The Crimson King

by Graham McNeill

  Which Magnus stood before him?

  His father lifted his khopesh and with a pulse of thought, the blood coating his weapon and flesh lifted in an aerosolised cloud. Resplendent once again, Magnus hooked his sword at his hip and strode towards him.

  ‘Amon,’ said Magnus, and he let out a relieved breath that his father at least recognised him today.

  His relief was to be short-lived as Magnus continued, ‘How is it that such profane creatures are allowed to exist on Morningstar?’

  ‘This is not Morningstar, my lord,’ said Amon.

  Magnus’ eye darkened. ‘Why must you always argue with me, Amon?’

  ‘You taught me that truth was the highest virtue.’

  Thunder crashed over the mountains and shards of glass fell from the highest peaks. The Legion’s adoptive home world was tearing itself apart in an echo of Prospero’s death.

  ‘Why are you lying?’

  ‘I do not lie, my lord,’ said Amon, fighting to keep the sorrow from his voice and shouting to be heard over the storm. ‘This is not Morningstar, nor Shrike, nor Prospero! This world accepts no name other than the Planet of the Sorcerers.’

  ‘You keep saying that, but it is not true,’ snapped Magnus. ‘These are the Mountains of Dust. This city was Zharrukin.’

  This last name puzzled Amon, for – unlike the others – it was not one he knew. Something about it was familiar, but his normally infallible memory could not connect the name with any recollection he possessed.

  ‘No, my lord,’ said Amon, as his father advanced through the rain with purposeful strides. ‘This city has no name. No one knows where it came from or how these beasts found their way here.’

  ‘Stop lying!’ roared Magnus, and Amon threw up a kine shield to deflect the primarch’s anger. Stone cracked around him and glittering motes filled the air as the nearest menhirs split with the sound of thunder.

  Magnus towered over him and said, ‘Gather the Legion, Amon. My father needs us at His side.’

  ‘I cannot,’ said Amon, fully aware of the risks he ran in confronting his father’s fracturing soul with painful truths. Three times already Magnus had almost killed him, but no other means to bring him back to himself had proved effective.

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Magnus.

  ‘Because most of them are dead. The Wolves of Russ slew them when they burned Prospero.’

  His kine shield splintered as Magnus picked him up bodily with one ruddy, clawed hand. Amon’s father slammed him against the cracked menhir and such was the ferocity he saw in his eye it was as though Angron himself held him.

  ‘You dare insult my brother?’ roared Magnus. ‘Russ is a warrior of honour. He would never turn on us.’

  ‘He did, my lord. The Sixth Legion fell upon Prospero as our executioners,’ gasped Amon as Magnus’ grip on his throat tightened.

  ‘At least clothe your lies with a veneer of plausibility, Amon,’ said Magnus. ‘What reason could Leman Russ possibly have for setting his warriors loose upon us?’

  Amon struggled to form an answer, but Magnus dropped him and turned away, his hands clutching his head.

  ‘No!’ cried Magnus, and Amon climbed to his feet, his armour clogged with blood-soaked mud. ‘I don’t believe you. I cannot believe you! To believe what you say is true is to accept the unacceptable.’

  ‘You have to come back to me, my lord,’ said Amon, daring to reach out and place a hand on his father’s shoulder. The immaterial flesh was hot to the touch, as though the effort of remembering the truth of the galaxy was burning Magnus from within.

  ‘I can feel their pain,’ said Magnus, sinking to his knees.

  ‘Whose pain, my lord?’

  ‘All of them. My brothers, my father… Is it too late for us? It was within our grasp. All it would have taken was one more step. All of us could have taken it together.’

  ‘Please, father,’ said Amon. ‘Come back to me. You are Magnus the Red and you are too strong to fade like this. The truth is painful, it is jagged edges and wicked barbs, but it is real.’

  ‘I can no longer tell what is real and what is invention,’ said Magnus, his towering form no longer as awesome and magisterial as before. ‘Everything grows further away from me. I reach for things I should know, but they retreat into the mist. I am losing it all, Amon. Why can’t I remember?’

  ‘Because you are split from yourself,’ said Amon. ‘But Ahriman leads a cabal of warriors in search of your splintered soul-shards.’

  Magnus’ eye widened and he shook his head violently at the mention of the Legion’s Chief Librarian.

  ‘No!’ cried Magnus, surging to his feet. ‘No, Throne, no!’

  ‘You must be whole again, please!’

  Magnus turned and staggered away as a deafening blast of thunder obscured his next words. He raged at the storm, as if daring it to strike him down.

  A blast of zigzagging lightning split the sky.

  It arced to the ground and detonated within the body of the avian statue. The stones toppled into a pile of fused rubble, and a core of fulgurite like a forked dagger fell from its interior. Thunder crashed across the tortured sky and Amon lurched through the mud and rain after his anguished father. The servitors followed him, still dragging the floating throne in their wake.

  Magnus once again drew his khopesh and lifted it high above his head.

  ‘Do it! Do it now! Kill me!’

  ‘No!’ cried Amon as another fork of lightning speared downwards.

  And this time it struck Magnus.

  It blasted into the golden blade and through the primarch’s body in a searing explosion. Magnus toppled to the ground, his armour fused and blackened, his immaterial flesh smoking and burned.

  Amon rushed to his gene-sire’s side and caught him as he fell.

  He went down in the mire, his eyes wet with rain and tears.

  Magnus tried to speak through blackened lips and bubbling flesh, but the words were unintelligible. His eye was a fused and molten ruin, unseeing and so terribly lost.

  ‘Here! Now!’ he yelled at the servitors.

  Amon lifted his father from the ground, grief-stricken at how light and insubstantial he felt. The servitors obeyed and activated their device’s life-preserving mechanisms.

  ‘You will endure,’ said Amon, placing the withered, metastasised form of Magnus into the support throne.

  The soul-shard of Magnus within Ahriman’s staff had set the Osiris Panthea’s course, but offered no clues as to its final destination. Ahriman’s suspicion of where the Black Ship was taking them had grown to a certainty the instant the vessel translated from the Great Ocean. Every fibre of his being sang with dreadful anticipation of returning to Nikaea.

  Shipboard horologs were conflicted on how long the Osiris Panthea had sailed the Great Ocean to get here – months or years, it was impossible to know. The stars in this region of space were askew and unfamiliar. No chart in the Osiris Panthea’s cartography database had a match for any of the local suns.

  For all intents and purposes, this region of space was unexplored.

  And yet the Thousand Sons knew this world well.

  The journey towards Nikaea from the Mandeville point had taken many weeks, with every day feeling like a lifetime – every warrior filled with a mixture of fevered anticipation and dread.

  None of them relished the thought of returning to this place of judgement. Their Legion had been publicly humbled and their primarch brought to heel by a cowardly cabal of faithless brothers.

  No, a return to Nikaea was most unwelcome.

  Abandoning the Black Ship, they dropped through the turbulent atmosphere in the back of a Stormbird, and Ahriman was acutely aware of the black mirror of fate in which this descent was reflected.

  He had last come to Nikaea with hope, which had been cruelly dashed.
r />   Now he came with hope he would die to fulfil.

  His nascent cabal flew with him in the lead Stormbird: Tolbek, Hathor Maat and Sanakht. Aforgomon’s entirely blackened and rusted form sat apart from them. Even Camille Shivani descended to the surface with them. If today was to be the last act of this hunt, then Ahriman would face it with every asset at his disposal.

  At the far end of the troop compartment, Lucius sat glaring down the compartment to the cockpit, where Sanakht flew them to the surface. Ahriman had heard of the battle the two swordsmen had fought on the Osiris Panthea’s bridge, and how Sanakht had ended the duel by slicing Lucius diagonally across his face from temple to chin.

  Two other Stormbirds flew in loose formation with his own, bearing all the warriors they could muster. One gunship bore the Terminators of the Scarab Occult, led by Onuris Hex, as well as the Ankharu Blades of Memunim. The second carried Ignis and his Order of Ruin, together with Kiu’s Sun Scarabs and the Feathered Ones of Nycteus.

  Ahriman was restless and rose from the armoured bench-seat, holding on to hanging straps and stanchions to make his way to the cockpit.

  He looked out through the armourglass.

  Rain streaked the glass, black like the rain that poured during Prospero’s demise. Ahriman scanned the slate-grey skies, but, seeing nothing beyond ashen clouds and roiling storm fronts, he returned his attention to the volcanic ground. The geometric landscape spread before him, jet-black and primordial.

  ‘The genesis of a world,’ said Ahriman, in unconscious echo of his gene-sire’s words. ‘How like our father to return to this place. The echoes of what happened here must have pulled him back – forcing him to relive his greatest shame on a planetary canvas.’

  The cubes, spheres and fluted columns of extruded stone on the surface had been shattered by what looked like the handiwork of a vengeful god. Ahriman recognised the continent-cracking aftermath of a planetary bombardment in the thousands of overlapping impact craters, mass-driver gouges and vitrified canyons carved by macro lasers.

  Ahriman risked a glance over his shoulder as the shattered flanks of a partially collapsed stratovolcano emerged from the sheeting rain. Once it had pierced the clouds and boasted a vast amphitheatre at its heart, but its soaring, steep-sided flanks had been blasted inwards, transforming it into a slumped pyramid of fused tephra and blackened basalt.

  Psychic light burned at its heart, piercing the sky like a beacon and gleaming through the clouds, just as it had before.

  ‘We are not the first to reach this place,’ said Sanakht.

  ‘I know,’ said Ahriman.

  Dark rain fell over the shattered ruins of the amphitheatre, making the basalt rocks glisten in the flickering lightning. Weeks of bombardment from orbit had permanently soured the planet’s atmosphere, seeding it with heavy metals that gave the air a bitter, metallic taste that filled every breath with the tang of swallowed blood.

  Guilt hung over Dio Promus like a shroud, a weight of failure he had never managed to shed, no matter how many times he told himself that Magnus had fooled them all.

  Was this spot close to where he had stood and voiced his support of the Crimson King in the face of his accusers? Impossible to tell. The senior Librarians of many Legions had spoken to the character of Magnus the Red, painting a picture of a visionary whose only motive was the betterment of mankind. What had become of those warriors?

  Fel Zharost and Umojen were now like him, warriors without a Legion and shadow-agents of the Regent. But of the others, he knew only rumours. Targutai Yesugei had gone to rejoin his Legion fighting the greenskins, his eventual fate unknown. Elikas of the First Legion…? Who could say? The Lion’s warriors were a mystery even to themselves.

  Of the rest, he knew almost nothing, but he feared the worst.

  They had reached Nikaea less than ten hours ago, pushing the Arethusa and Doramaar hard to arrive before the Thousand Sons. It had proven to be a risk worth taking, as space around this cursed world was deserted save for the wrecks of the guidance barges employed during the bombardment. The fire-gutted hulks were circling in ever-decaying orbits, amid a low-hanging umbra of protean dust kicked up by the detonations.

  In the normal run of things, it would be foolish to believe that two separate groups might meet here at even vaguely the same time. The vagaries of warp travel ensured that any such rendezvous could only be made with margins of error in the region of months or years.

  Yet Dio Promus knew with frightening certainty that it would not be long before the Thousand Sons arrived at this place of judgement.

  They would find Promus and his warriors awaiting them.

  In essence, his plan was simple.

  Use the soul-shards within Lemuel as bait to lure the Thousand Sons to the surface while Antaka Cyvaan hunted down and destroyed their ship in orbit. When the Thousand Sons’ means of escape was cut off, Magos Araxe would kill Lemuel.

  Then Promus and the others would kill Ahriman’s warriors.

  He was under no illusions that this plan had only the slimmest possibility of success, but with few other practicals, it was the best they had.

  ‘They are coming,’ said Nagasena, two fingers pressed to the vox-bead in his ear that linked him to the Doramaar.

  Watching three distant spots of light moving through the clouds towards the amphitheatre, Promus nodded.

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  The great amphitheatre had been wrought as a palace of wonders, but repurposed by the Emperor into a place of bitter judgement. The stonework was imbued with null-properties, but compared to the inhibiting power of the Osiris Panthea, these were practically negligible.

  Ahriman led his cabal and warriors through the rain-lashed ruins to where the hunters awaited. They moved swiftly, thirty-three of them, eager to be done with this place. He felt the auras of the warriors awaiting them like candle flames. Most flickered low and wavering, but others burned with numinous intensity.

  Some he had felt on Kamiti Sona; others were unknown to him.

  One figure, blurred in the rain, but blazing with inner light, was unmistakable. The power within Ahriman’s staff pulled him towards this figure like a magnet. His heart beat faster, recognising there could only be one explanation for such an attraction.

  Yet there was more than just this presence that drew him on.

  Ahriman sensed something greater, something more powerful deep in the heart of Nikaea. Another soul-shard, or something else entirely?

  The path led them onto a rubble-choked plateau that had once been the floor of the arena. His mind’s eye filled in the tiered bench seats from which their accusers had spouted their fearmongering lies, and the podium upon which Malcador had levelled charges of sorcery.

  And there were the ruins of the grand pavilion where the Emperor had passed judgement upon Magnus.

  The Thousand Sons spread out, forming unfurled wings to either side of Ahriman and his cabal.

  A ragtag band of warriors stood before them.

  Fingers slipped around triggers and onto the activation runes of swords. It would take only the slightest spark to turn this arena into a battlefield. The simmering prospect of violence hung tantalisingly on the air.

  Ahriman took stock of the enemies ranged against them.

  His gaze was immediately drawn to a towering, orange-lacquered automaton holding a seething form he barely recognised by the neck. The vividness of the psychic might haloing the captive figure almost obscured his identity, but Ahriman would have recognised Lemuel Gaumon anywhere. This was the source of the attraction, and Ahriman blanched as he felt the inhuman power coursing through his former neophyte’s body.

  A priest of the Mechanicum he did not know stood next to the automaton, his withered body supported within a complex steel framework and suspensor fields. His aura spoke of great courage, masking a terrible and growing fear of his bo
dy’s degeneration.

  Ahriman sent a pulse of questioning thought towards Hathor Maat, who gave a slow nod in return.

  Then begin,+ he sent.

  The Rune Priest Bjarki and his remaining Wolves stood to the left of the automata, and anger touched Ahriman as he saw Menkaura on his knees before a Wolf with a hideously burned face. A spiked collar shackled his friend and blunted his powers.

  An armoured figure stood between Menkaura and Lemuel, one whose outline was a hateful void in the world and marked her as one of the Silent Sisterhood.

  A swordsman clad in armour of the Dragon Nations stood protectively by a woman who dropped to her knees at the sight of Camille. Ahriman recognised Chaiya’s face from the many times he had trawled Mistress Shivani’s mind.

  But it was to another legionary in rain-washed silver plate that Ahriman’s gaze was drawn, for his aura was not unknown to him.

  ‘You are Promus of the Thirteenth,’ said Ahriman.

  ‘I am, but Ultramar no longer has the highest claim on my loyalty.’

  ‘Once, I would have said such a thing was impossible.’

  ‘And I would have agreed with you.’

  ‘You spoke in defence of the Crimson King,’ continued Ahriman, seeing the Wolves flinch at his mention of Promus’ previous support for Magnus.

  Was that a wedge he could drive between them?

  Yes, said a voice in his head he recognised as Aforgomon’s. But I have a wedge that will drive deeper than any you might devise.

  ‘You spoke with great eloquence and unimpeachable logic,’ said Ahriman. ‘I thank you for that.’

  ‘Yes, I spoke in support of Magnus, but do not think to use that against me. Not a day goes by without me wishing I had kept silent. Your primarch lied that day and betrayed us all.’

  Ahriman planted his staff on the cracked stone floor of the arena and pointed to Lemuel.

  ‘You have something that does not belong to you,’ he said. ‘I would see it returned.’

  Promus stepped forwards and shook his head.

  ‘Ahzek Ahriman, I name you traitoris excommunicate – an enemy of the Imperium and a faithless son of the Emperor. Prepare to die.’