[Dawn of War 02] - Ascension Read online

  “The farseer is confused and her vision is vague,” began Uldreth, turning his face from one exarch to the next. “And the Reaper is not to be trusted. We should not risk Biel-Tan on the whim of a maniac and a fool.”

  “You will not speak in this way of our farseer, Uldreth, Dire Avenger,” intoned Draconir, his voice calm and low. “She has led us to safety and to victory many times before now, and it is not the place of this court to challenge her. We are here to decide how to respond to her visions, that is all. As for Laeresh of the Dark Reapers—his role in this is as yet unclear. It does not become this council to speak so cheaply of another exarch. The Reapers have always been amongst us, and we must not do them any further dishonour.”

  “Yet, there is a reason that their Aspect finds no place in this Court, Draconir, Fire Dragon—” began Xoulun, flashing her black eyes like miniature anti-stars.

  “—we are all aware of the composition of this chamber, Xoulun, Scorpion Queen, and we need no reminders of its rationale. The Dark Reapers are not here, and Laeresh’s voice is not heard in this hall. This is the precaution that we have taken for millennia, and nothing further needs to be said about it now.” Draconir returned the Striking Scorpion’s glare, casting the reflected fires of his golden eyes into the fathomless black of hers.

  “The Fire Dragon is right,” said Azamaia, shaking her glorious, golden hair as she spoke, bringing everyone’s attention back to her. “The only matter that we need to discuss is the question of whether we should unleash the Bahzhakhain against Lsathranil’s Shield. If it was the future that the farseer saw, then we must act quickly—”

  “—if it was the future, then the choice is already made,” spat Uldreth, cutting the Howling Banshee off in midsentence. He hated the way that this court kowtowed to Macha, as though she were some kind of goddess. She was no Eldrad Ulthran, and she had made mistakes before. It was not that long ago that she had summoned forth the Avatar of Khaine and sent it to its doom on the backwater world of Tartarus. That whole affair had been a disaster for Biel-Tan, costing the craftworld many fine warriors, and all for nothing. The mon-keigh had ruined the Avatar and unleashed a hideous daemon from the warp. Macha had not foreseen that—her visions had been “clouded” by something or someone that she could not or would not explain. In the meantime, the birth pains of the Avatar had drained all the life force from the Young King himself, leaving Biel-Tan without its premier warrior lord. Had the Court forgotten this so soon?

  “We are Biel-Tan!” asserted Uldreth forcefully. “We are not Ulthwe, and we have no need to sneak about in the shadows of the galaxy hiding from our fate, led by the vague ramblings of farseers and witches.”

  “Hold your tongue, Avenger!” snapped Draconir, rising to the bait, as he always did. Behind him, his honour guard bristled with readiness, always prepared to fight. They were treading the Path of the Warrior, and fighting was always at the forefront of their minds. The eldar were an obsessive species, and theirs was a special kind of decadence, an indulgence in the arts of death at every available opportunity.

  “This bickering will not help us, friends,” said Azamaia, stepping into the space between the two males and keeping them apart. “We must keep our minds focussed on bigger questions for now. The chance will come later for you to resolve your differences here. That time is not now.”

  “She is right,” agreed Xoulun, reluctantly holding out her arm across Uldreth’s chest. “Now is not the time for this. We must decide about Lsathranil’s Shield.”

  “I do not believe in Farseer Macha,” stated Uldreth, standing down and letting his voice sound calm and reasonable, despite the green flames still dancing in his eyes. “She has been wrong before, and she may be wrong now. We would be taking a tremendous risk to take Biel-Tan so close to Lsathranil’s Shield, since it is now buried deep within the territory of the mon-keigh. I cannot condone this action without greater certainty than Macha can offer us. We must fight the battles that present themselves to us, not go chasing around the galaxy looking for those that may not even concern us.”

  “That does not sound like the reasoning of a Biel-Tan warrior,” mumbled Draconir under his breath.

  “Uldreth is right about the risk, Draconir,” said Azamaia, acting as the intermediary and pretending not to hear the murmured insult. “We can ill-afford a costly war if it is unnecessary. What is the use of a farseer if she cannot prevent us from reliving the mistakes and disasters of our past? If it is the past in Macha’s vision, we would be fools to drag it into our future by our own actions.”

  “If it is not the past, then we risk everything—that too should be a lesson from our history,” countered Draconir, aware that he was not going to win this debate.

  “I agree with Uldreth,” announced Xoulun predictably. “Biel-Tan has other battles to fight at the moment. The foul, green-skinned orks are infesting the system of Lorn, once a splendorous exodite colony. There are also signs of mon-keigh in the sector. The extermination of these vermin and the re-establishment of an eldar colony is a much more fitting task for the Swordwind. Taldeer and the other seers on the council have foreseen great victories for us.”

  “Are we really so vain that we must act only where our victories have already been assured?” asked Draconir, already knowing the answer. “Sometimes the right battle is the one whose outcome lies obscured beyond the battle itself.”

  “If you really believe those honourable sentiments, Draconir, Fire Dragon, then you are really agreeing with me that we should not base our actions on the visions of a seer, not even on those of our venerable farseer. We should act according to our will and do what we believe to be right. We are warriors, for Khaine’s sake! Biel-Tan no longer has any need for the archaic institutions of our forefathers. The Seer Council has no place in my craftworld.” Uldreth was enthused with passion.

  “You go too far, Dire Avenger—” began Draconir, shocked by the audacity of the other exarch.

  “—let us devise a test,” interrupted Uldreth, his mind racing only fractionally ahead of his words. “If Macha and Laeresh are correct and this vision is of the future, then it should not matter what decision is reached by this Court: the battle will occur anyway. If, on the other hand, we decide to pursue the vision, then we will make it happen through the efforts of our own wills—which will prove nothing about the vision other than that we believed it. So, I propose that we decide to ignore Macha’s vision. If we end up fighting for Lsathranil’s Shield, thenceforth I will bow to your greater wisdom, Draconir of the Fire Dragons.”

  “They will do nothing. Uldreth carried the Court, as usual,” said Draconir, bowing deeply at the pedestal in front of Macha’s throne. “I am sorry.”

  As the Fire Dragon exarch spoke, Laeresh turned violently away from Macha’s shoulder and stormed away towards the stairs that led up to the Triclopic Gates and out of the chamber.

  “Laeresh!” called Macha, with more affection than anger. “They must reach their own decisions. That is their function.”

  The Dark Reaper paused at the foot of the great staircase, leaving his back to the farseer and Draconir. They could see the rage in his shoulders as his purple cloak rippled. He did not turn.

  “I never said that it was the future, Laeresh—”

  “—but we cannot run the risk, Macha,” said Laeresh. He did not snap round suddenly, but turned very slowly and whispered his words with aspirated force.

  “I agree with Laeresh, farseer,” confirmed Draconir, stooped on one knee before her. “If there is uncertainty about this, then we must assume the worst. I do not think that the Court really appreciates the significance of Lsathranil’s Shield. Even if your vision were of the past, farseer, there must be some significance to the fact that you have had it now?”

  “Perhaps, exarch. But there is not always a simple reason behind the appearance of ghosts from the past. Or for those from the future, come to that. If I were confident about this, then I would have told the Court.”

&nbs
p; “I do not think that Uldreth’s decision was entirely rational, farseer. There was a passionate quality to his voice. There is something else informing his thinking on this. He distrusts you and your visions. Even had you been certain of the timing, I suspect that he would have refused to act,” Draconir said.

  “He is passionate. It is the curse of our people that the best of us are also the most passionate. They believe in things, and through their belief they make them true. Uldreth believes in his sword—that is his way.”

  “I also believe in my sword, farseer,” confessed Draconir.

  “Yes, but not only in your sword—that is why you have come to me now. It is the fixation that causes the problems. Eldar souls are powerful beings, intimately connected to immaterial realms beyond our own. Our beliefs have repercussions. They produce ripples and echoes in the empyrean. If too many of us believe the same thing, we sometimes have the power to make it real. Or if the most powerful of us believe something passionately enough, he might create the echoes of it in the unseen realms. This is the curse of the eldar.”

  “Do you not believe in your visions, farseer?” asked Draconir, still on one knee.

  “Yes, I believe in them. I see them, and they are real. I have no doubts about them. Everything I see is real. But it has taken me many centuries to learn about the difference between reality and inevitability. Time and space are interrelated in infinitely complex ways, and space is not delimited by our material realm. I can believe in my visions without ever expecting to see them occur, without ever desiring to see their truth realised. I can believe without passion.”

  “I believe in your visions, Macha,” stated Laeresh, striding back to the throne. He had seen the passion in her eyes when she had first described the vision to him. He knew that she was not as free of the “curse” as she purported to be.

  “I know you do,” smiled Macha faintly, looking up at her old friend and seeing the fierce certainty in his eyes. He knew her well, and, even if he could no longer remember the details, the knowledge was lodged somewhere in his subconscious.

  “I also believe in you, farseer. But Uldreth’s belief is of a different nature from ours. He is searching for…” Draconir searched for the right word, but could not find it. “He is distrustful of everything except his sword.”

  “I can understand this distrust,” confessed Laeresh. “I too feel it. This is the way of Khaine.”

  “But your distrust is general, Laeresh. As is yours,” said Macha, waving Draconir to his feet. “For Uldreth, his distrust must be focussed on someone or something in particular. He is an Avenger, and his nature is to search for vengeance. He is never stronger than when he feels wronged, and his soul craves that feeling at all times.”

  “That is as may be, but why must he focus his ire against you, farseer? He shows poor judgement in his choice of enemies.” Draconir was genuinely confused.

  Macha shook her head and sighed. The past was a complicated place for her, but for the exarchs it was simple. They could remember precious little of their lives before their ascensions. Their personal histories were nothing more than wisps of cloud to them, lingering in the unused recesses of their minds. She didn’t know whether this was a deliberate consequence of the ritual transformation, or whether it was simply a side effect of the psychic changes affected during the soul’s dedication to Khaine. She knew, as the keepers of the Aspect Temples had known since time immemorial, that the exarchs were war personified, with the hindrances of their personalities stripped away like inhibitors from a powerful engine. In an ugly, alien tome stolen from the mon-keigh, she had once read that the Imperium of Man also aspired to the creation of warriors who lived in the eternal present, with their lives stripped away by drugs, augmetics and conditioning.

  But Macha also knew that the personalities of the eldar warriors did not disappear completely, even though their consciousness of their identities vanished. There were residues hardwired into the neurological and psychic structures of their brains, and ghosts that danced across the surface of their souls. They may never be able to articulate these things, but Macha could see them clearly. Besides, she had known Uldreth and Laeresh for centuries, since before either of them had become exarchs—although neither of them might remember much of that now.

  “I’m sure that he has his reasons,” said Macha, unsure about what to reveal of Uldreth’s past. Some things were best left in the past, without deliberately creating new echoes. Beginnings had a tendency to resurface from time to time of their own accord, and she was certain that the histories of Uldreth and Laeresh would come back to haunt them soon. She had foreseen it.

  “I cannot come with you, Macha,” said Draconir, with honest resignation in his voice. “I am part of the Court and thus subject to its pronouncements. There is nothing I can do.”

  “The Dark Reapers will accompany you to Lsathranil’s Shield, farseer,” said Laeresh, dropping to one knee before her throne and punching his fist against his chest. “We are not so bound as the Fire Dragons.”

  Macha nodded sadly. A long time ago she had warned the Young King’s Court about the Reapers, and part of her wondered whether it had all been about this moment.

  The shackled neophyte had finally been permitted to lose consciousness. The bleeding had stopped, and the pool of blood that had gathered around him had eventually drained away through the matrix of grooves and channels cut into the surface of the tablet beneath him. It would be collected into a reservoir under the adamantium table; it would certainly be needed again before the end of this process.

  “He’s still alive?” asked Gabriel, striding into the Implantation Chamber as the doors slid open. He peered at the prone figure of Ckrius.

  Tanthius nodded deliberately from the shadows; he had not left the room since the surgery. “Yes, still alive.”

  “He is a genetic match?”

  “So it seems,” said Tanthius.

  “Perhaps we should return to Tartarus and do another sweep?” wondered Gabriel out loud. He knew that it was impossible—the planet was ruined and most of the population had been infected by tainted blood that ran under the surface like subterranean rivers. In truth, Gabriel knew that he was taking a risk even with Ckrius. The Blood Ravens could not afford to introduce any residual taint into their Chapter, even in the blood of just one of their initiates. But they did not have the luxury of choice, and they had to take what they could get, within reason. Ckrius would make a fine Marine, if he survived long enough.

  In their long and glorious history, the Blood Ravens had never managed to find a planet to act as their home world. Terrible fates had befallen most of those that they had set their eyes upon. In the most recent past, just before the Tartarus campaign, Gabriel had led his Third Company back to Cyrene, the planet on which he himself had been born. It had been used as a recruitment planet for generations, and it was the closest thing to a home that Gabriel had ever had, although he could remember very little of it now. Except the screams. His memories of that once green and verdant world were now flooded with pain and the contorted agony of the people as they fell beneath the righteous fury of the Blood Ravens themselves.

  When he closed his eyes, he could see nothing except the tortured hell of Cyrene as the Exterminatus finally consumed all the living tissue on the planet’s surface. Not only had Cyrene been unsuitable for recruitment on that visit, but it had been riddled with corruption, taint, mutation and heresy. Gabriel had not had any choice—he could not suffer those abominations to live. From orbit, he had killed the entire planet.

  It was a terrible irony that he could remember so little of the beauty of that planet from his boyhood, but that he could still feel its loss so intensely. The hypnotherapy that he had undergone as he became a Space Marine had overwritten certain memories of his youth, leaving his mind tuned perfectly to the present. But the process could not obliterate his past completely, and his emotions continued to tug at his mind when he thought of what he had done to his own home planet. I
t was a curse of the Blood Ravens that they could not forget anything that they did as Marines; their minds were finely tuned to encourage their academic tendencies, which was why they had such a reputation for scholarship and knowledge. Gabriel had heard that it had something to do with a slight mutation in their catalepsean node. Whatever the reason, he could not forget the hell that he had unleashed on Cyrene, but the visions of the heaven that he had destroyed were gone forever.

  The pattern had not escaped Gabriel’s notice: first Cyrene and now Tartarus—the Blood Ravens seemed to find their recruits amongst the damned. Or, perhaps, damnation followed the Blood Ravens to these planets. Either way, there was cause for concern about the Chapter, and Gabriel needed to do some more research. There was a cavernous hole in its ancient history, and not even the great Father Librarians had been able to fill it—the Blood Ravens were hiding something from themselves, buried deep in their past, and now it seemed to be haunting them.

  “We are coming up on the Trontiux system, sergeant. You will be needed for the landing party,” said Gabriel, turning to face Tanthius.

  “Very well, captain,” he answered, nodding to acknowledge his duty, although it was clear that he did not want to leave Ckrius alone.

  “He is about to start his hypnotherapy, Tanthius. There is nothing that you can do here. The apothecaries will drill the catalepsean node into his skull, but that is a simple procedure compared to what he has just gone through. There is little risk. He will be fine…” Gabriel trailed off. “Although, he may be a different Ckrius when you see him again.”

  Tanthius nodded and strode out of the room, leaving Gabriel alone with the boy. Trontiux III was another planet from which the Third Company had drawn recruits before, and they were hoping that there would be a new generation of warriors waiting to prove their worth in the Blood Trials. After this, the battle barge would make its way to Lorn V and then Rahe’s Paradise—a backwater world on the fringes of the segmentum. These too had provided recruits before, although not on the scale of Trontiux III.