The Ghost Halls

  L J Goulding

  Though the Purifiers had been prepared to stand in solemn vigil for as long as necessary, the xenos arrived after only thirty-seven days.

  Their sleek craft ghosted out of the void like silent hunters in the night. The strike cruiser Argent Sceptre hung at anchor above the glittering false horizon with its weapons trained and ready, but her serf crews did not open fire. Instead they allowed the eldar vessels to cut graceful lines across her prow and flanks, circling in an aggressive but carefully postured void-dance.

  Brother-Captain Pelenas watched as the display drew on overhead. The pitted crystal of the great atmospheric dome above him scattered and distorted the starlight, but the predatory shadows of the xenos craft glided over the surface as they broke off and moved towards the nearest docking ports. They would have known that the Space Marines were waiting for them – armed and armoured, and ready for combat – and yet they had come regardless.

  Pelenas had never seen an eldar in person. Not living, anyway.

  The old-incense reek of the ancient halls was disturbed by the smooth equalisation of pressure from the alien void-locks, somewhere beyond the curve of the debris-strewn passageway, and the Purifiers took up position around their captain. With helms sealed in place and swords drawn, they waited in grim silence.

  There was no bustle of insertion, no clamour of booted feet. The aliens moved quickly and quietly, picking their way between scarred wraithbone columns and the remains of long-dead tyranid bio-forms that still littered the craftworld.

  Vanguard warriors appeared out of the gloom – their chameleon-cloaks rendered them all but invisible to the naked eye, but their guarded souls burned hot in Pelenas’s psychic sight.

  The eldar were outraged. Vengeful. Filled with sorrow and anguish.

  It was difficult to track all of them as they spread out, securing the ruined dome. Some of the more twitchy battle-brothers started to edge into a tighter defensive formation, but Pelenas waved them back. With his blade resting upon the deck, he stood in his scarred Terminator battleplate, ready to receive the xenos delegation.

  There were five of them in all. Bedecked in long, flowing robes and crystalline hoods, they strode into the hall flanked by a dozen more guardian warriors armed with projectile rifles. Pelenas noted the runic talismans, the gemstones and intricate psi-webbing that festooned the seers’ panoply; though he did not doubt that their mastery was great, they put him in mind of nothing more than primitive totem-shamans. They regarded him with the cold, blue glare of their faceless masks as they approached.

  The leading seer – a particularly lithe creature carrying a great staff that struck the deck noisily with every fifth step that he took – pointed at Pelenas with a slender finger.

  ‘Your presence here is a travesty, human,’ he uttered in harshly accented but flawless Gothic. ‘You trespass upon our domain. The lost souls of Craftworld Malan’tai – after the doom that has already been heaped upon them, how much more must they suffer at the hands of your ignoble breed?’

  The delegation drew up before the Purifiers, surrounded by their guardians. Even armed for war, the eldar were as consumptive children before the hulking Space Marines.

  Pelenas removed his helm, and handed it off to one of his brothers. ‘I am Brother-Captain Ornhem Pelenas, of the Grey Knights Chapter Adeptus Astartes,’ he said, ‘and I must beg your worthy forgiveness. I have no quarrel with you or your kind, xenos, and no servant of the Imperium knows the horrors of the warp better than the battle-brothers of Titan.’

  Planting his blade before him, he and the Purifiers knelt as one in supplication before the startled seer council. For a long while, the hall was utterly silent.

  The captain drew a simple cloth bag from his belt, and held it out before him. It rattled with the handful of plucked eldar soul-stones that it contained – those that Pelenas had personally wrested from the hungry grasp of the warp-beasts that had overrun Malan’tai.

  ‘As was our message to you, we traced our daemonic enemies to this place, though I fear we arrived too late to save all the imprisoned spirits of your kinsmen. Our foe is vanquished for now, but this is your holy ground, and we have indeed besmirched it with our presence. I would not sully it further by leaving it unattended and open to the depredations of those-that-wait-beyond.’

  The eldar were clearly staggered, though their discipline was enough that they managed to remain quietly aloof in spite of it. An attendant seer stepped forward and took the stones from Pelenas with a reverential nod, which the captain returned.

  The leader of the delegation slid back his featureless visor, and bid the Grey Knights to rise. ‘Forgive me, Pelenas of Titan. We are... unused to seeing your kind, unless it be upon the field of war. The respect that you do us here is great, and will not be forgotten by the living or the dead.’ He gestured to his guardians, who parted to clear the way to the void-locks. ‘You will be accorded safe passage to your starship, and an escort from this system. As our honoured guests, if there is anything else you would have in return for this kindness, name it now.’

  Pelenas drew a long, calming breath. When he spoke again, his voice was edged with bitterness.

  ‘There is nothing that you can offer us, xenos, except to know that we suffered greatly in preserving this place for you. The most noble of our number is fallen...’

  He took his proffered helm, and gazed into its dark retinal lenses.

  ‘If you would praise the architect of Malan’tai’s deliverance, then remember he who gave his life most selflessly to defend it. He martyred himself so that we – so that I – might live to fight on against the daemon-spawn.’

  The seer nodded.

  ‘So shall it be. This warrior shall be noted in the annals of my people.’

  Pelenas replaced his helm with a snap-hiss of pressurisation, and made to leave with his battle-brothers. ‘Then always remember the name of Anval Thawn.’

  The eldar’s eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, and he faltered for a moment before glancing at his fellow seers. Pelenas caught a flicker of alarm in the creature’s aura, before it was swallowed once more in a careful projection of calm indifference, and his alien features broke in a forced simulacrum of a smile.

  ‘So shall it be.’

  The spiritseer’s haste was evident. Returned to his own craftworld and with the waystones of Malan’tai restored to the infinity circuit, he now made for the farseer enclave.

  He alone had been made emissary for the council. The message that he bore was simple, but filled with grave import. They would need to know.

  ‘The mon-keigh have rediscovered the last Perpetual – Anval Thawn has ascended to the ranks of the Grey Knights. I await your guidance.’

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  L J Goulding has written many stories for Black Library, including ‘The Great Maw’, ‘Last Watch’ and ‘The Oberwald Ripper’. By day he works as a member of Black Library’s editorial team, proving that an obsessive and encyclopaedic knowledge of the Horus Heresy can be a useful thing after all. He lives in Nottingham, UK.

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  L J Goulding, The Ghost Halls

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