by Ben Counter
‘The sculpture dissolved as if in a rain of acid, its points and edges blurring as the bodies keeping its shape died. Those in the outermost layers, relatively low down, tumbled to the sand alive. Bodies fell after them crushed or suffocated. I did not watch, save to make sure that their sacrifice did not bring forth some monster from the warp. It is more awful to me that it did not. They went to their deaths willingly, not to bring about a great revelation or the birth of some patron beast, but solely to create a monument that lasted seconds for the benefit of a daemon prince not even in attendance.
‘I travelled through the crowds, taking on the air of someone who does not expect to be stopped while going about his vital and sacred business. Thus the crowds parted for me tolerably quickly, with the feral worlder brothers shunting the stragglers out of my way. When I came within sight of the pavilion’s inhabitant I called forth Talaya and asked her if, in the many works of mine I had ordered her to read, I had before recorded its like. She said I had not, which came as some relief, for it meant that the creature did not know me, either, and would not have encountered me in a guise other than the one I was wearing.
‘A court of daemons lounged there amid sumptuous furnishings and clouds of opiate incense. Various beautiful citizens lay alongside them, each one with a mark of ownership on them, a disfigurement that was only visible from one angle. Thus a beautiful woman might have one eye burned out, and so appear hideous if she did not lie on one side as she did among the daemons. The skin of a youth’s back was scorched and pared away, so he lay on his back. Thus the possessions of this particular daemon were both marked as his property, and rendered useless for anything other than the very specific need he had of them to lie just so. The daemons were like those of the court I had glimpsed before in the city, lithe and athletic of limb, with pallid mauve skin and a hermaphroditic allure that, thankfully, my studies had prepared me well to resist. I saw in them the ugliness of their true nature. Nothing is so foul as that veneer of beauty stretched over corruption incarnate.
‘The champion was something like them, sporting six arms and a rack of antlers like those of a fine stag. He went barely clothed, showing off the details of his anatomy which, while humanoid, were inhuman enough to turn the stomach. He dripped with jewels, gold and silver, and his eyes were ovals of inky black.
‘“So one among us has fought off the tedium,” it said as I approached its pavilion. “I feared I would waste away from boredom. These insects truly believe they create something wonderful with their fumblings.” He waved a hand at the arena, where hundreds of cultists of some funerary church were hauling away the bodies across the bloodstained sand. “What magic could be wrought that would instil some imagination into them? Always they throw themselves upon our altars and expect us to act as if a million have not done so before.”
‘My heresy had equipped me well with the means to converse with creatures abhorrent to the soul. “It held my interest,” I said, “for among the worshipful of my world the form is to take the life of another, not give one’s own. The sentiment is novel to me, if crudely articulated.”
‘“Oh, to witness something new!” the champion sighed. It breathed deep of the heavy air and exhaled a stream of smoke from gills that opened in its neck. My own respiratory implants kept the opiate from affecting my faculties, though the odour of it was hard to stomach. Talaya, standing by my side, had similar enhancements, though the feral worlder brothers did not and had thankfully remained outside the silken enclosure. “Do you bring with you some diversion that can illuminate these tedious hours? I wonder that my lord does not despair of it. All he wants is something original, something that has not been seen before, and yet all he gets is…” He waved one of his six hands at the arena again by way of illustration.
‘“The city needs new blood,” I said. “Literally, and figuratively.”
‘“And you have come to me,” replied the daemon, examining the back of a hand, “because you are that new blood?”
‘“A hundred thousand men fought on the cliffs above the Sea of Suffering, until but ten stood by the edge and the rocks foamed red. Those ten roamed the galaxy for a thousand years, and each brought back the skulls of a nation to the throne of our god.”’
‘These were the ramblings from the mind-journey of a madman whose memoirs were written on the walls of a cell. That cell was in the depths of my coven’s Inquisitorial fortress, and I had studied them at leisure while recovering from a troublesome xenos lung-rot. I was thus armed with a whole catalogue of such blasphemies.
‘“A little crude,” said the herald.
‘“That is the way the Blood God prefers his sacrifices,” I said. “I call no one warp power my lord above others, and while I understand that such apostasy is obscene to those with little imagination, I thought the city of Shalhadar would be more open-minded. I am something of a freelancer in my trade. I have travelled the breadth of the galaxy and seen every flavour of worship that can be crammed into a human mind. I would not seek to win the graces of the Lord of Pleasures with a heap of a million skulls. Here there must be art to our devotions.”
‘“I see,” said the herald. “A wandering priest, a missionary of the obscene.”
‘“I learned my trade in the Missionaria Galaxia of the Corpse-God,” I ventured. This gambit was a risk, but there was no stepping back from the brink ahead of me. “But among the stars we see the truth, and the truth resides among the powers of the warp.”
‘“Would that the choice was solely mine,” said the herald with a smile on his face. It reminded me faintly of a fish, as the mouth spread a little too wide and the eyes flickered black. “But by now you will have learned the balance that holds this world. There can be no true Chaos without some rule, no bedlam without a spark of sanity. There will be a payment for everything on Malodrax, and for me to put you in my lord’s good graces comes with its own price.”
‘“As it must be,” I replied. “Name it.”
‘“Something you love,” was the reply.
‘I had no way of telling if this was some curse or ban to be obeyed, or simply the herald’s wanton tastes finding expression. In truth, it did not matter. If I was to stand face to face with Shalhadar the Veiled One, the toll would be paid.
‘Of every million men, perhaps one might be suitable for the employ of the Inquisition. He must be prepared to do anything, starting with killing and dying and becoming ever more onerous, for reasons he does not understand and at the behest of an inquisitor he might never meet. He must murder those who do not deserve it. He must guard those he hates. And he must do all this in the necessary ignorance in which the lower echelons of the inquisitor’s network are submerged.
‘Of every million such men, perhaps one might have the qualities to serve as an acolyte in the direct employ of an inquisitor, privy to the dealings of his conclave and bearing the keys to his master’s armoury. He must take upon himself a measure of responsibility that might encompass whole worlds, entire civilisations, which might be saved or extinguished by his endeavours. He must sometimes stand by while atrocities are committed, and participate in the committing, and comprehend the great dangers and evils that might ensue if they tried to stay on the path of good. He must see the worst the universe has to hurl at him and in response, shed the shackles of morality instead of his sanity.
‘Of every million such men, one might rise to the rank of inquisitor, and bear the ultimate authority that can exist in the Imperium short of the Emperor Himself arisen. He must kill worlds, because letting them live threatens a greater catastrophe that might come to pass in thousands of years. He must have already handed his life to the Emperor’s service, and consider himself dead. He must make the survival of the human race his responsibility, and encompass the enormity of that task with intellect, willpower and hatred.
‘How many men could have turned in that moment to Talaya, who stood by my side? Only an inquisito
r, I think. Only an inquisitor could have pushed her forward, to the foot of the herald’s silken throne. To register the glimmer of understanding in her face? To see the smile of agreement on the herald’s, and not drive a blade into his throat, a stake into his heart, a bullet through his brain? To let him take her in his spindly arms and pass her, just starting to struggle, into the embrace of his daemon handmaidens? Only an inquisitor.
‘“Corvin!” she cried as the daemons hauled her to the back of the pavilion. “Corvin, no! Please! For the love of the Throne, Corvin, what about… What about everything?” Her voice trailed away as she was dragged out of sight, and her words were muffled.
‘I did not glance back at my other companions. They had earned my trust and would not try to stop me.
‘A voice inside me was crying out, but I had silenced it so long ago I could no longer give it a name.
‘“Then attend upon me on the palace bridge after sundown,” said the herald. “I feel this is the dawn of a much-awaited age.”
‘I bowed and, with a gesture, bade my acolytes accompany me as I left. In the arena below the bodies had been shifted with well-practised efficiency, and only the blood remained.’
12
‘My coven embraced knowledge of the enemy as a weapon, a heresy of thought that invited corruption, and yet which was the only means, we believed, by which the true enemy could be fought.
‘This is the greatest strength of the inquisitor. There are men, yet, who would condemn worlds and species to extinction – but how many of them would also condemn themselves? Not to death, for everywhere we find men eager to die. No, condemnation to a spiritual oblivion, to the awful fates of corruption and enslavement to the dark power beside which death seems the Emperor’s own blessing. Not even all inquisitors can truly make such a sacrifice. It is what sets me, and men like me, apart from the greater part of humanity, and what enfranchises us to determine how humanity shall be manipulated, spent, culled and eventually saved.’
– Inquisitor Corvin Golrukhan
The petrified forest gave way, after a solid two days of marching, to the shattered delta of a land that was once pierced by a mighty river. A vast and terrible event had fallen on that land, and splintered it into a thousand islands through which the river now rushed, forming a land of rapids and swirling lakes. To the east lay the hinterland of Kulgarde, which spread across the broken land to the south – the delta was unclaimed, and had been ever since the destruction of the kingdom that once stood there. A few towers and fragments of palaces still stood, now isolated and half eroded by the hungry waters. They had been brutal buildings, the towers and walls built for siege, the palaces monuments to war. Here and there the remains of enormous armoured figures lay fallen or worn away, a helmeted head, a mailed fist gripping the black stone hilt of a broken sword.
Brother Kollus’s gene-seed was taken by Techmarine Kho in a truncated ceremony once the strike force was clear of the forest, and his remains loaded onto Dorn’s Dagger. With the prayers said and with no time now for funeral games, Lycaon ordered the strike force on across the delta.
‘If we lose another,’ said First Sergeant Kaderic as he and Lysander forded a rushing branch of the river, ‘we will have to stow them on the Talon Blade. Should the Blade be full we will be leaving bodies behind on this world and taking just their wargear back to the Phalanx.’
‘An ill omen,’ said Lysander.
‘A great shame,’ replied Kaderic. ‘I would sooner go back missing an arm or an eye than missing the bodies of all who marched with me.’
‘Do you believe we should not have come to Malodrax?’ asked Lysander.
Kaderic, who was pulling himself onto the slippery granite rocks of the next island, paused to look at him. ‘Why do you say that?’ he asked. ‘I am loath to leave my brothers behind on this world, but that does not mean I would not make war here. Kulgarde must fall and Kraegon Thul must die. That any Imperial Fist would say otherwise is out of the question. You know this, Lysander.’
‘Of course, First Sergeant,’ said Lysander. ‘But I have seen what doubt in one’s duties can do.’
‘Among Imperial Fists?’
‘No. Among others.’
Kaderic did not pursue the question further, for Lycaon gave the order for the strike force to draw in and make camp until the sun was up. Though a Space Marine did not strictly need to sleep, his effectiveness in combat dropped off after a certain span of hours, and though their histories were full of heroics lasting for days on end, a Space Marine commander did not let the battle-brothers under his command lose their edge through fatigue. Already the strike force had done in a few days what an Imperial Guard regiment might do in months, mostly on foot and fighting along the way.
The strike force drew into the shelter and cover of a section of city wall that sagged down into the waters, its enormous black stone blocks gradually being broken up and washed away where the waters slowly eroded its island of dressed parade ground. Three of Gorvetz’s squad took the early watch as the sun dissolved away into ruddy darkness overhead.
‘This is the kind of ground that spurred me to take us on foot,’ said Chaplain Lycaon as Lysander observed his wargear rites in the wall’s shadow.
Lysander was anointing the major components of his bolter with machine oil, scraping away dried blood and grime. His chainsword would receive the same treatment, then he could rest in half-sleep until his watch came. ‘What I saw of this world suggested that even the Land Raiders of our Chapter would find it heavy going,’ he said. ‘And over such ground men on foot are swifter than tracks.’
‘It was not universally agreed upon,’ said Lycaon. He sat beside Lysander, placing his own weapon on the stone. ‘Neither was coming to Malodrax at all. Does that shock you, captain?’
‘I will abide by the orders of my Chapter command,’ said Lysander.
‘You must speak freely, Lysander.’
‘Then I will say that if the Chapter had not sent what men it could spare to Malodrax, I would have come here alone to do my duty.’
‘You would have abandoned your duties to your Chapter to do so?’
‘I would have, Chaplain. To see Kraegon Thul dead, I would give up the companionship of my battle-brothers and put myself beyond the aegis of my Chapter.’
Lycaon nodded in thought. ‘Seeing Thul dead is your duty, or your revenge?’
‘In honesty?’ Lysander finished cleaning the action of his bolter and slid the breech closed. ‘I do not know.’
‘Then it is good we came with you. I must see to my own wargear rites, captain. Do not neglect your rest. The world hunts us and the night will not go without need for good watchmen.’
Lycaon left and Lysander finished cleaning his bolter in the shadow of the fallen civilisation’s crumbling palace wall. When he was done he cleaned the teeth of his chainblade, for there had been much killing so far, and it had to be ready again for more.
Lysander’s watch saw him posted up on the wall, where climbing to the top was made easier by a mound of fallen masonry. The sounds of the waters had become a constant background, barely perceived now. The moons and stars changed by the hour, and as Lysander began his watch three watery moons glowed in the sky through breaks in the clouds. One grew brighter as the other two waned, as if the brighter one was a vampire draining the light from the others.
The closest Imperial Fist was watching from the elevated stretch of smooth stone where the two Land Speeders were parked. Lysander was out of sight of another Imperial Fist for the first time since landing on Malodrax, and might not be again before Kulgarde came into view.
He snapped open a compartment on the waist of his armour, where spare ammunition or grenades were usually kept. Instead, he slid out the copy of Being A Description Of Malodrax And Its Foulness. Even a Space Marine’s eyesight was unlikely to spot the volume in his hands unless they were looking out for i
t. Lysander flicked through its dog-eared pages.
He could not find a reference to the delta and its fallen kingdom. That was no great surprise. Inquisitor Golrukhan had not been given the luxury of enough time to catalogue everything between Kulgarde and Shalhadar’s city. Nevertheless Lysander had suggested this route, skirting most of Kulgarde’s proving grounds to the north, and he would have been far more confident about the strike force’s likely progress had he known more.
His eye caught Talaya’s name again. Lysander was unsure what to feel when he saw it. He had not known Talaya, not as Golrukhan had written about her, but Golrukhan’s words suggested a world of the mind beyond what a Space Marine experienced. A world where one person might feel for another something that could spur them on to astonishing deeds and awful mistakes. How much did a man leave behind when he ascended to the ranks of the Space Marines? If Lysander really knew what happened in the minds of those unaugmented men and women, who had not been sleep-taught Rogal Dorn’s battle-genius and been transformed into something else, would he miss it? So often the power of those emotions was tied up with all manner of the foulest corruption. The powers of the warp enjoyed nothing more, it seemed, than to take the emotions of joy and weave them into hatred. But to go without the emotion of such connections meant to remain ignorant of so much. Was a Space Marine something less than a man, as well as more?
A Space Marine was not without emotion. Some in the Imperium thought of them as automatons, mindlessly executing the will of the God-Emperor, and perhaps some were. But inside Lysander was a well of emotion that he could draw from just as he drew from his training, or the doctrines of Dorn’s battle-lore. There was a well of hate and anger inside him. A Space Marine’s discipline could keep it bound until it was needed. He could have faith in that, he told himself, as he had done many times since he had stumbled from Kulgarde into the wastes of Malodrax. He had faith in the hatred.