by John French
The waking was slow and filled with pain.
Cendrion, Cendrion, Cendrion… his name beat softly around him, like a reminder left for him to find as he returned from sleep. His limbs were dull aches, both numb and brittle at once. Shocks ran up and down his nerves, while blackness filled his eyes. He reached out with his mind as soon as he was aware, and found the minds of his brothers present but distant.
+What is happening?+ he asked them, but they did not reply.
He tried to wake further, tried to move, but could do neither. He waited.
Sight returned, sudden and sharp in its brightness. He tried to blink, but could not. Static fuzzed across the monochrome vision of a chamber hung with thick cables and chains. Inquisitor Izdubar stood in front of him, a patient expression on his thin face. The crone Malkira and the glass-eyed Erionas stood at his shoulders.
‘He has woken?’ asked Izdubar, glancing to someone that Cendrion could not see.
‘Where. Am. I?’ Cendrion heard his own voice echo through the chamber like metallic thunder. Izdubar looked up at him again.
‘Titan,’ said Izdubar. ‘The Hall of Ancients.’
Cendrion understood then. The knowledge shivered through his body which was now no more than a broken foetus curled inside the iron womb of a Dreadnought sarcophagus. The pain in his limbs was a ghost, a scrambled sensation that now related to nothing at all.
‘How. Long?’ he asked.
‘Eight years since Apollonia, seven in warp travel, one in preparation,’ said Erionas, with cold precision.
‘Ahriman?’ he growled.
‘Escaped with a few vessels.’ Izdubar paused, his tongue poised on his teeth. ‘And with the Athenaeum. Only the Sigillite’s Oath returned from the battle. Ahriman had… allies that attacked us and gave him a chance to dive back into the storm.’
‘The. Storm…’ he began, the words forming ponderously.
‘We cannot hope that it destroyed him. He planned for it, and the allies that rode on its winds,’ said Malkira. Cendrion thought that she had withered even further in the time since he had last seen her.
‘Allies?’
‘Space Marines taken and twisted by the warp,’ said Erionas. ‘They fled after Ahriman dived into the storm. We recovered bodies, though. The creatures bore the mark of Russ.’
‘The. Wolves. Of. Fenris?’ Cendrion growled, half in shock, half in anger.
‘A remnant perhaps, or a diseased offshoot.’ Izdubar tilted his head. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Our eye has turned on the sons of Russ,’ said Malkira.
Cendrion let the thoughts and information flow around him. He kept feeling the tug of unconsciousness, like a hand trying to beckon him down a dark set of stairs. He shut it out, and asked the question that above all others he now needed answered.
‘Why. Have. You. Woken. Me?’
‘Because it is not only the inheritance of Ahriman’s saviours that we have discovered,’ said Erionas. ‘The gene-samples taken from the traitor Astraeos, before his escape, have been identified, as has the Chapter that created him.’
‘Chapter?’
‘Oh, yes,’ smiled Malkira. ‘He is not of the ancient breed of traitors, but of a Chapter that lives now, and still claims loyalty to the Imperium.’
Izdubar looked from the crone back to Cendrion.
‘I know I have asked much of you, but now I must ask more of you and your brotherhood.’
‘What. Is. Your. Will?’
‘Their home world, and every one of their kind must burn, Cendrion. You will lead the execution of that sentence.’
Cendrion looked back into Izdubar’s thin emotionless face.
‘As. You. Will. It,’ he said.
The warriors watched the sorcerer as he walked between their lines. The polished bronze of his armour shimmered under the dirty light of the fires. Blue and green stones set amongst etched patterns of feathers and claws winked in the low light. A helm covered his face, its surface smooth and featureless except for a single blue gem set into its forehead. A serpentine amulet of azurite, brass, and copper hung from his neck. The silver staff in his hand tapped on the stone floor in time with his steps. Some amongst the warriors stirred as the sorcerer passed, their hands brushing their weapons as though half in temptation and half in threat. The sorcerer paused in his procession, his head turning slowly to look at the stirring warriors. Stillness formed under that gaze. After a second the sorcerer continued, his tread unhurried.
When he was at the foot of the altar he stopped and looked up at the three figures who stood beside a wide bowl in which yellow and red flames danced. Each of them wore armour that bore the echo of Prospero in its lines. The heads of serpents, hawks and jackals looked out from carved armour plates, and high crests rose above slit-visored helms. They watched the sorcerer for a long moment, not moving.
‘I am Calitiedies,’ said one. ‘These are my brothers, and this is our circle of warriors.’ Calitiedies paused, and his eyes flicked to the armoured figures lining the temple’s tiers. ‘You come before us bearing the marks of ancient lore on your armour, and knowing the words of passing from ancient Prospero.’ Calitiedies blinked slowly, and the air became taut. Beside him the flames in the wide bronze bowl dimmed and shrank. Throughout the temple weapons armed with a roll of metallic clatters and the shiver of energy fields. ‘But you are not of our blood, and you have never seen the skies of Prospero. Who are you, that you can come so before us and hope to live?’
The sorcerer looked around slowly, as though taking in the temple and all its occupants with brief interest.
The fire in the bronze bowl exploded upwards, flames writhing blue as the light drained from the air. Calitiedies began to move, but the voice stopped him in mid-step, and the invocation forming in his mind died before it could complete. The voice was not loud, but the air quivered at its sound.
‘I am Astraeos,’ said the sorcerer, ‘and your oaths will be mine.’
Acknowledgements
As ever this book owes much of its shape and existence to many people:
To Liz, for, well, just about everything really.
To Graham McNeill, for all the chats about the XV Legion, past and future.
To Aaron Dembski-Bowden, my Brother in Darkness, for all the long conversations about the nature of the warp, time, Black Crusades and the Rubric.
To the Black Library editors, for shepherding this insanity into being.
To Ead Brown, Colin Goodwin, Trevor Larkin, Andy Smillie, Greg Smith and Chris Wraight for their encouragement and feedback.
And all the rest.
This one’s yours, guys.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John French has written several Horus Heresy stories including the novellas Tallarn: Executioner and The Crimson Fist, and the audio dramas Templar and Warmaster. He is the author of the Ahriman series, which includes the novels Ahriman: Exile and Ahriman: Sorcerer, plus the short story ‘Hand of Dust’. Additionally for the Warhammer 40,000 universe he has written the Space Marine Battles novella Fateweaver, plus a number of short stories. He lives and works in Nottingham, UK.
Ctesias, an ancient Space Marine and former prisoner of Amon of the Thousand Sons, tells the tale of one of the events that led him to his destiny.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Cover illustration by Fares Maese.
Tzeentch icons by John Blanche.
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ISBN: 978-1-78251-672-9
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