Mephiston: Revenant Crusade

by Darius Hinks

  ‘Lead us,’ said Mephiston, turning back to the ogryns.

  The ogryns moved fast, despite their monstrous size, striding down tunnels and shafts with an easy, loping step. It was a simple matter for the Blood Angels to keep pace but the Guardsmen kept their distance, staying at the rear of the Blood Angels, clearly unhappy about travelling with the abhumans. The ogryns had a strange method of finding their way – trailing their fingers over the walls and sniffing constantly. At first, Mephiston wondered if they had developed some kind of dangerous, unsanctioned psychic ability, then he realised they used their ablation drills as more than just weapons. They pointed them forwards as they ran, and the devices pinged constantly at different frequencies, working as some kind of sonar.

  The man-made tunnels and galleries were soon replaced by something stranger. Rather than angular channels, crammed with rusting gurneys and burned-out blockhouses, the tunnels took on a more natural formation – jagged and weaving, and becoming narrower with every step.

  As they scrambled down scree-covered escarpments, the rocks burned brighter, until it seemed as though they were tunnelling through the heart of a blue star. The heat was rising and, as he climbed down a particularly steep rock face, the cogitator in Mephiston’s suit began bleating warnings at him.

  They reached the bottom of the chasm and stepped onto a shifting mass of blazing rock and raw, liquid promethium, bubbling and spitting, lava-like, as it flowed through ragged channels.

  Varus had paused to wait for them, halfway across the gulley. He was holding his drill over his head and it was making a brittle ticking sound. ‘Tread carefully,’ he said.

  The Blood Angels stepped easily across the blazing rivulets, ignoring the promethium ore that spat and churned beneath them, but the Guardsmen found it harder going, sweating and muttering as they hurried across.

  On the far side of the gulley there was another rock face, rising up into darkness. The ogryns were waiting before a pair of sturdy, heavily bolted blast doors.

  Varus held up a warning hand.

  ‘This is a holy place,’ he said. ‘Our home.’

  Llourens hurried to Mephiston’s side, looking up at him with a pained expression. ‘My lord, the blistermen are as strange as the ancients. We don’t know what they do in these caves. Are you sure this is safe?’

  ‘Safe?’ Mephiston raised an eyebrow.

  Llourens grimaced at the stupidity of her question. ‘I just wondered if we should find another route.’

  ‘You told me this was the only way to get near the fortress.’

  ‘Yes, but…’ Llourens glanced back at her men. They were all watching to see how she acted. ‘I understand,’ she said, giving Mephiston a brisk salute and rejoining the rest of the Sabine Guard.

  Varus waited for a moment to see if the debate had finished. Mephiston gave him a nod and the ogryn turned and tapped at a rune pad. The bolts clattered back and the doors rushed open with a hum of hydraulics, revealing a dark interior.

  Varus and the other ogryns made the sign of the aquila, then entered the passageway. Mephiston followed, waving for the Blood Angels and Guardsmen to follow.

  ‘Did you notice?’ asked Mephiston, glancing at Rhacelus.

  ‘That they made the sign of the aquila? Yes, but I will reserve my judgement until we learn more about what they’ve done down here all these years.’

  He was about to say more, but as they stepped out of the entrance tunnel Rhacelus paused and shook his head in surprise. ‘A cathedrum?’

  They were standing in a vast cave, as big as the great halls of the Arx Angelicum on Baal, but it was not simply a rough-hewn grotto. The rock had been chiselled and polished into an enormous, vaulted dome, complete with soaring stone ribs and intricately worked bosses, all carved in the likeness of Imperial saints. Enormous fluted columns stretched up out of sight, lining a nave large enough to house an Imperial frigate. The nave led to a distant altar, and above the altar was a winged colossus – a saint, carved from rock and suspended by a clever feat of engineering, so that he appeared to be hovering, eternally, over the altar, his sword plunged into a writhing, eight-headed serpent.

  Mephiston did not spare the architecture so much as a glance, striding purposefully down the nave after the ogryns. Hundreds more of the abhumans were dotted around the vast space and at the sight of the Blood Angels they rushed across the flagstones, anxious expressions on their faces.

  As a crowd formed around him, Mephiston was forced to a standstill. The ogryns paid no attention to the other Blood Angels or the Guardsmen hesitating by the entrance, but they were fascinated by Mephiston.

  More of them emerged from a porch in the south aisle, led by an ancient-looking ogryn. His skin was even more scorched than the others and in some places it had fallen away to reveal large sections of glowing, raw muscle. His face showed more intelligence than the other ogryns and he was carrying a mechanised, iron axe, gripping it proudly as if it were a holy sceptre. The other ogryns bowed before him.

  ‘Idolatry,’ grumbled Rhacelus. ‘Treating a gene-bred slave like an Ecclesiarchy prelate.’

  Mephiston held up a warning hand. ‘They maintained their faith in the Emperor, even when we abandoned them to this pit. It looks like they have held true to the ideals of the Imperium, which is more than can be said for their masters. Besides, all we need is safe passage to the Infernum. Sergeant Llourens will take us the rest of the way.’

  The old ogryn spoke with Varus, then addressed Mephiston.

  ‘Star Warrior,’ he said, speaking more clearly than the others had done. ‘I am Argolis. We have waited lifetimes for you to come. And we kept our oaths. We have never forsaken the Emperor. We prepared for your coming.’

  ‘You do not know me. I am Mephiston, Chief Librarian of the Blood Angels Adeptus Astartes Chapter.’

  Argolis smiled and waved at the vast statue hanging over the far end of the nave. ‘We know you, Star Warrior.’

  Mephiston looked again at the statue. It was typical of its kind – an armoured saint clutching a flaming sword, but as he studied the other details, he began to understand the ogryns’ mistake. The saint wore a high, ornate collar, similar in shape to his psychic hood and it had long, flowing hair, similar to his own. Unlike the rest of the cathedral, the statue had been carved from red stone, as crimson as his battleplate.

  ‘They think it’s you,’ said Rhacelus. ‘They think you are their prophet.’

  ‘We unearthed it in the early days of the war,’ said the old ogryn, speaking in hushed tones. ‘We knew, even then, that you would come.’ He waved at the cathedral. ‘We built all of this to preserve and honour your likeness.’

  ‘I am not…’ began Mephiston, before realising he did not have time to argue. ‘I need to reach the Infernum. Quickly.’

  Argolis looked surprised by Mephiston’s harsh tone, but he nodded and walked towards a lectern at the centre of the altar. The Blood Angels gathered around it, with crowds of ogryn watching over them.

  Fixed to the top of the lectern was a piece of ancient mining equipment – a battered cogitator, placed in the heart of their cathedrum like a holy relic. Argolis waved to one of the other abhumans and the creature activated the device.

  Argolis sang the opening bars of a hymn as the air exploded into movement. The device was a hololith and as it rattled into life, it filled the air with a whirling mass of grids and measurements.

  Vidiens fluttered into the centre of the lights, so that the lines and intersections washed over its white, porcelain mask. ‘These are the bastion mines,’ it whined, his shrill voice echoing through the arches and colonnades. ‘We already have this information, Chief Librarian. There is nothing here we have not seen. I do not understand–’

  ‘Wait,’ interrupted Mephiston, pointing at the largest column. ‘Is that the Infernum?’

  Argolis nodded.

 
Mephiston frowned. ‘What are these?’ The shimmering green lines of the hololith showed a web of tunnels beneath the Infernum, disconnected from the rest of the mine. Each one ended in a rectangular box, nestling in the chambers beneath the Infernum.

  ‘Promethium charges,’ said Argolis. ‘The ancients are fighting an enemy that died long ago. They never noticed the real enemy at their gates.’

  Mephiston held out his hand and allowed the lights to play over his gauntlet. ‘You planted charges to bring the Infernum down? Why? Even if the blast crushed them, they would just return to kill you. The Sabine Guard told me the necrons have dozens of regeneration chambers.’

  Argolis’ face twisted into a disturbing grimace that was intended to be a smile. ‘We can go where no one else goes.’ He touched the rectangular shapes in the hololith. ‘These are their regeneration chambers. We discovered them a long time ago. Every one of the ancients relies on those points. When the charges blow, we will destroy the ancients, but we will also destroy their way back.’

  Llourens had left the other Guardsmen and was standing a few feet away. She stared at Argolis in amazement. ‘We could rid Morsus of the xenos. We could give it back to the Emperor and–’

  Argolis interrupted. ‘We could return to the work we were born for.’ He touched the shimmering lines of the hololith, tracing the route of the shafts and tunnels. ‘We could rebuild the mines. We could bring fire from the earth once more, and send it to the stars, fuelling the Emperor’s sons with our toil and faith.’

  ‘But you are waiting for something,’ said Mephiston. ‘Your charges are in place and every day that passes sees more deaths. Why have you not completed your work? What are you waiting for?’

  ‘You,’ said Argolis. He pointed at a small chamber, beneath the base of the tower, in the centre of the necron crypts. ‘The heart of their regeneration network is here. To reach it we would have to breach the outer defences. We tried, but it is too heavily guarded. We could destroy the other chambers, but many of the ancients would remain and they could still regenerate using this central chamber. All our work would be wasted.’ He waved at Rhacelus and the other Blood Angels gathered behind Mephiston. ‘But we had faith that one day you would come. You could get through those gates. You could place the final charge. It would blow the central chambers and trigger all of the other charges at the same time.’

  Mephiston glanced at the distant statue, wondering if the Emperor had played some part in this meeting. Then he shook his head. ‘No. I did not come here looking to reignite the Revenant Crusade. I am not here to liberate Morsus. I must–’

  Before Mephiston could finish, his spectral entourage swarmed around him, pouring across the flagstones and washing up the steps of the altar. They slammed into Mephiston with such force that he staggered back from the hololith. The dead were all being drawn to a specific place on his armour – the locket he had taken from the corpse on Hydrus Ulterior.

  Vidiens said something to him but Mephiston could not hear the servitor over the howls of the dead. He grabbed the locket to hide it under his robes, but skeletal fingers meshed with his own, trying to seize it from him. He felt the spirits as a physical force, pulling his own fingers back and grasping at the locket.

  Mephiston cursed. The dead were only in his mind. How could they clutch and pull at him like this?

  The cathedrum slipped out of focus, replaced by an agonising, mind-cramping dream. Scenes from Mephiston’s long life washed over reality. The dead were dragging him from the temporal world, hauling his spirit down, beneath the tides of the warp. Dust clouds enveloped him as he staggered through the ruins of Hades Hive, his face covered in welts and bruises, his mind blazing with nascent power. He broke through the fumes and plunged through the clouds, dropping towards a great ocean of xenos horrors – the nightmarish swarms of Hive Fleet Leviathan, devouring everything before them, laying waste to the ancient glory of Baal. He howled, consumed with primeval fury as he crashed into a clattering flood of mandibles and maws. Light consumed him, burning away the vision to reveal the troubled faces of Rhacelus and the others, back in the cathedrum.

  ‘My oath,’ he muttered, without knowing what he was talking about. What oath? Countless promises and letters of fealty spiralled round his head. He had sworn many things to many men, all in service to the Emperor. Which oath did he mean?

  The cathedrum started to fade again, torn apart by the corpses in his head. As the walls fell he saw, not the rock beyond, but the Great Rift, opening its maw to devour him. He was losing himself, as he had done on the Blood Oath.

  ‘No!’ he whispered, hurling his thoughts towards a point of light in the maelstrom, summoning reason from the madness.

  Mephiston sat back in his chair, looking up at a white, domed ceiling, framed with dozens of gilded struts and buttresses. Finally, he knew peace. In this simple chamber the dead could not reach him. Finally, he could think. He was back in the Chemic Spheres of his Librarium, back in the Arx Angelicum, back on Baal. He was not truly home, of course, but his mind, for a moment at least, had found a refuge by recalling this innermost sanctum. The ivory dome was traced with a spiderweb of dripping blood, and as Mephiston let his head fall back against the seat, the blood pattered gently across his bone-white features.

  ‘We need you,’ said a voice.

  Rhacelus had materialised in a chair opposite Mephiston’s. He looked around at the blazing, spherical chamber. ‘You must come back to us, Mephiston. Even here, you are not safe. Your power is still tearing you apart on Morsus, you are just averting your gaze. The only hope is to keep going. To reach the daemon.’

  ‘What do they want of me? With every day that passes, the dead scream louder in my face.’ Mephiston gripped the locket as he spoke. ‘How can I find the daemon while my mind is crowded with wretches?’

  ‘What is that?’ asked Rhacelus.

  Mephiston shook his head. ‘Just a locket. I took it from one of the corpses on Hydrus Ulterior. All these damned souls that hound me seem drawn to it. It enrages them.’

  ‘Then throw it away. Perhaps the ghosts would give you some peace then?’

  Mephiston shook his head. ‘The ghosts aren’t real, Rhacelus. This isn’t some kind of visitation. They are just the shadows in my mind. They can’t be drawn to anything. And the locket seems significant. I don’t know why. It reminds me of something in my past.’

  Rhacelus took the locket and looked at the blurry pict, badly reproduced and roughly fixed into the locket. The dead soldier who owned it had layered tape over the image in an attempt to preserve it from the mud and smoke of the trenches, but the figures were still almost faded from recognition because he had run his fingers over their faces so many times. It was a woman and two young children, smiling awkwardly – the Guardsman’s family, seeing him off to war.

  ‘Do you know who they are?’ asked Mephiston. ‘After all the death I have left in my wake, why should this one image make me pause? Why these people? Perhaps they resemble my own family? I do not even recall what they looked like. Do you? Do these people remind you of anyone?’

  Rhacelus shook his head and a faint smile played around his lips. ‘It’s not the people.’ He held it up. ‘It’s the background. Do you see? Behind them.’

  Behind the family, there was a small shrine.

  Mephiston’s pulse raced. He had been so obsessed with trying to recognise the people he had never noticed the shrine in the background, even though he had studied the locket countless times. He did recognise it. His subconscious had noticed something that his conscious mind had missed. It was a simple affair – just a winged skull, crowned with a halo of spikes, but it triggered a powerful sensation in him. Hope.

  ‘But why?’ he asked. ‘Why does it look so familiar? Why does it mean so much? Where is this?’

  ‘Who knows? I doubt we have ever visited the place. It’s the design you recognise. It is just like the shri
ne where I first saw you. As you are now, I mean. When you first told me your name was Mephiston. Surely you remember? The shrine in the Bactrus Wastes where we swore our oath.’

  ‘Oath?’

  Rhacelus’ face remained impassive, but he could not hide the pain in his eyes. ‘Think. Cast your mind back. After you died and were reborn at Hades Hive. When you became the Lord of Death you swore never to forget yourself. You swore that, whatever happened, whatever power you gained, part of you would always remain Calistarius. And I swore to remind you when your memory failed.’

  Mephiston’s thoughts traced back over all the wars he had prosecuted in pursuit of the daemon, the terrible sacrifices he had demanded, the countless deaths he had caused. It had seemed as though nothing else mattered. But now, in the calm of the Chemic Spheres, he realised his destiny was more complicated than that. What use killing monsters if he became one himself? He had forgotten his oath. Rhacelus knew him better than he knew himself.

  Mephiston held up his hands before his face. The red ceramite glittered in the shifting light and it looked as though his hands were wet with blood. He slumped back against the chair, shaking his head. ‘My memory has failed,’ he muttered. ‘I cannot be the man I was. He has gone. Swallowed by the warp. Help me, Rhacelus. Be my memory. What would Calistarius have done if he were here now?’

  Rhacelus smiled. ‘Much as you are doing. He would be utterly focused on his goal, unwavering in his pursuit of his foe. But he would at least give these people a chance to hope. Reach their bomb, Calistarius. Trigger it. Why not? It will give us the chance we need to reach the necron lord and let you find out how he has blocked your vision. But it will also give the people of Morsus a chance to show the necrons they have a real enemy on this planet. There’s no future for these people, but you could at least give them a chance to achieve something before they die. Hunt your daemon without pause, yes, but inspire hope too, rather than despair.’ He handed the locket back. ‘After all, who better to finish the Revenant Crusade than a revenant?’