As though in response to his words, the tentacles shivered, and a repulsive slithering sound, as of a thousand greasy limbs moving together, filled the chamber. The s.p.a.ce Wolves were instantly alert, their guns snapping upright, though there were no obvious targets for their wrath beyond the black tentacles.
"What is going on?" demanded Skarssen.
Wyrdmake"s staff crackled with power, but the Rune Priest regarded it with horror, as though it had transformed into a poisonous snake.
"Spread out," ordered Magnus, "and stay away from the edge."
The gelatinous ma.s.s of plant-like growths rippled, and a number of thick stems detached themselves from the domed roof of the chamber. Like disease-ridden fronds in a polluted pool, the nearest tentacles sagged and spread as something moved through them, on a course angled towards the Thousand Sons.
A black veil parted, and Ahriman"s control of the spheres collapsed completely as he saw a wretched figure drift through the tar-black tentacles.
Sc.r.a.ps of orange fabric clung to its naked body, which hung limp with its head down like a puppet bereft of a puppeteer. The figure was borne aloft by a host of slender tentacles, one a gleaming noose around his neck, another around his temple like a crown of obsidian.
These tentacles were not like the others. Their vile substance was alive with gaping mouths and seething eyes that bubbled into existence before dissolving into nothingness.
The figure drew nearer, and he lifted his head. His eyes were oil-dark and reflective, and fine black lines threaded his skin as though the black tentacles had filled him with their corrupt substance. A cracked mirrormask hung at his throat.
The man"s mouth was moving, as though he were screaming in unimaginable torment, but no sounds emerged, only a sopping gurgle of fluid-filled lungs.
"Is that...?" asked Uthizzar.
"It is," said Magnus sadly. "Yatiri."
MAHAVASTU KALLIMAKUS HAILED from the subcontinent of Indoi, and was a meticulous recorder of data and a fastidious observer of details. He had scribed much of the earliest days of the Great Crusade and had been one of the first remembrancers to be chosen by the Thousand Sons. His reputation had preceded him, and he was immediately a.s.signed to Magnus the Red.
He had been at Magnus" side since the restored Legion had departed Prospero in a fanfare of triumph, cheering crowds and billowing clouds of rose petals. He had recorded the primarch"s every thought and deed in a great tome that many called the Book of Magnus.
Those remembrancers who found it difficult to collect any first-hand accounts of the Great Crusade from the Thousand Sons looked upon Mahavastu Kallimakus with no small amount of jealousy. Lemuel had met Mahavastu Kallimakus on the Photep during a symposium on the best form of data collation, and their friendship had been borne of a mutual love of detail.
"G.o.d is in the details," Mahavastu would say as they pored over one of the many ma.n.u.scripts in the vessel"s fascinating library.
"You mean the devil is in the details," Lemuel would reply.
"That, my dear Lemuel, depends entirely on the detail in question."
Kallimakus was energetic, with the vigour of a man half his chronological age, which was somewhere in the region of a hundred and thirty standard.
Right now, Mahavastu Kallimakus looked every one of those years.
The aged remembrancer opened his book, and Lemuel looked over his shoulder.
"An artist"s notebook," he said, seeing the charcoal and pencil marks of an artist"s preliminary outlines. "I never had you pegged as a sketcher. All seems a bit woolly for a man like you, none of the precision of language."
Kallimakus shook his head.
"And you would be right, Lemuel," he said. "I am not an artist. In truth, I am no longer sure what I am."
"I"m sorry, Mahavastu, I don"t follow."
"I do not remember drawing them," said Mahavastu in exasperation. "I do not remember anything in this book, neither pictures nor words. I look back over every entry I have made and they are a mystery to me."
Tears glistened in the old man"s eyes, and Lemuel saw the anxiety in his aura replaced with aching sorrow.
"Everything I have written... I remember none of it."
"Have you had someone from the medicae corps check you out?" asked Camille. "I had an uncle who got old and his mind turned on him. He couldn"t remember anything, even things you just told him. Soon he forgot who he was and couldn"t remember his wife or children. It was sad, watching him die by degrees in front of us." Mahavastu shook his head.
"I am familiar with such progressive patterns of cognitive and functional impairment, Mistress Shivani, so I had a medicae scan my brain this morning," he said. "The neuron and synapse counts in my cerebral and subcortical regions are quite normal, and he found no atrophy or degeneration in my temporal and prietal lobes. The only anomaly was a minor shadow in the cingulate gyrus, but there was nothing that might explain all this."
Lemuel looked more closely at the drawings, trying to sort out some meaning from the ragged sketches and scrawled notations.
"Are you sure you did all this?" he asked, studying the strange symbols that filled every page. He could not read the words, but he recognised the language, and knew that this was no ordinary book of remembrance.
This was a grimoire.
"I am sure," said Mahavastu. "It is my handwriting."
"How do you know?" asked Kallista. "You use a scrivener harness."
"Yes, my dear, but in order to calibrate such a device for use, one must first attune it to one"s own penmanship. There is not a graphologist alive who could tell the machine"s work from mine."
"What is it? I can"t read it," said Camille.
"I do not know. It is in a language I have never seen."
"It"s Enochian," said Lemuel, "the so-called language of angels."
"Angels?" asked Camille. "How do you know that?"
"I have an incomplete copy of the Liber Loagaeth in my library back on Terra," explained Lemuel. Seeing their confusion, Lemuel said, "It"s supposed to be a list of prayers from heaven channelled through an ancient magician of Old Earth. It"s written in this language, though I"ve only ever been able to translate tiny fragments of it. Apparently there was once a twin book, the Claves Angelicae, which had the letter tables, but I never found a copy."
"Enochian," mused Mahavastu. "Interesting, you must tell me more of it."
"In case anyone"s forgotten, didn"t you say that Magnus the Red was in grave danger?" asked Kallista. "Shouldn"t we focus on that?"
"Oh, of course, yes!" exclaimed Mahavastu, flicking through the book to the last page, which bore a charcoal sketch rendered with quick, pa.s.sionate strokes. The image seemed to depict a naked figure emerging from a giant forest, though as Lemuel looked closer he saw that it wasn"t a forest at all.
It was a nest of sinuous, snake-like tentacles emerging from a giant chasm, and before it was the unmistakable form of Magnus the Red, ensnared by half a dozen of them. His warriors were also under attack, fighting for their lives in a giant cave.
Within a mountain...
"What is it?" asked Camille. "I can"t make head nor tail of it."
"I have no idea," said Mahavastu. "Lemuel?"
"I can"t say for sure, but I agree it looks bad."
"What"s that word below the picture?" asked Kallista.
Scrawled beneath the image was a single word, and Lemuel"s blood froze in his veins as he realised it was one of the few Enochian words he understood.
"Panphage," he translated, and Mahavastu flinched.
"What?" asked Kallista. "What does that mean?"
"It means *the thing that devours all"," said Lemuel.
CHAPTER TEN.
The Hydra/Belly of the Beast/Time will Tell THE THING THAT had once been Yatiri drifted towards the Thousand Sons, borne aloft by the supporting black tentacles. The darkness of his eyes was absolute, as though they were gateways into a realm where endless night held sway. Magnus drew his curved sword, and Ahriman felt his master"s enormous power swell to the fore.
The vox spat with Fenrisian oaths and muttered catechisms of the Enumerations, but Ahriman heard only the sibilant whispers drifting from the black ma.s.s that rose from the pit.
Magnussss... Magnusss...
It seemed to be repeating his primarch"s name, but it was impossible to be certain.
Magnus the Red stepped towards Yatiri, and the tentacle around the Aghoru"s neck tightened. Veins bulged on Yatiri"s face, his skin pale and discoloured, calloused where his enforced wearing of the mask had hardened the skin.
Yatiri"s features were blunt and wide-s.p.a.ced across the skull, a heavy brow and high forehead suggestive of thick bone protecting the brain. Ahriman realised that he had never seen the Aghoru without their masks, not even the children.
Questing tentacles that had detached from the domed roof descended towards the Astartes, and Ahriman drew his pistol, fingers tightening on his heqa staff.
"If those tentacles get too close, destroy them," he ordered.
The cavern echoed with the sound of the saw-toothed edges of chainblades revving up.
Yatiri"s body drifted towards Magnus, and Ahriman felt his finger twitch on the trigger. Great power filled the tribesman"s body, a dark tide that Ahriman sensed was but the merest fraction of the power leaking up from beneath the world.
"My lord?" he said.
"I know," said Magnus. "I can contain it. This is no mystery to me."
Uthizzar moved alongside Ahriman, his heqa staff alive with internal lines of power. Though he could not see Uthizzar"s face, he saw the strain he was under in every forced movement.
Ahriman kept one eye on Magnus and the other on the waving pseudopods approaching from above. They were smooth and oily, quite unnatural, and Ahriman sensed a monstrous intelligence in their sinuous movements, like snakes poised to strike at helpless prey.
"My lord," said Ahriman once more. "What are your orders?"
Magnus did not reply, meeting Yatiri"s gaze. Ahriman felt the power flowing between them, sensing immense energies struggling for supremacy. A silent battle of the soul was being fought, and Ahriman could do nothing to help his primarch.
Then two things happened at once.
Yatiri"s body suddenly rushed forward, and his arms closed around Magnus in a hideous parody of a brotherly embrace, his black eyes ablaze with inner fire.
And the black serpent-like tentacles poised above the Astartes attacked.
No sooner had they moved than Ahriman opened fire.
The deafening crack of bolters filled the cavern with echoing bursts and strobing muzzle flashes. Black ichor splashed armour as the tentacles exploded with each impact. Yet there were scores of them, and for each one obliterated, a dozen more remained.
Ahriman emptied his magazine in four controlled bursts.
He felt Uthizzar next to him, the telepath forced to fight with combat moves drawn from muscle memory rather than skill. The crushing pressure of dreadful power seeking entry to his mind was almost unbearable, and he could only imagine what it must feel like to a telepath.
"They keep coming!" yelled Uthizzar.
"Like the hydra of Lerna," said Ahriman between swings of his staff.
Each time a bolt found a target, a tentacle exploded in a ma.s.s of tarry black blood, hissing fiercely as it evaporated. They were insubstantial, but their threat was in quant.i.ty, not quality. Ropes of matter enfolded Ahriman, wrapping around him like constrictor lizards.
He released controlled bursts of energy, and they melted from his body. More reached for him, but his heqa staff swept out, its copper and gold bands rippling with fire. Uthizzar stepped back, and Ahriman braced his mind"s defences, knowing what would come next.
A blistering surge of invisible aether erupted from Uthizzar in a deafening shriek, burning through the air like the shockwave of a magma bomb. It went unheard by the s.p.a.ce Wolves, but the tentacles around them dissolved into black fog at its touch, and others drew back, recognising his power and wary of him. Uthizzar dropped to his knees, head bowed, and bleeding aetheric light from every joint in his armour.
In the few moments" s.p.a.ce Uthizzar had created, Ahriman pushed towards where he had last seen Magnus. The primarch"s body was still held in Yatiri"s loathsome embrace, but his flesh was all but obscured by a ma.s.s of writhing tentacles. More were slithering around his body with every second that pa.s.sed.
"Go!" cried Uthizzar, and Ahriman saw how much the unleashed storm had drained him. To loose such power while under so fierce an attack was nothing short of a miracle.
Ahriman nodded to Uthizzar and pushed onwards as fresh enemies flailed from the pit, blocking him from reaching the primarch. It was a living wall of snaking darkness, but his staff cleaved through them like a threshing scythe.
An unstoppable ma.s.s of tentacles boiled from the chasm, thousands of blind monsters empowered by some hideous perversion of the Great Ocean"s energy. His power was anathema to these creatures, the pure fire of the aether a nemesis touch to such corruption.
The s.p.a.ce Wolves fought with immovable fury, blades hacking with relentless force and implacable resolve. Their guns fired in a non-stop crescendo, yet they were hideously outnumbered by their foes and had not the power of the aether to aid them.
Ahriman saw one of the s.p.a.ce Wolves lifted from his feet by a host of tentacles, his armour buckling under the awful pressure. He kept firing and howling until his armour finally gave way with a horrid crack of ceramite and bone. Blood fountained from the shorn halves of his body, but he continued shooting, even as his remains were drawn into the pit. Nor was he alone in his fate. Everywhere Ahriman looked, warriors were being torn apart. Dozens were dying with every pa.s.sing minute, yet still they fought on.
Lord Skarssen laid about himself with a sword that glittered with cold light, a blade that legend would say was fashioned from ice hewn from the heart of a glacier and tempered in the breath of the mightiest kraken. Like Ahriman"s staff, the blade was the bane of the darkness, destroying it with the merest touch.
Ohthere Wyrdmake fought at his side, his eagle-topped staff spinning around his body in a glowing arc, leaving glittering traceries on the retina with its impossible brightness. Like Ahriman, Wyrdmake had power, and the darkness was wary of him.
The Rune Priest saw him, and Ahriman forged a path towards him.
Lord Skarssen looked up at his approach, and the cold flint of his eyes was even colder. There was no hatred, no battle fury, simply the implacable will to destroy his foe. The methodical, clinical nature of Skarssen"s battle surprised Ahriman, but he had no time to dwell upon it.
"We need to reach my primarch," he yelled over the barking gunfire and ripping sound of chainblades. "And then we need to get out of here."
"Never!" shouted Skarssen. "The foe is yet to die. We leave when it is dead, and not before."
Ahriman could see there was no use in arguing with the Wolf Lord; his course was set and nothing he could say would sway him. He nodded and turned back towards the battle, a writhing, heaving ma.s.s of dark tentacles and struggling warriors.