Текст книги "A Thousand Sons"

Автор книги: Грэм Макнилл

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

Magnus stood and walked from the ruin of his study, ashamed at his loss of control and needing to clear his head. The glass doors that led to his balcony were smashed, the glass lying in accusing shards that crunched as he stepped through the wreckage.

He leaned on the balcony railing, supporting his weight on his elbows and letting the cool wind ruffle his hair and caress his skin. Far below him, Tizca carried on as though nothing had happened, its people oblivious to the doom he had unleashed upon them all. They didn’t know it yet, but a terrible retribution would soon fall upon them.

What form that retribution would take he did not know, but he recalled the Emperor’s words at Nikaea, and feared the worst. People moved through Occullum Square and along the Street of a Thousand Lions, congregating in the many parks and Fountain Houses that dotted the western areas of the city where the bulk of its citizens dwelt.

The port was to the north, a walled area of the city built on the gentle slopes that led down to the curved bay. Golden beaches spread further along the coast before sweeping beyond sight into the Desolation. Hard against the flanks of the eastern mountains stood the Acropolis Magna, a raised spur of rock that had once been a fortress, but had long since fallen into ruin. A great statue of Magnus stood upon its highest point to mark the place where he had first set foot on the surface of Prospero.

How he wished he could take back those first steps!

Dozens of theatres clustered around the base of the Acropolis Magna, their tiers cut into the lower slopes of the rock, home to actors who strutted like martinets on each marbled proscenium. Five perfectly circular Tholus stood in areas of rolling parkland, open-air structures built according the principles of the Golden Mean. In the forgotten ages they had once housed temples, but were now used as sports arenas and training grounds.

Numerous barracks of the Spireguard dotted the city’s plan, and Magnus felt a twinge of regret for these men and women most of all. They were all going to die for the crime of being born on Prospero.

The cult’s pyramids dominated the skyline, looming from the gilded city like cut glass arrowheads. Sunlight reflected on them, dancing like fire in the polarised crystal. He’d seen the vision once before and had thought it allegorical. Now he knew better.

“All this will be ashes,” he said sadly.

“It does not have to be,” said a voice behind him.

Magnus turned, and harsh words died on his lips as he saw it was not an intruder that had spoken.

He had.

Or at least a version of him had.

The mirror hanging beside the doorway was broken, yet dozens of splinters still clung to the copper frame. In each of them, Magnus saw a shimmering reflection of his eye, one mocking, one angry, one capricious, another aloof. The eyes stared with sly amusement, each a different colour and each now regarding him with the same quizzical look.

“A mirror? Even now you appeal to my vanity,” said Magnus, dreading what this signified.

“I told you it was the easiest trap to set,” said the reflections, their voices slippery and entwined. “Now you know the truth of it.”

“Was this always what you wanted?” asked Magnus. “To see me destroyed?”

“Destroyed? Never!” cried the reflections, as though outraged by the suggestion. “You were always to be our first choice, Magnus. Did you know that?”

“First choice for what?”

“To bring about the eternal chaos of destruction and rebirth, the endless succession of making and unmaking that has cycled throughout time and will continue for all eternity. Yes, you were always first, and Horus is a poor second. The Eternal Powers saw great potential in you, but even as we coveted your soul, you grew too strong and caused us to look elsewhere.”

The reflections smiled with paternal affection, “But I always knew you would be ours one day. While suspicious eyes were turned upon you and your Legion, we wove our corruptions elsewhere. For that you have my thanks, as the Blinded One has lit the first fire of the conflagration, though none yet see it for what it is.”

“What areyou?” asked Magnus, stepping through the doorway to re-enter the wreckage of his chambers. Hoarfrost gathered on the splintered glass and his breath misted before him.

“You know what I am,” said his reflections. “Or at least you should.”

One splintered eye shifted, swirling until it became a fiery snake with multi-coloured eyes and wings of bright feathers: the beast he had killed beneath the Mountain of Aghoru. It changed again, morphing through a succession of shimmering forms, until Magnus saw the shifting, impossibly massive form of the shadow in the Great Ocean.

“I once named myself Choronzon to you, the Dweller in the Abyss and the Daemon of Dispersion, but those are meaningless labels that mortals hang upon me, obsolete the moment they are uttered. I have existed since the beginning of time and will exist beyond the span of this universe. Names are irrelevant to me, for I am every name and none. In the inadequate language of your youngling species, you should call me a god.”

“You were the one that helped me save my Legion,” said Magnus with a sinking heart.

“Save? No. I only postponed their doom,” said the shadow. “That boon is now ended.”

“No!” cried Magnus. “Please, never that!”

“There is a price to pay for the time I gave your sons. You knew this when you accepted the gift of my power. Now it is time to make good on your bargain.”

“I made no bargain,” said Magnus, “not with the likes of you.”

“Oh, but you did,” laughed the eyes. “When, in your despair, you cried out for succour in the depths of the warp, when you begged for the means to save your sons – you flew too close to the sun, Magnus. You offered up your soul to save theirs, and that debt is now due.”

“Then take me,” declared Magnus. “Leave my Legion and allow them to serve the Emperor. They are blameless.”

“They have drunk from the same chalice as you,” said the eyes. “And why would you wish them to serve a man who betrayed you? A man who showed you unlimited power and then told you not to use it? What manner of father opens the door to a world of wonder and then orders you not to step through? This manwho planned to use your flesh to save his own from destruction?”

The images in the glass changed once more, and Magnus saw the Golden Throne, its mechanisms wreathed in crackling arcs of lighting. A howling, withered cadaver sat upon the throne, its once-mighty flesh blackened and metastasised.

“This is to be your destiny,” said the mirror, “bound forever to the Emperor’s soul-engine, suffering unendurable agony to serve his selfish desires. Look upon this and know the truth.”

Magnus tried to look away, but the horror of the vision was impossible to ignore.

“Why should I believe anything you say?” he cried.

“You already know the truth of your doom; I have no need to embellish. Look into the warp and hunt for your nemesis. He and his savage dogs of war are already on their way. Trust yourself if you do not trust me.”

Magnus closed his eye and cast his senses into the seething currents of the Great Ocean. Its substance was agitated, and roaring tides billowed with tempestuous force. All was chaos, but for a slender corridor of stillness, through which Magnus felt the passage of many souls.

He closed upon their lifeforce and saw the form his doom would take.

Magnus’ eye snapped open and anger boiled over. His hand erupted in searing white fire, the most prosaic and primal of the arts, and his chambers were filled with billowing flames, burning everything within to cinders. Wood and paper vaporised in the white heat of Magnus’ rage, and what little his despair had not destroyed, his rage consumed.

A column of blazing fire erupted from the summit of his pyramid, and a rain of molten glass shards fell from the summit. All eyes in Tizca turned towards the Pyramid of Photep, the plume of fire dwarfing that of the Pyrae.

Only the Book of Magnus remained inviolate, its pages impervious to the killing fire.

Nothing was left of the mirror, its fused shards bubbling in a molten pool at his feet.

“You can destroy them,” said the fading reflections in the liquid glass. “Say the word and I will tear their vessels asunder, scattering them beyond all knowledge and hope of salvation.”

“No,” said Magnus, dropping to his knees with his head in his hands. “Never.”

MAGNUS HAD NO knowledge of how much time had passed when he heard the crash of his door breaking open. He looked up to see Uthizzar enter his chambers, his youthful features shocked at the devastation he saw within. A squad of Scarab Occult came with him, their visors marred by a single vertical slash that obscured the right eye lenses of their helmets.

Magnus had heard that the tradition had become commonplace after the Council of Nikaea, but to see such a visible sign of his sons’ devotion was a poisoned barb in his heart.

“Uthizzar,” said Magnus through his tears, “get out of here!”

“My lord?” cried Uthizzar, moving towards Magnus.

Magnus raised a warding hand, his grief threatening to overwhelm him as he thought of all he had seen and all that the monstrous god of the warp had shown him.

Uthizzar staggered as the full force of Magnus’ thoughts struck him like a blow. Magnus veiled his mind from the young telepath, but it was too late. Uthizzar knew it all.

“No!” cried Uthizzar, crushed by the gut-wrenching hurt of betrayal. “It cannot be! You… Is it true? Tell me it is not true. What you did… What is coming…”

Magnus felt his heart harden, and cursed himself for such an unforgivable lapse of will. “It is true, my son. All of it.”

He could see Uthizzar’s eyes begging him to say he was joking, or that this was some hideous test. As much as Magnus wanted to save his sons from the sins of their father, he knew he couldn’t. He had lied to himself and his warriors for too long, and this last chance for truth and redemption could not be squandered.

No matter what it entailed.

“We have to warn the Legion,” hissed Uthizzar, spinning on his heel and barking orders to the Scarab Occult. “Mobilise the Spireguard and stand the fleet to battle orders. Disperse the Arming Proclamation to the civilian militias and issue a general evacuation order for non-combatants to the Reflecting Caves!”

Magnus shook his head, and a wall of unbreakable force sprang up before Uthizzar and his warriors, trapping them within his scorched and smoking chambers.

“I am sorry, Uthizzar, I really am,” said Magnus, “but I can’t let you do that.”

Uthizzar started to turn towards him, but before his son could look him in the eye, Magnus ended his life.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A Good Student/My Fate is My Own/Dispersal

THE TANG OF salty air was strong. A stiff breeze blew in from the sea, and Lemuel felt a pang of nostalgia as he thought back to the sweeping coastlines of Nordafrik. The waters around his home had long since retreated, but the exposed seabeds shared the memory of their days at the bottom of the ocean with the air.

He shook off the memory. He needed all his powers of concentration.

The port area of Tizca was heaving with bodies: sweating stevedores, teamsters, servitors and load-lifters. The Cypria Selenewas scheduled to break orbit in four hours, and the last-minute preparations for her departure were in full swing. Trucks, supply tankers, baggage lifters and water bladders carefully negotiated the busy port, and the noise of horns and shouting drivers rivalled the roar of engines.

The hot reek of burning metal saturated the day as shuttles and lifters screamed into the sky to deliver the last crewmembers and passengers to their berths. Few remained on Prospero, and a palpable sense of excitement suffused the port.

Lemuel’s nerves were stretched bow-taut. Red-jacketed soldiers of the Prospero Spireguard circulated throughout the port, and officious docket-supervisors checked and rechecked passes and permits.

Beside him, Camille walked with her hands clasped demurely before her. She wore a long dress of emerald green, cut low and embroidered with black lace around the hems, sleeves and collar. She had balked at wearing the noblewoman’s dress before Lemuel had pointed out that a patrician gentleman’s consort would need to be seen in such a garment.

At this moment, that patrician gentleman was reclining in his palanquin, its ostentatious appearance enhanced by silk brocade and velvet cushions stolen from their living quarters. Bedecked in an exquisitely tailored suit, Mahavastu Kallimakus was failing miserably to look like an arrogant nobleman of Terra by looking down his nose as he tapped an ebony cane on the pillars of his conveyance.

Only Lemuel was spared the indignity of disguise, wearing his beige remembrancer’s robes to masquerade as Mahavastu’s personal scribe and eunuch escort to Camille. That last element of his disguise had raised a smile as they planned how best to reach a shuttle bound for the Cypria Selene. At least it had raised a smile with everyone except Lemuel.

Behind them came a team of bearers, nine servitors carrying a collection of steamer trunks filled with the mass of papers, sketchbooks and grimoires written by Mahavastu in the years he had spent as Magnus’ puppet. Lemuel had urged Mahavastu to leave them, but the old man was adamant. The past needed to be preserved. History was history and it was not for them to judge what should be remembered and what should be forgotten.

“I won’t be a burner of books,” said Mahavastu, and the discussion was ended.

They had entered the port area without incident, for centuries of peace and an increasingly compliant galaxy had made the people of Prospero complacent.

“So how are we going to do this?” asked Camille. It was the first thing she had said this morning, for there had been a furious row the previous night as she had told Chaiya of her decision to leave.

“Trust me,” said Lemuel. “I know what I’m doing.”

“You keep saying that, but you never say what you’re going to do.”

“I won’t know until the time comes.”

“Well that’s reassuring.”

Lemuel didn’t reply, understanding the root of Camille’s harsh words. They moved through the crowds, avoiding the main thoroughfares of wide-wheeled trucks as they ferried soldiers and crew to the loading berths. Tall-sided hangars, storage silos and fuel towers made up the bulk of the port facilities, and they threaded a path between them as they wound towards the silver platforms built on the edge of the shoreline.

A dozen craft growled in their berths, the last to join the orbiting mass-conveyer. This would be their last chance to get off Prospero.

Lemuel led them towards the launch bays as two more craft climbed into the sky on shrieking columns of jetfire. Camille walked alongside Mahavastu’s palanquin, trying and failing to look decorous as the bulked-out servitors bore him without complaint. They made for an unusual spectacle, but one Lemuel hoped looked about right for passengers who had every right to be taking flight on the newly refitted Cypria Selene.

“This isn’t going to work,” said Camille.

“It’s going to work,” insisted Lemuel. “It has to work.”

“No it won’t. We’ll be stopped and we’ll be stuck on Prospero.”

“With that attitude we definitely will be,” snapped Lemuel, his patience wearing thin.

“Lemuel. Camille,” said Mahavastu from the palanquin. “I understand we are all under a lot of pressure here, but if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, would both of you please shut the shirring hell up!”

Both Lemuel and Camille were brought up short, shocked at the old man’s language.

Lemuel looked up at Mahavastu, who seemed, if anything, more offended than them.

“I apologise for my profanity,” said Mahavastu, “but it seemed like the only way to restore calm. Sniping at each other is only going to end things badly for us all.”

Lemuel took a deep breath.

“You’re right,” he said. “I apologise, my dear.”

“I’m sorry, Lemuel,” said Camille.

Lemuel nodded and led the way downhill again. At last they reached the entrance to the shuttlecraft launch platforms. This time there was a security checkpoint, as not even the citizens of Prospero left such dangerous places unsecured. Spireguard manned the entrance to the shuttle areas, and blue-robed officials checked the identity of everyone going through to the launch platforms.

“Now we get to see if all that training was worth it,” said Camille.

Lemuel nodded. “Let’s hope I was a good student.”

They approached the checkpoint, and Lemuel handed over a sheaf of papers taken from one of Kallista’s notebooks to a bored-looking clerk. The words written there made no sense, but it would be easier if the mark couldn’t understand them.

The clerk frowned, and Lemuel took that as his cue.

“Lord Asoka Bindusara and Lady Kumaradevi Chandra to take ship to the Cypria Selene,” said Lemuel, projecting a confidence he didn’t feel into the man’s aura. “I am their humble servant and scrivener. Be so good as to indicate which of the waiting shuttles is the most regally appointed.”

Lemuel leaned in and whispered conspiratorially “My master has grown accustomed to the luxuries of Prospero. It wouldn’t be pleasant for anyone were we to be assigned a craft that wasn’t a damn palace, if you take my meaning.”

The clerk was still frowning at the words on the page. It wouldn’t take long for him to see past Lemuel’s bluff and understand he was looking at gibberish. Lemuel felt the man’s bureaucratic mind processing the letters before him and increased his manipulation of his aura. Siphoning off the sanguine and the bile, he crafted the impression that the documents were travel passes and berthing dockets for three passengers and their luggage.

The clerk gave up with Lemuel’s papers and consulted a data-slate of his own instead.

“I don’t see your names,” he said with officious satisfaction.

“Please, check again,” said Lemuel, edging closer as a trio of shuttles blasted off from the shoreline. He sensed Camille and Mahavastu’s panic behind him and increased his mental barrage. Even as he did so, he could feel that it wasn’t working.

Lemuel heard a gasp of surprise from behind him, and a soothing blanket of acceptance settled over him. From the glassy look that came into the clerk’s eyes, Lemuel saw it was affecting him too. Someone moved beside him and a woman’s voice said, “There has been a last minute addition to the passenger manifest, these are my guests aboard ship.”

Lemuel smiled as Chaiya rested her hand on the clerk’s arm, feeling her influence spreading through him. It seemed every native of Prospero enjoyed a measure of psychic power, and he wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before.

“Yes,” said the clerk, sounding unsure, but unable to say why. “I see that now.”

He nodded as Chaiya’s certainty increased, and he waved to the soldiers on either side of the gateway. The clerk stamped a lading billet for their steamer trunks and handed Lemuel four berthing disks, each with a stamped eye at its centre. Lemuel tried not to look as relieved as he felt.

“My lord thanks you,” he said as they swept through the gate.

No sooner were they hidden from sight of the clerk and his soldiers, than Camille threw herself into Chaiya’s arms and kissed her. They embraced until Mahavastu coughed discreetly.

“You came!” said Camille, tears smudging the make-up around her eyes.

“Of course I came,” said Chaiya. “You think I’d let you leave without me?”

“But last night—”

Chaiya shook her head. “Last night you blindsided me with all your doomsaying talk. And the idea that you were leaving scared me. I don’t want to leave Prospero, but if you think there’s something bad coming, that’s good enough for me. You’ve never been wrong before now. About anything. I love you and won’t be parted from you.”

Camille wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her dress, ruining the fabric, but not caring.

“There issomething bad coming, I know it,” she said.

“I believe you,” said Chaiya with a nervous laugh. “If you’re wrong we can always come back.”

Lemuel nodded towards the shuttle the clerk had assigned them.

“We’d better get moving,” he said. “Ours is one of the last to leave.”

Their ragtag group followed the directions of blue-coated ground crew towards the berth of a sleek lighter of gleaming silver. Its wide wings enfolded them in shadow as they passed beneath them, and its flat-bottomed cargo bay was slung beneath the berthing frame they had to climb to reach the crew ramp.

Lemuel allowed himself a small smile of success.

Camille and Chaiya laughed and giggled as they walked hand in hand towards the lighter.

Even Mahavastu wore a smile.

The smiles fell from all their faces as an urgent voice called out, “Stop. On the crew ramp, stay where you are.”

Lemuel’s heart turned to a lump of ice as he turned to see who had hailed them.

A captain in the Prospero Spireguard was leading a detachment of soldiers towards them.

“This looks bad,” he said.

“YOU HAVE NOTHING to fear from me, Amon,” said Magnus. “You have been my most faithful servant since I first came to Prospero. I could never harm you.”

“With respect, my lord, I am sure young Uthizzar thought the same,” said Amon, picking his way gingerly through the wreckage of Magnus’ chambers. His grey hair was kept cropped close to his skull and his skin had the texture of aged vellum. He knelt pbeside Uthizzar’s body and placed his hand upon the cracked and seared breastplate.

The bodies of the Scarab Occult lay around Uthizzar, their bodies twisted in unnatural ways and their flesh blackened as though consumed in the same fire that had destroyed Magnus’ library.

“Tell me what happened,” said Amon.

Magnus lowered his head, unwilling to meet his oldest friend’s gaze. The Captain of the 9th made no accusations – he didn’t need to. No accusation could carry greater guilt than Magnus placed upon himself. Almost a week had passed since he had killed Uthizzar, a week in which he had almost given in to his self-destructive urges and turned his powers upon himself.

Fearing the worst, others had tried to enter his chambers, but Magnus had kept them all at bay until now. Magnus looked down at the grotesquely crumpled body of Baleq Uthizzar and sighed with regret and loss.

“It was an unforgivable lapse and should never have happened,” he said, “but he knew too much and I could not let him leave.”

“Knew too much about what?”

“Come here,” said Magnus. “Let me show you.”

Amon rose and followed Magnus onto the balcony overlooking the white city of Tizca. Magnus read the wariness in Amon’s aura, and didn’t blame him. He would be a fool not be wary. In all the long years since they had first spoken, as tutor and pupil, Magnus had never thought of Amon as a fool.

Magnus looked towards the noonday sky.

“Fly the Great Ocean with me,” he said.

Amon nodded and closed his eyes, and Magnus let his body of light float free of his flesh. The concerns of the mortal world lessened, but could not be wholly ignored. Tizca transformed from a place of cool marble to a glittering jewel of light, the tens of thousands of shimmering soul-lights who called the city home like tiny lanterns.

“How fragile they are,” said Magnus, though there was no one yet to hear him.

The warm glow of Amon’s subtle body appeared next to him, and they flew into a sky of brilliant blue. The world around them deepened from blue to black, the stars pin-wheeling around them like darts of phosphor.

The blackness of space transformed into the swirling, multi-coloured chaos of the Great Ocean, and both travellers felt the welcome rush of pleasure as its currents flowed around their ethereal forms.

Magnus led the way, streaking through the swirling abyss towards a destination only he was capable of finding. Amon followed him, his dutiful friend and beloved son. At length, they came to the region of stillness he had seen a week ago.

He felt Amon’s horror as he beheld the vast fleet of ships, the slab-sided warships, the sleek strike cruisers and the monstrous monuments to destruction that were the Battle Barges. Hundreds of vessels drew ever closer to Prospero, ships of many flags and many allegiances, united with one shared purpose: annihilation.

Leading them was a feral blade of a ship, unsheathed to deliver the deathblow to its hated foe. Grey and fanged, it prowled the stars with carved eyes at its bladed prow piercing the depths of the Great Ocean with uncanny precision.

“Is that what I think it is?” asked Amon.

“It is,” confirmed Magnus.

They flew closer to the brutal vessel, the protective shields that kept void-predators at bay no match for travellers of such power. They passed through its layered voids, diving down through metre upon metre of adamantium hull plates, integrity fields and honeycombed bulkheads until they reached the heart of the ship.

The masters of this fleet gathered to plan the destruction of all that Magnus held dear, and the two sons of Prospero listened to their deliberations. Magnus was prepared for what he would hear, but Amon was not, and the flaring wash of his aetheric field sent a pulse of choleric energy through the ship’s crew.

“Why?” begged Amon.

“Because I was wrong.”

“About what?”

“Everything,” said Magnus. “All the things you taught me, I arrogantly assumed I already knew. You warned me of the gods of the warp and I laughed at you, calling you a superstitious old fool. Well I know better now, for I beheld such a being and thought I had the better of it, but I was wrong. I have done terrible things, Amon, but you must believe that I did them for the right reasons.”

Amon drifted down towards the master of this vessel and the steely-eyed killer in golden armour who stood next to him on a raised command dais. A group of identically armoured warriors stood at the base of the dais occupied by their leaders.

“The Council of Nikaea?” demanded Amon. “Were they right to name us warlocks?”

“I fear they may have been, though only now do I understand that.”

“And for that we are to suffer?”

Magnus nodded and flew up through the ironwork of the starship, exploding outwards into the seething cauldron of the Great Ocean. Amon flew at his side, and they hurtled back to Prospero, exhaling pent-up breaths as they opened their eyes and looked down on the reassuringly familiar vista of Tizca.

“And the Legion knows nothing of this?” asked Amon.

“Nothing,” said Magnus. “I have drawn a veil around Prospero. None see out, not even the Corvidae. Now the Thousand Sons must learn what it means to be blind.”

“So our punishment draws ever closer,” said Amon. “What happens when it gets here?”

“You are kind, old friend,” said Magnus. “It is mypunishment.”

“Their axes will fall on the rest of us as well,” pointed out Amon. “I ask again; what will we do when they get here?”

“Nothing,” said Magnus. “There is nothing todo.”

“There is always something to do. We can destroy them before they even reach us,” hissed Amon, gripping Magnus’ arm.

Magnus shook his head saying, “This is not about whether we can defend ourselves against this threat. Of course we can. It is about whether we should.”

“Why should we not?” countered Amon. “We are the Thousand Sons and nothing is beyond us. No path is unknown to us and no destiny is hidden from us. Instruct the Corvidae to pierce the veils of the future. The Pavoni and Raptora can enhance our warriors’ prowess while the Pyrae burn our enemies and the Athanaeans read the minds of their commanders. When they come they will find us ready to fight.”

Magnus despaired, hearing only the urge to strike the first blow in Amon’s voice.

“Have you not heard what I have said?” he pleaded. “I do not strike because it is what the powers that have manipulated me since I came here want me to do. They want me to take arms against our doom, knowing that if I do it will only confirm everything those who hate and fear us have always believed.”

Amon looked out over the city, and his eyes took on a faraway look, tears of loss streaming down his cheeks.

“Before you came to Prospero, I had a recurring nightmare,” he said. “I dreamt that everything I held dear was swept away and destroyed. It plagued me for years, but on the day you arrived from the heavens like a comet, the dream stopped. I never had it again. I convinced myself it was nothing more than an ancestral memory of Old Night, but it wasn’t, I know that now. I foresaw this. The destruction of everything I hold dear is coming to pass.”

Amon closed his eyes and he gripped the balcony with white-knuckled fury.

“I may not be able to stop it,” he said, “but I am going to fight to protect my home, and if you ever held my friendship in any esteem, you would do the same.”

Magnus rounded on Amon.

“Despite everything I have done, my fate is my own,” Magnus said. “ Iam a loyal son of the Emperor, and I would never betray him, for I have already broken his heart and his greatest creation. I will accept my fate and though history may judge us traitors, we will know the truth.We will know we were loyal unto the end because we accepted our fate.”

THE CAPTAIN OF the Spireguard stopped before him, and Lemuel reached out to soothe his aura. His terror made it difficult, but before he could reach out with any calming influence, he saw that the officer’s aura was not expecting trouble, but wracked with grief.

Lemuel looked more closely, recognising the breadth of the man’s shoulders, the immaculate pressing of the uniform and the gold hogging looped around his shoulders.

The captain removed his helmet, and Lemuel dared hope this enterprise wasn’t doomed.

“Captain Vithara?” he said.

“Indeed, Master Gaumon,” said Captain Sokhem Vithara of the 15th Prosperine Assault Infantry. “I hoped I would see you before you left.”

“Before we left?” asked Lemuel, confused as to why they weren’t being frogmarched in manacles away from the lighter. The cargo bay doors were closing and they would be airborne in a matter of moments.

“Yes, I almost missed you because your names weren’t on any of the manifests.”

“No,” agreed Lemuel with a guilty smile, “they wouldn’t be.”