Atlas Infernal

by Rob Sanders

  ‘Why would they do that?’ the captain asked.

  ‘Well, firstly – as you’ve witnessed for yourself, they are insane.’

  ‘And secondly,’ Klute added, ‘the Blood God reserves a special kind of hatred for illusions, witches and psykers.’

  ‘They’re considered unsportsmanlike on the battlefield,’ the High Inquisitor said, building further on his former-interrogator’s point. ‘The Pluton actually turned out to be a Gladius-class frigate called the Rubrician.’

  ‘The Thousand Sons…’ Klute mouthed.

  Czevak nodded. For thousands of years, Ahzek Ahriman had had his Thousand Sons Space Marines scour the galaxy for artefacts, arcane knowledge and psychic talent, relentlessly raiding the librariums and reclusia of the Imperium, as well as stealing the secrets of sorcerous power from brother Chaotics and the xenos alike. His thirst for power was insatiable and his ambitions led him to believe that the collective knowledge of the eldar’s Black Library of Chaos could elevate him to godhood. It was the Chaos lord’s search for those alien halls of arcana and enlightenment that had led Ahzek Ahriman and his lieutenants to Czevak.

  ‘The Rubrician is commanded by the Thousand Sons Chaos Sorcerer Korban Xarchos,’ Czevak explained, clearly ill at ease with his subject matter. ‘What were you doing in the Gehennabyss Reaches, Xarchos?’ Czevak thought aloud, fading into concentration. Then to the chapel. ‘Ideas? Anything? What would a Thousand Sons frigate be doing in the Reaches?’

  ‘There’s not much there,’ Torres admitted.

  ‘A few gas giants,’ Klute offered. ‘A few dead moons.’

  ‘Perhaps they were conducting repairs?’ Torqhuil put to the High Inquisitor.

  ‘And yet could maintain a distance far beyond our own and outrun the Hellebore.’

  ‘The Reaches are Galactic South of Phanagoria Prime. We had to give Phanagoria a wide berth a few months ago because of some heretic fleet action there,’ Captain Torres described.

  Klute nodded, remembering the incident. ‘Perhaps they were en route to Phanagoria and just passing through the Reaches.’

  ‘At sub-light speed?’ Czevak questioned.

  ‘Bad weather?’ Torqhuil said.

  Czevak turned to the roaming Epiphani, ‘Warp-seer?’

  ‘The immateriology of the region is fairly stable. Nothing a Chaos Marine frigate couldn’t handle.’

  ‘Come on,’ Czevak prompted them all, clearly agitated. ‘Think. What interest would the Thousand Sons have in the Gehennabyss Reaches?’

  Klute watched Czevak pace the chapel, his face screwed up in a kind of subtle agony, like an addict suffering withdrawal symptoms. Czevak’s need for the information – for at least an answer that made sense, to tide him over – was almost physical. Klute remembered the powerful meme-virus with which he had intentionally infected his master just previous to his entry to the Black Library of Chaos. As he paced by, Klute leant in, keeping his voice low.

  ‘My lord, I have drugs in the infirmary that can relieve your symptoms, or perhaps even cure them.’

  Czevak shook his head with a scowl before continuing his restless movements. Klute had expected little else from an addict. In that way he was like Epiphani and her Spook addiction. Klute felt ashamed, especially in the shadow of the mighty aquila, that he indulged the compulsions of both.

  ‘Anything?’ Czevak insisted.

  ‘What does it matter?’ Torres finally said with no little irritation of her own. ‘I thought we were heading back to the Cadian Gate.’

  ‘There might be a change of plan,’ Klute said, clearly uncomfortable under the captain’s glare of betrayal. Settling her backside against the back of a pew, Torres sagged, defeated.

  Torqhuil’s jaundiced eyes flashed with data he was extracting from the cogitator screen. ‘Gehennabyss Reaches,’ he began reading off. ‘Kerch 161, Sybaris, the Nardanelles, Cravenia Minoris, Vanderdecken’s Star, Iskellion XI, Iskellion XII, Arach-Cyn…’

  ‘Arach-Cyn? That’s in the Reaches?’ Czevak said suddenly.

  ‘On the spinward border. Galactic East.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of it,’ Torres said.

  ‘Eldar crone world,’ Czevak clarified.

  ‘You’ve been there?’ Klute asked.

  ‘Many times – there’s a warp gate on the surface and a huge archeomarket.’

  ‘You think Korban Xarchos was there to make a purchase?’ Klute said.

  ‘An intriguing possibility.’

  ‘Why are we looking for this... Xarchos?’ Torres tried one last time. ‘What is our business with him?’

  Czevak was on his feet, settled. He came face to face with the captain – his eyes dark and sure.

  ‘The Inquisition’s business, Captain Torres. Need I remind you that your precious vessel is under charter to the Holy Ordos. Chasing down arch-recalcitrants like Korban Xarchos is what we do. That should be enough for you. That voidspawn sorcerer is responsible for Imperial deaths on a thousand worlds and if not stopped will be responsible for millions more. But that wouldn’t matter because his foul legion has long been declared Excommunicate Traitoris.’

  ‘So has Brother Torqhuil’s Chapter,’ Torres challenged.

  Czevak’s lip wrinkled and then he gave both the Techmarine and the captain a disarming smile, ‘One heretic at a time.’ He moved for the chapel door. ‘I want to know what business that witch-bastard and the Thousand Sons have at Arach-Cyn.’

  ‘The Gehennabyss Reaches are on the other side of the Eye,’ Torres told him coldly. ‘It would take weeks to plot and execute a safe route there.’

  Czevak pulled an ornate, golden tome from the bottomless folds of his Harlequin coat and shook it at the room. ‘And yet my boots will be dusted with crone world dirt within the hour.’

  ‘You’re going back through the Lost Fornical?’ Klute said with some tension.

  Czevak was thoughtful for a moment and then rattled the reflective surface of the ancient text at the gathering.

  ‘Anyone who wishes to stretch their legs is welcome to join me,’ he told them and then disappeared through the chapel door.

  ‘Raimus…’ Torres began.

  Klute looked around the chapel. The Relictors Space Marine, warp-seer and daemonhost stared back in expectation of an order. Even the servo-skull hovered, waiting for something. There was a dread anticipation in their eyes. The inquisitor snorted. He would probably have difficulty preventing Torquhil from visiting the archeomarket, regardless. Epiphani would go just to upset Torres and the daemonhost would simply welcome time away from the draining influence of the chapel and its holy relics. As far as the inquisitor himself was concerned, after decades hunting for his long lost master, Klute didn’t really want to let Czevak out of his sight. And that meant only one thing.

  ‘Archeodeck. Five minutes. Go with him,’ Klute finally ordered, prompting the henchmen to hurry from the chapel and ready themselves for the excursion. Klute held back and then drifted over to Captain Torres. ‘You have Epiphani’s course data.’

  Torres looked at him moodily. ‘It’s convoluted and by no means direct, but it’s the safest route to the Gate.’

  ‘Get us to the jump point,’ Klute said with heavy heart. ‘Have the Malescaythe start making its way to the Cadian Gate.’

  The rogue trader captain frowned. ‘You’re sure?’

  Klute nodded. Torres left, leaving the inquisitor in the chapel wondering if he had time enough for one more prayer before heading for the insanity that was waiting for him on the archeodeck and through the Lost Fornical of Urien-Myrdyss.

  Solus

  ACT I, CANTO VII

  Tyrakesh archeomarket, Arach-Cyn crone world, The Eye of Terror

  Enter CZEVAK with KLUTE, BROTHER TORQHUIL, EPIPHANI with FATHER and HESSIAN

  Inquisitor Czevak stepped out of the warp gate. As Klute and his henchmen filed out after him, the static of inter-dimensional transference still clinging to their armour and clothing, the portal became dormant. Klute turne
d, quietly disturbed by the fact that the opening he’d just stepped through was now solid stone – ancient and flaking. Czevak completed a sequence of subtle hand signals in front of the flowing glyphs and runes etched into the wraithbone that encircled the stone, sealing off the link with the labyrinthine dimension.

  Looking beyond the solidified gateway, Klute found that the webway portal was part of the surrounding architecture. He joined the others on a ruined balcony that commanded a view of the structure and the daemon world upon which they had arrived.

  The ruins that surrounded them were all that remained of a third storey building. Crumbling artifice and the derelict shells of adjoining chambers and corridors clung to a central column – a grand and ornate spiral staircase that was now little more than fine structural design and stubborn rubble. The derelict column leaned a little like a tower but after some initial vertiginous flutters of the heart, Klute found the ruin to be completely stable. As he rested on the splintered stone of the balustrade, Klute surveyed a world at odds with itself.

  As part of his search for Czevak, Klute had had the misfortune to visit several daemon worlds in the Eye of Terror, each more twisted and terrible than the last. Each was warped and corrupted by perpetual exposure to the rawness of Chaos. The unreality of the warp saturated the tenuous reality of their existence and the powerful desires of the daemonic entities that lived upon them crafted their actualities into sub-realities of hellish experience.

  Klute had found the Lost Fornical on the nightmarish world that was Iblisyph. Before that he had visited Nardonis, a world devoted to the daemon prince of the same name. The inhabitants of the daemon world had slowly changed to resemble the horrific mutations and gifts that the daemon prince himself had received from his Chaotic sponsor, Slaanesh. Nardonis was the only name used on its surface, for inhabitants and locations alike and the natural geography of the planet had even come to resemble parts of his disturbing and unnatural physicality.

  Arach-Cyn was different but no less horrific. The skies of the eldar crone world were an angry mirror of cloud, blocking out the dreadlight of the Eye and reflecting the chaos below. The surface was a swirling maelstrom of blood-blackened sand and earth, constantly boiling and churning. Fragments of ancient architecture and the polished bones of the eldar that once existed on Arach-Cyn were brought to the surface of an earthen ocean of regurgitated history. At the foot of the column there extended a peninsula of stable land, which did not seem to suffer the same constant churning as the rest. It resembled a sandbar breaking the surface of a blood-muddy lagoon. From there Klute saw that a thriving shanty archeomarket had sprung up, with the daemon world’s denizens selling the ancient finds that churned up on their shores to the highest off-world bidders.

  ‘Tyrakesh,’ Czevak told them with a sweep of his arms. He led them down the spiral steps and out into the twisted sandbar community.

  ‘So often, the physical representations of Chaos frustrate our efforts and become the obstacle to the prize,’ he said as they passed through the degenerate shanties and market booths. ‘Here, Chaos in all its perversity, has worked the opposite. Treasures both indigenous and imported at some time in Arach-Cyn’s considerable history are expulsed from the planet’s depths and purchased with ease.’

  ‘Incredible,’ Torqhuil mumbled as he cast a professional eye over the myriad of antique wares on offer from vendors in all directions.

  The vendors, like the pickets and minders that hung off the stalls, were all gibbering, misshapen savages, a community of eldar monstrosities warped by the planet’s malign influence. The fat, antique weaponry pieces clutched by the denizens were largely reclaimed shuriken casters – single shot accelerators primed with grape storms of monomolecular frag. Slipping through the wretches and stalls were other visitors to the archeomarket. Klute could see groups of all but naked eldar, jangling with blades and decorated in revealing scraps of spiked, chitinous armour. Off-world mutants, twisted mercenaries and warp-blessed human cultists went about their business, bawling and bartering with the vendors. Czevak almost walked into a posse of Fra’al pirates, who seemed hungry for confrontation until Torqhuil’s hulking form hove into view in his power armour and servo-harness.

  The only true currency in the Eye was power and it was this that drew a myriad of its denizens down to the crone world surface. In the supernatural arms race that perpetually existed in dreadspace, advantage was everything. Cursed artefacts and warped technology of ancient and often alien design were routinely unearthed and sold on the bustling archeomarket to bidders of dark purpose. Daemon worlds were as different as they were damned. Arach-Cyn was no Iblisyph, but still harboured dangers of a more subtle kind. The corruptive powers of the warp flowed freely through Epiphani and Hessian but, between the Atlas Infernal’s Pariah pages, Torqhuil’s purity seals and Klute’s baptismal baths, the group experienced some protection from the constancy of the planet’s malign influence.

  Czevak took in the scene, clearly looking for something. Klute and his team waited by a flaming metal barrel which was warming a huddle of eldar aberrations. The creatures slunk off into the market throng, leaving Torqhuil to admire the vendibles on a nearby stall and Epiphani to pluck her hands from her gloves and warm them by the fire. The blind warp-seer had been resting her hand on the grisly crown of her servo-skull, who had been leading the way; but now, keeping one palm to the fire, Epiphani reached inside her brassiere and produced her snuff box. Taking a lengthy snort of the green crystals, she flared her nostrils before massaging the bridge of her nose. Klute watched, simultaneously fascinated and sickened. Father’s blue, bionic orbs feasted on the fire – and Epiphani with him – taking in the lick of the flame and the darkness that danced between the orange tongues.

  ‘Do you see something, Epiphani?’ Klute asked quietly among the crowds.

  She turned and with no little drama said, ‘I see… light in the darkness.’

  Hessian cackled in his horrible, infernal fashion and Klute turned away.

  ‘Is that the best you have, child?’ Czevak put to the warp-seer but didn’t wait for an answer. ‘This way.’

  ‘Even if Korban Xarchos was here, he’s surely going to be long gone now,’ Klute confided in his master as he followed. ‘What good can come of this?’

  ‘If he was here, he was buying. If we can find out what he was buying then that might give us some indication of his future intentions. Those intentions might lead us to the bastard sorcerer and he might lead us to Ahriman himself.’

  ‘Thin.’

  ‘Skeletal. But where the Thousand Sons are concerned I’ll take what I can get.’

  Klute shook his head.

  ‘What?’ Czevak asked.

  ‘You. Ahriman. Using the galaxy like your own private Regicide set. He’s hunting you; you’re hunting him, with the eldar’s repository of forbidden lore and the Imperium thrown in for good measure.’

  ‘It does focus the faculties,’ Czevak said dismissively.

  Klute gave up. ‘What are we looking for?’

  ‘Not what. Who. Una Belphoebe. She runs a reclamation operation out here. I’ve traded with her before.’

  Klute didn’t want to ask but felt that Czevak was referring to something more than just common bartering.

  ‘Xenos?’ Klute asked with rising bile.

  ‘She’s a ranger. A Pathfinder. She buys spirit stones and ancient eldar relics from the daemon markets to take back to the waning Iyanden craftworld.’

  Klute nodded slowly, knowing that Czevak knew the Iyanden well.

  ‘Here we are,’ the High Inquisitor said as they passed out into a sandy square. At a stall loaded with relics and artefacts and swamped by gabbling degenerates Klute saw a striking figure, tall and commanding – even in the depths of a hood and the camouflage swathes of an eldar cloak-coat. She put up three fingers to the mutant vendor, attempting to make herself understood. An exchange was made in which the degenerate handed her three brightly coloured spirit stones that the f
igure deposited in a soft belt-bag.

  ‘Belphoebe!’ Czevak called but couldn’t make himself heard over the din of the archeomarket. She made off into a nest of tents and stalls and Czevak had to dodge between misshapen arach-cynites and the spoiling Fra’al pirates to catch up. With Klute and his henchmen in tow, the High Inquisitor strode through the pathways, rapidly losing the figure in the maze of barter-tents. Stopping to gain his bearings, Czevak found the group hovering behind expectantly.

  ‘Don’t you live in a labyrinth?’ Epiphani put to him dreamily, pulling one of her boots on tighter. She was still bug-eyed from her hit of Spook.

  The retort on Czevak’s lips died as he caught sight of the cloak-coat and hood pass across an adjacent junction. ‘Belphoebe!’ he called again. As she walked on he said, ‘How can she not hear me with ears like that?’

  Trotting up the pathway, eager not to lose her a second time, the inquisitor rounded the corner only to find himself at the entrance of a large, filthy tabernacle. Tearing the canvas aside, Czevak plunged into the darkness of the tent, increasingly annoyed. As the team followed and the darkness of the space enveloped them the High Inquisitor slowed to a more cautious, ‘Belphoebe?’

  The gloom suddenly came alive as a network of criss-crossing beams appeared, lighting up the tabernacle interior. The beams were intensities of different tint and hue, each invading the tentspace from the ragged tears and holes in the dirty canvas. The rainbow of targeter dots they projected moved with predatory grace across the armour, garb and bare skin of the group.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Czevak hissed harshly. Several of the laser sights were moving, converging and building in brightness as they crossed the inquisitor’s vulnerabilities, like his heart and temples.

  ‘Good advice,’ a voice sailed through the darkness from behind them. Una Belphoebe had been standing by the entrance and had watched the humans blunder in past her. Single beams in succession blinked off as the Pathfinder passed before them, walking up through the middle of the group. ‘My rangers have orders to cut you to ribbons with their long rifles if you attempt to do anything else.’