Sergeant Tanna of the Black Templars, gigantic in his ebon plate, followed the two archmagi with his crusaders spread to either side. They watched the crystal-forms with open hostility. A force of such things had killed their brother on Katen Venia, and the Black Templars were an unforgiving Chapter.
Though Telok had welcomed Archmagos Kotov and his entourage, Tanna’s hand never strayed from his bolter’s grip, and the white-helmed Varda kept his fingers tightly wrapped around the handle of his enormous black sword.
Colonel Ven Anders and his storm troopers drew up the rear. Following the Templars’ example, each soldier clutched his hellgun tight to his chest and kept a finger across the trigger guard.
But behind the discipline, Roboute saw their amazement.
They’d probably not seen anything like this.
None of us has.
Distant electrical fire raged in a troposphere of bruised hues, and the hideous illumination left a clenched fist of vertigo in Roboute’s gut. He swallowed a mouthful of bile. One of Colonel Anders’s men spat onto the metalled roadway. Clearly Roboute wasn’t alone in feeling discomfort, seeing the man cast an uneasy glance at the approaching storm.
‘How bad must it be for a soldier of Cadia to feel unsettled?’ he muttered.
‘Sylkwood could give you a better answer,’ said Magos Pavelka at Roboute’s side, entranced by the structures arrayed before them. ‘She is from Cadia, and understands that gloomy mindset better than most.’
‘So what are they saying?’ asked Roboute, nodding to the head of their procession, where Telok and Kotov spoke in blurts of binary. Both adepts had dispensed with their flesh-voices, though it was clear their attempts to communicate were not progressing as smoothly as either expected.
Pavelka’s head ever so slightly inclined to the side.
‘Ilanna?’ said Roboute, when she didn’t immediately answer.
‘Archmagos Telok is speaking in a binaric form long since considered obsolete,’ said Pavelka eventually.
‘Isn’t binary the same throughout the galaxy?’ asked Roboute. ‘Isn’t that the point of a language based on mathematics?’
‘Archmagos Telok’s binary is a parse-form with which current generation Mechanicus augmitters are not reverse-compatible. They are being forced to communicate in an extremely primitive form of source code.’
‘If binary’s a problem, why not just speak in Gothic?’
‘Even a primitive form of source code carries more specificity of meaning than verbal communications.’
‘Oh,’ said Roboute with mock affront. ‘Well pardon me.’
‘You asked,’ said Pavelka.
Their path was leading to a colossal hangar-structure with a vaulted silver-steel roof and glittering masts at its four corners, the same building from which the titanic glass scorpion construct had emerged. The great gateway had been subsumed back into the enormous structure, but a smaller portal now opened and from it slid a crystal vessel like those that once plied the oceans of Terra.
A blade-prowed brigantine with sails of billowing glass that caught the sky’s light and threw it back in dazzling rainbows. A hundred metres long and formed from what looked like a single piece of translucent crystal, its hull was threaded with squirming light and shimmering reflections.
‘Ave Deus Mechanicus,’ whispered Pavelka, her hands unconsciously forming the Martian cog across her chest.
The vessel skimmed a metre above the ground, a ship of the line that needed no sea to glide upon, no wind to fill its sails.
Roboute had never seen anything quite so wondrous. The crystal ship was a thing of exquisite beauty, something unique in the truest sense of the word. It made no sound other than a soft hiss, as though knifing through serene waters.
‘Indulgent, I know, but the nano-machines work best when creating things of beauty or things of terror,’ said Telok, switching back to his flesh-voice as the ship coasted to a halt behind him.
Roboute’s eyes followed the sleek curves of the ship’s graceful hull as a number of steps of solid glass extruded to allow access onto the deck.
Telok extended one of his elephantine arms and gestured to the steps, but only Archmagos Kotov and his skitarii guards moved towards them.
‘Why do we need transport?’ asked Tanna, stepping forwards to stand alongside Kotov. ‘If we are to travel far, why did you have us land here?’
Telok’s waxen features didn’t change, but Roboute saw irritation in his eyes. ‘When an entire planet’s resources are engaged in the generation of power there are sizeable regions where the atmosphere is aggressively toxic to those who do not enjoy the fearsome augmentations of Adeptus Astartes physiology. My sanctum sanctorum lies within such a region.’
Telok turned and gestured to the immobile army of crystalline warriors.
‘My world is home to many technologies unknown within the Imperium, and the unknown always carries the threat of danger to those not versed in its mysteries, don’t you agree?’
Roboute couldn’t help but hear the stress Telok put on the my, and felt a twitch at the unconscious display of ego. The Lost Magos had been lost for so long that he couldn’t help showing off the wonders and miracles of his world. What other psychological effects might thousands of years of isolation have fostered?
‘The only danger I see here is the use of technology that has already killed one of my men,’ said Tanna.
‘Ah, yes, of course, you are referring to the tragic death of your Apothecary on the world Master Surcouf named Katen Venia,’ said Telok, displaying an impressive knowledge of things he had not been told.
‘A terrible loss, yes,’ agreed Kotov, placing a silvered hand on Tanna’s shoulder guard. A hand that was swiftly removed when the Black Templars sergeant glared at him.
‘I deeply and profoundly regret the death of your battle-brother, Sergeant Tanna,’ said Telok. ‘The crystaliths were emplaced to defend against any interference with the Stellar Primogenitor’s work. I’m afraid your arrival on Katen Venia triggered their autonomic threat response.’
‘Your regret is meaningless,’ said Tanna.
‘I am sorry you feel that way, but you have it anyway.’
Kotov and his entourage of skitarii and flunkies climbed onto the ship, eager to be on their way. Tanna and the Black Templars followed them aboard, the floating ship sinking not so much as a millimetre at the increased weight.
‘After you,’ said Anders as his Cadians moved up to the ship.
Roboute nodded and climbed the glass steps to the deck. The gunwale was smooth and apparently without seams, as though the vessel had been grown from one enormous crystal. Its twin masts soared overhead and the billowing sheets of glass were dazzling with refracted light.
A single raised lectern at the vessel’s stern appeared to be the only means of control, and Kotov examined it with the eagerness of a neophyte priest. His skitarii stood to either side of him at the gunwales, facing outwards, as though expecting to repel boarders.
‘Go look,’ said Roboute to Pavelka. ‘I know you want to.’
Pavelka nodded and gratefully made her way down the deck towards the archmagos and the control lectern. Anders and his men came next, followed at last by Archmagos Telok.
‘I have you to thank for bringing the Speranza here,’ said the hulking form of the archmagos. ‘You found the Tomioka’s saviour beacon, and for that you have my gratitude.’
Roboute looked up into Telok’s unnatural face. It revolted him, but given it was thousands of years old, what else should he expect?
‘I’m beginning to wonder about that,’ said Roboute.
‘About what?’
‘Whether it was me that brought us here at all.’
‘Of course you did,’ said Telok, moving down the deck with a booming laugh. ‘Who else could have done so?’
Roboute didn’t answer as the ship moved off like a whisper.
Speranza.
Ark Mechanicus.
Its name mean
t hope in an ancient tongue of Old Earth, and had been aptly chosen, for within the starship’s monstrously vast form it carried the last remnants of ancient knowledge thought lost for all time. That those aboard were ignorant of the secrets hidden within its forgotten datacores and dusty sepulchre temples was an irony known only to the vast spirit at its heart.
The Speranza orbited Exnihlio with stately grace, a void-capable colossus, a forge world set loose among the stars. Its hull was a kilometres-long agglomeration of steel and stone, studded with mighty forges, vast cathedrals of the Omnissiah, and workshops beyond count. The power of its industry could sustain a system-wide campaign of war, its crew a planetary assault.
Not even those whose genius had set it among the stars could claim to call it beautiful, but beauty had never been their aim. The Ark Mechanicus was a ship destined to carry the great works of the first techno-theologians to the farthest corners of the galaxy, to reclaim and reveal all that had been lost in the terror of Old Night.
A crusading vessel, a repository of hard-won knowledge and an icon of hope all in one. And like any object of hope, it had its followers. Its fleet was reduced now after the nightmarish crossing of the Halo Scar and an attack by eldar pirates, but it was still formidable.
The twin Gothic-class cruisers, Moonchild and Wrathchild, described Möbius patrol circuits around the Speranza, while the solitary Endurance-class cruiser, Mortis Voss, pushed ahead of the fleet, lashing the void with aggressive auspex sweeps.
Attached to the Kotov Fleet to repay a Debita Fabricata, the two sister vessels of Mortis Voss were dead. Only it remained to return to Voss Prime with word of all it had seen and done.
Tens of thousands filled the multitude of decks within the Speranza like blood in the arteries of a living leviathan. Its bondsmen fed its fiery heart, its tech-priests tempered its tempestuous spirits and the archmagos guided its quest into the unknown.
The dynamic between the Speranza’s masters and servants had changed markedly over the course of the vessel’s journey to Exnihlio. Where once its Mechanicus overlords had been little better than slavers, now they were forced into a compact of respect by the actions of a truly unique individual.
A Machine-touched bondsman named Abrehem Locke.
The lowest decks of the Speranza were the areas of greatest danger for its crew: either through radiation-leaks, spiteful machine-spirits or the more recent ship-board rumour of a ghost-faced assassin stalking the ship’s underbelly.
Right now, Abrehem Locke would have gladly faced any of those dangers rather than walk into Forge Elektrus. Its approaches were lit by stuttering lumen globes and throbbed with ill-tempered spirits. Abrehem’s augmetic eyes caught the glitchy code as it sparked invisibly behind the sagging iron plates of the walls.
They weren’t welcome here.
‘This is a bad idea,’ he said. ‘A really bad idea. Hawke was right, I shouldn’t have come here.’
‘Since when has anything Julius Hawke said ever been a good idea?’ answered Totha Mu-32.
Totha Mu-32 had once been Abrehem’s overseer, but the extraordinary events of the last few months had seen the dynamics of that relationship change in ways Abrehem still couldn’t quite grasp. At times Totha Mu-32 behaved like his devotee, at others, a nurturing mentor.
But sometimes it just felt like he was still his overseer.
‘Good point,’ said Abe. ‘But in this case, I happen to agree with him. They’re never going to accept me.’
‘You are Machine-touched,’ said Totha Mu-32. ‘And it is time you took your first steps along this road.’
‘They won’t accept me,’ repeated Abrehem.
‘They will, they all know what you did, even the demodes. They all know the power you have.’
‘That wasn’t me,’ said Abe. ‘That was Ismael. Tell him.’
The third member of their group shook his head.
Previous to Totha Mu-32, Ismael de Roeven had once been Abrehem’s overseer on Joura. Ismael had run a lifter-rig, a powerful beast named Savickas, but that had come to an end when he, Abrehem, Coyne and Hawke had been swept up by the collarmen and pressed into service aboard the Speranza.
The Mechanicus turned Ismael into a mindless servitor, but a violent head injury had restored a measure of his memories. No one quite knew how that had happened or what else had come back, for Ismael was now something else, far beyond a servitor, but not entirely human either.
‘We did that together, Abrehem,’ said Ismael. ‘We are the divine spark and the omega point. Without one, the other cannot exist. I allowed the servitors to lay down their tools, but without you there would have been no impetus to do so.’
These days, Ismael always sounded like he was reading from a sermon book.
‘I think I liked you better as a servitor,’ Abrehem muttered.
Then they were at the door to Forge Elektrus, a battered cog-toothed circle with a bas-relief cybernetic skull icon of the Mechanicus at its centre. Drizzles of oil stained the skull, making it look as though it wept for those condemned within.
Totha Mu-32 placed his staff against the entry panel. Abrehem saw the overseer’s code signifiers strain against the locking mechanism, attempting to open the door without success. Staring straight at the skull above the door, Totha Mu-32 allowed the subdermal electoo of the dragon to come to the surface of his organics.
‘Does this serve me any better, Chiron?’ he said.
‘You are not welcome here, Totha,’ said a grating voice from the augmitter mounted in the jaw of a grinning skull above the door. It looked like a freshly bleached skull, and Abrehem wondered to whom it had once belonged.
‘Probably the last person who thought coming here was a good idea,’ he whispered under his breath.
Totha Mu-32 held out his staff as the glittering image of the dragon faded back into his pale skin.
‘You do not have the right to deny me access,’ said Totha Mu-32. ‘Your rank is inferior to mine by a decimal place.’
‘No thanks to you,’ said the voice. ‘And it’s Adept Manubia to you. Your rank permits you entry to Elektrus, though Omnissiah knows why you’d ever want to slum it here, but it’s the company you keep that’s giving me pause.’
‘They are with me,’ said Totha Mu-32. ‘Both have more than earned the right to venture within a forge.’
‘You don’t really believe that or you wouldn’t have waited until Kotov went down to the planet’s surface,’ barked the skull.
‘I do believe it, and you know why I have come here.’
‘I’m not teaching him,’ said Adept Manubia via the skull. ‘I’d be dismantled and have my augments implanted into waste servitors.’
‘And that would be a terrible shame, because you’re making such valuable use of them here,’ said Totha Mu-32, displaying a capacity for spite Abrehem hadn’t suspected.
The skull fell silent, and Abrehem wondered if Totha Mu-32 had pressed Adept Manubia too hard. He turned to the Mechanicus overseer, but the cog-toothed door rolled aside before he could speak. The waft of hot metal and blessed oil that had been run through recyc-filters too many times to be healthy gusted out.
A magos in stained crimson robes barred entry to the forge. One hand held a staff topped with a laurel wreath and carved representations of slain leporids. The adept’s hood was pulled back, revealing a face that was largely organic and also extremely attractive.
The voice from the skull had given no clue as to the speaker’s sex, and Abrehem had made the dismissive assumption that Magos Chiron Manubia would be male.
‘Totha,’ she said.
‘Chiron,’ said Totha Mu-32. ‘It’s been too long.’
‘You’ve always known where I was,’ said Manubia, and Abrehem sensed shared history between them. Anywhere else, he’d have said this was a meeting of ex-lovers, but he couldn’t quite picture that between these two.
He didn’t want to picture that.
The Mechanicus forbade liaisons between its adepts;
was that why Chiron Manubia laboured in a lowly forge below the waterline?
‘You want me to train him?’ she said. ‘After what happened on Karis Cephalon? You must think I’m an idiot.’
‘Quite the opposite, Chiron,’ said Totha Mu-32. ‘That’s why I’m here. I can think of nowhere better for Abrehem.’
Chiron Manubia turned her gaze upon Abrehem. Her appraisal was frank and unimpressed.
‘He doesn’t look Machine-touched,’ said Manubia. ‘Apart from that clunky-looking augmetic arm, he looks like just any other scrawny bondsman.’
Abrehem wasn’t offended. He knew she was dead right to think he didn’t look like much.
‘How can you say that after what happened in orbit around Hypatia?’ asked Totha Mu-32.
‘If it was really him that did that, then I’m even less inclined to allow him anywhere near my forge.’
‘Aren’t you even the slightest bit curious? Don’t you want to be immortalised as the adept who inducted him into the mysteries? It could restore your standing within the Mechanicus.’
‘A standing you helped ruin.’
At least Totha Mu-32 had the decency to look ashamed.
‘I know what I did, Chiron, but look on this as my attempt to undo that youthful mistake,’ said Totha Mu-32. ‘Take him on for a day, and if you don’t see any potential in him, throw whatever’s left back to me.’
‘One day?’
‘Not a pico-second more,’ agreed Totha Mu-32.
Adept Manubia took a step back and gestured within the forge with her laurel-topped staff. In the gloom behind her, Abrehem could see dark engines of oiled iron and hissing vents like grinning jaws. A miasma of broken code snapped and squalled from every machine.
It had the look and feel of a wounded animal’s lair.
‘Welcome to Forge Elektrus, Abrehem Locke,’ she said. ‘Are you ready to take the first step to becoming Cult Mechanicus?’
‘Honestly? I’m not sure,’ answered Abrehem.
‘Wrong answer,’ said Chiron Manubia, hauling him inside.
The crystal ship skimmed across the plaza to where three avenues led deeper into the city. Telok guided them like a steersman of old, as Roboute sat on a bench extruded from the hull at his approach.