Within moments, the gruesome procedure was complete and the Savage Mortician who held the limb clamped tight lifted it clear of its former owner. Pasanius, the pain clearing his senses, rolled his head to see the horrific damage done to him and, though the light in this dreadful place was dim, Vaanes swore he could see the ghost of a smile crease the sergeant's features.
A gleaming cryo-chest was brought forth, wisps of condensing air gusting from within as it was opened, and the severed limb was placed carefully within.
The Savage Morticians straightened from their labours and moved around the theatre to the next body laid out before them: Seraphys.
'You will watch your men die one by one,' rasped Sabatier. 'Then you will join them.'
He felt no pain and that was good.
The air was balmy, and condensation fell in a pleasantly warm drizzle from the cavern roof high above him. Uriel knew he should be working to gather in the long, gently waving sheaves of the harvest, but his limbs felt as though warm syrup flowed through his veins and he could not summon the effort to move.
A sense of peaceful contentment filled him and he opened his eyes, watching the stalks above him and knowing that he would be in for a hiding from his father if he didn't fill enough baskets, but, strangely, not caring. The sweet smell of moist crop sap filled his nostrils and he took a deep breath of the familiar aroma.
Eventually, he sat up, massaging the back of his neck where it had stiffened while he had been dozing, rolling his head back and forth on his shoulders. His muscles burned from his earlier exertion and he knew that he would need to stretch properly if he was to avoid painful cramps later. Pastor Cantilus's evening callisthenics at the end of the day should be enough to stave off such cramps though.
The soft, wet rain felt good on his clammy skin and he gave thanks to the Emperor for blessing him with such a peaceful life. Calth might not be the most exciting of worlds to grow up on, but with the entry trials for Agiselus Barracks coming up soon, he knew he would soon get the chance to show that he was ready for great things.
Perhaps if he did well he might…
Trials…
What?
He looked down at his limbs, seeing the powerfully muscled arms of a Space Marine and not the wiry arms of the six year old boy he had been when he had dreamed of entering the martial academy where Roboute Guilliman himself had trained. He pushed himself to his feet, standing head and shoulders above the harvest crop that had seemed so tall to him back then.
The people of his collective farm filled the underground fields, dressed in simple chitons of a pale blue as they worked hard, but contentedly, to gather the harvest. The field filled the cavern, stretching away in a gentle curve and following the line of the rocky walls of the underground haven. Silver irrigation machinery hummed and sprayed periodic bursts of a fine spray across the crop and Uriel smiled as he remembered many happy days spent industriously in this very cavern as a child.
But this had been before…
Before he had travelled to Macragge and begun his journey towards becoming a warrior of the Adeptus Astartes. That had been a lifetime ago and he was surprised at how vividly this scene, which he had long thought vanished from his memory, was etched upon his consciousness.
How then was he here, standing within a memory of a time long passed?
Uriel set off along the line of crops towards a series of simple white buildings arranged in an elegant, symmetrical pattern. His home had been situated in this collective farm, and the thought of venturing there once again filled him with a number of emotions he thought long-suppressed.
The air darkened as he walked and Uriel shivered as an unnatural chill travelled up his spine.
'I wouldn't go down there,' said a voice behind him. 'You'll accept that this is real if you do, and you might never come back.'
Uriel turned to see a fellow Space Marine, clad in the same pale blue chiton as the workers in the field, and his face split apart in a smile of recognition.
'Captain Idaeus,' he said joyfully. 'You are alive!'
Idaeus shook his scarred and hairless head. 'No, I'm not. I died on Thracia, remember?'
'Yes, I remember,' nodded Uriel sadly. 'You destroyed the bridge across the gorge.'
'That's right, I did. I died fulfilling our mission,' said Idaeus pointedly.
'Then why are you here? Though I am not even sure I know where here is.'
'Of course you do, it's Calth, the week before you took the first steps on the road that has ultimately led you back here,' said Idaeus, strolling leisurely along the path that led away from the farm towards one of the silver irrigation machines.
Uriel trotted after his former captain. 'But why am I here? Why are you here? And why shouldn't I go down to the farm?'
Idaeus shrugged. 'As full of questions as ever you were,' he chuckled. 'I can't say for sure why we're here, it's your mind after all. It was you that dredged up this memory and brought me here.'
'But why here?'
'Perhaps because it's a safe place to retreat to,' suggested Idaeus, lifting a wineskin slung at his waist and taking a long drink. He handed the skin to Uriel, who also drank, enjoying the taste of genuine Calth vintage.
'Retreat to?' he said, handing the wineskin back. 'I don't understand. Retreat from what?'
'The pain.'
'What pain? I don't feel any pain,' said Uriel.
'You don't?' snapped Idaeus. 'You can't feel the pain? The pain of failure?'
'No,' said Uriel, glancing up as the dark shadows of clouds began to gather in the topmost reaches of the cave and evil thoughts began intruding on this pastoral scene.
Dead skies, the taste of iron. Horrors unnamed and abominations too terrible to bear…
A distant rumble of thunder sent a tremor through the clouds and Uriel looked up in confusion. This wasn't part of his memory. The underground caverns of Calth did not suffer such storms. More clouds began forming above him and he felt a suffocating fear rise up within him as they gathered with greater speed and ferocity.
Idaeus stepped in close to Uriel and said, 'You're dying Uriel. They're stealing the very things that make you who you are… can't you feel it?'
'I can't feel anything.'
'Try!' urged Idaeus. 'You have to go back to the pain.'
'No,' cried Uriel, as a heavy, dark rain began to fall, hard and thick droplets sending up tail spumes of mud.
Suffocating, cloying, questing hands within his flesh, a horrific sense of violation…
'I do not want to go back!' shouted Uriel.
'You have to, it's the only way you can save yourself.'
'I don't understand!'
'Think! Did my death teach you nothing?' said Idaeus as the rain beat down harder, melting the skin on his bones. 'A Space Marine never accepts defeat, never stops fighting and he never turns his back on his battle-brothers.'
The rain pounded the fields flat, the workers running in fear towards the farm. Uriel felt an almost uncontrollable desire to join them, but Idaeus placed a palm on his chest and struggled to speak in the face of his dissolution. 'No. The warrior I passed my sword to would not retreat. He would turn and face the pain.'
Uriel looked down, feeling the weight of a perfectly balanced sword settle in his hand, the blade a gleaming silver and its golden hilt shining like the sun. Its weight felt good, natural, and he closed his eyes as he fondly remembered forging its blade in the balmy heat of the Macragge night.
'What awaits me if I go back?' he asked.