Guilliman"s solemn face permitted a slight smile at the subtlety of the question.
*Like himself, Valentus. Like the Lion. He is suspicious, and I fear he has already, in his mind, decided to oppose the future we are trying to secure. I have yet to explain myself and my decisions to him. He has yet to show me that he accepts or even understands what I am about."
Dolor nodded.
*He is waiting," Guilliman added, dryly, *and I have excused myself and come to you, because you asked me to do so, and I know you would not waste my time or divert me unless it was critical."
Dolor nodded his head again, more a bow of appreciation.
*It is, my lord," he replied. *You need to see this. I believe you may be shocked. In truth, I cannot count whether it is reason to rejoice or mourn. Also, I would have spared you this concern when you are occupied with your n.o.ble brother, but... you need to know this. You need to be in possession of this information before you take any further steps."
Guilliman studied his friend"s face, but transhuman features were notoriously hard to read for microexpressions.
*Then just show me," Guilliman said.
Dolor ushered his lord through the doorway into the guarded areas of the secure suite. Status bars on the wall plates displayed the fact that the area was held at vermilion level security. The long line of guarded iris valves opened and closed behind them as they walked.
*This concerns the object that fell from the sky, doesn"t it?" Guilliman asked as they walked.
*Yes, lord."
*The transhuman corpse?"
Dolor did not reply directly.
*You"ve established an origin?"
*Yes, lord."
*An ident.i.ty?"
*Yes, lord."
Guilliman glanced at him sharply.
*Something else?" he asked.
*Something else indeed, my lord," said Dolor.
They reached the gloomy inner chamber where the iron casket lay. Captain Casmir and t.i.tus Prayto were waiting for them. They bowed to the primarch and fell into step as Dolor led his lord through the laboratory chambers and into the isolation block beyond. The area was reserved for hazardous material and viral quarantine work. It was a long row of brightly lit cells, stark and white, each with a hermetically sealed armourgla.s.s wall facing into a common corridor. The corridor was lined with Ultramarines guards, and high-ranking medicae personnel worked at cogitation and cellular-sampling arrays that had been set up in the walkway facing one of the cells. Power cables snaked from the consoles across the grilled deck in fat rubber loops.
*Surely the mortal laboratory would have been a better venue for dissection," Guilliman began.
*I authorised the transfer of the patient," Dolor replied simply.
Guilliman stopped in his tracks so abruptly that Captain Casmir almost b.u.mped into him.
*You said patient," Guilliman said quietly.
*My lord, I did," said Dolor. *By the stars of Ultramar, my lord, he is alive."
*How?" asked Guilliman. He asked it first of Dolor, a mix of anger and incomprehension crossing his face.
*How? How?" he repeated, turning to look at Casmir, Prayto and the suddenly tense medicae personnel.
*He... healed, my lord," said Prayto.
*Healed?" Guilliman snapped. *He fell out of the d.a.m.n sky! From orbit! He burned to a crisp and dove deep into the Civitas like a meteor! You don"t heal from that!"
*And yeta" Dolor began.
*May the old G.o.ds come and strike you all down as either liars or incompetents!" Guilliman yelled. *Whatever else, you said, Dolor, you told me he was dead! Organic residue. A corpse. A cremated corpse!"
*I did not lie," Dolor said calmly. *He was utterly dead... Utterly. All life sign was extinct, all brain function. There was no viable organic tissue on his charred bones whatsoever. Your best physicians and a.n.a.lysts confirmed this, and so did all the instrumentation of the medicae hall."
He paused.
*He was dead, lord. And then... he was not. Life returned where life was not and could not be. He healed."
*You do not heal from death!" Guilliman roared.
*It appears you do, my lord," said Prayto quietly, *if you are one of the sons of mankind"s Emperor."
Silence. Guilliman turned to look at Prayto.
t.i.tus Prayto held his master"s stare and nodded confirmation.
Guilliman turned away and strode towards the occupied cell. Guards and personnel darted out of his path. He reached the thick armourgla.s.s wall, stopped a few centimetres from it, and stared inside.
The cell was a bare white s.p.a.ce. A single male figure occupied the left-hand corner away from the gla.s.s. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the walls, his forearms resting on his raised knees. He was naked. He stared ahead, towards some distant spot that was not in the room.
He was a ma.s.sive form, heavily muscled. The fire of his long fall had shrivelled his corpse but his stature, so much greater than human, was obvious now that he was restored to life. He possessed a primarch"s build, a being scaled to fit only the largest chairs in Guilliman"s Residency.
There were no marks on his body, no hair. By whatever means he was healing, it was still happening. Every part of his skin was raw and b.l.o.o.d.y as some miraculous process brought living tissue out of burned residue.
*I don"t..." Guilliman began, his breath making a fog on the surface of the gla.s.s wall. *Who is he?"
*It is Vulkan," said Dolor.
Guilliman gasped in pain and recognition. *You are sure?"
*I"m certain," said t.i.tus Prayto.
Guilliman raised both hands, and placed the palms against the armourgla.s.s on either side of his face, peering in. He paid no heed to the fact that both were jacketed in full ceremonial plate and ma.s.sive, ornate lightning claws.
*Let me in there," Guilliman said, staring at his brother.
*No, my lord," Dolor replied.
*Let me in there, d.a.m.n you! My dear brother is returned to me! Twice! Once from the death that I thought had befallen him on the traitor"s field, and once from the death that delivered him here! Let me in!"
Guilliman slammed his clawed and armoured fists against the unbreakable wall in frustration. The sound shook the cell.
Vulkan looked up, brought out of his reverie. Eyes as blood-red as the healing flesh of his body fixed upon Guilliman. They fixed upon the ma.s.sive, clawed figure standing at the gla.s.s.
*He sees me," Guilliman said. *Let me in there!"
*My lorda" Dolor began.
Vulkan lunged. With an anguished scream of rage and horror, he leapt up and threw himself across the cell at Guilliman. The attack was so sudden and so violent that Guilliman started back from the protective armourgla.s.s in surprise.
Howling words that meant nothing and sounds that meant every pain in the galaxy, Vulkan hammered his fists against the gla.s.s, until it was slippery with blood and tissue-fluid from his healing, still-forming flesh. His teeth were brilliant white enamel chips in his screaming mouth.
His eyes were glaring circles of blood.
*Don"t! Brother, stop!" Guilliman cried out in alarm. *Brother, it is me! It is Roboute. Calm yourself!"
*He does not hear you, my lord," said Dolor miserably. *He does not hear any of us."
*The Salamanders who have come to your hall were right, my lord," said t.i.tus Prayto. *Vulkan lives. But whatever he has endured, it has driven him mad. Your brother, my lord, is quite insane."
That three of the Emperor"s sons were present on the same world at the same precise moment was a truly auspicious conjunction, whatever the circ.u.mstances.
For different reasons, none of them knew that the true number of primarchs who had converged that day on Macragge was, in fact, four.
Deep in the pitch-black, unregulated s.p.a.ces of the First Legion"s flagship, the Invincible Reason, the quarry exhaled slowly.
It was time. Time.
Visions flickered through his head like a broken, mis-cued pict-feed. Visions had always flickered through his head, since his earliest childhood a visions of the future, of the possible, of the probable. Of the next, and the next after that.
It was the visions that had driven him mad.
Just now, though, the visions were coming to him more cleanly. They were bearable, tolerable. They were not the prescient nightmares of a galaxy in flames and a doomed future. They were not the h.e.l.lish sights of a corpse-universe that came to him too often and caused him to devolve past the point where life a his or any other a retained any value.
The quarry breathed carefully. The visions firing behind his blood-rimmed eyes were calm and trustworthy. The ship had translated into reals.p.a.ce after weeks of travail through the storms of the warp, and suddenly he had clarity.
He knew who he was: a lord of the dark. A master of the lightless. A night haunter.
No, the Night Haunter: Konrad Curze. Konrad Curze.
*Konrad Curze," he whispered to himself, speaking his name like a benediction. A benediction, or a death sentence.
He knew who he was and he knew his purpose. At that moment, in the bleak and b.l.o.o.d.y years of Horus"s revolt, Konrad Curze understood his purpose the most cleanly and most perfectly of all the Emperor"s eighteen sons.
The pitiless void had shown it to him. The endless night, his friend and tormentor, had shown it to him. His dreams had shown it to him.
Terror, pain, iconoclasm. All would pay. All of them, every soul, every one. They would all scream with him.
The mighty Invincible Reason creaked and groaned around him as its t.i.tanic superstructure, a billion tonnes of alloy, settled and unstressed from the tensions of warp-transit. Curze knew where they were. He had envisioned it, so he knew that it was almost a.s.suredly true. They occupied high orbit above the grey-sheened glory of Macragge.
Macragge. Ultramar. The thought of the self-righteous Guilliman made Curze want to p.i.s.s acid. His blood-brother the Lion was his blood-enemy, as the Thramas fight had proven, but Guilliman...
Toad. Reptile. Fool. As bad as Dorn, as bad as Vulkan. So blindly indoctrinated into the belief that the future would be a n.o.ble, golden age. So insufferably honourable. So eager to please their father. So eager to cry, *Look at me! I have built an empire just for you! Just like yours!"
Jump up and down all you like, little child. Boast all you want.
They were all going to pay. They were all going to understand the truth, the truth that only Curze saw. He would bring them down once more in fire and fear, until they were as broken as him. Perhaps, if he provoked them far enough, one of them might even kill him. Curze was waiting for his end. He welcomed it. If he could force one of his oh-so-n.o.ble brothers to deliver it, and thus reduce themselves to his level, it would serve a sweet, delinquent purpose.
Guilliman. Proximity and fortune had raised him up the list of priorities. Guilliman was an icon to topple and break. Guilliman, and his world along with him.
Curze closed his eyes. Visions played. He saw the streets of Macragge Civitas carpeted with bodies. He saw the towers and spires ablaze. He saw blood. He sawa The red visions struck him with the force of arterial spray. He composed himself. It was too soon to devolve. He had work to do. He had to retain some focus. Anger was only useful when it was forged as a weapon. The same was true for terror. He knew both intimately.
It was time, time to leave the ship. Now they were back in reals.p.a.ce, the Invincible Reason was open and unbarred.
First he had to break out of the ship. Then he had to break into Macragge. Guilliman was a toadying cur, but he was no amateur. His defences would be sound.
The Night Haunter was not put off for a moment.
Visions flowed through his head like a river, the surface shot with reflections.
Curze mostly trusted them, for they were almost always true. Only occasionally, when fate shivered its spine, did a vision prove to be a false promise. He usually knew when they were lies. He certainly knew when they were questionable. He was always aware that he was playing a chance. With each vision, he had to decide if it would prove true or false, trustworthy or untrustworthy. He decided whether to act on a vision or not, and he calmly accepted when those decisions were wrong.
The current stream of visions seemed particularly dependable. Curze decided to follow their hints.
One in particular kept coming to him: a vision of rust, of a hard-void seal, of a sign. Cargo Load Hatch 99/2.
He smiled.
Sixteen minutes later, Curze exited the flagship"s hull by shearing through the second cargo hatch of the ninety-ninth deck. The ninety-ninth was one of the unmediated s.p.a.ces in which he had been sealed and hunted by his brother.
The shredded hatch blew out into the nears.p.a.ce glow, cascading bright fragments of debris after it. Curze saw the world below, lit by the rising star. He saw the hard edges all shadows possessed in the contrast of the void. This was a stern, geometric night to haunt.
He saw the orbital plates circling below the standing fleet like artificial continents.
He had long since lost his helm. He simply held his breath as he flew out of the ship, and bounded, weightless, along the skin of the hull. The sheer cold of the hard vacuum was bracing.
Curze squatted beside Hatch 22/3, waiting for it to open. Prescience had shown this to him too. Hatch 22/3 was where the repair crews would emerge if a cargo hatch blew on the ninety-ninth.
It took them eighteen seconds. The hatch opened and light shafted out. The Night Haunter tilted back, so as not to be seen immediately.
It was not a repair crew, however. It was an a.s.sault squad of Dark Angels, warriors wearing the marks of the Stormwing, braced with boarding shields.
Curze shrugged. Sometimes the reflections were unreliable. The Lion, it seemed, had antic.i.p.ated that Curze would try to break out. He had set his men on alert. Full marks, brother. Full marks.
He would kill them anyway.
Curze paused for a second to see if Hatch 22/3 reconciled in any way with the recurring visions he had had of his death. Was this it? Was his last moment rushing up at him?