The Devastation of Baal

by Guy Haley

  Mephiston looked in. A dark shape sat at the centre of the room, four arms stretched out from an emaciated body and held in place by manacles and chains engraved with complex circuitries. The floor thrummed with the actions of hidden machinery.

  There was no key; no normal lock would hold the prisoner. Mephiston pushed upon the wood. His skin tingled through his armour. Without his ceramite, the power running through it would have burned his flesh. The door creaked open.

  With a gesture, Mephiston ignited four rod lumens ­stapled to the walls. Three shone with a cold, greenish light. The fourth hitched and buzzed with a flicker that would not settle.

  The creature in the cell was not human. Two stumpy legs made up its number of limbs to six. Its skin was slack on fatless flesh, many ribs clearly visible beneath.

  The octocalvariae had been in the cell for three thousand years without any nourishment. It should have died long, long ago. But it would not.

  The thing lifted its head. Whether its body was its true form was not known. There had been none of its race left to compare it with. But its face was not its original. Chaos had had its way with the thing’s features, perverting them in a manner that was unmistakable. Upon its alien head, eight tiny, grotesque faces had grown. They were all identical, perhaps miniature replicas of the xenos’ original. There were six simple eyes on each. The noses were three gill-like vertical slits. The mouths were slender probosces curled neatly between poisonous palpae. The creature did not use speech like men did. It was probable its species had been psychic; if so, it was their downfall.

  Traces of larger features were visible as puckers in the smooth flesh. Chaos had wiped the xenos’ face clean, giving it eight in miniature in cruel recompense.

  Mephiston felt its intellect prodding at his. With a thought, he pushed aside the empyric veils caging its mind, making an aperture big enough for it to speak through.

  Who are you?+ it said. Its thoughts were alien. There was no linguistic structure that a human would recognise, but Mephiston understood, psyker to psyker.

  ‘I am Mephiston. Chief Librarian of the Blood Angels, the Lord of Death,’ said Mephiston aloud.

  A fitting name for one such as you.+ Its multiple eyes blinked together. +You are the successor to the one who killed my followers and caged me.+

  ‘I am. Many generations removed. You have been here a long time.’

  The thing let its head droop. +For preaching the truth of reality to your people, you kill and enslave,+ it said. +You call me monster, you who hunger for the blood of your own kind.+

  ‘You are the enslaver,’ said Mephiston. ‘By warpcraft you subjugated three Imperial systems, and seduced their inhabitants away from the light of the Emperor, and damned them for all eternity. Your confinement here is just. We would kill you, if we could.’

  The alien’s smooth flesh convulsed. The eight tiny faces pulsed, their eyes closing and opening in rhythmic waves. A show of mirth. Its laughter echoed in Mephiston’s mind.

  You cannot. The dark lords make me strong. Have you come here to gloat? If you have, enjoy it. I shall one day be free of this place. I will be merciful to those who show me respect.+

  ‘I have no need to gloat,’ said Mephiston, ‘and you shall never escape. I have come instead to seek your wisdom, evil as it is.’

  The thing laughed again. Its suspended body quivered. +That is amusing.+

  ‘A great darkness approaches Baal.’

  I see it. A blankness in the sea of souls. An unending hunger comes. It desires to consume you. Your hungers are similar. Do you not see it as a kindred spirit?+ asked the being.

  Mephiston ignored the alien’s insinuation. ‘There is something else. Another event is soon to occur, not of the material realm but of the warp. I have seen it in a vision, but will have confirmation before I act.’

  The thing dragged its deformed head upright. +And you want me to help you?+ It laughed again, its amusement buffeting Mephiston’s stony soul.

  ‘You will help me.’

  Then release me,+ it said, +and perhaps I may accommodate your desires before I kill you.+

  ‘I never said I needed your active participation.’

  Mephiston drove Vitarus into the ground before the alien psyker and reached out his hands towards it. Red fire flickered around his fingers.

  He bent the creature’s mind to his will, but it fought him all the way, and for a moment Mephiston feared he had attempted a task he could not accomplish, and that the being would overwhelm him. With a psychic shout, he pushed hard, battering the octocalvariae into submission.

  The creature was a worshipper of Chaos in its formless glory and was many thousands of years old. Who knew what worlds it had ruined or how many species it had corrupted? At the height of its power it had been a prophet of incredible accuracy. Its link to the empyrean was still strong, and Mephiston rode this as a warrior from a backward world might attempt to master an unbroken steed. The xenos’ mind bucked and thrashed in his psychic grip, but he did not relent, and through the creature’s many unholy eyes he looked out into the Realm of Chaos, and the myriad possibilities forming there.

  A billion horrible images burned into his second sight. He sifted through them quickly. Ka’Bandha’s lust for the souls of the Blood Angels shone redly bright. Mephiston homed in on the greater daemon’s essence with little difficulty.

  For a brief moment he saw the daemonic battle still ­raging. The red angel burned with furious fires. Ka’Bandha was within a spear’s cast of the Gate. He was coming to the material realm.

  The bloodthirster paused in its carnage, turned and looked Mephiston directly in the eye.

  Ka’Bandha’s bellow sent the Lord of Death flying backwards. Trailing flames he slammed into the wall of the octocalvariae’s cell.

  The octocalvariae convulsed in its chains, setting them rattling violently. When the spasm stopped, it hung from its bonds, laughing more loudly than ever.

  That is what you wanted to know? Had you told me, I would have shown you willingly. There is no finer thing than presenting a being with truth of its own death. The Neverborn you call Ka’Bandha will come for you, so-called Lord of Death. He will take your mortal skull for his drinking cup, and your soul shall join his armies, and throw down this Imperium you pretend to love.+

  Mephiston recovered himself, and took up Vitarus.

  ‘Those are lies,’ he said calmly.

  Are they? You will see!+ said the octocalvariae. +There is a darkness in you that eclipses my own, Lord of Death. Let me free, so I may see you fall!+

  ‘You will remain here,’ said Mephiston, his voice cold as the depths of space. ‘Be assured, if it were possible, I would slay you.’

  One day, you will be my ally,+ said the octocalvariae.

  ‘Never,’ said Mephiston. He severed the psychic link, leaving the octocalvariae scratching at the walls of his mental fortress.

  For an instant, Mephiston considered running the xenos sorcerer through, simply for the pleasure of hurting it.

  He sheathed Vitarus and departed.

  Chapter Nine

  Dante’s dilemma

  The Red Council was one of the Blood Angels two ruling bodies, the other being the Council of Blood and Bone. The latter was made up of the senior chaplaincy and Sanguinary priesthood, responsible for the spiritual and physical work to constrain the flaw. Chief among their duties was the selection of a new Chapter Master when the office was vacant.

  The Red Council’s purview was the waging of war, and as that was the purpose of all Adeptus Astartes Chapters, it was the senior of the two groups. Such was the importance of the Red Council that the room where it met in the Arx Angelicum was replicated in every detail upon both battle-barges of the Chapter: the Blade of Vengeance, and the Bloodcaller.

  At least, so it had been. When responses from the successor Chapters beg
an flooding in to the fortress monastery, Dante had decreed that the council room be expanded so that all the Chapter Masters and their captains might sit there as brothers.

  ‘This is our darkest hour, and they have answered,’ he had told his assembled officers. ‘I will accord them the honour as if they were of our own Chapter,’ he said. ‘Let no warrior come to Baal at our call for assistance and feel himself less than equal.’

  The ancient room was obliterated. Six thousand years of history was made dust in the effort of a week. Many other halls were carved away to make space for Dante’s vision. The number of seats on the Red Council was twenty-five. The rebuilt Chamber of the Red Council was twenty times as large. Five hundred seats were arrayed around a massive circular table with a hollow centre. The Chapter Master’s chair had been slightly larger than the others, to emphasise his status as first among equals. Dante insisted his chair in the new chamber be replaced in the room exactly the same as it had been before, and that the chairs for the other Chapter Masters be the same size as his.

  The new table was of pure white marble. The names and ranks of those invited to attend were displayed on adaptive golden plaques set into the table surface. The plaques were the same in dimension and decoration. No warrior would think another more highly regarded than any other.

  The Chamber of the Great Red Council was as artful and fine as everything the Blood Angels made. Its decoration was flawless, a display of taste and craftsmanship of the highest sort. Black rock was polished until it gleamed. Reliefs of every single successor Chapter the Blood Angels had begotten decorated the walls, their heraldry picked out in bright minerals and precious metals. Those who were damned were included, though their panels covered over with black cloth. Those who were lost to war were marked with glowering collections of skulls carved from the same ivory as the Blood Angels’ sarcophagi. All the Chapters that sprang from Sanguinius’ glory were there, alive and dead, good and bad alike. The worst of them had been heroes once, and the shame of their falling was a lesson the others should not neglect.

  Scrolls carved in the stone bore the names of every Chapter Master of these orders, at least so far as they were known. The names of prominent heroes were embroidered upon flags hanging over the shrines, and parchments fixed with coloured waxes recorded the most famous battle honours of each brotherhood. The founding lords of the second-generation Chapters were commemorated in stone. To make them, the bones of the extinct volcano had been shaped into living marvels, statues so realistic they looked as if they might step down from their plinths.

  Even those races who considered themselves more refined than gross humanity would have marvelled at the chamber’s beauty. There was a weight of history, of honour and of justified pride, and so the room felt as old as the Chapter, though it had been finished only a few days before. It waited for those who would fill it, ready to judge the deeds of the living against those of the dead commemorated on the walls.

  It was in this Great Chamber of the Red Council that Mephiston met with Dante. The Lord of Death arrived to find his lord sitting in his throne. His helm was set on the table, Dante gazing intently at the outraged face of Sanguinius as if it would speak with the primarch’s wisdom.

  Mephiston’s footsteps echoed lightly as he crossed the floor. The Lord of Death moved stealthily always, like the predator he was. Firebowls and candles lit the space, casting its crannies into red darkness. Dante was a being of liquid flame in his gold. The candlelight moved on his armour, inviting the Chapter Master to join it in dances of destruction.

  The movement was false. Dante remained still, lost in thought until Mephiston stopped before him.

  ‘I have come,’ said Mephiston.

  Dante looked up, his ancient face hollowed with worry. ‘You will tell me now what you could not before.’

  Mephiston nodded once, a slight incline of his head. It was as if a statue had moved, a slight motion caught out of the corner of the eye, so mundane a gesture yet terrifying when performed by the Lord of Death.

  ‘There was another part to my initial vision, my lord. I went into a hellish kingdom of fire, bone and blood. There I saw Ka’Bandha.’

  The fires in the room guttered and flared, dancing a little harder at the mention of that name.

  Dante narrowed his eyes sharply. ‘You are sure it was the Angels’ Bane?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘And what was he doing?’

  ‘He was fighting his way through a legion of black-skinned daemons.’

  ‘Is it not the way of the Blood God’s minions to always make war on one another?’

  ‘It is,’ said Mephiston. ‘If the dark lore is to be believed.’

  ‘Then what of it?’

  ‘He was fighting his way out. A vision of a red angel burned in the sky. There was a gap in the world, a rift, beneath the angel that opened upon our universe.’

  ‘You think he means to come here,’ said Dante.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘But you are not sure of the vision’s veracity.’

  ‘No, my lord. I was not,’ said Mephiston. ‘That is why I delayed.’

  ‘I have seen nothing of the Angels’ Bane in any of my own visions,’ said Dante. He lapsed into thought for a moment. ‘You say you were not certain. I take it you are now.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mephiston. ‘It was he. He is coming. I have… confirmed it.’

  Dante peered more closely at his Chief Librarian, ­noting, perhaps, the greyness to his alabaster skin brought on by the strain of his visit to the octocalvariae that made him more like a corpse than ever. ‘Do I wish to know how this was done?’ asked Dante.

  ‘I think not, my lord,’ said Mephiston. And, in truth, he had little appetite for recounting his journey into the Vaults of Marest. ‘It was hard, and it cost me, but it was a worthwhile endeavour. I am sure. The Angels’ Bane means to attack us, while all the Chapters of the Blood are gathered. This is a truth.’

  ‘Can he return?’ asked Dante. ‘He was not long banished from the material realm.’

  ‘There are rules even for the servants of Chaos,’ said Mephiston. ‘The vision of my Librarians is occluded, and we grow blinder every day. But I can say that beyond the shadow in the warp all is changing. There is an unprecedented flux. I cannot see past the darkness the hive mind casts, but all reality holds its breath. The empyrean is pregnant with portents. If Abaddon’s Black Crusade affects the Eye of Terror as my vision suggested, Ka’Bandha may make his way through.’

  Dante smiled humourlessly. ‘He attacks when we are at our strongest, and yet when we are gathered together, we are also at our weakest.’

  ‘This gathering of all the sons of Sanguinius for the first time in generations is too tempting for him. We know that the Blood God covets us. Our rage draws the servants of the Skull Throne to us as surely as flies to corpses. If Ka’Bandha comes, it could be disastrous. He is the lure to the thirst, the catalyst to madness. If he manifests while we are engaged in the defence of Baal, we shall be at our most wrathful, our most unrestrained. We will fall.’

  ‘It says in your archives, does it not, that the servants of the Blood God have tried and they have failed many times to sway us. Need these monsters be reminded that there are many kinds of rage, and there is nobility in overcoming them?’ said Dante.

  ‘We must resist every single time. He needs to succeed only once,’ said Mephiston. ‘The Neverborn have eternity. We do not, and not every Chapter of the Blood has as much restraint as ours.’

  Dante was troubled. ‘Do not bring your enmity with Seth into this,’ he said.

  ‘I have no enmity against him. I have no enmity against anyone. His enmity is for me – I feel nothing for him. I speak the truth, my lord, and you know it.’

  Dante shifted in his chair. His armour scraped on stone, its motive units whining.

  ‘Can the Angels’ Bane be
stopped?’

  ‘I honestly do not know,’ said Mephiston. ‘I can try. There are certain rituals that may be attempted.’

  ‘They are dark in nature?’ said Dante.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mephiston.

  Dante’s expression clouded. Another decision for the Chapter Master to wrestle with – always a choice between two evils. If Mephiston had been closer to humanity, he would have felt sympathy for his lord. For one thousand five hundred years Dante had watched their bloodline descend further into savagery, and the Imperium draw nearer to its end. To all others he was a golden angel, the avatar of the Emperor’s most noble primarch. His ­legend was known the length and breadth of the galaxy. His advice was sought by all, and his warriors clamoured for on every battlefront. Nobody knew of the despair behind the mask. So though Mephiston could not feel pity or sorrow for Commander Dante, he remembered despair, and he understood the dilemmas that faced his leader.

  ‘What is your counsel, chief of the librarius?’ asked Dante eventually.

  ‘I would attempt to stop him,’ said Mephiston. ‘I will do so only if you decree it shall be so.’

  ‘Then I order you to stop him,’ said Dante.

  ‘No matter the cost?’

  Dante’s lips thinned. ‘No matter the cost.’

  Mephiston bowed in a rustle of silks and purring armour joints. ‘Then it shall be done, my lord.’

  Dante stood. ‘Mephiston, tell no one of this that does not need to know. Bind your Librarians by oath not to reveal what you will attempt. If you recruit from the other Chapters, make them swear the same.’ Dante stared angrily into the face of Sanguinius. ‘This war breeds secrets too readily.’

  Chapter Ten

  The Great Red Council

  The Chapters of the Blood waited for Dante on their feet, as respect demanded. Five hundred exalted heroes of the Imperium filled the Chamber of the Great Red Council. The oils and exhausts of their power armour blended with the incense pouring from the firebowls, adding to it a sacred machine scent.