Sedition's Gate - Nick Kyme & Chris Wraight Read online

  'It will take some getting used to,' he said, truthfully enough.

  At first, all that he pulled from the rubble was worthless. A few scorched trinkets, their beauty melted. He doubted the Wolves had looted anything - the destruction they brought was too complete, and in any case they were not robbers, just murderers.

  There was no sunrise and no sunset, just a blank screen of darkness broken only by the faint muttering of ghosts. As his body weakened, it became hard to know what was real and what was imagined. His future-sense atrophied and every exercise of cult powers brought pain.

  He kept searching. The quest for a sliver of the past became the one fixed point for him and he pushed on, rooting through every library and archive until his eyes were red with fatigue and his fingers trembled.

  He couldn't get close to the heart of the old city. It was plagued by the revenants of psychneuein, swarms of them, and for every one he warded off with fire, another five homed in on him. They were protecting something, or perhaps just hovering around it. But whatever it was, Arvida no longer had the strength to penetrate their cordon to reach it.

  He turned to the lesser spires. Most were husks, hollow like storm-blown trees, blown apart by incendiaries and then stripped bare by ravening infantry packs. One, though, set further out from the haunted Occullum Square, had survived partially intact.

  Arvida climbed a long, winding spiral stair to reach the summit. He entered a circular chamber, open to the elements and with its ruined walls poking up like broken ribs. Lightning seemed drawn to it, and arced around the jagged crown in a lattice of silver.

  He stalked through the remains - a splintered desk, scraps of flaking parchment, and cracked and headless statues. He kicked aside

  heaps of refuse, exposing an elaborately tiled floor. He saw sigils glimmer in the flashes of light. There were idealised serpents, and the ubiquitous eye of knowledge, and the symbols of the Enumerations, and esoteric images from a dozen worlds tracing a ceremonial line back to Terra.

  He brushed aside the dust from a stone door lintel, revealing the raven's head of his order engraved there. In an instant, he remembered the place as it had been, lit with candles and smelling of book-leather.

  Ahriman's library.

  He had only visited it twice, and only once in the presence of its master. Ahzek Ahriman had been the head of his cult discipline but not his military commander, so their links were not close. Arvida remembered a smooth, pleasant face animated by intelligence and a ready, eager appetite for wonder.

  Presumably Ahriman was dead, as were Amon and Hathor Maat and all the others. He had not seen their ghosts, though. Why was that?

  Prospero's crystal dust lay in clumps, just as it did everywhere. He pushed it aside, watching the black spores clot against his gauntlets. As he moved, his right shoulder guard clicked again - the armour-seal had broken and every movement levered the gap a little wider.

  He hunted through the library's remains diligently, but after an hour or so he began to lose hope. There were a few of the familiar bits and pieces, but nothing suitable. Beyond the skeletal chamber walls the wind picked up, hot and bitter.

  He was about to turn back, when his trailing hand caught on something buried in the ash flakes. It felt oddly warm, as if powered by a heat source, but when he picked it up he realised that that was not possible.

  It was a tin box, battered and scratched, and with the last remnants of a fabric binding clinging to the hinge-line. Sheltering it in his cupped palm, Arvida carefully prised it open. A faded figure

  stared back at him - a lady, dressed in robes and carrying a rod of queenly office, her face smudged.

  Manipulating the contents was difficult in his gauntlets so Arvida moved over to the desktop and gently tipped them out on to a cleared area. It was a pack of card-wafers. Shielding them against the wind, he ran his eyes over the pictures on each card's face. He did not understand most of them, but some were vaguely familiar. They were crude depictions, their colours bleached by time, but the poses and configurations were suggestive.

  Why this? he found himself thinking. Of all the treasures, all the riches, why this?

  It was one of Ahriman's amusements, no doubt. A fortune-telling deck, tainted with a little warp-wisdom, or possibly just very old. He had seen similar things in his time, and had always found them unimpressive scrying aids. Far better to tap the Great Ocean directly, plugging into the heartblood of the empyrean.

  That is not yours,' came a voice from behind him.

  Arvida whirled to face it, clamping his palm over the cards to prevent them from gusting away. He had already drawn his bolter with the other hand.

  A Space Marine stood before him, his face exposed. He was a White Scars legionary, one of Jaghatai's savage mystics. He wore the same strange, dejected expression that he had done on the Swordstorm.

  It was then that Arvida realised he was dreaming again, and that even the solid things around him were memories, and the ghosts in the wind were memories of memories.

  'I am the last,' Arvida replied, slinging his bolter and collecting the cards up again. 'It is as much mine as anyone's.'

  This world is cursed,' said the nameless White Scars legionary. 'Leave it. No good can come of it.'

  Arvida felt his damaged pauldron click as his arms moved. 'Leave it? That is what you would recommend. You're uncurious, the lot of you.'

  'Put it back.'

  Arvida laughed at him, though it made his parched throat flare with pain. 'What does it matter? I will die here. Permit me one last remnant to hold on to before the end.'

  'You will not die here.'

  Arvida stopped in his tracks. Of course he wouldn't. He'd always known that, even during the darkest moments. Why did he even say it?

  He looked up at the legionary again, intending to ask why he was there and what he portended but, with a dreary predictability, there was now no sign of him. The bitter wind swirled around the remains of the library, whipping up the top layers of dust and driving them in eddying patterns.

  Arvida took up the tin box, sealed it again and locked it securely at his belt.

  'One last remnant,' he said to himself, making for the stairwell.

  'You should let me see it,' Arvida had said.

  'You will not be admitted,' Yesugei had replied.

  'Why not?'

  'For the Legion only.'

  'But I am of the Legion,' Arvida had countered, pointedly turning his shoulder to reveal the hybrid pauldron that he now wore. That is, if you still wish me to be.'

  Yesugei had smiled, recognising the trap he had set for himself. He had left then and did not return for some time, no doubt making representations in the places where representations needed to be made.

  Two days later, he came back. By then, Arvida's sight was almost as acute as it had been before Prospero's destruction and he sensed the Stormseer's arrival at his chamber several minutes before he actually arrived.

  'It is time,' Yesugei announced. He was wearing ceremonial robes of white linen, lined with close-written Khorchin picked out in gold. His shaven, amiable head gleamed under the light of the lumens, exposing every tattoo and scar.

  Arvida was helm-less, though still in armour, fresh from a punishing practice bout with the cages' automata. The star-and-lightning sigil was on his right shoulder guard; the new pauldron had already proved its worth and saved him from taking new wounds.

  Then it is permitted?' Arvida asked, reaching for a cloak to drape over his battleplate.

  The Khan ruled,' said Yesugei. 'He remains grateful.'

  Arvida followed Yesugei out of his chamber. 'Do I need to prepare?'

  'Just observe, since you wish to see it. But are you wounded?'

  Arvida turned slightly, hiding his neck where the rash had grown worse. It was no true wound, though it itched madly. His hands, too, fizzed hotly under the skin.

  'It's nothing,' he said. 'Let’s go.'

  They walked for a long time, passing through p
arts of the ship that Arvida had not been shown before. Gradually, the proportion of human serfs fell away, until they were surrounded only by fellow Space Marines. The White Scars were decked out in robes similar to Yesugei's. Some wore armour under them but most did not.

  They assembled in a steep auditorium set high up in the Swordstorm's command nexus. A semicircle of seats rose from a marble stage marked with the symbol of the Legion. Battle standards hung down over the wall behind it, many scorched around the edges or punched through with charred bolter wounds. Arvida scanned the banners. His Khorchin was still elementary, but he knew enough of the characters to read the names of planets: Naamani, Wahd Jien, Magala, Eilixo, Ullanor, Chondax.

  Several hundred warriors took their places. Arvida found a seat near the top rows, accompanied by Yesugei. Two stone lecterns faced one another on the marble floor, both empty, both draped in Legion colours. Once the audience had settled in position, the doors to the auditorium clanged shut. Artificial lights dimmed, replaced by bronze bowls with tongues of yellow flame.

  Silence fell, broken only by the crackle of the coals. No warrior spoke. The atmosphere became tense.

  After what seemed a very long time, double doors set into the rear wall unlocked and swung open. The same warrior that Arvida had seen earlier was escorted to one of the lecterns. He looked much as he had before, both in real life and in Arvida's dreams.

  He was no longer shackled, and his arms hung loosely by his sides. His shoulders were still set back, his expression still unyieldingly proud.

  That has always been the weakness of our kind, thought Arvida. Magnus most of all, but none of us are free of it.

  The condemned warrior stood at the lectern and his guards left him.

  A few moments later the doors opened again and one of the eighteen most lethal individuals in the galaxy took his place at the other lectern.

  The primarch was arrayed in what Arvida guessed was traditional dress from his home world - leather jerkin, fur-lined cloak, knee-length kaftan of spun gold, and metal-tipped riding boots. Illuminated screeds hung from his shoulders and a bejewelled and curved scabbard had been threaded through his wide, bronze-buckled belt.

  His head was bare, save for a slender circlet of gold set about his forehead. His long hair had been gathered into a topknot, revealing a harsh, spare face of sun-hardened skin. He bore himself with the unconscious poise of a plains-warrior, though the cultivated dignity in his mien spoke of a more profound heritage.

  The Khan. The Khagan. The Warhawk.

  He seemed to occupy more space than he should, as if his soul pressed up against its physical boundaries too hard. Arvida had seen him fight on Prospero, taking on the Death Lord Mortarion, and it had been the most complete display of swordmastery that he had ever witnessed. Even out of his armour-clad finery and set in the mundane surroundings of a court of enquiry, the raw danger of his presence could not be extinguished.

  There was nothing surplus about the Khan. He was as pure and

  elemental as a flame, a force of eternity set loose in a universe of petty souls.

  He did not look up at his assembled warriors. His expression gave almost nothing away, save for a vague sense of distaste at what he was being forced to do.

  'So,' he said, his great voice reverberating around the chamber like the soft, dour threat-growl of a tyger. 'Let us begin.'

  The tribunal was conducted in Khorchin. Arvida and Yesugei had both known this would be the case, and so they had made arrangements. As the participants spoke, Yesugei translated into Gothic and the words appeared in Arvida's mind just as if the speakers had placed them there. The process was not entirely passive, though, as Arvida used his own future-sense to pick up nuance and inflection from the original utterances. The result was a kind of amalgamated thought-speech, almost indistinguishable from listening to the real thing.

  Arvida found the exercise taxing, but it was preferable to having Yesugei whispering in his ear the whole time. He also suspected the Stormseer of using the thought-speech to test how quickly Arvida's precognitive abilities were recovering.

  'State your name,' said the Khan, though his lips formed different word-forms to Arvida's eyes.

  'I am called Orzun, of the Brotherhood of the Hooked Blade.'

  The condemned warrior looked directly at his primarch, neither cowering nor insolent. The disparity between them was evident, though the similarity was, too.

  'State your crime.'

  'I listened to the lies of the Warmaster’s servants and joined myself to those who planned to subvert the Legion. I was swayed by the words of Hasik Noyan-Khan. I killed brothers of the ordu on the attack frigate Ghamaliz when resistance was encountered and only ceased my insurrection when we were shown that the Noyan-Khan

  had been laid low and the Khagan had returned.'

  The Khan's gaze never wavered. It was steel-hard, as if by relaxing it a fraction he would allow the doubts back that had crippled the Legion's resolve.

  'And what is your allegiance now?'

  To the Khagan, to the ordu of Jaghatai and, through him, to the Imperium of Mankind. In my pride and folly, I erred.'

  'For what reason?'

  'I was told that the Emperor had forsaken the Great Crusade to commune with xenos. I believed the Warmaster’s grievance was just. I believed that you and he were brothers in arms and that our movement would ease the passage towards your alliance.'

  You did not seek the gifts of the yaksha, nor those of the zadyin argaV

  Orzun shook his head vehemently. 'I did not. I am a warrior, a bearer of the guan dao. I only wished to see the blades of the Khagan and the Warmaster wielded side by side.'

  'Others did what you have done. Where their faith was good, and where the blood-crime was not grave, they have been allowed to serve again. They have become the sagyar mazan, and have taken vengeance to the enemy. Should they live, they will return to the Legion, their crimes dissolved. I have studied your case, Orzun of the Brotherhood of the Hooked Blade. That path stands before you, should you wish to take it.'

  'With regret, Khagan, I cannot.'

  The Khan’s face remained stony, as if inuring himself to impending grief. Tell me the reason why.'

  'I swore the blood oath.'

  A low murmur ran around the auditorium. So, Orzun was one of them.

  You choose death, when life is offered,' said the Khan.

  'I swore on the Path of Heaven, and called on the eternal void to take me and devour my soul if I reneged on my vow. I followed the rite of the tsusan garag and committed myself to the universe's

  binding. The choice was wrong but the oath remains, as does the fate of the oathbreaker, just as it has been since we walked the endless grass.'

  This war is different. Greater powers than you have already proved faithless.'

  Then the void will damn them also.'

  'I can release you. I am the Khagan, the giver of the law. You do not need to do this.'

  Orzun's face, for the first time, flickered with uncertainty. He looked up at the warriors around him, then at the emblem of the Legion, then finally back at his primarch.

  'I have sworn it,' he said. 'It can never be taken back. Not even by you, lord.'

  The Khan held his warrior's gaze for a few moments more, scrutinising him for any chance of a recantation.

  'You were a fool, Orzun,' he said. 'Even if I had joined fates with my brother, I could never have tolerated this vow to persist. The blood oath is sacred, presided over by the zadyin arga and reserved for the settling of vendettas. You allowed them to trick you, to make it a sordid mockery. You have destroyed yourself, and at a time when I have need of warriors like never before.'

  Orzun remained implacable as his master spoke. He knew it, just as every soul in the chamber knew it. That would not change his mind.

  This is the final time of asking,' said the Khan. 'Will you renounce what you have sworn?'

  Orzun's reply was instant. 'I would have fought with you u
ntil the gates of Terra, lord. I would have died there with a smile on my lips. But I will not become like those who ruined me. I will not speak falsely, not to any man, nor to the old gods, and I will not break an oath. I no longer deserve the life I was given.'

  Then you know what must be done,' said the Khan, drawing his sword.

  He stepped down from his lectern and paced towards Orzun.

  The warrior stiffened, but did not move. The Khan stood over him, angling the point of his blade at Orzun's unprotected chest.

  'Of all the treacheries my brother set in motion,' he said, 'this is the worst. He has corrupted that which was once whole and turned our sharpest blades against us. I wish you had not sworn, for you are worth a thousand of every traitor who broke his own vows. You could have fought with me at Terra. When I am there, your name will be engraved on my own armour, as will the names of all others who would not damn themselves by revoking the tsusan garag. I will use those names to bring malice to my sword-edge, and so even in this you will still serve.'

  Orzun never looked away.

  'If I may ask, lord,' he said, his voice still firm. 'How many have renounced?'

  The Khan shot him a wintry smile, as if the question itself were ridiculous.

  'None,' he said, and pushed the blade through Orzun's heart.

  'How many are there, like him?' asked Arvida afterwards.

  'Not many,' said Yesugei. 'Even Hasik did not swear the blood oath, they tell me.'

  Then the Khan has not wounded the Legion overmuch by ending them.'

  'Not the Legion,' said Yesugei. 'Himself, though, I think very much.'

  Towards the end, the storms worsened. Arvida became aware of the great aetheric barrier smouldering above the clouds. It had ringed the planet, carried like the aftershock of a nuclear detonation and enclosing the world in a seething curtain of warp matter.

  It would have been easy to lose hope, then. He could sense well enough that no ship could penetrate such an aegis and that his escape from Prospero was therefore impossible.

  But certainty never left. He eked out his dwindling strength,