by Ben Counter
of human bodies, contorted and wounded, missing limbs or eyes,
faces drawn in pain. The Eshkeen who had sculpted it, countless
generations ago, had used a stylised technique that removed the
subtleties of the human form and left only the pain. Winding wooden
stairs provided a way down into the shaft.
‘When Imperial settlers were brought to Molikor,’ explained
Sarpedon as he and N’Kalo descended the shaft, ‘they sent out
explorers to tame the marshland and forge a path to the ocean. They
hoped to build a port on this coast and spread to the planet’s other
continents. They never managed it, mainly because the land was too
marshy and the Eshkeen rather unfriendly. But one of them did find
this.’
N’Kalo made note of Sarpedon’s words with one half of his mind.
The other half was trying to work out how he could turn on Sarpedon.
They were alone now, and Sarpedon’s fellow Soul Drinkers could not
come to his aid. If N’Kalo got behind Sarpedon, and if he was quick
enough, he could throw Sarpedon off the staircase down the shaft. But
the fall would not be guaranteed to kill him – indeed, N’Kalo could now
see the bottom of the shaft strewn with leaves and broken branches,
and a Space Marine would barely be inconvenienced by the distance.
He could grab Sarpedon’s neck in a choke, but his aegis collar would
make that difficult and besides, a Space Marine could go a long time
before his three lungs gave out. By then Sarpedon could have climbed
up the shaft and brought N’Kalo to the Soul Drinkers to face
retribution.
And perhaps most importantly, N’Kalo felt a truth in Sarpedon’s
words. N’Kalo wanted to know what was hidden down here, what could
cause a Space Marine, even a renegade one, to fight his brothers. So
he held back and followed as Sarpedon reached the bottom of the
shaft and headed down a tunnel that led away to one side.
This tunnel was also carved with images. Eyes and hands covered
the walls, symbols of watching and warding. N’Kalo could hear, on the
hot, damp breeze washing over him from the far end of the tunnel, the
reedy strains of voices. They were screaming, hundreds of them, the
sounds overlapping like the threads of a tapestry.
A cavern opened up ahead, wet stone lit from beneath by a bloodred
glow. The screaming got louder. N’Kalo tensed, unsure of what
was ahead, one part of his brain still watching for a drop in Sarpedon’s
guard.
‘Molikor,’ said Sarpedon, ‘has a curious relationship with its dead.’
The tunnel reached the threshold of a sudden drop. Beyond it was a
cavern, as vast as an ocean, filled almost to the level of the tunnel
entrance by a sea of writhing bodies.
N’Kalo was all but stunned by his first sight of it. The awfulness of it,
the impossibility, seemed intent on prying his mind from his senses.
The bodies were naked, men and women, all ages, the whole
spectrum of shapes, sizes and skin tones. The glow was coming from
their eyes, and from the wounds that wept bloody and fresh in their
bodies. Many bore the scarring of the Eshkeen but there were
countless others, from dozens of cultures.
‘Who are they?’ said N’Kalo.
‘Everyone who has ever died on Molikor,’ replied Sarpedon. ‘No one
knows how far down it goes. When you die on Molikor, your body
decays and is absorbed by the earth. Then it reforms here, vomited
back up by the planet. Here they are, everyone this world has claimed
since the Age of Strife.’
‘Why… why are you showing me this?’ said N’Kalo.
Sarpedon unholstered his bolt pistol. For a moment N’Kalo thought
the Soul Drinker would turn on him, but instead Sarpedon held it
handle-first towards N’Kalo. ‘Because I could not expect you to just
take my word for it,’ said Sarpedon. ‘And besides, I haven’t shown you
anything yet.’
The bodies heaved up, like a breaking wave. N’Kalo barely had time
to close his hand around the bolt pistol before they were surging
around him, a terrible flood of gasping limbs. N’Kalo saw they were not
corpses, nor alive, but something else, reborn as they had been at the
moment of death and filled with the same emotions – fear, anger,
abandonment. Their screams were wordless torrents of pain. One
wrapped its arms around N’Kalo, trying to force his head down –
N’Kalo blasted it apart with a shot to the upper chest and it flowed
past him, reforming in a burst of blood-coloured light.
Sarpedon grabbed N’Kalo’s free wrist. ‘Follow,’ he shouted above the
screaming, and hauled N’Kalo off the edge of the drop and into the
cavern.
It took a long time for the two Space Marines to forge their way
through the dead of Molikor. Sarpedon’s arachnid limbs proved adept
at opening up a tunnel through the writhing bodies, and their path was
lit by the red glow of whatever energy animated these echoes of the
dead. The screaming was muffled now, like the crashing of a distant
ocean, with the occasional shriek reaching through. N’Kalo followed as
Sarpedon burrowed on, winding a path downwards. N’Kalo
contemplated shooting him with his own bolt pistol, but then he would
be trapped in this ocean of bodies and he did not know if he would be
able to climb out of it. And besides, he wanted to know what Sarpedon
had to show him. That curiosity was a human emotion, not that of a
Space Marine, but nevertheless it gripped N’Kalo now.
Sarpedon pulled back a final veil of bodies and revealed an opening,
like an abscess, in the mass. It had formed around a spike of stone, a
stalagmite, to which was chained another body.
This body was that of a male Imperial citizen, N’Kalo could tell that
at first glance. He had a glowing, raw hole over one eye where a bionic
had once been implanted, and the Imperial aquila had been tattooed
on one shoulder. He was the only one of Molikor’s dead that N’Kalo
had seen who was restrained in this way.
‘This,’ said Sarpedon, ‘is Manter Thyll. He was sent by the
Parliaments of Molikor to explore the delta marshlands. He found the
Eshkeen and bargained his way into the pit, to see what they were so
intent on protecting. They thought when he saw this place, he would
treat its protection as a sacred undertaking just like they did. But they
were wrong.’
Sarpedon took a data-slate from the belt of his armour. N’Kalo
hadn’t noticed it before, since his attention had been focussed on
Sarpedon’s abhorrent mutations to the exclusion of such a detail.
‘This is the report he sent back to the Parliaments,’ said Sarpedon.
The image was of poor quality, only just recognisable as the face of
the man chained to the rock. In life, Manter Thyll had combined an
explorer’s ruggedness with a gentlemanly façade, his well-weathered
face surmounted by a powdered periwig.
‘–the Eshkeen had guarded it for generations, my lords. And though
at first appearance it was a horrible sight, yet upon closer examination
and the questioning of my Eshkeen hosts I came to understand it is
the greatest treasure this world possesses. They are not living beings,
you see, but they are not dead. They do not age, they do not tire. They
simply exist. Think, my lords! Think what a resource they could be! An
endless source of brute labour! If they can be trained then all is well, if
not then a simple system of electronics and interfaces would suffice to
make them useful. I believe that the dead of Molikor are the most
potent natural resource on this entire–’
Sarpedon paused the recording. N’Kalo stared dumbly for a few
seconds at Thyll’s image, then at the man’s face.
‘He came back to bargain with the Eshkeen for access to the pit,’
said Sarpedon. ‘They knew what he wanted by then. They killed him.’
‘Did they chain his body here?’ said N’Kalo.
‘No. I did, so that I could show it to someone like you. What Thyll
and the Parliamentarians did not realise, but what the Eshkeen have
known for thousands of years, is that power like this cannot be tapped
without consequences. The veil between realspace and the warp is
thin here. The emotions of the dying find form in the warp and are cast
back out into this pit. The ancestors of Molikor’s tribes knew it, and
they sent their best warriors to guard the pit. They grew to be the
Eshkeen. When the Imperium settled Molikor, the Parliamentarians
learned of the pit and they decided they wanted it for themselves,
without having any idea what it truly was.’
Sarpedon began to tear at the mass again, opening a path back up
towards the surface. N’Kalo could only follow, conflicting emotions
coursing through him. The immensity of what Sarpedon was saying,
the concept of a world that regurgitated its dead as these mindless
things, the claim that the Parliamentarians were the aggressors and
that the Eshkeen were the only thing standing between Molikor and
damnation – it weighed on him, and would not sit straight in his mind.
Everything N’Kalo had believed about Molikor, everything he had
assumed, was wrong.
The First Parliament of Molikor, the Father of Power, the Imperial Seat,
the Font of Majesty, towered over the assembled councillors like a
second set of heavens. The dome of the First Parliament was painted
to resemble a sky, dramatic clouds backlit by golden sunlight echoing
fanciful images of Terra’s own glories. The members of the First
Parliament, drawn from the lesser parliaments of Molikor’s cities, were
resplendent in the uniforms of the planet’s many militaries or the finery
of their mercantile houses, wearing the symbol of the aquila to
proclaim their loyalty to the Imperium.
Three thousand men and women were gathered beneath the First
Parliament’s dome, the centremost place taken by Lord Speaker
Vannarian Wrann. Wrann, as the mouthpiece of the First Parliament,
was recognised as Molikor’s Imperial Governor. He was a sturdy and
squat man, ermine-trimmed robes hanging off wide shoulders. He wore
the massive gilded chain of his office around where his neck would
have been had one existed between his barrel chest and shaven,
glowering lump of a head. On the chain hung a silver aquila studded
with diamonds and rubies, to match the fat gemstones on the rings he
wore on his stubby fingers.
‘Men and women of the First Parliament!’ shouted Wrann. ‘You sons
and daughters of the Imperial Will! We hereby recognise Commander
N’Kalo of the Iron Knights!’
N’Kalo made his way down the aisle towards the centre of the
dome. Every eye followed him. Jaded as they were by every honour
and beautification Molikor could place before them, the sight of a
Space Marine was something new to them. Those closest shuddered
in fear as N’Kalo walked past, for even in his knightly armour with its
crests and laurels there was no mistaking that he was fundamentally a
killing machine.
‘Honoured councillors of Molikor,’ began N’Kalo as he approached
Wrann. ‘Many thanks for receiving me to the heart of your government.
The Iron Knights, as you do, claim the will of the Emperor as their
warrant to arms, and in this we are brethren beneath His sight.’
‘You are welcomed, Commander N’Kalo, and your brother Space
Marines are granted all honours it is the First Parliament’s right to
bestow. Truly you stand before us as saviours of our people, as
deliverers of our citizens from the threats that have so gravely beset
us.’ Wrann’s words were met with polite applause from the First
Parliament’s members. ‘Do you come here to tell us that the rebellion
has been quashed?’ he continued. ‘That the hateful Eshkeen will no
longer plague our lands with their savagery, and that the Emperor’s
rule shall continue on Molikor?’
N’Kalo removed his helm. In spite of the need to keep up
appearances, many councillors could not help grimacing or even
turning away at the sight of N’Kalo’s burned face, its skin here
blackened, there deformed like wax that had melted and recooled, and
elsewhere missing entirely.
‘No, Lord Speaker,’ he said. ‘I have not.’
His words were met with silence. Those councillors who did not
stare in grim fascination at N’Kalo’s face glanced uneasily between
their neighbours.
‘Commander?’ said Wrann. ‘Pray, explain yourself.’
‘I have seen the pit,’ said N’Kalo. ‘I have heard the words of Manter
Thyll. When my Iron Knights answered the call for intervention from
this Parliament, they did so without critical thought, without exploring
first the history of this world and the true nature of its conflicts. Ours is
the way of action, not contemplation. But we were forced into
examining Molikor by allies of the Eshkeen, who also responded to
your pleas for assistance, but to find out the truth, not merely destroy
the Eshkeen as you desired.’
‘Of what pit do you speak?’ demanded Wrann. ‘And this Manter
Thyll? We know nothing of–’
‘Do not lie to me!’ shouted N’Kalo. The councillors sitting closest to
him tried to scramble away, ending up on one another’s laps to put
some distance between them and the angry Space Marine. ‘I sought
to understand for myself. I went to the historical archives in Molik
Tertiam. Yes, to that place you thought hidden from the eyes of
outsiders! My battle-brothers stormed the estate of Horse Marshal
Konigen, that hero of your history, and demanded of him the truth of
why he first led his armies into the delta lands! We know the truth, my
brothers and I. The war on Molikor is not about an uprising by the
Eshkeen. It is about your desire to exploit Molikor’s dead as labour for
your mines and shipyards! It is about the wealth they can bring you! It
is about your willingness to exploit the powers bleeding from the warp,
and the Eshkeen’s determination to prevent you from committing such
a sin!’
‘Then what would you have us do?’ shouted Wrann. ‘This frontier
hangs by a thread! Without the war materiel that such labour could
produce, we will never hold the Ghoul Stars! Humanity can barely
survive out here as it is! Would you have us enslave our own? Would
you have us grind our own hands to bone?’
‘No,’ replied N’Kalo calmly. ‘I would have you leave.’
The Judgement Upon Garadan made little concession to the
embellishment and glorification that endowed many other Adeptus
Astartes strike cruisers. It was every inch a warship, all riveted iron
and hard, brutal lines, and as it hung in orbit over Molikor it seemed to
glower down at the clouded planet. The lion-head crest, mounted
above the prow like heraldry on a feudal knight’s helm, was the sole
concession to appearances.
Inside, the Judgement was much the same, with little to suggest the
glorious history the Iron Knights brought with them. N’Kalo conducted
most of his ship’s business from the monastic cell in which he trained
and meditated when his flag-captain did not require him on the bridge.
The pict screen mounted on one wall showed a close-up of the space
above Molikor’s main spaceport. N’Kalo watched as a flock of
merchant and cargo ships drifted up from the cloud cover, a shower of
silvery sparks. On those ships was the Imperial population of Molikor,
among them the Parliamentarian leaders. Those leaders had, less
than three days ago, received an ivory scroll case containing orders to
evacuate their planet on pain of destruction. Those orders were signed
with a single ‘I’, which gave them an authority within the Imperium
second only to the word of the God-Emperor Himself.
Inside the scroll case had also been a string of rosarius beads. It
was a traditional message. If you defy these orders, they implied, then
use these beads to pray, for prayer is your only hope of deliverance.
Events moved slowly in space, given the vast distances involved.
The pict screen flicked between the views of the fleeing
Parliamentarian ships, and the single vessel, its livery gold and black,
that drifted in from its concealed observation position behind one of
Molikor’s moons. This ship, of which N’Kalo did not know the name,
had arrived at Molikor so quickly it must have possessed archeotech
or even xenos drives to have made so rapid a journey through the
warp.