Chosen instrument
Rare picts
The Emperor protects
FOUR FULL COMPANIES of the Luna Wolves had dropped into the clearing, and the megarachnid forces had perished beneath their rapacious onslaught, those that had not fled back into the shivering forests. A block of smoke, as black and vast as a mountainside, hung over the battlefield in the cold night air. Xenos bodies covered the ground, curled and shrivelled like metal shavings.
'Captain Torgaddon.’ the Luna Wolf said, introducing himself formally and making the sign of the aquila.
'Captain Tarvitz.’ Tarvitz responded. 'My thanks and respect for your intervention.'
The honour's mine, Tarvitz.’ Torgaddon said. He glanced around the smouldering field. 'Did you really assault here with only six men?'
'It was the only workable option in the circumstances.’ Tarvitz replied.
Nearby, Bulle was freeing Lucius from the wad of megarachnid cement.
'Are you alive?' Torgaddon asked, looking over.
Lucius nodded sullenly, and set himself apart while he picked die scabs of cement off his perfect armour. Torgaddon regarded him for a moment, then turned his attention to the vox intel.
'How many with you?' Tarvitz asked.
'A speartip.’ said Torgaddon. 'Four companies. A moment, please. Second Company, form up on me! Luc, secure the perimeter. Bring up the heavies. Serghar, cover the left flank! Verulam... I'm waiting! Front up the right wing.’
The vox crackled back.
'Who's the commander here?' a voice demanded.
'I am.’ said Torgaddon, swinging round. Flanked by a dozen of the Emperor's Children, the tall, proud figure of Lord Eidolon crunched towards them across the fuming white slag.
'I am Eidolon.’ he said, facing Torgaddon.
Torgaddon.’
'Under the circumstances.’ Eidolon said, 'I'll understand if you don't bow.’
'I can't for the life of me imagine any circumstances in which I would.’ Torgaddon replied.
Eidolon's bodyguards wrenched out their combat blades.
'What did you say?' demanded one.
'I said you boys should put those pig sticks away before I hurt somebody with them.’
Eidolon raised his hand and the men sheathed their swords. 'I appreciate your intervention, Torgaddon, for the situation was grave. Also, I understand that the Luna Wolves are not bred like proper men, with proper manners. So I'll overlook your comment.’
'That's Captain Torgaddon.’ Torgaddon replied. 'If I insulted you, in any way, let me assure you, I meant to.’
'Face to face with me.’ Eidolon growled, and tore off his helm, forcing his genhanced biology to cope with the atmosphere and the radioactive wind. Torgaddon did the same. They stared into each other's eyes.
Tarvitz watched the confrontation in mounting disbelief. He'd never seen anyone stand up to Lord Eidolon.
The pair were chest-plate to chest-plate, Eidolon slighdy taller. Torgaddon seemed to be smirking.
'How would you like this to go, Eidolon?' Torgaddon inquired. 'Would you, perhaps, like to go home with your head stuck up your arse?'
Той are a base-born cur.’ Eidolon hissed.
'Just so you know.’ replied Torgaddon, 'you'll have to do an awful lot better than that. I'm a base-born cur and proud of it. You know what that is?'
He pointed up at one of the stars above them.
A star?' asked Eidolon, momentarily wrong-footed.
Yes, probably. I haven't the faintest idea. The point is, I'm the designated commander of the Luna Wolves speartip, come to rescue your sorry backsides. I do this by warrant of the Warmaster himself. He's up there, in one of those stars, and right now he thinks you're a cretin. And he'll tell Fulgrim so, next time he meets him.’
'Do not speak my primarch's name so irreverently, you bastard. Horus will-'
There you go again.’ Torgaddon sighed, pushing Eidolon away from him with a two handed shove to the lord's breastplate. 'He's the Warmaster.’ Another shove. The Warmaster. Your Warmaster. Show some cursed respect.’
Eidolon hesitated. 'I, of course, recognise the majesty of the Warmaster.’
'Do you? Do you, Eidolon? Well, that's good, because I'm it. I'm his chosen instrument here. You'll address me as if I were the Warmaster. You'll show me some respect
too! Warmaster Horus believes you've made some shit-awful mistakes in your prosecution of this theatre. How many brothers did you drop here? A company? How many left? Serghar? Head count?'
Thirty-nine live ones, Tarik,' the vox answered. There may be more. Lots of body piles to dig through.’
Thirty-nine. You were so hungry for glory you wasted more than half a company. If I was... Primarch Fulgrim, I'd have your head on a pole. The Warmaster may yet decide to do just that. So, Lord Eidolon, are we clear?'
ЛУе...' Eidolon replied slowly,'... are clear, captain.'
'Perhaps you'd like to go and undertake a review of your forces?' Torgaddon suggested. The enemy will be back soon, I'm sure, and in greater numbers.'
Eidolon gazed venomously at Torgaddon for a few seconds and then replaced his helm. 'I will not forget this insult, captain.’ he said.
Then it was worth the trip.’ Torgaddon replied, clamping on his own helmet.
Eidolon crunched away, calling to his scattered troops. Torgaddon turned and found Tarvitz looking at him.
'What's on your mind, Tarvitz?' he asked.
I've been wanting to say that for a long time, Tarvitz wished to say. Out loud, he said, "What do you need me to do?'
'Gather up your squad and stand ready. When the shit comes down next, I'd like to know you're with me.’
Tarvitz made the sign of the aquila across his chest. 'You can count on it. How did you know where to drop?'
Torgaddon pointed at the calm sky. 'We came in where the storm had gone out.’ he said.
TARVITZ HOISTED Lucius to his feet. Lucius was still picking at his ruined armour.
That Torgaddon is an odious rogue.’ he said. Lucius had overheard the entire confrontation.
'I rather like him.’
The way he spoke to our lord? He's a dog.’
'I like dogs.’ Tarvitz said.
'I believe I will kill him for his insolence.’
'Don't.’ Tarvitz said. That would be wrong, and I'd have to hurt you if you did.’
Lucius laughed, as if Tarvitz had said something funny.
'I mean it.’ Tarvitz said.
Lucius laughed even more.
IT TOOK A little under an hour to assemble their forces in the clearing. Torgaddon established contact with the fleet via the astrotelepath he had brought with him. The shield-storms raged with dreadful fury over the surrounding stalk forests, but the sky directly above the clearing remained calm.
As he marshalled the remains of his force, Tarvitz observed Torgaddon and his fellow captains conducting a further angry debate with Eidolon and Anteus. There were apparently some differences of opinion as to what their course of action should be.
After a while, Torgaddon walked away from the argument. Tarvitz guessed he was recusing himself from the quarrel before he said something else to infuriate Eidolon.
Torgaddon walked the line of the picket, stopping to talk to some of his men, and finally arrived at Tarvitz's position.
"You seem like a decent sort, Tarvitz.’ he remarked. 'How do you stand that lord of yours?'
'It is my duty to stand him.’ Tarvitz replied. 'It is my duty to serve. He is my lord commander. His combat record is glorious.’
'I doubt he'll be adding this endeavour to his triumph roll,' Torgaddon said. Tell me, did you agree with his decision to drop here?'
'I neither agreed nor disagreed.’ Tarvitz replied. 'I obeyed. He is my lord commander.’
'I know that.’ Torgaddon sighed. 'All right, just between you and me, Tarvitz. Brother to brother. Did you like the decision?'
1 really-'
'Oh, come on. I just saved your life. Answer me candidly and we'll call it quits.’
Tarvitz hesitated. 'I thought it a little reckless.’ he admitted. 'I thought it was prompted by ambitious notions that had little to do with the safety of our company or the salvation of the missing forces.’
Thank you for speaking honestly.’
'May I speak honestly a little more?' Tarvitz asked.
'Of course.’
'I admire you, sir.’ Tarvitz said. 'For both your courage and your plain speaking. But please, remember that we are the Emperor's Children, and we are very proud. We do not like to be shown up, or belittled, nor do we like others... even other Astartes of the most noble Legions... diminishing us.’
'When you say "we" you mean Eidolon?'
'No, I mean we.’
Very diplomatic.’ said Torgaddon. 'In the early days of the crusade, the Emperor's Children fought alongside us for a time, before you had grown enough in numbers to operate autonomously.’
'I know, sir. I was there, but I was just a file trooper back then.’
Then you'll know the esteem with which the Luna Wolves regarded your Legion. I was a junior officer back then too, but I remember distincdy that Horns said... what was it? That the Emperor's Children were the living
embodiment of the Adeptus Astartes. Horus enjoys a special bond with your primarch. The Luna Wolves have cooperated militarily with just about every other Legion during this great war. We still regard yours as about the best we've ever had the honour of serving with.’
'It pleases me to hear you say so, sir.’ Tarvitz replied.
Then... how have you changed so?' Torgaddon asked. 'Is Eidolon typical of the command echelon that rules you now? His arrogance astounds me. So damned superior...'
'Our ethos is not about superiority captain.’ Tarvitz answered. 'It is about purity. But one is often mistaken for the other. We model ourselves on the Emperor, beloved by all, and in seeking to be like him, we can seem aloof and haughty.’
'Did you ever think.’ asked Torgaddon, 'that while it's laudable to emulate the Emperor as much as possible, the one thing that you cannot and should not aspire to is his supremacy? He is the Emperor. He is singular. Strive to be like him in all ways, by all means, but do not presume to be on his level. No one belongs there. No one is alike to him.’
'My Legion understands that.’ Tarvitz said. 'Sometimes, though, it doesn't translate well to others.’
There's no purity in pride.’ Torgaddon said. 'Nothing pure or admirable in arrogance or over-confidence.’
'My lord Eidolon knows this.’
'He should show he knows it. He led you into a disaster, and he won't even apologise for it.’
Tm sure, in due course, my lord will formally acknowledge your efforts in relieving us and-'
'I don't want any credit.’ Torgaddon said. You were brothers in trouble, and we came to help. That's the start and finish of it. But I had to face down the War-master to get permission to drop, because he believed it was insanity to send any more men to their deaths in an
unknowable place against an unknowable foe. That's what Eidolon did. In the name, I imagine, of honour and pride.’
'How did you convince the Warmaster?' Tarvitz wondered.
'I didn't.’ said Torgaddon. You did. The storm had gone out over this area, and we detected your vox scatter. You proved you were still alive down here, and the Warmaster immediately sanctioned the speartip to come and pull you out.’
Torgaddon looked up at the misty stars. The storms are their best weapon.’ he mused. 'If we're going to wrestle this world to compliance, we'll have to find a way to beat them. Eidolon suggested the trees might be key. That they might act as generators or amplifiers for the storm. He said that once he'd destroyed the trees, the storm in this locality collapsed.’
Tarvitz paused. 'My Lord Eidolon said that?'
'Only piece of sense I've heard out of him. He said that as soon as he set charges to the trees and demolished them, the storm went out. It's an interesting theory. The Warmaster wants me to use the storm-break to pull everyone here out, but Eidolon is dead set on finding more trees and levelling them, in the hope that we can break a hole in the enemy's cover. What do you think?'
'I think... my Lord Eidolon is wise.’ said Tarvitz.
Bulk had been stationed nearby, and had overheard the exchange. He could not contain himself any longer.
'Permission to speak, captain.’ he said.
'Not now, Bulk.’ Tarvitz said.
'Sir, I-'
'You heard him, Bulk.’ Lucius cut in, walking up to them.
4Vhat's your name, brother?' Torgaddon asked.
'Bulk, sir.’
'What did you want to say?'
'It's not important.’ Lucius snorted. 'Brother Bulk speaks out of turn.’
You are Lucius, right?' Torgaddon asked.
'Captain Lucius.’
'And Bulk was one of the men who stood over you and fought to keep you alive?'
'He did. I am honoured by his service.’
'Maybe you could let him talk, then?' Torgaddon suggested.
'It would be inappropriate.’ said Lucius.
Tell you what.’ Torgaddon said. 'As commander of the speartip, I believe I have authority here. I'll decide who talks and who doesn't. Bulk? Let's hear you, brother.’
Bulk looked awkwardly at Lucius and Tarvitz.
That was an order.’ said Torgaddon.
'My Lord Eidolon did not destroy the trees, sir. Captain Tarvitz did it. He insisted. My Lord Eidolon then chastised him for the act, claiming it was a waste of charges.’
'Is this true?' Torgaddon asked.
Yes.’ said Tarvitz.
'Why did you do it?'
'Because it didn't seem right for the bodies of our dead to hang in such ignominy.’ Tarvitz said.
'And you'd let Eidolon take the credit and not say anything?'
'He is my lord.’
Thank you, brother.’ Torgaddon said to Bulk. He glanced at Lucius. 'Reprimand him or punish him in any way for speaking out and I'll have the Warmaster himself personally deprive you of your rank.’
Torgaddon turned to Tarvitz. 'It's a funny thing. It shouldn't matter, but it does. Now I know you felled the trees, I feel better about pursuing that line of action. Eidolon clearly knows a good idea when someone else
has it. Let's go cut down a few more trees, Tarvitz. You can show me how it's done.’
Torgaddon walked away, shouting out orders for muster and movement. Tarvitz and Lucius exchanged long looks, and then Lucius turned and walked away.
THE ARMED FORCE moved away from the clearing and back into the thickets of the stalk forest. They passed back into the embrace of the storm cover. Torgaddon had his Terminator squads lead the way. The man-tanks, under the command of Trice Rokus, ignited their heavy blades, and cut a path, felling the stalks to clear a wide avenue into the forest swathe.
They pressed on beneath the wild storms for twenty kilometres. Twice, megarachnid skirmish parties assaulted their lines, but the speartip drew its phalanxes close and, with the advantage of range created by the cleared avenue, slaughtered the attackers with their bolters.
The landscape began to change. They were apparently reaching the edge of a vast plateau, and the ground began to slope away steeply before them. The stalk growth became more patchy and sparse, clinging to the rocky, ferrous soil of the descent. A wide basin spread out below them, a rift valley. Here, the spongy, marshy ground was covered with thousands of small, coned trees, rising some ten metres high, which dotted the terrain like fungal growths. The trees, hard and stony and composed of the same milky cement from which the murder trees had been built, peppered the depression like armour studs.
As they descended onto it, the Astartes found the land at the base of the rift swampy and slick, decorated with long, thin lakes of water stained orange by the iron content of the soil. The flash of the overhead storms scintillated in reflection from the long, slender pools. They looked like claw wounds in the earth.
The air was busy with fibrous grey bugs that milled and swirled interminably in the stagnant atmosphere. Larger flying things, flitting like bats, hunted the bugs in quick, sharp swoops.
At the mouth of the rift, they discovered six more thorn trees arranged in a silent grove. Reduced cadavers and residual meat and armour adorned their barbs. Blood Angels, and Imperial army. There was no sign of the winged clades, though fifty kilometres away, over the stalk forests, black shapes could be seen, circling madly in the lightning-washed sky.
'Lay them low.’ Torgaddon ordered. Moy nodded and began to gather munitions. 'Find Captain Tarvitz.’ Torgaddon called. 'He'll show you how to do it.’
LOKEN REMAINED ON the strategium for the first three hours after the drop, long enough to celebrate Torgad-don's signal from the surface. The speartip had secured the drop-site, and formed up with the residue of Lord Eidolon's company. After that, the atmosphere had become, strangely, more tense. They were waiting to hear Torgaddon's field decision. Abaddon, cautious and closed, had already ordered stormbirds prepped for extraction flights. Aximand paced, silently. The Warmaster had withdrawn into his sanctum with Mal-oghurst.
Loken leant at the strategium rail for a while, overlooking the bustle of the vast bridge below, and discussed tactics with Tybalt Marr. Marr and Moy were both sons of Horns, cast in his image so firmly that they looked like identical twins. At some point in the Legion's history, they had earned the nicknames 'the Either' and the 'the Or', referring to the fact that they were almost interchangeable. It was often hard to distinguish between them, they were so alike. One might do as well as the other.
Both were competent field officers, with a rack of victories each that would make any captain proud, though neither had attained the glories of Sedirae or Abaddon. They were precise, efficient and workmanlike in their leadership, but they were Luna Wolves, and what was workmanlike to that fratery was exemplary to any other regiment.
As Marr spoke, it became clear to Loken mat he was envious of his 'twin's' selection to the undertaking. It was Horus's habit to send both or neither. They worked well together, complementing one another, as if somehow anticipating one another's decisions, but the ballot for the speartip had been democratic and fair. Moy had won a place. Marr had not.
Marr rattled on to Loken, evidently sublimating his worries about his brother's fate. After a while, Qruze came over to join them at the rail.
Iacton Qruze was an anachronism. Ancient and rather tiresome, he had been a captain in the Legion since its inception, his prominence entirely eclipsed once Horns had been repatriated and given command by the Emperor. He was the product of another era, a throwback to the years of the Unification Wars and the bad old times, stubborn and slighdy cantankerous, a vestigial trace of the way the Legion had gone about things in antiquity.
'Brothers.’ he greeted them as he came up. Qruze still had a habit, perhaps unconscious, of making the salute of the single clenched fist against his breast, the old pro-Unity symbol, rather than the double-handed eagle. He had a long, tanned face, deeply lined with creases and folds, and his hair was white. He spoke softly, expecting others to make the effort to listen, and believed that it was his quiet tone that had, over the years, earned him the nickname 'the Half-Heard'.
Loken knew this wasn't so. Qruze's wits were not as sharp as they'd once been, and he often appeared tired or inappropriate in his commentary or advice. He was known as 'the Half-Heard' because his pronouncements were best not listened to too closely.
Qruze believed he stood as a wise father-figure to the Legion, and no one had the spite to inform him otherwise. There had been several quiet attempts to deprive him of company command, just as Qruze had made several attempts to become elected to the first captaincy.
By duration of service, he should have been so long since. Loken believed that the Warmaster regarded Qruze with some pity and couldn't abide the idea of retiring him. Qruze was an irksome relic, regarded by the rest of them with equal measures of affection and frustration, who could not accept that the Legion had matured and advanced without him.
"We will be out of this in a day.’ he announced categorically to Loken and Marr. 'You mark my words, young men. A day, and the commander will order extraction.’
'Tarik is doing well.’ Loken began.
'The boy Torgaddon has been lucky, but he cannot press this to a conclusion. You mark my words. In and out, in a day.’
'I wish I was down there.’ Marr said.
'Foolish thoughts.’ Qruze decided. 'It's only a rescue run. I cannot for the life of me imagine what the Emperor's Children thought they were doing, going into this hell. I served with them, in the early days, you know? Fine fellows. Very proper. They taught the Wolves a thing or two about decorum, thank you very much! Model soldiers. Put us to shame on the Eastern Fringe, so they did, but that was back then.’
'It certainly was.’ said Loken.
'It most certainly was.’ agreed Qruze, missing the irony entirely. 'I can't imagine what they thought they were doing here.'
'Prosecuting a war?' Loken suggested.
Qruze looked at him diffidently. 'Are you mocking me, Garviel?'
'Never, sir. I would never do that.'
'I hope we're deployed.’ Marr grumbled, 'and soon.’
"We won't be.’ Qruze declared. He rubbed the patchy grey goatee that decorated his long, lined face. He was most certainly not a son of Horus.
'I've business to attend to.’ Loken said, excusing himself. 'I'll take my leave, brothers.’
Marr glared at Loken, annoyed to be left alone with the Half-Heard. Loken winked and wandered off, hearing Qruze embark on one of his long and tortuous 'stories' to Marr.
Loken went downship to the barrack decks of Tenth Company. His men were waiting, half-armoured, weapons and kit spread out for fitting. Apprenta and servitors manned portable lathes and forge carts, making final, precise adjustments to plate segments. This was just displacement activity: the men had been battle-ready for weeks.
Loken took the time to appraise Vipus and the other squad leaders of the situation, and then spoke briefly to some of the new blood warriors they'd raised to company service during the voyage. These men were especially tense. One Forty Twenty might see their baptism as full Astartes.
In the solitude of his arming chamber, Loken sat for a while, running through certain mental exercises designed to promote clarity and concentration. When he grew bored of them, he took up the book Sindermann had loaned him.
He'd read a good deal less of The Chronicles of Ursh during the voyage than he'd intended. The commander
had kept him busy. He folded the heavy, yellowed pages open with ungloved hands and found his place.
The Chronicles were as raw and brutal as Sindermann had promised. Long-forgotten cities were routinely sacked, or burned, or simply evaporated in nuclear storms. Seas were regularly stained with blood, skies with ash, and landscapes were often carpeted with the bleached and numberless bones of the conquered. When armies marched, they marched a billion strong, the ragged banners of a million standards swaying above their heads in the atomic winds. The battles were stupendous maelstroms of blades and spiked black helms and baying horns, lit by the fires of cannons and burners. Page after page celebrated the cruel practices and equally cruel character of the despot Kalagann.
It amused Loken, for the most part. Fanciful logic abounded, as did an air of strained realism. Feats of arms were described that no pre-Unity warriors could have accomplished. These, after all, were the feral hosts of techno-barbarians that the proto-Astartes, in their crude thunder armour, had been created to bring to heel. Kalagann's great generals, Lurtois and Sheng Khal and, later, Quallodon, were described in language more appropriate to primarchs. They carved, for Kalagann, an impossibly vast domain during the latter part of the Age of Strife.
Loken had skipped ahead once or twice, and saw that later parts of the work recounted the fall of Kalagann, and described the apocalyptic conquest of Ursh by the forces of Unity. He saw passages referring to enemy warriors bearing the thunderbolt and lightning emblem, which had been the personal device of the Emperor before the eagle of the Imperium was formalised. These men saluted with the fist of unity, as Qruze still did, and were clearly arrayed in thunder armour. Loken wondered if the Emperor himself would be mentioned, and
in what terms, and wanted to look to see if he could recognise the names of any of the proto-Astartes warriors.
But he felt he owed it to Kyril Sindermann to read the thing thoroughly, and returned to his original place and order. He quickly became absorbed by a sequence detailing Shang Khal's campaigns against the Nordafrik Conclaves. Shang Khal had assembled a significant horde of irregular levies from the southern client states of Ursh, and used them to support his main armed strengths, including the infamous Tupelov Lancers and the Red Engines, during the invasion.
The Nordafrik technogogues had preserved a great deal more high technology for the good of their conclaves than Ursh possessed, and sheer envy, more than anything, motivated the war. Kalagann was hungry for the fine instruments and mechanisms the conclaves owned.
Eight epic battles marked Shang Khal's advance into the Nordafrik zones, the greatest of them being Xozer. Over a period of nine days and nights, the war machines of the Red Engines blasted their way across the cultivated agroponic pastures and reduced them back to the desert, from which they had originally been irrigated and nurtured. They cut through the laserthorn hedges and the jewelled walls of the outer conclave, and unleashed dirty atomics into the heart of the ruling zone, before the Lancers led a tidal wave of screaming berserkers through the breach into the earthly paradise of the gardens at Xozer, the last fragment of Eden on a corrupted planet.
Which they, of course, trampled underfoot.
Loken felt himself skipping ahead again, as the account bogged down in interminable lists of battle glories and honour rolls. Then his eyes alighted on a strange phrase, and he read back. At the heart of the
ruling zone, a ninth, minor battle had marked the conquest, almost as an afterthought. One bastion had remained, the murengon, or walled sanctuary, where the last hierophants of the conclaves held out, practising, so the text said, their 'sciomancy by the flame lyght of their burning realm'.
Shang Khal, wishing swift resolution to the conquest, had sent Anult Keyser to crush the sanctuary. Keyser was lord martial of the Tupelov Lancers and, by various bonds of honour, could call freely upon the services of the Roma, a squadron of mercenary fliers whose richly decorated interceptors, legend said, never landed or touched the earth, but lived eternally in the scope of the air. During the advance on the murengon, Keyser's oneirocriticks - and by that word, Loken understood the text meant 'interpreters of dreams' - had warned of the hierophants' sciomancy, and their phantasmagorian ways.
When the battle began, just as the oneirocriticks had warned, majiks were unleashed. Plagues of insects, as thick as monsoon rain and so vast in their swirling masses that they blacked out the sun, fell upon Keyser's forces, choking air intakes, weapon ports, visors, ears, mouths and throats. Water boiled without fire. Engines overheated or burned out. Men turned to stone, or their bones turned to paste, or their flesh succumbed to boils and buboes and flaked off their limbs. Others went mad. Some became daemons and turned upon their own.
Loken stopped reading and went back over the sentences again, '...and where the plagueing ynsects did nott crawle, or madness lye, so men did blister and recompose them ownselves ynto the terrible likeness of daimons, such foule pests as the afreet and the d'genny that persist in the silent desert places. In such visage, they turned uponn theyr kin and gnawed then upon their bloody bones...'
Some became daemons and turned upon their own.
Anult Keyser himself was slain by one such daemon, which had, just hours previously, been his loyal lieutenant, Wilhym Mardol.
When Shang Khal heard the news, he flew into a fury, and went at once to the scene, bringing with him what the text described as his 'wrathsingers', who appeared to be magi of some sort. Their leader, or master, was a man called Mafeo Orde, and somehow, Orde drew the wrathsingers into a kind of remote warfare with the hierophants. The text was annoyingly vague about exactly what occurred next, almost as if it was beyond the understanding of the writer. Words such as 'sorcery' and 'majik' were employed frequency, without qualification, and there were invocations to dark, primordial gods that the writer clearly thought his audience would have some prior knowledge of. Since the start of the text, Loken had seen references to Kalagann's 'sorcerous' powers, and the 'invisibles artes' that formed a key part of Ursh's power, but he had taken them to be hyperbole. This was the first time sorcery had appeared on the page, as a kind of fact.
The earth trembled, as if afraid. The sky tore like silk. Many in the Urshite force heard the voices of the dead whispering to them. Men caught fire, and walked around, bathed in lambent flames that did not consume them, pleading for help. The remote war between the wrathsingers and the hierophants lasted for six days, and when it ended, the ancient desert was thick with snow, and the skies had turned blood red. The air formations of the Roma had been forced to flee, lest their craft be torn from the heavens by screaming angels and dashed down upon the ground.
At the end of it, all the wrathsingers were dead, except Orde himself. The murengon was a smoking hole in the ground, its stone walls so hideously melted by heat they
had become slips of glass. And the hierophants were extinct.
The chapter ended. Loken looked up. He had been so enthralled, he wondered if he had missed an alert or a summons. The arming chamber was quiet. No signal runes blinked on the wall panel.
He began to read the next part, but the narrative had switched to a sequence concerning some northern war against the nomadic caterpillar cities of the Taiga. He skipped a few pages, hunting for further mention of Orde or sorcery, but could detect none. Frustrated, he set the book aside.
Sindermann... had he given Loken this work deliberately? To what end? A joke? Some veiled message? Loken resolved to study it, section by section, and take his questions to his mentor.
But he'd had enough of it for the time being. His mind was clouded and he wanted it clear for combat. He walked to the vox plate beside the chamber door and activated it.
'Officer of the watch. How can I serve, captain?'
'Any word from the speartip?'
'I'll check, sir. No, nothing routed to you.’
Thank you. Keep me appraised.'
'Sir.’
Loken clicked the vox off. He walked back to where he had left the book, picked it up, and marked his page. He was using a thin sliver of parchment torn from the edge of one of his oath papers as a marker. He closed the book, and went to put it away in the battered metal crate where he kept his belongings. There were precious few items in there, little to show for such a long life. It reminded him of Jubal's meagre effects. If I die, Loken thought, who will clean this out? What will they preserve? Most of the bric-a-brac was worthless trophies, stuff that only meant something to him: the handle of
a combat knife he'd broken off in the gullet of a green-skin warboss; long feathers, now musty and threadbare, from the hatchet-beak that had almost killed him on Balthasar, decades earlier; a piece of dirty, rusted wire, knotted at each end, which he'd used to garrote a nameless eldar champion when all other weapons had been lost to him.
That had been a fight. A real test. He decided he ought to tell Oliton about it, sometime. How long ago was it? Ages past, though the memory was as fresh and heavy as if it had been yesterday Two warriors, deprived of their common arsenals by the circumstance of war, stalking one another through the fluttering leaves of a wind-lashed forest. Such skill and tenacity. Loken had almost wept in admiration for the opponent he had slain.
All that was left was the wire and the memory, and when Loken passed, only the wire would remain. Whoever came here after his death would likely throw it out, assuming it to be a twist of rusty wire and nothing more.
His rummaging hands turned up something that would not be cast away. The data-slate Karkasy had given him. The data-slate from Keeler.
Loken sat back and switched it on, flicking through the picts again. Rare picts. Tenth Company, assembled on the embarkation deck for war. The company banner. Loken himself, framed against the bold colour of the flag. Loken taking his oath of moment. The Mournival group: Abaddon, Aximand, Torgaddon and himself, with Targost and Sedirae.
He loved the picts. They were the most precious material gift he'd ever received, and the most unexpected. Loken hoped that, through Oliton, he might leave some sort of useful legacy. He doubted it would be anything like as significant as these images.
He scrolled the picts back into their file, and was about to deactivate the slate when he saw, for the first time, there was another file lodged in the memory. It was stored, perhaps deliberately, in an annex to the slate's main data folder, hidden from cursory view. Only a tiny icon digit '2' betrayed that the slate was loaded with more than one file of material.
It took him a moment to find the annex and open it. It looked like a folder of deleted or discarded images, but there was a tag caption attached to it that read 'IN CONFIDENCE'.
Loken cued it. The first pict washed into colour on the slate's small screen. He stared at it, puzzled. It was dark, unbalanced in colour or contrast, almost unreadable. He thumbed up the next, and the next.
And stared in horrid fascination.
He was looking at Jubal, or rather the thing that Jubal had become in the final moments. A rabid, insane mass, ploughing down a dark hallway towards the viewer.
There were more shots. The light, the sheen of them, seemed unnatural, as if the picter unit that had captured them had found difficulty reading the image. There were clear, sharp-focused droplets of gore and sweat frozen in the air as they splashed out in the foreground. The thing behind them, the thing that had shaken the droplets out, was fuzzy and imprecise, but never less than abominable.
Loken switched the slate off and began to strip off his armour as quickly as he could. When he was down to the thick, mimetic polymers of his sub-suit bodyglove, he stopped, and pulled on a long, hooded robe of brown hemp. He took up the slate, and a vox-cuff, and went outside.
'Nero!'
Vipus appeared, fully plated except for his helm. He frowned in confusion at the sight of Loken's attire.
'Garvi? Where's your armour? What's going on?'
'I've an errand to run.’ Loken replied quickly, clasping on the vox-cuff. 'You have command here in my absence.’
'I do?'
'I'll return shortly.’ Loken held up the cuff, and allowed it to auto-sync channels with Vipus's vox system. Small notice lights on the cuff and the collar of Vipus's armour flashed rapidly and then glowed in unison.
'If the situation changes, if we're called forwards, vox me immediately. I'll not be derelict of my duties. But there's something I must do.’
'Like what?'
'I can't say.’ Loken said.
Nero Vipus paused and nodded. 'Just as you say, brother. I'll cover for you and alert you of any changes.’ He stood watching as his captain, hooded and hurrying, slipped away down an access tunnel and was swallowed by the shadows.
THE GAME WAS going so badly against him that Ignace Karkasy decided it was high time he got his fellow players drunk. Six of them, with a fairly disinterested crowd of onlookers, occupied a table booth at the forward end of the Retreat, under the gilded arches. Beyond them, remembrancers and off-duty soldiers, along with ship personnel relaxing between shifts, and a few iterators (one could never tell if an iterator was on duty or off) mingled in the long, crowded chamber, drinking, eating, gaming and talking. There was a busy chatter, laughter, the clink of glasses. Someone was playing a viol. The Retreat had become quite the social focus of the flagship.
Just a week or two before, a sozzled second engineer had explained to Karkasy that there had never been any
gleeful society aboard the Vengeful Spirit, nor on any other line ship in his experience. Just quiet after-shift drinking and sullen gambling schools. The remembrancers had brought their bohemian habits to the warship, and the crewmen and soldiery had been drawn to its light.
The iterators, and some senior ship officers, had clucked disapprovingly at the growing, casual conviviality, but the mingling was permitted. When Comnenus had voiced his objections to the unlicensed carousing the Vengeful Spirit was now host to, someone - and Karkasy suspected the commander himself - had reminded him that the purpose of the remembrancers was to meet and fraternise. Soldiers and Navy adepts flocked to the Retreat, hoping to find some poor poet or chronicler who would record their thoughts and experiences for posterity. Though mostly, they came to get a skinful, play cards and meet girls.
It was, in Karkasy's opinion, the finest achievement of the remembrancer programme to date: to remind the expedition warriors they were human, and to offer them some fun.
And to win rudely from them at cards.
The game was targe main, and they were playing with a pack of square-cut cards that Karkasy had once lent to Mer-sadie Oliton. There were two other remembrancers at the table, along with a junior deck officer, a sergeant-at-arms and a gunnery oberst. They were using, as bidding tokens, scurfs of gilt that someone had cheerfully scraped off one of the stateroom's golden columns. Karkasy had to admit that the remembrancers had abused their facilities terribly. Not only had the columns been half-stripped to the ironwork, the murals had been written on and painted over. Verses had been inscribed in patches of sky between the shoulders of ancient heroes, and those ancient heroes found themselves facing eternity wearing comical beards
and eye patches. In places, walls and ceilings had been whitewashed, or lined with gum-paper, and entire tracts of new composition inscribed upon them.
'I'll sit this hand out.’ Karkasy announced, and pushed back his chair, scooping up the meagre handful of scraped gilt flecks he still owned. 'I'll find us all some drinks.’
The other players murmured approval as the sergeant-at-arms dealt the next hand. The junior deck officer, his head sunk low and his eyes hooded, thumped the heels of his hands together in mock applause, his elbows on the table top, his hands fixed high above his lolling head.
Karkasy moved off through the crowd to find Zinkman. Zinkman, a sculptor, had drink, an apparently bottomless reserve of it, though where he sourced it from was anyone's guess. Someone had suggested Zinkman had a private arrangement with a crewman in climate control who distilled the stuff. Zinkman owed Karkasy at least one bottle, from an unfinished game of merci merci two nights earlier.
He asked for Zinkman at two or three tables, and also made inquiries with various groups standing about the place. The viol music had stopped for the moment, and some around were clapping as Carnegi, the composer, clambered up onto a table. Carnegi owned a half-decent baritone voice, and most nights he could be prevailed upon to sing popular opera or take requests.
Karkasy had one.
A squall of laughter burst from nearby, where a small, lively group had gathered on stools and recliners to hear a remembrancer give a reading from his latest work. In one of the wall booths formed by the once golden colonnade, Karkasy saw Ameri Sechloss carefully inscribing her latest remembrance in red ink over a wall she'd washed white with stolen hull paint. She'd
masked out an image of the Emperor triumphant at Cyclonis. Someone would complain about that. Parts of the Emperor, beloved by all, poked out from around the corners of her white splash. 'Zinkman? Anyone? Zinkman?' he asked. 'I think he's over there.’ one of the remembrancers watching Sechloss suggested.
Karkasy turned, and stood on tiptoe to peer across the press. The Retreat was crowded tonight. A figure had just walked in through the chamber's main entrance. Karkasy frowned. He didn't need to be on tiptoe to spot this newcomer. Robed and hooded, the figure towered over the rest of the crowd, by far and away the tallest person in the busy room. Not a human's build at all. The general noise level did not drop, but it was clear the newcomer was attracting attention. People were whispering, and casting sly looks in his direction.
Karkasy edged his way through the crowd, the only person in the chamber bold enough to approach the visitor. The hooded figure was standing just inside the entrance arch, scanning the crowd in search of someone.
'Captain?' Karkasy asked, coming forwards and peering up under the cowl. 'Captain Loken?'
'Karkasy.’ Loken seemed very uncomfortable.
'Were you looking for me, sir? I didn't think we were due to meet until tomorrow.’
T was... I was looking for Keeler. Is she here?'
'Here? Oh no. She doesn't come here. Please, captain, come with me. You don't want to be in here.’
'Don't I?'
T can read the discomfort in your manner, and when we meet, you never step inside the archway. Come on.’
They went back out through the arched entranceway into the cool, gloomy quiet of the corridor outside. A few people passed them by, heading into the Retreat.
'It must be important.’ Karkasy said, 'for you to set foot in there.’
'It is.’ Loken replied. He kept the hood of his robe up, and his manner remained stiff and guarded. 'I need to find Keeler.’
'She doesn't much frequent the common spaces. She's probably in her quarters.’
'Where's that?'
Той could have asked the watch officer for her billet reference.’
'I'm asking you, Ignace.’
That important, and that private.’ Karkasy remarked. Loken made no reply. Karkasy shrugged. 'Come with me and I'll show you.’
Karkasy led the captain down into the warren of the residential deck where the remembrancers were billeted. The echoing metal companionways were cold, the walls brushed steel and marked with patches of damp. This area had once been a billet for army officers but, like the Retreat, it had ceased to feel anything like the interior of a military vessel. Music echoed from some chambers, often through half-open hatches. The sound of hysterical laughter came from one room, and from another the din of a man and a woman having a ferocious quarrel. Paper notices had been pasted to the walls: slogans and verses and essays on the nature of man and war. Murals had also been daubed in places, some of them magnificent, some of them crude. There was litter on the deck, an odd shoe, an empty bottle, scraps of paper.
'Here.’ said Karkasy. The shutter of Keeler's billet was closed. Would you like me to... ?' Karkasy asked, gesturing to the door.
-Yes.’
Karkasy rapped his fist against the shutter and listened. After a moment, he rapped again, harder. 'Euphrati? Euphrati, are you there?'
The shutter slid open, and the scent of body warmth spilled out into the cool corridor. Karkasy was face to face with a lean young man, naked but for a pair of half-buttoned army fatigue pants. The man was sinewy and tough, hard-bodied and hard-faced. He had numerical tattoos on his upper arms, and metal tags on a chain around his neck.
'What?' he snapped at Karkasy.
'I want to see Euphrati.’
'Piss off.’ the soldier replied. 'She doesn't want to see you.’
Karkasy backed away a step. The soldier was physically intimidating.
'Cool down.’ said Loken, looming behind Karkasy and lowering his hood. He stared down at the soldier. 'Cool down, and I won't ask your name and unit.’
The soldier looked up at Loken with wide eyes. 'She... she's not here.’ he said.
Loken pushed past him. The soldier tried to block him, but Loken caught his right wrist in one hand and turned it neatly so that the man suddenly found himself contorted in a disabling lock.
'Don't do that again.’ Loken advised, and released his hold, adding a tiny shove that dropped the soldier onto his hands and knees.
The room was quite small, and very cluttered. Discarded clothes and rumpled bedding littered the floor space, and the shelves and low table were covered with bottles and unwashed plates.
Keeler stood on the far side of the room, beside the unmade cot. She had pulled a sheet around her slim, naked body and stared at Loken with disdain. She looked weary, unhealthy. Her hair was tangled and there were dark shadows under her eyes.
'It's all right, Leef.’ she told the soldier. 'I'll see you later.’
Still wary, the soldier pulled on his vest and boots, snatched up his jacket, and left, casting one last murderous look at Loken.
'He's a good man.’ Keeler said. 'He cares for me.’
'Army?'
"Yes. It's called fraternization. Does Ignace have to be here for this?'
Karkasy was hovering in the doorway. Loken turned. Thank you for your help.’ he said. 'I'll see you tomorrow.’
Karkasy nodded. 'All right.’ he said. Reluctantly, he walked away. Loken closed the shutter. He looked back at Keeler. She was pouring clear liquor from a flask into a shot glass.
'Can I interest you?' she asked, gesturing with the flask. 'In the spirit of hospitality?'
He shook his head.
'Ah. I suppose you Astartes don't drink. Another biological flaw ironed out of you.’
'We drink well enough, under certain circumstances.’
'And this isn't one, I suppose?' Keeler put the flask down and took up her glass. She walked back to the cot, holding the sheet around her with one hand and sipping from the glass held in the other. Holding her drink out steady, she settled herself down on the cot, drawing her legs up and folding the sheet modestly over herself.
'I can imagine why you're here, captain.’ she said. 'I'm just amazed. I expected you weeks ago.’
'I apologise. I only found the second file tonight. I obviously hadn't looked carefully enough.’
What do you think of my work?'
Astonishing. I'm flattered by the picts you shot on the embarkation deck. I meant to send you a note, thanking you for copying them to me. Again, I apologise. The second file, however, is...'
'Problematic?' she suggested.
'At the very least.’ he said.
'Why don't you sit down?' she asked. Loken shrugged off his robe and sat carefully on a metal stool beside the cluttered table.
'I wasn't aware any picts existed of that incident.’ Loken said.
'I didn't know I'd shot them.’ Keeler replied, taking another sip. 'I'd forgotten, I think. When the first captain asked me at the time, I said no, I hadn't taken anything. I found them later. I was surprised.’
'Why did you send them to me?' he asked.
She shrugged. 'I don't really know. You have to understand, sir, that I was... traumatised. For a while, I was in a very bad way. The shock of it all. I was a mess, but I got through it. I'm content now, stable, centred. My friends helped me through it. Ignace, Sadie, some others. They were kind to me. They stopped me from hurting myself.’
'Hurting yourself?'
She fiddled with her glass, her eyes focused on the floor. 'Nightmares, Captain Loken. Terrible visions, when I was asleep and when I was awake. I found myself crying for no reason. I drank too much. I acquired a small pistol, and spent long hours wondering if I had the strength to use it.’
She looked up at him. 'It was in that... that pit of despair that I sent you those picts. It was a cry for help, I suppose. I don't know. I can't remember. Like I said, I'm past that now. I'm fine, and feel a little foolish for bothering you, especially as my efforts took so long to reach you. You wasted a visit.’
'I'm glad you feel better.’ Loken said, 'but I haven't wasted anything. We need to talk about those images. Who's seen them?'
'No one. You and me. No one else.’
'Did you not think it wise to inform the first captain of their existence?'
Keeler shook her head. 'No. No, not at all. Not back then. If I'd gone to the authorities, they'd have confiscated them... destroyed them, probably, and told me the same story about a wild beast. The first captain was very certain it was a wild beast, some xenos creature, and he was very certain I should keep my mouth shut. For the sake of morale. The picts were a lifeline for me, back then. They proved I wasn't going mad. That's why I sent them to you.’
'Am I not part of the authorities?'
She laughed. Той were there, Loken. You were there. You saw it. I took a chance. I thought you might respond and-'
'And what?'
Tell me the truth of it.'
Loken hesitated.
'Oh, don't worry.’ she admonished, rising to refill her glass. 'I don't want to know the truth now. A wild beast. A wild beast. I've got over it. This late in the day, captain, I don't expect you to break loyalty and tell me something you're sworn not to tell. It was a foolish notion, which I now regret. My turn to apologise to you.’
She looked over at him, tugging up the edge of the sheet to cover her bosom. 'I've deleted my copies. All of them. You have my word. The only ones that exist are the ones I sent to you.’
Loken took out the data-slate and placed it on the table. He had to push dirty crockery aside to make a space for it. Keeler looked at the slate for a long while, and then knocked back her glass and refilled it.
Imagine that.’ she said, her hand trembling as it lifted the flask. 'I'm terrified even to have them back in the room.’
'I don't think you're as over it as you like to pretend.’ Loken said.
'Really?' she sneered. She put down her glass and ran the fingers of her free hand through her short blonde hair. 'Hell with it, then, since you're here. Hell with it.’
She walked over and snatched up the slate. Wild beast, eh? Wild beast?'
'Some form of vicious predator indigenous to the mountain region that-'
'Forgive me, that's so much shit.’ she said. She snapped the slate into the reader slot of a compact edit engine on the far side of the room. Some of her picters and spare lenses littered the bench beside it. The engine whirred into life, and the screen lit up, cold and white. "What did you make of the discrepancies?'
'Discrepancies?' Loken asked.
Yes.’ She expertly tapped commands into the engine's controls, and selected the file. With a stab of her index finger, she opened the first image. It bloomed on the screen.
Terra, I can't look at it.’ she said, turning away.
'Switch it off, Keeler.’
'No, you look at it. Look at the visual distortion there. Surely you noticed that? It's like it's there and yet not there. Like it's phasing in and out of reality.’
'A signal error. The conditions and the poor light foxed your picter's sensors and-'
'I know how to use a picter, captain, and I know how to recognise poor exposure, lens flare, and digital mal-formance. That's not it. Look.’
She punched up the second pict, and half-looked at it, gesturing with her hand. 'Look at the background. And the droplets of blood in the foreground there. Perfect pict capture. But the thing itself. I've never seen anything create that effect on a high-gain instrument. That "wild beast" is out of sync with the physical continuity around it. Which is, captain, exactly as I saw it. You've studied these closely, no doubt?'
'No.’ said Loken.
Keeler pulled up another image. She stared at it fully this time, and men looked away. "There, you see? The afterimage? It's on all of them, but this is the dearest.'
'I don't see...'
'I'll boost the contrast and lose a little of the motion blurring.’ She fiddled with the engine's controls. "There. See now?'
Loken stared. What had at first seemed to be a frothy, milky ghost blurring across the image of the nightmare thing had resolved clearly thanks to her manipulation. Superimposed on the fuz2y abomination was a semi-human shape, echoing the pose and posture of the creature. Though it was faint, there was no mistaking the shrieking face and wracked body of Xavyer Jubal.
'Know him?' she asked. 'I don't, but I recognise the physiognomy and build of an Astartes when I see it. Why would my picter register that, unless...'
Loken didn't reply.
Keeler switched the screen off, popped out the slate and tossed it back to Loken. He caught it neatly. She went back over to the cot and flopped down.
That's what I wanted you to explain to me.’ she said. That's why I sent you the picts. When I was in my deepest, darkest pits of madness, that's what I was hoping you'd come and explain to me, but don't worry. I'm past that now. I'm fine. A wild beast, that's all it was. A wild beast.’
Loken gazed at the slate in his hand. He could barely imagine what Keeler had been through. It had been bad enough for the rest of them, but he and Nero and Sinder-mann had all enjoyed the benefit of proper closure. They'd been told the truth. Keeler hadn't. She was smart and bright and clever, and she'd seen the holes in the story, the awful inconsistencies that proved there had been more to the event than the first captain's explanation. And she'd managed with that knowledge, coped with it, alone.
'What did you think it was?' he asked.
'Something awful that we should never know about.’ she replied. Throne, Loken. Please don't take pity on me now. Please don't decide to tell me.’
'I won't.’ he said. 'I can't. It was a wild beast. Euphrati, how did you deal with it?'
What do you mean?'
'You say you're fine now. How are you fine?'
'My friends helped me through. I told you.’
Loken got up, picked up the flask, and went over to the cot. He sat down on the end of the mattress and refilled the glass she held out.
Thank you.’ she said. 'I've found strength. I've found-'
For a moment, Loken was certain she had been about to say 'faith'.
'What?'
Trust. Trust in the Imperium. In the Emperor. In you.’
'In me?'
'Not you, personally. In the Astartes, in the Imperial army, in every branch of mankind's warrior force that is dedicated to the protection of us mere mortals.’ She took a sip and sniggered. The Emperor, you see, protects.’
'Of course he does.’ said Loken.
'No, no, you misunderstand.’ said Keeler, folding her arms around her raised, sheet-covered knees. 'He actually does. He protects mankind, through the Legions, through the martial corps, through the war machines of the Mechanicum. He understands the dangers. The inconsistencies. He uses you, and all the instruments like you, to protect us from harm. To protect our physical bodies from murder and damage, to protect our minds from madness, to protect our souls. This is what I now understand. This is what this trauma has taught me, and I am thankful for it. There are insane dangers
in the cosmos, dangers that mankind is fundamentally unable to comprehend, let alone survive. So he protects us. There are truths out there that would drive us mad by one fleeting glimpse of them. So he chooses not to share them with us. That's why he made you.’
That's a glorious concept.’ Loken admitted.
'In the Whisperheads, that day... You saved me, didn't you? You shot that thing apart. Now you save me again, by keeping the truth to yourself. Does it hurt?'
'Does what hurt?'
The truth you keep hidden?'
'Sometimes.’ he said.
'Remember, Garviel. The Emperor is our truth and our light. If we trust in him, he will protect.’
'Where did you get that from?' Loken asked.
'A friend. Garviel, I have only one concern. A lingering thing that will not quit my mind. You Astartes are loyal, through and through. You keep to your own, and never break confidence.’
'And?'
Tonight, I really believe you would have told me something, but for the loyalty you keep with your brothers. I admire that, but answer me this. How far does your loyalty go? Whatever it was happened to us in the Whisperheads, I believe an Astartes brother was part of it. But you close ranks. What has to happen before you forsake your loyalty to the Legion and recognise your loyalty to the rest of us?'
'I don't know what you mean.’ he said.
Yes, you do. If a brother turns on his brothers again, will you cover that up too? How many have to turn before you act? One? A squad? A company? How long will you keep your secrets? What will it take for you to cast aside the fraternal bonds of the Legion and cry out "This is wrong!"?'
You're suggesting an impossible-'
'No, I'm not. You, of all people, know I'm not. If it can happen to one, it can happen to others. You're all so drilled and perfect and identical. You march to the same beat and do whatever is asked of you. Loken, do you know of any Astartes who would break step? Would you?'
'I...'
'Would you? If you saw the rot, a hint of corruption, would you step out of your regimented life and stand against it? For the greater good of mankind, I mean?'
'It's not going to happen.’ Loken said. That would never happen. You're suggesting civil disunity. Civil war. That is against every fibre of the Imperium as the Emperor has created it. With Horus as Warmaster, as our guiding light, such a possibility is beyond countenance. The Imperium is firm and strong, and of one purpose. There are inconsistencies, Euphrati, just like there are wars and plagues and famines. They hurt us, but they do not kill us. We rise above them and move onwards.’
'It rather depends.’ she remarked, 'where those inconsistencies occur.’
Token's vox-cuff suddenly began to bleat. Loken raised his wrist, and thumbed the call stud. I'm on my way.’ he said. He looked back at her.
'Let's talk again, Euphrati.’ he said.
She nodded. He leant forwards and kissed her on the forehead. 'Be well. Be better. Look to your friends.’
'Are you my friend?' she asked.
'Know it.’ he said. He got up and retrieved his robe from the floor.
'Garviel.’ she called from the cot.
Yes?'
'Delete those images, please. For me. They don't need to exist.’
He nodded, opened the shutter, and stepped out into the chill of the hall.
Once the shutter had closed, Keeler got up off the cot and let the sheet fall from her. Naked, she padded over to a cupboard, knelt and opened its doors. From inside, she took out two candles and a small figurine of the Emperor. She placed them on the top of the cupboard, and lit the candles with an igniter. Then she rummaged in the cupboard and pulled out the dog-eared pamphlet that Leef had given her. It was a cheap, crude thing, badly pressed from a mechanical bulk-printer. There were ink soils along its edges, and rather a lot of spelling mistakes in the text.
Keeler didn't care. She opened the first page and, bowed before the makeshift shrine, she began to read.
The Emperor of Mankind is the Light and the Way, and all his actions are for the benefit of mankind, which is his people. The Emperor is God and God is the Emperor, so it is taught in the Lectio Divinitatus, and above all things, the Emperor will protect...'
LOKEN RAN DOWN the companionways of the remembrancers' billet wing, his cloak billowing out behind him. Sirens were sounding. Men and women peered out of doorways to look at him as he passed by.
He raised his cuff to his mouth. 'Nero. Report! Is it Tarik? Has something happened?'
The vox crackled and Vipus's voice issued tinnily from the cuff speaker. 'Something's happened all right, Garvi. Get back here.’
"What? What's happened?'
'A ship, that's what. A barge has just translated in-system behind us. It's Sanguinius. Sanguinius himself has come.'