Shards of the wyrm’s scales littered the edge of the crater and he lifted one, thinking to use it as a weapon. He turned it over in his hands, surprised at how light it was. The edge was razor sharp, and when he caught a glimpse of his reflection he let out a gasp of surprise.
Where once his eyes had been an inviting gold-flecked green, now they were a shimmering silver, like coins placed on the eyes of the dead. He lifted a hand to his face, seeing the web of veins and incandescent blood beneath the skin, the artistry that had gone into their construction and the miraculous bio-engineered wonders encoded within his flesh.
Was this a side effect of the wyrm’s attack or was he now perceiving the world as he had always been intended to see it? Strangely, the sight of his new eyes did not trouble him overmuch, and he rose to his feet with fresh purpose.
The wyrm’s passage was impossible to miss, a deep furrow in the mountainside that led north into a shadowy wasteland. Watery light glinted from the creature’s distant scales as it fled its former tomb. Beyond the wyrm, he saw the broken outlines of what looked like a collection of ruined towers, obviously ancient and perhaps belonging to a long-dead, long-vanished culture.
The sulphurous skies over the horizon were a striated mess of bruise yellow and infection red. Storm clouds wheeled and clashed, and distant lightning split the air with thunderclap booms. Only a weak, diffuse light broke through the clouds. A smear of light illuminated the southern haunches of the mountain directly below him, and he saw a number of primitive vehicles crossing the southern steppe in the far distance, a great caravan train pulled by mammoth grey-skinned beasts of burden. The landscape the caravan traversed was barren and hostile, black sands and rocky hinterlands swept by dust storms and freezing winds, a grim place to call home.
They were made tiny by distance, but he could make out bent-backed men swathed in furs and heavy leather cloaks driving the mighty beasts. To see other living beings sent a pang of longing through him, a surging relief that he was no longer alone.
He wanted to go to them, to learn where he was and who they were, but he had sworn to see the wyrm creature destroyed.
He would not make his first act upon reaching the surface one of oath-breaking.
He turned his back on the men of this world, and followed the trail of the wyrm into the cold black sands of the north.
NINE
La Fenice Reborn
Methodology
A God of the Battlefield
Wonder and light had returned to La Fenice after a lightless gloom of abandonment. Its doors were flung wide and the perfumed breath of the Pride of the Emperor allowed to sigh in once more, like air into collapsed lungs. It heaved with life and magic, a rapturous rebirth now that the III Legion was restored to its true purpose. Harsh lumens banished shadow and heat-belching flambeaux imparted warmth to the setting, pleasing Fulgrim mightily.
The Phoenician wandered through the industry filling the theatrical space, sculptors re-imagining the nymph statues worked into the columns as sinuous pleasure maidens. They carved from memory, conjuring the blissful horror of the handmaidens of profligacy with rasp and chisel. They were crude representations, and Fulgrim had to resist the urge to beat them aside and complete the work himself.
Clad in a flowing crimson robe lined with a constantly rearranging mixture of barbs, silks and puckered cephalopod flesh, Fulgrim toured the work being carried out like a master mason supervising the completion of his legacy. His sword hilt protruded from his robes, and though its blade no longer held the shard of the creature that had shown him the darkest secrets of the galaxy, it was still a touchstone bauble to him.
The sentimentality of the thought amused Fulgrim, and he craned his neck upwards.
Imprisoned within its elaborate frame of gold and cold iron, his mirror image stared back at him with undisguised hatred. Though it was impossible ever to see the expression on the painting change – automated pict viewers had tried and failed – all it took was the briefest glance away for the painted face to render some new emotion in the oils and acrylics and other… more exotic materials that had gone into its creation. Armoured in his distinctive violet and gold, the Fulgrim in the painting was a divine being, a warrior at the height of his strength and power. Charismatic and beloved, sure and certain of his purpose.
All of it a lie.
Fulgrim could barely remember a time when that had been him. He barely recognised the figure staring down at him. He could wear that selfsame armour, arrange his hair, his features and his body in exactly the same manner, and there would still be no likening the two.
‘It’s all in the eyes, you see,’ he said.
‘My lord?’
‘Thinking aloud, my Favoured Son,’ said Fulgrim, turning to address his companions: Julius Kaesoron, Marius Vairosean and Eidolon.
He looked up again. ‘Admiring the work of one of our former companions.’
‘The artist woman?’ asked Kaesoron, his words deliciously mangled by the disfigurements wrought on the battlefield and upon Fabius’s slab.
‘Serena D’Angelus,’ said Fulgrim, leaning down to whisper in Kaesoron’s ear. ‘She quite literally put her body and soul into this piece. Her fevered blood, her carnal sweat and all her anguished tears too. Many others contributed their excretions to her unique blend of pigments, though perhaps not as willingly as she herself.’
‘I don’t like it,’ said Marius Vairosean, picking through the ruins of the orchestra pit, where he had been reborn to his true calling. The halberd-like device strapped to his back growled with a throbbing bass hum, as though remembering its birth as a weapon in this place of vibrant madness.
‘You don’t like it?’ asked Fulgrim. ‘Why is that?’
Marius wouldn’t look up, and Fulgrim gripped his chin with spiteful strength and wrenched his distorted face to look up at the painting. The leader of the Kakophoni grunted in pain as Fulgrim’s sharpened nails cut his throat open. He gurgled phlegm and blood.
‘It isn’t you,’ growled Marius through his reshaped jaws. ‘I do not like any images of you. They can never be you, so they are all an insult to your radiance.’
‘A good answer,’ said Fulgrim, releasing him. ‘Though I fear an incomplete one. You torment yourself over your misguided attempt to exorcise the daemon from my flesh. You hate that you doubted me, Marius. Good, that is as it should be. Revel in that sensation. Feed it and feel it twist in the gut like a worm gnawing your innards. Trust me, Marius, good guilt should not be squandered.’
‘As you will it, my lord,’ said Marius, and his sonic weapon squalled and barked in dissonant screeches.
Fulgrim watched as Legion warriors daubed the walls with furious brushstrokes, colours and patterns that would be offensive and sickening to less evolved eyes. Though it looked random, there was a precise order to it all. Every colour, every pattern and every last facet of this rebirth had been orchestrated and designed by Fulgrim, and not one droplet of paint was left to dry that had not been carefully placed.
Its previous incarnation had been decorated and adorned by the remembrancers – a veritable horde of artists, poets and sculptors – but none now remained alive to continue that work. The imperatives of the Lords of Profligacy were harsh upon the flesh of the weak, breaking their bodies and minds after only the briefest dalliance on the path to sensation. Mortal frames were weak, but the Legions had been built for unending war and were engineered to endure all manner of punishments and pleasures.
The perfect devotees of the Dark Prince.
Shattered reflections bounced back and forth across the proscenium and the elevated boxes, where those who had gained the primarch’s favour would gather to watch the forthcoming performances. Thousands of glittering shards taken from the giant crystal forests of Prismatica had been brought to La Fenice, and set within the walls, ceiling and floor of the theatre.
‘And he shall build a glorious city of mirrors: a city of mirages, at once solid and liquid, at once air and st
one,’ said Fulgrim.
‘The city of mirrors?’ said Eidolon, tapping a finger against the glass. ‘Is that what this is?’
Fulgrim shook his head in irritation. ‘Don’t be foolish, Eidolon. I brought you back to build it for me. Have you played any part in this work?’
‘No, my lord.’
‘Ah, but I forget,’ said Fulgrim, spinning and placing an arm around Eidolon’s shoulder. ‘You weren’t alive for my grand soliloquy upon the stage after Julius and Marius here tried to torture a supposed daemon from my body, little realising I had already cast it out.’
Fulgrim released Eidolon and his lip curled in distaste at the Lord Commander’s awkward gait. Though his limb control had improved markedly since his restoration, Eidolon’s body was still an unpleasant collection of jerky tics and awkward movements. Fulgrim was put in mind of a poor puppeteer’s performance.
‘Your walk is ugly and foolish,’ said Fulgrim. ‘You move like a greenskin. It offends me, and I do not wish to see it. Stay behind me until you can perambulate with some grace.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ rasped Eidolon, retreating in the face of Fulgrim’s ire.
‘Perhaps I left it too long to retrieve your shrivelled head from that emptied barrel of victory wine,’ said Fulgrim. He shook his head and smiled. ‘No, the fault lies with Fabius and his imperfect work. Remind me to punish him for making you stupid and ugly.’
‘If this is not to be the city of mirrors, then what is?’ asked Kaesoron.
Fulgrim rounded on his favoured son. ‘All in good time, Julius. I will not be rushed. This is to be my moment of greatest triumph, and you want me to just blurt out the awesome majesty of what I intend? You are an idiot child with no appreciation of true drama. I will reveal what is to come when it best suits me, my sons, not before. I want to savour the look on everyone’s face when they see what is to be wrought in the heart of the star maelstrom.’
‘Apologies, my lord,’ said Kaesoron, but Fulgrim waved away his contrition.
‘You are beginning to bore me,’ said Fulgrim, pausing to admire his reflection in a cracked pane of crystal. He smiled as he saw the painting above him in the depths of the glass, its expression murderous. Fulgrim licked his full lips, but the smile fell from his face as he saw something in the corner of the shard.
A towering figure in black armour, with eyes and hands of shimmer-steel silver.
He spun around, searching the far corners of La Fenice for any sign of this intruder.
Nothing – for there was nothing to see. Ferrus Manus was dead, and the daemon in the painting had no power over him.
‘Show yourself!’ bellowed Fulgrim, drawing his golden sword as all eyes turned towards him in shock. ‘I killed you once, and I can do it again, brother!’
He lurched drunkenly through the theatre, staring into each shard of glass and every polished surface. In each of them, he saw the hulking outline of the Gorgon, a silent figure watching from the shadows. He smashed them with thunderous punches, his fists red and bloody with splintered shards of crystal by the time he had finished.
Fulgrim halted in his rampage and let out a shuddering breath. His warriors watched him in shock and surprise, wary of being the first to break their silence. His hands ached, but the pulsing waves of pain were welcome sensation that helped focus his mind. Ferrus was not here. Ferrus was dead. This was just shadow play, the result of his exertions and the strain of dealing with a dullard like Perturabo. His head ached. It felt like it was being steadily crushed in an engineer’s vice. He needed diversion, he needed release from the dark thoughts building in his mind like toxic fluids.
‘I am leaving,’ he said. ‘Send a trepannixor to my chamber, I need my skull drilled.’
‘As you wish, my lord,’ said Marius. ‘Is there anything else we can do for you?’
Fulgrim blinked away a shimmering after-image of his dead brother and nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Tell me, does the Brotherhood of the Phoenix still gather?’
Kaesoron shook his head. ‘The ashen order has not gathered since Isstvan.’
‘Re-establish it,’ said Fulgrim.
‘My lord?’
‘Alone, you are solitary voices in praise of the Dark Prince; together you shall be a mighty choir,’ said Fulgrim, in the grandiose tones of a heroic actor. ‘To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw perfume on the violet, to smooth the ice, to add another hue unto the rainbow or with taper-light to seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish… these are the grandest arts, the sublime crafts that glorify all the manifold paths to perfect excess.’
Seeing their confusion, Fulgrim allowed them this one indulgence. ‘La Fenice is reborn, but it needs purpose. Fill it with debauches and prayers to self-gratification in all its forms. Leave no perversion, no bloodlust, no expression and no degradation untapped. Let blood and better run free and let the heavens shake with your devotions.’
‘As you wish,’ said Kaesoron. ‘I will see to it.’
‘As will I,’ said Marius.
Fulgrim let out a shuddering breath as he looked up at the painting once more.
‘If you are lurking here, brother, then spend your time learning of what we have become and weep…’ he hissed. ‘But make no mistake, I will have what I want.’
But you will forever lose what you once had, whispered a voice in his mind.
The Sisypheum was not a large ship, yet its armaments and warrior complement were easily capable of bringing truculent worlds to heel by its very presence. Compact and deadly, the Iron Hands vessel still bore the scars of its flight from Isstvan and its subsequent battles in the northern marches. The black, non-reflective hull was pitted with the impact shrapnel from explosive ordnance launched to cripple her, for the heavier traitor cruisers to finish off. Those wounds hadn’t slowed the Sisypheum, and damage that would have gutted a vessel of almost any other Legion had been shrugged off and its pursuers evaded as every Iron Hand aboard fought to keep it flying.
Every warrior bent his back to the task, and never was a crew more dedicated and devoted to its ship. Hull breaches were sealed in moments, deck fires extinguished the instant they began and shield generators repaired as soon as they overloaded. The Sisypheum was the ship that simply would not die.
Up-armoured and with a hull that had been repaired more times than any shipwright would dream, it was not a graceful vessel, nor even a handsome one. Its blunt form was that of an attack dog that had met one too many foes its equal, but which had yet managed to give as good as it got.
Death Guard, Sons of Horus, Word Bearers and Iron Warriors had all taken their best shot at destroying the Sisypheum, but it had eluded them all or fought to keep the traitors at bay long enough to escape whatever net was closing in. A Night Lords vessel had come closest to ending its defiance of the odds stacked against it, but soon the hunted became the hunter, employing tactics no one would have expected from an Iron Hands captain.
A Raven Guard captain, perhaps, but the X Legion fought with brutal directness, not with subtlety and subterfuge. Hadn’t Isstvan V shown the forces loyal to Horus that simple, undeniable fact?
Yet the VIII Legion’s Tenebraxis suddenly found itself outmanoeuvred and its rear quarters raked by a vessel it should have reduced to a guttering, flame-blackened hulk in a matter of minutes. Left wallowing and defenceless, the Tenebraxis was boarded by kill teams of Iron Hands who took the fight to the enemy in their shadowed halls and darkened companionways, stripping it of anything potentially useful for refitting and repair work.
Leaving the stricken ship burning in the ice floes of the Isstvan cometary belt, the Sisypheum fled the system, finding the closest point to the gravipause and making an emergency warp-jump to distant systems. With the supplies liberated from the enemy vessel, it was reinforced, upgraded and made even more lethal than before.
Like the warriors it carried, it proudly bore the scars of battle on its armour.
Like them, it was a weapon.
This particular compartment ran fully a quarter of the length of the Sisypheum, a research space of arched buttresses angled up from the hull-side edge to a spinal mezzanine viewing area where observers could watch the employment of experimental weaponry and fissile reactor burns in relative safety. The space was filled with stacked crates taken from the Tenebraxis, a collection of materiel yet to be catalogued and put to better use. Heavy generator equipment was bolted to the ironwork deck, and coiled power couplings looped across the walls and hung from the ceiling like jungle creepers or lounging snakes.
A bitter electrical taste flavoured the air at a frequency that set teeth on edge and produced an insistent buzz like an insect trapped in glass. Servitors marched to and fro, bearing containers of heavy tools, machine components and artificer-crafted items that few beyond the Iron Fraternity would recognise.
Thamatica worked back and forth between two monstrous generator units, dragging heavy insulated cables behind him and arranging them in long spirals before hooking them up. Each cable was thick and heavy, and he grunted with the effort of hauling them into the desired position.
‘You know you could have servitors do that for you,’ said Wayland, descending the elevator from the mezzanine. Thamatica looked up at the sight of him, and his bearded face broke out in a grin of welcome.
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