The Unremembered Empire Part 17

*I'll do your job, Gahet,' he said, with no respect at all, *once I'm done here.'

11.

Communion

*Let us start with the truth, and move on to more interesting matters.'

a attributed to Malcador the Sigillite Two Legions slowly marched, side by side, along the Avenue of Heroes, towards the Castrum and the Fortress, like a half-black, half-blue river. On the right-hand side of the column marched the Ultramarines; on the left, the Dark Angels. Behind the main column came the remnants of the other Legions, and then the Army units and the t.i.tan engines. Crowds cheered and waved from both sides of the vast route.

*The last time this many banners were carried aloft must have been on Ullanor,' the Lion said.

*I think so,' Guilliman agreed.

They were walking side by side at the head of the procession, half-shaded by the Legion standards being carried at their heels. Holguin and Redloss escorted the Lion, and Gorod and his lieutenant, Maglios, flanked the Avenging Son.

*It is a glorious feeling,' the Lion said, *and one we deserve. Your warriors, after the ordeal of Nuceria and the many battles of Lorgar's "shadow crusade" a mine after Thramas and the fury of the warp.'

*You will tell me, I hope, about the Thramas Crusade in detail,' Guilliman said.

*I will.'

*You fought against Konrad? Against the Eighth Legion?'

*Traitors all, sad be the day. I have prisoners aboard the flagship, including his First Captain, Sevatar.'

Guilliman glanced sideways at his expressionless brother.

*Have you interrogated him? Have you rooted out the cause of this treason?'

*Have you?' asked the Lion. *In your wars against Angron and Lorgar, have you identified their argument?'

*It is the warp,' replied Guilliman. *It is an infection, a pollution of the soul. On Nuceria, the horrors I saw heaped upon Angron by one he considered a comrade... Our brothers, even the Lupercal, have not turned against us. They have been turned.'

*I think so too,' the Lion replied. *It is a hard thought to hold. I cannot imagine having cause to turn against our father and Terra, but I can at least conceive of the possibility of a cogent argument for dissent. This treason... it spreads like a plague. It is contagious.'

*It is. Which is why, I imagine, you came to me.'

The Lion glanced sideways at Guilliman.

*Roboute. Such a question.'

*Your ships were not lost, brother. They were heading for Macragge when the storm struck. I have read the flight-logs. Did you fear I'd turned with Horus and become a threat to our father? Have you come to sanction me, like Russ's wolf pack?'

The Lion laughed.

*My dear Roboute, I did not think for a moment that you had turned. I thought you'd done much, much worse.' He looked at Guilliman. *I think we both know you have.'

He glanced at the Castrum ahead, the towering bulk of the Fortress of Hera.

*That is quite a place,' he said. *I am impressed. I expect a proper tour and inspection.'

The Legions march along the Avenue of Heroes The Memorial Gardens lay to the east of the Avenue of Heroes. John Grammaticus watched the glittering column move by, banners aloft, heading up the t.i.tanic street to the Porta Hera, a cyclopean gateway in the Castrum wall that he could see from six kilometres away.

It was a display of force, John had to admit. The Legions were good at that. They were good at killing too, and the vanguard, the Army and the t.i.tan engines... a G.o.d-slaying force. John was especially impressed by the retinues of the so called *Shattered Legions'. They suggested a human resolve that John knew the Cabal doubted. They stood together, despite their losses. They fought on.

We always have, he thought. Watch us for just a moment, though a moment to you might be ten thousand years to us, and you'll see. We are not children. We have morals and souls.

The Memorial Gardens were far too civilised. Walls of inscribed stone flanked oblong pools of pale water lilies and beds of rushes and vein flowers. The Ultramarines dignified their dead. They engraved their names upon the flagstones of the Avenue of Heroes, and again here in the gardens, and also on the black marble walls of the Chapel of Memorial in the Great Fortress.

It was the gardens where the dead were actually interred, in pre-built catacombs that lay beneath the beds and pools.

John had a vision of the day when, after endless centuries of war, there would be no room left on the flagstones of the avenue to fit more names, and the catacombs would be full, and the walls of the chapel would be covered. Where would they commemorate all their dead then?

He blinked back the thought.

The funerary shuttles had been cleared to land on the raised stone decks of the garden compound. Eight of them, wings hinged up like b.u.t.terflies, sat side by side on the landing terrace. Their cargoes of sarcophagi would be unloaded later. Because of the parade, there weren't enough Legion personnel available to conduct the rites and deliver the dead in respectful silence to their resting places.

John was content enough, however. As Edaris Cluet, an officer of repatriation, the funerary flights had got him to the surface of Macragge and deep inside the great Civitas. The Ultramarines solemn respect for their fallen had allowed him to circ.u.mvent almost all of Macragge's complex layers of planetary security.

Most of the other crews from the repatriation flights had gone to the edge of the landing terrace to watch the procession pa.s.s along the Avenue. A few were running systems checks on the landers, which were parked on the deck with their canopies up and their loading ramps down.

Time to slip away. Time to step out of Edaris Cluet and find a new person to hide in.

John picked up his pack, slung it across his shoulder and walked quietly away through the lawns and bowers. The jet-black mourning uniform was sober and smart, and, because it was austere and lacked any rank pins except the golden ultima-and-omega of the Funeral Watch, it suggested he was of a higher rank than he actually was. In a city of uniforms, he could pa.s.s for almost anyone and not be called on it, except by those with the most expert and detailed knowledge of Legion liveries.

All eyes were on other, grander things. Unchallenged and un.o.bserved, he walked up the northern pathway of the gardens, pa.s.sing under box-hedge arches cut for transhuman statures, and along flagged walks shaded by stately yew and sorona trees.

The planners had built the gardens to be appropriately n.o.ble and quietly sorrowful. The grey-leaved canopy turned even the day's bold light into a kind of dusk. The flagstones, the commemoration walls, and the entrances to the crypts were all of Saramanthian bluestone. The water lying in the long, oblong, black-reeded pools was as dark as veils. The silver shivers of ghost carp moved under the silent mirrors of the water. The lilies drifting on the surface of the pools were grey, like tear-stained handkerchiefs.

Mirrors...

A breeze hissed through the trees around him. John tensed. Ripples radiated across the surfaces of the pools. He was aware of the distant bombast of trumpets, war horns and cheering in the distance, but it felt as though the volume had suddenly been turned down.

John's eyeb.a.l.l.s p.r.i.c.kled. His mouth dried. A pulse began to tap in his temple.

*Please don't do this now,' he said, quietly but firmly. The Cabal was trying to summon him. They were trying to establish a psychic communion, most likely using one of the pools nearby as a flecting surface.

They were trying to keep track of him. They would want to be sure he was staying true to the task they had given him.

He swallowed hard. The breeze hissed again, rustling grey leaves. The heavy object in his carrybag trembled slightly, as if sensitive to the immaterial stirrings around him.

Please.+

This time he spoke with his mind, not his mouth.

Please, I'm tired. I've only just got here and I'm at my wits' end. Let me get safe and rest. Come to me later when I can take the burden of a communion. Please.+

The breeze stirred. Who would it be? Gahet, he of the Old Kind, most probably, but John suspected the unsympathetic persistence of Slau Dha, the eldar autarch.

Please.+

He turned and resumed walking, but his skin was still p.r.i.c.kling. The faraway sounds of the parade had become so m.u.f.fled that John felt as though he was underwater.

He glanced at the pool next to him, involuntarily. The surface had frozen, like dark gla.s.s, scrying gla.s.s. Below the surface, silvered fish had stilled, suspended, tail-fins mid-stroke.

A shadow fell across the flecting surface, and it wasn't his. He flinched as he saw the dark, rising crest of an eldar war-helm, the impossibly tall, attenuated figure, a scarecrow-G.o.d, the dimensions of its slim, long-boned form running the whole length of the pool.

*I said not now!' John spat.

He turned, tearing his eyes away from the shadow and striding down the flagstoned path away from the pool. There was a buzzing in his hindbrain. The leaves hissed.

*Leave me alone!' he growled over his shoulder. *Leave me alone!'

He left the gardens and entered the oddly quiet streets. Everyone in the deme was lining the Avenue of Heroes. His head stung from the attempted communion, and his hands were shaking.

They had to be careful. The Cabal had to be more careful than that. From his reviews, in the guise of Teo Lusulk, of Civitas security, John knew that the XIII had reinstated their Librarius on a world-wide protocol. There was also a formidable contingent of the Astra Telepathica on the planet. Psykana techniques would be interlacing the defences. A raw conduit like the one Slau Dha had attempted to forge in the gardens might well be detected.

Detection by the Librarius would make his work very much more problematic, and would probably end his life. This life, anyway. He was tired of dying.

Shaking, he saw a fairly grand tavern on the corner of the next emptied street. Lights burned inside. It was an up-scale place for senatorial officers and the political echelons of the Civitas. The whole neighbourhood adjoining the Memorial Gardens was elegant and well-to-do.

He went inside. The place was a grand salon of gilded ormulu and chandeliers, with rows of tables under the high, frescoed ceiling and in booths along each wall. It was empty, aside from a few waiting staff and servitor units, and they saw to him quickly.

John took a table in one of the booths, the nearest he could find, and sank back into its comparative privacy. The seats were high backed and upholstered in leather, and the booth was formed from panels of coloured gla.s.s that rose from the tops of the seat backs to form part.i.tions. At the back of the booth, the wall above the seats was a large crystal mirror in which John could watch the foot traffic coming in and out of the tavern without drawing attention to himself.

His hands were still shaking. One of the ap.r.o.ned serving staff brought him a jug of water and a beaker, and the large amasec he'd ordered as he'd walked in.

*Will you dine, sir?' the servant asked.

Food was an excellent idea. John had been poorly nourished the last few weeks as it was, and a decent hit of carbs and protein would help smooth out the after-sting of Slau Dha's approach.

*Bread,' he said. *Salt b.u.t.ter. Something gamey or some chops.'

*We have a haunch of coilhorn deer.'

*That will do. Some root vegetables.'

The servant nodded.

*Are you not watching the parade, sir?' the servant asked.

*Are you not?' John snapped.

The man shrugged.

*I'm working, sir,' he said.

John nodded, and tried to warm up a smile.

*Me too,' he said. *Besides, when you've seen one s.p.a.ce Marine march past you, you've seen them all, haven't you?'

The servant laughed as if this was a reasonably funny observation, and went off to take the order to the kitchen. John poured a beaker of water. His d.a.m.ned hands were still trembling, but food would help take the edge off.

So would the spirits. He raised the amasec. He needed to use two hands just to keep it steady.

A sip. Warmth. Better. Better.

He put the heavy gla.s.s down, felt the tension slip out of his wrists.

There was a mark on the white tablecloth between his hands. A dot. A second dot appeared beside it.

Spots of blood.