ASHES OF PROSPERO

by Gav Thorpe

  That his defences had been breached was galling. Worse. It had been no assault that had prised open the fortress of his mind, but his own negligence. He had left the gates unbarred and unguarded for a moment. After so long, he had become complacent.

  It seemed small comfort that the incident with the sorcerer was the worst that had happened. He detected a simmering hostility from the splinter of consciousness that nagged at the base of his thoughts. As irritating as it was, the Thousand Sons legionary’s hatred was not a direct menace. Had a daemon or warp predator entered…

  He fidgeted with a cluster of carved runebones as he walked, rubbing them and letting them clatter on their iron ring spun around a thick finger. The more he considered what had happened, the more agitated he became, though he carefully portrayed his customary appearance of gruff contemplation for those he came across. Even so, he feared meeting a battle-brother who knew him well, one of the Wolf Guard perhaps, who might spy something amiss and ask awkward questions. He was in no position to confess his predicament to all and sundry, yet he felt that concealment of it would be a grave error also.

  He had little to worry about on that accord; so few of his brothers remained in the Fang. Njal passed only lesser thralls going about menial tasks as he made his way across the citadel of the Space Wolves. Clad in their tunics and breeches, some with small badges of affiliation to one of the Great Companies or tags of awards earned for dedication to their duties, they were unassuming figures. Many bore scars, physical reminders of the trials they had failed. Others had a vacant cast about their gaze, not without intelligence, but dulled by terrible experience, a near-catatonia that placed them only just above the machine-slaved servitors. They all recognised a Lord of Fenris and gave deference to the Stormcaller, bowing heads and touching fingers to brow. Some of the youngest kneeled briefly as he passed, murmuring Fenrisian blessings.

  His course took him to a long plastek-shrouded gallery that became a bridge over a deep gorge. The flanks of the ravine were dotted with caves, only visible in the gloom due to his enhanced sight. Gigantic bats swept to and from the openings, spiralling up through the beams from the lamps of the citadel, brief glimpses of fanged monsters that disappeared swiftly.

  Njal stopped before stepping off the bridge, to look up at the bastion to which he had travelled. Like the Halls of the Runelords, it was set apart, an outer tower linked only by a bridge and a slender causeway of snow-covered rock. It stood upon a natural pilaster in the middle of the broad defile, surrounded on all other sides by the dark ravine. Defence turrets dotted the sheer walls of the square tower. The roof and upper storeys were fashioned into a majestic, immense wolf’s head with an open mouth, a single landing apron like a lolling tongue between its fangs. A Stormwolf assault craft sat there, black instead of the customary grey of the Chapter, with wolfskull devices in gold upon the blunt prow and stubby wings. Its presence indicated that the tower’s highest-ranking occupant was within, as Njal had known from wyrdsight before he had set out.

  Jaw clenched, wary of what he had to say, Njal stepped up to the iron-banded door of the tower. Another wolfskull emblem marked the portal, surrounded by large iron rivets marked with the devices of the twelve Great Companies.

  He lifted his staff and knocked thrice on the door, hard. The impacts rang back down the bridgeway and within the tower itself.

  Surveyors clicked and whirred within the lintel and door frame. A red light buzzed into life, scanning him briefly before it shut off. Finally, a ratchet clanked and the door swung inwards to reveal a short hallway leading to a broad set of stairs up into the tower.

  Readying himself for the hard conversation to come, Njal stepped across the threshold into the Citadel of the Slayer.

  Njal’s ascent up the stairwell was reluctant, his legs slowed not by physical weight but the burden that came from the confession he would shortly have to make. As much as the tower had ritual significance, it was also an integral part of the Fang’s defences. Like much to do with Fenris, appearance and purpose were not always consistent. The spiralling steps took the Rune Priest past corridors serving the gun batteries, past massively armoured doors of magazine stores and the openings into vox chambers and scanning control rooms. Pneumatic lifts and autoloading shafts lined the interior, ready to snarl into life at the thought impulses of the servitors locked within the gunnery systems. Badges of the Adeptus Mechanicus sealed access hatches alongside maintenance runes of the thralls, strange bedfellows that represented two vastly different cultures forced into mutual need.

  There were no failed aspirants here. The occupant of the tower had been alone until Njal’s arrival. The psyker could feel the pressure of the wolf cult filling the air, the raw power of Fenrisian spirit that permeated the walls, flowing from the single inhabitant. He hastened his step, knowing his arrival would have been noted, not wishing to keep the Slayer waiting.

  The stairwell opened out into a broad hall that ran the space of the tower. The interior was a shrine to the duality of the Space Wolves – Imperial iconography mixed with Fenrisian runework. Banners that had once flown from the ramparts of the Imperial Palace now flew alongside ragged wolftails and dragon-headed standards modelled on the war effigies of the Fenrisian tribesfolk. An Imperial Aquila was gilded upon the floor, surrounded by four wolves carved in black granite, their heads thrown back in their howling, each taller than the Stormcaller.

  ‘It is an ill wind that brings the Stormcaller alone to the Slayer.’ The voice was hoarse with age but no less strong for it, the growling timbre earned through ten centuries of battle. Its owner could not be seen, but Njal sensed him. His spirit was the eager panting of a wolf at bay, emanating from one of the wood-panelled reliquaries that lined the far end of the hall. The columns holding the panels were carved in the likeness of stacked skulls, alternating wolf and human, and geometric knotwork criss-crossed the timbers between.

  ‘Astute as always, Ulrik,’ said the Rune Priest.

  ‘I need no wyrd to know that only grave concern would force you here, rather than the neutral ground of Logan’s halls. I am the guardian of the Chapter’s spirit and lore, and you have not had need to call upon me in private since you ascended to your rank. That you do now… Well, I have lived a long time and by far these are the most troubling I have witnessed. I am not surprised it has come to this.’

  The speaker emerged from the relic hoard with an alien skull in his hands: the elongated structure of an eldar, with rubies set into the eye sockets, and sigils of vengeance carved into the sharp bones of the cheeks and on the forehead. Njal could feel the wrath of the Space Wolf that had slain the xenos still beating within the artefact.

  The hands that held the relic were thick, gnarled like old branches, with nails painted black and a wolf tattoo sat on the back of each. More markings decorated the forearms, some of them beautifully rendered wolf’s heads, skulls and sigils, others crude scratches. The rest of Ulrik’s flesh was hidden under a long, heavy black robe. Like the chamber, his outfit was a dichotomy; monkish habit and the garb of a Fenrisian loremaster. A rope bound it at the waist, hung with Imperial insignia and more wolf talismans, the cuffs and hem embroidered with silver thread in intertwined knotwork. He wore a necklace of fangs and animal skulls, but the pendant was a Crux Terminatus awarded to the greatest warriors of the Imperium.

  At his waist hung another badge of Imperial office – the crozius arcanum of a Space Marine Chaplain. By such rank were the Wolf Priests viewed by others. In reality, a poor summary of their lauded position with the Space Wolves. With this label the Adeptus Terra pretended they understood, and so tolerated the Wolf Priests’ existence and the creed they espoused. Though it contained a powerfield capable of disintegrating flesh and shattering bone, the crozius’ real strength was as a symbol of unity between the Space Wolves and the Imperium.

  Ulrik’s face was as craggy as the mount upon which his tower sat, pocked and scarred in many places. Braided strands like pure hoarfrost hung from scalp an
d cheeks. His gaze was dark and sharp, and regarded Njal closely as Ulrik placed the skull trophy upon a podium at one side of the chamber.

  ‘Speak,’ he said, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

  Njal was not sure where to start.

  +Time to reveal yourself the fool, Fenrisian oaf. Tell him of your folly.+

  Njal’s grimace betrayed him and he spoke swiftly before Ulrik could react.

  ‘I am hexed, Ulrik. I need your help.’

  ‘Hexed?’ Ulrik recoiled slightly, eyes narrowing. His fingers tightened on his arms, paling the skin where they clutched flesh.

  ‘You are in no danger, I swear.’

  Ulrik’s tight-lipped, venomous expression silently argued that it was too late to make such a claim, but Njal pressed on.

  ‘I have erred. Badly.’

  Ulrik listened without interruption, but his scowl deepened by the second as Njal’s tale continued. The Wolf Priest’s jaw worked, cheeks hollow as Njal then relayed Izzakar’s claim that Bulveye and the Old Guard were trapped with him. The Stormcaller finished with a half-shrug, part apology and part entreaty.

  ‘Purge it,’ said Ulrik. ‘You did not need to bring this taint here to discover this truth. There is no good that comes from any other course.’

  ‘But what of Bulveye and th–’

  ‘Purge it!’ Ulrik stepped closer, canines bared in a snarl of challenge, eyes fierce.

  +You shall never enter the Portal Maze without my knowledge.+

  ‘I hope that I can use what it knows to free our brothers.’

  Ulrik shook his head, his anger becoming sadness. ‘Hope? Are those your words or his that spill so easily from your lips?’

  Njal swallowed hard and the Slayer read guilt in the Rune Priest’s hesitancy to answer. The Slayer’s ire returned. ‘This sorcerer need not possess you to control your body and mind, to turn it to his dark cause.’

  +Dark cause? I was a bringer of light to many worlds, the lantern of the Emperor’s wisdom. If anyone was a darkness it was the Sons of Russ.+

  ‘Shut up,’ said Njal.

  ‘What?’ Ulrik’s hand moved towards his crozius, the other bunching into a fist. ‘What did you say to me?’

  ‘Not you, brother,’ Njal said hurriedly, shaking his head as he retreated a step. He pointed to his temple in explanation. ‘Him.’

  ‘You know what I will tell you, and I will tell you it again and again,’ Ulrik said, his tone bitter. ‘You knew before you came, yet you test me with this defiance. What else did you seek? Justification? Forgiveness? You have neither. You compound your error by entertaining any thought of alliance with this creature.’

  +Creature?+ Indignity flooded Njal’s thoughts, the vehemence of the response making him wonder if it was his or Izzakar’s. Its infection spurred his own frustration, which poisoned his following words.

  ‘You are right. I do not know what I thought I would gain from you. I had hoped you might share a measure of wisdom, not the spouted rhetoric of defunct priests.’

  The moment he closed his mouth, Njal regretted the outburst. Ulrik’s eyes widened, his face flushed. The Stormcaller opened his mouth to temper his accusation, but Ulrik turned away, shoulders hunched, fists trembling. His next words came with much struggle.

  ‘Leave. Now.’

  The Slayer’s wrath, though contained, burned in Njal’s wyrdsight like a bright flame. As much as he hoped to make right the mistake he had made, any further words would only fuel Ulrik’s anger, not quench it. He had insulted Ulrik’s honour, an ut-geld that would be hard to restore. Njal certainly had no time for such reparations now, nor was Ulrik in the mood to receive them.

  Silently, surrounded by a fume of self-loathing and embarrassment, the Stormcaller left.

  Most of the Elsinholma headed back to their town to fetch rope and sleds to retrieve the carcass. Though the flesh was wyrdrot – poisonous to eat by its taint – the sinew, bone, liver oil and scales, and many other parts beside, would serve them well over the coming winter. Tyra and a few others remained to guard the corpse from scavengers. In the light of half a dozen burning brand-staves, Arjac used handfuls of snow to clean the worst of the filth from his armour, muttering thanks to the war-plate’s spirit as he did so.

  ‘I am sorry for doubting you,’ said Tyra, again unable to look him in the eye. ‘And for making you risk your life for me.’

  ‘Not needed,’ he said, meaning her apology. ‘I live to protect the Allfather’s realm, whether across the cosmic bridge or beside my own hearth. There is no debt.’

  She nodded and dared a cautious glance.

  ‘Thank you, Arjac Rockfist.’

  ‘Can you survive the ice season?’ he asked, uncomfortable with her gratitude.

  ‘It is the season of fire that worries Rangvaldr,’ Tyra replied. ‘The long cold is just that. What will the land’s convulsions bring though?’

  Arjac had no easy answer for her, and any native of Fenris knew better than to expect one.

  ‘We have a saying,’ she said, the shadow of her hood dancing across her gaunt face in the torchlight. ‘The water that does not flow becomes ice.’

  ‘Why leave now, when you stayed through so much?’

  ‘That is not what it means. We must change, be the flow. Where there is one wyrm, there are others. We shall hunt them instead of the kraken.’

  Arjac smiled. If he listened to the shamans and the Runelords the spirit of Fenris was an otherworldly force, but he knew better than that. He had put it into every blow of his hammer upon the runed steel of his anvil. It had been in the ice water that had quenched the hot blade. It was in the blood of every Fenrisian.

  An indomitable spirit.

  The utter refusal to bow down, to accept the harsh odds, to look for the slightest succour if it meant hardship for another.

  ‘The children of your town…?’ He asked the question with circumspection, knowing nothing of Tyra’s family circumstance.

  ‘Some remain,’ she replied and shrugged. ‘We will keep the cold of the ice nights at bay with their replenishment. What of the Sky Warriors? Your sagas of lament must grow by the season.’

  ‘Just give us strong, smart and brave lads and the Sons of Russ will endure.’

  ‘Just sons?’ said Tyra, her humour edged with a hard look. ‘Perhaps there is more water that must learn to flow.’

  Arjac looked at this fierce woman, the sharp spear held easily in her hand, and recalled that she had overcome her fear not with psychodoctrination but raw courage. She had been the first to run to aid him against the wyrm, whether he needed her or not. The spirit of Fenris was in all of its people, elder and child, man and woman. He had seen first-hand that Roboute Guilliman had brought back miracle warriors from the time of the Allfather Abroad. Space Marines moulded from even sharper steel. If that was possible, anything was. He laughed at the thought.

  Tyra frowned at him, thinking he mocked her. He calmed his humour and bowed his head in apology, eyes never leaving hers.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said.

  The ensuing trek across the Fang was even more difficult for Njal, each stride an effort of will fought against his own reluctance. The confrontation with Ulrik ran in his veins, one heartsbeat a surge of hot anger and the next a cold trickle of humiliation. He made no attempt to mask his mood. The shadow of his spirit proceeded him with the ominous wingbeats of Nightwing, a metaphorical and literal dark cloud that swirled about the conflicted psyker. Ice crusted his runic talismans as they struggled to contain leaking emotions masquerading as psychic activity.

  The thralls did not stop and greet him as before, but fled at his coming.

  +However did your predecessors survive so long with such a temperamental nature?+

  Njal was in no mind to debate the sorcerer, his only reply a snarl of annoyance.

  The truth of Ulrik’s advice burned hotter the further he walked. It was foolish to countenance any bargain with Izzakar. Even if all that he claimed so far was true, there
was no guarantee he would hold to any pact in the future.

  Njal reached the Stair of the Worlds, one of the citadel’s main convergences of several conveyors, passages, stairways and halls. A trio of high columns held up the vaulted roof, a cavernous space that echoed with the footfalls of thralls, the buzz of hovering servo-familiars and the ever-present clank and whine of generators and machinery.

  He could continue down towards the chambers of the Great Wolf, or ascend back to the Halls of the Runelords where he would drive the splinter of the sorcerer’s soul from his mind.

  He stood transfixed between these two options, head turning between the conveyors that would take him up to the wyrdhalle or to the hallway towards Logan. Sensing his foul mood, the others traversing the grand hall gave him a wide berth. They shrank back into the shadows between the yellow pools of illumination from vast chain-hung lanterns above.

  Nightwing circled a dozen metres away, flying without purpose while its master’s thoughts whirled with an equal lack of direction.

  +It is not your decision, runeslave. You answer to a lord, do you not? You must seek his will, his orders.+

  Izzakar’s urging almost forced the opposite reaction. The more the sorcerer argued for one course of action, the more Njal was suspicious. Yet he found himself moving towards the halls of the Great Wolf despite these misgivings. He could not allow contrariness to override the logic of what Izzakar suggested. There was an opportunity to rescue some of the 13th, weighed against the potential betrayal and loss of even more warriors.

  And there was the part of Njal – a shameful part – that wanted to go to Logan. He could cloak it as the honourable Fenrisian thing to do – to seek the wisdom of his feal-lord. He could justify it according to the chain of command, as a Chief Librarian of the Adeptus Astartes answering to his Chapter Master. He might even convince himself he simply sought the advice of a friend.