Primus strode purposefully into the tunnel, and Felix followed.
Through shimmering planes of coherent light they glimpsed a bottomless gulf. Passing through it quickly, they made it to the other side.
They entered another great hall. What they had taken for the sound of more of the great engines was in fact the buzz of a vast swarm of constructs which circled a hole in the ground. From the pit shone a dull red light, and there came a ferocious heat. The constructs orbited the pit in a helical spin, one group heading down, the others returning. Those that came up glowed cherry red, and dripped molten stone. They flew off up to the high ceiling, where thousands of holes led away into the mountain.
Primus and Felix approached cautiously, and yet still they were ignored. The noise of the scarab swarm grew, from a drowsy hum to a roar of grav engines and clatter of wings.
‘They are mining the planet’s mantle,’ said Felix. The upward glow of distant molten rock bathed his face. ‘That must be where they obtained the materials to repair the beacon.’ He slowed. ‘Can you hear voices?’
Primus strained to listen through the thrum of robotic wings. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘On the very edge of hearing. But they are illusory, the work of the Pharos.’
‘Can you block them?’
‘The Pharos is not psychic in nature. There is nothing of the spirit about this place,’ said Primus. ‘We are hearing echoes of states of being that cannot normally be seen.’ They skirted the tower of scarabs droning up from the pit, and were forced to shout over their noise. ‘This place is cut off from the empyrean entirely, far from the daemon’s notice and the Emperor’s light both. My powers will not work here.’
‘Then how does this place function?’ asked Felix.
‘Exploitation of trans-dimensional interstices,’ said Primus. He looked down at Felix. ‘That is what Cawl told me. I know no more than that. Necron tech archana is beyond me.’
‘I am not sure this is necron,’ said Felix.
Beyond the pit was a high wall, covered in alien script and fashioned to appear like the facade of a great temple. Sixteen niches held sixteen statues in two rows of eight, each statue humanoid but five times the height of a man. Those in the lower rows showed beings of knowing countenance. The craftsmanship was perfect, the materials smoothed to the molecular level, the artistry of the sculpture beyond sublime. The figures were rendered in different materials, the qualities of each reflecting the personality depicted in the pose and expression of the characters. One promised knowledge, another friendship, a third power, and so on it went. Above them the same beings were shown, but all in flawless silver, and bound by broad-linked chains. In the upper tier the faces showed torment. Necron glyphs circled both sets of niches, flowing on to join lines of millions of characters that ran in bands across the wall, and shone with the ubiquitous corpse glow of the aliens’ technology.
At the foot of the wall, in the very centre, was a triangular gateway of shining bronze. A soulless face adorned the apex. An energy field covered the aperture.
Primus stopped. ‘What are these? They look almost human.’
‘I have seen sculptures like this before,’ said Felix. ‘They are gods, worshipped by the xenos dynasties.’
‘I did not know the necrons worshipped anything,’ said Primus.
‘They do not any more,’ said Felix. ‘Come, there is only one way to go, through this portal.’
‘It may be dangerous,’ said Primus.
‘Then this will be a short trip.’
They emerged into some other place far from the Pharos, far perhaps from the material realm. A plain of blackstone stretched away into infinity. A killing cold bit into Felix’s face, and he replaced his helmet before he continued. Primus followed suit.
‘There is no psychic dampener in here,’ Primus said. His voice was loud from his voxmitter. The darkness stirred. He fell quiet until the feeling receded, then continued at lower volume. ‘Unlike the last chamber, this place is flooded with the essence of the warp. It is concentrated around that.’
He pointed up.
There was little in that place; it was as empty as death, save eight huge sarcophagi hanging without support a hundred feet from the floor. Seven were dark. But the fourth in from the left shone with baleful power, and it was this that Primus indicated and this that allowed them to see. It lit the other sarcophagi with hard planes of light and pockets of utter black shadow, showing up stylised representations of the eight beings depicted on the other side of the gate. Here they stared ahead proudly, arms crossed over their chests, their hands clutching badges of their authority. If they were tools, weapons or only symbols, Felix could not say.
The light was multi-spectral, a warm orange, like that of a star, but it was an ill-omened star if so. It bathed the Primaris Marines and made Felix feel unclean. Lines of glimmering blue intersected it from above and below, beamed from no readily identifiable source. There were eight threads of light.
‘Tombs of the gods,’ said Primus. ‘Wrapped in chains of empyrical energy. This blackstone is tuned for psy-amplification.’ Primus looked around the endless dark. The sarcophagus and its uncanny chains cast a patch of light of conflicting blue and orange. Though bright, the combined glow stretched only a short way before being swallowed up by the nothingness.
‘Cawl is here,’ said Primus. He peered into the darkness.
‘Can you be sure?’ asked Felix.
‘I sense him,’ said Primus. ‘Knowing where he is is part of my function. In here, without the psy-damping of the mountain, my witch talents work. He is here, with us. But where?’
As if in answer to Primus’ question, a patch of glossy black floor was illuminated from beneath. Within the ring was Belisarius Cawl.
‘Master,’ Primus said, and started forwards.
Felix grabbed his arm. ‘Wait.’
‘He is unconscious. I must go to him,’ said Primus. He sounded almost panicked, enough that Felix wondered how much of a hold the archmagos had on him.
‘It is likely a trap. If it is not, he seems safe enough for now.’
Cawl’s long carriage was inert, his torso held upright by the augmetics that attached him to his lower assembly.
The Space Marines’ footsteps boomed with unnatural volume as they approached the magos, but the sound faded fast, and the darkness seemed to press in closer.
Primus stopped at the edge of the pool of light and walked around it, not letting it touch him. ‘He is in communion,’ said Primus. ‘Data is being exchanged.’ He looked at Felix from the other side of the illuminated area. ‘My armour systems are keyed in to my master’s favoured data frequencies,’ he explained.
‘What is he speaking with?’
‘Speaking? It is not speech. He communes in the machine world with that.’ Primus looked again to the lit sarcophagus.
‘That does not look like the containment unit for an entangled supermass of isolated particles,’ said Felix.
‘Whatever is in there is the true heart of the mountain,’ said Primus. ‘That is what my master came here to find.’
Felix checked his chronometer.
‘Then he must hurry. He has four hours until this mountain is destroyed,’ he said. ‘We shall wait three, no more.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Tomb of the Founder
The Scythes of the Emperor followed the ancient paths of the dead, their captive hybrid wrenching at its chain, Aratus’ machinery keeping it biddable enough for Keltru to handle. Down there in the depths, the Pharos sang strongly. Seemingly pointless tunnels revealed themselves as resonation chambers whose cries combined into a haunting chorus that rose and fell and dwindled to single notes but never faded completely, always returning, growing in strength to a shrieking crescendo. Machinery far beneath the surface throbbed and thundered. Hot winds blew. Particle streams smeared helm displ
ays with interference snow. Their vox sets rattled with machine croaks.
On they went. Time and space became as twisted as the tunnels they walked. Phantoms dogged them. Ulas fell into a catatonic slumber, and would not be woken for twenty minutes, whereafter he wept for an hour. Voices, few of them human, hallooed from far off chambers, and always the tremors built, coming more regularly, each one bringing visions and forgotten fears, so that in the end the Space Marines dismissed their conscious minds, and fell upon ingrained battle rites to see them through.
The tombs became more ornate the deeper they went, reminders of higher ages. Warriors carried weapons whose manufacture had been forgotten. Their armour changed, becoming unfamiliar in form. Though still the wargear of Adeptus Astartes, their garb was like no other suits held in the Chapter armoury before the Kraken came.
Thracian had been down here only once. All captains made the pilgrimage to the tomb of the Founder upon their promotion. There they knelt in the cold and the dark the mountain held before it had awoken, and meditated on the life of their noble forebear for a night and a day. None of the others had gone this deep. They fell quiet, not only for fear of the machine’s influence, but from the knowledge they trod on sacred ground.
It was inevitable that the originator of the Family who had corrupted the Chapter should seek to claim the Founder’s tomb. That was the way of the alien. They left no good thing untouched.
The Pharos worked on their minds, showing them glimpses of the heroes they passed in life. A century or two of thankless service most of them had, then thousands of years rotting in the dark. That was the message of the xenos machine. Thracian disdained it, even as his feet grew heavier and his hearts thumped slowly. He put his feet one in front of the other.
‘By the Emperor and by the Founder of my line. By the ten sacred horses of our Chapter. By the righteousness of mankind’s dominance, let me see this done,’ he said.
Each step grew heavy. He almost faltered, and then he became aware of singing. Not the bizarre alien wails of the waking mountain, but the good, bass chanting of Space Marines. His men sang not of death, but of victory. Thracian joined his voice to theirs, and so buoyed, made his way to the last and first grave of the catacombs.
Without realising he had arrived, he stood in the antechamber of the Founder’s tomb. It was a large space, colonnaded, and adorned with stone friezes depicting heroic acts done long ago. The mountain’s stirring had cast many of the frieze panels down, and they were broken in pieces, the gaps they left showing blackstone crowded with racing lights. The mountain was not solely to blame. Several of the panels still standing had been raked by tripartite claws, the faces carved away in acts of wanton vandalism.
Above the entry to the tomb proper, a motto endured, one of the very few places in all the mountain where the blackstone had been cut successfully. Alive now with motes of alien devilry, the words were nevertheless clear.
Hic iacet Oberdeii. Dominus est Falcatis ab Imperatore.
‘Oberdeii, the first lord. The Founder,’ said Aratus. Emotion stole into his voice.
The hybrid suddenly leapt forwards, breaking the chain holding it to Keltru. It scuttled in through the open gates and vanished into the darkness.
Thracian drew his long falx. ‘It is in there. The last moments of our order are here.’ He saluted each of his warriors in turn. They responded in kind.
‘I thank you for your service,’ he said, then, ‘Emperor be with you,’ and he strode into the tomb.
It was waiting inside for them.
Oberdeii’s tomb was small, thirty feet on each side. The Founder’s body was held in a niche, walled away and forgotten. He was memorialised in the form of a great statue, twice life size, which had sat within a great throne of marble. It was too large for the room. Thracian remembered Oberdeii’s face as brooding, sorrowful, touched by defiance. His left hand rested on the hilt of a falx stood at his side, the right was at his chin, one finger held up to his lips as if demanding silence. Crossed scythes were carved into the wall over the throne.
Thracian had wondered when he spent his vigil there if the warrior had been accurately captured, or if the stone was simply a more solid form of legend.
That was all gone. Green crystals shining with captive energies thrust up through the floor and from the walls, pushing out the ashlar blocks that had turned the xenos chamber into a room, and revealing the fluid, black walls behind. Alien light played over the stern faces of dead Imperial heroes.
The statue of Oberdeii had been wrenched from its setting and thrown down. It was in pieces now, his likeness forever lost. To do such a thing would have required prodigious strength, but the creature that had usurped the Founder’s place had a surfeit.
Thracian had never seen a genestealer so huge. It was three times the size of its lesser kin. Its armour had darkened with age to a deep red, scabbed with excrescences and ridged with whorled growth patterns, while the cream of its skin had faded to an almost luminescent white.
Its lower hands, folded in its lap almost daintily, were vast, big enough to grasp an armoured Space Marine around the chest. The three-clawed upper limbs were equally huge, the talons massive triangles of mineral-laced chitin, and although they seemed too large to be sharp, light glinted from wicked edges. Two forms of xenos evil supplanted Imperial sanctity. Necron technology burned with building power as the mountain awoke. Greater still was the psychic aura surrounding the genestealer patriarch.
It was aware of them before they entered, staring with malevolent intelligence at the entrance, awaiting them, a wicked despot eager to hear the pleas of his trembling subjects. The hybrid squatted at its father’s feet, and hissed as Thracian approached.
‘You are the doom of our Chapter,’ Thracian said, addressing the monster. He felt the thing’s mind pushing at his, demanding that he submit. Some deep part of Thracian yearned to obey, but the null-field helped him, and his will was strong. Defiant, he pushed aside the thing’s attempts to enslave him. ‘You sought to corrupt us,’ he said. He gritted his teeth. Sweat sprang up on his forehead. The patriarch stared at him, a hideous curiosity on its alien features. Its nostrils twitched. ‘You failed,’ Thracian said, his voice increasingly strangled. ‘I have become your doom instead, for I can never be ensnared. I am a servant of the Emperor!’
His last few warriors formed up behind him in a fan. They presented their weapons. Thracian levelled his boltgun at the patriarch’s head.
‘Now you will die.’
In his mind, he squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. His finger refused to move.
‘You will die!’ he insisted, his voice a wheeze emitted from an unwilling throat.
Yellow eyes full of malice older than the stars locked with his. The thing that observed Thracian was old, evil, committed only to the destruction of humanity. A terrible weapon forged from mankind’s own genetic code. Behind it was something terrifying, a vast intelligence huger than the cosmos, ancient beyond human comprehension, a force of nature to rival the violent birth of galaxies.
Thracian hated it with all his being, and yet he could do nothing. Some part of him hearkened to the patriarch’s call. Its will locked onto his and squeezed, crushing his volition into nothing.
The genestealer watched him. It reached down with one of its upper claws and petted the hybrid absentmindedly.
Thracian’s power to move was restricted to his eyes. His field of vision was restricted by his helmet. He could see only Ulas, but all his men were looking to him. The patriarch’s attention was mostly on Thracian. The others might be able to act.
‘Kill it!’ Thracian said. ‘Kill it!’ But his words were little more than a breath in his own ears, and did not reach his men.
The patriarch’s claw caught on the cybernetics bonded to the hybrid. It looked at it as if seeing the mutilations for the first time. The hybrid shrank into itself submissively.
The patriarch extended a claw and traced the outlines of the stump caps, the muzzle, the neural control centre. The hybrid shivered in pleasure at the attention.
The patriarch snarled, and tore off its head. The hybrid’s body collapsed, spraying blood as it fell.
The genestealer rose from the throne, majestic and vile.
‘Kill it!’ Thracian said, a little more loudly. He wet his lips. His hatred battled with his paralysis. ‘Kill it!’
The patriarch approached them.
‘Kill it!’ Thracian said, louder now. ‘Kill it now!’
Ulas was the first to break from the spell. His storm bolter roared at the xenos fiend, tearing off a chunk of its exoskeleton.
They all opened fire then, except for Thracian. He remained rooted to the spot, unable to move. Gunfire boomed behind him. His gaze was fixed forwards, but he could see enough to see Ulas die.
The patriarch moved with lightning speed, and more grace than a monster like that should have had. It tore into the Terminator, wrenched his head off, taking half a dozen direct hits as it did so with little ill effect. It used the toppling Terminator as a step to launch itself, arms outstretched, towards its next victim.
Thracian listened to his men die.
And still he could not move.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I am you, you are me
Circa 10,000 years ago
‘You had better be quick,’ said Ezekiel Sedayne. He gestured with his gun to one of two articulated beds made of plain steel. Steel restraints at waist, throat, ankles, wrists and chest hung open, ready for Cawl. The second bed was set at a sixty degree angle to the first, top to top, so that the heads were almost touching and the feet some distance apart. Two heavy silver helmets waited on stands at the sides. Banks of machines enclosed in smooth facings filled the rest of the room. It was all so neat, so clinical.
Cawl hesitated.
Belisarius Cawl- the Great Work - Guy Haley Page 27