Quin sighed and went back down into the cabin.
Fabius stood as he returned, ready to plead his case – or make threats. Quin silenced him with a gesture.
‘I have been thinking,’ he said, as he went to his battleplate. He ran a hand across the ravaged plates, remembering all the battles that had brought him to this point. ‘When I found Fulgrim, I thought I was blessed above all others. But it was no blessing at all.’ He turned. ‘As you will discover, I think.’
Fabius took a step towards him. ‘Then you will help me?’
Quin nodded. ‘I will take you to Fulgrim.’ He turned back to his armour and began to remove it from the rack, one section at a time.
‘But from there it is in the hands of the gods.’
Chapter Eighteen
Mannikins
On a field of metal, tiny warriors bled and died. Hexachires increased the magnification on his optical sensors and watched the carnage avidly.
‘Look at them, Oleander. Aren’t they astounding?’
Oleander didn’t reply. Hexachires frowned, but didn’t turn from the battle. He’d grown the warriors himself, from samples taken from Oleander’s slain brothers. The secret of crafting mannikins was one possessed by few haemonculi. To make a towering monstrosity, or a pain engine, was one thing. But to make something so small and intricate was nothing less than an art.
‘Sturdy. Naturally aggressive, as well. Why, I wager I could release an army of them into any kabal’s eyrie and have it reduced to ruin in a few days.’ He paused, considering the image. He laughed, pleased. ‘Perhaps I shall. Peshig’s, maybe. Or Salar’s. Let’s see him deal with an enemy he can’t see, let alone hit.’
Deftly, he plucked one of the tiny warriors from the field of slaughter and dropped it into a sample jar. He sealed the jar and held it up. The tiny figure beat against the side of the jar.
‘Look at him. Determined little mannikin.’
‘We are built to persevere,’ Oleander said.
Hexachires looked at him. ‘And few exemplify that better than you. Your nerve endings must be so much ash by now, and yet you continue to plod along. Admirable and pitiable, all at once.’ He set the sample jar down and selected another. One by one, he collected the surviving warriors. Later, he would reduce them to slurry, sift them and regrow them. It would take many generations to purify them to the point of use. He peered at the last of them, watching as it beat tiny fists bloody against the jar.
‘They remind me of Terata,’ Oleander said.
‘What?’ Hexachires set the jar down.
‘An old Terran word. It means monster – or marvellous thing.’ Oleander looked up. ‘They were Fabius’ first experiments in genetic manipulation. Abnormal brutes. Mentally and physically unstable. Most of them didn’t survive past their first battle.’
Hexachires sniffed. ‘An entertaining anecdote. What does it have to do with you?’
‘Sometimes, I think he’s only ever made monsters,’ Oleander said. ‘For all his talk of the New Humanity, it seems like he’s only capable of creating its antithesis. Wherever he goes, he leaves monsters in his wake.’
Hexachires chuckled. ‘How philosophical. Do you include yourself in that assessment? After all, he made you, didn’t he?’
‘I came to terms with my monstrousness long ago.’ Oleander fiddled with the edges of his helm. He’d been doing that more often of late. Hexachires wondered if the contact nodes had become infected. ‘What now? It’s been weeks since we returned to Commorragh.’
‘And it may well be weeks more. I have been asked to show patience, and so I shall.’
‘I never would have accused you of passivity.’
Hexachires paused. ‘Was that a jibe?’
‘An observation.’ Oleander continued to fumble with his helm. Fresh blood rolled down the corded canyons of his neck.
Hexachires frowned. He retrieved the pain-baton and gestured with it. ‘I believe I’ve warned you about interfering with your helm, Oleander. Or have you forgotten?’
‘No.’ Oleander stopped. He looked at Hexachires, and his gaze was flat and hungry. ‘Veilwalker is using you.’
‘And I am using her. It is a mutually beneficial relationship, as I’ve said before.’
‘Is it? Because it seems to me that you are no more important to her than Peshig or the others are to you.’ Oleander laughed harshly. ‘Fabius still lives. But you hide here, sulking in your tower of rotting meat because your mercenaries turned on you.’
Hexachires tensed as anger gripped him. But instead of sending a jolt of pain thrumming through Oleander, he lowered the baton. ‘I’m curious… are you trying to provoke me into killing you – or into returning to the hunt?’
Oleander didn’t reply.
Hexachires snorted and strode across the chamber to where a set of clone-vats sat. Inside each was a barely formed copy of Fabius procured from a raided cache. Most of the clones were dead, or otherwise non-viable. But one or two still functioned on a basic neural level. Hexachires wiped condensation from one of the tanks and studied the face within.
‘Why do the Harlequins want him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I think you are lying.’ Hexachires turned.
‘I am not. I do not know.’
‘But you have a theory, I suspect.’
Oleander paused. ‘I think they need him.’
‘And why would they need a creature like him?’
‘I think he is going to do something – play some role in some future drama of theirs. Whatever the reason, they have done much to keep him on a path of their choosing. Nor are they alone in that.’
‘Always so popular, our Fabius.’ Hexachires tapped the glass. ‘I’d hoped I could synthesise something of use from these half-things, but they are missing something. Some element that cannot be replicated.’ He glanced at Oleander. ‘It is not wholly a biological affliction, you know. That sickness of his is as much spiritual as it is physical. A fusion of the real and the hypothetical.’
‘It’s a daemon,’ Oleander said.
‘In a sense. If so, it is a primitive thing. Diomone once theorised that Fabius was nothing more than an ambulatory cocoon for his illness. That it was not, in fact, an illness at all, but rather a gestating hyper-dimensional organism. She thinks that eventually he will rupture and split, and something new and awful will emerge from the slick recesses of his ravaged carcass. An incarnate god, perhaps.’
‘Pater Mutatis,’ Oleander murmured.
‘Yes. That is what they call him, isn’t it? Belief is a curious thing.’
He stared at the clone, willing its eyes to open. But there was nothing there. No mind in this meat. All that Fabius was, all he could be, was locked in his terrible, wonderful mind.
‘Perhaps I will not kill him, in the end. It might be more worthwhile to keep him alive – to feed that which grows within him. Eventually, we are bound to find out what it is.’
‘You might not like the result.’
‘Such is the risk of any inquiry. The price of knowledge is often steep – and always paid eventually. Something your master would have done well to learn.’ Hexachires turned. ‘You didn’t try and escape when Diomone brought you back. Why?’
Oleander looked away. ‘I am not a fool.’
‘Would that you were. You might have saved me some trouble. She moves against me, the little wretch.’
Diomone had been quietly manoeuvring among the members of the Synod for weeks, flitting from one eager ear to the next. She was determined to have him called to account, and in the most tedious way possible. Was it too much to ask that the younger generation show some initiative? Perhaps he’d been wrong about her suitability as an heir.
‘It is really quite disappointing,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Oleander replied.
&nb
sp; Hexachires studied him. He had been curiously reticent since their return. ‘Is that all you have to say? I trust you are aware that my fate directly impinges your own, Oleander. If I fall, you will go with me.’
Oleander looked up. ‘Perhaps that is preferable to living as your toy.’
Before Hexachires could reply, a harsh chime sounded. He looked up. ‘I gave orders I was not to be disturbed,’ he called out. His hand edged towards the splinter pistol holstered beneath his coat. Maybe Diomone had decided to do something interesting after all.
A garble of voices replied – his wracks had no tongues and had to communicate as best they could. Hexachires laughed harshly.
‘Well, will wonders never cease. It appears the troublesome Archon Peshig is here, and unaccompanied. That bespeaks either a monumental arrogance, or…’
‘Or… he’s protected,’ Oleander said. ‘Try and kill him so we can see which it is.’
Hexachires sniffed. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? No. Stand there and seethe quietly, Oleander. And keep your curiosity to yourself.’ He turned back to the entryway. ‘Bring him in. But watch him.’
He retreated as the hatch unfurled, revealing a trio of wracks surrounding the slight figure of Peshig. The wracks escorted the archon in. Peshig smiled brightly.
‘Hello, Hexachires. Long time no see.’
Hexachires folded his arms and rose high on his spinal tendrils. ‘Give me one good reason I shouldn’t break you down for spare parts right now.’
Peshig’s smile didn’t falter. ‘Am I to assume someone tattled, then?’ He shook his head in mock disappointment. ‘I bet it was Aurelia. That woman never met a back she didn’t stick a knife in.’
Hexachires didn’t smile. ‘Why are you here, Peshig? Answer quickly.’
‘I’ve come to beg your forgiveness. And to offer my help.’
‘Help? With what?’
‘The siege.’
‘Siege? What siege?’
‘Why, the siege of Fabius Bile’s facilities on the crone world the mon-keigh call Belial IV, of course!’ Peshig gestured cheerfully. ‘And congratulations to you for locating it over the course of these long weeks of self-imposed isolation.’
Hexachires hesitated. Then a slow, ugly smile spread across his flesh-mask. ‘You’re not really Peshig, are you?’
Peshig frowned.
And then, suddenly, Peshig was no longer there. He had been replaced by a gaudily dressed figure, clad in a mirrored mask and bearing a staff. Hexachires laughed and applauded as his wracks drew back in consternation.
‘Oh, how marvellous,’ he cackled. ‘I thought I detected a whiff of a distortion field, but I wasn’t sure.’ He turned. ‘Look who it is, Oleander. Our old friend Veilwalker. Come to visit us at last.’ His mask twisted into something approaching affability. ‘And where is the real Peshig, dare I ask?’
‘Dead,’ Veilwalker said simply. ‘Few will mourn for him. Or even know, until I choose to drop the masquerade. You’re welcome, by the way.’
Hexachires frowned. ‘Not that I am not grateful, but why kill him?’
‘Because he was going to ruin their plan,’ Oleander said.
Hexachires looked at him. ‘And what do you know of it?’ he snapped.
‘More than you.’ Veilwalker swung her staff onto her shoulder. ‘Peshig’s part in the story was at an end. However unwitting, he sought to turn the narrative away from our chosen ending. So we excised him from the drama.’
‘Then why this… farce? Why wear his face?’
‘I said we excised him, not his part in the story. You will need his forces, however pitiful they are. Even as you will need those of Salar and Avara. We will ensure that you have them for what must be done.’
Hexachires stared at her. ‘And what is it you want me to do?’
Veilwalker laughed. ‘What you would have done regardless.’ She levelled her staff at him. ‘It is finally time for Fabius Bile to die. And you, Hexachires Ulthiliad, are to be the instrument of his death.’
Oleander did not stay to listen. He had a suspicion he would not be welcome. Instead, he made his way along the spinal parapets and climbed out onto the outer dermis of the Tower. He prowled along the clinging roots of muscle tissue overlooking the lightless deeps below. An abyss of circular convolutions, like the shells of great molluscs, smashed together and patched into a single, continuous circle falling down and away.
Occasionally, he caught the flicker of headlamps from the trawlers that prowled those depths, scraping fungal spores from the walls of the webway. There were jungles in some of the conduits, and spore-farms tended by the desperate and the mad. Only someone with no other option would live – could survive – in the depths of the webway.
He rose to his full height, considering. A fall from this height would almost certainly kill him. And if not, he would be badly broken at least. But he doubted Hexachires would come looking. Especially now that the Harlequins had given him everything he’d needed.
How long would he last, down there in the dark? How long until he crawled, broken and mutating, into some crack or cranny and withered away into a mummy? Or would he become another monster, feeding on the lost and damned among the spore-farms and shanty-wharfs that dotted the farthest deeps of the Dark City?
‘Is this how my story ends?’ he said, aloud.
‘That depends on how you read it.’
Oleander turned. Sylandri Veilwalker stood behind him, bouncing her staff idly on one shoulder. As ever, he could see nothing but his own reflection in her mask, and it infuriated him. Once, it had pleased him to no end, but that had been another time and a different Oleander, and he was not that man any more.
‘I wondered if you were going to seek me out.’
‘Why would I not?’
‘I assumed you were done with me. Hexachires is primed, and you’ve told him what he wanted to know.’ He hesitated. ‘Did he send you here to despatch me?’
‘No. Count Sunflame has much to do before he escapes.’ Veilwalker crouched beside him without waiting for an invitation. She peered into the dark, and for a moment, he thought about trying to push her off. Would she fall – or float?
‘I’ve done everything you’ve asked,’ Oleander said. The Harlequin laughed.
‘Under duress and with ill humour.’
‘I’m sorry, does Count Sunflame undertake treachery with a smile?’
‘No, but you do. It is one of the things we like about you, Oleander.’ Veilwalker tapped his shoulder with her staff. ‘You’re the perfect pawn, willing to move whichever way keeps you on the board just a bit longer.’
‘Maybe I’m getting tired of being a pawn.’
‘And maybe the game is coming to an end.’ Veilwalker looked up at the black, distended peaks and valleys of Commorragh, stretching far above. ‘At least, this one is. There are so many others, it’s often hard to keep track.’
‘I’m not used to you speaking so plainly.’
Veilwalker looked at him. ‘We’re in a different sort of story now.’
Oleander was silent for a moment. Then, ‘Why did you send him here?’
‘So that he might learn much-needed lessons.’
‘Including this one?’
It was Veilwalker’s turn to be silent. Oleander studied her.
‘All of these games, these stories – all about manipulating him to become the man you wish him to be. The man you need him to be so that future stories unfold the way you want them to. Have you ever considered the possibility that he might resist?’
‘If he didn’t, the story wouldn’t be half so interesting.’
‘And what happens if he dies?’
‘Then another will be required,’ she said. She pressed two fingers to his chest. ‘When the King of Feathers falls, Count Sunflame must take up the sword.’ She looked
away. ‘But only in some versions of the story. Sometimes, he places a wraithbone device in your skull and flees into you when the jaws of our trap snap shut. Other times, Hexachires surgically reshapes you for his own sad amusement and you escape, taking up the name and raiment of your fallen master.’
‘And this time?’
She shrugged. ‘Stories are like animals. Only the strongest survives. The nature of this story is still being determined. Is it a tale of a sleeping king, come again? Or of a tragic hero, taking up the sword in his fallen liege’s name? Or maybe it’s none of those things. Maybe we’re all wrong, and it’s the story of a child’s love for a parent.’ She tapped her chin with her staff. ‘Regardless, it’s not the story of a slave to darkness. Of a warrior trading his soul for something as ephemeral as power. And that pleases Cegorach.’
She rose to her feet and Oleander was once again struck by her inhuman grace. As much as he longed to snap her in half, he could not help but admire the cold beauty of her movements.
‘Why tell me all of this?’
‘Because it might help you to know these things. Or maybe it will hinder her.’ Veilwalker spun her staff. ‘Both, perhaps. We counter her, even as she moves to counter us.’ She laughed. ‘I often wonder what would have happened had we taken her somewhere safe, rather than leading her to the Phoenix’s nest.’
‘What?’
But Veilwalker didn’t reply. She walked away, and her form seemed to blur and fade until it was one with the long shadows. Oleander stared after her. Then, he looked back down. But instead of jumping, he sighed and clambered back the way he’d come. Veilwalker was right about one thing, at least.
Only the strongest survived.
Chapter Nineteen
Garden of Forking Paths
Butcher-Bird descended in silence, save for the raucous howl of its engines. Silicate winds, thick with the stink of burning oil and perfume, scraped the gunship’s flanks, forcing it to fire its stabilisers in an effort to maintain its descent. When it at last thumped down in the harsh sands, it kept its engines hot for a few spiteful moments, turning the surrounding landscape to black glass.
Manflayer - Josh Reynolds Page 28