The Emperor's Gift

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  ‘Where… Where is here?’

  ‘The Valdasca Caul.’

  ‘The warning,’ he snarled again. ‘The warning. Did you hear Angriff Blightbreaker? Tell me you heard Blightbreaker’s final howl.’

  Devourer of Stars. The words drifted back behind my eyes.

  ‘We heard it,’ I said. ‘Explain its meaning.’

  ‘We had to run here. Do you understand that, Grey One? Our Rune Priest, Blightbreaker – and our Wolf Lord, Ironchewer. It was their wish that we run.’

  Some of our order possessed the psychic might to reshape the emotions of others. One of them might have been able to do so now, undetected, but I didn’t dare take the risk. He was already close enough to death.

  ‘Slow down,’ I said. ‘Focus.’

  ‘I am focused. Listen to me. Casting the runes no longer worked. The shaman-speech reached no other ears. They came in a red tide from the bleeding sky, and strangled our voices when they first kissed the cursed earth.’

  ‘Who?’ Annika whispered. ‘Who did these things?’

  I didn’t need to ask. I was already sensing echoes of his thoughts, but what I saw made no sense. Oceans of ash. Cities aflame. The hallways of this very ship, overrun by the burning Neverborn.

  ‘The enemy,’ Grauvr snapped. ‘The thrice-damned enemy. Are you deaf, all of you? We ran from them. Jarl Grimnar sent as many ships as he could spare. No other way to get the word out. The storm eats all sound. We had to run, to escape, to find a place of silence where we could howl for help.’

  The Wolf laughed his bitter laugh again. ‘But they followed us. They came with us, and made murder upon the crew. They stepped from the darkness, blades in hands, casting horned shadows against the iron walls.’

  +The Neverborn,+ Galeo pulsed to us. +Wherever they ran from, the daemons followed. It seems the Archenemy is viciously keen to keep the Wolves silent.+

  Annika was the one to speak next. ‘Where did you come from?’ she asked. ‘Where is this storm that swallows all sound?’

  ‘Armageddon,’ he said. ‘The manufactory world. The hives and the ash wastes and the toxic skies. Above it all, like a cancer in the night heavens, the storm itself. The Devourer of Stars.’

  +We’re killing him,+ Sothis pulsed to the rest of us. +His mind is wracked and lost; his hearts are beating to the point of bursting. He’s too weak for this.+

  +Then he’ll die,+ Galeo replied. +The storm he speaks of…+

  ‘It’s not a storm,’ I said with my human voice. ‘Not a storm at all.’

  I saw it as clearly as if it hung in the heavens above me. A macro-agglomeration of vessels – human, alien, Imperial, Traitor – moulded into a brutish hulk large enough to eclipse the sun. The thing stank of the warp; of steel and alien metals melted together, of the Neverborn and the infected mortals infesting its black bowels.

  The image was gone as abruptly as it’d come. Grauvr released my wrist at last, nodding to himself.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, now you see. The Great Wolf calls for the Grey Knights. He knows you exist, in the shadows. He howls for you to step into the light.’ Coherence was deserting him. He reached around with his one remaining hand.

  ‘My bolter,’ he said. Despite his wounds, he was reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there. It was impossible not to admire that.

  ‘Armageddon endures siege,’ I told my brothers, sharing what I’d seen. ‘I’ve never seen a hulk of that size. I’ve never even read of one to match it.’

  +There has never been one,+ Galeo replied. +The monastery must be warned at once. We leave, we scuttle the ship, and we make ready for war.+

  Something in his words set my blood running cold. Malchadiel felt the same, and commented upon it.

  ‘You said war, justicar. Not battle.’

  Galeo nodded. +I know.+

  ‘My bolter,’ Grauvr said again.

  ‘Later,’ Annika told him. ‘Rest, warrior.’

  He made the sign of aquila as best he could with one hand – and a bedraggled, one-winged Imperial eagle was just as unimpressive as it sounds – but he had little choice when his other arm hung limp at his side.

  Grauvr coughed into the vox. ‘One of my hearts has stopped. I feel it wedged in my chest, dense and still. And I cannot breathe well. My lungs are ripe with filth.’

  ‘You will die without our aid.’ Even the crude sensors in my helm’s auto-senses could tell me that. I didn’t need an Apothecary’s skills to know it was true. ‘We will tend to you on board our ship.’

  ‘First, tell us what happened here,’ Annika pressed. ‘We must know the whole truth.’

  +He can tell us on board the Karabela.+ Galeo’s silent voice held a rare edge. +We are leaving, inquisitor.+

  Annika looked over her shoulder back at him, at all of us. ‘This is a Fenrisian ship, and I am not leaving until I know every detail of its death.’

  +Your allegiance is to the ordos, not the Wolves of Fenris. We have a greater duty than this, inquisitor,+ he said, with less-than-subtle emphasis on her title.

  ‘I am not leaving until I’ve seen what killed this ship. Do you understand me, knight?’

  I felt Galeo suppressing his anger. It fairly rippled from him in a tide. +As you wish, inquisitor.+

  She turned back to the wounded Wolf. ‘Speak,’ she bade him. ‘Speak of the Frostborn.’

  And he did. Grauvr spoke in strained detail, though few details were necessary. The story of the Frostborn’s demise was a straight one, cutting right to the quick. A tale of possession, corruption, and the Emperor’s warriors overwhelmed by the blasphemy of their weak, human crew. At the end, only a few of the mortals had escaped unscathed. Those that resisted corruption were hurled from the airlocks, or eaten by their sickened kin. And all of this, all this madness, began with one soul. One weak man, trusted with the ultimate responsibility when he should have been purged from the annals of the Imperium.

  ‘The Navigator.’ Grauvr breathed the words in a wet growl. ‘Our accursed Navigator. The enemy came through him.’

  ‘We’ve seen the damage he caused,’ said Malchadiel. ‘How long did it take for the ship to fall?’

  ‘Minutes at most. No time to organise a defence. The Geller field died, and the crew died with it.’

  ‘No fouler foe than a Navigator fallen from the Emperor’s light,’ Sothis interrupted. ‘No sadder lament.’

  When Grauvr came to the Wolves’ last stand, Vasilla made a warding gesture against evil over her chest.

  ‘Your brothers died with all honour,’ she said in her eternally soft voice.

  ‘I know that.’ Grauvr’s reply was understandably graceless. ‘I saw it with my own eyes.’

  Annika turned her visored face to us as Grauvr finished speaking. Her blue eyes pressed into me.

  ‘You know what must be done,’ she said. ‘I will meet you back aboard the Karabela.’

  Darford cleared his throat over the vox. ‘We’ve no idea if the source is even still aboard. Even if he is, the justicar is right – just scuttle the damn ship, Nika.’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘We have to be sure. If the creature still walks, it must be banished.’

  ‘This isn’t about being sure,’ I said. ‘This is about vengeance for your Fenrisian fallen.’

  ‘Perhaps it is,’ she allowed.

  ‘Then you are compromised by human emotion.’

  ‘Perhaps I am.’ Never had I seen her so passionless. ‘You will still obey me, Hyperion.’

  I looked at Galeo, but none of my brothers said a word. At last, the justicar surrendered with a nod.

  IV

  We moved through the silent decks again, drifting to the prow, weaving around corners as we made our way to the occlusiam.

  The vox made several abortive clicks as one of my brothers kept almost saying something, and choosing to keep quiet at the last moment. I let my mind coast through theirs, skimming their surface thoughts. Sothis was focused on one of the chants of incorruptibility, repeating
it in the melodic tone of his inner voice. Dumenidon’s guard was up, preventing any casual brush against his thoughts – his mind was even less emotive than the cold walls around us. Galeo was an open book to Dumenidon’s sealed tome, and his thoughts were purely of our immediate surroundings. That left Malchadiel, and in fairness, I could have guessed it would be him.

  My retinal display responded to my irritated instinct, opening a vox-link to Malchadiel.

  ‘Just say it,’ I told him. ‘Just say whatever it is you wish to say.’

  ‘The inquisitor.’ Like his twin, Malchadiel’s voice was soft, but coloured by a contemplative edge Sothis usually lacked. ‘The justicar should have refused her.’

  ‘We are the Chamber Militant of the Holy Inquisition, brother. One does not refuse an inquisitor.’

  ‘Galeo should have, this time. You said it yourself: Annika is compromised by the weakness of human emotion.’

  I hadn’t called it a ‘weakness’, though when my brother stated it so plainly, it was hard to see it in any other light.

  ‘She may even be censured for this,’ Malchadiel added. ‘Inquisitors make mistakes. We’ve all seen it in the archives.’

  We moved from the central concourse, drifting along a subsidiary corridor. The only light came from the glare of our active weapons, blending an undersea ripple of bluish light along the walls. Like all Gothic architecture, its elegance was in its stark, skeletal angles. Each arch and hull-hallway seemed almost armoured by reinforced bone-like beams of black iron.

  I sensed a deeper, truer thought behind the words he spoke. I pulsed a slight stab of irritation through the link between our minds, letting him know I sensed he was holding back from saying something else.

  ‘This madness with the Devourer of Stars…’ he said. ‘If Grauvr truly saw it…’

  ‘Grauvr did see it.’

  ‘Are you certain? He’s been on a corrupted warship, ripe with taint, for an unknowable amount of time.’

  I knew because I’d been sifting through the Wolf’s mind the entire time he spoke, dredging for signs of deceit or the jagged edges of altered memory.

  ‘You can guess how I know,’ I replied. ‘And before you ask, I found nothing untoward inside his skull. Merely flashes of pain, and a life dripped night after night into unending duty.’ I smiled then, despite our circumstances. ‘It was almost familiar.’

  Malchadiel’s thoughts darkened. ‘I have no idea why you are so entertained by all this, brother. I’ve read the archives as often as you, and I recall precious few incidents where destroying a possessed Navigator was anything less than a savage trial.’

  That rather stole the smile from my face.

  +Focus.+ Galeo’s demand broke through the conversation. +And be ready for what is on the other side of this door.+

  We locked our boots to the decking, readying weapons. The door itself was an armoured oval, clad in a crust of sparkling frost. It was easily wide enough to walk through five abreast, even in Terminator plate.

  I felt nothing until I physically rested a hand against the door. My gauntlet was no barricade to the sudden feeling – a sense of something greasily venomous slipping into my body. My lip curled in disgust, with a growl I couldn’t control. How could I have failed to sense this? I foresaw punishment in my future.

  ‘There is taint behind this portal,’ I grunted. My anger was already getting the better of me. ‘Something that bleeds rage. I feel it reaching out to me.’

  ‘Why didn’t you sense it before?’ asked Dumenidon.

  +Do not blame Hyperion. This presence masked itself to perfection. Remove your hand from the door, brother.+

  For a moment, I didn’t want to. The anger humming through me rode my blood in a saccharine rush. Rage had never felt so pleasantly bleak, so righteous, so absolutely vindicating. I should have stood my ground before Annika and her idiotic posturing. She was only human. What right did she have to order us to her whims, as though we were no more valuable than servitors?

  I pulled my hand back with a jerk, surprised to find it trembling. The anger’s urgent heat faded, but its aftertaste did not. No matter what the justicar said, I still felt I should have sensed this, even from such a distant sending.

  ‘Whatever is on the other side of this door,’ I voxed to the others, ‘it knows we are here.’

  +We will cut our way in to greet it.+

  Dumenidon and Galeo hefted their long blades, raising them high and casting the darkness back. Our shadows jerked in a spastic dance across the arching walls, their twisting movements rendering them daemonic.

  Some of the Imperium’s more backward worlds are said to believe a shadow is an outer reflection of the soul. Our shadows cavorted as the blades fell, and perhaps to some feral world shaman, it might have meant something more than the simple play of illumination.

  V

  I’d never seen a Navigator’s inner sanctum before.

  It was said that no two were the same, each one turned into a private haven by the near-human creature destined to spend its life within its confines. When one lives a whole life in a prison, even a willing captive will shape a cell to enhance its comfort. On the Karabela, our Navigator Orolissa was a woman I’d never met, dwelling in a chamber no Grey Knight was allowed to enter. All I knew of her was that her mind was a loud one: she dreamed often of black seas, and the beasts that swam within them.

  The Navigator of the Frostborn claimed a large chamber of surpassing beauty, laid out with typical Imperial ostentation magnified many times over. Walls were decorated in great friezes of stained glass, depicting scenes of purity in the Imperium’s past. There, the founding of the Temple of the Emperor Messiah, on the world of Cadia; there, the Second Siege of the Eternity Gate; there, the end of the Reign of Blood, with a Custodian in royal gold receiving the peace offering from the First Bride of the Emperor.

  A dozen other images from a dozen other worlds, depicting events of great, holy import – most of them displayed the deeds of the Wolves, which was no surprise at all. I didn’t know those battles, nor did I recognise the heroes that fought in them.

  We stood within a monastery in miniature, condensed into one perfect room. A central dais faced a dozen occulus screens depicting the stars outside, faint in their blanket of infinite dust. Every single screen was cradled in the arms of two sculpted basalt angels, reaching from the wall with their great wings spread. The craftsmanship was exquisite – they looked real enough to move, to speak, to sing if anyone would dare to ask. Even the unusual choice of stone had to mean something; perhaps they’d quarried it from the Wolves’ home world, or hauled the pitted, grey rock from a mine on a holy world deep within the Chapter’s protectorate.

  Everything seemed untouched, pristine. I saw nothing of the desecration our order had long come to expect of our tainted enemies. I couldn’t even see our prey.

  And yet, the stinking taste of taint was thick in the air.

  ‘This is a lie,’ I voxed to the others. ‘Beware treachery.’

  +Hyperion is right. See with your true eyes.+

  A moment’s focus tore the shroud from my sight, revealing the chamber as it was, not as we’d seen it. The angelic statuary had fallen from their aeries to break upon the deck. Whenever the gravity finally died, the corpses had taken flight once more, drifting in the air as rubble. Ungripped, the occulus screens drifted alongside their shattered bearers. Several were still leashed to the wall on their optic cables.

  I turned from the smashed stained-glass windows, no longer seeing the artistry that had once existed in their panes. The sanctity of this haven was no more.

  Someone stood at the chamber’s heart, a lone caretaker of this airless mausoleum. He was barefoot on the decking, clad only in stained rags, with his flesh blackened by frostbite and void exposure. What little of his body had escaped discolouration was split in frozen crevices lacerated across his form. Blood haloed him in floating crystals, each one a frozen gem of liquid life on the wrong side of his skin.r />
  He could not be alive in this void vacuum. No human could survive it. Grauvr’s story bore truth, as I’d known it would: this was no human. As the ragged man turned to face us, I heard the distinct hiss of Annika swearing in my mind. I’d not even realised she was still there.

  ‘Skitnah!’ she spat. ‘Fyenden sijaga skitnah!’

  The man had three eyes. The third, in the centre of his forehead, opened to reveal a bloody black orb. I didn’t meet its gaze. None of us did. To do so was death, even through the dubious protection of our retinal displays. Ceramite and devotion were no armour against a Navigator’s third eye. Some deaths cut right to the soul.

  I threw Annika from my mind, banishing her back into her body even as she cursed at me, severing the link before she could be harmed. I’d deal with her anger later. I couldn’t risk her here.

  +Why have you come?+ The voice buzzed into our minds, resonating with a waspish duality. Strange, how so many of the Archenemy asked such things, as if they genuinely believed we owed them an answer.

  +In the name of the Emperor’s Inquisition, you will kneel before the judgement of the Throne.+ Galeo’s decree echoed through our minds as we advanced. All the while, I kept my eyes on the man’s mutilated chest.

  +I will not kneel.+

  ‘This has to die quickly,’ Dumenidon voxed. ‘Its power is immense.’

  He wasn’t wrong. Corruption lapped at me with keen fingers, and the Navigator’s questing tendrils of thought caressed my armour, seeking entrance to my mind. Even without gravity, it was like wading forwards through warm tar.

  Galeo’s chanting almost drowned out every other sense. His reverent words unified us, forming a conduit to pour our power into him. In this moment of execution, he became Castian, the manifestation of all five of us, wielding our strength as his own. This was our brotherhood brought to life, focused into a killing weapon.

  +The Anathema’s sons.+ The thing in the Navigator’s flesh was recoiling now. I was close enough to see its bone-webbed fingers, the way its fused hands twitched. More blood left its maw in a crystallised spray as the creature’s insides haemorrhaged and burst. With a marionette’s absolute absence of grace, the thing jerked and twitched, enslaved to its own snapping bones. Torment wrenched its voice into a desperate squeal. +All was peace before you came… All was silent… Now anger returns in a flood of black bile.+