Luther: First of the Fallen, page 9
In those early years, I dabbled. It was almost pleasurable to deny myself the indulgence of study, and sometimes months would pass without me even looking at the volumes in my office. I would leaf through a tome on occasion, flipping the pages idly while I paced and thought on other matters. By keeping my arrangements casual, I fooled myself into thinking that I remained free of any real insubordination. After all, my duties of Grand Master were little enough to fill my time and I expected the return of the expeditionary fleets to end the tedium at some point.
A hobby, perhaps. A little dalliance with obscure texts that raised interesting philosophical questions. Nothing more.
The years passed and the Lion did not return. We turned the sons of Caliban into Space Marines and sent them into the void like packaged goods. Returning ships told us that the Great Crusade went well. Thousands of worlds had been made compliant like Caliban.
My idle hobby took up more of my time and I started to believe that the Lion would never return. Caliban’s purpose was served well enough in his absence. Our blood continued to fuel the Dark Angels Legion. Even then I was not so discontent. I think I would have taken it more harshly had the Lion been more present. Continual scrutiny would have been an insult. I started to believe that maybe he did trust me, that his words of duty had not cloaked a hidden admonition.
I was a fool.
All doubt was erased at Zaramund.
Some worlds are carved upon history with thick strokes, while others barely merit a footnote. Zaramund should have been the latter. It was strategically well placed, a staging point from Terra for the Great Crusade, overseeing a stable warp channel that saw thousands of ships launched towards the galactic north. Years before, the First had departed Zaramund before they discovered Caliban.
I do not know why some of the populace of Zaramund rebelled. I can guess, and from experience my guesses would not be too far from the truth I would wager. The Imperium finds purposes for things and then sets them to that task in exclusion to all else. I think it is a manifestation of the Emperor’s thinking, to see all else as tools. Witness Caliban! Cleansed of the Great Beasts, the forests were tamed for the most part. Beautiful and verdant. The Emerald World. All of it was torn down, replaced by arcologies to house workers and tithe collectors for the administrators of Terra. Our bountiful forests were of no use to the war effort. Weapons, armour, people. These were the things devoured by the Great Crusade and so Caliban was reshaped to provide.
Zaramund was a shipyard, but ships need crews and Zaramund was compelled to provide. Generation after generation either labouring to create the warships of the Emperor or indentured to leave upon them. That contempt for the history and people of Zaramund would breed the kind of rebellion we saw. Not a treachery from the ruling classes but a sudden swelling insurrection across every factory, orbital and far-flung station. A mood that was suddenly set alight.
And snuffed out by Horus.
The details do not matter to this tale, except that in needing a swift response to the loss of the system, Horus called upon Caliban to aid the counter-attack. I agreed and led a force of Dark Angels to the campaign, and although it was perilous and saw many good companions slain, it was also heartening to once again take up arms and be at the forefront of glorious battle.
I was never the equal of the Lion with blade or strategy, but I still rose to Grand Master of the Order. I was no neophyte commander!
And then, even as I received plaudits from the man who would become Warmaster, the Lion took it all from me. And not in private, but before Horus and the other leaders. Dismissed like the lowliest serf, an errant child sent to his chamber to think on what he had done. My fleet confiscated as though the ships were toys I had misused.
After my humiliation, before I set foot on the transport that would take me back to Caliban, two others sought me out to commiserate my unfortunate castigation. They found me in the antechamber of a launch bay of the Vengeful Spirit, Calas Typhon of the Death Guard and Erebus of the Word Bearers. They were divested of their armour now, but still larger than I was in my modified plate.
Typhon wore heavy leggings and surcoat, his thickly muscled arms knotted with scars of both surgery and battle. Erebus was slighter, for a Space Marine, and wore a dark-red robe, plain but for a Legion symbol. He was an imposing figure all the same, his face and head covered in tattooed symbols from chin to nape.
I had only met both a few hours earlier, at the very celebration that had led to my censure, but Typhon I had known by dint of fighting beside, or rather behind, his formidable forces in the recapture of many orbital stations and the first landings on Zaramund itself. Erebus was more of an enigma, his Legion strangers to the Dark Angels as far as I knew, his position within the Luna Wolves something of an anomaly.
‘I bring bottled sympathy,’ declared Typhon, offering a large carafe and three glasses. His smile faded. ‘Few felt any jubilation after the Lion’s intervention and it seemed a waste to let these libations be returned to the stores unopened.’
The chamber was not big, and felt smaller with the two giant warriors beside me. But we were aboard a battle-barge and the furnishings included those fit for legionaries as well as smaller individuals like myself. Erebus sat on my left, Calas on my right, each filling a chair that would be a throne in any other setting.
I did not feel much like drinking, but thought it rude to refuse the officer of the Death Guard. He poured glassfuls of dark-red wine and handed them to us before raising his own in toast.
‘Brothers before sons,’ he said, somewhat cryptically, though I recalled his words immediately following the Lion’s edict against me: There are those of us that know what it is like to feel the displeasure of our primarch.
‘I am not good company at present,’ I told them, taking a sip from the glass before placing it on the table between us. ‘Thank you for your solidarity but it is cold comfort.’
‘Comfort?’ Erebus raised an eyebrow, distorting the runes across his forehead. He looked at Typhon and directed his next words to the Death Guard. ‘You told me Luther of Caliban was a staunch lord, worthy of our intervention. He speaks of comfort as though we should pat him on the back and tell him everything will be all right.’
‘What do you mean?’ I demanded, my anger flushing quickly, my patience already worn thin by weathering the Lion’s accusations against me. ‘I ask nothing of the Word Bearers, nor the Death Guard.’
‘Be at ease,’ Calas assured me. He took a large mouthful of wine, savouring it before swallowing with a satisfied nod. ‘Good stuff. We have this organ, I’m sure you know, called the neuroglottis? Enhances the sense of taste. I could track you like a hound just by sampling the air. It makes me really appreciate the nuances of a very good wine.’
I was taken aback, and starting to be suspicious of their company.
‘Do you not have more important duties to attend in the wake of victory?’ I asked.
‘You have been robbed of the glory that should be yours,’ said Erebus. He downed his wine in one long draught and stroked the stem of the glass with his massive fingers. His voice was soft but rich, and brought to mind the Lord Torchwarden, reminding me of the man I had been many, many years before. ‘We wanted you to know that others see you. Your acts are not extinguished by the disapproval of the Lion. Your deeds should be rewarded.’
‘I feel like I am being recruited,’ I replied, taking up my glass again. Even though I was aware of the flattery being aimed at me, it was gratifying that they thought I was worthy of such attention, even as I was immune to its effects.
‘I told you he was a sharp thinker,’ said Calas, smiling. ‘Open-minded too, I’m sure.’
I wondered what this could mean, but before I had to ask, Erebus produced a slim volume from within his robe. I recognised the design on its cover immediately, an octagonal symbol overlaid with a circle and arrows, which had featured in one of the books I had taken from the library of the Knights of Lupus.
‘What is that? Where did you get it?’ I asked, even as I reached out to take the proffered book. ‘Is this a tract on the warp?’
Erebus looked surprised and I heard Calas laugh at his expression.
‘You have seen this before?’ demanded the Word Bearer, eyes moving from me to Calas.
‘Caliban has its lore too,’ I said as I opened the book and started flipping from one page to another, reading snippets of the small type within. There were no symbols, no diagrams or illustrations of fantastical beasts. Just words. Words that ensnared me just as much as anything I had looked at in my personal collection.
‘This explains it all?’ I whispered as I looked at Erebus with shock and wonder. This time it was the Word Bearer’s turn to laugh.
‘All? Nothing can explain all!’ He placed a hand on the book, covering it entirely. ‘But this is the start of understanding. It is… a guidebook? A primer. A source of answers but more questions.’
‘The right sort of questions,’ said Calas, leaning closer so that I could feel the heat of his bulk next to me. ‘Questions like, “Who is the Emperor?” and “What are the primarchs?” Questions you may have asked or may not.’
Indeed such questions had come to mind as I perused my esoteric library. One cannot stand in the presence of demigods and not wonder how they came to be. Not unless you have been mentally conditioned not to ask such questions. As one of the augmented, rather than a legionary, I had not been subjected to most of the inculcation therapy that had replaced their old identities with unswerving loyalty to the Legion.
Maybe I should have been.
My suspicion returned with greater vigour and I closed the book sharply.
‘If I accept this, I am in your debt,’ I said to Erebus. ‘Your thrall, so to speak. I cannot commend you on your subtlety, for you have shown little. You see me reeling from the chastisement of the Lion and think me weak, a slower herd member on which to pounce. You are mistaken.’
Yet despite my words, I recall now that I made no attempt to return the book to the Word Bearer. He looked at me thoughtfully and shrugged.
‘You see both the truth and a lie,’ he replied. ‘It is not weakness we see in you, but strength. No other would have stood before a primarch and suffered such indignity without crumbling. And if you find our approach unsubtle it is because we lack time, and we do you the service of believing you open to straight approach. But you are entirely correct that we would have you as an ally where currently we have none. You are important to us.’
‘The book is our offering,’ said Calas. ‘The first plank of a bridge to build between us. To help you understand why we would want you among our brotherhood. And the wine was offered in genuine commiseration.’
‘You will find a couple of other select volumes stowed with your belongings,’ added Erebus. ‘More specific texts.’
‘Who wrote this?’ I asked, turning the thin book back and forth in my hand. ‘Whose words are these?’
‘Mine,’ said Erebus, ‘but they are an abbreviation of a far longer, worthier book. A book penned by no other than Lorgar, the Word and the Mace.’
‘A primarch wrote this?’ I felt as if the floor shifted beneath me, as it had done when I had first examined the Lupus library. A world-changing fact. ‘You mean Lorgar of the Seventeenth?’
‘Yes. He is a visionary, Luther. Who else would better see the inside of the universe than one who was crafted to conquer it.’
‘But…’ It was hard to reconcile the thought of forbidden powers, strange warp creatures and the supernal with the Emperor-worshipping lord of the Word Bearers. Even on Caliban we had heard tell of how the XVII Legion raised great monuments to the Emperor on every world they took.
‘Everything is interconnected,’ said Calas, standing up. He linked his meaty fingers together, forming a single fist between them. ‘Our world, the realm you know, and the warp. The powers, the Emperor, the primarchs. Even Caliban.’
‘And Fenris, Olympia and every other world where a primarch fell,’ Erebus added with a sly smile. ‘Each resonant with a different kind of energy. They called to them, of course.’
‘To know the empyrean is to know ourselves,’ continued Calas. ‘If we cannot understand hope and despair, strength and weakness, how are we to know anything mortal?’
Such words were honey to me, sweet and enticing. As they had been chosen to be, I realise now. A different kind of flattery, but much more than that. Calas had not been wrong when he said he knew how I felt, the abandonment that ate my soul from the inside. Few have stood at the right hand of a demigod and then been cast aside.
Here was a promise in plain words that the first book had offered silently. Vague but powerful, the offer of knowledge that would explain what had happened, how I had toppled from the heights to the depths.
And the means to right that wrong. A ladder to climb back to the summit. A tool. A weapon. All of these things and more.
All in a book no thicker than the swordplay manuals I had learned from as a youth.
The occasion reminded me of the earlier incident at Sarosh. A time of decision that would profoundly affect the way I viewed the world. Were you to offer me the ability to go back and change one decision, whether at Sarosh or aboard the Vengeful Spirit, I cannot say which was wrong, if either. Just like the moment in the forest, when the course of the universe hinged on the actions of one man, I was presented with a chance to see the fork in the path.
One led to reconciliation with the Lion. I would make public this conspiracy and use Calas and Erebus as bargaining chips to regain his favour. As clear as the Highmere from which Aldurukh drew its water, I saw that these two were but the tip of something vaster. I was reminded of the brotherhood to which Abaddon had tried to introduce me, and wondered at the extent of the erosion within the Legions. And Lorgar? Did this malice run as far as one of the Legion commanders?
The book I held was all the proof needed that something was awry in the Great Crusade.
Yet if I confessed to its possession and offered myself to the mercy of the Lion, what judgement could I expect? To tell of this book was to speak of the others I held, for a confession needed to be full or kept silent. I would tell him of the grudge I harboured, but back then I could not admit that his punishment had been warranted – I had weighed his life against my own ambition, a terrible crime on reflection.
I looked at Erebus, and saw that the Word Bearer had been studying me intently. His gaze flicked from me to Calas for just a split second. His expression was impassive enough, a study in neutrality, but in that single glance I read a whole script, for I am not a dull-witted man.
Calas had vouched for me, that much had already been made clear. He had some rank in this secretive arrangement, aside from his position as a senior officer of the Death Guard. But Erebus, this Chaplain from another Legion, was certainly the more powerful of the two in the room. The apex, perhaps? Or did he answer to Lorgar?
Such recruitment was fraught with risk. I knew from my own paranoia about the books of the Lupus library that an ill-considered decision or moment of laxity always threatened to leave one vulnerable. Had the Lion not arrived, perhaps their overtures would have been more subtle and extended, as Erebus claimed. Instead, opportunity had arisen to strike fast while my humiliation was still hot within me. But that opportunity would swiftly pass upon my return to Caliban.
Calas had vouched for me and Erebus was gambling on my participation.
If they had any doubts about me, any hint that I would reveal their plotting to a higher power, my life was over. Even I, Grand Master of the Order of Caliban, second-in-command of the First Legion, the Dark Angels, was not above their retaliation. Nothing but absolute assurance that I was aligned to their cause would stop me from having an unfortunate incident very shortly after our meeting.
I recalled again the bomb I had discovered at Sarosh. Would there be something other than books waiting for me among my belongings on the way to the transport? Something less culturally explosive but certainly more so in chemical terms.
As I explain it here, it may seem that I sat in quiet consideration of my fate, weighing up these facts and conclusions. The opposite is true. That glance from Erebus triggered a flash of insight and only later did I decipher my own reasoning.
Damned if I do. Dead if I do not.
Given the course of events that followed, it is no surprise that I chose damnation over destruction, and I did it willingly. Though I assessed my life chances as precarious, I had committed myself to this course before Calas or Erebus had first approached me, when I had taken the books from Wolfgard.
‘It seems you are the allies I have long been seeking,’ I told them.
I then quickly confided in them the extent of my prior knowledge and my possession of the books that would see me condemned. Their recognition of my sincerity was swift, for I spoke the truth and they could see it. I tell you that there is no machine or psyker as swift as a Space Marine at discerning a spoken falsehood, for he can hear your hearts beat faster and taste the fear in you. They were made to be superlative warriors but are also amazing interrogators.
We parted with kind words and half-promises of future cooperation, but all three of us knew that with my fleet taken from me my imprisonment on Caliban would be complete. There would be means to leave physically, of course, but the act of doing so would be in open defiance of the primarch’s will – a will he had made known in front of everyone, from Horus to the attending army troopers.
‘We shall hear if you should call,’ said Calas. He extended a hand and I gripped it, shaking it slowly. ‘You are alone no longer.’
‘With alliance comes reciprocation,’ Erebus told me, his gaze intent. ‘When the time comes, Caliban will also answer.’
