Ahriman: Unchanged

by John French

  ‘Pass and approach,’ said the Changeling, his nose rising with disdain as the armsmen and astropath moved past him.

  ‘Kald,’ said the commodore to the senior armsman with a simple nod, which the armsman returned. The Changeling knew that this display of comradeship between commanding officer and underling would have irritated Cordat, and arranged his face accordingly. The commodore noticed, but ignored his watch officer’s discomfort.

  ‘We had to bring him, commodore.’ The senior armsman jerked his head at the green-robed psyker. ‘He said he had a communication that he had to give to you personally.’

  ‘Thank you, Kald,’ said the commodore, and turned his gaze to the psyker. Dislike crawled across the folds of his cheeks as he looked down at the limp figure. ‘What do you have to tell me, astropath?’

  The psyker took a heavy breath, and licked its lips.

  The Changeling waited. It knew what was about to be said, and it knew why. It was, after all, the reason it was here on this particular ship at this particular moment.

  ‘A blue sun, which is an eye, burns in a sky of black stone,’ rasped the astropath. ‘Silver eagles circle with thunderbolts in their claws. Spears fall from the firmament.’

  ‘Witch-tongued riddles,’ breathed the Changeling in Cordat’s voice, with the slightest shake of his head. Cordat would have said just that, or maybe something different but equally stupid. He would also not have noted the colour drain from the commodore’s cheeks at the words.

  ‘Be silent, Mister Cordat!’ The shout roared down from the throne, and drops of spit spattered down the commodore’s uniform. The Changeling jumped back as though whipped, mumbling something about meaning no offence. The commodore was not looking at him, however; he was staring at the astropath.

  ‘Confirm meaning,’ said the commodore, his voice sounding dry.

  The astropath turned its head as though looking around with eyes that it no longer had.

  ‘Not all should hear the…’

  ‘Confirm the meaning!’

  The astropath jerked its head back, paused and then nodded.

  ‘It is as you suspect,’ it said. A drop of sweat fell from its nose.

  The commodore nodded slowly, his eyes still on the astropath.

  ‘Kald,’ said the commodore, his voice low and hard. ‘Go and find Commissar Sarn. Tell him that we need a full vigilance protocol in place throughout the ship. Do it now.’ The senior armsman saluted and vanished.

  The Changeling opened his mouth to ask the kind of stupid question that the commodore expected from Cordat. The commodore cut through his words before they came.

  ‘Mister Cordat, signal all ships, immediate full battle readiness. We translate to the warp in one bell. All ships to institute full vigilance protocols. Do it now, Mister Cordat, and do it without asking that idiotic question that is fighting to get past your lips.’

  The Changeling blinked with Cordat’s eyelids, and then moved to obey, shouting at other officers and crew. Sound began to build in the cavern of the bridge. The commodore was tapping command keys on the throne. An alarm began to boom through the ship. Pict screens were descending on articulated brass arms. The commodore’s face was prickling with sweat, each bead glinting in the electric blue glow of data.

  The Changeling turned from its tasks, and called up to the human atop the throne.

  ‘What course do we set, commodore?’

  The commodore looked down at him.

  ‘Tell the Navigators to use the charts sealed with the mark of the hammer. Break the seals. They will steer us to the star named Prospero.’

  The ship was a cacophony of noise around them. Machines clattered and buzzed, choirs of voices called out the rhythm of orders, and the deck hummed with the roar of engines and reactors waking from slumber.

  The commodore’s eyes were racing across the screens which surrounded him. His fingers were dancing on the throne’s ivory keys. The screens rotated and swapped almost too fast to see. His wide mouth was a thin line above his jowls.

  The Changeling began to ask the question that Cordat would have not been able to restrain himself from asking.

  ‘Commodore, why are we–’

  ‘Because we have been called, you stupid boy! We have been called to war by the Inquisition.’ The commodore looked down at the Changeling, and the creature saw fear in the human’s eyes, a great deal of fear. ‘And something tells me we are not alone.’

  It took Knekku a second to cross the distance to the tower of Magnus. It was the longest second of his life. Panic and control warred in his veins and nerves. All he could think of was the cracked sound of the Crimson King’s summons echoing in his mind. When he reached the top of the Tower of the Cyclops, he stepped from the disc and knelt without looking at the throne before him.

  Sire,+ he sent.

  Rise…+ sent the Crimson King. The word pulled him to his feet, but he kept his sight from the throne. Something made him not want to look. +Look at me.+ Knekku did not move. The words had not been a command, they had been a plea. +Look at me, my son.+

  He looked. The figure on the throne was an angel of copper and silver. Black horns curled from its brows and white wings hung from its shoulders. It was an image of magnificence and might.

  But there was blood on the feathers and the copper skin was stretched tight over the shapes of bone. The single eye in the forehead was half closed, as though fighting to stay open. No blinding light radiated from him, just a fog of weariness which rose and fell like the breath of the sea.

  Where have you been, sire?+ Knekku felt the question pull from his control before he could stop it.

  The Crimson King raised his head, and looked at Knekku as though he had not seen him arrive.

  My son…+ he sent, and the lips of his mouth moved with the sending. +My son…+

  Knekku fought down a wave of dismay.

  How may I serve, sire?+

  I have…+ The Crimson King stared at him, his thought trailing off. +I walked the paths. I walked the storms. I saw where the thunderbolts are born, Ctesias. Are you there? I was the thunderbolt and the fury…+

  Knekku felt the blood trying to surge from his hearts.

  Ctesias? His thoughts raced in confusion. Why did he call me Ctesias? What does that dried abomination have to do with…?

  Control, he thought, and cut the spiral of questions and panic free. Control.

  Not for the first time he remembered that talking to the Crimson King was like talking to a being that was speaking in several places at once and not always to the same person.

  Sire, I will summon Sar’iq.+

  No!+ The command crushed Knekku to the ground. Pain and light exploded in his skull. A long moment passed and when Magnus spoke again the sending was faint, almost frail. +No… Sar’iq is a device. You understand. I need you, my son. I need you.+

  Knekku raised his head and saw that the Crimson King was trembling.

  I… I tried to see it, Knekku. I tried to bargain for the future at the heart of the eternal court. I…+

  Knekku felt his thoughts stop. Emptiness filled him, and he was falling without moving, tumbling into the meaning of what his master was telling him.

  But I was not alone. I… I could not see them.+ The Crimson King shook his head, the mortal gesture more terrifying than anything Knekku had seen. +I thought they were gone. They should be gone. There should only be me.+ With the last words the thin figure rose on the throne, lips parting, skin splitting and bleeding magma. Anger and pride billowed from him. Cracks of fire ran over his body. The stones of the tower top split with heat. Knekku stepped back, and felt his own thoughts flush with rage. He fought to control it but…

  The Crimson King fell back onto his throne, the fire and heat vanishing as quickly as it had risen. His head dipped and his eye closed. When his voice came again it was cracke
d and dry.

  I need you to serve me, Knekku. I have…+

  The thought trailed away.

  Knekku felt a shiver run over his skin.

  Where have you been, sire? What is happening?

  The Crimson King arched in his throne. His fingers gripped the arms. The black stone splintered. The tips of the fingers began to crumble to ash. Knekku came forward, and grey dust spiralled from the throne as its occupant’s arms began to crumble. His skin was no longer copper but dull grey, the wings burnt branches of crooked trees. The wind was gusting over the tower, rattling and dry.

  Sire!+ he shouted as the Crimson King came apart and dissolved into air. At the centre of the dust storm the great horned head lifted for a second, its eye shuddering open. Cracks spread around the mouth.

  I have made a mistake, my son. I have made a very grave mistake.+

  The wind gusted. Knekku leapt up on the dais, his hand reaching for his master. Then the wind vanished, and he was standing before an empty throne.

  XI

  Prospero

  The dead planet wore its ruin like a crown. A pall of clouds swirled across its sphere. Lightning spread from the never-ending storms, branching across thousands of miles. Mountain peaks clawed through the iron-grey sheet. Debris coiled around it in rings. Occasionally a fork of lightning would reach impossibly from the atmosphere, touching the inner orbits.

  Ahriman stood on the highest tower of the Word of Hermes, and looked down through the crystal viewport as Prospero grew before him. The thoughts of his brothers circ­led his mind. Out in the curve of space above the ship, the rest of his fleet moved with him. There was no clamour, no mad rush to launch landing parties, just precise commands passed in thought. They would settle into ultra-low orbit with care. And once they were in place…

  He raised his head and closed his eyes.

  Prepare to descend to the surface.+ The thought reached his brothers instantly.

  Who will go with you?+ It was Kiu, his mind hard-edged and tense.

  All of you,+ he replied. +And all of our brothers.+

  The engines cycled to silence. Outside the gunship the wind was beating rain against the fuselage. Ignis looked around. None of the rest of the figures in the compartment had moved.

  He felt the instinct to reach out with his thoughts, but then stopped. He did not want to taste the warp here. Not yet. Not until he had to.

  In the compartment beside him, Credence gave a low clatter of static and binary. Ignis did not reply. He was looking at Ahriman. Their master did not move.

  The blue and crimson silks of Ahriman’s robes seemed black in the yellow light of the compartment. He held his staff across his knees, its shape sliding out of focus. Ctesias sat on the opposite side, resting his head against his own staff. Strips of dry skin covered with script hung from the summoner’s armour like a cloak of feathers. They rustled as he clicked a pebble though the fingers of his left hand. Ignis would have said that Ctesias was praying if such a statement was not laughable. Beside them, sixteen Rubricae sat immobile.

  ‘The other craft will be through the upper atmosphere by now,’ said Ignis, his voice rumbling from his vox-grille. It had been seventy-five seconds since the gunship had powered down. He had been counting.

  Ahriman turned his head sharply, but did not stand. Neither did Ctesias.

  Ignis waited for another five seconds to elapse and then stood. His Terminator armour unclamped from the wall as he straightened.

  Ahriman looked around again, and then stood. The hatch was directly before him. Beyond it, the sound of the rain was a drum beat. Ctesias pushed himself to his feet, dry skins rustling. Ignis felt a murmur of will from Ahriman and the Rubricae rose as one.

  Ahriman’s hand was on the hatch release. Ignis watched the armoured fingers touch the command keys. He felt the breath stop in his throat. In the ever-shifting geometry of his thoughts he had lost count of the passing seconds.

  Ahriman activated the control.

  There was a clank of pistons and a hiss of released pressure.

  And then a slit of light appeared at the edges of the assault ramp.

  The light grew, expanding into a square of grey slashed by rain. The ramp hinged down until it pressed into the mud. Ahriman stepped out. Water began to pour down his armour. Ignis could see the lacquer begin to blister as acid ate it. Ahriman reached the edge of the ramp. Ignis could see other shapes now, the dim smudges of mountains hiding in the distance. Ahriman bent down, and the gauntlet of his left hand peeled back from his fingers with a series of clicks. The rain hissed as it touched his skin. Slowly, he bent down further and picked a handful of earth from the ground. The fine grey silt began to wash away as Ahriman rolled it between his fingers.

  Then he let his hand fall.

  Ignis felt the breath he had been holding leave his lungs. A shimmer rose from Ahriman, and a mist cloaked him as the rain began to flash to steam before it struck him. The blistered skin of his hand glowed, and then became smooth and whole again. On his palm sat a small heap of grey dust. Ahriman closed his fingers over it, and stepped from the ramp onto the surface of Prospero.

  Somewhere out on the edge of Ignis’s awareness, in a place where his mind noticed patterns that even he could not explain, he felt something vast, ephemeral, and terrifying begin to turn.

  They walked through the grey world. The rain fell without pause, hissing as it stripped the lacquer from the armour of the Rubricae. Ctesias wanted to scream. He had wanted to scream ever since the gunship had broken through the atmosphere. Now, on the surface, with his feet sinking into the mud, it was taking every inch of his will not to let the scream free. It was not his scream. It was Prospero’s.

  He could feel them, all of them, all of the trapped echoes of pain and rage and confusion spinning just under the skin of every grain of ash, and every burning drop of rain. Prospero was no longer a planet. It was a corpse, and the echoes of its murder clung to the bones.

  He glanced at Ignis, but the Master of Ruin showed no sign of sharing Ctesias’s discomfort. Grey water was streaming from Ignis’s Terminator armour but leaving no mark. Credence walked behind its master, piston-driven feet slamming into the mud and sucking as it drove its steps forward. To their front Ahriman walked alone, heat and steam hazing the air around him. The Rubricae flanked them. Their blue armour had corroded to grey, as though the world was slowly reclaiming them. The rest of the gunships had descended after Ahriman had stepped onto the surface, bringing every Thousand Son in the fleet down with them. Gilgamos, Kiu, Gaumata, and the other sorcerers walked with them somewhere out in the murk, dragging their dead brothers in Ahriman’s wake.

  Halt.+ Ahriman’s command reached Ctesias through the cries of the dead, and he stopped before he realised what he was doing. The Rubricae froze where they were. Credence settled its weight with a clatter of gears.

  Ahriman was still walking forward, his steps taking him to the top of a low rise which had appeared before them. The rain was a charcoal wall all around them. Thunder split the sky above, and lightning turned the rain to a flight of falling arrows. Ahriman stopped at the top of the rise, and beckoned to Ignis and Ctesias.

  Come,+ he sent. +You should see. You should both see.+

  Ctesias hesitated. He could feel something wet running from his nose and ears. The taste of iron was clotting on his tongue. Ignis was moving past him, wading up the slope to Ahriman’s side. Ctesias blinked as a wave of sound washed through him. For a second he had thought he had heard a wolf howl close by. No, that was wrong; he had not thought it. He had heard a wolf howl, but it was a howl uttered thousands of years ago. He swallowed the blood in his mouth, and struggled after Ignis and Ahriman.

  The land was just as grey seen from the top of the rise as it had been from the bottom.

  What did you want us to see?+ asked Ctesias, and did not bother to keep the fatigue fr
om the sending.

  Something ails you, summoner?+ asked Ignis, his sending flat and cold.

  This place… it…+

  It calls to you,+ sent Ahriman. Ctesias raised his gaze to meet Ahriman’s eye-lenses. +The pain and wounds of the past are close here. This world is a scar over a deep wound.+

  Ctesias blinked, and swayed.

  …There were shapes in the rain. Grey shapes, and golden figures and the flash of edges, and the roar of fire, and the wail of a blade ripping out a throat, and blood, as red as spilled rubies, and teeth, and…

  ‘I can hear them,’ said Ctesias, the words forced out from between clenched teeth. ‘I can see them. They are still here.’

  Echoes,+ sent Ahriman, and the roar and whirl of sound and shape within Ctesias howled as though in answer. +Echoes, and death, and fragments of life caught like threads on thorns.+

  ‘I…’ snarled Ctesias. He could feel all of the careful walls of thought in his mind beginning to creak. Why was this happening? He had more control than this. Had something weakened him? Countless shards of daemonic names threw themselves at the walls of their prisons. He was coming apart from within.

  …a blade swung at him, teeth spinning along its edge. Fire and red smoke bloomed into the air. Figures tumbled, limbs like snapped twigs, and the wolves were there, bounding through the fire, fur black in the inferno light…

  Ctesias,+ said a voice, and he felt hands pull him up from where he had fallen. +Brother.+

  Brother… Brother… Brother…

  And with the word came calm. He looked up, and saw, not a wolf, but the molten orange and black iron mountain of Ignis looking down at him. The Master of Ruin released his grip and stepped back. Ctesias could still hear the wolves howling, millennia ago.