by Darius Hinks
As in the visions, the figure was little more than a blurred silhouette, but as it came closer, Antros finally saw the truth. He had seen this moment so many times.
‘Mephiston,’ he muttered, his pulse hammering.
Mephiston launched his attack.
There was a chorus of metallic shrieks as the Chief Librarian exploded into action. He spread his black wings and tore through the aliens, gripping his sword in both hands and swinging it in flashing arcs of psychic energy. The sepolcrali burst into sheets of white flame, scattering fragments of ivory meat across the clearing. Mephiston worked with the same cold-blooded precision Antros had seen earlier. As he rose up from the tumult, his face was devoid of emotion.
The sepolcrali turned away from Antros and he watched the scene in stunned silence. There was a dark beauty to Mephiston’s lunges and pirouettes but an endless tide of the shimmering serpents poured up around the fist. For every ten that Mephiston destroyed, another twenty arrived; for every twenty, another thirty. However lethal his technique, it was impossible for him to destroy them all. The sepolcrali showed no sign of fear or even caution. There was something remorseless about their advance. Mephiston may as well have been fighting an avalanche.
Antros shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He crossed the steps and began firing at the edges of the pit, picking off the creatures that had yet to reach Mephiston. His shots barked out, shearing through the sepolcrali and filling the air with even more ash.
Mephiston fought on oblivious, his force sword burning through foe after foe. Time wore on and still they came at him, an endless series of thrusts and lunges as they attempted to break through his sword strikes. Mephiston was incredible to watch but Antros found himself wondering what would happen if one of the sepolcrali managed to pierce his armour. If they possessed Mephiston’s body in the same way they possessed their other victims… The thought did not bear considering. He banished the idea with bolt fire, smiling in satisfaction as he saw the mound of corpses he was building. He may have misunderstood his visions, but he was still glad to be here, helping his lord against these revolting creatures.
Still they came and, gradually, the impossible happened – as ever greater numbers of the creatures tumbled down over Mephiston, he began to tire. His sword blows slowed and, incredibly, he started to miss some of his targets, staggering slightly, wrong-footed by mistimed blows.
The corpse-like rigidity of Mephiston’s features was changing. As he failed to defeat the xenos, his face finally showed emotion, twisting into a bitter snarl. Antros could not tell whether the rage was directed at his foes or his inability to destroy them, but it did not really matter; what mattered was that Mephiston’s composure had been broken. Antros had never heard of such a thing.
Finally, the Chief Librarian abandoned his sword and unleashed the naked power of his mind, howling arcane oaths and channelling great gouts of psychic power through his open hands. The columns of light tore through the clearing, incinerating everything they met.
Antros dived to one side as a bolt hurtled towards him. He rolled clear but the blast smashed into the masonry behind him, tearing a hole in the wall of the temple.
He turned onto his back and saw a whirling mass of sepolcrali falling towards him. He loosed off another storm of bolt shells, splattering chunks of scorched white meat across the steps, then rose to his feet and looked around for Mephiston.
The crowd of sepolcrali had become a mountain, built around the white-hot core of Mephiston’s rage. Antros could barely see him, but his power was evident everywhere. The clearing was networked with incandescent bolts. They were now detonating whole swathes of the xenos as well as levelling the surrounding forest. Many of the blasts were also hitting the temple and the whole structure was starting to teeter and slump.
‘Myos,’ muttered Antros, recalling the Guardsman. He pounded back up the steps, firing as he went, staggering against the shock waves rippling through the quarry as Mephiston’s fury grew even more ferocious. Antros could hear him crying out in frustration. It was a shocking, inhuman sound.
The temple was drenched in warp light. Large sections of the roof had collapsed, covering the mosaic floor in piles of rubble. He half expected to find Myos dead, but he was hunched in the moonlight, gun raised, surrounded by debris.
Antros nodded to the doorway. ‘You need to leave.’ He led him out onto the steps. ‘We will deal with the xenos.’
Myos looked out through the collapsing walls of the building and lowered his gun in shock.
Hundreds of the ash creatures were revolving around Mephiston. They were illuminated so fiercely by his wrath that it seemed as though a sun had formed in the clearing. It blazed brighter until Myos was forced to turn away and even Antros had to squint against the glare. Then Antros heard a voice cry out, feral and inhuman: ‘Enough!’
The sun shattered.
Antros and the Guardsman were hit by incredible force and thrown backwards through the ruins. Antros managed to keep hold of Myos as they were lifted from their feet. He attempted to shield him from the hail of masonry that flew after them. Antros collided with the wall, smashed through to the other side and landed with a grunt, his bolt pistol flying from his grip.
Serpents wound lazily through the stars, crushing the heavens in their dislocated jaws. A griffon reared protectively over a flame, roaring the word ‘Mephiston’. A world burned.
Antros lay there, frozen, as a new series of visions ripped through his head.
Suffocating beneath the rubble. Roaring in endless rage. Dead and undying. A woman approaching through the fumes, calling for help. Her face veiled. Her skin torn away. The veil stained with blood where it had brushed against her ruined face. What did you see?
The visions faded and Antros saw the pit once again. The blinding vortex had gone, replaced by the paler light of the moon. Myos was beside him, dazed and bloody but alive.
A dreadful sound still filled the clearing – a bestial roar that sliced through the night, making the eerie quiet that followed seem dreadfully ominous.
Antros rose and helped Myos to his feet. They both picked their way back through the rubble to the front of the building. Antros paused, shocked by the sight that greeted them, unsure what was vision and what was fact.
Myos staggered on, shaking his head.
The sepolcrali were dead. All of them were dead. The pit around the stone fist was carpeted in burned flesh. The smell of charred meat hung in the air and the mounds of gore had turned the surrounding forest into a charnel house. But it was not the piles of corpses that Antros and Myos were staring at; it was Mephiston. Or, at least, Antros thought it was Mephiston. The thing crouched at the edge of the pit wore the same scalloped, crimson armour as the Chief Librarian, but in every other way he had been transformed. Aetheric light was blazing through his armour as he tore through the corpses. His flesh was limned with oily, dark flames.
Antros hesitated, confused, but Myos staggered on, climbing down the steps. ‘You destroyed them,’ he said, reaching out towards Mephiston. ‘So many of them.’
Mephiston looked up. His face was a blood-infused flame and his eyes flashed deep carmine. His teeth gleamed, cruel and white, as he launched himself at Myos.
Myos howled as Mephiston crashed into him.
Mephiston grabbed him by the throat and lifted him easily up over his head, roaring incoherently. Power spat from his armour as he prepared to throw Myos against the ruins.
‘Wait!’ cried Antros.
The words hit Mephiston like a slap. He reeled back down the steps, hurling Myos to the ground.
Myos landed heavily and Antros followed Mephiston, unsure what to do.
‘Are you wounded, Chief Librarian?’
Mephiston stared back, a cornered beast, hunched and dangerous, ready to pounce. ‘Antros,’ he said, his feral voice struggling to form the word. Then he
said it again with more confidence. ‘Antros.’ Suddenly, he was changing. He rose from his crouch and drew back his shoulders. The snarl dropped from his face and the dark fire faded from his skin. He looked around at the carnage he had wrought. ‘What…?’ he began, but his words petered out and he looked at Antros in confusion. He retrieved Vitarus from the blood-soaked turf and stared at it. Every inch of the force sword was stained with blood.
‘My lord–’ Antros began, but he paused as Mephiston saw Lieutenant Myos, broken and silent, sprawled across the steps.
Mephiston looked from Myos to Antros, his eyes half-lidded.
‘Chief Librarian,’ Antros said, stepping to his side. ‘You destroyed so many of them.’ He looked around at rolling hills of corpses. ‘Whatever happens now, the sepolcrali will always recall the day they faced the sons of Sanguinius.’
Mephiston wiped some blood from his face, revealing the waxen skin beneath. His eyes were still clouded as he turned to face Antros. A ghost of savagery contorted his voice. ‘What did you see?’
Antros almost cried out as he heard the words that had been so long coming. This was the question that had been echoing round his head for months.
As Mephiston glared at him, animal hunger still smouldering in his eyes, Antros realised that he could see a shadow of the Chief Librarian’s mind. The bond he had felt during the battle was growing – becoming a permanent link between them. They were joining somehow. And as he peered into his lord’s mind, Antros saw quite clearly that Mephiston meant to kill him.
‘What did you see?’ repeated Mephiston, stepping closer.
‘I saw you destroy our enemy. I saw you strike them down with–’
‘No,’ Mephiston interrupted, his voice quiet and dangerous as he locked his hand around Antros’ arm, still gripping Vitarus in the other. ‘You saw more than that. What did you see in my mind, Lexicanium Antros?’
Antros faltered. ‘I have seen strange visions,’ he admitted. He tried to look Mephiston directly in the eye. ‘I did not understand them.’
Mephiston tightened his grip and Antros whispered a prayer.
Over on the steps, Myos groaned. The sound broke something in Mephiston’s eyes. He loosed his grip on Antros and backed away. When he looked up again, all trace of the monster had vanished; he was the Lord of the Librarius once more, phlegmatic and detached.
Antros’ fears suddenly felt ridiculous. How could he have imagined Mephiston would harm one of his own servants?
‘See to him,’ said Mephiston, nodding at Myos. ‘I must find Captain Vatrenus and clear the valley of revenants, or this evacuation will become even more of a mess.’ He took a deep breath, wiped more blood from his face and marched towards the edge of the clearing. Before he left, he paused and looked back.
‘I have work to do in the Cronian Sector but I will summon you when I return to Baal. Do not speak of this to anyone.’
‘My lord,’ said Antros, ‘I would not know what to say.’
Mephiston did not seem to hear him. ‘None of this is how it appears.’ His voice was a thick jumble of accents and Antros could barely make out the words. ‘And it would not do to cast doubt on me, to cast doubt on ideas that carry such currency, ideas that have given our bloodline so much hope.’
‘Of course, my lord,’ Antros began, but Mephiston had already vanished into the trees.
Antros turned back to Myos, eager to bind his wounds and hurry him back to the camp. He met a fixed, blank stare.
Myos was dead.
Chapter Two
Divinus Prime, The Cronian Sector,
Six weeks later
‘You have been reborn.’
Prester Kohath reeled in the dark, shocked to realise he was not alone. He stumbled over a hill of bones and peered into the smoke, twitching and muttering as he searched for the voice’s owner. ‘Who’s that? Who’s there?’
Flames had painted everything red, ruins and corpses alike, and he felt as though he were slipping through the guts of a great beast. All around him the world was tearing itself apart, collapsing in a promethium storm of blood and fire. Valkyrie gunships screamed past like daemons, carving up the night with incendiaries and bolter fire, while the valley below sank under the weight of its numberless dead.
Prester Kohath reached around in the piles of bodies, trembling as he prised a pistol from the fingers of a dead trooper. Such a soft voice should not have been audible over the pounding thud of the artillery. Warpcraft. He could taste it, oily and metallic on the night air. ‘What have I done?’ he whispered. ‘Why did I leave? Why tonight?’ He waved the gun at the distant battle lines and raised his voice, attempting to sound fierce. ‘I’m not alone. One call to those Guardsmen and–’
Something drifted through the darkness towards him.
‘Wait!’ He crouched and aimed. ‘Show yourself!’
There was no reply and Prester Kohath did not ask again. Whatever madness was consuming Divinus Prime, it would not consume him. To die now, after finally seeing the truth, would be too cruel a trick. He had to survive. Despite his trembling hands, he managed to unleash a blast of las-fire. It lit up the surrounding corpses and they seemed to dance, twitching in time with his clumsy shots.
The shadow fell away and Prester Kohath lowered his pistol, blinking in the afterglow, trying to see what he had killed.
‘We are all reborn. With every new breath.’ The voice was closer now, coming from behind him. ‘The man who fired that gun is already gone, already a ghost.’
Prester Kohath cursed and backed away, jabbing his pistol at the shadows.
‘Every new thought remakes us. Every decision is a rebirth.’ There was a distant, distracted tone to the voice, as though the speaker were merely thinking aloud. ‘There is always another chance.’
Prester Kohath fired again, wildly this time, creating another tableau of blue-limned corpses. ‘Show yourself!’ he yelled.
‘Would you kill me,’ asked the disembodied voice, ‘without even asking my name?’ There was no anger, only mild surprise.
Prester Kohath spat another curse. The voice was directly above him now. He looked up and saw a deepening of the darkness, a shadow within shadows. It blocked the burning heavens as it fell towards him. Clumsy with panic, he backed away, tripping across the rubble as he fired again. Blue flame kicked from the muzzle, revealing a sight so disturbing that Prester Kohath howled.
The bloody ruins had spawned an avatar, a giant carved from the same crimson flesh – an ivory-faced daemon borne on death-black pinions.
Prester Kohath’s shots were useless. Each blast rippled harmlessly across the flayed muscle and lit up the thing’s grotesque face – a mask of cracked alabaster with eyes that made Prester Kohath cry out in shock. All the lunacy of Divinus Prime was in that ashen face, burning in an infernal gaze.
Prester Kohath collapsed. He tumbled against a shattered column, struck his head and slumped, insensate, into a ditch.
When he came to, the monster had its back to him. Dawn was approaching, and there was enough light for Prester Kohath to see his mistake – the flayed muscle was actually a suit of thick battleplate, intricately wrought and designed to resemble skinless flesh. The wings must have been a delusion brought on by his fear, but the stranger was a giant, seven or eight feet tall. At first, he thought he might be looking at a mortal warrior. Then the light shifted across the ruins and passed through the giant’s flesh. Kohath realised he was sitting with a ghost.
To Kohath’s relief, the grim apparition did not turn to face him. It was crouched near a corpse, one of the dragoons from the capital. The poor soul’s helmet had been torn open by shrapnel and the head was a misshapen mess. Something was crawling through the grey matter: an eager host of milk-white grubs.
The ghost was staring intently at this gruesome display and, despite his fear, Kohath felt a macabre desire to see what t
he spirit was doing. As he watched, the ghost removed one of its gauntlets and drew a series of arcane symbols on the dusty ground. Then it lifted a long, ceremonial knife from its robes, sliced the palm of its hand open and made a fist. A quick torrent of blood rushed from between its fingers and pattered onto the symbols it had drawn. As it landed, the blood traced the shapes of the characters as if it were sentient, feeling its way through them. When the symbols had all been drawn, they flickered, as though particles of metallic dust were suspended in the liquid. The spirit whispered some unintelligible words and then pressed its bloody hand onto the crimson text. The letters bubbled and hissed at the contact, and when the ghost removed its hand the symbols were scorched into the ground.
Kohath dragged his thoughts from the strange ritual, realising that, while the ghost was so fixated on its work, he had a chance to flee. Kohath lifted himself slowly into a crouching position and prepared to run.
‘What do you see?’ asked the spectre, nodding at the broken corpse of the soldier. The spirit’s voice was cold, inhuman.
Prester Kohath wanted to run, but as he looked at the corpse it reminded him of all the horrors he had seen over the last few months, all the bloodshed caused by a war that made no sense. Rage boiled through him, drawing out an unexpected reply.
‘Pointless sacrifice.’
Still the ghost did not turn. ‘Pointless? A strange choice of word, Prester Kohath. What could be more worthwhile than the fight for survival?’ He picked up one of the wriggling grubs. ‘Even these lowly creatures understand that. And you and I understand far higher truths. Unto death we serve, Prester Kohath, unto death. As it has always been.’ The spirit paused, wiping the blood from its hand. ‘Or perhaps you’ve learned a new philosophy.’
Prester Kohath’s face flushed. ‘Survival? Is that what you see down there?’ He waved at the massacre taking place beyond the ruins.
The ghost turned to look, revealing a gaunt, bone-white profile. Guardsmen of countless regiments were dying in the dark, blasting and hacking each other down in the flames. More pitiful still were the priests, Prester Kohath’s own brethren, the Children of the Vow. They were kneeling in prayer, holding up patens and censers as volleys of las-fire tore them apart.
