Fulgrim (20 page)

Tobias reached up, pulled one of the books from the shelf and said, ‘In this book, Blayke speaks of his belief that humanity had to indulge in all things in order to evolve to a new state of harmony that would be more perfect than the original state of innocence from which he believed our race had sprung.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘I think his belief that humanity could overcome the limitation of its five senses to perceive the infinite is wonderfully imaginative, though, of course, his philosophies were often thought of as degenerate. They involved… enthusiasms that were considered quite scandalous for the times. Blayke believed that those who restrained their desires did so only because they were weak enough to be restrained. He himself had no such compunctions.’

‘I can see why he was labelled a heretic.’

‘Indeed,’ said Tobias, ‘though such a word has more or less fallen out of usage in the Imperium, thanks to the great works of the Emperor. Its etymological roots lie in the ancient languages of the Olympian Hegemony and it simply means a “choice” of beliefs. In the tract,
Contra Haereses
, the scholar Irenaeus describes his beliefs as a devout follower of a long dead god, beliefs that were later to became the orthodoxy of his cult and the cornerstone of a great many religions.’

‘How does that make it a misunderstood word?’ asked Julius.

‘Come, my dear boy, I thought I had taught you better than that,’ said Tobias. ‘By following the logic of Irenaeus, you must surely perceive that heresy has no purely objective meaning. The category exists only from the point of view of a position within any society that has previously defined itself as orthodox. Anyone who espouses views or actions that do not conform to that point of view can be perceived as heretics by others within those societies who are convinced that their view is orthodox. In other words, heresy is a value judgment, the expression of a view from within an established belief system. For instance, during the Wars of Unification, the Pan-Europan Adventists held the secular belief of the Emperor as a heresy, while the ancestor worshippers of the Yndonesic Bloc considered the rise to power of the despot Kalagann as a great apostasy.

‘So you see, Julius, for a heresy to exist there must be an authoritative system of dogma or belief designated as orthodox.’

‘So you’re saying there can never be heresy now, since the Emperor has shown the lie in the belief in false gods and corpse worshipers?’

‘Not at all; dogma and belief are not reliant on the predisposed belief in a godhead or the cloak of religion. They might simply be a regime or set of social values, such as we are bringing to the galaxy even now. To resist or rebel against that could easily be considered heresy, I suppose.’

‘Then why should I wish to read this man’s books? They sound dangerous.’

Tobias waved his hands dismissively. ‘Not at all; as I often told my pupils at the School of Iterators, a truth that is told with bad intent will triumph over all the lies that can be invented, so it behoves us to know all truths and separate the good from the bad. When an iterator speaks the truth, it is not only for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but also to defend those that do.’

Julius was about to ask more when the vox-bead crackled at his ear and he heard Lycaon’s excited voice.

‘Captain,’ said Lycaon, ‘you need to get back here.’

Julius raised the vox-cuff to his mouth and said, ‘I’m on my way. What’s happened?’

‘We’ve found them,’ said Lycaon, ‘the Diasporex. You need to get back here right now.’

‘I will,’ said Julius, sensing something amiss in Lycaon’s words, even over the distortion of the vox. ‘Is there anything I should know?’

‘Best you come and see for yourself,’ replied Lycaon.

F
ULGRIM ANGRILY PACED
the length of his stateroom to the deafening sound of a dozen phonocasters. Each broadcast a different tune: booming orchestral scores, the thumping music of the low hive cavern tribes and, greater than them all, the music of the Laer temple.

Each tune screamed in discord with the others, the sound filling his senses with wild imaginings and the promise of undreamt of possibilities.

His temper simmered just below the surface at his brother’s actions, but there was nothing to do but wait to catch up with the 52nd Expedition. For Ferrus to have acted alone displayed a lack of respect that infuriated Fulgrim and threw his carefully laid plans for the Diasporex into disarray.

The plan had been perfect and Ferrus was ruining everything.

The thought surfaced swiftly and with such venom behind it that Fulgrim was shocked at its intensity. Yes, his beloved brother had acted impetuously, but he should have suspected that Ferrus would be unable to contain the Medusan rage that lay at his core.

No, you did all you could to contain his rage. His impetuosity will be his undoing.

Fulgrim felt a chill travel the length of his spine as the thought, one surely dragged from the darkest reaches of his being, surfaced in his head. Ferrus Manus was his brother primarch and, while there were those amongst their number that Fulgrim counted as close friends, there was no closer brotherhood than the bond between him and Ferrus.

Ever since the victory on Laeran, Fulgrim’s thoughts had turned inwards to claw the furthest depths of his consciousness, dragging out an acid resentment he had not known existed. Each night as he lay on his silk bed, a voice whispered in his ear and ensnared him with dreams he never recalled and nightmares he could not forget. At first he had thought he was going mad, that some last, deceitful trick of the Laer had begun to unravel his sanity, but he had discounted such a notion as preposterous, for what could lay a perfect being such as a primarch low?

Then he had wondered if he was receiving some astrotelepathic message from afar, though he knew of no psychic potential he possessed. Magnus of Prospero had inherited their father’s gift of foresight and psychic potential, though it was a gift that had distanced him from his brothers, for none truly trusted that such a power was without price or consequence.

At last he had come to accept that the voice was in fact a manifestation of his subconscious, a facet of his own mindscape that articulated the things he could not, and stripped away deceits the conscious mind created to protect it from the barriers society placed upon it.

How many others could lay claim to such an honest counsellor as their own mind?

Fulgrim knew he should make his way to the bridge, that his captains needed his direction and wisdom to guide them, for they looked to him in all things, and from him would come the direction and character of his Legion.

Which is as it should be; what is this Legion but a manifestation of your will?

Fulgrim smiled at the thought, reaching over to increase the volume on the phonocaster that played the music recorded within the Laer temple. The music reached deep inside him, its sound without tune or melody, but primal in its intensity. It awoke a longing for better things, for newer things, for greater things.

He remembered returning to the surface of Laeran and seeing Bequa Kynska in the temple with her hands raised to the roof, her face wet with tears as she recorded the music of the temple. She had turned to face him as he entered, falling to her knees as the passion of the alien music washed through her.

‘I shall write this for you!’ she shouted. ‘I shall compose something marvellous. It will be the
Maraviglia
in your honour!’

He smiled at the memory, knowing the marvels she would compose for him were sure to be wondrous beyond belief.
La Fenice
was already undergoing great renovations, with exquisite paintings and mighty sculptures already commissioned from those who had also visited the surface of Laeran.

If there had been any conscious thought as to why only they should receive commissions, he had since forgotten it, but the appropriateness of the decision still pleased him.

The greatest of these works would be a mighty picture of him, a magnificently ambitious piece he had commissioned from Serena d’Angelus after seeing the work she had begun to produce in the wake of the victory on Laeran: work so full of vibrancy and emotion that it made his heart ache to see such beauty.

He had sat for Serena d’Angelus several times since then, but he would need to find the time to engage with her properly when the Diasporex were annihilated.

Yes, he thought, soon the
Pride of the Emperor
will echo to the music of creation, and his warriors will carry it to every comer of the galaxy so that all might have a chance to hear such beauty.

His mood soured as he cast his gaze towards the end of his staterooms and the pile of smashed marble that had been his attempt to create a thing of beauty. Each stroke of the chisel had been delivered with precise skill. The lines of the figure’s anatomy were perfect, and yet… there was something indefinably wrong with the sculpture, something that eluded his understanding. The frustration of it had driven him to inflict violence upon his work, and he had reduced it to rubble with three blows from his silver sword.

Perhaps Ostian Delafour could instruct him as to what mistakes he was making, though it galled him that he, a primarch, should have to consult a mortal. Wasn’t he created to be the greatest in all things? His other brothers had inherited aspects of their father, but the gnawing doubt that perhaps the accident that had almost destroyed the Emperor’s Children at birth had encoded some hidden defect into his genetic makeup returned to haunt him in the dark watches of the night.

Was his nature a sham, a thinning veneer of perfection that hid a hitherto unknown core of failure and imperfection? Such doubt was alien to him, yet the horror of it had lodged like a canker in his chest. Already he felt as though events were slipping away from him. The battles on Laer had been vanity, he knew that now, but they had been won and that was what the remembrancers would tell. They would gloss over the appalling casualty figures he had suppressed, but which haunted his dreams with images of the fallen, warriors whose names he knew and memories he cherished. Now Ferrus, rushing off impetuously to engage the Diasporex fleet his scout ships had discovered, was closing in on the solar collectors.

The familiar anger towards his brother surfaced once again, all thoughts of love and centuries of friendship stained with this latest betrayal.

He shames you with this display and must he punished.

J
ULIUS HEARD THE
reports through the vox as they crackled over the speakers and watched the surveyor officers chart the unfolding shape of the battle on the plotter table in lines of glowing green.

Without consulting the Primarch of the Emperor’s Children, Ferrus Manus had ordered the 52nd Expedition to make all speed for the Carollis Star in response to the
Ferrum
’s discovery of the solar collectors. The Diasporex had reacted to his rash advance by rushing to recover them. Unlike previous encounters, this was to be no hit and run ambush, but it seemed clear to Julius that without timely aid from the 28th Expedition the ships of the 52nd could not prevent the escape of the Diasporex once more.

The bridge of the
Pride of the Emperor
was hushed, the quiet industry of the crew and the chatter of machines the only sound. Julius wished for some noise, something out of the ordinary to highlight to everyone that without Fulgrim’s presence, things were not as they should be. There was a gaping void in the bridge that Fulgrim’s towering leadership normally filled, but the routine of the bridge crew continued as it always did, and he found their insensibility to the primarch’s absence infuriating.

The captain of the
Pride of the Emperor
, Lemuel Aizel, a warrior so used to following the orders of his primarch that he had none of his own, had simply sent the ships of the Emperor’s Children after the Iron Hands. Julius could see that he was foundering without the reassuring presence of his lord and master at his side.

Even his other captains seemed oblivious, and he fought to control his temper at their unappreciative senses. Solomon, only recently returned to full duties, stared intently at the surveyor plot, though he was gratified to see that Marius wore an expression of angry disgust. Julius was becoming unaccountably angry, wishing for something to break the silence and monotony of the bridge, and found himself clenching his fists. He fought the urge to smash those fists into the face of one of the bridge crew, just to feel something beyond the blandness his senses were feeding him.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Solomon, who stood at his elbow. ‘You look tense.’

‘Well of course I’m bloody tense!’ snapped Julius, the sound of his voice a welcome relief from the stress, its very loudness soothing his burgeoning anger. ‘Ferrus Manus has launched his fleet directly at the Diasporex, and we have to catch up and fight a battle without a plan of any perfection.’

Heads turned at his outburst, and Julius felt a curious elation surge through his body at the feeling. He could see he had shocked Solomon, and felt a delicious thrill at allowing his thoughts to slip the leash of control.

‘Calm your jets,’ said Solomon, gripping his arm tightly. ‘Yes, the Iron Hands started without us, but that may work to our advantage if they draw the Diasporex in. We will be the hammer that smashes them on the anvil of the Iron Hands.’

The thought of battle extinguished his earlier anger, and the thought that it was to be fought without shape or form sent a thrill of anticipation through him.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘This is exactly what we came here for.’

Solomon stared quizzically at him for a second before turning his attention back to the plotter table. ‘It won’t be long now,’ he said after a moment’s deliberation.

‘What won’t?’ asked Marius.

‘Bloodshed,’ said Solomon, and Julius felt his pulse quicken.

TEN

The Battle of Carollis Star

Going up the Centre