Horus looked around for Sejanus, but whatever the swirling vortex beneath Terra had been, it had evidently not swept up his old comrade in its fury.
His journey here had not been as silent and instant as his previous journeys through this strange and unknown realm. The powers that dwelled in the warp had shown him a glimpse of the future, and it was a desolate place indeed. Foul xeno breeds held sway over huge swathes of the galaxy and a pall of hopelessness gripped the sons of man.
The power of humanity's glorious armies was broken, the Legions shattered and reduced to fragments of what they had once been: bureaucrats, scriveners and officialdom ruling in a hellish regime where men lived inglorious lives of no consequence or ambition.
In this dark future, mankind had not the strength to challenge the overlords, to fight against the terrors the Emperor had left them to. His father had become a carrion god who neither felt his subjects' pain nor cared for their fate.
In truth, the solitude of Cthonia was welcome, his thoughts tumbling through his head in a mad whirl of anger and resentment. The Emperor tinkered with powers far beyond his means to master - and had already failed to control once before. He had bargained away his sons for the promise of power, and now returned to Terra to try once again.
'I will not let this happen,' Horus said quietiy.
As he spoke, he heard the plaintive howl of a wolf and pushed himself to his feet. Nothing like a wolf lived on Cthonia, and Horus was sick of this constant pursuit through the warp.
'Show yourselves!' he shouted, punching the air and bellowing an ululating war cry.
His cry was answered as the howling came again, drawing nearer, and Horus felt his battle lust swim to the surface. He had the taste of blood after the slaughter of the Custodian Guards and welcomed the chance to spill yet more.
Shadows moved around him and he shouted, 'Lupercal! Lupercal!'
Shapes resolved from the shadows and he saw a red-furred wolf pack detach from the darkness.Theysurrounded him, and Horus recognised the pack leader as the beast that had spoken to him when he had first awoken in the warp.
'What are you?' asked Horus, 'and no lies.'
'A friend,' said the wolf, its form blurring and running with rippling lines of golden light. The wolf reared up on its hind legs, its form elongating and widening as it became more humanoid, its proportions swelling and changing until it stood as tall as Horus himself.
Copper skin replaced fur and its eyes ran like liquid as they formed one, golden orb. Thick red hair sprouted from the figure's head and bronze coloured armour shimmered into existence upon his breast and arms. He wore a billowing cloak of feathers and Horus knew him as well he knew his own reflection.
'Magnus,' said Horus. 'Is it really you?'
'Yes, my brother, it is,' said Magnus, and the two warriors embraced in a clatter of plate.
'How?' asked Horus. 'Are you dying too?'
'No,' said Magnus. 'I am not. You must listen to me, my brother. It has taken me too long to reach you, and I do not have much time here. The spells and wards placed around you are powerful and every second I am here a dozen of my thralls die to keep them open.'
'Don't listen to him, Warmaster,' said another voice, and Horus turned to see Hastur Sejanus emerge from the darkness of the mining tunnel. 'This is who we have been trying to avoid. It is a shape-changing creature of the warp that feasts on human souls. It seeks to devour yours so that you cannot return to your body. All that was Horus would be no more.'
'He lies,' spat Magnus. 'You know me, Horus. I am your brother, but who is he? Hastur? Hastur is dead.'
'I know, but here, in this place, death is not the end.'
'There is truth in that,' agreed Magnus, 'but you would place your trust in the dead over your own brother? We mourn Hastur, but he is gone from us. This impostor does not even wear his own true face!'
Magnus thrust his fist forward and closed his fingers on the air, as though gripping something invisible. Then he wrenched his hand back. Hastur screamed and a silver light blazed like a magnesium flare from his eyes.
Horus squinted through the blinding light, still seeing an Astartes warrior, but one now armoured in the livery of the Word Bearers.
'Erebus?' asked Horus.
'Yes, Warmaster,' agreed First Chaplain Erebus; the long red scar across his throat had already begun to heal. 'I came to you in the guise of Sejanus to ease your understanding of what must be done, but I have spoken nothing but the truth since we travelled this realm.'
'Do not listen to him, Horus,' warned Magnus. 'The future of the galaxy is in your hands.'
'Indeed it is,' said Erebus, 'for the Emperor will abandon the galaxy in his quest for apotheosis. Horus must save the Imperium, for it is evident that the Emperor will not.'
SEVENTEEN
Horror
Angels and daemons
Blood pact
With the compact edit engine tucked under one arm and a sense of limitless possibilities filling her heart, Euphrati Keeler made her way through the stacks of Archive Chamber Three towards Sindermann's table. The white haired iterator sat hunched over the book he had shown her earlier, his breath misting in the chill air. She sat down beside him and placed the edit engine on the desk, slotting a memory coil into the imager slot.
'It's cold in here, Sindermann,' she said. 'How you haven't caught a fever I'll never know.'
He nodded. 'Yes, it is rather cold, isn't it. It's been like this for days now, ever since the Warmaster was taken to Davin in fact.'
The screen of the edit engine flickered to life, its white screen bathing them both in its washed-out light as Keeler flicked through the images she had captured. She zipped through those she had taken while on Davin's surface and those of Captain Loken and the Mournival prior to their departure for the Whisperheads.
'What are you looking for exactly?' asked Sindermann.
'This,' she said triumphantly, angling the screen so he could see the image it displayed.
The file contained eight pictures, all taken at the war council held on Davin where Eugan Temba's treachery had been revealed. Each shot included First Chaplain Erebus, and she used the engine's trackball to zoom in on his tattooed skull. Sindermann gasped as he recognised the symbols on Erebus's head. They were identical to the ones in the book that he had shown Keeler on the sub-deck.
'That's it then,' he breathed. 'It must be the Book of Lorgar. Can you get any closer to get the symbols from all sides of Erebus's head? Is that possible?'
'Please, it's me,' she replied, her hands dancing across the keys of the edit engine.
Using all the various images, and shots of the Word Bearer from different angles, Euphrati was able to create a composite image of the symbols tattooed onto his skull and project it onto a flat pane. Sindermann watched her skill with admiration, and it took her less than ten minutes to resolve a high-gain image of the symbols on Erebus's head.
With a grunt of satisfaction, she made a final keystroke, and a glossy hard copy of the screen's image slid from the side of the machine with a whirring sigh. Keeler lifted it by the corners and waved it for a second or two to dry it, before handing it to Sindermann.
'There,' she said. 'Does that help you translate what this book says?'
Sindermann slid the image across the table and held it close to the book, his head bobbing back and forth between the book and his notes as his finger traced down the trails of cuneiforms.