by Dan Abnett
‘You read, Titus?’ the Avenging Son asked.
‘Of course, my lord.’
Guilliman demurred with a slight shake of his hand.
‘You misunderstand. Of course you can read. But I don’t mean data, or tactical updates, or informational material. Do you read fiction? Drama? Poetry? History?’
Prayto maintained a solemn face, though he was amused. There were times when Lord Guilliman of Ultramar seemed to know everything about everything, in astonishing detail, yet he could also be childlike in his naivety and not understand very basic things about the people and the culture surrounding him.
‘I do, my lord,’ said Prayto. ‘As I believe someone in this very room said, in the address to mark the recommencement of the Librarius programme, our minds are our primary weapons, so it pays to exercise them well.’
Guilliman laughed and nodded.
‘I did say that,’ he agreed.
‘I read extensively to that end,’ said Prayto. ‘I find the notions and wisdoms contained in literature and poetry push my mind to places that pure technical reading does not. I enjoy the epic cycles of Tashkara, and the philosophies of Zimbahn and Poul Padraig Grossman.’
Guilliman signalled his approval with a tip of his head.
‘All Unification Era, of course,’ he said. ‘You should explore the classics.’
He crossed to the side table and took up a data-slate. He handed it to Prayto.
‘You’ll enjoy this,’ he said.
‘Thank you, my lord.’
Prayto studied the title.
‘Amulet, Prince Demark?’
‘It’s drama, Titus. Ancient stuff, from M2 or earlier. One of the few extant works by Shakespire.’
‘Why this, my lord?’
Guilliman shrugged.
‘My father had me read it as a child. I was reminded of it by current events, so I had it fetched from the Residency biblios. In the ancient kingdom of Demark, ghosts walk upon the palace battlements, and are premonitions of great societal change in the court of that realm.’
Prayto shook the slate approvingly.
‘I will enjoy it,’ he said.
Guilliman nodded, and turned back to his cold-gestalt machine. The audience was over.
Dit-dit-dit-deeeeet!
The cogitator had an odd, synthesised alert chime. It was an antique device. Every twenty-five seconds, it burbled its little noise, trying to alert the Avenging Son to the new information it had acquired.
Guilliman ignored the chime. He did not need to be told. He had already noticed the matter that the cogitator was trying to bring to his attention.
A star. A new star. It was the first star that had been visible in Macragge’s night sky for over two years.
Guilliman sat, staring through the chamber windows at the star, which glimmered alone in the otherwise bloody, swirling night sky. He had scribbled down its position on a note slate: eastern limits, low on the horizon, rising between the peaks of Calut and Andromache. He had spotted it with his naked eyes fifteen minutes ago, a good three minutes before the cogitator had begun its persistent burbling.
Konor – great Konor, Battle King – had run Macragge, world and city alike, from this room, and with this cogitator. At night, when the mechanisms of bureaucracy had shut down, he had sat here alone, monitoring data-traffic and news-flows. He had sat at his teak desk, looking out of the deep windows, observing his realm. In the daytime, Konor had ruled Macragge from the senate floor. At night, this chamber had been the focus of his authority.
Guilliman remembered that. He remembered his stepfather’s intensity, even in repose. As a youth, Guilliman had come to the Residency and watched Konor sitting by the cogitator after hours, reading from the day’s reports and slates, reviewing briefings for the next day, looking up every time the data-engine chimed.
Dit-dit-dit-deeeeet!
Until Guilliman came to Macragge, capital world of Ultramar’s Five Hundred, Konor had been the epitome of statesman, politician and warlord. No one, not even Guilliman, could have imagined how Konor’s adopted son would come to eclipse him.
Roboute Guilliman, a genetically enhanced post-human, one of only eighteen in the galaxy, had fallen to Macragge out of the skies at the whim of fates beyond mortal ken. His blood father, it later transpired, was the nameless Emperor of Terra. Like all of the eighteen sons, all of the primarchs, Guilliman had been stolen from his father’s genetic nursery and cast out across space. No one really knew how this action had been accomplished, or by what, or for what reason. When pressed on the subject – and he could seldom be pressed on any subject – Guilliman’s blood father had attested that the abduction and scattering of the eighteen primarch offspring had been an action of the Ruinous Powers of the warp, an event designed to thwart the schemes of mankind.
Guilliman did not place much faith in this. It smacked of foolishness to suggest that his blood father should be so naive as to be gulled by Chaos so. To have his genetically engineered heirs stolen and scattered in some bizarre diaspora?
Nonsense.
Guilliman believed that a great deal more deliberate purpose had been at the heart of it. He knew his gene-father. The man – and man was far too slight a word – possessed a mind that had conceived a universal plan, a plan that would take thousands or even millions of years to orchestrate and accomplish. The Emperor was the architect of a species. The primarchs were central to that ambition. The Emperor would not have lost them or permitted them to be stolen. Guilliman believed that his father had arranged or allowed the dispersal.
Eighteen perfect genetically engineered heirs were not enough. They had to be tested and tempered. Scattering them across the tides of space and time to see who would survive and who would succeed, that was the project of a true luminary.
Guilliman had fallen on Macragge, and had been raised as a son by the first man of that world to be a ruler, a statesman and a warlord. By his twelfth year, it was apparent from his inhuman stature and abilities that Roboute Guilliman was not simply a man. He was a demigod. He had been tested by circumstances, and he had not been found wanting.
Dit-dit-dit-deeeeet!
Twelve years old, coming into the chamber at night, seeing Konor in his chair, the cogitator chiming, the windows undraped. Twelve years old, already as tall as his stepfather, and already more physically powerful; another year or two and he would have to have furniture, armour and weapons made especially for him.
Dit-dit-dit-deeeeet!
Konor believed in contingency. Any plan, no matter how flawless, needed a back-up. Guilliman believed his blood father thought this too. Contingency was something Konor and Guilliman’s blood father agreed on. Their advice would have been the same. Do not believe in perfection, because it can be taken away. Always have a fall-back you can live with. Always know how victory can be achieved in a different way. Always have the practical to compensate for any theoretical.
The Imperium of Man was the most perfect vision of unity imaginable. The Emperor and his heirs spent more than two centuries making it a possibility. If it failed… If it failed, was one to simply despair? Did a man collapse and rail at the universe for compromising his plan?
Or did he regroup and turn to his contingency?
Did he demonstrate to fate that there is always another way?
Horus Lupercal – another of the eighteen primarchs, but, in Guilliman’s opinion, far from the best – had been selected as the heir among heirs and, in a miserably short space of time, had been found wanting. He had risen in revolt, twisting some other primarchs against their gene-father too.
The first Guilliman had known of this sacrilege was when Lorgar’s bastards had turned upon the Five Hundred Worlds at Calth and, in darkest treachery, had shattered that planet.
Shameless. Atrocious.
Two years had passed, and there was not a
second of them when Guilliman had not thought of Lorgar’s treachery and – by extension – Horus’s.
Guilliman would be avenged.
It would be a simple revenge, ultimately, the kind of revenge Konor had taught him at the cutting edge of a gladius.
Dit-dit-dit-deeeeet!
There was a new star in heaven tonight. One hundred days ago, Guilliman had set the old cold-gestalt cogitator to alert him to any stellar changes.
Guilliman had known what to expect if it worked. If. Tonight, he had seen the new star immediately. He had been sitting in his chair, beside the cogitator, facing the windows, the way his stepfather had passed the long nights.
The star.
A light.
A beacon.
Hope.
Dit-dit-dit-deeeeet!
Guilliman leaned over and pressed the cancel button to kill the persisting chime.
There was a knock at the chamber door.
‘Enter.’
It was Euten.
‘My lord–’ the old woman began.
‘I’ve already seen it, mam,’ said Guilliman.
Euten looked puzzled.
‘The… apparition?’ she asked.
Guilliman stood.
‘Begin again,’ he said.
Badorum, commander of the praecental household, had gathered a squad of men from the night watch in the hallway leading to the hydroponics gallery. By human standards, they were all large, powerful men, though they seemed like children beside the primarch.
Badorum was a seasoned officer in late middle age. Like his soldiers, he wore steel, silver and grey, with a short cape of cobalt-blue. His strap-hung plasma weapon was chromed and immaculate.
Euten the chamberlain, a tall, fragile stick-figure in a long white gown, led the way, clomping with her staff. Guilliman followed, impatient to arrive, but respectful enough to walk at the old woman’s best pace. The approach was dark, as if the lights had been switched off or had failed. The only luminosity came from the lanterns and visor lights of the householders, and the faint green glow of the gallery beyond the door.
Guilliman could already hear it: a psaltery, a bass psaltery, peeling its long, sad, pure notes into the night air. The echo was pronounced. The hydroponics gallery was a large space, but Guilliman was sure it could not have produced quite that kind of echo. The sound seemed to come from the heart of the world, as if it was rising out of some tectonically riven abyss.
‘What have you seen?’ asked Guilliman, ignoring the rattle of bowed salutes that Badorum and the night watch offered him.
‘I was only just summoned, lord,’ said Badorum. ‘Clenart? You were here.’
The soldier stepped forward and removed his helm respectfully.
‘We were patrolling, my lord, and approaching this gallery when we first heard the noise. Music, just as now.’
‘Clenart, look at me,’ Guilliman said.
The soldier raised his eyes to meet the Avenging Son’s gaze. He had to tilt his head back a long way. ‘You saw something?’
‘Yes, my lord, indeed so,’ the man replied. ‘A great figure in black. Made of blackness, as it seemed. It stepped out of the shadows and was solid. It was wrapped in iron, my lord.’
‘In iron?’
‘In metal. It was armoured, even the face. Not a visor, a mask.’
‘How big?’ asked Euten.
‘As big…’ the soldier began. He paused. ‘As big as him, my lady.’
He gestured down the hallway. Titus Prayto had just come into view, escorted by four Ultramarines battle-brothers.
As large as a Space Marine of the Legiones Astartes. A giant, then.
‘Another sighting, my lord?’ Prayto asked.
‘Can you scan the area?’ asked Guilliman.
‘I have done so, but I will again,’ Prayto replied. ‘There is no psychic trace here. The passive monitors would have triggered long before I arrived.’
‘But you hear the music, Titus?’
‘I do, my lord.’
Guilliman reached out his hand. Prayto, without hesitation, drew his boltgun and slapped it into his primarch’s waiting palm. Guilliman checked its readiness quickly and turned towards the gallery door. The weapon was a little too small for his hand. It looked like a pistol.
‘My lord,’ Badorum began. ‘Should we not go in before you and–’
‘As you were, commander,’ said Prayto. He did not need to read his master’s mind to be sure of the determination of his intent.
Guilliman entered the green twilight of the hydroponics gallery. Inside, it was warm and humid. The lights were on some night-cycle pattern. He could hear the gurgle of the water feeding the tanks, and the soft drip of the sluices. There was a pungent scent of grass and leaf mulch.
The phantom music was louder inside, and its echo more profound and inexplicable.
Prayto followed Guilliman. He had drawn his combat sword. Badorum followed him, his plasma gun braced at his shoulder in a sweeping aim.
‘I don’t–’ Badorum began.
The shadows parted in front of them and a figure loomed where no figure had been. It seemed to grow out of the darkness as if it had come on stage through some invisible curtain.
‘In the name of Terra,’ Guilliman breathed.
The figure was no apparition. It was real and solid. More particularly, he recognised it: the iron mask, the unmaintained Mark III plate, the insignia of the IV Legion Astartes. Guilliman knew too well the shuffling, crippled gait that spoke of chronic and unhealing illness. It was worse than when last he had observed it.
‘Warsmith Dantioch,’ he said.
‘My honoured lord,’ Barabas Dantioch of the Iron Warriors replied.
‘How can you be here, Dantioch? No ships have arrived in weeks! How can you be here without us knowing of your arrival?’
Guilliman paused suddenly. Dantioch’s greeting had been accompanied by a distinct echo.
‘When last I heard,’ said Guilliman, ‘you were half a segmentum away, in the Eastern Fringes, on Sotha.’
‘Yes, my Lord Guilliman,’ replied Dantioch, ‘and I still am.’
2
Pharos
‘And the decree was, “let light be”
And so it was, and it was good.’
– Proscribed ‘Creation Myth’, proto-Catheric
teachings [pre-Unification]
Dantioch, warsmith of the Iron Warriors, stood in the cold chamber high on the summit of Mount Pharos, and held Guilliman’s gaze.
It was extraordinary. There was no lag or delay. The image and sound of Ultramar’s lord was an entirely realised presence. It was as though they were sharing the room, except that no echo accompanied Guilliman’s voice, and no fume of breath came from his lips, suggesting that the room he actually occupied was smaller and warmer.
‘Forgive me, my lord,’ said Dantioch. He reached out an ironclad hand and pressed his fingertips against Guilliman’s sternum. There was a slight resistance as Dantioch’s fingers slipped into Guilliman’s form, causing a slight, spreading ripple of light to shimmer his image for a moment.
Dantioch withdrew his hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You seemed so real.’
‘You are on Sotha?’ Guilliman asked. ‘We are communicating at this distance?’
Dantioch nodded.
‘I am in a chamber known as Primary Location Alpha, near the top of the Pharos structure. We test-started the system three weeks ago, local, and the system has been running for two weeks. Since then I have been attempting to establish communication.’
Guilliman shook his head, marvelling.
‘We saw your light for the first time tonight,’ he said.
‘Roughly when alignment was properly established,’ Dantioch noted, ‘which in turn allowe
d this conversation to take place.’
‘You are like a star. A new star.’
‘I would appreciate any data you can process back to us via this link,’ Dantioch said. ‘To understand in more detail how we are received will allow us to fine-tune the connection.’
‘This is technology of a level we can scarcely dream of, warsmith,’ said Guilliman.
‘We did not dream of it,’ replied Dantioch. ‘It was dreamed of by beings who came and went long before us. Yet you suspected its worth, imagined its potential, and trusted me to unlock its secrets. This vision, both literal and metaphorical, is due to you, my lord.’
Sotha was a far-flung world close to the edge of the galaxy’s Eastern Fringe. It lay farther out than Graia or Thandros, almost at the limits of both the fiefdom of the Five Hundred Worlds and the span of all Imperial territory.
Not far beyond it, in warpcraft terms, lay the rim of the Ultima Segmentum and the edge of the human galaxy. Past that vast thinning-out of stars and systems lay nothing but the black, heatless void of the intergalactic gulf.
Sotha was a jewel of a world, one of the few Terra-comparable ecosystems discovered so far out in the galactic east. It possessed living oceans and densely forested, mountainous landmasses. There were lower-level animal-forms, avians and insects. Curiously, there were no higher forms, nor any obvious trace of attempted xenos visitation or colonisation. Guilliman and the expedition fleets of Ultramar had always considered the world a particular curiosity: if there was one geo-type almost guaranteed to have been settled during the outward expansion of the Great Age of Technology, it was the rare and precious Terra-comparable planets. For Sotha to have been overlooked or missed by the Great Expansionists seemed unlikely, but there was no evidence that any human presence had reached Sotha, not even a colony that had been established and then died out.
Then the surveyors learned the truth about Mount Pharos, the tallest of all the peaks in the planet’s majestic mountain ranges.
Plans for full colonisation were put on hold. A small agri-colony was approved instead, to be based on Sotha in support of a survey mission of archaeologists and xenoculturists assigned to Mount Pharos.