‘I have secured the shrine as you commanded, Lord Ashterioth. No one has approached it, or will until you have inspected it yourself.’
She wears a questioning look. Clearly she is wondering why we are here and not pillaging the human cities of this world, taking slaves for the Dark Feast. I consider taking her into my confidence, but I am not suicidal. She might try to buy her way back into favour in Commorragh by betraying me to my rivals. She will learn what she needs to know when she needs to learn it. I wonder if she has sneaked into the inner sanctum herself to gaze at what we have come so far to find.
Of course, she has, and she is confused because she has found nothing of value.
A beautiful creature, Sileria, but one lacking in both understanding and imagination. For her, if it does not glitter or scream it can have no value. She does not understand what else might be found in an ancient, empty shrine. I can see she is nerving herself to ask me a question, so I nod encouragingly.
‘Is it true that you intend to desecrate all of these shrines, my lord?’ She gives the word lord a faintly submissive erotic twist. I remember her writhing beneath my lash in bedchamber games of dominance and submission. Surely she is not so simple as to think I would let such memories influence me. But, of course, there is value to be had from encouraging her in such a false belief.
‘In a sense, Sileria,’ I say. In a sense it is true as well. If the ancient texts are to be trusted, I will be committing an act of desecration when the gate opens. I will take what the ancients built and twist it to my own purposes, which, most assuredly, were not theirs. She nods as though I have told her something significant; possibly it is something significant as far as her limited understanding is concerned. No matter how much she schemes, Sileria will always be a follower. Some are born to lead and others to follow, even among the Pinnacles of Creation.
‘I go within,’ I say. ‘Make sure I am undisturbed.’
I leave her absently-mindedly stroking the human with her blades. Its whimpers are a mixture of pleasure and horror and pain. She will keep her new pet alive for some time, I am sure. I turn my mind to higher things as I descend into the long darkness beneath the temple complex. I have a long way to go before I find what I am looking for.
It looks like nothing. Even I, who know its significance, cannot suppress a feeling of disappointment. This is what I have come all these long light years for? For this I have travelled through the webways, absented myself from the intrigues of Commorragh and lost my high place among the Exalted? This?
I stand in a large chamber, surrounded by defaced statues of extinct gods. Before me looms an archway large enough to fly a skimship through, except that it would be impossible. There is nowhere to go. The arch looks as if it is a carving emerging from the wall. It leads onto nothing but blank stone laced with shimmering crystal. Is it possible I have made a mistake, I wonder, that the ancient texts are wrong, that I have become the victim of some gigantic, cosmic hoax?
I look at the archway again. On it are carved the faces of the twelve forgotten gods to whom this temple-site was once sacred. Even if I could name them, I would not. She Who Thirsts expunged their weakness from the universe when she took them into herself. They do not deserve to be remembered by the strong. We do not need such deities now, certainly not such feeble ones. We have become like unto gods ourselves.
I strip off my gauntlet and touch the cool stone, feeling at those mask-like visages. I do not know what I am hoping for. There are no secret buttons or pressure plates to be depressed.
I run my fingers over the deep veins of crystal within the arch, hoping despite myself for some response, some glimmer of ancient archeotech to come to life beneath my touch. Nothing happens.
I glance around. For a moment, I have a sense of being watched. I wonder if it is one of my warriors, spying on me, hoping to learn something; Sileria perhaps. I see nothing, and my senses are keener than most. The sense of ancient, shrivelled presence remains. Perhaps the tattered wisps of the ghosts of dead gods still cling to this place.
The time has come, I tell myself. I walk to the altar and place my hands on the ancient psychotropic crystals. They tingle beneath my hands, still responding to the ancient power of the place. I invoke the rituals I learned in ancient books stolen from the forbidden library. I feel a faint shudder in the crystal as the old powers awaken. Lights flicker. The earth quivers as if it is a giant beast whose sleep has been disturbed by an old nightmare. I have started the first pebble of an avalanche that will eventually bring the full geomantic potential of this place into focus and open the gateway. If all goes correctly, the seal will be broken and the ways beyond will become accessible within mere weeks.
There are rituals that I must still perform, powers that must be invoked, but I have begun. I am one step closer to achieving what I have planned all these long centuries.
I stand and contemplate the gateway arch, wondering whether I will really find the key to ultimate power beyond it. The texts hint as much. In this place, at this time, the ancients struggled to create a device that would be the ultimate weapon and the ultimate defence. The hints suggest that the Fall came before it could be tested but that they were close. If that is even only partially correct there is much I could do with their work.
I smile, alone with the ancient ghosts, thinking that for once I have stolen a march on my rivals. No one else knows of this place. No one will come here before the gateway opens.
If they do, I will destroy them. After I have taken my pleasure upon their broken bodies, of course, and taught them that there are worse things by far than the death they will beg for.
Chapter One
Exhibit 107D-5H. Transcription from a speech imprint found in the rubble of Bunker 207, Hamel’s Tower, Kaladon, containing information pertaining to the proposed beatification of Lord High Commander Solar Macharius and to the investigation of former High Inquisitor Heironymous Drake for heresy and treason against the Imperium.
Walk in the Emperor’s Light.
The huge warship rocked under the impact of a glancing hit from the planetary defence batteries. I could tell the Lux Imperatoris had only taken a glancing hit because I was still alive. The hull was still intact. My cold corpse was not floating in interplanetary space. For a moment, there was utter stillness, as if a quarter of a million men, the crew of the ship and all the Imperial Guard warriors it carried, held their breath.
Above me, through the armoured crystal dome of the warship’s command chamber, I could see a world burning. Demetrius had been a globe of giant forests and ancient temples. Orbital strikes had set those forests on fire. As the wings of night swept over the visible face of the planetary orb, continents glowed fitfully. Occasionally the glittering contrail of a weapon blast leapt across my field of vision as the command ship added the fire of its own batteries to the assault. It had a terrible beauty to it.
Demetrius was not the first world I had seen burn in the ten years since I had joined Macharius’s bodyguard, and I felt certain it would not be the last.
All around us huge holoscreens showed three-dimensional topographical representations of this sector of the galaxy, across which the gigantic war machine of the crusade rumbled. Beneath each holoscreen were tables on which scribes and tech-adepts moved representations of armies and fleets. I had no idea exactly what was going on, but then I did not need to possess such a thing. The man for whom I was a bodyguard already knew all of that and more.