Where before the Astartes had been benign giants, albeit with the clear potential for great violence, this potential was now unbound. A gauntlet seized his throat and yanked him from his opponent. His feet dangled and his throat ceased to draw air as the pressure on his neck increased.
The power in the Astartes was immense, and Zahariel knew that with a tiny fraction of movement, his neck could be snapped like kindling.
Through greying vision, Zahariel saw yet more of the Astartes warriors as they unceremoniously scooped up his fallen opponent.
‘What do you have, Midris?’ asked one of the newly arrived giants.
The warrior looked straight into his eyes and Zahariel felt the fury of the warrior’s hatred burning through the red lenses of his helmet as consciousness faded blackness. ‘Traitors,’ spat Midris.
SEVENTEEN
WHEN ZAHARIEL AWOKE, it was to find himself in a gleaming cell of bare metal walls illuminated with a soft, off-white glow that had no obvious source. He lay on a metal shelf set into the wall, and as he took a breath, he winced at the painful constriction in his throat. He remembered the Astartes Midris holding him at arm’s length like a piece of refuse and the feeling of anger that had radiated from the warrior like a physical blow.
He remembered the word traitor spat in his face, and he sat up quickly as he remembered the scuffle of bodies and the attempt on the Emperor’s life. Had the other conspirators also been present at the Descent of Angels? Had their vile plan succeeded?
Cold fear settled in his gut and he clutched at his throat as he fought for breath. Though he could not see it, he felt sure that his neck must be blackened with bruising from the pressure Midris had applied.
His legs dangled from the metal shelf and if this was a bed in a cell, then it was clearly designed for someone far larger than him. Looking around, he saw nothing to give any indication as to where the light was coming from or where there might be an exit. The walls were bare and smooth, gleaming and unblemished.
‘Hello,’ he rasped, the effort of speaking painful, rendering his shout little more than a wheezing gasp. ‘Is there anybody out there?’
He received no answer, and slid from the metal bed to the floor. He had been stripped of his armour and wore a simple penitent’s robe. Did this mean he had been judged guilty already?
Zahariel made a slow circuit of the room, the cell, and attempted to find an exit or some means of communicating with his gaolers. He found nothing obvious, and banged his fists against the walls, but heard little difference in the tonal quality that might indicate the existence of a door.
Eventually, by pressing his face to the cold wall opposite the shelf and looking along its length, he discovered a pair of vertical seams on the wall suggesting a door, though one without any clear means of opening.
He was no longer on Caliban, that much was certain. Was this one of the ships upon which the First Legion could travel between the stars? The walls hummed with a low resonance, and he could hear what sounded like a faint drumbeat that might have been the slow rhythm of the vessel’s mighty heart. Despite his current predicament, he had to admit that he was a little excited to have left the surface of the world of his birth.
He returned to the bed, frustrated at his inability to communicate with the outside world and protest his innocence. He had stopped the traitor from committing his act of atrocity, couldn’t they see that?
With nothing to distract his mind, his imagination conjured up all manner of dark possibilities.
Perhaps the Emperor was dead and his Astartes had wreaked terrible retribution on Caliban, razing its towns and fortresses with their great weapons.
Perhaps the knights of the Order were even now being held in cells like this, implements of torture used to extract confessions of guilt. As ludicrous as the idea of Astartes becoming torturers seemed, he could not shake the impression of hot brands, knives and all manner of terrible punishments that might be employed.
With nothing else to do, he lay back on the bed, but no sooner had he laid his head down than he felt a whisper of air shimmer across him. Zahariel looked up in time to see two Astartes enter the cell through the strange door. Both wore plain, unadorned black armour, and they hauled him from the bed without ceremony and dragged him from the cell.
Outside, Brother Israfael was waiting for him, together with another Astartes warrior in white armour, who wore an enlarged gauntlet on his right arm. They dragged him down the corridor, constructed of the same bare metal as his cell, though without the brightness of light that had woken him.
‘Please!’ he cried. ‘What are you doing? Where are you taking me?’
‘Be silent!’ said one of the Astartes who carried him, and he recognised the voice as belonging to Midris, the warrior who had hauled him from the struggling saboteur.
‘Please, Brother-Librarian Israfael, what’s going on?’
‘It would serve you best to remain silent, Zahariel,’ said Israfael as they turned a corner and dragged him towards an arched opening that led into a darkened chamber. Passing through the portal, Zahariel felt the temperature drop. He smelled a rank odour and saw his breath misting the air before him.
The only light came from the corridor he had been carried along, but as a door shut behind them, even that was taken away, and he was plunged into darkness. Armoured gauntlets hauled him upright, leaving him alone and blind in the darkness.
‘What’s happening?’ he asked. ‘Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?’
‘Quiet,’ said a voice he didn’t recognise.
He jumped in surprise at the sound, for he was as blind as if his eyes had been plucked from their sockets. He heard footsteps circling him, but how many people were here was a mystery. He knew Israfael, Midris and the warrior in the white armour were here, as well as the other Astartes who had carried him, but were there others in the darkness too?
‘Zahariel,’ said Israfael from the darkness. ‘That is your name, yes?’
‘You know it is! Please, tell me what’s happened.’
‘Nothing,’ said Israfael. ‘Nothing has happened. The plot failed and the conspirator is being interrogated. We will soon uncover those who sought to do us harm and deal with them.’
‘I had nothing to do with it,’ said Zahariel, wrapping his arms around his in fear. ‘I stopped him.’
‘That is the only reason you are not strapped to an excruciator table, having your secrets wrung from your flesh,’ snapped Midris. ‘Tell us everything and leave nothing out or it will go badly for you. Start with how you knew what Brother Ulient was planning.’
‘Brother Ulient? Is that his name? I didn’t know him.’
‘Then why did you pursue him in the crowd?’ asked Midris.
‘I saw his face in the crowd and… he looked, I don’t know, out of place.’
‘Out of place?’ asked Israfael. ‘Is that all? One face in thousands and you saw it?’
‘I felt something was wrong,’ said Zahariel. ‘I just knew there was something wrong in the crowd and he ran when I challenged him.’
‘You see,’ said Midris, ‘he lies. We must use pain to render his confession meaningful.’
‘Confession?’ cried Zahariel. ‘No! I’m trying to tell you what happened!’
‘Lies!’ spat Midris. ‘You were in on the plot from the beginning, admit it! You knew exactly what Ulient was planning and you panicked. You are a traitor and a coward!’
‘I’m no coward!’ snapped Zahariel.
‘But you do not deny being a traitor?’
‘Of course I do,’ said Zahariel. ‘You are twisting my words!’
‘Spoken like a true traitor,’ said Midris. ‘Why are we even bothering with this one?’
‘Because whether he is a traitor or not, he will know the identities of the other plotters,’ said Israfael. ‘One way or another he will tell us.’
‘Please! Brother Israfael,’ said Zahariel. ‘You know I am no traitor, tell them!’
; The voices continued to circle him in the darkness, each one darting in like an unseen assailant to wound him with their accusations. As each barb came in, Zahariel felt his anger growing. If they were to kill him for some imagined treachery, then he would not give them the satisfaction of seeing him broken.
‘I have done nothing wrong,’ he said. ‘I am a knight of the Order.’
‘You are nothing!’ roared Midris. ‘You are a mortal who has dared to consort with the enemies of the Imperium. No fate is too harsh for one such as you.’
‘I stopped him, didn’t I?’ said Zahariel. ‘Or are you too stupid to see that?’
A hand shot out of the darkness to seize his throat, and though he could not see it, he gasped in pain as the gauntlet threatened to crush his already battered windpipe.
‘I will kill you if you speak out of turn again,’ said Midris.
‘Put him down, Midris,’ said Israfael’s voice. ‘I will look into him.’
Zahariel was dropped to the metal floor of the dark chamber and fell in a wheezing heap as he felt the presence of another warrior come near. He heard heavy footfalls and shivered as the temperature around him dropped even further.
‘Brother Israfael?’ he said hesitantly.
‘Yes, Zahariel, it is I,’ said Israfael, and Zahariel felt a bare hand settle on the top of his head, the digits massive and tingling with a strange internal motion.
He gasped as he felt a jolt of power snap through his body, as though a surge of adrenaline had washed through him. He fought against the sensation as he felt himself becoming drowsy and compliant. His defiance of this interrogation began to fade and he struggled to hold onto the feeling as he felt his memories being sifted through by some unknown presence within his mind.
Zahariel tasted metal, though his mouth was clamped shut in pain. His skull filled with bright light as whatever power Israfael was using seared its way through him.
He screamed, as white hot fingers brushed the inside of his skull, and he reached for the same power that had defeated the Beast of Endriago.
‘Get out of my head!’ he screamed, and felt the touch within him retreat at the force of his imperative. Blinking afterimages flared in his mind and he saw a glittering silver web of light form behind his eyes, the outlines of armoured warriors, their bodies limned with light in the same way as he had seen the beast.
Zahariel twisted his head and saw that the chamber was circular and an almost exact mirror of the structure of the Circle Chamber on Caliban. The edges of every surface trailed a nimbus of glittering light, like shimmering dust blown by unseen winds, and he saw the Astartes around him as clearly as though they were illuminated by spotlights.
‘I see you,’ he said.
He could see the warriors looking at each other in puzzlement, relishing their sense of unease at his burgeoning power. The glittering silver outlines of the Astartes faded and Zahariel had a fleeting impression of immense power pressing at the edges of his mind.
‘Careful, Zahariel,’ said a soothing, sourceless voice, one that eased the pain searing along his every nerve ending. ‘You are unschooled in such matters and it does not do to tap so recklessly into such power. Not even the most powerful of our breed can know the dangers of such things.’
Though he heard the words clearly, Zahariel knew they existed only for him: that Israfael, Midris and the others could not hear them. By what means they were transmitted into his head, he did not know, but he suspected it was the unknown power that had helped him to defeat the beast, one that the unknown speaker was also clearly imbued with.
No sooner had the voice soothed him than it vanished, and Zahariel gasped as Israfael said, ‘I can find what I need to know in your head without your consent, but what will be left of you afterwards will be less than you were, if anything remains at all. It would be better for you if you were to tell us everything you know willingly.’
The touch was withdrawn, and Zahariel let out a strangled moan as he collapsed to the metal decking of the floor.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you everything.’
ZAHARIEL PUSHED HIMSELF to his feet and stood proudly before his accusers, determined to show no fear before their interrogation. He had faced the Lion, Luther and Lord Cypher in his ordeal of initiation to the Order and he would face this with the same determination.
The silver light that outlined everything began to fade and he told his tale in the dark.
He told them of the clandestine meeting between the conspirators in the chamber beneath the great meeting hall of Aldurukh, though Zahariel left out the part played by his cousin, knowing that to even mention Nemiel’s name would be to damn him in the eyes of the Astartes. Nemiel’s mistake had been naivety, as had his own, and he hoped these warriors would see that.
Better to be thought young and foolish than treacherous.
He spoke of the four hooded conspirators and how he had recognised the man in the crowd from the brief hint of his features that he had seen beneath his hood that night.
Zahariel then told them of the sensation of unease and cold purpose that he had sensed while walking alongside the Lion as part of his honour guard to meet the Emperor.
This time they did not question his recognition of Brother Ulient, though he could feel Brother Israfael’s interest once again piqued by his strange power to sense his presence and purpose.
They questioned him over and over on his story and each time he told them the same version of events. He could feel the presence of Brother Israfael lurking in the back of his head, his mind-touch filtering everything he said for lies or obfuscation. If Israfael sensed his vagueness in how he came to the room beneath the Circle Chamber he gave no sign of it, and Zahariel had a sudden feeling that Israfael did not want to delve too closely into that part of his story.
Zahariel had a sudden intuitive sense that Israfael wanted him to be exonerated, so that he might yet become one of the Astartes, so that he might further train him in the use of his powers. The thought made him bold and his tale surged with confidence.
Once again, he finished his tale with his tackling of Brother Ulient, and he sensed the hostility in the darkened chamber, which had once been terrifying in its intensity, diminish and change to a growing feeling of admiration.
At last, Israfael’s mind-touch withdrew and he felt a pressure he hadn’t been aware of lift from the lid of his skull.
A light began to build and this time it was from an external source. Glowing globes set into the walls of the chamber began to fill with light, and Zahariel shielded his eyes from the rising brightness as he saw his interrogators standing around him.
‘You have courage, boy,’ said Midris, all his earlier choler vanished. ‘If what you say is true, then we owe you a great debt.’
‘It is true,’ said Zahariel, wishing to be gracious, but still smarting from his harsh treatment at the hands of the warrior. ‘Just ask Brother Israfael.’
Israfael laughed and Zahariel felt a pleasurable vindication as the Librarian said, ‘He’s right, Midris. I sensed no lie in his words.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Have I ever been wrong?’
‘No, but there’s always a first time.’
‘He is not wrong,’ said a voice from behind Zahariel. He turned to see a tall figure, resplendent in a mighty suit of gleaming armour silhouetted in the doorway. The voice was the one he had heard in his head before he had begun his tale, its tones mellifluous and as deep as an ocean trench. Zahariel tried to see past the glare of the light behind the figure, but his eyes were still adjusting from the total blackness to the light, and he could make out litde, other than the golden halo of light behind the armoured warrior.
Around him, the Astartes dropped to their knees, heads bowed against the figure’s magnificence, and much as Zahariel struggled to see the new arrival’s features, he knew that he was not worthy to do so.
‘Do not kneel,’ said the figure, seeming to carry the light with him as he
entered the circular chamber. ‘Stand.’
The Astartes rose to their feet, but Zahariel remained rooted to the spot, his eyes locked on a portion of the floor. The light spread over the deck, rippling like golden water as it radiated from the armoured warrior.
‘It seems I owe you a debt, young Zahariel,’ said the golden figure, ‘and for that I thank you. In time you will forget this, but while your memories are still your own, I wished to thank you for what you did.’
Zahariel tried to answer, but found his mouth welded shut, his tongue lifeless on his palate. No power in the galaxy could have forced him to look up into the warrior’s face, and like the certainty that had gripped him as he looked into the darkness beneath the Watcher in the Dark’s hood, Zahariel knew that were he to look up, he would be driven just as mad.
He tried again to form words, but each time they formed in his mind they were snatched away like leaves in a hurricane. Zahariel could not speak, yet he knew that the wondrous figure knew his thoughts as surely as if they had been his own.
He felt the warrior’s presence like a vast weight pressing in on his mind, an immense strength and power that was only kept from snuffing out his existence because it was held in check by a will stronger than the rock of Caliban.
The power he sensed growing in his own mind, and that which he had brushed in Israfael’s mind, were like candles in a storm next to this warrior’s ability. Zahariel felt as though he was being smothered beneath an enfolding blanket, and the sensation was far from unpleasant.
‘He has a touch of power,’ said the warrior, and Zahariel felt his spirit soar at such notice, even as he feared the import of his earlier words.
‘He does, my lord,’ said Israfael. ‘He is a prime candidate for the Librarius.’
‘He is indeed,’ agreed the warrior. ‘See to it, but be sure he remembers nothing of this. No suspicion of any dissent must exist within the Legion. We must be united or we are lost.’
‘It will be done, my lord,’ assured Israfael.
THOUGH THE LION was over half a kilometre away, Zahariel felt as if he could reach out and touch him. The senior members of the Order occupied the great podium where the Emperor had stood the previous week. Thousands of knights filled the parade ground, resplendent in polished suits of armour and proudly standing to attention.
Descent of Angels Page 24