Undercurrents
‘Come and see,’ the voice breathed. ‘Oh please, you must come and see.’
And he followed it, into the dark in the innards of the ship. Crewman Abraham Miklos moved through the unfamiliar corridors, following someone he barely knew, on the promise that something transcendent lay ahead. Passing beneath arches carved in imitation of rearing beasts, tracing his fingers along the intricate knotwork, he could well believe that wonders lay here.
To be stranded on another ship was common enough in fleet actions. He had been part of a work detail assigned to the Wyrmslayer Queen during the exodus from Ghrent. He, along with a mix of Radrexxus crew, had been lost in the shuffle. They had volunteered their services where they could, and had settled into the work routines of the new ship, until such time as they were out of the warp, and normality could be restored.
The Helvintr crews had a way about them that Miklos liked; a swagger to everything they did, modelled on their leader. He had seen her from afar, and had been impressed with what he saw. She had a much more straightforward manner than the new Lord Lamertine. For all her hunter’s roughness, she knew war. She had carried men through it with more than just dumb luck and hope. He wasn’t sure Erastus, the wastrel, could measure up to it.
The air was getting colder, shaking him from his thoughts. The cowled and cloaked woman ducked beneath a pipe, and disappeared behind a corner. He broke into a jog, chasing after her. He found himself laughing, even as he almost tripped over a loop of cabling.
‘Come and see…’ Her voice drifted through the condensing mist. ‘We’re almost there, come and see.’ He couldn’t actually see her any more, only hear the faint echo of her voice. Why was he still following? Playing this game?
And was it a game? A strange sort of flirtation played out by the Fenrisians? His head swam with sweet wine and strong ale. Against his better judgement, he forged on.
He had met her in one of the refectory halls here, or what passed for them – raucous, barely sanctioned drinking dens more at home in a low-hive commercia than a ship at war. They took joy in their kills, they revelled in it. This was the spoils of that undertaking and mindset, he realised.
How much wider would our reach be if the Old Man had thought like these glorious savages?
The girl had been the same, though he hadn’t quite caught her name. She had a relentlessness to her. A predator’s confidence. An irresistible grace. Enough to draw him here, down into the cold and the dark.
‘Hello?’ he called, as he stepped out of the passageways and into a larger chamber. It seemed old, older than the surrounding ship. Marked with a patina of disuse that was only just fading thanks to recent occupation. It had been some sort of storage tank, once. He could not tell if it had held water or waste, time had erased the scents of its past. Now there was the faint reek of incense, and the tang of human sweat.
She stood in the centre of it, and turned to face him. Her skin was Fenris pale, marked with winding black and blue tattoos. She smiled, utterly without warmth. It was a hollow smile. A dead joy at odds with the culture he had observed and admired.
‘What is it?’ Miklos asked. ‘What is it you have to show me?’
The shadows at the edges of the chamber moved, and figures stepped forward from the darkness. They were dressed as she was, in rough-spun robes. The coarse fabric contrasted with the artful masks they work. Silver and bronze and gold, the masks were smooth and shaped into the flowing visages of serpents.
‘Do you see?’ she asked. Her hands spread, and the figures came closer – forming a rough semicircle of strange, stilted movements. ‘I wanted you to see, as I saw.’ There were marks on the walls, he realised. Gouges in the metal. Environmental pressures perhaps, but it seemed more primal than that. As though carved by the claws of some great…
His eyes widened. His mouth fell open and he could feel his heart racing, his breathing pounding in his chest. He was suddenly aware of vast scrutiny upon him; not simply from the encroaching figures, but from something older. Something stronger. He looked up, past the impassive masks, beyond the marks in the worn metal.
He saw. He beheld, even if he did not understand. The thing, the impossible thing, that moved down the sheer wall of the chamber. It looked up, and as its gaze met his, he realised that he was lost. He could not even bring himself to scream.
‘I… see…’ he whispered hoarsely, as it took him in its grasp, and illumination seized him in a rush of blood and pain.
‘Is it ready, I wonder?’ Gunther mused to himself, kneeling before the altar. It was a stylised representation of the Emperor in His capacity as Binder-of-the-Void, bracing the heavens upon His broad shoulders. Gold and amethyst veined the marble of its construction, and he marvelled at the craftsmanship. He had commissioned it himself, an affectation that had startled him. He preened momentarily, fussing with his rich silks and perfectly poised wig. Habit, more than anything else.
Here, alone within his sanctum, he was able to cast aside the petty disguises and forced revelries. Here, he could be himself. He could embrace who he was always intended to be. Who life, and his family, had shaped him to be.
‘The blood is all,’ he whispered. There was comfort in the mantra. It had long since saturated his life. Passed from parent to child, from captain to crew. All who served were bonded. By oath. By blood. By faith. ‘In blood are we sanctified, and in faith do we serve.’ He looked up again at the statue. It showed Him as a scholar and as a warrior. He held up the very heavens, yes, but He also held a sword and extended a scroll. He was everything, to all men.
He was perfect. A loving father. A guiding light.
Light…
He closed his eyes as he thought of it, and reached over for the communications panel mounted upon a nearby column. There was a snap of static, and then the echo of drawn-out breathing.
‘Euryale, my sweet,’ Gunther crooned. ‘Do you see the lights of home? Can you hear the song of sanctity, playing out across the stars?’
‘I hear, my lord. The song is stronger now than ever before.’ Euryale’s voice drifted through the vox in a distracted hiss. She was not entirely focused, her mind cast to watching the warp. Seeing the world beyond the veil, the roiling tides beyond the ship. The storm could not touch her or slow her. ‘The song sings us to our home, and our return. How long has it been since last we graced Endymica? We danced within the void, and the planet sang us away.’
‘Too long, my sweet. Far too long.’ He sighed as he stood, shaking out his fine silks. ‘Oh it was a wonder, wasn’t it? It burned so very beautifully. We swept through the system, and they rose up to greet us. Arms wide.’ His eyes were distant, lost in the glow of memory. ‘The things we taught each other. And we returned, again and again. We graced them with our gifts and they filled our hulls with plenty. Flesh and faith. Things the others could never understand. But soon, soon enough, they shall. When we return.’
‘When we return–’
‘When we return again, it shall be in glory,’ Gunther said with a sigh. ‘We shall lay the groundwork of our triumph, and no one shall stop us. Not the metal men and their plots, not the savages nor the boy king.’
He laughed, a cold and bitter sound. There was no joy in it. The walls glimmered with their superficial gilding, the marble sparkled as though freshly polished. Yet it was all, fundamentally, empty. For all the trappings of a fane, it had no soul.
‘Our ascension draws ever nearer.’