The vast figure of Magnus was little more than a memory of shadow, the faintest outline of something once magnificent. Lemuel floated at the eye of the storm, his stretched body taut with power it was never meant to touch, let alone contain.
Ahriman’s steps carried him up towards his former pupil, as if an invisible staircase lay before him. Once, so blatant a use of his psychic powers would have horrified him, but defiance of gravity was the least of his abilities now. First tens, then hundreds of metres separated him from the ground.
Aforgomon’s mighty avian wings bore it upwards alongside him, and the higher Ahriman climbed, the more apparent the full extent of what had been conjured here became. The winding paths of the crystal labyrinth stretched beyond the horizon to encircle the world. Who knew how many souls had been ensnared within its psychic web?
‘My warriors,’ said Ahriman. ‘Are they alive?’
The lunatic head of the creature answered.
‘Yes, no, none can say! Maybe all dead, almost certainly changed? Will a meeting happen? Oh, yes. The mordant one and the ones you betray. All will know the name of Ahriman.’
‘Speak plainly, beast,’ said Ahriman.
‘It cannot,’ said the other head. ‘The terrible truths contained within the Well of Eternity drove it entirely mad. It speaks truths, but every fragment of wisdom is inextricably woven with bitter falsehoods. It would take ten thousand lifetimes to unweave them.’
‘Then what use are you to me?’ said Ahriman.
‘That depends on what you are willing to embrace.’
Ahriman ignored the creature, knowing it could only speak to him in cryptic half-truths. He glanced down and saw the circle of embattled Imperial forces. They fought impossible odds, a handful of warriors at the heart of an unending horde.
These were brave warriors and did not deserve such a fate, but then he remembered the sight of the Wolves laying waste to Prospero, and any thoughts of regret curdled within his breast. These men had stood in his way, and there could be no forgiveness and no mercy for those who opposed him.
Such would be Ahriman’s mantra from this moment onwards.
The power within Lemuel is stronger than us.
The voice came from within Ahriman, and despite the warning, a comforting warmth spread through him at his father’s presence. The heqa staff grew hot beneath his grip, its wood and adamantium core vibrating at a pitch almost too subtle to detect.
But it resides in human flesh. Remember that.
Lemuel drifted down towards them, ablaze from head to foot with aetheric fire. Ahriman hid his shock at how the remembrancer had changed. His form was barely human now, stretched taut and thin by the soul-shards within him. His bones were visible beneath the flesh, barely connected to one another beneath diminishing layers of fat and muscle. His skin was ravaged by the psychic inferno burning at his heart, flaking away from his skull in ashen particles.
Lemuel’s gaze turned on Aforgomon.
‘One of the neverborn dregs,’ he said, his voice deep and resonant with secret knowledge. ‘Tell me, Ahzek, what name did it give you?’
‘Aforgomon.’
‘Apt enough,’ conceded Lemuel. ‘But its true identity is The One Who Comes At The Appointed Time.’
‘That is but one of my names,’ said Aforgomon.
‘It’s the only one that matters,’ said Lemuel, and a burst of blue fire shot from his hands. Aforgomon screeched as its feathered body caught light and glittering, oil-sheened fire burned its form. A cage of flame engulfed the daemonic creature and its powerful wings seared in the sorcerous flames.
Aforgomon writhed in agony, screeching as it battered the scorching bars of its immaterial cage.
‘That’s better,’ said Lemuel. ‘Now you are as your master wrought you.’
Ahriman held out his staff, and Lemuel smiled as he sensed the power held within.
‘Ahriman,’ said Lemuel. ‘Have you come to restore that soul-shard to me?’
‘You know I have not.’
‘My son, I–’
‘You are not my father,’ said Ahriman. ‘Not like this.’
‘You know better than that,’ said Lemuel. ‘I am all your fathers. The vain, egotistical, loving, disparaging, nurturing and proud fathers. I am all of them, for no one, not mortal nor primarch, is ever the one without the others.’
Ahriman nodded. ‘Magnus the Red could be all those things, yes, but he was so much more than any one facet. He was the perfect blend of heart and intellect, and if he could sometimes be blinded by his own brilliance, then who am I to hold that against him?’
‘Who indeed?’ said Lemuel. ‘For you are your father’s son, and your path leads to the same end as his. None will dare gainsay you and none who voice dissent will be heard.’
‘If you are truly Magnus, then you will come back with me.’
‘To that forsaken world in the Eye? Why would I do that?’
‘You will die if you do not.’
Lemuel laughed. ‘Is that what you told the shard in your staff?’
‘It is the truth.’
‘No,’ said Lemuel. ‘It is not, and if that is what you believe, then your understanding of the Great Ocean is woefully lacking. I can live forever with the power I have now.’
Lemuel held out his hand. ‘And with what you can give me, I can see to it that you live forever at my side.’
Ahriman held the staff tightly and said, ‘I cannot, for the being you would become would not be my father.’
‘The father you know is dead,’ snapped Lemuel. ‘Or had you forgotten? He died on Prospero with thousands of your brothers. These times, they call for a Magnus the Red unfettered by notions of conscience and the shackles of duty and responsibility. The wretched being you left behind is a hair’s breadth from dissolution, trapped in the prison of his decaying mind and raving in his lunacy. You would have me return to that? I think not.’
‘Then if you will not come willingly, I will drag you back by force,’ said Ahriman, thrusting his heqa staff forwards.
A searing beam of light blasted towards Lemuel, more focused than any weapon forged by the Mechanicum. The remembrancer swatted it away, and flew at Ahriman with a sneer of contempt.
Ahriman threw up a kine shield. Empowered by the soul within his staff, it could have dissipated the energy from an orbital blast.
Lemuel smashed it asunder with a single blow.
Ahriman flew from the impact, barely retaining his grip on the staff. He soared up and away from the attack he knew must be coming, and barely avoided a flurry of blue spears of killing light.
He hurled bolts of flame from his fingertips.
Lemuel caught them all and fed the power into his body.
He burned with the brightness of a sun, a blazing avatar of a god amongst men. His bones creaked within his flesh, sinews straining.
‘You cannot defeat me, Ahzek,’ said Lemuel.
Coruscating flames rippled over the remembrancer’s body, and his veins stood out like pale lightning against his drum-taut flesh. The skin across his chest split in a hairline crack, and star-bright blood shone from within.
Lemuel roared in pain, doubling up as he fought to contain the powers raging within him.
Ahriman remembered his father’s – his true father’s – words.
It resides in human flesh.
Ahriman flew back through the air, back towards where Aforgomon writhed in aetheric captivity. The creature was in agony, every touch of the fiery bars causing it unimaginable pain.
‘Give me the power you promised,’ said Ahriman.
Aforgomon pressed a clawed hand against the confines of its cage. The fire consumed the flesh on its bones, but millimetre by millimetre, the hand emerged from the flames. Blackened bones were all that remained, but it was enough.
Ah
riman gripped Aforgomon’s hand and he cried out as a flood of ancient knowledge flowed into him. Too fast to see anything other than infinitesimal fragments, all that had been and all that would ever be rushed through Ahriman.
He bucked in its grip, but the daemon’s skeletal fingers clamped down hard.
No, Ahzek, said Aforgomon, its voice thundering in his skull. You do not demand my gifts and turn away from all I offer.
Power burned through Ahriman, the power of the creatures born to the warp, birthed in blood by the dreams and nightmares of mortals. The moment his father’s power had almost destroyed him in the Halls of Extinction had been but a taster for this moment, but this time he was not alone.
His father rose up within him, pouring from the staff and into every fibre of his essence. Ahriman felt himself pressed into the very frontiers of his flesh as Magnus the Red claimed him, a being of spirit newly returned to flesh.
Ahzek Ahriman could not contain Aforgomon’s power and live.
But the Crimson King could.
Ahriman felt his body swell with the essence of a god.
He was no longer in command of his flesh. That duty and honour fell to his primarch.
Magnus waved his hand and the fiery prison enclosing Aforgomon vanished. The daemon was a shadow of its former self, a withered thing of broken wings and scorched flesh, yet its might was undiminished.
One head babbled meaningless doggerel.
‘The ocean is polluted, a single flaw that draws the things that hunger for blood!’ it screamed. ‘So great a work undone for so small a thing as vanity!’
Lemuel circled to face him, the shards within him having mastered their pain.
His face contorted in rage. ‘Even with that thing’s help, you are not strong enough.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Magnus with a beckoning gesture of challenge. ‘But unlike you, I am not alone.’
Fire erupted in the air around him, pink and blue and gold, but he was already in motion. Ahriman felt the strength of Aforgomon blend with that of his father, a potent mix of the primarch’s genius and daemonic energies. Such awesome power was intoxicating, and Ahriman wondered if such an alloying could ever be fully sundered.
Magnus caught the winds of fire and spun them about himself in a cyclone of blinding light. He hurled them back at Lemuel, who bellowed as he dissipated the flames with a shout.
Lightning blazed between them, but Magnus deflected every bolt. Ahriman screamed within his own flesh as he felt the repercussive agonies of such great power. Was this what Amon had suffered when he had borne the Crimson King’s soul on the Planet of the Sorcerers?
The three beings circled one another, power flashing between them in blitzing storms of aetheric energy. Burning fires, transformative energies, biomantic and malefic curses were unleashed and dissipated in a storm that cracked the world open. Sourceless chittering sounds echoed from the air and sleeping gods sighed.
Lemuel hurled his power heedlessly, eager to end this swiftly and draw out the soul-shard within Ahriman’s body. The strain that was taking was showing. Cracks spread in a glittering web of bleeding light all across Lemuel’s flesh.
‘How long do you think you can keep this up?’ taunted Aforgomon.
‘Long enough to drag what is mine from Ahzek,’ said Lemuel.
‘Think you so?’ said Magnus. ‘This body is stronger than the feeble flesh that bears you.’
‘Then I will shed it and take yours,’ roared Lemuel. ‘And when it wears thin with use, I will take another.’
‘Is that what you would become? A vampyre stealing flesh to house your spirit, moving from body to body as the years wear heavy on you?’
‘What else is there? Russ destroyed our body.’
‘There is union,’ said Magnus, holding out his hand. ‘Join with me and return to your sons. We will lead them again and forge our own path. Together.’
Lemuel sneered. ‘Have you seen what awaits on the World of the Nine Suns? You would house us in a withered spirit-corpse, trapped for eternity behind an unseeing eye and doomed to live through the actions of others? No, never that!’
A torrent of ferocious energy blazed from Lemuel’s eyes. It buckled the air between them, but Magnus was no longer there.
Instead, Aforgomon bore the brunt of the assault.
The daemon lord’s body writhed in the flames, its twin heads screeching in agony as they burned. Lemuel’s gaze swept left and right in search of his foe.
Magnus swooped up behind Lemuel and wrapped an arm around the remembrancer’s neck. He plunged his other hand into Lemuel’s back, reaching deep within him for what was rightfully his.
Lemuel screamed and his back arched in agony.
They fell from the sky, twin angels of fire locked in a battle for supremacy of their shared soul. The shards housed in Lemuel’s body fought to hold on to the shell that contained them, but it was a fight they could not win.
Magnus slammed into the ground and the impact was the starfall of a celestial being cast from heaven. Dust and rock flew in all directions from the impact. Magnus, clad in Ahriman’s flesh, stood over his foe, flesh aflame from the power flowing into him.
Blinding light rose from Lemuel’s groaning body, a coruscating pyre of pellucid crimson fire, the very essence of Magnus’ restored soul. He threw back his head and devoured the fire as it lifted him into the air. The storm raging overhead exploded outwards, and without its creator’s will holding the dark necropolis of Tizca together, it began to collapse.
Blades of glass and blinding veils of dust fell in a glittering, choking rain. Magnus laughed to feel the power of his reunited soul once again.
Not yet complete…
But whole enough for him to taste what he had once been and could be again when his final soul-shard was restored to him.
Ahriman felt his father’s fleeting temptation to keep his body for himself, to push his son out completely and live again in a new body of flesh.
‘No,’ said Magnus. ‘Never that.’
He turned as Aforgomon landed behind him, the great daemon’s frame bowed and hunched by the terrible hurts done to it. Magnus was not fooled; he knew the daemon could restore itself in time.
‘Is this what you wanted?’ asked Magnus.
‘This was never about what I wanted,’ replied Aforgomon, its voice hollow with pain.
‘Then what was it about?’
‘About what your son was willing to sacrifice to save you.’
‘Too much,’ said Magnus softly as he took in the destruction of the reflected Tizca and all that had befallen Ahriman’s warriors since embarking upon their quest. ‘I feel all that he has done, all he has seen and learned. It will be a pain in his heart for the rest of his life.’
‘It will be his undoing,’ promised Aforgomon.
‘Perhaps it will,’ replied Ahriman as Magnus relinquished control of his body and his father’s power receded once more into his heqa staff. ‘But not today.’
He looked up to see a city’s worth of debris falling from above, the unbound ruins of Lemuel’s grand stage – tens of thousands of tonnes of glass and rock that would crush anything left alive to dust.
Ahriman reached out with his mind, extending his will to touch the souls he had brought to this world as well as each artefact of significance to the Thousand Sons. Just as his father had done in Prospero’s last moments, he opened his mind and new-found power to them all.
‘Time to go home,’ he said.
And blinked.
The necropolis of Tizca fell with the sound of the world’s ending, an avalanche of broken glass and stone that had only recently been raised. Lemuel watched it fall with an aching sense of finality from the crater in which he and Magnus had landed.
He welcomed the rain of death.
His body was an inferno of scars worn
on the inside of his flesh and bones. He couldn’t move, but perhaps that was for the best. Soon there would be no uncertainty, no more pain and no more despair.
He hoped he would meet Malika again.
Would she forgive him for all he had done?
Of course she would.
Malika had the biggest heart he had known. She would welcome him with open arms and they would spend eternity in whatever awaited him in the dreaming moments beyond his death.
‘I am coming, my love,’ he said, closing his eyes at the last instant before the debris crashed down.
The noise was deafening, a rising crescendo that went on and on until it seemed it would never end. Lemuel felt the ground heave at the terrifying impacts all around him. It seemed as though Nikaea were trying to shake him loose, but nothing of Tizca’s destruction touched Lemuel.
He opened his eyes and saw the crashing thunder of debris slamming down against a rippling barrier of psychic force. Lemuel watched as boulders the size of Legion tanks and shards of glass like vast guillotine blades shattered against the barrier. Everything ricocheted from it, falling away in a never-ending tide until, after what felt like an eternity, the roaring stopped and the seismic force of collapse was stilled.
‘What…?’ he murmured. ‘How…?’
Shapes moved in his peripheral vision, bloodied, battered and grunting with effort and pain. He heard their voices, guttural barks and growls. He heard women speaking, but could not make out anything through their tears.
Though the effort drew a gasp of agony from the depths of his abused body, Lemuel forced himself upright. His flesh felt bruised all the way down to his bones, and they in turn were filled with broken glass.
‘Fenrys hjolda! You were right, Rune Priest,’ said a wet, malformed growl behind him. ‘He’s alive! I would have bet my spear he would be dead.’
Lemuel tried to turn, but a rough hand seized him by the scruff of his neck. Something bright flashed and a sharp blade pricked the skin at his neck.
‘Then we finish the job,’ said the owner of the blade.
The Crimson King Page 42