The Emperor's Gift

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

In silence, we watched the ruination at the heart of our fleet, and limped into port at last.

  ‘Welcome home, Karabela,’ came the dockmaster’s crackling vox-voice.

  No one replied.

  ELEVEN

  BURIAL

  I

  Tradition demanded that my brothers and I leave the Karabela together. I knew they waited for me, so perhaps I didn’t entirely hide my impatience as I delivered the final requisition lists for the tech-priests of the Palladium Kataphrakt.

  Seven of them gathered around me in the gunship hangar, each shrouded in their scarlet robes. I could smell the consecrated oil beating through their bodies in place of blood, and the misty chlorine sprays they used to moisten their eye lenses. Seeing beneath their hoods and body cloaks was difficult, but I doubted there was much of their birth-flesh left to any of them. Like many tech-priests, the cultists of the Palladium Kataphrakt modified themselves extensively over the years. Unlike most, they used only certain metals in their enhancements, as a sign of devotion and purity. What few augmetics were visible gleamed with silver polish, almost entirely formed from iron-reinforced palladium and platinum.

  They covered themselves not out of awkwardness or shame, but to hide their precious metals from the dirt of their duties. I found it a curious vanity.

  Axium processed the list and handed it back to me. ‘You are forgetting one thing,’ he said. His voice was human in every way. That never ceased to amaze me. I could hear almost nothing of the machinery within him, not in his movements, not in his voice, not even in his breathing.

  ‘I doubt that. I have thoroughly checked and rechecked this requisition.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ he smiled, ‘you are forgetting something crucial.’ He had an odd smile – I knew it was a simulation of human expression, yet its engineering was so flawless that all sense of artifice was stolen away.

  ‘Enlighten me,’ I said.

  Axium was the only one of the Palladium Kataphrakt not wearing his hood, perhaps because covering his features would be a crime against human ingenuity. He resembled a handsome, healthily muscled male in peak physical fitness, not a day over thirty. His physique was sculpted to exacting standards, almost always draped in an elegant scarlet toga, rather than the shapeless and overbearing robes worn by his lesser kindred. Axium’s lips moved as a human mouth moved. His eyes betrayed the same emotions. He was the embodied perfection of the human male form, in all ways but one: his body was formed entirely from silver.

  In their dealing with the wider Imperium, the Adeptus Mechanicus occasionally mandated the modification and use of specialist ambassadors for the comfort and ease of unmodified humans. These executors and famuli were often reshaped with the human norm in mind, their augmetics kept entirely internal or externally subtle, and communicated via traditional speech rather than the emission of binary cant screeds.

  Axium had only served us as executor primaris for ten months. When the Palladium Kataphrakt had presented him to us, the first question Galeo had asked was a simple, abrupt, +Why?+

  His inquiry had nothing to do with poor manners, and everything to do with the fact that Axium’s surgineering reconstruction had clearly taken intense degrees of both time and effort. We needed no executor in our dealings with the Adeptus Mechanicus, especially not on a modest vessel like the Karabela. Communications had never broken down between Castian and the Kataphrakt even once in the ten millennia both factions had served mankind together.

  Axium had answered for his brethren with a smile, and the words: ‘Simply to see if it could be done. We are artisans as well as engineers, and all artistic labours please the Machine God.’

  He’d been with us ever since.

  I’d heard it said that several other ships envied Axium’s presence aboard the Karabela. He certainly displayed more personality and efficiency than many of his tech-priest brethren, but that seemed irrelevant to the rumours. If the talk was to be believed, many other Adeptus Mechanicus cults aboard our fleet vessels considered him something of an icon, forged in glorious worship of the Omnissiah.

  When standing before him, it took a long time to drink in every detail of his construction. His face was far from smooth – to mimic the nuances of human expression, even his silver lips and eye sockets were formed from hundreds of minute servos – but his body’s musculature was shaped from interlocking plates of burnished silver, concealing much of the metalworking and circuitry beneath.

  Sophisticated sound suppressors the size of common tin coins were fused to his joints, muting his movements. Instead of the gentle purr of servos and the heavy tread of silver feet, Axium sounded perfectly human: his heartbeat was the natural rhythm of the human organ within his chest, and his breath came from biological lungs. His voice was so perfectly coded to match human frequencies that it sounded more natural than any of my brothers’, with their gene-modified biology.

  Silver was a soft metal by comparison to the materials used elsewhere in the Karabela’s forges. I suspected that was why Axium did so little artificer work himself, except for the finest engravings upon our weapons and armour.

  I’d once asked him how much coin and time had been spent in his construction. ‘A great deal of both,’ was his thoughtful answer.

  In the hangar, he took the data-slate back from me, scrolling past the primary requisition supplies and into the personal allowances.

  ‘Here.’ He showed me the same information I’d entered into the slate during the long voyage. I saw what he meant.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Ah,’ he mirrored me. ‘This is materiel for only four knights. I was given to understand Castian would recruit before we left.’

  ‘We will. My thanks for pointing out the discrepancy.’ Twice now in the last hour, it had been pointed out to me. I’d made the list before Dumenidon mentioned it, however.

  Axium tilted his head as he regarded me. ‘And your armour is a disgrace. The healing we were able to administer in the last eleven days is hardly suitable for a return to battle.’

  I had the strangest feeling of being lectured by an elder, something even Galeo had never managed to inspire in me.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You will surrender it to the Kataphrakt’s care for at least three weeks before we journey back into the void?’ Despite the subtle note of inquiry, his tone made it almost an order.

  ‘I will.’ If, I thought, we aren’t going to Armageddon.

  ‘Good, good.’ Axium returned the data-slate. The tiny gears and servos in his knuckles gave only the faintest, softest whirs. ‘What news of the Veregelt?’

  ‘We will know once we make it down to the monastery. I will ensure you have a full report.’ It occurred to me that this was only the third time since his augmetic reconstruction that Axium had docked at Titan. ‘Will you be travelling to the forge moon more than once?’

  He performed an amusingly courtly bow. ‘Deimos does indeed call to us. The Kataphrakt has resupply needs of its own.’

  ‘Ensure you log all transfer times with the strategium.’ I was already half-turned, trying to leave. Annika had surely taken the Wolf to the surface by now, and my brothers were still waiting. Time was a most precious resource.

  ‘Sir Hyperion,’ he chuckled, ‘have I ever given you the impression that I and my kindred are anything less than perfectly efficient?’

  ‘Not in the least. But this is the first time I am taking responsibility for our resupply. I wish it to go flawlessly.’

  He nodded to that. ‘Did the captain and the justicar ask this of you?’

  ‘No. I volunteered.’

  ‘I see.’ Axium’s eyes weren’t human either, but they were perfect simulacra, right down to the moisture in the sockets that made them shine. They glinted with amusement as he spoke. ‘Taking the initiative.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Seeking a justicar position for yourself, one night, perhaps?’

  ‘Axium… I really must attend to my other duties.’

/>   ‘Ah. Of course. Go with the Machine God’s graces.’

  Instead of replying, I made the sign of the aquila. Axium returned a salute in absolute unity with his six brethren – each of them making the knuckle-linked sign of the cog.

  II

  I joined my brothers at the thoroughfare umbilicus, ready to leave the ship. Most of the crew, those with permission to disembark, had already gone over to the station through other passages. This tunnel was for us, and us alone.

  I was the last of Castian to gather. None of them complained at my delay.

  +Ready?+ Galeo sent.

  ‘Yes, justicar,’ Dumenidon answered. I merely nodded, as did Malchadiel.

  +Lift.+

  Each of us held a corner of the coffin. Formed from silver-threaded iron, the casket was hardly light, but what would be impossible for unenhanced humans was merely a minor burden for us.

  We moved through the airlock, marching in unison, boots thudding on the deck grille with each step as we crossed the umbilicus.

  The crossing to Broadsword Station took no more than thirty seconds, and rather than pass into the main sections of the spaceport, we carried the coffin through darkened hallways to a secluded hangar bay. The walls were bas-relief carvings of silent, staring warriors standing in ranks. Not once did we pass another living being.

  I knew what awaited us from my years committing the order’s rituals to memory, but this one was scarcely detailed in the monastery’s librariums. I found I wasn’t sure what to expect, though my brothers showed no hesitation at all. I brushed against their minds, feeling nothing more than their solemn reverence and, in the case of Malchadiel, a bleary, cold sorrow.

  The hangar looked out upon Titan, filling its open bay doors with an orange, creamy light. Only the waspish throb of an energy field separated us from the void outside.

  A lone shuttle was the hangar’s only occupant. It resembled nothing of Adeptus Astartes design, but nor did it show the blocky, armoured efficiency preferred by the Adeptus Mechanicus. But it was old, no question about it. Its sleek, backswept wings were a throwback to an ancient age, before the homogenisation of safe, accepted vehicle templates.

  +I cannot speak to the Ferryman,+ Galeo sent. +Hyperion, the responsibility is yours.+

  Up until that moment, I’d never realised just how reliant upon my powers I’d become. My sixth sense so often became my first sense, as I passively reached out to brush my mind against everything nearby, sensing other living beings long before I saw or heard them. When I saw the robed figure by the shuttle’s wing, I almost fell out of step with my brothers. No wonder Galeo couldn’t speak to the figure. It didn’t exist to my psychic sense beyond a shadow in the warp. Here was a man without a soul.

  We lowered our brother’s coffin onto the hangar deck. Traditional words filtered back into my mind, recalled through the discomfort of standing before the soulless figure. Looking at him made my lips peel back from my teeth, and my sixth sense closed in a snap of loss, as if I’d suddenly been struck blind.

  The Inquisition made use of psychic nulls, mortals casting no soul-echo in the warp, as anathema to all psychic activity in their proximity. Such creatures were useful as weapons, in their own servile, incorruptible ways, but it took effort just to stand near the hollow man. I wondered how he was even alive, and what genetic aberration allowed him to be born.

  Outwardly, he was one of us – his bulky physique was unarguably the result of Adeptus Astartes genetic enhancement – yet he stood unarmed and unarmoured, clad only in a patchwork grey robe that had clearly seen better years. Eyes of unremarkable blue watched each of us in turn before resting on the coffin we’d carried, until he lowered his shaved head in a nod of greeting.

  ‘Who speaks for the fallen?’

  My revulsion got the better of me. ‘What are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Focus,’ Dumenidon hissed.

  I cleared my throat, forcing myself to look at the figure. ‘Hyperion of Castian speaks for the fallen. Who bears our slain to the Dead Fields?’

  ‘Phlegyras of Titan will bear your slain to the Dead Fields. Present the Sigillite’s symbol.’

  We raised our left hands, showing the black symbol acid-etched into the silver of our gauntlets’ palms. We each bore the same tattoo inked into the flesh of our hands beneath.

  ‘We present the Sigil of Malcador,’ I said.

  The Ferryman nodded a second time. ‘Speak the name of the fallen, and the words to be engraved in memoriam.’

  I considered trying to reach Mal, but Phlegyras’s presence stole all hope of that. I couldn’t sense anything outside my own skull. I’d been chosen to speak; the responsibility of answering fell to me.

  ‘Sothis of Castian,’ I said, feeling my primary heart beating harder. ‘Knight of the Eighth Brotherhood. Valiant to the last. Revered by his brothers in life. Remembered for the lessons taught by his death.’

  ‘It will be so.’

  Galeo bowed, and began to walk away. I wondered just how many times he’d surrendered his brothers to one of the Ferrymen to be interred in the Dead Fields below our monastery.

  ‘Brother,’ Dumenidon voxed. ‘Come.’

  I couldn’t explain my sudden reluctance to leave Sothis in this aberration’s care. When one of our order died, we surrendered the remains to the Ferrymen to cleanse and bury. It had been this way for generations, since the Chapter’s founding at the hands of the Sigillite. As slaves, they were trained for this duty, purified and sworn into service. What right did I have to resist tradition?

  And yet…

  ‘Who are you?’

  The Ferryman turned towards me. His eyes seemed glassy and hollow, but I knew that was a lie born of my deprived psychic sense. I couldn’t sense life within him, so my lesser perceptions struggled to see it, as well.

  ‘I am Phlegyras of Titan,’ he said calmly.

  ‘One of the Ferrymen,’ I said.

  ‘One of the Ferrymen,’ he repeated. I wasn’t sure if he was answering, or simply speaking my own words back to me in dull-witted imitation.

  ‘You serve the Sepulcars, do you not? You are a seneschal to those who tend the Dead Fields?’

  I ignored Galeo’s hand on my shoulder. His voice was as banished as my sixth sense.

  ‘I serve the Sepulcars.’ Phlegyras nodded. If such a creature could be said to be amiable, he seemed to be trying to be polite. Even meeting his eyes made me want to spit, knowing there was no soul beyond them. Knowledge of my hatred’s irrationality was no salve against its heat.

  I looked at the enigmatic figure for another long moment. This time, he spoke to me.

  ‘You are reluctant to let the fallen be buried.’ He smiled, and I suspected he was trying to be kind. ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked again, feeling my voice growl through my teeth. ‘You were one of us once, weren’t you?’

  Phlegyras smiled and said nothing.

  ‘Come, brother,’ Dumenidon voxed. ‘He has a duty, as we have ours.’

  I left with my kindred, though not without a lingering glance at the Ferryman loading the coffin aboard his shuttle.

  He lifted it with no trouble at all.

  III

  As soon as we left his presence, my psychic sense flared back into life. And as soon as it did, I heard our names being called. Not my name, in the sense of individual appellations. This was a call from the surface of Titan, resonating through all our minds, ripe with images of Castian’s proud banner and the alkaline taste of teleportation mist on the tongue.

  +We’re being summoned,+ Malchadiel pulsed.

  Galeo lifted a hand to stop our march. +No. We’re… This is an order, not a summons.+

  Relaxing my mind was all it took. I let the psychic touch wash through me, achieving communion almost at once. I saw the surface of another world, the earth itself black with rot, while a city burned at the horizon’s edge. I’d seen that sight once before, when I rifled through the mind of the Wolf, Grauvr.


  +Our lords wish to speak to us,+ I sent to the others. +I’ve never felt such a call.+

  +You are young,+ Galeo sent. +What you sense now is something you may never feel again. I’ve only felt it once in the past.+ His aquiline features, so plainly lined by the trials of service, were further darkened by the surrounding disquiet.

  +I sense the unease within many minds,+ sent Malchadiel. +Nothing more.+

  +This is tied to the Veregelt’s arrival, and the communion I shared with the Third Captain as we came into dock. But more than that, Inquisitor Jarlsdottyr’s survivor has revealed all to the Chapter lords. And so we are ordered to heel. All of us.+

  +A Chapter-wide cry?+ I ventured. +That can’t be. The threat to Armageddon cannot be so dire.+

  +I don’t understand,+ Malchadiel admitted. +No threat would ever demand the entire Chapter.+

  +So very young,+ Galeo pulsed to all of us, with the slightest smile. +Hyperion, I have a favour to ask of you before the gathering takes place tonight. Castian requires a fifth knight. You will be the one to ask him.+

  TWELVE

  FORTRESS-MONASTERY

  I

  I’d not seen him in almost a year, since Castian had claimed me and we’d sailed for our first mission with Inquisitor Jarlsdottyr.

  I found him in the Dead Fields, tending the monuments of the lost. A ripple of psychic force left his outstretched hand, brushing over a statue and shedding a layer of dust from its granite shoulders.

  He wore his armour, as was his right. No ceramite girded his left arm from the elbow, or his right arm from the bicep, or either leg from the thighs down. Polished augmetic limbs clicked and whirred in place of his true arms and legs – the legacies of old, old injuries sustained before I’d been born.

  Whenever that was.

  ‘Enceladus.’

  He turned at the sound of my voice, though he’d surely been able to sense my approach the moment I’d set foot in the catacombs. The right side of his face was clean, shining chrome, sculpted in mimicry of his former features. Both eyes were red lenses in sockets of dark iron.