The First Wall

by Gav Thorpe

  ‘This discussion is a distraction. I do not understand why you came here.’

  ‘To see it for myself. To see faith growing, in the flesh even as I feel it in my thoughts.’ Malcador smiled but there was no humour in his eyes. ‘You see, everyone is a psyker. Everyone has a tiny connection to the warp, even you. Except the Silent Sisters, of course, and a relative handful of others. Instinct, empathy, sympathy… They are products of the soul, communicating in infinitesimally small ways with the souls of others. What if a force bound not just the powerful psykers together, but every soul in humanity?’

  ‘That force is faith, you think?’ Amon was not sure he could deal with the nuances of Malcador’s suggestion. It was as outside his expertise as algae harvesting or Martian theologika poetry. ‘You want to see if faith has power? Is that why you have let this folly grow so wildly?’

  ‘Let us call it weapons research,’ said the Regent.

  ‘The Emperor forbade His own worship.’

  ‘And the moment He makes known His will to end this, I will order the extermination of every last member of the Lightbearers and any other cult.’ Malcador drew up straighter. ‘Until that time, I am the Regent and I allow it to continue.’

  Amon realised the speaker had changed – Olivier had now taken centre stage and was pontificating to his followers. Something he had said had pricked Amon’s suspicion.

  ‘Is something wrong, Custodian?’

  ‘Yes.’ Amon reviewed the last few seconds of his unconscious memory. ‘Olivier just said to give praise to the Emperor, the creator is hope in the heart of every person.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I heard the same, the first time I encountered one of the half-born. The corporal said, “He is the Life Within Death. The Breath on your Lips. The Hope in your Heart.” And I heard him call the Emperor the Life within Death earlier, but it did not trigger the memory.’

  ‘Titles from the holy book, perhaps?’

  ‘No, I have read three different copies and not one of them contained those specific phrases.’ Amon started towards the doorway. ‘You are about to find out just how dangerous faith can be, Lord Regent.’

  Lion’s Gate space port, interstitial bridges,

  twenty-one days since assault

  It was foolish to think that a single battle would change the course of a war already seven years progressed, but as he advanced along a boulevard filled with the wrecks of Imperial Fists, Iron Warriors and Imperial Army tanks of both sides, Abaddon felt a sense of shifting momentum. The void war, the suppression of the Lunar defences, even the slaughter of millions around the walls was simply preface to the assault on the Imperial Palace.

  An assault that would commence within days if the skybridges of the Lion’s Gate could be captured. The Iron Blood was no longer in view, docking with the orbital pilaster, but it was only a matter of time before the Lord of Iron joined his warriors.

  ‘Enjoy your victory,’ Layak told him, the six eye-lenses of his helm gleaming with their unnatural light as twilight rapidly fell on the smoke-shrouded terminal.

  ‘It is not mine,’ Abaddon replied.

  ‘When you are dedicated to the powers, all victories are shared, for the ascension of one is the ascension of all. Rejoice in the know­ledge that we step closer to Lord Horus’ final confrontation with the Emperor. We are delivering the Warmaster to his fate.’

  Abaddon was not so sure he knew what that meant, but the arrival of ochre-clad warriors ahead of the vanguard pushed aside all other considerations. Bolts speared out to meet the oncoming warriors, while fire from heavy weapons sited further down the bridges flared past. With his knot of Sons of Horus around him, Layak and the two blade slaves at his left shoulder, Abaddon strode forward with purpose.

  Wordless cries drew his attention to the left. From among the silver-clad companies of the Iron Warriors burst forth a stream of red – legionaries of the World Eaters racing ahead of their companions. At their head pounded Khârn, the teeth of Gorechild flashing in the flare of bolt propellant, his armour encased in dried gore.

  ‘There goes a champion who is at one with himself,’ said Layak. ‘Khârn embraces the gifts of Khorne and is freed the indignities of doubt and self-concern. See how he charges right at his enemies, no longer afraid, no longer wondering at his purpose. He is fulfilled and through him so Khorne’s power grows, a mutual glory.’

  ‘He becomes more mindless, unable to focus, losing what he was,’ replied Abaddon. ‘And Typhon – Typhus – what has he turned into? What of the lodge-brother I once swore oaths alongside? We have travelled a long road, and I am not sure it leads to the destination we wanted when we set out.’

  ‘The destination has always been written. Destiny, you see?’ said Layak with a short laugh. ‘Perhaps you were blind to it. Erebus thought that guile was needed on occasion, but I have hidden nothing from you. All power comes at a price.’

  The captain of the World Eaters was almost at the line of ­Imperial Fists, running ahead of his brothers by twenty metres, uncaring of the bolter fire that turned towards him. Thirty Imperial Fists converged on him, shields coming together like a thunderclap. Five metres from them, Khârn leapt, turning salmon-like in mid-air as he passed over them, Gorechild taking the heads from two before he landed. The champion of the Blood God did not stop to attack the shield wall from behind, leaving his followers to crash against it in a welter of chain weapons and blazing power axes. Instead he pushed on, heading for the next line of Imperial Fists, where Abaddon saw a large banner flying, carrying the crests of the Legion and their First Captain, Sigismund.

  ‘He’ll be surrounded and cut down, no matter how much the forces of the warp grant him power,’ said Abaddon.

  ‘What do you care?’ crowed Layak. ‘It is the will of the gods!’

  Abaddon gave no reply, but the sorcerer’s words spurred him. He owed Layak no explanation and doubted the Word Bearer would understand anything of fraternity, of the bond between battle-brothers stronger than loyalty to distant gods and nebulous powers.

  He broke into a run. His warriors followed without hesitation.

  Khârn thought himself powerful but in fact all he was offering up was his own life. Abaddon would fight to save him that sacrifice, if only for another day. To allow otherwise, to stand by while the gods turned a great warrior of the Legions into their puppet, was to start along a winding path that led back to the Warmaster, and raised questions Abaddon was not yet willing to ask of himself.

  The Custodians attack

  Faith sustains

  Sigismund’s test

  Unknown

  It was impossible to tell where the leaves ended and the storm began. The crown of the tree was a blend of fire and lightning, the flicker of its conflict reflected in the thick chains that wrapped about its great trunk, golden vines biting into valley-sized ridges in the bark.

  Keeler felt impotent, blown about on hurricane gusts that eman­ated from the battle in the heavens. She yearned to spear upwards into the roiling blackness of the Chaos cloud, to become a bright thunderbolt of the Emperor’s wrath.

  The memory of burning the half-born brought back the intoxicating sense of power that possessed her when she became a vessel of the Emperor. She trembled at the recollection, aquiver at the thought of the Emperor’s spirit passing through her again.

  For all she tried to channel that power, it remained as elusive as the lightning bolts that rained down on the upper limbs of the god-tree.

  Circling as close as she could, blinded at times by the ferocity of the sky war, Keeler tried to latch on to the faith of the Lightbearers around her mortal body. She could hear the sermon of Olivier, and beyond his words the distant, slow pulsing of souls from ten thousand witnesses.

  It was as though she tried to grasp fog. The faith bubbled and flowed through her spiritual grip, refusing to be ignited by her passion. It whirled fr
om touch like a magnet presented with its opposite pole, always just out of reach.

  The mist in her thoughts manifested about the arcing roots of the tree, seeping up from cracks in the arid ground. Keeler had not noticed before how parched the landscape had become. Nothing was left of the fecund wilderness, the earth drained of its vitality.

  Where the fog touched the tree it left smears of colour, patches of brightly sprouting fungus. They matured rapidly, filling the air with spores, and the spores became flies, buzzing about the cracks in the bole, eager to lay eggs into the sap of the god-tree.

  Screaming tore Keeler from her reverie. Her thoughts flooded back to the real world, her senses confronted with panicked shouts, the roar of plasma jets and buzz of rotary cannons.

  To the west a golden gun-cutter soared over the tall arch that denoted the end of the processional, wing cannons spitting tracer rounds into the packed column of pilgrims. Keeler retched as she saw a line of Lightbearers gunned down, their bodies turned to tatters by the hail of bullets.

  From the east a black gunship of the Silent Sisterhood appeared, the sky about it churning with strange energy, flickering with black and purple. To look upon it made Keeler sick, her vision swimming dizzyingly as she tried to watch the approaching craft.

  ‘Custodians!’ gasped Sindermann, who was at her shoulder, his hand tight on her arm to pull her away. She refused, standing her ground.

  ‘Wait!’ she called to Olivier as he turned to run. The single word stopped him and he turned. ‘This is a test of faith.’

  He took another half-step, conflicted. Keeler held out a hand.

  ‘Trust me,’ she said. ‘Trust in the Emperor.’

  Olivier glanced over his shoulder at the gold-armoured figures advancing on the crowd from several directions. Keeler could guess his thoughts – that the officers of the Emperor should turn their guns upon them.

  ‘Share your faith with me,’ she urged him, extending her hand again. ‘Show your followers the path of righteousness.’

  He seized hold of her hand, grip almost painfully tight. The contact was like a shock of electricity, jolting up her arm.

  Sindermann slipped his hand into her other, and she felt another surge of power. When others on the platform joined her, Keeler felt the pulse of their faith pushing outwards.

  Some in the crowd, which was surging back and forth between panic and anger, saw the unity of their leaders and copied them, joining hands. Though separated by several hundred metres, it was as if they were next to Keeler, adding their prayers to hers. She felt light-headed, as though the ground dropped away.

  The further she reached out with her faith, the greater the strength that flowed back to her. Her calmness multiplied, propagated through the crowd by a ripple of awed silence as worshipper after worshipper turned away from the attacks and towards the fulcrum of their belief.

  It was then that Keeler saw the light of the Emperor shining from the congregation, spreading like a dawn from person to person. As it stretched further down the processional, she saw bolt-rounds sparking from the gleam, as though a power field had been switched on. The holy ambiance pushed further, forcing the gunship high, its rocket salvos exploding prematurely in thin air.

  ‘Have faith, brothers and sisters!’ she called, her voice echoing like thunder.

  They were joined as one; she was the tree and her faith was the roots. As the water and sun nourished the tree, so the prayers and souls of the faithful gave her strength.

  Keeler felt a small pinprick of cold in her consciousness and turned to see a golden warrior ascending the stairs to the platform. He strode with purpose but without undue haste, guardian spear in one hand rather than at the ready in both. Though he wore his helm, she knew it had to be Amon.

  Amon advanced through the swarm of flies around the platform as though passing through a black curtain. They crawled over his armour and visor, almost obscuring the handful of figures beyond. A glance down to the processional confirmed that the cloud that had enveloped the congregation was thickening still, blotched with patches of darkness that seemed to assume humanoid shape before flowing back into formlessness. He heard the reports of the Custodians, their weapons still unable to penetrate the miasma that shrouded the Lightbearers, while the processional itself was like a mire, immobilising any warrior that tried to set foot upon it. Even the Sisters of Silence were unable to penetrate the fog bank, warning that it was not wholly psychic in nature, something they had not encountered before.

  ‘Keeler!’ he called out. She had a strange half-smile as she turned fully to him, still holding hands with Olivier and Sindermann. ‘You have to end this madness.’

  ‘Madness? I see only the faithful protecting themselves.’

  Amon knew better than to argue. The daemonic presence had cloaked itself in a garb of righteousness before. Whatever Keeler and the other Lightbearers witnessed was not the reality he observed. As much as he had vowed to execute Keeler if she had proven to be the font of the incursions, now that he confronted her he saw that he would need to find another way. Energy crackled across the platform, the flies coating everything with furred black bodies, the buzzing drone enough to drive a listener insane. He was not sure if killing her would release the full power of the Neverborn or end it, or even if he would be able to land a fatal blow within the miasma that protected the ‘faithful’.

  ‘Why do you turn on your own, Custodian?’ Keeler demanded, her smile turning to a frown. Black lightning crawled across her skin but she seemed oblivious to it. ‘Why do you murder the faithful?’

  ‘It is a lie,’ he told her. ‘Your faith has been perverted. The Life within Death is not the Emperor. The Breath on your Lips is not the Emperor. The Hope in your Heart is not the Emperor.’

  ‘What would you know of it?’

  ‘Listen to me. I have stood at the Emperor’s side for a lifetime. I have fought His wars and nearly died a score of times in His service. You are being corrupted, just like the soldiers in the hospital.’

  ‘We are the righteous!’

  Amon glanced into the miasma below. The shadow within moved like a shark through water, gliding between the immobile faithful, solidifying for a few seconds before dissipating. Each time it darkened it seemed to do so for longer. Its power was growing.

  ‘Will you kill us all?’ she asked. As she spoke, black vapour issued from her mouth, falling like smoke from parting lips.

  If I could, Amon thought.

  ‘You must see the truth for what it is.’ He took a few paces closer, beetle shells crunching underfoot, flies batting against his armour with each step. ‘If you believe the Emperor is a god, then pray to Him to let you see what is truly happening.’

  ‘You do not believe.’ Keeler shook her head, but he could see uncertainty creeping into her expression. ‘Your words mock my faith.’

  ‘You are right, it is not my faith. It is yours. Claim it. Confront it.’ He dropped his voice low. ‘Look with your faith, Euphrati.’

  Unknown

  Hearing her name spoken by the golden giant sent an eddy of chillness through Keeler, like the draught from a window briefly opened. The golden giant was almost invisible among the haze of the faithful, a looming shade in the brightness. His voice seemed like the boom of distant waves on a shore, powerful and incessant, but it was only her name that she really heard.

  The words that had preceded it filtered through the throbbing of her blood, a command to look with her faith.

  Not a command. A… plea? A prayer, almost, from the lips of a Custodian.

  Faith.

  What was her faith?

  That the Emperor was a god?

  It was more than that. The Lectitio Divinitatus had shaped that belief, but it was not the foundation of her faith. In being confronted by the immortal nature of the true enemy she had looked upon a universe as removed from humanity as th
e void was separated from the depths of the oceans. And she had turned to the Emperor.

  With the faith that whatever He was, the Emperor was the Master of Mankind; not just humanity’s ruler but also its guide.

  That same Will had shaped the Custodians, and now Euphrati Keeler heard her name uttered by one of them, asking her to look with faith.

  He could not know what she meant when she talked of faith – such devotion to an abstract was written out of his personality. Instead he had appealed to her sense of faith.

  The tree.

  The instant her mind turned to it, she closed her eyes, seeking to look upon its shining boughs as she had the first time she had walked into the garden of the Emperor.

  The garden was there again, the parched plains replaced with a sprawling, verdant landscape. But this was not the garden she had wandered in with such pleasure. The sky was dark, the ground a mire underfoot, where thorny tendrils clasped at her feet and ankles. Gases bubbled from the marsh, and flies buzzed over flowers that stank of corpse-rot.

  In desperation she looked for her tree, scratching arms and legs as she burst through bushes of black roses and scrambled down bramble-choked dells.

  She saw the faintest glimmer of gold beyond the ridgeline ahead, the hill crowned with forbidding forests.

  It was not to run that she had come here, but to fly. With a last effort she propelled herself into the skies, as pustule-like growths erupted from the mulch and belched forth clouds of hideous wasps behind her.

  They pursued Keeler but the swiftness of her faith was greater, taking her high into the air where the clouds felt like cold oil on her flesh, the wind knotting her hair like briar tangles.

  Below she saw the Lightbearers. Each was no longer a shining lamp but a marsh-flame, burning the decay of centuries that burbled from the underbelly of the world. Ghostly eels prowled amongst them, pale-flanked bodies moving in sinuous waves between the small hillocks of bone and flesh.