Castellan

by David Annandale

  ‘Go aboard,’ Crowe said to the Knights of the Flame. ‘I will take my leave of the Grand Master and follow.’

  When Sendrax and Drake had withdrawn, Crowe asked, ‘Have you learned something new about our mission?’

  ‘I am not sure. I was meditating upon your task during the night, and a fragment of a vision came to me. I beheld a great fire at the centre of infinite night. I felt the need to strike in that fire, though I knew it would never fall to me to do so. Then the vision passed.’

  ‘Can you interpret what you have seen?’

  ‘I cannot. I believe that task will be yours, too. For this, I am sorry.’

  ‘You should not be,’ Crowe said. ‘You have my thanks, Grand Master. I will think upon what you have told me.’

  They parted. Voldus watched Crowe go, the knight of coldest, grimmest purity. He seemed to draw shadows after him. The scraping voice of the sword receded, finally silenced when the heavy air lock boomed shut.

  Voldus remained where he was until the colonnade vibrated with the jolt of the Tyndaris leaving its moorings.

  One step behind Setheno, Governor Lina Vismar walked through the great main doors and into the Laboris Gloria manufactory. The honour guard squad escorting her kept back two paces, as much out of terror of Setheno than respect for the governor. Vismar had trouble keeping up with the canoness’ stride. She was not a young woman any longer, and she was much shorter than the towering Sister of Battle. What really made it difficult to match Setheno’s speed, though, was that Vismar quailed to find herself in such proximity to the Canoness Errant. She would gladly have fallen further behind, but she did not want Setheno to turn around. She did not want to confront the howling face of Setheno’s helmet. Worse yet would be if Setheno removed the helm. The one time Vismar had seen that face was enough. Those terrible eyes of gold and the features of emotionless, forbidding marble waited for her in her nightmares.

  Past the doors was the central avenue of the manufactory. Though no roof surmounted the five-hundred-yard-wide passage, the intersections of tracks and walkways was so thick, the sky was barely visible. Vismar considered this a mercy. Since the coming of the great night, smog over Algidus had become rare. The choking certainty of so many centuries was gone, sheared away by a power Vismar could not comprehend. Once, when she was a child, the sky had cleared for an entire week. She had gazed for hours at the stars, and thought with wonder that the Emperor ruled over everything she saw. Her mother had shown her the other planets of the Angriff system, and taught her the constellations. It had been the private pleasure of Vismar’s governorship, during the brief moments she had to herself, to pore over star charts, and remember that short, treasured vision of the lights of the galaxy.

  The lights were not a pleasure any longer. The sky was wrong.

  ‘I will have you realise that this failure is yours,’ said Setheno.

  ‘Canoness, you must understand that–’

  Setheno spoke over Vismar’s attempt to defend herself. ‘It is your duty to ensure that this forge, and Algidus, and Angriff Primus continue to function. The serfs are not working as they should. Teach them their duty.’

  ‘The people do not listen to me as they once did,’ Vismar said, and the admission was a bitter one to make. They never listened to me to the degree that they fear you, she thought. Production levels at Laboris Gloria were plummeting again. Vismar had done what she could, but her ability to take punitive actions was growing weaker as desertions also ate into the ranks of the militia. Serfs and soldiers were retreating into the apathy of despair. She had fought hard to preserve the morale of her world since the coming of the night. It was a struggle doomed to defeat. The years wore on. The Astronomican had not reappeared. The Angriff system was surrounded by the silence of the vanished Imperium.

  What success Vismar had had, she knew was not really hers. It was Setheno who had quelled the panics of the early days. It was Setheno who had imposed order, again and again, leaving Vismar the task of holding fast to what the canoness had achieved. It was Setheno, and not Vismar, and not the Ecclesiarchy under Cardinal Orla, who had forced the population of Angriff Primus to remain faithful and dutiful.

  I did all that could be done, Vismar thought. That her efforts had failed should not reflect on her or on Orla. The Imperium was gone. Holding even Angriff Primus together was a task beyond any human. Vismar could not really think of Setheno as human. She was a living sanction, a pre-emptive judgement falling on Vismar, sent by the Emperor before His light vanished. Without mercy, she had forced order on Angriff Primus, and her success felt like a deliberate reminder of Vismar’s failure to achieve the impossible.

  Laboris Gloria today was another failure. The people who toiled there had lost their fear of punishment and death. The will to struggle was draining away from Algidus. Vismar understood why. There was no point in fighting. There was no point in producing weapons for wars that were over and lost. There was no point in anything any longer.

  Setheno had noted the decline of Laboris Gloria. She had commanded Vismar to correct it. Commanded, with not even a blink of a concession to Vismar’s rank. Biting back anger, Vismar had tried. But production continued to drop, and so Setheno had now come herself, ordering Vismar to accompany her.

  A wave of terror preceded Setheno. Vismar saw it radiate through the crowds on the main avenue who parted before Setheno as if fleeing judgement itself. It moved into the foundry halls, and up the galleries and walkways, the maglev tracks and towers, the cranes and smokestacks of the manufactory. The canoness’ armour was the hard grey of a tombstone. Her cloak, too, was grey. The speed of her march made it billow. In Vismar’s eyes, its movements were the shape of a wind of cold and iron.

  Vismar followed, held by duty, bitterness and wounded pride. She could not deny that Setheno’s presence was a guarantor against the darkness. Vismar resented that power, but needed it, and needed to associate herself with it. The light of the Imperium had vanished, and the vast darkness, worse than night, was seeking to claim Angriff Primus. Vismar had no name for it, but she had glimpsed its leading edge when those monstrous, deformed Space Marines had come to her world and converted thousands of citizens to a heretical cult. Because of Setheno, the monsters were dead, and the cultists exterminated. But when she looked at the sky, Vismar knew the darkness was not done with Angriff Primus. It would return, bringing far worse horrors with it. She did not think her people had the fervent faith it would take to repulse the darkness this time. She knew she did not.

  Setheno’s strength, though, was undimmed. Her faith was as merciless as ever. If there was to be any protection from the dark, it would come from her.

  The workers of the Laboris Gloria cringed before Setheno’s passage, but were held, petrified, to see what she would do and hear what she would say. The canoness did not speak again until she reached the central court of Laboris Gloria. She stopped in the centre of the circular space, the focus of thousands of frightened eyes. Here, the walkways and tracks spiralled up the manufactory, leaving the thousand-yard-wide courtyard open to the sky. Vismar looked straight ahead, focusing on the canoness, fighting the temptation to look up at the stars.

  Electronic squeals rocked the height and breadth of Laboris Gloria. Vismar braced herself. Setheno had done this before. She was seizing control of the manufactory’s vox speakers, in the courtyard, and in the halls and deep foundries of the complex. Her voice would carry to every corner of the Laboris Gloria. When she spoke, Vismar winced. She could never prepare herself for the thunder of the canoness’ anger.

  ‘You are unworthy in the Emperor’s sight,’ Setheno declared. ‘You howl for protection, yet you refuse to fight. Your labour in these halls is in the defence of the Imperium. The armaments built here strengthen this world. You have the honour of reinforcing the ramparts of Angriff Primus, and you would refuse this honour. Faithless, you turn away from duty.’

  Se
theno paused. The manufactory reverberated with the throb and clang of its enormous machinery. Flaming gases roared from the peaks of the spires. Yet in the space between Setheno’s judgement and her sentence, it seemed to Vismar that silence had fallen over the Laboris Gloria. She held her breath. The serfs were motionless.

  ‘I tell you no!’ Setheno shouted. She drew her power sword and held it high. The crowd trembled, collective breath held. The sword’s blue light slashed through the glowering crimson of the manufactory and struck up at the blackness of the sky. ‘You will serve. You will labour. You will stand with the Emperor. Do you think His eye is not upon you? Do you dare believe He is no longer upon the Golden Throne? Look upon this light. Look upon this sword. Look! This is the light of the Emperor. This is the edge of his wrath. This is the final sight for the apostate. Look, and believe, and labour for the Emperor. Or look and die.’

  At first, the people responded to the words of the terror in grey by falling to their knees. They wailed for forgiveness. They raised their hands in entreaty. Many covered their eyes and wept. Then the sword crackled. It flared brightly, as if angered by the display.

  ‘You will serve!’ Setheno commanded.

  The wails became shrieks of fear, and the labourers rose to their feet. ‘We serve!’ they cried. ‘We serve!’ They fled to their duties as if chasing their final hope of redemption. For several minutes, Setheno remained as she was, the sword raised in warning, as the cacophony of the forges rose. It was the sound of sudden, desperate productivity.

  At last, Setheno sheathed the sword. She turned to confront Vismar. She leaned forward, the nightmare face on her helmet looking down on the governor. She spoke to Vismar, yet her words still snarled from the vox. ‘If I come here again, I shall leave none alive.’

  Vismar bowed her head. ‘That will not be necessary,’ she promised, and wondered how long she could maintain that vow. Despite the depths of her fear, she did not think even Setheno could hold the planet together forever.

  Setheno left her, marching back towards the main doors, leaving behind the renewal of faith and terror. There was no need for Vismar to accompany her, and it was clear Setheno did not require her presence. The canoness saw her as no better than the serfs. Setheno’s final threat had been directed at all of them.

  Vismar waited until the Sister of Battle was out of sight. She waited too long, because she gave in to the temptation and looked skywards. What she saw immediately began to erode the conviction of her vow. The despair undermined her spiritual defences once more.

  The Great Rift concealed many of the constellations she had seen in childhood. The angry wound in the galaxy was cause enough for despair, but what disturbed her most were lights in the sky that were closer to Angriff Primus. Vismar picked out the other planets in the system that were visible to the naked eye. Angriff Secundus and Tertius hung there, exactly where they should be. But the moon was gone. It had disappeared when the Rift had opened, and the panic caused by that absence had, in those first days, almost overwhelmed even Setheno’s grip on social order. During the first year of the darkness, new glints had arrived in the night sky, ones that had no reason to be there. As the months passed, one of the glints shone brighter and brighter. Soon it was a disc of brown and green. It grew and grew, until it was larger in the sky than the moon had ever been. Every time it rose, its pale light filled the night with mystery and dread.

  The sky was wrong. Vismar did not believe it would ever be right again.

  Styer and Epistolary Gared had both offered Crowe their quarters aboard the Tyndaris. He had refused. Their chambers were too close to those of the rest of the squad. He had to be far more isolated. There was a meditation cell at the rear of a librarium midway down the length of the ship between the bridge and the bow. Crowe had declared the librarium forbidden to all for the duration of the mission, and closed the door of the cell. He would emerge if battle required his presence, but not before.

  The Tyndaris plunged through the immaterium, taking the leap as far as it could towards the edge of the Nachmund system and the point where the storms became too great to permit travel. No one disturbed Crowe’s isolation until shortly before the end of the leap. He was murmuring prayers over the last of the bolter shells he was loading into spare magazines when he became aware of a presence in the librarium. The figure that appeared at the doorway to the cell a few moments later had had most of its humanity stripped away.

  ‘Inquisitor Furia,’ Crowe said. ‘It seems proper that we should meet before battle.’

  ‘I thought so, too,’ said Hadrianna Furia. The Ordo Malleus inquisitor’s voice was a metallic rattle.

  Crowe knew she had been on numerous missions with Styer, but this was the first time their paths had crossed. So much of her flesh had been replaced with bionic components, she could almost have passed for an adept of the Cult Mechanicus, were it not for the absence of mechadendrites. The left half of her body and her right arm were bronze. The right side of her face was unmoving scar tissue. The way in which her wounds were marks of pride and determination reminded Crowe of Drake, though his eyes were still human. Furia’s were machinic red embers.

  Crowe sensed Antwyr turn its attacks on the inquisitor. Puritan fool, it said. You have seen much and learned nothing. I will teach you. Carve the last of the flesh away. Become your truth. Burn humanity down to the bones with me.

  Furia’s unblinking gaze fell on the sword for a long moment before she looked back up at Crowe.

  ‘You are Amalathian,’ Crowe said, and Furia nodded. The Amalathians were one of the puritan factions of the Inquisition, and shunned absolutely the use of tainted weaponry. Crowe had encountered radical inquisitors who had eyed the Black Blade with hunger, deluding themselves with the thought they could unleash its power against the enemies of the Imperium. Furia’s beliefs would protect her for longer against Antwyr’s will, though no mortal could stand against it indefinitely.

  ‘The relic you wield is an object of particular horror for our philosophy,’ said Furia.

  ‘As well it should be. You wonder how it can be wielded without using the power it holds.’

  ‘I do, though I know this is your task.’

  ‘And is this what you wish to speak to me about?’

  ‘In a sense. I understand you know about Epistolary Gared’s theory of self-fulfilling prognostications.’

  ‘I do. Are you, like Justicar Styer, convinced of this?’

  ‘To the same degree he is, yes. And he has told him that you, too, have felt a similar kind of manipulation.’

  ‘I have.’

  Furia appeared to gather her thoughts for a moment. ‘I do not like hypotheticals,’ she said. ‘They are too often the source of actions that are taken before the facts of a situation are known, and so become disastrous.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you are about to present me with one.’ Crowe sensed that if Furia could still grimace, she would right now.

  ‘We are preparing to battle a foe who, it seems, is capable of moving worlds. Is there, then, a point at which the full use of that sword becomes necessary?’

  The sword thrummed in its sheath. Crowe held it tight. Growls of triumph filled his head, and he wondered if Furia had already fallen, and he would have to execute her. ‘There is no such point,’ he said, his voice a cold warning. ‘The more powerful the enemy is, the more imperative the captivity of the Blade becomes. This is absolute. I am surprised at your question, Inquisitor Furia.’ He took a step forward.

  ‘I am satisfied,’ she said. ‘It occurred to me that the chain of events we are facing might be a prologue to the sword’s freedom.’

  Renounce your words, Antwyr raged at Furia, and it tried to push Crowe on. Kill her now. Do not suffer her to live. She must be sacrificed.

  ‘The Blade will never be free,’ Crowe said, standing still.

  ‘I do not doubt you, castellan. I do not dou
bt the Grey Knights. But I have seen what members of my order will do if their path strays, even and especially when they believe they fight for the Imperium.’

  ‘Is this what you anticipate?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Though Justicar Styer and I have seen enough to anticipate the worst, we do not know the shape it will take.’

  ‘Nor I, inquisitor.’

  The Tyndaris translated into the materium. The Mandeville point was in the Nachmund system’s Oort cloud. The region was abnormally dense with planetisimals. The proximity of the Cicatrix Maledictum tortured the fabric of space, drawing in clusters of the icy bodies, catching them in vortices of gravitational anomalies. The strike cruiser’s hull groaned as conflicting forces pulled at it. The view through the oculus was of reality in torment. The mad colours of the Great Rift bled into the system. The prognosticars had been able to predict a period of relative calm in the Cicatrix, and the Nachmund passage was navigable. At the command pulpit of the bridge, Styer was grateful for small mercies.

  ‘Have we made any progress, Lieutenant Ambach?’ Shipmaster Bruno Saalfrank asked the augur operator. The vortices of the Oort cloud were wreaking havoc with the long-range sensors.

  ‘Very little,’ Ambach said. ‘I am getting some readings that reach beyond line of sight, but not many.’

  Saalfrank turned to Styer. ‘We may hope that the enemy faces the same problem.’

  ‘We may hope that, but we will not count on it,’ Styer told him.

  ‘There are some challenges our foes will have to contend with, no matter how else the Ruinous Powers may favour them,’ said Gared. The Librarian pointed towards the starboard side of the oculus, where the fury of the Cicatrix was at its most savage.

  ‘Agreed,’ said Styer. ‘Shipmaster, plot a course that takes us as close to the Rift as possible, to the edge of what our hull can withstand.’

  ‘So ordered,’ Saalfrank replied. If he dreaded what the tidal forces would do to the Tyndaris, he gave no sign.