Lords of Blood, page 94
Servitors gripped the Lord of Death’s limbs, and activity subsided. There was a brief writhing in his flesh, then bands of metal, slick with blood, peeked out from between his exposed muscles.
Qvo checked it over, first by eye, then with a succession of sensors.
‘The sinew coil net is in place. He will be sore for a few weeks while it bonds with his body, but it should function. Now we begin the implantation of the magnificat. This is the most perilous part of the operation.’
The table tilted upwards. The section beneath Mephiston’s neck pushed forward, raising the Lord of Death’s head. The chirurgeon extended another device that clamped around Mephiston’s temples. A hidden bonesaw shrieked and the device withdrew, taking the top of Mephiston’s skull with it and exposing his brain.
‘Bring forth the magnificat,’ Qvo proclaimed.
A machine began to chime urgently. Then another.
‘My lords,’ a blood thrall called to the two Sanguinary Priests. ‘There has been a sudden and total cessation of brain activity.’
‘Magos Qvo-88, what is happening?’ said Albinus.
Qvo looked unsure.
‘What is happening?’
Qvo tilted his head, examining streams of data on his internal systems. ‘The Lord of Death is dead,’ he said. ‘We must be swifter still.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE BLOODY ANGEL
Light shone through Mephiston’s closed eyelids, though he did not recall closing them. Warm wind blew upon his skin. Dry air tightened the skin in his nostrils.
Mephiston opened his eyes. The rough clothes of the Baal Primus tribes were gone. He was clad in the pure white robes aspirants to the Chapter wore.
The wind pressed the rough fabric into his body, outlining his muscles through the weave. Bone-pale hair flew out behind him. Grains of sand stung his lips and gritted his eyes. Fine dust caked his face.
A desiccated plain stretched in all directions, reaching for low hills that bounded it on every side. The sky was orange, overcast. Soft wind blew serpents of dust across the ground.
‘Baal,’ he said.
He found the sole element of the landscape that broke the desert’s monotony. A set of pillars in the distance, so far away they were upright threads on the horizon, that drew pencil lines of shadow on the sand.
He set off towards them.
Ancient, crusted sand broke under Mephiston’s feet, leaving a trail of shallow craters behind him on the featureless land. The wind blew constantly. The air was oxygen-poor. It was as perfect a facsimile of Baal’s deep desert as could be. Once more he attempted to break out of the vision. Once more he failed. His environs were too real. They held him tightly.
He walked. Days sped by in seconds. The sky cleared. The complicated dance of Baal’s daughters cast brief shadows over the land with each accelerated eclipse. Darkness came and went. Stars shone in the short-lived dark, the Red Scar glowering across a different portion of the sky as the weeks raced past, but always there, always attempting to exert its malign influence upon the worlds of the Baal system, always failing.
Mephiston approached the pillars and saw that there were nine arranged in a circle. Each looked like it had been thrust up from the ground by a subterranean force. Each was topped with a pile of age-greyed, xenos skulls.
Within the circle were ten more pillars, these only as tall as a man, arranged in two lines of five facing one another. Whereas the outer pillars were rough-hewn and ancient, these were finely carved. Those to the left were of ivory, and topped with golden statues representing the Angelic Graces. Those to the right were of black marble, and topped with statues of carnelian representing the Warrior’s Virtues. They made a short avenue, at the end of which, in the centre of the circle, stood an empty throne carved from a single block of sandstone stained brown with old blood.
When Mephiston passed though the stones a tremendous peal of thunder roared over the land. He looked upwards and saw the titanic angels from the warp warring in the sky.
They were insubstantial enough that the procession of the moons was visible through their bodies, but the clang of their weapons upon one another was real enough, each strike clashing with sufficient force to shake the earth. One was clad in the gold armour of the Sanguinor, the other was hooded, entirely black from the tip of his sword to the feathers of his outstretched wings. The Sanguinor’s sculpted mask was impassive in comparison, yet his movements were strained, and his wings were flecked with blood from a dozen minor cuts.
Instinct drew Mephiston’s attention down to the empty throne. As soon as his gaze alighted upon it blood poured, liquid and hot, from some unseen place. The figure of a Space Marine in armour filled from the boots upwards, as if the blood flowed into a glass vessel. Blood frothed and bubbled up his torso. Hollow hands filled with red. Liquid sloshed around an empty space in the shape of a chestplate, filling it with red threaded with black. Then the head filled, the blood curling around it in a rushing vortex.
When complete, the figure stood. Mephiston expected to feel something from this apparition, yet it had no psychic imprint.
‘Lord of Death,’ it said. Its voice boomed out across the desert, where it mingled with the clash of the angels’ weapons.
‘Who are you?’ Mephiston replied. ‘You know me, I would know you.’
‘You know me well enough,’ said the red figure, ‘as well as you know them.’ It pointed to the sky. The blood was still liquid, and it swirled within the being’s volume as he moved. Threads of black came and went.
‘Then tell me what you want of me, and release me from this place.’
‘Make no demand of me,’ said the bloody angel, ‘and I shall make none of you. You will be released soon enough.’
‘At least tell me why I am here.’
The bloody angel nodded. ‘What do you see in the sky?’
‘I see two angels at war, one of gold, and one of darkness.’
‘They have been at war forever,’ said the figure. ‘Even before your kind came to Baal. Those who dwelled here in distant epochs, they knew the angels of gold and black, though they did not see them as you see them.’
He gestured at a space between two of the outer pillars. An image appeared there, presenting Mephiston with a vision of spindly xenos, heavily robed and bedecked in bloodstone, labouring to raise monuments long since ground to dust.
‘And there, where millions of years later men lived in brief paradise upon Baal Indicus and Baal Fortunata. The first men here knew the angels too, but refused to believe they existed, until times changed and they let the black angel in.’
Mephiston looked through the phantasmal angels. Both moons were present in the sky. Both were living. Baal Secundus sparkled with blue-green oceans. Baal Primus was drier, mottled with biomes of soft greens and greys. Around Primus was a complex of orbital stations so extensive and radiant it resembled a necklace.
‘The moons no longer bear those names,’ said Mephiston.
‘Names come and go. Those names became corrupted in form. In time, they will be forgotten completely, as will your species. Another race, then another, then another, will come and uncover the things left behind in days long dead, and wonder what manner of hand shaped them.’ The bloody angel turned its attention back to Mephiston. ‘Or the universe will fall to Chaos, and yours will be the last of creation’s children, and no more beings will choose their path twixt grace and rage, but all will be madness, and pandemonium will reign.’
‘This is the warp. All things of the warp are lies. Return me to my mortal form.’
‘Truth is subjective,’ said the angel of blood. ‘Lies are subjective.’
‘Then judgement is meaningless,’ said Mephiston, ‘and we are prisoners of circumstance.’
‘No, judgement is all,’ said the being.
It walked down from its throne. Where it trod, it left footprints of blood upon the stone.
‘The warp is a mirror to the material realm,’ said the bloody angel. ‘The shape of the warp is the shape of the mortal soul. If it harms us, we only have ourselves to blame. You are strong with the warp. You live.’ It walked past Mephiston to stand between two of the great sandstone pillars, and looked up at the battling angels. ‘These creatures are the reflections of your bloodline. The golden angel is your purity, the black angel is your flaw.’ The bloody angel turned back to Mephiston. ‘You are, all of you, of the blood of your father. In the least of you is a residue of his power. Thousands of years of sacrifice, denial and endless war. Every time one of your brothers creates a work of beauty, or lays down his life for those weaker than he, it strengthens the angel in gold. Each time one succumbs to the flaw and in his madness slays his brothers, the black is made more powerful.’
The black angel swung at the gold angel’s head. Silver blade intercepted black. The heavens rang.
‘The black is winning,’ said Mephiston.
‘The Black Rage will one day destroy all those of the Blood. It is inevitable,’ said the bloody angel. ‘The question is, how those of the Blood choose to spend their days before that happens. As paragons, or as monsters?’ He stared at Mephiston with eye lenses of living blood set in a helmet of the same. ‘The Great Rift has split the sky. The Emperor stirs. The minds of men are opening. Your madness calls all the louder because of it. Your priests and your tech-magi search fruitlessly for a cure. The Black Rage is not a malady of the body. It is a flaw in your souls.’
‘Why am I here? Why are you telling me this?’
‘You are who you are. You must make a choice,’ said the bloody angel. ‘The daemon you faced. Kyriss. It offered a choice given to the Lord Sanguinius many centuries ago.’
‘I refused,’ said Mephiston.
‘You are wise.’
The Lord of Death watched the battling angels. The angel of gold seemed to have regained a little strength, and was pushing hard at the black.
‘There was another choice your father had, and he took it.’
Mephiston looked at him sharply. ‘He would never accept a daemon’s bargain, not even to save us.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ said the bloody angel. ‘All you know of him you learned from dusty books written long after he was dead. Traditions change. Legends grow in the telling. Even the meanings of his own words are lost beneath a hundred centuries of reinterpretation. Your primarch speaks to you, but you cannot hear. You rely on supposition at best, superstition at worst.’
‘Do you seek to provoke me? I know Sanguinius was pure.’
The bloody angel rested a hand upon Mephiston’s shoulder. Blood soaked the white robe red. The smell of it teased Mephiston’s nostrils, tempting him to feed.
‘I do not speak of daemons’ tricks,’ it said. ‘You know the golden angel?’
Mephiston nodded. ‘He is the Sanguinor.’
‘He was once a man, like you. Into him has poured all the nobility of your kin for one hundred centuries. See how powerful he is.’
‘Then…’ Mephiston frowned. ‘Then who was the black angel?’
‘No one. The Rage roams free throughout the warp,’ said the bloody angel. ‘It has no anchor. As time has passed and your bloodline degenerated, it has grown stronger and stronger, until now, with the Great Rift open, it becomes the mightiest it has ever been, and the Sanguinor is no longer enough to balance it. It cannot be stopped by any but you.’
‘Am I…’ Mephiston looked swiftly to the bloody angel. ‘Am I it?’
The bloody angel stared at him.
‘I should never have survived Armageddon. What if I were to die? Would that stop it?’
‘No. You and it are joined, but you are not one.’
‘Then what is this choice?’
‘The black angel needs an avatar to match the angel in gold. Take the essence of the Rage into yourself. Ground it in reality. Become its prison. If you accept a second rebirth, you will become the living manifestation of the Chapter’s darkness. All will fear you. All will hate you. The role will consume you, and your soul will be damned, but your bloodline will be safe, for a time.’
‘And my other choice?’
‘You can choose to die. You have a powerful soul. Perhaps you may retain your self. Perhaps you will become a monster, or perhaps you will succumb to greater powers. Release yourself. You need not go back to this. That is the other choice.’
Between two of the pillars a vision appeared. They looked together into the operating theatre where men worked frantically to revive Mephiston.
‘I am dying,’ Mephiston said.
‘You are already dead.’
‘What if I take the choice that serves me? What if I choose not to go back?’
‘This,’ said the bloody angel.
In the gap next to the image of the Carceri Arcanum, another scene came into being. Warriors in battered red armour ran howling across a battlefield. They leapt frenzied into a huddle of human soldiers, and there committed a great slaughter. They used their guns as bludgeons. They opened throats with their teeth.
‘And this,’ the bloody angel said.
A third vision appeared, another world, more brutality, this meted out to screaming civilians.
‘And this.’
In each of the gaps a similar scene opened. Warriors of Sanguinius’ bloodline smeared in filth and gore, slaughtering people no matter who or what they were, and feasting on their blood and flesh.
‘If you choose to die, the Chapter and its successors will quickly descend into madness.’ As he spoke, anguished screams of pain and terror rang from the battlefields displayed to them. ‘Thus I present you the true choice of Sanguinius – self, or selflessness. A choice given to you all, over and over again. What will you do now, Lord Of Death?’
‘They already hate me,’ said Mephiston softly. He looked deep into a burning city. The things he saw running amok there could barely be called human, but they were his brothers. ‘They that know no fear, fear me. Even Commander Dante cannot mask his disquiet at my approach. Astorath despises me. My existence brings peril to them all.’
‘They will hate you all the more,’ said the bloody angel. ‘They will not know why. They will never know the burden you carry. They will never know you had a choice.’
‘I will become that?’ He looked up to the giant black angel fighting in the sky.
‘One day. It exists now, so it has always existed, and always will. But you may hold it back.’
‘So I have already made my choice.’
‘Fate is strong. The choice needs making all the same.’
‘How will I prevail over it? How can I keep it in check?’
‘No man is free of sin,’ said the bloody angel. ‘All he is is the sum total of his choices, good and bad. If you can restrain it, you will.’
In the Chemic Spheres, activity was reaching a frenetic pace. Mephiston watched it. He could not feel the pain of his body, but he imagined it. That world was pain. He was weary of it.
‘No,’ Mephiston said at last. ‘I cannot do it. I cannot. I have given so much already. I have given nearly everything there is, and far more than I thought there was to give.’
‘Then see this, before you decide.’
The bloody angel pointed at one of the panes of vision, away from the operating room where men and machines battled to keep Mephiston alive. It was a scene composed only of fire. In it the most bloody acts were being performed, the wanton torture of innocents. The perspective shifted, moving away from the wailing crowds to a figure hanging in the sky over all of them. He resembled the Sanguinor, but where that warrior’s armour was purest gold, this one’s was blackest sable. Its helm mask was haughty and cruel. Blood ran freely from its hands and the mouth of the screaming visor.
‘Is this what I become?’
The warrior lifted a hand shaking with rage to its visor, and swung the mask up. The face in the helm was wild with bloodlust, fangs out and digging into pallid skin.
The warrior was as different to Mephiston as Calistarius was, but it was still, undeniably, him. This Mephiston screamed inhumanly. Black flames blazed around its eyes, obscuring most of his features but the wild mouth. The image zoomed in, making his face huge in the space between the pillars. Mephiston watched as it raised a bloody fist to its mouth. Clasped in armoured fingers was a small human arm. The Lord of Death turned away as the warrior bit down and fed upon the flesh.
‘The Rage seeks an outlet,’ said the bloody angel. ‘It needs an avatar. It will find its way into you whether you choose to live or choose to die. If your soul remains here, your body will play host to all the fury of the flaw, and it will strike down all you care for. Rhacelus, Antros, Dante – all the rest will go to their deaths knowing that you betrayed them, and that the darkness was always in you. You will become the agent of the Rage. You will destroy the bloodline of Sanguinius.’
Mephiston was soaring over the battlefield, if such a slaughterhouse could be named so, casting bolts of red light from his unsheathed sword.
Mephiston lowered his head. ‘Then I have no choice. You torment me.’
‘There is always choice. There never is. Fate demands we choose. Fate gives us no choices.’
‘You reveal the worst in me!’ Mephiston snarled. ‘Your choice is a lie! You know what I will choose, and you will know my concern for my honour is what made me take it. You know I care more about that than about the fate of the Blood.’
‘That is your lie. Think again.’
‘My friends…’ Mephiston said. His face hardened. ‘No. I have none.’
‘Not Gaius Rhacelus? Not Albinus? Then why do you care? Let your soul be free.’
‘I make my choice.’ Mephiston looked up defiantly at the bloody angel. ‘Who are you?’ he asked again.
