Fist of Demetrius

Chapter Twenty-Two

The door swung open and Grimnar walked into Macharius’s command bunker. He was casually dragging what I assumed was an eldar corpse by the neck. Then I realised it was more than that.

‘I have a prisoner for you to interrogate,’ he said, looking at Drake. My eyes widened. He had not only come back alive from a labyrinth haunted by xenos, he had brought one of them with him.

‘Very good,’ said Macharius. The xenos lay limply, but I remembered the other one that had been faking back on the spacecraft. I held my shotgun ready, feeling jumpy as a felid that had lapped up Frenzon in its milk. Anton and Ivan looked just as nervous. The Undertaker looked blankly on.

I took another look at the eldar. Its armour was rent in various places and spattered with dark stuff that could only be blood. It had been stripped of all obvious weapons, but still I could not help but think it was dangerous. A creature so swift and deadly could never be considered harmless.

Drake licked his lips. A cold smile flickered across his face. There was something else there as well, an expression I can only describe as nervous as well as cruel.

Good, I thought, remembering what the eldar had done to our soldiers. Let’s see how they endure suffering. Drake was an inquisitor, trained to get answers in all sorts of ways, some of them very nasty. Normally I would have done a lot to avoid seeing him at work but, like I said, the eldar brought out the worst in us. A small daemon of violence and cruelty sat on my shoulder and whispered that anything done to this creature was justified. I felt obscurely ashamed. I would have liked to think better of myself.

‘Take it to my sanctum,’ Drake said. ‘I want it stripped, scanned and chained down.’

‘I want to be there,’ said Macharius. ‘I have some questions myself.’

He gestured for us to follow. Drake shrugged. With no effort whatsoever, Grimnar dragged the armoured xenos along the floor. It’s slithering made an odd sound on the stone, as if a jewelled serpent were scraping against a rock.

Drake had converted a small antechamber into something that was halfway between a study and an alchemical lab. Divinatory engines sat on either side of a long table. Chains of the sort normally used for manacling deserters were brought. Grimnar tore off the xenos’s armour and removed its helmet. He was not gentle about the way he broke the seals.

The eldar lay on the table. Its face was oddly sensitive and beautiful. With its eyes closed it was as serene as one of the statues of the gods out there in the valley. The connection between the creatures we fought and the original temple builders was obvious. The prisoner had the same lobeless, pointed ears and the same almond-shaped eyes. Its cheekbones were high. Its lips were thin.

Drake opened a padded case full of vials and syringes. He considered them for a while then shook his head, dismissing them. Possibly he doubted the effects of truth serums intended for humans on the alien form before him. Perhaps he feared they might prove fatal before he could get his answers. He shut his case again and looked at Grimnar, then Macharius, then us.

‘Be ready for anything,’ he said. The Space Wolf nodded.

‘Is there danger to you?’ Macharius asked.

‘There is always some possibility of spiritual contamination when dealing with xenos,’ said Drake. ‘But I am an inquisitor. I can cope.’

I wondered if he was as confident as he sounded. He rolled up his sleeves, laved his hands in water and strode forwards, placing his fingers on the temples of the eldar. For a long moment, nothing happened, then I noticed a faint nimbus of light played around each of Drake’s fingertips. The chamber seemed to grow colder, and I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise.

Suddenly, the eldar sat upright, moving easily against the weight of its chains. I brought the shotgun up, and Anton and Ivan placed themselves between the xenos and Macharius. The eldar’s eyes were open now and it had lost all the serenity that being unconscious had given its appearance. Its eyes were lilac and commanding. Its expression was shockingly evil. Just looking at its countenance made me want to back away.

Drake’s hands remained in contact with the xenos’s head. It stared into the middle distance, a grimace of frustration twisted its features. The expression was mirrored on Drake’s face. Some sort of spiritual struggle was clearly under way.

For a moment I wondered whether the inquisitor had bitten off more than he could chew. Perhaps the mind of the eldar was too powerful and too wicked for him. Perhaps rather than Drake being the dominant partner, he would end up being corrupted or having his mind broken. As the thought occurred to me I turned my head slightly, and as if by accident brought the shotgun to bear on him. No one else seemed to notice, save perhaps Grimnar. They were too caught up in the unfolding drama.

‘What is your name?’ Drake asked. His voice was as harsh as stone grinding on stone, and it sounded as though he were simply vocalising the last of a series of statements that had already flickered between his mind and that of the eldar.

The eldar made an effort to resist him. Muscles spasmed, tendons became visible in its neck. Its face twitched. Its eyes went wide. It was trying to clamp its lips shut, to bite down on its tongue, to stop itself breathing.

‘What is your name?’ Drake repeated. His patient tone was at odds with the strain written on his own face. ‘You will tell me, you know. It is only a matter of time.’

The eldar’s whole body flexed, but it was held down by the chains.

‘What is your name? I can keep repeating this all day, and it will only get worse for you.’

Something seemed to break within the eldar. ‘Bael.’

‘Bael. Good,’ Drake said softly. He had won his first and most important victory, although he gave no sign of knowing it.

‘You will answer my questions, Bael,’ said Drake.

‘It matters not,’ said the eldar. It was a voice without the slightest trace of humanity in it. Bael’s lips were moving and liquid musical sounds were coming out; a moment later crystalline sounds, more mechanical than musical, spoke the words in Imperial Gothic. It was like listening to a machine speak to the accompaniment of distant, lovely, alien singing.

I realised the singing was the actual eldar speech, the words the product of a translation engine. There was little emotion in the eldar’s voice, but his face was twisted with hatred. Clearly the xenos was not enjoying experiencing Drake’s psychic powers. ‘You are doomed anyway, mon-keigh.’

Drake forced his lips into a cold smile. Beads of sweat appeared on his pale forehead. The experience appeared no more pleasant for him that it did for the eldar, and it appeared to cost considerably more effort. ‘Why is that, deviant?’

‘Because you face the Archon Ashterioth and his legions. You will die slowly, in great pain, to feed him and his warriors.’

Macharius and Drake exchanged a look.

‘Feed?’ Macharius said. His voice was glacially calm.

‘Answer him,’ said Drake. There was a hint of the lash in his voice. The eldar’s features twisted in a rictus of pain.

‘We feast on the agony of lesser species,’ said the eldar. ‘Your pain is our sustenance.’

His beautiful, inhuman features showed nothing but contempt, but I was starting to think I detected a hint of horror in his eyes. If his kind fed on pain, what must it be like for him to endure the agony of questioning at the hands of Drake? He must feel as if he were being eaten alive by an animal. I pushed the thought to one side. I did not understand his thought processes and I did not want to.

‘That certainly explains what you have been doing to our prisoners,’ said Drake.

‘They are not prisoners. They are not even slaves. They are cattle.’ A chill of horror passed down my spine at the words. Bael really saw us this way. To him we were mere beasts, no more important than herd animals are to a farmer. It was worse than that, actually. No farmer would treat his herds the way these eldar treated humans.

‘You will be treated in the same way when you are rounded up. Indeed, it will go worse for you because of this.’

Drake smiled coldly. ‘You know that is not true. Your brethren will have nothing but contempt for you for falling into our hands. I have reduced you to the status of a beast. You should remember that.’

Clearly Drake was picking more from the eldar’s mind than the xenos was saying out loud. I knew he could lift memories and experiences directly from human minds when he brought his powers fully to bear. If he was doing that to Bael, I did not envy him. The alien’s mind must be like a pit of snakes.

The eldar screamed, whether in agony or humiliation it was impossible to tell. ‘You did not capture me. Your hound did.’

Grimnar laughed. His mirth had a clean, booming quality that it was good to hear amid the unwholesome monotones of the eldar’s translation engine.

‘We can argue about it all you like,’ said Drake. ‘But you are the one bound and treated like a beast.’

‘I will make you die a thousand painful, agonising deaths. You will beg for the sweet release of oblivion a thousand times, and I will say no.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Drake, an adult listening to the threats of a child. ‘Of course, you will. In the meantime, you will answer all the questions put to you truthfully and to the best of your ability, otherwise you will not live to carry out your threats.’

‘I do not fear death,’ Bael said.

‘No. You would welcome it now. Still, you will find it difficult to carry out threats with your limbs removed.’

It was the eldar’s turn to laugh, at least I assumed that was what the mad, random sound the translation engine emitted was. ‘Limbs can be regrown. Bodies can be rebuilt.’

A frown flickered across Drake’s face. ‘Yes. Of course, they can. Your haemonculi can do that.’

‘You can pick the image from my mind, human, but you have no idea what the reality of it is.’

Drake concentrated. ‘They could regrow you even from a simple cell, from the genetic helix if they could find it. Fascinating.’

Grimnar tilted his head to one side. ‘Is that true?’

‘This creature believes it is. More than that it believes, really believes, that the genetic sorcerers can restore its life and memories from as little as that.’

‘Then they must be very different from humanity,’ said Macharius. ‘Such a thing is not possible, memories stored in the genetic helix.’

‘We are different, human,’ said Bael. ‘Different and infinitely superior.’

‘Infinitely more arrogant perhaps,’ said Macharius. ‘Or infinitely more deluded.’

‘You will die in agony, human. You will see who is deluded then.’

‘Why are you here?’ Macharius asked.

‘I am here because I follow Lord Ashterioth.’

‘And why is he here?’

‘He does not tell me his plans.’

‘No,’ Drake said, ‘But you eavesdrop on him. I can see it in your mind. You eavesdrop on his conversations with your listening devices. You decrypt his personal journals. You spy.’ He sounded interested. ‘And not just for yourself or by yourself. Your lover spies as well. Lady Sileria.’

‘It does not sound as if they trust each other very much,’ said Macharius.

‘The eldar are treacherous creatures,’ said Drake.

‘We put our own interests first. As you would, if you had intelligence above the apes you are descended from.’

‘Why is this Lord Ashterioth here?’ Macharius asked. He clearly wanted to know very badly. Bael clamped his lips shut. He did not want to speak. Once again tendons stood out on his neck. His muscles spasmed. This time he succeeded, or so it appeared for a few long moments.

‘He seeks something,’ said Drake.

‘Get out of my head, mon-keigh. Your presence pollutes me.’

‘Where is the Fist of Demetrius?’

‘The what?’ There was a mocking tone in the eldar’s voice despite his pain.

‘You know it. You see its image in your mind. I have put it there.’

‘Ashterioth has it. It fascinates him.’

‘Why?’ Macharius asked. Grimnar leaned forwards, straining to hear. Given his senses, he did not need to. He was as keen as Macharius to learn the eldar’s purpose.

The eldar laughed. The sound was mechanical and insane, and there was something mocking in it.

‘What would they do with a relic of the primarch?’ Grimnar asked. ‘It can mean nothing to them.’

Drake frowned. Sweat ran down his forehead. Blood poured from his nose. The eldar made odd gurgling sounds. He was chewing on his tongue.

‘He tries to shield himself,’ Drake said. ‘He tries to escape into death.’

The nimbus of light around his head made his skin seem even more pale than usual. His lean face took on the aspect of a skull. The eldar screamed and went on screaming until his screams abruptly stopped.

‘It is dead,’ said Grimnar.

‘No matter,’ said Drake. ‘I have seen some of what he tried to hide.’

His voice sounded appalled.

‘What is it?’ Macharius asked.

‘They are not here for the Fist.’

‘It would not serve them. Its holy power would not aid the xenos. The Allfather would not allow it,’ said Grimnar.

‘They want the Fist because they think there will be samples of Russ’s tissue in it, part of his genetic rune structure, part of his helix.’

‘What good would that do them?’ Grimnar asked.

Macharius grasped it before any of us. ‘Because they believe they can rebuild a living being from a sample of its tissue.’

‘Recreate a primarch,’ Grimnar said. His voice held a note of wonder mingled with horror. He was obviously contemplating the possibility of the return of the founder of his Chapter. ‘That would be blasphemy. From the primarchs are all the Chapters descended, or so the skalds sing.’

‘It would be worse than blasphemy,’ said Drake. ‘They will sample his tissue and create abominations from it, add it to their own tissue, make monsters with semi-divine power.’

‘Why would they want to do that?’ I said. ‘They despise us.’

No one seemed inclined to take me to task for my outburst. Grimnar answered slowly and calmly.

‘The primarchs had more power than any living being save for the Emperor himself. They believe that they will be able to recreate the secret of that power and be able to graft it to themselves.’

‘Is such a thing possible?’ Macharius asked.

‘I do not know, but the eldar believed it was, and he knew more about their alien techniques than any of us.’

‘The eldar with the power of a primarch, even a fraction, would be terrible foes,’ said Grimnar.

I thought that was a remarkable understatement. The idea of the cruellest race in the galaxy wielding the power of the most powerful beings who had ever lived, beings powerful enough to awe a Space Marine, was an appalling one.

‘We cannot allow that to happen,’ said Macharius. ‘The Fist must not be allowed to remain in their grasp.’

‘Better to destroy it first,’ said Grimnar in the voice of a man forced to contemplate the most heinous blasphemy.

‘We must get rid of this body. Destroy it utterly,’ said Drake. ‘Bathe it in acid or burn it with lasguns until not the slightest trace remains.’

It sounded as if he feared the xenos’s return as much as he feared the eldar’s plan for the Fist. Given what he had done, and given the nature of the creatures that was understandable.

‘You said the eldar were not here for the Fist,’ said Macharius. He was not one to allow himself to be distracted even by so horrible a prospect.

‘No, they are here for the gate that exists beneath the temple complex. They are waiting for it to open.’

‘Why?’ Macharius asked.

‘Beyond it lies some relic of their ancestors, a device of enormous power.’

‘A weapon?’

‘I fear so.’

‘Can they really recreate a saint?’ Anton asked. We were alone in our chamber now. Macharius had retired with Drake and Grimnar and his senior officers to plot. We had done our duty for the day.

‘Drake seems to think so,’ I said.

‘Surely the Emperor would not allow it.’

‘Who knows what the Emperor would allow. The galaxy is strange.’

‘But surely Russ would never serve them,’ Anton said.

‘Perhaps they could change him during the process of rebuilding,’ I said. ‘You heard what the inquisitor said, who knows what they are capable of.’

‘It is blasphemy, the Space Wolf is right,’ said Ivan.

Anton looked excited. ‘Who would ever have thought when we signed on with the Imperial Guard we would end up among the relics of the time when the Emperor walked among men.’

‘Let’s hope we don’t end up as relics ourselves,’ I said. The words were no sooner out of my mouth when alarms sounded. Drake and Macharius and the others emerged from the command room.

‘Ready yourself,’ Drake said. ‘The gate is opening.’

Another alarm sounded. ‘And the eldar are attacking,’ Macharius said. ‘They will be here soon.’

‘The timing is not a coincidence,’ Drake said.

I did not need him to tell me that.