by Dan Abnett
The chair backs were draped with banners. The great seat, at the head of the long table was draped with the pennant of Terra. Two of the other pennants were plain and made of bleached, un-dyed cloth. The other eighteen were the banners of the Legiones Astartes.
‘You did this?’ The Lion asked.
‘Are you mocking it?’ asked Guilliman.
The Lion shook his head.
‘It moves me. You still believe in a day when all of us, all of us, can sit at a table with our father, as equals, and talk of the matters of empire.’
‘All of us,’ Guilliman nodded.
‘You made this room in anticipation of that?’
‘Yes, many years ago. Does that make me sentimental?’ asked Guilliman.
‘No, brother,’ said the Lion. ‘It shows you possess a soul.’
He set his hands on the back of one of the chairs bearing an un-dyed banner and leaned.
‘Two will never come,’ he said.
‘Yet their absence must be marked,’ replied Guilliman. ‘Places must be left for them. That is simply honour.’
The Lion straightened up, and slowly pointed, in turn, at the banners of Horus, Magnus, Perturabo, Mortarion, Curze, Angron, Alpharius, Lorgar and Fulgrim.
‘Others will never take their seats, unless as conquerors,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Guilliman. ‘Yet their places must be kept. I believe in the Imperium… In the continuity of the Imperium.’
‘That it will endure?’
‘That it must endure. That we must make it endure.’
‘Without a doubt,’ replied the Lion, ‘but this is a universe of uncertainty. We know the names of many of our traitor enemies, but not all.’
‘No?’
‘I am certain there is more treachery to be revealed.’ The Lion looked at the draped banner of the Fifth Legion.
‘The White Scars?’ asked Guilliman. ‘You suspect them too?’
‘The Khan is a mercurial figure. Who of us can say we know him or trust him? His nature is rebellious, and he keeps himself much apart from us. Only one brother stands close to him, and that is Lupercal. The Khan always had great affinity with Horus Lupercal.’
‘And on this basis…’
‘Tell me your theoretical simulations have not suggested this?’
Guilliman was silent.
‘And don’t pretend you haven’t run multiple theatrical simulations on all of us, Roboute,’ the Lion sneered.
‘I won’t,’ replied Guilliman. ‘You are quite correct. The projections concerning the Khan were troubling. But neither of us have heard a single whisper that he has turned too.’
‘We have not,’ The Lion agreed. ‘But until I arrived here out of the warp storm, I had not seen confirmation of Magnus’s treachery either. That was data you could impart to me, data that you had only just come upon. We knew they had ignored the Edict, and that Russ’s hounds had been unslipped to chastise Magnus, but neither of us knew the grim outcome – the fate of Prospero, the full disgrace of the Fifteenth. This is a universe of uncertainties. What else do we not know?’
Guilliman paused. Then he turned to look the Lion in the eye.
‘You have made it plain that I am one of your uncertainties,’ he said.
‘Brother–’
‘You mistrust me, and my motives,’ said Guilliman. ‘You have told me so, clearly. You suspect me of a treason at least as great as Horus’s, if not deeper.’
The Lion sat in the seat marked with his Legion’s banner, and placed his armoured hands flat upon the table in front of him.
‘Imperium Secundus,’ The Lion said, staring down at his mailed hands. ‘You do not deny it. You are establishing a second Imperium on the corpse of the first.’
‘No,’ replied Guilliman.
‘No?’
‘No. I am trying to keep the flame alive. This is not about empire-building, or thrusting for the main prize. I have an empire already! Ultramar! Five Hundred Worlds! Brother, I do this only so that we may persist. Terra may have fallen, and our father may already be dead. Whatever the facts, the Ruinstorm prevents us from knowing the truth. I am not taking this moment to move to my advantage, and I am not using the crisis as an opportunity to usurp. I am not Lupercal.’
The Lion looked up and held Guilliman’s stare.
‘I am simply keeping the flame alive,’ said Guilliman. ‘If we need another capital world, another figurehead, then let us have one, if it keeps our father’s vision of the Imperium alive. If Terra burns, then Macragge lives. The Imperium endures. Do you know the real difference between me and Horus Lupercal, brother?’
‘Tell me.’
‘I don’t want to be Emperor,’ Guilliman said.
The Lion didn’t reply.
‘Help me do this, brother,’ said Guilliman. ‘Help me keep what is left together. Help me preserve the human intent. Don’t make argument with me and misinterpret my motives.’
‘I want to trust you, Roboute,’ the Lion replied, ‘but I have always been wary of your ambition.’
Guilliman sighed and shook his head.
‘I cannot be more open with you. It is ironic. With respect, my dear brother, you come here full of doubts about me, yet you have always been one of the most opaque amongst us. You are a man of secrets, Lion, or at least of silent privacy. No one knows your mind or fully appreciates your intent, not even our father. Yet you doubt me?’
A tiny tremor of irritation crossed the Lion’s noble face.
‘Hard words,’ he said.
‘But true,’ Guilliman replied, ‘and perhaps I should have spoken them before now, long before. I do not doubt your loyalty or your prowess, but you and your Dark Angels are secretive beings, my brother, and Caliban is a world of mystery. I am wounded that you come to me with distrust when no one knows you well enough to know your heart.’
‘You have never spoken this way before,’ said the Lion.
‘There has never been a time before,’ replied Guilliman. ‘The universe has never closed in so tightly around us to squeeze the words out. I will be plain. I have never had the courage before. I have always been too in awe of the noble Lord of the First.’
‘The Master of the Five Hundred Worlds in awe of me?’ laughed the Lion.
‘You know it. You know we all were. When Horus was named Warmaster, he did not much care that he had succeeded above me, or Rogal, or Ferrus. What he truly savoured was being chosen over you.’
Guilliman felt a curious wash of relief at having spoken so candidly. He saw, though he wondered if it was his imagination, that the Lion seemed uncomfortable when confronted by such openness.
‘Your Imperium, then,’ said the Lion, ‘this Imperium Secundus, this great scheme of survival… How do you intend to proceed? Do you intend to declare yourself regent?’
‘I do not,’ Guilliman replied. ‘I will not found an empire and then crown myself. Such arrogance would confirm every doubt and suspicion lurking in the minds of men like you. I need a figurehead for the public to rally around while I fight to keep the mechanisms of Imperium turning over and protected.’
‘But…’ the Lion began. He looked pointedly at the great central seat, draped with its Terran standard. ‘Who then? Surely it must be blood?’
‘Agreed,’ said Guilliman. ‘It must be a primarch.’
‘My dear Roboute,’ said the Lion. ‘There are only two of us here. What exactly are you proposing?’
13
Falling Angels
‘The strength of your enemy is also his weakness.’
– Martial Stratagems, 123rd Maxim
‘I am, I confess, uneasy with the suggestion,’ said Titus Prayto.
‘I understand,’ Guilliman nodded. ‘Then you refuse?’
‘I do not refuse orders, my lord,’ Prayto responded
quickly.
‘It is not that kind of order. It is a request that you could choose to deny.’
Prayto looked at his commander. They were alone in the Residency, out of earshot of even Gorod and the Terminator bodyguard, and out of mindshot of any psyker.
‘I would neither deny a request, my lord,’ said Prayto.
‘But I put you in a difficult position?’
Prayto nodded.
‘I am not sure I want to spy on the mind of a primarch.’
‘I’m sure you’re in my mind all the time, Titus,’ smiled Guilliman.
‘No, lord. Surface thoughts only, and only then when they are too bright for me to screen them out. I never pry unless invited.’
‘Then perhaps I should not presume, and explain my thinking to you in words,’ said Guilliman.
He sat down, and stared out of the repaired window ports at the distant glimmer of the new star.
‘We stand at the brink. Imperium Secundus needs a figurehead to unite it. I had postponed that choice, for it had to be a primarch, and I was the only primarch present. It was unseemly–’
‘No one would have refuted you, lord,’ said Prayto.
‘It would have been unseemly,’ Guilliman insisted. ‘I prayed for a loyal brother to be delivered through the storm. When all hope seemed extinguished, I resigned myself to taking the regency with all the humility I could gather. Then the Lion appeared.’
‘You would declare him your regent?’
‘Of course… but…’
‘You don’t trust him?’
‘Yes, I do. No matter how closely he plays his secrets. The problem is, I don’t believe he trusts me. If I am going to let him in, Titus, if I am going to declare him into a position of power that I cannot undo, I have to be sure of his agenda. Once he has been ratified as regent, we cannot unseat him if we are disappointed by the character he reveals.’
‘Not without insurrection,’ said Prayto.
‘Which we will avoid, for reasons of toxic irony if nothing else. I need to know his mind, Titus.’
‘I see, my lord. We are essentially vetting the new Master of Mankind.’
Prayto rubbed the bridge of his nose thoughtfully.
‘It is difficult,’ he said. ‘It is as with the Wolves, only on a greater scale. Like the Wolves, the noble Lion undoubtedly understands the authority of the Edict of Nikaea. The Librarius of the Ultramarines is already evidence that you are prepared to overrule the word of the Emperor. If I am caught probing his mind…’
‘Will you be caught?’
‘I will endeavour not to be. At the Feast of Hosts tonight, I will use the background rush of many minds in company to get close. Understand, I do not know his capabilities, and he is famously closed. Also–’
‘Yes?’
‘There has been odd activity this afternoon. At least two incidents were detected by the Astra Telepathica during the parade. We are still processing their findings, but it is possible that one or more powerful minds are at liberty in the precinct of the city.’
Guilliman nodded.
‘Keep me appraised. Titus, if you can tell me that the Lion trusts me sufficiently, I will declare him. He is the only choice… unless you can tell me that poor Vulkan is no longer insane?’
‘I cannot, lord.’
‘I do not care which, Titus,’ said Guilliman. ‘Search the mind of one primarch or heal the mind of the other. Whichever is easiest. Whichever serves us best.’
The surface. That was the next goal.
Curze dropped feet first, a flutter of crow-shadows, and landed at the bottom of a deep extraction vent overlooking one of the Invincible Reason’s eight massive dispersal decks.
Below him, like seeds ready to be sown, hundreds of drop pods were loaded in their cradles over the chutes to the void hatches.
He could commandeer one and drop–
No. A vision came, and it was firm. An undeniable reflection. Guilliman’s city was protected from aerial and orbital assault by field screens and vast automated batteries. In his mind’s eye, Curze saw a single drop pod falling. Its descent was rapid, but not rapid enough. Detection systems awoke. Auspex trembled. Fire control systems calculated intercept. A spear of green energy from the surface struck the diving pod and converted it into an expanding cloud of fire and fluttering debris.
Another vision, slipping in and overlapping the first, showed him that a similar fate awaited any ship or lander that attempted planetfall without the correct code signal. But the codes wouldn’t resolve in his mind. He imagined that they were being randomly generated on a minute by minute basis.
A third vision showed him the pointlessness of trying for the teleport assemblies. The Lion had ensured that they were all deactivated to prevent exactly that kind of escape route.
The Lord of Night bared his teeth and whined. How could one man get to the surface? How could one man–
Another vision. Curze smiled. One man could not.
They were still hunting for him on the upper decks of the flagship. Curze had wearied of the killing, and had slipped away, leaving false trails and brutal traps to delay and occupy his would-be captors. No one suspected that he could have reached the dispersal decks in the ship’s belly so quickly.
Curze slid out of the vent base, and slunk along the side of the vast deck, using the shadows of the great stanchions and kinetic brace-beams. He was moving parallel to the lines of drop pods in their cradle framework. He studied them carefully, checking their status, though this only confirmed what the visions had shown to him.
He was far from alone on the dispersal deck.
Launch control was a large operations room overlooking the bay. Alongside the servitor station personnel, there were twelve drop officers on duty. From the moment Curze let himself into the room, none of them lived for more than thirty seconds. They took the launch permission codes with them as they died, but that didn’t matter.
Codes were for minions and menials. The Lord of the First could launch his drop pod blizzards with a simple gene-sample override.
Curze picked up a data-slate that had fallen onto the deck beside the headless body of the launch station’s commander. He wiped the blood off it with the tattered hem of his cloak. ‘Full assault drop’ was already pre-selected and waiting.
Curze stuck out his dark tongue and slowly, almost lasciviously, licked the cold screen of the data-slate.
From a shared genetic root-source, one brother’s gene-sample was as good as another’s.
The slate pinged.
Genecode accepted.
Launch authorised.
Assault swarm launch in thirty seconds.
Twenty-nine.
Twenty-eight.
The Lion raised his goblet. ‘To the Lord of Macragge, for your welcome,’ he said.
‘To the Lord of the First, for your faith,’ Guilliman replied, ‘and to the Imperium, for its endurance.’
They drank, and around them, along the dressed tables of the great dining hall, their men echoed the toasts and drank.
There were a thousand guests present at the long tables – the highest ranking Ultramarines had gathered and were seated with the Dark Angels counterparts of their specialisms, along with senior consuls, delegates from the Army, the Astra Telepathica, the various fleets, the Mechanicum and the Collegia Titanica, and representatives of all the other Legions that had come to Macragge.
As soon as the toasts were given, music began, and tides of servitors flooded out of the kitchen doorways to serve the first of many courses.
Guilliman and the Lion took their places across from each other at the principal table. Glow-globes drifted in the vaults of the hall’s high roof, and the tables were lined with fluttering candelabras, which combined to fill the hall with a golden light – a luminosity that reminded many present of th
e numinous aura of the Emperor.
Three seats away from Guilliman, Titus Prayto watched the Lion and waited for his opportunity.
He closed his eyes for a second, screening out the background noise. He was uncomfortable. There was a terrible tension that–
Prayto started and stood up, his eyes wide.
‘Great Terra!’ he cried. Despite the scale of the hall and the size of the company present, all talking ceased, and all eyes turned to him.
‘Titus?’ Guilliman asked, confused.
Prayto stared at the Lion.
‘I felt it,’ he said. ‘I felt it there. The surge of minds. Hundreds of minds suddenly alert with anticipation. What did you do, my lord? What did you just do?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talk–’ The Lion began, but his words were cut off by the sudden chiming of multiple alert monitors, swiftly followed by the blare of the palace klaxons.
Guilliman threw back his chair and stood up.
‘Report!’ he demanded.
‘Mass orbital launch,’ Auguston reported, reading off his data-slate as he rose to his feet. He looked at Guilliman in disbelief. ‘The Dark Angels flagship has just… It has just launched a full drop pod assault on Macragge Civitas.’
‘What?’ Guilliman cried.
‘Four hundred drop pods,’ Auguston said. ‘Primary assault spread formation. This city is targeted. Planetfall in four minutes.’
‘Assault swarm confirmed by all stations,’ Gorod reported.
Guilliman’s dress sword was in his fist and aimed, tip-first, across the table at the Lion.
‘Is this your treachery?’ he snarled.
‘No!’ the Lion replied, not flinching from the blade hovering at his throat. Some of his officers had drawn swords at the threat to their master, and he waved them back urgently. There were far too many weapons drawn in the hall already.
‘I have done nothing,’ the Lion hissed. ‘I have not authorised anything!’
‘The grid does not lie!’ Auguston barked. ‘Drop pod swarm! From your ship! Inbound!’
‘You attack me?’ asked Guilliman.