Unmaker
There ought to be something to say. Something worthwhile, something brave. Something to mark a moment such as this.
But Vulkan doesn’t know what it would be.
He has never been one for speeches, preferring deeds over words. But he has rallied men in his time, called out to armies on the windy fields of war, roused the spirits of battered legions, or spoken words of comfort to brothers in hours of ill fortune.
He can do it, but it is not natural to his disposition.
Would his brothers know what to say? Many of them, like Roboute, Rogal, Sanguinius, and even, in his time, Horus, were fine orators. Their words could win a battle before the first shot was fired. During the years of the Great Crusade, before it became a time quite devoid of glory, he saw them many times stand up before a sea of uncertain faces and mark the great moments of human history with their words.
He thinks they would all be quite speechless now.
This is history. History at its most defined and visible, history at its bitter end. How does any man mark that? The Chaos winds are so strong, they are turning the pages of history so fast that nothing can be written down, and nothing can be read. The book will soon be closed forever.
Why speak, then? Who will hear it? There is nothing left to rally and no one left to rouse. There is no great feat to follow this for which minds and hearts need to be uplifted and prepared. Besides, there is no one to remembrance his final words. Anything Vulkan says will be lost, and there will be no future generations to read that record anyway.
Vulkan has always been a man of deeds. His last deed remains, and it will speak for itself, straight to the ears of the betraying Warmaster. Horus will have no victory over them, only wormwood and gall. Whatever he claims as his triumph, it will be meaningless ashes.
Vulkan straightens up and beholds his work. The Talisman of Seven Hammers is prepared, aligned and set to its destructive purpose. Only his hands could have done that. Only he knew the secret precision of its apparatus. Only the great maker can unmake.
The heat upon him is fierce. Sparks whirl around him like a blizzard of unanchored stars.
All is set. He can make history, now, by unmaking it.
He walks down the steps of the Throne, the heat upon his back. The whole Throne Room is groaning and sighing, its fabric distressed and de-forming in the raging heat and the mounting discordia of the penetrating immaterium. The entire chamber, and the Palace around it, or what remains of it, is no longer a defined realspace structure. It is a phantom of materia, a liminal space, dissolving into the rising warp, leaving only a memory of its former self that becomes less solid with every passing moment. As history becomes harder and more solid than it has ever been before, manifesting like a real substance, the Palace blurs and loses its form.
They are waiting for him, the last of those who have stood by his side. They will end here with him. He pays them his respects. The Master of the Adnector Concillium, so wracked with damage his adepts have to hold him up to bow to Vulkan. Halferphess, his face burn-blistered, and Moriana Mouhausen of the Chosen, weeping. He thanks them all for their efforts. Abidemi stands tall, the tears in his eyes evaporating as they form. He tries to bow to Vulkan, but Vulkan embraces his son instead. No words.
Uzkarel Ophite attends too. The proconsul has left his Sentinels Pylorus at the Silver Door, through which the sounds of approaching havoc now ring close. The Sentinels will not move. They will have their backs to the end when it comes. The last thing they will see is the glorious Silver Door rising to a sublime dazzle.
But Uzkarel has come, to signify the moment. His face is without expression.
‘My Custodes can give you ten more minutes, eighteenth son,’ he says. ‘Fifteen, if the door holds and the fight that follows goes our way.’
‘Minutes aren’t going to make a difference, Uzkarel,’ Vulkan replies. ‘Not now. Our efforts are spent, and the Regent is perished. Our only commission now must be to make certain, fully certain, that the Warmaster claims nothing in his victory. We will scorn him with our last breath, and deny him, so we must make sure we take that last breath. He has made this ending, but we determine it.’
Uzkarel nods.
‘I agree, my lord.’
The proconsul, like Abidemi, makes to bow, but Vulkan clasps his hand instead.
‘By His will alone, Uzkarel,’ says Vulkan. ‘Always, until the end.’
It will surely be his end too, for even his Perpetual essence will not survive this annihilation.
Vulkan turns to make his last journey up the Throne steps and perform the deed that will be his last duty. He is sure there was somebody else, one other in the stalwart group, but he can’t–
Her spectre waits for him at the foot of the steps. She is hard to see at the best of times, and hard to remember. In the furious light of the flames, she is barely there at all.
‘Casryn,’ he says. ‘My apologies. I overlooked–’
My lord.
‘There’s no excuse. Your kind may be elusive to our conscious minds but–’
My lord Vulkan.
‘Do not try to gainsay me now, Kaeria. I respect and admire your perseverance, but my mind is set. This must be done now, before it can be stopped–’
My lord, can you not hear? Can none of you hear?
Vulkan pauses. There’s nothing to hear, nothing but the furnace roar of the Throne-pyre above them, the shrieking squeal of the engulfing immaterium, the gunshot crack of stone as it perishes in the heat and stress, the patter of molten gold as it drips from the high ceiling like rain.
The eternal spit and crackle of the warp.
‘Casryn, I–’
No. There’s a voice. There’s a voice inside that uproar. Faint, distant but strong. He can hear it as though it is calling from the flagstones of the floor, or the columns of the hall.
‘What is that?’ he whispers.
I do not know–
‘How… how are you the one to notice it, Casryn?’
Her shadow, so hard to see or focus on, shrugs.
I know not, she signs. Perhaps because I am deaf to the howl of the warp–
Vulkan turns, he looks around to locate the source of the sound. The others see him, and step forward, confused and apprehensive.
‘My Lord of Drakes–’ Abidemi begins.
Vulkan holds up his hand.
‘Listen!’ he orders. ‘Listen well, because it is hard to hear.’
They all stop, heads turning. One by one, they hear it too.
Sons and daughters of the Imperium of Man. Rise now. Rise up…
‘You all hear that, yes?’ Vulkan asks.
By the command of the Praetorian, take up your weapons and advance. The Emperor stands alone, at the hour of greatest peril. Take up your weapons and come to His aid. Protect Him as He protects you. You are the shield of humanity!
They nod, wondering.
Rise together and stand as one. Stand at His side now, or all is lost. Terra must endure. The Imperium must stand. Horus Lupercal must fall. The Emperor must live.
The words continue, repeating like an echo what they have said before.
‘Is it a trick?’ asks Abidemi.
‘No,’ says Halferphess. ‘It has the clarity of truth–’
‘But who would speak to us, in such a way?’ Moriana Mouhausen asks.
Vulkan glances at her.
‘I thought your guess might be the same as mine,’ he replies. It can only be him, surely. Who else is there? The old man isn’t dead and gone after all, and with his last breath and strength, he finally speaks from beyond the fire.
Vulkan hears the proof of it even as he thinks this. He hears, behind him, the tap of a walking staff coming closer – tick! tick! tick! – against the tiled floor. Malcador–
Vulkan swings around, but there’s no one there. It’s not the tap of a staff. It’s the liquid drip of gold hitting the floor like raindrops.
Vulkan swallows his disappointment. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. All that matter are the words themselves. They have heard nothing for what seems like hours. There have been no messages or contacts from outside. The silence had convinced them that no one had survived, and that there was nothing left to fight for.
But these words change everything. Someone is still fighting. Someone, somewhere, is still alive, and alive enough to call for arms and renewed strength. From the words, it is terribly plain that the threat remains, and the Imperium is far from saved. But the words contain hope. True hope. They tell Vulkan there is still a chance. That some possibility of salvation still exists.
And while it does, his deed is premature.
They must wait a little longer.
He strides away, and races up the golden steps into the heat to make the Talisman secure. For now, it must be withheld.
They must wait, in this wretched agony, a little more. Hope is still burning, not as bright as the Throne or the inferno of the Sanctum but, like Casryn, it is still there if only you know to look for it.