Lords of Blood, page 95
‘I am what I am,’ said the figure.
‘You are the red angel I saw in the realm of the Lord of Blood. You are the harbinger of our doom,’ he said.
‘I am that and much more.’
The bloody angel swelled to enormous size, so that it dwarfed Mephiston, yet still retained the shape of a man. The helm receded, revealing a face of unsurpassed beauty. Gold crept over the red. Blond hair, much like Mephiston’s own, blew out in the wind. A titan was revealed, a lord of men, and yet he was human. All the sorrows of the world were expressed by his eyes. With a sharp snap, great white wings opened behind him, washing scented air over the Lord of Death.
A terrible understanding smote Mephiston’s hearts. He knew then he had failed an important test.
‘Sanguinius! My father, I did not know. I did not know.’
He fell to his knees.
‘Failure is not an option for any of us,’ said the Angel.
‘How? It is not possible,’ said Mephiston. He started to weep. Emotions he had not felt since before he was Calistarius swamped him. ‘This is not real. You cannot be him.’
‘It is not real,’ agreed the figure. ‘The warp is in turmoil. Things that were not possible before the Rift are possible now. The Warmaster Abaddon played a desperate gambit. He has unleashed forces that he can never control. The warp itself is not evil, always remember that, Mephiston. It is corrupted, but it contains everything, and that includes good as well as evil. It includes you.’
Behind the white wings the figures in the sky shrank. Still fighting, they descended from the heavens, in the process becoming no bigger than children, then smaller. As they diminished, so the image of Sanguinius grew, becoming a true giant, and a fearful halo blazed around his head, until the angels came to a halt either side of the vision, gold to the right and black to the left. Only then did the titanic angel cease to grow, and the angels let their swords hang by their sides. They looked blankly down on Mephiston.
‘My lord Sanguinius… I am sorry.’
The vision of the primarch smiled sadly down upon him. The angels blurred. They faded, and the last spectres of them were drawn within the primarch’s being.
‘I am not Sanguinius. Sanguinius is dead,’ said the thing that wore the primarch’s face. It smiled sorrowfully at the Lord of Death, then collapsed suddenly into a tsunami of blood that crashed down with the force of a falling mountain, drowning Mephiston in rich vitae. Upon its hot wave, he was carried thence out of the warp, and back into the realm of the living.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MEPHISTON PRIMARIS
Rhacelus watched as the cap of Mephiston’s skull was set back in place. Bone welders worked quickly to seal his braincase. The smell of hot meat filled the hall. He could feel nothing from his friend. His soul had fled.
‘The last implant is in place. Restart his hearts,’ said Qvo. ‘We must return circulation to his body. Begin reattaching his skin. Once it is in place and his hearts beat anew, the Belisarian Furnace will activate and finish our job for us.’
‘There is still no sign of brain activity, magos,’ said Corbulo.
‘We must work on, regardless,’ said Qvo.
Servitors replaced the Lord of Death’s black carapace, unwinding his nerves and replacing his neural ports with hands far steadier than a living man’s. Nozzles squirted adhesives to hold the pieces in place. When it was all attached, Mephiston’s flayed skin was retrieved from the nutrient vats and draped, dripping, over his exposed muscles.
The chirurgeon descended, legs cycling like a spider spinning out silk as it unwound yards of suturing thread. Needle-tipped legs darted at Mephiston’s flesh, pulling his hide together with near-invisible joins, as if the pieces of bloody skin were a pattern of cloth to be made into a suit. While the machine worked, his chest remained open to the air, his hearts still exposed.
‘He has been inactive too long, bring him back!’ Albinus demanded.
‘Not yet,’ said Qvo. ‘Begin his hearts.’
Rhacelus took an involuntary step forward. ‘His spirit is gone.’ His glowing eyes flashed. ‘It is too late.’
‘Can your chanting psykers reach him?’ asked Qvo.
‘Maybe,’ said Rhacelus.
‘Then call to him!’ said Qvo.
Rhacelus gave orders. The chant changed. The fatigued Librarians sang with cracked voices through bloody lips.
Medicae thralls brought cormeum stimulant paddles to the table. A generator wheezed into life. They positioned the paddles around the Lord of Death’s hearts and looked to the magos.
‘Now!’ Qvo shouted.
The generator buzzed and cracked. A jolt of power ran through Mephiston’s body. His body arched as his muscles fired, threatening to rip the seams of the reattached skin.
‘It is not working,’ Albinus said. ‘Qvo, do something!’
‘No, no, no!’ said Qvo-88. Machines blinked in alarm. Vital signs on screens ran flat. Piercing tones started up from one, then the others. Corbulo looked at him.
‘He is dead!’
‘Again!’ cried Qvo. His robes parted. Dozens of manipulators emerged, plugging into machines, turning dials, jabbing at buttons. ‘Now!’
Qvo watched a screen intently as another surge of energy raced through Mephiston’s body. Again, his body arched. His still skinless face grimaced blindly.
‘No, stop, it is done. He is dead, he is dead!’ said Albinus.
‘I will not!’ said Qvo. ‘They said Marneus Calgar would die, and he did not. Mephiston will live! You have a star in these vaults. I require a little of its power.’
‘Idalia will incinerate him,’ said Rhacelus.
‘Do it,’ said Dante.
‘My lord,’ said Rhacelus unsurely.
‘Do as I command,’ said Dante. ‘Give Qvo what he wants.’
Qvo’s servants quickly unrolled ribbed cabling and attached it to the glowing conduits running down the walls of the hall. They worked efficiently, completing their work before a minute was done.
‘Ready, magos,’ one said.
‘You had better do this, Corbulo,’ said Qvo. ‘A human body will not survive the motive force overspill from the cormeum shock. You might.’
‘I will do it,’ said Albinus. ‘He is my friend.’ He took the paddle handles from Qvo’s servant. ‘Ready.’
‘Release the star’s energy!’ Qvo commanded.
A tech-priest threw an enormous switch. It gave out a shower of sparks. Loops of charged gas writhed around it. The runs of light pouring down the walls flickered and dimmed. The machines shrieked. Several of them exploded. The hall of the Chemic Spheres was plunged into a ruddy gloom.
‘I cannot hear him, I cannot see him,’ Rhacelus said. ‘His soul is too deep into the warp.’
‘Now,’ said Qvo.
Albinus depressed the shock buttons.
A roaring flood of energy poured into the Lord of Death. His body danced on the table, ripping open his sutures. Yellow sparks rushed all over Albinus, who stood as long as he was able, his jaw locked, until with a cry he was thrown backwards, crashing into one of his human orderlies. The man fell down, his bones shattered, crushed by the Priest. The last of the machines blew out, spraying glass and plastek all over the floor. Fire sprang up on the cables siphoning power from the star.
The light dimmed further. Mephiston’s open chest steamed.
Corbulo went to the smoking corpse and pressed his gloved fingers against Mephiston’s neck. ‘His hearts are still not beating.’
‘The connections to the star are burned out. Our machines are destroyed,’ reported one of Qvo’s lesser priests.
‘That was our last chance to save him,’ said Albinus. He picked himself up from the dead man’s corpse. ‘You killed him.’
‘Magos?’ said Dante.
‘It should have worked,’ said Qvo. ‘It should have–’
A cry went up from one of the Librarians. A glow kindled in his open mouth and his eyes, then burst out in hot daggers of light. He fell dead. The chanting faltered. Another Librarian fell to his knees, clutching his head. The others continued to chant, but they were faltering.
‘By the Great Angel,’ said Rhacelus. ‘I feel him, he is coming back!’ But his face changed from joy to horror. ‘He is changed! By the Angel, what have we done?’ He looked at Dante. ‘We have failed in every way.’
The sound of immense wings beating filled the chamber. Once, twice, thrice.
Silence.
With a great bang, the conduits on the walls of the spheres burst. Fat trails of energy poured into the Chief Librarian. The Space Marines threw up their hands to their eyes as a ball of light as bright as the sun encased the body of Mephiston.
The orb lifted. Mephiston was a shadow in the fire.
The orb exploded.
A burst of energy washed over the room, knocking all present off their feet and sending the remains of the machinery slamming into the walls. The unmodified humans among them were lofted high into the air. Space Marines crashed into the walls. More of the Librarians fell, some unconscious, others dead.
The Sanguinary Guard struggled to keep themselves upright. They levelled their weapons at the entity before them, but few could shoot. A howling storm of witchfire raced around the chamber, ripping up everything and sending it whirling into the air. The conduits leading down from Idalia pulsed and flared.
Rhacelus leaned into the storm, keeping himself upright only by dint of his own formidable psychic talents. Others were not so fortunate. He felt the stirrings of the Black Rage in all of them, even in Dante, as the thing that had been Mephiston hovered over them.
At the eye of the storm he created, Mephiston flew, an angel of destruction. Through the searing light, Rhacelus saw his ribcage snap shut, and skin flow back over the parts of him not yet recovered. His hair grew out from his scalp even as it crawled back over his exposed skull. The black fires ignited and rushed upwards from his skin, filling the chamber and beating back the light of Idalia. Black lightning arced down from his hands, earthing itself in the ground.
Rhacelus had rarely felt such power. Mephiston’s being was a furnace of psychic and material energies mixed. As he watched, Mephiston’s silhouette darkened, and black wings opened behind him. Rhacelus had to kill Mephiston, but it was too late.
For a moment, Rhacelus saw the dreadful black angel manifest before him, and felt the screaming insanity of the warp wax strong in all the Blood Angels in the room. He heard the clatter of guns in ancient wars. He felt the wounds of fraternal hatred. He saw the leering face of a treacherous brother.
Then it stopped. The energies of the room expanded, then rushed in towards Mephiston in a screaming implosion. The crash it gave was a physical blow that crackled the walls of the hall of the Chemic Spheres, and knocked the Space Marines back again.
The angel of shadows was gone. The black fire went out. Mephiston floated down to the floor, naked and pristine, all his wounds from the procedure gone. Ever since Calistarius had died and Mephiston had taken his place, Rhacelus had found his friend sinister, with a harsh physical perfection that could never be called beauty, but this Mephiston was beautiful. Light shone from his alabaster skin. For a moment he looked like the images of Sanguinius found all over the fortress-monastery, only purer, more vital, than any statue could be.
Mephiston’s feet touched the floor. He stood amid the ruin, staring down at his hands. He was taller, stronger, perfect in form.
‘He lives. He is Primaris,’ whispered Albinus.
Quiet of a more natural sort fell. The moans of the injured and dying filled the space. The smell of blood tormented Rhacelus. He felt his fangs slide out of his gums. The images of the past danced at the edge of his vision. He wasn’t the only one. They all struggled.
Mephiston knelt and closed his eyes. As if he had shut off a valve, the visions ceased. The beginnings of the Rage vanished as quickly as they had come.
The people in the room recovered. Those medicae personnel still capable of movement went to the sides of their fallen comrades. Corbulo was hauled to his feet by Albinus. Qvo-88 limped forward, nursing broken mechanical arms against his chest.
‘We did it! Another marvellous success!’
He was shoved out of the way by Dante’s Sanguinary Guard, who formed around the Lord of Death, their Angelus boltguns aimed at his head, their swords presented to strike. The snap of activating power fields ran around their circle. Storms in miniature raged over the metal of their blades.
‘We should kill him,’ said Astorath, clambering to his feet. ‘We should be done with all this. He has always been a danger. Look at this!’
‘Wait,’ said Dante.
Mephiston knelt with his head bowed. The light of his rebirth had faded, but he still glowed a pure white in the red light of the hall. He was the image of a fallen angel.
Dante approached. His guard moved aside.
‘Mephiston,’ Dante said.
The Lord of Death did not respond.
‘Calistarius,’ Dante tried.
Mephiston looked up. ‘Not Calistarius. Not Mephiston. I am something else.’
‘You recognise me?’ said Dante.
‘I do. You are my lord and my brother. You are Dante.’
‘Whom do you serve?’ said Dante.
‘I serve the Librarius. I serve the Chapter. I serve the Emperor.’ He got to his feet. ‘I serve mankind.’
‘Rhacelus?’ Dante asked.
Rhacelus tentatively reached out with his mind. Mephiston’s psychic might was greater than ever, but something in his new body held it in check.
‘It is him, but is also not him,’ said Rhacelus.
‘Kill him,’ said Astorath. ‘Kill him while he is weak.’
‘Is he in control of his abilities?’ asked Dante.
‘At the moment, yes,’ said Rhacelus. He relaxed a little. ‘Welcome back, brother.’
‘I serve you, my lord,’ said Mephiston. ‘If you decree that I must die, then so be it.’
‘A remarkable success,’ said Qvo, coming to the fore. ‘Remarkable.’ He laughed uneasily. ‘The process works on your gene-line after all, Lord Dante.’
‘Look at the cost of your success, tech-priest,’ said Astorath, waving his hand around at the corpses lying in the wreckage of the room. ‘What is your command, lord?’ The High Chaplain hefted his axe.
Dante’s true expression was hidden behind Sanguinius’ howling visage. ‘Fetch Lord Mephiston his robes. Clear this space. Tend to the wounded. Rhacelus, reinstate the containment dome.’
Dante looked at Astorath.
‘Mephiston lives, for now.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HONESTY AMONG FRIENDS
The Sepulcrum Maleficus was not somewhere that Dante went often. He had been to the resting place of the Chief Librarians perhaps a dozen times in the long centuries he had commanded the Chapter, but for all the Librarius’ autonomy within the Blood Angels, when their Chapter Master requested entrance, the Librarians obeyed.
Dante went unarmoured to show his respect for Mephiston’s suffering, with his long white hair bound up in a supplicant’s knot.
A silent blood thrall with ink-stained fingers hurried Dante through the vast warren of the Librarius. Thousands of years of history was kept there, most of it written on painstakingly illuminated scrolls, and much of the thralls’ time in the Librarius was taken up with copying them before they decayed into dust. When not at war, the Librarians helped. There were more sophisticated methods of data capture, and the information was preserved in multiple ways, but doing things the hard way sharpened the mind and kept the Thirst at bay.
The thrall took Dante down a gloomy, vaulted corridor. It ended at a blood-drip-shaped alcove containing a candlelit shrine, the chief feature of which was a beautiful golden death mask upon a marble plinth. When they reached the shrine the thrall bowed, waited for Dante to give his leave, then hurried away without a word.
Dante stared into the closed eyes of the mask. Its expression displayed such a sense of serenity it never failed to move him.
He took it from the plinth and placed it on his face. He jolted a little as hundreds of needles on the inside pierced his skin. The mask warmed, and Dante removed it, replacing it on its stand, leaving his age-thinned skin streaked with lines of blood.
The mask’s expression changed. The metal did not move. One instant it was one mask, the next, another. In its new iteration the eyes were open, and the serene expression accentuated by a knowing smile. A click emanated from behind the mask. It rattled on its stand then sank a little, displaying white stone in its eyes.
The shrine dropped noiselessly and swung back, opening up on a pitch-black corridor. Moist air blew over Dante’s face, carrying the sound of rasping metal upon it. Dante stepped forward onto a metal stair that led steeply down. Stars shone high overhead, although it was full day outside the monastery walls.
There was insufficient light for Dante to see, so he proceeded by touch and memory. The stairs were moving slowly, sweeping around in long, lazy arcs. As he descended a faint glow became apparent, enough to light other sets of stairs turning about each other in the vastness of the pit. Many terminated in platforms bearing ivory sarcophagi. These passed by Dante as pale smudges, but as he drew nearer to the source of light their details sharpened, revealing the great artistry that had gone into their creation. Each contained the mortal remains of one of the Chapter’s Chief Librarians. Scores of them, dating back to the dawn of the Imperium and the sundering of the IX Legion.
Metal hissed against metal as the stairs moved, passing through each other by cunning mechanical contrivance. Dante paused as they intersected; passing over the scissoring steps as they opened and snapped closed would have killed him.
Presently, he arrived at the source of light: a small number of platforms attended by glowing lumen orbs. The largest platform was furnished, containing a table and chairs and a large bookcase made of the same ivory as the caskets. Another supported Mephiston’s sarcophagus, attached to the usual machineries of blood purification required by living Blood Angels. A third bore Mephiston’s dread sword, Vitarus, suspended in a contragrav field. The last supported an armoury, where a blinded serf worked quietly upon a huge suit of armour.
‘You are the red angel I saw in the realm of the Lord of Blood. You are the harbinger of our doom,’ he said.
‘I am that and much more.’
The bloody angel swelled to enormous size, so that it dwarfed Mephiston, yet still retained the shape of a man. The helm receded, revealing a face of unsurpassed beauty. Gold crept over the red. Blond hair, much like Mephiston’s own, blew out in the wind. A titan was revealed, a lord of men, and yet he was human. All the sorrows of the world were expressed by his eyes. With a sharp snap, great white wings opened behind him, washing scented air over the Lord of Death.
A terrible understanding smote Mephiston’s hearts. He knew then he had failed an important test.
‘Sanguinius! My father, I did not know. I did not know.’
He fell to his knees.
‘Failure is not an option for any of us,’ said the Angel.
‘How? It is not possible,’ said Mephiston. He started to weep. Emotions he had not felt since before he was Calistarius swamped him. ‘This is not real. You cannot be him.’
‘It is not real,’ agreed the figure. ‘The warp is in turmoil. Things that were not possible before the Rift are possible now. The Warmaster Abaddon played a desperate gambit. He has unleashed forces that he can never control. The warp itself is not evil, always remember that, Mephiston. It is corrupted, but it contains everything, and that includes good as well as evil. It includes you.’
Behind the white wings the figures in the sky shrank. Still fighting, they descended from the heavens, in the process becoming no bigger than children, then smaller. As they diminished, so the image of Sanguinius grew, becoming a true giant, and a fearful halo blazed around his head, until the angels came to a halt either side of the vision, gold to the right and black to the left. Only then did the titanic angel cease to grow, and the angels let their swords hang by their sides. They looked blankly down on Mephiston.
‘My lord Sanguinius… I am sorry.’
The vision of the primarch smiled sadly down upon him. The angels blurred. They faded, and the last spectres of them were drawn within the primarch’s being.
‘I am not Sanguinius. Sanguinius is dead,’ said the thing that wore the primarch’s face. It smiled sorrowfully at the Lord of Death, then collapsed suddenly into a tsunami of blood that crashed down with the force of a falling mountain, drowning Mephiston in rich vitae. Upon its hot wave, he was carried thence out of the warp, and back into the realm of the living.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MEPHISTON PRIMARIS
Rhacelus watched as the cap of Mephiston’s skull was set back in place. Bone welders worked quickly to seal his braincase. The smell of hot meat filled the hall. He could feel nothing from his friend. His soul had fled.
‘The last implant is in place. Restart his hearts,’ said Qvo. ‘We must return circulation to his body. Begin reattaching his skin. Once it is in place and his hearts beat anew, the Belisarian Furnace will activate and finish our job for us.’
‘There is still no sign of brain activity, magos,’ said Corbulo.
‘We must work on, regardless,’ said Qvo.
Servitors replaced the Lord of Death’s black carapace, unwinding his nerves and replacing his neural ports with hands far steadier than a living man’s. Nozzles squirted adhesives to hold the pieces in place. When it was all attached, Mephiston’s flayed skin was retrieved from the nutrient vats and draped, dripping, over his exposed muscles.
The chirurgeon descended, legs cycling like a spider spinning out silk as it unwound yards of suturing thread. Needle-tipped legs darted at Mephiston’s flesh, pulling his hide together with near-invisible joins, as if the pieces of bloody skin were a pattern of cloth to be made into a suit. While the machine worked, his chest remained open to the air, his hearts still exposed.
‘He has been inactive too long, bring him back!’ Albinus demanded.
‘Not yet,’ said Qvo. ‘Begin his hearts.’
Rhacelus took an involuntary step forward. ‘His spirit is gone.’ His glowing eyes flashed. ‘It is too late.’
‘Can your chanting psykers reach him?’ asked Qvo.
‘Maybe,’ said Rhacelus.
‘Then call to him!’ said Qvo.
Rhacelus gave orders. The chant changed. The fatigued Librarians sang with cracked voices through bloody lips.
Medicae thralls brought cormeum stimulant paddles to the table. A generator wheezed into life. They positioned the paddles around the Lord of Death’s hearts and looked to the magos.
‘Now!’ Qvo shouted.
The generator buzzed and cracked. A jolt of power ran through Mephiston’s body. His body arched as his muscles fired, threatening to rip the seams of the reattached skin.
‘It is not working,’ Albinus said. ‘Qvo, do something!’
‘No, no, no!’ said Qvo-88. Machines blinked in alarm. Vital signs on screens ran flat. Piercing tones started up from one, then the others. Corbulo looked at him.
‘He is dead!’
‘Again!’ cried Qvo. His robes parted. Dozens of manipulators emerged, plugging into machines, turning dials, jabbing at buttons. ‘Now!’
Qvo watched a screen intently as another surge of energy raced through Mephiston’s body. Again, his body arched. His still skinless face grimaced blindly.
‘No, stop, it is done. He is dead, he is dead!’ said Albinus.
‘I will not!’ said Qvo. ‘They said Marneus Calgar would die, and he did not. Mephiston will live! You have a star in these vaults. I require a little of its power.’
‘Idalia will incinerate him,’ said Rhacelus.
‘Do it,’ said Dante.
‘My lord,’ said Rhacelus unsurely.
‘Do as I command,’ said Dante. ‘Give Qvo what he wants.’
Qvo’s servants quickly unrolled ribbed cabling and attached it to the glowing conduits running down the walls of the hall. They worked efficiently, completing their work before a minute was done.
‘Ready, magos,’ one said.
‘You had better do this, Corbulo,’ said Qvo. ‘A human body will not survive the motive force overspill from the cormeum shock. You might.’
‘I will do it,’ said Albinus. ‘He is my friend.’ He took the paddle handles from Qvo’s servant. ‘Ready.’
‘Release the star’s energy!’ Qvo commanded.
A tech-priest threw an enormous switch. It gave out a shower of sparks. Loops of charged gas writhed around it. The runs of light pouring down the walls flickered and dimmed. The machines shrieked. Several of them exploded. The hall of the Chemic Spheres was plunged into a ruddy gloom.
‘I cannot hear him, I cannot see him,’ Rhacelus said. ‘His soul is too deep into the warp.’
‘Now,’ said Qvo.
Albinus depressed the shock buttons.
A roaring flood of energy poured into the Lord of Death. His body danced on the table, ripping open his sutures. Yellow sparks rushed all over Albinus, who stood as long as he was able, his jaw locked, until with a cry he was thrown backwards, crashing into one of his human orderlies. The man fell down, his bones shattered, crushed by the Priest. The last of the machines blew out, spraying glass and plastek all over the floor. Fire sprang up on the cables siphoning power from the star.
The light dimmed further. Mephiston’s open chest steamed.
Corbulo went to the smoking corpse and pressed his gloved fingers against Mephiston’s neck. ‘His hearts are still not beating.’
‘The connections to the star are burned out. Our machines are destroyed,’ reported one of Qvo’s lesser priests.
‘That was our last chance to save him,’ said Albinus. He picked himself up from the dead man’s corpse. ‘You killed him.’
‘Magos?’ said Dante.
‘It should have worked,’ said Qvo. ‘It should have–’
A cry went up from one of the Librarians. A glow kindled in his open mouth and his eyes, then burst out in hot daggers of light. He fell dead. The chanting faltered. Another Librarian fell to his knees, clutching his head. The others continued to chant, but they were faltering.
‘By the Great Angel,’ said Rhacelus. ‘I feel him, he is coming back!’ But his face changed from joy to horror. ‘He is changed! By the Angel, what have we done?’ He looked at Dante. ‘We have failed in every way.’
The sound of immense wings beating filled the chamber. Once, twice, thrice.
Silence.
With a great bang, the conduits on the walls of the spheres burst. Fat trails of energy poured into the Chief Librarian. The Space Marines threw up their hands to their eyes as a ball of light as bright as the sun encased the body of Mephiston.
The orb lifted. Mephiston was a shadow in the fire.
The orb exploded.
A burst of energy washed over the room, knocking all present off their feet and sending the remains of the machinery slamming into the walls. The unmodified humans among them were lofted high into the air. Space Marines crashed into the walls. More of the Librarians fell, some unconscious, others dead.
The Sanguinary Guard struggled to keep themselves upright. They levelled their weapons at the entity before them, but few could shoot. A howling storm of witchfire raced around the chamber, ripping up everything and sending it whirling into the air. The conduits leading down from Idalia pulsed and flared.
Rhacelus leaned into the storm, keeping himself upright only by dint of his own formidable psychic talents. Others were not so fortunate. He felt the stirrings of the Black Rage in all of them, even in Dante, as the thing that had been Mephiston hovered over them.
At the eye of the storm he created, Mephiston flew, an angel of destruction. Through the searing light, Rhacelus saw his ribcage snap shut, and skin flow back over the parts of him not yet recovered. His hair grew out from his scalp even as it crawled back over his exposed skull. The black fires ignited and rushed upwards from his skin, filling the chamber and beating back the light of Idalia. Black lightning arced down from his hands, earthing itself in the ground.
Rhacelus had rarely felt such power. Mephiston’s being was a furnace of psychic and material energies mixed. As he watched, Mephiston’s silhouette darkened, and black wings opened behind him. Rhacelus had to kill Mephiston, but it was too late.
For a moment, Rhacelus saw the dreadful black angel manifest before him, and felt the screaming insanity of the warp wax strong in all the Blood Angels in the room. He heard the clatter of guns in ancient wars. He felt the wounds of fraternal hatred. He saw the leering face of a treacherous brother.
Then it stopped. The energies of the room expanded, then rushed in towards Mephiston in a screaming implosion. The crash it gave was a physical blow that crackled the walls of the hall of the Chemic Spheres, and knocked the Space Marines back again.
The angel of shadows was gone. The black fire went out. Mephiston floated down to the floor, naked and pristine, all his wounds from the procedure gone. Ever since Calistarius had died and Mephiston had taken his place, Rhacelus had found his friend sinister, with a harsh physical perfection that could never be called beauty, but this Mephiston was beautiful. Light shone from his alabaster skin. For a moment he looked like the images of Sanguinius found all over the fortress-monastery, only purer, more vital, than any statue could be.
Mephiston’s feet touched the floor. He stood amid the ruin, staring down at his hands. He was taller, stronger, perfect in form.
‘He lives. He is Primaris,’ whispered Albinus.
Quiet of a more natural sort fell. The moans of the injured and dying filled the space. The smell of blood tormented Rhacelus. He felt his fangs slide out of his gums. The images of the past danced at the edge of his vision. He wasn’t the only one. They all struggled.
Mephiston knelt and closed his eyes. As if he had shut off a valve, the visions ceased. The beginnings of the Rage vanished as quickly as they had come.
The people in the room recovered. Those medicae personnel still capable of movement went to the sides of their fallen comrades. Corbulo was hauled to his feet by Albinus. Qvo-88 limped forward, nursing broken mechanical arms against his chest.
‘We did it! Another marvellous success!’
He was shoved out of the way by Dante’s Sanguinary Guard, who formed around the Lord of Death, their Angelus boltguns aimed at his head, their swords presented to strike. The snap of activating power fields ran around their circle. Storms in miniature raged over the metal of their blades.
‘We should kill him,’ said Astorath, clambering to his feet. ‘We should be done with all this. He has always been a danger. Look at this!’
‘Wait,’ said Dante.
Mephiston knelt with his head bowed. The light of his rebirth had faded, but he still glowed a pure white in the red light of the hall. He was the image of a fallen angel.
Dante approached. His guard moved aside.
‘Mephiston,’ Dante said.
The Lord of Death did not respond.
‘Calistarius,’ Dante tried.
Mephiston looked up. ‘Not Calistarius. Not Mephiston. I am something else.’
‘You recognise me?’ said Dante.
‘I do. You are my lord and my brother. You are Dante.’
‘Whom do you serve?’ said Dante.
‘I serve the Librarius. I serve the Chapter. I serve the Emperor.’ He got to his feet. ‘I serve mankind.’
‘Rhacelus?’ Dante asked.
Rhacelus tentatively reached out with his mind. Mephiston’s psychic might was greater than ever, but something in his new body held it in check.
‘It is him, but is also not him,’ said Rhacelus.
‘Kill him,’ said Astorath. ‘Kill him while he is weak.’
‘Is he in control of his abilities?’ asked Dante.
‘At the moment, yes,’ said Rhacelus. He relaxed a little. ‘Welcome back, brother.’
‘I serve you, my lord,’ said Mephiston. ‘If you decree that I must die, then so be it.’
‘A remarkable success,’ said Qvo, coming to the fore. ‘Remarkable.’ He laughed uneasily. ‘The process works on your gene-line after all, Lord Dante.’
‘Look at the cost of your success, tech-priest,’ said Astorath, waving his hand around at the corpses lying in the wreckage of the room. ‘What is your command, lord?’ The High Chaplain hefted his axe.
Dante’s true expression was hidden behind Sanguinius’ howling visage. ‘Fetch Lord Mephiston his robes. Clear this space. Tend to the wounded. Rhacelus, reinstate the containment dome.’
Dante looked at Astorath.
‘Mephiston lives, for now.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HONESTY AMONG FRIENDS
The Sepulcrum Maleficus was not somewhere that Dante went often. He had been to the resting place of the Chief Librarians perhaps a dozen times in the long centuries he had commanded the Chapter, but for all the Librarius’ autonomy within the Blood Angels, when their Chapter Master requested entrance, the Librarians obeyed.
Dante went unarmoured to show his respect for Mephiston’s suffering, with his long white hair bound up in a supplicant’s knot.
A silent blood thrall with ink-stained fingers hurried Dante through the vast warren of the Librarius. Thousands of years of history was kept there, most of it written on painstakingly illuminated scrolls, and much of the thralls’ time in the Librarius was taken up with copying them before they decayed into dust. When not at war, the Librarians helped. There were more sophisticated methods of data capture, and the information was preserved in multiple ways, but doing things the hard way sharpened the mind and kept the Thirst at bay.
The thrall took Dante down a gloomy, vaulted corridor. It ended at a blood-drip-shaped alcove containing a candlelit shrine, the chief feature of which was a beautiful golden death mask upon a marble plinth. When they reached the shrine the thrall bowed, waited for Dante to give his leave, then hurried away without a word.
Dante stared into the closed eyes of the mask. Its expression displayed such a sense of serenity it never failed to move him.
He took it from the plinth and placed it on his face. He jolted a little as hundreds of needles on the inside pierced his skin. The mask warmed, and Dante removed it, replacing it on its stand, leaving his age-thinned skin streaked with lines of blood.
The mask’s expression changed. The metal did not move. One instant it was one mask, the next, another. In its new iteration the eyes were open, and the serene expression accentuated by a knowing smile. A click emanated from behind the mask. It rattled on its stand then sank a little, displaying white stone in its eyes.
The shrine dropped noiselessly and swung back, opening up on a pitch-black corridor. Moist air blew over Dante’s face, carrying the sound of rasping metal upon it. Dante stepped forward onto a metal stair that led steeply down. Stars shone high overhead, although it was full day outside the monastery walls.
There was insufficient light for Dante to see, so he proceeded by touch and memory. The stairs were moving slowly, sweeping around in long, lazy arcs. As he descended a faint glow became apparent, enough to light other sets of stairs turning about each other in the vastness of the pit. Many terminated in platforms bearing ivory sarcophagi. These passed by Dante as pale smudges, but as he drew nearer to the source of light their details sharpened, revealing the great artistry that had gone into their creation. Each contained the mortal remains of one of the Chapter’s Chief Librarians. Scores of them, dating back to the dawn of the Imperium and the sundering of the IX Legion.
Metal hissed against metal as the stairs moved, passing through each other by cunning mechanical contrivance. Dante paused as they intersected; passing over the scissoring steps as they opened and snapped closed would have killed him.
Presently, he arrived at the source of light: a small number of platforms attended by glowing lumen orbs. The largest platform was furnished, containing a table and chairs and a large bookcase made of the same ivory as the caskets. Another supported Mephiston’s sarcophagus, attached to the usual machineries of blood purification required by living Blood Angels. A third bore Mephiston’s dread sword, Vitarus, suspended in a contragrav field. The last supported an armoury, where a blinded serf worked quietly upon a huge suit of armour.
