Текст книги "A Thousand Sons"

Автор книги: Грэм Макнилл

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

People had lived and died here, spending the span of their years dreaming of better days, and working to provide for themselves and their families. They were now dust, and to be so forgotten struck a real chord in Camille. She moved around the barricades – there could be no other purpose for such an assembly of items – and saw a host of cobwebbed skeletons, the bones held together by what looked like some kind of hardened resin.

“They didn’t realise how easily it could all be taken away,” she said.

“What?”

“The people who lived here,” said Camille, kneeling beside the nearest body. Though she was no expert in the study of bones, its size suggested it was a man’s.

“I’ll bet none of them woke up and thought, ‘This is the day our world ends, so I’d better make it count.’”

She looked up at Khalophis and said, “Nothing is permanent, no matter how much we might think it is. I suppose that’s what I’m learning here.”

“Some things will endure,” said Khalophis with the certainty of a zealot. “The Imperium.”

“I expect you’re right,” said Camille, not wishing to get into a discussion on the Imperium’s future with him.

She peeled off one of her gloves and gingerly touched the skeleton, half-expecting it to crumble to dust at her touch. It was a miracle none had succumbed to the ravages of time already, but the hardened resin appeared to be the cause of their preservation.

She heard a rustle of frightened birds from high above, but shut out the noise as she ran her hand over the hardened clavicles to the dead man’s skull, noticing that the cranial lid was detached. It hung from one side of the skull, like a hinged door that had been pushed open from the inside.

She closed her eyes, letting the familiar warmth flow from her hand and into the relic of past times. The power moved within her, and she felt the urgency of the man whose skull she touched pulling her down into his life, sensing the swell of his emotions as they reached out to her.

Too late, Camille saw they were of pain and madness. She tried to withdraw her hand, but the red rush of agony was too swift for her, and searing pain stabbed into her brain like a hot lance. Blood streamed from her mouth as she bit her tongue. Camille screamed as the man’s last, anguished moment ripped through her. Horrible images of feasting white maggots, ruptured flesh and dying loved ones burned their way into her consciousness.

She shook as though seized by a high-energy current, her teeth grinding and her sinews cracking as her mouth tore open in a soundless scream.

Then it was over. She felt rough hands pull her away, and the moment of connection with the dead man was broken. Bruised afterimages remained imprinted on her vision, and she gasped with the horror of his last moments. She had touched the dead before, and had always been able to insulate herself from their endings, but this had been too dreadful and too intense to ignore. She tasted metal and spat a mouthful of blood.

“I told you we should not have lingered,” snarled Khalophis.

“What?” was all she could manage, seeing Khalophis towering over her. One heavy gauntlet gripped her shoulder. The other was wreathed in flickering orange flame.

“Psychneuein,” hissed Khalophis, dragging her towards the stairs.

Then she heard it, a droning buzz like a hive of vespidae, and the excited flutter of what sounded like an explosion of wings as a flock of predatory birds took flight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Pyrae Unleashed/If You’re Dead/The Reflecting Cave

“RUN!” SHOUTED KHALOPHIS, as the frantic buzzing noise grew louder. Camille looked up to see an organically shifting swarm of winged clades launching themselves from hidden lairs in the darkness of the ruined structure.

Terror flooded her limbs with paralysing stillness.

The chittering clatter of insect limbs rattled from the steel structure as scores of psychneuein boiled down the length of the building, frantic with alien hunger. Camille saw hundreds of them, vile insect-like monsters with grasping limbs and feeding proboscis. The droning buzz of hundreds of wings and the chitinous clackingof snapping mandibles grew steadily in volume.

Something moved behind her, and she turned to see one of the hideous, beetle-like creatures. It had a glossy, segmented body and six spindly limbs that oozed a repellent resin. Its wings moved too fast to see, like oil spilled on water, and it stank of spoiled meat.

Razored mandibles jutted from its swollen head, its surface grotesquely textured like a human brain studded with multi-faceted eyes that threw back her horrified reflection.

The creature launched itself forward, but erupted in flames before it reached her. The charred corpse struck her in the chest and disintegrated into hot ashes. She screamed, and frantically brushed the smoking remains from her lap as Khalophis swept her up into the crook of his arm as easily as a man might pick up a small child.

“I told you to run,” he snapped. “You mortals never listen.”

Khalophis set off towards the stairs, but a host of psychneuein crawled up from below.

“Damn things,” said the Astartes, flicking his free hand towards them. A wall of red flame erupted from the ground, consuming the creatures in seconds. No sooner had he despatched the psychneuein than more landed on the overhanging girders and piles of rubble. Camille counted at least a dozen.

As though a single intelligence controlled the beasts, they took flight at the same instant. They swooped towards them, the screech of their wings like a war cry.

“You think it’s that easy?” roared Khalophis, filling the air around them with balls of phosphorescent flame, spinning them around like whipping poi. The psychneuein hovered at bay, hissing and spitting as the fiery spheres wove a flaming lattice around their prey. More of the creatures appeared with every passing second.

Khalophis set her down and said, “Stay behind me. Do what I say when I say it and you will live. Understood?”

Camille nodded, too terrified to speak. The Astartes warrior hurled a torrent of fire from his hands towards the largest group of psychneuein, and they screeched in rage as they erupted in flames. A chop of his left hand sent a spear of fire into a psychneuein that dared swoop down at him from above. His right hand shot out, and an invisible blaze of heat rippled outwards. A dozen beasts spontaneously exploded as the molecules of their bodies were superheated to explosive temperatures.

The air was blisteringly hot, and Camille felt her skin burning in the fire shield around them. Secondary fires were filling the air with sooty, carbonised smoke. Her eyes stung with the heat, each breath laboured and painful.

“I can’t breathe!” she gasped.

Khalophis glanced down at her. “Deal with it.”

More of the psychneuein came at Khalophis, but none could breach his protective barriers of heat. Camille pulled her body into a tight ball on the floor, covering her mouth with her hand. She tried to keep her breaths shallow, but terror was working against her and she felt her vision greying.

“Please,” she gasped with the last of the oxygen in her lungs.

Khalophis bent down and hauled her to her feet.

“Stand here,” he said. “Stay within the heat haze and you will be able to breathe.”

Camille could barely hold herself upright, but she felt the heat vanish, as though the door to a meat locker had just opened in front of her. She sucked in greedy mouthfuls of cold air, seeing a ripple in the filmy atmosphere surrounding her. Beyond the haze, fires and smoke raged unchecked as Khalophis’ power consumed anything flammable within reach. None of it touched her, as though she were enclosed in a hermetically-sealed bubble.

Khalophis fought with the fury of a gladiator as the psychneuein assailed him from every side. There seemed to be no end to their numbers as they hurled themselves at the warrior with furious abandon.

“Burn, you freaks!” shouted Khalophis, killing with jets of flame, daggers of fire and waves of superheated air. Even in her terror, Camille heard the strain in his voice. The power of the Pyrae was phenomenal, but so too was the cost.

With every display of psychic mastery, the fury of the attacking monsters doubled.

She tried to recall what Lemuel had told her of the psychneuein, but could remember little other than the fact that they reproduced by stinging you and laying their eggs in your body. One fact leapt to the front of her consciousness, and despite the heat, a sudden chill travelled the length of her spine.

“It’s your powers!” she yelled. “They’re being drawn to us because of your powers! It’s driving them wild. You have to stop using them!”

Khalophis sliced half a dozen psychneuein from the air with a shimmering fire sword that sprang from his fist. In that brief lull, he turned to her, his face dripping in sweat, his eyes sunken and exhausted.

“The fire is all that’s keeping us alive!” he cried, sweeping the blade around as three more came at him.

“It’s what will get us killed if you don’t stop using it!”

A hissing psychneuein landed on the broken remains of a fallen wall, its thorax bulging and dripping. A long stinger whipped at its rear and she screamed as it leapt at Khalophis.

“Behind you!” she yelled.

Khalophis dropped to one knee and immolated the monster with a glance. A clutch of monsters took its place, their stingers erect and wickedly barbed. Never mind the eggs, being stung would kill her before they could use her body as an incubator.

Khalophis snarled and the fire sword vanished. He swung his bolter around, racking the slide and firing a three round burst into the group of psychneuein.

“Back towards the stairs!” shouted Khalophis, firing as he went. “If we can reach the speeder, we’ll be safe.”

Camille nodded, trying to keep behind the warrior as her insulating cocoon vanished.

The entire floor was ablaze, pools of molten steel and dissolving carcasses littering the ground. Again the smoke tarred her lungs, and she coughed as her body fought for oxygen. A psychneuein slammed into Khalophis, its body ablaze from the fires, and the giant warrior stumbled. He batted it away, but the momentary lapse of concentration caused his barrage of bolter fire to falter.

Three psychneuein darted in, their stingers plunging into Khalophis’ armour. Two stingers broke on impact, but the third stabbed into his waist through the coiled cabling beneath his breastplate. He grunted and crashed the beast with his fist. His bolter roared and psychneuein burst like target dummies.

Khalophis expertly switched magazines on his bolter and loosed another burst of shots as more of the beasts flew in. The fire had taken hold of the entire building, and Camille felt the floor shift underfoot as beams melted in the intolerable heat. The buzz of wings was almost obscured by the crackle of flames and creaking structural elements.

“The stairs!” she cried.

The way down was ablaze, the sagging ironwork red hot and melting. No way down there.

Khalophis saw it at the same time and shook his head, as though disgusted at her fragility.

“Hold on,” he said as he slung his bolter and tossed her over his shoulder.

The psychneuein boiled towards them, but Khalophis was already on the move. He ran through the flames, head down like a living battering ram. Psychneuein smashed against him, some breaking open on his armour, others stabbing him with their long stingers. Camille cried out in pain as a barb protruding from his shoulder-guard tore into her side. She looked up in time to see that Khalophis was running towards a sheet of dancing flame. She cried out as he leapt into it.

Searing heat surrounded her, but the blazing wall parted like a stage curtain as Khalophis loosed one last burst of his powers.

Then they were falling. Camille closed her eyes as the ground rushed up towards her. Khalophis braced his legs as he dropped, slamming down on the move and carrying on as though his leap through the flames was nothing at all. Camille felt a rib break with the impact of slamming against his armour, but gritted her teeth against the pain. Khalophis kept running, smashing through the low doorway that led back to the outside world in an explosion of stone and plaster dust. He fired his bolter one-handed over his shoulder. Alien screeches told Camille that every one of them, was a killing shot. Whatever else she thought of Khalophis, he was a superlative warrior.

Camille drew gloriously fresh air into her lungs and, almost immediately, her vision cleared and her breathing eased.

The psychneuein swarmed from the ruined building. Smoke poured from its shattered windows and leaping flames licked up its length. Its structure bowed and shuddered as load-bearing elements melted. Spading brickwork and stone tumbled from its upper levels.

Khalophis unceremoniously dumped her from his shoulder, and she bit back a scream as the splintered ends of her broken rib ground together.

“Get in,” ordered Khalophis, and she looked behind her to see the welcome form of the disc-speeder. He threw his bolter into the vehicle and climbed into the pilot’s seat.

Camille dragged herself upright using the speeder’s exhausts and painfully opened the crew compartment hatch as its engines spooled up with a rising whine.

The swarming psychneuein were almost on top of them, the buzz of their frantic wings deafening. Less than twenty yards separated them from the vanguard of the monsters.

“Hurry, for Throne’s sake, hurry!” she shouted, pulling herself inside.

“Are you in?” Khalophis demanded.

“I’m in,” she said, pressing herself into one of the bucket seats and hauling the restraint harness around her body. The whine of the engines changed pitch, and the speeder leapt forward, the phenomenal acceleration slamming her head against the fuselage. She kept her eyes shut for long seconds, hardly daring to breathe as the long seconds ticked by.

The engine noise deepened, and Khalophis’ voice crackled over the intercom.

“We’re clear,” he said. “Are you all right back there?”

She wanted to snap at him, but that was the pain talking.

Instead she spat a mouthful of blood and nodded.

“Yeah, I guess,” she said. “I think I broke a rib, my lungs feel like I’ve swallowed a gallon of burning tar and thanks to your lead foot I’ve got a splitting headache, but I’ll live.”

“Good enough,” said Khalophis. “Alive is all I need.”

“I’m touched by your concern,” she said, before adding, “but thanks for saving my life.”

Khalophis didn’t acknowledge her, and they spent the journey back to Tizca in pained silence.

A SOFT HUMMING filled the medicae bay. Kallista reclined in bed, eyes closed, her chest rising and falling with rhythmic breaths. Her skin was grey, its surface dull and lustreless. Her hair had been shaved, and Lemuel wished he could do more for her than simply sit by her bedside and hold her hand.

He and Camille had taken alternating shifts to sit by her bedside, but Lemuel had been here for nearly forty-eight hours and was beginning to feel like lead weights were attached to his eyelids. A bank of walnut-panelled machines with numerous gold-rimmed dials and pict-slate readouts chirruped beside Kallista’s bed. Lengths of copper wiring coiled from jack plugs in their sides to points across her skull, and crackling globes buzzed softly along their top edges.

Kallista’s eyes fluttered open and she smiled weakly at the sight of him.

“Hello, Lemuel,” she said, her voice like footsteps on dead leaves.

“Hello, my dear,” he replied. “You’re looking well.” Kallista tried to laugh, but she winced in pain. “Sorry,” said Lemuel. “I shouldn’t make you laugh, your muscles are all strained.”

“Where am I?”

“In the neuro-wing of the Pyramid of Apothecaries,” said Lemuel. “After what happened to you, it seemed the most sensible place to bring you.”

“What did happen to me? Did I have another attack?”

“I’m afraid so. We tried to get your sakau, but you were too far gone,” said Lemuel, deciding to keep silent about what Kallista had said to him in her delirium.

Kallista lifted her arm to her forehead, trailing a collection of clear tubes and monitoring cables from a canula piercing the back of her hand. She touched her head and frowned, gently feeling the stubble and brass contacts on her scalp.

“Yes, sorry about your hair,” said Lemuel. “They had to shave it to attach those contacts.”

“Why? What are they for?”

“Ankhu Anen brought the devices from the Corvidae temple. He was a bit cagey when I asked what they were, but eventually he said that they monitor aetheric activity in your brain and quell any intrusions. So far, they seem to be working.”

Kallista nodded and surveyed her surroundings.

“How long have I been here?”

Lemuel rubbed his hands over his chin. “My beard says three days.”

She smiled and pushed herself further up the bed. Lemuel poured some water, and she gratefully drank the entire glass.

“Thank you, Lemuel. You are a good friend.”

“I do my best, dearheart,” he said, before adding. “Do you remember anything about what you saw? I only ask because Ankhu Anen seemed to think it might be important.”

Kallista bit her bottom lip, and he saw an echo of the fearful look he’d seen at Voisanne’s.

“Some of it,” she said. “I saw Tizca, but not like we know it. There was no sunshine and the only light was from the fires.”

“Fires?”

“Yes, the city was burning,” said Kallista. “It was being destroyed.”

“By whom?”

“I don’t know, but I saw the shadow of a stalking beast in the thunderclouds, and I could hear howling from somewhere far away,” said Kallista, tears gathering in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. “Everything was burning and glass was falling like rain. All the shards were like broken mirrors and every one of them had the image of a single staring eye looking back at me.”

“That’s quite a vision,” said Lemuel, taking her hand and stroking her upper arm.

“It was horrible, and it’s not the first time I’ve had one like it. I didn’t recognise Tizca the first time I saw it but, now that I’m here, I’m sure it was the same one.”

A sudden thought occurred and she said, “Lemuel, did I write anything this time?”

He nodded.

“Yes,” he said, “but it didn’t make any sense. Ankhu Anen is trying to decipher it now.”

Kallista closed her eyes and wiped away her tears. She took a shuddering breath, and then smiled as someone opened the door behind him. Lemuel turned and saw a tall, broad-shouldered man in the uniform of a captain in the Prospero Spireguard. He was ludicrously handsome, with dark features and as chiselled a jaw as any heroic image of Hektor or Achilles.

Lemuel disliked him almost immediately on principle.

The man’s crimson uniform jacket was immaculately pressed, decorated with brass buttons, gold frogging and numerous polished medals. He carried a silver helmet in the crook of his arm, and a long curved sabre was belted at his hip next to a gleaming laspistol.

“Sokhem,” said Kallista with a grateful smile.

The soldier gave Lemuel a quick nod of acknowledgement. He held out his hand and said, “Captain Sokhem Vithara, sir. 15th Prosperine Assault Infantry.”

Lemuel took the proffered hand and winced at the strength of Vithara’s grip.

“Lemuel Gaumon, remembrancer, 28th Expedition.”

“A pleasure,” said Vithara. “Kalli’s told me of your friendship, and I thank you for that, sir.”

Lemuel felt his dislike melt away in the face of Vithara’s winning smile and natural charm. He forced himself to smile, knowing he was no longer needed.

“Nice to meet you too, Captain Vithara,” he said, rising and scooping up his coat. “I’ll leave you two alone now.”

He gently lifted Kallista’s hand and planted a kiss and said, “I’ll come and see you later, my dear.”

She gripped his shoulder and pulled him close, whispering urgently in his ear.

“I want to leave Prospero,” she said. “I can’t stay here. None of us can.”

“What? No, my dear, you’re in no state to go anywhere.”

“You don’t understand, Lemuel. This world is doomed, I’ve seen its death throes.”

“You don’t know for sure what you saw,” said Lemuel, pulling himself upright.

“Yes I do,” she said. “I know all too well what it was.”

“I can’t leave,” said Lemuel. “There’s so much I’ve yet to learn from the Thousand Sons.”

“You can’t learn if you’re dead,” said Kallista.

LEMUEL LEFT KALLISTA and Captain Vithara together and made his way from the neuro-wing. Though he had no desire for Kallista beyond friendship, he had to admit to a pang of jealousy at the sight of her handsome suitor.

He smiled at the thought, recognising how foolish it was.

“You are a hopeless romantic, Lemuel Gaumon,” he said. “It will be the death of you.”

As he made his way to the exit, a door slid open ahead of him, and his good mood evaporated in an instant as he saw an Astartes warrior who looked like he’d just returned from a war zone. His armour was scorched black in places, and numerous barbs jutted from his shoulder-guards and thighs. He recognised Khalophis, but it wasn’t his appearance that halted Lemuel in his tracks.

He carried Camille in his arms, and she looked dreadful.

Blood matted her hair and clothes. Her skin was a painful red, and she held a hand pressed to the side of her chest, stifling pained gasps with every step Khalophis took.

“Camille!” cried Lemuel, running over to her. “What in the world happened?”

“Lem,” she wept. “We were attacked.”

“What?” asked Lemuel, looking up at the hulking form of Khalophis. “By whom?”

“Get out of my way, mortal,” said Khalophis, moving past Lemuel.

He turned and jogged to match the warrior’s pace.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

“She was exploring the ancient ruins, even after I told her it was dangerous, and we disturbed a nest of psychneuein.”

Lemuel’s blood chilled at the mention of Prospero’s indigenous psy-predators.

“Throne, no!” he said, standing directly in front of Khalophis. The Astartes glared down at him, and Lemuel thought he was going to walk straight through him.

“Camille, listen to me,” said Lemuel, lifting her eyelids. Her pupils were dilated and almost entirely black. He didn’t know if that was good or bad. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been ran over by a Land Raider,” she snapped. “Any more stupid questions?”

“How is your head?” he asked, speaking slowly and clearly. “Do you have a headache?”

“Of course I do. Thanks to Khalophis, I think I breathed in a lifetime’s worth of smoke.”

“No, I mean… Do you feel any different?” asked Lemuel, struggling for the right words. “Is your head painful in a way that feels, I don’t know, strange?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, catching the edge of his panic. “Why? What’s wrong with me?”

Lemuel ignored her question and spoke directly to Khalophis, “Get Camille to a bay right now, and send for Lord Ahriman. Hurry! We don’t have much time!”

THE REFLECTING CAVE was filled with light, myriad pinpricks of soul-light that flickered form precisely shaped crystals held by the thousand Thralls standing at the intersection points of the cavern’s energy lines. Located almost a full mile beneath the city of Tizca, the crystal cave was enormous, fully three kilometres across at its widest point, and its stalactite-hung roof chimed with the sound of soft bells.

Fireflies danced within the walls, throwing back the lights carried by the Thralls and illuminating the figures and apparatus at the centre of the enormous cave.

An elongated bronze device, like a gigantic telescope, descended from the central point of the roof. Its surface was graven with unknown symbols and studded with vanes of silver, while a polished green crystal fully three metres across terminated the base of the bronze mechanism.

Magnus the Red stood directly below the device, looking up through the crystal into the night sky directly above the centre of Occullum Square. He was naked but for a loincloth, his flesh bare to the elements and gleaming with oil.

Ahriman watched as Amon massaged a mixture of sandalwood, jasmine and benzoin oil into Magnus’ flesh. Uthizzar scraped the excess oil from the primarch’s body with a bone-bladed knife as Auramagma held a smoking censer that filled the air with the fragrance of cinquefoil. Phael Toron stood next to Ahriman, his body language stiff and awkward.

Phael Toron’s 7th Fellowship had spent the majority of the Great Crusade on Prospero, missing much of the great learning undertaken by the Legion since Magnus had led them from their adoptive home world. His warriors had quickly accepted the new teachings, but it was going to take time for them to fully adjust.

“Is this all necessary?” asked Toron, indicating the strange paraphernalia arranged beneath the bronze mechanism. A rectangular white slab like an altar was hung with a heavy chain of magnetised iron. At each of the cardinal points around the slab were four concave mirrors that focussed the light from the crystals carried by the Thralls. Five concentric circles enclosed the altar, and within the circuits of the four outermost circles were unknown words that left a bad taste in Ahriman’s mouth when he had tried to read them.

“The primarch tells us so,” said Ahriman. “He has looked long and hard into the necessary rituals to hurl his body of light halfway across the galaxy.”

“This smacks of unclean spirit worship to me,” said Toron.

“It is not,” Ahriman reassured him. “We have learned much since leaving Prospero, Toron, but there are things you have yet to fully understand. This is absolutely necessary if we are to save Horus.”

“But why here, hidden from sight in a cave?”

“Look to your history,” said Ahriman. “The first mystical rites were conducted in caves. We are the initiates of Magnus, and when we are finished, we will emerge into the light of the stars, reborn and renewed in our purpose. Do you understand?”

Toron gave a curt bow, cowed by the aetheric flare in Ahriman’s aura. “Of course, Lord Ahriman. This is all very new to me.”

“Of course, forgive my choler,” said Ahriman. “Come, it is time.”

They stepped forward, and their Thrall attendants moved in to drape white chasubles over their armour, tying them at the waist with narrow gold chains.

Ahriman received a crown of vervain leaves threaded with a silver cord, and Toron was handed a glittering athame with a silver blade and obsidian handle.

Together, they walked to Magnus as Uthizzar stepped away and retrieved an iron lantern from his Thrall. Amon cleaned his hands of oil with a silk cloth, and robed Magnus in white before lifting a charcoal brazier that smoked with the aroma of alder and laurel wood.

“Your flesh is anointed, my lord,” said Amon. “You are untainted.”

Magnus nodded and turned to Ahriman.

“The Crimson King requests his crown,” he said.

Ahriman approached Magnus, feeling the heat of his master’s skin and the meditative power churning within him. Magnus lowered his head, and Ahriman placed the crown of vervain leaves upon his brow, letting the silver cord settle around his ears.

“Thank you, my son,” said Magnus, his eye glittering with violet fire and hazel flecks.

“My lord,” said Ahriman with a bow. He retreated from Magnus, and turned to receive a heavy book bound in faded leather and stitched with gold. An iron pendant, worked in the form of a snarling wolf’s head against a crescent moon, lay along the valley at the meeting point of its pages.

This was the Book of Magnus, its contents the distilled wisdom of all that Mahavastu Kallimakus had written in his long years of unthinking service to the Thousand Sons. To look upon it was an honour, but to hold it and be expected to read from its pages was the culmination of a lifelong dream for Ahriman.

Yet, for all that he had rebuked Phael Toron, Ahriman couldn’t help but wonder if the man’s unease was justified. The ritual Magnus had them performing was uncannily similar to many they had destroyed during the glory days of the Great Crusade.

“Are we of one mind?” asked Magnus. “We can go no further without complete accord. The harmony of our assembly is all, for it bears that most precious cargo: the human soul.”

“We are in accord,” said the captains with one voice.

“Our work starts in the darkness, but comes into the light,” continued Magnus. “My form must be reduced to the chaos of its component parts, and the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts. This great work we are upon is our most determined effort to lay claim to mastery of our fate. By such works we show that we are not content to simply be pawns in the Great Game, but will play upon our own account. Man the dabbler becomes man the decider. Too few have the courage to take arms against an uncaring galaxy, but we are the Thousand Sons; there is nothing we dare not do!”

Magnus nodded to Auramagma, who turned to the white slab as the thousand Thralls began chanting in monotonous, meaningless syllables. The light from the Thralls’ crystals pulsed, as though with the heartbeat of the cave itself.

Auramagma turned right as he reached the slab, circling around it with the brazier forming a ring of aromatic smoke. Ahriman followed him, reciting angelic words from the Book of Magnus, the power of them a fulsome texture on his lips.

Phael Toron came after him, bearing the athame upon his outstretched palms, and following him came Uthizzar with the unlit lantern. Lastly came Amon, who bore the heated brazier in his armoured gauntlets. The five sons of Magnus processed around the white slab nine times before halting as Magnus took his place in the centre.

The Primarch of the Thousand Sons lay down upon the altar, his white robes spilling over its edges. Ahriman kept reading from the Book of Magnus as Uthizzar lit the lantern with a taper from Amon’s brazier. Auramagma held the censer aloft as Phael Toron stepped towards the recumbent form of Magnus.

Ahriman saw a ripple of light converging from all around them as streamers of aether drifted down from the crystals carried by the thousand Thralls. Within moments, the entire floor of the cave was awash with smoky light, the combined essence of the Thralls seeking an outlet for their energy. The light gathered in the mirrors, focusing its magnified illumination upon Magnus’ body, imparting a ghostly aura to his still form.