The Passing of Angels - John French Read online

  A human is in front of me, gun rising, and then ceases to be as I strike and I am not stopping. I am amongst the throng that pours into the streets, picking men up and casting them down to burn, splitting armour, turning, piercing, slicing. And I do not hesitate. I do not pause in thought or consideration. The condemned run from me burning, blind as their eyes boil. I release them from life as I pass. I do not even feel the spear strikes. Gunfire rips from buildings to tatter my wings. Blood marks my passing, scattering from the slaughter. I am not alive. I am not a creature that lives. I am just judgement I am death. And for now I feel no sorrow.

  Horus Lupercal, primarch of the XVI Legion, smiled as his brother stepped through the door. He was unarmoured, his grey-white battleplate shed, hanging from a rack at the chamber's edge. In place of armour, he wore a tunic of plain black. The room was small and bare, and the light of the single glow globe did not reach into its corners. The audience and command chambers of the Vengeful Spirit could have swallowed it many times over, but it was here, in a space that a mortal human could cross in ten strides that the two brothers had chosen to meet.

  'You are late,' said Horus, without rising.

  'I am,' said Sanguinius, glancing over the chamber's sparse furnishing: a low table set with a game board and two metal stools. 'But I did not want to deprive you of the opportunity to point it out.' He looked at his brother, his face emotionless. 'So, I did not hurry.'

  Horus laughed. Sanguinius smiled and sat. He wore a black and red robe, tied at his waist by a golden cord. His wings were tucked tight against his back, and he had cropped his golden hair close so that he seemed the image of ancient heroes given life. He picked up the clay cup from beside the board and took a mouthful. Horus watched his brother as Sanguinius nodded slowly, looking down into the dark liquid in the cup.

  'If I did not know better, I would suspect that you went to considerable trouble to find something that tastes this bad.'

  Horus took a swig from his own cup, paused, and frowned.

  'You are wrong…' He took another swig. 'I did not go to much trouble.' He winced and then began to laugh again. 'But it does taste truly terrible.' He gestured at the board set out between them. Tall pieces carved from blood ivory and ebony sat on hexagons of mother-of-pearl and jet. 'Something new that might entertain, it is—'

  'A variant of Ullatur played by the scholar caste of the Noonreach cluster, in form similar to its Terran forebears but with the addition of two pieces - the Messenger, and the Fiend.' Sanguinius picked up one of the blood ivory pieces and turned it in his fingers, letting light play over the three fanged heads sprouting from its top. 'These were made by the blind master Heydosia after she lost her sight.' He put the piece down on a different space to the one he had picked it up from. 'Your move.'

  Horus raised an eyebrow.

  Sanguinius blinked slowly. 'It is all right, brother. In this variant, going first is considered a disadvantage.' He took a swig from his cup.

  'I know,' said Horus, and moved a black raven to take a red crone. He placed the piece next to his cup. 'It's just good that you think you can give me an advantage and win.'

  'Oh, I know I can win, brother - I just like watching you think you can win too.'

  Horus did not reply, and the sound in the chamber faded to the distant rumble of the Vengeful Spirit's engines pushing it through the void. The walls vibrated, the note just enough to send ripples across the surface of the two cups of wine.

  'You are troubled,' said Horus at last. Sanguinius' eyes flicked up from the board. A frown creased the perfection of his face.

  'As are you,' said the Angel, taking two pieces one after another, the base of his messenger tapping the board as it jumped from kill to kill.

  'True,' said Horus, switching the positions of his light bearers and knights. 'But I asked first.' Sanguinius sat back. His wings twitched. 'The old question?' said Horus.

  Sanguinius nodded.

  'The paradox of our existence,' said Horus, looking back to the board. 'It is not a paradox, though - it is simply a fact. We exist to destroy and by doing so we create.'

  'And what of that we must destroy?' asked Sanguinius.

  'Tragedies, necessities, sacrifices - everything that shall come shall be greater than anything that is lost.'

  Silence slid back into the space as pieces clicked across the polished wood and seashell.

  'And you, my brother?' said Sanguinius. 'Your star shines brighter and brighter. Your sons honour you by rising to be exemplars to all. Our father calls you to his side in war and council more than any other…' Horus' gaze was fixed on the board. He reached out and placed a finger on a black prince. 'And yet you are troubled.' Horus looked up, his gaze dark and hard for an instant, and then he shook his head.

  'I am not troubled. Questions are part of understanding, part of wisdom.'

  'And if they go unanswered?' said Sanguinius. 'I can see it, Horus. I can feel it. You are letting something small feed on the silence inside you.'

  Horus moved the prince, but kept his finger on its carved head.

  'We are creating a future. We are making it with blood and ideas and symbols and words. The blood is ours and we are the symbols. But the ideas? Has our father ever spoken of the future to you?'

  'Many times, and many more times to you.'

  'He has spoken of ideas of both unity and humanity in grand terms, but has he ever said what will happen between the bloody present and that golden time?'

  Sanguinius' frown sent shadows across his face.

  'To think of such things does nothing good, brother.'

  Horus smiled.

  'Surgeon, heal thyself.'

  Sanguinius' expression did not change.

  'The present is far from complete, Horus, and the future will hold many sorrows and many honours. The stars remain wild and unconquered.'

  Horus held his brother's gaze for a second, and then shrugged.

  'What happens after that? What happens to angels after a new heaven is made?'

  Horus gripped the black prince and moved it. The angel looked at the play, and toppled his red king onto its side.

  'Shall we play again?' asked Horus.

  Sanguinius smiled, his frown clearing like clouds from the face of the sun.

  'By all means - I think you might even be getting better.'

  I stand on the topmost tower of the mountain city. The heat of the flames is crawling into the bare flesh of my face. Soot marks my features. My hair has burned to my scalp, and the gold of my armour is black with the touch of fire and blood. My cheeks are blistered by radiation and charred by the fire I have passed through. It will heal in the time it takes me to return to my ship in orbit, but for now I do not look like an angel of light and beauty - I am the angel of ruin, whose passing makes the sleeping wake in terror.

  Alepheo drops into the ruins beneath me. His red armour is scarred and flame darkened. He looks up at me with a dead silver face that is shedding eternal tears.

  'It is done,' he says. I can hear the weight in the words. He will bear the scar of this in his dreams, and it will creep into the poems he paints in the languages of the dead. He will understand then that we are angels. Beauty does not belong to us; it is what we must burn to be what we are.

  Beneath us in the city, the stones of the buildings have begun to melt in the sea of fire.

  I look up. Beyond the pall of smoke, the clouds are clearing to greet the dawn. The sun touches my eyes. 'Yes,' I say. 'It is done.'

  And then I stretch my wings and take to the air, rising from flames and atrocity towards the light of the future.

 

 

 
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