Deathwatch

by Steve Parker

  Just silence.

  Silence and pain.

  Karras knew death when he felt it. He had embodied it for over a century. He had passed through its dark veil to prove himself worthy of the name Death Spectre. And now he felt it rage through his system, all white fire and black ice, at once burning and freezing his flesh to the deepest core. His plate armour was pierced and torn, the claws of the frenzied tyranid abomination more than equal to the task of ripping a full suit of Space Marine power armour to pieces. One of his hearts – his primary – was all but demolished, and his secondary heart, the organ known as the Maintainer, struggled to keep him alive while so much of his blood ran free. Great sticky pools of dark red welled up from the jagged rents in his ceramite shell. The blood itself was far from normal. Even now, the powerful coagulants it contained allowed it to clot, sealing wounds that should have killed him already. But it was too late. Karras had buried himself and the tyranid broodlord in an impossibly deep grave. Here they would lie, tangled in death. But that was all right. To Karras, even this was a victory. He had taken his foe with him. This abomination, at least, would threaten the Imperium no more.

  Ah, I hear them. I hear the waters around me now.

  His consciousness pulled free of his ruined body and slid beyond the physical world into that familiar passage which led to the next. It was the Black River. All around him, the great cylinder of dark water surged and splashed. He felt it pulling him.

  The broodlord had no presence here.

  Of course, it doesn’t. As if such a blight on reality could possess a soul!

  But there was something else here. As Karras was pulled along by the surging currents of the Black River, he became aware of something vast and powerful shifting into his reality from somewhere else. Dread filled him. He had sensed such a presence the last time he had died. Across a century, the memory of that battle on the edge of oblivion returned to him. This thing, this new presence, had the same foul air of that other, and yet this one was far more powerful. Karras knew at once, as the thing began to materialise before him, that here was an enemy he could not overcome.

  Its voice, when it finally addressed him, was the voice of a great multitude surrounding him on all sides. The dark waters themselves grew agitated at the sound. Everything seemed to shake and judder, and the pain Karras thought he had left behind with his ruined physical body came suddenly back to him, only now magnified many times with each word the dark being spoke.

  ‘Lyandro Karras,’ it hummed and cracked. ‘First Codicier of the Death Spectres. Son of Occludus. How exquisite your pain!’

  It laughed, and the sound was like a thousand burning needles thrusting into one’s flesh.

  ‘Would that I could linger to enjoy it,’ the presence continued. ‘But I did not breach the boundaries of time and space and interfere in your escape merely to take pleasure in your torment. A greater prize I seek, and nothing else will content me.’

  Karras could make little of this. The words themselves were agony to him. He tried to will himself past the being, to be swept swiftly into the eternal Afterworld by the raging waters of the tunnel, but he was fixed firm, and no amount of psychic struggle could free him. He tried to fix his awareness on the dark form now hovering before him, but he could hardly look at it. Something almost physical and utterly irresistible forced his senses away every time.

  He did manage to get a sense of the thing, though it made little true sense at all.

  Three faces. Five horns. Seven wings. All black as a moonless, starless night.

  The black of the void.

  The being laughed again, revelling in the inability of the human mind to comprehend both its power and its form.

  ‘You are not dead yet, Lyandro Karras,’ the terrible voice said. ‘Even now, your physical form fights to remain alive. Will you rise again? Ah, you may just. Only, when you do, you will carry a message for me, for there is one known to you who owes me a debt – a very great debt indeed.’

  Karras railed at this lunacy. He was no messenger of daemons. Better that he die once and for all. Let the Black River sweep him away right now. ‘I shall carry no message for the likes of you,’ he hissed. ‘Release me or destroy my soul completely, but you will have nothing from me!’

  The being squeezed close around him, and Karras’s mind howled with fresh agony.

  ‘You will carry this message, Librarian, or I will bring a doom on your beloved Chapter that you can scarcely imagine. Centuries of agony and dishonour, I will rain down on them. They will not escape my wrath for a second. It will not begin today, of course. What is doom without a little anticipation, after all? Let it take a decade to begin. Perhaps even longer. But it will come, a fate so black that their name will be expunged from the records, and it shall be on your head.’

  ‘Empty words, daemon,’ spat Karras.

  ‘You know better,’ replied the presence. ‘There is much the Death Spectres endeavour to keep secret. But it is not so secret as you think. So, you will deliver this message for me, or I will deliver your oh-so-venerable brotherhood into misery, torment and eternal damnation.’

  Karras howled in anger and pain. ‘I deny you! The words of Chaos sit only on the tongues of liars and traitors. You know nothing. Emperor of Man, deliver me unto silent oblivion. Cut me free from this monstrosity!’

  The daemon delighted in this. Its laugh was so deep and potent that it distorted even the shape of the Black River, stretching it here, compressing it there, so that it flexed and strained such as Karras had never seen it do before. There could be no greater testament to the power of this entity. And then it said something that robbed Karras of any confidence he had left.

  ‘The Shariax,’ it gloated. ‘Such a burden to those who sit upon it.’

  Karras fought to stay silent, though a screaming denial echoed in his mind.

  ‘Even now, its power leeches life from your beloved Chapter Master. So it has been with all the First Spectres. Foolish Corcaedus. There is a great price to be paid for sitting on the Glass Throne. Yet the Death Spectres are ever willing to pay it, terrible as it is. And all because of the vision that drove your founder to the very border of madness!’

  How can it know this? thought Karras. Occludus is protected. No daemon could have manifested on such sacred ground. We would have known.

  ‘What would the Inquisition do, I wonder, on learning of the Shariax? What would your vaunted Lords of Terra think?’ Again, it laughed and the sound was a raw, oozing malevolence pressing in on Karras’s mind, smothering it, choking it. ‘So you will carry my message, Lyandro Karras. You will carry it, or we shall discover the terrible power of a secret revealed.’

  Karras said nothing. He could find no words. His mind spun. There could be no compact with this abhorrent thing. He could not stain his soul. Far better he were unmade entirely, wiped from existence as if he had never been. But hoping for such was futile. Here he was, and he could do nothing to change it.

  Naught but hope for final death. Then, at least, the role of messenger will not fall to me.

  The daemon read his thoughts.

  ‘No,’ it said simply. ‘You shall not die. I have already apportioned some part of my power to sustain you. My strength supplements your own, fuelling your recovery. And I have compelled others, your fellows, to seek you out. They dig even now.’ Again, that laugh, so painful, like splashes of acid on open wounds. ‘Ever after, you shall owe your survival to me, Librarian. Let the knowledge burn inside you until you do as I have asked.’

  Karras could stand no more of this. His sanity was at breaking point. If he lost it, fragile as it currently was, he would be open to full possession. ‘Speak your damned message and be gone, warp abomination. I will deliver it or I will not, but speak it now and free me, curse you!’

  ‘Then listen well, insect, for such you are to me. You will tell that treacherous Exorcist cur, Darrion Rauth, that I have forgotten neither him nor his debt. You will tell him this: I will not be denied. W
hat is owed me shall be paid in full. I, Hepaxammon, Prince of Sorrows, will not be denied!’

  With these last words, the daemon’s rage was so great that Karras almost lost himself completely. Countless inner voices invaded his mind, overwhelming it, repeating over and over and over, ‘Hepaxammon will not be denied!’

  He felt himself diminish, felt his identity, his very consciousness, being drowned out, eroded, burned away. He struggled to grasp hold of it, repeating to himself the mantra that had defined so much of his life – his Chapter’s motto:

  I fear not death, I who embody it in His name.

  I fear not death, I who embody it in His name.

  I fear not death…

  ‘…you who embody it in His name!’ boomed a fresh voice. It was powerful, all-consuming, almost like that of the daemon Hepaxammon, but this was a single voice, not a multitude, and each word pulsed with soft white light that burned away Karras’s agony. Each word muffled the dreadful sound of the daemon’s many voices. Muffled them until there were none left at all.

  Then something most unlikely intruded over all else.

  Karras heard the clapping of pinion feathers.

  21

  Something small and black shot straight across Karras’s field of awareness and struck the daemon’s form dead-centre. There was no roar, no howl of rage or indignation, no time for anything like that. In the span of an instant, Karras saw both Hepaxammon and the Black River freeze and shatter as if everything around him were nothing more than a painting on a great sheet of glass. Light blinded him for a moment, but the sound of the beating of wings continued, fading gradually as the source moved off into the distance. When Karras was no longer blinded, he turned his attention in the direction of the sound and saw a black crow disappear over a snow-covered hill.

  The cemetery on Occludus!

  The sound of the bird’s passage diminished to nothing, to be replaced by footsteps crunching in snow. Karras turned.

  ‘Be at ease, khajar. There is little time, and things you must hear.’

  Karras was stunned. Stunned and confused.

  Athio Cordatus stopped a few metres in front of him and smiled. He was clad in full Terminator armour, but adorned for ceremonial purposes rather than battle. Purity seals fluttered in a wind Karras could not feel. The Chief Librarian’s honours, cast in gold, silver and precious gems, glittered in the watery winter sunlight of a late afternoon that could not possibly exist here and now.

  Karras knew he was in a mindscape, knew his corporeal form still lay in a grave of thick black rubble back on Chiaro.

  Cordatus, it seemed, knew it too.

  ‘Since you are seeing me here, Lyandro,’ he said, his smile dropping, ‘it is clear that the prime future in which you lie dying beneath the rock of a collapsed mine has come to pass. For you it is the present, and no doubt it seems dark indeed. You have suffered grievous wounds. Would that it were otherwise, my khajar, but take comfort if you can. For all your suffering, we have ample reason to be glad. You will live. And it is on this path alone that the Chapter’s greatest hope lies. I could say nothing of this before without affecting the future. Sharing this knowledge now, however, will not close the path you must continue to walk. Had things gone any other way… Well, that hardly matters now. What matters is the going forward. And that is why I have constructed this,’ here he gestured to the scene around them, ‘so that I might still guide you, though the void of space stretches wide between us.’

  Cordatus indicated that Karras should walk with him, and Karras fell into step, dwarfed even at his significant height by the towering bulk of the Terminator armour. It all seemed so real, at least to his visual senses. Here, it seemed, he still had full binocular vision. Each fallen snowflake glittered just as it should. The graves poked from the thick white layer just as he remembered, slabs of black stone inscribed with that ancient script which no one alive could read. But the absence of smells or sensations kept Karras supremely conscious of the ethereal nature of the event.

  Could it all be a trick? A vile trap set by Hepaxammon?

  No. This is my khadit. I can feel it. I would know.

  Almost as if reading him, Cordatus continued, ‘The daemon’s involvement was something we did not foresee until recently, and the significance of its attention towards you is, as yet, unknown to us. Time is fickle about what it chooses to reveal. You know this. The workings of Chaos have always been hard to read. Nevertheless, the daemon may have its part to play, for good or ill. As of yet, we cannot know. What we do know is this: you will survive. Much work will be needed to restore you, but the inquisitor to whom you are bound, this so-called Sigma, has resources far beyond most. And despite everything, he will want to keep you in his service. He has ambitions of his own, and his psychic coven has pierced the veils and seen hints of your importance to his goals. We cannot perceive those goals. The futures that reveal them are clouded and distorted. We think this is deliberate. Regardless, he will not discharge you from your duties. This is imperative.

  ‘I can give no further detail now without closing futures we must keep open, my khajar, but there will come a moment when Sigma’s ambitions and the most desperate hopes of the Chapter will align. Nothing compares in importance to this. Difficult though it may be, do not take too much licence with this man. His tolerance has its limits. Stretch it as you will, but do not break it. As to your new brothers, keep them close. They are your strength. They will see to it that Arquemann is recovered. You will need the blade again before long. It, too, has a part to play.’

  Karras had questions, all too many of them, but his words, he knew, would be futile. The notion that this was, in any way, a real conversation was false. Cordatus’s spirit was not here. This was a construct in every sense, placed along this timeline somewhere in the past in the hope that Karras would live long enough, and make the right choices necessary, to discover it.

  Cordatus stopped walking and reached out an armour-plated hand to Karras’s shoulder. Karras turned to face him.

  ‘Your brothers and I at Logopol continue to scry with all the power at our disposal, Lyandro. Even the Megir has turned some of his power towards your prime futures. So much is still hidden, but what we have seen thus far gives us great hope – the first real hope the Chapter has had in millennia. The Cadash is real. The Great Resurrection is closer than ever. I never dared to imagine it might come in our lifetime.’

  Karras couldn’t restrain himself at this.

  ‘The Great Resurrection? Truly, it comes?’

  Cordatus, of course, did not hear. He was not really there. Instead, he smiled warmly down at his protégé and said, ‘It is no small effort to seed your future with such moments as this, Lyandro. There are risks to both of us. Grave risks. The accidental creation of a single major paradox could undo everything. Thus, these visits together will, by necessity, be few. But where I can, I shall do my best to guide you further wherever the moment demands. For now, though…’

  He reached out to Karras, and they both looked down at the powerful armoured hand extended there in the space between them.

  ‘Take it. Take my hand.’

  His voice had changed, suddenly and completely. It was not Athio Cordatus.

  ‘Come on, Scholar! Take my hand. Grab on.’

  Scholar? When did my khadit ever…?

  Bright light exploded in his vision, driving out the snowy mindscape. Karras felt sharp ocular pain. He blinked and tried to turn away. Slowly the pain left him. He blinked again. His right eye was blind after all, but the gene-boosted pupil of the other adjusted quickly.

  He saw an armoured hand extended towards him. His eyes moved up the arm to a pauldron embossed with ancient script and a familiar skull motif. He tracked left a little and saw the muzzle of a helmet. Another hand rose and pulled the helmet off to reveal a broad, smiling face, deeply lined and scarred, but friendly and open.

  ‘Omni?’ groaned Karras. His throat and lungs felt like they were filled with sharp gravel.


  The Imperial Fist beamed down at him.

  ‘Welcome back from the dead, Scholar. You’re a hard bastard to kill.’

  Epilogue

  The oil lamps flickered, but no shadows danced. Two figures regarded each other across the table of polished wood, hooded, masked in shadow, almost a perfect reflection of each other. Always the same two figures. Always the same room, the same simple furnishings, none of it real save the two minds that came to meet, to confer in secret, transported to this mindscape by the life-sapping efforts of their respective astropathic choirs.

  ‘The report says he will recover,’ said one. ‘Fully?’

  ‘My chief medic believes he will require certain augmetics,’ answered the other. ‘But, if we can get him back to Damaroth quickly, he should be able to return to operational status. The apothecarion there boasts cellular regeneration facilities beyond anything else in the Imperium.’

  ‘Ah. The captured eldar machines.’

  ‘It will take time. The damage was great. All reason says he should have died.’

  ‘Perhaps you underestimated him.’

  ‘You know me better than that. There is something else at play here, but it eludes me.’

  ‘Not for long, I’m sure. And the rest of this Talon Squad, they performed as expected?’

  ‘Predictable to the letter. Underneath it all, Space Marines are cut from one cloth. They do so long to be heroes. Honour and glory constantly cloud their judgement. Their distrust of me remains palpable, but I don’t believe they fathom the true extent of Ordo involvement in the Chiaro situation. Their oaths will hold.’

  ‘Good. Keep pushing them. If they really are the ones we need, they will have to endure far more than they did during Night Harvest. As to your former interrogator, it is well that she survives. A rare opportunity for us. I had thought to receive only the infant, but the survival of the mother is a tremendous bonus. We must keep her alive after the birth. Once she is stabilised and properly conditioned to our needs, it will be fascinating to see how her offspring responds to her in a Geller-shielded environment. My congratulations. Blackseed has borne the very fruit we hoped for. This could not have gone better, old friend. We will have our answers and, perhaps in time, we may have the greatest weapon our Ordo could ever hope to wield.’