Ahriman: Sorcerer

by John French

  ‘For answers, Iobel. Isn’t that why you went to Prospero, why you have searched out all you can find about the Thousand Sons, and why you have been looking for us for the last two decades? Well, now we are here, and so are the beginnings of answers.’

  ‘Who are we?’ she said, without moving.

  ‘A circle of a few who have seen what you have, and who have walked down the same paths in search of the only weapon which can cut our enemies – knowledge.’

  ‘And what is here?’ she said, flicking her eyes across the ice-bound landing pad.

  ‘You will have to see.’ Izdubar turned and began to descend the steps into the ground. Iobel glanced at Cavor. The nihilator was watching Izdubar’s retreating back, his face utterly still, his augmetic eyes glowing with cold light. She paused, blinked and shook her head. She had the sudden sense that she had been here before. She opened her mouth to speak.

  ‘We follow?’ asked Cavor. She nodded slowly, still uncertain. Cavor watched her, still not moving.

  ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘We follow.’

  She shook herself and stepped through the hatch. Behind her Cavor lowered his pistols, the light in his eyes shifting from green to blue, then he followed the inquisitors beneath the ice.

  XI

  Land of Lies

  ‘He is lying,’ said a voice. It was a dull voice, washed of emotion, as though the speaker thought greater expression wasteful.

  Astraeos tried to open his eyes, and then remembered that he had no true eyes any more. His head still ached, just as it had since he had first woken, but his thoughts felt clear. Memories of before he had fallen unconscious snapped into focus. He knew other things now, though he was not sure why. He knew from the sound of the voices that the chamber extended far beyond the pool of light around him. He knew that besides damage to his skull, his body was trying to heal deep burns to his back and legs. He knew that there were charged and readied power weapons within twenty paces of where he lay. He knew all this and he knew that he was here because the Inquisition said he was a traitor. It could not be true, he knew that, but then why would they have taken him? Why would they have questions?

  ‘No, no I don’t think he is,’ said another voice. It was the voice of the inquisitor, Astraeos realised. ‘Damage often leaves part of the structure of the mind standing while the rest is buried or swept away. And before you say it, Erionas, I am not going to ask Cendrion to go into his mind. I want what might remain inside, and I want it without further damage.’

  ‘This costs time.’ Another voice, female this time, the words rattling in an old and damaged throat.

  ‘I am aware of what it costs,’ said the inquisitor. ‘Cendrion looked into his mind once, and said that it was like a half-collapsed building. We can reach the deepest layer, but we must be careful or it will collapse again. If this fails there are other methods, but with each of them we diminish the chances of success. That is what we want here, isn’t it, to find what Ahriman intends?’

  ‘He is awake,’ said the machine voice of the tech-priest. Astraeos heard the crinkle of fabric as people turned, then the sound of steps as they came closer.

  ‘Let him see,’ said the inquisitor.

  Light suddenly filled his sight, and he saw the inquisitor standing beside his body.

  ‘I am no traitor,’ said Astraeos, and then coughed. His body jerked against the restraints, and he tasted wet iron in his throat.

  The inquisitor’s face showed no response.

  ‘What do you remember?’

  Astraeos paused. He could see more now, things opening up in front of his mind’s eye like the features of a dark room before a lamp beam. He paused. He did not know how he came to be here, but he knew that he was not a traitor. He was an angel of death; he had been forged to serve the Imperium mind, body and soul. What could he remember that could undo that purpose?

  ‘Tell us,’ said the inquisitor.

  I must answer. Only the heretic refuses to speak the truth. They will see that I am true, they must see.

  He told them what he could. He told them of the world that had remade him. Much of it was a fog of confusion at first. Details emerged, and then sank back into the murk of his mind when they were on the tip of his tongue. He talked until he could not remember why he was talking. He told them of the land beneath the mountains, of the echoing dark, and the sound of his heart beating to itself. His brothers came from that underworld, children taken from the people who lived out of the light of the sun. He told them of the towers of the fortress rising towards the sun which burned without end in the cobalt sky.

  As he spoke more came to him, images and truths coming to his mind and lips with sudden clarity. It was as though his mind was a ball of unravelling thread. He remembered the Three Towers of Truth, at the summit of which each aspirant swore their great oaths. He remembered the feeling of his bolt pistol in his hand, the names of all its other bearers carved into its grip. He remembered the first time he killed, and the first time he smelled the red offal stink of a battlefield. He remembered the feeling of armour. He remembered that he had become a Space Marine.

  Astraeos had fallen quiet. He could taste metal in his mouth, and his skull ached to the core. The servo-skull that had become his eyes twitched to look at the figures that stood behind the thin man. There were three of them, bent under ragged robes covered in symbols stitched in golden thread. They had always been there, but now they were closer, as though they shuffled a step nearer each time he remembered a new detail. Astraeos did not like them. Something about them made him wish he could shoot them.

  ‘Yes?’ said the thin-faced man.

  ‘What is your name?’ asked Astraeos. The ache in his head was getting worse. He wanted to blink, but had no eyes. Something was rising into his thoughts; he could feel it spilling into the edge of awareness like the first light of dawn.

  The inquisitor stood back.

  ‘I am judgement, Astraeos.’

  ‘You say I am a traitor, but I can only remember service and sacrifice. There are battlefields on Carnius Seven, on Keed, on Maltrix that were watered with the blood of my brothers, blood that we shed for our oaths to the Imperium. How can that be if I am a traitor?’

  ‘What do you remember?’

  The light of fresh memory came in a rush, pushing through the darkness, pressing against his mind’s eye.

  ‘I remember…’

  He remembered ships. Ships sliding across the sky like stars set free. Silver. Their hulls had been silver grey, and they had arrived like ghosts. None had seen or sensed their coming, not the astropaths, not the other Librarians, not the system monitors. He had…

  He looked up. Around him the fortress-monastery screamed. Sirens echoed through the halls and across the high parapets. The ground shook as blast doors slammed shut from the highest towers to the fortress depths. Void shields crackled into life, daubing the sky with static. The silver ships dropped lower. There were three of them, three jagged shapes glinting in the sun. The defence lasers began to fire. Columns of light burned into the heavens. The air was crackling with lightning. False winds spilled around Astraeos as the unleashed energy cooked the air.

  Behind him a door peeled open. Astraeos turned, saw who walked onto the tower summit, and fell to one knee.

  ‘Rise,’ said Thidias. The Chapter Master’s face was unreadable. The burning light gleamed on his armour, and the ozone-laden winds spilled his red cloak behind him. Kadin stood at the front of Thidias’s honour guard, the banner in his hand stirring as he looked at Astraeos with hard eyes.

  ‘My lord,’ began Astraeos. ‘What–’

  The ships above them fired. Lines of flame spread across the sky. The fortress roared back, pouring stuttering lines at the heavens, even as the fire from the ships reached towards the ground.

  ‘What is this?’ he shouted above the roar.

  Thidias turned to him. His eyes were empty, as though what they had seen had burned away the soul behind them.
/>   ‘This is the Imperium we serve coming to destroy us,’ he said.

  The memory flashed to nothing. Astraeos was shaking, his muscles bunching. Somewhere nearby something was shouting about neural overload. All Astraeos could see through the servo-skull’s eyes was the inquisitor looking at him, his face as calm and uncaring as an executioner’s blade.

  ‘Subdue him,’ said the inquisitor.

  Cold spread from Astraeos’s chest. He could not feel his limbs. He forced his mouth open, feeling the muscles in his jaw begin to numb. The inquisitor was watching him, his head tilted slightly to one side as though considering a thought.

  ‘We were loyal!’ Astraeos screamed at the thin face.

  And then there was just the numb cold, and the remembered light of fire spreading across a blue sky.

  The armour lay at the centre of an adamantium slab. Thick loops of the metal circled its arms, chest, and legs. Layers of energy fields shimmered in the air around it. Iobel could feel the headache purr of active null generators. It was surprisingly warm in the underground fortress, and the crystal floor of the viewing chamber buzzed with heat and static.

  Iobel shivered as she looked down through the crystal floor. The armour was black, as though it had been carved from coal. She would have thought that it had been burned if it had not been for the polished bronze that edged its plates and snaked across its shoulders and greaves. A high crest extended above the crown of its helm. The symbol of a baleful eye worked in beaten copper stared out from its chest. It had been the armour of a Space Marine, without a doubt, but this could only be a relic of those who had turned on the Emperor in ages past.

  Iobel looked up from the view beneath her feet. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. Izdubar was still looking down, hands clasped behind his back, face almost serene.

  ‘Is this…?’ she began.

  ‘You have never seen one of them before, have you?’ said Izdubar softly. ‘Yes, this is one of the Thousand Sons of Magnus the Red. Or at least what remains of one. It is an abomination. Alive, after a fashion – animated by the energies of the warp, at once a body and a prison for the spirit within. Some call them the Rubricae. This one was taken during the incursion onto Vess. A dozen primaris-grade battle psykers died capturing it.’

  ‘The colours and emblems…’ began Iobel.

  ‘Marks of fealty to the one they call the Despoiler.’ Izdubar looked up from the crystal floor, and ran a hand over his scalp. Brief pain stabbed through Iobel’s head. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she gasped. The chamber jumped out of focus, then snapped back into clarity. Iobel blinked and breathed hard as she tried to focus on where she was. Izdubar didn’t seem to notice, but just carried on talking. ‘That is not why it is important. It is important because of what it means.’

  Iobel’s head cleared as suddenly as it had clouded. She looked at Izdubar. He was looking at her as though he had just asked a question which required a reply. She felt as though she had just come back into a conversation that had continued without her realising. She hesitated, and then knew what she needed to say next.

  ‘On a world, long ago, a dying psyker spoke to me of Prospero. He said that he was the vengeance of the Sons of Prospero.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Izdubar. ‘On Carsona, was it not?’

  Iobel felt surprise fill her face. Izdubar glanced at her, then back to the bound Rubricae.

  ‘I have been following your progress towards us since soon after your search began. We must be sure, you see.’ Iobel opened her mouth to speak, but Izdubar continued smoothly on. ‘The psyker who spoke those words to you was right. The will of one of the Thousand Sons had touched him. He and many more like him, in thousands of cults and psyker cells spread through the body of the Imperium, growing in its flesh like cancers. Fed by dreams, and manipulated from beyond by the sorcerers who are all that remain of the Thousand Sons.’

  Iobel let out a snort of breath. Behind her Cavor stirred as though waiting for a command.

  ‘I have found the records, and seen the insides of heretics’ minds. What you have said is nothing that I have not learnt myself.’ She pointed down at the Rubricae beneath their feet. ‘This is just confirmation, not revelation.’

  Izdubar laughed, the sound as sudden as it was brief.

  ‘Revelation.’ He rolled the word over his tongue. ‘I went searching for answers, just like you. For a long time I sifted through rumours, through myths left half forgotten, and lies still whispered in lost places. I learned much, but I always knew there was more. I could feel it, as though it waited around the next corner – a secret so large that its existence drew other secrets into its darkness. I found it at last, and I found that I was not the first. There were others of our kind watching me to see how far I would come on my own, to see if I was ready. I asked just as you asked, and as answer, or perhaps as punishment, they gave me knowledge.’ He reached into a pocket in his bodyglove and pulled out the Inquisitorial symbol with the blue gem at its centre. ‘Do you wish for answers, Iobel? The door to truth stands open. Walk through, or turn back now.’ He held out the symbol to Iobel.

  Turn back! The thought cut into her awareness, and the room swam in her eyes. Turn back now! Grey dust swirled across the edge of her sight. The sensation vanished.

  The symbol sat on Izdubar’s hand, waiting.

  She paused, and then reached out and picked it up. It felt warm in her hand.

  Izdubar smiled sadly. The expression surprised her.

  ‘There is a room on a moon which orbits a far world around a nameless sun,’ he said. ‘It holds a record made by a man who was called Kalimakus. We call it his Athenaeum. It speaks of many things: of the past, of the future, of things that cannot be and the ways to find them. Besides those that keep it, only a few others have seen it.’ He let out a breath, and rubbed a hand over his left eye. ‘Only we of the Ordo Cyclopes have seen it.’

  ‘What is the Athenaeum?’ she said. At the back of her thoughts she wondered why it felt as though she had said those words before.

  ‘It is the thoughts of Magnus the Red,’ he said. Iobel stared at him. She could feel the shiver rise as bumps on her skin. ‘It is not just a record, it is a window. Kalimakus died long ago, but still his remembrance is being written, its lore dividing and multiplying without end. With every day that passes more words are added to it. Words that have told us what became of the Thousand Sons within the Eye of Terror, and given us glimpses of what they may yet become.’

  ‘How can you know it is true?’ Iobel’s voice sounded distant to her, the shock still rolling through her in waves.

  Izdubar stepped back, and looked down through the crystal floor at the Rubricae beneath.

  ‘There is the proof, lying beneath our feet. The Athenaeum told us of how the Rubricae were born from the power and delusion of one called Ahriman.’

  Ahriman… The word echoed in Iobel’s mind.

  Ahriman…

  Ahriman…

  ‘But for centuries we were not sure, until we took this one and others. Until we could hold the proof of truth in our hands. Once that proof was found, then the rest of what the Athenaeum told us had the possibility of truth. That was when our war to prevent what it foretells truly began.’

  ‘What does it foretell?’

  ‘A storm,’ said Izdubar. ‘A storm rising in the future.’ Izdubar closed his eyes. A muscle twitched on his jaw line. In that instant she saw that he was not as young as he seemed; he was old, and very tired. ‘Sometimes when I think of it I can smell the pyre of that future.’ She saw a shiver pass through him. ‘That is what we fight against, Iobel. That is the war demanded by the truth you have sought for half your life.’ He pointed to the symbol she still held in her hand. ‘Will you join us in it?’

  You must not go further… the voice whispered from behind her, and Iobel turned, but there was only Cavor looking down through the crystal at the Thousand Sons legionary. His hands were thrust into his coat pockets, his augmetic eyes glowing brig
ht as he stared at the black suit of armour. She frowned; the light of his eyes was blue. She was sure that…

  She felt her mouth opening and words rising to the surface of her mind, pushing towards her tongue. She tried to bite them back, to scream. A clinging feeling of nausea slid through her. She swayed. The chamber was rolling and spinning around her.

  What is happening? What is–?

  The room blinked. Blackness surrounded her. She was so cold. A wind scraped dust over her skin, but there was no wind and her skin was buried beneath layers of fabric.

  The crystal-floored chamber snapped back into place around her.

  Iobel was standing looking at Izdubar who was looking back at her, his face grave.

  Something had just happened, hadn’t it? She blinked, but the feeling was fading. Izdubar was still looking at her.

  ‘Will you join us, Iobel? Will you see the Athenaeum of Kalimakus?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will.’

  Everything in the room stopped moving. Izdubar stood still, his face frozen between expressions.

  Footsteps rang on the crystal as Cavor came to stand in front of her. He crouched, looking down at the Rubricae with his bright, blue augmetic eyes.

  ‘His name was Kyloris,’ said Ahriman with Cavor’s mouth. ‘He was born on Prospero, on the ninth day of the first transit. Clever, but never gifted. He was a good warrior. Now he is just a memory within a memory.’ He looked at Iobel. ‘You know why we are here, don’t you? I could see part of you struggling to keep me from the end of this memory.’ He smiled. ‘Strong Selandra Iobel, so strong for a human.’ The chamber began to fade. ‘But not strong enough.’

  The shadows in the walls began to grow. A wall of pressure clamped around her, bearing down on her thoughts. Heat blazed through her mind. She felt the shell of her defences buckle. The room had almost vanished in a grey blur of swirling dust. This was the end, she knew. One more step through her memories, and Ahriman would have what he wanted: Apollonia, the secrets of the Ordo Cyclopes, the Athenaeum of Kalimakus. Her will had proved to be weak, and now it would not only betray her, but mankind.