Fabius Bile: Clonelord

by Josh Reynolds

  ‘We should hunt them,’ Vorsha trilled. Igori glanced at her. Vorsha was young – younger even than Grule. Almost as young as Igori had been, when she became First of her pack. Vorsha balanced a needle-bladed knife on one calloused finger as she spoke. ‘We can hunt them, and collect their glands for the Benefactor.’

  ‘And how will we hunt them, when they know we are coming? When they watch the corridors and bulkheads?’ Igori gestured sharply. ‘They know us, our prey. And they will trap us and kill us, unless we take the fight to them.’

  Confused looks followed this. Igori shook her head in disappointment. ‘We cannot hunt them. We must fight them, as they fight. Not as a pack, picking off the stragglers, but as an army, killing an enemy.’ It was an alien concept, though they had all fought in their share of battles. To fight in lines and rows, with strategy rather than instinct – that was the way of prey. She could smell their disapproval. Grule eyed her, as if weighing up his chances. She looked up and nodded, giving the signal.

  Fulgrim dropped down from the observation platform a moment later. He landed lightly, despite his bulk. Grule and the others drew back, most of them going for their weapons. Igori snarled wordlessly, stopping them from doing something stupid. Fulgrim glanced at her, as if seeking reassurance. Then he began to speak.

  ‘I am Fulgrim. I am told that in the language of old Chemos, it means ‘Water-bringer’. Saviour. And that is why I am here. To save you. All of you, from the least, to the greatest.’ The Gland-hounds drew back even further, as he let his cloak fall to the deck. Even clad in his ­simple garments, he was impressive. ‘But to do that, I will need your help.’ He held up his hands. ‘Even these hands, strong as they are, are not enough for the task ahead.’

  He smiled, and it was as if a sun had sprung, newborn, into the firma­ment. A sigh went through them, and weapons drifted downward, as trigger fingers went slack. Something in them, something nestled deep in their blood and marrow, resonated with that smile. With that voice. With that face. They were drawn to it, like moths to an impossible flame. Igori had not seen it before, in the cramped darkness. Only here, in the open, could it truly flourish.

  ‘I am Fulgrim, and you will help me,’ Fulgrim said. His voice ­rumbled through the bay like gentle thunder. ‘I know this, as I know my own name.’ He strode among the New Men, unarmed and unafraid. ‘You will help me, for we are all children of the one you call Benefactor. And children owe no greater loyalty than that due a parent. He is our father, and he needs our aid. Will you deny him that?’

  His words were simple, but his voice added a lustre to them. He towered over even the tallest of their number, and Igori wondered how there could be any connection between them. How had the Benefactor managed to distil such majesty down into their own humble forms? He turned, his smile gentle, his gaze kind. ‘You cannot. You will not. I see you, brothers and sisters. I see the fierce love that fills your mighty hearts, and know that it is the same as my own. We are all embers in the same fire. The same hand kindled us, and set us ablaze with purpose…’

  He spread his arms, hands held out as if in welcome. ‘Long have I listened to my teacher as he spoke of what was to come, and what must be. You are the future, but what is that future without him? He would deny it, but I cannot. We must act, to preserve him. To preserve the future, in its cradle. We must act, and I shall act. Will you follow me, sons and daughters of the Benefactor?’

  Silence held, for long moments. Fulgrim’s smile never wavered. Then, one by one, the pack leaders knelt before him, heads bowed. Igori was the last. Even as she sank down, she felt a flicker of unease. She had the sense that this was some test, and that she and her fellows had failed. But she pushed the thought aside. There were more important matters to hand. Fulgrim gestured.

  ‘Please, my brothers and sisters. Rise. We have much to do, and little time to do it in.’

  Warriors were dying. Metal figures were on the march throughout the green-lit tier. Fabius’ only concern was the opponent in front of him, the one in purple and gold. Then, that was no surprise – his brothers had always been his greatest enemy, whatever the battlefield.

  Palos’ head jerked forward, crunching against Fabius’ own. Cera­mite buckled and his visual feed spasmed. Fabius felt his foot slip off the edge of the sub-tier. He wrestled against Palos’ strength, holding the axe at bay with Torment.

  ‘I can offer far more than Alkenex.’ Fabius hissed the words out, fighting to maintain his balance. Green light crackled over Palos’ shoulder. The vox rattled with screams and curses. They were being torn apart, while he wasted time with this fool. He saw Mayshana lying near the remains of her brother – though whether she was unconscious, or dead, he couldn’t tell. He felt a flicker of dismay to see his work treated so, but it was swept aside by more immediate concerns. ‘Serve me, and your rewards will be great.’

  ‘The only reward I seek is your death,’ Palos grunted. ‘For every brother you have cut open on your slabs, for every son of the Phoenician you led into useless death, I will take your foul head and present it to my commander.’

  ‘Eloquent,’ Fabius said. Stimms flooded his system, and he shoved Palos back. ‘But you’ll have to try harder than that, if you want my head.’

  ‘Kill him – a xenos spirit stone to the warrior who brings me his head,’ Palos roared, as he staggered back. Several nearby Emperor’s Children turned, casting aside their bolters in favour of blades, and they launched themselves at him. He wondered how long they had been waiting for such an opportunity, to react so swiftly.

  Fabius crushed the head of the first, Torment screaming in ecstasy as it struck the ceramite. A second thrust at him with a crystalline blade that changed hues with every slash. Fabius drove a kick into his midsection, doubling him over, and shoved him backwards. The third leapt at him with an ululating howl. The warrior hacked at him with a pair of curved blades, tearing through his coat and scoring his armour.

  Spotting an opening, Fabius lunged and caught his opponent by the throat. He drove Torment into the warrior’s chest, just between his hearts, and let the sceptre’s power shriek forth. The Space Marine screamed as waves of agony shredded his enhanced nervous system, too overwhelming to be pleasurable. Smoke spewed from the joins of his armour as the pain cooked him inside out. With a grunt of effort, Fabius flung the smoking body off of the sub-tier. He turned, and received a glancing blow from Palos. The axe sheared through diagnostic hoses and stimm-pumps, eliciting a hissing wail from the chirurgeon. Palos drove a kick into his chest, and Fabius sagged back.

  ‘Now I take your head,’ Palos growled.

  ‘No. You do not.’

  Diomat’s claw crunched into Palos’ armour. The Dreadnought jerked the warrior up into the air. Cursing, Palos sank his axe into Diomat’s frame. ‘Strike me as much as you like, traitor. I will endure a thousand deaths before I yield.’ Diomat wrenched Palos’ arm from its socket with ease. The friction axe remained where it had struck, jutting from his shoulder-plate. Palos’ shrieks were muffled a moment later as the Dreadnought closed his other claw over the warrior’s head.

  ‘Fabius, do you yet live?’ the Dreadnought asked, as he cast aside Palos’ remains.

  ‘I am functional,’ Fabius said, levering himself to his feet with Torment. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something gliding upwards from below. Several silvery, splayed shapes. They resembled the arachnid constructs he’d seen earlier, but each of these possessed a long, serpentine tail. The metallic wraiths passed easily through the struts and joists of the tiers and sub-tiers below as they ascended, somehow phasing in and out of solidity.

  Even as he retreated from the edge of the sub-tier, one of them passed through it, solidifying as it did so. The green-veined stonework ruptured as if struck by a grenade, and Fabius felt himself lurching backwards, off-balance.

  ‘Fabius,’ Diomat roared, reaching for him. The massive claw snagged his coat, ha
lting his plummet. Fabius flailed for a moment, trying to regain his equilibrium. He saw one of the serpentine shapes coil itself about Diomat. Even as he made to shout a warning, the entity rose up over the Contemptor like a snake, readying itself to strike. The weapon slung beneath its broad form crackled, and a stream of antimatter particles punched through ancient armour. Diomat howled and turned, using his free claw to grasp at the wraith-like creature. But too late. It flickered away, out of reach.

  More shots punched into Diomat, flensing his armour from his chassis and rendering gilded hull plates to slag. The substance of the weakened sub-tier crumbled beneath him as he became overbalanced. The wraithlike automatons circled him like birds of prey. Helpless, caught halfway between the void and safety, Fabius could only watch in dismay as the sub-tier finally gave way beneath his would-be saviour. With a rumbling groan, the stonework collapsed, taking both Diomat and Fabius with it.

  Chapter twenty-three

  The Gilded Panoply

  Igori had only rarely ventured into the fabrication bays, save when there was a revolt that needed putting down, or when something from outside the ship slipped in to cause mischief. If the command deck was the Vesalius’ brain, then the factorium deck was the belly of the beast. Raw materials went in, and came out as necessary components of function. Frigates such as the Vesalius were designed to be self-sufficient, within limits.

  The mutant tribes who oversaw the fabrication units worshipped them as divine providers, and treated every cannon shell and replacement fibre bundle as a gift from unseen gods. The stunted creatures fell onto their faces, abasing themselves as Fulgrim stalked through the steam-filled confines of the factorium, Igori following close behind.

  The constant barrage of sounds and smells assaulted her enhanced senses. It felt as if someone were tapping a nail between the lobes of her brain. If Fulgrim were similarly affected, he gave no sign. ‘Why are we here?’ she asked, hurrying to catch up with him.

  ‘I require armour. And a blade.’ Fulgrim studied the ancient fabrication units for a moment. Then he bent and removed a panel. ‘The repairs will take but a moment.’

  ‘These systems have been offline for centuries,’ Igori protested.

  ‘Yes.’ Fulgrim pulled out a handful of cabling and contact-nodes. ‘But they still draw power from the ship’s systems. The designs are already contained in the data-banks. All I need to do is – ah. There.’ Lights flickered across the cogitator panels. ‘Reroute the power supply around the obstruction.’

  Igori watched him as he worked. He did not sweat, despite the heat. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked, after a moment.

  ‘I told you, I require the proper panoply to go to war.’

  ‘Not that. All of it.’

  He glanced at her. ‘I could ask you the same thing, cousin.’ He turned back to his labours. ‘It is instinct, I think. I see what is broken, and I seek to fix it. I have made five-hundred and fifty-six minor repairs to this vessel’s systems in my time aboard, without Fabius’ knowledge. The vatborn showed me what was wrong, and I fixed it. I made the imperfect, perfect. Or at least acceptable.’ He hesitated. ‘But I can do more.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It is my purpose.’ He frowned. ‘Our purpose. We were to make the galaxy better. And we – they – failed.’ He shook his head. ‘We failed. But I will not do so a second time. I will fix what is broken. I will find my brothers, wherever they are, and I will make them whole again. And the galaxy will be set right.’

  ‘The Benefactor says the galaxy must burn, before it can recover.’

  ‘Yes. And I will be the fire.’ Fulgrim spoke confidently. ‘I am the Phoenix and the flame both, and I will remake the galaxy in my image. As he intended. But every flame rises from a spark.’ The fabrication unit groaned, venting gases as it layered metal and spun gold. The light and heat washed over him, and for a moment, he resembled a blacksmith at his forge. ‘This will be that spark.’ His hands clenched. ‘I will burn away the sins of the past. All the failures and imperfections. All my… crimes.’ He hesitated, and she started, realising that his hands were clenched so tightly that blood was dripped from between his fingers. ‘Ferrus… oh, my brother, I am sorry. I am sorry that I was not stronger.’ His words were soft, and she thought that he had forgotten her entirely.

  He was a strange thing. The shadow of a demigod, given life. Powerful, but innocent. Without the hardness of spirit that came from a life lived, rather than merely remembered in some arcane fashion. Whatever crimes his original self had committed weighed on him, and drove him. The same drive that was in the Benefactor, she thought. She wondered what he might become, given time.

  The packs flocked to Fulgrim, basking in his radiance. They sensed that a greater predator had come among them, and had abased themselves accordingly. The mutants and vatborn, as well. The clone was building himself an army, down here on the lowest decks. He had been wandering to and fro in the depths, a solitary light in the dark, for weeks now. Whole tribes of mutants worshipped him, at least knew of him.

  It was almost funny to think of how little these gatherings were noticed by those who called themselves master. Since they’d left Harmony, the Benefactor and his enemies had waged a quiet war for control of the ship. And all this time, Fulgrim had been quietly taking it for himself, deck by deck and mutant by mutant. Conquest through conversation. Through compassion. As insidious as any plague.

  Soon would come the red hour, a moment of knives and teeth, and the survivors would follow the will of the victor. As was only right and just. She wondered what the Benefactor would say – this was not his will, but it served his interests regardless. Would he punish them – punish her for her disobedience? Or would he thank her?

  Fulgrim gave a growl of satisfaction and reached into the blazing maw of the fabrication unit. Something within gave a hiss, as he extricated it from the cooling mould. The sword was not an elegant thing – a butcher’s single-edged blade, a falchion crafted from scrap. It would have taken her two hands to wield it, she thought. But he swept it out with a grace that belied its shape.

  ‘What now?’ Igori asked, squinting against the heat of creation.

  ‘Now?’ Fulgrim flourished the blade and smiled.

  ‘Now, cousin, we go to war.’

  Ramos, Bull of the Eighth Millennial, felt the signal as it pulsed through the strands of wraithbone permeating his body. A hundred voices singing their way through the sub-dimension, which he was now irrevocably linked to. Crying out in warning, or perhaps simply in amusement. It was hard to tell, with daemons. ‘Do you hear them, brother?’ one of the others growled. ‘The Neverborn speak.’

  ‘I do, Esquor. They whisper that the chattel rises up, and the masters descend, to meet in war.’ He flexed his gauntlets, letting the distortion build.

  ‘Should we intervene?’

  Ramos looked at the other Noise Marine. ‘To what end? We have our task, and it is a greater one by far. Let them wage their little war. We participate in a conflict larger than any of them could conceive of.’ He turned and cast his voice into the grove, shaping the wraithbone with it. Esquor and the rest of his brothers joined him, each singing to their own audience of roots and winding branches. Their raucous dissonance caused the strange matter to spread like a cancer.

  The wraithbone within them reverberated in sympathy with that growing through the hull, creating an exquisite feedback loop. The song never ceased, continually running through the solidified warp energy, filling the Kakophoni with its echoes. Around and around it went, redoubling itself with every circuit. The song perfected itself with every new note, becoming more what it must be.

  Soon, he and his brothers might even join with it, as their Choirmaster, Elian, had, so many centuries ago. He had sung them a path to the perfidious eldar, a path they still followed even now. Elian had been consumed by the song, eaten from inside out by the power of it. The
ur-song. The Shattersong. The song that could crack a universe, or save it. A song of birth and death.

  Slaanesh’s song, begun on the day of the Dark Prince’s conception, and sung continuously by select choirs, ever since. The aeldari had begun the song, and their ghosts still sang it, in the depths of the webway. But Ramos and his brothers had their parts as well. They added their voices to those of the dead, the lost and the damned, throughout the continuum of time. A universal choir, all singing in harmony with one another across the vast gulfs of existence, backwards and forwards. Singing the Dark Prince into existence at the beginning. Singing to ensure that he had always existed, and would always exist, at the end. They sang so that the sun might rise, and always have risen.

  Without the song, Slaanesh might cease to be. And without Slaanesh, the song would never have been. Ramos could not conceive of such an absence, and his mind shied away from the enormity of it. Without the song, he would never have cracked the Lunar Gate. Without the song, Fulgrim would never have picked up the Laer Blade.

  Without the song, he might have been condemned to a lesser existence – one more faceless warrior, among a Legion of such. One more forgotten death-yet-to-be. The swelling frustration of that impossible moment lent strength to his voice, and he thrust his gauntlets forward, the sonic emitters built into his palms blaring their discordant rhapsody. ‘I will not be chained. I will not be caged. I will not be a slave.’ His words hammered the air, urging his choir to greater efforts. ‘We will not fade away. We will sing. We will always have sung. We will be singing when the final curtain falls. Sing, my brothers. Sing!’

  His brothers sang, and Ramos felt the wraithbone flex and bend, growing and strengthening as it spread through the Vesalius. Like an insect in its chrysalis, awaiting the day it could be free of its old shell. Too, he could feel the ship’s agitation as its crew went to war. He felt every stray bolter round as it struck wraithbone, and the warm spray of blood. He could hear the reverberations of their chanting, in the dark places of the lower decks. He could see the garish shapes of his once-brothers, as they reacted to the violence and moved to isolate the tribal bays and access corridors. And he could see one other thing besides.