by Darius Hinks
‘Voltaic toxin,’ he said, surprised to find that his voice was husky and weak. ‘The blade carries a corpuscle suppressor.’
The other Blood Angels had managed to help Rhacelus to his feet, but as he removed his helmet they saw that his face was corpse-grey and his eyes, usually alive with aetheric power, were dull and unfocused.
‘A poison blade?’ said Vidiens, flying to Mephiston’s side, sounding almost hysterical.
Mephiston touched his chest and grimaced. Blood was still pouring from the wound. ‘The cryptek’s science is disrupting the normal functioning of our Larraman cells. We cannot heal ourselves.’
He looked at Rhacelus, who was already slipping into unconsciousness, leaning weakly against his battle-brothers.
‘We will bleed to death if I do not halt the toxin,’ he said, his mouth tacky with blood. ‘Watch the entrances.’ His words were muffled and slurred. He waved at the Blood Angels to either end of the corridor and slipped free of Servatus’ grip so he could sit with his back against the wall.
He motioned for Servatus to join the others and dragged Rhacelus to his side. Then he closed his eyes and sank back into his memories of the Librarius. He was not truly projecting his mind – Morsus prevented him from performing psychic projections – but his recall was so clear he felt as though he were back in the Diurnal Vault, running his fingers across the gilt-edged spines of his library. He looked again at the technical manual he had remembered earlier, letting his memory skim through each word until it alighted on the relevant passage.
Of course, he thought, finding the answer he sought. He dallied for a moment longer, relishing his memory of Baal, then dragged his thoughts to the present and studied the blood pooling in his lap.
He lifted his arm and realised that he did not have long left to act. His limbs trembled and his mind was becoming muddled. He summoned Vitarus into his palm with a thought. The blade’s soul linked with his and ignited, galvanising his faltering hearts. He slurred a phrase, one of the first invocations he had learned, binding the warp to the molecules of his flesh.
He felt, for a moment, as though he were a single atom, moving through the particles of his body, breathing incorporeal fire into each of them, repelling the synthesised cells of the poison blade. He mouthed another conjuration, bending seconds and minutes to his will, slowing the pace of time. His hearts stopped, and in the pause between beats Mephiston’s mind leapt from cell to cell, burning them clean of xenos taint, before passing into Rhacelus’ arteries and doing the same.
Rhacelus sat upright, his eyes smouldering once more. He wiped the blood from his face as he stared at Mephiston. ‘I feel terrible.’
Mephiston gripped him by the shoulder. ‘The cryptek poisoned us.’
‘Poison?’ Rhacelus looked disgusted. ‘No honour.’
Mephiston helped Rhacelus to his feet and pressed his hand to his throat, feeling the healing taking place beneath the ceramite. He nodded. ‘You are fine. You will recover as normal.’
He looked around. A few of the other Blood Angels were still in view, their weapons trained on the shadows, but most had done as he ordered and headed off to guard the exits.
Beneath his armour, Mephiston could feel his own cells binding and knitting back togaether. He took a deep breath, and when he was sure his weakness had passed, he opened the vox-network.
‘Is the hall clear yet?’ he asked, cleaning Vitarus and sliding the blade into its scabbard.
‘For the moment, Chief Librarian,’ came Brother-Lieutenant Servatus’ reply. ‘There are more necrons coming. The cryptek must have called for help. We need to go now.’
‘Regroup on the balcony,’ said Mephiston, waving for the other Blood Angels to follow as he lurched off down the corridor with Rhacelus at his side and Vidiens chattering away overhead.
He halted a few feet from the exit. Argolis was on his knees beside a fallen Blood Angel.
‘Move,’ said Rhacelus, hauling the ogryn to his feet. ‘There is nothing you can do for him. Go.’
The Blood Angel’s armour had been devoured by the scarabs, along with the front half of his body. There was nothing left but slop and bones.
Argolis looked at the two Librarians and shook his head.
‘We failed,’ he said, clutching his head. ‘All these centuries. All for nothing.’
‘Failed?’ Mephiston shook his head. ‘We can still place the charge. None of your work has been wasted.’
Argolis was too overcome to reply. He simply pointed at the corpse.
Lying at the Blood Angel’s side, barely recognisable, were the remnants of the ammo crate that held the explosive charge. It, and the contents, had been devoured by the scarabs. All that remained were splinters and scraps of wire.
Chapter Thirteen
Mephiston stared at the remains of the explosives, lost in thought.
‘What do we do?’ asked Vidiens, fluttering overhead and staring into the shadows from behind its blood-stained mask.
‘Give me the salver,’ said Mephiston, and Vidiens flew lower, handing him the brass plate.
Mephiston pored over the details engraved into the metal. He had worked on the design for years – sometimes consciously, but more often in a kind of wild fever-dream or fugue state in which his hand moved of its own volition, embellishing the metal with calligraphy so ornate that even Mephiston found it hard to decipher.
He ran his finger across the marks until he reached the symbols that denoted the Revenant Stars, and then on to Morsus itself. He picked out the rows of stylised, blank-eyed corpses he had noticed when they were still on the Blood Oath. He stared at them, sensing he had missed something. They signified the necrons, that much was clear, but why did he think there was something more to understand?
He cast his mind back over the events of the last few hours, searching for something significant he had overlooked, sure that his subconscious had left him a clue in this delicate script. Then he recalled the eyes of his dead entourage, gathered around him in Argolis’ cathedrum, just after his conversation with Rhacelus. He looked back at the salver, finally understanding. The pictures of corpses did not only signify the necrons. They symbolised the dead of his past. The dead in his mind. Even here, on Morsus, the salver was showing him the way forwards.
He looked up into the darkness, knowing what he would see.
There they were, waiting patiently for him in the shadows – the ghost of every soldier who had died in his service. Even in death they served. Even in death they would not desert him. Foremost among them was a newcomer. Llourens stared back at him with the same calm expectation as the others. Her body was ruined, but her eyes blazed with hope.
‘Lord of Death,’ muttered Mephiston, understanding, for the first time, the significance of his own epithet.
Rhacelus frowned at him, but Mephiston could not explain. Not yet. He looked back down the passageway and saw the dead moving away from him, out towards the balcony.
‘Move,’ he said, handing the salver back to Vidiens and striding after guides only he could see.
‘Servatus,’ he voxed. ‘To me.’
They climbed down a narrow staircase between statues and hurried across the huge, brazier-lined hall. Mephiston paused, halfway across, and looked in the direction the necrons had been heading. At the far end of the hall, between the legs of another colossal statue, he could see flames and jagged mounds of rubble.
‘No sign of gunfire,’ said Rhacelus, stopping next to him and giving him a meaningful glance.
Mephiston carried on across the hall and climbed the staircase opposite, heading back into the network of tunnels, still following his ghosts. The corridor led to a wide crossroads, with one route forming another set of stairs, plunging steeply down into the darkness. Without hesitation, the horde of spirits headed for the route to the lower levels of the complex.
‘This
way,’ said Mephiston, waving Vitarus at the stairs.
‘Chief Librarian,’ said Rhacelus, grabbing one of Mephiston’s pauldrons and halting him at the top of the steps. ‘Where are we headed? We have no charge to detonate. The other explosives are useless without it.’ He glanced back at Argolis, who was leaning heavily on Servatus and watching the exchange. ‘Argolis told us the only way to trigger the chain reaction is with that device. If we head deeper into these crypts we will be surrounded by the entire necron army. Even we cannot take them all on.’
Mephiston struggled to maintain his calm demeanour as the spirits slipped out of sight. ‘I cannot explain everything, Rhacelus, even to you.’ He nodded at the stairs. ‘If we linger here–’
‘Too late,’ snapped Rhacelus, shrugging off Argolis’ grip and dropping into a crouch, pointing his pistol down the passage opposite the stairs. The rest of the Blood Angels rushed to his side, lifting their plasma incinerators to their shoulders and aiming them down the passageway.
The viridian glow of the wall lights washed over a block of necrons racing towards them. These were similar to the heavy-armoured variants they had observed in the hall, moving in perfect unison – a living wall of metal thundering down the passageway, driven by wordless, unstoppable determination.
‘On my command,’ said Rhacelus, raising his pistol.
Mephiston hesitated, looking towards the stairs behind him.
‘Do you have a plan?’ asked Rhacelus.
Mephiston nodded.
Rhacelus drew his sword and stepped past the other Blood Angels to face the approaching wall of silver. ‘Then I will hold them back until you are done.’
Mephiston pounded his chest, waved for Vidiens to follow and bolted for the stairs. He did not pause, even when the passageway behind him exploded with noise and light.
As the stairs descended into the lowest levels of the crypt, the air began to grow clear of the scented smoke that filled the rest of the complex, and the temperature began to drop, coating the blood-red lacquer of his war-plate with a thin layer of frost. Vidiens swooped ahead, scouring the dark for signs of movement.
The steps emerged into a vast mausoleum – a triangular chamber crowded with rows of stone, coffin-like caskets. Each of them was leaking splinters of green light that sliced through the darkness and washed over the ground, revealing masses of cabling and quietly humming devices that Mephiston assumed were transformers or generators of some kind. The air trembled with charged particles and a low, ominous moaning sound that resonated up through the floor.
‘By the Emperor,’ whispered Vidiens, hovering over the first of the caskets. ‘There are thousands of them.’
Mephiston did not pause. His ghosts were gliding over the caskets, making for a large structure half hidden in darkness at the far side of the chamber. As he ran, taking a weaving route between the caskets, he saw movement up ahead, and flashes of silver. He drew his pistol as half a dozen necrons marched from the shadows, their weapons raised to fire.
Vidiens swooped down for cover behind one of the caskets, but as the plodding automata came within shooting distance, they stayed their shots and stared silently at Mephiston. The only sign of life was the light bleeding from their empty eye sockets.
‘They do not want to shoot in here,’ said Mephiston, looking at the caskets that surrounded him.
He raised his plasma pistol and fired, ripping a molten hole in a necron’s head. The necron staggered back, then returned to stand in the same spot, weapon raised, as though nothing had happened.
Mephiston fired until the necron was a pile of smouldering scrap. Another stepped forwards and Mephiston repeated the process until all six of them were in pieces. Then he strode on.
As he passed the mangled necrons, a severed hand grasped his ankle, causing him to stagger and barge into a casket, dislodging it with the bulk of his power armour. The casket smashed to the floor, the lid clattering away, and virulent green chemicals flooded out, along with a half-rotten corpse.
The corpse was dressed in the mouldering remnants of ceremonial robes, its flesh riddled with rusty metal devices. They were designed to resemble scarabs, pushed deep into the flesh and sparking with electric charge. The cadaver tried to rise, groaning and wailing. It was pathetically wasted and decayed, and as it stumbled towards Mephiston flesh sloughed from its bones, revealing the chemically preserved organs beneath.
Mephiston fired into the thing’s chest, launching its grey-green body back across the floor. He marched on.
Vidiens flew after him, still carrying the salver, and togaether they reached the shape jutting out of the wall. It was a tall, stylised skull, identical to the heads of the necrons Mephiston had just dismantled. It was forty feet tall and framed in each of its eye sockets was an emerald large enough to crush a man. Mephiston’s ghosts rushed on, passing through the surface of the stone skull and vanishing from view.
‘My lord,’ said Vidiens. ‘The mark of the abomination.’
The servitor pointed to the side of the skull’s tightly clamped jaws, where there was a coffin-shaped cartouche carved into the stone. It was the same ankh symbol that adorned all of the necrons’ chests, but this one was framed by the outline of a skeletal hand.
Mephiston returned to the casket. The cadaver tried to rise again, slipping from its chemical gloop and reaching towards him, metal scarabs still sparking beneath its skin. He grabbed the thing by the arm and dragged it, thrashing and jerking, back to the skull, then he raised its hand and slapped it against the cartouche.
The low moaning sound shifted in pitch and with a whoosh of hydraulics the skull’s jaw sank into the floor.
Mephiston looked up at Vidiens. ‘Wait here. Call out at the first sign of more necrons.’
Vidiens was about to protest, but Mephiston had already dropped the gibbering corpse and marched on into the next room.
It was a laboratory. The walls were lined with tall alcoves, each containing the necron equivalent of Tesla coils – green, pyramidal crystals, linked to each other by dancing limbs of electricity. The air was a mesh of emerald lightning bolts, thrashing and whipping against a metal casket at the heart of the room.
Mephiston paused at the threshold, momentarily blinded by the intensity of the blaze. As his Adeptus Astartes eyes adjusted to the glare, he saw a robed necron stooping over the casket, carefully positioning prisms next to a glass circle at its centre. The necron was so engrossed in this task it did not notice Mephiston, so he watched for a moment, intrigued. His ghosts had gathered around the android. This was clearly what they had intended to show him.
The necron adjusted the prisms so they refracted coloured beams from the projector at the centre of the casket, scattering lights across the walls. The design of the box was different to the caskets outside. It appeared to be unadorned, apart from the circular projector, until Mephiston’s keen eyesight picked out fine, xenos symbols etched into the metal case. Mephiston knew he had seen such a device before.
His mind slipped back to the books of his Librarius. He recalled his most esoteric, ancient collections, the ones dealing with artefacts from other galaxies, objects so arcane they could manipulate the dimensions themselves, altering perceptions and physics without any need for the treacherous currents of the warp. Mephiston’s unerring memory led him to the page he sought: a faded diagram of the prehistoric object now before him.
‘An orchestrion,’ he said, unable to contain his surprise.
The necron whirled around, scattering its prisms in the process. They flew from the lid of the casket, hit the wall and shattered.
Antros raced through the necropolis, his armour luminous and pulsing with warp fire. With every second that passed, more power roared through his body. As he ran through the ancient crypts, the stone floor rippled away from him, splitting and cracking, as though he were a living, walking explosion.
He was
ecstatic. If he willed it, he could bring down the whole fortress with a thought. He had become a true scion of Sanguinius. He had become everything that the Angel had wished for his sons. He had become all that Mephiston had so far failed to be. He needed to find the Chief Librarian but his mind was so alive with the warp that he was no longer quite sure why. Was it so he could explain the Sleepless Mile? Was that enough? Could Mephiston even understand? Perhaps that time had passed? He stifled the thoughts, angry with himself. Of course the Chief Librarian would understand. The influx of new power was overwhelming him, confusing him. His psychic powers had accelerated beyond anything he could have expected. He needed to remain calm. He needed to tread the Sleepless Mile at all times now.
He looked at his auspex. The device had been damaged in the cave-in, but the signal was still clear. Mephiston was somewhere in the chambers below, a few miles at most.
He scoured the shadows for a route to the next hall. He was in a grand chamber, even by the standards of the halls he had fought through to get this far. The previous chambers had been swarming with necrons. His untrammelled power had easily carved a path through them, but now, for a moment at least, he seemed to be alone.
He ran across the room, then halted as a powerful tremor rocked through the walls, knocking columns to the floor with an explosion of sparks and shattered stone. Antros was hurled back by the blast and buried beneath mounds of rubble. As rocks crashed down onto his armour, he felt the fortress shuddering around him.
‘Mephiston has launched an attack,’ he whispered, ‘and I am too late to help.’ He cursed. Rhacelus would be furious that he had taken so long to arrive and then missed whatever action they were taking against the necrons. Whatever news he brought from the Dawnstrike would be overshadowed by his failure to aid his battle-brothers.
As tonnes of rock pressed down on him, he tried to reach out psychically, through the darkness, trying to reach the Chief Librarian to tell him that he was near.