Forge of Mars - Graham McNeill

by Warhammer 40K

  Holding to her teachings, she reached back into the past, to where the threads of life were fixed and unchanging. From such static points she could reach into the future and gain a measure of understanding of what was to come. Yet even here she was unable to find solace or surety.

  Bielanna remembered the past, the fight of the Avatar of Kaela Mensha Khaine against the Space Marine leader aboard his doomed vessel. She recalled his cold eyes and yet… and yet, she found she could not picture his face, nor the words that passed between them with true clarity.

  Except that wasn’t right either.

  She remembered his blue eyes, his green eyes and his brown, amber-flecked eyes.

  She remembered his tapered jaw, his bearded face, his clean shaven, hairless chin.

  She remembered angular cheekbones, a rounded face. Scarred features and unblemished skin.

  Bielanna saw the dying man represented a thousand times, each incarnation entirely different, as though a procession of warriors could have taken his place in any number of potential pasts and unwritten futures. That was not possible, she remembered that dying man. She had looked upon him with her own eyes. Why could she not remember his face…?

  But no matter how she traced her own thread back into the past, that moment remained elusive and fragmentary, as though it had happened not once, but an infinite number of times. Even as she struggled to secure the memory, it splintered apart, shards of memory and fiction flashing past her in ever-expanding futures that had never come to pass.

  She saw the Space Marine destroy the flaming avatar as many times as she saw it cast his body to ruin. She saw herself torn apart by explosive shells from his brutish weapon, saw herself cut him down with elegant sweeps of her rune-etched sword. All of these unremembered histories were false and true, impossible and certain. In one fraying thread she had already lived them, by another they had never happened, but the truth of it became impossible to know.

  The past rejected her attempts to pin it in place, without the past the mysteries of the future became an unknown country. Bielanna cried out in frustration, the walls of light and potential around her closing in at her all-too-material emotions. Yet amid this horror of uncertainty, Bielanna sensed something of her own kind, an echo of another eldar’s touch among the mon-keigh. No more than the vaguest hint; a fragile connection that spoke of friendship not hatred, respect not fear.

  But like the fleeting impression of a glimmer-face within the Dome of Crystal Seers, the very act of noticing it hid the familiar trace from sight. Bielanna’s spirit howled in anger, but the skein was no place for such emotions, and she felt the irresistible tug of her body. She fought to remain in this place of enlightenment, but the more she struggled, the more pressure her bodily existence exerted on her fragile, fleeting soul.

  Her shoulders slumped as her body and soul were reunited with a bittersweet sorrow, the ache of freedom lost and a lightness of being forsaken. Her lungs heaved in a breath of sickly air redolent with the stench of alkaline water, chemical pollutants and oil-soaked manflesh. She did not want to look around her, for the sight of so ugly a refuge offended her refined sensibilities and was a heartbreaking reminder of all they had lost.

  Bielanna opened her eyes and a leaden weight settled upon her shoulders at the sight of so few eldar. Fifteen warriors, a mix of Striking Scorpions and Howling Banshees, sat or stood or went through the motions of training in sullen groups of resentful survivors. No words of recrimination had been directed at her, but Bielanna needed no spirit-sight to see their mistrust and anger at her failure to protect their fellows.

  Somewhere on the edges of their hidden lair aboard the enemy flagship, Uldanaish Ghostwalker patrolled the darkness with a handful of Howling Banshees. The towering wraithlord was eager to kill mon-keigh despite Bielanna’s command to remain out of sight. Their presence had gone undetected so far, but the humans weren’t so stupid as to not notice entire work gangs of their machine-priests and slave workers going missing time and time again.

  ‘Farseer,’ said a lyrical, almost musical voice with a lethal edge that snapped her from her melancholy reverie. ‘You have guidance for us?’

  Bielanna felt her body’s assimilation of her spirit intensify at the sound of Tariquel’s voice, his singular purpose like an unbreakable chain around her. She exhaled a calming breath and tried not to let her nascent claustrophobia at being returned to her body in this tomb-like vessel overwhelm her.

  ‘The future is… uncertain,’ she said, lifting her head and looking into his cruel eyes.

  Tariquel was clad in form-fitting armour of jade, its plates contoured to match the peerless physique beneath. Shoulder guards of pale ivory and gold gave his shoulders a bulk they did not normally possess, and his segmented helmet was retracted into the ridged cowl at his neck where two bulbous stinger-blasters nestled like the venom sacks of a meso-scorpion.

  ‘Uncertain?’ spat Tariquel of the Twilight Blade. ‘How is that possible? You are a farseer!’

  Bielanna flinched at the psychic force of his anger and pointed to the vaulted chamber wall behind him, where a ten-metre-wide cog was stamped in bronze and beaten iron. A half-robotic, half-human skull sat at the centre of the icon, caustic steam leaking from one eye socket and a shimmer of toxic run-off dribbling from the raised portions of its carving.

  ‘Uncertain,’ she repeated, gathering up her runestones and collecting them in the bowl fashioned for her by Khareili the Shaper. ‘And it grows ever more so.’

  ‘Then what use are you to us?’ demanded another voice, this one stripped of its musical qualities and pared back to the cold barb at its heart.

  Bielanna rose from her crouch and forced her beating heart to remain calm in the face of the exarch’s cold fury. Ariganna Icefang was clad in armour that stretched back into the ancient days of the eldar race, and Bielanna could feel the hungry souls that still dwelled within its unknown heart. Its plates had originally been crafted for a male warrior, but over the numerous incarnations of bearers it had been reshaped many times, though no bonesinger had ever dared whisper to its murderous purpose. Gold and emerald plates overlapped with a sinuous organic quality, the pommel of the curved chainsabre strapped over her shoulder glittering like a hungry amber eye.

  ‘Uncertain does not mean unseen,’ said Bielanna, fighting to keep her composure. Aboard the Starblade she had been the leader of these warriors, but with their starship’s destruction and her link to the skein’s mysteries, that dynamic had turned on its head.

  Now the warriors were in the ascendency.

  ‘Then what have you seen?’ demanded Ariganna, the monstrous Scorpion’s Claw on her left fist flexing like a segmented tail. ‘The shadows hide us so that we may hunt, not skulk like thieves.’

  ‘There are hints and shadows of the future, but the skein has been greatly upset,’ said Bielanna, trying to articulate a realm of the mind in terms a warrior in love with Death would understand. ‘Whatever it is the humans have done here has been like casting a boulder into a still lake. Waves and ripples are spreading great discord, but they will settle and our path into the future will be revealed once more.’

  Ariganna’s face was hidden behind her war-mask and the furnace-red slits of her helm lenses were smouldering pits of anger. Where the rest of their survivor band had kept their heads bare to hold their war-masks in check, the Striking Scorpion exarch kept hers to the fore, letting her furious anger simmer and grow ever more deadly. The mandiblasters at her jaw spat crackling arcs of killing energy as the exarch loomed over Bielanna.

  ‘You are farseer and deserving of respect,’ said Ariganna, reaching out to place her claw hand on Bielanna’s shoulder. ‘But your visions have only led us to death and sorrow. Tell me why I should trust you again.’

  Ariganna could crush her without effort and the bones of Bielanna’s shoulders flexed under the fractional pressure of the exarch’s clawed gr
ip.

  ‘Because there is one among the humans aboard this vessel whom we might reach,’ she said, as the truth of what she had glimpsed in the skein became clear to her at last. ‘One of their number has been marked by another farseer. I can find him and turn him to our cause.’

  ‘A cuckoo in the nest?’ asked Ariganna, her tone betraying a liking for the notion.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Bielanna. ‘His name is Roboute Surcouf.’

  Introspection had never been one of Archmagos Kotov’s strongest suits, but when he felt the need to turn his gaze inwards, there was only one place he felt able to do so. He circled the Ultor Martius, the red stone table at the heart of the Adamant Ciborium – a surprisingly modest chamber enclosed beneath a pyramid of interconnected machinery and logic plates – and ran gold-tipped fingers over the stone at its centre, feeling every imperfection in the slabs hewn from Olympus Mons.

  The stone had been a gift from the Fabricator General, a palpable sign of his approbation and a means of symbolically carrying the dominion of Mars beyond the edges of the galaxy. Magos Turentek had crafted the steel-edged table, incorporating the finest navigation arrays of Azuramagelli, the statistical cogitators of Blaylock and the vast resources of Kryptaestrex’s analyticae. An orb of silver wire mesh and glittering diamond hung over the table’s exact centre, a representation of the geocentric cosmos as envisaged by the ancient Ptolemaic stargazers.

  The Speranza could be entirely controlled with the Ultor Martius, its inbuilt cogitators and the complex machinery lining the walls fully capable of meshing with every vital system of the Ark Mechanicus. He remembered the moment his senior commanders had met here before setting out for the Halo Scar, when he had first laid eyes on the Tomioka’s saviour pod.

  Despite the undoubted challenges that lay ahead, there was a mood of cautious optimism, an unspoken feeling that they might actually succeed. Kotov had carefully mustered a band to whom the quixotic nature of his quest would appeal: a Cadian colonel renowned for his tenacity in the face of adversity; a Reclusiarch in search of penance and to whom the prospect of unknown space held no terrors; and magi whose personality matrices displayed a propensity for free-thinking and radical ideas.

  This gathering had sealed the pact between them, but like the generals of Macharius before them, the many hardships had gradually eroded their desire to venture beyond the limits of known space. The journey to reach this place had cost everyone dearly, even the most steadfast among them – Kotov included – had begun to question the wisdom in continuing.

  But that first flush of excitement and optimism had now been restored as fully as Arcturus Ultra and shone just as brightly. They had all seen the Breath of the Gods in action and it was glorious. The transformation of the Arcturus Ultra system was nothing short of miraculous, and the evidence of the reborn star system alone was enough for Kotov to return to Mars a hero. Vitali Tychon and his daughter had wanted to remain in-system for longer to chart this reborn region of space and rewrite the now hopelessly outdated cartographic representations of the galactic fringe.

  As much as Kotov wished to indulge them, he knew the true prize lay ahead of them.

  He would seek out Magos Telok and bring him home to Mars in triumph.

  In the sixteen days since the rebirth of Katen Venia’s star, Magos Turentek’s forges had been working around the clock manufacturing fresh components to repair all that had been damaged in the crossing of the Halo Scar. Despite the as-yet-unexplained loss of numerous work gangs below the waterline, the Speranza was being restored to its former glory. With enough raw materials – something the fleet’s support vessels were expending at a ruinous rate – the Ark Fabricatus boasted he could rebuild the entirety of the Speranza before they reached the source of the Adeptus Mechanicus transmissions.

  Transmissions that could only be those of Archmagos Telok.

  The thought of meeting the legendary Lost Magos filled Kotov with a flush of emotions he had long thought left behind in his rise through the ordered ranks of the Mechanicus.

  Hope warred with a fear that what he might find could not live up to his expectation.

  What of Telok himself? If the Breath of the Gods was his to command, what changes might such power work on a man’s psyche? With the power of a divine creator at his fingertips, might Telok have changed beyond all recognition?

  Kotov shook off such pessimism, knowing the Omnissiah would not have brought them this far and shown them so much only to dash them on the rocks of disappointment. He had been tested before and found wanting – the loss of his forge worlds was testament to that – but the revelations of Katen Venia and the unmasking of Telok’s planet was proof that his pilgrimage to undiscovered space had been divinely ordained.

  Magos Saiixek – together with a gifted magos and enginseer from Roboute Surcouf’s ship – had wrought wonders from the engines, pushing the ship through the void at speeds Kotov had not believed the Speranza capable of achieving. Linya Tychon and Azuramagelli had plotted a course that, with a fair wind and a steady tide at their back, should see them in orbit around the source of Telok’s transmissions within fifteen days.

  Kotov paused in his circuit of the table as he became aware that he was no longer alone.

  ‘You are not welcome in this place,’ he said, as Galatea entered the Adamant Ciborium.

  The machine intelligence unfolded its ill-fashioned legs as it rose to its full height, the tech-priest proxy body turning through a full revolution as it surveyed the Ciborium’s interior. Loose connections between its brain jars sparked before being reseated by clicking armatures extending from the palanquin.

  ‘We do hope you are not planning anything foolish down here, Lexell,’ said Galatea, circling the table. ‘You are not trying to think of ways you might wrest control of the Speranza from us?’

  Kotov shook his head, moving in opposition to Galatea. ‘No, I simply enjoy the solitude of the Ciborium,’ he said pointedly.

  ‘Strange, we never took you for the introspective type. We did not think your ego could tolerate self-doubt or the indulgence of reflection.’

  ‘Then you do not know me as well as you think.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but the question still stands.’

  Kotov lifted his hands and spread them wide. ‘What would be the point? You would destroy the Speranza before relinquishing control, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘We would,’ agreed Galatea.

  ‘Do you plan to ever release your hold on my ship?’

  ‘Your ship?’ laughed Galatea, extending a number of sinuous mechadendrites and slotting them home into the central table. ‘You presume too much.’

  Hololithic slates slid up from the table, projecting a three-dimensional wireframe diagram of the Speranza. Galatea reached out and spun the representation of the Ark Mechanicus with haptic gestures, like a child heedlessly playing with a new toy.

  ‘The Speranza is our ship now,’ continued Galatea. ‘Trying to remove us from it would be a most unfortunate course of action for you to pursue, especially when we are so close to our goal.’

  ‘When you say we, do you mean you and I or is that just an irritating affectation?’

  Galatea’s silver eyes flared in amusement.

  ‘Both. Neither. You decide.’

  ‘I have little stomach for games, abomination,’ spat Kotov, leaning forwards and planting his palms on the red rock of Mars. Through micro-sensors in his fingers he felt the texture and tasted the chemical composition of the stone, taking strength from the reminder of his Martian heritage.

  ‘You do not have a stomach, Lexell,’ said Galatea. ‘Nor a heart, liver, lungs or central nervous system of your own anymore. The only organic portion of your body that remains is your head, even that is a chimeric amalgam of flesh and machine parts. There is more organic matter in our body than in yours.’

  ‘Maybe so, but I am still me, I
still have a soul. I was born Lexell Kotov and I am still Lexell Kotov. What are you? A vile monster who exists only because you ripped the brains from unwilling victims. You were nothing until Telok created your neuromatrix. What you were then is no longer what you are now, and if you continue to exist you will be something else again.’

  ‘That sounds a lot like evolution, Lexell,’ said Galatea, with a teasing wag of a finger. ‘We can think of no more natural and biological a process.’

  ‘You are not evolving, you are self-creating. There is no spark of the Omnissiah in you.’

  ‘Haven’t we been down this road, Lexell?’ asked Galatea with an exaggerated sigh that was wholly artificial. ‘We are both parasites, continuing to exist only through the appropriation of organs and vital fluids from others. The only difference is the means of our inception. You, though it is hard to imagine now, were born in a messy, inefficient biological process, prone to mutation and decay, whereas we are a sublime being, newly-created and superior to mortals, indignant that you should think us inferior.’

  Kotov and Galatea faced each other over the warm stone of the sacred mountain of Mars. There could be no accord between them, no rapprochement and no peaceful co-existence. At some point, Kotov was going to have to give the order to have Galatea killed, but how to achieve that while keeping his ship intact was a problem to which he had no solution.

  But he would find one, of that he was certain.

  ‘What is it you want?’ he asked. ‘What is it you really want?’

  ‘You know this. We want to kill Vettius Telok.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Your belief or otherwise is irrelevant.’

  ‘Then tell me why you want to kill Telok,’ said Kotov. ‘He is your creator, why would you wish him dead?’

  Galatea’s mechadendrites withdrew from the table and whipped up behind it like scorpion stingers. The machine intelligence bristled with hostility, the connections between its gel-filled brain jars flickering with electrical activity.