Auric Gods

Chapter Twenty-One City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

A cracked, mosaic concourse led to the entrance of the library. Tufts of wiry, grey vegetation clung to its fissures, steadily prising them apart. Statues of politicians, warriors and priests stood in dilapidated ranks, worn by age or vandalism and served to emphasise the faded grandeur of the place.

The door to the library was tall, almost twice the height of the Custodians, and lay partly open, letting in the dirt and the vermin and anything else that chose to make this ruin its lair. A stone portico, its columns rendered into the likeness of saints and theologians, framed a grand entrance but had also succumbed to disrepair.

Cartovandis paused at the threshold as the three Custodians took in the monolithic structure.

Standing behind the others, Meroved regarded it too. ‘Magnificent, or at least it was once. A forgotten world…’ he murmured.

‘Then let us bring it back into the Throne’s light,’ said Cartovandis, and gestured to Adio. The two of them then heaved against the door, pushing it open. A chasm of darkness yawned beyond and there was the suggestion of a wide and sweeping stairway that led below.

Without further hesitation, Cartovandis led them inside.

Even with only ambient light coming through the dirt encrusting its glass ceiling, the devastation was obvious. A fire had ravaged the library, turning its tomes and scrolls to ash, blackening its halls and stacks. Part of the stairway had given way to the blaze, a ragged edge leading to further darkness and the collapsed remains of the steps below. Rot and disuse had sundered the rest, the air thick with spores and coiling with dust motes disturbed by the Custodians. As deserted as it first appeared, a light flickered below, distant but apparent.

Once again, Cartovandis asked himself why Meroved had waited for their arrival to act.

Upon reaching the base of the stairs they passed through the broken and sorry stacks to the edge of a large lectorium pit.

A dais sat in the middle of the pit, sparking with obscure technologies. Hoar frost crept over it. Wires and cables fed to it and the device that lay atop. It was a spherical cage, forged of black metal. Inside it sat two further spherical cages, one slightly smaller than the other. Each of these inner compartments turned slowly, in opposing directions, on the axis of the largest sphere. Thick spikes jutted both outwards and inwards. Carved sigils adorned the metal, deep enough that the half-light caught in their recesses. And within this tri-part prison, a man was turning along with the spheres, chained so that his arms and legs were splayed in a cross. Lightning arcs obscured further details, crackling across the surface of the metal.

As the Custodians reached the edge of the lectorium pit, a different man, in dark red robes and flak armour reminiscent of that worn by the Astra Militarum, turned to greet them.

‘I thought you might have survived,’ he said to Meroved, his voice urbane and with wisdom that belied his apparent youth. ‘I hoped you had survived to live to see the purpose of what I am trying to achieve.’

He cast his eye across the Custodians.

‘Behold…’ he uttered with almost breathless awe. ‘Auric gods.’ Orn shook his head. ‘You would not seek to stop me if you knew what I intended.’

‘Enslavement and death,’ Cartovandis replied. ‘We have witnessed your intent and are here to end it. Though I would know your plan before we kill you.’

‘Awakening,’ said Ylax Orn, and his next words made Cartovandis pause. ‘His awakening. Resurrection.’

The shadows moved at the edge of the light.

‘Blasphemy! You’ll die by my hand!’ Varogalant leapt into the pit and made for the Vexen Cage just as Orn’s minions surged out of the darkness. The crack of lascarbines heralded their arrival, men and women in heavy grey carapace armour. Dozens and dozens of them. They advanced along the balcony that delineated the edge of the pit, sharp red flashes denoting their positions. In a few seconds, the air was filled with heat and las.

Adio took the brunt of the blasts against Bulwark, sweeping his cloak aside to reveal gilded auramite to the cultists, inspiring awe in some before he advanced down the left side.

‘To the other side!’ snapped Meroved, gesturing to Cartovandis as he went after Varogalant.

Mirroring Adio, Cartovandis went right. His sentinel blade, Arcana, roared in his grasp, its attached bolt casters breaking apart the frail mortal bodies sent against him. They held their ground despite the onslaught, finding cover behind upheaved benches and debris. As soon he got close enough to wield Arcana as a broadsword it would be over.

Adio barrelled a cultist over the edge of the balcony with his shield as the mortal’s ill-considered charge went awry. Then he let loose with Puritas and the fight was all but done.

Down in the pit, Orn had retreated onto the dais as more of his cohorts rushed to defend him from inside.

Varogalant cut them apart, barely slowing down.

A few with breacher shields and power mauls braved hand-to-hand, but lasted only a few seconds longer. At last, they brought up a heavier gun and from his vantage above the pit, Cartovandis saw the first ranks for what they really were – a distraction.

It came out on tracks, a Rapier mount designed to take on armour. A flare-nosed graviton cannon rumbled as it emitted a heavy particle burst that struck Varogalant in the chest and crushed him into the ground. Stone slabs split and the floor cracked beneath him. He did not rise.

Then the track-mount turned, angling its cannon and aiming for Meroved as it started to power back up. A low energy hum rippled the air, the invisible presaging of a second grav-burst. The sound built, rising to a fever pitch whine, nanoseconds from activation.

Cartovandis redirected his fire against the Rapier and destroyed it, releasing a dense grav-implosion that gave off a migraine-inducing bass note and pulped its crew to ­shattered bone and jelly.

Adio hurled his shield to kill the last of the cultists, bulwark embedding in the far wall and quivering like an arrow as he leapt the balcony.

As the grav-cannon exploded, Meroved saw a way through to Orn. He touched a hand to his chest and it came back bloody. No matter. He had to end this. Gritting his teeth against the pain, knowing he should probably be dead already, he ran.

He got off a few shots with Firebrand before he realised Orn was protected by a refractor field, the beams hitting an invisible wall and dissipating in a flash of light. He discarded the archeotech pistol and focused on his blade. The vibro-sword hummed in his grasp. It would cut through almost any defence with ease.

Orn was close. He backed up a few more steps, the Vexen Cage circling faster and faster.

You’re mine now…

Corposant crackled over the dais, drawing Meroved’s eye. Too late, he realised what was happening and urged his wounded body to move faster.

‘Not this time!’ he roared, just as Adio came into his peripheral vision.

‘Do not despair…’ Orn began.

Meroved threw the vibro-sword. It disappeared in a flash of blinding light and spatial displacement. Meroved felt a surge of pressure hammer into him.

The dais and everything on it disappeared. A storm blew about the pit, throwing around scraps of old parchment and other refuse. Lightning crawled across the ground, across the stacks, ephemeral and beautiful.

Meroved’s blade clattered down in two neatly shorn pieces.

The dais was a teleportation plate. Orn had prepared well.

He had also sent something the other way – not just matter translation but also a concomitant matter transfer.

The incendiary device blinked once then went off.