‘I had believed you gone with the initial evacuation columns.’
‘Oh, no. Not yet. One of the Custodians noted the firepower of my Raider and asked if I would remain to escort the final column. Something about them standing the greatest risk of attack, if the rearguard is overwhelmed.’ His toneless voice murmured on as he stared down at the device.
Zephon approached, going down to one knee by the distracted explorator. The psyber-monkey turned mournful eyes to the Blood Angel’s own, as if this towering red-clad warrior somehow held the answers to its master’s grief.
‘What occupies your attention?’ the Blood Angel asked softly.
Land tilted the device to share the viewscreen. Zephon saw along the barrel of an overheating heavy stubber, high above the ground. It shook as it spat rounds in long bursts into the leathery and thrashing forms of horned beasts below.
‘Gun-feeds,’ Land replied, staring at the images, unblinking. ‘From House Vyridion.’
He cycled through them – the views from the carapace stubbers and meltas of each Knight, then the less reliable feeds of their primary arm weapons. These were far more prone to shake-distortion.
‘How long have you been watching these images?’
‘How long have we been here?’ countered Land. He still didn’t look up. ‘I wanted to watch the Scion’s last stand but I suspect she was out of range when the enemy killed her. I saw her once, many years ago now, striding forth from Ignatum’s forge. She was a proud lady.’
Zephon gently closed his fingers around the device and pulled it from Land’s grip. There was no resistance. The imagifier was laughably small in the Blood Angel’s hand.
‘Why are you here?’ Land asked, finally making eye contact. ‘Why aren’t you out fighting?’
Zephon didn’t want to admit how often he’d tried. Only a mere hour before he’d stood alone in a chamber, weapons in his hands, unable to trigger his own chainsword.
‘My arms,’ the Blood Angel replied.
‘Ah. Yes. The bionics. I remember now.’ Land looked around the chamber, showing emotion for the first time as he curled his lip in distaste. ‘What ugly sanctums these eldar built. It’s no loss, really, that most of them are dead.’
Zephon deactivated the pict-feed, silencing the tinny clatter of stubbers and inhuman roars.
‘There is great elegance in their race,’ said the Blood Angel, ‘but it is coupled with great malice, sadness and even greater hubris.’
Land snorted. ‘You sound as though you admire them.’
Zephon nodded. ‘Aspects of their existence, yes. The movements of the exarchs of their warrior castes are breathtaking to behold. I can think of few higher honours than being recognised for besting one blade to blade.’
‘Have you ever killed an eldar?’
‘Yes,’ Zephon admitted.
‘How many?’
‘I do not know,’ the Blood Angel lied. ‘Many,’ he added, spicing the falsehood with some truth.
‘Good riddance,’ Land exhaled, not quite a laugh. ‘Their technology is fascinating but inarguably foul. Interesting in its occasional efficiency, yet ultimately impure.’
Zephon said nothing. He was beginning to regret engaging with the Martian at all.
‘Something about you has irritated me for some time,’ said Land. ‘What exactly is the significance of “Bringer of Sorrow”? What is the meaning of such an outlandishly theatrical name? It’s ludicrous, even for a son of Baal.’
Zephon didn’t answer. He had a question of his own. ‘You said you knew why I was asked to come here. I would like to know what you believe.’
Now Land did laugh, a bleak little chuckle. ‘Is it not obvious? Have you ever been inside a mine, my angelic friend?’
‘A salt mine, in the compliance of–’
‘Yes, yes.’ Land waved a hand to silence the Blood Angel. ‘Mines are dangerous places, prone to leakages of natural gas. Even resistant servitor labour can suffer, but that’s beside the point for now. Think of deep mine work on worlds where expendable servitor flesh is in short supply, or where workers lack access to machinery capable of detecting gas leakages. Those poor, primitive souls take a caged bird or some other beast with little lungs into the deep dark, and they watch it while they work. If the bird dies, the labourers know the mine is unsafe.’
Land’s smile showed almost all of his teeth. ‘You, Blood Angel, are the caged bird in the mine. Do you see the Imperial Fists here? No, you do not. Because they can’t be trusted. In fact the only legionaries you do see are those rebellious dogs rampaging their way across the Imperium. But what better way, hmm, to test the loyalty of the Blood Angels when it is in doubt? Or to see how a Space Marine handles immersion in the webway, confronted by the monsters of the warp? Why, take a crippled one with you. One who can’t even fire his bolter. One who would be no danger if he succumbed to whatever treason has proven so appealing to half of the Emperor’s Legions.’
Zephon stood quietly. Above them, the Godspire shivered with the siege. ‘I should perhaps be irritated at the manipulation involved,’ he said.
‘Be angry if you like. I’d say you were vindicated, though. Unless I’m mistaken, you haven’t spat on your oaths to the Omnissiah just yet. Whatever the game is, you seem to have won.’
‘Perhaps.’
Land gazed around the room once more. He seemed suddenly deflated. ‘I will be pleased to leave this place, Zephon.’
‘This chamber?’
‘No, no. This city.’ Land reached into one of his belt pouches, producing the flattened and crumbly remains of a foil-wrapped ration bar. The simian snapped it from its master’s grip, devouring its powdery treat with bright eyes.
‘But we have only been here a matter of days,’ Zephon replied.
The technoarchaeologist raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘So?’
‘So are you not aggrieved that we are already preparing to evacuate?’
‘Why would I be aggrieved?’ When the Blood Angel had no answer, Land continued, ‘I’m a scholar first and a gentleman adventurer second. I could, perhaps, be convinced to consider myself a binaric philosopher third, as I’ve always had a passion for debating the dual nature of the Machine-God. But I’m no soldier.’
‘But we are leaving, having seen so little.’
‘Little? We have seen everything.’ Land narrowed one eye, peering at the tall warrior. ‘You are showing terrifying ignorance, Blood Angel. You look around you and you see a city, the first sign of habitation in the webway, yes? You see evidence of civilisation, albeit in the foul architecture of the eldar race. Your perceptions are tricking you, Space Marine. Your brain recognises the presence of urban structure, where life once existed, and attributes undeserved importance to it.’
Land keyed in a code on his vambrace, projecting a scratchy, inexact version of the unfolding, evolving webway map imprinted inside the Archimandrite’s mind. Complete scans of the human body’s veins and capillaries showed fewer branching pathways than the disorderly maze beaming forth in green holo light.
The explorator pointed at one of the tunnels. One that seemed no different to any of the other thousands revealed in flickering light.
‘What does it matter if this city falls?’ asked Land. ‘Do you think Tribune Endymion truly cares? Or Prefect Coros? They have been fighting for almost five years in the tunnels between Calastar and Terra – the hundreds of passageways that lead inexorably to the Emperor’s very throne room. The Impossible City isn’t the focus of the war, Zephon. It isn’t even the prime battlefield of the war. This entire city is merely within a tunnel like any other. Its only real note of import is that it made an easy strongpoint to defend when the Ten Thousand advanced as far as their numbers allowed. So, no, I am not aggrieved. I wished to see the Great Work, and I am seeing it. With all its wonders and horrors.’