‘How? In the warp?’
Another judder gripped the ship, this one lasting several moments. Lorgar smiled a downcast little smile, no doubt amused at the timing of the ship’s renewed trembling. ‘Even the aftershocks of this storm are savage. You wish to dive back into the warp to hunt three atoms in a whirlwind?’
‘I call again for the astropaths to make the attempt,’ said Argel Tal. ‘If they can find their counterparts on the Reverence–’
‘My son,’ Lorgar shook his head. ‘Your compassion does you great credit, but we cannot halt the Pilgrimage on account of one lost warship. The warp is a cruel mistress. How many vessels has the Imperium lost in its tides over the course of the Great Crusade? Hundreds? Perhaps even a thousand or more.’
Major Arric tapped a few buttons on his own data-slate. ‘We’re on the frontier, and we all know it. Reinforcements aren’t coming our way, no matter how loud we shout for help. How regularly are we receiving word from other fleets now?’
‘The time between contacts is rising exponentially,’ said Phi-44. ‘The last astropathic transmission from Lord Kor Phaeron’s main fleet was four months ago.’
Xaphen spoke up now. ‘The first captain’s last message contained updated star charts showing the Legion’s expansion to the Galactic Rim, and a list of compliances achieved. It also contained the sincerest gratitude for the eight thousand more words and three pict references to be added to their fleet’s copies of the Book of Lorgar.’
The primarch chuckled, but said nothing.
Xaphen continued, ‘The closest Imperial expedition to us is the 3,855th, almost a year’s warp flight distant.’
‘What Chapters lead the 3,855th?’ asked Deumos.
‘The Bloodied Visage,’ Phi-44 confirmed, ‘and the Crescent Moon. And Chaplain Xaphen is incorrect. The 3,855th Expeditionary Fleet is between thirteen and fifteen months distant, depending on the vagaries of the warp.’
Silence fell.
‘A year,’ said Lorgar. ‘How far we have come, to serve as humanity’s eyes in the dark. No other Imperials have spread themselves this far apart, nor travelled this far from Terra and its conquered territories.’
A year. Argel Tal was struck by the distance put into such terms. We are over a year’s flight distant from our nearest brothers, and even farther from the Imperium’s true edge.
‘So we’re well and truly alone,’ Arric echoed the captain’s thoughts, and the ship punctuated his words with another savage tremor.
‘Sire,’ Argel Tal began again.
‘Peace, my son,’ the primarch cut him off with a gentle lift of his hand. ‘Master Delvir? Can you offer Captain Argel Tal the solace he seeks?’
The Master of Astropaths was a watery-eyed rake of a man, clad in a robe of colourless grey that hung off his shoulders in velvet waves. He regarded the room with a kicked dog’s expression as he realised more and more faces were turning his way.
‘Our auguries are... That is to say... Our senses are... I can hear the world we move towards. It’s difficult to put into words.’
Lorgar cleared his throat to draw the man’s attention. ‘Master Delvir?’
‘My lord?’ the man asked in his whispery voice.
‘You are among equals, here. Friends. We all sympathise with the pressures the storm has placed upon you. Do not be nervous or hesitant in explaining the details.’
Shosa Delvir, Master of Astropaths, bowed without much in the way of grace. But it was sincere. Lorgar returned the bow, not to same depth, but with a smile.
‘Sometimes,’ the astropath began slowly, ‘mere chance is enough to bring an Imperial fleet to one of humanity’s lost worlds. Blessed are those occasions. More often, we rely upon the few ancient star charts that endured the chaos of Long Night and the Unification Wars that ravaged Terra. But when you rely upon us – when you call upon the astropathic choir – I... I will explain it as best I can.’
‘That,’ Argel Tal watched his father writing the words down, ‘was the first moment my blood ran cold. Anchored above the world, when the astropath told us how his kind saw through the storm.’
Lorgar nodded. ‘It was the moment I first knew we were reaching the end of the Pilgrimage,’ he said.
‘There’s truth in that,’ the captain sighed.
No longer did their eyes meet as Argel Tal spoke. The delicate scratching of a feather quill on parchment provided the only accompaniment to Argel Tal’s spoken words.
The Master of Astropaths only hesitated for a moment.
‘We hear voices in the void,’ he said. ‘A world is a hive of sound, the buzzing of locusts or flies, but far, far in the distance. It is never easy to make out one world in the endless reaches of space. The Imperium is an ocean of silence, and only the most intense focus allows us to hear the hum of human sentience. Imagine yourselves beneath the water of a great sea. All sound is muted, while the silence is powerfully oppressive. Now try to listen for voices in the nothingness, when all you can hear is your own heartbeat.’
‘Sire...’ Deumos interrupted. ‘Must we listen to this crude prose?’
Lorgar’s answer was to press a golden finger to his smile. ‘Let Master Delvir speak. I find his words enlightening.’
The astropath pressed on, avoiding any of their gazes. ‘If you focus too hard on listening for voices, you will forget to swim. You’ll drown. If you devote all your energy to swimming for the surface and breathing once more... you will hear none of the ocean’s sounds.’
‘You strive for balance,’ said Argel Tal. ‘That does not sound easy.’
‘It is not, but no soul in this room can lay claim to an easy existence.’ The astropath offered a respectful bow to the gathered warriors. Several acknowledged his respect with a salute. Argel Tal was one of them. He liked the scrawny little man.
‘What has changed?’ the captain asked. He felt the primarch’s eyes upon him.
‘This region of space is like no other we’ve seen in our travels. The warp is savage, and our ships are slaves to raging tides of aetheric energies.’
‘We have all seen warp storms before,’ said Lorgar. The glint in his grey eyes spoke volumes: he knew all of this, and was leading the astropath on, letting the psychic sensitive explain it to the fleet’s commanders.
‘This is different, sire. This storm has a voice. A million voices.’
It was safe to say he had the council’s attention. Argel Tal tasted poison as he swallowed. On a whim, he keyed in an activation code onto the table’s hololithic projector.
In flickering imagery, the region of space – zoomed out to display hundreds of suns and their systems – was beamed above the central table. It was impossible to miss what was wrong.
‘This region here,’ the astropath gestured. ‘If the choir closes its eyes and reaches out with its secret senses... all we hear is screaming.’
The area was vast. Bigger than vast. It covered hundreds upon hundreds of solar systems, ugly even on the hololithic. The warp anomaly showed as a gaseous fog staining the stars, coiling down to a centre of roiling, boiling energy.
‘When you all look at this,’ said Arric Jesmetine, ‘does anyone else see an eye? An eye in space?’
Many agreed. Lorgar did not.
‘No,’ the primarch said. ‘I see a genesis. This is how galaxies appear when they are born. My brother Magnus showed me such things in the Hall of Leng, on fair Terra. The difference is that this... birth... is not physical. This is the ghost of a galaxy. You all see an eye, or a spiral. Both are right, both are wrong. This is the psychic imprint of some incredible stellar event. It was powerful enough to rip the void apart, letting warp space bleed into the corporeal galaxy.’
The astropath nodded, awed gratitude in his eyes as the primarch spoke the words he lacked himself.
‘That is what we believe, sire. This is not merely a warp storm. This is the warp storm, and it has raged for so long that it now saturates physical reality. The entire region is both space and unsp
ace. Warp and reality, all at once.’
‘Something...’ Lorgar stared at the bruised heavens, his gaze distant. ‘This is an abortion. Something was almost born here.’
Argel Tal cleared his throat. ‘Sire?’
‘It’s nothing, my son. Just a fleeting thought. Please continue, Master Delvir.’
The astropath had little more to say. ‘The storms that have wracked our journeys these last weeks emanate from this region. Around 1301-12, space is relatively stable. But think of the storm we endured to reach this point of stability. That storm blankets thousands of star systems around us. If we break from this narrow corridor, the energies playing out would be...’
He trailed off. Lorgar looked at him sharply. ‘Speak,’ the primarch commanded.
‘An old Terran term, sire. I would have said the storm is apocalyptic.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Argel Tal.
It was Xaphen that answered. ‘Damnation. The end of everything. A very, very old legend.’ The thought seemed to amuse him.
‘If the storm is nothing but screaming,’ Argel Tal turned to Delvir, ‘then how did we find this world? How could you hear the life upon it?’
The astropath took a trembling breath. ‘Because something on the world below us screams even louder.’
‘Something,’ the captain said. ‘You did not say “someone”.’
The robed man nodded. ‘Do not ask me to explain, for I cannot. It sounds human, but is not. The way you would hear another warrior’s accent and know him to be from another part of your home world, the astropathic choir hears something inhuman screaming in human tongues.’
Lorgar cut off the discussion with a motion of his hand. ‘This region is unmapped and unnamed. What vessels were lost in the journey through the storm?’
Phi-44 answered before the fleetmaster could. ‘The Unending Reverence, the Gregorian and the Shield of Scarus.’
The Word Bearers present inclined their heads in respect. The Shield had been the strike cruiser of their own Captain Scarus and his 52nd Company. Their loss was a savage blow to the Serrated Sun, finding itself at two-thirds strength purely by the warp’s fickle winds.
‘Very well,’ said Lorgar. ‘Ensure all stellar cartography is updated, with records sent back to Terra. This region is hereafter known as Scarus Sector.’
‘Will we make planetfall, sire?’ This from Deumos.
With infinite care, the primarch took a rolled parchment from a wooden tube at his belt. He unrolled it with a precious lack of haste, and finally turned it to face them all. On the papyrus scroll, a spiralling stain was sketched in charcoal. Everyone recognised it immediately. It was already before them – the stain across the stars.
As the commanders watched, a vicious shiver ran through the ship. Emergency lighting stained all vision red for several seconds, and the hololithic winked out of existence. Argel Tal re-keyed the activation code as the lights returned.
The image flared back into jagged, unreliable life.
‘Bitch of a storm,’ Major Jesmetine muttered. A few quiet agreements were all the response he got.
‘This is drawn from memory,’ said Lorgar, meeting their eyes in turn. ‘But my Word Bearers will recognise it.’
‘The empyrean,’ the Legion officers said at once.
‘The Gate of Heaven,’ Xaphen amended, ‘from the old scrolls.’
‘We were summoned here,’ Lorgar said, his voice low and clear and unbroken by doubt’s shadow. ‘Something called out to our astropathic choir through the storm. Something wanted us here, and something awaits us on the planet below.’
The astropath broke decorum, possibly for the first time in his quiet and sheltered life. ‘How... how can you know that?’ he stammered the words through pale lips.
Lorgar let the scroll fall onto the table. Something like anger burned behind his eyes.
‘Because I hear the screaming, too. And it is not wordless. Something on the world beneath us is crying out my name into the psychic storm.’
FOURTEEN
Violet Eyes
Two Voices
Answers
Argel Tal looked at his reflection in the cup of water. Thin fingers touched the stark geography of his face. It was like stroking a skull.
Lorgar didn’t look up from writing.
‘Planetfall,’ said the captain.
Violet eyes.
It was only apparent deviation from the purestrain human breed. With violet eyes, the people stared at the emissaries from the stars. Barbarians, dressed in rags and wielding spears tipped by flint blades, confronted Lorgar and his sons.
And yet, the primitives showed little fear. They approached the Word Bearers’ landing site as a disjointed horde, divided by tribes, each host carrying flayed-skin banners and animal bone totems denoting their allegiance to the spirits and devils of their world’s faith.
Lorgar had taken a small host to make first contact with the humans of 1301-12. The rest of the fleet remained ready in the heavens above, but Lorgar preferred to orchestrate first contact in more humble ways.
At his side stood Deumos, Master of the Serrated Sun, with the captains Argel Tal and Tsar Quorel of the Seventh and Thirty-Ninth Companies respectively. Both captains brought their Chaplains, who in turn stood with their crozius mauls drawn. Behind them, one figure stood skeletally slender, clad in a hooded robe. Three mechanical eyes peered out from the cowl as Xi-Nu 73 watched proceedings taking place. At his side, Incarnadine waited motionless, exuding threat without moving a gear.
Only one figure stood apart from the pack; clad in gold, bearing a spear of exquisite craftsmanship. Vendatha, the Custodian. Aquillon would not be dissuaded from one of his brothers joining them. The Occuli Imperator made it a point for at least one of his warriors to always accompany the primarch on incidents of first contact.
The Custodian’s red helmet crest fluttered in the wind, as did the parchment scrolls bound to the Word Bearers’ armour. He stood closest to Argel Tal. In all Vendatha’s time with the fleet, no other Astartes present had showed him – or the other Custodes – the ghost of respect, let alone an offer of friendship.
At their backs, a Legion Thunderhawk sat at rest – traditional granite-grey, for Lorgar’s golden Stormbird remained with the 47th Expedition. The primarch didn’t miss it, even three years since last setting eyes upon it. The gunship’s ostentation had always reeked more of gaudiness than grandeur. Let the preening Fulgrim adorn his war machines like works of art. Lorgar’s tastes ran to less puerile pursuits.
‘Their eyes,’ said Xaphen. ‘Every one of them has violet irises.’
‘Look up,’ the primarch spoke softly.
Xaphen obeyed. They all did. The warp storm wracking the region shrouded most of the night sky, a great spiral stain of reds and purples staring down like an unblinking eye.
‘The storm?’ Vendatha asked. ‘Their eyes are violet because of the storm?’
Lorgar nodded. ‘It has changed them.’
Xaphen rested his crozius on his shoulder as he still stared into the sky. ‘I know the warp can infect psychics with the flesh-change, if their minds are not strong enough. But normal humans?’
‘They are impure,’ Vendatha interrupted. ‘These barbarians are mutants...’ he gestured with his spear at the approaching tribes, ‘...and they must be destroyed.’
Argel Tal glanced to his left, where the Custodian stood with his halberd lowered. ‘Does this not fascinate you, Ven? We stand on a world at the edge of the greatest warp storm ever seen, and its population comes to us with eyes the same colour as the tortured void. How can you damn that before asking why it happens?’
‘Impurity is its own answer,’ said the golden warrior. He refused to be drawn into debate. ‘Primarch Lorgar, we must cleanse this world.’
Lorgar didn’t look at the Custodian. He merely sighed before speaking.
‘I will meet these people, and I will judge their lives myself. Pure, impure, right and wrong. All I
want is answers.’
‘They are impure.’
‘I am not slaughtering the population of an entire world because my father’s war hound whined at the colour of their eyes.’
‘The Occuli Imperator will hear of this,’ Vendatha promised. ‘As will the Emperor, beloved by all.’
The primarch took a last look at the blazing sky. ‘Neither the Emperor, nor the Imperium, will ever forget what we learn here. You have my word on that, Custodian Vendatha.’
The first of the barbarians approached.
Draped around her shoulders was a cloak of discoloured peach-brown, heavy like bad leather, bound by crude black stitching. Her eyes, that beautiful and disquieting violet, were ringed by white paint, daubed in tribal runes over her face. The symbols meant nothing to Vendatha.
But the cloak did.
‘Degenerates...’ the Custodian hissed over a closed vox-channel. ‘That is human skin. Dried, cured, worn like a cloak of honour.’
‘I know,’ Argel Tal replied. ‘Lower your weapon, Ven.’
‘How can Lorgar deal with these creatures? Flayers. Primitives. Mutants. They coat their skin in meaningless hieroglyphs.’
‘They’re not meaningless,’ said the captain.
‘You can read those runes?’
‘Of course,’ Argel Tal sounded distracted. ‘It’s Colchisian.’
‘What? What does it say?’
The Word Bearer didn’t answer.
Lorgar inclined his head in respectful greeting.
The barbarian leader, at the head of over a hundred ragged people dressed in similar rags and armour of disquieting ‘leather’, showed no trepidation at all. More tribes were still converging from across the plainsland, but they held back, perhaps in deference to the young woman with the raven hair.
Skulls tied to her belt rattled as she moved. Despite reaching the primarch’s waist, she seemed utterly at ease as she lifted her mutated eyes to meet the giant’s own.
When she spoke, a heavy accent and clipped syllables couldn’t disguise the language completely. It had come far from its proto-Gothic roots, but the Imperials recognised it, some with greater ease than others.
The First Heretic Page 19