Revelation
Loken looks up at them as they approach. There’s nothing to be said.
Dorn, gazing in disbelief, gestures for him to move back. He kneels in Loken’s place at his father’s side.
‘You cannot die,’ Dorn says. ‘Not now.’
The Emperor is lying on his back. He does not stir. Dorn uncouples his right gauntlet, and lays his bare hand gently on the auramite breastplate. There is scarcely a trace of life, no heartbeat he can feel, no rise and fall of the lungs. One of his father’s eyes is closed, the other gone entirely. His skin is cold and pale, and his hair is matted with blood. The injuries he has sustained to his arm, his body and his head are catastrophic. Dorn cranes in and listens. There is just a trace of breath, a wheezing, laboured rattle of air in his throat.
Dorn knows that sound. He’s heard it too many times. He’s heard it in men and Astartes alike. The fact that his father is a demigod giant, with a demigod giant’s biology, doesn’t matter. It is the sound of mortality. It is the soft footsteps of death as it approaches.
‘You cannot die,’ he repeats, but there’s nothing he can do to prevent it. The Emperor’s wounds are awful to behold. No medicae science that Dorn knows of can repair this damage. This is the end and the death. He can see it. He can hear it.
‘He fought,’ Loken says quietly. ‘Then He fell the moment Horus was finished. It was as though… as though He kept Himself alive, by force of will, just long enough to strike that final blow. He had been injured so badly by then…’
‘You were here?’ asks Dorn, not looking up. His voice is no more than a whisper.
‘I was,’ Loken replies. ‘My lord, I did all I could–’
‘I have no doubt of that, Loken,’ says Dorn. He takes a deep breath to control the grief crushing his chest. ‘What matters is what we do now.’
Dorn looks up at Constantin and is shocked by what he sees. Valdor is gazing down at the Emperor’s body, and his eyes are full of tears. Coros and the other Sentinels are clearly weeping too. It is not their expression of grief that shocks Dorn. To hear the lament of the Custodes would be unbearable. But this is utterly silent, and somehow far worse.
‘Constantin,’ he says. ‘Constantin. We need to get him out of this place.’
Valdor nods. He clears his throat.
‘He lives yet,’ he replies. ‘I can feel it. Tribune?’
Coros steps forward.
‘Teleport homing beacons are active, my captain,’ Coros says. ‘No signal responds. Noosphere is down. Vox is down. Retrying to establish contact.’
‘There isn’t time,’ says Loken. He can no longer hear the Master of Mankind in his head. He can no longer sense the light of Him, and the flames on Rubio’s blade have gone out. The Custodes may be more sensitive, for they are more closely bound to the Emperor, but Loken can feel that extinction is but a few breaths away. ‘There’s no time to make contact. We must carry Him–’
‘Loken is right,’ says Dorn. It is getting very cold, and the chamber around them has grown very dark. The air processors have shut down, and the atmosphere is leaking away. He and Valdor have seen the damage for themselves. The ship is dying too. From all around come the groans and sighs of its decline, bulkheads creaking, and the hull-frame cracking. Every now and then, debris flutters down from the sagging ceiling. The deck trembles beneath him, like the aftershocks of an earthquake. Like the Master of Mankind, the flagship is trying in vain to endure the mutilation it has suffered.
‘We carry him,’ Dorn says. ‘We carry him now.’
‘To where?’ asks Valdor. ‘Back the way we came?’
‘That way no longer exists,’ says Loken. ‘The ship has torn free of the Palace. It is no longer possible to walk from one to the other.’
Valdor glares at him, then looks back at Dorn.
‘The nearest embarkation deck, then,’ says Dorn. ‘We find a ship. A Stormbird.’
Valdor nods. The Sentinels close in and, with Valdor, Dorn and Loken, start to lift the Emperor up. The moment they raise Him a little, His head flops back and black blood streams from His mouth like water.
‘Set Him down!’ cries Valdor. ‘Set Him down again! We’re just killing Him faster.’
They ease the Emperor back to the deck. Dorn glances around.
‘Get a deck plate,’ he says to Coros, ‘wall panels… Anything we can use to fashion some frame to support him.’
The Sentinels turn to obey, but halt abruptly and bring their weapons up in defensive postures. There are figures standing in the shadow of the hatchway, lurking like revenant spectres.
They are the surviving Blood Angels from the Anabasis company. Raldoron, Ikasati, Furio and perhaps a dozen others. They are gazing at the scene in mute shock.
Valdor strides forward before Dorn can stop him, his spear circling in his grip.
‘If you’ve come for more killing, there’s nothing left to kill!’ he roars.
‘Constantin!’ Dorn shouts, grabbing his arm.
‘They are animals!’ Valdor rages. ‘Animals drawn to blood!’
‘No longer, Constantin! Look at them! Look at them!’
The Angel’s sons are pale and viced with grief, but there is no rage in them, no fury. Valdor shrugs off Dorn’s restraining hand.
‘I trust them not,’ he growls.
‘Raldoron,’ says Dorn, stepping towards the Blood Angels. ‘When last we met, you were the wild beasts that Constantin describes.’
‘When last we met, Lord Praetorian,’ Raldoron replies, his voice quiet and creased with pain, ‘we were in the Palace of Terra. Whatever madness overtook us, it has passed. It has been replaced by this.’
He looks towards the bodies behind Dorn: the Emperor, Horus and the Great Angel.
‘I would rather that madness than this,’ whispers the First Captain.
‘I do not doubt it,’ says Dorn. ‘We are composing an exit, First Captain. As rapidly as we can. The Emperor is still alive. We will bring your father, my brother, too. Sanguinius cannot be left here. See to him.’
Raldoron nods. He swallows hard, jaw clenched.
‘And the Warmaster, my lord?’ he asks.
‘Damn him,’ Valdor rumbles. ‘Let him burn with his ship.’
Dorn glances at him. ‘Constantin–’
‘My lords!’
They all turn. Diocletian Coros stands, head bowed, his hand to the side of his war helm.
‘I have contact,’ Coros reports. ‘Degraded, vox only. But it is Hegemon Command.’
‘On my system too,’ says Ikasati.
‘Instruct them!’ Valdor snaps. His own armour’s vox-system is long burned out.
‘Hegemon Command, Hegemon Command, this is Anabasis,’ says Coros urgently. ‘We need immediate teleport extraction. Repeat, Anabasis requires immediate teleport extraction. Lock on to my homing beacon, and set mass transfer, group extraction. Respond. Respond.’
He pauses, then repeats the instruction.
‘Hurry, Coros!’ Valdor growls.
‘The link is poor, my captain,’ Coros replies. ‘Stand by.’
He repeats the instruction again.
Loken looks away. He returns to the Emperor’s side, and kneels.
‘They will bear you home, my lord,’ he says softly. ‘Do not die. Your Palace awaits you. My lord, I cannot imagine a future that does not have you in it. We need you to guide us, and show us how to put back what has been undone.’
‘He can’t hear you, Loken.’
Loken looks around. Leetu is standing a few paces away.
‘You’re alive,’ says Loken.
Leetu nods. He clamps Mourn-It-All to his hip, and runs his hands back across his scalp. He seems exhausted. His eyes are hollow, and his armour has an odd sheen to it, as though it has been exposed to extreme heat.
‘What happened to you?’ Loken asks.
Leetu shakes his head.
‘I…’ he says. ‘I cannot speak of it. I don’t know how to describe it. I saw things, Loken. Things I can’t explain. I think I should be dead, but then they all vanished and I found myself here.’
‘Loken?’ Dorn calls out, approaching them. ‘Who is this man?’
‘LE Two, my lord,’ says Loken. ‘He fought alongside me, and with your father. I will vouch for him.’
Leetu bows his head to the Praetorian. Dorn studies him with a wary glare.
‘Lord Dorn,’ says Leetu. ‘There is a chamber nearby, just off this one.’ He turns and gestures to the far side of the compartment. ‘I think the Warmaster used it as a… shrine. A trophy room, perhaps. It is piled with bones. I think you should go to it before you leave.’
‘Why would I do that?’ Dorn asks.
‘Because I believe the skull of your brother Ferrus Manus is there,’ says Leetu.
Dorn flinches. He nods curtly to Leetu, and strides away across the deck in the direction the legionary indicated.
‘We await extraction,’ says Loken.
‘It can’t come fast enough,’ Leetu replies. ‘This damned ship is dead. Hear that? That’s the death-scream of superstructure, Loken. The Emperor–’
‘He’s alive,’ says Loken. Leetu crouches beside him. He stares at the Emperor’s body, and reluctantly reaches to feel for a pulse.
‘Barely,’ he says. ‘And the damage done to Him… I don’t think that can be repaired.’
‘We have to try,’ says Loken.
‘We have to do more than try,’ Valdor snarls. He has come to join them. Like Dorn, he regards Leetu with deep suspicion. ‘But we’ll have to carry Him. Him and the Angel-son both.’
‘What? Why?’ asks Loken.
‘Coros has contact with the Hegemon,’ says Valdor, ‘but the Hegemon reports it cannot establish a lock on our beacons to effect teleport.’
‘Empyric disruption is still very great, sir,’ says Leetu.
‘I presume so,’ Valdor replies. ‘I will give them another three minutes. If no viable transport lock is established by then, we will carry them to the nearest embarkation deck.’
‘Embarkation deck three is closest,’ says Loken.
‘Indeed,’ says Valdor. ‘Embarkation three, then. I imagine you know this ship better than any of us.’
The comment is barbed, and Loken winces. He knows that the stain of his father’s curse will never be forgotten, and that to be the son of Horus will never be forgiven, no matter what.
Valdor turns away.
‘Coros!’ he yells.
‘Still awaiting lock, my captain,’ Coros reports.
‘Three minutes, Coros! Tell them that! The rest of you, make a frame to support Him! Hurry!’
Loken bends down again to listen for breath. It is there, but it is so slight now. The crunch of broken glass in a leather bag.
When he looks up, he sees Leetu picking around in the debris scattered across the deck nearby.
‘What are you doing?’ Loken snaps.
‘If He’s alive,’ says Leetu, ‘if there is still hope, then He would tell us what to do. He’s done that all along.’
‘He can’t speak, you idiot,’ Valdor says, overhearing and turning back to look at them.
‘I know, sir,’ Leetu replies. He bends down to retrieve something. ‘But He’d show us. If there was a chance, He’d find a way to show us. That’s what He does.’
Leetu holds out the object he has picked up off the deck. It is a tarot card, The Knight of Mandatio. It is scorched.
‘Tarot?’ Valdor says scornfully.
‘Wait,’ says Leetu. ‘There are others.’
He starts to retrieve more, picking them out of the scree of broken glassaic and plastek, and the scraps of ceramite. Cards from the Emperor’s Imperial Tarot, lost and scattered during the battle.
‘Look, here,’ he says, ‘here is The Space Marine, and here The Lantern. Here, The Guardsman, torn in two–’
‘Enough of that!’ says Valdor.
‘No,’ says Leetu. ‘The Throne. And this one, The World.’
There are others too. Cards from a different deck. The Orphan and The Revenger. The Despoiler. Leetu doesn’t say their names. He knows whose deck they came from.
‘Stop that!’ Valdor warns. ‘So help me, the King-of-Ages is dying, and you play with cards–’
‘He would show us!’ Leetu replies, turning to him. ‘If there was a way, He would show us! And these cards are all that’s left!’
‘So what do they tell you, then?’ Valdor sneers.
Leetu looks at the cards he has found. There is no sense to them. If there is a reading here at all, it is poor and incomprehensible.
‘I don’t know,’ he says.
‘Then damn you!’ says Valdor. ‘Damn you.’
Leetu nods. The captain-general is right. It was a foolish idea. When the warp was upon them, the magic of farsight and the arcana made sense and functioned. But the magic has gone away, and there is nothing left but the cold and the dead metal, where such mystic insight has no power. The cards in his hand are just torn, scorched wafers. They have no meaning.
Which means the Emperor is silent. He’s no longer talking to anyone, in any way. He is too far gone.
Dorn has returned, his face set grim. He is carrying something wrapped in a bundle of cloth. He calls over one of the Blood Angels, and instructs him to carry it with all reverence.
‘He was right,’ Dorn says to Loken and Valdor. ‘That man LE Two. He was quite correct. It was a shrine. An awful place. And Ferrus was there.’
‘Right about something, then,’ sneers Valdor. ‘He had some notion about cards.’
‘Cards?’ asks Dorn.
‘Tarot cards, seventh son. He thought the King-of-Ages would speak to us and show us how we might best achieve His salvation.’
‘My father set much store by the tarot, Constantin,’ says Dorn. ‘So did Malcador. You know this.’
‘I know Malcador is gone,’ says Valdor bluntly. ‘No Sigillite magic will save us.’
‘We have no signal lock?’ Dorn asks.
‘None. Too much disruption. They cannot fix us.’ Valdor sighs. ‘The three minutes are up!’ he shouts. ‘Prepare to lift them both!’
His Sentinels have secured two deck plates end to end, using one of the Blood Angels’ meltas to fuse the overlap. They bring the makeshift bier over and begin to gently slide the Emperor’s body onto it.
‘Hurry!’ Valdor orders. ‘Carefully,’ he adds.
Leetu has found another card. It is lying in the dust beside Caecaltus’ charred remains.
‘You are a student of the arcana, then, LE Two?’
Leetu looks up. Dorn is standing over him.
‘I believe they mean something, my lord,’ he replies. ‘What exactly, is always open to interpretation. It matters where the spread falls, and where they lie.’
‘And where did these cards fall?’ Dorn asks.
‘You are a student too?’ Leetu asks.
Dorn shakes his head.
‘No, never,’ he says. ‘I don’t like them, and have never held with them. But Malcador, the Regent, he showed me things in the cards. This was… a while ago now. He showed me things that have since come true. I do not like them, LE Two, but I can’t ignore them. Where did these cards fall?’
Leetu holds one out.
‘This one was closest to your father,’ he says. ‘It was right beside Him. I’m sorry. His… His blood is on it.’
Dorn takes the card and studies it. The Throne.
He laughs bleakly.
‘So he speaks to us after all,’ he says. ‘These were his cards. And this is where he wants to go. It never occurred to me. I could not think how we could heal him, for his wounds are beyond repair. But the Throne, LE Two. The power of that Throne. It would sustain him, and fortify him. He could draw strength from the warp and restore his aspect. What else was there?’
‘Several others,’ says Leetu, ‘but this was the last. It was lodged here, beside the body of His proconsul, who never left His side. So we might suppose the two cards should be placed side by side and read together.’
‘Revelation,’ says Dorn, looking at the last card. ‘They go together indeed. And we have need of revelation now, for the world is blind to us and cannot find us.’
He stoops down.
‘You found it here?’ he asks.
‘Just here, my lord.’
Dorn looks at the body. It is so burned away, it is hard to tell it was ever a human figure. Just a few fragments of plate remain, caked in ash. The chestplate, the most substantial and durable part of the Aquilon wargear, is the only thing intact.
‘He stood by Him to the end,’ says Leetu. ‘He faced the Lupercal and–’
‘He stood by him all his life,’ says Dorn. ‘Caecaltus Dusk. At the foot of the Throne, day after day–’
He halts.
‘My lord?’ Leetu asks.
Dorn has reached out. He brushes his hand across the chestplate, wiping the ash and soot away.
‘He was there,’ says Dorn, ‘when Malcador took the Throne. I remember it now. Malcador stumbled, and then, on the steps, he stopped and–’
‘And what, my lord?’
Do not fail him. Bring him back to this seat, you hear me? Bring him back alive. You do all you do for him, but do this for me.
‘Look,’ says Dorn. Where he has rubbed away the ash, a mark is revealed, a sigil, drawn quickly, with a fingertip.
This is what will happen, and with my hand I signify it. It cannot be undone.
The hasty sigil is barely visible, yet the lines seem to tremble with light.
‘Teleport lock established!’ Coros calls out behind them.
‘They have our beacons at last?’ Valdor cries.
‘They have something, my captain,’ Coros replies. ‘They are preparing for mass displacement transfer.’
‘Bring them here,’ Dorn shouts out, getting up. ‘Both of them! Bring them close to this point!’
Raldoron and his Blood Angels lift Sanguinius’ body, and bear it over to where Dorn stands with Leetu. Valdor hesitates for a moment, then he and his Sentinels raise the Emperor on their shoulders and carry Him to Dorn’s side as gently as they can.
The air is starting to shimmer. A vortex of wind begins to ripple around them, turning like the birth of a dust devil, lifting grit and fragments from the deck. The unmistakable ozone stink of a teleport flare begins to fill the chamber.
The light wobbles and bends. It grows brighter.
‘Loken!’ Dorn yells. ‘Loken, come on!’
Loken is hunched beside his father’s body. He looks over at Dorn.
‘Someone must watch over him, my lord,’ he says. ‘Someone must stand vigil here.’
‘Loken!’
‘He was Horus Lupercal,’ says Loken. ‘And he was my father. I am the only one left who cares.’
He stands. He makes the sign of the aquila and holds it in salute until the bang of the teleport flare begins to fade.
They are gone. The wind drops, sparks of decorporealisation drift like fireflies, and the transmaterial dust begins to settle.
Loken kneels beside his father’s corpse. He places his hand on his father’s shoulder. Now there is no one left to see, he weeps.