Aaron Dembski-Bowden - The First Heretic

‘Finish it,’ said Argel Tal. His jump pack burned again, groaning as the engines drew breath.

‘By your word,’ came the vox-replies.

The swords came free in smooth pulls, and Argel Tal let a short burst of thrust carry him skyward. Even prone, the Obsidian offered no purchase. As the Word Bearers came down in its back, most elected to hover, burning their jump jets rather than standing upon the thing’s body. Swords clashed and carved, but only Argel Tal’s empowered blades inflicted significant damage, sending shards of dark glass flying with each hack.

Even as it died, the Obsidian dragged itself across the street, a grasping hand reaching for the closest true threat. Incarnadine stepped back, autocannons laying into the outstretched hand, shearing fingers from the fist. Behind the Imperial war machine, Xi-Nu watched with unwavering attention, occasionally adjusting dials on his chestplate for reasons none of the Word Bearers had ever discerned, despite a decade of fighting by his side.

When the Obsidian lay still at last, Argel Tal and Dagotal came over to the tech-priest. The downed enemy construct had a shapeless resemblance to a melting ice statue, its body ruined by a thousand bullet impacts, blade cuts and lascannon beams. Both Word Bearers crunched closer on the glass shards lining the road.

‘Greetings, captain,’ said Xi-Nu 73. ‘Ninth Maniple of the Carthage Cohort, awaiting orders.’

Cyrene paused Argel Tal’s retelling with a hand on his forearm.

‘You used artificials yourself?’

He’d been expecting this. ‘The Legio Cybernetica is a treasured facet of the Mechanicum. The Great Crusade leans heaviest on the Legio Titanicus for their war engines, but Cybernetica plays its role among the noblest Astartes Legions. Their artificials are robotic shells housing machine-spirits. Cybernetica tech-priests engineer organic-synthetic minds from biological components.’

Cyrene reached for the glass of water on her bedside table. Her fingers slid across the metal surface, bumping the glass gently before she got a grip. When she drank, it was in little swallows, and she seemed in no rush to speak again.

‘You don’t see the difference,’ Argel Tal said, not quite asking.

She lowered the glass, facing him without seeing him. ‘Is there a difference?’

‘Do not ask that question to Xi-Nu 73, should your paths ever cross. He’d be insulted enough to kill you, and I would be vexed enough to kill him in return. Suffice to say, the difference is in the mind. Organic intelligence, even synthetic in nature, is still tied to the perfection of humanity. Artificial intelligence is not. That’s a lesson many cultures only learn when their machine slaves rise up against them, as the Obsidians would have done one day, to the people of Forty-Seven Sixteen.’

‘You always say we are perfect. Humans, I mean.’

‘So it is written in the Word.’

‘But the Word changes over time. Xaphen tells me it’s changing even now. Are humans really perfect?’

‘We‘re conquering the galaxy, aren’t we? The evidence of our purity and manifest destiny is clear.’

‘Other races conquered it all before we did.’ She took another sip of the room-temperature water. ‘Perhaps others will conquer it after we do something wrong.’ Then she smiled, brushing a lock of hair back from her face. ‘You are so certain in everything you do. I envy you for that.’

‘Were you not sure of your own life’s path back in Monarchia?’

She tilted her head, and he read a faint tension in her body language – the slight curl of her bare toes, the fingers gently clutching her grey robe. ‘I don’t wish to speak of that,’ she said. ‘I just find it curious that you have no regrets. No doubts.’

The Astartes wasn’t sure how to answer. ‘It’s not confidence. It’s... duty. I live by the Word. What is written must come to be, else all will come to nothing.’

‘That sounds like a great sacrifice to me. Fate shaped you into a weapon.’ Cyrene’s smile was tinged with an expression somewhere between amusement and melancholy. ‘The Speakers would say such things in their dawn prayers across the perfect city. “Walk the one true way, for all other paths lead to destruction”.’

‘That‘s from the Word,’ said Argel Tal. ‘Part of the primarch’s wisdom we left to guide your people.’

She waved a hand, batting aside his devotion to every detail. ‘I know, I know. Will you tell me the rest of the story? I want to know more of the city. Did the primarch fight with you?’

The captain took a breath. The girl’s mind moved with fleeting touches between subjects.

‘No. But we saw him at dawn. Before we reached his side, we crossed paths with Aquillon.’

‘Tell me what happened,’ said Cyrene. She lay down on her bed, making a pillow of her joined hands. For what use they were, her eyes remained open. ‘I’m not sleeping. Please, go on. Who is Aquillon?’

‘His title is Occuli Imperator,’ Argel Tal replied. ‘The Emperor’s Eyes. We encountered him as the sun set, while most of the city burned.’

EIGHT

Like Home

Gold, not Grey

At the Heart of a Fallen City

As dusk fell over the city’s remains, Argel Tal stood in battered armour, watching the amber disc sink beneath the horizon. It was a beautiful sunset, putting him in mind of Colchis, of home, of the world he’d not seen in almost seven decades. To his recollection, which bordered on eidetic, Argel Tal had seen the sun set on twenty-nine worlds. This was the thirtieth, and as lovely as the first.

The sky darkened in shades of blue and violet, heralding the coming night.

‘Chaplain,’ he said, ‘to me.’

Xaphen left the regrouping Word Bearers, walking to the captain at the end of the street.

‘Brother,’ Xaphen greeted him. Without his helm, the Chaplain watched the setting sun with naked eyes. ‘What do you need?’

Argel Tal nodded to the fading heavens. ‘Reminds me of home.’

He heard the faint growl of armour joints as Xaphen moved. A shrug, perhaps.

‘Where is Torgal and the Assault Squad?’

‘Scouting along the spire-tops,’ the captain said. ‘I will be glad when this world is at compliance, Xaphen. Despite the need to see battle, this is a hollow war.’

‘As you say, brother. What do you need?’ the Chaplain repeated.

Argel Tal refused eye contact.

‘Answers,’ he said, ‘before we return to orbit. The primarch remains away from us for a month, and the Legion’s warrior-priests gather in silence. What happens at the gatherings of those who wear the Black?’

Xaphen snorted, already turning away. ‘Now is hardly the time. We’ve a world to bring to compliance.’

‘Do not walk away from me, Chaplain.’

Their gazes met – the captain’s slanted eye lenses locked to the Chaplain’s narrowed eyes. ‘What is it?’ asked Xaphen. ‘What has you so unfocused?’ His tone mellowed, conciliatory despite its sternness. Argel Tal knew the voice well. It was how Xaphen spoke when warriors brought their doubts to him. Without knowing why, Argel Tal found it tainting his temper.

The captain aimed his sword down the street, where two squads were tending to their wounded. Much of the roadway was taken up by the corpse of another Obsidian, and Dagotal’s bikes undergoing battlefield repair by Xi-Nu 73.

‘We are all blind,’ said the captain, ‘except you. We are fighting as ordered, exterminating a heretic culture. And Aurelian was right – it is a purge of the past, and good for the blood. The Legion needed to stand in victory after gathering to commemorate failure. But after a month of silence since the perfect city’s grave, we are still blind.’