‘Confirm network security.’
Another rune twinned with the first, blinking in reassurance.
‘This is Argel Tal,’ he spoke only to his closest brothers now. ‘Aurelian calls us.’
A voice answered without the aid of vox, drifting through his senses with maddening familiarity.
They already know. They sense it.
I know this voice, he thought.
Of course we know it. It is our own voice. We are Argel Tal.
TWENTY-THREE
Traitors
Possession
The Choice
The astropath nodded.
Aquillon was too stunned to even feel rage. ‘Treason,’ he said. ‘How can this be?’
The astropath’s name was Cartik, and at his full height he cut an unimpressively short figure, only made worse by both advancing age and a tendency to hunch his shoulders like an animal about to be attacked. The psyker was pushing seventy years of age with a face cracked by time’s lines, and he’d hardly been spry even in youth. He was old now. It showed in everything he did, and how slowly he did it.
Surprisingly lovely eyes flickered about as they watched from beneath half-hooded lids, sunk into the sallow sockets of an ugly face formed by cruel genes and chubby cheeks. Upon seeing him once, a remembrancer had remarked that Cartik’s mother or father – perhaps even both – were almost definitely rodents.
He’d never been skilled at cutting comebacks. His talents simply didn’t lie in witticism. That was the last time he attempted to make friends among the newly-arrived civilians. He knew loneliness would drive him to try again, but was content to let it wait a while.
His position as personal astropath to the Occuli Imperator had brought his family on Terra a modest measure of wealth, though it had brought nothing but a lonely and boring indentured exile for himself. Such were the sacrifices made in this day and age. He was content enough to do the Emperor’s duty, safe in the knowledge that his family were well provided for.
Once or twice, remembrancers had come to him, seeking to use his position for their own ends, in their quest for stories to record and tales to tell. Cartik read the naked ambition in their eyes, as well as their utter disinterest in him, and made himself unavailable to such visitors. In truth, he’d grown used to the loneliness. He had no desire to be used just to escape it.
‘I confirm it,’ Cartik said. His speech, like his eyes, was deceptively pleasant. Not that anyone would ever know it beyond Cartik himself, but he had a wonderful singing voice, too. ‘Exalted sire, the aether has cleared a great deal in recent days, and the message from Terra was clear. It has come to treason.’
Aquillon looked at the others gathered in Cartik’s isolated chamber. Kalhin, the youngest, with barely nine names in the Emperor’s service. Nirallus, with his breastplate bearing twenty name-etchings, and the best of them all with a guardian spear. Sythran, still keeping his vow of silence sworn atop one of the few remaining mountains of Himalaya, looking up at the walls of the Imperial Palace. He viewed their assignment as penance, and would never speak a word until they returned to Terra in seven more years, at the completion of their five-decade service.
‘Four Legions,’ said Kalhin. ‘Four entire Legions have betrayed the Emperor.’
‘Led by the Warmaster,’ Cartik added to their discussion with awkward softness. ‘The Emperor’s most beloved son.’
Nirallus breathed out something between a snort and a laugh. ‘We are the Emperor’s most beloved sons, little warp-speaker.’
Aquillon ignored the old argument. ‘Argel Tal informs me we will reach Isstvan in thirty-nine days. Upon arrival, the Serrated Sun will rejoin the Legion and deploy alongside the other Word Bearers. No Army, Mechanicum or external forces are to join the assault, including us. This is an Astartes concern, apparently. They wish us to take command of four smaller vessels, to aid in repelling boarders. I have acquiesced to this.’
The others turned to him. Most nodded in acceptance at the honour offered to them, though they were still troubled.
‘Thirty-nine days?’ asked Nirallus.
‘Yes.’
‘That is incredulously quick,’ Kalhin said. ‘We’ve spent years pushing through turgid tides and bringing backwater worlds to compliance, and suddenly the Navigators are reporting clean warp-lanes all the way to where we need to be? A quarter of the way across the galaxy? That journey should take a decade.’
‘The warp has cleared,’ reiterated Cartik.
‘In good tides, it is still a journey of many months. Even years.’
Aquillon looked down at Cartik. One by one, so did the others.
‘Yes, Occuli Imperator?’ the man said.
‘Inform the Sigillite that we await his orders. The Astartes are resistant to exterior forces taking part in the coming battle, but we will be spread across the Word Bearers’ fleet, commanding four of their vessels.’
‘By your word,’ Cartik said reflexively. It would be a long night of pulsing so urgent a message all the way to Terra, and maintaining a link with an astropath on the distant home world long enough to carry a reply. ‘It will be as you wish.’
The Custodians left the room without saying another word.
Argel Tal shivered in his armour, cold despite the heat, icy sweat drenching his skin before it was absorbed into the layers of his armour and recycled back into his body.
The scraping of heavy ceramite on steel decking was a rhythmic rasp, screeching each time his body gave another shudder in time to his heartbeat. He’d tried to stand countless times. Each attempt met with failure, crashing back down to the floor of his meditation chamber, denting the deck and chipping paint from his armour.
An open vox-channel to the other Gal Vorbak brought him their curses and murmured prayers, but he could neither recall opening the link, nor remember exactly how to close it. They suffered as he suffered. Most didn’t sound capable of speech, either – their voices lost in feral, ragged snarls.
The door signal chimed once.
Argel Tal released a low growl, needing several moments to form a single word.
‘Who?’
The wall-speaker hissed. ‘It is Aquillon.’
The Word Bearer turned watering eyes to his retinal chron, seeing the digital runes counting up. He had forgotten something. Some... event. He couldn’t think clearly. Saliva stringed between his aching teeth.
‘Yes?’
‘You were not present at our sparring.’
Yes, that was it. Their daily spar.
‘Apologies. Meditating.’
‘Argel Tal?’
‘Meditating.’