Altar of Cyrene

by Lucien Soulban

  Gabriel closed his eyes, bringing the verse to memory. 'Let each sacrifice be a lesson unto others. I sacrifice my eyes so that others might see. I sacrifice my tongue so you are not swayed by sweet words.' He opened his eyes in time to see Isador nod appreciatively. 'You're saying Cyrene shouldn't be viewed in context to its own misery?' Gabriel asked.

  'This lesson is not meant for Cyrene. It is a lesson for others, that ignorance is not the same as innocence. Now, citizens of the Imperium will be more vigilant against the followers of the ruinous powers lest their own worlds suffer this fate.'

  Gabriel looked down again and saw all the servo-skulls floating around, taking account of events and recording everything for the sake of posterity. Strange how he never noticed them before. 'Such spectacle,' he said to himself.

  'But necessary. Otherwise why would we to all this trouble?'

  That's when Gabriel saw something on the ground flash, then the corkscrewing smoke trail.

  'Missile!' Gabriel shouted, but it was too late.

  * * *

  THE MISSILE swallowed the land speeder's starboard stabiliser wing in a bloom of fire, sending the craft screaming earthward. Gabriel muttered the Litany of Safe Landing and gripped the door's frame, while Isador fought for control of the vessel; he managed to pull up from the dive at the last moment, sending the land speeder skidding down a decimated street, tearing up plascrete.

  The land speeder came to a stop, both wings shredded and sparking wires hanging from rent seams. Gabriel and Isador stumbled out from the vehicle, rattled but unharmed. Isador muttered a thanks to the land speeder's machine spirit for delivering them safely. Gabriel scanned the burned-out hulks of the local buildings for signs of their attackers.

  They didn't wait long.

  A small cluster of people emerged from the ruins, perhaps ten or fifteen, their expressions hard and their eyes like knives. Some were from Cyrene's Imperial Guard regiments; others carried weapons scavenged from fallen inquisitors and storm troopers. None bore the taint of Chaos.

  Isador stepped forward, ready to engage the rabble, but Gabriel cleared his throat, stopping him. The librarian looked at him, his eyes betraying his confusion.

  Then he understood.

  More people were hiding in the buildings, armed with the Emperor knew what. Isador relaxed, though Gabriel knew he was ready to lash out with the formidable psyker abilities at his disposal.

  Gabriel studied the people who advanced slowly, cautiously, their plundered weapons at the ready. The captain could see that some didn't even understand the nature of their firearms. None knew how to appease the spirit of the machine or offer Litanies for the Pulling of the Trigger or Arming of the Magazine. They were angry, and they were frightened, and they wanted blood.

  Gabriel decided to goad more out from the shadows, to reveal their true numbers.

  'If you are trying to frighten us with this pitiful flock, I suggest you return when you have more people,' Gabriel said and turned around to walk away. Around them, more citizens stepped out from the shadows of buildings blocking their path, holding pipes and makeshift weapons. The dozen turned into a mob of two hundred, with Isador and Gabriel surrounded.

  'I offer you a quick, painless death, which is more than you deserve,' Gabriel said.

  'Deserve?' a woman said, her voice an eagle's screech, her plump body covered with tiny wounds and dust. 'We didn't deserve this.'

  'Then what did you deserve?' Isador asked. 'Praise for allowing heresy to fester beneath your very noses?'

  'We are not heretics!' an old guardsman cried, waving an arm which had been amputated at the elbow. 'I lost my limb for the Emperor.'

  'And yet you desecrate that honour now,' Gabriel said. 'How sad that you couldn't serve your Emperor here, when it truly mattered. Better we rid Him of such hollow devotion.'

  The old man spat in disgust and raised his lasgun to fire. Gabriel was quicker and fired first. The guardsman's head exploded, spraying those around him. The crowd shrieked, some falling back, others rushing forward to tear at Gabriel and Isador with their bare hands and clubs.

  Isador was the first to act, his armour crackling with electricity, his movements blindingly quick as he swung his cable-mounted axe, dismembering people in the crowd two or three at a time.

  Gabriel did nothing to hide his rage. His temper unravelled, slipping with each burst of violence against his own people. Anger surging forth, Gabriel's field of vision tightened until the world narrowed into dagger-points. He raged against the mass of bodies throwing themselves at him, trying to tear him apart.

  'How could you do this?' Gabriel said, crushing three people with the sweep of his gauntlet. 'How could you allow this to happen? You gave heresy a home in your own shadows. Whether by ignorance or indolence, you did this to yourselves!'

  The crowd shrieked in anger and more people threw themselves upon the two Space Marines. Gabriel could no longer see Isador.

  'How dare you do this to my home,' Gabriel screamed, his voice deafening, his bolter dropping attackers two and three at a shot. 'Everything I knew,' Gabriel continued as he threw one man into several others. 'St. Garryin's Monument, the Bachsellan Festivals, the Spring-Borne Lakes, the Winter Lights of the South, all gone because of you!'

  'How could you do this to us?' someone cried out. 'How could you destroy your own people?'

  'Damn you!' Gabriel roared. 'Damn you for drawing this upon yourselves and damn you for making me your executioner. Who do you think discovered your shame? Who do you think it was who brought the Inquisition here?'

  'You betrayed us,' someone said, before Gabriel crushed him underfoot.

  'I did not betray you,' Gabriel screamed, his indignation uncontained. 'I merely lifted the rock and found you squirming beneath. You betrayed yourselves.'

  More bodies fell upon Gabriel, but none could dam his fury. He raged against all those who touched him, cutting lives with the brutal mercy of bolts, fists and boots.

  * * *

  THE TWO MARINES walked in silence, deeper into the heart of Bastillius where buildings lay in piles of burning rubble and the ravens sang serenades to the corpses. Gabriel's march was silent, his thoughts as dark as the night around him. Isador remained quiet. Gabriel could see he was invigorated after the massacre, a chance to destroy heresy was a powerful affirmation of his own faith in the Emperor. But the librarian was also wise enough not to say anything. This was not a victory for Gabriel. It was his troubled duty, and Isador had known Gabriel long enough to recognise the distinction.

  Both men continued their march across the city, with Gabriel determined to reach the St. Bellstus Bunker in New Carnith. Both were caked in the filth of death, their every victim having left something of themselves behind on their armour.

  And they walked because Gabriel refused to contact anyone via the vox, he refused to draw any more of his men into his personal quest, or to reveal his position.

  Gabriel and Isador stood upon the rise of the hill that was once crowned with monolithic buildings. All that remained were the streets and the flattened terrain. Massive earth movers had shoved the rubble into the crude fortifications that now surrounded the Crucivex Camp at the foot of the hill. Gabriel and Isador stared down, their minds unprepared for what lay below them.

  The Crucivex Camp stretched into the darkness for miles. Tens of thousands of Cyrene's citizens had been crucified on crosses, their lifeless - or near lifeless -bodies dangling from cross bars, their death one of slow suffocation. None could cry out, so the flocks of ravens did it for them. In the chaotic maze of hanging bodies, servo-skulls wove lazy paths, recording everything as a warning to others who would truck with heresy.

  Gabriel and Isador said nothing. Their surprise was naught but a brief pause, long enough to register the fact that they'd never witnessed this particular horror. But now they had. Now it was time to go on.

  Their path took the duo through the ruins of this place, past breaks in the high walls of rubble, past the ba
re, impaled feet of the crucified and through the forest of crosses. For the hour they walked, the occasional victim stirred, but most noise came from the buzzing corpse-flies, laying their eggs in the dead, and the ravens who feasted upon this unexpected banquet.

  The sound of a lasgun stopped the pair. Gabriel and Isador waited, their breaths held to hear more reports. A moment later, there was another shot, the discharge muted.

  They moved toward the sound, careful of their surroundings. A third shot finally brought them within sight on a black-haired Imperial Guardsman. He was young and without the blemish of a scar or cybernetic augment, a neophyte to Cyrene's defence force and now among the doomed. He looked broken, his clothing ripped and covered in dust, his arm bandaged for some wound that drew flies to it, and a lasgun hanging limply at his side. He walked among the crosses, searching for anyone who was still alive, defying the Inquisition who had left this dead place for better killing fields. When he found someone, their breaths shallow and their wounds still bleeding, he fired a shot into their forehead. He didn't notice either Space Marine as he walked away from them.

  Isador's eyes narrowed, he stepped forward, intent on stopping him. Gabriel placed his hand on the librarian's shoulder.

  'He has no right to end their suffering,' Isador replied, but Gabriel shook his head. He drew his bolt pistol. There were two rounds left. The fight with the mob had drained his ammunition.

  Gabriel ejected one round into the palm of his gauntlet - he would have need of that later - and pointed the pistol at the soldier.

  He fired.

  The shot nicked his bicep; he screamed in surprise and ran, vanishing into the darkness. Isador stared at Gabriel, not daring to ask the question. The captain offered nothing and continued walking. He left the question hanging in the air, but Isador knew as well as anyone else.

  Gabriel rarely missed.

  * * *

  DAWN APPROACHED, yet the sky remained dark and overcast with clouds of soot and ash. The city was quiet in these early hours, the harrying Inquisition marching westward in gigantic convoys and leaving the city to its appointed hour with the fleet's orbital mass drivers. Less than a half-hour remained.

  Gabriel and Isador reached St. Bellstus's Shrine: an old bunker now exposed to the heavens. Its exterior was monolithic, a squat rectangular building that once rested far beneath the earth. During an ork invasion that had swept through the system decades before, the bunker was the site of a great massacre after the orks had breached its defences, slaughtering the thousands inside. When the Imperium reclaimed the world they dug up the bunker and turned it into a shrine.

  Outside the single, open-mouthed entrance, the blond-haired Brother Ulray waited with another Blood Raven, Akios, by their land speeder. They both looked apprehensive. Ulray quickly donned his helmet at Gabriel's approach and ran up to him.

  'Do you have Esmond?' Gabriel asked.

  'We do. We caught him trying to flee the city.'

  Gabriel gritted his teeth, but otherwise did not react to the news. Akios looked away: Gabriel knew he enjoyed being right about most things, only he didn't want to be right about this. He didn't want to be right at Gabriel's expense, and that bothered Gabriel even more.

  'Captain,' Ulray said. 'The Inquisition have ordered our evacuation to the city of Sestra. The orbital bombardment begins soon. I ordered my squad to leave, but-'

  'You did well,' Gabriel said, his gaze fixed upon the bunker's entrance. 'Give me ten minutes, then send a Thunderhawk for us.'

  'As you wish, captain, but hurry. He's in the rear shrine. We barricaded the door. May the Emperor watch over you.' Ulray ran for the land speeder. The other Blood Raven was already invoking the machine's spirit, readying it for flight. They sped off quickly.

  'This is as far as you go,' Gabriel told to Isador.

  'Very well, old friend,' Isador said. 'But you know whose will you must serve in this.'

  'There is one God, and He is my Emperor, Isador. I am His instrument in all things.'

  'I do not doubt your faith, Gabriel,' Isador said. 'In fact, I marvel at your conviction, and I envy you the well you draw your strength from. Just remember that your actions are just, even if you may question them.'

  'I know my actions are just, old friend,' Gabriel said, walking toward the door. 'And, as in all things, truth needs pain to make it real.'

  * * *

  THERE WOULD BE no one left to honour the dead here Gabriel realised as he walked the hallways. The bunker-shrine served as a sepulchre that interred the skulls of all those massacred in St. Bellstus during the ork invasion. The skulls now sat inside grate-covered niches along the walls, each one painted red and blue with prayers and decorated with wax imprints and rune-covered banners. In a few hours, they'd be buried under rubble, with nobody to remember their names or celebrate their lives. In a few hours, the spirits of the thousands who died here would be joined by millions more. Their voices would be lost in the chorus of heretics.

  Gabriel reached the rear shrine and found the double doors chained. It was easy enough to kick it open with his heavy boot, scattering splinters across the floor. Inside the candlelit shrine were the skulls of the unnamed dead, stacked in columns, an altar for prayer and four rows of pews. Praying at the altar was an old man. His eyes were milky, his bald head covered with liver spots, his face caked in stubble and filth and his body covered in a network of tubes and filters that wheezed as they pumped rejuvenation fluids into his organs. The old man recognised Gabriel and straightened, an act of defiance that seemed to belie his long years.

  'You're here to kill me?' Esmond said, his voice raspy.

  'That I do not know, father. That I do not know,' Gabriel responded.

  * * *

  'ATTENTION, BASTILLIUS cleanser units. This is a final call for evacuation of all Inquisition, Grey Knight, Storm trooper and Blood Raven squads. Regroup at staging area ten miles east of Sestra. Expect heavy resistance from active XIV Cyrene Guard Legion. Orbital bombardment commences in ten min-'

  Gabriel tapped his ear piece, lowering the barrage of noise from the vox. He studied his father who matched his gaze with equal venom, his eyes glittering in the candlelight.

  'Where were you trying to escape to?' Gabriel asked calmly. 'You should know there is no place left to flee.'

  'I will not die cowering like an animal,' he spat.

  'No, instead you forced me to chase you down like one.'

  'You will excuse me if I don't apologise.'

  'It wouldn't matter,' Gabriel said, waving his hand. 'I wouldn't accept your apology. Forgiveness is a means of earning a second knife in your back.'

  'Yes. Imagine, then, my surprise when the knife I found in my back belonged to my own son.'

  'I swore to protect the Imperium against all manner of threat.'

  'I am not a heretic,' Esmond said with a mechanical hiss in his voice.

  'But you are a coward.'

  'Better I the coward, than you the butcher!' Esmond's outburst sent him into a coughing fit. He spat up black liquid. No doubt one of his rejuvenation pumps was leaking.

  'It means nothing to me. Butcher. Murderer. Assassin. I have been called them all today, yesterday, in the weeks before. And I will hear them in the weeks to come.'

  'You... must be very... proud,' Esmond said between gasps.

  'Proud? I am, that I can serve the Emperor against all adversaries. But that my adversaries include members of my own world, my own family. That is hard to take.'

  'Gabriel, you've betrayed us. For the sake of eliminating a handful of heretics, you condemned our entire planet. Your home, your own blood!'

  'It isn't for a handful, father. Do you think me so ruthless? The corruption is complete, and complete enough to blind you all.'

  'We weren't blind,' Esmond said. 'And it wasn't heresy. We were tired of living under the Emperor's rule. It was a rebellion of ideals, not religion.'

  'So you knew?' Gabriel asked, his worst fear realised.

 
'I knew. And I embraced it. Our ideals were just.'

  'There is no ideal but the Emperor's!'

  'Spare me the hollow mantras. I taught you to think for yourself.'

  'And I do. With a terrible clarity, but I do.'

  'I hope you realise that your so-called ideals were a doorway for Chaos to slip through. Good men and women are fighting the heretics infesting the sewers of Undergauth. All the psykers from the local Pathfinder Gymnasium were turned, as were high-ranking officers within the Imperial Guard.'

  'They'd have you believing anything, now. They lied to you.'

  'No, it was you who were lied to. The minions of Chaos led you astray and you walked in their company, blissfully ignorant. Heresy is heresy, and it was widespread. Even now, the Inquisition is questioning all Cyrene guardsman off world, and I doubt any will survive the torture, or escape from this unscathed!'

  'Except you,' Esmond said.

  'What?'

  'You will escape this unscathed.' Esmond said, regaining his strength for what Gabriel knew to be his next venomous attack. 'You requested this destruction, and thus, are above blame or fault in this. The last innocent son of Cyrene, only...'

  'Only what?' Gabriel said, trying to keep his temper contained.

  'Only, you did not see the corruption either, until it was too late. Are you not, therefore, guilty of being blind yourself? Are you not guilty of our so-called sin?'

  'What is this? Some feeble attempt to riddle my mind with doubt? Guilt? Now you are speaking like a heretic.'

  'Oh, that would be an easier pill to swallow, wouldn't it? Far easier for you to kill the heretic than your own innocent father. Well then, kill me. Do what you came to do. But have the courage to look me in my eyes and acknowledge my innocence.'