by Darius Hinks
‘Captain Vatrenus,’ he snapped over the vox. ‘Have you reached the gates?’
‘Chief Librarian,’ came the reply. ‘I left Sergeant Hestias and his squad at the south gate and I am leading Squad Seriphus to the north gate myself. It is…’ He paused and a roaring sound washed over the network. ‘The crowds are large, Chief Librarian,’ said Vatrenus. ‘It is taking longer than I thought to reach the gates.’
‘Try harder,’ said Mephiston. ‘I must have you at those gates. They are warded in a way that I do not understand. My mind cannot seem to touch them. I will need you there to operate them manually. What about the sluice gate? Did your Techmarine reach the sluice gate?’
‘Yes, Chief Librarian, Brother Gallus is there and he tells me he can operate the mechanism. Although he could not discern the purpose of the thing.’
‘Good,’ replied Mephiston. ‘Make sure you are ready to close those gates on my command. I am relying on you, captain.’ With that, he headed off into the shadows, weaving from side to side like a drunk.
They picked up their pace and broke into the long, loping strides of an Adeptus Astartes battle march, powering through the gloom and passing through several more gruesome, corpse-crammed mortuaries. Unlike the first, these chambers were empty, showing signs of having being abandoned in a hurry, with knives and saws scattered across bloodstained slabs.
They reached a shallow stair leading upwards towards the distant glow of daylight. Mephiston had begun growling obscure phrases. He was steadier on his feet though and pounded up the stairs without a moment’s pause.
The stairs continued for a long time and Antros got the sense that they were ascending to one of the highest points in the city. As they climbed, they began to hear a low, rhythmic sound. It was like the roar of a vast ocean, but each boom arrived with metronomic precision. The noise grew louder as they climbed, until it seemed as though they were trapped in the chambers of an enormous heart.
They came to a set of tall doors, at least twice the height of the Blood Angels, topped with a sculpted tympanum designed to resemble a roaring chimera, grasping the portal in its claws. The doors were locked from the outside but a single wave from Mephiston slid the bolts back and hurled the doors open, bathing him in sunlight.
The three Blood Angels emerged into a large chamber that led to an ornate balcony, high in the uppermost tiers of the amphitheatre. From this vantage point, the scale of the stadium was incredible – its slopes tumbled down away from them like the sides of a mountain, making it look more like a sublime work of nature than something created by man. The building was perfectly circular and its sheer walls, hundreds of feet tall in their own right, were crowned by towering statues. The statues’ details had worn away but they seemed to be some kind of priests, raising their arms to the heavens in tribute. Antros noticed that, unlike the rest of the city, the amphitheatre was built of stone. It was clearly ancient, so he presumed that it must predate all the ossuaries that surrounded it. The marble slabs were rounded and cracked, and the faces of the statues had long ago faded into obscurity.
The first thing that hit the Blood Angels, even before the grandeur of the crumbling architecture, was the noise. Thousands of priests and soldiers had crammed into the terraces below, all chanting the name Dravus, over and over again. This was the sound they had heard from behind the doors. So many voices, crying out in unison, created an immense wall of noise and Antros felt his pulse quicken in response. Hundreds of mechanised hymnals and servo-skulls were circling above the crowd, showering them with scraps of parchment, creating a blizzard of holy screeds that billowed and banked across the amphitheatre.
‘How will we find the arch-cardinal in this?’ shouted Rhacelus, struggling to be heard over the tidal roar of the priests.
Mephiston was leaning against the balcony, head down and shoulders slumped.
‘My lord,’ said Antros rushing to help him.
Mephiston lifted his head and waved Antros away. ‘The abbot knows every inch of this city,’ he said, pointing Vitarus at the balcony next to theirs, just a few feet away. It was far grander than the surrounding ones, its stone sculpted into the shape of a two-headed eagle with a serpent hanging from one of its beaks. There were a few priests on the balcony and several brass-armoured dragoons, their guns held in readiness as they surveyed the sea of people below. ‘His directions have led us to exactly where we need to be,’ said Mephiston. ‘The arch-cardinal will address the crowd from that balcony.’
Antros looked down at the roaring throng. ‘Do you mean to interrupt him, my lord?’
Mephiston shook his head. ‘I mean to keep him alive. My prognostications were clear on one thing – there are heretics in this amphitheatre. Blood will be spilled. We must watch over Dravus until the enemy reveals himself. He intends to strike here, now. Be ready.’
Rhacelus grimaced. ‘I’m so pleased that we will be able to enjoy whatever profundities Dravus intends to share.’
Mephiston did not respond to his equerry’s caustic tone. He looked out across the crowd and was about to say more when the dragoons on the next balcony noticed the three armour-clad giants that had appeared behind them. One of them spoke into a vox-unit at his wrist and pointed at them.
Rhacelus smiled and gripped the handle of his bolt pistol. ‘Perhaps we will avoid the sermon after all.’
There was a second door behind them, smaller than the one they had arrived through, and after a few minutes it flew open and two dragoons marched onto the broad balcony. There were more of the soldiers in the passageway, all with their guns trained on the Blood Angels.
The soldier who entered first stumbled to a halt at the sight of the Blood Angels. None of the Librarians had raised their weapons, but the soldier kept his laspistol aloft as he studied the three of them in turn. When his eyes came to rest on Mephiston the colour drained from his face and he looked back over his shoulder, considering flight. His nerve held. ‘Who admitted you to this chamber?’ His voice trembled, but shouting seemed to give him confidence and he stepped closer, waving his pistol to summon more soldiers onto the balcony. ‘These rooms are reserved for the brothers of the Mortis Cantorum. You have no right to be here.’ He nodded to the open door and the rows of lasweapons pointing at them. ‘Follow me,’ he said without much conviction. ‘I will escort you to one of the public viewing platforms.’
Rhacelus raised an amused eyebrow but Antros noticed that Mephiston’s expression was even more severe than usual. He looked to be in pain. Antros was about to intercede when the crowd roared. The noise dwarfed the volume of even the previous cheers and Antros half expected the walls to come tumbling down.
The officer in charge of the soldiers edged forwards and looked out over the edge of the balcony. ‘He’s here!’ he cried. He held up one of the silver sword hilts and waved it at his men. They mirrored the gesture, rushing forwards to join him.
Antros looked over their heads and saw an incredible sight. Every one of the priests and soldiers crammed into the amphitheatre had raised a matching metal icon. Thousands of them flashed in the sunlight, turning the terraces into a lake of silver.
‘Dravus!’ roared the soldiers standing with the Blood Angels, joining their voices to the thousands below.
The soldiers stared at the next balcony and Antros followed their gaze.
A small, slender figure had emerged, flanked by white-robed priests carrying gilt-stitched banners and walking with their heads bowed, forming a stately procession as they followed him out onto the balcony. The man leading them was dressed in a plain, white surplice and looked quite unprepossessing. He had soft, childish features and a sweet, slightly self-conscious smile. It was clear from his physique that he had never known physical work of any kind, and his only badge of office was a small, iron bolt, hung around his neck on a slender chain. The bolt was broken and rusted, but he wore it like a medal. He seemed a timid, circumscribed kind of
man and he was an odd mixture of old and young – his skin was dry and heavily wrinkled, but his naive smile reminded Antros of a pleasantly mystified infant.
The crowds were blind to the arch-cardinal’s unimpressive appearance, waving their icons wildly and howling his name as he stepped slowly through the whirling strips of paper still falling from the sky. As he reached the edge of the balcony, Arch-Cardinal Dravus tried to assume a more serious expression, but he could not entirely suppress his smile, so he ended up smirking at his ecstatic followers. He raised a hand for silence but it took several minutes for the noise to die away.
‘Through everything,’ he said, his gentle voice amplified by a wall of speakers arrayed beneath the balcony, ‘you kept your faith. You. Kept. Your. Faith. Truly, you are the Children of the Vow.’
The crowd erupted into another explosion of cheers, and, much as he tried, Dravus could not quell their delight. Eventually, he gave up and looked at his attendant priests with an embarrassed grin.
Antros noticed that Mephiston was looking away from the arch-cardinal, across the crowds to the far side of the amphitheatre. He peered through the clouds of whirling paper to see what Mephiston was so fixated on. There was a splash of blood-red armour amongst the bleached stones. It was Vatrenus’ Techmarine, Gallus, on the roof of the terraces, high above Dravus’ enraptured audience. He was crouched next to an opening in the masonry, his mechanised servo-arm working at some kind of device. Antros looked around the amphitheatre and saw Squad Hestias waiting just outside one of the two gates that led into the amphitheatre, their bolters held in readiness as they watched the crowds of pilgrims pouring past. He could see no sign of Captain Vatrenus or Squad Seriphus.
‘What…?’ he began to say, but he realised there was no hope of being heard. Rhacelus caught his eye and nodded to Antros’ bolt pistol. Antros’ body immediately switched into a state of battle-readiness. His secondary heart began pounding and his muscles flexed and tensed beneath his armour. As he looked down at the thousands of souls gathered below, he realised what a prime target the amphitheatre would be for Pieter Zorambus. This huge gathering must account for most of the planet’s standing army, not to mention its militia and priesthood. He flicked the safety off his bolt pistol and gripped his staff a little tighter.
Finally, the cheers faded and Arch-Cardinal Dravus stepped to the front of the balcony, still smiling.
‘Your devotion has not gone unnoticed,’ he said, speaking quickly to avoid another cheer. ‘I have spent many hours alone in the wilderness. With nothing in my stomach and only the stars above my head, I could finally see clearly. I asked myself how I let our ancient brotherhood come to this terrible impasse – brother turning on brother in a shameful war that shields us from the beauty overhead.’ He lifted his icon and pointed it at the sky. The clouds were low and fast-moving, but still revealed a few glimpses of the mirror image that hung constantly overhead. ‘This war cannot be right. It cannot be right.’ His smile faded. ‘How can it be that we have ended up so estranged? How can one side be so wrong when we all worship the same Emperor?’ He clutched the icon at his neck. ‘I stared long into the night, my brothers and, finally, my questions were answered. I have learned the true meaning of the Miracle. Now I mean to share it with you all.’
The crowd fell quiet.
Mephiston barged past Antros, muttering under his breath and shaking his head. He reached the side of the balcony and stared at Dravus.
Dravus drew one of the silver sword hilts from his robes and held it up to the crowd. ‘The symbols you were handed on your way here today are not simply a mark of brotherhood – they are blessed. There is a portion of the Miracle within each of them.’ His smirk became a broad grin as he waved at the storm of paper strips falling through the air. ‘Simply read the truth and open your souls.’
Then things moved so fast that even Antros’ battle-ready senses struggled to follow them.
‘I’m a fool,’ growled Mephiston. ‘It’s Dravus!’ Then he launched himself from the balcony, spectral black wings erupting from his back. ‘Captain Vatrenus!’ he cried. ‘Now! Close the gates!’
Dravus snatched one of the pieces of paper and read the words that covered it.
The crowds below did the same, grinning as they echoed his words.
Mephiston reached the other balcony with a single pound of his wings, drawing Vitarus as he crashed through the huddle of priests and guards. The blade flickered into life as he drew it back to strike Arch-Cardinal Dravus down.
The attendant priests howled in outrage and tried to block his way, then froze as they saw that the arch-cardinal had vanished, replaced by a whirling column of blue-and-pink fire. It was a tornado of light, spinning around strange, feathery tendrils of energy that undulated and rippled as though caressing the flames.
As the priests backed away in horror, Mephiston lunged at the blue inferno, thrusting Vitarus into its heart.
His blade sliced into the blue flames and the inferno exploded, hurling him back through the air, toppling priests and soldiers with a fierce shock wave.
Mephiston crashed backwards through the balustrade and fell, plunging towards the distant crowds. ‘Vatrenus!’ he cried as he fell. ‘The gates!’
Antros hefted his staff over his head and brought it down in a chopping motion, hurling crimson lightning at the blue fire. Red tore into blue, crushing it like a fist.
Light spilled up through the cracks beneath Antros’ feet, but he poured all his effort into containing the blue flames. Then he felt a violent backdraught of psychic energy cut through his mind. In one instant, he saw what a lumbering, dogmatic behemoth the Imperium was. He understood, for the first time, how crippled the Lords of Terra were by their blind intolerance. Anger swelled in him as he saw how the Librarius was shackled by intellectual dwarfs, simpletons with no understanding of what it meant to weave the power of the warp. He barely noticed that his thoughts were influencing the nature of his psychic blast. As his anger grew, his power started to feed, rather than contain the blue flames, causing the conflagration to grow, spewing its odd, feathered tendrils across the walls of the amphitheatre and reaching out towards the other balconies, including the one where Antros and Rhacelus were standing.
‘Lexicanium!’ said Rhacelus, snapping Antros away from a heady vision in which he strode the heavens, crushing the enemies of mankind with a thought.
‘Walk the fathomless path!’ snapped Rhacelus, gripping him by the arm.
As Rhacelus’ grip dragged him back to his training at the abbey, Antros recoiled from the fury and derision he had felt. The blue fire was burning into his soul, warping his essence into something unfamiliar.
‘Rhacelus!’ he cried. ‘What is this?’
Rhacelus shook his head and drew his force sword, jabbing it at the other balcony, adding his own shaft of red light to Antros’ blast.
Bolstered by the might of Rhacelus’ mind, the red storm enveloped the shape that had previously been the arch-cardinal.
Antros staggered back, unsteadied by pain and confusion. He lowered his staff and looked down from the balcony to see what could attack him with such ferocity.
The amphitheatre was an ocean of blue flame. The thousands that gathered to hear Dravus speak had been transformed by his words, robed priests and armoured soldiers replaced by incandescent pillars of light. Gliding above, silhouetted by the flames, was Mephiston, his psychic wings spread and his sword trailing fire. He banked, looped and soared back up towards the balconies.
With Antros distracted, Rhacelus was knocked back and dropped his sword. The blade clattered across the stone floor, loosing arcs of psychic fire and tearing great chunks out of the balcony, knocking several of the soldiers off their feet.
Mephiston swooped through the dazzling light and Arch-Cardinal Dravus emerged from his fire-cocoon with his arms open in welcome, smiling eagerly at the Chief Librarian.
the air. Dravus laughed as the rays of light speared the people on the balconies, transforming them in the same way it had the multitude below.
Rhacelus stumbled to Antros’ side, clutching his head in pain as he hauled the Lexicanium to his feet. They both managed to rise but then the spears of light knifed into them. Antros’ head exploded with bewildering visions: deafening colours, eye-watering sounds and agonising smells. He almost lost his sense of place as the kaleidoscope tore through his mind, but he could still feel Rhacelus gripping his arm and he latched on to that sensation, trying to anchor himself in reality. He resisted the lurid visions by reciting the wards and invocations he had learned in the abbey. He heard Rhacelus at his side, mirroring his words, and between them they drove back the madness. Antros raised his staff, Rhacelus raised his sword and, side by side, they walked into the tumult, howling Mephiston’s words into the magic-torn air.
They forced a path through the fire, and the balcony appeared before them. Antros cursed as he saw the soldiers who had been standing near them. They were undergoing a nauseating metamorphosis. Their bodies were looping and folding, mutating and oscillating into a bewildering jumble of limbs and faces.
Revulsion filled his thoughts, but Antros strived to remain calm as he turned his curses on the garish forms. One of the mutants leapt towards him. Its armour had split in several places to accommodate a forest of serpents that sprouted from its torso. They were no ordinary snakes – each of them ended in a foot-long, serrated blade.
