Pushing deeper into that dream, Atharva smelled the aroma of the souk, the fragrance of hookah smoke and the spiced flavour of a dead culture. He had no frame of reference for these sensations, but he sensed their importance to whatever secret Kai held within his mind.
What did the Eye want with this mortal? What could be so important that it would be placed within such a fragile vessel instead of someone worthy of its protection?
Atharva smiled as he recognised a hint of jealousy in his thoughts.
He pressed harder against the edge of Kai’s dreams, employing skills beyond the imaginations of the simpletons who had tried to open his mind. He saw the desert and the vast emptiness it represented. He recognised the significance of the great fortress and the prowling shadow that circled it with a predator’s patience. This was Kai’s refuge, but it would prove wholly inadequate to keep a truth-seeker of Atharva’s skill from eventually breaching its defences.
With a thought, Atharva was at Arzashkun’s mighty gates and he looked up at the brilliant whiteness of the fortress’s many towers and gilded rooftops. Portions of its silhouette were missing, and he could picture the neurolocutors disassembling its structure in an effort to intimidate their captive.
‘You only drove him deeper in,’ said Atharva.
He extended his hand towards the great defensive gates and willed them to open. When nothing happened, he repeated the gesture. Again the gates remained stubbornly closed to him, and Atharva felt a prescient sensation of warning as the sand around him erupted with black streamers of oozing menace. Screams of the dying enveloped him and grasping, clawed hands of glistening black matter pulled at his subtle body, tearing shards of light from his immaterial form that would leave black repercussions on his physical body.
Atharva rose up from the cloying morass of horror and fear, irritated that he had allowed himself to be surprised by such base emotions. His body floated high above Arzashkun, but the black ooze rose up like creepers climbing an invisible building towards him. Atharva had the strongest sensation that Kai’s own guilt was shielding the secret within him, and he smiled in admiration for whoever had placed it there.
‘Very clever,’ he said. ‘The defences can only ever be opened from the inside.’
ATHARVA OPENED HIS eyes and groaned as he allowed his subtle body to return to his flesh abode in the material world. The quality of light in their hiding place had changed, the sun drawing close to the western horizon as night drew in on the mountains.
‘Where did you go?’ said Tagore, and Atharva flinched as he realised the World Eater was right beside him.
‘Nowhere,’ said Atharva.
Tagore laughed. ‘For someone supposed to be clever, you are a terrible liar.’
Atharva had to concede the point. ‘I am a scholar, Tagore. I deal in facts and facts are always true. Lies are for lesser minds who cannot face the truth.’
‘You are a warrior, Atharva,’ said Tagore. ‘First and foremost, that is what you were created to be. Do not forget the truth of that fact.’
‘I have fought my share of wars, Tagore,’ said Atharva. ‘But it is always such a brutal business that teaches nothing except how to destroy. Knowledge can only ever be lost in war, and such loss is abhorrent to me.’
Tagore considered this and jerked a thumb in Kai’s direction.
‘So we broke him out and he’s still alive. Are you going to tell me what’s so important about him and why we risked our lives for him?’
‘I am not sure yet,’ said Atharva. ‘I was attempting to go into his mind to find out what the Legio Custodes wanted from him, but it is hidden deep.’
‘Something to do with the Emperor,’ said Tagore. ‘That’s the only reason for the Custodians to get involved.’
‘You could be right,’ agreed Atharva.
‘Now you will tell me why you spoke with the hunter on the steps of the Preceptory.’
Atharva had been waiting for this. There was no mistaking the vibrating chord of anger within the World Eater sergeant, and for all Tagore’s lack of subtlety, he would be swift to spot any falsehood.
‘It is hard to explain,’ Atharva began, holding up a hand to forestall Tagore’s ire, ‘but I do not say that to evade an answer. My Legion has many of its warriors dedicated to the arts of divination, sifting the currents of the Great Ocean – the warp as some know it – for threads that link past, present and future. Everything that ever was and ever will be can be read in its depths, but sorting what will be from what could be requires decades of study, and even then it is an imprecise art.’
Atharva smiled, wondering what Chief Librarian Ahriman would make of that.
‘Are you one of these seers?’ asked Kiron, moving away from the recumbent form of the unconscious Gythua. ‘Can you see the future?’
‘I am Adeptus Exemptus, a high-ranking member of my fellowship, and I have trained in all the arts of my Legion, but I am not skilled enough to future-see with any degree of certainty.’
‘But you saw something that day, didn’t you?’ asked Asubha, the blade in his hand crackling with power. ‘Something that made you stand aside when you could have warned us of the approach of our attackers.’
‘I did,’ said Atharva. ‘I saw the galaxy overturned, and moving to the beat of a different drum. I saw us as guardians of a secret that could alter the outcome of this rebellion of Horus Lupercal.’
‘Enough riddles,’ snapped Subha. ‘Speak plainly of what you saw.’
‘I can speak only in possibilities, for that is all I have,’ said Atharva. ‘For reasons none of us can guess, Horus has turned on his father, and three of his brothers have turned with him. Lords Angron, Fulgrim and Mortarion have joined Horus in rebellion, but I do not believe they will be the only ones.’
‘Why not?’ asked Tagore.
‘Because Horus is no fool, and he would not risk everything in one gamble on the sands of a dead world. No, Isstvan V is just the beginning of the Lupercal’s plan, and there are players yet to reveal their faces.’
‘So what does this have to do with him?’ asked Kiron, jerking his thumb at Kai.
‘I believe that Kai Zulane knows the outcome of Horus’s grand plan,’ said Atharva.
He paused to let the implications of that sink in, letting each man reach the inevitable question in their own time. In the end it was Asubha who gave it voice.
‘So what happens? Does Horus defeat the Emperor?’
‘I do not know,’ answered Atharva, ‘but either way, Kai Zulane is now the most important man in the galaxy. His life is worth more than any of ours, and that is why I had us break him from captivity.’
‘But you say the information is locked inside him,’ said Tagore. ‘How do you get it out?’
Atharva sighed. ‘I am not sure I can,’ he said. ‘The information was hidden in the deepest recesses of his guilt, and such an emotion is powerful enough to defeat any interrogation.’
‘Then what use is he?’ demanded Subha. ‘We should kill him and be done with it. All he’ll do is slow us down and get us killed.’
‘There is merit in what Subha says,’ pointed out Kiron. ‘If the future is predestined, what does it matter whether the astropath lives or dies? The outcome will be the same.’
‘I do not believe in predestination,’ said Atharva. ‘By gaining knowledge of the future, we inherit the ability to change it, and I will not allow the future to pass me by and know that I had a chance to shape it.’
‘That smacks of arrogance,’ said Severian, turning from his vigil at the entrance.
Atharva shook his head. ‘Does it? Is it arrogant to want to change the course of a war that will claim hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives? Imagine the power of an army that marched to war knowing with absolute certainty that it could not lose. Now imagine that same army learning that no matter what they could not win. Knowledge is power, the Mechanicum know this, and my Legion knows it too. Whoever holds the truth that hides in this astropath’
s head, will be the victor in this war.’
‘So what do we do with him?’ asked Kiron.
‘We take him to Isstvan V,’ said Subha. ‘Isn’t it obvious? Our place is with our Legions, and if the Red Angel has thrown in his lot with Horus, then he clearly had a good reason.’
Tagore nodded in agreement and Atharva saw that Kiron believed the idea had merit too. Asubha remained impassive and Severian did not look up. Atharva took a deep breath, knowing that what he was about to say was dangerous.
‘But by the same token, if the Emperor has named them traitors, might he too have had a good reason? Perhaps your Legions are not worthy of your loyalty.’
Tagore surged to his feet, blade in hand.
‘The Legio Custodes call me traitor, and now you too? I should kill you where you sit.’
‘The Phoenician a traitor?’ said Kiron, aiming his plasma carbine at Atharva’s head. ‘I’ll thank you to choose your words with more care, sorcerer.’
Atharva knew he could not back down, but nor could he so baldly assert the facts in the face of such emotional response.
‘How can any of you say for sure what has happened to any of our Legions? When was the last time any of us spent any time alongside our battle brothers? Fifty years? A century? Who can say for sure what their Legion has become in that time? I have not laid eyes upon the Crimson King in over seventy years, and Tagore, it has been over a century since you knelt before Angron.
‘We were locked in Terra’s deepest gaol simply for the insignia on our armour, not the truth in our hearts, so who is to say where our loyalty lies now? Our first loyalty is to the Imperium, is it not?’
‘Any master that puts me in chains is not worthy of my loyalty,’ said Tagore.
‘Perhaps not, but what of our brother Legionaries? What can break such bonds of brotherhood as are forged in war? Is our loyalty now to them alone? Or is it to this fledgling band of brothers we now find ourselves within? Consider this, we have been given a unique chance, a chance to decide for ourselves the master to whom we will swear our loyalty.’
‘A pretty speech,’ said Tagore, tapping the side of his head. ‘But I know where my loyalty lies, it is to the primarch whose words and deeds I have followed into the fires of battle and who granted me the gift of rage bound by steel.’
‘I expected as much from you, Tagore, you fought alongside Angron from the last days of the War Hounds, ever since Desh’ea, but what about you two?’ asked Atharva, nodding towards Asubha and Subha. ‘Neither of you have yet been augmented like Tagore. What do you say?’
‘I agree with Tagore,’ said Subha, an answer Atharva had expected.
‘And you?’
Subha’s twin met Atharva’s unblinking stare with one of his own. His face was thoughtful, measured, and Atharva liked that he took time to consider the question properly.
‘I believe we do not have enough facts to make a decision as important as this,’ he said.
‘A coward’s answer,’ snapped Tagore, and Atharva saw the undercurrent of anger in Asubha’s face. Tagore was his sergeant and deserved his respect, but they were far from the strictures of their Legion, and it was never wise to use such pejorative words amongst warriors of such notorious violence.
‘You mistake prudence for cowardice, Tagore,’ said Asubha. ‘It may be that Horus Lupercal and our primarchs have just cause for rebellion, but Atharva speaks truly when he says that none of us know our Legions any more. Perhaps they have fallen to petty jealousies or allowed ambition to blind them to their oaths of loyalty, who can say?’
‘Loyalty is all I need,’ said Subha, moving away from his brother. ‘I will find a way to rejoin the Legion and fight by my primarch’s side.’
‘Spoken like a true World Eater,’ said Tagore, clapping a hand on Subha’s shoulder. ‘We should all rejoin our Legions. If you want to stay on Terra, Atharva, that is your business, but I will find a way to return to my primarch. I have my strength and battle brothers to guard my flanks. I will find a way off Terra. It may be that I will walk the Crimson Path before I get to Isstvan V, but this is a road I intend to travel.’
‘And what then?’ asked Atharva. ‘What if you manage to reach Angron’s side only to discover he is a corrupt traitor who does not deserve your loyalty?’
‘Then I will take up my sword and die trying to kill him.’
‘ARE YOU HEARING all this?’ asks Saturnalia. ‘The madness of it astounds me.’
‘I hear it,’ says Nagasena, ‘and the sadness of it almost breaks my heart.’
Saturnalia looks up at him, unable to read his face, and Nagasena knows he is trying to decide whether he is joking or being disloyal.
‘Choose your words carefully, hunter,’ says the giant Custodian, ‘lest you find yourself dragged back to Khangba Marwu alongside these traitors.’
‘You misunderstand me, friend Saturnalia,’ says Nagasena. ‘I will hunt these men until the ends of Terra. Without mercy and without pause, but to hear their fear and confusion is to know that, but for an accident of genetics, they could have fought at our side. They are lost and do not know what to do.’
‘I don’t know what feed you were listening to,’ says Golovko, looking up from the data slate carried by Kartono. ‘but I heard them say that they were going to try and get off-world to rejoin their Legions. We have to stop them.’
‘Agreed,’ replies Nagasena with a nod, staring hard into the grainy image flickering on the data slate. The signal is weak and distorted by all the metal and illegal antennae that cluster like wire-weed on the roofs of nearby buildings, but it is clear enough to give the hunters their first glimpse of their quarry.
Behind Nagasena, the burned remains of the Cargo 9 smoulders in the purple glow of evening, surrounded by Black Sentinels with their weapons primed and held to their shoulders. Night is drawing in, and the Petitioner’s City is a dangerous place in darkness, but they have no choice but to continue onwards. Much of the shuttle has been picked clean by scavengers, its wings cut free with acetylene torches and the metal ribs of its internal structure stripped to form supporting columns or girders.
Some of the salvagers fought them, believing them to be rivals for these valuable parts, but they are now dead, shot down by the Black Sentinels as they swept in from the landing site, two hundred metres back. Saturnalia and Golovko wasted valuable time in searching the wreckage, but Nagasena knew they would find nothing.
Severian had made sure of that, and Nagasena knows he will be the most formidable of the renegades to catch. That one is a wolf, a loner who will not hesitate to abandon his fellows when he feels the breath of the hunters at his neck. Adept Hiriko stands by the crushed fuselage, running her palm over the warm metal and attempting to draw out any latent psi-traces of their targets. It is a hopeless task. Too many have travelled in this craft and too many have touched it since it crashed for any real trace to be left, but every avenue must be explored, every element considered.
Saturnalia is impatient to begin the hunt again, but Nagasena knows their prey is not going anywhere in the immediate future, and there is much that can be learned by simply observing them for a time. While the escaped Space Marines debate their future, unaware that their every move is being watched – thanks to the coerced co-operation of House Castana and Kartono’s technical ability – they will gradually reveal their strengths and weaknesses, making the hunt’s outcome inevitable. It is the way Nagasena trained to hunt, the way he has worked for many years, and no amount of pressure from Saturnalia or Golovko will change that.
Saturnalia turns to Kartono, his manner brusque and irritated.
‘Can you identify their location from this feed?’
Kartono looks over at Nagasena, and nods slowly before answering. ‘Not precisely, but maybe to within a few hundred metres.’
Saturnalia then addresses Athena Diyos. ‘And if you are that close, can you establish a more precise location?’
Athena Diyos does not want to be here, but s
he knows she has little choice. From what Nagasena has learned of her, he knows her to be an unforgiving tutor, but a staunch friend of those who earn her trust. It is not hard to see why she should feel protective of Kai Zulane.
‘I think so,’ she says.
‘Then we need to move,’ says the Custodian.
Nagasena steps to Saturnalia, blocking his path. ‘Be mindful, Custodian,’ he says. ‘This is my hunt, and I set the pace. You underestimate these men at your peril. In any scenario they are dangerous beyond belief. Corner them and they will fight like Thunder Warriors of old.’
‘There’s only seven of them, and I doubt the Death Guard will see the sunrise,’ sneers Golovko. ‘Throne only knows what you think you gain by waiting.’
‘I gain understanding of the truth,’ says Nagasena, resting his right hand on the pommel stone of his sword. ‘And that is the most important thing.’
‘Truth?’ asks Saturnalia. ‘What truth do you think to learn from traitors?’
Nagasena hesitates before answering, but he will not lie to Saturnalia, for a lie would diminish him.
‘I hope to learn whether I should catch these men at all,’ he says.
KAI WOKE FROM a terrible dream in which his head was being slowly encased in clay that hardened around him with each breath. Like being bricked up in a suffocating cave the exact dimensions of his body, each breath came shorter and more forced than the last. As awareness of his surroundings returned to Kai, his fatigue crashed down upon him as though he had not rested at all.
His eyes hurt and he rubbed the skin around them. His skull felt as though it was vibrating from the inside, and the interrogation clamps that had widened the orbits of his eye sockets to allow the insertion of ocular-recording equipment had badly bruised his cheeks and forehead. He scratched his eyes, feeling like there was an itch beneath his skin he couldn’t reach.
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