False Gods whh-2

by Graham McNeill

  The Davinites were clearly of human gene-stock, but this offshoot of humanity had diverged into a species almost all of its own. The wide spacing of their features, the dark eyes without pupils and the excessive, almost simian volume of thick hair on their faces and arms put Loken more in the mind of the stable-bred mutants some regiments of the Imperial Army employed. They were crude creatures with the intelligence to swing a sword or fire a clumsy rifle, but not much else.

  Loken did not approve of the practice, and though the inhabitants of Davin were clearly possessed of a greater level of intelligence than such beasts, their appearance did not reassure him as to what was going on.

  He put the Davinites from his mind as he approached a massive set of steps carved into the rock and lined with statues of coiling serpents and flaming braziers. Three narrow channels filled with rushing water divided the stairs, one to either side and one down the centre.

  The Warmaster and his bearers were out of sight on the next level, and Loken led his warriors up the processional stairs, taking them three at a time as he heard a monstrous grinding of stone up ahead. The image of vast, monolithic doors appeared unbidden in his mind and he said, 'We have to hurry.'

  Loken neared the top of the steps, the flickering coal braziers casting a ruddy glow over the statues that glinted from the serpents' scales and quartz-chip eyes. The last rays of the dying sun caught the twisting snakes carved around the pillars, making them seem alive, as if slowly descending to the steps. The effect was unsettling, and Loken opened his suit link again, saying, 'Abaddon, Aximand? Can either of you hear me? Respond.'

  His earpiece hissed with static, but his hails received no answers and he picked up the pace.

  He reached the top of the steps at last, and emerged onto a moonlit esplanade of yet more serpentine statues atop pillars that lined a narrowing roadway leading towards a giant, arched gateway in the face of the massive edifice. Wide gates of carved and beaten bronze with a glistening, spiralled surface rambled as they swung closed, and Loken felt his skin crawl at the sight of that dread portal, its yawning darkness rich with the promise of ancient, primal power.

  He could see a group of Astartes warriors standing before it, watching as the monsttous gate shut. Loken could see no sign of the Warmaster.

  'Pick up the pace, battle march,' he ordered, and began the loping, ground-eating stride that the Astartes adopted when there was no vehicle support. Marching at this speed was sustainable over huge distances and still allowed a warrior to fight at the end of it. Loken prayed that he wouldn't be required to fight at the end of this march.

  As he drew closer to the gates he saw that, far from being etched with meaningless spirals, each was carved with all manner of images and scenes. Looping serpents twisted from one leaf to another, others circled and swallowed their tails, and yet more were depicted intertwined as though mating.

  Only when the gate slammed shut with a thunderous boom of metal did he see the full image. Unlike the commander, Loken was no student of art; nevertheless, he was awed by the full impact of the images worked onto the sealed gateway. Central to its imagery was a great tree with spreading branches, hanging with fruit of all description. Its three roots stretched out beyond the base of the gates and into a wide circular pool that fed the streams running the length of the esplanade, before cascading down the grand stairs.

  Twin snakes coiled around the tree, their heads entwined in the branches above, and Loken was struck by its similarity to the symbol borne upon the shoulder guards of the Legion apothecaries.

  Seven warriors stood at the edge of the pool of water, before the massive gate. They were armoured in the green of the Sons of Horus, and Loken knew them all: Abaddon, Aximand, Targost, Sedirae, Ekaddon, Kibre and Maloghurst.

  None wore their helmets and as they turned, he could see that each one had the same air of helpless desperation. He had walked into hell with these warriors time and time again, and seeing his brothers with such expressions on their faces, drained him of his anger, leaving him hollow and heartbroken.

  He slowed his march as he came face to face with Aximand.

  'What have you done?' he asked. 'Oh my brothers, what have you done?'

  'What needed to be done,' said Abaddon, when Aximand didn't answer.

  Loken ignored the first captain and said, 'Little Horus? Tell me what you've done.'

  'It is as Ezekyle said. We did what had to be done,' said Aximand. 'The Warmaster was dying and Vaddon couldn't save him. So we brought him to the Delphos.'

  'The Delphos?' asked Loken.

  'It is the name of this place,' said Aximand. 'The Temple of the Serpent Lodge.'

  'Temple?' asked Torgaddon. 'Horus, you brought the Warmaster to a fane? Are you mad? The commander would never have agreed to this.'

  'Maybe not,' replied Serghar Targost, stepping forward to stand beside Abaddon, 'but by the end he couldn't even speak. He spoke to that damn remembrancer woman for hours on end before he lost consciousness. We had to place him in a stasis field to keep him alive long enough to bring him here.'

  'Is Tarik right?' asked Loken. 'Is this a fane?'

  'Fane, temple, Delphos, house of healing, call it what you will,' shrugged Targost. 'With the Warmaster on the threshold of death, neither religion nor its denial seems very significant any more. It is the only hope we have left and what do we have to lose? If we do nothing, the Warmaster dies. At least this way he has a chance of life.'

  'And at what price will we buy his life?' demanded Loken, 'By bringing him to a house of false gods? The Emperor tells us that civilisation will only achieve perfection when the last stone of the last church falls upon the last priest, and this is where you bring the Warmaster. This goes against everything we have fought for these last two centuries. Don't you see that?'

  'If the Emperor was here, he would do the same,' said Targost, and Loken felt his choler rise to the surface at such hubris.

  He stepped threateningly close to Targost. 'You think you know the Emperor's will, Serghar? Does being lodge master of a secret society give you the power to know such a thing?'

  'Of course not,' sneered Targost, 'but I know he would want his son to live.'

  'By entrusting his life to these… savages?'

  'It is from these savages that our own quiet order comes,' pointed out Targost.

  'Yet another reason for me to distrust it then,' snapped Loken, turning from the lodge master and addressing Vipus and Torgaddon. 'Come on. We're getting the Warmaster out of there.'

  'You can't,' said Maloghurst, limping forward to join Abaddon, and Loken had the distinct impression that his brothers were forming a barrier between him and the gateway.

  'What do you mean?'

  'It is said that once the Delphos Gate is shut, there is no way to open it save from the inside. A man in need of healing is carried inside and left to whatever the eternal spirits of deceased things decree for him. If it is his destiny to live, he may open the gate himself, if not, it opens in nine days and his remains are burned before being cast into the pool.'

  'So you've just left the Warmaster inside? For all the good that will do him, you might just as well have left him on the Vengeful Spirit and "eternal spirits of deceased things" - what does that even mean? This is insane. Can't you see that?'

  'Standing by and watching him die would have been insane,' said Maloghurst. 'You judge us for acting out of love. Can't you see that?'

  'No, Mal, I can't,' replied Loken sadly. 'How did you even think to bring him here anyway? Was it some secret knowledge your damned lodge is privy to?'

  None of his brothers spoke, and as Loken searched their faces for answers, the truth of the matter was suddenly, horribly, clear to him.

  'Erebus told you of this place, didn't he?'

  'Yes,' admitted Targost. 'He knows of these lodges of old and has seen the power of their healing houses. If the Warmaster lives you will be thankful he spoke of it.'

  'Where is he?' demanded Loken. 'He will answ
er to me for this.'

  'He is not here, Garvi,' said Aximand. 'This was for the Sons of Horus to do.'

  'Then where is he now, still on the Vengeful Spirit?'

  Aximand shrugged. 'I suppose so. Why is it important to you?'

  'I believe you have all been deceived, my brothers,' said Loken. 'Only the Emperor has the power to heal the Warmaster now. All else is falsehood and the domain of unclean corpse-whisperers.'

  'The Emperor is not here,' said Targost bluntly. 'We take what aid we can.'

  'What of you, Tarik?' put in Abaddon. 'Will you turn from your Mournival brothers, as Garviel does? Stand with us.'

  'Garvi may be a starch-arse, Ezekyle, but he's right and I can't stand with you on this one. I'm sorry,' said Torgaddon as he and Loken turned away from the gate.

  'You forget your Mournival oath!' cried Abaddon as they marched away. 'You swore to be true to the Mournival to the end of your lives. You will be oath-breakers!'

  The words of the first captain hit Loken with the force of a bolter round and he stopped in his tracks. Oath-breaker… The very idea was hideous, Aximand came after him, grabbing his arm and pointing towards the pool of water. The black water rippled with motion and Loken could see the yellow crescent of Davin's moon wavering in its surface.

  'See?' said Aximand. 'The moon shines upon the water, Loken. The crescent mark of the new moon… It was branded upon your helmet when we swore our Mournival oath. It is a good omen, my brother.'

  'Omen?' spat Loken, shrugging off his touch. 'Since when have we put our faith in omens, Horus? The Mournival oath was pantomime, but this is ritual. This is sorcery. I told you then that I would not bow to any fane or acknowledge any spirit. I told you that I owned only the empirical clarity of Imperial Truth and I stand by those words.'

  'Please, Garvi,' begged Aximand. 'We are doing the right thing.'

  Loken shook his head. 'I believe we will all rue the day you brought the Warmaster here.'

  PART THREE

  THE HOUSE OF FALSE GODS

  THIRTEEN

  Who are you?

  Ritual

  0ld friend

  Horus opened his eyes, smiling as he saw blue sky above him. Pink and orange tinged clouds drifted slowly across his vision, peaceful and relaxing. He watched them for a few moments and then sat up, feeling wet dew beneath his palms as he pushed himself upright. He saw that he was naked, and as he surveyed his surroundings, he lifted his hand to his face, smelling the sweet scent of the grass and the crystal freshness of the air.

  A vista of unsurpassed beauty lay before him, towering snow-capped mountains draped in a shawl of pine and fir, magnificent swathes of emerald green forests as far as the eye could see and a wide river of foaming, icy water. Hundreds of shaggy coated herbivores grazed on the plain and wide pinioned birds circled noisily overhead. Horus sat on the low slopes of the foothills at the base of the mountains, the sun warming his face and the grass wondrously soft beneath him.

  'So that's it then,' he said calmly to himself. 'I'm dead.'

  No one answered him, but then he hadn't expected them to. Was this what happened when a person died? He dimly remembered someone teaching him of the ancient unbelief of ''heaven'' and ''hell'', meaningless words that promised rewards for obedience and punishment for wickedness.

  He took a deep breath, scenting the aroma of good earth: the fragrances of a world unchecked and untamed and of the living things that covered the landscape. He could taste the air and was amazed at its purity. Its crispness filled his lungs like sweet wine, but how had he come here and… where was here?

  He had been… where? He couldn't remember. He knew his name was Horus, but beyond that, he knew only fragments and dim recollections that even now grew faint and insubstantial the more he tried to hold onto them.

  Deciding that he should try to find out more about his surroundings, he rose to his feet, wincing as his shoulder pulled tight, and he saw a spot of blood soak through the white woollen robes he found himself wearing. Hadn't he been naked a second ago?

  Horus put it from his mind and laughed. 'There might be no hell, but this feels like heaven right enough. '

  His throat was dry and he set off towards the river, feeling the softness of the grass through newly sandalled feet. He was further away than he thought, the journey taking him longer than expected, but he didn't mind. The beauty of the landscape was worth savouring, and though something insistent nagged at the back of his mind, he ignored it and carried on.

  The mountains seemed to reach the very stars, their peaks lost in the clouds and belching noxious fumes into the air as he gazed up at them. Horus blinked, the afterimage of dark, smoke wreathed peaks of iron and cement burned onto his retinas like a spliced frame of harsh interference dropped into a mood window. He dismissed it as the newness of his surroundings, and headed across the swaying plains of tall grass, feeling the bones and waste of uncounted centuries of industry crunching beneath his feet.

  Horus felt ash in his throat, now needing a drink more than ever, the chemical stink growing worse with each step. He tasted benzene, chlorine, hydrochloric acid and vast amounts of carbon monoxide - lethal toxins to any but him it seemed - and briefly wondered how he knew these things. The river was just ahead and he splashed through the shallows, enjoying the biting cold as he reached down and scooped a handful of water into his cupped palms.

  The icy water burned his skin, molten slag dripping in caustic ropes between his fingers, and he let it splash back into the river, wiping his hands on his robe, which was now soot stained and torn. He looked up and saw that the glittering quartz mountains had become vast towers of brass and iron, wounding the sky with gateways like vast maws that could swallow and vomit forth entire armies. Streams of toxic filth poured from the towers and poisoned the river, the landscape around it withering and dying in an instant.

  Confused, Horus stumbled from the river, fighting to hold onto the verdant wilderness that had surrounded him and to hold back the vision of this bleak land of dark ruin and despair. He turned from the dark mountain: the cliff of deepest red and blackened iron, its top hidden in the high clouds above and its base girded with boulders and skulls.

  He fell to his knees, expecting the softness of the grass, but landing heavily on a fractured hardpan of ash and iron, swirling vortices of dust rising up in great storms.

  'What's happening here?' shouted Horus, rolling onto his back and screaming into a polluted sky striated with ugly bands of ochre and purple. He picked himself up and ran - ran as though his life depended on it. He ran across a landscape that flickered from one of aching beauty to that of a nightmare in the space of a heartbeat, his senses deceiving him from one second to another.

  Horus ran into the forest. The black trunks of the trees snapped before his furious charge, images of lashing branches, high towers of steel and glass, great ruins of mighty cathedrals and rotted palaces left to crumble under the weight of the ages dancing before his eyes.

  Bestial howls echoed across the landscape, and Horus paused in his mad scramble as the sound penetrated the fog in his head, the insistent nagging sensation in the back of his mind recognising it as significant.

  The mournful howls echoed across the land, a chorus of voices reaching out to him, and Horus recognised them as wolf howls. He smiled at the sound, dropping to his knees and clutching his shoulder as fiery pain lanced through his arm and into his chest. With the pain came clarity and he held onto it, forcing the memories to come through force of will.

  Howling wolf voices came again, and he cried out to the heavens.

  'What's happening to me?'

  The trees around him exploded with motion and a hundred-strong pack of wolves sprang from the undergrowth, surrounding him, with their teeth bared and eyes wide. Foam gathered around exposed fangs and each wolf bore a strange brand upon its fur, that of a black, double-headed eagle. Horus clutched his shoulder, his arm numb and dead as though it was no longer part of him.

 
'Who are you?' asked the closest wolf. Horus blinked rapidly as its image fizzled like static, and he saw curves of armour and a single, staring cyclopean eye.

  'I am Horus,' he said.

  'Who are you?' repeated the wolf.

  'I am Horus!' he yelled. 'What more do you want from me?'

  'I do not have much time, my brother,' said the wolf as the pack began circling him. 'You must remember before he comes for you. Who are you?'

  'I am Horus and if I am dead then leave me be!' he screamed, surging to his feet and running onwards into the depths of the forest.

  The wolves followed him, loping alongside him and matching his steady pace as he lurched randomly through the twilight. Again and again, the wolves howled the same question until Horus lost all sense of direction and time.

  Horus ran blindly onwards until he finally emerged from the tree line above a wide, high-cliffed crater gouged in the landscape and filled with dark, still water.

  The sky above was black and starless, a moon of purest white shining like a diamond in the firmament. He blinked and raised a hand to ward his eyes against its brightness, looking out over the black waters of the crater, certain that some unspeakable horror lurked in its icy depths.

  Horus glanced behind him to see that the wolves had followed him from the trees, and he ran on as their howling followed him to the edge of the crater. Far below, the water lay still and flat like a black mirror, and the image of the moon filled his vision.

  The wolves howled again, and Horus felt the yawning depths of the water calling out to him with an inevitable attraction. He saw the moon and heard the company of wolves give voice to one last howled question before he hurled himself into the void.

  He fell through the air, his vision tumbling and his memory spinning.

  The moon, the wolves, Lupercal.

  Luna… Wolves…

  Everything snapped into place and he cried out, 'I am Horus of the Luna Wolves, Warmaster and regent of the Emperor and I am alive!'