence nearby.’

  ‘Aye, sergeant.’

  Gileas rose to his feet. ‘I grow weary of the treachery of this Gryce woman. Let us see an end to her so that we might turn our attention to the Archenemy.’

  Tikaye let his thumb linger on the activation stud of his chainsword. ‘There is very little that would give me greater satisfaction at this point, brother.’

  Reuben did not enter into the debate, and that concerned Gileas. He wondered what it had been that Reuben had seen in the mirror that had left his stalwart, logical battle-brother so very shaken. He even wondered what the stoic and dependable Tikaye had seen. But he would not ask them. He would never ask, lest they ask to know what it was he saw as well. That daemonic face troubled him. Was he capable of falling to the Ruinous Powers? Perhaps. They were all fallible – he knew that as well as any other. But he also knew, or at least he was confident, that his battle-brothers would see him dead before he turned.

  It was the closest Gileas had ever – or would ever – come to a crisis of faith and with the practice of decades, he pushed the uncertainties down. He buried them deeply beneath the physical armour that wrapped his genhanced body and the mental armour that he had built up over his years of service.

  ‘I am a son of Varsavia,’ he said aloud. ‘And I will prevail.’

  The last of the broken mirrors crashed to the floor, the silvered fragments melting into insubstantial mist. Nothing but abject darkness waited beyond the f
allen panes, its liquid surface rippling with the suggestion of movement. The Space Marines tensed, expecting some new horror to assail them. As they watched, the gloom seemed to sigh and drain away, leaving them standing in an empty chamber. Every inch of the walls, floor and ceiling was painted with arcane symbols, their twisted designs now scuffed and flaked.

  ‘This trap may simply have been put in place to delay us, Gileas,’ suggested Tikaye, answering his sergeant’s unspoken thoughts. ‘They could be anywhere.’

  ‘The psyker said he could sense her nearby. She’s here. Somewhere.’

  They were closer than they could have imagined. Karteitja stood only a few floors above them, separated from his hunters by bare metres of ferrocrete, and they were oblivious to the fact. His stance told of unimaginable rage as he faced the warrior opposite him.

  ‘The scrying chamber is destroyed!’

  ‘My lord, the Silver Skulls must have been… stronger than we first believed. The flesh pawn cannot hope to turn them now, or even contain them. They will be upon us soon.’

  ‘Her powers are barely enough to part the veil, let alone bring Space Marines to heel. Her failure to awaken the Silver Skulls to the Deceiver’s truth has cost us the heart of the anointed. The third ritual is too far advanced now to be stopped. The powers are gathering and we must bring the rite of desecration to its conclusion. This planet will be ours soon.’ He strode towards the warrior who stood proudly, eyes fixed on his leader. ‘We will purge the unworthy from its face. We will reveal to them the glory of the Changer of Ways and usher them into his embrace.’

  ‘I understand that, my lord. That is why I have come to you.’ The Oracle of Change tore off his helmet to expose the twisted, scarred face beneath. ‘Take what you must. I will serve as a conduit. Our masters will welcome my flesh gladly.’

  ‘You understand the price I must exact from you? That is good. It would have been needlessly wasteful to have to break you.’ Karteitja surveyed his loyal warrior just the once, and nodded. ‘It is good that you are willing, it adds potency. So be it. Prepare to give me your hearts.’

  A cursory examination of the room revealed nothing beyond the fact that the runes were old and had been carefully inscribed in human blood. The treachery of Lady Gryce had been going on far longer than the current insurrection. Nathaniel observed that she must have had at least some assistance in disposing of the bodies such ritual inevitably left in its wake. The inquisitor, however, was not to be found.

  ‘There!’ Tikaye pointed at something. He had seen a shimmer, an undulation in the fabric of reality. It was similar to that which they had all observed in the streets of the city and which had heralded the arrival of the Oracles of Change. Gileas turned, his thumb on the activation stud of his chainsword, but saw nothing.

  ‘I see nothing. I… wait.’ Gileas allowed his lenses to focus on the area where Tikaye was pointing and adjusted the visual gain. Then he saw it too. The air shimmered, much as it did whenever the Oracles slipped in and out of existence, but this seemed slower, less controlled. Darkness wept from the growing breach and a rising shriek of anguish leaked into the chamber from a place beyond common reality.

  ‘I think all we need to do is wait, brother.’

  Gileas’s assessment was accurate. Within a few moments the growing rift ruptured to reveal a pair of indistinct figures shrouded with crawling tendrils of warp-stuff. The shapes became Sinnaria Gryce and Liandra Callis, and eventually the governor’s wife could no longer maintain the tiny pocket of space that had kept them hidden.

  She fell forward onto her hands, wailing pathetically. Her face was one of haggard weariness and the keening sound she made was the noise of a cornered animal. Gileas was reminded sharply of the cats that he had hunted across the tundra with the initiates only a few short weeks before.

  The inquisitor had fallen too, her hands still bound behind her back, but she was on her feet in an instant and moved to stand before the woman. Gileas reached over and with the knife at his belt cut her bonds free. She tore the gag from her mouth and spat on Gryce.

  The pitiful woman looked up at her. ‘I have no strength left,’ she said in a wheedling plea. ‘Please, inquisitor. Show me mercy. I was a fool. They promised me…’ Her eyes welled with tears. ‘I am sorry. I am so sorry.’

  ‘Your pleas mean nothing to me, Lady Gryce.’ Callis’s response was biting and filled with hatred and anger. ‘Give me your pistol, sergeant.’ She opened her hands expectantly and Gileas passed her the weapon. The bulky firearm looked huge in her grasp, but she levelled it at the crumpled woman on the ground.

  ‘Sinnaria Gryce, in the name of His Holy Inquisition I find you guilty of heresy in extremis and therefore declare you to be tainted beyond salvation.’

  ‘Then the warp take you!’ Lady Gryce hissed, all trace of her former misery suddenly gone. She lunged at the inquisitor, her fingers lengthening into claws and her skin suddenly iridescent with colour.

  There was a single shot, and Lady Gryce’s skull burst apart in a fountain of gore and cranial matter. The inquisitor thrust the weapon back into the sergeant’s grip.

  ‘You stand as witness to the execution, Gileas Ur’ten.’ Her manner was completely professional; she acted as though she had merely taken a brief pause in the proceedings. Her eyes went to the broken psyker lying nearby on the marble floor.

  ‘Nate…?’ Gileas heard the question in her voice and shook his head.

  ‘He lives, inquisitor, although I fear that may not remain the case for much longer. Reuben has called for help.’

  ‘Of course.’ Any sign of emotion that may have been shown in the previous syllable was gone and Callis was once again all business. ‘What’s happened whilst that cursed woman had me in her thrall? I need information, now.’

  Reuben was kneeling by Nathaniel’s side and if Callis was at all interested in whether the Silver Skull was doing anything to keep her companion alive, she gave no sign of it. In a steady voice, Gileas relayed the events that had transpired.

  ‘What is it that the Oracles of Change are doing?’ It was a rhetorical question but she asked it aloud regardless. ‘What do they want with Valoria? It is not of strategic importance.’

  ‘To change it, inquisitor.’ Tikaye, who rarely commented unless directly asked a question, gave his response. ‘I do not mean to be rude and I see how what I say could be construed as such, but I mean that quite literally. They are tearing down the walls that exist between this world and the empyrean.’

  ‘Then we have to stop them.’ She drew a deep breath and her face hardened once more. ‘Sergeant Ur’ten, I will see to Nathaniel. You should find your captain and combat this threat as best you can.’

  ‘You will be safe here for now,’ replied Gileas. ‘But I can make no guarantees as to your continued safety. The Oracles of Change have the ability to slip through the warp to wherever they choose to be. ‘

  ‘I know,’ Callis replied with a visible shudder. ‘I may have been unconscious for some of it, but…’ She remembered the nightmarish visions that had jerked her to wakefulness. Even with only that tiny moment of exposure to the horrors, even with the sorcerous protection afforded to the both of them, and her own wards, she had still felt its effects. ‘She wanted me for some reason, but I never found out what for. She told me… that she was going to take me to their greatest, their best and that I was anointed by betrayal to be the very heart of the planet’s salvation.’

  ‘Do you know what that means?’

  ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘But if it comes to it, I am more than capable of ensuring neither I nor Nathaniel fall into their hands.’ Her pistol had been taken by the dead woman at her feet and Callis stooped to snatch it free from Gryce’s belt.

  ‘I hope it does not come to that, inquisitor.’

  ‘Then make sure it doesn’t, Sergeant Ur’ten. Go and do whatever it is that you have to do to stop t
hem.’

  ‘As you command, inquisitor.’ Gileas nodded his head respectfully and gestured to Tikaye and Reuben to come with him. The latter got to his feet, making room for the inquisitor to kneel beside the gravely injured Nathaniel. She glanced up and waved them away.

  ‘Begone,’ she snapped. ‘I am more than capable of dealing with my own people. Go and take care of yours.’

  The three Assault Marines left the two humans lying in a pool of blood, some of it Nathaniel’s, some of it Sinnaria Gryce’s, and Gileas found he hoped fervently that this would not be their final farewell.

  Eighteen

  Against the tide

  Beyond the palace walls, anarchy reigned. The growing warp rift had spread to encompass the entire city. The citizens, who had thus far stubbornly survived both the bombardment and the ongoing street battles, had nowhere they could hide from themselves.

  Ragged madmen and twisted horrors boiled out of crumbling hab blocks, hidden basements and forgotten warehouses. They took to the streets in a howling, raging riot of madness, biting and tearing at each other and anything they found. The Space Marine purgation teams, already forced into cover by the arcane deluge, found their positions assaulted by the mutant mobs. Scarred Vindicators crushed their way through the chaos, armoured siege shields swatting heretics aside as they sought to regroup with their company.

  Daviks and the Talriktug had fortified the staging point in the Celebrant’s Square as best they could, rallying the scant remains of the Imperial Guard. They had turned the open plaza into a killing ground. Heavy weapons teams and massed bolter fire slaughtered the attackers by the hundreds, but countless more still scrambled over the carpet of ruptured flesh and bloody meat heedless of their fate.

  The siege captain coordinated at a furious rate as reports poured in from units isolated throughout the city. He linked stranded squads and directed barrage fire from the Whirlwind and Thunderfire batteries outside the walls, each strike designed to block an avenue of approach or inflict maximum casualties. Despite his efforts, he knew that it would be in vain if the widening hole in reality could not be closed. He had already begun to see leering faces as they strained to push through into reality and spectral claw marks had begun to manifest on the Imperial iconography, as if raked by avian talons.