ASHES OF PROSPERO Read online

  Whoever had once laid claim to that body, its purpose now served as a lodepoint for the configuration of the rune chamber. Situated on its own pinnacle of the Fang, the room of the High Rune Priest was removed from the physical bulk and psychic clutter of the citadel, like the wyrd towers of old outside the great settlements of the kings. All was wrought to focus the energies of the polar cascade into this chamber, and more specifically into the mind of one that sat in the runethrone.

  Njal guided Nightwing to the stand of his armour as he sat down. He momentarily saw himself lower into the macabre chair through the eyes of his familiar before he sent it into dormant mode. He laid his hands upon the skeletal arms of the throne and leaned back, feeling the presence of the spinal column against his own, though it had to be imagined, for his furs were thick between his back and the chair.

  Closing his eyes, he thought of meditation rather than sleep. Yet even his physique was so fatigued by his self-inflicted ordeals in the wilds that not a minute had passed before unconsciousness took him. The rune chamber was configured to both protect and extend the thoughts of the throne’s occupier – indeed, it almost existed for that purpose. To sleep within the embrace of the bone chair was to let one’s mind wander the waves of the Othersea, guided by subconscious whim and free of the concerns of waking thought. Njal had used it many, many times in his role as High Rune Priest, but it was unfortunate, and some might say ill-considered, for him to do so in his near-exhausted state that night.

  As the last vestiges of consciousness slipped away from the Stormcaller his parting consideration was of Logan’s desire to see the Wolf King return, rendered in his thoughts through the symbol of the Wolf that Stalks Between Stars, known by the adepts as the lupus rampant. His mind filtered into the array of psychically charged materials around him, diffusing and amplifying at the same time, casting him adrift on the Othersea.

  He saw the Baleful Eye. The vortex of despair and terror where the Legions that had turned on the Allfather hid. It had once been both the dominion and prison of Magnus and his fellow daemon primarchs, but now they had broken free to bring fresh ruin to the Imperium.

  A wolf howl split the galaxy. Not a howl of grief, but of rage. It grew louder and louder until it burned worlds and extinguished stars. From it streamed blue flame and riotous plague, rivers of blood and a storm of golden blades. Njal saw that the galaxy was wracked by wounds. Each was a fissure through reality. A tear in the fabric of what-is and what-should-not-be. It was called the Great Rift in the lexicon of the Adeptus Terra, but to the Space Wolves, this galaxy-wide catastrophe had another name: Everdusk. The dying light of hope. The twilight of the gods.

  The Eye became a fanged maw, devouring all that was nearby, growing and growing until Terra itself, a shining orb of silver, lay within its jaws.

  But his mind did not venture closer to the Throneworld. It was drawn by another current, swayed to wander by a passing thought. His dreaming eye moved further afield, towards a bright swirl at the galactic core. Against the brightness, he saw a speck of darkness, even blacker than the void between stars. Njal needed no prompting to identify it. The position was known well in the lore of his Chapter and, in particular, the sagas of the Rune Priests.

  Prospero.

  A dead world. A benighted world. A world executed by the Wolf King for its transgressions against the Allfather.

  Home world to Magnus the Red and the Thousand Sons.

  The moment his mind-ship alighted upon Prospero, he felt an instant connection. It was a world that had been steeped in the wyrd of the Thousand Sons and even across time it sang still through the Othersea waves. The death cries of billions echoed on; the past ten thousand years had not diminished the anguish of their demise.

  Had Njal been awake, he might then have turned his mind’s gaze elsewhere, for to dwell too long on a lode-world like Prospero was to invite fascination and disaster. But it was not to be and Njal lingered there a while longer, mesmerised by the rune-memories of destruction.

  In the crash of falling cities, he heard a single voice clearer than the others. A plea, wordless and plaintive at first. Not unlike the dismayed calls of the countless victims of Prospero’s execution, but for the nearness of it. An impossibility, for Prospero had been dead for ten millennia and its corpse picked clean. Yet a mind reached back to the Rune Priest.

  Foolishly, half-fevered, he made contact.

  Arjac regained his feet when Tyra was just a few metres from the monster. He saw her reflected in facets of its coal-black eyes, the image diminishing as it rose for another strike. As clearly as if he was gifted with the wyrdsight, he envisaged the monstrous jaw snapping shut to cleave the warrior-woman in half.

  He took a step and hurled Foehammer. Powered by prodigious strength augmented by the thick fibre bundles of his Terminator suit, the weapon flashed as straight and true as a laser blast. The blazing head slammed into the side of the sturmwyrm’s skull, scattering thick scales like a broken shield wall.

  Foehammer whirled away into the miasma of ice beyond the monster.

  The serpent flopped sideways, thrashing into the snow-drifts. A torrent of ice shards drove the Fenrisians back. Blood streaming from the gash above its eye, the mutant beast rose again, its jaw opening wide to pour forth more wintry vapours. Three Elsinholma fled from the mist, crying and moaning as ice crackled through their veins. They collapsed with choking coughs, their lungs and hearts stilled by the wyrd-tainted breath.

  ‘Get back,’ roared Arjac. He waved the townsfolk away with his now-empty hand when they crowded forward to attend to their frost-stricken companions.

  ‘You have no weapon,’ Tyra called back, defiantly raising her spear as she advanced.

  ‘I am a Sky Warrior,’ Arjac told her, lumbering forward. ‘My weapons are the artifice of the gods.’

  He held out his hand and activated the miniature linked teleport homer in his palm. Something flashed in the gloom of the ice wyrm’s fog and an instant later Foehammer materialised in his grasp. Tyra looked on, mouth agape, as he charged past, powering in front of her as the wyrm drove down once more.

  This time he met the attack with hammer not shield, swinging the storm-wreathed head upwards. Jags of molecule-disrupting energy exploded, tearing through the lower jaw and part of the snout. Fragments of spark-flecked bone and crystallising blood arced over Rockfist and rained down upon the awestruck townsfolk.

  The dying wyrm flopped forward, forcing Arjac to turn it aside with the anvil shield, saving Tyra a second time. The almost headless corpse twitched across the ice to leave bloody furrows while a disgusting oily substance leaked from wyrd-engorged venom glands.

  Njal’s eyes snapped open and he woke with a half-stifled cry of alarm. His breath fogged the air of the chamber, chilled by the psychic current that dissipated through the network around him. The lines of power and runic devices were frosted over, courses of ice that criss-crossed the walls and floor. A thin rime covered his skin, melting and cracking as he sat forward, his post-human physique aching at the bitter cold.

  All warmth had been drawn from the room, leaving it as frozen as the mountaintops. Njal’s eyes ached as he rubbed them with cracking knuckles.

  Standing, icicles fell from his beard and furs, shattering on the hard floor. In the sound of their destruction he heard the tiniest echo of something familiar; the cry for help that had concluded his dreamwalk. He shook his head, thinking it a trick of the acoustics, or a consequence of his tired state. He had slept for barely two minutes, and was not the least bit refreshed.

  Help.

  The cry was unmistakable this time, now that it was not joined or masked by any other sound. Njal’s acute hearing told him that its faintness was from distance rather than intervening obstacles.

  Help me.

  Njal turned sharply left then right, convinced that there was another presence in the chamber. He saw nothing. The flow of psychic power was gone and the ice had started to melt.

  Help me.
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  The voice carried on no sound wave, Njal realised. His brain translated it as a faraway call but the message actually originated inside his head. He remembered the instant of connection at the end of his psychic sojourn. Unease slipped into his thoughts. The Rune Priest swallowed hard.

  ‘Fool,’ he muttered. ‘What have you done?’

  He closed his eyes and hardened his thoughts, armouring his mind in layers of psychic steel to cut off any external intrusion. He felt dislocated and alone, but once he was severed from the warp entirely, there was no way the thing that was trying to contact him could break through.

  +Help me.+

  Njal staggered, putting a hand on the back of the bonechair to steady himself. The words were the same but the intonation had changed. It was no longer begging, the speaker was insistent.

  +Yes. That is it. Think, Son of Russ. Concentrate!+

  The insistence in the voice immediately triggered a rebellious irritation in Njal, an instinctive desire to reject this assumed authority. But despite his Fenrisian maverick tendencies, the Stormcaller knew that he had to comply and so focused his attention inwards rather than outwards. With the defensive wall still intact he started to probe his own consciousness, as though retreating into a citadel and lowering the portcullis and closing gates as he went.

  He found the intrusion.

  It seemed like a spark or splinter, the smallest particle of something else lodged in his mind. A fragment, broken off when he had wrenched himself out of the dreamwalk at the moment of connection.

  Njal tried to purge the invasive sliver but it resisted all attempts to move or expunge it. Like a barb, it was hooked into his psychic presence, his own power enveloping it as a tree might grow around a stone. The harder he attempted to drag it free, the more it became wedged.

  ‘What are you? Daemon?’ The Stormcaller grunted. ‘You are not the first to try such trickery.’

  +Your sins returned, Son of Russ.+

  Njal accepted this without reply, knowing well that to respond to the goading of daemons simply gave them more power. He thought a little longer, straightening as he recovered his equilibrium.

  ‘A sorcerer of the Thousand Sons.’

  He felt a dislocated instant of surprise.

  ‘You think that just because I wear a hide I have fur between my ears?’ he said. ‘It was that kind of arrogance that sealed your fate.’

  +You seem remarkably calm considering this predicament.+

  ‘I have yet to encounter a situation where panic was the best option, sorcerer. I will destroy you shortly.’

  +I am trapped.+

  ‘Good.’

  +That is not good. I am trapped here, in your head.+

  Njal’s heartbeats quickened.

  ‘How is that possible?’

  An inaudible sigh floated through Njal’s thoughts, a fleeting sensation of resignation and regret.

  +What do you know of the Portal Maze of Prospero?+

  ‘Little. But more now that some of our brothers from the Lost Company who were trapped there have returned. It was a warp-way, delved between worlds and realms, that allowed Magnus’ Legion to travel through their enclaves and dominions without starships. We destroyed it along with its creators.’

  +That is indeed little, and what little you know is wrong. The Portal Maze cannot be destroyed by bombardment or inferno. It exists outside reality. But the invasion of your companies shattered many of the links, and fractured the bridges between destinations. Your runecasters sealed what they could find, but that is all.+

  ‘I still do not understand what makes you think this assault will succeed, cursed son of Magnus. How is it that you dare be in my thoughts?’

  There was a frustrated hesitation.

  +I died.+

  ‘What?’

  +I am dead. One of your predecessors killed me inside the Portal Maze. But his blundering meant that my energy could not dissipate to the warp. My body lies preserved within the network and my spirit trapped with it, incorporeal.+

  ‘That does not explain how you arrived inside my head.’

  +I am not sure. I was incoherent until your thoughts touched mine. You were a conduit, perhaps finding a gap in the barrier that kept the Portal Maze secure. I sense that there has been some upheaval between warp and reality. All is not as it was when I was slain, and I gather some time has passed.+

  ‘Some time?’ Njal shook his head, incredulous. ‘You have no idea how long has passed since you were slain?’

  +None. All is jumbled and sundered. Time is broken here as much as the temporal links.+

  ‘Ten thousand years, sorcerer. Ten thousand years since the wolves burned Prospero.’

  +I…+

  The immediacy of the presence faded, though Njal could still feel its pinprick in his consciousness. Confusion ebbed from the psychic thorn, leaking into his thoughts, to be replaced by sadness and loss.

  +Ten thousand years…? I knew it was more than moments, but so long? All I know is now dust.+

  Njal laughed, not kindly. ‘More than you fear, sorcerer. I am going to enjoy telling you what has happened to your Legion while I work out how to rid myself of your intrusion.’

  +That is simplicity, if you have the courage. All you need do is enter the Portal Maze and this fragment will be reunited with the rest of my spirit.+

  ‘Enter the Portal Maze? You mean I must travel to Prospero?’

  +To Tizca, to be precise. The city where I, and your brothers, last entered.+

  ‘Your world was razed. Nothing remains.’

  +This will get tedious if I must repeat myself. I can still feel parts of Tizca. Now that I focus I see that it is but a tomb, but it is still there in part, and the dead gateways remain.+

  ‘This has the trappings of a lure, sorcerer. Think me ignorant of your wiles?’

  +Then you must consider this the bait also, for it is in your own interest to come.+

  ‘The Fang’s archives are deep and our wisdom old, Prosperine. I will find a way to remove your sting without crossing the galaxy to do it.’

  +But what of your lost brothers? The scent of Fenris brought your dreaming thoughts sniffing, son of Russ. Would you ignore the opportunity to set them free also?+

  Njal took a deep breath and opened his eyes, the room seeming oddly unfamiliar now that he looked upon it with another’s eyes also. He stepped towards the door.

  ‘I’m sure it will be a simple enough task to incinerate what remains of your soul. I need only some assistance and equipment from the wyrdhalle.’

  +I thought little time had passed because they are still here. Ten thousand years! I’m sure your brothers do not mind waiting a few more. They are trapped with me, the one called Bulveye and his companions.+

  The Rune Priest stopped a short distance from the door.

  ‘Bulveye?’ The name was instantly known to Njal. For the past several years, more and more of the lost 13th Company had reappeared, each warrior and squad bringing with them their own tales of being trapped in the warp and breaking free from the Eye of Terror. In that time, Njal had studied the oldest records, gathering names of those that had been lost. The names of all those still missing were forged hard in his memory. ‘The Old Wolf.’

  +A savage that doomed himself rather than see reason. He chose exile and entrapment rather than the common cause.+

  ‘You know a name. It means nothing.’

  +He slew me with a plasma pistol and wields a power axe. Do you want me to describe his gloating face as he threw away his chance for freedom in pig-headed pride? I can lead you directly to them.+

  Could it be possible? The ramifications of the sorcerer’s words went beyond any immediate inconvenience to the Stormcaller. If others of the 13th Company could be freed, the possibility had to be raised with the Great Wolf. He sensed little threat from the sorcerer. Disembodied, the tiniest fragment of soul, there was little he could do to harm Njal or his brothers.

  It was too much to consider alone.


  ‘There may be some merit to what you suggest,’ Njal conceded. A note of triumph crept into his mind, emanating from the sorcerous splinter. ‘Do not count victories before they are won, cursed of Prospero. I will not let you profit from my stumble.’

  +I think we both seek the same end, dog of Russ, and until then our fates are bound.+

  Njal had to concede this point, for the time being only. He cleared his throat to suppress a snarl of frustration.

  ‘By what name were you known in life, sorcerer?’

  +I am Izzakar Orr.+

  CHAPTER 3

  HARD TRUTHS

  The sorcerer was thankfully silent while Njal traversed the Fang’s conveyors, corridors and longhalls. The Rune Priest wondered how much Izzakar was aware of what transpired, what the shard of his consciousness could sense from his host. Was he gazing in wonder at a sight no warrior of the Thousand Sons had ever seen, nor was ever likely to look upon again? Did he see the knotwork reliefs on the walls and feel the rune-scribed ferrocrete slabs beneath Njal’s feet? Could he smell the crisp, recycled air or hear the murmuring of distant engines and the thrum of electrical systems? What of the breath that entered the Stormcaller’s lungs? Did the sorcerer feel it as if his own?

  It was reassuring that no reply was forthcoming at these silent enquiries. It meant that Njal’s thoughts were still his own, despite the intrusion. Izzakar could not read his mind despite being within it, only hearing what was vocalised.

  Or it might mean the sorcerer was content to keep such knowledge secret for some advantageous use later.

  Chasing his own thoughts, Njal grimaced, frustrated by his error in allowing this uncertainty when he had been so clear of purpose only minutes earlier.

  Nightwing flew ahead like a scout, landing now and then at his willing, before setting off once more. The Stormcaller’s connection to his familiar did not seem affected by Izzakar’s presence, at least as far as he could tell. There was no way to know if his other abilities might be affected – or sabotaged – until he had need to call upon them. The thought that his mind might be turned against him, or perhaps already had been, was sobering. As Rune Priest, and a Librarian of the Adeptus Astartes, his thoughts were his greatest gift and his greatest weakness. It was his duty above all else to preserve the sanctity of his mind, and it was only incredible force of will that had seen him accepted into the brotherhood of Russ’ sons. Any lesser fortitude would have seen him slain or, possibly worse still, carried away on a Black Ship of the Inquisition.