And yet, as with the families of common men, the fraternity of the Sons of Sanguinius was not without its bad blood.
Rafen became aware of Brother-Captain Gorn watching the party of Angels Sanguine with undisguised interest. Most of the warriors in the contingents went unhooded, but only the Angels Sanguine were, to a man, hidden behind their bi-coloured helmets. It was a quirk of their Chapter, known to most, although the reason was shrouded in rumour and supposition. The brothers of the Angels Sanguine habitually went masked upon the battlefield and all places where they might catch the eyes of others. Only among themselves, where those of their kindred walked, would they remove their headgear, and even then they retreated into the depths of heavy hooded robes. As an initiate, Rafen had heard many lurid and fanciful tales of what the Angels Sanguine hid from the world, and dismissed them as idle chatter; but now he stood close to them, he could not help but recall those tales and silently wonder, just a little.
Gorn, however, had no such desire to keep his own counsel. “Rydae?” he said, in a low voice that did not carry, looking steadily at an Angel Sanguine officer. “Is that you under there?”
Rafen watched the other Astartes from the corner of his eye. The Angels Sanguine ignored the Flesh Tearer.
“It’s hard to be sure,” Gorn continued. “Hard to tell one of you from another.” A tension built in the air between them. “Do you not acknowledge me, cousin? No?” The Flesh Tearer chuckled quietly; at his side, Gorn’s Chapter Master paid no heed to the hushed conversation, as if Seth thought it beneath his interest. “Ah, I see. You still bear me ill-will after our meeting on Zofor’s World? Because of the defeat?”
For the first time, the Angels Sanguine captain’s helmet turned slightly so that his emerald eye slits could sight directly at Gorn. “There was no defeat,” The reply was loaded with ready menace. “Only… interference on your part.”
Gorn gave a tight, false smile. “It aggrieves me that you see it that way.”
The helmet turned away with mechanical precision. “I care not for your delicate sensibilities,” Rydae husked. “Nor your conversation.”
Rafen saw Gorn’s hand tighten into a fist, and he knew that this had been allowed to go on too long. With a slight motion of his wrist, Rafen tapped the base of the standard’s mast upon the marble floor and a sharp clack drew the attention of both Astartes.
“Esteemed brother-captains,” he said firmly. “With all due respect, perhaps this is a matter better pursued in other circumstances.”
Rydae did not speak, but Gorn shot Rafen a brief, poisonous look. “Of course,” he said quietly, after a moment. “It is always the privilege of a Blood Angel to be correct.”
Any reply he might have given to that was forgotten as a voice, clear and powerful, sounded out across the Grand Annex.
“Kinsmen,” called Mephiston, “be gathered.”
The chamber instantly fell silent. Footsteps echoed as men approached along the four directions of the compass star, two figures coming from each direction. From east and west came the sanguinary priest Corbulo and the psyker Mephiston, each accompanied by a veteran warrior cradling the gold helmet of an honour guard in the crook of his arm. From behind Rafen, two more Blood Angels, sharing between them another standard—this one showing Sanguinius himself in his oft-depicted pose, wings spread and head turned to the heavens, presenting his shroud and grail. And from the north, followed by the captain of his honour guard, came Dante.
The red rays of the sun caught him and bathed the Chapter Master in a halo of light. Lord Dante wore his ceremonial artificer armour, the golden sheathes of ceramite polished to a lustrous sheen. Inlaid wings of pearl, ruby and jade glittered and shone. His helmet was a static facade in the reflection of Sanguinius’ death mask. Like each warrior here, he carried no weapons but a combat blade sheathed at his boot. For a brief instant, Rafen lost himself in the sight of the armoured figure, his memory caught on another moment, months before in a basement on the forge-world of Shenlong, a moment when the image of another golden warrior had stood before him. He blinked and shook his head slightly, pushing the reverie away. Rafen focused and found Mephiston looking at him, a hint of curiosity on his face. It was on the Chief Librarian’s insistence that he had been granted the privilege of bearing one of the sacred Chapter banners. Some part of him wondered why the Lord of Death had done so; the other men carrying the standards this day were all of captain’s rank, and Mephiston was not known to grant favours without good cause. But Rafen was only a sergeant and it was not his place to question the will of so senior a brother.
The new arrivals came together upon the oval of mosaic tiles. Corbulo nodded to the standard bearers and the honour guard, and they went down upon one knee, Rafen following the motion with immediate precision. Then Dante bowed to the Chapter banner and the representation of their primarch, every other Astartes in the great chamber doing the same.
“Frater Sanguinius,” said the Chapter Master, his voice carrying through the stillness of the chamber, amplified by the vox-caster in his helmet. “Brothers of Blood. In the name of the Emperor of Mankind and the Great Angel, it is my honour and my pride to welcome you all to Baal, the cradle from which our Chapters draw their shared lineages.”
“For the Glory of Sanguinius and the Imperium of Man,” intoned Mephiston.
“For the Glory of Sanguinius and the Imperium of Man!” Every warrior in the chamber repeated the invocation, the dome casting the words into echoes.
Dante rose and the assemblage followed suit. Rafen chanced a sideways look at Rydae and Gorn; the attention of both men was now firmly set on the Chapter Master of the Blood Angels.
Dante reached up and removed the death-mask helmet, handing it to Corbulo. His steady, fatherly expression crossed the room, deliberately making eye contact with everyone there. “Cousins and kinsmen. Blood of my blood. It swells my heart to see such a monumental gathering as this one, and I am humbled by the faces I see here before me this day. That you would come here at my request, answering a call knowing only that it came from Baal, fills me with such respect. No matter what world you now call home, no matter how many suns span the void between there and here, this is our spiritual birthplace.” He pointed a gold-sheathed hand into the air. “And in this place, we will discuss a matter of the greatest import to the legacy of Sanguinius. To do so without you here would be wrong, and my only regret is that we could not assemble a voice from every cousin Chapter for this singular assembly.” He nodded at a cluster of pennants hanging alone, among them a chequered banner bearing the symbol of a bleeding heart.
Dante brought his hands to his chest and made the sign of the aquila over the ruby droplet upon his breast plate. “Let us offer an invocation to the Emperor, may His gaze be eternal and unswerving, and the spirit of our liege-lord. Let us ask them to watch over us in the days ahead, to grant us their blessing and a measure of their great wisdom.”
Rafen did as all the other Astartes, bringing his hands to his chest across the standard. His gaze passed over Mephiston and held upon him. He saw the psyker’s gaze turn inward, his nostrils tense as if a foul scent had reached his senses. Then in the next instant the Lord of Death blinked and the moment passed, leaving the shadow of a troubled expression on his face.
Movement caught Rafen’s eye and he saw up above, in the watcher’s gallery, the robed figures of many more senior Astartes. The magnification optics in his helmet lenses picked out First Captain Lothan, the great Chaplain Lemartes and the acerbic Argastes at his side. But as each warrior bowed his head to make entreaty, Rafen found himself troubled by a sudden question as he searched the faces and found one conspicuous by his absence.
Where is the Apothecae Majoris? Where is Brother Caecus?
The great slabs of the laboratorium door folded away and the stranger was suddenly there, white gusts of steam falling from the piston-locks to pool around his ankles. Fenn was startled, and he flinched, putting down the rack of
test vials he was carrying before he dropped them. The man surveyed the chamber with an air of quiet interest, in the manner of someone viewing a piece of art in a gallery. Fenn caught his eye and the new arrival offered him a small smile from a face lined and tanned, like aged, careworn leather. Behind him, a dark, square-sided shape shifted, indistinct in the dim glow of the biolumes.
The serf turned at the sound of his master’s booted feet, seeing Caecus approach with Nyniq at his side. The woman’s expression changed to something Fenn had never seen before; happiness. “My tech-lord,” she breathed, “the Omnissiah protect you.”
“And you, my pupil.” The man’s voice was metered and calm.
Nyniq bowed slightly and the stranger bent to place a chaste kiss upon the top of her head. He was far taller than a normal man.
“Haran Serpens, I presume?” said Caecus.
He got a shallow bow in return. “Indeed, majoris. I thank you for your gracious invitation.”
“How did you get here with such speed?” Fenn said the words before he’d even thought about them, earning himself a sideways look from his master.
Serpens seemed unconcerned. “We have our ways, Omnissiah be praised.” He tapped the Adeptus Mechanicus symbol of cogwheel and skull that fastened his cloak across his broad shoulders. “Fortune allowed that I was close by when Nyniq’s machine-call reached me. I found the content of her code-summons to be most interesting.” He glanced at the doorway. “If it pleases you, majoris, may I enter?”
Caecus beckoned him in. “Come, then, tech-lord. But understand, once you do so, there are certain stipulations to be adhered to.”
Serpens shared a look with the woman. “Whatever directives you have, Blood Angel, I will submit to them. I am interested only in the work. Nyniq told me it is in my interest to be here, so here I am.” They shared a familial smile. “I trust her implicitly.” He cocked his head. “How would you have me help you serve our Emperor?”
Caecus ignored the question and posed one of his own. “Where is your ship? It is important that your presence here be kept clandestine, for the interim. It would not do to have one of the other successor Chapter craft in orbit make issue with your vessel.”
“There is no need to be concerned,” Serpens noted, studying a vial of blood. “My transportation has made itself scarce. No one but those in this chamber knows of my arrival here on Baal.” The magos scientist walked slowly about the perimeter of the room, taking it all in. With slow and steady steps came the thing that had waited behind him: a tall metal box of black steel on a jointed cluster of spidery legs. Upon one face of the container was a porcelain mask with green-lit sensors in the eye sockets and mouth. The machine-thing moved delicately, never straying more than a short span from Serpens’ side.
“You must understand that the nature of our research here is of the utmost secrecy,” noted Caecus. “Nyniq vouches for you as both a man of great learning and great discretion.”
“I endeavour to be so.” The tech-lord was nodding approvingly. “Ah. I see you are using the Ylesia Protocols as an operating source for your bio-cultures. A fine, fine choice. I have worked with a modified version of that medium myself.” He smiled again. “I think I begin to see some of the work you are about.”
As much as he wanted to, Fenn could not look away from the tech-lord. Beneath a thick winter coat of dun-coloured animal hide, Serpens wore a peculiar over-suit that seemed somewhere between the design of Adeptus Arbites combat armour and the restraining straps of a straightjacket. He was bedecked with overlapping waistcoats of varying cuts, each alike only in the numerous sealpockets across them. The magos scientist had a mane of straw-coloured hair that sat over his skull in tightly braided rows, extending away down his back in a snaking coil. But it was the size of the man that held his attention; Fenn had met members of the magos biologis and others of the Adeptus Mechanicus on several occasions, and never in all those times come across someone with this man’s stature.
“I am not what you expected, am I?” He studied Fenn.
“You are not,” admitted the serf. “You’re the size of an Astartes.” He nodded toward Caecus, and saw that his master was dwelling on the same thought.
“Indeed,” Serpens agreed. “Throughout my life I have attempted to model myself in small ways upon the Emperor’s most perfect children, the Space Marines.” He glanced down at his own hands, gloved in black leather. “I hope the majoris will forgive a mortal’s hubris, but I have modified my flesh in many ways to share a fraction of the greatness you were gifted with.” Serpens bowed. “You should consider it the sincerest form of flattery, sir.”
“I see,” Caecus said, with wary detachment.
Fenn imagined his master was thinking the same as he, however. What could Serpens mean? Has he taken it upon himself to have his body implanted with artificial organs such as those of a Space Marine? It would certainly go a long way toward explaining how a magos could be so changed from the form of a normal man. The thought made Fenn feel uncomfortable—as if he needed more to do so—but his master’s expression shifted. Caecus had decided not to pursue the line of conversation any further, for the moment.
“And that?” The Blood Angel gestured at the metal box. “Your servitor?”
“In a manner of speaking,” allowed Serpens. “It is merely an autonomous conveyance for my most vital equipment. Chirurgery tools and the like.” He snapped his fingers in a quick code, so swiftly that Fenn couldn’t register it, and the machine-thing wandered away to the corner of the room, the mechanical legs sighing and clattering.
Serpens halted and brought his hands together in a gesture of fealty. “My esteemed Astartes, Lord Caecus. If I may be so bold, let me say the word. Replicae, yes?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “That is my speciality and these mechanisms hereabout are turned toward work upon that science. I will warrant that you require skills such as mine for a thorny problem the wild mix of biology has thrown to you.” He touched Nyniq’s face gently. “My pupil, as skilled as she is, would not have called to me otherwise. And I tell you here and now, if I am right, I would be honoured to join you in solving it.” His voice fell to a whisper. “Will you let me? It has been my dream to work in lockstep with the master biologians of the Adeptus Astartes.”
“And what if this work requires you to place your loyalty to the magos biologis second to the needs of my Chapter?” Caecus stood eye to eye with him. “What then?”
Serpens broke away first. “Lord… May I confide a truth to you?”
“Go on.”
“The works under the name of Haran Serpens have become less and less a challenge in the years gone by. My last great victory was over the Haze Plague… And I have done nothing of note since. I am out to pasture, majoris. Marking true. I would relish the chance to do something of worth once more. I can see no better a service than to collaborate with the Sons of Sanguinius. My loyalty… is to Terra and the Emperor alone.” Fenn sensed the faint air of desperation in the tech-lord’s voice.
“Nyniq has proven herself a valuable asset,” Caecus began. “I do not doubt you would be any less. But I must be clear, Serpens. Once you agree to join us here in the citadel, you will not be allowed to communicate with the outside world. The secrets that will be confided to you must be kept upon pain of death. To speak of any of this before we have fruition would not be tolerated.”
Serpens nodded. “Lord Caecus, already I have courted the displeasure of my masters by stealing away to come to Baal on my own. I will not turn back now.” He offered the Blood Angel his hand. “I say this to you. Task me. Task me, and together we shall surmount all obstacles. We will show the Emperor such majesty.”
Fenn stiffened at the tech-lord’s words. He had heard them once before, only a few months ago, in a meeting that progressed in much the same way that this one had.
We will show the Emperor such majesty. He stared at Nyniq. Those words had come from her lips, the dull echo of them now sounding onc
e more in the serfs memories. Fenn watched her bow and follow Serpens in servile fashion and his thoughts fell back to the first time he had laid eyes upon her.
The libraria of LXD-9768 were so vast that they covered three-fifths of the nondescript planet’s surface. The dull stone world with its nitrogen-heavy atmosphere had been polished smooth by the actions of heavy surface storms and hurricanes induced by the complex motion of three captured asteroid moons. Those satellites were gone now, mined to fragments by the Adeptus Mechanicus, used to build the endless lines of blockhouses that went from horizon to horizon; chamber after chamber, annexe after annexe, each storage facility housing millions of books, scrolls, picts and other forms of data storage. Whole island continents were given over to certain kinds of media, even down to millennia-old devices of magnetic tape, encoded discs and solid-state memory rods.
Worlds like LXD-9768 were dotted across the breadth of the galactic disc, planets chosen for their sheer inertness, locations far distant from any suns approaching their death cycle, alien borders or other sources of potential harm. Many of them duplicated each other’s records, with multiple redundant copies scattered a thousand fold over the light years; but they were not all the same. Since Old Night and the loss of Mankind’s great technologies, the millennia that followed had seen in part a series of struggles to recover what was once known by all. The Adeptus Terra, in its infinite wisdom and incalculable patience, had decreed that such a fall to darkness was never to be permitted again.
Blood Angels - The Complete Rafen Omnibus - James Swallow Page 64