Angel Exterminatus
Fulgrim threw back his head and loosed a bellow of rage that would have shamed Angron with its violence. No butcher’s nail had ever drawn so agonised a cry from a living being, and Lucius swore that he would kill Eidolon for causing the primarch such torment.
But Eidolon wasn’t done.
He moved around Fulgrim, pulling each wound open with his blood-slick gauntlets until the primarch was swaying on his feet, barely able to keep from collapse. His wounds were not healing, his metabolism kept in check by a self-imposed act of will. What purpose this mutilation served, Lucius could not fathom, but whatever it was, it was nearing completion as he felt a burgeoning power swell the chamber. It was a power now free to make its presence felt on a world whose dead guardians had kept it at bay for centuries. His flesh responded to its presence; skin puckering, nerve endings bathed in tremulous bliss and revulsion.
A potent sense of anticipation built within him, as when the Legion captains had waited to ambush Fulgrim in the Gallery of Swords, only honed and distilled to razor keenness. It was the instant before a lightning strike, the heartbeat before a bullet impact, the fractional pause before a drop pod assault. At any moment, power unlike any that mortals, post-human or otherwise, had witnessed in all the history of humankind would be revealed in all its glory. Lucius knew with utter clarity that this was what had driven the eldar to virtual extinction. They had sought to embrace glory, but been found wanting.
‘Do it,’ said Fulgrim to Eidolon, his face a mask of tears.
Eidolon nodded and reached up his hand. A constellation of spirit stones detached from the mass of stones filling the upper reaches of the chamber and flew to him. He plucked them from the air and pressed them into the wounds he had gouged in the primarch’s flesh. Lucius felt tiny flares of terror and desperation, but each one was swiftly extinguished as Eidolon drew more and more to him and fed them into Fulgrim’s body. First ten, then ten more and more and more until it seemed impossible that any others could still be swallowed.
Fulgrim undulated with the souls of the devoured dead, but Eidolon kept summoning them from the air and pushing them inside the many wounds.
‘No more,’ begged Fulgrim, but Eidolon shook his head.
Fulgrim sobbed and wailed, but for each pleading cry for Eidolon to stop, there was a fervent look in his eyes that said, more.
But at last Eidolon was done and Lucius let out a long, juddering breath.
‘One more,’ breathed Fulgrim. ‘The maugetar stone.’
Eidolon hesitated, circling his wracked primarch, examining every bloodied crevice on his armour.
‘Hurry!’ cried Fulgrim. ‘It must be now! The final fuel for my ascent!’
‘I do not see it, my lord,’ said Eidolon.
‘It’s there!’ screamed Fulgrim. ‘Set within my breastplate.’
And then a voice cut through the chamber, grating and harsh, like stone on metal.
Perturabo swayed on the edge of the shaft, his stomach and groin red from where a deep wound bled profusely. The Lord of Iron’s face was sallow and gaunt, a corpse draped in dried parchment skin and given febrile animation. In his hand he held the maugetar stone, its surface a roiling chaos of warring gold and black.
‘Looking for this?’ he said.
Perturabo knew he should destroy the stone in his hand. He could do it easily enough. Just holding it he could feel the strengths and weaknesses in its latticed structure, how much pressure he would need to exert to crack it, to shatter it or to crush it into powder. He knew he should do it, but what would become of him without it? Would the strength it had stolen from him be lost forever?
‘You brought me here to kill me,’ said Perturabo, walking towards Fulgrim, keeping the hand holding the maugetar stone extended over the shaft. The light of the dying green sun shone from far below, and though Perturabo was no celestial engineer, he knew that whatever mechanism was holding this planet from being torn apart by the singularity at the heart of the Eye of Terror was coming undone.
This world’s life was about to expire, and he was confident that whatever forces were at work below would destroy the maugetar stone.
Was that a risk he was prepared to take to stop Fulgrim?
‘You’re wrong,’ said Fulgrim. ‘I brought you here to bring me to life.’
‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison, is that it?’
‘Something like that,’ agreed Fulgrim.
Eidolon stepped to Fulgrim’s side, his hand sliding beneath his cloak.
‘Lord Commander Eidolon, if you take one more step, I’ll kill you where you stand,’ said Perturabo. ‘Even like this, you know I can do so.’
Eidolon stopped and looked to Fulgrim, who gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
Perturabo looked his brother in the eye for some hint of remorse, a sign that he regretted that things had come to this, something to show he felt even a moment of shame at plotting to murder him.
He saw nothing, and his heart broke to know that the Fulgrim he had known long ago was gone, never to return. He hadn’t thought it possible that anyone could plunge so far as to be beyond redemption. A man might sink to the lowest level, degrade himself beyond belief, but he might yet save his soul if he truly experienced even a moment’s remorse.
If only he could believe that of himself.
‘You don’t know the power, brother,’ said Fulgrim. ‘I will be able to do anything I desire in the blink of an eye. I will learn mysteries even Magnus does not suspect exist. I will become a god – a shimmering, diaphanous, beautiful creature. This is my apotheosis, where I become a general principal of Being, instantiated throughout all of the vistas of the galaxy.’
‘You don’t want to be an angel any more,’ said Perturabo. ‘You want to be a god.’
‘Is that so bad?’
‘Mankind has no need of gods,’ said Perturabo. ‘We outgrew them a long time ago.’
Fulgrim laughed, though Perturabo saw that the effort of holding his swelling body together was taking every ounce of his concentration. Beads of light, mercury bright, sweated from his skin, dripping from his cruciform stance in silver droplets.
‘Think you so? Then why are there still gods? Belief empowers them and we worship them in every act of slaughter, betrayal, depravity and quest for immortality we undertake. Whether we know it or not, we offer them fealty every day.’
Perturabo shook his head. ‘I worship nothing. I believe in nothing.’
The finality of this last utterance almost stopped him in his tracks. The force of it was like a blow, a bitter seed of truth he had never acknowledged or known until this moment. He saw the awareness of it reflected in Fulgrim’s eyes.
‘And that is why you live a stale, bitter life,’ said Fulgrim, contempt and pity dripping from his scornful words. ‘You let yourself be abused; crushed into slavery by a god who doesn’t even have the decency to admit what he is. Our once-father ascended to godhood long ago and denies others their place at the table. He promised us a new world to live in, but he was always to be above us, the master with his loyal lapdog slaves.’
‘It that why you sided with Horus?’ demanded Perturabo, standing right in front of Fulgrim, his enraged features so close that none could come between them. ‘Jealousy? Vanity? Such pettiness is for the weak, we were made for greater things.’
‘What would you know of greater things?’ sneered Fulgrim.
‘You don’t know the things I dream,’ said Perturabo. ‘No one does, no one ever cared enough to find out.’
Fulgrim’s head shot forwards and a musk of glittering vapour, pink and veined with arterial red, blew from his open mouth, enveloping Perturabo in its astringent reek; part perfume, part cesspit.
‘Then show me your dreams, brother,’ hissed Fulgrim. ‘And let me make them real!’
The world as Perturabo knew it was replaced by a city he had dreamed into being every night since leaving Olympia. He stood in the centre of a great boulevard of marbled stone, its widt
h lined by tall trees and magnificent statuary. Clad only in a long chiton robe of pale cream and sandals of softest leather, he was garbed as a scholar and a civic leader. He was a man who lived for peace, not war, and the fit of that man settled upon him like a second skin.
The air was achingly clear, scented with mountain pine from the high glens and fresh water from the crystal falls. The sky was wide and blue, streaked with clouds like wisps of breath. Even knowing this was a lie didn’t stop Perturabo admiring his handiwork, taking in the rugged vistas of mountainous beauty, the snow-capped peaks and the clean lines of the city around him.
Lochos, the grim mountain fastness of Dammekos remade in the mind of its adoptive son.
Buildings the likes of which had only ever been imagined filled the city, each one as familiar as a father’s sons, yet each one an impossibility, for none had ever been constructed.
Behind him was the Thaliakron, but fashioned from polished marble and ouslite, porphyry, gold and silver. All around him were the galleries of justice, the halls of commerce, the palaces of remembrance and the dwellings of the city’s inhabitants.
The people of Lochos thronged the boulevard, moving with unhurried grace and contented lives. Everywhere Perturabo looked, he saw men and women of peace, with ambitions and hopes, dreams and the means to make them real. These were the people of Olympia as he had always wished them, clean of limb, hale of heart and united in purpose. They welcomed him, each smile genuine and heartfelt. They loved him and their happiness was reflected in every kind word, every gesture of respect and every warm greeting.
This was his architectural library made real, a city of imagination, of harmony and light; and he moved through its many streets as its builder and its beloved father. It was a city of dreams. His dreams.
And though he could not see them, Perturabo knew that the twelve great city states of Olympia were all like this. Each one was built to his precise designs, logical and ordered, but built in the knowledge that these were places designed for people. No architecture, however grand, however lofty in ambition or scale, could ever call itself successful if one forgot that cardinal rule, and Perturabo had never forgotten it.
He walked the streets, knowing he was being manipulated, but not caring.
What man would not wish to look upon his dreams as reality?
The city opened up before him, its beauty and street plan intuitive and beguiling. It led him to wonders he had almost forgotten he had crafted on the pages of his many sketchbooks; youthful follies, adolescent vanities and mature structures that spoke of long apprenticeships served at the draughting table.
At length, his perambulations brought him to an octagonal space in the centre of the city, a place of gathering and chance encounters, a place where so often a wanderer’s footsteps would carry him without even realising it. Shops of craftsmen and vendors of pastries, fresh meat and produce lined the edges of the space, and at its centre was the towering statue of a warrior in burnished warplate, a lightning bolt in one hand, an eagle-topped sceptre in the other.
A god rendered in marble by the hand of a dutiful son.
Perturabo circled the statue, a curious mix of emotions churning within him.
‘I have to hand it to you, brother,’ said Fulgrim’s voice from the edge of the octagon. ‘When you dream, you dream grandly.’
Perturabo saw his brother seated at a wrought-iron table in front of a glass-walled bistro, dressed in an identical chiton. Two glasses carved from violet crystal sat on the table, one either side of a bottle of clear, honey-coloured wine.
‘You know, the Romanii people used to drink from amethyst cups in the belief that it would prevent intoxication,’ said Fulgrim, pushing back a chair with his foot and gesturing to the empty seat. ‘Come, sit, sit.’
Perturabo wanted nothing more than to wrap his hands around Fulgrim’s neck and snap it like a thin spar of wood. But in a place of illusions what would be the point? Instead, he took the seat opposite his brother as Fulgrim poured two glasses of wine.
‘Absolute nonsense, of course,’ continued Fulgrim, ‘but you can’t fault people for believing in things when they don’t know any better, can you?’
Perturabo said nothing and took a drink. A sweet wine from the vineyards on the slopes of the Ithearak Mountains to the south. His favourite, but of course it would be. Why would a dream of perfection be otherwise?
‘Just look at this place,’ said Fulgrim, leaning back in his seat and sweeping a hand around to encompass the octagon and the city beyond. ‘I never knew you had such vision.’
‘What are you doing, Fulgrim? We should be settling this like warriors.’
‘But we are not warriors, brother,’ said Fulgrim, brushing an imaginary speck from his chiton. ‘In your ideal world we are diplomats, and we settle our disputes with words, yes?’
‘I think it’s too late for that.’
‘Not at all. I look around this city and see I made the mistake I swore I would not. I underestimated you.’
‘I said you would.’
‘And I didn’t listen, yes, I know,’ said Fulgrim, waving a dismissive hand. ‘But look at this place, it outshines Macragge in its splendour! All the grandeur, but none of the starch, that’s no small achievement.’
‘It’s not real,’ said Perturabo. ‘It never was. And it never will be.’
‘You’re wrong,’ said Fulgrim, leaning forwards as if to whisper some seditious gossip. ‘I can help you make this real. All of it.’
‘Another empty promise?’
‘No, brother,’ said Fulgrim. ‘I think we’ve come too far for empty promises, don’t you? All we have left are cold, hard truths. And the truth is, if you give me the maugetar stone, I will breathe life into Olympia again.’
Perturabo searched Fulgrim’s face for the lie, but saw nothing but truth. Still, he didn’t believe him. He had been betrayed before by words he thought to be true.
‘I’ll die if I give it to you. You said so yourself.’
‘Isn’t that a price worth paying for Olympia’s rebirth?’
‘Of course, but I’d have to trust you, and…’
‘Yes, I have made it a little difficult for you trust me, haven’t I?’ grinned Fulgrim.
‘Impossible is the word I’d use.’
Fulgrim poured two more glasses of wine. ‘Very well, let me put it like this – think of all the people who have scorned you. Dorn, the Khan, the Lion… They all look down on you, they all think you and your sons are nothing but diggers. You became nothing more than the Legion to call when there was dirty work to be done and they didn’t want to get down in the mud.’
‘You thought the same, as I recall,’ pointed out Perturabo.
‘True, but now I’ve seen this city, I perceive the error of my ways,’ said Fulgrim. ‘This is a perfect city, brother, one I myself might have conceived, but I did not. You did. Of course, you know that the others were repulsed by what happened here? They despised you for it, laughed at you for failing to hold onto your adopted homeworld. I can give you the power to rebuild it, to make it so that it might as well never have happened. All you have to do is give me the maugetar stone. Or not; I can do this without it.’
Perturabo heard the lie in Fulgrim’s words, sensing his brother’s fear that this moment might pass unfulfilled. Even in this fantasy, he felt the unique confluence of energies crossing in the sepulchre, a conjunction of the spheres that would never come again.
‘Think of it, brother, together we can make Olympia rise from the ashes of its destruction like the phoenix of antiquity.’
‘Olympia is dead, Fulgrim,’ said Perturabo. ‘I killed it, and the dead stay dead, no matter what power you think you’ll get.’
Fulgrim leaned across the table and rested his hand on Perturabo’s arm.
‘Brother, think hard on all that you have lost, all that you have sacrificed,’ said Fulgrim, his dark eyes swirling with the light of distant galaxies. ‘I can give you all that you want.’
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‘Maybe you can give me what I want,’ said Perturabo sadly, ‘but you can never give me what I need.’
‘And what is that?’ sneered Fulgrim. ‘Punishment?’
Perturabo pushed back his chair and tipped over his wine glass. ‘We are done talking.’
The amethyst wine glass rolled from the table and smashed to purple shards on the ground, the pieces scattering in a curious star shape, one arm for each side of the octagon. Fulgrim shook his head and the skin of the scholar and the administrator sloughed from him as a serpent sheds its skin, revealing the falsehood he was, a brazen liar in the guise of a friend.
Once again, they stood in the chamber of the sepulchre and his brother was as Perturabo had last seen him: naked and squirming with power and sweated light.
Olympia as he had dreamed it was gone, consigned to the past where its people were dead and burned and its future crushed beneath the iron boot-heel of the IV Legion.
‘You should have taken my offer,’ said Fulgrim. ‘Now all that is left to you is death.’
‘No,’ said Perturabo. ‘Not all.’
And so saying, he hurled the maugetar stone into the shaft.
The stone flashed gold and black, gold and black, spinning end over end as it arced out into the centre of the abyss. Fulgrim screamed a denial, and with that shrieking cry, the spell holding every warrior immobile was broken. Perturabo’s throw had been a poor one, much weaker than even a crippled old man might have managed, but it was enough.
He watched the stone begin its downward arc, relieved to be rid of the parasitic talisman.
His relief turned to horror as he saw a golden shape dive from the drifting dome of spirit stones and plunge towards the stone. He saw it was a mechanised eagle, its feathers rendered in shimmering gold, its body a wonder of clockwork automation and lost technologies. He recognised it as having sprung from the same mind as the machines he had built in his sanctum. It seemed he was not the only savant whose works were inspired by the long dead gentleman of Firenza. The bird loosed the cry of a hunting raptor, its legs extended before it and its wings booming as it lunged in the air to pluck the maugetar stone in its obsidian talons.