Though portions of the ship were still filled with people, huddled in small groups and holding hands around groups of candles, there was an emptiness to the place that left Loken feeling similarly hollowed out.
Each group he passed swarmed around him, the normal respect for an Astartes warrior forgotten in their desperation to know the fate of the Warmaster. Was he dead? Was he alive? Had the Emperor reached out from Terra to save his beloved son?
Loken angrily brushed each group off, pushing through them without answering their questions as he made his way to Archive Chamber Three. He knew Sindermann would be there – he was always there these days – researching and poring over his books like a man possessed. Loken needed answers about the serpent lodge, and he needed them now.
Time was of the essence and he’d already made one stop at the medical deck in order to hand over the anathame to Apothecary Vaddon.
‘Be very careful, apothecary,’ warned Loken, reverently placing the wooden casket on the steel operating slab between them. ‘This is a kinebrach weapon called an anathame. It was forged from a sentient xeno metal and is utterly lethal. I believe it to be the source of the Warmaster’s malady. Do what you need to do to find out what happened, but do it quickly.’
Vaddon had nodded, dumbfounded that Loken had returned with something he could actually use. He lifted the anathame by its golden studded pommel and placed it within a spectrographic chamber.
‘I can’t promise anything, Captain Loken,’ said Vaddon, ‘but I will do whatever is in my power to find you an answer.’
‘That’s all I ask, but the sooner the better; and tell no one that you have this weapon.’
Vaddon nodded and turned to his work, leaving Loken to find Kyril Sindermann in the archives of the mighty ship. The helplessness that had seized him earlier vanished now that he had a purpose. He was actively trying to save the Warmaster, and that knowledge gave him fresh hope that there might yet be a way to bring him back unharmed in body and spirit.
As always, the archives were quiet, but now there was a deeper sense of desolation. Loken strained to hear anything at all, finally catching the scratching of a quill-pen from deeper in the stacks of books. Swiftly he made his way towards the sound, knowing before he reached the source that it was his old mentor. Only Kyril Sindermann scratched at the page with such intense pen strokes.
Sure enough, Loken found Sindermann sitting at his usual table and upon seeing him, Loken knew with absolute certainty that he had not left this place since last they had spoken. Bottles of water and discarded food packs lay scattered around the table, and the haggard Sindermann now sported a growth of fine white hair on his cheeks and chin.
‘Garviel,’ said Sindermann without looking up. ‘You came back. Is the Warmaster dead?’
‘No,’ replied Loken. ‘At least I don’t think so. Not yet anyway.’
Sindermann looked up from his books, the haphazard piles of which were now threatening to topple onto the floor.
‘You don’t think so?’
‘I haven’t seen him since I saw him on the apothecaries’ slab,’ confessed Loken.
‘Then why are you here? It surely can’t be for a lesson on the principles and ethics of civilization. What’s happening?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Loken. ‘Something bad I think. I need your knowledge of… things esoteric, Kyril,’
‘Things esoteric?’ repeated Sindermann, putting down his quill. ‘Now I am intrigued.’
‘The Legion’s quiet order has taken the Warmaster to the Temple of the Serpent Lodge on Davin. They’ve placed him in a temple they call the Delphos and say that the “eternal spirits of dead things” will heal him.’
‘Serpent Lodge you say?’ asked Sindermann, plucking books seemingly at random from the cluttered piles on his desk. ‘Serpents… now that is interesting.’
‘What is?’
‘Serpents,’ repeated Sindermann. ‘Since the very beginnings of time, on every continent where humanity worshipped divinity, the serpent has been recognized and accepted as a god. From the steaming jungles of the Afrique islands to the icy wastes of Alba, serpents have been worshipped, feared and adored in equal measure. I believe that serpent mythology is probably the most widespread mythology known to mankind.’
‘Then how did it get to Davin?’ asked Loken.
‘It’s not difficult to understand,’ explained Sindermann. ‘You see, myths weren’t originally expressed in verbal or written form because language was deemed inadequate to convey the truth expressed in the stories. Myths move not with words, Garviel, but with storytellers and wherever you find people, no matter how primitive or how far they’ve been separated from the cradle of humanity, you’ll always find storytellers. Most of these myths were probably enacted, chanted, danced or sung, more often than not in hypnotic or hallucinatory states. It must have been quite a sight, but anyway, this method of retelling was said to allow the creative energies and relationships behind and beneath the natural world to be brought into the conscious realm. Ancient peoples believed that myths created a bridge from the metaphysical world to the physical one.’
Sindermann flicked through the pages of what looked like a new book encased in fresh red leather and turned the book so Loken could see.
‘Here, you see it here quite clearly.’
Loken looked at the pictures, seeing images of naked tribesmen dancing with long snake-topped poles as well as snakes and spirals painted onto primitive pottery. Other pictures showed vases with gigantic snakes winding over suns, moons and stars, while still more showed snakes appearing below growing plants or coiled above the bellies of pregnant women.
‘What am I looking at?’ he asked.
‘Artifacts recovered from a dozen different worlds during the Great Crusade,’ said Sindermann, jabbing his finger at the pictures. ‘Don’t you see? We carry our myths with us, Garviel, we don’t reinvent them.’
Sindermann turned the page to show yet more images of snakes and said, ‘Here the snake is the symbol of energy, spontaneous, creative energy… and of immortality.’
‘Immortality?’
‘Yes, in ancient times, men believed that the serpent’s ability to shed its skin and thus renew its youth made it privy to the secrets of death and rebirth. They saw the moon, waxing and waning, as the celestial body capable of this same ability, and of course, the lunar cycle has long associations with the life-creating rhythm of the female. The moon became the lord of the twin mysteries of birth and death, and the serpent was its earthly counterpart.’
‘The moon…’ said Loken.
‘Yes,’ continued Sindermann, now well into his flow. ‘In early rites of initiation where the aspirant was seen to die and be reborn, the moon was the goddess mother and the serpent the divine father. It’s not hard to see why the connection between the serpent and healing becomes a permanent facet of serpent worship.’
‘Is that what this is,’ breathed Loken. ‘A rite of initiation?’
Sindermann shrugged. ‘I couldn’t say, Garviel. I’d need to see more of it.’
‘Tell me,’ snarled Loken. ‘I need to hear all you know.’
Startled by the power of Loken’s urging, Sindermann reached for several more books, leafing through them as the 10th Company captain loomed over him.
‘Yes, yes…’ he muttered, flipping back and forth through the well-thumbed pages. ‘Yes, here it is. Ah… yes, a word for serpent in one of the lost languages of old Earth was “nahash”, which apparently means, “to guess”. It appears that it was then translated to mean a number of different things, depending on which etymological root you believe.’
‘Translated to mean what?’ asked Loken. ‘Its first rendition is as either “enemy” or “adversary”, but it seems to be more popularly transliterated as “Seytan”.’
‘Seytan,’ said Loken. ‘I’ve heard that name before.’
‘We… ah, spoke of it at the Whisperheads,’ said Sindermann in a low voice, looking about him as though someone might be listening. ‘It was said to be a nightmarish force of deviltry cast down by a golden hero on Terra. As we now know, the Samus spirit was probably the local equivalent for the inhabitants of Sixty-Three Nineteen.’
‘Do you believe that?’ asked Loken. ‘That Samus was a spirit?’
‘Of some form, yes,’ said Sindermann honestly. ‘I believe that what I saw beneath the mountains was more than simply a xenos of some kind, no matter what the Warmaster says.’
‘And what about this serpent as Seytan?’
Sindermann, pleased to have a subject upon which he could illuminate, shook his head and said, ‘No. If you look closer, you see the word “serpent” has its origination in the Olympian root languages as “drakon”, the cosmic serpent that was seen as a symbol of Chaos.’
‘Chaos?’ cried Loken. ‘No!’
‘Yes,’ went on Sindermann, hesitantly pointing out a passage of text in yet another of his books. ‘It is this “chaos”, or “serpent”, which must be overcome to create order and maintain life in any meaningful way. This serpentine dragon was a creature of great power and its sacred years were times of great ambition and incredible risk. It’s said that events occurring in a year of the dragon are magnified threefold in intensity.’
Loken tried to hide his horror at Sindermann’s words, the ritual significance of the serpent and its place in mythology cementing his conviction that what was happening on Davin was horribly wrong. He looked down at the book before him and said, ‘What’s this?’
‘A passage from the
Book of Atum
,’ said Sindermann, as though afraid to tell him. ‘I only found it quite recently, I swear. I didn’t think anything of it, I still don’t really… After all, it’s just nonsense isn’t it?’
Loken forced himself to look at the book, feeling his heart grow heavy with each word he read from its yellowed pages.
I
am Horus, forged of the Oldest Gods,
I am he who gave way to Khaos
I am that great destroyer of all.
I am he who did what seemed good to him,
And set doom in the palace of my will.
Mine is the fate of those who move along
This serpentine path.
‘I’m no student of poetry,’ snapped Loken. ‘What does it mean?’
‘It’s a prophecy,’ said Sindermann hesitantly. ‘It speaks of a time when the world returns to its original chaos and the hidden aspects of the supreme gods become the new serpent.’
‘I don’t have time for metaphors, Kyril,’ warned Loken.
‘At its most basic level,’ said Sindermann, ‘it speaks about the death of the universe.’
S
EJANUS
FOUND
HIM
on the steps of a vaulted basilica, its wide doorway flanked by tall skeletons wrapped in funeral robes and holding flaming censers out before them. Though darkness had fallen, the streets of the city still thronged with worshippers, each carrying a lit taper or lantern to light the way.
Horus looked up as Sejanus approached, thinking that the processions of light through the city would have seemed beautiful at any other time. The pageantry and pomp of the palanquins and altars being carried along the streets would previously have irritated him, were the procession in his honour, but now he craved them.
‘Have you seen all you need to see?’ asked Sejanus, sitting beside him on the steps.
‘Yes,’ replied Horus. ‘I wish to leave this place.’
‘We can leave whenever you want, just say the word,’ said Sejanus. ‘There is more you need to see anyway, and our time is not infinite. Your body is dying and you must make your choice before you are beyond the help of even the powers that dwell in the warp.’
‘This choice,’ asked Horus, ‘Does it involve what I think it does?’
‘Only you can decide that,’ said Sejanus as the doors to the basilica opened behind them.
Horus looked over his shoulder, seeing a familiar oblong of light where he would have expected to see a darkened vestibule.
‘Very well,’ he said, standing and turning towards the light. ‘So where are we going now?’
‘To the beginning,’ answered Sejanus.
S
TEPPING
THROUGH
THE
light, Horus found himself standing in what appeared to be a colossal laboratory, its cavernous walls formed of white steel and silver panels. The air tasted sterile, and Horus could tell that the temperature of the air was close to freezing. Hundreds of figures encased in fully enclosed white oversuits with reflective gold visors filled the laboratory, working at row upon row of humming gold machines that sat atop long steel benches.
Hissing puffs of vapour feathered the air above each worker’s head, and long tubes coiled around the legs and arms of the white suits before hooking into cumbersome looking backpacks. Though no words were spoken, a sense of the implementation of grand designs was palpable. Horus wandered through the facility, its inhabitants ignoring him as completely as those of the shrine world had. Instinctively, he knew that he and Sejanus were far beneath the surface of whatever world they had traveled to.
‘Where are we now?’ he asked. ‘When are we?’
‘Terra,’ said Sejanus, ‘at the dawn of a new age,’
‘What does that mean?’
In answer to his question, Sejanus pointed to the far wall of the laboratory where a shimmering energy field protected a huge silver steel door. The sign of the aquila was etched into the metal, along with strange, mystical looking symbols that were out of place in a laboratory dedicated to the pursuit of science. Just looking at the door made Horus uneasy, as though whatever lay beyond was somehow a threat to him.
‘What lies beyond that door?’ asked Horus, backing away from the silver portal.
‘Truths you will not want to see,’ replied Sejanus, ‘and answers you will not want to hear.’
Horus felt a strange, previously unknown sensation stir in his belly and fought to quell it as he realized that, despite all the cunning wrought into his creation, the sensation was fear. Nothing good could live behind that door. Its secrets were best forgotten, and whatever knowledge lay beyond should be left hidden.
‘I don’t want to know,’ said Horus, turning from the door. ‘It’s too much.’