Descent of Angels (26 page)

Zahariel had fought three bouts already today, his skin bathed in sweat and his muscles burning with fatigue. He and Nemiel had passed everything the Astartes had put them through, pushed to the limits of their endurance.

‘I thought the training for the Order was hard,’ gasped Nemiel.

Zahariel nodded, hanging his head in exhaustion. ‘If this is what it takes to be an Astartes, then I’m not sure I’m up to it.’

‘Really?’ asked Nemiel, hauling himself erect and performing a few mock stretches. ‘I think I’m about ready for another few laps. Care to join me?’

‘All right,’ said Zahariel, climbing to his feet.

Though a great many of the Orders warriors had filled the Battle Halls, Zahariel could not help but notice that it was only the younger knights and supplicants who took part in the Astartes trials. He and Nemiel were among the oldest present, and he wondered what bearing this had on the trials.

Day by day, the number of boys taking part in the trials had dwindled, as only the strongest and most dedicated were allowed to pass to the next stage. What the end result of these trials would be had been kept secret, but many believed they were competing for a place within the ranks of the Astartes.

Zahariel pulled at his hamstrings, and stretched the muscles of his calves and thighs before shaking off the lethargy of the morning’s training.

‘Ready?’ he said, calling Nemiel’s bluff.

His cousin wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction, and he nodded, wiping sweat damp hair from his face.

‘Let’s go,’ said Nemiel, setting off at a comfortable pace. ‘Ten laps.’

Zahariel followed him, quickly catching up and settling into the pace set by his cousin. His limbs were tired and he had pushed his body to the extreme edge of its endurance, but this contest with his cousin had been going on for as long as he could remember and not even exhaustion would let him pass up the opportunity to compete against Nemiel.

They completed the first circuit of the Battle Hall without too much trouble, but by the end of the fourth, both boys were tiring, and their breathing had become ragged. In the centre of the hall, fresh bouts had begun under the watchful eye of the Astartes, and Zahariel noticed that their race had attracted the attention of a giant in a suit of armour more heavily ornamented than that of his brothers. ‘Tired yet?’ gasped Zahariel.

‘Not at all,’ wheezed Nemiel as they began their fifth lap.

Zahariel fought to control his breathing and ignore the pain building in his chest as he concentrated on maintaining his pace. He forced the despair at the idea of losing from his mind as irrelevant. He would not be second to Nemiel, and he would not be the first to break under the pressure of pain.

The
Verbatim
said that pain was an illusion of the senses, while despair was an illusion of the mind. Both were obstacles to overcome, and as he drew on his deepest reserves of strength, he felt a curious lightness to his flesh, as though his limbs were borne up by a wellspring of energy that he had not known he possessed.

By the seventh lap, Zahariel had begun to pull ahead of Nemiel, his newfound energy allowing him to put on a spurt of speed that broke their stalemate. He heard Nemiel’s laboured breathing behind him, and that empowered him further.

The gap between them grew wider, and Zahariel was buoyed up with the elation of victory as he cruised through the eighth and ninth laps. A second wind filled his limbs with energy, even as it seemed to sap his cousin’s will.

As he began the last lap, he saw Nemiel’s swaying back ahead of him and knew he could administer a final sting to his cousin’s pride by lapping him. Zahariel pushed harder and faster, digging deep into the last reserves of his determination, eating up the gap between them.

His cousin threw a panicked glance over his shoulder, and Zahariel wanted to laugh at the anguish he saw there. Nemiel was beaten, and that knowledge robbed him of whatever strength he had left.

Zahariel surged past his cousin and reached the finish line a full ten metres before his cousin. With the race run, he dropped to his knees, sucking in a great lungful of stale air and clutching at his burning thighs. Nemiel crossed the line with an unsteady gait, and Zahariel cried, ‘It’s over, cousin! Rest.’

Nemiel shook his head and passed on, and while part of Zahariel despaired at his cousin’s foolish pride, another part of him admired his persistence and determination to finish what he had begun.

Though he had not an ounce of strength left, Zahariel forced himself to stand and work through a series of stretches. Not to do so would result in his muscles cramping, and who knew when the Astartes would throw the next test at them.

He had just finished his first set when Nemiel lurched over the line with a strangled gasp and collapsed beside him, his chest heaving and sweat pouring from him in sheets.

‘You took your time,’ said Zahariel, an unaccustomed edge of spite in his voice.

Nemiel shook his head, unable, for the moment, to reply.

Zahariel offered his cousin his hand and said, ‘Come on, you need to stretch.’

His cousin waved his hand away, gasping for air and keeping his eyes squeezed shut. Zahariel knelt down and began massaging his cousin’s legs, working out the knots of tension in his muscles with hard sweeps of his fingertips.

‘That hurts!’ cried Nemiel.

‘It’ll hurt more if I don’t do it,’ pointed out Zahariel. Nemiel bit his lip as Zahariel carried on with his ministrations, his breathing gradually becoming more even as his body began to recover from the exertions of the race. At last, Nemiel was able to sit up, and Zahariel began working the tension from his shoulders.

Zahariel said nothing, seeing the wounded pride in his cousin’s face and regretting the need to pile added humiliation upon him by lapping him. But Nemiel was old enough to deal with the blow to his pride. The pair of them had done the same all the years they had known each other.

Zahariel turned as he heard heavy footsteps behind him and saw the Astartes in the ornate armour.

‘You ran a fast race, boy,’ said the warrior. ‘What is your name?’

‘Zahariel, my lord.’

‘Stand when you address me,’ commanded the warrior.

Zahariel stood and stared up into the face of the Astartes. His features were weathered and worn, though his eyes still spoke of youth. His armour was adorned with all manner of symbols that Zahariel did not recognise, and he carried a golden staff topped with a device that resembled a horned skull.

‘How did you win that race?’

‘I… I just ran faster,’ said Zahariel.

‘Yes,’ said the warrior, ‘but where did the strength come from?’

‘I don’t know, I just dug deep I suppose.’

‘Perhaps,’ said the warrior, ‘though I suspect you do not know where you dug into. Come with me, Zahariel, I have questions for you.’

Zahariel spared a glance back at Nemiel, who shrugged without interest.

‘Hurry, boy!’ snapped the warrior. ‘Or do your masters not teach alacrity?’

‘Sorry, my lord, but where are we going?’

‘And stop calling me “my lord”, it irritates me.’

‘Then what should I call you?’ asked Zahariel.

‘Call me Brother Librarian Israfael.’

‘Then where are we going, Brother Israfael?’

‘We are going elsewhere,’ said Israfael, ‘and there, I shall ask the questions.’

E
LSEWHERE TURNED OUT
to be one of the meditation cells where supplicants were sent to think upon whatever wrongdoing they had been deemed to have committed by the masters of the Order. Each cell was a place of contemplation, with a single window where the penitent supplicant could look out over Caliban’s forests and think on what he had done.

‘Have I done something wrong?’ asked Zahariel as he followed Israfael into the cell.

‘Why do you think that? Have you?’

‘No,’ said Zahariel. ‘At least I don’t think so.’

Israfael indicated that Zahariel should sit on the stool in the centre of the cell, and moved to the window, blocking out the meagre light with the bulk of his armoured body.

‘Tell me, Zahariel,’ began Israfael, ‘in your short life, have you been able to do… strange things?’

‘Strange things?’ asked Zahariel. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Then let me give you an example,’ said Israfael. ‘Have objects around you moved without you having touched them? Have you seen things in dreams that have later come to pass? Or have you seen things that you cannot explain?’

Zahariel thought back to his encounter with the Beast of Endriago and his vow to keep the strangeness of its defeat to himself. The people of ancient Caliban had once burned people in possession of such powers, and he could imagine the Astartes being no less strict with such things.

‘No, Brother Israfael,’ he said, ‘nothing like that.’

Israfael laughed. ‘You are lying, boy. I can see it as plain as day without any need for warp-sight. I ask again, have you encountered any such strange things? And before you answer, remember that I will know if you lie, and you will forfeit any chance of progressing further with these trials if I decide you are less than truthful.’

Zahariel looked into Israfael’s eyes, and knew that the Astartes was utterly serious. Israfael could have Zahariel thrown from the trials, with a single word, but he wanted to win through and prove he was worthy more than anything.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I have.’

‘Good,’ said Israfael. ‘I knew I sensed power in you. Go on, when was this?’

‘It was when I fought the Beast of Endriago. It just happened. I don’t know what it was, I swear,’ said Zahariel, the words coming out in a confessional rush.

Israfael raised a hand. ‘Calm down, boy. Just tell me what happened.’

‘I… I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘The beast had me, it was going to kill me, and I felt something… I don’t know… my hatred for the beast rise up in me.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘It was as if… as if time had slowed, and I could see things that I couldn’t before.’

‘Things like what?’

‘I could see
inside
the beast,’ said Zahariel. ‘I could see its heart and skeleton. I could reach inside it, as if it was some kind of ghost.’

‘Terrorsight,’ said Israfael, ‘very rare.’

‘You know of this? What is it?’

‘It is a form of scrying,’ said Israfael. ‘The psyker uses his power to look beyond the realms of the physical and shifts part of his flesh into the warp. It is very powerful, but very dangerous. You are lucky to be alive.’

‘Is this power evil?’ asked Zahariel.

‘Evil? Why would you ask such a question?’

‘People have been burned in our history for having such powers.’

Israfael grunted in sympathy. ‘It was the same on Terra long ago. Anyone who was different was persecuted and feared, though the people who did so knew not what they were afraid of. But, to answer your question, boy, no, your power is not evil, any more than a sword is evil. It is simply a tool that can be used for good or evil depending on who swings it and why.’

‘Will it exclude me from the trials?’

‘No, Zahariel,’ said Israfael. ‘If anything, it makes you more likely to be chosen.’

‘Chosen?’ asked Zahariel. ‘Is that what they are for, to choose who will become an Astartes?’

‘Partly,’ admitted Israfael, ‘but it is also to see if the human strain on Caliban is pure enough to warrant its inclusion as a world that our Legion can recruit from over the coming years.’

‘And is it?’ asked Zahariel, not really understanding Israfael’s words, but eager to learn more of the Legion and its ways.

‘So far, yes,’ said Israfael, ‘which is good as it would be a hard thing for the primarch to have to abandon his world.’

‘Primarch?’ said Zahariel. ‘What is a primarch?’

Israfael smiled indulgently at Zahariel and said, ‘Of course, the word will have no meaning for you will it? Your Lord Jonson is what we know as a primarch, one of the superhuman warriors created by the Emperor to form the genetic blueprint for the Astartes. The First Legion was created from his gene structure and we are, in a sense, his sons. I know that much of this will make no sense to you now, but it shall in time.’

‘You mean there are others like the Lion?’ asked Zahariel, incredulous that there could be other beings as sublime as Lion El’Jonson.

‘Indeed,’ said Israfael, ‘nineteen others.’

‘And where are they?’ asked Zahariel.

‘Ah,’ said Israfael, ‘therein hangs a tale.’

I
SRAFAEL THEN TOLD
Zahariel the most amazing tale he had ever heard: a tale of a world torn apart by war, and of the incredible man who had united it under his eagle-and lightning-stamped banner. Israfael spoke of a time, thousands of years ago, when mankind had spread from the cradle of its birth to the furthest corners of the galaxy. A golden age of exploration and expansion had dawned, and thousands upon thousands of worlds had been claimed by the race of man.

But it had all come to a screaming, bloody end in a time of war, blood and horror.

‘Some called it the Age of Strife,’ said the Astartes, ‘but I prefer the term Old Night. It has a more poetic edge to it.’

What had caused this monumental fall from grace, Israfael did not say, but he went on to tell of an empire broken, reduced to scrabbling fragments of civilisation clinging to the edge of existence by its fingernails, scattered outposts of humanity strewn throughout the galaxy like forgotten islands in a dark and hostile ocean.

Caliban, he explained was one such outpost, a world colonised in the golden age and severed from the tree of humanity by the fall of Old Night.

For thousands of years, the race of man had teetered on the brink of extinction, some worlds destroying themselves in feral barbarity, others falling prey to the myriad, hostile alien life forms that populated the galaxy alongside humanity. Others prospered, becoming independent worlds of progress and light, beacons in the darkness to light the way for future generations of men to find them once more.

Then, as the darkness of Old Night began to lift, the Emperor began to formulate his plan to weave the lost strands of humanity back into the grand tapestry of the Imperium. Israfael spoke not of the Emperor’s origins, save to say that he had arisen long ago in the shadow of a war torn land of brutal savagery, and had walked among humanity for longer than any man could know.