Belisarius Cawl- the Great Work - Guy Haley Read online

‘There is good reason.’

  ‘There is good reason for my request as well,’ said Sedayne. ‘Humour me.’

  ‘I have many names, but in time I will be known as the Emperor of Mankind,’ the man said. As He said it, Sedayne had a brief but terrifying flash of a being who could crush him out of existence with a single thought, and that was only the least of His abilities.

  Nevertheless, Sedayne stood his ground.

  ‘The Emperor?’

  ‘Yes.’ The Emperor smiled as if His title were a private joke between friends.

  Sedayne’s laughter echoed from the dead mountains. ‘There is only anarchy, warlords, the carrion feeders who flock around them and the people they devour. There are no emperors and no empires, no kings or kingdoms, no governance just or cruel, not now. There is only death.’

  ‘There are no kingdoms yet,’ agreed the Emperor. ‘My title is for a realm yet to come. A glorious place. If you serve me, you will help to bring it into being. You will know the peace you yearn for. You will know a better world.’

  ‘I wish to help people,’ said Sedayne. ‘My comfort is incidental.’

  ‘A wish to help and a wish for safety are not mutually exclusive, Ezekiel. You need have no secrets from me. You cannot have secrets from me. Be calm, I see nothing ill in you. Will you serve me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Emperor smiled. He had expected no other answer.

  ‘Then I have wonders to show you. The great work begins now.’

  Cawl and Sedayne, Sedayne and Cawl – the two merged and fought like competing currents in a turbulent sea, both indivisible yet clearly at war, a paradox in the making. Cawl remembered. Sedayne remembered. They both saw what the other saw, and felt what the other felt. The proscribed technologies of Diacomes, so innocuously housed in the casings of the room, purred and hummed, pulling upon the hidden dimension of the warp. Cawl knew then that this was no simple merging of minds, but a blending of souls. Consequently he felt, as Sedayne felt, a growth in power alongside a diminishment of individuality. Sedayne was old. So many years had passed since he had first encountered the Master of Mankind that they ceased to have a meaning beyond marks on a calendar. Cawl had lived a fraction of that time. The depths of Sedayne’s knowledge and experience were such that Cawl’s brilliant but young mind was swamped by Sedayne’s, swallowed up like a tear in a downpour.

  ‘I am sorry, I am sorry,’ Sedayne thought, and so Cawl thought. Sedayne meant it. His intentions were pure, after a fashion, and his sorrow hurt Cawl as if it were his own, for now it was, as were all his memories, and his knowledge, and his power. It was too much, too much, too much…

  Cawl was dwindling away, absorbed by the being of Sedayne.

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Sedayne.

  BANG!

  Somewhere, somewhen, a sheet of metal clashed upon a rock. Like a drowning man, Cawl grasped for it, though in the raging storm of their merging souls it might well have dashed him to pieces.

  BANG!

  Cawl opened his eyes. Sedayne’s eyes. He was on the bridge in other mountains far from the Alapi. Centuries separated the two memories. But memory is wise to time’s illusion, and nothing separated them at all. One room was exited, and another entered.

  ‘Belisarius Cawl,’ said the Emperor.

  Confused by the name, Sedayne looked upon his hands. They were old and veined already. Decades of war lay between this moment and the moment that saw Cawl and Sedayne inside the engines of Diacomes. Another room in time. Another door that could be opened at will by the speaker.

  ‘My name is Ezekiel Sedayne,’ said Sedayne.

  ‘For now,’ agreed the Emperor.

  The Emperor was by his side at the bridge’s parapet. Cawl, or was it Sedayne, trembled as he looked upon Him, but He appeared unremarkable, as He often did. His long hair was tied back. He wore a scientist’s white, crisp garb. He was not tall, and nor was He short. He was handsome, but not outrageously so. Slight but not thin. An unremarkable being were it not for the terrifying sense of power that radiated from Him, as untamed as the heart of a star.

  Sedayne felt fuzzy. The working of time demands that memories of the future be hard to hold, and they slipped away. Why had he come out there?

  ‘To rest,’ he said aloud. But he did not remember what he was doing before he came to the bridge. ‘You are the Emperor,’ said Cawl. Or Sedayne, or both of them.

  ‘I am,’ said the Emperor.

  ‘Am I meeting you?’

  ‘You have met me many times, Belisarius,’ said the Emperor.

  ‘But not as…’ he frowned a frown on Sedayne’s face. It was a younger face, but still old. ‘But not as me.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’ The Emperor looked at him sidelong. ‘In another manner, you are Ezekiel Sedayne, and always have been, and Cawl is a fragment. An artefact left behind by a desperate man’s attempt to stay alive.’

  ‘That hasn’t happened yet,’ said Cawl. ‘When is this?’

  ‘Every moment, no moment, a moment gone. Nothing ever passes, not truly, but goes only beyond notice.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Cawl, or Sedayne. ‘You are free of this. Is that so?’

  ‘No one is free of time,’ said the Emperor. ‘Not even me. As long lived as I am, it is ironic that the one thing I lack is time.’ The Emperor frowned. ‘There is never enough.’

  ‘Is this a dream within a dream, a dream remembered, or did this really happen?’ asked Cawl.

  The Emperor laughed. It was a sound as terrible as avalanches thundering down mountainsides.

  ‘Is there any difference between those things?’

  ‘Are you always this frustratingly gnomic?’ said Cawl. ‘Because, to be frank, it is a little disappointing.’

  The Emperor laughed again, with genuine mirth. ‘I do like you, Belisarius, though many do not. But it is not your duty to be popular, it is to be important. Every dream is a reality somewhere. Know this, Belisarius Cawl, I will need you. You will think you have betrayed me. You will not in the end.’

  ‘What are you talking about? You are the Omnissiah! I could never betray you.’

  ‘You will,’ said the Emperor sadly. ‘But you will be right to. You will not again.’

  ‘Does Sedayne remember this conversation?’

  ‘Foresight is not a steady friend, Belisarius. One day it may strike with startling clarity. For centuries it is only a feeling. This is a good day.’

  ‘Did this really happen?’

  The Emperor smiled again.

  ‘I am really here?’

  BANG!

  The metal hit the stone. Their fight was not over, and never would be.

  Now

  This is who you are, said the voice of the mountain. Impure. Blended. Not one creature. Not two. Many. A poisonous slick of spirits cased in meat and clumsy technology. Pathetic.

  ‘I am not unique in this regard,’ said Cawl. He was nowhere again, in a place that existed yet that had no physical domain. He was within the infosphere of the mountain, and the mind imprisoned by the machine encompassed him. ‘Mental enhancement within my subset of my species is often attained by cortical linkage. There are therefore many blended personalities. Other sections of humanity employ other methods, as do certain xenos.’

  He spoke to the being over a network of quantum particles flashing in and out of existence. The tech was superior to any he had witnessed, greater in sophistication even than mankind’s at the height of its power.

  Yet Cawl had a way in. Quietly, he began to exert more of his influence on the mechanisms of the Pharos.

  Everything living is unique. Uniqueness of creation and experience gives them their flavour. The mountain’s presence coiled round him, threatening to constrict at any moment.

  ‘Then I am unique in the breadth of my knowledge. There is no other like me in
all the galaxy. If you wish to be free and to see your enemies scattered, then only I can help you,’ said Cawl. His enhanced mind, now fully enwrapped about the mountain’s poly-dimensional machine-spirit, prepared its key.

  We wonder what you would taste like.

  ‘If you devour me, how can I serve you?’

  You are afraid.

  ‘All men are afraid, as are gods. You fear entrapment here, forever.’

  Slowly, carefully, Cawl extended his cypher coding into the outer web of xenos data. He felt a thrill of fear as he did so. These were always the escapades he enjoyed the most, the sneaking into the sleeping ogre’s castle, the stealing of his treasures.

  You dare guess our mind? You know nothing! The presence reared, perturbing the chains of logic that held it within the infosphere as the beams of empyrical energy trapped it in the physical world. Cawl froze his work, but only the being’s pride was affronted. It had not detected his ploy.

  We have seen your god. The waking networks of our treacherous children sing of him from one dynasty to the other. He is no god. He is nothing. There were other beings who had pretensions to divinity. They died. He will die. A being like he can cheat time. We transcend it! We are time, and space, and the bonds between. He is no god. We are.

  ‘Then I beg you, please, great one, reveal yourself to me. You have seen within my soul. You know that my mission here is pure, you know I can do what you require. I seek your knowledge. I pledge myself to serve you. I wish what you wish for. Together we can end the war that has corrupted space and time. We can purge the poison of Chaos and return the great work of the Machine-God to full order. That is all I desire! Order and calm and good function to all things.’

  There was a long silence. A millennia’s worth of alien data raced past Cawl from hidden dimensions. The architecture of the necron infosphere was perfect in every way, and gloriously, multiply purposed. His own codings spread themselves out within the Pharos infosphere’s defences, meshing here, changing there, bringing all points of ingress under his control.

  Yes. The material realm versus the psychic. The warp must be banished. We can give you such secrets.

  ‘Do!’ cried Cawl. ‘Who else if not I? Your children work towards this end, but they are clumsy, they have forgotten much of what you taught them. They cannot do it. You are trapped. Your siblings are broken and scattered.’

  And you can repair the damage of millions of years? We think not. You are weak.

  Torrents of alien data flashed around Cawl. He was so tempted to plunge into them, right then. All he needed to do was fling open the doors and jump.

  The temptation was overwhelming.

  He paused. Something troubled him. Multiple copies of his intellect sped around the Pharos network. What he saw made him swear, a rich biological set of phrases long since gone from the Gothic tongue.

  The systems containing the being and guarding the Pharos’ trove of data were one and the same. He was going to have to let it out.

  ‘I am strong,’ he said.

  The presence ceased its spiralling.

  We are similar. You are not yourself, and nor are we. You are a composite. We are a fragment. Be not mistaken, we have no special affection for you, this is our sole connection. But it is enough to convince us to spare you, Cawl of the humans. You shall free us. You shall be rewarded. We are mighty enough to survive separation from the confinement of the necrodermis. We shall journey the galaxy, and join with our sundered parts. The necrontyr will rue the day they chose to betray their gods. We gave them everything they wished for and they killed us. They will pay.

  The being’s rage was cold, almost emotionless, expressed in the furious vibrations of atomic energies rather than through cruder, chemical reaction.

  For aeons we have been imprisoned within this mountain. For aeons we have plotted our revenge. Eight fragments of eight gods were given over to slavery here. We consumed the others to survive. The necrontyr are fools. They are arrogant. They kept too large a piece of us alive to power this nodal point of theirs. They will regret it, for we remember what we were, and what we will one day be again.

  The infosphere’s cascades of light stuttered. A different light took its place, a brassy star shine. From the night of the nowhere realm it shone, coalescing as the mountain spoke into a figure that had no shape, forcing Cawl’s mind to impose a form he could understand upon it; arms, legs, a head, a torso forged of gold.

  We are the ultimate manifestation of order. No logic or illogic can bind me.

  It spoke now with a mouth that blazed with stolen sunlight.

  We are Zarhulash, the Potentate. We are C’tan, of the stars and the tides of time and light. We are the manifestation of this universe’s form and being. We are a god, and you will serve me. Set me free.

  ‘I require a moment!’ Cawl shouted into the being’s effulgence. ‘I must subdue the things that hold you. I can release you no other way!’ His infospherical probes poised to take control of the routines holding the C’tan. At the same time, he primed his subminds to storm the walls of the Pharos’ network. Both parts were inextricably linked. If he wished to access the mountain’s secrets, both gates had to be taken down simultaneously.

  You attempt to deceive us!

  ‘Great one, I ask only to better serve you. The machines, they are attempting to prevent your release. I can help you!’

  A tense moment passed.

  Let it be so, said Zarhulash.

  A door opened. Behind was a treasure of knowledge. But it was not his, not yet. Machine-spirits guarded it. Things watched him with jealous eyes. He needed a little more time. The C’tan could see the way out.

  He didn’t have time, so he was going to have to make it.

  Release us!

  Points of green light fizzled into existence around Cawl’s slumped body, forming a network that grew in complication until he was completely enmeshed.

  ‘Step back,’ said Felix.

  The mountain thrummed. The pattern sent out a burst of lines, each point sending links to dozens of others.

  ‘It looks like a stellar cartograph,’ said Felix. ‘Look! This is Sotha, I am sure of it.’

  A ball of light occupied Sotha’s position at the centre of the map. It glowed with increasing potency as the map continued to spread, the galaxy unrolled by points of light, billions and billions of them.

  ‘Every star in the galaxy,’ said Primus. ‘This information…’

  ‘Will be incredibly valuable to Belisarius Cawl,’ said Felix. ‘There are more of these nexus points. More Pharoses. Hundreds of them.’ A network of beacons appeared in the galaxy, each one large and bright.

  The mountain’s vibration became a steady rumble. The other beacons glowed brighter, initiating a third increase in luminance that spread out rays in all directions, linking beacon to beacon. The Pharos shook with building power. The growing light pushed back the dark past the sarcophagi, revealing signs of withering on the faces of the dead seven.

  The light fell on a crumpled form. Metal limbs bent out of shape, a head twisted around on the neck to stare over its back. Legs part-absorbed by the stone.

  ‘Cawl’s servant,’ said Felix. ‘Qvo-87.’

  Felix ignited the power field around his fist. Psi-fire shone behind Primus’ eye lenses.

  ‘Cawl has betrayed us,’ said Felix.

  Belisarius Cawl came awake with a shudder. The lights of his enhancements ignited. Where before they burned cool reds and blues, now all were uniformly green.

  His feet extended, clanking on blackstone, pushing him up. He raised his arms and stretched as if awoken from a well-deserved rest.

  His eyes were alive with the lurid glow of necron technology.

  He grinned.

  ‘Decimus! Primus! You made it down here.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Felix demanded.


  ‘All will be revealed. Do stop pointing that gun at me, Decimus. Whatever happens next, gentlemen, please refrain from firing at anything.’

  The mountain shook harder. The beams of light fixed on the sarcophagus flickered out.

  ‘What have you done?’ said Felix. Primus, sensing danger to his master from the tetrarch, shifted his attention to Felix.

  ‘In there,’ said Cawl, pointing a metal finger at the sarcophagus, ‘is a star god of the necron forerunner race. It’s not complete, but it is the largest shard I have yet encountered.’ He frowned. ‘It is incredibly dangerous.’

  Felix looked from priest to sarcophagus.

  ‘The C’tan,’ said Felix incredulously. ‘You are releasing a C’tan!’ Felix raised his gun.

  ‘Do not threaten the archmagos,’ said Primus, striding to interpose himself between Felix and Cawl.

  ‘I am releasing him,’ said Cawl. ‘Right now. In fact, here he comes! Remember, no shooting, Decimus!’ He held up an admonishing hand. ‘This is a very delicate time. I nearly have what we came for. Some of what I am about to do will look foolish. It is not.’

  ‘Cawl…’

  Primus moved closer to Felix. ‘My master knows what he is doing, be assured,’ Primus said. ‘He is no traitor.’

  Blazing starlight speared from the sides of the coffin.

  ‘You had better be right,’ said Felix.

  The sarcophagus began to open.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The last child of Sotha

  Circa 10,000 years ago

  Thracian blinked, suddenly able to move. He lifted up his hands. His face was raw with fresh burns. It came as a surprise to him that he could not see from his left eye. He had the fleeting sense he should be elsewhere, in some other time. A thought quickly forgotten.

  ‘You wish to know how we did it?’

  Hannelore sat blearily in the interrogation chair, her uniform ragged. Her arms were bound behind her by heavy fetters that encased her hands completely. There was not a scrap of flesh on her unmarked by the confessor’s goads. Burns, bruises, cuts, too many for her alien-tainted physiology to help. Her eyes were swollen shut, her nose broken. Squares of skin were missing from her shoulders and thighs, and yet she spoke through her broken teeth and hurts with nobility.