by Ben Counter
The screaming reached a pitch so loud Sarpedon could hear nothing else. He knew what he was watching - this was the empire of Ve'Meth, the kingdom it would have built in the name of its god, the empire that Sarpedon had destroyed before it could be forged. Unable to survive outside its host bodies, the daemon prince didn't mind dying, but its dreams of domination were dying with it, and that it could not stand.
The horror. The agony. Everything Ve'Meth had feared was coming to pass and it poured its hatred and terror out into the chamber, filling it with a screech of rage and the huge dark image of a universe cleaned of his presence. Then the scream became weak and the image pale, as Ve'Meth's life-force dissipated. The dark miasma dissolved and the chamber fell quiet.
The aegis circuit was calm. The vast oppression of Ve'Meth was lifted and suddenly the ugliness was bleeding away from the world - the darkness was not quite so complete, the stench was bearable, the weight of evil was lightening.
'Mission complete, my brothers.' said Sarpedon. 'Count the dead and regroup.'
* * *
SERGEANT GRAEVUS WATCHED as the Plague Marine dissolved. It was screaming, but the sound was dulled by the layers of ceramite and muscle that covered it. Graevus had been sure his Marines would battle the traitors to a standstill in the towering library and that they would grind each other down until there was nothing left. The assault had swept through the Chaos positions but the enemy were undaunted and supremely resistant to injury, and Soul Drinkers were beginning to die. If that was the way it had to be, then that was how Graevus would have died - but then there had been a terrible keening from the otherwise silent Plague Marines and the traitors had convulsed with a sudden shock.
The Soul Drinkers had not paused to ponder their luck. Instinctively, Graevus knew that Sarpedon had done something magnificent at the fortress's peak, but most of his mind was concentrating on driving his axe blade through the enemies before him.
Now the Plague Marines were dead or dying, dismembered by the Assault Marines or riddled with bolter shells as they reeled. Some had pitched over the edge of the towering bookcases and been broken on the floor far below. Those who did not die by the hands of Soul Drinkers were dying all the same, their bodies liquefying as the Marines watched.
The Plague Marine was on his knees - his lower legs were gone. Alternate layers of skin and metal were flaking away and the skeleton was started to be exposed, gnarled and twisted, riddled with wormholes. The body collapsed, losing all shape as heavy metal implants rolled out onto the ground.
Graevus turned from the stinking mess, feeling something suddenly different in his mind. The buzzing was gone.
The bloated insect-god was dead.
FROM ORBIT, THE unnamed planet turned dark and clear as the clouds dissolved. The thick layer of flies dissipated and the banks of yellowing pollution faded. Suddenly the sensoria aboard the Brokenback mapped out every detail of a world dominated by oceans and scattered with rocky islands - for the first time the crew could see the towering coral stacks and blood-soaked beaches of the archipelago, and pick out the rotting ships, suddenly pilotless, which foundered and broke up in the rough seas.
Communications were back. Commander Sarpedon requested transport immediately. Lygris authorized a wing of Thunderhawks to land on the body-choked shore in the shadow of the fortress - the auspex arrays found the island completely dead, where hours before it had teemed with unholy life. Sarpedon and Graevus met up on the beach, compared scars, and embarked onto the Thunderhawks.
As on the ordinatus platform so long ago, there was plenty of room on the gunships for the return flight. Of the four hundred Marines who had landed on the unnamed planet, half were dead, slain in the assault on the fortress-island, or lying at the bottom of the great ocean that girded the planet.
When they reached the huge dark bulk of the Brokenback, the first welcome they received was the screaming of a thousand sensors all over the space hulk. Lygris's anomaly had returned, and this time, it was vast... and closing.
SARPEDON SPRINTED DOWN the corridor, the stump of his severed leg trailing bandages where Apothecary Pallas had been dressing it when the alarms sounded. Lygris caught up to him at the next bulkhead, his anxious face picked out in the strobe of the warning lamps.
'We picked it up about six hours ago, but it faded out.' Lygris was saying. Serf-labourers ran past them, heading for damage control stations. 'I doubled the sensorium watch but it seemed just an anomaly. Now it's of a higher magnitude than most of our sensors can measure. We're using Sector Indigo to track it.'
'Where is it now?' Sarpedon had come straight from the apothecarion, which was packed with the Soul Drinker wounded. His armour was still crusted with unclean blood.
'Seventeen thousand kilometres at the last count. It's closing, but it's erratic.'
'Not natural.'
'No.'
'Ve'Meth's dead. The planet died with him. I want to know what this thing is before we're within turret range, and it's going to have to be one hell of an explanation to stop me opening fire.'
'I'm with you on that, commander.'
Sarpedon and Lygris reached the viewing chamber, its lavish decor crudely inappropriate. Several of the Chapter's Tech-Marines were directing servitors to aim their image intensifiers at the great nimbus of light that filled the whole oculus. The whole room was bathed in its silvery light, and at its heart something was solidifying, lithe and serpentine.
'Targets!' called Lygris.
'Not yet, sir.' replied Tech-Marine Varuk, who had lost most of a kneecap to bolter-fire in the fortress and had yet to visit the apothecarion. 'Half the sensors say it isn't there and the other half say it's a black hole. We're aiming guns by eye but it's a fraction of what this ship's got.'
Sarpedon was well aware of the kind of offensive force the Brokenback could muster, wielding as it did the armaments of several cruiser-sized Imperial craft and the arcane weaponry of sinister alien craft. But if mere was a foe who would only be seen when he wanted, who could get up close...
Ve'Meth? No. Ve'Meth was dead. What, then?
The shape in the light shifted and became real - smooth skin, long and powerful limbs, twin silver stars for eyes. Occult symbols flashed in concentric circles which stayed imprinted on the eye. A hand reached out towards the oculus, and suddenly the figure was much, much closer.
'INCOMING-INCOMING-Incoming
The voice, activated by early warning systems on one of the ancient component ships, boomed through the space hulk as something huge and powerful landed on the upper surface. The sensoria that should have seen it all overloaded simultaneously, burning put a hundred hard-wired servitors in a heartbeat.
The Brokenback shut down. The engines died, the life support systems reverted to failsafe and large areas of the hulk were flooded by hard vacuum. All helm control died and the Brokenback drifted helpless, as if awed by the power of the being that stood astride it. It reached down and long, graceful fingers dug into blackened metal. With a rippling of serpentine muscles, it ripped the top six decks off the Brokenback.
It looked down at the armoured humans that teemed in the corridors and gun decks. It shone a bright silver light down on them and opened the gate to his silver city, letting his beautiful minions drift down like falling stars onto the ship below.
'I am the Architect of Fate.' it said in a voice like music. 'I am the Engineer of Time. I am Abraxes, Prince of Change, and you are all my children.'
SARPEDON STARED UP at the towering figure shining against the blackness of space. He had seen some things in his decades as a Soul Drinker, not the least of them in the last few days. But none of them compared to this.
It was several kilometres tall. Wings of light spread out from its back, framing its beautiful face and flowing hair. Its body, muscular yet slim, was clad in a toga of flowing white silk, and arcane symbols glowed in wide circles all around it. Glowing figures were pouring from a disk of light that hung in space behind
it - strange-shaped things made of pastel-coloured light and birds with feathers of amethyst.
Sarpedon had to tear his eyes away to see the desolation around him. The roof of the oculus room was gone, along with several decks of the space hulk, exposing a huge raw wound of broken metal to the vacuum of space that cut across countless sector and component ships. Gases vented from ruptured plasma conduits. Fractured capacitor spines flashed as their energy bled into the void.
The Soul Drinkers were hastily donning their helmets against the vacuum. In the distance a tiny white shape that was Father Yser convulsed as the air was dragged from his lungs and his limbs froze. Suffocated and ravaged by cold, the pressure drop tearing at his organs and with the sight of the Architect of Fate flaying his mind, Yser died in a dozen different ways at once.
Father Yser, who had taught the faith in the Architect to the Soul Drinkers Chapter in the depths of the Cerberian Field, what seemed a lifetime ago. He had been the vessel for the greatest revelation in the Chapter's history, he had guided the Soul Drinkers to the Brokenback and the unnamed planet. He had seen the terror that was Ve'Meth. And now he had been destroyed at the first sight of the being he worshipped.
'Weak.' said the musical voice again. 'See how weak it is? For one such as this, Commander Sarpedon, my mere presence is death. But you are different, are you not?'
Sarpedon knew the vox was nothing more than static and his voice wouldn't sound outside his own helmet. But he spoke anyway, certain that the thing that called itself Abraxes could hear him.
'What are you?' he asked. 'How do you know who I am?'
'The second question first, commander. I have watched you for so long, searched the galaxy for someone who could make himself more than the dullards who infest your worlds. You burn so bright, Sarpedon. I could not fail to notice you even from the Silver City where my lord holds court.
And what am I? I am Abraxes, herald of the Lord of Change. I am your salvation. I am the glory that Yser saw in his dreams, and that turned him into a beacon for you and your battle-brothers. I am the one who granted you visions, Sarpedon, of the foulness I would have you destroy. I gave you this beautiful ship, and see how easily I could destroy it. And I am he who blessed your body and the bodies of your brothers, forged the strength of your mind so the daemons of the warp fled before you.'
I am your prince and you are my subjects, for you have done my will ever since you saw the folly of your Imperium. I am the Architect of Fate, the Engineer of Time. I am the glory and the essence of what the smallest of minds call Chaos.'
It wasn't true. It couldn't be. But...
The daemon prince brimmed with power the like of which not even Ve'Meth had possessed. Abraxes was the figure Sarpedon had seen daubed by Yser's flock, and carved into the statue that stood alongside the primarch in the Cathedral of Dorn. And the shimmering creatures that were teeming down onto the mangled surface of the Brokenback were surely daemons. Yes, this was a great and powerful prince of Chaos that bestrode the space hulk, the same one who had spoken to the Soul Drinkers in the guise of the Architect of Fate.
Sarpedon had thrown aside ten thousand years of service to the Imperium, because he saw honour in the Emperor where there had been none in the Imperium. But now he saw that what they believed to be the Emperor's will was nothing more than one more lie - the machinations of Abraxes, who had wished only to rid himself of a fellow daemon.
The knowledge was flooding over Sarpedon, and it was more than he could bear. He had been so sure they had achieved something magnificent, that they had thrown off the shackles of weak humanity and become the true soldiers of the Emperor - could they really be nothing? Could they really be worse than nothing, the foullest of traitors not through malice but by ignorance?
The star fort. The ordinatus. The Cerberian Fields and the Brokenback. Ve'Meth. What had the Soul Drinkers done? Try as he might, he couldn't help but remember the words of Inquisitor Tsouras's envoy and Chapter Master Gorgoleon -words like treachery, heresy, daemonancy. Sarpedon had killed both men, and now the horrible realization was dawning that both had been right.
The Soul Drinkers had performed the will of Chaos. They were as much a part of the armies of the enemy as fhe Traitor Marines they had battled in the fortress of Ve'Meth. They had been pawns in the game of the Dark Gods, soldiers in the army of corruption. That they did not know what they had been doing was irrelevant. No true servant of the Emperor considered ignorance a defence. The Soul Drinkers were Chaos Marines.
'Ah, he understands.' said the voice like a thousand choirs. 'He knows what he is. He has thrown away the purity he held so dear, and done it willingly. He has turned his back on his allies, slain my enemies at my behest, accepted his mutant form as a blessing. And he has done all this without coercion. Sarpedon understands what he is, and he understands that there is no turning back.'
'It's not true.' Sarpedon heard himself gasping.
Abraxes smirked. 'You know yourself, mutant. I do not lie.'
Mutant. That word... and then Sarpedon felt it once more, the vile oppression of uncleanliness, the mantle of loathing that draped over him. It was just as he had felt when he had consumed the flesh of the mutant on the star fort, a crushing weight of the universe's loathing. His blood was impure, his flesh corrupt, his skin tainted. Every eye that looked upon him would do so with hatred. He was the lowest of the low-mutant, inhuman, vermin.
It would be falling on his battle-brothers, too - Graevus wifh his executioner's hand, Tellos with his heightened senses and strange metabolism. Even Givrillian, steadfast Givrillian slain in the grand chamber of Ve'Meth, was a deformed mutant. As Abraxes lifted the illusion of nobility from their minds the vileness of mutation would be sweeping over them as it was over Sarpedon.
Sarpedon sunk to the twisted deck, his unholy, unnatural insect legs splayed around him. Mutant. Traitor. Soldier of Chaos.
Abraxes was standing right over Sarpedon. He reached down and Sarpedon looked up through tears of rage - there was something in the daemon prince's hand, like a needle held between the gargantuan fingers.
'But Sarpedon, it pains me to see you so distressed.' Abraxes's face was troubled and sincere. 'Can you not see what you could be? You and your Chapter have achieved astonishing things. You have thrown aside the shackles of the Imperium, and you did it yourselves, for I merely stood back to watch. You proved your strength of mind when you turned your back on the tradition of mindless authority that threatened to make you weak. And with my guidance you destroyed Ve'Meth, who was a twisted parody of the glories of Chaos.
Chaos is a wonderful thing, Sarpedon - it is freedom incarnate, where all things can change and the universe is subject only to the will of the strong. It is what you have been seeking all along, a release from the hypocrisy and dishonour of the Imperium. You sought the Emperor's blessing, because you were still naive in the ways of the universe. The Emperor is nothing, Sarpedon, a corpse on a throne, to whom you were devoted only because you did not know what true Chaos could give you. But now I have shown you, and can you honestly say that you and your Chapter can truly follow anything other than Chaos and the glorious lord of change?'
It was true, all true. Had he really believed it was the Emperor who had granted him this foul mutation and the heretical visions that guided the Chapter to Ve'Meth?
The object Abraxes was holding was about the length of Sarpedon's forearm, a gleaming cylinder of microcircuitry that shone in the starlight. 'My lord is the only power in this galaxy worth fighting for. Join me, march as my soldiers across the stars, and give yourself to destruction in the name of the changeling god. What else is there? Your Emperor is nothing, your Imperium has excommunicated you. The only purpose you have left is the pursuit of Chaos, which you have executed so well already. There is no need for you to live a lie any longer, Sarpedon. You can have what you wanted at last - a lifetime spent in the service of a power you can believe in, towards a goal you can achieve. And in the name of my God, I
wish to show you my gratitude for slaying my enemy.'
The Soulspear. A lifetime ago, it had been the only thing that mattered. It had torn the Chapter apart and set in motion a chain of events that had left the Soul Drinkers broken and heretic, with nothing left but to throw their lot in with the power which had shown itself to be a true god. The Soulspear - ancient and powerful, the artefact that should have cemented those Chapter traditions that had, instead, been thrown away.
Sarpedon reached up and took the Soulspear from Abraxes. It could be a new beginning. The Soulspear could be the symbol of a new Chapter, formed from the ashes of the Soul Drinkers, following a god that could reward them for their devotion. Sarpedon could lose himself in the eternity of battle, wielding the Soulspear as a mark of how he had broken away entirely from the lies of the Imperium and the corpse-Emperor. He could exult in the slaughter of the change god's enemies. He could blaze a trail of death against the stars, and have a purpose in slaughter that he had sought for so long.
From the back of Sarpedon's mind rose, unbidden, the snippets of history he had learned as a novice, when the story of the Soulspear had been one of pride and anger at its loss. It had been given to the Chapter by the Primarch Rogal Dorn, to show that he held them in no less esteem than the great Imperial Fists legion from which the Soul Drinkers had been founded. The custody of such an artefact had shown that the Soul Drinkers had their place in the grand plan of the Emperor, that they were beholden to His will.
Something stirred in Sarpedon's mind. Why had he turned the guns of his Marines on the tech-guard, and slain the envoy of Inquisitor Tsouras when he had declared the Chapter Excommunicate? Was it pride? Anger? Or something else, something he only had to realize?