by Darius Hinks
Mephiston looked up and stared at Antros. Black flames shimmered across his palms, throwing odd shadows over his face. ‘I spoke,’ he said quietly, ‘in your mind?’
Antros sensed he had made a mistake. ‘I thought so. Was I wrong?’
Mephiston stepped towards him and the darkness followed, billowing like smoke, so that he seemed even larger than his already massive Adeptus Astartes frame. Without a word, he reached out and pressed the tip of his finger firmly against Antros’ forehead. The black fire was rippling across Mephiston’s skin and Antros’ instinct was to recoil, but Mephiston’s touch was corpse-cold. It was also dreadfully significant, like an accusation.
Mephiston frowned, removed his finger from Antros’ skin and backed away. Then he sat down again and looked out at the vast atrium, staring at the slowly rotating sarcophagi. He spoke quietly, using words Antros could not understand and nodding slightly, as though someone were replying.
‘What you saw on Thermia caught me by surprise,’ Mephiston said suddenly, still looking away from Antros.
As usual, there was no hint of emotion in his voice, but the words alone were enough to give Antros pause. Surprise? Mephiston was infallible. Inhuman. The omnipotent lord of the Librarius. Surely he saw all ends?
‘Chief Librarian,’ said Antros. ‘I fear that my behaviour on Thermia has made you doubt me. I was babbling when I spoke of visions. What I saw was a glorious victory. You were unstoppable.’
Mephiston leant back in his chair. ‘Unstoppable? Yes, Antros, as you saw, I could not be stopped.’
The conversation both excited and troubled Antros. Had he said something wrong? Or had he impressed his lord in some way? He had never heard of Mephiston confiding in any other Lexicani like this, but it felt more like a trial than an honour – as though the Chief Librarian were drawing him close through doubt rather than trust. He could not tell whether this conversation was leading to unexpected promotion or unexpected death.
‘The battle at the pit left me with unanswered questions,’ Mephiston said, ‘as I’m sure it did you. But perhaps the devout Confessor Zin has given us an answer, in the form of Divinus Prime.’
‘You mean to go back?’ Antros said.
‘I do. And I do not intend to go alone.’
‘Confessor Zin would do anything to stop you returning.’
‘He would do anything to find Divinus Prime, and his choice of guides is limited.’ Mephiston glanced at the shrine to the Angel. ‘I have anchored my soul to that world. The transmigration between realities will be faster and more permanent. I have the skill to do what lesser minds would consider impossible. I will cross the immaterium.’
He raised one of his hands and a sphere of dust formed above his palm. Antros leant closer as the dust became a planet, turning slowly in the void. It was caged by a spiral of serpentine clouds but looked otherwise normal. The miniature world was so accurately drawn from Mephiston’s memory that he could even make out its oceans and continents.
‘Zin is either lying or being lied to. Someone has deliberately hidden Divinus Prime from him. That much is plain. There is an architecture to this mystery, a design.’
He waved his hand and the image dissolved. ‘It is one of the things that intrigued me about the place. I had already consulted with the Chapter Council and petitioned Commander Dante for guidance. I need to…’ He paused, and Antros glimpsed a flicker of emotion in his eyes – hunger perhaps. ‘I cannot place the source of these visions. I do not know who is calling to me. But I am sure of this – there are things on Divinus Prime too precious to be simply revered.’
Antros was about to reply when Mephiston waved him away. ‘Return to your tower, Lexicanium. Set your scholars to work. Tell me who they are, these Children of the Vow.’
Chapter Seven
Librarium Sagrestia, Arx Angelicum, Baal
A week had passed since Mephiston’s return from Divinus Prime and the subsequent destruction of the Ostensorio. Lexicanium Antros had spent every moment attempting to fulfil the Chief Librarian’s request. He had unearthed dozens of volumes concerning the shrine worlds of the Cronian Sector and the Imperial cults that held sway there. Despite Antros’ earlier doubts about his most senior serf, Scholiast Ghor, she had proven useful. Ghor had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the books stored in the Orbicular Tower, whereas, for Antros, much of his new demesne was still a mystery. And yet, for all their searching, they had failed to unearth another mention of the Children of the Vow.
On this particular morning he found Ghor walking through the damask-lined halls of the Orbicular Tower, talking earnestly with some of the rubricators. Her tall, emaciated frame dwarfed the other scribes and they resembled a kind of chattering train, billowing in her wake as they passed by the thick, embroidered drapes that covered the walls.
At the sight of Antros, the junior scribes bowed awkwardly and scurried away, leaving Dimitra to face him alone. She looked as ferociously gaunt as ever, eyes sunk deep in their dark sockets and skin like old vellum. She greeted him with a slow, respectful bow.
‘Lexicanium,’ she said. She looked ashamed as she passed a pile of books into his hands. ‘These are the final few breviaries that speak of Divinus Prime. There is no mention of a vow in any of them.’
He shook his head. ‘And our time is up. The Chief Librarian means to return to Divinus Prime and I will be travelling with him.’
Dimitra glanced nervously at him. ‘My lord, I heard rumours of what happened in the Ostensorio. The Chief Librarian has immense power at his command, I understand that, but do you think such methods of transportation are really–?’
Antros halted her question with a warning glance. ‘The Chief Librarian sees all ends,’ he said firmly.
‘The Chief Librarian sees all ends,’ she echoed, but the concern remained in her ink-dark eyes.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘there was something odd about those books that I thought I should mention. It may be nothing, but there was a code – a kind of cryptograph that was common to all of them.’ She took one of the books back and opened it, tracing her finger over the faded print. ‘Some of the illuminated capitals feature this strange symbol,’ she said. ‘Can you see? A crossbar of some kind, or an upside down T.’
Antros nodded. ‘I see it.’
‘Well, the odd thing is that if you take the marked capitals and read them in reverse order, they seem to spell a name. It sounds like the name of a relic or a weapon, but it is not mentioned anywhere else.’
‘What is the name?’
She gave him a hopeful look. ‘The Blade Petrific. Have you heard of such a thing?’
She looked disappointed as Antros shook his head.
Dimitra frowned and handed him the book. ‘No, nor I. And it is not mentioned in the other breviaries. There is an impressive cloud of secrecy around Divinus Prime. I have never seen anything quite like it.’ She nodded at the crumbling books. ‘I hope you find whatever they are hiding.’
‘Who?’
‘The ecclesiarchs. I presume they are hiding something from the Chief Librarian.’
Antros laughed, his booming tones disrupting the quiet industry that surrounded them. The scholars and scribes visible through every archway ceased their copying and looked up, stealing a glimpse at their lord.
‘I do not believe it is possible to hide anything from the Chief Librarian,’ he said. ‘I would not profess to know what game he’s playing with the Adeptus Ministorum, but I know who holds all the cards.’
Dimitra’s angular features were briefly softened by a smile. ‘Agreed.’
She bowed and made to leave, then paused. ‘My lord,’ she said.
He nodded for her to continue.
She shook her head, embarrassed, and seemed to regret speaking, then she steeled herself and said, ‘I have been asked questions about you.’
‘Questions? By whom?�
�
She licked her thin lips and glanced over her shoulder before continuing in hushed tones. ‘Servants of the Chief Librarian’s equerry.’
Antros felt a rush of indignation as he sensed that she was impugning Rhacelus. ‘I have no time for gossip, Scholiast Ghor.’
She looked pained and bowed again. ‘Forgive me,’ she said, backing away into the shadows.
Antros stood there for a while, scowling as he watched her go. Then he shook his head and looked around, watching his servants working, relishing the sense of endless progress. Every word, every deed they copied into the Chapter’s records, pushed the boundaries of their understanding. He savoured the aroma of the place: ink and old paper, the smell of wisdom. The Librarium might seem, to an outsider at least, to be the quiet backwater of their fortress-monastery, but Antros felt the power of their work. Knowledge was their most potent weapon and all around him it was being honed by a legion of fearless, tireless minds.
Even Dimitra’s parting words could do nothing to dampen his mood. In the days since his meeting with Mephiston, he had quashed his fears and now felt a growing certainty that he was being groomed for some kind of advancement. This must be why questions were being asked about him. He had always felt that he was destined for a role of some significance and the more he thought about it, the more sure he was that Mephiston was about to recommend him for a senior position in one of the Chapter’s battle companies. He strode back through the scriptoria and began climbing the stairs that swept out in long, lazy arcs around the outside of the Orbicular Tower, orbiting its lichened spheres like a wind-lashed pennant. The Librarium Sagrestia was spread out beneath him, a shadowy mass of crypts, colonnades and reliquaries, scattered with so many pinpricks of light that he felt like a god, looking down on the distant firmament. He knew the lights were just windows into the cells of scribes and rubricators, but from up here they looked like stars and, above them, shimmering like comets, mechanised braziers drifted by, lighting the routes from one section of the Librarium to another. Antros had spent almost his entire life beneath these distant barrel vaults, gazing on these firefly lights. He gripped the rail as he realised how close he was to fulfilling his dream. He could almost see the victories he would claim once Mephiston attached him to a battle company.
A sound broke his reverie and he looked up the steps towards his private chambers. His santuario was perched at the very top of the tower and uninvited guests were not welcome. But he was sure he had heard a door closing.
He pounded up the steps and found, to his outrage, that the door to the santuario was ajar.
Antros entered the central chamber, scouring it for signs of damage or theft. Nothing had been moved. Talismans and amulets covered his workbenches, in various states of repair, along with all the other esoteric devices he had inherited from the old master of the Orbicular Tower: bestial, alien skulls, archaic components of antique weapons, pale, foetal things preserved in glass weights, astrolabes, orreries and the myriad other tools of scrying and prophesising. This bewildering collection of arcana was propped up on and surrounded by heaps of books. Some were mildewed, leather-bound relics, while others were newly printed treatises, the ink still gleaming on their thick, unbound pages. A circular scrying glass covered most of one wall, its oily, black surface reflecting nothing, even when Antros passed before it, and the rest of the wall was draped in thick, richly decorated tapestries.
A first glance might have given the impression that such luxurious wall coverings were unbecoming for one of the Adeptus Astartes. On closer inspection, they were revealed to be purely functional. They were intricately embroidered with celestial maps and star charts, crowded with an impenetrable mass of astronomical and astrological information – galaxies and gods whirled around each other, dancing through the thick weave, picked out of the deep scarlet dye in glittering golden thread.
This cornucopia of the beautiful and the grotesque was lit by the warm light of a gas lamp, hissing quietly in the corner of the room, suspended in the air on an ornate, brass, anti-grav platform. Antros knew that he should have found this wealth of relics exciting, but he could only think of it as his cage. He had spent his whole life striving for a chance to serve the God-Emperor in battle, to unleash all the fury that burned in his soul, and now that it seemed so close he was eager to be away.
He paused. Why was the lamp lit?
‘Who’s in here?’ There was no need to call out. The santuario only consisted of a few small rooms.
‘Forgive me,’ said a voice from behind him. ‘I did not mean to alarm you.’
The condescending tone was familiar and Antros knew it was Epistolary Rhacelus before he even turned to face him. The ancient Librarian was sitting in a gloomy corner, almost hidden apart from his strange blue eyes that glinted in the dark, reflecting the lamplight. He leant forwards and, as his face was revealed, Antros saw that his expression was particularly hostile. ‘What happened on Thermia?’ he asked.
Antros’ anger had vanished at the site of his former instructor and this unexpected question disarmed him further. ‘Epistolary,’ he replied. ‘The battle reports were all submitted to the Chapter archivists weeks ago.’
‘And your personal report, neophyte? Has that been submitted?’
Antros had never heard Rhacelus speak with anything other than cool disdain, but now he sounded angry – almost venomous.
‘I submitted my notes to Lord Mephiston,’ he replied, refusing to be cowed.
‘And what did you write? What happened between you and the Chief Librarian?’
Rhacelus rose to his feet and walked towards Antros, his expression growing darker as he came so close that his long, aquiline nose almost touched Antros’.
Antros shook his head. It went against all his years of training, but he would not discuss this with Rhacelus. The visions he had shared with Mephiston were not something he would describe out loud, even if he could. They were a secret he shared with the Chief Librarian. Then, with an almost physical jolt, it occurred to him that they might even be a secret from Mephiston. Perhaps Mephiston did not know exactly what had passed through his own mind.
Rhacelus stared at him closely and Antros could feel the veteran’s mind snaking around the edges of his thoughts.
Antros had learned enough to shield his mind from such casual inspection, but Rhacelus’ look of disapproval grew even more pronounced. The old Librarian had seen that Antros was keeping secrets from him.
‘Can I trust you?’ asked Rhacelus.
‘My lord,’ replied Antros, angered by the slur. ‘I am a sworn brother to–’
‘Can I trust you?’ growled Rhacelus, gripping Antros’ forearm.
Rhacelus was armoured and Antros was not. He felt the Librarian’s gauntlet crushing his bones.
‘For reasons that are beyond me, the Chief Librarian means to entrust you with information. Information more dangerous than anything you saw on Thermia.’ He tightened his grip. ‘If you breathe a word of it to any living soul, I will know. I will know, Antros, and I will leave enough intelligence in your mind-wiped skull to torment you as you begin your new career as a septic tank.’
Antros’ anger was dwarfed by his excitement. ‘The Chief Librarian wishes to take me into his confidence?’
‘I hear he has already done that,’ said Rhacelus, his disapproval plain.
‘My lord,’ said Antros. ‘You had faith in me as a neophyte. I do not know what has changed since then, but I swear to you, by the Golden Throne, that I would die rather than allow any harm to befall the Chief Librarian. All I have ever wished is to serve him and to prove his worth to any who might doubt him.’
Antros’ passion filled his voice but he saw that Rhacelus was not convinced. The veteran loosed his grip but held his stare. ‘For your sake, neophyte,’ he said, ‘I hope you are telling the truth.’
He waved to the door. ‘Be quick. Dress you
rself for battle.’
Chapter Eight
The Chemic Spheres, Arx Angelicum, Baal
Antros thought that this time he might have the chance to explore the Diurnal Vault in more detail, but Rhacelus did not give him time to pause. The Librarian had barely spoken as he led him from the Orbicular Tower, marching purposefully through the endless dusk of the Librarium to Mephiston’s private chambers. After approaching the star-fuelled colossus at the centre of the vaults – the black-and-crimson statue of the Angel – Rhacelus had led Antros between its feet, down past rows of sentries and gun-servitors into a series of subterranean passageways. The damp, mossy crypts looked to be as old as the undercroft beneath the Carceri Arcanum and the architecture was of a similar style, but Antros had never seen this particular corner of the Librarium before. As Rhacelus led him deeper beneath the ground, the air grew oddly humid and water began to drip from Antros’ battleplate, edging the greaves and vambraces with droplets that glinted in the torchlight.
As the chambers grew darker and warmer, Antros realised that they were alone. No sentries watched over the thick, rockcrete doors, but they were guarded in other ways. At each doorway Rhacelus mouthed a few silent words and drew in the air with his finger. As he did, a glowing rune appeared in the centre of the door and it slid open with a hiss of hydraulics.
They reached a stone door that was larger and more ornate than the previous ones. It looked to be even more ancient that the surrounding crypts. The images sculpted into the marble had been rendered indistinct by countless years of erosion. Only one aspect of its design had survived. At its centre were two characters: IX.
Standing on either side of the door was a black-robed figure. They were giants, as tall as Antros and Rhacelus, and it was clear from their hulking, inhuman frames that they were Adeptus Astartes. They wore no armour, but their hands were resting on the winged pommels of huge, two-handed swords, the blades of which were planted in the ground between their feet. Their heads were bowed but Antros caught a flash of metal in their deep hoods and realised they were wearing gold masks.
