Fabius Bile: Clonelord

by Josh Reynolds

  ‘And what is this Key?’

  ‘Something monstrous.’ Merix shook his head. ‘I can show you, if you wish.’

  ‘Yes. And the sooner the better. I want to know what he’s hiding in there, and whether it can be of any use to us.’

  Chapter fourteen

  Cambions

  The Vesalius ran silent through a corroded spur of the webway. Fabius watched through a static-ridden pict-feed as the frigate passed through broken bone-white reefs of alien matter and toxic clouds of daemonic substance. A moment later, its warning bells tolled out into the blackened spiral depths, scattering flocks and shoals of Neverborn before it. Occasionally, the edges of the Vesalius’ Geller field would strike one of these shoals of impossible, squirming shapes and the daemons would evaporate in their hundreds, much to the amusement of their wiser, swifter fellows.

  Defensive turrets silently tracked distant shapes, as large as any warship, as they clambered through the crooked celestial architecture of sub-space. There were giants in the webway, but they seemed content to keep to themselves, at least for the moment. The frigate powered towards the distant, shimmering square of the webway portal without incident, for which Fabius, in his laboratorium, was glad.

  He stood in the tertiary strategerium, located in an antechamber of the apothecarium, and observed the vessel’s progress with satisfaction. The functions of the command deck had been surreptitiously slaved to the strategerium centuries ago, enabling him to communicate with Wolver and the crew directly, without having to abide Alkenex or one of his servants looking over his shoulder. The ship was his, whatever Alkenex thought, and it would remain so.

  ‘Rotate forward sensor array two points,’ he said, tapping one of the holo-displays that swarmed about him like flies. ‘Wide sweep.’ The monotone voice of a servitor assented, and a sensor feed flickered to life, joining the rest of the swarm.

  Despite his assurances to the inimitable prefect, travelling through these compromised sections of sub-space was not without substantial risk. ‘Here there be monsters,’ he muttered, as the Vesalius’ aft sensor array detected something massive, burrowing through the tunnels nearby. The webway shook, and clouds of dislodged debris crunched against the ship’s hull with a sound like distant thunder. Fabius silenced the proximity alarms before they could reach the command deck and alert Alkenex’s proxies that anything was amiss.

  As the unseen leviathan receded deeper into sub-space, Fabius made a note of the time and place, on the rough cartographic holo-overlay that curved around the interior of the strategerium. He fancied he was one of the few individuals, outside of the eldar, to possess a working knowledge of the webway. And with every trip through its vastitude, he only added to that knowledge. Come the day, the sub-dimension might prove to be a secure bolthole. He had already noted any number of isolated spurs that would provide the necessary space for an apothecarium, in the event of Urum’s destruction.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Fulgrim asked, interrupting his calculations. The clone crouched atop a nearby examination slab, his attentions on the small knot of vatborn in the corner of the laboratorium. It was not the first, or even the fiftieth question he’d asked, in the hours since he’d destroyed the last of the training servitors. His skills at combat seemed as instinctive as his knowledge-base, and returned more swiftly. Even as a youth of… sixteen cycles, now, he was impossibly lethal.

  ‘Assembling rebreathers,’ Fabius said, watching the pale youth observe the vatborn. He shuddered slightly, remembering the damage those thin limbs had done to the heavily armoured servitors. Metal had ­buckled beneath swift blows, and cybernetically upgraded combat systems had proven no match for raw ferocity. It was no wonder that most of the primarchs had ascended to control their own planets in a scant few decades. ‘They make their own, though they have not needed them in several centuries. I suspect it has some cultural or religious significance.’

  ‘But you made them.’

  ‘And?’ Fabius chuckled. ‘It is the nature of sentient species to invent stories to explain – well, everything.’ Though some took it to extraordinary lengths, admittedly. The Harlequins were one such example. They lived and died by the story they were trying to tell. Thoughts of the xenos made him glance at the sensor feeds scrolling across the hololithic screens floating about him. Periodic sweeps of the Vesalius had showed any number of oddities, but nothing xenos-related, as far as he could tell.

  That did not mean they were not there, however. That did not mean that they were not watching, even now. The chirurgeon chirped a warning, as his heart-rates increased. He forced himself to remain calm. It was not fear that he felt, so much as anticipation. And anticipation of an event that might never come was a distraction.

  ‘Am I a story?’ Fulgrim asked.

  Fabius hesitated. Fulgrim was looking at him, violet eyes wide and full of innocent curiosity. How did one answer a question like that? He cleared his throat. ‘Of a sort. Your name, for instance, is derived from a Chemosian folktale.’

  Fulgrim smiled. ‘I would like to be a story, I think. I would be a good one.’ There was an earnestness there that was almost painfully at odds with the Fulgrim he knew. Then, perhaps not. Fulgrim had been flamboyant, true, but never anything less than serious when it came to his drive for perfection.

  ‘Yes,’ Fabius said softly. ‘Yes, you could be, at that.’ Thoughts swelled and crashed in Fabius’ mind like the waters of a storm-tossed sea. Almost two centuries before, in the forest of crystal seers on the Craftworld Lugganath, he had been given a glimpse of his possible futures and fates. In one of those, he had led a resurgent Third out of the Eye. He had dismissed it, initially. No more than a shadow on a cave wall.

  But events seemed to be conspiring that way. If the gene-seed were real, and not some mad fancy of Eidolon’s, it might be enough to rebuild the Legion. But could he do it? Should he? It was all too perfect, too neat. A story, moving along familiar lines. He’d heard similar stories as a child – a lost king, a slumbering army, a new golden age. ‘Am I the Myrddin of myth, now, aging backwards and growing swords from stones?’

  He looked at Fulgrim. Was the clone his cambion – a changeling and child of daemons – or something more glorious? The youthful clone sat hunkered before the vatborn, chirping eerily. Fabius started in surprise, as he realised that at some point in the past few moments, Fulgrim had apparently deciphered the mutants’ language. He was learning at an impressive rate. And he displayed no signs of warp corruption or genetic degeneration.

  He was perfect.

  ‘We could start over,’ Fabius said to himself. A new Legion. A new primarch. The Third reborn, cleansed of the sins that had claimed it. A Third that he could guide along his own path. With them, he might be able to – no. No. That way lay distraction. The Legions and their gene-fathers had had their chance, and they’d failed. Humanity must stand on its own, if it was to prosper in the world to come.

  But as he watched the youthful copy of his gene-father ingratiate himself to the vatborn, Fabius could not help but feel a twinge of doubt.

  Alkenex looked around the wraithbone-shrouded bay in barely concealed disgust. ‘And what is the purpose of this place?’ he murmured. ‘Is it a garden?’

  ‘Yes,’ Merix said. Everything hummed with a strange sort of energy, as if the spreading tendrils of wraithbone were harmonising with the immense structures they were even now passing through. Merix shied away from the thought. Though he was careful not to show it, the webway disturbed him. He had seen daemon worlds that were less disturbing on the whole than the silent immensity of the sub-spatial labyrinth.

  Overhead, simian shapes ran shrieking through the tangled branches. The slaves of the Kakophoni alerted their masters to the intruders with shrill cries that resonated oddly through the new-grown contours of the garden. Alkenex glared at the pale, ape-like shapes, his hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘Must they make such a r
acket?’

  ‘Yes. Hands away from your sword, now.’ Merix lifted his hands, to show that he was weaponless, to whoever might be watching. ‘Hail, Ramos – Bull of the Eighth. We greet you, brother,’ he called out.

  ‘Merix,’ the Noise Marine growled, stepping beneath a swooping arch of wraithbone. The substance quivered in time to his voice. Merix had heard him coming, the moment they’d entered the garden. ‘Why do you interrupt my labours, brother?’

  ‘I wish you to meet someone,’ Merix said, indicating Alkenex. ‘Prefect Flavius Alkenex, Equerry to the Lord Commander Primus.’

  The hulking Noise Marine laughed – a growling, guttural sound that made the connector nodes of Merix’s prosthetics tighten painfully. ‘Eidolon. I thought we had drawn near Harmony. The ghost-sounds of its death danced among the branches of our grove, for some time.’ Ramos studied Alkenex with a single, bloodshot eye. ‘And what do you want, Equerry to the Lord Commander Primus?’

  ‘Merely to speak with you, Bull of the Eighth. They sing your praises, among the choirs of the Kakophoni. You cracked the Lunar Gate with a single scream, and speared the heart of the Titan, Albia’s Hand, with your song.’ He looked around. ‘The Chief Apothecary does not treat you with the respect you deserve, brother.’

  Ramos grunted and the sound thrummed through the air. Wraithbone crunched as more Noise Marines appeared, slipping through the artificial forest like shadows. Merix could feel the subsonic pulses of their communication on the air. There were barely more than twenty of them left since Lugganath. A small choir, by some estimations. But Merix knew that these twenty could split the Vesalius open from the inside out with but a single note.

  And whether he knew it or not, Alkenex needed them. Ramos and his brothers were the key to the wraithbone network that permeated the ship. They had sung it into being, and only by their song did it flourish. Without them, it would wither and die, and perhaps take the Vesalius and all those aboard with it.

  But that mastery had not come without cost. Knots and whorls of wraithbone grew through and across their altered forms. They had spent so long in the garden that many of them were becoming one with it, in some impossible manner. Even Ramos was encrusted with barnacles of the stuff.

  The Noise Marine laughed again. ‘And what would you know of respect, hound of Eidolon? We are but weapons to you, and your master.’

  ‘You are Legion. And the Legion is a weapon.’

  ‘We have not been Legion for a long time, prefect. We are something more, now, and our concerns are greater than bloodshed. War is a child’s song. We sing of greater things, and are sung to, and with every note the song grows ever more perfect. What can you offer us, equal to that?’

  Alkenex seemed at a loss for words. Merix interposed himself. ‘We could free you from this cage. Or at least increase its size. How perfect might your song become, if we were to give you a ship to yourself, rather than one isolated bay? Or even a world? Imagine how glorious your garden might grow, then.’

  ‘And how do you know that he has not offered us one?’ Ramos took a step towards them, gauntlets flexing. Merix tensed as a sonic pressure clutched at him. He felt Alkenex stiffen, and hoped the prefect would be wiser than to go for his sword. Ramos and his choir could kill them with insultingly little effort.

  ‘Has he?’ Merix asked.

  ‘We know what you want, prefect,’ Ramos continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘We have heard the whispers of your plotting, through the wraithbone. You want the ship. But we are the ship. And we do not care who struts upon the command deck, issuing useless orders. The Vesalius goes where it wills, and our song continues uninterrupted. The Chief Apothecary knows this. And so he does not waste time assuring himself of our loyalty. We are loyal only to the song. Only to the singer. We–’ He hesitated, falling silent.

  As one, the Noise Marines turned, their heads cocked like those of attentive hounds. They stared silently towards the heart of the garden, as if listening to some voice that only they could hear. Then, in unison, they stepped aside. Ramos gestured. ‘The singer would see you.’ The thick branches of wraithbone rustled and twisted aside, moving like a living thing, revealing a narrow path through the pallid forest.

  Silently, Merix led Alkenex into the still heart of the garden. The singer was waiting for them, sitting cross-legged amid billowing folds of wraithbone. It did not look at them as they drew close, for which Merix was glad. Tendrils of wraithbone had inserted themselves into the creature’s bare flesh, and they ran along its arms and legs like thin roots, connecting it to the wider garden. It was the living brain of the garden, the singer of the song.

  ‘What is it?’ Alkenex hissed, one hand on his sword.

  ‘He calls it Key.’ Merix eyed the seated figure warily. ‘A prisoner, once. Now it is a tool. Though I am not certain just what its function is. It’s one of the reasons why I thought you should see this place. It might prove of some use.’

  ‘Better, I think, to kill it,’ Alkenex said. He made to draw his sword, but froze as a soft, sibilant laughter gusted through the wraithbone thicket around them. The two renegades turned, seeking the source of the sound. Shadows danced and capered amid the branches, indistinct and unnatural. They were being watched. ‘What are they – Neverborn?’

  Merix shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’ But he did. Beautiful faces, twisted into expressions of serene malice, watched him through the branches. Their black eyes, as deep and as empty as the void, met his own, and he looked away. The ache pounded at his thoughts. His hand twitched of its own volition.

  Alkenex took a step towards Key. The eldar turned its blind eyes towards him, but made no move to rise or defend itself. The shadows fell silent, save for a soft whispering. The wraithbone seemed to flex in anticipation. Watching it, and the creature that controlled it, Merix suddenly realised that he’d made a mistake, bringing Alkenex here. This place was not his secret to share. And there were some places on this ship that would never belong to them, however they might scheme.

  Neverborn crowded about him, whispering, laughing, their phantasmal talons digging into his wounds. Prodding him to speak. ‘We should go,’ he said. Key tilted its head, and he caught Alkenex’s arm. ‘Now.’

  Alkenex glanced at him, as if to chastise him. But he simply nodded. ‘Yes. We will return later, and burn this filth. We will purge the ship of it, and all xenos influence, save that which we keep for our own entertainment.’

  Key smiled at this, the first expression Merix had ever seen on its face. He kept hold of Alkenex and gestured for him to be silent. Eyeless the thing was, but it could clearly still hear. Key opened its mouth and something like the trill of a bird emerged. The sound reverberated on the air, and the wraithbone began to sway and undulate.

  The two legionaries slowly retreated back the way they had come, passing warily through the swaying garden and the eerily silent ranks of Noise Marines, past the squalling ape-things and out into the dubious safety of the corridors beyond. Alkenex stared at the hatchway as it cycled closed and said, ‘We might have to destroy this ship, afterwards. When things are settled.’

  Merix nodded, trying not to look at the thousands of roots of wraithbone that extended beneath the skin of the internal hull all around them. ‘That might be for the best.’

  In the training bay, Igori moved, enjoying the dull ache in her muscles. She leapt over the combat-servitor, boosting herself over its hunched frame and landing behind it in a crouch. Even as her boots touched the deck, her knife was in her hand and she was launching herself at the nest of power cables that bunched beneath the plates of the servitor’s armour.

  The machine-slave reacted more quickly than she’d hoped, spinning its top half around to meet her. Chainblades and electro-lashes darted to intercept her, and she was forced to drop. Instinctively, she scrambled beneath its jointed, insect-like legs. Her knife slashed out, chopping through the power supply to
its gyroscopic motivator. The servitor juddered as it registered the damage. It could no longer rotate its upper body, and it began the laborious process of turning itself about to pursue her.

  As it made to turn, she leapt for its chassis. She speedily clambered up its heaving shape, slicing through cables and pneumatic pumps as she moved. She rolled aside, barely holding onto it, as a chainblade slashed through the space where her head had been. She caught the piston-like limb attached to the blade and drove her boot into the joint, momentarily dislodging it. The chainblade stuttered, frozen in position. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of someone entering the chamber. She smiled.

  Deftly, she cut through hoses and cables, further disabling the machine. Its arms waved helplessly as she caught hold of the nest of cortical conduits and jerked its head back. The red eyes glared up at her dumbly. If the machine-slave could feel fear, she couldn’t tell. She hoped so. It was no good killing something that couldn’t comprehend its own mortality. Spinning the knife about, she chopped down at the reinforced spinal strut, severing it with two blows. Sparks spewed upwards, stinging her lips and cheeks.

  Bracing herself, she tore the head free of the chassis and flung it aside. Oil stained her arms and hands as the machine-slave shuddered in its death-throes. Panting slightly, she allowed herself a small smile. It was good to know that she was still strong. Even better that there had been an audience to that display of strength. She dropped to the deck. ‘You may speak now, if you wish.’

  ‘You are skilled,’ Savona said, as she stepped forward. She smelled of strange places and unnatural acts, like many of the Emperor’s Children.

  But she was not one of them, no matter how much she aped them. She was something else. Igori had not yet decided whether that meant she wasn’t prey, like them, or just a different sort of quarry. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘It is rare that we get to speak,’ Savona drawled, setting her hoof on the servitor’s sparking skull. ‘Rarer still that one of us wishes to do so.’