Fallen Angels

EPILOGUE Fallen Angels

Zahariel awoke to find the face of death staring down at him.

'Do not move,' Brother Attias said in his hollow voice. 'You sustained severe injuries to much of your body during the battle. By rights you shouldn't be alive at all.'

The Librarian forced himself to relax and heed Attias's warning. His mind swam with images and sensations, as though all of his sensory organs had been shattered and crudely reassembled later. It took him several long moments to recognise the feel of cold sunlight against his face and the weight of cotton sheets against his chest and legs.

He looked around, moving only his eyes, and tried to make sense of where he was. Stone walls, and an arched viewport by his bed. Spartan furnishings: a desk and chair, and a chest for storing clothing. He saw a staff resting stop the chest, and belatedly realised that it was his. Was the room his as well?

'Where…' he croaked. The sound of his voice surprised him. It sounded strange, somehow, but he persisted. 'Where… am… I?'

'Aldurukh, in the Tower of Angels,' Attias replied. 'Luther had you moved up here once the Apothecaries said your vital signs had stabilised. You were dead for a full five minutes before Luther was able to get one of your hearts beating again. No one knows exactly how he did it. It was something he read out of the book he took down into the core with him; that much I saw with my own eyes. Even still, you've been lying here for a long time in a deep coma, healing the damage you suffered.'

'How… long?' Zahariel asked.

'Eight months,' the Astartes said. 'I think everyone else but me has forgotten you're up here.'

Eight months, Zahariel thought. The number seemed significant, but he couldn't quite remember why. Fragmentary images tumbled through his mind; he tried to grasp at them, but the more he tried to hold them, the quicker they faded away. 'I was… dreaming,' he said.

Attias nodded. 'I expect so.' He stepped around the end of the bed, heading for the room's narrow door. 'I'll go and tell the Master Apothecary you're awake, and bring you some food from the kitchen. No doubt you're ravenous after being so long asleep.'

The skull-faced Astartes slipped quietly from the room. Zahariel stared up at the ceiling. 'Ravenous,' he echoed. Yes. He certainly was.

Faces came and went. Attias brought him food, which he ate when the need arose. He rested, moving as little as possible, and sorted through the broken images in his mind. The Master Apothecary visited often, asking many questions for which he had few answers. At night he dreamed. Sometimes he would awake in the darkness and find a hooded figure staring at him from beside the open doorway. Unlike the others, the figure had nothing to say.

Slowly but surely, he began to fit the pieces of his mind back into place. His speech returned, then his muscle control. When Luther finally came to visit him he was sitting upright, staring out the narrow viewport at the sky.

The Master of Caliban studied him silently for a time.

'How are you feeling, brother?' he asked.

Zahariel considered the question. 'Mended,' he said at last.

'I'm glad to hear it,' Luther said. 'It's been many months, and there's a great deal of work left undone.'

'What's happened?' Zahariel asked. He shifted about, turning to face Luther.

Luther folded his arms across his chest and pursed his lips thoughtfully. 'Order has been restored,' he said. 'Once we banished the warp entity, its undead servants fell inert, just as they had at Sigma Five-One-Seven. After that, we were able to finish the evacuation and resettle the citizens across the upper levels of the arcology. The Northwilds have been quiet ever since, though maintenance crews are still stumbling across skeletal remains down in the sub-levels.'

'And the rebellion?'

Luther shrugged. 'There is no rebellion. It effectively ended in the library, when the Emperor's lies were finally brought to light. By the end of the riots at the Northwilds, it became apparent that Master Remiel was the only member of the rebel leadership still alive. Lord Thuriel and Lord Malchial were slain sometime during the day - not by the undead, but apparently by some of Lady Alera's people. Alas, we'll likely never know for certain, because Alera died leading a search party into the sub-levels to try and locate the Terran sorcerers.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' Zahariel replied. 'What about the Terrans?'

'We've rounded up nearly all of them,' Luther said. 'Most submitted quietly, but General Morten and a number of his men managed to evade arrest and are running loose in the countryside. We'll track them down sooner or later, I'm sure. Honestly, we've got more important things to attend to at this point.'

'Such as?'

Luther smiled coldly. 'Such as securing Caliban's freedom from the Imperium.'

Zahariel shook his head. 'That's not possible,' he said tiredly. 'Surely you realise that. No matter what we do, at the end of the day we're just one world. Sooner or later Terra will learn of what we've done, and then there will be a reckoning.'

'Perhaps, and perhaps not,' Luther said. 'We've received news from the Ultima Segmentum. The Warmaster Horus has rebelled against the Emperor. Dozens of star systems are following his example and throwing off the yoke of the Imperium, and that, I believe, is just the beginning. The Emperor has much more to worry about than Caliban at this point. Now it falls to us to make the most of the time we've been given.'

Zahariel's eyes narrowed. 'In what way?' he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

'Why, to master the secrets that the Emperor has tried to conceal from us,' Luther said. 'The library here at the Rock is only the beginning, brother. We've only scratched the surface of what's out there.'

He stepped forward, kneeling at the side of the bed, and stared searchingly into Zahariel's eyes. 'What do you remember of the ritual, back at the arcology?'

'Why, all of it,' Zahariel answered. He remembered the pillar of flame, the bridge between the physical realm and the warp. He remembered the entity, and how it had sunk talons of ice into his soul.

Luther leaned forward, as though he could plumb the depths of Zahariel's eyes. 'Do you remember learning the entity's name? Its true name?'

Zahariel never flinched from Luther's gaze. Slowly, he shook his head. 'No,' he replied. 'I'm sorry. I tried, but it was far too powerful for me to command.'

Luther sighed, and slowly rose to his feet. 'Well, it was worth a try,' he said, disappointment evident in his voice. He smiled. 'Perhaps next time.'

'Next time?'

'When you're stronger, of course,' Luther added quickly. 'I admit, I underestimated the entity's power as well. Next time, we'll be better prepared. You have my oath on it.'

He reached forward and patted Zahariel's shoulder. 'I've troubled you enough for one day,' he said. 'Get some rest, regain your strength. When you're ready we'll return to the library and start our research.' The Master of Caliban took his leave, striding for the doorway. At the threshold he turned and gave Zahariel a proud smile. 'Caliban is on the verge of a golden age unlike any our ancestors dreamed of, brother. You and I are going to make it possible.'

Zahariel listened to Luther's footsteps recede down the stairs. Silence returned to the tower room once more. He rose carefully from the bed and stepped to the centre of the room. He raised his arms over his head, staring up at the ceiling and began to slowly, deliberately stretch his long-unused muscles. When he'd finished his stretches he began a careful series of calisthenics.

The foul touch of the entity lay on his soul like a rime of black frost. It had never left him, because in truth the entity had never left, either. It was still there, deep beneath the earth, where it had lain for millions upon millions of years. The psychic bridge he'd witnessed beneath the Northwilds arcology hadn't been to draw the being through into the physical realm from the warp, like at Sarosh, but to send it back.

Zahariel knew the source of Caliban's taint.

And he knew its name.

The sky above Diamat was full of ships.

The Emperor's Legions had arrived in the Tanagra system just five days after the destruction of Horus's landing force at the Xanthus star port. With no way to secure the siege machines from Jonson's Astartes, the admiral of the raiding fleet had little choice but to withdraw back to Isstvan. The Warmaster's final gambit had failed.

Lion El'Jonson stared admiringly at the gleaming array of military power drifting gracefully beyond the reinforced viewport of his sanctum. Drops of emerald still shone on the thick glass pane. With the destruction of the forge there would be no way to replace the damage done to the viewport for some time to come. He considered it a small price to pay given all that he had accomplished here.

'When will you move on Isstvan?' he asked his guest.

The primarch stepped closer to the viewport, his armoured hands clasped behind his back. 'With all due haste,' he said in a deep, rumbling voice. 'Ferrus Manus has hastened ahead of us, hungry to claim the Emperor's vengeance against Horus.' He glanced at Jonson and frowned. 'We had hoped to provision our ships here before continuing to the combat zone.'

Jonson sighed. 'I'm sorry for that, cousin, but Magos Archoi left me no choice. The jamming had to be stopped without delay.' His expression darkened. 'Also, he lied to me. Better he had come at me with a knife, face to face, than play me false.'

The primarch nodded, turning back to the viewport and looking down upon Diamat. A vast, reddish-brown stain, like old blood, hung in the planet's ochre sky. The dust and ash blown into the atmosphere by the destruction of the forge - and to a lesser extent, the devastation of the star port, hours later - would have far-reaching effects upon the planet. The few thousand inhabitants who remained would face lean and difficult times for generations to come.

'May I ask you a question?' the primarch asked.

Jonson shrugged. 'Of course.'

'When did you learn about the existence of the siege engines?'

'Oh. That.' Jonson smiled. 'Fifty years ago. I was studying the history of the Great Crusade and saw a reference to them in a despatch that Horus sent to the Emperor. He'd commissioned them during the long siege of the xenos fortress-states on Tethonus. Horus tasked the masters of Diamat to create continental siege machines; vast artillery pieces that could devastate the most powerful fortifications.' He spread his hands. 'The war machines took much longer for the forge masters to complete than planned. By the time they were finished, the campaign on Tethonus had been over for a year and a half, and Horus had moved on to other conquests. So the weapons were put into a depot here against the day when he would come to claim them. Then came Isstvan.'

The primarch grunted in understanding. 'Then came Isstvan,' he agreed.

'When I heard about his rebellion, it was obvious to me that Horus's path must ultimately lead to Terra,' Jonson said. 'Even if he were to somehow prevail against you and the other Legions, the Warmaster couldn't claim total victory so long as the Emperor was safe in his palace. No, for Horus to triumph, our father would have to die. And that meant a long and costly siege of Terra.'

The primarch glanced at Jonson again and bowed his head in admiration. 'You have performed a master stroke, brother. Truly. Rather than confront Horus directly, you've defeated him with only a handful of troops.' He smiled slyly. 'I begin to think that the title of Warmaster was placed upon the wrong brow.'

Jonson smiled at the compliment. 'From you, brother, that means something. Thank you.'

'What now?' the primarch asked. 'Will you accompany us to Isstvan?'

'No,' Jonson said. 'I must return with all haste to the Shield Worlds and prepare the Legion for the trip to Terra. In fact, I think it best if no one outside you, I and the other primarchs ever knew I was here. I wouldn't want the Emperor to believe I did any of this with an ulterior motive in mind.'

The primarch considered this at length, and nodded. 'A prudent choice, and a very humble one.'

Jonson leaned forward in his chair. 'Well, naturally,' he said. His expression grew serious. 'I don't do this for the accolades, brother, nor for the power. Not really. I do this for the good of the Imperium. Horus became our father's favourite son for no other reason than fate. Had I been the first one he'd found, I would be Warmaster today. No offence.'

The primarch smiled. 'None taken.'

'So I can count upon your support when the time comes? I feel that the Emperor will need to choose a new Warmaster very quickly if the Great Crusade is to continue.'

'That goes without saying,' the primarch agreed.

'Then we've reached an understanding?'

The primarch bowed his head solemnly. 'The arrangement stands to benefit us both.'

'Excellent,' Jonson said. 'In that case, you're welcome to take possession of the siege guns at your convenience. On one condition, of course.'

The primarch raised a thin eyebrow. 'Oh?'

Jonson gave his guest a sly grin. 'You must promise me they will be put to good use.'

Perturabo, primarch of the Iron Warriors smiled, his eyes gleaming like polished iron.

'Oh, yes,' he said. 'Of that you may be assured.'