Ahriman: Unchanged

by John French

  To see the Monolith from a distance was to see a twisted moon made of jagged edges. Seen closer – so that the lights of ships holding close to her skin could be observed – she looked like the swollen carcass of a great sea creature feeding a school of scavenger fish. To eyes looking at her through a viewport on those ships, she was a jagged cliff, blocking out the stars. Canyons crazed her surface, each one wide enough to swallow a battle cruiser. Prows of ships jutted from her like broken sword blades. Pockets of iridescent gas clung to kilometre-deep folds in her skin, and pinprick points of light shone in fields across mountain ranges of crushed hulls.

  The Oathtaker watched as smaller ships slid close to the Monolith’s surface. Gantries reached out and gripped the ships, pulling them close like a mother hugging her young. Each ship was kilometres long and held tens of thousands of creatures. Most were mutants bred on worlds within the Eye’s depths. Herds of mutants and covens of cultists already warred with each other for his favour in regions of wrecked ships. It was an army of the crazed and the twisted, and much of it had gathered to him without him needing to call. They had come like carrion slinking towards the smell of death.

  The Oathtaker’s mind licked at the shifting currents of the warp. His lieutenants stood behind him like an honour guard, as though they needed to be present for this moment. The Thousand Sons, he had always thought, had a need for ritual and significance. Nothing could simply be; every action had to be tinged with the momentous.

  Ahriman will sense our coming,+ sent Calitiedies. The Oathtaker did not turn or look at his lieutenants.

  He may, but does that matter?+ replied Zurcos.

  Surprise is an advantage. He who gives away an advantage unnecessarily is a fool,+ sent Calitiedies.

  The strength we have here–+

  You forget what we face.+ Calitiedies shook his head as he cut through Zurcos’s sending. +You forget who we face. Ahriman and all of the Exiles that he can gather to him. Alone he is dangerous enough. With the others at his side…+

  We were always few,+ sent Zurcos, +and Amon scattered or broke those who would not join him. After that the few became even fewer.+

  From a certain view within the warp, Amon is out there still,+ sent the Oathtaker. His thought voice was soft, but silenced every other mind. +He is out there now looking for you and the other Exiles, making his Brotherhood of Dust, preparing for a war that will never begin.+ He looked to where Memunim stood in fresh armour, silent at the back of his brothers. +That is one of the reasons that Ahriman is blinded to what we do. He came looking for you all, and found you gone. He believed that it was Amon. He heard long ago of powers gathering to a lord of sorcerers, but he assumed it was Amon. Now he believes that time has passed. We are hidden in Amon’s shadow.+

  You said that was one reason he does not see us,+ sent Memunim, the message coiled with coldness. +What are the others?+

  The Oathtaker paused and felt the tension grow in the silence.

  Go,+ he sent, and pulsed his dismissal. +The tides are moving and the warp whispers. The time is almost on us.+

  The Fortress where they gathered did not exist and could not be understood. If a mortal mind had perceived them – the gathered creatures, the chamber and the being at its heart before which they bowed – that mind would have collapsed into insanity before it could begin to describe what it had seen and heard. Had such a mortal lived long enough and been strong enough to speak it might have spoken of a library and of creatures with feathers and wings, and a vast pillar of mouths and light. If such a mortal had spoken, all its words and screamed description would have been a lie, for no mortal could perceive the Court of Change or the Changer of Ways. But in the Realm of Chaos a lie served as well as a truth.

  ‘He must continue!’ hissed one of the throng.

  Feathers ripped, and beaks clacked in dissent. Sparks of blue and pink snapped through the chamber. The web of stairs shifted. Blue figures screeched and ran as columns of paper shifted and collapsed. Sheets of undiscovered lore exploded and began to fall upwards and downwards, burning to ash or folding into birds. The throng of the court ignored the disturbance. It might portend the death of worlds or the fall of endeavours long in the making, but all of it was insignificant compared to the argument at hand.

  ‘He does not acknowledge his place in the greater designs…’ spat a figure.

  ‘Worship is worthless,’ replied another.

  ‘Only the unworshipped say so.’

  ‘His ignorance is a greater delight than the possibility of his acknowledging the truth.’

  ‘He is dangerous.’

  ‘He is weak, a failure at every turn.’

  ‘Is that not because it has been ordained that he will fail?’

  ‘Nothing has been ordained on the matter.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘It is a matter of paradox.’

  ‘Platitudes are not wisdom.’

  ‘Wisdom holds no truth.’

  ‘He has served us.’ The voice ended the babble. High in the reaches of the Library, the imps of knowledge hesitated as the silence fell. It was never silent in this place.

  The throng of daemons crouched in cowed terror.

  Above them, the being which they were both a part of and utterly removed from stirred in its wrappings of light and lightning. Mortals in their ignorance called it a god, but it was no god. It was something beyond gods and prayers. Magic and fate coiled around it like fog winding around a tower. Countless mouths opened and closed across its skin. Tongues licked lips. Fangs glistened. Beaks snapped at the air. Far out, in the infinity of paradox which stretched from the Fortress, the silence of the Changer of Ways sent daemons scurrying in fear. The greater daemons and princes of the Court of Change waited. They could feel destinies rolling over and threads of existence snapping as the god of magic and lies – which was a god only by theft – contemplated the fate of a lone mortal.

  ‘He has served, and served well,’ said the god. Each mouth spoke the same words, but each used a different language and intonation. ‘He has earned the reward he deserves but does not crave. That reward will be his.’

  A ripple passed through the Court of Change at the pronouncement. On the shelves and tiers of the library the blue daemons hissed to each other behind their hands.

  The god – which was only a god in the sight of mortals – shifted and spoke again.

  ‘Bring the Thief of Faces.’

  The greater daemons glanced at each other, trying to think how to obey or twist their master’s command. They all knew the being which the Changer of Ways had summoned, but none of them knew where it was or how to bring it to them. That was its nature, to be unknown.

  ‘I am here,’ called a voice, and the throng of daemons parted around a lone member of their gathering. It grinned at them with its flayed vulture face, and then that face was gone. A new creature crouched in the air before them. Soft, blue silk hung across its body, and it had no face, just a black space beneath its hood. The other daemons hissed at it, but it bowed its cowl very slowly, like a wading bird dipping its beak into still water. Like all of them it had many names and titles, but to the mortals who were tormented by knowledge of its existence, it was the Changeling, and only the god – which was greater than gods – knew its true name.

  ‘You will go to Ahriman,’ commanded the Changer of Ways. ‘Walk the subtle paths. Your presence must not interfere with his undertaking. You must arrive only at the end. Not before. Not after.’

  The Changeling bowed low.

  ‘And once I have reached him?’

  ‘He will have given all he can, and danced his last. Give him my gift in payment for his service. When it is over I will release him.’ A murmur of surprise ran through the court; no pawn in the Great Game had ever been set free from its bonds. Even in death, the souls of the deluded and the damned served the Great Conspirator.
But the god spoke on in one voice. ‘Give him the gift of oblivion. When all is done, Ahriman will become as dust. He will become nothing. That is my gift, from my hand to yours, from yours to his.’

  ‘It will be,’ said the Changeling to the god.

  Their minds gathered in silence. Ahriman watched and sensed them as the presence of his Circle coalesced around his mind. Only Ignis and Ctesias stood with him in the physical world. Gaumata, Kiu, and Gilgamos stood at the centre of their own ritual circles on ships separated by hundreds of kilometres of empty space. Beyond the hulls of the fleet the stars were distant flecks of brightness, and the engines of each craft glowed like the craters of slowly waking volcanoes. To Ahriman, his brothers were each close enough that he could touch them with the slightest thought.

  Each member of the Circle appeared as a construct of symbolism. Ctesias was a sphere of verdigris-mottled bronze scales, each one etched with letters from secret scripts and each one shifting its position from one instant to the next. Ignis was a framework of white lines, ever collapsing and expanding. Gaumata appeared as a branching set of flames, Kiu a shimmer of sharp edges and rainbow colour, Gilgamos a rippling fold of black feathers. Ahriman did not know how he appeared to their minds, nor if they sensed and saw each other as he saw them.

  Tendrils of thought and emotion reached between them. Ahriman could taste and feel their minds. All were controlled, all were ready, but each was also unsure. They were pilgrims stepping out on a path which they could not see the end of. Yet they were here, with him, because of him.

  It is time,+ he sent.

  The Circle’s thoughts and power fused. Corposant formed around the towers on the backs of every ship in the fleet. Power built in reactors. Crew in the deep decks fell to their knees as the warp drives began to rumble.

  Silvanus,+ called Ahriman and felt the shudder of revulsion as the Navigator’s mind answered.

  They had done this many times before, their minds and ships bound together by will, the path before them lit by their minds. But this was different. If there had ever been a last chance of turning back, this was that moment.

  Cradled in the minds of his brothers, Ahriman let the moment pass. Then he formed a single word of command.

  Now,+ he sent.

  Neon worms enveloped the Monolith. From within the warp, Astraeos felt the blood patter onto the deck in a hundred sacrificial circles. The debris fields around the agglomeration shuddered. Chunks of hulls and banks of dust skidded outwards, stopped, and then began to race inwards. Screams filled Astraeos’s ears, echoing up from thousands of kilometres of twisted stone and metal. His own mind was pulling away from his body, spinning into the power gripping the Monolith. He could see it from far away, from within, from the smallest dark core of silence at its centre.

  The agglomeration was creaking. It was a sheet of rippled light, it was a line drawn across space like a razor slit. It was a mote of dust tumbling on the wind beside countless more. And he was part of it. He was creating this. Shrieks rose within him, cradling him, feeding him as thousands of mortal witches ripped their souls apart and sent their minds into oblivion.

  Debris began to hit the agglomeration. Bodies made of light and slime formed on the Monolith’s surface, scrabbling at the stone and metal with claws, hands and teeth. They chittered and giggled, hooting with glee and anticipation as the chorus called more and more of them into being.

  Astraeos’s body was far away, but his senses were everywhere: in the iron walls, in the mouths of the screaming slaves, in the ammonia- and salt-scented air, in the throats of the mutant herds as they brayed in terror and adoration.

  The daemons began rocking the agglomeration out of reality like a tide prising a stone out of sand. Blood and silver were weeping from walls. Chained slaves exploded as their organs grew and split their skins. All colours were a kaleidoscope, all sounds a single cry, like a raven calling in still, dry air.

  And then, with a howl of sudden silence, the daemons tore the agglomeration from being, and threw it into the depths of oblivion.

  The storm broke over the Word of Hermes. Claws of light scraped over its shields. Walls of screaming faces loomed above it, stretching to an impossible height. The warship ploughed on, twisting in the wild current.

  High on its back, Silvanus looked out at the warp’s fury and tried not to blink. Breath wheezed from his open mouth, and sweat oozed from the folded skin of his face. Warp-light swirled in the gloss surface of his third eye. The two others were open too, splinter patterns of colour without iris or pupil. He had not blinked for hours, or perhaps it was days. Crusts of blood clogged his eyelashes. In his head he could feel the minds of Ahriman and the Circle. He was the centre of a web of thoughts and sight which held Ahriman’s fleet together as it tumbled through storm and fury.

  A wide mouth opened before the Word of Hermes. His thoughts twitched and the ship responded by shuddering. There was no way around it. They would have to go through.

  Hold course, he thought, not bothering to wonder if the sorcerers had heard him. They always did. Every ship in the fleet would be following his direction.

  The storm’s mouth opened wide before him. Each fang was kilometres long. Silvanus felt vomit spill from his mouth as his hands began to scrabble at the arms of his chair. The storm roared into his mind and ears. A wall of human shrieks poured into him. The throat beyond the teeth was a spiralling tunnel of reaching hands and pleading faces. He could taste blood on his lips, could feel it running from the pores in his skin. He wanted to close his eyes, to shut out the voices, to fall into a sleep without dreams, without sensation, without anything. He would look away. He had to.

  Silvanus.+ The voice cut into his mind.

  He did not look away. He could not.

  The tunnel narrowed in front of him. The hands were brushing his skin. Fingers pulled at the sagging folds of his face. He felt nails pinch, and draw blood. The end of the tunnel was a shrinking disc of darkness.

  Silvanus, listen to me.+

  The hands were crawling over his face, pulling it down, tumbling him end over end.

  Silvanus, the storm has us. You have to focus.+

  He had to close his eyes. The screams were inside him now, the endless torrent of despair tumbling him over and over.

  We will create an opening, but it will not last. You have to be ready. Do you understand?+

  A spider of fingers crept over his mouth and clamped it shut. He could not breathe. His body heaved and shuddered.

  Do you understand?+

  His lungs were burning. Something was pulling at his eyelids, something with hooked claws.

  Do you understand?+

  He forced his jaw open, bared his teeth and bit down. His teeth clashed together. A jet of blood flicked across his sight. He could taste iron. Something was writhing against his tongue. He spat, heaved a breath, and spoke.

  ‘I understand,’ he said out loud, forcing the words out with a spray of blood.

  No reply came, and the storm bellowed at him. The hands and faces vanished under a tide of glistening eyes.

  Clear the way,+ said Ahriman’s voice.

  Heat lanced into Silvanus’s head. His vision shimmered. Pressure formed across his skin and squeezed. He could hear voices, their words ringing out as one, their tones merging even as he listened. He could not keep his eyes open. He did not want to keep them open.

  Burning light shot from his forehead. The agony was infinite. The light burned blue-white as it cut through the sea of eyes before him. Shrieks filled his mind and ears. The beam of light grew wider. Orbs exploded in spheres of glowing ectoplasm. The voices in his mind were a single roaring note of mental force. He could feel them, every one of them, could taste the texture of each mind and personality: Ctesias’s jagged emptiness, Kiu’s burning pride, the slow molten fury of Gaumata, Gilgamos a web of silver thoughts, the drone of Ignis’
s intellect, and binding them together was Ahriman.

  The light vanished.

  For an instant Silvanus was floating in stillness, and quiet. He could smell burning, and taste bile mixing with the blood on his tongue. A pool of empty blackness waited before his eyes, its edges the ragged tatters of a wound. He stared at it, his heart a half-broken drum in his chest. He could still feel the impression of Ahriman and the Circle’s thoughts in his mind.

  I should let the storm have us, he thought. I should let us go to its embrace.

  He knew that they could hear him, and he knew that they did not care. He had wanted to die so many times, but each time the door had opened he had turned away.

  Curse you, Ahriman, he thought. Curse you to beyond the reaches of time.

  The passage through the storm was almost closed now. He dived for the gap, and Ahriman’s fleet dived with him. The storm rushed to close on him, clawing at him, screaming at him in rage, laughing at his cowardice. Then it was past, and he dropped the Word of Hermes into reality an instant before his eyes closed.

  When he woke, it was to the smell of excrement, vomit and sweat. He lay for a second in the embrace of his chair, and then heaved himself free. The ship was steady in real space, he could tell by the vibrations of the deck under his feet. His skin was sticky with dried fluid, and congealed blood caked his lips. He remembered the arms reaching for him out of the storm, remembered the hand clamping his mouth shut, remembered biting his way free as he suffocated. He raised a hand reflexively to wipe the crust from his chin.

  His hand smeared a fresh jelly of blood on his face. He looked at the deck beside his navigation chair before he looked at his hand. The tips of three of his fingers lay on the velvet cushion floor, bitten clean off and spat out. He looked at his hand. The blood on it was still fresh, but the skin covering the three newly grown digits was fresh, pink and glossy, like a burn scar beneath a scab.