by William King
Other futures fanned out like a peacock's tail. In some of them, the humans won their war and destroyed the eldar of Craftworld Ulthwe. In others, they were themselves destroyed when the xenogens deployed weapons of apocalyptic power. In all of the timelines though, destruction was wrought on an enormous scale by the thing that wore Janus Darke's body. Was it possible that one entity could create so much devastation, Janus wondered? A stone starts an avalanche, he thought; a butterfly's wing begets a cyclone. Yes, it was possible.
He felt his sanity teeter on the brink. He had gone his entire life without realising all of the possibilities that lurked in his future waiting to devour him. It was as if he had been blind all of his life and suddenly been given vision. How could he have known his decisions could have had so great an effect? He had blundered blindly along his path, unaware of all the people he had affected and all the things that he might have done. It was possible that somewhere in the past he might have taken a different route, might have avoided this altogether, but such thoughts were senseless now. It was too late for that. Just as in one heartbeat it would be too late to regret the decisions he was taking this instant. For all of his actions held a decision, he realised, even if he did nothing. He could paralyse himself by indecision, for some of those futures would come about through his own inaction.
Now too he became aware of the fatal flaw in the farseer's vision: it was imperfect. Just as each decision birthed its own future, it also created its own shadows on the mirror of the future. He could not forsee the consequences of all his actions. It simply was not possible for any mortal mind to encompass them all.
And that was not taking into account the fact that some timelines were hidden from view. They folded away into the future, and were hidden behind other events like roads being hidden behind hills, or a ship disappearing out of sight on the other side of a massive wave. For the future was not fixed. It was not simply a choice between linear paths. Every decision held the seed of another decision. Every path divided and divided again at critical points. The whole mass seethed like an ocean in turmoil, responding to the tiniest of stimuli—the way he moved his hand, what he saw from the corner of his eye. An eye blink could spawn a different eternity, he saw. There was too much information, too many stimuli. He felt like he was drowning under a tidal wave of images.
Despair swept over him. He saw too that there were other timelines, currently precious few, in which he survived the coming storm. In most of them, he saw Auric, Athenys and Simon and some of the others swimming against the tidal wave of disaster. But even in those every path eventually led down into darkness. In some, he was gunned down in a pointless petty battle. In some he died abed in old age. In one he choked on a fishbone. In another he was run down by an autocar while trying to cross the street.
What was the point, he thought? All roads led to death anyway.
What did it matter to him whether a daemon took his flesh and created a hell on earth with it? His flesh was doomed anyway. Death's bony claws stretched out everywhere. All of life was a nightmare that ended when breath stopped and the heartbeat ceased. He tried to pull himself away from the gems and their odd patterns, but he was caught in their intricate swirl of power.
Too late he saw another trap, that he could die even here, or at least be reduced to a mindless gibbering thing, his sanity crushed by seeing too much of too many things that man was not meant to see. Too late he saw that if this happened, the daemon that wore his face might be able to reach out and claim him.
He sensed something coming for him, reaching out through the lattice of energy that the farseer had created.
Too late he saw where all of those threads of possibility were connected through. Too late he realised that they all ran through the immaterium. It was the medium that connected all living things and all psychic powers. And it was also the place that held all of the daemons of Chaos including the thing that hunted him.
He felt its searching eye turn on him, saw the face that looked like his smile, and knew that there were things worse than death. Even if all there was to be looked forward to was oblivion then it was still preferable to what might happen to him if this thing caught him. He knew it would consume him, eat the very essence of his being, and yet part of him would live on, imprisoned within it and tormented.
It will not be like that, said a sweet, seductive voice from somewhere. You will live forever within me, true, but you will experience what I experience, and believe me, that will be an immensity of things. You will know all of my joys and pleasure, partake of an infinity of ecstasies, look out through the eyes of an immortal, see worlds rise from the void, watch the births and deaths of universes. Death need hold no fear for you; contained within me are multitudes that already know this. You will share in my being and my power.
The voice was the voice of a rebel angel: sweet, reasonable, persuasive, yet knowing and sympathetic to mortal aspirations and weaknesses. It understood him, as he wanted to be understood, forgave him all the things he wished to be forgiven. It knew his sins and his vices and overlooked them—no it encouraged them, for it knew that it was these things that made him human, and different from all others. It took him for himself, warts and all. A wave of joy and pleasure passed through Janus.
This was like looking on the face of the Emperor and seeing there not the stern visage of eternal, omnipotent judgement, but the face of a friend. This was not what he had expected at all.
They lie about us, mortal. They seek to keep you in terror, afraid of sin, afraid of life, afraid of yourself. They seek to keep you under their thrall by making you weak and powerless and small. We seek to set you free and your oppressors would prevent this.
The truth of the being's words seemed self-evident. He wondered how he had failed to notice this all of these years.
Ah, but you have noticed them. I am but telling you what you have always known deep in your heart, what you have already thought and then felt guilty about. Admit it, I am merely putting into words your own thoughts, and telling you that I agree with them. They are the truths of your birthright that your Emperor and all his little minions have sought to deny you.
Janus listened to the voice, seeking any note of falsehood, and could detect none. There was a rightness in the being's words.
They prate of duty, when they mean duty to themselves. They speak to you of honour, when what they mean is that you should honour them. They talk of obedience when what they mean is slavery. They tell you that you should worship your chains, and be grateful for your fetters. I am here to tell you something different. It does not have to be this way. You can join with us, and be free.
Janus almost reached out to the presence, but something held him back. He sensed he was being restrained by something, felt Auric near. He tried to shrug off the restraints but they were too strong. Still, he knew all he needed to do was hold out and the warm reassuring presence would find him. He felt a flow of almost smug satisfaction and wondered if it came from within him.
The presence was coming closer now, his astral senses bathed in its approach. Strange, pleasurable things happened to them. He smelled a perfume so intoxicating he felt like laughing, not only smelled it but tasted it, and felt it within what might have been his bones too. It was musky and hinted at pleasures forbidden and excessive. He felt like laughing. His whole being tingled with life.
Fool, whispered a small, distant voice, you will doom us both. Compared to the first presence's voice this was as harsh as stone grating against stone. Stop fighting me, the daemon comes and now is not the time to confront it.
The daemon comes, Janus wondered? What daemon? Slowly, the euphoria began to diminish. The realisation came as to what the first presence really was. It was something that wanted to consume his soul, and it did not matter that it promised the experience would be a pleasurable one; in the end all he would be was fodder to it. He sensed this knowledge too flowed from outside him. It was coming from the farseer. With the knowledge came a hint of des
peration. The eldar, despite his knowledge and his power, was deathly afraid.
Slowly, that fear communicated itself to Janus, and warred with his sense of well-being. He sensed that the daemon was close now, so close that in moments he would not be able to avoid it even if he wanted to. Finally, he stopped resisting and gave way to the eldar's pressure. He felt himself being swept back to his body and the matrix of energy closed behind him.
Was it already too late?
SEVENTEEN
PLANS WITHIN PLANS
Janus crashed back into his flesh. A great weight pressed down on him. He was drowning in thick, viscous fluid. The thunder of blood through his veins was agonising. After the pure ethereal being he had just experienced, life itself felt like agony.
Desperately he tried to stop breathing in the turgid stuff but he could not, and slowly the realisation came to him that it was merely air. It just felt rough and heavy on his lungs after the lightness of the medium he had passed through as a disembodied spirit. He raised a hand that felt like it weighed a hundred tonnes, pushed against gravity as great as that on the surface of a gas giant. He touched the gem on his forehead. It felt warm and slick as if it were a living thing.
After a few heartbeats he began to tremble. Now that he was wrapped once more in flesh, the siren call of the daemon seemed somehow more, rather than less powerful. Had he really turned down the offer of immortality, of an eternity of ecstasy? Had Auric really prevented him from reaching his personal heaven? How cruel and wicked the eldar was, Janus thought, and he almost felt like crying.
The door of his chamber opened and the evil xenogen himself swept in. He was still garbed in his formal armour, the great sword bared in his hand. Eldritch runes glittered on the blade. A strange gem glowed on its hilt. Auric looked ready to do violence at any moment. Janus could sense the lethal power in that alien weapon. Certain death rode the merest kiss of that keen edge. There was no trace of the urbane aesthete now in Auric. What confronted him was an armoured warrior, dangerous as a daemon, and just as angry.
He moved the blade through an intricate formal pattern and its glowing tip left compelling lines of fire in the air. Janus found himself forced to look at them, and did so without flinching. Auric stood poised and Janus knew that his life was balanced on a knife-edge at that moment. If he did or said the wrong thing, he would die instantly. Suddenly the blade swept forward with the speed of a lightning stroke. Janus could not have avoided it even if he wanted to.
He felt something snap on his chest and looking down, he saw that Auric, with consummate and astonishing skill, had severed the chain holding the talisman Justina had given him, without breaking Janus's skin. The eldar now lifted the talisman, balancing it on the point of his blade and inspected it, like a man might inspect a huge, venomous spider.
'You could have destroyed us all, mortal. This thing is tainted by the power of Chaos.'
Janus thought back to his encounter with the daemon, and his viewing in the stones. It seemed to him that there was a subtle wrongness in the eldar's words. 'No. You could have destroyed us all.'
Auric laughed. 'In a sense you are correct, Janus Darke. I misjudged the strength of your power, despite all of my attempts not to do so, and I misjudged the strength of the destiny that connects us.'
'You are not telling me the entire truth, Auric,' Janus knew it was the case. Something had happened during the ritual, something that had granted him new insights into the eldar and his motives; some link had been forged between them. Perhaps it had always been there, and this was the first time he was acute enough to realise it.
The eldar's whole posture radiated surprise. He obviously had not expected these accusations. Janus turned things over in his mind. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps this new knowledge came from somewhere else. Perhaps it was a deception from the daemons.
He needed time to think, to consider his options. He felt that he was missing something, that there was a pattern here he might be able to perceive and understand if he was given time. It was how he had often felt before going into battle.
For the first time since he had started hearing the voices, he felt wholly alive and in his element.
'There are some things that it is better not to know,' said Auric.
'You cannot frighten me with hints and whispers.'
'I do not seek to frighten you. I am merely telling you the truth.'
'As you see it.'
To Janus's surprise, the eldar laughed. 'Yes—I tell everything as I see it. That is my gift and my flaw. And worlds have lived and died because of the way I see things.'
'You must be very certain of your gifts, or those who listen to you must be.'
'It is impossible to be certain of such gifts, Janus Darke. There are too many possibilities of error, too many ways for the Great Enemy to manipulate what we see. Hope and fear and desire cloud and shape the visions. What I see, I see only imperfectly. And yet-'
'And yet?'
And yet, it is better than not seeing at all. Such visions have kept eldar civilisation alive since the dark times. Some of our kind foresaw the birth of the Enemy and warned our people. Few listened, but those who did lived. It has lent weight to the words of the farseers ever since.'
'I imagine that it would.'
'You are being very glib about things you know nothing about, human. These are matters of life and death to my people.'
'You take a lot upon yourselves,' said Janus with considerable irony.
'We do, and we do not do so lightly,' said Auric. 'We are the light that guides our people along a dark path fraught with perils, where the slightest misstep may mean extinction for all.'
'There is an arrogance about that statement I dislike,' said Janus.
'We compel no one to follow us; they do so willingly.'
'You compel me to follow you. I do not do so willingly.'
'I have never placed a blade to your throat and made you do anything, Janus Darke. You have always been given a choice.'
'It has not felt that way,' Janus considered the farseer's words and could see that they were true as far as they went, but they did not tell the whole story. 'Subtle and not so subtle forms of compulsion have been used upon me.'
'Nonetheless, choices were always yours.'
'That's not how I see it.'
Auric shook his head, like an adult dealing with a willful child.
Janus could see he would make no headway against the eldar; he was not even sure why he was trying. He sensed a subtle wrongness here that he wanted to probe. His experience with the farseer's runestones had given him some inkling of the eldar's power, and he felt more than ever like a fly caught in a subtle web. Or perhaps more like a beast being herded to slaughter by the presence of dogs on either side. It was not a sensation he liked.
'What are you doing here, Auric? Really.'
'I am trying to prevent a war, and incidentally save your soul.'
'I sense that the latter is very incidental.'
'You are correct but it does not change the fact. Now pay attention, Janus Darke. We must soon descend onto Belial IV and there are things you must know.'
As he listened, Janus found some very dark thoughts flickering through his mind. Had the farseer really not known about Justina's amulet until just now? Why had he really performed the ritual without Janus present? Had he known the daemon would appear? Back on Crowe's World hunters staked out goats on the edge of swamps where dragons lived, hoping to lure them onto killing ground.
Janus was starting to feel that he knew exactly how those goats felt.
'We have arrived,' said Simon Belisarius, speaking into the comm-net. He gazed out of the command deck's observation window down onto the planet below. It looked a cold unprepossessing place, in a long elliptical orbit around a feeble red sun. Sensor divination revealed very little life on the planet. Observation with long range holo-scopes showed many enormous ruined cities and signs of some ancient war or catastrophe. Belial IV must have once been a r
ich and populous world. Now it gave the impression of being a vast, haunted graveyard.
In the holosphere floating in front of him, he could see Athenys and Auric now wore full formal gear. The farseer was armoured, the woman wore a cloak of black silk trimmed with white fur. 'You have done well, Simon Belisarius,' said Auric.
'Have I discharged my part of the ancient debt?' Simon asked.
'Not yet, but soon. You will be informed. We wish to descend to the surface—order a shuttle readied. Janus Darke and his men will come with us.'
'You are expecting danger.'
'I am not expecting it, Simon Belisarius. I am certain of it.'
'Perhaps it would be best to tell us what you do expect then.'
'Janus Darke has assembled his men in the briefing room. They will soon learn all they need to know.'
'Very good. I will have the tech-augurs prepare sensor divinations of the surface as well.'
The command chamber of the Pride of Sin was full to the brim with Zarghan's followers. There were at least a hundred of them, and they were not a pretty sight. Most showed the stigmata of mutation or the wasting effects of too great a dedication to the pursuit of pleasure. One or two were quite obviously dying of some of the nastier diseases associated with it. No, Zarghan decided, not a pretty sight.
As he listened to the power chords surging in his head, the Chaos Marine had to admit that Shaha Gaathon had not been wrong when she called his men scum. Looking at them through the halo of curdled lemon coloured light that filled his vision, he had to agree that they were, for the most part, not people with whom he would want to spend eternity with. They were, he decided, the dregs of humanity, which was saying a lot. They were mostly members of various cults dedicated to the Lord of all Pleasure in his more warlike aspects, with a smattering of mutants, abhumans and the odd psyker thrown in. When he measured them against his former battle-brothers they were a tawdry lot. On the other hand, a warrior worked with whatever weapons were at hand, and this bunch was all he had.