Architect of fate, p.19
Architect of Fate, page 19
Before the inquisitor can raise his billhook, a ragged, filthy claw slices through his leather cloak and sends him flying across the room in a spray of blood. He slams into a pillar with a howl of pain and scrambles away into the darkness, cursing under his breath.
Cerbalus spins on the spot, spreading its wings and arching its long neck as it laughs with pleasure, forgetting everything but the ecstasy of revenge.
Mortmain staggers from pillar to pillar, his head spinning. Once he reaches the far side of the chamber he pulls back the shreds of his cloak to reveal an arm that is equally torn. His left bicep is completely ruined, hanging from his tattered flesh like raw steak. As the daemon continues spinning through the shadows, laughing to itself, Mortmain tears a strip of leather from his cloak and ties a quick tourniquet. He still has the glowing billhook in his right hand, and as he taps it against his breastplate he is relieved to feel that it is still intact. Without the prayers and sigils worked into its ornate metal, the mere presence of the daemon would split his mind as thoroughly as his ruined arm.
Suddenly the laughter is right next to him, but this time Mortmain is ready. He rolls clear of the daemon’s claws and chants a third, potent syllable, lighting up another character on his weapon.
Cerbalus cringes at the sound, but before it can withdraw its claw, Mortmain chops down with the billhook, slicing another piece of the daemon and causing it to screech in pain and frustration.
This time it does not flee, though. Before Mortmain can draw breath for another letter, the daemon stoops low over him and a talon rips open his thigh, sending him toppling to the ground. The pain is like nothing he has ever experienced but, as he slams onto the floor, he manages to gasp another syllable and lash out with the billhook.
Cerbalus croaks and gurgles as the blade rips open its throat.
By now the inquisitor’s black weapon is alive with flaming characters. ‘I have your name!’ howls Mortmain, attempting to disguise the lie by screaming it with all the force he can muster. ‘I will banish you, Cerbalus! You have no place here!’
The daemon’s twisted, stooping form backs away from him, clutching at the wound in its throat, unable to comprehend how the inquisitor’s weapon could sever flesh that does not even exist. ‘My name? How could you?’
The lights dip again as another deafening rumble fills the chamber.
Almost there, thinks Mortmain. Just a few more minutes.
The daemon looks at the doorway, its head twitching with indecision. It looks in the direction of the Domitus’s bridge, then back at the gore-splattered man writhing at its feet. It peers suspiciously at the short, curved blade pulsing in Mortmain’s grip, trying to make out the characters that have yet to ignite. ‘You do not have the power to wield such a thing. If my name were really held in that piece of metal it would tear your mind open.’
Knowing that he only has to maintain the lie for a few more minutes, Mortmain screams another syllable and attempts to stab Cerbalus again.
The daemon beats its wings and disappears.
Mortmain’s broken body floods with adrenaline at the thought that the daemon has given up on him and made for the bridge. Then he sees it reappear, crouched like a gargoyle on the broken pillar where he was standing a few minutes earlier.
‘My flesh is not for one such as you!’ he cries, spraying blood across his breasplate. He tries to stand, but his leg collapses beneath him and he sprawls across the flagstones like a drunk. ‘Try me, Cerbalus. Just a few more characters and you will be in my power once more.’
Cerbalus lets out a scream that even drowns out the klaxons. It launches itself from the pillar, smashing headlong into the inquisitor and sending them both tumbling across the bloody flagstones.
As they roll, Mortmain continues crying out the foul syllables and hacking into the daemon’s shifting flesh, even as Cerbalus’s frenzied claws tear his body apart.
Finally, they come to a halt against the feet of a statue and Mortmain begins to laugh.
‘You are mine!’ screams the daemon, lifting the inquisitor up into the air by the throat and shaking him like a broken toy.
Mortmain continues to laugh even as his innards spill to the floor. The chamber is shaking more violently than ever as the Domitus’s weapons silos finally launch their missiles at Ilissus.
‘Perhaps you will have me after all, Cerbalus,’ he laughs, vaguely aware that silver-clad figures are emerging from the shadows, their weapons trained on the daemon. ‘But you will never have Ilissus.’
Far below, the planet’s surface flashes red, then purple, then a beautiful opalescent white as it begins to die.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The temple of Astraeus is the grandest of follies. As Halser races through the great hall its walls swoop and bulge around him like the sails of a ship. Every inch of the place – floor, ceiling and walls – is studded with thousands of eyes, all of which follow the sergeant as he pounds towards the archway at the far end. The windows have been constructed in such a way that stars appear to hang in the air, and the dervish-like eddies of dust and cloud are even more fierce inside the building: waltzing and swaying like dancers across the floor, merging seamlessly with the undulating walls. It seems to Halser that he has been cut adrift in the heavens, and as he runs he weaves drunkenly from side to side, disorientated by the extraordinary display.
‘Heresy!’ whines Pylcrafte, stumbling after him and firing shots at the walls with his laspistol, shattering as many of the blinking eyes as he can. ‘Heresy, heresy, heresy, heresy, heresy!’ He has his cane in his other hand and he tries to stab the rolling clouds, hacking and lunging like a deranged swordsman.
Halser ignores him and keeps running towards the archway.
‘He’s going to unfetter us.’ Comus’s pain is clear to Halser, even over the vox. ‘Whatever he’s doing, it’s going to unhinge time.’
‘I don’t understand!’ cries Halser, reaching the archway and leaning against the stone to catch his breath.
‘Ilissus is heading towards some kind of time loop. Maybe even the whole sector. Whoever this prophet is, you need to stop him.’ There is an uncharacteristic note of fear in the Librarian’s voice. ‘You have to kill him, sergeant. The Black Legion want him to succeed. They have only attacked now to stop us hindering him. They could have struck at any time. He is dangerous, Halser. More than I guessed. Maybe he doesn’t even realise it himself.’
Halser shakes his head and stumbles into the next chamber. ‘A time loop? I don’t understand.’ The room he has entered is a vast, glass-roofed atrium, surrounding the hexagonal tower at the heart of the temple. Most of the pilgrims have fled to the walls to launch whatever strange defence they can manage, but a few are leaving the tower as Halser approaches. They drop to their knees and start screaming, horrified by his presence in their inner sanctum. The sergeant gasps and reels backwards. Their screamed prayers fill his head like a sickness. The pain snatches his breath and he stumbles, gasping inside his helmet, unable to breathe. He drops to his knees, feeling unconsciousness looming. Before he blacks out, he fires his bolt pistol. The shots are wild and frenzied, but one of the pilgrims crumples to the floor and the pain lessens. Feeling stronger, Halser manages to stand and fire off a few more shots. The pilgrims make no attempt to flee and it takes seconds to kill them. Then he staggers on, feeling his mouth filling with blood.
Pylcrafte staggers after him, waving his cane at nothing as he goes, trying to strike the prayers that fill the air.
Halser does not pause as he passes the pilgrims’ corpses and enters the tower. He sees a wide, serpentine, spiral staircase and begins to climb. His mind is numb with pain. He can barely remember his purpose, beyond a fierce drive to reach the architect who summoned this nightmarish temple into being. As he climbs the stairs more of the pilgrims launch attacks on his mind, but he guns them down without even pausing, haunted by Comus’s ominous term: ‘time loop’.
‘Pull back to the city!’ cries Comus, staggering through the shrapnel and smoke, and pointing his force sword at the walls of Madrepore. ‘We have to buy Halser some time. We can hold them at the gates!’
The barn has become a smouldering crater. Brothers Strasser, Vortimer and Brunman are dead. The remnants of their power armour is scattered throughout the rubble, torn open by the enemy’s heavy artillery. There are five Relictors left to make the run. Brothers Sabine and Thaler help Comus while Borellus and Volter give them covering fire.
After a few minutes, Volter lowers his lascannon and races down the road after them, but Borellus remains crouched in a ditch, firing blast after blast with his bolter.
‘Borellus!’ snaps Comus as he reaches the relative safety of the city. ‘Move!’
Brother Borellus shakes his head and continues firing.
Volter reaches the gates and rolls clear as a storm of bolter fire follows him into the city.
Comus jerks to one side as a hole explodes in the wall next to him. Then he peers briefly through it and sees that Borellus is still in the ditch, firing as calmly as ever, despite the fact that the enemy ranks are almost on him.
‘Borellus,’ he repeats, but there is no command in his voice now, only respect.
Borellus nods calmly in reply, then vanishes from view as the black-clad figures swarm over the ditch.
Comus hears a brief cough of pain over the vox as the Traitor Marines tear Borellus apart, and he lowers his head in prayer. Then he looks around the city. Hundreds, if not thousands of pilgrims are gathered on the city walls. He can feel the weight of their prayers as they try to repel the attacking army. And he can also feel their panic as they realise their words are having no effect.
‘They could have killed you at any time,’ he mutters, his voice full of disgust. ‘But they wanted your prophet to complete his work as much as you did.’ Then he notices a low, flat-roofed building to the left of the gates, with thick walls and small windows. He waves his force sword at the building and staggers towards it, ignoring the sound of enemy fire pulverising the city walls.
The other three Relictors sprint after him.
By the time Halser reaches the top of the stairs his mind is like that of an animal closing in on its prey, blind to everything but the chase. The City of Stars is collapsing but all he can think of is the prophet. He can barely remember why, but he knows he must stop Astraeus, even if it means his life.
Ahead of him is a tall, white door, studded with the same rolling eyes that line the walls. He pauses for a second and looks at them; blue, grey and brown irises look back, filled with terror and hate. Hate. Suddenly Halser remembers something other than the prophet of Ilissus. He remembers every doubt, rumour and lie that has been levelled at his beloved Chapter. An involuntary growl rolls deep in his chest and he shoves the door open, entering the central chamber.
The scene that greets him is strange enough to halt him in his steps. Pilgrims line the walls, kneeling in the five corners of a room built in the shape of a star, and the object of their genuflection is even more peculiar than they are. The man that Halser assumes is the prophet is as tall as a Space Marine, but where Halser is an armour-clad hulk of muscle, the prophet is a grey, emaciated wraith of a man, draped in voluminous black robes that hide most of his skeletal frame. His flesh is the colour of rain clouds and his limbs and hands are oddly elongated. The fingers clutching the arms of his ornate throne resemble pale spider’s legs; they are also webbed, like those of a lizard and end in long, crimson talons. Strangest of all is his head. It is swollen to three times the size of a normal skull and it is contained within a spherical, liquid-filled bowl. His eyes are barely visible behind thick, tinted goggles that also cover most of his forehead, and his pallid skull is pierced by a forest of thick wires that emerge from the glass helmet and connect to a bewildering collection of measuring devices: brass sextants, compasses and spinning, ticking depth gauges are all piled on the glass bowl like a rusty crown.
Despite everything he has seen on Ilissus, the sight of the prophet leaves Halser speechless. Everything strange about the planet clearly emanates from this one, bizarre figure. The coils of cloud that spread from the temple to the heavens are all trailing from his swollen, smiling face.
It takes Pylcrafte, stumbling into the room a few moments later, to state the undeniable truth. ‘You–you’re a Navigator,’ he stammers, as his nest of cables snake from his hood to focus on the prophet.
Astraeus smiles, eliciting a chorus of sighs from his subjects. ‘I used to be.’ His voice sounds odd and distant, muffled by the liquid in his helmet, and as he speaks the air in the chamber ripples like heat haze. ‘I was once Iarbonel van Tol, the first son of Baron Cornelius van Tol. But that was a long time ago, and I have a suspicion I might have been disinherited. The Emperor has a better name for me now, though, and a far greater purpose.’ He fixes his gaze on Halser. As the light in the chamber swells, his eyes become visible behind the lenses of his goggles.
Halser forgets his purpose for a moment, hypnotised by the prophet’s stare, then he shakes his head and recalls the words of Comus. ‘What are you doing here?’ he snaps, waving his gun at the rolling clouds and the banks of eyes. ‘What sorcery is this?’
The prophet’s smile falters. He frowns, clearly surprised by the accusation of sorcery. ‘I have watched you from afar, Space Marine,’ he says. ‘I thought you at least would understand.’
Halser continues shaking his head, too confused to answer.
‘When the Emperor cast me down onto Ilissus I thought He had abandoned me.’ The prophet waves at the ceiling. ‘My beloved ship was utterly destroyed.’
Halser looks up and notices Imperial designs, warped into the strange architecture, as though the whole place has been grown from the carcass of a battleship.
‘My injuries were horrendous,’ he turns his head slightly revealing the signs of crude, brutal surgery on the back of his skull, ‘but my children kept me safe.’ He smiles at the adoring pilgrims. ‘Over time, I realised the damage to my brain had untapped my true potential. That is all you are seeing here, sergeant: the true potential of a loyal subject.’ He flexes his fingers and the air ripples visibly, like water. ‘Soon I will have the power to crush those who would oppose us.’ His voice grows higher in pitch. ‘I will be invincible.’
Halser grips his bolt pistol tighter as he remembers his goal. He must stop this deluded monster before he tears the whole galaxy apart with his witchcraft. He raises his gun and mutters a prayer, but before he can fire, the temple lurches to one side.
The pilgrims’ prayers become a scream of terror as the walls start to bulge and sag.
‘It is beginning,’ smiles the prophet, leaning his head forwards so that the glass bowl touches Halser’s gun with a clink. ‘Your friends have sent you to your death. They want us to die together.’
Halser gasps. ‘You’re a liar!’ he cries, but as he speaks he recognises the scale of the explosions. He snatches the chronograph at his belt. ‘I still have time!’ He looks at the crumbling walls in disbelief. ‘Mortmain would not do this to me!’
The prophet nods. ‘They fear courage more than anything. My own father has sent them to kill me. And you…’ He pauses. ‘They sent you here to die, my friend. Your death, by my side, will be their final proof. Now they will speak openly the word they have long whispered against you: heretic.’
I am betrayed, thinks Sergeant Halser. Betrayed.
‘Comus is down!’ howls Brother Volter over the vox. ‘Dead, maybe... I–I can’t be sure. They’ve taken the infirmary. I’m pulling back. What are your orders? Sergeant?’ His voice is broken, his words half-buried beneath the sound of artillery. ‘Are you there? Sergeant Halser?’
Halser keeps his gun pressed to the prophet’s head and gives no reply. The pilgrims scream at him from the shadows, but he keeps his gaze fixed on a pair of grotesque, fathomless eyes.
The prophet stares back.
Halser places his finger on the trigger.
‘I can save both of us,’ says the prophet. His head lolls inside his bowl-shaped helmet, suspended by a pale, thin neck and a gloop of viscous liquid. The solution distorts his voice, but he tries to contort his vowels into something more human, enunciating each word carefully as though speaking to a child. He points a long, webbed finger at the man in the doorway. ‘They’ve lied to you. They have murdered us both. They knew exactly what would happen. They have always known.’
Halser follows his gaze and sees to his horror that Gideon Pylcrafte is laughing. No mouth is visible beneath his black hood, just a quivering mass of cables, but his amusement is clear. Halser’s resolve evaporates. His hand falters. If Pylcrafte saw this coming, the whole mission was a lie. Halser tries to marshal his thoughts. He tries to pray, but the sound of Brother Volter’s pain knifes into him, merged with the wailing of the pilgrims. The artillery grows louder until it seems the whole valley is groaning. The noise is unbearable and too loud to be just heavy guns. As the blasts ring around his head, Halser is forced to accept the truth.
The orbital bombardment has already begun.
Without Comus’s protection, his mind edges quickly towards collapse. The temporal distortion has reached its zenith and the pilgrims’ voices claw at his thoughts like blades across metal. He cannot be sure what is now and what was then. Simultaneously, he is leading the squad through the catacombs, slaughtering the pilgrims at the city gates and reaching the inner temple, but he knows that has already been. He stares deeper into the prophet’s misshapen eyes, trying to anchor himself.
‘Comus is down!’ howls Brother Volter over the vox. ‘Dead, maybe... I–I can’t be sure. They’ve taken the infirmary. I’m pulling back. What are your orders? Sergeant?’
