I turned to the daemon. Its lesser kin had begun to move again, slithering and scrabbling forwards, blades scraping, teeth champing. The Rubricae fired: cobalt light exploded soft skulls. The daemon inhaled, its stomach and throat bulging. It vomited. Blood, bile, and shadow gushed towards us. A dome of flame met the deluge. Black smoke and yellow steam tumbled up through the air.
I was still hesitating, still unsure that I wanted to play the part that Ahriman had created for me in this layered deception.
+
Ctesias, now!
+ Ahriman’s thought voice split the warp-flooded chamber like a thunderclap.
I spoke the daemon’s name. The syllables tore my tongue and lips. Frost bloomed across my helmet. Blood was running down my throat, filling my lungs as I forced air from them.
I kept speaking, feeling the chain of sounds draw the daemon’s essence into my hand link by bloody link.
The daemon crashed forwards, hammering its bulk down upon the burning dome above us. Flesh flashed to smoke.
As each syllable left my lips I split it from my memory, and locked it within the divided walls of my mind. Others use grimoires, arcane ciphers or other ritual emblems to hold the daemons they bind. I use my mind, and write the keys of summoning on my psyche.
The daemon tilted its head back and bellowed. The rotting throng surged to answer the call.
I was drowning in my own blood. Blisters had grown and burst on my tongue. The chamber around me was lost in a fever blur.
I chewed the end of the name out, and suddenly I was on the filth soaked floor, shivering.
The others were still fighting, still hacking, still burning as the lesser daemons threw themselves at us.
Above us the daemon held still, flesh pulsing in a mockery of breathing. Its name was within me, divided and locked away, like a weapon broken into parts until it is needed, until it is allowed to be whole again. It looked down at me, hatred in its blood and pus-filled eyes.
‘Be gone,’ I said in a cracked voice. ‘Come not again, until I call.’
Its shape broke apart, shredding from the edges, reducing until it was nothing. It watched me until the last gust of the invisible wind took its eyes.
I passed into blackness then, unconsciousness falling across thought and sensation like a knife.
The voice came from emptiness. ‘You are owed a question.’
I recognised it. It was a voice I had not heard speak with a tongue since… since…
a time
, the memory of which I have bartered away.
‘Menkaura?’ I asked, and the image of the dead Oracle appeared as though created by the name. He no longer wore his silvered armour, or eyeless helm. An open, simple face watched me from above the red armour of the Thousand Sons Legion.
I turned my gaze, and looked into the flat nothing of… wherever I was. I could feel nothing but the turning of my thoughts. It did not feel like a dream, but it did not feel real either. It did not feel like anything.
I looked back to Menkaura.
‘Ask your question,’ he said.
‘You are dead,’ I said. His face did not even move. ‘Your soul was taken by the daemons of the Plague Father. You were unmade.’
He just looked at me, unmoving, his expression blank.
‘What is your question? A question was bought, payment was made. It must be asked.’
I shook my head. My thoughts were clear, but seemed to be coming together with frozen slowness.
‘It was Ahriman’s question, and he asked it of the daemon that had taken your place.’
Menkaura did not move or speak. I smiled grimly to myself.
‘He knew that something would be there, but he kept that from me while making me ready to bind you. Lies, and half-truths, hidden ends and greater purposes. He has not changed.’ I laughed, the noise flat in the black space. ‘But he was right. If he had asked me to bind one of the exalted ranks of the neverborn I would have refused. I would never have stepped into such a trap, not for any promised reward. I should have expected the deception. I should have known. And now I have turned a creature sent against us into my slave.’ I paused, hissing breath between my teeth. ‘
Our
slave. That was what he wanted, what he needed me for. Why dirty his hands with such things? Why swallow the poison himself?’
‘He is afraid,’ said Menkaura. My gaze snapped up to him, the words of the questions still lingering in my mouth. ‘He is afraid of what he has begun. A destiny awaits him. A chance to be many things draws closer with every step he takes. He can see that. It is like a mountain of fire burning the sky beyond the horizon. He sees its light, but not its shape. He knows that others see it too, powers that move in the mortal and immortal realms. And he fears them. He fears that he might fall on his journey, and that he might reach the end of it.’ Menkaura paused, nodding slowly as though in agreement with a voice that only he could hear. ‘He is right to fear.’
I knew then that what I was seeing and hearing was not a dream. It was something else, a scrap of unfinished time resolving itself, a conversation that needed to play out for fate to be satisfied. The Dead Oracle’s words passed through me, cold, shivering with implication.
‘That is it? He is arming himself against… against what?’
‘Against everything that could try to stop him.’
‘And he makes me a weapon for that war.’
‘He neither adds nor takes away from your nature. You are as you are.’
Menkaura began to fade as he spoke.
‘There should be payment.’ I called after him. ‘Those are the bindings on you, brother – an oracle’s words must be bought.’
He shook his head as his features sunk into the blackness.
‘The payment has already been given,’ he said, and was gone, as though he had never been.
I stared at the void.
Then I found myself looking into the face of Ahriman. There was no blink, no transition, just the brightness of lights, and the sound of the
Sycorax
suddenly in my ears. I sat in a chair of black granite, in a chamber of tarnished bronze. My armour hung from the walls in polished components, and my staff rested in a rack of bone.
+You dreamed deeply and long, brother,+ Ahriman sent.
I did not reply. I was flicking my awareness through my mind and body searching for a sign of how much time had passed.
Ahriman spoke again, this time with his true voice. ‘You have my thanks, Ctesias. I know it cost you.’
My body felt leaden, my thoughts sluggish in my skull. Fatigue washed through me. Bright colours smudged my eyes. My tongue was a dry leaf in my mouth. Any wounds I had suffered had gone, but the shadow of the binding hung over me, pressing in through every sensation. One does not simply swallow the true name of an exalted daemon and then shrug it off. Everything – as never fails to be proved true – has a price.
‘You lied to me,’ I spat back at him, my anger suddenly raw and fresh. He tilted his head, the gesture half an acknowledgement, half a question.
‘I did what I had to, brother. As did you.’
‘What are you doing Ahriman? Why did we go to the Oracle? What do you intend for us now?’
‘
Us
?’ he said, and the thinnest hint of a smile touched his eyes. ‘I thought you were not part of anything beyond yourself.’
I shook my head, suddenly feeling deeply tired. Ahriman nodded, and turned towards the chamber’s door.
‘Rest, brother,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Rest, and dream.’
‘I do not dream,’ I protested, but he was already gone, and the words rang hollow in the still air. ‘I do not dream,’ I said again, more quietly, shaking my head as my eyelids flickered over my sight. My mind and limbs felt heavy, as though the act of returning to consciousness had used up my full store of energy. I was draining down into blank oblivion again, the features of my new chamber sliced away as my eyes closed.
In the black flicker of my eyelids I saw again the face of Menkaura, and heard words I was not sure had been real.
‘He is arming himself against… against what?’
‘Against everything that could try to stop him.’
About the Author
John French
has written several Horus Heresy stories including the novellas
Tallarn: Executioner
and
The Crimson Fist
, and the audio dramas
Templar
and
Warmaster
. He is the author of the Ahriman series, which includes the novels
Ahriman: Exile
and
Ahriman: Sorcerer,
plus the short story ‘Hand of Dust’. Additionally for the Warhammer 40,000 universe he has written the Space Marine Battles novella
Fateweaver
, plus a number of short stories. He lives and works in Nottingham, UK.