“I don’t know, I’m not an engineer.”
She tried to figure out if he was joking, but gave up when his expression didn’t change.
“Okay then,” she said, turning away. “I’ve climbed my share of rickety stairs, and this one looks fine.”
She turned and made her way upstairs, hoping that the forces of comedic timing weren’t about to deposit her in a heap of broken stairs and embarrassment. Fortunately, they held, though they creaked and groaned alarmingly as Khalophis put his weight on them.
The upper level was as desolate as the lower, the grey floor covered in dust, droppings and debris from the levels above. Most of the higher floors had collapsed, leaving the building as little more than a hollow chimney, with occasional nubs of floor slabs and structural spars jutting into thin air. Birds fluttered above, and she caught the faint rustle of wings from high up nests.
“What do you hope to find here?” asked Khalophis. “Everything’s decayed. If there was something to be learned here, don’t you think we would have found it by now?”
Camille flashed him a confident smile.
“You can’t look the way I can,” she said.
Khalophis grunted, “None of you remembrancers have done anything worth a damn since you joined us. It was a waste of time bringing you here. I haven’t seen anything special yet.”
She ignored him and moved through the remains of the building, stopping every now and then to examine the debris for anything that might prove useful. Assorted pieces of what might once have been personal effects lay in some of the piles, but they were as lifeless as the ruins themselves.
Something moved above her, a creak of stone and a soft, animal growl. Camille looked up, seeing a flitting shadow, a startled bird whose nest she’d unwittingly approached too closely. She peered into the corner of the building, seeing a collection of wooden spars and what looked like sheet metal arranged too neatly to be random.
“Do you have any lights in that armour of yours?” asked Camille. “Or a torch?”
“I can do better than that,” said Khalophis with relish.
He extended his hand, and a flaring ball of light appeared in the air before him. It burned brighter than a welder’s torch, and shone stark light throughout the derelict structure.
“Very impressive,” said Camille, squinting against the brightness.
“This is nothing. It’s almost insulting to use my powers for something so trifling.”
“Fair enough, but it’s a little bright. Can you dim it down a little?”
Khalophis nodded and the light’s intensity dimmed to a level where Camille could see. High-contrast lighting threw deep black shadows and revealed the decay of the structure in all its glory. For all that the ruined building had little in the way of memory, Camille felt a momentary pang of sadness for the civilisation that had passed away thousands of years before her birth.
People had lived and died here, spending the span of their years dreaming of better days, and working to provide for themselves and their families. They were now dust, and to be so forgotten struck a real chord in Camille. She moved around the barricades—there could be no other purpose for such an assembly of items—and saw a host of cobwebbed skeletons, the bones held together by what looked like some kind of hardened resin.
“They didn’t realise how easily it could all be taken away,” she said.
“What?”
“The people who lived here,” said Camille, kneeling beside the nearest body. Though she was no expert in the study of bones, its size suggested it was a man’s.
“I’ll bet none of them woke up and thought, ‘This is the day our world ends, so I’d better make it count.’”
She looked up at Khalophis and said, “Nothing is permanent, no matter how much we might think it is. I suppose that’s what I’m learning here.”
“Some things will endure,” said Khalophis with the certainty of a zealot. “The Imperium.”
“I expect you’re right,” said Camille, not wishing to get into a discussion on the Imperium’s future with him.
She peeled off one of her gloves and gingerly touched the skeleton, half-expecting it to crumble to dust at her touch. It was a miracle none had succumbed to the ravages of time already, but the hardened resin appeared to be the cause of their preservation.
She heard a rustle of frightened birds from high above, but shut out the noise as she ran her hand over the hardened clavicles to the dead man’s skull, noticing that the cranial lid was detached. It hung from one side of the skull, like a hinged door that had been pushed open from the inside.
She closed her eyes, letting the familiar warmth flow from her hand and into the relic of past times. The power moved within her, and she felt the urgency of the man whose skull she touched pulling her down into his life, sensing the swell of his emotions as they reached out to her.
Too late, Camille saw they were of pain and madness. She tried to withdraw her hand, but the red rush of agony was too swift for her, and searing pain stabbed into her brain like a hot lance. Blood streamed from her mouth as she bit her tongue. Camille screamed as the man’s last, anguished moment ripped through her. Horrible images of feasting white maggots, ruptured flesh and dying loved ones burned their way into her consciousness.
She shook as though seized by a high-energy current, her teeth grinding and her sinews cracking as her mouth tore open in a soundless scream.
Then it was over. She felt rough hands pull her away, and the moment of connection with the dead man was broken. Bruised afterimages remained imprinted on her vision, and she gasped with the horror of his last moments. She had touched the dead before, and had always been able to insulate herself from their endings, but this had been too dreadful and too intense to ignore. She tasted metal and spat a mouthful of blood.
“I told you we should not have lingered,” snarled Khalophis.
“What?” was all she could manage, seeing Khalophis towering over her. One heavy gauntlet gripped her shoulder. The other was wreathed in flickering orange flame.
“Psychneuein,” hissed Khalophis, dragging her towards the stairs.
Then she heard it, a droning buzz like a hive of vespidae, and the excited flutter of what sounded like an explosion of wings as a flock of predatory birds took flight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Pyrae Unleashed / If You’re Dead / The Reflecting Cave
“Run!” shouted Khalophis, as the frantic buzzing noise grew louder. Camille looked up to see an organically shifting swarm of winged clades launching themselves from hidden lairs in the darkness of the ruined structure.
Terror flooded her limbs with paralysing stillness.
The chittering clatter of insect limbs rattled from the steel structure as scores of psychneuein boiled down the length of the building, frantic with alien hunger. Camille saw hundreds of them, vile insect-like monsters with grasping limbs and feeding proboscis. The droning buzz of hundreds of wings and the chitinous clacking of snapping mandibles grew steadily in volume.
Something moved behind her, and she turned to see one of the hideous, beetle-like creatures. It had a glossy, segmented body and six spindly limbs that oozed a repellent resin. Its wings moved too fast to see, like oil spilled on water, and it stank of spoiled meat.
Razored mandibles jutted from its swollen head, its surface grotesquely textured like a human brain studded with multi-faceted eyes that threw back her horrified reflection.
The creature launched itself forward, but erupted in flames before it reached her. The charred corpse struck her in the chest and disintegrated into hot ashes. She screamed, and frantically brushed the smoking remains from her lap as Khalophis swept her up into the crook of his arm as easily as a man might pick up a small child.
“I told you to run,” he snapped. “You mortals never listen.”
Khalophis set off towards the stairs, but a host of psychneuein crawled up from below.
“Damn things,” said the Astartes, flicking his free hand to
wards them. A wall of red flame erupted from the ground, consuming the creatures in seconds. No sooner had he despatched the psychneuein than more landed on the overhanging girders and piles of rabble. Camille counted at least a dozen.
As though a single intelligence controlled the beasts, they took flight at the same instant. They swooped towards them, the screech of their wings like a war cry.
“You think it’s that easy?” roared Khalophis, filling the air around them with balls of phosphorescent flame, spinning them around like whipping poi. The psychneuein hovered at bay, hissing and spitting as the fiery spheres wove a flaming lattice around their prey. More of the creatures appeared with every passing second.
Khalophis set her down and said, “Stay behind me. Do what I say when I say it and you will live. Understood?”
Camille nodded, too terrified to speak. The Astartes warrior hurled a torrent of fire from his hands towards the largest group of psychneuein, and they screeched in rage as they erupted in flames. A chop of his left hand sent a spear of fire into a psychneuein that dared swoop down at him from above. His right hand shot out, and an invisible blaze of heat rippled outwards. A dozen beasts spontaneously exploded as the molecules of their bodies were superheated to explosive temperatures.
The air was blisteringly hot, and Camille felt her skin burning in the fire shield around them. Secondary fires were filling the air with sooty, carbonised smoke. Her eyes stung with the heat, each breath laboured and painful.
“I can’t breathe!” she gasped.
Khalophis glanced down at her. “Deal with it.”
More of the psychneuein came at Khalophis, but none could breach his protective barriers of heat. Camille pulled her body into a tight ball on the floor, covering her mouth with her hand. She tried to keep her breaths shallow, but terror was working against her and she felt her vision greying.
“Please,” she gasped with the last of the oxygen in her lungs.
Khalophis bent down and hauled her to her feet.
“Stand here,” he said. “Stay within the heat haze and you will be able to breathe.”
Camille could barely hold herself upright, but she felt the heat vanish, as though the door to a meat locker had just opened in front of her. She sucked in greedy mouthfuls of cold air, seeing a ripple in the filmy atmosphere surrounding her. Beyond the haze, fires and smoke raged unchecked as Khalophis’ power consumed anything flammable within reach. None of it touched her, as though she were enclosed in a hermetically-sealed bubble.
Khalophis fought with the fury of a gladiator as the psychneuein assailed him from every side. There seemed to be no end to their numbers as they hurled themselves at the warrior with furious abandon.
“Burn, you freaks!” shouted Khalophis, killing with jets of flame, daggers of fire and waves of superheated air. Even in her terror, Camille heard the strain in his voice. The power of the Pyrae was phenomenal, but so too was the cost.
With every display of psychic mastery, the fury of the attacking monsters doubled.
She tried to recall what Lemuel had told her of the psychneuein, but could remember little other than the fact that they reproduced by stinging you and laying their eggs in your body. One fact leapt to the front of her consciousness, and despite the heat, a sudden chill travelled the length of her spine.
“It’s your powers!” she yelled. “They’re being drawn to us because of your powers! It’s driving them wild. You have to stop using them!”
Khalophis sliced half a dozen psychneuein from the air with a shimmering fire sword that sprang from his fist. In that brief lull, he turned to her, his face dripping in sweat, his eyes sunken and exhausted.
“The fire is all that’s keeping us alive!” he cried, sweeping the blade around as three more came at him.
“It’s what will get us killed if you don’t stop using it!”
A hissing psychneuein landed on the broken remains of a fallen wall, its thorax bulging and dripping. A long stinger whipped at its rear and she screamed as it leapt at Khalophis.
“Behind you!” she yelled.
Khalophis dropped to one knee and immolated the monster with a glance. A clutch of monsters took its place, their stingers erect and wickedly barbed. Never mind the eggs, being stung would kill her before they could use her body as an incubator.
Khalophis snarled and the fire sword vanished. He swung his bolter around, racking the slide and firing a three round burst into the group of psychneuein.
“Back towards the stairs!” shouted Khalophis, firing as he went. “If we can reach the speeder, we’ll be safe.”
Camille nodded, trying to keep behind the warrior as her insulating cocoon vanished.
The entire floor was ablaze, pools of molten steel and dissolving carcasses littering the ground. Again the smoke tarred her lungs, and she coughed as her body fought for oxygen. A psychneuein slammed into Khalophis, its body ablaze from the fires, and the giant warrior stumbled. He batted it away, but the momentary lapse of concentration caused his barrage of bolter fire to falter.
Three psychneuein darted in, their stingers plunging into Khalophis’ armour. Two stingers broke on impact, but the third stabbed into his waist through the coiled cabling beneath his breastplate. He grunted and crashed the beast with his fist. His bolter roared and psychneuein burst like target dummies.
Khalophis expertly switched magazines on his bolter and loosed another burst of shots as more of the beasts flew in. The fire had taken hold of the entire building, and Camille felt the floor shift underfoot as beams melted in the intolerable heat. The buzz of wings was almost obscured by the crackle of flames and creaking structural elements.
“The stairs!” she cried.
The way down was ablaze, the sagging ironwork red hot and melting. No way down there.
Khalophis saw it at the same time and shook his head, as though disgusted at her fragility.
“Hold on,” he said as he slung his bolter and tossed her over his shoulder.
The psychneuein boiled towards them, but Khalophis was already on the move. He ran through the flames, head down like a living battering ram. Psychneuein smashed against him, some breaking open on his armour, others stabbing him with their long stingers. Camille cried out in pain as a barb protruding from his shoulder-guard tore into her side. She looked up in time to see that Khalophis was running towards a sheet of dancing flame. She cried out as he leapt into it.
Searing heat surrounded her, but the blazing wall parted like a stage curtain as Khalophis loosed one last burst of his powers.
Then they were falling. Camille closed her eyes as the ground rushed up towards her. Khalophis braced his legs as he dropped, slamming down on the move and carrying on as though his leap through the flames was nothing at all. Camille felt a rib break with the impact of slamming against his armour, but gritted her teeth against the pain. Khalophis kept running, smashing through the low doorway that led back to the outside world in an explosion of stone and plaster dust. He fired his bolter one-handed over his shoulder. Alien screeches told Camille that every one of them, was a killing shot. Whatever else she thought of Khalophis, he was a superlative warrior.
Camille drew gloriously fresh air into her lungs and, almost immediately, her vision cleared and her breathing eased.
The psychneuein swarmed from the ruined building. Smoke poured from its shattered windows and leaping flames licked up its length. Its structure bowed and shuddered as load-bearing elements melted. Spading brickwork and stone tumbled from its upper levels.
Khalophis unceremoniously dumped her from his shoulder, and she bit back a scream as the splintered ends of her broken rib ground together.
“Get in,” ordered Khalophis, and she looked behind her to see the welcome form of the disc-speeder. He threw his bolter into the vehicle and climbed into the pilot’s seat.
Camille dragged herself upright using the speeder’s exhausts and painfully opened the crew compartment hatch as its engines spooled up with a rising whine.
The swarming psychneuein were almost on top of them, the buzz of their frantic wings deafening. Less than twenty yards separated them from the vanguard of the monsters.
“Hurry, for Throne’s sake, hurry!” she shouted, pulling herself inside.
“Are you in?” Khalophis demanded.
“I’m in,” she said, pressing herself into one of the bucket seats and hauling the restraint harness around her body. The whine of the engines changed pitch, and the speeder leapt forward, the phenomenal acceleration slamming her head against the fuselage. She kept her eyes shut for long seconds, hardly daring to breathe as the long seconds ticked by.
The engine noise deepened, and Khalophis’ voice crackled over the intercom.
“We’re clear,” he said. “Are you all right back there?”
She wanted to snap at him, but that was the pain talking.
Instead she spat a mouthful of blood and nodded.
“Yeah, I guess,” she said. “I think I broke a rib, my lungs feel like I’ve swallowed a gallon of burning tar and thanks to your lead foot I’ve got a splitting headache, but I’ll live.”
“Good enough,” said Khalophis. “Alive is all I need.”
“I’m touched by your concern,” she said, before adding, “but thanks for saving my life.”
Khalophis didn’t acknowledge her, and they spent the journey back to Tizca in pained silence.
* * *
A soft humming filled the medicae bay. Kallista reclined in bed, eyes closed, her chest rising and falling with rhythmic breaths. Her skin was grey, its surface dull and lustreless. Her hair had been shaved, and Lemuel wished he could do more for her than simply sit by her bedside and hold her hand.
He and Camille had taken alternating shifts to sit by her bedside, but Lemuel had been here for nearly forty-eight hours and was beginning to feel like lead weights were attached to his eyelids. A bank of walnut-panelled machines with numerous gold-rimmed dials and pict-slate readouts chirruped beside Kallista’s bed. Lengths of copper wiring coiled from jack plugs in their sides to points across her skull, and crackling globes buzzed softly along their top edges.
[Horus Heresy 12] - A Thousand Sons Page 35