‘Aetherica,’ he says, and nudges the orbiting symbols into a different path.
The power rolling over Borealis Thoon vanishes. A wave of stillness ripples outwards. The tide of daemons falters. Creatures of blurred furry and stolen flesh slow in their stride. Cries hoot through the air.
At Hydragyrum’s feet, the last of the trio of governors convulses. This last human has no eyelids and his mouth is an open cave of metal. Interface cables slot into his skull on each side where his ears once were. He is called Pain, and as he screams without sound, Borealis Thoon begins to walk.
The wall of daemons bends backwards, churning like the sea retreating from the shore.
Blackness gathers in the maw of the weapon that hangs from the Titan’s left arm.
On his throne, Hydragyrum waits until the control sphere is a blur. Then he sits back. A single, obsidian globe spins to stillness just in front of his left hand.
The daemonic tide is rippling as the pressure pushing it forwards backs up behind its faltering charge.
‘Nul,’ says Hydragyrum, and taps the globe.
The sky above Terra was blue. Pollution hung in a haze that ran to the edge of sight. Prefect Hydragyrum walked alone along the top of the Sinopian Wall towards the Anatolia spires. Sunlight caught the subtle patterns of thorns woven into the black fabric of his coat. A high collar ringed his neck. His head was clean-shaven. Silver plugs capped the mind interface sockets at the base of his skull. Black tattoos covered the left of his face, turning half of his sharp features into a mask of nightmare. Anyone who could look at him for long enough to note any such details would find no insignia or sign of office besides the lion’s head ring on his left index finger.
And no one he passed looked at him. They turned their eyes and hurried away. If asked, none of them would be able to say why they did not want to look at the thin man in black. A lucky few would say that they could not remember him at all. That did not bother Hydragyrum.
Outwardly, he seemed a human just like those that passed on his walk across the walls. He was not human, though, any more than a statue of a man was a man. He was inhuman. He was pariah. He knew this, and had known it ever since he had been old enough to hold a thought. He presumed that his family had seen it in him, which was why they had left him on the refuse range to die – the strange child with the eyes that made people shiver, and who did not cry when they left him to the wolves and winds.
But, like everything in the pattern of the universe, he had his place. A place and a purpose.
He walked on along the top of the walls. Lifter towers marched across the flanks of the defences. Huge blocks of raw stone swung up into the sky in the jaws of cranes. When the wind shifted, he could hear the rhythmic calls of labour gangs as they hacked and hammered at stone and steel. The Palace was different from when he had last walked under the sun. While war raged in the tunnels beyond the Emperor’s dungeon, a different face of the same war had come to the world above. Neither the war beyond the Golden Throne nor the growing fortress above had touched him in the buried stronghold of Borealis Chamber, far to the north. He and his machine had waited long to be called.
He paused for a moment on the crest of a flight of steps, and spent exactly two minutes watching the flow of movement amongst the labourers. He would be on time even with this delay. The walk had helped him balance his body’s humours. That was good. He needed to be ready for the debate. The wind skimmed the bare flesh of his scalp, and flicked the edge of his coat as he turned away.
The sound of armour and active weaponry filled his ears as he began down the steps again. A giant in amber-yellow battleplate barred his path, weapon levelled.
‘Identify yourself and give reason for your presence.’
Hydragyrum tilted his head. The giant was one of the Imperial Fists, a veteran, 675th Company, twenty years since induction according to his honours and unit markings. The willpower that the warrior was showing by confronting Hydragyrum was impressive. To look at him for so long must have caused the Space Marine actual pain.
‘Allow me to pass,’ said Hydragyrum. He knew what must have happened. The ring on his finger had unlocked every portal and door he had come across since he had risen from his chamber’s Arctic stronghold and come south. The Imperial Fists had noticed his presence on the wall, and backtracked to find out that he had gained access via a cypher key. They would not have been able to identify the key’s origin, and so they had come to find out who walked so freely in their domain. The fact that the access codes held in Hydragyrum’s ring were valid and exotic was likely the only reason that this warrior of Dorn had not gunned him down on sight.
‘You will answer, or you will die where you stand,’ said the legionary.
Hydragyrum turned his gaze full on the warrior. The monster of armour and gene-crafted flesh visibly flinched, but held his aim steady. Hydragyrum turned his left palm over and tapped the ring with the tip of his thumb. A cone of holo-light sprang from the ring. The image of a lion’s head rotated in the projection, sunlight bleaching the image but somehow robbing it of none of its ferocity. Rings of data and information spun around it.
The Imperial Fist gazed at it for a second, and then stepped back, dropping his aim and bowing his head briefly.
‘My apologies,’ he said.
Hydragyrum lowered his hand, the authority of his ordo vanishing. He looked at the warrior for a second and then walked on without a word.
When he came to the Tower of the Sickle Moon, the assembled Custodian Guard did not try to bar his path. They knew better. He ascended the seven hundred and seventy-seven steps to the chamber at the tower’s summit. Three figures waited for him: a Custodian, one of the Silent Sisterhood and a tech-priest. Hydragyrum took each of them in as he crossed the chamber floor. His eyes noted the geometry of the architecture, the subtle and obvious symbolism of angles, the placement of flame for light, water for reflection, and black stone for the table at the centre of the room. Four silver cups sat on the tabletop. He walked to his place.
‘Your names?’ he said.
The Custodian flicked a glance at the null-maiden. She remained still, her eyes unblinking and icy above a silver mask.
‘I am Tual,’ said the Custodian.
‘That is not your full and true name,’ said Hydragyrum
‘The thread of my true name is mine alone. Be satisfied with Tual, prefect.’
Hydragyrum considered, gave a short nod and looked at the Silent Sister. She met his gaze. He wondered for a second if the other two presumed kinship in that look, the two soulless ones finding themselves mirrored in the other’s eyes. He felt nothing, though, and if the null-maiden did then she gave no sign.
‘I am familiar with your symbolic gesture system,’ he said to her. ‘You may use it to answer me.’
She raised an eyebrow and flicked her fingers.
‘Varna,’ he said aloud. ‘My thanks.’
‘Agates-Gamma,’ said the tech-priest, in turn.
‘Tual, Varna, Agates-Gamma. I am named Hydragyrum. I am the Fourth Prefect of the Borealis, and I answer your call.’
‘You are late,’ said the tech-priest, his voice a rattle of tiny gears.