*Grief," he said quietly. *Grief that my father, and Terra, and the grand dream of the Imperium are lost, and the only way for our civilisation to survive is to consolidate here. It is a burden I never looked for, mam, and it is made heavier by sorrow."
He looked out through the crazed gla.s.s and surveyed the towers and stacks of Macragge Civitas, golden in the sickly warp-light.
*You think I should make a formal declaration because I look weak, don"t you?" he asked.
*Yes," she said, nodding. She adjusted her grip on her staff to ease her stance and rest her back. *The morale of Ultramar has never been lower. Calth, the Ruinstorm, the war against the sons of Lorgar and Angron a these things have battered us, but the a.s.sault on you... My lord, it has shown us that even the most precious thing we have left is not safe."
Euten glanced around at the cold devastation of the chamber. Her eyes lingered on the smashed cogitator and a broken bust of Konor.
*Just an hour before... before this happened," she said, gesturing at the room with her slender left hand, *I lectured you about how vulnerable you are. I am sorry if my tone was hectoring. I am not sorry that my words were true. This is all we have left of the Imperium, and you are the last precious prince. You cannot be all the things you once were. You are too valuable to be risked. You are too important to be diluted with a surfeit of roles."
*This isn"t a conversation about declaring Secundus, is it?" he asked.
*There is no point declaring Secundus if Secundus has an empty throne. You must declare yourself."
*What?" he asked, a mocking laugh behind the words. *Emperor Guilliman?"
*Regent at least, my lord. Don"t look at me like that. I know how you hate the word."
He stood up.
*Euten, I cannot. I cannot command and rule. I cannot administer this empire and be its figurehead."
*I told you, you must delegate," she said. *No one else can possibly be head of state. No one else can possibly be regent. You are the last primarch, my lord. The last loyal son. The only loyal son. Become what you must become. Invest yourself as the rallying point of Imperium Secundus. Be Imperial, and reveal your renewed strength, your resolve, your mettle and the glory, like a phoenix rising from these ashes. Leave the everyday mechanics of Imperial business to others."
*That is my point," he replied. *I trust no one else to oversee those mechanics. I have done it for so long. I... trust no one else... Not even you, dear lady."
*Because I am not capable?" She sniffed, though she was mocking.
His reply was typically honest.
*Because you are old, Lady Euten. You are human and old. I do not know how much longer life will let you stand at my side. I cannot rely on you being here, and I do not trust anyone else."
*A good answer," she said. *But, you know... I have known you since you were a child, Roboute. I know when you are being careful with the truth. This is such a time. For all your logic, none of the things you have said are the real reason you will not declare yourself Imperial Regent."
*Is that so?" he asked.
*You know it is."
He sighed.
*Then let me say it once. I cannot build an empire and put myself on the throne, even if I am the only candidate. It smacks of hubris, of arrogance, of overweening pride and foul ambition."
*It smacks of Horus Lupercal," she said.
*Oh, indeed. It will diminish me in the eyes of those who yet respect me, and it will simply confirm the doubts of all those who do not. "Look at Guilliman," they will say, "taking advantage of this crisis and naming himself king. Look at his unseemly eagerness. Look how fast he jumped in to take unwholesome advantage of the situation!""
*I am glad to hear you admit your misgivings at last," she said. *But it is the only practical action to take. You always taught me that practical trumps theoretical."
*But in this matter, the theoretical stinks," he said. *I have been holding out hope that one other brother might still come to me. Rogal, stars, but I would hand the throne selflessly to him! Sanguinius, in an instant! These are worthy heirs! These are n.o.ble brothers!"
*And if they were willing, it would validate Secundus," she nodded. *Their sanction would reinforce your choices."
*Any loyal son," murmured Guilliman. *Right now, I would take any loyal son."
*Even Russ?" she asked.
Guilliman laughed.
*He"s a barbarian," he said, *but he is still a king. And he is loyal in ways that shame us all. Yes, even Russ. Perhaps we need a truly fierce monarch to see us through this new strife."
*And you, as his conscience, would keep his crown clean," she said.
*Of course," he said. He sighed deeply again, and looked around. *Have the Residency staff clear this room. Strip it. Make it new. I"m hungry. I think I"ll feast with the Wolves tonight."
He looked at her.
*Rest easy, mam," he said, *by morning I will have made my decision. If I am going to declare as regent, you will know it soon, and we can prepare for the announcement."
*There is no one else fit, my lord," said Euten.
*There is no one else at all," he replied. *So I suppose it will have to be me."
The scorched corpse that had fallen on the southern deme of Magna Macragge Civitas had been taken to a private, secure suite in the lower levels of the Residency"s medicae hall. The exits to the area were guarded and locked, and only authorised personnel were allowed in and out, or even to know the nature of what the lab suite contained.
Valentus Dolor, Tetrarch of Occluda, arrived unescorted, and strode down the long, echoing hallway to a series of iris valve hatches. Ultramarines guards bowed to him and let him pa.s.s. The hatches sc.r.a.ped as they dilated, one by one.
Captain Casmir was waiting for him in a stark laboratory chamber of zinc and galvanised steel. The place was lit by greenish lights, and smelled industrial. A ma.s.sive iron casket lay on a raised plinth in the main area of the room. There were heavy armourgla.s.s viewing ports built into the sides and top of the casket, so that the body, suspended in embalming solutions, could be examined. Instrument locks in the sides of the casket also allowed for surgical tools to be inserted so that tissue samples could be taken. All that could be seen through the ports was a thin, sc.u.mmy murk. Several medicae technicians were working around the casket.
*Do we have an ident.i.ty?" Dolor asked his equerry.
*No, lord," replied Casmir. *But we have answered one question."
He offered Dolor the data-slate he had been holding. Dolor took it and read.
*Careful a.n.a.lysis of orbital watch records has finally revealed how our dead stranger arrived," said Casmir. *You see the brief spike there? A teleport flare in the upper atmosphere. Non-standard teleportation pattern."
*So he materialised in the upper atmosphere, out of nowhere?"
*And then fell," Captain Casmir said, *all the way to the surface, burning like a meteor as he cut through the atmosphere."
*Do we know anything about the origin point of the teleportation?"
*The flare pattern is being examined, but I doubt it, my lord."
Dolor handed the slate back and took a few steps towards the casket.
*The more we learn, the more of a mystery he becomes. Ia"
He stopped short. Some monitor alarms had started to buzz. A few amber telltales lit up along the console beside the plinth. The medicae technicians reacted in surprise and backed away for a second.
*What is it?" asked Dolor. *What"s happening?"
*I don"t know, lord tetrarch," said one of the technicians.
*It makes no sense," said another.
*It must be a system malfunction," said a third.
A new alarm started to sound.
Dolor stepped closer to the casket, his hand on the hilt of his sword. He peered in at one of the murky portals.
*Someone explain to me what"s going on," he snarled.
There was a sudden, very violent bang. Even Dolor jerked back.
The sound had been made by an impact from inside the casket. Something had struck one of the gla.s.s portals very hard.
Dolor looked. He blinked. Pressed against the inside of the armourgla.s.s a b.l.o.o.d.y, raw and peeling with blackened, burned meat a were the palm and fingertips of a large human hand.
*Open the d.a.m.ned casket!" Dolor ordered, drawing his sword. *In the name of the Five Hundred Worlds, whatever"s in there isn"t dead at all!"
The ship came out of the darkness, and within its darkness, an endless hunt paused for a moment, for the first moment in sixteen weeks.
Deep in the almost lightless void of the ship reactor"s vast heat sink, the quarry paused, a nocturnal ghost, condemned to be absolutely alone for the rest of his life.
He crouched on a rusting stanchion above the smoking furnaces of the ship"s engines, and wrapped his arms around his body. His cloak was tattered and black. What little light was coming off the smouldering embers of the drive chambers beneath him caught along the razored lines of his claws.
He felt the b.u.mp, the ripple, the heave of transition. He heard the arrhythmic flutter of the engines as they dimensionally corrected. He felt his guts twist and his sinuses pinch. It made him whimper.
The ship had made a translation into reals.p.a.ce.
The quarry tilted his head back and began to laugh. He peeled back cracked lips to expose teeth that, had there been any light, would have showed as blackened and rotting. His laughter, as sharp and shattered as a calving glacier, fell away and echoed down the sink.
The rules had just been rewritten. In reals.p.a.ce, the ship was no longer a finite prison. He was no longer the quarry.
The rules had just changed, and people were going to die. A lot of them. All of them.
At long last.
The ship came out of the darkness.
*Translation complete," Captain Stenius called from the high, railed platform of the bridge. *Reals.p.a.ce positioning achieved."
Below him, on the main fore-station deck, the bridge crew, plugged into their various consoles, chattered back and forth, sharing and updating the surge of reals.p.a.ce data as fast as their automatics would allow.
Stenius turned to look at the ship"s lord. The low light of the flagship"s bridge hazed off Stenius"s smoked-silver augmetic eyes. The captain"s face, immobilised by nerve damage, hadn"t registered an expression for decades.
The ship"s lord, the huntsman, knew, however, that there was a smile of relief locked away in that unmoving flesh. He sat on his t.i.tanic, engraved throne, a shadow at the back of the flagship"s vast bridge s.p.a.ce, a monarch with no realm.
He raised his head, acknowledging Stenius, and looked at the main display. The light was astonishing: a beacon of some sort, a world thoroughly illuminated. His ship, miraculously, with all of its fleet in sequence behind it, was ploughing into a stellar system lit up by the greatest intergalactic lighthouse that he had ever seen.
The system was armed and defended. Already, challenges were coming in on all channels. He could read starforts heating up weapon banks on the strategium display, interplanetary bands of defence, mine-belts, gun-stations powering batteries, and interceptor fleets turning hard in response to the pulse of their abrupt arrival.
Of course they would. Of course they would react so urgently. What the huntsman was bringing with him was one of the greatest war-fleets in the Imperium; perhaps the greatest.
*This isn"t the Terran Solar System," he said.
*Not even slightly, my lord," replied Stenius. *It"s not even the Solar Segmentum."
*Answer me, now. Where is this?" asked the huntsman. His voice was barely audible.
Lady Theralyn Fiana of House Ne"iocene, the flagship"s Navigator, stepped off the elevator platform from the navigation pit and approached the huntsman"s throne. The nephilla had much damaged her. Her withered form was supported on either side by her brothers Ardel Aneis and Khafan.
*You are correct, lord," she said, in the whisper that was all she could manage. *This is not Terra, and that is not the light of the Astronomican. I cannot yet account for the presence or nature of the beacon, but it has drawn us out of the storm. It has done it in ways thata"
*What do you say to me, lady?" asked the huntsman.
Fiana shook her head.
*I cannot explain, my lord," she whispered. *There is something at work here, some technology I cannot explain. Not psychic. Empathic. It is as though the light showed itself to us because it knew what we wanted. It knew where we wanted to be."
*Expand on this," the huntsman said.
*Despite the storm, my lord," the Navigator whispered, *despite the turmoil of the warp, we have arrived precisely where it wanted us to be. This is Macragge. This is the heart system of Ultramar."
The huntsman rose. He stared at the planet ahead of them.
*By my father"s dead G.o.ds..." he breathed.
*Orders, my lord?" asked Captain Stenius. *We are bombarded with challenges a vox, pict-feed, psychic and sub-vox. We have been target-locked by sixteen of the starforts and platform systems, and two of the three nearest intercept fleets are moving in to acquire firing solutions. They will start shooting very soon."
He shrugged.
*Of course, my lord," Stenius added in a more hushed tone, *our shields are raised. We can cut right through them. We can burn and splinter Macragge if you so wish. An order is all I require."
The huntsman held out his left hand. *Vox," he said.
Servitors, gilded and cherubic, flew a master-vox horn into his grasp and braced it for him.
*To my brother, Lord Guilliman," the huntsman said, *on all channels. I bid you welcome from afar. I wish to alight at Macragge and parlay with you. It is I, Roboute. It is the Lion. Respond."
9.