Текст книги "Vulkan Lives"

Автор книги: Ник Кайм

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Torment

‘I have seen darkness, witnessed it in my dreams. I am standing at the edge of a chasm. There is no escaping it, I know my fate. For it is the future and nothing can prevent it coming to pass. So I step off and welcome the dark.’

– Konrad Curze,

the ‘Night Haunter’

I returned from the darkness again, only now I possessed the knowledge of how and why. To most men, learning that you are immortal would be the cause of unbridled euphoria. For is it not the ambition of mankind to endure, to live on, to eke out more years? Cryogenics, rejuvenat, cloning, even pacts with fell creatures… Through science or superstition, mankind has always sought to avoid the end. He will cheat it if he can, devoting the resources of his entire existence to just a little more.

I cannot be killed. Not by any means known to me, or to my vicious brother. It would not end. Ever.

To know you are immortal is to know that time is meaningless, that every ambition you ever aspired to fulfil could be, one day, within your grasp. You would not age. You could not be maimed or debilitated physically. You would never die.

To know immortality was, for some men, to know the greatest gift.

I knew only despair.

As I came round, the phantom pain in my chest reminded me of the blade my brother had rammed into it. Curze couldn’t kill me. He had tried, extremely hard. It begged the question of what he would do next.

The answer to that would not be long in coming.

When I tried to move my arms, I found that I couldn’t. Disorientated, I was slow to realise that I was neither chained nor back in the dread chamber where my weakness had consigned so many to death; I was in an entirely different trap.

At first I felt the weight upon my shoulders, heavy and biting. Bolts and nails had been hammered into my flesh, pinning them. The device of my apparent crucifixion was some kind of metal armature, humanoid in shape but armoured in barbs and spikes that both extruded from and intruded upon the wearer. A crude mechanism locked into my jaw and chin, forcing it up. My lips were wired together. My legs and arms were sheathed in metal, the latter ending in a pair of blades. Stooped, I felt the first jerk of my marionette’s strings and saw my left leg rise and fall in a single step.

‘ Hnngg…’ I tried to speak but the razor in my mouth muffled any protests.

I was in a corridor, the ceiling low enough that my armoured chassis just scraped it. The metal bulk of the death machine I was wearing filled its width. Ahead of me, partially shrouded by the gloom, I saw their eyes. They were wide, and widened further when they saw me, or what had become of me.

‘Run!’ a man wearing a dirty and tattered Army uniform said to another. They fled into the dark, and with the sound of my metal skull scraping the ceiling above, I gave chase. My strides were slow at first, but built with a steady, loping momentum. Rounding a corner, I caught sight of the men. They had taken a wrong turn and were trapped at a dead end. I could smell ammonia and realised that one of the troopers had soiled his fatigues. The other was wrenching a pipe off the wall, trying to make an improvised weapon and a last stand.

He swung it experimentally, like a man standing next to a fire who wields a burning torch to fend off a predator. I heard a low shunkof metal as a switch was thrown remotely. Harsh light suddenly filled the corridor from the search lamps on my chassis, blinding the two men. I tried to resist but my armoured frame propelled me after them, the serrated blades at the ends of my arms blurring into life with a throaty roar.

I tried to stop it. I heaved and thrashed, but could barely move. A passenger of the machine, I could only watch as I turned the men to offal and listened to their screaming. Mercifully, it ended quickly and the air grew still again. Only the sound of my desperate breathing and the gore dripping off my spattered frame in fat clumps disturbed the quiet.

Something scurried past behind me and my deadly armour turned as if scenting prey. I was moving again, striding down the corridor on the hunt for fresh victims. I struggled, but could not stop or slow the machine. Along the next stretch of tunnel, I saw three figures. More of my brother’s slaves. I had been unleashed upon them in this pit, clad in death. Curze was making me kill them.

My lumbering gait turned into a frenzied run, the clanking footfalls like death knells to my ears. Up came the search lamps again, hot and buzzing next to my face, and I saw three men. Unshaven, brawny, they were veterans. As I bore down on them, they grimly held their ground. One had fashioned an axe from a section of plating, a taped-up rag around the narrow end for a handle; another had an improvised club like my last kill; the third just clenched his fists.

Such defiance and insane valour. It would not avail them.

‘Come on!’ the one with the axe shouted down at me. ‘Come on!’

My armoured frame obliged, responding to the goad with chainblades spinning.

When I passed another corridor that crossed with the one I was in, I realised what the veterans had done. My puppeteer did not.

As I reached the crossroads, heading blindly at the three men who were shouting and jeering a few metres beyond the junction, a second group of prisoners sprung the trap. A spear thrust grazed my ribs and I grimaced. It went on into the metal vambrace encasing my left arm, severing some cabling. Oil and fluid began to vent furiously.

Just as I was turning to face my first attacker, a second axe weighed in and embedded itself in my right hip. It bit into my flank but the armour bore the brunt. My chain-blade tried to lash out but the cabling snapped and the armature fell limp.

A stern-faced legionary looked up at me, pulling his spear back for another thrust. He wore the black and white of the Raven Guard, through his armour and iconography had seen far better days. My still functional right arm whipped around and took off the warrior’s head before he could attack again.

As the black, beak-nosed helmet bounced off into the darkness, my search lamps flickered and all of the ambushers attacked me at once. I spun, opening up two of the veteran troopers and spilling them out onto the metal deck. The third stooped to pick up his comrade’s fallen club, but my leg snapped out before he could grab it. The impact hit him square in the chest. I heard ribs break and watched him half spiral down the corridor before crumpling in a lifeless heap.

My last opponent struck again, focusing on the damaged arm, which was spitting sparks and spraying oil. Another legionary loomed into my eye line. My heart sank when I saw the colour of his battle-plate.

Emerald-green.

He was broad-shouldered, the faded insignia of the 15th company emblazoned on his dented pauldron.

Nemetor…

I had believed he was dead. Curze had saved him. He’d done it so I was the one that butchered him.

Entombed in the machine, I was unrecognisable to my son. Ducking a hopeful swipe of my remaining chainblade, he hacked into my left arm and jolted some of the pins impaled in my nerves loose. Some feeling returned, and I found I could move the arm again. Watching Nemetor’s hope turn into horror as the weapon he thought he’d destroyed began to move as I lifted it, I then turned the buzzing chainblade on myself. Momentum from my frenzied machine’s attacks drove the saw into my body, first cutting metal, then flesh.

I let it gore me until darkness began to crouch at the edge of my vision, until death, however brief, reclaimed me.

‘Clever,’ I heard the voice of my brother say.

I blinked, opening my eyes and saw the death machine had been removed and that I was back in my cell.

‘I stand both impressed and disappointed,’ he said.

At first I saw armour of cobalt-blue, trimmed with gold; a firm and noble countenance, framed by close-cropped blond hair; a warrior, a statesman, my brother the empire builder.

‘Guilliman?’ I breathed, hoping, my sense of reality slipping for a moment.

Then I knew, and a scowl crept onto my face.

‘No… it’s you.’

I was sitting with my back against the wall, looking up murderously at my brother.

Curze laughed when he noticed my expression.

‘We’re getting close now, aren’t we?’

‘How long?’ I croaked, tasting ash in my mouth and feeling a fresh brand in my back.

‘A few hours. It’s getting faster.’

I tried to stand, but was still weak. I slumped back.

‘How many?’

Curze narrowed his eyes.

I clarified my question, ‘How many times have you tried to kill me?’

My brother crouched down opposite, within my reach but betraying no concern about retaliation for what he had done to me, what he continued to do to me. He nodded to the wall behind me.

I turned to see my reflection mirrored in obsidian. I saw Curze too, and Ferrus Manus, now little more than a walking cadaver in his primarch’s armour, standing just behind him.

‘You see them?’ He pointed to the numerous honour scars branded into my back. Some stood out from the others, a clutch of more recent brandings that I had no memory of and could attribute no oath to.

Curze leaned in and whispered into my ear, ‘A fresh scar every time, brother…’

There were dozens.

‘Every time, you returned to torment me,’ he said.

I faced him. ‘Torment you?’

Curze stood, his armoured form casting a shadow over me from the low light in the cell. He looked almost sad.

‘I am at a loss, Vulkan. I don’t know what to do with you.’

‘Then release me. What is the point of killing me over and over again if I cannot die?’

‘Because I enjoy it. Each attempt brings with it the hope you will stay dead, but also the dread that we shall be forever parted.’

‘Sentiments of a madman,’ I spat.

Curze’s eyes were oddly pitying. ‘I think, perhaps, not the only one. Is our dead brother with us still? Is Ferrus here?’

At the mention of his name, the cadaver’s mouth gaped as if amused. Without eyes or much flesh, it was hard to tell.

I nodded, seeing no point in hiding the fact I saw the undying effigy of Ferrus Manus.

‘I thought so,’ said Curze, unable to shake his melancholy. ‘Our father gave you eternal life. Do you know what he gave me? Nightmares.’ His mood darkened further, his face transformed into genuine anguish. For a moment I caught a glimpse of my brother’s true self and despite all that he had done or claimed to have done, I pitied him.

‘I am plagued by them, Vulkan.’ Curze was no longer looking at me. He regarded his reflection in the obsidian instead. It appeared to be something he had done before, and I imagined him then, screaming in the darkness with no one to hear his terror.

The Lord of Fear was afraid. It was an irony I thought Fulgrim would appreciate, twisted as he was.

‘How can I escape the dark if the dark is part of what I am?’

‘Konrad,’ I said. ‘Tell me what you see.’

‘I am Night Haunter. The death that haunts the darkness…’ he answered, though his voice and mind were far away. ‘Konrad Curze is dead.’

‘He stands before me,’ I pressed. ‘What do you see?’

‘Darkness. Unending and eternal. It’s all for nothing, brother. Everything we do, everything that has been done or will be done… It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I fear. I amfear. What kind of a knife-edge is that to balance on, I ask?’

‘You have a choice,’ I said, hoping that some fraternal bond, some vestige of reason still existed in my brother. It would be buried deep, but I could unearth it.

He turned his gaze upon me – so lost, so bereft of hope. Curze was a mangy hound that had been kicked too many times.

‘Don’t you see, Vulkan? There are no choices. It is determined for us, my fate and yours. So I make the only choice I can. Anarchy and terror.’

I saw it then, what had broken inside my brother. His tactics, his erratic moods, were all caused by this flaw. It had led him to destroy his home world.

Dorn had seen the madness lurking within him. I suppose I had known it was there too, back on Kharaatan.

‘Let me help you, Konrad…’ I began.

Pale like alabaster, eyes dark like chips of jet with about as much warmth, Curze’s face changed. As the thin, viper’s smile crawled over his lips, I knew that I had lost him and my chance of appealing to what little humanity still remained.

‘You would like that, I think. A chance to prove your nobility. Vulkan, champion of the common man, most grounded of us all. But you’re not on the ground, are you brother? You are far from your beloved earth. Is it colder, here with me in the dark?’ he asked, bitterly. ‘You are no better than me, Vulkan. You’re a killer just the same. Remember Kharaatan?’ he goaded.

I remembered, and lowered my head at the memory of what I had done, what I nearlydid.

‘You weren’t yourself, brother,’ hissed Ferrus, his graveyard breath whistling through skeletal cheeks. ‘You had a backbone.’

Curze seemed not to notice.

‘Our father’s gifts are wasted on you,’ he said. ‘Eternal life, and what would you do with it? Till a field, raise a crop, build a forge to make ploughshares and hoes. Vulkan the farmer! You sicken me! Guilliman is dull, but at least he has ambition. At least he had an empire.’

‘ Had?’

‘Oh,’ Curze smiled, ‘you don’t know, do you?’

‘What has happened to Ultramar?’

‘It doesn’t matter. You’ll never see it.’

I suddenly feared for Roboute and all my loyal brothers that fell beneath Curze’s notice. If he had done this to me, then what could he have done to the rest of them?

‘Nemetor…’ I said, as parts of my most recent ordeal came back to me, including the appearance of a son I had thought dead. ‘Was he…?’

‘Real?’ Curze suggested, grinning.

‘Did you kill him?’ I pressed.

‘You’re dying to know aren’t you, brother?’ He held up his hand. ‘Sorry, poor choice of words. You’ll see him again, before the end.’

‘So, this willend then?’

‘One way or another, Vulkan. Yes, I sincerely hope it will end.’

He left me then, backing off into the shadows. I watched him all the way to the cell door. As it was opened, I saw the slightest shaft of light and wondered how deep my prison went. I also half caught a hurried conversation and got the sense of a commotion outside. Though I didn’t hear his muttered words, Curze seemed irritated in his curt responses. Booted footsteps moved quickly, hammering the deck, before they were cut off by the cell door shutting.

Lumen-globes burning in the alcoves in the flanking walls died, darkness returned and with it the faint, mocking laughter of my dead brother.

‘Shut up, Ferrus,’ I said.

But it only made him laugh louder.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Egress

The north-facing aspect of the manufactorum was a broken ruin. Outside, the dead and injured littered the streets.

Narek had lost eight legionaries in the frontal assault, not including Amaresh, who had been cut down by their sniper. Despite the losses, he appreciated the symmetry of that, one hunter pitched against the other. He decided that he would have a reckoning with this warrior – see how sharp his own edge was and if, despite his grievous injuries, he could still consider himself worthy. It was an honourable contest, not like the bloodbath he had left behind.

Distasteful and profligate as it was, it was also necessary. Discovered in the midst of stealthing to their gate, Narek had no other choice but to push down the throat of the loyalists, knowing full well that they had a track-mounted cannon and a defensible position. Admittedly, he hadn’t predicted they would open fire straight away – the bulk of his troops were still vaulting barricades and running stooped-over to the next scrap of cover when the world lit up in actinic blue – but it had served its intended purpose. Dagon, Narlech and Infrik had circled around the rear egress. That left Melach, Saarsk, Vogel and himself skirting the flanks; two on the right, two on the left.

Head down, hugging the edge of the street as the gun battle to the front of the manufactorum raged, Narek hissed down the vox to his elite, ‘Close the trap, find the human and bring him to me alive.’

‘ And the rest?’ Narlech voxed back.

Narek could already hear the bloodlust in his voice. ‘Kill anyone that gets in your way. I don’t want prisoners, give me corpses.’ He cut the feed.

Nearby he could hear that his enemies had broken out of the back of the building.

‘How did they find us?’ Leodrakk had to shout to be heard, bolt shells and chips of rockcrete from the manufactorum’s slowly disintegrating structure raining all around them.

Numeon shook his head. ‘Could’ve been the pyre smoke or we may have been under watch already.’

‘But why come at us like this, straight at us?’

‘Pergellen forced their hand.’

‘Doesn’t make sense. They would have hunkered down, circled us and called in reinforcements.’

Numeon paused, eyeing the gloom beyond the walls. Behind him, he heard Domadus shouting orders between the percussive reports of his heavy bolter. As soon as word came from Pergellen that the XVII had found them, all legionaries inside the manufactorum had formed up into a firing line. Only Numeon, Leodrakk and two in raven’s black moved through the back of the building to the manufactorum’s rear exit. It was no fortress, and they couldn’t stay here, but what Leodrakk was saying made sense. Why not lay siege and wait until they could storm the barricades in force?

‘It’s a distraction,’ he decided. ‘Keeping our attention front.’

The rear exit to the manufactorum was a depot strewn with the half-blasted carcasses of freight-haulers. Lots of cover, lots of places to hide.

‘You see that?’ said Numeon, crouching down by the rear door and gesturing outside.

‘There are three of them,’ whispered Hriak, his hand firmly gripping the human’s shoulder.

‘You aren’t seriously considering going out there?’ asked Grammaticus.

Numeon ignored him. He caught the slight movement again. Whoever they were, they were using the haulers to get close.

‘They’re after the human,’ he said. ‘Capture, not kill, this time.’

‘How can you be sure?’ asked Leodrakk.

‘The frontal assault was to flush us out. They knew we’d try and bolt with the human. Because if they havebeen watching us, it’s likely they saw what we saw.’

Hriak looked down at Grammaticus. ‘Your apotheosis…’

‘No explanation was needed,’ Grammaticus replied snidely. ‘It doesn’t matter what I say, does it? You’re going to carry on blindly like this, regardless of consequence, aren’t you? You’ve lost your faith in everything.’

Leodrakk snarled. ‘We’ve lost much more than that.’

‘Be calm,’ Numeon told him, giving Grammaticus a quick glance to shut him up before going on. ‘We’re wasting time. Get himout of here. We can draw these three off.’

He looked at Avus crouching next to him, the foils of his jump pack folded back for now. The legionary had kept his own counsel until that moment.

‘I’ll have weregeld for Shaka, measured in blood. And when my corvidae hangs in memory of the sacrifice I made, and I become part of the raven’s feast, only then shall I know peace,’ he vowed. ‘ Victorus aut Mortis.’

Hriak bowed his head in solemn respect. ‘ Victorus aut Mortis, brother.’

Numeon nodded to all three.

‘We’ll rendezvous in the tunnels. Allof us. May the Emperor go with you.’

Elias felt restive, and not only because of the dull agony in his arm. Outside the tent, the sacrificial pit was quiet, though the air still trembled with the urgent fury of the Neverborn. He could sense their anger. It mirrored his own. To be thwarted so close to his goal, and for what? Some human he had let slip through his grasp.

The overeager hand snatches air, where the considered one holds on to substance.

He had heard Erebus use these words before. They echoed mockingly back at him through the years.

Ranos was dead. His Word Bearers had effectively denuded the city of all life and now only these loyalist dregs and their prisoner remained. But still he was denied the prize he so coveted. Weapons, Erebus had told him. Half dead, his face a bloody ruin, he had uttered this truth. Elias was certain that the spearhead was one such weapon of which his master had spoken. It was raw power incarnated in a fulgurite. Any doubts he may have had about that died along with his arm and the seven acolytes that had burned to ash earlier.

Warily he reached out to touch the spear. It was surprisingly cool and certainly inert, whatever past reaction it may have undergone now dormant but not yet spent. It hummed with a faint vibration, and the blade still threw off a lambent light that suggested its godlike provenance.

Monarchia… Yes, Elias remembered it well, too. He had wept that day, first tears of zealous joy as the cathedra had risen to the sky then righteous anger when the XIII had shamed his Legion and his primarch. He scarcely remembered the human dead, and felt the Emperor’s snub more keenly. Erebus had counselled him that day. He had counselled many. His master had seemed oddly sanguine, as if he knew some measure of what was going to happen before it had actually transpired. Thatwas power. To see fates, to bend and shape them to your will and benefit. Why Erebus had always skulked in the shadows, the power behind the throne instead of its incumbent king, Elias would never understand.

‘What does Erebus know that I–’

The thought was interrupted by the activation of his warp-flask.

Even in the eldritch fire of the flask, Erebus looked crooked and broken. He was dressed in dark robes with a deep cowl hiding his face and head.

Elias bowed at once. ‘Master… you are recovered?’

‘ Evidently not,’ said Erebus, gesturing to his bent-backed form, ‘ but I am healing.’

‘It is glorious to behold, my lord. When I left you in the apothecarion–’

Erebus interrupted. ‘ Tell me what is happening on Ranos.’

‘Of course,’ said Elias, bowing again so he could unclench his teeth without his anger being seen. He held up the spear. ‘The weapon,’ he announced proudly, ‘is in my possession.’

Erebus looked at him in silent incredulity.

Elias could not hide his confusion and said, ‘To win the war. Your last words to me before I left with my warriors.’

‘Your warriors, Elias?’

‘Yours, my lord, humbly appropriated for the task you gave me.’

‘ You have nothing but a spear, Elias. I meanweapons . That with which we shall win this war for Horus and the Pantheon.’ There was a slight angry tremor in Erebus’s voice when he mentioned the Warmaster’s name, and Elias briefly wondered what had happened between them. ‘ Sharpen our own, blunt theirs,’ Erebus told him. ‘ Whoever has the most weapons wins. Don’t you understand that yet?’

Elias was confused. He had done all that was asked of him and yet his master was obviously displeased. Erebus had also neglected to mention his injury, as if perhaps he already knew of it…

‘I… My lord?’ Elias began.

Erebus didn’t answer at first. He was muttering something as if speaking to someone Elias could not see, but the image in the flask showed a chamber that was empty save for Erebus.

‘ Where is John Grammaticus?’ he said at last.

‘Who? The human, you mean?’

‘ Where is he, Elias? You need him.’

‘I have men hunting for him as we speak. They are bringing him to me.’

‘ No,’ said Erebus. ‘ Do it yourself. Find John Grammaticus and hold him for me. Do not sully him in any way, that is my only warning to you.’

Elias raised an eyebrow, and tried to keep the fear out of his voice. ‘You are coming here?’

Erebus nodded. ‘ I have seen the mess you have made on Ranos.’

Fear turned to anger in Elias. ‘I could not have predicted the other legionaries’ presence here. Nor can I leave the ritual site. The Neverborn are–’

Erebus cut him off for the third time with a swipe of his hand. Elias noticed that it was a bionic and appended to his master’s severed wrist stump. ‘ As usual you have failed to grasp the subtleties of the warp. No more blood or further entreaties will get you what you want, Elias.’

‘I only serve you, my lord.’

Erebus chuckled. It was an unpleasant, throaty sound, like he was the victim of some pervasive cancer with only hours to live.

‘ I have matters to attend to here, but be ready for my coming. Be sure that Grammaticus is in your hands by the time that I arrive, or a fire-blackened limb will be the least of your concerns…’

The warp flame evaporated as quickly as it had manifested, leaving Elias alone. Despite the pain in his arm, his entire body tensed with barely contained anger.

‘I am your disciple…’ he gasped at the uncaring air. ‘Your follower. I saved you, took you from that chamber where you would have died without my help.’ His jaw clenched, so tightly that he could no longer utter words. All that came from Elias’s mouth was a spitting, frothing snarl. He fought for calm, found it in the dark pit of his rotten soul.

Elias called out to summon his equerry. ‘Jadrekk…’

The warrior appeared at the tent mouth almost immediately, bowing low.

‘We are leaving. Gather everyone, but leave two squads to maintain vigil over the pit. We are rejoining Narek and the others.’

Jadrekk bowed again and went to carry out his orders.

Thirty-seven legionaries awaited Elias beyond the confines of his sanctum. Twenty of those would stay behind, whilst the rest would reinforce Narek. It had never been intended as a battle force. It was an honour guard, Elias’s own personal cult. Mortals were but lambs to slaughter in the Pantheon’s name. Legionaries demanded sterner attention. Elias had thought the loyalists nothing more than an inconvenience, sustenance for the Neverborn when he unleashed them upon this world and forever tainted it for Chaos. Now they stood in the path of his deserved glory. They had proven resourceful so far, but their resistance was at an end. Sheathing the fulgurite spear in his scabbard, he lifted his mace with his good arm. It was heavy, but it felt good to wrap his fist around the skin-bound haft.

It would feel even better when it was cracking skulls, every blow a step towards his eventual apotheosis.

Erebus severed the psychic communion to his disciple and staggered. Reaching out, he supported himself against the wall of his cell and exhaled a shuddering breath. Even imbued by the power of the warp, his regeneration was slow. He looked down upon the bare metal of his bionic hand. It was already clenched in a fist, as if his will alone could sustain and restore him. The grimace on Erebus’s face was transformed into a smile. He saw it reflected in the metal floor of his sanctum, just as he saw the slow creeping of flesh that had begun to colonise his flayed visage. It was harder, darker than before. Tiny bone nubs protruded from his skull. His eyes took on a visceral cast. It was the favour of the gods, Erebus knew it. Lorgar and Horus might have forsaken him for now, but the Pantheon had not. He could feel their restlessness, however. Despite the Dark Apostle’s knowledge and manipulation of the fates, Horus was not the pawn that Erebus had claimed him to be.

In the earliest days, when sedition was muttered in whispers and the warrior lodges were in their infancy, there had been other choices. It need not have been Horus. None of that mattered now. Erebus was, above all, a survivor. His ravaged face and body bore testament to that.

‘I am still the architect of this heresy…’ he hissed to the darkness, which had been listening eagerly ever since he arrived.

His mistake was at Signus. Had he known, had he caught the slightest inkling of Horus’s jealousy… Sanguinius was supposed to have turned and become a Red Angel. Instead, he lived, and neither Horus nor Erebus had got what they wanted. He would be subtler next time. But he needed answers. The Angel and the Warmaster were not his concern now. Erebus’s eye had fallen upon another.

It took some effort, but he raised his head to meet the gaze of the other being in the room.

‘Can it kill him?’ he asked.

The creature manifest in a pall of roiling smoke opposite nodded its feathered heads. Its beaks chattered, incessantly mumbling. Erebus forced his mind to shut out these words, for they were madness and to hear them was to be damned to the same fate.

He bowed as the smoke faded, taking the daemon with it. The great pressure upon Erebus was relieved, and he could straighten his back. He breathed for the first time in a long time without it feeling like a saw was ripping through his chest.

‘Then it shall be done, Oracle,’ he said to the ghosting smoke, and left the sanctum.