[Horus Heresy 12] - A Thousand Sons

by Graham McNeill - (ebook by Undead)

  History would recall this assembly as the Council of Nikaea.

  Others would know it as the trial of Magnus the Red.

  Ohthere Wyrdmake crossed the amphitheatre and stepped onto the plinth before the Emperor’s dais. Ahriman willed Wyrdmake to see him, to feel the full weight of his treachery.

  “I trusted him,” said Ahriman, bunching his fists. “He was just using me to betray us. All along, it was a lie.”

  His anger fled as another thought intruded.

  “Oh Throne!” he exclaimed. “The things I told him. Our ways and our powers. This is all my fault.”

  “Calm yourself, Ahzek,” cautioned Magnus. “Do nothing to prove him right. In any case, it was I who urged you to place your trust in Wyrdmake. If this travesty of a conclave is anyone’s fault it is mine for not giving credence to the strength of my doubters.”

  Ahriman forced himself back into the higher spheres, focusing on those that enhanced clarity and speed of thought. He kept away from those of empathy and strength.

  Wyrdmake lifted his wolf-helmed head to face the glares of the Thousand Sons, his lined face pulled into a scowl of primal loathing. Such was its venom, Ahriman wondered how he could not have seen so brutal and violent a core to the Rune Priest. He had always known the Space Wolves were a butcher’s blade of a Legion, powerful and unsubtle, but to see that so clearly defined on one man’s face was still a shock.

  “I will not waste time with fancy words,” said Wyrdmake. “I am called Ohthere Wyrdmake of the Space Wolves, and I fought in the murder-make with the Thousand Sons on Shrike. I stood alongside its warriors on the baked salt flats of Aghoru, and I name them a coven of warlocks, every one of them a star-cunning sorcerer and conjurer of unclean magic. That is all I have to say, and I swear its truth upon my oath as a warrior of Leman Russ.”

  Ahriman was astonished at the archaic wording of the accusation. Was this the forgotten ages, when men were ruled by superstition and fear of the dark? He cast around the amphitheatre, horrified at the sagely nodding heads and expressions of outrage directed their way.

  Malcador stood at the edge of the dais and rapped his staff on its marble floor. All eyes turned upon him.

  “You level a terrible accusation upon your brother Legion, Ohthere Wyrdmake,” said Malcador. “Are there any who substantiate your claims?”

  “Aye, Sigillite, there are,” replied Wyrdmake.

  “Who stands with this accusation?” called Malcador.

  “I do,” said Mortarion, emerging from beneath a falsehood and revealing his identity to the onlookers. As Ohthere Wyrdmake returned to his seat, Mortarion walked to the centre of the amphitheatre. Whether by coincidence or design, the Death Lord took exactly twenty-eight paces from the podium, and Ahriman again saw the recurrence of the number seven. Mortarion was clad exactly as he had been on Ullanor, as though he had been waiting for this moment since then.

  Before Mortarion could speak, Magnus rose to his feet and slammed his hand down on the obsidian coping before him.

  “Is this what passes for due process?” demanded Magnus. “Am I to be tried by faceless observers who hide behind their falsehoods. If any man dares accuse me, let him speak to my face.”

  Malcador rapped his staff once more and said, “The Emperor has commanded it, Magnus. No man’s testimony is to be corrupted by fear of whose eyes are upon him.”

  “It is all too easy to hide behind cloaks of anonymity and cast your venom. Far harder to look the object of your wrath in the eye while you do it.”

  “You will have your chance to speak, Magnus. No decision will be made until all those who wish to speak have done so. I promise you,” said Malcador, adding. “Your father promises you.”

  Magnus shook his head as he returned to his seat, his anger still simmering.

  Mortarion had not moved during Magnus’ outburst, as though his brother primarch’s outrage was an inconsequential thing, something to be endured for the brief annoyance it caused. Ahriman dearly wished he could summon Aaetpio, but sensed the ensuing conflagration would be akin to letting a Pyrae Zealator loose in a promethium-soaked warehouse.

  Mortarion bowed curtly to the Emperor and began his oration.

  “Brother Malcador claims that his issue has vexed the Imperium,” said Mortarion, his rustle-soft tones like the dry hiss of wind over aeons old sand dunes, “but he is wrong to believe there is anything complex about the issue. I have seen the devastation that unchecked sorcery leaves in its wake, worlds burned to cinders, populations enslaved and monsters unleashed. Sorcery brought these worlds to ruin, sorcery wielded by men who peered too deeply into dark places they should have known to leave well alone.

  “We all know of the horror of Old Night, but I ask you this simple question: what brought about that galactic holocaust? Psykers. Uncontrolled psykers. The threat of these people is horribly real, and you all know the danger they represent. Some of you may even have seen it first-hand. The psy-engines and occullum of Terra search out the latent witch-genes among humanity and the Black Ships of the Silent Sisterhood trawl the stars for these dangerous individuals. Did the Emperor, beloved by all, build these machines for no reason? No, they were built to protect us from these dangerous mutants, using their powers in service of their selfish ends.

  “That is the difference. Where an astrotelepath or Navigator uses his powers for the good of others, allowing distant worlds to communicate or guiding the Expeditionary Fleets of the Imperium across the stars, the sorcerer uses his power for personal gain, for earthly power and dominance.

  “Yes, the Imperium needs certain empowered individuals, but only those sanctioned and rigidly controlled. We know where power unchecked inevitably leads. You have all heard the stories of Old Night, but who among you has really seen what that means?”

  Mortarion swung his manreaper, the deathly haft finally coming to rest upon his shoulder.

  “The Death Guard have seen,” said Mortarion, and Ahriman wanted to laugh at his absurd theatrics. Though Mortarion played the role of the outraged righteous man, he was relishing his part in what he saw as the downfall of the Thousand Sons.

  “On Kajor my Legion encountered a warrior race of humans that had fallen to barbarism. Extensive orbital surveys detected no trace of advanced technology, yet it took my Legion nearly six months to bring Kajor to submission. Why? They were savages, armed with little more than blades and crude flintlock carbines. How could such a feral race of savages hold the Death Guard at bay for so long?”

  Mortarion paced as he spoke, the haft of the man-reaper marking time to his steps with a solid tank every step he took. They held us at bay because they had fell powers and unseen allies. Every night, creatures of witchery hunted in the shadows and killed for the joy of killing. Blood red hounds stalked the darkness of the forests with savage instinct, and juggernauts of thunder broke our lines with every charge.”

  The Death Lord paused a moment to let that last fact sink in. That anything could sunder a Death Guard formation was nothing short of a miracle. Though his desert wheeze was faint, no word of his narration escaped the attention of those gathered in the amphitheatre.

  “My warriors have fought xenos species of every stripe and defeated them, but these were not creatures of flesh and blood. These were summoned into life by Kajori warlocks. These magi conjured lightning from their flesh, set fires with their thoughts and cracked the very earth with their shouted oaths! No power comes without a price, and with every victory we won, we discovered what that truly meant. At the heart of every city we captured, my warriors found vast structures we came to know as Blood Fanes. Each one was a charnel house of bones and death. We destroyed every one, and with each one lost, the strength of our foes waned. In the end, we ground down every ragamuffin force they sent against us. Surrender was not in their blood and they died to a man, destroyed by a ruling caste of warlocks who could not bear to relinquish their power. I still think of Kajor and shudder.”

  Mortarion finished his ta
le in front of the Thousand Sons, the last syllable leaving his lips as he looked up at Magnus.

  “Now I do not accuse my brother of such barbarism, but no evil begins with such monstrous acts. If it did, no sane man would ever consider it. No, it begins slowly, a small step here, a small step there. By such acts is a man’s heart turned black and rotten. A man may begin with noble intentions, believing that such small trespasses are minor things compared to the good he will do at the end of his course, but every act matters, from the smallest to the greatest.

  “Tales of the Thousand Sons’ victories are legion, but so too are the whispers of their sorceries. In the past I have led my warriors into battle alongside those of Magnus and am well aware of what his Legion can do, so I can vouch for the truth of what Ohthere Wyrdmake says. It is sorcery. I have seen it with my own eyes. Like the magi of Kajor, the cult warriors of Magnus conjure lightning and fire to smite their foes, while their brethren crush their enemies with invisible force. I do not lie when I say that I knew fear that day, the fear that I had broken one army of warlocks only to find myself with another at my side.”

  “You all know I distrust the institution of Librarians within the ranks of the Astartes, fearing for what the Thousand Sons are trying to seed within our Legions. No Librarians sully the ranks of the Death Guard, and nor will they while I draw breath. I have held my tongue until now, confident that others wiser than I knew best, but I can keep silent no longer. When Brother Russ and Brother Lorgar spoke of the battles fought to subdue the Ark Reach Cluster, I found myself compelled to break my bonds of silence, though it tears my heart to name my own brother a warlock. I cannot stand by and watch his obsessions drive him and his Legion into the abyss of damnation. Know that I speak not out of hatred, but out of the love I have for Magnus. This is all I have to say.”

  Mortarion turned and bowed once more to the Emperor before returning to the box he shared with other warriors of his Legion.

  Ahriman turned to Magnus, as he heard the high, sharp crack of glass. The heat of Magnus’ anger was radiating from his body. The primarch’s fists were balled on the obsidian coping, and Ahriman saw the volcanic stone had softened and run like the wax of an invocation candle. Blobs of what had once been glassy rock dropped to the floor where they shattered as their customary atomic structure reasserted its reality.

  “My lord?” hissed Ahriman, all thought of Enumerations forgotten as a hot rush of imparted fury passed between them with a flash of psychic osmosis. He reached out to Magnus, his fingertips lightly brushing his primarch’s arm.

  Magnus felt his touch and turned his gaze upon him. Ahriman recoiled from the depthless pit of his eye, the entire structure of it a wheeling lattice of unknown colours, as though every facet of emotion fought for dominance. Ahriman’s heart lurched at the anger and need for vindication he saw there, a furious battle between raging instinct and higher intellect. He saw Magnus’ desire to lash out at his attackers, the animal heart that cursed his brother for his limited understanding. Holding that back was the towering intellect that held court over his base emotions, a mind that had looked deep into the warp and seen it looking back at him.

  In that moment of connection, Ahriman looked into the core of his primarch’s incandescent form, the incredible fusion of genius and chained aether bound in the creation of his incredible mind and body. To see the white-hot furnace of so mighty a being’s innermost construction was to stare into the heart of a newly-birthed star.

  Ahriman cried out as he saw Magnus’ life unfold in the space of what could have been an instant or could have been a span of aeons. He saw discourses between luminous minds in a cavern far beneath the earth, and a wondrous figure descending to Prospero atop a golden mountain range. All this and more poured into Ahriman without heed that his mind was vastly incapable of absorbing such enormous quantities of memory and knowledge.

  He comprehended only a fraction of what he saw, but it was enough to press him back into his seat. Breath laboured in his chest and the awful rush of information pouring into him threatened to unseat his reason.

  “Stop,” begged Ahriman as more knowledge than had been won by entire civilisations thundered into his mind, squeezing his genhanced faculties to the limits of their endurance. His vision greyed, and blood vessels haemorrhaged in his eyes. His hands trembled, and he felt the onset of a violent grand mal seizure, one that would almost certainly kill him.

  Magnus closed his eye, and the raging torrent ceased.

  Ahriman gasped as the flood abated, and a drawn out moan escaped his lips. Dread knowledge and buried secrets surged within him, each one a lethally volatile revelation.

  He fell from the bench as his overloaded consciousness shut down in an attempt to rebuild the shattered architecture of his mind.

  When he opened his eyes, he was lying on one of the padded couches in the vaulted antechamber beneath the amphitheatre. The pain had diminished, but his head felt as though it was encased in an ever-shrinking helmet of invisible steel. Light made his head hurt, and he raised a hand to shield his face. His mouth was dry and a bewildering series of images danced on the periphery of his vision, like a million memories crowding for attention.

  “Enter the sixth Enumeration,” said a mellifluous voice that calmed and soothed him. “It will help you restore your thoughts.”

  “What happened?” he managed, trying to focus on the owner of the voice. He knew he recognised the speaker, but so many names and faces crowded his mind that he could not sort through them. “I don’t remember.”

  “It’s my fault, my son,” said the voice, and Ahriman was finally able to perceive the figure kneeling beside him. “And I am truly sorry.”

  “My lord Magnus?” he asked.

  “In the flesh, my son,” said Magnus, helping him sit up.

  Bright lights pounded behind his eyes and he groaned, feeling like his brain was trying to press its way out of his skull. The Sekhmet were assembled in the chamber, some drinking from silver goblets, others guarding the doors.

  “You had quite a shock to the system,” said Magnus. “I allowed my anger to get the better of me and let the walls enclosing my essence fall. No one mortal, not even an Astartes, should drink from that well. You’ll have a monstrously sore head, but you will live.”

  “I do not understand,” said Ahriman, pressing his palms to his temples.

  “Knowledge is like strong liquor, my son,” said Magnus with a smile. “To imbibe too much, too fast, will get you drunk.”

  “I have never been drunk. I don’t think it’s possible for me.”

  “It’s not, not really,” said Magnus, handing him a goblet of cool water, “at least not on alcohol. How much do you remember about what happened?”

  “Not much,” admitted Ahriman, draining the goblet in a single swallow.

  “That’s probably for the best,” said Magnus, and Ahriman was not so far removed from his senses that he didn’t catch the relief in his primarch’s voice.

  “I remember the Death Lord,” said Ahriman, “chastising us and twisting facts to suit his accusations, but after that, nothing.”

  A sudden thought occurred, and he asked, “How long have I been unconscious?”

  “Just over three hours, which was probably a blessing.”

  “How so?”

  “You were spared the tedious parade of close-minded bigots, superstitious fools and throwbacks naming us heretics, sorcerers, blood-mages and sacrificers of virgins. Wyrdmake and Mortarion have assembled quite a coven of witch hunters to condemn us.”

  Ahriman rose to his feet, his legs unsteady beneath him as the room spun around him. His enhanced physiology fought to compensate, but it was a losing battle. He would have fallen but for Magnus’ steadying hand. He forced the dizziness down and took a cleansing breath.

  Ahriman shook his head. “I feel like I have been stepped on by Canis Vertex.”

  “You would,” said Magnus, “but you’ll want to recover your wits quickly, my son.”r />
  “Why, what is happening?”

  “Our accusers have said their piece,” said Magnus with relish, “and now it’s my turn.”

  Expectant silence filled the amphitheatre as Magnus strode towards the plinth. He walked with his head held high and his feathered cloak trailing behind him, looking straight at the Emperor’s dais. This was no walk of the accused, but the stride of the righteous man fighting against unjust accusers.

  Ahriman had never been prouder to be one of his Thousand Sons.

  Magnus bowed to the Emperor and Malcador then turned to give Fulgrim and Sanguinius bows of comradeship. In a move that spoke of grace in the face of adversity, he also gave Mortarion and Ohthere Wyrdmake courteous acknowledgements. Magnus was every inch the gentleman polymath who never forgot himself, even as his enemies united against him. He mounted the plinth and rested his hands on the wooden lectern.

  He paused, sweeping his gaze around the assembled men and women, favouring them all with his attention.

  “The fearful and unbelieving, the abominable and the murderers, the whoremongers and sorcerers, idolaters and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burning with fire and brimstone,” said Magnus, as though reading from a text. “Those words are from a book written thousands of years ago in the forgotten ages, ironically from a passage named Revelations. This is what people thought in those barbaric times. It shows what savagery we came from, and how easy it is for our species to turn upon one another. These words of fear sent thousands to their death over the millennia, and for what? To salve the fears of ignorant men who had not the wit to embrace the power of new ideas.”

  Magnus stepped from the plinth, circling the amphitheatre like a lecturing iterator. Where Mortarion had hectored the assembly with venom, Magnus spoke as though every member of the assembly, from the lowliest adept to the Emperor himself, were old friends gathered for a good-natured debate.