by Various
A familiar scent reached his nostrils, and his lips pulled back in a snarl, exposing his serrated teeth. He spun, lashing out… but too late.
His strike was knocked aside contemptuously, and powered talons clamped around his neck.
‘Hello, Burias,’ snarled Kol Badar.
Burias-Drak’shal was hoisted half a metre off the ground to match Kol Badar’s height, and his feet kicked futilely beneath him. The Coryphaus was wearing his quad-tusked Terminator helm, and his voice was a low, mechanised growl.
‘It is time to go back, Burias,’ said Kol Badar. ‘You cannot keep running forever.’
Burias’s windpipe was being crushed and his arteries compressed, stemming the flow of blood to his brain. Dimly he saw a distorted reflection in the elliptical lenses of Kol Badar’s helmet, but it was not his own face that stared back at him – what he saw was a wasted, grimacing cadaver. Tubes and ribbed pipes emerged from its nostrils and mouth, and its hairless scalp was pitted with plugs, cables and wires. Blood, oil and dark mucus leaked from the crudely drilled holes in its skull.
Burias-Drak’shal cried out, thrashing and striking out wildly, but he could not break the Coryphaus’s crushing grip. Kol Badar laughed at his frantic struggle.
His vision grew hazy and indistinct, his brain starved of blood and oxygen. Whispering shadows danced around the periphery of his vision, like grim spectres awaiting his death. His surroundings faded, the walls melting away, and flames erupted all around him. He gripped the Coryphaus’s talons, straining to loosen them, but his strength was fading, along with his consciousness.
With a sickly crack, a vertical slit opened Kol Badar’s helmet from chin to crown, yawning into a gaping, daemonic maw filled with rows of ceramite teeth. The jaws of this mouth distended impossibly, and Burias was dragged in towards it. Wriggling black worms emerged from deep in the monster’s throat, straining toward his face.
If you surrender now, you will be lost to Torment forever.
‘No!’ roared Burias, straining to turn away. Surging with a last burst of desperate strength, he managed to wrench apart the daemon’s talons, and he fell to the ground at its feet.
He rose fast, lashing out, but he hit nothing. He was alone.
The corridor was empty.
Still gasping for breath, Burias staggered down a narrow side tunnel and into an antechamber crowded with robed proselytes. Their heads were bowed as they hurried on their way, paying him no attention at all. The air was thick and cloying with smoke and incense, and the walls seemed to be closing in on him.
At the far end of the chamber, he could see the hellfire glow of the open sky, and he pushed his way towards it. He was battling against the flow of proselytes, and he roughly barged his way through the stinking press of bodies. Still they paid him no mind, not even complaining as he shoved them out of his path. Several fell to the ground and were instantly lost beneath the living tide.
Burias realised he was getting no closer to his goal, and he began to lay around him more forcefully, battering aside those in his path, breaking bones and limbs with sickening cracks. He trampled over those that fell and crushed them with his heavy steps.
At last he emerged into the light to find himself upon a wide bridge spanning the gap between two cathedral spires of the basilica. Statues of Word Bearers, each more than five metres tall, lined the bridge, each with hundreds of prayer papers fixed to their armour. Doleful bells sounded, reverberating across the maddening cityscape of Sicarus.
The flow of the faithful broke upon him, streaming around him like liquid. He was an island, a lone motionless figure in the midst of a migration as the bells called the faithful to worship.
‘Burias.’
Again he heard someone speaking his name and he turned, scanning the sea of downcast faces for its source.
His legs gave way beneath him. They were completely numb, and the same loss of sensation was tingling up his arms. He felt suddenly confined, claustrophobic and trapped in the midst of the crowd. ‘Burias-Drak’shal.’
Shut it out.
Burias clutched his head, confused and disoriented. ‘What is happening to me?’ Bodies pressed in around him, bustling past.
You are being called back.
‘Back to where?’
Torment.
The immense Word Bearer statues began to move, stepping off their plinths with stonework crumbling away from their forms to reveal blood-red armour beneath. They strode through the crowd, moving toward Burias in step with the pealing of the distant bells, giant bolters clasped across their chests.
‘This cannot be real,’ he whispered, dragging himself to his feet.
The crowd turned, as if seeing him for the first time. In a rush they surged forwards, babbling and speaking in tongues. They crowded around him, their eyes burning hot with faith and fever, reaching out to touch him.
‘Bless us, great one,’ a scrawny proselyte begged, clutching at his leg. Burias kicked the wretch away, snapping the man’s bones.
‘This cannot be real!’ he said again, pushing away from the crowd, making his way to the edge of the bridge.
This is all that is real, Burias. Everything else is Torment.
The giant Word Bearers were closing, making the bridge shudder with every footfall, crushing any who did not get out of their way quick enough.
Run. Fight. Kill. Do this, and you can live on here, forever.
Burias laughed at the absurdity of it all, and climbed up onto the edge of the soaring bridge’s low wall and glanced down. The sickly cloud bank below was impenetrable even to his daemon-sight.
‘To hell with this,’ snarled Burias.
‘Burias-Drak’shal,’ said every proselyte in unison, speaking with the Dark Apostle Marduk’s voice. ‘Come to me.’
The immense statues hefted their bolters, closing in all around him. The voice cut through Burias’s mind, tinged with desperation.
Do not do this!
‘And to hell with both of you,’ said Burias, speaking to both the spirit-voice and the voice of his master. He turned away from the crowd of believers.
With his head held high, he extended his arms out to either side. He closed his eyes, and breathed in deeply.
The thunderous fire of gigantic bolters echoed all around, but Burias had already let himself topple forwards.
The proselytes screamed as one. ‘No!’
No!
Burias pushed off hard, and holding his cruciform pose, he plummeted down into the fog. The air rushed past him, yet he kept his eyes shut, giving himself over to the Ruinous Powers.
It felt as though he were flying, soaring the ether with the Kathartes. Not the foul, skinless harpies that filled the skies of Sicarus and frequented the Infidus Diabolus, but the beauteous angelic beings of pure light that those daemons became in the deep flow of the warp.
He was drowning.
Thick, viscous fluid filled his lungs, lukewarm and repulsive. He coughed and spluttered, crying out in shock and anger. The sound was muffled by the thick bundles of tubes and pipes that filled his throat and nostrils. All he achieved was to expel what little air he-
‘No!’ roared Burias, kicking and thrashing against his confinement, and then he was falling through the void once more.
Abruptly, the cloud bank parted and he smashed through a great dome of coloured glass. Coming down fast, he rolled and skidded along the length of a flying buttress to rob the fall of its impact, tumbling to the floor and ending the movement on one knee. Shards of coloured glass studded his flesh, and more showered down around him, filling the air with its tinkling music.
He found himself in a tiny chapel. It was a humble, ascetic space, a simple shrine to the Dark Gods that lacked the grandeur and ceremony that infested the rest of Sicarus. A plain altar was carved into one wall, atop which sat a skull with a simple ei
ght-pointed star of Chaos burnt into its forehead.
Beneath a shadowed arch stood the lifeless, immense form of the Warmonger. Burias’s skin began to itch as he looked upon the Dreadnought, his arms and legs tingling.
‘You should not be here,’ said a woman’s voice, and Burias-Drak’shal snarled, turning sharply. He had not sensed a presence in the room.
He could tell by her manner of garb and bearing that she was a seer. She stood in the shadows, bedecked in robes the colour of congealed blood. Her hood was down, revealing an angular, pale face. Gaping, empty hollows were located where her eyes should have been, yet she seemed to stare at him unerringly. ‘You have gone too deep.’
Drak’shal was raging within him, urging him to attack, to brutalise this witch and be away, but he resisted. He forced the daemon back. It struggled, attempting to gain ascendancy, but it was an old battle, and one that Burias had won long ago. Resentfully, Drak’shal receded, sinking within.
The daemon’s presence had ensured that the wounds of his torture had now healed. All that remained was his dried blood upon his skin.No scars marred his flesh.
For a moment he thought he heard a distant voice speaking his name. He shook his head, clearing it of these errant distractions.
‘There is someone waiting here for me,’ he said. ‘Who is it?’
‘You do not need me to answer that question,’ said the seer. ‘You already know the answer.’
‘I do not have time for riddles,’ muttered Burias, turning to leave.
‘Time is meaningless here,’ she replied. ‘You know this.’
‘Speak plainly, witch, or do not speak at all.’
‘It was he who released you from your bondage,’ she said, her words giving him pause. ‘It was he who brought you here.’
‘Released me?’ Burias snarled over his shoulder. ‘I released myself!’
‘No,’ said the seer, shaking her head. ‘He burnt away the wards holding you, opening the door for you to come here, to come to him. But I see that your mind refuses to accept what your heart already knows is true. You need to see in order to believe.’
The seer stepped away from a simple wooden door, and gestured towards it.
Burias frowned, his anger piquing, but he stepped past her and placed a hand upon the door’s rough hewn panels. It swung inwards easily, revealing a narrow passage. Lowering his head, he stepped within.
He moved up the narrow passage until he came to a circular, windowless prayer-room lit by a single candle in an arched alcove. It was small, the kind of room used by fasting penitents or hermetic recluses. The walls were covered in tiny neat script-work. He recognised the hand-writing. He had seen its like before.
‘Burias. Burias-Drak’shal.’ That voice again...
Burias’s twin hearts began to pound. He could not breathe. He heard metallic pounding in the distance, beating in time to his hearts.
His gaze fell upon a figure kneeling in the centre of the room. Its back was turned to him, and it wore a plain robe of undyed, coarse fabric. Its head was smooth and hairless, the bare scalp glinting like gold in the candlelight.
The figure rose to its feet. It seemed to expand to fill the circular room, as if it were magnifying in volume to gigantic proportions. Then the illusion passed, and Burias realised that the figure stood no taller than he.
As the figure turned, Burias looked upon the golden face of a demigod.
His eyes began to bleed and his mind rebelled. His soul lurched, and he was driven to his knees, breathless and suffocating.
A veil seemed to be ripped aside, and the walls of the shrine disappeared, replaced with roaring flames and darkness. A maddening cacophony of screams and roars assaulted him from all sides.
‘Urizen? Lord?’ he breathed.
The flames seared his lungs, but he did not care. His mind was reeling. He did not understand. The primarch of the XVIIth had been locked in self-imposed isolation within the Templum Inficio since long before Burias’s creation. How could he be here? Where, in fact, were they?
Burias’s hearts were thundering, beating erratically and dangerously fast. He couldn’t breathe. He was drowning. He was blind.
Look.
The voice was velveteen and smooth, once again calm and measured. It was the same voice that had guided him to freedom, yet it seemed more potent, more vital. There was a controlled intensity to it that was almost painful.
LOOK.
He opened his eyes. The figure that stood before him was not the holy primarch of the XVII Legion. He was staring at himself.
He jolted, and the vision was gone. He was alone in the cold darkness.
‘Burias.’
That voice was not welcome here. It was an intrusion. He tried to ignore it, but its power was impossible to resist. He rebelled against it, but it dragged him back towards consciousness.
‘Burias-Drak’shal.’
He was drowning.
Thick, viscous fluid filled his lungs, lukewarm and repulsive. He coughed and spluttered, crying out in shock and anger. The sound was muffled by the thick bundles of tubes and pipes that filled his throat and nostrils. All he achieved was to expel what little air he had left.
In panic, he registered that he was completely submerged, and as he struggled to rise he struck a hard, unyielding metal surface. He thrashed wildly, smashing against the sides of his containment, desperately seeking escape. There was none to be had. He was sealed in and drowning.
His hands refused to respond to his commands, and he could not move his arms. He could see nothing but darkness. He tasted oil and blood, battery acid and bile. He vomited violently, but the acidic foulness had nowhere to go.
His strength was fading, along with his consciousness. Metallic clangs, hammering and the whine of engines echoed loudly around him. Behind it, he heard the muffled murmur of voices, but could make no sense of the words.
The end was close now, and his struggles weakened. His lungs rebelled against him, causing him to reflexively suck in a deep breath of liquid and his own vomit. He began to convulse, shuddering and jerking violently.
Oblivion came for him then. But it was not to last.
He awoke to darkness. There was no pain. There was nothing at all, and he knew then that he was in hell.
He roared in a voice that was not his voice. He heard that mechanical, grinding, anguished bellow with ears that were not his ears; external sensors translated what they heard into electrical impulses and were transmitted directly into his cortex.
He clenched a hand that was not his hand into a fist, and an immense, blade-fingered power talon clenched. He pounded this great fist into the stone walls of his prison once again. It made a dull sound, metal on stone. That sound...
‘Burias,’ said a voice. ‘Burias-Drak’shal.’
It was the voice that had called him back. It was the voice that had brought him into this hell. He swung towards it, servos whining.
‘Back in the land of the living, finally. In a manner of speaking, at least.’
Optic sensors interpreted what they saw. A figure stood nearby, one that he recognised.
‘You were in deep this time,’ said the figure. ‘I was not sure you were coming out. You resisted my call for the longest time yet. I am impressed.’
Burias lunged at the figure, pneumatic piston-driven legs driving him forward and giant claws reaching out to crush it, but immense chains bound with burning runes held him fast, restraining his mechanical strength.
Dark Apostle Marduk laughed. ‘Now, now, Burias. Mind that temper.’
Hatred surged through what was left of Burias’s body – amputated, rotten and curled foetus-like in the amniotic fluid sloshing within the sarcophagus implanted at the heart of the machine.
Hatred. That was something he was still capable of feeling. His mighty fists were clenching
and unclenching unconsciously. With every last remaining fibre of his being he wanted to smash the author of his torment to paste.
‘How long this time?’ Burias managed, his voice deep and sepulchral, the sound of immense rocks grinding together.
‘Not long. Ninety-seven years, unadjusted.’
To Burias it had felt like an eternity. He wondered how he could possibly endure.
‘Why do you rouse me now?’ he growled. ‘There is no torment that you can unleash upon me that would make my suffering any more complete.’
‘Torment, old friend? No, you mistake my purpose,’ said Marduk. ‘I come to you because the Host marshals for war. I am, for now, releasing you from torment. It is time you killed again for the Legion.’
Death was nothing to be feared. Death he would have welcomed. But denied that, the next best thing was the chance to kill once more. Burias ceased his struggles.
‘War?’ he boomed, unable to keep the eagerness from his grating, mechanical voice.
‘War,’ agreed the Dark Apostle.
A silken voice spoke in Burias’s mind.
None of this is real.
Cold Trade
Andy Hoare
The Adeptus Astra Cartographica listed the world by the short form designator SK0402/78, but the locals called it ‘Quag.’ It was an unpleasant little name for an unpleasant little world, but Brielle Gerrit, daughter of the infamous rogue trader Lucien Gerrit and next in line to inherit the Arcadius Warrant of Trade, had good reason to visit it. The corner of her mouth curling into a covetous grin, Brielle’s hand was subconsciously drawn to the hidden pocket in her uniform jacket and the small object nestled within. Her costume was similar to that worn by the highest ranked officers of the Imperial Navy fleet of a sector very, very far away, and she most certainly did not bear the commission that granted her the right to wear it. But that just made the wearing of the deep blue frock coat with its shining gold epaulettes and fancy braiding all the more fun.
‘Commencing final approach, mistress,’ the pilot announced from the cockpit, snapping Brielle’s attentions back to the here and now. She was seated in the astrodome of her Aquila-class shuttle, a small vessel configured as her personal transport and clad in the red and gold livery of the Arcadius clan of rogue traders. Really, she should have been strapped safely into her grav couch in the shuttle’s passenger compartment, but she had always preferred to witness atmospheric interface first hand rather than relayed through a pict-slate. Her pilot, Ganna, was a trusted retainer of the clan and he had given up objecting to his mistress’s habits years ago.