Dan Abnett - Eisenhorn Omnibus

Which god, I wouldn't like to say.

It was warm and still. Not even the air moved. The dots of light showed small parts of a vast design etched onto the face of the mausoleum. Hints of spirals, lines and swirling runes.

This was where the warped ones had laid their dead king to rest.

This was the tomb of Yssarile, over which Ghiil had been raised in the strange eons before man.

The sight even stunned Cherubael to silence. I hoped its lack of comment was down to awe. I had a nasty feeling it had more to do with reverence.

Or dread.

Gustine lost it for a while. His mind refused to deal with what his eyes were seeing. He began to weep inconsolably, and fell to his knees. It was a dismal sight to see such a robust, fearless man reduced in such a way.

I let him be as long as I dared, but the sounds of his weeping carried in the dark and seemed alarmingly loud. Some of the tiny lights on the face of the mausoleum began to move, as if descending.

I took hold of the sobbing fighter and tried to use my will to calm him.

It didn't work. No persuasion could anchor the edges of his sanity where it had come adrift.

I had to be harsher. I numbed his mind with a deep psychic probe, blocking his terror out and freezing his thoughts but for the most basic instincts and biological functions.

We approached the mausoleum across a plain of lightless stone. The further we got, the further away I realised the structure actually was. It was evidently even bigger than I had first realised.

I had Gustine switch off his lamp pack. We simply followed the dots of light up ahead. I suggested that Cherubael might like to warn us if the darkness around us became anything other than a flat table of stone. A chasm, for example.

The only advantage in the mindless scale of the place as 1 could see it was that the enemy would have a hard job finding us. There was so much space to search.

After what seemed like an hour, we were still a very long way from the tomb. I checked my chronometer to determine precisely how long it had been since we accessed the interior of Ghiil, but it had stopped. Stopped isn't right exactly. It was still running and beating seconds, but the time was not recording in any way.

I recalled the clock in Aemos's suite, chiming to mark out times that had no meaning.

As we closed on our destination, I was able to make more sense of the lights. Tiny dots, they had seemed, casting little fields of light.

They were massive lamps, high power, of the sort used to light landing fields or military camps. Mounted on suspensor platforms, they floated at various points in front of the face of the mausoleum, lighting up surface details in patches of glare the size of amphitheatres. There were forty-three of the platforms, each with its own lamp. 1 counted them.

There were men on the platforms, human figures. Glaw's men, I was sure, some of them mercenary guards, most of them adepts of arcane lore enlisted to his cause.

As we watched, some of the platforms drifted slowly or adjusted the sweep of their light.

They were reading the wall.

By whatever catalogue of means, Glaw had learned of this place, found it and made his way inside to plunder its vile treasures. But its innermost secrets clearly still eluded him.

That was why he had wanted the Malus Codicium so badly.

To turn the final lock, to get him through the final barrier.

One of the platforms began to climb vertically, its lamplight flickering across the passing relief of the tomb face. It climbed and then halted far up above at what seemed to be the top of the wall. Its beam picked out an open square, an entrance, perhaps, though who would put an entrance at the top of a wall without steps?

I scolded myself for asking. The warped ones.

'Glaw is up there/ Cherubael said.

It was right. I could smell the monster's mind.

We hurried the last distance to the foot of the mausoleum wall. Several cargo fliers and two bulk speeders were parked down here, alongside metal crates of equipment and spares for the lamp platforms. Their base camp.

We waited. I considered our options.

Almost at the same time, two of the platforms descended the wall to ground level, dimming their huge lamps. There were about six men on each one.

One settled in and two men jumped down, hurrying towards one of the cargo fliers. I could hear them, exchanging words with the crew on the platform. A moment later the other came down softly beside it.

I could see the men. They were dressed in light fatigues or environment robes. Some carried data-slates.

The men who had gone to the flier returned, carrying an equipment crate between them. They loaded it onto the platform and it immediately began to climb back up the wall, its lamp powering back to full beam to resume its work.

'Come on,' I said quietly.

More men were loading more crates onto the other platform. There were six in all – four in robes and two armoured meres operating the platform controls.

Barbarisater took the three loaders out with two quick strokes. Gustine dragged a man backwards over the platform rail and snapped his neck. Cherubael embraced the two meres from behind and they turned to ash and sifted away.

We got on board.

'Get ready with the lamp/1 told Gustine. I studied the platform control panel quickly, and then activated the lift. The attitude controls were a simple brass lever.

We rose. The tomb face whispered by. As we lifted past the lowermost of the working platforms, Gustine powered up the lamp and angled it towards the wall.

I couldn't remember quite how far up the platform had been before it had descended for spares. How long before we passed our designated spot and were noticed by the others?

I hoped they were all too engrossed in their work.

We were about two-thirds of the way up when we heard shots from another platform and a lamp swung our way. Almost immediately, so did several others, tracking our ascent. Las-fire pinged across at us. Gustine dropped down by the rail and returned fire. I kept us rising.

'Do you want me to…?' Cherubael asked.

'No, stay put.'

Gustine's next salvo took out the lamp of a platform rising after us. A huge shower of sparks erupted out and drizzled down the tomb face. I felt multiple jolts as shots impacted against the underside of our rig.

Almost there.

We rose up next to the entrance. It was square, maybe forty metres across. A platform was already floating outside it and, clumsy with the controls, I slammed us against it. The men aboard began firing. There were others inside the dim mouth of the entrance. Gustine blasted back. I saw one topple back onto the deck of the other platform, and then another pitch clean off and drop like a stone.

Las-fire and solid rounds raked our vehicle, tearing strips and nuggets out of the deck plating and the rail. Shot through, the lamp died.

I hauled on the control stick and slammed us sideways into the other platform, deliberately this time. We ground against them and drove them into the tomb face. The edge of their hull shrieked out sparks as it tore against the stone. I did it again. They were screaming and firing.

'Let's move!' Gustine yelled.

He heaved a grenade into the mouth of the entrance to clear us a path.

There was a dull bang and a flash, and two figures came flailing out into the air.

Gustine tossed a second onto the other platform and then leapt over the rail into the tomb entrance, blasting into the wafting smoke haze with his lasrifle.

I followed him, Cherubael drifting at my heels. It was damn hard to step wide enough and span the gap between the platform and the entrance's stone lip.

Gustine's second grenade ripped a hole through the deck of the other platform. It sagged and then dropped, like a descending elevator, trailing flames.