by Various
It flickered incorporeally, flitting between realities, preternaturally fast. It was rage, distilled and fashioned into bestial flesh. It was horned, and bayed with a resonant cry of promised damnation.
High above the battlefield, a shadow grew over the force dome that surrounded the fortress-asteroid in hermetic void-shielding. Slow-moving, it slid with a predator’s ease across the canvas of space, eclipsing entire nebulae.
The beast before Arcadese was emboldened by the vast ship’s presence and the suppressed despair of the Ultramarine who looked upon it and recognised the manner of his death.
As the first of the Vengeful Spirit’s gun batteries opened up, birthing miniature suns against the atmospheric blister cocooning the fortress-asteroid, Arcadese still dared to believe they could resist. Power sword met stinking hell-glaive, releasing a shower of black sparks into the air as Arcadese parried the beast. He missed a second blow and felt agonising heat seize his body.
Laughing, the beast looked down and bade its enemy do the same.
Sulphurous breath washed over Arcadese in a burning fog as the daemon’s mirth increased. Jutting from the Ultramarine’s chest, a half-metre deep, was the hell-glaive.
Light was dying in Arcadese’s eyes, the ring of cobalt he had forged around him from those fifty battle-brothers all but broken, just as another light was born overhead.
Opening up its awesome prow weapons, the Vengeful Spirit needed only to speak one final time before the force shield around the fortress-asteroid was overwhelmed.
Nucleonic fire rushed from heaven to meet him, bathing his world in pellucid white as Arcadese closed his eyes…
…only to awake again, drowning in darkness.
Blood tasted metallic in his mouth and he couldn’t move. After a few seconds, Arcadese realised it was because he was strapped down.
Awareness was slow to come. His head itched, as if an insect swarm had run amok inside his skull, and his body was raw and tenderised. Judging by the solid walls, which only now resolved as he adjusted to the dark, he was being held in some kind of cell. On his back, as if in repose, it was difficult to discern much more. Instinct suggested he was not alone, and he called out.
‘Where am I?’
Peripherally, he was aware of a presence behind him, but it was foggy, as if somehow veiled.
The presence behind him didn’t answer. Instead, an elliptical portal of light appeared, just visible if he peered down his face. Two figures, barely more than silhouettes, stood within its confines.
‘Who are you? What is the purpose of my incarceration?’ He’d been taken. Somehow he’d survived the nucleonic fire and become a prisoner of the enemy.
One of the observers was massive. Twice again as tall as Arcadese, he cast an immense shadow, black on black. Encased in hulking power armour, he emanated strength.
Horus…
Arcadese could not suppress a scowl or the snarl in his voice.
‘Slay me now, hell-kite, and save your time.’
It was the other figure – much slighter, much smaller and clad in long robes – that answered.
‘You are safe here, Brother Arcadese,’ he said, his tone cultured and stately.
‘Then release me.’
The armoured giant left the elliptical portal, disappeared somewhere into the background where Arcadese could not see him.
‘I cannot.’
‘I am a legionary captain of the Ultramarines, and if I am not a prisoner of war aboard this vessel you will let me go.’
‘You are not on a ship, Ultramarine.’
‘Then where–’
‘That is not important. The important thing is that you are on the verge of passing the trial and returning to active duty.’
Arcadese’s face contorted into an incredulous expression.
‘I have already done so, commanding a fortress as part of the Ardent Reef. I was just…’
His thoughts were clouding, hard to grasp and hold on to.
‘Are you? Is that where you’ve been all this time?’ asked the robed figure.
Incredulity became anger.
‘What is going on?’ He pulled at the restraints keeping him in a supine position. ‘And why am I strapped down? I died.’
‘Only in your mind, and the restraints are for your own protection.’
‘But how could you…?’ And like a lantern had been set ablaze inside his head, an ugly truth was revealed. ‘I am not alone in here. There is a psyker with me, one of us.’
‘One of us?’ The figure seemed not to acknowledge the disgust in Arcadese’s voice.
‘A Librarian,’ he stated flatly, consternation edging his tone. ‘Trawling through my memories, implanting scenarios… How else could you have muddied my thoughts, forced images into my psyche and made them seem real? What of the Nikaea edict, what of the Emperor’s will?’ he demanded.
‘Things have changed. Necessity forces us into compromise and hard choices. We have to be sure. I hope you can understand that.’
Arcadese was finding it hard to master his anger and indignation. ‘Sure of what?’
‘Of your ability to make sacrifices, function under pressure and do all that is necessary to achieve your mission even if that meant losing the battle and your life. You have been absent from the front line for many years. Even on Bastion you were merely a bodyguard.’
Bastion… Heka’tan died there. The Salamander’s face as he fell into the fire still haunts me.
The robed figured continued. ‘The training had to be harsh in order to test you sufficiently.’
‘Is that why I’m bleeding,’ Arcadese asked, ‘and strapped into this chair?’
‘The “scenarios” provoked by the Librarius are potent, they have to be to seem real. A side effect is that they can, and often do, manifest physical symptoms sympathetic to the mental ones experienced. There is nothing here that does not serve the greater goals of the Imperium.’
‘Then why are you hiding in shadows?’
‘Darkness aids the process. Besides, it wouldn’t matter if I weren’t.’
‘And the attack?’
‘Has not yet begun, but the Warmaster’s fleet could emerge from the warp at any moment. We must be ready, so there was no time for endless training. Utilising the Librarius provided expedient answers.’
The scowl on Arcadese’s face suggested he did not agree, but he found he couldn’t maintain his anger. Unconsciousness was crawling at the edge of his vision again, as a sensation of weightlessness took hold.
‘I am sorry,’ said the robed figure with genuine regret.
‘For what?’ Arcadese answered groggily.
‘For what I have to do next.’
Arcadese passed out on the chair, eyes flickering as he returned to unreality.
The robed figure nodded to the Librarian standing behind the slumbering Ultramarine. The psyker had his hand poised over Arcadese’s head. A nimbus of crackling psi-energy played about the psychic hood he wore.
‘Thank you, Brother Umojen.’
‘Lord Sigillite.’
As he retreated back into the observation chamber, Malcador met the steely gaze of the armour-clad giant.
‘His mind will be cleansed?’ asked the warrior.
Heavy gears sounded through the metal and the lozenge-shaped mag-lift began to ascend the rail on a plate of anti-gravitic power. Slowly, it rose higher and the cell began to shrink, revealing a second cell alongside it, and then a third, fourth…
‘I shall see to it personally,’ answered the Sigillite. ‘You should be smiling, lord praetorian. Arcadese will make a perfect commander upon the Ardent Reef.’
A hololithic image dominated much of the chamber that the giant warrior now approached and regarded. In grainy resolution, it described the slowly rotating orb of Terra and the thousands
of defence asteroids which now surrounded it.
‘Even so,’ the warrior rumbled, ‘it will still not be enough.’
Malcador sighed, ‘No, it will not. In every projected scenario, Horus breaks the Reef apart.’ He paused before asking, ‘Are you willing to approve Captain Arcadese?’
The warrior exhaled a long and rueful breath. ‘Run it again,’ he said, turning from the hololith. ‘Run them all again.’
The mag-lift was still climbing. Hundreds of chambers were revealed, their subjects under psychic trance, each presided over by a Librarian from diverse Legions sent back to Terra by Captain Garro and his cohorts.
Malcador could feel the minds of each and every one, hear the distant psi-echo of battle in their thoughts. He had dreamed of the assault on Terra many times. And in every somnambulant vision it had not ended well.
‘As you command, Lord Dorn.’
Arcadese awoke to find blood trickling down the side of his face. He was injured, a head wound, but couldn’t recall any battle where he’d received it. A fortress surrounded him on all sides, and the rumble of cannon emplacements in the walls brought him out of unconsciousness.
Pushing to his feet, he saw a battle-brother he didn’t know.
‘Lieutenant,’ he said, recognising the Ultramarine’s rank markings, ‘report.’
Ghosts Speak Not
James Swallow
Made crystal and pewter by monochrome light, the Velox dropped silently into the bowl of Crater Swift, settling on the surface of Terra’s moon. Puffs of lunar dust billowed gently in the low gravity, scattered by the retro-thrusters on the underside of the heavy gun-cutter.
Despite a name that in High Gothic conjured thoughts of speed and sleekness, the Velox was more akin in its design to a bolter or an engine part. She was not a lovely vessel, and did not have grace about her. The ship was a lesser cousin to the massive frigates that patrolled Terra’s LaGrange points, a bulky craft that resembled an ingot of battered steel. But the Velox was carefully nondescript, forgettable, and that in itself was a kind of perfection.
Two halves of a thick dome emerged from the edges of Crater Swift, quickly rising to meet and form a roof over the basin. As they came together, air flooded into the sealed space. It was a wasteful, showy use of atmosphere, but as in many things so close to the seat of the Imperium, the presentation of these details was sometimes more important than the reality behind them.
A ramp unrolled from the Velox’s ventral hull, and presently three figures disembarked. Bringing up the rear were a man and a woman clad in tactical carapace shells, their armour not the dull green of the Emperor’s army but a slate tone darker than the surrounding lunar regolith, highlighted with gold detail.
They carried themselves like professional soldiers, with a measure of swagger leavened by wariness, their hands never straying too far from the high-spec laspistols holstered at their hips. Both would have been more at ease carrying their usual shoulder arms, but their mission commander had insisted that they were to show decorum on Luna. Coming armed for war did not communicate the required degree of respect.
The woman’s name was Qelvyn; born on distant Shenlong, she was still new to the glitter and majesty of the inner Imperium, and she could not stop herself from looking through the dome to see the great tower rising up from the Sea of Crises beyond it. The Somnus Citadel shone like a bright dagger against the black sky.
Vasado was her male compatriot, and he too was daunted by what lay around him. But unlike Qelvyn, Vasado concealed his misgivings beneath a layer of practised disdain.
They exchanged looks as they reached the foot of the ramp and took defensive positions around the figure beneath the hooded black cloak who had led them here.
From the folds of that velvet mantle emerged strong, athletic hands. The head beneath the hood rose and the dark material rolled back of its own accord to reveal a woman’s face.
In other circumstances, some would have called her a beauty, even with the faint tracery of a sword-cut scar visible across her cheek. But her eyes – dark chips of amber, forever narrowed in dismay – were those of a killer. Purple-black hair, once long and flowing but now close-cropped, framed her face. She wore a band of metallic cloth that sat across her high forehead.
The woman knew this place intimately. For years, it had been the closest thing she had to a home. In the halls of the Somnus Citadel, she had found something close to a family.
All gone now. Swept away in a tide of change forced upon her by circumstance, by her own sense of right and wrong. Coming back stirred a peculiar mix of emotions, all marbled with regret.
She did not allow any of that to show. She kept it locked away behind a schooled, steady expression, because she knew that they were being watched. A bow, then; she went down on one knee to the great red-gold sigil of the Imperial aquila that dominated the far wall of the crater-bay.
A moment later, a hatch in the stone wall spat vapour and rumbled open, to reveal a cohort of women in golden armour and chainmail. Many showed only the upper half or a quarter section of their faces behind gorget-grilles that resembled castle gates. All had swords and ornate guns at rest upon their hips.
The Sisters of Silence had decided to grace them with their presence.
They were the Emperor’s most fearsome witch-seekers. A cadre of women recruited from across known space, taken from orphanages and trained to be superlative killers. Their name came from their Oath of Tranquillity, a vow given freely on ascension from novice to full Sisterhood, never to speak aloud until their duty ended.
They were as vital to the Imperium as the great warlords of the Legiones Astartes, but for different reasons.
Each of the Sisters was the possessor of the Pariah gene, each a psychic null whose existence made no impact on the great unseen ocean of the warp, where the inchoate energy of all living spirits was said to reside. They were the antithesis to the gifted psykers who served as Navigators, astropaths and Librarians in the Emperor’s name; their presence alone was enough to torment a being with psionic talents. Thus, they were the best equipped to hunt down and terminate any mind-witches and renegade psykers who might threaten the stability of the Imperium.
A few detached from the group and approached the Velox. Their leader sauntered more than she walked, a cruel smile playing on her lips. Her left eye was a bionic construct of azure glass and brassy metal, protruding from a face puckered by fire scarring. While the White Talon Sister-Vigilators who escorted her bore few items denoting rank, their leader had a heavy necklet and black steel torcs about her arms indicating high status. She was a Sister-Excrutiatus, one of the silent order’s most zealous and ruthless agents. Her cadre were called when whole worlds needed to be scoured, in the extreme cases when a handful of deaths were not enough to purge the taint of witchery.
The scarred Sister halted in front of the hooded woman as she rose, and in a gesture that could be nothing other than mockery, tapped two fingers to the tip of her chin. The sign meant ‘give voice.’
A callow novice, who until this moment had been out of sight behind one of the Vigilators, slipped into view and cleared her throat. ‘You are asked–’
I know what that means, child, the woman in the cloak responded. She gestured in thoughtmark, the intricate sign language used by the Sisterhood to communicate concepts of depth and import. You are not needed here.
‘I…’ The novice faltered. As she had not yet taken her oath, Sisters of her rank were often used as interpreters for the Silent Sisterhood to communicate with those outside their order. It was clear that the young woman had not been informed of who would be arriving aboard the Velox. ‘You know our speech?’
She used to be one of us, signed the novice’s commander. Before her strength failed and she became an oath-breaker.
‘My strength is as firm as it ever was.’ The words left the hooded woman’s lips, and s
he felt a strange thrill at speaking aloud in this place, after so many mute years of her life spent here. ‘My oath was altered, renewed… Never broken.’ Her voice had a rough, cracked quality to it, perhaps a legacy of decades of disuse. She reached up and tugged the headband away, revealing the same blood-red aquila tattoo on her forehead as that shared by the Vigilators. ‘My name is Amendera Kendel, and I come with the authority of Malcador the Sigillite and the right of my own actions. You would do well to remember that, Emrilia.’
The Sister-Excrutiatus glared at her for daring to use her forename in so casual a manner. A long time ago, Amendera Kendel and Emrilia Herkaaze had been friends, both plucked from worlds in the Belladone Reach, both excelling in their training as Silent Sisters.
But the passage of time and the constant struggle against witch-kind had put them on different paths. Where Kendel sought to perform her duties with honour and compassion, Herkaaze became consumed by a militant intensity beyond the secular remit of their order.
You should not have come back. Herkaaze’s hand tensed on the hilt of her sword, the other dancing in front of her face as she snapped out the words through her gestures. You are not welcome here. She glanced at the two soldiers at the foot of the gun-cutter’s ramp. You or… Malcador’s Chosen.
‘You are the lost one,’ murmured the novice, shock written across her face. ‘The Oblivion Knight who willingly departed the order to serve the Sigillite…’
‘There is a great deal more to it than that,’ Kendel said grimly.
The young Sister blurted out a question before she could stop herself. ‘Why did you do it?’
Kendel looked away, briefly meeting Herkaaze’s gaze. ‘Things change. Deeds are done and words are spoken that can never be called back.’ She closed her eyes, remembering another novice, another unanswerable question… And Herkaaze’s remorseless sword cutting down that young life to deny an unmade future. ‘It matters not. The only fact of importance is that I am here now with a mission of the utmost consequence.’
Herkaaze eyed her. What errand has Malcador sent you on? The Sisterhood will not participate in his elaborate schemes.