Aaron Dembski-Bowden - The First Heretic

Do you see?

Ingethel had reared up to its full unnatural height, four stick-thin arms spread in benediction to the burning heavens. From jaws that couldn’t close, it spat out a rattlesnake’s hiss.

Do. You. See.

Argel Tal tore his gaze from the night sky. The observation deck was spacious, fitted with Spartan furniture that none of the Word Bearers were using. Each remained standing, bolters clutched in their hands.

‘I see a storm,’ said the captain. ‘Nothing more.’

‘You and I both, sir.’ This, from Dagotal. The outrider sergeant had arrived several minutes after the rest of them, coming straight from the containment block where he’d left Lieutenant Arvas in the less than tender care of the brig officers. ‘I feel something, though. The ship’s shaking itself apart.’

‘Always thought I’d die in battle,’ grumbled Malnor.

Argel Tal shook his head. ‘You dragged us into this nexus of energies, Ingethel. It is time to tell us why. What are we supposed to be seeing?’

The truth. The truth behind the stars. The hidden layer of the universe.

‘I see a storm that threatens to kill us all, comprised of a thousand colours.’

No. You see target locks and biological data streams. You see the world before you through filtering lenses. You stand on the border of heaven, Word Bearer. Remove your helm. Look upon the home of the gods with your true eyes.

It took him a moment to comply, hesitating at the thought of the creature’s smell assaulting his olfactory senses without first being purified by his helm’s intake grille. He took a final breath of his armour’s stale, recycled air, and disengaged the collar seals.

It was worse than he’d imagined, and the bridge crew were to be commended for the fact so few of them vomited. The chamber already reeked of a charnel house; that coppery spice of fouled blood, the stinging meat-stink of digestive organs bared to the air.

‘I still see nothing,’ Argel Tal grunted. ‘I see the storm.’

You cannot lie to me as you lie to the humans. Stare into the clashing tides around us. Do you see what stares back?

The captain stepped closer to the dome’s edge, peering out into the roiling void, where the playing energies mixed and swirled. The ship gave another tremor at the mercy of the forceful tides. There, just a for a moment, as the ship shook...

You saw. Your heart quickened. Your eyes dilated. You saw.

Argel Tal stroked his hand along the dense glass wall, staring into the tumult beyond. How could one draw meaning from this madness? The ship shuddered in the aetheric tides again, and once more the riotous energies coalesced for the briefest moment.

A human face, spoiled by frightened eyes and a screaming mouth, formed from the burning matter outside the glass. It burst against the dome, dissipating back into the raging tides from whence it came.

Do you know what this storm is?

Argel Tal wouldn’t look away from the tides. ‘It’s warp energy. The aetheric current, reaching through into the material universe. Imperial records have chronicled the presence of alien creatures in the warp itself, but they are catalogued among the lesser xenos threats.’

Ingethel’s hiss echoed in his mind. How verminous, the creature’s laughter.

Do you know what those words mean? Or do you relate lore poured into your mind by the indoctrinations that shaped you? What do you see when you stare into this storm?

The Word Bearer turned to Ingethel. A face that would have been handsome – had it not suffered the trials of Astartes surgery – stared up at the creature. ‘This is the galaxy’s blood. Reality is bleeding.’

Close. The daemon-thing chittered with a rodent’s delight. Humanity is precious in its ignorance, but that cannot be allowed to last if your species is to survive. The warp is more than a realm for mortal vessels to cut into with impunity, and use its tides to sail faster than light.

What you are seeing is creation’s own shadow, where every mortal emotion and urge takes immortal form. You are sailing through seas made of psychic energy and liquefied sorrow. You are cast adrift in the heaven and hell of a million mythologies, Argel Tal.

This is where every moment of hatred, disgust, wrath, joy, grief, jealousy, indolence and decadence manifest as raw energy.

This is where the souls of the dead come to burn forever.

Orfeo’s Lament gave a horrendous shudder, and the sound of wrenching metal ran through the deck beneath them. Torgal and Xaphen went to their knees – the former with a gutter curse, the latter with an indignant grunt.

In the storm beyond, more images took shape. Hands pressed against the glass, leaving discoloured smears. Faces, warped by screams, aching in their familiarity. The shadow of something, something vast and dark and cold behind it all, sweeping past the ship like a whale passing in the deepest ocean.

For a moment, Argel Tal’s breath misted in the air. Frost beaded his skin. The shadow passed, and kept passing, disturbing the crashing energies with its immense, half-formed bulk.

A void leviathan. Fear would draw it closer, and this vessel would disintegrate in its jaws. But it passes, hunting other prey. In many of the futures I saw, it turned upon us, and your lives ended here. In three of those futures, Argel Tal, you were laughing as you died, dissolving in the energies outside the ship.

He was not laughing now.

‘This is hell.’ Argel Tal no longer struggled to see the faces shrieking in at him, nor the hands clawing at the glass. He could see nothing else. ‘This is the underworld of human imagination.’

Do not be blinded by dogma. This is the Primordial Truth. Creation’s shadow. The layer behind the stars.

The Word Bearer breathed a single word as he watched the sea of screaming souls beyond.

‘Chaos.’

The daemon’s maw twisted into a grin. Now you begin to understand.

Argel Tal sipped the water. It was brackish on his tongue, and distastefully warm. It was also the fifth such cup to sour in his hands like this, and he had the unsettling notion that it was his own body curdling the water.

‘We soon reached the first world,’ he said. ‘Melisanth. The world had no human name, but in ancient days, the eldar-breed xenos... they named it Melisanth.’

Lorgar’s flowing script recorded each word. ‘The eldar? What is their role in all this?’

‘Now? They have no role. They are the galaxy’s memory, fading night by night. But once, this region of space was their most precious dominion – the heart of their empire. Their decadence brought us forth, from our realm into this one. We watched their worlds burning in spectral fire, and we tore their souls apart in claws of spirit and flesh.’

‘Argel Tal.’

‘Every sensation was new to us. We were newborns in the material realm. Blood fed us. Pain fuelled us. You cannot know what it is like to grow stronger when a creature suffers nearby. To swell with power when parents watch their children burn. To grow in size and intellect with each sin you inflict upon mortal flesh. To know more of the universe’s secrets with each soul you swallow.’

‘My son... Please.’

‘But I was there, Lorgar. I saw these things. I did these things.’

‘You are Argel Tal. You were born on Colchis, in the village of Singh-Rukh, to a carpenter and a seamstress. Your name means “the last angel” in the dialect of the southern steppes tribes. You are the youngest warrior in the Legion ever to inherit the mantle of company captain. You once bore swords of red iron – the blades of your predecessor – which you lost in service to your primarch. You are Argel Tal, a Bearer of the Word. You are my son.’