For a time neither of them spoke. The only sound was Sapien’s chewing.
‘That will play merry havoc with his digestion,’ Land noted. And then, apropos of nothing, he narrowed his eyes as he regarded Zephon. ‘You really are a beautiful creature, you know. Aesthetically, I mean. And scientifically, of course.’
‘It is said that many of my Legion possess aesthetic qualities considered–’
‘Not that it means anything one way or the other,’ Land interrupted. ‘I’ve never had that drive within me, you understand. No time for those kinds of entanglements – they’re a distraction from real work. I merely find it curious that your primarch’s genetic legacy manipulates human physiology to produce such mythologically iconic figures of beauty. Not very secular, eh?’
Zephon smiled. This was something he had heard and debated on many occasions before.
‘Angels have great cultural significance on Baal. In many ways, Baalite culture holds closer religious similarities to Old Earth in the era of the Holy Pax Romanii Empire than it does to–’
‘Yes, yes. Spare me the lesson in the exact flavour of your tawdry barbarism.’
Zephon smiled despite himself. ‘As you wish, Arkhan.’
‘Hmm. I suppose you are here for me to examine your arms before I leave?’
Zephon’s angelic features remained carefully passive. He showed none of his surprise that the explorator had recalled the offhand comment from their journey, but nor did he desire to put himself under such scrutiny. Out of pity for the haunted man before him and sensing Land’s abiding isolation, he said, ‘Yes.’
‘Well, there’s no time now. The final evacuation column is in three hours and all of my equipment is already loaded.’ He hesitated, regarding the Blood Angel with a critical eye. ‘You’re welcome to ride with me rather than in one of the bulk conveyors this time, if you so desire.’
‘I am touched, Explorator Land. I shall consider it. May I ask why my affliction is of such interest to you?’
‘Listen to yourself, Space Marine. Affliction. Typical Baalite melodrama. The truth is that I’ve always wondered about legionaries and their bionics,’ Land elaborated, evidently warming to the subject. ‘You often leave them unarmoured, yet reverently sheathe the rest of yourselves in ceramite. Even statues of your kind show unarmoured augmentation. I can’t say I’ve been interested enough until now to truly look into it. I’d always assumed it was something pertaining to how bionics fail to interface with power armour.’
‘Primarily,’ Zephon agreed. He felt the conversation getting away from him and wasn’t certain he wished to catch up. Of all the conversations to have, in all the places, with all the people who he might speak with.
‘Primarily?’ Land pressed.
‘There is also an element of inspirational pride to the practice. To present us as invincible, enduring warriors to the Imperium and its enemies. To show that we overcome our wounds and fight on in the Emperor’s name.’
Land gave a wry sneer. ‘Such cheap propaganda. Like the legends of warriors that fought naked so as to show their courage before their allies and their fearlessness to their foes.’
‘There is perhaps an element of that as well,’ Zephon confessed. ‘But as you said, it is largely a matter of interfacing with our armour.’
Arkhan Land rose, dusting his hands on his long jacket. ‘Give me back my auspex,’ he said idly. ‘And let’s be away from here. I have a medicae scanner in my supplies, as it happens.’
Zephon didn’t move. ‘Is there a possibility that you might be able to restore function?’
‘Ah,’ Land said with a wry smile. ‘The pernicious spectre of hope makes itself known at last. Please note that I can’t promise an Omnissian miracle. I’m no surgeon-augmeticist or bionic engineer, yet there’s nothing else to do until our departure but stare into the screens and witness nightmares given shape. Given that I’ve checked and rechecked my Raider thrice in the last few hours, you are, at least for now, my only useful distraction.’
He walked from the chamber, towards where the wounded skitarii were being tended by their artisanal priest-engineers. Beyond that lay the chamber where the final convoy made ready for evacuation.
The psyber-monkey remained a moment more, cocking its head as it looked up at the Blood Angel.
‘Come along, Sapien,’ Land’s voice drifted from the hallway outside.
The artificimian bolted, leaving Zephon alone. He looked at the arched doorway for some time, deciding whether or not to follow.
Twenty
Undivided / War in the tunnels / As then, so now
The daemon soared, free of its iron bindings. Black Sky had grown unsustainable as a host, with its crew slain and its damage going untended, leading to the spread of noisome madness within Enkir’s broken mind. The creature had abandoned the Titan and its princeps with the metamorphic release of casting aside a shed husk. On regrown wings it took to the air.
And so it soared, watching the hordes of the Four Choirs, each one the scarcest shard of something greater, overrunning the city. No mortal legionaries, here. No god-machines or battle tanks or other corporeal toys. The hosts of the warp marched, spilling from a multitude of tunnels. The city was theirs, though in their triumph they cared not at all. Pursuit of the Golden and the Soulless was all that mattered. The immense, fanged willpowers that drove each shard pressed them onwards, ever onwards. The Golden and the Soulless were almost extinct, the last gate almost defenceless. These creatures and their masters were utterly indifferent to the galaxy burning. Here was the true war, and the hour of its end had come. The Anathema’s throat was bared.
Many of the Four’s child-shards warred amongst themselves. This was simply the Way, the eternal ebb and flow of the Great Game. Few of them rose against the incarnation of the first murder. Undivided, its genesis was in a song sung by all four Choirs. Among the other shard children, even those of the same Choir might tear at one another to sate bestial hungers or in purified expressions of their incarnated principles. They were daemons, after all, and not to be trusted.
The creature turned in the immense tunnel’s misty sky. Something pulled at the node of senses within its skull, something that had tasted and revelled in no small measure of violent annihilation. Something still inside the dead eldar city. Something hiding.
There was no conscious decision to turn and hunt. The daemon hungered eternally, and was drained by the skin-puppetry of possession and immersion in mortal thought. It hungered, so it would feed.
It swooped low above the teeming ranks of its kindred, beating its wings to the sounds of shrieking fear, hate and adoration rising from lesser throats.
As with their arrival, there was no boundary to mark their departure. The spires around the evacuating Imperials became more insubstantial, slowly swallowed by the mist, but there was no geographical assurance they were even the same towers that comprised Impossible City.
Baroness Jaya had no idea when she had left the last avenue and entered the first tunnel, but her focus was most assuredly on more urgent matters.