Old Earth

by Nick Kyme

  Dorn nodded, ever reserved. He sheathed his sword and at this signal from their primarch, Vulkan heard the sound of twenty Imperial Fists disengaging and powering down their weapons.

  ‘You look older, brother,’ said Vulkan.

  ‘And you are no different from the day we met,’ Dorn answered coolly. ‘I heard you had died.’ His annoyance at being called away from his numerous duties and responsibilities faded, though Vulkan could see the burden still weighed heavily.

  ‘I have longed to see my brothers again… The ones not trying to kill me.’

  Dorn’s jaw stiffened at the remark, suggesting some unspoken pain or regret. Vulkan did not press him. Some truths were best left unsaid.

  ‘I would embrace you,’ Vulkan confessed, ‘but that was never your way, was it, Rogal?’

  Dorn laughed gruffly. ‘Abstention is a wise decision.’

  Vulkan embraced him firmly anyway and felt his affection for his brother returned, albeit awkwardly.

  As they parted, the smile did not quite reach Dorn’s eyes, though the expression was not unkind. ‘I am glad you live. Of late, I have found precious little to celebrate.’

  ‘I can see that, brother,’ said Vulkan, gesturing to their surroundings. ‘The Palace is much changed.’

  ‘We all are,’ said Dorn. ‘Everything has changed. It had to.’

  Above, Vulkan heard the engine drone of an approaching ship. The silhouette of a transport appeared in the distance.

  ‘Is that for us?’

  ‘For you, but I will accompany you some of the way.’

  ‘I must see father. I must reach the Throne,’ said Vulkan, his eyes drifting from the gunship back to Dorn.

  ‘I know,’ said Dorn. ‘We knew of your coming. The Emperor told us. He also said you were to be escorted to the Imperial Dungeon.’

  ‘And yet I am greeted with bolter and blade by one of your Huscarls.’

  Dorn allowed a wry smile to reach his face. ‘Archamus has much to learn. I am also being cautious.’

  ‘I was sorry to hear of his forebear’s passing.’

  The levity drained from the other primarch.

  ‘He gave his life for mine. Kestros wears his mantle well and proudly. He did his duty.’

  ‘I am only glad he did not kill me where I stood,’ said Vulkan.

  Dorn’s eyebrow raised a fraction. ‘I suspect that would be difficult, even for a hundred of my sons.’

  After a moment’s pause, Vulkan’s expression darkened. ‘I saw an army… laying siege to the throne room.’

  ‘Our father’s great work has failed and the terrors of Old Night have been made manifest. We must resist them, Vulkan.’

  Dorn turned to face the gunship, raising his voice so he would be heard as it came in to land.

  ‘We must endure.’

  The gunship took them across the Petitioner’s City, rising slowly through the agglomerated strata of the Palace.

  Through the rain-spattered armourglass of the gunship’s viewing block, Vulkan saw weapon towers, ablative armour, mass augur ­stations and barrack houses. Troops lined every parapet and battlement.

  Mobs thronged the streets, milling around in fear and confusion, listening to the demagogues and doomsayers who had risen up like weeds in an untended garden. Enforcers jostled with the crowds, obscured by acid rain. Smoke stacks belched corrosive fumes into the atmosphere from the thousands of manufactorums labouring day and night to produce shells and ammunition.

  ‘I know what you are thinking,’ said Dorn, quietly looking into the shadows as if the answer to a particularly perplexing problem lurked there. ‘It was beautiful once.’

  ‘It will be again,’ said Vulkan, regarding his brother. ‘And its glory remains undiminished.’

  ‘What times we live in, brother.’

  Vulkan looked back out into the night. Lightning cracked silently in the distance, briefly illuminating the forbidding shadow of the Tower of Heroes. How long before the bell at its summit began to toll? And once begun, when would it end?

  ‘Are you and I alone amongst our father’s loyal sons to have returned to the Throneworld?’

  ‘The Khan is here, roaming who knows where.’

  Dorn scowled at the thought, Jaghatai so different in nature to the redoubtable Lord of the VII.

  ‘He has a stallion’s heart, brother. Wild and untempered.’

  ‘You mean wilful,’ Dorn griped.

  Vulkan laughed and found the act profoundly saddening when he realised this moment was but a fleeting one, and soon the darkness would encroach again.

  Dorn was right – they must endure.

  ‘Do you think he’ll reach Terra?’ Vulkan asked, not referring to the Khan now.

  ‘I know our brother,’ said Dorn. ‘Horus is as tenacious as he is ruthless. He will reach Terra. And I will stop him. Even conquerors are blunted against my shield.’

  ‘Would you kill him, Rogal?’

  Dorn’s gaze was lost to memory and Vulkan suddenly had the feeling this was a question he had already answered, though one perhaps asked more broadly.

  Could you kill one of your brothers?

  His eyes met Vulkan’s, hard and icy.

  ‘Could you? Could you kill one of them if they were beneath your sword?’

  ‘I had the chance,’ said Vulkan, ‘but could not bring myself to do it.’

  Dorn turned away, disgusted, though it was hard to tell if the emotion was directed at his brother or himself.

  ‘I would kill him. I would kill all of them for what they’ve done, and gladly bear the guilt of it.’

  An uncomfortable silence fell upon them after that, only broken several hours later when they came in sight of a landing pad that would lead Vulkan to the Inner Palace confines.

  In the distance, the Tower of Hegemon loomed and Vulkan watched as they made their slow descent, the rain still lashing.

  A cohort of golden-armoured Custodians stood waiting at the edge of the landing pad, following the gunship down with the hot glow of their retinal lenses. Guardian spears glittered in their gauntleted fists.

  ‘Are they to be my escorts now, brother?’ asked Vulkan, looking over his shoulder at his brother and shouting to be heard above the raucous cry of the engines.

  Dorn nodded.

  ‘I have to return to the Bhab Bastion.’ His expression tightened. ‘And my Legion and I are not needed in the Imperial Dungeon.’

  Vulkan grasped Dorn’s shoulder.

  ‘I am glad you came, Rogal. I am glad we got to see each other again.’

  Dorn looked stern, some vestige of his last words still lingering, but a little of his reserve diminished at this last act of compassion and he clasped Vulkan’s outstretched hand.

  ‘I hope it is not the last time,’ he said, and they parted as the gunship’s side hatch ratcheted open and Vulkan leapt out into the rising storm.

  Upon the landing pad, Vulkan gave a curt salute as the gunship rose again, ferrying Dorn away.

  After it was lost to the night and the clawing spires of the Palace, he turned to his escorts.

  One of them stepped forwards, the red horsehair plume of his helm fluttering wildly in the breeze.

  ‘Lord Vulkan,’ he intoned, ‘the Sigillite awaits your presence in the Sanctum Imperialis.’

  Vulkan nodded. ‘I expected nothing less. Lead on.’

  Thirty-Two

  The Gate, its guardian eternal

  The long processional that led to the Gate stretched for more than a kilometre. The Custodians marched through this grand hall in silence, flanked on either side by a legion of banners and war standards commemorating the many regiments of Terra and the Imperium. Amongst this sea of colour and veneration stood the proud symbols of mythic beasts of Old Earth, the gryphonne and wyvorn, the lion-headed manticore,
the Imperial eagle. Rendered in silver, gold and bronze, hung with gleaming medals or victory pennants, the banners stirred the heart and humbled false pride.

  Here was a legacy of war and conquest, of Unity.

  Helots moved solemnly amongst the banners, swinging censers that trailed smoke. Strange winged servitor creatures flew languidly overhead, the tolling of their metal bells a doleful echo in the vast vaulted chamber.

  And at the end of this promenade of old glories stood the Eternity Gate.

  A soaring edifice, over six hundred and twenty metres high, its gilded face depicted the Emperor plunging his spear into the denizens of Old Night. A blazing sun framed the Master of Mankind’s countenance, a galactic tapestry rendered in eye-aching detail in the background.

  Two great Titans stood watch at either side of the Gate, looming and belligerent, arrayed in the panoply of the Legio Ignatum of Mars.

  As Vulkan and his escort closed to within ten metres, the Gate began to part and a thin figure, quite ordinary looking but radiating power, stepped from the darkness beyond.

  He wore the robes common to any Terran bureaucrat and leaned heavily on an eagle-topped staff. His eyes flashed beneath a hood which shrouded his face in shadows.

  Vulkan bowed deeply to the Sigillite.

  ‘Lord Malcador…’

  Malcador dismissed the Custodians, who returned the way they had come to stand sentinel with the Imperial Fists.

  ‘Your sons will join the wall guard and fight with honour, I am certain,’ uttered the Sigillite.

  ‘And is that all you saw when you looked into my mind, my lord?’ asked Vulkan.

  Malcador did not answer, though Vulkan could tell he had seen something of the horror the primarch had witnessed on the other side of the Imperial Dungeon.

  ‘Come, Vulkan,’ he said instead, and passed back through the Gate.

  Once they were both through, it shut behind them.

  Past the darkness that lurked beyond the Gate, Vulkan met the army he had seen retreating back to the Palace. Few remained from the number he had witnessed, and those who did looked battered and beyond weary. Yet their ranks made ready, facing the shimmering portal, now sealed, that had led to the place beyond.

  ‘I saw it,’ he said to Malcador. ‘I saw what they faced.’

  ‘It is hell,’ said Malcador, without breaking step. ‘Hell given form, and it seeks to undo all of this and enslave mankind to its will.’

  And sat before the portal was his father, the Emperor, upon the Golden Throne of Terra.

  Vulkan felt the urge to bow before His glory, so achingly pure and bright was the refulgence of the figure upon the Throne. He reached for the talisman around his neck, and experienced a momentary spike of revelation.

  The Emperor’s voice resounded like a pealing bell or clarion horn, a host of triumphal flutes or the beating of a thousand war drums. It was all of it, and none of it, and Vulkan staggered as he heard it.

  My son…+

  Vulkan wept, and sank to his knees, head bowed in supplication. ‘Father…’

  Though the words resonated in Vulkan’s head, the Emperor’s lips did not move. He remained still, hands clenched around the arms of the Throne, feet set firmly, His expression one of dire and abject concentration.

  Vulkan realised He held the portal shut. By His will alone were the daemons kept at bay.

  ‘I have returned, father. As you willed it.’

  Then rise, Vulkan. And do what it is I brought you back from death to do.+

  Vulkan did as bidden, though with difficulty. The mere presence of his enthroned father gnawed at his resolve. An immense weight resisted him, and he fought to overcome it.

  He heard the Sigillite’s voice, distant but urgent, as Vulkan gained the first step that led to the Throne’s dais. Through blazing light and the burning intensity of the Emperor’s unfettered glory, he thought he saw his father blink. A momentary gesture, near imperceptible, silenced Malcador’s protests.

  Vulkan would never know what passed between them, but he recognised its toll upon the Emperor, who grimaced with the immense effort.

  Every step brought greater pain, both physical and mental, as Vulkan relived every one of his many deaths. A lightning storm of endings flashed before him, each thunderous crack a blow that drew a wince of barely suppressed agony from the Lord of Drakes.

  And still he rose, another step, and then another.

  Close now, he saw the strain upon his father’s face, and realised what it had cost to hold the way open for him and his sons, though they had been unable to take it and had instead come via a different road, one that led to the earth itself.

  And at last, with the talisman of seven hammers in his hand and the Throne within his reach, did Vulkan see.

  And the horror of it, what his father had used him to create, the entire purpose for his resurrection, came crashing in.

  He shut his eyes, the light burning, and when he opened them again he was no longer on Terra.

  He had returned to Nocturne.

  A man faced him, slighter of frame and wearing a strange garb that put Vulkan in mind of a Grekan Myrmidone of Old Earth. A long tan cloak swept across his right shoulder, pinned at his breast with a circular bronze stud. Around his waist was a thick belt of pteruges, and he wore a gold breastplate sculpted to resemble a man’s naked musculature. He had no helm, instead preferring a silver circlet. His dark hair flowed like a mane of jet. Torcs ringed his arms and he wore vambraces and shin guards in the same style as his breastplate.

  ‘You are the Outlander,’ said Vulkan, his own attire and armour that of a Nocturnean tribesman.

  ‘This is how we met, my son. Do you remember it?’ asked the Outlander.

  Vulkan frowned. ‘Why have you done this, father? I have fashioned something… abominable.’

  The Outlander’s gaze flicked to the talisman around His son’s neck and then back to Vulkan.

  ‘Do you recall what I said to you, as we sat here and looked out upon these very sands?’

  The great expanse of the Pyre Desert stretched out before them, harsh and unforgiving but beautiful in its way.

  Vulkan did not answer, and he did not meet his father’s eye. Heat haze made the desert tremble, even with the sun setting and painting the sand a fiery red.

  ‘I said your destiny was a great one,’ the Outlander went on. ‘And I said–’

  ‘That you needed me more than I knew, more than perhaps I would ever know.’ Vulkan shook his head, a grimace of denial set upon his face. ‘But this… How can I do this?’

  ‘You are the earth, my son, its fire and solidity, that is how.’

  ‘And the great flame that it will unleash if the Throne fails, if you fail?’

  Vulkan felt a firm hand upon his shoulder and heard the darkening of his father’s mood in His words.

  ‘It will consume the Palace and all of Terra. The Throneworld will burn.’

  A sharp turn brought Vulkan eye to eye with the Outlander. Incredulity warred with duty on his face.

  ‘To deny it to my brother?’

  ‘No, my son,’ said the Emperor sadly, the Master of Mankind standing before him now. ‘Not to deny it to Horus but to Chaos, and to strike a blow against their forces the like of which they will never recover from.’

  ‘To win the war you would sacrifice Terra?’

  ‘If Terra falls and Horus takes it then we have lost anyway, and all of mankind will suffer.’

  Vulkan looked down at the talisman in his hand and fought the urge to crush it, though he knew it would not yield to even his strength.

  ‘I am sorry, my son,’ said the Emperor. ‘I needed to hide it from you, what you had created and what would be wrought by it in my name.’

  ‘Has this… Has it always been within me, the capacity to fashion such a thing?’ />
  ‘Tell me, my son, why did you destroy your great works and send the others where no one might ever find them?’

  ‘I feared they would be put to ill use, and what they could unleash.’

  ‘Which is why it had to be you. It has ever been within you, Vulkan, and I hoped such a day would not come to pass that I had need of it… I hoped for a great many things,’ He said sadly. ‘Your death, your true death and resurrection, brought forth what you needed to fashion the talisman. All of your pain, the suffering of your Legion, it has led us to this point.’

  Vulkan met his father’s gaze, defiant.

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘You will not refuse, for you still believe in hope that I will prevail, that Horus will be stopped and the war will end. But you are also pragmatic, and know that this must be done in case hope fails us in the end.’

  And as before the light grew around the Emperor, radiating from His skin and Vulkan shut his eyes lest he was struck blind.

  Upon opening them, he was once more before the Throne, his father’s unswerving gaze upon him. Willing him. Urging him.

  Vulkan wrenched the talisman from his neck and reached out with it towards the Throne. A small circular aperture presented itself and without further hesitation he pressed the talisman into it. In the moment of connection, Vulkan saw a sea of flame rise up to engulf the Tower of Hegemon, to swallow the Tower of Heroes and all the mighty spires of the Palace. It spread, this conflagration within his mind, sweeping across the Panpacific, Ursh, Hy Brasil, Ind and Nordafrik, to every region until nothing remained but ash.

  The talisman would magnify the power of the Throne to unleash cataclysm.

  Vulkan blinked and it was gone, a part of the great mechanism, impossible to remove and forever waiting.

  Staggering back down the steps, his immortal flesh reknit itself, his body regaining its vitality, until, by the time he reached the ­bottom, he was without injury.

  Vulkan retreated from his father and the Throne.

  His eyes went to the portal. It would fail – his father had seen it, and Vulkan knew what lay beyond. He stepped back until he stood in the shadow of the Eternity Gate and held Urdrakule across his body in both hands, an eternal guardian.