Fall of Macharius

Chapter Nine

I was looking up at an odd frog-like face but it belonged to the man from the next bed. He had been moved there a couple of days ago after the previous occupant’s corpse had been dragged away. He seemed friendly enough, but I was still reeling from the sight in my dream and shrank away from him.

He smiled. His teeth were broad and yellow but normal-looking. There was humour but no overt wickedness in his eyes. ‘Easy, brother,’ he said. ‘It was just a nightmare.’

He pointed to himself and said, ‘The name’s Zachariah.’

I nodded and took in my surroundings. I was in the hospital. The winged Space Marines were still fighting their fanciful battle against a bunch of particularly daemonic-looking orks. Men were still moaning and screaming and dying. I managed to sit upright. It seemed I had at least enough strength to do that now, although I still felt as weak as if my muscles were made out of water.

‘It was just a nightmare,’ I agreed.

‘We all have them,’ he said. His voice was light and pleasant with the faint burr that marked him as a Grosslander. The stained white smock he wore gave no clue as to rank or origin.

‘Not like I do,’ I said. I was feeling sorry for myself and the words just burst out.

‘You see ghosts and daemons,’ he said. ‘You were muttering about them in your sleep.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Do you see them, the disease bringer, and all his children? Little things, they ride in clouds and corpses and spread plague across the world.’

I looked at him sidelong and suspicious. ‘Was I talking about them in my sleep?’ I wondered what else I might have been talking about. I know some secrets that could get men killed. Me included.

He shook his head. ‘I have seen it too. I had trench fever and I saw it in my dreams. I kept my mouth shut because a few others had mentioned it and been shot by the commissar. There’s something going on here that normal folks are not meant to know.’

I smiled at that. He was a hick from a hayseed world and he had put his finger right on the nub of the problem. There were things going on here that we were not meant to know about. The whole Imperium is built atop layers of secrets that men have been buried to keep and that no one except the anointed few are allowed to talk about, and then only with each other. I have caught fragments of those conversations in my time, between inquisitors and Lord High Commanders, Assassins and Adeptus Astartes. They are not things I like knowing, but I cannot unlearn them.

‘You didn’t get shot,’ I said and he grinned.

‘They didn’t think I needed to be, not when the trench fever took me. I was dumped here. This is the place they send men to die.’

‘It’s a hospital,’ I said.

‘That’s what I said.’ He grinned. It was a likeable grin and it made me suspicious. I had never seen him before and here he was talking to me as if I was his long-lost brother.

‘Anyway, I am not the only one who had the dreams,’ he said. ‘Nor are you. I’ve talked to dozens of men from dozens of battlefronts that have had them. They are omens, that’s what they are.’

There was an odd conviction in the way he said the word omens. He believed utterly in what he was saying and there was no trace of madness in those cold blue eyes of his. ‘They are omens. Something is happening here. Something terrible.’

I could not actually say I disagreed with him so I kept my mouth shut and waited for him to go. If he was going to spout heresy, I would need to report him to Drake or one of his minions. It was even possible he was one of the minions, put here to test the faith of those who were waiting to die. Don’t ask me why I thought that. I was sick and I was weary and I have seen and heard stranger things.

‘Our dreams are not the only omens,’ he said. Once again there was an ominous conviction in that light flat voice. I don’t know what it was that was so convincing, but there was something there, a certainty that made you believe, if not in what he said, then in the fact that the man uttering the words took them as the total truth. It spoke of a sort of faith, terrible in its simplicity. It was the sort of faith that many of us had once had in the success of the crusade. In this man, it seemed to have curdled into its opposite.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked. I was encouraging him because I was honestly curious.

‘You hear stories,’ he said. He looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening, as if, even here surrounded by the dying, perhaps dying himself, he suspected that there were spies. He was quite possibly correct. ‘The crusade is crumbling. We came too far, too fast. We came to places where man was not meant to go. We are seeing things that man was not meant to see. We are too far from Holy Terra and the Emperor’s Light.’

Again there was that conviction there, the certainty of the fanatic who had no doubts. He might have been a commissar addressing a regiment before an important battle or a martyr preparing to meet his doom in fires stoked by heretics. There was no possibility that he was wrong.

‘I had been stationed a few places before we got to Loki – we stopped at all the transhipment points on our way out and I talked to a lot of folks. I like talking and I like listening and I heard some tales that would make your hair stand on end.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like ghost ships emerging from the warp and destroying our supply craft, enslaving their crews, taking the supplies meant for us and carrying them off to the daemon worlds where the heretics dwell.’

‘You always hear such stories,’ I said. ‘I have been hearing them since I first set foot on a starship over thirty years ago.’

‘I know,’ said Zachariah. ‘But tell me, is this the first time you have believed those stories to be true?’

Again there was no doubt in his voice, only certainty. I must believe what he did. The odd thing was that he was right. Oh, in the past, in moments of doubt and fear when travelling between the stars, I had thought of those old stories. Everybody does. But the Halo Worlds were the first place that I really actually thought it was true when I was not aboard ship.

He nodded, as if seeing something written on my face that confirmed what he was thinking. He kept going like a fighter pressing his advantage in a brawl. ‘The generals all think of rebellion, if they are not already openly rebelling like Richter. What else could that be but the taint of this evil place finding its way into their minds? Why else would they plot and scheme against the greatest hero mankind had known since the time of the Emperor?’

He was tugging at the first finger of his right hand now, counting off points as he made them.

‘Armies, entire Imperial armies, have fallen into heresy. Their generals set themselves up as gods among men, as satraps for old, evil powers. They are crushed and crushed again and still more emerge.’ That was another finger. ‘You have seen that here on Loki.’

‘Our armies are falling apart. Our men do not have ammunition. Our vehicles do not have fuel. Among the far stars, the glorified clerks of the Administratum plot against heroes.’ He had reached the penultimate digit.

‘We face more and more monsters, more and more strangeness, and that strangeness is not to be found just among our enemies but among ourselves.’ And he was done.

He sat down on his bed, appearing to have exhausted himself with his tirade. I noticed he was pale and that his eyes were faintly bloodshot. There were spots on his skin that reminded me of something and it came to me that he was very sick.

‘These are times of ill-omen,’ he said, his voice starting to fade, his certainty still there but his body unable to respond to his fanatic’s will. ‘All things will end badly.’

He nodded and slumped down, a wind-up toy that has run out of power. He pulled the sheet over himself and lay still. I turned my head a little so that I could see him, closed my eyes for a moment and I was asleep.

The next morning, when I woke, two Sisters Hospitaller were there. Zachariah’s body was covered with a white sheet. I felt much better and I sat up in bed. I placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder and she turned to face me, flinching as if she had felt the hand of a corpse on her body.

‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘What happened to Zachariah?’

‘He’s dead,’ she said. ‘I thought that much would be obvious.’

‘I was just speaking to him last night,’ I said.

She looked at me. Her face was pale. Her eyes glittered. There were two spots of colour far up on her cheeks. ‘That’s impossible,’ she said. ‘He died two days ago. We’ve only just picked up the notification to remove the body.’

I stared at her, unsure if she was joking. It swiftly became obvious that she was not and I said no more.

I felt strong enough to take a walk around the wards. There was no one present to object. I was still limping and a little weak and I thought sometimes, out of the corners of my eyes, that I could see those small scuttling daemons.

There were many wounded men there, wrapped in bloody smocks. Some of them were legless. Some of them inspected the stumps where hands had once been with listless, uncomprehending eyes. Some were blind, with bandages wrapped around their eyes. Many lay on their beds, their breath wheezing from their chests, phlegm gurgling in their lungs. Their skins were pale. Their eyes were white. I was reminded constantly of the heretic armies as they advanced. If only there had been the sound of gunfire, many of the noises would have been similar.

As I walked I thought about what the sister had said, about the things I kept seeing out of the corner of my eye. It seemed obvious to me that I was not one hundred per cent recovered, that the fever still gripped me, at least some of the time.

I found myself in a great hallway with a soot-smudged stained-glass window. I looked out of it. Below me I could see dark clouds of industrial gas. From the gas lifted immense chimney towers, tall as starscrapers. In the sides of some I could see glowing windows. Roads ran round them, carrying groundcars ever higher. Aircars flew between them, bearing who knew what loads.

Below me the clouds parted and I caught sight of a vertiginous view, of massive pistons rising and falling on the roof of a structure bigger than a starship. Of more effluent billowing forth. Of a huge wheel, stuck in the side of a building, turning around and around for who knew what unguessable purpose. I stood there watching and thinking and trying to sort out my thoughts and feelings.

Had I imagined a whole conversation with Zachariah? Was it merely a fever dream conjured up from scraps of overheard conversation by my own imagination or had I really spoken to a dead man? Whether Zachariah had been dream or reality, he had given voice to many points that had troubled me about the state of the Imperium and the state of the crusade.

I batted this back and forth for the rest of a long afternoon and when I returned to my dormitory bed, Ivan was waiting.

‘How goes it, Sergeant Lemuel?’ Ivan asked with mocking politeness. I slumped down on my bed. I could not help but notice that his prosthetic arm was dented and that the motors whined even more than usual when he used it. He regarded me steadily through one normal eye and one bionic. It was a trick he used to great effect when playing cards.

‘Could be better, could be worse,’ I replied. ‘Anton could be here.’

‘Don’t let him hear you say that. And in all seriousness, he spent more time by your side than I did when you were unconscious.’

‘How long was I out?’ I was curious now.

‘Almost a week. For a long time there it was touch and go. The medicae thought you were lost a dozen times. That’s what they told me.’

‘Anton told me that you’re guarding the space port.’

‘He told you more than he should have then.’

‘You know what he’s like. Can’t keep a secret.’

‘Don’t tell anybody else you know. The Lord High Commander is in a bad enough mood anyway.’ Macharius was not normally a man to lose his temper. He was brilliant at concealing his emotions no matter how badly things went. Or he had been until recently.

‘Any particular reason?’

‘Any number of them. Take your pick.’

‘What would I be choosing from?’ I could see what he was up to now. He was going to make me work for any information I got out of him.

‘The crusade is bogged down on half a dozen war-fronts.’

‘That’s happened before. It will recover momentum eventually.’

‘There’s some sort of conclave of generals scheming to replace him.’

‘There’s always some underling seeking glory.’

‘These ones have the backing of the Administratum, or so Macharius thinks.’ That was not good news. Macharius had a number of powerful enemies among the bureaucrats who ran the Imperium. It was almost inevitable. For most of the past couple of decades he had been the most powerful man in known space. That caused a lot of friction. ‘With everything that has gone wrong they might just be in a position to pull him down. Macharius has a ship on standby to take him to Acheron. That’s where the generals are supposed to be meeting with their supporters.’

‘I would have thought he would have been gone by now. It’s not like him to let any challenge go unopposed.’

Ivan let out a long sigh. ‘There’s still the challenge here on Loki. He’s still obsessed with beating Richter. He won’t give up this world.’

‘He might not have any choice, from what I’ve seen.’

‘Don’t let him hear you say that,’ said Ivan. ‘He has not been kind to those who preach defeatism. That’s what he calls it.’

‘He’s never had any problem with the truth before.’

‘Well, he does now. You can’t say you haven’t been warned.’ Ivan placed a careful emphasis on his words. He wanted me to understand that he was serious. I felt suddenly very tired and I think that weariness showed on my face.

‘Things have changed, Leo,’ Ivan said. ‘He’s not the man he once was. You’ll see when you recover.’

‘I’m not sure I want to recover if things are the way you say.’ I sounded petulant and childish and I knew it. I could not help myself though. I was sick and physically weak and I was beginning to be very frightened.

I had another visitor soon after, although she did not come in the guise of such. I was lying on the bed, listening to the coughing and the screams of pain when a Sister Hospitaller was suddenly standing over me. Her features were very familiar. It was Anna.

‘I thought I saw you before,’ I said. She smiled at me enigmatically.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.

‘I saw you giving me the serum.’

‘No such serum is available on this world,’ she said. Her face was utterly bland. I knew she was capable of lying with a completely straight face – she would not blink and her pulse rate would not change. Her entire body had been rebuilt to make her capable of such deceptions and far more.

‘I know it was you,’ I said. I was certain it had been, too, although I could not say why. My senses had been highly unreliable of late.

‘Whether it was or it wasn’t,’ she said, ‘I am glad you are all right.’

And that was as close to an admission as I was ever going to get from her. ‘Why are you here?’ I asked. I wondered if she had been sent to kill Richter. After all, one assassin can succeed where an entire army might not. And the rogue general must be a prime target.

‘You should know better than to ask me that by now,’ she said. She was mopping my brow. It made her look more like a Hospitaller, I suppose, but it made me shiver. It was something between us that she never seemed to lie to me directly, or maybe that was just the impression she wanted to give. I have never been sure.

‘You’re supposed to say you came to see me,’ I said.

‘I did. Today at least.’

‘I’m glad you did.’

‘Your friends have visited you often.’

‘You could have done so too. They would not be able to recognise you if you did not want them to.’

‘I have been busy, Leo.’

‘People have been dying unexpectedly, have they?’

‘I do more than kill people,’ she said. It was almost as if I had criticised her. I have no idea why she should feel offended; she had no more conscience about murder than a cat has about killing mice. ‘I gather intelligence. I report it.’

‘So you have been gathering intelligence then?’ I said.

‘You are an exasperating man.’

‘Apparently so.’

‘Yes. I have been gathering intelligence.’

‘And you cannot tell me about it.’

‘What would you have me tell you?’ She was looking at me directly now and I felt as if, just for a moment, I could ask her anything and I might get an honest reply. There was an unguarded look in her eyes, or so it seemed to me. I looked at her for a long time and the moment passed, and she seemed to be wary of everything and everybody once more.

‘Are you comfortable here?’ she asked.

I looked around ironically at the wounded and the dying. ‘It’s better than where I was before,’ I said. She tilted her head to one side and studied me very intently. She seemed to hear something more in my words than I had intended to put there.

‘You are frightened,’ she said. ‘That is not like you. Why?’

I told her about the dreams. I told her about Zachariah. I told her about the things I had heard. I told her I was starting to doubt my own sanity. While I told her this she held my hand; when someone walked by she appeared to be taking my pulse.

As I spoke, she nodded, as if I were confirming things that she already knew. It was a way she had. Maybe she did already know. Maybe it was just her method of encouraging me to speak. It certainly worked – I babbled as if I had somehow been injected with truth serum. Only later did I wonder if perhaps I had been.

Once I had finished speaking, she said, ‘Speak of these things to no one. Your companion, Zachariah, if companion he was, was correct about that. There are matters here that could get you killed if the wrong person learns of them.’

‘Drake,’ I said. The inquisitor could read my thoughts if he chose to.

‘He has his mind on other things just now.’

‘Why do I need to worry about these dreams?’ I wanted to know and she seemed to be in a position to tell me, even if it was foolish to ask.

‘We have come too far,’ she said. ‘Into a place where Chaos seeps through. It is very strong here. What Zachariah told you is essentially correct.’

‘You are saying we should abandon the crusade, go back?’

‘Perhaps it might have been better never to have come here, but it’s too late for that now.’ It was easy to be wise after the fact, I thought, and she could see it written on my face.

‘We didn’t know,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t until we got here and the reports started coming in. Now we do. We need to pull back. If we do not our armies will become corrupt and our way will be lost. It is already starting to happen. The signs are there for those who can see them. Richter had already raised the standard of rebellion and others will follow him down into the darkness.’

‘You think the crusade will fail then, and Macharius with it.’

‘It does not matter what I think, Leo,’ she said. ‘What matters is what the High Lords of Terra think. They are the ones who give the orders and will ultimately decide success or failure.’

‘History and the Emperor will decide,’ I said.

‘Faith, Leo? From you? At this late date? I always thought you were a cynical man. It is one of your more attractive qualities in this age, in these worlds.’

I remembered what Ivan had said. ‘You think he will be removed?’

It was not necessary to spell out who I meant. ‘There are already plots against him,’ she said. ‘They have failed in the past. Sooner or later one is bound to succeed if there are enough of them.’

I remembered the assassin back on the battlefield and shouting a warning. I told her of him. ‘You think he was not a heretic?’

‘He might have been in their pay or suborned by them, or he might have been working for someone else,’ she said.

‘He was very hard to kill,’ I said.

She considered this for a moment, appearing to turn it over and over in her mind. If she did know something she decided not to tell me. She rose and said, ‘Be wary, Leo. You and your friends are caught in the middle of a great web. The fact that it was not meant to trap you will mean nothing when the spiders come to feed.’

She departed. She had not walked more than a dozen steps when she seemed to vanish amid the people. It was something about her way of walking, her body language. She just blended into the crowd as if she had become invisible.

I lay there feeling the faint lingering warmth of her grip on my hand, wondering if this too was a hallucination.