by Dan Abnett
it didn't seem to help. And the wrongness still afflicted us. It was difficult to walk without stumbling in places.
We came upon the first of the arches, and Jeruss led us through, though we would have been able to follow the course without difficulty. Footsteps and the tracks of heavy vehicles had left deep prints and ruts in the soft dusty soil.
We were advancing up a cluster of hills, dark and uninviting with a glowering sky above. There were many-rows of arches, some overlapping. We became disoriented. It seemed on occasions that as we passed through one arch, we came out through another in a different row. The tracks never wavered or broke, but we seemed to blink between one aisle of hoops and another. And the angles of the joints in the arches were – as Jeruss had said – geometrically incorrect.
'I think,' Aemos said quietly to me as we walked onwards, 'the lack of symmetry is in every particular and every dimension.'
'Meaning?'
The three we can see and the fourth – time. Dimensions have been stretched and warped. Perhaps accidentally. Perhaps to torment us. Perhaps for some other purpose. But I think that is why things are so twisted and wrong.'
We came at last upon the place Jeruss had called the plateau. It was a flat-topped mound nearly a kilometre across, smoothly tiled with octagonal tesserae that mocked logic. The sides sloped down to the dusty soil and all around, the site was ringed by ragged brown peaks and crags. Above, the sky was dark and flecked with stars.
On our side of the plateau, a semi-circle of several hundred men sat huddled around the rim, waiting. I could feel their tension. More than half of them were Gudrunites; the others were troopers. Smaller groups of soldiers stood in ordered ranks further towards the centre of the plateau, escorting two navy troop carriers in which figures sat, and a pair of empty landspeeders. A pile of crates had been removed from the carriers and piled on the tiled ground.
On the far side of the plateau, a row of arches led away into the surrounding rocks.
We lay in cover and waited, watching.
After an interminable period, there was movement on the far side and figures emerged from the arches. Even at a distance, I could tell they were Dazzo and Malahite, with four naval troopers in escort. They came out briskly, signalling to the main group at the vehicles. All the troops around the rim got to their feet.
Other shapes now appeared through the arches. They were impossible to define at first; grey, reflective shapes that had no human form or intelligible movement.
I took out my scope, and trained it on them, carefully resolving the magnification.
And I saw the saruthi for the first time.
There were nine of them, as far as I could tell. They made me think of arachnids, or crustaceans, but neither comparison was entirely accurate. From their flat, grey bodies extended five supporting limbs, jointed in such a way so that the main mid-limb joint was raised higher than the horizontal torso. There was no symmetry to the arrangement of limbs, or to the way in which they moved. Their scuttling pace was irregular and without repetition of order. It was disturbing merely to watch them walk. Each limb ended in a calliper of polished silver, a metal stilt clasped in the digits of each limb, lifting them a further metre or so off the ground. The metal spikes of the stilts made a clacking, tapping sound on the hard tiles that I could hear despite the distance. Their heads were oblate shapes rising on thick, boneless columns from the tops of their bodies. They had long skulls and lacked obvious mouths or eyes, though several flaring, nostril-like openings showed on their snouts. There was no symmetry to the arrangement of these openings either, nor to the shape of the skulls, and their necks sprouted off-centre from their backs.
They were loathsome, filthy things. Each creature was twice the mass of a man, with gleaming grey flesh.
Shouts and noises of alarm came from some of the waiting men. Several turned and fled from the plateau, scrabbling, wailing.
The nine saruthi clicked their way out into the open from the hoop, fanning out until they formed a semi-circular line facing Dazzo and Malahite. I saw Oberon Glaw, Gorgone Locke, Estrum and the monstrous form of Mandragore descend from the vehicles to join their comrades.
I confess that I was, by then, as afraid as those with me. I have seen horror, and horror itself does not terrify me. Nor indeed was there anything horrific about these beings. Alien, yes, and as a puritan that was alarming. But objectively, they were impressive, striking creatures; assured, almost majestic.
My fear stemmed from a deeper, gut instinct. As with this world we had entered, there was a wrongness to them, to their shape, their movement, their design. Each scuttling limb, each swaying head, betrayed an unholy nature. I could not have believed how reassuring symmetry could be, and how distressing might be its lack. They were warped things, warped from any civilised sense of grace, any human understanding of aesthetics. Their bodies and limbs were so irregular, they didn't even seem to make sense as if, like the tiles and the arches, their angles didn't add up correctly.
Fear, then, swayed me. I looked around at my companions, and saw fear on their gazing faces too; fear, revulsion, disbelief.
Aemos saved my life and sanity. He and he alone stared in wonder at the saruthi, a perplexed smile of intellectual delight on his ancient face.
'Most perturbatory/ I heard him murmur.
That simple detail made me laugh. My confidence returned, and with it, my resolve. I waved Fischig and the soldier, Twane, over to me, and then made certain that Bequin, Midas and Jeruss were sufficiently in control of
their faculties to be left in charge. Jeruss and Twane needed some fierce cajoling. Bequin was already prepared, her weapons drawn. The sight of Mandragore had fired her will.
'Wait for my signal/ I told Midas. To Fischig I said, 'Keep an eye on our friend here/ meaning Twane.
The three of us crept down from cover and approached the edge of the plateau. The men were all on their feet, murmuring, alarmed, looking at the meeting taking place at the centre of the platform. Naval security officers scolded the Gudrunites and kept them in line, but I could tell they were uneasy too.
We came up the slope and melted into the watching crowd. Gudrunites got out of our way – three more naval oppressors with blank visors and low-strapped hell-guns.
We came almost to the front of the crowd. A trooper near me growled, 'I didn't sign up for this!' as he stared at the saruthi two hundred metres away.
'Pull yourself together!' I snapped to him and he looked at me sharply.
'It isn't right!' he murmured.
'We'll see, won't we?' I said, patting my hell-gun. 'If Estrum and these others have led us into a nightmare, they'll see how Scarus Fleet's troopers account for themselves!'
He nodded and readied his own weapon.
Twane, Fischig and I moved forward again. No one paid us any heed. Indeed, many troopers were moving forward to flank the vehicles now.
I looked again at the meeting. Oberon Glaw, his long robes spilling down from upraised arms, was greeting the saruthi with words I couldn't hear. It went on a while.
Finally, he half turned and gestured towards the waiting crates. His voice reached me.
'And in good faith we have brought the properties as agreed.'
Locke moved back from the group. 'Attend me!' he ordered to the naval troopers around him. I moved forward at once, and so did Fischig. In a second, we were part of a team of more than a dozen troopers carrying the first of the crates forward. I was right next to Locke, my black-gloved hands clutching the carrying handle next to his brawny fists.
We set the crates down in front of the saruthi and withdrew a few paces. Locke remained and opened a crate lid as one of the saruthi clattered forward.
I saw them now, close to. It was no better. Their grey skin was covered with whorled pores, and the nostrils on their snouts flared and clenched. I could see that each of their limbs ended in what looked abominably like a human hand, grey skinned, gripping the cross-bar of each silver stilt.
<
br /> The saruthi that had moved forward set two of his stilts down on the tiles and reached into the open crate with flickering fingers. It searched by touch for a moment, and then withdrew its hands empty. Its eyeless skull swayed slightly on its neck. Then it raised those free hands high, clasped together, as a man might raise his hands over his head in victory.
The long, rubber-jointed fingers of each hand – and I cannot say for sure how many digits each hand had or even if they each had the same number – twisted and clenched around each other and formed a shape. A visage. A human face. Eyes, a nose, a wide mouth. Perfect, impossible, chilling.
The raised effigy of a face seemed to study us. Then the mouth moved.
'Your bond you have with truth made, being man/
There was a hush of alarm in the crowd at my back. The voice was dull and tuneless, without inflection, but the finger-mouth puppeted the speech with awful precision.
Then we may trade?' Glaw stammered.
The hands parted and the face vanished. The creature took up its stilts again and scuttled backwards. Its kin also moved back, away from the arch.
More creatures emerged, more saruthi identical to those who had already appeared, flanking other things. There seemed to be four of them, with body structures similar to the aliens, but they were bloated and misshapen. Their rugose flesh was white and sickly and blotched with marks that seemed like disease. Instead of stilts, their limbs were fitted with heavy, metal hooves, linked all around by wires that acted like shackles. These pallid, wretched things – slaves of the saruthi I had no doubt –moaned as they moved, filling the air with a sickly whining. The waiting saruthi jabbed at them with the points of their stilts as they clattered past onto the plateau.
Between them, on their backs, the four slave-things carried a trapezoidal casket of black metal, covered with irregularly spaced wart-like protuberances. They came to a halt and sank down onto their bellies.
Dazzo and Malahite moved forward, approaching the casket bearers. A stilted saruthi scuttled around beside them, reached a long limb over to extend his silver calliper, and pressed the point against one of the protuberances.
The casket opened on invisible hinges, like the petals of a malformed flower. I think I had expected light to radiate out, or some other show of power.
There was none. Malahite stepped forward between the kneeling limbs of the slave-things and reached out, but Dazzo pushed him back with a curse and a slap of psychic power that sent him sprawling.
A ripple of response ran through the saruthi, making them scuttle on the spot.
Now Dazzo reached into the casket. He took out a tiny oblong, no bigger than a boltgun's magazine, and held it in trembling hands, gazing at it.
A book. Ancient parchment encased in a sleeve of black saruthi metal, closed with a clasp.
Well, ecclesiarch?' Glaw growled. 'We need confirmation.'
Dazzo unclasped the cover and turned the first antique page.
The true matter is ours,' he stammered, and fell to his knees. The Necroteuch. They had the Necroteuch. It was now or never, I thought.
TWENTY
My ally, confusion.
The wrath of Mandragore.
Against Oberon.
I bellowed, 'Look out! They're attacking!' and slammed myself hard into the two troopers by my side. As we went over in a clumsy, thrashing heap, I fired my hell-gun wildly for good measure.
Tension among the humans gathered around the plateau was intense. The saruthi, I firmly believe, had deliberately used their devices and environment to foment that tension, perhaps intending to weaken and cow the humans they found themselves dealing with. If so, they had done too good a job. Gudranites and troopers alike were at snapping point, their minds and spirits rattled by their location and by what they had seen. A warning voice and a few shots was all it took to spill the tension over.
All around me, men yelled out and weapons crackled. Assuming an attack on their high-born leaders, the troopers still firmly loyal to Glaw and Estram surged forward, firing on the saruthi with their assault guns. Others wavered in confusion and lashed out at those around them. The Gudranites around the rim of the plateau turned their guns on their oppressors, or fired at the vehicles.
From the rim of the plateau, Midas and Bequin led our rearguard in a charge, weapons blazing.
In a second, the air was full of shouts and screams, gunfire and skittering las-bolts. Total confusion reigned.
I could hear Jeruss on the guard vox channel rallying his comrades, calling for them to turn on the navy personnel. The naval security combat channel was riven with orders and countermands, squeals of rage and bellowed curses. I heard Oberon Glaw screaming for order, and the baying howl of Mandragore behind it all.
'Fischig! Twane! Sow confusion! Make for the target!'
Disguised like me, the pair moved forward. The mayhem was too dense and frenzied for there to be any sense of opposing sides. Guards fought naval troopers, or even each other, and indiscriminate fire whipped in all directions.
I shot down a trooper who ran past me, and another nearby who turned in dismay. Past them, I saw the tall, spare form of the rogue captain, Estrum, gazing at me through the smoke wash with incredulity. His eyes bulged more than ever. What the hell are you doing, trooper?' he managed to bark, his pronounced Adam's apple bobbing furiously.
'Performing the ministry of the sacred Inquisition,' I told him and shot him through the head.
The saruthi had been thrown into a state of great agitation. I have no way of knowing what emotions they were experiencing, if they experienced any at all. But they reacted as if horrified by the turn of events, distressed and appalled. Hell-gun fire from troopers who were convinced that the aliens were the aggressors blasted into two of them. One burst open and collapsed onto the tiles in a spreading pool of grey ichor and gristle. The other lost a limb and began to drag itself towards the arches with its remaining stilts.
Over the tumult of gunfire and human voices, the saruthi began to wail. Whether it was a threat, a warning, a call of distress, or an order to retreat I could not tell. They scuttled maniacally, their alien shriek shaking the air.
Two clattered forward suddenly, towards the bewildered trooper escort. Electric-blue discharges fizzled around the saruthi's swaying heads and then spat raking beams of ice-bright energy at their attackers. Two troopers were vaporised, their constituent matter boiling away in searing flashes of light.
I caught sight of Mandragore. The brute had already killed one trooper in an attempt to curtail the mindless wildfire, but now the saruthi had fired on them, the troopers clearly felt justified in their action and redoubled their efforts. An alien beam sliced into Mandragore's arm, and rage consumed him. He attacked the saruthi himself, wielding a massive chain-axe.
I hoped they'd kill him.
I pushed through a jumble of bodies and came out on the other side of the parked vehicles. Ahead I saw Dazzo, still kneeling by the ghastly white slave-beasts as if in a trance. The unholy prize was clenched in his hands.
I ran at him.
Fischig, his helmet missing, appeared alongside me. His borrowed black armour was awash with blood.
'Twane!' he bawled over his shoulder, and the disguised Gudrunite appeared, running after us, firing from the hip. Grenades were now exploding amid the mindless fighting. Bodies and chips of octagonal tiling were hurled into the air. One of the troop carriers was on fire.
The three of us were closest by far to the accursed 'true matter'. A saruthi came ploughing forward, spurring the jostling, frenzied slave-things aside with its stilt-spikes as it made for Dazzo.
With a juddering blow from one stilt, it knocked the kneeling man over and sent the Necroteuch scattering from his hands.
Malahite, on his hands and knees by the slave-things, let out a cry and dived after it. The saruthi jittered around to stop him just as Fischig and Twane blew it apart with hell-gun shots. Stringy grey fluid splashed across the tessellated tiles.
>
Another saruthi, its skull crackling with electrical power, blasted its kin's murderers. Twane convulsed and exploded in a drizzle of matter. By his side, Fischig was thrown over by the blinding detonation, his armour ripped open.
There was no time to help him. Clutching the book, Malahite was running away across the plateau, away from the straggled, brutal warfare. I severed his left leg at the knee with a round from my hell-gun and he dropped onto his face. When I reached him, he was clawing forward, daubed in blood, reaching for the fallen book.
'Leave it!' I snapped, pulling off my helmet and pointing the hell-gun down at him one handed. He saw my face and cursed. I knelt and picked up the little volume. Even through my armoured gloves, I could feel its heat. For a second, a long hypnotised second, it was all I knew. I understood why Dazzo had remained kneeling there for so long after he first grasped it. The content of the book, that ancient lore, was alive somehow, fidgeting, rustling, calling to me.
Calling me by name.
It knew me. It beckoned to me, telling me to open it and experience its wonders. I didn't even think to resist. What it was showing me was so wondrous, so sublime, so beautiful… the stars themselves, and behind the stars, the mechanisms of reality, the intricate and oh-so perfect workings of a transcendent natural force we misguidedly and dismissively called Chaos.
I undid the wire-like claps that kept the book shut…
Abruptly, a rough, foul psychic force burst into my mind, breaking the spell. I began to turn, to look away from the opening book. That half-turn was just enough to stop me dying.
I was felled by a monumental blow to the shoulder. As I dropped, the book spun helplessly from my yearning hand. The tiles underneath me were awash with blood.
My blood.
I rolled over as the next blow came. The screaming teeth of the chain axe missed me by a hair's breadth and shattered the bloody tiles.
Mandragore, bastard child of the Emperor.
I scrambled backwards in blind panic. The stinking Chaos warrior was right on me, his lurid armour flecked with human blood and alien ichor. My dazed half-turn at the last moment had spoiled his first blow, but still the back plate of my naval trooper combat armour was shredded; the left shoulder guard was completely ripped away. The glancing shoulder wound was savage and deep. Blood gouted through torn flesh and armour, cascading down my left arm. Writhing backwards, I found my hands slipping on the blood-washed octagons.