Accursed Eternity

by Sarah Cawkwell

  A daemon-ship. Korydon let out a soft snort of derisive laughter. He didn’t know what he had been expecting either. Certainly not metre after metre of expansive, clinically white corridors. Perhaps he had been anticipating attacks from misshapen warp entities. Perhaps he had been expecting the walls of the ship to be oozing ichor and blood…

  The thought dissolved into the ether and he shook himself. Fanciful, foolish thinking that had no place in the head of an Adeptus Astartes sergeant. ‘Move onwards,’ he ordered, waving with his bolter. Best to leave such ridiculous and fantastical imaginings to others. He could not allow such things to taint his duty.

  He abandoned the thought and the Star Dragons continued forwards. In the wake of their passage, something held onto the ethereal wisp of Korydon’s abandoned idea. With an inhuman appetite, it devoured what it needed to give itself the strength to take form. It had been left starving for so many years that the single thread of imagination was a veritable banquet. It was gorged upon and fed the invisible horrors of the Accursed Eternity. When it had finished, it wanted more.

  There was a saying from Old Terra that held truth in this place. Careless talk, so the saying went, costs lives.

  The future began to shape itself. In the corridor behind Third Scale, a dark and viscous fluid began to seep slowly from the walls, going entirely unnoticed by the Space Marines as they passed.

  ‘The corridor is all wrong.’

  The Chaplain’s observation put into words what all present were thinking. They had marched for far too long down the endless white hallway and there was no sign of its end. There had been nothing but the unblemished walls and the sound of their feet on the decking. Iakodos moved ahead a few more metres and, utilising the sensors in his helm, scanned ahead down the corridor. He focused his attention on the relevant readout, but there seemed to be something preventing the runes from giving him a fixed response. The numbers flickered and changed repeatedly.

  ‘Look, there.’ Ardashir stepped forwards. There was a hint of anxiety in his voice and the Chaplain watched him sharply. He looked to see what it was that the Blood Sword indicated.

  ‘I moved too close to the wall and made a mark just like that when we took the corridor from the crossroads,’ he said. The scrape mark of red armour on the wall of the corridor was almost like a smear of blood. ‘It must be a coincidence.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure, sergeant,’ murmured Remigius. Iakodos turned to look at him. His words sent a muttered ripple of uncertainty through the Space Marines.

  ‘Are you suggesting that we are trapped in this corridor?’ Ardashir stared down at the inquisitor. ‘That we will not be able to find our way out of it?’

  ‘I’m suggesting that there is a possibility the daemon at the heart of this ship is utilising the opportunity to play with us. Chaplain Iakodos, you need to ensure your brothers’ faith remains strong. If they begin to doubt, then we will be lost.’

  ‘We need to keep moving,’ interrupted Evander. ‘But to give us a clearer idea, let us be certain of what we are dealing with, shall we?’ With a metallic screech, he dragged the forearm of his armour in a cross-stroke over the red mark, adding a blue stripe to the marking on the wall. With caution, they proceeded down the corridor.

  It took them barely five minutes to return to the red and blue mark on the wall.

  ‘It was no coincidence, then.’ Ardashir slammed his balled fist into the wall in frustration. ‘We are trapped.’

  ‘Movement up ahead.’ The snapped announcement from Evander drew Iakodos’s attention and he brought his crozius up automatically, ready for an attack. Evander’s bolter was brought to bear and he pointed directly down the tunnel. The Chaplain followed the line of the sergeant’s gun and stiffened slightly as he too caught the motion. Again, his helm refused to feed him any data.

  Evander took a few steps forwards, then halted, raising his bolter again. ‘Moving towards us. Something… A lone figure. A huge form. Adeptus Astartes size at least.’ A thought came to him and he activated his vox-bead.

  ‘Third Scale, report in. Korydon, do you have any sort of visual contact?’

  ‘Negative. We have found nothing at all, brother. Is there a problem?’

  ‘Nothing we cannot handle.’ Evander cut the link and ratcheted the slide on his bolter. Without needing to speak the command, the entire squad, with the Blood Swords close behind, began to move to contact.

  The route to the bridge was remarkably uneventful for Third Scale. Apart from the single vox communication from Evander, there had been nothing to break the monotony of their investigation. They had reached a half-open bulkhead door that two of them were able to easily breach and had left the corridor behind.

  Korydon’s unease had not left him, however. Periodically, he had experienced the sense of shadows moving just out of the corner of his eye and had paused in his stride to turn his bolter towards something that only he could see. His behaviour was starting to cause similar actions amongst the rest of Third Scale and he silently berated himself.

  On leaving the bulkhead, they had entered a darker and much lower corridor with side rooms leading from it. Each of the Adeptus Astartes had to hunch slightly in order to fit their massive bulk into it. It was a puzzle and nothing at all like the layout of a strike cruiser that they had come to expect. The air was hazy and particles of dust twinkled in the light cast from the lumen-globes mounted on the walls.

  Inhaling briefly, Korydon caught the faintest hint of an aroma carried in the air. He could not quite identify it, however, and dismissed it as nothing more than stale air of an aeons-old ship. It was a musty scent, something that reminded him of the Librarium back home on Dracolith where the precious, ancient tomes of generations long past stood in preservative stasis bubbles.

  ‘Old books,’ supplied Tylissus. Korydon turned to him, both surprised and suspicious that the warrior had just voiced the very thought he had been harbouring.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It smells like old books in here,’ replied Tylissus, crouching low enough to peer in through one of the side rooms. It was empty but for a small cot in the corner of the room and several small piles of dust on the floor. He straightened up again and moved to look at the room radiating off on the opposite side. The same picture met him there.

  ‘Why would it smell like old books?’ It was a rhetorical question and Korydon got no response. ‘More to the point, why is this ship laid out in such a bizarre way?’

  ‘These may be the serfs’ quarters. Or may once have been,’ offered one of the squad, and Korydon nodded slowly. It made some sense that that might be the case; after all, the human element of a fleet’s complement did not require accommodation on the same scale as the massive post-humans.

  ‘Check all of these side rooms, then we press onwards to the bridge,’ he ordered. Hunkering to a crouch, he scooped up a handful of the dust on the floor. It had a faint ochre cast to it, almost as though it was rusted metal that had simply crumbled into its component atoms.

  He watched it thoughtfully as it trickled to the ground between the fingers of his gauntleted hand. It was fine and powdery and had he not been wearing his helm, which filtered the air to keep it passably breathable, he would have inhaled it with every lungful of oxygen he took.

  Korydon rubbed the dust between the fingers of his gauntlet, noting how it stained the blue ceramite with its ochre shade. Tylissus, who had completed his sweep of the side room, moved to stand beside him.

  ‘I am going to take a guess that all this dust might well be whatever is left of the former crew,’ he suggested in a low tone.

  The sergeant looked up at him and then back down at the dust. There was something unpleasant about the thought. He had stalked amongst the eviscerated and beheaded dead on battlefields like a spectre of death and had never felt revulsion. But to think that the very air he was breathing was filled with desiccated remains made Korydon wrinkle his nose in disgust.

  He got back to his feet and absentl
y wiped his gauntlet down the length of his thigh, leaving a red streak.

  When the squad reassembled they confirmed that there was nothing to be found within the side rooms at all. Korydon had expected nothing less and so this came as no real surprise to him.

  Before he could give the order to press on, something caught his attention: a strange movement from out of the corner of his left eye. He turned to face the wall and recoiled as a thick trickle of blood began to run down its length. It dribbled its way in a perfectly straight line to the floor and then, incredibly, began creeping along its length, through the dust, towards the gathered Space Marines.

  He stepped back into two battle-brothers who were standing directly behind him and with a loud clatter of armour, they crashed unceremoniously into the wall.

  ‘Sergeant?’ Tylissus was alert instantly, his blade unsheathed and at the ready. ‘What is it?’

  ‘There!’ Korydon pointed at the rivulet of ichor that had been oozing towards them. Only when he looked back, there was nothing there.

  Tylissus looked. He shook his head and Korydon momentarily tasted shame.

  ‘My apologies, brothers. I thought I saw…’ He shook his head and gave a gruff, humourless laugh. ‘Nothing. My mistake. Something in this place is attempting to get to me. We press on.’

  That was when the whispering started; and it was not just confined to the interior of Korydon’s skull. Wordless noises that ranged between hissing and cackling laughter reverberated throughout the small chamber. Every weapon came to the fore and every Star Dragons warrior tensed ready for an ambush that didn’t come.

  The noise built to a crescendo, an almost deafening roar of sound that filled the densely packed room in which the Adeptus Astartes stood. Then the first of the figures rose from the dust on the ground. Coalescing with alarming speed, the ash flowed into a solid figure that was humanoid in shape but featureless. It wavered for a few seconds, tipping this way and that, balancing itself. Eventually it ceased its rocking motion and stopped dead.

  A hideous gash split its head almost in two in a horrendous parody of a mouth. It held out a hand towards the Space Marines, a finger creating itself particle by painstaking particle. The digit extended and pointed towards Korydon.

  You die now.

  The words entered every battle-brother’s mind though none had been spoken, and Korydon waited no longer.

  ‘We will not,’ he replied, squeezing the trigger of his bolter. The shell lodged in the torso of the dust-thing, and it dipped its head to look at it. The slit mashed itself together and with creeping horror, Korydon got the uncanny sense that it was laughing. It raised its head again.

  You die now.

  Seconds later, it detonated. The ash exploded outwards, showering the squad in red dust and eliminating the creature. Only now more of them were appearing, flowing upwards into the same humanoid form.

  They inched forwards slowly as though movement itself was a difficult task. Korydon destroyed two more before bellowing the order to move through the chamber and leave through the other door. In short order, they were surrounded on all sides by the creeping wraiths. Bolt shells either passed through them or destroyed them in the way that Korydon’s shots had with the first.

  The creatures made no attempt to attack, merely continuing their slow approach towards the gathered Space Marines. They were silent but for the whispering sound that their movement generated. No more verbal threats came from them, but their very presence was menacing enough.

  Arion brought his bolter up again as another creature moved towards him and let a shell loose. It disintegrated his would-be attacker and his entire suit of power armour was covered from head to foot in a layer of the fine dust. In a powdered rush, it poured through the grille of his helm. Much was instantly filtered out, but caught unaware by the suddenness of it, Arion was unable to activate the armour sealing around his grille. He swallowed a mouthful of the sediment whole.

  Doubling over, he retched violently, even as his Adeptus Astartes physiology kicked in to deal with the foreign contaminant he had ingested.

  Korydon cast him a sideways glance. ‘Are you all right, brother?’

  Arion put a hand up as though to wave away Korydon’s concern and nodded his head vigorously. A few brief moments passed before he was back upright, defending himself once again.

  Another creature exploded, then another… until the air of the chamber was filled with a cloying, obfuscating haze. Still the dust creatures made no apparent attempt to attack; they merely moved closer and closer. Then something inexplicable happened. Each one of the creatures threw its head back in a silent scream.

  The whispering seemed to grow to a long, sibilant hiss. And then there was silence, and a huge puff of fresh dust as every last one of the creatures simply lost its animation. As one, they broke into a million specks which drifted lazily to the floor, swiftly coating it once again in an ochre carpet.

  It had gone.

  Whatever it was that Evander had spotted moving at the end of the corridor, it had vanished completely by the time the two squads and the inquisitor had reached the spot where it had been. It had, however, led them to a locked bulkhead, something they had not seen for the entirety of the time they had been aboard this foul vessel.

  ‘Ninth, this is Korydon. We have just encountered–’

  The vox-transmission crackled and distorted, then broke off briefly. When it came back, there was doubt in Korydon’s voice. ‘We have just encountered something. I cannot be more specific than that, but whatever it was seems to have retreated for now.’

  ‘Any injuries, brother-sergeant?’ Iakodos asked the question and received a reply in the negative.

  ‘None, Chaplain. We will continue proceeding to the bridge, but we have received our first proof that this ship is definitely not dead. Recommend extreme caution for all. Whatever has control of this vessel must surely know of our presence. We will check in regularly. Any contacts to report?’

  ‘I thought…’ Evander began, then shook his head. ‘Nothing, Kor. I will keep you appraised of the situation.’

  ‘Understood.’

  Korydon broke off the transmission. Evander released a mag-clamp that held a melta charge to his armour and made to begin setting it against the door. The Chaplain laid a hand on his arm and shook his head almost imperceptibly. Turning to the inquisitor, Iakodos stared down at the human through the red eye lenses of his skull-helm. When he spoke there was a carefully measured level of threat implicit in his tone.

  ‘Inquisitor Remigius, it is my belief that you have been withholding vital information from us regarding the nature of this vessel. If you wish for us to offer further aid and assistance to you, then you will tell us all that you know. Should you refuse to do so, then I will open a channel to Sergeant Korydon and advise him that we are aborting this mission.’

  ‘You don’t need to fear–’

  ‘Hold your wrath, sergeant.’ Iakodos was forced to put up a restraining arm to stop Evander from reaching for Remigius. ‘Inquisitor, please refrain from insulting my brothers. We are not demonstrating fear in this matter. Rather, consider that we are exercising extreme caution. You have not been truthful with us. It does not make for a conducive relationship. You can rectify that quite easily.’

  ‘There is no need to speak to me as though I were one of your flock, Chaplain Iakodos,’ countered the inquisitor in his irritatingly superior tone. ‘I haven’t strayed from the path of true faith. There is no need whatsoever for you to lecture me on the error of my ways and insist upon guiding me back onto the straight and narrow. I probably have more faith in my body and mind than this entire contingent has put together.’

  They were near blasphemous words, and brave ones for a lone inquisitor surrounded by twenty Space Marines to utter. Perhaps it was the realisation of this fact – possibly combined with the suddenness with which the circle around him closed ever so slightly – that made Remigius snarl suddenly.

  ‘Very well,’
he snapped. ‘The practical truth of the matter is this; I must get to the daemon in control of this ship so that I may speak the words and perform the rites necessary to banish it back to the darkness from whence it crawled. This sword…’ He rested his hand on the hilt of the weapon poking from the finely tooled leather scabbard he wore at his waist. ‘This is a weapon wrought for the destruction of the ancient evil that beats at the heart of this vessel. Hundreds have toiled in the course of its creation and hundreds more have been sacrificed to ensure its purity.’

  With a flourish, he drew the sword from its scabbard and lay the flat of the blade against his forearm to show it to Iakodos. Gothic script looped its entire length, delicate and ornate. The litanies and the finely forged blade itself crackled with barely contained power. Remigius studied it with a strangely thoughtful expression on his thin face. ‘Many of my own people have died so that I might stand before you now and show you the fruit of their labours. They were, in a sense, my battle-brothers. I owe it to the memory of their names to complete their work.’

  The inquisitor looked at Iakodos, who was quietly impressed despite himself. ‘You understand that, don’t you, Chaplain?’

  ‘I do, inquisitor. Very well, we will proceed. But I ask that you refrain from antagonising my brethren. There is no place for more tension on this mission.’

  ‘Sergeant! Look at that!’

  The call came from a brother of the Blood Swords squad who had been standing behind the inquisitor. He pointed with his bolter to the wall opposite. Where once there had been clinically white, featureless walls of no character, there was now a creeping, spreading line of corrosion. It began where the wall met the floor and was moving slowly but perceptibly upwards in spidery lines. Where it touched the substance of the wall, the pure white surface was visibly ageing, tarnishing before their eyes as though centuries of erosion were occurring in but a few seconds. The sterile coating of the corridor’s walls flaked into little piles on the ground, and as the assembly watched the process, the lines seemed less like cracking, breaking metal and more like veins spreading across the skin of the ship.