‘Sire,’ Ra whispered. ‘We should–’
But the Emperor was gone. Monarch and daemon ran at one another, sliding in and out of existence, outpacing their lessers on both sides of the battle. And the two entities, one the salvation of a species and the other its damnation, met blade to blade.
Blood burst into the ashy mist. The Emperor arched, the warlord’s body taut with the utter unfamiliarity of agony. Five talons, each one the length and width of a spear, dripped red as they stood proud of the Emperor’s back.
Ra had heard tell that every man, woman, and child saw a different face, a different skin tone, a different temperament when they looked upon the Emperor. The Ten Thousand had no experience with such an effect. They considered it doggerel from the strains of unready minds when confronted by a true immortal. To Ra’s eyes, the Emperor was a man like any other. The Custodians saw only their master.
In that moment, as the claws ran red with his king’s blood, Ra saw what the rest of the species saw. The boy who would be king. An old man, cloaked and hooded, life running from his cracked lips. A knight in his prime, maned with dark hair, crowned with a wreath of laurels. A barbarian warlord, barbarous and strong, grinning through teeth turned red with His leaking blood.
Images. Identities. Men who once were. Men He might once have been. Men who had never drawn breath.
The Emperor’s boots left the misty ground. He barely even struggled as He was lifted, impaled by the five spearing talons. His sword fell from His gloved hands to disappear in the shrouding fog.
‘To the Emperor!’ Ra screamed the order loud enough that his retinal display blurred for a half-second. ‘To the Emperor’s side!’
He ran, killing faster than he’d ever killed, energised by an adrenal cocktail of loyalty, hatred and the alien touch of something nameless that tasted foul on the tongue.
Not fear, no, never that. Surely never that.
I am the End of Empires.
The thought wasn’t Ra’s own. It belonged to the silhouette in the ashes, the Emperor’s killer, speaking by twisting the thoughts of the humans in its presence. A wrenching violation, with crude, cruel fingers pulling at the insides of Ra’s skull, forcing his thoughts to form the daemon’s words.
‘Kill it!’ Ra shouted, half an oath, half an order. The man-shape turned in the settling ash, still holding the Emperor above the ground. The warlord clutched at the impaling arm. His telepathic voice was raw.
+Stay back. All of you. Stay back.+
I am your death, the creature promised the Emperor.
+Perhaps one day. But not this day.+
Gold light flared bright enough to blind unshielded eyes. The Emperor manifested at Ra’s side, down on one knee, one hand clutched to his chest, hair hanging down to veil his features. Blood, human blood no matter what the legends said, ran in runnels from the Emperor’s sundered armour.
+Ra.+ The sending was thick with pained defiance. And then, ‘Ra,’ He said aloud, raising His eyes to meet His loyal Custodian’s horrified gaze.
A blade ran through the Emperor’s body. An ornate sword, as much sorcerous bone as metal, a weapon with writhing, shrieking faces soul-carved upon the steel. The faces shrieked as they drank the Emperor’s divine life. It thrashed as the Emperor clutched it in His hands. It was alive, starving, its form rippling and growing indistinct.
With a cry the Emperor pulled the weapon free, unsheathing it from His own body. He hurled it from His grip, casting it aside with a surge of armour-boosted strength and devastating telekinetic force.
Ra blinked once with the impact, feeling it as a thunder-crack against his chest. He swallowed, finding himself unable to breathe. Blood streamed from his mouth, denying the passage of air.
It was a blade through his body. It was a daemon embracing him. It was a disease in his blood, eating at his bones. It was there and it wasn’t there, everything and nothing.
The Custodian fell to his knees, hands curling around the impaling blade. The thwarted rage of the daemon sent nerve pain lightning-bolting through his fingers.
‘Why?’ Ra asked his king.
The Emperor stood tall once more, looking down, eyes cold.
In that moment, Ra knew. The Emperor’s words, spoken what felt like an eternity ago, flashed through his blackening mind, infusing his thoughts with red revelation.
To illuminate you, the Emperor had said, as they looked upon the wonders and sins of the galaxy’s past. You will fight harder once you understand what you are fighting for.
And now he knew. Ra Endymion, the one living soul shown the entirety of his master’s dreams and ambitions. An enlightenment not gleaned for the purpose of waging war, but… for this. To know the truth when all others believed in shadows and fragments, and to suffer that truth until it tore him apart.
Ra rose on shaking limbs, leaning on his spear for support. The sword was gone now. The daemon was within him, caged by his flesh, bound by his agony-drenched will. He felt its tendrils circling his bones, wrenching at them, thrashing in its need to reach the Master of Mankind. The creature tunnelling through his blood would never stop, never die. It couldn’t be destroyed, only imprisoned.
The Custodian didn’t meet his sire’s eyes. He didn’t demand any explanation or apology. Ra was born to serve, raised to obey and chosen for the greatest illumination preceding the darkest duty. Inside him raged a beast even the Emperor couldn’t kill, the daemon destined to end the empire.
Every step he took away from the Emperor, separating this daemon from his master, would mean another day that the Imperium stood unbroken.
The Emperor still bled, still clutched His wounded chest with one gloved hand. Blood flecked His lips. ‘When all that remains is ash and dust,’ He said, strained, ‘be ready.’
The sword rose, and once more it fell. Fire tidal-waved from its killing edge, immolating all in its path. Clearing the way. The Neverborn dragging themselves over the ashen remains of their kindred tasted the same destruction.
The Emperor spoke to Ra one final time, a single command heard by no other.
+Run.+
Ra Endymion, Drach’nyen’s golden gaoler, the son of a water-thief, obeyed the last command he would ever be given.
He ran.
Twenty-Four
The death of a dream
Diocletian tore his helm from his head, breathing in the ozone and machine-stink of the Imperial Dungeon. Sweat sheened his face. Blood painted his armour, much of it his own. He was the last one through.
‘The tunnels are detonating,’ he declared, breathless. Golden mist still pulled at his armour from the portal behind him. ‘The circuitry is igniting. Whole sections of our tunnels are falling away into the mist. I couldn’t see Ra. He didn’t die, I’m sure of it. I was at his side. I would have seen.’
He knew he was raving. He didn’t care. He spat to clear his mouth, spattering treacly blood-spit on the floor of the Emperor’s throne room. Beyond the ringing in his ears he was aware of a sound, some kind of mechanical droning, a hum falling slowly through the octaves.
Diocletian’s spear clattered to the ground, deactivating the second it left the gene-coding of his grip. Blood followed it, running from wounds too deep to swiftly seal. The blood ran down his arm and surfaced through breaks in his auramite, dripping from his curled fingers.