by John French
‘Ohrmuzd,’ he replied. ‘My name was Ohrmuzd.’
Knekku ran through the Labyrinth. Ahead of him Avenisi was a blur of fur and muscle. He could feel the beat of his heart slowing in his chest.
‘How much further?’ he called.
Avenisi did not answer. Crystal walls and stairs flew past. Voices and reflections chased him. He ignored them. The words of Magnus were the pounding of his feet and breath.
‘The Rubric cannot be stopped,’ Magnus had said.
‘There must be–’
‘It cannot be stopped because it has already begun.’ The words had held Knekku still, frozen. ‘In the world, where your body lies with a dagger in one heart and your blood frozen in the air, it began ninety-one seconds ago.’
The walls of the Labyrinth shrieked and shifted as he ran. Passages split. Doors opened and vanished before him. Floors and ceilings rotated, spaces folded like paper. The only fixed point was Avenisi bounding ahead of him, coat shimmering between colours.
‘It can be stopped,’ he had said. ‘We can break the circle, destroy–’
‘It will not work,’ Magnus cut him off with a shake of his head. ‘This Rubric has its own momentum now, a momentum that will reach its end one way or another. The warp will not have it any other way.’
‘Then there is no point to what you have told me.’
‘There is a point,’ said Magnus, and Knekku thought he saw something move across the scar-tissue face, something like sorrow. ‘The Rubric will reach an end, but that end can be… altered.’
‘How?’
Avenisi whipped around a corner in front of him. Knekku skidded after the daemon. A door of branching crystal and silver loomed ahead. He stopped. Blank darkness waited beyond. Avenisi bounded forward, fur shimmering between colours of fire. Knekku did not move. The daemon twisted before the portal.
‘Come on. Time is running fast.’
Knekku took a step, but then stopped again.
‘This second Rubric is different in many ways,’ Magnus had said, ‘but at the root there is a single change that eclipses all others.’
Avenisi hissed with impatience, but Knekku did not move.
‘The first Rubric was an incantation to change the nature of reality. The second will change things also, but it is not just a ritual. It is a sacrifice.’
He closed his eyes. He had always been faithful to his father and master. He had seen and done many things to keep that faith, things that had taken every sliver of his mental control to do.
‘Ahriman is going to offer something in exchange for what he believes.’
Knekku did not fill the silence. He could feel the answer without needing to voice the question. Magnus had nodded as though hearing the unspoken thoughts.
‘He is going to offer himself. He dies and the Legion lives.’
Knekku opened his eyes and began to walk towards the door. Two strides and his walk was a run. Avenisi bounded forward with him. The sheet of blackness beyond the silver door flowed over him, and he was falling through nothing.
‘He will die?’
‘If he does he will bring about the destruction of me, and the Crimson King, and the Legion he wants to save.’
‘But if you are right, it is already begun…’
‘Yes, it has, but it has not ended,’ Magnus said. ‘Not yet.’
‘I was real, Iobel,’ said Ohrmuzd. ‘I lived, and bled, and fought for my Emperor, and for ideals which I saw change humanity.’
Iobel let out a breath, and looked around both the balcony and the broken door into the memory-city beyond.
‘Why does he keep the memory of you here, Ohrmuzd?’
‘Because I am no longer alive. The Flesh Change came to our Legion while we were still without a primarch to guide us.’ He took a deep breath, and again he was a boy speaking with an old man’s bitterness. ‘It cut our heart out, turning our finest into monsters… We did everything we could to contain it, but we could do nothing to stop it. Until we found Prospero. Until Magnus.’
‘I know. I have seen those times from inside Ahriman’s eyes, and in the words and records that remain from that time. Magnus did not save you. He sold you to damnation.’
Ohrmuzd nodded.
‘Yes. He did. Sold our souls and bought a future. At least for some of us.’
He went silent again.
‘The Flesh Change…’ said Iobel, and he nodded once.
‘It came for me, and I did not survive. I died, but I lived in my brother, a thorn of guilt snagged in his soul, a seed of purpose.’
Iobel shivered.
‘You… you are the beginning.’
The boy waved his hand over the stones, and they began to orbit his hand. He watched them, his gaze steady.
‘In every disaster visited on the Legion he saw me. In every failure, in every chance of saving his gene brothers, in every twist of fate, he saw me and the fact that he had failed to save me. He kept me here, down in the deepest point of his memory, sealed behind a door he never opened. Every other memory of me he has discarded over time until I remained in just one moment in his past.’
‘When you were boys, before the Legion…’
Ohrmuzd smiled.
‘The day before we went to the Legion, the last day before everything changed. This day…’ He gestured at the desert and the balcony. The storm was closer now. Jagged spines of light leapt down the dirty wall of cloud. ‘I was a prisoner of his conscience, a pearl of guilt and self-loathing at his core.’
‘But you are free now.’
‘Free…? None of us are free, Iobel. We are all just dreams of people, no matter what we think or feel. I am Ohrmuzd, yes, but I am also Ahriman. Just as the ghost of Amon out there in the desert is Ahriman. Just as you are Ahriman.’
‘No,’ said Iobel. The storm was coming fast across the dunes now. Wind spilled across her. She could smell the lightning charge in the air. ‘No… I am Selandra Iobel. I am an aberration, a ghost. I have walked the Labyrinth of the warp. I have spoken to the Crimson King. I–’
‘Have believed a lie. You are a memory, a metaphor for a part of a mind so divided and complex that it can send part of itself to walk its own depths, and even beyond. Magnus is broken into many pieces in the realm of the warp, but Ahriman broke within a long time ago. You are just a part of him, given the stolen cloak of a memory.’
She was breathing hard, trying to rise. The storm was a blank ochre curtain drawn across sky and desert. Heavy drops of rain began to fall. She was shaking. She needed to get away. She…
…went still.
The storm broke over the balcony. Lightning cracked the sky. Streams spilled from the tops of dunes and ran down to join in brown torrents. She did not move. She did not need to move.
She saw it now, her drive to find Magnus, the inexplicable will which had pushed her on to find answers, to find the answer to Ahriman’s mysteries.
She looked at the boy and nodded.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I think I have always known. Ever since I died. I just…’
‘Allowed yourself to believe otherwise.’
‘You, Amon, the desert…’
‘A journey of decision, an argument within Ahriman’s mind beneath the layers of consciousness.’
‘The Crimson King, that–’
‘A father talking to his exiled son through the only part of his mind that would listen.’
‘What part of him am I?’
‘The part that judges himself. The part that wishes he was still a loyal servant of the Imperium. At least, that is what I would guess.’
‘And you?’ she asked.
The storm rolled around them. The daylight had become rain-blown twilight.
‘I am two things,’ said Ohrmuzd. ‘I am his guilt, and that is the beginning of all he is
. And, just as I am his beginning…’ A flash of lightning caught his eyes. They shone, like the eyes of a jackal prowling the edge of a fire’s light; like the silver of coins. ‘…so I am his end. I am the thing that will drive him to his death and come and claim his soul. That is the point about obsession. In the end it always asks you to pay the only price that matters.’
‘Why am I here? The Crimson King said I had to stop Ahriman. He said that the Rubric was still flawed, that it would do greater harm to the future.’
Ohrmuzd smiled through the rain, and then tilted back his head and laughed.
‘The future… greater harm… You can hear him in your words now, can’t you?’ His eyes were still blank silver. ‘You are here because there has to be a choice. The Crimson King knew that, and he knew that he could only stop that choice going one way by appealing to you.’
The boy stood, and shook the rain from his skin like a dog. He tilted his head, mouth smiling around a pink tongue. Iobel felt her skin tingle as the rain ran down it. The lightning struck the ground next to the balcony. White light stole the dark. Iobel raised her hand to shield her eyes. When she lowered it, the boy was closer. The edges of his shape were blurring into the ragged cloak of rain. He took another step, back hunching, yet seeming taller. His silver eyes were bright above his pink smile.
‘What is the choice?’ she asked, the iron in her voice spreading through her limbs as she spoke.
‘The last and only choice, Iobel,’ he said, and she saw that the rain was running off dark fur, and that his face had lengthened into a long muzzle above sharp teeth. ‘Life, or death.’
XXII
Losses
Ahriman… Ahriman… Ahriman…
He could hear his name. It was all around him, threading through the names of all of his brothers. The Rubric was a chorus now. He was its centre but also its outer edge. He flew, not through substance, but through being. He could see it all. He could feel it all: every atom and how it came to be there, every string of causality and its end.
They could all feel it now. Every one of the Thousand Sons would feel it, no matter where they were, or what abyss of time and space separated them from him. There was no time. There was no space. They were all one, and everything else had no meaning and no power. He was Sar’iq circling on feathered wings above a black tower a kilometre away. He was Kiu, on guard by his side. He was Khayon, standing on the bridge of a ship, closing his eyes as pain touched his thoughts for a second.
He held them all, and for a second he watched them all, from the greatest warrior-mage to the last empty Rubricae.
And then silence.
The whirl of visions ceased, and the voices within him were quiet.
On the surface of the Planet of the Sorcerers, fingers froze on triggers, breaths stilled on tongues.
This is the apex, he thought, and knew that it was the only thought which moved amongst the millions of minds around him. The Rubric had reached its highest and fullest extent. It was a loaded spring waiting to unwind, waiting to become what he had made it.
Voices came to him, quiet whispers from the gale of words and names.
I do not want to die, said a weak voice within him.
You do not deserve to die, said another.
Is this the salvation you seek? asked the voice of Magnus.
This is the only salvation that can be mine.
Iobel laughed. It was the only thing to do. The creature which had been Ohrmuzd stalked forwards. Rain shivered from his black pelt. Breath steamed from between his fangs. His arms lengthened, nails now blades of bone.
‘Tell me,’ she said, her tone icy with casual disdain. ‘If this is a war of self-belief within a world of dreams and metaphor, what makes you think that you have the advantage?’
Ohrmuzd laughed, and the sound was a bark of thunder. He tensed and then leapt. Iobel watched him rise against the rain, jaws wide, bladed fingers splayed. She leapt to meet him. Armour formed around her as she moved. Silver and black plates slid over muscle. Wings of raven feathers snapped free into the wet air. A mace formed in her grasp as she swung. Ohrmuzd tried to twist aside, but she was fast, faster than thought. The mace hit his open jaw. Broken teeth sprayed out. Impact force rippled through his skull. He reeled, black blood pouring over the remains of his jaw. Iobel spread her wings to hold her still in the air as Ohrmuzd fell.
His hand flashed out, and she felt talons split her leg armour open and snag in her flesh. Ohrmuzd plummeted with the rain, and she fell with him.
They hit the ground and rolled across the stone balcony. Blood flicked out from them as they spun over and over. Iobel rammed her hand forwards, gripped Ohrmuzd’s broken jaw, and pulled it down. He howled. Her mace rose, and hammered down towards the side of his skull. He kicked out. Feet slammed into her. She catapulted backwards. Her wings caught the rush of passing air and she spun high. Ohrmuzd rose, bones cracking, red drooling over broken teeth. He gripped his jaw and yanked it back into place with a snap.
‘You know you should not fight me,’ shouted Ohrmuzd, and his voice was a wet growl. ‘He was your enemy. Don’t you want to see him die?’
Lightning cut the air above her. Iobel reached out, will reshaping the world, and pulled the thunderbolt from the air. It blazed in her hand. Her eyes were black holes in her face. She threw the lightning. Ohrmuzd shimmered out of being. The thunderbolt struck. Chips of marble spun outwards from where he had been. He crouched on a different patch of stone, eyes still and unblinking.
‘Is it not the punishment he deserves?’ he snarled. ‘For the Legion he destroyed, for all those he trod as dust beneath his feet. We deserve to see him go back to the dust from which he came.’
She dived, the mace an arc of spiked iron. He moved as she struck. The floor cracked beneath the blow. She rose and turned, but he was on her, clawed hand slashing into her side.
Red streaking the silver of her armour.
Pain that she could not banish.
Bright lights winking like stars at the edge of sight.
Wet iron on shaking breaths.
It’s not real, she thought. None of it is real.
She stood straight, wings folding into her back.
Ohrmuzd circled, watching, claws loose by his side.
She forced a bitter smile to her face.
‘I would see Ahriman and all of his traitor Legion burn, and then delight in dancing on the embers,’ she said. The mace was heavy in her hand. She could feel broken ribs inside her chest. The pain of breathing felt very real. ‘But I am a servant of higher purpose, so what I want really does not come into it.’
She exploded forwards. The mace was a blur around her as she struck high and low, weight and momentum carrying her from blow to blow. Ohrmuzd was on the ground scrabbling backwards, and she could feel the shudder of impact, and feel air hissing between her bared teeth. The rage within her was the lightning and the storm’s roar. She would not let Ahriman win, she would not let him have the salvation of death, she would not–
The talons flashed out, faster than the blink of light in the sky.
The mace fell from Iobel’s hands. She looked down. There was blood. A river of blood flowing from the ruin of her neck. Suddenly, for the first time, nothing felt real at all.
Ohrmuzd caught her as she fell. She looked up. The face of the boy looked down at her. The rain was pouring over his face. His eyes were dark. He reached down and touched her cheek.
‘It is over now,’ he said.
Her last reply was a choked gargle hiding a stream of curses.
The Changeling braced, wrapping itself in a telekinetic shell, as the alarms reached a crescendo. The psychic shockwave ripped through the gunship as it banked above the ground. It had dropped down through the eye of the fire-hurricane, and was skimming low towards the centre of the ritual. Then a single cord of power had struck down from the
sky like a spear. The shockwave hit a second later. Warning lights flashed. Alarms rang through the gunship’s compartment. Arcs of purple lightning ran through the fuselage. The servitor pilot was babbling static as his synapses burned out. The gunship began to spin like a thrown toy. The servitor pilot gave a last cry of electronic pain.
The gunship hit the ground. Metal shredded from its belly. Chunks of rough glass ripped from the surface. Engines roared. Flames spilled back across the gunship’s tail as fuel sprayed onto hot metal. The wings sheared off, caught the air and tumbled up like paper caught in a gust of wind. The nose clipped the ground and the fuselage flipped over and landed in a fireball.
The Changeling pulled itself free of the wreckage, and walked through the fire. The telekinetic sphere surrounding it fizzed as it met the wash of flames. It could not sense Ahriman, but it did not need to; the roaring column of warp energy was like a banner above him. It began to move. It was almost out of time.
The fire-hurricane vanished before Ctesias hit it. The disc was spinning beneath him, following the only strand of will he could hold in his head.
Ahriman… Ahriman… Ahriman… The name was a rope pulling him back across the fused ruins towards the heart of the Rubric.
The air was tight across his skin. The name came from his mouth, distorting the air around his lips, pulling the taste of cinnamon and sugar onto his tongue. He was kneeling, his hands gripping the writhing silver and flesh of the disc. Beside him the Athenaeum was thrashing. Red light poured from its eyes and mouth. Cracks ran across its flesh. Skin charred and peeled.
And the name came on and on from Ctesias’s mind, pulling something vast from the deep warp. He could feel its shapes now, could hear its inhuman thoughts as it forced its way back into being. He knew what it was, what was seeded in his mind and what was being called through the Athenaeum.
Why? he wanted to scream. Why is this happening? Why do I call the Crimson King into being?
But the questions vanished, and the disc spun on over the burnt plain, towards the heart of the Rubric. Towards Ahriman. And the next piece of Magnus’s immortal name shrieked across his broken world.