Ahriman: Exile (23 page)

Kadin felt his hand tense to snap closed, then he breathed out and dropped Maroth to the floor. He looked down at the broken being that had once been a man, and then a Space Marine, and now was just a creature. He watched as Maroth patted at his cracked armour like an animal licking a wounded paw. He could see nothing of the strength of a warrior, nothing of the pride of the gene-seed and tradition that had once made Maroth. He saw only filthy armour hiding a body within that had nothing left to it but the next breath coming from its mouth.

‘We are the abyss’s hollow children, you and I,’ said Maroth, and cocked his head as if waiting. Kadin watched him for a heartbeat and turned to walk away. After a second Maroth scrambled after the sound of footsteps.

Ahriman shook. Blood had run from his eyes and dried in long brown runnels across his cheeks. Sweat sheened his skin and his mouth was numb with repeating the same phrases for days.

But this place has no days
, he thought.
No days and no nights. Just the slow-moving surge of thoughts and emotion, rising, spiralling, and falling, like the deep tides of an ocean, like the winds of Terra, like the sway of a forest
.

He realised that his focus had slipped, and that the next ritual phrase had almost caught in his throat. He forced his mind back into the rote pattern, and aligned his heartbeat to the rhythm of the words coming from his dry mouth.

He sat on the bare metal floor of the viewing tower where he and Astraeos had looked towards the Cadian Gate. Black iron shutters closed off the view beyond the crystal dome above. The only sound was that of his slow breaths. A polished circle of silver hung in front of him, suspended by his will, its surface rippling with the reflected light of another world. He gazed into the mirror surface, watching patterns form, his mind shifting between remembered stores of symbolism.

+Reduce engine output by two-fifths. Allow us to drift for six seconds then continue on previous vector.+ The effort of the sending forced fresh sweat to bead his bare arms and chest. He felt Carmenta understand the message, and sensed the
Titan Child
’s engines dim in response. Astraeos sat opposite him, mouth closed, his mind syphoning strength into Ahriman. Even with such support, scrying their route towards the Cadian Gate was draining Ahriman to the point of delirium.

They were travelling a relatively short distance, at least in terms of real space. In the warp, though, distance meant nothing. Thought, emotion, imagination and dreams were more real than anything physical. A true Navigator was able to look directly into that unreal realm and read its tides. Ahriman knew that what he did was a shadow of that ability. Where a Navigator saw the warp directly, Ahriman was looking at an echo captured by ritual and interpreted by symbolism. It was as crude as the ancients divining the course of the future in the coiling of smoke, or the way that sand fell from a child’s hand.

Yet crude or not, it took his entire mind to avoid the reefs and storm tides of the warp before the ship hit them. He had not blinked since they had entered the warp. He could not; one missed instant of perception would end them all.

On the scrying mirror the patterns of light and colour shifted suddenly and he felt his mind reel. A wave of dizziness and nausea rose from his guts, and he fought it down, focusing on the changing patterns and colours. He clawed for understanding of what he was seeing. Then, without warning, he had clarity.

+Exit. Now.+ The thought blurted from his mind, and a second later he felt a slippery sensation beneath his skin as the
Titan Child
dived back into real space. Ahriman did not move; in his mind the oracular calculations spun on like cogs driven by a still-tense spring. The scrying mirror still swirled with colour and light.

‘We have made translation,’ came Carmenta’s voice over the chamber vox-speaker. Ahriman did not blink. His consciousness was fading; only the rote processes he had held steady in his mind while guiding the ship were still running. On the polished silver of the mirror a shape appeared, like a shadow cast through mist.

What is this? What am I seeing?
The thoughts formed in Ahriman’s mind, but the momentum of his ritual had unwound, and blackness rose from within to claim him. His eyes closed and he slumped back. The mirror fell to the floor and shattered.

He lay on the stone floor and dreamed of shadows shaped like men, and soft voices telling him to forget.

He opened his eyes hours later to see stars looking down at him from beyond crystal. Astraeos had gone. He picked himself up, his head aching in bright stars behind his eyes. He limped to the vox-speaker and thumbed it to life.

‘Ahriman?’ Fatigue filled Carmenta’s voice.

‘Where are we?’

‘We are stationary in real space.’ Silence crackled from the speaker-grille, and then she spoke again. ‘I can see Cadia, Ahriman. We are close enough that I can see the light of its star.’

‘Good,’ he said, and was already moving. He was tired, but they had to prepare. There was no time for the doubts of dreams.

XIII

Clockwork

‘Signal. Partial. Imperial probable. Minimal energy output. Additional energy readings indicate weapons fire, field and hull damage.’ The servitor finished its monologue of information and went silent. On the circular command platform of the
Lord of Mankind
Inquisitor Selandra Iobel registered the report with a pursing of her lips. It was unexpected, but then nothing in the Eye of Terror was totally predictable, even on its margins. They would need to decide what to do, and quickly. That did not please her; hasty decisions had a habit of being regretted later.

They were on course for Cadia, its star shining several weeks of real space travel away. No one, not even an Inquisitorial augur mission, dropped from the warp close to Cadia, at least not if they expected to survive. So the
Lord of Mankind
pushed through the void like a sea voyager of old returning to port after a storm. Iobel wanted to see that fortress system again, to not be on constant alert, be free of the chronotrap, and allow herself to be tired. Above all she looked forward to being free of her damned armour. Fire-orange lacquer covered its plates, and the outlines of angel wings, raptor heads and rayed suns spread across its surface in lines of black iron. She shifted in her seat, unconsciously trying to release slowly cramping muscles. She had worn the battle plate for weeks, and it had begun to feel like a hand clamped over her skin. Not that there was any choice. Every member of the crew wore armour; it was a necessity.

She turned to look at her two peers. Inquisitor Erionas sat on his brass throne, his eyes closed above the rebreather that covered the lower part of his face. He wore graphite-grey armour sculpted across the chest to resemble flayed musculature. A spread of thick cables connected his throne to the cogitator towers that ran down the centre of the command chamber. Iobel could see light playing across the inside of Erionas’s eyelids. He gave no sign of having heard the servitor’s report, but she knew he had; he heard everything. On her other side Malkira sat on her own seat of polished bone. The thrones were tiresomely symbolic, of course. Iobel’s own throne was silver, but no more comfortable for it. A hunched figure crouched to the right hand of each throne, its features hidden by red robes woven with sacred names.

Malkira gave a blood-wetted cough, her usual preface to speech. ‘We should ignore it.’ Iobel turned to look at Malkira, and was met by the inquisitor’s black eyes glinting back at her from the wrinkled skull of her face. ‘Time is running low.’ Malkira raised a hand and tapped the chronotrap fixed to the chest of her pearl-white armour. Cogwork whirled behind the circular pane of crystal. Iobel glanced down at the brass frame of her own chronotrap, her eyes reading the movement of the numerals etched into the silver and brass cogs.

‘You are correct,’ said Iobel.

‘Of course I am,’ snapped Malkira, and coughed again. The rhythmic pumping of the life-sustaining systems built into the crone’s armour became louder. ‘We are risking too much if we divert our course now. A few more weeks and the data will be secure.’

‘You don’t need to convince me,’ said Iobel.

‘No,’ said Erionas. Both Iobel and Malkira turned to look at him. He had not moved, and his eyes were still closed. ‘We should divert course to investigate.’ His voice crackled out of the vox-grilles set into his respirator.

‘Ridiculous,’ sneered Malkira, her lips peeling back from her silver teeth.

‘No.’ Erionas’s voice held no emotion. Iobel had heard him order the razing of cities with an equally dead voice. ‘This is an opportunity. I have accessed the scanner readouts. The ship is of unusual construction. It’s definitely Imperial, in my opinion. Psyocculum assessment says that it has been deep within the Eye. Yet it does not exhibit macro levels of malign warping. A culling of its data stores could tell us much.’

‘Or get us all killed in the sight of safety,’ spat Malkira.

‘Safety is not why we came here.’ Erionas let that reminder sit in the silence.

He was right, of course, Iobel could not deny it. They were an augur expedition, a ship sent into the Eye to gather information on its nature and current state. The data and lore they carried in their warded stacks was beyond value. It was a glimpse of the face of their enemy, one that might warn them of growing threats, or reveal weaknesses.

Such expeditions were dangerous in the extreme, and the possibilities of attack and violent death were the most minor of the risks they faced. The Eye itself was toxic to the soul and body. Warp energy and matter overlapped in the Eye, and physical laws became thinned to the point of non-existence. At the edges of the Eye a weak skin still existed between the two realms, but at its heart nightmare reigned unchallenged. To venture even partway into the Eye risked corruption.

The
Lord of Mankind
had been crafted specially to make such a voyage. Prayers and wards had been etched into every plate and rivet of her hull. Psychic dispersers and null generators ran through her structure. Any part of the ship could be sealed and flooded with nerve gas should the systems detect an intrusion. Most of the crew were servitors, and almost all of the human crew were kept in stasis until needed. All but the three inquisitors would be executed on return to the Imperium. The risk of corruption was too high. All of them knew this, and yet all still served. It was a fact that caused Iobel to feel puzzlement and admiration every time she looked into the face of one of the doomed but dutiful crew.

But the warp not only corrupted, it also made a mockery of time. It was possible for an expedition to spend a handful of months in the Eye and return to Cadia thousands of years later, or seconds after they left, or in the past. There was also no guarantee that all of those on the ship were experiencing the same amount of time. So each member of the crew wore a chronotrap, and more were set into the structure of the ship. The traps measured subjective time and exposure to the substance of the warp, slicing it away in a million cog clicks.

‘There is no time,’ said Malkira, tapping the chronotrap set onto her breast. Iobel felt the fluttering whir of her own chronotrap send a small vibration through her armour.

‘Incorrect. Temporal distortion across this volume is falling, and we are within exposure levels. We approach, send a recovery mission, return and continue on to Cadia. In and out, as soldiers say.’ Erionas paused, as if enjoying his use of such a phrase. ‘We have risked much, why not a little more?’

Malkira snorted. After a handful of heartbeats they both turned to look at Iobel.

She knew it would come to this. ‘Agreed,’ she said. ‘We will investigate with caution.’ Malkira scowled, but began hissing orders to servitors and crew. Iobel was sure Erionas was smiling behind his respirator.

The
Titan Child
lay in the void, its hull gently revolving on an irregular axis. Grey clouds of gas and atomised liquid hung around its bulk, expanding slowly like warm breath expelled into cold night air.

‘This is ill-advised,’ said Astraeos, and glanced towards Carmenta. She ignored him. Connected by a trunk of cables to the ship, it was easy to let the activity in the hold fall into the background of her awareness. It was not a full interface, the systems here did not allow for that; her mind was still her own, but she could feel the rumbling dreams of the
Titan Child
, and touch its heart. It was reassuring, like knowing someone was close to you as you slept. The ship was half dormant, its injuries allowed to bleed energy and waste into the void. She felt the tug of its slumber, even as she controlled its steady beat.

‘The Imperial ship is on an intercept course,’ said Ahriman without looking up from where he knelt on the deck. ‘Our alternatives at this point are limited.’ He was armoured again. The azure lacquer reflected the stab lights suspended above. A white tabard covered his torso and hung around his legs. Parchments hung from his shoulder guards, covered in script Carmenta did not understand. A design spiralled out from where he knelt, its curves and sinuous symbols burned into the deck with a melta torch. It spanned the width of the hold, ranging across hundreds of metres of metal plating. It had taken days, and Ahriman had laboured alone until now. At the tip of his hand she saw the white heat of a flame spark and then vanish.

‘We may not survive the damage,’ said Astraeos. Like Carmenta, he stood on a hoist suspended a foot off the hold’s floor.

‘We certainly won’t survive another way,’ said Ahriman. Astraeos looked as if he were about to say something else, but remained silent. His armour was an echo of Ahriman’s, but Carmenta could not shake the feeling that it looked temporary, as if the blue painted over the pitted battle plate would flake off to reveal the old bronze beneath.

They are both right,
thought Carmenta.
This plan will probably kill us all, but we have no choice.
Wait until a ship came close enough to become curious. Cripple its engines with a surprise weapons strike. Then Ahriman, Kadin and Astraeos would board the stranded ship and take what they had come for. Then run again. It was simple, but it rested so much on chance and luck that Carmenta could feel herself recoiling from the risk, not least because of Ahriman’s method of boarding their prey.

He will kill us
, said a voice inside her.
He has nearly done so many times over. He is our destruction
. She suppressed her worries with a shiver. At least they had been lucky in one respect. They could have waited months or years for a ship to pass close enough to notice them and decide to have a closer look. In fact it had only taken a few weeks.

‘The Imperial ship is closing, and transmitting hailing codes.’ She could feel the cipher codes itching across the
Titan Child
’s systems. The signals felt aggressive, like a challenge shouted at a figure seen on the edge of light.
They are right to be cautious,
she thought.

‘Why do they hail us? We are a near dead wreck in their eyes, are we not?’ asked Astraeos.

‘They are seeing if there are any survivors or active response systems,’ she said.

‘If they find any signs that the ship is not as dead as it seems…’

‘They won’t.’ She had prepared for weeks, setting systems and machinery to function in broken spasmodic rhythms, and the largest part of the
Titan Child
’s wrecked appearance was no illusion. The encounter at the dead station meant that the
Titan Child
was in many ways what she seemed: a half-crippled ship, twisted by battle damage, barely clinging on to existence. Every time Carmenta had linked herself to her ship, she had felt its damage like a lingering fever, and emerged with empathic wounds in her flesh and damage to her augmetics. For the first time she had begun to fear the link with her ship; she had a terrible feeling that the
Titan Child
had begun to hunger for her, and its hunger was not kind.

Astraeos grunted at her words and looked away, his eyes roaming across the design cut into the deck by Ahriman.

‘This will work?’ he asked, flatly. Ahriman looked up, his face impassive, but there was a flicker in his eyes as he looked at Astraeos.

‘Nothing is certain,’ he said. Astraeos met Ahriman’s gaze, held it for a second then looked down and nodded.

‘As reassuring as ever,’ said Kadin. He was staring at the pattern Ahriman had cut into the floor, his eyes flicking across symbols and lines as if taking in every detail, as if he were reading. Astraeos, she noticed, chose to stand at the other end of the platform from his brother. The two had not said a word to each other since they had entered the hold.

They had not been able to remove the armour from Kadin’s remaining flesh, nor had they been able to recolour its blackened plates. Carmenta had personally fitted what augmetics were available. That at least had been successful, almost worryingly so. Kadin’s flesh had begun to grow and embrace the metal replacements. His right and left arms now ended in three-digit pincers of brushed steel. Below the waist he walked on a pair of back-jointed legs, which hissed at every step. A bolter and double-edged chainsword were mag-clamped to his back.

Carmenta felt a tingle as another wash of signal from the approaching ship hit the
Titan Child
’s sensors. Her attention strayed from the sights in front of her, as a part of the still-waking ship began to break the signal ciphers apart. There was something about the hailing signals, something hidden in the weave of their code…

The cipher cracked open.

She blinked, suddenly terrified. She was trapped, crammed into a shell of soft meat joined to weak metals. She could not feel the void on her outer layer. She could not feel the beat pulse of her plasma core. She began to panic. She could not move. She did not understand what had happened to her. Her flesh shell was quivering. She did not understand why. She–

Carmenta gasped and staggered on the hoist platform. A ripple of sparks spiralled up the bundle of cables that linked her with the
Titan Child
. For a second she could hear nothing but the panicked chatter of machines roaring to life in a disorganised spasm. Lights flickered on and off in the hold. The hull creaked. Somewhere in the ship, power began to flood sleeping systems.

‘What’s happening?’ Ahriman was on his feet. Carmenta blurted static-filled machine code, feeling the sharp sounds grate in her still-human throat. She was swaying, her mechadendrites grabbing blindly at the air. Ahriman vaulted onto the hoist platform. One of the metal tentacles snapped at him but he batted it away with a thought.