This was all mockery. What was worse, though, was that Guilliman did not think Nekras was lying. There were no telltale micro-expressions on her face that might suggest evasion. Instead, when she agreed with his demand, her face became even more open with a fanatic’s enthusiasm.
‘You would serve your enemy so easily?’ Guilliman probed.
‘We would,’ Nekras said, and Yathinius nodded, drooling blood. ‘What choice do we have?’ Nekras continued. There was a pause, during which her features shifted. ‘What choice do any of us have?’ she asked. The humour was gone from her voice now. She spoke with cold fire, a disciple enraptured by the sublime. Her gaze turned to Guilliman. She did not blink. Though her pupils had almost vanished, it was as if she was seeing him clearly. Or seeing through him to an even greater clarity. ‘We all walk the assigned path.’
There was something wrong with her voice. There was a distortion, a very slight echo, as of a second voice entwined like a parasite around hers. It was the voice from Quor Vondor’s psychic flame, striking out at Guilliman again through another willing instrument. The thing was an infection that had entered the ship with the splinter. It was poisoning his blood, flooding his mind with doubts. He could feel it building into something larger. There was the seed of a cancerous revelation, and he did not know how to excise it. It attacked and grew through truth, damnable truth. Nekras would not stop speaking the truth even under torture.
A heavy tread stopped just outside the interrogation cell. Guilliman turned from the prisoners. The door rattled as it slid aside for him, its sensors keyed to respond at once to his proximity, then closed behind him with a deep clang. Prayto stood in the hall. ‘You wanted no vox communication,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Guilliman. And he had chosen to conduct the interrogation personally. He told himself that to form the practical for the fleet’s movements, he needed the data first-hand. That was all. ‘What is it, Titus?’ Guilliman asked.
‘An astropathic message from the Lion. The Dark Angels have found a way through the storm. They are calling on the fleets to muster.’
‘I see. We are not surprised that my brother was the first to forge the path, are we?’ The Lion had been able to find his way through the warp before the light of the Pharos had been lit.
‘No, we are not. Though I would give much to know how he accomplishes these feats.’
‘So would I. We must be wary of secrets. We have all been guilty of keeping them, and we have seen the disasters their corrosive power can bring.’
Guilliman thought about the athames in his quarters. He knew what the Lion would have to say about those. He was troubled by his own hesitation to deal with them one way or the other. The possibility of turning the enemy’s weapons against him stopped him from destroying them. The threat they presented made him keep his distance from them. Uncertainty was a state inimical to his being. It was through certainty that he had forged Ultramar. Certainty was the bedrock of action, the fulcrum that pivoted the theoretical into the practical.
Imperium Secundus had not been an act of certainty. That was the flaw that marred its foundations, that changed it from salvation to heresy.
‘Do we have the Lion’s location?’ Guilliman asked.
‘We do. Thrinos, in the Anesidorax System.’
Guilliman frowned. ‘That is not on the most direct route to Terra.’
‘No.’
‘Your thoughts?’
‘We do not know how the Lion comes by some of his knowledge. We…’ Prayto hesitated.
‘Say it,’ Guilliman told him. ‘We’re both thinking it.’
‘We don’t trust those sources, whatever they may be.’
‘No, we don’t.’
‘But we trust in the Lion’s loyalty.’
‘Completely.’ No matter how great the hostility had grown between them on Macragge, loyalty had not been the question. They had fought over the correct prosecution of the war. And the Lion had humbled himself before Guilliman in the end, in the desperate act of showing that the Emperor must still be alive. For a man with his brother’s pride, bringing himself to beg was a truly heroic feat.
‘Theoretical. Broadcasting an astropathic signal from that distance through the Ruinstorm would be a very costly effort. The Lion would not engage in it without a strong conviction. Practical. We should treat his conviction as justified.’
‘And make the jump to Thrinos.’
‘Yes.’
‘I agree. Getting there will be costly for us too.’ Anesidorax was further than anyone had travelled since the beginning of the Ruinstorm. It would take many short jumps, draining the Navigators. Unless he used the Word Bearers’ Navigators.
‘Less costly than not going,’ Prayto said.
Guilliman glanced at the interrogation cell. His jaw clenched in frustration. ‘I want you to see something,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’
He led Prayto into the cell. The Navigators smiled their mock greeting.
‘Anesidorax,’ Guilliman said. ‘You will take us there.’
‘We will,’ said Nekras. ‘So it is willed by the gods.’ She answered quickly, and with ferocity. Yathinius laughed.
‘Your willingness to sacrifice yourselves surprises me,’ Guilliman said.
‘You mean you distrust us,’ Nekras said. She leaned forwards, as if daring the searing light to burn her. Guilliman had not identified himself. Even so, the size of his silhouette would leave the Navigators in no doubt as to who stood before them. They showed none of the awed terror that shook most mortals in the presence of a primarch. They were too much in ecstatic thrall to beings much more powerful.
‘No,’ Guilliman said. ‘I don’t trust you.’
‘We will take you to Anesidorax,’ said Nekras. ‘I swear it.’ Yathinius’ braying turned into a moaning howl of worship. ‘We will get you there in a single jump,’ Nekras continued. She smiled, caught up in a beatitude so foul, Guilliman saw the guards stir in disgust. ‘I see Thrinos already.’
‘I said nothing about Thrinos.’
‘No matter. That is where the gods decree our path must lead. You are going to Thrinos.’ She stretched the name of the world, as if the sentence were incomplete, as if she were going to add whether you wish to or not.
Guilliman exchanged a look with Prayto and left the cell again. Once on the other side of the door, he said, ‘Their stated eagerness coincides precisely with what the Lion asks of us.’
‘Worrisome,’ said Prayto. ‘I stand by the practical, though. Her words could easily be attempts at misdirection.’
‘I agree with the practical. But I don’t think she’s lying… Theoretical. A single leap through the warp will be far less costly than many.’
‘Theoretical. There will be unanticipated costs that will be far worse.’
Guilliman nodded, musing over what he had seen in the Navigators. So much fanaticism, and that was a form of honesty. ‘They were telling the truth,’ he said. ‘Their reasons are what they are, but they will find the way to Thrinos.’
‘We’re going to use them?’ Prayto sounded horrified.
‘We need to reach Thrinos. The Word Bearers wish to take us there. When your goals align with the enemy’s, let the enemy labour for you.’
The interrogation chamber doors opened for him one more time. ‘Prepare them for their task,’ he ordered the guards. He looked at the Navigators. ‘I will put your vows to the test,’ he said.
‘The gods will see you to your destiny,’ Nekras called out to him as he turned to go. ‘You walk your assigned path.’
The doors slammed shut, cutting off the hall from any sound in the chamber. Guilliman strode down the corridor with Prayto. The walls rang with the echoes of their boots, and not with Nekras’ last taunt. Her words were not following Guilliman. They were not becoming a refrain in his head.
For almost
fifty yards, Guilliman managed to hold fast to this lie.
‘We’ve confirmed the foe is a ship,’ said Carminus.
On the bridge of the Red Tear, Sanguinius eyed the pict screens. Their displays were erratic, streaked with interference. Every few seconds, the effort to present coherent information about the intruder would become too much. The images would vanish for a moment. Sometimes, they would distort instead, and the hololithic representations and data summaries would become something else. A hint of a screaming, inhuman face. A shiver of claws.
The Red Tear’s Geller field was holding, at least. The incursions had been repelled. The rest of the fleet was not as fortunate. Battles still raged on numerous ships, but control had not been lost. The Blood Angels formation was as intact as Sanguinius could expect it to be in the empyrean’s tempest.
‘What ship, though?’ said Sanguinius. Much of the information he saw on the screens was nonsense. It had to be.
‘We don’t know,’ said Carminus. ‘We can’t even get a precise fix on its size, never mind its configuration.’
Huge, the pict screens said. The ship was a colossal black shadow in the warp. The Sable had fought it, and the Sable had gone.
‘How close did the Sable get?’ Sanguinius asked.
‘We can’t tell with any certainty, lord,’ Mautus said, apologetic and frustrated. ‘Closer than we were when it bombarded us, that’s all we can say.’ He paused for a moment. ‘The Sable lasted less than a minute against it.’
So powerful, Sanguinius thought. ‘That implies it did not use its full force against us.’
‘That was my thought, too,’ said Carminus.
‘Unless it was farther away than we thought,’ Mautus suggested.
Sanguinius looked at the screens again. The picture they presented was incomplete, but there were brush strokes to the impression that were clear. The ship was immense, and it carved a clear swath through the warp. Sanguinius seized on the sign of the monster’s passage. It was a direction for the fleet to take, the only one to appear since the Ruinstorm’s warp aspect had taken them. ‘Pursue it,’ Sanguinius said. ‘All ships. Form up, and get into the foe’s wake. Close with it.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Destroy it.’ That command was an illusion. He knew it as he said it. At the same time, he rejected the fatalism. ‘Destroy it,’ he repeated, his voice booming across the bridge, a call to action and to retaliation.
‘So ordered,’ said Carminus, and the fleet master sent out the command to the fleet.
The contorting empyrean sent another huge wave slamming against the Red Tear. The flagship groaned. It heaved to port like a terrestrial ship caught in a swell. The artificial gravity could not adjust. It was fooled by the madness of the warp, and when the deck canted violently, officers and servitors slid from their stations towards the port wall. Another wave hit, this time from an imagined below, knocking the prow high. The huge vessel tossed and dropped, a leaf in a whirlwind. The mechadendrites of the command throne linked Carminus to the ship’s guidance systems, and he bellowed orders to the secondary guidance operators. They were fighting to right the ship in a realm where space was meaningless, where all directions were none. But even a substanceless dream can be fought, and the immaterium had substance. It was more and less than matter, and it was hostile. It was a foe to be fought as much as the dark ship.
His jaw clenched, Carminus brought the Red Tear to a level bearing, directly in the wake of the huge vessel. The battleship gave chase, and behind it, the rest of the fleet moved into formation. Sanguinius listened to the messages as they came in. Numerous ships were still struggling with daemonic incursions, but no helms had been lost, and even the Chalice, the most hard-pressed by breaches, managed to join up.
‘We’re going faster,’ said Mautus.
‘That is an illusion,’ Sanguinius corrected him. He understood the misperception, though. The ship did seem to be running more smoothly. The wake of the enemy was calmer, and the stuff of the immaterium appeared to be hurrying the Red Tear forwards, as if millions of spectral hands were hurling the vessel along its destined path.
And illusion or not, the conceptions of speed and direction were the only ones available.
‘Range to the enemy?’ Sanguinius asked.
‘No closer than before,’ said Mautus.
Far from ideal. Only now the entire fleet was pursuing the target.
‘All ships, open fire,’ Sanguinius said. ‘Destroy that phantom.’
The XIII Legion fleet lost two destroyers on the first jump. The cruiser Praetorian of Ulixis vanished in the warp during the second. By the third, almost a quarter of the fleet was reporting episodes of madness afflicting Navigators. Guilliman ordered the fleet’s formation held even tighter. The risk of collisions was high, but he was willing to take it. The communications were better, and the diminished isolation of the ships was a lifeline of sanity to the crews and struggling Navigators.
The practical worked. But as the Samothrace shuddered its way through the warp, the measure felt inadequate. The tempest of the immaterium clawed at the ship. The decks and walls groaned with the strain of holding fast to their reality. Nightmares pressed at the hull, seeking purchase, seeking entry. The Geller field was holding, though the air Guilliman breathed felt wrong, as if tainted by invisible filaments, a twitching nest of insect legs.
We might get there faster. The thought assailed him through the leaps. It grew more insistent with every casualty to madness. It undermined the practical, shaking its foundations with the loss of each ship. One jump, Nekras had said. The practical of distrust was sound. He knew this to be true. Prayto had concurred. Yet there had been no sign that Nekras was lying.
And? What of it? You have been blind before. You did not see this war coming. You did not see Lorgar’s betrayal coming. And with a bitter pang, he thought back to before the war, to Thoas, and to the history of human civil war he had found and ordered expunged. The lessons had been there, and he had wilfully turned his eyes from them.
We might get there faster. If we use the enemy’s tools.
The concept should have been unthinkable. It was not. He confronted it, but could not put it aside. He left the bridge of the Samothrace and returned to his quarters. He needed to face what he was contemplating in a form that was not abstract. In the main chamber, he advanced to the stasis vault. It opened with a groan of metal and a hiss of escaping air. He stood before the two compartments that held the athames.
Theoretical. You postulated that careful study might lead to the successful use of these tools. Would the same not be true of the Navigators?
The train of logic was seductive. It would be easy to agree with it.
‘No,’ he whispered. ‘The theoretical is flawed. It ignores realities. It shapes itself to irrational hope.’
The truth did not have the convincing effect it should have had. The blades mocked him with the lethal secrecy of their being. They seemed to answer him with Nekras’ words. You walk your assigned path.
Guilliman’s right hand came up in an involuntary gesture. His fingers touched the point on his throat where Kor Phaeron’s dagger had pierced his flesh. He had been wounded, but he had resisted the power of the blade. He had not been corrupted.
Weren’t you?
He closed his eyes for a moment, then, staring at the blades, made himself work through the darkest theoretical. Perhaps he had deluded himself. Perhaps the athame had infected him. Perhaps every decision he had made since then had been shaped by the shadow that had entered his blood.
He looked back with horror on the Imperium Secundus, at its arrogance. The Lion and Sanguinius had been right to mistrust it. Yet he had insisted upon its necessity, and dragged them into his delusion.
He wondered how many of his brothers had been brought to make war on the Emperor in exactly the same way.
The conclusion of the theoretical was appa
lling. Corrupted, walking the assigned path, he had become a corruptor in his turn.
He wished Tarasha Euten was there. He wanted her counsel now, more than any other’s. He needed to hear her dismiss the premise of his corruption.
Is that what you call making a mistake now? He could hear her voice in his head. He could see her wry expression as she spoke those words.
Only she was on Macragge, not the Samothrace. She had not spoken. The words belonged to his wishful mental constructions. They served no purpose. They were an attempt at self-absolution.
They were meaningless.
The edges of the athames cut the light of the vault. They were darkness staring back at him.
The Samothrace shook again. The tremors were taking on a new violence, as if the hunger outside the hull sensed the blood pouring from the psychic wounds within.
A fleet’s anger streaked through the empyrean to the shadow, and did nothing.
‘Auspex,’ Sanguinius called out. ‘Have we hit or not?’ On the primary tactical screen that had descended before the window shutters, the hololithic renderings of the battle had shown him the arcs of cannon fire and the trajectories of torpedoes, all heading directly into the vague mass of the enemy. The Red Tear’s cogitators struggled to create a logical representation of the unreality beyond the hull.
‘I can’t tell, lord,’ Mautus replied. ‘If we did, there is no visible effect, but I can get no readings at all on the ship. It may even be outside our range… I mean…’ He paused, frustrated over the uncertain meaning of the word range in the warp. ‘I don’t think we are closing with it.’
Yes we are, Sanguinius thought. Distance was a lie, space was an illusion, and yet there was a truth to proximity. The Sable had come near enough to die, and the Red Tear was nearer too. The weight of the phantom’s shadow oppressed him. The bridge felt insubstantial, and time was slippery. The halls of the Vengeful Spirit tugged at him. If he let them, they would pull him into them. His fist tightened around the Spear of Telesto with the effort of holding his consciousness in the here and now. Micro-visions of his final moments flickered across the surface of his mind. They stabbed him, each blow like the jab of a monomolecular blade. And as the shadow’s weight grew heavier, it took on a new character. It became the inevitability of fate. It was the grasp of his doom. That which had not yet occurred took on the certainty of the past. Sanguinius stared at the black shape on the tactical screen as if it would resolve itself not into the form of an identifiable ship, but into his death. His end was coming. It marched towards him, the one absolute in an ocean of flux. It was almost upon him, and it would not tell him if his death would have any meaning, or simply be miserable, pointless, his corpse just one more added to the heap piled up before Horus’ victory. He could know nothing except how he would die.
Ruinstorm Page 10
