Horus Rising (10 page)

The assembly had been gathered in a city square north of the palace. It was just after midday, and the sun was at its zenith, scorching the bare basalt towers and yards of the city. Though the high walls around the square offered some shade, the air was oven dry and stiflingly hot. There was a breeze, but even that was heated like exhaust vapour, and it did nothing but stir up fine grit in the air. Powder dust, the particulate residue of the great battle, was everywhere, hazing the bright air like smoke. Karkasy’s throat was as arid as a river bed in drought. Around him, people in the crowd coughed and sneezed.

The crowd, five hundred strong, had been carefully vetted. Three-quarters of them were local dignitaries; grandees, nobles, merchants, members of the overthrown government, representatives of that part of Sixty-Three Nineteen’s ruling classes who had pledged compliance to the new order. They had been summoned by invitation so that they might participate, however superficially, in the renewal of their society.

The rest were remembrancers. Many of them, like Karkasy, had been granted their first transit permit to the surface, at long last, so they could attend. If this was what he had been waiting for, Karkasy thought, they could keep it. Standing in a crowded kiln while some old fart made incoherent noises in the background.

The crowd seemed to share his mood. They were hot and despondent. Karkasy saw no smiles on the faces of the invited locals, just hard, drawn looks of forbearance. The choice between compliance or death didn’t make compliance any more pleasurable. They were defeated, deprived of their culture and their way of life, facing a future determined by alien minds. They were simply, wearily enduring the indignity of this period of transition into the Imperium of Man. From time to time, they clapped in a desultory manner, but only when stirred up by the iterators carefully planted in their midst.

The crowd had drawn up around the aprons of a metal stage erected for the event. Upon it were arranged hololithic screens and relief models of the city to be, as well as many of the extravagantly complex brass and steel surveying instruments Momus utilised in his work. Geared, spoked and meticulous, the instruments suggested to Karkasy’s mind devices of torture.

Torture was right.

Momus, when he could be seen between the heads of the crowd, was a small, trim man with over-dainty mannerisms. As he explained his plans, the staff of iterators on stage with him aimed live picters close up at relevant areas of the relief models, the images transferring directly to the screens, along with graphic schematics. But the sunlight was too glaring for decent hololithic projection, and the images were milked-out and hard to comprehend. Something was wrong with the vox mic Momus was using too, and what little of his speech came through served only to demonstrate the man had no gift whatsoever for public speaking.

‘…always a heliolithic city, a tribute to the sun above, and we may see this afternoon, indeed, I’m sure you will have noticed, the glory of the light here. A city of light. Light out of darkness is a noble theme, by which, of course, I mean the light of truth shining upon the darkness of ignorance. I am much taken with the local phototropic technologies I have found here, and intend to incorporate them into the design…’

Karkasy sighed. He never thought he would find himself wishing for an iterator, but at least those bastards knew how to speak in public. Peeter Egon Momus should have left the talking to one of the iterators while he aimed the wretched picter wand for them.

His mind wandered. He looked up at the high walls around them, geometric slabs against the blue sky, baked pink in the sunlight, or smoke black where shadows slanted. He saw the scorch marks and dotted bolt craters that pitted the basalt like acne. Beyond the walls, the towers of the palace were in worse repair, their plasterwork hanging off like shed snakeskin, their missing windows like blinded eyes.

In a yard to the south of the gathering, a Titan of the Mechanicum stood on station, its grim humanoid form rising up over the walls. It stood perfectly still, like a piece of monumental martial statuary, instantly installed. Now that, thought Karkasy, was a far more appropriate celebration of glory and compliance.

Karkasy stared at the Titan for a little while. He’d never seen anything like it before in his life, except in picts. The awesome sight of it almost made the tedious outing worthwhile.

The more he stared at it, the more uncomfortable it made him feel. It was so huge, so threatening, and so very still. He knew it could move. He began to wish it would. He found himself yearning for it to suddenly turn its head or take a step, or otherwise rumble into animation. Its immobility was agonising.

Then he began to fear that if it did suddenly move, he would be quite unmanned, and might be forced to cry out in involuntary terror, and fall to his knees.

A burst of clapping made him jump. Momus had apparently said something apposite, and the iterators were stirring up the crowd in response. Karkasy slapped his sweaty hands together a few times obediently.

Karkasy was sick of it. He knew he couldn’t bear to stand there much longer with the Titan staring at him.

He took one last look at the stage. Momus was rambling on, well into his fiftieth minute. The only other point of interest to the whole affair, as far as Karkasy was concerned, stood at the back of the podium behind Momus. Two giants in yellow plate. Two noble Astartes from the VII Legion, the Imperial Fists, the Emperor’s Praetorians. They were presumably in attendance to lend Momus an appropriate air of authority. Karkasy guessed the VII had been chosen over the Luna Wolves because of their noted genius in the arts of fortification and defence. The Imperial Fists were fortress builders, warrior masons who raised such impenetrable redoubts that they could be held for eternity against any enemy. Karkasy smelled the artful handiwork of iterator propaganda: the architects of war watching over the architect of peace.

Karkasy had waited to see if either would speak, or come forward to remark upon Momus’s plans, but they did not. They stood there, bolters across their broad chests, as static and unwavering as the Titan.

Karkasy turned away, and began to push his way out through the inflexible crowd. He headed towards the rear of the square.

Troopers of the Imperial army had been stationed around the hem of the crowd as a precaution. They had been required to wear full dress uniform, and they were so overheated that their sweaty cheeks were blanched a sickly green-white.

One of them noticed Karkasy moving out through the thinnest part of the audience, and came over to him.

‘Where are you going, sir?’ he asked.

‘I’m dying of thirst,’ Karkasy replied.

‘There will be refreshments, I’m told, after the presentation,’ the soldier said. His voice caught on the word ‘refreshments’ and Karkasy knew there would be none for the common soldiery.

‘Well, I’ve had enough,’ Karkasy said.

‘It’s not over.’

‘I’ve had enough.’

The soldier frowned. Perspiration beaded at the bridge of his nose, just beneath the rim of his heavy fur shako. His throat and jowls were flushed pink and sheened with sweat.

‘I can’t allow you to wander away. Movement is supposed to be restricted to approved areas.’

Karkasy grinned wickedly. ‘And I thought you were here to keep trouble out, not keep us in.’

The soldier didn’t find that funny, or even ironic. ‘We’re here to keep you safe, sir,’ he said. ‘I’d like to see your permit.’

Karkasy took out his papers. They were an untidy, crumpled bundle, warm and damp from his trouser pocket. Karkasy waited, faintly embarrassed, while the soldier studied them. He had never liked barking up against authority, especially not in front of people, though the back of the crowd didn’t seem to be at all interested in the exchange.

‘You’re a remembrancer?’ the soldier asked.

‘Yes. Poet,’ Karkasy added before the inevitable second question got asked.

The soldier looked up from the papers into Karkasy’s face, as if searching for some essential characteristic of poethood that might be discerned there, comparable to a Navigator’s third eye or a slave-drone’s serial tattoo. He’d likely never seen a poet before, which was all right, because Karkasy had never seen a Titan before.

‘You should stay here, sir,’ the soldier said, handing the papers back to Karkasy.

‘But this is pointless,’ Karkasy said. ‘I have been sent to make a memorial of these events. I can’t get close to anything. I can’t even hear properly what that fool’s got to say. Can you imagine the wrong-headedness of this? Momus isn’t even history. He’s just another kind of memorialist. I’ve been allowed here to remember his remembrance, and I can’t even do that properly. I’m so far removed from the things I should be engaging with, I might as well have stayed on Terra and made do with a telescope.’

The soldier shrugged. He’d lost the thread of Karkasy’s speech early on. ‘You should stay here, sir. For your own safety.’

‘I was told the city had been made safe,’ Karkasy said. ‘We’re only a day or two from compliance, aren’t we?’

The soldier leaned forward discreetly, so close that Karkasy could smell the stale odour of garbage the heat was infusing into his breath. ‘Just between us, that’s the official line, but there has been trouble. Insurgents. Loyalists. You always get it in a conquered city, no matter how clean the victory. The back streets are not secure.’

‘Really?’

‘They’re saying loyalists, but it’s just discontent, if you ask me. These bastards have lost it all, and they’re not happy about it.’

Karkasy nodded. ‘Thanks for the tip,’ he said, and turned back to rejoin the crowd.

Five minutes later, with Momus still droning on and Karkasy close to despair, an elderly noblewoman in the crowd fainted, and there was a small commotion. The soldiers hurried in to take charge of the situation and carry her into the shade.

When the soldier’s back was turned, Karkasy took himself off out of the square and into the streets beyond.

H
E WALKED FOR
a while through empty courts and high-walled streets where shadows pooled like water. The day’s heat was still pitiless, but moving around made it more bearable. Periodic breezes gusted down alleyways, but they were not at all relieving. Most were so full of sand and grit that Karkasy had to turn his back to them and close his eyes until they abated.

The streets were vacant, except for an occasional figure hunched in the shadows of a doorway, or half-visible behind broken shutters. He wondered if anybody would respond if he approached them, but felt reluctant to try. The silence was penetrating, and to break it would have felt as improper as disturbing a mourning vigil.

He was alone, properly alone for the first time in over a year, and master of his own actions. It felt tremendously liberating. He could go where he pleased, and quickly began to exercise that privilege, taking street turns at random, walking where his feet took him. For a while, he kept the still-unmoving Titan in sight, as a point of reference, but it was soon eclipsed by towers and high roofs, so he resigned himself to getting lost. Getting lost would be liberating too. There were always the great towers of the palace. He could follow those back to their roots if necessary.

War had ravaged many parts of the city he passed through. Buildings had toppled into white and dusty heaps of slag, or been reduced to their very basements. Others were roofless, or burned out, or wounded in their structures, or simply rendered into facades, their innards blown out, standing like the wooden flats of stage scenery.

Craters and shell holes pock-marked certain pavements, or the surfaces of metalled roads, sometimes forming strange rows and patterns, as if their arrangement was deliberate, or concealed, by some secret code, great truths of life and death. There was a smell in the dry, hot air, like burning or blood or ordure, yet none of those things. A mingled scent, an afterscent. It wasn’t burning he could smell, it was things burnt. It wasn’t blood, it was dry residue. It wasn’t ordure, it was the seeping consequence of sewer systems broken and cracked by the bombardment.

Many streets had stacks of belongings piled up along the pavements. Furniture, bundles of clothing, kitchen-ware. A great deal of it was in disrepair, and had evidently been recovered from ruined dwellings. Other piles seemed more intact, the items carefully packed in trunks and coffers. People were intending to quit the city, he realised. They had piled up their possessions in readiness while they tried to procure transportation, or perhaps the relevant permission from the occupying authorities.

Almost every street and yard bore some slogan or other notice upon its walls. All were hand written, in a great variety of styles and degrees of calligraphic skill. Some were daubed in pitch, others paint or dye, others chalk or charcoal – the latter, Karkasy reasoned, marks made by the employment of burnt sticks and splinters taken from the ruins. Many were indecipherable, or unfathomable. Many were bold, angry graffiti, specifically cursing the invaders or defiantly announcing a surviving spark of resistance. They called for death, for uprising, for revenge.

Others were lists, carefully recording the names of the citizens who had died in that place, or plaintive requests for news about the missing loved ones listed below. Others were agonised statements of lament, or minutely and delicately transcribed texts of some sacred significance.

Karkasy found himself increasingly captivated by them, by the variation and contrast of them, and the emotions they conveyed. For the first time, the first true and proper time since he’d left Terra, he felt the poet in him respond. This feeling excited him. He had begun to fear that he might have accidentally left his poetry behind on Terra in his hurry to embark, or at least that it malingered, folded and unpacked, in his quarters on the ship, like his least favourite shirt.

He felt the muse return, and it made him smile, despite the heat and the mummification of his throat. It seemed apt, after all, that it should be words that brought words back into his mind.