Atlas Infernal

by Rob Sanders

  ‘So this belonged to Cardinal Vycharis?’ Klute asked.

  ‘Part of the Dark Cardinal’s extensive library,’ Czevak replied as he continued digging through the contents.

  ‘Heretical tomes and Chaos codicia, buried at the heart of a daemon world,’ Klute said cautiously. ‘Should we really be rummaging through it like that – without... precautions?’

  Czevak barely noticed him.

  ‘And without clothes?’ Klute added irritably, throwing Czevak the garments he’d gathered for him. Czevak grabbed them, stood up and proceeded to dress himself right there before them.

  Klute shook his head. ‘God-Emperor protect us.’

  The Guard issue briefs and socks Klute had gathered from the Savlar stockade – Klute appreciating no little irony in stealing from members of a kleptomaniacal penal regiment. The Navy tailcoat, braces and breeches were all from Captain Torres’s ensign; the Cretacian hunting boots and a white, full-dress shirt with copious ruffles of fine lace were his own. He’d never had occasion to wear the boots and he positively hated the shirt.

  ‘You’re too kind,’ Czevak remarked before slipping the thing on over a defined, athletic chest that bore a lifetime’s worth of marks and scars.

  ‘Hive Baptiste; very fashionable, I’m told,’ Klute assured him.

  ‘Epiphani?’ Czevak asked buttoning the shirt.

  The warp-seer nodded, ‘Hive Baptiste? Fashionable? Yes. Before the Heresy.’

  Czevak grunted. ‘Where are the pages Belphoebe removed from these texts?’

  Klute took them from his robes. They were ragged and torn but had been tied in a neat bundle with dirty string. He tossed them to the High Inquisitor who began fingering through them feverishly. The meme-virus flowing through his veins and infecting his brain was never more evident. His eyes blazed across the pages, soaking up the heretical detail.

  ‘Father, what’s missing?’ Czevak asked without taking his eyes from the parchment.

  Vellum unspooled under the hovering servo-skull. Torqhuil took the trailing scroll.

  ‘Kronochet’s Anatomae and the Corpus Vivexorsectio,’ the battle-brother read.

  ‘That’s what Korban Xarchos was doing on Arach-Cyn,’ Czevak concluded with confidence. ‘He used his illusory powers to impersonate me at Tyrakesh and secure the contents of the Skeptoclast’s sarcophocrate.’

  ‘And the assassin?’ Torqhuil asked.

  ‘It wasn’t an assassin,’ Czevak corrected the Techmarine. ‘It was an opportunity, an ambush or abduction. Xarchos was simply betting that I would return to Tyrakesh at some point. The Rubric Marine was primed with some opportunistic enchantment and would have waited for a thousand years if it had to.’

  The High Inquisitor continued to thumb through the clutch of extracted pages.

  ‘What would he want with those particular texts?’ Klute asked. ‘He left the rest.’

  Czevak kicked the rusted sarcophocrate.

  ‘There’s undoubtedly some interesting material here,’ Czevak said. ‘Would have thrilled arch-recusants like the Dark Cardinal and his depraved followers but only one or two of them have any real power or use to sorcerous witch-fiends like the Thousand Sons. Kronochet’s Anatomae I know of; it is a diabolist manual detailing both the material and immaterial features of daemonic physiology. The eldar held a copy in the Black Library of Chaos. It is well known but exceedingly rare and very few have actually been privy to its contents.’

  ‘What of the other?’ Klute pressed as Czevak extracted pages from his collection.

  It was the Relictors Techmarine who answered with solemn importance.

  ‘The Corpus Vivexorsectio is a technical tract drawn from the collected Malifica writings and experiments of a Dark Mechanicus sect called the Daecropsicum.’

  ‘You know of this sect?’ Klute asked.

  ‘Their shame is secret but still haunts the infotombs of the Cult Mechanicus on Mars,’ Torqhuil told them dourly. ‘The Daecropsicum had perfected the art of summoning daemonic entities into corporeal form while using arcane and experimental Geller technologies to perform daemonic vivisections. Their belief was that warp creatures were solely the sum of their parts – in fact it was their parts that interested the Daecropsicum the most. They created obscene fusions of harvested infernal organs and Mechanicus technologies from their tortured daemonic subjects and bound exorcised essences to artefacts and weaponry.’

  ‘So Xarchos intends to use this tract to summon daemons…’ Klute said.

  ‘…and perform “living”, if that’s the word, autopsies on them, harvesting their parts and associated power,’ Czevak said.

  ‘Like the Daecropsicum, he intends to bind these parts and powers to objects and relics,’ Torqhuil added. ‘A factory – if you will – for creating daemon weapons and cursed artefacts.’

  ‘I take it that such a tract would be of great use to you, Brother Torqhuil,’ Klute asked fearfully.

  ‘It would be a powerful weapon.’

  ‘A weapon to create other weapons in an existing daemonic arms race – not exactly what the galaxy needs,’ Czevak said. The High Inquisitor felt the rumble of an objection build in the hulking chest of the Space Marine and added, ‘On the other hand, it might be fun to take Hessian apart and bind him to different objects about the ship.’

  ‘Try it,’ the daemonhost dared playfully.

  Czevak ignored the abominate creature.

  Torqhuil came up behind Czevak, dwarfing the inquisitor. Czevak held a fistful of pages above his head and the Relictors Space Marine took them.

  ‘If you want the text then you have to find the man,’ the High Inquisitor said.

  ‘So Xarchos took the tome but there’s no way of telling where the Rubrician went next,’ Klute said.

  ‘We’re still interpreting the Hellebore’s mnemonic log,’ Torqhuil informed them, looking through the pages. ‘There’s a good thousand years of data on there – but no other encounters with the Thousand Sons frigate have come up so far.’

  ‘We don’t need to know where Xarchos has been, we need to know where he’s headed,’ Czevak corrected them. ‘Epiphani?’

  The warp-seer got up off her knees and straightened her transparent poncho, drawing attention to the rubber underneath.

  ‘All I know is that “we” are heading somewhere wet,’ Epiphani admitted.

  ‘Well, that narrows it down,’ Klute said with more of an edge than he intended. He probed the balls of his eyes with finger and thumb, hoping to rub the pain away.

  ‘Brother Torqhuil, what do the pages we have actually detail?’ Czevak asked. He wasn’t familiar with the Dark Mechanicus codilect.

  ‘These pages describe the design and orientation of the Geller technologies required to vivisect a captured daemonic entity,’ the Space Marine said with obvious fascination. ‘Truly remarkable psychosurgical tools and procedures.’

  ‘Yes, well, before we run off and join the Daecropsicum,’ Czevak cut in, ‘is it fair to assume that Xarchos will not be able to complete the rituals described in the Corpus Vivexorsectio without those pages?’

  ‘The Thousand Sons wield great sorcerous power,’ the Techmarine acknowledged. ‘They can certainly raise daemons and bind them to weapons and objects using a myriad of different ceremonial rites and costly rituals. Very little could match the procedures outlined in the Corpus Vivexorsectio for economy and power, however. The Daecropsicum perfected the craft. Using their procedures, the enormous effort and energies required to bring a warp entity into the real world could be used to create a thousand damned objects and weapons – each with different capabilities and powers – rather than a single weapon possessed by a single entity. Without knowledge of the complexities of psychosurgical dissection, however, the Corpus Vivexorsectio is just another diabolist manual for summoning the dark creatures of Chaos.’

  This seemed to please Czevak.

  ‘Do the Daecropsicum still exist?’ Klute asked fearfully.

  ‘Like my own Chapter
, they were annihilated by the Ordo Malleus,’ Torqhuil continued. ‘That pig, Cyarro, and a half company of Grey Knights put not only the Daecropsicum but every man, woman and menial construct on the surface of the fabricator moon of Feldspar to the sword. Feldspar was then purified from orbit to prevent salvage hunters scavenging from the Adeptus Mechanicus world. Politics between the Mechanicus and the Holy Ordos are strained to this day. None of the Daecropsicum adepts remain however, only their collected works.’

  ‘Looks like the trail has gone cold,’ Klute decided. ‘At least we’ve frustrated Korban Xarchos and his like.’

  ‘Let’s not be too hasty,’ Czevak said. ‘Amongst the Dark Mechanicus codilect, I saw the true names of daemonic entities.’

  ‘The subject entities of failed warpthereal vivisections,’ Torqhuil told him.

  ‘And what of the successful ones? You said they perfected the procedure.’

  ‘The Corpus Vivexorsectio in the main follows the successful execution of one ritual procedure from beginning to end. The subject entity’s true name is Mammoshad.’

  ‘Mammoshad…’

  ‘You know of it?’ Klute asked his master.

  Czevak nodded. ‘Mammoshad is a daemon with a long and illustrious history – even before this Dark Mechanicus cult got their scalpels into it.’

  ‘Powerful?’

  ‘Yes,’ Czevak nodded absent mindedly. ‘Well, at least before the Daecropsicum cut it up into tiny pieces. Its name comes up in texts both xenos and Imperial all over the Black Library. A very old and powerful Tzeentchian daemon. Its full title is Mammoshad – King of Kings, Enslaver of the Craven Worlds and Keeper of the Vault Abyssal.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Torres threw in from the table, disturbing the High Inquisitor’s train of thought. ‘Is this a problem for us or a solution?’

  ‘Both,’ Czevak answered her. ‘As with most solutions, it comes hand in hand with its own set of problems. Mammoshad’s name will have been used throughout the rest of the tome. Korban Xarchos may not have the pages detailing the heretical Geller technologies and the procedures but he might be able to lay his hands on someone who witnessed the procedures first hand.’

  ‘But Brother Torqhuil said that the Daecropsicum was annihilated,’ Torres said.

  ‘Mammoshad was there,’ Klute declared.

  ‘Who better to detail the procedures and technologies than the daemonic entity that suffered them?’ Czevak explained. ‘If Xarchos finds Mammoshad then he won’t need the pages. If we find Mammoshad then perhaps we can lay our own trap for Xarchos.’

  ‘Where’s Mammoshad?’ the Relictor Techmarine asked.

  ‘Well, the Black Library places it – or at least a bound piece of the daemon–’ Czevak told him, ‘on the hive-world of Ablutraphur.’

  Klute watched Captain Torres’s eyes flick across at his own. Klute had asked her to engage in a series of relatively safe warp jumps and sub-light crossings to take them towards the Cadian Gate and out of the Eye.

  ‘But the Hellebore’s log already places the Rubrician some way into such a journey,’ the rogue trader captain warned.

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Czevak assured them with newfound enthusiasm. ‘The webway will get us to Ablutraphur far in advance of Xarchos, even with a head start.’

  He started for the Lost Fornical, sitting inactive as it was on the other side of the archeodeck. ‘Epiphani’s right. Pack for an equatorial Ablutraphurn summer, hot and wet.’

  Exeunt

  ACT II, CANTO II

  Archeotech hoard 3°4’33”S 37°21’12”E, Ablutraphur, The Eye of Terror

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

  ‘How much further?’ Epiphani whined.

  ‘You tell me,’ Czevak said. The inquisitor was enjoying making fun of her gift.

  Torqhuil led the way up through the haphazard collection of chambers, grottos and stairwells – the logic being that if their crumbling surroundings could sustain the weight of an Adeptus Astartes, it could bear the weight of anyone else in the party. The Techmarine’s suit lamps lit a path through jumbled architecture that was distinctly Imperial but ancient, fractured and claustrophobic. Crevices led to landings, archways to steps, crawlspaces to ladder-hatches. Sometimes the collapsed kingdom of caves and undercrofts opened up through a shattered ceiling, revealing the colossal chasm of which their benighted realm formed the floor. The space above them was black and empty, the beams of the lamps disturbing flocks of flittersnappers, but occasionally a circle of daylight was visible many thousands of metres above them – giving the impression that they were inside the bottom of some dormant, man-made volcano.

  The warp-seer puffed out her cheeks. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘Incredible,’ Czevak shook his head as he climbed past her doubled form. ‘I bring you across light-years of space in mere hours and you retch at a few steps?’

  The group had left the webway through a toppled wraith portal, now a gateway in the floor. The retinue had some difficulty at first re-orientating themselves to their surroundings. It wasn’t just moving from one dimensional state to another or from the horizontal to the vertical; the small cavern into which they climbed was ink-thick with darkness and drowning in rubble, ancient detritus and a ramshackle hoard of priceless archeotech.

  As the High Inquisitor kicked up dust on the derelict stairwell, bounding three steps at a time, he came to an abrupt stop – staring at the wall.

  ‘What is it?’ Klute called through the gloom from behind.

  ‘Abominate,’ Czevak said. ‘Get over here.’

  ‘You have need of me, High Inquisitor?’ Hessian hissed with spiteful servility.

  ‘I need you to shut up and get over here,’ Czevak insisted.

  The evil behind the daemonhost’s eyes lit up the darkness with a sickly hue and illuminated the age-splintered wall. Robust vines had punched their way through the masonry, twisted, bunching and constricting their fat way through the rockcrete. The vines, creeper shoots and root anchors snaked their way skyward up the inner wall, aggressively twisting about and throbbing their way through tiny gaps and fissures.

  As Klute came up behind, their Space Marine point man paused on the steps above. The warp-seer remained but Father drifted in for a better view, seeing for both of them.

  ‘See this,’ Czevak said, indicating the vines.

  ‘Great, now we’re stopping to admire the flora,’ Epiphani complained.

  ‘You will want to admire this. This means we’ve reached ground level. Brother Torqhuil,’ Czevak called prompting the Techmarine to descend and join them.

  Czevak went to touch the bulky servo-harness from which Torqhuil’s mechadendrite limbs and servo-arms sprouted. Gears whirred, lines stiffened and counter-weights shifted as the Relictors Space Marine retracted suspiciously.

  ‘I mean your armour no disrespect,’ Czevak assured the Techmarine, the High Inquisitor understanding that the Mark-VIII Errant armour’s machine spirit would not tolerate desecration. ‘What have you got there? Give me one of the pneumatic lines to your servo-arm.’

  The Space Marine was still wary, but had been with the High Inquisitor long enough now to appreciate method in his madness. With a hiss of equalising air pressure, Torqhuil unclasped the pneumatic line to one of his claw-like appendages and handed the rigid hose to Czevak. Taking the tapered pin-point end of the line attachment, the High Inquisitor selected a knotted nest of vines that had bundled near the base of the fractured wall where the destructive vegetation had originally breached the ancient stonework. Stabbing the sharp point of the line through the waxy surface of the vine, Czevak nodded to Torqhuil, who twisted a small valve on his harness, allowing pressurised air to pump down the line and into the body of the plant.

  ‘It’s a vapour fig,’ Czevak informed the retinue. ‘See, these amazing organisms work by growing shoots up through holes in the rock and then slowly releasing gases through tiny tubes and cavit
ies that run through the vine, hydraulically expanding and shattering the host surface.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Epiphani lied. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Just speeding the process up a little, doing in seconds what would ordinarily take years,’ the High Inquisitor told her.

  As the pneumatic line pumped air into the vines strangling the wall masonry, expanding the fat creepers and tendrils, rents and splits began to splinter their way across the ancient rockcrete. The group backed both up and down the steps as stone began to crumble and shatter into dust about them. As the exploratory vines of the vapour fig ballooned, chunks of masonry began to fall away. The wall emitted an excruciating gasp as it fought and lost its battle with the invasive plant and in a cloud-shower of pulverised dust and grit, disintegrated.

  Coughing through the nebulous rockcrete and shafts of swirling sunlight, Czevak ventured forth. As an Ablutraphurn dawn blazed its way through the ragged opening, spooking swarms of flittersnappers beyond, the group was struck by the sub-tropical mug that rolled in from outside like an elemental force. They were bathed in a foetid heat and haze and began to drip with beads of humidity that formed like a second surface over their cool skin and armour.