by Guy Haley
Curze nodded his head. His mouth swam with spit that tasted of blood.
‘They are, my son,’ said Curze. ‘Once, they were but images flitting through my mind, presaging events that I must labour over my cards to fully predict. Now they come to me wholly formed, and their violence flows out from me.’ Curze hauled himself up to his feet.
‘What can I–’
‘Save your platitudes. You can do nothing. If I am this way, it is by the Emperor’s will. Make sure, should you see the next vision coming upon me, that I am isolated and the area is clear. My scrivener there, he was a man with a dull heart. Not enough fire in him to be guilty. Yet he died as if he were unrighteous. That cannot be.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
The primarch leaned wearily against the wall, and looked at the blood drying on his hands.
‘I am guilty,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Fashmanali’s death was unjust,’ he said. He shuddered with a toxic mix of shock and shame.
Shang took a heavy step towards him.
‘Are the prophecies, my lord… are they the same?’ Shang asked, his deep, resonant voice trembling.
‘They are. Brothers fighting brothers. Legion against Legion, and the end of the Great Crusade. Horus will rise, and the Imperium will fall.’
‘My lord, we should–’
‘Tell no one of this!’ said Curze sharply. ‘If you do, I shall know. Breaking my trust will be the greatest crime, and the foulest punishment will fall on you.’
‘I shall tell no one,’ said Shang, appalled and outraged Curze could doubt him.
‘I know, I know,’ said Curze. He was exhausted. Sleep beckoned. ‘I have foreseen it. Now, begone.’
Curze brooded for days as the fleet pushed its way towards Cheraut, and his rendezvous there with the fleets of his brothers Fulgrim and Rogal Dorn. The matter of his visions weighed on him day and night. Although the detail varied, the story was the same.
Horus was going to betray the Emperor.
Such thoughts filled Curze with self-loathing. Despite a lifetime of pessimism, even he could not credit such a thing as the most loyal and glorious of the Emperor’s sons turning upon his father. It was far easier to envisage himself turning traitor. Did he not have more reason than any of them? He was there, in the visions, slaying the sons of his brothers with unbounded joy. The images lingered in his mind, intruding upon his thoughts, winding about themselves, prompted to burst into vividness by the most mundane of actions. He avoided conversation, for he would find himself tormented by the intrusion, and would lose his thread of thought, sometimes standing there gape-mouthed while he relived atrocities yet to come.
He began to consider if it would transpire that the Emperor Himself was guilty of some crime, thus vindicating the actions of the future Curze that haunted his every waking moment. Yet this was also inconceivable. His plan was an exercise in perfection. The Emperor knew all. A further line of thought sprang from this poisoned reasoning, that the Emperor was aware what would happen, had created the situation, and even now awaited it. He fought it hard, but Curze could not dismiss his suspicion that the coming war was to His plan.
The first time that thought crossed Curze’s mind, he had howled and screamed so mightily the Atramentar had lumbered into his room, weapons ready, before he chased them away and ordered them never to come back.
He sought some other obsession by turning to his default passion, that of guilt. The Emperor’s crimes were supposed, unproven. He needed perfidy he could judge and condemn. Cruel fate had provided him with exactly such a subject in Nostramo.
As his visions blackened, became more troubling and afflicted him more often, a second stream of venom poisoned his world. The recruits coming from Nostramo were of woeful quality. They were strong of body, but corrupt of mind. Slowly at first, then with increasing brazenness, the warriors sent him were of the very worst kind of men. He had neglected Nostramo as the Emperor’s gift to him throttled his sanity. No more.
Ledgers and data-slates were piled around his chamber upon the iron table. The mortal Ekra Trez worked quietly in the corner of the room. When the darkness came upon Curze, Trez’s psychic talent blunted the horror. At other times he aided his master, autoquill scratching on an accompanying screen as he compiled the data Curze himself had processed. The information was there to see, all aspects of each recruit meticulously recorded: genotype, origin, records of crime, set out in plain language. The men destroying his Legion from within were either confident they would not be discovered, or were so proud of their actions they felt they had nothing to hide. Curze glanced at the spread of worn cards in the middle of the table. Their reading suggested that could be it. They could believe they were doing the right thing.
False rectitude was no shield against justice.
The door to his chamber opened.
‘Sevatar,’ said Curze, without looking up.
‘I am here, as you requested,’ said Sevatar. He came to the table, and placed his winged helmet carefully upon the surface among the books.
‘Do I request, Sev?’ said Curze.
Sevatar studied the papers on the table, annoyed. ‘It’s only a command if you think I won’t come. I am here, willingly, as always.’
‘I never have to command you, is that the meaning hiding beneath your words?’
‘If you want to see it that way.’ He looked his gene-father in the eye. ‘Why do we discuss semantics?’
‘I am making light,’ said Curze.
‘The Night Haunter. Making light,’ said Sevatar. ‘I thought I had seen all there was to see in this galaxy.’
‘Times are dark,’ said Curze. ‘I am tired, and troubled. Events go against us. I thought lightness might help. I am wrong, it seems.’
‘There is nothing to fear, my lord. Our compliance rate is well within acceptable parameters.’
‘But our methods are not. Terror is the greatest weapon available to a man. Terror harms nothing but pride. Worlds fall bloodlessly to our armies.’
‘Thousands die to save millions. Lives are bought with pain,’ said Sevatar. ‘So I would say nearly bloodlessly.’
‘Now who plays pedant?’ said Curze.
‘I am making light,’ said Sevatar, so stonily it would have been impossible for anyone but Curze to detect his humour.
Curze’s smile evaporated. ‘All that is under threat. The Eighth Legion has become infested by men who revel in the means while losing sight of the end. They take pleasure in pain and scoff at notions of crime and punishment.’
‘I had noticed,’ said Sevatar. ‘The timing of your realisation could have been better, my lord,’ said Sevatar. ‘We carry a cargo of serpents to a meeting with your brothers.’
‘And at a time our methods are under scrutiny like at no other.’ Curze shoved a ledger towards the First Captain, so that it bumped against his helm. Sevatar glanced at script written with a machine’s precision on leaves of hand-made paper.
‘Elements within the Legion have abetted the criminals of the home world. While I frothed and raved in my quarters, they have welcomed these degenerates into our ranks with open arms.’
‘All for power,’ Sevatar said immediately. ‘You would think elevation to a state far beyond the weaknesses of baseline man and participation in the greatest venture the human race has engaged in would be enough power for anyone. But what do I know? The motives of other men mystify me. What I see as idiocy, others embrace. Why do they not see that power craves more power? It is a fool’s hunger that consumes all until it eats the man that suffers it. It would amuse me, if it weren’t so dangerous.’
‘The pursuit of power within the hierarchy of a Legion is to be encouraged. To create power outside of its structure is disloyal.’
‘I agree. I have already set in motion plans to curb the excesses of the worst. All captains suspected of involvement with debasing the standard of recruits are being questioned.’
Curze turned another page.
‘Commendable,
but call it off.’
Sevatar’s slightly narrowed eyes were the only sign of puzzlement he permitted himself.
‘Now that is an interesting stance to take. I assume you’ll explain to me why?’
‘The Legion has to be brought back under control. A show of force is required.’ Curze flipped the book closed.
‘Have you considered that you might be wrong?’
‘I never consider anything but that!’ said Curze with dangerous energy. ‘There are rumours that the government of Lord Balthius has fallen. I have Shang investigating. They would have to be actively hiding the change of regime from us, if that were the case. That is a crime in itself. My messages to Nostramo get no reply, or the most pressing questions go unanswered. I have been forced to turn to the Council of Terra to find the truth.’
‘That might explain the fall in quality of our recruits.’
‘It might, but the rot set in years ago.’ Curze stabbed a book with a long fingernail. ‘Here, twelve years back, are consignments of youths taken from gaol. Their psychometric test results have been tampered with. This is greed, and not from a single source, but over and over again. Our recruit masters there must be involved.’
‘Mortals are fallible.’
‘I have said there are elements at large in the fleet who also hasten our Legion’s degeneration, and they are not mortal,’ Curze snarled. ‘If Balthius is overthrown, it is the culmination of corruption, not the cause.’ He pushed back his hair over his ears. ‘We are repeatedly poisoned. What do you do with a serpent that bites you?’
‘You kill it so it may not bite you again, my lord.’
‘Exactly.’
‘The Legion is bitten. The serpent is outside our ranks.’ Sevatar hid his surprise badly. ‘You will not punish the Legion, but Nostramo?’
‘I intend to do more than punish it,’ said Curze. ‘I will make of it an example the likes of which none can ignore.’
‘Exterminatus,’ said Sevatar.
Curze grinned. ‘That’s why I like you so much, Sev. I don’t have to explain anything to you. You grasp everything swiftly, and moreover, you understand why I do what must be done.’
‘If you say it must be done, then it must be done. How?’
‘We can rely only on our own fleet,’ said Curze. ‘The others – my brothers – they would not understand. They would try to stop me. Months will be wasted while arguments are made and evidence presented. If I manage to convince them, they would attempt to force a new compliance. During this time, those responsible will flee Nostramo. By following the law, justice will not be done. If Nostramo must be destroyed it should be done quickly.’
Sevatar nodded. ‘A fraction of the fleet could achieve the destruction of the planet, if targeted correctly. But there are factions… people, among the Legion and among the Legion’s servants, who will baulk at carrying these orders out. There could be dissension among the crews, even upon those ships we can most heavily rely on. There will be violence.’
‘A war in the Legion.’ An image from his visions intruded into Curze’s consciousness, a Space Marine in midnight blue gunning down one in midnight black. ‘Not now. It will not occur.’
A lesser warrior might have argued and pointed out further risks. Sevatar only nodded.
‘I will make sure of it. My Atramentar will ensure compliance with your command, no matter the cost.’
His stern obedience brought a laugh to Curze’s lips.
‘Sevatar, Sevatar – never doubtful, always sure of his course of action, unbending, unbroken.’ The primarch searched his First Captain’s face. ‘So loyal, so imperturbable.’
‘There is nothing to doubt. The guilty must be punished.’
‘I wonder sometimes what you would do if I asked you to follow a course of action you regarded as unjust.’
‘Then I would fight you, even though you’d kill me.’
Curze nodded, though in his heart he knew this was not true, and that Sevatar’s fate would bring him much pain before he found equilibrium again. Through loyalty, he would follow Curze a long way down a dark path before he found his way back. This he saw in flashes. His ultimate end was hidden to the primarch, but in the figure of his First Captain the true spirit of the Legion was embodied, and through him it would survive.
‘I am entrusting this action to you, my son.’
‘“My son”, is it, today?’ said Sevatar. ‘You are becoming sentimental.’
‘I am not myself,’ said Curze, half in jest. He wondered if Sevatar could tell how hollowed out he had become.
‘What about Shang? I can see him agreeing to whatever you say here, then falling to pieces when he contemplates the enormity of what you’re asking. Don’t trust him with this yet.’
‘Shang will be told,’ Curze disagreed. ‘But I will keep him close. I need a man of action, Sevatar, one without qualms or scruples that will sway him from the path of righteousness. The punishment that we must mete out will seem harsh beyond reason. Many of my brothers harbour affection for their home worlds. They speak of the unity of mankind and the common good, but no one is above ties of family and tribe. What I will do will appal some of them. They will look to their own first, all of them, when danger threatens.’
‘But not you.’
‘Justice knows no favour. It is blind, and merciless. I am its agent. I cannot show favour to a world simply because I grew to manhood there. Justice holds all to be equal. It must be so, or the scales that weigh the deeds of men can never be balanced, and sin will proliferate forever more.’
Sevatar bowed his head. ‘I shall begin preparations immediately, my lord.’
Curze went back to his book, turned the finely made pages of the codex carefully. Black letters swam over white as he flicked through, his primarch’s mind processing the information instantly.
‘We shall see it done after Cheraut. Before then, I have another task to perform. It is time I spoke with my brothers.’ Again he looked at the cards. ‘What will happen is unclear to me, but perhaps all this horror can be forestalled. Perhaps the rumours are inflated, and Nostramo might be saved,’ murmured Curze. ‘Maybe Balthius is alive still, and this situation can be rectified.’
‘Do you believe that?’
The primarch’s manner changed. ‘Not for a moment, Sev.’ Curze’s hair swung over his face as he bowed his head over yet more damning evidence. ‘Nostramo will burn. Fate and justice demand it.’
TWELVE
NOSTRAMO BURNS
Alarms blared the length and breadth of the Nightfall.
A machine voice boomed over the shrieking wail.
‘Translation imminent. Prepare. Prepare.’
Their departure from Cheraut was swift, and the passage from there rocky, shaking the ship from stem to stern. Shang expected the exit from the immaterium to the material realm to be worse. He did not have time to stop and brace himself against the ship’s upheaval. It bounced through knotted warp currents, sending serfs staggering. He was no superstitious primitive, but he felt a certain dread that the warp was reacting to what Curze intended to do. Shang steadied himself against the wall with one outstretched hand, in too much of a hurry to slow himself by activating his maglocks. He needed to find the First Captain, fast.
‘Translation in five, four, three…’ the machine voice said.
The warp engines whined and growled like live things. The ship’s prow bounced upwards, as forcefully as if it were a wooden ship daring a gale.
‘…two, one.’
A wave of nausea pulsed through Shang’s mind. The ship seemed to drop a thousand metres. A wet tearing sounded from every quarter, accompanying the desperate lunging of the ship. An outraged scream seemed to shriek right through his soul, knocking him sideways into the wall.
The emergence from the warp was one of the worst Shang had experienced, throwing about serfs, servitors and anything else not bolted down with its violence. Aftershocks rumbled down the length of the vessel. The screams of the inju
red and shrill machine noises of damaged mechanisms echoed down the corridor.
‘Translation complete.’
Shang pushed himself off a wall stanchion, his armoured fingers leaving imprints in the metal, and forced himself on towards the Armoury Temple’s rear entrance.
The door opened onto an ornate study of carven night. Every stone and metal in the temple was of umbral hue. Blacklight soaked the scene deeper into shadow, making the faces of the Atramentar preparing for battle shine unnatural colours, and their teeth and eye whites gleam like alien jewels.
‘Sevatar!’ Shang shouted. The chamber was long, divided by ornate pillars into discrete bays where the elite First Company were being bolted into their armour. There were dozens of them, attended by hundreds of serfs. Power tool whine and the ready chimes of diagnostic instruments echoed from the vaulting of the high, blue-black marble ceiling.
‘Sevatar!’ he repeated, shoving his way through the press of menials and cyborgs. The Atramentar, half-clad in their midnight battleplate, stared at him in silent hostility – all except one, who raised his unarmoured right arm and pointed down the hall.
‘Bay fourteen, equerry,’ he said.
‘My thanks, Malek.’ Shang dipped his winged helm in acknowledgement, and pushed on.
Sevatar was halfway through the armouring process. Already, his legs were clad in multiple layered armour plates of plasteel and ceramite. The huge back portion of the armour was in position, and the chestpiece was being manoeuvred towards its mating points by a specially adapted servitor.
‘Terminator plate?’ said Shang. ‘That is not your favoured method of warfare. You are usually more subtle.’
‘I am the master of the Atramentar,’ said Sevatar. ‘Occasionally it suits me to fight with them, in their manner. We wouldn’t want them to think I wasn’t up to it.’ The chest-plate was guided home. Bonding plugs clicked into position, following by a hiss of pressurising feed lines. ‘I assume you haven’t come down here to comment on my choice of garb. What do you want, Shang?’