Aaron Dembski-Bowden - The First Heretic

‘Geller field, aye.’

‘Helm.’

‘Helm standing ready, ma’am.’

‘All stations report full readiness,’ she said to the Word Bearers captain. This was something of a lie, and Sylamor hoped her tone didn’t betray it. All stations had reported readiness, true, but the last hour had also seen reports of insurrection in the lower decks, put down by lethal force, and one suicide. The ship’s astropath had requested to be assigned to another vessel ( ‘Request denied’ , Sylamor had frowned. ‘Who in the Emperor’s name does he think he is to even ask such a thing?’ ) and the Navigator was engaged in what he referred to as ‘intensive mental barricading so as to preserve one’s fundamental quintessence’, which Sylamor was fairly sure she didn’t even want to understand.

So instead of relaying all of this to the towering warlord standing next to her throne, she simply gave him a curt nod and said, ‘all stations report readiness’.

The Astartes turned his helm’s slanted blue eyes upon her, and nodded.

‘There will be one last vessel docking soon. Ensure all of your crew are removed from the bay once it arrives.’

Her raised eyebrow conveyed just what she thought of this unorthodox demand. And in case it didn’t, she added her own spice to it. ‘Very well. Now tell me why.’

‘No,’ said one of the other Astartes. He’d named himself as Malnor, a sergeant. ‘Just obey the order.’

The captain, Argel Tal, gestured for his brother to remain silent.

‘The last gunship will be bringing a creature on board. The fewer of your crew that are exposed to it, the better it will be for all of us.’

The first officer pointedly cleared his throat. Crew members turned in their seats. Sylamor blinked twice. ‘I will suffer no xenos presence on board the Lament,’ she stated.

‘I did not say it was an alien,’ said Argel Tal. ‘I said it was a creature. My warriors will escort it to the bridge. Do not look at it once we are underway. Focus on your duties, all of you. I have my men in the starboard docking bay, and will inform you when the gunship reaches us.’

‘Incoming hail from De Profundis,’ called an officer from the vox-console.

The Word Bearers went to their knees, heads lowered.

‘Accept the hail,’ Sylamor said. Without realising, she lifted a hand to check her hair was in neat order, and straightened her uniform. Around her, officers did the same, brushing epaulettes and standing straighter.

The occulus tuned into a view of De Profundis’s command deck, where the primarch and Fleetmaster Torvus stood in pride of place.

‘This is the flagship,’ Torvus said, ‘Good hunting, Lament.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Sylamor replied.

An awkward silence reached between both bridge crews, broken by Argel Tal.

‘Sire?’

‘Yes, my son?’ Lorgar’s smile was sincere, though vox-crackle ruined his smooth voice.

‘We will return with the answers the Legion needs. You have my word,’ he gestured to the parchment bound to his shoulder guard, ‘and my oath of moment’.

The smile remained upon the primarch’s painted lips. ‘I know, Argel Tal. Please, rise. I cannot abide you kneeling before me in this moment of moments.’

The Word Bearers rose as ordered, and Argel Tal nodded to Captain Sylamor.

‘The last vessel has docked and my warriors are leading the creature to the bridge. Take us in, captain.’

The ship trembled as its engines came alive, and Orfeo’s Lament speared away from the planet, cutting through the void towards the storm’s distant edges.

‘Three hours until we reach the storm’s outermost border,’ one of the helmsmen called.

Argel Tal held his bolter in his fists, waiting for the bridge doors to open once more.

‘When the creature arrives, do not look at it.’ He seemed to be addressing everyone, while looking at none of them. ‘This is not a matter of decorum or politeness. Do not look at it. Do not meet its eyes. Try not to breathe too much of its scent.’

‘Is this creature toxic?’ asked Sylamor.

‘It is dangerous,’ the Word Bearer allowed. ‘When I say these instructions are for your safety and sanity, I mean those exact words. Do not look at it. Do not even look at its reflection in any screen or monitor. If it speaks, focus on anything but its words. And if you feel nauseous or afflicted in its presence, leave your station at once.’

Sylamor’s laugh was patently false. ‘You are unnerving my crew, captain.’

‘Just do as I ask, please.’

She bristled, not used to being given orders on her own deck. ‘Of course, sir.’

‘Don’t act so offended, Janus.’ The Word Bearer forced some warmth into his voice, which his helm’s vox-speakers immediately stole and twisted. ‘Just trust me.’

When the doors finally opened, the first thing to wash over the bridge was the smell, which caused several of the human crew to gag.

Commendably, only one turned around to see what entered, escorted as it was by a full squad of Word Bearers – and that one soul was Captain Janus Sylamor.

In accidental defiance of the promise she’d made only minutes before, she turned to the opening doors and saw the creature framed in the light of the illumination globes in the corridor behind. The first heave of bitter sick hit her teeth and lips so fast she didn’t have time to open her mouth. The rest spread onto the floor as she went down on all fours, purging her stomach of the morning’s caffeine and dry rations, and painting the decking with her bile.

‘I warned you,’ Argel Tal said to her, without taking his eyes from the creature.

Her answer was to heave some more, ending with a string of saliva hanging from her lips.

Ingethel wormed its way onto the bridge, leaving a discoloured smear in its wake. The tap, tap, tap of the staff’s base on the metal floor acted as accompaniment to the sound of its slick flesh slithering across the deck.

Officers abandoned their posts by the captain’s throne, stepping away with undisguised disgust and covering their mouths and noses. More than one vomited into their hands as Ingethel drew nearer, though for the creature’s part, it seemed to notice none of this. Its malformed eyes stared dead ahead at the storm taking over the occulus.

Sylamor rose to her feet again, after taking Argel Tal’s offered hand.

‘What have you brought onto my bridge, captain?’

‘It is a guide. Now with the greatest respect, Janus, wipe your mouth and do your duty. Next time, perhaps you will listen to me.’

She was familiar enough with Argel Tal from fleet command meetings to know that this curt treatment wasn’t like him at all. Of all the Word Bearer commanders, he’d always been the most approachable, and the most inclined to hear the concerns of the human officers.

She said nothing. Instead, she nodded, breathing through her mouth to hinder some of the obscene reek that only fuelled her nausea. The foulness of the stench wasn’t the worst part; it was the familiarity of it.

As a young girl on Colchis, she’d survived an outbreak of rotten lung in her village, and had been one of the few left to witness the arrival of a coven of mortuary priests from the City of Grey Flowers. Over the course of a single day, they’d erected a great pyre to cleanse the dead before scattering their ashes across the desert. The smell of that funeral pyre had never left her, and when it resurfaced now, it was all she could do not to choke at the creature’s stench.

A curious drip, drip, drip ate at her attention, drawing her glance to the deck by the creature’s sluggish body. A greasy, opaque plasm dripped from the muscled folds of its serpentine lower half, bleaching the steel decking where it fell.