by Dan Abnett
If I got even a word wrong, a phrasing, a point of vocabulary, we would all be dead at the hands of an evil far worse than Cruor Vult.
SIX
Chaos against Chaos.
The price.
The consequence.
A moment. A freezing classroom many years before. Titus Endor and myself, shivering in our seats at ebonwood desks eroded by the scratchings and carvings of a thousand previous pupils. We were merely eighteen days into our initial training as junior interrogators. Inquisitor Hapshant had stormed in, slammed the door, cast his stack of grimoires down on the main lectern – which made us both jump – and declared: A servant of the Inquisition who makes Chaos his tool against Chaos is a greater enemy of mankind than Chaos itself! Chaos knows the bounds of its own evil and accepts it. A servant of the Inquisition who uses Chaos is fooling himself, denies the truth, and damns us all by his delusion!'
On the lakeshore at Miquol, I was not fooling myself. I knew how desperate this gamble was.
Commodus Voke, dead fifty years by then, had once said to me… and I paraphrase for I did not record it word for word at the time – '"Know your enemy" is the greatest lie we own. Never submit to it. The radical path has its attractions, and I admit I have been tempted over the years of my life. But it is littered with lies. Once you look to the warp for answers, for knowledge to use against the arch-enemy, you are using Chaos. That makes you a practitioner. And you know what happens to practitioners, don't you, Eisenhorn? The Inquisition comes for them.'
* * *
On that desolate beach, I felt sure I could sort truth from lies. Voke had simply misunderstood the fineness of the line.
Midas Betancore had once, during a late night of drinking and Glavian rules regicide, said, "Why do they do it? The radicals, I mean. Don't they understand that even getting close to the warp is suicide?'
With the runestaff in my hands, on that frozen island on Durer, I knew it wasn't suicide. It was the opposite.
Godwin Fischig, in a grave-field shrine on Cadia, had once warned me to stay away from any hint of radical sympathy. 'Trust me, Eisenhorn, if I ever thought you were, I'd shoot you myself!
It wasn't that simple. Emperor damn me, it just wasn't that simple! I thought of Quixos, such a brilliant man, such a stalwart servant of the Imperium, so totally polluted by treasonous evil because he had tried to understand the very filth he fought against. I had declared him heretic and executed him with my own hand. I understood the dangers.
Cruor Vult thundered towards me. I uttered the last of the potent syllables and dipped my mind into the warp. Not the simmering warp-scape of the Titan's mind-link, but the true warp. Channelled by the runestaff and warded by the prayers I had ritually intoned, I flowed into a vaster, darker void. I reached across the fabric of space towards Gudrun, far away, an entire sub-sector away, towards a private estate on the Insume Headland.
I reached into it, into a secret oubliette that had been vacuum sealed, warp-damped, void-shielded and locked with thirteen locks. Only I knew the codes to break down those barriers, for I had set them myself.
It was crumpled in the middle of the floor, wrapped in chains.
I woke it up. I set it free.
I jerked out of my trance. The runestaff bucked in my hands as the unleashed daemon energy flared through it.
I fought to retain my grip and to enunciate precisely the words of command and the specific instructions.
Like a small sun dawning, the enslaved daemon poured out of the head of the runestaff. Its radiance lit up the dismal shore and cast a long shadow out behind the Titan.
'Cherubael?' I whispered.
'Yessss…?'
'Kill it.'
* * *
Lightning crackled. A freak storm suddenly erupted over the lake, swirling the heavens and driving rain down in sheets, accompanied by fierce winds and catastrophic electrical displays.
A ghastly white thing, moving so rapidly it could only be registered as an afterimage on the retina, surged out of my staff and went straight into the black bulk of Cruor Vult.
The Titan hesitated, mid-step, one foot raised. It shuddered. Its great arms flailed for a moment. Then its chrome skull-face cracked, crazed and shattered, blowing out in a burst of sickly green light.
Cruor Vult swayed, the rainstorm drenching off its creaking bulk.
A halo of light lit up the lake shore and the old PDF base. Cruor Vult, ancient enemy of mankind, exploded from the waist up in a globe of furious white heat. Nothing of its head, torso or arms survived the immolation.
The legs, one foot still raised, tottered and swayed and then collapsed, falling sideways like an avalanche and destroying the ruined remains of the station's dish.
Cruor Vult was dead. Feyde Thuring was dead.
And I was unconscious, hurled back by the death-blast.
And that meant Cherubael was free.
If it had fled then, it would have escaped. Indeed, it might have fled deep enough into the miasmic warp to evade me forever, even if I exhausted what was left of my life trying to summon it back. It was wary of me now, and knew my tricks.
Certainly, it might have escaped far enough to avoid my clutches for many years to come, and in that time have cost the Imperium dearly.
But it did not. The daemon was too consumed by rancor for that.
It came back to kill me.
I woke with a start, and realised instantly that Cherubael was free thanks to my loss of control. I looked around, but it seemed like I was alone on the beach. The sky was still swollen with storm clouds, and lightning formed crackling golden crowns around the peaks of the mountains.
The rain was easing, pattering across the glossy, wet pebbles and the steaming ruin of Cruor Vult. My skin prickled. I knew it was still here.
I had done the unthinkable, and now I had to undo it. Cherubael had to be bound again. It could not be allowed to remain free.
I picked up the runestaff. The rain was washing the filmy blood off its hard, polished form. I held it firmly in my left hand and drew Barbarisater. The blade twitched, tasting the daemon in the air.
'Gracious Emperor of Mankind, hallowed be your majesty, bright be your light everlasting, vouchsafe your servant in this hour of peril-'
'That won't save you,' said a voice. I switched around, but there was no sign of a speaker.
'Bright be your light everlasting, vouchsafe your servant in this hour of peril, so that I may continue to serve you, great lord, and purify your dominion of-'
'It won't, Gregor. The Benediction of Terra? It's just words, Gregor. Just words.'
'.. continue to serve you, great lord, and purify your dominion of man, casting out all daemons and changelings of warpcraft-'
'But I have more than words for you, Gregor. I liked you, Gregor, of all men, you had a spirit I admired. I worked for you, I spared you more than once… consider that. All I asked in return was that you honour our compact and release me. And what did you do? You tricked me. You trapped me. You used me.'
The words seemed to echo all around me, but no matter how fast I turned, I could not see it. Its voice was in my head. I struggled to continue the repetitions, struggled to keep hold of the sense of the benediction, but it was hard. I wanted to answer its taunts. I wanted to rage at it that it had tricked me first. There had been no compact between us! It had used me to fashion its own escape from the enslaving charms Quixos had wrought around it.
I dared not. I focused on the repeats. Barbarisater shivered from hilt to tip, resonating with the psychic power that washed around me.
'…vouchsafe your servant in this hour of peril, so that I may continue to serve you, great lord-'
A star came out, over the lake. A hazy ring of white around a brilliant, gleaming centre. Almost fluttering, like a leaf on the wind, it eddied down towards me and settled a few metres away.
The pebbles beneath it turned to glass. The light was almost too bright to look at. Cherubael hovered in the centre of the
glare. He was at his most deadly now, non-corporeal, a daemon spirit, raw and bare, unfettered by a fleshly host. I could not resolve any real details in the light. In truth, I had no wish to gaze upon the daemon's true form. It was not even man-shaped any more. I had always presumed white light to be pure and somehow chaste, to be noble and good. But this whiteness was unutterably evil, chilling, its purity an abomination.
'…hallowed be your majesty, bright be your light everlasting…'
'Shut up, Gregor. Shut up so I can hear myself kill you/
My weapons, staff and sword, were useless physically. Cherubael had no host body to destroy. But they were strong psychically. I had banished Cherubael with the runestaff once before, and as far as I know obliterated his daemon kins Prophaniti. But my mind had been stronger in those battles, and psychic weapons are only as powerful as the will that directs them. Cherubael knew how tired and ill-focused I was. I could feel it trying to weaken me by teasing out the agonies I felt inside… Bequin, Medea, Aemos, Rassi, Haar… It wanted me to think about the deaths of those dear friends so that I would be weakened still further by grief.
But it was weak too. It had just expended huge reserves of power vanquishing a Titan.
The light surged forward, to test me, I think. I swung Barbarisater to deflect it and felt the electrical impact down my arm. It surged again and I swept the staff around, driving it back.
It circled me. I'd stung it. It knew it was in for a fight.
If that's what it wanted…
I lunged at it, Barbarisater keening. Cherubael blocked with a bar of luminous energy and convulsed out a pulse of pale radiance that blew me off my feet into the air.
I landed hard on the shingle, but sprang up fast, remembering every close combat move I'd been taught over the years by the likes of Harlon Nayl, Kara Swole, Arianrhod Esw Sweydyr, Midas, Medea…
It was coming right onto me, blinding bright. It was like fighting a star. I smashed at it with the head of my staff and then somersaulted out of its path, landing on my feet and sprinting away.
I ran under the smouldering arches of Cruor Vult's fallen legs and then back up the tough slog of the beach towards the station. I could distinctly hear the air rush as it burned after me.
I feinted left, but it had guessed as much. The daemon-star was right on me. I swung my sword, leapt to the right, and vaulted over its next blade of light using the staff as a pole.
Cherubael laughed. Its cackling voice followed me as I sprinted up between two longhouses. The daemon-star chased after me, its psychic force scattering the beach stones behind it in a wake.
I heard a groaning, crashing sound and realised the walls were closing in. Cherubael was lifting both longhouses off their blocks and crushing them together with me in between.
I tore through the wall of the left hand prefab with Barbarisater and leapt through as the juddering huts slammed into each other. Cherubael burned through the fibre-ply wall to get at me, and was greeted by my counter-attack of stabbing blade and staff.
I could drive it back, but I couldn't do any more than that. My mental reserves were just not strong enough.
My only chance was to bind him again. But how?
Dronicus came out of nowhere. I believe, or at least it is a notion I cling on to for the sake of my sanity, that the Emperor of Mankind provides help for his true servants in their hour of need, even in the strangest forms. Dronicus, old, insane Dronicus, had clearly been observing the day's dreadful events from hiding, and now he emerged because he had made a gravely mistaken apprehension. He had seen the white light of the daemon destroy the Titan. To him, therefore, the white light was a friend because it had vanquished a foe.
To him, the potent white light was the Emperor returned to save him.
He ran out of the shadows, calling the Emperor's name, praising him, piteously expressing his gratitude. He was an ancient, emaciated man dressed in dirt and rags. He should have offered no threat to the daemon whatsoever.
Except that, in the Emperor's honour, he had retrieved the fallen aquila altarpiece from the chapel and was holding it up in front of him.
Cherubael howled and backed away, tumbling like thistledown along the dirt track between the longhouses. Perplexed, Dronicus ran after it, offering words of worship to the Emperor that must have driven holy spikes into Cherubael's rotten soul.
I had a moment's respite from the assault.
I looked around. I knew I had to think fast.
Bastian Verveuk was still alive. He was a bloody, broken mess, his clothes and hair virtually burned off him from the cutter's death-blast. Though I loathed him for what he had done, I felt pity as I saw him. His eyes were still yearning. They seemed to light up with joy as they saw me approach. He reached out a bloody hand.
He thought I was coming to rescue him.
I confess here, now, that I hate myself for what I did. That I despised Verveuk does not excuse it. He was an odious wretch who had cost me more dearly than I could say, but he was still a servant of the Inquisition. And, damn him, he worshipped and trusted me.
But there was no alternative. I made the right decision. I had released Cherubael because Cruor Vult simply had to be stopped for the good of Mankind. Now Cherubael had to be stopped, and I was forced to make a similarly hard choice. I will pay. In time. In the hereafter, when I come before the Golden Throne.
I knelt beside him. His yearning face looked up at me. Damn that yearning, puppy look!
'M-master…'
'Bastian, are you a true servant of the Emperor?'
'I… I am…'
'And you will so serve him in any way you can?'
'I will, master.'
'And are you pure?' Foolish question! Verveuk's damned purity had led to all his mistakes. His puritanical piety had made him a liability in the first place.
But he was pure. As pure as any man could be.
I placed my hand on his chest and made my fingers wet with his blood. Then I daubed certain runes and markings on his forehead and face, on his neck and his heart, muttering seldom heard imprecations from the Malus Codicium.
"W-what are you doing?' he wavered. Damned questions, even now!
"What must be done. You are doing the Emperor's work, Bastian.'
A scream howled out of the station and Dronicus appeared, running terrified towards the lake. His hands were on fire, dripping with white-hot, molten metal.
Cherubael had finally found the strength to melt the aquila.
Still screaming, the poor old man plunged into the icy lake, the water steaming and spitting around his agonised hands.
Chembael's deadly star came shimmering down the beach towards me.
'Forgive me, Verveuk/ I said.
'O-of course, master/ he mumbled.
'F-for what?' he added, suddenly.
Bellowing the incantations of binding, the litany of servitus, the wards of entrapment, I met Cherubael head on, the runestaff glittering with power.
'In servitutem abduco, I bind thee fast forever into this host!'
'What in the name of hell happened here?' Fischig bellowed, his gun raised as he ran down towards me.
'Everything. Nothing. It's over, Fischig.'
'But… what is that?' he asked.
The daemonhost floated a few centimetres off the ground next to me. I had fashioned a leash from my belt, tied off around Verveuk's scorched, distended throat.
'I have trapped a daemon, Godwin. He is bound and cannot harm us now.'
'But… Verveuk?'
'Dead. We must honour him. He has given his all to the Emperor.'
Fischig looked at me warily. 'How did you know the means to bind a daemon, Eisenhorn?' he asked.
'I have learned much. It is an inquisitor's job to know these things.'
Fischig took a step back. Verveuk. /he began. 'He was dead before you used his body, wasn't he?'
I didn't answer. Three shuttles were powering in across the lake, preparing for landing. The reinforcements
summoned by Alizebeth had finally arrived.
SEVEN
Taking leave of Miquol. Gudran, sanctuary. Her heart's desire.
Iwanted nothing more than to be gone from the place. it had exhausted me and cost me.
My followers, well-drilled specialists all, deployed from the shuttles and took control of the area, rounding up the last of Thuring's dismayed accomplices. I was told that Menderef and Koth were on their way too, bringing with them units of militia and Inquisitorial guard.
I wasn't going to wait around for them.
There were things I wanted as few people as possible to see.
I issued instructions that would bite great holes out of my personal coffers. But I didn't care.
I sent Bequin away on a shuttle as fast as possible, with Nayl and Begundi guarding her.
Nayl was told to get her condition stabilised at the nearest general infirmary and then arrange passage for her off-world, to the Distaffs headquarters on Messina. They took Kara Swole with them too. Kara was alive, but seriously wounded.
I gave Fischig strict instructions to remain behind as my proxy. His heart didn't seem in it. I knew the daemonhost was troubling him more than he dared to say.
His brief was simple. Secure the island until the main Inquisitorial Party arrived. See to it that a full statement was made and that the cache
of dormant Chaos Titans was destroyed. Then formally close the Examination until further notice.
It didn't seem unreasonable. A senior inquisitor had just risked all and lost much stopping a Battle Titan. His withdrawal from the Durer Examination for recovery seemed utterly justified.
I would contact him later, and take it from there.
I was about to leave on another of the shuttles, with the silent, shrouded daemonhost, when the first piece of good news that day came to my attention.
Medea and Aemos had survived.
They were cut and battered, but she had dragged Aemos from the cutter crash and got him to cover before Verveuk had ejected. They had lain in cover, dazed and breathless.
They had seen everything.
I embraced them both. 'You're both coming with me/ I said.