But it feels so damned real.
Whatever power the eldar witch had used to conjure this, it was as flawless and convincing in its detail as any psychic construct or sensorium feed he had ever experienced, almost as convincing as reality itself.
But it was not real.
Angered, he turned his red eyes to the sky and shouted, ‘What do you want with me, xenos witch? What is the point of all this?’
Nothing. Just his own words echoing back at him from the black crags.
Capricious as they were, the eldar had contrived to bring him here for a reason. But there were no answers to be had out on the icy white slopes. That much was clear.
With no other choice, Karras put one booted foot in front of the other and began his climb towards the Western Gate.
Eight
Arnaz forced himself not to hurry, but his self-control was being tested tonight. Something itched at the corners of his awareness. As he threaded his way through the alleys, he fought the impulse to look back every few seconds. Pointless anyway. All who fought the War of Patience – what the tribes called the Kavash Garai – knew the t’au could make themselves all but invisible when they wanted to.
Arnaz’s tradecraft was as clean as ever. No slips. No threads for them to follow. He just had a bad feeling tonight, a feeling that he stood out somehow.
He was wrong. In dark blue robes bearing the appropriate glyphs, he looked just like any other member of the city administration, a mid-ranking functionary heading home after a day of work in the name of the Greater Good.
His cover had been built over a decade. It was solid.
If his steps betrayed a little haste, a little anxiety, well… Who wasn’t anxious in the capital these days? Things were changing rapidly on Tychonis now. After the attempt on Coldwave, the t’au were cracking down on every manner of criminal and known sympathiser from here to the smallest of the agri towns on the borders of the Drowned Lands.
The fire caste were relentless, and the ISF were even worse, as if their loyalty to the Aun were in question on account of the attacker being human.
Hardly times that encouraged a calm demeanour, especially since Arnaz and the men he was meeting were precisely who the blue-skins sought.
Only, Arnaz was no simple rebel. He had been placed here by a far greater power than the Speaker of the Sands. He served a mover of pieces in a much greater and deadlier game than mere planetary rebellion.
For years, he’d had no word from his off-world master. His remit was to entrench himself, foster solid contacts and information streams, and wait. He had actually thought himself forgotten, left here to live out a lie that was gradually becoming his truth. He’d wondered at what point he’d stop being a sleeper agent of the Inquisition and start just being a member of Tychonite society. Where did the act stop and real life begin?
Then, just months ago, word had come via psychic relay. He had been activated. The Imperium had turned its eye to this backwater world at last.
He had upped his security measures. Fresh tension coloured his days.
He rounded the last corner and saw, just up ahead, the sandstone hab he was looking for. There in the small side window stood the green bottle with the lit candle in it, exactly as Gunjir had told him to expect.
He stopped at a short wall and pretended to adjust the straps on his right boot, a last little act allowing him to check over his shoulder before he committed himself.
Nothing. Nothing that could be seen. Nothing that could be sensed.
He straightened, cinched his waistband a little tighter, smoothed his robe and went around the back to a small stairway cut into the ground. This he descended, stopping by the door at the bottom. There, on a heavy portal of lacquered Cycadian oak, he tapped the prearranged sequence.
There was the slightest of grating sounds, barely audible, from above. Looking up, he saw a tiny pict-lens set in the sandstone door frame. It swivelled to focus on his face and stopped. For a second, nothing happened. The lens just stared at him.
Arnaz heard locking bolts being slid aside. The door opened a crack. A weathered face with the nut-brown skin so typical of the capital’s human population squinted at him with eyes of pale violet.
‘Evening’s greetings, my cousin,’ said Arnaz.
‘Blessings on the dawn,’ said the other.
‘The day was dry. I saw a canyon hawk fly south over the market.’
‘The hawk sees much. Perhaps he saw you.’
‘He did not see me, cousin. His eyes were on the horizon.’
‘As are the eyes of all the Iczer-Makan.’
Iczer-Makan. The Far-Sighted Men.
The use of that name, never uttered casually, told Arnaz he had answered satisfactorily. The man behind the door moved aside, opening the portal further and allowing Arnaz to enter. Beyond was a short hallway ending in an arch over which hung a richly embroidered curtain of deep red fabric and golden thread.
The older man pulled the curtain aside and gestured him through, revealing a small, low-ceilinged room filled with men seated on cushions. A sharp mix of smells – fresh recaff, spiced bread and body odour – hit Arnaz in the face like hot breath.
He saw Gunjir sitting on the far side, facing him as he entered.
When he saw Arnaz, Gunjir rose, smiling, flashing those eight gold teeth of which he was so proud, and gestured for Arnaz to come sit in the empty space on his left. The others, all of whom Arnaz had long known from his files but whom he had never met in person, eyed him with sullen reserve.
Good, he thought. They are not too quick to trust.
Arnaz bowed to them, then sat cross-legged on the empty cushion. At that point, the man who had led him inside also sat, directly opposite Arnaz, and began a round of introductions. He used first names only, each so common that were one to be called out in a crowded souk, a hundred men would turn to respond.
Arnaz made the appropriate respectful responses. These men were no fools. Each was a leader in charge of several significant cells. That they had gathered here together was a sign of the times. The War of Patience was a delicate thing, expected to take decades, even centuries. With the Kashtu and Ishtu utterly outnumbered and outgunned, it required the long view. Most men were incapable of giving their lives to a war that would not be won in their lifetime. These men were different. They did not care that most of them would not live to see the fruits of their labours and sacrifices. It was their faith that mattered, their belief in the right of the Imperium to hold dominion over all worlds in the known universe.
The God-Emperor of Man was the one true god.
The teachings of Saint Sathra and his protégé, Saint Isara, could not have been interpreted otherwise.
The man to whom the house belonged, he who had opened the door for Arnaz, was called Diunar. He mumbled something to a man on his right, youngest of the group by the look of him, and Arnaz found himself quickly furnished with a cup of recaff and a small, hard biscuit of baked rice and urix-weed. The biscuit was sweetly spiced, complementing the hot recaff well. He had long ago learned to embrace the strong flavours so loved by these people, though the first few days after he had been smuggled onto the planet had largely been spent with one end or the other suspended over a bio-waste atomiser.
Hard days. First footing on a new world was always so. He’d lost weight rapidly, but that was no bad thing for his cover here. Only the men and women of the Integrated Security Forces – what the blue-skins called the Gue’a’Sha – were expected to hold more muscle than ordinary citizens. The t’au had strong thoughts on such things. One’s physiology was expected to fit one’s role in society.
Those beliefs had gradually permeated into the human cultures they embraced. Thus, soldiers were by default larger and stronger than merchants and men of other callings.
With Arnaz having now sipped from the cup placed in his hand
s, Diunar got things underway.
‘As we meet in my home,’ he began, ‘Melshala2 bless it, Sathra keep it safe, I will speak first. Some of you know me. Others do not. All present are of the blood of the true people. We are of one purpose. Let any who betray that purpose have their souls cast into the black and endless void for all eternity. As you will have heard through the network today, the Aun has ordered the ending of the current curfew from the tenth day of Salbado. An official announcement is to be made tomorrow. The city guard will continue patrolling in force and will retain the power to perform random searches, but the streets may once more be walked at any time of the day or night.’
A short man with a crooked nose – he had introduced himself as Sadiv – spoke up. ‘It is good,’ he said. ‘High time the people were free to move about the city as they please.’
‘Is it?’ asked another. This one was called Rava. As Arnaz looked at him, he noted a deep and abiding sadness in the man’s eyes. He had known great loss. Arnaz recalled his file. A son, his only child, gunned down by fire warriors during an arms depot raid. To maintain cover, Rava had been unable to attend his son’s funeral or visit the boy’s grave. ‘I am not so sure, cousin. Fuller streets mean more eyes to see us as we go about our business. The traitors among our own race are a greater threat to our cause than the warp-cursed pogs. We cannot know on sight who might side with us and who might not. At least the pogs wear their sympathies in the colour of their skin. These curfews have at least kept the streets clear for us.’
‘Laha,’ said Sadiv, an old Kashtu word indicating conditional agreement. ‘But every time we break them, we risk too much. For any of us to be taken alive–’
Gunjir interrupted, his hand raised. As the oldest, his gesture immediately commanded silence from the others.
‘What righteous liberation, cousins, ever succeeded without such risks? The Dictator knows we operate here in the city and in every town and city across his stolen world. If he is ending the curfews, it is to maintain the support and favour of the blue-tongues3, not because he believes the threat to his rule is eliminated. The commerce guilds have been petitioning for an end to the curfews for weeks. The citizenry complain and grow restless. Certainly Aun’dzi would prefer not see our cause gain further support. The curfews have embittered so many.’
‘Laha, laha,’ said Arnaz, interjecting for the first time, ‘but we must not overlook the fact that it may be a strategy to draw us out, to make us careless.’
Gunjir nodded. ‘Whatever the Dictator’s motivation for lifting the curfew now, I shall not relax my guard, and nor shall any other who values his life. The Aun knows we will have to act again to maintain and build on the support we’ve gained in the towns and cities in these recent weeks. He will expect us to add to our momentum. We can’t let the people settle back into comfortable complacency. The pogs know this. They will be watching for our next move.’
A stout man with a white streak in his dark red beard cleared his throat and placed his right hand over his heart, indicating he wished to speak next. This was Urqis.
‘Coldwave has returned to the city yet again, gathering more prisoners to take south. What does the Speaker say of this? Do we strike again while he is here? And what of his constant need to move inmates from the city’s internment blocks? Haddayin brothers there report no overcrowding.’
Gunjir shook his head. ‘No word of a further attack on Coldwave has come to me, cousin, but Arnaz received word from the north more recently than I. The Speaker believes the path to our rightful future is entwined with the arrival of the newcomer, this woman of the black feathers. Arnaz?’
‘I will tell you what I know,’ said Arnaz. This was why he had come. It was true that he had received encrypted comms from the Speaker. Of all the men here, only he knew the rebel leader’s true identity. And in turn, only the Speaker knew Arnaz for what he was – no tribesman, but an agent sent from afar.
‘But I have never beheld the woman,’ he told them, ‘save in these picts.’
He pulled several small squares of glossy paper from his robe and passed half to his left, half to his right. Each man gasped in turn as he laid eyes on them.
‘Your shock mirrors my own, my cousins. When I saw the two that escort her, I doubted my own eyes.’
‘Resh’vah4!’ whispered Rava in awe.
‘Space Marines!’ said Sadiv. ‘Space Marines have come!’
Nine
Logopol.
From its crypts and catacombs to the immense and heavily armed fortress built atop them, it was a vast and complex place. Images of death and transcendence were everywhere, engraved onto walls and doors, glorified in fine statuary, stained glass and mosaics, dazzling in their craftsmanship yet darkly morose. One thousand active Space Marines called the crypt-city home, though never had that number gathered here at once, not even on Founding Day. Some went out never to return. Others never left. Many of these were the Chapter’s serfs, numbering in the tens of thousands, their entire lives dedicated to duty in the service of their warrior lords.
By their blood and toil did the city endure, allowing their masters to focus on their role in the endless, galaxy-wide war.
As Karras strode through the mighty gates of laser-etched titanium, he saw not a soul. No serfs. No brothers. No one.
None watched him from the bastion walls or from the black balconies of the Great Keep. He would have sensed them even had he not seen them. And yet, there was energy here. Presence. Something was pulling at him. As he stalked through gardens filled with black and leafless trees, through training grounds, halls and sconce-lit corridors, the feeling became a certainty.
He was being pulled below, down into the great catacombs where the honoured dead lay silent, their noble duty fulfilled. There at the bottom he would find the ancient dome, the Temple of Voices, and in its cold central chamber, the terrible Throne of Glass so prominent in the Chapter’s lore.
The Shariax.
The moment he thought of it, he knew it was to that ancient throne he was being drawn. The certainty sped his steps.
Automated vator-cages descended only part of the way. The catacombs were far older than Logopol itself. No one knew just how old, but they had been in place long millennia before the First of the First, Merrin Corcaedus himself, had ever set foot on this world. From the final corridor into which the vator doors opened, it was a long walk down a dark spiralling stair lit only by the soft orange light of undying candles. A man might drop a stone over the edge of the stairwell and say his own name a dozen times before hearing it strike the bottom, if indeed he heard it at all. Few came this way save to inter the dead deep in hallowed earth. A chosen few, Karras’ khadit foremost among them, might be called down here at the behest of the Chapter Master, who, once seated on the Throne of Glass, would never again see the light of the Occludian day.
From the bottom of the stairs, it took Karras another half hour to reach his destination, and the stride of a Space Marine is far longer and faster than that of an ordinary man. He passed through the Halls of Honour, past the calcified and enthroned bodies of every Chapter Master the Death Spectres had ever known.
Though all this was illusion, some trick of the eldar witch, Karras still could not allow himself to pass by those who had sacrificed themselves on the Throne of Glass without saluting each, fist to chest, and offering up a whispered prayer of gratitude and profound respect.
All had been slowly petrified as the Shariax leeched their life force away. Why each had knowingly embraced such a fate was knowledge beyond Karras’ rank, but the need must have been great indeed.
He tried not to think about the fact that Athio Cordatus would, most likely, be the next Death Spectre to embrace that dark fate.
It was the way of the Chapter that each Chief of the Librarius be made Chapter Master when time demanded. The Shariax accepted only the most powerful psykers.
It was even conceivable, though humility made him scorn the notion, that Karras himself might one day be forced to sit upon it.
No, he thought. Most Deathwatch never even make it home. Likely my fate lies elsewhere.
After briefly praying at the feet of the petrified Corcaedus, last and largest of the enthroned masters, Karras entered the great cavern in which the Temple of Voices awaited, silent and brooding and monolithic, its pillars rising to points near the cavern roof, its great dome rimed with dirt and age but eternally strong.
He crossed the broad stone bridge that led to the entrance. Beneath him, far down in the dark, the icy waters of an underground river murmured like an army of ghosts, watching him, muttering about his trespass here. This was not a place Karras would ever have ventured without being called directly by the psychic impulse of the Megir.
Freed by the knowledge that all this was a lie ripped from his memory, he strode forward with purpose, eager to have it done with. At the arched stone doors, he stopped, wrestling the urge to show reverence, then placed a gauntleted hand on each and pushed. It took a great deal of strength. The doors were heavy, but he was powerful and they swung aside, grinding as they scraped across the stone floor. Dust and a light shower of debris fell from the ceiling as if no one had been here for many, many years.
He tried to ignore the forebodings that arose in him, but they grew more insistent as he neared his goal. Passing through two more sets of smaller, lighter doors, he found himself inside the final antechamber beyond which lay the main chamber.
He crossed to the final set of doors and breathed deep. The air was cold and dry and smelled of dust.
That was wrong. It should have smelled of incense.
He realised his primary heart was pounding.
Do not trust what you find beyond these doors, he told himself. The alien attempts to manipulate you. Nothing more. She serves only the needs of her insidious people. Do not be deluded. Not by any of it.
With that, he placed a hand on each of the stone inner doors, took a deep breath and pushed his way into the sacred chamber.
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