James Swallow - The Flight of the Eisenstein

My faith.

'Are you blind?' he whispered.

Dorn was thunder incarnate. What did you say to me?'

'I asked if you were blind, lord, because I fear you must be.' The words came from nowhere, even as some part of Garro marvelled at the mad daring of what he was saying. 'Only one struck by such a terri­ble ailment could be as you are. Yours is the blindness that only a brother might have: that of a keen judge­ment clouded by admiration and respect, clouded by your love for your kinsman, the Warmaster.'

It was not often that Rogal Dorn's stern mask cracked, but it did so now. The fury of a god made flesh erupted upon his aspect and the primarch drew his powerful chainsword in a flashing golden arc of roaring death. 'I rescind my former statement/ he bel­lowed, 'get to your knees and accept your death, while you still have the chance to die like an Astartes!'

'Lord Dorn, no!' It was a woman's voice and it came from across the room, but it carried with it a wave of such emotion that every man in the sanctorum, even the primarch himself, hesitated.

Qruze turned and saw the girl Keeler running across the blue marble tiles, her boots clacking against them. Behind her were Sindermann, Mersadie Oliton and a pair of Imperial Fists with their guns at the ready. Iacton felt the echo of Euphrati's voice resonate through him and he remembered the strange warmth he had felt from her hands upon his chest, aboard the Vengeful Spirit as things had turned to hell.

'What is this intrusion?' snarled Dorn, his hum­ming blade still hanging at the end of his swing towards Garro's throat.

'They demanded entry/ said the one of the guards. 'She… The woman, she…'

'She can be very persuasive at times/ noted Qruze.

Fearlessly, Euphrati stepped forward to face the pri­march. 'Rogal Dorn, Hero of the Gold, Stone Man. You stand upon a turning point in the history of the Imperium, of the galaxy itself. If you strike Nathaniel Garro down for daring to give you his candour, then you truly are as blind as he says.'

'Who are you?' demanded the figure in gold.

'I am Euphrati Keeler, formerly an imagist and remembrancer of the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet. Now I am only a vessel… a vessel for the Emperor's will.'

'Your name means nothing to me/ Dorn retorted. 'Now stand aside or die with him.'

He heard Oliton whimper and bury her face in Sin-dermann's shoulder. Qruze expected to see fear bloom on Keeler's face, but instead there was sadness and compassion. 'Rogal Dorn/ she said, holding out

a hand to him, 'do not be afraid. You are more than the stone and steel face that you show the stars. You can be open. You must not fear the truth.'

'I am the Imperial Fist/ he shouted, and the words hit like hammers, 'I am fear incarnate!'

Then see the fidelity of Nathaniel's words. Look upon the proof of his veracity.' She beckoned Oliton forward, and with the iterator giving her support, the documentarist came closer. Qruze smiled a little as the dark-skinned woman composed herself enough to show a facade of her more usual elegant manner.

'I am Mersadie Oliton, remembrancer/ she announced with a curtsey. 'If the lord primarch will allow, I will provide a recollection of these events to him.' Oliton pointed to a hololithic projector dais mounted in the floor.

Dorn brought his sword to his chest, fuming. 'This will be my last indulgence of you.'

Sigismund stepped up and directed Mersadie to the hololith. With care, the documentarist drew a fine cable from among the brocade of her dress and traced it along the seamless crown of her hairless, elongated skull. Iacton heard a soft click as a concealed socket beneath the skin mated to the wire. The other end she guided to an interface plate on the dais. This done, Oliton sank into a cross-legged position and bowed her head. 'I am gifted with many methods in which I may remember. I will write and I will compose image streams, and this is aided by a series of mnemonic implant coils.' She brushed a finger over her head once more. 'I open these now. What I will show you, my lord, is as I witnessed it. These images cannot be fabricated or tampered with. This is…' She faltered, trembling, her words thick and close to tears. This is what happened.'

'It's all right, my dear/ said Sindermann, taking her hand. 'Be brave.'

'It will be difficult for her/ explained Keeler. 'She will experience an echo of emotions from the events.'

The hololith came to life with an opaque jumble of images and half-formed shapes. In the dreamlike mass, Qruze saw glimpses of faces he knew and some he did not: Loken, that degenerate poet Karkasy, the astropath Ing Mae Sing, Petronella Vivar and her bloody mute Maggard. Then the mist shifted and for a moment Oliton looked around the room, the hololith screening what she saw. Her gaze froze on Dorn and he nodded.

The haze of the hololith changed and Garro found his attention was caught by the dance of motion and replay within it. He had only heard Qruze's second­hand explanation of what had transpired in the Vengeful Spirit's main audience chamber, but here he was seeing it first-hand, through the sight of an eye­witness.

Scenes of battlefield butchery transmitted from the surface of the Choral City on Isstvan III hovered before them and Oliton sobbed a little. Garro, Qruze and the men of the Imperial Fists were no strangers to war, but the obvious, wanton horror of the combat was enough even to give them pause. He saw Sigis­mund grimace in disgust. Then the recording turned as Mersadie looked to the Warmaster upon a tall podium, his face lit with a cold, hard purpose. 'You remembrancers say you want to see war. Well, here it is.' The relish in his voice was undeniable. This was not a warrior prosecuting a necessary battle, but a man running his hands through tides of blood with open satisfaction.

'Horus?' The name was the ghost of a whisper from Dorn's lips, but Garro heard the question in it, the puzzlement. The primarch saw the wrongness in his brother's manner.

Then, through Mersadie Oliton's eyes, they watched the bombing of Isstvan III and the Choral City. Darts of silver surged from the ships in orbit like diving rap­tors falling on prey, and as the voices of remembrancers long since gunned down by Astartes bolters gasped and screamed, those darts struck home and coiled into black rings of unstoppable death.

'Emperor's blood,' whispered Sigismund, 'Garro told the truth. He bombed his own men.'

'What… what is it?' asked Oliton, speaking in uni­son with her own voice on the recording.

Keeler's recorded words answered her. 'You have already seen it. The Emperor showed you, through me. It is death.'

The recording jumped and unspooled. In fast blinks of recall, they saw Qruze fight the turncoat bodyguard Maggard in the launch bay, the escape from Horus's warship, the attack of the Terminus Est, and more.

Finally, Dorn turned away. 'Enough. End this, woman.'

Sindermann gently detached the cable from the hololith and Mersadie jerked like a discarded mari­onette as the images died.

The cold, clear air inside the sanctorum was rich with tension as the primarch slowly sheathed his chainsword. He ran his fingers over his face, his eyes. 'Perhaps… Did I not see?' Dorn looked to Garro and some measure of his great potency was dimmed. 'Such folly. Is it any wonder I would rebel at the real­ity of so mad a truth, even to the point of killing the messenger who brought it to me?'

'No, lord/ Garro admitted. 'I had no wish to believe it either, but the truth cares little for what we wish.'

Sigismund looked to his commander. 'Master, what shall we do?' Garro felt a stab of compassion for the first captain. He knew the pain, the shame that the Imperial Fist had to be feeling at that moment.