Ahriman: Sorcerer (26 page)

‘Ahriman!’ shouted Izdubar, and the figure glanced back at them as he placed a hand on the centre of the circular door. Cendrion fired and bolts hammered into Ahriman’s back. He slammed into the door, chunks ripping from his armour’s backpack, sparks crawling from the exposed fuel core. He did not fall, though. He pushed and the doors, the doors that had no key, opened.

The chamber beyond the door was circular. Niches of rolled parchments and stacked books lined the curved walls. At the centre of the circular chamber a lectern of iron and brass rose from the black glass floor. A figure sat atop the lectern. It had been a man once. Cendrion could see that at a glance, but its humanity was now just a shell of dry, translucent skin and wasted muscle. Cataract-clouded eyes stared down from sunken eye sockets. A single arm moved across the roll of parchment on top of the lectern, writing in a stuttering blur. A circle of nine figures in grey robes surrounded the lectern. Silver masks with one eye hid their faces.

This was the secret Izdubar and his comrades had kept chained here, a conduit into the mind of a fallen demigod. This was the Athenaeum of Kalimakus. Ahriman stood on its threshold, seemingly frozen.

Cendrion ran forward, still firing. Rounds ripped into Ahriman, flaying his armour to splinters. Ahriman staggered, almost falling, but somehow remaining upright. The grey figures pressed closer to the lectern. He looked at the grey-robed circle for an instant then raised his pistol.

‘No!’ screamed Izdubar. Ahriman fired. The burst of explosive rounds turned the grey figures into clouds of fire, blood and splintered bone. The psychic deadness vanished. The withered man on the lectern looked up, jaws working to shout with a tongueless mouth. Ahriman’s shot hit the withered man in the mouth and blew his skull to vapour.

A long, delayed instant filled Cendrion. Then the warp crashed back like a storm tide. Blue fire burst into the air around the lectern at the chamber’s centre. Turquoise flames rushed up the walls and spilled over the floor. Cendrion saw it in his mind as well as with his eyes. It looked like a flock of birds rising into the sky, their feathers burning as they flew.

Ahriman turned to face them. The pistol dropped from his hand. Beside and behind him Cendrion heard the immobile suits of armour come to life with a clatter of arming guns.

XX

Sorcery

Fire danced in Ignis’s mind as death cradled Apollonia. There was not even the semblance of order now. In his mind’s eye a dozen torpedoes hit the
Sycorax
and blew out a chunk of hull the size of a city. Debris rode on the fire wave. Thousands of bodies burned and tumbled beside the shredded stone and metal. The ship was taking some killing. Beyond and around it ships spun and died. In the warp the storm wave was cresting.

He was holding it all in his mind now, feeling the ratios narrow. They were running out of time. The storm had to break and it had to break now.

The
Word of Hermes
fired again. Lines of lance fire sliced into the open wounds in the
Sycorax
. Ignis heard things that had lived in the ship’s bones begin to shriek into the warp. The storm answered. Blossoms of livid light spilled into the darkness between blazing ships. Rainbow lightning crackled across the darkness.

But where was Ahriman? No matter, the pattern of ruin could not be stopped now. In front of his eyes the
Sycorax
began to crack and burn.

+Brothers,+ his thought voice roared into the storm, and found the minds he called. They were all Thousand Sons, all brothers to him and Ahriman, and while the rest of the fleet had torn itself apart they had remained untouched. They had not known why, but they had Ahriman’s orders, and now they answered Ignis as one. He called them and they began to converge on the
Word of Hermes
.

Ignis turned his thoughts to the ship and found the shivering mind of Silvanus the Navigator.

+Look to the warp, Navigator. The moment approaches.+

‘There is no way out. There is no way out,’ moaned the Navigator. Ignis had a flash vision of the man curled against his cell wall, hands covering his head. ‘They are coming.’

+I command you,+ sent Ignis, but the Navigator pitched his head up and screamed.

‘They are coming!’

Ignis felt the storm force rising, felt the elements of the pattern slip towards alignment. He reached deeper into the warp and realised that he had been wrong. It was not the storm that the Navigator had seen.

The first Imperial ship broke from the warp with a flash of tearing reality. A second later the sisters of its fleet followed.

The Grey Knights came for Astraeos as he broke through a door into a high chamber of vaulted stone and polished granite. Statues looked down at him from the bases of great pillars, their faces set in cold marble and their armour tarnished bronze. Braziers hung from chains which stretched from the roof, and the smell of incense clung to the air. Skulls stared at him from brackets on the walls and from crystal-covered niches in the floor.

There were four Grey Knights. The first Astraeos knew of them was a shiver in the air like a sudden gust of wind. Then they were there, their shining presences looming out of the warp. They charged across the chamber, armour moving like slab muscle, bolt-rounds spitting from the guns on their wrists. Astraeos’s kine shield snapped into existence around him. Explosions filled the air in front of him, but the Grey Knights had been fast, very fast. A bolt ripped his shoulder to bloody shreds and pitched him from his feet. Chunks of his bare muscle tore from his bones, blood misting the air around him as he fell. The wounds were already closing as his blood spattered the floor.

He hit the ground, rolled and came to his feet as the Grey Knights cut through his kine shield with a synchronised shrug of mental force. The telekinetic shield imploded with a blink of lightning. Astraeos reeled with the impact, and had time to leap back as the edge of a sword sliced down towards his head. They were all around him, cutting towards him from every angle. Golden nimbuses of light grew above the Grey Knights, flowing together as their powers joined, feeding each other, caging him between them. The warp was singing with high clear voices. Time slowed to a greasy crawl. The instants that were about to be, and the instants that would be, became one. A halberd spun up and sliced down so fast that it was a circle sheet of white light.

Astraeos’s mind spiralled up into the chains holding the braziers high above, and shattered them with a thought. The cages of coals fell, broken lengths of chains lashing behind them. The first brazier struck one of the Grey Knights in a roar of twisting iron and spilling embers. Time blinked back into full flow. The Grey Knight struck by the brazier reeled back, shards of red coal cascading down silver armour. Astraeos ducked closer to the staggering Terminator. The blades of the other Grey Knights sliced through air.

The other braziers hit the floor in explosions of sparks and shattered stone. Astraeos caught the severed lengths of chains with his mind before they touched the ground. Frost crystals glittered in the air. The chains whipped around a Grey Knight’s halberd and flicked up his arms. The chains flashed with heat. Astraeos saw the Grey Knight’s mind begin to react a second too late. A glowing tip of chain hit the red crystal of the Grey Knight’s eyepiece, and punched through into the eye and brain beneath. The Grey Knight fell, blood turning to steam as it gushed over the hot links of chain.

The three remaining Grey Knights brought their storm bolters up as one and fired. Astraeos leapt. The warp flowed through muscle and fibre. Heat and shrapnel lashed his back as he landed and spun. Fire-edged blood scattered from him as his mind snapped the chains taut, pulling the halberd from the dead knight’s grasp. The weapon spun, a blur in the air around Astraeos’s glowing form. Lightning spat from the three remaining Grey Knights. Astraeos’s mind grasped the crackling arc as it formed, and yanked it out of being. The lightning vanished.

Astraeos snapped the halberd out. The blade was cold, its psycho-active core quiet, but it was still sharp. It struck the lead Grey Knight on the helm. His head turned just before the blade struck. The edge bit into the forehead plate, gouged upwards and slammed into the helmet’s crown. The chain and blade yanked back, and the helm was wrenched from the Grey Knight’s face. Astraeos saw dark eyes in a scarred face. He faltered. In his head he saw the fortress of his Chapter crumbling in fire.

The Grey Knight tore the remainder of his ruined helm from his head.

The air was shimmering around Astraeos, weeping liquid light and colour. He could hear sounds crackling like burning leaves of parchment. Louder but more distant, the voices of Cadar, Thidias and Kadin were shouting over the sound of the sky falling in fire in an unchangeable past.

The fire of his memory formed in the air, black-edged and red-cored. It shot towards the Grey Knights, spreading out as it grew, and the fire swallowed them. Astraeos felt a formless roar break from his mouth.

The fire drained away. Astraeos heard his cry of triumph die in the air. The Grey Knights walked from the flames, silver armour stained red and streaked black by the flames that soaked into it like water into sand. They seemed to move slowly, as though they were walking to a different beat of time. Their golden auras were flowing together, overlapping, becoming one. Astraeos felt a breath form in his throat. The spinning chains and halberd were moving in stopped-time rotations.

Golden wings unfolded in the air around the Grey Knights, first two, then more and more. Astraeos watched the shape grow in slow slices of seconds. It was a thought form, a projection of a mind on the fabric of the warp, but this was like nothing he had ever dreamed could exist. It was not one mind but many, the powers and wills of all three Grey Knights unified and harmonised. As he beheld it Astraeos found the one thought in his mind was of an idea old before the stars were conquered.

An angel,
he thought.
An angel of execution.

A single high note rang in his ears.

Time in the real world stopped. The chamber bled to the edge of his eyes, and the warp was all there was, more real than real.

The Grey Knights’ thought form rippled, white light shivering from its edges.

Voices, both old and new, poured into his mind.

We are not made by our blood,
said a voice at the centre of his thoughts. It was cold, calm, like a steel blade. He knew it very well, but still it seemed strange, as though it belonged to another person. It was his voice, speaking from his past.
We are made by our oaths.

Astraeos’s mind rose into the warp. The angel’s thought form dived.

Astraeos’s thought form took shape as it flew. For a second it was like the shadow of a bird, its beak and eyes a flash of cold light. Then that brief shadow was gone. A serpentine body of smoke and fireglow stretched into the warp. Scales of silver ice flickered into existence. Wings of bone and fire spread behind a long saurian head.

But when all others are broken, one oath will always remain.

Astraeos roared, and flame greeted the descending angel.

The oath to defy defeat.

Fire burst across the golden feathers, and spun away in glinting spirals.

To defy to the last.

The angel struck.

Astraeos’s thought form shattered.

The Rubricae fired as one. Crawling blue fire burst across the Grey Knights as they ran towards Ahriman. The flames ran together, flashing white hot as the Rubricae continued to fire. Ahriman rose into the blazing air. Behind him the Athenaeum chamber roared as the inferno grew.

The warp fire engulfed Ahriman. He felt it flow over his armour and skin. He felt the runes etched in his armour twist, felt his bones judder inside his flesh. His mind was tumbling away from his body, burning and melting like a ball of wax in a furnace. The bloody silk of his robe whipped in the gale as the fire reached up to cradle him. Tendrils of flame wormed across his body, writhing across the stump of his arm and the gouges in his flesh. Flesh bubbled up in the wounds, before armour spread across them like liquid. It felt like breaking the surface of water after going to the edge of drowning. Sensation and light whirled through his mind as the warp fire prickled the edge of his thoughts. Part of him just wanted to let it race through him, to let its currents lift him. There were voices rushing from the burning chamber, whispering in the voices of lost friends and dead brothers.

‘Listen to us,’ they said. ‘Listen to all we can tell you of what was and what will come.’

He shut the instinct away, pushing it deep within. He needed calm now. It came, and with it he felt his mind spread through the aether. Patterns of thought amplified. He looked at the reformed flesh of his hand as the armour hardened over it again. He lifted his fingers to his mouth, and wiped the half-dried blood from his lips.

The Rubricae marched from the flames before the door, blue armour cast black in the stark light. Ahriman reached down with a thought and pulled the crumpled form of Sanakht into the air with him.

Blackened figures broke from the blazing corridor behind Ahriman. He felt Cendrion’s sword as it cut through a Rubricae. The split armour fell to the ground. A high-pitched wail stabbed into Ahriman’s thoughts. The armour began to judder and dissolve into grey dust.

The rest of the Rubricae turned to fire at Cendrion, but he was already moving, already hacking two more down. Beyond him Ahriman saw Izdubar break from the fire, and with him more Grey Knights.

He reached out with his mind and yanked the Rubricae and Sanakht through the door into the Athenaeum chamber. The Grey Knights surged forwards. Ahriman slammed the bronze door shut. Its edges glowed, fusing to the stone. The Rubricae hit the flame-covered floor with a clatter. Ahriman turned to look at Sanakht, still held above the ground by his will.

Sanakht’s skin was pale, but his eyes were open. Behind him the pillar of blue and golden flames at the centre of the chamber roared as it sucked in air. Ahriman could see nothing else with his mind, just the rushing infinity of knowledge pouring from the warp into reality, looking for a vessel.

‘The Athenaeum is not a book, brother,’ said Ahriman, his true voice rising above the rushing air. ‘It was not the books of Kalimakus, it was Kalimakus himself, his link to Magnus. It is a river of knowledge, ever seeking for a way into the world. It consumes all those who dip their minds into its water. But a son of Magnus could perhaps be a strong enough vessel to last longer. That is the fate treachery bought you. You will become the Athenaeum, my brother.’

‘Always teaching,’ sneered Sanakht. He began to laugh. ‘Everything you try will fail, Ahriman. That you do not know why only makes you more the fool.’

Ahriman’s jaw tightened.

The laughter died in Sanakht’s throat.

‘Do not say that you are sorry,’ he said.

Ahriman shook his head.

‘More than you will ever know,’ said Ahriman, and sent his brother into the heart of the fire with a thought.

The Imperial fleet spread out as it closed on Apollonia. Dozens of vessels churned the void as they dropped from the warp. Most were warships summoned by the power of the Inquisition. They bore new names for this service, names that spoke to the intent of their purpose.
Wish of Purgation
,
Seventh Judgement
,
Damnation’s Answer
: if they survived this battle their crews would go to the fire, and their hulls would be reconsecrated under their old names. But for now they existed only as the tools of the Inquisition’s judgement.

Amongst them ships of three Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes broke from the aether together. The
Immortalis
was a daughter of the Jovian forges bound to the Black Consuls; beside her rode the
First Oath
, battle-barge of the Praetors of Orpheus, and the vast Brazen Claws battle-barge
Sunderer
. Called by old oaths they moved forwards as the fleet spread to their sides.

Ignis watched the scene play out in his mind, and across the lenses of his helmet. The Imperial ships began to fire into the already scattered remains of Ahriman’s fleet. He started to count vessels, and calculate arcs. The fires of battle brightened. The ships of his Thousand Sons brothers were close now, clustered around the
Word of Hermes
. It was the renegades, the scattered ships of the mongrel warbands that took the opening salvoes. Some of the ships broke away and raced towards the Imperial fleet, bleeding and firing ragged broadsides as they went to their deaths.