‘What do you mean?’
Khorag gestured about him. ‘Was it worth all of this almost falling apart while you were gone? The loss of the facility on Urum, your creatures deciding to rebel…’
‘It is not rebellion if it was planned for.’
‘No, I suppose you wouldn’t call it that,’ Khorag said. ‘Answer my question.’
Fabius shook his head. ‘The aeldari, of whatever disposition, have much to offer in terms of knowledge. Aeons of wisdom are contained in scraps of crystal no larger than my thumbnail. Minds that exist beyond corporeal death. Weapons that can snuff out – or create – suns.’ He pushed himself to his feet, and extended his arms so that the vatborn could gird him in his panoply. ‘I could have spent centuries in Commorragh, learning arts that were old when the galaxy was young.’
‘So why didn’t you?’
‘I have some sense of responsibility. I went with purpose, and once that purpose was fulfilled, I took my leave.’
‘Apparently not without making a few enemies.’
‘The opprobrium of small minds has never given me pause.’
‘They will come for you. It is only a matter of time. Grandfather has told me so.’
Fabius frowned. ‘And Saqqara claims the Neverborn say the same.’ He gestured dismissively. ‘Let them come. I will be ready.’
‘How? With no allies, and no resources – what will you do?’
Fabius fell silent.
Khorag stared at him, waiting. When he realised no answer was forthcoming, he laughed ruefully. ‘Grandfather bless me, you have no idea how to proceed, do you?’ He shook his head. ‘The others were right.’
Fabius’ glare could have cut ceramite. ‘I know how to proceed. I am merely gauging the variables of each possible alternative, in order to select the optimum.’ But his words were hollow – protestations born out of instinct, rather than truth.
‘What you’re describing is called indecision,’ Khorag said gently. ‘You forget. I stood beside you at Harmony, Fabius. Like Arrian, I was aboard that ill-fated vessel when Abaddon boarded us and erased your work. And I saw what came after.’ He tapped a thick finger against Fabius’ chest. ‘I saw the pit you fell into. What becomes of the supreme strategist when his strategies are undone?’
‘I have never claimed to be a strategist,’ Fabius said sharply.
‘No? Then what have you been doing for the past five hundred years but orchestrating a grand strategy to save the galaxy, as you see it? And now, for the first time, you face the possibility that it is all for naught.’
‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Khorag sighed. ‘I am not so foolish as you seem to think, Fabius. I know the difference between you waiting to act – and being unable to do so. For the first week after our return, I assumed it was the former. I assured the others that you had some plan. But I was wrong. Something has broken in you. Something has been broken in you since you returned from Commorragh.’ He paused. ‘Are you afraid of them? The drukhari?’
‘No. I fear nothing save failure.’
‘Failure is what you are facing,’ Khorag said. ‘Everything you have built is dying, and there is nothing you can do about it.’ He stepped back and sighed. ‘If this is the end, it is not a fitting one. I do not have it in me to endure this black lassitude of yours a second time.’
He chuckled again, and turned. ‘Still… I envy you, Fabius. Such despair you must be feeling… such hopelessness. Grandfather has truly blessed you.’
Fabius sat in silence for long moments after Khorag’s departure. He was not so oblivious to the goings-on as Khorag had assumed. He had watched as his apothecarium was ransacked by the first to gather their courage. He’d given orders to Arrian and Mayshana to allow it – let the cowards have what they could carry.
Mostly, they’d stolen raw materials – something he approved of. Much of the cloned gene-seed was gone, as were many of the foetal war-mutants gestating in their incubation tanks. The looters had wisely left the most valuable contents of his private laboratorium alone, probably realising that he’d booby-trapped them for just such an eventuality. His clones had been left untouched, as had the wraithbone samples and all related experiments.
All in all, things could have been worse. He’d suffered such depredations before and almost certainly would again – it was part and parcel of life in the Eye. But never at the hands of his own students – or at least not all at once.
‘All good things,’ he murmured.
Despite Khorag’s accusation it wasn’t indecision that gripped him. But he had been right about one thing – it was not a fitting end.
Idly, he activated the external pict-feeds. Night had fallen across the city. A crumbling stone causeway stretched into the distance. It was overgrown, but beneath the vines and flowers Fabius could see the hint of its original shape. Like everything in the city, it put him in mind of Lugganath. The craftworld had been an architectural masterpiece, and even now a part of him felt some regret at what he’d done to it.
‘The new must ever be built on the bones of the old,’ he said, out loud.
Much of the city was lost now, shattered by the convulsions of a dying world and overgrown. Where once aeldari patricians had walked, now devolved beasts and night-birds gathered. Even the ancient docking rings far above were but a crumbling memory. Every few years, sections would slip from the upper reaches of the atmosphere and plummet to earth, raining fiery destruction upon an already wounded world.
Even so, there was still some use to be had from them. He regularly despatched scrapper-teams to scavenge equipment and spare parts from the disintegrating docking platforms. He had managed to recover a substantial amount of aeldari technology; much of it beyond his comprehension. But given a few centuries, he was confident he could reverse engineer even the most obtuse bit of machinery and make some use of it.
Or he had been, at least. There was no time now.
No time for anything at all.
Almost absently, he rotated the picters to focus on the distant towers that marked the city’s western district. The towers topped a palatial complex of significant size. Likely, it had belonged to the city’s rulers – or perhaps even the planetary governor – before the world had been abandoned. Now it had new masters.
‘Oh, my child,’ he murmured. ‘What have I made of you?’
Igori had led her rebellious packs into the western districts, displacing or exterminating the beastkin and degenerate aeldari that had previously called them home. She ruled there now, though in what capacity Fabius could not say. He had not set eyes on her since the day she’d departed, the blood of her littermates still wet on her hands. She had made no attempt to contact him, and he had honoured her wishes by keeping his distance – though a part of him was undeniably curious.
He did not really understand why she’d left. She’d always been his favourite, and he’d treated her as a valued assistant. Perhaps some lingering resentment over the punishments he’d inflicted on his rebellious followers in the aftermath of the Solemnace incident. But he had not been unduly harsh – hardly the decimation practised by the primarchs.
Still, while Igori certainly bore the lion’s share of blame, Fabius could not help but feel he was also at fault, in some small way. His pilgrimage to Commorragh had come at a time of great upheaval and uncertainty – he saw that now, and regretted it. So obsessed had he been with the secrets of the Dark City that he had wilfully blinded himself to the slow unravelling of all that he’d built.
And now, that unravelling had reached its ultimate end. His Consortium in tatters, his creations under attack and even his body failing him.
He looked down at the stump of his arm. At his mental command, the chirurgeon injected a solution of daemonic extract and stimm-agent into the wounded limb. He groaned as the scar tissue writhed and blistered. F
lesh tore and split as a bramble of nerve tissue emerged in a frenzied tangle. Slowly, painfully, shards of bone followed, shrouded in congealing tissues. In moments, a new hand glistened in the glow of the lumens. He flexed it, feeling the pull of odd muscles.
The hand wasn’t his. It would never feel like his. It was a thing of daemonic matter. But it would do well enough, for the time being. Long enough to do what needed doing.
He’d known for centuries that this moment was inevitable. The centre could not hold, the gyre widened. All things came to their end. But he’d always thought there would be more time. He had bargained for time, haggled with the reaper – bartered souls, piece by piece. All to buy time. But now it was done. No more bargains, no more time. Hexachires would come and burn his worlds, and him, and that would be the end of it. A sad, ignominious conclusion to his life.
He held up his new hand, studying the black veins that layered the pale flesh. The iridescent sheen of proto-scales scattered across the forearm. There was only one option left, though he was loath to do it. But better to tear the web himself than to let Hexachires nip the strands.
Decision made, the calculations began. Things would need doing. Overtures would need to be made, fallback points established. Preparations for the inevitable.
As his mind tackled the problem, he activated a second set of holo-displays. Not exterior images, but personal reminiscences this time. Recordings of previous experiments, including his private observances. A child, pale and thin, toddled towards him as he crouched before it. He recalled that he had intended only to gauge the development of her mobility, but as ever, she’d had other ideas. Tiny hands found his lank hair, and a shrill scream of delight erupted from her. A big sound for so small a body.
He had picked her up without meaning to. The first moment of true physical contact beyond inoculations and examinations. He’d left the tedious details of her day-to-day needs to the vatborn, or to Arrian. At least until that moment.
He remembered it clearly, even now. The feeling of holding something so impossibly fragile in hands made to crack bones. The way she murmured as he pulled her close. The tiny tremor of her hearts beating in rhythm with his own.
The air in the chamber turned cool. Fabius paused the record. ‘I still do not know what possessed me to attempt such an experiment.’
‘The same thing that has always possessed you, Father. The drive to know. To study the red heart of the universe and extract its secrets one by one.’
He turned. She stood across the chamber, half in shadow. In the dim light, her eyes shone like those of a cat.
‘Why did you not warn me?’
‘I did, Father.’ She stepped forward. ‘I warned you again and again. But as always, you knew best. I knew that you would not listen until it suited you.’
‘This does not suit me at all.’
Melusine smiled. ‘Then perhaps you are ready to listen.’ She circled him, tracing her claws through the folds of his coat. ‘Will you let your children suffer, while you cower in the dark, waiting for the monsters to find you?’
‘What would you have me do, child?’ Fabius gestured about him, at the shambles of his laboratorium. ‘My stocks are pillaged, my resources drained – one setback, and I am reduced to penury. Khorag was right – defeat may well be inevitable. There is only one option and I intend to undertake it.’
‘It will not be enough.’
He looked at her. ‘Meaning?’
‘Do you think they will not find your redoubt, Father? Do you think they cannot, those clever old parasites? You have made use of their tunnels, but they are the ones who built them. You are a child to them – clever and unruly, but still a child.’
‘Then there is no hope.’
‘Victory might still be yours.’ She rested her chin on his shoulder. ‘All it would take is a bit of swallowed pride. Pragmatism, Father.’
Fabius’ eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’ He turned, but she was already out of reach, inspecting a dead vatborn. It lay on a slab where the others had left it. They often brought him their dead, though he did not know why. Experience told him that they would dispose of the corpse themselves, if he left them to it.
‘Do you love them, these little lives? They have souls, you know. Only tiny, fragmented ones, but souls nonetheless. Little souls to feed a little god.’ Gently, she removed the vatborn’s rebreather and studied the unformed features beneath. ‘They even look like you. We all look like you. You made us in your image, however poorly.’
‘Wicked child,’ Fabius said softly.
Melusine looked at him. ‘I am as you made me. If I am filled with seas and messes of spite, it is because you poured them into me in the act of my creation.’ She lifted the tiny body and cradled it to her chest. ‘They will all die, you know. The little ones and the big ones. They will die and feed the gods and then you will truly be alone. And you will have only yourself to blame.’
‘What do you want of me?’ he asked, not looking at her.
‘I want you to survive, Father. And I want my brothers and sisters to survive as well.’ She smoothed the vatborn’s robes. ‘With your escape, the drukhari will continue to take out their frustrations on your children. Everywhere your shadow has touched, they will be there. They will scour your stain from the stars.’
‘And how do you know this? Competent as he is, Hexachires is no god.’
‘He has help. Someone writes his story for him.’
‘The Harlequins,’ Fabius said, after a moment. ‘They were the ones who sent me to Commorragh in the first place. Why? For this?’
Melusine didn’t reply. She stared down at the dead vatborn, a curious expression on her face. ‘I remember this one.’
‘Impossible.’
‘Here is the scar I gave him, with my first knife.’ She turned the tiny cadaver’s hand, showing a faded scar running along the palm. ‘I was playing with it, and would have hurt myself, had he not intervened. He took the knife from me, and hid it.’
Fabius was silent for a moment. He looked down at the body. The pale features were wrinkled like those of a simian, but the staring eyes were the colour of his own, as was the coarse hair. ‘They gave it to me. I thought you’d lost it.’
He looked at Melusine. ‘On Lugganath, the Harlequins showed me an infinity of possibilities. At the time, I thought they were just trying to confuse me. Now, I wonder…’ He shook his head. ‘What must I do, daughter?’
She sighed softly, as if a great weight had flown from her shoulders. ‘You must make a pilgrimage, Father. First, you must put aside your burdens. Then you must abase yourself before the Chosen of the Gods. You must find Pleasure’s Pilgrim.’ She looked at him, her gaze like cold fire. ‘And then, finally, you must make peace with the Phoenician.’
‘Fulgrim,’ Fabius said, softly. ‘No. I cannot.’
‘You must, Father. Else all you have worked for will be ashes. And you with it.’
Chapter Thirteen
Plans Within
‘They’re gone,’ Peshig said. He gestured to the astrometric display that hung over the table. ‘We have been at this for weeks, and I, for one, am grown tired of the tedium of realspace. It has been months since we have seen Commorragh.’
The captain’s table was crowded. Slaves filling cups, or bringing food. Dozens of dracons and Trueborn warriors crowded the table, each trying to outdo the other for the benefit of their archons. Hexachires’ own supporters, in contrast, huddled at the far end of the captain’s table. Diomone and the others looked unhappy – then, they always did. The raucous nature of the kabals grated on the more refined disposition of his followers.
Peshig continued to complain. Hexachires barely listened. Peshig had made the same speech – or some variation thereof – every day for the past few weeks. Instead, he scanned the data swirling above the table, seeking any sign of a pattern, some hin
t of where Fabius might have fled.
But there was nothing. Even Oleander seemed less forthcoming. Instead, he was sending them down one false trail after the next. Feeding them his old comrades as if to buy time for Fabius to get further and further away. Under different circumstances, Hexachires thought he might have found such desperation amusing. But at the moment, his patience for Oleander’s game was wearing thin. Even punishing the mon-keigh was losing some of its entertainment value. He suspected that the pain-baton would need readjusting soon, if he could be bothered.
Or maybe he would just dispose of Oleander entirely, and damn the Harlequins. When they’d given the creature over to him, he’d assumed it was for his benefit. Now he was beginning to wonder if Veilwalker had always intended for things to proceed in such a slovenly fashion.
The Harlequins could not be trusted. He’d known that, but accepted their aid regardless. He’d been close to desperation. Fabius’ escape had made his position precarious. It was seen as a weakness by the Synod. Diomone and the others had begun to nibble and gnaw at his base of support. Control of a coven was not an ironclad absolute, but a web of ever-evolving compromises, promises and threats. His obsession with Fabius, his failure to control him, the loss of their secrets… tears in the web. Fraying strands.
He’d assumed, with no small amount of arrogance, that the Harlequins had sent Fabius to Commorragh so that he might be broken. Remade into something more useful to their designs. And perhaps he had been. But that still left Hexachires in an unenviable position. One that was becoming more tenuous by the day.
He had to find the mon-keigh. To drag his ungrateful student back to Commorragh in chains. Else the Synod itself might turn on him. But that meant convincing these fools to go against their best interests. He looked around, seeking some weakness, some opening he could exploit. There had to be something. There was always something.
‘I could do with washing the stink of this galaxy off my skin,’ Avara ventured. Her monocle gleamed as she looked around the table. ‘And my territories have been untended for too long, as have yours.’
Manflayer - Josh Reynolds Page 20