Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero

by Graham McNeill

  Perturabo's arm swung around and he smashed the delicate mechanisms of the Antikythera with a heavy hammer. The metal of the device buckled and split, the precision-ground lenses shattering into a thousand fragments.

  'Brother, no!' cried Magnus as the pieces fell to the floor. 'Why?' Perturabo replaced the hammer on his workbench and said, 'Because I will play no part in aiding you in delving into things you have been told to leave well alone. Our father knows more than us. He has seen further than us. If He tells us there are regions of the warp into which even He does not dare look, then we are beholden to accept that.'

  Magnus stared at the ruined device in disbelief.

  Such a piece was the work of a master, a treasure that ought to have been held up as the epitome of the craftsman's art.

  Atharva saw Magnus' aura darken, like blood in the water. 'Knowing what you suspected, you could have destroyed the Antikythera at any time after its completion,' said Magnus with cold and controlled anger. 'But you waited until I was here to see you do It Why?'

  'Because you needed to see it destroyed to truly understand.' Magnus let out a breath.

  'You have a cruel streak in you, brother,' he said.

  'Perhaps,' conceded Perturabo. 'But sometimes cruelty is the only way to make a point so clearly that nobody can ever mistake its intent.'

  The sky over Attar's hab-towers burned with clashing magnetics. Hostile stellar radiation was stripping away the planet's atmospheric shield, transforming the night sky into a scintillating borealis of refracted light and billowing storm clouds. Twisted starlight bathed the city with end-of-days radiance.

  The highways and mass-conveyance routes out of the city were jammed with every form of transport imaginable as Attar's people fled to Calaena. The organisation of the evacuation was under the aegis of Konrad Vargha's Gubernatorial Guard, but their breathtaking inefficiency had jammed every highway and transit route for tens of kilometres. Mechanicum provosts were attempting to unravel the gridlock, but it was taking time the citizens of Attar did not have.

  Lightning stabbed the city with fiery lances over and over again, and its industrial sectors were promethium hellpits of toxic fumes and chemical infernos.

  'Beautiful, is it not?' said Magos Tancorix, watching the city die from the laagered safety of his gloss-red Triaros squadron to the north of Attar.

  Major Anton Orlov bit back a bitter response and took a calming breath that tasted of fyceline, plastic and burning fuel silos. He wanted to be angry at the Mechanicum adept's singular lack of empathy for the people of Morningstar, but expecting emotion from a machine priest was an exercise in futility. Apparently oblivious to their suffering and loss, he was entirely more concerned with the opportunity to study the anomalous transformation of their planet.

  Instead, Orlov said, 'It's hard to think of something that's destroying my world as beautiful.'

  'The imminent demise of Morningstar is regrettable, of course,' replied Tancorix without looking up from the array of unfolded work-stations integral to the structure of the Triaros. 'But that does not alter the aesthetics of the storm, Major Orlov, nor the value of the data that will allow us to lessen our current meteorological uncertainty.'

  The magos was, physiologically at least, less chimeric than many of his brethren. His face was entirely flesh, yet the back of his skull was a bulbous dome of mnemonic augments, cognitive boosters and coolant pipes.

  Every interaction Orlov had with Tancorix reinforced the feeling that any humanity the adept displayed was a veneer, a mask that enabled him to interart with unaugmented mortals. A machine heart beat within his body, as did a ghoulish appreciation for beauty in devastation.

  Orlov knew it was pointless to argue with Tancorix, but couldn't help himself.

  'Attar was once a prosperous city of seaborne trade from all over Morningstar,' he said, pointing to a windswept headland overlooking the bay. 'I grew up here When I was young, I used to watch the ships coming in at night from just over there. It was mesmerising to watch the aerial tugs guide the ships in, their prows ablaze with stab-lights and collision markers. I used to imagine they were starships and that I was floating in the void, that I was absolutely alone and free When I was drafted into the Red Dragons, I missed that view, but any time I had leave, I'd come back here and watch the ships rolling in and out. It gave me a sense of peace and belonging, a sense that as long as the ships kept coming and going all would be well, you understand?'

  Orlov looked over at Tancorix, but the magos was intent on the cascades of information scrolling down the Triaros' myriad data-slates.

  His sentiment was falling on deaf ears, and he turned his gaze instead to the city's coastline. Far-distant tectonic movement and hydro-volcanoes had split the ocean bedrock and the sea had retreated thousands of kilometres. Beyond the flames engulfing the lower reaches of the city, Attar's vast docks were now towering white cliffs. Attar's once mighty fleet of oceanic harvesters, container vessels and materiel conveyors lay toppled onto their sides, stranded like beached leviathans.

  'All that is gone now,' he said. 'Forever.'

  'There are others worlds not dissimilar to this one,' said Tancorix, examining a brass-rimmed slate with a jumping needle with a look of puzzlement. He tapped a metallic finger against the glass, but the needle did not steady and yet more joined its frenetic spiking.

  'But this one was mine,' said Orlov, 'and I will mourn it.'

  Tancorix did not answer, too intent on the vexation his instruments were causing. Orlov saw the adept's eyes widen, which was as close to an exclamation as he ever came.

  'What's the matter?' asked Orlov.

  'Incoming magnitude readings,' said Tancorix. 'Beyond the capacity of my instrumentation to measure.'

  'What does that mean?'

  'It suggests an imminent seismic event of catastrophic power.'

  'Seismic event - you mean an earthquake?'

  'Yes, Major Orlov, an earthquake,' said Tancorix. 'One of unprecedented magnitude and with an epicentre only a few kilometres from where we stand. Omnissiah protect us…'

  Sour bile churned in Orlov's belly.

  'When?'

  'Right now,' said Tancorix as grinding rock and splitting stone twisted the ground and a thrumming bass note split the air.

  The headland where Orlov had watched the ships coming and going sheared away, obliterated in a thunderous avalanche. What had once been the seabed ripped wide open, and the burning sectors of Attar tumbled into a hellish fiery chasm.

  Morningstar shrugged.

  Category 9: CATASTROPHE

  [Major scale and duration - multiple populated areas]

  Four

  RUINS • SORCERY • TRAITORS

  The last time Magnus had seen such devastation was on Terra. Much of the Throneworld was still in ruins, its many civilisations swept away by continent-cracking weapons, and the monolithic structures of the Imperium yet to be completed. By the time Magnus had come to his father's side, the reconstruction was well under way, but vast swathes of the planet's populace were yet to benefit from the Emperor's worldwide efforts, even so long after Unity had been declared.

  It had been a humanitarian crisis of global proportions, but one met with a coordinated response.

  No such response would be forthcoming for Attar's people.

  The city resembled a scene straight from the imaginings of the ancient dramaturges, the nethermost circle of a terrible realm of torment reserved for the damned.

  A new and ferocious night had descended on Attar, the sky sunless as tar-black smoke from the citywide conflagration blotted out the light. Flames from the burning promethium silos that had fallen into the abyssal chasm splitting the waterless bay illuminated the ruins with blood-red firelight. Attar's hab-blocks had tumbled as easily as children's bricks, crashing into one another to form grotesquely intertwined towers of plascrete and steel.

  Six Stormbirds touched down on the edge of the city, though it was hard to reconcile the sig
ht before the legionaries as they disembarked as having once been a city. All that remained were labyrinthine pathways between groaning ruins, treacherous arrangements of buckled structural elements and precariously balanced heaps of debris.

  Magnus disembarked and let out a stifled sob as the scale of the disaster threatened to overwhelm his psychic defences.

  Such loss. Such terror.

  'So many taken so swiftly,' he said, feeling too much, too deeply. How he wished he could undo what had happened here, to take away the pain and make good all that had been broken.

  The Thousand Sons formed up on their primarch and Magnus did his best to shield them from the psychic horror and grief of the city's people.

  'How can we possibly navigate this,' said Phosis T'kar, staring in wonderment at the smashed city. 'Every schematic we have is useless. Nothing of the city's street plan remains intact.'

  'We do not need schematics,' snapped Magnus. 'Use your Corvidae senses and aether-sight to navigate. There are medicae shuttles inbound behind us, so spread out and save as many of these people as you can.'

  Another wave of Stormbirds roared overhead, iron-hulled gunships with the distinctive hazard striping of the IV Legion. These were no ordinary craft, but workhorse transports modified to carry construction material. Behind them came a host of fat-bellied Mechanicum conveyers laden with heavy-lifting rigs, tunnellers and rubble excavators.

  It had been a battle to convince Perturabo to divert any vessels to the rescue efforts in Attar. The resources were better spent in aiding those already in Calaena, his brother had said. The inference was clear. The deaths here would help balance the unforgiving arithmetic of the Iron Warriors' evacuation timetable.

  Perturabo had accounted for great loss of life in the process of the evacuation, and his predictions were being proved uncannily accurate Magnus almost hated him in that moment, for the first time in his life imagining what it might be like to strike one of his brothers.

  The moment had passed and Magnus reluctantly conceded the necessity for such hard calculations, though it still sat ill with him to simply write off the inhabitants of Attar as statistics on a balance sheet of life and death.

  But he had seen an opportunity amid the streams of information coming from Magos Tancorix's data-gathering station just beyond Attar. A name that had seen Perturabo finally authorise a rescue mission.

  'Move out,' said Magnus. 'I give you leave to use your powers wherever you can to help the Iron Warriors.'

  'Is that wise, my lord?' asked Phosis T'kar. 'There are already… mutterings of what we can do.'

  'Do not argue with me,' said Magnus. 'I will not let people die when we might save them. Now go!'

  Phosis T'kar nodded as Magnus turned and walked away.

  'Where are you going my lord?' asked Phosis T'kar.

  'I am going to find Konrad Vargha,' said Magnus.

  'The planetary governor's bio-tagging is non-functional,' said Phosis T'kar. 'It is likely he is dead.'

  'He is alive,' said Magnus. 'I know it.'

  'Even if that is true, how will you find him among this?'

  'How little you know of me,' said Magnus. 'Trust me my son - there is nowhere he can be that I cannot find him.'

  Swirling dust hung in the air in choking veils, coating everything in white and burying the dead in ashen shrouds. Magnus let himself perceive the world in hues of psychic resonance, overlaying his already superlative vision with echoes unseen by most mortals.

  Emergency sirens wailed in the distance, as if lamenting the destruction around them. Stone split stone with grinding slowness, and steel reinforcement shrieked as it bent and snapped. Bloody survivors wandered numbly through the wreckage of their homes, vainly calling the names of loved ones and family members.

  The city was moaning with all its voices.

  Muffled cries of wounded men and women echoed in the fallen canyons of broken buildings, but these were all too few. Attar's destruction had come so swiftly that most of its populace had died without even knowing what was happening.

  Magnus pushed swiftly through the ruins, every one of his physical and subtle senses extended to guide him.

  Konrad Vargha was, unusually for Imperial governors, a native of the compliant world. Morningstar's people remembered Old Earth and Vargha had willingly embraced the newly arrived Imperial forces. His fervour had so impressed the expeditionary fleet commanders and Terran envoys that it had seemed only logical to allow him to remain in command of Morningstar.

  His death could not be simply chalked up as a statistic.

  Magnus had only met Governor Vargha once, but that was enough. The mental imprint of a mind was as distinctive as a genetic trace or a fingerprint. More so, as no two minds - even those of genetic clones - were identical.

  Even that fleeting contact would be enough to find the man.

  Magnus paused in the shadow of a ruined structure that might once have been a commerce building. It leaned at a dangerous angle, its facade sagging like wet parchment. Spalling shards of stone fell from its roof and broken glass littered the ground before it.

  'You are still alive,' said Magnus. 'I know it.'

  He had not lied to Phosis T'kar, not really. Magnus had no direct knowledge of whether or not Konrad Vargha was alive or not, but upon their first meeting he had experienced a brief vision of the man, weeping and soiled aboard a Legion gunship as it soared beneath burning storms.

  That was no guarantee of anything, of course. No vision could be entirely trusted, for the pathways into the future branched and divided so rapidly and unexpectedly that nothing was ever set in stone. But it was enough to convince Magnus that a rescue effort into Attar was worth attempting.

  With a twist of thought, he detached his subtle body from his flesh, letting it drift free in a nimbus of dazzling, silver-threaded light.

  Instantly, the screaming thought-forms of thousands of people stabbed into his mind like hot knives. He could not shut them out, and nor would he even if that were possible. The least he could do was share a measure of the city's pain.

  The ruins sang with the psychic howls of the dead and the dying, a wasteland of souls untimely ripped from their bodies. Anguish filled its broken streets, a paean to suffering that clawed at the walls between worlds and a siren song to the things that lived beyond.

  He rose high above the city, seeing further and deeper without a cage of blood and bone to confine him. The monumental scale of Attar's suffering was laid out before him, a shattered wasteland of stone and glass that had once been a thriving city.

  'How fragile is our grip on all we have achieved,' said Magnus, 'when everything can be swept away in the moment between two breaths.'

  The aetheric realm was densely populated; thousands of red-limned ghosts drifted through the city on unseen winds, dead souls now lost in a place they had once known well. Magnus hardened himself against their fear and confusion. They were beyond any help he could offer, their energies already being drawn into the empyrean.

  Amid such a vista of death and cacophony of suffering, the living were bright spots of light, candles flickering all too briefly in the darkness. Magnus pushed aside his grief and sought one particular light amid the anguish.

  He summoned the mental patterns he had felt when Vargha first introduced himself. Magnus could read the thoughts of mortals in the blink of an eye, but usually refrained from doing so out of respect for their privacy and the knowledge that their skulls were too duttered with insignificant flotsam and jetsam to be of much interest.

  Konrad Vargha's implanted bio-tracker might be non-functional, but his mind trace was a steady light burning in the heart of Attar. Magnus swooped over the city, past burning hab-structures folded like pasteboard and over flaming ravines that had once been grand parks.

  He felt his legionaries moving through the city, flaring geysers of psychic power as they melted steel, lifted impossible weights and eased pain with their gifts. Beyond the city, the hard grey souls of the Iron
Warriors were untangling the unholy mess Vargha's troops had made of the evacuation: widening roadways, dealing wrecks and restoring the flow of traffic to Calaena.

  Only a fraction of Attar's people would be saved, but how could any of them forgive themselves had they turned a blind eye to the suffering because it was statistically irrelevant?

  Magnus pushed that thought aside, following the light of Konrad Vargha's life until he finally found the man. His body was trapped within an overturned Rhino transport vehicle, its hull partially crushed beneath the wall of a collapsed foundry. The crew of the Rhino were dead, but Vargha was still alive, his aura jagged with pain and frustration.

  Magnus fixed the location in his mind and sped back to where his physical form awaited, inviolate within a kine shield in the shadow of the commerce building. He sighed as he returned to the weight of his physical form.

  How wondrous would it be to exist forever as a being of light and wonder, without need for corporeal form? What evolutionary processes or transformative act would be needed to achieve such a sublime state of being?

  A question for another time.

  Perhaps he would call a symposium on the subject once they were done with Morningstar.

  Little remained to indicate Morningstar's first city had once stood here. The sky was unusually clear and the air still: a moment of rare silence on a world tearing itself apart from within. From all around Morningstar, ever-worsening reports were being received of calamitous climate changes, continental-scale earthquakes and magna-storms of such intensity that they scoured the land back to the bedrock.

  Atharva's visor read-out told him he was standing exactly where he had seen Magnus walk from the storm, but little indication remained of that.

  Zharrukin had all but vanished, the earth scorched more thoroughly than any invading army could hope to salt it. The walls of its great structures were gone, scattered like a fallen empire with naught but dust as its legacy.

  All that remained was an undulating wasteland of smashed plascrete that looked to have fallen from a great height, twisted rebars jutting from exposed foundations like desert bracken.