The Buried Dagger - James Swallow Read online

  Loken reeled. The images were coming thick and fast now, testing his constitution with their dizzying motion. They whirled around him in a hurricane of dire possibility, and everywhere he looked, he saw a greater and more profane sight than the last.

  The unmistakable forms of dead primarchs, crucified against the walls of a fortress-monastery or hanging, decayed and ruined, from a giant gibbet. A daemonic mecha-engine of immeasurable size, its cogs carved from continents, its gears made from the cores of savaged planets. And at the end, the galaxy itself subsumed into a seething, infinite ocean of tormented souls, as the hell-scape of the immaterium spilled into real space and transformed this dimension into a wasteland of madness.

  Then Malcador slammed the tip of his staff into the floor and all was as it had been. The hololiths moved through their rote loops of history, and the mournful wind among the pillars was the only sound. None of the Knights-Errant spoke. None of them could find the words to parse the sights the Sigillite had shown them.

  Loken knew the images were unreal, nothing more than synthetic creations of light and sound – was that not so? But he felt sick inside, chilled by a deep, inner cold that leached the heat of life from his soul. The things Malcador had shown them were too tangible to be a fabrication. Somehow, the Sigillite had imbued the hololiths with a reality that made them more than just captured photons and simulated reality.

  ‘How… can you know these things will come to pass?’ Garro broke the silence, speaking in wounded, unsteady tones.

  ‘I know,’ Malcador told him. ‘I have been there, to those otherwhens, my soul barely tethered to the now. I have walked as a phantom in those dark and terrible tomorrows. And they will come to pass unless you follow my word.’

  ‘What would you have us do?’ said Yotun, at length.

  Malcador nodded and reached into a pocket of his robes, his hand returning with a small drawstring bag made of dark velvet. ‘The first step is to leave all you were behind. Each of you were severed from your parent Legions when you became my Chosen, my Knights-Errant. You gave up your birthright. Now you must accept the erasure of what is left.’ He walked to Yotun and the warrior held up a silver coin, similar to the one that Severian – now Iapto – had shown. ‘You have already taken your new name, child of Fenris. Now take the last step.’

  Malcador nodded, and Yotun bowed his head. The warrior wore a handful of charms about his armour, carved things that only a Son of Russ could have called his own. With grave formality, he broke the cord that held them in place and threw them to the floor. ‘I am Yotun,’ he said. ‘I am a Knight.’

  Beside him, Rubio marched forward and dropped his gladius to the floor, the carved Ultima in the hilt catching the light. He looked down at the sword, and then to Loken’s shock, he revealed a coin of his own. ‘I am Koios,’ intoned the Codicier, looking into the distance. ‘And I am a Knight.’

  The dark-eyed warrior who kept to the shadows was next to speak his new name, offering his silver to the air. ‘I am Ianius.’

  ‘Iapto,’ said the old Wolf, with a resigned bow of his head.

  Malcador walked to Vardas Ison and pressed a coin into his hand. ‘Voice it,’ he commanded.

  ‘Satre,’ replied the warrior, reading the word etched into the metal before sparing Loken a wary glance. His other hand opened and a tiny, jewelled object fell from his fingers, a faceted fleck of bright ruby set on gold pinions.

  ‘I am Ogen.’ The legionary with sable hair and pale skin was stone-faced as he discarded a string of onyx beads carved to resemble the skulls of avians.

  Next, the Sigillite moved to a hooded Knight who had never shown his face, and rolled another coin from the bag into his waiting palm. ‘Never had a true name before.’ The taciturn warrior’s words were icy. He looked up, studying Malcador. ‘This will do. I am Epithemius.’

  ‘Khyron.’ The hatchet-eyed legionary carrying a staff, who had been watching them all like a hawk from the very start now broke his silence to utter that single word, and in that moment it was clear that he would not speak again.

  Then Malcador was standing before Loken, and the Sigillite pressed a silver coin into his palm. It was unusually heavy for something so small.

  He looked down. The name on the disc was Crius, and Loken almost said it aloud. The word pushed at his lips, but he forced himself not to voice it.

  Then he saw that the velvet bag was empty as the Sigillite let it drop from his fingers.

  Nine names, he thought. Nine tokens. But there were ten Knights-Errant standing in the hall.

  Slowly, all eyes turned towards Nathaniel Garro.

  At the far end of the Hall of the Ages, a rectangular section of white stone groaned and dust fell from it as it retracted into an alcove. Revealed behind was a passageway, one of the hundreds of undocumented conduits that threaded through the walls of the Imperial Palace, into the great building’s hidden spaces known by the few aware of them as ‘the Shrouds’.

  Garro stood rigidly as the other Knights-Errant began, one by one, to walk by him and make for the shadowed entrance. As Loken crossed his line of sight, the younger legionary gave him a solemn nod, an affirmation of respect between the two veterans.

  His jaw set, Garro locked eyes with the Sigillite as Malcador approached, and for the first time in a long while, the warrior did not know what would come next.

  Was this his end unfolding? Keeler had told him it was not so, but could the Saint be mistaken? Garro’s thoughts turned inward and he looked back over all the times he had disobeyed Malcador’s edicts, tested his limits and pushed at the boundary of the Sigillite’s tolerance. Perhaps today he had reached the line that could not be crossed.

  ‘This is as far as you will go, Nathaniel,’ said Malcador. ‘The others… Their destiny lies elsewhere.’

  And then he knew. ‘You are taking them to see Him.’

  Malcador gave a nod. ‘You wondered why I gave you a list of names, back at the start of all this. I never told you the reason. Not all of it. I let you infer and fill in the gaps yourself.’

  ‘Those men you sent us to find, to bring back.’ Garro looked away, watching the figures in grey troop past him. ‘Rubio. The Nemean. Loken…’

  ‘And the others. Not all of them are here, of course. Not all of them were meant to be. But there was a greater design in it. Now that plan moves into its final phase.’

  He looked back at the Sigillite. ‘So why am I here?’ A kernel of annoyance came into being in the vault of his chest. ‘You bring me to this, only to deny me the next step?’

  ‘What do you think will happen, Nathaniel?’

  ‘It is in the heart of every true servant of the Imperium to stand before the… the Emperor, and know His will.’ In his haste, Garro had almost said God-Emperor, but he caught himself in time. ‘How could I not wish to be a part of that?’

  ‘He will not turn His face to you,’ Malcador said, without weight. ‘Not here. Not today. Whatever hopes you have, my friend, that doorway does not lead to their realisation.’ He nodded towards the open passage. ‘I do not say this to you as a reprimand. I speak in honesty, as you have always done to me.’ He smiled thinly. ‘After your selfless and devoted service, I owe you no less.’

  ‘Not that selfless,’ Garro admitted. Many was the time he had pursued his own agenda under cover of following the Sigillite’s opaque orders, venturing to places off the map in search of other followers of the Lectitio Divinitatus, and the Saint herself.

  Malcador raised an eyebrow. ‘Captain. You know what I am. What I am capable of. Do you really believe there was ever a moment where I did not know what you were doing?’

  Garro scowled. ‘You are mighty,’ he admitted, ‘but you are not omnipotent.’

  ‘True. But I do know people, and I do know you. I didn’t need telepathic mastery across the entire planet to see the path Nathaniel Garro followed. Knowin
g the kind of man you are, knowing what you believe in, that was enough.’

  ‘I have been your puppet all along, then?’

  ‘You were never that,’ said Malcador, affronted by the suggestion. ‘I have too much respect for you.’

  The admission was unexpected. ‘Indeed?’

  The Sigillite gave a low sigh. ‘I have learned through bitter experience that the river of fate can be navigated, even diverted, but never halted. The wise man learns the currents, turns them to his own ends. You, Nathaniel, are being carried down a stream where I cannot follow. There is a duty here, far from where Loken and the others will be taken. You must fulfil it.’

  Keeler. Her name was there on the tip of his tongue, and Garro knew that Malcador had to be reading it from the surface of his thoughts.

  The Sigillite drew himself up, his manner becoming formal. ‘Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro. I release you from the mantle of Agentia Primus and my command, but you will retain the rank and privileges you have earned. From this moment on, you are free to do what you wish. You may determine your own future.’

  Garro took a moment to process the decree. ‘I am… masterless?’

  Malcador nodded. ‘I grant that to you. Because I know you will be guided by something greater. Your moral spirit. Your noble soul.’ He walked forward, until he stood at Garro’s side. ‘I cannot control everything. I cannot account for every variable and possibility in this maddening vortex of war. So I set vectors moving, you see? I encourage, I coerce and cajole. I set others free and hope they find their true path.’ He gave him a last nod, and stepped through the doorway. ‘Good luck, my friend.’

  When Garro turned to look back across the empty hall, he saw that one figure in grey remained. ‘Rubio,’ he said, then corrected himself. ‘Koios.’

  The other warrior offered his hand. ‘We haven’t always seen eye to eye, captain. But I wish you were coming with us. It has been my honour to serve in your company… brother.’

  ‘Indeed, brother.’ Garro accepted his hand and their gauntlets clanked together. ‘I hope you will forgive me for what I did to bring you here.’ He had always felt a stab of guilt for compelling Rubio to go against the Edict of Nikaea on Calth, and against the strictures of his fellow Ultramarines.

  ‘Tylos Rubio of the Twenty-First Company would not absolve you,’ he replied, after a few seconds of silence. ‘But Koios will.’ He released his grip and passed from the hall.

  The white stone rumbled back into place and sealed the passageway shut, the entrance to the Shrouds vanishing seamlessly into the structure of the walls.

  In the cold vantage of the hall, there was a moment when Garro experienced a sense of colossal distance, an abyssal feeling of isolation that dwarfed anything he had known before.

  Without a primarch, without a brotherhood, one could say there was no legionary more truly alone than he was in this instant. Then the emotion faded and was put aside.

  Garro strode away, one hand upon the hilt of Libertas, as he marched towards the battlements and the war yet to come.

  ‘Your purpose does not lie on Terra,’ Malcador told them.

  Loken’s mind was still reeling with the import of what had taken place in the Hall of the Ages, and he found himself struggling to keep up. Even in his darkest moments, he had dared to hope that there was a greater purpose in all the madness and destruction he had witnessed, but the former Luna Wolf could never have known it would take this form.

  The secret passage brought them to another chamber, a spherical space bordered by inky shadows and lined with humming power cores and other complex tech-arrays, whose purpose he could only guess at. In the middle of the hollow, a shape of curves and sharp points was hidden beneath a great drop-cloth of black silk, the form of it more than three times the height of a line legionary. Servitors with sealed-blank faces moved around the chamber completing tasks, clicking at one another as they used echolocation to navigate. Whatever the purpose of this place, Malcador did not wish anyone to see it.

  ‘I showed you the deep future, the tomorrow where humanity is lost,’ the Sigillite continued. ‘Soon I will take you to another world where the foundations of a defence against it have been prepared. You will be the masters of that place. The finest weapons and advanced technologies await you in the citadel. A cadre of recruits, selected from across the galaxy, ready to be moulded into a fighting force like no other. A vault of the blackest secrets and my most forbidden knowledge, all at hand for you to pore over and come to command.’ He nodded to himself. ‘I will take you to build a Legion. Not for this war. Not for any war that the common of mind can comprehend. You will be masters of a knightly order to fight the war that never ends, in the realms beyond the real and into the infernal.’

  ‘How can this be done?’ said Yotun. ‘An entire Legion cannot be forged whole overnight! Even at the greatest pace, it would take generations… Centuries, even.’

  ‘Correct. And you will have the time you need.’ Malcador looked across the group, finding the dark-eyed warrior. ‘Ianius, you will lead your brothers in this. And you alone will know when the moment is right to return.’

  ‘I do not understand,’ Loken said quietly, his voice carrying through the chamber. ‘All of us have seen the unnatural horrors that breach from the immaterium. We’ve fought these things in their variegated forms, dispatched them as best we can. Yet you show us a future when that fight has failed and bid us to change it before it comes to pass.’

  ‘You seem to understand it well enough from my perspective,’ said the Sigillite.

  ‘Answer me this,’ Loken replied. ‘If this tragedy is inevitable, if it is, as you suggest, a greater danger than the Warmaster’s rebellion… how will one Legion be able to stop it?’

  ‘Will it shake your faith in me if I admit to a failure?’ The answer did not come from Malcador, but from the air around them. ‘I hope not. We remain human in some way, yes? Imperfect even as we seek a way to perfect ourselves.’

  Malcador bowed deeply to a presence that shaped behind Loken, and the legionary was immediately overcome with an urge to sink to one knee as the voice took form, and the form became a figure, and the figure became–

  ‘Rise, my children,’ said the Emperor of Mankind, an earnest, fatherly smile playing across His lips. ‘Rise. I would not have my loyal warriors stare at the ground while I converse with them.’ As He spoke, the servitors in the chamber stopped dead in their tracks and dropped to the floor; only Wyntor, the Sigillite’s dull-eyed adjutant, remained as he was, gazing blankly into nothing.

  In the past, Loken had been gifted with the rare opportunity to stand in the same room as some of the greatest primarchs ever to draw breath, and in those moments he had known what it was to walk among warlords, demigods and beings out of myth.

  All that paled to nothing in the Emperor’s dazzling presence. Loken could not bring himself to meet the great being’s scrutiny, but he could sense it on him, measuring and knowing him in all his fullness.

  He stole glimpses of a gallant aspect, something elegant and hard as carved teakwood but noble and forceful in motion. The Master of Mankind’s golden armour was a treasure house of elaborately crafted workings, inset with gems and precious metals, yet it moved with him in sinuous, flowing action. There was no hint of encumbrance or affectation there. This was a being in total and absolute control of His nature.

  Loken could find no other emotion but awe to think that, in some small fraction, the blood in his veins bore a measure of the ­Emperor’s great power within it.

  ‘I will confide a truth to you,’ He told them, beckoning Malcador to his feet as He passed him by. ‘In the time before the Great Crusade, my inner eye was opened to the menaces unnumbered out in the void. The xenos. The strains of lost humanity too far gone to rejoin us. The witchkin and the mutant.’

  The air thickened and grew dim. As He spoke, the Emperor moved
slowly from warrior to warrior, studying them in turn as a mentor might consider a student on the cusp of their greatest trial.

  ‘To defeat those threats I brought your gene-sires into being, and the Legions along with them. But there are other forces that crave the destruction of our civilisation. Forces I believed were held in check.’

  Loken could barely believe what he was hearing. If the Emperor Himself feared these daemons, then what chance did they have?

  ‘The Legiones Astartes were made to wage war in this universe, not the non-space of the warp. My errant sons…’ He hesitated, and there was a knife of regret in the brief silence. ‘In their eagerness to unseat me, they have broken a seal, and allowed an enemy you were never meant to fight into our reality.’

  The Emperor stared into the eyes of Ianius and time seemed to stop. The expression on His face was unreadable, and Loken tasted the acidic tang of psionic force in the atmosphere. Then the moment faded and He moved on, seeking out the warrior who was now Koios.

  ‘Although my friend and I have disagreed on much over the centuries, Malcador has been right about more things than he has not.’ The Emperor examined Loken’s comrade with equal intensity, before giving the Sigillite a questioning look. Malcador inclined his head, but no words were spoken, and at length the Master of Mankind moved on. ‘It was he who conceived of the need for a new kind of weapon. He who brought me the design for a Legion unlike those that came before it. It was Malcador who convinced me that the war beyond this war is coming.’

  Then the Emperor was standing over Loken, and the warrior was robbed of his voice, of everything but the will to stand and accept whatever command his highest lord would give him.

  ‘I speak of a conflict where the infernal must be battled in kind, fire against fire, like against like,’ He intoned. ‘I will have you forge your souls into swords, your minds into shields. If that is to be your fate.’ The last words echoed through Loken’s spirit, as if spoken only to him and no other.

  An icy claw of doubt seized his heart and Loken looked down as the Emperor moved away. This is wrong, said a voice in his head. I should not be here.