The Emperor's Gift

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  ‘Hyperion.’

  I moved back to her, feeling a tightness in my chest that I couldn’t quite place.

  ‘You look… worried,’ she said.

  ‘I feel unusual.’ I had to swallow, and to make fists of my hands to prevent her noticing the tremble in them. My throat was inexplicably dry, making it difficult to speak.

  ‘You’re… are you nervous?’ she asked, her voice dangerously soft. Her eyes were wide.

  ‘That’s a physiological impossibility.’

  +What… What is that feeling?+ Malchadiel sent in a rush. +What is happening?+ I felt Galeo, Enceladus and Dumenidon similarly questing for me, reaching out for the source of the insane sensation.

  +All is well.+ I contained myself in absolution, internalising everything, letting nothing slip free. My hearts began to slow.

  ‘Hyperion…’ Annika said, still with her soft voice.

  ‘Just tell me,’ I said, sharper than I’d intended. ‘Please.’

  She didn’t hand me the data-slate. Instead, she slid from the table and walked to the communal chamber’s main occulus screen, mounted on the starboard wall. As Annika slid the data-slate into the receptacle, the screen flared into glowing life.

  She showed me a boy. A rough pict of a boy in his middle teens, though the image was grainy with distortion. He was thin, undernourished, unhealthy. His eyes were dark, cocky, suspicious.

  More than anything else, he looked tired.

  No. That is a lie. More than anything else, he looked like me.

  I felt myself stepping closer, closer, until my hand rested on the screen. Annika leaned on the wall nearby, watching me watch myself. Even without looking, I could sense her gentle smile as well as her melancholy.

  ‘Is there more?’ I asked. ‘More than the picture?’

  Her answer was to key in a second code. I stepped back from the grainy visage in order to read the text that scrolled into view.

  By Order of His Holy Majesty the God-Emperor of Terra

  Authorised Souls Only

  Case File – SAB-Tertius AQ901:SS:GX1345L:88:XHD

  Secondary Relevance: SIGIL – SIGIL – SIGIL

  Tertiary Relevance: 77-EP:513T:X:3a:ASP:8183659

  Imperial Representative Responsible – [Inquisitor Lilith Abfequarn,

  Ordo Hereticus]

  Imperial Heavenly Solar Reckoning: XXX.XXX.406.M4

  [Empyrean Variance Allowance Noted; See Subsidiary Documentation (HERE) And (HERE) And (HERE) And (HERE).]

  SUBJECT borne in stasis from Eustis Majoris to Titan. Stasis integrity absolute upon arrival: confirmed absolute by Inquisitor Lilith Abfequarn (Representative), confirmed absolute by Apex Cronus Bastion (Destination).

  SUBJECT before and after reanimation presented as Human Male, chronological age 15-Fifteen-XV, physical age lower – all variances attributed to biological stunting. Physically underdeveloped, significant signs of Malnutrition, Carpopedal Spasm, Muscle Atrophy and Related Halt of Growth, Abuse of Detrimental Substance, Scurvy, Iron Deficiency, Iodine Deficiency, Onset of Mania, Delusional Perceptive Sense, and Reflective Psychic Ability.

  Inquisitor Lilith Abfequarn presented SUBJECT to Chapter VI-VI-VI on basis of the latter anomaly. SUBJECT has recorded involvement with the actions of INQUISITOR GIDEON RAVENOR, ORDO XENOS.

  Initial testing confirms SUBJECT’S heightened Reflective Psychic Ability, cross-reference: ‘Mirror Psyker’.

  Clarification – SUBJECT has no capacity to access his own innate psychic strength. SUBJECT leeches from nearby sources of psychic power. SUBJECT then displays ability to mimic any and all psychic ability he has leeched from others.

  Principal Refraction to the Anomalous Condition: SUBJECT shows signs of potential to be Unlocked. In the process of Unlocking, SUBJECT will be broken of parasitic instinct and reshaped accordingly. Immense potential for psychic mastery.

  As noted, SUBJECT’S chronological age at variance with physical development. Implantation of gene-seed at chronological age cogitated at eighty-nine per cent (89%) chance of rejection-failure. Implantation of gene-seed at physical age cogitated at seventy-seven per cent (77%) chance of rejection-failure.

  Post-initial testing, SUBJECT transferred to Titan Fortress-Monastery. SUBJECT consigned to INTROSPECTION CELL D-3111-ENC-AX44-JA.

  SUBJECT rendered ready to begin Time of Trial. All memory banished.

  SUBJECT’S identity to be purged from all UNPROTECTED Imperial Record, in the Emperor’s name, and for His Glorious Imperium.

  I read it in silence, every word. Once I reached the end, I read it all again. Twice. Only then did I turn back to the inquisitor. Annika was still smiling, but as before, without being able to read her facial muscles, I wasn’t sure what it meant.

  ‘There’s no name,’ I said.

  ‘Actually, yes, there is.’ She keyed in another code, bringing up a secondary screen. It showed a report filed on the investigative trial of Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor, detailing access to several of his testimonies.

  Annika gestured to the first one. ‘There,’ she said.

  I followed where she pointed.

  EFFERNETI, ZAEL

  It meant nothing to me. I looked back at her. ‘Zael Efferneti. That was my name?’

  ‘It was.’ She blanked the screen and withdrew the data-slate. ‘And you caused quite a stir all those decades ago. You were present at the side of one of the ordos’ most respected inquisitors, during some of his darkest hours.’

  Inquisitor Ravenor. I knew of him. Who, within the Inquisition of Segmentums Solar and Obscurus, hadn’t heard that name? Such was his renown, his writings were considered required reading for Inquisitorial candidates in several subsectors.

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Did you expect anything else?’

  I didn’t know the answer to that myself. ‘I’m not sure.’

  Annika shook her head. ‘You’ve remembered flashes, Hyperion. Try to focus.’

  Discomfort ran through me, as sudden as a sharp wind. I didn’t want to do this any more.

  ‘No. I think I’ll leave. Thank you, inqui…’

  ‘Hyperion?’

  ‘The black throne.’ I knuckled my closed eyes, irritated by the memory. ‘I told you I’ve always dreamed of a black throne. A black chair. Of course.’

  She nodded. ‘Inquisitor Ravenor’s life support throne. See? You remember more than you realise.’

  ‘How difficult is this information to find? You know who I was, who Malchadiel and Sothis were… How common is such lore?’

  ‘It doesn’t exist outside the Inquisition. I doubt it even exists on Titan.’

  ‘That much is obvious, inquisitor.’

  ‘Even in the Inquisition, this data is rarely accessed. I went looking because I was cursed with a curious soul, and called in old oaths for favours. In truth, this kind of lore is often archived and forgotten, rather than consciously buried in the Throne System’s annals. Even among the Inquisition, who but the most curious souls would care for such knowledge? It’s worthless beyond its value as a harmless curiosity. It offers no advantage over an enemy. The Grey Knights are trained and bound and scourged to rarely care about their former lives, and inquisitors gain no special influence over them by having it. Few souls are curious enough to look. A handful every decade. No more than that.’

  ‘I appreciate you sharing it with me.’

  ‘Curiosity is no sin, Hyperion. I like picking through the bones of old archives. The things you learn.’ She gave me another smile. ‘I’m glad I could show it to you.’

  I looked at her – a thought occurring now for the first time. ‘Is there some punishment for what you’ve shown me? Would the ordos take punitive action against you?’

  Annika shrugged. ‘Hyperion, the Inquisition isn’t… organised… in that way. It’s not one cult on one world ruled by one council. A lot of outsiders don’t see that clearly. Every world, system, subsector and segmentum has its own organisation, rituals, archives and pol
itics… Do you see?’

  ‘Not really.’ I had the order, and nothing outside it. I struggled to envisage something that spanned the galaxy, made up of millions of conflicting souls united only by the loosest interest. Such disunity made my skin crawl.

  ‘One inquisitor’s sin is another’s salvation. It’s like the Imperial Creed. On one world, they worship the Emperor as a god enthroned on solid gold. On the next, He’s a metaphor for eternal life through acts of self-sacrifice. On another, He’s a sun deity, responsible for the daylight and the growth of crops – they pray to Him for ripe harvests. And yet, on other worlds, He will be venerated as a prophet whose words are lost to time, and lesser men conjure up apt phrases in His name, that make sense to the local populace. On yet another world, He’s the supreme being that welcomes and protects the spirits of people’s ancestors after they die. And on another? He’s the Guiding Light: the source of the Astronomican, the living, mortal man with the powers of a god, whose machines project the beacons for our ships to follow in the endless night.’

  ‘I understand.’

  I’d never seen such cultures – I possessed precious little first-hand knowledge of any culture beyond my monastery’s walls. Even when I trawled the archives for lore on the worlds we purged, I focused on what was relevant to the operation.

  Annika took it a step further. ‘All of those religions are a tolerable variance on the Imperial Creed. They are the Imperial Creed. The galaxy is vast, and the Ecclesiarchy cares nothing for what any of these worlds and nations do – so long as it’s the Emperor to whom they pray. The Imperium is not a unified whole, Hyperion. It’s humanity in its infinite, lost, separated variety. The Inquisition is the same. Tell me, how many inquisitors in your experience are no different to me?’

  Perhaps she was forgetting I’d met a total of four inquisitors in my life, thus far. How was I supposed to know such things? They were rarely recorded, assumed as fact only by those who dealt with it in their daily lives. I’d spent four decades within the monastery, and the year since my ascension to knighthood had been spent largely in warp transit, punctuated by rare flashes of battle.

  ‘I have almost no experience with the Inquisition outside my dealings with you.’

  ‘Of course. Forgive me, I forget how young you are.’

  I looked at her, and said nothing.

  ‘I mean… relatively speaking,’ she qualified.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’ve met many others,’ Annika said. ‘Inquisitors who use primitive talismans, and others that swear by alien technology: shamans and progressive heretics all fighting for the same cause. Yes, some of us hold authority over others, but ultimately we’re alone, every single one of us, only as powerful as our own reach and those we ally with. We fight with one another as much as we fight the Great Enemy. The Inquisition – as imagined by the populace in its guise as a monolithic, ultimate entity – just doesn’t exist. It’s a… valdelnagh. A misunderstanding. A convenient deception.’

  I realised what she was doing. It had almost worked.

  ‘You are avoiding the question, inquisitor. Would you be punished for this?’

  She laughed, a gentle sound. ‘It depends who found out. Most inquisitors wouldn’t care, knowing most Grey Knights would be similarly uninterested. Others might wish to kill me for it. Others would consider it a novel manipulation. None of that matters.’

  I looked down at my hands, sheathed in silver ceramite. ‘It said I had no psychic ability. They had to unlock my talent for me to function.’

  ‘Only the Grey Knights could do it. It’s why Lilith brought you to Titan.’

  ‘Was it her idea?’

  ‘The report doesn’t say, but I doubt it. More likely, she was issued a sammekull by the Prognosticars.’

  Sammekull. Another Fenrisian word, meaning a summoning. It did seem likely. And what had Torcrith said of me? ‘Your powers drew notice, even before you were lingering in the trials of assessment.’

  Intriguing. Perhaps he’d been the one to send for me.

  ‘At least it explains why my powers function so much better in the presence of my brothers.’ I’d always wondered about that, and why it seemed unique to me. The fact it concerned none of my kindred even the slightest had been firm reassurance, leading me to think it was merely a matter of familiarity and confidence. The truth was that my psychic capabilities had had to be nurtured late in life, while I was naturally more… vampiric with my talents.

  I couldn’t help but ask myself if I still leeched from them, as I leeched from others in my youth.

  A much colder realisation was that this explained why my masters had been so hesitant during my initial training. I’d probably come closer to destruction than I’d ever known.

  I recalled the first words I shared with others of my order, when Enceladus and two others freed me from my cell.

  ‘These symbols,’ I’d asked them. ‘What are they?’

  ‘Wards. Hexagrammic wards. We had to be sure you were free from taint. We also had to be certain you recalled nothing of your former life.’

  The second voice was no warmer. ‘You have remained here for the mandated ninety-nine nights, as we scryed into your soul.’

  ‘The ritual is complete.’ The third voice, who I’d come to know as Enceladus, spoke at last. ‘We are satisfied with your purity.’

  But the armoured knight’s joints growled as he inclined his head. ‘Though some doubts yet remain.’

  Blinking pulled me free of the reverie.

  ‘I should leave.’

  Annika didn’t offer objection. ‘As you wish. Will I see you before… before we make planetfall?’

  I know why she hesitated. She nearly asked ‘Will I see you before you die?’ It’s almost amusing that she thought to shield such a sentiment from me. I was born to fight, born to die. Neither fate held any mystery or fear for me.

  Courageous words indeed, from one who’d trembled at the thought of seeing his youth. That, at last, made me smile.

  ‘Unlikely,’ I said. ‘If you are going down to Armageddon to stand with the Wolves, then this will be our last meeting. Farewell, Inquisitor Jarlsdottyr.’

  She placed her palm against my breastplate – against the icon of the Liber Daemonicum there.

  ‘This book is the closest thing you have to a holy text, isn’t it?’

  I nodded. ‘It contains our rites and traditions, and–’

  She shushed me. She actually shushed me. She had to reach up to do it, to press a tiny, frail human finger against my lips. The madness of the moment almost reduced me to laughter.

  ‘Hush,’ she said. ‘Have faith, Hyperion. You were made to win wars like this. All of you were.’

  I couldn’t think of an adequate reply. Lacking the right words, I inclined my head and left her alone.

  The call to war came nine hours later.

  II

  I stood with Castian on the Karabela’s bridge. Captain Talwyn sat straight in his command throne, wearing his official grey tunic, further darkened by the addition of a black jacket with gold buttons. For Talwyn Castor, the attire was almost funereal, which was fitting enough.

  His officers were at their stations, and a quiet dignity had come over the bridge since we entered. Every human wore their uniforms, showing exacting standards of neatness. Even the servitors had been muted to speak in low murmurs for now. The ship itself maintained perfect position in the fleet – Talwyn had seen to that.

  The occulus gave an aerial view of the land around one of Armageddon’s final hive cities. The River Styx – named, as everything on this world was named, from the various underworlds of Terran mythology – was a fork of rich, blue lightning splitting the earth itself. What had the first settlers seen in this globe, to give its landmarks such rancid names? I’d never know.

  On the occulus, we watched armies grinding together on a scale I’d never even imagined possible. Entire battalions of Imperial Guard and militia charged and fled, rose from trenches or
held the line, all to the whims of their own hearts and the orders shouted by their officers. Tank divisions, hundreds and hundreds of war machines, churned up a storm of dust as they crashed through the enemy’s ranks or drew back in ragged, broken formations.

  The horde they faced was an agglomeration of men, mutants, and much worse besides. The fact any man or woman stood their ground against such a host spoke with crystal clarity of the immeasurable courage within the human heart. Before my very eyes, I was seeing just why mankind deserved to inherit this galaxy. No other species twinned such virtue with such intellect.

  I confess, as I thought such things, I could almost imagine Annika telling me I was being naive. Even Vasilla would have smiled to hear such thoughts, and reminded me how little I really knew of the species that gave birth to me.

  We watched the greatest battle of the war raging on both sides of the Styx. From our aerie, it was a black stain across the land, spreading minute by minute from a murderous epicentre. From this altitude, and with the smoke rising from the engaged armies, almost all detail was obscured.

  Vox-traffic crackled above the sedate quiet, bringing voices from the surface. We kept communication bonds open to three souls: the first, Jarl Grimnar, embattled at the river. The second, Annika, her exhausted breathing eclipsed by the heavy crash of her bolter. The third, Captain Taremar, as we listened to him relaying, squad by squad, those among our brotherhood who stood ready for the final strike.

  ‘Status, Castian?’ his voiced rasped over the speakers, filling the bridge.

  Galeo nodded to Dumenidon, to answer in his place.

  ‘We await the last blessings upon our teleportation platform. A matter of minutes at most, Third Captain.’

  ‘Understood.’ Taremar’s voiced crackled away, returning the sounds of Jarl Grimnar bellowing at his brothers, and Annika swearing in the most obscene Fenrisian I’d ever heard.