‘I have you now,’ said Ahriman in the chorus voice of the crows.
Iobel lashed out with her will, but hundreds of claws and beaks were tearing into her flesh, ripping her consciousness apart as she fell and fell without end.
‘It will not bring you salvation,’ she shouted with all that was left of her strength, as Ahriman tore the last of her memories apart, and then there was nothing but the cry of crows and the caress of claws.
Pain exploded inside Astraeos. It was everywhere, stabbing through him from the depths of his soul to the ends of his fingers. He was burning, and becoming ice, and bleeding and crumbling to dust. He pushed back, tried to form his mind into a weapon, tried to call the warp to him. The pain grew and grew. He felt its fingers pulling at the iron he had trained into his mind. He could remember everything now, every moment from the towers of his birth world to the moment that Ahriman had left him as a corpse on the floor of the tiered chamber. It was all there, laid out as sudden and clear as a spray of blood in sunlight.
‘He left you here, Astraeos,’ said Izdubar, his voice reaching through the pain. ‘Hate us if you wish, but see him for what he is. He is a son of betrayal. He has led you to this fate and left you. And you will end here, loyal to a master who has spent you and cast you aside.’
He could feel the psychic fire burning deeper into his mind, lapping against his will, pressing into every weakness. Sensations and emotions sputtered through him: elation, hate, joy, rage, disbelief.
And over it all was a visage which spoke in a voice that sounded like Thidias. Ahriman did it all for his Legion, but even then he killed Amon. And what are you?
‘You are less than nothing to him,’ said Izdubar. ‘A tool, a weapon left broken on the battlefield.’
The pain was all of him now. His body was thrashing against the restraints, masked head wrenching from side to side. One of his hearts exploded in his chest. His ribs and spine cracked as his muscles spasmed. His lungs began to crumple. There was a smell of cooking fat, and ozone. He thought of the Rubric, of the moment when Ahriman had changed his Legion, and wondered if it had been like this, if there had been pain in that moment of transformation.
I was never part of them, shouted a voice from the edge of the pain. I can never be a part of them.
‘The Athenaeum.’ The word cut through the pain and rang through the darkness. The pain receded, became a fire-edged blade held against his awareness. ‘The Athenaeum,’ Astraeos gasped. Sweat was rolling from his skin, his chest heaving as breath wheezed from his remaining lung. ‘He seeks the Athenaeum of Kalimakus. That is why he came for the one called Iobel. He saw it in her mind. Chance, it was just chance, but he followed her. He wants to know where the Athenaeum is, and how it is defended.’
His sucking breaths filled the moment. Izdubar was watching him, his eyes still. Cendrion stood immobile, hands crossed on the guard of his sword, silver armour fuming aetheric mist and melting frost.
‘And once he has that information, he will go there?’
‘With strength enough to break any defences.’
‘Tell me everything.’
And he did. He told it all as though a dam in his soul had opened, and the last of him was pouring out of a reservoir of doubt and hate. He told them of Cadar, of the creature that now wore his skin. He told them how Thidias had died. He told them of Kadin, and what remained of his last brother. He told them of the Circle Ahriman had drawn around him, of the renegades and the sorcerers, and the ships whose hulls crawled as though alive. He told them everything he could remember.
At the end he lay, tasting the blood on his breath.
I am dying. He tried to think of what he had just done, but there was only a numb emptiness in his mind now. Around him the warp shifted, its currents tugging at his ragged thoughts, chuckling as it passed.
‘Thank you,’ said Izdubar. ‘I cannot forgive what you are, but I thank you. Ahriman will fall. We will be waiting for him.’
‘If it is not too late,’ said the crone from the shadows.
Izdubar remained silent, watching Astraeos, and then turned away. Cendrion did not move, but looked at Izdubar, a question flickering in his grey eyes.
‘No,’ said Izdubar. ‘Not yet.’
Cendrion turned away, his armour purring and clicking. The last thing Astraeos saw before the tech-priests shut down the servo-skull were the three black-swathed Seraphs shambling forwards. The warp’s touch drained away, and in the last moment before it fled, he thought he heard a chattering laugh, like a cloud of crows calling over the dead.
Sparks and shadows filled the cave. Iobel sat watching the fire dance over the pile of logs. She shivered despite the heat, and pulled the frayed blanket closer around her. Ahriman sat on the other side of the yellow tongues. At least she thought it was Ahriman, who else could it be? He wore a tattered red robe, his head covered by a cowl. The hands which stirred the fire with a stick were scarred, the flesh puckered and shiny. He said nothing, but just watched the wood split and crackle as it burned.
‘I can remember,’ she said, and heard the defiance and anger in her own voice. ‘I can remember each step that we have taken to get here. Is that not a mistake? Shouldn’t I be thinking this is real, like I did before? Where is the trick?’
‘Trick?’ said a voice from behind her. She twisted around. Ahriman stood behind her, his face bare, the smooth skin blurred by the sway of shadow and light. He wore the white robe, and his hand held a staff of worn wood. ‘Why would I trick you now, Iobel?’
She glanced back at the figure in the tattered red cowl.
‘He can’t see me,’ said the figure, in a voice as dry as thirst. ‘And he can’t hear me.’ A single point of blue light looked back at her from the blackness beneath the cowl. ‘I am here for you, and you alone.’
‘What is this, then?’ She gestured at the hooded figure. ‘If not another trick.’
‘The cave is many things, but at this moment it might be best thought of as a shelter,’ said Ahriman, as he walked around her and looked down into the fire. ‘You did me a lot of damage, mistress.’
‘He admires you,’ said the cowled figure. ‘Do you know how long it has been since he admired a human?’ She glanced between them. What was this? She had to think. She had to understand what Ahriman was trying to do. She had broken free before; should she just do it again? She tried, but nothing changed.
‘We have been walking in memories and in the lands of the mind,’ said Ahriman. ‘But there is only debris and chaos now: memories and imaginings jumbled together in my head.’ Ahriman sat down beside the fire, his staff across his knees. Slowly he extended his hands towards the warmth. ‘You did that. For the first time in a long time I am a stranger in my own thoughts.’
‘You see?’ said the cowled figure.
Iobel shook her head.
‘What are you?’ she said.
‘What am I?’ said both Ahriman and the cowled figure at once.
Ahriman frowned briefly.
‘I am someone who sees and knows more than others, and does what he must.’
‘He is a liar,’ said the cowled figure, and Iobel thought she heard a chuckle at the edge of the words.
Iobel suddenly felt very tired. She had run and fought, and fought again, and relived her life in glimpses. Even if she did escape there would only be more. She would run to the end of her days and beyond. Better that she die here, that she let this lost dream of herself fade.
‘No,’ she said, and the sound of her voice surprised her. She sounded old, wrung out and too tired to hide it. You sound like Malkira, she thought, and the idea of the old woman, scowling in the exoskeleton, made her want to smile, though she did not know why. ‘No, Ahriman, you are a monster.’
‘I have seen the Inquisition through your eyes. I know what you do. Tell me, if I am a monster, then what are you?’
‘I am a servant. I serve humanity. I fight for the survival of our species. I am survival, Ahriman.’
&n
bsp; ‘Very good,’ chuckled the cowled figure.
‘I–’ began Ahriman.
‘No, I can guess what you want. I have seen the inside of your soul, Ahriman. I do not need you to tell me what you believe. I understand you.’
‘He always was blind to himself. It is his weakness – all our weakness, in fact.’
‘You think that you are on a quest to set things right, but the path you walk is a path of corpses.’
‘I have a debt to my brothers. I will repay it.’
‘Your brothers are like you – drowning in lies, sucked down so deeply into the ocean of Chaos that you cannot see the surface. They, like you, should not be.’
‘Tell me, then, inquisitor. When you killed your first man for the Emperor, when you ordered your first purge, when you ordered a world to die for the failings of a few, what did you tell yourself then?’
‘That the price had to be paid, or all would fall,’ she said, feeling anger come at last. Ahriman’s mouth opened, but she carried on. ‘Do not try to say that you do the same. I do what I must, and if that includes my death, or the death of all I care for, then so be it. That is what I am. I am what you can never be, because you meet the cost but never pay it yourself.’
Ahriman just looked at her. She stared back. Between them the fire crackled.
‘So human,’ said the cowled figure. ‘I might have said the same once.’ It shrugged. ‘Perhaps I did.’
‘We,’ said Ahriman slowly, ‘see things differently.’
‘If you were like me you would be loyal to more than yourself. If you were like me you would have killed your Legion, not tried to save it.’
Iobel stood, the blanket still wrapped around her, and turned to look at the cave mouth and jagged sliver of night beyond. She stepped closer.
‘He believes you,’ said the cracked-paper voice from beside the fire. ‘Part of him, deep down, believes you.’
‘You won’t get far,’ said Ahriman softly. ‘Not here, not now. It is over, Iobel.’
She stepped to the lip of the cave and looked down. The cliff face dropped away, its base hidden in darkness. The wind lifted against her skin. She raised her head, and far off she thought she heard wolves howling. She looked down again, and wondered if the idea of a fall could kill you.
‘I will not let you have it,’ she said and looked back at the fire, at the two figures sat beside it. ‘Even if I must die, I will not let you have what you seek.’
Ahriman shook his head slowly.
‘I said it is over. I already have your knowledge of the Athenaeum. I know every detail of your life, every moment you have forgotten, everything you kept secret, everything you wanted and never achieved.’
Iobel’s mind was empty, as though she was floating in a still sea, feeling nothing, thinking nothing. Then the blackness opened in her, spreading wide like a scream.
‘Everything,’ she said. Ahriman nodded, though it was not a question. ‘Then you knew what I would say, here, you knew that I would die if I could to keep the Athenaeum from you.’
‘Yes.’ He nodded.
‘And what I saw in the Eye, the worlds broken, the scars on the warp itself – you saw that too.’
He nodded, and for the first time looked away from her, back down to the fire. Beside him the cowled figure stirred, and turned his hidden head to look at Ahriman.
‘None of that has happened yet, has it?’ she said. ‘It is your future, isn’t it? Stars dying, hell screaming your name as though calling for mercy – that is what waits for you.’
Ahriman said nothing.
‘Fate can be changed,’ said the cowled figure.
‘Fate can be changed,’ said Ahriman.
‘But you won’t, will you? You see what you will do and now you know that you will choose that path, that you have already chosen.’ She let out a tired breath that was almost a laugh, and turned towards the night beyond the cave entrance. She took a step forwards.
‘There is no point in jumping,’ said Ahriman, quietly. Iobel turned back to look at him. ‘You are already dead. You began to die as soon as you began to fight. The palace was the last of you.’
Iobel just stared at him. He looked back.
‘But I am here.’
‘No, you are not. You are a memory – all your memories and thoughts living in my mind, dreamed to reality, thinking with part of my mind, a ghost.’
Iobel turned her head slowly. The cowled figure was looking up at her.
‘He is right,’ it said, but she thought she could hear a smile in the words. ‘But nothing is ever as it seems.’
Iobel shivered. Behind her the wind rose and she heard wolves again. She turned and jumped. As she fell she saw the cave become smaller above her, dwindling until it was just one light in the night sky.
XIII
BLADES
Kadin did not turn as the door opened behind him. The corridor outside the sealed room was as still and silent as when Ahriman had set him to guard… how long ago? He heard a cough and a slow suck of breath, but still did not turn.
How long had it been since he had last heard a noise, or moved more than to breathe? He did not know. It did not matter.
‘Help me, Kadin,’ said Ahriman. Kadin looked and saw Ahriman in the open door, the metal of the doorframe bearing his weight. His armour had a glazed sheen, as though flame had polished it to an oily finish. Ice clung to its recesses. Through the open door Kadin could see scorch marks spreading across the floor and up the walls. A single circle of unmarked metal remained just in front of the black stone coffin. Water dripped from the ceiling as frost began to thaw. Kadin thought that the burn marks looked as though vast wings of heat had spread to the walls.
Ahriman looked at Kadin; his eyes seemed to have sunk into his skull, the skin grown taut over the bones of his face. As Kadin watched, a drop of blood formed on Ahriman’s lip, grew and ran down his chin.
Ahriman took a slow breath, and Kadin heard the rattle and wet gurgle in it.
‘Kadin,’ said Ahriman again, and began to slide slowly down the doorframe. Kadin caught him and gripped an arm with a piston-driven hand. His machine limb tingled where it touched the sorcerer; the sensation puzzled him, but he said nothing. Slowly he pulled Ahriman to his feet.
I could kill him, he thought as he steadied the sorcerer. Blood was dribbling from Ahriman’s lips now, and his eyes had closed. I could kill him now, and there would be nothing he could do to stop me.
‘Thinking of killing me again, Kadin?’
‘You once said that you would leave me my thoughts.’
‘I did. It was just a guess.’ Ahriman’s bloody lips twitched. ‘Besides, I need strength for more than reading your thoughts.’ He spasmed and his eyes opened, pupils wide in blood-streaked sclera. He went very still. Kadin smelt hot metal, and looked down. The fingers of his hand were glowing with heat where they held Ahriman’s arm.
Ahriman exhaled slowly, his breath white in the warm air. His pupils shrank, the blood crazing his eyes draining away to leave their usual cold blue. He straightened, strength seeming to return to him, though his face still seemed drained and hollow. He brought up a gauntlet-covered hand and wiped the blood from his chin.
‘Thank you,’ said Ahriman. Kadin took his hand away. Ahriman took a step, stumbled and caught himself against the wall. ‘Cursed silver,’ he said and spat. The bloody saliva hissed on the floor. Ahriman took another step, which seemed surer, though Kadin could tell that the movement was an act of will. Ahriman looked up at the long corridor, then back at the scorched room beyond the open door. ‘Seal it,’ he said.
Kadin nodded, but Ahriman was already turning away. Kadin felt something he could not place. He had been numb for so long that it took him by surprise. Somehow he had expected Ahriman to say something else, to be different, and as the silence folded back around him he knew what the stray feeling was. He felt suddenly and completely alone.
‘What shall I do then?’ Kadin called. Ahriman turned, his
mouth slightly open as though to help him breathe, his shoulders and back stooped.
‘Wait, however you wish.’ Ahriman blinked slowly. ‘I will call for you, Kadin. When it is time.’
‘Did it work?’ Kadin asked the question before Ahriman could turn. ‘Did you get what we needed?’ What we needed… the words sounded strange even to Kadin. Ahriman turned to look at him, surprise blending with pain on his face.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we have what we need.’
‘And Astraeos – do you know if he lives?’
Ahriman remained still, his eyes holding on Kadin’s.
‘There was no choice,’ said Ahriman. After a second Kadin nodded, still feeling the strange emotion flowing through him. He nodded, dropping his gaze.
‘I…’ he began to say as he looked up, but Ahriman had gone, vanished beyond sight, as though he had never been. Kadin took a final glance at the open chamber door, and then followed Ahriman. There was nothing left in the scorched room that needed guarding, not now, not any more.
Once both were gone the quiet began to settle. Slowly, so slowly that he seemed to be made of stillness, Maroth came from the shadows. He paused at the door of the scorched chamber, his blind eyes fixed on the way Kadin had gone. Then he turned his head, until he was facing the open door and the room beyond.
+Do you understand?+
Ahriman’s thought sank into the waiting silence.
Sanakht said nothing, and beside him the rest of the Circle kept their eyes on the great crystal sphere, in which muted colours swirled, echoing the doubt of some. In its depths the image of the Apollonia system turned, its four planets and bloated sun sketched in cold light. The outermost planet glowed, haloed by Prosperine runes and lines which extended out into the space beyond. It was a gas giant, its blue and ochre surface swirled with titanic storm systems. Sanakht watched the cloud patterns change under his gaze. For a mental projection it was very precise, almost as though it was taken directly from first-hand memory. Normally Ahriman would have joined his mind to that of his brothers to share such information, but for this he had called them to the bridge of the Sycorax, so that they could look at it with their true eyes. Sanakht wondered why.
The Omnibus - John French Page 58