by John French
It closed the final few thousand kilometres, its course spiralling to match the Antius’. Larger pieces of drift-debris rattled from them. Chunks of rock and old shards of dead ships puffed to dust on the hunter’s shields. On the Antius’ bridge, the hull was singing with the plink-ring of impacts. People were weeping. Gade had slumped over the controls. His hands were charred black by electro-discharge, but somehow he was still breathing, still holding course.
‘Hold,’ she heard a voice call, clear and strong. It took her a second to realise that it was hers. ‘Have faith…’
The hunter slid into its final firing position. The lights of the Jovian Caul were brighter than the stars now. It locked its guns to firing solutions.
The Antius’ engines sputtered.
The hunter loosed its execution shot.
A destroyer came out of the dark and tore the hunter from the night in a volley of macro-cannon fire. Rings of plasma erupted from its hull, sending the pieces of its corpse shooting out as they melted.
The destroyer slammed through the debris of its kill. Screams and cacophonous sounds rolled out from it on every vox- and signal-channel. It had once been a ship of war and conquest, but the years of its betrayal had stripped it of that divinity. It had come to the Solar System in answer to the carrion promise of war and had soared ahead of the ships of the Iron Warriors as they broke the orbits of Uranus. Hunger, caprice and the will of the power that had created it had pulled it on and on towards Jupiter.
Blossom-pink, acidic-green, turquoise, orange, purple and tox-yellow swirled and clashed across its hull. Symbols etched by the claws of things that lived in nightmares swam across its length. Oily dust shook from it like pollen from a summer flower. Its crew were gone, flesh and bone melded into the fabric of the ship. Their voices lived on, though, singing and screaming into the night as the ship hunted. It shivered as the fire of its kill touched its hull. Its howls became shrieks of delight.
On the bridge of the Antius, screams and wails burst from every vox-speaker. The hull vibrated through high notes like a struck glass. In the holds and on the bridge, people fell to the ground, blood running from their ears as the taste of roses, honey and ash filled their mouths. On and on the sounds echoed. Mersadie felt it slice through her, felt it touch the edge of things she had tried to remember but wanted to forget.
‘What is this?’ she had asked.
‘Nothing,’ said a deep voice from behind her, and she had turned from Maloghurst to see another set of eyes looking down at her from above and a smile that held no kindness. ‘Nothing at all…’
Then the voice from her dream of Keeler, strong and undoubtable.
‘You must reach him. You must tell him before it is too late. Remember! Remember what you have seen!’
And the circles of symbols rose before Mersadie, no longer stone and metal but burning in the air.
And the howl of the multicoloured destroyer as it broke from the flames and turned towards the Antius was the roar of guns in her memory and the shriek of the oncoming storm in a dream that she could not wake from.
And then it was gone.
The many-coloured ship turned, swooped past the Antius, and dived back into the dark.
The howls died in the throats of the vox-horns and left those on the bridge of the Antius shaking and weeping, but alive.
‘What…’ breathed Gade. The man was on his hands and knees, trembling like a whipped dog. ‘What just happened?’
Mersadie looked back at Gade, at the console lights blinking in time to alarms that seemed soft in the shadow of the sounds that had just passed.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Just get us to a dock around Jupiter.’
Chi-32-Beta’s head rose suddenly.
‘We are being targeted…’ gasped the enginseer.
‘By what?’ she asked.
‘Defence platforms, ships, other vessels. I can’t identify them…’
Mersadie felt cold realisation sink through the space left by the brief flutter of hope that they would make it to a place of safety. They would not; they would die on the edge of survival.
‘We are being hailed…’ buzzed the tech-priest.
The vox-speakers gave a bark of distortion and then a voice came from them, speaking through the static.
‘Freighter vessel Antius, confirm you are carrying the remembrancer Mersadie Oliton. I repeat, confirm you are carrying the remembrancer Mersadie Oliton.’
Faces turned towards her. The frame of the ship was still humming with the power that pushed it through the debris cloud towards the waiting guns of the Jovian defences.
Mersadie was still, frozen in place. Her limbs were numb.
‘Reply…’ she said at last.
‘Vox-channel open,’ stuttered Chi-32-Beta. The speakers buzzed again.
Mersadie swallowed.
‘This is…’ she began, and then the words stopped on her tongue. After all this time…
‘I am here,’ she said at last. ‘This is Mersadie Oliton.’
‘Cut your engines,’ said the voice that had spoken before. ‘We will bring you in.’
Mersadie closed her eyes for a second and nodded. Inside her head, she thought she could see the image of Keeler smiling at her.
‘Thank you…’ she said. ‘Thank you, old friend.’
The vox clicked, as though the speaker on the other end had paused for a second before speaking again.
‘You are safe now,’ said the voice of Garviel Loken.
Comet shrine, Inner System Gulf
The ghosts of Unification led Ahriman through the places where they had died. The transitions from one memory to another were abrupt, as sharp as the slice of a final second from a thread of life.
He walked a maze of ice beneath the Antarctic domes, watching a woman fire her last bullets into an oncoming wall of chimeric flesh and fur… He was striding in an exo-rig across the burning seas of Hattusa-B… He was looking down the side of the Truscan Hive. Fires burned at the mountain’s foot and wound up its sides, shining bright in the shadow cast by its bulk. The wind was strong and held the scent of the inferno that had flooded the mountain’s lower levels. It was not a mountain, of course. It was a city. Down at its root, far beneath the level of the land, were structures made so far back in the past that their makers had known Terra when it was green and blue and still dreamed of serenity under the gaze of its sun. The cities that had been its seeds had names that resonated in the consciousness even though their histories were forgotten: Azinc, Opolis, Riance. Now its fate would be to be torn apart and have its bones folded into a structure that would be called a palace, but was larger than the empires of mankind’s youth.
‘You died here,’ said Ahriman, ‘in the taking of the Truscan hive…’
Beside him, the mute image of a bond-warrior in the Balgran tek-tribes looked at him. The man was covered with the blood of the wounds that had killed him. He nodded to Ahriman.
‘I am sorry,’ said Ahriman. ‘I cannot remain, but I will remember.’ The bloodied man nodded again, then turned away.
Ahriman looked out for a second more, hearing the distant thump of rockets pounding the strongpoints on the hive’s north face. It had taken the Thunder Legions and the armies of Unity a month to break Anak, but when the end came it had been swift and seen hundreds of thousands dead in the turning of a single day.
There is no time for this.+ Ignis’ sending cut through the psychometric vision, smearing its clarity. The smoke-hazed sky above froze, and the image of the hive blurred.
There is time enough,+ replied Ahriman.
There are approximately one million, seven hundred and forty sets of individual remains within this… facility. To extract psychometric impressions from them all will take–+
I am aware of the factors involved,+ sent Ahriman.
Then you k
now that it is not possible.+
I do,+ replied Ahriman.
Then why–+
Because it matters.+ Ahriman straightened and looked up again at the image that he had pulled from the psy-resonance of one of the skulls lining the walls of the comet shrine. +In the end, everything is dust – but what we do before we become dust matters. What things were matters.+
If you say so.+
Ahriman turned and the image collapsed into dust, and then folded into the reality of a room of bone. The central chamber of the comet shrine had already been stained by blood and battle. Bolt shells had ripped skulls from walls and torn carved femurs and vertebrae from the supports of the high, domed roof. The Imperial Fists had cleared away the debris when they had finished their purge.
Ahriman could feel the disgust of the sons of Dorn at what the Word Bearers had done to this place. Their anger lingered in the marks left by their bolters and blades. Those thoughts and emotions sang in the churn of the shrine’s past, present and future. It was created to remember the dead and the sacrifices they had made in life, but it had been remade into something else by the Word Bearers, something more terrible and profound than a place for dry bones and memories to rest.
In the decades of their stewardship, the Word Bearers had spilled blood in the comet shrine to honour their new-found gods. They had cut subtle sigils into its substance and saturated its shadows with malignancy. Threads of the warp had wormed into the bones, feeding on the memories of the dead. Whispered prayers had rooted in the gloom, locked inside the comet as it turned around the sun.
Even when Sigismund and the Imperial Fists had come and killed those Word Bearers left here, their actions had only fed the pool of occult potential lying just under the skin of reality. The Word Bearers’ deaths had been an act of martyrdom in service to the powers of the warp, and, whether Ahriman thought that belief naive or not, the act had power. The comet shrine resonated with ritual significance. Whispers and vortices of emotion trailed behind it as it pulled across the heavens.
Whether what the Word Bearers had done was driven by chance or foresight did not matter. They had created a tool that could be used by more able hands.
Ahriman turned to the centre of the chamber. The stone sphere of the solatarium floated above the floor. Arcs of ghost-light whipped from its surface and earthed in the floor and ceiling. The dimensions of the room swam as he looked at it, and he had to force his mind to stay balanced. Power was building in the immaterium, taking shape and form second by second. Around the chamber, at the eight points of the compass, the pitiful cargo brought in the black containers knelt on the floor. Three thousand and twenty-four mortals. Each of them had a spark of connection to the warp. All of them had been selected from the holds of Black Ships hunted and taken by Horus’ forces. There were scions of planetary rulers, beggars, men, women, the kind, the corrupt and the desperate. Iron, brass and silver chains held them to the deck while silent Word Bearers moved amongst them, painting their scalps and faces with ash ink. Some began to drool blood as the sigils marked their skin. Ahriman’s fellow Thousand Sons stood between the lines of mortals, breathing calm and passivity into their minds. Light and shadow was beginning to fume off them, hazing reality overhead.
He thought of the sacrifices he had made in pursuit of the truth, of salvation for his father, things that weighed true only when balanced against the greatest of needs. Was this need enough for the atrocity they would commit? He was not sure, but he was sure that it was too late to make another choice.
Ahriman breathed out. A ghost-image of his thought puffed into being in the air, spread feathered wings, and then dissolved before it could take flight. He reached his mind out to Menkaura, at the centre of the solatarium. It was like calling through a rising gale.
How long until conjunction?+
It is approaching.+ Ahriman could feel the effort in Menkaura’s reply. +Each house aligns. The orbs of the heavens sing, but not all… Blood still remains to be shed. The Queen of Heaven wears a crown of growing fire. The Water Bearer pours his bloody cup into the night. But the Wolf Coin still shines clear. The wheel turns. The sands run…+
Images flowed over the connection with Menkaura’s mind. Ahriman saw Pluto, its face and moons sliding from cold reality to silver coins set in the sockets of a skull. Sigils in tongues never spoken by men ran through the dark, leading the inner eye on a spiral. He saw the symbols of the old zodiac, of apocalyptic calendars from the dawn of history: the twinned faces, the serpent that circles the fire, the keys of sleep, all dancing with the substance of smoke against the stars that were their eyes. All of the grand mechanism was moving, its parts aligning, resonating with each other, pulling tighter and tighter.
The fires of battle fed it. Fear and the blood of the dead drove it on. Even the desperate hopes and defiance of the defenders added to its momentum in the warp. It existed nowhere but linked to everything – to every moment of the past, every thought of the future and every deed unborn. It was the most breathtaking and terrible thing Ahriman had ever comprehended. He saw beyond it, to the ships swarming in the warp, holding still in currents that would normally have torn them apart. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands of them, great and small. Daemonic creatures circled them, colour and form shifting and changing.
He drew his mind back, felt himself sway slightly as reality washed the vision away.
He was standing on the shrine again. The Apostle was standing on the other side of the chamber, his blank helm turned so that Ahriman was certain that eyes were fixed upon him behind the smooth bronze.
‘The moment of alignment is close,’ he said into the vox. The Apostle nodded once.
‘As was written.’
‘As long as the final elements come together, that is,’ replied Ahriman, hearing the coldness in his voice.
‘Have faith, sorcerer. Not all is art and design. The gods ordain that all be done. Have faith…’
Ahriman did not answer but turned away.
Bring the ships in. Begin pulling our brothers out. We must not be here when the end of this begins.+
And the Word Bearers?+ asked Ignis.
Ahriman looked at the crimson-clad warriors moving amongst the chained psykers.
Something tells me that they do not intend on becoming martyrs.+
Unlike Menkaura,+ stated Ignis. Ahriman felt his thoughts twitch back to his eyeless brother, now locked in the stone sphere of the solatarium. +But of course that is different. He will have the comfort that his memory matters to you.+
Make the ships ready,+ sent Ahriman again, after a long pause.
As you will it,+ replied Ignis and then withdrew his thoughts, leaving Ahriman to the voices of the shrine’s ghosts.
Ahriman relives the echoes of the past.
On grey wings
Spear thrust
Alignment
Unnamed Warship, Inner System Gulf
The grey ship flew. It left the Caul of Jupiter. None of the guns it passed turned to follow it; none of the ships holding station moved to mark its passing. Auspexes that looked at it found their augurs turning away, their questions answered by cipher codes that removed even the beginning of the question. On it flew, grey in the night, a shadow at the edge of sight, into the dark, towards the glimmer that was the sun.
Mersadie looked back at Jupiter as the gas giant shrank. An enhanced pane of vision had opened in front of the circular viewport. She could see the lights of void engagements. The ships of the invaders were coming from the outer system in growing force now.
‘The vanguard,’ said Loken softly, coming to stand beside her. She had not heard him enter. No hiss of door pistons or thump of locks, and his armour followed his movements without a sound.
The chamber that they waited in was small, but with a high ceiling and a lone viewport set into its wall. It was a small and quiet space, a refuge of solitude
on a ship of whispers. The servitors that she had seen had been hooded in grey, and moved with fluidity and in silence. The ship itself did not growl or tremble with power but slid through the night seemingly without effort, gathering speed in silence.
Mersadie looked around at Loken, who nodded at the image of the orb of Jupiter.
‘The enemy have loosed jackals to harry our lines. The true force is still crossing the gulf from Uranus. It will be in battle range in hours.’ He let out a breath. ‘And then those lights will seem just the sparks falling before the inferno comes.’ She twitched and he looked around to meet her gaze. ‘The humans you brought from Uranus will be free of the planet’s sphere by then. They have been put on ships, and those ships sent out amongst the asteroid colonies.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, quietly.
‘It may not save them,’ said Loken. ‘There are no safe places any more. But you brought them as far as you could.’
Mersadie did not answer but looked around. Mori and Noon lay curled together beneath a blanket under the light of a glow-globe. They had refused to leave her, and so had come with her onto the grey ship. They had slept most of the time since then; perhaps they had succumbed to exhaustion and shock, or perhaps the sense that they had finally reached a place of safety had given them the gift of rest. That gift had not been given to Mersadie.
Things like the shadows of wolves had been waiting for her during the few moments in which she had closed her eyes.
Perhaps it was the presence of Loken, or the quiet of the ship, but she found memories coming to her, sharp and unasked for. Maloghurst the Twisted looking down at her, his eyes hard, the corridors of the Vengeful Spirit, a smell of blood and smoke.