Incarnation - John French

by Warhammer 40K

  Covenant held her gaze for a second and then nodded.

  ‘You have my word,’ he said.

  The dust rolled through the dream, great billowing walls of grey dust. It was there in every breath, there gritting eyes when they blinked. The dreamer coughed and a galaxy of burning stars exploded through him. He staggered and fell to his knees. Sharp stones ground beneath him. Edges and points dug into his skin. He reached down and picked up a handful of stones and lifted them up so that they were in front of his eyes. He blinked and the dust flowed and sucked into his eyes. Then it cleared, and he saw. They were not stones in his hands; they were bones, broken and dry.

  He gave a muffled cry as he dropped them, and was about to rise when the dust cloud peeled back in front of him. A land lay before him. No, not a land, a city, but a city like nothing he had ever seen or dreamed. Towers and battlements and domes rose like mountain ranges. Statues as tall as cathedral spires reached up to the shrouded sky. The dust wind blew through the avenues and peeled over the faces of the statues and battlements.

  ‘Help…’ He turned at the voice. A man sat on a stone chair three paces behind him. The chair was plain and grey, its surface pitted by the wind. The man that sat on it wore grey, the fabric so worn that it seemed as though the dust had settled in a thin skin on top of his wasted flesh and bones. There were wounds in the flesh, too, scabbed and blackened gashes that wept slow tears of pus. ‘I… Help…’ the enthroned man said again, shifting his head, shivering with fatigue.

  ‘I…’ began the dreamer. ‘I… who are you? What are you? This is a dream, isn’t it?’

  ‘It…’ coughed the figure on the throne. ‘It can’t go on. I…’

  ‘What can’t go on? What are you talking about?’ he asked, but the wasted figure only shook its head. Then he laughed and somewhere behind the curtain of dust a growl of thunder answered. ‘Why am I even speaking? You’re just a sleep phantom. This is a dream, and somewhere…’ His words faltered. He blinked, pain and panic flashing through his eyes. ‘I am dying…’ Iacto said softly. ‘I am bleeding out on the floor of a chapel.’ He laughed again, but the sound was low and cold and the thunder did not answer. ‘All that time, all those years climbing in rank and manoeuvring for power, and this is the end I was reaching for – a fever dream on the edge of an abyss.’

  ‘I…’ said the figure in the stone chair, and raised its hand.

  The city around them moaned as the wind pulled the dust of powdered bones through its streets.

  ‘Iacto.’

  His head jerked around. The figure in the stone chair was looking at him, gaze steady, eyes clear in its wasted face. It held out its hand, skeletal fingers open. The figure twitched and for an instant Iacto felt as though its pain had whipped through him too. He gasped and staggered, falling to his knees.

  Black voids of pain and fatigue, and endless screaming nightmare opened in him, night eternal and dark and laughing, and he was alone, alone as the dark and cold closed in, growling like wolves hungry for meat in winter, and he could hear the rattle and hiss of them and hear their breath as they licked the air, and he felt the weakness in his limbs as he rose to beat them back.

  Then the pain fled, and the dream was of the dead city once more.

  ‘Why?’ he said, at last, and the wind snatched the word away. ‘There are other people, other people dying. Other people who are better. Other…’

  The wind was rising. Dust had swallowed the city. Somewhere in the distance beyond this dream his heart was beating the last of his blood. He looked up, trying to breathe, trying to stay alive.

  The figure on the throne was a fading blur, its hand still held out.

  ‘Iacto,’ it said again.

  He wanted to cry. He wanted to shout. He wanted to do anything but reach out to that hand. And he heard a question rise in him, the last question that he thought would come to his lips.

  ‘Will…’ He coughed. ‘Will it mean something?’

  ‘Please…’

  Iacto laughed one last time and reached up to take the proffered hand.

  Josef heard the breath gasp from his chest.

  ‘Josef?’

  The monastery was as a mountain of dark stone and pinprick light above him. He tried to take another step towards it. The snow-swirled sky rolled over above him, and the snow covered ground caught him.

  ‘Josef!’

  Agata was kneeling next to him, glancing between him and the surrounding dark. The snow seemed still in the sky above him. He could hear a voice calling. They had come so close, so close, just a little further, and they would have been at the door, just a little…

  ‘I am sorry,’ Iaso had said.

  He had felt cold breathe through him.

  ‘Thank you, Medicae Primus,’ he had said after a moment, and slid off the slab, and began to pull the top half of his robe back over his tattooed bulk. ‘Your service has been exemplary.’

  Iaso’s head twitched.

  ‘What?’ he asked glancing at her. ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘Most in your position… it is more typical… You haven’t asked any of the questions I was prepared for.’

  ‘Are you sure? What can be done? Is there a way out of this? Those kind of questions, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, exactly those.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I do not follow – well, what?’

  ‘Well are there any good answers in there that I am missing out on?’

  Iaso looked at him for a second and shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘There are things that can be done that might–’

  ‘Things that will cost what I do, for the chance of a few more days watching the sand drain down? Thank you, I know what that looks like, and no thank you.’ He gave a smile that he didn’t feel. ‘I am going to do anything but sit and wait. Besides, there are things that I need to do. You are new, so I am going to guess that Viola would not have recruited you if you were anything other than exemplary in skill and honour, so I will count on your oath that this is my concern and mine alone.’

  Iaso had not moved for a second.

  ‘An inquisitor is like unto the God-Emperor. If he–’

  ‘He needs me,’ said Josef. ‘They need me, and they need me as a living soul not a dying man.’

  She put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘With respect, from what I have observed the inquisitor is little given to emotional attachment.’

  ‘That lie of his is why he needs me,’ he said, and shook her arm free. ‘That’s why they all need me. So I am going to be there for them.’

  ‘I am sorry, master preacher, but it is not that simple. You–’

  ‘Josef, just Josef, or Khoriv. And, yes, it is that simple.’

  ‘…Josef!’ Agata called him. The snow was falling on his face, touching his cheeks with frost fingers.

  The Monastery of the Last Candle burned, and began to scream as the snow fell. Down in its roots, beasts that had begun as stray dogs and lost humans howled with the hunger of the starveling Neverborn stitched into their skin as they stalked the sepulchres and tunnels. Up and out the red pilgrims flowed, through the dormitories where prayers had long before become tears, and now became screams. Coals and candles were tipped into spreading pools of lamp oil, and the orange teeth of the inferno ate tapestries and cracked stained glass in its setting. Death began to gather souls in the thousands: from chambers where smoke and heat stole the air from lungs, and in shrines where unanswered prayers were cut with jagged knives. The screams and flames rose up into the night.

  Seen from above, the heap of sacred buildings glowed like coals as the blaze began to seep out into the freezing dark. High above it all the sacred flame guttered on its high tower. Aurora light, red and bruised, began to flow across the bellies of the storm clouds and stain the falling snow.

  Down beneath the Great Cathedral’s dome, Memnon stepped from the shadow of the door to the stairway that led down to the bishop’s sanctuary. Above him
, the vault of the central nave’s roof spread from the tops of granite columns. The light of fires flickered across high stained-glass windows, lending light to the halos of saints. Between the pillars and beneath the glazed faces of martyrs, empty silence spread to welcome him.

  Geddon had been waiting in the shadows and now scampered forwards to meet him. The auspextra’s slapping steps echoed on the tiled floor.

  ‘There has been a shift,’ she hissed without preamble. ‘It started three minutes ago across multiple etheric-spectra. Atmospheric and rational data area also fluctuating.’

  ‘The prospect–’

  ‘The readings though do not make sense,’ said Geddon, shaking her bulky head as though she had not heard him. ‘This is not a typical prospect. The wave forms are not synchronising, they are diverging – as though the manifestation was not a single event. As though it were–’

  The cathedral’s main doors blew in. Stone, wood and polished metal scattered through the air.

  A burst of gunfire ripped out of the dark, and tore Geddon’s head off. Electricity arced from the ruined machinery stacked on her shoulders as she fell. Memnon flinched back as the fire dragged onto him. Blinding light strobed around him, then blazed as heavy rounds slammed into air and exploded into fire and noise.

  Koleg’s visor dimmed as the conversion field blazed around the target. The arbitrators were advancing between the pillars in pairs, firing as they moved. Star-bright light filled the nave. The sound of gunfire reached up to the ceiling and roared in echoes through the shredded dark.

  Koleg rose and ran forwards, stripping the skeletal stock from the macrostubber as he moved. He did not need it now. Things were going to get close. His kill shot against the first target had been difficult, but he had made an error. He had not accounted for the other target having a protection field. At that distance they had not been able to tell which was the higher-priority target. That question was resolved now, at least.

  ‘Find and close the exits!’ came Orsino’s shout over the vox, as she limped in the wake of the running arbitrators. Glavius-4-Rho kept close behind her, supporting the figure of the astropath, Epicles. Last came the robed figure of the monk called Claudia. She had shrunk back behind the bulk of a pillar as the cacophony rose. ‘Keep firing, don’t give him a chance to react,’ called Orsino.

  ‘False pilgrim…’ came Covenant’s voice, rising to amplified thunder over the sound of gunfire.

  The inquisitor had come forward with Koleg as they had set the snap ambush, and moved with him now. The inquisitor did not fire and the sword was still sheathed at his back. In his hand the brass and crystal device sung as it spun, faster and faster, blurring through symbols.

  ‘By the power of the Throne and the Master of Mankind, I charge you to submit to judgement,’ called Covenant as he strode forwards.

  The lone man stood still for a second, a shadow behind the blazing halo of his conversion field. For a moment, the rhythm of gunfire slackened, and as the blaze of light around the man faded, Koleg saw him raise a hand to his mouth as though to blow a kiss. Dust billowed out and a sound that pulled all other sound to silence echoed out.

  Koleg felt himself falter, and tasted burned spice in his mouth inside his mask. The nearest arbitrator to the man froze, shaking, in place.

  And the dust poured out, spreading out and up, growing and twisting. Shapes uncoiled within it, grey and soft, shadow and ash. They hung in the air, folding and sliding for an instant that stretched like a pulled thread. Then they slid from out of being into incarnation. They were grey like the powder on a moth’s wing, or the fine ash sieved from a corpse-furnace. Wings thumped the air. Tentacles slid over the ground. Mouths opened in faces of dust and shrieked with thirst. They poured forwards as, above them, the eyes of glass saints blazed with the light of their burning sanctuary.

  SEVENTEEN

  Alarms rang through the medicae wing. The hawk shrieked above Cleander and spread its wings. He shoved upwards with all his strength, and twisted. The bird dived, claws bared, beak wide in a shriek. His fist struck its wing as it beat the air. The bird jolted back. Cleander roared as the bones in his hand shattered. The hawk dived at him as he scrambled off the slab. His legs caught in the pipes still linked to his body and he pitched backwards, hand grabbing at the silver knives laid out next to the slab. The door to the theatre slammed open. He saw a blur of household uniforms as the bird came at him. The bird struck as his hand closed on a scalpel. Shouts filled the air.

  He stabbed up. The point rammed through the bird’s breast. Claws raked his arm. The hawk’s head was thrashing from side to side. He could see its yellow eyes in its chrome skull.

  ‘Get back!’ Viola shouted from behind him.

  The needles in the bird’s legs were extending, beads of milky venom growing like pearls at their tips. Cleander rammed it away. He felt the stitching down his spine rip. The bloody hawk beat its wings to try to catch the air. A cluster of las-bolts burned through it an instant before two shot rounds reduced it to shredded meat and torn feathers.

  Cleander lay on the floor for a moment breathing hard, eyes closed. Then he rolled over, hands scrabbling at the pipes and tubes linked to him.

  ‘Turn these damned machines off before they kill me,’ he growled. Someone moved to obey. He grabbed hold of the side of the slab and began to pull himself to his feet.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Viola.

  ‘A very serious person with a sword and another of these damned birds has taken Iaso and is after Enna…’ The world spun and swam around him. ‘I am going after her.’

  ‘Enna…’ Mylasa’s voice echoed out of the distance. Grey fog billowed around Enna as she turned. Towering shadows loomed and scattered through the murk. ‘Enna!’ The shout came from just behind her. She whirled and saw Mylasa standing an arm’s reach away. The image of the psyker was chalk-pale, the skin drawn over the bones, eyes sunken in pits of shadow. A frayed cloak of rough green fabric hung from her, flapping, dripping with water as though Mylasa was standing in a storm.

  ‘I saw…’ began Enna, the memory of the bearded inquisitor and the tarot wafer rising again, sharpening. ‘I saw someone. I was… He gave me a name.’

  Mylasa was trembling, rain water pouring down her face.

  ‘I know, I saw. Enna, something is happening outside. I don’t know what but–’

  ‘You… You know something, don’t you?’ said Enna, feeling the truth of what she was saying as she spoke. ‘You recognised something in the memory, didn’t you?’

  Mylasa was juddering in place, shivering. Her cloak billowed in a gust.

  ‘I can’t… You are too strong for me to be here…’

  ‘What did you see?’ shouted Enna. Mylasa was crumpling to the ground, as though bent by the wind. ‘Who was he?’

  Mylasa looked up at Enna, gasping.

  ‘Argento,’ she said. ‘The inquisitor in your memory was Covenant’s master.’

  Enna blinked. Around her the shadows of memories slouched forward.

  ‘Revelation… Acia… Revelation…’ they called in the high voices of a lost past.

  ‘Medicae Primus?’ asked Severita. Her gun was still aimed at the sealed door. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I am supposed to review the subject’s physical condition at regular intervals,’ said Iaso’s voice out of the vox-speaker.

  Severita stilled a shiver. The temperature in the chamber had plunged. Cold light surrounded Mylasa.

  ‘That is not going to be possible,’ said Severita.

  ‘I must insist,’ said Iaso.

  Ninkurra flinched. The distant telepathic link to the hawk she had left with Duke von Castellan had just been severed. She blinked. Ghost images of the bird’s last moments bubbled through her eyes. She took two quick breaths and unharnessed a krak charge from her waist. Iaso was still talking into the vox-speaker next to the door, but it was clearly pointless. She was out of time.

  ‘Leave here,’ said Severita. ‘Leav
e here now, Medicae Primus.’

  ‘I have my duty,’ said Iaso’s voice. Severita glanced behind her at the ghost-haloed witch and the glowing casket.

  ‘And I mine,’ said Severita.

  The door blew in. The blast flipped Severita back. She hit a cryo-machine and tumbled to the floor. She gasped, unable to breathe.

  Stand! screamed a voice in her skull. Stand! Now!

  She rose. Blood scattered from her. Her right hand was no more than mangled fingers, her pistol gone. She couldn’t feel it. Shrapnel had punched through her armour and into her right ribs.

  Emperor, hear Your servant…

  Pain exploded in her as she leaped towards the doorway. Her sword was in her left hand, blade lit.

  Emperor, protect Your servant…

  A gun roared. Severita twisted aside as the round shattered against the wall. A blur moved just beyond the torn door. She spun forwards, blood and muscle, and pain and prayer spiralling together.

  Emperor, bring death to Your betrayers…

  A figure came through the door and sliced down at Severita. Its cloak billowed and folded with the darkness. A sword whistled as it cut. Fast, very fast; Severita did not even see the cut, but her sword found it anyway.

  Light and sound screamed out as the swords kissed. The enemy was cutting again, but Severita had let go of her blade as the edges met. She could see a face inside a hood, eyes hidden by infra-goggles, mouth set in a line, and in that moment she saw the mouth thin in surprise as Severita’s sword spun through the air. Severita ducked, spun low and kicked the assassin in the gut. The woman staggered back half a step, balanced and lashed forwards. Severita caught her falling sword out of the air. The power field reactivated as her fingers closed on the haft. She cut, the blade spitting lightning.

  The cloaked woman flicked her blade up to parry. The edges met, and the woman’s blade exploded into fragments. The woman jerked back, the hilt of her shattered sword still in her hand. Severita thrust, body weight and momentum rippling through her and down to the lightning-wreathed sword tip. And as the thrust unfolded, Severita saw a flash as the cloaked woman brought the haft of her shattered sword up, and slash down. A blade of splinters formed as it slid through the air, whip-crack fast, but slowed in Severita’s eye.