Horus Heresy: A Thousand Sons Part 38

Great machines of incredible potency and complexity were spread throughout the chamber, vast stockpiles and uniquely fabricated items that would defy the understanding of even the most gifted adept of the Mechanic.u.m.

It had the feel of a laboratory belonging to the most brilliant scientist the world had ever seen. It had the look of great things, of potential yet untapped, and of dreams on the verge of being dragged into reality. Mighty golden doors, like the entrance to the most magnificent fortress, filled one end of the chamber. Great carvings were worked into the mechanised doors: entwined siblings, dreadful sagittary, a rearing lion, the scales of justice and many more.

Thousands of tech-adepts, servitors and logi moved through the chamber's myriad pa.s.sageways, like blood cells through a living organism in service to its heart, where a great golden throne reared ten metres above the floor. Bulky and machine-like, a forest of snaking cables bound it to the vast portal sealed shut at the opposite end of the chamber.

Only one being knew what lay beyond those doors, a being of towering intellect whose powers of imagination and invention were second to none. He sat upon the mighty throne, encased in golden armour, bringing all his intellect to bear in overseeing the next stage of his wondrous creation.

He was the Emperor, and though many in this chamber had known him for the spans of many lives, none knew him as anything else. No other t.i.tle, no possible name, could ever do justice to such a luminous individual. Surrounded by his most senior praetorians and attended by his most trusted cabal, the Emperor sat and waited.

When the trouble began, it began swiftly.

The golden portal shone with its own inner light, as though some incredible heat from the other side was burning through the metal. Vast gunboxes fixed around the perimeter of the cave swung up, their barrels spooling up to fire. Lightning flashed from machine to machine as delicate, irreplaceable circuits overloaded and exploded. Adepts ran from the site of the breach, knowing little of what lay beyond, yet knowing enough to flee.

Crackling bolts of energy poured from the molten gates, flensing those too close to the marrow. Intricate symbols carved into the rock of the cavern exploded with shrieking detonations. Every source of illumination in the chamber blew out in a shower of sparks, and centuries of the most incredible work imaginable was undone in an instant.

No sooner had the first alarm sounded than the Emperor's Custodes were at arms, but nothing in their training could have prepared them for what came next.

A form pressed its way through the portal: ma.s.sive, red and aflame with the burning force of its journey. It emerged into the chamber, wreathed in eldritch fire that bled away to reveal a robed being composed of many-angled light and the substance of stars. Its radiance was blinding and none could look upon its many eyes without feeling the insignificance of their own mortality.

None had ever seen such a dreadful apparition, the true heart of a being so mighty that it could only beat while encased in super-engineered flesh.

The Emperor alone recognised this rapturous angel, and his heart broke to see it.

"Magnus," he said.

"Father," replied Magnus.

Their minds met, and in that moment of frozen connection the galaxy changed forever.

OCCULLUM SQUARE WAS busy, though Lemuel saw an undercurrent of nameless fear in the auras of the traders and buyers. They haggled with more than usual bitterness, and the sparring back and forth was done with tired eyes and heavy hearts. Perhaps it was a ma.s.s hangover from the riots two weeks ago. No one had adequately explained why such violence had broken out on the streets of a city that had not known unrest in hundreds of years.

He sat with Camille on a wrought iron bench between Gordian Avenue and Daedalus Street, watching the crowds go about their business, pretending nothing was out of place, as though they were not living on a world ruled by warriors who regarded them as nothing more than playthings.

In the fortnight since Kallista's death, he and Camille had spent a great deal of time together, mourning their lost friend and coming to terms with their current situation. It had involved many stories, many tears and a great deal of soul-searching, but they had eventually reached the same conclusion.

"She thought this world was a paradise," said Camille, watching the forced laughter of a couple strolling arm in arm beneath the shadow of the Occullum.

"We all did," said Lemuel. "I didn't want a tasking order to come for the Thousand Sons. I wanted to stay and learn from Ahriman. Look where that got us."

"Kalli's death wasn't your fault," said Camille, taking his hand. "Don't ever think that."

"I don't," he said. "I blame Ahriman. He may not have pulled the switches or pressed the b.u.t.tons, but he knew what they were doing was wrong and he let it happen anyway."

They watched the crowds for a moment longer, before Camille asked, "Do you think he'll come?" Lemuel nodded.

"He'll come. He wants this as much as we do." Camille looked away and Lemuel read the hesitation in her aura.

"We do both want this, don't we?" he asked.

"Yes," said Camille, a little too quickly.

"Come on," he said. "We have to be honest with one another now."

"I know, and you're right, it's time, but I-"

"You don't want to leave without Chaiya," finished Lemuel.

"No, I don't. Does that sound stupid?"

"Not at all. I understand completely, but is what you have worth dying for?"

"I don't know yet," said Camille, wiping the heels of her palms against her eyes. "I think it might have been, but this is her home and she won't want to leave."

"I won't force you to come, but you saw what I saw."

"I know," she said, through moist eyes. "It'll break my heart, but I've made my mind up."

"Good girl," said Lemuel, hating that it had taken him this long to understand the truth.

Camille nodded towards Daedalus Street and said, "Looks like your friend's here," as a servitor-borne palanquin emerged and turned towards them. The servitors were bulk-muscled things, broad shouldered and wearing silver helmets and crimson tabards. The crowds parted for the palanquin, and it stopped before Lemuel and Camille.

The velvet curtain parted and Mahavastu Kallimakus emerged. A set of bronze steps extended from the base of the palanquin and he climbed down to join them.

"A grand conveyance," said Lemuel, impressed despite himself.

"A waste of time that only serves to draw attention to my irrelevance," snapped Mahavastu, sitting next to Camille on the bench. "Sobek insisted I travel in it to save my old bones."

The venerable scribe patted Camille's hand, his skin gnarled like old oak.

"I was sorry to hear of Mistress Eris' death," he said. "She was a quite lovely girl. A real tragedy."

"No it's not," said Lemuel. "It would have been a tragedy if she died thanks to a weakness of her own making, but she was murdered, plain and simple."

"I see," said Mahavastu. "What do I not know?"

"The Thousand Sons burned her out," said Camille. "They used her, and she died so that they could glimpse echoes of the future. Fat lot of good it did them. All she did was talk in riddles before it killed her."

"Ah, I was told she had another of her unfortunate attacks at Voisanne's?"

"She did, but that was only the beginning," said Lemuel, standing and pacing back and forth before the bench. "They killed her, Mahavastu. It's that simple. Look, what do you want me to say? You were right, there is a curse upon the Thousand Sons. If what Kallista said means half of what we think it means, this world is doomed and it's time we were gone."

"You wish to leave Prospero?" asked Mahavastu.

"d.a.m.n right I do."

Mahavastu nodded. "And you feel the same, Mistress Shivani?"

"Yeah," she said. "When Ankhu Anen moved me away from Kallista, I felt something of his memories, a fragment of something that pa.s.sed between him and the other captains. I didn't get more than a flash, but whatever they know has them terrified. Something very bad is happening, and it's time we put some distance between us and the Thousand Sons."

"Have you given any thought as to how we might do this, Lemuel?" asked Mahavastu.

"I have," he said. "There's a ma.s.s-conveyer in orbit right now, the Cypria Selene. It's completing an engine refit and is resupplying in preparation for despatch to Thranx. She's scheduled to depart in a week, and we need to be on that ship."

"And how do you propose we manage that?" asked Mahavastu. "Its crew will be monitored, and we have no legitimate reason to be on the Cypria Selene."

Lemuel smiled for the first time in weeks.

"Don't worry," he said, "I've learned a thing or two that should help with that."

THE BOOKS WERE scattered like autumn leaves across the floor of his chambers, their pages torn and crumpled. The orreries were shattered and the astrological charts torn from the walls. The globe of Prospero was broken, its ochre continents lying in broken shards amid the cracked cerulean fragments of its oceans.

A torrent of destruction had swept through Magnus' chambers, but no thoughtless vandal or natural disaster had wreaked such havoc. The architect of this destruction squatted amid the ruin of his possessions with his head buried in his hands.

Magnus' white robe was stained and unkempt, his flesh worn with weeks of neglect, his body wracked by inconsolable grief. The shelves behind him were shattered, the timber splintered and broken to matchwood. Almost nothing remained in once piece. The mirrors were cracked and reduced to shattered diamonds of reflective gla.s.s.

Magnus lifted his head, out of breath from his rampage.

The exertion was nothing; it was the scope of what he had destroyed that took away his breath, the sheer, mind-numbing horror of what had been lost and could never be retrieved.

Only one thing had escaped his destructive rampage, a heavy lectern of cold iron upon which was chained the Book of Magnus, the grimoire of all his achievements, culled from the unexpurgated texts penned by Mahavastu Kallimakus. Achievements.

The word stuck in his throat. All his achievements were lies in the dust.

It had all been for nothing. Everything was unravelling around him faster than he could weave it back together.

Magnus rose to his full height, his body diminished from its former glory, as though a fundamental part of him had been left on Terra after his confrontation with his father. The moment of connection they had shared had been sublime and horrendous. He had seen himself as others saw him, a monstrous, fiery angel of blood bringing doom down upon those mortals unlucky enough to fall beneath his gaze.

Only his father had recognised him, for he had wrought the life into him and knew his own handiwork. Magnus had experienced that awful self-knowledge in an instant, feeling it sear his heart and crush his soul in one dreadful moment of union.

He had tried to deliver his warning, showing his father what he had seen and what he knew. It hadn't mattered. Nothing he could have said would have outweighed or undone the colossal mistake he had made in coming to Terra. The treachery of Horus was swept away, an afterthought in the wake of the destruction Magnus had unwittingly unleashed. Wards that had kept the palace safe for a hundred years were obliterated in an instant, and the psychic shockwave killed thousands and drove hundreds more to madness and suicide.

But that wasn't the worst of it, not by a long way. It was the knowledge that he had been wrong. Everything he had been so sure of knowing better than anyone else was a lie.

He thought he had known better than his father how to wield the power of the Great Ocean. He believed he was its master, but in the ruins of his father's great work, he had seen the truth. The Golden Throne was the key. Unearthed from forgotten ruins sunken deep beneath the driest desert, it was the lodestone that would have unlocked the secrets of the alien lattice. Now it was in ruins, its impossibly complex dimensional inhibitors and warp buffers fused beyond salvage.

The control it maintained on the shimmering gateway at his back was ended, and the artfully designed mechanism keeping the two worlds apart was fatally fractured. In the instant of connection, Magnus saw the folly of his actions and wept to see so perfect a concept undone.

Unspoken understanding flowed between Magnus and the Emperor. Everything Magnus had done was laid bare, and everything the Emperor planned flowed into him. He saw himself atop the Golden Throne, using his fearsome powers to guide humanity to its destiny as rulers of the galaxy. He was to be his father's chosen instrument of ultimate victory. It broke him to know that his unthinking hubris had shattered that dream.

Without will, the spell that had sent him to Terra was nothing, and Magnus had felt the pull of flesh dragging his spirit back through the gateway. He did not fight it, but let his essence fly through the golden lattice to the tear he had so carelessly torn in its fabric. Vast shoals of void predators were already ma.s.sing, swirling armies of formless monsters, fanged beasts and awesomely powerful ent.i.ties that lived only for destruction.

Would the Emperor be able to hold them back?

Magnus didn't know, and the thought of so much blood on his hands shamed him.

He'd flown back through the timeless depths of the Great Ocean and awoken within the Reflecting Caves in the midst of a vast hall of the dead. The Thralls were no more, each and every one reduced to a withered, lifeless husk by the power of his spell.

Only Ahriman remained, and even he looked drained.

With tears in his eyes, Magnus retreated from the scene of his crime and all but fled to the Pyramid of Photep, ignoring Ahriman's shouted questions. Alone, amid the lies of his centuries of study, the red mist had fallen over his sight. He'd mocked Angron for his rages, but at the thoroughness of his destruction, he understood a measure of the satisfaction such violence could bring.

Magnus stood and walked from the ruin of his study, ashamed at his loss of control and needing to clear his head. The gla.s.s doors that led to his balcony were smashed, the gla.s.s lying in accusing shards that crunched as he stepped through the wreckage.

He leaned on the balcony railing, supporting his weight on his elbows and letting the cool wind ruffle his hair and caress his skin. Far below him, Tizca carried on as though nothing had happened, its people oblivious to the doom he had unleashed upon them all. They didn't know it yet, but a terrible retribution would soon fall upon them.

What form that retribution would take he did not know, but he recalled the Emperor's words at Nikaea, and feared the worst. People moved through Occullum Square and along the Street of a Thousand Lions, congregating in the many parks and Fountain Houses that dotted the western areas of the city where the bulk of its citizens dwelt.

The port was to the north, a walled area of the city built on the gentle slopes that led down to the curved bay. Golden beaches spread further along the coast before sweeping beyond sight into the Desolation. Hard against the flanks of the eastern mountains stood the Acropolis Magna, a raised spur of rock that had once been a fortress, but had long since fallen into ruin. A great statue of Magnus stood upon its highest point to mark the place where he had first set foot on the surface of Prospero.

How he wished he could take back those first steps!

Dozens of theatres cl.u.s.tered around the base of the Acropolis Magna, their tiers cut into the lower slopes of the rock, home to actors who strutted like martinets on each marbled proscenium. Five perfectly circular Tholus stood in areas of rolling parkland, open-air structures built according the principles of the Golden Mean. In the forgotten ages they had once housed temples, but were now used as sports arenas and training grounds.

Numerous barracks of the Spireguard dotted the city's plan, and Magnus felt a twinge of regret for these men and women most of all. They were all going to die for the crime of being born on Prospero.

The cult's pyramids dominated the skyline, looming from the gilded city like cut gla.s.s arrowheads. Sunlight reflected on them, dancing like fire in the polarised crystal. He'd seen the vision once before and had thought it allegorical. Now he knew better.

"All this will be ashes," he said sadly.

"It does not have to be," said a voice behind him.

Magnus turned, and harsh words died on his lips as he saw it was not an intruder that had spoken.

He had.

Or at least a version of him had.

The mirror hanging beside the doorway was broken, yet dozens of splinters still clung to the copper frame. In each of them, Magnus saw a shimmering reflection of his eye, one mocking, one angry, one capricious, another aloof. The eyes stared with sly amus.e.m.e.nt, each a different colour and each now regarding him with the same quizzical look.

"A mirror? Even now you appeal to my vanity," said Magnus, dreading what this signified.

"I told you it was the easiest trap to set," said the reflections, their voices slippery and entwined. "Now you know the truth of it."

"Was this always what you wanted?" asked Magnus. "To see me destroyed?"

"Destroyed? Never!" cried the reflections, as though outraged by the suggestion. "You were always to be our first choice, Magnus. Did you know that?"

"First choice for what?"

"To bring about the eternal chaos of destruction and rebirth, the endless succession of making and unmaking that has cycled throughout time and will continue for all eternity. Yes, you were always first, and Horus is a poor second. The Eternal Powers saw great potential in you, but even as we coveted your soul, you grew too strong and caused us to look elsewhere."

The reflections smiled with paternal affection, "But I always knew you would be ours one day. While suspicious eyes were turned upon you and your Legion, we wove our corruptions elsewhere. For that you have my thanks, as the Blinded One has lit the first fire of the conflagration, though none yet see it for what it is."

"What are you?" asked Magnus, stepping through the doorway to re-enter the wreckage of his chambers. h.o.a.rfrost gathered on the splintered gla.s.s and his breath misted before him.

"You know what I am," said his reflections. "Or at least you should."

One splintered eye shifted, swirling until it became a fiery snake with multi-coloured eyes and wings of bright feathers: the beast he had killed beneath the Mountain of Aghoru. It changed again, morphing through a succession of shimmering forms, until Magnus saw the shifting, impossibly ma.s.sive form of the shadow in the Great Ocean.