[Warhammer 40K] - Sons of Dorn

by Chris Roberson - (ebook by Undead)

  As important as physical compatibility was in an aspirant, mental suitability was of equal importance, if not greater. Of the implants, the catalepsean node and occulobe could only develop to a fully functional condition under the stimulus of hypnotic suggestion. If the recruit’s mind proved to be resistant to hypno-conditioning, there would be no point in proceeding. Fortunately, among the first procedures performed on the aspirants upon their arrival to the strike cruiser was the force-teaching of Imperial Gothic by means of hypno-casques, and if the aspirant emerged from the process still unable to speak and comprehend the Imperium’s common tongue, it was a sure indicator that the more sophisticated hypnotic techniques employed in implantation would likewise fail.

  “This feudal world of Triandr has been too long out of contact with the Imperium,” Chaplain Dominicus said with evident distaste, his voice sounding distant and cold from behind the silver death’s-head. “These raw recruits will know little of the Imperial Creed, and even less about the proper worship of the God-Emperor. They will need rigorous instruction if they are to join the ranks of the Chapter’s neophytes.”

  Tissue compatibility tests and psychological screening would over the coming days and weeks weed out those recruits unsuitable for implantation. And then, the examinations complete, Chaplain Dominicus would indoctrinate those who remained in the Imperial faith, and introduce them to the adoration of Primarch Rogal Dorn.

  “Agreed, Chaplain,” Taelos replied, “and I can think of no one better suited to the task.”

  Dominicus’ eyes regarded Taelos in silence from behind the silver mask for a long moment, and then the Chaplain nodded.

  “Unless any of you have concerns to address?” Taelos paused and then, when the three responded only with silence, continued. “Then I see no reason to tarry here any longer. We can be on our way, and rendezvous with the Phalanx that much sooner.”

  Chaplain Dominicus raised his hand in benediction, and Taelos and the others waited in reverent silence. “Oh Dorn, dawn of our being, be with us, illuminate us.”

  Taelos closed his eyes, and solemnly intoned, “Ave Imperator.”

  Jean-Robur du Queste was convinced that he had died on the field of battle in Eokaroe after all, and that he was now suffering the torments of the damned in the perfidious domain of the Dark god.

  Perhaps, he thought, he should have paid more attention to his religious studies. And taken a little better care of his immortal soul, at that.

  But convinced as he was of his deceased condition, Jean-Robur did not feel like an ethereal spirit, his essence shorn of its gross material form. Admittedly he had not been the most attentive student of religious theory in his childhood in Caritaigne, but he didn’t remember anything about ethereal spirits being able to bruise, or to bleed. And while he understood that the torments of the damned were meant to be unpleasant, he hadn’t really considered that they would hurt so blasted much.

  Of course, on reflection there was much about his current circumstances that did not quite align with Caritaigne traditions. There had been nothing in the hymns he’d been forced by his grandparents to memorise that had mentioned the half-man/half-machine monstrosities with needles for fingers and clamps for hands that now poked and prodded him from all angles. To say nothing of the smaller man-machine hybrids that were engaged in shaving all of the hair from his head and body with razor-sharp blades.

  Jean-Robur’s last clear memory before waking up to this hall of mechanical horrors had been of the interior of the strange craft that had fallen from the sky. He and a pair of others, a Sipangish and a barbaric islander, had been trundled onboard, and then rendered unconscious by a quick spray from a nozzle of a cloyingly sweet-smelling gas. Jean-Robur had rousted once while still in the craft, only to find the interior crammed so full with bodies that they were stacked like cordwood ready for the fire. He tried to scream, but no sound emerged, and when he tried to move he found his limbs completely immobilised. Jean-Robur had lost consciousness again almost immediately, and when he opened his eyes again it was to find himself here, in red-tinged darkness.

  The lights had grown brighter as figures emerged from the shadows with strange clanks and wheezes, and it was only then that Jean-Robur realised that he’d been stripped naked and bound to some sort of hard, smooth surface that was as cold as metal against his bare skin. His first thought was that it was a dining table, and that the strange creatures of flesh and metal were coming to feast on his living flesh, but after they bared their blades and needles and clamps and went to work, Jean-Robur considered whether the table might not be the sort that could be found in an operating theatre, instead.

  Jean-Robur tried to scream, but just like when he’d awoken on the flying craft, no sound emerged. He could open his mouth, but it was as though his vocal cords were frozen.

  He could not move his head to either side, too. The only part of his body over which he seemed to have any control were his eyes, which he could swivel in their sockets, and open and close the lids. But all he could easily see of the strange space was the circle of light immediately around him, and the mechanical men bent over the table. If he strained his eyes as far as they would go in their sockets to the right or to the left, he could just barely make out another circle of light in the near distance, and another group of man-machine hybrids hunched over another table, and the impression of another naked form beneath the needles and clamps and blades. But the only sounds he could hear, no matter how hard he strained his ears to listen, were the clatter and snip of the clamps and blades, and the unsettling wheezing of the man-machines’ movements.

  Whenever the needles slid into his skin, whenever the clamps pinched back a hunk of flesh, Jean-Robur screamed silently at the searing pain. If he was not an ethereal spirit, and was still among the living, then the only consolation he could see was that his torments would not be endless, and that his body would eventually succumb. He would die, and his pain would at last be at an end.

  Later, in the weeks and months to come when he would think back to those first waking moments onboard the Capulus, when he imagined that he would soon see the last of pain, Jean-Robur could do nothing but laugh ruefully at his naiveté. He did not even dream in those early hours that the pain was only beginning.

  Zatori Zan had long since given up struggling, and sat bolt upright in the metal chair, his arms and legs securely fastened by thick straps. Despite himself he shivered, though whether from the fears that he could not completely suppress, or from the chill of the cool air against his naked and freshly shaved flesh, he could not say.

  He had endured the long hours—days?—of torture upon the metal bench, when the strange creatures of commingled flesh and metal had poked and prodded him, taking blood and tissue samples with their long needles and cruelly sharp blades. Immobilised and rendered mute as he was, Zatori had not even attempted to cry out in pain as they inserted metal probes into his every orifice, everything from long snaking coils to metal rods to others in shapes even stranger still.

  And when it seemed that he could bear it no longer, and he would either pass out from the pain or lose his senses entirely, the mechanical men had withdrawn. Zatori had been left alone on the bench, for how long he couldn’t say, until finally a towering figure loomed over him. This newcomer was dressed in a blinding white hue instead of the golden yellow and jet-black of the giants who had come from the sky. And this one’s face was not hidden behind a helmet, but his head was bare, with a thin stubble of white hair on his crown and eyes that were not entirely unkind.

  The towering figure in white carried a metal tube in his hands, and for a brief terrifying instant Zatori had assumed that he was about to undergo further examination. But then he saw that there were lenses of some clear material set in either end of the tube, and buttons and switches along its length. The giant in white armour raised one end of the tube to his own eyes, and then trained the other end on Zatori. Was the tube some sort of spyglass, as used by seafarers on the waves? Did it
s lenses render it capable of scrutinising Zatori in ways beyond the scope of mere sight? Perhaps. How else to explain the fact that the white-armoured figure used the lensed tube to peer into Zatori’s eyes, the lids pinned back by massive gauntleted fingers, or into his ears, or his open mouth. Zatori felt himself a piece of livestock being inspected by potential buyers, like the war-horses he’d seen his former master Father Nei obtain at auction.

  It was that realisation that gave Zatori his first inkling of what was happening to him. The machine-men who’d subjected him to their needles and blades were not the daemons that plagued the dishonoured dead in the land of spirits, as he’d originally assumed. And Zatori was not being tortured and tormented for his failings in life, either. He was being examined, and evaluated. But to what end, and by what criteria?

  An answer was not forthcoming. Still rendered mute, whether by the sweet-smelling gas that had incapacitated him in the flying craft or by some other treatment at the hands of the machine-men, Zatori was not even able to give his question voice. But after completing the examination with the lensed-tube, the figure in white armour had spoken to the surrounding shadows in words that were somehow familiar but no less incomprehensible, and a pair of machine-men emerged back into the circle of light. The bounds which pinned Zatori to the bench were removed, and the pair of machine-men lifted him and carried him bodily a short distance to an upright metal chair.

  From the high back of the chair, suspended on a metallic coil, was an inverted-bowl-shaped object that appeared to be a helmet of some sort. Zatori was deposited in the chair, his arms and legs strapped in place, and then the machine-men retreated while the figure in white armour stepped forwards to regard him once more.

  Again the figure in white armour addressed him, and again Zatori could almost puzzle out the words’ meaning, hearing the echoes of the ballads which told of holy warriors who travelled in their divine chariots between the stars.

  The white-armoured figure seemed to pause for a moment, almost as if awaiting some response from Zatori. Then he closed the distance to the chair, reached up to take hold of the inverted bowl suspended from the cord, and then lowered the helmet-shaped object over Zatori’s head.

  Zatori could feel the sudden kiss of the cold metal against his hairless scalp. And then in the next instant Zatori’s entire world was consumed by an endless universe of pain.

  Taloc s’Tonan felt as though his mind would burst. His thoughts raced, blanketed in confusion as new words and concepts crowded together.

  As the sky-giant in white armour lifted the metal bowl from his naked scalp, Taloc realised with a start that he knew that it was not a bowl, but a “hypno-casque”. And the massive figure who loomed over him was not a sky-giant, but a member of the Adeptus Astartes: a Space Marine.

  The Astartes spoke to Taloc again, as he had when first placing the hypno-casque on his head, but this time Taloc found that he could understand the Astartes’ words, though he knew for a certainty that it was not the Eokaroean tongue he was hearing.

  “If the procedure was successful, you should now be fully versed in Imperial Gothic. Respond verbally to confirm that you understand what I am saying.”

  Taloc’s tongue felt thick and useless in his mouth, and he realised that he had not spoken since he had shouted a challenge to the sky-giant—to the Space Marine—on the green fields of Eokaroe. He opened his mouth tentatively, then closed it again.

  “Don’t worry, the effects of the paralysing agents on your vocal cords have been disabled, and you are now free to speak once more.”

  “W-where am I?” Taloc said in Eokaroean.

  “In Imperial Gothic, please,” the Space Marine replied with some impatience, “to confirm the efficacy of the cognitive implantation.”

  Taloc swallowed hard, and felt concepts and words shifting in his brain. It was as though a whole new set of signifiers and labels were being overlaid atop his conceptions, and that with the slightest effort he could shift his way of thinking away from the old paradigm and to the new. Taloc could not help but be reminded of the day when his father first introduced him to the Mysteries, the sacred teachings of the Great Father in the Sky, which were not spoken of openly, but communicated in secret to children once they approached the threshold of adulthood. From that moment forwards Taloc’s mind had undergone a change, and as he looked at the world around him—sky, land, sea, and stars—he had found that once-familiar things had taken on new meaning, an unexpected significance.

  “Where am I?” Taloc said again, this time employing the new words which were still settling into place. “Who are you? Why am I here?”

  The Space Marine nodded once, seemingly satisfied, and then began removing the straps which bound Taloc to the chair.

  “You are onboard the Imperial Fists strike cruiser Capulus. I am Apothecary Lakari of the 10th Company. You are here to be examined further, and your suitability for implantation procedures measured. Does that answer your questions?”

  Strike cruiser—the meaning of the words bubbled up from somewhere deep in Taloc’s mind, a ship of war that sailed between the stars. Apothecary—a word combining the Eokaroean concepts of “healer” and “midwife”, but not one who aided women giving birth to babies, but who aided young men in giving birth to their own transformed selves. Company—a concept greater than “clan”, signifying a host of warriors who did not share bonds of blood or family, but instead were linked by the genetic legacy each of them carried, seeds passed down from a single great warrior of the past.

  And implantation—the concepts associated with this word in particular were confusing to Taloc. It suggested living bodies being cut open and things being buried within in order to improve it, but in Taloc’s experience cutting open bodies was an act designed to injure a living body, and even to kill it. He found the discrepancy difficult to reconcile.

  The last of the bounds removed from the chair, the Apothecary straightened up and took a step backwards.

  “Stand,” he said simply.

  “I… I…” Taloc began, questions racing in all directions through his head like birds scattered from trees by the noisy arrival of a clumsy hunter.

  Apothecary Lakari’s face remained immobile and set, his expression as impassive and unreadable as the helmets which had hidden the faces of the Space Marines who had descended on Eokaroe.

  “Stand,” he repeated, the slightest trace of impatience creeping into his tone.

  Taloc glanced down at his naked form, at his arms and legs which had not moved of his own volition since the Space Marine in gold had battered the ironbrand from his hands and trussed him up like a prize boar being readied for the roasting spit.

  “You have been imparted a knowledge of Imperial Gothic to facilitate the remaining examinations,” the Apothecary said, as though by rote. It seemed that the Space Marine were reciting a formalised chant, and Taloc found himself wondering how often Apothecary Lakari had said these same words to other young men seated in that chair. “You now understand fully the spoken commands you are given, and are expected to comply. If you refuse to follow instructions, you will be dealt with accordingly.”

  Though the Apothecary’s tone remained level and emotionless, Taloc could not mistake the hint of menace behind the words themselves. Without delaying any further, he pushed off the metal chair and onto his long-disused legs, his knees shaking somewhat at the unexpected strain after being left idle for so long a time.

  Apothecary Lakari regarded Taloc for a moment before continuing. “The examinations so far carried out by the servitors”—servitors, a word signifying the terrifying, strange amalgamations of man and machine who had tormented Taloc upon the metal slab—“have been rudimentary, meant to eliminate those candidates with physical defects, deformities or other unsuitabilities which may have somehow remained hidden to an auspex’s readings.” Auspex, the handheld devices the Space Marines carried, which with his newfound vocabulary still unpacking as it encountered each new word, Taloc now u
nderstood were machines capable of gathering data about their surroundings.

  “A considerable number of your fellow aspirants have been eliminated as candidates for implantation already, and there is every chance that you will yourself be eliminated in the coming, and more rigorous, examinations. Be warned, though, that compared to the relatively simple procedures already performed on you by the servitors, some of the tests that will follow can involve considerably greater degrees of pain.”

  Pain—a new word for a very familiar concept.

  The figure that loomed before Zatori had the same milky-white eyes as the blind beggar-woman who had spent her days on the front steps of the temple in the village in which Zatori had been born. Above the lined and weathered face, the cheeks marked by ancient white scars, was a golden skullcap much like those worn by the holy scholars of Sipang. Robes fashioned of cloth-of-gold hung from the figure’s shoulders, rustling gently in the slight breeze through the chamber.

  Zatori stood stock straight in the centre of the chamber, naked flesh chilled by the same faint breeze that rustled the golden robe and caused the flames burning in the censers and thuribles suspended overhead to flutter and wave like flags flapping in a high wind, smoke wreathing the rafters which arched high above their heads. And though Zatori was relatively certain that the white eyes before him were sightless and dead, still he could feel the pressure of the blind man’s regard, as though Zatori were being studied by senses beyond the five granted to mortal men.

  Of all the Astartes whom Zatori had encountered, on Eokaroe and here on the Capulus, this blind man was undoubtedly the most terrifying. Zatori’s stomach clenched in knots, and he began to wonder whether he had made a seriously grave mistake in agreeing to come to the stars.

  “Relax yourself, child,” the blind man said, his voice sounding older than the ice-capped mountains of Sipang themselves. “The Apothecary has begun the long process of examining your body, and it falls to me to examine your mind.”