In this, they were doomed to disappointment. All they saw were men dying. All they heard was a choir drowning out screams. All they smelled was incense and roasting flesh. If there was anything mystical in the air, it was a horror, a sense of something dreadful slowly approaching, a monster lured by the savour of the killing, drawn to the scent of burning meat and departing spirits.
As the ritual ended and the cranes swung the old cage out and a new cage into position, ushers moved us out of the gallery so the next set of spectators could enter and bear witness. It was all well organised, a great machine designed for no good purpose, human sacrifice on an industrial scale.
We shuffled through the exit and back down a set of stairs along with all the believers. I looked at Anton and saw he was as appalled as me. Ivan looked glassy-eyed. Hesse looked almost sick. Anna had the same air of restrained calm she always wore. I was not in a position to see how Drake or the Understudy or Macharius reacted. I wish I had been.
The trudge down the stairwell was long and there was no way of avoiding it and we found ourselves out in a courtyard where vendors sold souvenirs – small metal cages, and bits of burned bone that purported to be from victims already cleansed. Somehow this was the worst part of it all. People were buying trinkets and souvenirs as if this day was important to them and they wanted to carry away some small thing as a reminder.
It was all I could do to keep from shooting.
We huddled together in the corner of the courtyard. It was not unusual, there were other small groups of pilgrims gathered in a similar manner, praying or discussing what they had witnessed in low, awed voices. All of us looked to Macharius for guidance, even Drake. He looked back at the inquisitor.
‘How long?’ Macharius asked. ‘How long before whatever they are summoning manifests?’ His tone was low enough so that it would not carry far.
‘I do not know, hours possibly, days at most. I have read about these things but it is the first time I have witnessed a ritual of such potency from so close at hand.’
‘And what happens if they succeed?’
‘The Angel will manifest, only it will be no Angel and its manifestation will be a dark and unholy thing.’
‘How can we stop it?’
‘Somewhere in there a psyker of vast power is drawing all the mystical energy from those deaths and weaving it into a lure for a daemon-god. If we could kill the psyker that would do it…’ Something about his tone told us that it was not quite so simple as that, if you could call walking through a temple full of fanatics and assassinating a psyker powerful enough to summon a daemon prince simple.
‘But…?’ Macharius said.
‘But if we succeed in slaying him then there will be no one to control all the energy, the ritual will run out of control. At very least it is likely that anyone in the vicinity will be killed. At worst, a hole will be torn in the fabric of reality and hell will crawl through.’
‘Hell is crawling through anyway,’ said Macharius. ‘This way there is at least a chance of stopping it.’
Drake nodded. He was a brave man but something was clearly preying on his mind. ‘Also, if we die in there, there is a good chance our souls will be sucked into the hells from which they are summoning the daemon. They will be devoured and we will be damned for all eternity.’
‘We’ll be damned anyway if we don’t at least try.’
Macharius looked at us. His steely gaze flickered from face to face. ‘We do not have any choice. We must stop this. If we do not our comrades will be destroyed and our armies on this planet overwhelmed. The souls of millions will be lost.’
His voice was quiet enough not be overheard at any distance and yet I heard every word distinctly. He was right, of course. Something had to be done. For a moment I wondered whether I was the man to do it. Briefly I considered the possibility of simply running but under the gaze of Macharius it was no possibility at all. There was nowhere I could flee to anyway. If the Angel of Fire manifested itself, this whole world would be doomed and my soul and most likely my life would be lost.
I saw reflections of my doubts in Anton and Ivan’s eyes. We could wait. Sejanus would get here with the army soon. Surely, the might of that great force would be enough to overcome what was happening here.
‘There is no time for anything else,’ Drake said. He sounded resigned but ready. ‘If it costs our lives, they will be well spent if we can stop the Angel of Fire.’
‘If we die here, we will die as heroes of the Imperium,’ said Macharius. ‘And if we triumph, our names will be remembered for as long as it endures.’
I could see that swayed Anton and Ivan and the New Boy. They were nodding now. I guess they were thinking what I was thinking. Death and damnation lay on all sides. There was no escape from it no matter which way we leapt. Macharius was offering us the possibility of glory.
‘Can you find this psyker?’ Macharius asked Drake. He studied the nearby pilgrims, looking as relaxed as if this were some holiday outing.
‘His presence is hard to ignore. I am surprised you cannot sense him yourself. The aura is that strong.’ Drake pitched his voice low so that only we could hear it.
‘You will need to lead us to him.’
‘He will be guarded,’ Drake said. The discussion was between him and Macharius. The rest of us waited on their words. Drake was the expert. Macharius was our leader.
‘They are overconfident,’ said Macharius. ‘They expect no trouble here. We can use that to our advantage.’
‘As you say,’ Drake said. Clearly he was not confident. ‘We do not have any allies here.’
‘There are companies of Imperial soldiers down there,’ said Macharius. He indicated somewhere below us. He was thinking about the men we had seen being sent to sacrifice. There were scores of them. He did not seem to have any doubts that we could somehow free them. We stood at the mouth of hell, half a dozen men in the midst of a world full of heretics, and when he told us that we were going to do the impossible, we nodded our heads and thought, yes we can do this.
‘If we can find them,’ said Drake.
‘I know where they are,’ said Anna. ‘I have studied the plans of this place. I can find them and I can free them.’
She nodded to a doorway in the wall. It was marked as forbidden. ‘That doorway leads to a maintenance section. It must lead also to the machinery of sacrifice. The prisoners will be kept there.’ She obviously had a very clear idea of the topography of the cathedral in her head.
‘Open it,’ Macharius said. He did not seem to have any doubts she could. She began to walk over to the doorway as if it was the most natural thing in the world. We followed her. Her hands flickered over the lock and the door was open. She walked through and we followed before anyone had a chance to object. Up ahead I could hear the whine of heavy machinery and the creak of cages on heavy rollers. The air smelled of grease and incense and men cramped together with no latrines. We walked forwards and came out on a ledge in a tunnel. There were the cages full of prisoners. There were robed guards. We were in the secret heart of the cathedral now, where the mechanisms of sacrifice were visible. There were stairs leading up from here that pilgrims would never see. I wondered if Anna knew where they went too.
‘How do we get them free?’ Hesse asked.
‘We’ll need to be fast,’ said Macharius. ‘Overpower those guards. You will take the keys, Lemuel, and open the cages. Get the prisoners out. Tell them to grab what weapons they can and free the others.’