Blackstone Fortress

by Darius Hinks

  It was like firing at a tsunami. The pyramids rolled across the floor and exploded into the chamber. One latched on to Draik’s chest, another on to Vorne’s neck. Three thudded into Grekh, clattering furiously as they shredded his skin and he staggered backwards, blood spraying from his beak.

  There was a loud clink as the chamber closed, turning the opening into another polished facet of the prism.

  The torrent outside continued, but it crashed uselessly against the surface of the chamber. Draik could not see them through the black crystal, but he could hear them, drumming against the surface and thrashing their limbs. He wrenched the machine from his chest, held it at arm’s length and prepared to shoot it. Then he noticed that the pool of oil was now littered with fragments of the pyramid shells. They were melting and sinking from view.

  He dropped the drone into the pool. It thrashed its limbs then froze, as though stunned. Then it fragmented as the oil closed over it, scattering pieces of shell across the gloopy liquid. The others followed his lead, flinging their attackers into the pool with a torrent of curses and gasps. Grekh was covered in the things so he plunged beneath the surface, vanishing from view. He rose a second later, free of the machines but also free of oil, which seemed too heavy to cling to his hide.

  They all stood there, panting, looking around the chamber, trying to catch their breath. Draik checked them each in turn. Audus was fine; she barely seemed to have broken a sweat. Corval was studying the chamber with interest, clearly unhurt. Isola was bleeding from a wound to her neck and her uniform had been torn on one side, but she seemed fine otherwise. Grekh was busy chewing on something, biting down with his thick, brutal-looking beak. It was a fragment of shell – taken from one of the pyramid devices. As Draik watched, Grekh managed to gulp the fragment down, gagging slightly, before leaning back against the faceted walls with his eyes closed, lost in thought. Next to him were the remaining guards. There were three of his men left, and they were looking at the chamber with undisguised dismay, no doubt unnerved by what had just happened to their comrades outside. Taddeus was still on the far side of the chamber, fiddling with something, so Draik waded through the oil towards him.

  The priest was running his hand over the crystal’s faces, whispering as he used his other hand to tap the surface with his mace. As Draik watched, one of the facets fell back at his touch, revealing a bowl of oil contained in a recess about halfway up the wall, level with Taddeus’ chest. The substance looked identical to the liquid they were standing in, but there was a difference: this was the source of the heat. It radiated from the bowl like animal warmth. There was no mistaking it; the invisible trail they had followed stemmed from this point.

  Taddeus was drenched in sweat, his robes clinging to his slabby limbs. He turned to face Draik with a wary expression. ‘Caresus? You came all this way, just to visit my humble temple?’ He embraced Draik in a damp hug. ‘I’m honoured, your excellency. I will have rooms prepared. When you are rested, meet me in the cloisters and I will tell you what I have learned.’

  ‘I’m Captain Draik, your excellency. We’re on the Blackstone Fortress.’

  Vorne appeared at Taddeus’ side and gripped his arm, looking concerned.

  Taddeus laughed, then frowned, giving Draik a wary look. He looked at Vorne, who nodded. ‘He’s right, excellency,’ she said. ‘Captain Draik is helping us find the vault. Remember?’

  Taddeus’ eyes clouded over and, for a second, his suspicious look was replaced by one of fear. Then he shook his head, puffed out his chest and shrugged her off. ‘Of course I remember,’ he snarled. ‘I was just showing the captain the controls.’

  He nodded at the pool, about to say more when Draik interrupted him.

  ‘Why did you let them run?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My guards. You let them run towards the light, straight into those shadows. Why didn’t you stop them?’

  Taddeus looked pained. ‘Forgive me, captain. My memory…’ He clenched his fists, struggling to find the right words. ‘Sometimes it plays tricks on me.’

  The priest looked ashamed of his failure and Draik’s anger faded. He nodded to the bowl of oil. ‘How does this work? I’ve not seen controls like this in any of the other chambers.’

  Taddeus nodded, clearly glad to change the subject.

  By now the others had gathered round them to watch. Grekh was still crunching noisily on a piece of shell. ‘Does it only go to one place?’ he asked.

  Taddeus made a point of ignoring the kroot and spoke to Draik. ‘It leads only to the Ascuris Vault. Place your hand in and see.’

  Draik hesitated, considering the enormity of what lay ahead. He was minutes away from proving or disproving his theory.

  He plunged his hand into the oil.

  9

  ‘Betrayed from birth,’ said the voice in the dark. ‘Taught to feel ashamed and hide behind a disguise. And then, when you took off your mask, and showed your worth, what did they do?’

  ‘Abandon me,’ replied Glutt.

  Light shimmered in response to his words, a few feet away, tracing the bulbous curve of a glass. The shape was familiar, but the light guttered and died before he could give it a name.

  ‘They betrayed you,’ said the voice. There was such sympathy in its tone. Such understanding. He had never heard anything like it.

  Daemon. The Imperium’s most terrible secret. They existed. They were real. He had looked beyond the needle’s eye, and this is what he had found: ether-spawn. He should have been terrified, but nothing in the daemon’s words matched the horror faced on Sepus. The willingness of man to abandon man. To turn away as the bombs fell. The willingness to denounce a soul as loyal and noble as Lieutenant Sorov’s. That was the true threat. He had long suspected the truth, watching the callous brutality of his superiors, but since Sepus, Glutt had seen with a new clarity. Seen the truth he had always guessed at. The enemy was not without but within, hiding in the feeble hearts of men.

  ‘Commander Ortegal betrayed me,’ he said. The name dragged bile into his mouth and the light flared again, revealing more of the glass. This time Glutt saw it clearly. A small still. The daemon called it an alembic.

  The daemon. Its name was unpronounceable. The closest he could manage was Fluxus. It had set him adrift in a heady dream. As Sepus fell, Fluxus had carried him up through its burning skies, guiding him, teaching him, helping him harness the nascent power beneath his skin. The daemon had offered him wealth and freedom, but Glutt only asked for one thing: the head of Commander Ortegal.

  Whole worlds had flashed beneath Glutt’s feet since then, sights beyond imagining. All the daemon asked was that Glutt collect specimens as they travelled: pieces of bark, vials of marsh gas, fragments of bone, flakes of oxidised metal – ingredients to be dropped into the bubbling alembic. All the while, Fluxus promised that the time would come. Soon Glutt would punish Ortegal for his betrayal.

  Glutt dragged his gaze from the pale light and looked around. The daemon had shown him places of incredible beauty, but now they were in a void. He was standing on a cold, slate-grey floor, which vanished into shadow a few feet in either direction. There was only him, the voice of the daemon and the alembic. It was a crude-looking thing – a pot-bellied beaker, with a long, snout-like funnel through which he had pushed whatever fragments of teeth and metal Fluxus requested. It was rattling on the cold floor as the fire grew in its centre.

  ‘Vengeance,’ he whispered. The light flared and a shape flickered in the flames. Something tiny and foetal. Glutt reached out and allowed power to rise from his palm, then he hurled light into the shadows. To his surprise, the darkness resisted, pushing back, crushing his light to a pale dome, before extinguishing it completely and returning him to shadow.

  In the brief conflagration, he glimpsed figures – gun-toting soldiers, their heads bowed and hooded, their flak jackets torn.

  �
��Who is that?’ He felt no fear. Fluxus was calm and Fluxus knew every thing. The strangers could not be a threat.

  ‘Your old regiment,’ replied the daemon.

  ‘They’re alive?’

  ‘As alive as they ever were.’ The daemon hesitated. ‘Humans are never much more than hollow shells, Glutt, propelled by senseless biology but never perceiving more than a fraction of the wonders around them. Only a rare few, such as yourself, become something more. I merely preserved a few shells from the flames of Sepus to protect us as we create our weapon. Even in here we are not entirely safe.’

  Glutt considered looking at the men again. He recalled the awkward, unnatural way they had been standing, and imagined them waiting silently all around him in the darkness. Even before the daemon explained it, he had guessed the truth. He had progressed far beyond the lowly creatures he once called brother. His eyes had been opened. His mind awakened. He decided to leave them to the shadows.

  ‘Where is here?’ he asked, looking back at the alembic. The foetus had developed a large, bubble-like swelling. A face. Three little eyes, gummed shut like puckered scars. A hint of boneless nose. A wide, smiling mouth.

  ‘A cancrum.’ Despite being no bigger than a human hand, the daemon’s voice was a rich and humorous, the growl of a benign bear. ‘A place to work.’

  Glutt tried again to pierce the dark. He saw the same frozen glimpse of his comrades, their heads still bowed, before the light failed. He dropped to one knee and touched the floor. It was cold, so cold that frost splintered across his glove, glittering and aching through his finger bones.

  ‘Not that,’ said Fluxus. ‘That’s Old Unfathomable. Humans would call it a Blackstone. The cancrum is the shell that’s growing around us. We are building a cocoon, so we can hold our place in here for long enough. Old Unfathomable isn’t keen on visitors. She would drive us out if she could.’

  The bubble-face rose from the liquid with an audible pop and looked up at him. The three scars prised themselves open to reveal coal-black eyes, blinking and tacky with pus.

  ‘The cancrum will keep us safe as we grow your weapon,’ said Fluxus. There was another popping sound as more of the daemon emerged from the skin soup. It bubbled and slid into the neck of the alembic, distorting its face into an elongated leer as it squeezed down the narrow channel.

  Glutt watched, fascinated as the daemon birthed itself, spewing onto the cold stone floor. It was a fountain of bloodless muscle, rippling and unfolding as it grew. A few minutes later, Fluxus stood swaying before Glutt, stretching its limbs and arching its back as though emerging from a long sleep.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘The betrayed,’ said Fluxus, the humour fading from its voice. ‘Just as you are. The False Emperor turned His back on me long before Commander Ortegal did the same to you.’ The daemon reached out to Glutt, extending a flabby, pallid limb. ‘But together we will have our revenge.’

  Glutt pictured the face of Lieutenant Sorov, burning in the pyres of Commander Ortegal’s treachery. Anger hardened his resolve. He reached out and his hand closed around a soft, slippery claw. ‘Tell me what to do,’ he said.

  Fluxus gripped his hand tighter and the daemon’s mouth tore into a wide smile. ‘You have already done it. You carried me here. To a place where no one can hurt us or interfere with our work. You have already achieved something incredible.’

  Glutt shrugged, humbled by the daemon’s praise. ‘You gave me a whole new form. You saved me and remade me. And you made me strong enough to survive the virus bombs. Smuggling you onto that junk hauler was an easy enough task in comparison.’ Glutt was being modest. It had been terrifying travelling on Imperial vessels knowing that he was a host for something utterly forbidden, knowing what he was carrying in his soul, knowing that discovery would result in summary execution. But Fluxus’ voice had been there, constantly, reassuring him as he stowed away on ship after ship. The daemon had promised that, if they could just cross the system and reach a thing called a Blackstone Fortress, it would be able to leave Glutt’s body and regain physical form, and that they would both be safe.

  Fluxus smiled again. ‘You did more than smuggle me on a ship. You got me here, to the very heart of the Blackstone. I think you are already forgetting how hard that was.’

  Glutt frowned, trying to recall the journey but finding that his memories were strangely jumbled. He remembered angular, black machines flooding through the darkness towards him, collapsing as he unleashed waves of growing, unshackled power. He sensed that it had taken incredible amounts of violence to come this far, but hard as he tried, he could only remember fragments.

  ‘Old Unfathomable has muddied your thoughts,’ laughed Fluxus. ‘She has a habit of doing that. But trust me, I could never have come this far without you to carry me and hide me.’ The daemon waddled away, its bloated bulk teetering on cloven hooves as it vanished into the darkness.

  Glutt followed. There was no break in the darkness but as their footfalls echoed away he sensed that they were in a vast, empty hall. Eventually, Glutt heard noises. It sounded like the crashing of waves on rocks – a distant, thunderous boom that grew louder as they walked. When they finally reached a wall, the noise was unbearable – a seismic, rolling crash, as though mountains were crashing down around them.

  Fluxus pointed to the wall, indicating that Glutt should touch it.

  He hesitated. It was the same bristling black armour he had seen beneath Governor Narbo’s skin – the shell of a mollusc or the carapace of an insect.

  Fluxus gave him a reassuring nod, its three eyes blinking with excitement. It’s safe, said the daemon, speaking directly into his mind so as to be heard over the din.

  Glutt touched the wall and it juddered beneath his palm, jolted by the tumult outside.

  The cancrum holds, said the daemon. We’re safe in our cocoon.

  Glutt shook his head, wondering at the violence that was trying to break through to them. +What’s out there?+ he thought.

  The Blackstone, replied the daemon and, for a moment, its good humour faltered. She wants us gone.

  Since the joining of their minds, Glutt saw echoes of the daemon’s thoughts. It was afraid of whatever was thrashing against the wall. The idea troubled him. He did not intend to be failed again.

  Commander Ortegal must die,+ he thought, eyeing the daemon suspiciously.

  Fluxus jerked and twisted, still in the process of being born. The bird’s foot growths at the end of its wrists swelled and cracked into heavy, pitted crab claws. Fluxus nodded, evidently pleased by this new development. The cancrum will hold. Old Unfathomable is an affront to nature. She is beyond nature – from beyond the stars – but in this rarefied air, you and I will create wonders.

  In the distance, a flash of emerald flame managed, briefly, to punch through the heavy pall.

  Fluxus rushed back the way they had come, leaving the tidal roar of the wall behind.

  When they returned to the alembic, its contents were burning so brightly Glutt had to shield his eyes. The liquid had vanished, replaced by a teeming mass of grubs. They looked like worms or pupae, but lit from within like fireflies, their flesh pulsing and shimmering as they coiled around each other inside the glass.

  ‘Quick,’ snapped Fluxus. ‘We need one of your comrades.’

  Glutt did as the daemon asked, summoning the Guardsmen over with a thought. The shadows trembled and shifted as they trudged towards him, closing around the alembic in a circle.

  As they approached the glass, the light of the worms washed over them, revealing the strange nature of Glutt’s regiment. Most of them had hidden their faces behind masks and rebreathers, but some of their eyes were visible, and they were the blue-white eyes of corpses. They moved with a jerking, automaton-like gait and they wheezed as they walked, a thin, bubbling hiss that did not sound like it came from a human throat. They responded to Glutt’s unsp
oken command, but they were no more than puppets, animated by his will.

  Glutt peered through the gloom at their uniforms. They were still clad in their standard issue Astra Militarum garb, but the regimental insignia had been obscured or snapped off, replaced by the vile, jagged stars of Chaos.

  ‘Will these things be any use in a battle?’

  Fluxus smiled. ‘Their past has died, but their flesh is still strong. See for yourself.’ It nodded at Glutt’s staff.

  Glutt leant back and swung the staff, slamming its head into a Guardsman’s stomach.

  It was like hitting a rotten log. The staff connected with a dull thud and the man’s flak jacket oozed black, tar-like liquid, but the Guardsman barely staggered. Nor did he look at Glutt, keeping his cloudy eyes fixed on the shadows.

  Still smiling, the daemon nodded at Glutt’s pistol.

  He drew it and fired, at point-blank range, into the Guardsman’s chest. This time the soldier did stagger back a few paces and more of the dark, clotted liquid spattered across the floor, but then he stepped calmly back into place, seemingly oblivious to the hole Glutt had just ripped through his chest.

  Glutt’s pulse was racing. He fired again and again, causing the soldier to jerk and dance. He pictured all the lying wretches who led him into an unwinnable war and laughed as he fired, sending the soldier staggering away from him.

  The whole scene seemed suddenly hilarious. His laughter became hysterical as the pistol kicked and blazed in his hand.

  ‘Stay with me,’ said Fluxus, placing a claw on his arm.

  Glutt reined in his laughter and lowered the gun, still giggling as he saw that the soldier was still standing. ‘With an army like this we will be unstoppable,’