by Gav Thorpe
A masquerade of glittering jewels hid the dark truth that all things faltered and failed, a facade of happiness and fulfilment erected by the ego of all sentient creatures to persuade them there was a meaning within the interminable pointless cycle.
Slowly, across aeons of time, the decay grew stronger. Entropy picked apart all that existed, turning civilisations to dust and suns to clouds of cooling gas. Nothing could escape the grip of the immortal destroyer: time. Life became death and, in turn, death became life. Everything was sustained by this simple cycle of existence.
The Librarian let his companions see what he could see, showing them drooping leaves turned by autumn to russet and gold, mist streaming between the trunks tinged with green and black, a diseased smog. In the distance an immense edifice soared above the woods, indistinct, giant and grotesque.
Something was approaching. He heard buzzing from a distance, which swiftly became an incessant droning converging from all directions. The shadows seemed to merge and deepen, thickening if that were possible, becoming tangible like a pool of oil. The noise drowned out the fluttering of dried leaves and the drip of foggy tears.
From everywhere, fat-bodied flies spilled from beneath the gloom of the decaying forest. The swarm engulfed Harahel in moments, pressing closer and closer until a layer of furry blackness covered him, constantly moving. They found gaps in his armour to settle on his skin, not biting, but squashing their bloated bodies into his flesh, oppressive through virtue of their numbers. They sought the visor of his helm, thickening on his face, pressing through to cover his eyes and blot out the light of the Astronomican.
He tried to sweep them away with his gauntleted hand, but they were too thick, too numerous. Like a drowning man thrashing at the waves, his blows moved slowly, the thickness of the swarm itself so dense that it was suffocating. Where he crushed them, vomit-yellow smears stained his armour, bubbling and blistering like acid. The droning was intolerable, making his head throb, burning his eardrums with its monotony.
Harahel flailed, gritting his teeth, but parting his lips simply allowed more of the flies to push in, skittering along his gums, trying to squeeze their soft bodies between his incisors. His nostrils were blocked by squirming insects forcing their way up into his sinuses, seeking the warm passages down into his lungs. The Librarian attempted to dislodge the swarm with the leaves hanging lank from drooping branches, crashing through the trees, almost tripping on the rocks of folly that appeared beneath his tread. Blood-like sap spattered his battleplate, sticky fluid seeping into the joints and hardening to a paralysing resin.
It was as though they were buzzing inside his head now. He could feel thousands of grotesque bodies pushing into his organs, crawling along nerves and arteries, clogging his lungs and heart.
This was how all things ended. Even the mighty Space Marines of the Adeptus Asartes. Even the Astronomican. Even the Emperor.
It was all so pointless to struggle. What if he were to prevail today? There would be another battle tomorrow. Each day brought fresh threats against mankind. The Space Marines were pitifully and ridiculously few. Fewer than one Space Marine per world in the Imperium. The forces of the Imperial Guard numbered in the countless billions, but their souls and hearts were weak and in time even that bulwark would crumble like a wall battered by the constant wind and rain. Courage would falter, and what then?
Why did it matter? To die today was no better and certainly no worse than dying tomorrow. That was the nature of the inevitable, the unavoidable. Orks could be slain, eldar craftworlds destroyed, tyranid fleets scattered, but there was no way to defeat time or death. It was folly and pride to believe that anything made a difference.
Harahel’s courage suffocated even as imaginary lungs were starved of breath. He felt the darkness consuming him. No, not consuming, welcoming. He had but one chance to rid himself of the curse of life. It was simple, to accept that the Lord of Decay was his master. In doing so he would become one with decay, its ally, not its victim. No matter how superhuman his mind and body, only acceptance of the ascendancy of the Master of the Dead Manse could save Harahel.
A distant voice, a connection to the real world, brought him back from the void of oblivion. He reached out with his thoughts, drawn back to his body by the contact.
‘Ulthor, brother,’ said Sammael, stepping closer to the Librarian. The black of his robes seemed to suck in what little light remained, leaving his face a pale mask floating in gloom. ‘Cast your mind to the world of Ulthor. It is close, brother.’
Sammael’s faith was like a cleansing touch, his brotherhood a source of infinite strength. Harahel did not fight for himself, for his eternal soul or his mortal body. He fought for his brethren in the Chapter. He fought for mankind. He fought for the Emperor.
In a moment, refreshed by the contact with his physical form, the Librarian found that the fly swarm had gone. Not dissipated, but burned away by silver flames crackling across his body, their daemon-essence absorbed, their power neutralised by a psychic surge, leaving nothing but wispy husks flying away on a strengthening breeze of his renewed will.
Though he had fended off the flies, Harahel knew his trials were far from over as he pressed on towards his goal. Storm clouds swirled and thickened overhead, the sky turning from grotesque yellow to black, as though bruised by the battering of some huge fist.
The rotten canopy of the dead forest swayed as the gales came, bringing with them a tumult of broken branches and tattered leaves that crashed against Harahel’s armour as he advanced into the tempest. Step by step he forged forward, jaw clamped tight with determination.
Back aboard the Dark Angels starship, Harahel’s body flinched and tensed again. His breathing came more quickly and his fingers moved from his lap to grip the arms of the chair.
With Sammael’s words driving him, he fixed on the shadowy tower atop the distant cliff, taking one slow step after another, leaning hard into the gale. The storm did not wholly obscure the light of the silver star. Harahel could see the paler gleam like a path in front of him, occasionally being blotted out as darkness swirled, sometimes turning into forked lightning that split open the storm and lit the road ahead.
Coming to the foot of the cliff, Harahel paused and looked up. From this perspective the edifice seemed almost endless, the city-tower out of sight, the heights of the cliff lost in the gloom of distance.
He reached up and took hold of a jutting rock. Pulling himself up, he found a foothold and raised himself off the ground. Harahel fixed his stare at the vaguest line that delineated clifftop from sky and climbed. His thoughts shaped the cliff face so that wherever he sought a handhold for fingers to grip or a niche for toes to set upon, there was always something there.
His was not the only will that guided the formation of the dark rock. Roots split the stones, jabbing like spears into his body and legs, scratching across his armour. Others writhed like tentacles, trying to grasp wrists and ankles, seeking to wrench him from his precipitous advance. The more he ascended, the more violently the cliff struggled against him, lashing whips of roots trying to dislodge him, to send him plummeting back to the hungry forest below.
Wasting no energy, not even to snarl or groan, Harahel pushed upwards, his thoughts enclosed behind a barrier of steel as his immaterial form was shielded by the silver of his armour. The labour was nothing, a test of will more than muscle, and no sooner had he come to this realisation he found himself grasping a fistful of rock to haul himself onto the cliff top.
It had seemed to him before that the tower of Ulthor had been almost upon the edge of the great drop, but he found that it had been a lie, a trick of hope rather than objective perspective. The tower had disappeared and in its place he saw an immense ebon-petalled flower.
‘The black rose, a thousand flies crawling on the petals. The stem bends but does not break, swayed by foetid winds carrying pollen of despair to the bright flow
ers of hope. A choking presence, cloying.’
He could see the tiny pollen grains pouring into the sky like the fume from a fire. If he focused he could see that each miniscule dot was in fact three globes attached to each other, and each of the globes was a grinning skull. The smog rose higher and higher, whirling about in a vortex of wind until it reached the storm clouds, where it drifted down across the whole of the foetid garden and the dead woods beyond.
Like black snow the pollen fell, and though he brought up a corner of his blue robe to cover his nose and mouth he could feel the tiny particles passing through the weave, settling about his tongue and throat.
He thought they might bring pain, but instead he felt numbness stretching from where they alighted on membrane and muscle. His jaw felt slack and his airways opened, allowing more and more of the black pollen beads into his body.
Individually, the tiny intruding specks were inconsequential, but as they grew in number Harahel felt them melting into his body, trying to become part of him. Like the flies before, the pollen set itself in his flesh, looking to become a seed, to send out roots into his thoughts.
He staggered, mesmerised by the apparition of the gigantic black rose. There was purity in its blackness, hidden colours and depths that he had never imagined existed. The pollen was not a poison, it was an elixir of truth, granting him the ability to see the universe as it really was. Through eyes stained grey he saw the atoms at the heart of suns perishing to produce heat and light. He saw the dust of dead novae collecting over the ages to form new worlds, new stars. In bacterial sludge he saw energy transferring from one state to another, never disappearing, simply finding new forms, infused with immortality.
The sludge expanded and grew, became higher life, sentient and self-knowing, and the innocence faded. The blossom began to wilt with the pain of knowledge. To see, to hear and feel was to deceive oneself. The mind existed only as a barrier to the reality that all was transient and nothing as permanent.
He wanted to help the flower, to sustain its beauty, but already he was guilty of the sin of knowing. Harahel’s resistance was a poison in the bosom of the earth, seeping into the roots of purity. It was his adherence to falsehood that was causing the bloom to sag, the petals falling away one by one, each loss accompanied by a wrenching pain in Harahel’s heart.
The Librarian gasped loudly and flung a hand to his face, covering his eyes, though they were still shut. The darkness around him was absolute, the vista of light-woven scenes playing about his head and turning like a kaleidoscope, coming in and out of focus.
For the first time since besting the cliff Harahel noticed the soft ground underfoot, welcoming and golden. He wanted to lie down, to be subsumed into the layer of fertile earth so that his essence could give life to new creatures. In accepting his role he would purge the toxins he had brought forth with his presence. His conversion to the truth would be nourishment, enriching the bloom of death that he desired so strongly. Sacrifice would water the roots, his blood and soul fertiliser to make the stem stand strong again, to push forth new flowers so that the great process of reproduction could spread the pollen of truth across the galaxy.
Though Harahel’s conscious thoughts wanted him to surrender, his instincts – his inner mind protected by centuries of ritual and practice – pushed him on towards his goal. Where the mind was weak, the soul remained strong. Though he could no longer see the silver star, he could still sense its presence, lighting his way to his objective. He followed it blindly, trusting to the Emperor to deliver him to his purpose.
He stumbled on, fighting the sensations, trying to stay awake. He was so tired. His legs were leaden, and he had long since given up trying to shield his face with his cloak. Every breath drew in a thousand more pollen globes. Harahel was almost at the last of his resistance, numbed and exhausted.
The Librarian turned as he fell, looking back the way he had come. Before his eyes closed forever he caught a glimpse of the silver star.
Forcing his eyes to remain open he allowed the light of the Emperor to stream into him. Its presence drove out the black pollen, purging arteries and veins, heart and lungs, guts, hands and feet.
As the pollution within him cleared, so too did the sky. The storm receded, revealing a beautiful azure heaven untroubled by cloud or wind. A silver sun touched him with warmth. The armour that was his second skin absorbed the strength of its rays, abating the numbness to fill him with fresh vigour.
The tower was close now and Harahel knew that it had been there all along, concealed by the glamour of the black rose. He could almost reach out and touch the moss-covered, pitted stone walls. Tendrils of plant life covered the crumbling brickwork, obscuring doorways and windows, twisting around the skeletons of those that had attempted to climb them before. The wind returned, now chill and laden with the scent of death. As the vines stirred, skulls chattered to the Librarian, their rictus warnings wordless but strangely comprehensible.
Only the foolish followed in the footsteps of those that had perished. Only the prideful dared to think themselves strong enough to overcome the obstacles that still lay ahead. Arrogance would be Harahel’s downfall. Better to return in failure than never return at all.
The snickering of the death’s heads fuelled the Librarian’s doubts. His companions would never know – could never comprehend – the risks he had taken already. It would serve no purpose to die here, ensnared by the evil of this broken keep. How could he protect humanity from beyond the grave?
Despite these misgivings weighing down every step, Harahel resolved to push on. It was the destiny of every Space Marine to ultimately offer up his life for mankind, and it was not for Harahel to decide that one day was better than another. This was the task at hand and he would apply himself to it with all his strength and will until he succeeded, or died.
All that remained was to traverse the mire that surrounded Ulthor like a moat. Bubbling tar pits and sucking marsh lay between him and his goal. Fronds of rushes stood out from the boggy ground, rattling in a dry wind. The noise of escaping gases and the movement of something sinuous and large beneath the surface caused Harahel to pause at the swamp’s edge.
There looked to be pathways through the mire, but the Librarian was not so easily fooled. He was beginning to get the measure of this place. The false hope was the foundation of everything that passed in this immaterial reflection of Ulthor. All that seemed achievable was simply a ruse created to drag the interloper further into the web of despair, drawn so far from their normal path that they could not find their way out again. The seemingly secure route would doubtless peter out, leaving him stranded, succumbing to isolation and despair.
Then he remembered where he was. He did not have to toil across the morass, he could simply extend his will and make it something else. Just as its light had resurrected his flagging strength, so now the heat of the silver star, guided by his power, baked the corrupted earth dry, turning marsh to packed dirt, tar to hardened puddles of blackness. The plants withered under the harsh light of Harahel’s power, drying and cracking beneath his psychic glare.
The energy of the writhing grasses and towering rushes seeped into the ground to escape the glare of the Librarian’s assault. Here the warp power swelled roots and tubers, which in turn leeched more nourishment from the dirt, continuing to grow to enormous proportion. Harahel could sense them bulging like seed pods, the latent power within pulsing and churning. As he scanned them with his mind he felt that he was being regarded by malign beings in return.
The roots started to move, burrowing towards Harahel, metamorphosing from vegetable matter to something else, something not quite animal but sentient and aware. White-bodied, feeling their way towards the Librarian by latching on to the scent of his soul, the loathsome slug-like beasts closed in.
‘A field of maggots, laid beneath the bosom of the world, full of vitality, waiting to burst forth. They hear me. The bli
nd worms see me.’
Beads of sweat were running down the psyker’s physical brow and the light leaking from beneath his eyelids took on a rusty hue.
‘The warp is claiming him,’ he heard Asmodai snarl as the Chaplain shoved Sapphon aside to stand at the very edge of the psychic circle. ‘Something is burrowing into his mind.’
‘Do not break the field,’ warned Sapphon, taking a step closer. ‘We must trust to his assurances, brother.’
On the edge of awareness, Harahel noticed Asmodai dart a look at Sapphon that conveyed his contempt for the assurances of psykers more clearly than any words. The psyker flinched, feeling the lash of contempt striking his soul. Sammael moved up beside the Chaplain, eyes flashing with anger, but he did not lay a hand on Asmodai.
Breaking into a run, Harahel forged his way past the dead and dying blooms of the march-plants, heading towards the base of the Ulthor tower. His armoured boots left imprints in the dust that filled with grey ooze from below. The slime puddles took on a bulbous shape, turning grey from green, budding grasping hands and beady eyes. Clawed fingers and antlers sprouted from fist-sized daemonic minions. Snarling and giggling, they tumbled after Harahel, forming a carpet of vicious, grinning faces and red eyes.
The Librarian focused his powers ahead, trying to see into the tower that represented the world of Ulthor. Much was barred to his sight, encrusted with vile mould and lichen that blotted his thoughts, but he was able to pierce the foundations of the city, which stretched deep into the rotten earth.
He sensed mortal souls for the first time since leaving his companions, tainted by the touch of the Lord of Decay. In the roots sprawling from the city he saw icons and livery known to him, and warriors clad in ancient, decay-ridden suits of war-plate: the Death Guard. He sought more information, hoping to glimpse their dire primarch, the dread Mortarion, but there was no sign of the daemon-cursed leader of the Traitor Legion. Instead Harahel witnessed row upon row of ghastly sarcophagi housing bloated, pale warriors, while an endless line of young slaves were herded into dark cellars, trailing implants that twitched and sputtered with their own life.