From atop the dais, Nakamura looked on in horror. “Sire,” he cried, “call them off! Something is wrong—they are out of control!” He moved around to where he could see the Emperor, and started once more to implore his master to listen to reason—at which point he actually saw Janus’s face, and abandoned any hope of success.
The Emperor’s face was splitting down the middle, blood fountaining out. Hands that were no longer human but clawed monstrosities reached up and tore away the remaining flesh.
From that moment, events played out very rapidly. The Emperor’s body rose up, inflating, seemingly growing exponentially in mass even as it metamorphosized into a hideous, inhuman shape. The head warped and distended until it was more snake than man, with rows of jagged fangs dripping venom. The body now grew luminous scales and twisted into a long, narrow form that towered over the table and the dais.
“By all of Those That Remain,” Stanishur gasped. “The Emperor is possessed!” He held up his hands and traced signs of protection against demonic forces in the air.
General Attila had leapt up from the table when the transformation began. Now, his face twisted with horror, he drew his pistol and charged at the thing that had been the Emperor. The massive creature spun about, raking him with razor-sharp claws before flinging his body into the air. Attila landed with a crash on the top of the table.
The Emperor-demon cast its terrifying gaze about, then seemed to notice the golden sword it still clutched tightly in one of its own gnarled fists. It stared down at the weapon, snarling, as if the sword were burning it. Casually it flung the golden weapon away, to land with a clatter some distance across the hall.
“Demons!” cried someone from behind Tamerlane, pointing. “The Guard—they are demons!”
Tamerlane followed the sound and saw. Horror washed over him.
In the midst of their battle with the Golden Phalanx, the members of the Emperor’s Guard were also growing, their crystal armor cracking and falling away as the bodies inside them morphed and expanded. Clawed talons raked at Agrippa’s men as demonic fire blasted out from monstrously deformed mouths, scorching the soldiers inside their suits.
“Help them!” Tamerlane shouted to the white-clad Ecclesiarchy soldiers, most of whom were simply standing about, transfixed by what they were seeing. He pointed to the Phalanx, which was being pummeled nearly to death; Agrippa himself had his ceremonial sword out, slashing to little avail at the talons that clawed at him. “Go!”
The warrior-priests ignored him. They appeared determined not to live up to the first half of that description. Furious, Tamerlane grabbed the nearest one by the collar and pointed him at the demonic creature that had been the Emperor. “This is what you’ve been following!” he shouted into the man’s face. “Do you understand that now? You have to act! You have to help!”
The man Tamerlane was holding tore himself free and ran. This broke the dam and numerous of his brothers and sisters did likewise, some of them actually trampling dignitaries in their haste to escape. From there, anarchy broke out. Others of the Ecclesiarchy—the few still left— chanted some few feeble words of prayer for a few seconds before, staring aghast up at the Emperor, they, too, lost their nerve and fled.
Cursing the priests as they ran away, Tamerlane snatched up a dropped blast-rifle. He opened fire on the Emperor’s Guardsmen, if they could even be called by that name any longer, but his best efforts seemed hardly noticed by the monsters that now existed where moments earlier had stood the finest warriors in the Empire. Only one returned fire, unleashing a deafening, blood-curdling shriek as it did so. Had the blasts been fired by a Guardsman in full possession of his faculties, Tamerlane would have been a dead man that instant. Instead, fired by a demonic entity whose brain was filled only with the most basic, brutal urges, the shots mostly missed; one struck Tamerlane’s hip and deflected away harmlessly, thanks to the smartcloth of his uniform, while another struck his boot and sent him stumbling down.
By the time he had struggled back to his feet amidst the growing pile of rubble that covered much of the marble floor, the demon that had shot at him had lost interest and had returned to battling Agrippa’s Phalanx. Frustrated, unable to help, he realized then that he’d forgotten the general. He whirled about to look for him.
What he saw instead was the gigantic demon looming over everything.
The Emperor’s transformation must now have been complete, for the human form was gone entirely, replaced by a gigantic snake-demon that lashed out with incongruous, almost comically stubby arms to slash those around it to shreds. Three of the Inquisition men lay in pools of blood, along with two of the Ecclesiarchy officials. Hanging motionless on his back, draped over the table, was the broken body of General Attila. Nakamura was staggering back, having been struck a glancing blow by one of the claws. Of Barmakid and Colonel Iapetus, there was now no sign whatsoever.
The Empress had vanished from sight during the demon’s first onslaught, but now her head appeared over the table—apparently she’d been trapped under some rubble momentarily. Tamerlane saw her and raced in her direction, leaping onto the dais, even as she looked about frantically and called for her children.
The eldest child—the Archduke—got to her first. A strapping young man of seventeen standard years, Augustin Rahkmanov was heir to the throne of the Empire. He had been trained from birth in all forms of martial arts and the effective use of modern and ancient weapons.
All of that training availed him naught.
He moved past his mother and drew his ceremonial energy-sword, brandishing it at the demon, tears streaking his cheeks. The demon swiped at him with a razor-clawed arm and practically eviscerated him. Screaming, the Empress bent over him—and the demon lashed out with its spiked tail, impaling her where she stood.
Tamerlane arrived an instant too late to help either of them. He barely dodged in time to avoid the tail’s backswing.
Cursing, he snatched up the Archduke’s energy sword and leapt off the rear of the dais, searching for the other Imperial child—the daughter, Marens. Tamerlane was determined to save her, at least—to get her out of this slaughterhouse before it was too late. She was, after all, the only member of the royal family left now.
There was no sign of her. Tamerlane ran from one end of the dais to the other, avoiding the thrashing tail of the massive demon while calling the girl’s name, to no avail.
“Ezekial!”
It was Nakamura’s voice. Tamerlane remembered then that the general had been injured. He leapt back onto the dais and spotted Nakamura lying to one side; hurrying over, he helped him up.
“I’m alright,” the general reassured him, quickly inspecting the three bloody gouges in his side. The smartcloth uniform he wore had already acted to seal up the wounds and stop the bleeding. They moved around the end of the table farthest from the demon and crouched down, out of range—for the moment—of the thrashing, bellowing demon.
“I couldn’t find the little girl,” Tamerlane spat. “She’s gone. The rest of them are dead, but—”
“We will all be dead if we don’t end this quickly,” Nakamura said, the strength coming back into his voice. “You know what we have to do.”
The colonel hesitated. “Sir— do we dare? It’s still the Emperor—”
Nakamura shook his head sadly. “I don’t believe it has been the Emperor for some time. Not since we brought it back from the Below.”
Tamerlane’s expression revealed his shock and disgust. “We brought it out,” he breathed. “Yes.”
“And now we send it back.”
Tamerlane met Nakamura’s eyes and he nodded.
Together they stood. The demon that had once been the Emperor of Mankind saw them and surged forward, jaws opening and talons reaching.
Nakamura and Tamerlane raised their arms, palms open, toward it. Flames began to flicker across their fingertips.
Something smashed heavily into their backs, knocking them forward. The sword flew from T
amerlane’s hand.
Tamerlane tumbled to a halt and sat up, his vision a blur. Nearby, the general was on his hands and knees, head down, clearly disoriented.
A blood-curdling roar hit them then with what felt like actual, physical force. The colonel looked up—directly into the sharklike face of a demon. Shards of sapphire armor were still falling away from his expanding, glistening, blood-covered body.
“Abdul,” Tamerlane whispered, knowing this creature was no longer the Guardsman known as Abdul in any conceivable fashion.
The creature roared again. Tamerlane shouted for the general to snap out of it—to move! The older man didn’t respond. He was still hunched forward, insensate.
Another creature appeared next to the first one. Parts of its body were still covered in the emerald armor of Osman. It opened its jagged maw and that horrific, deadly orifice hovered over Tamerlane.
There was nowhere to run, no chance of escape. Frantically, he reached for his gun. It was gone; he saw it where it lay on the floor a distance away. The sword he’d picked up a few moments earlier was long gone, lost in the confusion.
“General!” he called again.
The fang-filled maw descended.
15
Barmakid raced through the carnage, heading for a hidden tunnel that he knew would get him out of the church. He cursed violently as he ran; everything had been going so well, and then in an instant everything had fallen apart.
He had been shocked when representatives of the Imperial government had come to him in his cell, after his capture by the Arani woman, and released him, bringing him not to humiliating trial—or rather, torture—before the Inquisition but instead to a private audience with the Emperor himself, along with General Attila and...someone else. He could never recall precisely who the third person had been.
At any rate, they had offered him the position of Ecclesiarch, head of the Holy Church of Those Who Remain. When he had protested that he had no experience in religious affairs, the Emperor had pointed out two things: Barmakid was a high priest of the cult of Vorthan, and being Ecclesiarch was probably preferable to being a prisoner of the Inquisition. Barmakid could not refute either of these statements. He accepted the offer on the spot.
He did, however, manage to ask why His Majesty would want an admitted Vorthan cultist as Ecclesiarch. The Emperor’s response had been enigmatic: “Change is coming, Nikolai,” he had said, “and an intimate knowledge of the teachings of the god of toil and fire would not be out of place in the realm to come.”
And so Nikloai Barmakid had been transformed from disgraced former soldier to honored religious leader. He had called for the Council at Ascanius at the Emperor’s command, and had begun to supervise the rewriting of the Empire’s laws.
And then Nakamura and Tamerlane had shown up, after everything Barmakid had done to ensure their deaths. And then all Hell had broken loose—quite literally.
Demons? Monsters of the Below? That was something Barmakid had known nothing about. He was as shocked as anyone else by that little development.
In any case, the jig was up, the Empire was surely doomed, and it was now, in Barmakid’s view, every man for himself.
He rounded a corner and came up short, nearly plowing into a figure in black that loomed just ahead, blocking the entrance to the escape tunnel. His first thought was that it must be the strange figure he’d seen lurking in the Emperor’s presence. At closer inspection, though, he realized he knew exactly who it was.
“Colonel Iapetus! Well. Very glad to encounter you here.” He smoothed out his blood-splattered white uniform and drew himself up to full height. “I need an escort to see me safely out of the church.”
Iapetus simply gazed at him, almost clinically—or the way someone might study a bug.
“Colonel?” Barmakid repeated.
Iapetus frowned. Then he stepped forward. He moved very quickly, with great precision. His hands grasped Barmakid by the neck and, in a compact but powerful move, took the man off his feet. Then he leaned in close.
“So,” he hissed. “You’re a cultist. A stinking Vorthan cultist.”
Barmakid’s eyes widened. He was choking, but he managed to gasp, “No—no! They made those things up... to discredit me...”
“A lying, stinking cultist.” Iapetus snorted his derision. “Nakamura, on the other hand, couldn’t lie if his life depended on it. Certainly not to the Emperor. Tamerlane either.” He shook his head. “I don’t like either of them. Not at all. But I respect them.”
“No,” Barmakid gasped. “No—”
“You, on the other hand...”
Iapetus removed his right hand from the man’s throat, then reached up and gouged out first one eye, then the other. Barmakid wailed in agony and thrashed wildly. Iapetus released his grip and Barmakid collapsed to the floor, his head making a sickening thud as it hit the cold marble.
Iapetus stood over him and surveyed his handiwork thus far. He nodded to himself. And then he got down to business.
16
It was an absolute madhouse. An insane asylum.
As Planetary Governor Amon Rameses of Ahknaton came to his senses again, his ears were assaulted by a cacophony of sound from all around: energy weapons discharge, crashes and collisions, explosions, and screams. Above all else, screams.
He lay in darkness, and at first felt a shock of fear as he thought he’d gone blind. Then he reached up and felt a slab of wood that lay over him, blocking out the light. His eyes slowly adjusted and he could see the bulk of it resting on a massive chunk of masonry to his right, preventing it from crushing him.
Using all his strength, he was able to shove enough of the wood panel aside—splinters jabbing his fingers—to make an open space through which he could crawl. He pulled himself up and out, climbed to his feet—and saw that he was right. It was a madhouse. It was hell itself—complete with demons.
Fortunately for him, those demons all seemed occupied battling a small battalion of metal-armored soldiers that he quickly recognized as Agrippa’s Golden Phalanx. “Well,” he muttered to himself as he brushed off his elaborate suit, “that’s as much as could be hoped for. If the Kings of Oblivion can’t beat these creatures, surely no one can, and we’re all dead.”
And that made for the perfect justification in Rameses’ mind for him to flee.
Picking his way over and around the wreckage, even as new pieces smashed down around him, he headed for the nearest exit—not the main one, part of which was now blocked by debris and the rest of which was still jammed with people trying to get out, but a side tunnel he spotted as he frantically searched for just such an alternate route.
As he moved toward it, he saw a man in black entering it far ahead. His first thought was of the strange figure who had lurked behind the Emperor at the start of the Council. But, no; that man—if man he was—had been odd, almost ephemeral, as though he were only partly there and partly somewhere else. The figure who had jogged into the tunnel was a soldier, wearing a type of black uniform he recognized now and remembered all too well.
The fanatics of Legion II. The soldiers of Colonel Ioan Iapetus—the man known throughout the Empire as “The Unyielding.” The man who had humiliated Rameses in his own palace.
Rameses scowled in distaste as, negotiating a particularly hazardous set of obstacles that filled his path, he thought back to the incident on Ahknaton.
And now here was one of those soldiers—perhaps even Iapetus himself—fleeing the scene of battle.
The chance to embarrass Iapetus filled Rameses with a renewed enthusiasm and energy. He practically leapt the last few piles of debris along with the injured and the dead—he scarcely took notice of them at all, in his sudden determination to confront his quarry—and rounded the corner into the tunnel.
The man in black nearly ran into him coming back the other way.
Rameses stopped short and stared into the face of the hated Iapetus himself. Flustered, he couldn’t speak for a moment.
Rameses felt anger and resentment—along with disappointment—flooding through him. Normally he would have refrained from doing anything to antagonize this notoriously ruthless killer. But these were hardly normal times, and he couldn’t help himself.
“I was following you,” he blurted. “I saw you leaving.”
“Ah,” Iapetus replied, a slight smile forming at one corner of his mouth. “No. I wasn’t leaving. I simply had an errand to see to.”
“What?” Rameses felt wrong-footed. “An errand?”
Then the governor spotted something lying on the floor of the tunnel a short distance ahead. It looked like a body, and—was that blood pooling under it?
Rameses started forward, seeking to go past the man in black and investigate further.
Iapetus held up a hand and stopped him. “Don’t believe you want to go that way, Governor,” he said. “Nothing you need to see there. Or get involved in.”
Rameses glared at the man, and at the hand that held him back. “How dare you?”
“Let me call some men over to see you to safety,” Iapetus continued, ignoring the hostility that practically radiated from Rameses.
“I—I’m not seeking safety,” the governor asserted, his voice growing louder and more strident. “I was simply wondering what you were doing.” He attempted to push past the colonel. “If you’ve hurt someone—”
“Oh, I’ve definitely done that,” Iapetus replied. He lowered his arm and shrugged. “Fine. If you’re determined to get into it, then go ahead. I have work to do—” He nodded back toward the great hall. “—out there.”
The Shattering: Omnibus Page 24
