The Master of Mankind

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  She hides in the forest, not far from her village. Not far enough, not as far as she wishes to be, but as far as her legs will take her. Like a panting beast she half digs her way into the wet earth, curling herself into the shadow of a fallen tree. Her throat is raw with straining breath. Her lips are cracked and dry.

  ‘The Imperium has returned,’ her mother had said. Her eyes were wet, her voice was shaking. ‘They are gathering the shamans and the spirit-speakers from every village.’

  ‘Why?’ the girl had asked. She heard the fear in her voice. Never had she felt less like a revered witch-priestess of her people.

  ‘A tithe. Another tithe. One of souls and magic, not wheat and grain.’

  ‘Run, Skoia,’ said her father, looking into her eyes. ‘Run and hide.’

  The mothers of her mother and the fathers of her father had besieged her with agreement. The spirits, all of her ancestors, screamed at her to flee.

  Skoia fled, white dress streaming, hair loose, into the forest.

  Her people are part of the Imperium, so they are taught. Her grandmother told her of the Crusaders’ Coming, when the warriors from the Cradleworld landed almost a century ago and brought the word of peace from humanity’s Emperor. The First Earth, now called Terra, silent all these thousands of years, wasn’t a myth after all.

  The First Earth warriors had demanded compliance, and it had been given. They demanded tithes, and these were also given. Every year the grain haulers carry great portions of the annual harvest into the heavens, to dock with the orbital platforms and await collection. This, it has always been believed, was enough. Mankind has been brought back together, each rediscovered world a jewel in the unknown Emperor’s crown.

  But no Imperial spaceships have made planetfall since the Crusaders departed all those years before. Not until now.

  Skoia hears dogs among her pursuers, barking and growling. The fear is enough to force her to her feet once more, staggering into a weak run. The spirits are hissing and agitated, yet she can scarcely hear them over the heaving of her breaths and the beat of her straining heart.

  Through the trees ahead she sees one of the hunting dogs, as much machine as beast, its fur stripped in places in favour of robot parts, as though it had suffered in an accident and its owner had the credits required for expensive machine-fusion. Its jaws are locked open with a weapon pointing from inside its mouth. Behind it stands a woman, an Imperial woman, her head shaven, her flesh marked with tattoos of eagles. She wears gold and bronze beneath a red cloak. Her eyes are as dead as the gaze of a body upon an unlit funeral pyre.

  Skoia turns and stumbles west. It’s no use. She hears the dog bearing down behind her, its machine parts whining. It shoulders into her, throwing her from her feet. It stands above her, growling. The weapon in its mouth aims down at her face.

  The gold woman with the dead eyes draws nearer, and – for the very first time Skoia can remember – the spirits fall silent.

  No, not just silent. Banished. Gone.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ the girl manages to say. ‘Please. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  The older woman says nothing.

  Skoia breathes raggedly in the silence left by the spirits’ absence, staring up into the ice of the woman’s corpse-eyes.

  ‘I see nothing inside you,’ she murmurs through trembling lips. ‘You have no soul.’

  Five

  Bringer of Sorrow

  Refugees

  Requisition

  Zephon’s hands betrayed him, as they betrayed him every day. The metal fingers lifted from the hair strings of the antique harp, their shuddering subsiding as he ceased focusing on them.

  Zephon was familiar with the science behind this malfunction, having memorised the reports on the various failures of biology/technology linkage taking place where his stumped arms met his bionic limbs at both elbows. The pathways of nerve and muscle were poor at conducting the information from his brain. A common enough failure of fusion surgery when dealing with crude implants grafted to the human form, but to his knowledge he was one of the only living Space Marines to suffer such complete augmetic rejection.

  That was why he was here, of course. He knew it, even if his brothers had been too compassionate to call it exile. You couldn’t fight in a Legion, let alone lead a strike force, if you couldn’t pull a trigger or wield a blade.

  And so he had come, willingly to all outward perception, to Terra. He’d accepted his exile, pretending it was an accolade, as part of the Crusader Host. He stood with the other representatives of each Space Marine Legion, garrisoned on the Throneworld and charged to speak for their brothers.

  In Hoc Officio Gloriam, read the words on the Preceptory’s basalt declaration plaques. There is honour in this duty.

  A dubious honour at best, Zephon knew. Especially now that the Throneworld no longer trusted the eighteen Legions. He was one of only two Blood Angels present in the thirty-strong monastic ambassadorship that the Crusader Host represented. Of the other warriors, even his Legion-brother Marcus, he saw no sign. He had retreated from the hollow duties of the Preceptory, content no more to work through the unreliable lists of the dead and record their names. With the galaxy burning, no reports reaching Terra were anything close to reliable. Of his Legion and primarch, there was no word at all. Was he to painstakingly etch the name of every single Blood Angel into the bronze funeral slabs in the Halls of the Fallen?

  Madness. Worse than madness. Futility.

  Sanguinius lived. The Legion lived.

  So he had retreated to his personal chambers, where other work awaited him.

  It was a truth known to relatively few souls that many of the most beautiful works of art in the entire Imperium – indeed, in the span of human history – were displayed only in the bowels of Blood Angels warships and frontier fortresses. Stained-glass windows that would never see the flare of true sunlight; statues of metaphorical gods and demigods at war with creatures of legend and myth; paintings wrought with forgotten and rediscovered techniques rendered in agonising detail, going unseen amid orchestral compositions of instruments that would never be played for human ears.

  The warriors of the IX Legion didn’t strive in the same way as the soldier-artisans of the III. The Emperor’s Children sculpted, painted, composed to achieve perfection. They crafted great works to bring about something superior to anything shaped by lesser hands. In the act of creation, they exalted themselves above others.

  This external, proud focus was anathema to Zephon and many of his brothers. The creation of art in song, in prose, in stone, was to reflect on the nature of humanity; a step forwards in understanding the distance between mankind and their Legion-evolved guardians. Like all of the Legions, the Blood Angels were born and shaped for battle, with rolls of honour a match for any other, with valour beyond question. But away from the eyes of their cousin Legions, they celebrated a culture of enlightenment: a quest not merely to understand the nature of man, but to understand their distance from the root species they were destined to fight and die for.

  Zephon, a tribal boy who had eaten dust in the starvation seasons and slaughtered mutants with packs of his kindred before his twelfth summer of life, had learned to play the harp. For a century he’d excelled, his gift for harmony a match for his talents on the field of war.

  Until a single battle had stolen both of his gifts. All hope was swept away by the alien sword that had severed both of his arms, mutilated both of his legs and cut him down in indignity.

  After the ninth bionic surgery, the Legion’s Apothecaries had bade him face the unwelcome reality. The grafts had taken as well as they would take. His physiology was simply not suited to the process of augmentation.

  He still practised his music, jangling out discordant melodies with his shaking, slipping metal fingers, just as he still trained with his boltgun, able now to fire one in five times when he t
ried to pull the trigger. That was a significant improvement.

  His aim was similarly ruined. Though his new arms had the strength of his old limbs, even their microtrembles threw off the razor precision of his former marksmanship. His blade-work suffered just as savagely. All of his precise balance and easy footwork was lost in the random tenses and spasms of his reconstructed leg joints.

  Hence his exile. Hence this assignment to Terra.

  In Hoc Officio Gloriam. There is honour in this duty. How those words made him smile.

  His hands rested on the fine strings once more, their twitching just beginning again when the door klaxon gave its monotone whine.

  Zephon froze, instinct pulling his eyes to the where his weapons were racked against the wall. He’d had no visitors in well over a year, since his last meeting with the Sigillite, when Malcador had refused yet another of the Blood Angel’s requests to be granted command of a small frigate and set out in search of his Legion. The thirtieth such request.

  Zephon rose from the seat, laid the harp aside and moved across the spartan chamber to turn the door’s wheel lock. His left leg whirred with smooth mechanics where his thigh and knee had once been, the four-taloned claw that had replaced his right foot clanking down upon the floor.

  When the door swung open on hinges badly in need of oiling, Zephon was faced with the towering figure of a Custodian, a four-metre tall guardian spear clutched at the warrior’s side. The immense suit of armour hummed. The eye-lenses of his conical helmet blazed.

  ‘I seek the Bringer of Sorrow,’ the Custodian said.

  Out of his armour and clad only in a black tunic, the Blood Angel felt curiously at odds with the warrior in full battleplate. ‘You have found him.’

  ‘You are far from my expectation,’ the Custodian admitted. He disengaged the seals at his collar and removed the helm, revealing an ageless face with Urhan ritual scarring, like rivulets of saliva running in five lines down his chin and throat. ‘I am Diocletian. Are you truly the Bringer of Sorrow?’

  The title stabbed at Zephon harder the second time. He wasn’t sure why. ‘That was my title when I led men into war,’ he replied. ‘You sound disappointed.’

  ‘That’s because I am. I expected a champion in exile, and I find a bionic cripple. However, my disappointment is irrelevant. Activate your arming servitors and make ready for battle.’

  Zephon hated the palpable sense of hope that surged through him with those words. The shame of it burned him. ‘I assume you are aware that the Sigillite has forbidden any of the Crusader Host from acting without his seal of authority.’

  ‘I will spare you a lesson in where the Sigillite’s authority begins and ends regarding the Custodian Guard and the actions we may undertake. In this instance, he was the one to commend you to our service. Now arm yourself at once, Bringer of Sorrow.’

  With reluctance, the Blood Angel lifted his hands, showing his arms composed entirely of metal struts, plating and muscle-cabling from the elbows down. His treacherous fingers twitched as if on cue.

  Diocletian looked for several seconds. He blinked once. ‘Is there some significance in your mutilation that I’m supposed to acknowledge?’

  Zephon lowered his hands. ‘I cannot fire my bolter. My hands do not obey me.’

  ‘Can you at least hold a sword?’

  Zephon wondered if he was being mocked, though he couldn’t guess to what purpose. ‘Not reliably,’ he admitted.

  ‘Your invalidity is noted. Now activate your arming servitors. Once you’re ready, you’ll come with me.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘First to the Seberakan Isolation Compound via the Ophiukus Colonnades, then to the Halls of Unity Memoria.’

  ‘I do not understand. Why?’

  ‘Understanding will dawn in time. Let obedience come first.’ Diocletian gave another of his long, emotionless stares, marred by only a single blink.

  How, Zephon wondered, could these golden avatars ever be considered more human than us?

  ‘Custodian?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m waiting for you,’ Diocletian replied. ‘My patience isn’t infinite, Bringer of Sorrow.’

  Zephon moved to the wall-comm, keying in the code to summon his armoury thralls. ‘Given the circumstances, “Zephon” is fine, thank you.’

  ‘If you prefer. I agree that the title is unbearably theatrical, especially for a cripple.’

  Zephon felt the first stirrings of anger, and by the blood of Sanguinius it was a welcome thing indeed.

  ‘You are the first Custodian I have ever spoken to,’ he said. ‘Are all of your kind so direct?’

  ‘Are all of your kind so intoxicated with self-pity?’ Diocletian looked almost as if he might smile, but the expression was stillborn. ‘Now be swift, please. You aren’t the only lost soul I need to reclaim today.’

  ‘Lost soul?’

  ‘I told you we are bound for the Seberakan Isolation Compound.’

  The Blood Angel narrowed his pale eyes. Seberakan was home to traitors who had marched beneath the Warmaster’s banner. ‘Perhaps I am missing some aspect of humour in your words, Custodian.’

  ‘There is never any humour in my words. Now come with me. You and I are going to free some prisoners.’

  Together they stalked through the Imperial Palace. Diocletian was displeased by all he saw. He and Zephon walked side by side through the bustling hallways, scattering pilgrims and refugees before them. Helmed, the two warriors had the option of immunising themselves against the sweaty salt-stink of unwashed skin and unclean breath. Diocletian grunted in disgust as he sealed his vox-grille, relying on his armour’s internal air supply. The processional halls of the Ophiukus Colonnades were choked with the homeless detritus of war, coughing and sniffing and muttering. In some cases, weeping.

  He felt their eyes upon him. Their judging eyes, doubtless wondering why Diocletian and his brethren hadn’t saved them all and won the galactic war already. He felt their ignorance as a weight on his shoulders. That, at least, was a response that edged upon nobility. Far less honourable was his irritation at the moronic, animal weakness in their helpless gazes. Why were they here? Why were they not still among the stars, fighting for their home worlds?

  ‘Something ails you?’ asked Zephon.

  ‘This detritus,’ Diocletian replied. He regretted his honesty at once, for the Space Marine gave a dismissive grunt, and the Custodian felt himself suddenly at risk of being drawn into a conversation.

  ‘This detritus is what we fight for,’ said Zephon. The Blood Angel gestured with his gauntleted hand, forcing a snarl of armour servos. Several of the humans nearby flinched back, their awe briefly turned to fear. ‘These men and women,’ Zephon continued. ‘They are what we fight for.’

  Diocletian snorted, the sound wet and ugly. ‘I fight for the Emperor.’

  ‘We fight for the Emperor’s dream.’ Zephon replied at once. ‘For the Imperium.’

  ‘Semantics. Without the Emperor, His dream could never be realised. He alone can bring it to pass. No other.’

  ‘Then we are both right,’ Zephon replied.

  You are deluded as well as crippled, thought Diocletian. ‘It seems to me, Space Marine,’ he ventured, ‘that too many of your kind decided they were fighting for the Imperium rather than the Emperor. Perhaps if more of you thought as the Ten Thousand do, we would not stand where we stand today, preparing for the end of all we know.’

  Zephon fell blessedly silent.

  Diocletian took in the great hall – once a place of ranked statues and great, wide windows, now a place of huddling scum and cowards who should be issued with lasrifles and packed into transport ships back to the front lines. He let his gaze – and the accompanying target locks – drift across the crowds of filthy refugees lining the processional hall’s sides. Clusters of them were gathered around servitors carrying
pallets of dried rations and dehydrated protein potables.

  But the Blood Angel’s silence was short-lived. ‘You say we fight for the Emperor, not for His Imperium. The natural question then is to wonder: without Him, would we still fight? Is there any reason to raise this great empire if He is the only soul capable of leading it? We would be committing ourselves to a futile battle.’

  ‘You speak of impossibilities,’ Diocletian chorused, loyally adamant. ‘Mankind must be ruled. It has a ruler. Let that be the end of it.’

  Yet his flesh crawled at the unfamiliar philosophising. Without the Emperor, who would rule? What lesser minds would take up the mantle of command in His place? In what thousands of ways would they fail to meet the Emperor’s vision?

  Such thoughts were unwelcome and distracting. He felt slowed by them, felt them running like black poison through his veins.

  Both warriors snapped to mechanical halts as two figures manifested before them. Diocletian’s spear was free in a blur of ruthless precision, levelled down across one of the refugee’s throats. Its keen edge sang with a soft metallic chime from cutting the air so swiftly.

  ‘Sacred Unity!’ Zephon hissed the curse across the vox. ‘What are you doing?’

  Diocletian looked down into the wide eyes of a young boy, no more than seven or eight Terran standard years old. The figure at the youth’s side was even more diminutive: a girl, the boy’s sister by the uniformity in skin tone and facial structure, a year or two younger. Diocletian had no talent for estimating the ages of unmodified humans. She looked up at the Custodian with wide, terrified eyes. A scream sounded from the crowd, the plaintive cry of their mother. Both children’s mouths were wide, their lips shaking.

  Diocletian lifted his blade away from the boy’s throat and reactivated his helm’s mouth grille to speak aloud. ‘My apologies,’ he said with grave formality. The children flinched at the rawness of his vox-altered tones.