Part 26 (1/2)
Ahriman sat up front in Scarab Prime, the consoles before the pilots alive with flickering lights, vector diagrams and tri-dimensional contour maps of the jagged terrain. Pulsing cables connected the pilots to the avionics package, allowing them to fly purely on instruments, which was just as well, as the juddering canopy of the c.o.c.kpit was smeared with ash and smoke.
Though the thought was faintly blasphemous, Ahriman hoped the Machine-G.o.d was watching over them. To lose control above such a hostile world was as sure a death sentence as could be envisaged.
Not that the pilots were actually guiding the Stormbird; that duty fell to Jeter Innovence, the Navigator strapped to the converted gravity harness where Ahriman normally performed his close-protection duties when flying into harm's way. Innovence had protested at being forced to leave his hermetic dome aboard the Photep, but had recanted his objections when told who he would be guiding and whose light he would be following.
Magnus the Red sat behind the Navigator, resplendent in a gloriously embroidered tunic of red and gold, shawled with a weave of golden mail hung with feathers and precious stones. In honour of the occasion, each of Magnus' forearms was sheathed in an eagle-stamped vambrace, and he wore an entwined lightning bolt girdle around his torso.
His hair was loose, glossy and mirror sheened, the colour of arterial blood.
No finer warrior scholar existed in the galaxy.
The slight form of Mahavastu Kallimakus sat beside Magnus, the heavy robes he wore unable to mask his gaunt frame. Kallimakus was venerable, as Lemuel had described, but Ahriman had not realised how much the primarch's control over him was costing the remembrancer. A heavy satchel of blank books rested against the fuselage, fresh pages for the scrivener to fill with Magnus' words and deeds.
Ahriman caught the primarch's eye, today an excited eclipse of pale blue and hazel flecks.
”We are close, Ahzek,” said Magnus, ”in every sense.”
”Yes, my lord. We land in less than ten minutes.”
”So long? I could have guided us in half the time!” cried Magnus, glaring at the rec.u.mbent form of the Navigator. His anger was false, and he laughed.
Magnus slapped a luminescent hand upon the Navigator's shoulder, causing him to flinch.
”Ah, don't mind me, Innovence,” said Magnus. ”I'm simply impatient to see my father once more. You are doing a grand job, my friend!”
Ahriman smiled. The melancholy that wreathed Magnus' soul after Ullanor had dispelled when word came of the conclave on Nikaea. The year spent traversing the immaterium from Hexium Minora had seen a frenzy of research and study aboard the Photep as Magnus handed out theoretical proofs, philosophical arguments and convoluted logic conundrums for his sons to solve in order to sharpen their minds. Nikaea promised to be the vindication of the Thousand Sons, and neither Magnus nor his Legion would be found wanting.
Ahriman turned back to the c.o.c.kpit. According to the unwinding telemetry, they were practically on top of their destination, but the cloud cover was still impenetrable.
”Taking us down,” intoned the pilot. ”Beginning approach. Ground landing protocols exchanged and verified. Tether signal accepted and control relinquished.”
The pilots sat back as control of the aircraft was surrendered to Custodes ground controllers. The aircraft dipped its nose and went into a steep, looping descent. Ahriman had a brief, sinking sensation in his gut before his enhanced physiology compensated. The clouds streaked past the canopy. The gla.s.s slithered with moisture and streaks of grey, muddy ash.
Then they were below it, and the landscape of Nikaea was laid out before them.
It was black and geometric, a profusion of angular debris strewn upon the ground like the primordial shapes that lay at the heart of everything, and which had yet to be cloaked with the lie of individuality. Perfect spheres rose from the basalt ground, rippled with the liquid lines of their formation. Vast cubes sat side by side upon stepped volcanic plains, arranged in convoluted patterns that seemed a little too random to be random at all.
Magnus appeared at his side, like an excited Probationer about to take the Liber Throa and become a Neophyte. The primarch peered through the canopy and took in the geometric precision of the landscape.
”Incredible,” he whispered. ”The genesis of a world. The order of the universe described in mathematics, perfect shapes and geometry. How like my father to choose this place. He knew it would speak to me. It is the shards of my youth on a planetary scale.”
The Stormhawk dipped lower, banking its wings on its final approach, and a vast, conical landma.s.s slid into view. It was a gigantic stratovolcano, steep-sided and rugged with hardened lava, tephra and blackened ash.
It pierced the clouds, and Ahriman knew with utter certainty that a great amphitheatre was carved within its heart. A column of purest light soared from the summit crater, invisible to mortal eyes, but a blazing spear piercing the heavens to those with aether-sight. A gathering thundercloud, shot through with golden lightning, filled the sky above the volcano.
Ahriman had felt the light's presence as soon as the s.h.i.+ps of the 28th Expedition had translated into the Nikaea system, but to actually see it ahead of him was like waking from a coma into a brightly lit room.
”Throne, it's glorious,” said Magnus. ”That is true power, a mind that can reach across the galaxy and bind an empire together in the dream of Unity. It humbles me to know we serve so magnificent a master.”
Ahriman didn't answer. His mouth was dry and his heart thundered in his chest.
The light was magnificent. It was glorious and incredible in its potency and purity.
Yet all he felt was a mounting sense of dismay.
”I have seen this before,” he said.
”When?”
”On Aghoru,” breathed Ahriman, ”when I swam the Great Ocean hunting the threads of the future. When I met Ohthere Wyrdmake, I saw this: the volcano, the golden light.”
”And yet you said nothing? Why did you keep it to yourself?” asked Magnus.
”It made no sense,” said Ahriman, unable to keep the dread from his voice. ”The visions were fragmentary, disjointed. It was impossible to tell what it meant.”
”No matter,” said Magnus.
”No,” said Ahriman, ”I believe it matters. I believe it matters very much.”
LANDING LIGHTS WINKED in an ever-decreasing cruciform pattern as the Custodes' remote pilots reeled the Stormhawk in. The other two craft remained in their holding pattern, and would not descend until the first bird was clear. The Stormhawk slammed down in a hammer blow of burnt metal and gritty sulphurous backwash. As soon as it landed, a strip of white light extended onto the platform as a blast-s.h.i.+elded door lifted open.
Elongated shadows stretched from the detachment of warriors in armour of blood red and amethyst that marched from the side of the mountain. Ma.s.sively wrought and precise, the honour guards of Astartes took up their position before the Stormhawk's a.s.sault ramp. Some carried gold-bladed rhomphaia while others drew enormous silver-bladed swords, which they reversed and set on the platform with their gauntlets resting on the pommels.
The Stormhawk's ramp lowered with a whine of pneumatics, and Magnus the Red descended to the surface. Followed by Ahriman and the shuffling form of Kallimakus, the primarch stepped from the ramp and took a deep breath of the hot, burnt air of Nikaea.
Kallimakus let out a soft gasp, and sweat gathered on Ahriman's forehead, though he said nothing. A detachment of nine Sekhmet warriors formed up behind Magnus, subtly matching themselves before the warriors on the platform.
These were no ordinary Astartes; these were the elite of two Legions. The sword-armed warriors were no less a force than the Sanguinary Host, the elite protectorate of the Lord of the Blood Angels. The Phoenix Guard of Lord Fulgrim stood with them, their long-bladed rhomphaia held ramrod-straight at their sides, perfectly poised and immaculately presented.
Their presence could mean only one thing.
Two giant figures emerged from the volcano, walking side by side like old friends. Ahriman's heartbeat spiked at the sight of them, the first a gloriously caparisoned warrior in armour of gold and purple, with flaring shoulder-guards and a billowing cape of scarlet and gold. His hair was brilliant white, bound at his temples by a band of silver, and his face was one of perfect symmetry, like divinely-proportioned Euclidian geometry.
The second figure wore armour of deepest crimson, the colour vital and urgent. Wings of dappled black and white rustled at his back, the feathers hung with fine loops of silver wire and mother of pearl. Hair of deepest black framed a face that was pale and cla.s.sically shaped, like one of the thousands of marble likenesses that garrisoned the Imperial Palace of Terra. Yet this was no lifeless rendering of a long-dead luminary; this was a living, breathing angel made flesh, whose countenance was the most beauteous in existence.
”Lord Sanguinius,” said Ahriman in wonder.
”And Brother Fulgrim,” completed Magnus. ”Firmitas, utilitas, venustas.”
It seemed they heard him, for they smiled in genuine pleasure, though the words must surely have been lost in the feral growl of the Stormhawk's cooling engines.
The primarchs were illuminated in the reflected glow of the volcano, their smooth features open and welcoming. They wore the faces of eager siblings pleased to see their brother, though they had seen one another only recently at Ullanor.
Magnus stepped towards Fulgrim, and the master of the Emperor's Children opened his arms to receive his brother's embrace. They spoke words of greeting, but they were private, and Ahriman allowed himself to look away from the majesty of the Phoenician's countenance. Next, Magnus turned to Sanguinius, and the Primarch of the Blood Angels kissed his brother's cheeks, his greeting heartfelt but reserved. Only now did Ahriman notice the warriors accompanying each primarch. Sanguinius had two attendants, one a slender ascetic with a killer's eyes and another with such pale skin that the veins of his face were clearly visible beneath.
Ahriman took his place beside Magnus as he and Sanguinius parted. Magnus turned to him and said, ”Brother Sanguinius, allow me to introduce my Chief Librarian, Ahzek Ahriman.”
The Lord of the Angels turned his attention upon him, and Ahriman felt the full force of his appraisal. Like Russ before him, Sanguinius evaluated Ahriman swiftly, but where Russ sought out weakness to exploit, Sanguinius looked for strength to harness.
”I have heard much of you, Ahzek Ahriman,” said Sanguinius, his voice surprisingly gentle. For all its apparent softness, there was violent strength concealed within it, like a riptide beneath a placid seascape. ”You are thought highly of by many beyond your Legion.”