The Crimson King

  Nagasena smelt sweat, machine oil and blood on the air.

  ‘You have been practising hard.’

  Promus nodded.

  ‘The battle against Magnus revealed many flaws in my technique,’ he said. ‘I shall not be found wanting again.’

  ‘It was not our sword arms that were found wanting,’ said Nagasena. ‘It was our reliance on warriors of metal combined with a gross underestimation of the Crimson King. But do not be too hard on yourself, Dio. We faced a primarch and lived. I know of no others who can make such a claim.’

  ‘There’s truth in that,’ agreed Promus, gesturing to a seat of mortal scale set beside the oversized desk. ‘Sit. Let us talk.’

  Nagasena pulled the chair out and reversed it before carefully sitting. He winced as the mass of bruising along his side flared in protest.

  ‘Has something changed?’ he asked, resting his elbows on the back of the chair. ‘Has Lemuel said anything?’

  ‘That thing in the brig is not Lemuel Gaumon,’ said Promus.

  ‘I know that, Dio,’ said Nagasena.

  ‘I think we should destroy it,’ said Promus. ‘We should not have brought it aboard the Arethusa. It is too dangerous.’

  ‘Menkaura says the runic markings he cut upon Lemuel’s chest will keep Magnus’ spirit caged indefinitely.’

  ‘And we are to accept the word of a traitor?’ asked Promus. ‘Even if we believe Menkaura’s wish to stop his brothers from restoring Magnus, he cannot be trusted.’

  ‘Of course he cannot, but Bjarki has examined the runes and tells me they are stronger than any he could cast. You have examined them too, so tell me – is Bjarki wrong in his assessment?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Promus with a weary sigh. ‘I do not fully understand what the sorcerer did, but the invocations of binding are at least as powerful as the wards woven into the rock of the Temple of Correction.’

  ‘Then we have time,’ said Nagasena.

  ‘Time for what?’

  ‘To interrogate Magnus, to learn where the Thousand Sons will go next in search of his soul-shards.’

  Promus paced the calisthenics mat, wringing his hands together. Nagasena saw how difficult this was for him. To have sacrificed the cobalt-blue of Ultramar must have been nearly impossible, but how many more steps had he taken from the ideals that once acted as his north star?

  Would this be one step too many?

  ‘We will learn nothing from it,’ said Promus. ‘All it does is rage against its chains and scream threats.’

  ‘Then we must make it tell us what we need to know.’

  ‘How? It will not willingly reveal anything to us, and the power within Gaumon’s body has rendered it immune to Magos Uexküll’s most powerful truth-seeking chem-trawls.’

  ‘Lady Veleda,’ said Nagasena. ‘Her cards will read Magnus as they read Lemuel Gaumon.’

  Promus stopped his pacing and turned to look directly at Nagasena, denial writ large across his features.

  ‘Cartomancy?’

  ‘It brought us to Aghoru. I believe it will take us where we need to go next.’

  Promus sighed once more. ‘What have we come to when we must use such black deceits to find our way?’

  ‘We have no choice, Dio.’

  ‘From what I understand, using such cards means touching the mind within Gaumon’s body. Is Lady Veleda willing to risk that? It will be a terrible burden to bear alone.’

  ‘She is,’ said Nagasena. ‘And she will not be alone. The Prosperine woman, Chaiya, will be with her.’

  ‘What help will she be?’

  ‘Magnus is a primarch of towering intellect, but this is not Magnus. Not entirely. It is his anger and bitterness, unshackled from his restraint. If we can provoke the primarch’s self-righteousness with the guilt of what Gaumon did on Kamiti Sona, then we may goad him into careless words.’

  ‘Throne, the risks involved…’

  Nagasena brushed a strand of loose hair from his face. ‘It is a risk, yes, but, I believe, a controlled one. Jambik Sosruko stands at Lady Veleda’s side always, and Svafnir Rackwulf will have his harpoon poised the whole time.’

  ‘And what of Sister Caesaria?’

  Nagasena shook his head. ‘She will be standing ready to intervene if necessary, but her presence would only drive Magnus’ spirit deeper into Gaumon’s flesh. It will retreat and we will learn nothing.’

  Promus rubbed the heels of his palms across his face, and Nagasena saw again how exhausted he was. He was not fool enough to believe that a legionary could not tire, could not know exhaustion, but to see it so starkly was still a shock.

  ‘Very well, when do we begin?’ asked Promus.

  ‘Immediately,’ said Nagasena. ‘The Thousand Sons are already on the hunt, and every advantage lies with them, for they know their gene-sire better than we ever will.’

  Promus sat on the edge of his cot-bed and leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees. A moment of silence stretched, but far from being awkward, it reminded Nagasena of a time when the rancour that had set them on separate paths still lay in their future.

  ‘Why did you summon me, Dio?’ asked Nagasena.

  Promus nodded, as if remembering something he had almost forgotten. Or as if he had something to say, but did not know whether he ought to speak.

  ‘Dio?’

  ‘I have something for you,’ said Promus, standing and making his way to one of the workbenches. He lifted something from beneath the cloth cover and turned back to Nagasena.

  The breath caught in Nagasena’s throat.

  ‘What did you do…?’ he said, pushing himself upright.

  Promus held out a magnificent scabbard of gleaming black lacquer, with golden wire and serpentine dragons entwined down its length.

  ‘You left this on Kamiti Sona,’ said Promus. ‘I retrieved it and I remade it.’

  ‘You should not have done that, Dio,’ said Nagasena. ‘Shoujiki was broken. The promise it carried and the meaning it held for me died when the Phoenician’s warrior snapped it. I do not know what you have made, but it is not my sword.’

  ‘I know that, Yasu,’ said Promus. ‘I know what the blade meant to you. I know–’

  ‘No, you do not,’ snapped Nagasena.

  ‘Maybe not, but Bödvar Bjarki told me what he said to you. “Do not mistake the blade for the man. One can break, but the other will endure.”’

  Promus proffered the blade once more and said, ‘This is not Shoujiki, and it never can be, I know that. The words of rust and rest were spoken, but this is its metal reforged with a new soul and a new legend yet to build. Take it and wield it in the Emperor’s name.’

  Nagasena did not want to touch the weapon, but felt his hand rising almost of its own accord. The sword’s hilt was wrapped in soft white leather, the hilt a simple boss of emerald. He took hold of the scabbard in his left hand as his fingers slipped around its familiar grip.

  A soft sigh escaped his lips as he drew the weapon a handspan from the scabbard. The blade gleamed like silver and he saw fine script worked down its length from the blade collar in a language he did not know.

  ‘What does it say?’ he asked.

  Promus shook his head. ‘Learn the language of Macragge and you will know.’

  ‘I will,’ said Nagasena, drawing the sword from its sheath. He held it straight out before him. The blade was magnificent, the metal polished smooth and with the distinctive curvature of eastern weapons.

  Tears spilled down his cheeks, as though he were a new father being handed his firstborn.

  ‘I never thought to hold anything so beautiful again,’ said Nagasena, twisting the blade in a series of experimental slices. ‘You have my undying gratitude, Dio. This is exquisite.’

  ‘You were not you without an artist’s blade.’

  ‘Do
es it have a name?’

  ‘It is called Aoshun,’ said Promus. ‘The Dragon Sword.’

  Set at the heart of Amon’s workshop was a flat oval boulder of milky crystal. A fist-sized chunk of spinel at its core gave it the semblance of a giant eye, and though this was but a replica of the stone that had been lost on Prospero, its presence gave Amon comfort.

  He knelt before the icon, his palms flat against the rock, letting its power flow through him, even as he let it drink from him. The crystalline lattice was warm to the touch and threaded with light, pulsing like the rapidly firing synapses of a brain with the tides of the Great Ocean.

  When Amon and the Crimson King returned from the Orrery, the remaining warriors of the Legion had converged upon his floating pyramid to pledge their loyalty to the primarch anew. And when Magnus emerged onto the balcony, the roar of acclaim reminded Amon of the Triumph at Ullanor, when he had stood with gods as millions of soldiers, Titans and war machines rolled past the grand dais.

  All over the world, the Thousand Sons bent their efforts to their primarch’s magnificent endeavour. Amon too added power, his mind soaring in the ninth enumeration. This far from mortal concerns and divorced from the realm of the physical, Amon’s mind conjured ghosts from the past.

  They drifted through his workshop like old friends come to pay him an unexpected, yet wholly welcome visit. He saw a parade of his dead brothers – warriors slain on Prospero, consumed by the flesh change, or fallen in service to the Emperor’s grand dream. The ghosts of his fellow scholars paused to examine the ephemeris on his walls, the thaumaturgical charts or the follies upon which he had passed hours of precise labour.

  He smiled as he saw the weathered features of Ankhu Anen, the Guardian of the Great Library. The venerable scholar was just as Amon remembered him, pallid of flesh and piercing in mien. His appearance appeared to prove false the myth of legionary immortality.

  ‘You looked old even as a neophyte,’ said Amon.

  ‘I was old,’ replied Ankhu Anen. ‘They almost rejected me. Once they turned boys away from war for being too young, but for us they needed our youth.’

  ‘I cannot ever think of you as a youth.’

  ‘In truth, neither can I.’ Ankhu Anen paused by the great icon, reaching down to lay a palm flat upon it. A wistful smile played at the corners of the old man’s mouth. ‘It is like a dream of another life.’

  ‘A better one?’

  ‘A simpler one. The galaxy was different then.’

  ‘We are all different now.’

  ‘True, but some things will always be the same.’ He ran his ink-stained fingers along an empty shelf and raised an eyebrow. ‘When the Wolves came to Prospero, I tried something similar. But what you are attempting here is beyond anything I sought to achieve.’

  The old man chuckled.

  ‘I tried to physically save everything, but this… This is much better. Tell me, Amon, do you really think it will succeed?’

  ‘It will,’ said Amon.

  Ankhu Anen shrugged, as if the matter were of no import, continuing to circle the workshop.

  ‘The great work is already under way,’ said Amon. ‘Look upon the marble halls of the Gallery of Pergamum – its endless shelves are all but bare.’

  ‘Once, such a thing would have horrified me,’ Ankhu Anen sighed. ‘Now it gives me hope. It means the colossal undertaking of sending many lifetimes of accumulated learning across time and space to the Orrery is actually working.’

  Pride filled Amon, even as he knew the voice of the murdered scholar came from within, a fictive companion drawn from his memories by the meta-configurations of the ninth enumeration.

  ‘I have not felt hope in so long I had begun to think I might never know it again. The galaxy is in turmoil, all certainties erased in favour of this new war, this new dissociative system.’

  ‘One day soon, this war will be over,’ said Ankhu Anen. ‘It will pass and be forgotten as all wars are in time. Then and only then will what you have saved here truly mean something.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Amon, knowing this dream was just that, a dream, but unable to keep himself from articulating its golden future. ‘And no matter who emerges triumphant from the Warmaster’s rebellion, there will be knowledge enough to rebuild and the wisdom enough to use it. No matter what mistakes or misunderstandings have been made in the past, the future can be rebuilt and the prize of Unity grasped once more.’

  ‘You are naive if you believe that,’ said Ankhu Anen, and a sliver of doubt entered Amon’s thoughts, a droplet of poison in the water of a well. ‘The Thousand Sons are damned in the eyes of the future. Nothing now can prevent that, but the legacies of betrayal that history will remember are irrelevant next to the legacy you leave for those with the wit and intelligence to find it. Remember that when he makes his choice!’

  Amon gasped and drew his hands back from the stone as if burned. The vision of Ankhu Anen and his fellow scholars vanished, leaving him alone in his echoing workshop.

  No, not alone. He sensed a presence.

  He rose and turned on his heel, seeing the unmistakable armoured silhouette of his gene-sire standing on the workshop’s balcony. Swathed in a furred robe of deep maroon, Magnus stood with his head bowed, his shoulders slumped and his aura simmering with confusion. Amon was immediately on edge and descended to the third enumeration. Dreams of friends unforgotten faded like morning mist.

  He stepped out onto the balcony and stood next to his father. Even burdened by their great work, Magnus still towered over him, though his bearing was not what it had been when they sat overlooking the world ocean of the Orrery.

  The primarch swept his gaze around their chaotic domain, his mind roaming further than any eye could see. Magnus glanced down at him, and Amon felt the fractional pause as his father struggled to drag his name into the light.

  ‘Amon, yes,’ said Magnus with a nod. ‘Who were you talking to in there?’

  ‘No one, really. Just memories.’

  ‘Memories of whom?’

  ‘Ankhu Anen.’

  Magnus’ aura softened. ‘Where did he go? I should like to see the cantankerous old rogue.’

  Amon hesitated before answering. The same fog he’d seen in his father’s aura right before he had vanished in the Great Ocean was creeping back in.

  ‘Ankhu Anen is dead, my lord,’ said Amon. ‘He was never here. It was just a ghost of the past.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘On Prospero.’

  Magnus nodded and slowly exhaled.

  ‘Yes, of course, you’re right. He died. I remember. On Prospero. I feel like I am living in a terrible nightmare from which I cannot wake. That really happened?’

  ‘It did, my lord.’

  Magnus put his head in his hands and said, ‘It is all fading, Amon. All that I am is crumbling around me. Soon there will be nothing left. Why did you bring me back here? Why?’

  Magnus rounded on him, and Amon struggled to hide his grief at the anger and confusion he saw in his father’s face. Amon reached out and laid a hand on Magnus’ arm, letting a measure of his strength flow outwards.

  ‘My lord, I–’

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ snapped Magnus, and Amon felt the build up of killing power in his father’s fists. ‘I don’t know you.’

  Amon stepped back, his hands out to the side, keeping his voice calm and even.

  ‘I am Amon. Your equerry.’

  ‘No, I would know Amon,’ said Magnus. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am Amon. Your friend. Remember?’

  Magnus let out a shuddering breath and the lingering fog in his aura cleared a little. He nodded slowly.

  ‘Amon, yes. I remember now.’

  Magnus turned back to the chaotic vistas beyond Amon’s tower, gripping the bronze railings tight enough to buckle the metal. Aether storms raged
along the horizon, and sickly colours crackled on the mountains as if the world beyond were afire.

  ‘I know I should recognise this place,’ said Magnus, ‘but I see nothing I remember. Tell me its name.’

  ‘The only one that seems true is the Planet of the Sorcerers.’

  A single tear ran down Magnus’ face.

  ‘That name means nothing to me,’ he said sadly. ‘None of them do any more.’

  Only one place on the Osiris Panthea offered Ahriman any solace from the numbing hollowness he felt on the vessel. He climbed towards the upper levels of the Black Ship, his gleaming ivory heqa staff tapping a regular beat on the iron deck-plates.

  The ship’s phantom-haunted transitways and vaulted assay chambers echoed with pleading whispers. Sourceless voices chattered in the shadows like grains of dust in the eye that could never be dislodged. They followed the power bound to Ahriman’s staff, hating it, yet drawn like moths to a flame.

  The ship despised him and his kind.

  ‘As soon as we are done, I will hurl this vessel into the heart of a sun,’ he promised the darkness as it slithered across the bare iron walls. It was bad luck to curse a ship that bore you through the immaterium, but a sibilant wave of approval was his answer.

  He had passed temporary command to Ignis, who stood by the captain’s lectern upon which was chained the Book of Magnus. Ahriman hated to be parted from his primarch’s great grimoire, but too long in its presence summoned the soul-shard of their father to the surface, together with all the concomitant repercussions.

  The Crimson King had set the ship’s course through Ahriman, but none aboard had the slightest idea of its eventual destination or how long the journey might take. Sanakht and Ignis accepted this without question, but Hathor Maat endlessly begged to consult the Book of Magnus, as if he might find some clue Ahriman had missed. Tolbek simply sat alone in his makeshift arming chamber, cleaning his weapons and applying endless coats of lapping powder to his war-plate.

  Since their departure from the Seven Sleepers, Aforgomon had taken to wandering the lightless passageways of the ship alone, an arrangement that suited Ahriman well.