The Outcast Dead

  ‘Hurry up, Zulane,’ said Golovko. ‘I have better things to do than baby-sit you.’

  ‘I seriously doubt that,’ said Kai, stepping into the light.

  Any step was a good one if it carried him away from Golovko.

  The light surrounded Kai, and carried him into the tower. He travelled down the spiral, turned around as he descended into the bowels of his former abode. He passed numerous jutting steps where he could have stepped from the grav lift, but Sarashina had said they were going to the novitiates level, and that was right at the bottom of the Whispering Tower.

  At last Kai felt the reassuring feel of solid ground beneath him, and stepped out of the light. His eyes adjusted immediately to the brightly lit surroundings. Not everyone who navigated these passages was blind, and bare lumen globes hung from the brickwork ceiling on linked loops of brass cabling. This chamber had been hacked from the bedrock of the mountains and faced with ceramic tiles of bottle green. It had the feel of a medicae chamber, and a number of locked doors led deeper into the guts of the tower. Some led to the novice libraries, where new additions to the tower learned astropathic shorthand, common symbols and the basic mantras of the nuncio. Others led to the novices’ cells, yet more to communal facilities for eating and ablutions, while yet others ended in hermetically-sealed isolation chambers.

  In the moments before Golovko and his Sentinels arrived, Kai took a moment to study his former mentor.

  Aniq Sarashina had aged since Kai had seen her last, and the naked light from the lumens was unflattering. Her hair had lost the last of its blonde lustre and was now completely silver. Puckered lines radiating from the plastic hemispheres inserted into her eye sockets had grown deeper and more pronounced. She had been old when Kai had last been here, but now looked positively ancient.

  ‘Do I look so different?’ asked Sarashina, and Kai blushed at being caught in his frank appraisal of her appearance.

  ‘You look older,’ he said at last.

  ‘I am older, Kai,’ said Sarashina. ‘I have travelled the warp for too many years, and it has left its mark upon me.’

  She reached up and ran her fingers over the rumpled skin of his face, her touch feather-light and tender. ‘As it has on you too.’

  The curse of the Astropath was premature ageing, and Kai didn’t need Sarashina to tell him that he had lost the clean lines of his high cheekbones and his growth of fine, salt and pepper hair. Though he was in his late thirties, he had the appearance of a man in his fifties, at least. The face that looked back at him in the mirror – on those days he could face his reflection – was gaunt and hollow, with pinched cheeks and sunken eyes. Only the most expensive juvenat treatments could conceal the damage constant warp travel wreaked on a human being, and no astropath, even one of House Castana, was worth that indulgence of vanity.

  Kai backed away from her touch. ‘I never thought I would return here,’ he said, anxious to change the subject.

  ‘Few of us ever do,’ agreed Sarashina.

  ‘Should I be honoured at being one of those few?’

  ‘That depends on how you view your return.’

  ‘As a punishment,’ said Kai. ‘What other way is there to interpret it?’

  ‘I will leave you to ponder that question for now,’ said Sarashina as Golovko stepped from the grav-lift.

  His Black Sentinels swiftly followed, and when they were all assembled, Sarashina unlocked the door to her immediate left. Kai frowned at this new direction.

  ‘I am not a novice,’ he said. ‘This route leads to the training halls set aside for initiates of the nuncio.’

  ‘It does indeed, Kai,’ agreed Sarashina. ‘Where else would your training begin?’

  ‘Begin? I’ve served the Telepathica for over a decade, and I know the rites of incubation. I don’t need to be treated like a child.’

  ‘We’ll treat you how we damn well please,’ snapped Golovko, pushing him towards the open door. ‘You don’t have any say in the matter, and if it was up to me, I’d never have allowed you back. You’re dangerous, I can feel it.’

  ‘You should watch those “feelings”, Golovko,’ said Kai, shrugging off the man’s grip. ‘Things like that will get the psi-hounds sniffing around you. And I don’t think you’ve got what it takes to cut it here.’

  ‘Enough, both of you,’ said Sarashina. ‘Your petty posturing is ridiculous, and will only cause tremors in the aether.’

  Kai said nothing, knowing she was right and remembering the low-grade irritation he’d felt whenever outsiders had let their emotions get the better of them in close proximity to a whisper stone. Without further protest, Kai followed Sarashina along the passageway, the brickwork faced with tiles of ochre ceramic and the glow of the entrance hall fading behind them. Reinforced doors punctuated its length, each one marked with a number and name. Within each marked cell, an initiate of the Scholastica Psykana slumbered, perhaps dreaming, perhaps not. With the psi-shielded doors, it was impossible to know for sure. The darkness soon became absolute, yet Kai could still see perfectly well.

  ‘You are not using your blindsight,’ said Sarashina, with a slight incline of her head. Kai thought he detected a hint of disappointment in her tone.

  ‘No, my augmetics allow me to see perfectly well in the darkness.’

  ‘I know that, but what need of them did you have?’

  ‘I didn’t like being blind. Properly blind, I mean. I missed reading.’

  ‘There are books for those without eyes.’

  ‘I know, but I prefer to let the words come to me,’ said Kai. ‘There is more to the written word than lifting the words from the page with my fingertips. Language has visual beauty that touch-script can never match.’

  ‘I would debate that with you, but that is a discussion for late at night with a good book between us and a pot of hot caffeine. Could it be that you wished eyes again to hold onto some aspect of your life before entering the Telepathica?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Kai. ‘Maybe. I don’t see how it’s important.’

  ‘It may be crucial to understanding why you can no longer master the nuncio and open yourself to the dreams of your brothers.’

  ‘I know the nuncio,’ said Kai defensively. ‘I mastered it within a year.’

  ‘Then why are you here? Why does House Castana send its pre-eminent astropath back to the City of Sight?’

  Kai did not answer her, and she stopped beside the open door of a cell.

  ‘I am here to help you, Kai,’ said Sarashina. ‘You were my greatest student, and if you have failed, then I have failed.’

  ‘No,’ said Kai. ‘It’s not that, it’s just… what happened on the Argo…’

  Sarashina raised a hand to stop him.

  ‘Do not speak of it here while others are abed,’ she said, gesturing to the rows of cells that lined the corridor. ‘Sleep. Meditate for a while if it helps you. Refresh yourself, and I will speak to you in the morning.’

  Kai nodded. Though his thoughts ran amok, his body craved sleep, and no matter that the bed of a novice was far from comfortable, it would be welcome. He stepped into the cell, catching a ghostly susurration of a distant voice in the darkness as he crossed the threshold. A whisper stone glinted on each side of the doorway, and he wondered into whose dream or memory he had briefly intruded.

  Memories were all too common in the walls of the City of Sight, and most of them were ones you wouldn’t want. No one dwelled too long on memories if they valued their sanity.

  Kai knew that better than anyone.

  THE DOOR TO Kai’s cell closed with a heavy thud of wood on stone. There was no click of a lock, as was common for novice cells, but he could sense the presence of two Black Sentinels outside. Sarashina might talk to him like a prodigal son, but Golovko was another matter entirely. Kai could only imagine the nightmares Golovko’s bilious presence was provoking among the true novices.

  His travel trunk hadn’t yet made it to his cell, and he supposed the Black Sentin
els were examining his personal effects for any hint of something dangerous. They wouldn’t find anything. Kai had wanted nothing from the Argo, and his possessions amounted to little more than a few undershirts, his hygiene kit, a finely-tailored suit from the seamstress-houses of the Nihon peninsula, and, of course, his many leather-bound oneirocritica.

  The books would mean nothing to the Black Sentinels, but the cryptaesthesians would examine them thoroughly to ensure there was no latent symbolism that was cause for alarm.

  They wouldn’t find anything, but he understood they had to check.

  The interior of the cell was bare and devoid of anything that might have indicated who had lived here before him. That was sensible, for any lingering sense of a previous occupant would influence Kai’s dreaming. A cot bed lay along one wall, with a simple footlocker at its base. A small writing desk and chair sat opposite the bed, and a black notebook lay on a blotting pad, next to an inkhorn and pen.

  Empty shelves lined the wall above the desk, ready to be filled with an astropath’s steadily growing oneirocritica collection. The shelves were short, for a novice would take time to build a comprehensive library of imagery, symbolism and dream recordings.

  Kai placed the bottle of amasec he’d taken from the Castana skimmer on the table and lifted the notebook from the desk. He idly fanned its thick pages, smelling the crisp newness of the paper. Each page was blank, ready to be filled with dream perceptions, and he carefully placed the book down. It was empty, but the potential of what might fill its pages was like a loaded gun.

  Given his level of expertise, Kai wanted to feel offended at being put in a novice’s cell, but the anger wouldn’t come. It made sense, and he realised the lack of responsibility it implied was refreshing. He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, letting his breathing slow as the ache of psi-sickness gnawed at his bones.

  Though his thoughts were troubled, sleep was a state few astropaths had trouble attaining. With the right mantras and incubation techniques, any state of mind was possible.

  Sleep came easily to Kai, but his dreams were not restful.

  THREE

  The Best Move

  Rub’ al Khali

  Arzashkun

  ‘YOUR EMPRESS IS exposed,’ said the Choirmaster of Astropaths with a grin.

  ‘I am aware of that,’ replied Sarashina, moving the carved piece of coral from the ocean world of Laeran across the board. ‘Do you think this is the first time I have played regicide?’

  Nemo Zhi-Meng smiled and shook his head. ‘Of course not, but I do not want to win through your inattention.’

  ‘You are assuming you are going to win.’

  ‘I normally do.’

  ‘You won’t today,’ said Sarashina, as Zhi-Meng took a Castellan with his Chevalier and laid it on the carpeted floor. The board and its pieces had been a gift of the Phoenician himself, and the ornamentation on each figurine was wondrous. Each figure was worked to an obsessive degree, with a character all of their own, as one would expect from the hand of a primarch who was the embodiment of such attention to detail. The feel of them was exquisite, and to touch such pieces was as pleasurable as the game itself.

  ‘I think you are wrong,’ said Zhi-Meng as Sarashina pushed her Divinitarch across the board.

  ‘You should think again,’ said Sarashina, reclining on the wealth of sumptuous cushions spread over the floor of the Choirmaster’s chambers. ‘You see?’

  Zhi-Meng leaned over the board and laughed as he perceived the arrangement of pieces on the grid.

  ‘Inconceivable!’ he said, clapping his thin, sculptor’s hands. On the heart finger of his left hand was an onyx ring carved with intertwined symbols that might have been language, but was more likely ornamentation. Zhi-Meng had told her the ring was purchased from a man who claimed to have journeyed from the Fourth Dominion, but Sarashina suspected this was another one of the Choirmaster’s mischievous boasts. If he had retained his eyes, they would have twinkled as he told the story. Instead, his almond shaped eyes were sewn shut, telling anyone who knew of such things that he had been blinded over a century ago when such techniques were common.

  The Choirmaster shook his head and he scanned the board again, as though checking he was truly beaten. ‘I am defeated by the assassin’s blade hidden in the velvet sleeve. And here I thought I had planned enough moves ahead to win with ease.’

  ‘A good regicide player thinks five moves ahead,’ said Sarashina, ‘but a great regicide player–’

  ‘Only thinks one move ahead, but it is always the best move,’ finished Zhi-Meng stroking the long forks of his white beard. ‘If you’re going to quote Guilliman to me, at least have the decency to let me win first.’

  ‘Maybe next time,’ answered Sarashina as a blinded servitor entered the Choirmaster’s chambers. Robed in white and with no thoughts of its own, it was a ghostly apparition, its presence visible as a blur of murky light in her mind. Elements of the servitor’s brain had been removed with gemynd-shears, and only the most rudimentary cognitive functions remained.

  ‘Do you know why I insist we play regicide?’ asked Zhi-Meng.

  ‘To show off?’

  ‘Partly,’ admitted Zhi-Meng, ‘but there’s more to it than that. Regicide helps us develop patience and discipline in choosing between alternatives when an impulsive decision seems very attractive.’

  ‘Always teaching, is that it?’

  ‘Learning is always easier if the subject doesn’t know it’s being taught.’

  ‘Are you teaching me?’

  ‘Both of us, I think,’ said Zhi-Meng as the servitor deposited a steel-jacketed pot of tisane, and the smell of warm, sweetened honey came to Sarashina.

  ‘You and your sweet tooth,’ she said.

  ‘It is a weakness, I confess,’ said Zhi-Meng, dismissing the servitor with a gesture and reaching over to pour two small cups of the warm liquid. He handed her a cup and she sipped it gingerly, savouring the sweet taste.

  ‘It gives me solace,’ said Zhi-Meng, with a smile. ‘And in such times, solace must be taken wherever it can be found, don’t you agree?’

  ‘I thought that was what the qash in the hookah pipe was for.’

  ‘Solace comes in many forms,’ replied Zhi-Meng, removing his belt and letting his robe fall to the floor. His body was thin and wiry, but Sarashina knew that there was strength in those limbs that belied their frail appearance. His skin was parchment taut and pale, every centimetre covered in tattoos inked by his own hand with a needle said to have been snapped from the spine of a fossilised beast found in the bedrock of the Merican rad-wastes. A cornucopia of warding imagery was wrought on the canvas of his flesh: hawk-headed birds, snakes devouring their tails, apotropaic crosses, eyes of aversion and gorgoneion.

  That such symbols flew in the face of the Imperial Truth mattered little to the Choirmaster, for he was the oldest living astropath in the City of Sight, and his knowledge of what protective wards would guard against the dangers of the immaterium was second to none.

  He lay down next to Sarashina, and he stroked her arm with great tenderness. She smiled and rolled onto her front, letting Zhi-Meng massage her back and ease the tensions of yet another arduous day of passing increasingly desperate messages from the mindalls to the Conduit and onwards to their intended recipients. Zhi-Meng had studied with the ancient wise men who had dwelled in these mountains before the coming of the Emperor and his grand vision of a palace crowning the world, and his touch spread healing warmth through her aged bones.

  ‘I could let you do that all night,’ she purred.

  ‘I would let you,’ he replied. ‘But such is not our lot, my dear.’

  ‘Shame.’

  ‘Tell me of the day’s messages,’ he asked.

  ‘Why? You already know what’s passed through the tower today.’

  ‘True, but I like to hear what you think of it,’ he said, working a stubborn knot of tension in her lower back.

  ‘We have been getti
ng a lot of traffic from worlds demanding Army fleets to keep them safe from any rebel forces.’

  ‘Why not ask for Legion forces?’

  ‘I think people are afraid that if four Legions can turn traitor then maybe others will too.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said the Choirmaster. His hand kneaded the bunched muscles around her shoulders and neck as he spoke. ‘Go on. Tell me of the Legions. What news comes to Terra of our greatest warriors?’

  ‘Only fragments,’ admitted Sarashina. ‘Some Legions send daily for tasking orders, a few are beyond our reach and others appear to be acting autonomously.’

  ‘Tell me why Space Marines deciding their own orders sets a dangerous precedent,’ asked Zhi-Meng.

  ‘Why do you ask questions that you already know the answer to?’

  ‘To see if you know the answer, of course.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll indulge you, since you’re making me feel human again,’ said Sarashina. ‘Once loosed, such power as the Legions possess will be difficult to shackle to Terra once more.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To think that the Space Marines are simply gene-bred killers is to grossly underestimate them. Their commanders are men of great skill and ambition. Free to act on their own authority, they will not take kindly to being brought to heel once again, no matter who demands it.’

  ‘Very good,’ nodded the Choirmaster.

  ‘But it will not come to that,’ said Sarashina. ‘Horus Lupercal will be crushed at Isstvan. Not even he can stand against the force of seven Legions.’

  ‘I believe you are right, Aniq,’ said Zhi-Meng. ‘Seven Legions is a force with a power beyond imagining. How long will it be until Lord Dorn’s fleet reaches Isstvan V?’

  ‘Soon,’ said Sarashina, knowing the vagaries of warp travel made precise predictions impossible.

  ‘Something bothers you regarding the coming battle? Aside from the obvious, I mean.’

  ‘The primarch of the VIII Legion,’ said Sarashina.