The Sigillite Read online

  The voice did not sound disdainful. Hassan could hear harshness in it, a harshness bred from long ages of wearying command, but also other things – a grain of sympathy, mostly resignation.

  It was all so very unexpected.

  ‘I have always endeavoured to serve,’ he said.

  ‘I know you have,’ came the voice. ‘I know you have. But now you are here, with me, in this place. What you have been in the past, what you have done in the past, this is the reckoning for it. Do you know who I am, Captain Khalid Hassan?’

  ‘I think so, lord.’

  ‘I am the reckoner. I am the judge. I am the scrivener of the Imperium, the evaluator of its ocean of souls.’

  Hassan couldn’t decide why he was being told this. Boastfulness? Possibly. It didn’t sound like boastfulness, though. It sounded almost like sarcasm – a dry, self-aware sarcasm.

  ‘I am the Sigillite. I am the Regent of Terra. At my command the fate of a million worlds is determined. And yet here I am, conversing with you as you look through my window and disapprove of my collections. Life is full of surprises, is it not?’

  Hassan almost found himself nodding in agreement. ‘It is, lord,’ he said.

  ‘And you know why you are here?’

  ‘Because of what happened in Gyptus.’

  ‘That is right,’ came the voice. ‘Think back, Khalid. Think back to what you did there. I will be with you soon – when I come, I will wish to know everything.’

  The lights had blown. Hassan blink-adjusted the gain on his helm’s night vision and progressed cautiously.

  The bunker extended deep below ground level. A central corridor ran down the length of it – about fifty metres – from which smaller chambers branched off, each sealed by fresh sets of locked doors.

  ‘Getting anything?’ whispered Farouk over the comm. ‘No life signs here.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Hassan, continuing ahead.

  The squad inched down the central corridor. Hassan heard nothing but the dim sounds of battle from outside. The other squads were doing a good job of drawing attention away, but they only had a short time in which to operate.

  He activated the proximity beacon on his palm-mounted auspex and saw, with some relief, the target locator rune flicker into being.

  ‘Third on the right,’ he said softly, motioning to a pair of slide-doors some thirty metres ahead.

  Two of his troops remained in the bunker entrance, sunk in shadow, their weapons aimed to take out any intruders. Hassan, Farouk and the third operative slunk down the corridor. As Hassan edged forwards he caught a faint hiss, like machine static.

  He paused. ‘You getting that?’ he asked.

  Farouk looked at him. ‘Getting what?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Hassan, pressing on. ‘Sensor glitch.’

  They reached the chamber. It was locked and barred, just like the others.

  ‘Stand back,’ ordered Hassan, drawing fresh hyperacid capsules from his belt.

  As he moved, he heard a dull thud, followed by a whoosh of stale air. He threw himself around, his gun held one-handed.

  ‘What in–’ he began, before seeing the motionless form of his squad-mate on the floor.

  ‘Target!’ shouted Farouk, opening fire with his rifle. A juddering hail of ice-bright bullets sprayed down the corridor, chinking and splintering from the metal walls.

  Hassan joined in, firing into the darkness. The confined space erupted into a storm of gunshots.

  ‘Ceasefire!’ shouted Hassan.

  The last echoes of the volley died. The bunker sank back into darkness. Wisps of smoke rose up from the ravaged floor.

  Farouk slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle.

  ‘What was it?’ demanded Hassan, still seeing nothing on his proximity scan.

  ‘No idea,’ muttered Farouk. ‘Never got a proper look.’

  Hassan glanced down at the downed operative’s body. A single slash had torn clean through his throat. Blood beneath him, thick and dark.

  ‘Captain?’ came an inquiry from the soldiers stationed at the entrance.

  ‘Stand by,’ ordered Hassan. ‘Hold position.’

  His mind began to race, wondering how anything could have got so close without registering on his sensors. He reached up to his helm and depressed the release catch. ‘Remove your visor.’

  ‘What?’ asked Farouk, sounding tense. ‘That’s madness.’

  ‘Do it.’

  Hassan’s helm slid open with a smooth hiss. He felt the hot, dusty air brush against his face. Deprived of his false-colour night vision everything was black. He still saw no sign of the thing that had attacked them. He felt vulnerable – nearly blind, stuck underground with something he couldn’t detect.

  He heard Farouk’s visor open.

  ‘Great,’ said Farouk. ‘Now we’re blind.’

  ‘When all else fails,’ said Hassan, reaching for a low-burn flare and keying it for ignition, ‘use the eyes you were born with.’

  He hurled the flare down the long corridor, hearing it bounce from the walls. The torch exploded into life, throwing a dull red bloom across the surfaces around it. In the brief burn-time, Hassan saw something dark and hunched about ten metres further down, pressed tight against the far wall. It was man-shaped and wearing some kind of sensor-reflective armour, veined with silver wires and nodes.

  As soon as the flare went off, the figure leapt from the wall and tore towards them.

  ‘Now shoot!’ ordered Hassan.

  The enemy bounded towards them, darting between the spitting lines of fire with uncanny speed. Farouk winged it, blasting through the armour on the left shoulder, but it kept coming.

  ‘Bring him down!’ shouted Hassan, falling back as he fired, aiming for the figure’s shifting outline.

  Farouk screamed. Hassan saw steel talons flash in the darkness, ripping Farouk’s protective carapace as though it were made of paper.

  ‘Farouk!’ he shouted, swinging back in close, feeling his gun click empty.

  The enemy stared right at him then, just for an instant, the masked face caught in the jagged flashes of muzzle discharge. Hassan saw red-rimmed eyes, dilated from combat-stimms, shot deep in stretched skin.

  He thrust the hyperacid capsule – still clutched in his left fist – into the man’s face, smashing it open before throwing himself clear.

  The screams were unholy, a cacophony of animal shrieks and gurgling, throttled agony. The smell of charred flesh filled the corridor, accompanied by bloody splatters as the acid ate down to the man’s arteries.

  Hassan scrabbled away, grabbing hold of Farouk’s reeling body and hauling it clear. The enemy staggered away from them, clutching at his disintegrating face. Then he collapsed, twitching, his savaged head and neck steaming and popping.

  Hassan got back to his knees, breathing heavily. The two operatives he’d left at the doors reached his position. They stared down at the twisted body of the enemy warrior, then at Farouk.

  Farouk coughed, spraying blood against Hassan’s armour.

  ‘How bad?’ demanded Hassan, flipping his visor closed.

  ‘Significant,’ croaked Farouk.

  Hassan felt the heavy weight of Farouk’s body in his arms. He wouldn’t do much more fighting.

  ‘We’re almost done,’ he said, lowering him carefully to the ground and moving over to the sealed doors. ‘Then we’re on our way out.’

  Hassan primed a charge, clamped it and withdrew. The four of them shuffled back away from the doors, and the krak grenade went off with a sharp, focused report, blasting a jagged hole in the metal.

  ‘That’ll bring them running,’ Hassan said grimly, getting to his feet and heading for the broken entrance, reloading as he went. ‘Now let’s retrieve the target and get out before they catch us.’

  Hassan did
n’t notice the Sigillite enter the room. One moment he was alone, the next he was staring directly at a cowled old man clutching a staff.

  He collected himself.

  ‘Forgive me for keeping you waiting, captain,’ said the old man. ‘Lord Dorn is well-meaning but has never mastered brevity.’

  Hassan clasped his hands behind his back and stood straight. He could feel his pulse picking up, throbbing through the veins at his neck. Something about the man before him put him on edge. He felt an unaccountable urge to look away.

  The Sigillite was slight. His stoop made him short, and his hands gripped his flickering staff as though for support. For all the man’s frailty, Hassan could sense the quiet power radiating from him, as deep and cold as a well-shaft.

  He does not hide it. He could destroy everything around us with a gesture.

  The Sigillite reached a bony hand up to his hood and pushed the fabric back. An old, old face emerged, deep-lined and ember-dry. Bones jutted under drawn flesh, stark like the profile of famishment. But his eyes were alive – deep, darting eyes that moved with an almost avian sharpness.

  Those eyes held Hassan for a moment. He felt his mouth go dry.

  Then the Sigillite released him. He walked over to a low couch and lowered himself down. His movements were halting, like one who had once been trained to the peak of physical perfection but had since been terribly wounded. It was a strangely affecting sight.

  Malcador leaned back. His grey face smoothed by a fraction; his clenched features relaxed. He put the staff aside and his withered hands rested on his bony lap.

  ‘Sit.’

  Hassan did as he was told, moving over to a leather armchair facing the couch. He felt his hands trembling.

  ‘Will you drink?’ asked Malcador, glancing at a carafe on the table between them. As soon as he mentioned it, Hassan felt a thirst kindle at the back of his throat.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  Malcador poured himself a glass of what looked like wine. He brought the glass up to his hooked nose and let the aroma linger for a moment.

  ‘I remember when there were vines in Franc,’ he said. He took a sip, swirled it in his mouth, and swallowed. ‘So much easier now. It even tastes as good. Or does it? How would we know? Who now lives who walked the vineyards of old?’

  He pursed his thin lips, pensive.

  ‘Some of us remember,’ he said. Then his eyes snapped up, as unwavering as a raptor’s. ‘What were you doing in Gyptus?’

  Hassan swallowed. ‘Clandestine mission, lord. Orders received from the Palace, maximum secrecy, military priority. We were given coordinates, times, access to an Army lifter. Then we left.’

  ‘Was that all?’

  ‘I’d been given the location of a single bunker.’ Hassan paused. ‘I checked it, just as always. Right until the end, I thought we’d got it right.’

  Malcador nodded. ‘Right until the end.’

  Hassan felt his cheeks flush. The humiliation of it had still not left him. ‘Perhaps, if we’d known what we were looking for…’ he began, then trailed off.

  ‘But that would have defeated the point, would it not?’ said Malcador. ‘Knowledge is dangerous in your profession. It is dangerous in all professions. If it were up to me, knowledge would be strictly rationed. It would be doled out only to those capable of handling it – a dozen souls, no more. An infinite empire can be run by twelve good men, if only they remain true to their calling.’ His expression darkened. ‘Though that can never be guaranteed, can it? Even the strongest have their flaws. Such is the tragedy of our species.’

  Hassan tried to listen, to keep up. Malcador’s mind seemed to roam freely, passing from matters at hand to far-off issues of galactic governance. Hassan began to wonder if the old man were entirely sane.

  Unexpectedly, the Sigillite smiled then. Like all his gestures, it was a compromised movement, at once bitter and mirthful.

  ‘The Emperor and I have a debate,’ he said. ‘It has been running for a long time, and I miss our discussions now that He is gone. Such a powerful intellect. Blunt, but powerful. And, very occasionally, even a sense of humour – of a sort. Would you credit that?’

  Hassan listened cautiously. He didn’t understand what Malcador meant when he said the Emperor was ‘gone’. He was not. Surely, He was not. Where would He have gone to? Hassan wanted to ask, but Malcador kept on talking, just as if the absence of the Master of Mankind from the eternal seat of power were a trivial thing, hardly worth lingering over.

  ‘This is our debate – He believes that the task of a ruler is to make himself obsolete, so that his people will replace him when they are mature enough. I disagree. I do not think we will ever be mature enough for that. I believe that no one but He will ever be strong enough to hold mankind together, even for a moment. He is quite exceptional, you know, perhaps in ways He doesn’t even understand Himself.’

  Malcador looked sidelong at Hassan. His gaze was shrewd. ‘So what do you think, Khalid? Whom would you side with, Him or me?’

  Hassan took a deep breath. He didn’t know whether to be flattered to be asked, or insulted.

  ‘Do not hesitate,’ warned the Sigillite. ‘Choose.’

  ‘I was going to say…’ began Hassan, haltingly. ‘I was going to say that the Emperor will lead us forever. That is what we are taught. What I believe.’

  Malcador nodded. ‘Well said. You are with me, then. And you are right, of course – He has such high aspirations for our species. Too high, perhaps, for He does not always appreciate His indispensability. But will He be around forever? That is the great question. That is the current test.’

  The Sigillite brought his hands together, linking his fingertips. He seemed distracted.

  ‘The war for the throne has already started,’ he said. ‘Even now I feel the eye of the Arch-traitor upon us, pressing against my mind like a cancer. I hear the voices of his brothers, fawning over him, plotting with him and against him. I remember how they were, each of them, in conception and in reality. I see them as they are now, and the withering of their souls pains my heart. They have unleashed forces they cannot control. They have been lied to, and not only by the enemy. It breaks me to witness it.’

  Hassan didn’t know whether to keep listening. It suddenly felt like he was intruding into some private grief.

  ‘Do you know,’ murmured the Sigillite, ‘out of them all, if I could have saved just one, it would have been Lorgar? Even though he despises me, and even though I was… wounded by him. He was such a fragile soul, so subtle and ready to bruise. We might have handled him better. Did we make mistakes with some of them? Surely, we did. Though I fear the time to correct them has now long passed.’

  Hassan watched, he waited. Little of what the Sigillite said made sense to him. He wondered if that was part of the ordeal or some convoluted means to catching him out. If so, it seemed so contrived, so unnecessary. Crueller than it needed to be.

  The Sigillite looked up at him, a tolerant expression on his face. ‘I can feel your mind wandering. You think these things have little to do with you. You are wrong. They have everything to do with you. They have everything to do with all of us.’

  Hassan felt impatience rise within him. He wanted to be dutiful, but had no idea what his duty demanded.

  ‘I do not know why I am here, lord,’ he confessed.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Malcador, nodding. ‘But you will.’ He pulled himself to his feet again, hauling his staff into line. ‘Follow me.’

  Hassan rose. ‘Where are we going?’

  Malcador paused for a moment. ‘To the catacombs,’ he said. ‘Where all this started. Prepare yourself – it’s a long way down.’

  It wasn’t a long way down. Hassan leapt through the gap, landing hard on a dirty rockcrete floor a metre below the shattered doorway. He swept his rifle around the space, ready to fire. As he did so,
he heard the thud and gasp of Farouk landing beside him.

  ‘You’re up to this?’ he asked, surprised.

  Farouk grunted. ‘You and me, just as always. Let’s get it done.’

  The chamber was small – less than ten metres across, with a low ceiling and walls cut crudely from stone blocks. It was deserted, and smelled as musty as a tomb.

  Only one item stood in the centre of the room: a cargo transit crate made of ribbed adamantium and bolted to an iron pallet. It wasn’t particularly large – two metres long, a metre tall and wide – but it was shielded by an energy field that made the air hum and sent lurid light dancing across the chamber.

  ‘Signals closing,’ reported Farouk.

  ‘How long have we got?’ asked Hassan, stowing his weapon and approaching the casket.

  ‘A minute. No more.’

  Hassan shook his head. Not much time to work. ‘They’re quick to recover. Damn them.’

  He retrieved four disruptor beacons from his armour cache and placed them carefully, one at each corner of the casket. Then he stood back, checking the alignment carefully before activating the interference wave.

  The air seemed to shudder in front of him, rippling like broken water. He felt his stomach lurch uncomfortably. The energy field resisted for a moment, crackling and flexing, before giving out with a hard snap.

  Hassan moved over to the crate and attached anti-grav plates, four to each side. The plates clamped on tight and flickered into life, blinking red in the shadows.

  ‘Air defences down yet?’ he asked as he worked, relying on Farouk to get updates from the other two squads.

  ‘Affirmative,’ said Farouk.

  ‘And site shielding?’ Hassan asked, fixing the final plate.

  ‘All down. Lifter’s clear to approach.’

  Hassan glanced at his chronometer. It would still be close. ‘Call it in, then,’ he ordered.

  He activated the anti-grav plates. The transit crate broke its shackles and rose from the ground, hovering at knee-height. It was heavy, and Hassan heard the labouring whine of the repulsor fields as they struggled to keep it aloft.