Dark Imperium: Godblight

by Guy Haley

  He was in the dust of a corpse-king’s court. He was before a resplendent Emperor for all the ages.

  ‘Father,’ he said, and when he had said that word, it was the last time he had meant it. ‘Father, I have returned.’ Guilliman forced himself to look up into the pillar of light, the screaming of souls, the empty-eyed skull, the impassive god, the old man, yesterday’s saviour. ‘What must I do? Help me, father. Help me save them.’

  In the present, in the past, he felt Mortarion’s wordless presence at his side, and felt his fallen brother’s horror.

  He looked at the Emperor of Mankind, and could not see. Too much, too bright, too powerful. The unreality of the being before him stunned him to the core. A hundred different impressions, all false, all true, raced through his mind.

  He could not remember what his father had looked like, before, and Roboute Guilliman forgot nothing.

  And then, that thing, that terrible, awful thing upon the Throne, saw him.

  ‘My son,’ it said.

  ‘Thirteen,’ it said.

  ‘Lord of Ultramar.’

  ‘Saviour.’

  ‘Hope.’

  ‘Failure.’

  ‘Disappointment.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Thief.’

  ‘Betrayer.’

  ‘Guilliman.’

  He heard all these at once. He did not hear them at all. The Emperor spoke and did not speak. The very idea of words seemed ridiculous, the concept of them a grievous harm against the equilibrium of time and being.

  ‘Roboute Guilliman.’ The raging tempest spoke his name, and it was as the violence a dying sun rains upon its worlds. ‘Guilliman. Guilliman. Guilliman.’

  The name echoed down the wind of eternity, never ceasing, never reaching its intended point. The sensation of many minds reached out to Guilliman, violating his senses as they tried to commune, but then one mind seemed to come from the many, a raw, unbounded power, and gave wordless commands to go out and save what they built together. To destroy what they made. To save his brothers, to kill them. Contradictory impulses, all impossible to disobey, all the same, all different.

  Futures many and terrible raced through his mind, the results of all these things, should he do any, all or none of them.

  ‘Father!’ he cried.

  Thoughts battered him.

  ‘A son.’

  ‘Not a son.’

  ‘A thing.’

  ‘A name.’

  ‘Not a name.’

  ‘A number. A tool. A product.’

  A grand plan in ruins. An ambition unrealised. Information, too much information, coursed through Guilliman: stars and galaxies, entire universes, races older than time, things too terrifying to be real, eroding his being like a storm in full spate carves knife-edged gullies into badlands.

  ‘Please, father!’ he begged.

  ‘Father, not a father. Thing, thing, thing,’ the minds said.

  ‘Apotheosis.’

  ‘Victory.’

  ‘Defeat.’

  ‘Choose,’ it said.

  ‘Fate.’

  ‘Future.’

  ‘Past.’

  ‘Renewal. Despair. Decay.’

  And then, there seemed to be focusing, as of a great will exerting itself, not for the final time, but nearly for the final time. A sense of strength failing. A sense of ending. Far away, he heard arcane machines whine and screech, close to collapse, and the clamour of screams of dying psykers that underpinned everything in that horrific room rising higher in pitch and intensity.

  ‘Guilliman.’ The voices overlaid, overlapped, became almost one, and Guilliman had a fleeting memory of a sad face that had seen too much, and a burden it could barely countenance. ‘Guilliman, hear me.

  ‘My last loyal son, my pride, my greatest triumph.’

  How those words burned him, worse than the poisons of Mortarion, worse than the sting of failure. They were not a lie, not entirely. It was worse than that.

  They were conditional.

  ‘My last tool. My last hope.’

  A final drawing in of power, a thought expelled like a dying breath.

  ‘Guilliman…’

  It felt to Guilliman like his mind had exploded. There was a blinding flash, and the king and the corpse and the old man overlaid and overlapped, dead and alive, divine and mortal. All judged him. Guilliman staggered from the throne room. Valoris stared into the heart of the Emperor’s light unflinchingly a moment longer, then turned away and followed.

  They emerged days later, though only seconds had passed. Guilliman could not be sure of anything that had happened. When asked later, Valoris said he saw nothing but light, and had heard nothing, and that nobody had heard anything from the Emperor since He had taken to the Golden Throne thousands of years before, but he said he had seen Guilliman speak, as if deep in discussion, and although Valoris could not hear what was discussed Guilliman seemed serene and firm. That he had not seen him fall, or plead.

  Every time he remembered, it was different. Was any of it real? He did not know. He would never know.

  The moment fled back into the past where it belonged. Guilliman’s body slammed into wet soil. He was dying again. His soul clung on, but that too was being eaten alive by Mortarion’s plague.

  Footsteps halted by his head. There was a poke on the breastplate of the Armour of Fate. Guilliman heard Mortarion speak, but he could not see, and he could sense nothing else but pain.

  ‘Do you see, Guilliman, you follow the wrong master,’ said Mortarion. ‘He is a cyst, a pus-filled canker surrounding a dead thing lodged in the fabric of reality, like a thorn, or a piece of shrapnel. It must be drawn out for things to heal. Do you understand now, that this is what you follow?’ Mortarion grunted in amusement. ‘Of course, you can’t answer. I doubt you understand, anyway.’

  There was the sound of Mortarion shifting his stance. A wistful tone entered his voice.

  ‘We will soon be in the Garden of Nurgle, my brother. The veils are parting. I can see it already. Once you are dead, this world will fall within it, and become a jewel of decay. You have damaged my network, but not by enough, and at the coming of your death, one by one each of your worlds will pass from this place of cold void and uncaring stars into the Grand­father’s embrace.

  ‘I wish you could see it. It is beautiful, full of life and potential. There are trees here, and plants of amazing variety. It is not barren. It is not like that cold light you showed me. Not like Him. It is not like the materium at all, with its pointless struggle against inevitability. Here nothing every truly ends, but is reborn and dies and is reborn and dies, over and over again. Everything here is given many gifts. Nothing, no matter how small, is overlooked, and all share in Grandfather’s bounties. There is no pain, and because there is no pain suffering is borne gladly. Now tell me, brother, compared to the hell our father has inflicted upon the galaxy, does that sound so terrible?’ He took a deep breath, a man sampling country air on a fine day. ‘I wish you could see it,’ he said again.

  The pain still raged through Guilliman, but it was diminishing.

  ‘If only you would turn. You are nearly dead. Soon the pain will be over.’ Mortarion knelt beside his brother, and rested his hand on his chest. ‘Don’t you want that, for it to be done?’ He began to stroke, like he was soothing a feverish child. ‘Hush now, Roboute. Hush. Go to the Grandfather, and you will see, he will make it all all right. He will take the pain away forever.’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  THE CALL OF HONOURUM

  ‘You are a most troublesome gnat,’ Ku’Gath said. It whirled its huge sword around its head and struck.

  Edermo moved aside, and the weapon missed him, carving down through a wall. Crumbling brick exploded everywhere. The daemon advanced on him.

  ‘How do y
ou think you can win this fight?’ it said. It swiped a diseased paw at Edermo. The lieutenant slashed at it as it came, cutting a deep gash in its thigh. The strike exposed him to the daemon’s sword, but it was worth it to see the thing’s outrage.

  Edermo took the return blow square on his shield. Lightning burst all round him. Thunder boomed from the interface of magic and technology. A little kinetic overspill got through, and the daemon forced him backward, its sword blazing with energy where its edge pushed on Edermo’s power field. Edermo waited for the right moment, and stepped around, parrying the greatsword. The weight of it was monstrous, and he was forced to put all his strength into it to push it aside, but the daemon wielded it like a kitchen knife.

  ‘Stop. Moving. About!’ the daemon shouted angrily.

  Edermo glanced behind him. Their fight had demolished a good part of what was left of the medicae facility, opening up dank, filthy rooms to the sky. He glimpsed the artefact, a huge, round-bellied cauldron pockmarked with rust and steaming foul vapours. There was a rickety gantry around it, which three lesser daemons used as a walkway to push a gargantuan spoon round. From this action a triple braid of lightning streamed upwards in constant motion, fuelling the great vortex in the sky and the storm beyond it. The essence of it was nothing but the purest evil, and its baleful touch reached out to him, weakening his limbs, and diminishing the efficacy of his wargear.

  ‘Sergeant Parris, target the daemons by the cauldron. This is a priority order,’ he voxed.

  Justinian’s reply was obliterated by another mighty strike from the daemon. Edermo lifted his shield over his head, where again the power field took the brunt of the blow, but this time the overspill drove him hard into the ground. His knees banged into his chestplate. The top of the shield rang off his helm, making him bite his tongue. He swallowed blood.

  Come on, Parris, he thought. A clumsy leap threw him backwards to avoid the daemon’s next swing, and he staggered.

  ‘You’re getting slow. You’re getting sloppy,’ chuckled Ku’Gath. ‘I shall try to spare your form. Destroying you would be such a waste of good meat. A million phages could feast on you, and spread their gifts from your corpse. Such a pretty little package of pestilence you would make.’ The sword went up again. With arms numbed by repeated impacts, Edermo raised his shield to cover his body.

  Bolt-rounds coming in from the right distracted Ku’Gath.

  ‘Lieutenant, get back.’ Vasilon and two of his men were coming at the daemon, bolt carbines on full-automatic. Black fluid glopped from the creature’s monstrous body with every impact.

  ‘This is a private affair!’ gurgled the daemon. It drew in breath, and exhaled, spraying them with a torrent of filth. Vasilon was driven back. One of his men went down, devoured by frenzied maggots when the bile melted through his armour. The other was snatched up by Ku’Gath’s tongue and dashed against the floor. Two deaths rang out their mortis runes in Edermo’s force roster, but for a moment, Ku’Gath had its back to Edermo.

  The lieutenant took his chance. He dropped his shield, reversed his sword and ran at the daemon, leaping high. He drove down with his sword, catching the daemon in the side under its shoulder blade and punching the point into the thing’s body like a nail, sinking it up to the hilt in the blubbery flesh. He hung from it, using his weight to drag it down. The disruption field did the rest, annihilating Ku’Gath’s false body. Bones cracked apart, rancid meat caught fire.

  Ku’Gath roared in outrage and agony, throwing up its arms in an attempt to swat its tormentor. Down Edermo slid. Flesh peeled, half cooked, from Ku’Gath’s back. Edermo came past the cage of the daemon’s ribs, and the sword slid faster through soft guts. Ropes of entrails poured out and engulfed him.

  Still screaming furiously, Ku’Gath groped for the source of its pain, caught Edermo by the leg, and tossed him away. The wheeling Space Marine crashed into and through a wall, then another, then into a pillar, breaking it in two as he bounced from it and hit the ground.

  He tried to rise, but could not. He could not feel his legs. The power had fled his battleplate. Residual energy powered his retinal display, and it showed him damage all over his wargear. His power pack casing was cracked, forcing it into emergency shutdown. He brought up his pharmacopeia overlay, and saw, in blinking, final red, that his back was broken.

  He let his head bang on the floor. The ceramite rang. He looked around, left to right. His sword was nowhere to be seen, but from where he lay he could see straight into the heart of the daemon’s domain, for he had come to rest by an arch that led into the cauldron chamber. Though that close the cauldron burned his soul, with some relief he saw that Justinian and his squad were advancing within, guns blazing. He saw the recent initiate Orpino go down, three rusty plagueswords stabbing him, but there were few daemons left within now. They had a chance.

  A heavy tread approached, and the scrape of steel on stone. Ku’Gath came barging through the walls Edermo had holed, sending them crashing down. It too was injured, severely so. The daemon had reached round with one fat arm to hold its back shut, but did a poor job. Its intestines slithered over the ground behind it. Its liver slipped out and back in with every step it took, like a mischievous tongue. Its left leg dragged. The right hand still held the sword, but awkwardly, letting it trail through the black muck coating the paving, as if it had become too heavy to lift. One of the daemon’s eyes hung on grey muscles from its socket.

  Edermo looked towards Justinian, wondering why they were not killed instantly by the power of the cauldron. Then he saw, behind Squad Parris, the priest moving as if through a dream, and Edermo was sure that he too would be slain; but when a daemon came for him, he held up his hand, and the thing disintegrated. There was nothing left, no residue, no blood, no body. Not even vapour. Then Edermo understood.

  Protected by the priest’s faith, Justinian was moving on the three daemons pushing the paddle around and around the cauldron; the source of the storm.

  Edermo began to laugh.

  Ku’Gath came to a lumbering stop by the lieutenant. It panted hard, dragged up its greatsword, and leaned on it.

  Edermo spat a mouthful of blood into his helm. ‘I hope I hurt you.’

  ‘You did,’ admitted the Plaguefather. ‘And so what? I am eternal. You are not. You wounded me, I am going to devour your soul.’

  ‘I give it gladly in the service of the Emperor.’

  ‘No, no. You fool, you idiot! It’s not going to your Emperor.’ Ku’Gath leaned forward and sneered. ‘It’s going to go to Nurgle.’

  ‘I say who is the fool?’ said Edermo. ‘You are too late. You have lost.’

  There was a sudden roar of boltguns. Ku’Gath looked up.

  ‘No!’ it gasped.

  Justinian’s men filled the plaguebearers with bolts. They jerked and spasmed, even their unholy vitality not enough to save them from the hail of micro-warheads detonating in their bodies. They were comprehensively blown apart, the chunks falling into the cauldron.

  The spoon fell, clacked on the metal, and slipped under the surface.

  ‘This will not do!’ screamed Ku’Gath. ‘Stop!’

  The lightning dancing over the mixture cracked, reignited, then went out. Above, the clouds ceased their boiling. A fresh wind blew from the west.

  ‘We win, daemon,’ said Edermo.

  ‘Then you die!’ roared Ku’Gath. It lifted its sword and stabbed down, impaling Edermo on the tip, breaking his aquila and his hearts. It crushed him under one foot to pull the weapon free. Yet Edermo lingered long enough to savour the taste of victory.

  He began the hymn of sacrifice. He had time, as he gasped the sacred words through bloodied lips, to see Ku’Gath lumbering, distraught, towards the cauldron. Time to see the priest look at the daemon, a terrifying light in his eyes.

  ‘My pretties, my pretties! To the spoon! Stir! Stir! Or all is lost!’ the daemon shoute
d.

  Deep inside Edermo’s altered body, the Belisarian Furnace ignited, trying to save his life, but it was already slipping away.

  The battle faded from his awareness. Somewhere, nearby, he could hear freezing winds keening over the moors. He smelled sharp mountain streams lapping young rock. A grey light grew, and as if through a mist, he perceived stone titans holding weapons defiant against a cold, wet sky.

  Honourum called.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  THE CAULDRON OF NURGLE

  The last of the Cadian 4021st closed on the mill. Five tanks alone survived of their glorious charge. The rest littered the ground all the way back to where Odrameyer had given the order. Most were now so decrepit they appeared to be part of the landscape, relics of forgotten wars rusted into place by time and decay. Some were covered in vegetation, little islands of vibrant growth in the filthy swamp. Others had succumbed to Chaos magics, and had become hideous amalgams of machine and crew that wailed for death’s release.

  ‘All for the Emperor,’ Odrameyer said. ‘All for the Imperium. I have seen Him at work. I serve His purpose.’

  The remaining vehicles groaned, drive wheels crunching on dying bearings. Their guns were dry of ammunition or had seized up, gummed with sticky algae, platelets of flesh or worse things.

  They still had their bulk. They still had their heft.

  ‘Onward!’ Odrameyer shouted. His throat was hoarse. His breath was short. Lungs exhaled blood-tainted air. The war train was a dead hulk. The pilgrims were dead. His regiment shattered. But the orbital bombardment continued, blasting daemons back to the hells whence they crawled, and within the medicae facility he could see the flash of gunfire, and hear the crackle of boltguns. A couple of tanks in bone and blue held back a tide of plaguebearers at one side of the hospital. The Adeptus Astartes fought on. Odrameyer was dying, but he would serve until the end. Victory was still within their grasp.