Auric Gods

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

The explosion tore through the library, billowing up out of the pit and swallowing the ringed balcony in fire and clouds of shrapnel. The bodies of the cultists were blown back, paper marionettes tossed about by a hurricane.

Cartovandis stood firm and weathered the blast, letting the fire and the sheer force of it wash over him. He lost sight of the others down in the pit and had to wait for the chaos to clear.

Smoke and heat bled off Adio’s armour but he was moving, clambering to his knees and closest to the blast. He must have thrown Meroved clear when the bomb went off, an Aquilan Shield to the last, his instinct to protect his old mentor as ingrained as the names etched on the inside of his armour.

Varogalant staggered over to him, his own armour cracked in places from the effects of the grav-cannon but otherwise unharmed. Both had lost their helms or removed them and as Varogalant clasped the back of his brother’s neck, Adio did the same, their heads touching briefly in celebration of their survival.

Both had cuts to their faces, no more than flesh wounds.

No words passed between them, their bond of fraternity obvious. More than a century of long-held enmity dissipated in that moment, and Cartovandis found himself suddenly envious.

They broke apart, exchanging curt nods.

Though it had momentarily lifted, Varogalant’s expression darkened again when he saw the empty teleportation dais. Much of it had been destroyed in the blast and it was a mess of sparking wires and bent conductor plates.

Scraps of books, their torn and half-singed pages scattered about, gently floated to earth. The rest of the library had been utterly denuded by the fire or possibly some prior calamity; these were the only tomes left. But Varogalant’s attention was elsewhere. He had noticed one of the cultists had survived. The man’s uniform was torn up, the bones in his legs ­shattered, and as he crawled on his belly he left a dark blood trail like a slug. Varogalant seized upon him.

‘Unburden your soul and tell us where he took it,’ he said, his voice low and sinister. Unsheathing his misericordia, he pressed it to the man’s throat.

‘I fear… no… p-pain…’ said the man, choking out the words just before he went limp. ‘The… Emperor… protect–’

Snarling, Varogalant released the dead cultist.

‘They fight us and yet invoke His name,’ he muttered, arcing back his neck as he briefly closed his eyes.

‘We will find it, brother,’ Adio said, the burden on Varogalant never more apparent than in that moment.

His answer was simple. ‘We must.’

It was then that Meroved lurched to his feet and promptly collapsed.

Cartovandis saw him first and leapt into the pit, coming to the side of his stricken mentor, who lay prone and barely breathing.

‘A blast like that should not have injured him this grievously,’ said Adio.

‘Without the auramite–’ Varogalant began.

Adio cut in. ‘He is still Adeptus Custodes.’

Cartovandis pulled open Meroved’s ravaged armour to reveal a black wound that had festered around his heart. ‘He was dying before he even entered the library.’

‘It looks like a piece of bone,’ said Varogalant, standing over the other two as they crouched next to Meroved.

Adio inspected the bloody wrappings around the wound, which had rotted through. ‘An attempt has been made to clean and bind it…’

They had all seen wounds like that before, over a century ago at the Lion’s Gate.

Meroved coughed hard as Adio examined him, and Cartovandis held his head to prevent further injury.

‘You are dying, old friend,’ he uttered.

Meroved looked at him from the side of his eye and gave a blood-toothed grin.

‘I am sorry, Syr…’ His voice was weak, a scratch of a quill against parchment.

‘For what, shield-captain?’

Meroved’s grin turned into a rueful smile.

‘I have not been that for some time.’

‘You have ever been my shield-captain.’

Meroved reached up, hand trembling, to clasp Cartovandis’ shoulder.

‘I know you wanted to repay me. To balance the debt.’

Cartovandis said nothing. No one spoke. Adio held his head low in reverence, muttering an oath. Varogalant detached himself, uncomfortable with the intimacy.

‘You coming here…’ Meroved continued. ‘It is already repaid. Know that I never regretted my decision to leave. I have found purpose here at the end of my duty…’

He held out a device, showing it to Cartovandis, a small black box forged from metal in the likeness of an eagle’s head. It was the motif of their order.

‘Her name is Gedd,’ Meroved told him. ‘She is watching. She will know.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘She will know.’

Cartovandis frowned, exchanging a confused glance with Adio.

Meroved’s clenched teeth were pink with blood and tight with pain. He rasped, ‘No more. I have served. Let that be enough.’

His breathing grew sporadic, coming in sharp, punctuated bursts. His eyes widened.

‘Let it be en–’

He stopped and fell still.

‘And so tolls the Bell of Lost Souls…’ said Adio.

They each bowed their heads, observing a moment of quiet contemplation.

Cartovandis looked on grimly. ‘Our task remains unfinished.’ He glanced at the vox-device Meroved had given him and was about to activate it when Varogalant spoke up.

‘There is something here, Syr. Something you need to see.’

He was standing amidst the fallen scraps of books and scrolls, a clutch of burnt paper in his hand.

‘Here,’ he said, handing Cartovandis a few pieces as he joined him.

They were torn-up fragments of various genealogy charts, ancient judging by the brittle nature of the vellum, and some scraps of Terran censuses dating back millennia.

As a member of the Ecclesiarchy, Orn would have been privy to records that ordinary citizens of the Imperium would not, but these were colonial records cataloguing the diaspora of mankind following the War of Shame. They had been unearthed, removed from shrines and archives. The names of families and clans had been compiled in exacting, if incomplete, detail. Each account shed more light on the one that preceded it. Bloodlines that stretched back to Terran prehistory, to the violent days of Old Earth and pre-Unification. To collate it was the labour of several lifetimes.

Cartovandis cogitated all of this in a few seconds, one name resounding in his consciousness above all others, the end of the string that Ylax Orn had pulled.

‘The Sigillites.’