Riven

by John French

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  Riven

  John French

  ‘It is not the dead I pity but the living. Those left at the threshold of ending are the ones who bear the burden of death. They are the ones who have to learn to live, knowing that nothing can be as it was.’

  – from Lament for the Phoenix,

  penned by the Primarch Fulgrim in 831.M30

  ‘When do we free him?’

  The voice was the first that Crius had heard since he had woken in the prison of his armour. It was low and deep, like the sea surging against a cliff. Static cracked and popped as the vox-system came to life in his helmet. The darkness remained, pressing against his eyes.

  ‘When we reach the edge of the sun’s light, Boreas,’ said a second voice, further away but still close.

  ‘Is he awake in there?’ asked the first voice, the one called Boreas.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Small jolts of electricity ran up Crius’s spine. Power was slowly seeping into his armour systems – enough for him to feel, but not enough for him to move. That was the point, of course. In this state his armour was as complete a prison as any cell, its fibre bundles paralysed, its servos locked.

  This is not Khangba Marwu, he thought, and the months of silence in Terra’s great gaol rose and drained away as the realisation hardened. I am no longer chained beneath the mountain. His armour was vibrating against his skin, steady and slow, like an electric pulse.

  I am on a ship, he realised.

  He had spent most of his life on ships, journeying between wars across the scattered stars, and the sensations of a vessel under power were as familiar to him as the beat of his own hearts. At least they had been, before he was returned to Terra, before Crius, Lord of the Kadoran and veteran of nearly two centuries of war, had become an Iron Hands legionary of the Crusader Host.

  Before he had been forgotten.

  Light touched his eyes. Ice-blue numerals ran across his sight. He tried to focus on the scrolling data but found that he could not. The connections between his flesh and augmetics itched; the scrambler that the Custodians had used to subdue him had shorted out half of the connections.

  He began to inventory the details of his situation. He had no weaponry beyond his own body. Not normally the greatest of problems, but he had no control of his armour, and it was likely to be power starved. His augmetics were functioning far below optimal parameters. Even if he could get control of his armour, his combat effectiveness was fifty-nine per cent of optimal. That, of course, was based on the presumption that there were no other bindings holding him in place.

  Not forgetting that you were too old for the warfront before you were sent to Terra, said a voice at the back of his thoughts. Not forgetting that factor.

  Then there was the question of what enemy he would face. He recalled the voices he had heard, rolling their pitch and tones through a mental analysis. No auditory markers of the Custodians, but the vocal range was outside a human norm – deeper, textured by muscles and structures that mortals lacked. The conclusion formed in his mind with the smallest possibility of error: Space Marines.

  He had new gaolers then, but why?

  Irrelevant. That they were Space Marines was enough to skew the combat outcome. Even if I could move I would likely still lose, he thought.

  Hatred rose through him then – hatred for those who had betrayed the Emperor, hatred for those who had imprisoned him, but most of all hatred for his own weakness. He should not have become weak enough that his only use was as a figurehead; he should not have allowed himself to be imprisoned; he should have been with the rest of his clan and Legion as they struck down the traitor Horus. He should…

  He shut down the chain of thoughts, containing them and allowing their heat to flood him but not dull his logic.

  ‘The truth of iron,’ he muttered to himself, ‘guide me.’

  Something scratched on the outside of his helm. He froze, muscles tensed and poised. Gas hissed around his neck. Seals clunked open and his helmet lifted away. His eyes dimmed as light poured into them, and his sight fizzed briefly before resolving to clarity.

  A broad face looked back at him. Tanned and scar-knotted skin covered flat and muscle-thickened features; it was the face of one of the Emperor’s finest, the face of a Space Marine. A close-cropped strip of hair ran down the centre of the warrior’s skull, and a pair of dark eyes watched Crius without blinking. Crius stared back, his indigo lenses set into a face divided between scarred flesh and chromed ceramite.

  He sat in a throne at the centre of a chamber of tiered stone. Chains wound across his body, linking to manacles at his wrists and fixed to cleats in the floor. The walls of the chamber were black, smooth and flecked with crystal that sparkled in the light of dimmed glow-globes. Banners hung from the walls, their gold, black and crimson thread tattered by bullet holes and charred by fire. The domed ceiling above was a mosaic of white and black tiles forming the emblem of a clenched fist.

  The Space Marine who had removed Crius’s helm wore yellow armour with a black-on-white cruciform device on his shoulder. There was a stillness about him that reminded Crius of the memorial statues that guarded the graves of the honoured dead.

  Imperial Fists, he thought. The praetorians of Terra. Of course.

  The Imperial Fists legionary stepped back, and Crius saw a second figure standing further back, watching in silence, his armour swathed in a white tabard crossed with black, his hand resting upon the pommel of a sheathed sword. He looked into the figure’s hard, cold sapphire eyes. Crius’s gaze did not waver.

  ‘His armour, my lord?’ said the Imperial Fists legionary standing over him. ‘Should I activate it?’

  Boreas, Crius thought. That was what the other voice had called him.

  ‘I would not do that,’ he said and looked up. Boreas met his gaze, the hint of a frown forming on his brow. ‘And if I were you, I would also not release these chains.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Because if you do,’ Crius continued, calmly, ‘I will kill you both.’

  Boreas glanced at his silent comrade, then back to Crius. ‘Do you–’

  ‘Yes, I know who he is,’ growled Crius.

  ‘I would not wish to believe you a traitor, Iron Hand,’ said the second Imperial Fists legionary.

  ‘Treachery…’ Crius said the word slowly. ‘Tell me, if you had been buried beneath a mountain, chained beside those with the blood of true traitors, then what thoughts would you have nursed in the dark? What would you wish on those who bound you there?’ The focusing rings of his eyes twitched. ‘If Sigismund, First Captain of the Imperial Fists, were sitting here in my place, what would he be thinking?’

  Sigismund narrowed his eyes. ‘I would be considering how I might best serve the Imperium.’

  ‘Truly?’ sneered Crius.

  Sigismund carried on as if he had not heard. ‘Now that we have passed beyond the bounds of the Solar System, I am charged by Lord Dorn to give you his orders.’

  Crius shook his head slowly, not breaking Sigismund’s gaze. ‘My sword is my primarch’s to order, and the Emperor’s to command. You are neither, and nor is Rogal Dorn.’

  Boreas surged forward, anger cracking his stony features. His hand was already bunched into a fist. ‘You dare–’

  Fast, registered Crius. Very fast.

  But Sigismund moved faster and put a hand on Boreas’s shoulder.

  ‘Peace, Boreas,’ said the Lord of Templars. Boreas glanced at his commander, and something passed between them in that glance.

  Crius opened his mouth to speak. Sigismund spoke first.

  ‘Ferrus Manus i
s dead.’

  Crius heard the words. He felt his brain process them. He felt their meaning spread through him. He felt… nothing.

  The instant stretched out, and still there was nothing. Not the feeling of his armour against his skin, not the ache of his shorted augmetics, not the pulse of blood in his limbs. There was just the rush of silence and a sense of falling, as though a hole had opened up in the universe and swallowed him. He was falling, and there was just emptiness above and below.

  Ferrus Manus is dead. The words rang in his mind.

  Somewhere in his memory, a grim face turned to look at him, unsmiling.

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘I am Crius. First Vexilla of the Tenth Legion,’ he had swallowed in a dry throat. ‘I am your son.’

  ‘So you are,’ Ferrus Manus had said.

  ‘How?’ he heard himself say.

  Sigismund was watching him as he had before, with not a flicker of emotion in his eyes. ‘He fell in the counter-strike on Isstvan.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘It’s unclear,’ said Boreas.

  ‘When?’ asked Crius, feeling his lips pull back from his teeth.

  ‘It has been two hundred and fourteen days since we heard the news,’ said Sigismund.

  Crius processed the number. Half of his mind dealt with it as cold data, while the other half howled. Muscles tensed across his body. His armour creaked and the chains rattled.

  All this time, they knew. They knew, and yet they said nothing until now.

  He breathed out, fighting down the fire that crawled through him, feeling a measure of control returning. The Imperial Fists just watched him.

  Ferrus Manus is dead. No. No, it was impossible.

  They knew, and yet they said nothing.

  Crius’s thoughts tumbled through the widening void of his mind even as his mouth formed words. ‘What of the rest of the counter-strike?’

  ‘We do not know, not for certain.’ Sigismund blinked and for the first time broke Crius’s gaze. ‘The Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Iron Warriors and Word Bearers went to Horus. Vulkan is missing. Corax has made himself known to us, and he reports that the Raven Guard are gone, save for the few thousand he brought with him.’

  Crius gave a small nod. A few moments before, this new information would have shocked him. Now his numb mind simply absorbed it and processed it. A high-pitched buzz rang in his ears. He swallowed but found that his mouth was paper dry.

  Ferrus Manus is dead…

  There will be a way for him to return. He is the Gorgon, he is iron, he cannot die.

  ‘My Legion?

  ‘We do not know. Some may have survived the massacre. Some may not have reached the Isstvan system. There may be many of them still out there.’ Sigismund paused and moved a step closer. ‘That is what Lord Dorn wishes of you – that you find any of your brothers that you can.’

  Ferrus Manus is dead…

  He failed us. He broke the bond of iron. He fell and left us to live on without him.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Bring them back to Terra.’

  ‘For a last stand.’ Crius heard the hollowness in his own laughter. ‘The few against the coming storm?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sigismund, and Crius saw something in the Imperial Fists legionary’s blue eyes – a flash of something dark and empty, like a shadow in a hole. ‘Do you consent to this endeavour?’

  Crius looked away. His eyes clicked as they studied the chains that held him, taking in every mark left by their forging. The air tasted of cold stone, weapon oil and armour plate.

  Ferrus Manus is dead…

  Crius looked back to Sigismund and nodded.

  Sigismund drew his sword. Crius noticed then the chains that circled the templar’s wrist, linking arm and weapon. Lightning crackled up the blade, and for a second he watched it dance in Sigismund’s eyes. Then the sword cut down, and the chains holding Crius sheared with a ringing sigh.

  Boreas keyed a control on his wrist, and Crius felt full connection to his armour tingle up his spine. He stood slowly, the movements of armour and body stiff. He looked down at the manacles on his wrist. Boreas came closer, a brass key in his hand, but Crius considered what he had glimpsed in Sigismund’s eyes. He waved Boreas away, the severed links of chain clinking against his armour.

  ‘No,’ he said, and turned to Sigismund again. ‘Leave them.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Sigismund with a small nod. ‘This ship is the Oathbound – she will carry you on your search. Boreas here will go with you.’ He clenched his fist and brought it up to his chest. ‘I hope we meet again, Crius of the Kadoran.’

  Crius returned the salute and watched as Sigismund turned and walked from the chamber.

  Data scrolled across Crius’s eyes as he watched the stars, the binaric runes blending with their pale light. Around him, the bridge crew moved and whispered, passing spools of parchment and data-slates, mind-interface cables trailing behind them. He did not sit upon the command throne – this was not his ship after all, nor was it truly his command. Instead, he stood before the bridge’s main viewports, listening, watching, waiting, just as he had a dozen times before.

  Here I stand, he thought, waiting for the dead to speak from the night.

  His eyes clicked without him willing it, as though blinking.

  Ferrus Manus is dead.

  It had been months since he had heard those words, yet still they spun through his waking thoughts and dreams. Crius had remained awake since they had left the Solar System, standing here on the bridge of the Oathbound when she emerged from the warp, listening to the song of the ship when they passed through the realm beyond. He had tried to find calm in the Cant of Iron and the Calculations of Purpose, but every time he had reached out for peace it had slipped away from him. He had waited for the storm within him to end, for the cold process of logic to assert itself and leave him as he was before, with fury in his hand but iron in his heart. Instead, with every passing day, and then every passing month, he had felt the hollowness growing in his hearts.

  We were not made for this, he thought. What we needed to survive this sorrow was cut away in our forging.

  ‘The machine is strong, and logic can lay open any realm of understanding.’ The words of Ferrus Manus spoke to him from the shadows of a distant memory. ‘But without the hands and minds of the living they are nothing. We live and bend iron to our will, but iron can break, machines fail and logic can become corrupted. Life is the only true machine. Cut too much away, and we lose ourselves. Remember that, Crius.’

  Crius’s eyes clicked as they refocused, and the memory faded. At his back he heard the click and hum of Boreas’s approach.

  ‘Twelve jumps,’ said Crius, without turning. ‘Twelve times we have sat dead in the void while the astropaths sift the aether for any trace of my kin. Twelve cycles of silence.’

  ‘We must succeed, no matter how long it takes. That is our oath.’

  Crius nodded but did not reply. Boreas stepped closer. Crius could feel the warrior’s eyes upon him, but did not turn away from his view of the stars.

  ‘Terra must have every blade to defend it when Horus comes,’ said Boreas.

  ‘You are certain that he will?’

  ‘Lord Dorn believes so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘How else could Horus hope to win this war?’

  Crius shrugged and turned to look at Boreas. Dark eyes looked back: sharp, unyielding and utterly without emotion.

  ‘You are so certain this is about winning?’ asked Crius.

  ‘What else could it be about?’

  Crius looked back at the stars.

  ‘Oblivion,’ he said. The moment stretched in silence.

  Another amplified voice rang across the bridge. ‘Lord Crius.’

  Crius turned to see the shipmaster of the Oathbound. Casterra was an old man, his eyes bright green in a face scarred by time and the ice-winds of Inwit. Though human, Casterra had served the Imperial Fists in
war for nearly seventeen decades, and the Empire of the Inwit Cluster for a decade before that. Strong and steady, the old captain was like a pillar shaped to support great weight.

  ‘Lord,’ said Casterra with the slightest pause, ‘the astropaths have something.’

  ‘What was the essence of the sending?’ asked Boreas. Casterra looked from Crius to Boreas and back.

  ‘The image of a mountain,’ said Casterra. ‘A great crater descends from its pinnacle into its heart. The mountain’s heart is dark, its fire long cold. The astropaths say that the dream of the mountain’s heart presses on them still. They say it tastes of flint and lead.’ The man paused. ‘Secondary imagery is standard code metaphor for a system in the Arinath Cluster.’

  Crius nodded his thanks and turned away. Boreas waited, watching.

  ‘Ignarak,’ said Crius at last. ‘That is what the Medusan-born call it – the silence of mountains that once burned, and will burn again.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ said Boreas.

  ‘It is a summons,’ said Crius. ‘A summons to a gathering of war.’

  Folded in the light of a dying sun, the Thetis lay in the silence of the void. The Oathbound hung at a distance, the power of her reactor held in check for fight or flight. Crius watched the vast, black bulk of the other vessel as the Storm Eagle crossed the distance between the two ships.

  The Thetis had been born in the skies of Mars. Black stone and unpolished iron skinned her bulk from engines to hammerhead prow. She was like a forge-city set to float among the stars, her bloated body filled with workshops, furnaces and storage facilities. The last time Crius had seen her, she had been the queen at the centre of a fleet of lesser craft, the lights of lifters and bulk transports darting around her docking bays like fireflies. Now great wounds marked her iron skin, and scorches darkened her hull. Her docking bays were lightless caves. The fortress of her spine was a tangled ruin of broken architecture. Blank holes of gun barrels, sensor arrays and viewports looked out upon the stars from beside ragged craters. Projected across the inside of Crius’s machine eyes, she looked like a corpse floating in black water.

  She is alone, thought Crius, the couplings of data and probability in his mind reaching uncertain conclusions. He cancelled the image but kept his eyes dark to the inside of the Storm Eagle. Petals of polished metal had closed over the lenses of his eyes, and only the glowing cascade of constant data broke the blackness of his world. Somewhere to his left, he heard the scrape of Boreas’s armour as he shifted in his mag-harness. The growling purr of the engines ached through Crius’s limbs and armour.