A dozen Rubricae advanced out of the glowing breach. They marched forwards slowly, their red armour appearing black in the low light. Ahriman felt his heartbeat filling his chest. He blinked, seeing them for a second under a red sun, emerging from a dust cloud. The Rubricae levelled their boltguns, twelve black circles looking at him like the eyes of the dead, like…
…a red sun with a serpentine corona. A raven circling, its wings a black silhouette against the fire.
‘Your fate, Ahriman,’ said a voice that was made of the roar of the sun and the call of carrion. ‘Your fate come around at last. Your fate. Your choice…’
His mind felt disconnected from his body, as if he were looking at what was happening from far away, from the other side of a memory.
…the sun was getting larger. Its boiling red surface filled his mind’s eye. He could feel the sun’s heat, the fury of its core. He could see a distant speck that was the silhouette of a raven…
‘It was always this choice…’ called the raven.
The Rubricae began to fire.
Astraeos grunted as a dome of energy expanded around him and Ahriman. The shield blistered with impacts, multi-coloured fire spraying across its surface. Astraeos juddered, as if each round that hit the shield was a blow to his body.
The bound daemon drifted forwards, and black lightning leapt from its eyes and hit a Rubricae. A flash filled the passage, turning light to shadow, and dark to bright white. Three Rubricae lay on the floor, dust spilling from rents in their armour. For a second, the Rubricae’s fire slackened.
A low shriek filled the passage, like broken glass grating together, like a gale howling through burned cities. On the floor, the dust began to drain back into the Rubricae. Slowly, they stood, worms of green light crawling over the holes in their armour. They stepped forwards and began to fire. The daemon hissed like a cat and jerked backwards.
Astraeos turned his face to Ahriman.
‘Run,’ croaked Astraeos. He was weeping blood.
…the red sun filled his soul. His mind was blind. He could only hear the raven. ‘There is nothing that cannot be changed. Nothing that cannot be overturned by knowledge and the will to wield it. You know this; you have always known this…’
Ahriman looked up; his movements slow, so slow. Beyond the dome of Astraeos’s shield, the Rubricae were moving, walking in with slow purpose. Astraeos collapsed, his limbs twitching. There was a burned sugar stench in the thin air. One of the Rubricae stepped forwards, its weapon rising in one hand, the muzzle of its bolter a mouth waiting to speak a last greeting. It was one pace away from him.
…a plain of dust beneath black glass mountains, a red sun rising to colour the dawn with blood. His brothers’ eyes looking at him, waiting.
‘You failed them,’ called the raven. ‘Is that the salvation you were looking for?’
‘Magnus,’ called Ahriman as he felt the raven’s wings beat around him. ‘Father, is it you?’
‘No,’ laughed the raven.
‘What are you?’
‘You know my name,’ called the raven.
Ahriman’s eyes stared back at the muzzle of the gun. His mind was clear. Everything was moving to a slow pulse. This was not the trained calm of battle, it was not the serenity of meditation, it was something else: a fulcrum moment, a blade-edge of time. He could feel the Rubricae’s finger begin to tighten on the trigger.
‘No,’ said Ahriman.
The Rubricae’s finger tightened. It shifted forwards as if leaning into a wind. The muzzle was a finger-width from his eye.
+No.+ The command pulsed out of him, washing across the encircling ranks. The Rubricae’s finger froze. Ahriman turned his head to look at the other Rubricae. They were completely still. He spoke their names in his mind, and heard their dead voices answer him.
Astraeos looked up at him, fatigue bleeding off him in waves. Ahriman bent down and pulled him to his feet. Astraeos glanced at the dozen Rubricae.
+What is this?+
+A beginning,+ sent Ahriman.
Kadin waited, his bolter cradled in his crude metal hands. It was quiet, but he knew better than to find that a good sign. He shifted on the tower of machinery and felt ice crack and fall from his armour as he moved. The hangar bay was void-cold and as dark as a tomb.
It will be our tomb, he thought. Amber target markers shifted as he glanced between the sealed entrances to the bay. Everything was a luminous cold green. Beside him Carmenta stirred. He looked down at where she lay. Cables snaked from beneath her robes to ducts in the tower top beneath their feet. She had been twitching every now and again ever since the hangar bay had gone dark. Silvanus squatted by her, his eyes closed behind the illuminated visor of his void suit. Occasionally, the vox cut in for a second, and Kadin could hear the man’s teeth chattering.
‘Be silent,’ he growled. The Navigator looked up at him.
‘What?’
‘Your teeth are making a noise.’
‘I am cold.’
Kadin shrugged.
‘That is not my problem. Your noise is.’
The Navigator looked like he was about to say something, then he nodded and clamped his teeth together. Five seconds later, the man’s whole body started shaking. Kadin nodded and turned back to scanning the hangar deck.
Light filled his eyes. A red glow was spreading across one of the sealed entrances like a blush spreading over a cheek. Kadin brought his bolter up. Target runes converged on the glowing red.
‘What is happening?’ asked Silvanus.
Kadin said nothing. The door was glowing a poured-iron orange now.
‘What–’ began Silvanus. The door burst apart. Hot globules of metal spattered across the deck. Air rushed through the glowing breach into the vacuum of the hangar bay. It met the void’s cold and became a vast breath of white fog.
Kadin started raking the opening with a dispersed pattern of fire. Shapes moved forwards through the explosions, heavy armoured shapes that moved with slow purpose. A red targeting rune spun above one of the shapes, and he put a trio of rounds into it. It reeled, then fell. His eyes flicked to the next and he fired again. Five had come through the breach and he could see more behind them. He could hold them at the breach for two minutes, he reckoned, then another three for them to cross the deck to the tower.
Then Kadin saw the first figure he had put down rise from the floor. More came through the cooling breach. He could see red armour glistening like fresh blood. At that moment, a second of the sealed entrances burst open.
‘What’s happening?’ screamed Silvanus.
‘We are getting ready to die,’ replied Kadin, as he fired another burst.
Ahriman’s unarmoured skin bleached white in the cold as he strode onto the hangar deck. He could see gunfire spitting across the hangar from a tower of machinery. Astraeos followed on his left, his swords drawn and lit with cold fire. To his right, Rubricae and sorcerers were spilling into the space from a hole melted through a blast door. Behind Ahriman, his own Rubricae followed him in lockstep.
Lines of fire crossed the darkness towards them, burning in a rainbow of colours. The bound daemon drifted above them, surrounded by a halo of sheet lightning. Bolts of darkness fell from it as it ascended. Fire rose to meet it, tearing through its lightning aura. It began to shriek, twisting like a broken-winged bird. Ahriman kept walking towards the centre of the hangar bay. Fire flicked towards him and he deflected it with a twitch of his thoughts. Power flowed through him and radiated outwards in a halo of blue flame. It was so simple, like having been half blind and now able to see again.
Ahriman could see Kadin, standing on the gantry at the top of the machine tower, fire spitting from the barrel of his bolter. Carmenta lay on the floor behind Kadin. Cables crawled over her from where they spilled from access panels and data ducts. Silvanus crouched beside her; he had his eyes screwed shut.
Ahriman stopped. He was at the centre of the hangar bay now, at the base of the tower from which Kadin
was still firing. Ahriman’s dozen Rubricae formed a circle around him, facing outwards. A thought from Ahriman and they stopped firing. A metre beyond their circle, explosions danced across an invisible barrier. Astraeos looked at Ahriman with a flicker of concern. The hangar was full of Amon’s forces, hundreds of Rubricae encircling them in an unbroken wall.
+This will work?+
Ahriman smiled.
He looked at the army of Rubricae gathered in the hangar. He spoke their names, rolling them through the warp like the notes of a song. Other minds rose to oppose him, but he poured his will into the song of names. The warp felt like a river of fire as it flowed through him. The Rubricae stopped firing.
Astraeos looked at Ahriman as if he had never really seen him before.
+It’s not over yet,+ sent Ahriman. He could feel the sorcerers who stood at the back of the ranks of Rubricae recoiling in shock at what had just happened. There were thirty-six of them. A good number and all were powerful, but not powerful enough.
The air became heavy, laden with static and the scent of ozone. He felt the wills of the thirty-six sorcerers push into the warp. Huge pieces of wrecked machinery rose into the air as if pulled on invisible chains. Ahriman nodded to himself as if impressed.
The pieces of wreckage hurtled towards him. His mind reached out and plunged into each piece of twisted metal. He felt their weight, their dimensions, and the spinning of their atoms. He formed a thought, and it caught in the warp like a spark set to kindling. The wreckage dissolved as it flew, falling to the deck as a rain of fine metallic sand.
+Enough.+ The thought rang through the warp. Silence fell. A new presence had entered the vast chamber; it burned like a newborn star, shining with fury. +Ahriman.+ Amon’s thought voice rippled through the warp.
Ahriman turned to look to where the thought voice had come from. The thousand luminous eyes of the Rubricae turned with him. They parted, forming a corridor to a high door at the far side of the hangar bay.
+They are not slaves, you said,+ laughed Amon’s thought voice. +I thought your beliefs were stronger than this. A shame, they held a type of honour if nothing else.+
Amon walked forwards. The tip of his staff clicked on the soot-covered floor in time with every step.
+I cannot let you destroy our Legion,+ sent Ahriman, his voice rolling through every living mind in the chamber and far beyond. Throughout the Sycorax and the fleet of ships gathered in the void, they heard him. +You have fallen, Amon. You have allowed despair to blind you to hope. I understand this, I know why, but it is a path of lies. There is another way.+
Above Ahriman the bound daemon shrieked, its scream spilling through the air as it descended like a comet. Amon raised his staff. Then there was a blur of white light, a sound like glass shattering, and the daemon was falling, smoke and frozen blood vapour trailing behind it. Beside Ahriman, Astraeos fell as if struck by an axe. A wash of blood vomited from his mouth and Ahriman heard bones crack.
Amon looked down, continued walking between the ranks of Rubricae. The silk of his robe rippled with each slow stride.
Ahriman turned at a low growl of pain. Astraeos was trying to rise from the deck. Blood had pooled in his eye sockets, and his hands and legs were scrabbling for purchase. Ahriman reached down and placed a bare hand on Astraeos’s shoulder.
‘Be still, my friend,’ he said quietly. ‘Be still. You have paid your oaths. I need no more of you now.’ He glanced to where Kadin crouched behind a bank of machinery, the still form of Carmenta at his feet. He looked back to Amon advancing towards him. ‘But I do need your sword,’ he said, and took the blade from Astraeos’s hand as he stood. The sword was unfamiliar in his hand, its serpent-etched blade a dull weight. He pulsed his mind into its crystal core. The golden serpents began to burn and writhe along the blade.
Amon had stopped nine paces away. A nimbus of light played around the curved horns of Amon’s helm and the top of his staff. Ahriman felt the pressure building behind his eyes at the magnitude of power held in check within Amon.
+You are unarmoured,+ sent Amon.
+A minor impediment,+ replied Ahriman. The wound in his side was bleeding freely now, and he could feel the silver shards shift with every beat of his hearts.
+I would have given you a good death. Not the end you deserved, but a last gift from a friend.+
Ahriman felt the sorrowful smile bound into the thought.
+It has to be like this,+ sent Ahriman, and raised Astraeos’s sword. The chains hanging from his wrists clinked. +It has to be. All power is ritual. And this is ritual, Amon. Fate decided by the sword at the centre of the circle, beneath the eyes of all.+
+Always teaching,+ laughed Amon, a real laugh that cracked the still air.
Ahriman levelled the sword with both hands. He flexed his fingers against the hide-bound grip. His mind was clear, no ritual patterns of thought, no architecture of power held on a trigger in his soul. Just the moment of waiting, extending in slow heartbeats.
White fire shot from Amon’s eyes. Ahriman met it with a wall of force. The fire sprayed out in mid-air. Ahriman felt the fire surge against his mind, released the shield, swallowed the flame into his soul, and spat it back out.
The fire washed over Amon, soaking into his body like water into sand. Ahriman raised his sword and paced forwards. He could feel the path of the blow, every feint, every intention. He cut down. Amon’s staff spun in the air, the serpentine sun at its tip scything towards his legs. Ahriman’s sword met the blow, and he felt the muscles tear in his shoulders. Half-clotted blood spat from the wound in his side, and silver-edged pain shot up his spine. He turned his wrists, let the staff slide past, and spun his sword to cut again.
Amon stepped back, spinning his staff. A razor of invisible force sliced from Amon’s mind and opened a bloody line across Ahriman’s arms. Suddenly, his hands were sticky with his own blood. More blood blossomed across the fabric of his robe. He whirled forwards, his movement, blade and mind folding together to one point. Staff and sword met in a blink of supernova-bright light. Ahriman stumbled, and his mind opened for a second.
Amon’s mind leapt from his body and battered into Ahriman’s mind before he could recover. It was a thundercloud of raw energy, lit from within by veins of red fire. Ahriman fell, his sword sliding from his grip. Amon’s mind tumbled through Ahriman’s consciousness, raking lines of fire in its wake. White heat ran along Ahriman’s nerves and filled his head. He was burning from inside, body and soul. Bright, cold pain stabbed in his chest. He tasted silver on his tongue and felt sharp edges slice towards his hearts. Had he risked too much? Would he fail even now?
Fire uncoiled from Amon’s limbs where he stood above Ahriman. The light in the hangar darkened. Amon grew taller, and taller, an outline in heat and black oblivion. He rose to his feet and then into the air. Ahriman could taste burning meat in his mouth. His tongue was blistering, his veins were clotting with red ice. He looked up at the burning outline of Amon.
+You will be as you have made us.+ Amon’s voice filled Ahriman’s mind. +Dust.+
His body shaking, Ahriman shook his head slowly.
+The Rubric.+ Ahriman’s voice was clear and cold. +You were right about the Rubric. It is a part of all Thousand Sons now. It is bound into our beings.+ Amon went still, and Ahriman saw that he finally understood. +The Rubric runs through us all, linking us, sustaining us.+ Amon tried to pull his mind back from Ahriman’s, but could not. +And its power is in my hand.+
The final words of the Rubric, old before mankind had dreamed, sprang from Ahriman’s lips. Amon heard them, and was screaming even as he burned brighter and brighter. Ahriman no longer saw the hangar, just a black void, and the ghost impression of Amon outlined in golden light. Glowing cords connected them together, binding them closer as Amon writhed.
+‘Amon,’+ said Ahriman with tongue and thought.
Amon’s shriek rose through the air, higher and higher.
+No. No, you cannot.+ Amon’s voice ra
ng in Ahriman’s head. A gale was rising, spiralling into a cyclone around the glowing form of Amon.
White light flared around Amon. Ahriman felt his brother’s last breath as his flesh became dust, like a peal of thunder on a desert horizon.
Amon’s armour came apart, each component pulling away from the other, spilling grey dust into the turning wind.
The vortex enveloped Ahriman and lifted him from the ground. The separate pieces of Amon’s armour orbited Ahriman, aligning over his splayed body. Then, one plate at a time, they slid into place over Ahriman’s flesh. Finally Amon’s horned helm slipped over Ahriman’s skull. He saw the world bathed in data and overlaid with auras bleeding from the warp. He floated down to the floor.
Every eye was on him, both living and dead. The minds of the living sorcerers were teetering on the edge of indecision. The dead simply waited.
He felt his tongue move in his mouth, the settling beat of his hearts, the slight shifting of his muscles. He closed his eyes for a second.
Now it is done, he thought. Now there is only one way, and that way is forward.
Ahriman raised his hands. Flames leapt from the floor. Red lacquer peeled from the armour of every Rubricae and sorcerer. The tatters of paint spun in the flames. Polished silver armour plate reflected the fire for a long moment, shimmering like the surface of burning oil. Then the flames flickered blue, and the silver armour became polished sapphire. Ahriman looked across the ranks of blue armour. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he heard a raven call.
Slowly, he knelt and bowed his head.
‘I am sorry, my brothers.’ He looked up. The slits of his helm flared with cold light. ‘Now we begin again.’
EPILOGUE
The bridge of the Sycorax was quiet for all its vastness, a place of soft, mechanical clicks and the whispered commands of the Cyrabor machine-wrights. The seer crystal floated at the centre of the bridge’s nave, a sphere as wide as Ahriman was tall. It sang in Ahriman’s mind, like a glass bell struck by a silver hammer.
The Omnibus - John French Page 30