Deathwatch (39 page)

Something small and black shot straight across Karras’s field of awareness and struck the daemon’s form dead-centre. There was no roar, no howl of rage or indignation, no time for anything like that. In the span of an instant, Karras saw both Hepaxammon and the Black River freeze and shatter as if everything around him were nothing more than a painting on a great sheet of glass. Light blinded him for a moment, but the sound of the beating of wings continued, fading gradually as the source moved off into the distance. When Karras was no longer blinded, he turned his attention in the direction of the sound and saw a black crow disappear over a snow-covered hill.

The cemetery on Occludus!

The sound of the bird’s passage diminished to nothing, to be replaced by footsteps crunching in snow. Karras turned.

‘Be at ease, khajar. There is little time, and things you must hear.’

Karras was stunned. Stunned and confused.

Athio Cordatus stopped a few metres in front of him and smiled. He was clad in full Terminator armour, but adorned for ceremonial purposes rather than battle. Purity seals fluttered in a wind Karras could not feel. The Chief Librarian’s honours, cast in gold, silver and precious gems, glittered in the watery winter sunlight of a late afternoon that could not possibly exist here and now.

Karras knew he was in a mindscape, knew his corporeal form still lay in a grave of thick black rubble back on Chiaro.

Cordatus, it seemed, knew it too.

‘Since you are seeing me here, Lyandro,’ he said, his smile dropping, ‘it is clear that the prime future in which you lie dying beneath the rock of a collapsed mine has come to pass. For you it is the present, and no doubt it seems dark indeed. You have suffered grievous wounds. Would that it were otherwise, my khajar, but take comfort if you can. For all your suffering, we have ample reason to be glad. You will live. And it is on this path alone that the Chapter’s greatest hope lies. I could say nothing of this before without affecting the future. Sharing this knowledge now, however, will not close the path you must continue to walk. Had things gone any other way… Well, that hardly matters now. What matters is the going forward. And that is why I have constructed this,’ here he gestured to the scene around them, ‘so that I might still guide you, though the void of space stretches wide between us.’

Cordatus indicated that Karras should walk with him, and Karras fell into step, dwarfed even at his significant height by the towering bulk of the Terminator armour. It all seemed so real, at least to his visual senses. Here, it seemed, he still had full binocular vision. Each fallen snowflake glittered just as it should. The graves poked from the thick white layer just as he remembered, slabs of black stone inscribed with that ancient script which no one alive could read. But the absence of smells or sensations kept Karras supremely conscious of the ethereal nature of the event.

Could it all be a trick? A vile trap set by Hepaxammon?

No. This is my khadit. I can feel it. I would know.

Almost as if reading him, Cordatus continued, ‘The daemon’s involvement was something we did not foresee until recently, and the significance of its attention towards you is, as yet, unknown to us. Time is fickle about what it chooses to reveal. You know this. The workings of Chaos have always been hard to read. Nevertheless, the daemon may have its part to play, for good or ill. As of yet, we cannot know. What we do know is this: you will survive. Much work will be needed to restore you, but the inquisitor to whom you are bound, this so-called Sigma, has resources far beyond most. And despite everything, he will want to keep you in his service. He has ambitions of his own, and his psychic coven has pierced the veils and seen hints of your importance to his goals. We cannot perceive those goals. The futures that reveal them are clouded and distorted. We think this is deliberate. Regardless, he will not discharge you from your duties. This is imperative.

‘I can give no further detail now without closing futures we must keep open, my khajar, but there will come a moment when Sigma’s ambitions and the most desperate hopes of the Chapter will align. Nothing compares in importance to this. Difficult though it may be, do not take too much licence with this man. His tolerance has its limits. Stretch it as you will, but do not break it. As to your new brothers, keep them close. They are your strength. They will see to it that
Arquemann
is recovered. You will need the blade again before long. It, too, has a part to play.’

Karras had questions, all too many of them, but his words, he knew, would be futile. The notion that this was, in any way, a real conversation was false. Cordatus’s spirit was not here. This was a construct in every sense, placed along this timeline somewhere in the past in the hope that Karras would live long enough, and make the right choices necessary, to discover it.

Cordatus stopped walking and reached out an armour-plated hand to Karras’s shoulder. Karras turned to face him.

‘Your brothers and I at Logopol continue to scry with all the power at our disposal, Lyandro. Even the Megir has turned some of his power towards your prime futures. So much is still hidden, but what we have seen thus far gives us great hope – the first real hope the Chapter has had in millennia. The Cadash is real. The Great Resurrection is closer than ever. I never dared to imagine it might come in our lifetime.’

Karras couldn’t restrain himself at this.

‘The Great Resurrection? Truly, it comes?’

Cordatus, of course, did not hear. He was not really there. Instead, he smiled warmly down at his protégé and said, ‘It is no small effort to seed your future with such moments as this, Lyandro. There are risks to both of us. Grave risks. The accidental creation of a single major paradox could undo everything. Thus, these visits together will, by necessity, be few. But where I can, I shall do my best to guide you further wherever the moment demands. For now, though…’

He reached out to Karras, and they both looked down at the powerful armoured hand extended there in the space between them.

‘Take it. Take my hand.’

His voice had changed, suddenly and completely. It was not Athio Cordatus.

‘Come on, Scholar! Take my hand. Grab on.’

Scholar? When did my khadit ever…?

Bright light exploded in his vision, driving out the snowy mindscape. Karras felt sharp ocular pain. He blinked and tried to turn away. Slowly the pain left him. He blinked again. His right eye was blind after all, but the gene-boosted pupil of the other adjusted quickly.

He saw an armoured hand extended towards him. His eyes moved up the arm to a pauldron embossed with ancient script and a familiar skull motif. He tracked left a little and saw the muzzle of a helmet. Another hand rose and pulled the helmet off to reveal a broad, smiling face, deeply lined and scarred, but friendly and open.

‘Omni?’ groaned Karras. His throat and lungs felt like they were filled with sharp gravel.

The Imperial Fist beamed down at him.

‘Welcome back from the dead, Scholar. You’re a hard bastard to kill.’

The oil lamps flickered, but no shadows danced. Two figures regarded each other across the table of polished wood, hooded, masked in shadow, almost a perfect reflection of each other. Always the same two figures. Always the same room, the same simple furnishings, none of it real save the two minds that came to meet, to confer in secret, transported to this mindscape by the life-sapping efforts of their respective astropathic choirs.

‘The report says he will recover,’ said one. ‘Fully?’

‘My chief medic believes he will require certain augmetics,’ answered the other. ‘But, if we can get him back to Damaroth quickly, he should be able to return to operational status. The apothecarion there boasts cellular regeneration facilities beyond anything else in the Imperium.’

‘Ah. The captured eldar machines.’

‘It will take time. The damage was great. All reason says he should have died.’

‘Perhaps you underestimated him.’

‘You know me better than that. There is something else at play here, but it eludes me.’

‘Not for long, I’m sure. And the rest of this Talon Squad, they performed as expected?’

‘Predictable to the letter. Underneath it all, Space Marines are cut from one cloth. They do so long to be heroes. Honour and glory constantly cloud their judgement. Their distrust of me remains palpable, but I don’t believe they fathom the true extent of Ordo involvement in the Chiaro situation. Their oaths will hold.’

‘Good. Keep pushing them. If they really are the ones we need, they will have to endure far more than they did during
Night Harvest
. As to your former interrogator, it is well that she survives. A rare opportunity for us. I had thought to receive only the infant, but the survival of the mother is a tremendous bonus. We must keep her alive after the birth. Once she is stabilised and properly conditioned to our needs, it will be fascinating to see how her offspring responds to her in a Geller-shielded environment. My congratulations.
Blackseed
has borne the very fruit we hoped for. This could not have gone better, old friend. We will have our answers and, perhaps in time, we may have the greatest weapon our Ordo could ever hope to wield.’

‘Her stasis pod will be transferred to your frigate as instructed. We expect to reach the transfer coordinates in three weeks.’

‘My people will be waiting. And then to Damaroth, yes?’

‘Talon Squad will be split up and assigned to one-man operations while their Alpha recovers. I shall deploy Scimitar Squad to Karkarus for
Operation Deadshot
. They ought to be finished with the ork incursion on Ixio by then.’

‘Let us hope Talon returns to full strength soon. There can be no rest for us, despite this success. There will be many dead-ends before our long journey is over. Keep searching. Keep exceeding my expectations.’

‘And Chiaro?’

‘I will authorise the usual action myself later today. The Watch Council at Talasa Prime will back it. The Naval defence monitors will remain to enforce quarantine for now, but a kill-ship will arrive within the week. Nothing will remain.’

‘Then, with your permission, I will take my leave. Only, before I go… My sister…’

‘She sleeps, my friend, as always. No change. Perhaps the results of
Blackseed
can be turned to her recovery in time. Or perhaps her cure will come via another route entirely. That is why I need you out there, continuing to do what you do best. I can trust no other to the same degree.’

‘You have my oath. I will do all that needs doing.’

‘I know you will. And together, we will cure her one day. Have faith.’

‘Vigilance. And may the Emperor watch over you.’

‘Vigilance, old friend.
In nomine Imperator
. We shall speak again soon.’

TALON SQUAD

Lyandro Karras, First Codicier of the Death Spectres, aka Talon Alpha, aka
Scholar

Darrion Rauth, Battle-brother of the Exorcists (First Company), aka Talon Two, aka
Watcher

Ignacio Solarion, Battle-brother of the Ultramarines (Fourth Company), aka Talon Three, aka
Prophet

Maximmion Voss, Brother-sergeant of the Imperial Fists (Second Company), aka Talon Four, aka
Omni

Siefer Zeed. Battle-brother of the Raven Guard (Third Company), aka Talon Five, aka
Ghost

Chyron Amadeus, Dreadnought of the Lamenters Chyropheles (Second Company), aka Talon Six

THE INQUISITION

Sigma, Inquisitor lord, Ordo Xenos (real name unknown)

Shianna Varlan, Interrogator class 3, Ordo Xenos, aka Lady Fara Devanon

Ordimas Arujo, Intelligence agent, Ordo Xenos, aka Asset 16, aka the Puppeteer

Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland,
Steve Parker
currently lives and works in Tokyo, Japan. In 2005, his short fiction started appearing in American SF/fantasy/horror magazines. In 2006, his story ‘The Falls of Marakross’ was published in the Black Library’s
Tales from the Dark Millennium
anthology. His first Warhammer 40,000 novel,
Rebel Winter
, was published in 2007, followed by the novels
Gunheads
and
Rynn’s World
, first of the Space Marine Battles series. He introduced readers to the Deathwatch kill-team known as Talon Squad in the short stories
Headhunted
and
Exhumed
, both available as eBooks. When he’s not writing or destroying himself in the gym, he enjoys martial arts, heavy metal music, military documentaries, supporting wildlife conservation and eating good vegetarian food. One day, he would like to earn the Crux Terminatus.
.